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ISSUE 43
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| September 2002 |
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Namibian White Farmers Optimistic
on Land Reforms
Windhoek - Namibia's white farmers
said on Wednesday they were optimistic that Zimbabwe-style
land grabs could be avoided despite threats by their government
to expropriate scores of farms from absentee landlords. The
Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU), which represents about 4,000
white commercial farmers, said it had received assurances
from Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Minister Hifikepunye
Pohamba that the government would stick to its willing-buyer,
willing-seller policy. ''We had discussions with the minister
and the minister assured us that the government would stick
to the willing-buyer, willing-seller policy,'' NAU secretary-general
Gert Grobler told Reuters. This followed recent statements
by President Sam Nujoma supporting Zimbabwe President Robert
Mugabe's controversial seizures of white-owned farms for the
resettlement of landless blacks. Nujoma's ruling South West
African People's Organisation (SWAPO), at a recent congress,
accused farmers of inflating land prices and endorsed the
expropriation of 192 farms from absentee landlords, who are
mostly South African and German. On Monday, Prime Minister
Theo-Ben Gurirab told visiting Commonwealth Secretary General
Don McKinnon that Namibia would ''pursue a route that will
not destabilise the country when redistributing land.'' Grobler
said the planned expropriation of the 192 farms, while legal,
would scare off investors. He said farmers were offering land
to the government at market rates, despite official complaints
that the prices were inflated. Last year they offered the
government 171 farms but only 20 farms were bought, he said.
The government sets aside 20 million Namibian dollars ($1.88
million) annually for land acquisition, which Grobler said
was insufficient. ''The problem is the government has no money
for land acquisition, there are enough farms for sale,'' he
said. According to government statistics, white commercial
farmers own 30.4 million hectares (75 million acres) of the
land in Namibia, while blacks own 2.2 million hectares (5.4
million acres). Absentee landlords own 2.9 million hectares
(7 million acres), while the government owns 2.3 million hectares
(5.7 million acres). Indigenous Namibian tribal groups lost
almost all their arable land during the 1904-07 colonial war
with Germany. Namibia, formerly South West Africa, became
a South African protectorate when Germany lost World War One.
From MSNBC-Africa, 11 September 2002
S.Africa's Mbeki Wwants
to Ddiscuss Zimbabwe at U.N.
Cape Town - South African
President Thabo Mbeki will try to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis
with Commonwealth colleagues at the United Nations General
Assembly in coming days, a government minister said on Wednesday.
Despite Western pressure and limited sanctions against President
Robert Mugabe, the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe
has dominated southern African politics for more than two
years, denting investor confidence in the region and undermining
the value of South Africa's rand currency. Deputy Foreign
Minister Aziz Pahad said Mbeki, due in New York on Wednesday
for the annual General Assembly, would try to meet Commonwealth
colleagues Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Australian
Prime Minister John Howard on the sidelines of the assembly.
''If they are all there at the same time, it is expected that
they will try to meet to tackle the Commonwealth mandate...to
find in some way a solution to the situation in Zimbabwe.
''There is an economic crisis in Zimbabwe, the food situation
is quite dramatic, tensions are still very high,'' Pahad said.
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since militant supporters of Mugabe's
ruling ZANU-PF began to seize white-owned farms for landless
blacks in 2000. Mbeki has refused to take unilateral steps
against Mugabe, but agreed with Obasanjo and Howard in March
to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth in protest against
an election Mugabe was alleged to have stolen through intimidation
and fraud. Mugabe has ordered 2,900 of the country's 4,500
white farmers to surrender their land without compensation.
More than 300 farmers have been charged for defying the order.
Mugabe says he is taking the land to redress a colonial legacy
that left 72 percent of the best land in the hands of a tiny
white minority after independence in 1980. S.AFRICA SEEKS
INVESTOR PROTECTION - Pahad said there was broad international
agreement that the skewed post-colonial distribution of land
in Africa was a problem in many countries, including Zimbabwe.
But he added: ''We do believe land reform must be done in
an orderly way, within the rule of law, within the constitution
of the country. (We must)...ensure that the principle of willing
buyer, willing seller becomes a reality,'' he added. In parliament,
Deputy President Jacob Zuma dismissed opposition charges that
the government had failed to protect the investments of some
75 South Africans farming in Zimbabwe. Democratic Alliance
legislator Andries Botha said he had visited Zimbabwe in the
past week and had seen that the French, German and Dutch governments
had intervened to protect the investments of their nationals.
Zuma responded: ''You want us to emulate France, Germany.
We can't, we cannot. We are South Africa and we remain South
Africa with our clear policies how to relate to other countries.
''It's very clear, we cannot help you. We cannot go to Zimbabwe
and tell the Zimbabweans: Do this and do not do that. It's
not our duty,'' Zuma said. Pahad said South Africa was pressing
for the conclusion of a protection of investment treaty with
Zimbabwe, which has been under negotiation for many months.
''We are very keen that this agreement gets signed very quickly
because it does give South African investors some form of
legal protection. But in the end, it depends when you have
signed this agreement whether they really implement it.''
From MSNBC-Africa, 11 September 2002
African Union
Addis Ababa - Ministers
at a meeting of the African Union (AU) approved on Thursday
a continentwide policy on corruption, aimed at tackling the
graft that costs Africa an estimated $148 billion a year.
Following a two-day meeting here, the AU ministers passed
a resolution the pan-African body said would foster transparency
and accountability in Africa. The convention will now be presented
to the next AU summit for adoption.
From MSNBC, 19 September 2002
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China Ratifies Global Warming Treaty
Johannesburg, South Africa - China,
the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has
announced it has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, bringing the
environmental treaty one step closer to implementation. However,
because China is regarded as a developing nation, it is not
required to curb emissions. Instead, it would be eligible
to earn credits by setting up emission-reducing projects and
other so called clean development mechanisms. "China
has ... completed the domestic procedure for the approval
of the Kyoto Protocol with a view to taking an active part
in multilateral environmental co-operation," Chinese
Premier Zhu Rongji told the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable
Development in the South African capital Johannesburg on Tuesday.
China, which spews an estimated 11 percent of global carbon
emissions into the atmosphere, was widely expected to ratify
the agreement, which requires industrialized nations to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Yet Kyoto
may be extended to China in the future and force the communist
nation to meet emission targets. Meanwhile, Australia appears
to be softening its opposition to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
in the face of its increasing isolation on the issue. Russia
is also expected to ratify the agreement soon - a move that
would virtually ensure the 1997 treaty is introduced, despite
its rejection by the biggest air polluter, the United States.
(Russia close to Kyoto signing) Beijing slammed the Bush administration
for pulling out of Kyoto in March last year, with Washington
saying that the treaty would harm the U.S. economy. Development-hungry
nation - China, Asia's fastest growing economy, has promulgated
many environmental protection measures and laws despite skepticism
the development-hungry nation is not ready to embrace such
moves. Sustainable development was moved to the top of Beijing's
agenda after it announced its first five-year "green"
plan in March, 2001. Zhu has stressed the need to clean the
air, polluted rivers, lakes and water catchments as well as
combat a worsening desertification problem. Almost $8 billion
has been earmarked for projects including reforestation, pollution
control and water conservation for the five years up to 2005.
Analysts say that China faces an uphill battle against greenhouse
gas emissions, with private transport viewed as its major
environmental obstacle. Already, with the economy soaring,
cars clog up roads in many cities. What is needed urgently,
analysts say, is for the government to promote sustainable
transportation and public transport instead of private car
development. Unless that happens, they say China will become
the world's number one air polluter within a few years. Reuters
contributed to this report.
From CNN, 4 September 2002
Japan Urges China Transparency
on Military Spending
Japanese Foreign Minister
Yoriko Kawaguchi urged China on Monday to be more transparent
over its military spending and aid to other countries to offset
mounting public criticism over development aid to Beijing.
n a trip to mark the 30th anniversary of normalised Sino-Japanese
ties, Kawaguchi told Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen a lack
of public Japanese support was making it difficult to provide
aid, a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said. There was
strong criticism in Japan over its overseas development aid
to China, he quoted Kawaguchi as saying, adding that his country
was facing severe economic problems. ''She would rather like
to see the Chinese government give more explanation on military
spending and China's economic assistance to third countries,''
he said. ''She said since Japan is a democracy, the Japanese
government needs to show to the Japanese public that overseas
development aid to China is money well spent,'' he said. Qian
said he understood the economic considerations behind a 25
percent reduction in Japanese aid to 175.5 billion yen ($1.48
billion) to China for the fiscal year 2001 compared to the
previous year, but that transparency on military spending
and Chinese aid were unrelated, the spokesman said. ''This
kind of discussion would be unproductive,'' the spokesman
cited Qian as saying. The two Asian neighbours, whose relations
are haunted by their World War Two past, also aired differences
over imports of Chinese frozen spinach to Japan after Tokyo
stepped up inspections because it found high amounts of pesticides.
EAST ASIA SECURITY - Qian also urged Japan and the United
States to normalise relations with North Korea to foster peace
and security in the East Asian region, the spokesman said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is due to visit North Korea
on September 17 to explore the possibility of establishing
diplomatic ties, a move that has been welcomed by Beijing.
Ties between Japan and North Korea have been dogged by bitter
historical memories and talks on establishing formal relations
have been stalled for two years over a host of contentious
issues. In an earlier meeting with Kawaguchi, a Chinese cabinet
official said only three percent of around 2,000 delegates
elected to take part in China's 16th National Congress in
November were born before 1949, testament to the generational
change in the party's composition, the spokesman said. But
no indication was made that leadership changes were pending
he said. Analysts expect this year's five-yearly congress
to usher in a generation of younger leaders as older cadres,
led by President and Party chief Jiang Zemin, step down. Despite
the younger delegates, there would be no change to Chinese
policy towards Japan and the United States following the congress,
the spokesman cited the cabinet official as saying. Kawaguchi
is due to return to Japan on Tuesday. ($1-118.52 OYen).
From MSNBC, 9 September 2002
China's Jiang Targets
Jobless Ahead of Congress
Chinese President Jiang Zemin said
on Thursday finding jobs for millions of laid-off workers
was key to maintaining stability ahead of a crucial Communist
Party Congress due to usher in a new generation of leaders.
With less than two months until the five-yearly congress starts
on November 8, Jiang said finding jobs should be the top priority
for local officials. ''Officials at all levels should realise
the political significance of the issue of re-employment of
laid-off workers,'' Jiang said in a speech that took up more
than half of the 30-minute evening news on state television.
''The issue is extremely important and crucial to the stability
of reform and development and should be the top priority for
local officials,'' he said at a meeting attended by most of
the politburo standing committee - the party's top decision-making
body. Analysts said the speech highlighted concerns about
growing unrest among millions of workers laid off under state
sector reforms. Millions more could lose job as China's entry
to the World Trade Organisation brings a flood of foreign
competition. The speech also countered critics of Jiang's
proposal to allow private entrepreneurs to join the party,
they said. Old Communist believers accuse Jiang of betraying
the workers and farmers the party traditionally represents.
Images of government initiatives to help find employment for
laid-off workers flashed across television screens. ''They're
trying to reassure everyone about unemployment before the
party congress,'' said one Western diplomat. In late April,
China's State Council, or cabinet, issued a ''White Paper''
policy document detailing the country's strategy for coping
with millions of unemployed, an issue highlighted by a series
of large labour protests in northeast China in March. The
official China Daily newspaper has quoted Vice Minister of
Labour and Social Security Wang Dongjin as saying the nation's
official tally of urban unemployed was expected to top 20
million in four years' time, compared to 6.81 million in 2001.
Analysts say the official statistics greatly underestimate
unemployment as they do not include ''xiagang'' workers kept
on payrolls at state firms but sent home on token welfare
support.
From MSNBC, 12 September 2002
Hong Kong Justice Chief:
Time Has Come for Subversion Law
After five years as part
of China, Hong Kong must soon enact an anti-subversion law,
the justice secretary said Friday in an announcement that
critics have been dreading ever since the handover from Britain.
Rights activists immediately warned that the territory could
lose the civil liberties left in place under its ''one country,
two systems'' arrangement. Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung
told reporters Friday that the Hong Kong government never
insisted on acting quickly to pass a sedition law, but ''it
is time we must do it.'' She set no timetable and gave no
details of any proposed law. The government pledged a full
public debate over the law, which is also expected to bar
foreign groups from staging political activities in Hong Kong
and prevent local political groups from linking up with foreign
organizations. Leung, however, urged people to avoid overreacting.
''Don't speculate or guess beforehand, until the information
is ready, then everybody can criticize and give suggestions,''
she said. Still, activist groups were outraged. ''Hong Kong
will be no different from any other mainland Chinese city,''
said Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor.
Several newspapers reported Friday that proposed rules would
allow news media to be charged with sedition for repeatedly
publishing articles attacking the central government or promoting
succession from China. The reports said media would be allowed
to cover things that might infuriate Beijing, such as remarks
from Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on independence, but
continuous voicing of such comments could be an offense. Independent
lawmaker Margaret Ng said it ''sounds demented.'' ''What is
something that is not a crime when you do it once, but it
is a crime when you do it often enough?'' Ng said by telephone.
''It could create forbidden topics, the independence movement
in Taiwan, the Tibetans and so forth, certain things you cannot
talk about and other areas where you have to watch the fine
line.'' Beijing views as political heresy any move toward
independence for Tibet or Taiwan, although the latter has
been governed separately from China since 1949. When Hong
Kong rejoined China on July 1, 1997, it began operating under
a mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, which guarantees
Western-style civil liberties such as freedoms of speech,
press and assembly that would be unheard of in mainland China.
But pro-democracy figures have long feared the Basic Law's
Article 23, saying Hong Kong must ''enact laws on its own
to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion
against the central people's government or theft of state
secrets.''
From MSNBC, 13 September 2002
World Bank Says Vietnam's
Environment is Rapidly Deteriorating
Hanoi, Vietnam - The Vietnamese natural
environment, which supports one of the world's most biologically
diverse ecosystems, has deteriorated rapidly over the past
10 years, the World Bank said in a report released Wednesday.
Vietnam is home to about 10 percent of the world's species,
said the report, titled Vietnam Environment Monitor 2002.
Yet, of Vietnam's endemic species, 28 percent of mammals,
10 percent of birds and 21 percent of reptile and amphibian
species are now endangered, mainly because of habitat loss
and hunting, the report said. ''There has been a drastic decline
in environmental quality, but the government is beginning
to take steps to counter the decline,'' World Bank environmental
specialist Patchamuthu Illangovan said. ''This is a huge challenge.''
The report was funded by the Danish International Development
Agency and designed to raise awareness of policy makers as
well as donor countries and ordinary Vietnamese citizens,
Illangovan said. The report said communist Vietnam's cultivated
land area has increased 38 percent over the past decade, with
50 percent of the country's land now classified as having
poor soils because of human activity. Forested land area has
increased, but the quality of forests has declined, it said.
About 96 percent of Vietnam's coral reefs are now severely
threatened, while more than 80 percent of its mangrove forests
- a spawning ground for marine life - have been lost, the
report said. Over the past decade, Vietnam's economy has doubled
in size and poverty has been reduced from 70 percent of the
population to about 35 percent - one of the fastest declines
in the world, according to the World Bank. But over the past
five years, only 0.85 percent of the national budget has gone
to environmental protection, ''so it gets very low priority,''
Illangovan said.
From MSNBC, 18 September 2002
Hong Kong Government
Releases Proposal on Anti-Subversion Law
The government proposed
enacting broader police powers and life sentences for serious
crimes against the state Tuesday in an anti-subversion law
critics say could erode Hong Kong's freedoms. Officials insisted
the law would be used only in rare cases and would not violate
international human rights treaties or civil liberties promised
to residents when this former British colony was handed back
to China five years ago. I wish to emphasize that our proposals
would not undermine in any way the existing human rights and
civil liberties enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong,"
said Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. The proposal released
Tuesday for three months of public consultation calls for
granting police emergency "entry and search powers"
for investigating suspected treason, secession, sedition and
subversion. Existing law limits authorities to entering a
premises without a warrant only to stop a crime, it said.
It proposed a sentence of life imprisonment for those convicted
of such crimes against the state. The new law also would tighten
rules on state secrets, although disclosures of such information
would have to be proved to have caused damage - not just embarrassment
to the government - if people are to be convicted of such
a crime, Security Secretary Regina Ip told reporters. The
Executive Council, a top advisory body, met Tuesday to endorse
the proposal, which is due to be presented to the local legislature
for a final decision, Ip said. Officials recently decreed
that after five years as part of China, the territory needed
to push ahead with the widely unpopular legislation. That
raised an outcry from opposition lawmakers and human rights
groups who believe it could further compromise the "one
country, two systems" autonomy arrangement that recognizes
China's sovereignty while preserving Hong Kong's freewheeling,
capitalistic ways. "The government's intention to introduce
new criminal codes with very severe penalties and to empower
itself with more investigative power is very clear,"
said lawyer Albert Ho, a member of the opposition Democratic
Party. "Why is it necessary at all when Hong Kong is
doing so well without it?" asked Democratic Party head
Martin Lee. "They must demonstrate there is a necessity
to enact any law that would limit further the right and freedoms
of the people here." Chinese leaders occasionally let
slip their wish to see the law enacted sooner rather than
later. "It is necessary for the Hong Kong SAR (special
administrative region) to make such legislation. It is in
accordance with the overall interest of Hong Kong and the
country - and with general international practice," Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said during a news briefing
Tuesday in Beijing. Ip, the security secretary, said the law
would not be used to stifle political commentary or other
freedom of expression unless those involved sought to violently
threaten China's "sovereignty, territorial integrity,
unity or national security." Mainland authorities ban
all public dissent. In many cases, laws concerning national
security and state secrets, broadly interpreted, have been
used to prosecute pro-democracy activists and other critics
of government policy.
From MSNBC, 24 September 2002
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France Sees Slower Economic Growthtem
Strasbourg - Prime Minister Jean-Pierre
Raffarin said Friday that economic growth next year won't
reach 3 percent, which officials had set as a target needed
to satisfy a European Union pact. "There is a return
to growth in our country," Raffarin said on a visit to
the eastern city of Strasbourg. But in 2003, "it's true
that we're going to have less than 3 percent," he said.
The comment raised new concerns about France's pledge under
the European Union Stability and Growth Pact to have a balanced
budget by 2004. The government has said a 3 percent growth
rate was necessary to achieve a balanced budget by then. Urging
people to be optimistic, Raffarin said the government will
do everything it can to spur economic growth in 2003. Economic
uncertainty is making it difficult for the center-right government
elected this spring to balance promises to cut taxes with
commitments to keep public spending within European Union
limits. However, Raffarin promised that officials would not
back down on a promise to cut income taxes by 30 percent over
five years. The French government is currently working on
its 2003 budget, which will be unveiled on Sept. 25.
From ABC News-Business-Wire, 6 September
2002
Sluggish World Economy
Expected to Dominate EU Talks
Copenhagen, Denmark - Lethargic global
growth and rising budget deficits in the euro-zone's biggest
economies are expected to dominate a meeting of European Union
finance ministers opening Friday. European officials are increasingly
pessimistic about hopes of an early economic recovery, fearing
growing tensions over Iraq could push up oil prices and further
dampen prospects for growth. Data released by the EU's head
office ahead of the meeting showed the pace of EU growth is
even slower than the modest 1.4 percent yearly forecast by
the European Commission in April. The new figures put second-quarter
growth at 0.3 percent, at the bottom end of the previously
forecast range, and the Commission cut its prediction for
the third quarter to 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent, down from
0.6 percent to 0.9 percent. Weak consumer spending and sluggish
growth in the United States and Japan also were blamed for
cooling European recovery hopes. The summer's floods in Germany
and Austria may also hit growth in the second half of the
year, although economists remain hopeful the EU will avoid
slipping into recession. Ministers and central bankers will
discuss Europe's response to the slowdown, but their room
for maneuvering is limited. Lingering concerns about inflation
have prevented the European Central Bank from cutting interest
rates. Widening budget deficits in the euro-zone's three biggest
nations give their government's little leeway to cut taxes
or boost public spending. Germany, France and Italy - which
together account for about three-quarters of the euro-zone's
economic weight - are all struggling to stay within the boundaries
of the "stability pact" that binds the 12 members
of the currency bloc to keep their deficits below 3 percent
of gross domestic product and to strive for balanced budgets
by 2004. Although the Italian government would like to see
the pact relaxed, other nations are expected to stress their
support for the targets despite trouble sticking to them.
"Germany stands firmly by the stability pact," Finance
Ministry spokesman Thomas Gerhardt said Thursday. "There's
no reason to change it." Two weeks away from a general
election, the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder does
not want to appear to be undermining the strict budget discipline
rules adopted in the late 1990s. The rules were adopted on
Germany's insistence to ensure the new common currency would
not be weakened by sloppy government finances. Diplomats from
Denmark - which holds the EU's rotating presidency - said
they don't expect any serious discussion about changing the
stability pact until after the Sept. 22 vote in Germany. Also
on the agenda at the Copenhagen meeting were discussions on
how to pay for the planned entry into the EU of 10 new members
in 2004; efforts to agree on minimum levels of taxation on
the use of coal, gas and other energy sources across the EU;
and a review of negotiations with Switzerland, the United
States and other nations aimed at stopping citizens from dodging
taxes by moving their savings around the world.
From Nando Times-Business, by Paul Ames,
6 September 2002
Russia Takes Center
Stage at Earth Summit
Moscow says it will ratify climate
treaty soon - As Earth Summit II neared a close, delegates
overcame a last major obstacle Tuesday by compromising on
renewable energy, and Russia pledged its support for a global
warming treaty rejected by the Bush administration. ALTHOUGH
TALKS continued on the wording of a health section, renewable
energy was seen as the last major obstacle to a 70-page final
declaration. The European Union had wanted all countries to
agree to raise global use of renewables like wind and solar
energy to 15 percent by 2010. But the agreed text only states
a commitment to "substantially" increase the use
of renewable energy sources. It also endorses the expanded
use of dams and fossil fuels that are modified to pollute
less. As for nuclear power, touted by its advocates as a green
energy source because it emits no pollutants, the document
neither endorses nor rejects the energy source. Many developing
countries had sided with the United States, oil countries
and Japan against including the renewable energy targets,
arguing they were a rich country's luxury.
From MSNBC, 3 September 2002
Switzerland To Join
United Nations
Handing out chocolate and special-issue
Swatches, the Swiss kicked off ceremonies Monday to end decades
of splendid isolation and follow the rest of the world into
the United Nations. But in a final gesture of independence,
they made it clear they would not change their flag. The U.N.
General Assembly is expected to formally admit Switzerland
as its 190th member during a ceremony in New York Tuesday.
To the accompaniment of the Swiss Army Band, the country's
flag - a white cross on red background - will then be hoisted
to flutter as a lone square among the sea of rectangles. "Finally
Switzerland will be at home as a member of the U.N. family,"
declared Bertrand Louis, ambassador to U.N. offices in Geneva.
"When the Swiss delegation steps down from his observer
seat to join the main U.N. body, it will be a big step. It
will be a step out of the shadows." After more than 50
years on the sidelines, Switzerland joined the United Nations
after voters approved the move in March by a 55 percent majority.
In the last vote 16 years earlier, 75 percent opposed U.N.
membership on the grounds it would endanger the Alpine nation's
revered neutrality in an era of acute East-West tensions.
This time around, the electorate heeded a government campaign
that a rejection would be disastrous for the country's international
standing and that traditional neutrality was irrelevant given
the end of the Cold War. Switzerland will be sandwiched between
Sweden and Syria on the U.N.'s alphabetical list. Switzerland's
membership leaves the Vatican as the only state with U.N.
observer status. Falling on the eve of the anniversary of
Sept. 11, Switzerland's membership ceremony will be low-key.
Undeterred, the Swiss have made elaborate preparations to
broadcast the proceedings live on a big screen in downtown
Geneva. Media reports say gifts of Swiss chocolate and Swatch
watches emblazoned with the national flag will be given to
guests at a diplomatic reception in New York. To the relief
of the Swiss, there will be no flag flap. U.N. rules stipulate
that all flags must be rectangular, but the Swiss flag is
unashamedly square. Legal experts studied U.N. protocol and
found a clause stating that national laws prevail over the
international norm in case of disagreement - a similar loophole
used for Nepal's flag, which consists of two stacked triangles.
However, Switzerland agreed to reduce the size of its flag
so it will not be larger than emblems like the Stars and Stripes.
"Our flag is square," Foreign Ministry spokesman
Daniel Haener said. "We are sticking to our law. But
it's not a big problem and it doesn't change the world."
Swiss President Kasper Villiger - who voted against membership
in 1986 - will head the Swiss delegation to New York, bringing
along Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss. Last year, Deiss watched
gloomily from the observer seats, sandwiched between the Vatican
and the Palestinian delegation, as other ministers took to
the stage to condemn terrorism. Switzerland's membership actually
will not change much. The country already is an active member
of specialized agencies like the World Health Organization,
International Labor Organization and U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees. The government says membership should cost an
extra $42 million a year - on top of the $330 million it already
pays to international organizations - compared with the $1.8
billion a year generated annually by the presence of the U.N.'s
European headquarters in Geneva. Just as Switzerland enters
the fold, Geneva's host city role is being marginalized. Instead
of hosting important peace talks and summits, the tranquil
Swiss city instead has become a hub for technical meetings
with little public interest. Monday's calendar included a
meeting of the Working Group on Global Mercury Assessment,
the Business and Technical Standards Forum and the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention. Still, for U.N. enthusiasts,
it was a momentous day. Hans Erni, Switzerland's best-known
artist, said he devoted most of his career to works upholding
the ideals of the United Nations. His 1985 painting "Step
Toward the United Nations," which featured a girl emerging
from a shell, spearheaded the failed campaign to join the
world body. "I've always had the impression we were ready
to leave our shell and our provinciality," the 93-year-old
Erni said at an exhibition of his works at the U.N. compound
in Geneva. "This is a moment I awaited for years and
years."
From UK-Guardian Unlimited-Wire, 9 September
2002
EU's Monti Sees Up
to Six Further Cartel Rulings by End of 2002
Brussels - The European Commission's
crackdown on market-rigging cartels will lead to rulings on
five or six additional cases by the end of the year, Competition
Commissioner Mario Monti said. The commission imposed a record
2 billion euros ($1.95 billion) in fines in 2001. The largest,
462 million euros, went to Roche Holding AG, the world's No.
1 vitamin maker, for working with seven rivals to inflate
vitamin prices. "Our objective is to consolidate the
good results of 2001," Monti told the European Parliament's
economic and monetary affairs committee. "We expect five
or six more decisions by the end of the year. We see a similar
number of decisions in 2003." Monti's antitrust enforcers
are probing companies such as Vodafone Group Plc and Deutsche
Telekom AG on suspicions they colluded on cell-phone charges,
and Heineken NV and Carlsberg A/S for allegedly restricting
beer sales in the Netherlands and Denmark. The companies have
denied any wrongdoing. Under European Union law, the commission
can fine companies it finds guilty of operating a cartel as
much as 10 percent of annual sales, yet it typically opts
for less. A second team of cartel investigators was set up
on Sept. 1, Monti said. He called new clemency rules for whistleblowers
a "formidable success," leading to 10 requests in
five months for immunity by companies suspected of cartel
involvement.
From Bloomberg-Politics, By Robert McLeod
and James G. Neuger, 11 September 2002
U.K. Will 'Redistribute'
More Wealth, Blair Says
The U.K. will redistribute more money
from companies and workers to boost public services and cut
poverty, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, signaling he may
raise taxes in future. Blair said that his government will
maintain its policy of boosting services like health care
and education, in order to narrow divisions in wealth and
opportunity, in a speech at a social security office in north
London. The government will "continue to redistribute
power, wealth and opportunity to the many not the few, to
combat poverty and social exclusion and to deliver public
services people can trust," Blair said. Blair is already
raising taxes. In April, the government announced 22 billion
pounds ($34 billion) of extra taxes over three years starting
next April to fund the state-run National Health Service,
part of an increase in public spending to 511 billion pounds
from 418 billion pounds this year. The government hasn't ruled
out more tax increases, Blair indicated, saying that ``our
aim is and remains to abolish child poverty in a generation.''
Blair and his Labour Party were first elected in 1997, and
re-elected last year. He told voters he'd ditched the party's
traditional Socialist policies of taxing companies and wealthy
workers to give more money to poor people. Even before April's
tax increase, Blair had boosted the share of the economy the
government takes in tax to 40 percent from 37.4 percent. Britons
paid 18 billion pounds a year in extra taxes on items such
as pensions, insurance, property and mortgages in the five
fiscal years to April. Election Pledge - "It's a bit
rich for Tony Blair to be confessing about redistribution,
when he should be apologizing for not being honest about taxation
at the election," said Edward Davey, economics spokesman
for the opposition Liberal Democrats. Following the announcement
of higher taxes in April. Chancellor Gordon Brown described
the increase as "a gamble politically" that may
cost the party support at the next election, due by 2006 at
the latest. "We have a strong economic base and record
levels of employment," Blair said. "Ensuring that
everyone shares in this rising prosperity is a realistic goal
and we should be judged on it."
From Bloomberg-Politics, by James Kirkup,
18 September 2002
Germany's Next Leaders
Should Ease Labor Rules, Investors Say
Germany's next government should ease
labor market regulations, encouraging companies to hire more
workers and reducing unemployment in Europe's largest economy,
investors said. Nine of 15 fund managers at some of the country's
biggest asset management companies surveyed by Bloomberg News
said they see tackling the labor market as the biggest priority
for the next government after Sunday's election. The jobless
total rose to a three-year high of 4.1 million in August.
"Unemployment is at the core of the problems facing the
German economy," said Martin Hochstein, who helps oversee
$3.7 billion at SEB Investment Funds in Frankfurt. "The
next government should make it easier for companies to hire
and fire." Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who polls predict
may win a second term, has proposed speeding job placements
and increasing the efficiency of job centers to lower unemployment.
His rival, Edmund Stoiber, wants to cut pay-roll taxes, curb
workers' rights and reduce some restrictions on self-employment.
