EDITORIAL : THE KOREA HERALD, SOUTH KOREA

University rankings

As social and political debates on cutting university tuition fees rages on, the restructuring of higher education has emerged as an urgent issue. There is a need to strengthen university finances in general and concentrate state support on more viable institutions.

While the Board of Audit and Inspection is checking the financial, personnel and academic affairs of all 200 four-year universities, the nation’s more prestigious schools are on the alert against having their global rankings affected by the results of the probe. For the last several years, these universities have made extraordinary efforts to get into the global university league tables and move further up the rankings.

Universities accumulated huge special-purpose funds to build research facilities, fatted faculty paychecks to recruit better-known professors and offered scholarships for many foreign students to improve their scores in “globalization.” All these moves were made to raise their global and domestic rankings. Some merged with other schools to prove quantitative growth, risking lower quality of education. These moves all resulted in higher tuition fees, which are now the third most expensive in the OECD.

Their efforts seemed to have paid off. They have moved up the tables, if slightly, in such “authoritative” lists as the Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Times Higher Education World University Ranking by Times-Quacquarelli Symonds, and the World’s Best Universities Ranking by the U.S. News and World Report. But was it really worth it, particularly if the rise was achieved at the financial expense of students and their parents and by compromising true academic pursuits?

Last week, the European University Association (EUA) released an extensive review of worldwide university rankings by a group of noted academics. Their conclusion was that “paying too much attention to improving ranking scores can be detrimental to the fulfillment of other important tasks of higher education institutions.” The EUA report warned that higher education policy decisions should not be based solely on rankings.

Primarily, the drawbacks of the ranking services lie in the fact that the global league tables concern the world’s top universities only, covering roughly 1-3 percent of all 17,000 universities in the world. Secondly, the methodologies used in producing the more popular global league tables are applicable only to some 700 to 1,200 universities, according to the EUA report.

Highly ranked universities have to make enormous efforts to move just one notch higher or even to keep their positions in next year’s ranking because their rivals make the same efforts at as much or greater costs. Common practices, the report observed, are trying to include Nobel Prize winners in the faculty; produce more publications (per researcher) ― through one-sided support of research in medicine and natural sciences rather than social sciences and humanities ― and manipulating the student-faculty ratio by expanding the scope of teaching positions.

In Korea, administrators of Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei, Sogang and Ewha universities as well as such research universities as KAIST and POSTEC have all made similar efforts and their strategies have been adopted by second-tier institutions, which are engaged in even stiffer competition in domestic league tables. Tuition fee wars and the looming restructuring of universities will bring the competition to a new height and nobody can tell how they will develop in the days ahead.

The ranking business had the positive effect of promoting transparency in university management, but any such benefit could not make up for the negative, unwanted consequences, the European researchers said. The International Rankings Expert Group under the EUA will conduct an audit of the various ranking systems, which have grown in number in recent years.

Some Korean newspapers, which have compiled rankings of Korean and Asian universities in cooperation with international ranking providers, are called upon to review their survey methodologies and reexamine the justification for drawing up tables in the first place. Universities, for their part, should calmly look back on what true academic mission they had neglected while blindly entering this beauty contest, which is basically a commercial undertaking.

 

 

 

N.K. Human Rights Act

 

North Korea again blared out warnings of “merciless retaliation,” this time against the move here to pass the North Korean human rights bill at the National Assembly. Their language grew harsher as with a change in activities in the South that they consider to threaten the stability of their system.

Jopyeongtong, Pyongyang’s mouthpiece on South Korean affairs, said the bill represented Seoul’s attempt to unravel the Northern system from inside. Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun vehemently claimed that the bill was a “blatant declaration by the Lee Myung-bak clique that it legally denies our ideology, system and state and its heinous challenge to the dignity” of Pyongyang’s leadership. The hysterical reaction amounts to the regime’s acknowledgement of the dire human rights situation facing the 20 million North Koreans and the vulnerability of the Northern society to outside influences.

The North Korean human rights bill was submitted to the National Assembly in 2005, a year after the United States enforced its North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004, but was shelved by the then majority Uri Party. The revived bill passed the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee early last year and is awaiting the final Assembly vote.

Opponents have argued that applying pressure on the North with this legislation, which would provide financial support for civic groups campaigning for the improvement of human rights in North Korea, would only aggravate relations between the two Koreas and cause further deterioration of the fates of those in the North. Some radical activists question whether the South, with its own human rights problems resulting from social polarization, is entitled to interfere with the situation in the North.

Throughout the past several years, we have had enough discussions on this matter and now is time for our representatives to make a decision. They should never be intimidated by Pyongyang’s vulgar words, but they are reminded that the bill is not to be considered a weapon to attack the North with, particularly in reaction to the provocations last year. It is one of the priority bills on which lawmakers should act solely based on their conscience and good judgment to help the Northern brethren lead freer lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE MOSCOW TIMES, RUSSIA

Transparency Needed, Not Intrigue
Foreign investors flocked to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to seek state assurances of stability after next year’s presidential election. President Dmitry Medvedev did not disappoint.
Medvedev, making his most ambitious speech ever to foreign investors, presented a raft of promises to liberalize the economy and improve the investment climate. Notably, he declared his promises would be fulfilled no matter who was elected in March.
Three announcements from the forum give investors particular reason to cheer.
U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle got the ball rolling on the first day of the forum with his surprise news that an agreement would be signed next month to ease visa rules between the United States and Russia. Three-year, multi-entry visas will be introduced for both sides and, significantly, a layer of bureaucracy that requires travelers to obtain visa invitations will be removed. This much-needed reform will make life much easier for businesspeople and tourists alike. It also provides an example for the European Union, which hopefully will reach a similar agreement with Moscow.
Medvedev got tongues wagging with two revelations of his own. During his keynote speech, he described how the state was making a determined effort to untangle itself from the economy. He denounced “state capitalism” — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s model for controlling key sectors of the economy — and announced that the state would shrink its economic footprint by expanding its privatization plans.
But the measure that could make the biggest difference in the lives of investors and Moscow residents alike is Medvedev’s plan to enlarge the boundaries of the capital, move government agencies beyond the Moscow Ring Road and establish an international finance district outside the MKAD as well.
This proposal, which would see Moscow incorporated into a new Capital Federal District, carries the risk of creating a new unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. But the move is long overdue. The removal of hordes of bureaucrats from the city center should allow the capital to flourish. Traffic jams caused by government officials’ cars with flashing blue lights could disappear. The historical center could be turned into a tourist mecca in line with Kremlin aspirations unveiled at the forum. This shakeup holds the potential of being win-win for residents, investors and the government.
The St. Petersburg forum provided the assurances of stability that investors had sought. But there is a caveat. The key ingredient lacking in Medvedev’s plans is transparency.
When asked whether he would run for president next year, Medvedev answered with a wry smile, “Every story should have its own intrigue, otherwise life would be boring, so let’s enjoy it a little longer.”
Medvedev is asking investors to take a huge leap of faith in embracing his promises for stability but not backing them up with the transparency of disclosing whether he will be around to fulfill them.
Transparency inspires investor confidence in the free-market economies that Russia emulates. In those countries, investors know relatively far in advance what is brewing in the political scene. The United States, for example, is 16 months away from its next presidential election, but opponents to Barack Obama are already lining up.
In Russia, only nine months remain before the vote, and no serious candidate has cast his hat into the ring. In the last election in 2008, investors only found out that Medvedev would be the next president three months before Election Day. The Kremlin owes investors — and, more important, voters — much more this time around.

