Monday, February 28, 2005

The Battle Behind the Battle at HarvardBy

February 27, 2005
The Battle Behind the Battle at HarvardBy JAMES ATLAS
nytimes
boston globe
time magazine

Strade senza segnaletica

Le associazioni consumatori lanciano la sfida: importare anche da noi questo sistema di eliminazione di qualsiasi forma di segnaletica, semafori, strisce pedonali, cartelli e linee che separano i sensi di marcia
Strade senza segnaletica
Sperimentazione anche in Italia
Si chiama "shared space", letteralmente "spazio condiviso" fra tutti i mezzi

Codacons sul piede di guerra sul fronte della sicurezza stradale. E la soluzione, secondo l'associazione dei consumatori, sarebbe lo "shared space", letteralmente "spazio condiviso". Ovvero l'eliminazione su una strada di qualsiasi forma di segnaletica, di semafori, strisce pedonali, cartelli e linee che separano i sensi di marcia. Anarchia più pura? Non esattamente. Piuttosto una sfida lanciata ai sindaci delle principali città italiane per sperimentare un sistema che in Europa sembra abbia portato grandi risultati nella diminuzione dei sinistri.

"A sparire sarebbero anche tutte le barriere che allo stato attuale separano pedoni e automobilisti - dice il Codacons - a cominciare dai marciapiedi. L'unica regola in vigore sarebbe quella di non superare un prefissato limite di velocità, e ogni incidente che coinvolgerà pedoni e automobilisti avrà come responsabili quest'ultimi. Lo scopo infatti è proprio quello di responsabilizzare gli automobilisti attraverso l'assenza di segnaletica stradale, che li costringerebbe inevitabilmente a prestare più attenzione alla strada e alla guida".

Ma siamo sicuri che in Italia la cosa potrebbe effettivamente funzionare? "In Danimarca, in Olanda e in Inghilterra l'eliminazione in alcune strade della segnaletica ha favorito una forte riduzione del numero di incidenti e dei morti (dal 35% al 100%)", risponde l'Associazione, che alla luce di questi risultati propone insieme a Listaconsumatori delle varie Regioni interpellate di "scegliere una strada della città dove poter effettuare l'esperimento".

(25 febbraio 2005) repubblica on line

Anti-wind farm report dismissed

Anti-wind farm report dismissed

The UK has one of the biggest resources of wind in EuropeA report from the world's biggest wind power producer denouncing wind farms as too expensive and inefficient has been widely dismissed in the UK.
bbc

'End child detention' says report

'End child detention' says report

Up to 2,000 children a year are held, the charity saysThe mental and physical health of children held in asylum seeker centres is being put at risk, a charity says.
bbc

Slave labor prevalent in state

Report: Slave labor prevalent in stateBay Area home to immigrants forced to work, professor says
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER
Slave labor is a significant problem in California, especially among undocumented immigrants lured by promises of the American dream but instead forced into domestic work, sweatshops or worse, a Berkeley scholar told state officials Friday.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_2587830
http://www.hrcberkeley.org/
http://www.hrcberkeley.org/download/freedomdenied.pdf

2015, l'inglese lingua globalela parlerà mezzo mondo

Da uno studio del British Council, ecco come si trasformeràil nostro modo di comunicare in un solo decennio
2015, l'inglese lingua globalela parlerà mezzo mondo
Gli errori saranno sempre più tollerati, i "puristi" meno compresi
repubblica

ciampi-berlusconi

L CAPO DELLO STATO«Non posso più tacere»
ROMA - Ha aspettato per 24 ore, inutilmente. Nessuna smentita, rettifica o correzione, da parte di Silvio Berlusconi sulle «sirene della sinistra» da cui rischierebbe di farsi incantare il Quirinale. Neppure una telefonata di chiarimento da uno di quegli emissari che Palazzo Chigi mobilita nei momenti difficili, come Gianni Letta. Silenzio fino a ieri mattina, quando, dopo la lettura dei giornali nel salotto di Castelporziano, Ciampi sbotta con i suoi consiglieri: «Non posso più tacere. Quell’accusa intacca le mie prerogative primarie». Così, prende carta e penna e stende di getto una replica. Una nota nella quale il lessico istituzionale non riesce a dissimulare i sentimenti offesi di chi scrive. «Hanno destato sorpresa le parole attribuite al presidente del Consiglio in materia di promulgazione delle leggi», spiega l’ incipit . E quella «sorpresa» quirinalizia è naturalmente un eufemismo che riassume una sbalordita irritazione. Una puntualizzazione per nulla conciliante, stavolta, quella del Quirinale. «E’ a tutti ben noto che, in questa come in altre materie, non è costume del presidente della Repubblica Carlo Azeglio Ciampi dare ascolto a suggestioni, suggerimenti o critiche gratuite da qualsiasi fonte provengano. Tutti i provvedimenti legislativi rinviati dal capo dello Stato sono stati sempre accompagnati da messaggi debitamente, convintamente, dettagliatamente motivati». Insomma, il retropensiero di Ciampi, mentre affida al portavoce le otto righe di risposta al premier, è di questo tenore: non è lecito mettere in dubbio la mia autonomia di giudizio e indicarmi agli italiani come influenzabile, o magari già influenzato, da una parte politica. E quei tre avverbi in fila uno dopo l’altro («debitamente, convintamente, dettagliatamente») servono a spiegare l’approccio metodologico che quassù si segue per motivare eventuali bocciature di qualche legge, una prova di rigore indispensabile su un doppio fronte: a difesa della mia personale correttezza, ma anche dell’istituzione offesa e dell’articolo 87 della Costituzione, che al capo dello Stato affida la titolarità piena ed esclusiva di alcuni precisi poteri primari, come appunto il vaglio sul lavoro del Parlamento. Della nota è importante anche un’omissione, voluta, rispetto alla bordata berlusconiana di sabato. Infatti non vi compare alcuna replica alle critiche del Cavaliere sui recenti viaggi del presidente della Repubblica in Cina e India e su certe sue preoccupate diagnosi economiche. Contestazioni che Ciampi preferisce lasciar perdere - «per tenersi su un terreno di stretta autotutela istituzionale», fanno capire dal suo staff - per quanto potrebbe recriminare che quelle missioni all’estero le ha compiute in accordo con il governo (e non a caso c’erano ben cinque ministri ad accompagnarlo) e nell’interesse del Paese. Il duro botta e risposta del weekend s’interrompe poche ore più tardi, quando nel primo pomeriggio Gianni Letta anticipa al segretario generale del Colle, Gaetano Gifuni, la precisazione del Cavaliere. Il quale, se pure dichiara di non aver «messo in discussione la correttezza costituzionale delle decisioni del capo dello Stato», insiste però a parlare di suggeritori «non disinteressati» che lo assedierebbero. Incidente chiuso? Difficile pensarlo, anche perché un’impennata della tensione tra Ciampi e Berlusconi si percepiva già da dicembre ed era stata preceduta da parecchi episodi. Ad esempio quando, nell’estate del 2003, il premier andò in udienza al Quirinale e all’uscita fece sapere che sulla legge Gasparri (quella assai discussa sull’informazione radiotelevisiva) c’era perfetto accordo tra lui e il capo dello Stato. Una forzatura che il presidente della Repubblica volle smentire a stretto giro di posta, pure allora con un comunicato ufficiale che Berlusconi fu costretto a confermare. Due leggi rinviate alle Camere. Reazioni sempre più esplicitamente insofferenti. Incomprensioni che si sommano, in una prova di forza permanente. Gelo e incomunicabilità ai vertici dello Stato. Avvertimenti pesanti. Sarebbe minimalista leggere tutto questo soltanto come le febbri di una campagna elettorale ormai imminente. La verità è che, mentre il Cavaliere si avvia al giro di boa dell’ultimo anno a Palazzo Chigi (con le connesse incognite di una riconferma alle urne), anche Ciampi sta entrando nella fase finale del proprio mandato. E coincidenza vuole che il Quirinale sia nel frattempo divenuto oggetto degli appetiti del premier. Che, l’ha detto in conferenza stampa, vorrebbe quel posto per sé o per un fedele amico del Polo. Appetiti che sono divenuti espliciti quando certi esponenti della maggioranza hanno pubblicamente almanaccato nei mesi scorsi - così, come per caso - sull’utilità di un ritiro anticipato da parte di Ciampi. «Per evitare il cosiddetto ingorgo istituzionale», era la patriottica scusa. Dietro la quale era invece evidente l’ansia di far eleggere il suo successore da questa maggioranza parlamentare. Il capo dello Stato non ha abbozzato affatto, davanti a questo obliquo invito a sloggiare. Per tre volte consecutive ha ripetuto che resterà al suo posto sino all’ultimo giorno, girando l’Italia in lungo e in largo. Ciò che, se ha cancellato le illusioni del centrodestra, di sicuro ne ha aumentato i malumori.
di MARZIO BREDA (Corriere di oggi)
Commenti
editoriale di Ezio MAuro

Diesel fumes are danger to health, warns report

Diesel fumes are danger to health, warns report
By Lyndsay Moss
28 February 2005
Diesel engines pose a serious public health threat, pumping out high levels of tiny particles that cause breathing problems, health specialists have warned.
independent

Global Biodiversity InformationFacility

Report Praises Global Species Database Initiative as Essential Research Tool
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, February 28 /PRNewswire/ -- An independent review has praised the Global Biodiversity InformationFacility (GBIF) as an essential mine of dynamic information about the speciesof life on earth, with the potential to return even greater value in thefuture.
(http://www.gbif.net).

Friday, February 25, 2005

US human rights report to assess counties on three more counts

US human rights report to assess counties on three more counts:
[World News]: Washington, Feb 25 : United States' annual report on the global human rights situation will this year have new features with countries being assessed under three more categories.The Congress-mandated 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practises for the year 2004' will assess nations under three new categories - transperacy and corruption, anti-Semiticism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation, the US State Department has said.The country reports which covers the human rights situation in 197 countries will be released on February 28.The States Department will also release a follow-up report titled 'Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: the US Record' on March 25 which will be a detailed account of US' efforts to address the issues raised in the country report. PTI

'Digital Divide' Narrowing Fast, World Bank Says

Blair sets date for Africa report

Tsunami, le ultime foto dei Knill

Tsunami, le ultime foto dei Knill
Le foto di questa sequenza sono state scattate intorno alle 8 e 30 della mattina del 26 dicembre scorso sulla spiaggia di Khao Lack dai coniugi canadesi John e Jackie Knill. La macchina fotografia digitale che le registrate è stata trovata vicino ai loro corpi identificati solo recentemente dalle autorità thailandesi. Il figlio dei Knill, Christian le ha trovate nella memoria della fotocamera digitale e ha deciso di renderle pubbliche. Questa è la prima immagine della sequenza. Sono le 8 e 20 e la tranquillità sulla spiaggia è assoluta
ap58586702402175527.jpg

Thursday, February 24, 2005

UMANI: STRASBURGO CONDANNA RUSSIA PER CECENIA

Strasburgo, 16:30DIRITTI UMANI: STRASBURGO CONDANNA RUSSIA PER CECENIA
La Corte europea dei diritti umani ha condannato la Russia per uccisione di civili, torture e abusi, commessi durante le operazioni dell'esercito contro i separatisti in Cecenia. La corte di Strasburgo, chiamata a deliberare su richiesta di sei cittadini della Cecenia, ha stabilito che la Russia ha violato l'articolo della Convenzione europea dei diritti umani che garantisce il diritto alla vita e in due casi ha anche violato il divieto di tortura e di trattamento inumano, e ha condannato Mosca a un risarcimento danni di 135.710 euro nei confronti dei ricorrenti. La Russia puo' appellarsi alla Camera alta della Corte entro tre mesi.

