India Ink: Lawmakers in India Charged With Crime Could Face Speedier Trials

India’s Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to consider fast-tracking trials of lawmakers who are facing criminal charges, lawyers said, after activists filed a petition demanding legislators accused of abusing women be disqualified from public office.

Six state legislators have charges of rape against them, and 36 have been charged with other crimes against women, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The Supreme Court rejected activists’ demands that these lawmakers be suspended from their offices when charged, saying the court was not empowered to make such a decision. The activists’ demands were part of two sweeping public interest litigations reviewed by the court on Friday, filed in response to a recent gang rape in Delhi that resulted in the death of a 23-year-old woman.

The government has announced several measures in response to outrage over the gang rape in recent weeks, including faster courts, women’s hotlines and an initiative to review the country’s rape law. Civil society groups and activists, however, are demanding broader reforms.

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to respond to several requests, including the establishment of fast-track courts in all states to try sex offenses, the formulation of judicial norms for the payment of compensation to rape victims, the filling of vacancies in the police force, the creation of a national toll-free helpline for victims of rape and child abuse and the creation of a registry of convicted sexual offenders to be circulated among the police force.

The court rejected a demand for a reduction in security for high-profile figures like politicians and diplomats, which many say reduces the police force for other citizens, and for the investigation of crimes against women by female officers only.

“We have asked for many systemic changes,” said Promilla Shankar, one of the petitioners and a former government officer who worked in India’s administrative services. “What is needed is a complete overhaul of the judicial and governance system.”

India’s top court has already given directions on many of the changes activists are demanding. In November, while considering a case on “Eve-teasing,” a term used in South Asia to mean sexual harassment, the court directed the government to deploy female police officers in all busy public places, held the managers of places like educational institutions, worship houses and movie theaters responsible for preventing sexual abuse, and required operators of public vehicles to report cases of harassment to the police.

In Ms. Shankar’s petition, the Supreme Court was asked to suspend “tainted” police officers, government officials and members of Parliament and legislative assemblies who are facing rape or murder charges. The petition also demanded that the trials of these high-profile suspects be expedited, and if they are found guilty, they should be dismissed.

In India, a lawmaker convicted by a lower court can keep his position by appealing the decision in a higher court. These cases often continue for years, if not decades.

“Lawmakers should be people of a certain character and caliber,” Ms. Shankar said. “What can the people expect if their representatives have criminal cases pending against them?”

Activists have also objected to political parties who field candidates with criminal charges pending. In the 2009 general elections, six candidates, from various parties, had been charged with rape, and in the last five years, political parties have nominated 27 candidates with rape charges against them, according to the report by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a nonprofit that works for electoral reforms.

These cases represent a “minuscule number” of actual crimes, said Anil Bairwal, the organization’s national coordinator, as a large number of such crimes are not reported, and politicians are able to use their considerable influence to prevent prosecution.

In an effort to “name and shame” the accused politicians, the report includes their names and political parties and details the charges against them.

“These are the people in whose hands the people have given the country, so to speak,” said Mr. Bairwal. “This is not a small matter.”

Petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms over a decade ago resulted in an order that requires candidates to declare their financial, educational and criminal background, but only those who have been convicted of a crime are disqualified from running for office. A separate petition to disallow candidates who are facing criminal charges has been pending in the courts since 2005.

“A much simpler solution is to put pressure on political parties not to have candidates who have criminal charges,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, one of the founders of the Association for Democratic Reforms. “But that is not happening in this country because of the obstinacy or shamelessness of the political parties.”

Public anger poured out in Assam this week against a Congress politician, Bikram Singh Brahma, who was accused of raping a married woman. Television footage showed a bare-chested man being beaten by a group of women shortly before his arrest. Mr. Brahma was subsequently suspended from his party.

