EDITORIAL : THE TODAY'S ZAMAN, TURKEY

                

 

The end of nuclear power

OXFORD -- Japan’s nuclear crisis, and the 25th anniversary of the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, have incited heated new discussions about the desirability of nuclear power. By awakening dormant fears, this debate threatens to halt what to many had seemed like a budding nuclear renaissance.
 
The stealth-like nature of radiation taps into deep-seated human anxieties. But, however well founded those fears might be, they are probably the wrong reason to oppose nuclear energy. There is an even stronger argument than safety alone for why a nuclear renaissance is neither likely nor necessary: Cost.

The price of nuclear power has been escalating steadily for decades. Since 1970, the cost in constant dollars of new nuclear generating capacity has increased nine-fold, as additional safety features make plant designs more expensive. New innovations, such as pebble-bed reactors, promise to increase safety further, but will be vastly more costly to adopt.

In addition, we have lost economies of scale because we build so few nuclear power plants. As with fighter jets, adding features and building small quantities causes costs to skyrocket. Globally, the median age of nuclear plants is now 27 years, so much of the learning from building the early plants has gone.

The exception is China, where a large-scale construction plan is showing evidence of lowering costs. But with the next generation of safer reactors, costs are rising fast. Xu Yuanhui of Chinergy, which is building two pebble-bed reactors, commented recently on the new design: “The safety is no question, but the economics are not so clear.”

The exact opposite is occurring with renewables. We are learning quickly, and costs are plummeting through the sheer volume of construction: 40,000 wind turbines over the past decade in Europe alone. And solar power will reach grid parity in sunny regions like South Africa, Greece and Florida by 2015.

As the price of nuclear power steadily rises and that of renewables falls, inevitably the cost curves will cross. The only question is when -- and it is likely to occur well within the decade that it will take for the next nuclear plant to come online in the industrialized world. In other words, before we finish building the next nuclear plant, it will be an expensive and increasingly irrelevant relic of the 1950s dream of “atoms for peace.”

That dream always contained the seeds of a nightmare. While the risk that nuclear power could fuel nuclear proliferation seems to have receded as a cause of public angst, by many accounts we have simply been lucky so far: The larger the nuclear economy becomes, the higher the chances of a mistake. Even in the absence of proliferation risks, leaving dangerous trash for future generations is morally dubious. We would judge Alexander the Great differently if his conquests had left a toxic legacy that we were still living with today.

Most advocates of nuclear energy now endorse solar and wind, but in the same breath claim that renewables alone simply are not a practicable solution for the necessary reduction of carbon emissions. Every day brings another editorial arguing that nuclear energy is fundamental to a decarbonized power system. But is it really true that a renewable power system is impossible?

In 2010, the European Climate Foundation (ECF) published a much-noted report called “Roadmap 2050,” which modeled in great detail the cost and technical feasibility of various scenarios for a carbon-free power system in Europe by 2050. It describes a scenario of 80 percent renewable power, complemented by a remnant of nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon capture and sequestration.

In a nutshell, the ECF’s conclusion is that a continent-wide renewable power system is both technically possible and economically affordable. The much-maligned and very real intermittency of supplies of renewable power is addressed through additional back-up generation capacity and, crucially, a new direct-current supergrid that enables load balancing across the European continent. Still, if it is affordable and doable in the long term, what about in the shorter term?

The evidence of the link between carbon reduction, economic growth and job creation is mounting. In the past six months, studies by the United Nations Environment Program and Johns Hopkins University, as well as “A new growth path for Europe,” a blueprint proposed by six leading European universities, all project the creation of millions of jobs before 2020. Notably, these are not just “Green Jobs”; they are “Green Growth jobs” across all industrial and services sectors.

What we are witnessing is a watershed in the debate on greenhouse-gas emissions. A low-carbon growth path requires neither coal nor new nuclear power. The way forward is to pursue more ambitious and consistent climate and energy policies that drive the massive deployment of renewables; install new load-balancing electricity grids; and ensure large-scale adoption of energy-efficiency measures. This agenda promises to boost investments, stimulate economic growth and create jobs while increasing competitiveness and energy security. In both economic and ethical terms, nuclear power merits no role.

EDITORIAL : THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

Will Yemen mend?

The Yemen opposition groups are to accept the Gulf Cooperation Council’s plan to resolve the deadlock. Even so, trouble in Yemen continued with security forces having shot another three protesters.

While President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the opposition are yet to formally agree to the plan that envisages the stepping down of the president a month after the formation of a unity government, the protestors on the streets continue to demand the immediate ouster of the Yemeni ruler. Such is the anger on the streets that escalated after the killing of several people last month that it may take more persuasion by the opposition to appease them in case formal consensus over the GCC proposal is achieved. The good news is that there is positive movement towards resolution of the crisis.

Moreover, the GCC proposal if enacted will realise full participation of all political factions within the new setup and offer the disparate groups a chance to contribute towards strengthening the political institutions of the country.

Yemen’s political instability has been a grave concern for regional states and even western states owing to the strong presence of Al Qaeda in the country. Not wanting the situation to implode and spill over into neighbouring states, the GCC decided to offer mediation in an attempt to defuse the situation.  The acrimony fuelled by president Saleh’s continued presence in office is too strong to be tided over. This is what was witnessed over the past many months despite Saleh’s repeated promises to step down and not contest the next elections.  Disillusioned by past such promises and heartened by the regime change in Tunisia and Egypt, the Yemenis mobilised by opposition parties however decided to stand their ground. Meanwhile the danger of the country falling prey to another civil war and being highly susceptible to terrorist groups, proved unnerving for Yemen’s  allies.

Thankfully, now if the opposition and the government ruling party agree on a formula for a peaceful transition of power and hold elections, the crisis could be averted. The question is on how to manage the precariously positioned process to completion without derailing it. Not only will it take considerable efforts, it will require the wholehearted and genuine commitment of Yemen’s varied political factions to bridge the ethnic and tribal divisions and work jointly for a united and stable setup. Yemen has been through the throes of a bloody civil war in the 1990’s and has had its share of sectarian and tribal infighting. The 
Yemeni people must rise above all this if they want to build a freer, stable and prosperous state.

EDITORIAL : THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD, NEW ZEALAND

Brash move on Act may also constrain Key

Don Brash is living up to his name with an attempted take-over of the Act Party. His bid to come into Parliament at the head of Act sounds unprecedented in politics until it is remembered how he came to lead the National Party briefly. Yesterday, it was exactly nine years since Dr Brash suddenly announced his resignation as governor of the Reserve Bank to stand for Parliament at the invitation of National Party president Michelle Boag.

He was given a high place on the party list, became its finance spokesman as a new MP and was elected leader the following year. He had been parachuted in when National was at a low ebb and he led the party back to within one seat of victory at the 2005 election. Now he believes he can work a similar wonder for Act.