The election winner faces union resistance to labor market
changes, an economy that is barely recovering from last year's
recession and unemployment that has risen for every month
but one since the beginning of last year. Germany's benchmark
DAX index is the worst performing in the world so far this
quarter. It has fallen 29 percent since July 1. Germany's
largest manufacturer, Siemens AG, has shed more than 42,000
workers in the past two years. Drugmaker Bayer AG said last
week it plans to cut 4,700 more jobs worldwide by 2005, after
already announcing more than 10,000 job losses. Poll Lead
- "Neither of the two large parties is really capable
of kick- starting reforms," said Horst Hoffmann, who
helps manage 10 billion euros ($9.7 billion) for SuedKA in
Frankfurt. "Both are too worried about their majorities."
Of the 15 investors, who together manage more than 860 billion
euros, one said overhauling the education system should be
the next government's biggest priority.
Another respondent called for debt
reduction and the remaining four for a bundle of economic
reforms including tax cuts, a reduction in red tape and changes
to the labor market. Schroeder has pulled ahead of Stoiber
in four out of the five main opinion polls in the past two
weeks after ruling out German participation in any attack
on Iraq. Approval for the Social Democrats and its coalition
partner, the Green Party, is one point ahead of the opposition,
the most recent survey showed. Unemployment is voters' biggest
concern in the election, analysts said. Schroeder last year
took back a pledge to bring the jobless total below 3.5 million
by the end of 2002, part of the reason why his party trailed
the opposition alliance by as many as 10 percentage points
in the first half of this year. Stoiber Preferred - Almost
half, or seven of the investors surveyed said a CDU and CSU-led
government would be best equipped to push through changes
that promote hiring. Only one of the 15 said the SPD would
do a better job if it joined forces with the Free Democratic
Party, a junior opposition group that has said it would govern
with either of the two main parties. "A coalition of
the CDU, CSU and FDP is probably more capable of pushing though
reforms that will help the labor market," said Achim
Zuleeg, who helps oversee 2 billion euros at Merck, Finck
Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft GmbH in Munich. Schroeder's
proposals for the labor market, initiated by a panel led by
Volkswagen AG personnel director Peter Hartz, don't address
the roots of high unemployment, investors said. Hartz's plans
included extending tax breaks for companies that offer low-
paid, part-time work and low-interest loans if they employ
people who were previously unemployed. Jobless Cost - "What
we really need is less protection from dismissal so that companies
will be more inclined to hire workers when times are good,
knowing they could also reduce their workforce when times
get difficult," said Ulrich Katz, who oversees 3 billion
euros at Deutscher Investment Trust. Unemployment benefit,
together with social welfare payments for people that have
been unemployed for more than a year, cost German tax payers
61 billion euros last year, or 3 percent of gross domestic
product. The Labor Ministry's budget is the biggest single
item in the government's spending plans. In its election program,
Stoiber's CDU and CSU alliance propose reducing older workers'
and jobseekers' protection against dismissal, by giving companies
the right to issue employment contracts offering them compensation
in the case of dismissal if they forfeit the right to sue.
Union Opposition - Labor unions see that plan as a first step
towards erosion of workers' rights. A third of the investors
surveyed said neither of the two main parties will be able
to force through the necessary reforms - in part because of
opposition from the unions. The FDP "is the only party
that shows it's willing to push through real reforms,"
said Joerg Kraemer, head of economics and strategy at Invesco
Asset Management that oversees 400 billion euros. "As
a small party it's not as dependent on pleasing anyone and
everyone as the big parties are."
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Friederike Truemper,
19 September 2002
Economy and Jobs Top
Schroeder's Agenda
The SPD-Green coalition must return
to the old problem of employment reform and repair strained
relations with Washington - The German Chancellor, Gerhard
Schroeder, hailed the re-election of his "red-green"
coalition yesterday as a vindication of his social and foreign
policy priorities and said he had no intention of dropping
his opposition to a US war with Iraq. Looking desperately
tired, but beaming, Mr. Schroeder was speaking at his Social
Democrat Party's (SPD) headquarters in Berlin, the day after
a surge in voter-support for the Greens had helped him to
the slimmest of victories in Germany's election. Mr. Schroeder,
who had told his supporters after the polls closed to "cross
their fingers and hope", admitted that he had sat up
most of Sunday night, watching the constituency results come
in before he was certain that he had won. The final result
came through just before 4am, making the SPD the largest party
in the Bundestag with 251 seats, three more than the 248 seats
won by Edmund Stoiber's conservative opposition. The Greens
confounded the polls by winning 8.6 per cent (55 seats), pushing
the free market FDP, with 7.4 per cent (47 seats) into fourth
place. Mr. Schroeder's coalition will have a majority of 11
over the conservative CSU/CDU alliance and the FDP. The turn-out,
at 79 per cent, was slightly down on 1998 but still exceptionally
high for a Western democracy where voting is not compulsory.
The FDP had suffered a split in the party leadership in the
days before the election, after its deputy head, Juergen Moellemann,
repeated what were seen as veiled anti-Semitic remarks. Mr.
Moellemann resigned yesterday, under intense pressure from
other party leaders, accepting what he called "his part
of the responsibility" for the FDP's unexpectedly poor
showing. He remains party leader in North Rhine-Westphalia
and noted in his resignation statement that he had been re-elected
to the Bundestag with an increased majority.
In Munich, Mr. Stoiber took his defeat
with good grace. He expressed pride in the revived fortunes
of the CSU/CDU alliance and claimed the first increase in
the alliance's popular vote for almost 20 years. But he declined
to re-state his election night forecast that he would be Chancellor
"within the year" because the "red-green"
coalition would be too fragile to govern. He said he made
the remark in the heat of election night, when early returns
showed the main parties tied. Now, he promised a "constructive,
but tough" opposition. The leader of the CDU half of
the alliance, Angela Merkel, reaped the reward for her loyalty
when she was nominated unopposed to head the CSU/CDU in the
Bundestag. Ms Merkel had sacrificed her own ambition to lead
the alliance after accepting that Mr. Stoiber would be the
stronger candidate against Mr. Schroeder. Already Germany's
most popular female politician, she is expected to be confirmed
as Bundestag party leader today. Joschka Fischer, who will
remain as Foreign Minister, exulted in his Green Party's strong
showing, noting the many young people involved in the campaign.
"We have broken out of the generation trap," he
said, "and this is an important sign for the future."
The Greens were seen as an ageing party, locked into the Sixties
alternative culture before they joined the SPD in a coalition
four years ago. Mr. Fischer and other Greens were discreet
about hopes for moreportfolios - perhaps a fourth ministry.
As well as the Foreign Ministry, Greens hold the environment,
consumer and agriculture portfolios. Mr. Schroeder stressed
that the Greens backed most of the controversial recommendations
of the Hartz commission on labour reform, which reported in
August. The proposals, which include stricter unemployment
benefit terms, more job training and more flexible labour
conditions, aim to push the number of jobless below 4 million.
Jobs and the weak German economy was the top domestic issue
in the election, and the one on which Mr. Stoiber had hoped
to prevail. Mr. Schroeder set up the commission in an effort
to remove the sensitive issue of labour reform from party
politics but also to have an agenda to present to voters.
In the event, the proposals were eclipsed by the flood disaster.
Mr. Schroeder is now committed to rushing them through parliament
early in the new term. Mending fences with the United States
is the other urgent issue on the Schroeder- Fischer agenda.
But the victorious Chancellor gave no sign yesterday that
he was ready to give ground - either rhetorical or real -
in his stand-off with the Bush administration. On Iraq, he
said: "I think this difference of opinion will remain.
We will have it out in a fair and open way without in anyway
endangering the basis of German American relations."
Implicitly blaming the Americans for escalating the dispute,
he said: "I have always said that we can have differences
of opinion about individual issues - we disagree on Kyoto,
agricultural policy, steel tariffs, for instance - but they
are always handled without generating such overheated debate."
In what might be seen as a small olive branch, he said he
had accepted his former justice minister's decision not to
return to government. Herta Daubler-Gmelin embarrassed the
SPD and infuriated Washington with alleged remarks comparing
Mr. Bush with Hitler. Mr. Schroeder's re-election also appeared
to have wrong-footed the French President, Jacques Chirac,
who had hoped to revive the old French- German axis in Europe
if Mr. Stoiber was elected. German relations with Britain,
though, emerged strengthened.
From UK-The Independent-Europe, by Mary
Dejevsky, 24 September 2002
Smugglers' Prey: Poor
Women of E. Europe
Skopje, Macedonia - International peace
and aid workers are customers of a thriving sex trade, UNICEF
reported this summer. Lyudmila, a divorced mother of three,
had few prospects at home in Moldova. So when she saw a newspaper
ad promising work in Italy, she did not hesitate. Leaving
her children with her parents, Lyudmila joined seven other
women seeking a way out of the poverty of postcommunist Eastern
Europe. The women were taken by car south, across the Balkans.
Only at the border between Serbia and Macedonia did Lyudmila
(who did not want her last name printed) realize where they
were really headed. "There was a guy who told us to take
off our clothes to see how we looked," she recalls. "Then
everything became clear to me. They were staring at us as
if we were cows, to see how good we looked." One of the
few businesses that has flourished in the former Yugoslavia
is human trafficking. Women from Eastern Europe's poorest
countries, especially Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria,
are lured into the sex trade with the promise of jobs as waitresses
or hotel maids in Western Europe. They are smuggled across
borders, bought and sold like cattle, and forced to work as
prostitutes. Lyudmila was sold for $400 and sent to work as
a prostitute in a largely ethnic Albanian area in the western
part of the country. Over the next two years, she says she
was sold a dozen more times, sometimes netting traffickers
as much as $750. Estimates of the number of women and girls
trafficked each year from Eastern Europe are as high as 120,000.
Most end up in Western Europe, but
many, like Lyudmila, remain in the former Yugoslavia, where
corruption and weak law enforcement have made trafficking
and prostitution a source of easy profits for organized crime.
Foreigners who poured into the Balkans to help it recover
from its wars also helped feed the market. A report released
in July by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says
that peacekeeping troops and civilian workers for international
organizations make up a substantial number of the customers
- and even more of the profits - in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia.
"It's a free-market thing," says Madeleine Rees,
who works in Sarajevo for the UN Office of the High Commissioner
for Refugees. "The traffickers brought women to Bosnia
because there were peacekeepers here - 50,000 men." Although
today the majority of the customers are locals, Ms. Rees says
that initially, "the majority of men using these women
were internationals. They were really the only ones with money."
In some cases, UN police officers sent to Bosnia and Kosovo
to improve policing have been caught buying sex from trafficked
women. In Bosnia, where international personnel monitor the
local police, 18 officers have been sent home for sexual misconduct,
according to the UN. In Kosovo, where internationals do actual
police work, 10 have been sent home, including an American
who reportedly fell in love with a prostitute. Policing efforts
increase - Critics have accused the UN and other international
organizations of not taking the problem seriously and, in
a few cases, of covering up for their employees. Kathryn Bolkovac,
a UN investigator from Lincoln, Neb., won a lawsuit in August
after being fired in 2001 while looking into reports of international
involvement in trafficking in Bosnia. In one case, she investigated
an American police officer accused of buying a prostitute
for $1,000. Another case involved a NATO soldier suspected
of smuggling four Moldovans into Bosnia. In the past two years,
however, efforts have increased to stop the trafficking. In
Bosnia, the UN set up an antitrafficking police unit in July
2001; in its first year it conducted more than 600 raids,
closing down 124 nightclubs and rescuing 182 women. In Kosovo,
a similar police unit closed 54 suspected brothels last year
and rescued 131 women. In addition, a small but growing number
of traffickers are now being prosecuted. In May, the Macedonian
government won convictions against two men from Kumanovo,
a town near the Serbian border, who ran a trafficking ring.
In Kosovo this spring, a brothel owner from Urosevac went
to prison for 4 -1/2 years. Whether these efforts have slowed
trafficking is not clear.
UN police in Kosovo say they encounter
fewer women who say they have been brought to the province
by force. "Nearly all of them come here willing to work
as prostitutes," said Barry Fletcher, a police spokesman.
But Yulia Krieger, an expert on trafficking for the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, says women who are
trafficked often deny it. "A lot of these women are so
scared, they won't tell the truth for days and days and weeks
and weeks," she said. "They are quite traumatized."
Traffickers also have proved adept at outwitting efforts to
stop them. Often brothel owners are tipped off before raids.
Closed bars are quickly revived under a new name and ownership.
In Bosnia and Macedonia, officials say, women are sent increasingly
to motels and private residences, which are harder to raid
than bars. In Kosovo, traffickers intimidate local judges,
says Ariana Mustafa, a legal adviser for the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Experts say what's
needed is increased responsibility and training among local
governments to fight the problem on their own. Borders need
to be tightened, judges and witnesses protected, and local
people encouraged to see trafficked women as victims. Ultimately,
they say, women need better economic opportunities so they
won't feel compelled to leave home. Returning home - Lyudmila
says she "did everything" during her painful odyssey.
Like many women, she worked as a waitress and as a prostitute.
Macedonia is an ethnically mixed country, and so were the
men: ethnic Albanians, ethnic Turks, Slavic Macedonians -
and foreigners, especially Germans. She says some treated
her kindly; a few, including her bosses, would beat her. In
late July, Lyudmila escaped from her "owners." Pretending
to be on an errand to a pharmacy, she instead went to the
police, who brought her to a shelter on the outskirts of Skopje,
the Macedonian capital. There, on a recent morning, she was
one of 17 women, all from Eastern Europe, waiting to be sent
home. Venecija, who sat watching cartoons, said she had been
kidnapped in Bulgaria and kept in a Macedonian village for
two years. "We had a woman for a boss. We were so tired
we couldn't get out of bed. But she forced us to get out of
bed and to put on makeup and to meet customers." The
women expressed particular bitterness that their owners had
profited at their expense. "The money they earn from
one woman is enough for the rest of my life in Russia,"
said Irina, a 23-year-old Muscovite. According to the UNICEF
report, many women who return home end up being trafficked
again. All of them face shame and uncertainty. Lyudmila yearned
to go back to Moldova, but she was hard pressed to say what
she would do when she got there. "I don't know,"
she said, close to tears. Earlier, during a session with a
psychologist, the women had covered a large flip pad with
drawings. Among the pictures of handcuffs, flowers, and a
broken heart, they had written a poem to give themselves courage.
"Put your hands on your throat to stop yourself from
crying," it read."Sit at the table and start from
the beginning."
From Christian Science Monitor-Europe, by
Richard Mertens, 25 September 2002
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Iran Presidential Powers Bill Presented
to Parliament
The Iranian president's bid to grab
enough power to push through reforms was submitted to the
reformist-dominated parliament Tuesday. President Mohammad
Khatami's bill, presented by Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi,
is expected to be easily endorsed by the 290-seat Majlis.
But the bill has to pass the powerful, anti-reformist Guardian
Council, which reviews all parliamentary acts, before becoming
law. "The government hopes the country won't suffer more.
The president will react within the constitution if the bill
is rejected," Abtahi said, without elaborating. The bill
stipulates that if the president deems a decision from an
institution such as the judiciary to be a violation of the
constitution, he can issue a warning to the head of the institution.
If the official ignores the warning, he or she could be suspended
from the civil service for up to three years. If the president
deems a court verdict to be unconstitutional, under the bill
the case would go to the Supreme Court, where a committee
made up of experts appointed by the judiciary, parliament
and Cabinet would make a final decision. Khatami has in the
past seen his objections ignored when he has raised concerns
about what he sees as unconstitutional limits on freedom of
the press and illegal imprisonment of reform-minded journalists
and lawmakers. Khatami also has repeatedly accused the courts
of violating the constitution, but his objections have had
no effect on their rulings. Individuals who have taken cases
to court on grounds that their constitutional rights have
been violated have seen their complaints ignored, and parliamentary
efforts to follow up also have been largely ignored. Beyond
the procedural changes, the proposed bill is seen as an attempt
by Khatami to establish himself in the minds of restive Iranians
as a champion of their rights stifled by stubborn hard-liners.
Khatami faces increasing public disappointment at his government's
failure to make Iran more democratic and reduce restrictions
inspired by a strict interpretation of Islam. "The spirit
of the bill allows the president to effectively stop violation
of the constitution. Khatami has come to the conclusion that
he cannot fulfill his responsibilities without this bill,"
Abtahi, the vice president, told reporters outside the parliament
building. Khatami said last Wednesday that he doesn't want
powers outside the constitution, but recognition and implementation
of powers that have been clearly stipulated in the constitution.
Article 113 of Iran's constitution makes the president responsible
for implementing the constitution. Since being elected in
1997 and re-elected in 2001, Khatami has seen his power eroded
with the detention of dozens of pro-reform activists without
trial or after closed trials without jury and closure of over
80 liberal newspapers by the hard-line judiciary. Khatami's
promises to bring civil freedoms to Iran have been sabotaged
by hard-liners, who control unelected institutions like the
judiciary and are supported by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the appointed religious figure who outranks the
elected president. Hard-liners went on the offensive after
losing control of the Majlis in February 2000 elections. Since
then, the unelected judiciary has become the most effective
weapon in the hands of hard-liners working to stall reforms.
The president's younger brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, said
he did not expect the hard-liners who review all bills before
they become law to reject the presidential powers proposal.
"The reformist camp is not prepared for more tension.
If opponents insist on taking the country toward greater tension,
then reformists may leave the establishment," said the
younger Khatami, who is a vice speaker of the parliament and
head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's biggest
reformist party. The younger Khatami appeared to be referring
to a possible reformist walkout from parliament, which would
strip the government of a legitimacy even hard-liners need.
From CNN-Middle East, 25 September 2002
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Mexico's Court Limits University
Independence
Mexico City - Mexico's Supreme Court
placed some of the first limits on one of the odder corners
of Mexico's public affairs - the autonomy that public universities
here enjoy by law - ruling that they must submit to audits
of how they use government funds. The Wednesday ruling involved
a state university's claim that its autonomy - the legal status
by which police, government officials, politicians and army
troops need special permission to enter campuses - also exempted
it from Congress' attempts to investigate accusations of misuse
of government funds. Under their independent status, Mexico's
dozens of government-funded universities have sometimes become
near-lawless reserves of student gangs who kidnap buses, practice
extortion or political violence, and then retreat to campuses
where police can't easily pursue them. Until this week, their
administrators could not be called to account for the government
subsidies they received. A five-member court panel ruled unanimously
that the autonomy provision, originally aimed at preventing
political interference in academic decisions, was justified
"to guarantee academic freedom in curriculum, study and
administration." "But autonomy can never be interrupted
as the creation of fiefdoms, or the recognition of a territorial
domain above and beyond the fundamental rules of the state,"
the judges wrote. In one of the few instances in which police
have entered state universities, police stormed the nation's
largest public university in February 2000 to evict a band
of radical students who had taken over the campus, based on
a request by the university's rector. Long of little influence
in Mexican politics, in recent years the Supreme Court has
led Mexico's judiciary in taking on a more activist role in
resolving political and constitutional conflicts.
From CNN, 6 September 2002
House Poised to Extend
Bush's Education Tax Cuts Beyond 2010
The U.S. House of Representatives is
poised to approve a measure today to extend beyond 2010 the
education tax breaks that were included in last year's $1.35
trillion tax cut law. Analysts said the measure is unlikely
to win approval in the Senate. Today's vote is one in a series
brought by House Republican leaders to extend pieces of Bush's
tax cut bill beyond the expiration date, and which are providing
both political parties a chance to showcase their fiscal priorities
ahead of November's elections. On party-line votes, the House
earlier approved extensions of income tax and estate tax provisions.
The Democrat-led Senate has shown little appetite to take
up such measures. "The prospects are bleak in the sense
that the Senate does not seem terribly interested in doing
tax bills right now," said Clint Stretch, a partner with
Deloitte & Touche LLP. The only tax changes the Senate
may approve this fall would impact retirement plans in the
wake of accounting scandals at companies such as Enron Corp.
and WorldCom Inc., he said. President George W. Bush and congressional
Republicans want to make permanent the tax cuts that are now
set to expire in 2010. They say letting the law lapse would
trigger the largest tax increase in U.S. history. Democrats
say extending the cuts will make it tougher to stem budget
deficits the U.S. Congressional Budget Office says won't end
under current tax policy until 2006. When the law was enacted
the cuts were scheduled to expire at the end of 2010 to make
them fit within congressional budget rules. Tax Provisions
- The education tax incentives covered by the House bill would:
- keep the annual contribution limit to "education savings
accounts" at $2,000 rather than falling back to the previous
$500 level. These tax-preferred savings accounts can be used
to cover education expenses. - allow those accounts to cover
primary and secondary education costs at either public or
private schools. Before last year's tax bill passed, those
accounts could only be used to cover college expenses. - allow
pre-paid tuition programs at private colleges and universities.
- eliminate a 60-month limit on the deductibility of student
loan interest payments and increase income limits for that
deduction.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Laura Litvan,
4 September 2002
Fed Says Economy Slowed
in Recent Weeks
Washington - The U.S. economy slowed
in recent weeks, although activity was mixed by sector, the
Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report showing a patchy
economic recovery. "Most districts indicated slow and
uneven economic growth, with mixed or scattered experiences
across sectors of the economy," the Fed said in its so-called
Beige Book, an anecdotal snapshot of economic conditions across
the nation. The report, compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank
of St. Louis with information collected before Sept. 3, found
an uneven performance among retailers in late July and August
and said manufacturing activity was "sluggish."
In addition, most of the 12 regional Fed bank districts reported
little or no gain in employment, although three noted increased
demand for temporary workers. The report, a compilation of
material from each Fed district, will be used by officials
when they gather on Sept. 24 to discuss interest rates.
From ABC News-National-Wire, 11 September
2002
Attacks Alter Government's
Mission, Makeup - Homeland Security Tops Agenda; Civil Liberties
a Concern
Washington - Take a walk around the
nation's capital, and you will see one way government has
changed since September 11: concrete barriers. Hefty slabs
of concrete cordon off streets that one year ago had been
accessible to cars and trucks. Several blocks around the Capitol
and its office buildings are now closed to vehicular traffic,
tours of government sites have been severely restricted, and
more security guards are visible throughout the city, including
the White House. Washington, a city that once prided itself
for allowing U.S. citizens and visitors to see government
up close, has battened down the hatches since September 11.
While perhaps the most visible change in government since
the terrorist attacks, increased security is by no means the
only change, nor perhaps the most significant. The 19 hijackers
who last year seized four commercial U.S. jets and crashed
them into American symbols of military might and capitalism
shook the federal government to its core, prompting wholesale
changes in how this country protects itself, altering the
legislative agenda for years to come and challenging long-standing
notions of civil liberties. Biggest reorganization since 1947
- Perhaps the most profound change is in the mission of government
itself. "The single biggest change at all levels is how
decision makers prioritize their resources and their policies,"
said Michael Scardaville, policy analyst for homeland security
at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Homeland security and the fight against terrorism are now
the concern of virtually every government agency. Consider
just a few: The Securities and Exchange Commission tracks
down terrorist funds; the Federal Aviation Administration
labors over how to make flying safer and less vulnerable to
attack; the Federal Emergency Management Agency, once concerned
primarily with helping residents recover from such natural
disasters as hurricanes and floods, had to draft plans in
the event of another terrorist attack. "Most agencies
never viewed their job as homeland security," Scardaville
said. "Now we're trying to turn agencies and entities
with a service orientation into security agencies." The
FBI has increased its focus to the prevention of terrorism,
shifting resources away from more traditional crime-fighting
endeavors. Then, of course, there is the proposed Department
of Homeland Security. If approved, it will amount to the most
significant reorganization of the government since the Department
of Defense was created and put under the control of a single
secretary of defense in 1949 during the Truman administration.
The proposal calls for all or parts of 22 government agencies
to be pulled together under a single department committed
to protecting the nation from terrorist attacks.
As outlined by President Bush, the
department would have 170,000 employees and a budget of $37.4
billion. There is some debate over how the new department
is to be organized, with disagreement over how much latitude
the president ought to have in hiring, firing and transferring
employees. Bush wants broad discretion in how to run the department.
"I need the flexibility to put the right people at the
right place at the right time to protect the American people
- and the Senate better get it right," Bush told union
workers on Labor Day in Pennsylvania. But critics like Sen.
Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, say the White House's proposal
would undercut protections for federal employees and weaken
the civil service system. "President Bush's proposed
Department of Homeland Security is an enormous grant of power
to the executive branch," Byrd said as the Senate began
debate over the legislation, adding: "We must not cede
this power - power the administration wants but not necessarily
needs." Alarm over secrecy cited - But that debate pales
in comparison to the criticism from some lawmakers and libertarians
who say the federal government is trampling on individual
rights in the name of anti-terrorism. They point to the wide-scale
detainment of hundreds of foreign nationals after September
11, many of whom have never been criminally charged, and they're
following the cases of so-called "enemy combatants"
- which includes two Americans. That designation restricts
detainees' access to open courts and attorneys for such individuals.
"Since September 11, we've been in this struggle over
the Constitution at several levels," said U.S. Rep. John
Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
The Michigan lawmaker has been a vocal critic of the Bush
administration for what he calls its tendency to "run
roughshod over fairness and constitutional protections."
Conyers predicts that many of the Justice Department practices
put into place after September 11 will be challenged in court.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has said the government
has to take a much more aggressive posture in its anti-terrorism
efforts, but he has maintained that civil rights are being
protected and that all of the department's practices will
stand up in court. For some observers, little has changed
about the government since September 11. Thomas Mann, a congressional
scholar at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a liberal-oriented
public policy think tank, said there has been a quick "return
to normalcy" since last year's attacks, and he faulted
lawmakers and the administration for a "lost opportunity."
Mann said neither political party has made a serious effort
to craft a new majority in the wake of the attacks nor alter
how Americans relate to their government. "We're back
to fighting old battles," he said. But others said they
see fundamental changes, and some said they don't like what
they see. Conyers, for example, said much of the secrecy that
surrounds the war on terrorism alarms him. "The whole
idea of a secret democracy is a contradiction in terms,"
he said. That debate - secrecy vs. openness - could
rage for years as the federal government adjusts to life after
September 11.
From CNN-Politics, by Sean Loughlin, 10
September 2002
Bush Meets 10 Leaders
of Africa
New York - President Bush met the leaders
of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday in
what amounted to the latest push to shore up their wavering
peace deal. It was one of two meetings Bush held devoted to
Africa as he ended his visit to New York for the annual U.N.
General Assembly. Bush first met the leaders of Gabon, Equatorial
Guinea, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Burundi,
Congo, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sao Tome
and Principe. Sean McCormack, spokesman for the White House
National Security Council, said the meeting focused on trade
and development, fighting AIDS and his Millennium Challenge
Account, which ties some U.S. aid to democratic and economic
reforms. "The president stressed the importance of transparency
and anti-corruption that would lead to the flow of capital
to African countries. The African leaders thanked the president
for his interest in the continent," McCormack said. He
said Bush told them he looked forward to his trip to Africa
early next year. The White House has not said which countries
Bush will visit. Then Bush met separately with the three leaders
involved in the Rwandan-Congolese conflict: Rwanda President
Paul Kagame, Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic
of Congo, and South African President Thabo Mbeki, chief mediator
in the peace bid. Officials said Bush discussed the situation
with them but had no further details. Kagame and Kabila signed
a peace agreement on July 30 aimed at ending a four-year war
that has sown instability in the heart of Africa. The two
countries lately have accused each other of undermining the
agreement. Under the accord, Rwanda promised to withdraw its
forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo within 90 days.
The Congolese government pledged to disarm and repatriate
militias blamed for Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Rwanda says the
militias operating in eastern Congo are a security threat.
But Congo has accused Rwanda of launching attacks in eastern
Congo since the deal was signed. Rwanda says Congo still supports
the militiamen and refuses to withdraw its troops until the
fighters have been arrested. Congo's war involves numerous
belligerents, many of whom are accused of pillaging the vast
country's natural resources. Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo
to back rebels fighting the government while Zimbabwe, Namibia
and Angola sent troops to support Kinshasa. Congo has signed
a peace deal with Uganda as part of efforts to end the war,
which has left around 2 million people dead. Kabila said a
new round of peace talks between his government and rebel
factions would begin later this month.
From ABC News-Politics, by Steve Holland,
13 September 2002
Lawmaker Wants to Ban
Child Modeling Web Sites
New York - The photos on the Web sites
portray no nudity and no sex, yet men by the thousands pay
to ogle them - shots of preteen girls posing in bikinis and
halter tops. Defended as free speech by some, such pictures
are being blasted as a "fix for pedophiles" by a
congressman who is waging an uphill campaign to banish them
from the Internet. The pool of photos is growing "at
an unabated pace," said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Florida.
Foley has authored a bill, now before the House Judiciary
Committee, intended to shut down the Web sites by outlawing
"exploitive child modeling." Even he concedes, however,
that the measure has potential loopholes, and anti-censorship
groups say it would likely be struck down as an unconstitutional
infringement of free expression. "It's doomed from the
start," said Garry Daniels of the National Coalition
Against Censorship. At Florida-based Webe Web Corp., which
runs one of the largest networks of child-modeling sites,
co-founder Marc Greenberg says he can't vouch for the motives
of his customers. But he insists that no child featured on
his sites has suffered any physical harm. "If I said
pedophiles are definitely not looking at these sites, that
would be a crock," Greenberg said by phone from his Fort
Lauderdale office. "But the majority of people looking
at them are not bad people. ... If it's within the law and
people want to do it, more power to them." Greenberg
said the girls featured on Webe Web sites wear outfits that
could be bought at a typical mall and seen at a public beach
or backyard picnic. Critics counter the pictures and videos
of girls in swimsuits, leotards and sleepwear are intended
to be erotic even while complying with anti-pornography laws.
Webe Web subscribers, who pay about $20 monthly, are not able
to chat online with the models or e-mail them directly, Greenberg
said.
Foley contends some sites do provide
direct contacts between customers and children, and worries
that models are at risk of abduction, abuse, or even murder.
