Hours left until Olympic 2020 host revealed

It's a nervous time for Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul organising committees with IOC members about to vote for 2020 host.

After two years of intense lobbying and tens of millions of dollars spent, Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo have just a few remaining hours on Saturday to convince the International Olympic Committee to entrust them with the 2020 summer Games.

With each city wrestling its own demons, the race has become a "least ugly" contest as they attempt to conceal their blemishes and win the right to host the world's biggest sporting extravaganza.

The trio have just 70 minutes each to present their bids to the some 100 members of the IOC. Ninety-seven are eligible to vote in the first round, due to start at 3.45pm local time (18:45 GMT).

Istanbul is first in front of the IOC, followed by Tokyo and then Madrid in an order decided by a draw two years ago.

Each city is rolling out the big guns, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe due to represent his capital city, his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan backing Istanbul, and Prince Felipe of Spain part of Madrid's official presentation.

IOC members will then hear a report from an internal Evaluation Commission formed of IOC members and Olympic experts, before voting begins.
No clear favourite

Should a city not obtain an outright majority of votes, the candidate with the least votes will be eliminated and the two remaining cities will go head to head in a second round.
With no clear favourite, the decision will likely hinge on the appeal of the bid presentations as each city attempts to gloss over troubles at home.
Madrid continues to suffocate under a recession, Istanbul is saddled with the spectre of military strikes in neighbouring Syria and internal unrest, and Tokyo is back in the headlines after a series of damaging disclosures about the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant 230 km (140 miles) from the city.

Publicly, the membership of the International Olympic Committee is smiling through the crisis, but privately many concede that this is now an exercise in evaluating risk rather than celebrating sport.

Madrid is pitching a manageable, low-cost, financially responsible Games. It is a bid that should play well with the
IOC, which wants to reduce the cost of staging an Olympics.

The Spanish officials say that with much of the infrastructure already in place, it will be the first time a projected Games budget of some $3.1 billion exceeds investment of just under $2 billion in projects linked to the hosting of the event but not directly related.
Games expenditure

That compares with Istanbul's massive non-Games budget of around $17 billion, dwarfing expected Games expenditure of $2.9 billion. Tokyo, which hosted the Games in 1964, is also planning to incorporate existing venues and has estimated a non-Games budget of around $4.4 billion compared to $3.4 billion for the actual event.

Istanbul launched its bid on the back of an Islamic card, of becoming the first Olympics in a predominantly Muslim country and the first staged across two continents simultaneously - Asia and Europe.

During our presentation, I look forward to conveying Tokyo's safety, strong finances, world class transportation and organisational ability Naoki Inose, Tokyo governor

Tokyo wants to show that it is back, showcasing a new energy and dynamism after two lost decades, by hosting the 2020 Games. 

The bid team points to a $4.5 billion war chest already in the bank, with further support as needed promised by the government. "The Games are in a safe pair of hands," Tsunekazu Takeda, head of the Japanese Olympic Committee, said.

But disclosures in recent weeks about the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant 230 km (140 miles) from Tokyo were an unwelcome shock to an Olympic membership not appreciative of surprises.

The plant's operator has been forced to reverse denials and admit that hundreds of tonnes of radioactive water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean each day, and radiation levels have spiked.

Abe's government has said it will spend almost half a billion dollars to try to try to fix the water crisis.
"During our presentation, I look forward to conveying Tokyo's safety, strong finances, world class transportation and organisational ability," Tokyo governor Naoki Inose told reporters.

Going to Congress: Obama’s Best Syria Decision

President Barack Obama announced two decisions today—one his own resolution, the other potentially far more historic. It might not be immediately obvious which was which. He began by saying that, ten days after what very much appears to have been a chemical-weapons attack outside of Damascus, “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets.” He spoke of the emotional reasons why (the children who died in their sleep) and what he hoped the national-security benefits would be (that part is still muddled). But note the verb: “should take military action”—not will—which set up Obama’s second, more important, and quite correct decision: “I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.”

I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. … I believe that the people’s representatives must be invested in what America does abroad.

