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DEMOCRACY
Isaac threatens to steal Romney's big moment
by Staff Writers
Tampa, Florida (AFP) Aug 27, 2012

German journalists in China ask Merkel for help
Beijing (AFP) Aug 26, 2012 - German journalists working in China on Sunday called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to urge Beijing to improve reporting conditions when she arrives for talks in the Chinese capital this week.

Merkel will hold talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a two-day visit which begins on Thursday -- her second trip to Beijing this year.

The journalists have written a letter to the German chancellor calling on her to discuss their "deteriorating situation".

They complained Chinese authorities had been "willfully obstructing" their work by threatening to not renew working visas, intimidating Chinese assistants and pressuring interviewees into not talking to them.

"Long-term German correspondents who have been working in Beijing since the 1990s have been observing a deterioration of the situation, even in comparison to the conditions then," said the letter, which is signed by 26 correspondents.

"Dear Chancellor Merkel, in the interest of good and fair reporting about China, we think it is necessary to discuss these issues at the highest governmental level.

"We just request the same working conditions that Chinese journalists enjoy... in Germany."

China is ranked 174th out of 179 countries in the 2011-2012 World Press Freedom Index compiled by press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Merkel will co-chair "Chinese-German intergovernmental consultations" with Wen, the foreign ministry in Beijing confirmed last week.

Germany has come under intense pressure to do more to put an end to the eurozone crisis, which is seen as a threat to the global economy and has hit China's vast manufacturing industry.



Tropical Storm Isaac threatened Monday to steal the media spotlight from Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and overshadow the all-important convention that will crown him the nominee.

Monday was supposed to be the raucous kick-off to four days of carefully choreographed political theater designed to imprint Romney's image upon the American consciousness as the potential savior of the flagging US economy.

Instead, after party officials scrapped the first day of events due to the threat posed by Isaac, a symbolic 10-minute session will be held at the Tampa convention center before the gavel adjourns proceedings until the following day.

The original script had Romney to be formally nominated to take on President Barack Obama in the November 6 election by delegate roll call on Monday morning, launching a succession of well-honed speeches by leading party figures.

That procedure will now take place on Tuesday after the first day's program was repackaged into a tighter three-day schedule due to the storm.

Party officials stressed that the prime night-time speaking slots on Tuesday and Wednesday, culminating in Romney's acceptance speech on Thursday after an introduction by rising Hispanic star Marco Rubio, remained unchanged.

"We feel good that we're going to go ahead and do the roll call on Tuesday," Romney campaign aide Russ Schriefer told journalists.

Now forecast to miss the convention site of Tampa, Isaac is expected to strengthen in the coming days to a hurricane over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before smashing into Louisiana later in the week near New Orleans.

Pressed on whether they had a back-up plan if Hurricane Isaac wreaked havoc during the convention, party officials said they remained flexible but refused to offer details of any contingencies.

"We are obviously monitoring," said Schriefer. "Our concern has to be with the people who are in the path of the storm."

Those words were echoed by the candidate himself, who must tread a fine line between preventing the storm from stealing his limelight, while displaying concern for those in harm's way.

Preparing for his convention speech in New Hampshire, Romney said: "I hope everybody's fine there. I'm concerned about the people that are going to be affected by it."

Asked whether he was worried that the storm might overshadow his big moment, the candidate replied: "It'll be a great convention."

Events have raised ironic cries that God must be a Democrat as they echo a similar scenario in 2008, when Republicans canceled nearly all their programming on the first day of their convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota due to Hurricane Gustav.

Jeb Bush, then Florida governor, was also forced to stay put in his home state in 2004 to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Charley instead of addressing the New York convention to renominate his brother, president George W. Bush.

Isaac approached hurricane strength on Sunday as it barreled past the Florida Keys into the Gulf of Mexico, taking aim for the coast of Louisiana after claiming seven lives in Haiti.

Forecasts put it on a direct path for New Orleans, seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and killed 1,800 people in the country's worst natural disaster in living memory.

