Newspapers Reporting On ACTA, Sept 1 - Nov 1, 2011

From January 1 to September 1, there were only seven newspaper stories in LexisNexis. Results from GoogleNews mirror those from LexisNexis.

India insisted it would “not accept any intellectual property talks outside WTO” and The Guardian ran a column from Cory Doctorow that mentioned ACTA as it analyzed how computers can be used to “control and spy on us.”

Compare that with 82 newspaper articles, mostly U.S., published in December 2011 that mentioned the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

It’s not like ACTA wasn’t talked about among insiders. Inside U.S. Trade, for example, ran an article on October 14, 2011 noting that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) challenged the Obama Administration. In a press release, Sen. Wyden said:

“It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,” Wyden writes. “But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law…the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress’ authority, absent congressional approval.”

And it’s not like ACTA wasn’t talked about by lawyers and geeks.

It simply wasn’t talked about by the media elite, many of which are linked directly or indirectly to Hollywood.

Despite the fact that thousands are protesting in Europe, U.S. newspapers are still ignoring the treaty. But here’s the Financial Times, from Thursday:

Though ACTA has already been signed or initialled by all EU governments, it requires ratification by all 27 national parliaments as well as the European Parliament in Brussels.

That process looks to have been derailed by the anti-ACTA activists, particularly in central and eastern Europe.

Even the RIAA chief, writing in the NY Times last week, went after SOPA/PIPA but mentioned not one word about ACTA or the RIAA’s role in crafting its language. By the way, he implied that if you opposed either piece of legislation that you were either gullible (“anybody could click on a link or tweet in outrage — but how many knew what they were supporting or opposing”) or misinformed (“The hyperbolic mistruths, presented on the home pages of some of the world’s most popular Web sites, amounted to an abuse of trust and a misuse of power.”)

Back during the development of the treaty:

The negotiating text of ACTA and many other documents, including even the lists of participants in the negotiations, are secret. The White House claims the secrecy is required as a matter of national security. But that does not mean the documents are off limits to everyone outside of the government. Hundreds of advisors, many of them corporate lobbyists, are considered “cleared advisors.” They have access to the ACTA documents.

Who is on the U.S. Trade Representative Advisory Committees who saw the pre-public text of ACTA?

• Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights
• Entertainment Software Association
• International Intellectual Property Alliance
• Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
• Recording Industry Association of America
• Software and Information Industry Association
• Time-Warner
• Verizon Communications Inc

The 2009 FOIA request also revealed that Sony Pictures Entertainment and News Corp were privvy to pre-public documents. More background from Knowledge Ecology International on the ACTA process.

If you don’t think the IP measures relating to digital content are onerous, what about generic drugs?

The French MEP who resigned his position in charge of negotiating the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) has said it “goes too far” by potentially cutting access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricting internet freedom.

[...]

“The title of this agreement is misleading, because it’s not only about counterfeiting, it’s about the violation of intellectual property rights,” he told the Guardian. “There is a major difference between these two concepts.”

[...]

“The problem with Acta is that, by focusing on the fight against violation of intellectual property rights in general, it treats a generic drug just as a counterfeited drug. This means the patent holder can stop the shipping of the drugs to a developing country, seize the cargo and even order the destruction of the drugs as a preventive measure.”

This trade agreement has been negotiated in the dark with input from insiders who will profit from restricted trade.

Just say no.

Call your Senators and demand that ACTA be treated like the treaty that it is, which requires Senate approval. Bring the discussion of intellectual property protection out of the backroom and into the sunlight.

[1] Source [News, All (English, Full Text)]; query: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
[2] Image THE BATTLE OF COPYRIGHT 2011 Christopher Dombres

Earlier In TMV

• Guilty Until Proven Innocent Is Bad Law; We Need A Little Sunshine (2012)
• Winner Take All In The Tech Economy (2012)
• Europe To Sign ACTA Thursday, Poland Protests (2012)
• Tech Community Flexes Muscle, Senators Run For The Door (2012)
• On Internet Censorship : ACTA and COICA (2010)
• Obama Administration Secret Proposal On Copyright Puts ISP At Center Of Debate (2009)

The Nazi legacy is an understandably heavy burden for Germany, even today. This leaves Germans emotionally vulnerable to comparisons to their 20th century forebears. And with the country exercising ever-more influence over its European Union allies, cutting remarks that include such comparisons are blossoming like mushrooms after a spring rain. So how to deal with it? For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes that in order to operate as the ‘U.S. of Europe,’ Germans will have to grit their teeth until this particular phase of European history passes.

For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes in small part:

It doesn’t take much to figure out why so many Nazi comparisons are being made right now: For the first time since 1945, Germany is stepping up with all its power, not because it wants to, but because the European debt crisis has made the economically-strongest economy into the most politically powerful. Germany is now profoundly intervening in the domestic affairs of others.

