"My Nude Pictures Were From MY Stolen Laptop" Says Wan Nural Zhana

Muzliza Mustafa

A police source revealed that, according to the report, the incident took place in Damansara in early January.

The source said Wan Nurul Zhana, fondly known as Zana, also claimed the laptop contained important documents and her personal photo collection.

The source added that Zana, who is embroiled in the nude picture controversy, wanted to clear her name and urged police to nab the culprit.

Shah Alam police chief ACP Abdul Wahab Embong confirmed the police report.

However, he declined comment on the content of Zana¡¦s laptop.

We are investigating the case and do not want to jeopardise it,¡¨ he said, adding that they are also looking into whether there is an element of blackmail in the case.

It was reported this week that Shah Alam police was investigating the case under Section 509 of the Penal Code for insulting the modesty of a person.

It was reported that Zana lodged her report at Petaling Jaya police station last Friday, but the case was referred to Shah Alam police as AF5 contestants live in the Hicom Industrial Estate in Section 26, Shah Alam.

It was also learned that as of this week, Zana had yet to give her statement to Shah Alam police.

The Malay Mail had, on Monday, front-paged a report on Zana¡¦s nude picture controversy.

It was reported that the 23-year-old lass had pulled out from the show last Saturday, prompting speculation that it was due to the circulation of the nude pictures on the Internet.

AF5 executive producer Bob Azrai had said Zana had lodged the report after she quit the show.


Maylay Mail ran the story with censored pictures and Zana's denials. Since then the budding star has decided to report a laptop with 'personal pictures' stolen. Apparently the laptop WAS hers.
He was also quoted as saying that Zana had cited pressure as the reason behind her action.

In early reports Zana denied that the pictures were of her.

The 23-year-old, who has denied that several 'revealing' pictures are that of her, told The Malay Mail late last week. She told the media that she would, "get in touch if (there¡¦s) anything (I want to comment on)."

"Hi there. Sorry, didn't mean to offend anybody (for not answering the calls). I didn't like the idea of you getting my number without my permission. Will get in touch if anything.. ..thanks for the concern," was her text reply to this reporter who tried talking to her without success last week.

Her three cell phone lines were switched off, and attempts to reach her home were unsuccessful.

She only responded when The Malay Mail texted her twice to seek her comments on several pictures posted on the Internet.

Akademi Fantasia executive producer Bob Azrai, commenting on the sudden withdrawal of the deejay and part-time emcee and singer from the first weekly concert last Saturday night, said the matter was "out of our hands".

"It's now a police case, and it's out of our hands. She asked to be allowed to leave the show, citing stress and personal problems. Fans of the programme can tell from the daily Diari Akademi Fantasia that she's been under a lot pressure of late, and has been crying since Wednesday."

When asked if it had anything to do with the circulation of nude pictures on the Internet, supposedly of hers, Bob initially said he did not know.

However, when pointed out that the pictures had surfaced about the same time Wan Nurul started showing signs of stress, Bob admitted that the pictures had an impact on her.

"We did tell her what was happening outside (the academy)," he said, adding that he did not know if the pictures had infl uenced Wan Nurul's decision.

Bob said Wan Nurul, or better known as Zana, had lodged a police report after her exit from the programme.

"We had notified her of what was happening because we wanted to get the truth. She denied being the one in those pictures," Bob said.

However the filing of the recent police report over the stolen laptop seems to confirm that the nude pictures are in fact genuine photos of Wan Nurul Zhana.

Zana's initial denial that the pictures were not even her does not mend well with the fact that the starlet is now distancing and covering herself in release of the photos by filing the report with the police over a stolen laptop.

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Isreali Ambassador To El Salvador Found Drunk And Naked

Israel's leadership has been shaken by a string of scandals Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.

Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.

A foreign ministry official described Ambassador Tzuriel Refael's behaviour as an unprecedented embarrassment.

The incident, which happened two weeks ago, has renewed calls for a radical overhaul of the way Israel appoints and promotes its diplomats.

San Salvador was Mr Refael's first post as ambassador. He was promoted in 2006 from a technical position in the ministry which had involved several foreign postings.

He was being recalled, although he had not broken any laws, foreign ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel told reporters.

She confirmed that lurid reports of the incident in the Israeli press were accurate.

"We're talking about behaviour that is unbecoming of a diplomat," she said.

Israel has been rocked by a recent series of misconduct and corruption scandals, shaking public confidence in the political leadership.

Haaretz website reports that police found Mr Refael in the Israeli embassy compound where he had been found bound, gagged and naked apart from sado-masochistic sex accessories.

In 2006, Israel's diplomatic service was criticised by the public watchdog for its appointments system.

The state comptroller's report singled out the foreign ministry appointments committee for its inadequate examination of candidates and lack of transparency.

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Sexual Abuse And The Workplace In Philippines

In this age of emerging woman power, it is sad that many women are still trapped in old values making them prey to victimization.

A lady whom I shall call Delia consulted me, in tears, because she was unjustly forced to resign from her employment. At first she pinned the blame on her co-employees whom she claims destroyed her good name to the bosses.

When I asked why they would do that, all she could say was that she could not understand it herself. When I probed why she resigned for what seemed like petty office intrigues, she said her immediate superior believed the others more and suggested that she resign.

In all of the thirty minutes or so where she kept on ranting about the emotional pain she suffered I still could not make heads or tails out of her story. Nothing made sense.

She said she was an outstanding employee. Her personality projected a meek and docile young woman who is not exactly the normal fare of intrigues. I could not for the life of me imagine why she would be so hated by almost all her co-employees and be driven into resigning by her own immediate superior. I frankly told her that she did not seem to have a cause to file any legal suit against anyone unless she could present witnesses that she was maliciously defamed by her co-employees.

A break came into what seemed a non-case for me when her companion prodded her to tell me about the relationship she used to have with her boss. She tried to brush off the idea that what she was going through had anything to do with her former intimate relationship with her boss. With care and her permission, I asked her friend to tell me what she knew about Delia's intimacy with her boss. And this is the story.

Her boss had always shown special attention to Delia by giving her plum assignments that allowed her to earn more than the others. He also promised her that soon she would be promoted to a higher position with much more attractive perks. The catch? He often asked her to stay after office hours and would ask her to go to his office. At this, Delia broke down. I then encouraged her to narrate what her boss did to her in those after-office trysts. She said she was shocked the first time because immediately upon her entering his room, he embraced her, mashed her breasts and took her clothes off. She was stunned but while he was doing lewd things on her he kept on assuring her he loved her and he would be the wings to make her career fly. She gave in and promised not to say a word to anyone about this as he had requested. The trysts became more frequent and lurid. She said he even had a video tape rolling in one of their sexual encounters. By then, however, she was already madly in love with her boss and nothing mattered anymore to her, even the rolling tape.

I then asked her if there was an indication her officemates knew about her affair with the boss. Reluctantly she admitted that one of the things being thrown against her that led to her resignation was exactly this. What she could not take, she said, was why her boss-her lover-was among those who pressured her into resigning. I suggested to her that perhaps he was feeling the heat too much and became afraid that top management would get wind of it and fire him.

