Od Se Po NeStO: 2013

Saturday, November 16, 2013

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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law

A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times.Because they live in states largely controlled by Republicans that have declined to participate in a vast expansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor, they are among the eight million Americans who are impoverished, uninsured and ineligible for help. The federal government will pay for the expansion through 2016 and no less than 90 percent of costs in later years.

Those excluded will be stranded without insurance, stuck between people with slightly higher incomes who will qualify for federal subsidies on the new health exchanges that went live this week, and those who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid in its current form, which has income ceilings as low as $11 a day in some states.

People shopping for insurance on the health exchanges are already discovering this bitter twist.

“How can somebody in poverty not be eligible for subsidies?” an unemployed health care worker in Virginia asked through tears. The woman, who identified herself only as Robin L. because she does not want potential employers to know she is down on her luck, thought she had run into a computer problem when she went online Tuesday and learned she would not qualify.

At 55, she has high blood pressure, and she had been waiting for the law to take effect so she could get coverage. Before she lost her job and her house and had to move in with her brother in Virginia, she lived in Maryland, a state that is expanding Medicaid. “Would I go back there?” she asked. “It might involve me living in my car. I don’t know. I might consider it.”

The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion are home to about half of the country’s population, but about 68 percent of poor, uninsured blacks and single mothers. About 60 percent of the country’s uninsured working poor are in those states. Among those excluded are about 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks and 253,000 nurses’ aides.

“The irony is that these states that are rejecting Medicaid expansion — many of them Southern — are the very places where the concentration of poverty and lack of health insurance are the most acute,” said Dr. H. Jack Geiger, a founder of the community health center model. “It is their populations that have the highest burden of illness and costs to the entire health care system.”

The disproportionate impact on poor blacks introduces the prickly issue of race into the already politically charged atmosphere around the health care law. Race was rarely, if ever, mentioned in the state-level debates about the Medicaid expansion. But the issue courses just below the surface, civil rights leaders say, pointing to the pattern of exclusion.

Every state in the Deep South, with the exception of Arkansas, has rejected the expansion. Opponents of the expansion say they are against it on exclusively economic grounds, and that the demographics of the South — with its large share of poor blacks — make it easy to say race is an issue when it is not.

In Mississippi, Republican leaders note that a large share of people in the state are on Medicaid already, and that, with an expansion, about a third of the state would have been insured through the program. Even supporters of the health law say that eventually covering 10 percent of that cost would have been onerous for a predominantly rural state with a modest tax base.

“Any additional cost in Medicaid is going to be too much,” said State Senator Chris McDaniel, a Republican, who opposes expansion.

The law was written to require all Americans to have health coverage. For lower and middle-income earners, there are subsidies on the new health exchanges to help them afford insurance. An expanded Medicaid program was intended to cover the poorest. In all, about 30 million uninsured Americans were to have become eligible for financial help.But the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care law last year, while upholding it, allowed states to choose whether to expand Medicaid. Those that opted not to leave about eight million uninsured people who live in poverty ($19,530 for a family of three) without any assistance at all.Poor people excluded from the Medicaid expansion will not be subject to fines for lacking coverage. In all, about 14 million eligible Americans are uninsured and living in poverty, the Times analysis found.

The federal government provided the tally of how many states were not expanding Medicaid for the first time on Tuesday. It included states like New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee that might still decide to expand Medicaid before coverage takes effect in January. If those states go forward, the number would change, but the trends that emerged in the analysis would be similar.

Mississippi has the largest percentage of poor and uninsured people in the country — 13 percent. Willie Charles Carter, an unemployed 53-year-old whose most recent job was as a maintenance worker at a public school, has had problems with his leg since surgery last year.

His income is below Mississippi’s ceiling for Medicaid — which is about $3,000 a year — but he has no dependent children, so he does not qualify. And his income is too low to make him eligible for subsidies on the federal health exchange.

“You got to be almost dead before you can get Medicaid in Mississippi,” he said.

He does not know what he will do when the clinic where he goes for medical care, the Good Samaritan Health Center in Greenville, closes next month because of lack of funding.

“I’m scared all the time,” he said. “I just walk around here with faith in God to take care of me.”