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Huawei launches the Ascend P1 in the U.S. for $450 through Amazon

Despite its attempts to attract new customers with high-end phones, Huawei (002502) remains relatively unknown to U.S. consumers. The company is looking to change that and on Thursday announced the availability of the Ascend P1 smartphone. The Android-powered device is equipped with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The handset is also one of the thinnest smartphones on the market, measuring in at 7.6 millimeters. BGR reviewed the Ascend P1 earlier this year and found it to be a decent smartphone. Huawei is offering the device carrier-unlocked through Amazon (AMZN) for $ 449.99. Read more for Huawei’s press release.

[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]

Huawei’s Ascend P1 Launches in U.S.

[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]

Super thin Huawei Ascend P1 comes with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and Android 4.0 ICS OS

PLANO, Texas, Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced an unlocked version of the Huawei Ascend P1 is available to U.S. consumers through Amazon.com. The Huawei Ascend P1 comes equipped with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and is one of the fastest models in class, capable of handling 3D games effectively.

“The Ascend P1 is perfect for consumers looking to get the most out of their device,” said Michael Chuang, Executive Vice President of Huawei Device USA. “Whether it’s for playing games, streaming music and videos, or sharing multimedia in the home or workplace, the Ascend P1 offers unparalleled performance and a truly unique mobile experience.”

The Ascend P1 offers users a movie theatre-quality cinematic experience with its super AMOLED, 4.3 inch screen and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound System. In addition, at only 7.69 mm thick, the Huawei Ascend P1 is one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. The 64.8 mm frame allows the Ascend P1 to sit comfortably in the user’s palm, giving them the ability to navigate all the phone’s features with a single hand.

The Huawei Ascend P1 is available online at Amazon.com for $ 449.99.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Gabby Giffords to Meet Privately with Sandy Hook Families

By Andrea Billups

01/04/2013 at 08:00 AM EST

Gabrielle Giffords, the former member of Congress from Arizona who was gunned down at a Tucson shopping center two years ago – and then courageously fought to recover from her injuries – will meet privately Friday with the families of the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Conn.

The event will be held at a private home and is not open to the public.

Giffords, 42, sharing a Facebook post from her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, after the Dec. 14 school shootings, said that the time was now to begin a national dialogue on strengthening gun control. This week, she and Kelly met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch gun-control proponent, on the issue.

"As we mourn, we must sound a call for our leaders to stand up and do what is right," Kelly said.

"This time our response must consist of more than regret, sorrow, and condolence The children of Sandy Hook Elementary School and all victims of gun violence deserve leaders who have the courage to participate in a meaningful discussion about our gun laws – and how they can be reformed and better enforced to prevent gun violence and death in America. This can no longer wait."

Giffords left Congress in 2012 to focus on her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head. Jared Loughner, who killed six people during a shooting spree and wounded 15 others, was sentenced to life in prison last November.

Children from Sandy Hook Elementary School on their school bus, Jan. 3, 2013

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters / Landov

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Legislators want Army Corps to explain habitat removal decision

Two state senators on Thursday called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explain its decision to plow under 43 acres of lush wildlife habitat at the Sepulveda Basin without prior notice or coordination with community leaders and environmentalists.

Sens. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) asked for details about what led to the agency's declaration in August that its "vegetation management plan" for the area did not require an environmental impact report because it would not significantly disturb wildlife and habitat.

On Dec. 10, Army Corps bulldozers, mowers and mulching machines stripped nearly all the greenery from the swath of Los Angeles River flood plain just west of Interstate 405 and north of Burbank Boulevard, wiping out habitat for mammals, reptiles and hundreds of species of birds.

"When a clunky federal bureaucracy doesn't collaborate with state and local officials and community leaders, you create a real mess, which is what we have right now at the Sepulveda Basin," De Leon said in an interview.

He noted that although the corps is not subject to state environmental laws, protections from the federal National Environmental Policy Act may apply.

"If the Army Corps doesn't cooperate, the next step is to engage members of Congress to exercise their powers, or have the state attorney general notify the U.S. district attorney's office," De Leon said.