Congress is out of town now, and Obama is not calling on them to reconvene. He said that Saturday morning he’d spoken “with all four congressional leaders, and they’ve agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.” That will be September 9th, though the leaders can call them back if they want to. The President said that time was not against him here: “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose,” he said. “Moreover, the chairman has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now.”
After the speech, a correspondent on CNN wondered how that would sound to Syrians suffering from the war—if they might be angry, as the fighting continued. But since the President also made clear that his goal was not regime change, or “putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war,” that wasn’t going to be stopped anyway. Dropping a few missiles and leaving, which is what the President has in mind, could as easily be an instrument of increased chaos—one of many points that ought to be debated in Congress. A quick strike is something that the Assad regime could put behind it, and sometimes a spectre can be more of a deterrent than a strike. The delay, as frustrating as it might be for some, means at minimum a period of uncertainty for the regime forces. And it pauses what had been a headlong rush to do something—anything that would make us forget those pictures—without thinking the next steps through or caring what happens afterward in Syria. By waiting and deliberating, this becomes, despite all the posturing that will take place, more about the Syrians, and less about our grief-stricken selves.
Did Obama have to do this because when Prime Minister David Cameron went to Parliament he lost? I’ve argued that he did: it removed the idea that any military action would be a sort of no-jury-could-convict-me, anyone-would-do-it response to an attack—that consent could be assumed. It left the President so alone that, looking for a friend in Washington, he’d actually go to Congress. And yet NBC News reported that the majority of the President’s national-security staff was against the decision to ask for authorization; the AP said that officials ”describe a president overriding all his top national security advisers.” If so, Obama deserves credit for not listening.
This may be the first sensible step that Obama has taken in the Syrian crisis, and may prove to be one of the better ones of his Presidency—even if he loses the vote, as could happen. Politically, he may have just saved his second term from being consumed by Benghazi-like recriminations and spared himself Congressional mendacity about what they all might have done. It will likely divide the G.O.P. Although he said that he didn’t really, truly need to ask Congress for permission, he is doing so. Presidents—including Obama, in his decision to ignore the War Powers Act in Libya despite its clear application—have abandoned even the pretense that they need to seek Congressional approval. (Representative Peter King has already complained that the President is “abdicating”—a verb that tells you a lot about why this was a good decision.)
If he loses it’s not unambiguously clear, given how ill-thought out the military strategy appears to be at this point, that Syria, or even his Presidency, will be worse off. (SeeGeorge Packer’s post on the possible costs, and wonder for a minute if getting the Gulf of Tonkin resolution through was such a victory for Johnson.) “Our democracy is stronger when the President and the people’s representatives stand together,” Obama said; he might have added that it can also be stronger when they stand apart, as long as they are standing up, voting, and being counted. As for his goal of reasserting the importance of international norms, laws, and processes—he would only have undermined that by heading off alone, and can at least live by it by losing.
Would a loss in Congress mean that there is impunity for the use of chemical weapons? That is what Obama will argue: “Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?” That case will only be stronger if it is argued in front of a legislature and the public, and not in a closed room in the White House. And a loss, as devastating as it might feel, might do less to undermine the possibility of a future consensus than a reckless strike that could have gone very, very wrong, and left too many people regretting having cared. A no vote could also shake other countries out of the view that international treaties and bodies are for show, while the real decisions happen in Washington, and lead to a strengthening of them.
Or it might go badly. Obama is certainly taking a risk, but that’s what the Presidency should be, and this one is worth it. The worst outcomes would involve either Congress or the President dodging this moment and its meaning. Congress might do so by constructing some legislative monstrosity, as it did during the debt-ceiling crisis, that relies on a complicated series of mechanisms that assure nothing—except that whatever happens is Obama’s fault—or too-sweeping powers. And the most disastrous thing that Obama could do is not admitting that he’s lost if he does, and bombing anyway. Perhaps it’s too optimistic to say that today’s decision might be what keeps some future President, our country, and who knows what other nation and people from the sort of tragedy that destroys cities. But it will certainly help, in an area where the world needs all the help it can get. And that makes this a morally important moment for the President as well.
Photograph by Kristoffer Tripplaar/Getty.
Photograph by Kristoffer Tripplaar/Getty

Colombia Santos: Farc 'to keep weapons until referendum'

  

Mr Santos is running for a second term in office in 2014

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said the Farc rebels would be allowed to keep their weapons until a peace agreement was ratified.

Mr Santos said no-one could expect the rebels to give up their weapons before a peace accord had been given final approval in a referendum. 
He added that a ceasefire would be implemented once a deal was reached in talks under way in Cuba. 
Critics say a referendum should not be held until the rebels disarm. 
Mr Santos last month surprised the rebels when he proposed legislation demanding that any accord would have to be approved by the Colombian people in a referendum.
'Enemies of peace' "If we have an agreement, then we enter a third phase of implementation," President Santos said on Friday.
"And I have promised that the Colombian people would have the opportunity to have their say."
If peace negotiators engaged in talks since November last year reach a deal, it is likely that a referendum will be held on the same day of the May 2014 presidential vote.
But it could also be held in March, when Colombians vote on a new Congress.

  

The Colombian army seized grenades and weapons from the Farc in July

"The Colombian people will see the final work, the final package and decide. And I am certain that the Colombian people will back me up."
Mr Santos criticised "the enemies of peace." He said those opposed to an agreement to end five decades of conflict in Colombia "are trying to demonise the process and create fear in the country."
"If we reach some agreement, then we will have an immediate ceasefire. That is what we have agreed," Mr Santos said in an interview to BluRadio station in Bogota.

