Civil Service Reform

Civil Service Reform
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A20
LIKE MOTHERHOOD or apple pie, "performance-based pay" -- the concept that ostensibly lies at the heart of the civil service reform unveiled at the Department of Homeland Security last week -- is something everybody loves. That better employees should be paid more; that managers should be able to fire the incompetent; that the federal government should offer pay that at least competes with the private sector; that our civil service should be more flexible in the post-Sept. 11 world: None of that is controversial. What is controversial -- and what could be extremely damaging, if not carefully monitored -- are some of the reform's other effects, intended or otherwise.
We have three areas of doubt. The first concerns potential problems with the "performance-based" system itself. At the moment, the vast majority of federal employees are graded either on a five-point scale, from "unsatisfactory" to "outstanding," or on a "pass-fail" criterion that offers no precise definition of "good performance." The vast majority of government managers have no experience making more sophisticated evaluations. Training managers will take an enormous amount of time and money, both of which the government is notoriously stingy about committing. Although DHS's published regulatory schedule calls for some of its employees to be subject to the new system as soon as next fall, no criteria have been published, and no pilot program has been launched. Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institution, an advocate of civil service reform, calls the current timetable "wildly optimistic."
Without clear performance criteria and management training, civil service "reform" could slide into civil service politicization: To put it bluntly, if managers can get rid of people whom they perceive as politically unsound simply by handing out bad evaluations, it won't be long before civil servants cease to be politically neutral. DHS and the Office of Personnel Management argue vociferously that the new system contains all of the same protections against politicization as does the old. But the new regulations do reduce the power of some neutral arbitrators. They also appear to raise the standard for employee appeals, which will make it harder to get a disciplinary decision overturned.
Finally, and most worrisomely, the new system appears to undermine government trade unions in ways that are hard to justify. The government already has the ability to bypass unions -- and in particular their right to negotiate working conditions -- in case of a national emergency. Now administration spokesmen argue that they may also need to bypass unions in case of potential emergencies, or simply because they need flexibility. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, calls this claim "disingenuous" and argues that the changes simply use homeland security as an excuse to "remove employees' rights in a much broader area." It would be nice to believe the administration's fervent denials of a plot to destroy the mostly Democratic unions. But before we do, we'd like to see some clearer arguments from the administration about what the elimination of union bargaining has to do with either the nation's safety or civil service performance.
Before these proposals go further -- the Defense Department is preparing similar reform -- Congress ought to look more closely. Lawmakers should consider legislation that sets broad parameters for performance criteria, an appeals process that preserves civil service neutrality and union involvement. These changes are potentially too political to be left to the managers directly involved.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Homeland Security Policies To Bring Big Changes
By Stephen BarrSunday, January 30, 2005; Page C02
It looks like federal employees are about to take a ride on the reform roller coaster.
The Department of Homeland Security has nailed down its policies for a new personnel system that will markedly change the way 110,000 civil service employees are paid, promoted, deployed and disciplined. The system will launch this spring, with curbs on union rights and a tighter process for appealing disciplinary action. There will be dramatic changes in how employees are rated on job performance, starting with about 10,000 employees later this year, and gradually phasing in more.
The Defense Department selected 60,000 employees last month for the first phase of its new personnel system -- which will eventually cover 300,000 employees -- and hopes to announce proposed rules in the next few weeks. The Pentagon estimates that revamped pay and workplace rules will be in place by 2008, affecting all of the department's 746,000 civil service employees.
Shortly after Homeland Security unveiled its new personnel system, PresidentBush's administration said it will propose legislation to give other agencies the ability to restructure their pay, personnel, labor relations and related systems.
It's probably safe to say that 2005 is shaping up as one of the most dramatic years for changes in civil service policy since 1978, when Congress approved the Civil Service Reform Act.
That law locked in the 15-grade General Schedule for pay, encouraged bonuses to reward good performance and created agencies to administer personnel rules, hear labor-management disputes and provide due process for employees faced with discipline or management reprisal.
Although Homeland Security and Defense pledge to retain employee protections and continue to give veterans a preference in hiring, it seems clear that major parts of the civil service framework, only 27 years old, will soon be dismantled and rebuilt.
For example, Homeland Security will phase out the General Schedule and the annual raise approved by Congress. Recommendations on pay raises will come from a Compensation Committee, made up of 14 members, with four seats reserved for unions. Final decisions on pay will be made by the secretary.
The General Schedule will be replaced with a pay system based on occupation, national and local labor markets and job performance.
The GS grades will be converted into "pay bands," which have wider salary ranges than the GS provides. Salaries in the bands will vary by occupation and by labor market, potentially allowing the department to pay more to a Border Patrol agent in Southern California, which has a competitive job market, than an agent working on Montana's border with Canada.
The pay bands will likely group occupations into common categories -- such as new hires, full performance employees, senior experts and supervisors.
Most Homeland Security employees will receive two annual pay adjustments -- a market adjustment, which keeps them on a par with similar jobs in the private sector and GS increases, and a performance raise, which will vary in size according to job rating. Employees who are turning in unacceptable performance at work will not receive any annual pay increases.
The department also will create a Homeland Security Labor Relations Board, with three members appointed by the secretary, to sort out union and management disagreements. The department will establish a separate panel to hear cases of employees who are being fired because of serious infractions and gross violations of duty.
Under the current system, unions take their complaints to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and employees turn to the Merit Systems Protection Board when appealing stiff disciplinary actions. The two independent agencies will continue to handle some Homeland Security matters, but on a diminished and more expedited basis.
The department has worked on the regulations for the new system for two years, sparking employee complaints that the framework for the new system is too vague, too difficult to understand and looks open to abuse by managers.
The employees are not far off point. Department officials say much work remains ahead -- such as defining occupational clusters, setting up pay bands, establishing rigorous job performance standards and figuring out what should be mandatory firing offenses.

Arab Media Focus on Voting, Not Violence

January 31, 2005
Arab Media Focus on Voting, Not ViolenceBy HASSAN M. FATTAH
MMAN, Jordan, Jan. 30 - Sometime after the first insurgent attack in Iraq on Sunday morning, news directors at Arab satellite channels and newspaper editors found themselves facing an altogether new decision. Should they report on the violence, or continue to cover the elections themselves?
After nearly two years of providing up-to-the-minute images of explosions and mayhem, and despite months of predictions of a blood bath on election day, some news directors said they found the decision surprisingly easy to make. The violence simply was not the story on Sunday morning; the voting was.
Overwhelmingly, Arab channels and newspapers greeted the elections as a critical event with major implications for the region, and many put significant resources into reporting on the voting, providing blanket coverage throughout the country that started about a week ago. Newspapers kept wide swaths of their pages open, and the satellite channels dedicated most of the day to coverage of the polls.
Often criticized for glorifying Iraq's violence if not inciting it, Arab news channels appeared to take particular care in their election day reporting. For many channels, the elections were treated on a par with the invasion itself, on which the major channels helped build their names.
Far from the almost nightly barrage of blood and tears, Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, the kings of Arab news, on Sunday barely showed the aftermath of insurgent attacks.
Instead, the channels opted to report on the attacks in news tickers, and as part of the hourly news broadcasts, keeping their focus on coverage and analysis of the elections.
"There was a fear that some broadcasters will overdo coverage of violence, but we chose not to play that game," said Nakhle el-Hage, director of news and current affairs at the satellite channel Al Arabiya, which is based in Dubai and is popular in Iraq. "We were expecting violence and when something happened, we put a news flash but then continued our coverage."
News directors at Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar and has been banned from operating in Iraq since last summer, were also aware of the risks of overplaying the violence.
Ayman Jaballah, deputy chief of news at Al Jazeera, said the channel would get news of the attacks from news agencies and put it in the ticker that scrolls across the screen, "but they will not take over the show."
"We will give them their fair share of coverage, but we won't just report violence for the sake of it."
For many Arabs, the strong turnout on election day proved a unique opening, one that made the debate on television screens more nuanced. On Al Jazeera, especially, many Iraqis lauded the process even as analysts from other Arab countries and Iraqis tied to the former government of Saddam Hussein denounced the elections for having occurred under occupation, and for having been centered on sectarian issues.
"Things used to be a negotiation between political parties where you scratch my back and I scratch your back," noted one commentator, Abas al-Bayati, on Al Jazeera. "Now, this new government will approach all the parties as having the backing of the people. It will have legitimacy." And that legitimacy should allow the government to face down the insurgents, he added.
With the relative lack of violence, many nerves appeared calmed. Iraqis, especially, may have been emboldened by the coverage.
"What was important is that the satellite channels were taking us throughout the region, and also showed everyone how Iraqis outside Iraq were adamant and focused on voting," said Imad Hmoud, editor in chief of the newspaper Al Ghad in Jordan. "That was very important for people, especially Iraqis, to see."
"In the end the coverage was a success - not perfect, but a success under the conditions," he added.
The daylong reporting of the election process, details on the personalities and almost step-by-step guides to the voting were a significant departure from what the Arab news media had produced for some time.
Perhaps the most ambitious effort came from Al Arabiya, which had eight satellite trucks broadcasting from across Iraq, as well as numerous video phone links from Mosul, Baquba, Ramadi and elsewhere, and live feeds from neighboring countries. To give emphasis to elections coverage, Al Arabiya also built a special studio at its headquarters in Dubai for the event. Al Arabiya executives did not disclose the cost for the effort but said it was significant.
"We think this is a very important event, not just in Iraq but in the Arab world," Mr. Hage said. "It's the first real democratic event in the whole region and it deserved the attention." Giving the event such special attention, Mr. Hage said, would help build Al Arabiya's brand as a critical news source, if not expand its viewership.
For Al Jazeera, covering the elections proved more complex, but the channel had just as ambitious an agenda. Al Jazeera's offices in Iraq were closed more than six months ago by the interim government for what it called inflammatory coverage, and the channel was prohibited from operating in the country. But it devised ways of providing broad coverage nevertheless, using journalists still on its payroll to provide reports by telephone, as well as freelance and news agency film and correspondents based in Jordan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and elsewhere.
But some analysts warn that the most important part of the election is far from over. The counting of ballots, which began Sunday evening, was expected to take up to 10 days.
"There's been a collective decision to treat this as a gigantic event," said Gordon Robison, director of the Middle East Media Project for the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. "It is, but unlike a British or American election where you get the results at the end of the day, you will be waiting a while."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/international/middleeast/31press.html?th

Wsj, gigante telefonia Sbc pronto a comprare AT&T

31 gennaio 2005 08.16
Wsj, gigante telefonia Sbc pronto a comprare AT&T

NEW YORK - La Sbc Communications, uno dei giganti della telefonia regionale degli Usa, ha deciso di acquistare lo storico colosso telefonico americano AT&T per 16 miliardi di dollari. A riferire dell'accordo è il Wall Street Journal, nella sua edizione online, secondo il quale un voto per approvare l'accordo è previsto dai consigli di amministrazione delle due società nella giornata odierna.La Sbc, con sede a San Antonio in Texas, è la seconda maggiore società regionale di telefonia degli Usa, attiva soprattutto nel Sud e nel Midwest del paese. AT&T è invece da 120 anni - durante i quali ha cambiato nome e assetti - un'icona della telefonia americana, con circa 30 milioni di clienti.