Any such crimes are covered by existing laws, said Kim Hart
of the National Child Abuse Defense and Resource Center in
Holland, Ohio. "This is something best handled case-by-case
by child protection services," Hart said. "If there's
something of concern, let professionals talk to the girl,
look at the background." Personally, she said, "as
a mother, I may not like it. But the question is whether it's
illegal, whether it's harmful." Foley isn't swayed by
arguments that any abuse of child models could be prosecuted
under current laws. "Taking care of the problem after
it occurs -- that's when the child is found dead or raped,"
he said. "My bill is an attempt to ward off problems
before they occur." Several modeling sites assert that
the parents' share of profits will go toward their daughters'
college tuition. But critics say the parents deserve as much
blame as the entrepreneurs. "Anyone from pedophiles to
rapists can pay the monthly subscription fee and lust after
the little ones," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned
Women For America. "Why would parents permit such a thing?"
Foley also believes some parents are blameworthy, and suggests
others mistakenly think the modeling sites represent a legitimate
chance to build a career for their daughters. Daniels, of
the Coalition Against Censorship, agrees that parental ambition
is at play. "The parents think, 'Maybe my child is the
next Britney Spears,"' he said. "If it takes putting
her on the Internet in a bikini, so be it." Greenberg
guesses that 99 percent of parents wouldn't want their children
posing on Webe Web sites. However, he says the parents he
deals with are comfortable with the arrangements - "They
don't have hang-ups" - and are little different than
parents who push children into acting or traditional fashion
modeling. "The people we work with don't see anything
wrong with this - they think it's fun, and the kids like it,"
Greenberg said. "They understand everything that goes
with it ... they know there are people out there looking at
the pictures. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
There are scores of child-modeling Web sites, though Foley's
staff has been unable to pin down the number or calculate
how much money they make. Foley's bill would impose prison
terms of up to 10 years for exploitive child modeling, defined
as "marketing the child himself or herself in lascivious
positions and acts, rather than actually marketing products."
The bill has possible loopholes, Foley admits. If Webe Web
offered T-shirts online with the name of one of its sites,
the company could claim the site was marketing a product.
Foley is seeking legal advice to address such problems, but
he believes his efforts are worthwhile no matter what happens
in Congress or the courts. "Maybe my bill will never
pass," he said. "Half the battle sometimes is to
alert the public."
From CNN-Politics, 17 September 2002
White House Preps Cybersecurity
Plan
The White House's cyberspace security
plan, scheduled to be released Wednesday, envisions a broad
new role for the federal government in maintaining Internet
security. While couching many concepts as mere suggestions,
a draft of the plan seen by CNET News.com says the government
should improve the security of key Internet protocols and
spend tens of millions of dollars on centers to recognize
and respond to "cyberattacks." The draft report,
however, is still in flux. As of late Monday, one controversial
section that appears to have been deleted would have required
companies to contribute money to a fund to secure computer
networks. Richard Clarke, President Bush's special adviser
for cyberspace security, has said that his office would actively
seek more comment on the plan before submitting it to Bush
60 days after the rollout. The draft, which Clarke prepared,
says changes "will be needed" in key Internet protocols
and endorses "trustworthy computing" technologies
such as Microsoft's proposed system. Also under consideration
are a "cyber emergency response plan" that would
be activated during Internet crises and a National Cyberspace
Academy to "advance research in cybersecurity education."
It says the executive branch should consult with privacy groups
and attempt to preserve civil liberties, but concludes that
in some cases, privacy could be limited. "Allowing completely
anonymous communications on a wide-scale basis, with no possibility
of determining the source, could shelter criminal, or even
terrorist communications," the draft says. Because the
report is simply a set of recommendations prepared by the
Bush administration, there is no compulsion for private firms
to follow its recommendations. But because it is backed by
the White House during a time of heightened security consciousness,
it likely will be taken seriously by legislators when they
consider new laws. In October 2001, in the wake of the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks, President Bush appointed Clarke to coordinate
the administration's Internet security efforts. Harris Miller,
president of the Information Technology Association of America,
said he believes any remaining disagreements that industry
groups have with the White House report will be worked out
before Wednesday's scheduled release. "
The issues that we're focusing on are on the margins,"
Miller said. "There weren't any fundamental concerns...Assuming
the final draft is close to the draft we've seen, we generally
support it." Government-crafted protocols - One Internet
protocol the draft singles out for criticism is the Border
Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is used to exchange routing
information among interconnected networks. The report concludes
that "changes in BGP will be needed" because of
current security vulnerabilities. Another point of criticism
is the Domain Name System (DNS), which translates domain names
such as cnet.com into numeric addresses such as 206.16.0.148.
"The accuracy of the data in the DNS databases needs
to be improved and stronger mechanisms are needed to ensure
the authentication of the DNS database along with changes
to the database," the report concludes. The draft suggests
that it's time for the federal government to become more involved
in the development of Internet protocols, security and standards--a
role currently assumed by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Government, it says, must "conduct research and development
for the collective good. This is a role that the government
played during the founding of the Internet...The federal government,
without regulating or controlling the Internet, should systematically
ensure that necessary research and similar activities are
conducted to insure the security and reliability of the Internet."
Brad Jansen, an adjunct fellow at the free-market Competitive
Enterprise Institute who is familiar with the report, said:
"I found it encouraging that the report recognized the
importance of training and implementation beyond just grand
plans. There are systems within the government's sphere that
it should not ignore. But there's little recognition of cost-benefit
analysis throughout the report, and much emphasis on how we
can spend money." Future directions - One section, part
of the "National Priorities" chapter, is forward-looking.
It says that the government should closely monitor progress
in quantum computing, intelligent agents and nanotechnology:
"For example, the development of intelligent nanodevices
could cause massive growth in the numbers of connected devices
on the Internet and the locations and uses in which these
devices are deployed." Quantum computing, which could
bring systems so powerful that they could render current encryption
technologies obsolete, poses a threat as well. "Backup
planning for the unexpected--the secret breakthrough by an
unfriendly country--should be considered. How would such an
advance be used against us? How would we detect if our cryptography
is compromised? A watchful eye should also be kept on foreign
research." The White House is also worried about attackers
employing intelligent agents, smart computer programs that
can search for information or carry out tasks on their own.
"Adversaries using agents would have the distinct advantage
of being able to attempt many variations on many themes either
over a very short period of time, since they can operate at
digital speeds, or over an extended period of time without
losing focus, since they are computer programs."
From News.com, by Declan McCullagh , 18
September 2002
PM Wants Kyoto Plan
by Oct. 8: CBC TV
Calgary - The plan will include: new
federal spending of more than $5 billion to pay for incentive
programs, such as improving mass transit; new or tightened
regulations to force industry to become more efficient; tax
breaks for consumers who become more energy efficient. But
the idea of adopting the Kyoto targets to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions, believed to be the cause of global warming,
has enraged Alberta's government. Provincial Premier Ralph
Klein launched a campaign against ratifying the accord earlier
this week, citing uncertainty about its costs. Those won't
be known until the government tables its implementation plan,
but with fossil fuels fingered as the big culprit in global
warming, Alberta's oil, gas and coal industries stand to suffer.
Chrétien tried to address that concern Wednesday, telling
a Calgary audience that the burden of reducing emissions will
be borne by all regions of the country and all sectors of
the economy. Consumers, he said produce 80 per cent of gases,
so "the obligation of the oil and gas industry is 20
per cent, not 100 per cent as some people sometimes try to
convey." But on Thursday, Klein continued his attack.
"It's the goofiest, most devastating thing that was ever
conceived and has ever been contemplated by a Canadian government
in the history of this country," he said. That drew criticism
from Alberta New Democratic Party leader Raj Pannu, who said
by taking "such extreme positions not justified by the
facts" the province's bargaining position with Ottawa
is weakened if Parliament ratifies Kyoto. Pannu said some
energy companies have already proven they can cut greenhouse
gas emissions economically.
Written by CBC News Online staff
From Canada-CBC Newsworld, 20 September
2002
Senate Debate Stuck
on Workers' Rights
Gramm, Miller Offer Compromise Plan
to Break Homeland Security Stalemate - The Senate's debate
on a homeland security bill remained stuck on the issue of
workers' rights yesterday, even as a pair of senators attempted
to broker a compromise that would speed the creation of a
new department focused on terrorist threats. Sens. Phil Gramm
(R-Tex.) and Zell Miller (D-Ga.) offered a proposal that would
give President Bush much of what he wants in shaping work
rules for the 170,000 employees who would be part of the new
Department of Homeland Security. Both said they agreed with
Bush that the head of the new agency would need greater freedom
to hire, fire, reward and reassign employees to deal with
the rapidly changing nature of terrorist threats. In a nod
to labor unions, Gramm and Miller proposed that Bush be required
to notify Congress before he removes employees from collective
bargaining units for national security reasons. Their proposal
mirrors the homeland security legislation that passed the
House in July and has the White House's support. But it remained
unclear whether Gramm and Miller will be able to muster enough
votes to break a stalemate over the volatile issue. The Senate's
Democratic leadership wants to protect civil service rights
and to require Bush to seek the approval of the Federal Labor
Relations Authority before removing workers from unions. The
Democrats tried to call a vote on their homeland security
package yesterday but could not muster enough votes to end
more than two weeks of debate. With 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans
and one independent, the Senate is deeply divided on the matter.
Both sides have spent the week seeking to win converts. The
Republicans enlisted Miller, and the Democrats are targeting
a group of moderate Republicans that includes Sen. Lincoln
D. Chafee of Rhode Island. Miller, the first Democratic senator
to openly side with the White House on the issue, said the
federal personnel system is "as outdated as an oxcart
on an expressway." He warned his colleagues that they
risk "slitting their own throats" by insisting on
collective bargaining rights in the bill. Two other Democratic
senators, John Breaux (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), are pushing
a provision that would give union employees a chance to appeal
their removal before the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Their collective bargaining rights would be suspended during
this period, which could last no more than 120 days and would
not include an option for judicial appeal. Bush, who has threatened
to veto any legislation that does not give him the management
freedoms, kept up the pressure yesterday in an appearance
at the Northwest Washington headquarters of the Office of
Homeland Security, saying he needs to be able to "move
the right people to the right place, in order to better protect
the homeland." Joined by Homeland Security Director Tom
Ridge, Bush declared: "We're at a time of war, and the
Senate shouldn't be making it harder for an administration,
whether it be this one, or future administrations, to do their
job."
From Washington (DC) Post, by Bill Miller
and Juliet Eilperin, 20 September 2002
White House Defends Cybersecurity Plan
Seattle - A White House official is
standing behind the administration's draft recommendations
on cybersecurity, asserting that they have not been weakened
by lobbying from technology companies. "The one (claim)
I hear the most often is that it was watered down," Howard
Schmidt, vice chairman of the White House's National Critical
Infrastructure Protection Board, said here Thursday. "It
is not watered down." On Wednesday, the White House formally
challenged in federal court in Washington, D.C. Orson Swindle,
one of the Federal Trade Commission's five commissioners,
warned of attempts to enact a broad privacy law to regulate
the data collection practices of Internet companies. He said
such a law would stifle innovation. "Had we passed the
kind of legislation that had been advocated a few years ago,
it would have been a total disaster," Swindle said. In
May 2000, when the FTC voted 3-2 to ask for more power from
Congress to regulate Web sites, Swindle was one of the two
dissenters. He said at the time that "legislation could
limit consumer choices and provide a disincentive for the
development of further technological solutions. Government
regulation may actually give consumers fewer choices, and
as technology changes, less privacy."
From Washington (DC) Post, by Declan McCullagh
,20 September 2002
Leading Indicators
Show Weak Economy in USA
New York - A key gauge of U.S. economic
activity fell for the third straight month in August, declining
more than experts had predicted. The New York-based Conference
Board on Monday reported its index of leading economic indicators
dropped 0.2% to 111.8, after falling a revised 0.1% in July.
Analysts had expected an August decline of 0.1%. The index
measures where the overall U.S. economy is headed in the next
three to six months. It stood at 100 in 1996, its base year.
Seven of the 10 indicators that make up the leading index
declined in August, the Conference Board said. Conference
Board economist Ken Goldstein said the data showed the nation's
"weak recovery could stall, especially if the consumer
market starts to slow." "There is now the threat
of a slowdown," Goldstein added, "because unlike
in June or July, the latest decline was widely diffused -
only one of the 10 components had a significant positive contribution."
Contributing to the dour mood on Wall Street was the fact
that economists do not expect Federal Reserve policymakers
to further cut interest rates when they meet Tuesday. The
Federal Reserve has left short-term interest rates at 40-year
lows this year. The Conference Board's coincident index, which
measures current economic activity, rose 0.1% in August to
115.0 The index of lagging indicators, which reflects changes
that have already occurred, fell 0.1% last month to 100.7.
From USA Today, 23 September 2002
Feds Give States Smallpox
Plan
Federal officials are sending states
detailed guidelines Monday for vaccinating their entire populations
against smallpox should the deadly disease return in an act
of terrorism. The plan offers instructions for how to vaccinate
the U.S. population within days should it become necessary.
No decisions have been made, though, about the circumstances
under which those plans would be activated, officials said.
The highly contagious disease has not been seen in this country
for decades and routine vaccinations ended in 1971. It was
declared eradicated in 1980, and routine smallpox vaccination
stopped in the United States in 1972. The United States and
Russia keep the only official supplies of the variola virus
that causes smallpox, but experts fear other countries or
extremist groups may have access to the agent and could unleash
it as a biological weapon. The new blueprint does not address
a much thornier issue now under intense discussion within
the Bush administration: whom to vaccinate before an attack
even occurs. A decision on that issue is expected by the end
of the month. Rather, the state planning guide addresses mass
vaccinations after smallpox is discovered. It goes well beyond
earlier planning, which has revolved around "ring vaccination,"
where authorities deliver shots first to those closest to
the contagious patient. Under ring vaccination, health officials
work away from the central smallpox patient in concentric
circles, delivering shots to people the patient may have exposed
and then to others who those people may have exposed. Mass
vaccination is a much more aggressive approach and officials
believe it could be necessary in order to halt a fast-spreading
smallpox virus. The smallpox vaccine offers protection against
the disease even if administered after someone is exposed,
as long as they get the shot within a few days. The logistics
of vaccinating large numbers of people all at once are exceedingly
complicated. The plan being sent Monday, nearly 100 pages
long, addresses "anything you can think of in running
a vaccine clinic," one federal official said Sunday,
speaking on condition of anonymity. "It literally says,
'here's how you set one up and here's how you run it,'"
the official said. "This is a very detailed, thoughtful
recipe for response" to a bioterror incident, said Michael
Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota
who is advising the federal government. Specific questions
addressed include how many clinics and health care workers
would be needed, where the clinics should be stationed and
how to deal with the news media. The plan also addresses security
issues including how to keep order among an anxious public.
Federal health officials are also in the final stages of planning
for who to vaccinate in the short term, absent a smallpox
case. The vaccine carries significant risks, including death,
leaving officials to balance the risk of the side effects
against the risk of the disease's return. The highly contagious
disease is characterized by blistering of the skin and fever,
and kills about 30 percent of its victims. Officials at the
White House and the Department of Health and Human Services
are nearing a final decision on whom to vaccinate right away.
They have settled on a staged approach, beginning with health
care workers and emergency responders who face the greatest
risk of seeing a contagious smallpox patient. Then, they plan
to offer the vaccine to others, such as other health care
workers and emergency responders, officials have said. They
are considering a final stage where the vaccine would be offered
to everyone in the country, though one official said Sunday
that no final decision had been made on that issue.
From CBS News-National, 23 September 2002
Lawmakers Urge SEC
to Defend Insider-Loan Law
Washington - Two U.S. senators urged
the head markets regulator on Wednesday to fight any efforts
by business lobbyists to weaken a new law that prohibits insider
loans to top corporate executives. Passed amid revelations
of multimillion-dollar loans made to officers of Enron Corp.,
Tyco International Ltd. and other scandal-ridden firms, the
law may be under attack by lobbyists, said Sen. Carl Levin
and Sen. Susan Collins.In a letter to U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, the two ranking
members of a key Senate investigative panel urged the SEC
"to resist any efforts to narrow or weaken the insider
loan prohibition." "Media reports indicate that
some companies may be pressing the SEC to narrow the scope
of the prohibition or otherwise weaken it through regulation,
guidance, or other means," wrote Levin, a Michigan Democrat,
and Collins, a Maine Republican. They cited reports that opponents
of the law may want exemptions for company loans used by executives
to purchase company stock, exercise stock options, obtain
insurance, relocate for work or pay taxes. "The legislative
history provides no basis for creating these exemptions or
otherwise weakening the provision," they said. "To
the contrary, the statutory prohibition makes it clear that
publicly traded companies are not supposed to be using company
funds to provide personal financing to company directors or
officers for any reason." The SEC could not immediately
be reached for comment. In reaction to a flood of corporate
scandals, Congress this summer passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
and President Bush signed it into law, the biggest overhaul
of corporate securities and accounting law since the 1930s.
It was written by Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland) and Rep.
Michael Oxley (R-Ohio). The Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations, headed by Levin and Collins, has investigated
the collapse of former energy trader Enron, including the
role of insider loans.
From ABC News-Politics, 25 September 2002
Poverty Up, But Not
Across The Board
New York - The economic slowdown of
2001 brought with it a substantial decline in median household
income and a rise in the poverty rate to 11.7%, from 11.3%,
according to reports released today by the U.S. Commerce Department's
Census Bureau. Median household incomes fell by 2.2% in real
terms to $42,228 in 2001, from its 2000 level. These overall
numbers are cause for concern. But on the positive side, the
recent recession has not caused a dramatic effect on income
or poverty rates as did the recessions of the early 1980s
or early 1990s - both of which saw the number of poor shoot
up. The poverty rate was around 15% at the end of the early
1980s recession. The overall rates were lower in the early
1970s, but substantially higher in the early 1960s, when the
rates were over 20%, accordng to census data. About 1.3 million
more Americans were poor in 2001 than in 2000--32.9 million
versus 31.6 million. The number of poor families increased
to 6.8 million (or 9.2%) in 2001, from 6.4 million in 2000
(or 8.7% of all families, a record low). As always, the median
income level of $42,228 (that is, half the families earned
more and the other half earned less) obscures large differences
between groups. For non-Hispanic whites, the poverty rate
was 7.8% in 2001. This rate was much lower than for African
Americans (22.7%--still a historically low level), Hispanics
(21.4%) and Asians and Pacific Islanders (10.2%). Aside from
Hispanics, other minority groups saw their poverty rates continue
to decline. Even more serious disparities were related to
family types. For married-couple families, the poverty rate
was just 5.7%. For male householder families it was 13.6%.
Female householder families, however, suffered a poverty rate
of 28.6%. Indeed, the poverty rate for married-couple families
with no workers (15.7%) was less than the rate experienced
by female householder families with one or more workers (21.3%).
This phenomenon coincides with a reduction in male versus
female wage rates. "The real median earnings of women
age 15 and older who worked full time year-round increased
for the fifth consecutive year, rising to $29,215--a 3.5%
increase between 2000 and 2001," said Daniel Weinberg,
chief of the Census Bureau's Housing and Household Economic
Statistics Division. Men with similar work experience did
not experience a statistical change in earnings ($38,275).
As a result, the female-to-male earnings ratio reached an
all-time high of 0.76. The previous high was 0.74, first recorded
in 1996. The poverty rate for the population aged 18 to 64
rose to 10.1% in 2001, from 9.6% in 2000. Children under 18
continued to have a higher poverty rate (16.3%) than people
18 to 64 or 65 and over; it was unchanged from 2000. Old people
had about the same poverty rate as 18-to-64-year-olds. Until
the mid-1970s, the rate for old people had been much higher.
The Census Bureau does not adjust poverty levels for cost
of living by region. It says increases in poverty were concentrated
in metropolitan areas (particularly outside central cities)
and in the South. The poverty rate for people living in the
suburbs rose to 8.2% in 2001, from 7.8% in 2000, but did not
change for those in central cities (16.5%) or in nonmetropolitan
areas (14.2%). If the median household income declined, those
at the top have been doing better in both relative and absolute
terms. In 2000, the top 5% of households earned at least $145,526,
according to the Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the bottom fifth
percentile earned a maxmiumum of $17,955. Ten years earlier,
the top 5% earened just under $95,000 and the bottom fifth
eaned $12,500. It's all relative, of course. In 2001, the
average chief executive tracked by Forbes earned on average
about $9.6 million in 2001. That's over 65 times what the
top 5% of U.S. families earned that year.
From Forbes, by Dan Ackman, 25 September
2002
Internet Anti-piracy
Bill Causes a Stir in Congress
Washington - A California congressman
on Thursday defended his proposal to give the entertainment
industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music
and movies. But Rep. Howard L. Berman indicated he might rewrite
part of the bill to more plainly outlaw hacker-style attacks
by the industry on Internet users. Berman's anti-piracy bill
has emerged as one of the most controversial policy debates
in Washington affecting the Internet and technology industry.
Berman, whose district includes Hollywood, introduced the
bill in late July. The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
panel on the Internet and intellectual property, Berman complained
at a hearing Thursday of "truly outrageous press attacks"
over his proposal. The subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Howard
Coble, R-N.C., who co-sponsored the bill with Berman and two
others, added that he "never received so much notoriety
for a bill I didn't introduce." Critics have charged
that the bill would permit Hollywood to act like hackers.
It would lift civil and criminal penalties against entertainment
companies for "disabling, interfering with, blocking,
diverting or otherwise impairing" the trading of pirated
songs and movies on the Internet. Broad attacks affecting
Internet users would not be permitted "except as may
be reasonably necessary" to prevent copyright violations.
Copyright owners would be required to explain in advance to
the Justice Department the methods they intend to use against
pirates, although the bill doesn't require approval from Justice
officials. Berman argued that property owners can trespass
to recover stolen items, so entertainment companies shouldn't
be prohibited from thwarting Internet piracy. But he said
he might have to rewrite a section of the bill to make it
clear that a hacker-style attack that deliberately shuts down
a person's Internet connection would not be protected under
his bill as reasonably necessary. "No judge or disinterested
party would read it that way," Berman said. "Some
folks have raised concerns about this provision, and we're
thinking about alternative language that would resolve their
concerns." Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive
Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music
downloads, told lawmakers Thursday that some tactics his software
can use are legally questionable under U.S. computer crime
laws. One such technique, called "interdiction,"
deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so that
other users can't. "We don't want MediaDefender's self-help
technology to be illegal due to hacking laws that were never
meant to address (file-sharing) networks," said Saaf,
the company's president. Some Democratic lawmakers complained
that Berman's bill could make it too easy for the entertainment
industry to mistakenly target innocent Internet users. Rep.
Rick Boucher of Virginia cited a threatening letter to an
Internet provider from Warner Bros., which demanded that a
particular subscriber be disconnected for illegally sharing
the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
But the computer file identified by Warner Bros. in its letter
indicated that it wasn't the "Harry Potter" movie
but a child's written book report. Because it was introduced
so late in the legislative session, Berman's bill has almost
no possibility of passage before Congress adjourns next month.
But some lawmakers threatened to reconsider the measure next
year unless the entertainment and technology industries can
agree on their own anti-piracy solutions.
From Nando Times-Technology, 27 September
2002
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IMF's Koehler Says Japan, Germany
Must Help U.S. Boost Growth
Washington - The U.S. economy, beset
with corporate scandals, a rising budget deficit and an overvalued
dollar, needs help from Europe and Japan to power a world
economic recovery, the International Monetary Fund's top official
said. Horst Koehler, the IMF's managing director, said that
help won't come unless Japan and Germany tackle their biggest
obstacles to growth: Japan's lenders have to shed their bad
loans, and Germany's government must make it easier for companies
to hire and fire workers, he said. "If the recovery were
to stall in the U.S. then we'd have a problem," Koehler
said in an interview last night in Washington. "Rich
governments must work on confidence building. If this happens,
then growth will pick up." Koehler delivered his warning
two days before the IMF releases its World Economic Outlook,
in which the fund will probably lower its growth forecast
for the coming year. His comments underscore the risks facing
the economy as the world's finance ministers and central bankers
travel to Washington for the IMF's annual meetings this weekend.
Economic growth among 30 of the world's most industrialized
nations slowed during the second quarter because of the slowdown
in the U.S. economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development said last week. Crippling Effect - The economies
of the OECD members grew by 0.5 percent from the first three
months of the year. The U.S. economy expanded 0.3 percent
in April through June, a quarter of the pace of the previous
three months. The slowdown in the industrialized world is
having a crippling effect on emerging market nations, whose
economies are the main focus of the IMF's annual meetings.
Argentina is struggling to emerge from its $95 billion default
in December, the largest failure in history.
Brazil's markets have barely responded
to the IMF's promise of $30 billion in loans, the biggest
aid package the fund has ever pledged. Koehler said the IMF
is trying to reach an interim agreement with the administration
of Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde to tide the country
over until elections in March. Even a stopgap accord won't
be easy because of the "disarray" in Argentine political
system, he said. "Nearly every day has new surprises
or initiatives" by the congress or the courts in Argentina,
he said. He said Brazil's failure to inspire confidence among
investors wasn't surprising since markets are jittery because
of the presidential election next month. South America's largest
economy is strong enough to avoid a debt default, he said.
U.S. Shocks - Koehler praised the U.S. economy for its flexibility
in responding to shocks during the past year. These include
the terrorist attacks of a year ago and the accounting scandals
of this year. Still, he said the dollar is overvalued and
needs to decline. "An orderly depreciation of the dollar
is nothing which should concern us," Koehler said. And
with the independent U.S. Congressional Budget Office last
month predicting a budget deficit of $157 billion in this
fiscal year, Koehler called for spending cuts by U.S. policy
makers to make sure those deficits don't become chronic. The
risks facing the world's largest economy mean that other countries
must improve their efforts to drive the world economy. Japan's
`Unusual' Decision - In Japan, Koehler, who visited Tokyo
earlier this month, labeled "unusual" a central
bank last week to buy stocks held by Mizuho Holdings Inc.,
UFJ Holdings Inc. and other banks after the Nikkei 225 stock
average slid to a 19-year low this month. He said the plan
would only work if it's part of a comprehensive program to
clean up the banks' bad loans. The plan may briefly boost
equity markets "but if there is not the perception of
fundamental improvement in the financial sector then this
decision may be seen as very temporary," Koehler said.
"They need to tackle the underlying problems." Even
with new measures on the banks, Japan's economy is in no position
to take off. "I can't see a strong recovery," Koehler
said. "At least for another year or two, (there will
be) anemic growth." Europe is also struggling. - "Germany,
France and Italy are behind on reforms, and if they are not
going to improve then I see more difficulties," said
Koehler, a former German finance ministry official. Up to
Schroeder German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who won a second
term Sunday, now has to tackle the issues that almost lost
him the election: rising unemployment and a faltering economy,
he said. "The German economy is weak," said Koehler.
"I hope the new government as soon as possible takes
the appropriate action because that is crucial all over Europe."
Koehler, who had pushed the European Central Bank to cut interest
rates in early 2001, said it was not time for the central
bank to reduce rates again now. "There is still the higher
probability the recovery will continue," he said. "The
ECB will be mature enough to assess the whole situation, including
the prospect for stability to take a decision at the appropriate
time."
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Mark Drajem,
24 September 2002
Earth Summit Ends in
Discord
A protester is taken from the hall
by security Wednesday after heckling U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell at the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg. The much-heralded Earth Summit II ended in
acrimony Wednesday, with environmentalists heckling U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell and nations disagreeing on what was
accomplished. The extremes ranged from Australia's proclamation
of an "absolute success" to the "dialogue of
the deaf" label given by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the closing
session that expectations had simply been too high. "We
have to be careful not to expect conferences like this to
produce miracles," he said. "This is just a beginning,"
he said of a 70-page nonbinding accord, "but it's an
important beginning." The European Union said the conference
might be the last example of a giant summit that tries to
solve global problems. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said he was
"satisfied" overall but added: "We cannot be
happy with everything." Among disappointments, he singled
out a deal merely urging a "substantial" increase
in the use of renewable energies like wind and solar power.
Under pressure from Washington and the OPEC oil cartel, Europe
withdrew its drive for firm targets. "I don't think that
mega-summits are the way to secure effective implementation,"
Rasmussen said. Chavez, Venezuela's president, was more critical.
"We go from summit to summit, but our peoples go from
abyss to abyss," he said. "It seems to be a dialogue
of the deaf." A political declaration, a symbolic document
capping the summit, was finally adopted without a vote after
regional blocs haggled over sections. The agreed version included
references to two specific obstacles to sustainable development:
foreign occupation, a clause requested by Arab states on behalf
of Palestinians; and HIV-AIDS, at the urging of countries
led by the United States.
From MSNBC, 4 September 2002
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Zimbabwe Says Black Elite Also Getting
White Farms
Zimbabwe's justice minister acknowledged
on Tuesday that the country's ruling elite was also benefiting
from seizures of land from white farmers intended mainly to
help landless black peasants. Patrick Chinamasa said on a
South African public radio talkshow that the controversial
land reforms benefited everyone, be they senior members of
the ruling ZANU-PF party or supporters of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change. ''There are pieces of land which are
being subdivided and given to people who apply. It does not
matter whether these are people in the leadership of the ZANU-PF
or not,'' he said. ''We have bankers who have benefited, lecturers
from universities have benefited, we've got even opposition
members who have benefited from the land programme. As long
as they are black they are entitled to benefit,'' he said.
President Robert Mugabe says the reforms are designed to reverse
a colonial legacy that left 70 percent of the best land in
the hands of a tiny white minority at independence in 1980.
