Australia grounds Tiger Airways over safety fears (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Aviation regulators grounded budget carrier Tiger Airways Australia Saturday because it posed a "serious and imminent risk to air safety", throwing the travel plans of thousands of people into chaos.

Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said Tiger's domestic services had been suspended with immediate effect following a series of incidents that had raised questions about its airworthiness.

The first grounding of an entire airline in Australian aviation history, the ban is for an initial five working days, after which officials can apply for a court-enforced extension to allow for further safety investigations.

A subsidiary of Singapore's Tiger Airways, Tiger Australia operates about 60 domestic flights a day, moving up to 9,000 passengers.

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said about 35,000 people would be affected by the week-long ban, which he described as an "extremely regrettable" but necessary step.

CASA said it was considering applying for an extension and warned that Tiger's licence to fly was at stake, though that was "not so much in contemplation at this point".

"What we're looking at now is do we need more time to work on what response we're going to have to this situation, and if we do how much time, and putting an argument to the court to get that time," CASA spokesman Peter Gibson told AFP.

The engineers' union said Tiger was likely to remain grounded for "weeks".

"They have quite a way to go before they can satisfy the regulator that their aircraft are going to be in a fit state to fly," said union chief Steve Purvinas.

Australian authorities have been closely monitoring Tiger and issued the airline a "show cause" notice in March threatening to vary, suspend or cancel its licence over safety worries.

It was ordered to improve the proficiency of its pilots, boost pilot training and checking procedures, address fatigue management issues and ensure "appropriately qualified people fill management and operational positions".

CASA also ordered improvements to the airline's "maintenance control and ongoing airworthiness systems."

"Since Tiger Airways Australia was served the show cause notice there have been further events raising concerns about the airline?s ability to continue to conduct operations safely," the regulator said.

"CASA believes permitting the airline to continue to fly poses a serious and imminent risk to air safety," it added.

Barry Jackson, head of the pilots' union, said the move was a "wake-up call" for the industry and backed their claims that budget airlines were eroding national safety standards.

Tiger said the suspension related to "two recent operational incidents" -- reportedly involving aircraft flying dangerously low -- and it would cooperate fully with CASA.

"In the meantime the airline is doing all it can to minimise passenger disruption, especially for passengers who are travelling this weekend and over the next week," Tiger said, promising full refunds or ticket credits.

The grounding comes at the beginning of the extra busy school holiday period, throwing travel plans into chaos.

Budget rivals Jetstar and Virgin both promised to lay on extra flights to help stranded passengers and said they would offer special fares to those hit by the Tiger ban. Flag carrier Qantas also offered discount flights.

Qantas engineers called off strike action scheduled for next week at the request of the government to ensure disruptions were kept to a minimum.

"All our actions for next week have now been cancelled," said Purvinas.

But there were angry scenes at the nation's airports, where many passengers only learned their flights had been axed when they arrived to check in.

"You get here and then they're banned, 'sorry no flights'," said one woman. "This is just pathetic."

The ban comes at a fraught time for Australia's aviation sector, with industrial unrest brewing at Qantas and airlines still reeling from the unprecedented chaos caused by Chile's ash cloud.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded following the eruption of the Puyehue volcano, costing airlines tens of millions of dollars at a time they are already suffering from high oil prices and a surging Australian dollar.

Qantas has estimated losses at more than $200 million this year due to the Chilean ash, local floods and earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand.

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Stranded penguin moved to NZ zoo over health fears (AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Fears over the health of a young Emperor penguin stranded on a New Zealand beach have prompted officials to move it to a local zoo.

The penguin's rare 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) journey from Antarctica has captured the imagination of many here in the South Pacific and around the world. But veterinarians and conservation officials became concerned enough about the bird that they stepped in Friday.

The penguin, which was first spotted Monday at Peka Peka Beach on New Zealand's North Island, had been eating sand and small sticks of driftwood, which it had tried to regurgitate. The penguin appeared to grow more lethargic as the week progressed, and officials feared it would die if they didn't intervene.

Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand, said it made sense that a penguin might mistake sand for Antarctic snow, which Emperors eat for hydration, but he had no explanation for the bird eating wood.

Miskelly was one of three experts who helped lift the penguin from the beach into a tub of ice and then onto the back of a truck. Miskelly said he lifted the bird's rear while the others held its flippers and beak. The bird was docile enough that experts didn't need to sedate it for the 40-mile (65-kilometer) journey to the Wellington Zoo.

Christine Wilton, the local resident who discovered the penguin Monday while walking her dog, was back at the beach Friday to say goodbye.

"I'm so pleased it's going to be looked after," she said. "He needed to get off the beach. He did stand up this morning, but you could tell that he wasn't happy."

Miskelly said experts at the zoo were considering sedating the penguin and putting it on an intravenous drip as they tried to nurse it back to health. Ideally, the bird would heal enough that it could be released into the wild, Miskelly said, noting that there were no facilities in New Zealand designed to house an Emperor penguin long-term.

Zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker said veterinarians would give the bird a full health check. The zoo clinic has a salt water pool which has been used in the past to nurse smaller varieties of penguins, she said.

Often sick birds require rehabilitation for a month or two before being released, Baker said, adding that some creatures with severe injuries remain in captivity.

Experts believe the penguin is about 10 months old. It stands about 32 inches (80 centimeters) high. Experts haven't yet determined whether it is male or female.

Emperor penguins are the tallest and largest species of penguin and can grow up to 4 feet (122 centimeters) high and weigh more than 75 pounds (34 kilograms). They typically spend their entire lives in Antarctica. It has been 44 years since an Emperor penguin was last spotted in New Zealand.

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Arrest of Pakistani officer raises fears

File photo of Hizb ut-Tahrir activists shouting anti-government slogans during a protest in Karachi on April 17.Khan is the most senior officer to face such allegations since 1995Abbas: Efforts were underway to arrest members of Hizb ut-Tahrir Hizb ut-Tahrir has urged soldiers to rebel against the military hierarchyThe group was banned in 2004 but a Pakistani court overturned it

(CNN) -- Brigadier General Ali Khan was close to retiring at the end of a distinguished career in the Pakistani Army when he was detained early in May -- and accused of links with an outlawed Islamist group.

His arrest, which became public Tuesday, shocked fellow officers at army headquarters and again raises the specter that senior ranks of the Pakistani officer corps may be infiltrated by Islamist militants.

Brigadier Khan is the most senior officer to face such allegations since 1995, according to a CNN analysis of previous cases.

Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said Khan was believed linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation). He said efforts were underway to arrest members of the group who had been in contact with Khan.

"The military has zero tolerance for any such activity and strict disciplinary action will be taken against those involved," said Major General Abbas.

Pakistani officials say Brigadier General Khan, who is 59, had an administrative role at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. His work did not involve counterterrorism and he did not command any unit. But he would have seen plenty of sensitive information.

Khan comes from a military family stretching back three generations, and has a son in the armed forces. Pakistani media report that one of his brothers is a colonel with the intelligence service.

Reuters news agency quoted Khan's wife as dismissing the allegations as "rubbish," saying her husband was "an intellectual, an honest, patriotic and ideological person."

"It's a fashion here that whosoever offers prayers and practices religion is dubbed as Taliban and militant," Reuters quoted her as saying.

One of his brothers, Bashir Khan, told the Pakistani television network Aaj that the brigadier had been in the army for 25 years - serving with UN peacekeepers in Bosnia and spending time in the United States. In 2008, Khan received the highest honor available to soldiers of his rank.

Khan's detention comes amid heightened concern about religious extremism within Pakistan's armed forces.

Hizb ut-Tahrir says it is committed to non-violence but has urged soldiers to rebel against the military hierarchy and its goal it to establish a global Islamic Caliphate.

Pakistani sources tell CNN that in the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, it produced pamphlets urging soldiers to turn against their commanders.

