Biotech companies say they're on the cusp of developing "radioprotectants," drugs that guard against acute radiation syndrome. Since most people who die in a nuclear attack do so from radiation sickness, these drugs promise great benefits as safeguards against nuclear terrorism. If they work, they would be unprecedented. It goes without saying that the federal government should be doing its utmost to promote them.
According to a report just published by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Islamophobia is growing in the EU. This will come as no surprise; the growth of far-right anti-Muslim parties across Europe plus a wealth of anecdotal evidence of hostility toward Muslims are proof that, since 9/11, Islamophobia in Europe has become widespread. It is also institutional: The opposition to Turkish EU membership from France and Germany is purely because Turkey is a Muslim country; in the UK, the current battle in Parliament over the government’s plans to place suspected terrorists under house arrest has to be seen against a background of the political and media message that terrorist equals Muslim; only last week, a British minister warned the Muslim community that it had to accept being targeted by the police because of the threat by Islamic extremists.
“Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims in the EU” makes depressing reading. In Germany, it points out, 80 percent of those surveyed last year associated Islam with terrorism. In France, the recent law banning women from wearing the hijab in public places has increased discrimination against Muslim women. In the Netherlands, it points to a growing hostility to Muslim schools, which are perceived, without any evidence, of undermining integration. In Athens, the Greek Orthodox Church has campaigned against building a mosque in the city center and one near the airport.
There's been a lot of talk since Sept. 11 about how President Bush's war-lovin' ways have galvanized terrorists, recruiting jihadis to the ranks. What's increasingly evident, however, is that the character suffering the real blowback is Osama bin Laden, who, as it turns out, jolted the U.S. into a global recruiting drive for democrats. Faced with an unprecedented attack on American shores, Mr. Bush smashed the mold for Middle-East policy, and with the invasion of Iraq lit a beacon for freedom-lovers in a part of the world that until quite recently was widely seen as having none.
As it turns out, there are many. Already, Mr. Bush has been answered by the breathtaking election turnout in Iraq, the uprising in Lebanon, the tremors in Syria and Iran, the stirrings in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But the effects hardly stop with the Middle East. In many places, people trapped under tyrannies are now watching. Ballots cast in Baghdad echo way east of Suez.
So it happens that a message reached me last weekend from within one of the world's most repressive states: Vietnam. Word came that the Sharansky of Saigon, democratic dissident Nguyen Dan Que, had been released from his latest stretch in Vietnam's prisons. Though Dr. Que, as he prefers to be called, is now dogged by state security agents around the clock and allowed no phone or computer of his own, he could arrange to be on the receiving end of a phone call.
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Dr. Que does not have access to the daily diet of news that feeds the free world. But given the feats of modern technology to spread information, he knows enough about what is now happening in the Middle East so that he wished to share his views on how America's intervention in Iraq is like the war in Vietnam, and how it isn't. The similarity, he says, "is the same fighting spirit for freedom." The difference, he adds, is that in the fight for freedom, the side America is on "will triumph this time."
MULTAN, Pakistan - Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers.
KUWAIT CITY, 8 March 2005 — Hundreds of Kuwaiti women rallied outside Parliament yesterday to press for their political rights.
“Women’s rights now,” “Shariah does not contain anything against women’s rights,” read placards, many of them in the blue color symbolizing the struggle of women in Kuwait.
More than 500 people, mostly women but also including a number of male liberal sympathizers, took part in the rally.
Young Kuwaiti women were among the demonstrators, several of whom expressed optimism that they would finally win the right to vote and run for public office despite opposition.
The Kuwaiti Parliament, meanwhile, agreed yesterday to a government request to speed up moves to look into the bill that would grant women the vote, but did not set a date for the proposed debate. The chamber yesterday requested its interior and defense committee, which is dominated by tribal MPs, to promptly consider the government-sponsored bill before referring it to the full house.
