Testing: 6月 2013

2013年6月30日星期日

Photos of the Week: June 23-28

PRECIOUS CARGO: Soldiers helped evacuate residents Sunday in Uttarakhand, India, where monsoon flooding and landslides have killed hundreds of people.
PRECIOUS CARGO: Soldiers helped evacuate residents Sunday in Uttarakhand, India, where monsoon flooding and landslides have killed hundreds of people.
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INJURED: Medics transported an injured Lebanese soldier amid clashes between followers of Sunni cleric Ahmad al-Assir and Shiite gunmen in Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday. A security official said the clashes erupted between factions supporting and opposing the Syrian civil war.
INJURED: Medics transported an injured Lebanese soldier amid clashes between followers of Sunni cleric Ahmad al-Assir and Shiite gunmen in Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday. A security official said the clashes erupted between factions supporting and opposing the Syrian civil war.
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ANONYMOUS: A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask stood in front of a gate that police secured amid a protest Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the current government, which is led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
ANONYMOUS: A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask stood in front of a gate that police secured amid a protest Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the current government, which is led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
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FLOCKING TO PROTEST: Shepherds brought their animals to a rally in Paris Sunday. The country’s two main farmers’ unions wanted to highlight the difficulties that farmers encounter.
FLOCKING TO PROTEST: Shepherds brought their animals to a rally in Paris Sunday. The country’s two main farmers’ unions wanted to highlight the difficulties that farmers encounter.
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BIGGER AND BRIGHTER: The so-called supermoon hung in the skies above San Salvador, El Salvador, Sunday. The moon appeared up to 14% larger than normal as it swung closer to Earth, reaching its closest distance early Sunday morning.
BIGGER AND BRIGHTER: The so-called supermoon hung in the skies above San Salvador, El Salvador, Sunday. The moon appeared up to 14% larger than normal as it swung closer to Earth, reaching its closest distance early Sunday morning.
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MAKING NOODLES: A worker prepared noodles at his workshop in Karachi, Pakistan.
MAKING NOODLES: A worker prepared noodles at his workshop in Karachi, Pakistan.
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HORSE PARADE: A horse reared in a crowd during a traditional parade of the San Juan festival in the Spanish town of Ciutadella, on the Balearic island of Minorca, Sunday.
HORSE PARADE: A horse reared in a crowd during a traditional parade of the San Juan festival in the Spanish town of Ciutadella, on the Balearic island of Minorca, Sunday.
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GOLD RUSH: Miners worked at a site believed to contain gold in Minna, Niger, Sunday.
GOLD RUSH: Miners worked at a site believed to contain gold in Minna, Niger, Sunday.
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HIT! Toronto Blue Jays Rajai Davis got hit by a pitch as his team won its 10th straight game Saturday, beating the Baltimore Orioles 4-2.
HIT! Toronto Blue Jays Rajai Davis got hit by a pitch as his team won its 10th straight game Saturday, beating the Baltimore Orioles 4-2.
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STUNNED: Lebanese soldiers helped injured comrades after clashes between followers of Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assir and Shiite gunmen in Sidon, Lebanon, Monday. At least 16 soldiers have been killed in two days of fighting.
STUNNED: Lebanese soldiers helped injured comrades after clashes between followers of Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assir and Shiite gunmen in Sidon, Lebanon, Monday. At least 16 soldiers have been killed in two days of fighting.
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TOPLESS PROTEST: A security guard tackled to the ground a Femen activist Tuesday in Brussels. Bare-breasted members of the feminist group Femen targeted the motorcade of Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Larayedh to protest the jailing of group members in Tunis.
TOPLESS PROTEST: A security guard tackled to the ground a Femen activist Tuesday in Brussels. Bare-breasted members of the feminist group Femen targeted the motorcade of Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Larayedh to protest the jailing of group members in Tunis.
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BROKEN GLASS: A man broke the glass of his damaged vehicle Tuesday in Sidon, Lebanon, near the mosque where extremist Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Assir preached. Fighting in Sidon erupted Sunday between soldiers and supporters of Mr. al-Assir, after months of mounting tensions between…
BROKEN GLASS: A man broke the glass of his damaged vehicle Tuesday in Sidon, Lebanon, near the mosque where extremist Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Assir preached. Fighting in Sidon erupted Sunday between soldiers and supporters of Mr. al-Assir, after months of mounting tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon, largely over the Syrian war.
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CHEERS: Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks celebrated in the locker room after his team defeated the Boston Bruins on Monday night and won their second Stanley Cup championship in four years.
CHEERS: Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks celebrated in the locker room after his team defeated the Boston Bruins on Monday night and won their second Stanley Cup championship in four years.
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UNITED: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People interns held signs as NAACP leaders spoke to reporters Tuesday in Washington, D.C., after the Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters.
UNITED: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People interns held signs as NAACP leaders spoke to reporters Tuesday in Washington, D.C., after the Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters.
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DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE: People interacted with the art installation ‘Dalston House,’ by Argentine Leandro Erlich, in London Tuesday. The replica facade of a Victorian-terraced house lying on the ground has a large mirror angled above it, giving the illusion of people hanging from it.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE: People interacted with the art installation ‘Dalston House,’ by Argentine Leandro Erlich, in London Tuesday. The replica facade of a Victorian-terraced house lying on the ground has a large mirror angled above it, giving the illusion of people hanging from it.
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RICE SEASON: A farmer wore a traditional rain covering in Jitpur village, on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal’s capital, Wednesday.
RICE SEASON: A farmer wore a traditional rain covering in Jitpur village, on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal’s capital, Wednesday.
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DECISION TIME: Michael Knaapen, left, and his husband, John Becker, embraced outside the Supreme Court Wednesday after hearing that the court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.
DECISION TIME: Michael Knaapen, left, and his husband, John Becker, embraced outside the Supreme Court Wednesday after hearing that the court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.
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HONEY, I’M HOME! Astronauts, from left, Zhang Xiaoguang, Nie Haisheng and Wang Yaping saluted after the Chinese space capsule Shenzhou 10′s descent module landed safely Wednesday in the country’s Inner Mongolia territory early Wednesday.
HONEY, I’M HOME! Astronauts, from left, Zhang Xiaoguang, Nie Haisheng and Wang Yaping saluted after the Chinese space capsule Shenzhou 10′s descent module landed safely Wednesday in the country’s Inner Mongolia territory early Wednesday.
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DAY AGAINST DRUGS: A man ran after setting ablaze 50 tons of drugs seized in recent months in eastern Tehran Wednesday, to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
DAY AGAINST DRUGS: A man ran after setting ablaze 50 tons of drugs seized in recent months in eastern Tehran Wednesday, to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
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ONE-WOMAN MARATHON: Texas Sen. Wendy Davis (D., Fort Worth) ran out the clock on a special session of the state legislature to kill a bill that would have closed nearly every abortion clinic in the nation’s second-largest state.
ONE-WOMAN MARATHON: Texas Sen. Wendy Davis (D., Fort Worth) ran out the clock on a special session of the state legislature to kill a bill that would have closed nearly every abortion clinic in the nation’s second-largest state.
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SECURED: Prospective plebes followed an order to place copies of ‘Reef Points,’ a book containing information on the U.S. Naval Academy, into their pockets at the academy’s induction day in Annapolis, Md., Thursday. More than 1,200 men and women reported for the first day.
SECURED: Prospective plebes followed an order to place copies of ‘Reef Points,’ a book containing information on the U.S. Naval Academy, into their pockets at the academy’s induction day in Annapolis, Md., Thursday. More than 1,200 men and women reported for the first day.
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PRISTINA PROTEST: Police officers were splashed with paint by demonstrators during clashes Thursday in Pristina, Kosovo, as lawmakers approved a deal on creating better ties with Serbia, which refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
PRISTINA PROTEST: Police officers were splashed with paint by demonstrators during clashes Thursday in Pristina, Kosovo, as lawmakers approved a deal on creating better ties with Serbia, which refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
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PROTESTING: A woman in Cairo’s Tahrir Square held a card that reads in Arabic, ‘Morsi, leave,’ as she watched President Mohammed Morsi’s televised speech Wednesday. An opposition coalition rejected the Islamist president’s offer for reconciliation talks and called for early…
PROTESTING: A woman in Cairo’s Tahrir Square held a card that reads in Arabic, ‘Morsi, leave,’ as she watched President Mohammed Morsi’s televised speech Wednesday. An opposition coalition rejected the Islamist president’s offer for reconciliation talks and called for early elections.
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CRAMPED QUARTERS: A train passed through a food market in Mae Klong, Thailand, Tuesday. Several times a day, shopkeepers swiftly pack up their stalls and pull back their canopies to let trains pass.
CRAMPED QUARTERS: A train passed through a food market in Mae Klong, Thailand, Tuesday. Several times a day, shopkeepers swiftly pack up their stalls and pull back their canopies to let trains pass.
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FORCEFUL SPRAY: A water cannon sprayed a student on a fence at an antigovernment protest in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday. Students have been protesting what they say is profiteering in the public-education system.
FORCEFUL SPRAY: A water cannon sprayed a student on a fence at an antigovernment protest in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday. Students have been protesting what they say is profiteering in the public-education system.
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DANCES WITH LIONS: Alexei Pinko performed with one of his lions in Kiev on Thursday. Mr. Pinko and his wife, Veronica, are animal trainers for the National Circus of Ukraine, and perform with seven lions.
DANCES WITH LIONS: Alexei Pinko performed with one of his lions in Kiev on Thursday. Mr. Pinko and his wife, Veronica, are animal trainers for the National Circus of Ukraine, and perform with seven lions.
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KEEPING VIGIL: People held candles as they gathered Friday outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital, where Nelson Mandela is being treated, in Pretoria, South Africa. Mr. Mandela, a revered champion of peace and racial equality who became South Africa’s first black, freely elected…
KEEPING VIGIL: People held candles as they gathered Friday outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital, where Nelson Mandela is being treated, in Pretoria, South Africa. Mr. Mandela, a revered champion of peace and racial equality who became South Africa’s first black, freely elected president in 1994, has been hospitalized four times since December.
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KEEPING WATCH: A worker secured a giant portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, at the top of the Ataturk Cultural Center Friday in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the epicenter of recent demonstrations.
KEEPING WATCH: A worker secured a giant portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, at the top of the Ataturk Cultural Center Friday in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the epicenter of recent demonstrations.
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FIGHTING FIRE: Firemen worked to extinguish a fire that broke out in the city hall in La Rochelle, France. The fire swept through the roof, destroying a part of the 15th-century building.
FIGHTING FIRE: Firemen worked to extinguish a fire that broke out in the city hall in La Rochelle, France. The fire swept through the roof, destroying a part of the 15th-century building.
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HOLY ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT! A man who dressed as the superhero character ‘Batman’ in order to make money by posing for pictures with tourists stood in the street in Times Square in New York Friday.
HOLY ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT! A man who dressed as the superhero character ‘Batman’ in order to make money by posing for pictures with tourists stood in the street in Times Square in New York Friday.
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See original here: Photos of the Week: June 23-28

