EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

 

Wal-Mart v. Women

The employment discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which the Supreme Court heard last week, is the largest in American history. If the court rejects this suit, it will send a chilling message that some companies are too big to be held accountable.

It began in 1999 after Stephanie Odle was fired when she complained of sex discrimination. As Ms. Odle recounted in sworn testimony, as an assistant manager she discovered that a male employee with the same title and less experience was making $10,000 a year more than her.

She complained to her boss, who defended the disparity by saying the male had a family to support. When she replied that she was having a baby that she needed to support, the supervisor made her provide a personal budget and then gave her a raise closing just one-fifth the gap.

The plaintiffs who have brought a class action on behalf of 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees allege that they, too, faced discrimination in pay and promotion. If Wal-Mart loses, it could owe more than $1 billion in back pay.

Wal-Mart has tried to end the litigation by arguing that 1.5 million women do not have enough in common to sue for discrimination as a single class under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A federal trial judge said they do. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling, twice.

But during oral argument last week, conservative justices and liberals to some degree expressed skepticism: Is there enough “cohesion” among the women to justify treating them as a single class? If so, how could a solo trial judge manage such an enormous class action?

A brief by 31 professors of civil procedure explains why the women are a suitable class. Their claims meet the core test: They have in common the question of whether Wal-Mart discriminated against them. Meanwhile, the high cost of litigation compared to the low likely individual recoveries would make it hard for the women to proceed any other way.

The average wage gap each year for every member of the class is around $1,100, too little to give lawyers an incentive to represent them. The best way to judge their rights efficiently and fairly is by recognizing them as a group. That is the purpose of the class-action rule.

The case record contains 120 sworn statements made recounting sex discrimination in pay and promotion but also in the work environment: required company fishing trips where women weren’t included on their male peers’ boat; a supposedly retaliation-free system for complaints that led to women being fired. The lower courts ruled that this and other evidence provide compelling reasons for the case to move forward. The justices should move it along by having the trial judge allow further fact-finding.

If the court has doubts about whether the class is cohesive or manageable enough, it should ask the trial judge to explore whether there is a single class or more than one — say, salaried female employees and hourly employees or female store managers and other kinds of employees. That would be much fairer than dismissing the case and insisting that 1.5 million women fend for themselves.

Better Protecting Prisoners

The Justice Department is finalizing new rape-prevention policies that will become mandatory for federal prisons and state correctional institutions that receive federal money. The rules, based on recommendations from a Congressionally mandated commission, would be a major improvement. But the department needs to remedy several weaknesses before it issues final regulations.

Rape and other forms of sexual abuse by fellow inmates or correctional officers are a chronic hazard in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities across the country. According to federal estimates, 200,000 adult prisoners and jail inmates suffered some form of sexual abuse during 2008.

That works out to about 4.4 percent of the prison population and 3.1 percent of the jail population. The numbers are even higher in juvenile institutions, with 12 percent of the total population suffering some form of sexual abuse. Statistics showing that some institutions have higher rates of assault than others are consistent with the finding of the rape commission, which reported that some prisons had successfully created an atmosphere of safety while others tacitly tolerated assaults.

The commission came up with a long and compelling list of rape prevention recommendations, most of which have been adopted by the Justice Department. It is demanding a zero-tolerance approach to rape behind bars and will require better training of staff members, more effective ways to report assaults, more thorough investigations and better medical and psychiatric services for victims. In perhaps the most revolutionary development, prisons would be required to make sexual assault data public so policy makers could get a clear view of how well or how poorly vulnerable inmates were being protected.

Still, there are problems with the Justice Department’s approach. The decision to exclude immigration detention centers holding noncitizens goes against the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which defined a prison as any confinement facility administered by federal, state or local government.

Victims of sexual assault are often too traumatized to immediately speak out. So the provision permitting prisons systems to invalidate most complaints not lodged within 20 days seems arbitrary. Complaints should be taken seriously whenever they are reported. The department has obviously done the right thing by limiting cross-gender strip searches to emergency situations. But it should also set a goal of ending cross-gender pat-down searches.