SDA-ATS
http://www.swissinfo.org/sit/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5504526

Manifesto di Porto Alegre - Dodici proposte per un altro mondo

Europace - Appelli http://italy.peacelink.org/europace/articles/art_9383.html
31 gennaio 2005ore 14:46
Forum sociale mondiale 2005
Manifesto di Porto Alegre - Dodici proposte per un altro mondo
Un gruppo di 19 intellettuali di tutto il mondo, alcuni dei quali membri del Consiglio internazionale del Forum, hanno tenuto una affollatissima conferenza stampa a Porto Alegre, il 29 gennaio, nella quale hanno annunciato di avere insieme redatto un manifesto con le dodici proposte essenziali del Forum.
Nicola Vallinoto [mailto:nicola.vallinoto@eculture.org]
Fonte: www.carta.org
30 gennaio 2005
Aminata Traoré, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Eduardo Galeano, José Saramago, Francois Houtart, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Armand Mattelart, Roberto Savio, Riccardo Petrella, Ignacio Ramonet, Bernard Cassen, Samir Amin, Atilio Boron, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, Tariq Ali, Frei Betto, Emir Sader, Walden Bello, Immanuel Wallerstein.
Ecco i primi firmatari del Manifesto di Porto Alegre. Essi hanno ribadito che l'iniziativa è a titolo personale, non impegna il Forum sociale mondiale né è direttamente collegabile con il Consiglio internazionale del Forum di cui molti dei firmatari fanno parte.
Il Manifesto di Porto Alegre è suddiviso in tre parti e dodici tesi. Eccolo nella sua versione integrale:
Manifesto di Porto Alegre
Dopo il primo Forum sociale mondiale tenutosi a Porto Alegre nel 2001, il fenomeno dei Forum sociali si è esteso a tutti i continenti, fino a toccare i livelil nazionali e locali. Ha fatto emergere uno spazio pubblico planetario della cittadinanza e delle lotte.
Ha permesso di elaborare proposte di politiche alternative alla tirannia della globalizzazione neoliberista promossa dai mercati finanziari e dalle multinazionali, delle quali il potere imperiale degli Stati uniti costituisce il braccio armato. Per questa diversitá e per la solidarietá tra gli attori e i movimenti sociali che lo compongono, il movimento altermondialista è ormai una forza che ha peso a livello mondiale.Nella ricchezza infinita di proposte espresse nei Forum, ce ne sono un gran numero che sembrano raccogliere un larghissimo consenso tra i movimenti sociali. Tra queste, i firmatari del Manifesto di Porto Alegre, che parlano a titolo strettamente personale e non pretendono in alcun modo di parlare a nome del Forum, ne hanno identificate dodici che sono al tempo stesso il senso e il progetto per la costruzione di un altro mondo possibile. Se fossero applicate, permetterebbero ai cittadini di cominciare a riappropriarsi tutti assieme del loro futuro.
Questa soglia minima è sottoposta all'approvazione degli attori dei movimenti sociali di tutti i paesi. A loro spetterá, a tutti i livelli, - mondiale, continentale, nazionale e locale - di condurre la battaglia necessaria perché divengano realtá. Non ci facciamo nessuna illusione sulla volontá reale dei governi e delle istituzioni internazionali di mettere in opera spontaneamente queste proposte, anche quando, per opportunismo, si appropriano del loro vocabolario.
A. Un altro mondo possibile deve rispettare il diritto alla vita per tutti gli esseri umani con nuove regole in economia.
Bisogna dunque:
1. Annullare il debito pubblico del paesi del Sud, che è giá stato pagato molte volte e che costituisce, per gli stati creditori, i centri della finanza le istituzioni finanziarie internazionali, il mezzo privilegiato per mettere la maggior parte dell'umanita' sotto la loro tutela e mantenerla nella miseria.
2. Mettere in opera tasse internazionali sulle transazioni finanziarie (in particolare la Tassa Tobin sulal speculazione sulle monete), sugli investimenti diretti all'estero, sui profitti consolidati della transnazionali, sulle vendite di armi e sulle attivita' a forte emissione di gas serra.
3. Smantellare progressivamente tutte le forme di paradiso fiscale, giudiziario e bancario, che sono allo stesso tempo dei rifugi della criminalita' organizzata, della corruzione, dei traffici di ogni genere, della frode e dell'evasione fiscale, delle operazioni criminalid elle grandi imprese, o dei governi.
4. Fare del diritto di ogni abitante del pianeta a un lavoro, alla protezione sociale e alla pensione, e nel rispetto dell'eguaglianza tra uomini e donne, un imperativo delle politiche pubbliche, nazionali e internazionali.
5. Promuovere tutte le forme di commercio equo rifiutando le regole del libero scambio della Wto e mettendo in campo meccanismi che permettano, nel processo di produzione dei beni e servizi, di andare progressivamente all'allineamento verso l'altro delle norme sociali (come sono state cosegnate nelle convenzioni dell'Oit) e ambientali. Escludere del tutto l'educazione, la salute, i servizi sociali e la cultura dal campo di applicazione dell'Accordo generale sul commercio dei servizi (Gats) della Wto. La convenzione sulla diversitá culturale attualmente in discussione all'Unesco deve fare esplicitamente prevalere il diritto alla cultura e alle politiche pubbliche di sostegno alla cultura sul diritto del commercio.
6. Garantire il diritto alla sovranità e alla sicurezza alimentare di ciascun paese o raggruppamento di paesi attraverso la promozione della cultura contadina. Tutto questo comporta la soppressione totale delle sovvenzioni all'esportazione di prodotti agricoli in primo luogo da parte di Usa e Ue e la possibilità di tassare le importazioni al fine di impedire pratiche di dumping. Allo stesso modo ciascun paese o raggruppamento di paesi deve poter decidere l'interdizione della produzione e dell'importazione di organismi geneticamente modificati destinati all'alimentazione.7. Proibire ogni forma di brevettabilitá delle conoscenze e del vivente (umano, animale e vegetale) cosí come ogni forma di privatizzazione dei beni comuni dell'umanitá, l'acqua in particolare.
B. Un altro mondo possibile deve incoraggiare il "vivere insieme" nella pace e nella giustizia a scala dell'umanitá. Occorre dunque:
8. Lottare, in primo luogo nelle diverse politiche pubbliche, contro tutte le forme di discriminazione, di sessismo, di xenofobia, di razzismo e di antisemitismo. Riconoscere pienamente i diritti politici, culturali ed economici (compreso il controllo delle loro risorse naturali) dei popoli indigeni.
9. Prendere misure urgenti per mettere fine al saccheggio dell'ambiente e alla minaccia dei cambiamenti climatici aggravati dall'effetto serra e risultanti in primo luogo dalla moltiplicazione dei trasporti e dallo sfruttamento delle energie non rinnovabili. Cominciare a mettere in opera un altro modo dello sviluppo fondato sulla sobrietá energetica e sul controllo democratico delle risorse naturali, in particolare l'acqua potabile, a scala planetaria.
10. Esigere lo smantellamento delle basi militari dei paesi che ne dispongono fuori dalle loro frontiere, e il ritiro di tutte le truppe straniere, salvo mandato espresso dell'Onu.
C. Un altro mondo possibile deve promuovere la democrazia dal locale al globale.
Bisogna dunque:
11. Garantire per legge il diritto all'informazione e il diritto di informare: mettendo fine alla concentrazione dei media in gruppi di grande dimensione; garantire l'autonomia dei giornalisti nei loro rapporti con gli editori; e favorendo la stampa senza fine di lucro, soprattutto i media alternativi e comunitari. Il rispetto di questi diritti implica la messa in campo di contro-poteri cittadini, in particolare nelal forma di Osservatori nazionali e internazionali dei media.
12. Riformare e democratizzare profondamente le organizzazioni internazionali, tra cui l'Onu, e far prevalere i diritti umani, economici, sociali e culturali contenuti nella dichiarazione universale dei diritti dell'uomo. Questa prioritá implica l'incorporazione della Banca mondiale, del Fondo Monetario Internazionale e della Wto nel sistema e nei meccanismi di decisione delle Nazioni Unite. In caso di persistenza di violazione della legalitá internazionale da parte degli Stati uniti, bisognerá trasferire la sede delle Nazioni Unite da New York in un altro paese preferibilmente del Sud.
Aminata Traoré, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Eduardo Galeano, José Saramago, Francois Houtart, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Armand Mattelart, Roberto Savio, Riccardo Petrella, Ignacio Ramonet, Bernard Cassen, Samir Amin, Atilio Boron, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, Tariq Ali, Frei Betto, Emir Sader, Walden Bello, Immanuel Wallerstein.
Nicola VallinotoRedazione di Europace
Note:
Forum sociale mondiale:http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br [http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br]

