The Great Game

Mr Annan, under fire for his son's role in the worst corruption scandal in the UN's history, made his comment on Thursday, hours after a British oil trader and his US and Bulgarian associates were indicted for paying millions of dollars in bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime to acquire Iraqi oil.

He pointed out that the Iraqi regime profited far more from illicit shipments of oil through Turkey and Jordan which, he said, took place with the almost certain knowledge of Britain and the US - the only countries with the resources to stop the sanctions-busters.

"The bulk of the money that Saddam made came out of smuggling outside the oil-for-food programme, and it was on the American and British watch," he told reporters.

"Possibly they were the ones who knew exactly what was going on, and that the countries themselves decided to close their eyes to smuggling to Turkey and Jordan because they were allies."

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said Britain had helped maintain the international embargo on Saddam's regime and had intercepted shipments in the Gulf.

"The United Kingdom was consistently in the lead in seeking to enforce sanctions against Iraq," his statement said.

"The fact that the smuggling of oil was most likely to take place to Turkey and Jordan simply reflects the geography of the area. Jordan and Turkey have land borders with Iraq. Jordan and Turkey were primarily responsible for preventing smuggling across their borders."

But the Liberal Democrats said the government had questions to answer.

"It was no secret that smuggling was taking place and that both Turkey and Jordan were beneficiaries," its foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell, said.

"Both the British and American governments have got questions to answer. What did they know and when did they know it?"

A US spokesman, Richard Grenell, denied that Washington had known of the smuggling and said there was a difference between illicit trading and a public "waiver" granted to some countries "before the oil-for-food programme even began".

The allegation has been around for years that Washington - which had ships in the Gulf to intercept smugglers - looked the other way while Jordan and Turkey profited from smuggled oil.

Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr went to Congress for waivers to allow Jordan and Turkey to continue receiving US aid despite evidence of sanctions-busting.

It is also widely acknowledged that the Iraqi regime earned far more from sanctions-busting - up to $11bn (£5.8bn) - than from bribes from oil companies working under the oil-for-food programme, which earned Saddam's officials an estimated $2bn to $4bn.

Mr Annan's comments were seen as evidence of his growing frustration at Washington, where the Republicans have used the scandal to attack the UN.

It has laboured under the scandal for more than a year, and Mr Annan's personal integrity was scrutinised by the independent investigation conducted by the former US reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

The committee is to publish its conclusions this summer, and they could lead to criminal prosecutions for bribery and sanctions-busting in several countries. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/16/2005 03:43:00 p.m. 0 comments

The year was 1919, the occasion the discovery that, under a secret agreement with the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, the former German concessions in China would not revert to Beijing but be handed to Japan. Last weekend, students set off again from Haidian shouting anti-Japanese slogans. The demonstration ended with a violent attack on the Japanese embassy. Anti-Japanese resentment spilled over the next day into the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and in Shanghai two Japanese students were beaten up. The rising tensions of east Asia have spilled on to the streets.

There is a direct historical line between the students of 1919 and those of last weekend. In 1919, China was weak and humiliated, Japan an ascendant power that would soon invade and brutally occupy much of China. After Japan's defeat in 1945 there was no apology for the appalling slaughter of civilians in Nanjing, the germ warfare experiments or the sexual crimes against Chinese women. Japanese textbooks have continued to give a partial and one-sided account, but China - no saint when it comes to historical accuracy - did not protest. Under Mao, the history of the relationship was papered over in a show of friendship.

If the resentment is now back on the streets, it is because China's rise is shifting the geopolitical tectonic plates, offering a direct challenge to Japan's economic dominance of east Asia and to the strategic dominance the US has enjoyed, with its major ally Japan, since 1945. In the East China Sea, China and Japan have been facing each other off over fossil fuel reserves in 14,000 square miles of disputed waters. China has been drilling for gas in an area that Japan claims, and this week Japan announced to Chinese protests that it would license oil and gas drilling in the same waters.

Then there is the military dimension: the rapid modernisation of China's armed forces means that the long-standing judgment that China could not mount a successful invasion of Taiwan is no longer a reliable guide to the future. The US is bound by treaty to defend Taiwan and could once rely on the moral support of the region. But as the US loses influence, Japan is increasingly exposed as its most reliable military ally- one that the US is encouraging to develop a more robust military profile.

