Flying coach, coffee coupons -- 'little tricks' of Gary Locke?

Toting his own backpack. Flying coach. Buying coffee with a coupon.

Just who does Gary Locke think he is?

The United States ambassador to China was recently pilloried in Chinese newspaper editorials for his part in the saga of Chen Guangcheng, a blind dissident who holed up in the U.S. Embassy after escaping house arrest.

 But Locke's everyman actions have drawn almost as much attention as his diplomacy.

His star turn began from the moment he walked out of the Beijing airport in August carrying his own bags and got into an ordinary vehicle. “Perhaps it is time for Chinese dignitaries to follow the example of humble Locke,” one column in the China Daily mused, drawing an unflattering comparison with  chauffeured Chinese officials, whose fancy cars have been disparaged as "corruption on wheels."

As Chinese media have racked up more examples of Gary Locke being an ordinary Joe, some Chinese outlets have suggested that Locke is playing up his humble image to score political points.

When the first flurry of attention surrounded Locke, one Communist daily warned readers not to be seduced by his “facade.” Last month, when the American ambassador stayed at a hotel with four stars -- not five -- the Global Times reported that “some suspect it was another publicity stunt.” After the Chen affair exploded into headlines, the Beijing Daily excoriated Locke for his "little tricks" during the incident.

The official outrage over Locke has been mocked by some Chinese Internet users: A digitally altered image of Locke being shamed, Cultural Revolution-style, with a placard around his neck that lists “crimes” such as “buying coffee with discount coupons,” surfaced on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

What makes the "little tricks" of Locke so interesting is that Chinese people have seized on his actions to reflect on their own political culture, editor David Bandurski wrote on the China Media Project website, which has been closely following the kerfuffle over the ambassador.

China "has arguably deepened the sense of reflective value by obsessing on Locke’s actions, putting itself in the awkward position of fussing about minutia like backpacks and cups of coffee," Bandurski wrote.

Locke, an American of Chinese descent, has hinted at the tendency to see him as a reflection of China, telling the People's Daily that  "in some ways, it is good that I don't speak Mandarin" because people might otherwise say "because I have a Chinese face, I should be really representing the views of China." When he was first chosen, some Chinese tarred him as a "traitor" because of his roots.

His "Chinese face" is key to the fascination with the U.S. envoy, Chinese social commentator Yao Bo told the Christian Science Monitor when Locke first started grabbing attention last year. "The ambassador looks Chinese, but his behavior is completely un-Chinese,” Yao Bo said.

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Photo: U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke during the U.S.-China People-to-People Exchange at the National Museum in Beijing on May 4, 2012. Credit: Mark Ralston / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

Freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit visits set of 'Homeland'

JERUSALEM -- It wasn't exactly life imitating art. But life watched it for a little while.

As the U.S. television hit "Homeland" visited Israel this week for some location shooting, the cable series about a fictional American prisoner of war who comes home got a visit on the set from real-life captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was released by Palestinian militants last year.

Shalit, who spent more than five years in captivity in the Gaza Strip, has kept a low profile since his release, but his ordeal has made him one of Israel's most recognized faces.

It turns out that Shalit, 25, has become a fan of both the U.S. TV show and also "Hatufim" ("Prisoners of War"), the Israeli drama that "Homeland" is based on, according  to Israeli media.

During filming Tuesday in the port city of Jaffa, Shalit's surprise appearance temporarily stole the spotlight from "Homeland" stars Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin. Shalit joked  with the crew and cast but declined an invitation to make a cameo appearance. Asked if there was anything he'd like to see happen on the show, the lanky, shy soldier reportedly shrugged and said no.

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-- Edmund Sanders 

Photo: Gilad Shalit, shown meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year, made a surprise visit Tuesday to the set of of the U.S. TV series "Homeland," which is filming on location in Israel. Credit: Moshe Milner / Israeli government handout 

Carlos Fuentes, Latin American literary giant, dies in Mexico

MEXICO CITY -- The prize-winning writer Carlos Fuentes, modern Mexico’s greatest novelist and indefatigable author of screenplays, stories and often-scolding commentaries, died Tuesday at a hospital in Mexico City. He was 83.

