EDITORIAL: THE GUARDIAN, UK

Northern Ireland: Not the end of history yet

The murder of Ronan Kerr is not a random event. It is unquestionably part of a continuing pattern

The booby-trap bomb killing of a young police officer in Northern Ireland at the weekend feels like a horror risen from the grave, a brutality erupting out of a dark and almost forgotten past. For people of the murdered 25-year-old Constable Ronan Kerr's own generation, who have grown up in the years during which Northern Ireland has been at peace, his killing will have been specially incomprehensible. Surely such violence – and in Omagh of all places – was now a thing of the past? Was it not just last week that first minister Peter Robinson was claiming that the 5 May Northern Ireland assembly elections will be the first in which the main issues will be everyday ones?
The answer to these questions remains yes. And yet the murder is not a random event. It is unquestionably part of a continuing pattern. The killing of Constable Kerr comes days after a large bomb was defused outside the courthouse in Derry and two men were shot in Dublin during what is said to have been a dispute among dissident republicans. The gun and the bomb – and the clandestine infrastructure and networks that go with them – have not disappeared. And a threat remains on the mainland too. It is less than six months since the home secretary said an attack in Britain by Irish terrorists is now a "strong possibility".
The killing of a Catholic police officer was a political act as well as a criminal one. It was clearly designed to frighten Constable Kerr's co-religionists out of a police career. But the days when Northern Ireland's police could plausibly be depicted as sectarian enforcers against oppressed Catholics are long past. Policing has been reformed. The 50:50 recruitment drive has meant that 30% of officers are Catholics now. This line must be defended. It was good, therefore, to see all sides rising instinctively to that responsibility this weekend. The murderers must be caught. But their attempt to wreck police reform must be defeated too.
As always, however, there is a deeper story. Northern Ireland remains culturally divided in spite of the heroic transformations of the recent past. On the margins – quite big margins, judging by a 2010 survey that gave them an estimated 14% support – some republicans remain wedded to ancestral agendas and to the rewards of outlaw ways of life. Some of the old republican dogs refuse to learn new peaceful tricks. Meanwhile a new generation has grown up which embraces the criminal glamour of the past – especially in grim economic times both sides of the border – that their elders have forsworn. They may not be many. But there are enough of them, and enough fellow travellers, to matter. Their threat will remain real for far longer than most of us would like to admit.

Voting system: Time for a fairer alternative

For most of the 19th century, and for several decades in the middle of the 20th, British politics was a two-horse race. Those times are over.

In those far off Gilbertian days when nature contrived that every voter was either a little Liberal or a little Conservative, or in the more recent but now also increasingly distant postwar days when every voter was either Labour or Conservative, the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system of election caused few serious injustices. With only two main parties to choose from, and with most loyalties seemingly immutable, a swing in the national mood was easily – and reasonably fairly – replicated on the opposing benches of the House of Commons. For most of the 19th century, and for several decades in the middle of the 20th, British politics was a two-horse race. If the Tories were up, Labour was down. If Labour soared, the Tories sank.
Those times are over. Those circumstances no longer exist. The old Britain has fragmented and its politics have fragmented with it. Voting is more shaped by things like education, gender, age, ethnicity and cultural identity, and less by class and locality alone. People move about more than in the past, not just within the country but between countries. Perhaps politics also matters less and is reflected in shallower loyalties. Whatever the reasons, however, politics is no longer the old two-horse race. Ever since at least the 1974 general elections, there have always been three large parties in British elections. In Scotland and Wales there have been four, and in Northern Ireland often five. In the last two decades, further parties have loomed at the margins. Yet FPTP remains unreformed, although discarded in devolved, mayoral, European and some local government electoral contests.
Two facts sum up what has now come to pass under the existing electoral system. The first is that the party affiliation of MPs no longer reflects the party choices of the electorate taken as a whole. The second is that fewer and fewer MPs win their seats with majority support in their own constituencies. Back in 1955, Labour and the Tories had a formidable 96% of the votes and 99% of the MPs. At the same time 94% of MPs were elected by majorities of those who voted. But in 2010, Labour and the Tories together got only 65% of the votes, yet still had 87% of the MPs. Meanwhile only 32% of the current House of Commons were elected by 50% or more of those who voted, a record low.
As a result, more voters than ever are now disfranchised by FPTP. Whether this widening gap between electors and elected alone explains the decline in the reputation of modern politics is doubtful. But it correlates with it in ways which should make all democrats extremely uneasy. The abuse of expenses proliferated in a parliament which was growing increasingly unrepresentative of the voters, as well as in one which was increasingly unresponsive to them. That is why changing the electoral system and changing the expenses system are connected progressive reforms. They are both part of an urgent and uncompleted need for a more transparent and accountable politics which voters can better trust to represent them fairly.
The alternative vote (AV) system – in which voters place candidates in order of preference and in which the winner must obtain a majority of the votes cast – is certainly not the fairest electoral system devised. But it is fairer than the one we have got, and it is rooted in the constituency link. By requiring winners to secure a constituency majority it compels all candidates to engage with all voters. It also thus binds MPs more closely to their constituents. It largely does away with any need for tactical voting. It thus also diminishes the attraction to candidates of negative campaigning. As a result this makes it difficult for extremist parties to prosper. The defenders of the existing system defend a system that is unfair and that has failed. If you want politics to be more representative, more trustworthy and to work better, then support AV in the 5 May referendum.