The states that did not expand Medicaid have less generous safety nets: For adults with children, the median income limit for Medicaid is just under half of the federal poverty level — or about $5,600 a year for an individual — while in states that are expanding, it is above the poverty line, or about $12,200, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. There is little or no coverage of childless adults in the states not expanding, Kaiser said.

The New York Times analysis excluded immigrants in the country illegally and those foreign-born residents who would not be eligible for benefits under Medicaid expansion. It included people who are uninsured even though they qualify for Medicaid in its current form.

Blacks are disproportionately affected, largely because more of them are poor and living in Southern states. In all, 6 out of 10 blacks live in the states not expanding Medicaid. In Mississippi, 56 percent of all poor and uninsured adults are black, though they account for just 38 percent of the population.

Dr. Aaron Shirley, a physician who has worked for better health care for blacks in Mississippi, said that the history of segregation and violence against blacks still informs the way people see one another, particularly in the South, making some whites reluctant to support programs that they believe benefit blacks.

That is compounded by the country’s rapidly changing demographics, Dr. Geiger said, in which minorities will eventually become a majority, a pattern that has produced a profound cultural unease, particularly when it has collided with economic insecurity.

Dr. Shirley said: “If you look at the history of Mississippi, politicians have used race to oppose minimum wage, Head Start, all these social programs. It’s a tactic that appeals to people who would rather suffer themselves than see a black person benefit.”

Opponents of the expansion bristled at the suggestion that race had anything to do with their position. State Senator Giles Ward of Mississippi, a Republican, called the idea that race was a factor “preposterous,” and said that with the demographics of the South — large shares of poor people and, in particular, poor blacks — “you can argue pretty much any way you want.”

The decision not to expand Medicaid will also hit the working poor. Claretha Briscoe earns just under $11,000 a year making fried chicken and other fast food at a convenience store in Hollandale, Miss., too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to get subsidies on the new health exchange. She had a heart attack in 2002 that a local hospital treated as part of its charity care program.

“I skip months on my blood pressure pills,” said Ms. Briscoe, 48, who visited the Good Samaritan Health Center last week because she was having chest pains. “I buy them when I can afford them.”

About half of poor and uninsured Hispanics live in states that are expanding Medicaid. But Texas, which has a large Hispanic population, rejected the expansion. Gladys Arbila, a housekeeper in Houston who earns $17,000 a year and supports two children, is under the poverty line and therefore not eligible for new subsidies. But she makes too much to qualify for Medicaid under the state’s rules. She recently spent 36 hours waiting in the emergency room for a searing pain in her back.

“We came to this country, and we are legal and we work really hard,” said Ms. Arbila, 45, who immigrated to the United States 12 years ago, and whose son is a soldier in Afghanistan. “Why we don’t have the same opportunities as the others?”

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Chugging Along Behind

China and Japan have it. France has it, along with 11 other European countries. Come on, even Uzbekistan has it. The Obama administration really wanted it back in 2009. Sure, Amtrak sort of has it, with the Acela between Boston and Washington, D.C., but its average speed is a measly 78 mph. And Elon Musk dreams of a 760 mph Hyperloop, but right now that’s just a dream. So, why can’t the U.S. manage to get high-speed rail?

FIRST: JAPAN, 1964

Japan developed the world’s first high-speed rail network in 1964. In 2012 the busiest Shinkansen line moved 143 million passengers from Tokyo to Osaka in 2 hours and 25 minutes, at a top operating speed of 168 mph.

FASTEST: SHANGHAI MAGLEV, 311 MPH

The Shanghai Maglev (short for “magnetic levitation”) has been clocked at a top speed of 311 mph, though its top operating speed is 268 mph. The Maglev connects Pudong International Airport with the city’s metro system, making the 18-mile journey in about 8 minutes.

NEXT: CALIFORNIA, $68 BILLION

Phase 1 of the California high-speed rail system, which will take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under 3 hours (top speed: over 200 mph), is projected to cost $68 billion and to be complete by 2029. The first segment, Merced to Bakersfield, has an estimated price of $6 billion.

Part of the answer is that high-speed rail systems come with high price tags. A Spanish study from 2007 found that the average cost of high-speed rail projects around the world was $34.5 million per mile, and rail infrastructure costs tend to be higher in the U.S. than in other countries. (This is partly because U.S. rail-safety regulations ban systems used successfully elsewhere – the Acela rail cars, for example, weigh twice as much as those of France’s TGV.) Amtrak’s proposed Northeast Corridor capital-investment program would cost an estimated $151 billion between 2012 and 2040.

