She cheats on me, but I still love her

Hello Mr Philip Kitoto,
I don’t know whether I’m addressing this to the right person, but since the invitation to write in indicates that Mr Philip Kitoto leads the guidance and counselling team, I know my concerns will reach you.
First of all, let me congratulate you and your team for the very interesting and, sometimes, heartbreaking stories you run in the newspaper. My Mondays are now much, much better.
As my name suggests, I am not a Kenyan national, but a Dutch, even though I’m married to a Kenyan. I came to the country in October 1995, when I landed a job in the horticultural sector, running a flower farm in Naivasha.
I met my wife four years later (in October 1999) and it was love at first sight. I knew immediately that I was going to marry her, and so, two years later (in July 2001) we got married. Our daughter was born a year later in April 2002.
Life in Naivasha was quite okay, although the job was a bit stressful and tiresome, what with working seven long days a week!
However, I was fortunate enough to get some shares in the company, thus, for me, the long hours weren’t that dreary because I knew they added to my financial kitty. The salary was not that much, but it was enough to give us a comfortable life.
In October 2006, our second born, a son, added to the joy of our family, and everyone seemed happy for us. To many of our friends, we were (and still are) the perfect couple, living the perfect marriage.
Soon after the boy was born, there was an interest from abroad for the takeover of the company, and this suited me very well since I knew the monies involved would guarantee our daughter a good start in primary school.
I have always been against sending our children to boarding school, and I had started the search for a reputable day school for our daughter. Since Naivasha did not have good institutions, and since the company had already attracted the eyes of an international investor, we moved to Nairobi in 2007, where, I believed, were better school choices.
During our stay in Naivasha, we never had any serious problems in our marriage. I am not saying things were perfect. They could have been better, but the on-job pressure was too much.
In the first six months of our stay in Nairobi, everything went quite okay. I had decided to start another (smaller) farm closer to where we lived, and this kept me busy.
However, after the six months, things started to go wrong, even though I did not realise this initially. It started with my wife going, every second Sunday, to a ‘Women’s League’. At first, she was away between 2 o’clock and 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but soon graduated to between 2 o’clock and the next morning.
Later, I got to know she had started a relationship with a guy from this ‘Women’s League’. Her sisters also got wind of this affair, and made sure it was terminated immediately.
But, a few months later, she started another relationship with another man. The partying and going out went from bad to worse, and, soon, she was away every weekend.
By September 2008, she was almost uncontrollable. I was very disturbed by this turn of things, especially after I managed to locate her after a weekend of partying during which she did not sleep at home. She had left on a Saturday, and I found her in bed with her boyfriend in South B the following day.
I called her parents to discuss the whole situation because I wanted to save the marriage and give our children the perfect family and a better upbringing than my own.
Our daughter was six years then, and the son two. And they have gone through hell since then. A month after I caught her in bed with another man, my wife transferred Sh100,000 to her boyfriend’s bank account. As if that was not enough, I found pictures of him and my wife in my own bed. She had maintained contact with him through e-mail and telephone.
Today, my wife does not spend any time with the children or me. She hardly talks to me, and, most of the time, yells to both the kids and I.
After a bad 2009, I hoped 2010 would be better, but I was wrong. She spend the whole of last year partying every weekend and not telling me where she was going or when she would be back home. She consistently came back in the wee hours of the morning.
I have talked to her so many times, but every discussion bears the same result. I do the talking while she does the listening. After that, nothing changes. I have really tried to keep our marriage intact, but things have become so difficult and unbearable.
I don’t know what to do. My energy is spent. And it is not that I am scared to seek a divorce, but that I know very well that this will not solve my problems.
I also know that this situation cannot continue much longer, and I have always hoped that she would change and become, again, the woman/mother that I love. I love and care about her so much, and she knows that. And I know she is taking advantage of this fact to do whatever she wants.
I can’t understand how she cannot care about her own children. For the last two years, it feels very much like I am a single parent. Fortunately, we are financially well of and I am self-employed, otherwise I would definitely have lost my job and became financially ruined. That said, I can’t concentrate on my work, and always make a lot of mistakes, which cost me a lot of money.
Mentally, I am completely finished. I don’t know what to do any more and am seriously stressed. I know for a fact that I have not been a good parent to my children of late since I keep thinking about the situation.
I don’t have any friends any more because I have distanced myself from them to concentrate on the issues at home and to be with the children.
After all is said and done, I agree with the statement of purpose at the bottom of this page; the family unit in Kenya is a shambles. Nearly all the people I know have problems. Not a single marriage seems to be in order.
I think this has a lot to do with the technological age were are living in. The whole Internet and mobile telephone craze seems to be more like a curse then a blessing.
Your words of wisdom would be appreciated, and thank you.
Marco van Sandijk.

Hi Marco,

When I received your mail, I read through it several times, and I still couldn’t believe my eyes. I must say you have really tried your best to keep your marriage together.

I can also sense a lot of disappointment in your words. As you mentioned, your children need support and motherly care, which is currently unavailable.

However, I encourage you, first, to remain a loving dad to those children. Your children should not be left to suffer because of the wilful mistakes of the parents. They have already been through a lot, with the mother away at moments when they would need her most.