The national culture council announced Fuentes' death. Although it did not immediately specify a cause, some Mexican news reports said he had checked in a night earlier with heart problems. But the prolific Fuentes, who said he had begun a new novel on the heels of another recently completed one, was not publicly known to be ailing.

"I deeply lament the death of our beloved and admired Carlos Fuentes, a writer and Mexican of the world," read a message posted on President Felipe Calderon’s Twitter account.

PHOTOS: Notable Deaths of 2012

Fuentes, who also served as a Mexican diplomat, gained wide acclaim for novels such as "Aura" and "The Death of Artemio Cruz," part of a generation of world-class writers from Latin America. U.S. movie audiences may recall the film based on the Fuentes novel "The Old Gringo," which starred Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda.

He won numerous literary prizes and was perennially mentioned as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature, but never won it. 

At home, Fuentes remained until the end outspoken on issues of the day. His most recent column — about the presidential election in France — was published Tuesday in the daily Reforma newspaper. Disdainful of many Mexican politicians, he tacked a note at the end taking aim at the tone of Mexico’s own presidential race, which he said sacrificed discussion of big issues for candidates’ petty attempts to knock each other down.

Fuentes said he found elixir in work. "My system of youth is to work a lot, to always have a project pending," he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview published Monday. He said he had just completed a novel called "Federico on his Balcony" and had begun a new one.

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-- Ken Ellingwood

Photo: Carlos Fuentes signs a book in Bogota, Colombia, on Feb. 1, 2012. Credit: Eitan Abramovich / AFP/Getty Images

Colombia bomb injures ex-minister, kills 2 as new trade era dawns

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A former Cabinet member and close associate of ex-President Alvaro Uribe apparently was the target of bomb attempt Tuesday that wounded him, killed two people and wounded 24 others in a shopping district of Bogota.

President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the bomb attack in brief televised comments, saying it was directed at former Interior Minister Fernando Londono. The bomb was hidden in a vehicle and, police suspect, detonated from a remote location. Another theory had it that two men on a motorcycle threw a bomb at Londono's armored vehicle.

Before Londono was identified as a victim, some police officials speculated that the bomb might have been exploded as a terrorist response to the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, which takes effect in stages beginning Tuesday. Hours before the blast, which was heard across northern Bogota, police had deactivated a car bomb placed in front of police headquarters.

Londono’s driver and police escort were among those killed, Santos said. Television reports showed photos of the former minister bloodied but on his feet and apparently not seriously hurt. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Clashes erupt across Syria; at least 48 reported dead

AMMAN, Jordan -- Clashes between Syrian government forces and the rebel Free Syrian Army erupted across the country Tuesday, despite the peace plan that calls on both sides to lay down their arms.

In the Idlib province town of Khan Sheikhoun, activists said the Syrian army was battling the rebels after protesters and a U.N. convoy came under fire in the wake of a funeral.

In one video spread by activists, a man holding a grenade says rebels destroyed a government tank after the attack, pointing to what appears to be a tank set ablaze, streaming dark smoke.

An activist known as Aous said the two sides also sparred in his town, Deir-al-Zor, after U.N. observers met Monday with the families of Syrians who had been killed and detained.

"Today, security forces took revenge," shelling part of the town, Aous said in an interview over Skype. "In the beginning, the Free Syrian Army was not sure whether to answer or not because of the cease-fire. But when the situation got worse, the clashes started."

Seven people were reportedly killed there, said Aous and other activists. Across the country, at least 48 people had been killed Tuesday, the Local Coordination Committees activist network said.

EU forces mount first attack on Somali pirates' onshore bases

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- With an estimated 300 hostages currently in the hands of Somali pirates, the first attack on a pirate land base by the European Union's anti-piracy force Tuesday was a delicate one: In all, several speedboats were destroyed as well as fuel and ammunition stores, alliance officials said.

No lives were lost in the attack on the base north of Haradheere, a major pirate stronghold, and no Somalis were injured, the EU said.

“We believe this action by the EU naval force will further increase the pressure on and disrupt pirates’ efforts to get out to sea to attack merchant shipping and dhows," said the commander of the naval force Somalia, Rear Adm. Duncan Potts.

