ISIS planned Bekaa Valley emirate: report
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Thursday, 5 February 2015
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Beirut governor shutters rat-infested fish market
Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib shut down a famous fish market in the Lebanese capital Thursday after finding dead rats...
In 'Red Notice,' Success Draws Treachery, Tragedy In Putin's Russia
Bill Browder crossing Red Square in 2004, at the height of the Hermitage Fund's success. James Hill/Courtesy of the Browder Family Archives hide caption
itoggle caption James Hill/Courtesy of the Browder Family Archives
Bill Browder crossing Red Square in 2004, at the height of the Hermitage Fund's success.
James Hill/Courtesy of the Browder Family Archives
William Browder's new book, Red Notice, is named for the type of warrant the Russian government has sought from Interpol in hopes of capturing him.
The hedge fund manager made huge profits with Hermitage Capital Management, a company he started in Russian in 1996. That, he says, drew the attention and machinations of a corrupt group of Russian officials.
In an interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Browder discusses Red Notice and his experiences in Russia — which he calls "a place where lies reign supreme" in his book — as well as why he made an unusual capitalist missionary to the post-Soviet nation.
Interview Highlights
On growing up as the grandson of a Communist Party USA leader
When you come from a family of communists and you go through your teenage rebellion, what's the best way of rebelling from a family of communists? Well, I put on a suit and tie and became a capitalist ... there was nothing I could do to upset my family more than that.
On the takeover of his companies
What was most remarkable about it was that it involved just about everybody right up the chain of command, up to probably a cabinet minister level. So they applied for this illegal tax refund after stealing our companies. And they applied for it on the 23rd of December, 2007, and it was approved and paid out one day later — a $230 million tax refund, the largest refund in Russian history, paid out, with no questions asked. ...
And then the police go around to all of our banks looking for assets — but they didn't find anything there, because I had taken all the money out beforehand. We had $4 billion worth of assets and we sold every last penny and got it out of the country.
Russia is an interesting place because they're extremely evil but they're not that good at implementing their evil. So they kicked me out in 2005 and it took 18 months before they actually started moving forward on their scam.
As we learned about these raids and their frustration in not finding anything, I started to laugh because, I thought, all this effort ... and they didn't get anything.
On his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
Sergei was working with us on the investigation. And Sergei as I was laughing said: "Bill, you shouldn't relax. And the reason you shouldn't relax is there's much more to the story. There's never a sort of clean and happy ending like you think."
Sergei Magnitsky in 2008. Magnitsky was Browder's attorney who investigated the incident in 2007 involving Russian law enforcement officers raiding Browder's offices and stealing $230 million of taxes that Browder's companies had paid to the Russian government. He was arrested, tortured and, in 2009, was beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear. (paraphrased from book jacket.) Courtesy of the Magnitsky Family hide caption
itoggle caption Courtesy of the Magnitsky Family
Sergei Magnitsky in 2008. Magnitsky was Browder's attorney who investigated the incident in 2007 involving Russian law enforcement officers raiding Browder's offices and stealing $230 million of taxes that Browder's companies had paid to the Russian government. He was arrested, tortured and, in 2009, was beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear. (paraphrased from book jacket.)
Courtesy of the Magnitsky Family
He was an idealist, a man of a new generation of Russians, and he thought that the country was a normal country. And so he thought, if police officers were involved in the theft of $230 million dollars, that he would report that. And so he testified against a number of police officers involved, hoping that the good guys would get the bad guys.
Instead, he was arrested in November of 2008. They put him in pretrial detention, and then they started to torture him to get him to withdraw his testimony.
They put him in cells with 14 inmates in eight beds, left the lights on 24 hours a day to impose sleep deprivation. They put him in cells with no heat and no window panes in December in Moscow, so he nearly froze to death. They put him in cells with no toilet, just a hole in the floor where the sewage would bubble up. ...
They wanted to get him to withdraw his testimony against the police officers and sign a false confession to say that he stole the $230 million. And Sergei, in spite of this ever-increasing torture, refused to perjure himself. For him the idea of lying was worse than the idea of being tortured.
And so the torture got worse and his health broke down. He ended up losing 40 pounds, getting very severe pains in his stomach and being diagnosed as having pancreatitis and gall stones, and needing an operation. And a week before the operation was due, they came to him again with this Faustian bargain of "you sign a confession and then you can have your medical care."
He refused to sign this false confession. He went into critical condition. He was supposed to be taken to a prison with a hospital, but instead they put him in an isolation cell, and eight riot guard with rubber batons beat him to death on Nov. 16, 2009.
The DEA Is Taking Pictures of Your Face While You're Driving
The Drug Enforcement Administration is gathering facial photos of American motorists and their passengers through the use of technology designed to scan license plates. According to new documents published by the ACLU, the DEA has successfully photographed individuals seated in both the front and back of automobiles, amassing "millions" of bits of information that is stored in a massive database.
As reported by The Guardian , a 2011 document states that the DEA is capable of snapping up to 10 photos per vehicle, including four passenger photos. Unlike prior national security revelations which describe certain forms of data collection as accidental, the DEA's methods appear highly intentional:
The documents confirmed that license plate scanners did not always focus just on license plates, the ACLU said on Thursday: "Occupant photos are not an occasional, accidental byproduct of the technology, but one that is intentionally being cultivated."
Using the technology in this way undermined law enforcement agencies’ claims that license plate images could not be used to identify individuals and did not violate individual privacy, said the ACLU. "This argument is thin already, but it certainly doesn’t fly with regards to photographs of the driver or passengers inside of a vehicle."
What's Inside The 28 Most Controversial Pages In Washington?
Robert Siegel talks with former Sen. Bob Kerrey about the call for the release of withheld pages from the Congressional Joint Inquiry into intelligence activities leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Political banners removed, dialogue goes on
BEIRUT: Political slogans and party banners were removed from Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli Thursday, a step the rival the Future Movement and Hezbollah agreed to during dialogue sessions in a bid to defuse sectarian tensions.
Operating upon the orders of the Interior Ministry, Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib and party officials supervised the campaign to clear the city of all political signs and posters advertising politicians.
Chebib said that rival partisans had started taking down the banners two days before and that the authorities would continue the work until the last banner was removed.
