EDITORIAL : THE BANGKOK POST, THAILAND

 

Blockade the Somali coast

 

After more than 100 days spent in the scorching African sun as captives of Somali pirates, the 27-man crew of the MV Thor Nexus were back on Thai soil this week, their freedom secured by a US$4.77 million ransom. It was the second ship in the Thoresen Thai fleet to be hijacked and at least the seventh Thai-registered vessel. Now the Royal Thai Navy is readying a new anti-piracy mission and may put armed marines aboard Thai freighters navigating the Gulf of Aden and deploy three warships to the area.

The return of the ransomed crew followed that of 44 fishermen from the Prantalay 11 trawler last month who had been held hostage by Somali pirates since April last year. They had been rescued by an Indian warship which, in a sense, made amends for a tragic incident in 2008 when another Thai fishing boat suffered the misfortune of being hijacked and then mistaken for a pirate mother ship and sunk by an Indian gunboat.

Due to aggressive action by Asian navies, pirates are seeing the inside of Indian and Malaysian courts and prisons and have also been taken aboard a South Korean warship. Unfortunately the good news stops there.

Piracy, violence and armed robbery at sea have already set new records. In the first quarter of this year alone, 97 Somali pirate attacks have taken place, up from 35 in the same period last year. Pirates have murdered seven crew members, including American missionaries. Awaiting an uncertain fate are 600 seafarers from more than 30 ships held at hostage ports.

Some of the sea bandits claim to be former fishermen whose livelihoods were hurt by foreign ships illegally fishing and dumping toxic waste in Somali waters. But this does not explain why they attack ships carrying the humanitarian food aid their country relies upon, or the involvement of warlords and the advance sale of shares in targeted seizures of supertankers and bulk carriers.

Whatever its origins might have been, sea piracy, especially in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, has matured into a lucrative branch of organised crime. These pirate gangs have the money, equipment, weapons, planning and experience to attack vital sea lanes, hijack vessels and reap hundreds of millions of baht in ransom, despite an international flotilla of warships patrolling a vast stretch of ocean. Somalia is a country that has been without a functioning government for 20 years and there are no grounds for optimism. There is no basic national justice framework and civil war rages.

Much greater flexibility in rules of engagement at sea are necessary. Seizing pirates and their craft and then letting them go after free medical checks, some halal food, cigarettes, nicotine patches and a polite warning _ as a British frigate did in February _ is clearly not sending the right message. No "catch and release" policy ever will. There is no time for political or diplomatic niceties when thousands of Somali pirates are holding the world's most important shipping lanes to ransom and, by doing so, forcing up the global cost of living.

If some of the efforts directed by Nato coalition forces in imposing a "no fly" zone over Libya could be channelled into ruthlessly enforcing a "no sail" zone off Somalia, there could be worthwhile results. The coastline is long but this approach would be more feasible than a handful of warships trying to patrol over 4 million sq km of ocean. It would require more seapower, air support and the addition of unmanned surveillance systems, but these resources are available. The shortage might be one of willpower.

 

EDITORIAL : THE GULF TODAY, UAE

Hopes for peace in Korean Peninsula

Attention is rivetted on a mission this week headed by former US president Jimmy Carter to broker peace in the Korean Peninsula. Carter, who belongs to the Elders Group, will be accompanied by three other ex-world leaders — former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, ex-Irish president Mary Robinson and ex-Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland — in the visit to North Korea and South Korea.
Seoul is co-operating with the mission; it is expected to grant the Elders Group permission to fly directly to South Korea after visiting the North Korean capital Pyongyang..
There are no commercial air services across the border between the two Korea, but there have been occasional direct private or military flights.
There are several items on the Elders’ agenda. The first is a broad exploration of possibilities for reviving the six-party talks on North Korea’s controversial nuclear programme. Pyongyang has said it is ready for new talks, but has attached conditions to its participation. It would indeed be a great breakthrough if Carter could convince the North Korean leadership to return to the talks with a sincere intention to solve the dispute once and for all.
Another issue of equal if not more importance if the humanitarian crisis looming in North Korea. UN officials who recently visited the North have reported that more than six million people — a quarter of the population — urgently need food aid.
Pyongyang is in position to meet the need and it definitely requires international assistance. However, the past record of the North Korean regime in this respect is murky; hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have died because of starvation and malnutrition in the past, with Pyongyang doing little to avert the deaths; it suppressed news of the catastrophe and it was not much later that the world knew of the actual dimension of the crisis.
Other items on Carter’s agenda include securing the freedom of a Korean-American imprisoned by the North since last November and facing trial for unspecified crimes. That might not be a problem given that Pyongyang agreed to his request in last August for the release of jailed US citizen Aijalon Mahli Gomes.
Carter is no newcomer to the Korean crisis. In 1994 he mediated with Pyongyang after the United States came close to war with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.
The crisis in the Korean Peninsula is a major irritant in regional affairs and a threat to co-operation and development among the countries of the region. The world hopes that the Elders would be able to make a real difference to the limping efforts to solve the problem once and for all.

EDITORIAL : THE TEHRAN TIMES, IRAN

Persian Press Review

 
Tehran Times Political Desk

This column features excerpts from editorials, commentaries, interviews, and news articles of the leading Iranian newspapers and websites.

Thursday’s headlines

KHORASAN: 12 Iranian engineers abducted in Afghanistan freed

KAYHAN: Continue your important missions, Leader writes in his decree to intelligence minister

JAME JAM: Head of Administrative Justice Court says complaints against state bodies has increased 28%

TEHRAN-E EMROOZ: MPs say it is necessary that president support the authority of intelligence minister

JAVAN: Seminary teachers, students protest over Bahrain crackdown

HEMAYAT: Judiciary chief criticizes West for its double-standard approach toward uprisings in Islamic world

MELAT MA: Be pioneer in strengthening national unity, developing country and helping Leader, Mohsen Rezaei suggests to Ahmadinejad and Hashemi (Rafsanjani)

DONYA EGHTESAD: Bubble in gold coin market bursts

TAFAHOM: President says today our mission is to build up Iran

IRAN: Write the history of Islamic Revolution correctly, Leader says

Leading articles

TEHRAN-E EMROOZ in an editorial entitled “Mull over Egypt”, says nowadays a resumption of relations between Iran and Egypt is greatly discussed by diplomatic circles and mass media. Some are looking at the issue very optimistically and think all issues between the two countries are being resolved and even talk about appointing an ambassador to Egypt or the Iranian foreign minister visit Egypt. The writer says showing great enthusiasm to relations with Egypt will cause troubles for diplomats in their negotiations for an equal partnership. The writer says such a mistake should not be made in regard to Egypt or any other country, as it would undermine national interests and put the country in a passive position. Showing too much interest for establishing a quick relationship with a particular country contradicts the nature of diplomacy as in foreign policy one should not act or behave emotionally. Unfortunately, certain figures who are not familiar with the basic principles of diplomacy equate personal connections with diplomatic relationships.

JAVAN quotes Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei as saying “I believe the Intelligence Ministry can be administered like the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).” He said in many developed countries intelligence is a “sovereign” issue and is beyond administrative affairs. He suggested that the Intelligence Ministry can be changed into an intelligence organization in a proper time. Rezaei said a few years ago that he raised the proposal, some reformists opposed it but he still believes that intelligence body should act under the supervision of the sovereign body. He added the three branches of government need intelligence information and the establishment also needs to be in contact with the intelligence matters. “I believe intelligence organization will be more successful than intelligence ministry” Rezaei stated 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : RFI, FRANCE

 

 

 

French press review

 

 

 

Saturday’s French newspapers are dominated by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wealth tax reform, the situation in Libya and murder in Nantes. And how much chocolate do the French eat at Easter?

