Chinese Communist Party celebrates 90 years

China's Communist Party marks 90th anniversary

Party members swear the oath in front of a Chinese Communist
Party flag at the Site of the First National Congress of
the Communist Party of China, Friday in Shanghai, China.
(Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press)

Celebrating the Communist Party's 90th anniversary Friday, Chinese President Hu Jintao said that China's ability to adapt made it affluent and powerful and that the party must fight corruption to retain public support and continue its uncontested rule.
In a 90-minute nationally televised speech, the political highlight of several events marking the party's founding, Hu said that decades of economic growth are transforming Chinese society, producing conflicts that the party must navigate to preserve stability.
President Hu Jintao says corruption threatens to undermine the people's trust in the Communist Party. (Barry Huang/Reuters)
He glossed over the radical campaigns and policies that led to tens of millions of deaths in the first decades of communist rule. But he said the party endured because it learned from its mistakes.
"In some historical periods, we once made mistakes and even suffered severe setbacks, the root cause of which was that our guiding thought then was divorced from China's reality. Our party managed to correct the mistakes by the strength of itself and the people, rose up amid the setbacks and continued to go forward victoriously," Hu told the several thousand party stalwarts inside the Great Hall of the People.
Unlike recent years when party anniversaries were largely for party members, this year's celebrations have sought to include and excite the public. Events have included a star-studded feature film about the party's founding, a torrent of documentaries and serialized historic dramas on television and mass sing-a-longs of "red" songs.
The purpose is to inspire patriotism and loyalty to the party and reinforce a now well-practiced narrative: that after a century of civil war, dynastic collapse and foreign invasion, the Communist Party has returned China to greatness and restored its rightful place as a world leader.

Grand public spectacles

Chinese leaders have increasingly turned to grand public spectacles like the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic in 2009 to bolster the party's legitimacy as economic growth has brought social ills like a rich-poor gap and rampant corruption.
"In some ways we can see that with the Communist Party that they are trying to elevate this to a sacred event," said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a historian at the University of California, Irvine.
The need to find new rationales for rule has grown as the party itself has evolved from an underground group of hardcore revolutionaries to a vast organization of 80 million members bound together more by ambition, power and connections than ideology.
Many among the public laud the party leadership for steering China to a more prosperous today, yet vilify local officials as venal, at best indifferent and at worst abusive.

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Thailand braces for hotly contested election

Thaksin looms large as Thai parties make final campaign push

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Big rallies in Bangkok marked a final push by candidates in a national election on Sunday aimed at resolving Thailand's sometimes violent six-year political crisis but which many fear will only fuel more turbulence.
Opinion polls overwhelmingly favour the opposition Puea Thai (For Thais) party led by Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, figurehead of a red-shirted movement of the rural and urban poor whose protests last year sparked a bloody military crackdown.
The telegenic 44-year-old businesswoman and political novice has electrified supporters as Thailand's first possible elected female leader, vowing to revive Thaksin-style populist policies - from a minimum wage hike to subsidies for farmers.
Many of her supporters want her to go further and bring back Thaksin himself, their red t-shirts often emblazoned with the image of the former telecoms tycoon, who was removed in a 2006 military coup and lives in Dubai to evade jail for graft charges he says were politically motivated.
Recent polls suggest Puea Thai could win at least 240 seats in the 500-seat parliament, but that is no guarantee Yingluck will govern. Most doubt either side will secure an outright majority, opening the way for both to wheel and deal with smaller parties to form a coalition.More.

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Hugo Chavez profile: loved and loathed at home and abroad

Images show Chavez on his feet after surgery

AP In this photo released by the state media Cubadebate web site, Cuba's Fidel Castro (left) and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez look at Granma state newspaper at an unknown location in Havana, Cuba, on Tuesday.

New videos and photos of President Hugo Chavez appeared on state television Tuesday night, showing him on his feet and talking with Fidel Castro more than two weeks after undergoing urgent surgery in Cuba.

An aide to the Venezuelan leader said the encounter in Cuba took place earlier in the day.

“We see him recovering,” Information Minister Andres Izarra said on state television as the short video clips and photographs were shown of Mr. Chavez standing and talking outdoors with Mr. Castro.

Cuban state TV also broadcast pictures of the get-together.

They were the first images of Mr. Chavez to be released since he appeared with both Fidel and Raul Castro in photographs taken 11 days earlier and published in Cuban media.

But neither the new images nor government officials provided details about Mr. Chavez’s health. Despite assurances that he is doing well, the lack of information since the government announced June 10 that Mr. Chavez had undergone pelvic surgery has spurred talk among Venezuelans that he might be very ill.

Officials did not say when Mr. Chavez might return to Venezuela, which next week will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of its independence from Spain.

Mr. Chavez seemed healthy and animated as he talked and smiled alongside Mr. Castro in a courtyard fringed with trees, and also sitting down indoors. Mr. Chavez wore a track suit jacket with the colours of Venezuela’s flag while Mr. Castro sported a red baseball cap and a blue and white track suit.read more.