EDITORIAL : THE RFI english, FRANCE

 

 

French press review

 

Sarkozy promises to leave those kids alone, Robespierre doesn't get his name on a Paris street, business gets the jumping jitters and the costs of the Libyan intervention.

Le Monde gives pride of place to yesterday's announcement by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that there'll be no further class closures in French primary schools, at least until after the 2012 elections.
Somebody should be worried. 1,500 classes were closed this year, to the great annoyance of rural voters and their representatives.
T

Dossier: Eurozone in crisis

he president said the closures were necessary to save money and use available resources as effectively as possible.
But that sort of talk can cost a man important votes when he's trying to get elected and already has the disadvantage of a popularity rating which would have embarrassed Joe Stalin.
Hence yesterday's announcement. No more class closures.
However, the basic principle of not replacing 50 per cent of teachers who leave the profession is to be maintained, as is the presidential determination to get rid of 16,000 posts in the education sector in the course of 2012. It just doesn't add up.
Either other divisions of the education establishment are going to have to pay the price, or else, as Le Monde suggests, the cuts will be cleverly masked to confuse the voters . . . by keeping kids under the age of three out of the school system, for example, or by cutting down on replacement teachers, or by simply increasing the number of children in each class.
Says one commentator interviewed by Le Monde, "the system has been pared down to the bone. Now, they're attacking the bone."
Le Figaro also looks to the school system for its main story, bizarrely headlined "Morality makes a major return in French schools".
This is because the Education Ministry feels that morality is rarely, if ever, dealt with in the current primary school system, and has launched an offensive to encourage teachers to discuss, on a daily basis, a moral principle with their students. The idea is to prepare students to be good citizens.
Critics of the proposal say it is old-fashioned, inefficient and silly.
But when you read, on an inside page of Le Monde, that a 13-year-old girl was killed this week, punched to death outside her school by the 15-year-old brother of one of her classmates because the two girls were in love with the same boy, you realise that it is high time the kids were reminded of a few basic facts about life in community.
Earlier this week, the Paris city council decided, once again, not to name a street after the revolutionary political figure, Maximilien Robespierre.
Old Max got himself a bad name for chopping off his rivals' heads during the post-revolutionary period known as the Terror, but he was not alone in that. And he did give us the national motto "Liberty, equality and brotherhood" as well as staunchly opposing slavery at a time when it would have made political and financial sense to look the other way.
Despite the fact that fellow "Terrorists", Danton, Saint-Just and Desmoulins all have Parisian streets bearing their names, Bad Max remains on the black list, an irony of history perhaps, since all three were put to death by Robespierre. Just before he lost his own head.
And you thought contemporary French politics was a dirty business!
The financial daily, Les Echos, is in gloomy form, as it gives headline honours to the recent series of failed or postponed stock market launches on the Paris exchange.
The television operation Canal+, the casino and betting group Barrière, and the glass-bottle manufacturer Verallia have all cancelled plans to raise cash by offering shares for sale.

THE BATTLE FOR LIBYA

All three cite market uncertainty and a nervous investment climate to explain their hesitations, which hesitations have made the markets even more uncertain and given normally nervous investors the jumping jitters.
Libération reports that the war in Libya is costing France more than two million euros every day.
If Moamer Kadhafi has not been moved to the exit by the middle of July, questions will be asked about whether or not the money is being wisely spent.
The problem is that the Defence Ministry has spent all the 630 million euros it has for external operations this year, and has called on the government for more money to throw at Kadhafi.
Sounds like a good reason to sack a few more teachers?

EDITORIAL : THE TRIPOLI POST, LIBYA

Economy Alone Fails to Explain Turkey’s Success

Many commentators today are basing the success of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the June 12 elections largely on its ability to guide the country through a decade of remarkable growth. Economic indicators are often seen as the obvious logic behind economic stability - lack thereof. However, they are not enough on their own to reach such sweeping conclusions. In an article entitled, ‘Look toward Turkey’s economy to understand Erdogan’s re-election’, Ibrahim Ozturk opined: “From 2002 to 2007, Turkey experienced its longest period of uninterrupted economic growth, which averaged 6-7 percent year on year, while annual inflation plummeted. Moreover, the economy proved resilient following the global financial crisis, with growth recovering rapidly.” (Lebanese Daily Star, June 18). According to Ozturk’s perceptive analysis, the AKP’s success in picking up the pieces of a shattered economy (as a result of the 2001 severe economic ‘crisis’), and the ever-popular Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “appear to have secured democratic political control of Turkey’s military and bureaucracy.” The powerful Turkish military had repeatedly interfered in the country’s politics, leading three military coups which all but destroyed Turkish democracy. The very promising Turkish political experience, now branded the “Turkish model”, had its many challenges. It took a new generation of Turkish leaders to position their country as a politically stable regional power with a rising economy (the GDP registered an increase of 9 percent in 2010). Did sound, self-assured policies engender a strong economy, or was economic growth responsible for the political stability (by keeping the military at bay, thus further solidifying Turkey’s democratic experience)? Libya is an interesting example to consider while reflecting on this question. The North African country, which is currently undergoing an armed revolt and Western-led war, had been scoring high in terms of sheer numbers. Thanks to petroleum-generated revenues, and a small population, Libya has the highest per capita GDP in Africa. Its economic growth has been relatively stunning from 2000 onwards. In 2010, GDP grew by over 10 percent. For many Libyans however, social justice, distribution of wealth, political freedom and other issues proved of greater relevance than gratifying GDP charts. In Egypt too, despite the greater poverty experienced by the much larger population (compared to Libya), the youth of the January 25 revolution came from varied economic backgrounds. For many of them, freedom seemed to top mere economic sustenance. Turkey’s case is not dissimilar to these. In fact, a discussion of Turkey’s success cannot be reduced to one decade of economic growth and political stability. More, ‘modern Turkey’ cannot be reduced to the palpable successes of the AKP. It goes back to earlier generations, starting with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. A larger-than-life figure in the eyes of several generations of Turks, Ataturk was able to win Turkey’s independence - no easy feat, considering the challenges of the time. However, neither he nor his style of politics resolved the question of Turkey’s cultural and political identity as a majority Muslim country that defined modernity based almost exclusively on Western values. This question actually lingered in the country for decades. One could argue that situating Turkey in suitable socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts was one of the greatest challenges facing modern Turkish politicians. For decades, Turkey was torn between its historical ties to Muslim and Arab countries on the one hand, and the impulsive drive towards Westernisation on the other. The latter seemed much more influential in forming the new Turkish identity in its individual, collective, and thus foreign policy manifestation and outlook. Even during the push and pull, Turkey grew in import as a political and economic player. It also grew into a nation with a decisive sense of sovereignty, a growing sense of pride and a daring capacity for asserting itself as a regional power. In the 1970s, when ‘political Islam’ was on the rise throughout the region, Turkey was experiencing its own rethink. Various politicians and groups began grappling with the idea of taking political Islam to a whole new level. In fact, it was the late Dr Necmettin Erbakan, Prime Minister of Turkey between 1996 and 1997, who began challenging the conventional notion of Turkey as a second-class NATO member desperate to identify with everything Western. In the late 1980s Erbakan’s Rafah Party (the Welfare Party) took Turkey by storm. The party was hardly apologetic about its Islamic roots and attitude. Its rise to power as a result of the 1995 general elections raised alarm, as the securely ‘pro-Western’ Turkey was deviating from the very the rigid script that wrote off the country’s regional role as that of a “lackey of NATO”, (a phrase used by Salama A Salama in an Al-Ahram Weekly article last year). The days of Erbakan might be long gone, but the man’s legacy never departed Turkish national consciousness. He began the process of repositioning Turkey - politically, as well as economically - with the creation of the Developing Eight (D-8), which united the most politically significant Arab and Muslim countries. When Erbakan was forced to step down in a ‘postmodernist’ military coup, it was understood as the end of short-lived political experiment. But the 2002 election win of the (AKP) rekindled Erbakan’s efforts through a young and savvy new political leadership. This has just been awarded yet a third mandate to continue its programme of economic growth, political and constitutional reforms. Now Turkey seems to be offering more than stability at home. It is also serving as a regional model to its neighbors, an important contribution in the age of Arab revolutions and potential political transformations. It is essential that the Turkish experience is not reduced to only charts and numbers delineating economic growth. Some very wealthy countries are politically restless. The success of the Turkish model supersedes the economy to sensible political governance, democracy, the revitalisation of civil society and its many institutions. Good economic indicators can be promising, but without responsible leadership to guide growth and distribute wealth, political stability is never guaranteed.