National's small supporting party will struggle at this year's election, relying as it does on Rodney Hide's ability to hold the Epsom seat. Epsom voters, like most others, will have been appalled by Mr Hide's part in permitting a child-identity thief to enter Parliament. He also used the sort of perk he once prided himself on "busting", fell out with former deputy Heather Roy and devoted himself to a drastic reform of Auckland's local government.

Dr Brash is so certain of Mr Hide's demise that he is planning to form a rival party if Mr Hide does not step aside for him. Mr Hide is unlikely to do that. He prides himself on having survived predictions of his demise at every election he has fought. He is plainly enjoying his role in the Government, has worked hard to get where he is and will want to see the verdict of his electorate.

The Brash plan is for John Banks to stand for Act in Epsom. He believes the former mayor would be more acceptable to Epsom than Mr Hide now, and could better take advantage of the opening that National has indicated it will leave for its partner.

When the Prime Minister said National would concentrate on the party vote in Epsom, he would have known of the challenge Mr Hide was about to face. John Key would no doubt sooner deal with Mr Hide than the less compromising Dr Brash, but he needs a potential partner to survive the election. Right now a Brash-Banks party, whether it is Act or a new creation, looks a better bet.

But it would be a different party. Dr Brash would put Act's founding principles to the fore, where they have never been since it began to win seats under Richard Prebble's leadership. Mr Prebble, to the eternal chagrin of its founder Sir Roger Douglas, decided Act could never win enough votes on dry economic policies and campaigned mainly on law and order and other mainstream concerns.

Mr Hide has maintained that strategy, though his ability to sound tough on crime this time has been tarnished by the identity thief who conceived Act's "three strikes" law.

Dr Brash has a problem of his own to overcome if he re-enters politics. He resigned before the publication of a book that he feared would expose details of an affair. In the event, the author used only leaked emails of a political nature that suggested he was hiding an unpopular economic agenda.

National may have been uncomfortable with its former leader's rigid economic rationalism, but Act would not be. Dr Brash did not enter politics the last time for personal ambition and nor is that his motive now. He is driven by concern at the economy's drift back into debt and high spending deficits, and at policies he calls "race-based" for the advancement of Maori.

He would be a greater irritant to the Key Government than Mr Hide has been, and the Government's economic direction could be better for that. With or without Act, he is back.

EDITORIAL : THE MOSCOW TIMES, RUSSIA

From Defiant to Dull in a Decade

Vladimir Lenin once said film is the most important art form for the state.

About 80 years later, Vladimir Putin adapted Leninism to the 21st century, focusing on television instead of film. In April 2001, one year after Putin was elected president, NTV became Target No. 1.

Ten years have passed since NTV — once the country’s most audacious, creative and successful television station — was taken over by state-controlled Gazprom-Media. It was a heavy-handed Kremlin operation, a Bolshevik-like state seizure of private property that had little to do with the debt of Media-MOST, NTV’s parent company, and everything to do with instituting censorship on national television and strengthening Putin’s vertical power structure.

“The attack [on NTV] was an attack on the most powerful lever of democracy — independent television,” satirist Viktor Shenderovich, one of the shining stars of the old NTV, said on April 14 on Ekho Moskvy radio.

“After NTV was destroyed, private property rights, independent judiciary, free elections and the right to assembly were also destroyed,” he said.

Indeed, the government seizure of NTV was followed several years later by the seizure of Yukos.

A strong link can be drawn between the lack of private national television in Russia today and the country’s increasing corruption, lawlessness and declining infrastructure.

Just as the State Duma is no longer a place for discussion, the same is true for state-controlled television. Turn on NTV today, and all that you are likely to see are films, sitcoms and serials — the proverbial “bread and circuses” for the masses. NTV has nothing like Shenderovich’s “Kukly,” known for its sharp parody of Kremlin leaders; Svetlana Sorokina’s “Glas Naroda” talk show; or Yevgeny Kiselyov’s “Itogi” program, known for its sharp commentary.

Although many questioned the objectivity of the old NTV, it at least offered an alternative viewpoint not seen today. Perhaps Leonid Parfyonov, an outstanding journalist fired from NTV in 2004, said it best in late November when he accepted the Vladislav Listyev Prize for journalism. “National television information services have become part of the government. … This isn’t information anymore; this is PR or anti-PR by the authorities.”

This explains why today’s television news is disturbingly deja vu for those who remember the drab, propagandistic Soviet news, which also had a conspicuously servile tone and showed more protocol reports than real news. It also explains, for example, why recent terrorist attacks in Moscow and even former President Boris Yeltsin’s death were first reported several hours after they occurred; it takes that long to get final approval from the powers that be on how “best” to present breaking news.

After the change in management, several NTV journalists joined government-controlled television, while others are working at the smaller Ren-TV. Some of the more outspoken Kremlin critics, however, have had difficulty finding a place on the Russian airwaves. For example, Kiselyov is in “exile” in Ukraine, where he has a television show similar to “Itogi.” Sorokina and Shenderovich have moved to Gazprom-Media-controlled Ekho Moskvy, an indication that at least some freedom of speech is still allowed.

Nonetheless, all three journalists are purportedly on an unofficial “blacklist” for NTV and the two other state-controlled television stations, Channel One and Rossia-1 — as are leading liberal journalists such as Yulia Latynina, opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Garry Kasparov, rock singer Yury Shevchuk and many others who appeared regularly on the old NTV.

By sidelining some of Russia’s most talented and creative journalists and politicians, Putin and his advisers have shown that they are not only excellent students of Leninism but also Stalinism: No private television, no problem.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY NATIONAL POST, CANADA

Babies & boards

Perhaps Simon Murray, the recently appointed chairman of mining and commodity-trading giant Glencore International AG, was mountaineering -one of his many macho hobbies -when then Harvard president Lawrence Summers drew modern liberal wrath in 2005 by suggesting that there might be biological reasons for women being "underrepresented" at the highest levels of math and physics.

Mr. Murray must have been unfamiliar with the uproar, because otherwise he would surely not have allowed himself to comment on corporate board quotas for women, as he did in an interview with last weekend's Sunday Telegraph.

The refreshingly outspoken 71-year-old Mr. Murray, who is less than two weeks into his new job, outraged the U.K.'s sensitive classes not for his attack on "economically shambolic" and EU-dominated Blighty, with its spoon-fed entitlements. He started straying into dangerous territory around the time he said, "When I was a boy, our heroes were Livingstone and Nelson." He should have thrown in Florence Nightingale. Mr. Murray then proceeded to put his blind eye to the public relations telescope when asked his view on enforcing quotas for women in the boardroom, as recommended in a recent U.K. report.

"Women in the boardroom?" he responded. "Terrific. Why not? Always welcome. But why make a special case out of it? Why tell everybody you've got to have X number of women in the boardroom?" Having made this controversial -although entirely valid -point, he stepped into Summers land by declaring of women that "they're not so ambitious in business as men because they've better things to do. Quite often they like bringing up their children and all sorts of other things." He then said "Pregnant ladies have nine months off."

