Farcical appeal

Farcical appeal

The Supreme Court has become a protest venue, for both supporters and opponents of House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker Akbar Tandjung.

His supporters have been urging the court to accept his appeal (to throw out his graft conviction), while his opponents have been urging the court to reject it.

It seems that the court deserves such pressure, considering that Akbar's case is a yardstick of how the supremacy of the law will be upheld.

The Supreme Court is the country's highest judicial institution.

The public, however, perceives that it has been too slow to handle Akbar's case.

Thus, in the case of Akbar, a debt of honor "would be taken to the grave". This has tended to damage public perception of the court.

As such, the Supreme Court has become a protest venue. It has become a source of public ridicule -- both to those who believe and do not believe that what is happening is nothing less than a farce. -- Media Indonesia, Jakarta

Separation way

Close proximity is bad for farm animals. There is enough evidence to suggest that animals should stay separately because of the risk of infectious disease.

The bird flu epidemic in some Asian countries makes it even more necessary to change the traditional practice of keeping farm animals together in one place. Health Minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng said the Agriculture Ministry had been alerted on the need to keep cattle, goats, pigs and poultry in separate enclosures to prevent cross-infections.

This will also reduce the danger of diseases from being transmitted from animals to humans. The death of people in Vietnam and Thailand from bird flu, although a small number, shows the risks to humans from animal diseases.

However, although separating animals is desirable, farmers will be burdened with additional costs. They should be given some kind of assistance. Hygienic conditions in farms should be maintained at all times. Monitoring should be stepped up to ensure they meet minimum conditions. This applies especially to the smaller farms. The latest epidemic has highlighted the weaknesses in farm practices that require improvements, such as separating animals and poultry.

Over the longer term, there is also a need for a comprehensive review of the health and safety aspects of the animal husbandry and poultry sectors to instill high standards of hygiene, prevent the outbreak or spread of diseases. It will cost money, but it will be money well spent.

-- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur

Latin America's absence from the WEF

Latin America's near-boycott of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), which opened yesterday in Davos, speaks of a new generation of leaders who reflect the continent's distrust of free-market capitalism.

In a way Davos had become so well attended that, like the Sundance film festival, it became a fairground and not much use as the necessary contact stage for poor to meet rich. The strength of the Social Forum (in Mumbai, India) has been to offer a springboard for many who could not find a voice, or afford the expenses, in Davos. The danger seen in the decline of the conference of the rich and the growth of the meeting of the poor is that genuine free-market capitalism may be defeated eventually by the corporativists and protectionists in Davos and Mumbai, who would team up to beat those capitalists who favor real competitive corporations over monopolistic cartels dressed up as free enterprisers.

Although Chicago and IMF are not the flavors of the season here, perhaps a few Latin American officials might give the potential benefits of real free-market capitalism a fresh look, and possibly even get their snow boots ready for next year in Davos.

-- Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Smokers in the picture

The proposal to shock or scare smokers by insisting cigarette packets graphically depict health effects has provoked the predictable objections of the tobacco lobby and the usual muddle- headed whining about smokers' rights.

Color pictures of diseased organs are unlikely to deter hardened tobacco addicts but they may be useful additions to the armory of discouragement for the young. The possibility is enough to justify the proposal's endorsement. Anything that might work is worth a try, so long as it is well structured and has no prospect of adverse, unintended consequences. If that is uncomfortable for cigarette makers and cigarette smokers, then all the better.

So why is the Federal Government stepping up a gear in turning manufacturers' packaging against them? Written warnings about death, lung cancer, pregnancy and so on have accompanied Australian cigarette packets since 1995 and, more timidly, for 22 years before that. But they have lost their power to jolt, as happens with shock campaigns. Graphic road safety messages and initiatives, for instance, lose their sting over time. That this may be the fate of cigarette packet pictures is no reason for rejecting them because, in the meantime, they offer some impact.

British American Tobacco complains that pictorial warnings have been tried only in Brazil and Canada and that official Canadian figures show no attributable reduction on smoking rates. Australian authorities, however, claim the shock warnings were responsible for a 3 percent decline in Canadian smoking. This is more significant than the bald statistic suggests. In Australia, where 3.6 million people smoke, a 3 percent reduction would be the equivalent of more than 100,000 average smokers quitting. Little wonder the tobacco lobby is not keen.

And do smokers' rights advocates seriously argue there is some inherent entitlement to inflict discomfort or harm on others while participating in a habit that drains national health resources in a massively disproportionate manner, which claims 19,000 lives a year (about 80 percent of drug-related deaths) and, by government reckoning, absorbs a $21 billion annual social cost? The rights argument is an invention cynically exploited to buttress self-indulgence and selfish disregard of others.

Anti-smoking campaigns have helped Australians cut back. In 1993, 24 percent of us smoked. By 2001, the number was down to 19.5 percent. The portrayal of smoking in all its ugliness might just get it down a little further.

-- The Sydney Morning Herald