Perhaps, I said, he did not love you as much as he professed and valued his job more.

Delia could not accept this proposition. She kept insisting that he loved her but still had no explanation why he dropped her suddenly without a reason. Between sobs, she ranted that her boss even wrote a notice to the security guards of their building barring her entrance. When I suggested that she had been sexually abused and had a clear case against her boss she became more distraught. She said she could not file a case because she cannot let her parents know. The scandal would destroy her future especially because he had a video footage of one of their trysts. Her friend had one more valuable input to make. This was not the first time that this guy was linked to a female subordinate. In all the previous times, the female employees were forced to leave, much the same way she was driven out. Delia left my office without making a decision to take to task her boss and lover in a legal suit.

Delia had difficulty accepting she was victimized. She insisted it was mutual love. But she gave herself away when she said that although she had reservations about allowing him to carry out his lust, especially in their first few sexual encounters, she was afraid of losing her job and was looking forward to being promoted to a higher post.

Under the law known as the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995, there is sexual harassment when an employer, manager or supervisor requests or demands sexual favor from a person he has moral ascendancy over. The sexual favor is made as a condition for hiring, re-employment, continued employment or the granting of promotion or favorable compensation. Under this law, Delia's boss could be imprisoned and be made to pay for the moral damages that she suffered. Lucky for him, however, Delia belongs to the school of women who would rather suffer alone than be exposed to shame.

There are a number of laws giving special protection to women because they often find themselves victims of abuse. But unless women stand for their rights, these laws will mean nothing. Real emancipation cannot come from the outside but from within.

It is women's month. What is there to celebrate about if offenders of crimes against women continue to commit their crimes with impunity? More than celebrating, women should embark on educational campaigns to uplift their fellow women who are still trapped in the belief that they are better off in not fighting back.

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Vietnamese Athlete Gets Five Years For Sex With A 10-Year-Old

A Vietnamese wushu international was sentenced to five years in jail Tuesday for having sex with a 12-year-old girl in a Hanoi hotel last September.

Tran Xuan Anh, 21, who won a bronze medal at the 2001 Southeast Asian Games in Malaysia, was arrested after being caught in the act.

According to the police report, Anh, a third-year student at the National Sports College No. 1 in Bac Ninh province, was riding a motorbike when he was solicited by a pimp. He accepted and went to the hotel where the underage girl was waiting.

When Anh asked her about her age, she reportedly lied saying she was 17.

The police arrived and arrested the couple along with the pimp, Le Van Tu, who got a 10-year sentence from the court.

According to Tu's declaration to the police, he had taken the girl to the hotel for another client, who, on seeing her, had backed out saying she was too young.

To cover the room rent Tu ran out into the street to solicit other customers when he met Anh.

The girl, born in 1994, lives in Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi and was studying in seventh grade when the incident occurred last year.

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Indian Dr. Death's Book Hits Australian Stores

A new book detailing the scandal involving India born surgeon Jayant Patel, who has been linked to 17 deaths, has hit book stores here.

Authoring the 'Sick to Death' is Hedley Thomas, an investigative reporter who first broke the story about Patel's negligence at the Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia, after a hospital nurse blew the whistle.

Patel found himself at the centre of a major controversy in early 2005 and was linked to 17 deaths and dozens of injuries at the hospital. He was nicknamed 'Doctor Death' by the Australian media. Patel later fled to the US.

The book portrays Patel as an arrogant psychopath who constantly undertook surgery far beyond his competence.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the book gives an account of the Queensland government's failure to support the public health system and its attempts to cover up the Patel scandal.

The scandal fetched Thomas the 2005 Walkley Award for (print) news reporting.

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Lohan's dad released from prison

AP

The estranged father of actress Lindsay Lohan has been released from a New York state prison after serving almost two years for driving while intoxicated and other charges. Michael Lohan said now that he is a free man, he wants to repair his unsteady relationship with his 20-year-old daughter. "I'm going to wait, and when she sees I'm walking the walk, I'm hopeful she'll open the door," he told Newsday in Wednesday's editions.

He was released from Collins Correctional Facility near Buffalo on Tuesday, Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, told CBS Interactive.

Lohan had been jailed since June 30, 2005, for attempted assault and other charges.

The attempted assault charge stemmed from an attack on his brother-in-law at a party.

While awaiting sentencing, he was charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle when his car went off the road. His car struck a pole and was engulfed in flames. Lohan wasn't hurt.

Lohan told Newsday that while he was in prison, he went to Bible college and became a minister with the Assemblies of God Ministry. "I want to help people," he said. "I don't want them to fall into the same traps I did."

A message left for Lohan's lawyer was not immediately returned.

Lindsay Lohan's films include "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls."

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Prostitution Thriving Despite Clampdown In Seoul

Kim Tong-hyung

Since the passing of a strengthened anti-prostitution law in 2004 - which officially ended the country's traditional tolerance of sex buyers - the number of red light districts has gone south.

However, it is becoming apparent that shutting down brothels isn't enough, with the still-strong demand for commercial sex spawning a massive underground industry of massage parlors, girlie bars, hotels and Internet sites that provide easier access to sex for sale.

Last week, police in southern Seoul arrested the two owners of three massage parlors in Nonhyun-dong and Yoksam-dong for hiring prostitutes. They booked another 170 people, including 120 people who bought sex from the shops more than 10 times.

The customer list of the three massage parlors extends to over 200,000 people, police said, with each shop roughly averaging 2,000 to 5,000 customers per month.

"The customer list included lawyers, doctors, university professors, journalists, civil servants, soldiers, office workers and a former lawmaker. We can find virtually every profession aside from pastors, priests and monks," said an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

"The shops were sophisticated in their marketing, and they provided discounts for people paying in cash. The real number of customers could actually be double of the number of names on the list," he said.

One of the arrested massage parlor owners, a 52-year-old whose last name is Park, earned more than 9.7 billion won ($10.2 million) in credit card revenue between November 2005 and October last year through his Nonhyun-dong shop. Park's Yoksam-dong shop raked in 5.8 billion won in credit card revenue since opening in December 2005, police said.

Considering that sex buyers usually prefer to pay in cash, police believe the total revenue for Park's shops to be significantly higher.

The other suspect, a 57-year-old identified only as Choi, earned 19.8 billion won in cash and credit card revenue through his massage parlor in Yoksam-dong since September 2004.

Yoksam-dong, including the streets surrounding the Renaissance Seoul Hotel, was one of the 24 areas in the country that police selected as intensive surveillance zones last year and that were monitored for underground sex trade. Law enforcement officials investigated the three shops and ordered them to close their business last year but the owners refused, police said.

The owners of the massage parlors competed for customers, police said, leading to unusual marketing programs and services.

The rooms at the massage parlors were differentiated by theme. There are "classrooms" with sex workers wearing girl school uniforms and "Vietnam rooms" in which the women wear the Southeast Asian country's traditional attire.

The massage parlors promoted their services on Internet sites.

Adopting a "zero-tolerance" approach to the sex trade and the trafficking of women, the anti-prostitution law stipulates that brothel owners can be put in prison for up to 10 years with a maximum fine of 100 million won. The state can confiscate any financial gains acquired by selling sex.

