EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Charge sheet in the time of elections

Despite some breakthroughs made in the criminal investigation into the 2G-spectrum allocation scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation has been unable or unwilling to go more than half steam in the charge sheet filed before the Special Court constituted to hear the case. That the Supreme Court of India is monitoring the investigation does not seem to have prevented the CBI from wilting under political pressure and piecing together a charge sheet that is unsatisfactory on several counts. True, a charge sheet in a criminal case needs to be filed within 60 days of the arrest of the accused to ensure they are not entitled to bail, and the CBI was working under a time constraint. But this does not explain why the leads in the investigation have not been followed to their logical conclusion. The arrests too have been suspiciously selective. Robust investigation into the money trail — which according to the charge sheet leads circuitously to Kalaignar TV, a television channel owned by members of the family of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi — has been put off until after the Assembly elections, which is why there is talk of a supplementary charge sheet. The investigating agency appears to have relied for the most part on the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General. However, while the C&AG indicated presumptive losses between Rs.57,666 crore and Rs.176,645 crore, the charge sheet pegs the figure at about Rs.22,000 crore.

The CBI has also betrayed a keen desire to absolve Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of any culpability in the allocation of 2G spectrum by stating that he was “misled” on the issue and that he had “appropriately flagged the issue of processing of large number of applications received for fresh licences against the backdrop of inadequate spectrum to cater to overall demand.” As Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has pointed out, the job of the investigating agency is to deal with criminality — not give a “clean chit” to any one. It is no one's case that the Prime Minister is criminally culpable but what is clear is that he had foreknowledge that something was rotten in the state of telecom, evidenced by the fact that he had received several complaints, which he took up with Telecom Minister A. Raja but failed to do anything about. It is possible that the CBI's investigation has been constrained by the proximity of the Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and three other major States and that the situation will change after May 13. But what lowers public confidence in the independence of the investigation into India's biggest ever corruption scandal is the fact that other than Mr. Raja, no politician or major corporate figure has been named in the main charge sheet.

 

EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, UK

In praise of … Terence Rattigan

A great injustice was done when the plays of Rattigan were swept aside by the Royal Court-led theatrical revolution of the 1950s

It has long been recognised that a great injustice was done when the plays of Terence Rattigan were swept aside by the Royal Court-led theatrical revolution of the 1950s. But the centenary of Rattigan's birth has not only brought a spate of revivals – the latest is In Praise of Love at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton. It has shown that the very qualities for which Rattigan was once so despised are a source of strength. His work was thought to epitomise a deeply English upper-class verbal and emotional reticence. But although it is true that Rattigan was, as Winston Churchill observed on a visit to Flare Path, "a master of understatement", his work is also a sustained assault on our fear of passion and commitment. In After the Dance, a marriage needlessly dies because neither partner can admit to the love they feel. The Deep Blue Sea, arguably Rattigan's greatest play, shows a heroine driven to attempted suicide by the desertion of a lover who cannot fulfil her sexual and emotional needs. And in Cause Célèbre, now at the Old Vic, he does belated justice to Alma Rattenbury, who in the 1930s was thought to have committed a crime worse than murder: the seduction of her 18-year-old chauffeur. It helped, of course, that Rattigan learned about dramatic structure by studying the Greeks at school. But the centenary revivals have forced us to recognise the real truth about Rattigan: that behind the quietly oblique dialogue lies a profound understanding of the human heart and an awareness of the illogicality of love.

Health reforms: Second opinion

Andrew Lansley felt the need to go to the Commons yesterday and express confidence in his bill.