In the longer game of influence, China is gaining ground. While the Bush administration has been preoccupied with Iraq, China has been steadily expanding its clout in Asia. In Australia, South Korea and Thailand it is the dominant economic and strategic partner, and is securing its own trading relationships by building networks in which it will be central - the Boao Forum, for instance, is the Chinese answer to Davos but the invitees are overwhelmingly Asian. Beijing is the moving spirit behind the first east Asian summit, scheduled for Kuala Lumpur later this year. The US is not included. It is an influence that China will certainly use in the future. The proposition, for instance, that Japan be given a permanent seat on the UN security council has been greeted with thinly disguised scorn by China.

But there is a paradox in this jostling for position. If China, Japan and the US are competing for predominance, it is also true that each is dependent on the others to a degree unprecedented in history. Last year, Japan overtook the US as China's biggest trade partner. China needs the huge volumes of machinery and technology that are imported from Japan to feed industrial expansion. Japan needs the high levels of trade with China to keep its economy out of recession. China needs the US markets to feed its export-led boom, and the US is dependent on Beijing continuing to buy and hold Washington's mounting foreign debt. Major conflict would be serious for all three.

Why then, did China ratchet up the tension with last weekend's government-sponsored demonstration in Beijing? One answer lies in China's achilles heel - its internal weakness. Nationalism is the last shred of Maoist ideology for a ruling party that has abandoned its socialist roots. Since the party allows no political challenge, nationalism is also the only safe political outlet for new generations. To divert the political frustration of young Chinese on to Japan may seem like a safety valve for a ruling group nervous of the growing political frustrations of its population.

But it is a dangerous strategy, as subsequent events demonstrated. Rage lies just below the surface in China - a rage that breaks out in daily unreported incidents as disaffected citizens forcibly complain about their lot. The example of one government-sanctioned demonstration inspires others to try their luck. Before you know it, other resentments have exploded and the cities are restless. China can shut off the diplomatic provocation to Japan at will. Far more difficult is to shut off popular discontent. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 11:10:00 p.m. 0 comments

Internet activists are calling for demonstrations in more than a dozen cities this weekend, prompting the US embassy to issue safety warnings to its citizens, and raising doubts whether the communist government is riding or being swamped by the rising wave of nationalism.

In the past few days thousands of army veterans have rallied in Beijing for higher pensions, protesters beat up Japanese students in Shanghai, and villagers with machetes repelled 1,000 riot police in a bloody battle in Zhejiang province.

But the main target of public anger is Japan. Last weekend more than 5,000 protesters marched against Tokyo's approval of a new history textbook which whitewashes the country's wartime atrocities.

Some smashed the windows of Japanese restaurants, ripped down the posters advertising Japanese goods and stoned the country's embassy.

The Japanese consulate general in Shanghai advised its citizens to "be careful in remarks and behaviour in case of contact with Chinese people", and "avoid making provocative acts such as acting loudly in groups".

The US embassy issued a warning to its citizens which said: "The demonstrations are purportedly against Japanese interests, but could involve foreigners in general."

Instead of calling for calm, the two governments have intensified their war of words.

Tokyo has demanded an apology and compensation and its economics minister called China "a scary country".

Beijing blames Japan for the deterioration in relations. The prime minister, Wen Jaibao, said on Wednesday that China would oppose Japan's attempt to become a permanent member of the UN security council.

Such comments have emboldened the young organisers of recent anti-Japanese rallies. Nationalist websites and bulletin boards are calling for further protests to greet the Japanese foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, who flies in this weekend on a hastily arranged fence-mending mission.

According to one site, rallies are being planned on Saturday in Tiananmen Square and in the central districts of Shanghai, Tianjin and Hanzhou. There are calls for demonstrations in Hong Kong, Nanjing, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Jinan, Chengdu, Baoding, Changsha, Shijiazhuang, Nanchang, Haikou and Nanning on Sunday. Whether they will be allowed to proceed is uncertain.

The ambivalence of the authorities was apparent in an unusual text message recently sent out in the name of the Shanghai public security office by China Mobile.

"Demonstrations need prior permission. Public displays of patriotism must be orderly, reasonable, and legal. Express your patriotic feelings in a right manner," it said.

The Beijing police have issued a blunter statement on websites warning people that they will be punished if they join unauthorised marches.

The organisers of previous anti-Japanese protests told the Guardian that they have had more freedom to operate and more publicity since the current leadership team of President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao took power in 2003.

Many analysts believe the communist authorities have stoked up or at least condoned the demonstrations to channel social discontent away from themselves and towards Japan.

"There is an uneasy collusion between the government and the protesters," said Linda Jakobson, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

"The authorities may be worried that the protests could spill into something else, but if they wanted to stop the protests they could have done."