Buying sex was also made a criminal offense punishable by up to one year in jail and 3 million won in fines.

In Seoul, the red-light districts in Yongsan, Chongnyangni, Chongam-dong and other areas are expected to be cleared up within the year through new urban development plans. Since the anti-prostitution law was passed, police have charged more than 40,000 brothel owners, pimps, prostitutes and customers.

However, sex transactions at massage parlors, bars, saunas, hotels and other businesses are growing, despite the government's warning.

According to a survey conducted last year by the Korean Institute for Criminology, more than 60 percent of the 450 adult males who said they bought sex in 2005 said they used massage parlors, which are quickly becoming the center of the underground sex trade.

Numbers released by the Financial Supervisory Service show that credit card spending at massage parlors rose 23 percent year-on-year in 2005.

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From Human Trafficking To Sex Slavery

Jason Gregory

Lured.. ..some women have been forced or tricked into coming to Australia for sex work.
Federal police chasing sex slaves working in Brisbane are placing classified advertisements seeking public assistance to curb illegal trafficking.

Experts said the ads proved the difficulty police had in stopping the "well-established practice" of Asian and other overseas women working in Australia under trafficking contracts, either by faking visa applications or being held on a debt bondage.

The ad said some sex workers have been forced or tricked into sex work.

"Some have no choice over who they have sex with or what kind of sex work they do. They may not have access to the same health and safety services or work conditions as other sex workers," it reads.

Twilight at noon: Multimedia report on Queensland's illegal sex tradeMost of the women in question are from Thailand and other Asian countries, with a smaller percentage from Eastern Europe.

An AFP spokeswoman said the ads were part of the Government's long war on people smuggling.

Criminologist Paul Wilson said there were examples of trafficking involving extortion and blackmail with a woman's "trip" paid for by an agent and sometimes crime gangs.

"She must then work as a prostitute to repay the debt. Many are willing participants but some did not know they are going to be prostitutes," he said. "Some will service clients all day and night and are sometimes physically abused."

"Sometimes there are threats made against (Asian-based) relatives of the woman and the amount of money demanded be repaid is often an inflated figure."

Spokesman for the Queensland Adult Business Association Nick Inskip likened it to rape.

"The hardest thing to detect is when they come here for a few months and go home with their $1000 or $2000, having made the crime gangs $20,000 or more tax free," he said.

Spokesman for the Eros Foundation Robbie Swan warned authorities were "never going to win this war" while refusing to issue proper working visas to overseas prostitutes.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said there were no plans to review the classification of overseas prostitutes.

Scarlet Alliance president Janelle Fawkes said there had been very few convictions for sex trafficking in Australia and only one in Queensland under laws created to crack down on international sex slavery.

She said there could be between 300 and 400 women in Australia working under a trafficking contract, but only a small percentage of those were in Queensland.

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Artists Brush In Singapore - Art Or Pornography?

Sarah Webb

Egyptian artist Ghada Amer says her work is inspired by erotica, pornography and the empowerment of women.

Amer and Iranian-born artist Reza Farkhondeh collaborate on delicately colored but unsettling works. She takes blown-up images from porn magazines, then he paints or prints birds, flowers, and pale washes on top, obscuring the underlying forms. The final layer is embroidered by Amer.

But as artists-in-residence at Singapore's leading print institute, Amer and Farkhondeh wonder whether their works -- juxtaposing oral sex and floral patterns, or a quote from the Koran framed by images of Wonder Woman -- will ever be seen here because of government restrictions.

Singapore bans pornography and has an ambivalent attitude to nudity. The government wants to encourage the arts so that Singapore can compete with cultural centers such as London and New York, but only last month stopped a commercial gallery from showing a painting of a female nude in a public space.

"When they invited me, they knew my work. In Egypt, they can't show it. I have no idea if it will be shown in Singapore," said Amer.

Within days of arriving in Singapore with her erotic images of women, she says she felt a frisson and wondered "do they want me to do something else?"

"All my work is about love, sexuality, the empowerment of women, it shows children with porn or erotic messages, because even when you are young, you are taught the same message, that one day the prince will come for you," said Amer.

"The power of woman, I am fascinated by this power. Is it power or not power, what are the limits?"

Excessive Nudity?

Singapore has spent handsomely on arts venues such as theatres, concert halls -- as well as the Singapore Tyler Print Institute where Amer and Farkhondeh are currently working.

But its art scene still veers toward the safe, rather than the controversial, and artists avoid subjects deemed sensitive in the city-state, including politics, religion, race and sex.

Unsurprisingly, there is little public debate on modern art.

The Ministry of Information and the Arts (MICA), which is responsible for encouraging Singapore's development as a "Renaissance City", sent a clear message that it was unacceptable to show a painting of a nude in a public space last month.

When MICA took over new offices a few years ago, it encouraged commercial galleries to open in the same building.

One gallery wanted to display a large painting of a female nude by Chinese artist Chen Xi in the atrium, but was told this was not allowed because children and young people might see it.

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Sexual Revolution In China

David Barboza

A Chinese edition of Esquire magazine. The censors aren't as zealous as they used to be.
Shanghai - When Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue hit the newsstands last week in mainland China for the first time, with the sexy singer Beyonce on the cover, the competition was fierce.

Readers here had already seen the February issue of For Him Magazine, which features a Chinese singer, A Duo, on its cover wearing a white V-neck leotard that reveals every other inch of her rather substantial figure.

Inside, A Duo poses like a dominatrix, clutching her breasts, wrapping her naked body in celluloid and bending, sweat-drenched, over a submissive man.

The racy For Him Magazine also offers tips on "how to do it in five minutes" (because a "sex break is the same as a coffee break") and features stories with titles like "The Dangerous Sex Journey of QiQi."

The images and text would hardly be shocking to North American or European readers. And the magazine's photographs are tame compared with what appears in magazines in Japan and other parts of Asia, including the rest of China ¡X Hong Kong and Macao.

But in mainland China, where sex is still a taboo subject and pornography is outlawed by the ruling Communist Party, the images are not only highly provocative, but also perhaps the latest sign that sex and sexuality are infiltrating the mainstream media.

And this powerful burst of sexual energy seems both a symbol of how rapidly the transformation of China is unfolding and, to some, a harbinger of the troubles ahead for a nation that will inevitably struggle to absorb its newfound freedoms. "There is a fine line between the open mind and sexual indulgence," said Xie Xialing, a professor of sociology at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Even five years ago, mainland books and magazines were banned from showing pictures of scantily clad models or publishing content that was deemed offensive or morally corrupt. The only sexual content to be found was in sex education pamphlets or books of nude Chinese women sold as "art works" at big city airports.

Today, however, with the Chinese economy booming and the government loosening its hold on the personal lives of everyday citizens, magazines are beginning to publish soft-core pornographic photographs, sexual fantasies and even clues about where to pick up call girls.

Popular mainland Web sites are going further, posting erotic videos and creating forums for women eager to market their sex appeal and post their photographs on the Internet: images of traveling with friends, undressing at home, even striking erotic poses.

