The Associated Press
Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
___
July 28
News and Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina, on Ebola:
To be a missionary or a health care worker who tends to the poor has always required an admirable level of compassion, but now in West Africa it also requires remarkable courage.
An outbreak of the terrifying Ebola virus in several West African nations is putting those who care for its victims at great risk. Some, such as Liberia’s top health official, Dr. Samuel Brisbane, have already paid with their lives.
Others have contracted the disease and are struggling to survive. Two are Americans affiliated with the Boone-based missionary group Samaritan’s Purse.
One of them is Nancy Writebol of Charlotte. Writebol and her husband, David, had been working in Liberia and chose to stay on despite the Ebola threat.
Nancy Writebol, a hygienist, decontaminated those entering and leaving the Ebola care area at the hospital. She is now gravely ill and being treated in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. She is being kept in isolation, and her husband cannot directly comfort her.
Also infected is Dr. Kent Brantly, a 33-year-old medical director for the Ebola care center on the outskirts of Monrovia run by Samaritan’s Purse. Brantly of Fort Worth, Texas, is in serious condition but recognized his symptoms early and has a better chance of surviving. The highly contagious virus has killed nearly 700 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since the outbreak surfaced earlier this year.
In a painful contrast to the compassion and courage showed by Writebol and Brantly, fear of Ebola has panicked some local residents who blame health workers for the spread of the disease. Health workers have been threatened and blocked from entering some villages where infected people are.
Despite the threats of disease, Writebol and Brantly stayed to help. May their good deeds be matched by the good fortune of recovery.
Online:
http://www.newsobserver.com
___
July 28
Miami Herald on Israel’s challenge:
When Hamas decided to initiate rocket attacks on Israel, it invited the furious reprisal that began earlier this month. Three times since 2006, Israel has responded to aerial assaults on its citizens with fierce counter-attacks, and each time the fighting has come to an inconclusive end that allows its enemies to replenish their arsenals and start planning for the next round.
For that reason, Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously rejected a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire on Friday, though Israel agreed to a 12-hour pause for Saturday. The images from the funerals of Israeli troops are heart-rending. The scenes of horror and destruction in Gaza, gut-wrenching. No one could wish for the people of Gaza to endure prolonged misery.
But it was Hamas that wished for the fighting. First, by attacking Israel, and then by rejecting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal because it wanted its own narrow demands addressed first. That included lifting border restrictions and the release of dozens of former prisoners Israel rearrested in a crackdown on the West Bank after the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers.
Throughout the fighting, Hamas has used the civilian population of Gaza as hostages. That is one big reason the terrorist group has worn out its welcome there. It uses populated areas to fire deadly rockets into Israel. U.N. officials have also said they twice found Hamas using abandoned schools to conceal dozens of rockets.
The refusal to agree to a cease-fire more than one week ago, along with the discovery of an extensive network of tunnels leading into Israel, triggered the Israeli ground assault and the determination of its government to achieve a twofold aim: Destroy the tunnels and degrade Hamas’ arsenal to render it ineffective.
Without that, Hamas would be exposed as dangerous and useless. Its control of Gaza has only worsened the lives and prospects of Palestinians who live there.
Israel must be allowed to crush the threat from Hamas, not just for a few months or a year (the last ceasefire took effect in November 2012), but for the foreseeable future. The right of self-defense is not negotiable.
While it is putting an end to Hamas, Israel must also do a better job of avoiding civilian casualties. As mentioned earlier, Hamas thrives amid reports of the deaths of women and children under Israeli attacks. It’s an integral part of Hamas’ strategy. Thus, Israel has both a moral necessity to avoid civilian casualties and an enormous self-interest in ensuring that mistakes resulting in more civilian killings don’t happen.
Marginalizing Hamas and reducing its support among Palestinians is another strategic imperative.
The ultimate challenge for Israel is to help provide a better life for Palestinians in the West Bank, giving them a glimpse of a more-peaceful future — including the return of Mr. Abbas’ group to power in Gaza. That, of course, requires victory over Hamas and an end to its destructive power.