EDITORIAL : THE BANGKOK POST, THAILAND

 

 

Justice system faces a test

Our heartfelt sympathies to the family of Dr Hathaiporn Imwitthaya, victim of an apparent deliberate hit-and-run allegedly perpetrated by a drunken army officer on the night of June 4, in the capital's Phya Thai district.

If the witness account of the incident given by the victim's mother, 70-year-old Dr Pannakorn, is true then this is an outrageously unprovoked crime by a man with a very bad and dangerous temper.

But what is more troubling about this case is not the madness of the assailant, but the way the case is being treated by the police and also the suspicion that someone in the top echelon of the Royal Thai Armed Forces or the Supreme Command, has been attempting to cover up the case to help the assailant escape punishment.

Mind you, the victim is not an ordinary person but an army major working at Phra Mongkut military hospital with an outstanding record which has earned her a Ramathibodi title. Hence, her mother should not be worried about the possibility that her case would not be given fair treatment.

But, in the harsh real world, it is a different story particularly when the culprit is not an ordinary person but one with powerful connections. Which was why Dr Pannakorn was worried and decided to go public about her daughter's ordeal when she, accompanied by the victim's colleagues at Phra Mongkut hospital, went to see Pol Maj Gen Vichai Sangprapai, commander of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's first division, on Monday.

Police have categorically denied that they are dragging their feet on the case. But are they not? Consider the following facts: The incident took place about 8pm on June 4. There were several eyewitnesses, including the victim's mother. The incident was captured on a surveillance camera installed by Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Also, a windscreen wiper thought to belong to the car in question, was found at the scene.

Despite all this evidence, it took Phya Thai police 10 days since June 4 to notify the Comptroller General's Office of the Royal Thai Armed Forces headquarters to have the car, a Nissan Sunny Neo, impounded for examination.

Why it took so long for the police to have the car impounded although the car had already been identified by Dr Pannakorn, who jotted down its licence plate number when it was parked in front of her daughter's clinic before the incident? With 10 days wasted, there is no need to imagine what has been done to the car or what evidence has been tampered with.

The hit-and-run suspect, Col Saksith Phuklam, a director attached to the Office of the Comptroller General's Office, gave himself up to Phya Thai police yesterday but he denied the charge, claiming that it was, in fact, the victim who threw herself at his car and was, therefore, hit. The victim is unable to refute the colonel's accusation as she is comatose. The saddest thing is that it is not known whether she will regain consciousness.

This sudden twist in the case with the accusation against the victim, brings to mind the case involving a fatal road accident on Don Muang tollway on the night of Dec 27, concerning a passenger van and a car driven by a teenage girl from a well-connected family. Altogether nine people in the van, including the driver, died and six others were injured. Six months later, the prosecutors have yet to bring the case to court against the teenager, who has come up with the new accusation that the dead van driver had been solely to blame for the road carnage. How these two high-profile cases are resolved will speak volumes about the credibility of the justice system in this country.

EDITORIAL : THE INDENDENT, IRELAND

          

 

So far, so good, but we must keep going

THERE is no hard and fast rule on how long honeymoons should last. A lifetime, say romantics: until the journey home, said the cynical old cartoon character Andy Capp. It is never a lifetime for governments.

Experience shows the best they can hope for is a mid-term crisis followed by recovery which might give victory in the next election. But the general view is that it is a bad sign if a new government's popularity does not last at least 100 days.

To judge from today's Irish Independent opinion poll, the Fine Gael/Labour coalition government has passed that test. The honeymoon is still on. The larger party has gained since the election and the once-derided Enda Kenny has the approval of a remarkable two-thirds of the electorate. What this means for both government and public, is difficult to say.

The 100-day business took on a life of its own, but it is largely irrelevant for a government with a five-year term and a large majority. It is more significant that the failure to "burn" bank bondholders or get a cut in the bailout interest rate has not damaged the Government's popularity, despite the tide of anger washing across the airwaves and pages on these topics.

People are happy to have a fresh government after the burnt-out husk which the Fianna Fail administration became. Mr Kenny has surprised almost everyone by the air of authority he has acquired as Taoiseach, both inside and outside the Dail. A few misspeaks aside, the coalition's communications strategy has been sharp.

The question is what will happen when the novelty wares off and the stern realities of fixing the public finances re-emerge. That will happen as the 2012 Budget emerges over the next few months.

Yesterday, Public Expenditure & Reform Minister Brendan Howlin stressed the need to involve the public in the austerity. He is probably right that people realise that great painful changes must come, and may be right that they will go along with them if they understand what is being done and see it as fair. That is why the soothing 100-day speeches of Mr Kenny and Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore are a cause for concern. It may be popular to suggest that incomes will be protected -- without actually saying so -- but it risks even greater unpopularity to raise expectations which cannot be met.

This government, more than most, should pay no attention to its popularity. If it delivers the necessary corrections and reforms there will be tears and tantrums along the way, but it has every chance of being rewarded in the far-off days of 2016. The party which needs to worry, and whose options are virtually non-existent, is Fianna Fail.

Mortgage market goes back to the 1970s

While statistics on unemployment and the national debt suggest Ireland is mired back in the 1980s, forecasts for mortgage applications this year -- at a pitiful 11,000 -- suggest Ireland is dealing with an economic backdrop not seen since the early 1970s.

Of course, statistics are by their nature selective and the actual size of our economy these days is nothing like that of the 1970s, but clearly the housing market is still suffering a painful re-adjustment.

The reasons for this are varied. Higher interest rates, lack of demand, lack of credit and, of course, unemployment among young people, who usually provide the backbone of the first-time buyer market.

While the banks claim to be open for business, they are often seeking deposits that potential borrowers don't have. The borrowers themselves are reluctant to buy based on the belief that prices will drop even further. This deflationary spiral is going to be hard to break.

However, what the Government can do is make sure the state-owned banks are actually lending to home buyers to the fullest extent possible. The banks have benefitted from generous capital injections from the State and it is incumbent on them to find a way to service the needs of homebuyers.

