Prospects for peace in the Middle East
Since the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a mood has been spreading in the Middle East that had not been felt for a long time: optimism.
All the signals are pointing toward a new beginning in relations between the Palestinians and Israel. Arafat is history; now only the future counts.
In January already, the Palestinians will choose a new president -- something that the old one had prevented with the excuse that elections were impossible under Israeli occupation.
In order to support the Palestinian people on the road to democracy, hardly a day passes on which the European Union or the United States do not send high-ranking representatives to the region.
Still, the positive signals are being overshadowed by Israel's government crisis.
The prime minister now governs with only 40 lawmakers in the 120-strong parliament. Only if his Likud party agrees to include the Labor party in the government can new elections be prevented.
Election campaigns in Israel have never been a good time for progress in the peace process. -- Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, Germany
On upcoming elections in Iraq
The deadline of the election, set by the end of January, favors the clash between Shiites and Sunnis. The Shiites, about 60 percent of the total population, do not want a postponement. The vote would legitimate their majority. ... On the other end, the Sunnis are hoping for a delay. And they express this wish in different ways.
Members of the coalition stress the difficulty of voting in an atmosphere of insecurity ... with men and women forced to vote under death threats. The guerrillas, headed by the Sunnis, are much more determined and are involved in actions against government units that are mainly formed by Shiites and Kurds.
Undoubtedly, the aim of the armed opposition is causing a battle between the two groups. A danger ... that certainly worries many Iraqis, who ... try to live normally, with courage, under bombings and shootings. -- La Repubblica, Rome
Ghana's election
With 105,000 poll workers on hand to man 21,000 voting precincts across the country, today's exercise of political franchise in West Africa's most politically affluent country will be the largest next to the recent Nigerian elections. But unlike the Nigerian elections, so far, it promises to be more peaceful.
While we in Liberia have much to learn from the Ghanaian people with regards to streamlining political competitions in order to minimize political conflicts, we ... want to congratulate the Ghanaian people for being able to redeem the image of Africa, deemed a dark continent where democracy has yet to take roots after more than a century of colonial rule and more than a half century of self-governance.
... Liberians and Ghanaians have special deep running historical ties and relationships that go beyond political boundaries and that make it impossible for one country to hurt without the other feeling the pinch.
This is why we have no doubts that electoral success in Ghana will not only be a hope for free and fair elections in Liberia under an atmosphere free of intimidation, but it will also ... set an example for Liberian politicians ... to follow. -- The Analyst, Monrovia, Liberia
U.S. government warning its citizens to avoid travel in Kenya
The renewed American travel advisory is a source of great discomfort in the tourism industry. There is no better description of this than a stab in the back of a good friend.
Hasn't Kenya always been considered one of the best allies of the United States in this region?
But perhaps the operators and all those who benefit directly or indirectly from tourism should begin to see this as a case of the closure of one door leading to the opening of another.
And what better confirmation of this than visiting Swiss Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Franz von Daniken's assurance that his country considers Kenya a safe destination.
With better marketing, Kenya could woo more tourists from this affluent central European country.
The tourism industry should see this official American snub as a wake-up call to look for alternative sources of tourists. The attempt in recent times to woo visitors from Asia, especially China and Japan, is commendable and must be stepped up. -- The Sunday Nation, Kenya
On reforming the UN
The mere mention of reform suggests cool breezes and the promise of better days ahead. Especially when the entity slated for reform is an increasingly irrelevant United Nations characterized by endless talk and inaction.
Just one problem: It will be difficult for any reforms to build confidence in the UN until it extricates itself from an Oil-for-Food quagmire largely of its own making. While Secretary General Kofi Annan airs reform proposals from a blue-ribbon advisory panel, damning revelations continue to reveal how the Oil-for-Food scandal propped up Saddam Hussein and victimized suffering Iraqis.
So while in theory reform is appealing, it can't be an excuse for the UN to shrink from its most urgent imperative: exposing and seeing to the punishment of every government, every company and every influential individual who illicitly profited from Oil- for-Food. -- Chicago Tribune
The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, on Alabama and segregation:
The remnants of segregation continued to exist in the constitutions and statutes of Southern states long after federal laws made them moot.