Asia's two most powerful states are intense rivals for regional influence, energy resources and territory, exem plified by Japan's announcement this week that it will prospect for gas in waters near East China Sea islands calmed by both countries.

But it appears to be the Chinese people rather than their government pushing the pace of the row.

"Compared to previous anti-Japanese protests, this is a very widely supported movement," said Wenran Jiang, an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 09:03:00 p.m. 0 comments

This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.

It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.

These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.

A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."

But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.

And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.

In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.
(Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 03:13:00 p.m. 0 comments

If condoms cannot be absolutely guaranteed to block sperm, they stand even less chance of stopping the much smaller virus, the churches' argument runs.

The Roman Catholic church opposes any form of artificial contraception -- particularly condoms, which it says promote promiscuity.

But the traditional opposition is now being reinforced by arguments over their efficacy.

"The moral argument against the use of condoms is being superseded by a clinical argument which is flawed," said Steve Bradshaw, reporter on the BBC Panorama program "Sex and the Holy City" that will be aired in Britain on Sunday night.

"The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon," Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican 's Pontifical Council for the Family, told the program.

"The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom."

He said that just as health authorities warned about dangers like tobacco, so they had an obligation to issue similar warnings about condoms.

The Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki told the program: "AIDS...has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms."

While in Luak near Lake Victoria, Gordon Wambi, director of an AIDS testing center, said he had been prevented from distributing condoms because of church opposition.

Bradshaw told Reuters the program team did not go out looking for the story, but stumbled across it during research.

"We heard the same line so many times from different people in different places that we decided to approach the Vatican," he said.

The World Health Organization, guardian watchdog of global wellbeing, rejected the Vatican view.

"These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million," the WHO told the program.

It conceded condoms could break or be damaged and permit passage of semen, but said they reduced the risk of infection by 90 percent and were certainly secure enough to prevent passage of the virus if not torn.

Panorama said scientific research had found intact condoms were impermeable to particles as small as sexually transmitted infection pathogens -- a view rejected by Trujillo.

"They are wrong about that...this is an easily recognizable fact," he told the program.

From Nicaragua to Kenya and the Philippines, the Panorama team found the same tale from the Catholic church -- that condoms can kill. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 01:34:00 p.m. 0 comments

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Thursday a total of 10,340 fugitives were captured by an operation led by the U.S. Marshals Service between April 4 and April 10 -- about 10 times as many fugitives who were arrested the same period a year ago.

"Fugitives belong behind bars, and the arrests of 10,340 fugitives translates into safer communities," said Ben Reyna, director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Operation FALCON, which stands for "federal and local cops organized nationally," marked the first time the marshals teamed up with state and local law enforcement in a concentrated, nation-wide effort to round up fugitives.

Previous coordinated roundups were on a regional basis and did not involve as many officers or agencies.

Officials said they did not have figures for how many federal, state and local fugitives still remained at large. But Gonzales said there was an "endless list" of fugitives.

"There clearly are bad guys out on the streets that need to be rounded up," he said.

"This was a very successful effort," he said. "More needs to be done, we understand that."

Gonzales said the 3,100 law enforcement officers who were on the street for the operation focused primarily on the most violent offenders who are wanted in their jurisdictions.

Top priority was given to arrest those involved in homicides, sexual assaults, gang-related crimes, kidnappings and major drug offenses.

More than 70 percent of those nabbed during the operation had prior arrest records for violent crimes.

"They have been free to roam the streets for far too long," said Gonzales. "We know from history ... that a fugitive with a rap sheet is more desperate, more predatory and more likely to commit the crimes that plague citizens and communities."

A total of 162 murder suspects, 553 rape or sexual assault suspects and 154 gang members were picked up during Operation FALCON. In addition, 638 of those arrested were suspected of armed robbery while 68 kidnapping suspects were detained.

But while the marshals reeled off their list of accomplishments, they also admitted that they were hampered because there is no complete, central depository in the United States for all warrants.

That is why it is difficult to keep track of how many fugitives were on the loose around the country. It also makes it difficult to disseminate information on wanted fugitives, in case they are detained for another reason outside the jurisdiction in which they are wanted.