Mr. Murray seems to have missed the memo that any suggestion that pregnancy or child rearing might have any impact on a woman's career choice, or on a firm's productivity, is now utterly taboo. Similarly, the notion that men might tend to be more prepared to commit themselves to the long hours and demanding schedules of corporate ladder climbing, and thus wind up "overrepresented," is unmentionable.

The ululating eunuchs of political correctness were soon bearing down on Mr. Murray. British Business Secretary Vince Cable declared "I think his comments show an extremely primitive attitude and are completely unacceptable.. His views are so bad they almost sound like a wind-up [a deliberate joke provocation]."

Similarly highly dudgeoned was former British trade minister Lord Davies, producer of the aforementioned report on the paucity of women directors (Discovering that only one in 12 British board members was a woman, Lord Davies demanded that companies make one-quarter of their directors women by 2015, otherwise quotas might be coming). "For someone of his stature to be making those comments is unforgivable," hyperventilated Lord Davies. "They are comments from 20 or 30 years ago." They were ideological bell-bottom pants!

Sir Roger Carr, chairman of Centrica PLC, rushed into the fray to demonstrate his own stout feminist credentials -and how far the glass-ceiling issue had destroyed people's ability to think logically. "Simon Murray's comments frankly just miss the point," said Sir Roger. "In the past few years there has been an awakening about why women on boards are a good thing."

But didn't Mr. Murray say that women in the boardroom was "terrific?" What he said was that quotas were a bad idea. Plus the unmentionable baby thing.

Mr. Murray rapidly saw the error of his views. "I apologize for any offence caused by my comments regarding the role of women in business," he grovelled. "I'm 100% committed to equal opportunities in the boardroom and across a company's structure be they private or public. Businesses which fail to address the underrepresentation of women at all levels will be at a competitive disadvantage."

But what dinosaur could not be committed to equal opportunities for women? The issue is whether equal opportunities are likely to lead to "underrepresentation," which is a much thornier issue. Mr. Murray's real offence was to suggest that biology might make a difference.

Major potential investors have raised flags over the timing of Glencore's mammoth planned US$60-billion public offering, the nature of the shares being offered, the composition of the board, and even of the timing of the appointment of Mr. Murray, but they haven't suggested that the absence of women from the board -at least for the moment -is likely to be a problem. Nor is it evidence of systemic prejudice.

Despite the anachronistic presence of both dinosaurs and cavemen in executive suites, the market punishes those who allow gender or other biases to prevent them hiring the best people for any job. It also presumably punishes those who adopt quota systems to be politically correct.

How many women should be on boards? As many as are qualified, inclined and invited. That number is likely to increase over time, but enforced "parity" is a mistaken, even noxious, notion.

Patti Hausmann has pointed out that women are in general less fascinated than men with "ohms, carburetors or quarks." Perhaps they tend to be less interested in the thickets of corporate governance and threats of directorial jail time too.

Many boards are in fact desperate to find qualified -and interested -women. However, as Mr. Murray said, quotas are a mistake. His problem was that he should never have brought up babies.

The perils of protest votes

Until this week, the Conservatives' coalition warnings focused on the dangers of a Liberal-led government, propped up by the separatist Bloc Québécois. But what if a coalition government were led not by the Liberals, but by the NDP? Given the opinion polls that show the NDP running strong with the Liberals in English Canada, and with the BQ in Quebec, such a scenario is no longer out of the question.

What would an NDP-led coalition mean for Canada? Instead of playing second fiddle to the Liberals, NDP policies would stand front and centre. These include a spate of anti-business measures such as capping credit card interest rates, hiking corporate tax rates and throwing up barriers to foreign investment. The impact of such policies on Canada's economy would be disastrous, not only in the long term, but immediately, as they would send a signal to international markets that Canada is no longer open for business. The strong Canadian dollar, our favourable credit rating and efforts of previous government to open foreign markets would all be put at risk, resulting in a weaker economy, slower growth and reduced job creation.

It is understandable that many Canadians, fatigued by Parliament's bickering and gamesmanship, would want to register a protest vote. It is also understandable that non-separatist Quebec voters would eventually drift away from the Bloc. But given the way the numbers are starting to add up, voting for the NDP will be more than just a symbolic gesture of protest: It could serve to elect a government with an agenda far to the left of anything Canada has seen since the Trudeau era. The Canadians now flocking to the NDP would be well-served to ask themselves whether these are the policies they really want for their country.

An insult to our intelligence

For many years, Elections Canada has banned the broadcast of regional election results before polls are closed on the West coast. This policy always has been baseless and silly. But in the age of Facebook and Twitter, it is utterly indefensible.

If you live in St. John's or Montreal or Etobicoke or Winnipeg, and on Monday night you have the audacity to tweet your followers with the results from your riding before voters in Vancouver and Victoria finish casting their ballots, you will be liable for a fine of up to $25,000, and imprisonment -yes, imprisonment -of up to five years.

We are not making this up. It is actually the law. Not in Belarus. But in Canada.

If you post a regional election result on your Facebook wall -even something as innocuous as, "The NDP is on its way to a landslide win in Outremont" -Elections Canada may lay charges, even if only a single Facebook friend or Twitter follower can see the posting. In recent days, the agency's officials have gone out of their way to warn Canadians explicitly about using social media for this purpose.

For more than 70 years, it has been the paternalistic belief of our national election regulators that posting the results from one time zone before the results are available from all times zones is unfair to those in the West. The underlying presumption is that voters are too feeble-minded to make up their own minds about how to vote if they know the results from other regions first.

When the Supreme Court upheld the "premature communications" ban in 2007, Justice Rosalie Abella wrote the dissenting opinion. The majority of justices were wrong, she argued, to prevent ordinary Canadians from posting early results online because "there is only speculative and unpersuasive evidence to support the government's claim that the information imbalance is of sufficient harm to voter behaviour or perceptions of electoral unfairness that it outweighs any damage done to a fundamental and constitutionally protected right" of free expression. We don't usually agree with Justice Abella (a left-wing Ontario appointee once described as Canada's "quota queen"). But in this case, she was bang on.

The irony is that this policy gets ignored all the time -by American-based bloggers, for instance, who are out of the grasp of Elections Canada's legal reach. So people who really want early election results can get them. And on Monday night, there no doubt will be many Canadian social-media users who post early regional election results because they don't know the practice is illegal. Meanwhile, reputable media outlets will obey the law, and be penalized as a result.

The "premature communications" ban is a violation of free speech rights, an insult to Canadians' collective intelligence and an obsolete vestige of a dirigiste nanny-state. It should be scrapped as the first order of business of whoever wins Monday's election.

EDITORIAL : THE KOREA HERALD, SOUTH KOREA

Pressure for talks

Pressure is mounting on South Korea to resume dialogue with North Korea and withdraw opposition to resuming denuclearization talks in the absence of Pyongyang’s apology for its earlier unprovoked hostilities. As Winston Churchill famously said, jaw-jaw is always better than war-war. But what if the North Korean communists do not abandon the idea of war-war while in talks?

