Malaysian PM unveils new cabinet
By Jonathan Head
BBC South East Asia correspondent

Malaysian PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has unveiled a substantially changed government line-up.
He was responding to the worst election result by Malaysia's governing party for 50 years.

More than half the members of the cabinet are new faces, including some well-known dissident figures.

Mr Abdullah has been widely criticised for his low-key leadership style, at a time when the government is confronting strong public disenchantment.

Never before has Malaysia's prime minister seemed this bold or decisive.

Gone are half the old faces in the cabinet, including tough-talking Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz who had held her job for more than two decades.

Newcomers

In their places, Abdullah Badawi has brought in some surprising newcomers - Zaid Ibrahim, a reformist lawyer who has been given the task of shaking up the tarnished judiciary, and Shahrir Abdul Samad, a strident dissident voice within the governing party.

The cabinet has also been slimmed down, to make it more efficient.

The normally cautious Mr Abdullah had little choice.

Malaysia's political landscape has been transformed after the historic drubbing voters gave his government 10 days ago, when it lost its two-thirds majority for the first time in 50 years.

There have been calls from within his own party, Umno, for his resignation.

The prime minister will now need to show that he is willing to act against problems like corruption within Umno, rising crime and heightened racial tension, if he is to win back disaffected voters.

But doing that runs the risk of upsetting powerful vested interests within the governing party, which could endanger Mr Abdullah's chances of re-election as party leader later this year.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7303560.stm

March 18, 2008, 7:41 am
iPhone Users Love That Mobile Web
By BRAD STONE
The last thing anyone wants to do is to give iPhone users another chance to crow about their phone’s slick interface and seamless connection to the Web. But, until now, little was known about the media habits of iPhone users and how they have diverged from the activities of mere mortals who own run-of-the mill smartphones and regular mobile phones.

Tuesday, M:Metrics, a measurement firm that studies mobile media, has released a survey of iPhone users six months after the device was released to long lines and nearly unending fanfare.

The results, from a January survey of more than 10,000 adults, are somewhat dramatic. 84.8 percent of iPhone users report accessing news and information from the hand-held device. That compares to 13.1 percent of the overall mobile phone market and 58.2 percent of total smartphone owners – which include those poor saps with Blackberries and devices that run Windows.

The study found that 58.6 percent of iPhone users visited a search engine on their phone, compared to 37 percent of smartphone users in general and a scant 6.1 percent of mobile phone users.

The market for mobile video once seemed like a non-starter in the United States. Well, 30.9 percent of iPhone users have tuned into mobile TV or a video clip from their phone, more than double the percentage that have watched on a smartphone.

Finally, 74.1 percent of iPhone users listen to music on their iTunes-equipped device. Only 27.9 percent of smartphone users listen to music on their phone and 6.7 percent of the overall mobile-phone-toting public listens to music on their mobile device.

Mark Donovan, an analyst at M:Metrics, says a major factor in the iPhone’s success as a media platform can be credited to AT&T and its unlimited data plan for iPhone users. “Once you take away the uncertainty of data charging, you really incentive people to use the device,” he said.

But then he gushes about the iPhone, sounding a lot like another died-in-the-wool iPhone convert (which, he concedes, he is.) “Apple really made a device that is Internet-centric and really fits the kind of digital lifestyle that a lot of people who are jacked into the Internet all the time are used to,” he said. “They did a great job of crushing some of the sweet spots of mobile Internet usage.”

March 19, 2008
Progress in U.S.-Russia Talks

By THOM SHANKER
MOSCOW — The United States and Russia announced on Tuesday they had agreed to negotiate a “strategic framework” that would formally put in writing the basic elements of their relationship, but the two sides failed to end the deep division over American plans to base missile defenses in Europe.

Conciliation was the tone set by the American secretaries of state and defense and by their Russian counterparts at the end of two days of negotiations here. Yet tangible results remained elusive as both sides agreed mostly that it was important to keep talking through the end of this administration and into the next, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia leaves office, followed by President Bush.