Read more: http://www.ozy.com/acumen/chugging-along-behind/1530.article#ixzz2gUdyrzsK
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
Follow us: @ozy on TwitterRail systems also require expensive maintenance. In June, Amtrak’s CEO told a congressional committee that Amtrak needed $782 million a year for the next 15 years to handle the maintenance costs of the Northeast Corridor alone. By comparison, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the Federal Highway Administration spent $2 billion for maintenance across the country in 2009.

Concerns about cost and overspending prompted Republican governors in Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida to reject substantial federal funds for high-speed rail projects in their states. Besides construction and maintenance costs, some worry that high-speed rail will not be profitable and will not create jobs.

However, part of the American aversion to high-speed rail can be chalked up to culture: Americans love their cars, and some conservatives think train projects smell suspiciously like Euro envy and government attempts to deprive people of their sovereign choice to sit in traffic.

Are high-speed rail networks an instance of “If you build it, they will come”? Will travelers be wooed by comfy seats and more time to play on their smartphones? Perhaps. But without a much stronger political commitment from federal and local lawmakers (including Californians who didn’t like the idea of a train in their backyard), don’t count on seeing American bullet trains crisscrossing the country anytime soon.

Colorado teen Gracie Johnson says dad saved her from deadly rockslide

13-year-old Gracie Johnson is the only survivor of a deadly rock slide that killed five at Agnes Vallie Falls in Chaffee County, Colo.

A 13-year-old girl survived a deadly rockslide in Colorado when her dad used his body to shield her from tumbling boulders, authorities said.

Monday’s massive slide killed five hikers and trapped the teen, Gracie Johnson, among 100-ton boulders.

A Chaffee County, Colo., sheriff’s deputy discovered the girl.

An emergency helicopter searches for survivors following a rock slide at Agnes Vaille Falls on Monday.

“I heard a scream next to me,” Deputy Nick Tolsma told Good Morning America. “I saw a hand sticking out underneath the boulder.”

Tolsma freed the girl and learned the incredible story of her survival.

Dwayne Johnson, right, used his body to shield his 13-year-old daughter from a deadly rockslide in Chaffee County, Colo.

“She said that her dad jumped on top of her to protect her right at the last moment when the rocks were coming down, so I really think that he saved her life,” Tolsma said.

Gracie was hiking the picturesque trail near Agnes Vaille Falls with her family, including dad Dwayne Johnson and mom Dawna Johnson, a track coach at Buena Vista High School, the Denver Post reported.

Witnesses heard a brief rumbling before giant boulders crashed down, carving a path the size of a football field in the mountainside.

A Flight for Life Helicopter rises above backed up traffic on Monday following a deadly rockslide in southern Colorado.

Rescuers dodged rolling rocks as they climbed up the crumbling slope.

The slide broke the girl’s leg and crushed the other five hikers in a shifting expanse of loose rubble, ABC News 7 reported.

Chaffee County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Everson, right, and other deputies on Monday walk out the Agnes Vaille Falls trail shortly after leaving the scene of a rock slide that killed five people.

Sheriff Pete Palmer said deputies found the bodies but had to wait to recover the bodies because the slope was too unstable.

“They are in bad shape,” Palmer said at a news conference. “They were rolled over by boulders as big as these cars.”

He said the coroner had no hope of finding any other survivors.

Colorado State Patrol Trooper Brandon Wilkins tells a driver on Monday the road is closed to while rescuers deal with a rock slide at Agnes Vaille Falls.

“He’s seen the condition of the bodies,” Palmer said, according to the Post. “There is no one alive up there.”

The sheriff declined to name the dead.

Rescuers planned to return to the mountain on Tuesday to recover their bodies.

U.S. Reckons With Impact of Shutdown

WASHINGTON — The vast machinery of the federal government began grinding to a halt Tuesday morning just hours after weary lawmakers gave up hope of passing a budget in the face of Republican attacks on President Obama’s health care law.For the first time in 17 years, Congress failed Monday night to agree on a new budget and refused to extend the current one. Without the authority to spend money, the executive branch on Tuesday morning started the process of temporarily mothballing facilities and suspending the many services the government provides.