North Korea has been knocking at the door for the resumption of talks at all levels only to be spurned by the South, which demands inter-Korean dialogue be preceded by apologies for the torpedoing of a South Korean corvette in March last year and the shelling of a South Korean island in November. While denying any responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan warship, North Korea claims it bombarded Yeonpyeong Island off its western coast in self-defense.

It does not take genius to guess what Pyongyang is ultimately aiming at. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is visiting Pyongyang now, spoke for the North Koreans when he said, “The World Food Program reports that the distribution of food to the people in North Korea has been dropped from 1,400 calories per day to about 700 calories per day, and that’s an average. So it’s a horrible situation there that we hope to help induce other countries to alleviate, including South Korea, which has cut off all supplies of food materials to the North Koreans.”

Indeed, South Korea has cut off food aid, and Carter apparently knows why. If the food situation is as dire as he says, is he willing to advise Pyongyang to apologize for the unprovoked acts of hostility and promise not to engage in any similar acts again? That is what he needs to do, as the U.S. government did, before calling on South Korea to resume food aid.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner was right when he said earlier in the month, “We’ve seen a steady pattern of belligerent behavior on the part of North Korea. So we need to see a clear and decisive move in the opposite direction before we can talk about next steps.” As he said, inter-Korean rapprochement should be an “essential first step” for the U.S. government’s diplomatic engagement with the North. It goes without saying the initiative in this regard must be taken by the North.

But South Korea may not be wholly satisfied with the United States, which, the spokesman said, does not demand a North Korean apology as a precondition for the six-party nuclear talks. In this regard, the United States shares much with China, whose idea is to promote talks between the chief South and North Korean nuclear negotiators, bilateral Pyongyang-Washington dialogue and then the full-fledged denuclearization talks.

But the question is whether or not China secured any commitment from the North Koreans to taking concrete action with regard to the U.S. demands before dispatching its chief nuclear negotiator, Wu Dawei, to Seoul on Tuesday on a mission to pave the way for the six-party talks. It may have done so, given that Wu met with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan in Beijing on April 11.

South Korea may not have to boycott the proposal to hold the denuclearization talks, just because the North refuses to apologize, if the United States and China are as enthusiastic about them as they appear. It may choose to attend the talks while putting off bilateral dialogue until its demands are met.

At the moment, passive participation would suffice for South Korea, given that it does not want self-imposed diplomatic isolation. Such strategic passivity, however, would not diminish its role in promoting denuclearization. Who else could provide the North with massive food and other types of aid, as South Korea had done until recently?

 

EDITORIAL : THE AZZAMAN, IRAQ

Iraq’s Ministry of Education to appoint 10,000 new teachers

The Ministry of Education has added 10,000 newly created posts to accommodate graduates of teacher training colleges and institutes in the country.

It is not clear how many graduates have applied to assume the new posts, but the fact that the ministry will resort to lottery to decide who to choose means that the number of applicants is more than the jobs available.

Early this year, the ministry had filled 10,000 more vacancies. The addition of 10,000 new posts is believed to be part of government policies to absorb unemployed Iraqis, namely young people.

There is a shortage of school buildings and teachers in Iraq. The number of school entities is much higher than the number of physical school buildings.

One school building might house three different schools.

Teachers were badly paid in Iraq before the fall of President Saddam Hussein in 2003. Teacher monthly salaries could hardly buy two trays of eggs as on average a teacher received 10,000 dinars (approx. $4) a month.

Teachers today receive what many believe to be a decent salary of about 300,000 (approx. $250).

EDITORIAL : RFI english, FRANCE

 

 

French press review

 

 

Is Bashar al-Assad a serial killer? Who will win the cheese wars? What about the big cheeses of France's Socialist Party? And are you clever for intelligence tests?

Libération's front-page headline is an out-and-out condemnation of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

The paper calls him "a serial killer", the inside story recaling the 1982 repression of a rebellion in the city of Hama. Back then, the murders were being perpetrated by Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, and an estimated 20,000 people lost their lives.

Like father, like son, says Libé, suggesting that the current army crackdown in Deraa follows the same logic of state terrorism.

Libé says that Washington and Paris are beginning to lose patience with Assad and his bullyboys, but that a Libyan-style military intervention is not on the horizon.

The problem, according to Libération's editorial, is that the Western powers are already up to their collective necks in open-ended attempts to fix other people's problems, that Syria is a key element in that dubious entity, Middle Eastern stability, and that Mad Mahmoud and the maniacs in Iran are deft manipulators of unrest.

There's a Franco-Italian cheese war looming. According to business daily Les Echos, the French dairy monster, Lactalis, is trying to snap up the Italian conglomerate known as Parmalat.
The price of nearly three and a half billion euros is considered a snip by industry insiders, but the take-over is being valliantly resisted by the Italians.

If the deal is finally forced through, the combined weight of Lactalis and Parmalat will see the new combination push Danone into third place in the global dairy trade league table, with the Nestlé empire, with an annual turnover of 16 billion euros, continuing to dominate.

There's trouble brewing in the French Socialist Party too, a "big cheese" war if you like, though that's not strictly news.

As right-wing Le Figaro is delighted to point out, the sudden appearance of François Hollande as a serious contender is upsetting the triumphant return to local politics of party heavyweight, Dominique Strauss-Khan.

If you've ever done badly in an intelligence test, there's consoling news on the front page of this morning's Figaro.

According to the very serious American National Acadermy of Science, you probably did badly because you were too smart.

Studies of 2,000 American youngsters have shown that the really clever ones are so demotivated by intelligence tests, which they find mind-numbingly stupid, that they naturally do badly.

And, sadly, when quite moderate kids do very well in the tests, they tend to take themselves for geniuses, and do even less work, ensuring that they slip further behind, despite being among the, officially, most intelligent.

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.

Tuesday’s headlines

KAYHAN: It is a misconception that Majlis and administration should adopt different approaches, Leader says

SHARQ: Ayatollah Javadi Amoli says the country cannot be run by oil sale

HEMAYAT: Judiciary Chief Larijani insists on respecting the rights of religious minorities

TAFAHOM: House rent contract to be concluded for two-year period

JAVAN: Judiciary spokesman says the insults by Faezeh Hashemi to be pursued legally

TEHRAN-E EMROOZ: Deputy minister for cinematic affairs cancels actor’s over 1 million dollar contract

HAMSHAHRI: The central bank governor says we will bring down the gold coin prices within two days

KHORASAN: 6 persons behind abandonment of patients in farmland around Tehran arrested, announces Tehran prosecutor general

QODS: Five-sided agreement to connect Central Asia to Persian Gulf

FARHIKHTEGAN: Passengers at back seats are obliged to fasten seat belts

MELAT MA: Statistics by International Monetary Fund are not reliable, economy minister says

Leading articles

IRAN in a news report quotes Iran’s ambassador to Berlin Alireza Sheikh Attar as saying Iran feels more comfortable in holding dialogue with Germany in comparison with other European countries. He said Germany can convey Iran’s viewpoints to the West and also convey the views of the Western countries to Iran. However, he said, this doesn’t mean mediation, rather it means that Iran can have better dialogue with one of the members of the European Union and feels more comfortable with it. Calling Germany, Britain, and France the three major members of the European Union, the ambassador said at times differences surface between Germany and other EU members over Iran, but sometimes Berlin accepts decisions taken by the EU against its will. Sheikh Attar said relations between Tehran and Berlin has improved in recent months, citing telephone conversations between the Iranian and German foreign ministers and also Guido Westerwelle’s short visit to Tehran in last February. Pointing to the historical relationship between the two countries, the ambassador said Germany has had a great share in developing Iran’s economic infrastructures. On cooperation between the two countries in Afghanistan, he said the security situation in Afghanistan has provided a potential for cooperation between Iranian and German companies.

