On IMF economic reforms

On IMF economic reforms

We hope the government will not give in totally to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank pressure and
completely change its course.

Our opposition to the macro economic policy framework that the
IMF and the World Bank are imposing on our country is not
necessarily that its goal of stabilizing macro-economic variables
is wrong in itself. Our concern is that they prioritize
stabilization over all other considerations, and set ambitious
targets on what seem to be global norms, on the assumption that
these measures would appeal to foreign investors who would
respond by significantly increasing foreign direct investment in
our economy. They may achieve something on most of their macro-
economic targets, but massively underperform in the growth,
employment creation and poverty reduction targets.

It is clear that these policies simplistically assume that a
few economic indicators -- inflation, money supply growth,
interest rates, budget and trade deficits -- could serve as a
basis for a set of policy recommendations. This approach has
clearly underestimated the trade-offs between the pursuit of
these macro stability goals and other very important economic
objectives.

There is no doubt that the recipes given to us by the IMF and
the World Bank have failed. These recipes have caused severe
poverty in our country and should be ended.

And something tangible has to be done to get our people out of
this deepening poverty. There is need to seriously re-examine our
economic policies.

-- The Post, Lusaka, Zambia

On the Bush presidency

Like no president before him, he has exacerbated the American
fracture line. On the coasts and big cities, there is a rather
liberal political tradition, built out of tolerance in moral
matters, where one isn't necessarily convinced that the country
personifies The Truth and The Good. In the South and inland,
there is a political culture increasingly marked by religion
where traditional family values are valued as highly as hyper-
nationalist patriotism, and the Bible and the Star Spangled
Banner stand as a manifesto. On one side, the democratic nation;
on the other, the republican nation. And in between them, less
and less in common.

-- Le Monde, Paris

On screening foreign visitors to the United States

Seconds. That's the amount of time it takes for foreign
visitors to the United States to undergo tighter security
measures.

Critics contend the tighter security will discourage
foreigners from visiting the United States or make them feel
unwelcome here. Hogwash.

Seconds. It's no major inconvenience. It doesn't even remotely
send out the message that America doesn't want law-abiding
visitors from around the world to travel to the United States.

Foreign visitors with nothing to hide won't mind the few
seconds it takes to undergo the security measures. Most, if not
all, of them will welcome it. After all, it will make the United
States a safer place for them to visit, too.

We Americans -- and the rest of the world -- must be resigned
to the fact that waiting lines at checkpoints and reasonable,
added security measures are here to stay. They are aimed at
making us safer. We may be inconvenienced, but it's worth the
wait.
-- The Express-Times, Easton, Pennsylvania

On America's beef supply

America's beef supply should be the world's safest, and,
ironically, it will be made safer because of the first U.S. case
of mad cow disease.

As cattle producers, meatpackers and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture scramble to shore up consumer confidence at home and
abroad, the nation's mad-cow testing program is coming under the
microscope, and rightfully so.

The startling news ... that a Holstein from a dairy farm near
Yakima, Wash., had bovine spongiform encephalopathy was only
eclipsed by the fact that the fatal disease was found by fluke,
and not because the animal was exhibiting symptoms of a mad cow.

In the wake of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease,
stricter rules seem inevitable. It will be expensive to expand
America's cattle-testing program, and consumers should prepare to
help bear the cost.
-- The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

---

Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy, on British Prime Minister
Tony Blair's recent visit to Iraq.

The British Prime Minister returned to Basra, in Iraq, for the
second time in a few months, and brought the British nation's
sympathy to the troops deployed there.

He defended the motives for acting against Saddam, gave the
soldiers a reason to stay, a cause for feeling useful to their
country, and the certainty that they are not being abandoned.

In order to make this trip to Basra, Blair faced many a risk
to his safety. He evidently assessed that personal risk is not a
plausible argument for keeping a statesman at home, especially
when the troops run daily risks on the battlefield. A statesman
cannot allow himself the luxury of fearing for his own life.

One particular event during the Prime Minister's trip deserves
to be mentioned above others: Blair did not meet exclusively with
his own troops, like Bush did on Thanksgiving.

Blair shook hands with representatives from other coalition
states.

If the term Europe has any real meaning ... yesterday Blair
spoke not only as a British Prime Minister, but as a European
leader in the full meaning of the term.