Brazil Protests Prompts a Media Shift

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Link: Brazil Protests Prompts a Media Shift

2013年6月29日星期六

Photos of the Day: June 28

DARKNESS AND LIGHTS: Revelers watched a performance at the Arcadia area at the Glastonbury Festival in Glastonbury, England, Thursday.
DARKNESS AND LIGHTS: Revelers watched a performance at the Arcadia area at the Glastonbury Festival in Glastonbury, England, Thursday.
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WORKING TOGETHER: Members of the U.S. Navy and their Philippine counterparts launched an unmanned aerial vehicle during joint military exercises between the Philippines and the U.S. in Cavite Province, the Philippines, Friday.
WORKING TOGETHER: Members of the U.S. Navy and their Philippine counterparts launched an unmanned aerial vehicle during joint military exercises between the Philippines and the U.S. in Cavite Province, the Philippines, Friday.
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UP IN THE AIR: Members of the Italian aerobatic team Frecce Tricolori performed during the AirPower 13 air show at the Hinterstoisser air base in Zeltweg, Austria, Friday.
UP IN THE AIR: Members of the Italian aerobatic team Frecce Tricolori performed during the AirPower 13 air show at the Hinterstoisser air base in Zeltweg, Austria, Friday.
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ROCKING OUT: Rob Thomas and other members of the band Matchbox Twenty performed on stage at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto Thursday.
ROCKING OUT: Rob Thomas and other members of the band Matchbox Twenty performed on stage at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto Thursday.
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WHEN NOBODY’S WATCHING: A boy hid under a cardboard display that is part of an installation in Berlin Friday. The group ONE.org set up images of pairs of eyes trained at the Reichstag, the seat of Germany’s lower house of parliament, to draw attention to the plight of the world’s…
WHEN NOBODY’S WATCHING: A boy hid under a cardboard display that is part of an installation in Berlin Friday. The group ONE.org set up images of pairs of eyes trained at the Reichstag, the seat of Germany’s lower house of parliament, to draw attention to the plight of the world’s poor.
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STANDING UP: People took part in an antigovernment demonstration in A’ali village, Bahrain, Thursday.
STANDING UP: People took part in an antigovernment demonstration in A’ali village, Bahrain, Thursday.
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REMEMBERING GETTYSBURG: A re-enactor played the part of a Confederate in a battle demonstration Friday during commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pa. Union forces turned away a Confederate advance in the pivotal battle of the Civil War…
REMEMBERING GETTYSBURG: A re-enactor played the part of a Confederate in a battle demonstration Friday during commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pa. Union forces turned away a Confederate advance in the pivotal battle of the Civil War fought July 1-3, 1863, which was also the war’s bloodiest conflict.
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UNDERWATER WORDS: Divers held up signs saying ‘go away’ during a protest against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi held underwater at the Colored Canyon in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Friday.
UNDERWATER WORDS: Divers held up signs saying ‘go away’ during a protest against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi held underwater at the Colored Canyon in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Friday.
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HOT DAYS: Children played in water at the Red Ridge Park Thursday in Las Vegas. Families stayed past sundown to cool off in the park’s fountains after temperatures in Las Vegas climbed over 100 degrees.
HOT DAYS: Children played in water at the Red Ridge Park Thursday in Las Vegas. Families stayed past sundown to cool off in the park’s fountains after temperatures in Las Vegas climbed over 100 degrees.
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Link: Photos of the Day: June 28

July 1 Is Day for Mass, Messy Moves in Montreal

Every year thousands of Montrealers move to a new home on July 1 – a rite of passage and one big municipal headache. There’s even a film about it called “Premier Juillet, Le Film.” Here’s the trailer.