Pavley, whose district includes the Sepulveda Basin, said she wants to know the extent of damage caused to trails, markers and signs funded with "state and local park monies" and installed and maintained "by thousands of hours of volunteer work."

Army Corps of Engineers District Cmdr. Col. Mark Toy was unavailable for comment. But corps spokesman Jay Field said the agency will cooperate fully with the senators.

The area existed as a wildlife preserve adjacent to the Sepulveda Dam for more than three decades. In 2010, it was reclassified as a corps "vegetation management area" with a new five-year mission of replacing trees and shrubs with native grasses as part of an effort to improve access for corps staffers, increase public safety and discourage crime, lewd activity, drug abuse and homeless camps.

Environmental groups led by the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society interpreted the plan to suggest the agency would avoid removal of native willow and cotton groves, elderberries, coyote brush and mule fat. Much of that vegetation was planted decades ago under a corps program to create the wildlife preserve.

Kris Ohlenkamp, conservation chairman of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society, said the corps' management plan was vague. "But this much is clear: What the corps actually did to that land is not represented anywhere in the plan."

Army Corps Deputy District Cmdr. Alexander Deraney has said his agency's actions were "more or less in line with the plan." He said the corps wanted to preserve the native vegetation but discovered that "the native brush was so grown into non-native brush that it would be impossible to separate them."

The corps has ceased operations on the property pending consultations and meetings with environmental and community groups.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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Depardieu, in Tax Fight, Gets Russian Citizenship

MOSCOW (AP) — Gerard Depardieu, the French actor who has waged a battle against a proposed super-tax on millionaires in his native country, has been granted Russian citizenship.

A brief announcement on the Kremlin website on Thursday revealed that President Vladimir Putin signed the citizenship grant following an application from the actor.

The former Oscar nominee and star of the movie "Green Card" has been vocal in his opposition to French President Francois Hollande's plans to raise the tax on earned income above €1 million ($1.33 million) to 75 percent from the current high of 41 percent. Russia has a flat 13-percent tax rate.

"I have never killed anyone, I don't think I've been unworthy, I've paid €145 million in taxes over 45 years," Depardieu wrote in an open letter in mid-December to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who had called the actor "pathetic."

"I will neither complain nor brag, but I refuse to be called 'pathetic,'" the 64-year-old actor wrote in his response.

A representative for the former Oscar nominee declined to say whether he had accepted the Russian offer, and refused all comment. Thursday was a holiday in Russia and officials from the Federal Tax Service and Federal Migration Service could not be reached for comment on whether the decision would require Depardieu to have a residence in Russia.

Depardieu said in his letter to Ayrault that he would surrender his passport and French social security card. In October, the mayor of a small Belgian border town announced that Depardieu had bought a house and set up legal residence there, a move that was slammed by the newly-elected Socialist government.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French government spokeswoman, didn't comment directly on Depardieu's tax fight, but drew a clear distinction between people who have personal or professional reasons to live abroad, and "French citizens who proclaim loudly and clearly that they they're exiling themselves for fiscal reasons."

She said Putin's offer "is an exclusive prerogative of the Russian chief of state."

Depardieu has had increasingly high-profile ties with Russia. Last October he visited the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, to celebrate the birthday of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. And in 2011, he was in Russia's Arkhangelsk region to play the lead role in the film "Rasputin."

"You have to understand that Depardieu is a star in Russia," Vladimir Fedorovski, a Russian writer living in France, told the network Europe 1 on Thursday. "There are crowds around Depardieu. He's a symbol of France. He's a huge ambassador of French culture."

Though France's highest court struck down the two-year tax on Dec. 29, the government has promised to resubmit the law in a slightly different form soon. On Wednesday it estimated that the court decision to overturn the tax would cost it €210 million in 2013.

In an interview published Sunday, Depardieu told the Sunday Parisien that the court decision made no difference.

