EDITORIAL : THE DIARIO FINANCIERO, CHILE

Oportunidad para renovar el FMI

Las crisis pueden representar una oportunidad y la brusca caída del ex director del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, es una nueva ocasión para demostrarlo.

Desde su creación, la institución ha estado encabezada por un representante europeo, fruto del acuerdo tácito entre Estados Unidos y la UE que deja la presidencia del Banco Mundial en manos de un estadounidense.

Ahora los 24 miembros que componen el Consejo Consultivo del FMI, en representación de los 187 países integrantes, tienen la responsabilidad de nombrar al sucesor de Strauss-Kahn en la que se anticipa como la primera elección reñida por la dirección del organismo. No obstante, la disputa puede terminar sólo en apariencias, porque EEUU y la UE concentran más del 50% del poder de voto y la designación requiere mayoría simple.

Sin embargo, aunque los europeos parecen haber consensuado su respaldo a la actual ministra de Finanzas de Francia, Christine Lagarde, será difícil imponer un nombre considerando la cantidad de candidatos ya en disputa y, en especial, ante la exigencia de los países emergentes que quieren ver reflejado en este cargo su mayor peso en la economía mundial.

Juega en contra de las intenciones de las economías emergentes la falta de consenso en torno a un nombre. A la fecha se han presentado candidatos de México, Kazakastán, Tailandia, Turquía y Chile, entre otros. Pero ello no resta mérito a esta demanda de renovación y mayor protagonismo. El FMI no estuvo a la altura de las circunstancias frente a la crisis financiera y tampoco Europa ofrece hoy un ejemplo sólido a seguir.

EDITORIAL : THE TAIPEI TIMES, TAIWAN

Myth of market modernization

The Taipei City Government will relocate more than 500 food stalls from the Shilin (士林) Night Market food court back to their original building in November when an extensive renovation of the original market complex is completed. Ninety-four of those stalls will be moving into the basement.

Moving part of the night market, a popular tourist destination, into the basement has upset some vendors, who are worried about how their businesses will succeed in the new location. Some of them have refused to cooperate with the city government on the move. In an online protest, thousands of Internet users voiced their opposition in comments on Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) Facebook page.

Hau and his team have made no response to the protests. Instead, the mayor said the Market Administration Office would consult with the vendors, while at the same time telling the officials to “make sure that the relocation is on schedule.” The city government plans to tear down the current food court to construct a contemporary art center.

The night market renovation project began in 2002 when the city government sought to improve the sanitary conditions and structure of the 100-year-old market. Food stalls were moved to their current site across the street from Jiantan MRT Station while their old home was being restored, at a cost of more than NT$630 million (US$20 million).

For many, the Shilin Night Market project bears striking similarities to the 2001 renovation of Jian-cheng Circle. The modernization of the circle was initiated by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his term as Taipei mayor. The old structure was replaced with a two-story cylindrical glass building and reopened in 2003 with about 20 food stalls. Just three years later it closed due to slow business.

When Ma’s team decided to demolish the city landmark, its vendors opposed the idea of moving into a brand new building, fearing that the natural charm of the market would be stripped away in a modern setting. They also complained about the building’s maze-like design and poor ventilation system, which they said created an uninviting atmosphere for the visitors.

For Ma and city officials, however, eating traditional snacks on the bustling streets is not a pleasant dining experience. So, forcing their own opinions onto the public, they insisted that an air-conditioned food court with better sanitary conditions would be more attractive to visitors.

The two projects reflect city officials’ ignorance about night market culture. Their failure to heed the concerns of the vendors smacks of excessive confidence — even arrogance.

Ma blamed the problems of the renovated Jian-cheng Circle on the vendors for failing to adapt their business models. He did not realize that it was his lack of respect for grassroots culture that caused the market to fail.

Hau is no better. Although the Shilin Night Market renovation project was initiated under Ma, Hau has made little effort to change the floor design despite concerns that an underground location would not be appealing.

It is true that many night markets, including the famous ones, are not entirely sanitary. However, eating stinky tofu or pig’s blood cake while wandering through the crowded streets can be far more fun than sitting in a fancy — or not so fancy — restaurant.

EDITORIAL : THE NINE O'CLOCK, ROMANIA

Where is the solidarity?

Many Romanian politicians, regardless of their so-called doctrine orientation, see the state as the main obstacle, if not enemy, against any kind of progress. Even the recently proposed referendum on merging the six districts of Bucharest into a single administrative structure paradoxically started from accusing the centralised stated, which we were told is too weak to put an end to the illegal decisions made at district scale. On the other hand, the same accusers of the state have been complaining for some time about its decentralisation. They want the referendum to be held at the earliest, no matter the price. Isn’t there a contradiction in terms between the two situations? Of course it is, but inconsistence and contradiction are characteristic to Romanian politics.

According to our rulers, it is essential to turn the “numerous” counties into 8-10 regions, which will necessarily include restoring the Autonomous Hungarian Region imposed to Romania by Stalin in 1950.

The role of the late dictator has been taken today by a certain ethnic minority party, whose support is essential for the survival of the fragile ruling coalition. Under the pressure of this despicable blackmail, the recent draft law passed by the Chamber of Deputies about teaching History and Geography exclusively in the Romanian language at school has sparked acute political contradictions and inconsistencies these days. Together, they form a massive and coordinated attack against the state, seen as an oppressive entity.

The Romanian state is accused of dissimulating all the errors and crimes committed by our political rulers. All thefts from the public wealth are blamed on the state itself; the devastation of forests, the destruction of the ecological balance at country scale represents just one of the many negative consequences of this anti-state attitude. Various anachronisms and intrigues are invoked in support of the politically motivated effort of returning the forest to its many owners before the 1948 nationalisation, which would once again split forest into countless small plots. Yet, everybody seems to ignore the recent nationalisation of forests in Western Europe, precisely with the purpose of protecting ecosystems.

But the suffering does not stop at just the material wealth of Romania. Its spiritual wealth too has much to suffer from the indecent accusations brought against the state. Even our national solidarity has come under fire, with its main pillars – Romanian language and culture – along with democracy and the rule of law. As long as it is led by a Parliament and an administrative structure that were created on democratic basis, the Romanian state cannot make the object of accusations. Yes, there were mistakes, with more or less serious consequences, but these were the results of decision made by corrupt and incompetent rulers. The best way to correct these consequences consists in strengthening the authority of the state, instead of weakening it.

A democratic state like today’s Romania should be oppressive only with those who despise and infringe the institutional framework. Laws cannot be partial, individualised to the benefit of certain people. The so-called “positive discrimination” is nonsense with this regard. In order to be useful, laws need coherence, integrity and a strong state capable of enforcing them of a correct and systematic manner. Without the authority of the state, centrifugal forces will disintegrate the state under our very eyes. If it is really meant to create value, even administrative decentralisation implies strengthening, not weakening the authority of the state, as a factor of balance and a unbiased stimulant.