"At some point it would be very important to get all warrants into (the national database)," said Bob Finan, the marshals' assistant director for investigations. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 11:11:00 a.m. 0 comments

The Italians are also unhappy that the US will not let them examine the car in which Mr Calipari was travelling when shot. The joint investigation is deadlocked and the dispute is holding up the final report on the incident. (Link)

The fact that the Americans are witholding evidence is not necessarily a sign that they have something to hide. It may be a way of speeding up the conclusion of the investigation. If they think that the Italians will take forever with the car, then they might withhold it to make the Italians cave on the topic. Or it could just be the American military defensing its privilege.

Either way it is going to hurt America's relations with Italy.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 08:13:00 a.m. 0 comments

They are the trophies of a battle in which peasants scored a rare and bloody victory against the communist authorities, who face one of the most serious popular challenges to their rule in recent years.

In driving off more than 1,000 riot police at the start of the week, Huankantou village in Zhejiang province is at the crest of a wave of anarchy that has seen millions of impoverished farmers block roads and launch protests against official corruption, environmental destruction and the growing gap between urban wealth and rural poverty.

China's media have been forbidden to report on the government's loss of control, but word is spreading quickly to nearby towns and cities. Tens of thousands of sightseers and wellwishers are flocking every day to see the village that beat the police.

But the consequences for Huankantou are far from clear.

Having put more than 30 police in hospital, five critically, the 10,000 residents should be bracing for a backlash. Instead, the mood is euphoric. Children have not been to school since Sunday's clash. There are roadblocks outside the chemical factory that was the origin of the dispute. Late at night the streets are full of gawping tourists, marshalled around the battleground by proud locals who bellow chaotic instructions through loudspeakers.

"Aren't these villagers brave? They are so tough it's unbelievable," said a taxi driver from Yiwu, the nearest city. "Everybody wants to come and see this place. We really admire them."

"We came to take a look because many people have heard of the riot," said a fashionably dressed young woman who had come from Yiwu with friends. "This is really big news."

Although the aftermath is evident in a school car park full of smashed police buses, burned out cars and streets full of broken bricks and discarded sticks, the origin of the riot is hazy.

Initial reports suggested that it started after the death of two elderly women, who were run over when police attempted to clear their protest against a chemical factory in a nearby industrial park.

Witnesses confirmed that the local old people's association had kept a 24-hour vigil for two weeks outside the plant. Many said they had heard of the deaths, but no one could name the victims. The local government of Dongyang insists there were no fatalities.

Like many of the other disputes that have racked China in the past year, frustration had been simmering for some time. Locals accused officials of seizing the land for the industrial park - built in 2002 - without their consent. Some blamed toxins from the chemical plant for ruined crops, malformed babies and contamination of the local Huashui river.

The village chief reportedly refused to hold a public meeting to hear these grievances. Attempts to petition the central government also proved fruitless. Locals said they had lost faith in the authorities.

"The communists are even worse than the Japanese," said one man.

Memories are still fresh of the fighting on Sunday. "It was about 4am and I was woken up by an unusual noise," said a Ms Wang, a shopkeeper who lives next to the school where the fiercest fighting took place. "When I looked out of the window, I saw lots of riot police running into the village. Many men rushed out of their houses to defend our village."

Accounts of the conflict differ. Residents say 3,000 police stormed the village, several people - including police - were killed, dozens wounded and 30 police buses destroyed. But the Dongyang government says about 1,000 police and local officials were attacked by a mob, which led to 36 injuries and no deaths.

The outcome is also unclear. Locals say the village chief has fled. In his place, they have established an organising committee, though its members are a secret. This suggests a fear of recriminations, but the public mood is one of bravado.

"We don't feel regret about what we have done," said a middle-aged man. "The police have not come back since they withdrew on Monday. They dare not return."

Some, however, admitted to anxiety. Among them was an old woman - also a Mrs Wang - who reluctantly opened her doors to visitors who had come to see her collection of trophies from the battle.

"I am scared," she said, as she showed two dented riot police helmets, several empty gas canisters, a policeman's jacket and several truncheons and machetes. "This is getting bigger and bigger."

But there have been no arrests and no communication from the authorities. The current leadership will be keen to avoid a Tiananmen Square-style confrontation, including prime minister Wen Jiabao, who pleaded with the Tianan men protesters to leave before the tanks came. At the same time, the authorities are committed to social stability.

According to government statistics, protests increased by 15% last year to 58,000, with more than 3 million people taking part. In many provincial capitals, roadblocks occur more than once a week. Last weekend, anti-Japanese demonstrators rallied in three cities, including Beijing.

But in Huankantou, villagers do not seem to realise that although they have won the battle, they may be far from winning the war.

