Testing: 8月 2013

2013年8月31日星期六

Photos of the Day: Aug 30

RARE LOBSTER: An extremely rare two-toned lobster was caught off the coast of Maine by Jeff Edwards, a lobsterman from Owl’s Head, Maine. Scientists say the chances of such a mutation occurring are approximately one in 50 million. The lobster is half orange and half brown.
RARE LOBSTER: An extremely rare two-toned lobster was caught off the coast of Maine by Jeff Edwards, a lobsterman from Owl’s Head, Maine. Scientists say the chances of such a mutation occurring are approximately one in 50 million. The lobster is half orange and half brown.
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OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera, right, stumbled and fell on rubble during a visit to the site of a demolition in Santiago, Chile, Friday.
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera, right, stumbled and fell on rubble during a visit to the site of a demolition in Santiago, Chile, Friday.
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BRACING FOR IMPACT: Namibia’s Vera Adrian crashed during the Women Under-23 Cross-Country final in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Friday.
BRACING FOR IMPACT: Namibia’s Vera Adrian crashed during the Women Under-23 Cross-Country final in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Friday.
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HEADLOCKED: Kelita Zupancic, in white, from Canada fought against Franciska Szabo, in blue, from Hungary at the 2013 World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
HEADLOCKED: Kelita Zupancic, in white, from Canada fought against Franciska Szabo, in blue, from Hungary at the 2013 World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
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AD PLACEMENT: A man scratched his head as he sat in front of election posters showing chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Olpe, Germany, Friday. German federal elections are held on Sept. 22.
AD PLACEMENT: A man scratched his head as he sat in front of election posters showing chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Olpe, Germany, Friday. German federal elections are held on Sept. 22.
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VALIANT EFFORT: A person used a bucket of water to fight a wildfire in Santiago de Besteiros, Portugal, Friday.
VALIANT EFFORT: A person used a bucket of water to fight a wildfire in Santiago de Besteiros, Portugal, Friday.
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GETTING LOOSE: Dancers warmed up before competing at the Cowal Highland Gathering on Friday in Dunoon, Scotland.
GETTING LOOSE: Dancers warmed up before competing at the Cowal Highland Gathering on Friday in Dunoon, Scotland.
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ALIGNMENT: A fisherman arranged fish for drying at a harbor in Chennai, India, Friday.
ALIGNMENT: A fisherman arranged fish for drying at a harbor in Chennai, India, Friday.
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GETTING TOGETHER: Motorcycle enthusiasts visited the Harley-Davidson Powertrain Operations plant during the company’s 110th anniversary celebration on Friday in Menomonee Falls, Wis.
GETTING TOGETHER: Motorcycle enthusiasts visited the Harley-Davidson Powertrain Operations plant during the company’s 110th anniversary celebration on Friday in Menomonee Falls, Wis.
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LIGHT RAY: A man looked into a shaft of intense sunlight reflected from the glass windows of the new ‘Walkie Talkie’ tower in London on Friday.
LIGHT RAY: A man looked into a shaft of intense sunlight reflected from the glass windows of the new ‘Walkie Talkie’ tower in London on Friday.
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GROUP TRAVEL: Subaru vehicles waited for export at a pier in Yokohama, Japan, Friday.
GROUP TRAVEL: Subaru vehicles waited for export at a pier in Yokohama, Japan, Friday.
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FOCUSED: A soldier stood on alert during a protest by the Jordanian Communist Party and other leftist groups against a potential American military strike against Syria, in Amman, Jordan, Friday.
FOCUSED: A soldier stood on alert during a protest by the Jordanian Communist Party and other leftist groups against a potential American military strike against Syria, in Amman, Jordan, Friday.
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SUPERVISION: Policemen, center row, kept watch as inmates waited before being released from Hoang Tien prison in Vietnam on Friday.
SUPERVISION: Policemen, center row, kept watch as inmates waited before being released from Hoang Tien prison in Vietnam on Friday.
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ROW YOUR BOAT: An man rowed his boat by buildings partially submerged by the rising River Ganges in Allahabad, India, Friday.
ROW YOUR BOAT: An man rowed his boat by buildings partially submerged by the rising River Ganges in Allahabad, India, Friday.
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COMBATANTS: A protester used a metal rod at the Israeli separation barrier during clashes with Israeli border policemen after a protest against the barrier in Bilin, West Bank, on Friday.
COMBATANTS: A protester used a metal rod at the Israeli separation barrier during clashes with Israeli border policemen after a protest against the barrier in Bilin, West Bank, on Friday.
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STANDING ALONE: A supporter of Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi held a placard on the top of a pile of debris during a protest in Cairo.
STANDING ALONE: A supporter of Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi held a placard on the top of a pile of debris during a protest in Cairo.
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The rest is here: Photos of the Day: Aug 30

Statistics Shine Little Light on Rape Rates

Recent media reports of horrific rapes in India depict a country where every woman is in danger of being assaulted at any time. Official crime statistics tell a very different story.
Last year, there were 24,923 cases of rape in India, according to the government’s official statistics. That’s about two per 100,000 Indians. The per capita rate in the U.S. is more than 13 times higher.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Indian protesters holding placards as they take part in a rally in Lucknow in December after the death of a gang-rape victim from New Delhi.

According to criminologists, these surprising numbers are among many that suggest a need for, well, better numbers. Official figures include only crimes reported to police. What criminologists call the “dark figure” of unreported crime isn’t captured, and those missing incidents can greatly outnumber reported ones, especially for rape. The rate of underreporting can also vary sharply by country. And a nation that makes headway in encouraging more victims to come forward will appear, in its official stats, to have a worsening rape problem.
“Comparing countries can be very misleading, particularly for a crime like rape,” said Angela Me, chief of the Vienna-based research and trend-analysis branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Murder is easier to analyze, she said, because “it is hard to cover up homicide.”

Criminologists have long been aware of the need to supplement official stats. The usual method is to survey people about crimes they’ve experienced. Such surveys typically yield much higher numbers. But they can be very expensive.
And two surveys can yield very different results depending on how they are conducted. An annual survey by the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, which uses the word “rape” in asking respondents if they have been the victims of rape, found nearly 250,000 rapes or sexual assaults in 2011. A 2010 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in which interviewers described scenarios of sex without consent or where consent wasn’t possible, and asked respondents if they had experienced any, found that 1.3 million women were raped over the prior 12 months. The numbers from the surveys dwarf the 83,425 rapes reported to police in 2011, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The BJS is examining whether its approach to sensitive topics such as rape is the right one. It plans two tests next year of alternative ways of fielding the survey, by telephone or having people enter answers directly on a computer. Separately, a panel of statisticians and criminologists the BJS convened to advise on tweaking its approach is expected to report its recommendations in October.
Ronet Bachman, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, Newark, who submitted a paper to the panel reviewing the history of U.S. rape surveys, lauds the CDC’s approach and advises the BJS to adopt a more thorough set of questions on sexual crime. But she acknowledges many hurdles to doing so: the increased cost; the BJS’s need to measure all crime, not just rape; and the sensitivity of asking detailed sexual questions in a survey including children as young as 12. Also, any big changes would make it difficult to compare results with prior surveys.
Allen J. Beck, a senior statistical adviser at the BJS, said the CDC count is problematic as an annual tally because of what researchers call telescoping: Respondents might include traumatic events that happened over a year ago because of the power of their memories of those incidents. The BJS seeks to avoid this by interviewing a panel of households for three years, and asking every six months about incidents that have happened since the last interview. The thinking is that if respondents have already told researchers about an event, they will remember.
James Lynch, a University of Maryland criminologist and former BJS director, said he commissioned the panel because he was tired of the criminal-justice and public-health communities “spitting at each other.” He added, “I wanted a fair appraisal of the two schools of thought on the measurement of this crime and some reasonable amalgam of the two approaches that would be better than each individually.”
Despite the discrepancies, U.S. researchers have an advantage over those in countries where survey data are scarce. India has never had a nationwide survey asking people if they have been victims of rape or sexual assault, said Akhilesh Kumar, chief statistical officer at India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Without one, he said, “I am very much limited.”
It’s likely that a smaller proportion of rapes in India are reported to police than in the U.S. Local Indian surveys in the past 25 years have found that 1% to 4% of women in some areas reported having been raped or sexually assaulted in the past year—50 to 200 times greater than official rates.
Albeena Shakil, a women’s-rights advocate who teaches at Bharati College in New Delhi, ticked off reasons Indian women wouldn’t go to police after being raped, including the potential stigma and low rates of conviction of alleged rapists. “One does not have to be a statistician” to be aware of these reasons, Dr. Shakil said.
Sweden, meanwhile, has one of the highest rates of rape reported to the U.N., about 35 times India’s rate. “This doesn’t mean Sweden has more rape than other countries,” said Dr. Me, of the U.N. Swedes, she said, “have a very high level of consciousness about what is rape and [that] they need to report it.”
—Preetika Rana contributed to this column. —Learn more about this topic at WSJ.com/NumbersGuy. Email numbersguy@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 30, 2013, on page A2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Statistics Shine Little Light on Rape Rates.