EDITORIAL : THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA

A blockbuster balancing act

Indonesian moviegoers will again be able to enjoy blockbusters from the United States, which stopped entering the country in February, after Indonesian authorities last week decided to change the way imported movies are taxed and thereby resolved its standoff with Hollywood.

While the new levy system for imported movies will almost double import tariffs, foreign studios will not likely remove Indonesia from their export list because of the country’s huge market potential with its population of 240 million and rapidly expanding middle class.

The new tax system, announced last Friday, will still give a fair margin to both importers and international studios, with tax burdens low enough for US studios to still profit from exporting films to Indonesia, and yet big enough to discourage the import of low-quality movies.

More importantly, the new system will remove uncertainty caused by the previous system, whereby the tax burden was assessed on the basis of how much money a film earned at the box office.

Film importers and international studios had rejected the old system as unfair because it was impossible for them to predict ticket sales until a film had hit the box office. The ad valorem tax system also required a complicated assessment, which was vulnerable to corruption given the notorious reputation of the tax office.

According to the Indonesian Union of Cinema Owners, every year about 50 to 80 local titles and 100 to 150 foreign titles are screened at theaters throughout the country, grossing around US$100 million in sales.

But the association had warned that if the government refused to revoke its import tax policy, it would kill the cinema industry and badly hurt restaurants and shopping mall investors.

The new system will impose a flat tax rate of between Rp 21,000 ($2.43) and Rp 22,000 per minute of film imported. Assuming the average length of a film is around 100 minutes, the import tax on films under the new system could reach Rp 2.1 million to Rp 2.2 million per copy. Since importers usually bring in between 20 to 40 copies of each title, one release then could cost importers up to Rp 88 million in import tax alone.

The new tax seems to have been designed to discourage foreign films from flooding the country, since the flat rate will force importers to be more selective in bringing in foreign movies. This, in turn, will help protect the struggling local film industry.

The resolution of the dispute over taxes on imported films is quite timely because the school holiday season (mid-June–July) is usually a peak sales period for theaters.

The remaining challenge now is for the government to end the cartel in movie distribution, because the stoppage of Hollywood imports to Indonesia since February seemed to have been a result not only of the tax dispute but also of what theater owners saw as monopolistic practices among film importers and distributors of Hollywood blockbusters.

The imported film debacle also should serve as another warning to the government not to issue complex tax rules or regulations that are prone to different interpretations, providing loopholes to corrupt officials and causing uncertainty to businesses.

EDITORIAL : THE NEW STRAITS TIMES, MALAYSIA

 

Deadbeat parenting

ISLAM has a strict definition of parental obligation within marriage and after divorce, which leaves economic responsibilities to fathers, unless wives or ex-wives respectively, agree to pitch in. Consequently, once a divorce is official and custody given over to the mother, or is hers by default, child maintenance or nafkah is borne by the male parent. Unfortunately, "deadbeat dads", that is, fathers unwilling to fulfil this duty, are alleged to be commonplace. In Malaysia, despite compulsory pre-nuptial courses, men obviously enter marriage without a clear picture of its financial burdens and commitments. This observation must, however, be tempered with the admission that deadbeat dads are everywhere. In the United States, for example, so strong was public concern that the Deadbeat Dads Punishment Act 1998 was passed to address the problem.

The Family Support Division (BSK) of the Syariah Judiciary Department, set up in 2009, has, within its purview, the resolution of the same problem -- of intransigent ex-husbands who tend to think of themselves as also ex-fathers -- but without the strength of a similar Act of Parliament behind it. In its two years of operation, its critics have accused the BSK of ineffectiveness. In its defence, it has been argued that despite its relatively young age, the BSK has managed to bring to a satisfactory resolution some 60 per cent of all nafkah defaulter cases nationwide. That the reported numbers it presents bespeak a reality of manageable proportions do not, nevertheless, make an affected child's predicament any more tolerable for, even if it is just one child, it still is one child too many.

Therefore, more should be done to bring the half-brained dandies to book and repair the grief inflicted by them on their own children. The often cited excuse is bitter divorces: surely lame when children have to pay for their parents' inability to get along. In this particular scenario, it behoves the state to impose severe penalties on such parents. Maybe the Islamic Family Law should have an enactment that makes remorseless deadbeat parenting a jailable offence replete with heavy fines, a punishment hard enough to deter. Maybe, too, pre-nuptial courses ought to stress on parental responsibilities, which are unending, rather than the duties a couple owe one another. Enough of the duty to feed husbands and clothe wives, and let it be drummed into the consciousness of prospective brides and grooms that children can be an enormous call on time and resources. And so, the message of the future should be, "Parents beware, of both the burden and the law".

EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, ENGLAND

 

In praise of… Dave Lee Travis

At first, one might not see an immediate connection between a Burmese campaigner for democracy and a disc jockey best known for inventing a radio quiz based on snooker

Who can resist the story of the heroic dissident and the Hairy Cornflake? There has been inevitable excitement this week at Aung San Suu Kyi's recollection that listening to Dave Lee Travis on the World Service helped sustain her through years of house arrest. At first, one might not see an immediate connection between a Burmese campaigner for democracy, whose reflectiveness and courage are legendary, and a disc jockey best known for inventing Give Us a Break, the first (and surely last) radio quiz to be based on snooker. But as the Nobel peace prize winner has explained, Travis's show made her world "much more complete". It allowed her to tap into life outside her confinement in a way that a strict diet of news wouldn't: "The listeners would write in and I had a chance to hear other people's words." DLT has fallen into that category of entertainer who is considered within his own lifetime as a period piece. He is remembered for his almost ursine beard, the expanse of chest hair on show when he presented Top of the Pops, his habit of referring to himself in the third person, and the "quack quack oops" sound belched out when quiz contestants gave a wrong answer. Still, Aung San Suu Kyi is right that the constant news pumped out by today's World Service does not have enough light and shade. Decades of house arrest has made her an ardent listener. Being informed is important, but so is being entertained. As Travis's fan reminds us, it would be a poor diet that did not include some cheese.

Criminal justice: The revolution that never was

After David Cameron's rewriting of the justice bill, Kenneth Clarke's rehabilitative revolution lies in tatter

The brief illusion of liberal government disappeared with the publication of the sentencing bill on Tuesday. The Rose Garden promise had been for a calm coalition animated by progressive values and guided by reason. That promise was fleetingly fulfilled by the justice secretary, Ken Clarke. Last year he stood ready to unlock 20 years of failed thinking, with a green paper which accepted that Britain's drift towards mass incarceration was imposing an unacceptable human and financial cost. Now it has been decisively breached by a prime minister who once claimed to be a liberal Conservative.

Make no mistake: after David Cameron's rewriting of this bill, Mr Clarke's rehabilitative revolution lies in tatters. Its thrust had been to end avoidable incarceration and reinvest the money in doing something more productive than making bad people worse. Its detail consisted in drug treatment, work and training, but also – crucially – in specific plans that would have had the effect of cutting the number locked up by 6,450 as compared with the inherited plans. The biggest slice of that reduction was to come from a sensible move to relieve the pressure on Britain's creaking courts, by increasing the discount available for a guilty plea.