After a series of back-and-forth legislative maneuvers late Monday night and into Tuesday morning, the House and Senate did not reach a resolution, and the Senate halted business until later Tuesday while the House took steps to open talks.

On Tuesday morning, the Senate rejected the House proposal to begin conference committee negotiations, and the next legislative steps remained uncertain.

More than 800,000 federal workers across the country are bracing for an uncertain financial future in the days ahead as many government agencies prepared to close their doors, set up barricades and turn out the lights.Traveling in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called the shutdown “nonsensical” and said it would lead to the immediate furlough of about 400,000 civilian employees. (Mr. Obama signed legislation late Monday night ensuring that uniformed members of the military will get paid during the shutdown.)“It does cast a very significant pall over America’s credibility with our allies when this kind of thing happens,” Mr. Hagel said. “It’s nonsensical. It’s needless. It didn’t have to happen.”

At the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. pledged to give back a portion of his salary in solidarity with his employees.

“As I’ve made clear to the people in this department, we are all in this together, and whatever pain they suffer, I will share with them,” Mr. Holder said as the shutdown approached.

Even as they contemplated a short-term future without pay, many federal employees in Washington headed into work Tuesday morning anyway, the result of a directive at some agencies requiring workers to show up briefly so they can help wrap up their work and shut down their facilities.

At the Federal Communications Commission, officials instructed their 1,716 employees to arrive at work Tuesday for no more than four hours. After that, the agency said, it would send all but about 38 of those employees home for the duration of the shutdown. Those “essential” employees will keep working on programs that address radio interference detection, treaty negotiations and other critical information technology issues, officials said.

The crowds were lighter than normal early Tuesday at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, where there are a number of federal agencies. Phillip Davenport, a management analyst at the Federal Aviation Administration, who was deemed an essential employee, said he was expecting a heavier workload.

During the last shutdown 17 years ago, Mr. Davenport was on active duty in the military, based in Alaska, he said. “Back then, I don’t remember for sure, but we came to work regardless of whether we were paid or not,” he said.

On Monday afternoon, Mr. Obama described the potential closures in the case of a shutdown. He noted that “every one of the parks and monuments” would be immediately closed. That process began early Tuesday as park officials restricted access to some of the country’s most iconic locations and barricades went up to keep out tourists.

About 8 a.m., the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were being taped off by National Park police, metal barricades were erected and tourists were being turned away. Coincidentally, visitors to Google’s home page on Tuesday morning woke up to a doodle of park ranger patches honoring the 123rd anniversary of Yosemite National Park.

The National Zoo in Washington closed its gates to tourists. Zoo officials said they planned to flip off the two cameras that feed images to the popular “Giant Panda Cam” Web site for fans wanting to watch the rare new panda cub that was born last month. By 10 a.m., the panda cam said simply: “Error loading stream.”

A message on the zoo’s Web site said that “all vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle paths into the zoo will be closed. None of our live animal cams will broadcast.” The Web site added that “all the animals will continue to be fed and cared for. “

People who do not work for the federal government will also quickly begin feeling the effect of the government shutdown.

After a general retreat on Monday, global investors reacted calmly on Tuesday in the hours after Congressional negotiations collapsed, as investors focused on the Oct. 17 deadline for raising the debt ceiling.

Stocks on Wall Street opened slightly higher, while European and Asian stocks were mixed. The bond and foreign exchange markets were quiet.

Those looking for financial data to assess the impact of a shutdown will have to do it without help from the Congressional Budget Office and the Census, both of which are closing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is scheduled to issue its monthly jobs report this Friday, is also closing.

Across Washington — the site of the political paralysis — commercial establishments sought ways to try to minimize the impact of a shutdown that will hit harder here than anywhere else. Late Monday night, several bars and restaurants in the area started advertising “shutdown specials” for those who wandered in.

At Z-Burger, a popular hamburger restaurant in the Washington area, owners pledged to make good on their promise for a free burger for every furloughed federal worker. In a Twitter post, it said: “AlmostHere IF #GovernmentShutdown #FREE #Burgers."

One group of employees who appeared unaffected by the shutdown was those who write news releases on Capitol Hill. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, statements began arriving from lawmakers’ offices.

“Closing down the government strikes at the heart of New Mexico’s economy and our middle-class families,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico. “And that was the decision Republicans made tonight.”

Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, blamed the Democrats: “If we had a functioning Senate we would not be in this position,” he said, adding: “They would rather shut down the government than negotiate.”

As the shutdown approached on Monday, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, sent a classified assessment of its impact to members of Congress on the intelligence committees. One congressional aide said the assessment was “very troubling” to many members because it showed a “very considerable reduction in force while the shutdown goes on.”

The aide, who declined to be named discussing a classified report, said Mr. Clapper declassified one sentence from the assessment: “Approximately 72 percent of the civilian workforce will be furloughed.”

Outside of government, the reaction was swift as well. Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a national conservative group, accused Democrats of burdening American families with Obamacare.

“Now the government has done even worse,” she said in a statement, adding: “The Senate Democrats delivered a triple whammy: shutting down government, bringing chaos and uncertainty to health care which affects American lives, and sticking American families with massive cost increases due to Obamacare — which most Americans don’t want.”

The daily schedule of the House, sent out by e-mail from the office of the majority leader, Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, took a hopeful tone: “Possible further consideration of H.J.Res. 59 — Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014,” it said, using the formal name of a bill that could be used to reopen the government. “Conference Reports may be brought up at any time.”

Reporting was contributed by Jennifer Steinhauer from Seoul, Charlie Savage, Emmarie Huetteman and Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Victoria Shannon from New York.

Friday, September 27, 2013

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Monday, September 23, 2013

Surface Remix Project shows a different way to Click In

Panos Panay, the Microsoft VP in charge of Surface, today displayed a different way to use the company's tablet at the unveiling of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. Called the Surface Remix Project, it's clearly based on the same touch-sensitive technology of the Touch Cover 2 but with a different template on top that changes the functionality -- and the tone of the product -- completely.

The Surface Remix Project is basically a simplified set of DJ controls built into a Touch Cover. Instead of QWERTY, you have 16 large square touch pads that let you to enable or disable portions of a given music track to remix it in real time. You also have three volume sliders on the left and a series of controls for playing, pausing, and muting songs and tracks. And, since all are pressure-sensitive, there's the potential for a bit of finger-drumming here, too.The basic concept isn't so much to turn the Surface into a master DJ machine, but instead to show the potential for the Surface to be more than what you'd consider a traditional productivity machine. At its Surface 2 event, the company showed a video of design students dreaming up new applications for the tablet, including things like full piano keyboards. Could those sorts of things be next? We'll wait and see, but Microsoft is saying that the Remix Project will be available when the new slates ship on October 22. Price as of now is unknown.

Cautious optimism over Iran as Rouhani comes to UN

As Iran's President Hassan Rouhani prepares to address the United Nations General Assembly, there are signs that he is ready for substantive negotiations with the US on his country's nuclear programme, says BBC Persian's Bahman Kalbasi.

In a month since taking office, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has signalled a sharp departure from the foreign policy and the tone of his predecessor.

The eagerness of his administration to break away from eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bombastic pronouncements was apparent three weeks ago when the new foreign minister wished Jews a "Happy Rosh Hashanah" before asserting that Iran had never denied the Holocaust, adding: "The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone."

Mr Rouhani has also exchanged "positive" letters with US President Barack Obama, and told the US broadcaster NBC that Iran wants to engage with the world and not develop nuclear weapons.

He has even become the first Iranian president to pen an op-ed in a US newspaper. Writing in the Washington Post last week, he called for "constructive" interaction with other countries and declared Iran's readiness to help end the conflict in Syria.

Positive mood

The message President Rouhani is trying to convey is clear - that he has "complete authority" and "sufficient political latitude" to engage with the US and its allies on the substance of their concerns.

Gary Sick, a former White House National Security Adviser, told the BBC: "What we have seen already has been such a dramatic shift. Rouhani and his team are the 'anti-Ahmadinejad'.

"The sound of the rhetoric makes it so much easier for an American president to react positively."The positive tone was evident in Obama's interview with TeleMundo TV. President Rouhani's overtures are of the kind we have not seen before and we should test it."

The talk of an "accidental" meeting between the two presidents in the halls of the UN's headquarters this week has gone from wishful thinking to a real possibility.

The mood in New York is also very different from the previous years.

Gone are the protests and annual adverts on TV and billboards on Times Square with big pictures of Mr Ahmadinejad, denouncing his anti-Israel rhetoric and warning about Iran's nuclear programme.