Amid a crowd of locals beside a wrecked bus, one middle-aged woman won a cheer of approval by calling for the government to make the first move towards reconciliation.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 08:04:00 a.m. 0 comments

You can now connect you cell phone to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Jax

The mobile edition has been made by the BBC rather than "the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor" who, in Douglas Adams' book, created the original.

Owners of smartphones and handheld computers will be able to access the guide while they are out and about.

The portable edition contains 7,000 articles from the H2G2 site covering life, the Universe and everything.

The original idea for Earth's very own version of the guide put together by anyone who had time to contribute came from Adams himself.

Mr Adams' own company managed the project in its early days but in 2001 the BBC took over and moved it to its current website.

In some respects the way that the H2G2 website was put together pre-figures the idea of the wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, that is also written, edited and checked by ordinary web users.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 07:58:00 a.m. 0 comments

China and South Korea are angry about what is written in a history textbook that is used by less then 1% of students. This confrontation has been tense enough to damage relations between these countries. I have posted on why this issue is important to China, but why does Japan push this issue. If you know it is going to cause trouble, why do it. It is culture war between the nationalistic right against left (and everyone else as far as I understand). The nationalistic militant right that has decended from those who advocated Japan's imperial expansion. The equivalent in Europe would be if a Nazi publisher produced a textbook on World War II that whitewash the Holocaust and claim Alsace for Germany.

Jax

Every four years Japan's Ministry of Education assesses which textbooks make the grade to be used in its schools.

Its decisions have usually met with an outcry from neighbours China and South Korea, who regularly accuse the ministry of giving the nod to history textbooks that whitewash Japan's dubious World War II legacy.

But this time the Koreans and Chinese have had even more to be vocal about.

Coming hot on the heels of two separate disputes over islands that Japan claims as it own, but are also claimed by China and South Korea, the textbook issue has exacerbated already strained relations.

To Beijing and Seoul's gall, the Ministry of Education and its affiliate the Textbook Authorization Research Council has once again approved the "New History" textbook of right-wing publisher Fusosha.

The textbook refers to the 1937-38 Nanjing massacre, when Japanese troops killed an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people, by the more innocuous title of "incident".

It also explains that the country's actions during World War II were motivated by "self-preservation" and a desire to liberate Asia from Western control.

Particularly infuriating for South Korea was the Ministry of Education's decision to make four textbook publishers refer to a disputed set of islands - called Takeshima in Japanese, and Dokdo in Korean - as Japanese territory "unlawfully occupied by South Korea".

But while its neighbours claim that the Japanese history curriculum, and the latest textbooks in particular, are dangerous distortions of Japan's past, this is not a view shared by some Japanese.

In fact many right-wingers, such as prominent politician Shinzo Abe, have taken the opposite view and say that Japanese history textbooks fail to stress the positive advances and achievements that Japan has made.

And some critics have even claimed that the left-wing Japan Teacher's Union exercises an unduly "masochistic" and left-wing bias on the current curriculum, by overly dwelling on the country's wartime misdeeds.

They cite the recent refusal of some teachers to stand up and sing the national anthem as evidence of teachers' own left wing political bias in the classroom.

Whether the current curriculum has a right or left-wing bias or none at all, most teachers have shunned the controversial Fusosha textbook, which is used in less than 1% of Japanese schools.

And most Japanese remain unconvinced that history lessons have a bias in either direction.

"To be honest, I don't think our history lessons were or are biased," explained Yasuhiro Miyauchi, a 34-year-old product designer.

Indeed, despite the textbook furore, most Japanese have a very strong awareness about the continued influence that Japan's recent chequered history plays in its relations with two of its closest neighbours.

"Of course we learned about the Nanjing massacre, and we learnt it as a massacre rather than just as an 'incident' and yes, unfortunately, it still does have an influence on relations," Mr Miyauchi said.

But while older Japanese may be aware of their mixed historical legacy, some commentators think the country is also in the midst of a broader shift to the right.

They point to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which have inflamed strained relations with Japan's neighbours.

The shrine is said to house the souls, but not the bodies, of Japan's war dead, including a number of convicted World War II war criminals, and is seen as a symbol of Japanese nationalism by China and South Korea.

Some Japanese are worried that the present government's more nationalistic tone and its choice of approved textbooks may exert an undue influence on younger generations of Japanese.

Sayuri Inoue, a 27-year-old sales consultant, said: "I think that the problem is these books may have a bad influence on children in future, and the government is trying to put its opinions into children's textbooks and that worries me."

