Put your oar in

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If you join a discussion or offer your opinion when not invited or expected to do so, you put your oar in.

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Laura Moncur

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"You learn a lot about people when you play games with them."

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Edith Wharton

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"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

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Marion Parker

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"Be kind - Remember every one you meet is fighting a battle - everybody's lonesome."

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Hasidic Saying

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"The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others."

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Woody Allen

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"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon."

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Marcel Proust

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"The only paradise is paradise lost."

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David Sedaris

Nguồn tin: tieng anh vui

"Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it."

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Randy K. Milholland

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"Success only hurts the first time."

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Norman Thomas

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"The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values."

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Edgar Allan Poe

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"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

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Thomas A. Edison

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"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

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Lillian Hellman

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"Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view."

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Gore Vidal

Nguồn tin: tieng anh vui

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."

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Henry Ward Beecher

Nguồn tin: tieng anh vui

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"

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George Bernard Shaw

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"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

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Chinese families 'seek jet answers'

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Spread the word

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

If you spreqad the word, you tell people or the public about something.

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Get the word out

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

If you get the word out, you inform or let people or the public know about something.

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Cicero

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

"Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide."

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Anatole France

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"When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it."

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Francis Ford Coppola

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"You don�t have to specialize - do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form."

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Tennessee Williams

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"Security is a kind of death."

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Sebastien-Roch Nicolas

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"If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor."

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W. Somerset Maugham

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

"It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent."

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John Ruskin

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"Every increased possession loads us with new weariness."

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius."

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Albert Einstein

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"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

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Robert Byrne

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"Doing a thing well is often a waste of time."

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Robert Heinlein

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"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."

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Ursula K. LeGuin

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"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next."

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Paula Poundstone

Nguồn tin: tieng anh vui

"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."

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Jason Fried

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

"You don't need to outdo the competition. It's expensive and defensive. Underdo your competition. We need more simplicity and clarity."

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Norman Vincent Peale

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"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture...Do not build up obstacles in your imagination."

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William Blake

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

"Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you."

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Carlos A. Urbizo

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

"Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at."

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A presidential election in Afghanistan: Runners and riders

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

Afghans have quickly got the habit

LIKE teenage girls giddy about a boy band, a swarm of flag-carrying young men surged towards the elevated stage, set against the green hills of Afghanistan’s northern province of Kunduz. The youths’ idol sat on a sofa chewing gum. Between them and him was a waterless ditch, 12 feet (four metres) deep, carved out of the sandy soil. By the end of the campaign rally, the idol’s surging mass of admirers had pushed quite a few of their number into the ditch, from where they could be pulled out only with the help of their flagpoles.

Welcome to Afghanistan’s idiosyncratic campaign for the presidential election. As it happens, the 15,000-strong crowd had come not to cheer the presidential candidate, Ashraf Ghani, a former technocrat, intellectual and World Bank official whom many had never heard of. Rather, their adoration was for his running mate, General Abdul Rashid Dostum. He is an ethnic Uzbek, a former brutal warlord who during Afghanistan’s long civil war frequently shifted sides but who was instrumental in the Taliban’s downfall in 2001. In the north of the country, General Dostum commands huge loyalty. And in a country where polling is a most inexact science, the size of such rallies is one of the few pointers for the outcome of the election. The first round of voting takes place on April 5th.

Mr Ghani is reckoned to be one of three presidential front-runners. He and the warlord make unlikely bedfellows. On election day five years ago, Mr Ghani described General Dostum as a “known killer”. But Mr Ghani is nothing if not pragmatic, and with General Dostum come hundreds of thousands of Uzbek votes.

Mr Ghani himself is a Pushtun, the largest ethnic group, which dominates in the south and east of the multi-ethnic country. There educated people might balk at voting for a ticket that carries General Dostum, however respected Mr Ghani is for his competence and his cleanliness. Mr Ghani has made his running mate apologise for the suffering caused by all sides during Afghanistan’s civil war of the 1990s. But for some, having General Dostum just a heartbeat away from the presidential palace would be too much.

They may turn to Dr Abdullah Abdullah, an ophthalmologist and former foreign minister who got his second name only because newspaper sub-editors in the West could not contend with his lack of a surname. He ran second to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, president since 2001, in the election in 2009 and goes into this contest as the nominal favourite. An articulate opponent of the Taliban when they were in power from 1996 to 2001, Dr Abdullah makes up in respect for what he lacks in back-room clout.

Eleven candidates are on the ballot. If none gets more than 50% of the votes, a run-off will take place some time later in the summer. The race for second place is thus important. It is where Mr Karzai comes in. He will not openly back a candidate. But in early March his elder brother, Qayum, ducked out of the race and threw his support behind Zalmai Rassoul, another doctor and a longtime member of the Karzai cabinet with an unusual reputation for someone so close to power of being clean. Few believe that Dr Rassoul is anything but the president’s man. Mr Karzai is known to want to protect his interests, and having a friend as his successor is one way to do that. What is more, from provincial governors and wealthy business types to district police chiefs in far-off corners of the country, many Afghans are afraid of losing out from a change of government—a threat which to some appears greater than that posed by a resurgent Taliban.

Still, only Mr Ghani might be, as one analyst describes it, “crazy enough” to bring in reforms to deal with the country’s corruption and other deep-seated problems. By contrast, all three main candidates have vowed to do swiftly what Mr Karzai has refused: sign a security pact with the United States that would enable some foreign troops to remain beyond the end of this year. That would reassure the vast majority of Afghans.

We was robbed

Before then, the race is on for the two coveted run-off spots. Dr Abdullah is of mixed Tajik and Pushtun descent but widely viewed as Tajik. Unless he can muster more than 40% of the vote in the first round, then he is likely to be crushed when most of the remaining candidates, all Pushtuns, throw their weight behind one of their own—either Dr Rassoul or Mr Ghani.

Such scenarios, however, come with a caveat: that the election may not be clean and transparent. Given past history, that is all too likely. Last week a former chief of the electoral commission said that every Afghan poll since 2001 has been tainted by fraud. Mr Karzai is widely reckoned to have stolen the election in 2009.

Stricter controls should be in place this time round, but they may simply lead to smarter ways of cheating. Meanwhile, the turnout is at risk from more than the weather. The Taliban has vowed a violent disruption of the polls. And then weeks of uncertainty will follow as the first-round ballots are counted. Already, Mr Ghani and Dr Abdullah are preparing a raft of complaints against Dr Rassoul. A surprisingly strong showing by the president’s man will invite a chorus that the result has been fixed—an easier charge to level this time because of the lack of foreign oversight. All in all, says an observer, the election is guaranteed to be “hugely messy”.