Instead, diplomats are waiting with anticipation to see how the new president gets Iran out of the international relations mess he has inherited from Mr Ahmadinejad.

'Real opportunity'

There is little doubt that Mr Rouhani's talk of co-operation with the world has put sceptics in the US on the defensive.

Opponents of US-Iran dialogue cannot keep up with the flurry of interviews, tweets and positive signals thrown out by Mr Rouhani and his media team.

But the Iranian charm offensive brings to light two critical questions - can Mr Rouhani turn his words into deeds, and is Washington ready to make a deal with Tehran?Robert Einhorn, a former state department special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control who was part of the US negotiating team at talks between world powers and Iran, says: "I believe Obama administration is prepared to address Iran's concerns very seriously and flexibly provided that the administration sees real movement on the Iranian side."

"Under Ahmadinejad, the perception in Washington was that Iran wasn't really interested in a deal. That has changed. I think the administration believes there is a real opportunity here."

Five years into Mr Obama's presidency, have the stars finally aligned for constructive US-Iran talks? Many believe so.

The opportunity at hand is largely the result of the Iranian election, in which Mr Rouhani's surprise victory ushered in the same moderate politicians who prior to the Ahmadinejad era had agreed to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment programme and helped the US defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The White House, however, tends to view Iran's new openness as a sign that sanctions have worked.

However, that assessment may miss the important changes taking place in Iran and tempt Washington to push for even more sanctions to elicit even greater Iranian flexibility.

"There is a temptation in Washington to believe that no positive step is taken unless the US issues a threat, takes military action or imposes sanctions," a European diplomat at the UN said.

Sanctions relief

In conversations with the Iranian side, it is clear they have doubts about whether the US is ready to take nuclear diplomacy to a new level.Iranian nuclear concessions will likely only be offered - even by Mr Rouhani - if Mr Obama puts significant sanctions relief on the table.

If that is not forthcoming, Iranian hardliners will be able to attack the president for offering too much for no tangible reward.

They denounced him as a traitor in 2003 when, as Iran's top nuclear negotiator, he agreed to the suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment activities without gaining any US concessions.

But Mr Rouhani is unlikely to once again offer the West anything on credit.

The problem is that some of the most hard-hitting sanctions can only be lifted by the US Congress.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Obama has what it takes to neutralise Congress in the same way in which Mr Rouhani appears to have temporarily pacified Iran's parliament. The week ahead at the UN will provide some clues.

What is for certain is that millions of Iranians will be watching proceedings in New York for reactions to the president they elected into office, despite all odds, to see if both he and their country's opponents seize the moment and find a peaceful resolution to their dispute.

Tamil political party wins landslide victory in Sri Lankan election

Sri Lanka's largest Tamil political party has won a landslide victory in the first provincial election to be held in the north of the country since the 2009 defeat of the Tamil Tigers in the country's long civil war.The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won 30 of the Northern Provincial Council's 38 seats, in an election seen as a key test of reconciliation on the island.

The election is also an important test of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's 'One Nation' campaign to marginalise Tamil nationalism.

Analysts said the scale of the victory sent a powerful signal that the Tamil-dominated north retained its strong support for an autonomous, devolved government.

Mr Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led alliance won just eight seats.

Opposition leaders hailed the TNA win as significant a victory for democracy in Sri Lanka but said it had been achieved in the face of widespread intimidation and military and central government attempts to stop Tamils voting. The turn out in the election was 60 per cent, but opposition leader Mangala Samaraweera told The Telegraph it would have been much higher but for a government-led campaign to obstruct voters."It was not a free election at all. In the last days [of the campaign] the military more or less took over the election machinery in the north and tried everything possible to stop the people from voting. But people in the north, despite all odds, came out magnificently on the side of democracy.

"The good news is that whatever the government may do, the people are ready to come out for democracy," he said.

Britain and other Commonwealth countries had been watching the campaign closely in the run up to November's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, amid concerns over whether they would be able attend if the provincial election had not been free and fair.

Throughout the campaign respected election monitors reported violent attacks on TNA supporters. The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) reported daily abuses including arrests of TNA campaigners, attacks on them with iron poles, and the cancellation of an election rally by military intelligence officers.

