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Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms
Officials Worry Constraints Set by Congress Deter Participation
By Amit R. Paley and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 4, 2009; Page A01
The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.
The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.
Porsche Finds Fortune From Unlikely Outsourcing
By CARTER DOUGHERTY
Published: April 3, 2009
UUSIKAUPUNKI, FINLAND – Outsourcing to less-expensive places like India, China, Taiwan and Eastern Europe became routine for many American and Western European companies over the past decade. But what’s Porsche doing in Finland?
Since 1997, Porsche, the German sports car manufacturer, has headed north to this tongue-twister of a Finnish town instead of east, a move that helps explain why it is still making money even as so many automakers are tapping government aid to weather the worst industry downturn in a generation.During the fat years, Valmet Automotive cranked out thousands of cars in Uusikaupunki to supplement Porsche’s production in Germany. Now, the assembly lines here are slowing, which means that Valmet, rather than Porsche, is bearing much of the burden of the global auto industry’s distress.
USA
Shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., ‘truly an American tragedy’
13 are slain at a crowded immigration services center. The gunman also killed himself, authorities believe. Evidence may point to Jiverly Wong or Jiverly Voong, formerly of Southern California.
By Geraldine Baum and Anna Gorman
10:55 PM PDT, April 3, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and Binghamton, N.Y. — For immigrants in chilly Binghamton, the doorway to America opens through the friendly building on Front Street. But Friday, the American Civic Assn. — a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams — became a killing zone.A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, thwarting escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.
Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman gave no warning. “I don’t think there was any conversation,” he said.As the gunman entered the building, he killed one receptionist and shot another in the stomach. She pretended to be dead, hiding under a table and waiting for a chance to call 911, while he moved down the hall. In a nearby room he opened fire on a group taking a citizenship class.
Police arrived less than two minutes after receiving the receptionist’s call at 10:31 a.m., Zikuski said. Amid the carnage, they found a body believed to be the shooter’s, along with two handguns, body armor, ammunition and a magazine. He apparently shot himself.
Rejecting Aid, One Governor Irks His Own
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: April 3, 2009
COLUMBIA, S.C. – For a millionaire, Gov. Mark Sanford has a reputation for frugality that borders on the extreme.
Former employees say he has been known to require his staff to use both sides of a Post-it note. When Mr. Sanford was a congressman, he slept on a futon in his office and returned his housing allowance. And when, after he moved into the Governor’s Mansion here, tax collectors declared his family’s home on Sullivan’s Island a secondary residence subject to a higher tax rate, he appealed and won.Now, with his threat to refuse more than $700 million in federal money to stimulate the economy, Mr. Sanford’s contrarian streak is taking him from South Carolina, which is second only to Michigan in unemployment, to the national stage.
Europe
Spring election fever hits Olympic city as democracy stirs in Russia
Billionaire newspaper owner Alexander Lebedev is among candidates in rare ballot whose outcome is not certain
Luke Harding in Sochi
The Guardian, Saturday 4 April 2009
The sea is a picture postcard blue. Down on the pebbly beach, tourists stroll along a wide promenade. Not far away middle-aged swimmers plough up and down the azure of an outdoor pool. And in the sunny tropical gardens, a pleasant breeze wafts through the magnolias and palms.It is here on the Black Sea that the most bizarre election in Russia’s recent history is taking place. Sixteen candidates are campaigning to become mayor of Sochi, the city which will play host to the 2014 Winter Olympics.
But this election differs from other polls in Russia in one vital respect: it is not entirely clear who is going to win.
One candidate is Alexander Lebedev, the billionaire and former KGB spy who now owns the Evening Standard newspaper in London. He arrived here yesterday afternoon.
Storm over plan to provide separate buses for immigrants
Italian transport company stands accused of ‘apartheid’ policy over dual serviceBy Peter Popham in Rome
Saturday, 4 April 2009
A bus company in the southern Italian city of Foggia has evoked memories of Rosa Parks and the struggle for civil rights in America, and apartheid South Africa, by setting up a parallel bus service for immigrants.Bus No 24 connects the suburb of Mezzanone with Foggia city centre, but from Monday there will be two different services on offer. They will have different stops and use different routes. One will follow the traditional route; the new alternative will begin outside the nearby immigrant reception centre and cater for the 1,000-odd asylum-seekers crammed in there.
The case is a painful microcosm of Italy’s struggle to come to terms with an increasing flow of newcomers into the country from across the Mediterranean.
Africa
Public rage over perks for new Zimbabwe ministers
• Tsvangirai allies are allocated Mercedes cars
• Pro-Mugabe newspaper criticises high living
Maurice Gerard in Harare
The Guardian, Saturday 4 April 2009
Zimbabwe’s new unity government has sparked public outcry by accepting a succession of perks including a “retreat” to a luxury resort at Victoria Falls this weekend and a fleet of $50,000 Mercedes vehicles for ministers while the vast majority struggles to afford basic commodities.The perception of officials feathering their nests is particularly awkward for former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his allies in the unity government, who spent years championing the lot of ordinary Zimbabweans during the economic collapse presided over by Robert Mugabe. It is also likely to raise questions about the government’s spending priorities, coming just days after it issued an appeal for billions of dollars.