Read the original: Statistics Shine Little Light on Rape Rates

Poet Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate, Dies

Irish poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995 and one of the 20th century’s greatest poets, has died at age 74. Watch a recording of Mr. Heaney giving a reading of his poem, "Digging", at Villanova University in April 2010.

LONDON—Seamus Heaney, one of the 20th-century’s greatest poets and a Nobel laureate, was loved by critics and everyday readers alike. He was so admired in Ireland that locals referred to him as Famous Seamus.
Mr. Heaney died Friday in a Dublin hospital after a short illness, according to a statement from his publisher, Faber & Faber. He was 74.

Associated Press
Seamus Heaney is seen speaking during a rehearsal for the Northern Irish national Holocaust commemoration in this 1994 file photo.

A Poet for Ireland: Seamus Heaney
A timeline of the poet’s life and work.

The most acclaimed Irish poet since William Butler Yeats, Mr. Heaney’s work often focused on everyday life in his homeland of Northern Ireland, “its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural culture and language overrun by English rule,” according to the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine.
The Nobel committee praised his poems for their “lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past” upon awarding Mr. Heaney the literature prize in 1995.
“For us, Seamus Heaney was the keeper of language, our codes, our essence as a people,” Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said. “We are blessed to call Seamus Heaney our own and thankful for the gift of him in our national life. He belongs with Joyce, Yeats, Shaw and Beckett in the pantheon of our greatest literary exponents.”
Mr. Heaney was born in 1939 on a farm in Castledawson in Northern Ireland, an Irish Catholic in a mostly Protestant part of the U.K.
While studying English at Queen’s University in Belfast, he was inspired to try his hand at poetry after reading Ted Hughes, Patrick Kavanagh and Robert Frost.
The poet’s first book, “Death of a Naturalist,” published in 1966, begins with “Digging,” which would become one of his most famous poems. Describing the image of Mr. Heaney’s father digging in the earth, the poem attempts to reconcile the poet’s own profession with his ancestors’ agrarian past:
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
He resigned his post as a lecturer at Queen’s University and moved his family south to Dublin after the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972, when unarmed civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland were shot by British soldiers.
Over the years he offered various explanations for the move, according to the book “Seamus Heaney: The Making of a Poet,” by Michael Parker.
He was determined to pursue a career as a poet, and wanted to escape the high tax rates in the North, according to the book. Mr. Heaney also offered political explanations, saying Belfast was “not a good place to bring up children,” and that he didn’t want his presence to be used “to bolster a state whose legitimacy he denied,” according to the book.
The Protestant Telegraph rejoiced at the departure of what it called a “papist propagandist,” while the Irish Times in Dublin celebrated his arrival with the headline “Ulster Poet Moves South.”
Mr. Heaney was professor of poetry at Oxford University from 1989 to 1994. Starting in 1985 he held various posts at Harvard University, including visiting professor and poet in residence.
Friends and colleagues recall him as brilliant, witty, companionable and humble.
Don Share, now the editor of Poetry magazine, remembers a surprise visit from the poet when he started work as Harvard’s curator of poetry in 2000.
“I wasn’t a big deal or anything,” Mr. Share recalls. So he was shocked to find Mr. Heaney sitting in a chair outside his office on his first day of work.
Mr. Heaney said he was “reporting for duty, because somewhere buried in the fine print it said one of his roles was to be an adviser to the curator of poetry,” Mr. Share says. “He was probably one of the three or four most famous living writers at the time. I was amazed.”
Mr. Share compares Mr. Heaney to Mr. Frost, the American poet, for his ability to “talk to anybody.”
“He could talk to great crowds or to individual people, not only as a poet but as a fellow sufferer,” Mr. Share says. When Mr. Heaney held readings in Cambridge, Mass., “there’d be a line out the door,” he adds.
Ciaran Carson, a poet and director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, cites a work from Mr. Heaney’s most recent collection, “Human Chain,” as among his favorites.
At the end of the poem, “A Kite for Aibhin,” the kite string breaks: “The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.”
“Somehow, he’s like that now,” Mr. Carson says of Mr. Heaney. “He’s up in the air now but still hovering over us.”
—Lee Watkins and Eamon Quinn contributed to this article.
Write to Jeanne Whalen at jeanne.whalen@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 30, 2013, on page A9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Irish Poet Exalted ‘Everyday Miracles’.

Read the original post: Poet Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate, Dies

U.K. Data Brightens Outlook

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India Economic Growth Slows

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Brazil's Growth Picks Up Pace

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South Africa Worried About Rand's Fall

U.S. Makes Case for Strikes as Military Builds in Mideast

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Syria’s government for a chemical weapons attack with ‘high confidence’ and said it was ‘highly unlikely’ the outrage was a ruse plotted by rebels.

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration made public its case that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical-weapons attack outside Damascus, bracing Americans for potential strikes in the coming days.

President Barack Obama said he hasn’t made a decision on military strikes on Syria, even as U.S. forces continued a buildup in the Middle East on Friday and the White House took the rare step of releasing a detailed U.S. intelligence assessment.

The U.S. findings, based on intercepted communications, satellite images and human spying, were released to underpin Mr. Obama’s assertions that the Assad regime was responsible for the attack, which according to the U.S. conclusions killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 children.

“I am very clear that the world generally is war-weary,” Mr. Obama said on Friday. “The American people understandably want us to be focused on the business of rebuilding our economy here and putting people back to work. And I assure you nobody ends up being more war-weary than me.”

Secretary of State John Kerry discusses the circumstances surrounding the alleged chemical-weapons attack in Syria.

Mr. Obama continued seeking international support, speaking Friday afternoon with French President François Hollande, who said—the morning after the possibility of British military help was quashed by a parliamentary vote—that his country was ready to respond.

Timeline: Punitive Strikes
U.S. military action against Syria likely would join a growing list of instances in which the U.S. has fired Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Some of the president’s critics in Washington continued to demand more information. “If the president believes this information makes a military response imperative, it is his responsibility to explain to Congress and the American people the objectives, strategy, and legal basis for any potential action,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio).