 

EDITORIAL: THE PEOPLE'S DAILY, CHINA

 

Western countries should abandon illusion of world domination

The military attacks on Libya by multinational forces comprising British, French and American personnel have lasted more than 10 days. Reports show that following the development of the situation, the civilian casualties are increasing and the living conditions in the war zone have become unbearable.
The original intention of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to restrain violence and protect civilians. Given what has happened in Libya over recent days, people cannot help but raise questions on the intent of the military attacks launched by the multinational forces.
According to statistics by the United Nations, the war in Libya has forced at least 300,000 refugees to flee the country. The tide of Libyan refugees has not only put an unbearable burden on Libya's neighboring countries but also severely overwhelmed international humanitarian actions.
In fact, despite the excuse of protecting the interests of the civilians, these Western countries are seeking to protect their own, including not only economic interests but also the established illusion of dominating the world held by some Western leaders. To them, the hegemony is more important than the U.N. Security Council resolutions and Libyan civilians. The illusion has prompted France, the United Kingdom and the United States to unscrupulously launch the war against Libya.
Following the multi-polarization of the world structure over recent years, many Western countries have seemingly become more mild and humble. They have sometimes been willing to listen to the opinions of developing countries, condescend to discuss global issues with developing countries and even urge developing countries to join them in handling world affairs.
Meanwhile, disputes and friction among Western countries appears to be increasing, leading some scholars to believe that the West is no longer an integrated entity, and generally speaking, the jargon of "the West" is not correct.
However, most Western countries took the same stand on the Libya issue and quickly agreed on military intervention without much discussion. The invisible bond linking them together is their common goal of maintaining Western dominance in international affairs. Western leaders still think they have the final say on all international affairs, despite the changing world pattern. Although there is a growing internal rift in the Western world, they will still hold together when they feel their dominant status is threatened.
Therefore, the future of Libya depends not only on how much longer Muammar Gaddafi will soldier on, but also on whether Western counties will change their old mindset.
It is dangerous to resort to violence in dealing with international affairs. History has proven that violence only makes things more complicated. Western countries are not unaware of the hidden risks, but as long as they hold fast to the old high-handed attitude towards the rest of the world, they will continue to just pay lip service to resolving disputes peacefully through talk.
It is still not too late to bring the Libya issue back to the agenda of the U.N. Security Council. If Western countries can fully respect the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Libya as well as the will of the international community, especially Arab countries, it will be possible for all parties involved to achieve a ceasefire so the violence may not escalate and a bigger humanitarian catastrophe may be avoided.
Certain Western countries have learned their lessons when trying to dominate the world in the past, and repeating the same old mistakes will not be good for the long-term interests of Western countries. They need to better adapt to a changing world. If they are too stubborn to change their outdated mindset, they will only hurt themselves while hurting others.

China should follow own course in political reform

The ideas behind China's rapid rise, which are very different from the mainstream political views of the Western countries, can enlighten us in the process of making innovations in democracy. The underlying concept of the success of China's reform and opening up is "Seeking the Truth from Facts" and its core content is to not to believe in any dogma, but determine tangible merits through inspecting fact.
As a "civilization-type state," China has completely different cultural traditions from Western countries. This is the starting point for us to promote political reform. The most important features of the Western tradition are a series of customs, habits and institutions based on individualism, whereas Chinese customs, habits and institutions are more based on families and the relationship derived from families.
Given the differences in cultural traditions, the right way of constructing democracy should be combining our own cultural tradition to launch systemic innovation while avoiding disadvantages, rather than transforming our culture to adapt to Western culture and a political system under the influence of Western culture.
An important lesson China has learned from the Reform and Opening Up is that the quality of a political system should be judged by its contents and outcomes. Deng Xiaoping brought forward three criteria to define socialism during his visit to southern China in 1992. The first criterion is whether it can promote the growth of the socialist productive forces; the second is whether it can increase the overall strength of the socialist state and the third is whether it can improve people's living standards.
We can draw on the three criteria when promoting our democratic construction. Deng determined the correctness of a socialist policy based on its outcome rather than its form, which greatly encouraged the introduction of creative and seemingly adventurous policies.
It is important for the Chinese government to follow three principles based on its experience from the Reform and Opening Up when exploring new ways to build democracy suitable for its actual conditions.
First, it should take the road of gradual reforms. There is no such thing as a perfect plan. The central government should take into consideration the actual conditions of the country, proceed step by step, conduct experiments and encourage the people to make innovations. It is like groping forward by feeling for stones to cross a river.
As long as we do not stop moving, we will finally find the stones and cross the river, meaning that we will definitely form a relatively sound new democratic system in the end. Like economic reforms, China does not have a road map, but rather a compass. Under the established general directions and strategies, China should encourage each region to carry out bold explorations and experiments so as to gradually find a way to democracy that is in line with both China’s contexts and the conditions of its people.
The second is domestic demand. The reforms should start by meeting China's effective demand and only the reforms driven by effective domestic demand can be relatively stable. Effective domestic demand means the actual domestic demand based on the ideas, culture and conditions of the people in a country, which is the greatest inherent driving force. Presently, China's greatest domestic demand is the development of an anti-corruption system, an intra-Party democratic system, a service-oriented government and a society under the rule of law.
The third is livelihood. This means that China's key task is to improve the livelihood and the development of democracy should pragmatically focus on enhancing the public standard of living in both level and scope, enabling the government to provide the common people with better services and making the people lead safer, more free and more well-off and dignified lives.
A key reason behind the failures of democratic experiments in many developing countries lies in that the countries advanced democracy by simply copying Western-style democracy, resulting in the idleness of the political machine, endless domestic friction and worse instead of better lives for the common people. Naturally, such democratic experiments cannot go far.
China can explore a new type of democratic system that is derived from Chinese culture and absorbs strong points from other democratic systems, which will subsequently overtake Western democratic system in terms of both quality and effectiveness. This will also be an important opportunity for China to make contributions to mankind. As "a civilization-type state," China should never decline to assume such responsibility.
The author Wei-wei Zhang is a professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations (GSD) and visiting researcher at Chunqiu Comprehensive Research Institute.