The country is gradually taking on the role in Europe that the U.S. has long played on the global level: As the country that used and occasionally abused its power, was to blame for everything, was supposed to save everyone, and had to endure insults for how it went about doing it. What evil hasn’t been imputed to the Americans? The CIA was behind every evil, and Americans were constantly being accused of imperialism.

But there was one thing the Americans could never be accused of: sending six million Jews to their deaths and plunging half the world into war. In the case of Germany, ranting against the leading power that is at once quite understandable, human and often justified, very often takes on an entirely different pallor, which serves to put an end to any discussion or serious exchange.

For quite a while, Germany’s new role will continue to result in a proliferation of Nazi comparisons. Like it or not, we will have to bear it and wait until it passes. However, in such stoicism there is also a serious problem. That has to do with the German historical paradox, which may be described as follows: The only way Germans can prevent their past from repeating itself is by never being absolutely sure that it won’t.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR GERMAN AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Pavel Constantin, Romania

If this report is accurate, it’ll mean a new low for the Syrian government, putting it more than ever guilty of war crimes:

Syrian government forces are using detained civilians as human shields, placing them on tanks in the besieged city of Homs to prevent the opposition Free Syrian Army from fighting back, an opposition activist said.

The latest tactic came as shelling rained on city’s Baba Amr neighborhood once again Sunday, residents say, marking at least the eighth straight day President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have pummeled Homs in an attempt to wipe out the opposition.

“My house is dancing. I am almost dead because of the siege,” said the opposition activist, named Omar.

Three civilians were killed in Sunday’s shelling on Baba Amr, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group. A fourth civilian was killed by gunfire near the town of Bab Houweid, the group said.

CNN cannot independently confirm details of the fighting in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.

Truly grotesque. But as we have seen in history with regimes like this: what goes around comes around

And it can’t be soon enough…

Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle

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Is it possible that American citizens, now under arrest in Cairo, were involved with a plot to partition Egypt into four smaller states? According to columnist Muhammad Dunia of Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram, maps that were discovered during a raid on the Cairo offices of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute prove that at least some of the foreign NGOs operating in Egypt are actively involved with the scheme, which Dunia calls a long-term ‘American-Zionist’ project.

For Al-Ahram, columnist Muhammad Dunia starts off this way:

Over the past few days, some Western media have begun to revisit the old idea of a plan to partition Egypt based on the American-Zionist project to divide the country into four states.

The first would be in the Sinai, east of the Euphrates River delta, under Jewish influence. The second, with Alexandria as its capital and extending South to Asyut, would be Christian. The third would be in the Nubia region, and the fourth would be a Berber state with Cairo as its capital.

Up to now, some thought the ravings about this suspicious plot were for domestic political consumption only. But during the investigation into illegal funding of non-governmental organizations by Egyptian justice, maps were found inside an American non-governmental organization [the International Republican Institute] laying out plans to partition the country.

The subject wasn’t really a secret, as a scheme to divide Egypt into an Islamic State in the North and a Christian one in the South was leaked on the Internet not long ago. This is particularly dangerous because some international media have exploited the protests at the Maspiro TV station [by Coptic Christians - 27 were killed]. Certain analysts and researchers of Middle East affairs sought to revive the notion by posting partition maps on the Web. This demonstrates both foreign and domestic hands behind what is happening now in Egypt.

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UPDATE:

A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.

The 7-0 ruling flowed out of a 2008 corruption case in which the judge ordered wiretaps of conversations between lawyers and their clients.

According to the Times:

Judge Garzón was not alone in ordering those wiretaps, but he alone was prosecuted, even while the public prosecutor argued that there were no grounds for a criminal proceeding. Convicting a jurist over a court ruling is an appalling attack on judicial independence. Two other cases against him are pending — one involving his inquiry into mass killings during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, and another concerning allegations of conflict of interest in a tax fraud case.

Judge Garzón is far from perfect, but the decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to remove him from the bench is enormously damaging to the prospects of fair and impartial justice. What investigating magistrate would not now hesitate before pursuing politically sensitive cases? Will the Franco-era crimes that scarred Spain for two generations remain forever uninvestigated?

Apparently, Judge Garzón cannot appeal this decision in the Spanish court system, but he could challenge it in Spain’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Mr. Garzón has already accepted a consulting position at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Perhaps he can continue his pursuit of justice from there.

Read more here.

====

Back in March 2009, a Spanish court took the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by none other than Judge Baltasar Garzón, Europe’s best-known counter-terrorism magistrate, renowned for his determination and his abilities to bring suspects to justice, no matter how powerful or where they may be—and especially for terrorism and human rights abuses.