U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants

January 30, 2005
U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials SayBy MARC SANTORA
IDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say.
In 1990, as many as 2,000 babies were born infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; now, that number has been reduced to a bit more than 200 a year, according to health officials. In New York City, the center of the epidemic, there were 321 newborns infected with H.I.V. in 1990, the year the virus peaked among newborns in the city. In 2003, five babies were born with the virus.
Across the country, mother-to-child transmission of H.I.V. has dropped so sharply that public health officials now talk about wiping it out.
"This is a dramatic and wonderful success story," said Dr. Vicki Peters, the head of pediatric surveillance for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. This winter, Dr. Peters presented a report in Bangkok for World AIDS Day documenting the improvement in New York.
The success in fighting mother-to-child transmission, a sweeping victory for public health officials, was made possible largely because of better drugs, but aggressive public education and testing, as well as cooperation at the federal and local levels, also played a significant role.
The advent of AZT, a drug used to attack H.I.V. in the blood and central nervous system, was critical. But equally important was simply getting mothers to know their H.I.V. status before they gave birth, a problem complicated by privacy and political and social issues.
Much of the developing world continues to be ravaged by AIDS, however. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than two million people died of the disease last year. "We have had incredible progress," said Dr. Lynne Mofenson, the chief of the Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health. "But if you think about the U.S. and New York and then you think about Africa, it is like a tale of two cities, a tale of two epidemics."
The advances in this country are considered stunning, given the scope of the problem two decades ago.
"What we were grappling with was death," said Dr. Stephen Nicholas, a pediatric AIDS specialist at Harlem Hospital Center, remembering the late 1980's and early 1990's. "We were preoccupied by death."
As AIDS spread from the gay community to drug users, women and finally their children, Dr. Nicholas recalled, frustration and hopelessness grew. At his hospital, 30 to 40 babies were dying a year. Mothers were giving birth to H.I.V.-infected children at an alarming rate across the country, estimated at 2,000 a year. While health officials did not track infant H.I.V. cases nationwide, they did count infants with AIDS, a figure that peaked near 900 in 1992. New York City was especially hard hit, accounting for about 22 percent of the infant infections.
Central Harlem and the South Bronx had the highest rates of infection in the country. Yvonne, a 37-year-old woman from the Bronx, gave birth in 1994 at Harlem Hospital Center, and learned that both she and the baby had H.I.V. only after the child, her second, began developing strange rashes and swollen glands.
"I got hysterical and I went into a rage and I started throwing things," said Yvonne, who asked that her last name not be used because her friends do not know she has H.I.V. "I thought everyone was lying and out to get me. I got really scared, to where I really didn't want to touch my child.
"I thought I was going to die. I thought me and my children were going to die. I just assumed we all were doomed."
Just after Yvonne gave birth, the tide began to turn. Several months after her son was born, a groundbreaking study was completed that changed the way pregnant women infected with H.I.V. would be treated.
Doctors suspected that AZT could be effective at reducing the presence of the virus in the bloodstream and significantly decreasing the chances of transmission, but there was reluctance to give the drug to pregnant women. Eventually, faced with thousands of sick babies, the National Institutes of Health allowed a test in which some mothers were given a course of AZT and others were given a placebo. Public health officials anxiously awaited the results.
"I remember the day," Dr. Mofenson said, recalling when the results were released in 1994. "It was absolutely incredible."
The study showed a 67 percent reduction in the risk of transmission.
Moving with unusual speed, the federal government immediately allowed the women in the study group who had been taking placebos to switch to AZT, Dr. Mofenson said, and the babies born to those mothers also had a lower H.I.V. infection rate. Soon, women across the country were being treated.
With no intervention, the likelihood that an infected mother will pass H.I.V. to her child is 20 to 25 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A year after the introduction of AZT treatment, the risk had dropped to 8 percent, Dr. Mofenson said.
Since then, a combination of ever better drugs, more rigorous testing and partner notification, and greater awareness of the necessity of safe sex practices has contributed to reducing the risk even further.
AZT was most effective if taken during the second trimester and administered during labor. But many women, like Yvonne, had little if any prenatal care and did not know whether they had H.I.V. Dr. Lucia Torian, the director of H.I.V. surveillance for the city's health department, said that in the first years treatment was available, the city and state were still finding infected mothers only when they gave birth to infected children.
The stigma of AIDS posed a significant barrier to the flow of vital information. While the state started an AIDS surveillance program in 1981 and tested all newborns for H.I.V. beginning in 1988, for years the program was conducted blind, meaning that no names were attached to the data. If a mother gave birth to a sick child, she would not be told that she or the child had H.I.V. Often the mother would not learn that both had the infection until the baby showed serious, usually fatal symptoms. And health workers did not track down and notify sexual partners of those who had the disease, a standard practice with other sexually transmitted diseases.
David Rosner, a professor of public health history at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said the fear that AIDS patients would suffer discrimination was not without reason.
"When this disease struck, it was often seen as being brought on by the individual himself," he said, noting that in other epidemics - from tuberculosis to cholera - a similar reaction had occurred.
Dr. Guthrie S. Birkhead, director of the AIDS Institute and the Center for Community Health at the New York State Department of Health, said that in 1997 the state finally began attaching patient information to the newborn H.I.V. tests it conducted and then passing that information along to a patient's doctor, so that mothers could get treatment.
In 1998, a state law was passed that required hospitals to conduct immediate testing of newborns. The results could be learned in 12 hours, and patients could be treated promptly.
"The newborn testing became a safety net," Dr. Birkhead said.
Although New York was hit harder by AIDS than any other state, New York lagged when it came to AIDS reporting, said Dr. Torian, of the city's health department.
"It is very hard for us to understand at this point," Dr. Torian said. "It felt from the public health point of view, and even from the personal view of the mother, not to be a rational stance."
In the last four years, only one baby has been born with H.I.V. at Harlem Hospital Center. Gone are the days when every bed in an orphanage created to take in children born with H.I.V. was filled as quickly as it became available.
The city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the turnaround in New York was "absolutely a success story." But he cautioned that there was more to be done. He ticked off all the information he has at his fingertips when it comes to a disease like tuberculosis - from the type of drugs patients are taking to key lab tests to whether they are responding well to treatment - and noted that no similar system existed to closely monitor H.I.V. and AIDS.
"We're not legally able to collect that information, and even if we were, New York State law would prevent us from using this data to improve patient outcomes," he said, referring to state privacy laws.
And success in treating AIDS has raised the concern that the public may be growing complacent about AIDS prevention. A survey conducted by the city's health department in 2003 showed that 40 percent of people who had sex with multiple partners said they did not use condoms.
But as the struggle with pediatric AIDS shows, much can be accomplished when there are a clear focus and a concerted effort. Not only are children born with H.I.V. living longer, mothers now can take action to make sure they never pass on the virus, and there is anecdotal evidence that many now feel free to have more children.
Yvonne and her H.I.V.-positive son, who just turned 11, are leading full lives. She had another child 14 months ago, this time getting treatment during her pregnancy that allowed her to give birth to a healthy baby, free of the virus.
"We don't need to be bringing sick babies into the world," Yvonne said. "We need to let everyone know it is still out there, but we can do something about it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/nyregion/30aids.html?th

Congressional Republicans Agree To Launch Social Security Campaign

Congressional Republicans Agree To Launch Social Security Campaign
By Mike AllenWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, January 31, 2005; Page A04
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. -- Congressional Republicans, after three months of internal debate, this weekend launched a months-long campaign to try to convince constituents that rewriting the Social Security law would be cheaper and less risky than leaving it alone, as the White House opened a campaign to pressure several Senate Democrats to support the changes.
The Republicans left an annual retreat in the Allegheny Mountains with a 104-page playbook titled "Saving Social Security," a deliberate echo of the language President Bill Clinton used to argue that the retirement system's trust fund should be built up in anticipation of the baby boomers' retirement.
The congressional Republicans' confidential plan was developed with the advice of pollsters, marketing experts and communication consultants, and was provided to The Washington Post by a Republican official. The blueprint urges lawmakers to promote the "personalization" of Social Security, suggesting ownership and control, rather than "privatization," which "connotes the total corporate takeover of Social Security." Democratic strategists said they intend to continue fighting the Republican plan by branding it privatization, and assert that depiction is already set in people's minds.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plans to say Monday in a "prebuttal" to President Bush's State of the Union address that her party will not "let a guaranteed benefit become a guaranteed gamble."
The Republican's book, with a golden nest egg on the cover, urges the GOP to "talk in simple language," "keep the numbers small," "avoid percentages; your audience will try to calculate them in their head" and "acknowledge risks," because listeners "know they can lose their investments."
Party leaders said the gathering marked a change from debating how gingerly to take on Social Security, to beginning to work aggressively on doing it while trying to minimize the political risk.
Although reservations remain among lawmakers who might be vulnerable to a Democratic challenge, the White House and congressional Republicans tried to reassure critics by refining the substance and packaging of the ideas. Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, told the group that Bush's proposal for the accounts, which would allow younger workers to put some of their payroll taxes into stocks and bonds, would be conservatively structured to give people only a few choices, similar to a federal plan to which many lawmakers belong.
Bush, who rarely mentions his daughters in public, referred to the twins during a passionate, closed-door question period Friday in which he contended that today's workers will be disappointed when they retire if nothing is done.
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who as majority whip is the House's chief vote counter, said that during the retreat, members went "from being cautious to being cautiously optimistic" about passing Social Security legislation this year. He acknowledged that in taking on an issue that has been a strength of Democrats for generations, the GOP is "way out there beyond our defenses."
"We realize that almost everything has to go right to get this done," Blunt said. "This is such a hard thing to do that it wouldn't take much for us to not be able to do it. We absolutely couldn't even consider it if we didn't have the president's total commitment to do everything he can do to lead this debate."
Lawmakers said a turning point came Friday when House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who has been leery of taking on Social Security, argued that the caucus had a "moral obligation" to do so.
During the three-day gathering at the Greenbrier resort, Republicans resolved to devote hundreds of town meetings and PowerPoint presentations to Social Security in their states and districts.
Bush will kick off the offensive by using his State of the Union address on Wednesday to build a sense of urgency, then will embark on a flurry of travel that begins with trips on Thursday and Friday to the home states of six senators that Republican strategists have targeted as possible supporters of a Social Security overhaul. The president carried all five states in 2004.
The senators are Bill Nelson (Fla.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.), who are all up for reelection; Max Baucus (Mont.), the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, who supported Bush's 2001 tax cut, along with Ben Nelson; and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.), potential swing votes. Lincoln supported Bush's first tax cut.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49938-2005Jan30.html?nav=hcmodule

Saving Social SecurityA Balanced ApproachPeter A. Diamond and Peter R. OrszagBrookings Institution Press 2003 c. 230pp. Cloth Text, 0-8157-1838-1, $32.95
http://www.brook.edu/press/books/savingsocialsecurity.htm