Le Monde claims, that all the hullabaloo about tax reform, is nothing more than a political gift to the rich.

At least 300,000 potential contributors will be exonerated from paying any taxes in 2011 if the measure comes into force, according to the newspaper.

Le Monde also reports that the fiscal shield is set to remain in place until 2012 and has information that the bill will be tabled before the cabinet on 11 May.

The respected newspaper also takes a swipe at Sarkozy’s plan, to get profit-making companies pay their workers a bonus of around 1,000 euros, noting that only a small fraction of citizens stand to benefit from it.

Libération analyses the just-published booklet touting Sarkozy’s “rosy record” after his four years in office.

Libé claims that the document published on Friday, lacks objectivity, arguing that people only speak about themselves when no one stands up for them.

The paper says it has been four years of brutal degradation not job-creation. It also dismisses his so-called stabilisation of immigration as a “fantasy” and faults him for failing to deliver even on security which has been his business bait since 2002.

According to Libé, Sarkozy’s promise to scrap the fiscal shield is further testimony that his policies lack coherence and that he swings with the winds depending on the political stakes of the moment.

Le Figaro headlines on French plans to suspend the European Union's Schengen accords. The centre-right newspaper reports that the measure is being considered in response to Italy’s issuing of passes to scores of Tunisian boatpeople.

Le Figaro quotes the Elysée as saying that flaws in the treaty need to be addressed. Le Figaro says Sarkozy is bent on raising the issue at Tuesday’s France-Italy summit in Rome, and underlines that what the Elysée is seeking is a temporal suspension of the treaty, not a renegotiation or even its abolition.

THE BATTLE FOR LIBYA

 

Libération dedicates its cover story on desperate efforts by Libyan rebels to prevent the fall of Misrata.

Entire streets have been pulverised by gunfire, shelling and cluster bombs fired by Colonel Kadhafi’s forces, according to the paper.

Libé reports that the besieged city of 500,000 inhabitants stands out now as a symbol of the struggle for democracy in Libya.

Also on Libya Le Figaro reveals that Sarkozy has agreed in principle to make a quick trip to Benghazi at a time of his choosing. It also hails the decision by US President Barak Obama to send drones to beef up airstrikes in Libya.

In the wake of the very latest developments in Libya, Libération argues that the urgency is not about a photo-opportunity for Sarkozy but getting allied troops on the ground to prevent the fall of Misrata which could have devastating consequences in the boiling Arab world.

Le Monde examinesAlain Juppé’s efforts to warm diplomatic ties with the Arab world.

"Diplomacy is essentially a matter of words and deeds," comments the paper in an editorial.

It commends Juppé for his sustained action, since taking office, in “healing misunderstandings” with the Arab nations.

The newspaper however says that everyone noted that no Tunisian official appeared by his side during his recent visit to Tunisia, an indication that he is still not there yet, according to the paper.

France Soir focuses attention on the unfolding drama in Nantes. The evening tabloid narrates the large-scale hunt for Xavier Dupont, suspected of killing and burying his wife and four children at their family garden.

France Soir makes startling revelations about the troubled past of the crazy fugitive whose car has been discovered outside a café at the southern French border.

Investigators told the paper that the suspect acted meticulously, informing neighbours and his children’s schools that they were leaving for a long journey. One man remained in the dark about those plans - a friend he owed 50,000 euros.

It’s Easter weekend and La Croix is making spiritual capital out of that. The Catholic daily picks up the moment to sample a cross section of opinions about how young generations of French citizens are practising their faith.

La Croix discovers that, while today’s young Catholics favour large Christian rallies as their favoured platform to express their faith, they continue to see church attendance as an obligation for the faithful.

Right-leaning Le Figaro looks at Easter from the money side. It celebrates a four per cent rise in chocolate sales - one full quarter above last year’s figures. That takes the individual dose of chocolate eaten here in France to 6.3 kgs per year.

 

EDITORIAL : THE NEW STRAITS TIMES, MALAYSIA

 

Handle with care

 

THE howls of outrage all over the world after a batch of girlish boys were sent to a four-day camp in Besut were predictable. After all, as homosexual, lesbian and transsexual communities everywhere have embraced the idea of androgyny, they cannot be expected to stay silent when there has been an apparent attempt to prevent adolescent males from getting in touch with their feminine side. The outcry from rights activists was also not surprising as the pursuit of one's rights include freedom from being picked on because of one's gender and the right to express one's personal sexual orientation.

Surprisingly, however, far from being traumatised by the experience, those who were singled out as effeminate seem to be having a whale of a time. More unexpectedly, the Terengganu Education Department seems to be back-pedalling on its earlier stated criteria for selection and intentions to make them manly. We are now told that the camp has nothing to do with boys who look and behave like girls but everything to do with character-building. Furthermore, the military style component has been downplayed and what has been highlighted are physical activities, like jungle trekking, and educational programmes, such as religious and motivational talks. Perhaps, this was just an attempt to deflect the flak that it was homophobic and making punishing physical demands on delicate young bodies. Whatever the case may be, there's little reason to be defensive about army style boot camps. As the positive benefits from National Service Camps suggest, the experience can be fun, therapeutic and even life-changing, produces as many psychological changes as physical, and can become a catalyst for change.

Certainly, such a programme can help young people. But the question is whether there will be follow-up work after the camp, and if so, how much mentoring and support there will be. What is clear is that such camps can only be part of the solution to adolescent problems, whether they be depression or delinquency, obesity or promiscuity. There is no quick fix in treating the emotional and behavioural problems of troubled teens, and no certainty that any treatment will pay off. Clearly, too, whatever that has subsequently been said by the state Education Department, it has attracted attention and sparked debate about sexual ambiguity. Despite the liberal leanings of some circles, many are not ready to accept the androgynous man. That said, however, though they do not fit traditionally defined male roles, those with feminine characteristics should not be regarded as some sort of moral failure and the object of ridicule and censure.

 

EDITORIAL : THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA

 

On serious alert

 

First there were the serial book bombs in Jakarta last month. Next came the suicide bomb inside the mosque within the Cirebon City Police headquarters, which killed the alleged bomber and wounded 28 others last week Friday. And the latest, the finding of nine bomb packages at Gading Serpong in Tangerang, Banten province, and the subsequent arrest of 19 alleged bomb suspects in several Indonesian cities on Thursday.
We praise the Police’s quick response, particularly the arrest of the bomb suspects and the finding of bomb packages in Tangerang, which were reported to be more powerfully explosive than the bomb that exploded at the JW Marriott Hotel in July 2009.
It is therefore reasonable that the Police immediately issued the “Siaga Satu” (the top security warning alert in the country) and deployed officers to various key strategic locations, including churches, as Christians commemorated Good Friday. Such an extraordinary alert warning was necessary, as the nation had witnessed bomb attacks on churches at Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations in the past.
The Police have yet to identify the motives behind the bomb attacks in the country this year, or find any connections between the incidents, including the alleged perpetrators’ possible links with regional terror network, Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), as had often been the case in the past.
In the meantime, all Indonesians must exercise caution and remain personally alert during this time of bombing terror as the perpetrator(s) have been changing their modes of operation from traditionally linear to random targets and due to the Police’s limited personnel to cover the country’s vast archipelagic areas. Cautionary measures, such as immediately reporting to the Police any suspicious goods or strangers in their neighborhoods, are expected and greatly appreciated.
Bombing attacks have apparently become a trend in the post-New Order era. Various analyses have been undertaken in order to understand the progressive trend and motives behind the attacks, including looking at poverty and irresponsible religious teachings as the root causes. While efforts to tackle poverty and a campaign against such wrongful religious teachings will be a long-term agenda, measures to anticipate and contain the bombing attacks should become the immediate priority.