By now, though, most official vestiges of Jim Crow ought to have disappeared as states crafted modern constitutions or stripped offensive language out of old documents. Not so in Alabama.
The state still uses its 1901 Constitution, which was written expressly to deny voting rights and a decent education to African Americans. What's worse, voters refused this fall to remove language supporting segregation from the 103-year-old document. ...
... Holding onto segregation, even if it is only on paper and is unenforceable, will hold the state back. Alabama has a hateful history on racial issues, a history that has affected its image and limited its ability to thrive economically.
This was a chance to walk away from the past and show the world that Alabama has changed. The truth may be that it hasn't changed much after all. --- On the Net: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/ --- The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on Tom Ridge's legacy:
... (Tom) Ridge resigned last week as director of Homeland Security, and probably is sleeping well at night for the first in a long time. ...
Some will judge Ridge's tenure in that new Cabinet-level position as only average, but his true accomplishments, like the man himself, aren't flashy or worthy of many television sound bites.
Ridge managed to combine 22 different and competitive agencies and make a department of Homeland Security. The department has about 180,000 employees and is three times the size of computer giant Microsoft.
If any one person managed to do that in the private sector, in a mere three years, he or she would be honored and touted as a business guru; his or her model would be emulated and duplicated and studied in business schools.
... Say all you want about duct tape and orange alerts, America wasn't attacked under Tom Ridge's watch.
And that's good enough for us to rank his performance as highly satisfactory. --- On the Net: http://www.tribune-democrat.com/articles/2004/12/07/editorials/edit01 .txt ---
The Buffalo News, Buffalo, New York, on violent video games:
Americans have been fascinated by video games ever since someone figured out a way to play a simple game of pingpong on a television screen. Thirty years later, video games have reached a level of sophistication that rivals the best military battlefield simulation.
Too bad good taste hasn't kept pace.
The game has gone too far in a computer simulation titled, "JFK Reloaded," in which players re-create the 1963 assassination of a U.S. president. Gamers "fire" three shots at President John F. Kennedy's car from Lee Harvey Oswald's re-created sixth-floor perch in the Texas School Book Depository. There's a possible prize for exact replication of the real shots, and points are deducted for mistakes, such as hitting the first lady. The game, if it can be termed as such, was released on Nov. 22, the 41st anniversary of the shooting in Dallas.
Family members have described it as "despicable." This may not go far enough in describing just how low the Glasgow-based firm Traffic, designer of the game, sank in marketing what it inexcusably calls an educational "docu-game" intended to refute the theory that a conspiracy was behind the assassination.
This isn't about free speech, it's about decency. "JFK Reloaded" trivializes an awful point in this nation's history. Even though speech is protected under the Constitution, there are limits to such abuses as threat-making, especially against a president. And even if this game doesn't involve a "real" president, encouraging even the play-acting of such violence isn't in the best interest of anyone, from the gamers involved to the presidency as an institution. ... --- On the Net: www.buffalonews.com
GetAP 1.00 -- DEC 10, 2004 01:45:30 ;AP; ANPA ..r.. Editorial Roundup By The Associated Press= JP/
By The Associated Press= Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers around the world: ---
--- On the Net: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ ---
--- On the Net: http://www.analystliberia.com/ ---
El Comercio, Lima, Peru, on American Lori Berenson, convicted of collaborating with Marxist guerrillas in Peru:
It could not have gone another way. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ratified the sentence issued by a Peruvian civil court for the American terrorist Lori Berenson, and recognized Peru did not violate human rights by trying and sentencing her for terrorism. ...
What is absolutely clear is that the judgment in the civil trial was proper and guaranteed due process, which corrected the errors and excesses of the faceless military court tribunals.
... This ruling, which must be seen as a triumph of the state's rule of law, closes as well the pretense of others accused of subversion from resorting to international courts to obtain their liberation. This case must make us remember that it was the terrorist groups like the Shining Path and the MRTA that initiated the reprehensible genocidal massacre, with no regard whatsoever for the human rights of every Peruvian. --- On the Net: http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/online/ ---
--- On the Net: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ MORE[
GetAP 1.00 -- DEC 10, 2004 01:44:59