Bush-Putin, pronto l'accordo

East Europe to beat India as BPO hub

La Siria «ridispiega» le sue truppe in Libano

La nuova Europa taglia le tasse

La nuova Europa taglia le tasse
Gaggi

LA CAPACITÀ DI DIVENTARE UOMO

Sgreccia e l’embrioneLA CAPACITÀ DI DIVENTARE UOMO
Monsignor Elio Sgreccia richiama che «l’essere umano va rispettato e trattato come una persona fin dal suo concepimento», e ribadisce che il Magistero della Chiesa «non si è espressamente impegnato» in relazione ai «dibattiti scientifici» e alle stesse «affermazione filosofiche» sugli inizi della vita umana ( Corriere , 8 febbraio). Questo non significa che il Magistero non si impegni mai su affermazioni filosofiche. Si impegna ad esempio nella difesa dell’affermazione che l’uomo è capace di entrare nel Regno dei Cieli - che è affermazione, oltre che teologica, della filosofia cui la Chiesa si appoggia e che ha il suo perno nel concetto di «capacità». Se uno dice sse che questo concetto è un nonsenso, la Chiesa si impegnerebbe a proclamare che costui dice il falso. E farebbe bene, perché se la capacità dell’uomo di andare in Cielo non esistesse, per l’uomo sarebbe impossibile andarvi; e se, pur negando tale «capacità», qual cuno affermasse che in Cielo son venuti a trovarsi degli uomini, costui affermerebbe qualcosa di impossibile. Va aggiunto che, difendendo il concett o di «capacità», la Chiesa difende anche il principio che la capacità di andare in Cielo precede il trovarvisi, ossia che esiste un momento in cui l’uomo è «capace» di andare in Cielo, ma ancora non vi si trova - e quando vi si trova non ha più la capacità di andarvi. Ebbene, che cosa accade a proposito della tesi della Chiesa che l’essere umano è «una persona fin dal suo concepimento»? CONTINUA A PAGINA 12 Servizio di Di Gianvito Accade qualcosa di analogo al discorso di chi nega la «capacità» di andare in Cielo. Vediamo. In quel suo intervento Sgreccia afferma che «la presenza di un’anima spirituale non può essere rilevata dall’osservazione di nessun dato sperimentale». Quindi le scienze della natura non possono trovare l’anima nemmeno in quel dato sperimentale che è l’embrione. Altrimenti si verrebbe a sostenere quel che la Chiesa non ammette, cioè che lo spirito è un aspetto della materia (sperma e ovulo). Per la Chiesa, l’embrione è uomo solamente in quanto l’«anima spirituale» è in lui già in qualche modo esistente, ma l’«anima spirituale» «è creata direttamente da Dio». Se la Chiesa non mobilita questo gigantesco volume di tesi filosofico-metafisico-teologiche non può sostenere che sin dal momento del concepimento l’embrione è già uomo. (Si capisce che in vista del referendum sulla legge 40 la Chiesa per non rompere con i laici che sostengono l’umanità dell’embrione eviti di parlare di quel grandioso ma ingombrante bagaglio filosofico-teologico. Salvo errore, la parola «Dio» non compare mai negli articoli di monsignor Sgreccia di recente pubblicati dal Corriere ). Le difficoltà incominciano a questo punto. E riguardano il concetto di «capacità», indicato all’inizio. Per entrare nel Regno dei Cieli, si diceva, è necessario che, prima di entrarvi, l’uomo abbia avuto la «capacità» di entrarvi. Analogamente , per entrare nel regno della terra - cioè per incominciare a vivere come uomo - è necessario che qualcosa abbia avuto la «capacità» di diventare uomo, la capacità di entrare, come uomo, nel regno della terra. Ed è necessario che tale qualcosa abbia avuto questa «capacità» in un tempo precedente a quel del suo incominciare ad esistere. Ma se si accetta la dottrina della Chiesa, questa «capacità» non può esistere . Infatti, se «fin dalla fecondazione» l’embrione ha un’anima spirituale (Sgreccia, Corriere , 14 febbraio), prima della fecondazione esistono, separati gli uni dagli altri il seme dell’uomo e l’uovo della donna, e, ancora più separata da essi, esiste la potenza con cui Dio crea l’anima spirituale dell’embrione. Ma il seme, così separato non ha la capacità di diventare uomo: ha solo la capacità di unirsi all’ovulo - una capacità, questa, diversa da quella di diventare uomo. Nemmeno l’ovulo, separato, ha la «capacità» di diventare uomo. E se per la Chiesa Dio ha la potenza di creare l’uomo, la Chiesa nega che Dio o qualcosa che gli appartenga abbia la capacità di diventare uomo - uomo, si badi, che sia soltanto uomo e non sia anche Dio, come Cristo. Infine, nemmeno l’unione dei gameti maschile e femminile ha la capacità di diventare uomo, perché tale unione concorre a costituire ciò che non è più soltanto capacità di diventare uomo, ma è già uomo. (Stiamo parlando, infatti, della capacità che cessa quando è realizzata - e che Aristotele chiamava «potenza»). Sulla base del Magistero della Chiesa non può dunque esistere la «capacità» di diventare uomo. Ciò significa che nessun uomo può nascere! Poiché sulla base di quel Magistero è impossibile indicare quando e dove mai possa esistere la capacità di diventare uomo, segue che è impossibile che degli uomini vengano ad esistere - segue cioè l’assurdo. La Chiesa sostiene anche che, nel dubbio che l’embrione sia uomo, è morale trattarlo «come se» lo fosse. Ma anche in questo modo essa ammette la possibilità che l’embrione sia uomo sin dalla fecondazione, cioè ammette l’assurdo qui sopra rilevato. Quando scienziati come Edoardo Boncinelli dicono che non si può sapere quando l’uomo è persona, per evitare quell’assurdo devono escludere che l’embrione sia uomo sin dalla fecondazione. Quando Marcello Pera dice che l’embrione è persona, allora o abbandona il suo laicismo e fa ricorso al Dio che rende persona l’embrione, oppure sostiene che persona e spirito sono aspetti, prodotti della materia. La Chiesa sta affrontando i problemi della fecondazione assistita con concetti che si frantumano. Ciò non significa che quelli dei suoi avversari rimangano intatti.
di EMANUELE SEVERINO
Commenti
Corriere

Ordine ai turisti cinesi: visitate i luoghi della Lunga marcia

I santuari della Rivoluzione maoista saranno trasformati in mete turistiche: «Per rieducare il popolo». E garantire profitti ai contadini
Ordine ai turisti cinesi: visitate i luoghi della Lunga marcia
I giovani non sanno nulla della storia comunista. Il Partito: occorre rafforzare il loro patriottismo
DAL NOSTRO CORRISPONDENTE PECHINO - Il «pellegrinaggio rosso» ha dodici tappe e due obiettivi. Il primo obiettivo è «educativo-spirituale» e lo spiega serio un commento del Quotidiano del Popolo , la voce del Partito comunista: «Rafforzare il patriottismo del popolo, soprattutto dei giovani, rafforzare l'educazione alla rivoluzione, valorizzare il senso della Nazione». Il secondo obiettivo è più terra-terra, in linea con la rincorsa alla modernizzazione. Di nuovo il giornale del partito mette le cose in chiaro: «Promuovere lo sviluppo ordinato nelle zone della rivoluzione». Una frase nella quale pesa quell'aggettivo «ordinato». Che ha una sua ragione d'essere. Molte «zone della rivoluzione» (le zone rurali) - discorso a parte per Pechino, Shanghai e i distretti industriali culle di ricchezza - sono talmente povere (reddito annuo dei contadini 355 dollari, statistiche ufficiali) che vi covano un risentimento e un malcontento tali da creare più di una preoccupazione ai dirigenti comunisti. E tali da convincerli a cercare di incentivare il progresso partendo proprio da questa forma di «turismo politico», sintesi di un pesante messaggio di propaganda di regime e di un forte tentativo di mediazione sociale oltre che di rilancio economico. Il turismo della «Lunga marcia» o della rivoluzione. Turismo uguale risorse, infrastrutture, alberghi, lavoro, reddito. Alla fine, soprattutto, turismo uguale ricomposizione dei conflitti fra base rurale e autorità, fra contadini e partito. Turismo uguale recupero dall’indifferenza che segnala il distacco degli adolescenti e dei ventenni. Annunciato alla fine dello scorso anno un po' in sordina, quando il Comitato centrale e il governo pubblicarono un documento dal titolo «Programma per il quinquennio 2005-2010», tocca adesso al severissimo Quotidiano del Popolo dare la linea e invitare le masse popolari cinesi, le ultime generazioni in particolare, a rinfrescare la memoria. Che forse hanno perso. Non sorprende affatto che oggi i ragazzi di Pechino o di Shanghai o di Shenzhen, più coinvolti dalle note della musica rock o pop che dall'epica della vittoria maoista, sappiano poco o nulla della battaglia di Taihang, «l'alba della vittoria», o di Yan'an, «la terra santa della rivoluzione». Anzi, proprio perché sanno troppo poco (così sostengono preoccupati gli eredi di Mao e Deng), è bene che vadano a vedere i luoghi sacri della Lunga marcia e lì ne assimilino il «significato attuale, storico, profondo» (parole del commentatore del Quotidiano del Popolo ). L'operazione «turismo rosso» ha una terza funzione. Non dichiarata ma leggibile fra le righe della presentazione proposta con tanta enfasi. Una funzione «rieducativa», chiamiamola così. La corruzione dilaga nell’amministrazione e fra i funzionari dello stesso partito (160 mila casi denunciati nel 2004) quindi, dicono i responsabili della propaganda nel Comitato centrale, è necessario recuperare i valori (di convinzione ideologica) che segnarono la storia del comunismo cinese. Ci riusciranno? Il progetto si accompagna a un investimento dello Stato di 20 miliardi di yuan, all'incirca 2 miliardi di euro. E laddove circolano denari nell'Impero Celeste circolano anche pensieri di altro tipo, pensieri assai poco rivoluzionari. Che si tratti di costruire case, ponti o centrali, che si tratti di recuperare e ristrutturare quegli edifici testimonianza del passato e lasciati decadere indecentemente, laddove parte il motore del benessere si avvia pure la condotta dell'arricchimento illegale. La Cina applica alla perfezione la regola. Dodici sono le tappe individuate dal partito per lanciare il turismo militante. Ogni tappa ha un titolo che richiama un passaggio e un evento della storia negli ultimi 84 anni. La prima è la «fondazione», ovvero Shanghai dove nel luglio 1921 tredici delegati in rappresentanza di 70 iscritti (Mao ventiquattrenne) si ritrovarono a costituire quella che sarebbe diventata la più grande organizzazione comunista al mondo. Poi, seconda tappa «la culla della rivoluzione»: Shaoshan il paese di Mao. E avanti con Diabei nello Yunnan, ovvero «lottare con tenacia», con Yan'an «la terra santa della rivoluzione», il monte Changbai «eroi della rivoluzione», passando per i luoghi della «svolta storica» e della «battaglia decisiva» (Huaihai), dei «generali e del balzo in avanti» (il Monte Dabie), «dello spirito della roccia rossa» (Sichuan). Fino a Pechino dove, naturalmente, «sventolano le bandiere rosse». Operazione di propaganda e di rilancio. Che nasconde le difficoltà del Partito comunista cinese. In crisi di consensi e di credibilità nelle province più povere. Proprio le «zone della rivoluzione».
Fabio Cavalera
Esteri
Corriere

Bush or Bushehr?