His targets have included the al-Qaeda 9/11 and Madrid bombings perpetrators, the infamous Chilean General Pinochet, ETA and related Basque terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations operating in the Maghreb region, including Spanish enclaves in Morocco, Argentine ex-naval officer Adolfo Scilingo who was convicted of crimes against humanity and others.

I don’t know where the case against Bush administration officials stands right now and, for the sake of letting bygones be bygones, I will not pursue that at the moment — especially since mine would be the proverbial voice in the wilderness.

However, the present government in Spain, by no means a voice in the wilderness, apparently does believe in letting bygones be bygones or, as they say in Spain “lo pasado, pasado está” as, according to the New York Times:

… Judge Garzón is now himself under legal attack for confronting Spain’s own dark history. He is on trial this week before the Spanish Supreme Court for daring to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the nearly four-decade dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. The case against him is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.

The case stems from Judge Garzón’s edict, in October 2008, ordering the exhumation of 19 mass graves and charging Franco and his accomplices posthumously with the murder and disappearance of more than 114,000 people.

The edict, however, was challenged by Spain’s chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, and ruled against by an appellate court — “and the case appeared to be resolved. But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for ‘prevarication’ — knowingly overstepping his authority — in violating the amnesty law.”

The Times continues:

Criminally charging judges for prevarication is extremely rare in Spain, and a conviction would disbar Judge Garzón for 20 years — effectively ending his career. The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

The prosecution of Judge Garzón is having a “chilling effect” on other international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable, and a conviction would be interpreted as an even stronger warning sign, the Times says, and “[M]ore disturbingly, due to Judge Garzón’s legal woes, the case brought by Franco’s victims and their families is now languishing. (The only exception is in Argentina, where a prominent human-rights lawyer, using universal jurisdiction, recently filed suit charging Franco with crimes against humanity.)”

The Times concludes:

In his 2005 memoir, Judge Garzón wrote, “A system built on the corpses of those who are still awaiting justice so they can rest in peace is an illegitimate system and one that is condemned to eventually suffer the same fate.”

It would send a tragic and telling message to those victims — and others like them around the world — if the one person convicted for Franco’s crimes is the judge who dared to investigate them.

There are some bygones that just cannot be forgotten or swept under the rug of political expedience. Lo pasado, no siempre está pasado.

Read more of the Times’ article here

Image: Shutterstock.com

As the crisis — and brutality — continues to unfold in Syria, keep an eye on Iran, its role and its designs. Michael Youhana has a must read in the NYU Local. Here’s part of it:

The Syrian regime’s appalling crackdown — which has left around 6000 dead — has been one of the most violent government responses to the Arab Spring’s wave of uprisings. On Friday, bad became worse when, according to conservative counts, 181 people were massacred in the Syrian city of Homs by Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

The Syrian military has continued its shelling of Homs into this week, and, on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported that tanks were entering residential areas within the city. Their presumable target is Bab Amr, “the restive heart of the uprising in Homs.” Reports on Friday claim that tanks have begun massing outside of opposition neighborhoods and that the death toll has reached 300.

While the ongoing bloodshed in Syria is, in large part, a testament to the ruling regime’s brutality, the violent situation there has been exacerbated by the actions of a few key foreign nations. China and Russia have done a great deal to diplomatically shield the beleaguered President of Syria, and Russia continues to sell weapons to his regime.

Iran’s government, which has been eager to prop up a longtime, crucial ally, shares a particularly large portion of blame. Iran has played an especially extensive role in supporting Assad.

In May of last year a ‘senior western diplomat’ noted an increase in Iranian personnel stationed in Syria in the wake of increasing unrest. Reports came out that Iran was providing the Syrian regime with weapons, riot gear, and surveillance assistance.

In August, the Turkish government intercepted an Iranian plane bound for Syria, holding assault rifles, machine guns, and mortars. Western intelligence officials claimed that Iran was providing Assad with $23 million to build a base in Latakia that would facilitate further arms shipments.

An ex-member of Syria’s secret police, now taking refuge in Turkey, allegedly told The Telegraph that snipers from Iran were also sent into Syria to assist with the repression of protestors.The Iranian government has even reportedly reprimanded Hamas for failing to endorse Assad’s regime.

There’s a LOT more – so go to the link to read it in its entirety.

When it comes to the oppression of dissent in Syria, are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council undermining global peace and security by issuing ‘reckless vetoes’? According to this editorial from Japan’s Kochi Shimbun, by concerning themselves with the interests of their own countries rather than what is best for the world, China, Russia, America, Britain and France are demonstrating an extreme form of irresponsible selfishness.

The Kochi Shimbun editorial says in part:

It is a pity that a U.N. resolution, at a moment in which the international community needs to stand together to put a stop to the violence as quickly as possible, has been vetoed. Coupled with their vetoes of economic sanctions on Syria last October, the attitudes of Russia and China are simply incomprehensible.