Amid prospects of a new U.S. military front in the Middle East, a U.S. Marines amphibious assault ship joined five American destroyers armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles in the eastern Mediterranean.

The fifth destroyer arrived this week and the Marines vessel carries helicopters useful for evacuations, while U.S. diplomatic officials prepared to secure embassies in the region.

Top Syrian Defectors
See some high-profile defections that have hit the Syrian regime.
Syrian ambassador to Iraq Nawaf Fares announces his resignation in a video statement Wednesday, becoming the first serving ambassador to defect.
In early July, Manaf Tlass, a commander in the elite Republican Guard military unit and a longtime friend of Syria’s president, leaves the country to join family members in France.
In June, a Syrian fighter pilot is granted political asylum by Jordan after landing his jet at a military air base in the kingdom.
In March, Abdo Hussameldin, a deputy in Syria’s oil ministry, becomes the highest-ranking civilian official to join the opposition and urged his countrymen to “abandon this sinking ship” as the nation spiraled toward civil war.
Also in March, Turkish officials say that two Syrian generals, a colonel and two sergeants have defected from the army and crossed into Turkey.
Brig. Gen. Mostafa Ahmad al-Sheik flees to Turkey in January 2012. He was the highest ranking officer to bolt.
Also in January, Imad Ghalioun, a member of Syria’s parliament, leaves the country to join the opposition, saying the Syrian people are suffering sweeping human rights violations.
In late August 2011, Adnan Bakkour, the attorney general of the central city of Hama, appears in a video announcing he has defected.
Source: WSJ research

Secretary of State John Kerry made a public argument on Friday for a forceful American response against Syria.

Mr. Kerry cited the U.S. intelligence assessment, saying U.S. officials have “high confidence” the Assad regime deployed chemical weapons against civilians on Aug. 21 and attempted to destroy the evidence.

A high-confidence assessment is the strongest position that intelligence analysts can take short of “confirmation,” the report says.

The report, which tracks the alleged attack from its planning stages to its aftermath, cites evidence that officials said directly demonstrates regime culpability.

Officials didn’t release all of the intelligence that they said backs up the assessment. Officials were still working to close “gaps in our understanding” of what happened, the report said.

The assessment, released by the White House, represents the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, and officials said all weighed in at high confidence.

Syria in the Spotlight
Track the latest events in a map, see the key players and a chronology of the unrest.

It cited intercepted communications involving a senior Syrian government official “intimately familiar” with the attack, in which he confirms that the regime used chemical weapons, and raised concerns about the United Nations inspectors obtaining evidence.

“Regime officials were witting and directed the attack,” the assessment concludes.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the evidence in a statement on Friday night. “Mr. Kerry relied on old tales propagated by the terrorists more than a week ago, with all the fabrications and lies,” it said, using a regime term for the rebel opposition. “We remind the world of the fabricated lies of Colin Powell before the invasion of Iraq.”

Some U.S. intelligence veterans said on Friday that the unclassified presentation of the intelligence assessment appeared solid, in contrast to errant 2003 findings on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

“This is a pretty strong assessment,” said John McLaughlin, who served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2000 to 2004. “The intelligence community does not say ‘high confidence’ about something unless they have really chewed it over.”

The four-page unclassified assessment, which relies in part on reports from hospitals and social media, showed a toll of death and injury that Mr. Kerry called “the indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” of chemical weapons.

“The primary question is really no longer ‘What do we know?’” Mr. Kerry said.

“The question is: ‘What are we—we collectively—what are we in the world going to do about it?’”

Mr. Kerry, who characterized the attack as a crime against humanity, said the U.S. would continue talking to allies and Congress, but would make its own decisions on its own timeline.

The White House has said Mr. Obama is willing to act unilaterally if necessary, although France’s participation would ease the need for the U.S. to go it alone.

Officials explaining the intelligence findings avoided saying Mr. Assad personally ordered the attack. Instead, they placed the blame on regime officials.

The administration took an unusual step in disclosing it had obtained intercepted communications, which are considered sensitive because they could reveal sources and methods. The disclosure underscored how aggressively the administration is seeking to press its case for military action.

It also indicated the administration is trying to avoid accusations that it is relying on indefinite intelligence sources as in 2003.

Policy makers don’t make decisions based solely on intelligence, but use the analysis to understand the risks of a particular action, said Thomas Fingar, a former longtime intelligence official.

“The intelligence community doesn’t drive this process,” he said. “It informs decision makers. It’s the policy guys who decide whether the evidence is strong enough.”

The White House has made clear the goal of military action in Syria isn’t regime change, although Mr. Obama has repeatedly said Mr. Assad should step down. Administration officials have also stepped up efforts to make clear that action in Syria would be limited and distinct from the U.S. missions in Iraq or Afghanistan—the two longest wars in U.S. history, which became deeply unpopular—and the intervention in Libya in 2011.
—Sam Dagher in Damascus, Syria and Adam Entous in Washington contributed this article.
Write to Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com, Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com and Jared A. Favole at jared.favole@dowjones.com

Original post: U.S. Makes Case for Strikes as Military Builds in Mideast

U.K.'s International Clout Questioned

LONDON—British Prime Minister David Cameron’s failure to secure parliamentary support for military action in Syria unleashed a national soul-searching over the U.K.’s role on the world stage and its ties to the country’s closest ally, the U.S.
Mr. Cameron suffered one of the biggest foreign-policy defeats by a British prime minister in modern times when he miscalculated his ability to win lawmakers’ support for military intervention in Syria. Parliament voted late Thursday against a government motion on the principle of intervening in Syria, where Britain and other Western governments have said President Bashar al-Assad’s regime carried out a deadly chemical-weapons attack on civilians on August 21 that killed hundreds of people.

U.K. Parliament’s vote against action in Syria makes it more difficult for President Obama to convince the public of the need for it. Also, in the U.S., Congress is likely unable to block U.S. action. Cassell Bryan-Low and Peter Landers report. Photo: Getty Images.

The defeat kicked the door open to a debate about whether it marks the dawn of an era of isolationism for Britain. Many foreign policy experts say that is unlikely, but some say it could be a watershed in a shift to a less interventionist British foreign policy, as a result of weariness in the British public of involvement in conflict in the Middle East.
“We may see the U.K. returning to a level of participation of intervention significantly less than it has been in the past couple of decades,” said Malcolm Chalmers, director of research at London think tank Royal United Services Institute and who has served as an adviser to two Labour foreign secretaries.
But some political watchers attribute the vote outcome at least partly to Mr. Cameron’s handling of the process. Some politicians—including from his own Conservative Party—say he was premature in going to Parliament and should have waited until he could make a clearer-cut case that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons.
Mr. Cameron said he regretted that he’d been unable to build a political consensus, and reiterated that the U.K. now won’t take part in military action. Speaking in a broadcast television interview Friday, he said a “robust response” was still needed to the alleged use of chemical weapons and that the U.K. would continue to pursue diplomatic channels.
U.S. President Barack Obama during a call Friday with Mr. Cameron said he appreciated the prime minister’s situation and that he hadn’t yet taken a decision on the U.S. response, according to Downing Street.
“The president stressed his appreciation of his strong friendship with the prime minister,” Downing Street said in a statement. “They agreed that their co-operation on international issues would continue in the future and both reiterated their determination to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict by bringing all sides together.”