Bush or Bushehr?
Russia puts its money on IranGulf atomic plant back on track
The Daily Star Lebanon Paul de Zardain
Beirut
MOSCOW: With a firm handshake from the Kremlin chief, Hassan Rohani concluded his visit to Moscow last Friday. As head of Iran's National Security Council, Rohani made no secret that his meetings were timed ahead of a U.S.-Russia summit in Bratislava this week.
A triangulation of interests has emerged in which Russia is keen on bolstering ties with the U.S., while signing defense contracts with Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin met Rohani's delegation with a broad smile, a signal that work on the Bushehr atomic plant remains on track: "We will continue to cooperate with Iran at all levels, including nuclear energy," a resolute Putin told the Kremlin pool.
According to Izvestia, more than 1,500 Russian engineers are scheduled to bring Bushehr online by 2006. Putin restated his conviction that Tehran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons. Next to him at the bargaining table was Aleksandr Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Federal Agency for Atomic Energy. Rumyantsev is expected to sign a protocol in Tehran on Feb. 26 monitoring the return of spent fuels to Siberia. The precautionary measure has not quieted critics who argue that plutonium can easily be extracted from reprocessed fuels.
Last September, Iran announced it was resuming large-scale conversion of uranium ore. The debate is now about mastering the whole nuclear cycle, in violation of a 2003 agreement reached with Britain, France and Germany. Although the Islamic Republic holds 9 percent of the world's proven crude oil reserves (and 64.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas), nuclear power is seen as an alternate source of electricity generation. Exports of crude oil could then be freed up to pay off the country's $9.9 billion in external debt. Tehran argues that the Gulf reactor at Bushehr will help meet the needs of a population fast approaching 70 million. With median age at 22, the mullahs fear youths with few job prospects could lead a de-facto opposition.
For Moscow, the commercial incentives are strong. Putin is reluctant to alter his economic development plans on the basis of what he sees as unproven allegations. The Kremlin is concerned that Chinese oil companies are profiting from the diplomatic crisis by clinching deals in Iran. According to a January report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, China's Sinopec has secured 51 percent of Iran's Yadavaran oil-field project. And in September, another Chinese oil major took over operations at Masjid-e Suleiman. Meanwhile, the European offer to supply Tehran with nuclear fuels and civilian technology is a potential slap in the face for Putin.
Still, business daily Kommersant reminded its readers Saturday that Iran could be nuclear-enabled within six months. It said Kremlin officials had failed to mention that U.S. President George W. Bush is not ruling out pre-emptive attacks against Bushehr. A military showdown could put Russian trade policies at risk. In Moscow, a consensus among analysts holds that Bush's threats are not credible.
"Iran is not Iraq. There is no possible way the U.S. can carry out the same type of campaign it launched against Saddam Hussein in Iraq," says Gleb Pavlovksy, a Kremlin-connected political strategist. "Anyway, business and diplomacy don't necessarily cancel each other out," he says.
The war on terrorism can distract from other conflicts of interest between Russia and the United States. But when news hit trading floors last Wednesday that an explosion had taken place near Bushehr, oil prices moved up sharply. There is nothing like oil prices to correct market distractions. Izvestia revealed the next day that Russian specialists on the ground had not been harmed since the blast was detected 100 kilometers away from the reactor. But a source at Atomstroiexport, the Russian outfit in charge of Bushehr, said security measures had been heightened.
Moscow is not only investing in Iran's atomic market, but also in exports of military equipment. Much of it is weaponry designed in the 1970s. When Putin came to power in 1999, he committed to double-tracking the economy.
"The idea was that exports of oil and gas would help rebuild the high-tech sector. Preserving the legacy of the Soviet Union's space research, for example, was important to Putin's team," says Aleksei Bogaturov of Russia's Academy of Sciences.
Deemed of strategic national interest, the Kremlin co-financed the construction of long-range Ilyushin aircraft equipped with U.S.-built engines. But the short-term vision of Russian bureaucrats, coupled with nostalgia for a lost sphere of influence, is getting in the way.
Russia is struggling to find its strategic fit in the Middle East. One way is by opening new export markets. But to avoid upsetting the regional balance, it will have to tread lightly. This past week, Moscow had to qualify the sale of Strelets surface-to-air missile systems to Syria. A controversy erupted in January over the possible sale of rocket propellers. At the time, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov denied talks over "illicit" weapons. During his three-day visit to Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad also denied arms deals. But just last week, Ivanov's office resorted to a rhetorical device to explain that it was going ahead with sales to Syria. The Strelets is for defensive purposes only, an official source claimed. It cannot be detached from armored vehicles and is therefore unlikely to land in terrorist hands.
Linguistic devices may not work after the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Any tracks leading to a Syrian role in the Beirut bombing will isolate Damascus.
"I assume this issue will be raised in Bratislava [on Feb. 24] to avoid additional irritants in the Bush-Putin partnership," says Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow. Kortunov thinks Putin is responding to the pressure of arms exporters linked to the Defense Ministry.
"Putin will be as opportunistic as he is allowed to be. It all depends on U.S. persistence and whether Bush can convince the Europeans to hold the line," says Kortunov.
The delivery of anti-aircraft systems to Syria does not directly violate UN conventions. But if Putin is unable to calibrate his policies, he may have to alter his portfolio and forsake Iran.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_ID=12884© 2005 The Daily Star

Identification of 9/11 Victims Reaches Limits of Technology

Identification of 9/11 Victims Reaches Limits of Technology
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff
WriterThursday, February 24, 2005; Page A03
NEW YORK, Feb. 23 -- They are the unknown lost, the 1,161 victims of the World Trade Center attacks whose bodies could remain forever unidentified.
The city medical examiner's office said Wednesday that it is halting the painstaking job of trying to identify more remains of those who died in the 2001 attacks on the twin towers in Lower Manhattan. Forty-two percent of the 2,749 victims remain unidentified.
For more than three years, forensic experts labored over bone and tissue fragments, trying to extract strands of DNA to divine the identities of lost fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends.
"This is a pause -- we've exhausted the limits of the technology as it exists today," said Ellen Borakove, the New York medical examiner's spokeswoman. "But the doctors have promised -- promised -- that we will never say 'case closed.' "
Staffers at the medical examiner's office had been notifying families for three weeks when the news broke this week of the pause. Few of the families expressed much surprise, and fewer still faulted the efforts of the doctors and technicians who worked so long.
Sally Regenhard lost her son, Christian, in the collapse of the towers. He was a strapping 28-year-old firefighter with a love of painting and books, and he was at his stationhouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, when the emergency call came on Sept. 11. Regenhard has no idea which tower her son ran into.
"Oh, God, it puts an end to hope that we might get some sort of answer," Regenhard said. "For me, the chance to find out what exactly happened to my son is over. For so many families of firefighters, our sons and husbands have disappeared into death."
Monica Iken's husband, Michael, was a bond broker, working on the 84th floor of the South Tower. No part of her husband has been found.
"The emptiness of not taking someone home is beyond being able to explain," said Iken, 34, a schoolteacher by training who now leads September's Mission, an organization dedicated to creating a memorial. "But you also get to a point where what are you going to get back? A fragment of a person? Is that my husband?"
In the days after the attacks, hundreds of forensic pathologists, anthropologists, dentists and doctors -- many of them volunteers -- flocked to three huge tents outside the East Side Manhattan headquarters of the medical examiner's office. There they pored over body parts large and small, taking fingerprints and tooth prints and X-rays, and where possible seeking a match with a list of those missing. They made hundreds of relatively quick identifications in those first weeks and months.
Then began a more laborious process. The office collected hair and saliva samples from thousands of families, and set about trying to extract DNA from almost 20,000 body parts collected from more than 2 million tons of debris. This involved standard DNA analysis, which attempts to read sequences of DNA that are several letters long. But it also forced scientists to explore new forensic techniques, in which they attempted to extract much smaller fragments of degraded DNA.
This went on for years before the forensic scientists realized that they had butted up against the outer wall of existing technology.
"I'm still driven by the families," Robert Shaler, director of forensic biology at the medical examiner's office, told reporters in 2003. "When I see these people, they look at me with eyes that say, 'Did you find her yet?' But when you're only turning out a couple a week. . . . It's hard."
The city has 9,720 unidentified body parts, which biologists have freeze-dried and carefully stored, in hopes that someday new technology will allow for a reexamination.
Regenhard had a memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral for her son on Oct. 26, 2001 -- she knew long ago that she would never retrieve his body. "One of these days, one day, I'll have a proper burial in a cemetery," Regenhard said. "I'll put in his mountain-climbing gear, his Spanish-language books, his artwork."
"It seems so strange." She inhaled deeply and paused. "Don't I have to do this? Don't I have to put up a tombstone and let someone know that this great kid lived his life?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47866-2005Feb23.html?referrer=email

Allarme Tim: troppe intercettazioni

Allarme Tim: troppe intercettazioni
21 febbraio 2005
Il sole 24 ore

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

World Must Act on Bird Flu or Face Pandemic -- U.N.

World Must Act on Bird Flu or Face Pandemic -- U.N.
reuters

Kelly promises reform of exam system

Kelly promises reform of exam system
guardian

The Secret Genocide Archive

The Secret Genocide Archive
nytimes

L'Afghanistan, un paese sempre più fragile

L'Afghanistan, un paese sempre più fragile
Stefano Baldolini
Europa 23 febbraio 2005
A tre anni dalla cacciata del regime talebano e dopo 23 anni di crisi, l’Afghanistan rimane a rischio instabilità e uno dei paesi meno sviluppati del mondo.
Queste in sintesi le conclusioni del primo “National Human Development Report: Security with a Human Face” diffuso nei giorni scorsi dalle Nazioni Unite. Il documento è già di per sé una notizia. "Per la prima volta nella storia moderna è stato permesso ad osservatori neutrali di raccogliere dati sulle condizioni di vita del popolo afghano", si legge nel rapporto, che è il frutto di due anni di lavoro congiunto tra l’UN Development Programme e il governo di Kabul.
Ma al di là della soddisfazione di rito, resta la durezza della realtà rappresentata, "è un quadro fosco", scrive nella prefazione il presidente Hamid Karzai. Il documento infatti relega l’Afghanistan tra i “dannati” dell’Africa sub sahariana in termini di alfabetizzazione, sanità, attesa di vita, povertà.
In questo senso gli indicatori parlano chiaro. Secondo l’Human Development Index (HDI) Kabul è tra la 173/ma e la 178/ma posizione, metà della popolazione vive sotto la soglia di povertà e l’attesa di vita media (pari a 44 anni e mezzo) è di venti anni inferiore a quella dei paesi confinanti.
Il rischio caos è alle porte per la “fragile nazione” e il rapporto lancia un warning. "I bisogni fondamentali devono essere affrontati" per evitare che il paese torni ad essere insicuro, "una minaccia per la sua gente e per la comunità internazionale".
Il quadro è fosco ma non del tutto negativo, l’Onu parla di “cauto ottimismo”, e gli ultimi due anni hanno fatto registrare “notevoli progressi”.
L’economia per esempio appare in crescita, con un incremento del 16% nel 2003, proventi dalle droghe esclusi (il traffico illecito di stupefacenti rimane il motore dell’economia afgana con il 38,2% del Pil) e la previsione di un più 10% nei prossimi dieci anni. "Ma con una crescente concentrazione della ricchezza in poche mani e con un senso diffuso che gli sforzi della ricostruzione siano a carico solo della gente comune".
Luci e ombre anche nel sistema scolastico. Nonostante alcuni dati positivi - il 2004 ha fatto segnare il 54,4% di iscrizione alla scuola primaria e 4 milioni di studenti delle scuole superiori hanno ripreso a frequentare dal 2002 - il sistema scolastico dell’Afghanistan "è ancora il peggiore nel mondo" e neanche un terzo degli adulti sa leggere e scrivere.
Come al solito in questi casi sono le fasce più deboli a fare le spese. Le donne, per esempio, che anni di discriminazione e povertà hanno “relegato tra le condizioni peggiori nel mondo”. Vittime di violenza, di matrimoni forzati, escluse dalla vita pubblica, ogni ora due donne muoiono per cause connesse alla gravidanza. E ne fanno le spese anche i bambini, il 20% dei quali non raggiunge i cinque anni (si stima che dal 1992 più di 300 mila bambini siano stati vittima dei vari conflitti).
Oltre a fare il quadro della situazione il National Human Development Report prova a dare qualche suggerimento ai cosiddetti decision makers con affermazioni del tipo "contro l’estremismo religioso, lo sviluppo economico-sociale rappresenta uno strumento più potente e più efficace dell’intervento militare", che producono un discreto effetto se messe a confronto con altre parole.
Si prendano queste, per esempio: "Il terrorismo non viene più considerato il prodotto di fattori economici. Le paludi in cui questa peste assassina si nutre non sono quelle della povertà e della fame ma quelle dell’oppressione politica. Soltanto prosciugando queste paludi attraverso una strategia di cambio di regime possiamo liberarci dalla minaccia del terrorismo e allo stesso tempo dare ai popoli di tutto il mondo islamico le libertà che desiderano e meritano." (Norman Podhoretz, teorico neocon, in “La quarta guerra mondiale”, The Commentary, settembre 2004).

