SEOUL, South Korea — When Suh Eun-pil was being harassed at school last year because of rumors he was gay, the internet was one of the few places he felt safe. One website in particular, called Rateen, provided a haven from critical eyes and verbal abuse.
Suh began visiting Rateen regularly, and six months later his life had completely changed — for the better.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Suh, 18, was surrounded by friends, everyone chatting and laughing. The small group of friends — all whom met through Rateen — was planning a social event for gay and lesbian teens, with games, prizes and special speakers. They were expecting about 150 guests, one of their largest turnouts yet. “The site has helped me a lot,” Suh said. “I met a lot of good friends through it and was able to talk freely about my problems and worries for the first time.” The internet has allowed for sexual minorities across South Korea to express themselves and build communities to support one another, but it wasn't always this way and struggles for the minority remain. Many of those same people still keep their sexuality a secret from certain family members and friends, while others fear the internet could, at some point, stop helping and start holding people back. Rateen, which is a mash-up of the words “rainbow” and “teenager,” was first conceived of in 2007 by a young woman who goes by the name Jinki. She’s now 20 years old and in college.
Jinki says these days there are a number of websites like Rateen for LGBT teens in Korea. But back when she was in high school, there weren’t any places she could find answers to some of her questions about being a lesbian. “A lot of the sites back then were mainly geared toward adults, for things like meeting up and dating,” Jinki said, sporting an oversized yellow sweatshirt with a Pac-Man logo on the back. “I wanted to make a place for teenaged sexual minorities to find other people like themselves and create a culture.”
Since starting the site, Rateen has attracted nearly 5,000 members. Jinki says the group is made up of LGBT teens as well as their friends and family members, who are trying to understand them better.
The site’s forum, commonly referred to as a “cafe” in Korea, contains countless posts from users asking for advice or recounting stories of discrimination. Some users ask about homosexual feelings they are beginning to have or are uncomfortable with. One recent post was simply titled, “I’m worried about my future.”
Less than a decade ago, sites like Rateen would have been banned in Korea for being “harmful” to young people, according to government laws. One act called for the blocking of gay and lesbian internet sites on the grounds they were a threat to young people. Rights groups not only in Korea but around the world protested the censorship, and it was eventually repealed in 2003.
Korea prides itself on being able to move quickly, and the growth of online gay communities is no exception. In a country where young people are reported to buy new mobile phones every year and a coffee shop seems to open each week, staying up to date is a necessity.
But Korean teenagers looking for information online about homosexuality can still have problems finding it.
Jong Geol Lee, from the Korean gay men’s rights group Chingusai, said online search engines in the country regularly block teenage users from seeing the results of queries such as “homosexual,” “homosexuality” or “gay.” “Teenagers are still led to believe homosexuality is something dangerous or unnatural,” Lee said.

Lee says if someone wants to see the results for homosexual content on Korean search engines, they have to certify themselves as an adult first (most Korean websites require users to log in with their national ID number, which contains their birthdate). Lee empathizes with gay and lesbian teenagers in Korea who are trying to navigate their way through society. Even at the age of 34, he has obstacles to cross. A few months ago, Lee felt free enough to do what is known on Chingusai’s website as a “Coming Out Interview,” featuring photos of him (one in drag) and a lengthy discussion about his life. Anyone can pull up the page online. His parents, however, are still unaware of the fact that he is gay. “That’s something I think many gay and lesbian Koreans worry about, trying to figure out the best way to tell their parents,” Lee said. The reason for this, according to Lee, is because Korea is a relatively conservative country where children are largely expected to respect their parents’ opinions no matter what, and men and women are expected to marry and have children. Some Koreans are even said to believe gays and lesbians don’t exist.Which is a sentiment some fear could continue.

Rateen members confer in a sexual minorities advocacy center in Seoul. (Michael Rhee/GlobalPost)

Lee and others are concerned homosexuality has the danger of becoming ghettoized on the internet, far from the lives of most Koreans.
“If you don’t actively take an interest in this kind of issue and search out these kinds of topics, you don’t even realize what’s going on,” said Korea University Law Professor Keechang Kim, who works on internet-freedom issues. “I think the prejudice simply perpetuates.”
But with the growing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in South Korea, Lee says the lives of sexual minorities have a chance to permeate into mainstream Korean culture. For example, Lee says openly gay Korean film directors like Leesong Hee-il and Kim Jo Kwang Soo are making an impact on the mainstream by gaining large followings online. Ultimately, though, Lee says gays and lesbians in Korea will have to move their online communities offline in order to change society in a way that will accept them equally.
“Our country still has strong prejudices, and not everyone knows there are all different kinds of people in the world,” Lee said. “But still, I think a Korea that’s accepting of sexual minorities can happen soon.”

HAVANA, Cuba — “$100 a barrel oil in sight,” read a recent headline in Granma, Cuba’s communist party newspaper, and not long ago, such news would likely have been followed by hand-wringing admonitions to conserve electricity or brace for transportation cuts and rolling blackouts.
Not anymore. In today’s Cuba, climbing oil prices are channeling much-needed cash into government accounts, even though the island is years away from commercially developing its own offshore reserves or becoming a significant energy exporter. Instead, Cuba is turning a tidy profit on other nations’ crude.
Over the past decade, in a feat of political and diplomatic ingenuity, Cuba’s leaders have transformed the country from a place hurt by high oil prices into one that rides their rise straight to the bank. Through service agreements that send Cuban doctors, nurses and other skilled professionals to energy giants like Venezuela, Angola and Algeria, the Cuban government is compensated on a sliding scale pegged to the price of oil.
The exact terms of those service contracts have not been made public, but the basic formula is that when energy prices go up, Cuba earns more. Last year, the island accumulated a $3.9 billion trade surplus, and services — such as health care — accounted for $9.4 billion out of $13.6 billion in total export revenue, according to the government’s National Statistics Office. Those earnings now dwarf Cuba’s traditional export commodities, such as sugar and nickel. The added revenue is helping to ease the cash shortage that forced the Castro government to freeze accounts of foreign businesses operating in the country and defer payments on its estimated $20 billion in foreign debt. It has also provided a cushion to Cuban authorities at a time of economic tumult, as 500,000 state workers — 10 percent of the island’s workforce — are due to be laid off or reassigned in the coming months. Analysts who track Cuba’s energy sector said the country’s increasingly lucrative service agreements are “a game changer.” “Any exponential rise in oil prices will continue to increase export revenues,” said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvaro, a Cuba energy expert at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. During the leanest years of the so-called Special Period, the post-Soviet economic collapse that gripped Cuba in the 1990s, frequent blackouts left Cubans simmering in their cramped apartments. The island had imported most of its fuel from the Soviet Union, and with the oil spigot shut off, Cuba’s power plants and transportation networks sputtered. Today power outages are rare. And with help from foreign companies, Cuba now produces roughly 50,000 barrels per day of domestic crude to run its power plants. The island receives some 100,000 barrels from Venezuela as well, some of which is processed on the island and re-exported to other countries in the region through the Petrocaribe agreement. Cuba’s most profitable service agreement continues to be with top ally Venezuela, where about 40,000 Cuban professionals are running health clinics, training athletes and working inside the Chavez government. While Cuban doctors and social workers have helped shore up political support for Chavez among Venezuela’s poor, Venezuelan hydrocarbons have helped pull the Castro government back from the brink of financial ruin.
The service arrangements have strained Cuban families and the island’s own health system, but Cuban workers typically welcome the chance to go abroad, even to faraway places like Qatar or Angola, since they can earn far more than the $20-a-month average salary they would get at home.
The island’s economic fortunes will be even more entwined with world energy prices in the coming years, as Cuba has signed more than a dozen deals with foreign companies to develop its offshore reserves. A sophisticated Chinese-built deepwater drilling rig is due to arrive into Cuban waters this summer, where a foreign consortium led by Spanish energy giant Repsol will try to tap undersea deposits that geologists believe hold billions of barrels of oil. A large discovery will accelerate Cuba’s transformation from fuel-deficient importer to significant regional energy player. The Venezuelan government has also invested more than $6 billion to upgrade Cuba’s Cienfuegos refinery, turning the southern port city into one of the region’s largest petrochemical centers. A similar expansion is also underway along Cuba’s north coast in Matanzas, and the two projects will more than double the island’s refining capacity. Even with those projects years away from completion, economist Ricardo Torres said there’s no longer a sense of alarm in Cuba now when oil prices increase. But he cautioned that it’s difficult to calculate the exact benefit to Cuba, because the terms of its service contracts with foreign oil producers like Venezuela have never been disclosed. There are other risks as well, he noted. “Those agreements were negotiated based on strong ties with those countries. But if you think of a situation in which one of those governments changes, Cuba will have to negotiate a new agreement. So it’s still vulnerable to political developments in those countries.”

