New York Times
There is a mind-bending illogic behind the Bush administration's decision yesterday to withhold $34 million from the United Nations Population Fund, which is working in China despite continued practices there of coerced abortion and sterilization. It is precisely because of China's reprehensible policies that the U.N. presence is important. Cutting off funds to the agency is an inexcusable sop to right-wing anti-abortion activists in an election year. It will increase the number of abortions worldwide by depriving poor women of the education and help they need and that the U.N. agency provides.
The U.N. Population Fund is the world's biggest agency focused on women's reproductive health and the only serious external force in China trying to change the way local officials hold down population growth. Last year Secretary of State Colin Powell praised its "invaluable work." Faced with accusations that the agency was complicit in Chinese misdeeds, the administration sent in a study team in May. It found no evidence that the fund knowingly supports or participates in any Chinese program that coerces abortion or sterilization. It recommended that the $34 million requested by Congress for the agency last year be released.
Instead, the administration refused yesterday to do so because of China's continuing birth-control practices. This means that some 12.5 percent of the agency's budget is now wiped out and that vital and worthy programs like midwife training in Algeria and a new AIDS center in Haiti are suddenly without funding they need.
The administration says it will give the $34 million instead to the Child Survival and Health Program Fund, part of the State Department's Agency for International Development. The problem is that that agency cannot duplicate the work of the U.N., which operates in dozens of countries where the United States has no aid presence. Reproductive health and freedom of women are central to the improvement of poor societies. The U.N. Population Fund is one of the most important forces at work today helping poor women. The United States should be supporting it, not undermining it.
Washington Post
Recent events have led some people to predict that one of the world's most repressive regimes may be growing a bit less so. The generals who rule, or misrule, the Southeast Asian nation of Burma, which they call Myanmar, released from house arrest the woman who should in fact be the nation's prime minister, Aung San Suu Kyi. They have allowed her to travel a bit, and they have released from unspeakable prisons a few of her supporters. Grounds for hope, you might think.
Then came release of a report, documented in horrifying detail, of how Burma's army uses rape as a weapon of war. The rapes take place as part of the junta's perpetual -- and, outside Burma, little-noticed -- war against ethnic nationalities, in this case in Shan state. The Shan Human Rights Foundation and Shan Women's Action Network documented 173 incidents involving 625 girls and women, some as young as five years old, taking place mostly between 1996 and 2001. Most of the rapes were perpetrated by officers, in front of their men, and with utmost brutality; one-quarter of the victims died.
What is telling is the response of the regime to the report. Rather than seeking to bring the criminals to justice, it has unleashed vitriol against the human rights organizations, accusing them of drug-running and the like. ... Burma's leaders cannot bring the criminals to justice because they are the criminals.
Later this month Secretary of State Colin Powell will travel to the region for meetings with senior officials. Earlier this month he instructed his diplomats to express outrage over the reported use of rape as a tactic of war; he should personally express the same outrage. He also should make clear that Aung San Suu Kyi -- whose democratic party won an overwhelming victory in 1990 elections that the junta nullified -- should be permitted more room to maneuver: permission to publish a newspaper, for starters. The Burmese regime should not receive rewards for cosmetic liberalization.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Irish Republican Army says it's sorry. The statement comes more than a bit late, but the apology ought to hold some value.
The IRA statement represented the group's first unmitigated apology for the deaths of hundreds of civilians since the late 1960s. The group issued the apology in advance of last weekend's 30th anniversary of a coordinated series of IRA bombings in Belfast that claimed nine lives.
To be sure, the IRA has committed a horrific number of atrocities. IRA violence has killed approximately 650 civilians among a total of some 1,800 people who have died at the organization's hands.
The IRA also said its members "acknowledge the grief" caused to surviving relatives of slain security force members and members of paramilitary organizations. Unfortunately, the IRA chose to refer to police and military victims as "combatants." To the extent that description is true, the IRA, as the prime perpetrator of the armed conflict, is largely responsible for drawing them into combat roles. The apology for civilian casualties nevertheless deserves welcome. It is a sign of progress in a conflict whose religious and ethnic roots also give pain to Americans, who have deep ties to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Irish and British leaders greeted the statement with varying levels of acceptance and skepticism. Still, an expression of regrets certainly beats the relentless, remorseless self-justifications that accompany cycles of violence elsewhere.