Second, you have done your best in seeking a solution to your marital issues. Although this has not produced the desired result, you have continued to hope that your wife will change. You have gone to the extent of involving your in-laws. However, you are at a desperate moment in this journey. My worry is what these events could end up doing to you and the children in the long run. How much can they endure?

Having said that, I must say that there is something desperately wrong with your wife. No right-thinking spouse would regularly leave her children to go for personal enjoyment. Her actions speak of a desperate woman that needs urgent help. If this help has to succeed, then the root of her problem must be dealt with.

I suggest a professional counsellor, for I am of the opinion that her problem started way before you moved to Nairobi. The truth is that you were not aware of it. It may be associated with you being away for long hours at the farm. Whatever the case, I encourage you to remain focused, first on the children, then on how you can find a good professional family counsellor for your wife.

You still have an opportunity to help her. I cannot fail to understate that the battle you have is not easy, and I pray that you get the courage and strength to fight for her restoration, even if the marriage never ends up working. At this rate, if left on her own, she will soon crumble emotionally.

Addictions vary, but, in general, they are defined as a strong emotional and/or psychological dependence on a substance, such as alcohol, sex, pornography, food, gambling or drugs, that has progressed beyond voluntary control. One thing that is clear is that your wife suffers from sexual addiction.

Whole family affected

And when a spouse is a sexual addict, it’s not just her mental and emotional health that is affected, but the health and well-being of the whole family as well. I am not an expert of addiction, but there are plenty of resources out there from where you can seek out help.

There is a way addicts take their spouses hostage. They somehow decide the overall health of the relationship: how they will live their lives, and who their friends will be, all at the expense of other people’s feelings.

When a person struggles with an addiction, more often than not, they don’t even realize they have a problem. For example, your wife’s addiction has impaired her judgment — as well as created a conflict — because of her behavioural patterns.

Even if she does not change now, you, as her partner, are the closest friend who needs to heal, so that you can bring about change that will start within yourself.

All the best Marco, all the best. Hang on there buddy, you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Again, all the best, and keep an eye on those kids.

By: Kenyan Daily Nation

Dilma Rousseff sworn in as Brazil's new president

Brazil's first woman President, Dilma Rousseff, has been sworn into office.

She took over from her mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who stepped down after two terms as the most popular president in the country's history.

After taking the oath of office, Ms Rousseff promised in a speech to protect the most vulnerable in Brazilian society and govern for all.

She also vowed to consolidate the work of her predecessor, who she said had changed the way Brazil was governed.

Brazil's economy has grown strongly in recent years, but it remains one of the most unequal societies in the world.

Ms Rousseff was appointed energy minister in President Lula's government in 2003 and served as his chief of staff from 2005 to 2010.

She was elected in October, defeating the opposition candidate Jose Serra by 56% to 44% in a run-off vote.

She is known to favour a strong state role in strategic areas, including banking, the oil industry and energy.

'All Brazilian women should be proud'

Ms Rousseff's inauguration ceremony at the Brazilian Congress began with a ride past the estimated 70,000 admirers lining the streets of the capital, Brasilia, in a 1952 Rolls Royce.

Among the 30,000 people gathered for the inauguration of the first woman to hold Brazil's highest office, it was clearly the women who had the greatest expectations.

It was an excited and noisy crowd, but it was still three times smaller than that which gathered for Mr Lula da Silva's inauguration in 2003: It is not easy to follow in the steps of the most popular president in Brazilian history.

Dilma Roussef will lead a country enjoying an unprecedented economic boom and a confidence in the future. It is just the kind of thing any political leader would wish for.

But in her inaugural address Mrs Rousseff made it clear she was aware of the major challenges still faced by the country if she was to fulfil her promise of "consolidating the achievements" of her mentor.

As well as improving the country's infrastructure, education and public health need much more attention if Brazil is to leave behind its deserved reputation as one of the most unequal societies in the world.

After signing the oath of office, Ms Rousseff began her 40-minute inaugural address by noting that this was the first time in Brazil that the role of president had been given to a woman.

"I know the historical significance of this decision," she said to widespread applause. "Today, all Brazilian women should feel proud and happy."

Nine of her 37 ministers will be women - a record for Brazil.

Ms Rousseff then said this was "just the beginning of a new era" for Brazil, and promised to protect the most vulnerable in society and "govern for all".

But she also vowed to consolidate the work of her predecessor, who she described as a "great man" who had changed the way the country was governed and encouraged Brazilians to trust in the future of their country.

"The best homage that I can give to him is to continue the progress made by his government, and invest in the strength of the people," she added. "This has been the best lesson that President Lula has given all of us."

Ms Rousseff singled out his work over the last eight years to reduce poverty and promote economic prosperity.

"The most determined struggle will be to eradicate extreme poverty," she said. "We can be a more developed and fairer country."

Rain prevented the roof of Ms Rousseff's open-top Rolls Royce from being opened

"I will not rest while there are Brazilians without food on their table, homeless in the streets, and poor children abandoned to their luck."

She also outlined her plans for tax reforms, environmental protection, improved health services, regional development, and measures to protect the economy from foreign "speculation".