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHOCKER, Iraq — The dusty plain along Iraq’s border with Iran in eastern Wasit province has seen little violence over the past several years. This is a quiet and remote corner of the country, a sparsely populated area southeast of Baghdad. But for the U.S. troops still stationed here, the mission is as critical as ever. With less than a year left before the remaining 50,000 American soldiers will likely have to head home, they are engaged in a mad-dash — and often frustrating — effort to bolster the local government and security forces. “I used to do recon to find out where the enemy was. Now I do recon to find out what the country needs,” said Cpt. Gavin Schwan, a troop commander in the 3rd Armored Cavalry’s 2nd Squadron. A far cry from the days of busting down doors, Schwan said that among his biggest concerns now are border security, a micro-grant program he is running to fund businesses in the area and a bridge he fears is coming under heavy stress from cross-border truck traffic. The army’s efforts in Wasit province typify the current U.S. mission in Iraq, called Operation New Dawn, which is focused on advising and assisting the Iraqi army, other security forces and civilian systems. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, who arrived in Iraq Thursday morning, praised the progress made by the Iraqi government, even as bombs exploded around him. “I’m here to help the Iraqis celebrate the progress they made. They formed a government. And that’s a good thing,” he said. But although it might be good for Iraq that it finally has a new government, it might not be such a good thing for the Americans. After nine months of deadlock, the Iraqi government that finally came together is made up of politicians who are unlikely to tolerate a U.S. troop presence in their country after this year. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck a deal with perennial American antagonist Moqtada al-Sadr, giving the fiery cleric's political bloc control over a handful of key ministries. Aligned with Iran, Sadr announced earlier this week that he would not support any continued U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond the scheduled withdrawal this year, a pronouncement that Maliki was quick to support. Sadr, who once commanded one of the country's most violent insurgent groups, the Mahdi Army, recently returned from three years of religious study in Iran. His return has stoked fears of renewed sectarian violence and anti-American rhetoric. The calm along the Iran-Iraq border, in fact, has not extended to other parts of Wasit, including in the provincial capital of al-Kut, where attacks are common. Forward Operating Base Delta, a U.S. base that sits across the Tigris River from al-Kut, comes under regular rocket fire from militants. In December, Pfc. David Dustin Finch was killed by sniper fire while on patrol outside of the city.
Sectarian clashes continue to occur daily throughout Iraq. In one week earlier this month, according to security analysts, 33 people died from fighting around the country. And so the U.S. mission here has taken on an added sense of urgency. Troops are working overtime to bolster Iraq’s institutions, both military and civilian, before either time runs out or they are run out. For soldiers in Wasit, however, many of whom fought through the most harrowing years of the war in Iraq, trying to swiftly slog through the Iraqi bureaucracy is presenting a whole new challenge. Even obtaining ammunition for training purposes, for example, can be difficult for the Iraqi army’s logistical systems, said Lt. Col. Bryan Mullins. Small issues like these hamper American efforts to train their Iraqi counterparts. “The difference is the Iraqis work by courier car and snail mail and telephone calls, where at least we have email and we all kind of live on the same installation,” he said, noting that it can take 50 to 60 days for his Iraqi counterparts to receive ammunition once they have requested it. On a recent trip up to the border region, Mullins engaged in the sort of military diplomacy that has become typical of the New Dawn mission. After touring a housing development at the border and visiting the over-stressed bridge, Mullins headed to an Iraqi military base to secure an Iraqi commitment to remove four landmines — remnants of the Iran-Iraq war — from a nearby family farm.
Mullins and Schwan met with 1st Lt. Ahed Ghalab for a frustrating hour-long meeting in which Ghalab repeatedly cited bureaucratic and jurisdictional roadblocks complicating the Americans’ request.
“We know a whole bunch of places where we have mines, but we can’t seem to get support,” a frustrated Mullins told Ghalab at one point. Still, the pressure is on to — before the end of the year — raise a security apparatus in the country that is capable of staring down the brutal sectarian violence that never seems to be very far away.

Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has left the country amid the worst unrest there in decades, according to reports. Ben Ali flew to France, but was refused asylum by the French government, according to GlobalPost correspondent Ben Barnier in Paris. French authorities refused to let Ben Ali land on their soil, according to the French daily Le Monde. French president Nicolas Sarkozy himself refused to host Ben Ali, according to reports on the French television station I-tele. There is speculation that Sarkozy's decision was motivated by a fear to upset France's large Tunisian community — Tunisia was a French protectorate from 1881 to 1956. Since its independence, Tunisia has only had two presidents, Habib Bourguiba and Ben Ali, and French political leaders have long had close relations with Ben Ali.
The French Foreign Affairs ministry said in statement that it has not received any request to host Ben Ali, and that if it does, it will advise according to the constitutional agreements between France and Tunisia.
According to Al Jazeera, Ben Ali is currently trying to find refuge in the Gulf, and probably in Qatar.

On a day of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flew to Paris, leaving Mohammed Ghannouchi, the Tunisian prime minister, as the interim president, Al-Jazeera reported. Ben Ali on Friday declared a state of emergency, a day after dismissing his cabinet. His announcement that he would not run for re-election in 2014 prompted celebrations on the streets of the capital Tunis. In what's being viewed as a worrying sign for repressive leaders of Arab states in the region, demonstrators unhappy with the country's high unemployment, food prices and corruption have taken to the streets. GlobalPost correspondent Jon Jensen said in Cairo that Egyptians are watching events in Tunisia with great interest because Egypt has many of the same conditions. (See video interview below).
The president of 23 years also promised elections within six months, and in an apparent bid to appease protesters vowed to cut prices of basic foodstuffs, lift censorship and ensure that police did not use live ammunition except in self-defense. But riots still broke out Friday on the streets of Tunis, and police fired tear gas grenades at protesters in response. Gunshots were heard near a protest outside the interior ministry building, according to Reuters. A show of force by baton-wielding police officers earlier Friday aggravated a peaceful gathering in the capital. Security forces were reportedly seen beating protesters.
Demonstrators in the Moroccan capital held a sit-in yesterday afternoon in front of the Tunisian embassy in Rabat despite efforts from the authorities to stop them.Tunisian officials said the reason for the emergency declaration is to protect Tunisians and their private property. People are not allowed on the street from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. People gathering in groups of three or more will be arrested, and they will be fired on if they try to run away and can't be stopped, CNN reported. Ben Ali, however, said he had given orders to security forces not to use live ammunition "unless someone uses his weapon and forces you to defend yourself."
Ben Ali addressed the crisis on national TV Thursday night as a message

purportedly from an Al Qaeda affiliate announced its support of protesters. "Enough violence," Ben Ali said after days of riots that have killed at least 21 people. Riots earlier in the week led the government to close high schools and universities. Instability in the North African country is being viewed as a red flag for governments across the region that rely on suppression to maintain order. "Arab columnists and TV shows have been excitedly debating the real causes of the protests and what they might mean, while in country after country warnings are being sounded of a repeat of the 'Tunisia scenario,'" wrote Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy. Moroccans sympathetic to the Tunisians' cause attempted this week to show their solidarity. A reporter for GlobalPost in the Moroccan capital Rabat, Aida Alami, wrote: "The Moroccan Coordination in Support of Tunisian Democrats had tried on Monday to organize a demonstration in support of the Tunisian people but were quickly evacuated by the police. Reports say that Thursday's demonstration did not go a smoothly as wished by the organizers and many altercations occurred between police and protesters."