MONTREAL—To most Canadians, the first of July is a day spent celebrating Canada Day. Except in Montreal, where everybody is too busy moving.
Rooted in centuries of tradition, July 1 is the day tens of thousands of Montrealers move to new homes—an annual rite of passage for Canada’s second-biggest city.
It’s also one big municipal headache.
Moving vans clog residential streets and compete for sidewalk space. Breakdowns are common. Friends scramble to recruit able-bodied helpers. Treasure hunters roam the city, looking for furniture, appliances or other gems thrown out, or abandoned in haste.
“You have this chain reaction of disasters that if one person has a long move, four people can’t move in,” said Simon Leblanc, a sales manager for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox gaming system and veteran of four Moving Day moves. Stressed moving companies don’t like to wait around. “If you don’t want to lose your truck, you have to make some really quick decisions,” Mr. Leblanc said.
Canadian Press
In Montreal, movers manhandle appliances.

The holiday is called “premier julliet” by the province’s majority French speakers and Moving Day by Anglophones.
The frenzy began in the mid-18th century, when a requirement to move on a certain, single day was viewed as a way to save tenants from being put out on the streets in the middle of Quebec’s bitter winters.
In 1973, the Quebec government formalized July 1 as the day that annual rental agreements can begin.
These days, however, the law allows leases to begin and end any day of the year. But shaking tradition is tough. “It was good for the landlords and the tenants,” said Genevieve Trudel, a representative of the Quebec Housing Board.
Most rental agreements still start on July 1.
Movers, amateurs and professionals alike, in this city of 1.65 million, have long taken advantage of the crunch. They jack up prices for the day and require customers to book trucks up to six months in advance.
Andre Bilodeau, who worked as a mover for 12 years, recalls one recent Moving Day when four trucks were parked in the driveway of one residence. Tempers flared in the building’s elevators, and movers mixed up furniture, loading some of it onto the wrong vehicles.
“It’s why my boss wouldn’t do any building with more than four floors,” he said.

Canadian Press
Some get creative, taking matters from their own hands and onto two wheels.

Adam Vaughan is planning his move into a new one-bedroom apartment. A licensed practical nurse at a Montreal hospital, he placed a number of online ads searching for a professional mover in the past month and received quotes as high as 675 Canadian dollars ($645) for three hours of work.
He eventually found a bargain offer at C$450.
“It seems like a lot but compared to other quotes, it’s cheap,” he said. Typical moving rates during other parts of the year are much lower.
Jonathan Painchaud, owner of Bust a Move Moving, has all four of his moving trucks booked for 18 jobs on the big day. Every year he tries to organize a plan of attack—some moves have begun as early as 4:30 in the morning.
Because of the demand, he raises his hourly rates to C$139, from about C$89 in the winter. Mr. Painchaud estimates that his company takes in about 15% of its annual revenue during the first week in July.

Out-of-towners are known to get in on the action.
James Stram, from Albany, N.Y., heads to Montreal each year in his blue cargo van to help people move. Mr. Stram can earn C$500 on July 1, working 7 a.m. through 2 p.m., connecting with people responding to the ads he puts online. He says he is often tipped in beer.
“There’s always going to be big moving companies with dollies and three or four guys moving people,” Mr. Stram said. “But I think there are a lot of people doing what I’m doing now to get a few extra bucks.”
Amateur help comes with risks. One Moving Day about three years ago, Mr. Stram couldn’t fit a refrigerator through a door, so he tried to gently lower it from the emergency escape. The power cord on the appliance got snagged, and the fridge briefly dangled three stories up.
Cable, telephone companies and utilities gear up for a burst of new customers and cancellations. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Montreal says the number of abandoned animals nearly triples, from around 600 a month to approximately 1,600 throughout July.
Estimates vary, but about 67,000 households in Quebec move on July 1, a “very large” proportion of whom are in Montreal, said Patrice Lavoie, a spokesman with Hydro-Quebec, the provincial power company. It adds 80 temporary workers to meet the various demands brought on by Moving Day.
The power company’s busiest day, however, is July 2. “That’s when customers who forgot to let us know about their move get in touch,” Mr. Lavoie said.
For the past two years, employees of Swedish furniture giant Inter IKEA Centre Group A/S have driven around the city handing out moving boxes the week before the big day, part of a marketing promotion.
In the Montreal borough of Ville-Marie, a public service announcement plays for 311 callers seeking trash pickups—reminding residents that trash collectors are working longer than usual hours.
The borough hires extra workers for the days around Moving Day to patrol the city’s streets and alleyways looking for bulky objects to cart away.
It’s a field day for junk hunters and scavengers. Mr. Bilodeau, the former mover, said he has picked up televisions, keyboards and, one year, a brand-new bike.
“The sidewalks around McGill wind up looking like IKEA’s 2010 Fall catalog,” said Drew Grassby, a fourth-year student at McGill University.
One Domino’s Pizza store in the city’s trendy Plateau area hires extra staff to handle the surge in demand on the big day. The chain offers its annual “Moving Day” special—a large, two-topping pizza for C$10—about half the normal price.
“It’s the second-biggest day of the year for us, right behind the Super Bowl,” said Jillul Islam, assistant manager of the Domino’s store.
Write to David George-Cosh at david george-cosh@dowjones.com
A version of this article appeared June 29, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: July 1 Is Day for Mass, Messy Moves in Montreal.

Caught Between Rock, Hard Place in Brussels

Getty Images
A one Euro coin stands on a map of Brussels on December 9, 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

In the last three years, euro-zone governments have ceded enormous economic powers to the European Commission in Brussels. Their desperate efforts to resolve the bloc’s financial crisis have entailed hurried transfers of national sovereignty on a scale that has few precedents.
Now, with the immediate storm having passed, some governments are beginning to realize the consequences of their actions. Having bought the mostly German prescription for dealing with the crisis, they are now suffering buyers’ remorse.
The EU executive is being assailed from all sides. While Paris criticizes the commission for fueling right-wing extremism, Berlin suspects it of going easy on some of the region’s economic laggards.
It is in the middle, one senior commission figure complained this week, of two conflicting economic philosophies, one centered on Socialist-run France and the other on center-right Germany, which worries that it will end up picking up the tab for the profligacy of others.
French officials have in recent weeks turned their fire on to Brussels, rather than Berlin—even after the commission, in the opinion of some observers, stretched its own rules to allow France a two-year grace period until 2016 to meet its budget deficit target.
However, an examination of the economic powers that the commission has already gathered suggests that blowback is unsurprising. It can warn and eventually fine a country if it fails to listen to the commission’s warnings over its budgets and other economic policies, it can send missions to countries whose economic policies are seen as posing a wider threat, and publicize weaknesses that national governments would prefer to see hidden.
And it hasn’t even begun exercising all the powers it has—let alone those that it might yet get. From this fall, euro-zone member states will have to submit their budgets in advance to the commission for scrutiny before they go to national parliaments, and the commission will be able to recommend amendments. Later on, the commission could be asked to take on authority to wind down national banks—an unpleasant politically charged task that some see as a poisoned chalice.
“Countries gave up huge amounts of policy power during the crisis and only now in more normal times realize how much,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director at the Eurasia Group economic consultancy in New York.
“Agreeing to things is easy, but credibly enforcing them is and will continue to prove much more difficult.”
One reason that this is proving difficult is that the changes introduced since the crisis are almost entirely about sticks for errant governments, rather than carrots for changing policies. The German model for European monetary union has prevailed and it is one that focuses, in the European jargon, on “discipline and sanctions” rather than on “cohesion and solidarity.”
Some senior EU officials also now say there has been an excessive focus on budget issues in the response to the crisis—partly because policy makers generalized from Greece, the first crisis country, whose problems were fiscal at root. Some feel the initial focus on castigating spendthrifts deepened economic downturns and forced austerity programs on other crisis countries—Ireland, Spain and Cyprus—whose problems derived not from budgets but from their banks.
Another complaint is that the commission isn’t focused enough. One European official points out that in 2012, it made 136 so-called country-specific recommendations to improve national economic policies. Of these, only 15 were fully complied with.
While the commission argues that the recommendations encouraged many positive changes short of complete compliance, critics say that if it creates too many priorities, it risks meeting none.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based, pro-EU think tank, says the commission draws extra fire because of its contradictory roles. It is at once the political body that initiates legislation and brokers compromises among EU members—but also the technical body that polices markets and rules.
It is this technical role that has grown. “When it pronounces, say, that France may be given two further years in which to meet the 3% budget rule, is that the result of objective economic analysis or a reflection of the shifting political climate in national capitals? This ambiguity gives governments and others an excuse to criticize the commission,” Mr. Grant argued in an article published on the CER website Thursday.
There appear to be two alternatives. The commission soft-pedals on the new rule book to make itself less vulnerable to criticism from member states or it vigorously enforces its growing powers without fear or favor. The first seems likely to undermine credibility in the new regime—as did the flouting of the original euro-zone budget rules in 2003 by France and Germany. The second would probably intensify national criticism of Brussels and further erode political support for the EU.
It’s a tough dilemma for EU policy makers. More important, it is one that raises real questions about whether the further steps eroding national sovereignty, that many officials and economists believe are needed to ensure the euro zone’s long-term survival, will ever be politically acceptable.
Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared June 29, 2013, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Europeans Balk At Own Strictures.