“We have agreed that there should be a joint strategic framework document for the presidents to be able to record all of the elements of the U.S.-Russian relationship as we go forward into the future,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced.

She said the negotiations here had brought consensus on exactly which aspects of the relationship would be included in the document, to include trade, counter-terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Her counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said the talks also covered “some contentious issues where we have not reached agreement as of now,” in particular missile defense and the legal form of a future bilateral limit on nuclear weapons.

Mr. Lavrov acknowledged that Ms. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had made a significant effort during the talks to “try to allay our concerns” over American plans to place a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland. The Americans have said the system is designed to thwart missile attacks launched from Iran.

Russia has argued that the system could threaten its own missiles as well. Mr. Gates said the system would not be any threat to the Russian arsenal.

“We had the opportunity today to elaborate on a number of confidence-building measures and measures for transparency, to provide assurance to the Russians that our missile sites and radars do not constitute a threat to Russia,” Mr. Gates said.

Among the offers, he explained, was one to allow Russian inspectors into American missile defense sites, although that also would require approval from the Czech and Polish governments.

“I think both President Putin and our Russian colleagues today found these ideas useful and important,” Mr. Gates said. “They will be studying them further.”

American officials expressed frustration that the Russians had not come up with fresh counter-proposals to the American missile defense plans, but agreed to work through Tuesday night putting the entire set of American proposals on missile defense into writing for study by the Russians. That effort is in part a repeat of what was done with Ms. Rice and Mr. Gates visited Moscow last October to discuss missile defense.

The most negative assessment of the impasse on missile defense issues came from Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who said, “In principle our positions have not changed.”

The two sides also failed to reach a deal -- but agreed to continue talks -- on what sort of pact might set limits on their nuclear arsenals after current treaties expire.

In the morning, Ms. Rice met with some of Russia s leading liberal opposition politicians, who have been increasingly marginalized under Mr. Putin’s government. But among those not in attendance were some of the most provocative figures, including Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion.

During talks on Monday, President Putin endorsed portions of a private proposal from President Bush that could lead to a new strategic framework between the two nations and attempt to sooth bilateral tensions.

Mr. Putin said the proposal sent in a letter from from Mr. Bush, which previously had not been disclosed, was “a very serious document.” Even so, Mr. Putin and his protégé, Dmitri A. Medvedev, the president elect, both warned that significant differences remained.

Time for Real Change on the Economy and Taxes
by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)
Posted 03/18/2008 ET
Updated 03/18/2008 ET

The news on the economy this week is increasingly unsettling.

Gas prices continue to rise, with inflationary ripple effects throughout the economy. And the bust of the subprime mortgage market has now spread throughout the credit markets to such a degree that Bear Stearns, the fifth largest American investment bank, was sold last weekend in a firesale.

Worse still, Wall Street's banks have essentially stopped lending. The appetite for any type of risk has come to a screeching stop. The problem is that a modern economy can't grow, let alone be sustained, for very long when banks stop lending. Companies use loans to finance operations, new equipment, and new acquisitions. That means if companies can't borrow, many will ultimately go out of business and thousands of people will lose their jobs.

First Step: Immediate Action Needed to Stabilize the Housing Market and Keep People in their Homes

In January, I wrote that the Washington insider "stimulus" package that was then being prepared (which subsequently passed) was "too small, too temporary and clearly inadequate for the scale of the economic problems we face."

Since then, our economic challenges have only grown. Seventy percent of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal believe the country is currently in recession. In February, national foreclosure filings jumped 60%, with California alone experiencing a 131% jump from the previous year. Many Americans are finding that their largest investment (their home) has lost value; many are unable to sell if they need to move; and others are finding it difficult to borrow money for a new home.

Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan is warning that the current financial crisis could be the worst since World War II.

The marginal change provided by February's bipartisan stimulus package does not adequately address the foreclosure crisis nor does it provide long term solutions to our fundamental economic challenges.