"This is a kind of grass-roots sexual revolution," said Annie Wang, author of "The People's Republic of Desire," a satirical novel about the mad race to modernization.

The government announces periodic crackdowns on pornography and often censors sexual content in magazines and on the Web. But since about 2000, the censors have started to look the other way. Political activism is still a no-no in New China. Entertainment is a different matter. Even the Web site of Xinhua, the official press agency, offers slide shows of the "10 Hottest Babes of 2006" and "Rarely Seen Photos of Sexy Men."

Many say the trend is being driven by the market, and by entrepreneurs eager to cash in on the freer lifestyles on the mainland.

"The market is the No. 1 driving force behind the boom of such magazines," said Pan Suiming, a professor of sociology at Renmin University in Beijing. Western luxury brands entering the mainland market want to advertise in popular magazines and on Web sites that draw consumers. And on the mainland right now, pictures of sex kittens draw.

For Him Magazine is one of the success stories of this genre, with a circulation of about 480,000. It probably helps that the magazine is published by a government agency, the National Tourism Administration, an indication of official interest in investing in the phenomenon.

Jacky Jin, the magazine's editor in chief, said he wanted to affirm a new kind of lifestyle for readers that he calls the new mainland metrosexuals, guys who love cars, gadgets and girls.

"We're opening a new window for Chinese men," he said, noting that he has been criticized by government censors on several occasions.

A decade ago, the private lives of people on the mainland were still quite restricted. Whom you married, where you lived and what was considered permissible were tightly controlled or closely monitored by the government, employers and other authorities.

But urbanization, greater mobility and the power of the World Wide Web have challenged all that.

Now, experts say, the mainland is going through a period of enormous personal and sexual freedom. Young people ¡X most of whom grew up without siblings under the one-child policy ¡X are wearing more hip and provocative clothing. And they're growing addicted to entertainment online, where they can also search for love and indulge their lust.

Pan said he thought one reason for the cultural change was a change in women's attitudes.

"Women, especially young women in the cities, no longer think it's a bad thing to expose their bodies," he said. "Five or six years ago, when some women started to wear clothes that exposed their midriff, most people couldn't understand why belly buttons should be regarded as beautiful and deserve public exposure. Today, young women think it is natural to bare their midriff."

Zha Jianying, a Beijing writer and author of "China Pop," said the growing openness was actually a good thing.

"This trend of being more open about sex is definitely healthy, coming after all those years of puritanism and Maoist suppression," Zha said. "Now, maybe we're seeing the pendulum swing in the other direction."

But Xie at Fudan University said things had gone too far.

"In certain periods in history, such as the decadent Ming dynasty, sex was not a taboo and even intellectuals would talk about their sex skills casually over tea," he said. "Today's society is still better than that. But I do find that people care less about dignity."

He went on to call for limits on how much skin can be shown publicly, and said: "Human beings should have a sense of shame."

Other critics say the new freedoms have brought degeneracy, a boom in prostitution, and what Wang, the author, called "the concubine mentality."

Hard-core pornography remains under assault by the government, which can exact heavy fines on trespassers. One pornography kingpin was recently sentenced to life in prison.

And the censors are wary of influences from the West, like the TV show "Sex and the City," which has a huge following here, mostly on pirated DVDs.

Even "The Vagina Monologues" theater play was canceled in Shanghai recently, apparently because of the title.

But in a country that also happens to be the largest manufacturer of sex toys, being naughty is catching on.

In November a man in Shanghai was selling condoms in packages bearing the likeness of Chairman Mao.

His shop was closed for selling condoms in "inappropriate packages."

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Malaysian Leader Says "NO" To Religious Plan To Spy On Lustful Members

Malaysia's leader said state religious officials should scrap a plan to spy on unmarried Muslims to catch any immoral activities, and instead should focus on strengthening Islamic values, news reports said Friday.

The Star newspaper quoted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as saying the plan by officials in the conservative northern state of Terengganu to plant spies as hotel janitors or waiters to tip off the Islamic Department about improper activities would be an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

"I say there is no need for this," it quoted Abdullah as saying.

He said religious officials should stop trying to police Muslims' morals, and should work on programs to instill Islamic values in their communities, the newspaper said.

"We can take action against those who are involved in vice activities in public places, but there is no need for us to snoop, as that will infringe on people's right to privacy," the newspaper said Abdullah told Malaysian reporters Thursday during a visit to Indonesia.

Abdullah's aides were not immediately available for comment.

The spies would mainly watch for unmarried couples committing "khalwat," or "close proximity" - meaning non-chaperoned meetings between women and men. It is a crime under Malaysia's Islamic law, a separate system which does not apply to the Southeast Asian nation's substantial non-Muslim minorities.

Muslims found guilty of khalwat can be jailed for up to two months, the AP said.

Rosol Wahid, chairman of Terengganu's Islamic welfare committee, which proposed the spies, was quoted in Friday's New Straits Times newspaper as saying that their presence would "act as a deterrent" against immoral activities.

"We are not in the business of putting couples or their families to shame," Rosol said. "We are helping families and society."

However, he added that "we have more serious matters to attend to than focus on khalwat."

At least two other states' religious officials have suggested setting up similar squads in recent years. The government scuttled the plans, citing concerns over invasion of privacy.

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Michael Jackson Party With His Less Affluent Fans

After a $3,500-a-head gala the day before, Michael Jackson attended another party in Tokyo for his less affluent fans, more than 1,000 of whom crowded a popular nightclub Friday for an evening with the reclusive pop star.

Tickets for Friday's party went for $130, a fraction of the $3,500 that several hundred fans and business people paid for a chance to meet and greet Jackson the night before at a dinner held in his honor.

Jackson offered only brief remarks at the end of that six-hour party and did not perform.

At Friday's party, guests - most in the 20s or 30s - were treated to a stage show of gospel singers, Michael Jackson impersonators, but were not given the one-on-one opportunity that "premium" ticket partygoers got the night before. Jackson watched the show from a second-floor VIP room.

Japan remains one of Jackson's strongest fan bases, and Jackson fans have been out in force since his arrival in Tokyo on Sunday.

A screaming mob greeted him at the airport and more crowded outside a popular electronics shop that gave him the run of the store after-hours the following day. Before leaving Japan, Jackson was also scheduled to tour a U.S. Army base just south of Tokyo on Saturday.

Jackson, one of the bestselling artists of all time, had lived abroad since his 2005 acquittal on child molestation charges, forsaking his Neverland Ranch in California for Bahrain, France and a castle in Ireland. He now lives in Las Vegas.

This is Jackson's second trip to Tokyo in less than a year.

"Japan is one of my favourite places to visit in the world," Jackson told the crowd Thursday, reading from a statement. "I want to thank all of you for making me the biggest-selling artist in Japan."

In comments to The Associated Press, Jackson said he is happy with his career, which he is trying to revive after his 2005 acquittal and a series of other legal battles over his personal finances.

"I've been in the entertainment industry since I was six years old," he told AP. "As Charles Dickens says, 'It's been the best of times, the worst of times.' But I would not change my career."

Jackson, 48, said he was not bitter over his succession of difficulties.

"While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me," he said.

