The latest poll of 2,004 likely voters throughout the state by the Public Policy Institute of California reports that 52 percent of Californians back Prop. 19, versus 41 percent opposed and seven percent undecided.

Of the statewide propositions polled, only Prop. 19 possessed majority support among California voters. In fact, the same poll reports that a greater percentage of voters now back Prop. 19 than support incumbent Democrat Senators Barbara Boxer (42%) and Dianne Feinstein (44%), Senate Republican challenger Carly Fiorina (35%), Gubernatorial Democrat candidate Jerry Brown (37%) or Gubernatorial Republican candidate Meg Whitman (38%).

Historically, ballot initiative campaigns lose support in the months prior to election day. But Prop. 19 is bucking this trend, as recent results from the Field Poll, Survey USA, and polltracker.com clearly show that marijuana legalization is maintaining, and in some cases gaining, voter support as we approach November 2, 2010.

Proposition 19 is endorsed by a broad coalition of divergent and powerful interest groups, including the California NAACP; the Latino Voters League; the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); the National Black Police Association; the United Food and Commercial Workers, (UFCW) Western States Council; the California Council of Churches IMPACT; Firedog Lake; the California Green Party; and the Republican Liberty Caucus. These organizations, along with millions of Californians, agree that it is time to end criminal marijuana prohibition in California.

If you live in California but are not registered to vote, you can do so by going here. Help make history on November 2!

Romania’s Interior Minister resigned as protests over pay cuts for public employees test Prime Minister Emil Boc’s will to continue austerity measures in the face of efforts to topple his Cabinet.

As many as 10,000 state employees are expected to take to the streets tomorrow and all public worker unions are in talks over calling a general strike. The government reduced wages for civil servants by 25 percent to narrow the budget deficit and comply with terms of an International Monetary Fund-led bailout.

The opposition Social Democrats and Liberals say they will try to oust the government in the second half of October as the IMF forecasts the economy will shrink 1.9 percent this year, extending Romania’s worst recession since the end of communism. Boc’s coalition, with 258 seats in the 471-member parliament, survived a June no-confidence vote by eight votes.

“The current government is really close to losing its majority, and this is the beginning of the end,” said Adrian Moraru, an analyst at the Institute for Public Policies in Bucharest, in a phone interview. “It’s a difficult situation because it seems a new political crisis is emerging on top of the current economic crisis.”

Minister Resigns

Vasile Blaga quit today as Interior Minister after police officers who report to his ministry staged an illegal demonstration on Sept. 24 and will be replaced by Traian Igas, 42, a senator and head of the ruling Liberal Democrats’ group in the Senate. President Traian Basescu later signed off on the nomination.

Romania, which joined the European Union in 2007, is relying on 20 billion euros ($27 billion) of loans from the IMF, European Union and others to fuel an economic recovery.

To qualify for the loans, Boc’s government has cut state wages, increased the value-added tax by 5 points to 24 percent and boosted the retirement age for men and women to 65. The Cabinet has also announced plans to eliminate 74,000 jobs.

The police strike was condemned by Boc and Basescu, who both gave up their police security escorts for what they called an “unauthorized” protest.

‘Honor’ Resignation

“This is a resignation of honor,” Blaga said today at a news conference in Bucharest. “Police have the right to protest just like any other citizen, but they have to do it legally. They and all the other workers from the Interior Ministry have to understand that they are as important as doctors and teachers, so they can’t make an exception.”

Anger over the government’s program has boosted support for the opposition.

The Social Democrats were supported by 37.1 percent of voters, compared with 14.6 percent for Boc’s Liberal Democrats in a survey of 1,093 people conducted Sept. 9-13 by GSS 2000. The poll, commissioned by the opposition Liberals, had a margin of error of 3 percent.

“If the unions manage to get many people out into the streets this may create pressure on government lawmakers,” said Cristian Parvulescu, a political analyst at Asociatia Pro Democratia, a Bucharest-based group that promotes democracy. Boc’s Liberal Democrat party includes “former union leaders who may feel extra pressure to vote against the government.”

Raffaella Tenconi, an economist at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in London, said she expects Boc’s government will survive the confidence vote, though further fiscal consolidation will be “very challenging” given the depth of the recession.

“We are not surprised to see growing popular discontent given the recently announced austerity measures,” she said. “We expect this trend to continue in coming months, accentuating the low popular support for the ruling party PDL.”

European Discontent

Workers across eastern Europe are taking to the streets to protest budget cuts after the global financial crisis slashed tax revenue and investment flows. The EU is demanding that all of its members bring their budget deficits in line with the bloc’s limit of 3 percent of GDP after Greece’s ballooning debt undermined confidence in the euro.

Tens of thousands Czech firemen, policemen and other state workers rallied Sept. 21 in Prague to protest planned wage cuts, while Slovak unions plan demonstrations against proposed tax increases. Slovenian civil servants went on strike today to protest plans to cut or freeze their salaries. Some 80,000 workers, or half the public workforce joined the strike, according to the Ljubljana-based newspaper Delo.

