Chicago’s Cook County OKs gun tax to defray costs of violence

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The county that includes Chicago approved a tax on firearms on Friday to help pay healthcare costs from gun violence, making it what is believed to be the first major U.S. metropolitan area to enact such a levy as a form of gun control.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 9-7 to impose a $ 25 tax on each firearm sold. The tax is expected to raise $ 600,000 in revenue in 2013.

With the vote, the nation’s third most populous county, with nearly 5.2 million residents, becomes the first large U.S. jurisdiction to approve such a measure, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said.

“We want to highlight this issue of gun violence and we also want to add to our resources to address it,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told reporters on Friday.

Preckwinkle, who proposed the handgun tax, earlier this week abandoned an additional proposed tax of 5 cents a bullet because the tax in some cases would have exceeded the price of ammunition.

Preckwinkle said that 670 victims of gun violence were treated by the county’s health system last year. The average cost per patient was $ 52,000.

“The terrible truth is the people who die cost us less than the people who live, because often they live with internal injuries that plague them for the rest of their lives, and we care for them,” Preckwinkle said after the board meeting.

She said 70 percent of the people who came into the county health system with gunshot wounds were not insured.

There have been 443 murders in Chicago so far this year, surpassing last year’s 435, and 22 percent more than in the same period a year ago, according to Chicago police.

SIMILAR PROPOSALS FAILED ELSEWHERE

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, has called the Cook County proposal another scheme to punish law-abiding firearm owners and dealers. He said it would prompt people to purchase weapons elsewhere.

Proposals to enact taxes on buyers or sellers of guns or ammunition have failed in six states, including California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, said the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Tennessee has a hunting-related 10-cent tax on sealed packages of shotgun shells and cartridges that applies to sellers. The money is used to support wildlife resources.

In a separate vote on Friday, the Cook County board passed by a 12-2 vote a $ 2 million gun violence prevention program, which would primarily provide grants to non-profit organizations with experience in violence prevention or community outreach.

The money for the program will come from savings on consultants and outside service providers in the county’s health program, according to county budget director Andrea Gibson.

The board also approved a $ 1-a-pack cigarette tax to help fund the public health system. That means the tax on a pack of cigarettes in Chicago will be $ 6.67, 19 cents short of New York City’s $ 6.86, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis.

The board approved $ 41.7 million in new revenue increases in total on Friday as part of the $ 2.9 billion 2013 budget, Preckwinkle said.

(Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

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It’s Global Warming, Stupid

Yes, yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $ 50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

An unscientific survey of the social networking literature on Sandy reveals an illuminating tweet (you read that correctly) from Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. On Oct. 29, Foley thumbed thusly: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.” Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (and former deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek), offers a baseball analogy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.”

In an Oct. 30 blog post, Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.

Sandy featured a scary extra twist implicating climate change. An Atlantic hurricane moving up the East Coast crashed into cold air dipping south from Canada. The collision supercharged the storm’s energy level and extended its geographical reach. Pushing that cold air south was an atmospheric pattern, known as a blocking high, above the Arctic Ocean. Climate scientists Charles Greene and Bruce Monger of Cornell University, writing earlier this year in Oceanography, provided evidence that Arctic icemelts linked to global warming contribute to the very atmospheric pattern that sent the frigid burst down across Canada and the eastern U.S.

If all that doesn’t impress, forget the scientists ostensibly devoted to advancing knowledge and saving lives. Listen instead to corporate insurers committed to compiling statistics for profit.

On Oct. 17 the giant German reinsurance company Munich Re issued a prescient report titled Severe Weather in North America. Globally, the rate of extreme weather events is rising, and “nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” From 1980 through 2011, weather disasters caused losses totaling $ 1.06 trillion. Munich Re found “a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades.” By contrast, there was “an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe, and 1.5 in South America.” Human-caused climate change “is believed to contribute to this trend,” the report said, “though it influences various perils in different ways.”

Global warming “particularly affects formation of heat waves, droughts, intense precipitation events, and in the long run most probably also tropical cyclone intensity,” Munich Re said. This July was the hottest month recorded in the U.S. since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that two-thirds of the continental U.S. suffered drought conditions this summer.

Granted, Munich Re wants to sell more reinsurance (backup policies purchased by other insurance companies), so maybe it has a selfish reason to stir anxiety. But it has no obvious motive for fingering global warming vs. other causes. “If the first effects of climate change are already perceptible,” said Peter Hoppe, the company’s chief of geo-risks research, “all alerts and measures against it have become even more pressing.”
 
 
Which raises the question of what alerts and measures to undertake. In his book The Conundrum, David Owen, a staff writer at the New Yorker, contends that as long as the West places high and unquestioning value on economic growth and consumer gratification—with China and the rest of the developing world right behind—we will continue to burn the fossil fuels whose emissions trap heat in the atmosphere. Fast trains, hybrid cars, compact fluorescent light bulbs, carbon offsets—they’re just not enough, Owen writes.

Yet even he would surely agree that the only responsible first step is to put climate change back on the table for discussion. The issue was MIA during the presidential debates and, regardless of who wins on Nov. 6, is unlikely to appear on the near-term congressional calendar. After Sandy, that seems insane.

Mitt Romney has gone from being a supporter years ago of clean energy and emission caps to, more recently, a climate agnostic. On Aug. 30, he belittled his opponent’s vow to arrest climate change, made during the 2008 presidential campaign. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” Romney told the Republican National Convention in storm-tossed Tampa. “My promise is to help you and your family.” Two months later, in the wake of Sandy, submerged families in New Jersey and New York urgently needed some help dealing with that rising-ocean stuff.

Obama and his strategists clearly decided that in a tight race during fragile economic times, he should compete with Romney by promising to mine more coal and drill more oil. On the campaign trail, when Obama refers to the environment, he does so only in the context of spurring “green jobs.” During his time in office, Obama has made modest progress on climate issues. His administration’s fuel-efficiency standards will reduce by half the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks by 2025. His regulations and proposed rules to curb mercury, carbon, and other emissions from coal-fired power plants are forcing utilities to retire some of the dirtiest old facilities. And the country has doubled the generation of energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

Still, renewable energy accounts for less than 15 percent of the country’s electricity. The U.S. cannot shake its fossil fuel addiction by going cold turkey. Offices and factories can’t function in the dark. Shippers and drivers and air travelers will not abandon petroleum overnight. While scientists and entrepreneurs search for breakthrough technologies, the next president should push an energy plan that exploits plentiful domestic natural gas supplies. Burned for power, gas emits about half as much carbon as coal. That’s a trade-off already under way, and it’s worth expanding. Environmentalists taking a hard no-gas line are making a mistake.

Conservatives champion market forces—as do smart liberals—and financial incentives should be part of the climate agenda. In 2009 the House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade legislation that would have rewarded more nimble industrial players that figure out how to use cleaner energy. The bill died in the Senate in 2010, a victim of Tea Party-inspired Republican obstructionism and Obama’s decision to spend his political capital to push health-care reform.

Despite Republican fanaticism about all forms of government intervention in the economy, the idea of pricing carbon must remain a part of the national debate. One politically plausible way to tax carbon emissions is to transfer the revenue to individuals. Alaska, which pays dividends to its citizens from royalties imposed on oil companies, could provide inspiration (just as Romneycare in Massachusetts pointed the way to Obamacare).

Ultimately, the global warming crisis will require global solutions. Washington can become a credible advocate for moving the Chinese and Indian economies away from coal and toward alternatives only if the U.S. takes concerted political action. At the last United Nations conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, the world’s governments agreed to seek a new legal agreement that binds signatories to reduce their carbon emissions. Negotiators agreed to come up with a new treaty by 2015, to be put in place by 2020. To work, the treaty will need to include a way to penalize countries that don’t meet emission-reduction targets—something the U.S. has until now refused to support.
 
 
If Hurricane Sandy does nothing else, it should suggest that we need to commit more to disaster preparation and response. As with climate change, Romney has displayed an alarmingly cavalier attitude on weather emergencies. During one Republican primary debate last year, he was asked point-blank whether the functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ought to be turned back to the states. “Absolutely,” he replied. Let the states fend for themselves or, better yet, put the private sector in charge. Pay-as-you-go rooftop rescue service may appeal to plutocrats; when the flood waters are rising, ordinary folks welcome the National Guard.

It’s possible Romney’s kill-FEMA remark was merely a pander to the Right, rather than a serious policy proposal. Still, the reconfirmed need for strong federal disaster capability—FEMA and Obama got glowing reviews from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Romney supporter—makes the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign-trail statement all the more reprehensible.

The U.S. has allowed transportation and other infrastructure to grow obsolete and deteriorate, which poses a threat not just to public safety but also to the nation’s economic health. With once-in-a-century floods now occurring every few years, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the country’s biggest city will need to consider building surge protectors and somehow waterproofing its enormous subway system. “It’s not prudent to sit here and say it’s not going to happen again,” Cuomo said. “I believe it is going to happen again.”

David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy, noted in an Oct. 29 blog post that Sandy also brought his hometown, Washington, to a standstill, impeding affairs of state. To lessen future impact, he suggested burying urban and suburban power lines, an expensive but sensible improvement.

Where to get the money? Rothkopf proposed shifting funds from post-Sept. 11 bureaucratic leviathans such as the Department of Homeland Security, which he alleges is shot through with waste. In truth, what’s lacking in America’s approach to climate change is not the resources to act but the political will to do so. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in October found that two-thirds of Americans say there is “solid evidence” the earth is getting warmer. That’s down 10 points since 2006. Among Republicans, more than half say it’s either not a serious problem or not a problem at all.

Such numbers reflect the success of climate deniers in framing action on global warming as inimical to economic growth. This is both shortsighted and dangerous. The U.S. can’t afford regular Sandy-size disruptions in economic activity. To limit the costs of climate-related disasters, both politicians and the public need to accept how much they’re helping to cause them.

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Gruesome video raises concerns about Syria rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — A video that appears to show a unit of Syrian rebels kicking terrified, captured soldiers and then executing them with machine guns raised concerns Friday about rebel brutality at a time when the United States is making its strongest push yet to forge an opposition movement it can work with.

U.N. officials and human rights groups believe President Bashar Assad‘s regime is responsible for the bulk of suspected war crimes in Syria‘s 19-month-old conflict, which began as a largely peaceful uprising but has transformed into a brutal civil war.

But investigators of human rights abuses say rebel atrocities are on the rise.

At this stage “there may not be anybody with entirely clean hands,” Suzanne Nossel, head of the rights group Amnesty International, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. has called for a major leadership shakeup of Syria’s political opposition during a crucial conference next week in Qatar. Washington and its allies have been reluctant to give stronger backing to the largely Turkey-based opposition, viewing it as ineffective, fractured and out of touch with fighters trying to topple Assad.

But the new video adds to growing concerns about those fighters and could complicate Washington’s efforts to decide which of the myriad of opposition groups to support. The video can be seen at http://bit.ly/YxDcWE .

“We condemn human rights violations by any party,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, commenting on the video. “Anyone committing atrocities should be held to account.”

She said the Free Syrian Army has urged its fighters to adhere to a code of conduct it established in August, reflecting international rules of war.

The summary execution of the captured soldiers, purportedly shown in an amateur video, took place Thursday during a rebel assault on the strategic northern town of Saraqeb, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

It was unclear which rebel faction was involved, though the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra was among those fighting in the area, the Observatory said.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows a crowd of gunmen in what appears to be a building under construction. They surround a group of captured men on the ground, some on their bellies as if ordered to lie down, others sprawled as if wounded. Some of the captives are in Syrian military uniforms.

“These are Assad’s dogs,” one of the gunmen is heard saying of those cowering on the ground.

The gunmen kick and beat some of the men. One gunman shouts, “Damn you!” The exact number of soldiers in the video is not clear, but there appear to be about 10 of them.

Moments later, gunfire erupts for about 35 seconds, screams are heard and the men on the floor are seen shaking and twitching. The spray of bullets kicks up dust from the ground.

The video’s title says it shows dead and captive soldiers at the Hmeisho checkpoint. The Observatory said 12 soldiers were killed Thursday at the checkpoint, one of three regime positions near Saraqeb attacked by the rebels in the area that day.

Amnesty International’s forensics analysts did not detect signs of forgery in the video, according to Nossel. The group has not yet been able to confirm the location, date and the identity of those shown in the footage, she said.

After their assault Thursday, rebels took full control of Saraqeb, a strategic position on the main highway linking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo — which rebels have been trying to capture for months — with the regime stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

On Friday, at least 143 people, including 48 government soldiers, were killed in gunbattles, regime shelling attacks on rebel-held areas and other violence, the Observatory said.

Of the more than 36,000 killed so far in Syria, about one-fourth are regime soldiers, according to the Observatory. The rest include civilians and rebel fighters, but the group does not offer a breakdown.

Daily casualties have been rising since early summer, when the regime began bombing densely populated areas from the air in an attempt to dislodge rebels and break a battlefield stalemate.

Karen Abu Zayd, a member of the U.N. panel documenting war crimes in Syria, said the regime is to blame for the bulk of the atrocities so far, but that rebel abuses are on the rise as the insurgents become better armed and as foreign fighters with radical agendas increasingly join their ranks.

