Sammy Ofer, Magnate and Israeli Power Broker, Dies at 89

A spokeswoman for the family said he had died after a serious illness. The family provided no further details.

Mr. Ofer bought his first small cargo ship in the 1950s and built a vast global shipping enterprise, his fleets ranging from tankers to cruise lines, and he had interests in banking and real estate. The Forbes list of world billionaires listed his family as 79th, and Israel’s wealthiest, with a net worth of $10.3 billion.

It is, according to the Ofer Group’s Web site, “a classic tale of a family’s journey from rags to riches.”

It is also a tale tainted by scandal and intrigue.

Although media-shy, Mr. Ofer often made headlines in Israel for his business dealings, and was sometimes assailed for being part of a business elite that critics say wields disproportionate power. The Ofers are among about 20 families who together control 25 percent of the country’s exchange-listed companies.

But the biggest scandal broke two weeks ago, when allegations surfaced that the Ofer family empire was doing business with Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy.

The United States State Department announced on May 24 that it was imposing penalties on the company for violating American sanctions against Iran. The State Department said the Ofer Group’s Singapore subsidiary, Tanker Pacific, sold a ship to Iran in September 2010 for millions of dollars.

Tanker Pacific has denied knowing that the buyer was an Iranian front company.

Days later, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that at least 13 Tanker Pacific ships had docked in Iran over the past decade.

Tanker Pacific confirmed that its ships had docked in Iranian ports over the years, transporting refined oil and petroleum products, which the company said was permitted under international rules. It said that it ceased such trading in 2010 when new American restrictions took effect and that it stopped loading crude oil at Iranian ports in late 2010.

The Ofer family remained silent, but anonymous associates began hinting that the Ofers were not only after money, but had also been providing secret services to the State of Israel.

Adding to the mystery, Meir Dagan, Israel’s recently retired Mossad intelligence agency chief, has weighed in on the Ofer family’s behalf, saying he believed that the whole affair had been blown out of proportion and that the family had not broken any laws.

The Israeli news media have reveled in exposing links between Ofer-owned companies and former or would-be figures in the Israeli military establishment, and some critics accused the Ofers of trying to create a smokescreen of security ties to legitimize questionable dealings.

Ofer family associates have suggested that Israel had given the family permission to dock their ships in Iran. The prime minister’s office issued a statement last week saying there was no such authorization.

In a separate statement after Mr. Ofer’s death, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Mr. Ofer for his contributions to the Israeli economy and society.

“Ofer was a true Zionist,” Mr. Netanyahu said, who even at the peaks of achievement never forgot his obligation to others.

Sammy Hershkovitz was born on Feb. 22, 1922, in Galatz, Romania, and moved with his family to Haifa, then in the British Mandate of Palestine, at age 2. His family later changed its name to the Hebrew name Ofer.

Mr. Ofer joined a shipping agency in Haifa, and served in the British Royal Navy on board a minesweeper during World War II. He then served as an officer in the Israeli Navy. Mr. Ofer and his brother Yehuda, known as Yuli, joined their father’s chandlery business after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and started their own shipping company in the 1950s.

Mr. Ofer lived much of his life in Monaco, but returned to Israel in recent years.

In his later years, Mr. Ofer became an avid art collector and a renowned philanthropist. The family said he had donated more than $100 million for hospitals and other facilities and charities in Israel.

In 2006, he withdrew a planned $20 million donation to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art after other donors and some members of the public objected to renaming the museum for him and his wife. The couple placed advertisements explaining their decision in the Israeli newspapers under the headline: “Excuse us for wanting to make a donation.”

He had deep connections with the London shipping community, and in 2008 donated $39 million to the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich. That same year, he was awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to British maritime heritage.

Mr. Ofer is survived by his wife, Aviva; his sons, Eyal and Idan, who run the family businesses; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

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New President Takes Power in Struggling Haiti

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Charismatic pop star-turned-president Michel Martelly took over Haiti on Saturday, promising to rebuild its earthquake-devastated capital, develop the long-neglected countryside and build a modern army.