Rapporto Ilo 2004. Nel mondo crescita senza occupazione. Europa ferma al palo

Nel mondo crescita senza occupazione. Europa ferma al palo
Rapporto Ilo 2004.
Stefano BAldolini (Europa - mercoledì 16 febbraio 2005)

Qualcosa si muove nell’economia globale ma è ancora troppo poco perché si riesca a sfuggire al paradosso fin troppo noto della jobless growth (crescita senza occupazione), termine coniato negli anni ’80 di fronte all’aumento, o alla persistenza, della disoccupazione nei paesi (in quel caso europei) caratterizzati da un’intensa attività produttiva.
Questo è quello che emerge dal nuovo rapporto Global Employment Trends stilato dall’International Labour Office (Ilo). "Nel 2004 nonostante una robusta crescita economica, l’aumento dell’occupazione globale è insignificante", afferma l’agenzia delle Nazioni Unite.
I dati parlano chiaro. A fronte di una crescita del 5%, il tasso di disoccupazione è sceso solo dello 0,2%, dal 6,3% del 2003 al 6,1% (da 185,2 milioni a 184,7 milioni di senza lavoro).
Dall’analisi regionale degli indicatori emerge il trend positivo di America Latina e Carabi (dal 9,3% al 8,6) che spicca però in un contesto decisamente meno brillante. Un modesto decremento (dal 7,4% al 7,2) si registra nelle economie sviluppate occidentali (Ue inclusa). Le percentuali non entusiasmano anche nelle regioni in forte crescita economica: dal 6,5% al 6,4% nel Sud-est asiatico e del Pacifico, dal 4,8% al 4,7% nell’Asia meridionale, inchiodati al 3,3 % in Estremo Oriente. Mentre rimane alta la percentuale di disoccupati nell’Africa mediterranea e Medio Oriente (11,7%) e addirittura in controtendenza nell’Africa sub-sahariana (dal 10% al 10,1%).
Per quanto "irrilevante dal punto di vista quantitativo" si tratta comunque di un "primo passo significativo", afferma il rapporto, ricordando che l’ultima volta in cui il numero di disoccupati è calato è stata nel 2000, ad un anno dalle Twin Towers, vero e proprio spartiacque dell’economia globale.
E a proposito di eventi epocali, l’International Labour Office parte dal recente tsunami asiatico per tracciare "le sei sfide globali che il mercato internazionale del lavoro vede all’orizzonte".
Dalla necessità di una riorganizzazione delle società colpite dalla catastrofe del 26 dicembre scorso, all’emergenza Hiv/Aids, che si stima "sarà responsabile della morte di oltre 3 milioni di persone in età lavorativa nel solo 2005".
Decisivi saranno l’impatto che le dinamiche commerciali (si pensi alla recente scadenza dell’Accordo Multifibre) avranno sui "lavoratori del mondo", e come la politica riuscirà a governare i fenomeni che coinvolgono sia economie sviluppate e non, come l’outsourcing e l’immigrazione.
Altro obiettivo importante, il miglioramento delle condizioni di lavoro nella cosiddetta economia informale, che caratterizza le aree metropolitane del Sud-est asiatico o dell’America Latina. In questo senso il documento mira a non abbassare la guardia. "Il calo degli indici di disoccupazione è solo la punta dell’iceberg. La politica dovrebbe concentrarsi non solo su chi non lavora, ma anche sulle condizioni di chi un impiego ce l’ha già."
Chiude la serie delle priorità, la sfida alla disoccupazione giovanile, "particolarmente rilevante" nelle regioni segnate da sanguinosi conflitti e, in prospettiva determinante, se si considerano i fenomeni demografici in atto. "In molti paesi in via di sviluppo i giovani costituiscono più della metà della popolazione attuale, una percentuale che andrà crescendo nei prossimi dieci anni".
Il rapporto (www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/2005/8.htm) è stato diffuso in concomitanza del meeting di Budapest sulla regione europea e dell’Asia centrale che ha registrato un vero e proprio stallo nel 2004. Nell’area infatti non ci si è mossi dai 35 milioni di disoccupati dell’anno precedente e i dati preoccupano ancor di più se si considera che la crescita Ue, prevista all’1,6%, è lontana dai valori del resto del mondo.
"Il 2004 è stato un anno perso. Buon governo e politiche coerenti però possono fare la differenza. Noi abbiamo bisogno di economie che producano lavori di qualità per tutti coloro che possono e vogliono lavorare", ha dichiarato Juan Somavia, direttore generale dell’Ilo, aprendo la conferenza.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

CENTRAL AMERICA FORTE INCREMENTO RIMESSE EMIGRATI DURANTE IL 2004

CENTRAL AMERICA 22/2/2005 1:09
FORTE INCREMENTO RIMESSE EMIGRATI DURANTE IL 2004È ammontata a 7,112 miliardi di dollari, pari a circa 5,5 miliardi di euro, la somma delle rimesse inviate nel corso del 2004 nei Paesi dell’America centrale dagli emigrati della regione. Lo hanno reso noto le banche centrali degli Stati dell’America centrale, spiegando che l’incremento rispetto al 2003 è stato di 1,214 milioni di dollari (quasi 950 milioni di euro), circa il 17% in più. Il Paese che più ha beneficiato delle rimesse è stato il Guatemala (2,55 miliardi di dollari contro 2,106 del 2003), seguito da El Salvador (2,547 miliardi di dollari, contro 2,105 l’anno prima); la somma degli incrementi del denaro inviato in patria dai cittadini emigrati di questi due Paesi, da sola, copre quasi l’intero ammontare dell’aumento delle rimesse. È stato forte, in ogni caso, anche l’incremento registrato in Honduras, che dagli 882,7 milioni di dollari del 2003 è passato, nel 2004, a circa 1,2 miliardi di dollari. Questi tre Paesi sono anche tra i più poveri della regione oltre che quelli in cui si conta il maggior numero di emigrati, la maggior parte dei quali vive e lavora negli Stati Uniti: circa 2,5 milioni di salvadoregni, 1,2 milioni di guatemaltechi e un milione di honduregni. La maggior parte di loro vive negli Usa in modo illegale.

EX-GUERRIGLIERO SANDINISTA A CAPO DELLE FORZE ARMATEIl

NICARAGUA 21/2/2005 18:08
EX-GUERRIGLIERO SANDINISTA A CAPO DELLE FORZE ARMATEIl generale Omar Hallesleven ha assunto oggi l’incarico di capo dell’Esercito del Nicaragua, sostituendo il generale Javier Carrión nel corso di una cerimonia svoltasi alla presenza del presidente della Repubblica Enrique Bolaños in una base militare a circa 15 chilometri dalla capitale Managua. La particolarità di questa investitura risiede nel fatto che Hallesleven, come il suo predecessore, è un ex-guerrigliero sandinista, integrato nell’esercito alla fine della guerra civile (1979-1990). Carrión lascia la carriera militare per raggiunti limiti di età. Il generale Hallesleven è stato nominato dal capo dello Stato alla testa dell’esercito il 21 dicembre scorso; la scelta, per ammissione di Bolaños, è caduta sull’ex-sandinista perché considerato il più idoneo a dirigere la politica militare del Paese centroamericano. Il nuovo capo dell’Esercito, ex-insegnate dell’Università nazionale autonoma del Nicaragua (Unan), si schierò con i sandinisti per combattere la dittatura nicaraguese fin dalle prime battute, dalla metà degli anni Settanta; in particolare, Hallesleven entrò a far parte del ‘Fronte studentesco rivoluzionario’ (‘Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario’) e fu molto attivo nel reclutamento di simpatizzanti e collaboratori del ‘Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional’ (Fsln). Fu tra coloro che, il 27 dicembre 1974, parteciparono alla presa della casa del deputato José María “Chema” Castillo per pretendere dal regime di Anastasio Somoza la liberazione di alcuni guerriglieri sandinisti incarcerati. Dalla fine della guerra civile, Hallesleven è il quarto ex-sandinista dopo i generali Humberto Ortega (1990-1995, fratello dell’ex-presidente Daniel Ortega, 1985-1990), Joaquín Cuadra (1995-2000) e Carrión (2000-2005), a ricoprire la carica di capo dell’esercito, una delle più importanti dello Stato.[LL]

DIRITTI UMANI: CONSIGLIO MONDIALE CHIESE ACCUSA WASHINGTON DI VIOLAZIONI

USA DIRITTI UMANI: CONSIGLIO MONDIALE CHIESE ACCUSA WASHINGTON DI VIOLAZIONI ChurchReligious Affairs, Brief Il Consiglio mondiale delle Chiese (World council of churches – Wcc), organismo che riunisce 342 Chiese cristiane non cattoliche, ha accusato l’amministrazione Bush di violare la legge internazionale per il trattamento dei prigionieri nella base navale di Guantanamo. I detenuti “sono trattenuti senza aver subito un legale processo e in totale violazione delle norme e degli standard del diritto umanitario internazionale e dei diritti umani” si legge in un comunicato firmato dal Wcc e diffuso alle agenzie di stampa internazionale, in cui ci si riferisce ai 600 prigionieri stranieri arrestati nell’ambito della ‘lotta al terrore’ avviata dal presidente George W. Bush dopo l’attacco alle due torri di New York del 11 settembre 2001. Il comunicato è stato sottoscritto anche dal Consiglio nazionale delle Chiese degli Stati Uniti (Ncc), che riunisce 36 comunità protestanti, ortodosse e afroamericane. Nella nota si chiede al governo di Washington l’autorizzazione a inviare una rappresentanza del Ncc per visitare i prigionieri a Guantanamo, situata sull’isola di Cuba; inoltre il Wcc invita tutte le Chiese che ne fanno parte a informare i propri fedeli sugli abusi che l’amministrazione americana starebbe commettendo contro i prigionieri e a sensibilizzarli sulla situazione in Iraq. “I capi di Stato che usano falsi pretesti di connessioni con il terrorismo o armi di distruzione di massa per avviare una guerra saranno giudicati dalla storia” sentenzia il comunicato, in cui si chiede il ritiro delle truppe straniere dall’Iraq.[BF]
http://www.oikoumene.org/News_and_features.659.0.html

UN committee approves international declaration against human cloning

UN committee approves international declaration against human cloning
21 February 2005 – An international declaration calling for a ban on human cloning has been approved in a contentious vote by the main United Nations Legal Committee.
The “Sixth Committee” voted 71 in favor to 35 against ? with 43 abstentions ? to pass the text along to the General Assembly for formal adoption. The declaration calls for countries to prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.
The United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning was approved after earlier efforts failed to elaborate a binding international treaty on the practice.
In its resolution, the Sixth Committee also called for the adoption of all measures necessary to protect human life in the application of life sciences, and to prohibit the application of genetic engineering techniques that may be contrary to human dignity.
While there was widespread agreement over the need to ban human reproductive cloning, the issue was hotly debated. Friday's vote was no exception.

