Va. Republicans’ move on redistricting draws criticism

RICHMOND — The secret plan began unfolding about two weeks ago. Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. came to Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling with a way to redraw Senate districts and make them more favorable to Republicans.

But Bolling rejected the idea, fearing that it would set a bad precedent, according to two people familiar with the meeting but not authorized to discuss it publicly. Bolling, who would be needed to break a tie vote in the evenly divided Senate, also thought the move would so inflame partisan passions that lawmakers would lose sight of such priorities as transportation and education.

Republicans would have to wait for the right opportunity.

It presented itself on Inauguration Day, when Virginia Democrats basked in their second straight presidential win and one in particular traveled to Washington to witness President Obama’s swearing-in: Sen. Henry L. Marsh III (D-Richmond).

With the civil rights lawyer, who decades ago argued school desegregation cases and served as Richmond’s first black mayor, away in the District on Monday, Republicans saw their chance. They took up a bill that had been on the calendar for days, only to get passed by every time, and gave it the legislative equivalent of an extreme makeover.

Left over from last year, the original bill called for “technical adjustments” to House district boundaries. On Monday, without hearings or notice, Republicans amended it on the floor so that it also called for sweeping changes to state Senate districts. The debate on the 36-page amendment was limited to 30 minutes.

The bill, approved 20 to 19, concentrates minority voters in a new Southside district and changes most district lines. Democrats said the new map would make eight districts, six of them held by Democrats, more heavily Republican. The map, which now goes before the Republican-controlled House, also puts senators R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) and Emmett W. Hanger Jr. (R-Augusta) into one district. It also adds more Democrats to three already deeply blue districts.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) was among those surprised by the new political map. He said he was concerned that his own party’s redistricting attempt will kill any bipartisan spirit and torpedo his ambitious agenda in his final year as governor.

McDonnell declined to say whether he would sign the legislation. He added that he was only informed of the Republicans’ plan shortly before the bill hit the floor Monday and watched it unfold on TV from his office in the Capitol.

“I certainly don’t think that’s a good way to do business,” said McDonnell, adding, “This was not an initiative that I advocated.”

Sen. John C. Watkins (R-Powhatan) said the changes would give Virginia a sixth majority-black district and protect the commonwealth from possible litigation under the Voting Rights Act. He also said the map would improve on the lines that Democrats had drawn to benefit their party when they controlled Richmond’s upper chamber.

“As those who were here then will recall, the 2011 redistricting process was not this body’s finest hour,” Watkins said. “The map that was produced was lambasted for dividing too many localities, splitting too many precincts, having high deviations between districts, violating basic standards of compactness and discounting communities of interest.”

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Veteran BBC presenter Stuart Hall charged with rape

LONDON: British police on Tuesday charged veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall with one offence of rape and 14 of indecent assault committed between 1967 and 1986.

The assaults involve 10 girls aged between nine and 16-years-old and the rape charge concerns a woman aged 22 when the alleged offence took place in 1976.

Lancashire Police arrested Hall earlier Tuesday after he attended a police station by appointment. He was bailed to appear before magistrates in Preston, northwest England, on February 7.

"Following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service an 83-year-old man has this evening been charged with one offence of rape and 14 offences of indecent assault," a Lancashire Police statement said.

The presenter pleaded not guilty to three other charges of indecent assault when he appeared in court earlier this month, and will now answer those charges in crown court.

Hall has been a familiar face and voice in British broadcasting for half a century and was last year awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE).

His eccentric and distinctive football match summaries have made him a cult figure on BBC radio.

Police have stressed that the charges against him are not part of the investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children against the late BBC star Jimmy Savile.

-AFP/fl

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ADR empowers public with financial and criminal data on candidates

NEW DELHI: How many candidates from your constituency were history sheeters in the last election? How many had rape or murder charges against them? Were any of them crorepatis and did any make it to college? If voters today have the answers to these questions, it can be attributed to the work of the Association for Democratic Reforms.

This organization is behind the event that's now routine before every parliamentary and assembly election in India: the criminal past and financial assets of all contesting candidates are made public, igniting a national debate and allowing voters to make an informed choice.

A PIL filed by ADR in 1999 resulted in the landmark Supreme Court order of 2002, making it mandatory for all contesting candidates to file an affidavit with the Election Commission disclosing their criminal, financial and educational background before the election.