With respect to humanity, although we say that such a terrible situation cannot be allowed to continue, if we focus exclusively on pursuing the security and expectations of our own countries, the result is that the U.N. Security Council fails to uphold its responsibility of maintaining global peace and security. If the permanent members of the Security Council continue to issue reckless vetoes, we will see a return to the stalemate of the Cold War era.

The Assad regime must not be permitted to use the China and Russia vetoes as a way to “indulge” itself with more oppression. Sooner or later, the “Arab Spring” will put an end to leaders like this. Meanwhile, we must seek an immediate cessation of the violence.

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Would the United States, utilizing what is known as a ‘false flag’ strategy, sacrifice a nuclear aircraft carrier to persuade the world that a war against Iran must be waged? According to columnist Anna Pinderak of Poland’s Wprost24, a theory is making the rounds that the Pentagon has sent the famed USS Enterprise to the Persian Gulf – to sink it – and then to blame Tehran for the crime.

For Poland’s Wprost24, Anna Pinderak starts out this way:

Is the United States using a “false flag” strategy to justify declaring war on Iran?

What is a “false flag” strategy? As the phrase suggests, it is a covert operation undertaken by governments, corporations or other organizations. The name derives from the military concept of “false colors,” i.e.: an operation conducted under a foreign flag. The goal of these operations is to blame the other side for initiating a conflict, whether it be a hostile country, organization or ethnic group.

Is it possible that the U.S. would go to such ends to find a pretext for open conflict with Iran? We all know that Washington can’t count on the U.N.’s blessing for another Middle East intervention: Russia and China, both equipped with a Security Council veto, wouldn’t consent to it. If the United States wanted to deal with Iran militarily, it would first have to convince them that Iran constitutes a threat to international security. Somehow, Washington would also have to convert international public opinion. After the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, few are convinced of the benefit of sending U.S. Marines into volatile regions. And everyone remembers that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, just like Iran today, possessed, according to American intelligence, weapons of mass destruction. But when the red, white and blue flag fluttered over Baghdad, it became clear that Saddam had no such weapons – and most likely could not have had them. No wonder the public treats all warnings about the Iranian nuclear threat with a healthy dose of skepticism.

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The book is called Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives In North Korea by Barbara Demick. We’ve all heard the stories out of North Korea about the famines or how the average North Korean is shorter than his South Korea brother, but this book takes a new tack that gives you a real insight into the nation.

The author chose to focus on one city in North Korea and tried to speak to as many people as possible from that city. She then chose several of them and relates their stories in the book, giving us a really personal kind of feeling for what they have gone through.

The subjects range from top elite members of the country to the bottom of the pile, they have true believers and silent rebels, adults and children. You find yourself wrapped up in the stories and rooting for them to succeed. Often you also find yourself saddened by the pain they have suffered and the losses the have endured.

The story is not entirely one sided either. It points out that during the 1960′s North Korea was far more economically stable than South Korea and that it was this that compelled many to move to that nation. It also points out that not everyone who has come to South Korea has found success or joy.

Perhaps one of the most moving stories though involves a doctor who escapes North Korea for China. She is just over the border and is looking for shelter. She opens a gate and notices a bowl on the ground with white rice and some meat in it. The bowl catches her attention because it has been so long since she had seen white rice, something of a luxury back home.

But she is confused as to why the bowl is on the ground until she hears a dog bark.

As she put it, this was when she realized that dogs in China eat better than doctors in North Korea.

The book is full of stories like this and is an amazing insight into a mysterious nation.

You can find it at B&N and other bookstores.

As compared with the Brits, few Americans have made India their home. Among those Americans who became well-known, I wrote about the legendary Samuel Evans Stokes Jr who fought along with Mahatma Gandhi to free the country from the colonial rule, and also brought horticulture revolution in the hills. The other well-known figure is an Indian actor of American origin – Tom Alter – who is now a household name.

Born to an American Christian missionary couple, Tom Alter acted in several Bollywood and Hollywood films and also made a name for himself in theatre and TV serials. His elder sister Martha has a PhD in Sanskrit and his brother John is a poet and a teacher.

He has worked for noted filmmakers like Satyajit Ray in Shatranj Ke Khiladi and is remembered for his role as a British officer in Kranti. In Sardar, the 1993 film biography of Indian leader Sardar Patel, which focused on the events surrounding the partition and independence of India, Tom portrayed Lord Mountbatten of Burma.

Tom has also played Indian characters in Indian TV series, such as the long-running Junoon, in which he was the sadistic mob lord Keshav Kalsi. He also acted in Hollywood movie One Night with the King with Peter O’Toole. More here…

Tom was given a civilian award Padma Shri by the Indian government for his distinguished contribution in the field of art.