Finally, the Justice Department needs to adopt the commission’s call for regularly scheduled, independent audits of prison rape prevention programs. That is the only sure way to know whether they are obeying the law.

A Temporary Reprieve for Nassau Bus Riders

A late infusion of cash from Albany has postponed the plan of the Nassau County executive, Edward Mangano, to cripple his county’s bus service, but only until the end of the year.

The State Senate came up with an $8.6 million bailout for Long Island Bus. That will allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the system, to put off cuts on more than half of the system’s 48 routes. At least 16,000 riders would have lost service, and 200 disabled riders would have lost their paratransit service. All bets are off in January because the system still faces a financing shortfall that Mr. Mangano doesn’t want to fill.

The transportation authority and Nassau County have long squabbled over financing for this essential service. Last year the county contributed $9.1 million of Long Island Bus’s $134 million operating budget. The transportation authority, which has long subsidized the money-losing bus system, wanted Nassau to kick in $24 million more to close a chronic $33 million shortfall. (It said the county has avoided paying its fair share for its own bus system the way Suffolk and Westchester Counties do. Westchester, whose bus system is as big as Nassau’s, paid almost $33 million last year for its buses.)

Mr. Mangano is going in the opposite direction. He wants to cut the county’s contribution to $4.1 million, sever Long Island Bus from the transportation authority and hand it over to a private operator. Buses limit traffic congestion and keep the economy moving. They are a means of survival for thousands of riders. Instead of protecting that vital service, Mr. Mangano says a privatized system would run better for significantly less money. That’s ludicrous, as anyone will tell you who remembers the 1970s, when the failures of Nassau’s jumble of badly run private bus lines prompted the state to rescue the system.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE ASHARQ ALAWSAT, published in LONDON

Iran backs the regime at the expense of the Syrian people

The Iranian Ambassador in Damascus, Ahmed al Moussawi, has announced his country's support for the Syrian regime, which is normal. However, what was not normal was his attack on the Syrian people, who came out to demonstrate in several Syrian cities, demanding reform and the ending of the longest-standing emergency law in the region.
The Iranian Ambassador, speaking at a conference entitled "The Islamic Awakening and Confronting Strife in Syria", which was being held in Damascus, said that "the events taking place in Syria have been prepared and planned by enemies to replicate the civil strife experienced by Iran, especially the slogans echoed by protestors in Daraa, such as "No Hezbollah and No Iran". This means that the source stems from the enemy, where external agents are receiving orders from enemies and Zionists!"
Here we must stop to examine several points. Firstly, the title of the conference itself is contradictory, for what is this "Islamic awakening" in a secular state, ruled by the Baath party? Secondly, the Syrian authorities came out in the media to do the impossible, and deny that the people in Daraa shouted "No Hezbollah and No Iran". Yet here is the Iranian Ambassador himself confirming the opposite! This slogan is highly significant, especially in the game of majority and minority, and the sectarian dimension in Syria. The other matter of course is the Iranian Ambassador attacking the demonstrators and branding them as agents of enemies and Zionists, whilst we find that the Syrian President himself has begun to receive delegations from the troubled areas, including social activists from Hasaka province. The Syrian regime has also began talking about reforms, and a Syrian official told AFP yesterday that "There will be an extraordinary (parliament) session from May 2 to 6 in which social and political laws will be adopted in line with the reforms desired by the head of state".
Is it conceivable that Damascus would respond to the demands of the "agents of enemies and Zionists", and declare its intention to abolish the emergency law, for example? Let us consider that Turkey, a friend of Syria, has urged Damascus to enact reforms, and quickly. The day before yesterday, a senior Turkish source told our newspaper, when commenting on[Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet] Davutoğlu's visit to Damascus, saying that Ankara "wants reforms to be put in place in accordance with the desires of the people", expressing "disappointment" that the measures promised by the Syrian President had not been accelerated. The Turkish official revealed that the message Davutoğlu carried to Damascus was that "leaders must act with greater courage than the people", calling on "leaders to listen to the voices of the masses, and not take the demonstrations lightly and resist change, but rather move towards this change". Is it conceivable that Turkey has done all this, despite its interests in Syria, and the sensitivity of the Kurdish issue, only to serve the agents of the enemy and Zionists?
It is a sad state of affairs for Iranian diplomacy to descend to this level, but the magnitude of Iranian hypocrisy with regards to our region is astonishing. How can it explain its attacks on the Syrian people, compared to what it says and does in Bahrain for example? When the all sects of the Syrian community come out to demonstrate, they become traitors and foreign agents, yet when Bahrain's Shia population comes out in protest, they are freedom fighters?
It's clear that sedation follows Iran where ever it goes, and this is evident in Tehran's dealings with Syria under the principle: support the regime and attack the people.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