Online:
http://www.miamiherald.com
___
July 28
Los Angeles Times on U.N. disabilities treaty:
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should not be controversial: It requires equal access for the disabled and bans discrimination against them in all countries that sign on. There is no question that the Senate should ratify it. The only issue is why it has any opponents at all.
Modeled after the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, the treaty has been ratified by 146 countries and the European Union, and has legions of supporters in the United States — veterans groups of different generations, business and civic leaders. It also has bi-partisan roots: The George W. Bush administration participated in drafting it, and President Obama signed it. Although there are a number of Republicans who oppose it, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) is an outspoken advocate, as is former Republican Sen. Majority Leader Bob Dole, who was disabled during his service in World War II. Now 91 and using a wheelchair, Dole recently made his second poignant trip to the Capitol to promote the treaty, urging former colleagues to vote for what he called “not a Republican or a Democrat treaty.”
In late 2012, many did vote to ratify it — 61 senators, in fact. But treaties need 67 votes, a two-thirds majority of the Senate. The treaty was opposed by 38 Republican senators, many of whom argued that it would undermine U.S. sovereignty and cede too much decision-making authority to the United Nations. Strong opposition also came from vocal advocates for home schooling who were alarmed by a passage in the treaty that they believe might override parents’ ability to make decisions about their own disabled children. In fact, the treaty does nothing of the sort.
The bottom line is that the treaty does not trump or alter U.S. laws or those of individual states. And if there is any lingering doubt of that among skeptics, the treaty’s backers in the Senate say they will add clarifying language as part of the ratification process to make sure there are no ambiguities. Senate ratification will bring U.S. influence and innovation to other countries that are in the process of expanding access and opportunity for the disabled. This treaty isn’t about parents losing authority over their kids or the U.S. losing sovereignty over its citizens. It’s about access for the disabled, and a world in which they can travel and thrive without facing discrimination. That’s something we all should want. The Senate should finally ratify this treaty.
Online:
http://www.latimes.com
____
July 26
Wall Street Journal on Argentina dancing with default:
Argentina has earned its status as the world’s most downwardly mobile nation, and now the Kirchner government seems ready to further damage its economy and the well-being of its citizens. Instead of negotiating a deal with its creditors after recent losses in U.S. courts, Argentina is dancing with another default and trashing America’s legal system to boot.
Argentina has until Wednesday to make an interest payment to bondholders or it will officially default for the second time in 13 years. Argentina claims it is willing to pay bondholders who agreed to take less than 30 cents on the dollar in a debt restructuring after its 2001 default. But federal Judge Thomas Griesa has said Argentina can’t pay those holders without also paying so-called holdout bondholders who refused to accept the 30 cents and have won a series of U.S. court cases against Argentina. Buenos Aires refuses to pay the holdouts.
Instead, President Cristina Kirchner’s government has spent a month running an extraordinary public campaign vilifying the holdouts as well as Judge Griesa and U.S. courts. The hard-to-avoid conclusion is that Argentina is preparing the political ground for a default that it plans to blame on the evil gringos to the north.
“A lot of officials in the United States say its judicial branch is independent,” declared Argentine cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich recently. “But it is not independent of the vulture funds because its decisions show clear partiality.” The government has taken out full-page ads in American newspapers, including the Journal, attacking the creditors and Judge Griesa by name.
Argentine officials Axel Kicillof and Hector Timerman used a July 3 Organization of American States meeting to denounce the U.S. and call for removing debt restructuring from U.S. courts to some international body that they imagine would be more favorable to government deadbeats. “Default is not an Argentine problem, restructuring is not an Argentine problem, it is a world problem, it is a problem of global capitalism, of the system in which we live,” declared Mr. Kicillof.
Argentina had the full run of American legal appeals all the way to the Supreme Court. And it even had the support of the Obama administration, believe it or not, against U.S. creditors. The administration feared the precedent for U.S. interests abroad if a foreign government was forced by U.S. courts to pay the holdout creditors.
Argentina’s arguments for failing to negotiate are flimsy. It claims it can’t afford $15 billion in potential new debt payments, but in private meetings with Judge Griesa’s special master it has sometimes conceded that the real number is closer to $10 billion.
