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Wednesday, July 14, 2004 |
FEATURED ARTICLES
- France Accuses U.S. of Blackmailing Developing Nations, AP/USA Today
- Annan attacks US over Aids Funds, Agencies
- The `Ubuntu' of Globalization, By Julian Hewitt
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The United States plays the key role in our globalized society, but its citizens are not globalized. Holding such a position of global influence without having a global worldview is not just naive, it is dangerous. It is dangerous to be the source of global ripples but to ignore their effect. Over time, those ripples may cause waves that will slap back on your shores."
- - Julian Hewitt (From today's Rhino's Bottom Line)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 14th
1798 -- Federalist-sponsored Sedition Act made it a crime to write, utter or publish "any false, scandalous, & malicious" statements about the U.S. Government, Congress, or the President. Leading Republicans throughout the country were promptly arrested.
1912 -- Woody Guthrie, peoples' songwriter, lives, Oklahoma. Besides writing "This Land Is Your Land," "Bound for Glory," "Union Maid" & other American classics, Woody crisscrossed the nation, living & singing among the dispossessed. Over the course of his life, he composed over a thousand ballads & celebrated, in his songs & in his prose, the indomitable human spirit.
1979 -- Nicaragua: Anti-Somocista popular revolution successful; no apologies to the US government, CIA & other avid supporters of the dictator.
RHINO HERE:
Since the majority of Americans rely on the tri-letter broadcasters (ABC, CNN, FOX, ETC.) for their "news," most of what they get these daze is that the shrub gang went to war because of flawed intelligence on WMD's, but that it was a good thing we did since the Iraqi people are now reaping the benefits of democracy, & how we better all beware cause the terrorists will be striking sometime, somewhere so thank the Lord we have a war-mongering... oh, I mean war-time president to protect us.
Rhino snorts, "Flawed Intelligence indeed!
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world is focused on the International Aids Conference being held in Bangkok, Thailand. You see, while Americans are fixated on the 3000 people killed on September 11th, 2001, the rest of the world understands that IN JUST ONE YEAR; since the last AIDS conference in Barcelona in 2002, SIX MILLION PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM AIDS WORLDWIDE. During that same year, the number of people being treated for the disease has doubled in the developing world to 440,000 while 10 million more people became infected.
Given our government's expenditures of over 100 BILLION DOLLARS for war, while refusing to kick in just 1 billion into the United Nations' Global AIDS Fund, as detailed in the reports offered below, Rhino asks again, "How do we Americans compare to "the good Germans" who stood by silently while their government killed 6 million Jews?"
Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE by South African, Julian Hewitt, asks the American people to please consider themselves more global citizens than just Americans, not because it's the moral thing to do, but because it just is the way it really is. What we do, effects everyone on the globe. Hewitt is a 2004 Clinton Democracy Fellow from South Africa & president of AIESEC South Africa, a student-run organization that operates in 88 countries and is focused on developing global change-agents.
France Accuses U.S. of Blackmailing Developing Nations
AP/USA Today, 7/13/2004
BANGKOK, Thailand - France accused the United States on Tuesday of pressuring developing countries to give up their right to make cheap generic HIV drugs in return for free-trade agreements - with President Jacques Chirac calling the tactic "tantamount to blackmail." A U.S. official dismissed the French allegation as "nonsense," while delegates to the International AIDS Conference lamented figures showing only about 7% of the 6 million people in poor countries who need antiretroviral treatment are getting it.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Washington to show the same leadership in fighting AIDS as it has in fighting terrorism. "We hear a lot about weapons of mass destruction, we hear a lot about terrorism. And we are worried about weapons of mass destruction because of the potential to kill thousands. Here we have an epidemic that is killing millions. What is the response?" Annan said in an interview with the BBC in Bangkok. "We really do need a leadership. America has a natural leadership capacity because of its resources, because of its size," Annan said...
MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-07-13-aids-blackmail_x.htm
Annan attacks US over Aids funds
Agencies, July 13, 2004
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has attacked the US for failing to deliver enough funds to tackle Aids worldwide. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, he said the fight against terrorism was overshadowing the HIV/Aids epidemic. He expressed disappointment that the US and Europe were not doing enough to help the UN's global Aids fund. But President Bush's Aids adviser said the criticism was unfair, as the US was by far the biggest contributor to the campaign to tackle and prevent Aids.
Mr Annan who is attending the International Aids Conference in Bangkok, issued a diplomatic rebuke by singling out Washington for being slow to deliver on its promises. He expressed disappointment that some of the $15bn earmarked by President George W Bush to tackle HIV/Aids was not yet going to the global fund - the body set up to raise money for Aids programmes. "The global fund is ready to go. If individual governments begin to set up their own initiatives, they start from scratch, it takes longer, the money that they hold will not be spent for a long time," he said. Mr Annan said he had hoped the US could at least contribute $1bn a year through the global fund, with the EU putting in another $1bn. With additional resources raised elsewhere, "the fund could have assured and sustained support through the next five years or so," Mr Annan said...
..."One of the most critical issues is that children are really being affected. We expect that by the end of the decade there will be 25m children who are orphans because their parents have died of Aids. "These are children who are then not getting an education, possibly having to raise their younger siblings, and very, very much at risk of exploitation by prostitution or trafficking."
MORE: http://www.kbc.co.ke/story.asp?ID?376 .
7:23:24 AM 
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"SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!"
The `Ubuntu' of globalization. Only together can the people of the world survive
By Julian Hewitt, Boston Globe, Jul 13, 2004
IN SOUTH AFRICA, we have a term, "Ubuntu," which refers to the spirit of the community. It is a shortened version of a South African saying that comes from the Xhosa culture: "Umuntu ngumuntu ngamuntu." This means that I am a person through other people. It means that my humanity is tied to yours. This is probably the single most important aspect of living in a highly connected planet: Our humanity is tied together. We must respect each other, and we must always keep our interconnection in mind.
The United States needs to understand the meaning of these South African phrases more than any other industrialized nation. The ultimate global power, the United States creates ripples that cause big waves around the world. This happens more frequently than the average American comprehends. When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cuts interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, it has a huge impact on me in South Africa...
READ IT ALL AT: http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10159.shtml
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Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
6:33:10 AM
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