Now Tom Alter has turned his attention to writing about cricket, a game that makes Indians go crazy. In his first article “In the name of cricket, we market grief, violence and greed”, Tom hits out at those who have turned this “gentleman’s game” into a pure profit-making activity.

“Does no one realize anymore the beauty of bat on ball, the simple and so, so difficult art of spin and speed? … We have marketing everything – everything—now we market grief, and violence, and greed..

“Would it not be wonderful to see our players representing the country with only India written on their shirts; on their hearts? To have a sponsor who had no wish to have his name even bigger than India’s on the beloved jersey? To have a player say that he will play for India for free, and wear a jersey, of his own choice, with only India written on it, in royal blue?”

More here…

(The YouTube video above shows Tom Alter interviewing India’s cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar when the latter was very young.)

This reality is revealed in an article in a leftist rag called the Air Force Times that says that the government underestimated the terrorist group before the attacks and overestimated it afterward. The Bush-Cheney cabal cannot be forgiven for the former while the latter is understandable considering the pitiful state of the U.S.’s intelligence capabilities and the lack of brain power in the White House.

“Al Qaeda wasn’t as good as we thought they were on 9/11,” says Michael A. Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. (Do you suppose that his entire title is painted on his Pentagon office door?)

“Quite frankly, we, the American people, we asleep at the switch, the U.S. government prior to 9/11. So an organization that wasn’t that good looked really great on 9/11. Everyone looked to the skies every day after 9/11 and said, ‘When is the next attack?’ And it didn’t come, partly because Al Qaeda wasn’t that capable. They didn’t have other units in the U.S. . . . Really, they didn’t have the capability for a second attack.”

Sheehan said there is a second reason that America has not suffered a major terrorist attack is that the U.S. “crushed Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11, and continually for the last 10 years,” an assertion that does not stand up to scrutiny since the Bush administration had little success against the group after the Taliban was ousted in Afghanistan only to re-emerge.

The further that we get away from those dark days the more the enormity — even criminality, if you will — of the administration’s misdeeds grows.

One reason that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld beat the drum for invading Iraq is there was a belief because of that lack of brain power that the 9/11 attacks had to have been an inside job executed with the assistance of the Saddam Hussein regime.

That lead to eight and a half deeply tragic years highlighted by the deaths of nearly 4,800 U.S. and coalition forces, at least 100,000 Iraqis and millions of people displaced, the starving of boots and resources for the war in Afghanistan, which is only now just winding down after a series of botched strategies, and a body blow to America’s standing in the world because of the Bush administration’s embrace of torture and scuttling of civil liberties.

For a global business community still experiencing economic pain, Facebook’s humongous $100 billion Initial Public Offering has been an emotional shot in the arm. For French business newspaper Les Echos, columnist Philippe Escande praises the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as being at the heart of what still makes the American business sector the greatest in the world.

For Les Echos, Philippe Escande starts out this way:

It is an improbable story – one that could happen only in the United States. That of a twenty-year-old kid who in 2004 founded his own business just to prove he can, and eight years later finds himself the leader of a business valued at $100 billion. One hundred billion dollars is as much as McDonald’s and two and a half times that of General Motors. All this for a sophomoric prank that today employs no more than 3,000 people.

That is the magic of the U.S. financial sector, which is now being so widely criticized. To all those who think that the stock market serves only to accommodate rapacious speculators who enrich themselves while asleep, getting richer whether the market rises or falls, the Facebook story is a reminder of the two basics of investing: the long-term and risk. The long-term, because the value attributed to Facebook, the profits of which are minimal but the cost of doing business for which is still modest, is an anticipation of future performance. It is the idea that this company, which has quadrupled its revenues in two years, can in a single decade become a giant worth tens of billion of dollars. Which is precisely the gamble Amazon’s stockholders have made over the last ten years, and who are concerned about its weak returns but fascinated by the explosion in sales. For Facebook, as for Amazon and Google, growth potential seems unlimited.

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Are young people in America less stridently nationalistic than their predecessors? Columnist Fyodor Lukyanov of Russia’s Gazeta, citing recent Pew Research Center polling data, asserts in this detailed evaluation of U.S. public attitudes, that there is a declining tendency on the part of the U.S. population to believe in American exceptionalism, and concludes that U.S. foreign policy will be increasingly focused inward and toward the “near abroad” of Mexico and Latin America.

For Gazeta, Fyodor Lukyanov writes in part:

The age breakdown of answers to the question of American exceptionalism – measuring the assertion that the United States is the greatest country in the world – is interesting. The largest number of those who share this belief (64 percent) is among the oldest, the “Silent Generation,” (which reaches a height of 72 percent in the 76-83 age range). Baby-Boomers are split precisely in half, and among Generation X, only 48 percent are proponents of American exceptionalism, with the youngest – the Millennial Children, being the most skeptical – 32 percent. A similar pattern can be seen when it comes to the question of patriotism: Seventy percent of Millennium Children answer positively to the question of whether they consider themselves “very patriotic.” The remaining numbers range from 86 percent to 91 percent. Seventy percent is without a doubt high, but that level has fallen consistently since 2003, when 80 percent of young people felt the most patriotic.

