Former China railways boss goes on trial for graft

Former China railways boss goes on trial in Beijing on charges of massive bribery, corruption

Associated Press -

BEIJING (AP) -- The man who once ran China's powerful railways ministry wept as he admitted his guilt and sought leniency Sunday at his trial on corruption charges, one of the country's highest-level graft cases in years.

Liu Zhijun, 60, who oversaw the ministry's high-profile bullet train development, has been accused of taking massive bribes and steering lucrative projects to associates. The case is seen as an indicator of how top-level officials might fare in an anti-corruption campaign that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed will target both high and low officials.

The case presents a thorny challenge to the Chinese government, which wants to appear tough on graft but is mindful of how the prosecution of a massive case like Liu's could further hurt public confidence in the railways system. Such a case raises questions of whether the corruption affected the construction, management and operation of the railways that serve millions of Chinese every day.

Liu's defense attorney, Qian Lieyang, said after the trial that his client admitted guilt and expressed remorse during the proceedings, weeping as he read out a personal statement. Qian also said he asked the court to consider Liu's contributions in spearheading the much-admired high-speed train system when drawing up the sentence.

Even prosecutors asked the court for lenience on Liu's behalf, saying that he showed a positive attitude during investigations and confessed to many wrongdoings on his own accord, Qian told reporters.

Qian's account of the prosecution's approach suggests that authorities were trying to lay the legal groundwork for delivering a sentence that would be appear tough on corruption, while not being too severe on a person whose name is so closely tied with the high-speed railways — a source of national pride.

"When the court makes a decision on sentencing, I hope it will consider his contributions to the country," Qian said.

Liu went on trial at Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court amid relatively tight security. Police cars were parked around the court's perimeter and officers stood on the sidewalk to prevent onlookers from getting close to the entrance or to a group of reporters gathered outside. Court officials and police told foreign journalists to leave the premises.

The trial concluded by midday Sunday. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that prosecutors accuse Liu of using his position of influence to help about 11 business associates win promotions and project contracts and accepted 64.6 million Chinese yuan ($10.5 million) in unspecified bribes between 1986 and 2011.

"Liu's malpractice led to huge losses of public assets and damage to the interests of the state and people," the indictment said, according to Xinhua.

State broadcaster China Central Television showed Liu, a thin, bespectacled man with a comb-over, being escorted into a courtroom and standing during part of the procedure, his face expressionless.

Qian said he had argued for the severity of the charges to be reduced on the basis of Liu's remorseful attitude, his contributions to national development and questions over whether part of the bribery charges actually amounted to bribery by legal definition,

The court said it would announce a verdict at a later, unspecified date.

Liu was ousted in February 2011 for unspecified discipline violations. Months later, a high-speed train crash killed 40 people near the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou.

Toronto mayor's other 'crack' scandal: dividing urban-suburban residents

While Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been under fire for a video allegedly showing him smoking crack, critics say his most offensive behavior has been his polarization of the city.

Yet the biggest news in Canada’s largest city veers dramatically from the boring-but-polite Canuck stereotype that Torontonians suffer from abroad. Last month, news broke that the conservative mayor, Rob Ford, was caught on video making homophobic and racist comments – and smoking crack cocaine.

The uproar is far from the first that Mr. Ford has provoked. Other major incidents include racist and sexist remarks, calls to police by family members reporting threats from Ford, his own expletive-filled 911 call when a journalist tried to interview him at home,reading and talking on his cell phone while driving, being kicked out of a military gala and a Maple Leafs game for drunken behavior, and allegedly groping a colleague, among other highlights.

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Yet, for his opponents, Ford’s most offensive behavior has been his polarization of the city, pitting the more conservative suburbs – full of Ford’s loyal supporters, who call themselves "Ford Nation" – against the more liberal downtown.

URBAN-SUBURBAN DIVIDE

While American cities have had their Buddy Ciancis and Marion Barrys, the mayor of Toronto holds a unique level of responsibility: running Canada's sixth largest government and North America's fourth largest city, a dynamic, diverse metropolis where more high-rises are being built than anywhere else in the Western hemisphere.