Commentary: Sordid state of China's soccer game

Excessive love for money is the root of all evils. Even people in the sports world are not free of this craze for money as more in-depth reports on the arrest of three soccer referees have unfolded.
Lu Jun was arrested for taking bribes from local soccer teams. Before being exposed, he was known as the "golden whistle" for his "integrity". He officiated in two matches at the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan. Praising the clean soccer administration in the rest of the world, Lu had lashed out at the "black whistles" scandal in China and recommended the setting up of a supervision regime in the country.
Alas, even Lu himself has fallen victim to Mammon.
The other two arrested are Zhou Weixin, an official from Guangzhou province, and Huang Junjie, an active FIFA (or international) referee since 1998.
Such arrests suggest the integrity of China's soccer world is indeed at stake.
China has become a sports superpower, winning numerous impressive international trophies but never in men's soccer, the most popular game in the world that Brazilians lovingly call jogo bonito, or the beautiful game. The national men's soccer team has often performed poorly at the international level, and corrupt practices like match-fixing and illegal betting are to blame for that.
In February, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) announced that during the final weeks of the Super League, half time would be extended from 15 to 30 minutes. It was intended to kick off all second-half games in the league at the same time and prevent referees and players from fixing the outcome of matches. But the move is controversial, because it goes against FIFA rules.
The "professional" soccer league started in the country two decades ago, but its foundation is still unsound. It seems people have used professionalism more to exploit the commercial value of soccer and less to raise the level of the game. So it is not surprising to find "black whistles", or hear about rigged matches, match-fixing, illegal betting and on-the-pitch violence in soccer.
Reforming the operating mechanism of soccer in the country is the only way that the filth of corruption can be cleansed. The aim of the reform should be to let CFA play the role of supervisor and rule-maker without having the authority to run soccer as a business.
Nan Yong, vice-president of CFA, has described match-fixing as a cancer, which needs to be removed.
To remove the cancer and make soccer a really beautiful game, CFA has to get to the root of the disease and destroy all the infected cells, instead of trying to cure the symptoms.

 

 

EDITORIAL: THE USA TODAY, USA

Our view: Shippers make easy prey for Somali pirates

In the five weeks since Somali pirates killed four American yachters off the coast of Africa, pirates have attacked more than 30 other vessels. Among their targets was the Maersk Alabama, a U.S.-flagged container ship that was captured by pirates in 2009, then rescued by Navy SEALs. This time, on March 9, the ship got away. Members of a Danish yachting family were less lucky. Taken hostage Feb. 24, they were given a sickening offer: Turn over their 13-year-old daughter to the pirate captain, and he'd free the adults and boys.

OPPOSING VIEW: 'Provide more naval assets'

At last count, at least 30 foreign vessels and more than 700 people, including that family, were being held hostage by Somali pirates, according to the British maritime security firm GAOPS. (One ship is U.S.-operated but has no U.S. crew.) Their fate illustrates that while the heavily armed pirates succeed in boarding less than 1% of the roughly 20,000 oil tankers, cargo ships and other vessels that pass near the Somali coast each year, once boarded, a vessel is practically doomed. It can be saved only if it is reached in time by the navies patrolling the area, and then at great risk. Or if the vessel owner has insurance to pay ransom demands now exceeding $5 million per ship.

Lured by these huge sums, pirates are becoming better armed and more brazen, putting more crews and cargoes at risk. The cost to the American taxpayer of helping police the area, and having the U.S. Navy ready to stage hostage-rescue operations, is already high. Add to that the possibility that regional terrorist group al-Shabab seeks to target U.S. vessels, and the risk and costs of piracy rise higher still. With each success, the pirates and their financiers grow stronger. 