The need for a public vote of confidence is reliably more instructive than the ringing terms in which it is couched, as many a football manager knows to his cost. After being hung out to dry in the press, Andrew Lansley felt the need to go to the Commons yesterday and express confidence in his health bill. He did so even though he has already steered his legislation most of the way through that house, and even as he announced a review so vague that the bill's final shape is utterly unknown. No wonder he sounded miserable.
The pretext for yesterday's pause for thought was the "genuine concern" of many who work in the service; in truth the opposition of the medical profession had long been expected. Having left Mr Lansley alone in the lab to brew up explosive plans, David Cameron wobbled as to the wisdom of exposing the potion to sunlight at the turn of the year, but with the bill about to be published he resolved to take the doctors' brickbats, keep calm and carry on. What has really changed is the party politics.
As Liberal Democrats have studied the small print that Mr Cameron did not bother with until the ink had dried, the realisation dawned that a coalition which they are a part of was proposing to dismantle a nationwide structure in whose founding Liberals had once played a proud part. Mealy-mouthed for too long in addressing Tory excesses, Nick Clegg has been forced by his party to stand up to his partners on this one. With terrible judgment, the Lib Dem health minister Paul Burstow signed off on the abolition of the primary care trusts that his own party's manifesto and the coalition agreement had committed to democratise. Former doctor Evan Harris rallied Lib Dem opposition around this flagrant breach of promise at his party's spring conference and among the lords. He has now set out a long list of "essential amendments" that would effectively rewrite the entire bill. Mr Lansley seemed at pains yesterday not to preclude any of these specific changes. Rarely if ever in history can a defeated backbencher have held the sort of cards in his hand that Mr Harris is holding today.
What matters, of course, is how far the open tone of Mr Lansley's remarks translates into an open mind in refining the bill. No one is pretending that the NHS can drift on as it is – money is tight, and about to get tighter, while the pressure of ever more elderly people will only intensify. But the health secretary can no longer pretend that he has all the answers. Simply delaying things while Messrs Cameron and Clegg go on a roadshow to tell worried members of the public to calm down will not suffice.
Disempowering the expert drug rationers of Nice from doing their nasty job, and sacking commissioners who have been getting better at their work, is institutional vandalism. It ought to stop – and now. Already, half of all trusts are muddling through with temporary executives, who now have no idea where they are supposed to be muddling to. Several MPs yesterday asked Mr Lansley to apologise to those staff who have already lost their jobs in his rush to reform. If his claim to deliberating afresh without prejudice is to have credibility, he must immediately desist from creating new facts on the ground.
The lack of accountability for the new GP consortiums, which could be gobbled up by corporates and prone to conflicts of interest, must also be addressed. Above all, the dogma that the regulator must actively promote competition from all comers has to be rethought. Unless it is, family doctors who value a relationship with their local hospital could end up in court under EU competition law – the point on which Ed Miliband recently rattled an unprepared Mr Cameron. Until yesterday many parliamentarians were understandably reluctant to get embroiled in competition law and governance structures, but these things now move centre stage. For lurking in this detail is the devil who could do for the NHS.

Ivory Coast: The final battle

Responsibility to protect loomed large in the debate about intervening in Libya, but was long curiously absent from Ivory Coast.

Responsibility to protect loomed large in the debate about intervening in Libya, but was long curiously absent from Ivory Coast. There, a large modern city with 4 million inhabitants was running out of food and water; looters roamed the streets; and a UN peacekeeping force was – until last night – sidelined to the role of outraged observers. In the end, a final assault by the presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara on the city of Abidjan began when French helicopters opened fire on a military camp of forces loyal to the former president Laurent Gbagbo. In this act, both the UN force and the supporting French one moved to centre stage.
This is not without its risks. Any move by the armed forces of a former colonial master carry the charge that the clock is being turned back and a new puppet is being installed. Until now French forces were only there to protect French nationals, and they also took over the airport. However, the conflict had probably gone too far, and France claimed it was responding to the request of the UN secretary general to neutralise the heavy weapons belonging to Gbagbo's troops. As Gbagbo spent months resisting calls from the African Union to honour the result of an election which he lost and step aside, much of the blame for Ivory Coast's relapse into civil war rests squarely on his shoulders. But not all.
The "New Forces" of Mr Ouattara contain some elements of older militias who also have blood on their hands. The International Committee of the Red Cross stuck by its claim that about 800 were killed when Mr Ouattara's forces swept through the town of Duekoue, and an account of the aftermath by the BBC's Andrew Harding makes disturbing reading. Mr Ouattara's government blamed the UN for withdrawing its forces when the fight for the town took place. As Mr Ouattara and his cabinet-in-waiting owe their survival to UN troops guarding them at a hotel, they should at least take responsibility for the behaviour of their troops. They should be told international support is contingent on correct behaviour. The besieged inhabitants of the Golf hotel have been unable to protect even the homes of their relatives, which have been targeted by Gbagbo's elite paramilitary force, Cecos. Now the situation is reversed, rebel forces have a responsibility to uphold the basic rules of warfare, such as protecting the lives of noncombatants, and taking combatants prisoner where possible. As firing could be heard from the direction of the presidential palace last night, it can only be hoped that the final battle is brief and that Gbagbo's troops seeing the writing on the wall, which had somehow eluded the gaze of their master.

EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. described a federal court trial for the self-professed mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as “the defining event of my time as attorney general.” On Monday, Mr. Holder’s dream for demonstrating the power of the American court system crumbled when he announced that the trial would take place not in New York City or anywhere in the United States but before a military commission at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

That retreat was a victory for Congressional pandering and an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which failed to stand up to it.
The wound inflicted on New York City from Mr. Mohammed’s plot nearly a decade ago will not heal for many lifetimes, yet the city, while still grieving, has thrived. How fitting it would have been to put the plot’s architect on trial a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, to force him to submit to the justice of a dozen chosen New Yorkers, to demonstrate to the world that we will not allow fear of terrorism to alter our rule of law.
But, apparently, there are many who continue to cower, who view terrorists as much more fearsome than homegrown American mass murderers and the American civilian jury system as too “soft” to impose needed justice. The administration of George W. Bush encouraged this view for more than seven years, spreading a notion that terror suspects only could be safely held and tried far from our shores at Guantánamo and brought nowhere near an American courthouse. The federal courts have, in fact, convicted hundreds of terrorists since 9/11. And federal prisons safely hold more than 350 of them.
The pandering toward this mentality began as soon as Mr. Holder announced his plan in 2009 to try Mr. Mohammed in Lower Manhattan. A group of senators, including Joseph Lieberman, an independent of Connecticut, complained that it would give terrorists a platform to rally others to their cause. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said the trial should be moved elsewhere because New Yorkers didn’t want it, as if prosecutors needed opinion polls to determine where to seek justice.
The final blow came from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who originally accepted the trial but then gave in to downtown business interests that opposed it for reasons of inconvenience. His office promulgated the absurd notion that security would cost $1 billion. Congress then made the trial impossible last year with a measure prohibiting any spending to move prisoners from Guantánamo to the United States.
Mr. Holder was right to sound bitter about the decision at his news conference on Monday. But the Obama administration must shoulder some of the blame. As The New Yorker reported last year, it did little to prepare the political groundwork for a local trial and barely defended the idea after the unfounded attacks began.
Given the circumstances, Mr. Holder is right to push for a military trial for Mr. Mohammed, rather than let him linger in indefinite limbo. His decision will test whether reforms to the military commission system will allow for both a fair prosecution and a vigorous defense. But Monday’s announcement represents a huge missed opportunity to prove the fairness of the federal court system and restore the nation’s reputation for providing justice for all.

Union-Bashing, Now in Ohio

This is Ohio’s new concept of how to deal fairly with its public employees: Make them an offer, and if they don’t accept it, impose it anyway. There will be no appeal or arbitration. And unions will no longer be able to negotiate their health-care benefits or require the payment of dues from members.