Mr Clarke jeopardised it all a few weeks ago with some singularly ill-chosen words which created the impression that some rapes were not serious. After that, the prime minister may have felt he had little choice but to stay the extra discount from the most heinous crimes, which he did a fortnight ago. Now he has gone further. He scrapped extra discounts across the board, and postponed a desperately needed rationalisation of indeterminate public protection sentences, under which thousands are currently unjustly banged up after their jail terms have elapsed. At a stroke, these moves knocked out nearly 4,000 of the notionally saved places, very likely enough to ensure that the current tally of inmates will not stabilise, but continue to rise. As if bent on securing that dismal outcome, Mr Cameron also announced new mandatory jail terms – the sort of eye-catching initiative associated with Tony Blair at his worst, and one that cuts entirely across Mr Clarke's stated desire to restore discretion to the judge who has listened to the facts of the case.

As Labour's Sadiq Khan pointed out, there will now be cuts to probation, cuts to youth offending teams and a fresh stretch on prison resources. What Mr Khan did not say is that the emerging retributive counterrevolution is the product of a rotten political culture, of which Labour is a part. Having promised to give Mr Clarke the space to reform, Ed Miliband called for his head in the midst of the rape row, and his party was shameless in damning the ending of remand for crimes that will not attract jail terms after sentence is passed – one of the few crumbs the justice secretary had salvaged. Even the Liberal Democrats have fallen eerily quiet. Many privately regarded the chance to get a grip on an out-of-control jail population as one of the most tangible benefits of coalition, but the third party's customary courage in criminal justice appeared to desert it as Mr Clarke hunted for friends.

But the greatest shame in this shaming tale is reserved for the prime minister. Where he belatedly bowed to reasoned objections over the NHS, this time he has been cowed by the tabloids. Having backed the Clarke plans in private, he emerged to trash them in public, calling his character into question the day after a Guardian/ICM poll revealed that his personal ratings had dived into negative territory. Mr Cameron has long faced both ways on crime, but on Tuesday he made his choice and lurched to the right by reheating the "two strikes and you're out" life sentences once associated with Michael Howard, the home secretary he worked for as a young man. For all his reinvention of the Tory aroma, liberal noses now catch a niff of the nasty party of old.

Scotland: New order, old questions

The Scotland bill may now seem a bit irrelevant with the election of a majority nationalist government

The election of the majority Scottish Nationalist government under Alex Salmond on 5 May means that the Scotland bill, which cleared its final Commons stages yesterday, may now seem a bit irrelevant. The bill, based largely on the Calman report of 2009, is a reformist unionist bill in line with the original thinking that led to devolution in 1998. SNP opposition, and the election of the majority SNP administration, with an independence referendum in its sights, may make the bill look like yesterday's politics. Yet increased powers for Scotland are still the constitutional option favoured by a majority of Scots. So the issues in the bill still matter.

Mr Salmond has actually been paying quite a lot of attention to the bill recently. He appears to be doing this for three main reasons. First, because he thinks he can win some extra concessions from London on financial matters. Second, because he wants to continue to present himself as Scotland's champion within UK politics. He cannot do this by standing aloof and simply condemning the new bill. And, third, because his independence strategy requires him to prove to pro-devolution voters that he has tried his best to make it work, but that Scotland's wishes have in fact been frustrated at every turn and that independence is therefore the only solution. Mr Salmond is out campaigning for a referendum yes vote already.

Yet it is too easy to treat independence as the only issue in Scottish politics. The truth is otherwise – as it was throughout much of the 2007-11 Scottish parliament as well. Independence remains a relatively low priority for most Scots, even after 5 May. The issues that matter most are the economy and public spending, the same as elsewhere. Even the SNP has always made clear that the referendum will not come before 2014 – the Bannockburn anniversary year. Between now and then, Mr Salmond will try to take every issue – whether taxation powers, public service reform or the workings of the UK supreme court – and frame it in a nationalist manner.

That may seem easy work right now, in the afterglow of 5 May and with, perhaps, a famous byelection victory over Labour in the offing at Inverclyde next week. But it will actually get a lot harder than Mr Salmond's cheery optimism would imply. Much of this focuses around paying for Scottish public services. There was a taste of that this week when the head of Scotland's local authorities, Rory Mair, challenged the SNP to show how it could bridge the "25% gap between what we need to spend and the resources we have".

Finding the £3bn to bridge that gap is just one of many big questions in Scotland to which independence is not the only answer.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

Pagcor files graft charges against its former head Genuino, other officials

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. has filed its second criminal case against former Pagcor Chairman and CEO Efraim Genuino and former officials of the agency.

This time for graft and corruption related to Pagcor’s questionable direct funding assistance of more than P34 million to the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association Inc. (PASA) beginning 2007.

Charged before the Office of the Ombudsman were Genuino, former Pagcor president/COO Rafael “Butch” Francisco, former directors Philip Lo, Manuel Roxas and Danilo Gozo, former executive vice president Rene Figueroa, former VP for Accounting Department Ester Hernandez, former VP for Corporate Communications and Services Department Edward “Dodie” King and former AVP for Internal Audit Department Valente Custodio.

In a separate complaint, sports advocates led by former Sen. Nikki Coseteng and Philippine Swim League president Susan Papa filed charges of graft and corruption, and violations of the Forfeiture Law and Anti-Money Laundering Act against the former Pagcor officials together with former Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman William Ramirez and PASA president Mark Joseph.

Lawyer Harry Roque, the group’s legal counsel, pointed out “this is not just malversation of public funds. It’s about destroying the dreams of young athletes. It’s unforgivable that money allotted by law for sports and youth development went to the private pocket of former Pagcor Chairman Efraim Genuino.”

Records show sometime in August 2007, an arrangement was reached between Ramirez, in his capacity as PSC chairman, and Genuino, in his capacity as Pagcor chairman and CEO.

PSC authorized Pagcor to deduct from its monthly remittance to the sports commission the amount incurred by PASA like food and accommodation, venue fees and other expenses for the training of national swimmers.

This is illegal since Republic Act 6847 (Philippine Sports Commission Act) states that Pagcor is required to directly remit 5 percent of its gross income to the PSC. The Commission shall in turn allocate portions of the funding assistance from Pagcor to specific national sports development initiatives, including training of national athletes by National Sports Associations (NSAs) like PASA.

On Aug.15, 2007, the Pagcor Board comprised of Genuino, Francisco, Lo, Roxas and Gozo, approved the grant of a monthly financial assistance for three years to PASA. Succeeding “financial assistance” to PASA was also approved by the Pagcor Board on Dec. 4, 2007, April 1, 2008, Feb.y 11, 2009 and May 26, 2009.

On various dates from Sept. 12, 2007 to Dec. 16, 2008, various funds totaling P34.323 million were released to PASA chargeable to PSC share. These were subsequently re-classified by Pagcor as “financial assistance.” The re-classification meant charging the amount to Pagcor’s operating expenses.

When a change in PSC leadership came in 2009, the new PSC Chairman Harry Angpin wrote Genuino to inform him that PSC is rescinding the Aug. 1, 2007 authorization issued by Ramirez to Pagcor. Genuino then discontinued direct funding to PASA.

On Sept. 23, 2009, concerned swimmers, coaches, parents, members of PASA and non-members as well formally requested the Commission on Audit (CoA) to review all funds remitted by Pagcor to PASA.

CoA then wrote Pagcor to submit documents supporting the disbursements made to PASA. In response, then Pagcor Internal Audit head Custodio submitted to CoA a liquidation report reflecting disbursements to PASA in the total amount of P31.858 million.

