Does China Yahoo?
"Yahoo, Google and other U.S. Internet companies under fire for assisting in China's censorship efforts are insisting they must obey Beijing or risk limiting access to their most promising market," according to the Associated Press. "As the companies face congressional hearings in Washington today about their role in aiding the communist regime, they are appealing to the U.S. government for help, saying no private business can resist China on its own. "Yet analysts say that even if Washington stepped in to enforce free-speech standards, perhaps by forcing U.S. companies to withdraw their Internet services or equipment from China, the impact would likely be blunted as entrepreneurs from China and other countries move in to fill the void. Google, Yahoo and other high-tech stalwarts like Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems, have been steadily expanding in China, believing it will emerge as an Internet gold mine during the next decade." In "190 Internet Censors? Rising Global Threats to Online Speech," Adam D. Thierer, Cato's former director of telecommunications studies, asks what happens when different countries try to regulate the Internet: "It's obvious that everyone wants to have a say regarding what can be seen or said on the Internet. But can parochial standards really be applied to the web? Or is the web truly a borderless medium that cannot be regulated in any workable sense by local authorities? Many important legal issues are at play, especially when you expand the discussion beyond free speech to include commercial regulation of the Internet. Some scholars have suggested that international treaties could be the answer. Others are calling for some sort of global regulatory body to resolve such questions. Still others suggest that the best answer is to do nothing, since anarchy, at least so far, has the advantages in terms of broadening the range of free speech globally." Government Passive in Face of Katrina
"The deaths and suffering of thousands of Hurricane Katrina's victims might have been avoided if the government had heeded lessons from the 2001 terror attacks and taken a proactive stance toward disaster preparedness, a House inquiry concludes," reports the Associated Press. "But from President Bush on down to local officials there was largely a reactive posture to the catastrophic Aug. 29 storm -- even when faced with early warnings about its deadly potential." "'The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina should disturb all Americans,' said the report, written by a Republican-dominated special House committee chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA. 'Passivity did the most damage,' it said. 'The failure of initiative cost lives, prolonged suffering, and left all Americans justifiably concerned our government is no better prepared to protect its people than it was before 9/11, even if we are.'" In "Catastrophe in Big Easy Demonstrates Big Government's Failure," David Boaz, Cato's executive vice president, calls Hurricane Katrina "a colossal failure of government at every level -- federal, state, and local." "Let's look at the facts," Boaz writes. "Government failed to plan. Government spent $50 billion a year on homeland security without, apparently, preparing itself to deal with a widely predicted natural disaster. Government was sluggish in responding to the disaster. Government kept individuals, businesses, and charities from responding as quickly as they wanted. And at the deepest level, government so destroyed wealth and self-reliance in the people of New Orleans that they were unable to fend for themselves in a crisis. And some people conclude that we have too little government?" Cartoon Riots Spread
"Three people have died and western businesses have been set on fire in Pakistan during renewed violence against caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed," The Telegraph reports. "More than 70,000 people took to the streets in Pakistan's biggest protest so far against the cartoons which were published in European newspapers and have provoked anger across the Muslim world." In "Democracy Not an Export Item," Leon Hadar, a Cato research fellow, writes: "[T]he U.S. push for democracy in the Middle East has been a self-defeating strategy that has made the region safe for nationalism and other radical forms of ethnic, religious, and tribal movements that regard the U.S. and its allies in the region as the source of all evil. It's difficult for American neoconservatives who fantasize about a global multicultural community committed to liberal democratic values to admit that perhaps the Muslims are not 'like us' after all. "They laugh, but don't appreciate our sense of humor. They want to be free, but don't share our concept of liberal democracy, a set of values and institutions that can only develop through a long process of trial and error and in a hospitable environment. Perhaps the time has come for Washington to adopt a more realistic approach and stop looking for democracy in the Middle East while pursuing a policy that secures the real interests of the Western democracies in the region." Greg Garner, editor, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Complete archives at http://www.sitbot.net/ Please let us stay on topic and be civil. OM
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