Read the original here: Caught Between Rock, Hard Place in Brussels

The Middle-Class Revolution

Reuters
BRAZIL JUNE 22, 2013 | Demonstrators protest corruption and poor public services.

Over the past decade, Turkey and Brazil have been widely celebrated as star economic performers—emerging markets with increasing influence on the international stage. Yet, over the past three months, both countries have been paralyzed by massive demonstrations expressing deep discontent with their governments’ performance. What is going on here, and will more countries experience similar upheavals?

The theme that connects recent events in Turkey and Brazil to each other, as well as to the 2011 Arab Spring and continuing protests in China, is the rise of a new global middle class. Everywhere it has emerged, a modern middle class causes political ferment, but only rarely has it been able, on its own, to bring about lasting political change. Nothing we have seen lately in the streets of Istanbul or Rio de Janeiro suggests that these cases will be an exception.
In Turkey and Brazil, as in Tunisia and Egypt before them, political protest has been led not by the poor but by young people with higher-than-average levels of education and income. They are technology-savvy and use social media like Facebook and Twitter to broadcast information and organize demonstrations. Even when they live in countries that hold regular democratic elections, they feel alienated from the ruling political elite.

European Pressphoto Agency
TURKEY JUNE 22, 2013 | A protester holds a flag in Taksim Square in Istanbul.A

European Pressphoto Agency
TUNISIA FEB. 25, 2011 | Tunisians rally to demand the resignation of the interim government.

European Pressphoto Agency
EGYPT JUNE 28, 2013 | Egyptians opposing President Morsi hold placards reading ‘Leave.’

In the case of Turkey, they object to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s development-at-all-cost policies and authoritarian manner. In Brazil, they object to an entrenched and highly corrupt political elite that has showcased glamour projects like the World Cup and Rio Olympics while failing to provide basic services like health and education to the general public. For them, it is not enough that Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, was herself a left-wing activist jailed by the military regime during the 1970s and leader of the progressive Brazilian Workers Party. In their eyes, that party itself has been sucked into the maw of the corrupt “system,” as revealed by a recent vote-buying scandal, and is now part of the problem of ineffective and unresponsive government.

The business world has been buzzing about the rising “global middle class” for at least a decade. A 2008 Goldman Sachs report defined this group as those with incomes between $6,000 and $30,000 a year and predicted that it would grow by some two billion people by 2030. A 2012 report by the European Union Institute for Security Studies, using a broader definition of middle class, predicted that the number of people in that category would grow from 1.8 billion in 2009 to 3.2 billion in 2020 and 4.9 billion in 2030 (out of a projected global population of 8.3 billion). The bulk of this growth will occur in Asia, particularly China and India. But every region of the world will participate in the trend, including Africa, which the African Development Bank estimates already has a middle class of more than 300 million people.
Corporations are salivating at the prospect of this emerging middle class because it represents a vast pool of new consumers. Economists and business analysts tend to define middle-class status simply in monetary terms, labeling people as middle class if they fall within the middle of the income distribution for their countries, or else surpass some absolute level of consumption that raises a family above the subsistence level of the poor.
But middle-class status is better defined by education, occupation and the ownership of assets, which are far more consequential in predicting political behavior. Any number of cross-national studies, including recent Pew surveys and data from the World Values Survey at the University of Michigan, show that higher education levels correlate with people’s assigning a higher value to democracy, individual freedom and tolerance for alternative lifestyles. Middle-class people want not just security for their families but choices and opportunities for themselves. Those who have completed high school or have some years of university education are far more likely to be aware of events in other parts of the world and to be connected to people of a similar social class abroad through technology.

Families who have durable assets like a house or apartment have a much greater stake in politics, since these are things that the government could take away from them. Since the middle classes tend to be the ones who pay taxes, they have a direct interest in making government accountable. Most importantly, newly arrived members of the middle class are more likely to be spurred to action by what the late political scientist Samuel Huntington called “the gap”: that is, the failure of society to meet their rapidly rising expectations for economic and social advancement. While the poor struggle to survive from day to day, disappointed middle-class people are much more likely to engage in political activism to get their way.
This dynamic was evident in the Arab Spring, where regime-changing uprisings were led by tens of thousands of relatively well-educated young people. Both Tunisia and Egypt had produced large numbers of college graduates over the past generation. But the authoritarian governments of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak were classic crony-capitalist regimes, in which economic opportunities depended heavily on political connections. Neither country, in any event, had grown fast enough economically to provide jobs for ever-larger cohorts of young people. The result was political revolution.

None of this is a new phenomenon. The French, Bolshevik and Chinese Revolutions were all led by discontented middle-class individuals, even if their ultimate course was later affected by peasants, workers and the poor. The 1848 “Springtime of Peoples” saw virtually the whole European continent erupt in revolution, a direct product of the European middle classes’ growth over the previous decades.
While protests, uprisings and occasionally revolutions are typically led by newly arrived members of the middle class, the latter rarely succeed on their own in bringing about long-term political change. This is because the middle class seldom represents more than a minority of the society in developing countries and is itself internally divided. Unless they can form a coalition with other parts of society, their movements seldom produce enduring political change.
Thus the young protesters in Tunis or in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, having brought about the fall of their respective dictators, failed to follow up by organizing political parties that were capable of contesting nationwide elections. Students in particular are clueless about how to reach out to peasants and the working class to create a broad political coalition. By contrast, the Islamist parties—Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—had a social base in the rural population. Through years of political persecution, they had become adept at organizing their less-educated followers. The result was their triumph in the first elections held after the fall of the authoritarian regimes.
A similar fate potentially awaits the protesters in Turkey. Prime Minister Erdoğan remains popular outside of the country’s urban areas and has not hesitated to mobilize members of his own Justice and Development Party (AKP) to confront his opponents. Turkey’s middle class, moreover, is itself divided. That country’s remarkable economic growth over the past decade has been fueled in large measure by a new, pious and highly entrepreneurial middle class that has strongly supported Erdoğan’s AKP.
This social group works hard and saves its money. It exhibits many of the same virtues that the sociologist Max Weber associated with Puritan Christianity in early modern Europe, which he claimed was the basis for capitalist development there. The urban protesters in Turkey, by contrast, remain more secular and connected to the modernist values of their peers in Europe and America. Not only does this group face tough repression from a prime minister with authoritarian instincts, it faces the same difficulties in forging linkages with other social classes that have bedeviled similar movements in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.
The situation in Brazil is rather different. The protesters there will not face tough repression from President Rousseff’s administration. Rather, the challenge will be avoiding co-optation over the long term by the system’s entrenched and corrupt incumbents. Middle-class status does not mean that an individual will automatically support democracy or clean government. Indeed, a large part of Brazil’s older middle class was employed by the state sector, where it was dependent on patronage politics and state control of the economy. Middle classes there, and in Asian countries like Thailand and China, have thrown their support behind authoritarian governments when it seemed like that was the best means of securing their economic futures.