Similarly, North Lebanon Governor Ramzi Nohra watched the removal of all political banners from Lebanon’s second city.
“The campaign has begun and will not stop until all party banners and flags are removed, except for the Lebanese flag which will remain fluttering in all Lebanese areas,” Nohra said, as he toured several districts of Tripoli.
Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh, neighborhoods that witnessed several rounds of Syria-linked violence in the past years, were among the areas where signs and banners were removed.
In the southern coastal city of Sidon, an advertisement billboard used by Hezbollah to mark and promote special occasions was also cleared of announcements conveying political messages, and of posters showing the party’s martyrs.
Only announcements about Hezbollah’s museum in the southern village of Mleeta were kept, while posters of the six Hezbollah fighters killed by Israel in Syria’s Golan Heights village of Qunaitra last month had been removed.
Tearing down political banners, signs and posters of leaders was one of the outcomes of ongoing talks between Hezbollah and the Future Movement. The dialogue aims at defusing sectarian tension in the country and facilitating the election of a new president.
Future bloc MP Ammar Houri commented on the campaign, saying “it was just a partial move, not the main aim of the dialogue.”
“We hope it is one step in the right direction, since political banners contribute to fueling tensions, and we had agreed with Hezbollah to defuse tensions as part of the dialogue,” Houri told Voice of Lebanon radio station.
The lawmaker underlined that his party had called for making Beirut free of illegitimate weapons as well, as an initial move which could be expanded to all parts of Lebanon without exception, in reference to Hezbollah’s military arsenal.
Meanwhile, a statement by the French Embassy Thursday said that French presidential envoy Jean-Francois Girault, who paid a two-day visit to Lebanon this week, stressed to Lebanese officials that France was mobilizing all its efforts through its contacts with relevant officials to encourage consensus and alleviate political paralysis in the country.
He discussed with Lebanese politicians the upcoming phase of this mission. Girault said it was important for all political factions to be responsible, adding that France’s efforts respected Lebanon’s sovereignty. Girault said that his country neither backed nor vetoed any presidential candidate.
In his second visit to Lebanon in two months, Girault held talks with Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and several Lebanese leaders.
The French official had earlier paid visits to Tehran and Riyadh as part of efforts to help Lebanon end its presidential vacuum, now in its ninth month.
He voiced his country’s concern over the negative impact the vacuum was having on state institutions.
Also, Girault said that France, which has been participating in UNIFIL since its deployment, was actively committed to working on the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and avoiding any more hostilities between Israel and Lebanon.
Last week, Hezbollah ambushed an Israeli convoy in Lebanon’s occupied Shebaa Farms, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven others.
The operation came 10 days after the Israeli strike which killed six Hezbollah fighters in Syria’s Golan heights. The violence raised fears that a wider conflict would erupt in south Lebanon, which has been calm since summer 2006, when Israel launched a month-long war on the country.
Media reports said that Girault would visit the Vatican next week for talks with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai regarding the Lebanese presidential election crisis.
The reports said the French envoy would possibly meet officials of the Holy See for consultations on the presidential crisis.
Separately, Prime Minister Tammam Salam arrived in Germany Thursday evening to participate in the Munich Security Conference to be held Feb. 6-8.
The conference will focus on the Syria crisis that has so far killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions since the war broke out in March 2011.
Crowded conditions magnify fire hazard in old structures
BEIRUT: In the past several weeks, both industrial and residential fires have been at the top of Lebanon’s local news headlines. Unlike other security concerns, many of the country’s residents can’t lock their doors to ward off the threat of fire hazards. The home itself is the problem, as crowded living conditions and neglected building infrastructure present further safety concerns. With the influx of over a million refugees, residential space has become scarce while rent costs have skyrocketed. In late January, 12 people were injured in a house fire in east Beirut’s working-class suburb of Sadd al-Boushrieh.
The building was formerly a hospital, now repurposed to house over 40 families, mostly Syrian workers, who pay $250 per room.
The landlord said the fire was caused by electrical wiring issues, but forbade residents from speaking to The Daily Star. Nonetheless, a handful of residents gathered in the street, away from the building’s charred interior, to give further details.
“Our main concern was getting the children away from the smoke on the upper floors. Many people were sleeping on the street that night,” said Mahmoud, who lives in the building with his family. He declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation from the landlord.
The fire was one of thousands that Lebanon’s Civil Defense brigades have responded to in the past 14 months. In 2014 alone, the Civil Defense responded to more than 3,500 urban fires, 1,000 of which occurred in residential properties. And the winter season poses its own risks due to wider use of heating units and overtaxed electrical circuits.
Additional hazards include Christmas lights and small electric space heaters.
“House electrical fire hazards are the most common,” the Civil Defense media department said in response to questions by The Daily Star. It added that people tended to plug multiple appliances into a single outlet.
However, individual behavior is just one part of the equation.
Unenforced decrees leave many buildings with inadequate fire safety standards. Consequently, residents are left vulnerable to fire hazards, particularly in the country’s older buildings, where electrical wiring is apt to be worn out.
“Many of the old buildings built before 2012 have no safety mechanism,” said the Civil Defense media department, explaining that safety measures were not mandatory prior to 2013. The department added that residents don’t have to wait for landlords to ensure safety measures, suggesting that they take a proactive approach to protect themselves by installing smoke detectors in the home, purchasing fire extinguishers, and hiring a professional to check electrical wires.
Those on limited incomes are the most likely to live in buildings riddled with fire hazards. They are also the least able to afford such equipment.
“Fire safety is viewed as a luxury,” said Marc Azar, of Azar Fire Protection, a Beirut-based company providing fire protection equipment to both residential buildings and businesses. The cost of a smoke detector with a panel that would alert the fire department, he said, could run anywhere between $500 and $700.
Azar said demand was higher from businesses as opposed to residences, but noted that demand was rising from private homes due to the increasing number of fire incidents. This rise is in parallel to the increased neglect of building maintenance.
“Many of those who buy our equipment have already had an accident due to fire,” Azar said.
Drawing from his experience, he said landlords, particularly those of older buildings, often forego spending money on adequate fire safety measures such as smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
Government regulations concerning fire safety are vague and difficult to navigate, building safety activists and engineers told The Daily Star. It’s difficult to discern where responsibility lies in enforcing decrees, which give considerable leeway to building owners.