SEOUL, South Korea — An unlikely result of North Korea shelling its neighbor to the south: schoolchildren in Seoul are losing their lunches. With eyes on the presidency, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is seeking to eliminate free lunches for students in the country’s demanding schools. It’s a symptom of the current political climate: As the country's voters tilt to the right, politicians don’t wish to be seen as supportive of any public welfare measures. November’s skirmish with North Korea has nudged South Koreans in a conservative direction. Many considered their government’s response to aggression from the North to have been weak, and are hoping for a firmer approach to Pyongyang in the coming months. “This latest shift toward a more hard-line policy is an emotional response to a blatant attack. Understandably, the public feels that this kind of outright attack on civilians and military installations calls for a very swift military response, and none was coming,” said Sung-yoon Lee, adjunct assistant professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. Periodic flare-ups in tension with North Korea, and resultant changes in public opinion, are not new in South Korea. It’s not clear how long this one will last. As Lee pointed out, “It’s not in the interest of the public to escalate the tension with North Korea.”
Mayor Oh is believed to be seeking the Grand National Party’s presidential nomination in 2013. To help his electability, he is seeking to harden his public image. Oh was trained as a lawyer and defended human rights early in his career. In South Korea nowadays, to appear soft is bad for a politician’s prospects. Analysts say that to compete with GNP party member Park Geun-hye, Oh will have to refashion the image his background suggests. And he's hit the ground running. In a press conference in early December, Oh said, “The Democratic Party’s [the opposition to Oh’s ruling Grand National Party] reckless populist welfare policies have shackled the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s administrative affairs and now it is taking Seoul residents’ lives and future hostage.” If Oh's are fightin' words, only time will tell if they are tough enough. In the race for the presidency, he is up against South Korea’s most daunting political pedigree in Park Geun-hye, daughter of former military dictator Park Chung-hee. Park is way ahead in the presidential race with a support rate of 33.5 percent, while Oh claims only 5.9 percent, according a poll by the Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times. As the South Korean electorate moves to the right, Gen. Park has become a highly revered figure. He led South Korea’s economic rise and is remembered as a tough leader who got results. His image has improved as South Korea’s conservative movement has grown; his heavy-handed tactics are mentioned less often than his economic success. And so, in an effort to compete with Gen. Park's daughter, Seoul’s mayor has chosen the unobvious vehicle of children’s lunches to cultivate a more forceful image.
According to polling data, many South Koreans would rather war was declared on North Korea. A poll by the Asian Institute for Policy Studies showed 80 percent of respondents favored a military response to the North Korean attack. Six months earlier, the number had been just 30 percent.
It may not be war with the North, but Oh has proposed an "all-out war" on a program introduced in 2010 that provided all elementary and middle school children with free lunches.
He says the lunches need to be waived as a cost-cutting measure. The lunches will cost 70 billion won ($6.2 million) — a fraction of Seoul metropolitan government’s annual budget, which passed on Dec. 30 at 20.59 trillion won ($18.3 billion). Oh's approach may not be reflected in polling numbers, but, anecdotally, it appears to resonate with more conservative voters. And, it has undeniably sparked fighting — albeit not the sort many South Koreans might be looking for. Scuffles, which are something of a pastime in South Korea’s legislature, recently broke out over the school lunch issue. On the day the budget was to be passed, conservative civic groups attempted to storm the National Assembly to prevent Seoul children being given lunch for free. The Seoul government, in opposition to Oh, wants to provide free lunches to students from low-income families. Critics says limiting free lunches according to income level would stigmatize students who receive them in a country acutely perceptive of indicators of wealth and class. Ji-young Soh, a government official in Gyeonggi province says that is a minor concern. “The schools don't collect the money. We do not [think] that is such a big problem. It’s not like they're forced to hold hands and everyone knows who is getting free lunches,” Soh said in an interview. Oh advocated the total of Seoul’s budget being smaller. He focused on social programs, saying, "I declare that I will reject any populist policies in the name of welfare." Park Sook-hee of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Educational Equality Division said that free lunches aren't the best use of budget money.“The fact is that the budget is restricted," he said. "The budget should be spent on other projects according to the priority, such as school safety or reducing measures of private education expenses.” Baek Joon-ho, 10, a student at Yeouido middle school in Seoul, said, “It’s better that the government gives all students free lunch, that way it’s fair and we all get the same thing. All the government’s money comes from our parents, anyway.”

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Poor King Albert.
Belgium’s 76-year-old monarch spent most of 2010 in a fruitless search for a government that could hold his fractious kingdom together, and the advent of 2011 has brought little relief for his highness.
After 207 days of political stalemate, the latest political deal to save Belgium bit the dust on Wednesday, heightening fears that this new year could be the last for the troubled North Sea nation.
Belgium has limped along without a fully functioning government since elections on June 13, when a nationalist party seeking independence for the country’s Dutch-speaking North emerged as the country’s biggest political force. Almost seven months of negotiations to persuade the New Flemish Alliance (NVA) to join a federal government with parties from the French-speaking South have gotten nowhere. The fifth successive mediator appointed by the king to find a solution handed in his resignation Thursday after his much-anticipated compromise proposal was rejected by the NVA and another Flemish party. “There’s insufficient good will for us to continue the negotiations,” said the royal mediator, Johan Vande Lanotte, a veteran Flemish socialist politician, after leaving the Royal Palace. Newspapers on either side of the linguist divide competed to sum up the national mood. “The End,” groaned the headline in the daily Gazet Van Antwerpen. “Hopeless,” said Het Laatse Nieuws, another Flemish daily. “Deadlock,” cried De Standaard’s front-page top.
A leading French-language tabloid left its political pages blank in protest. “Faced with the negotiators’ inability, their sterile soundbites and secret meetings, faced with the shattered trust and this monumental mess, we took a symbolic decision not to add any more useless waffling on the issue,” explained an editorial from journalist Stephane Tassin in La Derniere Heure. Without an agreement in sight, the lame duck government of caretaker Prime Minister Yves Leterme will stay in power indefinitely. Its powers are constitutionally limited to handling day-to-day affairs rather than launching new policy initiatives. Doubts that it will be able to make tough economic decisions to reduce the country’s burgeoning public debt are generating fear that Belgium could join the likes of Ireland and Greece on the edge of a financial precipice. European Union forecasts show Belgium’s debt rising to over 100 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, placing it fourth behind Greece, Italy and Ireland on the eurozone’s sovereign debt ranking. The political instability has also raised questions about Brussels’ role as host to the headquarters of the EU and NATO. French-speakers increasingly believe that NVA leader Bart de Wever is deliberately sabotaging the efforts to form a national government in order to boost his separatist agenda by showing that Belgium has become impossible to govern. De Wever denies the accusation, saying that he’s no revolutionary secessionist. “I’m not working for the immediate end of Belgium,” he told the German magazine Der Spiegel, last month. “I don’t have to do that, because Belgium will eventually evaporate of its own accord … the nation of Belgium has no future in the longterm.”  In return for joining a government in the nation that he calls the “sick man” of Europe, De Wever demands major concessions from the country’s French-speakers. He wants to cut the transfer of funds from prosperous Flanders to the francophone region of Wallonia and the capital Brussels, which is officially bilingual, but mainly French-speaking. The Flemish nationalists also want their own justice system and social security system. They seek to roll back language rights enjoyed by a large French-speaking minority that lives in Flemish suburbs of the capital. Ruled for centuries as part of the Spanish, Austrian, French or Dutch empires, Belgium emerged as an independent nation in 1830. Initially united against outside rule, the 6 million Dutch-speakers of Flanders and the 4 million Francophones of Wallonia and Brussels have grown steadily apart. From political parties to bus networks, schools and universities to road maintenance, most aspects of national life are divided along linguistic lines. In tough economic times, De Wever’s party has exploited long-standing dissatisfaction among Flemish voters over the flow of federal funding to the poorer French-speaking regions. The country's imminent breakup is, however, not certain. If they want to divorce, the Flemings and Walloons will have to decide what to do about Brussels. The capital is surrounded by Flemish territory and plays a vital role in the Flemish economy, but its inhabitants are overwhelmingly French-speakers with little taste for integration into an independent Flanders. Until a solution is found for the future of the city, which calls itself the capital of Europe, the Belgians will be tied together and King Albert II will be forced to continue his search for a politician who can govern the kingdom.