The city’s suburb-downtown family feud began before Ford’s political entrance, when his father was a conservative Ontario parliamentarian.

In 1998, then-head of Ontario Mike Harris forced what analysts have called a “shotgun wedding,” merging Toronto with five adjoining suburbs, which resulted in hikes in taxes and public transit fares as the city became responsible for providing services to a drastically larger geographic area.

Although residents, the Toronto mayor, and leaders of four of the five suburbs protested loudly, the "amalgamation" passed, granting conservatives a larger percentage of parliament seats – and the likelihood that the new gerrymandered version of Toronto would elect conservative suburban mayors.

That is just what happened in 2010 when Ford came to power by playing on the urban-suburban divide. During his mayoral campaign, Ford railed against taxes and “the gravy train” of public spending, a popular sentiment among suburbanites whose time spent downtown was often limited to commuting by car to work and cheering at hockey or baseball games.

DRIVING DEBATE

And Ford has remained markedly anti-urban in office, which impacts daily life for millions. Despite leading a cosmopolitan city that imagines itself in a European mold, Toronto lags in walkability and quality of life for urbanites.

In particular, Ford has adamantly opposed public transportation funding, even though Toronto’s system is so outdated and underfunded that the average round trip commute is 98 minutes per day – and this in a city almost half the size of New York City, where the average commute is two-thirds as long. The gridlock caused by competing cars and streetcars costs the city $6 billion in productivity each year, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.

And all but the bravest Torontonians can forget about biking to work: The city has the nation’s highest rate of cyclist collisions. Only a small handful of streets have bike lanes – not including a major thoroughfare where Ford applauded the removal of a bike lane last year – and police often pass by taxis and cars parked in the middle of those lanes.

This spring, Ford rallied against a proposed city hall bike station with showers, and while a city councillor, he said that if bikers were killed on the road, “it’s their own fault.”

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“For 25 years,” according to University of Toronto civil engineering professor Eric Miller, “we haven’t been building much in the way of new transit infrastructure in the city of Toronto. So we face a huge infrastructure deficit. That was the context in which Rob Ford arrived on the scene. He doesn’t believe that roads are for transit. Roads are for cars. They’re not for people. They’re not for bicycles. He has turned transit into a wedge issue with the electorate.”

FORD NATION

Yet despite the boorish behavior and accompanying uproars, Ford’s loyal support base has held firm. After an initial post-election honeymoon phase and subsequent slides, Ford’s overall approval ratingshave wavered little since September 2011.

In particular, compared to the descent in voter support downtown, suburban belief in Ford has stayed steady. His followers range from Somali and Italian immigrants who cite his support of their communities while a city councilor, to former opponents who approve of his hands-on approach to solving municipal problems, to Torontonians happy with Ford’s mayoral push against liberalism and in favor of lower taxes and smaller government.

Ford Nation is also a cult of Ford’s personality. Facebook supporters hail his chutzpah as much as his policies: “Anyone else would have ‘caved’ under the pressure of those wild villains, Mr. Mayor! You have great strength,” wrote one commenter, with another adding, “If [R]ob wasn't in charge the city would just keep picking our pocket.”

As the battle over the tarnishing of Toronto’s polite image and its urban future continues, the praise for Ford does as well: “Ford is the light!” and “Long live Rob Ford, greatest mayor ever!!!”

CRACK VIDEO

And when it comes to the alleged video of Ford smoking crack, Toronto residents are split, right down the lines Ford himself drew.

The video came to light last month, after a local drug dealer shopped the cellphone video to news outlets, including American website Gawker, which raised $200,000 on Kickstarter to buy the video. Since then, however, the drug dealer has gone underground, along with the video. On Thursday, reports surfaced that four days after the initial crack video news, an armed man invaded the house where the video may have been filmed, beating two inhabitants, one of whom was a high school classmate of Ford's.