Brazil’s recent economic growth has produced a different and more entrepreneurial middle class rooted in the private sector. But this group could follow its economic self-interest in either of two directions. On the one hand, the entrepreneurial minority could serve as the basis of a middle-class coalition that seeks to reform the Brazilian political system as a whole, pushing to hold corrupt politicians accountable and to change the rules that make client-based politics possible. This is what happened in the U.S. during the Progressive Era, when a broad middle-class mobilization succeeded in rallying support for civil-service reform and an end to the 19th-century patronage system. Alternatively, members of the urban middle class could dissipate their energies in distractions like identity politics or get bought off individually by a system that offers great rewards to people who learn to play the insiders’ game.

REUTERS
Brazil’s recent economic growth has produced an entrepreneurial middle class. Above,aprotest in Rio de Janeiro on June 20.

There is no guarantee that Brazil will follow the reformist path in the wake of the protests. Much will depend on leadership. President Rousseff has a tremendous opportunity to use the uprisings as an occasion to launch a much more ambitious systemic reform. Up to now she has been very cautious in how far she was willing to push against the old system, constrained by the limitations of her own party and political coalition. But just as the 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disappointed office-seeker became the occasion for wide-ranging clean-government reforms in the U.S., so too could Brazil use the occasion of the protests to shift onto a very different course today.
The global economic growth that has taken place since the 1970s—with a quadrupling of global economic output—has reshuffled the social deck around the world. The middle classes in the so-called “emerging market” countries are larger, richer, better educated and more technologically connected than ever before.
This has huge implications for China, whose middle-class population now numbers in the hundreds of millions and constitutes perhaps a third of the total. These are the people who communicate by Sina Weibo—the Chinese Twitter—and have grown accustomed to exposing and complaining about the arrogance and duplicity of the government and Party elite. They want a freer society, though it is not clear they necessarily want one-person, one-vote democracy in the near term.
This group will come under particular stress in the coming decade as China struggles to move from middle- to high-income status. Economic growth rates have already started to slow over the past two years and will inevitably revert to a more modest level as the country’s economy matures. The industrial job machine that the regime has created since 1978 will no longer serve the aspirations of this population. It is already the case that China produces some six million to seven million new college graduates each year, whose job prospects are dimmer than those of their working-class parents. If ever there was a threatening gap between rapidly rising expectations and a disappointing reality, it will emerge in China over the next few years, with vast implications for the country’s stability.
There, as in other parts of the developing world, the rise of a new middle class underlies the phenomenon described by Moises Naím of the Carnegie Endowment as the “end of power.” The middle classes have been on the front lines of opposition to abuses of power, whether by authoritarian or democratic regimes. The challenge for them is to turn their protest movements into durable political change, expressed in the form of new institutions and policies. In Latin America, Chile has been a star performer with regard to economic growth and the effectiveness of its democratic political system. Nonetheless, recent years have seen an explosion of protests by high-school students who have pointed to the failings of the country’s public education system.
The new middle class is not just a challenge for authoritarian regimes or new democracies. No established democracy should believe it can rest on its laurels, simply because it holds elections and has leaders who do well in opinion polls. The technologically empowered middle class will be highly demanding of their politicians across the board.
The U.S. and Europe are experiencing sluggish growth and persistently high unemployment, which for young people in countries like Spain reaches 50%. In the rich world, the older generation also has failed the young by bequeathing them crushing debts. No politician in the U.S. or Europe should look down complacently on the events unfolding in the streets of Istanbul and São Paulo. It would be a grave mistake to think, “It can’t happen here.”
—Mr. Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the author of “The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.”
A version of this article appeared June 29, 2013, on page C1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Middle-ClassRevolution.

Originally posted here: The Middle-Class Revolution

Chilean Police Dismantle Student Protests

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Drug-Related Killings Drop in Mexico

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Colombian Land Deals Scrutinized

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Tapie Charged in Corruption Probe

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Spain Raises Growth Forecast

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Air Goes Out of Emerging Stocks

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Hong Kong Protest to Focus Ire on Leader

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Obamas of Cameroon Try to Get Barack's Attention

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China Raises Natural-Gas Prices

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Canadian Takes Reins at Bank of England

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Egypt Engulfed in Fresh Protests

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BY MATT BRADLEY
CAIRO—Tens of thousands of President Mohammed Morsi’s backers and opponents held competing rallies in Egyptian cities Friday, providing a preview to nationwide protests planned for Sunday to seek Mr. Morsi’s removal.
Violence in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, left at least two people dead, including one American and 143 people injured, according to Egyptian state media. Rioters set fire to offices of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-backed party in the Nile River delta. By nightfall, thousands of anti-Morsi protesters filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
The State Department identified the slain American as 21-year-old Andrew Pochter, the Associated Press reported Saturday. Mr. Pochter was …
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Snowden Poses Challenge for Russia

MOSCOW—When American Edward Snowden touched down here from Hong Kong, Russia appeared to be handed an easy opportunity to taunt the U.S. without causing a massive diplomatic rupture. Instead, Moscow may have a bigger problem on its hands.
“Why did he have to fly here?” Vladimir Lukin, the Kremlin’s human-rights envoy, told the Interfax news agency Friday. “In effect, China’s problem became our problem. Someone has created a situation that means we are the ones who have to deal with this….Here I see a serious problem.”

Snowden on the Run
U.S. authorities sought to catch Edward Snowden before he reached his next goal: political asylum in Ecuador.

Mr. Lukin’s comments came amid an increasingly pitched discussion in Russia over what to do with Mr. Snowden, the admitted National Security Agency leaker whose high-stakes Moscow layover entered a sixth day Friday with no end in sight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied a U.S. request to expel the 30-year-old fugitive from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport this past week, calling him a free man and saying the sooner he chose a final destination, “the better it will be for us and him.”
The comments made clear the Kremlin’s approach: Russia wouldn’t stop Mr. Snowden from escaping U.S. authorities but didn’t want him to stay. The U.S., however, curtailed Mr. Snowden’s options after he left Hong Kong, revoking his passport and pressuring intermediary countries on his path to Ecuador, which is considering his application for political asylum.