Such principles are widely present and enforced in Western countries, but in Romania they make politicians and so-called “elitists” frown. Some time ago, I attended the conference held by a reputed expert at the German Cultural Institute of Bucharest. The guest – Dr. Honoris Causa Hans-Peter Schneider, the head of the Institute for the Research of Federalism, of the Hanover University – had been invited to speak about the experience of German federalism. I can remember very well the shock felt by Romanian politicians and “elitists” present at the event when the reputed expert made an appeal for the organic development of the state. It is well known that, during times of transition, centrifugal trends should give precedence to a centralised, national solidarity, he explained. History has demonstrated that organic development is a road from federalism to strong national states, and any reversal of this trend leads to chaos, the German expert warned.

Western countries were able to avoid financial and economic chaos precisely by strengthening the role of state, sometimes even by transferring under state control the financial entities threatened by bankruptcy. Is this against the free initiative of individuals? Not at all! On the contrary, it is just an appeal to reason, organic development and national solidarity, hence to boosting and widening the creative role of the state. In America and Western Europe, politicians were able to overcome their momentary individual interests and unite for the sake of fundamental national and global interests. The huge sums provided by various nations to solve the most urgent economic and social problems worldwide will bring countless benefits under the umbrella of the general fundamental interest. This interest was appreciated as the only certain salvation of the countries worst hit by the crisis, like Greece, Ireland, Portugal a.s.o.

With things going like this at global scale, what is Romania doing at home? It remains prey to the same centrifugal trends, in spite of the warnings issued by economic and political analysts which demand strong joint efforts that will transcend doctrines and political clienteles. It is useless to plead for norms that will regulate the priority of national interest, or to warn that forced privatisations had rather colonialist effects in the past, instead of strengthening the national economy. As reaction to such advice and recommendations, our political rulers come with “solutions” whose main purpose is to undermine their opponents, rather than to deal with the acute problems of the country. Various kinds of contradictory formulas are given, but nobody has in mind a fundamental strategic goal, such as an eventual government of national unity.

Politicians, beware! The authority and resilience of the Romanian state is the only justification for your existence.

EDITORIAL : THE CITIZEN, TANZANIA

LET’S EASE CHILDREN’S TRANSPORT PROBLEMS

The deaths of seven secondary school students in a road accident in Dar es Salaam on Saturday serves once again to highlight the extent of transport problems that pupils and students face nationwide.

The students who died were riding on a light truck when the accident occurred, but this is not surprising as lorries are now a major means of transport for schoolchildren in Dar es Salaam and other parts of the country.

The main reason pupils and students clamber on to trucks and other conveyances that are not meant to transport people is the refusal by daladala crews to allow them on board on the grounds that the Sh150 they pay per trip is too little.

There have been commendable initiatives by institutions such as CRDB Bank and mobile telecom firm Tigo to provide transport to schoolchildren, but these have amounted to the proverbial drop in the ocean.

It is thus still common to see schoolchildren riding in brand new buses in one part of the city and others perched precariously on rickety lorries in another.The government has meanwhile found itself in the awkward situation of not being able to compel privately owned daladalas to take schoolchildren on board.

Perhaps the time has come for the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) to sit with commuter representatives and daladala owners and come up with a fare for schoolchildren that will be acceptable to both parties.

This will save our children the agony of having to wait for safe and reliable transport for hours on end almost daily.Parents and guardians can also ensure that their children are not inconvenienced by transport problems by enrolling them at schools that are within walking distances from their homes. Many parents would rather their children, some as young as six, endure a 40- kilometre round trip to school daily than study at the “bad” school next door.

FIRE ARMS DRIVE LAUDABLE

Reports that the East African Community partner states destroyed over 12,000 illegally owned small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the last two years alone point to a major security concern in the region.

SALW are a major problem in Tanzania largely due to instability in parts of the Great Lakes Region.  The arms are smuggled in from neighbouring countries and used in committing violent crime in various parts of the country, particularly the Lake Zone.

This explains the widespread use of combat weapons such as AK47 rifles and hand grenades by highway robbers, cattle rustlers and other criminals in Kigoma, Kagera, Mara, Mwanza and Shinyanga regions.

It is, however, heartening to note that EAC member countries have decided to work together to rid the region of the SALW menace.  Tanzania, which has suffered greatly as a result of small arms smuggled into the country, stands to benefit a lot from the campaign.

In addition to tightening security along their common frontiers to prevent the cross-border smuggling of SALW, the EAC member states should also step up efforts to track down and impound all illegally owned small arms within their borders.This is crucial because security and peace are prerequisites in the regional integration process.

 

EDITORIAL : THE EL UNIVERSAL, COLOMBIA

Congregaciones y cultos que imponen la fe

Desde hace un mes, un grupo de miembros de una iglesia local ocupa cada viernes en la tarde el parque del antiguo Reloj Floral, instalan amplificadores y grandes parlantes, y con música y proclamas aseguran estar difundiendo la palabra de Dios.

Son proclamas ominosas, que advierten de los terribles castigos a que se verán sometidos quienes no se conviertan y busquen la salvación acogiendo a Cristo en su corazón.

De vez en cuando, entre proclama y proclama, interpretan canciones mientras varios líderes espirituales uniformados pasan entre los curiosos y convencidos, con una bolsa de tela amarrada al extremo de una vara de madera, pidiendo aportes económicos, y a quien se niega a dar dinero lo miran con severidad y le recitan frases de la Biblia.

Nunca se identifican como de cierta iglesia o culto particular, pero su estrategia para conseguir adeptos parece una derivación de las crueles imposiciones que el Santo Oficio solía hacer en la Edad Media, cuya esencia es el miedo y la amenaza.

En términos de la vida cotidiana, donde todos los ciudadanos gozan en teoría de los mismos derechos y libertades, la ocupación del espacio público sin permiso de la autoridad civil y la perturbación de los transeúntes a quienes se les viola su derecho a la tranquilidad y se les somete a una molestia obligatoria, hace de esta práctica una trasgresión a las normas de convivencia. Sobre todo porque quien les responde con negativas o se mantiene indiferente a su feroz predicación, es sometido a epítetos irrespetuosos y puesto como ejemplo de los descarriados que no irán al cielo.

En términos espirituales, esta o cualquier otra congregación religiosa que aterrorice para lograr que se acepten sus dogmas, no sólo carece de legitimidad, sino que rompe el concepto de libre albedrío que hace parte de la esencia misma de la doctrina cristiana.

En tiempos tan difíciles como los actuales, es lógico que la gente acuda a buscar orientación en las iglesias y los cultos religiosos, pero muchos de ellos no son más que prósperos negocios que se aprovechan de la incertidumbre para enriquecer a sus pastores o líderes, de manera que es preciso que la gente entienda que cualquier congregación que exija dinero como requisito para aceptarlos carece de veracidad, carece de autoridad moral y espiritual.

En el Ministerio del Interior existe un registro de 1.967 congregaciones de carácter evangélico, la mayoría de las cuales se han derivado de las iglesias protestantes más tradicionales, y algunas de ellas se transformaron en verdaderos grupos fundamentalistas, que parecen darle mayor importancia a la propia evangelización, es decir a compartir creencias y ritos, que en integrar la doctrina cristiana a la vida diaria.