TEHRAN-E EMROOZ in a news report quotes Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi as saying Western states should respect the Muslims' holy book Quran, as much as they show interest in maintaining strong ties with the Middle Eastern countries and their oil reserves. Firouzabadi says, “Obama should clarify his position toward those who desecrate the Quran.” Commenting on the recent popular uprisings in the region, Firouzabadi said through the “awakening movement” the regional nations will soon gain their independence and dignity. If Obama and other U.S. officials, who regard themselves as conscientious, want to give the U.S. a chance to survive, they must pay attention to the only option left, which is cutting the military budget and ceasing to provide unlimited financial aid to Israel, paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

EDITORIAL : THE BANGKOK POST, THAILAND

Stop fidgeting about nuclear

The United Nations body charged with oversight of nuclear energy has given the government cover to continue to delay and obfuscate its lack of a real energy plan. The International Atomic Energy Agency commented briefly on Thailand last month, saying the country was lacking in two vital areas needed to start any serious move to building nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Governments have done a poor job in informing the country about the issue, and then done virtually nothing to set up clear laws and regulatory bodies, it said. The IAEA is right, but the government is seeking to cover its own errors by citing the UN group.

On Monday, the Energy Ministry breathed a sigh of figurative relief. Secretary-general Boonsong Kerdklang of the Energy Policy and Planning Office made a now-familiar proposal. The country should delay plans for the first two nuclear plants from 2020 to 2023. Mr Boonsong cited the IAEA's report as justification to postpone the nuclear issue for another three years _ when most of today's senior officials will likely not be around to make tough decisions.

Mr Boonsong could have been taking his cue directly from his Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul and from Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Both men, in recent weeks, have discovered that they are actually opposed to nuclear power for Thailand in the short term. For his part, Mr Abhisit revealed that he had decided to speak out on this matter because of the problems at the Fukushima reactor in Japan. Before that, the premier had played along with the policy of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to build and turn on nuclear generators by 2020.

These leading voices know that the decision to ''go nuclear'' requires years to move from announcement to completion. They also know that the IAEA is entirely correct in its gentle criticism. Instead of making the decisions that spring from the brief UN recommendation, however, officials all the way to the top of the government are simply delaying. Mr Abhisit has said he will not propose nuclear energy as part of the government's policy _ but neither will he take the action necessary to reject the nuclear option.

It must be noted that the government has tried to have it both ways with the other main electricity generating issue as well. Ministers and officials alike want the credit for opposing the Xayaburi dam in Laos as a danger to the environment and downstream residents. They also want the credit for backing construction of the dam because it will bring more cheap energy to the country. Laos has stated that it will continue construction on the hydroelectric project. Vietnam and Cambodia have strongly and publicly opposed it. Mr Abhisit's government, by refusing to state its policy and preferences, has effectively supported the dam but without displaying the gumption to say so.

The nuclear issue is a politically charged one. To call it ''controversial'' would be an understatement. Nuclear power is clean, but even minor mishaps _ let alone the Fukushima-scale disasters _ cause major public fear. It is beyond doubt that successive Thai governments have ignored their responsibility to inform citizens about nuclear power. But it is doubtful whether education could ever convince the country to accept this technology.

Instead of pushing the decision another three years down the road, the prime minister must enunciate a clear energy policy. As oil prices rise, the band-aid solution of oil and gas subsidies cannot be sustained. The government needs to come to grips with the demand for energy, including electricity.

EDITORIAL : THE INDEPENDENT, IRELAND

Many to blame for new €600m levy

THE Quinn family, headed by Sean Quinn, is entitled to the view expressed in its statement yesterday that a profitable insurance company was taken from it by the banks and Financial Regulator and turned into a loss-making one, for which all insurance customers will now pay.

The facts seem to speak otherwise.

Nevertheless, the Quinn view may well receive a sympathetic hearing, as everyone with a non-life policy faces the prospect of paying for at least €600m in losses at Quinn Insurance. There will be even more of a sympathetic disposition among the many hundreds whose jobs and incomes depended on the Quinn operations.

That is understandable, but it is hard to understand how anyone could say that Quinn Insurance was managed well when the family was in control. Quinn's selection of investments for its customers' premiums was anything but prudent. The reduction in the value of those investments means they will not be able to cover expected claims; hence the large losses.

The giving of guarantees -- backed in effect by customer premiums -- for other Quinn ventures was inexcusable and knocked another hole in the insurance company's finances. Mr Quinn has admitted that was an error and apologised. But it was an error of such magnitude as to cast doubt on his fitness to be in charge of other people's money.

That these things were allowed to happen was another blatant failure of regulation for which ordinary people will pay. Levies were first applied almost 30 years ago, to protect customers of two failed insurance companies. But the small consolation rapidly evaporates when one realises the money was then used as a form of taxation to cover government spending. Almost a billion euro was collected in the last decade when there were no insurance losses to cover.

Failed regulation, failed government control of spending, and deliberately obscure government accounting are a sorry tale stretching back all those years. We cannot agree with the defence mounted by Mr Quinn and his family, but it is the case that he is not the only one to blame.

Ministers cannot forget why they were elected

EVEN by the standards of civil service flummery, the reply received by this newspaper from Ruairi Quinn's Department of Education about public relations contract for the training agency FAS fair takes the breath away.

It bears little or no relation to the 15 questions asked by the Irish Independent about the awarding of the six-figure contract to the agency Fleishman Hillard, whose head of consulting, Mark Mortell, is close to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and an architect of Fine Gael's election campaign.

Mr Quinn did not award the contract, which was made by the outgoing Government on election day. Some will see that as odd in itself, but the real oddity is why FAS was held to need an outside PR consultant at all.

The Coalition programme for government says the disgraced training agency will be abolished. The curt answer from the department is not nearly as specific, saying that Mr Quinn is "reviewing options" an answer which will raise suspicions about another policy U-turn.