After a review of the submitted documents, CoA wrote Pagcor on Jan. 18, 2010 stating the following:

1. There is no basis of authority for Pagcor to release the funds directly to PASA instead of releasing to PSC as mandated by law.

2. The Liquidation Report submitted by Pagcor is not signed/approved by the authorized PASA officials.

3. Disbursements stated in the liquidation report in the total amount of P31,858,616.85 were not properly supported by documents.

Documents show that Pagcor’s financial assistance to PASA was used by the latter to pay the TRACE Aquatic Complex (TAC) in Los Banos, Laguna. The sports complex, used for the training of PASA’s swimmers, is owned and operated by the Genuino family.

Genuino was a member of the TRACE Board of Trustees from 1986 to 2003 and also its president. As of May 21, 2010, Genuino’s wife Aurora Flores Genuino serves as chairman of TRACE’S Board of Trustees, son Erwin Genuino is president, and daughter Sheryl Genuino See is chief finance officer. Although the former Pagcor CEO is no longer a member of the Board of Trustees of TRACE, Genuino’s financial interest is direct in view of the fact that his wife owns at least 48.5 percent of TRACE’S equity distribution.

Based on the receipts and documentation submitted by PASA, it paid to TRACE Aquatic Center the amount of P37.063 million using Pagcor’s financial assistance for the use of TAC sports facilities.

Meanwhile, the inclusion in the graft and corruption charges of former Pagcor board members Francisco, Lo, Gozo and Roxas was they “acted in conspiracy with Genuino in approving the monthly financial assistance to PASA knowing full well that PASA uses the TRACE Aquatic Center in Los Banos, Laguna in training its swimmers.”

On the other hand, former Pagcor officials Figueroa, Hernandez and King, and still incumbent officer Custodio were included in the charges because of their “indispensable official acts without which the release of “financial assistance” to PASA and payments by PASA of its accounts with TRACE for the use of the tatter’s Aquatic Complex facilities would not have been completed.”

The separate complaint filed by the group of Coseteng named former PSC Chairman William Ramirez as one of the respondents since he “is clearly liable for the unlawful and fraudulent disbursements by Pagcor to PASA because he aided, abetted and conspired to perpetrate the same by issuing his Aug. 1, 2007 authorization which was used as basis for the unlawful and fraudulent disbursements to PASA.”

The group also alleged that PASA President Mark Joseph was liable in the unlawful transactions because “he benefited from the disbursements, he facilitated the criminal transfer of funds from Pagcor to PASA, and he effectively ‘laundered’ the funds for the benefit of Mr. Genuino.”

According to Atty. Roque, “we have lost our competitive advantage in swimming ever since PASA became a private entity under the control of Mark Joseph. We have not won in any swimming competition since PASA is not interested in training swimmers but in becoming the laundering machine of Genuino.”

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

 

Public servant reform plan a double-edged sword

The Yomiuri Shimbun

There are doubts whether bills related to national government employee system reform can function as expected.

The bills would give general government employees--excluding, for example, senior officials of ministries, agencies, police and the Japan Coast Guard--the right to negotiate and conclude agreements on working conditions. Like private company employees, they would be given the right to decide on their pay and working hours through labor-management negotiations. This is the pillar of the bills.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur of the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers restricted fundamental labor rights of government employees for fear that the labor movement would intensify in postwar Japan. In return, a system was introduced for the National Personnel Authority to decide on pay levels for national public servants to keep them in line with private-sector levels. The implementation of the bills would be the biggest reform effort since introduction of the current system.

The government was right to exclude the right to strike in the bills. This focal point should be considered after the new national government employee system has taken root.

Will labor-management negotiations be effective?

A public servant agency to be established as an external organization of the Cabinet Office following abolition of the National Personnel Authority will serve as a channel for negotiations with labor unions. If negotiations do not proceed smoothly, the Central Labor Relations Commission, an external organization of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, would serve as mediator or an arbiter.

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Steeper pay cuts possible?

The government led by the Democratic Party of Japan believes payrolls for public servants can be cut more steeply through labor-management negotiations than under the current NPA arbitration system. Once they are given the right to negotiate and conclude labor-management agreements, labor unions are hardly likely to understand the severe fiscal situation and accept pay cuts.

The NPA's arbitration was conducted regularly in the case of the defunct Japanese National Railways, whose labor unions were given the right to conclude a labor-management agreement. Even allowing for changing times, if such a practice was repeated under the projected national government employee system, it would end up being reform in name only.

The major goal of the envisioned reform is to achieve an efficient administration by encouraging both labor and management to act more responsibly. But would the cost in both time and money lead to administrative stagnation?

National government employees belong to various labor unions, including those affiliated with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) and the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren). If one union concludes a labor-management agreement, what about arbitrary decisions accepted by other unions? Would they prove effective?

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Diet has final say

Even if a labor-management accord is hammered out, the Diet has the final say in deciding pay for national public servants. If the Diet rejects the result of negotiations, labor-management bargaining will be a mere facade.

The reform plan includes establishment of a cabinet personnel affairs bureau under which personnel matters of top bureaucrats will be decided. The bureau will consider the eligibility of bureaucrats and people who apply for high-ranking posts and decide on personnel matters reflecting the intentions of the cabinet.

This is aimed at deciding personnel resources without being influenced by sectional interests at government offices. But it is not an easy task to determine the abilities of about 800 bureaucrats and ensure fair and appropriate distribution of posts among them.

The ruling and opposition parties should determine and discuss problems thoroughly so the national government employee system reform will not shake the foundations of Japan.

New law a key weapon in fight against intl cybercrime

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The creation of computer viruses, which had effectively been left unchecked, has at last come within the reach of law enforcement.

A bill to revise the Penal Code to criminalize the creation of computer viruses has passed the Diet and become law.

Under the revised Penal Code, a person who creates or distributes a computer virus without justification can be sentenced to up to three years in prison or fined up to 500,000 yen.

There had previously been no law directly criminalizing the creation of a computer virus. When investigative authorities found someone who had spread a computer virus by attaching it to a cartoon image, for instance, their only recourse was to handle the case as a violation of the Copyright Law for infringing the copyright of the cartoon.

We hope investigative authorities will do their utmost to deter crime by making full use of the new legal weapon.

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High-profile attacks increasing

Several government bodies and private companies have recently been targeted by cyberterrorists. In many cases, the attackers attempt to expose classified information or cripple computer systems by using a virus.

The United States is increasing its vigilance against cyber-attacks, suspecting that such countries as China might have been involved in these organized assaults.

The latest legislation will be the first step to enable Japan to respond to these crimes, which occur frequently and transcend national borders, in cooperation with the international community.

Major Western countries have already joined the Convention on Cybercrime. They cooperate closely in sharing investigative information and extraditing suspects to other member countries.

Japan has now established domestic laws to crack down on cybercrime. We think Japan should join the international treaty quickly.

It is important for Japan to cooperate with Western countries and increase monitoring of cybercrime. Such efforts will not only deter cybercriminals but also countries suspected to be involved in cyberterrorism.

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Clear definitions needed

Some members of the Internet industry are concerned the new law could see people who create a virus to develop software to fight viruses, or who inadvertently make flawed software, accused of committing a crime.

The Justice Ministry says these cases would not constitute the crime of producing a virus. To ensure computer engineers do not lose their motivation, the ministry needs to clearly define what acts are illegal and explain this in detail.