France's debt burden is around 90 percent of national income — not far off levels that have caused problems elsewhere in the 17-country eurozone.

Depardieu has made more than 150 films, among them the 1991 comedy "Green Card" about a man who enters into a marriage of convenience in order to get U.S. residency. Most famously, Depardieu was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1990 film by the same name.

The Kremlin statement gave no information on why Putin made the citizenship grant, but the Russian president expressed sympathy with the actor in December, days after Depardieu reportedly said he was considering Russian citizenship.

"As we say, artists are easily offended and therefore I understand the feelings of Mr. Depardieu," Putin said.

Although France and Russia disagree sharply about how to resolve the civil war in Syria, the two countries have strong commercial relations. In 2011, Russia signed a contract worth more than €1 billion ($1.33 billion) Friday to buy two French warships — the largest military deal between a NATO country and Moscow.

Depardieu is well known in Russia, where he appears in an ad for Sovietsky Bank's credit card and is prominently featured on the bank's home page.

Depardieu is not the only high-profile Frenchman to object to the super-tax. Bernard Arnault — chief of the luxury goods and fashion giant LVMH and worth an estimated $41 billion — has also said he would leave for Belgium.

France's Civil Code says one must have another nationality in order to give up French citizenship because it is forbidden to be stateless. Thursday's decision by the Kremlin appears to fulfill that requirement.

____

Hinnant contributed from Paris. Silvie Corbet also contributed from Paris.

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Fake John le Carré Twitter Account Fakes J.K. Rowling’s Fake Twitter Death

We’ve seen “Cormac McCarthy” Tweet apocalyptic non sequiturs. “Philip Roth” promised us a bite-sized short story. Now a fake Twitter account for British spy novelist John le Carré is spreading bizarre death rumors about J.K. Rowling. After a few days of Tweeting harmless missives, the week-old handle @JLecarre dropped this would-be bombshell on its nearly 2,500 followers Wednesday morning: 

A terrible news. My publisher phones me announcing that J.K. Rowling dies by accident. Few minutes ago. No words!

— John le Carré (@JLecarre) January 2, 2013

OK, there are at least three dead-giveaways that this is a fake account. One: If J.K. Rowling had died, does anyone credibly think John le Carré would be the one breaking the news? Rowling and le Carré don’t even share a publisher—he’s with Penguin and she’s printed by Little, Brown and Company—making this story even more implausible. Two: As noted by le Carré’s literary agent Jonny Geller, the “L” in the author’s name shouldn’t be capitalized, as it is in the handle of this hoax account. Three: Phrases like “a terrible news” and “my publisher phones me” sound more like snippets from an ESL workbook than lines from an author praised for his chilly, controlled prose style. This could again be the work of Italian media troll Tommaso De Benedetti, who copped to creating a fake Philip Roth account recently. “Twitter works well for deaths,” he told The Guardian‘s Tom Kington, describing his M.O. for spreading misinformation about the deaths of public figures like Fidel Castro and Pedro Almodóvar. 

RELATED: Pippa’s Sales Figures Are Nothing to ‘Celebrate’; Salman Rushdie and John le Carré Call Truce

Too bad John le Carrè isn’t actually on Twitter, though. Imagine the flame wars he would get into with longtime adversary Salman Rushdie—who most certainly is on Twitter, and loves using it to throw literate shade. And too bad this isn’t the handiwork of someone with more imagination—someone like the unpublished Scottish novelist behind @cormaccmccarthy. Outed right here on The Atlantic Wire, Michael Crossan at least had the chops to fool Margaret Atwood and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey with dead-on spoofs of McCarthy’s writing: 

RELATED: Salman Rushdie’s Video Speech Gets Spiked; The World’s Priciest Books

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Brandy: My Proposal Was a 'Spontaneous Thing'

By Mark Gray

01/03/2013 at 07:30 AM EST

Ryan Press and Brandy

Al Powers/Powers Imagery/Invision/AP

Brandy had no idea that her fiancé Ryan Press had plans to ask for her hand in marriage last week.