In 2005, the government issued Decree 14293, which is supposed to protect building safety with respect to fire, earthquakes and elevators. In conjunction with previous laws, this requires building owners to have fire prevention and protection mechanisms, and to regularly inspect electrical wiring, heating and air conditioning systems. It further stipulates an adequate number of emergency exits, fire alarms and extinguishers, as well as smoke ventilation systems.
While considered an improvement over previous decrees in streamlining efficiency, the 2005 decree left inspection in the hands of the private sector, and never identified who is responsible for the decree’s enforcement. While the decree was amended in 2012 to improve technical inspections of buildings, safe housing advocate Youssef Azzam said that while the words may look good on paper they don’t result in on-the-ground action.
“There is no real way for [the decree] to be implemented properly,” he said.
Azzam, president of Beirut’s Safe Building Alliance, an NGO that advocates for building safety, called on the government to be more stringent in enforcing decrees.
He said that municipalities on tight budgets, particularly those in poor areas, lack the capacities to inspect and enforce decrees.
Upon completion of a building, the developer pays an engineer to ensure that safety specifications are met, he explained, but since the engineer is paid by the developer, the engineer could be incentivized to overlook gaps in safety standards.
Bilal Hamad, mayor of Beirut, said that the law holds building owners responsible for the structural integrity and fire safety. “We as a municipality will not go in and see if a building has the proper safety precautions,” he said, adding that he and other civil servants continue to lobby for enhanced government regulation of residential buildings.
For their part, landlords have traditionally cited old rent laws that have allowed long-time tenants to pay rent rates far below market value. Per The Daily Star’s 2012 report on crumbling infrastructure, landlords cited lack of funds to make necessary safety updates to buildings.
Bilal Iskandarani, senior fire protection engineer at the American University of Beirut, said that property owners would often choose the cheapest policies when shopping for building insurance; policies that don’t require basic fire protection or cover fire-related damages.
He pointed to the increased burden of risk on the poor and refugees, who often resort to “creative” but hazardous measures to meet basic life needs.
Although residents may not be able to control a building’s safety standards, Iskandarani said that education was a key component in fire prevention.
Iskandarani, who teaches courses on fire safety, said people could protect themselves by knowing the three parts of the fire triangle: heat, oxygen and fuel. “Fires happen when all three are in the same place,” he explained. “By taking any [of them] out of the equation, you can prevent a fire.”
All you need is love ... and the elusive rubber stamp
BEIRUT: Usually, love doesn’t require recognition, but couples who have opted for a civil marriage in Lebanon crave it. For them, an official recognition of their nuptials is the only thing preventing their marriage from being a bona fide state-approved union. The Civil Commission for Freedom of Choice held a fiery news conference in Beirut’s Press Club Thursday, during which the organization’s spokesperson slammed Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk for announcing this week civil marriages registered here were not legitimate due to the absence of an official law governing the process.
“We are currently in a state of war,” spokesperson Talal Husseini said. “The truth is that the Interior Ministry is abstaining from registering contracts of civil marriages performed in Lebanon and is violating the law of coexistence and the freedom and equality of the Lebanese.”
Generally, Lebanese couples wishing to have a civil marriage travel to places such as Cyprus or Turkey. While the Lebanese state fully recognizes civil unions completed outside Lebanon, those done within Lebanon are problematic.
Last year, in a landmark ruling, the High Committee for Consultations in the Justice Ministry approved Nidal Darwish and Kholoud Succariyeh’s civil marriage in the country which took place after the couple removed their sects from their official documents. The move prompted a number of couples to follow suit and there are currently roughly 60 couples who have opted to perform their civil ceremonies in Lebanon, Husseini said.
“Me and my husband didn’t get a civil marriage because we are activists. We just did it because it felt like it was one of the few good things that happened to Lebanon and we wanted to be a part of it,” Myriam Sassine Masaad told The Daily Star.
Myriam and her husband Badih first met back in college, but didn’t get married until they found themselves reunited by their careers. “We didn’t see each other for five years after college but then we met again at work,” Badih said.
Myriam and Badih both belong to the same religion and the same sect, which is highly uncommon of people who opt for a civil union. But for them, a religious marriage was not on the table, partly because the laws for a civil marriage cater more to women’s right, Myriam said.
Myriam and Badih submitted their civil marriage contract to the Interior Ministry in July following a civil ceremony that they held in the groom’s family home. But like most couples, their contract still lacks formal registration.
“The Interior Ministry keeps stalling the registration of our civil marriage contract, they stall and stall and stall because this is the weapon they use to fight civil marriage,” Badih said. “This is how they convince you to get married normally since it would cause you less trouble and it would take less time.”
Badih recalled the degrading manner in which the Interior Ministry’s staff dealt with couples who came in to register their nuptials. “They make you feel like they don’t want to do it and they make it harder for you.”
Myriam agreed, saying the Interior Ministry was disrupting the registration of marriage documents on purpose to convince couples to change their minds. “But we haven’t changed our mind yet,” she added.
Despite the obstacles, some couples have decided to wed in a civil ceremony anyway in the belief that a solution is on the horizon.
“If we didn’t believe that a solution would be reached we would not have gotten married,” Lebanon’s most recent “civil” bride, Nada Maatouq, told The Daily Star.
Maatouq and Freddy Richani got married in Lebanon less than two weeks ago, and like other couples, they are still waiting for the Interior Ministry to register their marriage contract. “We are waiting and we are willing to wait,” Maatouq said.
Maatouq and Richani, who knew each other for roughly 10 years before deciding to tie the knot on Jan. 23, never even considered the religious alternative. “We wanted to do it because we believe in the civil option,” Maatouq said.
Maatouq and Richani say their confidence in the CCFC has expelled any concerns about never having their nuptials registered by the state, with Richani stressing that the organization’s efforts were bound to result in victory.
The CCFC has also allayed their concerns over future complications regarding the recognition of their future children’s birth certificates.
“We are not worried, but even if that happens then we will be three members in the family fighting [the injustice],” Maatouq said.