After the then government passed legislation undoing the order, ADR went back to the SC, which struck down the Act as unconstitutional and restored its order. ADR began to track the affidavits. Since 2002, its National Election Watch (NEW) programme has covered two Lok Sabha polls, and all state assemblies, as well as Delhi Municipal Corporation.

"We put out this information out in three ways: through a helpline that people can call, through SMA and through the media," says Anil Bairwal, ADR's national coordinator. A small organisation that employs less than 30, ADR works out of a small office in Delhi's Hauz Khas, its phones buzzing continuously and several young heads hunched over Excel spreadsheets.

Set up by a group of IIM professors in 1999, ADR aims to bring about greater transparency and accountability in the electoral process. It relies on a big network of partner organizations (almost 1,200) whose volunteers work for its NEW programme. Bairwal believes ADR has helped make issues of criminalization of politics and the growing power of money part of the national debate. Now it is trying to work with political parties to ensure better intra-party democracy. "All grassroots political workers support this. We need to build public pressure to get the people heading the parties to change their minds," says Bairwal.

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Teen Planned to Attack Walmart After Killing Family

The New Mexico teenager who used an assault rifle to kill his mother, father and younger siblings told police he hoped to shoot up a Walmart after the family rampage and cause "mass destruction."

Police said they are also considering charging the shooter's 12-year-old girlfriend.

According to new information released by police today, Nehemiah Griego, the 15-year-old son of an Albuquerque pastor, had plans to kill his family, his girlfriend's family, and local Walmart shoppers for weeks before he acted on the impulse on Sunday.

"Nehemiah said after killing five of his family members he reloaded the weapons so that he could drive to a populated area to murder more people," a police report from the incident stated.

"Nehemiah stated he wanted to shoot people at random and eventually be killed while exchanging gunfire with law enforcement," the report said.

The shooting spree began shortly around 1 a.m. on Sunday, when Griego snuck into his parents' bedroom while his mother, Sara Griego, was asleep. There he raided the closet where the family kept their guns, and immediately used a .22 rifle to kill her, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department.

Griego's 9-year-old brother was sleeping with his mother at the time and woke up. When Griego told the boy his mother was dead, the youngster didn't believe him, according to a police report.

"So Nehemiah picked up his mother's head to show his brother her bloody face," the report states. "Nehemiah stated his brother became so upset so he shot his brother in the head."

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Deptartment/AP Photo

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He then went into his sisters' bedroom. "Nehemiah stated when he entered he noticed that his sisters were crying and he shot them in the head," the police report states. The girls were 5 and 2 years old.

The teenager waited for his father to come from his overnight shift working at a nearby rescue mission. When his father, Greg Griego, walked into the home around 5 a.m., unaware of what had taken place, Griego shot him multiple times with the AR-15 rifle, Sheriff Dan Houston said today.

Greg Griego was a former church pastor at Calvary Church in Albuquerque, and worked as a chaplain at a local jail where he counseled convicts. The family was very involved in the church, according to its website.

The complaint said Griego took a photo of his dead mother and "sent it to his girlfriend."

Griego then packed up the guns, including two shotguns, as well as ammunition for the rifles, and planned to drive to a Walmart to shoot additional people.

Houston said today that Griego called his 12-year-old girlfriend Sunday and ended up spending the entire day with her rather than going to the Walmart. Around 8 p.m. on Sunday, the pair drove to Calvary Church, and Griego said his family had died in a car crash. Someone on the church's staff then called 911, Houston said.

"At this time, Nehemiah had been contemplating this for some time. The information that Nehemiah had contemplated going to the local Walmart and participating in a shooting in there is accurate," Houston said. "There is no information at all that he went to church to cause anyone bodily harm there. The suspect also contemplated killing his girlfriend's parents."

The girlfriend's name was not released, but police are investigating whether to press any charges against her, Houston said. Houston said she had some knowledge about the deaths during the day Sunday.

Griego told cops he sent a picture of his dead mother to his girlfriend after the murder.

Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the Griego home around 9:15 p.m. on Sunday and arrived 10 minutes later, where they found the five bodies.

Griego lied to investigators about the attack, telling them he came home around 5 a.m. that morning and found his family dead. He said he then took the guns to protect himself.

Griego quickly admitted to the crime when pressed by police, telling investigators he was "frustrated" with his mother. Deputies said he was "unemotional" and "very stern" during the confession.