And the Ministry of Education seems more in chime with right-wing publishers such as Fusosha than at any time before.

Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama is also a prominent right wing member of the Japanese cabinet.

Just last November he remarked that textbooks being used in junior high schools contained passages about Japan's past that espoused a "self-torturing" view of Japan's modern history.

The problem is that Japan's history books do not just help define how Japan's next generation of school students learn to see themselves in the larger world.

They also define how its neighbours continue to see Japan - even if the citizens of China and South Korea, like most Japanese students, never actually get to see one of the controversial books.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 07:25:00 a.m. 0 comments

You can tell the tax is a minor cost for the business. Becoming a bigger part of the state's political economy is much more important. I guess the business owners believe that paying taxes will mean less harassment from officials.

Jax

Nevada brothels currently pay taxes and fees to the local government but they do not give any revenues to the state.

A lobbyist for a brothel owners' group, which supports the taxation proposal, said they want the "privilege of participating" in the state tax system.

"I think it will give us some added acceptability," George Flint of the Nevada Brothel Association said.

"I think it will probably become money the state will be able to use and appreciate," he told the Associated Press news agency. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/15/2005 07:15:00 a.m. 0 comments

A few minutes earlier, Leona and Tommy stood at the same spot lecturing about the evils of industrial forestry. But now they're moaning in feral ecstasy, overcoming the powerful negativity of the place -- the broken branches and dried-out logs -- with the juices of the life force itself.

Welcome to F--forforest.com (FFF), a porn site with a difference. Along with raw, explicit images and videos with scenes like the one described above, FFF is well stocked with facts about the world's forests. On the Web site, naked sylphs share space with graphs of forest loss over time and exhaustive lists of the benefits tropical rain forests provide to society.

It's a novel approach to eco-activism, certainly, but one the duo hopes will help save the planet. Indeed, in its first year of operation, this unlikely project has raised nearly $100,000 for rain forest protection through the sale of paid memberships.

"Everyone must try to create something good using what they have," Tommy told me by phone from the apartment the couple shares in Berlin. "We had nothing, just our bodies." With backgrounds in progressive and green theater and teaching troubled teens, Leona Johansson, 21, and Tommy Hol Ellingsen, 28, wanted to do more than just protest the state of the world -- they wanted to make a difference. To them, eco-porn is the obvious choice. "Porn makes really, really a lot of money," Tommy continues in his soft Norwegian accent, "so why not use that money for good?"

Easy enough, right? But, so far, the pair's biggest challenge has been giving the money away.

It's a conundrum they didn't anticipate when they got their start in their native Norway, where they managed to obtain seed funding from the federal government. "We said we were starting an alternative environmental organization," says Tommy. (More)

# posted by Jacob @ 4/14/2005 03:24:00 p.m. 0 comments

Ikram at the Path of the Paddle reports that the world is getting more Canadian. Specific he notes the Canadianness of the current seperatist rhetorica is Spain.

Jax

In Spain, President of the Basque province Juan Jose Ibarretxe has a plan. He's calling for a referendum on

a Basque Community "freely associated" with Spain on the basis of "shared sovereignty" ... joint Spanish and Basque citizenship ...an independent Basque judiciary, diplomatic representation abroad, the right to call referendums on issues of self-determination and almost complete administrative control over the Basque country.

Soveriegnty and association? Where did Ibarretxe get that crazy idea? And how should the centre-left Spanish federal goverment respond?

Socialist Government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has countered with promises of regional reforms. These include making the national Senate more representative of Spain's regions and reforming the arcane system of regional financing

Senate reform? Reforms to the system of regional financing? What an innovative way to respond to a separatist threat. What does Spains right-wing opposition have to say?

A legal challenge in Spain's Constitutional Court is also a near certainty. Jurists on both sides of the debate acknowledge that the Ibarretxe Plan almost certainly contravenes the constitution, whose founding premise is "the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".

# posted by Jacob @ 4/14/2005 12:46:00 p.m. 0 comments

Without knowing the identity of the next pope, it is hard to guess which name he will pick -- but that hasn't stopped Dublin bookmakers Paddy Power from opening betting on it.

A surprise choice -- Benedict -- leads the pack ahead of John Paul and John, mostly because someone has placed an unusually large bet on it, company spokesman Paddy Power said.

The choice of Benedict could signal a subtle shift to more moderate policies, judging from the way the Benedict XV turned away from Pius X's rigorous anti-modern stand, Pham said.

"We were surprised because we thought John Paul or John would certainly be on top," said Power, who had no explanation for Benedict's popularity.