January 31, 2005
Employers Can Get Medicare Subsidies for Lower BenefitsBy ROBERT PEAR
ASHINGTON, Jan. 30 - The Bush administration has touched off a furious debate with new rules allowing employers to collect billions of dollars in federal subsidies for prescription drug benefits less generous than what many retirees were expecting under the new Medicare law.
In theory, those retiree benefits should be at least equal in value to the new Medicare drug benefit. But that will not always be the case, according to Medicare officials, labor unions and specialists in employee benefits.
In comparing retiree benefits with Medicare, the administration said, many employers will be able to ignore Medicare's catastrophic coverage, which helps people with high drug costs and accounts for about one-fourth of the annual value of the standard Medicare drug benefit, $300 out of $1,220.
Final rules for the new program were published Friday in the Federal Register. The new drug benefit becomes available next January.
In issuing the rules, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the federal subsidies would reverse the erosion of retiree health benefits and enable employers to "offer high-quality retiree coverage at a much lower cost." To qualify, Dr. McClellan said, employers must provide coverage "as good as or better than" the standard Medicare drug benefit.
But JoAnn C. Volk, a health policy analyst at the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, "The rules allow an employer to get the subsidy for a benefit that is less valuable to retirees than what they would receive if they signed up for the Medicare drug benefit and the employer dropped coverage altogether."
Retirees can sign up for Medicare drug coverage if they think it is better than an employer's plan. Employers get no subsidy for such retirees. But it may be difficult for beneficiaries to compare the options available to them, which are likely to have different premiums and co-payments and to cover different medicines.
In the final rules, the administration said it had tried to balance two "potentially competing objectives": maximizing the number of employers who qualify for subsidies and "providing greater protection to beneficiaries."
The new Medicare drug benefit represents the largest expansion of Medicare since the program was created in 1965. Employers are now the largest source of drug coverage for retirees, and Congress wanted to encourage them to continue providing drug benefits, in part because their contributions save money for Medicare.
Accordingly, Congress authorized subsidies for employers who provide a retiree drug benefit at least as generous as Medicare's.
But the value of the standard Medicare benefit, especially the catastrophic coverage, for people with very high drug costs and multiple chronic conditions, is subject to different interpretation.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare will spend $71 billion on employer subsidies from 2006 to 2013. The maximum subsidy in 2006 will be $1,330 per retiree. Medicare officials say the average subsidy payment will be $668 per retiree.
The future of retiree health benefits is a huge issue. For more than a decade, employers have been cutting retiree health benefits. Since Medicare already covers doctors' services and hospital care, prescription drugs account for a sizable share of the current cost of retiree health plans, 40 percent to 60 percent, by some estimates.
Congress hoped the new subsidies would give employers an incentive to continue providing retiree drug benefits. Two recent surveys found that many employers intended to do so, at least in 2006.
Also at issue are the standards for use of subsidies and the pivotal role that actuaries will play.
Congress defined the standard Medicare drug benefit. But not wanting to dictate the details, lawmakers will let employers and insurers offer different benefits if an actuary certifies that their value is at least equal to that of the standard coverage.
Under the law, Medicare officials said, they have broad discretion to specify how the value of drug benefits will be measured. Medicare is defining "equivalence" in a way that differs from what many retirees had expected, based on a layman's understanding of the term. Dr. McClellan said that in many cases it would not be a close call, because employers had better drug benefits than Medicare, and in any event, he added, retirees would be better off because the subsidies would enable employers to continue providing coverage.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average cost of providing the Medicare drug benefit will be $1,640 for each person who signs up in 2006. Beneficiaries will pay about one-fourth of the cost in premiums, expected to average $35 a month or $420 a year, and the government will pay the remainder, $1,220.
Kathryn L. Bakich, vice president of the Segal Company, an employee benefits consulting firm, said, "The government share of the Medicare drug benefit is approximately $1,200 a year, but under the new rules, some employers can qualify for the subsidy if they provide a retiree drug benefit worth $900 to $1,000."
About 11.4 million retirees have drug coverage from former employers. In issuing rules for the new subsidy, administration officials said, they wanted to encourage employers to continue providing coverage without allowing them to obtain a windfall at taxpayers' expense.
Under the rules, employers cannot shift all costs to retirees. But Ms. Volk said employers could reduce retiree coverage so it would, in some cases, be less attractive than the Medicare benefit.
Paul W. Dennett, vice president of the American Benefits Council, a trade group for large employers, said the rules gave employers what they wanted: "a lot of flexibility in structuring retiree health benefits." As a result, Mr. Dennett said, "companies will be more likely to continue providing coverage."
Under the new law, the federal government will pay a tax-free subsidy to employers who provide retirees with drug benefits that meet federal standards. The subsidy payable to an employer will be 28 percent of a retiree's drug costs from $250 to $5,000 in 2006.
To qualify for the subsidy, an employer must meet two criteria: the overall value of its retiree drug coverage - the expected amount of claims paid - must be at least equal to that of the standard Medicare drug coverage. In addition, the net value of retiree drug coverage, after subtracting premiums, must equal or exceed the net value of the standard Medicare drug benefit.
In making these calculations, the government said, many employers can "disregard the value of catastrophic coverage" that will be provided by Medicare.
The catastrophic coverage kicks in after beneficiaries have spent $3,600 of their own money. Costs covered by a former employer do not count toward that limit. Under the rules, many employers can assume that retirees have supplemental coverage. Such coverage lowers out-of-pocket costs, reducing the retirees' reliance on Medicare.
If, for example, an employer had a $3,000 limit on out-of-pocket costs, retirees would not have to use Medicare's catastrophic coverage, so the Medicare benefit would be worth less to them.
The administration said this "innovative approach" to analyzing the value of the standard Medicare drug benefit was recommended by several business groups that commented on an earlier version of the rules. The test adopted by the Bush administration is almost identical to one proposed by the American Benefits Council and the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Medicare officials, acknowledging that these calculations could be enormously complicated, said they would issue guidelines to help employers and actuaries understand the "actuarial equivalence test."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/politics/31drug.html?th

Virus polli: Vietnam, 12/ma vittima

Influenza polli:Conferenza mondiale
Si terra' a febbraio a Ho Chi Minh, in Vietnam (ANSA) - HANOI, 31 GEN - Il Vietnam ha annunciato l'organizzazione di una conferenza internazionale sulla lotta al virus dei polli che si terra' a Ho Chi Minh.La conferenza avra' luogo nella citta' meridionale vietnamita dal 23 al 25 febbraio. Proprio oggi il virus H5N1, noto come influenza dei polli, ha fatto in Vietnam la sua 44/ma vittima dal 2003 a oggi, una bimba di 10 anni. La riunione coinvolgera' i paesi colpiti dall'epidemia, i donatori multilaterali e le agenzie dell'Onu che si occupano del problema.

Virus polli: Vietnam, 12/ma vittima
Colpita una bambina di 10 anni (ANSA) - HANOI, 29 GEN - Una bambina di 10 anni colpita dal virus H5n1 (la cosiddetta influenza dei polli) e' deceduta ieri nel sud del Vietnam. Lo hanno riferito fonti ospedaliere. Il bilancio delle vittime della malattia, nel Vietnam, sale cosi' a 12 morti in un mese. L'Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanita' teme che il diffondersi dell'epidemia possa uccidere sette milioni di persone in tutto il mondo.

INFLUENZA POLLI: PROLUNGATO A 30 SETTEMBRE EMBARGO ASIA
(ANSA) - BRUXELLES, 15 SET - L'Unione europea ha deciso di prolungare, dal 15 marzo al 30 settembre 2005, l'embargo sulle importazioni di pollame, carni di pollo, uova, piume esotiche non trattate e uccelli da voliera provenienti da otto paesi del sud-est asiatico: ossia Thailandia, Cambogia, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Cina, Vietnam e Malesia.La Commissione europea, nell'annunciare il provvedimento oggi a Bruxelles, ha giustificato la proroga dell'embargo in quanto continua a persistere in quell'area la presenza del virus dell'influenza aviaria che ha gia' fatto alcune decine di vittime tra la popolazione.Gli esperti veterinari dell'Ue, riuniti nel Comitato europeo per la catena alimentare hanno invece deciso che l'Ue aprira' nuovamente le frontiere alle importazioni di uccelli da voliera provenienti dal Giappone e dalla Corea del Sud dove non sono stati piu' rilevati focolai di influenza aviaria. Dai due paesi l'Ue non importa pollame. (ANSA). LEN 12-GEN-05 14:10 NNNN
VIETNAM
Vietnam: morta la 12esima vittima dell’influenza dei polli

Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agenzie) – L’influenza dei polli ha ucciso la sua 12esima vittima in Vietnam in 30 giorni. Ieri una bambina di 10 anni è morta dopo aver contratto il virus H5N1, responsabile del contagio all’uomo. Lo ha reso noto un medico dell’ospedale pediatrico numero 1 di Ho Chi Minh, dove la bambina era ricoverata dal 20 gennaio scorso. La dodicenne viveva nella provincia meridionale di Long An, zona fortemente colpita nell’ultimo anno dall’influenza dei polli.
Dal 30 dicembre 2004 la malattia ha ucciso 12 persone in Vietnam e 32 dalla fine del 2003. Stabili le condizioni dei 2 uomini risultati positivi alle analisi e ricoverati ad Hanoi.
L’influenza aviaria ha colpito 31 delle 64 città e province del Vietnam e costretto a sopprimere un milione di polli dall’inizio dell’anno.
Sabato un’altra ragazza affetta dalla malattia è morta; la settima precedente la madre di 35 anni era deceduta per lo stesso motivo. I media di Stato hanno detto che entrambe vivevano in una zona dove molti polli erano morti per il virus.
Ricercatori internazionali continuano a monitorare ogni genere di trasformazione del virus. In un rapporto pubblicato la settimana scorsa scienziati thailandesi e statunitensi avvertono che potrebbe essersi già verificata una trasmissione uomo-a uomo dell’H5N1, rendendo più vicina l’ipotesi di un’epidemia su vasta scala. Secondo l’Organizzazione mondiale della Sanità se il virus si combinasse con quello della comune influenza umana potrebbe contagiare fino al 30% della popolazione mondiale

GRIPE POLLO-CAMBOYA
OMS realizará pruebas en Camboya tras posible caso de gripe aviar
Kampot (Camboya), 31 ene (EFE).- Un equipo de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) realizará pruebas en el pueblo de Camboya donde residía Soc Khot, la camboyana que falleció en un hospital de Vietnam supuestamente a causa de la gripe aviar, confirmaron hoy a EFE fuentes de la agencia sanitaria.
La mujer de 25 años murió el domingo en el hospital provincial de Kien Giang, en el sur de Vietnam, y de confirmarse que padecía la enfermedad sería la primera camboyana víctima de la epidemia, que este año ha causado doce muertes en la vecina Vietnam.Las autoridades camboyanas temen que Soc Khot puede haber contraído la enfermedad al sacrificar pollos en su pueblo, ubicado cerca de la frontera con Vietnam, hace unas dos semanas."Hemos oído rumores de un posible caso de una camboyana con gripe aviar tratada en Vietnam, y estamos de camino hacia el pueblo afectado para verificar si hay aves enfermas y si alguna persona más ha presentado síntomas de la enfermedad", dijo a EFE por teléfono Megge Miller, epidemióloga al mando del equipo de la OMS."Estamos a la espera de los resultados de las pruebas realizadas a la mujer camboyana que estaba siendo tratada en Vietnam. Están todavía en manos de las autoridades vietnamitas, pero hemos oído que han tomado una muestra y que se esperan pronto los resultados", explicó la experta.Miller aseguró que Camboya ha mejorado en los últimos años su capacidad para controlar un posible brote de la gripe aviar, tras programas sanitarios impulsados por la OMS y en cooperación con el ministerio camboyano de Sanidad.Mientras, el portavoz del ministerio de Agricultura, Keo Phal, dijo a EFE que "que de momento Camboya está libre de casos (de gripe aviar) en animales, pero hemos informado (a las autoridades) de las 13 provincias colindantes con Tailandia que estén alertas"."Aún no hemos retirado productos avícolas de los mercados. El consumo de la carne de pollo está permitido en el país", dijo el funcionario, que agregó que está prohibida la importación de aves de los diez países donde se han dado casos de "gripe de pollo".La epidemia ha causado desde su reaparición el año pasado al menos 32 muertes en Vietnam y otras 12 en Tailandia. EFEbs/ntc/pq