Crowded conditions magnify fire hazard in old structures
BEIRUT: In the past several weeks, both industrial and residential fires have been at the top of Lebanon’s local news headlines. Unlike other security concerns, many of the country’s residents can’t lock their doors to ward off the threat of fire hazards. The home itself is the problem, as crowded living conditions and neglected building infrastructure present further safety concerns. With the influx of over a million refugees, residential space has become scarce while rent costs have skyrocketed. In late January, 12 people were injured in a house fire in east Beirut’s working-class suburb of Sadd al-Boushrieh.
The building was formerly a hospital, now repurposed to house over 40 families, mostly Syrian workers, who pay $250 per room.
The landlord said the fire was caused by electrical wiring issues, but forbade residents from speaking to The Daily Star. Nonetheless, a handful of residents gathered in the street, away from the building’s charred interior, to give further details.
“Our main concern was getting the children away from the smoke on the upper floors. Many people were sleeping on the street that night,” said Mahmoud, who lives in the building with his family. He declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation from the landlord.
The fire was one of thousands that Lebanon’s Civil Defense brigades have responded to in the past 14 months. In 2014 alone, the Civil Defense responded to more than 3,500 urban fires, 1,000 of which occurred in residential properties. And the winter season poses its own risks due to wider use of heating units and overtaxed electrical circuits.
Additional hazards include Christmas lights and small electric space heaters.
“House electrical fire hazards are the most common,” the Civil Defense media department said in response to questions by The Daily Star. It added that people tended to plug multiple appliances into a single outlet.
However, individual behavior is just one part of the equation.
Unenforced decrees leave many buildings with inadequate fire safety standards. Consequently, residents are left vulnerable to fire hazards, particularly in the country’s older buildings, where electrical wiring is apt to be worn out.
“Many of the old buildings built before 2012 have no safety mechanism,” said the Civil Defense media department, explaining that safety measures were not mandatory prior to 2013. The department added that residents don’t have to wait for landlords to ensure safety measures, suggesting that they take a proactive approach to protect themselves by installing smoke detectors in the home, purchasing fire extinguishers, and hiring a professional to check electrical wires.
Those on limited incomes are the most likely to live in buildings riddled with fire hazards. They are also the least able to afford such equipment.
“Fire safety is viewed as a luxury,” said Marc Azar, of Azar Fire Protection, a Beirut-based company providing fire protection equipment to both residential buildings and businesses. The cost of a smoke detector with a panel that would alert the fire department, he said, could run anywhere between $500 and $700.
Azar said demand was higher from businesses as opposed to residences, but noted that demand was rising from private homes due to the increasing number of fire incidents. This rise is in parallel to the increased neglect of building maintenance.
“Many of those who buy our equipment have already had an accident due to fire,” Azar said.
Drawing from his experience, he said landlords, particularly those of older buildings, often forego spending money on adequate fire safety measures such as smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
Government regulations concerning fire safety are vague and difficult to navigate, building safety activists and engineers told The Daily Star. It’s difficult to discern where responsibility lies in enforcing decrees, which give considerable leeway to building owners.
In 2005, the government issued Decree 14293, which is supposed to protect building safety with respect to fire, earthquakes and elevators. In conjunction with previous laws, this requires building owners to have fire prevention and protection mechanisms, and to regularly inspect electrical wiring, heating and air conditioning systems. It further stipulates an adequate number of emergency exits, fire alarms and extinguishers, as well as smoke ventilation systems.
While considered an improvement over previous decrees in streamlining efficiency, the 2005 decree left inspection in the hands of the private sector, and never identified who is responsible for the decree’s enforcement. While the decree was amended in 2012 to improve technical inspections of buildings, safe housing advocate Youssef Azzam said that while the words may look good on paper they don’t result in on-the-ground action.
“There is no real way for [the decree] to be implemented properly,” he said.
Azzam, president of Beirut’s Safe Building Alliance, an NGO that advocates for building safety, called on the government to be more stringent in enforcing decrees.
He said that municipalities on tight budgets, particularly those in poor areas, lack the capacities to inspect and enforce decrees.
Upon completion of a building, the developer pays an engineer to ensure that safety specifications are met, he explained, but since the engineer is paid by the developer, the engineer could be incentivized to overlook gaps in safety standards.
Bilal Hamad, mayor of Beirut, said that the law holds building owners responsible for the structural integrity and fire safety. “We as a municipality will not go in and see if a building has the proper safety precautions,” he said, adding that he and other civil servants continue to lobby for enhanced government regulation of residential buildings.
For their part, landlords have traditionally cited old rent laws that have allowed long-time tenants to pay rent rates far below market value. Per The Daily Star’s 2012 report on crumbling infrastructure, landlords cited lack of funds to make necessary safety updates to buildings.
Bilal Iskandarani, senior fire protection engineer at the American University of Beirut, said that property owners would often choose the cheapest policies when shopping for building insurance; policies that don’t require basic fire protection or cover fire-related damages.
He pointed to the increased burden of risk on the poor and refugees, who often resort to “creative” but hazardous measures to meet basic life needs.
Although residents may not be able to control a building’s safety standards, Iskandarani said that education was a key component in fire prevention.
Iskandarani, who teaches courses on fire safety, said people could protect themselves by knowing the three parts of the fire triangle: heat, oxygen and fuel. “Fires happen when all three are in the same place,” he explained. “By taking any [of them] out of the equation, you can prevent a fire.”
Jumblatt reveals he sheltered key Cold War Swedish spy
BEIRUT: An overwhelming sense of intrigue was added to the enthralling life-story of MP Walid Jumblatt Thursday, after the Druze Leader revealed his role in sheltering one of Sweden’s most notorious Cold War spies.
“Somebody one day will write my biography,” was the opening line to Jumblatt’s latest editorial in the Al-Anbaa online newspaper Thursday. “I might be present to give [the biographer] information or I might be reincarnated in China according to Druze faith, in which case I do not know if the potential biographer would be fluent in Mandarin.”
Jumblatt’s humorous intro was only a prelude to the real topic of his statement. Under the title, “Moukhtara and The Cold War,” the Progressive Socialist Party chief’s editorial delves in to his “unfortunate” sheltering of Stig Bergling, a renowned Swedish spy who died in Stockholm last month at the age of 77.
“I was involved in hiding him for four years at the Moukhtara [palace] in Lebanon between 1990 and 1994,” Jumblatt said in reference to his historic Chouf residence.