“The balance is changing somewhat,” she said in a phone interview, blaming in part the influx of foreign fighters not restrained by social ties that bind Syrians.

Abu Zayd said the panel, though unable to enter Syria for now, has evidence of “at least dozens, but probably hundreds” of war crimes, based on some 1,100 interviews. The group has already compiled two lists of suspected perpetrators and units for future prosecution, she said.

Many rebel groups operate independently, even if they nominally fall under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. In recent months, rebel groups have formed military councils to improve coordination, but the chaos of the war has allowed for considerable autonomy at the local level.

“The killing of unarmed soldiers shows how difficult it is to control the escalation of the conflict and establish a united armed opposition that abides by the same ground rules and norms in battle,” said Anthony Skinner, an analyst at Maplecroft, a British risk analysis company.

Rebel commanders and Syrian opposition leaders have promised human rights groups that they would try to prevent abuses. However, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report in September that statements by some opposition leaders indicate they tolerate or condone extrajudicial killings.

Free Syrian Army commanders contacted by the AP on Friday said they were either unaware or had no accurate details about the latest video.

Ausama Monajed, a member of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, called for the gunmen shown in the video to be tracked down and brought to justice.

He added, however, that atrocities committed by rebels are relatively rare compared to what he said was a “massive genocide by the regime.”

Regime forces have launched indiscriminate attacks on residential neighborhoods with tank shells, mortar rounds and bombs dropped from warplanes, devastating large areas. In raids of rebel strongholds, Assad’s forces have carried out summary executions, rights groups say.

Rebels have also targeted civilians, setting off car bombs near mosques, restaurants and government offices. Human Rights Watch said in September it collected evidence of the summary executions of more than a dozen people by rebels.

In August, a video showed several bloodied prisoners being led into a noisy outdoor crowd in the northern city of Aleppo and placed against a wall before gunmen shot them to death. That video sparked international condemnation, including a rare rebuke from the Obama administration.

The latest video emerged on the eve of a crucial opposition conference that is to begin Sunday in Qatar’s capital of Doha. More than 400 delegates from the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups are expected to attend to choose a new leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a more unified and representative opposition, even suggesting the U.S. would handpick some of the candidates.

Clinton’s comments reflected growing U.S. impatience with the Syrian opposition, which, in turn, has accused Washington of not having charted a clear path to bringing down Assad.

The Syrian National Council plans to elect new leaders during the four-day conference but is cool to a U.S. proposal to set up a much broader group and a transitional government, said Monajed, the SNC member who runs a think tank in Britain.

U.S. officials have said Washington is pushing for a greater role for the Free Syrian Army and representation of local coordinating committees and mayors of liberated cities in Syria.

Nuland said that it would be easier for the international community to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians and non-lethal aid to the rebels once a broader, unified opposition leadership is in place.

Such a body could also help persuade Assad backers Russia and China “that change is necessary” and that Syria’s opposition has a better plan for the country than the regime, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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Apple rolls out iPad mini in Sydney to shorter lines

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Apple fans lined up in Sydney, Australia, to get their hands on the iPad mini on Friday, but the device, priced above rival gadgets from Google and Amazon.com, attracted smaller crowds than at the company’s previous global rollouts.

About 50 people waited for the Apple store to open, where in the past the line had stretched for several blocks when the company launched new iPhones.

Apple Inc’s global gadget rollouts are typically high-energy affairs drawing droves of buyers who stand in line for hours. But a proliferation of comparable rival devices may have sapped some interest.

At the head of Friday’s line was Patrick Li, who had been waiting since 4:30 am and was keen to get his hands on the 7.9-inch slate.

“It’s light, easy to handle, and I’ll use it to read books. It’s better than the original iPad,” Li said.

The iPad mini marks Apple’s first foray into the smaller-tablet segment, and the latest salvo in a global mobile-device war that has engulfed combatants from Internet search leader Google Inc to Web retailer Amazon.com Inc and software giant Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft’s 10-inch Surface tablet, powered by the just-launched Windows 8 software, went on sale in October, while Google and Amazon now dominate sales of smaller, 7-inch multimedia tablets.

Unveiled last week, the iPad mini has won mostly positive reviews, with criticism centering on a screen considered inferior to rivals’ and a lofty price tag. The new tablet essentially replicates most of the features of its full-sized sibling, but in a smaller package.

At $ 329 for a Wi-Fi only model, the iPad mini is a little costlier than predicted but some analysts see that as Apple’s attempt to retain premium positioning.

