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 Times-Picayune, New Orleans, on distracted driving:
Motorists who gab on their cell phone or fire off text messages obviously aren't focused on the road, and their distracted driving has serious consequences for highway safety.
The National Safety Council says that 1.6 million crashes a year are caused by drivers who talk or text. That's 28 percent of all accidents on U.S. highways, a significant percentage that warrants attention.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said that dealing with distracted drivers is one of his priorities, and it needs to be. The Transportation Department's figures show that 16 percent of fatal crashes in 2008 were caused by drivers whose attention was diverted in some way. That translates into 6,000 deaths a year and half a million injuries. ...
Louisiana is one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have outlawed texting while driving. In this state, the fine ranges from $175 for a first offense to $1,000. Congress is considering legislation that would tie federal highway dollars to texting bans.
But states have been slower to outlaw the use of handheld cell phones while driving. Only seven states and the District of Columbia currently have such laws, and a measure to ban the use of hand-held cell phones in vehicles in Louisiana went nowhere during the last legislative session.
Secretary LaHood has said that he supports a ban on mobile phone use while driving, and he should use his position to encourage states to address the issue. In the meantime, though, motorists should use common sense. Even if it's not illegal, talking on cell phones while driving is a dangerous practice that drivers can and should avoid. And parents should stress the danger to their teenagers.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 16
The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, on the dangers facing journalists.
Reporters who keep everyone informed about events around the world especially in powderkeg zones — pay a grim price.
A total of 137 journalists and media employees were killed on the job in 2009, according to the International Federation of Journalists based in Belgium. "Targeted killings" accounted for 113 of the deaths, and the rest stemmed from accidents, the press group reported last week. ...
The organization counts photographers, interpreters, drivers and other news personnel killed at work, as well as reporters. The Philippines was most deadly, with 38 killed, followed by Mexico, 13; Somalia, nine; Pakistan, seven; Russia, six; and Iraq, five.
Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, reported that 573 journalists were arrested in 2009, 33 were kidnapped, 1,456 were physically assaulted and 157 had to flee their countries to escape death.
Actually, 2009 was somewhat safer— compared to 2007, when 175 journalists died on the job. Iraq previously was the most dangerous news zone, with many correspondents afraid to leave guarded compounds in Baghdad, relying on native sources to bring them news.
Some tyrannical governments jail any reporter who makes leaders look bad. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported last week: "As the year comes to a close ... China, Iran and Cuba recorded the highest number of journalists in prison, with more than 20 in each country. Eritrea followed close behind with 19."
The newspaper you're scanning contains information that came at a price.
———
On the Web:
———
Jan. 19
Los Angeles Times, on 'Avatar' and conservatives:
Now that "Avatar" has been named the best motion picture drama by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, making it a front-runner in the Oscar sweepstakes, does it mean the terrorists have won?
Judging from the anger the movie has generated in some conservative circles, one might think so. Filmmaker James Cameron's science-fiction epic, which is on track to be the highest-grossing movie ever, has been widely derided as anti-American, liberal propaganda. That's funny, we thought it was just formulaic — if incredibly artful — escapist fantasy.
That's not to say "Avatar" is apolitical. Set in the year 2154, it depicts the human invasion of the pristine planet of Pandora, after the environment of our own world has been ravaged. The technologically inferior native population is subdued and slaughtered when it stands in the way of a rapacious corporation's pursuit of the planet's mineral wealth. The villains of the piece are immoral executives and scar-faced roughnecks who look and act an awful lot like U.S. Marines carrying out an Iraq-style shock-and-awe campaign.
Cameron hasn't been shy about admitting that he has an agenda. "This movie reflects that we are living through war," the director said recently at a private screening. "There are boots on the ground, troops who I personally believe were sent there under false pretenses, so I hope this will be part of opening our eyes."
So we'll stipulate that "Avatar" promotes a liberal worldview. The question is, why does anyone care? ...
Conservatives offended by "Avatar" can stay home and watch something that conforms better to their political views — say, "24" on the Fox network, which glorifies the torture of terrorist detainees. But why would they want to? Whether the bad guys wear black hats, turbans or Army helmets, the explosions are just as spectacular.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 17
The Oregonian, Portland, Ore., on the bankers and their flogging:
They live in Potterville. The rest of us live in Bedford Falls.
Or so it came to seem after last week's grilling of four of the nation's top bankers by members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, followed by President Barack Obama's denunciation of "massive profits and obscene bonuses" and his call for a tax on financial institutions.
The week saw a naked clash between the people who floated the loan — the American public — and the people who pulled the financial levers. And a populist baying for blood isn't exactly unwarranted. The heads of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America didn't help themselves much when called to account for the financial behavior that created last year's economic crisis. ...
The president says the TARP tax is not meant to be punitive, but to ensure that such a systemic crisis doesn't happen again.
OK, sure. Where's the mechanism for that? Where's the regulatory framework that will erect a barrier between a person's retirement account and a financier's cockamamie scheme to securitize home loans issued to people who shouldn't have qualified? Where's the serious discussion about re-erecting something like the Glass-Steagall Act?
