The world's opinions
The following are editorial opinions from newspapers from around the world which may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers.
The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle on additional consequences to US open-border policies:
Anyone who thinks America's open border is a thing of compassion needs to see what 72 dead bodies looks like.
That's the number of murdered migrants found recently in a Mexican ranch house near the US border — men and women from Central and South America believed to be headed for the open US border, but killed by their ruthless smugglers, perhaps over a lack of money.
They aren't the first.
"On July 23," says one news report, "police discovered 51 corpses, many of them buried in shallow mass graves, in a field near Monterrey. And on May 29, they found 55 bodies that had been thrown into an abandoned mine near the central Mexican town of Taxco."
It seems the drug cartels, which have been poisoning America for decades, have increasingly branched off into human smuggling. Along the way, they kidnap migrants and try to squeeze ransom payments out of family members. It's clear what happens when the money runs short.
Nearly 10,000 migrants were kidnapped thusly in just a six-month period from September 2008 to February 2009, according to the Mexican National Human Rights Commission.
The unwillingness — the active, purposeful refusal — of the US federal government to secure the border has only contributed to the conditions that are giving rise to such bloody massacres. Far from compassionate, the US' open-border policies are nurturing a culture of death to our south.
America's failure to abide by and enforce its own laws has spawned violent lawlessness on its border.
Compassionate?
Hardly.
Parkersburg (West Virginia) News and Sentinel on a federal judge's stem cell research ruling:
A federal judge has seen through President Barack Obama's attempt to use word games to circumvent a law intended to prevent destruction of human embryos. Though the judge's decision does not halt government funding of research in which embryos are destroyed, it is a good first step. We hope opponents of the practice pursue a complete ban in court.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth, in Washington, D.C., recently issued a ruling that blocks, at least temporarily, federal funding in which human embryos are destroyed in order to conduct stem cell research. Such research holds promise in fighting a variety of diseases.
But opponents say progress is not worth the cost of destroying human embryos that could develop into babies.
A 1996 federal law banned use of federal funds for any research involving destruction of human embryos. But in 1999, a Department of Health and Human Services lawyer said funding could be provided for stem cell research — because the money would not be used directly to destroy embryos.
In 2001, then President George W. Bush limited federal funding support to research using existing stem cells. In other words, Bush recognised that because embryonic stem cells can be obtained only by destroying embryos, the HHS lawyer's argument was flawed. Federal funding, even of supposedly isolated stem cell research, would promote destruction of embryos.
Obama promised to lift the Bush-era restriction, and did. But Lamberth's common-sense ruling recognised the White House stance — like that of the HHS lawyer in 1999 — was merely use of semantics to get around the law banning destruction of human embryos.
Again, Lamberth's ruling obviously is correct. If Obama wants to pursue his liberal policy, he should be forced to ask Congress to debate — in public — whether to overturn the 1996 law.
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Aug. 30
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Sept. 1
San Francisco Chronicle on Fed chairman Ben Bernanke:
What in the world was Ben Bernanke saying in his Jackson Hole, Wyoming, speech last week? "I think we would all agree that, for much of the world, the task of economic recovery and repair remains far from complete."
Bernanke added that, "Central bankers alone cannot solve the world's economic problems ... (but) should further action prove necessary, policy options are available to provide additional stimulus. Any deployment of these options requires a careful comparison of benefit and cost."
Bernanke, whose communication skills compare favourably with former chairman Alan Greenspan's, was unusually circumlocutions here. And who can blame him?
Part of the reason why Bernanke's speech sounded a bit disjointed was the fact that he was trying to paper over the fact that his Board of Governors can't agree on what's going to happen to the economy next — especially whether the greatest threat will be inflation or deflation. These two different scenarios require two very different solutions, and right now, the Fed doesn't have a consensus. Complicating matters is the fact that the Obama administration still hasn't filled numerous Fed vacancies. It's tough to get consensus when you can't even get a quorum.
But Bernanke was trying to do something else with this speech too: nudge Congress. ...
Part of his hesitation to take other, more immediate steps reflects the fact that Washington needs to make some decisions about the economy, too. Will Congress approve a second stimulus? Pass a jobs bill? Get rid of the Bush tax cuts? Take steps to reduce the long-term deficit? The Fed can continue to goose interest rates and expand its balance sheet, but at this particular moment in this particular downturn, what matters more is reducing unemployment and increasing consumer demand. And there's not much Bernanke can do about that.
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Aug. 30
Chicago Tribune on strange happenings in North Korea:
If extraterrestrial creatures ever land on this planet and an intermediary is needed to meet with them, earthlings could do worse than to send former President Jimmy Carter. After his latest trip to Pyongyang to negotiate with the North Korean government, he is well-equipped to try to decipher the motives of strange aliens who do not behave according to our ideas of rationality.
Carter was able to persuade the regime of Kim Jong Il to release American Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labour for entering the country illegally. The harsh penalty may be attributable to the North Koreans' alarm at anyone lunatic enough to want to sneak in rather than out.
The odd thing about this visit — well, odder than most visits to the Hermit Kingdom — was that Carter came at the invitation of Kim, who apparently didn't think his visitor was important enough to stick around for. He took the occasion to absent himself to China.
As with most events involving the regime, there was a lot of idle speculation about Kim's reasons, but no useful information. One possibility is that Kim, who at age 68 is believed to be in failing health, was in a hurry to introduce his Chinese benefactors to his heir apparent, Kim Jong Un, who happens to be the Dear Leader's third son.
Apparently, the dictatorship of the proletariat relies heavily on family connections. It might surprise Karl Marx to learn that in the 21st century, rulers who claim him as inspiration, such as Kim and Fidel Castro, operate like medieval monarchs in transferring power. ...
Xenophobic, bellicose and clinging to a form of government that the 20th century exposed as criminal folly, North Korea's leaders may not understand many things about the modern world. They do know the one thing they care about: how to keep their power and survive in it.
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Sept. 1
The Toronto Star on Middle East peace talks:
It's hard not to be deeply pessimistic about direct Middle East peace talks launching Sept. 1 in Washington; the world has seen this movie before, and it usually has an unhappy ending.
It's been 17 years since the Oslo Process paved the way for Palestinian statehood, only to unravel at the Camp David summit a decade ago. The last attempt to restart negotiations — in 2007 — collapsed over the war in Gaza.
Yet amidst the gloom, there are grounds for hope that this new round of negotiations — the first face-to-face talks in nearly two years — may yet produce significant results within its 12-month deadline.
Both sides are running out of time. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas knows his situation will not improve as long as Hamas continues to control Gaza and undermine peace efforts, as it did Aug. 31 with an attack that killed four Israeli civilians near Hebron. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is painfully aware that continued occupation of the West Bank is untenable for Israeli democracy.
After the meetings in Washington, Netanyahu will face a test over the future of settlement construction. With a 10-month freeze expiring on Sept. 26, these talks could collapse if the building resumes. The Americans are determined to avoid a stillborn peace process. President Barack Obama persevered in bringing the two together after the initial awkwardness of "proximity talks," in which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators danced around each other — and the issues. ...
But the reality is that the West Bank has emerged as a relative success story in recent years: its security situation is remarkably stable and its economy is robust. Above all, there is simply no good alternative to negotiating, for if the two sides are not talking to each other, they are more likely to be shooting at each other.
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