Ms Rousseff later travelled to the presidential palace, where Lula removed the green-and-gold sash of the Brazilian head of state and placed it over her head as thousands of onlookers cheered.

"The happiness I feel for my inauguration is mixed with emotion at seeing him leave," the new president said, wiping tears from her eyes. "But Lula will be with us. I know that the distance of this position won't mean anything to a man of such greatness and generosity."

Lula himself shed a tear while hugging several ministers and aides, before leaving by car to his home near Sao Paulo.

Ms Rousseff, a former Marxist rebel who was imprisoned for three years in the early 1970s for resisting military rule, has promised to protect freedom of expression and worship, and to honour the constitution.

Ms Rousseff faces significant challenges, public health, education and improving the country's infrastructure.

What Brazil's new president signifies means for relations with China, US, India and South Africa

Brazil's economy is estimated to have grown by 8% in 2010. However, the currency, the real, has risen so high that it is now making Brazil's exports less competitive.

During his two terms as president from 2002, 30 million people were lifted out of poverty - a major reason for his status as Brazil's most popular president, correspondents say.

During President Rousseff's term, Brazil will host the Rio Plus 20 global environmental summit in 2012 and the Fifa World Cup in 2014. She will also oversee preparations for the Summer Olympics in 2016.

Lula is expected to play an important advisory role to her government.

By: BBC News

3,000 illegal immigrants seized in NEP last year

Illegal immigrants from Ethiopia crowded inside a single room at a house in Ngong Town on June 23, 2010. In the past one week, administration and regular police have apprehended 140 foreigners. Photo/FILE

Police in North Eastern Province arrested more than 3,000 illegal immigrants last year.

Area PC James 0le Seriani said 50 suspects, some with Israeli passports, were among those arrested for alleged involvement in terrorism.

In the past one week, administration and regular police have apprehended 140 foreigners.

They include 51 Ethiopians and four of their Kenyan accomplices arrested in Wajir, 50 in Lagdera, 34 in Garissa and five in Mandera.

Mr Seriani said that the government sacked 31 regular and administration officers, including a deputy commissioner of police, for aiding foreigners travelling to Nairobi without legal documents.

He said a chief in Masalani was sacked after being convicted of the same offence. He added that several Kenyans were also arrested and their vehicles impounded by police for ferrying illegal immigrants.

The administrator noted that the foreigners had devised new ways and routes that had been uncovered by the security officials.

The new routes include Dadaab-Modogashe-Banane ‘cutline’ en-route to Merti in Isiolo and the Masalani Bridge.

He said security committees in these areas had been put on high alert.

Mr Seriani explained the provincial security team was working closely with their counterparts in Eastern and Coast provinces to secure all entry points to contain influx of illegal immigrants.

By: KNA (Kenyan daily nation)

Egypt minister pelted with stones as cleric accuses Pope of meddling

MOHAMMED ABED| AFP Egyptian Christians shout slogans as they protest on January 2, 2011 outside the Al-Qiddissine (The Saints) church in Alexandria, following a New Year’s Eve car bomb attack on the Coptic church in the northern Egyptian city in which 21 people were killed.

CAIRO, Monday

Angry Christian demonstrators pelted an Egyptian minister with stones yesterday, as fears rose of sectarian unrest after a bombing at a church that killed 21 people.

Hundreds of Coptic Christians gathered inside the gates of Cairo’s St Mark’s Cathedral where the Coptic pope, Shenouda III, has his headquarters and heckled officials who came to pay condolences.

Demonstrators chased the state minister for economic development, Osman Mohammed Osman, to his car and pelted him with stones after he met Shenouda, while others clashed with police standing outside the gates.

A police official said at least 40 policemen suffered light wounds when the protesters pelted them with stones.

More than a thousand protesters broke through the gates and spilled into nearby streets, stopping cars, banging on their hoods and pelting them with stones. Meanwhile, Egypt’s top Muslim cleric yesterday criticised Pope Benedict XVI’s call for world leaders to defend Christians as interference in his country’s affairs, the official MENA news agency reported.

The call, following the deadly car-bombing targeting a Coptic church in Alexandria northern Egypt, was “unacceptable interference in Egypt’s affairs,” Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the oldest Islamic seat of learning, told reporters.

“I disagree with the pope’s view, and I ask why did the pope not call for the protection of Muslims when they were subjected to killings in Iraq?” he said at a news conference.

The Vatican immediately rejected the accusation, saying the head of the Roman Catholic Church had shown solidarity with the Coptic community as well as concern for the consequences of the violence for the Christian and Muslim population.

“Therefore we cannot see how the pope’s approach to bring everybody to accept non-violence can be considered meddling,” ANSA news agency quoted Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi as saying.

Meanwhile, Egypt was on high alert today ahead of the Coptic Christmas holiday following the church bombing.

Police cancelled leave for senior officers and were tightening surveillance of airports and ports to prevent suspects from leaving the country, as new checkpoints were set up across the nation.

Security was also to be beefed up at churches for Christmas which Copts celebrate on January 7, security officials said.

Latest reports say an Al-Qaeda website had identified in December the church in Alexandria, Egypt, which was bombed as being among Coptic places designated as targets.