Some investors fear the gadget will lure buyers away from Apple’s $ 499 flagship 9.7-inch iPad, while proving ineffective in combating the threat of Amazon’s $ 199 Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7, both of which are sold at or near cost.

Also on Friday, Apple rolled out its fourth-generation iPad, with the same 9.7-inch display as the previous version but with a faster A6X processor and better Wi-Fi.

Apple will likely sell between 1 million and 1.5 million iPad minis in the first weekend, far short of the 3 million third-generation iPads sold last March in their first weekend, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

“The reason we expect fewer iPad minis compared to the 3rd Gen is because of the lack of the wireless option and newness of the smaller form factor for consumers,” Munster said in a note to clients. “We believe that over time that will change.”

Reviewers have applauded Apple for squeezing most of the iPad’s features into a smaller package that can be comfortably manipulated with one hand.

James Vohradsky, a 20 year-old student who previously queued for 17 hours at the Sydney store to buy the iPhone 5, only stood in line for an hour and a half this time.

“I had an iPad 1 before, I kind of miss it because I sold it about a year ago. It’s just more practical to have the mini because I found it a bit too big. The image is really good and it’s got the fast A5 chip too,” Vohradsky said.

The iPad was launched in 2010 by late Apple visionary Steve Jobs and since then it has taken a big chunk out of PC sales, upending the industry and reinventing mobile computing with its apps-based ecosystem.

A smaller tablet is the first device to be added to Apple’s compact portfolio under Cook, who took over from Jobs just before his death a year ago. Analysts credit Google and Amazon for influencing the decision.

Some investors worry that Apple might have lost its chief visionary with Jobs, and that new management might not be able to stay ahead of the pack as rivals innovate and encroach on its market share.

(Writing and additional reporting by Noel Randewich and Edwin Chan in San Francisco; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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Jodie Foster to get lifetime achievement award at Golden Globes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Double-Oscar winner Jodie Foster will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes ceremony in January, recognizing her 40-year career as an actress, director and movie producer, organizers said on Thursday.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organizes the annual Golden Globe awards, said Foster will join the likes of past winners Lucille Ball, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman and Judy Garland, and become the 2013 recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille award.

“Jodie is a multifaceted woman that has achieved immeasurable amounts of success and will continue to do so in her career,” HFPA president Aida Takla-O’Reilly said in a statement.

“Her ambition, exuberance and grace have helped pave the way for budding artists in this business. She’s truly one of a kind,” she added.

Foster, 49, began her career filming commercials at the age of three and won international fame with her role as a streetwise teen in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.”

She has since appeared in more than 40 movies, winning best actress Oscars for her role as a rape victim in “The Accused” and as the FBI agent in 1991 thriller “The Silence of The Lambs.”

Foster also branched out into directing (“Little Man Tate”) and producing for both film and television through her production company Egg Pictures.

Foster will be presented with her award at the Golden Globes ceremony in Beverly Hills on January 13, where the HFPA will also announce its picks for the best films and performances in film and television of 2012.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by David Gregorio)

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NICE backs melanoma drugs after price cuts

LONDON (Reuters) – Two new drugs for skin cancer have been recommended for use on Britain’s state-run health service after the rival manufacturers – Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb – agreed to cut their prices.

The move underscores the growing pressure on drug companies to cut deals with austerity-hit European governments in order to prove their expensive new medicines offer value for money.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said on Friday it had issued final draft guidance recommending both Roche’s Zelboraf and Bristol‘s Yervoy after the companies offered undisclosed discounts.

NICE, which determines if products should be used by the National Health Service (NHS), had initially rejected both medicines, despite acknowledging that they represented a breakthrough in treating melanoma.

The list price for Zelboraf, which is only suitable for patients with a particular genetic profile, is 52,500 pounds for an average treatment span of seven months.

The price of a four-dose course of Yervoy, which is recommended only for people who have received prior chemotherapy, is 75,000 pounds.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Mark Potter)

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Shut That Taxi Window! China’s Leaders Are Meeting

How does China prepare for its biggest political event of the decade? That’s the meeting of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party, opening Nov. 8 in Beijing, which will see a historic shift in top leadership. For starters, dramatically beef up security in Beijing, while beautifying the city with elaborate flower decorations and revolutionary banners. Other measures include shutting off foreign television in five-star hotel gyms, ripping out articles in overseas publications, and perhaps oddest of all, ordering taxis to disable their windows so passengers can’t open them.