China refuerza estrategia equilibrará desarrollo urbano y rural

CHINA-AGRICULTURA
China refuerza estrategia equilibrará desarrollo urbano y rural
Pekín, 31 ene (EFE).- El Gobierno chino situó el desarrollo rural en la cúspide de su lista de prioridades de trabajo para el 2005, reforzando la estrategia iniciada el año pasado para equilibrar el progreso entre el campo y la ciudad.
"La política de desarrollo rural continuará en el 2005", con mayores esfuerzos fiscales y gubernamentales para elevar el nivel de vida de 800 millones de campesinos chinos, declaró hoy, lunes, Chen Xiwen, subdirector de la Oficina de Trabajo Financiero del Consejo de Estado.China superó en el 2004 todos sus objetivos en política rural, al conseguir un aumento del 6,5 por ciento en los ingresos per cápita de los campesinos (sobre 5 por ciento previsto) y aumentar la cosecha de grano por encima del plan de 455.000 millones de kilos."Los resultados han sido mejores de lo esperado", reconoció Chen, para quien los gobiernos continuarán la reforma "según los principios de dar más y tomar menos, y desregulación del mercado".La reducción de impuestos a la producción agrícola pasará a aplicarse a un total de 24 provincias y municipios, frente a los 8 del año pasado, debido a los fondos de gobiernos provinciales y central para compensar la falta de recaudación.Además, continuarán los subsidios entregados a los campesinos el año pasado, cuando por primera vez recibieron ayudas directas para la producción, introducir grano de alta calidad y adquirir maquinaria agrícola.También se eliminaron las tasas en todo tipo de cultivos excepto el tabaco, agregó el Ministerio de Agricultura.China tiene autorización de la Organización Mundial del Comercio para dar a sus campesinos hasta un 8 por ciento del valor de la producción agrícola en subsidios, una cifra a la que todavía no ha llegado.El objetivo del Gobierno chino es elevar, este año también, el nivel de ingresos per cápita de los campesinos, en al menos un 5 por ciento."Llegar a tener el nivel urbano será difícil", reconoció, pero vaticinó más esfuerzos para los años venideros, y también para reducir el número de campesinos bajo el umbral de pobreza, que actualmente se sitúa en 26 millones de personas."Pero no todo puede depender de los subsidios estatales. Tenemos que conseguir aumentar la producción agrícola" como principal vía para aumentar el nivel de vida en el campo, opinó Chen.Se mantendrán las estrictas limitaciones a la recalificación del suelo agrícola para otros fines, y se acelerará la construcción de infraestructuras (carreteras y obras para la irrigación) en los próximos años."El Gobierno central animará a los campesinos a colaborar en las obras que les dan beneficios directos" si hay una decisión democrática de la población de su interés y los representantes populares pueden supervisar las finanzas del proyecto, dijo.Además, el Gobierno mantendrá una estricta vigilancia de los precios e invertirá para mejorar las cosechas del país, especialmente el trigo, arroz y maíz, ya que desde el año pasado, China se convirtió en importador neto de grano."La escasez se mantendrá aún unos años, y tendremos que seguir importando", reconoció el funcionario sin dar cifras concretas.Por último, reforzará Pekín la creación de una red social y asistencial en las zonas rurales, con mínima cobertura sanitaria y educación básica gratuita en todos los rincones del país."Más del 70 por ciento de los nuevos fondos en el presupuesto del Estado para educación, salud, cultural y otras políticas sociales deberán ir a las zonas rurales", declaró Chen.

Google's search for meaning

Google's search for meaning
29 January 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition
Duncan Graham-Rowe
COMPUTERS can learn the meaning of words simply by plugging into Google. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed.
Trying to get a computer to work out what words mean - distinguish between "rider" and "horse" say, and work out how they relate to each other - is a long-standing problem in artificial intelligence research.
One of the difficulties has been working out how to represent knowledge in ways that allow computers to use it. But suddenly that is not a problem any more, thanks to the massive body of text that is available, ready indexed, on search engines like Google (which has more than 8 billion pages indexed).
The meaning of a word can usually be gleaned from the words used around it. Take the word "rider". Its meaning can be deduced from the fact that it is often found close to words like "horse" and "saddle". Rival attempts to deduce meaning by relating hundreds of thousands of words to each other require the creation of vast, elaborate databases that are taking an enormous amount of work to construct.
But Paul Vitanyi and Rudi Cilibrasi of the National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, realised that a Google search can be used to measure how closely two words relate to each other. For instance, imagine a computer needs to understand what a hat is.
To do this, it needs to build a word tree - a database of how words relate to each other. It might start off with any two words to see how they relate to each other. For example, if it googles "hat" and "head" together it gets nearly 9 million hits, compared to, say, fewer than half a million hits for "hat" and "banana". Clearly "hat" and "head" are more closely related than "hat" and "banana".
To gauge just how closely, Vitanyi and Cilibrasi have developed a statistical indicator based on these hit counts that gives a measure of a logical distance separating a pair of words. They call this the normalised Google distance, or NGD. The lower the NGD, the more closely the words are related.
By repeating this process for lots of pairs of words, it is possible to build a map of their distances, indicating how closely related the meanings of the words are. From this a computer can infer meaning, says Vitanyi. "This is automatic meaning extraction. It could well be the way to make a computer understand things and act semi-intelligently," he says.
The technique has managed to distinguish between colours, numbers, different religions and Dutch painters based on the number of hits they return, the researchers report in an online preprint (www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.CL/0412098).
The pair's results do not surprise Michael Witbrock of the Cyc project in Austin, Texas, a 20-year effort to create an encyclopaedic knowledge base for use by a future artificial intelligence. Cyc represents a vast quantity of fundamental human knowledge, including word meanings, facts and rules of thumb. Witbrock believes the web will ultimately make it possible for computers to acquire a very detailed knowledge base. Indeed, Cyc has already started to draw upon the web for its knowledge. "The web might make all the difference in whether we make an artificial intelligence or not," says Witbrock.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18524846.100

España es el país que más aumentó su producción vino

España es el país que más aumentó su producción vino desde 1999
España fue el país que más aumentó su producción de vino en volumen en todo el mundo entre 1999 y 2004, al pasar de 33,72 a 40,30 millones de hectolitros, un alza del 19,5 por ciento, según un informe del gabinete IWSR/GDR hecho público ayer.
Los autores del informe, encargado por el Salón Internacional del Vino de Burdeos, Vinexpo, estiman que la tendencia se mantendrá de aquí a 2008, cuando la producción estimada para España es de 42 millones de hectolitros.
Por detrás de España, el mayor aumento entre 1999 y 2004 se produjo en Australia, que pasó de 8,511 a 13,890 millones de hectolitros, y aumentará esa cifra a 14,9 millones en 2008.
España, que ya disminuyó su consumo un 8,8 por ciento entre 1999 y 2003 a 10,106 millones de hectolitros, lo hará un 10,2 por ciento de aquí a 2008. EFEAGRO

GIORNATA MONDIALE PER I MALATI DI LEBBRA

29 Gennaio 2005

ASIA - GIORNATA MONDIALE PER I MALATI DI LEBBRA
Giornata della lebbra, l’Asia il continente più colpito (Scheda)

L’impegno della Chiesa per assistere e curare i malati in 823 lebbrosari nel mondo.

Roma (AsiaNews) – I malati di lebbra oggi nel mondo sono 14 milioni, tra persone contagiate, disabili in seguito alla malattia e persone che soffrono conseguenze sociali del morbo.
La lebbra è ancora presente in 14 stati come malattia di interesse pubblico. Secondo gli ultimi dati diffusi dall’Organizzazione mondiale della sanità (Oms), nel 2003 i malati di lebbra curati e assistiti nel mondo sono stati 457792, dei quali 310090 nel continente asiatico. Sempre nello stesso anno i nuovi casi di contagio hanno raggiunto quota 513798, dei quali 409090 in Asia.
Secondo una ricerca decennale pubblicata sulla Leprosy Review nel 2002, nel 2001 è stato raggiunto l’obiettivo di arrivare a meno di 1 malato di lebbra ogni 10.000 abitanti nel mondo. Comunque, se nel 1985 tale situazione affliggeva 122 stati, nel 2002 il loro numero è calato a 14. Circa 6 milioni di persone soffrono oggi le conseguenze fisiche e sociali della lebbra e 3 milioni sono quelle colpite da varie disabilità a causa del morbo .
Nonostante ciò, in 14 paesi dell’Africa, dell’Asia e dell’America latina la lebbra è ancora considerata un problema di salute pubblica. Circa il 90% dei casi registrati si verificano nei seguenti stati: India, Brasile, Myanmar, Mozambico, Madagascar, Nepal.
E' proprio l’India il paese più colpito dalla lebbra, visto che ha il 70% dei malati di tutto il mondo, con un tasso di 2,5 lebbrosi ogni 100 mila abitanti.
La Chiesa è molto impegnata nell’assistenza ai malati di lebbra: sono 825 i lebbrosari gestiti da enti cattolici nel mondo, dei quali 349 in Asia. L’India è il paese che ne ha di più (263), segue il Senegal (116), il Brasile (43). I malati curati in strutture ecclesiastiche sono 817321. (LF)http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=it&art=2451

