LU protesters block Downtown Beirut road

LU protesters block Downtown Beirut road

Lebanese University contract professors block a road in Riad al-Solh in Downtown Beirut to press ministers to grant...

Islamist Gathering meets over Tripoli protests

BEIRUT: The Internal Security Forces announced that Tripoli’s roads were closed again Thursday, after protests the day before, which have prompted a meeting of the National Islamic Gathering.

A Twitter post by the ISF stated that the Abu Ali roundabout was closed in all directions, as well as the coastal road, the Nasseri Mosque Street in Bab al-Tabbaneh and the entrance to Syria Street.

Separately, the National News Agency reported that the National Islamic Gathering would meet at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in MP Mohammad Kabbara’s residence to discuss the protests in Tripoli that erupted Wednesday.

The National Islamic Gathering is comprised of a diverse group of followers, including March 14 supporters and Future Movement MPs Mohammad Kabbara and Khaled Daher, as well as independent Islamist figures such as Kanaan Naji and Sheikh Raed Kabbara. The group also draws supporters from the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood.

Tripoli residents blocked several roads in north Lebanon Wednesday after news emerged that the health of a militia leader in prison had deteriorated.

Ziad Allouki, a former militia commander in the Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, was taken from Roumieh prison to Hayat Hospital overnight Wednesday after suffering fatigue.

The militiaman, who is on a hunger strike, was returned to prison Wednesday morning after receiving medical care.

A crowd of about 300 women and 200 men blocked the Abu Ali roundabout early Wednesday morning to demand Allouki's release. By midday, they had set up two tents in the middle of the highway.

Protests also broke out in Bab al-Tabbaneh, Qibbeh, Maaloula and the old vegetable market, after Allouki's family received a phone call from a Roumieh prisoner informing them that their son had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a heart attack at dawn.

A source close to the family told The Daily Star that Allouki’s parents had been notified of their son’s sudden health deterioration through Saad Masri, another militia commander who had fought gunbattles in Tripoli and is held at Roumieh prison.

The protesters are demanding the release of all militia leaders who had turned themselves in to the Lebanese Army with promises they would be released before the holy month of Ramadan.

Container maker expanding in Kentucky

HORSE CAVE, Ky. -- Dart Container Corp. is adding jobs at its plant in south-central Kentucky.

The Horse Cave facility makes cups, lids, bowls, plates and deli containers and opened its facility in 1980. About 1,400 people work there now.

Gov. Steve Beshear's office says the company expects to create up to 30 jobs with its $23 million investment to build a warehouse in Horse Cave. It will be the facility's 11th expansion.

The state has given preliminary approval for tax incentives of up to $900,000 for the project.

Dart's headquarters is in Mason, Michigan.

Stigmatized nuclear workers quit Japan utility

TOKYO -- Stigma, pay cuts, and risk of radiation exposure are among the reasons why 3,000 employees have left the utility at the center of Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster. Now there's an additional factor: better paying jobs in the feel good solar energy industry.

Engineers and other employees at TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Co., were once typical of Japan's corporate culture that is famous for prizing loyalty to a single company and lifetime employment with it. But the March 2011 tsunami that swamped the coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, sending three reactors into meltdown, changed that.

TEPCO was widely criticized for being inadequately prepared for a tsunami despite Japan's long history of being hit by giant waves and for its confused response to the disaster. The public turned hostile toward the nuclear industry and TEPCO, or "Toh-den," as the Japanese say it, became a dirty word.

Only 134 people quit TEPCO the year before the disaster. The departures ballooned to 465 in 2011, another 712 in 2012 and 488 last year. Seventy percent of those leaving were younger than 40. When the company offered voluntary retirement for the first time earlier this year, some 1,151 workers applied for the 1,000 available redundancy packages.

The exodus, which has reduced staff to about 35,700 people, adds to the challenges of the ongoing work at Fukushima Dai-ichi to keep meltdowns under control, remove the fuel cores and safely decommission the reactors, which is expected to take decades.

