MORSi ROAStS IRAN - Kuwait Times

FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012
Romney’s speech to Republican
convention to be vital moment
Big speech culminates Tampa convention
TAMPA: Mitt Romney faces a critical
test in his White House bid yesterday
when he addresses the Republican
National Convention, an opportunity
to convince millions of Americans
that he can forge a path to economic
rebirth and provide better leadership
than President Barack Obama. It will
be Romney’s biggest television audience
to date as much of the nation
tunes in, giving some voters their first
extended look at the 65-year-old former
Massachusetts governor who
unsuccessfully sought the Republican
nomination in 2008.
Romney, who can often come
across as stiff, faces the challenge of
making Americans feel more comfortable
with him. He has a hard act to
follow after the ringing “you can trust
Mitt” endorsement delivered by his
wife, Ann, on Tuesday night, a speech
that was widely viewed as one of the
most significant ever given by an
aspiring first lady. Romney got a
strong testimonial on Wednesday
night from his vice presidential running
mate, Wisconsin Congressman
Paul Ryan, who generated the most
enthusiasm so far at the convention
with his address.
“After four years of getting the
run-around, America needs a turnaround,
and the man for the job is
Governor Mitt Romney,” said Ryan. As
portrayed by Democrats, Romney is
alternately a heartless corporate
raider, wealthy elitist, tax evader and
policy flip-flopper who should not be
trusted with the keys to the White
House.
Despite the attacks, Romney is
running even with Obama in the
polls in a race that is too close to call.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday
showed the two men tied at 43 percent
each. But Obama has the advantage
over Romney in likability, an
important characteristic that may
mask other problems that the
Democratic incumbent has in persuading
voters to give him four more
years. Arizona Senator John McCain,
the Republican presidential nominee
in 2008 who lost to Obama, said
Romney needs to accomplish two
tasks: one, convince Americans “that
they believe in him and trust in him,
and two, that he has a concrete plan
BRASILIA: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff enacted legislation
Wednesday that reserves half the enrollment at
federal universities for students from public schools and
gives priority to black, indigenous and mixed-race students.
The law was approved earlier this month by the
Senate after 13 years of debate, and was enacted by the
president alongside the ministers of education and racial
equality, Aloizio Mercadante and Luiza Bairros, the presidential
press service said. “The legislation addresses a double
challenge: first, democratizing access to universities
and maintaining high quality of education,” Rousseff said.
The law requires 50 percent of seats at federal universi-
to get our economy back on the right
track.” “We’ve got to reduce the unfavorables,
and many Americans will
be looking at him for the first time,”
McCain told Reuters.
Long journey
Romney’s big speech culminates a
long journey. After failing to win the
Republican nomination in 2008, he
plotted a return to the political arena.
This year he was tested time and
again by a series of conservative
alternatives from Newt Gingrich to
Rick Santorum. He outlasted all of
them. Romney has some inherent
advantages in his race against
Obama. He is topping the Democrat
in campaign donations, and the
weakness of the U.S. economy, with a
staggering 8.3 percent unemployment
rate, gives him a lethal argument
for change.
Even so, Romney is far from closing
the deal. It is unclear whether his
economic proposals for tax cuts and
deregulation of industries would
rekindle growth and keep taxpayers
dollars flowing into the Treasury to
pay for expensive government entitlement
programs, such as the
Medicare health insurance program
for seniors, which he wants to reform.
Romney’s convention speech offers
him a chance to break through the
blizzard of negative television ads
about him.
Republican delegates at the
Tampa convention recommended
Romney be himself in his speech, talk
about his background as a businessman
and Olympic organizer, and offer
a way forward. New York State
Senator Mike Nozzolio said Romney
needs to explain to voters in an
understandable way that he is “competent,
directed, focused, and can
make the message appeal to folks
TAMPA: US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney along with his
grandchildren watches the Republican National Convention on television
in their hotel room. — AP
around the kitchen table. “He’s going
to be the guest of millions of
Americans in their living rooms, and
this is a wonderful opportunity for
people to understand what he knows
and where he wants to take us,”
Nozzolio said. Donna Gosney, of
Boone County, West Virginia, wearing
a plastic coal miner’s helmet festooned
with political stickers, said
Romney simply needs to say what he
would do to reignite substantial job
growth.“We’ve got 2,000 reasons in
Boone County to vote for Mitt
Romney. They’re all miners without
jobs,” she said. Frank Steed, of Navarro
County, Texas, said Romney should
not worry about trying to appear
warm and fuzzy. “He is who he is,” said
Steed. “And I think he ought to be
proud of that. He’s a businessman.
He’s not a politician.” — Reuters
Brazil enacts university quota law
ties to go to students who completed their secondary education
in public schools.
In Brazil, many wealthy families send their children to
private schools, where the standard of education is often
much higher. The 50 percent quota will include a number
of seats for ethnic minorities, proportional to the demographics
in each state of the South American country. Of
Brazil’s 59 federal universities, 32 already have limited quota
systems in place. More than half of Brazil’s population of
191 million is of African origin, but recent findings show
that only 2.2 percent of Afro-Brazilians currently have
access to universities. — AFP
International
200 US Marines join
anti-drug efforts
GUATEMALA CITY: A team of 200 US Marines began
patrolling Guatemala’s western coast this week in an
unprecedented operation to beat drug traffickers in
the Central America region, a US military spokesman
said Wednesday. “I’d say it’s extremely unique. This is
the first Marine deployment that directly supports
countering transnational crime in this area, and it’s certainly
the largest footprint we’ve had in that area in
quite some time,” said Marine Staff Sgt. Earnest Barnes
at the US Southern Command in Doral, Florida.
It was 50 years ago when the US military last sent
any significant aid and equipment into Guatemala,
establishing a base to support counter-insurgency
efforts during a guerrilla uprising. That movement led
to 36 years of war that left 200,000 dead, mostly indigent
Maya farmers. The US pulled out in 1978.
Guatemalan authorities say they signed a treaty allowing
the US military to conduct the operations on July
16. Less than a month later an Air Force C-5 transport
plane flew into Guatemala City from North Carolina
loaded with the Marines and four UH-1 “Huey” helicopters.
After two weeks of setting up camp, establishing
computer connections and training at the Guatemalan
air base at Retalhuleu, the Marines ran through rehearsal
exercises, Barnes said. Last week, their commander
“gave us the thumbs up” to begin active operations, he
said. This week the Marines have been patrolling waterways
and the coastline, looking for fast power boats
and self-propelled “narco-submarines” used to smuggle
drugs along Central America’s Pacific Coast. US officials
say the “drug subs” can carry up to 11 tons of illegal
cargo up to 5,000 miles.
Col Erick Escobedo, spokesman for Guatemalan
Military Forces and Defense Ministry, said that so far
the Marines have brought about the seizure of one
small-engine aircraft and a car, but made no arrests. He
said he expected the Marines to in Guatemala for
about two months. If the Marines find suspected boats,
Barnes said, they will contact their Guatemalan counterparts
in a special operations unit from the
Guatemalan navy that will move in for the bust. Barnes
said the Marines will not accompany arrest mission, but
they do have the right to defend themselves if fired on.
The Marines are deployed as part of Operation
Martillo, a broader effort started last Jan. 15 to stop
drug trafficking along the Central American coast.
Focused exclusively on drug dealers in airplanes or
boats, the US-led operation involves troops or law
enforcement agents from Belize, Britain, Canada,
Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Guatemala,
Honduras, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama and
Spain. Eighty percent of cocaine smoked, snorted and
swallowed in the US passes through Central America,
according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Eight out of every 10 tons of that cocaine are loaded on
vessels known as “go fasts,” which are open hulled
boats 20 to 50 feet long with as many as four engines,
according to the Defense Department.
In a recent congressional briefing in Washington,
Rear Adm. Charles Michel said the boats, carrying anywhere
from 300 kilograms to 3.5 metric tons of cocaine,
typically leave Colombia and follow the western
Caribbean coastline of Central America to make landfall,
principally in Honduras. In the Pacific, the same
type of vessels will leave Colombia or Ecuador and travel
to Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica or Mexico, Michel
said. “We fight a highly mobile, disciplined and wellfunded
adversary that threatens democratic governments,
terrorizes populations, impedes economic
development and creates regional instability,” he said,
noting that authorities are able to stop only one out of
every four suspected traffickers they spot. This month’s
Guatemala operation by the Marines comes soon after
raids under an aggressive enforcement strategy that
has sharply increased the interception of illegal drug
flights in Honduras resulted in the death of one person
in June and four in May. — AP