Form Follows Fascism

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Form Follows Fascism
By MARK STEVENS (the NyTimes)
HE death last week of Philip Johnson, the nonagenarian enfant terrible, brought 20th-century architecture to a symbolic close. Even Mr. Johnson's friends sometimes doubted that he was an architect of the first rank, but friend and foe alike agreed that he was an emblematic figure of his time.
But emblematic of what? In death, his role in American culture will come into sharper focus, and it's a darker picture than many have thought.
Traditionally, Mr. Johnson is presented as the great champion of modern architecture - organizer of the landmark 1932 Museum of Modern Art show on the International Style, and architect of the Glass House on his Connecticut estate, which quickly came to symbolize American modernism. He is equally celebrated for abandoning classical modernism in the late 50's and adopting in the decades that followed a succession of styles that mirrored the changing taste of the time.
It hardly mattered that many of his skyscrapers were corporate schmaltz; he was an enlivening, generous figure, a man who charmingly described himself as a "whore" as he picked the corporate pocket. Always ready to challenge the earnest, Mr. Johnson, who understood Warhol as well as Mies, became both an icon and an iconoclast.
Only one aspect marred this picture: His embrace of fascism during the 1930's, which was mentioned only in passing in most obituaries. He later called his ideological infatuation "stupidity" and apologized whenever pressed on the matter; as a form of atonement, he designed a synagogue for no fee. With a few exceptions, critics typically had little interest in the details, granting Mr. Johnson a pass for a youthful indiscretion.
Then, in 1994, Franz Schulze's biography presented this period of Mr. Johnson's life in some depth. Mr. Schulze's account was as sympathetic as possible - and many reviews of the book still played down the importance of Mr. Johnson's politics - but it was clear that views of Mr. Johnson's import for American culture would change significantly.
Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent several years in his late 20's and early 30's - years when an artist's imagination usually begins to jell - consumed by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist party in the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father Coughlin, writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy the magazine American Mercury, then complained in a letter, "The Jews bought the magazine and are ruining it, naturally." He traveled several times to Germany. He thrilled to the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the invasion of Poland, he visited the front at the invitation of the Nazis.
He approved of what he saw. "The German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy," he wrote in a letter. "There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle." As late as 1940, Mr. Johnson was defending Hitler to the American public. It seems that only an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - and, presumably, the prospect of being labeled a traitor if America entered the war - led him to withdraw completely from politics.
Today, any debate over an important figure with a fascist or Communist background easily becomes an occasion for blame games between right and left. Mr. Johnson is no exception. Morally serious people can have different views of his personal culpability.
But what's essential is to let the shadow fall - to acknowledge that fascism touched something important in his sensibility. Throughout his life, he was an ardent admirer of Nietzsche. His understanding of the great philosopher was surely deeper than that of the Nazis, but he was overly enchanted by the idea of "a superior being," "the will to power" and Nietzsche's view of art. And he loved the monumental.
In an interview published in 1973, long after he renounced fascism, Mr. Johnson said: "The only thing I really regret about dictatorships isn't the dictatorship, because I recognize that in Julius's time and in Justinian's time and Caesar's time they had to have dictators. I mean I'm not interested in politics at all. I don't see any sense to it. About Hitler - if he'd only been a good architect!" In discussing Rome, he contrasted the poor artistic achievements of the democratically elected Republic with those of earlier regimes. "So let's not be so fancy-pants about who runs the country," he concluded. "Let's talk about whether it's good or not."
Mr. Johnson's observation was refreshingly hard-nosed about art's relation to politics: good politics is not now and never will be a prerequisite for good art. But his emphasis on the aesthetic as the only important value in art was remarkably cold-blooded. His main regret seems to be that contemporary republics have failed to create monuments that ravish the senses.
He never became a fascist architect. But he was probably one of those artists - among them many Communists - whose philosophical sensibilities were gutted by the experience of the 30's and World War II. Afterward, he lived more than ever for the stylish surface, appearing uncomfortable with large-minded ideas even when his buildings reached for the sky.
Perhaps as a consequence, his imagination developed no particular center. Nothing was intractable or non-negotiable. He was remarkably free. He could toy, sometimes beautifully, with history. He liked a splash. He was a playful cynic, cultivating success even as he winked at its vulgarity. If someone should complain, well, the problem lay not in the artist but in the fallen world.
Philip Johnson now seems like an emblematic figure partly because he appears to have been happily, marvelously, provocatively, disturbingly hollow. It is an underlying fear of Western culture, one that has lasted since World War II, that there is no larger or ennobling content to mine. Mr. Johnson's main flaws as an artist - his tastes for razzle-dazzle and overweening scale - are equally the weaknesses of American secular culture. His main strengths - his openness to change, playfulness and urbane rejection of the Miss Grundys of the world - are equally it strengths.
The beautiful Glass House will remain Mr. Johnson's signature work. It is the transparent heart of a collection of eclectic buildings in New Canaan, Conn. It's a dream house, a stylish stage set. It floats upon the land, eliding boundaries between inside and outside. It seems full of emptiness. It's not really a place to live, but was still Mr. Johnson's essential home. That uneasy stylishness deserves emphasis. Philip Johnson lived in a glass house. He threw stones, too.
Mark Stevens is the art critic of New York magazine and the co-author of "De Kooning: An American Master."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/opinion/31stevens.html?pagewanted=2&th&oref=login

VERTICE UA

AFRICA 31/1/2005 10:30
VERTICE UA: CAPI DI STATO DISCUTONO DI CONFLITTI, POVERTÀ E RIFORMA ONU
Politics/Economy, Brief
Conflitti e povertà: questi i temi del vertice dell’Unione Africana in corso da ieri ad Abuja e per cui sono giunti nella città nigeriana una quarantina di capi di Stato e di governo da tutto il continente nonché il segretario generale dell’Onu Kofi Annan. “Se la sicurezza del nostro continente non migliorerà, non sarà possibile nessuno sviluppo” ha detto, aprendo il vertice, il segretario della commissione dell’Unione Africana, Alpha Oumar Konaré, sottolineando che mentre negli ultimi 40 anni l’intero pianeta ha registrato una crescita economica (seppur a diversi livelli) l’Africa resta l’unica eccezione a questa tendenza. “Il continente africano continua a soffrire le tragiche conseguenze di conflitti mortali e di cattivi governi” ha sottolineato Annan, precisando che di questo passo i governi africani non riusciranno a raggiungere gli obiettivi di diminuzione della povertà e di lotta alle malattie fissati per il 2015 (Millenium development goals). “Il 2005 dovrà essere l’anno della svolta del continente” ha detto ancora Annan, incoraggiando i presenti. Sull’agenda dei lavori del primo vertice annuale dell’Unione Africana, che si concluderanno oggi, una serie di risoluzioni redatte nei giorni scorsi dai ministri degli esteri dei Paesi membri e dedicate alle principali crisi, politiche e militari, del continente (Costa d’Avorio, Repubblica democratica del Congo e Darfur) ma anche la riforma delle Nazioni Unite e la conseguente possibilità di una rappresentanza africana nel Consiglio di Sicurezza. [MZ]

Lunedì, 31 gennaio 2005InternazionaleP R I M A P A G I N AI

InternazionaleP R I M A P A G I N AI titoli di apertura dei giornali di tutto il mondoLunedì, 31 gennaio 2005=> The Daily Star: Iraq=> Ha'aretz: coloni=> The Guardian: Unione africana=> El Universal: Porto Alegre=> Visti dagli altri=> Domani accadrà.........................................................THE DAILY STAR, Libanohttp://www.dailystar.com.lbGli iracheni al voto sfidano la violenza.Milioni di iracheni hanno partecipato alle elezionigenerali che si sono svolte domenica, ma la giornata èstata segnata anche dalle violenze: almeno trenta personesono state uccise negli attentati commessi davanti aiseggi. Il presidente statunitense George W. Bush si ècongratulato con il popolo iracheno per "il risultatostorico", ma ha ricordato che la strada da percorrere èancora molto lunga.............................................................HA'ARETZ, Israelehttp://www.haaretzdaily.comGerusalemme, la protesta dei coloni.Dopo la grande affluenza alla manifestazione di domenica, icoloni israeliani si preparano a una nuova marcia per questamattina davanti alla Knesset, il parlamento israeliano.Almeno 150mila persone si sono riunite domenica perprotestare contro il piano di ritiro dalla Striscia di Gazae da parte della Cisgiordania. Con un riferimento a unapratica ebraica, i dimostranti hanno girato sette volteintorno all'edificio per chiedere un referendum nazionalesul piano presentato dal governo di Ariel Sharon.............................................................THE GUARDIAN, Nigeria
I leader africani a confronto.Si è aperta ad Abuja, in Nigeria, la quarta sessioneordinaria dell\'Unione africana. Il presidente di turno, ilnigeriano Olusegun Obasanjo, ha aperto i lavori invitando icapi di stato del continente a lavorare insieme perrisolvere le crisi dei loro paesi, senza mettere a rischioil futuro dei giovani africani. Il segretario generaledelle Nazioni Unite, Kofi Annan, ha inoltre chiesto dimettere fine al traffico di armi leggere.............................................................EL UNIVERSAL, Venezuelahttp://economia.eluniversal.comIl Forum sociale ribadisce il no alla guerra.Il Forum sociale mondiale di Porto Alegre, in Brasile, hachiuso quattro giorni di dibattiti riaffermando la suaopposizione alla guerra e la decisione di impegnarsi acostruire il "mondo possibile" che gli altermondialistiesigono. Dopo una media di 2.200 ore quotidiane didibattiti a cui hanno partecipato 130mila personeprovenienti da un centinaio di paesi, per il 19 marzo èstata indetta una giornata mondiale di manifestazioni"contro l'occupazione dell'Iraq da parte degli StatiUniti". Secondo l'intellettuale brasiliano Emir Sader leelezioni in corso "eleggeranno un governo che rappresenteràsolo il presidente americano George W. Bush".............................................................VISTI DAGLI ALTRIFini e la destra democratica.Il partito italiano che ha raccolto l'eredità di BenitoMussolini celebra il decimo anniversario della svolta versola destra democratica. Grazie al suo leader Gianfranco Fini,Alleanza nazionale ha perso le caratteristiche di partitomai sperato di arrivare: al ministero degli esteri. Ieri,nel discorso che ha chiuso i festeggiamenti del decennio,Fini ha parlato per quasi un\'ora e mezza davanti a unaplatea stregata, affermando che "la nostra è una comunitàche concepisce la politica non come un mestiere, ma comeuna missione nel nome di tre grandi valori: l\'amore per lapatria, il rigore morale nei comportamenti individuali ecollettivi, la passione civile".La Vanguardia, Spagna [in spagnolo]http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20050131/51176024397.htmlSu

InternazionaleD O M A N I A C C A D R A \'Fatti previsti nel mondo domani, martedì 1 febbraio 2005=> Exeter, Gran Bretagna. Conferenza scientifica sui cambiamenti climatici.=> Lubiana, Slovacchia. Il parlamento ratifica lacostituzione europea.=> Foundiougne, Senegal. Apertura dei negoziati per la pacein Casamance.=> Gerusalemme. Visita del presidente tedesco Horst Koehlerin occasione dei quarant\'anni dalla ripresa delle relazionidiplomatiche tra Germania e Israele.=> Addis Abeba, Etiopia. Commemorazioni in occasione delsessantesimo compleanno di Bob Marley (fino al 6).=> Rotterdam, Paesi Bassi. Viene eseguito in prima mondialeun adagio inedito di Beethoven scoperto al British Museum.............................................................