The 50-year-old performer known to Haitians as "Sweet Micky" was swept to power in a March 20 presidential runoff by Haitians tired of past leaders who failed to provide even basic services, such as decent roads, water and electricity in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

Martelly was sworn in during a power outage in front of dozens of dignitaries including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti, and Edmond Mulet, head of the U.N. mission that has maintained order in Haiti since 2004. Also present was Desi Bouterse, the president of Suriname who is on trial for the 1982 executions of 15 political opponents.

Former Haiti President Rene Preval took off the presidential sash and put it on Martelly as they shook hands and embraced, but did not say anything to each other. Martelly's wife, Sophia, then came on stage and adjusted the sash as their four children joined them.

Martelly did not speak as he left Parliament for the National Palace, where was to deliver a speech.

Outside the gated Parliament, more than 1,000 Martelly supporters gathered.

"Today is a party for us, for the masses, because the country is destroyed," said Esaue Rene, a 28-year-old mechanic who has high hopes for Martelly. "I would like him to bring jobs so that people aren't sitting around in public plazas because they don't have anything else to do."

Martelly appealed to young voters like Rene because he is the antithesis of Preval, who is seen as aloof and uninspiring. Martelly is effusive and charming. He once joked that he'd dance naked atop the National Palace if he were elected president.

But the challenges Martelly faces in fulfilling his ambitious promises were clear Saturday. He was sworn in front of the country's collapsed National Palace and a shantytown filled with thousands of people displaced by last year's magnitude-7.0 earthquake that killed an estimated 230,000 people.

During his campaign, he promised to build houses in the capital; bring economic development to the countryside; provide universal education for children; develop agriculture; and replace the discredited armed forces with a modern army capable of responding to natural disasters. The previous discredited army was disbanded by ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995.

Political observers say speeding up the multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort is paramount. That means Martelly's administration must make progress building houses for the more than 600,000 people still living in settlements; stem a cholera epidemic that threatens to spread during the rainy and hurricane seasons; and strengthen the judiciary. And a parliament controlled by political opponents from Preval's party could make passing bills difficult.

He must he do all this quickly.

"His administration will have to show progress fairly quickly in order to provide confidence to the population," said Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group in Washington, D.C.

Martelly will lead a country still divided over the presidential election itself. He was initially excluded from the runoff in favor of a candidate backed by Preval, only to be restored after the international community challenged the results.

One sign of the division: Martelly's opponents have recently alleged that he holds dual Haitian-U.S. citizenship, which would disqualify him for the presidency. He denies the allegation.

In what some view as a reconciliation effort, Martelly has invited to the inauguration both Aristide and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the former dictator who made a surprise return to Haiti in January. Neither of them attended the swearing-in ceremony.

Since Duvalier came back, the ex-despot has been charged with embezzlement and human rights abuses, and advocacy groups have criticized Martelly for inviting him.

"Martelly's facing the need to knit together a polarized country," Schneider said. "Haiti just went through an election which was riven by discord, disagreement, and unhappiness. And given the makeup of the parliament, he has the major task of forging a national government."

In the weeks since Haitian authorities declared him the winner, Martelly has toured the countryside to learn more about reconstruction projects, announced ways to finance free education, and formed a transition team, led by Duvalier's former social affairs minister, Daniel Supplice.

Martelly was well-known as an entertainer. But what kind of leader he makes, many in Haiti aren't sure.

"He's unpredictable," said Patrick Elie, a defense minister under Aristide and an adviser to Preval. "He's got teeth that can both smile and bite. He's shown that."

 

Power Struggle in Iran Enters the Mosque

The split started about two weeks ago after the president tried to dismiss the head of the intelligence ministry, the powerful government branch that exerts widespread control over domestic life. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, ordered that the minister, Heydar Moslehi, keep the post.

Mr. Ahmadinejad then stayed home for 11 days, according to reports from Iran, engaging in a visible fit of pique that threatened to undermine the staunch alliance the two had forged since Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected president in 2005.

The spat dragged into the open several factional fights, analysts said, particularly the efforts by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s conservative opponents to prevent his faction from dominating the parliamentary elections next March and even the presidential vote in 2013.