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Minnesota government begins historic shutdown

Minn. government shuts down as budget talks fail

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota's state government is closed for business

It shut down at 12:01 a.m. CDT Friday, the victim of an ongoing dispute over taxes and spending between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative majorities. Talks fell apart well before the deadline, leaving state parks closed on the brink of the Fourth of July weekend, putting road projects at a standstill and forcing thousands of state worker layoffs.

Even before the final failure, officials padlocked highway rest areas and state parks, herding campers out. The full impact will hit Friday morning as thousands of laid-off state employees stay home until further notice and a wide array of services are suspended.

Critical functions such as state troopers, prison guards, the courts and disaster responses will continue. On Friday morning, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz will begin the court-appointed job of sifting through appeals from groups arguing in favor of continued government funding for particular programs.

Dayton addressed the looming shutdown at about 10 p.m. Thursday, emerging after a day of fitful negotiations with legislative Republicans to say the two sides were still fundamentally divided over how much the state should spend the next two years and that the shutdown was inevitable.

"This is a night of deep sorrow for me," Dayton said.

Republican lawmakers had been gathered at the Capitol for hours as they demanded that Dayton do what he had said for months he would not do: Call a special session so they could pass a "lights on" budget bill to keep government running. The governor insisted he would only agree to a total budget solution that incorporated the many facets of state spending.

"I think the governor's insistence that we pass a full budget is not going to be of much comfort to Minnesotans who are going to see delays on the highways because construction projects stop," said Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo. "It's not going to comfort people who can't use our state parks, or who can't get a driver's license."

Officials in state parks had already started herding out campers Thursday, saying it would have been too difficult in the dead of night. Also Thursday, people rushed to get driver's and fishing licenses at offices and service centers that would be locked up by morning.

A stoppage in Minnesota will halt non-emergency road construction, shut the state zoo and Capitol, and stop child-care assistance for the poor. More than 40 state boards and agencies expect to go dark.

The shutdown in retrospect was something of a slow-motion disaster, with a new Democratic governor and new Republican legislative majorities at odds for months over how to eliminate a $5 billion state budget deficit. Dayton has been determined to raise taxes on high-earners to close the deficit, while Republicans insisted that it be closed only by cuts to state spending.

Even after the shutdown looked like a certainty, Dayton and Republicans did not soften their conflicting principles. Dayton said he campaigned and was elected on a promise not to make spending cuts to a level he called "draconian." He said he has been more flexible than Republicans in trying to compromise in order to acknowledge their principles.

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Strauss-Kahn case twist turns prospects upside-down

Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty to sex assault

 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn enters Manhattan
criminal court with his wife Anne Sinclair for his arraignment on Monday.
His next appearance is July 18.
(Louis Lanzano/Associated Press)

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund,
pleaded not guilty in New York City Monday to charges that he sexually assaulted a maid in the luxury suite of a hotel in mid-May.
Strauss-Kahn, once considered a likely candidate for the presidency of France, appeared in a New York courtroom Monday morning to enter his plea.
Speaking in a strong voice and flanked by his defence lawyers and wife Anne Sinclair, Strauss-Kahn answered not guilty to the accusations.
State Supreme Court Justice Michael Orbus told Strauss-Kahn he needed to appear in court and had a right to be present at his trial, to which the economist said "yes." His next court date was set for July 18.
 
Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is the prosecutor in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. (David Karp/Associated Press)
Strauss-Kahn, 62, has been out on bail of $1 million US cash and a $5 million bond and has been living under house arrest with his wife in a newly rented, $50,000-a-month Tribeca townhouse. He is under guard at his own expense.
The case is expected to turn on the credibility of the maid, 32, and the diplomat. She reported the assault May 14, leading police to pull Strauss-Kahn from an Air France flight about to leave for Paris and arrest him. His subsequent treatment by the U.S. media and justice system stunned French society.
He has denied seven charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.
The prosecutor in the case is Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who has been Manhattan district attorney for just 1½ years. Strauss-Kahn is being defended by lawyers Benjamin Brafman and William W. Taylor III. Brafman previously won the acquittal of Sean (P. Diddy) Combs in 1999 on weapons and bribery charges.

DNA matched, prosecutors say

The maid at the Sofitel near Times Square in Manhattan told police Strauss-Kahn chased her down a hall in his hotel suite May 14, tried to pull down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex.
Prosecutors said last month that evidence against Strauss-Kahn was building by the day. Tests have found Strauss-Kahn's DNA matched material on the woman's uniform shirt, people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.
By the end of the case, "it will be clear that there was no element of forcible compulsion in this case whatsoever," Brafman said outside court after the brief hearing. "Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not credible."
Brafman's similar comments at an earlier court hearing have led to speculation that the defence will argue the encounter was consensual. He repeated again Monday that he and co-counsel William Taylor would not be commenting on the specifics of the case.
"We will defend this case in the courtroom," he said, urging there not be a rush to judgment.

Hasn't worked since

The maid's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said she would testify in court, and he condemned speculation that she either made up the attack or exaggerated the claims.
"The victim wants you to know that all of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power, money and influence throughout the world will not keep the truth about what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out," Thompson said.
Thompson said the 32-year-old woman has not worked since the encounter, because she is traumatized, and she will not settle the case or back down.
"She is standing up for women around the world sexually assaulted who are too afraid to come forward," he said.read more.

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