Al-Qiddissin (The Saints) church, where 21 people were killed and 79 wounded in Saturday’s bombing, was on a list posted by the Al-Qaeda-linked Shumukh al-Islam website of 50 Coptic churches across Egypt.

Coptic churches in several European countries, including France, Germany and Britain, also figured on the list which was posted on December 2.

A message announcing “bomb attacks against churches during Christmas... when they will be most crowded” was posted alongside the list of would-be targets. “Get up and give up sleep,” said the message.

“This is an important notice on bomb attacks against churches during Christmas,” it said.

It urged “every Muslim who cares about the honour of his sisters to bomb these churches during Christmas celebrations, when they will be most crowded.” (AFP)

By: Kenyan Daily Nation

Africa migrants drown off Yemen as boats sink

Up to 80 African migrants are feared to have drowned off the south coast of Yemen after their boats capsized, Yemeni officials say.

The migrants, mostly from Ethiopia, were travelling in two boats which were hit by strong wind and waves, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Three Somali migrants were reportedly found alive while the coastguard were searching for any other survivors.

Hundreds of Africans drown each year, trying to reach Yemen in crowded boats.

The ministry quoted coastguards in Aden as saying the first boat went down off the coast of Taez province with 46 people on board.

All those on board had drowned apart from the three Somalis, it said.

The second boat capsized off Lahij province.

It was carrying "between 35 to 40 people, all of them Ethiopians and among them women and children," said the ministry statement.

It was not clear from the statement when the incidents took place, but it said a search was being carried out "in hope of finding survivors".

Thousands of people attempt the dangerous journey from Africa across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen every year.

The UN's refugee agency says more than 74,000 Africans arrived in Yemen in 2009, fleeing "desperate situations of civil war, political instability, poverty, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa".

Yemen is seen as a gateway to a better life in the Middle East or Europe, but people smugglers often crowd the migrants onto old and unseaworthy vessels.

Hundreds of would-be migrants die before reaching their destination.

By: BBC News

Who Is Willing to Pay For What Online

With so much available online for free, it might be surprising to discover that almost two-thirds of web users pay for what they're looking for. A new survey from the Pew Institute's Internet and American Life Project has found that 65% of internet users have paid for some form of content, with music and software downloads providing the bulk of those purchases.

The survey, carried out in October and November this year, asked 755 internet users about different kinds of online material that could be purchased or accessed by payment - specifically, "intangible" material that existed as digital data, as opposed to physical objects purchased through a storefront like Amazon.com or travel and accommodation from sites like Expedia.com. 33% of those surveyed said that they had purchased music or software online, with others including smartphone apps, videogames, movies, e-books and access to news sources amongst their purchases. Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 2% of those surveyed admitted to paying for adult content.

Interestingly, almost half of those taking part (46%) had only purchased one or two of the different options available, with 16% admitting to purchasing six or more of the fifteen options. The typical user was estimated to spending around $10 a month on online content, with users aged between 30-49 more likely to pay for content. According to Pew, there is no clear breakdown for gender or race for any particular option, with the exception of software purchases and adult content, both of which came from a mostly male demographic.

By: Graeme Macmillan (Time magazine)

Diplomats Help Push Sales of Jetliners on the Global Market

Kevin P. Casey/Bloomberg News

A Boeing 747-8 is assembled in Washington State. American and Boeing officials acknowledged the big role the United States government plays in helping them sell commercial airplanes.

WASHINGTON — The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight. And in Bangladesh, the prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Each of these government leaders had one thing in common: they were trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars’ worth of commercial jets from Boeing or its European competitor, Airbus. And United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers with plenty to spend, perks.

This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs. At its heart, it is a wrestling match fought daily by executives at two giant companies, Boeing and Airbus, in which each controls about half of the global market for such planes.

To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels.

It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had previously been only glimpsed — in this case, the sales war between American diplomats and their European counterparts.

The cables describe letters from presidents, state visits as bargaining chips and a number of leaders making big purchases based, at least in part, on how much the companies will dress up private planes.

The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,” still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such corrupt practices.

State Department and Boeing officials, in interviews last month, acknowledged the important role the United States government plays in helping them sell commercial airplanes, despite a trade agreement signed by the United States and European leaders three decades ago intended to remove international politics from the process.

The United States economy, said Robert D. Hormats, under secretary for economic affairs at the State Department, increasingly relies upon exports to the fast-growing developing world — nations like China and India, as well as those in Latin America and the Middle East.

So pushing sales of big-ticket items like commercial jets, earth-moving equipment or power plants (or stepping in to object if an American company is not being given a fair chance to bid) is central to the Obama administration’s strategy to help the nation recover from the recession.

Boeing earns about 70 percent of its commercial plane sales from foreign buyers, and is the single biggest exporter of manufactured goods in the United States. Every $1 billion in sales — and some of these deals carry a price tag of as high as $10 billion — translates into an estimated 11,000 American jobs, according to the State Department.

The Equalizers

“That is the reality of the 21st century; governments are playing a greater role in supporting their companies, and we need to do the same thing,” Mr. Hormats, a former top executive at Goldman Sachs, said in an interview.