In assessing the source of national success, the nation is united. The vast majority of Americans of all ages consider freedom to be the central source of this success, followed by hard work, natural resources, military strength, democratic governance, free markets, and religious and racial/ethnic diversity.

What is telling is the fact that the older groups tend to place more significance on military power than the younger, and the younger groups believe democracy and religion to be relatively less important.

Of course, these statistics don’t allow us to predict U.S. foreign policy for the next ten to twenty years. Especially since foreign policy is formulated by the ruling class, which even in a democracy isn’t guided by the will of the people. And yet, a trend is detectable.

Young people, who are now entering active public life and building careers, are distinguished by a greater openness, tolerance and a positive outlook. But at the same time, they have a declining tendency toward patriotic bravado and perceive the theme of American greatness more calmly and with far less pathos. Furthermore, a more positive attitude toward immigration is evidence of a sober evaluation of necessity.

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How should we characterize the impending end of Western military operations in Afghanistan? Was it a painful defeat, a hard-won success, or something in between? Columnist Danièle Fonck of Luxembourg’s Le Jeudi writes that nothing worthwhile has been gained by the Afghanistan invasion, and the soldiers who died – whether Westerners want to admit it to themselves or not – did so in vain.

For Le Jeudi, Danièle Fonck writes in part:

No war is good, because they transform human beings into professional killers. The one now taking place far out of sight, in Afghanistan, is no exception to this rule.

The initial goal being forgotten, the war is bogged down. Worse, it appears that once Western coalition troops depart, the barbarians will return to power. It is a sad lesson of history. You don’t impose your values on others with goose-down pillows you left behind.

Early on, the Occidental armada lost the battle to win the sympathy of the people. It despised the population. It failed to draw up plans for the future. And it has protected the superbly corrupt leaders in Kabul. It has committed one blunder after another. So now, behind every Afghan, Western troops sense a threat and no longer know who to trust.

Why then prolong the torment? Each passing day brings its own share of misery and death. It is pointless to bury soldiers who fall on the battlefield with all national honors; the fact remains that they will have died for nothing. That is the most terrible of defeats: to come home from war and know that the soldiers sacrificed and died for nothing.

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By now most readers know my (changed) position on the Afghanistan War.

I have expressed concern among other about rampant corruption and backstabbing at the highest levels in the Afghanistan government, incompetence of and disloyalty among its military and police and continuing human rights violations.

I have mourned our casualties and fretted about our huge financial costs.

But — perhaps insensitively so — I have not mentioned much about the suffering of the Afghan people.

A piece in the New York Times today, brought such suffering home in the most poignant way by focusing on the suffering — the dying — of the most vulnerable human beings: the children.

The article starts with the jarring intro: “KABUL, Afghanistan — The following children froze to death in Kabul over the past three weeks after their families had fled war zones in Afghanistan for refugee camps here…”

It then goes on to list the names and ages of four of the “at least 22 [children] who have died in the past month, a time of unseasonably fierce cold and snowstorms.”

Among those 22 children:

¶ Mirwais, son of Hayatullah Haideri. He was 1 ½ years old and had just started to learn how to walk, holding unsteadily to the poles of the family tent before flopping onto the frozen ridges of the muddy floor.

¶ Abdul Hadi, son of Abdul Ghani. He was not even a year old and was already trying to stand, although his father said that during those last few days he seemed more shaky than normal.

¶ Naghma and Nazia, the twin daughters of Musa Jan. They were only 3 months old and just starting to roll over.

¶ Ismail, the son of Juma Gul. “He was never warm in his entire life,” Mr. Gul said. “Not once.”

About Ismail the Times says, “It was a short life, 30 days long.”

According to the United Nations, there are 35,000 people living — barely surviving might be a more accurate term — in Kabul refugee camps, such as Charachi Cambar and Nasaji Bagrami where the children froze to death.

“Both camps are populated largely with refugees who fled the fighting in areas like Helmand Province in the south. Some people have been in the camps for as long as seven years; others arrived in the past year,” says the Times.

Those who claim that we are making progress in Afghanistan generally point to the schools we have built and other “infrastructure projects” (Let’s not forget the $60 million prison we built at Bagram Air Base), at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

That is all good and well. However, Americans need to raise the same question the Times poses:

After 10 years of a large international presence, comprising about 2,000 aid groups, at least $3.5 billion of humanitarian aid and $58 billion of development assistance, how could children be dying of something as predictable — and manageable — as the cold?