"The local Somali people and fishermen, many of whom have suffered so much because of piracy in the region, can be reassured that our focus was on known pirate supplies and will remain so in the future,” he said.

Potts added that no European forces landed on Somali soil during the operation, which he said was approved by Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional federal government.

Rebekah Brooks calls phone-hacking scandal charges 'unjust'

LONDON -- Former News International chief Rebekah Brooks said she was baffled by the decision to charge her and her husband with obstructing justice, the gravest charges yet in the British phone-hacking scandal.

“One day the details of this case will emerge, and people will see today as nothing more than an expensive sideshow, a waste of public money, as the result of an unjust and weak decision,” she told reporters.

British prosecutors announced Tuesday that Brooks is to be charged with three counts of "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice," tied to her alleged attempts to hide or remove evidence related to the police investigation into phone hacking and corruption at the News of the World and the Sun tabloids. Before the scandal, Brooks oversaw all of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in Britain.

Her husband, Charlie, will face two counts of obstructing justice, prosecutors said.

Lightning strikes French leader Hollande's plane on way to Berlin

PARIS -- There's a metaphor in here somewhere: As spanking-new French President Francois Hollande headed to Germany on Tuesday for a possibly contentious meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss how to save the Eurozone, his plane was struck by lightning.

Less than an hour after being sworn in at the Elysee Palace in Paris, the heavens opened for an afternoon of clouds, heavy rain, hail and even snow in some parts of France.

Shortly after Hollande left for his very first international engagement, his Falcon 7X plane was forced to turn around and return to the Villacoublay military base in France.

A second plane was found and Hollande left for Germany, an hour later than expected.

Syria: U.N. monitors under attack in Idlib; none injured [Video]

A team of United Nations monitors came under attack Tuesday in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, according to the U.N. and opposition activists. Amateur video shows white U.N. vehicles swathed in smoke after a loud bang was heard, sending people scattering.

A U.N. spokesman said a convoy of four vehicles was struck by an explosion from an improvised explosive device in the early afternoon, damaging three of the vehicles. None of the U.N. personnel was injured. A team had been sent to extract the observers, the spokesman said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, reported that regime forces fired at the U.N. vehicle in the wake of a funeral procession. Activists claimed that 20 mourners were killed. The Times could not independently verify their claims.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency had no immediate reports about violence in Khan Sheikhoun, though it reported attacks elsewhere from "terrorists," the government's usual term for the armed rebels.

The attack right in front of U.N. monitors is a stark sign of the faltering ceasefire. Halting the shooting was part of a six-point peace plan brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan that has so far failed to stop the bloodshed in Syria, more than a year into its "Arab Spring" uprising.

Though Annan has praised the observers for having a "calming effect," the continued violence has soured some Syrians on the U.N. team. Some dissidents have argued that the monitors spend too little time in each area and seem only to precipitate attacks.

Syrian dissidents say this is only the latest incident in which U.N. monitors have come under fire. Activists in the town of Quseir in Homs province said the U.N. observers who were approaching the town Sunday to meet with Free Syrian Army leaders retreated after snipers fired toward them.

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— Emily Alpert in Los Angeles, Rima Marrouch in Amman and Times staff

 

 

Angela Merkel's fiscal treaty in trouble at home in Germany

BERLIN -- She insists that austerity is key to solving Europe's debt crisis and that other countries have to practice it, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel is having trouble getting her beloved treaty on fiscal restraint ratified in her own country.

Hours ahead of a visit to Berlin by newly sworn-in French President Francois Hollande, who wants to renegotiate the pact, leaders of Germany's main opposition party delivered some unwelcome news to Merkel: She's going to have to play by their rules if she wants the German parliament to approve the treaty.

That would include supplementing the pact with a tax on financial transactions and measures to boost jobs and growth in a region that has seen several economies contract under stringent austerity regimes of the kind Merkel approves.

And as for bringing the measure, which would put a cap on public spending, to a vote later this month, as Merkel wants: Not going to happen, the opposition leaders say.

"The administration's schedule is off the table," Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, said Tuesday.