The group was outlawed by General Pervez Musharraf in 2004 but a Pakistani court subsequently overturned the ban. It is also active in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Simon Valentine, a British researcher who has studied extremism in the Pakistani armed forces, said that while Hizb ut-Tahrir doesn't advocate violence "a cardinal element of its ideology and modus operandi is to infilitrate the armed forces and, once gaining sufficient support, cause a military coup."

"Despite claims of zero tolerance of HuT within the Army," he said, "militant Islam, including the HuT, has much support from the grass roots to the highest level within all branches of the armed forces."

Valentine, who has researched Hizb ut-Tahrir in depth, said its views enjoy widespread support throughout Pakistani society.

"Such militancy as seen in the HuT is fuelled by an increasing anti-Americanism which is rife throughout Pakistan," he told CNN.

Hassan Abbas, a scholar at Columbia University who has written extensively about Pakistani military intelligence, the ISI, told CNN he suspected there was more to the case than any alleged contacts with Hizb ul-Tahrir.

"Association with such a group would not be enough to hold him for six weeks," especially as Khan was weeks away from retirement, he said.

Abbas, author of "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror," said there is an alarming trend that includes Pakistani pilots refusing to bomb militant strongholds, and units surrendering to militant groups rather than fire on them.

Last month, Pakistani Taliban insurgents stormed the Naval Air Station in Karachi, apparently armed with inside information on its layout and security. They destroyed two U.S. supplied surveillance aircraft.

Days before he was abducted and murdered, Pakistani journalist Syed Shahzad described that attack as "the violent beginning of an internal ideological struggle between Islamist elements in the Pakistani armed forces and their secular and liberal top brass."

He went on to quote unnamed sources in the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence service, as saying: "It was shown several months ago that the Pakistan navy is vulnerable to Islamists when a marine commando unit official was arrested.....Now, they (intelligence) realize how the organization (navy) is riddled and vulnerable to the influence of militant organizations."

Last year two serving officers -- including a colonel - and two former officers were indicted in a court martial for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on the Shamsi airbase.

Shamsi -- in Balochistan province -- is a remote base reportedly used by the United States drone program. The four were alleged to have been in contact with Hizb ut-Tahrir. They have pled not guilty.

And in 2004, several lower-ranking air force personnel were convicted in connection with assassination attempts against Pakistan's leader at the time, General Pervez Musharraf.

One of them, Abdul Islam Siddiqui, was hanged but maintained he was innocent of involvement. Other soldiers said they had been tortured into implicating him.

Valentine, who is a regular visitor to Pakistan, said Khan's arrest may be "part of an attempt to bolster the army's reputation amid accusations that it is pro-militant," in the wake of the raid by U.S. special forces that killed bin Laden.

But Hassan Abbas believes the military had no desire for the Khan case to become public. "The military is in deep crisis in the aftermath of Abbottabad," he says. "They would have preferred to hush this up."

CNN

More aftershocks hit NZ city; fears worse to come (AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Big aftershocks are still shaking the earthquake-weary city of Christchurch, New Zealand, and raising fears of worse to come.

A pair of aftershocks woke many residents about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, with the larger measuring magnitude-5.0. A smaller cluster hit in the afternoon.

The temblors follow Monday's 6.0 quake that collapsed more buildings in the city where a devestating magnitude-6.3 quake in February killed 181 people. Thousands of aftershocks have followed that quake.

Scientists say this week's series of quakes have increased to about 30 percent the likelihood that Christchurch will suffer another devestating quake within the next year.

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Japan bans green tea on radiation fears

An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.Radioactive cesium levels prompt new action by JapanGreen tea, plums are among the latest bansTokyo Electric hopes to wind down the crisis by January

Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan has slapped new restrictions on green tea and plums from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because of lingering radioactive contamination from the ongoing disaster there.

The latest government bans were prompted by the discovery of radioactive cesium-137 and -134 at concentrations higher than Japanese standards allow, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Thursday.

Both are nuclear waste products: cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, while cesium-134 has a two-year half-life.

The government has now forbidden the shipment of both fresh and dried green tea -- normally touted for its health benefits -- from Ibaraki Prefecture, southwest of the plant; from six towns in Chiba Prefecture and six towns in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo; and two in Fukushima Prefecture, where the crippled plant is located.

