ABCDE Thunderstorm. 96/75 • Tomorrow: Partly sunny. 88/68 • Details, B6 MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2010


KABUL DENIES ALLEGATIONS


Political connections said to protect suspects


MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST Two months after the oil leak began, as many as 60 vessels work the Deepwater Horizon drilling area to contain the spill and do cleanup.


Floating city rises in oil-fouled gulf Effort to stop spill brings two drilling rigs and dozens of vessels to once-solitary site


development driller ii


by Joel Achenbach aboard the


D


ead ahead through the helicopter windshield, it appears like a mirage at the hazy horizon: a city in the middle of


the Gulf of Mexico. A city on fire. Just a few months ago, the site of the disaster, 42 miles from the last marsh grass at the very tip of


Kagan starts hearings as elusive GOP target


by Anne E. Kornblut and Paul Kane


For weeks leading up to the


start of Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearings Monday, Republicans have struggled to find a compelling line of attack to take against the Supreme Court nominee. But their efforts to wield an effective cudgel against President Obama’s second nomi- nation to the country’s highest court have largely failed. In a month of oil spills and Af- ghan tumult, the Kagan nomina- tion is one effort that has gone seamlessly for the White House. In part, participants say, that is precisely because it has been overshadowed by a flood of other events that have consumed Con- gress and kept Republicans from mounting a more muscular front against her.


But it is also a measure of how skilled operatives have become at managing the process — and choosing nominees who are no- table in part for their political blandness. Of the efforts to fill the four va-


kagan continued on A6


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Follow the hearings


Find live blogs, analyses, photo galleries and video from the Senate hearings on Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination at washingtonpost.com/ supremecourt.


THE OTHER SUPERPOWER


A newly unhindered China invests billions for a scientific edge


CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/REUTERS A protester confronts riot police on Saturday in Toronto, site of the Group of 20 world economic summit. Obama faces cost-cutting tide at G-20


President warns nations to spend as they pledge deficit cuts


by Howard Schneider and Scott Wilson


toronto — President Obama warned Sunday that the world economic recovery remains “fra- gile” and urged continued spend- ing to support growth, an expan- sionist call at the end of a summit marked by an agreement among developed nations to halve their annual deficits within three years. The president’s remarks tem- pered the Group of 20’s headline achievement at the summit, a


deficit-reduction target that had been pushed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the host of the meeting and a fiscal conservative. Although there is broad agreement that govern- ment debt in the developed world needs to be reduced, there is con- cern that cutting too fast and too deeply will slow growth and pos- sibly spark a new recession. In a news conference at the


meeting’s conclusion, Obama said that the world’s largest eco- nomic powers had agreed on the need for “continued growth in the short term and fiscal sustain- ability in the medium term.” “A number of our European


partners are making difficult de- cisions,” Obama said. “But we must recognize that our fiscal health tomorrow will rest in no


small measure on our ability to create jobs and growth today.” The group’s closing statement included the specific deficit-re- duction target, but it was couch- ed in caveats — that deficit reduc- tion needed to be “calibrated” to avoid harming growth, paced dif- ferently in each country and paired with other reforms to strengthen the economy. Obama and European leaders,


in particular, came to the meet- ing with sharply different views of the strength of the global eco- nomic recovery, with the U.S. president more pessimistic. The declaration, in the works for weeks, gave each side what it wanted, although the specific deadlines went further than the


summit continued on A4 INSIDE


DEATHS Martin Ginsburg, justice’s husband The Georgetown professor of tax law, married to Ruth Bader Ginsburg for 56 years,


was 78 years old. B4


BUSINESS NEWS ............A11 CLASSIFIEDS.....................E1 COMICS ..........................C6-7


THE WORLD Kyrgyzstan to get a new constitution Citizens of the violence-plagued former Soviet republic approve the referendum in a calm day of voting — albeit under heavy security. A7


STYLE Diane Sawyer’s conversational approach The first-year ABC anchor is reshaping “World News.” C1


EDITORIALS/LETTERS...A14 FED PAGE.........................A13 GOING OUT GUIDE............C8


LOTTERIES.........................B4 MOVIES..............................C4 OBITUARIES ......................B5


NATIONALS Another lead, another loss Washington led by 6-0, 5-0 and 3-0. The Orioles won, 7-6, 6-5 and 4-3. D1


“The level of


Nats blundering in the last 30 days is almost


incomprehensible.” — Thomas Boswell, D1


KIDSPOST..........................C8 TELEVISION.......................C5 WORLD NEWS...................A7


Printed using recycled fiber MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST THE REGION


Culture is a hot draw Tom Bress of Bowie lets son Zachary, 4, test the tonal qualities of a fan as son Nathan Bress, 7, awaits his turn at the Folklife Festival on the Mall. B1


