New York Times
China took some halting steps forward this month in its belated efforts to catch up with a widening HIV-AIDS epidemic. Health officials raised their estimate of the number of Chinese infected with the AIDS virus, asked for international help in combating the epidemic and pressed for a sharp reduction in the prices charged for drugs needed to treat these patients. China is also preparing a $90 million grant application to the new Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
These are all encouraging signs that the world's largest nation may finally be stirring from its denial and lethargy on AIDS. But virtually nothing is being done yet to treat the vast majority of those sick with AIDS, and the government remains unwilling to tolerate open discussion of its health crisis. Before international donors start pumping in substantial sums to help contain the epidemic, China will need to release its most prominent AIDS activist, who disappeared last month and is believed to be in police custody. ...
The United Nations warned in June that China is "on the verge of a catastrophe" and could, if it fails to take effective action, have the largest number of HIV-infected people in the world within a few years. ...
China is weakening its case for international support by failing to release Dr. Wan Yanhai, the missing AIDS activist who was instrumental in revealing the epidemic among rural farmers and in organizing people with AIDS to demand that the government provide treatment. His family and colleagues say he is in government custody. If so, Beijing should acknowledge his whereabouts and set him free. There would be no better way to demonstrate the kind of openness that is critical to any successful campaign against AIDS.
Washington Times
The Bush administration made clear at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris last week that when it comes to the protection of the steel industry, foreign governments across the globe have a tarnished record. Large foreign steel producers have been insulated from free-market pressures through a variety of measures -- from tariffs to subsidies to special-purchasing agreements. Governments often chose to protect their steel industries for a variety of social and political reasons, but these measures prevent industries from becoming competitive and, when subsidies are involved, are an inefficient use of public resources. More importantly, these protections make it impossible for companies to make profit projections and investment decisions based on transparent market considerations, since they face competitors that are divorced from free-market pressures.
So the administration's efforts at the OECD to rally support for liberalizing the steel industry worldwide can only benefit the global trading system. But given the administration's decision in March to impose steel tariffs of up to 30 percent for three years, the administration doesn't appear too optimistic that progress will be made soon. The question remains, though: Was the administration's decision to impose steel tariffs the best way to confront protectionism abroad? ...
The common assertion that the Bush administration's decision to impose the tariffs was just political ignores the crushing injustice of foreign steel subsidies. Abstract principles of free trade must to be tempered -- in extreme cases such as steel -- with a practical recognition of the needs of an industry that is vital to our national and industrial security.
Washington Post
In any tyranny, the expected thing, the natural thing, is to go along. To risk imprisonment and torture, impoverishment and quarantine; even more, to subject loved ones to those risks -- ordinary people do not behave in this way. And yet, in every tyranny, a few people do stand up, exposing themselves and their families on behalf of the many who also covet freedom but dare not say so. These dissidents, on any continent, tend to share certain traits: courage and clear-headedness, but also stubbornness, and an ability not to overcome fear and loneliness but to live with them. "There are times when no one visits your home," says Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. "When other kids won't play with your children."
Mr. Payá, a 50-year-old Cuban, is the leader of the Varela project, an amazing exercise in peaceful resistance to dictatorship that won some publicity when former president Jimmy Carter cited it during his recent visit to the island. The genius of the project is to accept as written Fidel Castro's constitution, which holds that any petition that gathers 10,000 signatures shall be considered by the National Assembly, or parliament. Mr. Payá and his associates, patiently and during a period of several years, gathered more than 11,000 signatures in support of free speech, free association and free enterprise and, in May, submitted them to the Assembly. ...
Now Mr. Payá has applied for permission to visit the United States to accept an award that the National Democratic Institute plans to bestow at the end of this month. ... It's not clear whether Mr. Castro will let him travel to Washington for the occasion. One gets the feeling that, either way, it won't bother Mr. Payá all that much. ... In 1980, during the Mariel boatlift, his relatives in Florida arranged for him to join them; he refused to leave Cuba. "It would be terrible to live without Cuba," he says. That's another common trait of dissidents: patriotism, of a genuine sort.
San Diego Union-Tribune
The assassin's bullet that missed Afghan President Hamid Karzai by inches Sept. 5 sent a chilling warning: Afghanistan remains dangerously unstable and its new pro-Western, anti-terrorist government is in peril.
That must be a matter of urgent priority to the U.S. government. The American military and political campaign against the remnants of al Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan requires political support from the Karzai government.
America's armed forces liberated Afghanistan from the repressive Taliban regime that provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida terrorist organization. A brilliantly conceived and conducted campaign that began last November routed the Taliban and al Qaida.
In their place today is a moderate, modern-minded Afghan government chosen democratically by a national council of Afghanistan's political and ethnic leaders. Karzai, an eloquent moderate who wants al Qaida permanently vanquished from Afghanistan, is America's best friend and best bet in that war-ravaged nation.
But Karzai and his rudimentary government need a lot more than they are currently getting from the United States and the coalition it leads. ...
Some form of nation building and a more secure Afghanistan is vital to the success of America's war against al Qaida.
Salt Lake Deseret News
It's easy to mock the neo-Nazi culture. One local television commentator has said, "Nazism exists because even dummies need a political philosophy." Another pundit compares them to Schultz in the old "Hogan's Heroes" series.
But the growth of racist, right-wing gangs in Utah is no laughing matter. Prisons and jails appear to be the breeding ground for the extremists. And, once back on the streets, the ex-cons recruit the innocent and impressionable -- kids looking to vent their anger over their past; kids who find society so confusing they elect to see the world in simple black and white terms. ...
For now, concern and vigilance should be the watchwords. Right-wing racism is a dirty secret that never fares well in the face of scrutiny.
As for the jokes, ridiculing neo-Nazis may help us cope with their presence, but taking them seriously as a threat and exposing them for what they are make for better safeguards when it comes to keeping the new breed of Hitler Youth from penetrating the heart of America.
Chicago Tribune
Yasser Arafat, who has made a career of playing the role of victim of external enemies -- largely Israel and the United States -- now has a new and formidable foe: his own people.
In a stunning rebuff Wednesday, the Palestinian parliament forced the resignation of Arafat's handpicked Cabinet. It is the first time that the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, traditionally a rubber stamp for whatever he wanted, has displayed some backbone.
It's tempting to make too much of this unexpected sign of a democratic pulse within the authority. The 73-year-old Arafat is still running for re-election in January, and as discredited as he is -- among his own people and in the international arena -- he is still expected to win handily. There are no credible challengers, and cleaning up the corruption, inefficiency and cronyism that animate Palestinian government will require far more than a single dramatic vote in parliament.
Yet, there it is -- stirrings of democracy and political life after Arafat among the Palestinians -- just what the U.S. has been demanding. It ought to be taken seriously. ...
Three Palestinians have announced plans to challenge Arafat in the elections next year. None has put forth a constructive platform that would bring peace with Israel any closer. But the prospect of a contested election, and a legislature disposed to challenge Arafat's authority and demand some new thinking, has to be taken as a positive first step out of the present morass.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
