Jun 30 2009
A military coup d'etat in Honduras Sunday echoed the bad old days of Latin America when such changes of government were common.
President Manuel Zelaya was grabbed by soldiers in the presidential palace and carted off to neighboring Costa Rica. He was quickly replaced by the chairman of the Honduran parliament, Roberto Micheletti, but the nature of the departure and the reasons for Mr. Zelaya's overthrow made it clear that this was, in fact, an old-fashioned military coup d'etat by the Honduran armed forces.
Mr. Zelaya had been quarreling with the country's military in recent days over his attempts to reassert civilian authority over them by replacing the armed forces commander, Gen. Romeo Vasquez. He had also riled a number of Honduras's civilian political figures through his attempts to seek another term as president, in defiance of the country's constitution which limits a president to one term. The most recent route to holding onto power that he was exploring was to try to set up a referendum on the question.
America's attitude toward Sunday's coup is complicated to some degree by the fact that Mr. Zelaya is considered to be a Latin American president allied with Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. Mr. Chavez has been busily seeking to put together a coalition of like-minded, anti-American Latin America presidents, using his country's oil wealth as a blandishment. It is, however, now generally gauged that Mr. Chavez's attitude toward the United States is being softened by the approach to him taken by President Barack Obama since he took office in January.
The other complicating factor for the United States is that there has been a close relationship between the Honduran military and U.S. forces, maintained in the name of counterterrorism and narcotics traffic interdiction. It is a little difficult to believe that U.S. forces in Honduras were not aware of what their counterparts were up to, or that, if they had wished to they could not have headed off Sunday's coup by pointing out the likely negative reaction in Washington.
The Organization of American States and the United States have heartily condemned the coup and called for a quick return to democratic rule in Honduras. The best first choice would be for Mr. Zelaya to be returned to power from Costa Rica to serve out his term, which ends in January, and then be succeeded in honest elections. A second choice would be for fresh presidential elections to be held as soon as possible.
In the meantime, it is absolutely necessary that U.S. military cooperation with the Honduran armed forces who overthrew the president be cut off promptly and entirely until democratic governance has been restored in the country. Hondurans and the rest of Latin America need to see that even if the United States is not enchanted by a particular elected president, he is nonetheless an elected president and the military needs to be kept strictly out of politics. The precedent of a successful military coup is unacceptable, in Latin America or anywhere else.
Jun 30 2009
Hollow words. That's all the assurances by the Downtown Hilton's owners will be unless Pittsburghers see contractors hard at work to finish the hotel's renovation.
The on-again, off-again $25 million project is an eyesore ready to give a bad first impression of the city to world leaders who will attend the G-20 summit here in September. Sitting as the hotel does at the end of the Fort Pitt Bridge, the Hilton is the gateway to the Golden Triangle -- and, with an unfinished steel skeleton outside its front door, what a sorry vision the idle site is.
Because Florida-based Shubh Hotels LLC failed to pay $317,273 in bills, contractor P.J. Dick pulled its workers off the property in May, halting work for the second time in the last year. Based on a dozen other companies left holding the bag, Shubh is getting a reputation for not being able to handle its bills.
Among them is Chester Pool Systems Inc., which says Shubh owes it $129,000 for a custom-built pool that was to be part of the renovation.
Engineering firm Whitney Bailey Cox & Magnani LLC says it's been waiting over a year for $100,000 in design fees. Four hotel unions say the Hilton owners have failed to make more than $34,000 in required pension, benefit and annuity payments for hotel workers.
Do the Hilton's owners want to do business in Pittsburgh or not? They've lost their standing as a good civic neighbor. The question now is whether they truly want to be a hotelier at all.
In a phone interview Friday with Post-Gazette staff writer Mark Belko, Harris Mathis, Shubh's chief operating officer, said, "We want to get that project finished as much as anybody."
We'll believe it when we see it.
He said the company was working on its debt with P.J. Dick "to get that caught up to get them back on the job."
How about this week?
Mr. Mathis and his company have tremendous opportunity at this premier location, and its interior renovation has certainly modernized and improved the building. But anyone who walks or drives by the all-too-still exterior has to wonder if the Hilton's owners have the wherewithal to be in the hotel business.
Come September, some international visitors will wonder the same thing.