The rebels have called for a ceasefire throughout the negotiations, which began in Havana in November.

But the government said the rebels would use the truce to rearm and vowed to continue fighting until they signed an accord renouncing to the armed struggle.
Officially there has been agreement on only one of six points on the agenda - land reform.
But the government's chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, and the rebels hailed progress in the talks in a joint statement issued last month.
Five decades of internal conflict in Colombia have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. 
And a study by Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory suggests 220,000 people have died in the violence.

Marseille: La violence et la drogue au menu d'une table ronde ce samedi

SECURITE - La réunion, qui fait suite à une nouvelle vague d'assassinats à Marseille, rassemble les principales autorités régionales...

Deux jours après le 15e règlement de comptes mortel de 2013 à Marseille et sa proche région, une table ronde sur la sécurité dans la ville se tient en préfecture samedi, nouvelle tentative pour apporter des réponses à ce qui s'apparente désormais à une cause nationale. Une initiative que le Président Hollande, depuis Moscou, a soutenue «pour dire que Marseille mérite mieux que cette image» dégradée par ces assassinats. Elle fait immédiatement suite à l'annonce jeudi par le ministre de l'Intérieur Manuel Valls de la nécessité d'établir «avec tous les élus (...) un pacte national» pour venir à bout du trafic de drogue à Marseille.
Tous les parlementaires et principaux élus de Marseille, ainsi que le président du conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, Jean-Noël Guérini, et celui du conseil régional Paca, Michel Vauzelle, sont ainsi conviés à 10h par le préfet de région, Michel Cadot, et le préfet de police, Jean-Paul Bonnetain. Objet de la réunion: «la sécurité traitée dans une approche globale comprenant l'éducation, la santé, l'emploi, l'habitat et le volet social», selon le communiqué de la préfecture.

Une longue liste macabre

Ce n'est pourtant pas la première fois qu'est évoquée la nécessité d'une «approche globale» pour les problèmes de Marseille. C'est ce que préconisait déjà le gouvernement, voici exactement un an, le 6 septembre 2012, à l'issue d'un comité interministériel consacré à Marseille quelques jours après un règlement de comptes mortel. Création d'une métropole, mesures de soutien scolaire, renforcement des effectifs policiers: des mesures étaient lancées.
Le Premier ministre Jean-Marc Ayrault, accompagné de cinq de ses ministres, avait aussi répété le 20 août à Marseille qu'il fallait du temps pour «casser les gangs et l'économie souterraine du trafic de drogue», annonçant au passage d'autres mesures concrètes pour octobre. Un nouveau règlement de comptes venait de se produire.
La liste macabre s'est depuis encore allongée, renforçant l'idée d'une certaine impuissance des pouvoirs publics. La journée de jeudi a ainsi été exceptionnellement sanglante: deux hommes ont été abattus, dont le fils du directeur sportif de l'OM José Anigo, à deux endroits différents, à Marseille et La Ciotat, ce qui ne s'était jamais produit.

Une pause dans la guéguerre politicienne

Ce double assassinat a comme stoppé net les querelles politiques locales qui agitent la ville à l'approche des municipales, y compris au sein même du PS, qui doit désigner son candidat au terme d'une primaire en octobre. Le sénateur-maire (UMP) Jean-Claude Gaudin, qui ne manquait pas une occasion d'assurer que le gouvernement «méprise» Marseille en ne lui attribuant pas assez d'effectifs policiers, a exhorté «tous ceux qui aiment cette ville» à «prendre leurs responsabilités et unir leurs efforts».
Les candidats PS, qui étalaient publiquement leurs divisions juste avant la venue du Premier ministre en août, ont eux aussi tempéré leurs discours. Comme s'ils avaient entendu l'avertissement venu de Russie de François Hollande, estimant préférable «que toutes les personnalités aillent dans le même sens».
Une autre mise en garde, cette fois sur le caractère uniquement sécuritaire des réponses à apporter, est venue du «Collectif du 1er juin», qui rassemble des personnes des quartiers populaires dont certaines mères de famille ayant perdu leurs enfants dans ces règlements de comptes: «le trafic de drogue ne peut être éradiqué par la seule réponse d'une présence policière toujours accrue. Nous souhaitons une instance de dialogue entre les pouvoirs publics et la société civile».

Colombia Santos: Farc 'to keep weapons until referendum'

 

Mr Santos is running for a second term in office in 2014

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said the Farc rebels would be allowed to keep their weapons until a peace agreement was ratified.