If the IRA can keep its implied commitment to peaceful conduct, the apology will serve as a legitimate sign of hope about other conflicts. As America's World War II generation has demonstrated so admirably, reconciliation can follow even the most deadly warfare.
San Diego Union-Tribune
The recent 14th annual International Conference on AIDS held in Barcelona offered the world some very grim numbers, and compelling reason to do more to reduce them.
The conference reported that about 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus associated with AIDS. Perhaps 3 million of these will die over the next 12 months. That's 9,000 AIDS deaths each day. Add those to the 20 million people who have already died of the disease. An estimated 45 million more people will be infected by HIV/AIDS by 2010.
Numbers like these leave no room for doubt about the horrifying scope of this growing global pandemic.
AIDS is ravaging sub-Sahara Africa, where most countries lack the money, health care systems and infrastructure to fight it effectively. Millions of Africans are already doomed to die of AIDS. Many more millions -- HIV infection rates in some African countries reach 30 percent of all young adults -- will die unless something effective is done.
Morever, AIDS is spreading elsewhere, too. India, China and Russia each are believed to have rapidly growing rates of infection. None has more than a rudimentary capability to treat those infected and slow the rate of new infections. ...
The United Nations has established a Global Fund to combat AIDS. The U.N.'s goal is $10 billion a year in contributions. Current contributions are less than a third of that amount. Congress and the Bush administration are prepared to appropriate $900 million for the Global Fund, which sets a credible example for other affluent countries.
But money alone isn't a sufficient answer to the growing AIDS threat. Donors, international health experts and the poorer countries with the greatest AIDS problem need a strategy first.
After Barcelona, there can't be any doubt about how desperately one is needed.
Chicago Tribune
With the nation's capital already on peak alert for terrorists, reports of a nearby invasion by alien fish capable of walking on land have rattled nerves in Washington this summer. So much so that, on Tuesday, the Bush administration is expected to announce a ban on imports of the finned beasts.
And now, as if to discourage Washingtonians from fleeing westward to escape the onslaught, comes word that a huge fish named the bighead carp, which devours so much food that it squeezes out more desirable fish, threatens to invade Lake Michigan in big numbers.
And you wonder why some people never leave the beach for the water.
The first of these unsettling critters, the northern snakehead, has the head of a serpent, the scales of a fish and the teeth of a barracuda. It can gobble up other fish, then walk on its long pectoral fins to the next pond, lake or river. Some wags have wondered whether the reptilian Frankenfish, first spotted on June 30 in a Maryland pond, might reach the nation's capital and live unnoticed among similarly troublesome lawyers, lobbyists, politicians and cable TV talk show hosts.
The snakehead is native to the Yangtze River region of China. Wildlife officials say two of the fish were obtained by a Maryland resident who dumped them into the pond two years ago after their appetites grew too large for his wallet.
Now Maryland officials face who-knows-how-much expense to get rid of snakeheads before the hungry fish crawl to the potential feast that awaits them only 75 yards away in the Little Patuxent River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay.
Interior Secretary Gail Norton is scheduled to ban the importation of 28 species of snakehead, which have been found in six other states. (No word on how this will be received by people in Thailand and Myanmar who reportedly believe each snakehead is a reincarnated sinner.) ...
With luck, wildlife experts will figure out how to eradicate the snakehead and keep the bighead carp from advancing farther north. The nation is better off with such invaders put in a hot pan with some lemon juice and a pinch of garlic.
As for the fright these two fish have caused here on land, it could be worse. A year ago, we were all cowering in fear of shark attacks.
Daily Oklahoman
Reports say government investigators would love to question Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
More importantly, they'd like to know what he knows about future attacks still in the works and the al Qaida chain of command. They might get the chance.
Moussaoui, 34, capped months of bizarre behavior last week by suddenly volunteering that he was an al Qaida member and that he wanted to plead guilty to federal terrorism conspiracy charges. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema refused to accept the plea and gave Moussaoui a week to reconsider.
The exchange set observers to chattering about Moussaoui's true intent -- as well as his sanity. ...
Any kind of plea agreement would require a proffer, a detailed summary of what Moussaoui could give in exchange.
Having already plea bargained in the case of John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, government officials should tread carefully in any negotiation with this sworn enemy of the United States.