Said Tim Neale, a Boeing spokesman, “The way I look at it, it levels the playing field.”

But Charles A. Hamilton, a former Defense Department official who is a consultant to Airbus, said the government’s advocacy undermined arguments by Boeing and the United States that Airbus had an unfair advantage because of its subsidies from European governments.

“The bottom line is anything goes to get the business,” said Mr. Hamilton, adding that he was speaking for himself, and not for Airbus. “If they feel like they are losing, they will do just about anything to save a deal.”

Airbus executives would not discuss details of their own sales campaigns — and the WikiLeaks documents are mostly focused on American efforts. But one Airbus official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, conceded that, international agreements aside, “commercial jet sales are not totally decoupled from political relationship building.”

One example of the horse-trading involved Saudi Arabia, which in November announced a deal with Boeing to buy 12 777-300ER airliners, with options for 10 more, a transaction worth more than $3.3 billion at list prices.

That announcement was preceded by years of intense lobbying by American officials.

One pitch came from the highest levels, the cables show. In late 2006, Israel Hernandez, a senior Commerce Department official, hand-delivered a personal letter from President George W. Bush
to the Jeddah office of King Abdullah, urging the king to buy as many as 43 Boeing jets to modernize Saudi Arabian Airlines and 13 jets for the Saudi royal fleet, which serves the extended royal family.

The king read the letter from Mr. Bush, the State Department cable says, and announced that Boeing jets were his favorites. He said he had just turned down two new Airbus jets, opting instead for a slightly used Boeing 747.

But before he would commit to a mostly Boeing fleet, the king had a request.

“I am instructing you,” he told Mr. Hernandez politely, according to the State Department cable, “to speak to the president and all concerned authorities,” as the king “wanted to have all the technology that his friend, President Bush, had on Air Force One.” Once he had his own high-tech plane, with the world’s most advanced telecommunications and defense equipment — the king told Mr. Hernandez that “ ‘God willing,’ he will make a decision that will ‘please you very much.’ ”

A State Department spokesman confirmed last week that the United States had authorized an “upgrade” to King Abdullah’s plane, adding “for security reasons, we won’t discuss specifics.”

Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wazed, was equally direct in making a connection for the landing rights at Kennedy Airport, as a condition of the airplane deal, which was then at risk of collapsing.

“If there is no New York route, what is the point of buying Boeing?” a November 2009 cable quotes Ms. Hasina as saying as she pressed American officials. The deal with Boeing went through. So far, flights by the country’s national carrier, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, to New York have not been restored.

The request from Turkey for a slot on a future NASA flight came early last year, as Turkish Airlines was considering buying as many as 20 Boeing jets.

The government there owns slightly less than half of the airline, but Turkey’s minister of transportation, Binali Yildirim, in a January 2010 meeting with the United States ambassador to Turkey, made clear that the country’s president wanted help with its fledgling space program and perhaps assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration to improve its aviation safety.

Requests for Favors

“Cooperation in this area will create the right environment for commercial deals,” Mr. Yildirim told the United States ambassador, the cable says.

In a cable back to Washington, James F. Jeffrey, then the United States ambassador to Turkey, called the effort by Turkish authorities to link the Boeing deal to political requests an “unwelcome, but unsurprising degree of political influence in this transaction.” But he went on to say that authorizing the F.A.A. to help Turkey improve its aviation safety and space exploration programs could benefit both nations.

“We probably cannot put a Turkish astronaut in orbit, but there are programs we could undertake to strengthen Turkey’s capacity in this area that would meet our own goals for improved aviation safety,” he wrote. “In any case, we must show some response to the minister’s vague request if we want to maximize chances for the sale.”

The deal was announced a month later, as Turkish Airlines ordered 20 Boeing planes.

Some sales come to Boeing in part because foreign political leaders want to show friendship to the United States.

King Abdullah II of Jordan, a longtime ally and recipient of billions of dollars in United States aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that “even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing’s he intended to make a ‘political’ decision to have Royal Jordanian buy Boeing aircraft,” a State Department cable said, although the United States still had to help Boeing secure the deal.

The cables show that the United States is willing to pull out all the political stops if Boeing is in danger of losing a big deal to Airbus. In late 2007, the board of Gulf Air, the national airline of the oil-rich kingdom of Bahrain, picked Airbus for a huge sale.

Boeing told the American government, which responded that there was still a way to turn the deal around, even though Airbus had offered the planes for about $400 million less than Boeing.

‘Far From Over’

“The contest remained far from over,” said the cable. “Gulf Air’s selection still needed to be endorsed by the government.”

The American ambassador at the time, Adam Ereli, and his chief economic officer, went into action, “lobbying Gulf Air management, board members, government officials and representatives of parliament,” and appealing directly to the crown prince of Bahrain, in an effort to line up a deal for Boeing that could be final in time for a coming visit by President Bush, the first visit by a sitting United States president.

Within two weeks, the embassy alerted Boeing officials that the crown prince and king of Bahrain had rejected Airbus’s offer and directed Gulf Air’s chairman to make a deal with Boeing that could be signed while Mr. Bush was in the country.