In addition, Edano said, the government has banned the shipment of plums from three towns in Fukushima.

The moves come nearly three months into the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. One of three operating reactors at the plant melted down after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the other two suffered extensive damage to their radioactive cores.

Though no deaths have been attributed to the accident, the resulting contamination has forced authorities to evacuate more than 100,000 people from towns surrounding the plant. In addition, restrictions on various agricultural and fisheries products have devastated Japanese farmers and fishermen since the disaster began, though some of those bans have been lifted in recent weeks.

The plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., has laid out a timetable for restoring normal cooling systems and fully shutting down the reactors by January. But Prime Minister Naoto Kan cautioned that people may not be allowed to return home immediately, "even if these prospects are realized."

"We might have to continue monitoring, and we need to maybe decontaminate," said Kan, whose government survived a no-confidence vote Thursday spurred by complaints about his handling of the twin crises. "And for that, there may be some more time needed."

The disaster has spurred Japan to rethink its commitment to nuclear energy and tighten safety standards for existing plants. A preliminary report from the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded this week that Japan underestimated the risks its nuclear installations faced from tsunamis, like the one that swamped the Fukushima Daiichi plant and knocked out its cooling systems.

But the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency declared the country's response to the disaster "exemplary," praising Tokyo Electric's operators for their "brave and sometimes novel" efforts to contain the crisis.

CNN's Junko Ogura contributed to this report.

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HIV/AIDS: Drug Price Cuts Secured Amid Growing Funding Fears (OneWorld.net)

JOHANNESBURG, May 19 (IRIN/PlusNews) - Three international organizations have negotiated reductions on key first- and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May.

The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or “first-line”, regimens.

As part of the deal, the three bodies set price ceilings for more than 40 adult and paediatric ARVs with eight pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers, including Cipla Ltd, Matrix Laboratories and Autobindo Pharma.

Together these eight companies account for most ARVs sold in countries with access to generic drugs, according to David Ripin, scientific director of CHAI’s Drug Access Programme.

As a result, the cost of ATV/r is down by two-thirds from just three years ago. Meanwhile, a once-a-day fixed-dose combination (FDC) pill containing TDF and efavirenz will now cost countries less than US$159 per patient per year. In 2008, low-income countries paid about $400 per patient per year for the same pill.

How did they do it?

According to UNITAID and CHAI, this success is a product of increased demand for these drugs and more efficient manufacturing of the active ingredients, which are estimated to account for as much as 75 percent of generic ARV costs.

“When you make an active ingredient, you use a multistep chemical process,” Ripin told IRIN/PlusNews. “To reduce costs, you can look for a less expensive source of raw materials of which there are a few examples, including TDF ... or you can tinker with the chemical process used to make the product to make them more efficient.”

But Ripin added that doing either comes at a cost for pharmaceutical companies, for whom a change in raw material suppliers or manufacturing processes means re-applying for approval of the drug with regulatory bodies.

“Any time you change anything with the way you make a drug, you need to get regulatory approval,” he said. “You have to do a fair amount of work to prove that your product works just as well now as it did before.

“The pharmaceutical companies and generic manufacturers are fantastic at making these types of improvements… [but] they have a limited set of research and development resources available to them,” Ripin said. “They often need to make a decision where they are going to get a higher return on that research and development, and typically that comes from the introduction of new products on the market.”

According to Ripin, the key is providing companies with data on the large and growing markets for ARVs.

“We help companies evaluate for themselves whether it’s a worthwhile business opportunity,” he said. “The second key factor they have to consider is the competitive marketplace for their drugs, where there is an incentive for lower [production] costs and lower-priced products as they want to maintain their market share.”

CHAI also provides countries with data on best market prices for drugs to help inform national procurement, as was the case with South Africa’s recent ARV tender. Although South Africa is not expected to benefit from the new price cuts, the country has the largest ARV tender in the world, and could secure the drugs at competitive prices. In terms of the CHAI agreement, lower prices are available to members of the Procurement Consortium but are dependant on volumes ordered.