Then again, she doesn't think her beau knew he was going to, either.

"It was a spontaneous thing for my fiancé," she said before ringing in the New Year at LAVO Las Vegas "He just felt it."

The R&B singer and former Dancing with the Stars contestant first went public with her romance with music executive Ryan Press on New Year's Eve 2011, cuddling at a Las Vegas party. On Monday, they were back in Vegas, but this time she was sporting a glimmering ring.

Although Brandy, 33, told PEOPLE in March that she let Press know she'd "marry him with a bubble gum ring," the sparkler she did receive has impressed her.

"He worked really hard on the ring. I'm not a big diamond girl, but I really love this diamond he did," she said. "It just represents how he feels about me, and I'm really blessed to have someone like him in my life. He's truly a gift." 

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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Greuel faults DWP for bypassing bids on lobbying contracts

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power repeatedly bypassed its competitive bidding process when it awarded $480,000 in contracts to lobby Sacramento decision-makers, according to a report issued by City Controller Wendy Greuel.

DWP executives issued four no-bid contracts for state lobbying over the last two years, two of them to Mercury Public Affairs, a firm that includes former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez as one of its partners. No public debate or vote by the utility's five-member Board of Commissioners was required under DWP contracting rules because each agreement was $150,000 or less.

Greuel, who is running for mayor in the March 5 election, said the city utility had "lax controls" over the lobbying contracts and failed to require that two of the firms prepare reports showing what they had accomplished. Mercury also was paid $50,000 for a month of work to help secure passage of legislation on power plant upgrades that had been withdrawn on the first day of the firm's contract, the report found.

"DWP should have terminated" the contract, Greuel wrote.

The inquiry, which was conducted with help from the city Ethics Commission, was launched last year after Greuel's office received a tip alleging that the lobbying work was awarded in exchange for favors. But no evidence of "a 'pay to play' arrangement" was found, her report said.

Mercury received DWP lobbying contracts worth $50,000 in 2010 and $150,000 in 2011, both focused on state government. The firm also received a no-bid, nine-month contract worth $141,000 in 2010 for lobbying at the federal level, which was not examined in the controller's report.

The DWP said the no-bid contracts were reviewed and approved by the city's lawyers. The three lobbying firms helped shape costly state regulations dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of ocean plant life caused by coastal power plants, utility officials said.

"Their effective advocacy contributed to favorable outcomes that will save LADWP's customers in excess of a billion dollars," the DWP said in a statement.

Mercury Managing Director Roger Salazar said his firm provided strategy for dealing with water quality regulators, as well as state lawmakers. "The legislative process doesn't always end with the pulling of a bill," he added.

The DWP's hiring practices for outside lobbyists attracted scrutiny in 2009 after high-level officials proposed a contract worth up to $2.4 million with Conservation Strategy Group — a Sacramento-based firm that planned to use Mercury and a second company as subcontractors.

The deal would have included the involvement of Nuñez, author of the state's landmark 2006 climate change law. But it was scuttled after DWP commissioners raised questions about the cost. The agency already was paying $15,000 to its in-house lobbyist Cindy Montañez, a former Assembly member who is now a City Council candidate.

DWP officials subsequently began using simple purchase orders instead of competitive bidding procedures to hire lobbying firms. The utility awarded a one-year, $130,000 agreement to Weideman Group in 2010 and a one-year, $150,000 agreement with Conservation Strategy Group in 2011.

Mercury received its $150,000 contract in April 2011, during the same week that Nuñez contributed $3,000 to three of the mayor's legal defense funds and $1,000 to a separate officeholder account belonging to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The defense funds were set up to pay nearly $42,000 in ethics fines levied against Villaraigosa for accepting free tickets to sports and cultural events.

Salazar said there was no link between the contracts and the donations from Nuñez. "Any insinuation that they are connected is absurd and irresponsible," he said.