Officially billed as a brainstorming session on how to take the country forward, the weekend retreat will take place at a tourist resort famed for its five-star safari lodges and the spectacular “Mosi-I-Tunya” waterfalls, the “smoke that thunders” in the local Shona language. Many Zimbabweans see the trip as another junket for the politically privileged.
Middle East
Is Syria getting ready to come in from the cold?
President Assad is caught between America’s peaceful overtures and the bellicose language of Israel’s new leader. Donald Macintyre reports from Damascus .
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Perfumier Mohammed Kheir Sheikh Salem sat at the counter of his shop, the shelves neatly laden with glass bottles of scent from seemingly every flower in the Middle East, the television in the corner showing Al Jazeera with the sound turned down in deference to his visitors.Moments after Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s abrasive new Foreign Minister, appeared briefly on the silent screen, Mr Salem pondered a question about whether Syria might yet make peace with its southern neighbour, winning back the Golan Heights 42 years after it was seized in the Six Day War. “We had hoped so,” he said with a sigh. “But with Netanyahu it’s very difficult.”
A mutiny among militia threatens peace in Iraq after US airstrike
From The Times
April 4, 2009
Deborah Haynes in Baghdad
A mutiny in the ranks of a key Iraqi militia credited with helping US forces to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq is threatening to plunge the country back into bloody sectarian violence.The rebellion by some members of the Awakening Councils, a Sunni Arab paramilitary force of more than 90,000 men, could unravel the improvements in security since 2007. If left unchecked it threatens to push the country back to the brink of civil war, pitting Sunnis against the Shias.
A US airstrike on Thursday night targeted a group of Awakening Council men north of Baghdad who were suspected of planting a roadside bomb. One person was killed and two others were wounded and arrested.
The attack came days after some of the worst fighting in Baghdad in two years
Asia
Nervous Japan takes up arms against rocket launch
From The Times
April 4, 2009
Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo
Barack Obama warned North Korea yesterday that it would face international action if it went ahead with its launch of a rocket, as Japan made nervous preparations for it to pass over its territory as early as today.“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” President Obama said after a meeting in Strasbourg with President Sarkozy of France.
“Should North Korea decide to take this action, we will work with all interested partners in the international community to take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that they cannot threaten the safety and stability of other countries with impunity.”
He added: “The response so far from the North Koreans has been not just unhelpful but has resorted to the sort of language that has led to North Korea’s international isolation in the international community for a very long time.”
US-Iran thaw could bolster Afghanistan rebuilding efforts
In The Hague this week, Iranian officials offered to cooperate with the US. Iran has pursued an ambitious redevelopment effort in Afghanistan since 2001.
By Anand Gopal | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – In a crowded section near the western edge of the capital sits a sprawling new university compound, a structure of ornate white stone and blue-tiled domes.As hundreds of students here file in for morning classes, many say they have one country to thank for helping to improve higher learning in this education-starved country: Iran.
The $100 million university is one of Iran’s many development projects across Afghanistan – and just the type of contribution Washington wants to bring positive change to this troubled country.
At an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague this week, Iranian officials offered to cooperate with the United States on developing and reconstructing Afghanistan. Though deep mistrust remains between the two countries, the move marked a thaw in relations and could facilitate Washington’s efforts to turn the situation around here.
“The conference underlines Iran’s willingness to play a cooperative role and can jump-start Obama’s policy of getting more support throughout the region,” says Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department analyst on Afghanistan-Pakistan and currently a scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute based in Washington.
Latin America
Peru’s Alberto Fujimori assails prosecution’s case as his trial closes
The former Peruvian president, facing murder and kidnapping charges, portrays himself as his nation’s savior. A judicial tribunal’s verdict is due early next week.
By Chris Kraul
April 4, 2009
Reporting from Bogota, Colombia — Former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru made an impassioned plea of innocence at his human rights crimes trial in the Peruvian capital, portraying himself Friday as the leader who rescued his country from anarchy, not the man prosecutors have cast as a “Frankenstein” monster.“Rather than prove my guilt, the prosecution has merely shown the inconsistency of its accusations,” Fujimori said, alleging that prosecutors fabricated evidence in their effort to make an “iceberg from a piece of ice.”
Fujimori, 70, is being tried on charges that he ordered kidnappings and two massacres in the early 1990s at the height of the state’s war on the Shining Path leftist insurgency.
The 15-month trial in Lima stands as a rare example of a Latin American leader being called to answer for alleged abuses of power, and provides a forensic look into the former president’s time in office, from 1990 to 2000.