【VOA】In the News

India Works to Gather Evidence in Deadly Attacks in Mumbai
One of the first issues that will face Barack Obama's foreign policy team is what to do about the India-Pakistan conflict. Transcript of radio broadcast:
06 December 2008
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
India continues to investigate the terrorist attacks last week in Mumbai. More than one hundred seventy people were killed in two and a half days of
violence.
Indian officials have blamed what they call "elements from
Pakistan." They tell Indian media that they have linked the
military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to the attackers.
Pakistan denies any government involvement.
The attackers struck hotels, a train station, a Jewish center
and other targets, including a hospital. Mumbai, formerly
Bombay, is India's financial and film capital.
Indian officials said nine gunmen were killed and one was
captured. They say the man has said he is a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani Islamic group that India has tied to other attacks. Pakistan banned the group in two thousand two.
Many Indians are angry at the government for not doing
more to fight terrorism. Hundreds have died this year in
bombings in New Delhi and other cities.
India admits to failures by its security and intelligence
services in the attack on Mumbai. American officials say
India had received warnings. India's home minister, its top
law enforcement official, resigned.
Pakistan has offered to jointly investigate the attack with
India. India wants Pakistan to surrender twenty suspects.
But President Asif Ali Zardari said that even if India
provided proof of their involvement, they would be tried in Pakistan.
Taj Hotel in Mumbai burning
Indians protest their government's inability to prevent the attacks
India has increased security at airports because of threats sent by e-mail to government officials and media organizations, including VOA. They claim to come from the Deccan Mujahideen, the same group that took responsibility in Mumbai.
India has also been looking into the possibility that one of its citizens, under arrest for months, was involved in planning the attack. Police in Uttar Pradesh say the man had detailed drawings of some of the targets.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other American officials traveled to India and Pakistan, trying to calm the tensions. The attacks threaten the recent steps that the nuclear-armed neighbors have taken to improve relations.
The issue will be one of the first for Barack Obama's
foreign policy team. The president-elect announced his
team this week, led by his nominee for secretary of state,
Hillary Clinton. Robert Gates will continue as defense
secretary. And a retired Marine general, Jim Jones, will be
national security adviser when the new president takes
office in January.
Last year Congress established a group to study how to
prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. This week the commission released its report . It says the world must act quickly to control the spread of biological and nuclear weapons, the greatest threats.
Otherwise, it says, terrorists are more likely than not to use such a weapon somewhere in the world by the end of two thousand thirteen.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.
President-elect Obama with Hillary Clinton and retired general James Jones
US State of Illinois Opens New Chapter in Its Corruption History
Federal agents arrest the governor; one accusation is that he tried to profit from making an appointment to Obama's former Senate seat. Transcript of radio broadcast:
12 December 2008
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
This week, the governor of the American state of Illinois, Rod
Blagojevich, was arrested on federal corruption charges. The case
includes accusations that he tried to sell an appointment to Barack
Obama's former seat in the United States Senate. The governor has the
power to make a temporary appointment.
The United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, said the
charges make no accusations about President-elect Obama. On Thursday, the president-elect met with reporters in Chicago to name top members of his health care team, to be led by former senator Tom Daschle. But many questions dealt with the case.
PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: "What I want to do is to gather all
the facts about any staff contacts that may have taken place between
the transition office and the governor's office and we will have those
in the next few days and we will present them. But what I am
absolutely certain about is that our office had no involvement in any
deal making around my Senate seat. That I am absolutely certain of."
He joined calls for Governor Blagojevich, a Democrat, to resign. On Friday, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan made an extraordinary request to the state Supreme Court. She asked to have the governor temporarily removed from office, or at least prevented from filling the Senate seat. Lawmakers could hold a special election instead.
Among those interested in the seat is Representative Jesse Jackson Junior, the son of the civil rights leader. The Democratic congressman met with the governor. But he said he was not involved in any wrongdoing and is not a target of the investigation.
Rod Blagojevich
President-elect Obama
with Tom Daschle, his choice for health and human services secretary
The two-term governor says he has done nothing wrong. He was
arrested at his Chicago home on Tuesday. He was released for now
after a court appearance and returned to work the next day. He could
face up to thirty years in prison if he is found guilty.
Among other things, investigators say he tried to pressure a newspaper,
the Chicago Tribune, to dismiss opinion writers who criticized him. And officials suggest that he even threatened to deny state money to a children's hospital if he did not get a campaign donation.
Federal officials say they recorded his phone calls. Yet it was no secret that he was under investigation.
Political corruption is nothing new to Illinois -- three former governors have gone to jail in the past thirty-five years. Rod Blagojevich was elected in two thousand two as a reform candidate. The governor before him, George Ryan, was found guilty of corruption two years ago. He is now serving a six-and-a-half year prison term.