RIAPRONO LE 'MILONGAS'

ARGENTINA 29/1/2005 0:39
DOPO ROGO IN DISCOTECA, RIAPRONO LE 'MILONGAS'
General, Brief
Le 'milongas porteñas', i noti locali per i ballerini di tango di Buenos Aires, hanno riaperto le loro porte chiuse da più di un mese dopo il tragico rogo che il 30 dicembre scorso ha devastato un'affollata discoteca, uccidendo 191 persone e intossicandone oltre 800. Di fronte alle proteste di centinaia di 'tangueros', il segretario alla cultura del governo locale, Gustavo Lopez, ha spiegato che le sale da ballo erano state temporaneamente 'sigillate' per verificare le condizioni di sicurezza. "Il decreto è stato applicato per estensione anche alle milongas, ma considerando il tango un bene culturale da proteggere abbiamo deciso di applicare una speciale deroga e di riaprirle quanto prima. Naturalmente - ha aggiunto - ogni proprietario dovrà dimostrare di essere in regola con la legge". Sabato scorso, decine di coppie di 'tangueros' si erano dati appuntamento sotto l'Obelisco che svetta nel centro della capitale per un 'baile de protesta' contro l'ordinanza. L'incendio avvenuto alla vigilia di Capodanno era stato provocato da due bengala accesi all'interno della discoteca 'Republica de Cromagnon' durante un concerto. La folla, in larga parte giovani, aveva tentato di fuggire forzando due uscite d'emergenza che erano risultate chiuse. L'unico indagato, per il momento, è il proprietario del locale, Omar Chabán, che rischia fino a 25 anni di carcere. [FB]

COLOMBIA E VENEZUELA SUPERANO CRISI

SOUTH AMERICA 29/1/2005 9:51
COLOMBIA E VENEZUELA SUPERANO CRISI DIPLOMATICA, PRESTO URIBE A CARACAS
Politics/Economy, Brief
I governi di Colombia e Venezuela hanno annunciato di aver superato la crisi diplomatica che da circa un mese e mezzo avvelenava le relazioni bilaterali, dopo l’arresto del capo guerrigliero delle Farc (Forze armate rivoluzionarie della Colombia) Rodrigo Granda in territorio venezuelano da parte delle forze di sicurezza colombiane. Il contrasto tra Bogotá e Caracas era esploso pubblicamente poco più di due settimane fa, sebbene l’arresto di Granda risalga alla metà dello scorso dicembre. La ricomposizione della crisi è stata possibile anche grazie alla mediazione di alcuni Paesi latino americani, tra i quali in particolare il Perú. Per sancire il ritorno dei due governi a normali relazioni, il prossimo 3 febbraio il presidente della Repubblica colombiana Alvaro Uribe si recherà in visita di Stato a Caracas per confrontarsi con l’omologo venezuelano Hugo Chávez.[LL]

PORTO ALEGRE: ANCORA TROPPO POCO IMPEGNO PER SRADICARE POVERTA´NEL MONDO

BRAZIL 29/1/2005 13:33
PORTO ALEGRE: ANCORA TROPPO POCO IMPEGNO PER SRADICARE POVERTA´NEL MONDO
Peace/Justice, Brief
"Dopo cinque anni siamo qui a dire che la campagna delle Nazioni Unite per gli Obiettivi del Millennio, cioè sradicare la povertà entro il 2015, non sta funzionando: manca volontà politica da parte di tutti per l'applicazione concreta di questi programmi, che vanno adattati alle realtà di ciascun Paese". Lo dice alla MISNA Marina Ponti, vicedirettrice per l'Europa dell'iniziativa promossa dall'Onu. Nel 2000 i governi di tutto il mondo si impegnarono solennemente a garantire otto punti essenziali per ridurre la miseria sul pianeta: "Quel documento è un punto di partenza, sul quale c'è stato un consenso internazionale" aggiunge Ponti. Invece poco o nulla si è mosso. Di fronte a 1 miliardo e 350 milioni di esseri umani che vivono con meno di un dollaro al giorno mancano risposte concrete: "Non solo da parte dei Paesi ricchi del nord del mondo, ma anche dai governi del Sud" spiega la vicedirettrice della Campagna, sotto il tendone bianco del Forum Sociale Mondiale, dove si dibatte di riforma dell'Onu. Cinque anni fa venne tracciata una sorta di 'road map' contro la fame e le malattie: otto punti che i governi del mondo sottoscrissero ma che ora recalcitrano a mettere in pratica: dimezzare la povertà, garantire istruzione elementare per tutti e pari opportunità, ridurre mortalità infantile e materna, fermare la diffusione grandi epidemie (aids, malaria e turbercolosi soprattutto), garantire acqua e servizi sociali. "Questi primi sette sono responsabilità soprattutto dei Paesi poveri", sottolinea Ponti. Ma l'ottavo 'Obiettivo del Millennio' dipende esclusivamente dai 'ricchi', che in questi giorni si ritrovano al Forum mondiale sull'economia di Davos, in Svizzera: ridurre il fardello del debito estero dei Paesi poveri, dare più soldi e spenderli meglio in aiuto allo sviluppo. E riformare l'Organizzazione internazionale del commercio (Wto): entro quello stesso 2015 - sostiene un recente rapporto della Banca Mondiale - il Wto rischia di bloccare altri 240 miliardi di dollari ai Paesi poveri se non allarga le maglie del protezionismo doganale eliminando dazi e sussidi agricoli al Nord del pianeta. "L'Italia, per esempio, è il Paese del G7 che destina la percentuale più bassa in aiuti allo sviluppo, solo lo 0,17% del Prodotto interno lordo (Pil)", argomenta Ponti. Che insiste: "Anche ai governi del Sud del mondo è richiesto uno sforzo: se è vero che la Banca Mondiale e il Fondo monetario internazionale rendono difficile le loro politiche, non possiamo tacere delle élite nazionali, sul piano interno, che non facilitano il raggiungimento di un pieno sviluppo. Servono innanzitutto trasparenza e leader che si prendano le proprie responsabilità, come chiede la società civile di questi Paesi" dice ancora la vicedirettrice della 'Campagna' alla MISNA. Tra tanti 'bocciati' ci sono però segnali in controtendenza: il Mozambico, ad esempio, uscito con determinazione da un dopoguerra pericoloso sul piano sociale tanto quanto il conflitto. E altri casi positivi come il Kenya o il Vietnam che - addirittura - ha schiacciato l'acceleratore sui 'Millennium goals', con obiettivi ancora più ambiziosi di quelli dell'Onu. "Il governo di Hanoi è un caso significativo: ha considerato troppo generici gli otto punti individuati dalle Nazioni Unite, li ha rielaborati e fatti propri". Il Vietnam guarda avanti: l'obiettivo di garantire istruzione primaria entro il 2015 è già raggiunto e ora cercherà di assicurare educazione secondaria nei prossimi dieci anni. (Emiliano Bos da Porto Alegre).[EB]

GUANGDONG E' ORA LA REGIONE CINESE PIÙ POPOLOSA

CHINA 29/1/2005 1:44
GUANGDONG E' ORA LA REGIONE CINESE PIÙ POPOLOSA
General, Brief
Con un’impennata demografica dovuta alle migrazioni è il Guangdong la provincia più popolosa delle 23 che compongono della Repubblica popolare cinese insieme a 5 regioni autonome; lo ha annunciato l’amministrazione locale attraverso l’agenzia ‘Xinhua’. Nel territorio che affaccia sul mar meridionale della Cina e comprende il delta del Fiume delle Perle vivono 110 milioni di abitanti, di cui 31 milioni immigrati cinesi. Fino a poco tempo fa, erano le province Henan - con 94 milioni di abitanti – e di Sichuan le più popolose; ma sembra che sia stata la migrazione interna da queste due regioni verso il Guangdong, protagonista negli ultimi anni di un’eccezionale boom economico, a sovvertire i parametri. I centri più popolosi restano la capitale Guangzhou e la città di Shenzhen, quest’ultima a ridosso del 'confine amministrativo' con Hong Kong. Sarebbe proprio Shenzhen ad aver subito le trasformazioni demografiche, urbanistiche e sociali maggiori da quando l’ex-colonia britannica è rientrata sotto l’egida di Pechino, accentuando gli scambi con le altre realtà cinesi vicine. [BF]

hersch/iran/taniwha

il pezzo di hersch sulla possibile guerra in iran è riportato oggi da Internazionale

embrioni e ammalati, alleati

embrioni e ammalati, alleati - lettera di Adriano Sofri al Foglio
http://www.wittgenstein.it/html/ext280105.html