If you have the fortitude, you can read the heart-rending stories of how and why these children are dying in these wretched camps here — camps where Solidarités International, a French group that has had a limited program of emergency food aid and sanitation in the camps, surveyed mortality rates in recent months and came to the harrowing conclusion that, among children under 5, the camps’ death rate is 144 per 1,000 children.

According to the Times, this rate is “stunningly high even for Afghanistan, which already has the world’s third highest infant mortality rate” and means “one out of every seven children in the Kabul camps will not survive until his or her sixth birthday.”

For those of us who believe that we should get out of Afghanistan, there is the sad conundrum:

If we stay longer in Afghanistan, will we be able to save these children?

If we leave Afghanistan now, will more children die?

Of course, this is not the only criterion, but it is a very emotive one and one we should include in any decision making process about “the future of Afghanistan.”

The reader can also view a heartbreaking set of photos about this tragedy here.

Image: shutterstock.com

The French version of the fashion magazine Elle recently posted an article about ‘Black Power Fashion’ that has triggered a wave of indignation. The article, which has since been pulled off the Web, appeared to belittle Black people and their fashion sense by implying that thanks to the Obamas, African Americans have learned to ‘dress White’ while retaining their ‘Blackness.’ This open letter from France’s Le Figaro, signed by some of the country’s movers and shakers in fashion, the arts and journalism, contains excerpts from the Elle article, and sharply criticizes the employees of the magazine for being clueless to the world outside their glass-covered tower.

From Le Figaro, the open letter to Elle starts off this way:

Elle magazine has permitted us to grasp: In 2012, the ‘Black-geoisie’ has adopted all the White fashion codes.” ["Geoisie" is French slang - an offshoot of the word bourgeois - for something unfashionable that has become "chic."] What’s more, “in this America led for the first time by a Black president, chic has become a plausible option for a community so far pegged to its ‘streetwear’ codes.” That’s right – while Blacks have dressed like hoodlums in hoodies for decades, they have finally understood – thanks to the tutelage of Whites – that they should pay more attention to their appearance. That was the tenor of an article published in the January 13 issue of the weekly magazine so favored by housewives of the “White-geoisie” (since apparently, we now divide the bourgeois by race as well) entitled Black Fashion Power, which sought to analyze the red-carpet success of African-American personalities.

It’s simple: if Blacks are now chic, it’s because they finally have an icon worthy of the name – Michelle Obama – who sets the tone by, “revisiting Jackie O’s wardrobe in a jazzy style.” Yes, because even though she is first lady, Michelle Obama herself had to be inspired by a White role model; and since she has natural rhythm, of course she added a touch of jazz.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR FRENCH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

There is a special beauty to blogging. It unleashes a feeling almost akin to reverence. We live for exchange and communication, for feeling connected. Now maybe more than ever before. Each in our different ways, but still, I do believe it’s there in everyone. There is something indescribably thrilling about this mix of freedom of expression and responsibility for what you put out there at the same time.

For those who want to write with a purpose, to leave their mark, to imprint an opinion on all the discussions circulating the universe, both virtual and real, blogging and social media are simply a gift. The excitement that one feels when something happens in the world that either really bugs you or makes you happy, and the knowledge that after an hour or so (or even less) at your computer the rest of the world can partake of your thoughts, that you could possibly influence change, well… I for one find it hard to give up. And even if I’m romanticizing here, I think the above is true.

You appreciate things like this, but being human, you get used to it once it’s there. You don’t really think about what it would be like if you just couldn’t do it.

So it’s unimaginable that there might be something restricting your ability to blog on current events, that you can’t just sit down and post away, knowing that there’s a community out there possibly buzzing with the same chatter that you want to get out of your system.

But cases like this do exist — with China being the prime example on everyone’s mind. Let’s take a quick overview on some of the major events and changes that have blown through the country with one of the most ancient histories in the world.

For the last 40 years or so China has been a largely market-orientated economy that has been increasingly seen by experts as playing a bigger and bigger role on the global economic stage. According to various summaries and export statistics from China, 2010 saw the country becoming the largest exporter in the world. Many economic changes took place over the years, though they were gradual at first. The banking system became more diversified, with the largest bank based on total assets now being the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. State enterprises became more independent, the private sector grew rapidly, and foreign trade and investment boomed. All this becomes clearly evident if you take a closer look at various statistics about China.

But despite all the positive changes and the exciting developments China is probably expecting for the years to come, there are still a number of challenges to tackle. Some of them, unfortunately, are provoked by the rapid and forceful economic changes themselves. To name a few of these challenges, the government is facing the problem of creating enough jobs for all the immigrants who come to China, battling corruption, taming the inflation rate and dealing with environmental damage caused by changes in such industries as agriculture or food production. Air and soil pollution continue to be a serious problem throughout the country. Population control is, of course, another long-standing issue in China. While serving a good purpose to keep things under control, China is facing a rapidly aging society and future problems about caring for senior citizens.