Mr Santos said no-one could expect the rebels to give up their weapons before a peace accord had been given final approval in a referendum.
He added that a ceasefire would be implemented once a deal was reached in talks under way in Cuba.
Critics say a referendum should not be held until the rebels disarm.
Mr Santos last month surprised the rebels when he proposed legislation demanding that any accord would have to be approved by the Colombian people in a referendum.
'Enemies of peace' "If we have an agreement, then we enter a third phase of implementation," President Santos said on Friday.
"And I have promised that the Colombian people would have the opportunity to have their say."
If peace negotiators engaged in talks since November last year reach a deal, it is likely that a referendum will be held on the same day of the May 2014 presidential vote.
But it could also be held in March, when Colombians vote on a new Congress.

 

The Colombian army seized grenades and weapons from the Farc in July

"The Colombian people will see the final work, the final package and decide. And I am certain that the Colombian people will back me up."
Mr Santos criticised "the enemies of peace." He said those opposed to an agreement to end five decades of conflict in Colombia "are trying to demonise the process and create fear in the country."
"If we reach some agreement, then we will have an immediate ceasefire. That is what we have agreed," Mr Santos said in an interview to BluRadio station in Bogota.

The rebels have called for a ceasefire throughout the negotiations, which began in Havana in November.

But the government said the rebels would use the truce to rearm and vowed to continue fighting until they signed an accord renouncing to the armed struggle.
Officially there has been agreement on only one of six points on the agenda - land reform.
But the government's chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, and the rebels hailed progress in the talks in a joint statement issued last month.
Five decades of internal conflict in Colombia have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
And a study by Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory suggests 220,000 people have died in the violence.

Greece boosts security for PM Samaras Thessaloniki speech

Coastguards joined a protest in Thessaloniki on Friday against austerity measures

Four thousand police have been deployed ahead of union protests in Thessaloniki where the Greek prime minister will give his annual speech on the economy.

Antonis Samaras is expected to back a continued austerity programme in his address at a trade fair in the city.
The unions are planning demonstrations against a government campaign of mass firings of civil servants.
Greece's economy has shrunk 23% since 2008. So far it has received two bailouts of about 240bn euros (£205bn).
Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras has said his country may need an additional 10bn rescue package, but he has rejected calls for an easing of austerity measures.
He also warned that Greece would not accept any new spending cuts imposed by the lending troika - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
As part of current bailout conditions, the government has been forced to impose drastic cuts, tax rises, and labour market and pension reforms.
'Stick to tough path' Mr Samaras is likely to call for Greece to stick to its tough path, while vaunting progress in reducing the deficit, the BBC's Mark Lowen reports from Thessaloniki.
Latest figures on Friday said improved tourism revenues between April and June had meant Greece's recession-hit economy had shrunk by less than expected.
The prime minister is also expected to address a call by Greece's creditors to close state-owned defence companies - a move the government has been resisting so far.
While the conservative prime minister believes Greece has come two-thirds of the way through its crippling crisis, many ordinary citizens do not see the glimmer of hope, our correspondent says.
The international trade fair in Thessaloniki is an annual event, which has typically attracted protests against austerity measures, he adds.
Greece's economy has shrunk further than any other in Europe. International creditors are expected to review the country's aid programme in the autumn.

Syria urges US Congress to block strike Head of parliament urges Congress to vote against conducting military strikes on Syria ahead of next week's debate.

The head of Syria's parliament has urged the US Congress to vote against military action targeting the Syrian regime, state news agency SANA said. "We urge you not to take reckless measures as you have the power to steer the United States from the path of war to that of diplomacy," SANA quoted parliament chief Jihad al-Lahham as saying on Friday. The message is intended to be sent to every member of the US Congress before they vote on a request from US President Barack Obama for authorisation to use military force against Syria. Obama has proposed limited strikes in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack on August 21, which Washington says was carried out by the Syrian government, a charge it denies. "Any military intervention would be illegal because Syria is a sovereign country and does not represent a threat to the United States, and any strike would not be authorised by the [UN] Security Council," Lahham said. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad urged the US Congress to "show wisdom" on the issue of authorising military strikes against Syria. President Bashar al-Assad has also warned of the consequences of any such action. "We cannot only talk about a Syrian response, but what could happen after the first strike," Assad said in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper. "Everyone will lose control of the situation once the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread. There is a risk of regional war." Russian warnings Meanwhile, Russia warned the United States against targeting Syria's chemical arsenal as Washington considered the use of force against Assad's regime. "With particular concern we perceive the fact that military infrastructure facilities securing the integrity and safety of Syria's chemical arsenal are among the possible targets for military strikes," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday. "In this respect we warn US authorities and their allies against striking any chemical facilities and adjacent territories," the statement said. "Such actions would represent a dangerous new turn in the tragic development of the Syria crisis," the ministry said, warning that the strikes could prompt the release of highly toxic substances. "Besides, one cannot rule out that militants and terrorists would gain access to chemical weapons or chemical warfare agents as a result of such a reckless move," the ministry said, expressing concern over the possible spread of chemical weapons further across Syria and beyond its borders. "The US bombing of Iraq's Al Muthanna chemical storage facility led to a serious contamination of adjacent territory in 1991," the statement said. "For peaceful residents of Syria and other countries of the region the consequences can be even more severe." The warnings from the Russian foreign ministry came as both President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama reiterated their positions against and for military action in Syria during speeches made at the G20 summit in St Petersburg.