The resulting climate in Toronto is circus-like. Ontario’s premier has researched whether the province can intervene, anonymous city hall sources claim Ford does have a drug problem and knew the exact address of the video’s location, several mayoral staffers have resigned or been fired, and the Globe and Mail published allegations that Ford’s city councilor brother, Doug, dealt hashish in the 1980s. For his part, Ford denies smoking crack or that the video even exists.

According to a poll last week by two local TV stations, more than half of Torontonians believe the crack video “exists and is real.” Go downtown, and that number jumps to nearly two-thirds.

But for now, despite protests from city leaders and citizens, Ford insists he is not going anywhere. And critics say Toronto would suffer as a result.

“We won’t have effective leadership in Canada’s biggest and most diverse city," Ryerson University business ethics professor Chris Macdonald told the CBC last week. "What we’re not going to see is the kind of vision that’s going to keep building us into a world-class city.”

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Tens of thousands on streets, Turkish PM Erdogan defiant

By Nick Tattersall and Parisa Hafezi

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told flag-waving supporters on Sunday that his patience with mass anti-government protests had its limits, and moved to seize back the initiative by announcing counter-rallies next weekend.

As Erdogan spoke in the capital Ankara, tens of thousands massed in an Istanbul square to demand his resignation. In Ankara's Kizilay district, riot police fired tear gas and water cannon to flush anti-government demonstrators from a square.

The majority Muslim but constitutionally secular nation has been shaken by a week of its fiercest protests in decades, unrest which has exposed fault lines between a religiously conservative heartland fiercely supportive of Erdogan and a secular middle class who fear creeping authoritarianism.

Addressing thousands of cheering followers at Ankara airport, one of six rallies on Sunday, Erdogan accused the protesters of drinking beer in mosques and insulting women wearing headscarves, a symbol of Islamic piety - both accusations likely to anger his supporters.

"With our government, our party and most importantly our nation, it is we who have defended, and are most strongly defending, democracy, law and freedoms," he told crowds chanting slogans including "We are ready to sacrifice our lives for you Tayyip".

"We were patient, we will be patient, but there is an end to patience," he said, to chants of "Rich people of Istanbul, evacuate Gezi Park immediately".

At a rival rally at Gezi Park in Istanbul's central Taksim Square, where riot police backed by helicopters and armored vehicles first clashed with protesters a week ago, tens of thousands chanted for the prime minister to quit.

The crowd included secularists carrying flags portraying secular state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, leftists, nationalists and other groups opposed to Erdogan, who has won three election victories since 2002.

A large area around the square was closed to traffic, approach roads barricaded with paving stones and debris.

Erdogan called on his supporters to mass in Ankara on Saturday and Istanbul on Sunday. But he also urged patience, telling them: "There will be elections in seven or eight months. We will speak at the ballot boxes".

He suggested Turkey was at a historic moment.

"Today we are not at May 27, 1960, nor are we at September 12, 1980, nor are we at February 28, 1997," he said, referring to two coups led by a staunchly secular military and a third in which an Islamist-led government was forced to resign.

"Today, we are exactly where we were on April 27, 2007," he said, referring to the election of Abdullah Gul to the presidency, a post seen as guardian of the state's secular foundations, despite his history in political Islam.

It was seen by supporters of the AK Party, founded by Erdogan and Gul in 2001, as a final victory over a military that had toppled four governments in four decades.

"TEACH THEM A LESSON"

What began as a campaign against government plans to build over Gezi Park has spiraled into an unprecedented display of public anger over the perceived authoritarianism of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party.

Police fired teargas and water cannon at protesters night after night in Istanbul and Ankara last week, in clashes that have left three dead and close to 5,000 injured.

Speaking earlier in the southern Mediterranean coastal city of Adana, Erdogan dismissed the protesters and told cheering crowds to "teach them a lesson" at the ballot box next year, when Turkey holds local and presidential elections.