 

Urayasu poll mess calls for mutual concessions

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Despite the announcement of the start of campaigning for a Chiba Prefectural Assembly election, one of the unified local elections set for this spring, there has effectively been no electioneering in Urayasu, a city badly damaged by soil liquefaction in the March 11 earthquake.

The prefecture's election administration commission called for the election to be held Sunday as scheduled, a decision disputed by the municipal government, which argues the huge damage it suffered makes it impossible to hold the election that day.

If the situation remains as it is, it will cause trouble for candidates and voters alike. We urge the city and the election committee to make mutual concessions to bring about an early solution.

Reclaimed land accounts for 75 percent of the total area of Urayasu. About 37,000 households in the city, or half of the total, were at one time forced to use portable toilets and rely on temporary water supply stations set up at primary and middle schools because water and gas supplies had been cut off after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Even now, sewer service for 5,000 households is restricted.

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Both sides to blame

The city requested in vain that the prefecture's election committee postpone the prefectural assembly election and the Urayasu Municipal Assembly election. As reasons for turning down the request, the committee said the city government had not lost its administrative functions because its building had not collapsed and its registry of voters remained intact.

The municipal government has been refusing to cooperate in election-related administrative work, such as installing early balloting stations for the prefectural assembly poll, setting up campaign poster boards and mailing voting slips. The city cited a shortage of manpower because many officials have been involved in earthquake recovery work.

As a result, it has become impossible for the city to hold a prefectural assembly election Sunday as scheduled. Three candidates are running for two seats allocated to the city. It is unavoidable that the election will be held on a different day.

The election committee has criticized the way the city has handled the matter. But it is questionable whether the committee's own decision to hold the election as scheduled was correct.

In the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the Diet approved a special bill submitted by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry to allow some unified local elections to be delayed. The special law was applied to Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectural assembly elections and to municipal assembly polls in 49 cities, towns and villages in four prefectures. Many of these local governments maintain their administrative functions.

Despite this, the Chiba prefectural election committee might have thought it should not put off an election for the entire prefecture due to the situation of Urayasu alone.

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Time to lay down arms

But it is the heads of municipal governments who can most precisely grasp the magnitude of damage when their areas are struck by disaster. If the committee heeded the opinions of the municipal government, the situation would have been prevented from becoming as complicated as it is now.

The way the city handled the matter must also be called into question. The prefectural election commission proposed to dispatch personnel to help with some election chores, but the city refused the offer.

Urayasu decided Monday to hold the municipal assembly election on April 24 as scheduled, citing progress in recovery work. If that is the case, the city no longer has a reason to refuse to hold the prefectural assembly election.

We urge the city and the prefectural election committee to lay down their arms and discuss what to do next, including rescheduling the election. The most important thing is to settle the matter with the interests of voters in mind.

Restore cooling function to stop nuclear plant leaks

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, has begun releasing water containing low-level radioactive substances from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The company said that it is an emergency measure to free up space at the plant for water contaminated with high levels of radioactive material.

Radioactive water equivalent to the volume of five or six 50-meter-long swimming pools will be discharged into the sea. Though this water reportedly has been contaminated with only low levels of radioactive substances, it still contains radioactive iodine up to 500 times more than the legal limit in seawater.

Having to resort to this step is extremely unfortunate. We urge the government and TEPCO to do everything they can to control the situation so the amount of contaminated water to be released into the sea is kept to the absolute minimum.

About 500 tons of water are being poured every day into the plant's Nos. 1-3 nuclear reactors to prevent nuclear fuel from overheating. Some of this water is leaking from the damaged reactors and accumulating in large pools at the nuclear complex.