syria strike set to hijack G20 agenda

Going to Congress: Obama’s Best Syria Decision

President Barack Obama announced two decisions today—one his own resolution, the other potentially far more historic. It might not be immediately obvious which was which. He began by saying that, ten days after what very much appears to have been a chemical-weapons attack outside of Damascus, “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets.” He spoke of the emotional reasons why (the children who died in their sleep) and what he hoped the national-security benefits would be (that part is still muddled). But note the verb: “should take military action”—not will—which set up Obama’s second, more important, and quite correct decision: “I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.”

I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. … I believe that the people’s representatives must be invested in what America does abroad.

Congress is out of town now, and Obama is not calling on them to reconvene. He said that Saturday morning he’d spoken “with all four congressional leaders, and they’ve agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.” That will be September 9th, though the leaders can call them back if they want to. The President said that time was not against him here: “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose,” he said. “Moreover, the chairman has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now.”
After the speech, a correspondent on CNN wondered how that would sound to Syrians suffering from the war—if they might be angry, as the fighting continued. But since the President also made clear that his goal was not regime change, or “putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war,” that wasn’t going to be stopped anyway. Dropping a few missiles and leaving, which is what the President has in mind, could as easily be an instrument of increased chaos—one of many points that ought to be debated in Congress. A quick strike is something that the Assad regime could put behind it, and sometimes a spectre can be more of a deterrent than a strike. The delay, as frustrating as it might be for some, means at minimum a period of uncertainty for the regime forces. And it pauses what had been a headlong rush to do something—anything that would make us forget those pictures—without thinking the next steps through or caring what happens afterward in Syria. By waiting and deliberating, this becomes, despite all the posturing that will take place, more about the Syrians, and less about our grief-stricken selves.
Did Obama have to do this because when Prime Minister David Cameron went to Parliament he lost? I’ve argued that he did: it removed the idea that any military action would be a sort of no-jury-could-convict-me, anyone-would-do-it response to an attack—that consent could be assumed. It left the President so alone that, looking for a friend in Washington, he’d actually go to Congress. And yet NBC News reported that the majority of the President’s national-security staff was against the decision to ask for authorization; the AP said that officials ”describe a president overriding all his top national security advisers.” If so, Obama deserves credit for not listening.
This may be the first sensible step that Obama has taken in the Syrian crisis, and may prove to be one of the better ones of his Presidency—even if he loses the vote, as could happen. Politically, he may have just saved his second term from being consumed by Benghazi-like recriminations and spared himself Congressional mendacity about what they all might have done. It will likely divide the G.O.P. Although he said that he didn’t really, truly need to ask Congress for permission, he is doing so. Presidents—including Obama, in his decision to ignore the War Powers Act in Libya despite its clear application—have abandoned even the pretense that they need to seek Congressional approval. (Representative Peter King has already complained that the President is “abdicating”—a verb that tells you a lot about why this was a good decision.)
If he loses it’s not unambiguously clear, given how ill-thought out the military strategy appears to be at this point, that Syria, or even his Presidency, will be worse off. (See George Packer’s post on the possible costs, and wonder for a minute if getting the Gulf of Tonkin resolution through was such a victory for Johnson.) “Our democracy is stronger when the President and the people’s representatives stand together,” Obama said; he might have added that it can also be stronger when they stand apart, as long as they are standing up, voting, and being counted. As for his goal of reasserting the importance of international norms, laws, and processes—he would only have undermined that by heading off alone, and can at least live by it by losing.
Would a loss in Congress mean that there is impunity for the use of chemical weapons? That is what Obama will argue: “Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?” That case will only be stronger if it is argued in front of a legislature and the public, and not in a closed room in the White House. And a loss, as devastating as it might feel, might do less to undermine the possibility of a future consensus than a reckless strike that could have gone very, very wrong, and left too many people regretting having cared. A no vote could also shake other countries out of the view that international treaties and bodies are for show, while the real decisions happen in Washington, and lead to a strengthening of them.
Or it might go badly. Obama is certainly taking a risk, but that’s what the Presidency should be, and this one is worth it. The worst outcomes would involve either Congress or the President dodging this moment and its meaning. Congress might do so by constructing some legislative monstrosity, as it did during the debt-ceiling crisis, that relies on a complicated series of mechanisms that assure nothing—except that whatever happens is Obama’s fault—or too-sweeping powers. And the most disastrous thing that Obama could do is not admitting that he’s lost if he does, and bombing anyway. Perhaps it’s too optimistic to say that today’s decision might be what keeps some future President, our country, and who knows what other nation and people from the sort of tragedy that destroys cities. But it will certainly help, in an area where the world needs all the help it can get. And that makes this a morally important moment for the President as well.
Photograph by Kristoffer Tripplaar/Getty.
Photograph by Kristoffer Tripplaar/Getty
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Backblogged: Our Five Favorite Sentences of the Week