Dedican más tiempo a las reuniones multitudinarias y relaciones cada vez más estrechas con sus miembros, que a orientarlos en hacerse más grandes espiritualmente, porque a muchas no les interesa salvar sino controlar.

Por supuesto, también hay congregaciones auténticas que realizan trabajo social entre los sectores pobres, con lo cual están verdaderamente viviendo el mensaje cristiano.

Pero no hay justificación alguna a que se apropien de los espacios públicos en un país con una Constitución que, además de garantizar la libertad de cultos, también se garantiza el respeto a los derechos de los demás.

EDITORIAL : THE BUSINESS DAY, SOUTH AFRICA

Voters to start calling the shots

CONTRARY to the oft- repeated cliche, the biggest winner in South African elections has seldom been democracy itself. Too many of our polls since 1994 have been racial censuses, while the proportional representation (PR) system has tended to elevate the interests of political parties over those of ordinary voters, especially at the provincial and national levels.

Local government elections have the potential to be different because, although the PR system applies, individuals campaign for specific wards and there is a natural expectation of accountability that is sorely lacking at the other levels of government. It is largely for this reason that last week’s election outcome is so encouraging, and why democracy may just turn out to be the real winner at last.

While there is still considerable evidence of people voting according to identity, for the first time issues pertinent to local government played a prominent, even dominant, role in a municipal election campaign. While some individuals did their best to drag the political discourse into the gutter, it ended up in the sewers instead — unenclosed toilets, to be precise. That is how it should be; it is at local government level that elected officials are most empowered to deliver basic services such as decent sanitation. It is self- defeating for the electorate to choose municipal representatives on any basis other than their commitment to the community and track record of delivery.

Regardless of which parties gained or lost in last week’s polls, they were all sent a clear message: that the free lunch many politicians have enjoyed up to now by emphasising the differences between SA’s racial, cultural and class groups and glossing over their own responsibilities, is over. With more than 62% of the vote, the African National Congress (ANC) continues to dominate throughout the country, with the exception of the Western Cape. But it has lost enough support for it to be clear that its political strategy requires urgent review.

The party ran a largely negative campaign that flirted dangerously with the kind of ugly racism it has historically attributed to the official opposition. Its failure to bring to heel such divisive individuals as Jimmy Manyi and Julius Malema succeeded only in driving minorities into the arms of the Democratic Alliance (DA). There are also indications that the ANC’s failure to address corruption in its ranks and its retreat from its traditional nonracial ethos have alienated many of its own supporters, who may not have switched allegiance en masse anywhere other than in Cape Town but did abstain from voting in places such as Mpumalanga.

The ANC’s official response to the election outcome indicates that it is aware of the problems inherent in the path it has chosen, but some of the comments from individuals in the leadership point to an ostrich mentality that does not augur well for the party come the 2014 national and provincial elections. An internal committee is apparently being set up to investigate the cause of the ANC’s decline in predominantly coloured, Indian and white areas, ensure that initiatives aimed at making councillors more accountable and municipal officials properly qualified go ahead, and to establish why some traditional ANC supporters stayed away from the polls.

The answers to these questions are readily available; some have been mentioned above. It remains to be seen, however, whether the ANC leadership is prepared to face up to the uncomfortable truth — that in its efforts to keep an increasingly fractious party united and retain power it has lost direction, given up the moral high ground and placed SA’s future in jeopardy.

That is not to dismiss the relevance of race, and especially racial inequality, as an electoral issue. The DA has clearly benefited from the fact that service delivery, accountability and quality of governance were top of mind for most voters last week, and consolidating its hold on Cape Town and winning control of a number of new towns can only help the party build on its growing reputation for competence and co-operative governance. However, it will struggle to repeat this performance in 2014 because delivery — or the lack thereof — is far less obvious to ordinary people at the national and provincial level. It is also where issues such as struggle credentials and the government’s role in reversing the injustices of apartheid though legislative intervention are more relevant. It is quite feasible that a black South African who was prepared to vote DA last week in the hope of getting improved access to basic services might still balk at the prospect of a DA president.

That means the DA has as much to think about as the ANC if it wants to avoid being seen as a party for local government and the Western Cape in perpetuity. Much still depends on how the ANC responds, especially with regard to corruption, nepotism, cadre deployment and its tolerance of incompetent officials who abuse their political connections. A business-as-usual approach on the basis of having achieved more than 60% of the vote would play into the DA’s hands.

Assuming, however, that the ANC has got enough of a fright to make meaningful changes, the DA will have its work cut out achieving the same rate of growth in 2014 as it did last week. Fortunately for DA leader Helen Zille, 24% of the national vote gives the party a solid platform from which to attack the ANC nationally, and confers some of the advantages of incumbency.

Chief among these is a broader base of new leaders, especially younger blacks unencumbered by the baggage of apartheid. Holding more wards and controlling more towns means more opportunities to groom future leaders such as DA youth leader Lindiwe Mazibuko and attract middle-class voters across the racial spectrum. By 2014 it will be 20 years, a whole generation, since the advent of democracy. Is it too much to hope that by then the electorate, rather than political parties, will be calling the shots?

EDITORIAL : THE ASHARQ ALAWSAT, SAUDI ARABIA, published in LONDON

The Syrians have pressured Obama…What about the Arabs?

If it wasn't for the resilience of the unarmed Syrian people, and their commitment to their legitimate rights in the face of brutal repression from the Syrian regime over the past 9 weeks, the U.S. President would not have broken his silence, calling on Bashar al-Assad to stop the killing, and reform or leave. But the question here is: What about the Arab silence?

If the Syrians have pressed the Americans and the Europeans with their resilience, and forced them to break their silence, and move against the al-Assad regime, then when will the Arab silence be broken? The number of Syrians who have died at the hands of the regime's repression has now reached nearly a thousand. Where are the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Organization of Islamic Conference? Why did they stand so quickly with the Libyans against Gaddafi, and demand that the international community intervene, while they have kept silent about what is happening to the unarmed Syrians, some of whom in demonstrations last Friday came out without their shirts to show they had no weapons, and despite this the Syrian security forces killed nearly forty of them?

The Libyan regime used violence against the rebels from the beginning of the revolution, and we all know the Libyan rebels took up arms early against Gaddafi's forces, or mercenaries. Meanwhile in Syria the demonstrations are entering their ninth week, and the uprising does not seem to be armed, despite all the misleading propaganda from the Syrian regime. It is easy of course, to confirm the reality of the situation in Libya, because Gaddafi allows a media presence in Tripoli, although he is under a NATO bombardment seeking to end his reign, yet there is no media presence permitted within Syria!

Therefore, the Arab silence about what is happening in Syria is sad and depressing, especially as the murder and brutal repression against the unarmed Syrians continues, with no sign of stopping. We saw Sheikh al-Qara in Damascus announcing his resignation from his Friday podium, because the worshippers feel uncomfortable praying in the presence of the security services. Of course it is not inconceivable that the authorities are there to prevent the Friday prayer from going ahead, in order to stop the demonstrations, even though they are based on solid foundations, rather than sectarianism or Salafism, as the regime tries to portray. We see the Kurds participating in the demonstrations, the rural communities, and even major cities from Damascus to Allepo to Homs and so on.

