BEIJING (AFP) –
China will allow over 2,700 Muslims to visit the holy site of Mecca this year, with pilgrims making the trip in 10 groups organised by the government, state press said Tuesday.

The pilgrims will come from the major cities in China's Xinjiang region including Urumqi, Yili, Kashgar and Hotan and will undergo training courses covering security concerns and basic language needs, Xinhua news agency said.

The government-run ethnic affairs commission will be in charge of the tour groups and accompany the travellers, it said.

More than 30,000 Chinese Muslims have made the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudia Arabia over the last 20 years, including 2,800 last year, the report said.

An increasing number of Chinese Muslims embarking on the holy pilgrimage reflects rising living standards in China, with the costs of such trips averaging about 40,000 yuan (5,850 dollars) a person, it said.

Clashes broke out in Xinjiang on July 5, leaving at least 197 people dead and over 1,600 injured in the worst ethnic violence to hit China in decades. The unrest began with a peaceful protest by Uighurs but proceedings quickly turned violent as Uighur mobs attacked members of China's dominant Han ethnic group.

Chinese authorities say most of the dead were Han and blamed the violence on extremist and separatist groups.

The unrest has put a spotlight on China's roughly eight million Uighurs, who have complained of religious and cultural oppression since the officially atheist Chinese communists came to power 60 years ago and tightened control on Xinjiang.

Many Uighurs say they are prevented from going on the hajj, the trip to Mecca which all Muslims are obliged to make in their lifetime if they have the means.

But the State Bureau of Religious Affairs earlier this month denied this in a statement to AFP, saying Muslims were allowed to go in specially-designated groups.

China routinely denies passports to Uighurs, apparently fearing they could join extremist groups abroad, Uighur businessmen have said.

The lucky few who get passports often must give police hefty deposits of up to 4,000 dollars -- a massive sum for most Uighurs -- to ensure that they return, several Uighurs said.

Adult Costumes

Christmas and Easter costumes typically portray mythical characters such as Santa Claus (by donning a santa suit and beard) or the Easter Bunny by putting on an animal costume. Costumes may serve to portray various other characters during secular holidays, such as an Uncle Sam costume worn on the Independence day for example.

Isadora Duncan made a great impact on dance costume today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries she “throws off the corset, bares her limbs, and dances barefoot” (Penrod 13). Duncan began a new look, inspired by the Greeks, of tunics and scarves. This simple costume inspired a new form of dance costume and new ways of moving (Penrod 13). This imitation of the Greek clothing freed the naturally beautiful lines of the human body and movement. This change in costume extended the dancer’s space, and caused the costume to be made to conform to the curves and shapes of the body as much as possible (Art of Production 57).

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and
congressional Democratic leaders are trying to mend fissures
within their own party over plans to overhaul U.S. health care.

A rebellion over the cost of the legislation prompted Obama
to summon some Democrats to the White House for talks as a
congressional committee delayed drafting its bill and
Republicans sought to capitalize on the friction.

Negotiations over the most sweeping changes in health care
in more than four decades have proven so difficult that House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer left open the possibility Congress
may fail to meet Obama’s August deadline for legislation.

“The seven of us can’t support the bill as it stands,”
said Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, a leader of the Blue
Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats, speaking for a
group of lawmakers who met with Obama yesterday to voice concern
over a plan unveiled July 14 by House leaders.

Obama spent more than an hour talking with those lawmakers,
who are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee,
which has yet to pass its part of the legislation.

To help win over the Blue Dogs, Committee Chairman Henry
Waxman agreed to include a provision to create an independent
commission to set reimbursement rates for Medicare providers
each year. Ross said such a body would take politics out of
decisions on the federal insurance program for the elderly.

Waxman, a California Democrat, postponed plans for his
panel to debate the legislation today so talks can continue.

‘Turning Point’

During the White House meeting, Obama asked lawmakers to
take “a favorable attitude toward his proposal” to set up the
five-member commission, Waxman said.

Acknowledging his own “personal misgivings,” Waxman said
such a panel would have a lot of power to cut health-care costs.
He said he couldn’t speculate on how much authority Congress
would ultimately surrender to a commission.

“The Blue Dogs members thought that committee made a lot
of sense,” Waxman said. He called the agreement to include such
a committee “a major turning point of discussions.”

Ross said the group arrived at the White House with 10 Blue
Dog demands and spent most of the time on two priorities:
producing a deficit-neutral measure and containing costs.

The current House plan would expand insurance coverage to
97 percent of Americans while adding $239 billion to the budget
deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget
Office. The Blue Dogs say it doesn’t do enough to control the
spiraling costs of Medicare and Medicaid.

Airing Grievances

Indiana Representative Baron Hill, another Blue Dog
Democrat, said the group heard a great deal from Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel during the meeting at the White House.

“A few choice words were used,” Hill said.

Obama ramped up the pressure amid concern that deadlines
are slipping. He has asked the House and Senate to pass their
versions before their summer breaks. The House plans to adjourn
July 31, and the Senate intends to go home a week later.

The increasing likelihood that Congress won’t meet the
deadline was underscored by Hoyer, a Maryland representative and
the No. 2 House Democrat, when he said his members may leave
town without voting on the legislation.

“I don’t think staying in session” is “necessary to
continuing to work on getting consensus,” Hoyer said at a news
conference. “Obviously, members have concerns.”