Against this backdrop, you'd think that vessel owners would take measures that have proved to keep pirates from boarding — using barbed wire fencing and anti-climb paint; staying a great distance from the Somali shore and steaming at top speed; providing crew with an assault-proof room with ship controls, called a citadel; and complete avoidance of the area by recreational yachts. Yet shockingly, not all vessel owners follow these "best practices." Many appear to calculate that while damage is great if a vessel is boarded, the odds of being boarded are low and the investment in countermeasures is not worthwhile. Consider that from September through November, 29% of vessels in the region, including a U.S.-flagged one, appeared to lack anti-piracy measures, according to a task force of navies patrolling there. (Some of the vessels might have had armed guards, another effective countermeasure.)
To be sure, a better solution would be a Somali government that arrested its pirates. But Somalia has lacked a functioning government for 20 years.
An aggressive military response is also tempting, and appropriate when pirates are found at sea, but attacking them on shore, in the villages where they live, is problematic. Civilian casualties would be high and success uncertain. International support is also lacking. Other countries are even loath to deal with captured Somali pirates in their own courts and prisons, though some are making an effort. In February, the U.S. sentenced one of the pirates apprehended after the first attack on the Maersk Alabama to 33 years. And, of course, the U.S. Navy and others have ratcheted up anti-piracy efforts.
But just as one locks up one's home against thieves, the owners of vessels transiting the obviously dangerous region need to take all possible precautions. When they don't, then the cost to navies and taxpayers of protecting them ought to be passed on in the form of penalties and fines.

In Middle East, familiar echoes about limits of U.S. power

Just 30 days ago the Senate, outraged by Moammar Gadhafi's brutality, passed a resolution urging swift imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya. Republicans and Democrats in the House agreed. Now many sound shocked that the operation isn't an unmitigated triumph. At a House hearing Thursday, lawmakers peppered Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen with skepticism.

As Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., deftly observed, "You can get sort of whiplash around here trying to keep up with the positions of some people."
Nothing happening should be a surprise. Gates warned early on about a no-fly zone's limitations, and he and Mullen only added more evidence Thursday.

The rebels are outnumbered 10-1, they said, and barely 1,000 rebel fighters have military training. NATO airstrikes, despite degrading the Libyan military by 25%, are not coordinated with the disorganized rebel offensives. There's no predicting how long toppling Gadhafi might take, nor is that outcome guaranteed.
So now, according to various reports, the CIA has put operatives into Libya, and NATO is considering arming the rebels despite the disquieting history of Afghanistan, where the U.S. armed fighters against a Soviet invasion only to see them turn into today's enemy, the Taliban.
This all lends an uncomfortably familiar feeling of half-baked commitment, incremental escalation and dubious outcomes.
It's too late now to undo the no-fly decision or to switch to an all-out assault, which would fracture the alliance and leave the U.S. caught in a third land war in a Muslim country. So success will depend on patiently ratcheting up pressure on Gadhafi's loyalists to abandon him, as his foreign minister did Wednesday.
More important, events in Libya and those that led up to them should serve as a cautionary tale about the limits of U.S. power as revolution roils the Arab world.
So far, the pattern has been stumble and recover.
After the first uprising, in Tunisia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement of support for the repressive, U.S.-allied regime, which promptly collapsed. When demonstrations spread to Egypt, Clinton repeated the misjudgment. Again the regime fell.
When protests erupted in Libya, the twice-fooled administration rushed to get ahead of history. President Obama proclaimed that Gadhafi must go, only to see the Libyan strongman rewrite the script by crushing his opponents. Now the U.S. is in the awkward position of having committed its military to protect civilians but not to attaining Obama's prematurely stated goal.
Aside from that mismatch between aims and means, the mistakes look obvious only in retrospect. No one could have predicted that the self-immolation of a Tunisian fruit vendor would unleash forces that would depose tyrants who had ruled for decades. Nor can anyone predict what will happen next. Regimes in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen are already in jeopardy. In none of those nations is military action likely to help.
Better to play a long game — one that heeds the lessons of America's most successful long game, the Cold War. The greatest mistakes of that period were its two failed hot wars, in Korea and Vietnam. Success came not from the exercise of military power but from the resolute commitment to use it in defense of allies threatened by Soviet aggression. Repressed populations yearned for the freedom that the U.S. enticingly offered, even as it collaborated with undemocratic but useful friends. Saudi Arabia, controller of world oil prices and bulwark against Iran, is a current case in point.
In that regard, Obama is right to keep the U.S. profile low, right not to treat all countries the same, and right to preach democracy at every turn.
The fact that American flags aren't burning on Arab streets, despite years of hostility, speaks volumes about the opportunity. But it will be lost if the U.S. overplays its hand, as it might have done in Libya.

College hoops' lesson for football

Virginia Commonwealth University and Butler University are this year's surprise teams in the festival of sport known as March Madness. They come from unheralded conferences and have knocked off major basketball powers to reach the Final Four of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
The college basketball world, indeed the whole sports nation, delights when teams like this get to play in the title game (and one of them will, because they face each other in Saturday's semifinals). They are called things such as Cinderella and underdog.
College football is another matter. Instead of a fair and honest tournament, it has a bowl system with the primary purpose of keeping television revenue concentrated in a handful of major conferences.
Outsider football teams are not called Cinderellas; they are called derogatory things — most notably, in the words of Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, "the Little Sisters of the Poor." That phrase was part of Gee's explanation for why overachieving upstarts such as Boise State and Texas Christian University should not be allowed to play in college football's championship game. Their impressive records were made possible, he said, by playing in weak divisions against charity-case opponents.
Well, TCU did a pretty good job of shaming the establishment last year. After the polls and computer rankings determined that its 12-0 season was not good enough for the championship game, TCU defeated Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin was the winner of the powerhouse Big Ten conference, a status it achieved by defeating Gee's Ohio State.
And yet the college football bowl system remains as entrenched as the Soviet Politburo during the Cold War. Next year, a so-called championship game will be played between two teams selected by polls and computer rankings. The best of the rest will be sent to bowl games based on the poll rankings, the conferences they play in, and how large a television audience they are likely to command.
That is college football fans' loss. March Madness is one of the few sporting events that consistently live up to the hype; this year's tourney has had more than its share of buzzer-beating bracket busters. Imagine how much more exciting college football would be if it culminated in a tournament of, say, 16 teams over four weekends in December and January.

