Yesterday was a case in point. John Howard was present, admonishing The Chaser boys in rabbit suits on his morning walk, powering through low-level campaign events. Kevin Rudd was ominously absent until the launch of his tax policy.

John Howard was waiting for Kevin, but trying very hard to look like he wasn’t. So we started in Sydney with lattes and ended with law and order.

The Prime Minister was given a polite welcome yesterday morning by an elegant clutch of industrialists of Italian descent at the Vittoria coffee factory in Silverwater, deep in Sydney’s manufacturing heartland.

Vittoria chief executive Les Schirato was blissfully unaware, or, more likely, too polite to point out that his spotless factory was not a random recipient of government beneficence but the carefully selected backdrop for more relentless hammering of John Howard’s “Go for Growth” message.

Mr Howard, buoyed by the morning’s opinion polls, arrived in good cheer, peered obligingly at whirring and whooshing machines and then jogged on to the podium and delivered the enthusiast’s homily in praise of entrepreneurial pluck. Which, paraphrased, was good on ya’s for making a big, shiny factory from nothing and for bringing proper coffee to our far flung shores.

Mr Schirato thanked the Prime Minister for making time in his hectic schedule to stop by, and then confessed the visit had only been lined up the night before.

The frenzy of floor scrubbing, blow-waving and shoe polishing that would have followed Thursday evening’s tip-off from Howard HQ can only be imagined given the fine grooming evident and the generosity of the spread, which included a gelato bar and a smiling barista.

The Italian-Australian bosses sat down to hear the Prime Minister’s short speech. The factory workers, the present generation of migrants from Africa and Asia, wearing polo shirts and matching caps, stood at a respectful distance. Then Mr Howard received coffee-bean cufflinks as a souvenir before being whisked away.

Next stop further west. The Howard bus roared along the grimly utilitarian concrete motorway to a dusty park in suburban St Marys with scrubby grass and a stagnant creek.

The Prime Minister’s staff unfurled the blue “Go for Growth” banners as a backdrop, but then thought better of the risky flourish, and rolled them up again. Different backdrop, different vibe.

Mr Howard assumed an uncompromising and resolute expression and thundered about the evils of al-Qaeda in Pakistan before promising more money for security cameras to monitor nasty, noisy, aggressive traffic hoons because Morris Iemma, the NSW Premier, apparently wasn’t providing enough police.

A couple of likely offenders obliged by revving their engines threateningly as they cruised past the Howard show. Lattes and law and order. Balancing bookends, waiting for Kevin.

Katharine Murphy
– The Age

The Congressional Medal ceremony will be rebroadcast in several formats to Tibet and elsewhere in China and will be available for viewing at www.voanews.com/tibetan/.

In an interview with VOA yesterday, the Dalai Lama expressed support for the Burmese democracy movement, saying that he admired the recent efforts of Buddhist monks and adding that their cause was just. He urged Buddhist members of Burma’s military government to remember the Buddhist teachings of “compassion” and “love” as they confront these situations.

Speaking about the ongoing talks with the Chinese government about the status of Tibet, the Dalai Lama told VOA that progress made during earlier rounds of discussion had eroded. “It is difficult to judge things at the moment,” he said. “During the last round, the sixth session, they seemed to have hardened their position and attitude.” He reiterated that he is seeking autonomy for Tibet, not independence, a position unpopular with many in the Tibetan community.

The Dalai Lama also revealed that his successor might be chosen by a group of senior monks or appointed by himself personally, rather than through the traditional method of reincarnation. In July 2007, Chinese authorities issued a regulation that requires all reincarnations - including the Dalai Lama - to be approved by the government.

The interview with the Dalai Lama was broadcast yesterday on VOA in Tibetan and Mandarin. VOA broadcasts to China in Tibetan, Mandarin, Cantonese, and English via shortwave radio, medium wave radio, satellite television, and webcasts. Programs and schedule information are available online at www.voanews.com/tibetan/ and www.voanews.com/chinese/ .

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people. Programs are produced in 45 languages.

For more information, call the Office of Public Affairs at (202) 203-4959, or e-mail publicaffairs@voa.gov.

About this original news visit below URL:
http://voanews.com/english/About/2007-10-17-voa65.cfm

“We’re now more than halfway through October, and the new leaders in Congress have had more than nine months to get things done for the American people,” Mr. Bush said in his opening remarks at a White House news conference. “Unfortunately, they haven’t managed to pass many important bills. Now the clock is winding down, and in some key areas Congress is just getting started.”