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Japan’s consumption tax: The big squeeze

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

AS IN the rest of Japan, shopkeepers on Jizo-dori, the main street of Sugamo in north Tokyo, are nervously awaiting the effect of an imminent rise in the country’s consumption (ie, sales) tax, from 5% to 8% on April 1st. Keiji Kudo, the president of Maruji, a retail chain, has been devising ways to stave off a drop in sales of the shop’s most popular range, the red underwear which elderly customers buy for the colour’s supposedly health-boosting properties. Last week Mr Kudo began selling vouchers costing ¥2,700 ($26), which from April 1st may be exchanged for ¥3,000-worth of goods. It is the trick of a seasoned retailer, but Mr Kudo complains it will be harder to pull off next time. In October 2015 the tax is scheduled to go up again, to 10%. And Mr Kudo is under no illusion that will be the end of the rises.

Raising the tax is aimed at shoring up Japan’s hugely stretched public finances. Gross public debt stands at nearly 245% of GDP. Yet at a moment when the economy appears to have entered the early stages of a recovery, a contractionary fiscal policy risks stopping it in its tracks. The hope all along was that higher wages for workers could outweigh the tax’s depressing effect. During this spring’s wage negotiations, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has put heavy pressure on firms to boost pay. One tabloid newspaper compared his tactics to those of the yakuza, Japan’s gangsters. Even so, firms are lifting base wages by less than was hoped.

Politicians last dared to raise the consumption tax in 1997, when it went from 3% to 5%. The move is widely credited with tipping a fragile economy back into recession. The prime minister of the day, the late Ryutaro Hashimoto, was soon out of office. The lasting trauma for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in government then as now, has left Mr Abe and his people jumpy about the coming rise. The decision to raise the tax was one that Mr Abe inherited from the Democratic Party of Japan under his predecessor as prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda. The government debated hard about whether to reverse course.

This time will be different, economists who support the rise argue. Hashimoto’s dreadful luck was that his tax rise was swiftly followed by a financial crisis in Asia together with a series of local banking collapses. Today, Mr Abe says that he is ready to dash to the economy’s rescue.

Already, the ¥6 trillion or so that the tax rise will take out of the economy is to be put back in the form of one-off supplementary spending of ¥5 trillion, plus tax cuts of ¥1 trillion. Another weapon close at hand is the Bank of Japan. Its governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, is ready to loose a second round of unorthodox monetary easing to reinforce the bank’s initial “shock and awe” campaign from last year to end persistent deflation. Further, the government says the 2015 tax rise will go ahead only if the economy recovers sharply from an expected dip in the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, there are plans to lower the tax on business profits.

Yet Jizo-dori and shopping districts like it may still suffer. Inflation has been creeping up faster than wages, so spending power for working households continues to decline (see chart). Mr Abe’s monetary and other policies to boost the economy remain popular with voters—but most people have yet to benefit from them. Toshie Hashimoto, a Tokyo housewife, complains that only big companies are enjoying a rebound. After the tax rise she plans to trim her spending on travel, fripperies and even haircuts.

Certainly, employees at large companies have enjoyed most of the gains from Mr Abe’s strong-arm tactics over wages. Large carmakers and electronics manufacturers have announced rises in monthly base pay of ¥2,000-3,500. Yet even that amounts to less than the 2% pay rises Mr Abe was pushing for. What is more, part-timers at big companies and those without regular employment contracts are left out. The smaller firms where most people work, meanwhile, have not profited from a steep fall in the yen as have the big exporters; they are handing out far lower pay increases. Shinichi Fujikawa, an official at Japan’s machinery and manufacturing employees’ trade union, is still negotiating with the parts-manufacturing firms that employ his members. He wants them to get a ¥4,500-a-month rise on top of automatic rises because of seniority but so far he has won only ¥1,630. Ordinary Joes continue to count their coins.

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Flight MH370: Lost

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

EVER since flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished in the early hours of March 8th with 239 people on board, the Malaysian authorities have been criticised for being too slow and too confusing in releasing information. This week they were under fire for being too quick and too certain.

On March 24th the prime minister, Najib Razak, made his second televised statement on the mystery. He announced that the flight had “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”. After intricate and innovative detective work on the hourly satellite “handshakes” the plane kept sending after its disappearance, experts had concluded it had plunged into a remote area of turbulent sea hundreds of miles south-west from the nearest landing strips, in Western Australia.

Distraught families of the missing—the majority of whom were Chinese—could not understand the certainty of the analysis when no physical trace of the plane has been found. China’s government, unusually, even allowed them to protest angrily outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.

The area being searched for wreckage by planes from six countries is still vast, and the hunt was held up by bad weather and complicated by currents that can move debris across huge distances. On March 26th some more concrete news came when satellite imagery appeared to reveal 122 objects that might have come from MH370. But they were 2,500 kilometres (1,560 miles) from Perth. And the search has revealed that even the wildest, remotest stretches of the ocean are strewn with litter.

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India’s election: Seasons of abundance

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

LICK your lips: mangoes are coming into season in Andhra Pradesh, piled up on roadside fruit stalls. Hyderabadis claim theirs are the country’s sweetest. So too are the bribes paid by the state’s politicians to get people to vote. Since early March state police have seized more money from politicians aiming to buy votes—590m rupees ($10m)—than the rest of India combined. An excited local paper talks of “rampant cash movement”, reporting that police do not know where to store the bundles of notes, bags of gold and silver, cricket kits, saris and lorry-loads of booze.

Andhra Pradesh, India’s fifth most populous state, is due to hold an impressive series of polls in the next few weeks—municipal elections and then both state-assembly and national ones. Many politicians keep up old habits by paying voters, especially rural ones, to turn out. A villager can stand to pocket a handy 3,000 rupees per vote. Economists predict a mini-boom in consumer goods.

If this is the lamentable face of Indian politicking, the hopeful side is that, increasingly, skulduggery is being pursued. A worker with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Hyderabad says police looking for illicit cash stopped and searched her car five times in a single drive one day last week.

This may be because in Andhra Pradesh, unusually, politicians are not currently running the show. The state is under “president’s rule”, with bureaucrats in charge, ahead of its breaking into two on June 2nd. Then, a new state, Telangana, will emerge to become India’s 29th, covering much of the territory once ruled by the Nizams of Hyderabad, the fabulously wealthy Muslim dynasty whose reign India’s army ended in 1948. A rump coastal state gets to keep the name Andhra Pradesh. For a decade Hyderabad will serve as joint capital.