2013年8月30日星期五

Photos of the Day: Aug. 29

CRASH SURVIVOR: Valentine Adhiambo sat on a bed waiting to be treated at the Narok District Hospital in Narok, Kenya, Thursday. A bus carrying some 70 people crashed after the driver lost control, killing 41 people and injuring more than 33 people, according to local media reports.
CRASH SURVIVOR: Valentine Adhiambo sat on a bed waiting to be treated at the Narok District Hospital in Narok, Kenya, Thursday. A bus carrying some 70 people crashed after the driver lost control, killing 41 people and injuring more than 33 people, according to local media reports.
Continued

THREE’S COMPANY: Girls looked from behind a curtain at their family’s home at al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Thursday.
THREE’S COMPANY: Girls looked from behind a curtain at their family’s home at al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Thursday.
Continued

TANGLED: U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center, clasped hands with Vietnam’s Defense Minister Gen. Phung Quang Thanh, right, and Thailand’s Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Yuthasak Sasiprapha before the Asean Defense Ministers’ Meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Thursday.
TANGLED: U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center, clasped hands with Vietnam’s Defense Minister Gen. Phung Quang Thanh, right, and Thailand’s Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Yuthasak Sasiprapha before the Asean Defense Ministers’ Meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Thursday.
Continued

ALL FALL DOWN: Devotees tumbled as they tried to form a human pyramid to break a clay pot containing butter during celebrations of Janmashtami in Mumbai on Thursday. Janmashtami marks the birthday of the Hindu Lord Krishna.
ALL FALL DOWN: Devotees tumbled as they tried to form a human pyramid to break a clay pot containing butter during celebrations of Janmashtami in Mumbai on Thursday. Janmashtami marks the birthday of the Hindu Lord Krishna.
Continued

GEARING UP: U.N. chemical weapons experts prepared themselves before collecting samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus, Syria, Thursday.
GEARING UP: U.N. chemical weapons experts prepared themselves before collecting samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus, Syria, Thursday.
Continued

FULLY STOCKED: A ball runner waited during the second round of the 2013 U.S. Open tennis tournament on Thursday in New York.
FULLY STOCKED: A ball runner waited during the second round of the 2013 U.S. Open tennis tournament on Thursday in New York.
Continued

SNAKE SHOW: A man displayed a variety of rescued snakes at their shelter in the village of Hathijan, India, Thursday. The reptiles will eventually be released into the wild.
SNAKE SHOW: A man displayed a variety of rescued snakes at their shelter in the village of Hathijan, India, Thursday. The reptiles will eventually be released into the wild.
Continued

IN DEMAND: People worked at the Shalon gas-mask factory in Kiryat Gat, Israel, Thursday. Israeli police say thousands of Israelis are crowding gas-mask distribution facilities, readying for a potential conflict in Syria.
IN DEMAND: People worked at the Shalon gas-mask factory in Kiryat Gat, Israel, Thursday. Israeli police say thousands of Israelis are crowding gas-mask distribution facilities, readying for a potential conflict in Syria.
Continued

AUDIENCE: Ford Motor Co. workers watched a ceremony to officially start production of the 2014 Ford Fusion vehicle at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Flat Rock, Mich., Thursday.
AUDIENCE: Ford Motor Co. workers watched a ceremony to officially start production of the 2014 Ford Fusion vehicle at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Flat Rock, Mich., Thursday.
Continued

ROTATION: Aliya Asymova of Kazakhstan competed in the women’s individual hoop qualification during the 32nd Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday.
ROTATION: Aliya Asymova of Kazakhstan competed in the women’s individual hoop qualification during the 32nd Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday.
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DESERT GATHERING: An aerial photo was taken of the Burning Man 2013 arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada on Thursday.
DESERT GATHERING: An aerial photo was taken of the Burning Man 2013 arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada on Thursday.
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FRONT-ROW SEAT: A firefighter looked at a forest fire in the Caramulo mountains of Portugal on Wednesday.
FRONT-ROW SEAT: A firefighter looked at a forest fire in the Caramulo mountains of Portugal on Wednesday.
Continued

LIFT A FINGER: Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the House of Commons in London on Thursday. Mr. Cameron said it was ‘unthinkable’ that Britain would launch military action against Syria to punish and deter it from chemical weapons use if there was strong opposition at…
LIFT A FINGER: Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the House of Commons in London on Thursday. Mr. Cameron said it was ‘unthinkable’ that Britain would launch military action against Syria to punish and deter it from chemical weapons use if there was strong opposition at the United Nations Security Council.
Continued

See the original post here: Photos of the Day: Aug. 29

2013年8月29日星期四

Photos of the Day: Aug. 28

KISS THE GROUND: Ethiopians kissed the ground after landing at Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv Wednesday. The Jewish Agency said 450 people arrived, completing the final large airlift of Falash Mura, a community whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Christianity under duress.
KISS THE GROUND: Ethiopians kissed the ground after landing at Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv Wednesday. The Jewish Agency said 450 people arrived, completing the final large airlift of Falash Mura, a community whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Christianity under duress.
Continued

PAY TO PLAY: Revelers celebrated at the annual Tomatina festival in Bunol, Spain, Wednesday. About 20,000 people pelted each other with tons of tomatoes, but the debt-burdened town charged participants an entry fee of $13 for the first time this year. Locals didn’t have to pay.
PAY TO PLAY: Revelers celebrated at the annual Tomatina festival in Bunol, Spain, Wednesday. About 20,000 people pelted each other with tons of tomatoes, but the debt-burdened town charged participants an entry fee of $13 for the first time this year. Locals didn’t have to pay.
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CASTING A NET: A fisherman pulled his net from a lagoon in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, Wednesday.
CASTING A NET: A fisherman pulled his net from a lagoon in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, Wednesday.
Continued

AT A LOTUS FARM: Usa Mahmueangbon picked lotus flowers at her family’s lotus farm in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, Wednesday. She and her two sisters run the farm, which their deceased father started 30 years ago.
AT A LOTUS FARM: Usa Mahmueangbon picked lotus flowers at her family’s lotus farm in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, Wednesday. She and her two sisters run the farm, which their deceased father started 30 years ago.
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FLEEING: LaRue Montgomery carried his 2-year-old niece, Brianna, and his dog out of his house as a grass fire threatened homes in Fairfield, Calif., Tuesday. About 50 people fled after the roadside fire spread, destroying five homes and damaging 10 others.
FLEEING: LaRue Montgomery carried his 2-year-old niece, Brianna, and his dog out of his house as a grass fire threatened homes in Fairfield, Calif., Tuesday. About 50 people fled after the roadside fire spread, destroying five homes and damaging 10 others.
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LIGHTHEARTED: A woman and others celebrated the Janmasthami festival at the Krishna Temple in Nepal Wednesday. The festival marks the anniversary of lord Krishna’s birth.
LIGHTHEARTED: A woman and others celebrated the Janmasthami festival at the Krishna Temple in Nepal Wednesday. The festival marks the anniversary of lord Krishna’s birth.
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BY HEADLAMP: A worker picked Sauvignon Blanc grapes at Ehlers Estate winery in St. Helena, Calif., Wednesday.
BY HEADLAMP: A worker picked Sauvignon Blanc grapes at Ehlers Estate winery in St. Helena, Calif., Wednesday.
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QUITTING TIME: A farmer left a paddy field for the day on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India, Wednesday.
QUITTING TIME: A farmer left a paddy field for the day on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India, Wednesday.
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FIRE FLIES: Civil Defense and forest brigade members worked at the site of a wildfire near La Coruña, Spain, Wednesday.
FIRE FLIES: Civil Defense and forest brigade members worked at the site of a wildfire near La Coruña, Spain, Wednesday.
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SAVED: Rescue personnel administered oxygen to an injured man, center, trapped in the debris of one of two residential buildings that collapsed in Vadodara, India, Wednesday, killing at least 11 people. The local government constructed the buildings more than 10 years ago to house…
SAVED: Rescue personnel administered oxygen to an injured man, center, trapped in the debris of one of two residential buildings that collapsed in Vadodara, India, Wednesday, killing at least 11 people. The local government constructed the buildings more than 10 years ago to house the poor.
Continued