 

Degrading services

 

When the railway operator began expanding the operation of air-conditioned trains in 2008, many motorists began using public transportation, which was more convenient and reliable. However, many train users have now begun to complain about the degradation of its services: The air-conditioning often does not function and the departure schedule is no longer on time. It is a regrettable situation.
Currently, state-owned railway operator PT KAI Jabodetabek Commuter operates two kinds of air-conditioned train cars — economic class with a ticket price at Rp 4,500 (about 50 US cents) and express class with ticket prices between Rp 8,000 to Rp 11,000. With a daily operation of about 400 train cars across the city the train normally provides a service every 30 minutes.
The popularity of the commuter trains among middle-class employees could be seen from the increasing number of private cars, which fill every parking lot at all railway stations across the Greater Jakarta area and the increasing number of passengers, who always pack air-conditioned train cars, particularly during rush hour. Commuters started enjoying and even relying on the relatively fast trips with the commuters’ train rather than when they had to drive their cars, frustrated by traffic gridlocks that occurred nearly daily on all roads of the city.
Service degradation is reportedly caused by the financial difficulty that means the railway operator is no longer able to cover operational costs. The operator has several times proposed to increase the ticket prices in trying to solve the financial difficulty. But the government has vetoed the increase of the ticket prices, fearing it would spark public opposition.
Whatever the reason, it is regrettable that the railway operator cannot maintain its services. The government, which has intervened in on the operator, needs to offer a solution, including the possible use of taxpayers’ money to cover the operational costs of the commuter trains.
The government could not allow PT KAI to downgrade its services because of the financial problem because in nearly every city across the world, public transportation always becomes the government’s responsibility.
Unfortunately, a similar situation also happens with the Transjakarta busway. When the Jakarta city administration started to operate the first busway corridor in 2004 from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in Central Jakarta, there was a mood of optimism among bus users.
Busway users have also been disappointed due to the degradation of busway services. The shortage of buses deployed along the Transjakarta busway corridors has disrupted departures. That excludes the users’ selfish attitude in ignoring good norms, such as queuing prior to entering buses and prioritizing females, the elderly, pregnant women and the disabled.
We believe that both Jabodetabek Commuter and Transjakarta busways could operate with better services if relevant parties, particularly the Jakarta city and central governments, make strong commitments to developing the transportation modes.
Therefore, stronger commitment is needed from all relevant parties to improve public transportation because it is the only way to solve traffic congestion in the city.

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY NEWS EGYPT, EGYPT

When the going gets tough, the tough break down

CAIRO: I don’t mean to gloat, but Friday’s front-page lead headline of the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, formerly an unashamed regime mouthpiece, triggered a combination of head-shaking indignation and relief.

“Safwat El-Sherif breaks down in tears” during interrogations, the headline said. Remanded in custody pending an investigation into abuse of power, corruption and illicit gain leading to a huge fortune amassed throughout an infamous career as information minister, speaker of the Shoura Council and secretary-general of the now dissolved National Democratic Party, which had dominated political life for over three decades, El-Sherif reportedly cried when faced with information about tens of millions of pounds worth of property he owns both in Egypt and abroad, including a mansion in Earl’s Court in London reportedly valued at £2 million.

The cause of indignation is that the very same El-Sherif in characteristic bare-faced manner, had actually phoned in on several TV shows to challenge his detractors to prove that he has single pound, or asset outside Egypt, remarking on several occasions that he didn’t flee the country because he doesn’t have a “chip on his shoulder.”

This was after ousted president Mubarak had stepped down and all the hawks of the fallen regime clearly knew that it was only a matter of time before they too will end up in Tora prison. Yet, El-Sherif, like others, seemed to believe that they were still somehow protected, that they had covered their tracks enough to ensure that they will retire gracefully into one of their mansions, irrespective of their past. Either he was in denial of the political tsunami that brought down the regime, or he actually believed that he could bribe his way out of this one.

But while the corruption probes and inquiries into the killing of peaceful protesters are finally moving along on solid grounds, other crises have been badly mishandled.

The standoff between protesters in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena and the government has now entered its eighth day. Protesters have rejected Cabinet’s choice of governor for two reasons, that he is a former police officer and a Christian, having suffered from his predecessor who was hugely inefficient, failing miserably to handle sectarian issues that have plagued the region during his tenure.

But while some observers believe that the issue is sectarian at heart, stoked by a growing extremist Salafi discourse, others deny that this is the crux of the issue, citing that the new governor’s affiliation with the hated police force and the failure of a former Coptic governor to rule are the main concern, as evidenced by the fact that Copts have also joined the protests.

While it is extremely dangerous to succumb to the whims and moods of protesters who, in this case, have gone as far as to obstruct all rail travel into or out of the city for days, it seems that in this case Cabinet has no choice. Ignoring the leverage of Qena’s powerful tribes, the Interior Minister and the Deputy Minister have been slow to respond effectively to the crisis, thus allowing the situation to continue deteriorating.

Since masses of residents have rejected the new choice, it’s hard to imagine how they will work with him if Cabinet continues to impose him on the people.

The reasons why this situation was allowed to exist in the first place, however, is the main issue. No sooner did the Qena crisis start to dominate media, and other residents of other governorates like Daqahliya and possibly Alexandria, have started a similar path to get rid of their chosen governors.

What the Cabinet and the ruling army council should have done was not simply remove the old governors and replace them in this rushed manner. The move was clearly simply motivated by a desire to tick off one more item from the list of protesters’ demands, than to set a long-term strategy that will benefit the people first and foremost. They could have killed two birds with one stone by removing the former governors and concurrently setting up a council of local representatives from all sectors in each governorate who would nominate a candidate around whom there is overwhelming consensus. And if the temporary leadership vacuum in some of these governorates is considered too dangerous, then the least they should have done would be to limit the tenure of the appointed governors till after the presidential elections, at which point legislation on the process of electing governors would have been complete and is ready for implementation, which is the ideal process.

In the worst mismanagement of a burgeoning crisis that has been largely ignored by the media for a host of reasons including an underhanded attempt at intimidation by the ruling army council, is the issue of military trials for civilians.

Allegedly affecting thousands of Egyptians who were detained by the military police after the ouster of Mubarak, the ad hoc nature of these trials, according to local and international rights groups, irrespective of due process have landed hundreds of people in jail on vague accusations of thuggery, when in fact they just happened to be exercising their constitutional right to protest.

Even though I have expressed time and again the need to end all protests, this does not mean that those who are detained for any reason should be denied their right to a fair trial in an ordinary civilian court.

The real thugs who have ruled Egypt for 30 years are getting fair trials, aren’t they?

EDITORIAL : THE INDEPENDENT, IRELAND

 

Obscene rewards for the architects of our downfall

 

THE princes who rode the Celtic Tiger's back to personal fortune have escaped the crash now that the wheels have come off the chariot. Although they were the ones with the reins in their hands who steered us into our quagmire of debt, they are nonetheless to be lavishly rewarded.

The idea that those whose decisions, or in some cases indecision, were responsible for the failure of our banks and the ensuing financial meltdown can now retire on pensions of between €115,000, and €650,000 a year -- paid for by and large by the taxpayer -- might come as the last straw for the camel's back.

However, there is more.