But the newspaper USA Today says Illinois, for its population, is eighteenth among the fifty states in convictions for public corruption. North Dakota, it says, had the highest rate between nineteen ninety-eight and two thousand seven. But the study looked only at cases won in federal courts. Two longtime members of Congress, from Alaska and Louisiana, lost re-election in November at least in part because of corruption cases.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan
Common Theme Ties Cases of Madoff, Siemens and 'Light' Cigarette Ads
The legal cases of a New York money manager, a German engineering company and the U.S. tobacco industry are all rooted in the idea of dishonesty. Transcript of radio broadcast: 19 December 2008
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
An individual, a company and an industry were all in the news this week for reasons unrelated except for the idea of dishonesty.
The individual was seventy-year-old Bernard Madoff. The
New York money manager is accused of cheating investors
around the world. Officials say the losses, by his own
estimate, were at least fifty billion dollars.
He is accused of a Ponzi scheme. Brad Garrett, a former
federal agent, explains how it works.
BRAD GARRETT: "Taking in the money from new
investors, and paying it out to the old investors as income.
And, as long as you have new money coming in, it works
well." And it is illegal. Charles Ponzi was an Italian immigrant in the United States. He went to prison in the nineteen twenties after he cheated thousands of investors. He promised high returns in a short time.
Bernard Madoff (pronounced MAY-doff) provided small but continual profits for his investors. He was well known in Wall Street finance -- a former chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market. Officials say the operation collapsed when the economic downturn caused some investors to demand about seven billion dollars back.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating why it did not take action against him until now. Accusations of wrongdoing had repeatedly been brought to its attention. Experts say possible victims, including international banks and movie maker Steven Spielberg, are not likely to get much back.
This week, the German engineering company Siemens pleaded guilty in Washington to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That law makes it a crime for Americans and companies traded on United States markets to pay bribes in return for business. Investigators say Siemens paid one and a half billion dollars in bribes to government officials in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
Bernard Madoff was arrested last
week
Now, Siemens has agreed to pay a similar amount in fines and other punishments. Cases were brought by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office. Eight hundred million dollars of the money will go to United States authorities -- a record for such a case.
Siemens cooperated extensively and admitted to acts like falsifying its records. But it did not plead guilty to bribery. That could have kept it from getting United States government contracts.
And finally, this week also brought a ruling that anti-tobacco activists in the United States called historic. The Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits against tobacco companies accused of dishonest advertising for so-called light cigarettes.
The case grew out of a lawsuit brought by three people in the state of Maine. They accused cigarette makers of hiding information that "light" or "low tar" cigarettes are just as dangerous as other cigarettes.
The companies argued that a federal law bars such claims under state law. The Supreme Court was divided five to four, but the justices decided that smokers may sue under state
consumer-protection laws.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.
Oil Prices Collapse on Falling Demand
Some oil-producing nations face their first budget deficits in years as oil prices drop sharply. And Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warns that the world can expect higher natural gas prices. Transcript of radio broadcast:
26 December 2008
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
For much of the year, record prices for oil have made oil-producing nations rich. Now these nations are trying to cut production to support collapsing prices.
Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met in Algiers. Members agreed to a record production cut of more than two million barrels a day, or about five percent of world output. OPEC's president said the group may call an emergency meeting in March if prices continue to fall.
Less than six months ago, oil traded at a record one
hundred forty-seven dollars a barrel. Governments and oil
companies in Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia spent billions
of dollars to develop new oil fields. Now, oil is trading for
less than forty dollars a barrel —down over seventy percent.
At the root of the sharp price decrease is reduced demand
because of the economic downturn. The American
Petroleum Institute says demand for oil in the United States
fell by three percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Americans are driving smaller, more fuel efficient cars. And they are driving less. Last week, the Energy Information Administration released a report on oil use in the United States. The Annual Energy Outlook for Two Thousand Nine predicts that American oil use will remain mostly unchanged through the year twenty thirty. The report says new fuel efficiency rules for vehicles, requirements for increased use of renewable fuels and increased fuel prices will limit demand. The United States is the world's largest user of oil.
Collapsing oil prices mean producing nations will face something they may not have planned for: budget deficits. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter. But it expects a budget deficit in two thousand nine — its first in six years.
An oil worker at Saudi Arabia's Khurais oil center. Operations at the center were expanded as oil reach
140 dollars a barrel.
Russia, the world's second largest exporter, also predicts a
budget deficit next year. Some nations depend on oil exports
more than others. For example, oil provides eighty percent of
Iran's foreign income.
Oil was not the only energy resource in the news recently.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that a period
of low natural gas prices is coming to a close. Mister Putin
spoke at a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in
Moscow. The fourteen-member group includes Russia, Iran
and Venezuela.
Currently, natural gas is transported through pipelines under long-term contracts. This limits the prices suppliers can charge. But the new process of liquefying natural gas may change that. Mister Putin said liquefied natural gas has
become an expanding industry that requires new investment in processing centers.
Venezuela's Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said the Gas Exporting Countries Forum will have more power over prices as the world market becomes more developed.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow Tuesday。