Both Mr. Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have emphasized that Mr. Snowden technically hasn’t crossed the Russian border because he remains in the airport’s transit zone. Otherwise, Russia would need to issue him a visa, raising the level of its cooperation in the affair.
Ecuador’s foreign minister confirmed Friday that his government has held discussions with Russia about how Mr. Snowden could leave the airport. “There are some conversations that we’ve had in the last few days” with Russia about how Mr. Snowden could leave the country, said Ricardo Patiño, declining to give further details about Mr. Snowden’s situation.
Also Friday, the former security contractor’s father acknowledged that his son broke the law, NBC News reported. “If folks want to classify him as a traitor, in fact, he has betrayed his government. But I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States,” Lonnie Snowden told NBC.
The father also said he believes his son would consider returning to the U.S. under certain conditions, including if the Justice Department promises not to hold him before trial and not subject him to a gag order, according to NBC. U.S. officials said they hadn’t received a letter from Mr. Snowden’s family.
Such a prospect would give the Kremlin a measure of hope that its “hands-off” approach could still succeed.
“We shouldn’t hinder Snowden from doing what he wants,” even going to the U.S., Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma Alexei Pushkov said. He noted that the large part of Russians view Mr. Snowden sympathetically.
Mr. Pushkov attributed Mr. Snowden’s ideas to the “liberal Hollywood culture” seen in movies such as “Enemy of the State” and “Three Days of the Condor,” where “a hero is the person who overcomes the challenges of secret, antidemocratic powers.”
“For Snowden, it could end badly,” Mr. Pushkov said. “Because all these films have a happy ending. In life, I don’t think a happy ending will come to pass.”
Both Russia and the U.S. have said they don’t want to let Mr. Snowden sabotage joint efforts to improve diplomatic relations after a year and a half of mutual hostility. With President Barack Obama ruling out any swap—the long-standing U.S.-Russian solution to such cases—and suggesting he won’t be calling Mr. Putin to address the situation, Mr. Snowden might remain in Russia for a long time.
Some Russian public figures allied with the Kremlin have started building a case for granting asylum to Mr. Snowden, who is wanted by U.S. authorities for exposing domestic surveillance operations. Some such campaigns by loyalists have in the past been used to test the waters for later Kremlin initiatives.

European Pressphoto Agency
Officials say Edward Snowden is at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Russia’s main state-owned TV channel devoted an hourlong talk show to Mr. Snowden late Thursday in which nationalist commentator Alexander Prokhanov praised him as a soldier on the side of Russia and a “weapon of the counterstrike.” One guest compared Mr. Snowden to Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist and dissident. Another said he was a symbol of the beginning of the end for the U.S.
Vyacheslav Nikonov, a political scientist and grandson of Stalinist foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, told viewers it would be a double standard to expel Mr. Snowden. “There’s never been a single case where people who betrayed Russia were handed over by the United States or any other Western country,” he said.
It isn’t clear whether Mr. Snowden would want to request asylum from Russia. A spokesman for WikiLeaks, which has said it is assisting Mr. Snowden in his asylum bid, said this past week that Mr. Snowden is focused on Ecuador.
Any request for asylum here “will be a big problem for Russia,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of Russia in Global Affairs, a foreign-relations journal. “To not give it to him, in this situation, would be indecent, and to give it to him would once again create a constant problem in relations with the U.S.”
The Kremlin may be left with few options, though. Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said it would play poorly domestically if Mr. Putin were to forsake Mr. Snowden at this point. He said: “The more nationalist constituencies in Russia would not welcome Putin changing his mind on this guy.”
—Mercedes Alvaro in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared June 29, 2013, on page A7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Kremlin’s Bet on Snowden Appears to Sour.

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At 100, the Tour de France Is Quite Happy to Forget

Paris
As Tour de France organizers gear up this weekend to launch the 100th installment of cycling’s most glamorous race, they are doing their best to avoid a delicate topic: the doping epidemic that has forced them to strip titles from the winners of nine of the last 15 tours.
In a bid to change the subject, they’re turning away from the personalities of riders to focus on two assets the tour also enjoys in abundance: breathtaking landscapes and nostalgia.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Christopher Froome was a loyal lieutenant to 2012 tour winner Bradley Wiggins.

Out now: a promotional video that shows more billowy fields and mountaintops than actual humans on bikes. This year’s starting line was moved to the postcard-ready Mediterranean island of Corsica. This year’s marketing campaign is also notable for what’s missing: The tour’s website—once a flowing repository of historical data for enthusiasts—no longer has extensive archives.
“The Tour de France is a sporting event which, indisputably, has a lyrical dimension,” says Paul Giacobbi, president of Corsica’s Executive Council.
It remains to be seen if this will be enough to disperse the clouds left by a decade of doping. It’s only been a few months since the tour’s most prolific winner, Lance Armstrong, admitted doping and was stripped of his seven victories. Earlier this week, Jan Ullrich, the only German to win the Tour, also confessed to having used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Now, a special French Parliamentary commission looking into the efficiency of anti-doping policies says it will publish information it has obtained about cyclists who allegedly doped during the Tour in the late 1990s. The data, which may incriminate about 20 riders, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, could be disclosed on July 18—on the day of the grueling Alpe d’Huez stage, one of the Tour’s most-famous mountain legs. Members of the parliamentary commission said their objective isn’t to harm the Tour’s reputation, but to help restore the sport’s ethics.
“The message is that nobody can sneak through the cracks,” said French senator Alain Néri, who is vice president of the special commission. “If you doped, sooner or later you’ll get caught by the patrol.”
Some former riders are fuming. “Someone wants to kill the Tour,” five-time winner Bernard Hinault told French radio.
The commission found out about the allegedly doped riders by comparing the analysis of about 60 urine samples collected on the 1998 and 1999 Tours and identified by code numbers with lists of corresponding riders kept at the French Sports Ministry, the people familiar with the matter said. The samples were analyzed in 2004 as part of an experiment to detect the erythropoietin drug, more widely known as EPO. Results were never made public.
One name has already leaked. According to the French daily L’Equipe, French rider Laurent Jalabert’s sample tested positive for EPO from the 1998 Tour. On Monday, Jalabert told France 2, a channel on which he was scheduled to comment on the Tour: “I can’t say it’s wrong and I can’t say it’s true. Samples from 1998 analyzed in 2004… We’re in 2013.” Jalabert, who couldn’t be reached for comment, later issued a statement saying he would not be a Tour commentator this year.
Despite the doping backdrop, the 2013 race could still produce its share of drama. Christopher Froome, a Kenyan-Briton who was a loyal lieutenant to 2012 tour winner Bradley Wiggins, has a golden opportunity: his Sky team leader is recovering from injuries and won’t ride this year. Two years after being suspended for doping and stripped of his 2010 tour title by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, Spaniard Alberto Contador is seen as a solid contender for the yellow jersey.
“Froome is the strongest man this year but Contador has served his sentence and is in good shape,” longtime cycling team manager Eric Boyer said. “I hope there’s a fight.”
Since it was first held 110 years ago (it was suspended during the war years), Le Tour has maintained its grip on fans. Even Pierre Bordry, former head of France’s anti-doping agency, said that come Saturday, he’ll be watching the race on television. “I may even go down to follow one or two stages,” he said.
—Sam Schechner contributed to this article.
Write to David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com

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Well-Wishers Pray for Mandela's Recovery

A man touched a wall covered in prayer and get-well messages outside the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, where ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated, in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 2013.
A man touched a wall covered in prayer and get-well messages outside the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, where ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated, in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 2013.
Continued

A child’s portrait of Mr. Mandela lay among flowers left outside the hospital.
A child’s portrait of Mr. Mandela lay among flowers left outside the hospital.
Continued

A woman wore earrings depicting the former South African president as she joined other people gathering to leave messages of support for him outside the hospital on June 26, 2013 in Pretoria.
A woman wore earrings depicting the former South African president as she joined other people gathering to leave messages of support for him outside the hospital on June 26, 2013 in Pretoria.
Continued

A child held up a sign in support of Mr. Mandela outside the hospital.
A child held up a sign in support of Mr. Mandela outside the hospital.
Continued