Therefore, away from all political concepts, there is a moral and humanitarian duty incumbent on all those in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to break their silence and take a moral and humanitarian stand in support of the unarmed Syrians. The protestors simply want to live a decent life and are tired of repression, humiliation, and false slogans of resistance.

What the Arabs have ignored, without exception, are the genuine questions being raised in the region today as a result of the Syrian situation, such as: why is a Syrian who protests in his country being killed, while a Syrian who protests in the Golan Heights against the Israeli occupation is not? Why are the Lebanese handing over Syrian soldiers who have fled because they refuse to kill their own people, while if they had fled to Israel, they would not have been handed over to Damascus?

Because we criticized America's silence towards Syria, and its selectivity in dealing with Bahrain, where the demonstrations were supported by Iran, we must ask ourselves the following question as Arabs: If the Syrians' resilience has forced Obama to act, when will we feel forced to act?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, NIGERIA

UNIVERSITIES AND RETIRING PROFESSORS

THE president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, recently remarked that a survey conducted by the union showed that universities

lose between 10 and 15 professors monthly to retirement, suggesting that the universities are increasingly becoming depleted of lecturers at the level of professor. He attributed this situation to the failure of the Federal Government (FG) to fulfil its part on the FG- ASUU agreement in 2009 to raise the retirement age of professors from 65 to 70 years. The 2009 pact between ASUU and the FG to increase the retirement age of professors from 65 to 70 years was to ensure that the universities are able to retain quality manpower. The government was expected to enact a law that would make it possible for professors to stay on the job till the age of 70, given that the current law governing the universities put the mandatory retirement age at 65 years.

THE ASUU president further criticised the government for establishing nine additional universities and several other private ones, without marching them with facilities and infrastructure.  The National Universities Commission has pegged the minimum qualification for a university lecturer at PhD. The wave of exit of the older professors has added to the limitation that universities face in terms of the availability of human capacity for academic programmes in the universities. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the gap to avoid a total collapse of university education, Awuzie warned.

AWUZIE is of the view that the government is to blame for the dearth of quality manpower in the universities.  He believes that government is not serious about ensuring quality manpower in the universities, that is why it has failed to pass the necessary law to implement the 70 years retirement age.  The ASUU president further advised the government to consider automatic employment in the universities for students with first class grades, placing them in programmes that would assist them obtain their PhD degrees within or outside the country in order to close the gap created by the retiring professors and take the universities to their desired heights. He further called on the government to rise up to its responsibility of encouraging professors in research by equipping research laboratories and workshops with the latest technology, to enable them to carry out their programmes.

AWUZIE’S position suggests that the government is largely responsible for the sorry state of things in the universities.  The government has not only failed to enact the law that will enable professors to stay on till 70 years, it has not provided sufficient fund for research and laboratories.  The poor funding has also made it near impossible for the universities to attract international scholars and students into the country. The country has less than a quarter of the human capacity that the nation needs to give sound tertiary education to the Nigerian student. Yet some of the few existing ones go abroad for greener pastures, while some delve into politics and other things, as they no longer find the system conducive and attractive enough. If the conditions of service were put right and the up-and-coming lecturers encouraged through funding and exposure, the university system would improve. He added that research, a major component of activities of universities, must be taken seriously.

THESE pieces of advice by the ASUU president are in order.  However, they are one sided.  Worse still they squarely placed the problems of the universities in the hands of the government.  This is only half the story.  The professors themselves are responsible for a sizeable part of the problem of the universities.  While the extension of the retirement age appears to answer to the need to keep valuable manpower in the university system, ASUU has failed to address the common feature in the universities where lecturers abandon teaching and academic research once they become professors.  Many of the professors use the universities as a mere base to support their consultancy activities to enrich themselves at the expense of the universities.  They neither teach nor mentor or engage in significant research activities that can extend the frontiers of knowledge and expose younger academics.   Keeping such professors till they are 70 years may not add value to university capacity.

SECONDLY, nothing proves the failure of the professors in mentoring and succession planning as the current gap that the ASUU president is seeking to fill.  If these professors were able to reproduce themselves, such a gap will not exist. In fact, their exit will provide opportunity for younger scholars to take on added responsibility and ensure stability of the system.  The new private and public universities provide opportunities for such professors who are active and can further extend their contribution to research and university development.  These newly established government and private universities need their experience and skills to find their feet.

FURTHERMORE, the universities should take mentoring and succession seriously.   When the older universities were established, many of the academic staff were foreigners.  If the foreigners were able to transfer the running of the universities to Nigerians, without the universities experiencing collapse or even a fall in standards, then the leadership of the universities must share in the blame for the current state of things. Besides, a programme of ensuring that responsible hands are encouraged to stay on the faculty is not the direct responsibility of government as suggested by Awuzie.  Each university must development a mentoring and succession plan to ensure that professors are able to reproduce themselves.  While we call on the government to enact the law and play its part in fulfilling the FG-ASUU 2009 agreement, we call on ASUU to sensitise its members to the need to take mentoring and succession seriously and make it an integral part of university life.

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY OUTLOOK, AFGANISTAN

              

 

Civilians Need to Act Responsibly

One of the most critical as well as complicated issues in the current anti-insurgency struggle in the country has been the issue of civilian casualties during Afghan or NATO military operations. Afghan government frequently has complained about operations which left misfortunate dead and injuries for innocent people. President Karzai himself on numerous ocassions alarmed foreign allies about counterproductive effect of military struggle in which civilians lose their lives.

Such pressures made top foreign allies, sometimes, to formally apologize but generally they avoided to do. Many domestic analysts maintain that the continuance of such misguided operations is the main recruitment bank of Taliban-led militants. They are potentially dangerous to alienate civilians and spark insurgency further in the country.

However, there is no available data to approve or disapprove the allegation or at least allow us to draw a graph and compare the civilians casualties and its relation with spiraling insurgency, but what can be understood from a mere theoretical analysis, indubitably, civilians casualties prove costly both in the political and military spheres. If civilians who lost their family members and the culprits were to walk out and justice was not tried, they would, if not join militants, help them to hide or provide information about whereabouts of foreign militaries.

Such sympathy can be more dangerous rather than joining militants directly. Because here numbers of people under coverage of what we call as a family, like the rest of countries with tribal culture, is quite large, in comparison to what we define as family in modern time. Militants are exploiting from such circumstances. Many of them just hide among civilians and people provide safety, when they come under real danger from Afghan and foreign military operations. Any nobody can at all differentiate them without accurate information, which is hard to arrange for each and every one who holds arm against government.

With expressing condolence to all those families who lost their family members in such a misguided operation, it should be noticed that why a collective action is not taken against militants who are the root cause of every misery here.

We Afghan people need, more than any time in the history, to tolerate foreign presence and give up our traditional anti-foreign sentiments in order to strengthen our political establishment. Keeping sympathy with insurgency and bursting in anger against foreign miss-shot cannot end our miseries. We, as civilians, have to act more responsibly and understand the vital period under which we leave in order to avoid recurrence of circular historical violence and bloodshed.