The news conference was timed to coincide with a showdown between Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats over federal spending and a children’s health measure he has vetoed. At one point, the president complained bitterly that Democrats had failed to negotiate with him over the health bill, a different version of which had been advanced by the administration in its budget.

“We weren’t dialed in,” he said, adding that he was using his veto pen because “that’s one way to ensure that I am relevant.”

The remark echoed one by Mr. Bush’s immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton, who proclaimed after Republicans took control of the House in 1995 that “the president is still relevant here.” It was especially striking coming from Mr. Bush, who often insists, as he did Wednesday, that he is going to “sprint to the finish” of his presidency.

When pressed about whether he felt he was losing leverage on Capitol Hill, the president quickly disagreed.

“Quite the contrary,” he said. “I’ve never felt more engaged.”

On Wednesday, getting engaged meant dressing down Democrats, with whom Mr. Bush is at odds over a host of domestic measures. In addition to the children’s health legislation, he has threatened to veto at least 10 of the 12 spending bills that were supposed to have been enacted by Sept. 30 to finance government operations in the new fiscal year. And while he said he still thought he could find common ground with Democrats, he also took swipes at them for having so far failed to send any of those bills to his desk.

“I think it’s their fault the bills aren’t moving,” Mr. Bush said at one point. At another, he asked, “How can you find common ground when there’s no appropriations process?”

The House is expected to try on Thursday to override the veto of the children’s health bill. The president predicted — and Democrats agree — that the effort will be unsuccessful. Mr. Bush said he was “confident we can work out our differences” on the bill, adding that “now is the time to put politics aside.”

Yet in the next breath, he offered a list of areas where Congress “has work to do,” including the budget, domestic surveillance, education, housing, trade, veterans’ care and the confirmation of judicial nominees. He finished by accusing lawmakers of meddling where they did not belong, with a proposed House resolution condemning Turkey for the mass killing of Armenians nearly a century ago.

“With all these pressing responsibilities,” Mr. Bush said, “one thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire.”

The remarks were a distinct turnabout from the promises to reach out that the president made after last year’s midterm elections. Democrats, in turn, reacted angrily.

“There is no better example of why Washington is not working for the American people than the president claiming to seek common ground at the same time he is bitterly attacking Congress,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

A little more than an hour after the news conference ended, Mr. Bush and Ms. Pelosi stood side by side, shaking hands politely as they greeted each other at a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama.

Source and trackback URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/washington/18bush.html

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG; nytimes.com

A senior State Department official says the United States wants China to explain why it developed an anti-satellite weapon, calling the move “inconsistent with the constructive relationship” on the use of space agreed to by the two countries’ presidents.

The official, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said the ability to use space is vital to U.S. national security, economic and foreign policy interests. And he said the hundreds of pieces of debris that resulted from the Chinese test endanger other vehicles in space, including manned vehicles, and may endanger people on the ground when they eventually fall to earth.

The official said the Chinese test did not violate any international treaties, but did violate what he called the “the intent and the spirit” of the international Space Treaty, which guarantees free access to space for all peaceful purposes. He said the United States “reserves the right to defend and protect its space systems with a wide range of options from diplomatic to military.”

In a VOA interview before the Chinese test was conducted, the head of strategic planning and analysis at the U.S. Air Force Space Command said U.S. policy calls for the protection of the country’s access to space. Brigadier General Robert Worley would not discuss any potential threat from any specific countries, but he said the need for free access to space requires his command to consider how to preserve that access. “We all know that there are some actors out there, whether they be nations or non-state actors, that might wish to do us harm in this area. And so we, like any other nation, preserve and reserve the right to take action to prevent people from doing bad things to us,” he said.

General Worley says the United States is not interested in developing any space weapons, and may not have to in order to deter attacks on its space assets. The general says the U.S. ability to track everything that happens in space may be enough. “I think there’s a significant deterrent effect of everyone knowing that we could attribute a hostile act in space to a particular state or non-state actor,” he said.

Still, General Worley acknowledges that Space Command has the responsibility to look at additional ways to prevent attacks on U.S. satellites, ground stations and communications links. He would not provide details. The United States ended its anti-satellite weapon program more than 20 years ago after one successful test. It currently has no space-based weapons or weapons designed to attack targets in space. But experts say a powerful U.S. laser weapon could be used to blind satellites, although it was not developed for that purpose.

The State Department official who spoke Friday said even after the Chinese anti-satellite missile test there is no space weapons race. A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said Friday China also opposes what he called the ‘weaponization’ of space, and is not looking for a space weapons race. The Chinese spokesman would not confirm the test, but U.S. intelligence and military sources have confirmed it, as have civilian experts who monitor space activity.