The Unites States recently cited the distribution of seized
commercial farms to Mugabe's friends and allies, including
his wife, Grace, as a reason to oppose the programme. The
seizures, backed by an order to 2,900 of the 4,500 white farmers
to stop farming by August 8, have been cited as a factor in
the country's drought-fuelled food crisis, which affects about
six million of its 13 million people. Chinamasa contested
this, saying those white farmers who grew maize rather than
cash crops like tobacco and cotton used it to feed their livestock
rather than hungry black Zimbabweans. ''The shortage which
the region is experiencing has not been caused by the land
programme, but by what we all know, the drought which is afflicting
the whole region,'' he said. Chinamasa's comments came a day
after Mugabe launched a scathing attack against British Prime
Minister Tony Blair at the Johannesburg Earth Summit. ''Blair,
keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe,'' he said in
an address to more than 100 heads of government. ''START NOW''
Chinamasa urged South Africa to follow Zimbabwe's lead. ''My
advice to South Africa is start now, don't wait until the
pressures are too overwhelming,'' he said. ''If you think
that in South Africa you will be freed from what is happening
in Zimbabwe and you don't anticipate those changes, I feel
sorry for you because as things are South African blacks are
in a worse situation than Zimbabweans.'' The land crisis in
Zimbabwe, which started in 2000 when black militants invaded
white farmland, has fuelled volatility of the South African
rand currency. But South African President Thabo Mbeki, though
criticised for doing too little to rein Mugabe in, has said
repeatedly that his government will never allow land seizures.
South Africa is running parallel land reform programmes to
return land taken from blacks under apartheid and redistribute
some land held by whites at the end of white rule in 1994.
From MSNBC, 3 September 2002
Crime Capital of the
World Tries to Clean Up Its Image
Not since the gold rush of the 1870s
has the city of Johannesburg seen such a flurry of economic
activity. As tens of thousands of government officials, business
leaders, NGOs, and green activists descend on the city this
weekend for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, its
people and its sprawling suburbs are gripped with summit fever.
Often referred to as the New York of Africa for its ethnic
mix and its hard business heart, "soulless" Johannesburg
is usually overlooked as a destination for international gatherings
in favour of coastal Durban and Cape Town. It is, after all,
the world's murder and car-jackings capital, and South Africa's
most polluted city. Delegates offended by extremes of poverty
or blatant wealth will find plenty of both. Organisers have
spent months helping Jozi, as the local black population call
their home town, tidy up its ragged image. Trees have been
planted, street hawkers booted out of areas likely to attract
the first summiteers, and soldiers sent to patrol the streets.
To allay fears of violent crime, the police presence has been
heavily reinforced and the city has installed security cameras
on street corners. But the planners are taking no chances.
Egoli, meaning "City of Gold", the central commercial
district of Johannesburg, will hardly feature for the most
distinguished visitors. The summit's main sessions will all
take place on the sanitised periphery, in plush Sandton, a
kind of "new Johannesburg" six miles north of the
city. Delegates will also converge on Nasrec, about four miles
south of Johannesburg, and Ubuntu Village, three miles to
the north. At last count, 106 heads of state and government
have confirmed attendance. As the delegates started arriving
at Johannesburg International Airport yesterday they were
quickly escorted out of the arrivals hall into coaches, to
be whisked down the highway towards their accommodation. Many
routes have been closed to traffic for the duration of the
meeting. A total of 20,000 security guards have been recruited
to shield the visitors from the reality of life in downtown
Johannesburg. Police, army, air force, intelligence services,
private security companies, fire and rescue services, hospitals
and even morgues have been roped in. Scores of chaplains,
psychologists and social workers will be on hand to counsel
the security guards. A special bicycle unit manned by "hand-picked,
fit officers" will also be on patrol around the "security
island" that the Sandton Convention Centre has become.
A three-mile no-fly zone enforced by unmanned spotter aircraft,
attack helicopters and fighter planes has been imposed.
The government has made it clear that
it will not tolerate disruption from anti-globalisers, land
rights activists or other dissident groups. But that might
be a faint hope, with 70,000 protesters against world poverty
and globalisation expected. Most locals hope the summit talk
will translate into tangible benefits for them. "I think
everyone is looking forward to the outcome of the summit.
We feel that with it changes will come," said Thomas
Selala, 30, an unemployed man living in a township near Sandton.
"Now we live in shacks, with a high unemployment rate
... they [foreign countries] must invest in our country because
the crime comes from poverty and unemployment." Like
everyone else in Johannesburg, the city's prostitutes have
been quick to spot a business opportunity. Pages of advertisements
have been taken out in the local press promising "summit
specials". "You'll see that there's a lot more adverts
in the papers of late, but throughout the industry people
aren't really feeling the cash boom from the summit yet,"
a spokesman for the Foreign Clients escort company said. He
expressed concern that the strict cordon of security surrounding
Sandton could harm business. Johannesburg residents are ignoring
the appeal by Cheryl Carolus, the country's tourism chief,
not to exploit tourists. Some residents are offering their
homes for an astronomical R30,000 a day (£1,775), enough rent
over three weeks for a deposit on a lavish home in an upmarket
suburb of Johannesburg. "While we operate in a free economy,
people trying to make a fast buck are not seeing the bigger
picture and are, unfortunately, being extremely short-sighted,"
Ms Carolus told a newspaper this week. One home-owner in Durban,
250 miles away, has advertised his beachfront home for £385
per day, including all transport costs. Even the townships
are hoping to cash in with visitors invited to join African
families to enjoy ethnic music, culture and cooking. In an
attempt to outdo the rest, some landlords are also throwing
in extras such as authentic Italian or Indian chefs, sight-seeing
tours, a daily chauffeur-driven ride to the summit in a Rolls-Royce
and a selection of the finest Cape wines. Property agents
have also joined the rush by setting up offices nearby. With
foreign buyers accounting for just over 10 per cent of Johannesburg's
property market, the country's most upmarket property agent
has published a 38-page property supplement to be distributed
to delegates.
From UK-The Independent-Africa, by Beauregard
Tromp, 24 August 2002
Zimbabwe Violence Leads
600 Opposition Candidates to Withdraw
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change party said intimidation by ruling party
militants had forced half its candidates to withdraw from
local elections on Sept. 28 and 29. The MDC will contest less
than half of the seats available after at least 600 of its
1,200 candidates dropped out, said Paul Themba Nyathi, the
party's elections director. It is the first time the MDC has
contested local elections. The elections are a further test
of President Robert Mugabe's popularity, as the economy slips
into its fourth year of recession and famine threatens more
than half the population. The European Union has imposed sanctions
on Mugabe and party leaders after accusing him of manipulating
presidential elections earlier this year and exacerbating
the country's famine. "We are concerned about the violence,"
said Reginald Matchaba-Hove, Chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral
Supervisory Network, which monitors elections on behalf of
38 non-government organizations. "A chief in Gutu was
beaten up simply because he has a relative in the MDC."
The government denies there is any repeat of the upsurge in
violence that accompanied presidential elections in March
and that saw Mugabe elected for the fifth time. "I was
surprised by the reports in the press of violence, I've received
no complaints at all," said Ignatius Chombo, Zimbabwe's
local government minister. "This time around its quiet
and peaceful. It's almost as if there is no election at all."
Bothwell Mugarire, a spokesman for the Zimbabwean police,
declined to comment. Amnesty - Amnesty International has said
it is organizing a public petition to South African President
Thabo Mbeki, calling on him to help protect human rights in
Zimbabwe. South Africa is Zimbabwe's neighbor and its biggest
trading partner. "Violence has become a tool of the government
of Robert Mugabe to silence its opponents and maintain its
grip on power," Amnesty said in a statement on Zimbabwe
earlier this month. More than 57 people have died in political
violence in Zimbabwe this year while more than 1,000 have
been tortured for their political beliefs, the human rights
group said. Mugabe has sparked international criticism since
ordering more than 2,900 white farmers to leave their land
without compensation. He says the land is being distributed
to landless blacks who were dispossessed during 90 years of
white rule. The land reform has worsened a famine that threatens
6.7 million people in the southern Africa country, according
to the United Nations World Food Program.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Brian Latham,
23 September 2002
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S Korea's Soccer Chief to Run for
President
Riding on the surging popularity of
soccer in South Korea following the World Cup, the nation's
millionaire soccer chief, Chung Mong-joon, said Thursday he
will run for president in December elections. "I'll formally
announce my presidential bid on September 17," Chung
said in a news release. Chung, 50, an independent legislator
with no political affiliation, has long been considered a
possible contender. Friday's statement confirmed his candidacy
for the first time. Chung's popularity surged following South
Korea's successful run in the World Cup, becoming the first
Asian nation to reach the semifinals. Recent opinion polls
showed Chung trailing slightly behind Lee Hoi-chang, the candidate
of the main opposition Grand National Party but ahead of Roh
Mu-hyun, the candidate of the pro-government Millennium Democratic
Party, which was previously associated with President Kim
Dae-jung. President Kim quit the pro-government party early
this year because of corruption scandals involving two of
his sons and aides, which were eroding support for Roh. Wooing
Chung - Chung has not announced details of his presidential
bid, including his platform. Aides say it has yet to be decided
whether to form a new party ahead of the December 19 elections.
Some pro-government politicians, who are pushing to form a
new party ahead of the presidential voting, are wooing Chung
to become their standard bearer. Chung has not yet responded
to the proposal. If Chung becomes the candidate for the envisioned
new pro-government party and Roh decides not to run, the soccer
chief would win the elections, polls have shown. Chung heads
the South Korean Football Association and serves as a vice
president of FIFA, soccer's world governing body. He is the
controlling shareholder in Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's
largest shipbuilder. Chung's father, Chung Ju-yung, founded
the giant Hyundai group that comprised the shipbuilder. It
disintegrated into several small groups in the aftermath of
the Asian financial crisis that hit South Korea in 1997-98.
The senior Chung, who died last year at age 86, ran for president
in 1992 but ended up a distant third. He was later sentenced
to three years in prison for using company funds to bankroll
his presidential campaign but the jail term was not enforced
because of his advanced age. President Kim's single five-year
term ends in February. He is barred by the Constitution from
seeking another term. Chung Mong-joon's popularity is partly
linked with South Korea's success in the World Cup. After
the World Cup, soccer has replaced baseball as the largest
spectator sport in South Korea.
From The Associated Press, 5 September 2002
Beijing on Terror Alert
Beijing has underscored China's vulnerability
to terrorism in the run-up to the September 11 anniversary.
Chinese officials and scholars have also warned against the
rise of American "unilateralism" in the wake of
Washington's threats to push the anti-terrorist campaign into
Iraq. The state media on Monday reported a large-scale anti-terrorist
exercise by the fire-fighting department of the Ministry of
Public Security. Officers from six provinces and cities took
part in rescue operations following a mock attack on a Beijing
high-rise building. Official reports said police, firemen
and crack anti-terrorist squads within the paramilitary People's
Armed Police had boosted training in the past year. Apart
from pro-independence Uighur activists in Xinjiang, Beijing
is also raising its guard against "underground"
groupings that may use terrorist tactics in the course of
criminal activities or to vent their grievances against the
government. Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has reiterated
the country's commitment to "international cooperation
in fighting terrorism." However, particularly with reference
to Washington's possible war against Iraq, Chinese diplomats
have stressed that punitive acts against individual countries
must be done through the United Nations and that anti-terrorist
efforts must not be targeted at a particular country, race
or religion. U.S. 'losing support' - Official academics have
also warned against the rise of "unilateralism"
and hegemonism in Washington's battle against terrorism. According
to international affairs specialist at People's University,
Jin Canrong, "unilateralism has reared its head in American
diplomacy in the wake of the success of its anti-terrorist
campaigns." Professor Jin warned that American hawkishness
had resulted in "a decrease in the global community's
support for America's fight against terrorism." In a
commentary, the Xinhua news agency website also decried Washington's
claim that it had a right to take "pre-emptive strikes"
against Iraq. It said such "unilateralist" thinking
could "pose a serious challenge to the existing international
structure and international law."
From CNN, by Willy Wo-Lap Lam, 9 September
2002
Nepal's Embattled PM
Forms New Political Party
Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur
Deuba formed a new political party on Monday after the kingdom's
election commission prevented him from using his old party's
name and symbol in elections set for November. "Deuba
has formed the Nepali Congress (Democratic) party and applied
for recognition for the upcoming elections," said a spokesman
for the election commission overseeing the vote. Nepal is
due to go to the polls 18 months ahead of schedule on November
13, the fourth election since 1991, shortly after the Himalayan
kingdom adopted parliamentary democracy. Last week the election
commission recognised Deuba's predecessor and arch rival,
Girija Prasad Koirala, as the president of the Nepali Congress
party. The election commission's decision was a big setback
for Deuba as it means Koirala's party can continue to use
the tree as its election symbol. In Nepal, political parties
are given symbols that are printed on ballots to help illiterate
voters. Nearly 50 percent of the population cannot read or
write. The row between Deuba and Koirala erupted over the
premier's plan to extend a state of emergency to help security
forces tackle an increasingly violent Maoist revolt against
the constitutional monarchy that has claimed about 5,000 lives.
The centrist Nepali Congress party expelled Deuba in May following
his decision to dissolve parliament and call early elections.
Deuba's action came after the party rejected his plan to extend
the emergency. Deuba then formed a rival faction that was
rejected by the commission. A spokesman for Deuba said the
election commission was scrutinising papers submitted by the
new party before registering it.
From MSNBC, 23 September 2002
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Turk Government Rocked by Row, Polls
in Shadows
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit
struggled on Tuesday to quell an explosive dispute that threatened
to demolish his three-party government and stoked market fears
of political turmoil scotching November polls. The ''flash
row'' between Ecevit's conservative and rightist partners
only added to the agony of a country fearful over possible
U.S. action in neighbouring Iraq and of deeper economic woes.
Markets see polls as essential to establishing a stable government
capable of seeing through multibillion-dollar IMF reforms,
slashing interest rates and coping with Turkey's huge debt
burden. NATO allies see elections in Turkey as a means to
end bickering that has hampered government. Motherland Party
chief and Deputy Premier Mesut Yilmaz, facing a possible electoral
debacle, lashed out at a legal move by nationalist partners
to annul human rights legislation approved in pursuit of European
Union entry talks. He said it was now hard to stay in government
and he would decide on Wednesday whether to withdraw. ''For
a market that was already tense enough with Iraq and a lack
of clear expectations, that was essentially rubbing salt in
the wound,'' said Niyazi Atasoy of Ata Investment in Istanbul.
Stocks on the Istanbul exchange slumped four percent and debt
and the lira currency fell sharply in the afternoon. Many
fear Yilmaz's implicit threat to bring down the government
heralded a broader attempt to rally support for postponement
of the elections by parliamentary vote. ARMY WANTS ELECTIONS
- Surveys show several parties, including Motherland, may
fail to clear the 10 percent barrier for entry into the next
parliament. Furthermore, a groundswell of support for delay
could emerge on Wednesday from those deputies dropped from
candidate lists submitted by parties to the electoral board.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), viewed by the army
and others with suspicion for its Islamist roots, is well
ahead of all rivals in polls and could well form the next
government. ''This...is an attempt by Yilmaz to escape from
elections, and we think it is ugly,'' AKP deputy chairman
Mehmet Ali Sahin told private NTV television.
The influential armed forces have said
any postponement of the polls could pitch Turkey, a country
set between the Balkans and the turbulent Middle East, into
chaos. Asked if efforts could be under way to postpone polls,
Motherland deputy Bulent Akarcali replied: ''Sure, sure. Not
by his (Yilmaz's) initiative but as a reaction to MHP hypocrisy.''
Ecevit, whose illness earlier this year stirred conflict in
the coalition and led to the calling of early elections in
November, responded angrily to Yilmaz at a news conference.
''Turkey is going through a very sensitive period,'' he said.
''Early polls will be held in a few months...in such a situation
we cannot take responsibility for a change of government.''
He said there was nothing extraordinary about the MHP appealing
to the constitutional court to annul the rights amendments,
including an easing of language restrictions for Kurds and
abolition of the death penalty in peacetime. Mesut Yilmaz
made a big issue out of it,'' Ecevit said. GOVERNMENT VULNERABILITY
- The government, in any case, emerged from the day looking
vulnerable even in its role as caretaker before elections.
It was not clear what form of government could emerge to replace
it either until polls or on a more long-term basis. The bitterness
in the three-year-old coalition runs deep. A top MHP figure
said he would file a legal petition against Ecevit, accusing
him of allowing Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan to run
his banned organisation from a prison cell. Ocalan led the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in a bloody campaign for an
ethnic homeland, which killed more than 30,000 since it began
in 1984. He was captured after an international manhunt in
1999 and sentenced to death, but stands to benefit from a
recent law ending capital punishment in peacetime. He has
occasionally issued statements through lawyers. ''There is
neglect of responsibilities. In fact, they have committed
the crime of assisting the guilty,'' MHP deputy chairman Sevket
Bulent Yahnici said. Ecevit later brushed off the charges
at a news conference. ''Unfortunately even this kind of rubbish
is being put forth as a kind of election-time populism,''
he said.
From MSNBC, 10 September 2002
Austrian Government
Collapses
Less than three years after taking
power, Austria's coalition government has collapsed because
of a bitter power struggle in Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom
Party. Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel announced that he was
pulling his conservative People's Party out of its uneasy
alliance with the FP, clearing the way for elections. The
Freedom Party has been torn apart by arguments over tax cuts.
Mr. Haider favoured them, while the party's senior ministers
said they should be delayed because of the recent floods.
The row led to three ministers resigning, including Susanne
Riess-Passer, the Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Schüssel challenged
the FP to make up its mind whether "to be in the government
or in the opposition. Both things at the same time do not
work." The populist Mr. Haider stepped aside as party
leader in March 2000, but stayed on as governor of rural Carinthia.
Ms. Riess-Passer, who became leader, was the acceptable public
face of the party, although she remained close to Mr. Haider
and was known as the "king's cobra". Mr. Schüssel
said he would ask the leadership of the People's Party to
dissolve on 19 September and hold elections "at the earliest
possible date," probably in November or early December.
From UK-The Independent-Europe, by Barbara
Miller, 10 September 2002
Schroeder's Social
Democrats Win Second Term, but Face Tough Tasks with Slender
Majority
Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats
held onto power in Germany's closest postwar election, but
the chancellor will face a tougher opposition as he tries
to reduce unemployment and revive the economy. He will also
have to soothe bruised U.S.-Germany ties after a campaign
that angered Washington. Schroeder secured a second four-year
mandate for his coalition with the small Greens party in Sunday's
vote, but his majority in parliament was shaved to only nine
seats from a previous 21. His conservative rival, Edmund Stoiber,
said that slender majority would not hold long. "I predict
that this Schroeder government will rule for only a very short
time," Stoiber said. He said Schroeder would face a reinvigorated
opposition, at a time when the chancellor will have to tackle
problems such as chronic unemployment and slow economic growth.
Schroeder was embarrassed by a failed promise to cut the jobless
total to 3.5 million by election day. Schroeder's victory
handed Europe's dwindling left another boost a week after
Social Democrats triumphed in Sweden. A jubilant Schroeder
appeared arm-in-arm with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
of the Greens before cheering supporters in Berlin. "We
have hard times in front of us and we're going to make it
together," Schroeder shouted. Official results released
early Monday showed the Social Democrats and Greens won a
combined 47.1 percent of the vote for the lower house, or
Bundestag. Opposition parties led by the conservatives totaled
45.9 percent. That gave the Social Democrats and Greens 306
seats in the new 603-seat parliament, compared to 295 for
conservatives and the pro-business Free Democrats. Reformed
communists won the other two seats. The Greens were exuberant
after their best showing in their 22-year history - 8.6 percent.
But Fischer declined to say whether the Greens would demand
another ministerial position. "One must be modest in
victory," he said. The victory was slimmer than Germany's
previous closest election - the 1976 vote, when a Social Democrat-led
government won a 10-seat majority. Schroeder's outspoken opposition
to a military conflict with Iraq was credited with giving
him a late push in a tight campaign. But it provoked a rare
open spat with the United States and accusations he whipped
up emotions against a vital ally for electoral gain. "What
I criticize above all is that (Schroeder) opened the floodgates
for anti-American tones," Stoiber said on German television,
calling the crisis with the United States "the most devastating
of the last 50 years."
Analysts expect Schroeder to adopt
a softer tone after the election, but he showed no intention
Monday of backing down. He has insisted he would not commit
troops to a war in Iraq even if the United Nations backs military
action. "I have formulated a German position, and I have
nothing to retract on that count," Schroeder told German
television. The rhetoric reached a damaging peak in the final
days of his campaign when Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin
was reported to have compared President Bush to Hitler for
threatening war to distract from domestic problems. She denied
saying it. The Social Democrats said she would not have a
post in a new government, although she will be in parliament.
The Bush administration has reacted coolly to Schroeder's
moves to repair the damage, including a letter to the president,
but others in Washington were optimistic the frayed relationship
could be mended. Speaking on CNN Sunday, Democratic Sen. Joe
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
said the "core relationship between the Republic of Germany
and the United States is solid. What you had is Schroeder
doing what a lot of politicians do, trying to get out his
base." Schroeder may have won, but his failure to deliver
on a promise to reduce unemployment eroded support for the
Social Democrats, which slid 2.4 percentage points from 1998's
40.9 percent result. Stoiber's platform focused on the economy
boosted the conservatives to 38.5 percent, up from 35 percent
four years ago. The results indicate they have put behind
them a campaign financing scandal that had engulfed the Christian
Democrats and their former leader, Helmut Kohl. But prospects
for a conservative coalition were hurt by a scandal in the
Free Democratic Party over deputy leader Juergen Moellemann's
renewed attacks on a prominent German Jewish leader. The party's
leadership demanded his resignation. The party raised its
support to 7.4 percent from 6.2 percent - less than expected.
Some 79 percent of Germany's 61 million voters turned out
Sunday - casting two votes, one for a local candidate and
one for a party. The party vote determined the percentage
of seats each party won in the Bundestag, or parliament, chosen
from a list of candidates submitted. Beyond his forthright
stand on Iraq, Schroeder broad-brushed much of his agenda
for a second term except to uphold values like a fair society
and the welfare state. Stung by Germany's jobless problem,
he has pledged to reform the highly regulated labor market.
He has also promised to expand all-day schools and child care
to make life easier for working mothers.
From MSNBC, 23 September 2002
Iraq Kurds Agree on
Draft Constitution
Ankara, Turkey - Northern Iraq's two
main Kurdish factions, who run the enclave beyond Baghdad's
control, have agreed on a draft constitution in the event
a U.S. attack ousts President Saddam Hussein, a Kurdish official
said Wednesday. The prospect of a war in Iraq has propelled
the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, potential allies in any U.S. attack, to bury
their historic tensions and present a more united front. A
joint committee set up after talks between KDP leader Massoud
Barzani and PUK chief Jalal Talabani agreed this week on a
set of amendments to a constitution drawn up by Barzani earlier
this year, KDP Ankara representative Safeen Dizayee said.
"The draft constitution outlines the structure of a regional
administration in the northern region, including legislative,
judiciary and executive responsibilities," he told Reuters.
Barzani's charter also envisions the oil-rich city of Kirkuk
as regional capital. The document will be debated at a meeting
of the joint Kurdish parliament October 4 and will also be
presented at a gathering of Iraqi opposition groups to be
held in Europe next month, Dizayee said. "What is important
is the federal structure of Iraq, since the north has to be
in concert with the rest of Iraq," he said. "The
overall structure is for the Iraqi people and the Iraqi opposition
to decide." Tensions have simmered between NATO member
Turkey and Iraqi Kurds over fears they would seize an opportunity
created by U.S. action to create an independent state in the
mountainous region bordering southeast Turkey. Barzani and
Talabani have sought to ease Ankara's fears, insisting they
are for Iraq's territorial integrity and would like to see
a federal, united state if the United States topples Saddam
for his alleged program of weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi
Kurds have enjoyed a broad autonomy since 1991 when they rose
up against Saddam after the Gulf War. U.S. warplanes based
in Turkey have protected their administration from reprisals
by patrolling a "no-fly" zone over the region. Turkey
has repeatedly said it opposes U.S. military strikes against
neighboring Iraq for fear it could stir unrest among its own
Kurdish population in the southeast. The PUK and KDP had also
voiced fears U.S. military action would create turmoil, but
in recent weeks have pushed the idea of a future federal Iraq,
seen as a way of solidifying their present autonomy if a new
administration takes power in Baghdad. Barzani and Talabani's
decision this month to reconvene parliament signaled a major
breakthrough in their relations. Despite Washington's diplomatic
efforts to bring the two sides together, including brokering
a 1998 cease-fire, a bitter dispute over power-sharing and
border-trade revenues had blocked the assembly from gathering.
Sources in northern Iraq said the assembly next month would
debate holding parliamentary elections as well as uniting
KDP and PUK militia forces under a single command.
From CMM, 25 September 2002
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Arafat Tells Lawmakers He's Ready
to Give up Executive Power
Ramallah, West Bank - Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat said he was willing to relinquish
his executive power if the Palestinian Legislative Council
wanted him to step down. Arafat was speaking at his headquarters
in the West Bank town of Ramallah in his first speech to the
parliament in two years. The speech was broadcast live by
Cable News Network. In his address, he said the Palestinian
people "stand firmly against all kinds of terrorism,
whether it is by states, groups or individuals." The
Palestinian leader also accused the Israeli government of
branding the Palestinians' struggle for nationhood as "terrorism"
when Palestinians were the "victims of terror."
He said Palestinians were willing to join the international
fight against terrorism as long as it is conducted under the
guidance of the United Nations and according to international
law.
From Bloomberg, by Mark Hughes, 9 September
2002
Arafat's Cabinet Forced
To Resign
Ramallah, West Bank - The Palestinian
Cabinet resigned Wednesday after Yasser Arafat lost a showdown
with parliament - the most serious challenge to the Palestinian
leader since he returned from exile in 1994. Earlier in the
day, Arafat had set Jan. 20 as a date for presidential and
parliamentary elections in an attempt to defuse the confrontation
with disgruntled legislators who accused him of making only
halfhearted efforts to reform his administration. The maneuver
failed, and legislators insisted on moving forward with a
no-confidence vote on the 21-member Cabinet. "There is
a crisis of confidence," said lawmaker Salah Taameri,
a veteran member of Arafat's Fatah movement. "Believe
us when we say it's serious." Arafat now has two weeks
to present parliament with a new Cabinet list. The day began
with Arafat summoning Fatah legislators, who dominate the
88-seat parliament, to his office to try to persuade them
to back the Cabinet. He reshuffled portfolios in June, dismissing
some ministers and naming five new ones as part of what he
said would be major internal reforms. However, legislators
complained the changes were largely cosmetic, and that many
ministers considered incompetent or tainted by suspicion of
corruption had been allowed to stay on. In Wednesday's meeting,
many of the Fatah legislators told Arafat they would not back
the Cabinet. Afterward, hoping to avoid a confidence vote
on the whole government, Arafat issued a decree setting Jan.
20 as the date for presidential and parliamentary elections
- a move at variance with U.S. wishes for a delay that might
help in sidelining the Palestinian leader. Palestinian officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said setting an election
date was part of a compromise floated at the Fatah meeting.
Under the deal, which failed, Arafat would set a date for
elections, rendering the current Cabinet a temporary one.
In that case, the Fatah legislators said, they would be willing
to hold a vote only on the five new ministers appointed in
June, who have reputations as honest and diligent administrators
and enjoy wide support. Arafat, apparently fearing defeat,
accepted the deal, the officials said. But parliament's legal
committee decided later that the entire Cabinet must be presented
for approval. Legislators apparently did not believe Arafat
was sincere in setting an election date and feared he might
revoke the decree later. By mid-afternoon Wednesday, 32 of
35 legislators had addressed parliament, saying they would
vote no-confidence in the government. In all, 65 lawmakers
attended, either in Ramallah or by video conference from Gaza.
Just before the vote was to begin, Cabinet ministers submitted
their resignations to Arafat, who accepted them. The setting
of an election date came as something of a surprise. The United
States had been seeking a delay to gain time to find ways
of diminishing Arafat's position.
President Bush has urged the Palestinians
to elect a new leadership. One floated proposal calls for
appointment of a prime minister who would run day-to-day affairs,
while Arafat would be turned into a figurehead. While the
Palestinian leader earlier appeared to be considering the
idea, in recent days he has blocked all efforts to bring it
about. A U.S. official said Wednesday that the United States
supported the Palestinians' right to choose their own leader,
but suggested the elections were coming too soon. "We
think the ground has to be prepared before that (elections),"
said Paul Patin, spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
It is widely assumed that the earlier the elections are held,
the greater Arafat's chances of winning re-election. While
many Palestinians find fault with Arafat, they say they resent
U.S. efforts to try to push him aside and will not accept
meddling in their affairs. Reuven Rivlin, an Israeli Cabinet
minister, said the Palestinians must know that if they re-elect
Arafat, "we will continue to treat them as a people led
by a terrorist." Rivlin was appointed Tuesday to the
Israeli team that has been meeting with Palestinian Cabinet
ministers. No serious contender against Arafat has emerged.
Arafat has said in the past that the elections would be held
in January, but until Wednesday refused to set a specific
date. In other developments Wednesday, Israeli troops, backed
by about 60 armored vehicles, raided a town in the Gaza Strip,
searching mosques and homes for suspected Islamic militants
and exchanging fire with Palestinian gunmen. Despite extensive
gun battles, there were no reports of injuries, and Israeli
forces withdrew from Beit Hanoun, a town of about 30,000 Palestinians
in the northern Gaza Strip, after six hours. Islamic militants
said they detonated explosives near a tank, and reporters
saw a deep crater on the outskirts of Beit Hanoun. The army
said four Palestinians wanted for questioning were arrested,
and that there were no casualties among the soldiers. Also
Wednesday, Israel's Security Cabinet decided that Rachel's
Tomb - a disputed holy site in the West Bank town of Bethlehem
- would remain under its control to ensure access to it from
nearby Jerusalem. The move could require the seizure of some
Palestinian territory. Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, said the tomb - where Jews believe
the biblical matriarch Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of
Joseph, is buried - would remain under Israeli control under
an emerging plan to ring Jerusalem with walls, fences and
roadblocks.
From UK-Guardian Unlimited-Wire, 11 September
2002
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Latin American Bishops Say Governments
Being Pressured to Legislate Against Catholic Values
Latin American bishops at a regional
conference said they are concerned that international organizations
are pressuring governments to legislate against Roman Catholic
values. In closing their three-day conference Wednesday, the
Catholic bishops from 25 countries said governments are being
lobbied to approve laws in favor of gay rights, divorce and
abortion. ''Latin American governments have been pressured
to legislate against Christian family unity by strong groups
like the United Nations and the European Union who want to
impose their experiences here,'' said Monsignor Carlos Aguiar
of Mexico, president of the Catholic council for Latin America.