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'American Idol' 4 Down 12 To Go

"American Idol" slimmed down the competition Thursday night, leaving 12 finalists to compete for the ultimate prize -- a record contract.

Antonella Barba, Sabrina Sloan, Jared Cotter and Jason "Sundance" Head were cast off by the viewer voting, which drew about 37 million calls and text messages.

The performers who made the cut were Blake Lewis, LaKisha Jones, Chris Sligh, Jordin Sparks, Phil Stacey, Melinda Doolittle, Brandon Rogers, Gina Glocksen, Chris Richardson, Stephanie Edwards, Haley Scarnato and Sanjaya Malakar.

The show's tense final moments belonged to Malakar and Head, who were waiting to find out who would take the competition's 12th spot -- and who would go home. Judge Paula Abdul was stunned to hear that Malakar, who is not exactly a judge favorite, was staying.

"I'm speechless," Abdul said. "This is a singing competition, and Sundance, you've been one of our finest." (EW: What the heck was America thinking?external link)

How'd this happen? "The volume was turned down," quipped Simon Cowell, who has criticized Malakar, 17, of Federal Way, Washington, for his "weird" stage presence.

"Somebody give me a job," the 28-year-old Head, from Porter, Texas, said before leaving the stage. "I need a job."

The elimination of the talented Sloan, 27, from Los Angeles, was another letdown for the judges. "Sabrina should be in that top 12, dawg," lamented Randy Jackson, who said "America got that one wrong."

None of the judges was complaining when Barba, the focus of recent attention over some racy Internet photos, was shown the door. Each week, Cowell could be counted on to tell the 20-year-old Jersey girl that she wasn't good enough to be in the talent contest.

Cotter, a strapping 25-year-old from Kew Gardens, New York, told Ryan Seacrest he was "very" surprised to be leaving the show. Cowell had another opinion: "You're a good-looking guy, you've got to work on your vocals," he said.

After the show, the finalists made their debut before a bank of TV cameras and reporters, walking a mini-red carpet at an event in West Hollywood, California.

Among the women, some of the highest praise from judges and observers has gone to Jones. Asked how it feels to be dubbed a front-runner, the former bank employee replied with a modest smile.

"Have I? I haven't been paying attention," Jones said.

Many have said the female contestants have been stronger vocally than the men this season. "I think it's a girl's one to lose this year," Jackson said. "May the best girl win."

But the men had mixed reactions to comments about the opposing gender's talent.

"I'm a little tired of it, actually," Rogers said.

"Yeah," Lewis chimed in. "The girls have got powerful voices but I think the guys have been holding it down."

Stacey, however, conceded "the women are smoking us," but added he expected the men to step it up.

Thursday's show also featured a performance by "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood, who recently snagged a Grammy for best new artist. She sang "Wasted," a song from her hit country music album "Some Hearts."

So far this season, the show's sixth, men and women have been competing separately, with viewers voting off two of each sex weekly. When the dozen finalists return Tuesday, the sexes will be blended, with one singer voted off each week. The winner will be chosen in May.

"American Idol" continues to dominate the ratings, attracting between 27 million and 37 million viewers per telecast this season.

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American Idol 6' reveals Top 12 finalists, Antonella Barba sent home

Christopher Rocchio,

The sixth season of American Idol revealed its 12 finalists during last night's live results show, which also saw 20-year-old Point Pleasant, NJ native Antonella Barba finally be sent home by viewers.

Along with Barba, the other three semifinalists eliminated were Jared Cotter, a 25-year-old from Kew Gardens, NY; Sundance Head, a 28-year-old from Porter, TX; and Sabrina Sloan, a 27-year-old from Studio City, CA. While Head and Sloan's eliminations were surprising, the elimination of Barba -- considered to be a less talented singer -- was the most noteworthy. Barba had remained as a semifinalist in the competition despite both poor singing performances as well as the emergence of numerous provocative photos that captured viewers' attention over the past three weeks.

Barba sang "Put Your Records On" during Wednesday night's live performance episode, after which judge Simon Cowell predicted an end to her Idol journey. Upon being eliminated, Idol host Ryan Seacrest told Barba she had "grown up a lot" since she first auditioned for the reality competition series last fall. Seacrest also asked what memories Barba will take from her Idol experience.

"So many... too many. I can't even think about it right now," said a tearful Barba. "Great ones, but..."

Cowell and fellow judges Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson were more surprised with the eliminations of Head and Sloan than those of Barba and Cotter. On Tuesday night's performance episode, Head sang "Jeremy." While the judges thought it wasn't his best performance, they seemed to anticipate the elimination of 17-year-old Federal Way, WA native Sanjaya Malakar instead of Head.

"I'm speechless. I am. This is a singing competition and Sundance, you've been one of our finest. It's mind boggling," said Abdul upon learning of Head's elimination. Following Head's first audition for the sixth season of Idol, in which he sang "Stormy Monday," Cowell had commented, "I'm going to be amazed if you don't make the finals." When the votes were revealed and Head was sent packing, Cowell did look amazed.

"Simon, what happened?" Seacrest asked Cowell, who answered, "the volume was turned down," accusing viewers of not voting based on Head's vocal performances. Added Jackson, "It's crazy... wild night." Head used his final moments on Idol to make his case.

"Aright, somebody give me a job. I need a job," he said.

Like with Head and Malakar, the judges seemed to anticipate the elimination of 24-year-old San Antonio, TX native Haley Scarnato instead of Sloan, who sang "Don't Let Go" during Wednesday night's performance episode.

"Sabrina should be in the Top 12 dog... she definitely put it down. America got that one wrong I think," said Jackson.

Cotter sang "If You Really Love Me" during Tuesday night's performance episode, and upon being eliminated, he said he was "very" surprised but assured Seacrest he was "still gonna do [his] thing."

"Well obviously you've proved you're very talented... and you've certainly won a lot of fans here," Abdul told Cotter after she gave him a standing ovation. "So I think it's time for you to continue your dream." Commented Cowell, "You're a good looking guy, but you've got to work on your vocals. That's why you're not in the Top 12." Jackson thought Cotter needed to better distinguish himself from others to succeed in the music industry.

"Originality baby. Find out what makes you different from all of the other ones... originality, that's what you need," said Jackson.

Last night was also a milestone of sorts for American Idol, as it marked the reality competition series' 200th episode. To celebrate, American Idol 4 winner Carriew Underwood performed "Wasted," the fourth single from her debut album "Some Hearts." Idol Gives Back was also revealed last night. Raising awareness and funds for organizations that provide relief programs to help children and young people in extreme poverty in America and Africa, the two-night special is scheduled to air Tuesday, April 24 at 8PM ET and Wednesday, April 25 at 8PM ET.

Almost 37 million votes came in to determine the Top 12 hopefuls, one of which will eventually be named the sixth season American Idol. Fox will air a special two-hour performance episode live next Tuesday, March 13 at 8PM ET, when the finalists will celebrate the music of Diana Ross. The following night beginning at 9PM ET, Ross will perform and one finalist will be eliminated from the competition on the live results show.

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Is It Time For Associated Press To Ignore Paris Hilton?

So you may have heard: Paris Hilton was ticketed the other day for driving with a suspended license.