"Those now at Taksim, those who burn and destroy, those at various places across the country, I ask them, in the name of which freedom are you doing this?" Erdogan said at the opening of the Mediterranean Games, an international sports event.

"You should teach them a lesson at the ballot box ... You will go from door to door, house to house and work hard."

Still by far Turkey's most popular politician, Erdogan has pressed on with government business as usual despite the unrest.

The AK Party has ruled out early elections and senior party officials said they may call their own public meetings in Istanbul and Ankara next week.

"My beloved brothers, we're walking towards a better Turkey. Don't allow those who attempt to plant divisive seeds to do so," Erdogan said at another speech in the southern city of Adana on Sunday, from atop of a bus emblazoned with his picture and the AK Party's slogan, "Big Country, Big Power".

The organizers of the initial protests in Taksim, calling themselves Taksim Solidarity, repeated their call for the redevelopment plans in the square to be abandoned, police use of teargas to be banned, those responsible for police violence to be dismissed and bans on demonstrations to be lifted.

"The demands are obvious. We call on government to take account of the reaction (on the street), act responsibly and fulfill demands being expressed by millions of people every day," the group said in a statement.

Erdogan has made clear he has no intention of stepping aside, pointing to the AK Party's rising share of the vote in the past three elections, and has no clear rivals inside the party or out.

He has enacted many democratic reforms, taming the military after the string of coups, starting entry talks with the European Union and forging peace talks with Kurdish rebels to end a three-decade-old war.

But in recent years, critics say his style, always forceful and emotional, has become authoritarian.

Media have come under pressure, journalists have been imprisoned, opponents have been arrested over alleged coup plots and moves such as restrictions on alcohol sales have unsettled secular middle-class Turks who are sensitive to any encroachment of religion on their daily lives.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Sunday for an end to violence and for reports of police abuses to be properly investigated.

"It is essential that all violence stops and that all cases of excessive use of force by the police are recognized as such and investigated promptly, and that those responsible are held fully accountable," Ashton said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Istanbul and Jonathon Burch in Ankara; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Article: Turkish PM Erdogan warns patience will run out with protests

Why Edward Snowden Leaked the Secret NSA Information

Why Edward Snowden Leaked the Secret NSA Information

The Guardian has revealed the identity of the man who leaked information about the NSA's surveillance programs, PRISM andBoundless Informant. Meet Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old defense contractor employee who's worked for the NSA for four years.

RELATED: Why We Still Don't Know How Much Access PRISM Has

Snowden is currently employed by defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where he makes around $200,000, and has worked at the NSA office in Hawaii for four years. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said in a taped interview with Greenwald. He used to work for the CIA as a technical assistant. He's an American citizen with a girlfriend and a house in Hawaii. But on May 20, he told his boss he needed to take a few weeks off work. He got on a plane and flew to Hong Kong, where he's been holed up in a hotel room ever since. He explained his motivations for leaking the NSA information in a note:

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

Snowden realizes he's risking his life -- his house, his freedom, his girlfriend -- by leaking this information. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," he said.

RELATED: Meet Boundless Informant, the NSA's Data Overview Tool

Earlier in the day, Greenwald discretely previewed his big reveal during his interview on ABC's This Week by detailing his leaker's motivations. "They risked their careers and their lives and their liberty because what they were seeing being done in secret inside the United States government is so alarming and so pernicious that they simply want one thing," Greenwald said on This Week. "That is, for the American people at least to learn about what this massive spying apparatus is, and what the capabilities are, so that we can have an open, honest debate about whether that’s the kind of country that we want to live in."

RELATED: Obama's NSA Defense: Congress Can Raise Objections It Can't Actually Raise

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told NBC's Andrea Mitchell the agency has ordered a criminal investigation into Snowden's leaks. "For me, it is literally – not figuratively – literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities," Clapper said. The criminal investigation doesn't seem to bother Snowden. He thinks the U.S. are going to come after him by any means necessary, up to and including paying off gangs to go after him. "Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," he told Greenwald.