For the pensions are merely an add-on to six-figure termination payments, tax-free lump sums, and golden parachutes that they were inexplicably given.

There is something almost Swiftian about the ludicrous nature of these payments.

The little people continue to pay despite the colossal damage the clumsy oafs have visited upon the nation by their disastrous careering through the economy.

It is monstrously unfair that a sum close to €60m has been set aside to fund these gilded few at the same time that the Central Statistics Office has cautioned that almost 900,000 workers, mainly in the private sector, have no pension whatsoever.

The scale of the injustice comes home when you consider that a worker would have to find €35,000 a month for a pension fund to garner the amount to be paid out to our former Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

That all this could be happening when we are reliant on the IMF and the EU to give us the €75m we are borrowing every single day to keep the country running, boggles the mind even further.

This week, Justice Minister Alan Shatter said senior bankers may not get contractual payoffs on retirement because their banks are effectively in liquidation.

Addressing the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, Mr Shatter said that multi-million euro payoffs for bankers were grossly immoral.

For all the talk, however, there seems to be an inexplicable air of resignation and acceptance.

The dichotomy is how the State can justify paying out such hideously bloated sums when there is no sanction for those whose failures have cost us all so dearly.

Taxpayers have, after all, endured three hair-shirt Budgets and absorbed levies and charges to pay for the crippled banks.

Almost half a million people are now on the dole because of our economic mess.

How much more are they expected to absorb?

Everything has changed for the ordinary man and woman trying to survive, but the people who brought the economy down are living high on the hog.

We have been through a calamity, and it is hardly surprising that it has taken some time to restore a degree of perspective and balance.

Internationally we continue to be locked out of the bond markets because the financial community does not believe that we are a worthwhile risk.

If we are to win back confidence we must give a firm signal that there are severe consequences for those who were reckless and irresponsible.

As things stand, we are being treated almost on a daily basis to tragi-comic revelations, which add layers of confusion and ambivalence.

The banks are broke -- we know this because the nation has been bankrupted trying to fix them.

What rationale can there be, therefore, for paying astronomical sums to those responsible for the ruin?

If we are to be taken seriously, we must start behaving in a manner that befits the gravity of the economic crisis.

A prescription of austerity for the masses and luxury for those whom have beggared the country does not make for a convincing economic narrative.

 

EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

 

Indigenous disadvantage awaits some tweet sorrow 

 

APOLOGISTS for Behrendt ignore the greatest national challenge.

Infamous as it's become, it was too much to hope that Larissa Behrendt's tweet comparing the heartfelt comments of Bess Price unfavourably with televised bestiality would be an isolated indiscretion. Readers and contributors to The Australian overwhelmingly supported Price, an Aboriginal community leader from central Australia whose stated agenda is to improve the lot of indigenous people. But, predictably, activists have ignored the substance and directed their fury at this newspaper for having the temerity to publish the story. Using a post-modern political map, any view challenging their own is labelled "right wing" and their own fringe positions are treated as mainstream. Yet in the real world there is virtual political bi-partisanship between Labor and the Coalition to learn from past mistakes and find meaningful solutions.

Anyone who has visited remote communities, or listened to people on the ground, would understand the time for intellectual parlour games is over. For the past 40 years, urban sophisticates have been conducting an abstract debate about land rights, apologies, treaties and separatism, providing an income for academics and reconciliation advocates but doing precious little to further the practical circumstances of indigenous Australians. Fortunately, some independent thinkers are prepared to contest the moralising mumbo-jumbo spreading like a virus from university humanities departments. In The Weekend Australian, Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson have contributed devastating critiques of Behrendt's muddled thinking. Former federal Labor minister Gary Johns and anthropologist Peter Sutton, a land rights campaigner in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland, have written about the pernicious effect of the post-Whitlam orthodoxy, making a strong case for change. Recently we've seen testimony from women in central and northern Australia, like Price and Alison Anderson, who have seen too much violence, drunkenness and degradation, and been to too many funerals, to retain any confidence in whitefella dreaming.

Readers may be familiar with another failed experiment, an online opinion forum known as Crikey, which promised to level the playing field in the contest of ideas and democratise our national conversation. This week, on the most pressing social policy challenge of our time, Crikey offered the musings of Guy Rundle, a former comedy script writer. He writes from London incidentally, as far from the Tanami Desert as you can get, but he presumes to know much more about indigenous Australia than Price, a member of the Warlpiri community. Rundle defends Behrendt and the welfare/rights agenda, and accuses Price of being a patsy clocking up frequent flyer points. His main attack, however, is on The Australian for publishing a "beat-up".

Rundle's focus on what he imagines as this newspaper's agenda fails to divert attention from the paucity of policy solutions coming from what is commonly called the progressive side of politics. What does he propose, for example, on the challenge of improving school attendance, the first rung on the ladder to enable indigenous children to climb out of the welfare cycle and secure the opportunities for prosperity that Rundle's Australia takes for granted? The ABC's Deborah Cameron also decided The Australian was the story and enlisted the aid of a disgruntled former employee to construct a fantastic corporate conspiracy story in which our coverage of the Behrendt case was based not on its news value but upon the need to defend Andrew Bolt, a Herald Sun columnist being sued for racial vilification by Behrendt and others. This is facile, but given Cameron learnt her craft at The Sydney Morning Herald, she should not be judged too harshly for failing to spot the real story. That paper and its sister, The Age, have failed their readers by disregarding this topic and the crucial issues it exposes.

The response to the Behrendt story is another reminder of the crisis in policy debate in Australia. The universities, where many of our finest brains reside, have become detached from the real world, retreating further into the theoretical and away from the practical. The generational challenges of improving indigenous health, education, housing and employment should not be used as some proxy battlefield between the Right and Left urban elites. Rather this should be the focus of intense national efforts to identify the most practical solutions. Gough Whitlam's famous rebuke could equally apply to those who today wail about racist solutions to the indigenous crisis: Only the impotent are pure.

Hope and redemption at Easter 

 

JUDEO-CHRISTIAN tradition has shaped a progressive culture.

Whatever our beliefs about a young Jewish man from Nazareth who was crucified outside Jerusalem 2000 years ago and whose two billion followers today continue to believe he rose from the dead, the Easter message of redemption and fresh hope remains as important as ever in the 21st century. In Australia and New Zealand, the season is especially poignant this year, coinciding with Anzac Day on Monday, when we pay tribute to those whose heroic sacrifices benefit the greater good and reaffirm our belief in allies working in unity towards a safer, more peaceful world.

The rich symbolism and rituals of Easter, secular and sacred, help make the season more than just another extended long weekend, although Australians relish the chance to relax in the company of loved ones and enjoy the beach. The commemoration of the Last Supper, Stations of the Cross and the Paschal fire lit outside darkened churches as the Vigil Mass of the Resurrection begins tonight are powerful reminders of what lies at the heart of Judeo-Christian tradition. The yellow and white blooms, hot cross buns and eggs that are also so much a part of the season are welcome tokens of new life and fresh beginnings.

The Easter message inspires our forward-looking attitude to life, built on hope, that for 20 centuries has made enormous strides by encouraging our best endeavours to deliver progress. Backward-looking, repressive cultures fixated on past golden ages are not conducive to progress. An animist tendency that attributes everything that happens, for good or ill, to dark forces beyond our control renders us helpless victims of fate. The Easter message, by contrast, draws out the best in humanity. It urges us to forgive past wrongs, to be reconciled, to show compassion and, where needed, begin anew.