 

EDITORIAL: THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

Long-term support needed for disaster

The Yomiuri Shimbun

About 1,200 people who were evacuated to the Saitama Super Arena from Futabamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, have been relocated to a new evacuation shelter along with their town government.

They may well feel very uncertain about life as evacuees far from their hometown. We strongly hope the local government that has accepted them will provide well-considered support.

Residents of Futabamachi, where the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is located, were first moved to Kawamatamachi in the prefecture after an evacuation notice was issued shortly after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis. They later relocated to the Saitama arena, and this time to a building of the now-defunct prefectural Kisai High School in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture.

Town government functions also have been established in the school, with the principal's office converted into the office of the Futabamachi mayor.

As the Futabamachi community has been relocated en masse, residents are expected to maintain their local ties during their time as evacuees.

===

Keep community ties intact

They can alleviate their anxiety by encouraging each other as they live in the evacuation center. The town's primary and middle school children also should be allowed to transfer together to schools in their new neighborhood.

There are, however, many problems facing the evacuees.

Many Futabamachi residents have lost their jobs and will need to find new sources of income. It is urgent for all parties concerned to help the evacuees find employment as quickly as possible. It is also imperative to provide elderly evacuees with sufficient medical and welfare services.

Another top priority is to secure housing. As efforts to handle the nuclear crisis will certainly be prolonged, there is no knowing when the evacuees can return home. No time should be wasted in building temporary housing for them.

After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, elderly evacuees were given priority in the assignment of temporary housing units, irrespective of where their homes had been located. As a result, elderly people in the temporary facilities were hard put to develop community ties among each other.

In the five years after the earthquake, more than 200 elderly people died solitary deaths in temporary housing.

After the 2004 Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu earthquake, about 2,000 residents of the village of Yamakoshimura were evacuated along with the village government. In this case, shelters and temporary housing were allocated by district, thereby preserving community ties among the victims.

===

Extensive support a must

To ensure a similar outcome in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11, the city of Kazo, the surrounding cities, towns and villages, Saitama and other prefectures, and the national government should cooperate with each other.

In Fukushima Prefecture, seven towns and villages in addition to the town of Futabamachi have moved their government functions to other municipalities because of the nuclear power plant accident.

The government of Okumamachi will soon move its functions to Aizu-Wakamatsu. Okumamachi's residents, who number about 1,800, will be relocated to various shelters in Aizu-Wakamatsu.

Children among the evacuees are scheduled to attend primary and middle school in the city in school buildings not currently in use. This means they plan to relocate Okumamachi students and teachers by school.

In Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, moves have been spreading among tsunami-battered coastal communities to move en masse to inland districts.

However, many people cannot join these relocations because of their work or domestic circumstances.

We urge local governments to keep in contact with such people.

Given the urgency of an extensive response to the crisis, all related municipalities should offer prolonged support that responds to disaster victims' needs.

Ensure communication lines can withstand disaster

The Yomiuri Shimbun

After a disaster, people desperately want to confirm their families are safe as soon as possible. They want to let others know they are fine as well. Accordingly, many people felt frustrated that they could not contact their loved ones soon after last month's massive earthquake because phone lines were down.

Last month's earthquake smashed communication networks in the Tohoku region. But in the event of a disaster, it is essential to ensure communication lines still operate so people's safety can be confirmed and the extent of the damage gauged. Communication infrastructure is a vital lifeline--just like supplies of water and food; it must be further strengthened.

The Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake disrupted about 1.5 million fixed-line telephones, five times more than the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake did.

Cell phones, which had previously been trumpeted as reliable during a disaster, were practically useless after the Tohoku earthquake because 14,000 base stations became unusable and cell phone companies limited connections to prevent system overloads due to the flood of calls.

We hope telecommunications companies will develop facilities and provide services that can better withstand disasters. Base stations supporting cell phone networks will quickly run out of power and grind to a halt if an outage occurs. Their power systems must be strengthened, and priority should be given to ensuring cell phones remain operable at administrative bodies, hospitals and evacuation facilities.

===

Public phones to the fore

The importance of public phones must also be recognized again. In a disaster, communication via public phones is given priority over ordinary phones. The number of public phones, however, has halved in the past decade. Operators of public phones should examine where the phones are, and install however many more are necessary.

During the latest disaster, text messages, disaster bulletin boards and new information services such as Twitter were more effective for sharing and passing on information than voice messages were. Text information can be sent instantly, unlike spoken messages, and is easy to access. We hope people will prepare various means of communication even during normal times.

Local governments will need to consider how to best provide disaster-related information in the Internet age.

The earthquake alert system sends instant text messages to cell phones located within a certain range when a quake is detected. It may be worth considering expanding this service and offering tsunami alerts and evacuation advisories as well.

===

Internet a valuable tool

The Iwate and Miyagi prefectural governments developed a system to help search for the names of people who had been forced to take shelter across their prefectures. This was set up to help the many people--even those in evacuation centers--who had no way to tell others where they were.