He also said a conference declaration warned against the lobbying
efforts of nongovernment organizations, but he did not name
any group. Though specifics of the declaration weren't disclosed,
it was expected to reiterate the Catholic Church's stance
against abortion, gay marriages and relations, genetic embryo
manipulation, divorce and euthanasia, among other issues.
The declaration is to be disclosed by the Vatican at an unspecified
future date, and then will be presented to regional governments,
parliaments and civil society groups. Abortion is illegal
in every Latin American country except Cuba. Divorce is recognized
in most countries of the region, while gay marriages are largely
outlawed, as well as gays' rights to adopt children.
From MSNBC-Americas, 5 September 2002
Mexican Leader Urges
Nigeria to Spare Woman Condemned to Stoning
Abuja, Nigeria Mexican President Vicente
Fox appealed to Nigeria's leader to spare the life of a Muslim
woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Fox said
Thursday that President Olusegun Obasanjo was confident he
could prevent the execution. Obasanjo said he ''is doing absolutely
everything that is in his hands to avoid that death'' and
''feels comfortable that he will succeed in doing that,''
Fox told reporters after meeting the Nigerian leader the night
before. Fox's visit gave the leaders of two major oil producing
nations a chance to discuss trade and economic cooperation.
But it also brought an expansion of the Mexican leader's campaign
against capital punishment. Last month, Fox canceled a trip
to Texas to meet President Bush after Texas executed a man
that Mexico claimed as its citizen. In March, an Islamic court
in northern Nigeria sentenced 30-year-old Amina Lawal to death
by stoning for adultery after she gave birth to a daughter
more than nine months after divorcing. The sentence is due
to be carried out in 2004 after she finishes weaning her baby.
Lawal's lawyers lost an appeal last month, but have since
filed another appeal with a higher Islamic court. If that
fails, they can appeal yet again to Nigeria's Supreme Court,
forcing a showdown between Nigeria's constitutional and religious
authorities. The Mexican president said he sent Obasanjo a
letter last week stating his government's objection to Lawal's
sentence, and he then followed up on the case in the talks
Wednesday night. Fox also urged Nigeria to place a moratorium
on all executions, but he did not say what Obasanjo's response
was, if any. A dozen northern states have begun phasing in
elements of Islamic Shariah law, including strict punishments
such as stonings, amputations and whippings. A number of stoning
convictions are known to have been issued by Islamic courts,
but none have been carried out yet. Next week, Rome will bestow
''honorary citizenship'' on another Nigerian woman, whose
sentencing to death for adultery sparked an international
campaign last year, officials said Thursday. Safiya Hussaini
was to receive the symbolic honor from Mayor Walter Veltroni
on Monday. Hussaini was convicted of conceiving a child with
a married neighbor, but in March the conviction was overturned
on appeal.
From MSNBC, 6 September 2002
Brazilians Fear Power
Struggle in Organized Crime
When Brazilian authorities locked up
Luiz Fernando da Costa in a top-security prison last year,
the notorious drug lord seemed to be out of circulation at
last. Instead, the confinement barely slowed him down. From
his cell in Rio de Janeiro's Bangu I Penitentiary, da Costa
has continued to run his drug empire, command gang wars and
executions, even negotiate arms deals by mobile phone. ''I'm
in jail, not dead,'' he once warned gang members in a taped
conversation from a smuggled phone. Just how little his conviction
has deterred him became brutally clear on Wednesday, when
da Costa and his followers seized control of the prison, taking
eight hostages and executing four rivals. His goal, authorities
say, was to crush opponents who are fighting for control of
Brazil's organized crime, an underworld known to Brazilians
as ''the parallel power.'' ''The objective wasn't escape,''
said Roberto Aguiar, Rio de Janeiro state security chief.
Aguiar said Da Costa wanted to unite drug traffickers under
one leader. ''Anyone who opposed this was eliminated.'' Among
them was Ernaldo Pinto de Medeiros, a leader of the Third
Command, a drug gang that challenged da Costa's Red Command.
Medeiros was tortured and burned alive. Three of his lieutenants
were executed, and other supporters swore allegiance to da
Costa. After the killings, a red flag was hung from a prison
watchtower to signal the new order. Da Costa then released
the hostages- four guards and four employees of a construction
company working in the prison - and surrendered. Da Costa's
interests - and ambitions - go far beyond Rio. Better known
as Fernandinho Beira-Mar, Portuguese for ''Seaside Freddy,''
he was captured last year in the jungles of Colombia, where
he allegedly supplied Colombian rebels with weapons in return
for cocaine that he sold in Brazil. In prison, he was taped
negotiating the purchase of a Stinger anti-aircraft missile.
Aguiar accused prison officials of helping da Costa, who had
two pistols when the rebellion started. State Gov. Benedita
da Silva fired the warden, suspended 12 guards and announced
that da Costa would be put in solitary confinement. ''We hope
this restores the rule of law,'' she said. It may not be so
easy. From their strongholds in the city's maze-like shantytowns,
Rio's drug lords wield near-absolute power, using favors and
terror to command obedience from hundreds of poor communities.
Armed with high-powered automatic weapons, they defy police
- or buy their protection. In June, traffickers in Rio kidnapped,
tortured and executed a prominent TV journalist who done exposes
on the drug trade. Despite a huge manhunt, the suspected gang
leader is still at large. At Rio's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation,
a prestigious scientific research institute, drug traffickers
in a neighboring slum demanded that directors to build a wall
to keep out police. The wall is nearly finished. On Wednesday,
when word leaked out that Medeiros had been killed, gang members
ordered stores and schools in nine communities to pay their
respects by closing early. They obeyed - even the Federal
University shut its doors. ''Does a parallel power exist?
Yes. The state can no longer deny it,'' said state District
Attorney Jose Muinos Pineiro. ''And it already has expanded
across state lines.'' How did crime become so sophisticated
in Brazil? Some say it started during 1964-85 military dictatorship,
when common criminals were jailed with political prisoners
and learned techniques of hierarchy and discipline. The Red
Command was born, and rivals soon sprang up. Among the bolder
groups is the First Capital Command, which organized simultaneous
uprisings at 29 Sao Paulo prisons last year and announced
plans to sponsor a candidate for Congress to defend prisoners'
rights. Police agree that the bloodshed probably won't end
at Bangu. ''There are important bandits still on the street,''
said federal police director Marcelo Itagiba. ''This was just
one stage of the process.''
From MSNBC, 13 September 2002
In Paraguay, Corruption
Still King - Paraguay is Ranked the Most Corrupt in Latin
America by a Recent Survey
Every time he goes to a wedding reception,
Enrique Biedermann collects a dollar from each of the others
at his table and gives them to the waiter at the beginning
of the night. The money doesn't get them more food or drink.
It is simply the Paraguayan way of ensuring that service is
fast and efficient. In some small way, Mr. Biedermann sheepishly
admits, it is encouraging corruption. But he says there is
no other way. "The logical thing would be to pay the
waiter afterwards, if he serves us well," says the head
of Biedermann Publicity, one of Paraguay's big publicity firms.
"But it is the only way to get good service. It is our
custom. Here in Paraguay we are all corrupt to one degree
or another." Biedermann's assessment was confirmed last
month with the annual report from Transparency International
(www.transparency.org), a Berlin-based watchdog that ranks
more than 100 countries "on the degree to which corruption
is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians."
Paraguay was named the most corrupt country in Latin America
and tied for third most corrupt country in the world. "In
Paraguay, corruption remains systematic," the annual
report said in giving Paraguay a score of 1.7 out of 10, worse
than all but Nigeria and Bangladesh. (Finland received the
highest score, with 9.5. The United States was 16th with 7.7.)
A nation of 6 million people stuck in the heart of South America,
Paraguay established its culture of corruption during the
dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, the military strongman
who seized power in 1954. Back then, power was consolidated
in few hands. To win government contracts, those hands often
had to be greased. But even though Mr. Stroessner was toppled
by a coup in 1989, "the long tradition of corrupt administration
is still alive and well," says Transparency International's
Jose Antonio Bergues. Mr. Bergues says that with the spread
of democracy in recent years, corruption has become even more
widespread as more people have access to power and, therefore,
bribes. Democratic stability has been hard coming since the
fall of the Stroessner regime. Yesterday, at least 60 people
were injured when some 5,000 supporters of exiled former Army
chief Lino Oviedo took to the streets, calling for the resignation
of President Luis Gonzalez Macchi. Mr. Oviedo, who is in exile
for allegedly masterminding several failed coups, blames the
president for Paraguay's economic woes. But while Paraguayans
will take action over politics, they are not as conscientious
about corruption. Half the country's retailers do not pay
value added tax on the goods they sell and the government
only collects around 35 percent of the taxes it is owed, according
to experts. Of those that do file returns, 93 percent cheat
in some way, according to one recent study. The government,
prompted by local groups and international institutions such
as the World Bank, last year charged a joint parliamentary-civilian
commission with changing the culture of graft. Focusing on
customs, public-works contracts, and the judiciary - the three
main areas where corruption is worst - the commission hopes
to identify more offenders and more forcefully punish them.
"People feel that those involved with corruption are
not punished," says Senator Raul Ayala, one of the commission's
16 members. "If the guilty are punished there will be
less corruption." Others, however, want more immediate
action. Following Transparency's report, a group of civic
and business leaders called for a day of protest they dubbed
the "national day of shame." Few people took part,
however. Some used the Transparency report to show that the
champions of graft can still joke about their dubious distinction.
"We finished in third [from the] bottom but it had been
worse," jokes Manuel Bogado, the director of an Asuncion
consulting firm. "The year before we were second bottom.
We bribed them to move us up a place."
From Christian Science Monitor-Americas,
by Andrew Downie, 18 September 2002
Peru's Never-Ending
Quest for the Perfect Constitution
Congress is debating a major constitutional
overhaul, its third in 23 years. Facing stubbornly high unemployment,
a backlash against free-market reforms, and an embarrassing
string of corruption scandals, the Peruvian government is
opting for a drastic yet familiar fix: reforming the country's
Constitution. Two weeks ago, Congress began formal deliberations
on Peru's third major constitutional overhaul since 1979.
The result could be the 13th different Constitution in the
Andean nation's 181-year history, on average one every 14
years. The head of the constitutional commission, Rep. Henry
Pease, said that change is needed "in order to give the
country a text that will help us move forward." Finding
that perfect text is an ongoing quest in Latin America. While
the United States has had virtually the same governing blueprint
for over 225 years, its neighbors to the south often throw
out the existing document with the departing government. While
this practice may strengthen individual political leaders
in the short term, observers say, over time it tends to undermine
the public's faith in democracy. "Constitutions in Latin
America tend to be identified with the government - or the
individual - in power at a particular point in time,"
says Kurt Weyland, associate professor of government at the
University of Texas in Austin and an expert in Latin American
politics. "As soon as a regime falls, the next government
insists on constitutional change. This sends a signal that
institutions and rules are subject to political manipulation,
and that is bad news for democracy." Peru's recent history
of constitutional reform reflects the country's complicated
relationship with democracy. In 1979, following 12 years of
military rule, a new Constitution was fashioned for Peru's
return to democratic governance. It established a "social
democratic state" and emphasized a significant role for
the government in the economy. That document, however, was
replaced in 1993, when President Alberto Fujimori pushed through
a more market-oriented Constitution. More significantly, it
allowed Mr. Fujimori to run for a second consecutive term,
which has traditionally been prohibited. Following revelations
of systemic corruption in his government, Fujimori fled Peru
in 2000. As a result, the Constitution of 1993 became discredited
in the eyes of many Peruvians.
In May 2001, interim President Valentin
Paniagua formed a blue-ribbon panel to make recommendations
on constitutional change. Now, says Jose Luis Sardon, law
professor at the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences in
Lima and author of a constitutional history of Peru, the reformers
in Congress are focused on "annihilating all vestiges
of the Fujimori regime, including the Constitution."
Some of the issues in the current debate include expanding
labor rights, strengthening public education, introducing
midterm congressional elections, and prohibiting consecutive
presidential terms. To most people involved with the reform,
however, the specific changes being considered are less important
than breaking with the past. "A democratic country,"
says Luis Guerrero, a member of the constitutional commission,
"cannot be guided by a Constitution that has as its father
a dictatorial and corrupt government." Peru is not the
only country in the region contemplating constitutional changes.
Bolivia is debating reforms that would grant indigenous groups
and civil society fuller political participation. Last month,
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela broached the possibility
of yet another constitutional makeover, less than four years
after major legal reforms that he himself initiated. And in
Chile, 4 of 5 citizens favor a plebiscite aimed at changing
the 1980 Constitution, adopted during the dictatorship of
General Augusto Pinochet. Critics charge that such changes
are often more style than substance. "It is much easier
to give grand speeches about constitutional reform,"
says Mr. Weyland, "than it is to address the real social
and economic challenges the region faces." Coming to
consensus on the language for Peru's new Constitution may
not be easy. The 120-member Congress includes representatives
from 11 different political groups. Congress needs a two-thirds
majority to approve constitutional reform on its own or else
the initiative would face a national referendum. Mr. Sardon
worries that another round of constitutional reengineering
in Peru will produce "terrible erosion" in the very
concept of a Constitution, but he agrees that some sort of
large-scale reforms may be necessary. "In Peru and in
all of Latin America," he says, "we are discovering
that economic crises are not just about economic policies,
but also about our laws and the way we organize the state."
From Christian Science Monitor-Americas,
by Carlos Lozada, 24 September 2002
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Sacked China Official Gets 13 yrs'
Jail for Bribes
China has sentenced a former deputy
customs chief to 13 years in prison for pocketing more than
560,000 yuan, or $67,650, in bribes from smugglers, the official
Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Wang Leyi was found guilty
of taking bribes from several companies smuggling items including
cars, soybean oil and elevators while customs chief in the
northeastern port of Dalian from 1993-1998, Xinhua said. The
sentence was lightened because Wang repented and provided
details on other crimes, Xinhua said, adding that the money
he received in bribes had been confiscated. Wang was sacked,
kicked out of the Communist Party and charged with taking
bribes in April last year, state media said. They said customs
chief Qian Guanlin also stepped down that month, but gave
no reason or further details on that case. However, the departure
of the two top customs officials followed the exposure of
a multi-billion dollar smuggling scandal centred on the southern
port of Xiamen which became one of Communist China's biggest
corruption cases. China has put more than 300 suspects on
trial and sentenced 14 to death, including provincial officials
and a former vice minister of public security, for their roles
in the Xiamen smuggling ring. ($1-8.277 Yuan).
From MSNBC, 6 September 2002
Retired Professor is
New Bangladesh President
Retired professor Iajuddin Ahmed was
named the new president of Bangladesh on Thursday. The ruling
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Wednesday named Ahmed
as its candidate for the largely ceremonial post. The main
opposition Awami League party with only 58 members in the
300-member parliament did not name any candidate. ''Professor
Iajuddin Ahmed, the lone presidential candidate, has been
declared elected unopposed,'' the Election Commission said
in a statement. Bangladesh's parliament will formally endorse
the election of Ahmed, former head of the University Grants
Commission, in its next session due to begin on September
12. Ahmed replaces A.Q.M. Badruddoza Chowdhury, who resigned
in June over an unexplained dispute with Prime Minister Begum
Khaleda Zia.
From MSNBC-South & Central Asia, 5 September
2002
Kashmir Violence Leaves
Minister, 12 Others Dead
New Delhi - Suspected Islamic militants
killed a government minister and 12 others, including eight
security officers, in two attacks in the northern Indian province
of Jammu and Kashmir, Agence France-Presse reported, citing
the police. Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone's car drove over a
landmine while he was traveling through the village of Rathnag,
in Kupwara district, to address a campaign rally before next
week's first phase of provincial elections, AFP said. Gunmen
then opened fire on the motorcade of Lone, the state's minister
for law, it said. Lone, his driver and a bodyguard were killed
in the attack along with one other person, who wasn't immediately
identified, AFP said. Four other people were injured. In a
separate attack, militants gunned down eight security officers
and a 12-year-old at a bus stop today, AFP said. The officers
included five men from the Border Security Force and three
from the local police, it said. Five districts of Jammu and
Kashmir, including Kupwara, which is north of the province's
summer capital Srinagar, will vote on Sept. 16 to choose representatives
in the state assembly. The village of Rathnag is in Lone's
home constituency of Lolab, where he had been running for
reelection. The provincial elections are part of the government's
efforts to end more than a decade of secessionist violence
in India's only Muslim-majority province by widening democratic
representation. To this end, India is seeking the participation
of opposition groups in the elections. Voting in the state
will take place on Sept. 16, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8,
the Election Commission said on Aug. 2. In other attacks,
suspected militants killed a district president of Kashmir's
ruling National Conference party in the northern district
of Baramulla and fired a grenade at the home of Sakina Itoo,
the state's tourism minister, in the central district of Anantnag,
AFP said. The minister was not home at the time of the grenade
attack, which left four people injured.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Anand Krishnamoorthy,
11 September 2002
Japan PM to Reshuffle
Cabinet
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
says he will reshuffle his cabinet on Monday in a bid to shore
up support for much-needed reforms. While it is unclear just
how many cabinet posts he plans to change, Koizumi told reporters
Friday he would pick people intent on conducting reforms,
as the world's second-largest economy struggles with high
joblessness and deepening deflation. The announcement on Friday
came as Japan's media began backpedaling on earlier predictions
that Koizumi's top financial regulator, Financial Services
Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa, would leave. Yanagisawa is under
the spotlight as he is seen by many as hampering to efforts
to clean up the country's bad-loan mess. All eyes - On Friday,
Yanagisawa stood by his opposition to injecting taxpayer funds
into Japan's banks, which are riddled with bad loans. His
stance has attracted criticism from politicians and analysts
alike. ING's head of economic research in Tokyo, Richard Jerram,
for one, said in a note Friday that by continuing to argue
that public fund injections are not needed, Yanagisawa is
making himself a key barrier to a fundamentally different
approach. The billions of dollars in bad loans were amassed
after Japan's asset bubble burst in the early 1990s. Jiji
news agency and the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper's Internet edition
reported that Koizumi intends to retain Yanagisawa. Yanagisawa
denied on Wednesday a newspaper report that he had expressed
a desire to resign over policy differences with Koizumi. His
departure would be seen as positive by many in the financial
markets due to hopes it could lead to quicker disposal of
bad loans, inflated by years of economic stagnation and deflation.
Kyodo news agency, quoting political sources, said Koizumi
and senior officials of the LDP had agreed to retain Finance
Minister Masajuro Shiokawa and Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka.
Breaking with tradition - Even as all eyes are on who Koizumi
decides to oust, his first reshuffle since taking office in
April 2001 is expected to be minor. Japan's largest daily,
the Yomiuri Shimbun, said Koizumi would seek pro-reform candidates
for the posts rather than simply accepting party recommendations,
breaking with tradition. Two ministers reportedly being considered
for replacement were Transport Minister Chikage Ogi and Home
Affairs Minister Toranosuke Katayama. Meanwhile the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) said on Friday that Koizumi had decided
to retain the party's three top leaders - Taku Yamasaki, Taro
Aso and Mitsuo Horiuchi. Yamasaki is the party's secretary-general
while Aso is the Policy Research Council head and Horiuchi,
head of the party's general council. Their one-year terms
expire Monday. The officials reaffirmed their commitment to
Koizumi's reform initiatives, with Yamasaki and Aso both saying
they would "push for structural reform."
From CNN-Asia Pacific, 27 September 2002
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Skilled Roman Workers Lived Well
Leicester, England - Roman emperors
knew how to treat their skilled workers, paying them high
wages and providing them with a diet that would not go amiss
in a modern top class restaurant, a scientist said on Monday.
"Increasingly we are realizing that Romans did not solely
use slaves and prisoners for their heavy labor. They relied
heavily on skilled labor, paying them and feeding them well,"
University of Leicester archaeologist Marijke van der Veen
said. Her revelations to the British Association for the Advancement
of Science's annual festival follow the first ever excavations
at two of ancient Rome's key quarries deep in the desert south
of Cairo. The quarry complex at Mons Claudianus, 500 km (300
miles) south of Cairo and 120 km (75 miles) east of the Nile,
supplied the stone for the portico of the Pantheon, among
other buildings, while purple stone from the adjacent Mons
Porphyrites was used for statues. Purple was the imperial
color kept exclusively for the use of nobility, making the
Porphyrite stone highly prized. Van der Veen estimated it
would have taken between five and eight days traveling on
camels and donkeys to get from the Nile to the quarries. "Because
they are so remote, we assumed we would find the workers,
stone masons and soldiery in the garrison lived on a diet
of just a few staples," she told reporters. But examination
of the refuse tips near the quarries where rubbish has been
preserved almost as it was the day it was discarded because
of the arid conditions proved quite the contrary. Sifting
through the piles of refuse, van der Veen and her fellow archaeologists
found the remains of more than 50 types of food plants and
the bones of 20 species of animals. The team found evidence
of olives, grapes, artichokes, bread, olive oil, onions, garlic,
snails, oysters, piglets, chickens, eggs, large quantities
of fish, green vegetables such as cabbages, water melons,
peaches and many types of nuts. "They would have grown
some vegetables in little plots, using their washing water
to feed them," van der Veen said, noting that the fish
and oysters would have been carried overland from the Red
Sea which was two days away. She said there was documentary
evidence that the skilled workers were paid double the monthly
salary of their more menial counterparts and, in the case
of the quarrymen, an allowance in food and wine as well. At
peak times, the quarries may have had up to 1,000 people living
and working in and around them, extracting and working the
stone ready for transportation to the Nile for shipment to
Rome and beyond. Just one day's journey away from the quarry
on the journey back to the Nile with their loads of shaped
stone was a camp she described as like a modern roadside diner.
Here the tired drivers and exhausted draught animals would
pause to refresh themselves at the end of a tiring day. Such
roadside refreshment centers were repeated at one-day travel
intervals back to the river, van der Veen said.
From ABC News-National-Wire, by Jeremy Lovell,
9 September 2002
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Former Nicaraguan President's Relatives,
Associates Ordered Arrested in Corruption Case
A judge has issued arrest warrants
for four relatives of former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo
Aleman and six others connected to him on charges of corruption,
fraud and money laundering. The group ordered arrested Tuesday
is suspected of transferring state funds totaling nearly $100
million to banks in Panama, then later passing the money to
a foundation controlled by the former president. Aleman, who
left office in January, now has immunity from criminal prosecution
as head of Nicaragua's legislature. His daughter, Maria Dolores
Aleman, has been implicated in the case but also has immunity
as a sitting lawmaker. Among those ordered arrested Tuesday
were Aleman's wife and son, and the former interior minister.
President Enrique Bolanos has asked lawmakers to strip Aleman
and his daughter of their immunity, but Aleman has used his
supporters in the legislature to successfully block those
attempts. Bolanos repeated that demand Tuesday, urging legislators
to ''become heroes and do what the country wants.'' As part
of the ruling, Mendez also opened up a separate criminal investigation
against Constitutionalist Liberal lawmaker Jose David Castillo
Sanchez and eight current and former party election officials.
They allegedly used public election funds to finance the campaigns
of party candidates, including Bolanos' successful run for
the presidency. Bolanos served as Aleman's vice president
and was his hand-picked candidate for the presidency. But
shortly after the election, Bolanos began demanding a cleanup
of Nicaragua's notoriously corrupt political system, an initiative
that put him at odds with Aleman and split the ruling party.
Despite the fact that his campaign will now be investigated,
Bolanos called Mendez's ruling ''a public triumph against
corruption.''
From MSNBC, 11 September 2002
Colombia's State Workers
Hold One-day Strike
State workers opposed to President
Alvaro Uribe's austerity program to free more funds to fight
guerrillas held a one-day strike, but caused few disruptions.
"The fundamental objective is to call the government's
attention to the inconveniences the new laws are creating,"
Julio Roberto Gomez, president of the General Confederation
of Democratic Workers, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Uribe, who assumed office last month pledging to do all he
could to snuff out a 38-year-old insurgency, has asked parliament
to raise monthly pension contributions and increase workers'
retirement age, and submitted a bill that would make it easier
for employers to hire and fire. A government decree last week
also reduces bonus pay for municipal and provincial employees.
The opposition Liberal Party said it supported the strike
because of "the great social tragedy the country is enduring."
Urban unemployment is at 18 percent, and millions of Colombians
have been uprooted amid attacks by leftist rebels and an outlawed
right-wing paramilitary group. About 3,000 people joined a
march to downtown Bogota to protest the austerity measures
as riot police looked on. "We are protesting against
the untamed, unacceptable capitalism of President Uribe,"
said Pedro Salavador, a 65-year-old retiree. There were scattered
minor disturbances, including when demonstrators let off smoke
bombs in downtown Bogota and police moved in. Police made
150 arrests across the country linked to demonstrations, the
Central Union of Workers labor federation reported. About
half of the 7,000 workers from Colombia's state oil firm Ecopetrol
were taking part in the strike, but the company said production
would continue normally. Firefighters at Bogota's airport
walked off the job, causing some flight delays, said Juan
Carlos Velez, director of Civil Aviation. But transport workers
stayed on the job, as did many teachers and other state employees.
The election that swept Uribe into office showed that many
Colombians are willing to make sacrifices in order to finally
see peace and stability in this South American country. Interior
Minister Fernando Londono Hoyos warned that rebels might use
the strike to incite attacks or sabotage. "We are doing
whatever is needed to defend the peasant farmers and prevent
armed groups from improperly using this legitimate protest
to become an opportunity for them to carry our their barbarous
acts," Londono said.
From CNN, 18 September 2002
Colombian Paramilitary
Leader Indicted
Washington - The leader of a Colombian
right-wing paramilitary group and two associates have been
indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges,
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Tuesday. Ashcroft
said the Justice Department would file a formal extradition
request for Carlos Castano, leader of the outlawed United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), along with two other
men. AUC has been waging war against a powerful leftist rebel
group known as FARC since the 1980s. Both Castano's group
and FARC have been accused of controlling parts of Colombia's
drug trade. The United States has labeled the AUC and FARC
as terrorist groups. Castano sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy
in Bogota, saying he would surrender to face the charges.
He denied that he was involved in drug trafficking. Joe Kilmer,
a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in
Miami, said, "The DEA eagerly awaits any contact from,
and/or the arrival of, Mr. Castano. We're more than ready
to provide him with a ride." The two other men charged
were Salvatore Mancuso, described in the indictment as AUC's
military commander, and Juan Carlos Sierra-Ramirez, an AUC
member. The indictment alleges leaders of AUC were responsible
for bringing more than 17 tons of cocaine into the United
States and Europe in the past five years. AUC leaders are
also accused of directly controlling the production, protection
and distribution elements of the lucrative and often violent
cocaine drug trade. "The men named in the indictment
are accused of selling one of the most dangerous and addictive
drugs: cocaine," Ashcroft said. Colombian President Alvaro
Uribe is visiting Washington this week, and the ongoing drug
trade is expected to be a major topic of discussion. He will
meet with President Bush Wednesday. "We support President
Uribe's commitment to take aggressive action against all three
of Colombia's major illegal armed groups," said the State
Department in a statement. "We will continue to work
closely with the Uribe administration to defend Colombia's
democracy and human rights by bringing peace, security and
prosperity to the Colombian people." (CNN National Correspondent
Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.).
From CNN-Americas, by Bill Mears, 25 September
2002
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Nigerian Voter Registration Bungled,
Opposition Says
Abeokuta, Nigeria - Allegations of
widespread electoral bungling and fraud - including possible
signing up of ghost voters - grew Monday during a a 10-day
voter registration campaign for Nigeria's first civilian-run
elections since military rule ended. Opposition parties charged
the sign-up problems meant Africa's most populous nation risked
failing a major test of its young democracy. During the registration
campaign, which ends this weekend, election overseers aim
to register half of Nigeria's 120 million people for 2003
elections. Next year's vote will see the first democratically
elected leader in nearly two decades - President Olusegun
Obasanjo - contending for a second term. The Alliance for
Democracy, one of Nigeria's two largest opposition parties,
complained Monday of numerous "irregularities, which
can mar the entire exercise and defeat its very purpose."
Problems noted by its workers included registration stations
that moved without notice, closed early or lacked forms -
thwarting would-be voters, the opposition party said. Other
problems reported by international election observers and
others included stations that claimed to be signing up voters
more quickly than appeared humanly possible - while, in contrast,
no registration at all was under way in some of the nation's
hot spots. Journalists reported possible fraud - and The Associated
Press watched a young male who appeared to be about 10 sign
up and walk away with a card proclaiming him a registered
voter. Observers expressed particular concern about reports
that registration has not even begun in some parts of central
and southern Nigeria where ethnic and religious tensions are
highest. "Corruption is fast creeping into the whole
exercise - particularly in the southwest. Nobody is really
sure that registration is taking place in some places,"
said Gani Fawehinmi, a human rights lawyer and leader of the
fledgling National Conscience Party. The election commissioner
in southwest Oyo state, Ekpenyong Nsa, played down the "few
lapses" brought to his attention, saying they would not
affect registration overall. He claimed Nigeria's history
made problems unavoidable. "Don't forget we have been
under military rule for many years and that has negatively
affected our citizens," he said, adding Nigeria's widespread
poverty tempts people to cheat the system. "Poverty is
corrosive on democracy," he said. The Independent National
Electoral Commission had initially planned to have completed
voter registration early this year, but complained it could
not do so because it lacked funding. The absence of a national
voters' list has forced the government to postpone municipal
elections three times since April. Last month, the local ballot
was put off indefinitely, raising questions over whether civilian
authorities were capable of running the election. Since Nigeria
gained independence from Britain in 1960, all previous attempts
by civilian governments to conduct elections have been aborted
by military coups. The outgoing military oversaw the 1999
vote in which Obasanjo was elected. When the current registration
period ends, would-be voters will no longer be allowed to
register. Fawehinmi, the human rights lawyer, said he was
unable to sign up Monday because officials had no forms. "We
are collecting reports all over. Multiple registration is
not being properly prevented. They don't ask for identification.