In contrast to the northern hemisphere, where Easter signals the arrival of spring and the end of the long, dark winter, it is part of autumn in Australia, bringing welcome relief from the ravages of summer. This year, the concept of Easter's healing redemption is especially pertinent as thousands of families continue the struggle to put their lives back together after a summer of natural disasters. As Cardinal George Pell says in his Easter message, our humanity is defined by how we grapple intellectually with the challenges of suffering and evil, or refuse to do so; but even more by what we do in response to catastrophes when they touch us or come close. Those who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods in the floods and cyclone that ravaged eastern Australia, in the Christchurch earthquake and further afield in the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown in Japan last month found their courage and resilience tested to the limits in the face of almost incomprehensible suffering. At such times, societies bound by sound, solid values pull together and recover better than those wracked by discord and hopelessness.

We feel that the Reverend Niall Reid, moderator of the Uniting Church synod of NSW, drew too long a bow, however, in claiming that such catastrophes are the "inevitable outcome" of "unthinking addiction to economic growth" by powerful people "no more willing to contemplate a different way than they were when, for expediency's sake, they sent Jesus to the cross". Whatever we need to learn from the unfolding science of climate change, natural disasters were part of human experience before the time of Christ. The Easter message should not be hijacked by one side of politics.

Nor should the pursuit of economic growth be equated with sin. Soundly and ethically pursued, economic growth is essential for lifting millions of people out of poverty, creating meaningful employment, providing healthcare and education, funding philanthropy and enhancing human dignity. On that score, the Parable of the Talents makes interesting reading.

Viewed in religious or secular terms, or both, the Easter mysteries offer much to think about. Periodically, the human spirit needs time out from the everyday routine to regroup, enjoy a good glass of wine and a few chocolates, a good book or movie and the company of family and friends in order to return refreshed. Happy Easter.

 

EDITORIAL : THE NATIONAL POST, CANADA

 

The road to Emmaus

 

Easter Week is the most holy week of the Christian calendar. The traditional exposition of the passion of Christ has two foci: one, on the hill called Golgotha where Jesus was crucified under a hand-lettered sign whose superscription ("This is the king of the Jews") was intended by Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor who wrote it, to be ironic; second, on the tomb discovered empty by the disciples on Easter morning, the stone rolled away, the inhabitant gone, the empty tomb a symbol of Christ's victory over death and the climax of God's redemptive drama.

But I like to think that the biblical penchant for threes (think of the Trinity, the three Magi, etc) is also in the Easter narrative if you look closely. In Luke's Gospel, we find the third focus of Easter, and an unlikely one it is: a parched and dusty stretch of road running from the city of Jerusalem to the insignificant village of Emmaus.

Cleopas, a relative of Christ's family, and another disciple were walking along this road and, inevitably, talking about the shattering events that had just happened: the crucifixion, their likely peril as followers of Jesus, and now the reports of an empty tomb. The women of their company were talking about visions of angels and a gardener who resembled Jesus. What can it all mean?

As the two men walked along, they were joined by a stranger. He seemed to be from a far country for he appeared to know nothing of what had happened. So Cleopas and his friend filled the stranger in, telling him about Jesus, the carpenter's son from Nazareth, "a prophet mighty in deed and word . whom we had trusted should have been he to have redeemed Israel." Now comes the twist in the story: Instead of expressing surprise or commiserating with them in their loss, the stranger instead began to expound the messianic scriptures from Moses through the prophets.

The travellers reached the end of their day's journey and the stranger made as if to travel on. Cleopas and his companion pressed the stranger to stay: "Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent."

These last words were to be echoed by an asthmatic English parish priest, Henry L. Lyte (17931889), who shortly before he died wrote a poem called Eventide and gave it to a friend. The friend tossed it in a trunk where it languished unseen for 14 years; eventually, the poem was retrieved and set to music by William Monk (1823-1889) at a time of deep sorrow in his own life; it became one of the best beloved hymns -Abide with Me:

"When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me."

When Cleopas, his friend and the stranger sat down to supper, the stranger "took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them." What a moment of illumination that must have been, recalling so vividly the first Eucharist earlier that week. In that moment, Cleopas and his friend recognized the stranger as the risen Lord, and then he was gone.

Cleopas and his friend jumped up and set out on the approximately eight-mile trek back to Jerusalem to tell what had happened. As they ran back, perhaps stumbling as much from sheer excitement as from the dark, they said one to another: "Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

And so the Easter Trinity is complete: the hill called Golgotha; the empty tomb; and the road to Emmaus. Miraculous it is that these three locations and events were to shape the succeeding 2,000 years of human history -even today in our "post-Christian" era not quite forgotten.

In the 1960s, the great British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge made a BBC television series on the life of Christ; in the last scene, Muggeridge and a friend walked the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Muggeridge wrote:

"As my friend and I walked along like Cleopas and his friend, we recalled as they did the events of the Crucifixion and its aftermath in the light of our utterly different and yet similar world. Nor was it a fancy that we too were joined by a third presence. And I tell you that whatever the walk, and whoever the wayfarers, there is always this third presence ready to emerge from the shadows and to fall in step along the dusty, stony way."

Truth and power

 

In many places across the land, Canadians make their way to church in order to vote. Church halls are often booked by Elections Canada as polling stations, and so as advance polls opened yesterday, voters likely mixed with Good Friday pilgrims, each going about their business, citizens to their civic duties, religious folk to their worship.
The contemporary sensibility is to keep all that separate now. But, as Father Raymond J. de Souza noted on this page Thursday, this Easter weekend puts them together. Religion and politics, faith and public life. They cannot really be kept apart, for citizens cannot set aside their faith, even as one does not expect the parishioner to cease being a citizen when about the things of God.
"My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said to Pontius Pilate. Kings and governors, especially those in service of absolute power such as Pilate, do not much care for rival kings and governors. They do not much care for rival allegiances of any kind, which is why having any other kingdom -even one not of this world -was offensive to Pilate, who judged that it would be offensive to Caesar.
We all belong to various kingdoms. Blessed thing that it is, Canadian citizenship does not exhaust our identity or provide an answer to the ultimate questions. So Canadians have other allegiances, including higher allegiances, which bring other truths, including higher truths, into our common life together. It is the ordering of those allegiances and truths that animated the biblical confrontation between Pilate and Jesus on that first Good Friday -a conversation profoundly relevant to every time and place.
"What is truth?" is the question Pilate puts to Jesus. Pilate knows about power; he governs in the name of a formidable empire. He has the power of life and death over Jesus. Before Pilate, Jesus speaks not of his own power, but of coming into the world "to bear witness to the truth." It is an extraordinary claim that Jesus makes, that "everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." This is a new category for Pilate to think about, a kind of power that comes not from force, but from the authority of truth itself.
Perhaps Pilate was being dismissive then about the question of truth, thinking it irrelevant to the brute force of power, as Stalin did when he mockingly asked how many divisions the pope had. Or perhaps there was a faint glimmer of awakening in Pilate, opening himself to a new -and to him, dangerous -possibility that political power is not the final word about the human condition.
"It is the key question that is also asked by modern political theory: Can politics accept truth as a structural category?" wrote Pope Benedict XVI about the trial before Pilate in his recent book about Holy Week. "Or must truth, as something unattainable, be relegated to the subjective sphere, its place taken by an attempt to build peace and justice using whatever instruments are available to power?"
Truth or power? Benedict's question is not for Catholics alone, but one that should occupy thoughtful people of all traditions, and especially Canadians in the midst of an election.
There is much back-and-forth between candidates, accusing each other of not telling the truth. More fundamental than who may be telling lies is the task of articulating those truths which ought to undergird our common life together. Some of those truths about the human person and society are encoded in our laws, constitutional tradition and democratic elections. But there are other truths too, belonging to science and commerce and music and literature, that shape our common life together. Above them all are the truths of philosophy and theology that seek answers to the most fundamental questions of how, and for what purpose, we are to live.
The drama between Jesus and Pilate is neither a mere legal matter, nor a political dispute. Likewise, an election is not an occasion only to choose between partisan options. It is a time to think about where politics fits in an account of the good life, and to think about the other truths that politics must leave room for, and to which politics must defer. As Canadians, we frequently take for granted those freedoms which give us space to seek those truths, primary among them religious liberty. At the National Post, we attempt to use our freedom of the press to tell those stories that go beyond the narrow sphere of politics, and thereby participate in the broader human conversation about how we are to live.
Politics is an important part of that. Indeed, politics was an important part of that first Good Friday. But it was not the most important part, nor did it have the final word. Christians believe that the final word belongs to the eternal Word, the Risen Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life.
To all our readers then on the occasion of Easter, we offer our good wishes, as we seek together for that truth that opens the way to life.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

