In a rare reversal, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has backed down on his opposition to halting the construction of an $8 billion highway through a centuries-old oak forest north of Moscow — even as loggers said they already cut down almost half of the trees in question.

Putin said he was open to an alternative route Friday, a day after President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to the deforestation needed to make way for the highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

“The question about what route the road will take is an important one,” Putin told reporters during a tour of the Far East, according to a transcript on the government’s web site.

But he also said the highway was a “necessary” project.

Meanwhile, Teplotekhnik, the contractor hired to clear the forest, said it had cut down about 60 hectares of the 144 hectares scheduled for destruction, Vedomosti reported Friday.

Putin and Medvedev made no public comment about Teplotekhnik’s announcement by Sunday.

Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the Khimki forest defenders, told The Moscow Times that restoring the destroyed trees would take more than 70 years.

Putin’s government previously supported the partial destruction of the forest. But speaking to reporters Friday, Putin stressed that this was not the first time that he had changed previously approved construction plans because of environmental concerns.

Russian journalist Mikhail Beketov, the founder of Khimkinskaya Pravda, was brutally assaulted in 2008 sustaining injuries which have left him brain damaged and in a wheelchair and have caused him to have one leg and three fingers amputated for editorializing opposition to the Khimki roadway.

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The lawyer acting for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout submitted a petition to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday against the extradition of his client to the United States.

Lak Nitiwattanawichan requested better protection for Mr Bout and also that the government abide by the laws pertaining to extradition.

The unfair extradition of Mr Bout could be detrimental to his life and his freedom, he said, and asked to meet Mr Abhisit in person to discuss the matter.

An official at Government House received the petition.

Mr Lak said the meeting of Sirichoke Sopha, a Democrat MP for Songkhla and a close aide of Mr Abhisit, with Mr Bout,  would not affect the extradition case.

The 11-page petition was written by Mr Lak and was signed by Mr Bout.

Mr Abhisit said later he had asked the agencies involved to increase security for Mr Bout, because the case is the centre of a conflict.

He said he had not received the petition and would have to see it first before deciding whether to allow Mr Lak to meet him to discuss the matter.

In the morning, Sirichoke Sopha, a Democrat Party MP and close aide to Mr Abhisit, insisted his controversial meeting with the Russian arms dealer would not damage Thailand’s relations with Russia and the United States.

“I met Mr Bout because I needed some facts and I was doing my duty as an MP. The meeting will not affect Mr Bout’s court case,” Mr Sirichoke said.

He had not discussed this matter with Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, but believed Mr Suthep was well aware of the situation.

Read more here.

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A new analysis of the declassified files of the Senate “Church” Committee (chaired by Democratic Senator Frank Church), CIA and State Department, along with memoirs and interviews of U.S. and Belgian covert operators, establishes that CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin was consulted by his Congolese government “cooperators” about the transfer of Lumumba to sworn enemies, had no objection to it and withheld knowledge from Washington of the impending move, forestalling the strong possibility that the State Department would have intervened to try to save Lumumba.

Devlin died in 2008 after consistently denying any knowledge of his Congolese associates’ “true plans” for Lumumba, and maintaining that he had “stalled” the earlier CIA assassination plot. Yet declassified CIA cables disprove his claims.

One horrible crime cannot, by itself, change history. But the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the most dynamic political leader the Congo has ever produced, was a critical step in the consolidation of an oppressive regime. At the same time, it crystallized an eventual 35-year U.S. commitment to the perpetuation of that regime, not just against Lumumba’s followers but against all comers. In the end, Mobutu’s kleptocracy would tear civil society apart, destroy the state and help pave the way for a regional war that would kill millions of people.

There can no longer be any doubt that the U.S., Belgian and Congolese governments shared major responsibility for the assassination of Lumumba in Katanga. The young prime minister was an imperfect leader during an unprecedented and overwhelming international crisis. But he continues to be honored around the world because he incarnated – if only for a moment – the nationalist and democratic struggle of the entire African continent against a recalcitrant West.

If the U.S. government at last publicly acknowledged – and apologized for – its role in this momentous assassination, it would also be communicating its support for the universal principles Lumumba embodied. What better person to take this step than the American president, himself a son of Africa?

Read the full analysis here.

About 2,000 residents of a small town near Sochi rallied against environmental pollution Sunday evening despite colossal efforts to prevent the gathering after a previous protest drew 4,000 and left the top local official without a job.