The split will have a bearing on the national election. In 2009 the ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, led by Congress, returned to national office on the back of two whopping southern victories. Congress scooped 33 seats in Andhra Pradesh, more than in any other state. Its ally next door in Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), got 18 seats. Both now face heavy defeats. “The south’s biggest impact nationally will be negative, in not voting for Congress”, says K.C. Suri of Hyderabad University.

Congress’s misery in Andhra Pradesh is self-inflicted. The party got India’s president and parliament to approve Telangana’s statehood in the past month, after years of drama. Yet it has won little credit for its pains. Analysts in Hyderabad say that a rival group, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, will take more seats because, given the choice, people prefer a local party. Worse for Congress, the new state looks to be energising its national opponent, the BJP. That party’s tousle-haired state president, Kishan Reddy, talks of imminently becoming the chief opposition in Telangana and then, by appealing to non-Muslims, running the state in five years.

As for Andhra Pradesh’s eastern seaboard, known as Seemandhra, “Congress is…finished” there, says a politician once sympathetic to it. Inept at handling the rise of a young regional strongman, Jaganmohan Reddy, Congress has looked bereft of leadership. Its politicians are defecting daily. The area is known for caste power struggles, crooked businessmen-cum-politicians and film stars with luxuriant moustaches leaping into politics. Against them, Congress struggles with the script.

In Tamil Nadu the DMK will suffer, too, weakened by succession squabbles and scandals. It is the latest instance of an Indian party degenerating into a vehicle for a self-serving family dynasty. Nor can Congress expect to make good elsewhere. In Kerala, where it rules, it is lucky to face Communists in opposition, a party these days short of ideas and leaders. Even so, surveys show support there on the slide, and Congress is likely to lose some parliamentary seats.

Just possibly there is hope for the party in Karnataka. The state is the only southern one where both Congress and the BJP are strong. Last year Congress toppled the BJP in elections for the state assembly. Now the BJP has seemed to stumble over alliances with controversial local figures. On March 23rd the BJP reversed a decision made only hours earlier to induct the leader of a thuggish right-wing Hindu group into the party.

The BJP’s national leaders were also divided over tying up again with a former chief minister of Karnataka, B. S. Yeddyurappa. The party sacked him in 2011 after he was accused in a huge iron-ore mining scam. Now Narendra Modi, the BJP’s national leader, has brought him back, betting that he can deliver voters from the Lingayat Hindu sect. Other national figures, notably Sushma Swaraj, who is emerging as Mr Modi’s strongest rival in the BJP, opposed the move. Mr Yeddyurappa’s presence makes it hard for the party credibly to claim that it is serious about corruption.

Congress has similar issues with allies. But in the south at least it has a likeable torchbearer who is reckoned to be honest. Nandan Nilekani, a billionaire who founded a successful outsourcing company, Infosys, is campaigning for a seat in a wealthy corner of Bangalore, India’s main IT hub. Mr Nilekani describes his experience on the stump as “physically and emotionally punishing”. But he confidently says his tech-heavy campaign and 1,000-plus volunteers will help unseat the long-serving BJP incumbent. In fact, his chances are at best evens. And even a win for Mr Nilekani would probably be an exception to the general prognosis: his party looks like it will get a meagre share.

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Banyan: On the antlers of a dilemma

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.

Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.

Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.

China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.

The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.

This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.

Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.

All political lives end…

Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.

Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.

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Charles Baudelaire

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"It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree."

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Arthur Koestler

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"The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards."

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Franklin P. Adams

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"I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."

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Hesketh Pearson

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"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely."

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Ann Richards

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"I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it."

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Sam Ewing

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"It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours."

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Harold Taylor

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"The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become."

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L. M. Montgomery

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"Don't believe in imagining things different from what they really are. When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away."

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Barack Obama

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"Politics has never been for the thin-skinned or the faint of heart, and if you enter the arena , you should expect to get roughed up. Moreover, Democracy in a nation of more than 300 million people is inherently difficult."

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Ed Norton

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"Sometimes creativity is a compulsion, not an ambition."

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Herbert W. Boyer

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"Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves."

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Hughes Mearns

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"As I was walking up the stair / I met a man who wasn't there. / He wasn't there again today. / I wish, I wish he'd stay away."

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Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens."

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Woodrow Wilson

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"I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow."

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Hermann Hesse

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"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

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Chuck Sigars

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"[T]here's no bad day that can't be overcome by listening to a barbershop quartet; this is just truth, plain and simple."

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Maya Angelou

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"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'"

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Malcolm X

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"Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else."

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Sarah Orne Jewett

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"'Taint't worthwhile to wear a day all out before it comes."

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

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George Carlin

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"There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past."

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Oscar Wilde

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"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."

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Randy K. Milholland

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"I've accepted that I'm not going to die of natural causes, [but] getting killed 'cuz you're naturally a dick seems like natural causes to me."

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Martin Luther King Jr.

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"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

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Walter Goodman

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"The idea of all-out nuclear war is unsettling."

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Herb Caen

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"There are more of them than us."

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Ernest Hemingway

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"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

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Jane Austen

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"The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away."

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Ann Radcliffe

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"I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge - but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it."

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Frank Wilczek

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"If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake."

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Sophia Loren

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"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent."

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New push for energy firm probe

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Trigger off

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Start, set off

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Trigger off

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Make someone angry

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Robert J. Sawyer

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"Not wanting to die was another universal constant, it seemed."

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Stephenie Meyer

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"I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars."

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Spanish Proverb

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"If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself."

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Lord Chesterfield

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"[Common sense] is the best sense I know of."

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John Quincy Adams

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"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air."

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Stephen Leacock

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"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."

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Sinclair Lewis

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"People will buy anything that is one to a customer."

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John Kenneth Galbraith

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"Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will."

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Mike Myers

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"My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare."

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Mark Twain

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"The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession."

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Harry S Truman

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"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything."

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Horace

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"He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little."

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Fred Allen

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"Committee--a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done."

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Voltaire

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

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e e cummings

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"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."

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Groucho Marx

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"I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks."

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John Eliot, Ph.D.

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"The idea of perfect closes your mind to new standards. When you drive hard toward one ideal, you miss opportunities and paths, not to mention hurting your confidence. Believe in your potential and then go out and explore it; don't limit it."

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John Adams

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"No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it."

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

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"Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there."

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Kenneth Hildebrand

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"Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes."

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Harry S Truman

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"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."