Not huge news, even by celebrity-gossip standards. Here at The Associated Press, we put out an initial item of some 300 words. But it actually meant more to us than that.

It meant the end of our experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton.

It was only meant to be a weeklong ban — not the boldest of journalistic initiatives, and one, we realized, that might seem hypocritical once it ended. And it wasn’t based on a view of what the public should be focusing on — the war in Iraq, for example, or the upcoming election of the next leader of the free world, as opposed to the doings of a partygoing celebrity heiress/reality TV star most famous for a grainy sex video.

No, editors just wanted to see what would happen if we didn’t cover this media phenomenon, this creature of the Internet gossip age, for a full week. After that, we’d take it day by day. Would anyone care? Would anyone notice? And would that tell us something interesting?

It turned out that people noticed plenty — but not in the way that might have been expected. None of the thousands of media outlets that depend on AP called in asking for a Paris Hilton story. No one felt a newsworthy event had been ignored. (To be fair, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened in the Hilton universe.)

The reaction was to the idea of the ban, not the effects of it. There was some internal hand-wringing. Some felt we were tinkering dangerously with the news. Whom, they asked, would we ban next? Others loved the idea. “I vote we do the same for North Korea,” one AP writer said facetiously.

No happy birthday from AP
The experiment began on Feb. 19. A few days before, the AP had written from Austria about Hilton’s appearance at the Vienna Opera ball, just ahead of her 26th birthday. We didn’t cover her weekend birthday bash in Las Vegas.

During “blackout week,” the AP didn’t mention Hilton’s second birthday party at a Beverly Hills restaurant, at which a drunken friend reportedly was ejected by security after insulting Paula Abdul and Courtney Love. And editors asked our Puerto Rico bureau not to write about her visit there to hawk her fragrance. However, her name did slip into copy unintentionally three times, as background: in stories about Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and even in the lead of a story about Democrats in Las Vegas.

Then Hilton was arrested on Feb. 27 for driving with a suspended license — an offense that could conceivably lead to jail time because she may have violated conditions of a previous sentence. By that time, our blackout was over anyway, so reporting the development was an easy call. (On the flip side, we never got to see what repercussions there would have been if we hadn’t.)

Also by then, an internal AP memo about the ban had found its way to the outside world. The New York Observer quoted it on Wednesday, and the Gawker.com gossip site linked to it. Howard Stern was heard mentioning the ban on his radio show, and calls came in from various news outlets asking us about it. On Editor and Publisher magazine’s Web site, a reader wrote: “This is INCREDIBLE, finally a news organization that can see through this evil woman.” And another: “You guys are my heroes!”

We felt a little sheepish that the ban was over, and braced ourselves for the comments that would come when people realized it wasn’t permanent.

We also learned that Lloyd Grove, former columnist for the New York Daily News, had attempted a much longer Paris Hilton blackout. He began it a year into his “Lowdown” column and stuck to it, he says, for two years until the column was discontinued last October — except for a blind item (no names) about Hilton crashing a pre-Oscar party.

So was Grove attempting to raise the level of discourse in our society by focusing on truly newsworthy subjects?

Well, not really. “The blackout was a really heartfelt attempt on my part,” he says, “to get publicity for myself.”

A trait that Hilton, it must be said, has turned into an art. Grove thinks the so-called “celebutante” achieved her unique brand of fame because she boasts an irresistible set of traits: wealth, a big name, beauty with a “downmarket” appeal, and a tendency to seem ... oversexed. “This is what mainstream society celebrates,” he says. “She is, in the worst sense, the best expression of the maxim that no bad deed goes unrewarded in our pop culture.”

Undeniable level of fame
One measure of Hilton’s fame: She was No. 5 last year on the Yahoo Buzz Index, a list of overall top searches on the Web site (her ever-so-brief buddy Spears is a perennial No. 1).

Another is that US Weekly has at least a mention or a photo in just about every issue. “People now come to expect to see pictures of her,” says Caroline Schaefer, deputy editor of the celebrity magazine. “They’re intrigued by her unshakable self-esteem. People are fascinated by that.”

Jeff Jarvis, who teaches journalism at the City University of New York, decries the “one-size-fits-all disease” afflicting media outlets, who feel that “everybody’s covering it, so we must, too.” Even The New York Times, he noted, had substantial coverage of a hearing concerning where Anna Nicole Smith — perhaps the one person who rivaled Hilton in terms of fame for fame’s sake — would be buried.

“That disease leads to the Paris Hilton virus spreading through the news industry,” says Jarvis, who puts out the BuzzMachine blog.

So what have we learned from the ban? “It’s hard to tell what this really changes, since we didn’t have to make any hard decisions,” says Jesse Washington, AP’s entertainment editor. “So we’ll continue to use our news judgment on each item, individually.”

Which means that for the immediate future, if not always, we’ll still have Paris.

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Paris Hilton’s biggest fan is — Paris Hilton.

Birthday visitors to the partying heiress’ home in the Hollywood Hills were startled to see the number of portraits of Paris Hilton.

“Upon entry, guests were handed silver pens and told to write gushing messages on a gigantic portrait of the ever-modest party hostess,” a reporter from the London Mirror noted.

Hanging in the living room was an enormous picture of Hilton, and when guests entered the dining room — yet another “gargantuan” portrait of the heiress.

Revelers were treated to fortune cookies, and the message inside each of them was the same: “Happy Birthday Paris.”

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Britney Spears' Life in Rehab - Not A Happy One

Angie Fenton
The Courier-Journal

Us Weekly says Britney Spears isn’t happy about being in rehab, since she believes her troubles were caused by post-partum depression and not an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Spears, 25, has been at Promises rehab center in Malibu — price tag: $48,000 a month — for two weeks now.

“The doctors there do say that they are shocked by what bad shape she is in,” Us Weekly contributing editor Katrina Szish told “The Early Show” co-host Julie Chen. “So the people at the clinic do seem to believe she’s in the right place.”

But Spears isn’t so sure.

“Unfortunately, Britney has managed to stay in rehab, but she’s not been an ideal patient. She’s been talking on her cell phone too often. She’s been reprimanded for that. She’s actually ducked out of rehab to go shopping for several hours, Szish said.
Spears has found an unlikely support system in estranged hubby Kevin Federline and her mother, Lynn.

“Kevin has really been a rock for her, as has her mother,” Szish said.

“About a week or so ago, Britney did have a visit with her kids,” she said. “Kevin and her mom, Lynn, brought the kids to the facility. And reports say she was just thrilled to see them.”

Still, Szish said, “We’re hearing that (while) Britney is doing this for her kids, (she) is a bit angry because she felt she was pushed into it, forced into it by her manager and her family. And is a little bit resentful of the fact that she is in this facility. But knows she has to do something for her kids.”

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Megachurch Lay Off Staff Due To Low Income

The megachurch founded by the Reverend Ted Haggard, who was fired over drug and sex allegations, has laid off 44 people amid falling income following the scandal.

The cuts, announced during services in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Sunday, amount to about 12% of the church's work force, associate pastor Rob Brendle said.