NEW DELHI, India — Alok Kumar, a 30-year-old father of two, is worried. Though the monthly salary he earns as a chauffeur in New Delhi amounts to about half the sum the average Indian earns in a year, high prices have forced him to stop giving his children their allowance and eliminate essentials from his family's diet.
"We used to live on 3000-4000 rupees a month, and that has gone up to as much as 13000," Kumar said. "At home we don’t even use onion and garlic now. Not at all! That has made the food bland and tasteless. Yes. But what else can we do? We have no way out. We are helpless.” Kumar is hardly alone. The specter of another food crisis has the whole world nervous. But in India, skyrocketing food prices threaten to send the entire economy into a tailspin, as the government struggles to balance growth and inflation — and create a safety net for the millions still mired in poverty. Government data revealed on Thursday that India's food inflation topped 18 percent for the week ending Dec. 25, with vegetables prices up more than 50 percent from the same period last year. The steep increase came as a surprise to economists, who had predicted a moderation in prices due to last year's good monsoon. For India, a spike in food prices means real suffering. But a prolonged and seemingly unstoppable rise in the cost of basic commodities like the one India has witnessed over the past two years could have farther reaching effects. "If food prices rise, wages go up because workers will demand high wages," said Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil, the Indian arm of Standard & Poor's. "Wages going up make cost of products go up, and manufacturers will try to pass it on to the consumer. It's called a wage-price spiral." That's grim news for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which has already seen its approval rate plummet. According to a recent India Today/AC-Nielsen poll, the UPA has since August fallen behind the opposition in nearly 20 percent of the parliamentary constituencies it won in 2009. In a country where economists track inflation every week, instead of every month, and the cost of onions has brought down two governments, that means Singh has to act fast. The trouble is, there may not be anything he can do. “We are not sure whether we have all the tools in our hands to control food inflation,” former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who is now the home minister, said earlier this week. Since coming to power for its first term in 2004, the UPA has sought in vain for "inclusive growth" that will bring the rural poor out of poverty as rapidly as it creates wealth for the elite and middle class. The stopgap answer has been social welfare programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which ensures that rural laborers get 100 days of work per year. But economists argue that the NREGS has only driven up prices, especially for items like milk, eggs and vegetables, as the poor begin to buy better food and change the ratio of demand to supply. Now, to avert a crisis, the government has no choice but to increase the wages paid under the scheme, even while the central bank tightens monetary policy to rein in inflation. Essentially, India's politicians are driving up demand at the same time that its fiscal authorities seek to curb it. Thus, the same day that the gaudy inflation numbers came out, Rural Development Minister C.P. Joshi announced wage increases of 17-30 percent for NREGS workers, and economists pushed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to add another hike to the 150 basis points it has boosted its benchmark lending rate since mid-March. The bottom line: India will have to sacrifice growth to stave off inflation. But tightening money supply to slow demand for fuel and concrete may not be enough to avert a food crisis. "It's going to be a very difficult balancing act for the government to maintain growth expectations over 8.5 to 9 percent," said Shubhata Rao, chief economist at Yes Bank. "Some growth will have to be compromised in its focus toward inflation management." Complicating matters, the very reason that India was able to weather the global financial crisis may make it more vulnerable to the food crisis. India's economic growth is driven by domestic demand — not exports — so India didn't blink when the United States hit the skids. But that same domestic demand, fueled by the rising incomes of the middle class and government spending on the poor, has put new pressure on the supply of oil, steel, cement and everything else. And the meltdown elsewhere has pushed hot money into India, further feeding the fire. In agriculture especially, economists say, supply has not kept up with demand. The core problems are poor supply chain management, stagnating investment and diminishing returns from the green revolution's prescription of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and heavy irrigation. But some agriculturalists argue that these issues are exacerbated by the current attempts to solve them — by dismantling government-regulated pricing, creating a commodities futures market and encouraging industrialized agriculture. Thus, while pro-market and anti-industry experts alike blame middlemen for exaggerating the price rise by hoarding items like onions, there are deep divides over what action should be taken. On one hand, market reformers argue that big retail — and foreign players like Walmart — must be allowed a freer hand in Indian agriculture to encourage investment and streamline the supply chain. On the other, left leaning farmer advocates say that the government's "market mantra" and politicians' dependence on traders for campaign financing has prevented timely and efficient moves to curb profiteering. "The country does not face a constraint on the supply front," said Devinder Sharma, a farm policy analyst. "If it is happening it is because the middleman is making a killing." Whoever is to blame, no country fears skyrocketing food prices more than India, where some two-thirds of the billion-plus population lives hand to mouth.  “We are barely managing because of the price rise," said Jai Chand, a 32-year-old security guard. "My children have become thin because we can’t give them enough milk. We eat vegetables once a day and sometimes not even that."

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MUMBAI, India — He hired a helicopter to hover over his girlfriend’s building ($1,300) while musicians serenaded her from below ($335). He threw rose petals from the sky, then proposed with a diamond ring (5 carats). She said yes (priceless). A typical Indian wedding involves hundreds of guests, days of festivities and countless glittery outfits. But for many of India's wealthiest young lovers, a traditionally extravagant wedding is no longer fabulous enough. It's the proposal that really needs to sparkle. From private yachts to personalized action movie sequences, more and more young lovers are popping the question with increasingly elaborate — often borderline outlandish — theatrics. One groom-to-be got a nightclub to stop the music long enough for him to propose to his girlfriend in front of a crowd that chanted on cue: “Say yes! Say yes!” Enter the Mumbai company that offers to help its clients make their wildest wedding proposal dreams come true. “We’re giving you what you dream,” said Bhabesh Mehta, the 28-year-old founder of MyGenie, which he describes as a personal occasion management company. “You tell me the weirdest thing; I can make it happen for you.” Once MyGenie, which started last February, receives an order, the company sends the client a questionnaire to better understand the couple and the relationship. MyGenie then works with the client to create his or her dream proposal. MyGenie prides itself on crafting proposals that feel unique to a couple, Mehta said. He sees the trend in innovative proposals as a reflection of Indian society opening up. People want to experiment with ideas that are fun and even a little naughty, he said. One recent scheme might better be described as slightly insane. A man hired MyGenie to develop a Bollywood-inspired kidnapping that lasted almost six hours. After informing the woman’s parents what was happening, MyGenie had men dressed like goons gag the woman, drive her somewhere she didn’t know and then call the boyfriend and make fake ransom demands. As the woman cried for help, her boyfriend broke down a door and “rescued” her like in the movies. He then got down on one knee and proposed. Perhaps the biggest miracle was that she said yes. The “light kidnapping,” as Mehta called it, cost the boyfriend 17,000 rupees ($386). As India’s wealth grows, so does the amount of money families put into marrying off their children. India’s elite choose destination weddings — which often include paying for guests’ accommodations and flights — in places like Tuscany and Mauritius, according to the latest issue of Conde Nast Traveller India. A newly rich farmer in a suburb of New Delhi hired a helicopter to bring his son to the bride’s village. “We’re definitely seeing weddings getting more extravagant,” said Divya Chadha, director of the Mumbai-based event and wedding planning company AKA: A Klass Apart. “The average Indian wedding right now for an upper middle-class family will cost you nothing less than 1 crore [$222,000.]” One surprise MyGenie has found since its launch is that about 60 percent of its clients are women, Mehta said. Just before Christmas, the company helped a woman propose by holding up signs proclaiming her love that her boyfriend saw as he drove the 8-kilometer stretch from his home to his office.
Female clients, who tend to be younger and still in school, spend less than men, Mehta said. While men pay upwards of 78,000 rupees ($1,730), women spend on average 12,500 rupees ($280).
Some wedding planners who cater to Mumbai’s wealthy now also provide proposal services. Most couples still go the traditional route of having some version of a ring ceremony and formal family affair, but there has slowly been an increase among the upper class in romantic and creative proposals, according to Chadha.
“You are seeing it grow as people take in concepts from the West,” she said.
Creative wedding proposals have also begun to creep into arranged marriages, still very common in India. Some couples have used the time between the official engagement coordinated by the two families and the wedding as a courtship period. Clients have hired MyGenie to help them add a romantic angle to their arranged marriage, Mehta said. Organizing a sweet surprise enables couples to bridge the communication gap often initially present in arranged marriages and make their relationship less formal. “You break the arranged mode and get into the love mode,” he said. Radhika Rao hadn’t decided if she was going to have an arranged marriage or a so-called love marriage, until she met Emmanuel. They were both leaving a workout at Gold’s Gym in the northern suburb of Bandra. As she ran to catch the elevator, he held it for her.
Eighteen months of dating later, Radhika went to Washington, D.C., to visit her relatives. Just before Christmas, Emmanuel flew from Mumbai to D.C. for a 48-hour trip to surprise Radhika with an elaborately orchestrated proposal that involved candles, romantic music and her favorite champagne. As Emmanuel held Radhika’s hand, her two young nieces came into the room holding the engagement ring in a box. Emmanuel took the ring, got down on one knee and proposed. “It was like a fairytale,” said Radhika.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Africa’s biggest country is entering a critical moment in its history with a referendum starting on Sunday that is likely to see Sudan split into two, giving birth to the world’s newest state.
Fears of a resumption of the long and deadly civil wars that have blighted Sudan’s post-independence era were dampened this week by some conciliatory rhetoric from a surprising source: Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Bashir heads an Islamist regime in Khartoum and is wildly unpopular in the predominantly Christian South where he prosecuted a war using indiscriminate aerial bombardments and scorched earth raids by Arab militias. Yet during a rare visit to Juba, the South's capital-in-waiting, in the days before Sunday’s referendum on self-determination for the South, Bashir said he would accept partition if that is the will of the southern people, 3.9 million of whom have registered to vote. “Imposing unity by force doesn’t work,” Bashir said in a speech. “We want unity between the North and the South but this doesn’t mean opposing the desire of the southern citizen.” Bashir said Khartoum is ready to recognize and support an independent South, saying, “The benefit we get from unity, we can also get it from two separate states.” “I personally will be sad if Sudan splits,” he added. “But at the same time I will be happy if we have peace in Sudan between the two sides.” The referendum vote that begins Sunday and is scheduled to last for a week was stipulated in internationally-brokered peace deal of 2005 that ended one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest conflicts fought over resources, religion and ethnicity. During more than two decades of war, 2 million people died and 4 million more fled their homes to escape the fighting. Bashir’s recent conciliatory comments toward his former enemies in the South mark an abrupt turnaround that will help reduce fears of a return to widespread conflict. In September, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Sudan as “a ticking time bomb” but last weekend a State Department spokesman said he was now “optimistic” about the coming referendum. The reason for Bashir’s visit to Juba this week was to discuss with southern leader Salva Kiir some of the many issues that have not been resolved during the six years between the peace deal and Sunday’s referendum. Top of the list is how to share Sudan’s estimated 6 billion barrels of oil, a bounty that analysts say divides, but might also unite the two parties.
Khartoum and Juba both rely on revenues from the 500,000 barrels of crude a day that Sudan pumps. Four-fifths of that oil comes from southern fields close to the border, but all the pipelines head north so for either side to realize the value of the resource they have to work together.
“Oil is the biggest disincentive to conflict because they need each other,” said Zach Vertin, a Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group. Under the peace deal revenues have, at least on paper, been evenly shared but it is unclear what might happen after independence. Besides the oil there are other equally thorny and fundamental issues such as the exact location of the border and whether the disputed oil-producing territory of Abyei will lie to its north or south. How will precious water resources in a parched land be shared? What will be the citizenship and nationality of southerners in the north and northerners in the south after the referendum? Who should carry what share of Sudan’s national debt burden? The North and South will struggle to resolve all of these sticking points within the six months between Sunday’s referendum and July 9, the expected date for southern independence to be officially recognized.“The progress is good but the pace is slow,” Vertin said.  In an upbeat assessment, referendum officials said everything was now set for the vote. “We are really 100 percent prepared,” said Justice Chan Reec Madut, a spokesman for the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission. High-level teams of international observers are beginning to arrive in Sudan, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In an unusual move, China has also announced that it will send observers to the referendum — underscoring China’s importance as a partner of the Khartoum government and its desire to build a strong relationship with the emerging southern one.