GETTING ALONG: Farmers gave police cheese and sugar water during a protest in La Calera, Colombia, Wednesday. People have been demonstrating against President Juan Manuel Santos’s agriculture and economic policies, which farmers say leave them unable to turn a profit.
GETTING ALONG: Farmers gave police cheese and sugar water during a protest in La Calera, Colombia, Wednesday. People have been demonstrating against President Juan Manuel Santos’s agriculture and economic policies, which farmers say leave them unable to turn a profit.
Continued

LIGHTING CANDLES: Believers lighted candles during a religious service marking the day of the Virgin Mary at Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia, Thursday.
LIGHTING CANDLES: Believers lighted candles during a religious service marking the day of the Virgin Mary at Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia, Thursday.
Continued

HEIGHTENED SENSES: Blind children played in water during Janmashtami celebrations at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind in Mumbai Wednesday.
HEIGHTENED SENSES: Blind children played in water during Janmashtami celebrations at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind in Mumbai Wednesday.
Continued

PERP WALK: Police officers escorted suspects, their heads covered in black hoods, Wednesday in Mumbai as they exited the Shakti Mills compound, where a female photojournalist was raped.
PERP WALK: Police officers escorted suspects, their heads covered in black hoods, Wednesday in Mumbai as they exited the Shakti Mills compound, where a female photojournalist was raped.
Continued

See the article here: Photos of the Day: Aug. 28

Finns Are in Bad Humor as Taxman Melts Ice Cream Man

ESPOO, Finland—Jannica Hartikainen recently had to have a pretty difficult chat with her 5-year-old daughter, Ciara, who somehow needed to understand that the powder-blue ice-cream truck that has long roamed the neighborhood to the tune of a happy jingle was going away.
“She almost shed tears,” Ms. Hartikainen said, standing on the side of a road while waiting for the ice-cream truck with Ciara and her other child, a 3-year-old son, earlier this month. “She asked me ‘Is this really going to be the last time?’ ”

After decades of delivering frozen treats, Finland’s ice cream trucks will go out of business after this summer. A new excise tax on sweets has driven prices up 60 percent. Video by WSJ’s Ellen Jervell.

The sad answer for Ciara and a nation of ice-cream lovers like her was yes, ice-cream trucks are being taken off the streets. Nestlé SA, which along with Unilever dominates the Finnish ice-cream market, pulled the plug on the dozens of ice-cream trucks that have operated here since 1993.
Why? It’s complicated, but a big reason is taxes aimed at people with a sweet tooth. While those who hated the sound of ice-cream trucks are applauding the silence, many of the nation’s five million people are mourning the loss of an essential rite of summer.
Finland, one of the few members of the euro zone with a AAA credit rating, entered the currency bloc’s economic crisis with sound public finances in 2009. But since then it has seen its fiscal position deteriorate. To raise new revenue, lawmakers imposed an excise tax on sugary goodies like soda, candy and ice cream in 2011, meaning shoppers pay the equivalent of about 60 cents extra per pound of ice cream they buy.
Ice-Cream Truck

In the two years the tax has been in effect, per capita consumption of ice cream has fallen below about three gallons, a decrease of 20% from its pretax level, Sakari Kotka, general manager for Nestlé’s Finland operations said. Finland traditionally ranks in the top 10 of ice-cream eaters per capita.
The tax doomed a business that was already melting due to tough conditions. Unlike ice-cream trucks in many parts of the world, Finland’s delivery agents sold most of the sweets in boxes or bulk rather than individually.

Ellen Jervell/The Wall Street Journal
Kalle Nordstrom, who drove a truck since 2009, made his final rounds earlier this month. The business has been shut down.

Finland is sparsely populated, so ice-cream trucks often had to cover vast expanses of land in order to reach a critical mass of buyers.
And, while Finns love their ice cream, selling ice cream in Finland is a lumpy business due to the Nordic country’s long winters and short summers. There is steady base demand for ice cream year around, but summer is the key season. If the sun shines, sales can be breakneck. If it rains, vendors are left with a lot of unsold ice cream in their freezers.
Mr. Kotka said trucks simply weren’t profitable anymore. Nestlé owned the ice-cream truck brand and supplied ice cream to the trucks, which were operated by independent entrepreneurs under a franchising agreement.
Ice-cream truck lovers aren’t the only ones out of luck.
Kalle Nordstrom, whose truck serviced the Hartikainens’s neighborhood on Thursdays and several like it throughout the week, is feeling the pain. Driving an ice-cream truck since 2009, he was a natural at his job, often switching his language to Swedish, Finland’s other official language, when dealing with the Swedish-speaking minority of Finns.
While making his final rounds in a Mercedes-Benz ice-cream truck, Mr. Nordstrom fell behind schedule as well-wishers expressed appreciation or received special favors. Ciara, the 5-year-old, was allowed to climb into the cabin and press the button on a compact disc player that was responsible for emitting the jingle announcing the truck’s arrival.

Ellen Jervell/The Wall Street Journal
Luca Juppo, 9, and Erno Leppanen, 9, say ice cream from the ice-cream truck is the best there is.

Mr. Nordstrom had developed into a fan favorite in these neighborhoods.

“My boys were always disappointed if some other driver was covering for him,” Heidi Kaarresalo, a mother of two boys, said. One customer called Mr. Nordstrom during his rounds to make sure he was coming, and another had coordinated her 30-mile commute from Helsinki so that she could purchase one last time a household favorite: toffee ice cream not available anywhere else.
In recent years, delivery trucks have accounted for less than 5% of the total amount of ice cream sold in Finland.
While many will miss the trucks, there are opponents happy to see the trucks go because they just hated the chime. They argue the song was a pollutant to people who worked at home or were late-shift workers trying to sleep during the day.
“Even priests were horrified when the trucks playing the chime passed cemeteries where funeral services were in progress,” said Jouko Saari, a conductor and classical musician by profession. Mr. Saari calls the chime banal. “It is not music. It is pressure waves like electronically amplified rock.”
Disdain for it triggered letters to the editor and complaints to various authorities. Those irritated by the sound failed to win a nationwide ban or restrictions, but Mr. Saari scored a partial victory when local authorities in his home city of Lahti set curbs on the chime’s use in 2004.
The debate over the ice-cream truck sound is an epic Nordic battle, dating back to the late 1960s when Swedes started using vehicles to sell ice cream in the streets using a jingle to announce their arrival. Home freezers were becoming widespread in Sweden at the time, so ice cream could be stored at home and trucks made the process easier.
The trucks finally showed up in Finland in 1993. Over the years, the company owning the nation’s fleet of vehicles has changed hands, with Nestlé buying it in 2002.
Fans, like Tomi Lindroos in Espoo, are hopeful the ice-cream trucks will return one day. “You hear a nice tune from your balcony, and it’s always exciting when you hear that tune and you’re like ‘oh yes, ice cream,’ ” he said. “Maybe they will come back some other time.”
Others, like Krister Sanmark, have one request if they do come back: “I hope they choose a more bearable chime compared with the one they had.”
Write to Juhana Rossi at juhana.rossi@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 28, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Bad Humor: Taxman Melts Ice Cream Man.