Amping up security is not surprising. After all, more than 2,000 congress delegates from across China will attend the week-or-so-long political meeting. All of China’s present and future top leaders will be in Beijing, too, and will gather to meet in the Great Hall of the People, just off Tiananmen Square. Those include outgoing Party Secretary and Premier Hu
Jintao and his almost certain replacement, Xi Jinping, set to take over leadership of the 83 million-member Communist Party at the congress, as well as become president of China early next year. Premier Wen Jiabao and his likely successor, Li Keqiang, as well as the other present and future members of the elite Politburo Standing Committee (now with nine members, but that may become seven), will also be in attendance.

And with political scandals recently roiling the top leadership, including the stunning downfall of former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, once a candidate for the Standing Committee, Beijing has hardly felt stable. Indeed, rumors swept China’s blogosphere in March that a coup had been attempted by supporters of Bo. Bo is now awaiting trial for his complicity, along with his wife, in the murder of an Englishman, as well as corruption charges.

Since August, Beijing public security authorities have been cracking down on everything from gambling and prostitution to unlicensed taxis and stolen bicycles. All told, 33,000 cases have been dealt with, according to the China Daily on Oct. 21. Authorities too have been monitoring migrant workers more carefully, the Legal Daily reported Oct. 19. Extra police have been stationed at subway stations, with bomb-sniffing German Shepherd dogs, and also are posted along important Beijing byways, such as Chang’an Avenue, which is festooned with red and white banners with slogans proclaiming “Long Live the Great Chinese People” and “Long Live the Great Communist Party.” Meanwhile, vehicles carrying toxic chemicals have been banned from Beijing from Nov. 1 to 18.

 ”We must crack down on all kinds of serious criminal activities according to law and strengthen security measures for important infrastructure and the management of individuals from special groups,” said Standing Committee member and security czar Zhou Yongkang, on Oct. 19, reported the official Xinhua News Agency. “We must soberly realize that various factors exist which can lead to disharmony, insecurity and instability, bringing many risks and challenges for the security work of the Party congress.” (Zhou is believed to have been a supporter of Bo, and the March online rumors suggested he was in charge of the alleged coup attempt.)

But perhaps oddest of all has been the order from Beijing’s Traffic Management Bureau for all taxi drivers to secure their cab doors and disable the windows during the congress, so that passengers don’t attempt to throw anti-government leaflets out—possibly contained in ping pong balls or borne by balloons.

“’Seal the door’ by activating child safety locks on the doors. ‘Seal the windows’ by removing window cranks,” the traffic bureau advised taxi drivers. “During the 18th Party Congress period, taxicab drivers are to be on guard for passengers carrying any type of ball. Look for passengers who intend to spread messages by carrying balloons that bear slogans or
ping-pong balls bearing reactionary messages,” the notice continued, which was posted by a user called Lu Hua on Weibo, China’s microblogging service. Drivers too must “regularly inspect the inside and outside of their vehicles in order to ensure lawbreakers have not affixed reactionary materials or messages to the vehicle.”

“I’ve been driving 10 years and have never had a problem,” scoffed one driver when asked about the new rules. In any case, “anyone who is thinking of causing trouble is already being watched,” he said. Another said: “No one will want to open the windows then anyway—it’s too cold.” And he plans to avoid possible trouble by not driving inside the second ring road of Beijing during the congress, the heart of the city and where Tiananmen Square and the Zhongnanhai leadership residence compounds are located.

For their part, authorities insist that the clampdown won’t be too much of a problem for locals. Those agencies responsible for the congress’ security “should take residents’ feelings and opinions into consideration when they carry out their duties,” Beijing deputy party chief Ji Lin said in mid-October, the China Daily reported. And the police have been ordered to “build ‘harmonious relationships’ with the public and make sure that residents’ lives are not affected by the security measures for the congress,” said Meng Jianzhu, China’s minister of public security, on Oct. 16.

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Canada will push to keep bank capital rules on schedule

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will urge all countries to stick to the agreed schedule for implementing tougher bank capital rules at a November 4-5 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.

The so-called Basel III rules are the world’s regulatory response to the financial crisis, forcing banks to triple the amount of basic capital they hold in a bid to avoid future taxpayer bailouts.

They were to be phased in from January 2013 but areas such as the United States and the European Union are not yet ready and U.S. and British supervisors have criticized them as too complex to work.

The Canadian official, who briefed reports ahead of the meeting on condition that he not be named, said it was imperative that the rules, the timelines and the principles behind them be respected and said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would make that view known to his G20 colleagues.

Canada sees the European debt crisis as the biggest near-term risk to the global economy, and it also expects the U.S. debt crisis to be top of mind at the talks, the official said.