Together with the Penal Code revision, the Criminal Procedure Code has been revised, making it possible for investigative authorities to transfer necessary data from a personal computer to storage media and confiscate them, and to ask an Internet service provider to preserve telecommunication records.

Efficiently collecting evidence will enable the early exposure of cybercrime. It also will help prevent possible damage caused by virus infections from spreading.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

Liberty, where are thy friends   A strong school of thought is emerging in Mother Lanka as to where our country is heading and whether there are trends towards militarization. The presence of the Army and Police in large numbers on the streets of Colombo gives red light signals. Recently Prof. Jeevan Hoole who was invited by the President to return to his country to live and work has gone public with his fear. Dr. Hoole has stated that at the last meeting of the Friends of the Jaffna Library held in Jaffna, an Army Officer had walked in, had continued to stay there and had told those present they could not in any way remember Velupillai Prabhakaran and the LTTE. This happened soon after the week when the government remembered May 19, 2009.The recent tragic death of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone worker also added to the fear. There is an International Law which prohibits police  from using live bullets to handle a trade union or other democratic protests. Moreover there was a court order concerning the funeral of the victim and the security forces were prominently present at the funeral. We also heard a note of unprophetic compromise in the sermon. This trend swept the highest seats of learning with some 10,000 new entrants to universities being compelled to undergo military-style training. Contrary to the thinking of the revered Sir Ivor Jennings on the concept of the principles of university education, the Higher Education Ministry is now telling the universities what to do and what to teach. The syllabus raises questions as to whether we are building a new Sri Lanka on the vision of multi racial, multi religious and multi cultural unity in diversity. One cannot link these and other developments with the noble mission of reconciliation and many independent analysts are raising questions as to whether the work of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission will also end in some archives like the reports of so many commissions and committees. The revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was right when he said that the sin of our times is the silence of the majority. If liberty could speak it would cry out that what hurts more is not the sword of the enemy but the silence of the friend.

EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Another task for the PSLV

In its forthcoming mission, scheduled for the second week of July, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will, for the first time, be carrying a communications satellite, the 1,425-kg GSAT-12. The PSLV was originally developed to carry India's remote sensing satellites, which are typically placed in a polar orbit. In 2002, on its seventh mission, the rocket was used to launch the country's first dedicated meteorological satellite, Metsat, later renamed Kalpana-1 in memory of Kalpana Chawla, the Indian-born U.S. astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Like communication satellites, this meteorological satellite was put into geostationary orbit. In this orbit, some 36,000 km above the equator, the spacecraft matches the earth's rotation and therefore appears stationary from the ground. From its vantage point in space over India, Kalpana-1 keeps constant watch over evolving weather systems. For communications satellites like the GSAT-12, it is good perch to relay telephone conversations, data, and televisions broadcasts.

Satellites headed for geostationary orbit are put by rockets that launch them into an elliptical temporary orbit. From there, rocket engines on the spacecraft are fired periodically to manoeuvre them into the final position over the equator. In 2008, the most powerful version of the PSLV, the PSLV-XL, was used to place the lunar probe Chandrayaan-1, weighing 1,380 kg into an elliptical orbit 255 km at its closest to earth and nearly 23,000 km at its farthest; the spacecraft's own engines then took it, in stages, to orbit around the Moon. Next month, another PSLV-XL will leave the GSAT-12 in an elliptical orbit similar to that of the Chandrayaan-1. Both equatorial and polar launches from Sriharikota are challenging because of the need to drop the rocket's spent stages with considerable precision in international waters. In the case of an equatorial launch of the sort that will be done with the GSAT-12, the PSLV's six strap-on motors as well its first and second stages, when their propellant is exhausted, will have to be safely discarded before the rocket crosses the Malay peninsula; the third stage is dropped into the Pacific Ocean, while the fourth stage goes on to take the spacecraft into orbit. For polar launches, the rocket first flies south-east and then turns southwards in mid-flight to avoid dropping spent stages near Sri Lanka. Without this complicated dog-leg manoeuvre, its payload capability for polar launches would go up by about 50 per cent. These are hurdles the PSLV takes in its stride to fulfil a wide range of missions with sturdy reliability, a tribute indeed to all those who designed and now operate this remarkable launch vehicle.

Greek drama all over again

A highly unpalatable austerity package that is being thrust on Greece has spawned political turmoil in that country. Even a major cabinet reshuffle is not expected to temper the opposition to the austerity measures that prospective lenders insist Greece must adopt to qualify for a bailout package. If it eventually goes through, the reprieve will be the second in just over a year. Last year, when the debt crisis flared up, European lenders, hoping to contain it at the Greek border, provided a bailout worth $158 billion over three years, a significant portion coming from other euro area countries and the balance from the International Monetary Fund. However, since then the debt crisis has spread relentlessly across the southern and western periphery of the euro area. Today the crisis is viewed not just as the problem of a few laggard countries in the euro area but one that can threaten the foundations of the European Monetary Union and even have a negative impact on the global economy. Along with high levels of public debt in the advanced countries and escalating oil prices, it ranks among the significant threats to global economic revival. The IMF has estimated a one per cent drop in global output if the crisis in Europe persists. Even assuming that the Greek Parliament accepts the austerity package, there would still be daunting challenges in its implementation.

A very large portion of the Greek government debt is held by private investors. European banks are said to be holding around $150 billion of Greek government bonds. A bailout package will necessarily result in a steep reduction in the value of such holdings. These banks may have to be recapitalised. The extraordinary dependence on private capital will almost certainly exacerbate worries over the state of public finance in many countries. Other European countries considered weak by the markets will now come under pressure. As large global banks take a hit, the contagion will spread to other countries to which these banks have exposures. The rather tentative moves by Europe's politicians have not helped, but there is reason for their prevarication: in many countries, notably Germany and Finland, voters have generally been reluctant to share the cost of rescuing other countries. The crisis in Greece has brought into sharp focus the weakness of a stand-alone monetary union that does not have the usual fiscal and political foundations. A view is gaining ground that it will be in the best interests of everybody for Greece to exit the euro at least temporarily and then take measures that are in harmony with its own national interests.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

JS proposal on CTG scrapping

Cabinet approval should be reversed, if necessary

With the cabinet okaying the JS Body's recommendation for doing away with the caretaker government, the AL government has virtually shut out the door for talks with the opposition on the issue and taken what we believe to be an unintended confrontational posture.

By cabinet approval the government has spoken on the issue. It has a ring of finality before being tabled in parliament. Evidently this contradicts the government's repeated offers to have a dialogue with the opposition to arrive at a common ground on the caretaker issue. Nothing has happened since the government's overtures for talks and Khaleda Zia's positive-sounding response to justify such a unilateral step. We are surprised, we are baffled.

The impression is unavoidable, by the turn of events, that the government has moved away from its stated position of having invited the opposition to come to the parliament with its formula to amend the caretaker system in the wake of the court verdict.

Clearly the government has not thought through the likely consequences of a unilateral move on the issue that should remain open for discussion for all practical purposes.

In this context, the opposition has already stated that all doors for talks on the caretaker issue have been closed. Can the party be blamed for assuming that position?

We would still like to believe, routes to political solution through discussion have not been altogether blocked despite the cabinet approval.

In view of the negative signal in the matter given by the government, it should be obliged to restate its position unequivocally on the caretaker question. We think the government must undo the damage by unequivocally declaring that the doors for talks remain open, and if necessary, cabinet decision will be reversed.