Even before the chants at Friday Prayer, a signature event since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, important conservative factions had pronounced their support for the supreme leader, including the government’s primary enforcers, the Revolutionary Guards. Ayatollah Khamenei’s infallibility was the subject of Friday Prayer in at least half a dozen large cities besides Tehran, according to media reports.

“It is quite astounding in a way where on a daily basis people are coming out and saying that Khamenei has the constitutional right and the religious right to do what he wants to do,” said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. “Ahmadinejad has effectively lost the support of the base. If you do not have the support of Khamenei, you are nobody.”

Under Iranian law, the president has the right to hire and fire cabinet ministers, Iran experts said. But the supreme leader, as the title suggests, is the nation’s ultimate authority.

Last December, Mr. Ahmadinejad unceremoniously dumped Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister and a Khamenei ally, while Mr. Mottaki was on a mission to Senegal.

He has also replaced the intelligence minister before, but this time Ayatollah Khamenei intervened to protect what he called the “maslahat,” or public interest. But in a video posted online, a Parliament member quoted Mr. Ahmadinejad as telling him that the supreme leader issued an ultimatum to accept the decision or resign.

Some analysts, however, doubt the choice would have been so stark. If the president left under a cloud, they said, it would reflect badly on the supreme leader, given their previous closeness.

Analysts suggested various possible reasons that the fight may have deepened. Mr. Khamenei prides himself in getting involved in the smallest details of running Iran, and the intelligence ministry is a favorite. Also, the president’s controversial chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, said to harbor presidential ambitions, reportedly initiated the move, they said.

Government opponents accuse the Intelligence Ministry of rigging the election that won Mr. Ahmadinejad a second term, a power Mr. Khamenei may not have wanted him to have again, analysts said. In another conjecture, the supreme leader’s son, Mujtabah Khamenei, who heads intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards, is said to have designs on the ministry.

Whatever the reason, the supreme leader has made his wishes clear. This week, his office released pictures of a religious ceremony with Mr. Ahmadinejad conspicuously absent while Mr. Moslehi sat close by.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Washington.

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Conservative Congressman’s Star Power Extends Beyond Florida District

But the most compelling part of Representative Allen B. West of Florida is his own biography, there for all to see: an African-American Tea Party activist Republican congressman and ally of hard-right Israelis who, after his beloved career in the Army ended under a cloud, defeated the sitting Democrat in a largely white, politically polarized district here and quickly became one of the right’s most visible spokesmen.

Mr. West’s fans in his district, which stretches over two counties along the east coast of Florida, are both numerous and loud; hundreds fill his town hall-style meetings, many of them favoring T-shirts bearing his image. At a recent Tea Party rally in Washington, supporters flocked to him like sea gulls to a crust of baguette. Among the 87 House Republican freshmen, he ranks third in the latest fund-raising period for his re-election campaign; his $433,551 haul came largely through individual donations.

Mr. West’s popularity among conservatives goes far beyond South Florida. He was chosen to give the keynote speech in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and is frequently featured on the Fox News Channel and in other conservative settings where he enjoys explaining, reiterating or unleashing any number of incendiary remarks concerning what he often calls “the other side.”

There was his recent observation that liberal women “have been neutering American men,” and that the president of the United States is a “low-level socialist agitator.”

Mr. West scoffs at the notion that he has become a sensation. “I don’t drink my own tub water or read my own press,” he said in a brief interview before a town hall-style meeting here this week. “I tell the truth and I stand on convictions and you know what you’re getting.”

While Mr. West’s decision to cast himself as an iconoclast has made him a conservative star, it is unclear how well it will serve him as he seeks re-election next year in this swing district, where far more voters are likely to come out for a presidential election than in the midterm cycle.

With its two new Congressional seats, Florida will likely receive intensified national attention among swing states in 2012, perhaps highlighting this district — which was central to the disputed 2000 presidential recount — as one of the best tests of the Tea Party’s endurance outside reliably Republican districts.

Democrats have singled out Mr. West as one of their key freshmen to defeat. “He is the king of rhetoric,” said Mitch Ceasar, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Broward County. “And that is what separated him in 2010. But what swept him in then may be the gust of wind that sends him out.”