BERLIN, Germany — When WikiLeaks’ published the loan book of Iceland’s now-defunct Kaupthing Bank in July 2009, it was hardly famous. But the 210 pages of documents exposed billions of dollars worth of loans the bank had made to its own executives, some of whom still face possible criminal charges. The leak caught the interest of Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic historian and activist who got in touch with WikiLeaks via a public chatroom. A few months later, he invited WikiLeaks representatives to a meeting of the Icelandic Digital Freedom Society, on whose board he sits. The two people who turned up were Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German former hacker who, after Assange, was the most public face of WikiLeaks. Snorrason joined the whistle-blower oufit and the rest, as they say, is history. In fact it is literally history for Snorrason and Domscheit-Berg. Tired of of Assange’s leadership and the group’s direction, they have now split off to create their own leaks website, claiming to have learned from what they deem WikiLeaks’ mistakes. OpenLeaks, as it is called, is just one of many of web-based leaks organizations that has sprung up in recent months on the coattails of the famous original. A group of former European Union officials and journalists have launched BrusselsLeaks, focusing on the EU’s secrets. Then there are various geographical sites, such as IndoLeaks, BalkanLeaks, TuniLeaks and the Czech Republic’s PirateLeaks. But Snorrason and Domscheit-Berg’s WikiLeaks spin-off is, not surprisingly, getting the most attention and, given its provenance, starting out with the most credibility. Critically, they are changing WikiLeaks' model, most importantly not actually publishing documents but rather acting as a middleman. “Our experience has been that the model that WikiLeaks has, which combines both the reception and the publication of documents within a single organization, is too much,” Snorrason said. “It is too much work, too much responsibility and ultimately too much power. It’s very hard to argue against the notion that WikiLeaks has a certain measure of political power at the moment.” That power, he said, came to be disprortionately concentrated in Assange’s hands.
More on WikiLeaks:

Cables hurt US-Turkey relations	WikiLeaks will kill transparency	Could WikiLeaks start a war?

Snorrason and Domscheit-Berg fell out with the Australian founder and frontman after Assange summarily suspended his German colleague from the group. Snorrason, who had been pushing for the structure of the organization to be more clearly defined, leapt to Domscheit-Berg’s defense.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Julian said to me, ‘I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, initial coder, financier and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, you can piss off,'" Snorrason said. “My response was, ‘So be it.’ And I have not spoken with Julian Assange since.”Domscheit-Berg told a recent Swedish television documentary that Wikileaks had become “too much focused on one person, and one person is always much weaker than an organization.” Among other issues, the group's choice of documents and style of publication — most notably with the U.S. State Department cables — sparked accusations that WikiLeaks has an anti-American agenda. By contrast, OpenLeaks aims to be a mere pipeline. “Our aim is to be as neutral as we possibly can and any decisions regarding what sort of information is sought after will have to lie with the organizations we work with,” Snorrason said. Under OpenLeaks’ system, potential leakers will nominate a partner, such as a newspaper or non-governmental organization, to whom they want to give documents. They will put the documents in an OpenLeaks “dropbox” — a web file-hosting service — and OpenLeaks will then deliver the documents to the chosen newspaper or organization, who will decide if redactions are necessary and then publish them. What OpenLeaks is offering the would-be leaker is anonymity. The recipient won’t know who the leaker is, nor will OpenLeaks. There will be no chain linking the source to the recipient — no emails, no phone calls, no communications. “Our very purpose is to break that chain and making sure that the information [about the source’s identity] cannot be revealed because it simply is not known," Snorrason said. “We are providing a layer of indirection between the publisher and the source, which can help both the source and the publisher. The journalist cannot be compelled to reveal the source’s identity because they don’t know it.”
Bradley Manning, the U.S. Marine charged with leaking massive quantities of documents to WikiLeaks, appears to have been caught because he boasted to another former hacker, Adrian Lamo, during a web chat.
OpenLeaks aims to start testing its system around mid-January and hopes to be fully operational by the middle of the year. It has about a dozen volunteers spread around the world. Snorrason declined to say whether any are U.S.-based. The United States is examining whether it can extradite Assange on charges related to the leaked State Department cables. OpenLeaks believes it has an extra layer of protection from such prosecution because it will never actually handle or even lay eyes on the documents it is passing from source to publisher. The system could leave OpenLeaks vulnerable to the charge that it is shirking responsibility for the leaks and any consequences that may arise — that it actually has too little power rather than too much. “That is a risk,” Snorrason said. “But I would like to point out the legal principle of a legal conduit and the protections given to parties such as telecommunications companies and the post office, which is that they do not have legal liability for the content that goes through their system. “So if you send drugs through the post, the post system cannot be charged for possession and whether or not this principle directly applies to us, we believe we can make the argument that it should at least be something very comparable.” Unlike the postal service, OpenLeaks has an agenda, even if it sticks to its avowed political neutrality: It believes there are too many secrets. Snorrason, who speaks perfect English in slow, deliberate, carefully-chosen sentences, acknowledges there is some information that should never be made public: a private person’s medical records, for instance, or information that would unequivocally endanger lives. But, “the problem we are facing at present is not that too many secrets are being published,” he said. Despite his differences with Assange, Snorrason said the WikiLeaks founder, who is now in England fighting extradition to Sweden on sex-related criminal charges, has on the whole been good for democratic societies. At the very least, he has helped inspire a movement. Some of the new leaks outfits will disappear without a trace, but there are people out there who will become long-term activists. What that means for governments and corporations will become clear in the coming years, Snorrason said. “It’s quite hard to know," he said. "This is still history in the making.”