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President Obama takes second oath of office at inauguration

A self-assured President Obama on Monday used his second inaugural address to lay out a bold liberal vision of the American future, drawing direct links between the origins of the republic and some of the most vexing political issues of the day.

The usual inauguration choreography of prayers and poems and crowds became a powerful demonstration of history’s arc: The first African American president was taking his second oath of office on a day named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mall where King thundered almost 50 years ago


about the United States’ unfulfilled promise.

On a day when the president was at times confident and wistful, solemn and jubilant, he called on the American people to join him in creating a new nation grounded in the old ideas of equality and opportunity.

“What makes us exceptional, what makes us America, is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago,” Obama said. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” He linked the struggle for civil rights and women’s suffrage to the debate over same-sex marriage, and promised to reform immigration legislation and fight climate change.

“We the people still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity,” he said.

Obama spoke to a throng bundled against the cold weather in scarves and hats. Attendees had come by plane, by car and crowed Metro to see his second inauguration.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, spoke of “a great cloud of witnesses — unseen by the naked eye, but all around us — thankful that their living was not in vain.”

The 18¹/
₂-minute address showed a president who had shaken off the personal caution and political gridlock that had hemmed in his ambitions before. His speech did not soar as much as it hurried: bouncing from goal to goal, building an agenda that could define his party — and his legacy.

“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect,” Obama said, in an address that quoted the Declaration of Independence, and repeated the opening words of the Constitution’s preamble: “We the people.”

“We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial,” Obama said. “And that it will be up to those who stand here in four years — and 40 years, and 400 years hence — to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.”

Obama was the first president to use the word “gay” in his inaugural address. He had made outreach to gay voters and gay donors a key part of his reelection strategy. On Monday, he cast the battle for gay rights as part of a longer, broader struggle to make good on the declaration’s promise that “all of us are created equal.”

Obama listed three turning points: There was Seneca Falls, the town in New York where a convention in 1848 helped launch the women’s rights movement. There was Selma, referring to a civil rights march in Alabama in 1965.

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DPM Teo urges Punggol East voters to do comparisons

SINGAPORE: Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean has urged voters of Punggol East to compare what the People's Action Party's (PAP's) candidate has to offer against what the other candidates in the by-election have for the ward.

Mr Teo said PAP's Dr Koh Poh Koon will work hard for residents and deliver the plans he has in mind to make Punggol East a better place.

Mr Teo, who was speaking to reporters after meeting parents and children at a kindergarten in Block 124, Rivervale, on Tuesday morning, was also asked for his views on how the campaign is shaping up.

He described it as a keenly-contested campaign, which Dr Koh and the PAP are taking very seriously.

Mr Teo said the party will reach out to every voter and wants to ensure that it serves residents well.

- CNA/al

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Tasar spins new work for tribals

PATNA: From soil to silk, tribals engaged in tasar sericulture now tread the full spectrum towards building sustainable livelihoods in Bihar's Banka and Jamui districts, hotbeds of naxal activity. The Central Silk Board (CSB) has been working with marginalized communities in these regions to draw women and young people into silk production, helping them make a better life for themselves.

Non-profit Pradhan was the agency that rolled out the programme, Swaranajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). CSB, set up in 1948, promotes tasar silk and works through micro-entrepreneurial models. Tasar silk is produced in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra and Maharashtra, and supports 2.5 lakh families in rural and semi-urban areas.

CSB's idea was to increase tribals' income, improve their lives and thereby help check migration to urban areas. CSB mooted the use of private wastelands to raise the plants that host silkworms. The project covered all stages of making silk: pre-cocoon, seed and post-cocoon. Kisan nurseries were set up to raise the host plants. Then block plantations of host plants were raised on 987 ha of private wastelands.

Rearer groups within Tasar Vikas Samitis then formed district-level cooperatives. Women reeler-spinners were grouped into Masuta Producers Company, an all-women tasar-yarn producers' collective. In the process, 3,526 people formed 57 activity groups, 24 producer organizations, one cooperative with 2,000 stakeholders and a producer company. Today, CSB's project has supported 11,000 beneficiaries since it began in 2003-04.

CSB also pitched in with technology to boost production. Traditionally, women used earthen pots (matka yarn) and wooden charkha to spin cocoons, a tedious process. Motored reeling-cum-twisting and spinning machines were distributed. But there was a problem. The CSB's machine ran on a 75-watt motor and most of the villages in Bihar's Banka district are power-starved. So, a 'modified' charkha was used to spin the tasar yarn and solar-powered reeling machines were developed.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Obama's 2nd Term: Whose Time Is 'Our Time'?