"There seems to be some connection between Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger and the name Benedict," he said, referring to the former Paris archbishop deemed too old to be in the race.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/14/2005 12:07:00 p.m. 0 comments

World public opinion is shifting. America is losing its luster and Eurpoean is gaining at its expense. The leadership that America has enjoyed because of its political ideas is gone, burnt away by the unilateralism of the Bush administration
.

Jax

PS And this is a surprise to who?

This is two excerpts from a longer article.

At the press conference announcing the poll results, Brookings scholar Philip Gordon offered an anecdote to sum up exactly why this latest piece of data is far more worrisome than previous surveys tracking our plummeting global image. For the past decade, Gordon has asked each new batch of 150 international students who take his international relations course at a French business institute the same two questions. First, how do you feel about U.S. power? Perhaps predictably, they always give the thumbs down to the United States and the thumbs up to multilateralism. But when he follows up with the next question -- what country other than the United States has more responsibly wielded global power in the past, or could do so in the future? -- they invariably come to the same conclusion: better America than anyone else.

But not this year. While the resentment of U.S. power and domination was the same as ever, according to Gordon, the students were no longer willing to give the United States its usual pass for its excesses. What's more, they were only too happy to contemplate the alternatives that Gordon offered. "And they would say, yeah, we'd take China. Germany? Yeah, Germany is fine. France? Yeah, that would be good," he said. "They were looking at me like, well, of course, we'd rather have those countries more powerful than the United States."

The most astonishing fact revealed by the new poll is that 34 percent of Americans agree that Europe should be running the show. Let me repeat this: one-third of Americans want Brussels, not Washington, to be calling the shots on the global arena. This trend is a good bit more significant than the six-fold increase in traffic to the Canadian immigration website immediately after the November elections. It buttresses the findings of previous polls that have shown clear majorities of Americans dissatisfied with U.S. unilateralism (and a much higher rate of disapproval of U.S. foreign policy in other countries).

And

PIPA's director Steven Kull attributes the poll results to different perceptions around the world toward how the United States and Europe go about their global business:

[Europe has] exerted a magnetic attraction on those around them, such that countries are waiting in line to become part of the European Union. It has put pressure on countries, such as Turkey, to improve their human rights records, to raise their standards in terms of corruption, transparency, and their capacity to integrate into the world economy. The way that Europe has done this has been positively viewed.

The secret of Europe's appeal becomes even cleared in a comparison with the United States. As Tony Judt recently

pointed out in the New York Review of Books, Americans work more hours, live shorter lives, and are much more likely to be poor than their European counterparts. The American economy is considerably less worker-friendly, more in debt, and increasingly owned by foreigners. The categories where the United States is the undeniable leader ­ military budget, government debt, trade deficit, automobile size ­ are dubious achievements. It's not just Judt, but several popular new books by respected experts, including Jeremy Rifkin and T. R. Reid, that hammer home these unappetizing facts.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/14/2005 10:10:00 a.m. 0 comments

Is this man trying to bring the U.S. culture war up here. Probably. beccause conservatism is getting its ass kicked up here

Jax

Klaus Rohrich - As and adjunct to my column last Monday, wherein I take voters to task for the quality of our government, I’d like to talk about Canadian values. Over the years I often hear politicians talking about what Canadians want. Alexa McDonough was famous for starting her rants with "The people of Canada want/do not want…" and then telling us what she did/did not want. Another famous expert on Canadian values is the current Prime Minister, Paul Martin, who during last year’s election campaign positioned himself and the Liberal Party as being synonymous with true Canadianism. Conversely his references to the Conservatives’ "hidden agenda" were clearly indicative that they were the exact opposite.

If you what to know what Canada's values are please allow me to recommend two books: Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values and The New Canada : A Globe and Mail Report on the Next Generation. The two clearly demonstrate that Canada is what the Liberals and NDP describe: tolerant, individualistic, and culturally curious. People who don't like to be told what they can and can not do. This is the main thing that Klaus here doesn't get. Canadians hate to be bossed around by authority figures, particularly religous ones.

I recall numerous voters talking about how Stephen Harper and the Conservatives "scared the hell" out of them because of their leaders’ religious beliefs. Interesting concept. People who hold essentially moral beliefs "scare the hell" out of us, while those who nihilistically believe in nothing but hanging onto power are representative of Canadian values.