Time of Confusion and Turbulence

Afghanistan is going through a time of confusion and turbulence. Confusion on the part of the government and international community, which are responsible for developing an effective strategy to move the country out of the ongoing violence and insurgency and ensure a durable peace for the Afghans. It is also a time of confusion for Afghan people.

Unfortunately, the recent violent demonstrations in different provinces showed that the nonviolence is yet to take root as culture in the country. On April 01, the violent protest in Mazar-e-Sharif against Quran-burning claimed at least eight foreign UN employees. On Wednesday last week, furious anti-American protesters poured into the streets of Taloqan city of northern province of Takhar, shouting out objections to an overnight U.S. led military raid that killed four people, including two women. Subsequent clashes with security forces trying to quell the demonstration killed 12 people.

Ironically saying, the bitter fact is that Afghans get killed both in their own hands and in the hands of terrorists and insurgents. It should be an excruciating period for the country; a tragedy that is going down in the history because the violence in protests and violence by the Taliban militants produce no positive result for the country and for the future of peace to be established to replace the troubles of today.

One cannot expect the terrorists and Taliban militants not to resort to violence. It is their intrinsic and inherent feature. But Afghan people must not follow violence as a channel to pour out their grievances. Here we are reminded of the U.S. President Barak Obama's words as on Thursday last week he said in his sweeping speech on the Middle East, "Those shouts of human dignity are being heard across the region. And through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades."

Afghan people must not allow the miscreants to infiltrate them when waging peaceful demonstration to express their dissatisfaction with the Government's continued failures or to pour out their outrage against civilian killings. If the government and international community continue to fail, people must not fail. They must rise up to demand an end to the ordeals they have been put to.

Storming Government Buildings Gaining Currency

Violence continues to rankle Afghan people across the country. Taliban's announced spring offensive seems to be carried out unchecked and the militants are targeting those whom they had set as their targets. In Zabul province, the militants had kidnapped about nine tribal elders, influential people and educators of schools and they have killed three of the abductees, including head of a district council. Usually, the Taliban insurgents target the tribal leaders that support the government and champion peace talks. Over the last few weeks, the militants have also been able to storm highly protected government buildings in capital Kabul, Kandahar province and some other provinces of the country.

Roadside bombings and suicide attacks were common but the Taliban militants have added the organized storming of government buildings to their tactics to terrify and spread fear among people.

On Early Sunday, May 22, 2011, gunmen wearing police uniforms and suicide vests stormed a government building in eastern province of Khost, starting a running shootout with Afghan security forces that surrounded the compound. Reports were indicative that at least five people were killed in the fighting. The assault came a day after a Taliban suicide bomber infiltrated the capital's main military hospital and killed at least six Afghan medical students.

The government has lost its mobilizing power and these deadly incidents, which are caused by the Taliban and other insurgent outfits on a daily basis, will have psychological impact on Afghan people. Taliban have claimed responsibility for the Sunday's attack, in which the fighting lasted for hours.

Ten years after the Taliban were ousted from power in a US led international intervention, they have managed to step up attacks as part of their spring offensive against NATO, Afghan government installations and officials as foreign forces are slated to begin drawdown in July of this year. Their increased terrorist activities should be taken seriously and effective measures should be taken to address them.

Otherwise, the terrorists would seep into large swathes of the country before even the international forces begin to leave. Insurgents also have promised revenge attacks after the killing of Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in Pakistan earlier this month.

Afghan government must review its reconciliation plan because these terrorists do not abandon violence and continue to take innocent Afghan lives who even do not know when Osama was killed and it shows that the Taliban are the terrorists and enemies of Afghan people and must be tackled with iron fist.

EDITORIAL : THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

The 1967 plan is workable

There isn’t any surprise in how Israel has reacted. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shocked and dull face said it all, as he sat beside US President Barack Obama at the Oval Office in White House.

Washington’s shift in focus on the Middle East, by clearly stipulating a plan of action, which said that the Jewish state has no recourse but to return to the boundaries of 1967 to acquire legitimacy and peace is, indeed, startling and reflected leadership. Now Netanyahu’s submission that the old borders did not take into account the demographic 
changes of the last 44 years is irrational. Tel Aviv’s encroachment of Arab and Palestinian territories is illegal under the canons of international law and Israel will find itself once again on the wrong side of the divide if it let go this proposition of settling for permanent tranquility with its neighbours by trading land for peace.

Obama’s courage to stand up while redrawing the map of one of the most volatile regions of the world is appreciated. It has in no time been bucked up with support from the European Union, and is bound to solicit recognition from other major powers of the world, as well. The Arab and the Muslim world, of course, are on the same wavelength as the proposal has been a key demand of the Palestinians in negotiations all these years. Confidently enough, Washington has taken a stance that is almost similar to what the Arab League had formulated way back and reverberates the Arab Peace Plan forwarded by Saudi King Fahd in 2002. All that is required on the part of the Obama administration is to stick to the blueprint of the plan, and make Israel fall in line. Netanyahu’s stunt that he could not go back to the 1967 borders because these lines are indefensible is devoid of logic. This smells a rat. Bibi’s doctrine is reflective of Adolf Hitler’s Lebensraum policy, wherein the Nazi leader had laid his claim to as much land as possible directly proportional to its population. If the German leader can be contested for his strategy and flawed vision, how come Israel and its leaders are an exception?

The nous is now on President Obama to maintain the heat, in order to ensure that the Palestinian-Israeli imbroglio is addressed in all sincerity. The extended peace talks and shuttle diplomacy, intended to dig out a solution, has simply proved the fact that there isn’t any unanimity or consensus over a deal on territories. This is why the firm line of 1967 can make the difference. It’s time for Obama to put his foot down.

Pools of grief 

This is the swimming season and whether it is the sea or a pool in club or at home, the need to exercise vigilance where the safety of children is concerned is imperative.

The death of a small boy in Sharjah over the weekend underscores the small time window that exists between being safe and being endangered. Parents often just allow their attention to be diverted for sixty seconds and that is enough to set off a series of cataclysmic that end in tragedy. The recriminations afterwards are of no help and there has to be a realisation that where children come into the equation then the attention has to be total and undivided. Again, mere parental supervision is not enough. A child must not be allowed to enter the water unless there is an adult who can swim and be present on the scene. There is no point being there looking after the child if you cannot swim.

There are two aspects that are often ignored or underplayed. One, is that a group of children is often more dangerous than one imagines. Dares, playing the fool or getting up to aggressive behaviour in water are to be strongly discouraged. Far too often young people challenge the elements by going too far out to sea just to show off to their friends or move to the deep end and that is when their troubles start.It is time all  schools started a summer programme on swimming and safety and sent out letters to parents warning them of the hazards of unsupervised swimming.

These exercises would also help the authorities who have to go through the heartbreaking task of attempting rescues that are frequently too late. It is baffling that even after so many such accidents parents still do not take the necessary cautions and leave little children unguarded. What starts off as a holiday can turn into a nightmare. Ironically, adults can also show a collapse in common sense and take unnecessary risks. It is a sobering thought that water, like fire and the might of the mountains, will always win and we must never take them on.