Frank replies about how the contract was awarded would help deal with both the puzzle over the purposes behind it, as well as the growing fear that, after just two months, coalition ministers are being captured by departments whose main purpose will be to preserve the swollen empires they built up in the bubble years.

A greater fear is that ministers have already forgotten -- if they ever fully understood -- the reasons for their landslide victory. That was the desperate yearning for the country to be governed in a radically different way from the grubby subterfuges of Fianna Fail and Irish officialdom.

EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

Making a start in India

THERE needs to be a wider crackdown on corruption.

Given the extent to which corruption and graft pervade India from womb to tomb, as it is frequently said, it is going to take more than the arrest of Delhi Commonwealth Games chief Suresh Kalmadi to convince sceptics that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is finally showing some spine on the issue. Though regarded as incorruptible himself -- a rarity in India, where a third of parliamentarians face corruption charges -- Dr Singh's record in dealing with graft brings him little credit.

Recently, he backed away from appointing a new head of the Central Vigilance Commission only after the Supreme Court intervened to block his nominee because of long-standing corruption charges. He showed reluctance in dealing with his former telecommunications minister, arrested over the sale of 3G telecom licences estimated to have cost a staggering $40 billion in lost revenue. He was unmoved by recent disclosures of MPs handed millions of dollars in bribes before a major confidence vote on which his government's survival depended. To his credit, he has now agreed to push through a delayed plan for a Lokpal, a powerful new anti-corruption watchdog. But this came only after massive displays of public support emerged, especially among younger Indians sickened by their country's reputation, for a hunger strike by the Gandhian anti-graft campaigner Anna Hazare.

Kalmadi is an easy target. The Commonwealth Games, though they turned out fairly well in the end, were a national embarrassment. Even now, many service providers, including Australian companies, are waiting to be paid. Millions of dollars are owed and Australian and European diplomats in Delhi, in a joint letter, warned recently of the serious damage this is doing to the country's reputation. The consultancy firm KPMG has reported that corruption in India is now costing the economy billions of dollars and threatening growth prospects. Foreign investors fed up with the constantly outstretched hands and incessant demands for bribes are being driven away.

Dr Singh knows what that means. Dealing with the Commonwealth Games organisers is a start. But there needs to be a far wider crackdown to change age-old national habits before India can be accorded the place it believes it deserves in the global community.

Labor must take control of this crisis in detention

GOVERNMENT dithers instead of acting to deter boat arrivals.

Crisis has enveloped Australia's border security regime and as we watch the government lurch from denial to panic it is difficult to avoid the conclusion it is simply refusing to take control of the situation. People smugglers are deciding which asylum-seekers make the perilous journey to Australia; the number of arrivals dictates the need to construct detention centres in every state; and some of the detainees themselves have destroyed these facilities, escaped from others and challenged the government's processes and authority.

While Julia Gillard and her ministers mock Tony Abbott's pledge to "stop the boats", the Prime Minister herself said "my aim is to stop the boats before they leave foreign shores". On the face of it, stopping the boats is a bipartisan policy and election pledge voters expect to be honoured. The policy paralysis that sees the Gillard government seemingly doing nothing to bring about that end is inexplicable. The only policy it has proffered to deter the influx of boats is the farcical East Timor processing centre. The government's other actions are all designed simply to try to cope with the relentless arrivals. It is only now -- with buildings burnt, protests dragging out and panic setting in -- that Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is trying to change some rules. And, again, this is not designed to deter people seeking a place on a boat but rather to help manage the disaffected people already in detention.

The Australian shares the frustration of the public. Despite all the warnings and demands for action, the government continues to dither and we continue to see scores of people, including asylum-seekers, detention centre workers and emergency services personnel, placed in distress and sometimes in peril. We welcome the belated action from Mr Bowen to ensure those responsible for riots, violence and vandalism have their quest for permanent residency rejected, so they can either be deported or, if they are refugees, offered only temporary protection. Our concern, however, is that this initiative smacks of a stop-gap solution to deal with the consequences of a system at breaking point.

For all the toughness of the previous government, and all the criticism it endured, it put an end to the people-smuggling trade. Then, as leading refugee advocate Robert Manne has admitted, Labor softened our border protection regime and let the genie back out of the bottle. It is shameful that nearly 7000 asylum-seekers are now in detention. We also support a doubling of our orderly refugee intake along with tough measures to prevent boat arrivals. Any serious attempt to restore order must involve disincentives to boat arrivals by creating uncertainty about the people smugglers' prized product -- permanent residency. So Labor should immediately resume overseas processing at Nauru or Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and consider reinstating a form of temporary visas for all boat arrivals -- both measures it scrapped in 2008.

If the only reason the Prime Minister won't contemplate these measures is because they are part of the Howard government legacy, she ought to get over that hang-up and implement a policy overhaul that once again gives Australia a border protection regime that works.

Premier versus Commissioner

VICTORIA needs its senior law enforcement tensions resolved.

Australian political history shows the fraught nature of the relationship between premiers and police commissioners -- in various states, both premiers and commissioners have suffered dire consequences from falling out. So the testy posturing between Victoria's Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland, and Premier Ted Baillieu could have significant ramifications.

Just over two years ago, eyebrows were raised when then premier John Brumby and his police minister provided a picture opportunity pinning the insignia to the uniformed shoulders of their newly appointed top cop. This was seen by many police, lawyers and politicians as less than the requisite healthy detachment between senior police and politicians. Overland, from day one, was perceived as being close to the Labor government. He assiduously courted media coverage and contacts as he established a high profile. But now, facing difficulties, he has complained and instituted media bans, including against top-rating morning radio host Neil Mitchell.

The commissioner's relationship with the Liberal Baillieu government quickly has become strained, with the Premier effectively putting him on notice to lift his game. Overland has been dogged by controversy over various issues, from claims his releasing of intelligence undermined a murder investigation to suggestions he has not sufficiently distanced the Office of Police Integrity from the police force itself. Now he is confronting a range of challenges, including inherited computer problems that have allowed parole breakers to remain at large and allegedly commit murders, difficulties in recruiting increased numbers of officers, allegations that crime statistics have been manipulated and, apparently, severe tensions with some of his most senior staff, including his deputy commissioner Sir Ken Jones. On top of this there is a sense Overland is bunkering down and surrounding himself with allies, including former OPI investigations chief, now assistant commissioner, Graham Ashton and, potentially, current OPI deputy director Paul Jevtovic. Against this backdrop, the Premier has promised to scrap the OPI and establish a new all-powerful anti-corruption body. He has made it clear he expects the commissioner to resolve his many challenges. The onus is now on both men to deliver the right outcomes.

EDITORIAL : THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA

Land control

The Jakarta Post’s two-part reportage on Monday and Tuesday strived to portray the severe impact due to the absence of effective laws on land appropriation on the country’s infrastructure development. A senior official at the National Land Agency (BPN) hinted that the land problems in the country are much more severe and damaging than many people had thought.