Baltimore the killing capital of the US

'Our youth are killing each other. Every other day it seems someone is murdered'
Years of poverty and drug wars have made Baltimore the killing capital of the US
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baltimore
Tuesday February 22, 2005
GuardianA teddy bear hangs from a stop sign on one of the corners of the Rev Willie Ray's patch of west Baltimore, white plush fur sinking under urban grime, and nearby, a graffiti warning. "If you don't gang bang, close your mouth. Death before dishonour."
For 36 years, he has been ministering to these streets and their congregation of the dispossessed. Three generations have grown up, got into drugs, had children, gone to jail, and died young, their passing marked by sad street shrines like this one. "It's just been a holocaust in the city," says Mr Ray. "A lot of young people are killing each other."
At a time when violent crime is coming down in America's big cities, Baltimore recorded 278 murders in 2004, the equivalent of one for every 2,342 of its people. It is the highest per capita death rate of all US cities, and six times deadlier than New York. The statistics for January were worse: 32 homicides in 31 days.
They were young men, killers and victims both, overwhelmingly between 16 and 28 years old, and the deaths were strangely intimate: "walk-up shootings", where the killer approaches and shoots the victim in the chest or head with a large-calibre gun.
The motive in nearly all the cases was drugs, mainly heroin, and a struggle for control between rival dealers.
Of the dead, 246 of the 278 were African-American. So were 128 of the 147 suspects. Nearly 90% of the killers had criminal records; so did most of their victims, with an average of eight arrests apiece.
Poor, black, and not without sin, these were not the kind of victims to inspire sympathy from the police or the public, and the frustration of the city authorities at cleaning up after such lethal turf battles is tangible.
"These are executions. It's drug dealers killing drug dealers," says Matt Jablow, a spokesman for the Baltimore police. "The same thing has been happening forever."
As far as Baltimore police are concerned, 2004 was a relatively good year. The bigger organised crime gangs which once ruled over drugs and other transactions were broken up more than a decade ago, introducing a period of instability with freelance operators struggling to stake out their patch.
While skirmishes between small-time dealers are taking their toll on a few impoverished pockets of the city, life for the majority of law-abiding Baltimoreans is safe.
Overall, violent crime has gone down by 30% in the past five years. But officials such as Mr Jablow say it would be naive to think the drugs trade is ever going to disappear entirely from Baltimore.
Unlike New York, which saw its crime rate drop during the Wall Street boom of the 1990s, the city has been in decline for a generation, shedding both jobs and residents.
"We've lost a lot of industrial blue-collar jobs that were well-paying, with benefits, and did not require a college education," says Peter Beilenson, the city's health commissioner. "We don't have that anymore, and so for those who don't go to college, there are really not great economic alternatives. They are going to have a hard time finding a living wage."
Others go even further, arguing that the drugs trade has supplanted blue-collar work as a working class aspiration, and that failing inner city schools and broken families have failed to foster bigger ambitions.
"They accept the drug/thug lifestyle because the achievement is no longer accessible," says Mr Ray.
Barricades
That is how it seems in the Mr Ray's home parish of west Baltimore, a killing-zone demarcated by burnt-out and boarded-up houses, with the few surviving businesses as heavily barricaded as forts.
Many of the dead were from these streets; the living remain in mortal fear of losing their children to the drug wars, or of being fingered as police informers.
"Our youth are killing each other. Every other day it seems someone is getting murdered," says a woman, who would give only her first name, Debbie, for fear of retaliation.
"I know young children, four or five years old, that have lost their father, and their father is just in his 20s."
Two of the murder victims, killed within a week of each other, had fathered children by women living in Debbie's block of row houses.
"One was in college," she says. "He was doing the right things in life. He had moved out of the neighbourhood, and was trying to better himself."
These are the forces Mr Ray confronts daily as he makes his rounds, handing out flyers for afternoon programmes and dance contests, waving at anyone who will meet his eye.
"My concentration has been staying right here in the hood and dealing with crime," he says, and is scathing about African Americans who have moved out to better neighbourhoods. "They go into another world, another dimension of success, and they don't see the city as their responsibility."
His crusade has changed course over the years. At first, he tried candlelight vigils and Stop the Killing marches. He turned to local churches, begging them to reach out to the community. He approached professional athletes, asking them to share their success stories with the young.
Now, at a time when he is longing to leave the activist life, he has come up with the idea of asking churches just to try to save a single corner of a city block.
He did exactly that with the corner opposite his battered house with the purple door, driving out the drug dealers who used to gather there.
"I cast out the demon," he says. But that was eight years ago, and in all that time, no one managed to save the corner with the teddy bear shrine - or Tracy Austin, the man who was shot dead there at the relatively advanced age of 42.
"There have been many saved now through vigils and such," Mr Ray says. "But I would have to say in the overall percentage, a lot more of them get caught up in the drug violence and subculture."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1419689,00.html

Slowdown Indicated For China's Economy

Slowdown Indicated For China's Economy
By Peter S. GoodmanWashington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, February 22, 2005; Page E01
BEIJING, Feb. 21 -- China's producer prices last month climbed by the smallest margin in almost a year, the government announced Monday, adding to the widespread view that the nation's campaign to rein in economic growth by limiting investment is gradually working and will avert a crash.
January's 5.8 percent increase in producer prices compared with a year earlier comes on the heels of a 7.1 percent increase in December. Economists said the slowing trend adds to the likelihood that China will successfully nudge down the pace of growth in its booming economy through credit-tightening without suffering a "hard landing" -- an abrupt halt that could shutter businesses, destroy jobs and leave banks burdened with fresh billions in bad loans.
The slowing also suggests that China's central bank is less likely to raise interest rates anew after lifting them in October for the first time in nearly a decade. That move sowed fear in markets around the globe. Traders read it as the beginning of a round of belt-tightening that would significantly diminish China's voracious appetite for goods, particularly commodities -- such as iron ore pouring into Chinese ports from Brazil and Australia and soybeans shipped from the United States and Argentina.
"Price pressures are coming off," said Jonathan Anderson, chief economist at UBS Investment Research in Hong Kong, who has long argued that China is in the midst of successfully engineering a soft landing, a gradual slowdown free of crisis. "What it really means is they are not going to be tempted to do anything wacky in terms of raising interest rates."
Monday's producer price figures landed two weeks after China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said borrowing costs were at a "comfortable" level.
Only a few months ago, some economists fretted that China might not be able to bring its sizzling economy under heel. In that view, a glut of unneeded office space and unwanted production could have given way to rapidly falling prices, leading to bankruptcies and a potential banking crisis whose consequences might have rippled out around the globe.
These days, most fears focus on the consequences of the opposite outcome -- the impact a slowdown in China would have on exporters that have become dependent on Chinese demand for their goods. The slowdown in China's growth and the weakening demand for raw materials such as steel, for example, is blamed in part for Japan's recent return to recession.
But even that story now seems under control. "The bad news is already priced into the market," Anderson said.
By themselves, the January numbers are a mere increment in the still unfolding story of China's efforts to crimp the flow of new capital to hot-growing areas of the economy, particularly steel, automaking and real estate.
Analysts emphasized that January data tend to be skewed by the run-up to the Lunar New Year, when many people begin to travel to spend the holiday with their families.
They will be scouring the data in coming months for confirmation of the growing consensus that the economy is indeed cooling to a sustainable pace. Of particular interest is the growth of investment in government-led public-works projects, which have long been the engine of the world's largest country.
The January producer price data fit into a recent pattern that has convinced most economists that a gradual slowdown is already underway.
In April, Premier Wen Jiabao began sounding the alarm that an overly exuberant flood of capital into car plants and skyscrapers was in danger of creating a bubble that could leave China's already troubled banks with a greater toll of bad loans. Investment into large projects in Chinese cities was then growing by 35 percent compared with a year earlier. In December, growth of such projects had slowed to 21 percent, the government said.
Last week, the government reported that China's industrial production rose by 8.9 percent in January compared with a year earlier -- the smallest increase in three years.
On Tuesday, the government released figures showing that consumer prices rose by 1.9 percent in January -- a narrower increase than economists had been expecting and the smallest rise in nearly a year.
"It's a good sign," said Larry H.P. Lang, chairman of the finance department at Chinese University of Hong Kong and host of a popular business talk show in Shanghai. "The government was worried before, but things are getting better and better."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42688-2005Feb21.html?referrer=email

Siemens seeks permission to expand Vietnam’s mobile network

Siemens seeks permission to expand Vietnam’s mobile network

The German ambassador to Vietnam has recently asked the Vietnamese government to allow German telecoms giant Siemens to help expand the country’s largest mobile phone network Vinaphone.
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem has told the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and state-owned telecoms firm Vietnam Post and Telecommunications (VNPT) to consider the request, the Government Office said Feb. 20.
The Vinaphone network, operated by VNPT, has repeatedly been blocked due to soaring phone calls and text messages during the Lunar New Year (Feb. 9).
Currently, the mobile network has 3.8 million lines, but according to telecoms experts, Vinaphone’s 2.8 million subscribers need two lines each.
Vinaphone has also announced a decision to invest 100 million USD this year to upgrade its capacity.
Source: Saigon Giai Phong newspaper – Compiled by Hieu Trung
http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/?catid=2&newsid=5091
Story from Thanh Nien NewsPublished: 20 February, 2005, 20:57:45 (GMT+7)Copyright Thanh Nien News

South Africa: HIV/Aids 'Indirectly' Responsible for Increased Mortality

South Africa: HIV/Aids 'Indirectly' Responsible for Increased Mortality - Report UN Integrated Regional Information Networks NEWS
February 21, 2005 Posted to the web February 21, 2005 Johannesburg
South Africa experienced a 57 percent jump in reported deaths between 1997 and 2003, revealing a startling - if indirect - picture of the impact of HIV/AIDS, according to Statistics SA (Stats SA).
However, officials said AIDS-related diseases, such as tuberculosis, influenza or pneumonia, were often recorded as the cause of death on the certificate, making it difficult to establish the precise level of mortality attributable to HIV/AIDS.
The long awaited study, 'Mortality and Causes of Death in South Africa', noted that in 2001 TB had claimed the lives of 37,917 people aged between 15 and 49, while HIV/AIDS had claimed only 7,564.
Stats SA's acting deputy director-general for population statistics, Dr Liz Gavin, said the data provided indirect evidence that HIV/AIDS had contributed to the mortality level among prime-aged adults.
"Within the 15 to 49 age group, HIV did in fact emerge as one of the leading natural causes of death [because of the link between TB and AIDS]," Gavin told PlusNews.
The report's delayed release had fuelled speculation that Stats SA was seeking to conceal the number of AIDS-related deaths in the country.
Citing recent figures from the Medical Research Council of South Africa, British medical journal The Lancet charged that the number of AIDS-related deaths had to be at least three times higher than those in the Stats SA report.
"Social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, tacitly perpetuated by the government's reluctance to bring the crisis out in the open and face it head on, prevents many from speaking out about the causes of illness ... and leads doctors to record uncontroversial diagnoses on death certificates," the Lancet said.
Gavin maintained that any delay in publishing the latest report had been the result of strict research policy, in order to make accurate mortality figures available to the public.
"There is no cover-up. While the HIV/AIDS epidemic is likely an important factor in the rising death rate, part of the increase could also be attributed to a growing overall population and improved data on deaths," she explained.
South Africa has around 5.3 million people, or one in five adults, living with HIV and AIDS - the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the world.
Access the complete Stats SA report at: http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010387.pdf