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Abigail Van Buren

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"It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister."

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Robin Morgan

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"Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange."

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Emo Phillips

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"I was the kid next door's imaginary friend."

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Indonesia’s elections: The chosen one

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IT WAS what many Indonesians had waited months to hear. On March 14th Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president and head of Indonesia’s main opposition party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), at last anointed Jakarta’s popular governor, Joko Widodo, as her candidate for president. This appears to make Mr Joko, known to all as Jokowi, a shoo-in to succeed Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is coming to the end of his second and final term as president.

Most opinion polls put support for the 52-year-old Jokowi at about 40%, twice that of his closest rival, Prabowo Subianto, a former special-forces commander, who is now patron of the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra). Barring an unforeseeable disaster, Jokowi seems unbeatable. He may even secure the 50% of votes he needs on July 9th to win the election in the first round, and avoid a run-off in September. After what is widely perceived as years of drift under the likeable but ineffective Mr Yudhoyono, many believe Jokowi is the man to galvanise a sluggish bureaucracy, clean out corruption and boost the economy. That includes the markets: on news of his nomination, Indonesia’s stockmarket and currency both rose.

The only slight hiccup might come on April 9th, when Indonesia holds a parliamentary election. By law, the PDI-P must win at least 25% of the popular vote, or 20% of the seats, to nominate a presidential candidate by itself. Opinion polls, giving the PDI-P the support of about 20% of voters, suggest this could be close-run. The party hopes Jokowi’s star power will push it over the threshold. If not, it will have to team up with at least one other party, to which it could offer the vice-presidency. That is not ideal, but at least Jokowi would have his pick of partners, who would fall over each other to associate themselves with the likely winner.

Perhaps the only surprise is that it took Ms Megawati so long to anoint Jokowi—too long, many said. But she is the proud daughter of Indonesia’s founding president, Sukarno, and at times seems to have regarded the presidency as hers by right. She did indeed hold the office in 2001-04—though she assumed it after the impeachment of her predecessor, and in both 2004 and 2009 was defeated in direct elections by Mr Yudhoyono.

For all the Javanese deference Jokowi has bestowed on her, she may instinctively have regarded him as a usurping upstart, thwarting yet another tilt at the presidency. Or perhaps he was the chosen one all along and delaying the announcement of his candidacy was just tactical. As Jakarta’s governor, he has never had to answer hard questions about foreign policy, the economy or other big national issues.

Jokowi’s style in Jakarta, as it was in his previous job as mayor of the central Javanese city of Solo, has been to take a hands-on approach to fixing the problems that blight ordinary people’s lives: seasonal flooding, poor housing and traffic jams, for example. Above all, Jokowi makes a point of moving among the people and listening to their concerns. Not so much charismatic as practical, his approach is as different as could be from the usual aloofness shown by Indonesian leaders. As president, however, Jokowi could hardly govern Indonesia the same way.

It is clear he owes at least part of his success in Jakarta to his hard-working deputy, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok. Extraordinarily for such a prominent Indonesian, Ahok is both ethnic Chinese and a Christian. Now, finding the right person to work alongside Jokowi as vice-president will be critical. With the election itself seemingly in the bag, this has become a chief focus of the PDI-P. An obvious choice would be to balance Jokowi’s relative youth and inexperience by picking a seasoned politician, or even a former or active general, from somewhere other than Java, the political and cultural heartland. Ms Megawati, who holds sway over the PDI-P much as Sonia Gandhi does over India’s Congress party, will have a big say in the choice, although she has a mixed record here. She came very close to losing another of its rising stars, Tri Rismaharini, or Risma, the mayor of Surabaya, Indonesia’s second city, by foisting an unwanted deputy on her.

The PDI-P will announce no running mate until after the parliamentary vote. There are now three weeks of raucous campaigning by a dozen parties ahead of that poll. The prospect of a Jokowi presidency looms over the contest. If he wants a taste of how hard it will be to tackle deep-seated problems, he might travel to Sumatra (see article), where the air pollution is worse than ever.

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Japanese politics: Flaming out

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Hashimoto blinks

LOCALS in Osaka, Japan’s second city, are glued to their television screens watching the spring sumo-wrestling tournament. The final round falls on March 23rd. They are considerably less enthralled by the political contest of the week. For the mayor, Toru Hashimoto, has called a snap election on the very same day as the sumo final. Yet he is, in effect, voters’ only choice in the poll. No other serious political party is fielding a candidate, because Mr Hashimoto will still win, but it will be with a very low turnout. As one local joke has it, he is wrestling only himself.

It is all a far cry from a year and a half ago, when the young, right-wing Mr Hashimoto electrified the political scene with a new political outfit, the Japan Restoration Party (JRP). His radical ideas about decentralisation, committing Japan to trade liberalisation and abolishing the upper house of parliament made him seem a reformist heavyweight who could go far in national politics. In the election for the lower house of parliament in December 2012, the JRP, co-led by the still-more-nationalist Shintaro Ishihara, a former governor of Tokyo, took 54 seats, just behind the Democratic Party of Japan.

In fact, Mr Hashimoto’s right-wing views proved his undoing. In May 2013 he stated that Japan’s wartime system of using “comfort women” from South Korea and other countries to provide sexual services to Japanese troops was necessary at the time. He was aiming to lend support to earlier comments in parliament by his friend, Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, which also called into question whether Japan had been an aggressor during the war. Condemnation followed, both internationally and locally. The public’s verdict was also clear. In the election for the upper house of parliament two months later, the JRP won just eight seats.

Now things are going wrong on Mr Hashimoto’s home turf, too. The reform he holds dearest is his plan, called “Osaka Metropolis”, to unify the city’s government with that of the prefecture. One aim is to save money. Having a dual system of government, he says, has already wasted some ¥1.6 trillion ($16 billion). The reform also fulfils his broader aim to wrest power from the central government in Tokyo. But now, emboldened by the mayor’s fading national popularity, local figures are turning against the plan. It was the dissent of formerly loyal politicians from New Komeito, a Buddhist-backed party, which prompted a furious Mr Hashimoto to call the snap election.

That is not going down well with Osakans. Many struggle to understand how the metropolis plan would benefit them, says Isao Kinoshita, editor of Osaka Nichi-Nichi Shimbun, a local paper. Campaigning this week, Mr Hashimoto was reduced to complex diagrams and a red-tipped pointer to explain his scheme. Voters seemed bemused. “How many old-people’s homes will you build?” interrupted one. Another headache is the opposition of Osami Takeyama, mayor of Sakai, a smaller city in Osaka prefecture. He loathes the idea of Sakai being restructured into a single administration, and this week published a book about his campaign against the diminished Mr Hashimoto.