This newspaper reported that the House of Representatives is expected to pass a much awaited bill on land acquisition in the near future. The law is urgently needed because many mega infrastructure projects, including toll roads and other public utilities, cannot be realized because landowners demand prices that are too high for their land.

According to the draft bill, the government has the right to evict those on land to be used for public interests such as roads, railways, dams, irrigation canals, ports and airports. A clear compensation mechanism will be set up to ensure the projects and the rights of landowners to payment.

During Soeharto’s 32-year-rule until his fall in May 1998, the government very often resorted to the use of force to take land from people on the pretext of public interest. Many people did not receive anything although their land was used for commercial purposes.

Since 1998, the situation changed dramatically. People often set up their own conditions for the release of their property and chaotic land business become one of the stumbling blocks for the return of foreign investments to Indonesia.

A new equilibrium must be found.

In February, the presidentially sanctioned Judicial Mafia Taskforce announced it had found strong indications of massive corruption in the country’s land management sector. Taskforce member Mas Achmad Santosa urged the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to focus on  the BPN.

“All this time the country has focused on reforming the National Police, prosecutors and the courts. But the land sector is murky as well,” Mas Achmad said.

KPK spokesperson Johan Budi told the Post that his office had looked at graft in the land sector and concluded that the land agency was just as corrupt as other corrupt institutions such as the police.

The KPK’s 2010 Public Sector Integrity Survey, which was conducted between April and August of last year and involved 12,616 respondents in 22 cities, showed that the land agency, which has local offices across the country, failed to reach the KPK’s minimum standards of integrity.

Just go to a BPN office. Bribery and red tape practices are overt and it is nearly impossible to obtain their services, for example land titles, for free as guaranteed by BPN slogans in the front of their offices. Fake land certificates are reportedly often issued by individual officials at the land agency.

But, according to a BPN official, land ownership in the country is dominated by a small group of rich and powerful people. They are untouchable and even worse their control over land is used to obtain cheap banking credit, many of which become problematic loans.

“The government can issue as many as regulations on land, but the mighty law is this small group of powerful businesspeople who practically have the final say on major land policies,” the official recently told this newspaper.

If the official’s claim is true, then the country still has to endure more devastating problems caused by the country’s chaotic land management.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

The time has come

 

Catholic bishops and their priests in the Philippines should really let up on their demonization of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that is now in the House of Representatives, and will, in all likelihood be passed by the Senate.

They can argue until they are blue in the face that human life must always be upheld, even when this particular issue has no bearing on the use of contraceptives that are, in reality, not abortifacients, since these prevent conception — which means no meeting of the sperm and the egg, and therefore, no fertilization and no conception, which means no human life has formed or has been destroyed.

The bishops argue too, that with the passage of the RH bill, there will follow the passage of “immoral bills” such as divorce, that will destroy the institution of marriage and destroy too, the lives of children of a wrecked marriage through divorce, which is also a no-no in the Catholic Church.

Yet these same bishops cannot seem to explain, except in doctrinal terms, the fact that through their nullity of the marriage bond, which is annulment in civil terms, the outcome is the same: The marriage bond is dissolved and the lives of the children of that union, now nullified by the Church, should logically also be destroyed, because in essence, the Church sanctioned nullity declaration is no different from civil annulments and even in instances, no different from divorce.

As a matter of fact, the Church does allow the “innocent spouse” who brought charges against the other, the right to marry again — by the Church. The only reason such a second marriage blessed by the Church cannot be deemed bigamous by the state is that no second wedding license from the state is secured in a second Church-blessed wedding. The state sees this as adultery while the Church sees it as a blessed in heaven cohabitation.

The point really is, if the Church sanctioned nullity declaration is “blessed” in heaven and is not deemed immoral by the Church itself, why then should state divorces, in the eyes of the Church, be deemed immoral?

For that matter, in preventing pregnancies the Church-sanctioned way, which is hardly reliable — why should the Church method not be deemed immoral, when both contraceptives and the Church sanctioned methods also have the goal of preventing unwanted pregnancies?

Is it because one is a natural method, while the other, a more reliable way of preventing pregnancies, is artificial?

The bishops can never prove their claim that the artificial contraceptives, such as the condoms, or the pills are abortifacients as both prevent conception. Yet they insist on these artificial contraceptives as being abortifacients, and therefore no different from engaging in abortion.

But what is immoral to the Church is not necessarily immoral and illegal in the eyes of state. And frankly, if the local bishops stop interfering in the affairs of the state, there would be more harmony in society.

Not even the Pope blasts the Italian government and the Catholic Italians for having a divorce law, or even blasts at the easy access of the people to contraceptives. Why then do the local bishops and their priests try to be more popish than the Pope?

Perhaps the reason the local Catholic Church leaders and their faithful supporters insist on getting what they want from government is that this makes it much easier for them to impose their religious beliefs on the entire nation— many of whom are merely nominal Catholics, plus of course, others who do not embrace the Catholic faith, such as the Muslims and Protestants — than to be closer to their flock, get to know their thoughts and problems, then try and convince them that the ways of the Church are sacred and must be followed religiously, if they are good Catholics.

And the faithful, if the bishops don’t know it yet, are turned off by bishops and priests who threaten them with hellfire. That no longer works.

There is a time for everything, it is always said, and it is now the time for the passage of the RH bill.

EDITORIAL : THE NEW STRAITS TIMES, MALAYSIA

Out of step

ILL-CONSIDERED pronouncements of haram by religious leaders have a way of putting Malaysia on the map, on the world's TV screens and in newspapers and news websites everywhere -- but for the wrong reasons. Such was the case with the recent outlawing of the line dance poco poco to Muslims in Perak. That the mufti's ruling was disputed by his counterpart in Kelantan and the former Perlis mufti is justification enough to call for a more stringent consultation with specialists, both religious and secular, before any public announcements are made. Premature edicts can lend themselves to ridicule and opens the ulama who make them to mockery. Islam is more democratic and less autocratic than the Perak mufti implies with his unilateral decision. Islamic law, after all, rests for the better part on consensus among experts (ijma), based on informed judgment.

As it was with the controversy surrounding the fatwa on yoga, much is made about the vulnerability of the faith of Muslims. Yoga, with its Indian origins, is alleged to be Hindu in form and function -- never mind the fact that it has become so popularised and internationalised as to lose any and all religious meaning. Poco poco, meanwhile, is accused of a Christian heritage, although there have also been claims of its provenance in harvest festivals in Indonesia. By a simple leap of ignorance, it is argued that Muslim practitioners are susceptible to backsliding, even though the jig itself may not directly offend religion. Unlike with yoga, this time, some good sense intervened. The National Fatwa Council on Friday clarified that poco poco was permissible under the Guidelines on Spiritual Practices in Traditional Malay Dance 2007. As with yoga in general but to a lesser extent, poco poco is an aerobic exercise, not ritual prayer or obeisance. Apart from having some communal fun, staying healthy is the rationale and surely good health is to be encouraged.