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The government of Pakistan keeps on collapsing.
Following the departure of a key coalition partner over the weekend, the government of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has lost its majority in the National Assembly and finds itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position. One local English-language daily said the government was clinging “by its fingernails to the edge of a steep cliff,” and opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday gave an ultimatum to the government to implement a series of reforms or otherwise face the axe.
That ultimatum was subsequently postponed by three days after the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, a political ally of the prime minister who was apparently murdered for his outspoken opposition to the country's anti-blasphemy law, at an upscale Islamabad market on Tuesday.
This is not the first time that the government, led by Pakistan’s People Party, or PPP, which swept into power in 2008 on a wave of sympathy following Benazir Bhutto’s murder in late 2007, has faced predictions of impending doom



Almost from the start the government faced corruption allegations and the scrutiny of the country’s judicial system. And, as evidenced in diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks, Pakistan’s security establishment considered pushing for a government change early on. Yet more than halfway through its five-year term, the beleaguered government has some reason to think it can retain power a little longer. First, while the ruling coalition is indeed crumbling, the opposition is far from a united front. Second, nobody appears particularly eager to take charge of a country that is limping from one crisis to another, from crippling gas and electricity shortages to a ballooning deficit and a deteriorating security situation. That was made clear by Sharif, who gave the government 45 days — an eternity under today’s tense circumstances — to implement his party’s agenda. “It’s not collapsing,” Imtiaz Gul, an Islamabad-based political analyst, said of the government. “Because a lot hinges on Nawaz Sharif, and Nawaz Sharif has given the government another opportunity.” Gul said that the demands of Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League, which include a reduction of budget expenses, rooting out corruption and protecting Pakistan’s sovereignty, are general enough that the PPP could adopt them as its own. Regarding the requested cancellation of a recently announced fuel price increase, Gul said he was confident the PPP and its rival could find a compromise. But the foremost reason why the current government is still in place, Gul said, is that many of Pakistan’s problems are considered intractable in the short-term and no political party wants to be held accountable for the ongoing mess. “They don’t want to replace the government because they know the economic situation is very bad,” Gul said. Governments in Pakistan have had trouble completing their terms because of a series of coups and military takeovers, leading many observers to hope that the PPP-led coalition will remain in power despite its numerous shortcomings. “We need to establish a tradition of stable democratic rule if we are to have any hope for the future, and political parties should be pushing for this,” wrote the Karachi-based Express-Tribune in an editorial on Wednesday. The latest trouble for the PPP government stems from the defection of two coalition partners in quick succession. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, a religious party, moved to the opposition last month after the sacking of its minister. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which enjoys support in the southern metropolis of Karachi, last week removed its two ministers from the federal cabinet and this week defected to the opposition in parliament. Both parties said they left the coalition because of the government’s poor performance. The moves have left the PPP, which still has the largest number of members in parliament, short of a majority in the National Assembly. Unless it finds new allies or wins back the seats it lost, the party of President Asif Ali Zardari faces at best a very difficult time in parliament and at worst a dissolution of the government and early elections.  If the current government has shown any quality during its almost three years in power, however, it is resilience. Last year, Zardari and several of his ministers faced a zealous Supreme Court intent on pressing corruption charges against them before a last-minute compromise was found. More serious still were the WikiLeaks revelations, which revealed that the chief of Pakistan’s army, Gen. Afshaq Kayani, arguably the country’s most powerful man, had considered ousting Zardari in 2009 but decided against it because he disliked the alternative — Sharif — even more. And that is why Sharif appears reluctant to move too aggressively against the current government, said Cyril Almeida, an Islamabad-based analyst and columnist, in an interview. Almeida said Sharif not only lacks the support of the military, but also that of the Americans, who prop up Pakistan’s economy with aid dollars. Almeida said that lack of support, and a fractured opposition, ensures that the status quo will prevail for the near future. “No one wants to support the government, but no one wants to overthrow it either,” Almeida said. “Now it’s pretty clear that nothing will move for 45 days.”

DUBLIN, Ireland ─ A new word is being used these days by Met Eireann, the Irish Meteorological Service: The forecasters have taken to warning the population that “temperatures will be much colder in snowfields.” Snowfields? What’s going on? This is Ireland, not Iceland or Greenland. The fact is the Irish countryside, normally wet and green in winter because of the flow of temperate ocean air from the Atlantic, has been pretty much one big snowfield since the end of November. The Irish are not accustomed to snow, never mind snowfields, nor temperatures so low that lakes and reservoirs have frozen. But Ireland is currently experiencing a “perfect storm”: a complex and slow-moving low-pressure system across Europe that, aside from a break in mid-December, has been drawing Arctic air directly down across the country.
The novelty of skidding and sliding over compacted snow on hilly, twisting by-roads has forced other unfamiliar words into the Irish national lexicon, such as “snow socks,” “snow chains” and "winter tires.” Few people in Ireland had heard of snow socks before this month. “They were new to us — until this year,” said Stuart Burke of Micksgarage.ie in Dublin, which has begun marketing the super-strong textile covers that are slipped over wheels to provide grip. “Now everybody’s panicking and we’ve sold thousands of snow socks in the last month and we are out of stock at present.” It is the same with all-weather, or winter, tires, which suppliers like Pirelli never saw the need to stock for Irish distribution. The family-owned firm Auto Fast Fit in Letterkenny, County Donegal, imported several hundred winter tires this year after a “mad rush” last January, during the first snowy Irish winter in the mountainous county for 18 years.
“The gamble paid off,” said Auto Fast Fit Director Stephen Harris. “We anticipated the demand and ordered the largest stock levels in the U.K. and Ireland in August. Wholesalers thought we were mad but after last year’s winter I knew that people would want to be better prepared. However I completely underestimated the level of demand. Within 36 hours of the first snow, we sold out.” Forty-year-old Harris, who said his mother has not seen a winter like this year’s since she was 15, thinks that Ireland is undergoing a revolution in thinking about winter driving. Hardly anyone bothered changing tires for winter before now because snow was a rare event, but lately there has been a growing awareness of the need to remain mobile, especially to keep businesses going and schools open, when the roads are as slippery as skating rinks.
(I am no exception: living in a steep cul de sac high in the hills above Dublin I had to leave my Toyota Avalon in the village of Stepaside one-and-a-half miles below for several days in the worst of the snow in early December. Having managed to acquire winter tires, I no longer look with such dread at approaching snow clouds.) Snow chains have been in demand too, but using them is technically illegal in Ireland as snow cover tends to be irregular and chains tear up bare road surfaces.
This December is likely to be the coldest on record in the Emerald Isle, according to Met Eireann forecaster Gerald Fleming. Castlederg, County Tyrone, experienced the coldest-ever December temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 Centigrade) early Monday. The Arctic conditions have shaken up preconceptions about weather trends in the islands of the European continent. Ten years ago David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, predicted that with warmer winters, “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
He was not alone. A couple of years ago an Irish publisher expressed some enthusiasm for a book on the “Big Snow” of 1947 in Ireland, on the grounds that it would interest a generation that had grown up on the island without experiencing a real snow event. Fortunately nothing came of the idea. Perhaps in another half century, however, there will be an occasion to write a book of the “Big Snow” of 2010.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — If Dante had ever been to Juarez he would have placed it squarely in the seventh circle of hell, the one housing "violence" and "ringed by a river of boiling blood."
The city, which lies on the Rio Grande just across from El Paso, Texas, is the murder capital of the world, claiming more than 5,500 killings since January 2008. It is responsible for one-fifth of the more than 25,000 drug-related murders that have occurred in Mexico since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon officially declared war on the country’s heavily armed drug cartels.
That national war reached another dramatic turning point last month when the front-running candidate for governor in a drug-torn Mexican border state was assassinated by gunmen believed to have been sent by a drug cartel. Nowhere is the violence more horrific than in Juarez, where 13 teenagers were murdered at a party and 17 recovering drug addicts killed at a rehab center.
But amid all the media spotlight on this butchery, the facts of who exactly is fighting, who is dying and why remain misty and confusing to many observers.
In this special report, “The Seven Circles of Juarez: The murder capital of the world and those who dwell in its unique hell,” GlobalPost features a series of videos and dispatches that explore the concentric rings of greed, lust, avarice and complicity that have made the town its own, living inferno. We also look at the human stories of the paramedics, priests and social workers trying to pull the city up from the fiery depths.
Here's a quick primer on the conflict. We hope it provides a way to navigate down into the reality and the complexity of life in Juarez.