Another approaching change is Xi Jinping taking over the Communist party leadership in October 2012. The Deutsche Welle, Germany’s leading international broadcaster, reported that not much is known about the new man. Experts are wondering what China will be like in the future and how this change will affect the country’s international relations. The media have mentioned previous incidents of Xi Jinping making a dubious impression during several foreign visits with his ambiguous statements. The Deutsche Welle further mentions a visit to Japan in 2009, where Xi Jinping insisted on seeing the Japanese Emperor on extremely short notice, which is against protocol. The incident received lots of negative press coverage in the Japanese media. Xi Jinping is expected to visit the US this coming Valentine’s Day. It will be interesting to hear about his trip.

So with all this happening, who wouldn’t feel like blogging, tweeting, facebooking or using whatever other quick means the Web offers of reporting on these major events? And who wouldn’t feel frustrated, to say the least, if one encountered blocks on the way to doing it? The power of the Internet is irresistible.

As most of you know, the term “microbloggers” is used in China. And micro they may be, but they are proving to be very stubborn about accepting the government’s attempts to silence their virtual voices. According to CNN, China’s Communist party wanted in on the country’s social network site Sina Weibo, which is similar to Twitter and has some 250 million users.

About 19,000 party officials tweet and post on Weibo, and the police has more than 5000 accounts on the website. Weibo is, of course, a major concern for the authorities, with its massive popularity being perfect grounds for the spreading of much-feared anti-party opinions and feeding social dissatisfaction with the political regime.

All microblogs registered in Beijing also have to register with their real name with the police. China’s largest technology and IT firms are supporting this. But the blogging hasn’t stopped, and neither have attempts to still get important information out there, also using tricks and cunning to disguise “forbidden” subjects, but still make them recognizable for readers.

It’s admirable. It’s scary. And it’s kind of inspiring.

Stephanie Kopf writes for the blog http://www.trenditionist.com . She has lived in Siberia, New York City and Germany. Her subject areas include anything related to the human psyche, European news, education, communication in all its forms, as well as the interaction of all of these with each other.
Visit us at http://www.trenditionist.com

Warren Buffett’s complaint about his secretary paying more in taxes than he does is having a global ripple effect. According to columnist Helena Garrido of Portugal’s Jornal De Negotios, the debate on tax fairness in the United States should be food for thought in Portugal, where the economy is in a tailspin and thanks to widespread tax evasion and tax avoidance, tax revenue has plummeted.

For the Jornal De Negotios, Helena Garrido writes in part:

The question that small enterprises raise about the recent tax control initiative is always the same: what about the others? Why have tax administrators limited the tax planning that larger enterprises have to deal with? In an environment of austerity, it is a problem that concerns most Western societies: the lack of equity.

In the United States, where the debate about tax fairness is red hot, tax inequality is in the public square. Even before this major crisis hit in 2007, it was reported that Warren Buffett pays lower taxes than his secretary, whom Barack Obama has transformed into a symbol of fiscal inequality. Last week, the most serious Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was obliged to disclose his tax returns, which showed that his effective tax rate was 13.9 percent in 2010 – on an income of $42 million.

What would we discover if we found out how much in taxes larger fortunes in Portugal pay?

Of course the battle against tax evasion must be a cause of the whole of society. Each of us must be aware that for every person who fails to pay their taxes, there is someone else who has to pay double. But for that, one would need to know that the tax authorities treat everyone the same and have effective weapons at their disposal.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR PORTUGUESE AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Yesterday, in a YouTube/Google Plus town hall, President Obama finally admitted to what the world has known for years: that the United States has been using drone aircraft to kill militants in among other places, America’s supposed ally, Pakistan. This editorial from Pakistan’s The Nation welcomes this admission of the obvious, but wonders how the president could claim that most of those killed in the strikes were militants, and calls for shooting down the drones whenever they are found in Pakistan air space.

The Nation editorial starts out this way:

President Barack Obama has at last acknowledged what has long been undisputed fact to even the most casual observer: CIA-operated drones have been carrying out missions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. His claim that they targeted “al-Qaeda and its affiliates” and not civilians, however, raised more than a few eyebrows. After all, if all of the 2,661 people killed in the 303 drone attacks since 2001 were militants and their affiliates, the phenomenon of terrorism would have fizzled out long ago. The fact is that only a small number of those killed were confirmed as militants, while the rest were civilians posing no danger to the “U.S. and its citizens,” which is the cause of the drone strikes according to the American leader. Mr. Obama made his remarks in a discussion with Web users on Google Plus and You Tube. Before that, U.S. officials had refused to talk about the drones in public.

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