Research also show that community pools are fraught with another risk which is that it is difficult to spot a child in trouble in a crowd with all that splashing of water. If you do allow your children to go to such pools make sure that they are identifiable by a cap or some distinct headgear and you can keep a tab on them.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD, NEW ZEALAND

City has done well to find $81m savings

Auckland's mayor has a right to blow his trumpet if he has managed to reduce the newly forged Super City's first rate increase from a likely 4.9 per cent to 3.7 per cent. The announcement on Friday was a sign that the council's bean counters are striving to find the efficiencies that are always promised when public bodies are amalgamated.

Their efforts are all the more welcome because the public has long since ceased to take the promise of savings seriously. Long observation of bureaucratic habits suggests that mergers create empires bigger than the sum of their parts, and more costly.

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide was as anxious as any architect of an amalgamation to see it produce efficiencies but the work done by his Auckland Transition Agency left a budget with a 3 per cent increase in the coming year based on savings the council would have to find.

But the agency set up the new council with too few staff, according to the deputy mayor, Penny Hulse. She told The Aucklander recently the council had 7800 staff of a planned 8500, compared to a total of 10,000 in the councils it replaced. A shortage of planning staff, for example, had forced the council to engage consultants at a cost of $8.75 million in its first five months.

The way it had been set up, the Super City was "not working for all our communities", Ms Hulse said. "There isn't that close connection between the politicians and the staff that has worked in the community so that decisions can be made quickly."

Ms Hulse was deputy mayor of the former Waitakere City Council, which paid its chief executive more than most others in the region and did not rank well on measures of benefit for the rates it charged.

Mayor Len Brown might not have appreciated her candour while he was attempting to squeeze his proposed budget for the new city so its required rate increase could be lowered from 4.9 per cent it proposed in February. On his other flank, he had a local MP, George Hawkins, issuing a public warning that his Manurewa constituents could not afford an increase of that size.

The council must somehow set a rate that Mr Hawkins' people can afford with no loss of the services of concern to Ms Hulse. On Friday the mayor claimed to have met that challenge. He said his revised budget would reduce the rate increase to 3.9 per cent "without compromising services to the community".

His officers have found $81 million of savings and efficiencies by deferring some capital works beyond 2012 that they probably did not have the capacity to do anyway. They have lowered their estimates for insurance, property costs, consultants, purchases and printing.

In addition, they have managed to make allowance for hosting extra Rugby World Cup matches moved from Christchurch, possible funding for an Auckland Theatre Company venue on the waterfront, other late commitments, and errors and omissions from earlier estimates.

They have done well to produce a possible rate increase below the current year's inflation rate, boosted by the October GST increase, and not too far above the underlying inflation rate. But in working so hard for this result, the council should not give the impression that it is afraid of asking citizens for a more significant rate increase when it has a project to warrant one.

The Super City was set up to enable Auckland to do things for itself that it could not manage to do when it had seven territorial councils and a weak regional body. The mayor and the council majority are facing an opposition that is waiting to pounce on profligacy. They need to run a tight ship but also be willing to go to the ratepayers for a project that is exciting.

EDITORIAL : THE KOREA HERALD, SOUTH KOREA

Begging for China aid

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is visiting China again, accompanied by his top economic officials. It is the reclusive and ailing leader’s third visit to China in a short span of one year, with the previous two visits made in May and August last year.

Kim’s frequent visits to China indicate Pyongyang has made little progress in tackling its deepening economic, political and social problems. The pariah regime has been isolated from the international community since 2009 as the United Nations imposed sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests.

Furthermore, Seoul and Washington cut off economic and food aid to the North after it torpedoed the South’s Cheonan corvette in March last year, killing 46 sailors on board.

To overcome isolation, the North has dramatically increased economic cooperation with China, its only ally in the world. Yet economic cooperation with China alone is not enough to ease the North’s chronic economic problems. The impoverished state needs to rebuild the economy from the ground up. But China is not in a position to do it. All it can do is to provide a small amount of assistance to the needy neighbor each time its frail leader visits asking for help.

For Kim, the need to secure economic aid from China has become all the greater as the process of transferring his power to his youngest son has been not as smooth as he expected. He needs rice and other essential commodities to win support for his inexperienced and unpopular heir from the increasingly restless public.

Furthermore, Kim has less than a year left to fulfill his promise to make North Korea a “strong and prosperous” nation by the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth, which falls on April 15 next year. As things stand, it appears difficult for Kim to even maintain his fragile regime by then, let alone make it a prosperous nation.

In this regard, securing economic aid from China is the most urgent task for Kim. Therefore, he must have put it at the top of his agenda for talks with Chinese leaders. But nothing is for free. To curry favor with the leaders in Beijing, he might have told them what they wanted to hear ― a willingness to resume the stalled six-party talks.

To restart the multilateral talks, Seoul has proposed a three-stage formula ― inter-Korean talks, Pyongyang-Washington talks, then six-party talks. Washington, Beijing and Tokyo have all agreed to push this proposal and, according to Chinese officials, Pyongyang has also responded positively to it.

But the North has yet to respond to Seoul’s call for inter-Korean talks, which was made in January.

Given the growing regime instability in the North, Kim has little to gain by delaying Seoul’s offer for talks. But to restart inter-Korean dialogue, the North must apologize for the atrocities it committed against the South last year. An apology costs nothing for the North. But the reward it can get from the South will be much more than the economic aid it is seeking from China.

 

 

Agent Orange probe

 

The government has launched an investigation into the allegations that U.S. Forces Korea buried tons of Agent Orange at Camp Carrol in Waegwan, about 30 km north of Daegu, in 1978. The Ministry of Environment sent an inspection team to the camp area Friday to verify whether the claims, put forward by three U.S. veterans who served at the military base, are true.

The three veterans told a U.S. TV station last week that they had dug a ditch, nearly the length of a city block, on the premises of the base and buried about 250 drums of the defoliant. The whistleblowers said they have since developed health problems ― chronic arthritis, hearing loss and diabetes ― which they attributed to their exposure to the chemical.

Agent Orange is a highly toxic herbicide that was used during the Vietnam War. The U.S. military sprayed it to clear jungles. The defoliant was found to be contaminated with an extremely toxic dioxin compound. Dioxins are known carcinogens.

The whistle blowers’ revelation has sparked safety concerns among residents not just in Waegwan but in other parts of Gyeongsang provinces as the U.S. military base is just less than 1 km away from the Nakdong River, the water source for major cities in the southeastern part of the nation.

If the drums containing the defoliant were buried 33 years ago, they could have already been eroded. If so, the toxic chemical could have contaminated the soil and underground water near the military base. If the underground water has been polluted, the poisonous substance could have flowed into the Nakdong River, getting into the drinking water supply. If people used the water for irrigation, the harmful substance could have found its way into the food supply as well.