One senior TNA figures had his home stoned by opponents while supporters of Mr Rajapaksa's coalition had military protection for their campaign.

CMEV said the turnout had been low in remote areas because the government had failed to honour promises to provide transport to polling stations.

There were several incidents of intimidation on polling day.

Sri Lanka's president has faced strong criticism from domestic opponents and the international community over human rights abuses since his forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) following a 26 year civil war in 2009, including claims that his government has failed to investigate allegations of war crimes. His forces are accused of killing 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final days of the war.

Since his victory, Mr Rajapaksa has been accused of failing to seek reconciliation with the defeated Tamils. TNA leaders have complained about government-sponsored Sinhalese immigration into traditional Tamil areas as workers on infrastructure projects and that Tamil firms have been excluded from reconstruction work in the north.

The government has yet to comment on his defeat in the north.

Before the election, the TNA northern province leader, former Supreme Court Justice C.V Wigneswaran said he would use a strong victory to press for greater powers for the council despite government opposition. Its 78 per cent victory means it can call a no-confidence vote against Mr Rajapaksa's powerful regional governor, a retired senior army figure.

His new government will have control over policing and land use, but its financial powers are heavily restricted.

Kenya Authorities 'Closing In' On Militants In Nairobi Mall, Official Says

NAIROBI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Thick smoke poured from the besieged Nairobi mall where Kenyan officials said their forces were closing in on Islamists holding hostages on Monday, three days after a raid by Somalia's al Shabaab killed at least 62 people.

It remained unclear how many gunmen and hostages were still cornered in the Westgate shopping centre, two hours after a series of loud explosions and gunfire were followed by a plume of black smoke, that grew in volume from one part of the complex.

Kenya's interior minister told a news conference that the militants - all men, though some wore women's clothing during the assault - had set a fire with mattresses in a supermarket on the mall's lower floors. Two "terrorists" had been killed on Monday, he added. Another assailant had died on Saturday.

The gunmen came from "all over the world", Kenya's military chief said, adding: "We are fighting global terrorism here."

Security officials near the scene had said the blasts heard at lunchtime were caused by Kenyan forces blasting a way in after President Uhuru Kenyatta had on Sunday dismissed a demand that he pull Kenyan forces out of neighbouring Somalia.

But Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said he had no information on any explosions and a military spokesman, asked whether the militants had set off charges, declined comment.Al Shabaab warned it would kill hostages if police moved in.

Echoing other officials, who have been at pains to highlight successes in rescuing hundreds of people trapped and terrified after Saturday's massacre, Lenku said most of the complex was under the authorities' control and escape was impossible.

A senior police officer said the authorities, who have been receiving advice from Western and Israeli experts, were "closing in". Lenku said: "We are doing anything reasonably possible, cautiously though, to bring this process to an end.

"The terrorists could be running and hiding in some stores, but all floors now are under our control."

AFRICAN QAEDA CONCERN

He acknowledged "support" from foreign governments but said Kenyan forces were managing without it so far. Western powers have been alarmed by a spread of al Qaeda-linked violence across Africa, from Nigeria and Mali in the west, though Algeria and Libya in the north to Somalia and now Kenya in the east.

Nairobi saw one of the first major attacks by al Qaeda, when it killed more than 200 people with a bomb at the U.S. embassy. And while some analysts said the latest raid may show al Shabaab lashing out in its weakness after the successes of Kenyan troops in Somalia, the risk of further international violence remains.

Julius Karangi, chief of the Kenyan general staff, called the gunmen "a multinational collection". He said they had set the fire as a distraction but could now have no hope of evading capture: "If they wish, they can now surrender," he said.

"We have no intention whatsoever of going backwards."

On Sunday, President Kenyatta said 10 to 15 assailants were holding an unknown number of hostages in one location, apparently the supermarket. On Monday, it was not clear whether they may be more dispersed, including on the upper floors.

A spokesman for al Shabaab warned they would kill hostages if Kenyan security forces, who are being assisted by Western and Israeli experts, tried to storm their positions:

"Israelis and Kenyan forces have tried to enter Westgate by force but they could not," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in an audio statement posted online. "The mujahideen will kill the hostages if the enemies use force."

On Twitter, the group posted: "They've obtained large amounts of ammunition and are, by the blessings of Allah alone, still firm and still dominating the show."