“It’s an experience from all over Europe that austerity measures, which very often include budget cuts, are leading to similar demonstrations,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said at the rally against his government’s plans. The moves “are quite naturally unpopular.”

‘Delicate Situation’

The decline of Romania’s economy, which contracted a 7.1 percent last year, slowed in the second quarter as demand for goods such as cars, chemicals, steel and textiles increased in western Europe. GDP shrank 0.5 percent from a year earlier, after a 2.6 percent decline in the previous three months, according to the National Statistics Institute in Bucharest.

Parliament approved Boc’s government in December, ending a stalemate that had left Romania without leadership for more than two months and delayed payments from international lenders. Boc replaced six members of his Cabinet, including the finance and economy ministers, on Sept. 2 in an effort to shore up support for his program in the face of increasing protests.

Romania’s political squabbles have helped weaken the country’s currency. The leu has dropped 1 percent against the euro during the past 12 months, the second-worst performance among 25 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The Romanian leu weakened 0.1 percent to 4.2465 per euro as of 4:23 p.m. in Bucharest, while the Bucharest Stock Exchange’s benchmark BET index rose 1.3 percent to 5,279.64.

“Boc’s Cabinet is already facing an extremely delicate situation, and it will lead a hard life if it survives the planned confidence motion,” said Alexandru Cumpanasu, political analyst and deputy head of the Association for Implementing Democracy, in a phone interview. “If we see more protests on a bigger scale in October, then the pressure on lawmakers to vote for the motion will be huge.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Irina Savu in Bucharest at isavu at bloomberg.net; Andra Timu in Bucharest at atimu at bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez in Prague at jagomez at bloomberg.net

President Barack Obama's administration has invoked the state secret privilege to avoid a lawsuit on behalf of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whose father charges the US government of targeting him for assassination.

Nasser al-Awlaki last month asked two civil rights groups to sue the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency for placing his son on a list of people targeted for killing.

The younger Awlaki is considered a dangerous terrorist by the US government and is currently believed to be hiding in Yemen.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the court action seeking to force the US government to say how it decides to target US citizens for murder far from any armed conflict without due process.

The lawsuit names Obama, CIA director Leon Panetta and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and seeks an order to "prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings outside of armed conflict."

Panetta filed a declaration Friday before a federal court in Washington "to formally assert and claim the state secrets privilege... to protect intelligence sources, methods and activities" that may be implicated in the Awlaki case.

"It is my belief that... this case cannot be litigated without risking or requiring the disclosure of classified and privileged intelligence information that must not be disclosed," wrote Panetta.

The ACLU and CCR, in an email to AFP Saturday slammed Panetta's reasoning.

"The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy.

"In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check."

Born in the southwestern US state of New Mexico, Awlaki, 39, rose to prominence last year after he was linked a US army major who shot dead 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, and to a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on December 25.

In April, a US official said the Obama administration had authorized the targeted killing of Awlaki, after American intelligence agencies concluded the Muslim cleric was directly involved in anti-US plots.

In July, the US government said Awlaki was a key leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, placing him on its list of terrorism supporters, freezing his financial assets and banning any transactions with him.

Source: michaelmoore.com

In what federal officials described as the largest human-trafficking case ever brought by the government, Mordechai Orian, president and chief operating officer of Global Horizons, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for "engaging in a conspiracy to commit forced labor and document servitude."

The alleged victims of the Los Angeles-based labor recruiter are some 400 Thai citizens who were brought to work on farms in the U.S. between May 2004 through September 2005. They were hired under H-2A visas which allow farm workers into the country for seasonal work.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been named as the wealthiest person in the US for the 17th year in a row.

Forbes magazine put his fortune at $54bn (£34.5bn), with investment guru Warren Buffet second with $45bn.

Software tycoon Larry Ellison was in third place, while Wal-Mart heir Christy Walton was fourth on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans.

It took a net worth of at least $1bn to earn a spot in the rankings - up from $950m in 2009.

The collective net worth of the 400 billionaires rose by 8% from 2009, totalling $1.37 trillion - approximately the same as the GDP of Spain or Canada.

Social network trend

Those gaining wealth in the list included Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose wealth grew by 245% to $6.4bn, the report said, putting him at 35 in the list.

His fellow co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is the youngest to make the top 400. The 26-year-old is eight days younger than Mr Zuckerberg and one of 16 new entrants to the list, which also includes another Facebook figure, Eduardo Saverin.

Another gainer was Manchester United owner Malcolm Glazer and family, while among those losing ground were the family behind confectionery giant Mars.

And there were 34 dropping off the list, including real estate mogul Tamir Sapir.

The 18 people returning to the list after a period of absence included Sidney Kimmel, at number 365, who made his fortune in the clothes business before producing films including The Kite Runner.