The first necessary step is to help bring stability back to the housing market by undertaking reasonable measures to help home owners avoid foreclosure. The key for any workable plan is to distinguish between owner-occupied homes threatened by foreclosure and those owned by investor-speculators. We must make sure only to help the home owners, not the speculators. At the same time we should avoid creating new large federal bureaucracies that have the government doing things that it does not know how to do very well.

Texas Congressman Burgess Leads the Way with Real Change on Taxes With an Optional Flat Tax Plan

Fortunately, while plans for short term and temporary mortgage assistance are being drawn up, some members of Congress are offering long term economic proposals that provide real change instead of marginal change -- proposals that meet the scale of the long term economic challenges we face.

One member, Republican Congressman Michael Burgess from Texas, is offering up a proposal that has special resonance for Americans with April 15 just around the corner. It's a plan to save taxpayers time, put an end to special interest loopholes in the tax code, and provide the type of incentives that will put our economy on a course of enduring growth and prosperity: An innovative, one-page, optional flat tax.

A One-Page, Optional Flat Tax Will be Simple to Fill out and It Will Provide the Basis for an Enduring Prosperity

Before being elected to Congress in 2002, Michael Burgess had a 21-year career as a doctor delivering babies in Denton County, Texas. His campaign slogan was "We Need a Doctor in the House". Now the good Doctor Burgess has put together a one page prescription to fix our convoluted income tax system.

Dr. Burgess starts with the fundamental premise that our taxes should be simple, transparent, and low. Dr. Burgess also believes that the economic incentives in our tax code should be clear, predictable, and permanent.

The one-page, optional flat tax proposed by Dr. Burgess is just what it says -- optional. Nobody would be forced into the new system. Taxpayers could continue with their current rates and current deductions, for if they decided that the optional flat tax saved them time and money, they could elect to pay under the single rate optional flat tax system.

The Optional Flat Tax, In Four Bullet Points

Here are the elements of an optional flat tax, in four simple bullet points:

A single rate of tax (for example, 17%) on all individual and corporate taxpayers;

Elimination of all taxes on savings, dividends, and capital gains;

Elimination of the death tax and Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT);

A standard deduction, which would be above the established poverty level so that an optional flat tax would not unfairly target the poor. Approximately the lowest 42% of income earners would be exempt from paying taxes altogether, and any taxes they did pay would only be on the amount that exceeded the deduction.
A Good Idea that is Gaining Ground

Having a flat, single rate tax is a good idea that has been spreading around the world. Eight U.S. states and twenty nations have single rate flat tax structures.

Indiana adopted a flat rate in 2003, and by 2007 the Hoosier state's corporate tax revenues grew by 250 per cent.

Colorado's flat tax, first introduced in 1987, has created repeated surpluses in state tax revenue. This consistent record of success contributed to Colorado reducing the corporate tax rate in 2000 and again in 2001.

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina recently proposed an optional flat tax for state income in his 2008 State of the State Address.

The California Republican Party recently adopted the optional flat tax as part of its party platform, borrowing from the Platform of the American People, a "tripartisan" agenda developed by American Solutions.

Most Eastern European nations have flat tax structures, including Russia, and their economies are booming. Since adopting a flat tax in 1995, Latvia's economy alone has grown by an average of twelve per cent each year.
What You Can Do to Learn More about the Optional Flat Tax

Congressman Burgess has recently given two speeches on the House floor detailing his optional flat tax plan. I invite you to read or watch both of them. You can view them here and here.

Dr. Burgess has also prepared this mailer that he is sending out to his constituents. It contains a mock-up of what your tax form would look like under an optional flat tax, along with information about the proposal. With this form, filing your taxes would take less than fifteen minutes.

I encourage you to share this mailer with your friends who might be interested in the idea of an optional flat tax. You can also learn more about the optional flat tax by downloading this chapter from my book Real Change. In it, I describe the benefits of a one page optional flat tax plan.

Then, write your representative and urge him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 1040, the optional flat tax bill. Be sure to let your representative know that you're one of the over 80% of Americans who favors the option of filing their taxes on a single page with one rate of taxation.