The protesters gathered on the periphery of the central square of Tuapse, a Black Sea town of 60,000 popular with tourists, ignoring rain and the campaign to prevent the rally, which included closing the square for construction, distributing flyers with false information, closing down the town’s web site, and printing a special issue of a local newspaper with appeals not to attend, residents said.

“It’s the height of the summer season, and no person in their right mind would make a decision to do construction work now on the central square when Tuapse is filled with tourists,” said Anna Tesheva, an activist involved with the protest.

The events in Tuapse illustrate the lengths that local authorities are willing to go to prevent any sign of unrest after President Dmitry Medvedev last year threatened to fire lax governors following the Pikalyovo protests that shut down a major highway and forced Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to intercede.

Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov visited Tuapse after the last rally in May brought 4,000 people to the same square to protest poor environmental conditions and demand a referendum on a fertilizer terminal being built by EuroChem for a grand opening this year.

Residents say a test loading of fertilizer by EuroChem polluted the atmosphere, and they are not mollified by company denials of wrongdoing.

Rally participants also called for the dismissal of local officials and a ban on the construction of new dangerous facilities in the town’s center.

Read more here.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Washington on Monday evening to meet with President Barack Obama for the fifth time since the two leaders took office.

A senior source in Jerusalem said that Netanyahu hoped the meeting would enable him to regain Obama’s trust after months of tension regarding West Bank settlement construction. Netanyahu was planning to present Obama with a number of proposals for coordinating progress in the Middle East peace process, said the source.

Netanyahu and Obama have not yet managed to establish close and intimate working relations since taking leadership of their respective countries. The level of trust between the two appears very low, making it difficult to yield significant progress in the peace process.

Obama is not convinced that Netanyahu is serious in his declared intentions regarding the process, and the Israeli premier is not confident that the current American administration is committed to maintaining the same relations with Israel as those held by its predecessors.

Netanyahu will present Obama with a few new ideas for the political process, and he hopes that the consolidation of a new policy outline will assist the two countries in overcoming the “hurdles” that will surface when the temporary settlement freeze ends in September.

Read more here.

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The cabinet on Tuesday decided to lift the emergency decree in five provinces but renewed it for another three months in Bangkok and 18 other provinces, deputy government spokesman Supachai Jaisamut said.

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) on Monday night agreed to recommend the emergency decree be renewed in all 24 provinces.

The decree was invoked on April 7, about three weeks after the red-shirts of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) began their protest in Bangkok. It has a three-month life and was to expire on Wednesday morning.

Mr Supachai said the cabinet decided not to renew the decree in Si Sa Ket, Kalasin, Nan, Nakhon Sawan and Nakhon Pathom provinces. The National Security Council (NSC) was of the opinion that the situation in these provinces had settled and that the decree could be still be reinstated there if the red-shirts renewed their anti-government activities.

Prime Minister’s Office Minister Ong-art Klampaiboon said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had proposed that the decree be lifted in the five provinces where the situation was reported to have improved and government officials had cooperated with the government. His proposal was based on the NSC’s opinion.

Most of the cabinet members initially agreed with Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who wanted use of the decree to be renewed in all 24 provinces.

Read more here.

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee is set to approve an unprecedented master plan that calls for the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, a move largely based on construction on privately owned Arab property.

The committee’s proposal would codify the municipality’s planning policy for the entire city. In essence, Jerusalem would uniformly apply its zoning and construction procedures to both halves of the city.

Before giving the go-ahead, the committee will give objectors to the plan 60 days to submit their reservations. This is the decisive stage in the planning process, because only rarely are plans altered.

Once the 60-day period expires, the plan’s approval is a fait accompli. Such a development would probably invite a hail of criticism from the Palestinians, Arab countries and the international community.

The United States has recently communicated its expectation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will prevent any change in the city’s status quo pending the conclusion of final-status talks with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington early next month.

Read more here.

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In the decade before Pearl Harbor the political process of the Rising Sun was dominated both by the competition for influence of the great ‘zaibatsu’, the giant business conglomerates, and by the infighting among activist military groups. Most  men in the armed forces were demanding wars, especially against China, so that Japan, Asia’s most dynamic player, would acquire territories and resources. In 1931, the high command of the Japanese divisions in Manchuria acted on his own and conquered most of the Manchu region, belonging to China.

When, on May 15 1932, a group of officers killed the prime minister who had not approved the conquest, it became clear that the military were now dominant, that the upper echelons of the civil service supported the insubordinate officers, that the parliamentary parties had lost whatever clout they had slowly acquired. From that moment to the catastrophic end of the war against the United States, the military (not only generals, also forceful lieutenants who were willing to use their weapons against political adversaries) did control the government. A few additional killings confirmed the trend.