Seeing that Airbus had been outmaneuvered, France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made a last-minute bid to save the deal, the State Department cable says. He offered to visit Bahrain after Mr. Bush had left, but that stop-over was canceled when the Boeing agreement was signed in January 2008. None of the last-minute diplomacy was disclosed.

The cables make clear that both Boeing and the government set limits on their efforts, turning away requests in Turkey and Tanzania to hire “agents” who charge steep commissions — or as some called them, bribes — to gain access to top officials.

Mr. Neale, the company spokesman, says that for Boeing, “it is not just a matter of abiding by U.S. law and laws internationally but a general sense of business ethics.” When such requests surfaced, Boeing often reported them to the State Department.

“ ‘Agents’ and steep ‘commissions’ have been at the heart of several corruption scandals here,” says a 2007 State Department cable recounting a demand that Boeing hire a mysterious hotel executive in Tanzania to serve as a “go-between” with government officials. Payments like that, the cable said, typically were bribes that “ended up in Swiss bank accounts.”

By: Erick Lipton, Nicola Clark and Andrew Lehren (NY times)

African team 'to offer amnesty' to Ivory Coast's Gbagbo

Will West African leaders convince Laurent Gbagbo (left) to cede power?

A delegation of African leaders has met incumbent Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo in a new effort to persuade him to step down following disputed elections.

Leaders from Benin, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone and Kenya were due to make an amnesty offer to Mr Gbagbo if he quit.

West African states have said they will remove him by force if he does not.

The UN and the African Union regard Mr Gbagbo's rival, Alassane Ouattara, as the winner of the 28 November election.

The heads of state who travelled to Ivory Coast are Benin's Boni Yayi, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Cape Verde's Pedro Pires - who represent the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

They were received by a smiling Mr Gbagbo, AFP news agency said.

It is their second visit in less than a week. Last Tuesday they flew to Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial capital, but on that occasion failed to convince Mr Gbagbo to stand down.

This time they have been joined by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, representing the African Union. They are expected to meet Mr Ouattara later.

"He will seek a peaceful settlement to the election crisis... and seek an assurance of safety and security for Mr Laurent Gbagbo and his supporters, if he agrees to cede power," Mr Odinga's office said in a statement.

He was one of the first African leaders to call for military intervention to oust Mr Gbagbo.

Guarantees

Sierra Leone's Information Minister, Ibrahim Ben-Kargbo, said the leaders would tell Mr Gbagbo to step down and did not intend to negotiate with him.

But a source within the African delegation told the BBC that the incumbent would be offered a legal amnesty, as well as a guarantee that his financial assets would be secure if he left office.

Few observers have any hope that a compromise can be found that would see Laurent Gbagbo hand over power to his rival, Alassane Ouattara.

The Ecowas mission will almost certainly go over the various deals that have been offered for exile and amnesty but, in his New Year message, Mr Gbagbo said he would not cede power and insisted that he was the rightfully elected president.

He still has control of state television and the public backing of the army, but Mr Ouattara has the support of most West African leaders, who have already told the West African central bank to give him control over the state accounts.

The leaders will report back to the current chairman of the Ecowas region, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday, at which point a decision will be made on the way forward.

However a spokesman for Mr Gbagbo, Ohoupa Sessegnon, told the BBC the offer would be rejected.

"It's not about Laurent Gbagbo seeking some sort of offer. It's about Laurent Gbagbo having won the elections in the Cote D'Ivoire," Mr Sessegnon told the BBC. "Now it appears that the opposition supported by the French and their allies do not want to accept that."

The UN says some 200 people have been killed or have disappeared in the past month - mostly supporters of Mr Ouattara.

UN peacekeepers in the country say security forces have twice blocked them from visiting the site of one of two alleged mass graves.

The UN has also expressed concern that some of the homes of opponents to Mr Gbagbo have been marked to identify the ethnicity of their occupants.

The Gbagbo camp has denied sanctioning abuses.

UN peacekeepers are protecting Mr Ouattara, who is holed up at a hotel in Abidjan. Mr Gbagbo has called on the 10,000-strong UN force to leave the country.

The election was intended to reunify Ivory Coast - the world's leading cocoa producer - which has been divided since a 2002 conflict.

Mr Ouattara was initially proclaimed the winner by the country's election commission - a verdict backed by the UN, which helped organise the poll.

But the Constitutional Council, headed by an ally of Mr Gbagbo, said he had won, citing irregularities in the north which is controlled by former rebels supporting Mr Ouattara.

Both men have been sworn in as president.

By: BBC News

Flooding in Australia's Queensland 'to last weeks'

Devastating flood waters across the Australian state of Queensland may not recede for weeks, the state's Premier Anna Bligh has warned.

More than 20 towns in Queensland have been cut off or flooded, with more than 200,000 people affected.

Military aircraft are flying supplies into Rockhampton, which has been isolated by the still-rising waters.

The authorities have now confirmed three deaths caused by flood waters in the past few days.

From here the city of Rockhampton looks like a small island surrounded by an inland sea.

We're still 36 hours away from the peak of the floodwaters but they have been closing in on the central business district faster than originally anticipated.