If we really don't want it to happen again, let's have that conversation.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 17
On the Net:
———
Jan. 18
On the Net:
———
Jan. 18
The Globe and Mail, Toronto, on four to help refound the state:
Haiti's government is not governing; its very existence has been tenuous since the earthquake struck. Even so, the country should not be turned into a protectorate of the United States or the United Nations. Haiti's previous experience under American tutelage is not a good precedent. Instead, a small, well concentrated committee of the major nations chiefly concerned the U.S., Canada and France — plus the Bahamas to represent the CARICOM regional organization — should be formed to work with what remains of the Haitian government, in order to provide effective emergency governance and give some new strength to this perennial failed state.
Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, has understandably tried to assert that the president of Haiti, Rene Preval, is still in charge; a slender thread of legitimacy, however weak, is certainly worth preserving in a country that has had difficulty with constitutional continuity for most of its history. But Mr. Preval and his cabinet cannot be said to be functioning as a government. ...
Yesterday, a French cabinet minister accused the Americans of trying to occupy Haiti, after U.S. air traffic controllers turned away a French airplane bringing aid. But such collisions are all the more reason for a small group of powers to convene, in order to sort out such problems, along with the Preval government, to provide some equivalent of the state that is now missing and to prevent Haiti from falling back into anarchy.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 19
Telegraph, London, on Obama's deeds must match his rhetoric:
The hopes invested in Barack Obama at his inauguration were as overblown as the disenchantment that now surrounds his first anniversary in the White House. He has failed, inevitably, to live up to the electrifying standards of his campaign rhetoric. Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, once observed that "you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose," and that has been truer for Obama than for most of his predecessors. Yet to write off his first year as a failure would be absurdly harsh. It has been disappointing, maybe, but no disgrace.
In assessing his performance, we must remember the enormous symbolic significance of his election to the highest office in the United States. It went some way toward rectifying what Condoleezza Rice, another high-achieving black politician, has described as "America's birth defect." Nor should we forget what an appalling hand Obama was dealt. The legacy of the Bush years two wars and an economic collapse could hardly have been more poisonous. ...
Overseas, Obama's rhetoric has been faultless notably the speech in Cairo on America's relationship with the Muslim world but the delivery deeply disappointing. On Iran and the Middle East there has been scant progress, and he dithered interminably before ordering the Afghan surge. He also returned empty-handed from his winter visits to Beijing and Copenhagen.
Obama is a deep thinker who can at times appear smug. He can also as with his response to the earthquake in Haiti be supremely decisive (prompting ludicrous accusations from the French that America was throwing its weight around). Our advice for his second year? Talk less and try to do fewer things better.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 19
The Jerusalem Post, on Obama's second year in office:
A year ago today, Israelis watched U.S. President Barack Obama deliver his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., as Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip was — not coincidentally — concluding.
Regardless of their political views, they looked to the new leader of the free world with a healthy mix of dread and hope, knowing that some of what he would say and do could have as much impact on Israel and other Middle Eastern nations as on America.
Obama did not mention Israel in his address, but he did devote a good portion of the speech to matters that concern us. Notably, he offered an outstretched hand to the Muslim world, accompanied by a warning.
The stick was delivered eloquently: "For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, 'Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."'
He promised that "With old friends and former foes, we'll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat." ...
Under the headline "Time to get tough," The Economist's current cover portrays Obama sitting at his desk with the Nobel Peace Prize on the wall as boxing gloves are handed to him through the window. The magazine expresses hope that, after his goodwill tour of the world produced nothing but "a series of slaps in the face," the president would now be able to apply the stick to Iran, rather than persist with the carrot.
This is our hope as well: A strong Israel requires a strong America that is respected by the world.
That was prominent among the expectations Americans and Israelis harbored on that wintry day in Washington a year ago. And that is what they need still more urgently in President Obama's second year.
On the Net:
———
Jan. 20
Khaleej Times, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on how the Mideast will define Obama's legacy:
Barack Obama completes his first year in the White House today, and it's hard to resist the temptation of rushing in with the verdict on his performance. However, given the extraordinary challenges this U.S. president has faced even before he walked into the White House, it is more complicated than summing it up as success or failure.
One year is perhaps too short a period to judge a president who has inherited a mindboggling mess at home and abroad. But judged Obama will be, especially in the Middle East where his unusual background and his powerful message of change have kindled unprecedented hopes and expectations. And the hopes and expectations about finally bringing peace to the Middle East haven't just swept the region but captured the imagination of the world at large. ...
The U.S. ally and biggest recipient of U.S. aid has been openly defying and mocking Obama by expanding Jewish settlements on what little remains of the Palestinian land. Even that charade of "peace talks" is over. And Obama's envoy, George Mitchell, seems to have given up after numerous futile trips to the region. This must change if Obama wants to be remembered as a successful leader. For, it's the Middle East that will eventually determine his legacy.
On the Net:
