Six In The Morning

Finger-pointing after power restored in India

　Tuesday's blackout affected about 10 percent of the world's population

By GARDINER HARRIS and VIKAS BAJAJ
As electric power was restored across northern India on Wednesday, political jockeying over who was to blame for the widespread blackouts intensified. The nation’s new power minister distanced himself from assertions by his predecessor that state officials were responsible for Monday and Tuesday’s blackouts by drawing more power for their regions than they were allotted. But the former power minister, who was promoted in a cabinet reshuffle, kept right on making those claims. “I don’t think one can have a blame game between the state and the center,” said the new minister, Veerappa Moily.

'What will happen to us?': Loyalists fear rebel attacks
In Aleppo, Kim Sengupta finds members of pro-Assad tribes hiding behind closed doors in fear of revenge raids

KIM SENGUPTA ALEPPO THURSDAY 02 AUGUST 2012
Sitting in a room in his flat darkened by drawn curtains, Abdul Fawaz al-Jais flinched every time he heard shots. He almost jumped when there was loud and prolonged shouting outside. At the sound of a helicopter, however, he raised his head with a look of almost relief. The reaction was hardly the normal one in "Free Aleppo", where residents have been subjected to attacks from the air from the Syrian regime while at the same time facing regular salvoes of tank and artillery fire on the ground.

Deep Read: Another fright for Tunisia
In Tunisia, the transition from dictatorship to democracy has been smoother than neighbouring countries, but an unexpected threat has emerged.

Paul Schemm
Thousands of hardcore Muslims chant against Jews. Youths rampage through cities at night in protest of "blasphemous" art. A sit-in by religious students degenerates into fist fights and the desecration of Tunisia's flag. In the birthplace of the Arab Spring, the transition from dictatorship to democracy has been mostly smoother than in neighboring countries, with no power hungry military or armed militias to stifle the process. But as a moderate Islamist party rules with the help of secular forces, an unexpected threat has emerged: the increasing boldness of ultraconservative Muslims known loosely as Salafis, who want to turn this North African country of 10-million into a strict Islamic state.

India seeks some light in the dark
South Asia

By Raja Murthy
DEHRADUN, Northern India - The massive electricity outages that brought India to a standstill this week are the result of a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode. More than 300 million people were affected when the first cut hit, but that number soon escalated in what may be the worst power crash in history. Hundreds of trains stalled and hospitals and essential services stopped functioning in the early hours of Monday. Normalcy didn't limp back until dawn. Bureaucratic heads rolled and power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde (now shifted to the home ministry) appointed an investigative task force.

Brazil is stamping out favela violence – now on to trash collection and education
Brazil's first impact study on its Police Pacification Units reveals that the program has significantly reduced violence, but still needs extensive reform.

By Julia Michaels, Guest blogger
Ever since pacification began in Rio de Janeiro, in November 2008, we’ve been hearing (and saying) that social needs must also be met. As the number of UPPs, or police pacification units, grow (now at 26, employing 5,000 men and women, with a goal of 40 by 2014), State Public Safety Secretary José Mariano Beltrame – and many others – repeat the mantra about the other side of the coin. The Social UPP got off to a shaky start, with Governor Sérgio Cabral’s political needs shoving it out of the state nest in December 2010, into the municipal one, under the aegis of the Pereira Passos Institute.

Far-right party doles out food to Greeks only
Golden Dawn hands out food parcels outside parliament, but makes sure only Greek citizens receive assistance.

Al Jazeera
Members of the extreme right Golden Dawn party have handed out food parcels outside the Greek parliament, but made sure only Greek citizens received the assistance. Hundreds stood in line at Athens' main Syntagma Square on Wednesday, showing IDs proving their citizenship to pick up their food. Party volunteers dressed in black passed out milk, pasta, potatoes and olive oil in a one-day charity event critics said was meant to soften the image of a party likened by some to neo-Nazi groups. With poverty and the unemployment rate rising, Golden Dawn has made inroads in the country's political system with its vehement attacks against traditionally dominant parties and strongly anti-immigrant stance. Its members have been accused of involvement in attacks against immigrants and some of its senior officials have publicly declared admiration for Adolf Hitler. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label.

Strong Yen Is Dividing Generations in Japan


By MARTIN FACKLER
SHIZUOKA, Japan — As Japan has ceded dominance in industry after industry that once lifted this nation to economic greatness, there has been plenty of blame to go around. A nuclear disaster that raised energy costs. A lack of entrepreneurship. China’s relatively cheap work force. Increasingly, however, business leaders point to a problem that is at least partly within the government’s power to control: a high yen that has made Japanese products, from televisions to memory chips, prohibitively expensive abroad. In an echo of a debate that raged in the United States in the 1980s, the government faces growing criticism for doing almost nothing to rein in the yen, despite alarm that the record-high currency is dealing crippling blows to the country’s once all-important export machine.