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Skidding Rupee Endangers India's Slowing Economy

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Ten Tall Statues

The Statue of Liberty is the nation’s tallest statue, at about 151 feet from torch to toes, not counting her pedestal. Sculptor Shan Gray is on a quest to erect a 217-foot-high bronze rendering of a Native American warrior in Sand Springs, Okla. If Mr. Gray ever gets his way, ‘The…
The Statue of Liberty is the nation’s tallest statue, at about 151 feet from torch to toes, not counting her pedestal. Sculptor Shan Gray is on a quest to erect a 217-foot-high bronze rendering of a Native American warrior in Sand Springs, Okla. If Mr. Gray ever gets his way, ‘The American’ would replace the Statue of Liberty as the country’s tallest statue.
Continued

‘Our Lady of the Rockies,’ a 90-foot Virgin Mary statue overlooking Butte, Mont., is the country’s second-tallest statue.
‘Our Lady of the Rockies,’ a 90-foot Virgin Mary statue overlooking Butte, Mont., is the country’s second-tallest statue.
Continued

‘Golden Driller,’ shown, is the third-tallest statue in the U.S. The mine worker in Tulsa, Okla., stands 76 feet tall.
‘Golden Driller,’ shown, is the third-tallest statue in the U.S. The mine worker in Tulsa, Okla., stands 76 feet tall.
Continued

Dallas Zoo’s 67.5-foot-high bronze giraffe is the fourth-tallest statue in the U.S.
Dallas Zoo’s 67.5-foot-high bronze giraffe is the fourth-tallest statue in the U.S.
Continued

Fifth place is for this statue of Sam Houston, called ‘Tribute to Courage,’ in Huntsville, Texas. It is 67 feet tall.
Fifth place is for this statue of Sam Houston, called ‘Tribute to Courage,’ in Huntsville, Texas. It is 67 feet tall.
Continued

The Spring Temple Buddha, in China, is the tallest statue in the world. It is 420 feet tall.
The Spring Temple Buddha, in China, is the tallest statue in the world. It is 420 feet tall.
Continued

The Laykyun Setkyar Buddha in Myanmar is the second-tallest statue in the world, at 381 feet.
The Laykyun Setkyar Buddha in Myanmar is the second-tallest statue in the world, at 381 feet.
Continued

Another Buddha statue, Ushiku Daibutsu in Ibaraki, Japan, is the third tallest, at 360 feet.
Another Buddha statue, Ushiku Daibutsu in Ibaraki, Japan, is the third tallest, at 360 feet.
Continued

The Guanying of the South Sea of Sanya, in China, is the fourth-tallest statue in the world, at 354 feet.
The Guanying of the South Sea of Sanya, in China, is the fourth-tallest statue in the world, at 354 feet.
Continued

The giant sculpture of mythical Emperors Yan and Huang, in China’s Henan province, is the fifth tallest in the world, at 348 feet.
The giant sculpture of mythical Emperors Yan and Huang, in China’s Henan province, is the fifth tallest in the world, at 348 feet.
Continued

Read more from the original source: Ten Tall Statues

Building Collapses Kill 11 in India

Associated Press
VADODARA, India—Two adjacent apartment buildings collapsed early Wednesday in western India, killing at least 11 people, police and firefighters said.

Associated Press
Indian rescuers carried the body of a victim they pulled out after two adjacent apartment buildings collapsed Wednesday at Vadodara in Gujarat state, India.

Rescue workers pulled out 11 bodies and four badly injured people from the debris of the three-story buildings that fell in the city of Vadodara in Gujarat state, fire chief Hitesh Taparia said.
Most of the occupants of the 14 apartments in the first building were sleeping when it collapsed. The adjacent building was evacuated minutes before it fell, police officer Bhanu Pratap Parmar said.
The two buildings were part of 33 housing blocks constructed by the Gujarat government more than a decade ago to house the poor.
More than 250 rescue workers were working to clear debris from the site and search for survivors in the mountain of twisted metal, concrete slabs, bricks and mortar.
Mr. Taparia said the cause of the collapse wasn’t immediately clear.
Police officials said there had been unusually heavy rain in Vadodara during the monsoon season and it could have damaged the buildings’ foundations.
The Gujarat government has ordered an investigation and will check for structural damage in the 31 other buildings in the complex, Mr. Taparia said.
Building collapses are common in India as some builders cut corners by using substandard materials, and as multistory structures are often built with inadequate supervision.
Strong demand for housing around India’s cities and pervasive corruption often result in builders adding unauthorized floors or putting up illegal buildings.

Continue reading here: Building Collapses Kill 11 in India

In China, a Big Bet on Smaller Borrowers

Zachary Bako for The Wall Street Journal
A paddle boat glides through Beijing’s Houhai lake district. Businesses such as the paddle-boat concession are critical for Minsheng.

BEIJING—Xue Ming, a dairy farmer from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, used a loan of a million yuan from China Minsheng Banking Corp. to expand his business.

China’s Rising Risks
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the Chinese financial system where debt has surged and cracks are beginning to show.

He added 100 cows to his herd, taking the total to 600, while the bank is getting an interest rate of 8.3%, compared with the 6.9% average for the banking sector, as it pursues a strategy that has given the lender some of the industry’s fastest growth in profits. Earnings rose 35% last year, even as China’s big four banks all posted increases of less than 20%, although Minsheng’s profit growth slowed to 20% in the first half of 2013.
Dong Wenbiao, the bank’s chairman, wants to expand the share of loans to small business from roughly a quarter of its portfolio to 45% to 50% over the next three to five years. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Dong said that Minsheng’s small-business loans are typically priced 30% to 40% above a benchmark rate set by China’s central bank—considerably higher than most state-owned firms are willing to pay.
His experiment, begun in 2009 when the bank launched its business for smaller and “microsize” customers, puts the bank at ground zero as China tries to overhaul its financial system. Experts and even many Chinese leaders argue that China’s banks should loosen their stranglehold on credit and make funds more available to smaller, private businesses. Such a move would be part of a broader effort to liberalize China’s inefficient financial system so it can operate more on market principles.
If Minsheng succeeds, it would be a hopeful sign for other lenders—and the financial system as a whole—as they try to adapt to the nation’s changing needs. A stumble would suggest a slowing economy and rising debt worries are hindering that shift.
Small-business people ranging from Qu Xisheng, who operates a paddle-boat concession in Beijing’s Hou Hai lake district, and Dongfang Yu, manager of a company that runs Beijing rickshaw tours, have turned to Minsheng. Mr. Qu already has borrowed and returned 1 million yuan, about $163,000, to expand his business, according to bank officials, while the rickshaw-fleet manager has obtained a 2 million yuan line of credit. “We have the bank’s approval,” said Ms. Dongfang. “We haven’t decided where to use the money.”

China’s Rising Risks

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the Chinese financial system where debt has surged and cracks are beginning to show.