EX-GUERRIGLIERO SANDINISTA A CAPO DELLE FORZE ARMATE

NICARAGUA 21/2/2005 18:08
EX-GUERRIGLIERO SANDINISTA A CAPO DELLE FORZE ARMATE
General, Brief
Il generale Omar Hallesleven ha assunto oggi l’incarico di capo dell’Esercito del Nicaragua, sostituendo il generale Javier Carrión nel corso di una cerimonia svoltasi alla presenza del presidente della Repubblica Enrique Bolaños in una base militare a circa 15 chilometri dalla capitale Managua. La particolarità di questa investitura risiede nel fatto che Hallesleven, come il suo predecessore, è un ex-guerrigliero sandinista, integrato nell’esercito alla fine della guerra civile (1979-1990). Carrión lascia la carriera militare per raggiunti limiti di età. Il generale Hallesleven è stato nominato dal capo dello Stato alla testa dell’esercito il 21 dicembre scorso; la scelta, per ammissione di Bolaños, è caduta sull’ex-sandinista perché considerato il più idoneo a dirigere la politica militare del Paese centroamericano. Il nuovo capo dell’Esercito, ex-insegnate dell’Università nazionale autonoma del Nicaragua (Unan), si schierò con i sandinisti per combattere la dittatura nicaraguese fin dalle prime battute, dalla metà degli anni Settanta; in particolare, Hallesleven entrò a far parte del ‘Fronte studentesco rivoluzionario’ (‘Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario’) e fu molto attivo nel reclutamento di simpatizzanti e collaboratori del ‘Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional’ (Fsln). Fu tra coloro che, il 27 dicembre 1974, parteciparono alla presa della casa del deputato José María “Chema” Castillo per pretendere dal regime di Anastasio Somoza la liberazione di alcuni guerriglieri sandinisti incarcerati. Dalla fine della guerra civile, Hallesleven è il quarto ex-sandinista dopo i generali Humberto Ortega (1990-1995, fratello dell’ex-presidente Daniel Ortega, 1985-1990), Joaquín Cuadra (1995-2000) e Carrión (2000-2005), a ricoprire la carica di capo dell’esercito, una delle più importanti dello Stato.[LL]

SI DIMETTE ALTO COMMISSARIO ONU PER I RIFUGIATI

SWITZERLAND 21/2/2005 17:11
SI DIMETTE ALTO COMMISSARIO ONU PER I RIFUGIATI
General, Brief
L’Alto commissario delle Nazioni Unite per i rifugiati, l’ex primo ministro olandese Ruud Lubbers, si è dimesso dall’incarico dopo accuse di molestie sessuali. Salito al vertice dell’Acnur agli inizi del 2001, negli ultimi giorni Lubbers era stato al centro di rivelazioni pubblicate dal quotidiano britannico ‘The Independent’, ma aveva respinto ogni accusa e ribadito di non voler lasciare l’incarico. Premier olandese tra il 1982 e il 1994, il politico, 65 anni, ha infine annunciato le proprie dimissioni, inviando questa mattina una lettera a circa 6.000 operatori dell’Acnur che lavorano in oltre 115 Paesi del mondo. “La mia decisione – si legge tra l’altro nella missiva - giunge soprattutto nell’intenzione di non rendere ancora più difficile la posizione del segretario generale dell’Onu, Kofi Annan, che già si trova a dover affrontare una serie di problemi e una perdurante pressione da parte dei media”. Lubbers ha aggiunto che resterà disponibile finché non verrà nominato il suo successore alla guida dell’Acnur, organismo con sede a Ginevra (Svizzera), sostenuto principalmente dalle donazioni dei governi e dei privati, che si occupa di oltre 22 milioni di persone, tra rifugiati, sfollati e richiedenti asilo. [LM

Monday, February 21, 2005

African leaders air their views in new report

African leaders air their views in new report
Matebello Motloung Johannesburg, South Africa
21 February 2005 03:44
The process of democratic governance is rooting itself all across the African continent. This is the view of 13 African leaders as contained in a report released on Monday at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. Speaking at the launch of the report, titled African Leaders: State of Africa Report 2004, Wits' head of international relations, Prof John Stremlau, said proof of this can be found in President Thabo Mbeki's recent State of the Nation address. "When you look at the president's speech when talking about progress in the African continent, you will see how he starts by mentioning the success stories first, then Zimbabwe and other countries. "This is revolutionary to get an African head of state criticising others. That would have never happened before," said Stremlau. The report was launched in conjunction with the Boston-based African Presidential Archives and Research Centre in the United States, headed by a former American ambassador to Tanzania, Charles R Stith.The centre conducted the research with the universities of Ghana, Wits and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. Stith said the report provides an insight into the aspirations and issues that are important to African leaders.He said the participating countries were chosen according to "the significant strides made in terms of democratic governance and the development of their economies along free-market lines".In the report, each of the 13 leaders assesses the contemporary trends and developments in their own countries. The report quotes Mbeki highlighting the redistribution of 444 000ha of land in the five years leading to the end of 1998 as among the South African government's successes. "In three years since then, the number has increased by 600 000ha ... while the number of houses built or under contraction currently [2003] stands at 1,2-million," Mbeki said in his assessment. In April, 11 of Africa's former African heads of state will meet at Wits to discuss how to bring back intellectual property to Africa. Wits spokesperson Shiroma Hassima said the former presidents, who all belong to the African Presidential Roundtable club, will attend a one-day conference also focusing on how to change Western media coverage about Africa. She said these will be leaders from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia. Cape Verde and Mauritius will be represented by two of their former heads of state. "Once presidents are out of the office, it doesn't mean their contribution to the development of the continent should stop," said the former ambassador. -- Sapa
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=198003&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/#

Afghanistan Human Development Report

Afghanistan’s future holds promise and peril
First-ever Afghanistan Human Development Report shows economy, education improving, but poverty, inequality and instability threaten progress. The new Afghan Government together with the international community must act now to prevent relapse. Accountability should be to the Afghan people’s human security needs.
Kabul, 21 February 2005 – The impoverished country of Afghanistan has made remarkable progress since the demise of the Taliban government in late 2001, and there is room for cautious optimism about the future, a Report released today by the United Nations Development Programme concludes. But it warns without mincing words, the fragile nation could easily tumble back into chaos. The basic human needs and the genuine grievances of people – the lack of jobs, health, education, income, dignity and opportunities for participation for the Afghan people must be met, and international aid must be tightly controlled, the Report says, or Afghanistan will collapse into an insecure state, a threat to its own people as well as to the international community.
The state, communities, the private sector and especially the international community have duties and responsibilities to provide human security as public goods: equal access to education, healthcare, livelihoods, gender equality and human rights while ensuring traditional security and a life free of violence. The security strategies of the international alliance and that of the Afghan state should only enhance, and not violate, the development and human rights needs of all Afghans, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion or geographical location. Afghans should be better consulted in the preparation of development plans of the country.
The National Human Development Report: Security with a Human Face, marks the first time in modern history that objective observers were allowed to gather and tabulate hard data on living conditions among everyday Afghans. It draws a portrait of a nation still at odds – if no longer at war -- with itself. And in a novel approach to peacemaking, the unblinking, unvarnished Report concludes that “human security” and “human development,” rather than military force and diplomacy alone, are key to resolving Afghanistan’s complex problems. The legitimate grievances of the Afghan people must be addressed before a lasting peace can take hold. Beyond survival, Afghans expect an existence with dignity, a life free of fear and free from wants.
“The considerable vote of confidence that the government received through landmark elections should encourage accountability towards Afghans first. The international community is committed to fighting terrorism and drugs inside Afghanistan, but human security cannot take a back seat to the national and international security interests of other nations,” says Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, the Report’s Editor-in-Chief.
Christophe Alexander, Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan adds: “The Human Development Report is a critical new roadmap for us all, highlighting the human side of the Bonn agenda and placing Afghans at centre stage – both as the means and ends of development. Canada will be guided by this inspiring call to the international community to protect, provide for and empower the people. We remain determined to ensure reconstruction efforts never pass by the ordinary Afghan.”
The report argues that the causes and consequences of 23 years of crisis cannot be understood in isolation from the historical and international context and cannot be ignored in the state-building process today. Because these grievances have been manipulated to fuel conflict in the past, their continued existence is not only unfair, but also potentially dangerous. With the renewed sovereignty of Afghanistan, a window of opportunity has opened to build a sustainable peace based on popular aspirations and participation. As the country devises its long-term development strategy, it should remember that economic growth and stability can be only be sustained by addressing the causes of spatial and social inequalities in Afghanistan.
Sustained peace in Afghanistan is not guaranteed despite the early successes in state-building that have now led to elections. Human security still needs to advance a long way, and rebuilding institutions will be a core task. To be most effective, this task must follow Afghan models that reflect the country’s history, and strive not only to satisfy the immediate needs of individuals, but also to develop capacities for self-sufficiency and empowerment.
The report was overseen by former UNDP Country Director Ercan Murat, who in his preface says “I hope that this and future NHDRs for Afghanistan will become important tools for the promotion of people-centred approaches to policy making. I also hope that the information offered here will prove useful for the planning and programming purposes of the new Government, as well as for those national and international organizations working on behalf of the Afghan people”.
Among the high - and low - points of human development in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan:
Human Development Index: The Report “paints a gloomy picture of the status of human development after two decades of war and destruction,” concedes President Hamid Karzai in the Forward, noting the ranking of 173 out of 178 nations on the UNDP’s 2004 Human Development Index. Only a few Sub-Saharan nations rank lower. Life expectancy, at44.5 years, is at least 20 years lower than in neighbouring countries.
Economic Growth: Positive:Under the post-Taliban interim government, Afghanistan’s economyhas recovered significantly. Non-drug GDP rose to about US$4.05 billion in 2002 – a yearly recovery of 25–30 per cent. In 2002, agriculture made up 52 per cent of national output, with a value of about US$2.1 billion. Economic growth for 2003 was estimated at 16 per cent. Over the next decade, non-drug GDP is expected to grow by 10-12 per cent. Negative: Anecdotal evidence suggests that economic growth so far has done little to alleviate inequality by income, gender or geography. A 2003 study found that the poorest 30 per cent of the population receive only nine per cent of the national income, while the upper third receive 55 per cent. “Our team found the overwhelming majority of people hold a sense of pessimism and fear that reconstruction is bypassing them,” says Daud Saba, one of the writers.
Poverty: Positive: Rising GDP creates the potential for more equitable income distribution. Surprisingly, violence as a cause of poverty was reported by only two-to-five per cent of the rural population. Negative: One out of two Afghans can be classified as poor, and 20.4 per cent of the rural population consumes less than 2,070 kilocalories per day. Poverty is compounded by a lack of social services, poor health, education and nutrition, gender inequality and human displacement. Over half the population is severely impacted by drought.
Education: Positive: Considerable progress has been made since the Taliban’s collapse. The “Back to School” campaign launched by the Afghanistan Interim Authority resulted in some three million children grades 1-12 and 70,000 teachers returning to school. By 2004, 54.4 per cent of primary age children were in school. Since 2002, a record 4 million high school students have enrolled. Negative: Afghanistan now has “the worst education system in the world,” and one of the lowest adult literacy rates, at just 28.7 per cent of the population. Only Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone fall behind. In some provinces, over 61 per cent of children are not enrolled, and over 80 per cent of girls do not attend school. Meanwhile, Nearly 80 per cent of the country’s 6,900 schools were damaged or destroyed in fighting.
Drugs: Positive: Illicit opium production may have peaked as more local religious leaders order farmers to replace opium with crops such as wheat. Negative: Opium economy equals 38.2 per cent of the country’s official GDP. Afghanistan is now the world’s major producer of illegal narcotics, with some 76 per cent of the supply. In 2002, drug-related income was calculated at US$2.54 billion, or 63 cents for each dollar of legal GDP (US$4.05 billion). Eradication of the drugs however has to be tied to a comprehensive strategy that diversifies livelihoods if it is not to further impoverish farmers.
Women & Children: Positive: More schools and public spaces have been opened to women, and access to media and other forms of expression are on the rise, including new women-run radio-stations. The country’s new Constitution outlaws gender discrimination and states that men and women “have equal rights and duties before the law. A significant number of seats are now reserved for women in the National Assembly. Negative: Years of discrimination and poverty have relegated Afghan women to some of the worst social indicators in the world. Traditional mentalities still hold women back. Poverty, malnutrition, exclusion from public life, rape, violence, poor health care, illiteracy and forced marriage are among their many human security concerns. Since 1992, more than 300,000 children may have perished during the conflict. Of 300 children surveyed, 72 per cent experienced the death of a relative and nearly all witnessed acts of violence, while two-thirds had seen dead bodies or parts of bodies. A Gender Development Index calculated by the Report puts Afghanistan only above Niger and Burkina Faso and much below all of its neighbors.
Health: Positive: Vaccinations programmes against measles and other childhood diseases are improving, and efforts are underway to distribute anti-malaria medication in at-risk areas. Negative: One woman dies from pregnancy-related causes approximately every 30 minutes, and maternal mortality rates are 60 times higher than in industrial countries. Seventy per cent of all tuberculosis cases are among women. One out of five children dies before the age of five (among the highest rates in the world) from diseases that are 80 per cent preventable. An estimated one-third of the population suffers from anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Some 39 per cent of the population in urban areas and 69 per cent in rural areas do not have safe water and one in eight children die because of contaminated water.
Security and Civil Rights: Positive: Afghanistan successfully elected a president for the first time in history. The new Constitution and upcoming parliamentary elections – though postponed – should yield increased government accountability, a forged link between the people and their government, better-trained and more centralized state security, and separation of civilian and military policing. Negative: “Factional elements” are still in power in many areas, with their own privatized security forces, outside of central government control. Physical violence by armed militias continues, as does torture by security forces, deadly attacks by Taliban, hostage taking, street gangs, and domestic violence against women and children.
Refugees: Positive: Most Afghan refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) do not feel that violence is an impediment to their return home. Indeed, since the fall of the Taliban, more than 1.8 million people have returned from Pakistan and 600,000 from Iran. In addition, there were over 1 million IDPs in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2002, and now the majority of them have returned. Negative: Afghans comprise the second largest number of refugees and IDPsin the world, after Palestinians. Over a quarter of the country’s population has sought refuge outside of the country, prompting the United Nations to declare Afghanistanthe major site of human displacement in the world. An estimated 3.4 million Afghans sill remain outside the country and 200,000 IDPs are in the southern and western sections. A recent survey of some 20,000 IDP households, the vast majority of respondents expressed their willingness to return but cited a lack of jobs and drinking water as main obstacles.
Foreign Aid: Positive: Humanitarian and reconstruction aid can be very cost-effective compared with military aid. For example, the “war against terrorism” costs the United States more than US$1 billion each month, while much less could be spent on curbing the poverty that can breed extremism. And foreign aid will foster economic stability and trade with other countries, while diluting the appeal of political extremism. Given that Afghanistan’s human insecurities have been the result of conflicts compounded by foreign interference, the world now has an obligation to help solve them. In addition to their economic effects, aid programs may promote ties between social groups. They may not always “bring peace,” but they can provide alternatives to a war economy. Negative: Because aid in Afghanistan is introduced in a highly political environment, massive and sudden aid may exacerbate conflict and increase competition, unless equitable distribution and anti-corruption measures are in place. Aid based on relief can prolong dependence and can create market distortion, while funds that bypass the central Government and work directly with regional powers controlled by private militias can increase tensions between the centre and provinces.
Afghanistan’s first National Human Development Report, Security with a Human Face, was initiated in 2003 by the Government of Afghanistan and UNDP,and was launched today with Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development Haneef Atmar and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Zepherin Diabre. The Report was made possible thanks to the financial support of UNDP, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the World Bank.
The UNDP has helped more than 135 developing countries and five regions to produce their own national and regional Human Development Reports. These Reports, written by local experts, spur public debate and bring political attention to pressing development needs. They propose concrete solutions to mobilise the resources, policies and political will to overcome poverty and bring about growth, equality, investment in people’s basic needs, and freedom. They also help donor governments measure the impact of aid dollars.The UNDP is the global development network of the United Nations.
For more information, please contact:In Kabul: Eliana Escobedo, tel. 93-79 372480, eliana.escobedo@undp.orgIn US: David Kirby, tel. 718-230-4250, david.kirby@undp.org
UNDP is the United Nations worldwide development network. It advocates change and provides countries with access to the knowledge, skills and resources their populations need to improve their lives.