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Water must be removed

Most problematic is the water that accumulated in the basement of the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the tunnellike trench connected to it. This water contains levels of radioactive substances 2 million times higher than the contaminated water being dumped at sea. It must be pumped out quickly and stored safely in tanks and the other containers. The discharge of the less contaminated water into the ocean is a last-ditch measure to make space in the tanks for highly contaminated water.

Worryingly, some highly contaminated water has already leaked from the turbine building into the sea. TEPCO has been trying to find where and how this water leaked into the sea and to plug the leak. The utility has been struggling to complete this work, but finding the source of the leak--and stopping it--must be done quickly.

The government and TEPCO said water with low-level radiation being released into the sea will gradually disperse and have only minimal effects on human health. However, many people are still worried about this situation because highly radioactive water is still pouring into the ocean. There are concerns the fishing industry could be brought to its knees.

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Much hinging on next month

The government should further tighten inspections of marine products to determine whether they are being affected by the radioactive contamination, and properly evaluate what levels of contamination are safe. It is also essential that inspection results be quickly disclosed and explained in detail to the public.

The discharge into the ocean could free up enough space in the tanks to store nearly one month's worth of highly radioactive water, even if water injections into the reactors continue at their current pace.

This one month is very important.

We hope the reactors will be brought under control--with cooling water circulating to prevent nuclear fuel from overheating--during this period. If the contaminated water is pumped out from the nuclear plant, work to restore crucial circulation pumps is expected to make progress.

Meanwhile, the government and TEPCO should tap the wisdom of nuclear experts in Japan and abroad, and prepare several options for any recurrence of difficulties at the nuclear plant. They also should push ahead with efforts to deal with radiation-laced water, such as constructing additional storage tanks and acquiring materials that absorb radioactive substances.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

Rights or responsibilities?

At a time the UN is reeling under various international problems, ironically some students here had called for a UN intervention against the alleged suppression of their ‘rights’ in Sri Lanka. One wonders if the Federation had grown to bigger proportions as such it deems an organization like the UN should intervene or if the UN has in been fact down sized by the students to their level!
In fact, it was none other than the Inter University Students Federation that has called for a UN intervention and as naïve as the student body could be. The IUSF handed over a letter addressed to the UN office Colombo calling for its intervention to stop the alleged harassments of students, early this (last) week. It also goes on to show that there is no educated and mature patron overseeing and guiding the Federation.
Worse is the fact the student grouping is known for their political affiliations here.
But the real problem lies elsewhere. Students and many workers in this country rarely realize the difference between responsibilities and their rights.
Whether immature and naïve students who are younger than 25 should involve in matters that decide a country’s destiny remains debatable anyway. On the other hand it shows how the free education system had miserably failed. The teachers and parents are equally responsible in educating or not educating the children the true meaning of the so called “Free Education.”
That is, in fact that their education is not free but is paid by the community and there is a cost involved in their education. And that cost is borne by the tax payers! This should be taught to children right from an early age. Today, it is sad that even undergraduates do not realize the fact that they are paid for by tax payers.
Perhaps the teachers (As well as the University Academics too) should realize the fact they are supported by the taxpayers! It is time for the dons to reflect upon if they were doing justice to the salary they get from the public in making “productive and employable citizens!” In an aside, the same applies to graduates of medical, engineering and science graduates in particular.
Mainly, the engineering and medical graduates should realize that the society had paid for them to become doctors or ‘engineers’ and that it was unethical and immoral for them to seek foreign employment and contribute to the advancement of another country. (Including private practice)
Paying back the “cost” as in bonds is a fallacy as whatever it is when a student goes through the university he/she had blocked a patriot’s seat. The time and effort spent is not recoverable.  Are we producing doctors/engineers and giving them away to advanced countries like the UK, US, Australia and Canada?
So, coming back to the topic, if the students know that their responsibility is to complete the studies and engage in productive contribution to society probably they would not come to the streets. The same applies to workers in general as well.  Many workers too resort to trade union action over issues over worker rights, without realizing if they had fulfilled their responsibilities!
The bottom line is that as a whole our society has failed to inculcate in many of us the fundamentals in a proper way for the country to forge ahead.

EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

 

Tackling drug resistance

There was a time around the middle of the last century when it seemed that humans could decisively vanquish the microbes that caused so many dreadful, often deadly, diseases. But that sense of victory over an enemy has given way to alarm. Drug-resistant pathogens have sprung up and ‘superbugs' that can shrug off most drugs that are thrown at them have surfaced and spread across the world. With few new antimicrobials under development, there is a real sense among medical experts of humanity having its back to the wall and of the frightening possibility of a return to the bad old days when what started as a simple infection could get completely out of control. This year's World Health Day (April 7) focusses on antimicrobial resistance and its global spread. In a highly interconnected world, drug-resistant microbes can leap from one country to another. Last year, there was a furore over the spread of highly drug-resistant bacteria, which had the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) gene, from South Asia to several countries. But ‘superbugs' have made their way to India from elsewhere in the world too. For instance, studies of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria isolated in India have indicated a movement of such organisms from the United States, Europe, and Australia to this country.

In India, as in other countries, such dangerous microbes are circulating not only in hospitals but also in the larger community; poor sanitation and faecal contamination of water supplies have allowed some highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria to spread. Drug-resistance is a major issue in tuberculosis. India accounts for one-fifth of the global burden of the disease and two people die of it every three minutes. The rise of resistance as a natural consequence of the process of evolution is perhaps inevitable. But the misuse of antibiotics greatly hastens this process. There is a great deal that can and must be done to conserve the drugs that are available and still effective. Over-the-counter sales of antibiotics must be stopped. Physicians need to be educated on when it is appropriate to use antibiotics. Even when an antibiotic is needed, it is essential that the right drug is given at an adequate dosage and for a suitable duration. A proper system of surveillance for antimicrobial resistance as well as regularly updated guidelines for treatment would help doctors make the right choices. Further, the use of antibiotics as growth-promoters in livestock needs to be curtailed. In all of this, the government, the medical fraternity, and the public must play their part. 

Changing an established order

The international monetary system has been in need of fundamental reform. It is dominated by dollar holdings, with the American currency remaining the world's principal reserve currency as well as the most widely used in private transactions. The dollar, which faced many challenges, has remained supreme mainly for want of an alternative. A recent G20 seminar held in Nanjing, China, ended without any consensus on international monetary reform. The stasis is unfortunate. The system may not have caused the recent global imbalances or current instability in the global economy, but it has certainly been ineffective in addressing them. First, it has created a global recessionary bias both during and after financial crises. Secondly, there is a certain amount of tension in using a national currency as a reserve. The U.S. has been running huge budgetary and current account deficits. Should it succeed in reining in the deficits, global liquidity would shrink. Thirdly, the system has encouraged large dollar accumulations by several countries by way of “self-insurance” against future crisis. The very large dollar holdings by China and some other countries have added to global imbalances.

Various attempts at identifying alternative reserve currencies have floundered. The euro seemed promising at one time but the current debt problems in some euro zone countries have raised doubts over its long term suitability. Given the strength of China, the yuan is bound to become an important reserve currency in course of time, freely convertible and with an exchange rate mirroring its growing clout. Some out-of-the-box solutions are required. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has, in a recent article in the Financial Times, suggested that the SDRs issued by the International Monetary Fund should play a greater role in the international monetary system. SDRs, which are strictly the IMF's unit of account, represent a potential claim on other countries' freely usable currency reserves, for which they can be exchanged voluntarily. The specific proposal is to issue a significant amount (up to $390 billion) of new SDRs every year for the next three years. Central banks can exchange the SDRs for hard currency and use it to finance imports. The inherent recessionary bias in the existing system is thus avoided. Being relatively small, the new issues will not accentuate global imbalances. The effectiveness of the SDRs ought to be enhanced through a variety of measures, which are inextricably linked to IMF reform. The medium-term goal is to make SDRs the main, or even the only, means of IMF financing. The dollar's pre-eminence in private trade and remittances will remain unaffected.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

 