Jun 30 2009
The infamous case of Bernard L. Madoff came to an end, for him at least, yesterday when he was sentenced to an appropriate 150 years in prison in U.S. District Court in New York.
Mr. Madoff, 71, is a formerly highly respected, successful operator of an investment firm. He pleaded guilty in March to 11 felony counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. For decades he ran a Ponzi scheme game in which people's new investments were not invested, but instead were used to give other investors the impression that they were earning profits. In the meantime, Mr. Madoff and his wife Ruth enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle with residences in Manhattan, Long Island and Palm Beach.
Mr. Madoff's activities ruined thousands of people, many of them older, who were left with nothing when his fraud was revealed. His lawyers had asked for a 12-year sentence. The judge gave him 150 years, citing the need to make an example of him to other money managers with larcenous tendencies.
Although Mr. Madoff is to be incarcerated for the rest of his life, as he should be, loose ends remain. One of them is how he was able to get away with what he did for years under theoretical Securities and Exchange Commission oversight. Reports of investigations, due over the next few months, should make that clearer. They will include recommendations of measures to see that this does not happen again.
Jun 29 2009
Just when some legislators are trying to expand casino gambling in Pennsylvania, others want to tighten the laws that regulate the industry.
The Post-Gazette is all for tightening. The first group of lawmakers is acting without taking time to gauge the impact of all of the state's slots casinos on people and local economies. Since only the first eight casinos are open, how can anyone know what the impact of all 14 will be?
The other legislators are closing ranks around Senate Bill 711, a measure offered by Republican Jane Earll of Erie and approved in committee last week. Some of the key provisions are sound, including a ban on members of the state Gaming Control Board holding outside jobs; a two-year wait before ex-board employees may go to work for the gambling industry and a prohibition on licenses going to a person convicted of a felony, no matter how old the crime.
Two elements give us pause. One would exempt state gaming control employees and gaming-related workers of the Revenue Department, state police and attorney general from furlough due to a state budget impasse. Gaming regulators should be laid off along with other state employees, even if it means shutting down the casinos. What better way to turn up the heat on Harrisburg for a budget settlement?
Our other objection regards the marquee provision -- a ban on contributions by gambling industry officials to political candidates. While casino proponents have given plenty, excessive contributions go to politicians from individuals or political action committees representing a host of special interests -- trial lawyers, labor unions, business groups and advocates for social causes.
The Legislature should impose strict caps, as the federal government does, on all political contributions -- not just those from a targeted industry. If lawmakers are subject to influence by big checks from pro-gambling forces, then what about all that dough from polluters, doctors and the insurance industry?
Jun 29 2009
The United States is knee-deep in the Horn of Africa and could easily get deeper.
The Horn consists roughly of Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia and it is separated from the Middle East by a relatively narrow strip of water. Assorted fires are burning in the region. Most of them are local, although each is capable of flaring into a serious conflagration, given the world's stake in the area.
Ethiopia and its former component, Eritrea, have a border dispute that led to bloody conflict. It was resolved in principle, but the agreement has not been implemented.
Eritrea, becoming the region's spoiler, has grabbed a piece of Djibouti, probably to use as a political pawn, but it nonetheless represents an alarming development for the tiny nation. The United States has 2,500 troops stationed in Djibouti as part of its new Africa command.
Djibouti is a sliver of stability in an increasingly bad neighborhood. It is vital to regional giant Ethiopia, which is landlocked. Djibouti's railroad and port provide Ethiopia access to the sea for imports and exports. If Eritrea were to seek to close either, Ethiopia would intervene militarily. The United States supported Ethiopia with air strikes when it invaded Somalia a couple of years ago.
Somalia, to the degree that it remains a viable country, is up for grabs by various domestic elements. It has, in principle, a government, unelected but supported by the African Union, the United Nations and the United States, but it is close to needing last rites as an Islamist militia lays siege in Somalia's ruined capital, Mogadishu.
Probably only international forces can save that government, but if that were to occur its future would be further damaged in the eyes of the Somalis by its dependence on foreigners. The absence of a credible authority is what makes piracy off its shores possible. Efforts to suppress it are costing a lot, including to the United States.
Finally, to a small degree, the Horn is a venue for economic and commercial competition among the Europeans, Iran, the Gulf Arabs and the United States. It is in the interest of all of them that the relative brushfires of conflict in the Horn not expand. Peace there can also serve as a starting point for constructive dialogue, particularly between America and Iran.