Charm Tong, now a poised young woman of 23, has been an enemy of the Burmese state since she was six. Her parents, members of the persecuted Shan nationality, sent her across into Thailand at that age to escape the pillaging Burmese army, notorious for raping girls as young as four.
Charm Tong grew up essentially an orphan, watching friends forced out of school to work as farmhands on Thai plantations, or as domestic workers or prostitutes. By the time she was 17 she had become a human rights activist.
While Burma's paranoid generals may reveal only their own insecurity when they lock up 84-year-olds, you can't help but think they are right to fear Charm Tong. As she talks about the suffering in her native country, she radiates coiled fury, disciplined determination and empathy. At an age when many Americans still bring laundry home to their parents, she has helped found a school for refugees, a network of women activists, a center to counsel rape survivors and to train other counselors, a program to educate women about writing a democratic constitution, and weaving and cooking enterprises to help fund all these ventures.
I also consider that the world of ideas is suffering advanced sclerosis in France, that the intellectual circles is controlled by a small group of editors, media figures and network personalities, on the one hand, uninteresting ideas, no to say appallingly stupid, and not shared by people in general, enjoy disproportionate exposure, until the people itself adopts them, and on the other hand, a whole sector of thought is blocked by the same individuals. There is a refusal to debate in France, it’s the “Pensee Unique” [Single Train of Thought] phenomenon which we can’t shake off. If you add the “politically correct” phenomenon… The slightest deviation from causes the independent thinker to be slaughtered by the intelligentsia and media. To gain access to the Parisian intellectual circles, where everything originates, you have to accept all sorts of compromises. In the end, a limited number of “intellectuals” all harboring similar ideas, exert a monopoly on the quasi totality of media and enjoy a certain power in the political, economic and media world. (BHL, Minc, Attali, Sollers, Adler, Rufin, Beigbeder…), and those who express opposing ideas are often considered mortal enemies and are prohibited from appearing on TV, the radio and from publishing. Etc. etc, etc.
The cliché is that journalism is the first draft of history. Yet a historian searching for clues about the origins of many of the great stories of recent decades -- the collapse of the Soviet empire; the rise of Osama bin Laden; the declining American crime rate; the economic eclipse of Japan and Germany -- would find most contemporary journalism useless. Perhaps a story here or there might, in retrospect, seem illuminating. But chances are it would have been nearly invisible at the time of publication: eight column inches, page A12.
The problem is not that journalists can't get their facts straight: They can and usually do. Nor is it that the facts are obscure: Often, the most essential facts are also the most obvious ones. The problem is that journalists have a difficult time distinguishing significant facts -- facts with consequences -- from insignificant ones. That, in turn, comes from not thinking very hard about just which stories are most worth telling.
China must be brought into the freedom fold, where human dignity and individual rights are established and protected. China must also take its place in an enforceable World Trade Organization regime. Achieving this will require China to embrace freedom of markets, freedom for individuals and the cessation of the proliferation of dangerous weapons into the hands of belligerent enemies of the free world.
Europe will not hasten the achievement of these objectives by lifting the arms embargo. The price Europe pays for ending its arm embargo against China will be high, and our friends there should have no doubts about America's resolve to respond. Europe is at a crossroads. It must choose between pursuing policies that aggravate complex and deadly challenges, or policies that, in common with the U.S., foster democracy for the Chinese people and security for their neighbors. In keeping with its own democratic foundations and interests, let Europe choose wisely and not sell arms or military technology to a Chinese government that does not share our values and has shown itself to proliferate such weapons to unsavory regimes.
For the first time ever in a major Muslim nation, more people favor US-led efforts to fight terrorism than oppose them (40% to 36%). Importantly, those who oppose US efforts against terrorism have declined by half, from 72% in 2003 to just 36% today.
For the first time ever in a Muslim nation since 9/11, support for Osama Bin Laden has dropped significantly (58% favorable to just 23%).
65% of Indonesians now are more favorable to the United States because of the American response to the tsunami, with the highest percentage among people under 30.