It may take time, but I am confident that we will eventually adopt an optional flat tax plan. And when we do, we will put an end to an absurdly complicated system that pits the individual American taxpayer against an army of special interest groups, each trying to advance their narrow agenda at the expense of tax fairness and simplicity. Our tax system robs individual and corporate taxpayers of billions of hours of lost productivity and dilutes the very economic incentives required to keep U.S. workers and companies as the most productive in the world. It can't be replaced too soon.

Real Change Now to Reduce U.S. Corporate Tax Rates, the Highest in the World

Even as we work to win the argument for an optional flat tax plan, we must urge immediate action on reducing America's punishing corporate tax rates. Today's U.S. federal corporate tax rate is 35% -- the second highest in the world -- with the corporate capital gains rate also at 35%. Add in state income taxes and the corporate rate in America averages 40%, making it the highest in the world.

In comparison, the average corporate tax rate in the European Union was 24% in 2007, down from 38% in 1996. How can America compete with the nations of the European Union -- not to mention the emerging economies of India and China -- with this self-defeating, high-tax rate structure?

The U.S. corporations bearing this tax burden are the ones we expect to provide working people with jobs, better incomes, and long term prosperity. If we continue to have the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, we can surely expect to see more and more companies move jobs overseas. As an anti-recession and long term growth measure, Congress should immediately abolish the capital gains taxes on individual and corporate income, and sharply reduce the corporate tax rate to 12.5 %, the same corporate tax rate as in Ireland, which currently enjoys the industrialized world's lowest rate. After Ireland reduced its rate to 12.5% (from a high of 50%), its living standards and world competitiveness rose dramatically.

Good for the Stock Market, Good for Your 401(k)

Abolishing the capital gains tax on individual and corporate income, along with slashing the corporate tax rate, will lead to an immediate jump in the value of the stock market. It will also lead to an immediate jump in the value of every retiree's 401(k). More importantly, it would lead to a burst of new investments in the United States, creating the foundation for long-term economic growth.

At the same time, we should allow 100% expensing of all investments in new equipment within one year of its purchase. This would lead to a boom in equipping American workers with the best and most modern equipment so they can compete with any economy in the world.

Real Change in Economic Incentives Does not Require Offsetting Tax Increases

It's important to remember that pushing for real change in our economy with an optional flat tax and a lower corporate income tax will be met with howls of derision. Some will complain that it will bust the budget. Others will insist that these changes be coupled with offsetting tax increases.

Both will be wrong. The unwillingness or inability of the bureaucrats at the Joint Tax Committee, Congressional Budget Office, and the Office of Management and Budget to foresee the growth caused by previous tax cuts is inexcusable. These same bureaucrats will surely once again underestimate the pro-growth effects and pro-tax revenue effects of fundamentally changing our tax system.

We must take this fight head on with two approaches. First, we must point out again and again how wrong government bureaucrats have been in the past about the pro-growth impact of positive changes to tax incentives.

Second, we must commit ourselves to reducing spending wherever we can. Those of us who support pro-growth tax reform must relentlessly challenge both Republicans and Democrats to eliminate current wasteful spending and to stop proposals for new spending that will prevent us from realizing the powerful long term benefits of fundamental tax reform.

The Defining Choice this November Will Likely Be the Economy

Yesterday, I recorded a video workshop at AmericanSolutions.com on "Solutions for America's Economic Challenges" that expands on what I've laid out in this newsletter.

The overriding, deciding question for the 2008 elections may be who can explain why their economic program is the best answer for the troublesome economy.

Will the left convince the country that massive tax increases, massive increases in spending, and rejecting free trade are the best solutions?

Or will we effectively make the counter-argument that cutting excessive, crippling tax burdens on America's business and industry, getting control of spending, and expanding trade is the right course for a growing economy?

It's up to us to make sure lawmakers pass the right medicine for our economy. Contact your House and Senate members today and tell them we should start with what the good Dr. Burgess of Texas is prescribing.

P.S. -- Senator Obama Owes Us - And Himself - Better Answers on the Reverend Wright: In the back and forth over what Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has said from the pulpit, Senator Obama's claims not to have heard Wright's statements seem dubious. What's more, as Mark Steyn points out here, the Reverend Wright's hateful comments and lies about America aren't unusual. Wright's hateful words are of a piece with Senator Dick Durbin's (D-IL) 2005 comparison of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay with the Nazis, the Soviet gulags and Cambodia's Pol Pot. Wright's comments fall into the same category as the lunatic leftists who continually call President Bush and conservatives Nazis and fascists. If Senator Obama hopes to live up to his self-proclaimed image as a uniter not a divider, he's going to have to do better than offer evasions about what he's heard in church on Sunday. He needs to reject not just the Reverend Wright, but the entire Hate America Left that Wright is a part of.

P.P.S. -- The Latest on Our Grassroots Effort to Empower Citizen Activists: The Clark County (Las Vegas) Republican Party in Nevada recently drafted their new party platform and incorporated 13 planks of The Platform of the American People. Tibi Ellis, co-chair of the Clark County Republican party, spoke to us this week: "We had over 5,000 plank submissions, and we narrowed the choices down to 80. If we had not used The Platform of the American People, we would have run the risk of putting our own interests ahead of supporting the people." Additionally, the people of Clark County Nevada require that all elected officials of their party or those running for elected office in their party to take a pledge to uphold these planks at the county and the state level.

Lloyd Darby from Georgia took 30 copies of The Platform of the American People to the Toombs County convention. He offered a resolution for the county to adopt the entire Platform, and recommend it to the state convention. It passed unanimously.

Last, but certainly not least, Grundy County, Iowa adopted 36 planks of the Platform of the American People into their county platform. This includes ALL 12 of the planks on Defending America and ALL 5 of the planks on English and American Civilization. Grundy County will present their platform as part of the 99 county effort in approving Iowa's state party platform.

Each week, we hear of stories like these from individuals as well as groups who are catching on to our message at American Solutions. For more information about how you can get involved, contact the Chief Advocate for the Platform of the American People, Princella Smith at info@americansolutions.com. We look forward to working with you all in this effort to win the future!

P.P.P.S. -- Real Change's Eighth Week in the New York Times Top Ten: I'm happy to announce that this Sunday, March 23rd, Real Change will be at number eight on the New York Times bestseller list -- it's eighth week in the top ten. Thanks to everyone who's taken an interest in the book. I won't pretend that it's typical, but I received the following message this week from Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA):

"I was at a Rotary Club Pancake breakfast and this couple brought up spontaneously that they had just read the book Real Change and they recommended that everyone should read the book in this election year. They felt that it had solid ideas of the directions needed for our country. I was struck by the enthusiasm and excitement they displayed when talking about Real Change."

To see what everyone is talking about, visit newt.org/realchange.

Trade-Offs
Is China the key to Africa's development?
By Eliza Barclay
Posted Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:17 AM ET
ARUSHA, Tanzania—Inside a dark shop opposite a frenetic bus station, transistor radios are stacked beneath newfangled LED flashlights and belts hang like snakes from the ceiling, their buckles emblazoned with the decidedly un-African word Guangzhou. Outside, in the equatorial sunshine, men who crowded inside the store become mobile versions of it, strapping to their backs 4-foot-wide square racks interlaced with watches, wallets, belts, and other items.

A lanky young vendor whom I'll call Charles walks miles to the city's outskirts shouldering a weighty rack of trinkets, hoping to unload it along the way. Charles, who asked that his real name not be used because it's illegal to vend in the city center, hawks plastic watches for 40 cents and leather belts for $1.80, but his sales are consistent, and on a good day he takes home $45 in earnings. What is impressive about Charles' operation is not only the low, low prices of the Chinese goods he sells but that he brings them to people in the slums who've never bought these things before.

"These new Chinese products help low-income people because they can't afford the European or American stuff," says Mr. Abasi, who owns the store that supplies Charles and other vendors. "People know these products are not good quality, but they buy them because they look expensive."