Celebrating Sufia Kamal

She remains our point of light

Remembering Sufia Kamal is in large measure a celebration of the Bengali cultural heritage. The centenary of her birth, which was observed throughout the country on Monday, was indeed occasion for us to recall the significant role the poet played in our cultural ambience once she opted for a literary vocation in the early years of her life. She was an individual who, it can be said with pride, was our link with the past. Her interaction in youth with Begum Rokeya, Mohammad Nasiruddin, indeed with Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam were all pointers to the path that lay ahead for her, one which would define her own presence in the Bengali world of creative thought.

Surely the greatest tribute one can pay Begum Sufia Kamal is to recall the courage she demonstrated --- and in this she was amply encouraged by her family --- in emerging from a constricting conservative social atmosphere and going out into a wider world within the expanses of which she meant to give expression to her aspirations. And she did it with credit. Even as she engaged herself in literary pursuits, she remained fully aware of the poet's larger responsibility to society. And this responsibility she fulfilled marvellously well through taking part in all the progressive political movements which increasingly defined the Bengali persona after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. She would not stay silent when the Ayub Khan regime sought to proscribe Rabindranath Tagore in Bangladesh. Likewise, in the mass upsurge of 1969, she spotted the beginnings of a political-cultural renaissance, which renaissance was to achieve round itself out through the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. But the arrival of freedom did not lead Sufia Kamal into complacency. In the years that remained of her life, she waged a relentless, brilliant struggle against the forces of bigotry and darkness.

Sufia Kamal was, and remains, a point of light for the nation. That is why it becomes easier for us to look with optimism to the future.

EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

In praise of Media Watch

WE were encouraged on Monday night to see Media Watch tackle a burning media issue, the decline of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, by quoting from last Thursday's editorial in The Australian.

Unaccustomed as we are to compliments from Jonathan Holmes, we saw his endorsement of our coverage of the climate change debate as a welcome sign that good, unbiased journalism is still appreciated by someone at the ABC.

Readers of these editorials will not need to be reminded that we have argued for a market-based price on carbon for many years. But, as Holmes correctly pointed out, that might not be immediately obvious to those who only read our news and commentary pages.

That is how it should be. To allow our editorial stance to infect news coverage would be to cross the line from journalism to advocacy.

It would lead us along the path to irrelevancy that the editors of Fairfax's principal newspapers have already taken and it would insult the intelligence of readers who expect facts to be free of prejudice and editorials to be clearly marked.

Keep up the good work Jonathan. You have highlighted and endorsed our commitment to separating editorials from news. For once, we think you're on to something.

Global hunger strategies provide food for thought

FOOD security is a global issue replete with challenges and opportunities for Australia.

As a food exporter with an innovative agricultural history and a strong commitment to free trade, our nation needs to be at the forefront of international negotiations. So it is disappointing that when the G20 agriculture ministers meet in Paris to discuss food security this week, we will be represented by Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Mike Kelly rather than our agriculture or trade ministers. At least Mr Kelly will have his chance to shine if he draws the focus to the free trade agenda, highlighting how the distortions of European and US farm subsidies can only damage long-term agricultural productivity.

Escalating food prices have been one of the factors in the mix of grievances triggering popular revolts this year in places such as Egypt and Tunisia, dramatically highlighting the volatility of food politics. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates the number of undernourished people in the world at 925 million and this astonishingly high number fluctuates depending on economic conditions and weather patterns.

While we all recognise the importance of this challenge, it is true that doom and gloom too often dominate attitudes to food security. When the Club of Rome first drew international attention to these issues in the late 1960s, it triggered a decade of pessimism, where we were constantly told the world would run short of food and resources. Yet global population has continued to grow, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty and we have been able to produce sufficient food and energy. Most often the reason people go hungry is not because we can't grow enough food but because of bad governance, inadequate agricultural practices, poor distribution chains and restrictive trade -- all areas where Australia works for reform.

By exporting more than half of our agricultural produce, we are certainly a food bowl for the world. We stand to do a power of good for ourselves and the rest of the world by exporting more of our commercial agricultural knowhow, and also by sharing our expertise on agricultural production and good governance through our generous overseas aid program.

At the same time, the growing middle classes in China and India present golden export opportunities because our meats and other premium foods are so highly prized they are sometimes valued more as status symbols than as sustenance. As world population heads towards nine billion by 2050, some estimates suggest food production will need to double. That is one of the reasons foreigners are investing in our agricultural holdings, which is creating some understandable local anxieties. Governments must find a way to alleviate these concerns and co-ordinate this investment without diverting from our generally open attitude to foreign capital. We must also be realistic about advances such as genetic modification and encourage homegrown investment in technologically advanced food production. Above all, Australia must continue its robust diplomacy on free trade so that efficient producers such as our own are able to compete fairly.

A hungry world can ill-afford to subsidise inefficient crops or unnecessary biofuel projects.

Belated win for common sense

AFTER 16 months, three rounds of arbitration and a hefty outlay of public and retail industry money, Fair Work Australia has at last woken up to what enterprising teenagers have known all along.

That is, working for a couple of hours after school is a positive, not latter-day Dickensian exploitation, and the details can be left to students and their employers to work out.

Monday's ruling by tribunal vice-president Graeme Watson that full-time students can be employed after school for as little as 90 minutes, rather than the three-hour minimum imposed in response to Labor's so-called Fair Work Act, is strongly welcomed. In the current, tough retail environment the change will help shopkeepers hire young workers when they are most needed to respond to customer demand. For tens of thousands of students, the decision will restore the opportunity to earn useful pocket money and gain valuable experience in time management, reliability and customer service.

Under the conditions set out by the tribunal, the 90-minute engagement rule will apply only if the employee is a full-time student, if the hours worked are between 3pm and 6.30pm on school days, if the employee or their parent agrees and if employment for a longer period is impossible because of the employer's requirements or the unavailability of the student. In a nutshell, such conditions reflect the mutual agreements that flourish under systems which allow employers and staff to negotiate.

The decision highlights how and why more flexible workplace systems promote greater productivity than centralised, cast-iron awards. As a follow-up to the ruling, employers should feel encouraged to push for such arrangements to be extended to adult staff, especially in retailing and hospitality, where weekend and evening work is vital to cater to customers beyond the narrow band of 9am to 5pm. Submissions by some of Australia's largest employers to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the retail industry show that stiff penalty rates are making it uneconomic for some traders to open in the evenings, Sundays and on public holidays. The quadruple negative effect is that productivity declines, traders make less money, customers are inconvenienced and casual staff, who were supposed to be better off under Labor, miss out on shifts.

Trade union membership has continued to decline under the Rudd and Gillard governments, falling by 47,300 from August 2009 to just 18 per cent of workers in August 2010 and 14 per cent in the private sector. Such a trend suggests that most workers would be comfortable with the chance to negotiate directly with their employers. They do not appear to be in any hurry to protect themselves from exploitation through collective union bargaining under the archaic IR system created by Julia Gillard as an over-reaction to the Howard government's Work Choices.

The Prime Minister's claim that she does not encounter many businesspeople raising the Fair Work system as a frontline issue has been debunked by business leaders. After clearing the way for students to come to mutually convenient arrangements with employers, the Fair Work Australia tribunal should extend the same privilege to adults to determine for themselves what working hours, pay and conditions are acceptable. Workers, businesses and the national economy would be the winners.