Failure to bring off the metropolis plan could lead to Mr Hashimoto’s exit from politics altogether. Though for now it still has some clout, the JRP is expected to lose seats in the next lower-house election, due by December 2016. It has suffered partly because most of Mr Hashimoto’s best ideas were stolen by the government of Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party. In an ambitious plan to revive Japan’s economy, Mr Abe has joined talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement, as Mr Hashimoto recommended. The government wants to loosen stifling regulations and to give more power to the regions in a series of freewheeling special economic zones, to include Osaka. Yet blame also rests squarely with Mr Hashimoto for allowing his revisionist views on history to overwhelm his reforming zeal. The question is whether Mr Abe can avoid the same fate. His announcement on March 14th that he will not seek revision of an apology made to comfort women in 1993 by the chief cabinet secretary of the time, Yohei Kono, suggests that Mr Abe may have learned from Mr Hashimoto’s mistakes.

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Banyan: The pressure on the Sierra Madre

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IN ONE respect, the meeting in Singapore this week between officials from the Association of South-East Asian Nations and China could not have come at a better time. Tensions are mounting dangerously in the much-disputed waters of the South China Sea and this meeting was trying to renew seemingly interminable attempts to agree on a “code of conduct” to lower the risk of conflict. Just nine days earlier the Chinese coast guard prevented Philippine vessels from delivering supplies to a grounded ship near one of the many disputed land features in the sea. And by March 30th the Philippines is to make its submission to a UN tribunal, arguing that the basis of China’s claim to much of the South China Sea is invalid under international law.

Yet China’s attitude to both the ship and the tribunal suggests that this is as bad a time as any to try to reach an agreement. In neither case does it seem interested in a compromise. The South China Sea looks destined to remain a source of anxiety in the region and rivalry between China and America for years to come.

The ship, the Sierra Madre, originally built by America in the second world war, was deliberately scuttled in 1999 in the Second Thomas shoal, an area known in the Philippines as Ayungin, and in China as Ren’ai. Now it is a leaky rustbucket, manned by a handful of Philippine marines to symbolise that these waters are within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) the Philippines claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But China also claims them, and, as before with the Philippines—at the Mischief reef in 1996 and the Scarborough shoal two years ago—seems intent on simply asserting control. This was the first time China has blocked the supply boats. It claimed they were carrying building materials, and that construction would change the status quo, and breach a “declaration” ASEAN and China signed in 2002 on the intended code of conduct. But since the Sierra Madre was already there in 2002, fixing it up a bit seems allowable. After its ships were blocked, the Philippines resupplied the marines with food and water by air. Now it is mulling taking the risk of another attempt by sea.

This more aggressive Chinese approach is part of China’s punishment of the Philippines for the temerity of its small, upstart neighbour (population, some 105m) in challenging it under UNCLOS. China points out that the law was never intended to adjudicate sovereignty, and says that, if the tribunal accepts the case and rules in the Philippines’ favour, it will ignore it. But the Philippines, which has hired an impressive team of international lawyers, surely has a point. China is a signatory to UNCLOS, yet bases its claim in the South China Sea on a “nine-dash line” in maps from the 1940s, which show virtually the entire sea as Chinese. UNCLOS stipulates the territorial waters and EEZs countries are allowed, based on the land over which they have sovereignty. The nine-dash line—which China has never fully explained—implies the opposite principle, apparently giving China sovereignty over the sea and, as a consequence, everything within it.

For the Philippines, recent events form part of a pattern of Chinese bullying, which has included turning water-cannon on Filipino fishermen near the Scarborough shoal. The bullying is all the more resented as China seems to threaten Philippine access to the sea’s fertile fishing grounds, and its purported wealth of hydrocarbon resources. China’s military expansion has left the Philippines feeling weak and cornered. Its navy’s newest ships are two retired US Coastguard cutters and three Royal Navy vessels once used to patrol Hong Kong waters. The Philippine Air Force has no jetfighters or bombers—all air and no force, say Filipinos.

Diplomatically, China has sought to isolate the Philippines. Its government has been buttering up the other nine members of ASEAN, even though two of them (Malaysia and Vietnam) also have territorial disputes with it in the sea, and its nine-dash line violates the EEZs of two others (Brunei and Indonesia). But it has ostracised and vilified Benigno Aquino, the Philippine president.

This strategy may not be working, however. China’s behaviour has unnerved other ASEAN members. Vietnam, with which its dispute is even more extensive, has been alarmed by new rules introduced this year by Hainan province in China, requiring foreign vessels to seek China’s permission to fish, and by a reported attack on a Vietnamese ship near the disputed Paracel islands, controlled by China since it evicted the garrison of the former South Vietnamese regime in 1974. And Indonesia, which has liked to portray itself as a potential mediator, having no territorial stand-offs with China in the sea, is now accepting that it too is in dispute, because of the nine-dash line’s scope. Malaysia, oddly, denied China’s claim that in January three of its warships had patrolled the southern perimeter of the nine-dash line, near features that it claims. But its relations with China have anyway soured under withering attacks from Chinese officials over its handling of the disappearance of flight MH370 (see article).

Yankee, come back

Another consequence of China’s approach is a welcome elsewhere in the region for America’s proclaimed “pivot” to Asia, and especially its military aspects even—indeed especially—in the Philippines, an American treaty ally. Popular anti-American sentiment there led in 1992 to the removal of America’s military bases—the last vestiges of its colonial rule. But the government faces no popular uproar today as it negotiates an arrangement to “rotate” American forces through the country.

China must also be aware that America is for now preoccupied with a bigger land-grab in Europe by another dominant regional power. America has recently been explicit in condemning the nine-dash line, and backed the Philippines in its legal battle at UNCLOS. But China knows that, in the battle of the Sierra Madre, America is more likely to be restraining the Philippines than goading it into aggression.

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Tasmania’s forests: Logging on

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MOST people believed the island state of Tasmania had at last found peace after a 30-year war between environmentalists and loggers. Both sides signed a deal two years ago that gave everyone something: secure supplies for timber companies and protection for native forests.

Now, though, Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, has reignited the war. Australia, he says, has too much “locked-up forest”. Mr Abbott wants to open up a swathe of Australia’s most fought-over forest and hand it to loggers. His government has asked UNESCO to remove 74,000 hectares (183,000 acres) from the World Heritage-listed wilderness region that covers about a fifth of Tasmania.