One can only hope that Blair's example will be followed by
other statesmen.
---
Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland, on Indian-Pakistani relations:

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's short meeting
with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad
cannot yet be considered to be a breakthrough. The leaders
previously held talks in Agra, India, in the summer of 2001, and
a few months later these two southern Asian nuclear states came
to the brink of war. This time the signs seem better, however.
The will for detente seems increasingly sincere on both sides.

The most poisonous issue between the two countries -- the
question of Kashmir -- does not seem closer to a solution. The
hopes for detente, indeed, are based more on the realization that
they can reach a solution no more through diplomatic means than
through war, and that one has to learn to live with the status
quo. Bilateral relations have been improved bit by bit since the
spring, and the cease-fire on the Kashmir border achieved in
November has, more or less, held.
----
The Decatur Daily, Decatur, Alabama, on Mars landing:

Nearly two-thirds of the attempts to land on Mars were
failures. Only one in the three last attempts succeeded.

Bucking those odds, NASA scored a major victory in space
exploration Saturday night when golf cart-size Spirit bounced to
a safe landing as a prelude to major exploration on the Red
Planet. ...

The accuracy with which Spirit landed is a boost to NASA's
prestige after the last shuttle tragedy. While Spirit is
unmanned, it is a much more difficult mission than getting humans
into and out of Earth orbit safely. The consequences of failure,
however, are not comparable.

Still, NASA is on an incredible mission, and one that will
grow even more exciting if and when the companion rover,
Opportunity, touches down Jan. 24 on the opposite side of the
planet.
---
The Buffalo News, Buffalo, New York, on the CIA leak and John Ashcroft:

Attorney General John Ashcroft last week recused himself from
the ongoing investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA
undercover operations officer to political columnist Robert
Novak. Belated though it was, the decision was correct.

Ashcroft has been under pressure for months to name an outside
counsel to oversee the investigation and, while he didn't go that
far, his choice has been met with general approval from critics.
The probe will be led by newly appointed Deputy Attorney General
James Comey, who has handed the case to Patrick Fitzgerald, a
friend and respected federal prosecutor from Chicago.

It's not the same as an independent counsel, whose activities
are beyond the control of the Justice Department, but as Kenneth
Starr proved in his agonizing Whitewater/sex/perjury/sex/kitchen
sink/sex investigation, independent counsels may not always serve
the national interest. ...

This is the first such significant investigation since the
Whitewater embarrassment, and it is important for it to be
handled professionally and properly. That means Ashcroft must
leave Comey to his work, and Comey must do the same for
Fitzgerald. The investigation must be allowed to lead where it
leads -- even in an election year.
---

GetAP 1.00 -- JAN 9, 2004 00:42:10
;AP;
ANPA ..r..
NA-GEN--Editorial Roundup
By The Associated Press=
JP/

By The Associated Press=
A selection of excerpts from editorials in newspapers worldwide:
---

---
Jordan Times, Amman, Jordan, on talks between India and Pakistan:

Certainly Asia, if not the rest of the world, breathed a great
sigh of relief over the news that the leaders of Pakistan and
India sat down for a one-hour talk on Monday.

These two countries have had their share of dangerously
sparring with each other over the past five decades. But during
that period also, domestic woes have increasingly afflicted these
two nuclear powers.

Their neighborhood has been plagued with threats by various
terrorist organizations, militant infiltration, tribal conflicts
and assassinations, not to speak of socio-economic ills
compounded by burgeoning populations in the face of huge defense
spending.

The talks between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee have been described as
a breakthrough.

We in the Arab world are accustomed to 'breakthrough' talks
which all too often breakdown. The same holds true for the
Indian-Pakistani conflict. From experience, we can recommend that
talks of this sort be maintained at all costs.

The science of conflict resolution requires courage in
defining the problem, willingness to offer confidence-building
measures and acceptance of compromise. The key is to keep talking
and understand that each side to the conflict will reach times of
apparent impasse.
---
Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, on Afghanistan's new constitution:

The 2001 Bonn accord, backed by the United Nations, called for
setting up an interim government composed of representatives of
ethnic groups, establishing a new Constitution by the end of 2003
and holding elections in June 2004. The political process up to
the halfway point -- enacting a new Constitution -- more or less
is on schedule.

Yet, the content of the new Constitution is far from what the
international community had sought. Under the new Constitution,
the country is henceforth to be called the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan. It says all laws must conform to the teachings of
Islam.

Basic human rights, such as freedom of thought and beliefs,
are guaranteed, but only within the framework of Islamic
teachings and legislation. This provision is heavily imbued with
the ideas of the old guard. There is a real danger that freedom
of political activities and religious beliefs could be
constrained by this provision.