“The President was right in his assertion Wednesday afternoon that Martin Luther King, Jr., had not died in vain, but neither did he die to be merely commemorated.” From “Requiem for a Dream,” by Jelani Cobb.
“No civilization we think worth studying, or whose relics we think worth visiting, existed without what amounts to an English department—texts that mattered, people who argued about them as if they mattered, and a sense of shame among the wealthy if they couldn’t talk about them, at least a little, too.” From “Why Teach English?” by Adam Gopnik.

“The sound of Ronstadt’s voice—invincibility, bravery, emotion channelled into intelligence and art—is the sound of overcoming anything.” From “Different Drum: The Power of Linda Ronstadt’s Voice,” by Sarah Larson.
“Poets place their voices inside our heads, so close to our thoughts that it feels as though we’ve thought them up.” From “Postscript: Seamus Heaney (1939-2013),” by Dan Chiasson.
“HIPSTER. One who has an irrational hatred of hipsters. ” From “In Place of Thought,” by Teju Cole.
Photograph by Rex Features/AP.

Why the Tax Decision Matters for Same-Sex Marriage

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issued regulations which provide that the federal government will now recognize all same-sex marriages for tax purposes, whether or not couples live in states where gay marriage is legal. This is the most far-reaching implementation of the Supreme Court’s ruling, earlier this summer, overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
DOMA had barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. When the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in late June, it did not offer much guidance as to how the government should put that decision into practice. The Treasury and I.R.S. rulings are sweeping in their coverage and impact, not to mention their symbolic resonance: Could there be a more decisive way for a government to declare its citizens married than to require that they say so on their tax forms?

The new rules mandate that if you are in a same-sex marriage, no matter where you live, you have to file federal taxes as a married person and be subject to relevant tax rates. The I.R.S. says that more than two hundred provisions in the tax code and other federal regulations refer to marriage, according to Bloomberg News. Couples with unequal incomes could end up paying less than they’d paid as single people, while those with relatively equal incomes could have to pay more, Bloomberg said. This also makes it possible for gay spouses to inherit money without having to pay taxes on it, as heterosexuals can now do.
But the truth is that, on Thursday, many gay Americans and their allies weren’t thinking about what this would mean for their tax bills; this was, instead, about fair and equal treatment.
The regulations will also likely prove useful to the gay-marriage cause. If your same-sex marriage was valid where it was performed, the federal government will recognize it, no matter where you live. (This is the opposite of the pre-DOMA rule, which said that the federal government would not recognize your valid marriage, even if you lived in a state that did.) That means that married same-sex couples living in states without marriage equality will see the federal government recognize their marriages, while their state government doesn’t. Couples in, say, Alabama, now get a government-issued mark of validity; this could pressure such states to take another look at their own laws governing same-sex marriages.
The change is especially significant because litigation around same-sex marriage has seen a sharp increase since the Supreme Court ruling. Court battles are being waged in eighteen states where gay marriage is not yet legal. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that Thursday’s announcement “provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide.” He also said that the ruling “assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.” That is exactly what advocates for same-sex marriage sought from the federal government.
Thursday’s decision also increases the chances that, in the next three to five years, states without marriage equality will be seen as outliers, increasingly isolated not only from other states but from the federal government, as well.
Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that opened the door to these new rules, said in a statement, “Thanks to today’s ruling at the Treasury Department, no one will have to experience the pain and indignity that I went through ever again.” She spoke for many.
Richard Socarides is an attorney, political strategist, writer, and longtime gay-rights advocate. He served as White House Special Assistant and Senior Adviser during the Clinton Administration. Follow him on Twitter @Socarides.
Photograph by Stephen Lam/Reuters