People are being ordered by police to leave their homes. They have been wading through these outlying suburbs, chest-deep at times, to tell people to leave. Many are reluctant to do so.

There have been reports of small-scale looting and many people are worried not just by the floodwaters but by the possibility their homes might be robbed by looters. That is why an evacuation centre which has room for 1,500 people had only 50 overnight.

Ms Bligh has recalled ministers from holidays for crisis talks to plan the response to the flooding.

"Given the scale and size of this disaster, and the prospect that we will see waters sitting potentially for a couple of weeks, we will continue to have major issues to deal with throughout January," she said.

Her concern was echoed earlier by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, saying: "This is a major natural disaster and recovery will take a significant amount of time.

"The extent of flooding being experienced by Queensland is unprecedented and requires a national and united response."

Approximately 850,000 sq km have been affected, an area equivalent in size to France and Germany.

Australian Red Cross executive director Greg Goebel said there were seven evacuation centres currently operating, generally in town halls, gymnasiums or schools, and the army were flying in supplies.

"It is a major disaster, it's a heartbreak for many, many thousands of people and will certainly take an enormous amount of time to get their communities back to normality," he told the BBC.

'Completely stranded'

The comments come as the city of Rockhampton became cut off by waters spilling from the still-swelling Fitzroy River, leading many of its inhabitants to flee.

"Rockhampton is now completely stranded - a town of 75,000 people - no airport, rail or road," Ms Bligh told ABC radio late on Monday.

With the last route into Rockhampton cut, three Australian Defence Force helicopters will provide the city's only lifeline for food and medical supplies.

"The worst [is] still to come in communities like Rockhampton. Supplying them with food, ensuring that we keep them safe during this flood is absolutely critical," Ms Bligh said.

The water level in the Fitzroy River is expected to peak at 9.4m late on Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Mr Goebel said that police were enforcing evacuations in a number of suburbs, and a mobile hospital had been set up on dry ground.

Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter said about 40% of the city could be affected, and residents may have to wait at least two weeks before being able to return home.

Kay Becker, chief executive of Capricorn Helicopter Rescue, said most people were behaving sensibly in the floods.

"People are seeing water in places that they've never ever seen it before, it's very high water, the water's running very fast, and you know, if you play with water the water will win and you will come off second best, and thankfully most people have, it seems, have heeded that warning," she said.

'Stocking up'

One Rockhampton resident told the BBC that she had stocked up on fuel and food at petrol stations as she drove back early from holiday.

"We are going to stay in, we are fully prepared, have plenty of food and have been boiling the water - but if the water gets higher than 9.4m we will have to turn the power off and might have to leave," said Trudi Reed.

Alex Finlayson who lives in Emerald, Queensland, filmed inside his flooded home

"The water is coming very quickly and we are watching it rise."

Another resident said there had been panic-buying in the city.

"Lots of people have been stocking up on fuel. I also heard about one woman who brought 20 loaves of bread from a supermarket," resident Petros Khalesirad told the BBC.

The intense rains have also had an impact on coal and sugar production.

The Queensland premier said 75% of operations at the state's coal fields had been halted, which supply half of the world's coking coal needed in steel manufacturing.

The state is also responsible for almost all the country's sugar production, and with cane fields drenched, Australia, usually a net exporter, will be forced to import.

QUEENSLAND

• North-eastern Australian state
• Largely tropical climate
• Area: 1.73 million sq km (668,000 sq mile)
• Coastal regions, including Great Barrier Reef, designated World Heritage Site
• Mining and cattle ranching important inland

Prime Minister Gillard has announced that grants and low-interest loans would be made available to help local businesses recover from the flooding.

On Monday, two more deaths from the flooding were confirmed.

One was a 38-year-old man whose boat was swamped near the mouth of the Boyne River, and the other was a woman whose car was washed off the road west of Emerald.

On Sunday, another woman swept from the road while trying to cross the Leichhardt River became the first confirmed death since the flooding was declared a disaster.

Forecasters cancelled a severe storm warning on Monday, saying the immediate threat had passed.

By: bbc News

Pfizer Caught Short of Antismoking Drug in Japan

Tyler Sipe for The New York Times

Smokers in Japan can light up at bars, restaurants, schools and government offices. Above, diners smoke at a restaurant in Chigasaki.

TOKYO — When the Japanese government raised the tax on cigarettes on Oct. 1, it should have sparked a public health revolution in this land of heavy smokers.

The tax increase should also have been a bonanza for Pfizer, the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company, which makes the leading drug to help smokers break the habit.

Instead, it became a missed opportunity.

Despite ample notice of the change, Pfizer failed to produce enough of the drug, Chantix, which is sold as Champix in Japan. When tens of thousands of would-be quitters rushed to their doctors for prescriptions, Pfizer was overwhelmed.

Less than two weeks after the tax increase went into effect, the company was forced to suspend sales of the drug to new patients until it could ramp up production.

Now, with the drug still difficult to get, Japanese health professionals and many of the nation’s smokers are grumbling.

And Pfizer has given up millions of dollars in potential Chantix sales, at least temporarily, at a time when overseas markets are more important. In the United States, prescriptions for the drug plunged after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors about psychiatric side effects.