Cameron`s remarks

LAST year, during a visit to India, British Prime Minister David Cameron labelled Pakistan a terrorist haven. In Islamabad on Tuesday, he tried to allay Pakistani fears. He was lucky to have at hand hosts who had no option but to ignore his uncharitable observations of the past. With rare, if any, exceptions Pakistani politicians themselves are well aware of how big a part their immediate surroundings and the people around them play in eliciting a statement out of them. The contrast between the nationalist speeches they make to the local gallery and their submission to the international powers is a case in point. Likewise, Mr Cameron may have been moved by bilateral realities in India last year. His hosts in Islamabad on Tuesday had too many other important issues in mind to let the incident come in the way of what the British prime minister termed as the ` naya aghaaz ` or new beginning.

In diplomacy and politics, it matters how one elaborates one`s views. With experience, Mr Cameron and his speechwriters have been able to get their nuances right, without having to change the content and thrust of their argument. Last year, Pakistan was labelled as an exporter of terror. In his address to university students in Islamabad on Tuesday, the British prime minister was satisfied with a mention of “…terrorism that has done harm elsewhere in the region….” He spoke of the sacrifices Pakistanis have made and couched his words in decorative cushions such as “Together with our Pakistani friends….”

These trappings should, however, not detract from the pointed message that he conveyed to the Pakistani leadership: Britain is ready to invest money to fight extremism here, and in return it demands results which for the time being have been denied to it. This is consistent with the western trade policy on Pakistan and should leave the officials in Islamabad under no illusion about what they are being paid for. Mr Cameron echoed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton`s remarks about taxpayers: “You are not raising the resources necessary to pay for things that a modern state and people require.” He also sounded a virtual warning to the current incumbents at the same time as he sought to explain the situation to the people they were representing: “Not fair on you, ordinary Pakistanis, who suffer at the sharpest end of this weak government…” And “my job is made more difficult when people in Britain look at Pakistan, a country that receives millions of pounds of our aid money, and see weaknesses in terms of government capacity and waste.” These are declarations more categorical than earlier ones.

Wheat surplus

REPORTS that farmers are expected to harvest a bumper wheat crop this season is a definite boon from a food-security point of view. Coming a year after devastating floods, the bumper crop is expected to be around 25 million tonnes, comfortably exceeding projected domestic consumption — pegged at 22 million tonnes but somewhat elastic because of smuggling to neighbouring countries. Yet, there is a dark side to this otherwise sunny picture. Thanks to the government`s pledge to purchase 6.57 million tonnes of wheat through Passco and the provincial food departments at a guaranteed price of Rs950 per 40kg, the state is going to shell out Rs165bn to purchase wheat this year. The sum will likely be extended by the State Bank of Pakistan as conditio- nal funding. The logic of support-price mechanisms through the use of state resources has long been questioned by independent economists and bankers. Yet, they continue to exist because the ECC, which determines the policy, is stacked with agricultural interests who benefit from high support prices. From a fiscal point of view, it makes little sense to have the State Bank extend loans for the sake of a wheat crop that will likely stay in the same range of production with or without the support price. But so powerful are the groups which benefit from support prices that even if the State Bank were to deny funding, the government would simply turn to the private sector — further crowding out private-sector investment.

There is a more tangible cost of the support-price mechanism: wheat, a staple food crop, has far more people on the consumption side than on the production side. High support prices mean that the price of wheat will be distorted upwards, even when the tradable surplus exceeds the procurement target. With food insecurity threatening swathes of the population and inflation rampant, surely public interest demands the support-price mechanism be discontinued or substantially reformed. Short of financing purchases directly, the state could take on a regulatory/oversight role. Almost anything would be an improvement on the present system — but is the ECC willing to sacrifice a lucrative racket for some in order to benefit the many?