Last month, the DWP's five-member board awarded a Sacramento lobbying contract worth $1 million annually to KP Public Affairs. That vote was taken after a competitive search process.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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IHT Rendezvous: Hoping to End Decades-long Kurdish Conflict, Turkey Calls on Archenemy

LONDON — Turkish intelligence agents have been making the short hop from Istanbul across the Sea of Marmara to the prison Island of Imrali in recent weeks for talks with a jailed Kurdish separatist leader who was once Turkey’s most wanted man.

Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K., has been languishing on Imrali since he was captured in Nairobi, Kenya in 1999 while on the run. He is serving a life term after a death sentence was commuted.

Now the Turkish government wants his help to end a resurgent war with P.K.K. rebels that has claimed around 900 lives in the last year and a half.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, revealed the dialog last week when he told state-run TRT television, “I cannot hold such meetings myself as a politician but the state has agents and they do.”

In an acknowledgement that the latest escalation in a three-decade battle against the Kurdish insurgents was probably unwinnable, Yalcin Akdogan, a senior adviser to Mr. Erdogan, said this week that the talks were aimed at persuading the P.K.K. to disarm.

“The government supports any dialog to this end that could result in a halt to violence,” Mr. Akdogan said in a television interview. “You cannot get results and abolish an organization only with armed struggle.”

The strategy of seeking a deal with the P.K.K. has implications for Turkey’s policy in neighboring Syria, where Kurdish militants linked to the organization have taken over territory vacated by retreating government forces.

Turkey “fears that an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would become a haven for Kurdish militants to carry out cross-border attacks in the Kurdish areas in southeastern Turkey,” my colleague Tim Arango wrote recently in a report from the border region.

Tensions over Syria and the Kurdish issue have also led to a souring of Turkey’s relations with Iran and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, as Ankara struggled to cope with the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring.

There is a question mark over how much authority the jailed Mr. Ocalan has over the P.K.K. leadership, which is based in the Qandil mountains in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. “He remains a figure of symbolic importance,” Mr. Akdogan said of the P.K.K. founder. “But we still have to wait and see how Qandil will react.”

Mr. Ocalan’s capture in 1999 was a cause of national celebration among Turks after the worst years of a war that has cost 40,000 lives, including those of Turkish and Kurdish civilians. The P.K.K. is regarded as a terrorist organization by, among others, the United States and the European Union.

However, the Turkish authorities have not shrunk from dealing with Mr. Ocalan in the past to intervene in Kurdish matters.

In November, he saved the authorities from an escalating crisis that threatened to worsen tensions with the Kurds by calling on hundreds of his imprisoned supporters to halt a two-month hunger strike. The protesters had been demanding an end to Mr. Ocalan’s isolation and improved rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which makes up 20 percent of its population.

Andrew Finkel wrote in the IHT’s Global Views opinion section that the intervention signaled the resumption of Mr. Ocalan’s career.

Mr. Ocalan is now reportedly demanding direct contact with the P.K.K.’s leadership and improved prison conditions as the price for his cooperation in persuading the militants to lay down their arms.

Some observers have cast doubt on the government’s strategy of dealing with Mr. Ocalan while failing to carry out reforms in favor of the country’s Kurdish minority.

David Rohde wrote in a Rendezvous article at the weekend that more than 10,000 Kurds were imprisoned in Turkey on various terrorism charges.

According to Hugh Pope, project director of the International Crisis Group in Turkey, the government of Mr. Erdogan is putting the cart before the horse. “They need to find a Kurdish settlement first before cutting a deal with the P.K.K.,” he told Rendezvous from Istanbul.

That would include instituting promised reforms that would give equality to Turkey’s Kurdish citizens, including the right to a Kurdish-language education.

“The P.K.K. wants to do a deal and obviously Ocalan is desperate to get out of jail,” Mr. Pope said. “He may be an essential ingredient but he’s not the magic key.”

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