Given the grave implications, the government needs to hurry to determine whether the defoliant was really dumped at the U.S. base. In tracing the dump site, the government needs to secure cooperation from the U.S. government. The U.S. military said it has opened its own investigation into the case and is willing to conduct a joint inspection with Korea. The two sides should waste no time in launching a joint probe.

If the dumping allegations turn out to be true and contamination has occurred, the government will have to take follow-up measures promptly, including checking the health of the residents in and around Waegwan and assessing the damage to the environment.

For its part, the U.S. government will have to bear full responsibility for the recovery of the polluted areas and compensate for the environmental damage caused by the defoliant dumping. It should remember that a failure to act promptly to deal with the mess could reignite anti-U.S. sentiment in Korea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

Chilling Echoes From Sept. 11

As the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania draws near, one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission remains unfulfilled: the creation of a common communications system that lets emergency responders talk to one another across jurisdictions.

The problem was laid bare in the tragic cacophony at the World Trade Center, where scores of firefighters perished as police and fire officials couldn’t communicate on antiquated radio systems before the second tower fell.

Four years later during Hurricane Katrina, emergency workers from across the nation faced the same dangerous problem. They had to resort to running handwritten notes to warn of shifting conditions.

Congress should be haunted by the threat of new disasters finding rescue workers still incommunicado. Responsible lawmakers can mark the 10th anniversary by passing legislation to finally create a national public safety communications network.

The overall challenge is more complex than it sounds, touching on questions of financing, broadcast spectrum fights, technology innovation and turf battles among local public safety agencies.

Congress can begin cutting through a lot of that by approving the reallocation of radio spectrum to wireless broadband providers and public safety agencies. This would allow creation of a modern emergency system providing common access when needed by voice, video and text for responders now using separate voice systems typically jammed up in emergencies.

Senator John Rockefeller IV, chairman of the science and transportation committee, is championing the commission’s dedicated spectrum approach, warning that the faulty emergency communication on 9/11 was “probably the greatest killer other than the planes themselves.” He has the support of the ranking Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

Crucial details remain to be settled.

Would a nonprofit corporation best manage the new network? What’s the best way to get commercial broadcasters to yield needed spectrum — through incentive auctions proposed by the Obama administration?

Once Congress acts, this new generation of wireless broadband would require years of infrastructure construction. In the meantime, public safety and homeland security officials across the nation have been tapping into billions in federal aid designed to patch improvements into existing voice systems.

Critics warn there’s been too much reliance on buying hardware and not enough on planning and coordinating among fiefdoms still reluctant to come to terms on single useful systems. In New York, where the scars of 9/11 remain raw, there is not yet a fully compatible system among police officers, firefighters and Port Authority forces, but officials insist they are making progress.

How many warnings does Congress need? How many more people will be endangered because of bureaucratic wrangling or political inertia? “Further delay is intolerable,” the commission’s leaders, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, declared earlier this year. They are right.

Breaking Faith

“I will not vote to deny a vote to a Democratic president’s judicial nominee just because the nominee may have views more liberal than mine.”

That was Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, promising in 2003 not to filibuster judicial nominees for reasons of ideology. But on Thursday, Mr. Alexander, along with 41 other Senate Republicans, voted to filibuster one of President Obama’s judicial nominees for that very reason — breaking a promise and kindling yet another row over a president’s right to appoint like-minded judges.

The fight was over Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley law professor nominated by the president for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He lost on a vote of 52 to 43, short of the 60-vote requirement demanded by Republicans.

He became the first Obama nominee to be successfully filibustered, and the only nominee since 2005. That year, a Senate “Gang of 14” agreed that such nominees should be allowed an up-or-down majority vote except in extraordinary circumstances.

The group was correct in preserving the right to filibuster the most extreme candidates, but the agreement is meaningless if senators are going to define someone like Mr. Liu as a legal extremist. He is, not surprisingly, a liberal thinker who is nonetheless squarely in the legal mainstream, having even received the support of strong conservatives, including Kenneth Starr and Clint Bolick.

What, specifically, made him so extraordinary that he was not worthy of an up-or-down vote? The Republican argument against him is laughably thin. “He believes the Constitution is a fluid, evolving document,” said Jeff Sessions of Alabama. John Cornyn of Texas falsely accused Mr. Liu of holding the “ridiculous view that our Constitution somehow guarantees a European-style welfare state.”

But other Republicans were more forthcoming about the real reason for the blockade: Mr. Liu dared to criticize Justice Samuel Alito Jr. as harshly conservative before he was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The filibuster apparently was payback, and the Republican eagerness for revenge has broken faith and a clear understanding on the Senate floor. That will make it harder to fill benches during this administration and many more to come.

When Treatment Is Also Prevention

The discovery of a near-perfect way to halt sexual transmission of the AIDS virus has the potential to change the way international agencies and nations cope with the epidemic. But that can only happen if troubling issues of cost and practicality can be surmounted.

The study involved more than 1,700 couples in nine countries, the vast majority of them heterosexuals. One member had the virus that causes AIDS; the other did not. It demonstrated conclusively that if infected partners are treated with a cocktail of drugs immediately — instead of waiting for their immune systems to deteriorate — the risk of transmitting the virus to the uninfected partner drops by 96 percent. The only reported health benefit of early treatment for the infected partner was a reduced risk of tuberculosis spreading beyond the lungs.

Infected partners would have to start early on a lifetime of taking drugs mostly for altruistic reasons — to avoid infecting their partners. Further research may document greater health benefits. It seems likely that earlier treatment that keeps immune systems strong should further slow the progression of the virus to full-fledged AIDS and ward off other devastating co-infections.

International organizations don’t have enough money to treat all those who qualify for drug therapy under current guidelines. They will be hard-pressed to find additional money to treat millions more people to slow the spread of the virus. With most industrialized economies still lagging, there is little appetite for increasing aid.

A strong moral case can be made for protecting millions more people from infection, but there may be an economic case as well. We need valid, well-documented estimates as to whether a big investment in prevention now might pay for itself in the long run by greatly reducing the number of sick people who have to be cared for.

A Budget Without Core Purposes, Taxation Without Compassion

President Obama trusts America’s generous and compassionate nature, that our rugged individualism is tempered by a belief that we’re all connected. In his speech on budget reform on April 13, he celebrated “our belief that those who benefited most from our way of life can afford to give back a little bit more.”

The president’s faith in Americans’ sense of common purpose is uplifting. But it does not fit the history of American budgetary politics.

I don’t just mean Tea Partiers’ revulsion at the government spending “our money,” or Republican Paul Ryan’s Reverse Robin Hood gambit to cut trillions from spending on social programs in order to pay for a tax cut for the rich.

The budgetary policy of the United States has been the least generous in the industrial world for a very long time.

Tax revenues in the United States have not reached 30 percent of gross domestic product since at least 1965. Today they amount to only 24 percent of G.D.P. In Britain, by contrast, they are 34 percent; in Sweden, 46 percent. And our government spending on social programs is equally puny. In 2007 Britain spent 25 percent more, as a share of its economy. Germany spent almost 60 percent more.

Cash transfers — for unemployment insurance, pensions, benefits for children and the like — amount to only 9 percent of household disposable income in the United States. Among the industrialized nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Korea provides less.

