Russia’s Putin brings leopards back to Caucasus

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin released two leopards into the wild Saturday in a bid to revive the fortunes of the rare cats in the Caucasus and soothe ecological worries over 2014 Sochi Games.

Caucasian or Persian leopards disappeared from the Caucasus in the 1920s due to excessive hunting. Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sent two male leopards caught in Turkmenistan by plane to Sochi. Female leopards are to follow.

“We are standing here and admiring your animals. Glorious animals, very beautiful,” Putin, surrounded by International Olympic Committee members, told Berdymukhamedov by telephone as he stood by the cage in the Sochi national park.

Russia won the right to host 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and major construction works are about to begin.

Critics say huge construction projects may harm the environment. They question the need for spending billions of dollars on the games during a financial crisis and say they do not believe all the infrastructure would be ready by 2014.

“I think Russia is on its way to organizing an exceptional Olympic Games,” French Alpine skiing legend and IOC member Jean-Claude Killy told reporters.

Russia’s most popular politician, Putin, enjoys a tough guy image, being photographed riding bare-chested on horse back, fishing in Siberia or saving tigers in Russia’s Far East.

Saturday, Putin stared in silence at one of the leopards, which initially refused to abandon his traveling cage, visibly stressed after its long journey.

“Good boy,” Putin said as the cat snarled at him and jumped out while guards and reporters pulled back. “We have found common language, they understand me,” said Putin.

The leopards will gradually move to a larger fenced area of the park before they are released into the wild. Scientists plan to bring female leopards at a later stage and hope some 30-50 cats will be living around Sochi in six years.

Source:
Reuters, “Russia’s Putin brings leopards back to Caucasus“, accessed September 23, 2009

Iran - the stakes go up

One day after one of the strangest United Nations General Assembly and Security Council sessions, Iran admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been operating an undeclared nuclear facility. The revelation was prompted by the fact that the Iranians had discovered that their secret was a secret no more, that American and French intelligence services had been monitoring the site for over a year.

That begs the obvious question - why didn’t President Obama reveal this little gem when either addressing the General Assembly or chairing the Security Council meeting on, of all things, nuclear proliferation? That would have been a perfect opportunity to put the Iranians on the spot, on the defensive. For whatever reason, the President opted to keep the information to himself.

Fearing that the information was about to be released, the Iranians decided to take control of the release and notify the IAEA. This prompted a three way announcement from President Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy, condemning Iran’s failure to abide by international agreements and Security Council resolutions.

Iran is already under economic sanctions, ineffective though they may be. There are talks scheduled for October 1 between the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany on one side and Iran on the other. Iran had provided a rambling document on what it has agreed to discuss, insisting that the nuclear program was not up for negotiation. The revelation of the new, undeclared nuclear facility may change that.

France came to the United Nations meeting not in favor of tougher sanctions on Iran. After the Iranian acknowledgement of its failure to abide by the rules, the French may go along with an American and British call for the new sanctions. The most effective sanctions will be a cut off of Iran’s imports of refined gasoline.

The key to effective sanctions will be Russia and China. Russia is now favorably disposed toward the United States after President Obama’s surprise cancellation of the ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. There may have been a quid pro quo - we dismantle the missile defenses and Russia supports sanctions on Iran.

That leaves China. China has recently begun shipping gasoline to Iran. China has been against any increased sanctions on China. At best they will not support tougher sanctions, at worst they will veto the attempt. In any case, sanctions are not likely to be effective.

This is not happening in a vacuum. The Iranian oppossition group Mujahidin-e Khalq (MEK) claims that Iran is working on detonators for nuclear devices. Once regarded as alarmists with no credibility, the MEK was the first group to provide accurate information on the Iranian nuclear program. If this information is equally accurate, it shows that the Iranian program is nearing the weapons design stage. Once they have enriched enough uranium to the level required for weaponization, they will be able to construct a crude device.

The Israelis are of course aware of all this information. They have been uncharacteristically vocal about their intentions to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. If there is no effective United Nations or other international action that prevents Iran from developing a weapon, the Israelis will attempt a difficult, complex military operation.

The consequences of military action against Iran will will reverberate around the world. Iran is not only positioned between two deployed American forces - Iraq and Afghanistan - they are providing weaponry to both sets of enemies. Additionally, they are the world’s premier supporters and practitioners of terrorism. Expect increased activity on all these fronts.

Sanctions are unlikely to deter Iran, so military action - most likely from Israel since the current American administration seems unwilling to really “engage” Iran - seems unavoidable.

The stakes have gone up. Now is the time to address the Iranian problem - it has been festering since 1979. I hope President Obama is up to the task. Given his track record thus far, I am unconvinced.