On March 15th the Liberal Party, a pro-logging soul mate of Mr Abbott’s federal conservative coalition, swept to power in Tasmania’s state election. Will Hodgman, the new premier, vows to do Canberra’s bidding and tear up the peace deal. After 16 years in opposition, the Liberals reduced the centre-left Labor Party to six seats in the 25-seat parliament. But, despite Mr Hodgman’s strong mandate, ripping up the forest deal will not be easy.

Mr Abbott laid the groundwork in a speech on March 4th to a gathering of forest-industry grandees in Canberra. The environment, he told them, “is meant for man, and not just the other way around”. He saw loggers not as “environmental bandits”, but as “people who are the ultimate conservationists”. Even for a leader who has made political combat his hallmark, this was provocative stuff.

The areas Mr Abbott wants to strip from World Heritage listing belong to 170,000 hectares that the organisation recognised only last year. This approval brought to about 1.5m hectares the World Heritage-listed wilderness region covering central and south-west Tasmania. This latest addition was a crucial part of the 2012 peace deal, known as the Tasmanian Forests Agreement, signed by timber companies, unions and green groups.

Forests cover half of Tasmania: in Australia as a whole it is less than a quarter. Battles over access to the land harmed the logging industry. Fearing that supplies would be disrupted, customers in Asia had started looking elsewhere for their timber. For this reason alone, many loggers welcomed the calm that came with the peace as much as greens did. Ta Ann, a Malaysian-based outfit that turns eucalyptus logs into veneer, says it was ready to quit Tasmania, but the peace deal persuaded it to stay.

Mr Hodgman plans talks with timber companies, although his ideas for managing the island’s forests remain a mystery. He will not include environmental groups, he says, unless they drop their demand to stick to the peace deal. But the unlikely alliance created by the deal seems to have pre-empted the premier. Two days after the election, industry leaders, unions and environmentalists met in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital, to reaffirm their support for the agreement. Terry Edwards, head of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, which signed the deal, says it was “absolutely imperative” in giving the industry certainty. Mr Abbott’s talk of World Heritage excisions is “not warranted”, says Mr Edwards. Indeed, ditching the deal could upset its plan to certify Tasmanian timber to the sustainable international standards that many customers ask for.

Questions remain about Mr Abbott’s reasons for stripping 74,000 hectares from World Heritage listing. He suggests the entire area had already been logged, “degraded” or planted with timber to be logged. The Wilderness Society, one of the environmental groups that signed the deal, calculates that just 10% of the area had in fact been logged; about 40% was “old-growth” forest, barely disturbed before; and much of the rest was natural vegetation.

A real feller

At 7.6% Tasmania’s unemployment rate is Australia’s highest (compared with 6% nationally). Mr Abbott blames “Green ideology” for many of the island’s woes, even for Australia’s lowest life expectancy. He wants a “renaissance” of forestry in Tasmania. The industry employs around 4,000 people, about 2,000 fewer than six years ago. The Australia Institute, a think-tank, reckons that Tasmania’s industry can survive only with government subsidies. Delisting World Heritage regions, it argues, will create hardly any jobs. The World Heritage Committee is due to rule on the Abbott government’s request in June.

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A census in Myanmar: Too much information

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

IT seemed like a good idea at the time. Among the many things Myanmar lacks after half a century of military dictatorship are data, of any sort. For a new government managing the transition to democracy, basic facts about the country are essential. Hence, a census. There has not been one in Myanmar since 1983, and it is a normal step in the economic development of any poverty-stricken country.

But however well-intentioned, the census has provoked a political crisis at a time when the country can ill afford one. The questions stray beyond the collection of run-of-the-mill data—household incomes and the like—into the minefields of race and religion. These are extremely sensitive issues in a diverse country with a long history of ethnic conflict. Sensitivities are particularly acute at a time when relations between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority have been scarred by serious violence.

Among the 41 questions that the 100,000 or so census-takers, mostly young school-teachers, have to ask every household in Myanmar is one on race. But respondents can only choose from an anachronistic, inaccurate and divisive list of 135 ethnic groups. The list reinforces the impression of a government that represents only the ethnic-Burman majority. Myanmar’s government has been at war for decades with most of the country’s ethnic minorities, which make up about 40% of the country’s population.

There was virtually no consultation with groups such as the Karen, Shan and Chin in drawing up the list. If the authorities had asked them, argues Cheery Zahao, an ethnic-Chin human-rights activist, they might have realised how inaccurate and insulting the categories are. There are 53 Chin subgroups on the list, for instance, many of which the Chin themselves do not acknowledge, raising old suspicions that the census results will be used by the Burmans to keep the Chin politically divided and thus weaker. Moreover, the Chin list includes groups that are not Chin at all, such as the Naga and Meithei. Both of these are separate minorities that live in Chin state in Myanmar, though most of their ethnic kin live over the border in India.

The categories do not acknowledge the millions of mixed-race people or people of South Asian descent. Respondents are free to define their own ethnicity, but people are fearful that if they do enter a category that is not on the list of prescribed “nationalities”, they will be classed as foreigners. Consequently, says Ms Cheery Zahau, “most people don’t trust the process.”

Indeed, the census has deepened a sense of suspicion just as the government wants to sign a nationwide ceasefire agreement with Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups and their political representatives. The census, and the way it has been conducted, looks like the work of a government that cannot throw off the shackles of its old, authoritarian ways.

In particular, the census has sparked further tension in Rakhine state, in the west, scene of sectarian violence between the Buddhist—ethnic Rakhine—majority and the Muslim Rohingya minority. Hundreds were killed in 2012 as Sittwe and other towns were ethnically cleansed of Rohingyas; about 140,000 of those displaced now live in refugee camps near the coast.

On March 16th Rakhine mobs protested across the state, egged on by Wirathu, a Buddhist-chauvinist monk. They demanded that the census be stopped or changed. The Rakhine do not want the Rohingyas to be able to define their ethnicity. They fear this will confer the status of a separate group, boost their numbers (by encouraging illegal immigration from Bangladesh) and help them win some rights.

The Rakhine mobs may yet get their way, which would make a flawed census even worse. There are also fears of a backlash from Buddhist nationalists, should the census show, as many think it will, that the Muslim population is more than double the official estimate of 4m (out of a population of 60m). Sensible though it seemed at the time, a census is something Myanmar could do without.

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Mark Twain

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"I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened."

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Esther Dyson

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"The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect."