The Red Cross and Lenku put the death toll so far at 62. The Red Cross also said it had also recorded 63 people as missing.

Survivors' tales of the military-style assault by squads of attackers hurling grenades and spraying automatic fire have left little doubt the hostage-takers are willing to kill. Previous raids around the world, including at a desert gas plant in Algeria nine months ago, suggest they are also ready to die.

CINEMA

Kenyatta, who lost one of his own nephews in Saturday's lunchtime bloodbath, said he would not relent in a "war on terror" in Somalia, where Kenyan troops have pushed al Shabaab onto the defensive over the past two years as part of an African Union-backed peacekeeping mission across the northern border.

It remains unclear who the assailants are. Al Shabaab - the name means "The Lads" in Arabic - has thousands of Somali fighters but has also attracted foreigners to fight Western and African Union efforts to establish a stable government.

A London man, Jermaine Grant, faces trial in Kenya for possession of explosives. Police suspect an al Shabaab plot to attack restaurants and hotels used by Westerners and have been hunting for another Briton, Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of a suicide bomber who took part in the London 7/7 attacks of 2005.

Some British newspapers speculated on the role the "White Widow" might have played at Westgate. The term "black widow" has been used by Chechen militants in Russia for women taking part in bombings and assaults after the deaths of their husbands.

Four Britons were killed and Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We should prepare ourselves for further bad news."

As well as Kenyans, foreigners including a French mother and daughter and two diplomats, from Canada and Ghana, were killed. Ghanaian Kofi Awoonor was a renowned poet. Other victims came from China and the Netherlands. Five Americans were wounded.

Kenya's president, son of post-colonial leader Jomo Kenyatta, is facing his first major security challenge since being elected in March. The crisis might have an impact on his troubles with the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Judges there let his vice president, William Ruto, fly home for a week, suspending a trial on Monday in which Ruto is charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly coordinating violence after an election in 2007. Kenyatta is due to face trial on similar charges later this year.

WARFARE

Al Shabaab's siege underlined its ability to cause major disruptions with relatively limited resources, even after Kenyan and other African troops drove it from Somali cities.

"While the group has grown considerably weaker in terms of being able to wage a conventional war, it is now ever more capable of carrying out asymmetric warfare," said Abdi Aynte, director of Mogadishu's Heritage Institute of Policy Studies.

Others said divisions within the loose al Shabaab movement may have driven one faction to carry out the kind of high-profile attack that may help win new support.

Al Shabaab's last big attack abroad was a double bombing in Uganda that killed 77 people watching soccer on TV in 2010.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Trophy tour kicks off in Berlin

The UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour, presented by UniCredit, kicked off in style in Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz, Berlin on Friday as fans braved the elements in their numbers to have photos taken with the biggest prize in club football and attend an autograph session with Fabio Capello and Karl-Heinz Riedle.With the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League group stage no more than a few days old, the famous trophy began its European journey in the country of holders FC Bayern München, albeit with a three-day event in the German capital rather than Munich. Sizeable crowds seized the opportunity to get close to 'Old Big Ears' before meeting UniCredit ambassador Capello and UEFA ambassador for the city of Berlin, Riedle, at an autograph session.

Former Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool FC forward Riedle also took fans' questions in a Google+ hangout streamed live on the new UEFA Champions League Google+ page and the official UEFA.com YouTube channel. "It's been great," said Riedle, who won the 1990 FIFA World Cup with Germany and the UEFA Champions League in 1997 during his time at Dortmund. "The fans have had a chance to see the trophy and it is a very exciting time. It's one of the most important trophies in my life. I won the World Cup in 1990 but I didn't play in the final so the UEFA Champions League is definitely the most valuable trophy to me."

Capello added: "UniCredit has created an amazing event around the spirit of the UEFA Champions League and it is a pleasure for me to be part of this year's Trophy Tour. Lifting the trophy up into the air was stirring. Sharing this feeling of excitement and joy with fans from all over Europe during this tour is a wonderful experience and a great possibility to thank the fans for their support and dedication."

The UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour stops in Hungarian capital Budapest next for three days from Friday, where it will be greeted by former Real Madrid CF midfielders Steve McManaman and Christian Karembeu. Following Budapest the trophy will move on to Bucharest and Sarajevo before concluding in Sofia, Bulgaria.