The rest of us also have a moral code. It is different then the one put forward by the religous dogmatists. We do not consider it moral for other people to command our lives. For example: It is immoral for the state to control a woman's reproductive life. An other exaple: It is immoral to tell two people who are in love that they cannot marry. Harper and the conservative "scare the hell" out of us because they do not share our values. To us their behavior is immoral because it is intolerant and authoritarian. Two things Canadians can not accept.

The columnist Mark Steyn recently made an interesting point. Writing in The Western Standard, Steyn postulates that had the Quebec separatists of the 1960s opted not to reject Catholicism, Quebec’s dominant religion, then quite possibly la belle Province would be la belle country today. The reason it isn’t is that rejecting religion and its attendant moral teachings has resulted in Quebec having the highest number of abortions and the lowest birthrate of any jurisdiction in North America. So when the time to hold the referendum came around, there weren’t enough young Quebecers to carry the day for the separatists.

If Quebec had not rejected the Catholic Church there would be not seperatism, because the church is a force for pacifying the francophone majority so the anglophone minority could continue to run the province. Hence Mark Steyn doesn't know his Quebec history. Since he writes for the Western "Lets end human rights" standard this may not be a surprise.

Steyn’s point is that had Quebecers not discarded the moral teachings of the church, there would have been fewer abortions and more births, meaning that there would have been a lot more young Quebecers who might have voted "oui".

It’s not a stretch to see how this could apply equally to the rest of Canada. In the new, improved Canada, Canadian values are represented by high welfare rolls, intrusive government, the destruction of our traditional culture in favour a multiculturalism, reduced productivity, high taxes and a steep decline in the birth rate. The luminaries who are creating this brave new country deem embracing old-fashioned ideals "reactionary". Hence anyone espousing conservative values, or religious beliefs, or traditional family values must, by definition, have a "hidden agenda".

High welfare rolls? I guess he must have missed the last decade. intrusive government? You mean government that would poke its nose in the love affairs of Canadians, i.e. ban same-sex marriage. The destruction of our traditional culture? the racist culture that calling women "incorrigible" and locking them up for years for sleeping with their lovers (especially if it was interracial). the traditional culture that sent thousands of Jews back to german death camps. Is this what we should be proud of. Is this what we should defend? I say good riddance. Reduced productivity? When has our productivity gone down? High taxes? Only if your wealthy, lower and middle class Canadians has comparible if not lower tax rates then most of the U.S. And low birth rate? Has this goof not realized that there are too f**king many of us on this planet. We can choose to get our population under control by lowering our birthrate, or it will be done for us war, disease, famine and genocide. I vote for low birthrate it seems more reasonable to me.

It’s also interesting to note that the voters of Ontario who are responsible for the Liberals getting re-elected would prefer to choose a government that has no values, rather than one that has traditional values. We've covered this. Your values don't match those of the rest of the country. This week’s polls showing that the Liberals and Conservatives are neck in neck is living proof. Despite all the smoking guns stinking up the Gomery inquiry the Liberals are at the same level of popularity as the Conservatives. Some Toronto radio stations were carrying the usual man-in-the-street interviews, which yielded an embarrassing array of moral bankruptcy. Many of those asked thought that the conservatives may not yet "be ready" to govern. Some thought that this scandal was Jean Chretien’s scandal, despite the fact that Paul Martin was in control of the government’s purse strings. I’m wondering what it would take for Torontonians to finally get fed up with the Liberals; being sold into slavery?

I can answer Klaus's question. What do Torontians need to get fed up with the Liberals? An alternative that isn't racist and homophobic. An alternative that shares their values.

I bet that downtown Toronto will elect a green before a conservative.

It appears that Canadians, particularly those living in the Greater Toronto Area, enjoy being robbed and lied to by their elected officials, which is either indicative of a serious guilt and self-loathing problem or a terminally compromised moral compass.

Canadians consider themselves morally superior to Americans. Who knows, maybe they are. But if Canada’s birthrate continues to hover at its current 1.48 births per woman, there soon won’t be any Canadians left to feel superior. As a nation we would be well advised to carefully examine the hogwash the Liberals have been feeding us about Canadian values these past 12 years. Under close scrutiny it appears that having "Canadian values" means having no values at all.

Only to blind hack fanatics like Klausy here. Close scrutiny show a people that are willing to sacrifice for their beliefs. Having your money stolen by a government is a sacrifice. We know it, but it is how we have defended what we believe in: freedom and tolerance. Exactly what the Conservatives want to take away.

I almost forgot, here is the link.

# posted by Jacob @ 4/14/2005 08:28:00 a.m. 0 comments