CHINA-CHILE Chile prefiere defensa de sus intereses a cumplimiento de plazos

CHINA-CHILE
Chile prefiere defensa de sus intereses a cumplimiento de plazos
Pekín, 28 ene (EFE).- Chile desea que el acuerdo de libre comercio que negocia con China, elimine los aranceles de todos los bienes producidos en ambos países, afirmó hoy el jefe de la delegación chilena, Carlos Furche, al término de la primera sesión.
"Nosotros negociamos en función de alcanzar objetivos, no de plazos, aunque sea legítimo aspirar a avanzar en el mandato de Lagos. Priorizamos objetivos", insistió el también viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores y Comercio.El acuerdo, que de lograrse será histórico y el primero entre China y un país de América Latina, "deberá ser amplio, moderno y de alta calidad para profundizar las relaciones económicas y comerciales y darles estabilidad en el tiempo", declaró hoy Furche a la prensa.Aunque Chile desearía concluir la negociación en el mandato del presidente Ricardo Lagos (quien la acordó junto a su colega Hu Jintao en noviembre), "cada país es singular en exigencias, tiempos y prioridades"."Con la UE, la negociación demoró siete años y con EEUU diez", añadió Furche que reconoció la atención que América Latina presta a a la negociación y destacó el intercambio de experiencias en Pekín con buena parte de los países latinoamericanos sobre el proceso."Pero, para evitar mucha demora, acordamos en la primera sesión adoptar un enfoque más pragmático y abordar primero el acceso a los mercados y la cooperación bilateral, dejando para la segunda etapa aspectos más complejos".En tres días, las delegaciones, encabezadas respectivamente por Furche y el ministro adjunto chino de Comercio Yi Xiaozhun, establecieron el marco básico, el comité negociador, definieron el procedimiento de trabajo y fijaron la nueva cita, probablemente en la última semana de abril, en Santiago de Chile."Ambas partes expresamos nuestra voluntad de avanzar todo lo posible este año. En esta etapa negociaremos el acceso a los mercados de bienes, las disciplinas comerciales y el mecanismo de solución de conflictos, para posteriormente negociar el acceso de inversiones y servicios", manifestó Furche.En paralelo, se estableció un grupo especial de trabajo sobre aspectos fitosanitarios para identificar los obstáculos que dificultan todavía la llegada a China de alimentos chilenos."Chile cuenta con una calidad fitosanitaria óptima y exporta a los principales países. Deseamos acelerar la discusión pues tenemos el máximo interés en que China permita pronto recibir nuestros productos agrícolas y del mar para satisfacer una demanda que sabemos existe", manifestó Furche.La delegación chilena dejó claro en Pekín que desea acelerar lo más posible dichos procedimientos fitosanitarios chinos para que lleguen otros productos aparte de la uva, el kiwi y las manzanas.Según los negociadores chilenos, los acuerdos de liberalización y fitosanitarios permitirán además de aumentar la llegada a China de frutas, pescados, mariscos y derivados de la madera, la de bienes de capital, tecnología electrónica e informática a Chile, "cada vez más demandados en el país de mayor crecimiento en América Latina con el 5,8 por ciento en 2004"."En la medida que se reduzcan los aranceles chinos que para productos prioritarios chilenos (10 y 11 por ciento y hasta 20 por ciento para otros que podrían interesar), penetraremos el mercado chino", concluyó Furche tras recordar que el arancel general chileno es del 6 por ciento "para todos los productos de todos el mundo".Durante las negociaciones, ambos países intercambiarán también experiencias en cooperación científica, tecnológica, derechos de propiedad intelectual, política social y trabajo, desarrollo sostenido y medio ambiente.El comercio bilateral se elevó, en 2004, a 5.300 millones de dólares de los que 3.400 millones fueron ventas chilenas (cobre y celulosa principalmente) y 1.900 millones de dólares ventas chinas (textiles, bienes de capital y maquinaria. EFEpc/cg

Obesity - McDonald's Makes Ronald a Health Ambassador + Brazil Newspaper Slams NY Times + Mc suit + Study: Cancer+ EU to Start Taking Obe Seriously

McDonald's Makes Ronald a Health Ambassador Criticized Company Will Use Character to Push Fitness in Schools
By Caroline E. MayerWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, January 28, 2005; Page E01
McDonald's Corp., known for its Big Macs and fries, is sending its flame-headed mascot, Ronald McDonald, into elementary schools to push fitness -- part of a corporate campaign to address the childhood obesity issue.
Ronald, the company's newly dubbed "chief happiness officer," has become the company's "ambassador for an active, balanced lifestyle," McDonald's Chief Creative Officer Marlena Peleo-Lazar told a government panel yesterday. Her announcement came the same week an appeals court reinstated a lawsuit against McDonald's in which two New York teenagers claim they got fat because the company hid the health risks of its food.
Other major food companies also are promoting fitness in schools. Last fall, PepsiCo Inc. sent fitness educational materials to elementary schools, reaching 3 million students. In March, the beverage and snack-food company will send another round, this time to all 15,000 middle schools in the country.
These educational programs were discussed at a day-long workshop sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, which Congress directed to study the impact of food marketing on childhood obesity and healthful eating.
The study comes as a growing number of health care professionals and consumer activists are calling for more government oversight of food advertising because the number of obese children has more than doubled in the past 30 years.
Several major food companies are responding to the concerns by reformulating many of their food products and developing or adding new ones to offer more healthful alternatives, such as reduced-sugar cereal. McDonald's, for example, has added milk and apples to its kids' menu. Meanwhile, Kraft announced earlier this month that it will curb advertising of many of its snack foods to children under 12.
The food industry is seeking legislation to block lawsuits, such as the one just reinstated against McDonald's. The Virginia House of Delegates did just that yesterday, strengthening existing law by approving a bill saying state residents can't blame their weight gain on food companies.
In the past, the Ronald McDonald character has visited schools to teach about such issues as bike safety and literacy. Now the clown will be touting physical activity. No burgers or fries will be promoted. "Ronald does not promote food, but fun and activity -- the McDonald's experience," said company spokesman Walt Riker.
The campaign was criticized by Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, author of "Consuming Kids."
"It's just another marketing ploy for McDonald's," she said. "It has no place in the school. The amount of exercise it will take to exercise off everything these kids consume will take all day."
The program has been reviewed and approved by the American Academy of Pediatrics. "We're not endorsing McDonald's or Ronald McDonald, but wanted to make sure the message was safe and appropriate," said Reginald L. Washington, co-chairman of the academy's task force on obesity. The program, he said, "takes advantage of the fact that Ronald McDonald has such recognition with kids that if he tells them to get moving, maybe they will do it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43011-2005Jan27.html?referrer=email

Brazil Newspaper Slams NY Times Over Obesity Story
ReutersThursday, January 27, 2005; 5:11 PM
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian newspaper on Thursday accused the New York Times of illustrating a story on obesity in Brazil with a picture of three flabby-looking Czech women on a beach famed for its shapely local beauties.
The Times story went to the heart of Brazil's self-image as a place of sunny sexiness and was the second in less than a year to provoke strong criticism in Brazil, where the globally influential newspaper's coverage has faced heavy scrutiny by local media.
The Jan. 13 story by correspondent Larry Rohter was based on a government study that said more than 40 per cent of Brazilians are overweight.
It noted that Brazil's "gifts to global culture" included the Girl from Ipanema and the thong, or "tanga," bikini.
The photograph, by John Maier, showed three overweight women in bikinis on Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema Beach.
However, according to Globo newspaper, the women were not Brazilians but Czech tourists. "Certainly I am not a girl from Ipanema. I am a woman of a certain age," 59-year-old Milena Suchoparkova told Globo in an interview.
"I think I'm overweight but I never was skinny. I was always robust but I wouldn't say I was obese," said Suchoparkova, Czech-born but a naturalized Italian.
Globo, one of Brazil's biggest dailies, ran its story under the headline "New York Times Screw-up." It ran a separate article on Rohter and questioned the Times' ethics and credibility.
Suchoparkova and her friends were upset because, they told Globo, the photographer had not asked their permission before taking the shot. They were not mentioned in the story itself.
Rohter declined to comment to Reuters. A New York Times foreign desk staffer said the newspaper would run a statement in Friday's edition.
Last May, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered Rohter's visa canceled after he wrote an article that many Brazilians were concerned by Lula's drinking habits.
Lula reversed the decision under pressure from domestic and international media groups, and the Human Rights Watch advocacy group cited the government's reaction to the drinking story as a threat to freedom of expression.
© 2005 Reuters

Part of McDonald's Obesity Suit Revived
ReutersTuesday, January 25, 2005; 6:00 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated part of a widely watched obesity suit against McDonald's Corp. that accused the world's biggest fast-food company of using misleading advertising to lure children into eating unhealthy foods that make them fat.
In 2003, a trial judge threw out the complaint saying that the plaintiffs failed to provide information showing a link between eating McDonald's products and their injuries.
However, in its ruling, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals said that the information could be provided during a later part of court proceedings and did not need to be included in the initial pleadings.
It said it was sending the case back to the trial judge for further proceedings.
"We are confident this frivolous suit will once again be dismissed," McDonald's said.

Study: Obesity May Hinder Cancer Screening
By DANIEL YEEThe Associated PressMonday, January 24, 2005; 7:19 AM
ATLANTA - A new study suggests a man's weight may affect the accuracy of a common test to detect prostate cancer, leading researchers to warn that doctors could be missing the dangerous cancer in obese men.
Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio studied 2,779 men without prostate cancer between 2001-04. In the study released online Monday in the journal Cancer, they reported finding that the more obese the men were, the lower their levels of prostate-specific antigen or PSA. A PSA of 4.0 or lower usually means no cancer.
Previous studies have shown that prostate cancer is more aggressive in obese men than in men of average weight. The researchers wanted to see if the cancer's detection was somehow being delayed in obese men.
The Texas study found that the most morbidly obese men had about 30 percent lower PSA levels than men of normal weight.
"That tells us it's likely or it's possible that prostate cancer detection may be delayed in overweight or obese men," said Jacques Baillargeon, associate professor of epidemiology at the health science center.
The research may encourage many doctors to take a closer look at the tests of obese men.
"For sure, I will be more vigilant in my patients who are obese in evaluating their PSA," said Dr. Nelson Stone of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. "We may be losing some of the sensitivity of the test in the obese patient in our ability to detect prostate cancer. We may have to set our sights lower."
The antigen used in the screening test is made by normal prostate cells and is measured in blood. The higher the antigen level, the more likely the chance of prostate cancer, as the cells multiply uncontrollably, according to the American Cancer Society.
But having high PSA levels is not a definitive diagnosis of cancer, which is why the Atlanta-based society recommends men with high PSA levels have a biopsy.
The latest study builds on previous research released in May in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that men with a "normal" PSA actually had cancer 15 percent of the time and that two-thirds of those men with cancer had aggressive cases.
The Texas study did not explain why obese men have lower PSA levels. But doctors believe obese men produce more estrogen, which drives down testosterone levels and could affect cells that produce the antigen used in the test.
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On the Net:
American Cancer Society:http://www.cancer.org

EU to Start Taking Obesity Seriously
By RAF CASERTThe Associated PressThursday, January 20, 2005; 8:28 PM
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union said Thursday it will bring the food and advertising industry together with health officials to contain the increasing problem of obesity in Europe, where one out of every four children is obese.
As part of the policy, EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou wants to keep junk food ads away from children.
"The idea is that, along with other policies and action, children are protected from direct marketing and advertising convincing them and inducing them to consume too much of this product," he said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
Kyprianou also called for a special forum on obesity in March, which would set self-regulatory standards by the end of the year. In initial talks on the issue, the industry has been cooperative, officials said.
The challenge is growing by the year, Kyprianou said. "One in every four children is obese. this mean future health problems," he said, highlighting the problems were worst in southern Europe.
The Commissioner fears the 25-nation European Union will be going the same way as the United States. "We made fun of Americans in a way. It is a European problem now," Kyprianou said in an interview with London's Financial Times.
The European Food Safety Authority found last year that Europeans eat less of the most dangerous, cholesterol-raising fats than Americans do, and the amount is decreasing. Still, children keep getting fatter in Europe.
In the United States, authorities have already ordered food companies to produce more detailed labeling to warn consumers of dangerous, fattening products.
There is pressure for the EU to do the same and there are already anti-obesity drives in several EU nations.
France has banned soda and junk food vending machines from schools.
In most European countries, more than half of the population is overweight or obese. Countries in central and eastern Europe, which joined the European Union this month, have the worst problem, according to the International Obesity Task Force.