http://www.undp.org/dpa/pressrelease/releases/2005/february/pr21feb05.html

UK, China to Cooperate on Global Economy - China to become "developed country" in 2080

UK, China to Cooperate on Global Economy
Mon Feb 21, 2005 07:52 AM ET By Sumeet Desai
BEIJING (Reuters) - Britain and China agreed on Monday to work together to address the macroeconomic and structural challenges of the global economy.
The two countries, which currently hold the presidencies of the G7 and G20 groups of nations, said they would present a policy paper on the global economy at the G20 meeting in October, after a meeting in Beijing of their finance ministers, Gordon Brown and Jin Renqing.
"This paper will analyze the global economic challenges that we are facing, identify areas that countries can learn from each other's experience, and highlight ways of improving the flexibility of our economies as we respond to global economic change," the two countries said in a statement.
G20 groups the major developed and developing nations, including the longer-standing G7 group of major rich countries and a clutch of influential developing nations.
China came under pressure at a G7 meeting earlier this month in London to allow its tightly managed currency to appreciate against the dollar to help address global economic imbalances.
But Brown urged cooperation between the world's rich nations and China and is expected later to say it would be futile to resort to protectionism to counter China's rising economic might.
"I believe we can make enormous progress addressing some of the challenges facing the global economy in the coming year," Brown said at the start of his meeting with Jin.
Brown is to meet senior Chinese officials, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan, on what is his first visit to China.
He is expected in a speech later to urge industrialized nations to cooperate with China because of its growing role in the world's financial system, British Treasury officials said.
For its part, China supports Brown's plan for an international finance facility, a scheme to raise money for poor countries by issuing bonds in the capital market, the joint statement said.
The two countries said international financial institutions had to change to reflect the modern economy and agreed to work toward a joint statement by the World Bank-IMF meetings in April to set out their priorities for international development.
"This will also consider how we can continue to advance the opening up of trade and progress in the Doha trade agenda," the statement said.
"As G20 and G7 presidents, we are committed to reexamining the strategic role of the IMF and World Bank -- in particular the importance of a more independent role for the IMF in the vital task of the surveillance of the world economy."
BOOMING CHINA
Rich nations should recognize the huge contribution to global growth made by the rapidly expanding Chinese economy, now the world's seventh largest, and be ready to adapt themselves, Brown will say in his speech.
China has maintained it will make the currency regime more flexible and gradually make the yuan fully convertible, but Beijing has never committed itself to a timetable.
The yuan is managed in a razor-thin range of 8.276 per dollar to 8.28 per dollar, a policy the U.S. and Europe have criticized as giving Chinese exporters an unfair price advantage in world markets.
China's exports have been booming, with exports in January 42 percent higher than a year earlier at more than $50 billion.
January's $44 billion in imports were the smallest since May 2004.
"While others may wish to see China and globalization as a threat, I see the rise of China and the new stage of globalization not as a threat but as an opportunity," Brown will say.
Brown travels to Shanghai on Tuesday, where industry sources said he may meet executives at China's top car maker, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC).
SAIC has said talks with MG Rover to create a joint venture, which would provide the Chinese firm with a launch pad for sales to Europe, were at an advanced stage.
British media reports had suggested the British government feared the deal might collapse, threatening the loss of 6,000 jobs less than three months before British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to call a general election.


China to become "developed country" in 2080
www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-21 07:57:21
BEIJING, Feb. 21-- China is expected to become an "advanced developed country" in the second half of this century, according to a report published on Friday.
The China Modernization Report 2005, released at a seminar organized by the China Centre for Modernization Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, concluded China will become a "moderately developed country" before 2050 thanks to its ongoing modernization drive.
Experts and scholars involved in the study believe that China's modernization of economy is scheduled to bring it into the ranks of the world's top 40 developed countries in the first half of this century.
They predicted that the country's modernization process will be upgraded in three stages to achieve this goal.
In the middle of this century, China will become a "moderately developed country" instead of simply remaining as a "primarily developed one."
Around 2080, persistent economic growth will enable China to become a "developed country" and then to be in front of the world's most industrialized countries within the next two decades, the experts and scholars say.
Analyzing China's history and the progress of its modernization so far, the report puts forward a roadmap as a reference for the country to reach the scheduled goal.
"China must follow a way of co-ordinately developing its industries and agricultures, improving ecosystems in the process, adopting high technologies along with appropriate ones and pushing forwards its national economy in line with globalization," the report said.
Addressing the development problems China will face in the years to come, experts warned that the country is presented with both opportunities and critical challenges.
While benefiting from the era of economic and cultural globalization, China has to work hard to maintain sustainable economic and environmental development, ensure the stability of its power supplies, guarantee financial stability and protect its national interests.
(Source: China Daily)

http://english.cas.ac.cn/Eng2003/page/home.asp

Social Security and Mexico: A Travesty

Social Security and Mexico: A Travesty
What's Really Being Proposed
By Marti DinersteinThe American EnterpriseJanuary/February 2005
Social Security agreements between countries are meant to accomplish two things: One is to prevent dual taxation of employees who work temporarily in another country and the employers who send them. The second is to guarantee and old-age pension to workers who end up paying into the Social Security systems of two countries, but earn insufficient credits to qualify for retirement from either of those countries alone.Previous cross-country agreements on Social Security credits have benefited American workers and their employers , as well as foreign workers sojourning here, and the U.S. Congress has never voted against one. Since the 1970s, the United States has entered into what are called “totalization” agreements with 20 different countries.This is how the agreement works: A corporation asks an employee to work abroad for a specified period of time. Both the employee and the employer have been paying Social Security taxes in the home country. Employees enter the foreign country legally with appropriate authorization, and leave when their temporary assignments are over. When the employees retire, they are eligible to collect benefits based on the total number of years worked in each country.The proposed totalization agreement with Mexico, however, is a perversion of the 20 existing agreements that have been structured along these lines. Most Mexicans do not contribute to Mexico’s retirement system; (only 40 percent of non-government workers participate in their country’s social security system in any way; in the United States, 96 percent of workers do.) Most Mexican workers make the decision to migrate to the United States on their own; they are not dispatched abroad by their companies. A majority enter the United States illegally.The sheer size of the Mexican-born population in the United States is another anomalous aspect of this agreement. In 2000, an estimated 9.2 million Mexicans lived in the United States, None of the other nations we’ve established Social Security reciprocity with have even one million citizens here, and eight of the countries have such tiny populations in the United States that the Census Bureau doesn’t even track their numbers.This pact is utterly one-sided—in Mexico’s favor. The benefits to U.S. workers and their employers are miniscule compared with the windfall this proposal would yield for millions of Mexicans. There is no benefit parity.One becomes entitled for a lifelong Social Security pension after just 10 years of contributions in the United States, but it takes 24 years to qualify in Mexico. Once eligible, Mexico’s financial benefits are not remotely similar to those of the United States. In Mexico, workers get back exactly what they contributed, plus accrued interest. In the United States, the Social Security system is progressive, with lower-wage earners receiving benefits far in excess of what they contributed. Therefore, any program that accepts a huge number of low-wage retired workers from a foreign country will create a giant drain on the U.S. Social Security trust fund, which is already on a path to fall into the red in just 15 years.Not one of the foreign countries we have so far negotiated Social Security agreements with accounts for even 1 percent of the illegal-alien population in the United States; in fact, all 20 together account for only 4 percent of our illegal aliens. Mexico, on the other hand, accounts for 69 percent.Any Social Security exchange with Mexico—a country at a fundamentally different level of development from the United States—will cost Americans a king’s ransom. Such an agreement would overwhelmingly dwarf the total costs of all our other existing agreements combined. An agreement with Mexico in this area is simply not in our national interest. The risks are far too great.
Marti Dinerstein is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.