Jan 21, 2013 12:50pm

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

ANALYSIS By RICK KLEIN

President Obama used a brief pause in the partisan warfare that’s scarred his time in office to return to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, with his own declaration of urgency and a call to action that reflects shared sacrifice and responsibility.

This was no centrist conciliator. It was the speech of a committed, unapologetic progressive, an Obama doctrine for domestic policy that included concrete commitments in areas he made little progress on over his first four years. Above all, he was speaking to a changing America – the nation that propelled him to a second term, and whose voices he will need to channel to be effective over the next four years.

“My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together,” the president declared.

That word “together” appeared seven times in the president’s speech. He used the phrase, “we, the people” five times. Notably, the president said “our time” five times. It was a clear signal that Obama is not satisfied with the frustrations that marked his first term, and that he is cognizant of his opportunity at this moment.

And he sees those opportunities mainly to his left. Obama made a firm commitment to pursue climate-change legislation, in addition to immigration reform and gun control. In an era of budget-cutting, he delivered a rousing endorsement of the social safety net, including Medicare and Social Security.

Obama cited the civil-rights movement and listed Stonewall – the 1960s demonstrations over a police raid of a New York City gay bar that galvanized the gay-rights movement – alongside Seneca Falls and Selma. He also promised equality for “our gay brothers and sisters,” apparently becoming the first president to use the word “gay” in an inaugural address.

Obama’s defining challenge as president has been to deliver on the hope and promise he rode into office on in 2008. He may never hope to fulfill the expectations that surrounded his elevation. But speaking to the largest crowd he’s likely to ever appear before again, the president sounded both more optimistic and more committed to progress on his priorities than anything in our current political system would suggest is warranted.

“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time,” the president said.

For a president whose very inauguration speaks to the promise of America, but whose first term ended with so much frustration, it was a return to his roots. President Obama is cognizant of his role in history, though clearly not content with leaving it at that.

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Employers challenging health law contraceptive provision

Enjoy the festivities, President Obama, and while you’re on the grand stage Monday, it might be wise to make nice with the assembled Supreme Court justices.

The next legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is moving quickly to the high court, and bringing potent questions about religious freedom, gender equality and corporate “personhood.”

The issue is the health-care law’s requirement that employers without a specific exemption must provide workers with insurance plans that cover a full range of birth-control measures and contraceptive drugs.

Inclusion of the no-cost contraceptive coverage for female workers has always been a controversial part of the legislation. It has now sparked more than 40 lawsuits around the nation involving more than 110 individuals, colleges, hospitals, church-affiliated nonprofits and private companies.

The cases involving those with religious affiliations are in limbo, as the Obama administration works on regulations that might provide a compromise. In a case involving two such institutions — Wheaton College in Illinois and Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina — a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is requiring administration officials to report by mid-February about the new rule, which is to be issued by spring.

At the same time, “the business cases are moving quickly,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, one of the groups coordinating the challenges to the law. Duncan said he believes the cases will be decided in lower courts in plenty of time for the Supreme Court to decide whether to review the issue in its term that begins in October.

By Duncan’s count, there are 14 cases filed by business owners who say the law forces them to choose between running their companies and following their religious beliefs. In nine of those cases, courts have issued injunctions until the conflicts can be decided on their merits.

The cases differ by what the business owners say they are willing to provide — some say all contraceptives would violate their religious beliefs, others object only to abortifacients such as the “morning-after pill” and intrauterine devices. But all rely on protections in the First Amendment regarding free exercise of religion and in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

The 1993 act prohibits the federal government from imposing a “substantial burden” on a person’s exercise of religion unless there is a “compelling governmental interest” and the measure is the least-restrictive method of achieving the interest.

No court of appeals has reached the merits of the challenges, but two — the 7th and 8th circuits in Chicago and St. Louis respectively — have granted business owners injunctions, and two — the 6th in Cincinnati and the 10th in Denver — have denied them.

And along the way, those decisions give a pretty clear indication of the fight ahead.

The most promising for the challengers is a ruling by a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit. Cyril and Jane Korte, owners of K & L Contractors, said the new law offends their Roman Catholic beliefs. They wanted to replace the insurance program they offered their workers, which they found provided contraceptive services, with one that did not.

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