Argentina says even that amount is too burdensome because it would slash its foreign-exchange reserves. But the country recently settled some $16 billion in claims with Repsol and the Paris Club of creditors with little impact on reserves by issuing new bonds or stretching out payments.
The best outcome for all parties, and especially Argentina, is still for Buenos Aires to negotiate in good faith and avoid default. But if it refuses, Judge Griesa deserves support from everyone who cares about the integrity of U.S. financial markets for upholding the law and American property rights.
Online:
http://online.wsj.com
____
July 30
Boston Herald on Russia being on hot seat:
European leaders are now convinced that imposing harsher sanctions on entire sectors of the Russian economy is worth the price they’ll pay (literally) on the homefront. And the White House yesterday announced the U.S. is also preparing sanctions targeting the broader Russian economy. President Obama says the sanctions with “bigger bite” will make a weak Russian economy even weaker.
We’d like to think it will all make a difference to Vladimir Putin, but that view seems optimistic in the extreme.
Sanctions imposed thus far have done little to deter Putin or his proxies battling in eastern Ukraine, even in the wake of global condemnation for the downing of a civilian passenger jet by Russian-backed separatists.
The U.S. upped the pressure this week by releasing images that point to the locations inside Russia from which artillery has been fired over the border into Ukraine. Russia responded to the release by labeling the satellite images “fakes.” But really, what else can Putin’s minions say?
The announcement of the sanctions yesterday was accompanied by new demands that Russia end its aggression in eastern Ukraine. But Secretary of State John Kerry himself said the Russians have indicated not “a shred of evidence that they really have a legitimate desire to end the violence and end the bloodshed.” Leaving the rest of us with barely a shred of hope.
Online:
http://bostonherald.com
____
July 30
Khaleej Times, Dubai, on shadows of 9/11:
The tragic incidents of 9/11 may be history but its aftermath is still haunting the Americans. A recent report commissioned to inquire into the unexplored details of the trauma, which changed the United States for times to come, says that terror is still around, and it has rather taken a more dangerous and sophisticated turn.
The 9/11 Commission Report categorically says that Americans need to do more to protect themselves. This conclusion after almost 14 years of warfare and worldwide surveillance speaks high of the missed targets as Washington went on to attack two sovereign countries and spent more than four trillion dollars to make the shores across the Atlantic safe and secure. The report said the ‘general struggle’ against terrorism is far from over, and rather it is entering a more dangerous phase of its existence. With the caution line of America cannot afford to lower the guard, the report has called for stringent measures in all walks of life from cyber terror to human bomb to tackle the menace of terrorism. It is hoped that these new findings and recommendations will go a long in beefing up policy measures as the Homeland Security Department ups the vigil.
The report has come at a time when the world is witnessing new upheavals and the rise of the ‘Islamic State’ militants in Iraq is a case in point. It needs to be debated that the new insurgents in Iraq who had established a so-called caliphate after being battered down from Syria at the hands of President Bashar Al Assad are considered to be more serious than the dreaded Al Qaeda. If that is the case then Americans and especially its intelligence sleuths have to do some soul-searching as to why these extremists were not nailed down in Syria itself, and as to why militants on the loose from across the region — and that too in affiliation with Al Qaeda — were allowed to successfully regroup against the lesser evil in Damascus. Had they been exterminated on the plains of Syria itself, this revulsion would not have taken place, which now directly threatens the entire region including Saudi Arabia.
With the report calling for stringent efforts to fight the invisible enemy, Washington has to recast its security priorities and realign geopolitical realities. The opening up with Tehran and a broad-based understanding with Riyadh as was evident from the consensus that emerged between King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month is epoch-making. America cannot continue to fight proxies in the Middle East and it is time for it to get real. The bottom line assessment of the 9/11 Commission says: “strenuous counterterrorism efforts will remain a fact of our national life for the foreseeable future.” This notion applies to both home and abroad. The fine print of the report simply reads that America and the world is still not a safe place to live in.
Online:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