Brendle estimated that church income has fallen 10% since the scandal broke last fall, forcing layoffs including pastoral staff, support staff, and nursery workers.

''The reality is, we ask our people to be faithful stewards of their money and living within their means. We have to do the same,'' Brendle said.

Ross Parsley, the church's interim senior pastor, said some positions will be consolidated and that volunteers could replace some paid staff. The 14,000-member church had experienced 22 years of attendance and financial growth, Brendle said.

Haggard was fired in November after a male escort alleged that Haggard used methamphetamine in his presence and paid him for sex. Haggard has acknowledged ''sexual immorality.'' He also stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

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USCIS Advises I-130 Petitioners Overseas Not To Re-File

Processing Continues on Petitions for Alien Relative WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) advises anyone who filed a Petition for Alien Relative, (Form I-130) with an American embassy or consulate since July 2006 that they do not need to re-file the petition. USCIS is working with the Department of State to process those petitions.The Department of State announced in January 2007 that certain requirements of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (enacted in July 2006) precluded them from accepting new petitions.U.S. citizens who live abroad may continue to file new petitions with a nearby USCIS international office. A list of offices and the countries they service is on the USCIS web site: http://www.uscis.gov/.USCIS expects to issue instructions for new filings in the near future and will provide updated information once the details have been finalized with the Department of State.Petitioners traveling overseas who actually live in the United States must file their I-130 petitions with the appropriate USCIS service center in the United States, according to the instructions on the form, http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-130.pdf.

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Did 2006 Change US congressional election?