Anybody can say they are anyone," Fawehinmi said. An
international observer, speaking on condition of anonymity,
reported "worrying" patterns, with some stations
reporting twice as many voters as seemed possible. Fingerprinting
and filling out computerized forms takes at least five minutes,
the observer said, although some turnout figures indicated
officials were processing voters in less than half the time.
On Saturday, AP journalists watched officials in the southwest
city of Abeokuta register a male named Dele Ogulowo, who appeared
to be about 10 years old. He insisted he was 22. Election
workers signed him up less than an hour after Nigeria's president
surveyed the same election site. Amadi Chike, a businessman
in the northern city of Kano, said he saw men buying registration
cards from newly listed voters outside one registration station.
In view of electoral workers, meanwhile, some newly registered
voters were seen wiping off ink dabbed on their thumbs to
prevent them from registering twice.
From MSNBC, 17 September 2002
Nearly Third of Nigerian
Voters Unlisted -Monitors
Nigeria's Catholic Secretariat said
on Wednesday nearly a third of the country's estimated 60
million eligible voters were not listed during the recent
registration process which it said was marred by fraud. Presidential
and general elections are due early next year, the first to
be supervised by civilian authorities in over 20 years. The
Episcopal Commission for Justice, Development and Peace, one
of four groups accredited to monitor the registration process,
said although turn-out of prospective voters was large, materials
were in short supply and officials poorly trained. Politicians
connived with Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
officials to perpetrate ''fraud, intimidation, hoarding of
materials and multiple registration,'' during the 11-day exercise,
the group said in an interim report. ''The problems enumerated
above led to the non-registration of about 30 percent of the
eligible voters who came out to register,'' said the group,
which was set up by the Catholic Secretariat. It urged INEC
to set aside more days to register those left off the list
and to expunge multiple registrations. Voter registration,
like the national census, is a politically sensitive issue
in Africa's most populous country whose 120 million people
are locked in ethnic and regional rivalries. INEC said on
Saturday it issued 72 million forms and acknowledged its officials
and other people were involved in hoarding registration materials.
Many Nigerians say this is in order to rig elections. The
commission hopes the registration process will result in Nigeria's
first computerised voters' roll. Registration ended on Sunday
after a day's extension, as widespread protests over its chaotic
handling reinforced doubts about Nigeria's first elections
since 15 years of army rule ended in 1999. Tension is already
near boiling point in the west African country, over an ongoing
bid by parliament to impeach President Olusegun Obasanjo for
alleged misrule and violation of the constitution. Nigeria,
which has mostly been ruled by soldiers since independence
from Britain in 1960, has not managed a successful transition
from one civilian government to another. Such elections ended
in violence and army coups in the mid-1960s and in 1983.
From MSNBC, 25 September 2002
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China Ends Blocking of Internet
Search Engine Google
As mysteriously as it began, blocking
by Chinese authorities of the Internet search engine Google
was suddenly lifted Thursday. Users in Shanghai and Beijing
reported that they could once again view Google, widely used
by China's 30 million-plus Net users because it has a powerful
feature for finding Chinese-language material online. Starting
about Sept. 1, those trying to reach the site began finding
themselves rerouted to heavily censored, less effective search
engines run by private Chinese Internet companies. ''I'm thrilled
that Google is back,'' said one user in a chat-room on the
Web site of the People's Daily, the official Communist Party
newspaper. ''Google, I love you!'' said another posting. Chat-room
users had bitterly criticized the ban. Analysts said popular
outcry and pressure from businesses that rely on Web tools
like Google for research may have persuaded Beijing to reverse
the restrictions quickly. ''The Internet has seemed to prevail,''
said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a
Beijing-based Internet consulting firm. AltaVista, another
U.S. search engine that had been similarly rerouted, remained
blocked on Thursday, though rerouting had ended. In its usual
secretive way, Beijing made no announcement of the new measures
and refused to confirm their existence, or their lifting.
But analysts and users linked the interference to a Communist
Party congress in November. Dissent is usually more tightly
muzzled before political events of this size. This congress
is particularly sensitive because a new generation of leaders
is expected to begin taking over. Authorities apparently targeted
Google and AltaVista because they don't filter material deemed
subversive from their search results, as the Chinese sites
must. Still, analysts said the brief period of rerouting had
demonstrated authorities' growing technological capabilities.
Another new censorship technology remained in place. Users
this week have begun complaining of an increase in selective
blocking - being able to visit Web sites but not being able
to see specific articles or other content of a politically
sensitive nature. Both new technologies appear an effort by
authorities to strengthen Internet barriers to subversive
and pornographic material - China's so-called Great Fire Wall.
From MSNBC, 12 September 2002
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U.K. Unions to Attack Government
Services Policy, Contractors
London - Britain's labor unions are
set to attack the government's use of companies to improve
public services, saying a policy that's helped Tony Blair
win two elections hurts workers' pay and pensions. Under the
so-called Private Finance Initiative, companies including
Amec Plc, Amey Plc, WS Atkins Plc and Balfour Beatty Plc hold
contracts with the government to build and maintain schools,
hospitals and roads. Since 1997, these contracts have totaled
18 billion pounds ($28 billion). Deals worth 25 billion pounds
are due by 2005, government figures show. Unions oppose using
companies to deliver public services and may threaten strikes
if private employers offer lower pensions than the government
did - giving executives a reason to avoid public sector contracts.
Already, some companies say they may scale back work for the
government because the bidding process is complex and erodes
profit. "There is a sense that it's somehow ethically
not quite right," because workers' can suffer benefit
cuts, said John Monks, head of the Trades Union Congress,
in an interview. "If people are messing around with pension
rights, I consider that a strong case for strike action."
The unions, which finance about 30 percent of the ruling Labour
Party's budget, say that PFI projects mean their members'
rights are eroded when their employment contracts pass from
government agencies to private companies, which seek to increase
profit by making their labor force cheaper and more flexible,
and offering lower pensions. Pension Rights - "Pension
rights are generally lowered" when public workers transfer
to companies, said Michael Parkinson, an analyst with Brewin
Dolphin Securities Ltd who covers PFI companies. "With
all the talk about bidding costs being too high, the possibility
of strikes is another problem." Blair has staked his
government's future on using programs like PFI to improve
public services such as health care and education. The prime
minister pledged earlier this year to increase government
spending over the next three years to 511 billion pounds from
418 billion. The leaders of the TUC's 70 member-unions, accounting
for about seven million members, will gather next week in
Blackpool, northern England, to debate a call to oppose the
PFI for the first time. The move is backed by Unison and the
TGWU, two of the country's biggest unions. Disputes - Disputes
between unions and companies can prove fatal to PFI projects,
according to the Audit Commission, an independent watchdog
overseeing public spending. While the government is planning
to spend more money through PFI contracts, companies that
specialize in such work say there's no guarantee they'll stay
involved. "If there's a new campaign of hostility from
the unions, that would be unwelcome," said Nigel Jones,
head of PFI projects at Carillon Plc, a construction company.
Amey said earlier this year it will bid for fewer public contracts
than before to stem an outflow of cash and ease concern that
costs will starve the company of funds needed for labor and
equipment expenses. If the government doesn't make bidding
for public work easier Amec, a construction company, won't
bid for more work, the company's finance director, Stuart
Siddall, said last month. While companies bidding for PFI
contracts originally estimated a return on investment of about
30 percent, analysts say that has now shrunk to less than
20 percent.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by James Kirkup,
6 September 2002
Moscow Steps Up Fight
Against Smog
The Russian Emergency Situations ministry
is to step up the battle against the fires causing Moscow's
worst smog for a century on Friday with a force of some 4,000
people and six aircraft. More than 200 local fires in forests
and peat bogs were put out on Thursday but another 150 emerged,
said ORT television. Millions of Muscovites were advised to
stay indoors as thick smoke from forest fires shrouded the
city. Choking fumes trapped by late summer air shrouded buildings,
brought traffic to a virtual standstill and smothered pedestrians,
many pressing wet handkerchiefs to their mouths. Three Moscow
airports, Domodyedovo, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo, diverted
arriving planes, TVS television reported, while takeoffs and
landings at other area airports were running behind schedule.
Three more days without rain are forecast in the area, which
is enduring its driest spell for 30 years, and the public
have been warned to be careful with fires and cigarettes.
The Emergency Situations (EM) minister, Sergi Shoigu, is touring
the worst affected areas and has been briefing President Vladimir
Putin, ORT said. The EM called in three Il-76 aircraft and
three helicopters but said their fire-fighting capabilities
were being hampered by the poor visibility. The General Prosecutor
of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Ustinov, announced an
inquiry into why the smoke blanket gripped the city of Moscow
and the surrounding region and why the authorities were apparently
unable to cope. He said he did not rule out legal proceedings
against those found to be responsible. Opposition Communist
party leader in the State Duma, Gennady Zyuganov, attacked
the government for lack of action. "Moscow and Russia
are in mist for thousands of kilometres because of the authorities,"
RIA news quoted him as saying. "Therefore everybody chokes
with smoke and keeps looking at the Kremlin in haze."
CNN Weather anchor Guillermo Arduino described the smog as
"unbearable" for Muscovites in one of the hottest
summers on record. He said the smoke from the forest fires
had been trapped by a heavy retaining layer of air which had
settled over the city. The carbon monoxide level is more than
twice the maximum admissible concentration, EM said. EM said
the fires had doubled in size over the last 24 hours to 550
hectares (1,360 acres), Interfax reported. There are five
large blazes and 188 smaller fires in the region surrounding
Moscow - many of them below ground in smoldering peat bogs
- and almost 900 fires, including 200 large ones burning across
western Russia. Yevgenia Syemutnikova, of the state ecological
monitoring body, told Reuters the concentration of carbon
dioxide in the air was two to three times the norm, but said
for normal, healthy people"there would be no lasting
effect." In St Petersburg a similar haze hung over the
city as 40 new fires burned in peat bogs around Russia's second
city.
From MSNBC, 6 September 2002
Major Heads Calls for
Effective EU
Pro-European Tories, led by John Major,
challenged the Eurosceptic approach of Iain Duncan Smith yesterday
by saying that the EU might need to be given more powers during
a review of its governing treaties. A group of 20 senior Conservatives
set out what they called a positive European strategy for
the Tories in a submission to the convention on the EU's future
chaired by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French President.
While calling for decisions to be devolved from Brussels to
national governments, it did not back Mr Duncan Smith's call
for powers to be "repatriated" to member states.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, the group's chairman and a former
European Commissioner, said the report showed that Tory Europhiles
were "alive and well." He said: "The purpose
is to show that there are a large number of people within
the Conservative Party who think seriously about this issue."
Lord Brittan added that Mr Duncan Smith would not agree with
the report but would not "rubbish it" either. Other
signatories include Lord Heseltine and Lord Howe of Aberavon,
both former deputy prime ministers; Lord Hurd of Westwell,
the former Foreign Secretary; Kenneth Clarke, the ex-Chancellor;
John Gummer, the former Cabinet minister and Lord Garel-Jones,
a former Minister for Europe. They said: "An effective
EU can be even more crucial for Britain's welfare in the future
than it has been in the past. "It is urgently necessary
for British Conservatives to provide a constructive input,
if we are to influence the character and structure of the
Union. Our approach has the support of vast numbers of Conservatives,
even though their voice may not have been heard." The
group said it would be a mistake for the EU to become a "fully
federal state" and planned measures to halt the "ratchet
effect" under which more powers are grabbed by Brussels.
From UK-The Independent-Europe, by Andrew Grice, 10 September
2002
Electricians Aim to
Light Up World
Paris, France - First came the doctors,
then journalists. Now electricians have joined the borderless
or "sans frontieres" community by setting up an
international movement aimed at bringing power to the poor.
Just like the world's largest private humanitarian relief
organisation Medecins San Frontieres and media watchdog Reporters
Sans Frontieres, the non-governmental organisation of electricians
kicked off in France, but has just reinvented itself as Electriciens
Sans Frontieres (ESF). Formerly made up of small groups called
Co-operation and Development (CODEV) associations for the
past 16 years, ESF adopted its new name in July to highlight
its cause. "When we were CODEV, it was not very clear
what we were, so we decided to adopt the new name, Electriciens
Sans Frontieres, which is more understandable," Daniel
Brizemeure, ESF secretary-general told Reuters in an interview.
The change was too late to make any impact on the recent Earth
Summit in Johannesburg. "But we hope in the future we
will be able to contribute with our experiences in many countries,"
said Brizemeure. Committed to "raising awareness that
more than a third of humanity does not have access to electricity,
and contributing to the development of the most disadvantaged
populations," the nongovernmental organization has its
work cut out. The International Energy Agency (IEA), the West's
energy watchdog, warned at the Earth Summit that without vigorous
new policies, 1.4 billion people will still lack electricity
in 30 years' time compared with 1.6 billion today. "The
new name will make us more effective in fighting against poverty.
Electrification lays the foundations for economic and social
development in disadvantaged regions," Brizemeure said.
The developing world needs to spend $2.6 trillion on electricity
generation over the next 30 years to meet growing demand,
double the investment in the last two decades, the International
Energy Agency estimates. ESF's roots go back to 1985 when
about a dozen workers from state utility Electricite de France
(EdF) decided to pool their professional skills for the benefit
of low income populations around the world. Today, more than
600 volunteers, about 75 percent from EdF, are leading more
than 50 development projects in 25 countries in Africa, Latin
America, Asia and the Middle East. Besides providing manpower,
the French energy giant is a partner with ESF and provides
about 900,000 euros ($888,400) a year, of which 70 to 80 percent
goes toward the funding of projects. "In France, we think
we are the only association linked to a company, but there
is no link between EdF and our choice of projects," said
Brizemeure. But ESF is not ruling out taking advantage of
EdF's presence in 22 countries worldwide, to expand its own
network. "EdF is an international group, so it's not
impossible that tomorrow we may form affiliations, for example,
in England or Germany." Over the past 16 years, 900,000
people have benefited either directly or indirectly from ESF's
work, including projects in former French colonies. Over the
last few years, ESF has organized a 900,000-euro project to
bring power to 3,000 people of the village of Yaka, in Togo,
a former French colony in West Africa. It has also set up
a 625,000 euro water pump project in the northwest of Benin
in West Africa, as well as a smaller project to bring power
to 2,000 people in the Vietnamese village of Hoa Trung, northeast
of Ho Chi Minh City. "A lot of these organizations start
off in France because France has a lot of ex-colonies that
are still developing," said a consultant to West African
governments. Four out of five people without electricity live
in rural areas of the developing world, mainly in South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa, the IEA says. "In the beginning,
it was natural that former colonies asked France for help,
but the choice was not ours. We go where there is demand from
the population," said Brizemeure. "We have many
other projects in non-former colonies, in South Africa, Cuba,
Paraguay, and in a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza ... it's
more to do with casualty than choice." "We have
no discrimination."
From CNN-Africa, 25 September 2002
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Most Support Government Web Action
New York - More than two-thirds of
Americans say it's OK for government agencies to remove public
information from the Internet, even though many didn't believe
it would make a difference in fighting terrorism, a new study
finds. But Americans were evenly divided on whether governments
should be able to monitor e-mail and Web activities, with
47 percent opposed and 45 percent in support. "When it
gets close to common, everyday things they do, their guard
gets a little higher," said Lee Rainie, director of the
Pew Internet and American Life Project, which conducted the
telephone-based survey released Thursday. Since Sept. 11,
several federal and state government agencies have removed
documents, maps and other resources from the Internet out
of concern the materials could aid terrorists. The stricken
items include federal environmental reports on chemical plants
and their emergency response plans; mapping software showing
communications infrastructure in Pennsylvania; and data on
drinking water and natural gas pipelines in the United States.
Many of the removed documents remained available offline in
government reading rooms or even online, housed at other,
nongovernment sites. Some items have since been restored by
the government. According to the Pew survey, 67 percent of
Americans believe the U.S. government should remove information
that might potentially aid terrorists, even if the public
has a right to know. Twenty-three percent believe the government
should leave the information up, with the remainder not knowing
or not answering. Of those favoring removal, 36 percent said
doing so would have no effect on terrorism. Overall, 47 percent
of Americans felt that way, compared with 41 percent who thought
it would help hinder terrorism. Internet users were more likely
to oppose monitoring and believe that information removal
would not make a difference. "It certainly is significant
that our society which has always prided itself on open access
of information is now so scared of what open access to information
means," said David Greene, executive director of the
nonprofit First Amendment Project in Oakland, Calif. Greene
said Americans may not believe the information is personally
useful. "People think, `I'm not going to poison the water
supply system, so what do I need to know about the water supply
system?'" Greene said. "But if all of a sudden they
are part of an effort to restrict development of a watershed
and need that data ... all of a sudden they realize it's important."
Meanwhile, the Pew study found that the attacks continued
to affect Internet behavior a year later. Eighty-three percent
of Americans who used e-mail to renew contact with family
and friends soon after Sept. 11 maintained those relationships
throughout the year. Internet users have also obtained news,
visited government sites and made donations online more frequently,
with a large number citing the attacks as the major reason
for change. The telephone survey of 2,501 adults, including
1,527 Internet users, was conducted June 26 to July 26. The
margin of sampling error was 2 percentage points for the full
sample, 3 percentage points for questions asked of Internet
users only.On the Net: http://www.pewinternet.org
From SiliconValley.com, by Anick Jesdanun,
6 September 2002
E-learning, e-business
Integration Yields Returns
E-learning and e-business integration
projects have generally delivered the best return on investment
for companies this year, while customer relationship management
(CRM), content management and e-marketplace efforts have fallen
short. That's the assessment of "thousands" of ROI
studies conducted by Wellesley, Mass.-based Nucleus Research
Inc. on behalf of clients such as Aetna Inc., Pfizer Inc.,
British Telecom and Lockheed Martin Corp. For instance, companies
that implement e-learning systems for a "modest"
five- or six-figure investment typically save money in reduced
travel costs, human resources overhead, regulatory compliance
and customer support costs, according to Nucleus. Those kinds
of paybacks recently helped two Nucleus customers generate
2,000% returns on their investments, said Ian Campbell, co-founder
of and principal analyst at the research firm. E-business
integration platforms such as Microsoft BizTalk Server and
BEA WebLogic Integration have helped companies leverage existing
investments in their IT infrastructures both through internal
and business-to-business integration, said Campbell. Many
of the returns result from streamlining the flow of data between
applications and accessing a broader set of data. That has
helped improve corporate performance and generate new revenue
streams, according to the Nucleus assessment. On the other
end of the scale, CRM projects typically fall short of ROI
projections since companies typically "overbuy"
the amount of applications they need, said Campbell. And because
CRM engagements are usually multiyear projects, the business
requirements at the beginning of the cycle often change by
the time the software is implemented, Campbell added. The
CRM findings track with lessons learned by at least one CIO
- but for different reasons. Rick Peltz, CIO at Marcus &
Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co. in Encino,
Calif., has witnessed the shortcomings of CRM systems at two
different companies. Six years ago, when he was working in
IT at Bank of America Corp., the bank tried to deploy a CRM
system that could share client information throughout its
North American wholesale banking division. The system "went
belly up" eight months after it was deployed because
"no one used it," said Peltz. "When you're
dealing with salespeople and agents, their client list is
their lifeline," he said. That same sentiment helps explain
why Marcus & Millichap's 650 agents have so far resisted
overtures from Peltz and his team to install a nationwide
CRM system to share client information. "When we try
to show [agents] easier ways to communicate with their clients,
or show them other tools they can use on a national platform,
that's where it's a bust," said Peltz. "They don't
want to share client information with each other. That's their
leg-up in the marketplace."
From ComputerWorld, by THOMAS HOFFMAN,
4 September 2002
U.S. Violent Crime
Lowest Since '73
The nation saw violent crimes except
murder fall by 9 percent last year, marking the lowest level
since the government began surveying victims in 1973. A record
low number of reported assaults, the most common form of violent
crime, was reported. The drop is detailed in the 2001 National
Crime Victimization Survey, which is based on interviews with
victims and thus does not include murder. The Bureau of Justice
Statistics report was obtained Sunday by The Associated Press
in advance of its release this week. Preliminary figures from
an FBI report - gleaned from more than 17,000 city, county
and state law enforcement agencies and released in June -
reflected an increase in murders of 3.1 percent in 2001. Specialists
said the decade-long decrease in violent results mainly from
the strong economy in the 1990s and tougher sentencing laws.
"When people have jobs and poor neighborhoods improve,
crime goes down," said Ralph Myers, a criminologist at
Stanford University. "Crime also has been impacted by
the implementation of tough sentencing laws at the end of
the 1980s." Since 1993, the violent crime rate has decreased
by nearly 50 percent. The report said that between 2000 and
2001, the number of people who reported they were victims
of violent crime fell from about 28 per 1,000 to about 25
per 1,000. The number of people reporting violent crimes fell
from 6,323,000 in 2000 to 5,744,000 in 2001. Only about half
of the violent crimes counted in the survey were reported
to police. The report showed a 10 percent decrease in the
violent crime rate for whites. It also included an 11.6 percent
decline for blacks and a 3.9 percent increase for Hispanics.
However, those figures were not given the highest grade of
confidence because of analytical formulas that suggest they
could be flawed. Assault was down 10 percent, but victim reports
reflected a 13 percent increase in injuries. The effect of
tougher sentencing laws can best be seen in the drop in the
rate at which people in the United States are assaulted, said
Bruce Fenmore, a criminal statistician at the Institute for
Crime and Punishment, a Chicago-based think tank. "There
is overwhelming evidence that people who commit assaults do
it as a general course of their affairs," Fenmore said.
"Putting those people behind bars drops the rate."
The rate at which criminals used guns to accomplish their
crimes held steady at about 26 percent. Victims of rape and
assault were the least likely (7 percent) to face an armed
offender, while robbery victims were the most likely (55 percent).
Rape fell 8 percent, and sexual assaults - which include verbal
threats and fondling - fell 20 percent. About half the women
who reported rapes said the perpetrator was a friend or acquaintance.
The rate at which women reported rape to the police fell 19
percent in 2001. The overall property crime rate fell 6 percent
between 2000 and 2001 because of a 6.3 percent decrease in
theft and a 9.7 percent drop in household burglaries. The
car theft rate rose 7 percent, reflecting a jump from 937,000
car thefts in 2000 to 1,009,000 in 2001. Teenagers seemed
less likely to be victims of violent crime. The crime rate
against those between ages 16 and 19 fell 13.2 percent. Crime
also fell in each of the regions of the United States but
showed the most dramatic decline, 19.7 percent, in the Midwest.
The decline was felt in urban, suburban and rural areas alike.
The rate of violence experienced by suburbanites fell 14 percent.
In urban and rural areas, the rate fell 5.4 percent and 10.6
percent, respectively. The preliminary summary of the report
did not include a state-by-state breakdown.
From Washington (DC) Post, 9 September 2002
Linking to Other Web
Sites Has Become a Touchy Issue
As the owner of a phone number, do
you have the right to say who can and cannot call you? Now
let's take the same question and apply it to the Internet.
As the owner of a Web site, do you have the right to say who
can and cannot link to your site? Many companies and organizations
actually have a linking-ban policy in place that basically
says you cannot have a link on your Web site that links to
their Web site. But does someone have the right to dictate
what you can and cannot do on your very own Web site that
you pay for and control? Obviously, you can't have anything
that's against the law on your Web site such as pedophilia
or selling illegal drugs. But can someone tell you as a Web-site
owner where you can and cannot link? Before you answer, consider
the flip side. As a Web-site owner, do you want to be able
to control who can and cannot link to you? How would you feel
about some undesirable Web site having a link to yours? Imagine
your horror discovering that some X-rated or hate-group Web
site had a prominent link to your site. In life, your image
can be greatly affected by the places in which you are seen
and the kinds of people with whom you associate. Your Web
site is subject to those same conditions. When it comes to
your phone number, you can have it unlisted, and only the
people to whom you give it will be able to reach you. Or you
can choose to be completely accessible with a listed number
and try to screen your calls with things like Caller ID, call
blocking and other methods that attempt to filter out telemarketers
and undesirable calls. Similarly, with your Web site, you
can have an unlisted address, and then only those who know
it can link to you. Or you can choose to be completely accessible
but control access by requiring a password or using some other
mechanism. But these technology solutions are only a Band-Aid
and don't really go to the heart of the matter, which is determining
who has what control rights. One of the proposed solutions
is to ban something called "deep linking." The idea
is that you can't ban a link to your Web site's home page
but you can ban links to pages within your Web site. That
way your "front door" remains accessible to everyone
on the Internet while preserving some control over what can
and cannot be seen within your site. And although I think
it's a step in the right direction, it still doesn't completely
alleviate the guilt-by-association problem when your home
page is listed on some kind of perverse Web site. I'm not
sure if there is an answer that will satisfy every linking
policy condition, and I tend not to favor anything that attempts
to legislate the Internet. So while this column doesn't offer
an answer, it is my hope that it will get you thinking about
the problem. In fact this linking issue has been embroiled
in controversy almost as long as the commercial Web has been
around. In the meantime, don't have links on your Web site
that point to the American Cancer Society, The Washington
Post, the city of Colorado Springs, Shell Oil, Disney or a
plethora of other institutions that have publicly posted linking
bans in place on their Web sites. If you'd like to know who
else has linking bans, you can find a list of them at Dontlink.com,
a Web site that's dedicated to posting institutions with Web-site
linking bans. Dontlink.com's stance is quite clear on linking
bans, referring to them as "stupid." In fact, you
can be assured your Web site will be named and linked to on
Dontlink.com by sending them a request not to link to your
Web site.
From Seattle (WA) Times-Business, by Craig
Crossman, 9 September 2002
Mexico to Iintroduce
Plastic Peso Bills
When Mexicans have to pay a taxi driver
or buy some tacos, they will likely start pulling out the
plastic. The country isn't going credit-card crazy. It's just
changing its 20 peso bill, worth about $2, from paper to a
form of plastic. uring a news conference Monday, holding up
a sample of the shiny blue bill that looks similar to the
paper version but comes with a clear window that makes it
difficult to counterfeit. There are 130 million 20 peso bills
in circulation, and they will slowly be replaced starting
Sept. 30. Officials estimate it will take a year before the
majority of paper bills are removed from Mexico's streets.
Besides being difficult to counterfeit, the plastic bills
last up to four times longer than those of paper - although
they cost 50 percent more to produce. Mexico decided to start
with the 20 peso note - its smallest denominated bill - because
it gets the most use in Mexico. Ortiz said that if the plastic
bill is successful, officials may convert the 50, 100, 200
and 500 peso bills, all of which are more likely to be counterfeited.
Australia began using plastic money in 1988. Some 20 countries
- including New Zealand, Brazil, Thailand and Northern Ireland
- have followed its lead. Officials said the new plastic bills
- which are paper-thin and the same size as their paper counterparts
- have been tested successfully in automatic teller machines.
Also Monday, Ortiz said that Mexico's annualized inflation
fell to around 5.3 percent in August from 5.5 percent in July.
He added that inflation is expected to continue declining
for the rest of the year, and that the central bank hopes
to close December at its target of 4.5 percent.
From MSNBC, 10 September 2002
Guatemalan Trial Heralds
New Accountability for Military
Guatemala City - When Helen Mack arrived
at the scene of the crime, she found her older sister, Myrna,
lying dead, just a few blocks from where she worked here.
She had been stabbed 27 times. Helen knelt down, placed her
forehead on her sister's, and vowed to bring to justice whoever
had done this. Twelve years later, Ms. Mack says she is close
to completing that goal. Nine years after an Army sergeant
was convicted of the crime, three high-ranking military officers
are on trial for allegedly ordering him to do it. The case,
which opened last Tuesday, is being heralded as pathbreaking
for Guatemala's justice system. "This is the first time
that someone is being tried in Guatemala for using their authority
and position in a state entity to order a murder," says
Guatemalan human rights lawyer Fernando Lopez. Guatemala's
36-year civil war between the government and leftist guerillas
ended in 1996, but many here say the military still wields
considerable power, a power that critics say amounts to impunity.
"This case is already a success because military officers
have been put on trial," says Mr. Lopez. "This strengthens
the justice system because it shows that members of the military
can also be held accountable to justice." Myrna Mack
was an anthropologist who had been conducting research on
groups of indigenous people displaced by the war's violence.
The prosecution charges that she was killed because the work
she was doing was affecting the miltary's ability to carry
out its operations against the rebels. Prosecutors are trying
to prove that, because of the military chain of command, retired
Gen. Edgar Godoy, and retired Cols. Juan Valencia and Juan
Oliva ordered Sgt. Noel de Beteta to kill Ms. Mack in 1990.
The accused maintain their innocence and deny knowing Mack
or her work. Getting the case to court, Helen Mack says, was
a long and painful task that has cost some $3 million.
The defense filed a long series of
objections during the pretrial process, postponing the court
date for years. Helen Mack left the country for two months
before the trial after she says a high-ranking member of government
warned her of a plot to kill her. Her lawyer says that unknown
assailants shot at his home weeks before the trial began.
In the process of pushing her sister's case, Helen Mack has
converted herself from a self-described apolitical, conservative
business executive into a prominent justice advocate. "The
life I led before my sister's assassination didn't allow me
to perceive the reality that the majority of Guatemalans face,"
Mack says, referring to citizens' typical encounters with
the justice system. In 1992, Helen Mack's work won her the
Right Livelihood Award, often called the alternative Nobel
Peace Prize. With the award money she founded the Myrna Mack
Foundation, which works towards strengthening the Guatemalan
justice system and has helped fund this case. Some here fear
that the international attention surrounding the case could
impede the defendants chance of getting a fair trial. "I
believe in the justice system and think this case will strengthen
it, but I am worried that all the international pressure there
has been will sway the judges decision," says defendant
Juan Oliva. Human rights activists say they hope the trial
can serve to make public information about the military's
wartime activities, in addition to establishing the guilt
or innocence of three of its former officials. The three accused
and the man already convicted belonged to the presidential
guard, which has been accused of carrying out covert counterinsurgency
operations. General Godoy was its director at the time of
Mack's death. The accused say that the entity's sole responsibility
was handling the president's security. Human rights activist
Frank LaRue says establishing the role of the presidential
guard in a courtroom is a crucial point. "Public opinion
already accepts that this organization carried out clandestine
operations and intelligence...," he says. "For a
court to accept them will have an enormous impact." Mack
says that regardless of the trial's outcome, she is content
knowing she has done her best. "Last month I dreamt of
my sister," she says. "She was worried about my
safety. But then she hugged me and smiled, and I imagined
that she was satisfied."