DAILY CODE Details, B2


648 0 1


The schedule: This year’s lineup of events, focusing on Mexico and the Pacific islands, promises to reward those willing to brave the heat. B4


The Washington Post Year 133, No. 205


CONTENTS© 2010


researchers soar higher by John Pomfret


shenzhen, china — Last year, Zhao Bowen was part of a team that cracked the genetic code of the cucumber. These days, he’s probing the genetic ba- sis for human IQ. Zhao is 17. Centuries after it led the world in technological prowess — think gunpowder, irrigation and the printed word — China has barged back into the ranks of the great powers in science. With the brashness of a teenager, in some cases literally, China’s scientists and inventors are driving a re- surgence in potentially world- changing research. Unburdened by social and le- gal constraints common in the


Freed from traditional politics and ethics,


West, China’s trailblazing scien- tists are also pushing the limits of ethics and principle as they create a new — and to many, wor- risome — Wild West in the Far East. A decade ago, no one consid-


ered China a scientific competi- tor. Its best and brightest agreed and fled China in a massive brain drain to university research labs at Harvard, Stanford and MIT. But over the past five years,


Western-educated scientists and gutsy entrepreneurs have con- ducted a rearguard action, bat- tling China’s hidebound bureauc- racy to establish research in- stitutes and companies. Those have lured home scores of West- ern-trained Chinese researchers dedicated to transforming the People’s Republic of China into a scientific superpower. “They have grown so fast and so suddenly that people are still skeptical,” said Rasmus Nielsen,


china continued on A8


the Mississippi River Delta, boasted a solitary drilling rig called Deepwater Horizon. Now that rig rests upside down in the mud at the bottom of the gulf, and in its place is a roaring indus- trial complex, an emergency op- eration unlike anything in the history of the petroleum industry. More than 60 vessels are trying to capture the oil, burn it, dis- perse it, whatever it takes, while two giant rigs are drilling relief wells and officials keep their eyes on the weather reports, racing to


kill the leaking well before a hur- ricane forces everyone to scatter to calmer waters. This waterworld is hot, noisy and dangerous. Two flares create hypnotic focal points for the flo- tilla. The drill ship Discoverer En- terprise, parked directly on top of the well that exploded on April 20, is capturing oil from the well and burning gas separately. The other flare, larger, brighter, look- ing like an umbrella of fire turned on its side, shoots from a pipe on the well-servicing rig Q4000,


which is burning both oil and gas. If the weather turns violent, all this will have to be hastily dis- assembled. Right now there’s a storm in the southern gulf, named Alex, the first named At- lantic tropical storm of the sea- son, but it is moving west and ap- pears to be on a path to spare the Deepwater Horizon site. Officials remain anxious. Fore- casters say it will be a busy storm season. This makeshift city can’t


oil continued on A9 by Greg Miller and Ernesto Londoño


Top officials in President Ha- mid Karzai’s government have re- peatedly derailed corruption in- vestigations of politically con- nected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Af- ghanistan’s authorities with wire- tapping technology and other as- sistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft. In recent months, the U.S. offi- cials said, Afghan prosecutors and investigators have been ordered to cross names off case files, pre- vent senior officials from being placed under arrest and disregard evidence against executives of a major financial firm suspected of helping the nation’s elite move millions of dollars overseas. As a result, U.S. advisers sent to Kabul by the Justice Department, the FBI and the Drug Enforce- ment Administration have come to see Afghanistan’s corruption problem in increasingly stark terms. “Above a certain level, people are being very well protected,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the investigations. Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar denied investigations had been derailed. “There is no case, no instance, in which the palace or anyone from the palace has in- terfered with a case,” he said. Afghanistan is awash in inter-


national aid and regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in


KIMIMASA MAYAMA/BLOOMBERG NEWS


Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged in November to focus on fighting government corruption.


CIA director cool


to Karzai strategy Leon Panetta says there is no “firm intelligence” that insurgent groups are truly interested in reconciliation. A5


the world. Indeed, even as the United States and its allies pour money in, U.S. officials estimate that as much as $1 billion a year is flowing out as part of a massive cash exodus. The money, as first reported in The Washington Post in February, is often carried out in full view of customs officials at Kabul’s airport, where such trans- fers are legal as long as they are declared. Officials suspect much of the cash is going to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where elite Afghans, including Karzai’s older brother, have villas. For the Obama administration, the ability of Afghan investigators to crack down on corruption is crucial. If American voters see Karzai’s government as hopeless- ly corrupt, public support for the war could plunge. Corruption also fuels the Taliban insurgency and complicates efforts to persuade ordinary Afghans to side with leaders in Kabul. Afghanistan’s attorney general,


afghanistan continued on A5


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Karzai officials seen impeding bribery probes


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