The government doesn’t just spend too little trying to improve the lives of less-fortunate Americans. It spends badly — lavishing benefits on the relatively well-to-do with misdirected subsidies. Within the O.E.C.D., only Korea’s social transfers do a worse job in boosting incomes at the bottom and reducing income inequality.

Historically, we made up for some of these shortcomings by taxing the rich more heavily than the poor or middle class. But the tax code has become dramatically less progressive since the 1960s, as tax cuts and loopholes have reduced a wide variety of taxes paid by the rich.

In 2007, the average income-tax rate paid by the richest 400 taxpayers in the country was 16.62 percent — according to figures from the Internal Revenue Service. Between 1970 and 2005, total federal taxes paid by the top 0.01 percent of earners fell by half, as a share of their income, to 35 percent on average, according to the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. This compares with 42 percent in Britain and 62 percent in France.

Representative Ryan would surely protest that our stingy public policy is not motivated by greed, but by necessity — that it is indispensable to sustaining robust economic growth. High taxes and big government, in this view, will encourage sloth among the undeserving and discourage productive citizens from giving all in the workplace.

This argument doesn’t hold up. The prosperity of Swedes has grown faster than that of Americans over the last 20 years. Even if lower taxes contributed to growth, I would suggest that we reconsider the trade-off. It’s not working out for most of us.

As the president noted in his speech at George Washington University, growth has not delivered prosperity to all of us: 90 percent of working Americans saw their incomes fall in the past decade. The top 1 percent, though, saw their income rise by more than a quarter of a million dollars on average.

President Obama is right to cast the negotiations with Congress over the budget in terms of our values: “It’s about the kind of future that we want. It’s about the kind of country that we believe in.”

But perhaps he shouldn’t trust Americans’ generosity and compassion to simply carry the day on Capitol Hill. To build the America he extols he is going to have to fight for it.

 

EDITORIAL : THE TEHRAN TIMES, IRAN

Persian Press Review

Tehran Times Political Desk

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

Sunday’s headlines

IRAN: 146 countries reject sanctions against Iran, first vice president says

HEMAYAT: Empty houses will be double taxed

KAYHAN: Iran indentifies CIA agents in Tehran, 30 spies arrested

TEHRAN-E EMROOZ: Cases of some administration officials are being investigated by Article 90 Committee of Majlis

JAME JAM: Employment a concern for PhD graduates

JAVAN: Spaniards camp in Madrid’s main square until government is changed

QODS: President says national development fund to be established soon

TAFAHOM: Steel production increased after subsidy reform plan

KHORASAN: Administrative Court of Justice bars (vice president) Baqaei from holding office for four years

SHARQ: I will attend my work, Baqaei says

Leading articles

FARHIKHTEGAN in a news report quotes Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei as saying it is not appropriate that the president has taken over as the caretaker of the sensitive Oil Ministry. Referring to Article 135 of the Constitution, Rezaei said president should appoint caretakers for ministries which do not have ministers for three months. Pointing to multi-billion dollar contracts that are being concluded at the Oil Ministry, he said if a legal or financial problem happens in a contract the president will incur losses.

IRAN in a news report quotes Department of Environment director Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh as saying 1 billion dollar has been allocated to a comprehensive plan aimed at reducing pollution in 8 cities in the country. Mohammadizadeh also said the environmentally-protected areas in the country is being increased and the protected areas should be extended to cover 12 percent of the country’s soil in the current year (March 2011-March 2001). He also added the preliminary activities to establish waste burning factories have been carried out in most of the cities in northern Mazandaran Province.

Political expert Davoud Hermidas-Bavand in an interview with TEHRAN-E EMROOZ says the Arab sheikhdoms bordering the Persian Gulf are making every effort not to face a fate similar to those of the crisis-hit Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa. He says these countries have always wanted a great power like the U.S. to maintain presence in the region so that they could somehow reduce threat to their security. Pointing to the joining of Morocco and Jordan to the PGCC (Persian Gulf Cooperation Council), Hermidas-Bavand said this shows that Saudi Arabia can no longer play the role of a big brother and Morocco and predicted that Jordan will push Saudi Arabia to sideline. The analyst also said Saudi Arabia sees crisis in his country as likely and has no alternative other accepting new changes to the PGCC structure.

 

EDITORIAL : THE BANGKOK POST, THAILAND

                       




Invasion to stop piracy

In a little more than a month, the Royal Thai Navy is to rejoin the mostly ineffective international flotilla trying to suppress piracy off the coast of Africa and the Arab countries. On their second deployment, the HTMS Pattani and the HTMS Similan will take along elite commando forces.

The decision to step up the lethal force is timely and welcome. A proposal to widen the anti-piracy battle came from an unlikely source last week. A senior Chinese general has recommended that the international military force join hands and ''crash the pirate bases'' inside Somalia. The plan has strong merit and deserves serious consideration.

Gen Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, is deadly serious about his proposal. He made it in Washington, in a public speech, on the sidelines of talks with US Navy counterparts. It took many by surprise. China has long held a position of non-intervention. It has vetoed or refused to vote on United Nations resolutions authorising military action, such as the recent, popular decision to act against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Gen Chen's proposal goes against a Chinese foreign policy which almost always opposes any sort of international action against other countries.

The general's carefully nuanced position is that Somalia, home base of the pirates, no longer qualifies as a sovereign state. It has not had a central government with national authority for at least two decades. Warlords of various nasty stripes control territory, but provide almost no government-type services. The warlords recognise no national or international laws. The pirates who prey on shipping in the Indian Ocean and Gulf Aden use the country as their own, unchallenged by any central authority.

Gen Chen claims another point, entirely credibly. The pirates ''earn'' tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, including from Thai shipping and fishing companies. But the ransoms and captured materials obviously go somewhere else, with the actual pirates receiving only a small part. In essence, the pirates are hired hands for a much bigger operation. Gen Chen believes that most or all of the pirates are hired guns for international terrorist organisations. His comments are in perfect sync, but even more aggressive than those of one of his US counterparts, Vice Adm Mark Fox. He believes piracy proceeds go to terrorists, and recommended using anti-terrorist financing tactics against the pirates.

The Chinese general's words should be considered seriously, especially by the Royal Thai Navy. The armed forces command is about to dispatch two ships, 369 sailors and 60 special warfare troops back to the pirate-infested areas. The same vessels, minus the Seals and recon Marines, were recalled after more than four months on station. The mission was particularly embarrassed by the seizure of a Thai cargo ship and 27 crewmen, who had to be ransomed for a significant sum after the Thai navy had left for home.

The current international effort against the Somalia-based pirates has long been a failure. Occasionally, a single effort by a naval vessel has scored a success. Sailors of the Indian navy thwarted a pirate attack on a Chinese cargo ship early this month. That attack on the merchant vessel Fucheng may have been the tipping point for Gen Chen and his officers in Beijing.

Passive patrols have failed to halt or even intimidate the Somalia-based pirates. Military attacks to destroy their land bases would devastate the cross-border criminal enterprise. Gen Chen has made a proposal that deserves serious consideration.