From Christian Science Monitor-Americas,
by Catherine Elton, 11 September 2002
The Web Does Its Part
for Sept. 11 - The Web Mutes Its Colors, Tones Down Commerce
on First Anniversary of Terror Attacks
New York, Sept. 11 - Yahoo.com's home
page was devoid of its usually vivid colors Wednesday, its
white background replaced with gray. Amazon.com carried drawings,
essays and poetry from New York City schoolchildren. "I've
learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving
words," eighth-grader Stephanie wrote. "It may be
the last time you see them." The Internet, already home
to some poignant electronic archives, marked the Sept. 11
anniversary in its own way. Some Web gathering spots emphasized
the medium's power for instant reaction to galvanizing events.
Others stressed not expression, but reflection. Slashdot,
a site frequented by techies, reran messages from its stunned
readers a year ago. The online auction site eBay draped a
flag over its home page and opened a temporary discussion
board about the anniversary, while the White House, Lycos
and other sites replaced their front pages with tributes.
Most sites had their regular materials accessible through
a link. But Topica, which sends more than 50 million messages
a day to about 4,000 corporate and community discussion lists,
took down its site and suspended service for most of the day.
Anna Zornosa, the company's president and chief executive,
said Topica worried that some messages, particularly commercial
advertising, could be seen as inappropriate or insensitive
on a day of reflection. "E-mail is just such a powerful
medium," Zornosa said. "We really saw that a year
ago with how well it was used as a tool to keep people connected.
We also saw some vivid reminders of how in-your-face and how
powerful it can be." Banner ads at AOL Time Warner sites
were replaced with pictures of candles and links to a site
where visitors could learn of opportunities to give money,
volunteer and remember, as well as obtain information on discussing
issues with children. The online greetings site Blue Mountain
featured anniversary themed cards in categories such as "Thinking
of You" and "Thanks to the Troops." The Web
site MemorialsOnline let visitors light a virtual candle and
offer a word of patriotism or tribute. At the e-mail and Web
community board Craigslist, users shared details about vigils
and other events offline. A year ago, while major news Web
sites were jammed as people craved details on the attacks,
the Net proved its mettle as a communications facilitator.
People who found telephone voice circuits clogged were able
to send "I'm OK" e-mail messages to their loved
ones. Web journals, known as blogs, emerged as forums for
trying to make sense of the events. Some sites found the best
way to mark the anniversary was to keep doing what they have
been doing. Thus, Wednesday was business as usual at the InstaPundit
blog, run by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds.
"Fancy memorial pages aren't what I'm good at,"
Reynolds declared on his journal. "So while I'm going
to post a couple of retrospective items, I plan to spend today
thinking about today, and tomorrow not last year.
From ABC News-Business-Wire, 11 September
2002
Web-based Disaster
Plans Sought
Building Owners and Managers Association
International, an advocacy group for the commercial real-estate
industry, is exploring the implementation of a Web-based program
that provides firefighters, police officers and other rescue
personnel with critical information about a building to better
prepare them in case disaster strikes. The program, called
Rapid Responder and made by Prepared Response Inc., Tacoma,
Wash., allows rescuers to access specific building information
online by typing in an address. The critical information,
including a map and floor plans, then pops up so police and
firefighters know how to get to the building in danger and
where to go once they are there. The company designed the
system in 2000 after the Columbine High School shootings.
Prepared Response, which develops and maintains security applications
for the public and private sector, would charge owners by
the square foot for collecting data. And there would be a
monthly fee for storing the data, maintenance and upgrades.
BOMA, which has 18,500 members who own or manage more than
nine billion square feet of commercial properties and facilities
in North America and abroad, and Prepared Response hope that
the program's use will save lives by speeding up emergency
response. Prepared Response hopes it will save insurance costs
as well. Sterling Griffin, chief strategy officer and founder
of Prepared Response, says the company is pushing state insurance
rating bureaus to grant so-called fire credits - points for
safety measures that can reduce rates - to building owners
who use the system. We're definitely evaluating their processes
and procedures to determine if there is a reason to recognize
their service for fire insurance rate credit," says David
Bruell, manager of information systems at Washington Surveying
and Rating Bureau, a property insurance rating bureau.
From MSNBC-Technology, 11 September 2002
Election Judges to
Be Retrained
D.C. Election Judges to Be Retrained
on New Computerized Voting After Delayed Primary Results -
Rockville, Md. - Election judges in Montgomery County will
be retrained on a new computerized touchscreen voting system
to avoid problems that significantly delayed results in this
week's primary. About 3,200 judges will be trained before
the Nov. 5 general elections and the suburban Washington county
will update its procedure for using the new computerized machines,
County Executive Douglas M. Duncan said Wednesday. Poorly
trained election workers dealing with a new computerized voting
system were blamed for what Duncan described as "shakedown
problems." Workers at each poll site had to tabulate
precinct results on a paper printout and drive the printout
and memory cards from each unit to the county's election headquarters,
officials said. The three other Maryland counties using the
new system Tuesday had better results. A new touchscreen system
in Florida also caused problems in Tuesday's primary there.
Candidates and voters complained about delays stemming from
election workers struggling with the touchscreen voting machines.
The system was put in place in an attempt to solve the problems
that plagued the state in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
From ABC News-Politics, 12 September 2002
Key Technologies Survive
Test of Time - and the Net Bubble
Two years after the dot-com bust, some
key technologies have proven to be the silver lining that
has helped companies survive the unforgiving e-commerce climate.
The world of online retailers is littered with technologies
that might have been cool but offered relatively little to
improve customer service. Online delivery services, interactive
TV sales, micropayments - all seemed like great ideas at the
time but, for various reasons, failed to catch on in significant
numbers. "That's been a problem--companies have launched
really creative technology that didn't improve the customer
experience. Often it seemed the only reason companies launched
it was to get the free press," said Ken Sieff, chief
executive of online retailer BlueFly. "And very often
those companies would abandon the technology or service within
12 months." Truly useful e-commerce tools address one
of three areas: displaying, buying or sending the product.
As a result, iPix's 360-degree images, Amazon.com's "one-click"
option and Federal Express' online order tracking are examples
of popular technologies shoppers use online. "We're into
that phase where common sense makes decisions, not just new
cool tech and bells and whistles," said Kate Delhagen,
analyst at Forrester Research. "People will say: Do customers
want to see the item better, or are they halfway through the
purchase process and need help, or does it take too long to
make a purchase?" Some of the best tools save money for
the company, which might then translate to lower prices for
customers. Something like order tracking can cut down the
number of e-mails or phone calls that customer-service representatives
must deal with, and happier patrons are more likely to come
back and buy again. Here are some of the most groundbreaking
services that have changed the way people shop online. Zerioing
In - In the early days of the commercial Web, many people
said e-commerce would work well only with certain items, such
as computers and books - the kind of purchases that don't
demand physical inspection beforehand. But who would buy something
like a sweater or a sofa based only on a small or blurry photo?
Today, new zoom technologies allow for closer visual inspection
than ever before online, enabling consumers to zero in on
the smallest detail of an embroidered blouse or take a virtual
tour of a house for sale. Industry leader iPix allows photographers
to create 360-degree images using just two standard photographs.
The product has been particularly popular for displaying online
real estate listings. Zoom technology has also been key to
e-commerce. RichFX's technology allows companies to create
up to four "hot spots" - close-up views of product
details - from a single picture. A big change in this category
came from the rising popularity of Macromedia's Flash software,
which developers use to create animation and display them
through relatively small file sizes. "Compression technology
is improving dramatically, and on top of that Flash is preloaded
in something like 99 percent of browsers, so you don't have
to require that consumers download a proprietary plug-in,"
Jupiter Research analyst Ken Cassar said. "It doesn't
necessarily compensate for the fact that images are not the
quality you have in catalogs, but it certainly helps."
As Easy As One, Two…One - When online shopping first took
off, the idea was irresistible: You see something you want,
click and it's yours. Unfortunately, the reality was more
like this: You see something you want, you click and click
and click, you type in a bunch of information, click again,
type in some more information, click a few more times. That
changed when Amazon introduced its "one-click" option
in September 1997. "One-click, that's a double- or triple-star
idea," Forrester's Delhagen said. "That has been
a huge catalyst for the Web."
The technology behind one-click is
surprisingly uncomplicated. Essentially, shoppers are agreeing
to skip several of the review and confirmation steps of the
buying process. Customers set up a one-click account with
the address they want products shipped to and a credit card
to pay for it. Newer versions allow consumers to choose from
preset multiple addresses and credit cards using dropdown
menus on product pages. The concept at first met with resistance.
In 1997, consumers were very tentative about online shopping,
and the idea of storing information online, and buying something
without being given the option to double-check an order, gave
many people pause. In early tests, customers incorrectly thought
they hadn't actually made a purchase. Since then, however,
Amazon has licensed the technology to other companies, and
partners such as Target have made the technology available
to even more shoppers. Bid Adieu - On the surface, eBay's
"Buy it Now" feature doesn't seem like a major revolution
in retailing. The basic concept allows buyers to purchase
items immediately for a fixed price, rather than endure a
days-long bidding process - essentially the same thing that
is done at regular stores. But for eBay, the move allowed
for faster transactions, higher prices and, eventually, more
money for the company. "We're bringing new buyers to
the site who weren't there before. And we're getting existing
buyers to buy more," said Jeff Jordan, senior vice president
for eBay's U.S. business. "Because of this feature, the
overall average duration of items on eBay shrank. It makes
our sellers more successful." The technology, introduced
in the 2000 holiday season, has caught on like wildfire. About
33 percent of listings included the feature in the second
quarter, the company said, and about 20 percent of U.S. auctions
close through "Buy it Now." Tracking It Down - At
first glance, it seems obvious: When people buy something
online, they want to know when they will get their package.
But for Federal Express, turning a tool designed for internal
use into a customer service application was a stroke of genius.
Order tracking had been done by FedEx since the 1980s. But
in 1994 the company decided to offer the service over the
Internet, allowing any customer to find packages on their
own through the same system FedEx uses internally to track
its business. "When a courier picks up a package, he
scans it.
When it's moved from his van to the
destination station, we scan it again. When it leaves, we
scan it again. When it's put onto a plane, we scan it,"
said Karen Rogers, vice president of marketing for FedEx.com.
In all, the average package is scanned between 15 and 20 times
between pickup and delivery. Today, more than 1.6 million
packages are tracked daily through FedEx's Web site. Customers
can look up data over PDAs or cellular phones, as well as
their PCs. The service, also provided by FedEx's competitors,
has become a must-have for online shopping, Jupiter's Cassar
said. "The site that doesn't have order tracking is a
site whose customer service reps will waste a lot of time,"
he said. Linking Clicks To Bricks - From a consumer's point
of view, a store is a store is a store--whether it's a catalog,
a Web site or a building on Main Street. But as recently as
last year, most companies that operated both online and brick-and-mortar
stores wouldn't let their e-commerce customers return goods
in person, directing them to the post office instead. The
major roadblock to link online and offline stores was not
technology, but a legal technicality. Under current law, an
out-of-state company does not need to collect local taxes
unless it has a physical presence somewhere in the state.
The upshot is that many Internet companies and mail-order
retailers don't have to charge customers sales tax, giving
them a distinct advantage. Many companies straddling the physical
and virtual retail world tried to keep the businesses completely
separate, which allowed them to offer tax-free merchandise
on their Web sites. Allowing customers to return those online
goods to a physical store would break down that wall. But
customers still wanted to return merchandise at stores, without
having to bother with the postal service. So when the deflating
dot-com bubble put pressure on companies to try harder to
keep customers, many retailers opened their stores to accepting
returned merchandise bought online.
The Gap, one of the first to allow
in-store returns, even allows customers to return items only
available online to their physical stores. Where Are You -
Not every e-commerce tool is designed to get buyers online
and shopping. Some successful technology is aimed at getting
them into stores. Combining geographical data with store location
information can do more than provide the nearest addresses.
By tapping into more detailed information, a gas station chain,
for instance, can tell customers where to find a 24-hour branch
with handicap access. The market for spatial information software
grew 3.3 percent from 2000 to $1.47 billion in 2001, according
to market research firm IDC. That business, which also includes
geographic information systems used for facilities management
and land information, is expected to grow 10 percent from
2001 to 2006. Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of such
software need only ask Chuck Berger, chief executive of Vicinity,
which sells location-based software to such large clients
as Marriott, Pizza Hut and Shell. One of Vicinity's customers
is a car manufacturer that uses the software to help shoppers
find local dealers. One weekend, Berger said, the manufacturer,
who asked not to be identified, had a technical problem with
its Web site and was unable to provide the data. "They
believe they lost $200,000 in sales that weekend due to the
problem," he said.
From News.com, by Margaret Kane, 12 September
2002
Another Florida Election
Quagmire
He gave a victory speech, thanked supporters
and even began challenging the Republican opponent to a series
of debates. But Bill McBride's bid for the Democratic nomination
in the Florida gubernatorial race is far from over. Opponent
Janet Reno has refused to concede and isn't ruling out a court
challenge after questions arose about balloting in two big
counties where she had expected to pick up more votes. McBride,
a Tampa lawyer, held an 8,196-vote lead over the former Attorney
General after unofficial results were certified Thursday.
The certification came two days after a primary in which polling
stations opened late and elections workers had a myriad of
problems with new touchscreen voting machines that were brought
in after the 2000 presidential election. McBride's razor-thin
margin of victory exceeded half a percentage point, the trigger
for an automatic machine recount. More than 1.3 million votes
were cast. But problems have cropped up that could benefit
Reno. Miami-Dade officials, for one, reviewed the vote totals
from four precincts Thursday and found an additional 1,818
votes that had not been counted. The county did not say how
many of those votes were for Reno, who won Miami-Dade by more
than a 3-1 margin in Tuesday's primary and fell only 1,445
votes short of triggering the recount. Officials said the
four precincts originally showed a total of 96 votes that
had not been counted. Miami-Dade officials also were re-examining
the count Thursday in 10 precincts that showed turnout was
less than 10 percent. "We have experienced many questions
about the electoral process. I think those questions must
be answered," Reno said. According to the state, McBride
had 601,008 votes, or 44.5 percent, to Reno's 592,812 votes,
or 43.9 percent. State Sen. Daryl Jones of Miami had 156,358
votes, or 11.6 percent. The deadline for official certifications
of the results is next week. McBride called Reno on the phone
about an hour and a half before he went in front of television
cameras to declare victory, telling her that he wanted to
move forward with efforts to run against Republican Gov. Jeb
Bush in the Nov. 5 general election.
During the victory speech, McBride
urged unity and challenged Bush to a series of debates. "Let's
get a flatbed truck, go from city to city," McBride said.
"You talk, then I'll talk ... but you can't do it unless
you're willing to shoot straight with people." Reno said
she would not ask for a new election. But campaign attorney
Alan Greer said Reno had not decided whether to seek a recount
or go to court to challenge the results. Greer and Reno campaign
manager Mo Elleithee specifically questioned Miami-Dade County's
ballot count in 81 precincts, saying thousands of votes could
have been affected on Reno's home turf. They also said there
could be problems in nearby Broward County. Elleithee said
the campaign has received hundreds of affidavits from voters
alleging problems, and has e-mailed supporters statewide asking
for more examples. Reno promised to support McBride if he
turns out to be the nominee, and Greer said the campaign is
trying to avoid doing anything that would hurt the Democratic
effort to oust Bush this fall. But Robin Rorapaugh, McBride's
campaign manager, said a court challenge by Reno could cost
Democrats and be "horribly divisive" in the campaign
against Bush. Florida had enacted new laws and spent $32 million
to reform its election system, eliminating paper chads altogether
and hoping to avoid other problems that held up the 2000 presidential
election for seven weeks. Instead, hundreds of people complained
they were turned away from the polls and many problems were
reported in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, considered key
by Reno's campaign. The election woes reminded many of the
presidential contest, when George W. Bush's 537-vote victory
was delayed as Al Gore demanded recounts and Democrats complained
of uncounted punchcard ballots. Gov. Bush, the president's
brother, blamed the latest problems on Democratic election
chiefs. "More resources, more training, more equipment,
more state dollars, two years to do this, and it appears there
were flaws in the implementation. Sixty-five counties got
it right," Bush said. But Elleithee pointed at Bush for
the voting problems. "We wouldn't be in this mess today
if Jeb Bush had learned the lessons from 2000 about how to
run an election," he said. "There were problems
all over the state." McBride, who once headed Florida's
largest law firm, was a political unknown when the campaign
began and he trailed Reno by more than 25 points two months
ago. But he won endorsements from key Democratic leaders and
seemed to benefit from GOP attack ads that helped boost his
name recognition.
From CBS News-Politics, 13 September 2002
Homeland Defense Focus
Shifts to Tech
Washington - Computer security is becoming
an increasingly critical part of President Bush's proposal
for a homeland defense department. When Bush formally proposed
the department last month, he predicted that the future agency
would aid in investigating Al Qaeda and thwarting disasters
similar to those of Sept. 11. In the televised address, he
never mentioned the Internet or so-called cybersecurity. But
as Capitol Hill scrutinizes the proposal, politicians are
fretting about tech-savvy terrorists--and insisting any new
agency must shield the United States from electronic attacks
as well. "If we don't make sure the Homeland Security
Department is prepared in this area of cybersecurity, we have
failed in our duty," House Energy and Commerce Chairman
Billy Tauzin, R-La., said Tuesday. At Bush's urging, House
Republicans have asked committees for any suggested changes
to the White House-backed bill by the end of the week, and
at least four committee votes are scheduled for Wednesday.
On Thursday, a special panel chaired by House Majority Leader
Dick Armey, R-Texas, will hold its first meeting to work out
a final version of the plan. Until this week, Congress has
focused on how the proposal would combine 22 agencies, including
the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, into a massive Department of Homeland Security.
Also included in the bill, and discussed at length in a pair
of hearings Tuesday, are equally radical changes for the U.S.
government's Internet defenses. The plan would glue together
nearly all computer protection functions, from the Commerce
Department's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office to the
Computer Security Division of the National Institute of Standards
and Technology to the Federal Computer Incident Response Center.
The complex reshuffling of bureaucracies, including twists
such as the proposed department's half-acquisition of the
FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, has prompted
some politicians to ask for more time to examine the plan.
Privacy groups also have raised concerns about database sharing
and have suggested that the department be subject to traditional
open-records laws. The House Science committee, for instance,
plans to propose an amendment that would add an "Undersecretary
for Science and Technology" to the department.
Currently there are five proposed undersecretaries,
a deputy secretary and allowance for "not more than six
assistant secretaries." From Washington's perspective,
the concept of cybersecurity remains somewhat murky and marked
by exaggeration. Last year, the head of the Defense Intelligence
Agency told Congress that Fidel Castro could be planning a
"cyberattack" on the United States, and White House
cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke has spent years predicting
an "electronic Pearl Harbor." Tech's double-edged
sword - Nearly everyone agrees that any electronic-defense
plan should anticipate attacks against both government agencies
and important systems owned by private companies. "In
the information age, the same technological capabilities that
have enabled us to succeed can now also be turned against
us," John Tritak, the head of the Critical Infrastructure
office, said Tuesday. "Powerful computing systems can
be hijacked and used to launch attacks that can disrupt operations
of critical services that support public safety and daily
economic processes." President Clinton created Tritak's
group by executive order in 1998. Since then, it's spent much
of the time working with American businesses to beef up security.
But Tuesday, some politicians questioned whether that approach
is working - and whether new laws and regulations are needed
to bring executives to heel. Such requirements could include
everything from design standards for backup power supplies
to security rules for Web servers. "Do you believe that
efforts to regulate security across the private sector are
warranted and are even likely to be effective?" asked
Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee.
"I'd like to think we made some headway in reaching out
to industry," Tritak replied. James McDonnell, the director
of the Energy Department's security program, answered by saying
he did not think new security laws were necessary, at least
not yet. "If we go forward with our vulnerability assessments
and find that industry (is) not using these or (is) not taking
care of their assets, then maybe we need to revisit what regulations
are required," McDonnell said.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said he
was tired of hearing excuses for poor performance by federal
IT officials and wondered whether the massive proposed reorganization
could exacerbate the situation. "None of the computers
seem to be compatible in the federal government," Stupak
said. "Every time we spend billions of dollars to upgrade
a computer, it doesn't seem to work and we have to start all
over again...Are we going to have another layer of computers
that don't talk to each other while cybersecurity is endangered?
"It seems like there's more of a turf war; we won't trust
this person with this information, or it's our information
and won't go further. I don't think it's all just computer-related
problems or security-related problems but leadership problems."
A report that congressional auditors published last year said
that instead of becoming a highly sensitive nerve center that
responds to computer intrusions, the FBI's National Infrastructure
Protection Center (NIPC) had turned into a federal backwater
that was surprisingly ineffective in pursing malicious hackers
or devising a plan to protect electronic infrastructure. It
highlighted the NIPC's turf wars and concluded: "This
situation may be impeding the NIPC's ability to carry out
its mission." David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, said Tuesday that the proposed
department should not be completely immune to requests made
under the Freedom of Information Act. Private companies have
said they need such an exemption to be sure that sensitive
information they provide not be disclosed. "Any claimed
private sector reluctance to share important data with the
government grows out of, at best, a misperception of current
law," Sobel said. "Exemption proponents have not
cited a single instance in which a federal agency has disclosed
voluntarily submitted data against the express wishes of an
industry submitter."
From News. Com, by Declan McCullagh , 18
September 2002
Mexico City Declares
Air Pollution Emergency, Orders 350,000 Cars Off The Streets
Hundreds of thousands of cars were
ordered off Mexico City streets Thursday as the city declared
its first pollution alert in almost three years after ozone
levels reached about 2½ times acceptable limits. The one-day
driving ban may be extended if the smog does not dissipate.
In the past, almost half of the city's estimated 3 million
vehicles were ordered off the streets during such alerts.
But many residents have bought newer, cleaner models that
are allowed even during emergencies. Thursday's ban affected
about 350,000 of the city's older-model vehicles. The last
such emergency was declared in October 1999. Despite the urging
of environmentalists, the city has not changed the level at
which smog alerts are declared: 240 points on a scale in which
100 is considered acceptable. Environmentalists say the threshold
should be lowered. While Mexico City has a reputation for
smog problems, scientists now believe that several cities,
mainly in Asia, have worse air quality on average.
From MSNBC, 19 September 2002
E-business Rollouts
Continue Despite Tough Economy
Boston - Despite a general pall over
the IT industry, some manufacturers are still rolling out
enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain and other
applications to create business efficiencies and cut costs.
For some companies, the faith in e-business remains strong.
"The bloom is off the rose of business-to-consumer [projects],
but for business-to-business, it's as strong as ever,"
said Simon Ellis, supply chain futurist at Trumbull, Conn.-based
Unilever Home and Personal Care, a division of London-based
consumer product maker Unilever. Ellis was one of the speakers
at the Collaborative Manufacturing and Supply Chain Strategies
conference here yesterday. The event was sponsored by the
Arc Advisory Group Inc., a consultancy based in Dedham, Mass.
Ellis' division is currently adding SAP AG's order-to-cash
application to its R/3 ERP system. The SAP software, which
will replace an existing homegrown system that's becoming
increasingly difficult to maintain, is expected to yield an
increase in speed of order cycle times, he said. Other companies
are also launching projects. The Boeing Co., for instance,
is now at work on a proof-of-concept for a Web portal that
will be able to connect suppliers directly to the company's
manufacturing systems, speed up production cycle times and
improve product quality. That's according to Gary Giles, manager
of manufacturing systems and measurement technology for the
Chicago-based airplane maker's manufacturing and research
and development division. Boeing has been working on the project
for the past two years, he said, and the portal -- most likely
based on software from San Francisco-based Plumtree Software
Inc. -- could become a companywide initiative. There's nothing
now in place that would allow that kind of data sharing, he
said. While manufacturers continue to ins - Frtall business-to-business
software, they're more cautious than they once were. And the
days of big bang rollouts are over, said John Moore, an analyst
at Arc. "The vendors can't get away with selling vision
anymore," Moore said. "They have to do a much better
job testing products, partnering with users and making sure
these things work. In the past, there was such demand the
suppliers were pushing faulty products into the market."
The downturn in IT spending is actually a change that customers
can use to hold "vendors' feet to the fire" and
make them accountable, said Moore. Looking to automate its
retail operations, San Francisco-based ChevronTexaco Corp.
is adding SAP's order-to-cash, business warehouse and MySAP
portal applications to its existing North American R/3 financials
backbone, according Sam Parino, CIO for the company's refining
division. Currently, ChevronTexaco uses its own in-house order-to-cash
systems. Simultaneously, it's in the middle of rolling out
a global network, to be completed by the end of 2003, to enable
partners to connect directly to these applications over the
Web instead of using various legacy systems and interfaces.
The company plans to go live with the order-to-cash system
Jan. 1. ChevronTexaco also plans eventually to roll out other
systems, including those for customer relationship management
and supply chain management, Parino said.
From ComputerWorld, by MARC L. SONGINI,
20 September 2002
Postal Service Reduces
Loss
Finances Improve for Postal Service,
Which Is Likely to End Fiscal Year With Loss Less Than $1B
- Finances are continuing to improve for the post office,
which now appears likely to finish the fiscal year with a
loss of less than $1 billion. That's down from a loss estimate
of $1.2 billion just three weeks ago. Postmaster General John
Potter told a meeting of major mailers in Boston on Monday
that the agency continued to cut costs sharply in recent weeks
while mail volume has risen. Besides a lower deficit this
year the agency continues to expect to make a profit next
year, he said. Postage rates went up in June and Potter has
promised that there won't be another increase until at least
2004. He extended that Monday, promising no general rate increase
until "well into 2004." "My expectations are
high for us, for the nation's economy and for the entire mailing
industry over the next couple of years," Potter said.
The post office's fiscal year ended Sept. 6 but final accounting
is continuing to compile exact figures for the massive operations.
Earlier in the year the post office expected to lose $1.35
billion, and at times after the terrorist attacks and anthrax-by-mail
contamination loss estimates threatened to reach several billion
dollars. While Congress and President Bush have provided about
$750 million to assist the post office in recovering from
the anthrax and terrorist attacks, that money has been kept
in a separate account for those purposes and is not included
in the overall accounting for postal operations. The post
office receives a small federal payment for handling mail
for the blind and voters overseas but has not gotten a taxpayer
subsidy for operations since 1982. On the Net: U.S. Postal
Service: htto://www.usps.com
From ABC News-Politics, 23 September 2002
MIT at Work on Resilient
Internet
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, in collaboration with scientists from several
other universities and organizations, are designing a new
distributed, self-healing Internet infrastructure that they
hope will be resistant to attack and failure. The project,
known as IRIS (Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems),
aims to take some of the properties of current distributed
computing systems--such as redundancy and decentralization--and
integrate them into a more secure, reliable architecture.
The project will announce Wednesday that it has received a
$12 million Information Technology Research grant from the
National Science Foundation to fund its research. IRIS researchers
say their ultimate goal is to implement a large-scale network
of self-reliant nodes that needs no administrator and has
no centralized controller, and therefore no single point of
failure. Users will be able to store data anywhere on the
network, and the data will then be replicated dozens, or even
hundreds, of times on other nodes. Each copy of a file will
be digitally signed to ensure integrity. "The assumption
is that we'll make so many copies of it, it will be impossible
to take it out," said Frans Kaashoek, professor of electrical
engineering and computer science at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.,
and one of the principal investigators on IRIS. "No one
node will be more important than another node. If one fails,
another can take over with just a little bit of coordination."
From eWeek, by Dennis Fisher, 25 September
2002
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Japan's Central Bank Mulls Buying Plan
Japan's central bank said Wednesday
that it is considering buying shares from the country's struggling
banks as part of a radical plan to stabilize the financial
system and help the banks get rid of massive debt from bad
loans. The Bank of Japan governor, Masaru Hayami, said lenders
would be able to sell their stock holdings directly to the
central bank only in an emergency, and not through the market.
The bank would buy them at market value, and hold the shares
for about 10 years, he said. Hayami, speaking after the central
bank's policy board left its monetary policy unchanged, said
he would provide specifics soon. He acknowledged that the
new steps could damage the central bank's balance sheet, but
warned that unless banks reduce their shareholdings to free
up cash they were unlikely to deal quickly with their massive
loan problems. The government has said bad loans at the nation's
banks swelled to 43 trillion yen ($352 billion) in March,
from 36 trillion yen ($295 billion) six months earlier. Analysts
say the figures are probably much higher. Japanese banks,
among the biggest investors in the Tokyo stock market, have
been selling stocks in recent years, but their losses have
accumulated as the market has fallen. The central bank's resolve
to bolster shaky lenders and help banks write off bad loans
could quiet calls from lawmakers and Cabinet officials for
more aggressive steps to invigorate the economy. "This
could be the start of a new policy regime," said Ron
Leven, a Lehman Brothers strategist in Tokyo. Critics worry,
however, that the central bank may compromise its credibility
if it appears to be caving to political pressure or trying
to manipulate financial markets. Earlier, the bank's policy
board decided to keep short-term interest rates near zero
and continue providing funding to banks at virtually no cost.
In return, commercial banks would still be required to maintain
deposits of between 10 trillion yen ($82 billion) to 15 trillion
yen ($123 billion) at the central bank, the board said. The
central bank has held rates near zero for the past two years
and made it easier for banks to secure funding. That policy,
however, has so far failed to spark a sustained economic turnaround.