“After all that advertising, it turns out they don’t have enough,” said Hiroya Kumamaru, director of the KI Akihabara Clinic in Tokyo, who is turning away patients. His clinic has only enough of the drug for the 80 patients who began their treatment before the supply crunch. “They should have predicted something like this,” he said.

A Pfizer spokesman in Tokyo, Kinji Iwase, said the company misjudged interest in the drug among Japanese smokers. “An extraordinary number of people decided to quit, and our reading of the situation was off,” Mr. Iwase said. “We expected more demand, but not to this extent.”

Japan has long been a smokers’ stronghold. Cheap cigarettes sold by a government-controlled tobacco company and lax antismoking laws — smokers have almost total freedom to light up at bars, restaurants and even schools and government offices — have long encouraged the habit. About 130,000 people a year die of tobacco-related illnesses in Japan, according to the World Health Organization.

But a growing health consciousness, tighter regulations on tobacco advertising and increasingly strict smoking bans on public transport have contributed to a gradual decline in smoking. The smoking rate for men was 36.6 percent in 2010, 2.3 percentage points lower than a year earlier — though far above the 24 percent smoking rate among men in the United States.

The tax increase, prompted by health concerns as well as a need to raise revenues for Japan’s cash-strapped government, was expected to spur an even more dramatic and sustained flight from cigarettes. On Oct. 1, the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes jumped from 300 yen, or about $3.60, to over 400 yen, including 70 yen in taxes.

Ahead of the increase, smokers rushed to stock up; tobacco sales surged 88 percent in September from a year earlier, but slumped 70 percent in October, according to the Tobacco Institute of Japan.

Surveys suggest that many smokers here are looking to quit. In one November poll of 1,110 smokers by Rakuten Research, 13.9 percent of respondents said they had stopped smoking, while 15.5 percent said they planned to stop.

While sales of nicotine patches and smoking alternatives have risen, Pfizer’s Chantix seems to be the preference for smokers trying to stop.

Introduced in the United States in 2006, Chantix, which works by suppressing the positive feelings induced by cigarettes by blocking receptors in the brain, was initially seen as a global blockbuster. But reports of possible side effects, including aggression and thoughts of suicide, prompted the F.D.A. in 2009 to require the drug to carry the agency’s strongest warning on its packaging, triggering a sharp drop in sales in the United States.

Since then, Pfizer has tried to emphasize the benefits of quitting smoking over the risks posed by Chantix, and has stressed that further studies are needed to determine whether the problems are caused by the drug itself, or are symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

To make up for lost revenue at home, Pfizer has also looked increasingly to foreign markets. In the first nine months of 2010, while revenue from Chantix in America fell another 16.8 percent to $252 million, sales in the rest of the world grew 22.17 percent to $270 million.

Clearing Japan’s drug-approval process in 2008, Pfizer successfully wooed Japanese doctors to prescribe the drug. Japan’s national health insurance covered 70 percent of the 60,000-yen cost for a recommended 12-week prescription.

To stoke public interest, Pfizer started a major ad campaign, starring the slick Hiroshi Tachi, Japan’s answer to the chain-smoking Don Draper of America’s “Mad Men.” Mr. Tachi declared that Chantix had helped him quit smoking, and posed in posters with a party horn between his fingers instead of his trademark cigarette. Soon, Japanese blogs raved about the new “almighty” drug that would help Japan kick its cigarette habit. (There has been little coverage here of Chantix’s potential side effects.)

By August, Pfizer was selling the drug to about 70,000 patients a month in Japan. But that did not prepare the company for the jump in demand related to the tax increase. In September, prescriptions more than doubled to 170,000, and they rose even more in October.

On Oct. 12, Pfizer announced that it was stopping shipments of its “starter packs,” and instructed clinics to stop accepting new patients.

Reiko Ono, 33, who has smoked for over a decade, was one of the last to secure supplies of Champix at a Tokyo clinic. She has completed eight of the 12 weeks of recommended treatment, and has, until now, resisted the urge to light up.

“It hasn’t been as difficult as I thought,” Ms. Ono said.

But many of Ms. Ono’s colleagues who sought the drug were told to wait, she said. “I’m lucky I moved quickly,” she said.

Particularly irritating to many smokers is that Pfizer had almost a year to prepare for a surge in demand; the tax increase was approved in December 2009.

Pfizer is now reassuring would-be customers that they, too, will soon have access to Chantix. In January, the drug maker says, it will have at least 450,000 starter packs available.

Health professionals say that further reductions in smoking-related deaths will hinge on whether the government levies further taxes on cigarettes, which remain cheaper than in the United States and Europe, and bucks the influence of Japan Tobacco, still half-owned by the Finance Ministry.

The Democratic Party of Japan, which took power last year, has been more proactive in setting a nonsmoking agenda, and some lawmakers are pressing to do much more.

“This is just the first step. An ideal scenario is to raise tobacco prices to as much as 1,000 yen,” a Democratic lawmaker, Yoko Komiyama, said. “Whatever it takes to get more people to quit.”

By: Hiroko Tabuchi (NY times)