Nations reject unilateralism in face of global challenges at UN

Nations addressing the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate today spoke out against unilateralism as the world tackles its most pressing challenges, including the current global economic turmoil and climate change.

Liberia urges UN to focus attention on gender issues, appoint more women

The United Nations system is in urgent need of reform to ensure there is gender equality in all its organs and related agencies, Liberia’s Vice-President told the high-level General Assembly debate today.

Formula for determining dues of UN Member States needs reform - Bahamas

The Bahamas called today for the United Nations to overhaul the scale of assessments that determines how much each Member State must pay to fund the running of the Organization, saying the current system is based on an unjust formula that punishes some countries.

Ban voices grave concern over new Iranian fuel enrichment plant

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed grave concern tonight about Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities in light of news that a new uranium enrichment facility is being constructed in the country.

Hearing Voices: LaTanya Lloyd, Tenant Activist; The Crisis of UtilityShutoffs in Metro Detroit

Hearing Voices: LaTanya Lloyd, tenant activist

Posted by Darrell Dawsey Friday, September 25, 2009 at 12:17 pm
http://detroit.blogs.time.com/

Stories are often best told by the people who live them. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce to my corner of the Detroit Blog an occasional segment I call “Hearing Voices,” a series of first-person takes on the realities of life in our area.

LaTanya Lloyd, 39, is a wife and mother of two who helped lead fellow tenants of the Highland Towers Apartments, located in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park, in protests against utility provider DTE Energy. The pickets, sparked after the utility company cut the building’s power in a payment dispute with the ownership, escalated into to legal action. On Sept. 11, after almost two weeks of residents living in the dark, a judge ordered DTE to turn the juice back on for a week so the 150 tenants could relocate. Lloyd explains what compelled her to fight (for) the power…

Me and my children were in our apartment back on Sept. 1 — when everything just suddenly went dark.

We talked to a few people, and we found out that all the power had gone off in the whole building. At first everybody was confused. But you know, it doesn’t take very long to figure out that the utility company has turned off your lights. We just didn’t know why.

When we got in touch with DTE, they told us that our lights were turned off because our landlord hadn’t paid the utility bill. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t pay! The tenants paid every month. Our utilities were part of our rent.

It turned out that the owner had sold the building — but we didn’t know. We were just paying rent like we always did. The property manager took our rent for 15 months, knowing the building had been sold but not telling us they weren’t paying the bills!

When we went to talk to DTE, it was like DTE just didn’t…I hate to say it, but it was like they just didn’t give a s***. One of the executives told us that the landlord owed over $150,000 to DTE. He said, “No, we’re not turning the power back on. This is a business, and we’re in business to make money.”

We understood that the (past owner) hadn’t paid the bill. All we wanted was for them to give us enough time to move. We weren’t asking for a handout — but not everybody has the money to move right away. Nobody here is rich. Plus, we had families to think about, too — older people, children. How can you come in and throw 80-something families out on the street? But it was like DTE didn’t care.

A few days after the power went out, a man named Abayomi from Moratorium Now! approached us. Moratorium Now! works with people in the community to stop unfair evictions and foreclosures. And that’s basically what this was – an unfair eviction. Once they got involved, things changed real fast. We got hooked up with Legal Aid and Defenders attorneys, and we took DTE to court.

They still kept fighting us! They told the judge lies about giving us notice, things like that. We never saw any notice from them. Our notice was the power going out.

We’re human beings, and we matter. And we just weren’t going to let them do that to us without a fight. And we didn’t.

And you know…we won.

August 31, 2009 http://detnews.com/article/20090831/METRO/908310356

DTE payment plan leaves some cold

Shut-Off Protection program helps, until 1 payment missed

CATHERINE JUN
The Detroit News

Detroit — Out of work following a heart attack and several strokes, James Whitley made a deal with his utility company.

He agreed to nip away at the $3,500 he owed for gas and electricity, paying just $70 a month.

The plan worked until he missed a payment. The utility then asked for the entire amount. He couldn’t pay, and his power was cut.

“I was doing really good,” said 52-year-old Whitley. “I missed one payment.”

Whitley is one of thousands who have enrolled in one of DTE Energy’s payment plans targeting seniors and low-income customers. The utility offers a year-round plan, called the Shut-Off Protection Plan, which promises to keep the utilities on provided that customers pay their outstanding balance through extended payments.

DTE is now ramping up efforts to sign up low-income customers onto the plan, company officials said. But advocates for the poor say such programs have strict requirements that don’t consider the financial uncertainty of Michigan’s poor. When customers miss a payment, they’re kicked off the plan and face shutoff.