Other Committees

The two other House committees with jurisdiction over
health care -- Education and Labor and Ways and Means --cleared
their parts of the plan on July 17 without Republican support.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
passed its legislation on a party-line vote on July 15.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana has
failed to reach a compromise with Republicans weeks after he
initially planned a vote, and Democrats are accusing Republicans
of trying to impede progress.

“The party of ‘No’ is hoping that we’ll trip and fall, and
they’re saying it publicly,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry
Reid told reporters in Washington. Both he and Hoyer cited a
comment by Republican South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, that
“if we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his
Waterloo.”

Reid charged that Republicans “simply want to maintain the
status quo” and to keep the insurance industry “in charge of
health-care delivery.”

‘Slow Things Down’

DeMint defended his remark on Fox News, saying “the whole
purpose of the Senate is to slow things down and debate them.”
Obama “wants to take over health care just as he’s taken over
General Motors and Chrysler and our banking industry.”

North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, one of seven senators
working on an agreement on the Finance Committee, said the group
may opt to tax insurers and employers who provide “Cadillac”
plans valued at more than $25,000 a year for a family of four.

While Obama has indicated he may be open to such a tax,
insurers objected.

The tax may end up “penalizing the employers and plans
that you want to be your economic engines” without getting at
the underlying causes of rising medical costs, said Elizabeth
Hall, vice president for public policy at Indianapolis, Indiana-
based WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. insurer by enrollment.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Kristin Jensen in Washington at
kjensen@bloomberg.net ;
Nicole Gaouette in Washington at
ngaouette@bloomberg.net

WASHINGTON – Federal agencies are facing a severe shortage of computer specialists, even as a growing wave of coordinated cyberattacks against the government poses potential national security risks, a private study found.
The study describes a fragmented federal cyber force, where no one is in charge of overall planning and government agencies are "on their own and sometimes working at cross purposes or in competition with one another."
The report, scheduled to be released Wednesday, arrives in the wake of a series of cyberattacks this month that shut down some U.S. and South Korean government and financial Web sites.
The recruiting and retention of cyber workers is hampered by a cumbersome hiring process, the failure to devise government-wide certification standards, insufficient training and salaries, and a lack of an overall strategy for recruiting and retaining cyber workers, the study said.
"You can't win the cyber war if you don't win the war for talent," said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington-based advocacy group that works to improve government service. "If we don't have a federal work force capable of meeting the cyber challenge, all of the cyber czars and organizational efforts will be for naught."
The study was drafted by the partnership and Booz Allen Hamilton as the Obama administration struggles to put together a more cohesive strategy to protect U.S. government and civilian computer networks.
The size of the government's cyber work force is largely unknown, because agencies often classify their employees differently. The Pentagon says it has more than 90,000 personnel involved with cybersecurity, while the non-defense department civilian cybersecurity work force has been estimated at 35,000 to 45,000. Intelligence community estimates are classified.
While President Barack Obama has declared cybersecurity a top priority, the White House so far has been unable to fill its new cyber coordinator position — a job regarded as critical.
The study recommends that the yet-unnamed federal cyber coordinator lay out a strategy to meet the government's work force needs, set job classifications, enhance training and lead a nationwide effort to promote technology skills, including through the use of scholarships.
The federal government's vulnerabilities have been underscored by cyberattacks that breached a high-tech fighter jet program and the electrical grid, although no classified material was compromised.
Earlier this month, unknown hackers knocked several U.S and South Korean government Web sites off line in a widespread and unusually resilient computer attack.
Ron Sanders, chief human capital officer for the national intelligence director's office, said it is difficult to draw a link between the work force shortages and the increased cyber threats against the government.
"It's hard to say that there is any cause and effect there," said Sanders, adding that the U.S. probably will have to live with the nearly constant attacks. But, he said, the intrusions have heightened awareness of the problem, forcing officials to focus on the hiring needs.
Experts inside and outside government, including officials at 18 federal agencies, were interviewed for the study. The consensus, the review said, is that a majority of managers are not satisfied with the quality or quantity of job candidates they get, forcing them to rely heavily on contractors.
The Homeland Security Department, for example, said in September that contractors accounted for 83 percent of its chief information officer's staff.
A full 75 percent of those surveyed said that attracting skilled cyber talent will be a high priority for the next two years.
Competition between federal agencies has fueled the staffing problems. According to Stier, the Scholarship for Service Program, a federal scholarship program aimed at attracting entry-level cyber specialists, can churn out about 120 graduates a year.
But federal officials say they need as many as 1,000.

At a recent federal job fair, there were 69 job booths angling for the 120 graduates.

Right now, the scholarship program is funded at $12 million, but a proposed Senate bill would increase that amount to $300 million over five years, providing the 1,000 workers officials say they need each year.

The Pentagon and National Security Agency often outbid other federal agencies and snag many of the eligible applicants. Between 2006-2009, the Defense Department and the NSA hired 205 of the 407 eligible students.

Sanders acknowledged that the intelligence community has more flexibility and resources to attract computer specialists but said there is still an overall shortfall of U.S. citizens with the needed expertise who can also meet security clearance requirements.

"The labor pool is shrinking," he said, adding that the government must work to better coordinate hiring across all the agencies to ensure that there is healthy but well-managed competition.

___

On the Net:

Partnership for Public Service: http://www.ourpublicservice.org/OPS/