How low can we go?

TDF has become an important drug for many countries, including South Africa, hoping to implement the 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) HIV treatment guidelines, which recommend starting HIV patients on treatment sooner but also a shift away from more toxic ARVs to TDF.

However, the high cost of earlier treatment and better drugs has prohibited many countries from fully implementing the WHO recommendations. According to a recent report released by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), both Malawi and Zimbabwe reversed their move to WHO guidelines due to financial constraints.

While new price reductions bring TDF’s price closer to that of the long-time and widely adopted first-line ARV Zidovudine, further drops in TDF’s price will have to be logged to ensure widespread uptake, said Brenda Waning, coordinator of market dynamics for UNITAID.

For Waning and others like MSF, the issue of sustainable funding for the HIV response looms large ahead of the June UN meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York, rumoured to be the last for years to come, according to MSF’s report.

“There has been a lot of attention on commodities and not at other major drivers of cost,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “We have to look at other places in the health system where we can capture cost-effectiveness.”

In particular, Waning pointed to the potential savings associated with the roll-out of new point-of-care diagnostics, which, although not high on the global agenda, will help countries task shift such testing away from scarce doctors.

Although the cost remains high, introducting FDC would help governments save on ARV shipping, transportation and storage, while improving adherence and patient outcomes.

Want to Know More?

» OneWorld Topic Guide: HIV and AIDS

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HIV/AIDS: Drug Price Cuts Secured Amid Growing Funding Fears (OneWorld.net)

JOHANNESBURG, May 19 (IRIN/PlusNews) - Three international organizations have negotiated reductions on key first- and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May.

The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or “first-line”, regimens.

As part of the deal, the three bodies set price ceilings for more than 40 adult and paediatric ARVs with eight pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers, including Cipla Ltd, Matrix Laboratories and Autobindo Pharma.

Together these eight companies account for most ARVs sold in countries with access to generic drugs, according to David Ripin, scientific director of CHAI’s Drug Access Programme.

As a result, the cost of ATV/r is down by two-thirds from just three years ago. Meanwhile, a once-a-day fixed-dose combination (FDC) pill containing TDF and efavirenz will now cost countries less than US$159 per patient per year. In 2008, low-income countries paid about $400 per patient per year for the same pill.

How did they do it?

According to UNITAID and CHAI, this success is a product of increased demand for these drugs and more efficient manufacturing of the active ingredients, which are estimated to account for as much as 75 percent of generic ARV costs.

“When you make an active ingredient, you use a multistep chemical process,” Ripin told IRIN/PlusNews. “To reduce costs, you can look for a less expensive source of raw materials of which there are a few examples, including TDF ... or you can tinker with the chemical process used to make the product to make them more efficient.”

But Ripin added that doing either comes at a cost for pharmaceutical companies, for whom a change in raw material suppliers or manufacturing processes means re-applying for approval of the drug with regulatory bodies.

“Any time you change anything with the way you make a drug, you need to get regulatory approval,” he said. “You have to do a fair amount of work to prove that your product works just as well now as it did before.

“The pharmaceutical companies and generic manufacturers are fantastic at making these types of improvements… [but] they have a limited set of research and development resources available to them,” Ripin said. “They often need to make a decision where they are going to get a higher return on that research and development, and typically that comes from the introduction of new products on the market.”

According to Ripin, the key is providing companies with data on the large and growing markets for ARVs.

“We help companies evaluate for themselves whether it’s a worthwhile business opportunity,” he said. “The second key factor they have to consider is the competitive marketplace for their drugs, where there is an incentive for lower [production] costs and lower-priced products as they want to maintain their market share.”

CHAI also provides countries with data on best market prices for drugs to help inform national procurement, as was the case with South Africa’s recent ARV tender. Although South Africa is not expected to benefit from the new price cuts, the country has the largest ARV tender in the world, and could secure the drugs at competitive prices. In terms of the CHAI agreement, lower prices are available to members of the Procurement Consortium but are dependant on volumes ordered.