Unable to manage his bills, Whitley eventually lost his home. He now lives with his nephew in Carleton.

DTE officials say the plans are designed to help their most vulnerable customers make their payments. They’re also one way the company, which has millions in uncollected bills, seeks to collect on delinquent customers.

Several factors can contribute to customers racking up thousands in unpaid bills. Some defer most of their utility payments in the winter when they are protected from shutoff. Others delay payments because of medical emergencies. More than a quarter of DTE’s 50,000 low-income customers enrolled in the protection plan defaulted in July. At Consumers Energy, which offers a similar plan with the same name, 1,459 of its 31,294 enrolled customers defaulted in the same month.

Most vulnerable defaulting

Most often, it is the most vulnerable customers — seniors and low-income families — who accrue thousands of dollars in arrearages, mostly in the winter months when utilities are prohibited from shutting off their power. During these months, customers only pay a fraction of their annual bill.

When winter ends, those customers have to start making payments toward their balance again or they face shutoff.

In recent years, both utilities have pushed to sign struggling customers onto the Shut-Off Protection Plan, which requires a 10 percent down payment of the balance. The remainder must be paid over 12 to 24 months. A missed payment kicks the customer off the plan and leaves three options: pay the entire balance, lose service or start the payment plan over with another 10 percent down payment.

“For the most part, that works until a calamity befalls,” said John X. Miller, executive director of The Heat and Warmth Fund, a Detroit-based agency that provides cash assistance for utility bills.

The agency depleted its state funds in May and is now seeking federal funds to continue until October.

“The dire circumstances of folks in Michigan has gotten worse,” Miller added.

For the last two years, Denyell Pierce, 31, struggled to get out from under a $5,000 utility bill. Disabled from severe herniated disks at the age of 22, she lives month-to-month on food stamps and disability checks. A missed payment on a reduced payment plan in 2007 left her with no power.

She endured several shutoffs before receiving $1,400 in help from the Department of Human Services. This month, Pierce signed back onto the plan, with a $700 down payment. She still owes $7,303.

“I have to borrow the money.” Pierce said. “They claim they help, they say they help. But they don’t.”

Options offer temporary fix

This summer, state officials have doled out as much as $32 million of the $245 million in federal help to people like Pierce, customers who have accrued whopping balances with their utilities. That amounted to help for nearly 76,000 households.

The utilities in Michigan agreed to supplement 25 percent of the assistance, which amounts to about $11 million.

“It went really fast,” said Barbara Anders, director of the Bureau of Adult and Family Services at the Michigan Department of Human Services, who helps administer the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

“That’s a real good indicator in terms of the number of people that had arrearages,” she added.

Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, said that the amount of utility assistance available in Michigan, in the form of financial assistance and payment options with utility companies, is better than in most other states.

Michigan’s federal allocation for utility assistance this year was the second largest among recipient states; Illinois was first.

But the poverty and chronic unemployment here may be too great for programs that are primarily designed to offer temporary fixes.

“They’re good programs, but they’re not programs designed for people that have very little money left,” Wolfe said. “That’s a new thing.”

David Johnson, customer care operations manager at DTE Energy, said when customers miss a payment, the staff works aggressively to reach out to them.

The company now sends case management workers and volunteers to churches and community events to inform customers about assistance programs.

DTE and Consumers introduced their Shut-Off Protection Plans after the state Public Service Commission approved the plan in late 2007.

In a phone interview, Mick Hiser, director of the state’s service quality division, said that the plans were welcomed as an additional protection for desperate customers from shutoffs beyond the winter months. He said the protections for consumers include waivers for reconnection fees and the option to sign back onto the plan.

Still, shutoffs continue.

DTE has ordered 115,000 utility shutoffs this year, a figure sure to outpace last year’s total of 142,000. Consumers has tallied 66,274 as of July.

Officials at DTE say the company has $500 million in unpaid consumer bills from the last five years. The company, along with its subsidiary MichCon, provides 3.2 million customers with electricity and gas.

Consumers Energy, with 3.5 million customers, expects this year to have $53 million in unpaid customer accounts, up from $46 million in 2008.The payment program’s success could affect all of the utilities’ customers. If the utilities can’t cover their losses, the burden falls on paying customers through rate increases.

Starting in September, MichCon customers will pay an average of $3.48 more a month to help reimburse the gas provider’s $87 million in unpaid bills last year. The fee will be charged for 15 months.

“The more people that can’t pay their bill, that affects the rate base,” Wolfe said.

“It’s a real problem. You have a lot of problems in Michigan that create more problems.”

cjun@detnews.com”>cjun@detnews.com (313) 222-2019