The factors pushing workers out have piled up. The financial strain of the disaster has led to brutal salary cuts while ongoing problems at Fukushima, such as substantial leaks of irradiated water, have reinforced the image of a bumbling and irresponsible organization.

"No one is going to want to work there, if they can help it, said Akihiro Yoshikawa, who quit TEPCO in 2012.

After leaving he started a campaign called "Appreciate Fukushima Workers," trying to counter what he calls the "giant social stigma" attached to working at the Fukushima plant.

Many of the workers were also victims of the nuclear disaster, as residents of the area, and lost their homes to no-go zones, adding to personal hardships. They also worry about the health effects of radiation on their children.

The Fukushima stigma is such that some employees hide the fact they work at the plant. They even worry they will be turned away at restaurants or that their children will be bullied at school after a government report documented dozens of cases of discrimination.

While TEPCO is out of favor with the public, the skills and experience of its employees that span the gamut of engineers, project managers, maintenance workers and construction and financial professionals, are not.

Energy industry experience is in particular demand as the development of solar and other green energy businesses is pushed along in Japan by generous government subsidies.

Currently the government pays solar plants 32 yen ($0.31) per kilowatt hour of energy. The so-called tariff for solar power varies by states and cities in the U.S., but they are as low as several cents. In Germany, it's about 15 cents.

Sean Travers, Japan president of EarthStream, a London-based recruitment company that specializes in energy jobs, has been scrambling to woo TEPCO employees as foreign companies do more clean energy business in Japan.

"TEPCO employees are very well trained and have excellent knowledge of how the Japanese energy sector works, making them very attractive," he said.

Two top executives at U.S. solar companies doing business in Japan, First Solar director Karl Brutsaert and SunPower Japan director Takashi Sugihara, said they have interviewed former TEPCO employees for possible posts.

Besides their experience, knowledge of how the utility industry works and their contacts, with both private industry and government bureaucracy, are prized assets.

"It's about the human network and the TEPCO employees have all the contacts," said Travers, who says he has recruited about 20 people from TEPCO and is hoping to get more.

Yoshikawa, the former TEPCO maintenance worker, said he has received several offers for green-energy jobs that paid far better than his salary at TEPCO of 3 million yen ($30,000) a year.

Since September 2012, all TEPCO managers have had their salaries slashed by 30 percent, while workers in non-management positions had their pay reduced 20 percent.

But last year, TEPCO doled out 100,000 yen ($1,000) bonuses to 5,000 managers as an incentive to stay on.

In another effort to prevent the loss of qualified personnel, TEPCO is reducing the pay cuts to 7 percent from this month, but just for those involved in decommissioning the Fukushima plant.

The departures, however, have not been arrested, partly because of ongoing financial pressure.

TEPCO was bailed out by the government after the disaster. Compensating the thousands of people forced to evacuate from the vicinity of the plant is expected to weigh on the company for years.

"We need people for decommissioning," TEPCO spokesman Kohji Sasakibara said. "But we have caused a disaster, affecting not only Japan but the whole world. And so we must work harder to gain public understanding."

Given such dire conditions, it's inevitable that TEPCO workers are looking to build careers elsewhere, according to Naoyuki Takaki, professor of nuclear engineering at Tokyo City University.

Takaki recalled that Japan's nuclear industry in its heyday had a magical allure like space exploration. He believes it is still a viable field of study and an important profession, bringing clear benefits for society.

Takaki, a former TEPCO researcher who quit in 2008, said the number of students entering the nuclear field has shrunk after the disaster. That means the shortage of nuclear professionals could become even more critical in coming years.

"TEPCO has grown into a target of people's hate," he said.

Apple wins EU court case on store design trademark

BRUSSELS -- The European Union's highest court says Apple's characteristic retail store layout may be registered as a trademark.

The Court of Justice on Thursday overturned a decision by German patent authorities which last year rejected an application to grant copyright protection to Apple's store design — parallel lines of big tables with electronic gadgets spread out on them under a high ceiling.