The 22nd Congressional District, which may well be redrawn to favor Republicans, is roughly 48 percent quite conservative, and another 48 percent quite liberal, say officials from both parties, who also say each party covets the remaining 4 percent, who are swing voters. The district went for Senator Barack Obama and Senator John Kerry in their respective presidential races.

Mr. West’s place in the Democratic crosshairs stems, he said, from the fact “that I scare the liberal establishment.”

“You’re looking at a black man who was brought up in the inner cities, career military, a conservative, married going on 22 two years, two beautiful daughters, and for whatever reason that really does scare them,” he said. “My theory is that for whatever reason I could cause others like me to reject these liberal social-welfare policies.”

Mr. West, 50, was born and raised in Atlanta, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee on an R.O.T.C. scholarship and holds two master’s degrees.

In the Army, he rose to battalion commander during the war in Iraq. His 22-year military career came to an end in that theater when he was relieved of his command after using a gun to coerce information from an Iraqi police officer during an interrogation. He retired with full rank, honors and benefits in 2004, and moved to Florida with his family. After a short stint as a high school teacher, he worked as a civilian adviser to the Afghan army, ran and lost against Representative Ron Klein in 2008, then came back to handily defeat Mr. Klein, a Democrat, in 2010.

Mr. West’s political beliefs hew closely to the most conservative members of the House; he was among the 59 House Republicans who voted against a deal worked out with Democrats to finance the government through the rest of the year, arguing that the included spending cuts did not go far enough, and says he will not vote to lift the nation’s debt ceiling without more cuts.

His views on the Middle East tend to tack even more to the right of the strongest supporters of Israel. During his campaign, Mr. West posted on his Web site a statement saying: “I do not support any creation of a Palestinian state, to do so would be to create a terrorist state. There is already a state for the Arabic people residing in the region called Palestine, Jordan.”

His recent remarks to a conservative Christian women’s group that women affiliated with liberal groups “have been neutering American men” are the sort that tend to attract attention. “America needs strong men,” Mr. West explained, adding, “the feminist movement was a great thing to push the equality of women but that does not mean you have to make men feel inferior or degrade them.”

Mr. West said he tends to keep to himself on Capitol Hill, where he is busy with hearings, meetings and constant reading. “So the end of the day I’m kind of tired,” he said, “about 10 or 10:30 at night I get to my little bat cave, then I’m back up at 5:30 to get in a five- or six-mile run and I’m back at it again. So right now it is not so much about hanging out with people as it is about making sure I am developing myself as a capable legislator.”

Ron Nixon contributed reporting from Washington.

 

Demonstrators in Germany Demand End of Nuclear Power

BERLIN — An estimated 120,000 people demonstrated across Germany on Monday, protest organizers said, demanding an end to nuclear power and increasing pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to speed up the closing of the country’s 17 nuclear plants.

Demonstrations that take place each year over the Easter holidays have tended in the past to be pacifist, for instance, calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan. But this year, because of the 25th anniversary of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, in addition the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, the rallying theme was nuclear power.

Some of the biggest protests took place in the western state of Lower Saxony, where, according to the organizer’s spokesman, Peter Dickel, more than 20,000 demonstrators gathered near the Grohnde nuclear plant.

In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, 17,000 protested at the Krümmel nuclear plant, Mr. Dickel said.

In Bavaria, which has three nuclear plants, more than 15,000 people gathered near the Grafenrheinfeld power plant and thousands of others marched toward the Isar 1 and Isar 2 plants. “We are many, we will be more and we will not keep quiet until the last nuclear power plant is shut,” said Martin Heilig, an organizer of the demonstrations there.

Last month Mrs. Merkel imposed a moratorium on new nuclear plant construction. Seven of the oldest plants were temporarily closed, and the remaining 10 are undergoing security checks. She made it clear that she was going to reconsider her decision, made last year, to extend the life of the nuclear plants by an average of 12 years. “Japan had changed everything,” she said.

Mrs. Merkel has already set up two committees, one to consider how nuclear energy could be phased out earlier than the mid 2030s and the other to see what impact the end of nuclear power would have on energy prices. They are expected to complete their work by June.