While the United States and Europe still loom large here as cultural and economic icons, China is making inroads into Africa in rivulets. In this city, Tanzania's second largest, the rivulets take the form of manufactured goods, construction projects like roads and cell-phone towers, and a smattering of Chinese restaurants. For a desperately poor country like Tanzania, this "South-South" trade with China has created massive new opportunities for accelerating economic development.

In recent years, the increase in trade flows between sub-Saharan Africa and Asia has been dramatic—exports from Asia to Africa have grown at an annual rate of 18 percent since 2002. Part of the equation is that low-cost goods from China fit economies like Tanzania's well. Goods like those sold by Charles are low-quality and sometimes fake, but they are creating new microenterprise opportunities for entrepreneurial Africans. Charles told me he, like many other Arusha vendors who had regular jobs before going independent, worked in a shoe shop until he was laid off.

The new opportunities to trade with China are so tantalizing for Africans that some are returning from abroad to invest in their homelands. Georgine Spake is an elegant, tall Congolese woman who speaks English with a thick French accent and lives in the leafy suburbs of Washington, D.C., with her American husband and four children. Upon visiting her birthplace of Kinshasa last June, after a nine-year hiatus, Spake told me she was dumbfounded to discover that most of her friends and family were traveling to and from China to do business. Lured by the promise of turning her own respectable profit, Spake flew to the bustling manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, China, to investigate import opportunities with a cousin who was already importing security cameras and telephones. She stayed for a month, paying a Congolese man who lived there $150 to be her translator and fixer throughout her stay. By the end, she arranged for the shipment of 30 tons of garlic to be sold at wholesale in Kinshasa. She chose garlic, she said, because there has been great demand for it since the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which traditionally cultivated garlic and onions, fell prey to conflict.

According to Spake, Guangzhou was swarming with Africans. Each night, many of them congregated at a bar called the Elephant, where African musicians and dancers performed. There she exchanged business tips in hushed tones with Senegalese, Cameroonians, and Zimbabweans, as their local handlers hovered nearby to prevent their clients from being poached by other handlers.

Spake now communicates with a Chinese partner by e-mail and phone and plans to return to Guangzhou this June to arrange more shipments of garlic and, perhaps, tomato paste.

Though the trade balance between China and Africa is heavily weighted toward Chinese exports, Africa's exports to China grew by 48 percent annually between 1999 and 2004, according to the World Bank. Just as it has grown ravenous for Sudan's oil and the DRC's gold, China is discovering Tanzania's natural resources. In the southern coastal region, Chinese companies are buying millions of dollars' worth of indigenous hardwood logs to feed China's construction and furniture industries, which supply companies like IKEA with products. Nonprofit organizations that monitor the trade in illicit goods have tracked the flow of ivory from and through Tanzania to China.

But as China's investments grow increasingly hard to resist, the fast-flowing trade is ripe for corruption in weak African states like Tanzania. A report released in May 2007 by TRAFFIC International, a joint program of the WWF and IUCN—the World Conservation Union, found that Tanzania had lost $58 million in timber revenue to corruption, in part because the majority of the timber sales were illegal. Most of the benefits from the trade were lumped among a select few groups with little trickling down to the communities living closest to the forests.

One way to ensure that local communities benefit from the logging is to process timber products on African soil before exporting them, says Rogers Malimbwi, a professor of natural resources at Sokoine University in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania's timber sector is beginning to build mills to process the timber, but much of it still leaves the country as intact logs, he said.

Meanwhile, African consumers are also beginning to experience the ugly side of trading with China, a lesson Americans learned all too well last year with the massive recalls of Chinese-made dog food and toys. In October 2007, counterfeit electrical equipment from China caused fatal electrical fires in Dar es Salaam, the country's commercial capital, according to the Confederation of Tanzania Industries, which called for a crackdown on counterfeits.

"The Chinese medicines are making people sick, and the electrical wires are not safe," said Spake. "But China is giving the African people a chance to do business and make more money, and for some people that means being able to buy food to eat."

Eliza Barclay is a writer based in Washington, D.C. who reports on Latin America and Africa. She traveled to Tanzania as a fellow with the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2185853/

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