Dangerous Games

The debt limit is supposed to make Congress think twice before passing tax cuts or spending increases that add to the national debt. Instead, lawmakers routinely support policies without paying for them — like the Bush-era tax cuts and two wars — and then posture and protest when their decisions require raising the debt limit.
So it will be once Congress returns from its spring recess. The debt limit — $14.3 trillion — will be hit as early as mid-May. If it is not raised in time, the government will have to use increasingly unorthodox tactics to meet its obligations, which would disrupt the financial markets and the economic recovery.
Default is theoretically possible, though public outrage over the mess would likely compel Congress to raise the debt limit before then. The best approach, the most sensible and mature, would be to pass a clean and timely increase.
However, nothing sensible or mature is on the horizon. Republicans have vowed to extract more heedless spending cuts in exchange for their votes to raise the debt limit. To that end, they seem likely to demand changes to the budget process, like a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, or spending caps.
Such reforms have a glib appeal — who can oppose something as prudent-sounding as balanced budgets? In fact, they are a dodge, because they cut spending broadly without lawmakers having to defend specific cuts. They are also often wired to block tax increases, without which deficit reduction efforts are not only unfair, but also will not succeed.
Take, for example, the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that Senate Republicans recently endorsed. By rigidly requiring a balanced budget each year, it would deepen recessions by forcing tax increases or spending cuts in a weak economy.
Worse, the amendment would hold annual spending to 18 percent of the previous year’s gross domestic product, a formula that works out to about 16.7 percent in the proposal’s early years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That is a level last seen in 1956 — a time before Medicare, before the interstate highways, when many baby boomers were not yet born, never mind aging into retirement.
Sharply lower spending would, in turn, allow for big tax cuts. Those tax cuts would be virtually irreversible, since the amendment calls for a two-thirds vote of both houses to raise taxes.
Another bad idea is the spending cap proposed by two senators, Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, and Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. It would cap spending at around 21 percent of G.D.P., compared with about 24 percent now — which would require deep cuts like those in the House Republican budget plan. With its emphasis on spending cuts, the cap also seems intended to reduce the deficit without tax increases.
In the successful deficit reduction efforts of 1990 and 1993, budget process reforms were helpful. The key, however, was to first enact credible deficit-reduction packages — with spending cuts and tax increases — and then impose rules, like pay-as-you-go, to prevent backsliding. Process reforms alone avoid the hard work. Still, they can exert powerful political pull.
The White House and Congressional Democrats must not allow themselves to be taken hostage again.

 

Shielding the Privacies of Life

 

The Supreme Court has never heard a case challenging the government’s authority to search a computer. It is time, after a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit opened the way last month to vast government intrusion. It ruled that, without good reason to suspect evidence of a crime, border agents could seize a laptop and open a dragnet search of files, e-mails and Web sites visited.

The majority pats itself on the back for stopping “far short of ‘anything goes’ at the border,” since any intrusion must not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures.” But by not requiring the government to have a reason for seizing a computer or to say what it is searching for, a dissent notes, the majority “allows the government to set its own limits.” In other words, pretty much anything goes.

The government asked the court to create this precedent, though in this case it had genuine grounds for suspicion. When the defendant crossed from Mexico into Arizona, his criminal record as a child molester came up in a database. When the government looked for child pornography, it found plenty on his laptop. The government has a duty to secure the borders against this and other kinds of illegal material, including drugs and weapons.

Fourth Amendment law already gives border agents huge leeway, allowing them to search travelers and their belongings, without a warrant, proof of probable cause or suspicion of illegal activity. The Ninth Circuit decided that computers could be searched on site as part of those belongings. But this ruling allows the government to hold a laptop for weeks or even months, transport it away from the border and subject it to an intensive search.

The difference between the search of a briefcase’s physical space and a laptop’s cyberspace — a window into the user’s mind — is profound. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, the Fourth Amendment must protect just such “privacies of life.” It was 1928 when he warned that “ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences.”

Searching a computer is a major invasion of privacy — one that may be necessary to protect the country’s security. But there still must be limits and protections. It is now up to the Supreme Court to establish those limits.

Democrats and Gun Control

 

Months after Al Gore’s defeat in 2000, Terry McAuliffe, then the Democratic Party chief, urged Democrats to steer clear of gun control, warning of the “devastating impact on elections” wrought by the gun lobby’s monied campaign attacks. Far too many Democratic politicians have since followed that cynical doctrine. The gun lobby’s power has only grown while 30,000 Americans die each year by gun violence.

So it is heartening to hear an unwavering call for stronger controls from Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the incoming chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. At a rally Monday for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Ms. Wasserman Schultz spoke out for legislation to close the loophole — she called it “outrageous” — that allows gun-show customers, whether felons, terrorists or the deranged, to avoid background checks.

The Florida congresswoman was not officially speaking for the party, but she hardly trimmed her sails in anticipation of her national role. She called as well for improving the information available to law enforcement about people with histories of mental illness.

Four years after a mentally troubled gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech, and months after the Tucson rampage, the federal database created to track risky gun buyers is waiting for full cooperation from state officials. Congress should bolster and adequately finance this needed resource. And it should ban sports outlets from selling the banana-magazines of ammunition used in Tucson that were designed for soldiers, not hunters.

The Tucson shootings finally forced President Obama to break his silence and call for “comprehensive and consistent” background checks on buyers. Ms. Wasserman Schultz has shown real leadership in rejecting the McAuliffe doctrine. Mr. Obama needs to join her.

Senator Ensign May Go, but the Questions Remain

Senator John Ensign abruptly announced his resignation on Thursday night, hoping to head-off a public airing of the ethics investigation into sordid misdeeds that destroyed his political future.
Related

Far from pronouncing the case closed, however, the Senate Ethics Committee owes the public a full report on its 22-month inquiry into how Mr. Ensign boosted the lobbying career of a former top aide — after the aide discovered the senator had had an affair with the aide’s wife. The Nevada Republican, who had already announced he wasn’t running for re-election, stepped down as reports suggested the ethics panel was on the verge of formal charges of wrongdoing.
Of critical importance is whether a $96,000 payment to the aggrieved aide, Douglas Hampton, was hush money, and whether Mr. Ensign’s admitted support for Mr. Hampton’s lobbying clients violated the Senate’s quid-pro-quo strictures. These are serious ethics questions that will reflect badly on the Senate if the resignation is used as an excuse to conclude in official silence.
Mr. Ensign, a family values conservative, confirmed the affair when Mr. Hampton went to the news media. But the senator denied any ethics violations, insisting that the $96,000 was a simple gift from his parents to Mr. Hampton and that he used his office to help two of Mr. Hampton’s lobbying clients on merit, not because they were crucial to keeping his old aide employed.
In a separate criminal investigation, Mr. Hampton is facing charges for allegedly lobbying his old boss sooner than the one-year limit mandated after he quit. Senator Ensign’s lawyers claim he is clear of the criminal investigation, but the Justice Department has been silent.
All the unanswered questions require the ethics panel to issue a full disclosure of its findings. Mr. Ensign’s retreat does not mean that the Senate can duck its own responsibility to the American people.