Local governments would be wise to actively use the Internet to provide disaster victims with more detailed information about available services and matters that have an impact on daily life. The Internet also is a useful tool for people who travel to many evacuation centers to search for family members. We hope local governments will expand these efforts.

However, if the Internet and cell phone text messages play major roles in the event of a disaster, an "information gap" could open between people with access to them and those without. This "disparity of connectivity," which likely will disadvantage the elderly, will need to be addressed.

 

 

EDITORIAL: THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

vye for 2015

It should have been a victory.  It is in a way.

The whole nation stands disappointed, but the heartening thing is we as a nation had not given up or turned against the cricketers. The nation still stands behind the team even in defeat.

It was anyhow, a much needed victory for a country that had gone through continuous misery for three decades. It would have been a balm for a nation that was wounded in war and natural calamities. But destiny had it otherwise.

While the following days are going to see a barrage of analyses and comments by many a cricket pundit, we stand by Sri Lanka Cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara and his boys and congratulate them on the valiant fight they put up in Wankhede, Mumbai on Saturday.

Already many theories and analyses have started to emerge over the deafeat.

There are many ‘ifs’ and ‘thens’.

Many may wonder why Ajantha Mendis was dropped; why Vaas was not included while Nuwan was.

Loudest of them is Nuwan’s dropped catch of Gambhir.  Things are easier said than done.

Many fail to realize that ultimately it rests upon Sanga to decide on the team and the game.

Had he won the match all critics would have been saying all nice things about his abilities now.

The Lankan team was playing under tremendous pressure, in an electrified atmosphere of a stadium which was filled with a more than 35,000, cheering crowd. And the pressure on the Indian team would have been far greater, we need to congartulate them also for winning the cup after 27 years.

As many of us saw, Lankan batsmen were struggling to score during the initial overs.  Somehow the team reached 274. But when they entered for fielding it was clearly visible in their body language that the boys were not psychologically sound to face the batting attack. And the bowling attack was very weak, without Ajantha and Vas perhaps and Murali was nowhere his normal self in the field.

It is notable that Sangakkara knew about this. In fact he had warned about his side’s stagefright in an earlier occasion anyway.

Kumar Sangakkara believed his team's qualification for the World Cup final could further unite a country  after the end of a decades-long civil war. He has stressed the significance of the win for the country's cohesion earlier. “Cricket has always been the panacea that heals all in Sri Lanka, so winning the World Cup final would be huge for the country," he had said earlier.

Whatever the pundits say one should realize that the man in the field has the best understanding of the situation to make any decision with regard to a game and Sanga did what he thought was best for the team’s victory and we all should stand by it. They are the professionals and we should leave it to them. Winning is surely everything these days but accepting defeat magnanimously and with humility as did Sanga makes a greater sportsman. We salute that spirit and look forward that our national pride would do much better in the coming days and the next World Cup in 2015.

Now that we know our weaknesses and strengths and that we know the next ICC World Cup would be held Down Under, it would be wise to prepare a team for the conditions there and bring the cup in 2015. We have enough time to do that.

EDITORIAL: THE HINDU, INDIA

Behind India's World Cup

Ahead of the World Cup, widely perceived as the most open in recent times, India found itself in an unenviable position: anointed as the favourite and appointed to play in front of volatile, demanding home crowds. A measure of the constricting pressure India's cricketers experienced during the tournament may be had from captain M.S. Dhoni's revelation that his men struggled to keep their food down and that Yuvraj Singh was physically sick because of anxiety. Seen in this light, India's second World Cup triumph — 28 years after the gloriously improbable victory Kapil Dev's team achieved against the mighty West Indies — appears all the more remarkable. Four distinct qualities characterise this triumph. One, the facility for natural expression under pressure, especially when batting. Two, game-toughness, which manifested itself in the wherewithal to meter resources through a draining tournament. Three, the peculiar yet much-desired ability, common to teams Dhoni leads, not so much to solve problems as to transcend them (the lift in the fielding standard of a largely unathletic side inured to mediocrity was hard to explain). Four and most important of all, an unbending desire to win that was stronger than any of the other teams.

From a unit that looked flawed in the league stage — its bowling inadequate, its fielding incompetent, its batting inconsistent, particularly in the Power Play overs — India transformed itself into a side that got the job done in the big matches. As Dhoni noted, his team peaked at the right time. No one better illustrated this transformation than the captain. He reserved his best innings — a poised, calculated, and ultimately devastating 91 — for the finale. His decision to promote himself in the big game was a classic case of leading from the front, and while he made tactically questionable calls, his ability to inspire a band of men to stay invested in a contest is second to none. Gautam Gambhir seems to escape notice in a team of superstars, but he must be acknowledged as one of the finest big-match batsmen of his generation. His record in second innings in important Tests and in run chases and grand finals in ODIs and Twenty20 games is exceptional. India discovered and re-discovered many heroes in the World Cup. Yuvraj had a standout tournament, his runs and wickets often coming when his team needed them most. Zaheer Khan held the bowling together, delivering wickets whenever his captain threw him the ball in the middle-stages. He might not have ended as he wished, but his brilliant opening spell in the final set the tone. Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli, and Suresh Raina made runs that were worth more than their quantity while Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, and Ashish Nehra contributed vital spells without having consistently good tournaments. R. Ashwin, curiously overlooked for much of India's campaign, added an edge to the bowling and forced Harbhajan to raise his game. Sachin Tendulkar, for whom the team said it wanted to win the World Cup, continued his scarcely believable second wind which now spans three years. The team's spontaneous gesture of chairing a visibly emotional Tendulkar and parading him before an adoring home crowd showed how much it meant to all involved. Coach Gary Kirsten and the rest of the backroom staff deserve high praise for creating an atmosphere in which India's cricketers could relax and thus express their skills naturally. Sri Lanka might have fallen at the last hurdle, but much like Pakistan, it won fans for its cricket, its comportment, and its captaincy. But this was India's World Cup, and Dhoni's men were worthy winners of a well-staged tournament.