Chelsea Manning’s Prison

One of the sadder things about the life of Chelsea, formerly Bradley, Manning is that she always seems to have been in the wrong place—at a time when there surely is a right place for her. As a kid, Manning was a gay, geeky, opinionated atheist growing up in a conservative Oklahoma town she once described as having “more pews than people.” She was all those things—and a foreigner, too—in the next place she lived, Haverfordwest, Wales, where Manning moved with her mother, an alcoholic who struggled with everything. She was all those things, plus cross-dressing and opposed to the war in Iraq, while she was deployed to Baghdad, working in computer intelligence to advance that very war. A profile of Manning that ran in the Times in 2010 described a brief period when she was hanging out in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a boyfriend, a student at Brandeis who was a classical-music-loving, self-described drag queen, and the boyfriend’s circle. Reading about that interlude, it’s hard not to think this was where Manning belonged, with the kind of cyber-nerds and gender activists who feel most at home in the penumbra of a college campus. If only she’d been on a track to join that milieu, as opposed to, say, the Army, where she was stranded with people she saw as “a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger happy ignorant rednecks,” things would have turned out so much better—at least for Manning. Whether we would have ever found out some of the things Manning leaked that we deserve to know about the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is another matter.

Now Manning has announced that she is transgender and will henceforth be known as Chelsea, and referred to with feminine pronouns, just after having been sentenced to thirty-five years at Fort Leavenworth. A military prison, it is reputedly a worse place to be incarcerated if you are a trans person than a federal or state prison. “The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder,” Kimberly Lewis, a spokeswoman for Fort Leavenworth, told NBC News.
To many people—those who aren’t crazy about the idea of providing prisoners with health care at all, let alone health care for gender dysphoria, or those who consider Manning a traitor and thus deserving of whatever indignities can be heaped upon her—that’s no surprise and just as it should be. But that kind of blanket denial of treatment is very much at odds with principles established for non-military prisons, which in recent years have largely accepted the idea that trans people are entitled to hormones and in some cases surgery while incarcerated. Increasingly, the view is that denying such care to inmates with diagnosed gender identity disorders may be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2010, a settlement reached in a case called Adams v. Federal Bureau of Prisons held that treatment for gender identity disorder could not be frozen at whatever level it was before a trans inmate entered a federal prison, a common practice up till then. Not having started hormone treatment or having been diagnosed with a gender disorder while on the outside would no longer preclude getting such services while behind bars. (Manning, as it happens, had already been given her diagnosis—by an Army psychologist.) In 2011, the A.C.L.U. and Lambda Legal successfully challenged a Wisconsin law that prevented doctors from prescribing hormones or sex-reassignment surgery to prisoners. As Jennifer Levi, an attorney with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, told me, “Every time courts have considered this question, they’ve acknowledged that gender identity disorder or dysphoria is a real and serious medical condition and that denying care for it has constitutional, Eighth Amendment implications.”
A piece of legislation called the Prison Rape Elimination Act has also affected the lives of trans inmates in civilian prisons. An unusual array of organizations on both the left and the right—Amnesty International and the Concerned Women for America, the N.A.A.C.P. and Focus on the Family—supported the legislation, which was aimed at monitoring and reducing sexual abuse in prisons. The bill passed by unanimous vote in both the House and Senate in 2003, and in 2012, the Department of Justice issued a set of rules for implementing it. The wait was long, but the rules were remarkably forward-looking. And they had particular significance for L.G.B.T. people, who experience sexual assault in prison at much higher rates than heterosexual inmates do. According to a 2012 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, for instance, 3.5 per cent of heterosexual men reported being sexually abused by another inmate, compared to thirty-nine per cent of gay men. Prison is far from a haven for gay or gender-nonconforming people. (That should not be necessary to point out, and yet somehow the Daily Beast ran a column last week that in its original form suggested Chelsea Manning might enjoy the sexual opportunities in prison; it has since been amended.)
The new rules say that officials in civilian prisons (or county jails or juvenile-detention facilities or short-term police lock-ups) must determine on a case-by-case basis where to house a trans inmate—in a male facility or a female one, and in what kind of rooming arrangement—and that the decision must take into account “the individual’s own perception of their vulnerability.” They stipulate that prisons should not always resort to protective custody for trans inmates, since that means consigning them to isolation, but should consider other options, such as relocating an abuser, changing cellmates, or placing the trans inmate in a single-occupancy cell in the general population. They call for reassessing the placements at least twice year, to take into account, for example, changes in appearance or medical status. Staff are to be trained in recognizing and preventing sexual abuse and also in “interacting professionally with L.G.B.T. and gender nonconforming people.” And if prisons are found to be out of compliance with these rules, they pay a financial penalty. As Terry Schuster notes on the Web site of The Atlantic, “Taken together, these policies and training requirements are more comprehensive than those required in most schools and workplaces.”
Private Manning is in the wrong place again. But for once, it may not be the wrong time. Nor is she alone and invisible, as so many prisoners are. The next chapter of Manning’s story may start a discussion not about Iraq but about our prisons at home. If she were to sue for the right to treatment for her gender dysphoria, she might just win.
Photograph by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.
This post originally misidentified the publication that suggested Manning might enjoy the sexual opportunities in prison. The column in question ran in the Daily Beast, not the Huffington Post.