Jun 29 2009
New York Times reporter David Rohde and Afghan journalist Tahir Ludin escaped June 19 from a Taliban stronghold in Pakistan's tribal area, where they had been held hostage for seven months.
Mr. Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Mr. Ludin were seized in November outside Kabul while on their way to interview a Taliban commander.
As Mr. Rohde's employer, The New York Times sought a press blackout on the journalists' capture -- not the usual course for a major news outlet. The blackout was honored by the estimated 40 news agencies that were aware of the kidnapping.
The Times took the approach out of concern for the captives' safety. It isn't clear what the kidnappers wanted, although one Pakistani press report said the Taliban demanded the release of prisoners in Afghanistan and millions of dollars for their safe return. After Mr. Rohde and Mr. Ludin escaped, the Times said no ransom was paid and no Taliban prisoners were released.
While the story has a happy ending, what of the public's much-heralded right to know? Did The New York Times and other organizations duck their obligation to report the news because it may have brought harm to their colleagues?
Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said the newspaper was told by government officials and experts in kidnapping cases that writing about the abduction would have put the captives in danger. He said the Times has taken this approach in other kidnapping cases.
While journalists are determined to report the facts, there is no uniform rule on how to approach a delicate situation when lives are at stake. So long as the press is consistent in its sensitivities to covering hostages, whether the captives are journalists or not, it is following a standard of integrity.
In this case, the public did not learn about the journalists' abduction, but lives were saved. That's a good outcome for the former captives and for all of humanity. This time silence was the right course for the press to take.
Jun 28 2009
The numbers are stark and disturbing. They hint at loss, suffering and death.
Pittsburghers have known, based on previous reports, of the poor air quality in communities near U.S. Steel's Clairton coke works. But the latest national air assessment by the federal Environmental Protection Agency has put a freshly grim stamp on the matter.
According to air pollution data from 2002, EPA has calculated that people living in Clairton have a 762 in 1 million chance of getting cancer and residents of Glassport have a risk of 700 in 1 million. That's 20 times greater than the national average, which is 36 in a million.
The figures put the two Allegheny County towns high on EPA's list for communities with the nation's greatest cancer risks due to bad air. Cerritos, Calif. (1,200 in 1 million), outside Los Angeles, and Madison County, Ill. (1,000 in 1 million), near St. Louis, had the worst odds.
These findings echo other studies that indicate the area around the coke works has some of the poorest air in the country. Among them is the American Lung Association's State of the Air report, released in April, which showed Liberty with the nation's worst small particulate pollution -- an accurate distinction, until the association tried to project it as representative of the eight-county metro region.
By contrast, the EPA's National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment is alarming without being alarmist. It says that 2.2 million Americans, including 73,046 from Pennsylvania, lived in places in 2002 where the cancer risk was at least 100 in 1 million, three times the national average. The risk rates were calculated after assessing 180 air toxics and diesel particulate matter from stationary sources like power plants and factories and from mobile sources like cars, trucks and buses. The EPA's next assessment will use data from 2005.
While we can't speak for Cerritos, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., the encouraging news for Clairton and Glassport is that air quality has improved since 2002. But improved does not mean good.
U.S. Steel's coke works is the chief factor in the valley's substandard air, and the company embarked on a $1 billion modernization that would have dramatically reduced emissions. The program was suspended this year, however, due to the flagging economy. With the reduced production, pollution is down as well, but that's not a permanent solution. The company needs to put the modernization back on track.
As to the rest of the polluters -- coal-fired plants, other industries and motorists -- only tougher laws and rules from the state and federal governments, under diligent oversight from Allegheny County government, can dilute the risk-filled air in that part of the Monongahela Valley.
The EPA's report is yet another call to action.
Jun 28 2009
For charter schools to be a viable, valid and reputable choice for education, the charter school movement must refuse to support schools that won't meet high standards, reject inferior plans for new schools and close the poorly performing ones.
That was the message Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave the National Alliance for Public Charters during its meeting in Washington last week, and it is worth taking to heart.
Mr. Duncan described the charter movement as "one of the most profound changes in American education." Parents and students have been happy with the addition of another school-choice option, but the rub comes when poorly performing charters are allowed to draw taxpayer dollars from traditional public schools with less than full accountability.