In its monthly assessment for September, the Cabinet said
Wednesday that Japan's economy faced increasing risks from
declining stock prices and a worrisome U.S. economy, though
it is still on a tentative road to recovery. Although Japan's
downturn appears to have bottomed out and signs of better
times have appeared, stocks are plumbing 19-year lows, unemployment
is soaring and deflation continues to plague the economy.
Deflation - a trend of continuing price declines - has cut
into corporate profits, pushed home values lower and made
it harder for banks to get rid of loans gone bad in the wake
of the late 1980s bursting of the asset bubble. The Cabinet,
however, said brighter spots that held over from last month
were rising exports and production, albeit at a slightly slower
pace. A contraction in capital spending by businesses also
appears to be coming to a halt. Yet sluggish growth of the
U.S. economy could quickly reverse the trends, it said.
From Nando Times-Business, by Kenji Hall,
18 September 2002
Hayami's Stock-Buying
Plan May Prompt Bad Loan Action
Tokyo - Bank of Japan Governor Masaru
Hayami's decision to help buy some of the more than $200 billion
of stocks held by Japanese lenders may prompt regulators to
act more quickly to clean up bad loans, investors and analysts
said. Hayami's decision may signal banks are in worse shape
than previously thought. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi said disposing of banks' 52.4 trillion yen ($430 billion)
of bad loans is the most important element of an economic
package being prepared by the government. "The problem
isn't that banks have equities on their balance sheets, the
problem is that they have huge amount of non- performing loans,"
said Alexander Muromcew, who helps manage $600 million in
global equities for Loomis Sayles & Co. in San Francisco.
"Dealing with the equity issue is wonderful for the stock
market sentiment, but doesn't solve fundamental problems of
the banks." Minister for Financial Services Hakuo Yanagisawa
and Financial Services Agency Commissioner Shokichi Takagi
met yesterday to devise ways to speed the bad loan clean-up.
They are "still considering what can be done," Yanagisawa
said. "Many people have said writing off bad loans may
exacerbate deflation, but reform of the financial system is
the most important reform," Koizumi said today. Hayami's
stock-buying plan is an about-face for an official who had
said it's not the Bank of Japan's job to support banks. Hayami
has said the government may have to directly bail out banks
with public funds for the third time since 1998. Crisis Management
- "With the decline in stocks, the disposal of bad loans
has slowed down," Hayami said Sept. 5. "If banks
continue to dispose of bad loans, we may reach a time when
they don't have sufficient capital. If there are doubts about
the financial system as a whole, Japan must consider measures,
including the injection of public funds." The crisis
at Japan's banks led the top seven lenders to post 4.07 trillion
yen of losses in the year ended March 31. The banks had a
similar amount of unrealized losses on the value of their
shareholdings as of Sept. 3, when Japanese stocks reached
a 19- year low, according to Daiwa Institute of Research.
The central bank's stock-buying plan boosted bank shares,
with the Topix Banks Index posting its biggest intraday gain
since August 1999. Bonds - In addition to owing shares in
other companies, banks also hold tens of trillions of yen
of Japanese government bonds. Mizuho Holdings Inc., the world's
biggest bank by assets, as of March 31 held about 11 trillion
yen of bonds, mostly government debt. That's almost twice
the 6.34 trillion yen of stocks it owned, according to the
bank's earnings report. The BOJ move suggests the government
"may inject public funds into the banking system to be
paid for by bonds," said Akihiko Yokoyama, a fixed-income
strategist at JP Morgan Securities Asia Ltd. Officials at
Mizuho Holdings Inc., UFJ Holdings Inc. and Daiwa Bank Holdings
Inc. declined to comment, saying the central bank has yet
to iron out details of the share purchases. Bankruptcies -
Bad loan totals are continuing to rise as an average of 54
Japanese companies a day have failed since January. A total
of 25 publicly traded companies have collapsed this year,
11 more than the full-year record set in 2001. The crisis
already prompted the government to water down a plan to cap
the insurance it offers on bank deposits starting in April
next year, on concern customers would flee riskier banks.
The government has said some deposits may continue to enjoy
unlimited guarantees, while reports have said Koizumi may
delay imposing insurance caps on other bank deposits as part
of his economic stimulus package. The central bank will probably
buy stocks from Japan's largest banks and some regional lenders,
and will purchase shares in the next year or two, Hayami said.
It's "possible" the central bank will hold the shares
for 10 years, he said. "The BOJ's move highlights how
banks are in bad shape," said Naoko Nemoto, a director
at Standard & Poor's in Tokyo. "It seems likely the
BOJ considers the banking industry already in crisis."
Shares of Mizuho rose as much as the daily limit of 40,000
yen, or 16 percent, to 290,000 yen in Tokyo. The 84-member
Topix Banks Index gained as much as 10 percent, its biggest
move since August 1999.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Taizo Hirose,
19 September 2002
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Hungary to End Foreign Investors'
Tax Breaks to Smooth EU Entry
Budapest - Hungary will stop giving
tax breaks to foreign companies that invest in production
to resolve one of the last issues in membership talks with
the European Union. Hungary's Socialist-led government, in
office since May, plans to introduce a new incentive package
that will bring the country into compliance with EU rules
beginning Jan. 1, ending a stalemate over the bloc's competition
rules, Economy Minister Istvan Csillag said in an interview.
EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti has called for Hungary
to immediately end the tax breaks. Hungary had insisted on
granting new exemptions until joining the 15-nation group,
causing delays in membership talks. Ten mostly east European
nations are trying to complete negotiations with the EU by
December to qualify for membership in 2004. "The previous
government's stance to put it off until the last possible
date didn't prove successful," Csillag said. "We
hope this may be the key to a compromise." Government
aid programs such as tax breaks have helped Hungary attract
about 24 billion euros ($23.8 billion) of foreign investment
since the early 1990s from companies such as General Electric
Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Audi AG, the
luxury car unit of Volkswagen AG. Csillag said he expects
Hungary to attract 3 billion euros of foreign investment annually
within three years, double the amount the country has received
in recent years. The new incentive package will permit some
tax allowances that meet EU guidelines, such as for investment
in less-developed regions or those given in exchange for employment
commitments. Some Subsidies - It will also allow some direct
subsidies, including financing for staff training. In addition,
the government plans to buy land and lease it to investors
at below market rates, Csillag said. The government will debate
the new investment incentives today and expects to complete
talks on competition policy this month. Prime Minister Peter
Medgyessy is scheduled to meet Monti in Brussels on Sept.
16. Previously granted tax breaks that run until 2011 are
still an issue. Hungary wants to preserve those allowances,
Csillag said. The EU has said the country should withdraw
them. "Hungary becoming a member of the EU is a serious
interest, but so is the ability to keep investors and their
acquired rights," Csillag said. Other countries aiming
to join the EU in 2004 are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia,
Estonia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Malta.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Agnes Lovasz,
6 September 2002
Austria Tax Crisis
Over: Haider
Far-right politician Joerg Haider says
he has reached a deal in a tax dispute that has threatened
the stability of Austria's coalition government. The 52-year-old
had insisted the government, of which the Freedom Party is
a junior coalition member, should hold to its pledge of cutting
taxes in 2003. But the government of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel
argues the tax cuts should be delayed, saying the money is
needed to help pay for the estimated six billion euros worth
of damage caused in last month's floods that swept across
the continent. The chancellor was backed by key figures in
the Freedom Party, Susanne Riess-Passer and Karl-Heinz Grasser,
who are currently serving as ministers in the coalition government.
Haider told weekly magazine Format on Thursday an agreement
has now been reached with Schuessel, leader of the conservative
People's Party, The governor of Carinthia province also said
he has withdrawn his support for a party conference on the
issue and will be urging his party supporters to cancel the
October 13 meeting. "The chancellor and I agreed to a
new set of priorities," Haider was quoted by Reuters
as saying. But Haider has not reportedly spoken to Riess-Passer.
She told the Austrian broadcaster ORF that she knew nothing
of Haider's secret agreement with Schuessel. Haider, who withdrew
as leader of the Freedom Party in 2000 after 14 years in charge,
still holds sway in the party's ranks and the row had threatened
to undermine the current leadership. Haider, who in the past
has praised the Third Reich's employment policy, had insisted
on an extraordinary party conference to force the Freedom
Party's ministers to vote in favour of the cuts. Riess-Passer,
who is party chief and vice chancellor in the governing coalition,
threatened to resign on Wednesday, if the tax reform conference
took place. Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, the party's
most popular personality, said he would follow, arguing repeatedly
that the tax cuts would not be possible next year.
From CNN-Europe, 5 September 2002
Czech Government May
Splinter After Losing Tax Vote
Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla
may break up his three-party coalition after an embarrassing
defeat on Friday over tax increases to pay for damage caused
by August's floods, a top official said. The defeat shows
how tenuous Spidla's grip on the lower house is, and raises
severe doubts whether his two-month-old coalition can serve
out four years, or see out his country's EU application, expected
to climax in membership in 2004. Milan Simonovsky, a vice-chairman
in Spidla's leftist Social Democratic party, said Spidla had
asked the centrist Christian Democrats to consider dropping
the rightist Freedom Union, whose three members of parliament
give the coalition a one-seat majority. ''I can confirm such
an offer has been made,'' he said. The three parties have
much common ground. But higher taxes proved anathema to one
Freedom Union deputy, Hana Marvanova, who said she had been
unable to go against a key election pledge. The package may
now be amended to win Marvanova's support, but a dejected
Spidla appeared to feel his coalition's integrity had been
shattered, and said he was seeking another solution. It was
not clear how much support a minority coalition would be able
to count on from the Freedom Union's legislators. Leaders
of the Social Democrats were scheduled to meet late on Friday.
Christian Democrat leader Cyril Svoboda, the foreign minister,
would not immediately comment on the idea of a minority government,
but told reporters: ''The situation is serious...the cabinet
could be reconstructed...It cannot live in uncertainty that
its own deputies will not support it.'' The circumstances
of the vote were unusual. The proposal was at first approved
by 100 votes to 98, but one deputy said his vote had been
improperly counted. In a re-run, the votes were 99-99, meaning
the bill failed to pass. The tax hikes proposed by the government
were expected to raise about 11 billion crowns ($361 million)
over two years. August's cataclysmic floods killed at least
17 people in the Czech Republic, inundated large parts of
historic Prague and caused an estimated $3 billion in damage.
The proposal would have raised the top personal tax bracket
to 35 percent from 32 percent as well as increasing value-added
taxes (VAT) and taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Marvanova
said her objections were against increases in personal or
consumer taxes. ''If there were only (higher) taxes on alcohol
and cigarettes in the package I would have thought I could
support the plan,'' she said. The government is now expected
to propose a new package relying more heavily on alcohol and
cigarettes.
From MSNBC, 13 September 2002
EU Criticized for Postponing
Balanced-Budget Deadline
European countries that have balanced
their budgets protested the European Commission's decision
to let Germany, France and Italy run deficits for two more
years, saying it may undermine the euro. Finance ministers
and central bankers in the Netherlands, Finland and Austria
said the delay of Europe's balanced-budget deadline to 2006,
announced yesterday, may lead to higher inflation and prevent
lower interest rates. "It's important that discipline
in state finances doesn't slide," Antti Suvanto, the
Finnish central bank's chief economist, said in an interview.
At stake, he said, is the "credibility of fiscal policies."
The relaxation of the deadline gives Europe's big economies
more scope to lower taxes and increase spending to combat
the slowdown in European economic growth to below 1 percent
in 2002, the weakest pace since the 1993 recession. Business
confidence in Germany declined for a fourth month in September
as the recovery faltered, a survey of 7,000 executives by
the Ifo institute showed today. Italian consumer confidence
slumped this month. In France, consumer spending fell in August
after unemployment rose to a 22-month high. France took immediate
advantage of the leeway, with Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin
set today to announce 4.1 billion euros ($4 billion) in tax
cuts for 2003 and higher spending on police and defense, his
aides said. Inflation Danger - Central bankers oppose the
new interpretation of the EU's "stability pact,"
concerned that wider deficits will give a push to inflation
that has been at or above the European Central Bank's 2 percent
limit for 25 of the last 27 months. The ECB kept its benchmark
rate at 3.25 percent for the 10th month last week. Inflation
in the euro countries area rose to 2.1 percent in August.
Easing the constraints would be ``damaging for the credibility
of the currency union,'' ECB council member Klaus Liebscher
of Austria told the Austrian Press Agency last night. European
bonds slipped on concern that the loosening of the stability
pact may stand in the way of lower interest rates. The yield
on the Germany's two-year bond rose 2 basis points to 3.11
percent. The 10-year German yield was unchanged at 4.28 percent.
Widening deficits haven't hurt the euro so far. The currency
has risen 14 percent against the U.S. dollar since Jan. 30,
when the commission first reprimanded Germany and Portugal
for failing to plug budget holes. It was trading at 98.22
U.S. cents at 10:41 Brussels time. Risking Fines - Germany
and France, which account for half the economy of the 12 euro
nations, risk surpassing the limit on deficits of 3 percent
of gross domestic product in 2002. Portugal might break the
limit for the second year, the commission said. Governments
that overstep the limit risk fines of up to 0.5 percent of
GDP, though only after a vote of finance ministers. In Portugal's
case, the maximum fine would be 675 million euros. Italy,
which has the highest debt in the 15-nation European Union,
at 108 percent of GDP, also plans tax cuts to spur the economy
in 2003. Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said last night
that he "fully agrees" with the looser deadlines.
Eight countries - Belgium, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Austria and Finland - will be in surplus
or post deficits below 0.2 percent in 2002, the commission
forecasts. Together, the eight make up 29 percent of the economy
- about the size of Germany alone. "We are very unhappy
with it and highly critical of it, because it creates the
risk of a moving target," said Dutch Finance Ministry
spokesman Stephan Schrover. The Netherlands may attempt to
block the decision, he said.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by James G. Neuger,
25 September 2002
Spanish Lawmakers Debate
16 Percent Tax on Diapers
Madrid, Spain - Opposition lawmakers
called on Spain's government Wednesday to stop taxing diapers
at 16 percent, the same rate as cigarettes and alcohol. Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government used to
tax feminine hygiene products at 16 percent, but recently
agreed to lower the rate to 7 percent under pressure from
the Socialist Party. Now the Socialists have set their sights
on diapers, including those used by adults, proposing they
should only be taxed at 4 percent. Socialist lawmaker Carmen
Olmedo estimated the government takes in some $125 million
a year from taxing diapers - a product she says is a necessity.
''What alternative is there?'' Olmedo said. ''It's ridiculous.''
Also supporting the tax cut is the Spanish Federation for
Large Families. Federation President Jose Ramon Losana, who
estimates his 12 children have gone through 84,000 diapers,
says big families should be rewarded for stimulating the economy.
''When kids use diapers, they are generating gross domestic
product,'' he said.
From MSNBC, 25 September 2002
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Senate Panel Approves Tax on Wealthy
Who Renounce Citizenship
Washington - The Senate Finance Committee
voted to impose taxes on the assets of wealthy individuals
who renounce their U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes. The move
is expected to raise $656 million over the next decade. It
would help to offset $1 billion in tax breaks for military
personnel that the panel also approved. These include making
military-related travel expenses tax deductible, exempting
$6,000 death benefits and allowing capital gains on most home
sales by military personnel to be tax-free. "These are
modest, sensible changes," said Montana Democrat Max
Baucus, the panel's chairman. "In the case of expatriates,
the offset seems especially fitting." Congress is debating
whether to restrict U.S. corporations which reincorporate
in countries such as Bermuda that don't have a corporate income
tax. The committee's move today was the latest in a series
of bills stretching back a decade that target individuals
who expatriate to duck U.S. taxes. Under current law, people
who relinquish their U.S. citizenship for tax reasons must
pay income taxes to the U.S. for the next 10 years after the
expatriation. They are never permitted to enter the U.S. again.
The bill would impose an exit tax on the market value of a
wealthy person's assets if they renounce their citizenship.
The measure defines "wealthy" as someone who had
an annual tax liability of $100,000 for the five years prior
to loss of citizenship or a net worth of more than $500,000.
Most expatriates who meet these criteria renounce their citizenship
to shield their assets from the federal estate tax of rates
of up to 50 percent. That tax is being phased out over the
next eight years, returning in 2011 unless Congress acts to
make the reductions permanent. Democrats' Concern - Democrats
are seeking a never-released study by the Joint Committee
on Taxation on how effective U.S. tax laws are in preventing
the wealthy from moving offshore to evade taxes. The committee
says it is revising the study, which originally was requested
in 1998 by then-Representative Bill Archer, a Texas Republican
and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Representative
Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, requested the study in
March, saying heirs of individuals such as oil company founder
J. Paul Getty, shipping magnate Jacob Stolt- Nielsen and Star-Kist
Foods Inc. Chairman Joseph J. Bogdanovich used techniques
such as delaying gains, monetizing assets without recognition
of gains, and investing indirectly through derivatives to
avoid current rules. Democrats recently questioned the return
to the U.S. of Fred Alger, founder of Fred Alger Management
Inc., which manages $13 billion in mutual funds and separate
accounts for institutional investors. Alger gave up his citizenship
to avoid paying U.S. taxes. He got a visa to return after
more than half his staff, including his brother, died in last
year's World Trade Center attack. He has said he'll pay U.S.
income taxes. He remains a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis
in the Caribbean. The House has approved the military tax
breaks. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican
on the Finance Committee, urged the Senate to pass the bill
before adjourning in October or November.
From Bloomberg-Politics, by Ryan J. Donmoyer,
12 September 2002
Feds Indict Adelphia
Founder, 4 Others
Adelphia Communications Corp. founder
John J. Rigas, his sons and two other former executives were
indicted Monday on charges that included conspiracy, securities
fraud and wire fraud. The indictment, handed up in Manhattan
federal court, named Rigas; his sons, Timothy and Michael;
James R. Brown, former vice president of finance; and Michael
C. Mulcahey, former director of internal reporting. Rigas
founded the Pennsylvania-based company that became the nation's
sixth biggest cable television company. Rigas and his sons
were arrested at their Manhattan apartment on July 24. A criminal
complaint charged them with fraud for allegedly hiding $2.3
billion in liabilities from investors. The Rigases, who have
denied any wrongdoing, have been free on $10 million bail
each, secured by cash, land and other property. Lawyers for
the five former executives have denied that their clients
have committed any wrongdoing. Adelphia filed for Chapter
11 bankruptcy protection June 25. The Rigases stepped down
from board seats and executive posts at the company in May.
Rigas and his sons also have been named as defendants in more
than 40 civil lawsuits, including one the company filed the
day of their arrests. The Rigases resigned their executive
positions with the company in May. Later that month, the family
agreed to turn over $1 billion in assets to help cover loans,
to turn over $567 million in cash flow from other cable companies
the family owns, and to pledge all stock held by the family
as collateral. Adelphia estimated it was liable for $3.1 billion
in family debts.
From Nando Times-Business, by Devlin Barrett,
23 September 2002
Finance leaders upbeat
on economy
Washington - Hundreds of protesters
arrested as world's top finance ministers begin a weekend
of meetings in D.C. - Global finance leaders sought to project
an air of confidence Friday that the world economy can continue
rebounding from last year's slump, even though stocks are
sagging, crises persist in Latin America, and the threat of
a U.S. war with Iraq looms. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill,
opening a meeting of finance ministers from Western Hemisphere
nations in Washington, acknowledged that many countries had
experienced economic troubles during the past year, but he
said he believed the United States had "weathered the
storms" by following sound policies to restore growth.
"I believe that every country in our hemisphere, by following
good policies, can create the conditions to weather the storms,
keep productivity strong and raise economic growth to higher,
sustainable levels," O'Neill told the group, gathered
at the U.S. Treasury. But meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators
chained themselves together, bicycled through downtown streets
and rallied at downtown parks, protesting against the Bush
administration's environmental policies, the World Bank and
"corporate greed." About 500 protesters were arrested
and one was slightly injured. Most of those taken into custody
were charged with blocking sidewalks or entrances and parading
without a permit. In addition to a recession last year in
the United States, a number of Latin American countries have
been experiencing further economic turmoil this year. Argentina
is struggling to escape from the worst recession in its history,
while fears are growing that Brazil, South America's largest
economy, might be forced to default on its debts. The finance
ministers of both Brazil and Argentina attended the early
morning session at Treasury, but neither spoke to reporters
as the meeting was beginning. Argentine Finance Minister Roberto
Lavagna has been particularly critical of the demands that
the International Monetary Fund is making as a condition for
extending critically needed new loans for his country. Sitting
in front of bank of flags from the 34 democratic nations in
the hemisphere, all but Cuba, O'Neill told reporters that
the group had a "busy agenda" that would include
a discussion of boosting productivity growth as a way of raising
living standards throughout the hemisphere, the crackdown
on terrorist financing, and ways to promote greater financial
stability, the last issue a topic of concern given the financial
market turmoil that has hit a number of other Latin American
countries. Mexican Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz said
he expected the discussions would produce "solid agreements
to fight money laundering and enter in a path of a more effective
coordination about our banking system." O'Neill's meeting
with finance ministers from the Western Hemisphere was a prelude
to discussions later Friday among the world's seven richest
industrial countries, as well as the opening Saturday of the
annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. This year's meetings
of the 184-nation lending institutions have been scaled back
from the normal week of activities and social events to two
days - Saturday and Sunday - to hold down security costs.
The global economy has been trying to recover from last year's
economic problems, including the first recession in the United
States in a decade, the repercussions of the Sept. 11 attacks,
and sharp stock market declines in a number of countries.
IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler said he still believes
economic recovery is on track even though his organization
has scaled back its forecast for global economic growth. "Since
the spring meetings, prospects for the global economy have
clearly weakened amid considerable financial market volatility,"
Koehler said. "But it would not be productive now to
dwell on undue pessimism. There are still good reasons to
expect the recovery to continue in the period ahead."
Asked if a U.S. war with Iraq could further destabilize the
world economy, Koehler said, "We don't think this has
an immediate impact on the recovery."
From CNNfn, 27 September 2002
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India's Privatization Drive Stalls
India's Drive Toward Privatization
Dealt Setback After Government Delays Sales - India's drive
toward privatization has been dealt a setback after the government
postponed the sale of stakes in two major oil companies, analysts
said Monday. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided Saturday
to delay the sales of the government's stakes in Hindustan
Petroleum Corp. Ltd. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. after
defense minister George Fernandes opposed the sales. The sales
were originally slated for this year, but the government has
decided to delay them by three months. The government had
expected to raise more than $1.2 billion from the sales. Analysts
said they viewed the decision as a clear victory for anti-privatization
factions in government. "It's certainly a setback (for
privatization)," said Renu Kohli, professor at the Indian
Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
Investors on India's stock markets were also dismayed by the
decision, pushing the 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock
Exchange down 51.64 points, or 1.6 percent, to 3,089.37 Monday.
"The heavy selling in oil shares reflected the pessimism
in the market over the delay of privatization of state-owned
oil companies," said Nitin Jain, a Bombay-based dealer
of IDBI Capital Market Services. Fernandes, who was previously
a trade union leader, told reporters he opposed the sales
because it would create a monopoly. He did not elaborate,
but the India's only private oil firm Reliance Industries
had shown interest in acquiring stakes in the state-owned
oil firms. The government had hoped to raise $2.4 billion
from privatization in the fiscal year ending March 2003. But
privatization minister Arun Shourie said Saturday the target
would not be met.
From ABC News-Business-Wire, 9 September
2002
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Britain Backs New Mobile Phone Recycling
Program
A British company launched a program
Tuesday to recycle some of the 15 million mobile phones and
phone accessories discarded here every year. The plan is part
of an effort to keep phones from clogging landfills when owners
upgrade to new models. A European Union directive makes phone
producers and distributors responsible for taking back and
recycling old handsets and accessories by 2004. "Over
15 million consumers upgrade their phones with accessories
such as batteries and chargers each year, which equates to
1,500 tons of potentially hazardous landfill every year,"
said Gordon Shields, chief executive of Shields Environmental,
which is running the program, dubbed Fonebak. Britain's five
main mobile phone operators -- O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin
Mobile and Vodafone -- pledged to work with Shields, as did
the Dixons Group, which includes the electronics chains Dixons,
Currys, The Link and PC World. The government also said it
would cooperate. "The fact that the mobile phone industry
in the U.K. has worked together to develop Fonebak demonstrates
a responsible commitment to the environment and sets the standard
for the mobile phone industry the world over," said environment
minister Michael Meacher. Shields will fund the program itself
and expects to cover its costs from selling the used phone
parts. It will also return some money to the phone service
providers, which could give discounts on new handsets to customers
who turn in their old ones. On the Net: http://www.fonebak.com/main.html.
From SiliconValley.com, 24 September 2002
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In Foundering Argentina, Entrepreneurs
Shift Gears
How four small-business owners have
stayed afloat in Argentina's economic crisis - Braving icy
temperatures on a Saturday morning, Carlos Arevalo strikes
out in the predawn darkness across central Argentina's Sierras
de Cordoba mountains in hopes of closing a deal. Mr. Arevalo
has sold everything from books to cement and even cold cuts,
crisscrossing the Argentina's back roads for over 30 years.
Now he sells plumbing supplies. He has survived a fair share
of recessions, but he hasn't seen anything like the current
one. "Seven months ago, when there was money, there wasn't
any problem," Arevalo says. "I could phone people
and they would just have me put the product on the truck.
Now you have to practically pull coins out of the people."
Arevalo is one of a breed of small-business survivors. In
the midst of the worst economic crisis in a century, Argentine
enterpreneurs are finding ways - through sheer grit, ingenuity,
and faith - to adapt and even prosper. To be sure, they're
fighting a stiff current. Though the economy grew by 0.9 percent
last quarter - the first increase in two years - unemployment
is at 25 percent, the peso has fallen 70 percent since devaluation
at the beginning of the year, and bankruptcies have soared.
And on Monday, the government said it may not be able to meet
its current obligations to international lenders, which could
trigger another default and push the country into even deeper
economic woes. But as in any tough period, those who succeed
are undaunted by the pessimism around them. These days Arevalo
is out on the road more, even on weekends. He logs some 2,000
miles each month, about twice as much as before the crisis.
But his returns have shrunk decidedly. On this call to one
of his most loyal customers, Alfredo Lopez, who owns a hardware
store in Villa Delores, Arevalo's commission for the 12-hour
day will be about $40, one-tenth of what it was less than
a year ago. "Every night, I ask God for one more day.
Anything else would be greedy," he says with a smile.
Arevalo isn't the only member of his family trying to stay
afloat. His sister, Carmen Nou, and her husband, Pablo, own
a plumbing-supplies store in Cordoba, Argentina's second-largest
city. They've had to adapt to meet the changing needs of Argentines
in today's flagging economy. The biggest difficulty for the
Nous is the lack of money in circulation. Since December,
the government has limited bank withdrawals. The freeze, or
corralito, caps withdrawals at just over $300 a month. With
little cash on hand, most people are buying only the necessities.
"Nobody is interested in buying a nice matching set to
replace their old bidet, toilet, and sink," says Mr.
Nou. "Instead they are repairing the problems in their
bathrooms and kitchens and spending as little as possible."
As a result, the Nous have changed their stock, focusing on
spare parts for repairs. The Nous, who typically work six
days a week, have been able to keep their doors open as countless
other family businesses close. Despite the difficulty, Carmen
Nou remains optimistic. She and her husband even hope to open
a new store at the end of the year. While the Nous try to
get by under the corralito, Belisario Rodriguez prospers from
it. Mr. Rodriguez, a Buenos Aires attorney with over 20 years'
experience, has found a new specialty: forcing banks to give
customers their money back. Although the corralito restricts
large withdrawals, the Supreme Court accepts appeals from
customers who challenge the law's constitutionality. These
appeals, known as amparos, are primarily reserved for the
elderly and infirm, who may need more money for special circumstances,
such as medical treatment. Since the restrictions began, more
than 140,000 amparos have been awarded, ranging from a few
thousand dollars to the millions. Rodriguez, who has filed
three amparos, relies on his old clients and word of mouth.
Having successfully argued each case, he is confident that
more people will come knocking on his door. The process has
become quite confrontational. On one occasion, Rodriguez threatened
to call the fire department to break open the vault before
the bank finally caved in and gave his client $40,000. "They
didn't think I was serious until I pulled out my cellphone
and dialed," he says. Rodriguez's cut is typically 10
to 15 percent of the award, depending on his relationship
with the client. Although he still has other work, Rodriguez
is happy to have found a new niche. "Amparos arrived
like a gift," he says. But, it is unclear how much longer
Rodriguez and other lawyers will be presenting these cases.
Two weeks ago, a lower court ruled unanimously that some of
the government's efforts to stabilize the economy, including
the corralito, are unconstitutional. President Eduard Duhalde
is appealing the decision to the country's Supreme Court.
Even the smallest of small-business owners are changing to
survive. Roberto Montes runs a kiosk in Floresta, one of Buenos
Aires' many neighborhoods. For years he has sold packs of
gum, soft drinks, and beer. When the crisis came last December,
Mr. Montes saw a golden opportunity for his little shop. "Since
I sell [drinks] and snacks at a lower price than bars and
discos, people can still afford to stop by," says Montes.
When he noticed that more customers were hanging around the
shop, he decided to place a few tables on the sidewalk. Then
he added a foosball table and his corner store was transformed
into a local hot-spot. Across the city, ubiquitous kiosks
are challenging bars and cafes for the ever-shrinking share
of the entertainment market. While the discos are having a
hard time attracting customers, kiosks are full every weekend.
Some in Buenos Aires don't like the way their sidewalks have
been transformed into the local watering hole. Mariana Alfaro
who owns a bed and breakfast complains that "the customers
at the kiosks don't respect the neighborhood and leave trash
everywhere." She also adds that the kiosks don't have
a license to sell alcohol for on-site consumption. While she
doesn't file formal complaints, she hopes that the police
start to crack down. Montes doesn't think that he is causing
any problems, he looks at his business as a service to the
neighborhood. "What are they going to do, close the only
affordable bars in Buenos Aires down?" he asks.
From Christian Science Monitor-Americas,
by Adam Raney, 25 September 2002
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