UN’AMERICA SEMPRE PIU’ AFRICANA

AFRICA 21/2/2005 9:28
UN’AMERICA SEMPRE PIU’ AFRICANA
General, Brief
A partire dal 1990 sono immigrati negli Stati Uniti, alla media di 50.000 ingressi legali all’anno, piu’ neri africani che al tempo degli schiavi, quando attraversavano l’oceano in catene per andare anche nei Caraibi e in Brasile: sono dati resi noti dal servizio immigrazione statunitense e a cui il “New York Times” dedica un ampio servizio a firma di Sam Roberts.
Il traffico degli schiavi venne ufficialmente dichiarato illegale in America nel 1807: mai, prima di quella data, erano giunti, in catene, nell’arco di 12 mesi, 50.000 africani. Dal 1990 a oggi sono emigrati in America piu’ africani che nei due secoli precedenti il 1807 quando, in base ai dati disponibili, non superarono in tutto il mezzo milioni e non furono mai piu’ di 30.000 in un anno.
Ma nel 1800, su una popolazione americana di circa 5 milioni, i neri, non solo africani, erano pari al 20% e oggi, su circa 300 milioni sono il 13 %. In particolare nel 2002, ultimo anno per il quale esistono dati ufficiali definitivi, negli Stati Uniti sono stati regolarmente ammessi 60,269 africani (8,291 dalla Nigeria, 7,574 dall’Etiopia, Ethiopia, 4,537dalla Somalia, 4,256 dal Ghana e 3,207 dal Kenya. Lo Stato di New York sembra attrarne la maggior parte, soprattutto dalla Nigeria e dal Ghana, ma i rifugiati somali sembrano preferire Maine, Minnesota e Oregon. Washington, Atalanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston e Houston sono altre mete di particolare attrazione. Il quotidiano sottolinea che da una parte questo esodo, visto il livello di istruzione di molti immigranti, contribuisce alla fuga di cervelli dall’Africa ma dall’altra permette l’invio di un miliardo di dollari di rimesse ogni anno alle famiglie e agli amici.
“ In poche parole - ha detto al quotidiano Howard Dodson, direttore del centro Schomburg per ricerche sulla cultura nera – vengono a riprendersi la ricchezza che era stata portata via dai loro Paesi.
Febbraio , anche per la festa nazionale del “Martin Luther King Birthday” e’ il mese che gli Stati Uniti dedicano al “Black Heritage”, al patrimonio umano e culturale nero. I neri nati negli Stati Uniti sono stati superati come gruppo etnico da qualsiasi altra etnia immigrata; sarebbe una strana ironia, scrive Roberts, che ora venissero superati anche dagli immigrati africani piu’ recenti. Mentre resta ovviamente impossibile stabilire quanti siano gli africani entrati o rimasti illegalmente in territorio statunitense, rimane comunque di gran lunga piu’ folta l’imigrazi9ne dall’America Latina e dall’Asia.[MB]
February 21, 2005
1.1 More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of Slavery
By SAM ROBERTS

or the first time, more blacks are coming to the United States from Africa than during the slave trade.
Since 1990, according to immigration figures, more have arrived voluntarily than the total who disembarked in chains before the United States outlawed international slave trafficking in 1807. More have been coming here annually - about 50,000 legal immigrants - than in any of the peak years of the middle passage across the Atlantic, and more have migrated here from Africa since 1990 than in nearly the entire preceding two centuries.
New York State draws the most; Nigeria and Ghana are among the top 20 sources of immigrants to New York City. But many have moved to metropolitan Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Houston. Pockets of refugees, especially Somalis, have found havens in Minnesota, Maine and Oregon.
The movement is still a trickle compared with the number of newcomers from Latin America and Asia, but it is already redefining what it means to be African-American. The steady decline in the percentage of African-Americans with ancestors who suffered directly through the middle passage and Jim Crow is also shaping the debate over affirmative action, diversity programs and other initiatives intended to redress the legacy of slavery.
In Africa, the flow is contributing to a brain drain. But at the same time, African-born residents of the United States are sharing their relative prosperity here by sending more than $1 billion annually back to their families and friends.
"Basically, people are coming to reclaim the wealth that's been taken from their countries," said Howard Dodson, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem, which has just inaugurated an exhibition, Web site and book, titled "In Motion," to commemorate the African diaspora.
The influx has other potential implications, from recalibrating the largely monolithic way white America views blacks to raising concerns that American-born blacks will again be left behind.
"Historically, every immigrant group has jumped over American-born blacks," said Eric Foner, the Columbia University historian. "The final irony would be if African immigrants did, too."
The flow from Africa began in the 1970's, mostly with refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia, and escalated in the 1990's, when the number of black residents of the United States born in sub-Saharan Africa nearly tripled. Combined with the much larger flow of Caribbean blacks, the recent arrivals from Africa accounted for about 25 percent of black population growth in the United States over all during the decade. Nationally, the proportion of blacks who are foreign born rose to about 7.3 percent from 4.9 percent in the 1990's. In New York City, about 1 in 3 blacks are foreign born.
According to the census, the proportion of black people living in the United States who describe themselves as African-born, while still small, more than doubled in the 1990's, to 1.7 percent from about 0.8 percent, for a total estimated conservatively at more than 600,000. About 1.7 million United States residents identify their ancestry as sub-Saharan.
Those numbers reflect only legal immigrants, who have been arriving at the rate of about 50,000 a year, first mostly as refugees and students and more recently through family reunification and diversity visas. Many speak English, were raised in large cities and capitalist economies, live in families headed by married couples and are generally more highly educated and have higher-paying jobs than American-born blacks.
There is no official count of the many others who entered the country illegally or have overstayed their visas and who are likely to be less well off.
Kim Nichols, co-executive director of the African Services Committee, which directs newcomers to health care, housing and other services in the New York region, estimates that the number of illegal African immigrants dwarfs the legal ones. "We think it's a multiple of at least four," she said.
Africans' reasons for coming echo the aspirations of earlier immigrants.
"Senegal became too small," said Marie Lopy, who arrived as a student in 1996, worked as a bookkeeper in a restaurant and earned an associate degree in biology from the City University of New York.
After winning a place in an American immigration lottery that his secretary had entered for him in 1994, Daouda Ndiaye recalls being persuaded by his six children to leave Senegal, where he was working as a financial manager. "I said, 'I'm 45, I'd have to build a whole new life, I'd have to go to school to learn English,' " he recalled. "They said, 'We want you to go and we want you to send for us because there's more opportunity in the U.S. than here.' "
His wife and two of his children have joined him in the United States, where he has worked as a sporting goods store manager and is now a translator.
That the latest movement of black Africans arriving voluntarily surpasses the total who disembarked in chains before the United States outlawed international slave trafficking is a bit of a statistical anomaly. That total, most historians now agree, was about 500,000, with an annual peak of perhaps 30,000, compared with the millions overall who were sold into slavery from Africa. Many died aboard ship. Most were transported to the Caribbean and Brazil, where they were vulnerable to indigenous diseases and to the rigors of raising sugar cane, which was harder to cultivate than cotton or rice, the predominant crops on plantations in the United States, where the slave population was better able to survive and reproduce.
Moreover, black Africans represented a much higher proportion of the population then than they do today. In 1800, about 20 percent of the 5 million or so people in the United States were black. Among nearly 300 million Americans today, about 13 percent are black.
Still, with Europe increasingly inhospitable and much of Africa still suffering from the ravages of drought and the AIDS epidemic and the vagaries of economic mismanagement, the number migrating to the United States is growing - despite the reluctance of some Africans to come face to face with the effects of centuries of enduring discrimination.
In the 1960's, 28,954 legal immigrants were admitted from all of Africa, a figure that rose geometrically to 80,779 in the 1970's, 176,893 in the 1980's and 354,939 in the 1990's. In 2002, 60,269 were admitted, including 8,291 from Nigeria, 7,574 from Ethiopia, 4,537 from Somalia, 4,256 from Ghana and 3,207 from Kenya.
To many Americans, the most visible signs of the movement are the proliferation of African churches, mosques, hair-braiding salons, street vendors and supermarket deliverymen, the controversy over female genital mutilation and the election last year of Barack Obama, son of a native Kenyan, to the United States Senate from Illinois. Especially in New York City, the shooting deaths of two unarmed African immigrants, Amadou Diallo from Guinea in 1999 and Ousmane Zongo from Burkina Faso in 2003, come to mind.
Immigrants arrive with their own perceptions and expectations, from countries where blacks constitute a majority at every level of society, only to discover that whether they are professors or peddlers, they may be lumped together here by whites and even by American-born blacks.
"You have the positive impact that race is not seen to be an absolute definer of people's opportunities," Kathleen Newland, director of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, said, "but that begs the larger question of what does it mean to have a black skin in the United States."
Agba Mangalabou, who arrived from Togo in 2002, recalls his surprise when he moved here from Europe. "In Germany, everyone knew I was African," he said. "Here, nobody knows if I'm African or American."
Ms. Lopy, who now works as a medical interpreter for the African Services Committee, describes herself as "African, first and foremost," though the identity of her children will depend on whom she marries and where. "I'll raise them to be African-something," she said, "but ultimately they'll define it for themselves."
Sylviane A. Diouf, a historian and researcher at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center and Dr. Dodson's co-author of "In Motion," said that Americans have a more positive view of immigrants in general than they do of American-born blacks. Referring to African immigrants, she said: "They are better educated, they're here to work, to prosper, they're more compliant and don't pose a threat."
Dr. Dodson added, "They're not politically mobilized as yet and not as closely tied to the African-American agenda."
While the ancestors of most Caribbean-born blacks were enslaved, and slavery also victimized the forbears of many African-born blacks, the growing proportion of immigrants may further complicate the debate over programs envisioned to redress the legacies of slavery.
"I think there is a legitimate set of specific claims by persons born in the United States that don't necessarily apply to Caribbean or African populations that have come here subsequently," Dr. Dodson said.
"African-born and Caribbean-born brothers and sisters have realized that the police don't discriminate on the basis of nationality - ask Amadou Diallo," said Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr., who teaches at Harvard Law School and has warned colleges and universities that admitting mostly foreign-born blacks to meet the goals of affirmative action is insufficient.
"Whether you are from Brazil or from Cuba, you are still products of slavery," he continued. "But the threshold is that people of African descent who were born and raised and suffered in America have to be the first among equals."
French-speaking Haitians do not necessarily mix with English-speaking West Indians, much less with Africans, and competition for jobs has been another source of tension.
"The Africans tend to be quite industrious and entrepreneurial and often take advantage of opportunities that might have been here for others before," said Kim Nichols of the African Services Committee.
"We're talking about very profoundly different cultures," Kathleen Newland said.
Analyses by the Department of City Planning, and by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, in Albany found recent immigrants often segregated from other blacks. The census found Nigerian clusters in Flatlands and Canarsie in Brooklyn and Ghanaians in Morris Heights and High Bridge in the Bronx.
"As with European ethnics at the turn of the century," Joseph J. Salvo, the director of the population division of the Department of City Planning, and Arun Peter Lobo, the deputy director, wrote recently, "ethnicity has been a powerful force in shaping black residential settlement in New York."
Immigration may also shift some of the nation's focus from racial distinctions to ethnic ones. "Certainly, South Africa showed us that minority status does not necessarily correlate to one's position in society, but rather that power and its uses are the issues," said Samuel K. Roberts of Columbia, a history professor who is also on the faculty of the university's Institute for Research in African-American Studies. "That being said, increasingly distinguishing between black Americans and black Africans may produce conditions in which we will be less prone to think of a fictional construct of 'race' as the distinguishing factor among all of us in North America."
How long might those distinctions last? "I guess one of the questions will have to be what happens in the next generation or two," said Professor Foner of Columbia. "In America, marriage is the great solvent. Are they going to melt into the African-American population? Most likely yes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/nyregion/21africa.html