Miami Herald
The Irish Republican Army, the most murderous terrorist group in Northern Ireland's three decades of civil conflict, delivered a stunning message last week: "We offer our sincere apologies and condolences" to the families of the thousands of civilians killed and injured as a result of the IRA's actions.
The apology alone won't guarantee lasting peace where Catholics and Protestants have been warring for centuries. But it does suggest an important lesson that bodes well for the Good Friday peace process underway. "The process of conflict resolution requires the equal acknowledgment of the grief and loss of others," the IRA apology said. "We are endeavoring to fulfill this responsibility to those we have hurt."
Terrorism by any other name is still terrorism. Even worthy ends do not justify torture, bombing and killing of civilians. Such violence breeds only more violence and hate. The scars left behind become barriers to national reconciliation.
Northern Ireland's Catholic minority has had legitimate complaints, which explain the group's separatist aspirations. Most in the Protestant majority wish to remain a part of Britain. Paramilitary groups from both sides have waged bloody battle since 1968. But a shaky cease-fire has been in place for five years.
A s the IRS message said, "The future will not be found in denying collective failures and mistakes, or closing minds and hearts to the plight of those who have been hurt." Whatever the motive, the IRA offered welcome acknowledgment and hope for an eventual end to the violence.
New York Newsday
The Bush administration has built a questionable reputation abroad for backing out of international treaties it doesn't like. Even when U.S. objections are valid, they carry the taint of go-it-alone-ism at a time Washington is seeking international cooperation in the war on terror.
Now comes another well-intentioned international treaty that the United States will be obliged to shun. The irony is that it would actually further U.S. national goals to join it, if it weren't for a constitutional roadblock.
The draft treaty, released last Friday by the U.N. World Health Organization in Geneva, would set international standards for controlling the supply and marketing of cigarettes. It's a key part of WHO's campaign -- including education and curbs on tobacco smuggling - to discourage smoking across the globe in an effort to reduce tobacco --related deaths, estimated to reach 10 million annually by 2030.
The centerpiece of the proposed treaty is a ban on cigarette advertising and sports sponsorships by tobacco companies, to be enforced by the governments of all signatory nations. And here is where it gets sticky for the United States. Unlike most other nations on earth, this country's Constitution has free speech guarantees that extend, with some limitations, to commercial speech. That includes advertising. The government has pressured the tobacco industry to limit the content of its ads and curtail their appeal to young people. But most of those strictures are voluntary. Imposing a total ban on cigarette ads would be challenged on constitutional grounds, and Washington would be in a position of signing a treaty it could not enforce. That would be hypocritical.
Granted, American tobacco companies have a vested interest in weakening the treaty; their markets are growing abroad. But perhaps other nations might take heart in the example that the United States has been setting in ostracizing smokers, barring them from the workplace, restaurants and public areas - without any formal ban on ads.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Committees in both houses of Congress are scheduling hearings on the Bush administration's military intentions toward Iraq, and not a moment too soon. Absent an attack on the United States that requires an immediate response, no American president should be able to take the country to war without the permission of the Congress acting in the name of the people.
A war with Iraq would be an awesome undertaking. Some 550,000 U.S. troops, supported by 31 allies, were involved in the 1990-91 war, which did not even evolve into a full-scale invasion of Iraq. Such a war would line up most Arab states against the United States. No European country -- even Britain -- is enthusiastic about such a war.
For European nations, the priority is the Arab-Israeli conflict, not Iraq. A French official told The New York Times last week that "the important thing is to build a coalition for peace in the Middle East, not to build a coalition for war in Iraq."
Also skittish is Turkey, a U.S. ally whose support would be necessary for a successful operation against Saddam. On Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit warned the United States that "it will not be possible to get out of there that easily. President Bush is a friend of Turkey. We do not want to hurt his feelings, but it is our duty to make our concerns known."
The only country that enthusiastically supports a U.S. attack on Iraq is Israel. A war with Iraq would take the heat off Israel to resolve its problems with the Palestinians as Israel became an ally in a new Middle Eastern war. ...
Whatever the genesis of the drumbeat for an Iraq war, hearings to be held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Affairs Committee before the end of the summer are critical. Such proceedings are necessary if even a semblance of popular support is to be established for a war against Iraq.
What is breathtaking in the preparations for those hearings so far is the refusal of the administration to agree to send its officials to testify before the committees. What could possibly make them imagine that they can take the country to war without even telling the public why?
(Compiled by United Press International)
