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...years). Japan's parliament, the Diet, has for the past several weeks been debating legislation surrounding a supplementary budget package that includes a controversial $21.7 billion handout to the Japanese public aimed at boosting consumer spending. But DPJ politicians - smelling blood in anticipation of general elections, which must be held by September but could come before then - might choose to take advantage of Aso's weakness by blocking passage of additional stimulus measures, no matter how pressing the need, says Credit Suisse chief economist Hiromichi Shirakawa. DPJ politicians "can now argue that the government has already lost their ability...
Talking About the Future Barber Abdalhadi works late and without a bodyguard. When the militias held sway, he employed security and had to close up shop at 4 p.m. "If I had stayed later, they would have come to kill me," he says. The militias declared that shaving was un-Muslim. Gangs took advantage of the pervasive fear to run protection rackets. In 2007, Abdalhadi's friend and colleague Shareef was murdered with a drill, but Abdalhadi continued to ply his trade. "I'm the breadwinner," he says...
...fighting, according to the Red Cross, during an assault by the army, which is determined to finish off the Tigers once and for all. An estimated 250,000 civilians are still trapped inside a rapidly shrinking war zone--the last remaining 40 sq. mi. (103 sq km) held by the Tigers--and the army is preparing to expand the camps to house them. The Defense Ministry says more than 6,000 new IDPs crossed into army-held territory in just a few days in mid-February...
...stretch of territory it captures. Those displaced must either seek shelter deeper in Tiger territory or surrender to government forces, which move them into camps. The result is a sort of scorched-earth policy that has helped the army capture and keep control of territory that the Tigers have held for more than a decade...
...back Mannar. But this strategy may not be sustainable throughout the Tamil-majority areas of the north and east. The Sri Lankan government holds up the eastern province of the nation as a model of postconflict governance; the army took control of the area in 2007, and the government held local elections last year. But even in the east, 50 civilians were killed in November alone, according to local media, in violence involving two former Tiger factions as well as military and paramilitary forces. This growing insecurity, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a public...