Isaac is expected to be a category one or at worst category two hurricane when it makes landfall -- late Tuesday or early Wednesday -- considerably weaker than Katrina, which was a category four.

But Romney can ill afford to play down its potential impact as the political repercussions would be disastrous if it went on to cause significant damage or loss of life.

At the same time, the Tampa convention is a golden opportunity for the candidate to hog the airwaves and weave a compelling personal narrative that could tip the balance in a tight election likely to go down to the wire.

The run-up to the event has already been overshadowed by incendiary remarks from Todd Akin, a Republican congressman seeking a Senate seat in Missouri who suggested women's bodies could prevent pregnancy after a "legitimate rape."

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Romney criticized Akin, saying the controversy "hurts our party and I think is damaging to women."

In an interview with USA Today newspaper, the candidate decried what he called "misguided" and "dishonest" attacks by President Barack Obama's camp against him.

"The White House just keeps stepping lower and lower and lower, and the people of America know this is an important election, and they deserve better than they've seen," Romney said.

The Republican camp is anxious to get the campaign back on message, billing the former Massachusetts governor as a successful businessman with the acumen to turn around the economy and get the country back on track.

Polls show a tight race between the Republican challenger and Obama with a handful of key swing states expected to decide the outcome.

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Myanmar readies for media defamation case
Yangon, Myanmar (UPI) Aug 27, 2012 - Myanmar's Committee for Press Freedom is gearing up for rallies ahead of next month's court decision regarding a major defamation case.

Police denied permission for the CPF to have its latest rally in front of Yangon's City Hall this week, saying the event would obstruct traffic.

The CPF rallies are in support of The Voice Weekly magazine which in March claimed the Office of the Auditor General had uncovered corruption in six government ministries, including the Ministry of Mines, The Irrawaddy news Web site reported.

Police refusal comes as a court in Yangon's Dagon Township last week said it would decide Sept. 6 whether to proceed with the defamation case against The Voice Weekly by the Ministry of Mines.

The Irrawaddy -- run by expatriate Myanmar journalists operating in Thailand -- reported that more than 30 journalists from local media were present to cover the hearing in Dagon Township. Many of the journalists wore black T-shirts with the words "Stop Killing Press" and black baseball caps with "Press Freedom" on them.

Kyaw Min Swe, editor in chief of The Voice Weekly, said both sides presented final arguments to the court last week.

The journal's lawyer, Win Shwe, said they would fight the case into an appeal if need be.

Immediately after The Voice made its allegations in March, Ministry of Mines officials denied the accusation in the state-run Kyemon newspaper, said a report by the Web site of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a non-profit Myanmar media organization in Oslo, Norway.

DVB said The Voice article cited a report submitted to the Public Accounts Committee by the Union Auditor General's Office. The report said half the shares for a copper mine in the northeast Sagaing region and owned the Ministry of Mines were sold to the military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings for $100 million.

The payment also was made by a "foreign company" thought to be Chinese owned, DVB reported.

A member of staff at the Voice Weekly told DVB that the publication has substantial evidence to back its claims.

The Voice also claimed the Ministry of Information had pocketed more than $2.5 million when it sold off government newspapers, the DVB reported.

CPF protests and trial of The Voice Weekly come amid the government's latest move to loosen media censorship.

Last week the press censorship board announced that it would end a 50-year-long requirement for pre-publication approval from the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department.

The move was welcomed by many media practitioners but more freedom is needed they said, including abolition of the need to submit their published articles to the PSRD to determine if publishing laws have been broken.

Thiha Saw, the editor of Open News Journal and Myanma Danna magazine, told Irrawaddy last week that some subjects including corruption -- something of which many of the country's top leaders have been accused -- will remain extremely sensitive for the government. Post-publication scrutiny is the PSRD's way of letting editors know the government is watching them.

Incurring the government's wrath could mean the withdrawal of a publication's license to print, a permit mandated under the Printers and Publishers Registration Act.



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Bogota (AFP) Aug 25, 2012
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