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Randy Pausch

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"We don't beat the Grim Reaper by living longer, we beat the Reaper by living well and living fully, for the Reaper will come for all of us. The question is what do we do between the time we are born and the time he shows up. It's too late to do all the things that you're gonna kinda get around to."

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Cory Doctorow

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"This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy."

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Veronica Pare and Ferrett Steinmetz

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"Dude, marriage is the 'get out of loneliness free' card in the Monopoly game of life."

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Terence

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"I bid him look into the lives of men as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself."

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Ronnie Shakes

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"I like life. It's something to do."

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Sir Winston Churchill

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"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

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P. J. O'Rourke

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"Never fight an inanimate object."

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Ukraine 'planning Crimea withdrawal'

Source BBC News@ tienganhvui.com

19 March 2014 Last updated at 20:40

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• As it happened


• Smooth invasion


• EU dilemma


• Putin's speech


• Historic maps


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Watch key footage as pro-Russians take over Sevastopol navy base

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• Latest updates


• Putin's Crimea speech analysed


• Sanctions explained


• Analysis: This won't stop here

Ukraine is drawing up plans to withdraw its soldiers and their families from Crimea, Kiev's security chief says.

Andriy Parubiy said they wanted to move them "quickly and efficiently" to mainland Ukraine.

Earlier, pro-Russian forces seized two naval bases - including Ukraine navy's HQ - in Crimea. Kiev says its navy chief has been detained.

It comes a day after Crimean leaders signed a treaty with Moscow absorbing the peninsula into Russia.

A referendum in Crimea on Sunday, approving its split from Ukraine, came nearly a month after Kiev's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was replaced by Western-leaning interim authorities.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

John Simpson World Affairs Editor, BBC News

---

In modern times, Moscow has staged three major invasions: Hungary in November 1956 and Czechoslovakia in August 1968, when the Communist governments there began showing dangerously Western tendencies; and Afghanistan in December 1979, when the pro-Communist regime was on the point of collapse.

These were huge and brutal operations, involving large numbers of tanks, and sometimes great bloodshed.

The takeover of Crimea has been completely different. This was an infiltration, not an invasion. And unlike in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan it was welcomed by a large proportion of the local population.

• Smoothest invasion of modern times

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called the crisis in Crimea "the gravest threat to European security and stability since the end of the Cold War".

'Demilitarised zone'

Mr Parubiy, in a news conference, set out more details on Kiev's position in light of the events in Crimea.

He said arrangements were now being set up to introduce visas for Russian nationals travelling to Ukraine.

And he said Kiev was seeking UN support to "proclaim Crimea a demilitarised zone", which would involve the withdrawal of Russian troops and the "relocation of Ukrainian troops to continental Ukraine as well as facilitate evacuation of all the civilian population who are unwilling to remain on the occupied territory".

Ukraine is also leaving the Moscow-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) alliance, and is preparing for military exercises with the US and the UK, Mr Parubiy added.

With reference to plans to withdraw troops and their families, Ukraine's interim Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya told the BBC that they would not be forced to leave if they did not want to.

But he said: "The situation is unpredictable and uncontrolled sometimes, so that's why there is a danger also for the civilians".

Meanwhile, a deadline of 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT) set by Ukraine's interim President Olexander Turchynov for the release of navy chief Serhiy Hayduk has passed.

Mr Turchynov earlier said that unless Mr Hayduk and "all the other hostages - both military and civilian ones - were released, the authorities would carry out an adequate response... of a technical and technological nature".

It is not clear exactly what he means, but it could involve the electricity or water that Ukraine supplies to Crimea, the BBC's David Stern in Kiev suggests.

Pro-Russian crowds broke into the Ukrainian navy headquarters in Sevastopol

They removed Ukrainian symbols including this gate

Ukrainian flags have been removed and replaced with Russian ones

Many Ukrainian officers left the base, although some said they would not surrender

Kiev said Mr Hayduk was detained soon after Ukraine's naval headquarters was stormed by some 200 pro-Russian activists, some armed, in Sevastopol - the port city which is also home to Russia's Black Sea fleet.

They were filmed going through offices, removing Ukrainian insignia and replacing Ukraine's flag with the Russian tricolour.

There were cheers from the crowd when Russia's Black Sea Fleet commander Aleksandr Vitko arrived and entered the building.

A handful of Ukrainian servicemen have refused to surrender. One told the BBC's Mark Lowen that they had been told to stay overnight to protect the equipment but fully expected to be told by Kiev in the morning to withdraw.

Footage shows the head of Ukraine state TV being beaten until he signs his own resignation letter

Ukraine's navy base in Novo-Ozyorne in west Crimea was also infiltrated after a tractor was used to ram the front gates. Some 50 Ukrainian servicemen were seen filing out of the base.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Ihor Tenyukh and First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema reportedly tried to enter Crimea to defuse tensions but were prevented from doing so.

'Clear warning'

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia's constitutional court approved the treaty absorbing Crimea into the Russian Federation. The treaty now only needs ratifying by parliament which correspondents say it is certain to do.

Continue reading the main story

Crisis timeline

• 21 Nov 2013: President Viktor Yanukovych abandons an EU deal


• Dec: Pro-EU protesters occupy Kiev city hall and Independence Square


• 20-21 Feb 2014: At least 88 people killed in Kiev clashes


• 22 Feb: Mr Yanukovych flees; parliament removes him and calls election


• 27-28 Feb: Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimea. Parliament, under siege, appoints pro-Moscow Sergei Aksyonov a PM


• 6 Mar: Crimea's parliament votes to join Russia


• 16 Mar: Crimea voters choose to secede in disputed referendum


• 17 Mar: Crimean parliament declares independence and formally applies to join Russia


• 18 Mar: Russian and Crimean leaders sign deal in Moscow to join the region to Russia

In an emotionally charged speech on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin said Crimea had "always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia".

Meanwhile, shocking footage has emerged of MPs from Ukraine's far-right Svoboda party roughing up Oleksandr Panteleymonov, the acting chief executive of the state broadcaster, over his decision to broadcast the treaty ceremony in the Kremlin.

The crisis in Crimea is expected to dominate a meeting of European Union leaders who meet in Brussels on Thursday.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the EU must send "a very clear warning" to Russia, raising the possibility of further sanctions against Moscow. He also said the G8 group should discuss whether to expel Russia "if further steps are taken".

Moscow said any expansion of sanctions was "unacceptable and will not remain without consequences".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is heading to the region. He will meet Mr Putin in Moscow on Thursday and Ukraine's interim leaders in Kiev on Friday.