Investors have less faith than Minsheng in the small customers it is targeting. Borrowing of Minsheng’s Hong Kong-traded shares—a proxy for short-selling activity—has risen sharply, peaking at 21.5% in mid-July before falling to 14.4% as of Monday, according to data provider Markit. Before June, when a crunch in short-term interbank lending sent shivers through the financial system, 7% of its shares were lent to short sellers. The stock is 33% below a February closing high, although it has risen 13% since its recent closing low in early July.
The skeptics say small-business owners will be hardest hit by China’s slowing growth. They also cite Minsheng’s increasing dependence on other banks for daily cash needs—a weakness highlighted by the events in June.
“Minsheng’s risk profile is the highest among the [Hong Kong-listed] Chinese banks,” wrote Bernstein Research analysts in a note to clients last month.
Mr. Dong said the risks are overstated. “The people who say our business is risky and high-cost are terribly mistaken,” he said. “They haven’t looked at this market closely.”
Mr. Dong has little time for his critics, among them the investment banks that have taken a negative view on the bank’s stock. “My daughter wanted to go into investment banking,” he said. “I told her to get a job that served the real economy.”
Still, investors have grown increasingly worried about the bank’s rising small-business loans. At the end of 2009, loans to small businesses totaled 44.81 billion yuan, amounting to about 5% of its loan portfolio. By the end of 2012, that figure had jumped to 317.47 billion, or 23% of total loans. Mortgages, which are considered less volatile, fell to 5.2% of total loans from 11% over the same period.

Zachary Bako for The Wall Street Journal
The rickshaw firm that employs Wang Zhong Liang has a Minsheng credit line.

The skepticism mounted when cash temporarily dried up in China’s financial system in June. Worried about excessive lending, policy makers engineered a squeeze in the interbank market, where banks lend to one another to meet their daily needs, in a signal to banks to curb excessive lending. Bernstein Research calculates that Minsheng depends on sources other than deposits for 31% of its funding, well above the level of less than 20% at China’s biggest banks in the second half of the year.
Mr. Dong called the crunch a “technical” issue that was solved by China’s central bank. He said the bank is working to increase deposits. Its efforts include installing about 10,000 community-banking stations in cities around the country over the next three to five years. Essentially souped-up automated-teller machines, the stations can take deposits, make withdrawals and offer video links to bank tellers so that customers can ask about other bank services.

The squeeze and worries about China’s slowing economy put Minsheng’s small-business emphasis under focus. Its first-quarter earnings were up 20%, a slowdown from all of 2012, although still strong compared with rivals.
Wednesday, the bank reported a solid 22.95 billion yuan in first-half net profit, up 20% from a year earlier, showing that its formula of lending to small businesses was still able to produce healthy results. But a sharp narrowing of its net-interest margin—the spread between its cost of funds and its lending rates—also suggested that it will have to run a lot faster to stay ahead of its rivals.
In its report, Bernstein Research cited limits to the size of the small-business-lending market as well as increasing competition from lenders looking for higher returns. It also criticized Minsheng’s use of cross-guarantees, a lending system common in China in which it would allow loans to be guaranteed by companies in the borrower’s supply chain or by other companies in the borrower’s same business area. It said those problems could knock Minsheng’s return on equity to 14% this year, from 25% in 2012.
Minsheng says such criticism shows a lack of familiarity with the market. Mr. Dong said nonperforming loans in the small-business arena totaled about 0.5% in the first quarter, well below the bank’s 0.76% overall nonperforming- loan ratio in the same period. Nonperforming loans overall inched up to 0.78% at the end of June. By comparison, the banking sector averaged 0.96% at the end of the second quarter, according to China’s banking regulator.
Minsheng also argues its model gives it a cushion as China moves slowly to loosen its grip on the financial sector. China recently removed a floor on lending rates and has hinted that it may ease a cap on deposit rates. In the past, the combination of controls has given big state-owned banks a healthy, guaranteed profit margin.
But with small businesses still lining up for loans priced above the benchmark, that won’t have much impact on Minsheng. “We don’t have a market-based system now. And we need to wean banks off [state] support,” Mr. Dong said. “Liberalizing interest rates is the way to make banking market-oriented.”
—Grace Zhu and Cynthia Koons contributed to this article.
Write to William Kazer at william.kazer@wsj.com

Power Blackout Hits Northeast Brazil

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Bogotá Cancels School Ahead of Protests

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Colombia Court Sets Path for Possible Deal With Rebels

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Alleged Pro-Syria Hacking Shows Soft Spot

SAN FRANCISCO—A hacking attack on websites run by New York Times Co., Twitter Inc. and other companies highlights a longstanding soft spot in Internet security: The Web’s version of a phone directory is controlled by outside companies.
Although large firms often spend millions to combat a growing list of cyberthreats, the keys to their Web addresses—the names that usually end in .com—often are held by one of hundreds of so-called domain-name server registration companies. As the big sites learned on Tuesday, those companies can sometimes be tricked with a piece of spam.

Health Battle Over Soda Flares in Mexico

MEXICO CITY—The public-health battle over sugary soft drinks, punctuated by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s failed attempt to ban big sodas, has spread to Mexico, long a stronghold of Coca-Cola Co.

El Poder del Consumidor
A public-interest group’s advertisement in a Mexico City subway station asks: ‘Would you eat 12 spoonfuls of sugar? Soda is sweet, diabetes isn’t.”

This summer, a series of ads splashed across buses, billboards and along subway platforms here in the capital showed 12 heaping spoonfuls of sugar next to a roughly 20-ounce bottle of soda. The ads asked: “Would you eat 12 spoonfuls of sugar? Why do you drink soda?”

The ad campaign has fueled a fledgling movement to rein in Mexico’s heavy soda consumption.

Like the U.S., Mexico is struggling to contain an epidemic of diabetes, which is closely linked to obesity.

Mexico recently overtook its neighbor to the north for first place in a ranking of the world’s fattest nations with populations of 100 million or more, according to a United Nations report.

Seven out of 10 Mexican adults over the age of 20 are either overweight or obese, according to the country’s latest national health survey. An estimated 10 million Mexicans have diabetes, or roughly 9% of the population, the highest proportion in any country with more than 100 million inhabitants.

Suddenly, in a country where Atlanta-based Coca-Cola wields enormous financial and cultural clout, some civic activists, politicians and public-health officials are painting soft-drinks, and Coke in particular, as villains.

The Education Ministry has urged concession operators not to sell soda in public schools, where they are popular in part because students in many communities lack access to clean drinking water.

Mexican consumer-protection agencies, meanwhile, are considering fines against Coca-Cola for a recent spate of ads that showed people supposedly burning off 149 calories of soda by doing everyday activities like walking a dog or laughing.

Consumer advocates complained that consumers could mistake the smaller bottle shown in the ads for a larger, more popular single-serving bottle. Regulators also expressed concerns about whether the activities depicted in the ads would actually burn that many calories.

Bloomberg News
An employee arranges a display of Pepsi bottles at a Mexico City store. Mexico is second only to the U.S. in total soda consumption by resident.

A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola’s Mexico office says the company’s products are all “healthy and can be integrated into a correct diet, combined with an active lifestyle.” She also says that reduced calorie or no-calorie products, such as bottled water, account for nearly 40% of Coca-Cola’s brand portfolio in Mexico.

Her boss, Francisco Crespo, the Mexico office’s president, also defends the company’s advertising.

“We are transparent with our consumers, and we offer clear, truthful and complete information about our beverages so that they can make informed decisions,” he said in July.

But the showdown could have big implications for Coca-Cola and other soft-drink makers, since Mexico is second only to the U.S. in per capita soda intake, according to Euromonitor International.

Last year, Latin America, anchored by Mexico, where Coca-Cola’s biggest independent bottler is based, was Coke’s second-most-profitable region, after Europe.

Soda is a household staple in Mexico, with some families drinking it at every meal.

Diabetes is now Mexico’s second-biggest killer after heart disease, having sprinted from ninth place in 1980.

“In the Mexican countryside, if you go to somebody’s house and they don’t have Coke to offer, they apologize. Coca-Cola symbolizes prestige,” says Alejandro Calvillo, director of El Poder del Consumidor, a public-interest group that financed the spoonfuls-of-sugar campaign. Its contributors include Bloomberg Philanthropies, the umbrella organization for Mr. Bloomberg’s charitable activities.