Today, some observers love to explain the unusual vulnerability of the Japanese cabinets with the aggressiveness of the press, the modern successor to the officer corps. Not many days ago prime minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned, eight months after an historic victory over the Liberals. Hatoyama’s Democratic party was expected to change the erratic ways of the national politics. Now Hatoyama is just another head of government who was ousted from office by press attacks. Exactly as several of his disgraced peers, he has been the target of allegations of financial misdeeds -accepting money from business people or groups. However, Hatoyama confessed an additional fault: he had won the general elections, in part, on the promise of getting back the air base of Okinawa from the US; he was unable to win the American assent. So, Hatoyama accepted the charge of having obtained votes on an empty promise. Possibly ethics still matters.

A number of observers conclude that Japan’s political scene is unduly perturbed by emotions on scandals. They argue, in particular, that corruption is so common in rich nations that the latter don’t usually topple presidents and ministers because of allegations concerning money. The Japanese opinion, they add, takes scandals too seriously. Top politicians should be judged on their management, not on their moral behaviours.

Possibly said observers have a point. But the opposite may be true -that a large enough section of the Japanese society do not accept unethical actions as a normal feature of public life. Once upon a time Japanese samurai took their life for not serving well enough their feudal masters, so violating their code of honor. How can we assert that the disgust at the venality of party politicians is excessive, when such venality is the malignant evil of most political systems of the world? Perhaps we should imitate Japan in not forgiving robber politicians.

Of course only one method is available to delete career politicians -putting an end to a representative democracy which perpetuates the prone-to-corruption professionals of politics.

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The new campaign slogan “Hurl Berlusconi” doesn’t come from an Italian opposition leader but from “One International”, the organization lead by U2 singer, Bono Vox, that fights for the debt relief of poor countries. The organization’s website One.org published a flash animation game that represents a hard attack against the Italian prime minister about his “false promises made during the G8 meetings.”

The site continues: “We all love a bit of fun, but there’s a serious point to the game – since promising to increase aid to Africa in 2005 PM Berlusconi has actually cut it. spanking new DATA report puts him firmly at the bottom of the class.” One.org’s game, “Hurl Berl” depicts a mock weight throw competition where the weight is replaced with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The user can grab the Premier by his feet and let him fly as far as possible. The game is accompanied by a form through which the user can ask other leaders to eject Berlusconi from the G8. The form says: “ The G8 are meeting in Canada in June. Most G8 countries have cancelled debt and increased effective aid to Africa. One man alone has done nothing. In fact Berlusconi is doing even less now than he was 5 years ago. Mr. Berlusconi should be thrown out by the G8”.

The game, however, received some criticism from online users. One user wrote:

“Promoting the image of violence toward a world leader doesn’t do anything to reduce poverty, but does cheapen your message. Don’t get me wrong: I’m no Burl fan. But the hammer throw? Really guys? Really?”

Read more here.

It’s yet another Italian Euro-shame, this time at the OCSE summit in Paris, writes La Repubblica.

During the conference, while talking about the European economic situation, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi makes an unbelievable speech. In fact, he starts to quote Benito Mussolini’s diaries while making a point: “As prime minister, I never felt I had power. When I was an entrepreneur and I had 56 thousands workers I had the feeling of having power. In a real democracy, I’m at the people’s disposal, everyone can criticize and insult me. Whoever is in this position does not really have power,” Berlusconi said. Then, he quoted the diaries which he had recently read: “I dare to quote a speech from the man who was once considered a great dictator: ‘They say I’ve the power, but I’ve no powers, maybe the gerarchi have it, but not me. I can only decide whether to guide my horse to the right or to the left, nothing else.’” Berlusconi continued: “The same happens to me, because everyone has the right to criticize and insult me…”

It’s an incredible and shameful speech. But this isn’t a rarity. In fact, this isn’t the first time in which Berlusconi quotes Mussolini. The most resounding gaffe is dated September 2003. In that circumstance the Premier said to a journalist: “Mussolini didn’t kill anyone, he just sent people on vacation in internal exile.” At that time the British journalist of “The Spectator” was astounded by that nod to fascism. But the story hasn’t changed. The Italian euro-shame continues. The only problem is: who’s the speech writer of Italy’s Premier? Berlusconi or Mussolini?

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