Steve Fraser

TO begin with, polls indicate that the election represented an explicit repudiation of the Republican Party as a party; at least, as explicit as one could possibly expect in a midterm election. Try as they did to argue beforehand that all elections are local, Republican leaders knew that not to be the case, not this time; indeed, that's precisely why they traipsed around the country vociferously denying what they deeply feared was true.
Under normal circumstances and by its very nature, in the American electoral system -- monopolised by two amorphously constituted parties of little distinct ideological or programmatic identity, and with its multiple disincentives to any kind of independent party representation -- it is usually excruciatingly hard to register voter sentiment on behalf of a party rather than a candidate. But the election of 2006 was not normal in this regard. There are indications that significant numbers of Americans voted against the Republican Party and, with less enthusiasm to be sure, for the Democratic Party.
Perhaps most tellingly, in numerous races moderate Republicans, who remained quite popular with their constituents and had enjoyed long tenure in office -- the best known case is Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island -- succumbed to Democrats who were often no more to the "left" than they were. Notwithstanding the inherent fuzziness of what either of the parties stands for, voters seemed ready to conclude that the Republican Party and the administration of George Bush could be fairly associated with the disaster in Iraq, the shameful incompetence and callousness of the response to Hurricane Katrina, the rank and systemic corruption associated with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the crony capitalism of the oil companies and Halliburton. Voting for the Democratic Party was a way of repudiating all that, even if any particular Republican candidate might be blameless.
Then, there is the matter of the "Blue Dogs." It turns out that rumours of their ascendancy were not so much exaggerated as mischaracterized. True enough Senate candidates like Bob Casey in Pennsylvania or James Webb in Virginia were well-known supporters of such social conservative causes as gun ownership or the "right to life." But these were hardly the issues they ran on. On the contrary, the campaigns of Webb and Casey, not to mention Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign in Ohio and those of many fellow "Blue Dogs" running for House seats, stressed opposition to the war in Iraq and anger directed at big pharma, big oil, tax breaks for the rich, and free-trade globalization agreements like NAFTA.
Far more often than not, economic populism, not social conservatism, is what lent the Democrats, and in particular the Blue Dogs, an edge.
This same sentiment could be felt, both before and immediately after the election, in the overwhelming support for a quick Congressional move to raise the minimum wage and to empower Medicare to lower prescription drug prices by bargaining with the big pharmaceuticals. Even more remarkable, given the perilous state of the labour movement, is the emergence of a House majority in favour of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for millions of workers to join unions, a development critical to shifting the balance of political and economic power.
It would be premature to speak of a fully formed populist/New Deal-like alternative within the Democratic Party or to suggest that people were voting for such a possibility in 2006. Nonetheless, when the Democratic leadership anointed its opening agenda as the new governing party in Congress with the resonant phrase "the first 100 hours," echoing FDR's first 100 days, there was nothing accidental about it.
So, too, certain demographic and geopolitical trends that showed up in 2006 are suggestive of changes to come. The Latino vote, which in the 2004 presidential election was relatively evenly divided between George Bush and John Kerry, went a whopping 70% for the Democrats this time. And that wasn't even the biggest percentage shift in voting behaviour from the 2004 election in favour of the Democrats. That took place among white, non-college-educated working people who, for some time, have made up the core of the conservative populist constituency of the Reagan counter-revolution. Although all the numbers are not yet in, estimates suggest that about one-half of the shift toward the Democrats came from white working-class voters.
Regionally, the Democratic Party made significant gains in the Rocky Mountain West, while clearing away the remnant outposts of Republicanism in much of the Northeast and driving Republicans from Rustbelt outposts in Ohio and Missouri. The logic of that trend -- which doesn't, of course, mean that it will be realised -- is to regionalize the Republican Party in the South. In this way, the southernization of national politics, which was the great accomplishment of the Reagan political order, might be replaced by the southernization of the Republican Party.
Even the early talk about presidential candidates seems portentous. On the Democratic side there is no one to the right of Hillary Clinton, certainly a sign of a shift in the Party's center of gravity.
But odder than that is the candidacy of Barack Obama. It seems to signal a thirst for a messiah. Such a quest can be symptomatic of many things, some bad, some not as bad.
Obamaism is a real mystery. Others have already noted that messiahs don't normally come from the middle as he most emphatically does. Moreover, the charisma that surrounds the prince of banality from Illinois is even harder to decipher, attached as it is to nothing tangible or providential as was Robert Kennedy's lightning 1968 ascension before his assassination, his candidacy held aloft, rightly or wrongly, by the energies of the antiwar and civil rights upheavals.
Something -- though it's hard to tell what -- may be blowin' in the wind.
Perhaps the better question, then, is: Will the presidential election of 2008 turn out to be a turning-point election of historic proportions. The greatest unknown is whether or not the status quo is headed for a breakdown crisis severe enough to clear the ground for such a transformative moment.
Signs certainly point in that direction. The convergence of imperial defeat, economic insecurity, and rampant corporate malfeasance might be enough all by themselves.
But the sudden change in the political status of global warming -- once the dim, background hum of some far distant disturbance, now more like the heart-stopping premonitory theme music from the soundtrack of Jaws -- magnifies the crisis of the whole global order, at home and abroad. Anatole Lieven has called it global capitalism's "existential challenge." Life as we've known it may be beginning to end. Congress is already holding hearings about the natural apocalypse to come, and all but the most ostrich-like politicians acknowledge global warming as an urgent reality; a fact-on-the-ground, so to speak, no longer a debatable theory.
The Bush administration -- and so the old order -- has staked a lot on Iraq, not just its geopolitical and global economic ambitions. Its already severely diminished status as a moral exemplar of democracy and civil liberties won't survive this latest plunge into military mayhem.
Moreover, the President's "surge" plan is a mortal threat to the secret source of the regime's strength at home. The politics of fear and imperial bravado, which once won it legions of followers, may, in the aftermath of the surge, reach its own turning point as those voters abandon ship as fast as they once climbed aboard.
Can the administration or the old order survive a fiasco of such proportions?
Iraq is also the equivalent of a budgetary bunker-busting nuclear device. It exacerbates an already aggravated economic dilemma. Despite a Noah's flood of statistics that seem to support a Pollyana-ish view that we live today in the best of economic good times, millions of Americans experience the opposite -- a yawning gulf of insecurity affecting their health, retirement, and employment prospects. They share a gloomy sense of moving backwards, of decline.
Once upon a time, poverty was associated with the super-exploitation of those who toiled for meager reward.
Then, in mid-twentieth century America, poverty came to be associated with the lack of work, with those so marginalized they were shut-out of the main avenues of modern commerce and industry. Nowadays, we are rushing back to the nineteenth century. Today, 30 million people in the United States work long and hard and still live in poverty.
Insecurity even more pervasive than this once supplied the energy responsible for supplanting laissez-faire capitalism with the New Deal.
Might we be approaching something of that scale and scope today? Though there can be no definitive answer to this, there also can be no question that a general crisis of economic insecurity confronts the old order. All of its self-serving and adventitious rhetoric about the heroics of risk fall on increasingly deaf ears.
Not incidentally, since we live in the age of the global sweatshop, that older order is now global in scope; and the international financial mechanisms that so far have kept the global system humming for the U.S. are themselves under great and increasing strain. The system is, at present, being kept aloft by the needs of China, Japan, and other major economic powers. One day soon they may find the burden of swallowing gargantuan amounts of U.S. debt insupportable.
Are we heading toward a breakdown like the one which, in the early 1970s, forced the Nixon administration to scrap the Bretton Woods financial system, the defining economic institution of the post-war Pax Americana? Together with defeat in Vietnam, the devaluation of the dollar, and the end of fixed exchange rates for international currencies exacerbated the general impasse in which the New Deal order then found itself.
When it comes to the social reputation of our corporate elite, is it necessary to say anything more than Enron? The litany of shameless profiteering, felonious behaviour, cronyism, and corruption at the apex of the private economy has arguably called into question the "right to rule" of those presiding over the country's key economic institutions. Even at the regime's hubristic height following Bush's presidential victory in 2004, he discovered he'd crossed a bridge too far in his attempt to turn over the Social Security System to Wall Street.
Trust in the corporate elite has only grown frailer since then. Cynicism mixed with rage is a potentially explosive brew that fuels the economic populism even someone as "establishment" as James Webb articulated in his alternate State of the Union Address.
What may make these converging dilemmas over-ripe for change is the response of the old order itself.
One sign that some decisive crisis has arrived is the growing incapacity of those in charge to adapt -- as if the dire nature of what's happening dries up the springs of their political imaginations, forcing them to fall back on brittle orthodoxies. Andrew Mellon's notion of liquidating everything in sight as a way out of the Great Depression was one case of mental paralysis, a retreat to what had once "worked"; after all, the periodic busts endemic to the laissez-faire capitalist life-cycle had, in the past, always cured themselves, even if the "cure" included a great deal of what we would today call "collateral damage." The Bush administration is similarly falling back on its own orthodoxies, each move only betraying just how out of touch its top officials are with the new political and social realities forming around them.
Take its reaction to the stunning electoral defeat it suffered last November. The President's new "surge" plan, the self-destructive decision to forge ahead in Iraq without a scintilla of reasonable hope of success, even from the standpoint of the most cynical imperialist, is such a reaction: instinctive, unreflective, inflexible, and probably deeply believed in.
In other words, there is a resort to the ideological fixations which have long-driven this regime -- and the larger political order from which it rose - but which only become ever more rigidified as reality bites back.
So, for another example, the administration's response to the crisis of economic insecurity has amounted to an ideological provocation shoved right in the teeth of its own electoral repudiation. Bush proposed a massive cut in Medicare and Medicaid and, even more in-your-face than that, a tax on the health insurance of those dwindling remnants of the New Deal order who still enjoy some decent level of employer-funded health care.
Everything the old regime can imagine to defend itself ends up making things worse. With some poetic license, one is reminded of an inversion of that old Marxist axiom in which the capitalists, not the proletariat, become the gravediggers of capitalism.
Of course, that is a gross exaggeration. The question of the moment is not: Will 2008 be a turning-point election, but rather can it be one?
Here, everything depends not on what the old order does on its own behalf, no matter how bone-headed, but on how the gathering forces of opposition respond to the system's crisis. Is there a willingness to build a clear, programmatic alternative inside the Democratic Party? It is, after all, an institution deeply infected with free market/free trade ideology and most of the imperial presumptions of the conservative counter-revolution.
Is there a readiness to mobilize around non-market solutions to the general crisis: To fight openly for the re-regulation of the economy and its planned re-industrialization; for its re-unionization; for redistributive policies to supplant the idée fixe of economic growth; for the dismantling of the petro-industrial complex and its replacement by a new, non-fossil-fuel system of energy production; for a global assault on the global sweatshop?
Will there be a new era of polarization rather than centrism, partisanship rather than bi-partisanship, a head-on confrontation with the Democratic Leadership Council, like the guerilla wars once waged against the John Jacob Raskob and Al Smith elite of the pre-New Deal Democratic Party or the one waged by the Goldwater legions against the silk-stocking Rockefeller Republicans? Once upon a time, someone as mild-mannered as Franklin Delano Roosevelt found it within himself to "welcome the hatred" of those he labeled "economic royalists." Might there be someone equally unafraid waiting in the wings today?
Is there a new order being born, ready to challenge the old one where it is both weakest and also strongest: namely, in the imperial arena?
Not only has global aggression proved deadly to all, depraved in its moral consequences, and life-threatening to basic democratic principles and institutions at home, but it has also been the most fruitful, life-giving incubator of the conservative cultural populism which the old order has relied on for a generation.
Anti-World War I intellectual Randolph Bourne's prophetic aperçu -- "War is the health of the State" -- needs to be made even more embracing: War has become the health of a whole political culture, not to mention the vast, hard-wired military-industrial apparatus with which it lives in symbiotic bliss. Is there a will to take on that system of cherished phobias, delusional consolations, and implacable interests?
Finally, there is the X factor, most unknowable of all, but also most critical in converting a mere election into something more transformative. Might a social movement or movements emerge from outside the boundaries of conventional politics, catalytic enough to fundamentally alter the prevailing metabolism of political life?
Might the mass demonstrations of immigrants portend something of that kind? Might the anti-war movement soon enter a period of more sustained and varied opposition in the face of this administration's barbaric obtuseness? Straws in the wind as we race toward 2008. (Steve Fraser is co-founder of the American Empire Project and Editor-at-Large of the journal New Labor Forum. He is the author of Every Man a Speculator, A History of Wall Street in American Life, and most recently co-editor of Ruling America: A History of Wealth and Power in a Democracy)

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