Senseless protest

AS markets across Karachi remained shut on Tuesday in response to a strike call given to protest against rising incidents of extortion, the business community appeared to be divided over the issue. So serious was the divide that traders and industrialists traded blows at the Polo Ground; the police had to intervene to break up the brawl, which lasted for over an hour. Tuesday`s strike was principally supported by the All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, a grouping of small traders, while the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, mainly seen as representing industrialists, backed out after initially supporting the protest. Trouble erupted when traders arrived at the Polo Ground, where the KCCI had organised its own event, and heated exchanges led to fisticuffs. Traders accused the chamber of siding with the government and believing its promises which — they say — the state never keeps. KCCI leaders, on the other hand, said the traders were “toeing a political line”. Observers say that other than the extortion issue there has been a long-standing enmity between the chamber and small traders, as the latter feel they don`t have proper representation in the KCCI. These differences may have helped fuel the mêlée. In the midst of the chaos the `real` issue — extortion — seems to have been forgotten.

The business community has a genuine case in protesting against extortion. However, by allowing the issue to become politicised and by not controlling infighting the community has done no good to its cause. There is no doubt the government must take definite steps to control extortion and racketeering for the sake of the metropolis`s financial health. Mere promises are insufficient. But the business community must also realise that by allowing their cause to be hijacked by political elements and themselves to splinter into constantly warring groups their campaign has slim chances of success.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

Internationalism in a flux

Set formulas wont work 

The political rivalry between the two power contenders in Ivory Coast has plunged the country in total anarchy. Matters could have been solved peacefully if Luarent Gbagbo had conceded defeat to his rival. It could have been an instance of peaceful transition of power. That did not happen. Gbagbo instead persistently refused to accept the poll results. He defied warnings from his rival at home and leaders abroad. After a futile battle to cling to power and causing immense sufferings to his people Gbagbo now looks for a safe exit.

We are at a loss to understand as to why local or regional options of peace between rival political parties are not working. There seems to be a drought of persuasive processes to find indigenous solutions. International will is not working effectively either. Even having the UN forces stationed in Ivory Coast is not helping matters.

Leading global powers seem to be so preoccupied with themselves that they do not care for problems that they have no stake in. They seem to be going their separate ways. In a multi polar world, diverse political interests make it difficult to thrash out a solution to any problem allowing things to worsen.

Events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya are clear instances of how countries plunge into greater disarray following an intervention or through continuing civil wars. Unresolved conflicts weaken the state and bring severe economic hardship to people even in otherwise resourceful countries. In such circumstances, people are the worst victims.

It's time the leading powers and the UN together device an effective problem-solving mechanism that will be at the same time ideally suited to the local conditions with due regard to sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries in trouble. Imposing formulas from outside that the people of those countries can not own up to would do more harm than good to them.

Medical waste dumping

DoE's monitoring needs strengthening 

For the lack of proper monitoring and implementation mechanism to enforce laws, both public hospitals and private clinics including diagnostic centres do not maintain any scientific waste disposal and management system. As a result, hazardous medical wastes are being sold openly at the different hospitals of the city as elsewhere in the country. Trade in medical waste has as a result mushroomed in the city where syringes, ampoules, blood bags and various other materials from hospitals are washed under most unhygienic condition for reselling. It boggles the mind to think what impact such infected syringes and other materials are having on public health.

Are the hospital authorities aware what happen to the wastes they produce everyday? The Bangabandu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) director, for instance, admitted that they dump most of hospital's waste in the DCC's dustbins, while the rest they burn in the incinerator. Though medical wastes are different from other kinds of garbage they handle, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) claimed that they can dispose of one seventh of the hospital wastes of the city. But according to DCC, hospital authorities are hardly interested in it, because they sell waste in the market. How grim is the actual picture, one may gauge from the fact that only 342 out of some 1500 hospitals and clinics of the city have any scientific waste management facility, while very few among other hospitals and clinics spread over the country have such facilities.

There is an existing provision that any hospital before going into operation should obtain prior certification from the DoE. Unfortunately, as pointed out earlier, it cannot ensure its implementation, neither is it able to properly monitoring how many of these hospitals are maintaining or violating the provision.

Since the freely traded medical wastes have turned into a serious public health issue, the government should look into the matter with urgency. The DoE must be adequately staffed to monitor the hospital as well as provided with teeth to take action against those that are breaking the law.

Public awareness needs also to be built against the health hazard. The media as well as the government's own publicity organs must take up the awareness issue in earnest.