The Luxembourg-based EU Court said a design pattern like Apple's "may constitute a trademark provided that it is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking" from others.

The case will go back for a final decision to Germany's highest patent court which had sought the EU judges' advice.

Apple Inc. successfully registered its store layout as a trademark in the United States in 2010.

Cabinet meeting underway amid rising disputes

BEIRUT: A Cabinet meeting got underway Thursday amid ongoing disputes over making Lebanese University professors permanent employees and the appropriate mechanism for government spending.

The issue of making LU professors full-time employees is the first item on the Cabinet's agenda, with tension rising as ministers remain adamant in their stances.

Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb said the Progressive Socialist Party, which he represents, is seeking a response from Education Minister Elias Bou Saab as to why a “qualified LU dean has been removed.”

Bou Saab, for his part, said he was ready to answer any question, but added: “I believe matters have taken a political turn.”

Hezbollah ministers expressed support for Bou Saab.

“No one objected when the minister [Bou Saab] presented his report to all the [political] forces,” Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan said.

On the mechanism for spending and payments of monthly salaries to civil servants, Minister of state Mohammad Fneish said Hezbollah insisted on Parliament passing a law to authorize extra-budgetary expenditure of funds.

Economy Minister Alain Hakim criticized the call to change the procedures for spending: “Things were going fine for the past 11 years. Why do they want to change things today?”

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi echoed the Future Movement and the March 14 coalition positions on spending, both of which insist that the issue of paying salaries for civil servants was resolved by a 2006 law under the mandate of former President Emile Lahoud.

“But we are with making new laws in matters deemed urgent like the eurobonds and state budget,” Rifi told reporters before joining the Cabinet meeting which began around 11 a.m.

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Cubs to pitch another Wrigley expansion plan

CHICAGO -- The squabble between the Chicago Cubs and the owners of the rooftop venues across the street from Wrigley Field is returning to City Hall.

On Thursday, the team was expected to make its pitch to the city landmarks commission for a renovation project that's bigger than the one the city approved last year — a pitch that in itself is a challenge to the rooftops to take their best legal shot. The rooftop owners oppose the proposal they say will destroy the exact thing they need for their businesses to survive: A view of the field.

The commission, which must approve the proposal because Wrigley is a city landmark, is expected to vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full City Council to vote on it.

The Cubs want to dramatically expand a $500 million renovation plan approved last year for the 100-year-old ballpark. The team now wants the previously approved Jumbotron and video board to be joined by a second video board and four more signs in the outfield — each as big as 650 square feet. The Cubs also want to expand the bleachers, add seats down the foul lines and erect light standards in the outfield.

The team also wants to move the bullpens from along the foul lines to underneath the bleachers.

The Cubs say they were willing to scale down the original renovation proposal if the rooftop owners promised not to sue, but went ahead with everything they want because they never got that promise.

"We learned ... the threat of litigation was very real, so we felt if we were going to get sued over two signs that we felt we were within our rights to proceed with the original proposal," team spokesman Julian Green said. He said it doesn't matter that the rooftop owners recently said they'd drop their threat of a lawsuit if the team stuck to the smaller plan already approved by the city.

"We are prepared to defend our right to put up additional signs," he said.

The rooftop owners have a contract with the team to hand over 17 percent of their gross revenues until 2023. One said he and his fellow owners threatened to sue because they believed it was the only option available to keep the Cubs from hurting their businesses.

"Any time we have given into these guys on anything they just go and overdo it," said Max Waisvisz. "It's like someone going back again and again to a buffet table."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has urged the two sides to keep talking, clearly wants the renovation project and all the construction jobs, permanent jobs and tourist revenue that will come with it. That has some owners thinking it won't matter what they say Thursday before the commissioners.

"I have no doubt they're going to say yes to everything," said Waisvisz's partner, Dan Finkel. "Emanuel wants it."