An exciting discovery

The discovery of Acheulian tools no younger than one million years, and possibly as old as 1.5 million years, in Tamil Nadu overturns the current thinking that hominins or early humans lived in India merely 0.6 million to 0.5 million years ago. The exciting finds are from a site at Attirampakkam, in the Kortallayar River basin, about 60 km northwest of Chennai. Previous age estimates indicated that hominins who moved out of Africa dispersed across Asia and Europe around the same time. This was inconsistent with the widely accepted current theories of early human migration from Africa to Asia. By dating the artefacts as at least one million years old, a paper published online in Science (“Early Pleistocene presence of Acheulian hominins in South India” by Shanti Pappu et al., March 25, 2011) comes close to placing them in sync with the migration of early humans from Africa to the rest of the world through Asia. The latest study used two dating methods – palaeomagentism to date the sediments from where the tools were recovered, and aluminum-beryllium isotope technique to date six artefacts. Combining the two techniques helped make the dating robust.

Attirampakkam was identified by the British geologist Robert Bruce Foote in 1863. The Indian researchers took nearly a decade of holistic study of the site to understand the archaeology in relation to paleo-environment. Among the more than 3,500 quartzite tools recovered from the site, the most common ones were the oval and tear-drop shaped bifacial hand-axes, cleavers, and small fakes (small chipped stones). Quite a number of tools discovered at the lowest buried Acheulian levels indicate that they were brought from elsewhere and only the final shaping was done at Attirampakkam. This is not unexpected: hominins using Acheulian tools were highly mobile.

 

 

EDITORIAL: THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

Opportunity in Khyber

THE scourge of Khyber Agency, tormentor of Peshawar and leader of the Laskhar-i-Islam, Mangal Bagh, has found himself in a fight for survival. Members of the Zakakhel tribe, a sub-tribe of the Afridis, and known their tribal fierceness have turned on Mangal Bagh and sent him on the run from the Zakakhel area of the Khyber Agency. As the fighting has spread, military helicopters have entered the fray, pounding Mangal Bagh’s strongholds in the hope perhaps of regaining control of parts of Khyber Agency. As ever, in the murky world of Fata dynamics, some background is necessary. Despite occasional claims about ‘gains’ and ‘successes’ by the state, Khyber Agency remains a serious problem. Away from the present fighting, the Bara area, from where Mangal Bagh’s cohorts have been ‘evicted’ by security forces, has been under a curfew for a year and a half, the state apparently believing in containing a problem rather than trying and fixing it. Mangal Bagh and his organisation — named the Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) but really just a group of criminals and thugs who have cloaked themselves in the veneer of Islam — continue to remain a serious threat in Khyber and beyond, having the capability to cause trouble in Peshawar and the adjoining Orakzai Agency via Tirah.

The Zakakhels, while presently fighting Mangal Bagh, are no paragons of virtue, either. Many of the commanders who have risen against Bagh in recent days were only too happy to form common cause with Bagh and offer him shelter when he was ousted from the Bara area. Age-old reasons applied. Commanders like Ghuncha Gul were involved in kidnapping and other crimes and benefited from the association with the LI, which remained a formidable entity despite being under pressure from the security forces. But there is little honour among thieves (and worse), at least in the Khyber agency at the moment. Rivalries and enmities spilled over, pitting factions of the Lashkar-i-Islam against each other. When a prominent cleric respected by the Zakakhel tribe, Maulana Mohammad Hashim, was kidnapped and killed in March, apparently by fighters loyal to Mangal Bagh, the Zakakhel tribe rose in revolt against its temporary and previously convenient ally. The cleric is believed to have earned the ire of Mangal Bagh after trying to mediate in a dispute between the LI factions.

Now, if the state plays its cards right by supporting the Zakakhels and putting pressure on LI in other parts of Khyber, there is a chance to eradicate a menace. But tribal dynamics are tricky and if not handled properly, Mangal Bagh and the LI may yet live to torment parts of Fata.

Acting in haste

THE folly of haste appeared to be on full display the other day when the Maldives authorities released, for want of evidence, a man branded as a terrorist by both Islamabad and Interpol. A plot to attack cricket World Cup matches had been foiled, we were told by the interior minister, in a tone that bordered on the grandiose. The Interpol secretary general seemed equally confident that his organisation, in conjunction with intelligence shared by Pakistan, had got its man. The Maldives courts believed otherwise though and with the benefit of hindsight it seems that both Interpol and Pakistan’s interior ministry sensationalised an issue that would have been more prudently investigated behind the scenes. Panic was created, on grounds that can clearly be questioned now, and in the end there was little or no material gain from issuing statements that were bound to come under the media spotlight. Headlines were made, true, but to what effect?