Despite her U-turn on energy policy, the Greens party was swept into power in the state of Baden-Württemberg last month. It is the first time the Greens will head a state government. On Monday, Winfried Kretschmann, premier designate of the Green-led government in Baden-Württemberg, was putting the finishing touches to his coalition with the Social Democrats — thus ending 58 years of conservative government.

Stricter E.U. tests sought

Austria’s environment minister said safety tests for European nuclear plants must be mandatory and take into account the possibility of terror attacks, The Associated Press reported on Monday from Vienna.

European Union nations agreed last month to submit their plants to tests, but Nikolaus Berlakovich said Monday draft criteria for the tests do not go far enough and “must incorporate human influences such as plane crashes or terror attacks.”

 

Yemen’s Opposition Accepts Deal for Transfer of Power

Yemen’s opposition coalition on Monday accepted a proposal for a transfer of power, bringing the country closer to a resolution of months of political turmoil and countless demonstrations calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

The police used a water cannon to disperse protesters demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Taiz, Yemen, on Monday.

“We have accepted the gulf proposal on condition that the protests are allowed to continue until Saleh leaves office,” said Mohammed Qahtan, a spokesman for the coalition, which is known as the J.M.P. “Leaders of the J.M.P. met with the American ambassador today, and he confirmed for us that the protests can continue through this month; this is why we agreed to the proposal.”

However, when Mr. Saleh announced, on Saturday, his acceptance of the plan from a six-nation regional bloc known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, his agreement was based on the condition that the protest demonstrations would stop immediately.

The proposal, which was put together by the council in consultation with the United States and the European Union, was presented to the Yemeni government and the opposition last week. It was seen as probably the last effort to solve the political crisis that had brought Yemen, an already fragile country, closer to chaos. An economic crisis looms, and violence between armed gunmen and security forces in outlying provinces has increased over the last week. At least 120 protesters have been killed since the uprising began in February, according to Amnesty International.

If the two sides formally agree to the proposal, the president would leave office after 30 days and a presidential election would be held 60 days later, in accordance with Yemen’s Constitution.

The political opposition has also agreed to participate in a unity government with Mr. Saleh, which would govern during the 30 days before he leaves office. The opposition had initially objected to this provision.

The agreement, however, also signals a deepening rift between the political opposition and the street protesters who had already rejected the Gulf Cooperation Council’s proposal. The protesters do not trust that Mr. Saleh will leave office as the mediated settlement required, and they do not think that he and his family should be granted immunity, which is called for in the agreement.

Witnesses said that the protest demonstration in Sana, the capital, had grown since the president announced that he had accepted the proposal, and protesters were angered by Mr. Saleh’s comments in an interview with the BBC that members of Al Qaeda had infiltrated protest camps.

 

In Oregon, a House Perfectly Divided, Sharing Power

Try to arrange an interview with Bruce Hanna, the new Republican co-speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, and odds are good you will be asked if you would also like to meet with Arnie Roblan, the new Democratic co-speaker.

“I would be remiss if I did not offer,” said Steve Lindsley, their conscientious communications director.

Ask Mr. Roblan a question, but do not be surprised if Mr. Hanna answers it. Mr. Roblan says he does not mind. Nor, he says, does he mind that Mr. Hanna is the one they agreed could actually sit in the speaker’s office. Mr. Roblan notes that his office across the hall is a shorter walk to his caucus meetings.

“I have no ego in place, so it’s easy,” Mr. Roblan said.

Like many states, Oregon is facing a steep budget deficit this year, but at least its House is perfectly balanced: it has 30 Republicans and 30 Democrats, the first time it has been evenly split.

“The issue is, how do you share power in difficult times?” Mr. Roblan said.

Mr. Hanna and Mr. Roblan, who also happen to a share a forested border and two counties in their distant districts, insist that they can transcend the partisanship so apparent in their chamber. They point to the unusually early completion of the always controversial schools budget. They point to each other’s upbringing in southwestern Oregon. They finish each other’s sentences.

“Co-governance...” Mr. Hanna began.