A man held up a collage of the former South African president outside the hospital.
A man held up a collage of the former South African president outside the hospital.
Continued

A child prayed in front of messages left for Nelson Mandela on June 28, 2013 in Pretoria.
A child prayed in front of messages left for Nelson Mandela on June 28, 2013 in Pretoria.
Continued

Ninety-five children released 95 white balloons after praying for Mr. Mandela to mark the upcoming of his 95th birthday outside the hospital where he is being treated for a recurring lung infection on June 27, 2013 in Pretoria.
Ninety-five children released 95 white balloons after praying for Mr. Mandela to mark the upcoming of his 95th birthday outside the hospital where he is being treated for a recurring lung infection on June 27, 2013 in Pretoria.
Continued

A group of well-wishers held candles and photos of Nelson Mandela as they prayed for his recovery outside the hospital.
A group of well-wishers held candles and photos of Nelson Mandela as they prayed for his recovery outside the hospital.
Continued

African National Congress supporters held a candlelit vigil outside the former home of former South African President Nelson Mandela on June 27, 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
African National Congress supporters held a candlelit vigil outside the former home of former South African President Nelson Mandela on June 27, 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Continued

A man sat in a pew during a prayer vigil for Nelson Mandela at St. Georges Cathedral in Cape Town on June 27, 2013.
A man sat in a pew during a prayer vigil for Nelson Mandela at St. Georges Cathedral in Cape Town on June 27, 2013.
Continued

Well-wishers sang in support of Mr. Mandela outside the hospital where he is being treated in Pretoria on June 27, 2013.
Well-wishers sang in support of Mr. Mandela outside the hospital where he is being treated in Pretoria on June 27, 2013.
Continued

Ruling party supporters and well-wishers gathered outside the hospital on June 27, 2013.
Ruling party supporters and well-wishers gathered outside the hospital on June 27, 2013.
Continued

People have continued to leave messages of support while Mr. Mandela has been in hospital. ‘Madiba’ refers to Mr. Mandela’s tribal name.
People have continued to leave messages of support while Mr. Mandela has been in hospital. ‘Madiba’ refers to Mr. Mandela’s tribal name.
Continued

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House of Illusion

Reflections of visitors to Argentine artist Leandro Erlich’s new installation, Dalston House, give the impression that people are standing on, suspended from, or scaling the building vertically.
Reflections of visitors to Argentine artist Leandro Erlich’s new installation, Dalston House, give the impression that people are standing on, suspended from, or scaling the building vertically.
Continued
The piece in northeast London lies horizontally on the ground with mirrors positioned overhead.
The piece in northeast London lies horizontally on the ground with mirrors positioned overhead.
Continued
Men appear to be sitting in a window. Mr. Erlich was commissioned by the Barbican, an arts organization, to create this three-dimensional visual illusion of a house. The detailed facade of a Victorian terraced house was designed to resemble houses that once stood on the street.
Men appear to be sitting in a window. Mr. Erlich was commissioned by the Barbican, an arts organization, to create this three-dimensional visual illusion of a house. The detailed facade of a Victorian terraced house was designed to resemble houses that once stood on the street.
Continued
The full facade was built on the ground with a large mirror above it to reflect people.
The full facade was built on the ground with a large mirror above it to reflect people.
Continued
A visitor posed with a book in one of the windows.
A visitor posed with a book in one of the windows.
Continued
The illusion is part of a summer series of events across east London. See other visitors trying out clever poses.
The illusion is part of a summer series of events across east London. See other visitors trying out clever poses.
Continued

Originally posted here: House of Illusion

2013年6月28日星期五

Rebels in Syria Move to Show Moderation

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BY INTI LANDAURO AND STACY MEICHTRY
PARIS—A top Syrian rebel leader said his forces were counting on arms shipments from the U.S. to reverse momentum in the country’s civil war and draw new recruits away from extremist groups like Jabhat al Nusra.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Brig. Gen. Mithkal Albtaish—a leader of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA—said he has recently persuaded 60 fighters to shift allegiance from al Nusra, a radical Islamist group aligned with al Qaeda, to the forces under his command.
The recruitment drive highlights a crucial part of the Syrian opposition’s strategy: Leveraging fresh support from the administration …
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Philippine Charter Comes Under New Attack

Potential TB Drug Shortfall Poses Risks

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BY SHREYA SHAH AND BETSY MCKAY
MUMBAI—India faces a potential shortage of a critical medication for drug-resistant tuberculosis that could deepen an already acute drug- shortfall-problem in the country with the highest burden of the deadly contagious disease.
Tuberculosis officials in several Indian states said this week that their stocks of kanamycin, an injectable antibiotic commonly used to treat drug-resistant TB, are running low, and an Indian government official acknowledged that the country has only a three-month supply left.
The potential shortage would be the latest of several that India is facing with its TB drugs, and is particularly worrying because sporadic supplies of medications for …
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U.S. Imposes Sanctions on North Korean Bank

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Kremlin Backtracks on Selling Assets

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European Leaders Find More Funds for Youth Jobs

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Brazil Leader Wins Support for Reforms

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Euro Zone Set to Keep Shrinking

Death Toll in West China Hits 35

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Japan Data Point to Progress on Prices

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India Oks Proposal to Boost CBI's Independence

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BOJ Deputy Says Japan Is on Track

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U.S. Bolsters African Armies in Fight Against Militants

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BY HEIDI VOGT IN NAIROBI, KENYA, AND DREW HINSHAW IN DAKAR, SENEGAL
President Barack Obama is arriving in Africa as the U.S. military footprint on the continent is growing, part of a low-profile campaign to help counter al Qaeda-linked groups threatening several African countries.
From the Senegalese coast to the South African desert to the Ugandan jungles, tens of thousands of African troops are receiving training from American soldiers. The U.S. trained more than 66,000 African troops in 2011, up 67% from the year before, according to the latest figures from the U.S. State Department.
In 2011, nearly half of Benin’s roughly 5,000 armed personnel went through some level of U.S. training. …
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Bangladesh Decries U.S. Trade Decision