When Corporations Fail at Doing Good

Thousands of American fast-food workers went on strike Thursday, rallying for an increase in wages to fifteen dollars an hour, more than double the federal minimum wage. Some businesspeople responded by saying they want to improve wages and working conditions at their companies voluntarily, under the theory that their competitors will have to follow if they don’t want to lose their best workers.
Tom Douglas, the owner of fourteen Seattle restaurants, raised his kitchen workers’ starting wage to fifteen dollars an hour earlier this month, he told National Public Radio. Douglas said he does not believe government should mandate businesses to raise wages—or to require much of anything, really, including sick leave. Instead, he believes the food industry should rely on the magic of the market to provide workers with higher pay.
It’s fashionable, these days, for companies to tout their commitment to bettering society without any need for government involvement. They argue that the market will reward good deeds, so the public sector need not issue mandates. This rhetoric is appealing, but it doesn’t always line up with the facts.
Consider Indra Nooyi, Pepsi’s charismatic C.E.O. Early in her tenure, Nooyi realized that the public would increasingly pressure the firm to make its products healthier. Nooyi argued that a shift toward healthier products would be good for society at large and for Pepsi’s bottom line; John Seabrook wrote about the effort in a 2011 article about Nooyi’s approach.
Nooyi has backed up her rhetoric with concrete steps, acquiring healthier brands like Tropicana and Quaker Oats and creating Pepsi Next, a lower-calorie version of the flagship brand. She even hired a former official from the World Health Organization to oversee the reforms. Initially, Nooyi won wide acclaim for her efforts. Fortune hailed her as the most powerful woman in business five years in a row, and institutions including New York University and Duke University gave her honorary degrees.
However, Pepsi’s investors have long been skeptical. During her tenure, Coca-Cola’s stock price doubled while Pepsi stagnated, even losing its number-two position in the cola market to Diet Coke in 2010. Investors believe that Nooyi’s socially responsible vision is a bad business strategy that diverts resources from Pepsi’s successful, if unhealthy, core brands. Hundreds of millions of new consumers in emerging markets are clamoring to buy Pepsi’s existing products today, calories and all; with Pepsi’s marketing budget spread thin, they are buying Coke instead. Relenting to this pressure on the bottom line, Pepsi last year announced management changes and appeared to signal that it would step back from Nooyi’s “performance with a purpose” business strategy.
The Pepsi case shows that doing good does not always lead to doing well financially, a conclusion supported by decades of academic research. There are a lot of theories about how corporate social responsibility helps companies retain workers, keep them motivated and productive, and boost firms’ reputations, but real-world data doesn’t necessarily corroborate this. Nooyi’s high-profile setback is just another signal to other C.E.O.s about which bottom line matters most.
Companies’ social-responsibility efforts are also likely to be hindered by the important business maxim that “you can only manage what you can measure.” In an effort to make management more scientific, we teach business-school students lots of quantitative skills but offer few tools to measure social impact. C.E.O.s will find it challenging to quantify the benefits of a charitable-giving program or an education initiative. During inevitable downturns in the business cycle, these programs are easy targets for cost savings. That is why corporate philanthropy typically declines in recessions. It’s also a reason the current corporate-social-responsibility craze might not last long.
The only corporate social responsibility that is likely to survive will be activities that the firm should be doing anyway to increase profits. When Walmart requires its suppliers to be more energy efficient, the company lowers its costs. When General Electric champions investments in clean energy, its wind-turbine business benefits. These initiatives are less about corporate social responsibility than they are about business strategy.
The more interesting cases, where C.E.O.s like Nooyi or Starbucks’s Howard Schultz place social impact ahead of short-terms profits, may be difficult to sustain in today’s corporate world. The ruthless focus by investors on quarterly results—and their pressure on C.E.O.s to keep those results in line—gives companies little incentive to continue their focus on social impact when their profits are at risk. As James Surowiecki wrote in early August, fast-food companies have slim profit margins, which makes it especially complicated for them to boost workers’ pay to a level that is capable of supporting a middle-class family. So while Tom Douglas’s employees in Seattle will benefit from their boss’s benevolence, millions of other low-wage restaurant employees have little reason to expect that their employers will follow his lead. It makes sense, then, for them to keep the pressure on their employers, and on the government.
Aaron Chatterji is an Associate Professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. From 2010 to 2011, he was Senior Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers
Photograph by Brian Snyder/Reuters.