But the meeting takes place just before the U.S. presidential election and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be absent, so it remains unclear how much the G20 can pressure Washington on that front.

Some other countries have also scaled back their delegations, raising doubts about how meaningful the meeting will be.

The official dismissed that argument, saying high-level officials substituting for their ministers allowed for extremely important issues to be addressed anyway.

He said holding each country around the table accountable to its past commitments helped keep the momentum going toward resolving global economic problems.

(Reporting by Louise Egan; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by M.D. Golan)

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TSX climbs to one-week high as mining stocks surge

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index rose on Wednesday, as stronger commodity prices drove materials stocks higher and Research in Motion charged ahead after it said it was on track to launch its new BlackBerry 10 next year.

The materials group rose 1.2 percent as gold prices reached their highest in a week . Copper prices also strengthened.

Centerra Gold charged ahead 6.4 percent to C$ 11.33, while Yamana Gold surged 3.5 percent to C$ 20.17.

Also boosting interest in the sector was Potash Corp , which climbed 0.5 percent to C$ 40.15, after the fertilizer company confirmed its interest in increasing its stake in Israel Chemical Ltd.

“People are certainly feeling more confident in the resource sector,” said Paul Harris, portfolio manager at Avenue Investment Management. “Canadian stocks have been beaten up this year. You’re seeing some pickup of that.”

Volumes on Toronto’s stock market picked up as U.S. equity markets resumed trading after a two-day closure due to storm Sandy. <.N>

A total of 332.9 million shares were traded on the Canadian bourse, nearly double the 178.3 million shares traded on Tuesday when U.S. markets were closed.

“It’s a fairly positive tone here. There is nothing acting as a dramatic catalyst,” said Bob Gorman, chief portfolio strategist at TD Waterhouse.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.GSPTSE> ended the session up 45.86 points, or 0.37 percent, at 12,422.91.

The index rose as high as 12,462.26, its strongest level in more than a week. Eight of the ten TSX subgroups ended positive.

RIM, once the largest stock on the exchange, rose 3.7 percent to C$ 7.88, helping drive the TSX info tech sector up 1.4 percent.

The company said it had started carrier testing on its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices and said it was on track to launch the new smartphones in the first quarter of 2013.

Financial stocks climbed 0.3 percent, led by property and casualty insurer Intact Financial , which rose 2.6 percent to C$ 61.25, and life insurer Great-West Lifeco , which gained 1.5 percent to C$ 23.00.

“There’s a feeling of confidence. It isn’t going to go overboard. It is managed confidence that we’re seeing is reflected in the market,” said Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod.

The energy sector was one of the few areas of weakness, down 0.2 percent, as Encana Corp , Canada’s largest gas producer, fell 2.8 percent to C$ 22.50.

Cenovus Energy Inc , Canada’s No. 2 independent oil producer, rose 1.3 percent to C$ 35.23 after SocGen upgraded its recommendation to “buy” from “hold”.

Brent crude rose to about $ 109 a barrel, though the gains were limited by concerns over demand impact on the United States.

(Additional reporting by Cameron French; editing by Andrew Hay)

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Broadway lights go up in post-Sandy NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — The lights went up again on Broadway Wednesday for the first time since Hurricane Sandy hit New York, as entertainers headed back to work in a city still wracked by power-outages and a suspended subway system.

Though some Broadway shows, including Disney’s “Mary Poppins” and “The Lion King” remained dark Wednesday night, the curtain was to rise for many of the other 38 shows, including “Cyrano De Bergerac.” Patrick Page, who plays the villain Comte de Guiche in the production, was heading back to the theater for a matinee performance, even if he was unsure if there would be anyone in the seats.

“Broadway is as important an icon of New York City as the subways, so to get back to work is a sign that we can bounce back,” he said. “This has been such a tough time for so many and it’s vital that we show the lights are on and there’s great work being done onstage.”

Page said he spent a restless time off in his Upper West Side neighborhood, worried about his in-laws along the New Jersey shore — he is married to actress and TV personality Paige Davis. He said he checked Facebook to find out how friends were fairing, obsessively watched the news and went out to check that neighbors had ridden out the storm.

“We’re New Yorkers,” he said. “We’ll get through this.”

The company of “Peter and the Starcatcher,” the Tony Award-nominated prequel to Peter Pan, faced some tense moments before their Wednesday matinee. Five of their dozen cast members live in Brooklyn and faced a dicey commute. For instance, their Peter Pan, Adam Chanler-Berat, didn’t fly to the theater — he biked.