Bangladesh expressed dismay at a U.S. decision to cut duty-free trade access, insisting Friday that the government has taken concrete steps to improve safety and working conditions since a factory collapse in April killed more than 1,000 garment workers.
The U.S. had suspended the trade benefits a day earlier, saying Bangladesh hasn’t moved to extend internationally recognized rights to workers.
The decision is “shocking for the factory workers,” Bangladesh’s foreign ministry declared in a statement, accusing “a section of people” in both countries of having campaigned for the cutoff.
“We’re committed to working with our U.S. counterparts and we hope this suspension will be lifted very quickly,” commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed told The Wall Street Journal. His government, he said, has taken steps to amend the labor law to allow workers to unionize freely, formed a ministerial committee to ensure factory compliance and pushed through an agreement among the government, factory owners and workers to ensure worker rights.
The suspension, due to begin in two months, is regarded as largely symbolic. It’s expected to raise U.S. import duties on goods including golf equipment, kitchen appliances and ceramics, but it would have little effect on the country’s garment industry, which does not qualify for duty-free access. U.S. imports from Bangladesh under the program in 2011 totaled only $26 million. By contrast, the garment industry’s global exports come to some $20 billion a year, with the U.S. buying about a quarter.
But experts say the U.S. decision could heighten pressure on foreign brands to continue reducing orders from Bangladesh factories. There’s also a danger that the European Union, which purchases two-thirds of Bangladesh’s apparel exports and does allow duty-free garment imports, could consider similar moves.
The decision marks a victory for U.S. labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, which has campaigned for an end to trade benefits unless Bangladesh allows internationally recognized labor rights.
The foreign-ministry statement said that while Bangladesh respects its trading partners’ choices, it’s deeply concerned about putting obstacles in the way of its flourishing trade with the U.S.
“Bangladesh believes that its partnership with the U.S.A is founded on certain core values such as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, women empowerment, freedom of expression and social justice,” it said.
Mr. Ahmed said the government has given the U.S. trade representative documents highlighting progress made in labor rights and working conditions over the years.
“‘We want to make clear the progress we have made in implementing workers’ rights in all our export industries, including garments, in the last two decades,” said Mr. Ahmed. “Working conditions in Bangladesh will not become the same as the West overnight. But we’re making progress: We’ve eliminated child labor and many of our newer factories are world class.”
The country’s clothing industry has boomed in recent years, in large part due to a minimum monthly wage of $37, significantly lower than China’s. But there has been instability, too, including a strike last year that affected about 300 factories in an industrial hub outside Dhaka for two weeks, ending only when the government stepped in with promises of better pay and job security. The death last year of labor activist Aminul Islam, whose body showed signs of torture, has added to the tense atmosphere.
Despite the high-profile accidents, the garment industry generally offers better labor standards than prevail in, for example, the jute and construction industries, said Ahsan Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute, a Dhaka-based think tank.
“There is simply no other industry that can absorb the three million workers that the garment industry employs,” he added. “In the overall context of rural poverty, working in a garments factory is a significant improvement.”
In a 2011 study by McKinsey & Co., 93% of U.S. and European suppliers surveyed said labor standards in the Bangladeshi garment industry had improved over the previous five years, though those standards varied greatly from one factory to another.

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Popularity of Videogame Grows Like a Fungus in Japan

There’s a breakout hit in the Japanese gaming world. The star? A little brown mushroom called a nameko. It’s featured in a trilogy of smartphone games called ’Nameko Saibai kit.’ WSJ’s Daisuke Wakabayashi reports.

TOKYO—In the culinary pecking order for Japanese mushrooms, the nameko, a gelatinous, light-brown, tack-size variety for the ordinary Joe, doesn’t carry the meaty versatility of a shiitake or the high-price allure of the seasonal and fragrant matsutake.

But in the world of smartphones, this slimy mushroom—often found in miso soups and soba noodles—is an unlikely videogame star. The trilogy of games entitled “Nameko Saibai Kit,” or “the kit for cultivating nameko,” is one of the most popular smartphone games since its June 2011 debut with 32 million downloads. That falls well short of Angry Birds levels of more than one billion downloads, but it is about twice the level of its nearest Japanese competitor.

The game sounds mundane but it is addictively simple. The goal is to grow and collect different (and fictitious) varieties of nameko. Harvesting—done with a swipe of the screen—more mushrooms allows users to upgrade virtual cultivation equipment such as heat lamps and humidifiers. Better equipment results in more rare types of nameko, such as the Kebab fungi (named so because of its skewer-ready shape) and Capless (no cap, only stem).

Mayumi Negishi/The Wall Street Journal
A recent event at a Tokyo toy store featured the main fungi character from a popular Japanese smartphone game about harvesting mushrooms.

The game’s sprouting popularity is the latest example of Japan’s preoccupation with the mushroom, or kinoko in Japanese. The country’s forestry agency calls mushrooms “a blessing of the forest,” while even humdrum supermarkets routinely sell a dozen different varieties of mushrooms. Certain types of fresh matsutake, or pine mushrooms, sell for as much as $800 per pound in Japan, and one of Japan’s most popular snacks—Kinokonoyama (mushroom mountain)—is a mushroom-shaped cookie with a chocolate cap.

“In Japan, even kindergartners can name several types of mushrooms. The fact that everyone is so familiar with mushrooms may contribute to their popularity,” said Yuto Ban, who helps promote the nameko game for software developer Beeworks.

Long before the nameko game, Japan’s most famous videogame character, Mario, ate mushrooms to grow larger, handled his business in the Mushroom World and chilled with his mushroom-cap wearing buddy Toad—short for Toadstool. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s legendary game designer known for creating “Super Mario Bros.,” said he loves not only eating mushrooms but enjoys how they often appear in “strange or weird” stories.

Mayumi Negishi/The Wall Street Journal
Items for sale at a recent event at a Tokyo toy store.

Takashi Murakami, a contemporary Japanese artist known for his pricey handbag collaborations with Louis Vuitton, often depicts mushrooms in his paintings and sculptures. Even in corporate marketing, Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. uses a family of cartoon mushrooms to promote its family data plans.

Because of Japan’s mountainous terrain, the Japanese are in proximity to many varieties of kinoko—translated literally as “tree’s child”—and hold a deep affection for them, says Web designer Kinoko Toyoda, a pen name she uses on a blog she writes about mushrooms in art and fashion.

Every few months, Ms. Toyoda hosts “kinoko nights”—an event that draws about 100 people to exhibit works of art depicting mushrooms or show off unusual mushroom goods such as her own prized possession: an aroma candle that gives off the scent of a morel mushroom.

“The acceptance of Nameko as a game character is because the Japanese are a mushroom-loving people,” said Ms. Toyoda, who celebrated her wedding with mushroom-shaped cake and added mushrooms to her flower arrangements.

The nameko game’s popularity was largely happenstance. Beeworks created the amorphous, bucktoothed fungi with a short stem and spindly arms and legs as a side character in “Touch Detective,” a 2006 game for the Nintendo DS. In the game, a young girl detective keeps the mushroom as a pet while solving mysteries.

When Beeworks decided to make “Touch Detective” into an iPhone game, it decided to promote the title with a simple, free app featuring the fungi character. In three weeks, the company created “Nameko Saibai Kit.” Almost instantly, the game was a hit, and its main character became a multimedia sensation.

The nameko song—which begins with the bulb-shaped mushrooms dancing under what appears to be Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night—has been watched on YouTube over 10 million times in less than a year. A promotional video for the game cracked YouTube’s top 10 most-watched videos in Japan for 2012. An illustrated encyclopedia of the different nameko characters—of which there are more than 200—was Japan’s second best-selling book in the last week of April, trailing only acclaimed author Haruki Murakami’s latest novel.

The game’s popularity has spread beyond Japan, with a following in Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong.

Beeworks has launched a nameko merchandising blitz covering 1,400 items such as a battery-powered bicycle emblazed with nameko, a fungi figurine wearing a sumo outfit, and cola-flavored nameko candy.

On a recent weekend, the sixth floor of a large toy shop in Tokyo received a nameko makeover as part of a one-month promotion. The floor was plastered with wallpaper featuring mushrooms, while the nameko song played on continuous loop. Shoppers snapped photos in front of a plastic nameko, looking over the hundreds of nameko products. “They’re so cute! I love them,” said Megumi Shinohara, 16, clutching a letter set, plastic files and a lunch box featuring an array of the mushrooms.

The popularity of the game and its characters is puzzling to some. Noboru Takayama, a nameko farmer from western Japan, said he grows the slimy mushrooms all year around and was surprised that such a game existed. More than 10 years ago, Mr. Takayama started selling a real nameko harvesting kit that comes with a pot decorated with heart-shaped logos—”to cater to girls,” he says—for about $3.

“I’ll be happy if the game can influence sales of our kits,” said Mr. Takayama. “But playing a game is different from growing real nameko.”
Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com and Mayumi Negishi at mayumi.negishi@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared June 27, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Popularity of Mushroom Videogame Grows Like a Fungus in Japan.

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