“...all the way down,” Mr. Roblan inserted.

“...means co-chairs of all of our policy committees,” Mr. Hanna went on.

Bicameral committees, which include House and Senate members, get complicated.

“You’ve got a Senate member over there going, ‘O.K., now I have two House members to be co-chair with,’?” Mr. Hanna said. “It’s tri-chairs.”

Mr. Roblan clarified: “One of them is a half. The others are quarters.”

This prompted a co-laugh.

Oregon’s is hardly the first House divided. Even the Oregon Senate was after the 2002 election. Alaska’s Senate is currently split, and Montana’s House and Senate have been divided now and then over the years, though Republicans have recently taken hold. Plenty of other states have navigated splits.

The National Conference of State Legislatures provides a three-inch-thick packet to legislative leaders who come looking for help when November yields a tie. (Parties rarely aim for equality. In Oregon, Republicans picked up six seats last fall, ending complete Democratic control.)

“It’s happened literally every election for more than two decades,” said Brenda Erickson, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It does need, in some cases, a certain type of personality to make it work better. It’s not going to necessarily work great. Our political system is not meant to work in a tied system. Majority rule is the basis for the American system.”

Mr. Hanna and Mr. Roblan both say they want majority rule — and will be working to win it in elections next year. But that can wait.

“My career has been about bringing people together,” said Mr. Roblan, a former high school principal from Coos Bay.

Mr. Hanna, who owns a Coca-Cola bottling company in Roseburg, has been pegged by others as more partisan, but he said that stems from just doing his job as a former minority leader.

“This plays to my core more,” he said.

There is much to do before the session ends in June, including passing a budget for social programs, where the two lawmakers have clear differences of opinion. Each insisted he did not suspect the other of secret partisan plotting.

“I don’t mean it’s like lying in a field of flowers going, ‘Oh, this is nice,’?” Mr. Hanna said. “But the memory of how did we operate, how did we treat one another, that’s going to be lasting.”

 

In Singapore, the Party in Power Offers New Faces

 

SINGAPORE — After a painstaking search involving hundreds of man-hours and very likely thousands of cups of tea, Singapore’s overpowering political machine, the People’s Action Party, has presented to the public its carefully vetted crop of next-generation candidates for an election it is virtually certain to dominate again.

The party, which has never been out of power since Singapore became a self-governing state in 1959, now holds 82 of the 84 elected seats in Parliament and is expected to come close to that number again in the next election. It has introduced 24 new candidates over the past month, in a regular generational cycle that party leaders say is more significant than usual this year because the new slate probably includes the next prime minister.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has not yet announced the date of the election, which must be held by February 2012. But the People’s Action Party, or P.A.P., introduced its election manifesto on Monday and is already on the campaign trail, as are several smaller parties.

While Singapore has a multiparty system, opposition parties are hindered by a lack of funds, by the reluctance of potential candidates to challenge the government, by a configuration of districts that favors the governing party and by the sheer organizational power of the P.A.P. All 84 elected seats are being contested; the Constitution provides for the appointment of a small number of nonelected members.

But given the dominance of the P.A.P., the party’s search process — involving background checks, psychological tests and rounds of what are known as “tea session” get-togethers — has become, for all practical purposes, the system by which Singapore chooses its government and leaders.

“The people we’re bringing in now are not ready to be prime minister today,” Mr. Lee said this month. “But somebody amongst them or amongst the next batch — but I hope amongst the earlier ones — one day I hope will be prime minister.”

There are issues in this campaign — rising prices and rising immigration chief among them — but the elections are not so much about policy as about the people who will make the policies, mostly behind closed doors.

All of this is in line with the P.A.P.’s style of single-party governance: long-term decisions made by an inner circle, without the distractions of a substantial opposition or the time pressures of electoral deadlines. Public debate can make issues “harder to solve,” the prime minister said this month.

“I would say that our concerns about adversarial politics is why we feel that it’s good for us to have the P.A.P. as a broad-based party representing many views and having some of these trade-offs and tensions resolved within the party rather than between parties,” he said.