The bill containing these provisions was signed into law last week by Gov. John Kasich, another of the Republicans who has misinterpreted his election last year as a mandate to try to demolish union rights.
The best-known fight over public unions was in Wisconsin, where a law ending their collective-bargaining rights has been temporarily stopped by a court order. But, as Steven Greenhouse reported in The Times, the Ohio law is actually much tougher.
It cuts the negotiating rights of police officers and firefighters, not just non-uniformed employees, and it allows cities and school boards to simply impose their final bargaining offer on workers if they cannot reach a negotiated agreement. Under those circumstances, it is hard to imagine why any city would even bother negotiating, and that, in fact, seems to be the point.
With the efficiency of a bulldozer, similar bills are now being proposed or enacted in nearly a dozen states. In Oklahoma, a State Senate committee has approved a bill to remove the collective-bargaining rights for workers in the state’s 13 largest cities. In Florida, where collective bargaining is protected by the State Constitution, lawmakers are pushing through bills that would limit unions’ ability to collect dues and make political contributions.
In Maine, where Gov. Paul LePage was so contemptuous of labor that he ordered the removal of murals depicting workers from a state building, Republicans are even supporting a loosening of child labor restrictions, eliminating the maximum number of hours that minors can work on school days.
Supporters of these measures say they are acting out of concern for their state’s budget. There is little doubt that the real goal is to weaken unions and their ability to back Democratic candidates. The Associated Press reported that a Florida legislative analysis found the bills would have virtually no impact on state and local budgets. But it said they would be effective in one regard: making unions “likely to have more difficulty collecting dues and funds from employees for political purposes.”
The sponsors of these measures seem to think that with no reason to negotiate and no ability to raise funds, public-sector unions would simply fade away. As much as the unions may struggle with these new shackles, their members — and their motivation — are not going away.
There are already active recall petitions for Republican legislators in Wisconsin, and Ohio unionists are gearing up for a referendum to overturn their state’s new law. Democratic organizers are finding voters in middle-class districts aghast at the damage to economic rights caused by the new crop of Republicans. It may turn out that the best way to revive the ailing labor movement is by trying to chop it down. 

The Dollars and Cents of Bats and Farming

Putting a dollar value on nature and the services it provides isn’t easy. Such numbers can show how much our human economy depends on nature’s indiscernible economy. Take bats. A study in Science magazine reveals just how important they are to American agriculture.

Every day, a bat eats much of its body weight in insects, many of them harmful to crops. A group of scientists led by Thomas Kunz at Boston University calculated how much more money cotton farmers in one region of Texas would spend on pesticides if bats weren’t present. Extrapolating from those numbers, they estimated that bats save American farmers somewhere between $3.7 billion and $54 billion a year, most likely about $22.9 billion.

This is a huge savings no one notices as long as bats flourish. But bat populations are severely threatened, especially the commonest species, the little brown bat, which is being decimated by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease has spread all across the eastern half of the country and is now moving westward from Oklahoma.

In 2010, Interior Department agencies spent $6.3 million researching and trying to prevent the spread of white-nose syndrome. That money was taken from other programs, and it was barely a start. What’s needed now is financing specifically allocated to staff continuous bat research. The Interior Department should not have to borrow from itself to protect these creatures that are so important to American agriculture. We know all of the talk in Washington these days is about cutting, but spending a little more now could save us a fortune later.

OMG!!! OED!!! LOL!!!!!

It’s wonderful to experience the ongoing corruption and evolution of the English language. Last month, OMG and LOL were inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary, along with the heart symbol — the first time a meaning enters our most exalted linguistic inventory via the T-shirt and bumper sticker.

They follow in the steps of other representatives of our electronic age. Google is there. So are dotcom and wiki. Chances are the meaning of tweet will soon spill out of its ornithological domain. The additions bring to mind the words of William Safire, The Times’s former master wordsmith, who climbed down from the conservative ramparts in the culture wars 25 years ago to accept that “words come to mean what most people think they mean, not what we say they ought to mean.”

The embrace of the parlance of the Internet by the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED, is not just affirmation of the plasticity of the English language. A century ago, Chesterton berated the belief that language was complete, with “a word for every reality in earth, or heaven, or hell.” LOL, prosaic little acronym, conjures this boundlessness.

In “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges tells the tale of a 17th-century polymath who builds a language to organize all human ideas, “where the name of each thing says all the details of its destiny, past and future.” As the decimal system allowed people to write any number in the universe, Wilkins offered his code to produce every possible meaning. Yet Wilkins’s lexicon could never encompass the universe, which Borges suspected, in its organic, unifying sense, cannot exist. Borges’s universe didn’t have the Internet as we know it. He may have called it a library.