Is Ciudad Juarez really the most murderous city in the world?
Most sources, including the FBI and various non-governmental organizations, find that it is. In 2009, Juarez had 191 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants, according to Mexico’s Citizen Council for Public Security. In second place was San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with 119 killings. New Orleans, America’s most murderous city, had a rate of 69 killings, putting it in eighth place. The United States as a whole has an annual murder of about 5 per 100,000. Of course, many homicides both in Juarez and around the world are never reported.
Watch a video about the Herculean task of Juarez's paramedics:


Who is fighting in Juarez?
According to both Mexican and U.S. agents, the conflict exploded in January 2008 when the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman went to war with its old partners in the Juarez Cartel, led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, for control of the city. To fight this war, the Juarez mob recruited a street and prison gang called the Barrio Azteca while the Sinaloa Cartel recruited a rival gang called the Artist Assassins, or Double A’s. The alignment of these thousands of street gang members backed by the money and armed with weapons smuggled from the United States, has led to a major proliferation of the violence.

More from "7 circles of Juarez," a GlobalPost series about the hell of Ciudad Juarez: Turning youth into hit men Video: who's to blame? Timeline: the meltdown of Juarez

What are the cartels fighting over?
The main bounty of Juarez is its position for smuggling narcotics into the United States. Located in the center of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, Juarez has long been a strategic treasure for moving cocaine, heroin, marijuana and crystal methamphetamine toward American users. The gangsters who control this “plaza” can not only move their own drugs but tax other smugglers 20 percent to move their goods through the corridor. Furthermore, the Juarez plaza includes both the international bridges in the city itself and the ports and open desert that stretch out into the Juarez Valley. In total, it is worth billions of dollars.

Do many drugs stay in Mexico?
With narcotics long passing through the city and many migrants returning from the United States with addiction problems, Juarez has developed a major local drug market particularly in cocaine and heroin. The city now has thousands of tienditas, or “little shops” for drugs. Each of these small businesses purportedly collects thousands of dollars daily in sales. The fighting over these street corners has exasperated the war for the smuggling corridor. Many of those killed have been local dealers, who allegedly did not pay a certain cartel their “tax” to sell drugs.
Who is kidnapping/extorting?
Juarez has been plagued by hundreds of kidnappings for ransom as well as groups demanding protection money from businesses since the conflict broke out in 2008. People who don’t pay are often brutally murdered and many businesses have been burned down. This extortion is the No. 1 concern for the business community. However, it is unclear who exactly is behind it. The cartels themselves could be involved but some agents argue the drug bosses would not be messing with shakedowns worth as little as $200 per month. Gang members or killers with tenuous links to the mobs could also be making extra cash. In 2008, the city government fired 600 corrupt police officers. Some allege they are the main culprits of the extortion rackets. Others say that opportunistic criminals with no connection at all to the cartels have just taken advantage of the violent chaos to make quick cash.

How many of the killings are related to the cartel war?
It is impossible to say how many of the murders are really related to the broader fight for control of the drug trade. The vast majority of the homicides are never solved and even when there are arrests — including some hired cartel hitmen accused of hundreds of killings — the only evidence is a confession obtained under torture. Drug cartel operatives also murder many victims for personal beefs, including fights over lovers or questions of disrespect. And with such widespread impunity, it is easy for those with grudges in Juarez to think they can get away with murder. However, the vast majority of killings do have all the signs of gangland hits, including use of automatic rifles and ambushes involving several vehicles.

Why have the police and army been incapable of stopping the violence?
The Mexican government has pushed a force of up to 10,000 into the city including soldiers, federal police and agents, state police and a beefed-up local police force. However, the troop surges have only been able to establish temporary lulls in the violence. Analysts point to several reasons for their failure. First, the soldiers and federal paramilitary police often lack the investigative skills to go after criminals, who are often able to evade capture by hiding in local neighborhoods where they are provided cover and support. Second, the economic recession and continuation of drug dollars lead to a never-ending army of hitmen replacing those killed. Thirdly, the rot of corruption continues to spread through police officers, even as others are fired.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Extreme weather is a part of everyday life in Vietnam.
The Mekong Delta floods each year and small children travel to school by boat. Typhoons and tropical storms blow across the South China Sea to the central coast, often on course from the Philippines. Rains flood the cities and thousands of motorbike exhaust pipes choke on the murky water.
But the floods that hit the north-central coast of Vietnam this past October were outside the normal pattern. What initially looked like an unremarkable depression on satellite maps wound up dropping 80 percent of Ha Tinh province's average annual rainfall in just 10 days. Close to 200 people died in these and later floods. More than 250,000 houses were submerged.
Major floods are usually prefaced by a storm. These weren’t. Few had the opportunity to move their belongings to higher ground. Many were trapped on rooftops without food or water for days. Reports by aid groups detailed stories of costly hospital equipment ruined and pregnant women giving birth in attics.
And this likely won’t be a one-off event. According to experts, unpredictable weather patterns seem to be on the rise in Vietnam. The country will need to adapt, they say, or face increased losses of agriculture, infrastructure and overall GDP.
“If you look at last year and this year what we saw were a succession of medium-scale storm events that affected the country and they also came towards the latter part of the year, which is unusual,” said Ian Wilderspin, a senior technical adviser of disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program.
“This is now the new norm and the sort of thing we can expect to see recurring. [We have to] gear up for the unpredictability of these events. ... Better preparedness and timely and effective early warnings are needed," he said. October's floods weren't the first time weather had taken a sporadic turn in Vietnam.
Typhoon Ketsana hit Vietnam in September 2009, killing more than 100 people and doing more damage than any other recent storm. North Vietnam's worst drought in a century began around this time last year. The Red River, which runs through Hanoi, reached its lowest level in at least 101 years, when records were first taken. Empty hydro dams meant blackouts persisted throughout a very hot summer.
Vietnam has been named among the 12 countries most at risk for climate change by the World Bank, and many experts say climate change is to blame for the growing number of severe, erratic weather occurrences there. “Natural disasters and other extreme climate events will become more complicated,” said Hoang Minh Hien, an expert in atmospheric physics and satellite meteorology. He added that he expects storms to increase in severity and number, as well as become more unpredictable, as a result of climate change.
Sea level rise is usually touted as Vietnam’s main concern; a one-meter rise would submerge 40 percent of the country and render millions homeless. Much of the country’s key rice-growing areas — Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, after Thailand — would flood, and people would be pushed into the cities, putting tremendous strain on already limited resources.
Storms and floods cost more than lives, says Miguel Coulier, who works in disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program. “It’s been said it’s [storms and flooding costs] 1 percent of GDP a year. ... We have to wait until the end of this year to calculate it,” Coulier said.
Many in the international community believe Vietnam has responded quickly to threats, some would argue the nation leads the region in some areas of response. A response program implemented in 2008 lays out the responsibilities of each government department and requests all cities and provinces to begin devising climate-change action plans. Tangential but important issues, such as health and food security or the well-being of possibly more-affected groups, such as women and children, have also been addressed.
Vietnam has been “fast in picking up the issue,” said Coulier, but “knowledge of it is limited" among the rural population. "People ... are very aware of how disasters have changed in severity. They don’t know what is happening or talk in climate change language. … but they know things are happening,” he said.
Nguyen Thanh Hoa, a resident of Quang Tri province, one of the five provinces most affected by October’s floods, said that floods and storms have worsened in recent years. He blames deforestation and overflowing dams. “The levels of flooding and storms have increased rapidly in recent years. We can’t predict it,” he said.
In October, he said the floods caught nearly everyone offguard. They came overnight, he said, so most people weren't able to evacuate. “Transportation and evacuation during the heavy floods was especially dangerous as the waters rose at night,” he said.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Among the thick forests clinging to the sides of the steep volcanoes that straddle the borders between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda live some of the world’s only wild mountain gorillas. The gorillas are a critically endangered species surrounded by some of the earth’s most populated and dangerous countries. Yet a recently completed census shows that their numbers have risen by more than 25 percent. Researchers carried out a census of the great apes across three adjoining national parks earlier this year. Their findings, published in December, reveal that the number of gorillas has increased to 480, up from 380 when the last count was done seven years ago.
Conservationists welcomed the dramatic increase.
“The mountain gorilla population has made an absolutely remarkable recovery,” said Allard Blom, director of the Congo Basin region at the World Wildlife Fund, one of the organizations that helped fund the research.
Despite the increase there are only 786 mountain gorillas in the world. An additional 302 gorillas are known to live in Uganda’s Bwindi National Park, according to a 2006 census there, and there are four orphaned apes living in a Congolese sanctuary. “We cannot let down our guard on the conservation of these incredible animals,” said Eugene Rutagarama, director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program. “While mountain gorillas are physically strong, they are also incredibly vulnerable.”
Mountain gorillas were only discovered in 1902 but hunting, poaching and destruction of their habitat by humans meant that in the same century they were discovered they faced possible extinction. By the 1980s there were only 250 mountain gorillas left. Numbers have gradually increased but mountain gorillas remain a critically endangered species. These days, the area where most of the gorillas live, known as the Virunga Massif, has become crowded with tourists. Both Rwanda and Uganda, which have been at peace for many years already, welcome tens of thousands of gorilla-seeking tourists every year. The visitors often spend hundreds of dollars for a few minutes of face time with the creatures in their natural habitat.
Across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is a different picture. Peace still eludes the east of this vast country and the continuous fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. The United Nations estimates there are perhaps 1.5 million displaced people in the provinces of North and South Kivu alone.
Many settle in rough camps in eastern Congo, close to the main city of Goma and also near the 3,000-square mile Virunga National Park, a World Heritage Site, where they go to hunt animals for meat and to cut down trees to make charcoal for sale — destroying the gorilla's habitat.
The forest is also home to a collection of armed rebel groups and militias who control the illegal charcoal trade — worth an estimated $30 million a year — and who clear precious forest for timber, farms and grazing land.
The battle for resources and survival in Congo often claims gorilla victims but in 2007 the world was horrified when 10 gorillas living in the forests of Virunga National Park were shot and killed, execution-style. The dead included six from a single family group. A photograph of a large male silverback, carried Christ-like on a litter shouldered by local villagers, was seen around the world.
Authorities arrested a former chief park warden, who was involved in the illegal charcoal trade, for the killings. New park management strengthened protection of the animals and paramilitary units were created to close down the charcoal barons — all good news for the gorillas.
Augustin Basabose, International Gorilla Conservation Program’s coordinator of species, said the population growth recorded since the previous census in 2003 was thanks to “the relentless collaborative efforts” of conservation groups and national park authorities in the three countries.
Six teams of 12 researchers spent two months crossing 620 miles of forested mountains and misty volcanoes in the Virunga Massif to carry out the census. In March and April they visited Virunga National Park in Congo, Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda to observe the primates and collect and analyze stool samples in order to determine the health of the population.
The full findings of the census are to be published next year. But these initial results were a welcome piece of good news for conservationists and the long struggle to protect the gorilla.