Terror plots must be foiled, and that end can obviously best be achieved before militants bent on mayhem actually arrive on the scene. Their activities need to be tracked and that requires improved intelligence-gathering. Equally important in this respect is intelligence-sharing, be it with Interpol, the CIA or any other foreign agency. The common goal is clear: only by working together can we thwart the designs of people who desire creating fear not just in any one country but across the world. First and foremost, the mistrust between international intelligence agencies must end. Two, as stated earlier, the authorities in Pakistan and elsewhere must refrain from making their information public unless they are absolutely certain the case is solid. Back-patting of the kind seen recently between Interpol and the interior ministry is pointless if there can be no follow-through. The point here is not to disparage attempts by the Pakistani authorities to disrupt the various terrorist networks in the country. While they may have failed on several occasions, the many successes too should be noted. But shooting from the hip serves no purpose when it comes to delicate issues like the menace of terrorism. Some measure of reserve is required.

New champions

INDIA have been crowned the new ODI champions after defeating Sri Lanka in the World Cup final in Mumbai on Saturday. Ranked as a top team in the ODIs, in the T20 version and in Tests, India performed admirably in the World Cup. They were beaten once in a pool game by South Africa. On their way to the title, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men defeated Pakistan and the still-capable Aussies, and tied a game with England, a pre-tournament favourite. The defeat of the talented Sri Lankans in the finals signified the completeness of their campaign.

The final was the triumph of substance over style and artistry. Mahela Jayawardene, an ambassador of the more settled and serene days, played a masterful hand. Maestro Sachin Tendulkar shone ever so briefly with his back-foot punches, but in the end it was left to the grit of pugnacious street-fighters such as Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir on one side and the sling of Lasith Malinga and the bend of an unfit Muttiah Muralitharan on the other to decide the issue. The workman-like course Dhoni and Gambhir took to victory was reflective of just how far the game has come since Aravinda De Silva so subtly took his side to World Cup glory against a matter-of-fact Australia in the 1996 final. Jayawardene’s was in no way a less attractive innings than De Silva’s, but he was rudely pushed into the ranks of the losers by the might of Dhoni. However, not all is lost for the conservative stylists; tempering his fare with a bit of pragmatism Yuvraj Singh has shown that it is still possible for a cricketer to emerge as the best World Cup player without compromising his leg-stump guard and his high back-lift. The enthusiasts are not entirely without choices as the game gains in intensity.

 

 

 

EDITORIAL: THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

Women's policy detractors

Don't use religion for party politics

WE are saddened and worried that in the name of Islam some people have been trying to create confusion around the issue of the proposed national policy on women. In many ways, it is a repeat of what these very elements tried doing recently about the education policy, a move that created some unnecessary confusion. Now when a progressive step is being taken to ensure that Bangladesh's women enjoy equal rights with men politically, economically and socially, these extreme elements are busy spreading the false notion that the proposed policy goes against the Quran and Sunnah. It does nothing of the sort. Indeed, we are outraged that where Islam once caused a positive transformation in people's thoughts and even now symbolizes equality and self-esteem for all men and women, some quarters are happy to convey the impression that Islam stands against granting equal rights to women. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A section of people, who base their politics on misinterpretation of religion, have called for a hartal today. We wonder if they and their followers went through the entirety of the proposed policy before raising the bogey of Islam and the Quran being in danger should rights be accorded to Bangladesh's women. Nowhere in the policy is there any mention or even a suggestion of its being in contravention of the Quran and Sunnah. The truth is that the policy simply means to ensure a more pro-active role for women in the various sectors of national life and thus make it possible for them to pursue life in dignity and freedom. Those are principles which are enshrined in the Quran as well. The ignorance of those behind the current ruckus is therefore inexcusable.
The women's policy is surely a necessary one and a good one. It ought to be a step forward not just for women but for the whole nation as well. We ask those agitating against it to desist from denigrating Islam by using it as a weapon for political propaganda.

Congratulations to India

A befitting end to a captivating event

WITH Dhoni's six, which was the last of the tournament, and one that helped India surpass Sri Lanka's total in the final, the curtains came down on what must surely rate as one of the brightest extravaganza of any sport, let alone cricket.
This is for the first time that the final was contested by two teams from South Asia, and for the first time too that a team won the trophy on home soil. Two best teams had reached the finals and the team playing better won. Congratulations to India for winning the cup, and for the second time, after 28 years. At the end of the day it was a victory for the game of cricket.
Sri Lanka deserve kudos, too as a fighting side offering stiff competition to the winner.
We should also spare moment for introspection. Firstly, the performance of the Bangladesh team should be analysed objectively. Our performance was patchy but we can take comfort in the fact that we had defeated England in the preliminary round. There is also the need to consider increasing the capacity of our cricket stadiums vastly, given the great following of the game and the 20/20 Cup to be hosted by Bangladesh in 2014, or move major cricket tournaments to larger stadiums. We also feel that the fans can be spared the hassles that they had to go through in procuring tickets.
We feel that everything has ended well having gotten the event off with a flying start in Dhaka, and the organisers, the ICC and the BCCB and all those that were associated with the event in Bangladesh, deserve our fullest appreciation for pulling it off without the slightest hitch. Other co-hosts India and Sri Lanka are felicitated, too.