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE ASHARQ ALAWSAT, published in LONDON

Iran is the biggest danger

The danger of Iran in our region is not in any way difficult to prove. In order to see evidence of hostility, and the danger, we only need to look at what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday with regards to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, specifically Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. However, let us reflect on some of what Ahmadinejad said yesterday in more detail, in order to show how the Iranian threat is extremely alarming both for the region and the wider world, and not only in terms of political issues.
In a press conference held in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said that his country's nuclear plants were safer than their counterparts in Japan, and that the events that occurred in Japan's Fukushima nuclear facility would never happen in Iran. Ahmadinejad justified this viewpoint by saying: "the technology used in the nuclear plants in Fukushima dates back fifty years, but the technology used in Iranian nuclear plants is completely up to date"! Could anything be more absurd?
The Iranian President says that Iran is more advanced than Japan, in terms of the technology used in its nuclear plants, yet everyone saw how Iran stood helpless when faced with the "Stuxnet" worm virus – a destructive computer program which is believed to have disabled up to five Iranian centrifuges, and helped to thwart Tehran in its quest to produce Iran's first nuclear weapons. We saw the Iranians at the time form a crisis committee, incorporating officials from all concerned departments in order to combat the worm!
This is not all of course, during the same press conference Ahmadinejad added: "as far as I know, the (Fukushima) incident was not caused by the earthquake, but by the tsunami waves. We do not have tsunamis in the Gulf, and therefore there is no cause for concern"! Is this a rational argument, considering we have seen a hurricane strike the Sultanate of Oman, which is part of the Arab Gulf, and is situated opposite Iran in terms of its coastal borders? However, above all that, Tehran does not have the required capacity to deal with an earthquake, for we saw how the whole world rallied to help Iran after the devastating earthquake which struck the country two years ago.
Therefore, Ahmadinejad's comments about what happened in Japan alone are evidence of the danger of Iran becoming a nuclear state. It is a danger for the region, a danger for the Iranians themselves, and a danger even to the global economy and its stability. The threat of Iran relates not only to what it does in the Arab world, from Iraq to Bahrain, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere, but the dangers also lies in its way of thinking, coupled with the weakness of its capabilities. Tehran insists on possessing nuclear energy, which it is fundamentally not equipped to deal with in an emergency, and this matter is more serious than the intentions of Iran itself.
Thus, the Iranian threat stems not only from its interference in the countries of the region, or its promotion of sectarianism. Indeed, the Iranian threat lies in the weakness of its potential combined with the size of its delusion, and the gravity of its intent. Iran doesn't only threaten the Middle East, but it threatens the whole world as I said above. Ahmadinejad's comments on Japan alone are evidence of the size of the danger posed by the Tehran regime, and its way of thinking.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

Scams mustn't overshadow acts of goodwill

The Yomiuri Shimbun

There has been an outbreak of scamming of relief money and other fraudulent practices exploiting the chaos in the aftermath of the March 11 catastrophe. We urge the public to take care so as not to succumb to dubious solicitations.

Deception methods vary. For example, con artists claim they will donate part of the purchase price for Hokkaido crabs to disaster relief or use names that sound as if they represent government and public offices in order to fraudulently obtain money.

Solicitations are made by phone in many cases. In other instances, it is done by e-mail or ordinary mail. Scammers immediately disappear with the money handed to them or transferred into designated bank accounts.

Relief networks trying to help the disaster-stricken areas and victims have been spreading throughout the country. Relief cheats are viciously exploiting such goodwill.

Many organizations, including the Japanese Red Cross Society and mass media companies, have been soliciting donations. Contributions thus collected will be used for restoration and reconstruction projects and to support the livelihood of the disaster victims.

Citizens are advised to confirm the legitimacy of organizations requesting donations before extending assistance.

===

Quick govt action praiseworthy

Given a series of fraud cases involving donations, the Consumer Affairs Agency and the National Police Agency have alerted the public. In addition to the existing consumer hotline, an emergency telephone number dedicated to malicious business practices has been established for the devastated areas.

Learning lessons from similar frauds that occurred in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and the 2007 Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake, the government has acted promptly this time. This deserves praise.

The next concern will be fraudulent business practices related to rebuilding and repair of housing when reconstruction work enters high gear.