While a roadmap for reconstruction of Afghanistan has been
made, the country still faces a bumpy road ahead. ... For
Afghanistan to move to the next stage of its reconstruction, with
the promise of elections, it is essential that it benefits from
the firm support offered by the international community.
---
The Guardian, London, on British troops in Iraq:

British troops in Iraq may feel encouraged by the prime
minister's lightning visit to Basra yesterday. But perhaps it is
Tony Blair's morale that is more in need of a boost.

The armed forces are doing a fine job in Iraq. Nobody doubts
it. The same cannot be said with confidence of Mr. Blair's past
and present performance on this issue. ...

Although the war was a success in purely military terms, Mr.
Blair still refuses to face up to the central contention of its
numerous opponents: that he led Britain into battle on what Sir
Menzies Campbell calls a "flawed prospectus." The fact is, the
principal, official justification that Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction posed a threat to the region and to Britain itself
was just plain wrong. There were no such weapons. ...

It is simply no good for Mr. Blair to persist in claiming, as
he did before Christmas, that "massive evidence" of illegal Iraqi
weapons activity has been uncovered. This assertion was flatly
rejected at the time by the senior US official in Iraq, Paul
Bremer. It is not borne out by the Iraq Survey Group's findings
to date. Even the Bush administration no longer wants to talk
about it. In short, few believe it any more. As Robin Cook says:
"It really is time that the prime minister accepted that himself.
It is undignified to continue to insist he was right when
everyone can see he was wrong."
---
Frankfurter Allgemeine, Frankfurt, Germany, on the Afghan constitution:

Afghanistan is a state -- but it remains to be seen whether a
nation can be made of it.

The delegates of the constitutional convention took an
important step in that direction Sunday. It was clear until the
last minute how difficult it was for them to agree on a new
constitution.

As late as Saturday, failure appeared probable. But
representatives of the United Nations and the United States, both
of which had an immediate interest in an agreement, finally
managed to talk the holdouts round.

However, that is one of the weak points of the accord.

After the end of their meeting, the delegates will return to
their regions, and there they will be exposed to other
influences.

It is not clear whether all those who showed willingness to
compromise in the capital will have the strength to stand by
their votes.

A piece of paper alone, however great the ceremony with which
it was approved, cannot bring peace to Afghanistan.

Even if one ignores the increasingly active Taliban, there is
still plenty of fuel for conflict in the country. There is great
distrust between the various ethnic groups and their leaders.
---
Kuwait Times, Kuwait, on the danger of ignoring the Taliban:

The Bush Administration will make a big mistake if it, in its
present difficulties in Iraq or its enthusiasm to win the 2004
presidential election, reduces American military presence in
Afghanistan, transfers its role there to a regional ally, or
handles the Taliban issue softly. ...

Today, after two years of forcing the Taliban out of Kabul by
a successful American-Northern Alliance-led military operation,
Taliban forces are making a determined comeback. Their increasing
attacks on foreign and local troops since early October, and
their daily threats against the important cities of south and
southeastern Afghanistan indicate they have risen from the ashes
like the legendary phoenix and that they are determined to regain
power in Kabul. ...

In spite of the above facts, the US shows no concerns,
refusing to take a decisive action against Islamabad or even
criticize the Musharraf regime. Washington still maintains that
the latter is doing everything it can to fight terrorism. ...
---
The Hindustan Times, Delhi, India, on the Mars rover:

Butterscotch-colored Mars has just become more exciting,
thanks to a mechanical geologist that goes by the name of
Spirit. ...

Spirit's copybook landing breaks what has been a jinx with
Mars-bound spacecraft. Hopefully this will become a bad memory
once Opportunity its sister probe sets down on the opposite side
of the planet later this month. ...

Thanks to these missions, we may soon have enough knowledge
about Mars' dynamic weather systems and be able to develop
mineralogical maps that will be even better than those of the
Earth! Add to this the possibility of tracking down those elusive
frozen swimming pools and its easy to see why scientists are so
excited.

For the presence of so much water could serve as a source of
fuel, drinking water and oxygen for manned Mars missions and
could help the very landscaping of the Martian surface for future
human settlements. ...

One thing is certain: the question of whether there is or ever
was life on Mars will be settled by the end of this decade.
---
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GetAP 1.00 -- JAN 9, 2004 00:41:53