The report also found that among the 400 members of the list, 231 had donated to the Democratic Party between 2006 and 2010 - giving a total of $6.2bn. This compared with the 247 people who donated $7.3bn between them to the Republican Party.

“The Macondo 252 well is effectively dead,” said National Incident Commander Thad Allen in a statement today (Sep 19, 2010 - n.d.R. TA). BP completed its last pressure test on the plugs at 5:54 a.m. local time before declaring the well sealed, according to the statement.

The 87-day spill, triggered by an April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers, tainted hundreds of miles of U.S. coastline. It also wiped out more than $70 billion of BP’s market value, brought new drilling in the Gulf to a standstill and cost Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward his job. About 400 lawsuits are pending, and the trial judge overseeing those predicted hundreds more will be filed.

“The whole industry is terrified it could happen to them,” Peter Hitchens, an analyst for Panmure Gordon UK Ltd. in London, said in an interview. “The whole way we drill wells could actually change. They’re going to take a lot longer. They’re going to be a lot more scrutinized.”

Another series of plugs probably will be required by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement before BP can abandon the well, Daren Beaudo, a company spokesman, said in an interview before today’s announcement.

BP Response

BP has spent at least $8 billion responding to the spill. The well, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, gushed more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. No crude or gas has leaked since BP capped the well July 15.

The disaster revealed that BP was unprepared to stanch a gusher 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) below the ocean surface, where pressure turns natural gas into pipe-clogging slush. BP took 87 days to design, build and deploy a 75-ton cap that stopped the flow after a series of failures.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc have pledged $1 billion to create a system to capture oil from underwater blowouts.

Weather slowed BP’s efforts to intercept the well. On June 25, the company said it would take a few weeks for the relief drilling to reach the level where it would enter Macondo.

Interception occurred Sept. 16, at 17,997 feet (5,485 meters) below the sea surface, BP said a day later.

Blaming Transocean

The well’s blowout preventer, a stack of valves designed to stop the sort of surge of oil and gas that led to the rig explosion, is at a government site in New Orleans for testing and inspection by the U.S. Justice Department and others.

BP expects to demobilize a fleet of drilling rigs and other ships that have been stationed at the well for months now that the well is permanently plugged, Beaudo said. That fleet has included two drillships, three drilling rigs, production vessels, tankers and ships that operated underwater robots.

BP on Sept. 8 published a 234-page report on the causes of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, saying that its own managers and contractors involved with the well made mistakes that contributed to the disaster. The company blamed many of the errors onTransocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon, and on service providers such as Halliburton Co.

BP’s report concealed the well’s “fatally flawed” design, which “set the stage” for the explosion, Geneva-based Transocean said Sept. 8. The driller cited a series of cost- savings decisions by BP that added risk.

Cathy Mann, a spokeswoman for Houston-based Halliburton, said the report had “substantial omissions and inaccuracies” and that BP dictated design and testing procedures for the well.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., based near Houston, has a 25 percent stake in Macondo. A unit of Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., which is 70 percent owned by Japan’s Mitsui & Co., holds a 10 percent interest. BP was operator and held a 65 percent stake.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net;Christian Schmollinger in Singapore at christian.s@bloomberg.net;

Bjorn Hurtig said an investigation was still under way but the head of the whistleblowing website had been given no summons for questioning.

"I have been told that there is no arrest warrant against him," meaning Assange could do what he liked, including going abroad, Hurtig said.

Sweden's director of prosecutions Marianne Ny said on September 1 she was reopening a rape probe against the Australian, who had an arrest warrant against him issued on August 20 but saw it withdrawn by another prosecutor the following day.

Assange, 39, has said the allegations against him are part of a "smear campaign" aimed at discrediting his website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of secret US documents about the war in Afghanistan.

A source familiar with the case said one of Assange's two alleged victims had been questioned on Friday and the other would be seen on Monday.

In a telephone interview with AFP on September 8 Assange said the charges against him were part of "a clear set-up," and had caused damage to WikiLeaks.

He said that he had decided to stay in Sweden to prove his innocence.

"This entire rape investigation has been conducted without my input," he said, adding that the police refused to say if there was a warrant out for him or not.

Assange has admitted that he had met both women in question, but refused to say if had had sex with either of them, calling it "a private matter."

In his interview with AFP he would not point a direct finger at US intelligence services, which have expressed alarm at WikiLeaks' publishing of thousands of confidential documents.

But he said his website had "two reliable intelligence sources that state that Swedish intelligence was approached last month by the United States and told that Sweden must not be a safe haven for WikiLeaks."

Two days before the allegations against Assange were made public, he had applied for a Swedish work and residency permit.

Some of the servers hosting the WikiLeaks website are kept in a basement in the Stockholm suburb of Solna.

WikiLeaks published nearly 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on July 23, and intends to publish another 15,000.

Newsweek magazine said last week that WikiLeaks was teaming up with news outlets to release a "massive cache" of classified US military field reports on the conflict in Iraq.

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