In the aftermath of past major earthquakes in various parts of the country, dealers charged hefty bills after suggesting the need for checks of earthquake resistance or aggressively pushing seismic retrofitting.

In one case, a dealer approached a target by helping tidy up a damaged house and then suggesting "a quick repair," thereby winning an expensive repair contract.

===

Senior citizens targeted

Underhanded traders zero in on people suffering great emotional stress in the aftermath of a disaster. Especially vulnerable people such as the elderly living alone tend to be targeted. If soliciting is persistent, it is better to consult with police or other organizations immediately. Regional communities must protect the elderly living in their neighborhoods from being victimized by such fraudulent business practices.

Even if a contract is signed with an unethical trader, it can be canceled unconditionally within a cooling-off period. Such information should be thoroughly made known among consumers.

The damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami is massive, so it is likely to take long time to finish restoration work. Therefore, the Consumer Affairs Agency must ramp up cooperation with consumer information centers, police and local governments to keep a close watch on the moves of malicious scammers.

Public wants united govt to address quake issues

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been unable to exercise leadership in dealing with the ongoing crisis arising from the massive March 11 earthquake and the ensuing series of accidents at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

This opinion was shared by about 70 percent of people surveyed in The Yomiuri Shimbun's latest poll, the first of its kind since the quake-tsunami calamity struck.

Only very slow progress has been made in implementing measures to overcome the current crisis. The results of the Yomiuri survey should be viewed as an indication of strong popular desire for the prime minister to properly deal with the postquake situation.

===

Kan gets poor marks

About 60 percent of respondents said the Kan administration did not deserve praise for its response to the accidents at the Fukushima nuclear complex.

The figure can be perceived as showing the anxiety and frustration felt by those polled about the dire situation of the areas affected by the nuclear crisis. It is still unknown when the government will find a way to resolve the crisis, even as radioactive contamination due to the accidents continues to spread.

The initial response to the Fukushima plant disaster trailed behind events, thus giving rise to a further chain of crises there. Liaison and cooperation among the Prime Minister's Office, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency were no less inadequate in this respect.

Questions can also be raised about the way these institutions have released information regarding the nuclear crisis, as indicated by the delay in disclosing the facts about the situation.

As chief commander of the administration, the prime minister must humbly listen to the voices of the people and hurry to overcome the nuclear crisis, a task that must be complemented by further efforts to put the public's distrust and anxiety to rest.

Meanwhile, the Kan Cabinet's support rate stood at 31 percent, a significant increase of seven points from a similar survey taken in early March. This seems to indicate the cataclysmic earthquake has stemmed the precipitous fall in the Cabinet's popularity rating, which was caused by Kan's loss of the public's trust.

The rise in the support rate should be viewed as an illustration of respondents' belief that they have no choice but to rely on the current Cabinet in this unprecedented situation, given that the nation cannot afford a shift in the premiership or the dissolution of the House of Representatives for a general election.

In the immediate postquake period, daily necessities did not reach survivors, and fuel shortages in stricken areas were serious. Despite a gradual improvement in the situation, quake victims face arduous daily lives. A number of elderly people have died at evacuation shelters.

We hope the government will be even more careful and meticulous about aiding quake victims and rebuilding their lives. It is also necessary to ensure that the large amounts of contributions collected nationwide are used to help quake victims as soon as possible.

===

This is a time for unity

It is noteworthy that a solid majority of pollees--64 percent--supported the idea of tying the ruling Democratic Party of Japan with the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party to form a grand coalition government.

The current situation can be described as a national crisis. We feel many members of the public believe the ruling and opposition parities should unite their efforts to fight the ongoing disaster. With this in mind, the opposition camp must sincerely listen to the voices of the people.

There is a mountain of tasks to be tackled by the government in trying to rehabilitate the stricken areas, including the compilation of a supplementary budget, a possible tax increase and the establishment of special legislation for reconstruction purposes. All these tasks must be smoothly accomplished.

The prime minister should stabilize his administration and try to overcome the current crisis, a task that may require him to form a grand coalition government.