As part of his publicity war against soda, Mr. Calvillo also commissioned a series of ads featuring images of amputees and a blind man with taglines such as “How much did soda consumption contribute?”

Blindness and conditions that can make foot or leg amputations necessary can be complications from diabetes.

Lately consumer advocates like Mr. Calvillo have found an ally in Sen. Marcela Torres, who has sponsored a bill that would impose a 20% tax on sugary soda.

Proponents say the measure would slash soda consumption by 26% while bringing in close to $2 billion a year in revenue. Most of the funds would be earmarked to install public water fountains and improve access to clean drinking water. Ms. Torres concedes that the proposed tax could carry a high political cost, especially since soda buyers already pay a sales tax.

But regardless of the bill’s fate, Sen. Torres says, a broad coalition of elected officials won’t support the government’s coming fiscal overhaul unless it addresses Mexico’s obesity crisis. “If people would just consume less, we could avoid many deaths,” she says.

Mexico’s soft-drink bottling association, whose members include Coke and PepsiCo Inc.’s local bottlers, is lobbying hard against the soda tax, and against the demonization of soda. Emilio Herrera, the association’s director, argues that a tax on soda would be counterproductive, because it would simply cause consumers to shift to other sweet beverages.

“You can’t single out a particular product as the cause of this problem,” Mr. Herrera says. Already sales tax on soda generates $1.5 billion a year in revenue, he says.

The bottlers have launched their own public-relations blitz, featuring ads that emphasize the importance of exercise, nutritional education and portion control. One ad shows a seemingly healthy white-haired man about to blow out candles on a birthday cake.

Mexican sugar-cane growers, who rely on soda makers for about 20% of their domestic sales, have started their own campaign to defend sugar’s reputation.

“Changing daily habits is the hardest part,” says Gabriela Allard, president of the Mexican Association of Diabetes, an outreach group that supports a soda tax.
Write to Amy Guthrie at amy.guthrie@dowjones.com
A version of this article appeared August 29, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Mexico Finds a New Target: Soft Drinks.

Continued here: Health Battle Over Soda Flares in Mexico

Businesswoman Eyed in Philippines Corruption Scandal Surrenders

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Russia to Reduce Oil Supplies to Belarus

Brazil Raises Key Interest Rate

Switzerland, U.S. in Bank Talks

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Cypriots Try Getting By Without Credit

Croatia Moves to Defuse EU Arrest Warrant Row

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Iran Increases Some Nuclear Activity

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Company That Vetted Snowden Defends Work

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U.S., Asean Discuss South China Sea

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Japan Studies Plan to Contain Radioactive Water

TOKYO—Japan is considering a novel approach to stem the spread of radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant: installing a subterranean ring of ice.
The project, being touted by Japanese officials from the chief government spokesman to the minister overseeing the plant’s private operator, is risky because it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and hasn’t been tried on such a large scale and over such a lengthy period before. Indeed, some experts view it as a stopgap measure.

But the government, which said recently it would take the lead from the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., after Japan’s nuclear regulator last week declared a 79,000-gallon leak “a serious incident,” is leaning towards the ice plan as the best and fastest chance at keeping groundwater from becoming contaminated.
The government has ordered a study on the proposal to be completed by year’s end.
The push to move ahead with the project despite its uncertainty underscores Japan’s scramble—29 months after Fukushima Daiichi melted down following an earthquake and tsunami in one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents—to prevent potentially dangerous amounts of radioactive contamination from spreading through water beyond the plant.
Signaling growing concern, Fukushima prefecture’s fisheries cooperatives on Wednesday said their members have suspended plans to restart fishing in the waters near the plant, until it is clear they aren’t contaminated.
Further, during the past few days, some regulatory officials have questioned whether last week’s leak at a site outside the proposed ice ring could mean groundwater is already contaminated over a larger area than initially thought.
So far, the amounts of radioactive water that have leaked out to the sea don’t pose much risk to human health, experts say.

At Fukushima, The Battle Continues

Reuters
Workers move radiation-contaminated waste at a storage site in Naraha town, which is inside the former no-go zone within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius of the crippled nuclear-power plant. Currently, it is a designated evacuation zone.

Still, some of the Japanese experts on a closed government-appointed panel who have met to hammer out a water-containment strategy in recent weeks are considering using the ice wall as a defense against the spread of contaminated water over the three or four decades that experts believe it will take to clean up Fukushima Daiichi.
Others see it as a temporary measure while other more conventional barriers are erected from steel or concrete, say people with knowledge of the panel’s discussions.
In another scenario, the plant’s reactors and surrounding areas may have to be guarded by layers of defenses including the ice walls, some on the panel say, according to the people with knowledge of discussions.
In any case, the government this month pledged people and money for the ice-wall project, which could cost several tens of billions of yen to build and nearly ¥1 billion ($10 million) a year to maintain, according to an estimate from another government panel.
The project entails circulating super-cool liquid through a line of pipes inserted into the ground every yard or so. The pipes freeze the soil and groundwater around them, which solidifies into a solid wall of ice that blocks all movement of water.
Experts say an ice barrier could be advantageous at Fukushima Daiichi, where Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, is struggling to keep an estimated 1,000 metric tons of groundwater that flows through the site daily towards the sea from getting contaminated by contact with the damaged reactors and other radioactive spots.
An ice wall around the reactors could completely shut groundwater out of the most heavily contaminated areas, and it is faster to build than other traditional sunken barriers, said Atsunao Marui, head of the groundwater research group at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and a panel member.
Kajima Corp., the giant Japanese contractor that proposed the ice wall, estimated total construction time would be under two years, versus two or more years for other barrier types.
Meantime, Tepco is applying and preparing measures, including pumps, sea walls and removal and storage of 400 tons of contaminated water a day.
But experts also point out drawbacks to the plan. The wall needs a constant supply of electricity to keep frozen—an expensive proposition, especially in Japan, where the closure of most of the nation’s nuclear plants following the Fukushima Daiichi accident means power is largely supplied by costly, imported fossil fuels.
“Ground freezing is usually looked at last because of the cost,” said Joseph Sopko, director of ground freezing at New Jersey-based geotechnical contractor Moretrench America Corp.
More troubling for the experts panel is that ground freezing hasn’t been done on such a scale before. Kajima’s proposal calls for a nearly mile-long ring of 1,540 pipes, passing near spots where high levels of radiation have been measured.
Companies are also concerned that their small pool of expert engineers could be devastated if they are accidentally exposed to high levels of radiation, said one person close to discussions on the ice-wall experts panel.
A handful of big ice-wall projects have been planned, but never realized, including one at a gold mine in Canada that was abandoned when gold prices fell and the cost become prohibitive, and another at a nuclear cleanup site in Washington state that turned out to be too dry to work well, Mr. Sopko said.
Only a few Japanese companies specialize in ground freezing, largely for tunnel and other underground construction. One has already bowed out, saying the Fukushima Daiichi project is beyond its technical expertise. Another, the subsidiary of Kajima, has largely handled jobs that are a fraction of the size and are maintained for a year or two, according to a list of projects on its web site.
Part of the goal of the feasibility study being conducted now is to see if the ice wall can be built and maintained with a non-specialist engineering staff, the person said.
—Mari Iwata contributed to this article.
Write to Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 29, 2013, on page A8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Japan Studies a Novel Plan.

Original post: Japan Studies Plan to Contain Radioactive Water

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