Indeed, 71% of the people who express confidence in Bin Laden are now more favorable to the United States because of American aid to tsunami victims.
The modern movement emerged in the late 19th century, and was rooted in the idea that "traditional" forms of art, literature, social organization and daily life had become outdated, and that it was therefore essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture. It encouraged the idea of re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the Modern Movement argued that the new realities of the 20th century were permanent and immanent, and that people should adapt to their world view to accept that what was new was also good and beautiful.
But, in the broader sense vis-Ã -vis Europe, the administration is changing the tone precisely because it understands there can be no substance. And, if there's no substance that can be changed, what's to quarrel about? International relations are like ex-girlfriends: if you're still deluding yourself you can get her back, every encounter will perforce be fraught and turbulent; once you realise that's never gonna happen, you can meet for a quick decaf latte every six – make that 10 – months and do the whole hey-isn't-it-terrific-the-way-we're-able-to-be-such-great-friends routine because you couldn't care less. You can even make a few pleasant noises about her new romance (the so-called European Constitution) secure in the knowledge he's a total loser.
Quick quiz. He was re-elected as president of the United States despite being largely disliked in the world -- particularly in Europe. The Europeans considered him to be a war-mongerer and liked to accuse him of allowing his deep religious beliefs to become the motor behind his foreign policy. Easy right?
Actually, the answer isn't as obvious as it might seem. President Ronald Reagan's visit to Berlin in 1987 was, in many respects, very similar to President George W. Bush's visit to Mainz on Wednesday. Like Bush's visit, Reagan's trip was likewise accompanied by unprecedented security precautions. A handpicked crowd cheered Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate while large parts of the Berlin subway system were shut down. And the Germany Reagan was traveling in, much like today's Germany, was very skeptical of the American president and his foreign policy. When Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate -- and the Berlin Wall -- and demanded that Gorbachev "tear down this Wall," he was lampooned the next day on the editorial pages. He is a dreamer, wrote commentators. Realpolitik looks different.
But that's hardly the worst outrage that's been bubbling at the UNHCR. If you believe in the U.N. charter's promise to promote "justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties," along with "the dignity and worth of the human person," then the real scandal--less racy, but colossally more devastating in human cost--has been the UNHCR's failure in recent years to stand up for refugees fleeing North Korea. The problem here is not, as far as I am aware, one of embezzlement or fraud. Nor is it on a par with any amount of sexual harassment in the comfortable Geneva headquarters of the UNHCR--however upsetting that might be. The true horror is the way in which the well-mannered nuances of U.N. bureaucracy, structure and management have combined to dismiss demurely the desperate needs of hundreds of thousands of human beings fleeing famine and repression in the world's worst totalitarian state.
The visitors were Iraq’s first-ever representatives to the annual HNMUN conference, which brings students from around the world together to simulate the United Nations.
Arwa Nazar Hamdan, one of the University of Baghdad students, said she was surprised to receive such a warm welcome, since she had expected to be viewed as a terrorist.
“The [American] military back home treats us with hostility,” Hamdan said. “I can see it in their eyes that they look at us as suspects.”
From this early encounter, Iraqi students had the chance to dispel their misconceptions of America—and Americans’ misconceptions of them—at a series of events throughout the weekend.
Iraqi student Quasay Mehdi Hussein said this was the first time the students attended a conference where they could speak their minds freely without being told what to say. He added that he spent more time informally talking with other delegates than participating in the conference itself.
In one of these conversations, Hussein spoke on Thursday with Shira Kaplan ’08, an Israeli student, at a reception hosted by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. The two students discussed the future of their region and how to teach tolerance for “the other side,” Kaplan said.
“As an Israeli, it was a rare opportunity to meet Iraqi people,” Kaplan recalled later.
“We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it,” a speaker identified as Zarqawi said in an audiotape on the Internet.
“Those who vote ... are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them (of our intentions),” he said.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
Jan. 19, 2005 — For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20.
If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below:"
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