In 1990 the then-deputy director of soviet military intelligence, Gen. Vladimir Izmailov, who Jumblatt described as an “impressively tall man with red hair and a big moustache,” carried out a friendly visit to the Moukhtara palace, along with two other individuals.
“With the Soviets and the Russians, serious talk starts after five or six shots of vodka, and numerous toasts to the Lebanese-Soviet friendship,” Jumblatt said. The PSP chief recalled the conversation he had with Izmailov and quoted the Soviet general as saying: “Comrade Walid you are a great friend of the Soviet Union and we will never forget your position supporting the cause of the Soviet people.”
Following the Soviet sweet-talk, Izmailov asked Jumblatt if he could shelter somebody at the Moukhtara Palace. “How could I refuse?” Jumblatt asked. “The Soviets provided [us] with hundreds of scholarships, trained the militia of the Progressive Socialist Party ... in their bases and provided us with the equivalent of $500 million of weapons and ammunition between 1979 until the late eighties for free.”
The Druze leader noted that he agreed “without hesitation” before continuing his “endless lunch” with his visitors. “I wonder how many bottles of vodka were consumed for this event, of course for the common cause of fighting ‘Imperialism.’”
Two weeks later, Stig Bergling and his wife Elisabeth Sandberg appeared at Jumblatt’s threshold. The couple was given residence in the second floor of the house of former MP Nehme Tohme, who is described by the PSP chief as a “great friend of the Jumblatt family.”
“For the coming four years he [Bergling] was our guest and our partner at dinner or lunch,” Jumblatt said, before shifting in to the suspicions he had harbored as a result of the Soviets’ request.
“For the Soviets to ask me to hide one of their numerous spies was quite odd,” he noted. “Later my suspicions were confirmed that something was wrong in the Soviet empire because after one year it just collapsed.”
According to the PSP chief, Bergling fled Lebanon in 1994 and went back to Sweden when Jumblatt was visiting Moscow. “He was jailed again ... he disclosed his whereabouts to the Swedish press,” he added. “As for me I ended up terribly embarrassed with my Swedish friends, the Social Democrats, with whom I was so closely connected.”
Jumblatt concluded by apologizing to the Swedish people and to his “friends” the Social Democrats, saying that Bergling had done a lot of damage to him and to Sweden.
As of late, Jumblatt has revealed himself to be Lebanon’s most outspoken politician. Jumblatt joined Twitter Oct. 27 and in less than two months gained 35,300 followers, making his one of the fastest growing accounts in Lebanon. He continuously responds to followers with tweets ranging from the plainly absurd to the brilliantly satirical. Jumblatt’s new-found openness to the world is reflected in his latest editorial in PSP’s mouthpiece Al-Anbaa.
The PSP chief has also announced that he is seeking to end his career in the near future, making way for his son Taymour to head the Jumblatt family’s political dynasty.
Lebanese celebrate removal of political banners
BEIRUT/TRIPOLI/SIDON: The montage of political posters and party banners that have become part of the cityscapes of Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli were taken down Thursday, in line with an agreement reached during dialogue sessions between the Future Movement and Hezbollah to defuse sectarian tensions in the country.
To publicize the initiative, Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib led a tour around the city to tear down what little signage remained.
“There were no objections, people were welcoming to us and about the campaign,” Chebib told The Daily Star. “This is a visual pollution that every citizen needs to fight in order to have a clean environment.”
Parties and neighborhood residents were told about the measure two days ago to give them time to remove signage on their own, Chebib said, and now the authorities would enforce the decision.
Across Beirut, it appeared that locals fervently agreed with the idea of removing the city’s sometimes intimidating territorial markings, although many expressed doubts that it would have anything more than a superficial, temporary effect.
“Removing the posters is hugely symbolic,” said Mohammad Itani, a resident of Ras Beirut. “While it might slightly contribute to diminishing Sunni-Shiite tensions, more work is needed at the level of the people to change the prevailing mentalities.”
For Mohammad Ghalayini from the Beirut neighborhood of Aisha Bakkar, the taking down of the signage was “irrelevant.”
“I got used to the Amal Movement flags and posters,” he said. “It’s like they’ve been there forever.”
While elsewhere in Ashrafieh, teams had started whitewashing previously postered walls, the streets of Geitawi, a quiet and largely Greek Orthodox neighborhood, boasted little more than the occasional torn strip showing a politician’s face.
The one exception is Beit Kataeb, one of the headquarters of the Christian group, which still proudly displays portraits of party figures.
“It’s a good thing,” Rony Booz said from behind the counter in his TV shop when asked what he thought of the initiative. “It will help if any place you go feels only Lebanese, not the property of one sect or group.
“But it won’t be easy to take them down in all places,” he added. “Some places even the government can’t enter. They won’t be able to remove all the religious and political flags there.”
Jessica Azzi, 25, echoed his sentiment: “It’s a good idea and it should happen everywhere. If they’re removed, it won’t feel 100 percent like an area doesn’t belong to one group.”
But she also cautioned it would not change facts on the ground: “Even if you remove them, some areas, like Dahiyeh, will always be for Hezbollah,” she said, referring to the Beirut southern suburbs.
In the hectic, largely Shiite Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood, a well-known Amal Movement stand on the corner of a busy intersection leading onto Airport Road had packed up its numerous green signs and posters, rendering it unrecognizable.
“Patrol units came and took everything; they didn’t leave out even one banner,” said Sleiman Ghtaimi, sitting on a stool outside the stand.
“Over there is Hezbollah,” he added, pointing at a nondescript building on the opposite side of the road, “and here is Amal. It’s so much better this way. Personally it makes me more comfortable and happy.”
Amal official Hussein Ibrahim concurred: “It’s 100 percent better, it decreases tensions. It’s good, people are relieved.”
Only Ali Kamaleddine, also sitting outside the stand, admitted he was not happy about the absence of his leader’s face: “A picture of Mr. Nabih [Berri] was hanging here behind me but they took it off, why? I was saddened. I want everyone passing by here to see the photo.”
Down the road, clothing shop owner Siham Ghtaimi said she preferred the streets without the clutter of flags and posters in clashing colors.
“It’s much better like this,” she said. “They took the banners down two days ago and no one protested or objected at all. Everyone’s behind it here.”
However, she said the signage hadn’t caused any real problems in the first place: “The area is known for supporting [Hezbollah] and Amal only, so the banners weren’t causing tensions.”
For Adham, who works in a nuts and sweets shop, the move was a good idea, but one that was unlikely to last long or change anything.
“They removed it now but in two days they’ll put it up again,” he said with a shrug. “Removing the flags and banners do not affect the people, you need to have pure hearts.”
Up in northern city of Tripoli, a hotspot for sectarian tensions and party-fueled rivalry, a similar cleanup campaign was launched.
North Lebanon Governor Ramzi Nohra instructed security forces to remove all political banners from the city, starting in the neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which was the scene of several rounds of sectarian fighting over the past few years.
In the southern coastal city of Sidon, Hezbollah members cleared a party billboard of political announcements and messages. Posters showing “martyred” fighters were also removed, including those of the faces of the six Hezbollah fighters killed by an Israeli airstrike on a party convoy in the Syrian Golan Heights village of Qunaitra last month.
Only signs for Hezbollah’s museum in the southern village of Mlita, which displays Israeli military vehicles and weapons seized by the party’s armed resistance, were kept.
“We hope it is one step in the right direction, since political banners contribute to fueling tensions, and we had agreed with Hezbollah to defuse tensions as part of the dialogue,” Future MP Ammar Houri told a radio station. – Additional reporting by Joseph Ataman, Antoine Amrieh and Mohammed Zaatari
Obama Condemns 'Horrific Acts' In The Name Of Religion
President Obama bows his head towards the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, on Thursday. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Evan Vucci/AP
President Obama bows his head towards the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, on Thursday.
Evan Vucci/AP
President Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast today, condemned the twisting of religion to justify killing innocent people, saying that it always goes against the will of God. He also praised the Dalai Lama, who was in attendance, calling him a good friend.
The audience of 3,600 people gathered for the annual event in Washington included for the first time the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has lived in exile since 1959, when he fled Tibet amid a Chinese takeover. Beijing objects to any official recognition of the Dalai Lama by foreign governments.
Even so, Obama has met privately with the Dalai Lama on several occasions and today referred to him in remarks as "a good friend."
But the main focus of the speech was on concerns about religiously inspired acts of terror, echoing a theme he has touched on in past prayer breakfasts.
"From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence from those who profess to stand up for faith and in the name of religion," the president said.
He pointed out the "horrific acts of barbarism in the name of religion" and the "rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe" which, he said, was often justified by faith.
"No god condones terror," the president said. "We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends," he said, describing militants of the self-declared Islamic State as a "death cult."
The Associated Press says it was the first time Obama and the Dalai Lama attended the same public event.
The president, who the AP says clashed his hands in prayer, smiled and nodded the Tibetan leader called him "a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion."
He "inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings," Obama said.
Pope Francis To Address Congress During U.S. Trip, Boehner Says
Pope Francis is cheered by the faithful as he arrives for the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. AP hide caption
itoggle caption AP
Pope Francis is cheered by the faithful as he arrives for the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.
AP
Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of Congress, House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday.
Francis will address lawmakers on Sept. 24, Boehner said, as part of his first papal visit to the United States.
"We're humbled that the Holy Father has accepted our invitation and certainly look forward to receiving his message on behalf of the American people," the Ohio Republican told reporters.
In addition to his trip to Capitol Hill, Francis plans to travel to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families as well as to New York to visit the United Nations.
Roughly one-third of the members of Congress are Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center. Both leaders of the House of Representatives, Boehner and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, are Catholic.
Pelosi said in a statement, "We are eager to welcome His Holiness to the U.S. Capitol and we look forward to hearing his call to live our values, to protect the poor and the needy, and to promote peace."
Boehner extended an invitation in March for Francis to address a joint meeting of Congress, saying the pope has "inspired millions of Americans with his pastoral manner and servant leadership, challenging all people to lead lives of mercy, forgiveness, solidarity and humble service."
Francis would not be the first pope to visit the U.S. capital. Pope John Paul II traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1979, and Pope Benedict XVI visited the capital in 2008.
Sony's Amy Pascal Steps Down in Wake of Hacking Scandal
Amy Pascal will step down from her position as co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio confirmed this morning. Pascal is leaving her post to start a new production venture within Sony this spring. "I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home,” Pascal said in a statement. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Pascal's new project comes with four years of guaranteed financing through Sony. "I am so grateful to my team, some of whom I have worked with for the last 20 years and others who have joined more recently," reads Pascal's statement. "I am leaving the studio in great hands. I am so proud of what we have all done together and I look forward to a whole lot more." Pascal had been with the studio since 1988.
The Faces of Health Care: Carolyn S.
"Mr. Obama is one brave man."
Carolyn S. from California wrote the White House in October to share how much she appreciates the Affordable Care Act -- and to thank President Obama for his efforts to see it through.
Big Data and Privacy: 1 Year Out
Last January, recognizing that innovative big data technologies and tools are changing our economy, our government, and our society, President Obama charged me with leading a 90-day review of big data and privacy. Our working group found that we live in a world of near-ubiquitous data collection in which that data is being crunched at speeds increasingly approaching real time — a data revolution that presents incredible opportunities to transform health care, to boost economic productivity, and to make government work better and save taxpayer dollars.
At the same time, big data technologies raise serious concerns about how we protect personal privacy and our other values. As more data is collected, analyzed, and stored on both public and private systems, we must be vigilant in ensuring the balance of power is retained between government and citizens and between businesses and consumers. And one novel finding of the working group report was the potential for big data technologies to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections and enable new forms of discrimination in housing, employment, and access to credit, among other areas.
Today, we’re releasing an interim progress report detailing the progress we have made — and what we still have ahead. We’re also moving forward with the commitment the President made last month to ensure that student educational data is used only for educational purposes. The Administration has been working with a bipartisan group of legislators, and today Congressman Luke Messer (R-ID) and Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) will announce that they will be introducing legislation to fulfill that promise. And the Council of Economic Advisers is releasing a new report on price discrimination in the big-data era, as part of the Administration’s commitment to deeply examine how these new technologies may inadvertently or deliberately lead to discriminatory outcomes, and what policy mechanisms may be needed to respond.
5 Things The Vaccine Debacle Reveal About The 2016 Presidential Field
As the measles outbreak continues to spread, political leaders with an eye on the White House in 2016 spent much of the week jumping into, and then trying to bail themselves out of, the vaccine debate.
Some brushed the issue off as an unnecessary media circus, but it's worth taking a look at its deeper political meaning.
Here are five things the vaccine politics kerfuffle of 2015 tells us about the emerging field of presidential candidates for 2016.
1. Vaccination politics are a problem for Republicans — not Democrats.
Conservatives have been pointing out that parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids are more likely to be rich, liberal "purists" who buy organic food for their kids than anti-government Tea Partiers. There is some evidence for that argument. While all 50 states require vaccinations for kids before entering school, some states allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their children based on "personal beliefs." And dark blue California, where the current measles outbreak began, is one of those "opt out" states. The red states of Mississippi and West Virginia do not allow exemptions — and they have the highest rates of immunization.
And yes, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did both raise questions about whether vaccines might have a link to autism. But that was back in 2008, two years before the one study that raised the link between vaccines and autism was debunked and retracted. Today, the debate about whether or not to vaccinate is just not the burning political issue among the Democratic party's grass roots that it is for Republicans. The GOP is where skepticism about climate science is strongest. So is support for teaching alternatives to evolution. Republicans are more likely to see issues like mandatory vaccines as a question of individual liberty. And that's why you saw so many potential 2016 GOP candidates flailing about this week as they tried to reach out to the conservative base of their party and appeal to the mainstream at the same time.
2. When you're hot, you're hot. When you're not, you're not.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is having a great month. He got rave reviews for his appearance at Steve King's Freedom Summit in Iowa. And he was unequivocal about the need for parents to vaccinate their kids. No need for him to pander to the anti-vaccinators! And Jeb Bush — widely considered the top "establishment" pick of the field — wisely stayed out of it when asked about vaccines in Detroit on Wednesday. "Parents have a responsibility to make sure their children are protected. Over and out," was all he would say. And why should he say anything more? He's doing just fine rolling out his expected presidential bid with big policy speeches like the one in Detroit and hoovering up money for what's expected to be a blockbuster fundraising quarter.
Was it a coincidence that the two potential GOP candidates who are doing the best right now had the easiest time handling the hot potato of vaccine politics? Maybe not.
3. It's not easy being a libertarian.
Rand Paul (as in, Dr. Rand Paul) had the hardest time of all navigating the cross currents of the vaccine issue.
He came out squarely against mandatory vaccination, which probably appealed to libertarian-leaning primary voters, but then he said he had "heard of" children who wound up with "profound mental disorders" after vaccinations. Although he later posted a picture on Twitter of himself getting a booster shot, he earned a round of scathing editorials including one in the Washington Post which questioned his "judgement and fitness for higher office." The Post included New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in that assessment.
4. Chris Christie can't catch a break.
The charismatic, straight-talking Christie was once considered the answer to the GOP's problems. But that was a long time ago. This week, coverage of Christie refusing to talk to the press on his trip to Europe followed stories about his penchant for luxury travel. Christie had no qualms about placing a mandatory quarantine on health workers who may have come in contact with Ebola, but on vaccines he was all over the place. "You know, it's much more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official," the governor of New Jersey said. Later his office clarified his response saying "there's no question kids should be vaccinated." This is becoming a Christie pattern. For a candidate who is selling his blunt, "authentic" leadership style, Christie has been awfully reluctant to say where he stands on foreign policy, immigration and, now, vaccines.
5. Being the only grandmother in the race has its privileges.
Hillary Clinton weighed in with a tweet that poked the "vaccine deniers":
The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids #GrandmothersKnowBest.
Anytime Clinton can stand apart from the Republican free for all, instead of being their one and only punching bag is a good day for her.
And she has an advantage that only a candidate with no real opposition for the nomination can enjoy.
Clinton's response shows why this issue is much more problematic for Republicans than Democrats. A Pew Research Center poll shows that in 2009 71% of both parties favored vaccination. By 2014 Democratic support for vaccines went up to 76%, Republican support dropped to 65%. On issues like this one, Democratic base voters are much closer to mainstream public opinion than Republicans are. This week's political scramble over vaccines reminds us that the 2016 nominating battle will not be a fight for the soul of the Democratic party, but it will be for the Republicans.
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FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg Reportedly Will Step Down
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg in a photo taken last May. Hamburg, who has been in the top FDA job for nearly six years, will reportedly step down. J. David Ake/AP hide caption
itoggle caption J. David Ake/AP
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg in a photo taken last May. Hamburg, who has been in the top FDA job for nearly six years, will reportedly step down.
J. David Ake/AP
FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg — who has been at the center of controversial decisions such as relaxing age restrictions on the Plan B contraceptive — has reportedly decided to step down after six years in the job.
Reuters quotes a source briefed on the matter as saying that the White House will announce Hamburg's decision on Friday to quit the Food and Drug Administration. The Wall Street Journal is also reporting the impending resignation, citing unnamed government officials.
Hamburg, 59, was approved by the Senate in 2009 and is among the longest-serving FDA commissioners the modern era.
According to Reuters, the White House is expected to make the announcement on Friday, but FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao declined to comment.
The WSJ says that no replacement has been selected, but that the FDA's chief scientist, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, would temporarily take the reins. The Journal, notes that Dr. Robert Cahill, who was recently selected by Hamburg to become the agency's deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco, is regarded as her likely successor for the top job.
Beirut governor shutters 'rat-infested' fish market
BEIRUT: Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib shut down a famous fish market in the Lebanese capital Thursday after finding dead rats and insects around the kiosks.
“The display tables are in a very bad shape, and we will speak with those responsible for the market’s management to move it elsewhere,” Chebib told reporters standing near the fish market in Karantina, north Beirut.
Chebib said his decision to raid the fish market came after a report from the health department of Beirut Municipality that revealed the appalling health and sanitation conditions in the market.
The fishermen and merchants were angered by the sudden decision, claiming that the evidence used by the report were manipulated.
“There are no dead rats or insects in here. You can look by yourself, you will not find any,” one of the sellers told MTV.
“Nobody came to inspect the food safety conditions here, and they suddenly decided to close it all down,” another said, accusing the authorities of a conspiracy against fishermen.
The governor urged the fish merchants to cooperate, saying the move was in their interest.
“People have become more aware, and they will not buy food from a place that does not respect food safety standards,” he said. “If they continue operating in the bad conditions, it will be bad for them.”
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Supporters Say Imprisioned Nun Is Being Held In 'Unfair' Conditions
Sister Megan Rice ahead of her 2013 trial in Washington D.C. She and fellow anti-nuclear protesters successfully broke into the Y12 Oak Ridge National Laboratory complex in 2012 to draw attention to the nuclear threat to the world. Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Sister Megan Rice ahead of her 2013 trial in Washington D.C. She and fellow anti-nuclear protesters successfully broke into the Y12 Oak Ridge National Laboratory complex in 2012 to draw attention to the nuclear threat to the world.
Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Megan Rice celebrated her 85th birthday last week — in a high-rise detention center in Brooklyn.
The Catholic nun is serving nearly three years in prison for evading security and painting peace slogans on the walls of a nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Rice is far from the only religious figure to run into legal trouble. There's a long tradition of Catholic clergy protesting nuclear weapons, from the Berrigan brothers in the 1980s to the fictional nun Jane Ingalls, featured in the series Orange is the New Black.
Rice, a member of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, spent decades working and teaching in Africa. She too has a long history of protest, even before she allegedly joined two men to throw human blood and write slogans on a building that houses enriched uranium in 2012.
Now, from inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Rice is continuing her own brand of activism. With the help of friends and advocates including the National Association of Women Judges, Rice is drawing attention to conditions inside U.S. corrections facilities.
She and a few hundred others had been set to live in a women's prison in Danbury, Conn., the same one that served as a model for Orange is the New Black.
After authorities decided to overhaul that facility, the Catholic nun was sent to what was supposed to be a temporary holding center.
Brenda Murray, a federal administrative law judge, has been closely following Sister Rice's case because one of her friends entered the convent at the same time.
"It seems ridiculous to put somebody like that long term on the ninth floor of a high-rise building," Murray says. "I mean, that was supposed to be a temporary situation 'til we resolved Danbury, and it isn't been temporary. And it just is unfair."
A high rise might sound luxurious. But in this case, friends say, more than 100 women share six bathrooms.
A study by the Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School says the detention center in Brooklyn has much less to offer than the one in Connecticut.
Pat McSweeney, a retired ninth-grade English teacher, knows that firsthand. McSweeney befriended Sister Rice years ago at a protest. She describes the Brooklyn holding center as "like a big cement box, huge."
McSweeney visits when she can, and keeps in touch by phone or e-mail.
"When I've asked her a couple of times if she can go outside, no she can't," McSweeney says.
Rice insists she's fine, but friends say conditions in the Brooklyn facility are taking a toll on her. For one thing, the cap came off her front tooth months ago.
"There was a long time when she was carrying the cap around in her pocket," McSweeney says, "and then I think she did see someone and it was on, when her niece from Boston visited her, but it must have come off again."
Things are even more complicated when it comes to women's health care behind bars. That's because advocates say every facet of the Bureau of Prisons system was designed for men, even though women are very different.
"The majority, the vast majority of women in federal prisons are not violent offenders," says retired federal appeals court judge Pat Wald.
Wald says research demonstrates that incarcerated women need time with family members and friends, and special programs to help them get ready to leave prison. She says those are programs that seem to be unavailable for Sister Rice and others locked up in the Brooklyn facility.
Yale Law School Professor Judith Resnik has been studying prisons for more than 30 years. She says the best solution is for authorities to look, case by case, at the inmates holed up in Brooklyn.
"A national review of those incarcerated with the end state of asking who need not be here or who could be in a less secure facility would be the desired end state," Resnik says.
For Megan Rice, that question could be moot by November. That's when the Bureau of Prisons web site says she's scheduled for release.
Stuck In Traffic? It's Likely To Be Worse In 30 Years, Report Says
Traffic clogs the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles. Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Traffic clogs the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles.
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Moving from crisis to crisis — for too long that's been America's strategy for dealing with the challenges of an aging transit infrastructure, from roads, to bridges to ports. The result is a system that's crumbling and in desperate need of attention, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The massive study looks both at the current state of the country's transportation systems and forecasts what challenges lie ahead.
"Over the next 30 years, we're going to have 70 million more people in this country, and all those people are going be trying to get someplace on top of the number of people we have," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told NPR's Morning Edition. "So the congestion we have today is expected to get worse, unless we do something radical now." He says that, along with the president, he feels it's important to make a "substantial pivot" toward investing more in the country's transportation system.
Interview Highlights
"The bottom line is, if you're stuck in traffic today and your travel time's longer than it was 10 years ago, it's likely to get worse unless we take some very important steps at the federal, state and local level," says Foxx. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
"The bottom line is, if you're stuck in traffic today and your travel time's longer than it was 10 years ago, it's likely to get worse unless we take some very important steps at the federal, state and local level," says Foxx.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
On the 5.5 billion hours we're spending in traffic
One of the statistics that comes out of this report is on the average year, people are spending about 5.5 billion hours in traffic, to the tune of $120 billion of lost time and cost — gasoline and other things. That's because the congestion is continuing to grow in some of our fastest-growing areas.
That doesn't have to be the reality going forward. Clearly, we need to make investments at the federal level, not only to maintain the system we have but to improve and build new capacity where we need it. We also need to make sure we're making smart choices about how that infrastructure gets built so we get the most throughput out of that infrastructure.
On how manufacturing will affect traffic
We have more manufacturing activity now than we've had over the last 15 years and we expect that to grow. We're expecting over the next 30 years, a 60 percent increase in truck traffic on our freeways. The bottom line is, if you're stuck in traffic today and your travel time's longer than it was 10 years ago, it's likely to get worse unless we take some very important steps at the federal, state and local level before it gets worse.
On his proposal to improve highways and rails
The president and I have a proposal for surface transportation – highways, and transit, and rail – that would use pro-growth, business tax reform. Taxing untaxed corporate earnings that are overseas, and having those earnings come back home and being put to work for infrastructure.
It's a one-time fix, but it's also a fix that doesn't increase deficits and doesn't require tax increases, and allows us to basically double what the gas tax is putting into the system today. So we think it's important to make a very substantial pivot toward much greater investment.
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