 

EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, UK

 

Scotland and Wales: Different drums

In a devolved union, the old ties no longer bind as tightly as before

Look back, this St George's Day, to 1999, when Scots and Welsh voters first elected their new devolved governments. The convergence between the results was striking. In Scotland in 1999, Labour came top of the constituency poll with 39%, with the SNP nationalists second on 29%, the Conservatives 16% and the Liberal Democrats 14%. In Wales that year, the constituency result was Labour 38%, Plaid Cymru nationalists 28%, Conservatives 16% and the Lib Dems 14%. To all intents and purposes, Scotland and Wales seemed in political step, albeit with different devolved powers. In both, although only after trying to govern alone in the Welsh case, Labour eventually took power with Liberal Democrat coalition support.

Now fast forward 12 years to the latest opinion polls in the two countries for their latest devolved elections, the fourth in both cases, which are due to be held on 5 May. The striking thing today is how Scotland and Wales are no longer in step and now appear to be marching to very different drums. In Scotland this week an Ipsos Mori poll put Labour on 34%, SNP 45%, Tories 10% and Lib Dems 9%. In Wales, by contrast, on YouGov's most recent poll there, Labour is on 49%, Plaid Cymru 17%, Tories 20% and Lib Dems 8%. An opinion poll is only an opinion poll, and is certainly not an election result, but it seems increasingly possible that, while Wales is swinging heavily behind Labour in the face of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in London, Scotland may re-elect the SNP administration that first took power there four years ago.

Results like these would certainly be a blow for the London coalition parties, though hardly an unexpected one. The Lib Dems are facing a particularly brutal outcome, with the prospect of steep losses in places that have been Liberal for generations. The picture is more mixed for the Tories, who retain a stronger position in Wales than in Scotland. Yet there is some solace for the UK coalition too. These are the first devolved elections to take place with Labour, the original begetter of devolution, no longer in power at Westminster. After a torrid first year for the London government, Labour might have expected that the voters would place the party firmly in its traditional place at the head of the Welsh and Scottish opposition. A few months ago this still looked likely. Now, an important lesson, it is much less certain. Reasonably enough, voters in both countries seem to be thinking at least as much about the politics of Wales and Scotland as about the UK. In Wales that benefits Labour rather than the nationalists. In Scotland the effect increasingly looks to be the reverse. But that's the logic of devolution. The union may survive. But the old ties no longer bind as tightly as before.

Superinjunctions: The rich man's gag

The rulings appear to place the power of the courts at the disposal of the rich and famous (and male)

The relationship between the courts, the press and parliament has been severely shaken over the past week by a froth of injunctions protecting the identity of allegedly unfaithful footballers and other celebrities. In the process, some of the tensions within the current evolution of the British state have been exposed. Though it may seem far-fetched this sunny Saturday morning, future historians could judge that the wives and girlfriends, so long the objects of prurience and mockery, were indirectly the catalyst of a significant realignment.

There is a long back-story to these developments, but the pace quickened 18 months ago when the courts granted a gagging order against the Guardian that could not be reported in any way despite the evident public importance of the story. This newspaper was barred from printing not just the details of an account of claims of damaging activities by the oil-trading company Trafigura but also anything said in parliament about it – a plain breach of parliamentary sovereignty as defined by the Bill of Rights 1689. The order was rapidly rescinded. But the episode showed how the courts were increasingly using their powers, in secret hearings, in ways that allowed the right to privacy to prevent the press from reporting matters in the public interest. By their very nature, it is hard to judge how many such superinjunctions exist, but there appear to be at least 30, including several that are plainly of public significance, including one relating to allegations of water pollution, and another to a right-to-die case.

These superinjunctions, distinguished by their total secrecy, are different in kind but not in effect from the ones that have generated this week's lurid headlines about the sex lives of unnamed celebrities. In each, the court held that the privacy of the individual (or, in one case, their children) outweighed freedom of expression. The rulings appear to place the power of the courts at the disposal of the rich and famous (and male), to the considerable disadvantage of the women in these cases, some of whom have been brutally exposed to public derision. This granting of anonymity is beginning to look like a trend, interrupted only when the England captain John Terry failed in an attempt to protect his identity after the court held that he was less interested in privacy than in the commercial value of his reputation.

This week David Cameron joined in, admitting his own unease about the rulings and blaming the Human Rights Act for allowing judges to develop a law of privacy in place of parliament. This is a largely spurious claim. In fact, English common law has long been used to protect both confidentiality and the privacy of children, while the European convention on human rights has been an available remedy for breach of privacy for more than a generation. Less partisan observers suspect that the sudden surge of cases may simply be a lawyers' market response to a lucrative new fashion.

Meanwhile some MPs are alarmed at the way the courts appear to be interfering with the right to raise important issues in parliament and, more expressly, with MPs' right to discuss them with concerned constituents. The Lib Dem backbencher John Hemming is at the forefront of a campaign to challenge the courts, in a way that jeopardises the fragile relationship between them and parliament. Equally, senior judges are unhappy at the spread of secrecy: the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, will soon publish the findings of his inquiry into the use of superinjunctions. In a speech in March his commitment to open justice was unequivocal, his defence of injunctions to protect privacy equally so. How, he asks, can privacy be sustained if the press reports the claims before the court can rule. Expect a report strong on procedure (time-limited injunctions, perhaps, and submissions from all those with an interest) but one that looks more likely to defend the right to privacy than the freedom of the press.

Unthinkable? Votes for children

The old vote more and the politicians make policies for them – time to introduce proxy votes for children then

Taskforces running short on ideas regularly peddle votes at 16 as a way to spruce up democracy. But when the voting age fell at the 1970 general election nothing much changed. There is an abject lack of teenage hunger for suffrage. To truly stir things up, consider instead votes at 16 months. Hungary said this week that it may give mothers with young children an extra ballot. The ruling Fidesz party is deeply conservative, and feminists discern an ancient rightist impulse to encourage women to stay home and breed. By restricting the proposed child votes to one per family, Budapest hopes to disempower big Roma families, but also undermines a potentially principled argument. It hardly matters if parents know or care about their offspring's formative opinions; the real point is the equal representation of raw material interest. With the old voting more than the young everywhere, things are skewed – and the total exclusion of the youngest of all makes matters worse. Those who doubt this should look at the UK coalition's social security plans. While the old cling on to bus passes, and pensions are pegged to earnings, payments for younger families are being slashed. Proxy votes for children – split half and half between mothers and fathers to avoid presumptions about who speaks for them best – could restore some balance. With climate change imposing a heavy price on a distant tomorrow, there's even a case for enfranchising the unborn. That, however, would be impractical – and truly unthinkable.

EDITORIAL : THE GLOBAL TIMES, CHINA

 

 

'Wealth drain' reveals sense of insecurity

 

Attracted by the exciting opportunities, increasing numbers of foreigners are flooding into China annually. Yet at the same time, more and more Chinese millionaires have managed or are considering to emigrate overseas.