It might appear that Mr. Duncan's remarks conflict with President Barack Obama's goal to increase the number of charters, but he has merely challenged authorities and states to hold those schools to a high standard.
Interestingly, a Stanford University report says that while one in five charters provide an excellent education, student performance in half the schools mimics that in traditional public schools and students in more than a third of the charters do worse than their traditional peers.
As Secretary Duncan said, that's a wake-up call worth heeding.
Jun 28 2009
BIRTH. DEATH. INFINITY. The words were intoned at the opening of each episode of "Ben Casey," one of America's earliest medical TV dramas, set in the fictional County General Hospital from 1961 to 1966. A real-life hospital, born when two nuns founded it in 1865, died in 2002 when St. Francis Hospital closed its doors in Lawrenceville. The legal fallout wasn't resolved until earlier this month, when Common Pleas Judge Frank Lucchino formally terminated the hospital's receivership. It took seven years to handle all of the complicated issues, including ensuring pension benefits were properly disbursed, settling lawsuits and paying off creditors. The life cycle of the land on Penn Avenue is complete now, with the new Children's Hospital in operation on the site.
NEW LIFE COULD BE in store for a building that is among Pittsburgh's oldest. The Old Stone Tavern in the city's West End is a former Indian trading post that dates to the 1700s. The city planning commission last week approved historic status for the building, a decision member Paul Dick described as "a no-brainer." City Council should waste no time in putting its stamp on this decision, too. Then preservationists can begin working to raise money for its restoration and preservation.
PRESERVATION of threatened species is a key mission of the world's zoos, and the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium has reason to celebrate its latest contribution. A female sea lion born June 13 was a first in the facility's 111-year history, an event zookeepers greeted with caution. That's because the mortality rate for sea lion pups is 10 to 15 percent during the first month of life. The pup, who weighed 11 pounds and was just over 2 feet long at birth, is doing well because she is bonding with her mother, Zoey, a key to survival. Zoos use breeding programs with genetic diversity to keep the cycle of birth and death going, with any luck, to infinity.
Jun 27 2009
The outpouring of tributes to Michael Jackson testify to how the 50-year-old star, who died Thursday of cardiac arrest, once occupied the pinnacle of pop music success. From his early youth as the lead singer of the Jackson 5 in the 1970s to his mega-stardom as a solo act in the 1980s, Mr. Jackson's songs saturated the culture.
Michael Jackson's brand of urban pop wasn't to everyone's taste, but many of his songs provided part of the definitive soundtrack for the post-Elvis, post-Beatles generation looking for the next big thing.
When MTV debuted in the early 1980s, its music-video component provided the ideal platform for some of Michael Jackson's most innovative work. It didn't hurt that his 1982 album "Thriller" was the best-selling solo recording of all time. MTV was compelled to play Mr. Jackson and many other black artists, or risk instant and permanent irrelevancy. More than any other artist of his era, Michael Jackson understood the importance of image and the power of technology to project it.
Like Elvis and the Beatles, he was a global superstar whose appeal transcended cultural differences. He was just as popular behind the Iron Curtain as he was on radio stations from Alabama to Alaska. If he took a trip to Tokyo to shop for toys for the retinue of children who constantly surrounded him, he was mobbed at the airport by thousands of squealing fans.
If the histrionic label "King of Pop" ever applied to anyone, it accurately described Michael Jackson for a decade that was roughly the '80s. But along with unprecedented fame, wealth and adulation came the dark side of what it meant to be king.
Tabloids thrived on tales of his eccentricities. His brief and troubled marriage to Elvis Presley's daughter guaranteed round-the-clock paparazzi attention. On top of outlandish rumors were lawsuits from just about everyone. Ex-employees peddled sordid stories to the tabloids and Mr. Jackson's tendency to spend like one of the Sun Kings of imperial France compromised his financial security.
Michael Jackson's reputation was tarnished almost beyond repair by allegations of child molestation that dogged him from the mid-'90s to a high-profile trial in 2005. He was acquitted, but he fled the country with his three children.
This week in Los Angeles he was rehearsing for a comeback tour in Europe that was to begin in two weeks. No doubt, Michael Jackson was desperate to prove he was still relevant. With his music now being replayed across the country, his death may redeem his reputation more than anything he could do on stage.
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