Last month, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, opened a formal probe into Google’s policies regarding the ranking of competitors’ websites in its search results, including links to paid advertising, and whether it restricts advertisers from working with Google competitors. This followed the filing of formal complaints in February by British price-comparison site Foundem and the French legal search tool ejustice.fr regarding the ranking system.  Ciao, a search service owned by Microsoft, lodged the advertising concerns.
Google denies the accusations, but said it has been and will continue being responsive to commission questions. “There’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the commission to address any concerns,” said Al Verney, Google’s Brussels spokesman.
At the same time, Verney rejected the specific allegations in the case:  “Since we started Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry. Google has never taken action to intentionally hurt competing services. We do not impose any exclusivity obligations on advertisers.”
Friday the commission expanded the probe to include similar complaints by two German companies that had originally filed with the German government. EU member states are not allowed to pursue anti-trust investigations in an area that’s already being investigated at the European level, so the transfer of portions of the complaints to Brussels’ dossier, explained competition commission spokesman Jonathan Todd, “was a natural consequence of that.” Some analysts in the high-tech world suspect the commission has just been waiting for a way to go after Google, having pursued virtually every other American high-tech company. Microsoft has been there. Intel too. Penalties cost both companies billions of pretty pennies, not to mention the cost of their legal defense.  Apple wriggled out of penalties by changing its policies on iPhone applications and repairs when threatened with EU antitrust action.
EU law prohibits a company from abusing a dominant position and Google now holds between 80 percent and 90 percent of the European search-engine market share, much more in some countries. Should it have been expecting the probe? Greg Sterling said he was. It’s “an opportunity to put the fear of God into Google,” said Sterling, a market analyst and contributing editor to SearchEngineLand.com, which tracks all the major players in the industry. The complaints gave the commission a much-desired platform, Sterling believes, “to put Google on notice … that it’s going to take every chance it can to rein in Google’s power because it doesn’t like the position Google has attained.”
But there are others who believe there is a more insidious plot behind the commission’s move.  The fact that Microsoft-owned Ciao is part of the suit spurs their suspicion.
“I think it’s backed by Microsoft,” said Clint Boulton bluntly, a writer for eWeek and GoogleWatch.org, a blog devoted to — and usually supportive of — all things Google.  Boulton said Microsoft “learned its lessons well” from years of being prosecuted — he purposely uses “persecuted” — by the EU. The software giant knows this case could “possibly put a hurt on Google,” its main competitor, Boulton said.
Complaining to the commission was a “genius” move by Foundem and ejustice.fr, Boulton said.  “You’ve got Microsoft whispering in your ear — it gets these companies thrust into the limelight,” he said.  “So it’s a win-win for them because they’re not the ones taking Google to court; all they have to do is show up and testify.  It’s better to lobby that a governing body do this than to go and do it on your own.”
But Shivaun Raff laughed a bit wearily when asked if Foundem is a front for a Microsoft campaign against Google. She and her husband, Adam, who cofounded the site, have been presented with the theory dozens of times.       
“It’s irritating, because it’s so untrue,” she said.
Foundem’s connection with Microsoft, Raff said, begins and ends with their shared membership in the trade group Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (ICOMP), an organization that takes positions against Google.  The Raffs say it was news to them when Ciao and ejustice.fr were named as a co-complainants in February, because all three companies took their matters to the commission independently.
 Shivaun says the perceptions are “also a bit flattering,” because it shows that no one believes a “tiny company can so effectively take on the world’s most powerful brand.”
Foundem became one of ICOMP’S more than 40 members in 2009, while its complaints against Google date back to 2006.  That’s when the Raffs say they found that Google had entirely blocked their price-comparison and shopping site from showing up in Google search results.
They said ICOMP has nothing to do with Foundem's complaints. An attorney for the initative did once add some legalese to a document the Raffs — neither of whom are lawyers — had drafted, Adam Raff said, but that’s the sum total of the organization’s involvement in their case.
Microsoft has address the accusations too, pinning them squarely on Google. “Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors,” wrote Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel, in February.  “It’s worth asking whether Google’s response really addresses the concerns that have been raised. Complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors.”
Shivaun Raff said Foundem's best defense is the facts and letting them speak for themselves takes a lot less staff than if they tried to hide information. The Raffs’ blog searchneutrality.org offers a detailed chronology into Foundem’s dispute with Google. Google has explained in public statements that sites such as Foundem, which duplicate the majority of their content from other sites, are given lower positions in its ranking system than those with original material. But after years of back and forth, Google finally in 2009 had the block against Foundem removed by manually manipulating an algorithm, a process called “whitelisting.”   Despite a February statement by Google attorney Julia Holtz that, “We don’t whitelist or blacklist anyone,” the Raffs provide emails from “adwords-support@google.com” with the subject line “[#196919718] Update on Whitelisting”.
So once the Raffs resolved their issues with Google, why didn’t they just get back to running their business? “We had to do something to preserve our future,” Adam Raff explained.  With Google’s search engine dwarfing all competition, a company simply has to be listed there, as high as possible.  It is not acceptable, the Raffs believe, that Google favors its own results in what is advertised as an objective “universal search."
It’s Google’s search, however; why  shouldn’t it be allowed to rank its own products higher than others?  Adam Raff said fine, as long as users are informed. One remedy he said they have suggested in the legal process would be for Google to provide an option on its search results that says “show me the results UNpenalized.” It will be months, perhaps years, before the commission announces the results of its investigation into Google's behavior. In the meantime, from across the ocean, Greg Sterling cast more doubt on the prospect that Microsoft really could be behind the smaller two complainants, and even questions why it’s thrown Ciao in the ring. “Microsoft might welcome some punishment for Google, some censure or some slap on the wrist,” Sterlin said, “but I don’t think they would necessarily welcome a principle of disclosure that would equally apply to them.”