How low can we go?

TDF has become an important drug for many countries, including South Africa, hoping to implement the 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) HIV treatment guidelines, which recommend starting HIV patients on treatment sooner but also a shift away from more toxic ARVs to TDF.

However, the high cost of earlier treatment and better drugs has prohibited many countries from fully implementing the WHO recommendations. According to a recent report released by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), both Malawi and Zimbabwe reversed their move to WHO guidelines due to financial constraints.

While new price reductions bring TDF’s price closer to that of the long-time and widely adopted first-line ARV Zidovudine, further drops in TDF’s price will have to be logged to ensure widespread uptake, said Brenda Waning, coordinator of market dynamics for UNITAID.

For Waning and others like MSF, the issue of sustainable funding for the HIV response looms large ahead of the June UN meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York, rumoured to be the last for years to come, according to MSF’s report.

“There has been a lot of attention on commodities and not at other major drivers of cost,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “We have to look at other places in the health system where we can capture cost-effectiveness.”

In particular, Waning pointed to the potential savings associated with the roll-out of new point-of-care diagnostics, which, although not high on the global agenda, will help countries task shift such testing away from scarce doctors.

Although the cost remains high, introducting FDC would help governments save on ARV shipping, transportation and storage, while improving adherence and patient outcomes.

Want to Know More?

» OneWorld Topic Guide: HIV and AIDS

ALL THE LATEST GLOBAL HEADLINES

Yahoo! News

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U.S. Fears Syrian Reprisals After WikiLeaks Disclosure

AP

April 8: In this image made from television, demonstrators march in Daraa, Syria.

Senior Obama administration officials worry that the Syrian government may seek to exact revenge on members of an opposition group that has received millions of dollars in covert American funding, Fox News has learned.

The Movement for Justice and Development, founded by Syrian exiles and based in London, has received an estimated $6 million in U.S. funding since 2006, according to documents obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and first reported by The Washington Post. The group operates Barada TV, a London-based satellite channel that broadcasts anti-government programming into Syria, as well as other programs aimed at destabilizing the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"We are extremely concerned that lives are endangered as a result of this article based on WikiLeaks," a senior Obama administration official told Fox News Monday morning. "The concern regards what (the) Syrians might do to those that work for (Barada), given that (Assad and his security forces) are prone to crack down and could well use this as an excuse -- blaming it on foreigners."

Syrian security forces are estimated to have killed at least 200 people since anti-government protests erupted in the country one month ago, part of a wave of demonstrations buffeting regimes across the Mideast. President Assad promised on Saturday to lift an emergency decree that has been in place since 1963, a key demand of the demonstrators.

As a critical component in its engagement of adversarial regimes in the Mideast, the Obama administration has made a number of overtures to Assad, including, most recently, the returning of an ambassador to Damascus after a six-year absence. 

Asked about Assad's initial crackdown on the protests, Secretary Clinton told CBS News on March 27: "There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer." 

Two days later, traveling in London, Clinton specified that her remarks about Assad as a reformer "referenced opinions of others" and that she was not "speaking either for myself or for the administration" in that instance.

A second senior administration official defended the funneling of taxpayer money to the Movement for Justice and Development. 

"U.S. democracy and governance programming for Syria is no different than programs the United States and many other democratic countries support in countries around the world," said this official. "What is different is that the Syrian government perceives the development of civil society as a threat to its control over the Syrian people."

An April 2009 cable from a State Department officer at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, disseminated by WikiLeaks, stated that the Assad regime "would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change." 

Embassy Chargé D'affaires Maura Connelly warned officials in Washington that "some programs may be perceived, were they to be made public, as an attempt to undermine the Assad regime."

Accordingly, Connelly recommended that the Obama administration "aim less at fostering 'regime change' and more toward encouraging 'behavior reform'" on the part of the Assad government. She also asserted that the activities of "the various expatriate reform organizations operating in Europe and the U.S.," a category that includes the Movement for Justice and Development, "have little to no effect on civil society or human rights in Syria."

The Syrian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

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