Asked whether there were not 20 people equally qualified to run against the P.A.P., Matthias Yao, who is retiring as a member of Parliament after four terms in office, said, “If we did have 40 good people, why not put them in one team, not two teams, when the other half by definition must oppose what the first team is doing?”

In the five years since the last election, the governing party has had “tea sessions” with more than 260 prospects, sometimes traveling abroad if these individuals had overseas jobs, Education Minister Ng Eng Heng, a senior party member, said in a recent forum.

“We didn’t always tell them why we were talking to them,” he said. “There were some tea participants whom we saw through changes in jobs. Some got married, pregnant, delivered. We saw them in various forms, antepartum and postpartum.”

As part of the process, Mr. Ng said, “We shortlisted some for intense, eight-hour psychological profiling.” Each prospect attended at least five tea sessions with members of a six-person interview panel, and the fittest of them were sent to a final session with the prime minister, said a member of the panel, K. Shanmugam.

 

Power of RSS for 21st Century Educators

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Twitequette
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Whenever you buy a brand new product right when it hits the market, the safety of that product is always a concern. That is particularly true when the product, like childrens toys or a new car, can have a direct impact on the health and safety of your own family. Rather than trying to constantly check for any recall announcements for every single product you’ve bought that could pose a safety concern if it malfunctions, it is much easier to just sign up for product recall RSS feeds and then just keep an eye out for any recall alerts that might affect you.
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The goal then is to use feeds, as quickly as possible, to ensure that you're among the first writing about a topic.
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Digg Bans RSS Submissions
Splush enables editors to share with their audience, real-time updated content from partners, friends or favorites information sources. A dynamic blogroll and multimedia access make RSS Feeds accessible to all without any technical constraints.
Splush is also FeedAds : the first ads service of sponsored links 2.0 where traditional statistic links are replaced by more attractive ones updated in real time, with direct link to content and multimedia.
Looking for RSS Tools or Podcasting Tools?
The Internet has become a highly interactive medium. In order to participate in discussion forums and newsgroups, it is important to be familiar with standard and accepted Internet forum etiquette. Here are some tips to help make your forum participation more productive and beneficial...
1. Terms-Of-Service
Read the forum rules and terms-of-service before you begin posting. This way, you can avoid having your introduction to the forum being an accidental breaking of a rule or other misconduct.
Forum Etiquette
Dapper is a tool that enables users to create update feeds for their favorite sites and website owners to optimize and distribute their content in new ways.
Importance Of Good Headlines For Feed SubscribersContrary to what you may think, people who subscribe to your feed aren’t necessarily reading your articles. In most cases your posts will be competing with a large amount of content, some of which may be very similar to your own.
I do almost all of my reading through a feed reader and there is a habit I’ve picked up which I think is symptomatic of most feed subscribers. With so many new articles popping up in my feed reader every day I can not possibly read all of them to completion. I tend to prioritize by title, then skim a little, and if my curiosity is peaked, the article gets my full attention.
Increase RSS Subscribers
30 Simple Ways to Gain RSS SubscribersBefore creeping into the ways, you must also remember that your content must be really good as Content is the King. It is recommended to read the following few posts which will help you to shape your self in terms of contents and its promotions,
Increase RSS Subscribers
RSSMore is a free rss screensaver that lets you subscribe to any number of RSS/XML feeds and view them in your rss screen saver.
Digital Sound Effects is a new portal that contains thousands of sound effects. The Digital Sound Effects collection contains royalty free sound effects that can be used as introductions, extros or a background in any digital audio or video productions including podcasts. The Digital Sound Effects website contains a wide array of sound effects that range from realistic car crashes with screeching brakes to soothing nature sound effects.
Each sound effect is available as a download in a zip file. The zip file contains the sound effect in an MP3, Wav, and WMA format. All effects contained on digital-sound-effects.com are all royalty free which means they can be downloaded and used without the broadcaster having to pay royalties for the use of the sound effect. The broadcaster or publisher pays a single fee and are able to use effects in any capacity that they choose.The sound effects can be used on websites, podcast productions or in any other format.
Digital Sound Effects
Three Ways to Prevent People From UnsubscribingGetting traffic to your blog and turning your visitors into loyal readers requires a lot more than just writing new blog posts. What you must do is create an environment so people want to return, and if you can turn them into RSS subscribers, then you will be that much more powerful. Sometimes when we make our content pages we can easily look sight of the fact that we are not really making them for us, we are making them for our visitors and site readers. Ok, we want you to get some RSS subscribers because it can be very helpful to have them, and we would like for you to continue reading so you can find out some great approaches for doing that.
3 Ways to Stop People From Unsubscribing
Delightfulblogs is a human-reviewed blog directory where you can promote your blog to get more traffic.
Are you looking for a tool to automate the submission of RSS feeds? Checkout RSS Submit
Coming up with ideas for new blog posts on a regular basis can be a challenge, even for the most prolific writers. Experience shows that readers tend to favor certain types of posts more than others. Here are some popular types of blog posts that you might want to use for those times when inspiration simply does not strike.
Tips for Blog Posting
What is Hot What is Not in Technology for 2011What is Hot
1. Virtual Cloud
2. Mobile Apps
3. Virtual Technology
4. Connectivity
5. Scalability
What is Not
1. Privacy
2. Social Noise
3. Transparency
4. Regulation
5. Land Lines
Read more about What is Hot and What is Not in Technology for 2011
Motivational Quotes of the Day RSS
RSS and RSS Readers Alive and WellI agree:
A brush fire has been swirling through the blogosphere of late over whether RSS is dead, dying, or possibly severely injured and in need of assistance. It seems to have started with a post from UK-based web designer Kroc Camen that got picked up by Hacker News and re-tweeted a lot. The flames were fanned by a blog post from TechCrunch that drove RSS developer Dave Winer into a bit of a Twitter frenzy. But is RSS actually doomed, or even ailing? Not really. Like plenty of other technologies, it is just becoming part of the plumbing of the real-time web.