Among them is Dean Cheng of the CNA Corporation, an independent research organization. “This test shows that the Chinese have the ability to challenge us in space. The Chinese are a qualitatively different counterpart than any other country is in this regard. I think it definitely requires a response, but I think that the first and foremost response is (to develop) a better understanding of what kind of vulnerabilities we have, given our reliance on space-based systems,” he said.

Cheng says the United States should develop a series of backup systems to replace military satellites in case they are destroyed during a war. He says the backups could be aircraft or different satellites in higher orbits.

Cheng says the altitude where China destroyed its satellite, about 800 kilometers high, is used heavily for military purposes including reconnaissance, navigation, remote sensing and earth imaging, as well as for weather satellites which are also important in military planning. He notes that communications satellites and satellites used to detect ballistic missile attacks fly much higher and would not be vulnerable to China’s new weapon.

Another space security expert, the Director of the Center for Defense Information, Theresa Hitchens, says the Chinese test should push the United States to negotiate an agreement on the appropriate civilian and military uses of space. “The specter of an all-out war in space, where satellites are being blown up willy-nilly (at will) is incredibly scary. We have the most to lose if space becomes a shooting ground,” he said.

Hitchens says a new treaty should include punishment for nations that take inappropriate actions in space, like destroying satellites and littering space with debris. But the State Department official who spoke Friday said the United States is not interested in any additional space treaties that might limit its freedom of action in space./ By Al Pessin

Source: voanews.com

The two days of discussions in Berlin took place in a “positive and sincere atmosphere and a certain agreement was reached there,'’ the official Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying today. Hill and Kim tried to “settle knotty problems in resolving the nuclear issue,'’ KCNA said without giving any details.

Hill arrives today in South Korea for talks on setting a date for a new round of six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. He travels to Japan on Jan. 20 and China the following day.

The U.S., North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia met in Beijing last month after a 13-month interruption. The meeting made no progress because North Korea said it wouldn’t engage in discussions until the issue of U.S. financial sanctions, imposed for alleged counterfeiting and money- laundering, is settled.

The Berlin meeting wasn’t the start of direct negotiations between the countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday, according to a State Department transcript.

“We’re not going outside the six-party framework to bilateralize our discussions with the North Koreans,'’ Rice said in Berlin. “We will use bilateral contacts with the North Koreans when they are useful to prepare for the six-party talks and we’ve done that several times before.'’

Six-Party Framework

“We are committed to the six-party framework because we believe that the six-party framework is the only way to get an agreement that is going to stick,'’ Rice said. Hill held two days of talks with North Korean officials in Beijing before last month’s meeting.

The forum anticipates that during its meetings some issues will need to be addressed one-on-one, Rice said. Japan wants to discuss the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s at the forum.

The U.S. is willing to engage in a “normal relationship'’ with North Korea once it gives up its nuclear programs, the Washington Post cited Hill as saying in a speech in Berlin.

Hill doesn’t have any plans for any additional meetings with North Korean officials while he is in Asia, Tom Casey, State Department deputy spokesman, said at a briefing in Washington yesterday, according to a transcript.

Talks Date

The U.S. wants the forum to resume as soon as possible, Casey said. Hill has “talked about them occurring perhaps as soon as the end of this month, maybe early next month,'’ he said, adding that Hill’s discussions with Kim in Berlin were “useful and productive'’ in helping prepare a new round.

Talks may start in Beijing in the week of Feb. 5, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported today, citing unidentified officials involved in diplomatic issues.

The Berlin meeting discussed ways to implement a 2005 agreement between the six nations to remove nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min Soon said two days ago in Seoul.

The U.S. and North Korea will hold talks in the week of Jan. 22 to discuss U.S. Treasury Department sanctions on North Korean accounts in Macau’s Banco Delta Asia SARL, Song said Jan. 7. Casey said yesterday he isn’t aware of a date for the meeting.

Treasury and North Korean financial officials met during last month’s Beijing forum and agreed to meet again in New York. Their discussions are in parallel with the six-government negotiations.

Legitimate Accounts

The U.S. is looking at the $24 million in North Korean accounts to see whether some of the money could be considered legitimate and released, Reuters reported Jan. 16, citing a treasury official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It is possible that accounts reflecting legitimate transactions can be separated from “illegitimate'’ funds, the official said, according to Reuters.

North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb Oct. 9, 2006. The detonation led to the United Nations Security Council passing a resolution banning sales of military equipment and luxury goods to the country.

Source: Bloomberg/By Paul Tighe