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