complete article
FeedStomper - Turn an overactive feed that clutters up your RSS reader into a regular, once-a-day summary feed.
rss2email is a small Python utility that sends out nicely formatted emails from RSS feed postings. Why would you want such a thing? Well, many people still use email as their primary communications tool and don’t want to be bothered with RSS. Also, if you are on the go and are using a mobile device, it is often easier to be buzzed by push email than it is to configure a mobile RSS reader.
Generate An Embeddable Widget From RSS Feeds using Feed Wind. You can easily keep in touch with a site through its RSS feed. But what if you want another sites updates to appear on your own blogs or websites?
Reminder: New years is a great time to prune your RSS feeds that have grown excessively long!
Best Way to Consume News in 2010We consumed a lot of news in 2010. But how did we consume it? On your tiny iPhone screen? Hopefully not. The best way to consume news this year was in a socially curated, real-time fashion with big pretty pictures and video.
Best Way to Consume News in 2010
Ten newsroom New Years resolutions for 2011It is time for our annual list of things your newsroom needs to do online. Some of these are repeats – and that’s because they’re still relevant to many newsrooms. There is no pie in the sky stuff here; just steps you should take that are relatively cheap and painless. Happy New Year from Lost Remote.
1. Build a mobile version of your site.
2. 2. Get an app version of your site.
3. Do a Skype video remote.
complete list of 10 Newsroom Resolutions
10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPressLets take a look at 10 useful, yet rather unknown RSS-tricks for WordPress. Each section of the article presents a problem, suggests a solution and provides you with an explanation of the solution, so that you can not just solve some of your RSS-related problems but also understand what you are actually doing. Thus, you can make sure your WordPress theme remains under your control and is not bloated with some obscure source code.
10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress
Methods to Aquire RSS SubscribersRSS or Really Simple Syndication has become a primary way to gain new subscribers and grow your list. The best way to get a larger RSS subscription base is to follow the three tips below.
There are different kinds of tools you can use to encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed. Here we are referring to the MyBlogLog Widget and how it can help you increase your subscribers. You would be surprised at the percentages of people who will respond favorably to a request to perform some kind of desired action. There are a number of reasons why they may have not including a lack of knowledge about how to do it, or what they need, etc.
Methods to Aquire RSS
- RSS Specification Feed created by FeedForAll
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