Pro-Russian forces effectively took over Crimea - with its predominantly ethnic Russian population - after Mr Yanukovych fled Ukraine on 22 February following protests in which more than 80 people were killed.

Are you in the region? Email us haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk adding 'Crimea' in the subject heading and include your contact details.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

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Savers and pensioners' Budget boost

Source BBC News@ tienganhvui.com

19 March 2014 Last updated at 17:33

George Osborne calls it a Budget for "makers, doers and savers"

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• Budget calculator 2014


• As it happened: Budget 2014


• Key points of Budget: At-a-glance


• What the Budget means for you

George Osborne has unveiled measures to boost the income of pensioners and savers hit by low interest rates.

The amount people can save tax-free in Isas is to rise, while pensioners also get a higher interest savings option.

People will also no longer have to use their pension pot to buy annuities.

The chancellor froze petrol duty, cut bingo tax from 20% to 10%, froze spirits and cider duty and cut a further 1p from a pint of beer - but put the price of cigarettes up.

Labour leader Ed Miliband dismissed the Budget as full of the "same old Tory tricks" and said millions of people were worse off under the coalition government.

Measures announced in Mr Osborne's fifth Budget speech include:

• The amount workers earn before income tax to go up by £500 to £10,500


• Extending the Help to Buy scheme for aspiring home owners to 2020


• A five-year cap on structural welfare spending from 2015, starting at £119bn and rising in line with inflation. It excludes pensions and Job Seekers Allowance


• Cigarettes to go up by 2% above inflation


• Freezing the "carbon floor" price paid by businesses


• Stamp duty on homes worth more £500,000 to rise to 15% for those bought by companies


• A scheme to boost exports - doubling the amount of finance available to £3bn


• An extra £140m for repairs and maintenance to flood defences and £200m for potholes


• Scrapping inheritance tax for members of the emergency services who "give their lives protecting us"


• Reform of air passenger duty so all long haul flights carry the same tax rate as currently charged for flights to USA

The "surprise" which was the focus of speculation ahead of the 55-minute speech came at the end as Mr Osborne said cash and share Isas were to be merged into a single New Isa with an annual tax-free savings limit of £15,000 from 1 July. The limit for Junior Isas will be raised to £4,000.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Politically these measures have one target - older voters with savings, many of whom will be 40p tax rate payers”

End Quote

Nick Robinson Political editor

---

Pensioners will have the freedom to cash in as much or as little of their pension pot as they want, removing the need to buy an annuity (an annuity is effectively a bond which pays out a fixed income for the rest of your life).

Mr Osborne also outlined a new Pensioner Bond savings scheme to be available from January to all people over 65, paying interest rates of 2.8% for one-year bonds and 4% for three-year bonds.

He said the changes - due to come into law by April next year - were "the most far-reaching reform to the taxation of pensions since the regime was introduced in 1921".

The cap on the amount of Premium Bonds a person can own will rise from £30,000 to £40,000 in June and £50,000 in 2015. The number of £1m winners will also be doubled.

David Cameron and Danny Alexander enjoy a George Osborne joke

There was disappointment for those wanting to see a big rise in the starting point for the higher rate of tax - Mr Osborne said the threshold would rise from £41,450 to £41,865 next month, and then by another below-inflation 1% to £42,285 next year.

During his speech, which comes two months before the European elections and 14 months before the next General Election, Mr Osborne unveiled plans to support economic recovery - including tax breaks to boost productivity, exports and manufacturing.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It was a very traditional Tory Budget - perhaps the most Conservative since the creation of the coalition government in 2010”

End Quote

Robert Peston Business editor

---

He said Britain was growing at a faster rate than any other advanced economy - revising growth forecasts up to 2.7% in 2014 - but he warned the job of recovery was "far from done".

He told MPs: "The message from this Budget is: you have earned it, you have saved it, and this government is on your side, whether you're on a low or middle income, whether you're saving for your home, for your family or for your retirement.

"The forecasts I've presented show: growth up; jobs up; and the deficit down.

"With the help of the British people we're turning our country around. We're building a resilient economy.

"This is a Budget for the makers, the doers, and the savers."

Clegg 'pleased'

He said the Office for Budget Responsibility was forecasting that the economy would overtake its pre-crisis peak later this year.

The deficit - the difference between the government's spending and the money it collects from things such as taxes - would be lower than expected this year at 6.6%, he said.

Labour leader Ed Miliband: "The working people of Britain are worse off under the Tories"

And he said the government was on track to balance the books in 2018/19.

Labour leader Ed Miliband - in his Budget response - said: "The chancellor spoke for nearly an hour but he did not mention one central fact - the working people of Britain are worse off under the Tories."

He added: "Whose recovery is it under the Tories? Under them it is a recovery for the few, not the many.

"We know what their long term plan is, tax cuts for the richest whilst everyone else gets squeezed."

Labour has pledged that if it wins the next election, it will reinstate the 10p tax rate for low earners and raise the top rate of tax to 50p for those earning more than £150,000 a year.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said he was "very pleased" with the Budget - particularly the pension and income tax changes.

On plans to raise the point at which income tax starts to above £10,000, the deputy PM said: "I am especially pleased that we have over-delivered on that particular Lib Dem manifesto pledge."

John Cridland, director general of business group the CBI, said the Budget would "put wind in the sails of business investment, especially for manufacturers".

"Failed test'

But TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady described it as a "highly political short-term Budget that continued the Chancellor's project to shrink the state and help the rich".

SNP Treasury spokesman at Westminster, Stewart Hosie, said the Budget - the last before September's Scottish independence referendum - proved George Osborne had "failed on every single one of the tests which he set for himself" in 2010.

"The Tory/Liberal coalition are still trying to balance the books on the back of the poor," he added.

Plaid Cymru's leader at Westminster, Elfyn Llwyd, welcomed plans to boost capital investment but said there was "little cheer" for small firms.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: "I don't think this government has unleashed the full potential of British business.

"We will finish up at the end of the five years of this coalition government with our national debt having risen by 40%, and that must mean, the original objective of the coalition has failed."

There was some light relief as Labour's Ed Miliband and Ed Balls suggested the education secretary was "hiding" on the "naughty step"

Michael Gove, who highlighted in a weekend interview the number of Etonians in the PM's circle, laughs at Labour's suggestion he had been banished

David Cameron also seemed to enjoy the joke about his friend's choice of seat in the Commons

In Michael Gove's defence, the Commons was packed, so he might not have had much of a choice of seat

Do you have a Budget question for one of our experts? Email us at haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk adding 'Budget' in the subject heading and including your contact details.

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