Perhaps just as important is the effect of keeping the faithful segregated in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation. Limiting Muslims' socialisation through cultural and entertainment activities can impair integration. Islam speaks of diversity as a positive attribute to facilitate understanding and enlightenment, which brings about progress. Unlike most Muslim countries, Malaysia wants to be, and is known, for its modern brand of Islam. Some ulama conservatives, however, appear determined to turn the collective Muslim mind into a ghetto where souls are under constant threat of diabolical takeover. Thankfully, there are those in the Islamic Development Department who are just as keen on taking Malaysia's ummah to the 21st century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, UK

         

 

Sri Lanka: No-inquiry zone

Truth and accountability are not divisible, and a single failure of international justice is also a collective one

When Richard Goldstone, the judge who headed a UN fact-finding mission to Gaza, partially recanted last month – an act that was disowned by fellow members of the mission – the saga was used as Exhibit A in the case against the UN. The organisation, it was claimed, was so inherently biased against Israel that it lacked the moral authority to investigate it. Where was the Goldstone report about Sri Lanka, some asked?

A UN panel has just produced such a report about the carnage of civilians which took place two years ago when government forces crushed the Tamil Tigers. It is as hard-hitting as anything Goldstone produced, and therefore is just as likely to be shelved. The point is that truth and accountability, let alone international justice, are not divisible. One country's ability to bury the evidence of war crimes endangers how civilians are treated in all other conflicts. A single failure of international justice is also a collective one.

That there is credible evidence that government soldiers targeted civilians, shelled hospitals and attacked aid workers in the final months of the war against the Tamil Tigers is indisputable. That the Tigers used civilians as human shields and shot those attempting to flee the carnage at point-blank range is equally true. Tens of thousands died as a result of these twin brutalities. The zone that the government established in the north-east of the country in the final months of its civil war was an area where savagery was organised on a daily basis. Civilians queueing at a food distribution centre would be shelled while President Mahinda Rajapaksa's office instructed the army to stop what it claimed it had not been doing. It was a no-journalist, no-aid-worker zone, but it was anything but a no-fire zone.

Two years on, the goal has to be to establish an independent inquiry into these events. The Sri Lankan government has consistently opposed the UN, and at one point organised demonstrations against UN staff in Colombo. It has established two ad hoc bodies, but no one has been held accountable. Its supporters claim that anything more trenchant would endanger the peace that has reigned on the island since. All of these arguments are self-serving.

That leaves the UN itself. The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, claims he lacks the authority to order an inquiry into the mass killings without the consent of the Sri Lankan government, which is not a member of the international criminal court, or a decision by an appropriate international forum of member states. Human Rights Watch is right to disagree. Having fought to establish the panel, the UN secretary general has a responsibility to finish what he started.

Higher education: Mess in the marketplace

Some students are finding that this is one market where the customer is always wrong

Slowly but surely, the demand for university continues to grow. Amid tales of woe from unemployed graduates, and even while a demographic dip is making 18-year-olds something of a rare species, new figures from the clearing house Ucas reveal that applications have, once again, crept up. The effect of the great recession, which has greatly swelled the number of hopefuls in the last few years, has been not only sustained but somewhat intensified, with another 2% increase. But hopes may rise and be dashed – if the means to fulfil them do not keep pace. Record numbers who have bought the university dream – youngsters prepared to work hard and be saddled with debts – could be disappointed.

The clustering of English university fees at £9,000 is of obvious significance to would-be students, and is also deeply embarrassing for ministers who had promised that such stratospheric levies would be the exception, not the rule. It is not in itself, however, quite as ruinous for the sector's finances as some over-excited reports suggest. Not every student gets a costly loan to cover their fees, and not every student's fees will be levied at the full whack, thanks to scholarship schemes. Factoring these in, and remembering also that the exchequer will eventually recoup much of the money that it lends out, the budgetary hole that results is measured in millions as opposed to the panicked predictions of billions. Even so, there is a gap, and it admits no room for expansion to meet rising demand. Indeed, with the large budget for scientific research properly protected, it will probably require fresh retrenchment from the freeze on numbers which the coalition has already imposed.

The deepest pangs will afflict those who receive rejection letters over the next few months, but there could also be frustration in store for many getting the green light. After a full quarter-century during which numbers have increased continually and funding only falteringly, universities are already creaking. Few students paying the full price in a market that is rigged against them will be satisfied by the service they receive. Every last crumb of direct support is being removed from the teaching of arts and social sciences, on the strength of the Browne report, a technocratic document which did not contain the word "humanities". Many who stump up the full £9,000 in exchange for a few weekly hours of crowded lectures and photocopied reading lists will soon cotton on to the reality that they are cross-subsidising laboratories and field trips on other courses. The government's big idea is for profit-hungry providers to set up shop, and drive rip-off colleges to the wall. It might work in theory, but it will never do so in practice for as long as the Treasury continues to impose manifold restrictions on the creation of the surplus places this would involve. The new educational market gets tangled up in other ways with the quotas imposed by a cash-strapped Whitehall. The universities that more people would like to attend do not have the freedom to answer that demand, and the old notion that good A-level grades should be a passport to a good college, which is already fading fast, will become a distant memory. Even as students are metamorphosed into paying punters, some are finding that this is one market where the customer is always wrong.

With much of the architecture of the loan system specified in law, there is limited freedom to address its emergent shortcomings. So desperate is the scramble to rescue nice ideas about choice from being entirely drowned in dark financial waters that some people are even asking whether top colleges might start auctioning some share of their places to those English students with the deepest pockets, a previously unthinkable thought that was unthinkable for good reason. The university dream risks souring into a politically poisonous mix of debt and disappointment.

In praise of … the Asian Music Circuit

If the AMC loses its entire £500,000 grant, its good work, unrivalled passion and expertise will stop next spring

A few months ago David Cameron called for different ethnic communities to find out more about each other. However flawed the prime minister's views on multiculturalism might be, this was an excellent suggestion. So why has the Arts Council cut all of its funding to one organisation that has done most to bring different cultures in contact with each other? For the past 20 years the Asian Music Circuit has been bringing over some of the best musicians and dancers from India, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Afghanistan and other Asian countries. The hallmarks of an AMC show are breadth of knowledge, imagination and a touch of wit: they put on jazz concerts featuring Bengali flautists alongside Texan guitarists; they unleash Rajasthani dancers in Kensington Gardens; and when Prince Charles turns up to a performance they greet him with a camel. Such cheek runs alongside a commitment to spreading under-exposed Asian music far and wide. AMC artists play not only in the big cities but from Cornwall to the Hebrides. Asian classical and folk concerts will never make an organiser rich, but the tiny group matches its Arts Council cash with private money. It has opened a museum of Asian music aptly described by the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, as "brilliant". If the AMC loses its entire £500,000 grant, all this good work stops next spring – and what will disappear with it is unrivalled passion and expertise. This is madness. The Arts Council should reconsider – and reverse its decision.