The so-called wealth drain is receiving mixed reactions among the public. Some regard it as good for the Chinese economy in the long run. Others are indifferent. Many Web users have expressed strong resentment.

Nearly 60 percent of the 2,600 polled Chinese millionaires, whose assets surpass 100 million yuan each, are either considering or already finalizing emigration, according to a report published by the China Merchants Bank and consulting firm Bain & Company. In addition to a better education for their children, there are two major reasons for their flight: the safety of personal wealth and their retirement pensions.

When choosing to emigrate abroad, the wealthy not only remove funds and job opportunities, but also strike a heavy blow at popular confidence. Since the wealthy are seen as an elite, the "wealth drain" is regarded as a dual loss of both assets and talent.

By targeting the rich, an irrational populism among Chinese people not only threatens to derail economic development but also suggests the nation suffers from an unhealthy jealousy toward evaluating successful compatriots.

A certain kind of willful immaturity among the wealthy themselves measured against ordinary people's suspicions of the route to riches have only helped fan dangerous resentments.

There is of course no contradiction between seeking equality and allowing some people to be rich. Only if society welcomes another wave of economic growth can it foster a number of entrepreneurs with global competitiveness.

In China, both rich and poor alike lack feelings of security, which does no good to the stability of a society. On the one hand, the sympathy toward the poor may represent a public conscience. On the other, the popular resentment toward the rich is approaching seismic dimensions, threatening the stability and lasting development of the nation.

Chinese people, either rich or poor, should have confidence in their coutry's future development: No social turmoil, let alone revolutions, will take place. All kinds of social problems will be solved within the framework of the rule of law, which plays a paramount role in punishing lawbreakers as well as protecting the assets that people have legally created.

To curb this rampant flight of wealth, the entire society should reach a more mature, unwavering consensus to help dispel rich people's feelings of insecurity toward their wealth.

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

 

Japan should fulfill global responsibility

The Yomiuri Shimbun

What foreign policy should Japan conduct in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake?

We think the government should engage actively with the international community without becoming inward-looking. This will strengthen the nation's vitality and advance reconstruction.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan held talks with visiting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday. They agreed to boost bilateral cooperation in areas of energy and disaster relief activities. Japan must use such occasions to clearly express its determination toward reconstruction and revitalization.

The foreign ministers of Japan and of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Indonesia on April 9. Indonesia proposed to fellow ASEAN members the idea of holding the special meeting with Japan, saying it was the ASEAN nations' turn to demonstrate solidarity with Japan because it has supported them for many years.

Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, more than 170 countries and international organizations have offered to help Japan, and many have already provided assistance. All of this is because Japan has developed cooperative ties with them and supported them in the past.

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Keep a global perspective

Reconstruction of areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami will require a huge amount of money and manpower. But Japan must not become so preoccupied with domestic concerns that it ignores its role in the international community and fails to look at things from a global viewpoint.

First, the government should minimize reduction of official development assistance.

The government initially considered cutting appropriations for ODA, which were set at 572.7 billion yen in total in the initial budget for fiscal 2011, by 20 percent to free up funds for the first supplementary budget aimed at recovery and reconstruction after the earthquake and tsunami.

The idea of cutting money in an area of least resistance seemed like a simple idea. But many voices were raised against it, forcing the government to downsize the reduction to 10 percent.

The nation's ODA budget has been decreasing for 12 straight years and is now at only half of its peak. Japan's world ranking in terms of ODA budget also declined from first place to fifth. During that period, Japan's international influence has declined as emerging economies rise.

The nation has to continue international contributions matching its position as the third largest economic power in the world to maintain its international influence.

Meanwhile, the government should not postpone a decision on whether to participate in negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade treaty with the other Asian and Pacific countries. Though the Kan administration said it would make a decision on TPP in June, all the negotiating work in Japan and abroad has been suspended in the wake of the disaster.

Nine countries, including the United States and Australia, are aiming to conclude TPP negotiations in November. We hope Japan will proceed steadily with domestic agricultural reforms and negotiations with concerned countries so that it would not be left behind.

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Let SDF help elsewhere

It is also significant for the nation to maintain engagement with U.N. peacekeeping operations. Self-Defense Forces' performance in dealing with the disaster has been remarkable.

The government should not limit the activities of the SDF to Japan. It should positively consider sending SDF units to Southern Sudan after independence and to other parts of the world to participate in PKOs.

Cooperation in disaster preparedness and response as well as measures to secure the safety of nuclear power plants will be important agenda items in diplomacy among major countries this year. Attention will focus particularly on Japan's actions in response to its disasters.

Japan should learn various lessons from its own experiences with the earthquake, tsunami and the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Then, it should lead discussions among major nations by making concrete proposals on what form international cooperation should take. That would be one way to return the favor for their assistance to Japan.

Govt must persuade residents on necessity of no-entry zone

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The area within a 20-kilometer radius of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. was designated as a no-entry zone from Friday. In principle, people are prohibited by law from setting foot within this "caution zone."

Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited Fukushima Prefecture on Thursday to inspect areas hit by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake. He spoke with Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato at the prefectural government building and informed him of the central government's decision to set the no-entry zone.

Kan faced many serious demands and criticisms, some expressed harshly, from people living in evacuation centers in the prefecture when he visited them. They included, "You must bring the nuclear accident under control as soon as possible," and, "Our patience has already reached its limit."

The no-entry zone was set based on the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law. Punishment for violators will include fines of up to 100,000 yen.

The same zone had been already designated by the government as an area subject to evacuation instructions under the Law on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness, and about 80,000 residents have been actually evacuated outside the zone.

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Strong attachments to homes

However, since the instructions were nonbinding, around 100 people are reportedly staying at their homes and other places within the zone.

These include aged people who do not want to leave houses where they were born and raised. There are dairy farmers who say they cannot evacuate, leaving cows or other livestock behind. Local officials are trying to persuade them, but they do not listen to them. It must be difficult for people to overcome such strong attachment to their homes and animals.

Among the residents who did evacuate, there are people who have gone back to their homes to retrieve valuables and other belongings.

The situation at the nuclear power plant has not been stabilized, and radioactive contamination continues. Under such circumstances, the government set the no-entry zone in consideration of the safety of residents and in response to the Fukushima prefectural government's request.

Due to concerns over cases of burglary and other criminal acts in the evacuation zone, some have argued that entry to the zone must be prohibited for crime-prevention purposes.

We think establishing the no-entry zone was inevitable.

However, we would like the government to refrain from forcibly displacing residents who want to stay in the zone but instead continue sincere efforts to persuade them.

At the same time, the government needs to listen carefully to what the evacuated residents really want and smoothly conduct measures associating with the setting of the no-entry zone, including temporary visits by evacuees to their homes.

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1 person, 2 hours not enough

In the first round of home visits to be held shortly, the government will limit the number of eligible residents to one from each household and will also limit the period they can stay at their homes to two hours.

Just one person, in such a short period of time, will be hard-pressed to collect all their needed goods or sufficiently inspect the house's situation.

We hope the government will think about increasing the number of people from each household and extending the home visit period, while insuring safety from radiation exposure.

The government must show residents a concrete plan to periodically carry out home visits by securing sufficient buses, drivers, radiation protective suits and masks.

According to the timetable announced by TEPCO on resolving the nuclear plant accident, it will take more than six months to stop the leakage of radioactive substances. Presumably, the no-entry zone designation will not be lifted until the leakage has stopped.

The central and local governments must continuously explain the situation of the nuclear power plant and radiation counts in detail to the public and create an environment for the residents to visit their homes without fear.