As the 2 p.m. show loomed, all the cast was in place, except for Isaiah Johnson, who plays Captain Scott. Playwright Rick Elice and co-director Roger Rees, who were both at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, each was ready to go on if he didn’t make it. He did — but only five minutes until curtain.

In downtown theaters, though, the stories were grim.

The SoHo Rep was without power and had some flooding, while MCC Theatre had no electricity Wednesday. The Barrow Street Theatre was dark and facing the prospect of canceling additional performances of “Tribes” while they await power. The Bank Street Theater is without power and its basement is flooded, forcing the Labyrinth Theater Company to put off the first preview of their “Radiance.” One of the cast members of Eve Ensler’s “Emotional Creature,” playing on 42nd Street, lives in Long Island, has no electricity and may not be able to get to tonight’s performance.

All Broadway shows planned to be back on schedule Thursday and some even managed to turn the mess into promotions. “The Performers” was offering a “Sandy Special” of $ 29.50 for top tickets, while the Roundabout Theatre Company let patrons with MetroCards buy tickets for $ 20 to its “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”

New York‘s late-night TV hosts were back in swing, though, with all resuming regular production Wednesday. The remaining holdouts — Jon Stewart with “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert with “The Colbert Report” — were to join David Letterman (“The Late Show”), Jimmy Fallon (“Late Night”) and Jimmy Kimmel (“Jimmy Kimmel Live”), who is doing a week of shows in Brooklyn, on the airwaves.

All were to tape with a live studio audience Wednesday. Out of safety and caution, Letterman taped Monday and Tuesday’s episodes in front of an empty Ed Sullivan Theater, but it will again be full Wednesday. Fallon did the same at Rockefeller Center on Monday.

Other New York cultural institutions were forced to continue to cancel planned events. Carnegie Hall, which sits on 57th Street near the hanging crane, announced that its Thursday concerts were postponed, after having already done the same for Wednesday night’s performances. Lincoln Center swung back into business Wednesday, with the exception of a handful of events. Performances were also to resume at the Metropolitan Opera.

For many, figuring out exactly when to reopen business was a daunting and uncertain decision. While parts of the New York transit system have been restored, predictions on when subways, commuter rails and power to the southern end of Manhattan have generally been vague. Knowing when both performers and audience can get to their stages, TV studios and concert halls has been a day-by-day waiting game.

The Keep a Child Alive foundation announced Wednesday that the 9th annual Black Ball, scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed. Alicia Keys was to host, Oprah Winfrey was to be honored and Beyonce was to perform at the Hammerstein Ballroom event, which raises money to fight AIDS in Africa.

Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Enterprises, the umbrella organization that includes the annual Tribeca Film Festival and the film distribution company Tribeca Film, has remained closed and without power. The organization’s nonprofit arm, the Tribeca Film Institute, on Wednesday canceled its annual benefit which was to be a special screening Thursday for the James Bond film “Skyfall.” It has been postponed until Monday, and cast members are no longer able to attend.

Film and TV production in New York has ceased outside of sound stages, as the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting said it would not grant permits to shoot in exterior locations throughout the five boroughs until at least Saturday. Production on shows from “30 Rock” to “Gossip Girl” has been affected.

“The city has not issued any location permits this week, so probably the earliest we’ll be able to shoot is this weekend,” said Warren Leight, executive producer of “Law & Order: SVU.” ”We are able to do some location scouting tomorrow and we have our production meetings by phone, with people on their cells and calling from their cars. The main issue is going to be getting power restored.”

Some celebrities sought to raise money for those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Edward Norton on Wednesday kicked off a crowd-funded relief effort via the website CrowdRise.com, with money donated from various companies to help spark giving.

“We wanted to make it easy for people to quickly support relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy through reliable organizations and, even better, to have the impact of their dollars doubled,” said Norton. “So CrowdRise has rallied a bunch of great companies committed to matching the funds raised through our page.”

The storm also made a mess of Henry Winkler’s birthday plans. The one-time TV “Fonzie,” rode out the storm safely in upper Manhattan but his thoughts were with those suffering in New Jersey, Long Island and lower Manhattan. He turned 67 on Monday.

“It made my birthday insignificant,” said Winkler, who stars as a veteran porn star in the new Broadway comedy “The Performers.” ”Just to be able to take a walk was pretty terrific. You think you know how to plan for a storm after all these years and then it makes history. All those millions of people affected, it breaks my heart.”

___

AP TV Writer Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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