He is not allowed a pen in a country of 60 million guns. Sentenced to one year at hard labour, he is in prison where he has been beaten, his jaw broken. His friends and colleagues may not speak with him. He is a newspaper editor.
His purported crimes: defaming the president, promoting discord, publishing lies. What he did: publish articles about corruption, tribal violence, and civilian rights.
During trial he was not permitted a lawyer nor given the opportunity to respond to allegations. His case was decided during the judicial vacation. The constitution of his country looks wonderful on paper but withers in the courtroom.
His newspaper was suspended for six months. Two other publications were recently shut down on technicalities. In the symphony that the press plays for the citizenry, the musical instruments are disappearing one by one. Last week, seven more journalists were summoned for trial.
His colleagues speak loudly for him at personal risk. Various NGOs and journalistic organisations have protested his imprisonment and petitioned for his release, with no reply. The Western media ignores him. His family misses him hourly.
His nation suffers his loss of freedom as their loss of knowledge, of competing ideas, and of a watchdog. The peopleÕs advocate has no pen. Elections will come and go, the voters like blind men driving a car.
They are not alone. This is how the World Association of Newspapers 2004 report has described the state of the media in the Middle East: ÒFreedom of expression continues to suffer throughout the region. The press freedom situation in many counties remains alarming, as government control over the press is rigid. In those countries where journalists do enjoy a measure of freedom of expression, they must contend with severe laws that often result in criminal prosecution, arrest and censorship.Ó That journalists carry on is a testament to their heroism and their patriotism.
The situation is not unique to the Middle East. In Thailand, criminal defamation laws are used to intimidate journalists with the threat of imprisonment. Three journalists were arrested in the Congo without official explanation. In Kazakhstan, another video was confiscated, this time from a news crew filming a protest. Google has been blocked in China where 25 journalists are currently in jail. Many journalists in Cuban prisons are serving terms up to 20 years. Vietnam and North Korea do not have an independent media. A journalist in Peru was assaulted by a police officer. On the same day, the same situation played out in Pakistan. A Bangladeshi editor passed his first year in jail, and in Belarus, another independent newspaper was closed, bringing the total to five in the last three months. In Zimbabwe, new legislation regulating journalists was proposed that carries a 20-year penalty for its breach. All of these events occurred in the space of a week.
There have been many such weeks this year.
Why in some countries there are widespread fear of the pen and the thoughts behind the pen and the readers in front of the page? Why do international readers know more about some nations than the residents themselves? In many parts of the world the answer is not publishable; in fact, this and other such questions cannot be asked.
Abdulkareem al-Khaiwani spends this night in a Yemeni prison because his inquiring pen is deemed a greater threat than the 60 million guns, when it is his pen that is among his nationÕs greatest assets.
DAILYTIMES.COM.PK

Wangari Maathai

When I was growing up in Nyeri in central Kenya, there was no word for desert in my mother tongue, Kikuyu. Our land was fertile and forested. But today in Nyeri, as in much of Africa and the developing world, water sources have dried up, the soil is parched and unsuitable for growing food, and conflicts over land are common. So it should come as no surprise that I was inspired to plant trees to help meet the basic needs of rural women. As a member of the National Council of Women of Kenya in the early 1970's, I listened as women related what they wanted but did not have enough of: energy, clean drinking water and nutritious food.
My response was to begin planting trees with them, to help heal the land and break the cycle of poverty. Trees stop soil erosion, leading to water conservation and increased rainfall. Trees provide fuel, material for building and fencing, fruits, fodder, shade and beauty. As household managers in rural and urban areas of the developing world, women are the first to encounter the effects of ecological stress. It forces them to walk farther to get wood for cooking and heating, to search for clean water and to find new sources of food as old ones disappear.
My idea evolved into the Green Belt Movement, made up of thousands of groups, primarily of women, who have planted 30 million trees across Kenya. The women are paid a small amount for each seedling they grow, giving them an income as well as improving their environment. The movement has spread to countries in East and Central Africa.
In the 1970's and 1980's, as I was encouraging farmers to plant trees on their land, I also discovered that corrupt government agents were responsible for much of the deforestation by illegally selling off land and trees to well-connected developers. In the early 1990's, the livelihoods, the rights and even the lives of many Kenyans in the Rift Valley were lost when elements of President Daniel arap Moi's government encouraged ethnic communities to attack one another over land. Supporters of the ruling party got the land, while those in the pro-democracy movement were displaced. This was one of the government's ways of retaining power; if communities were kept busy fighting over land, they would have less opportunity to demand democracy.
Indeed, many local and international wars, like those in West and Central Africa and the Middle East, continue to be fought over resources. In the process, human rights, democracy and democratic space are denied.
I believe the Nobel Committee recognized the links between the environment, democracy and peace and sought to bring them to worldwide attention with the Peace Prize that I am accepting today. The committee, I believe, is seeking to encourage community efforts to restore the earth at a time when we face the ecological crises of deforestation, desertification, water scarcity and a lack of biological diversity.
Unless we properly manage resources like forests, water, land, minerals and oil, we will not win the fight against poverty. And there will not be peace. Old conflicts will rage on and new resource wars will erupt unless we change the path we are on.
To celebrate this award, and the work it recognizes of those around the world, let me recall the words of Gandhi: My life is my message. Also, plant a tree.
Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
NYTIMES.COM

Trying to decipher what on earth Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine is keeping Moscow's embattled liberals very busy these days. Why would a president who worked so hard on his standing in the West squander what's left on a confrontation in which he has nothing to gain?
Some say he has fallen under the sway of anti-Western fellow alumni of the KGB, who dominate his entourage. Others say that for all his Western manners, he fully shares the venerable Russian perception of Ukraine as an extension of Russia. Still others say he really believes that the West is orchestrating Viktor Yushchenko's rise as part of a continuing scheme to encircle Russia.
Most likely, there's something to all these conjectures. Many of the men and women who wield power in Russia--especially former KGB operatives like Putin--have inherited a Soviet mentality that regards all politics as a naked struggle for power. The notion that Ukrainians might actually want a say in who rules them would not dawn on this group; it presumes that no Ukrainians would be so insubordinate unless anti-Soviet--make that anti-Russian- forces were behind them.
These instincts were clear between the lines of an interview Putin gave the other day. "I don't want there to be a division, as there was in Germany, between Westerners and Easterners, people of a first and second category," he said. "People of the first category are allowed to live according to stable democratic laws, while people of a, let us say, dark political color of skin will be instructed by a strict man in a colonial helmet on the political understandings by which they must live. And if the natives resist, they'll be punished with a bomb-and-rocket club, as they were in Belgrade."
The notion that people from the East are patronized as a lower order by the West is a powerful source of resentment in Russia. It is the major reason Putin and the Parliament have felt compelled to "protect" Russian enclaves in Moldova, Georgia, and now Ukraine.
There is plenty to feed that perception. All the debates around the expansions of NATO and the European Union, or around American bases in Central Asia, or the "rose revolution" in Georgia, are full of talk about constraining Russia's imperial ambitions, or weaning former Soviet republics and satellites from the Kremlin. The United States has campaigned for oil pipelines that skirt Russia. New European Union members talk of making Ukraine a buffer between them and Russia.
Under any president, Ukraine would depend heavily on Russian energy and Russian trade, even while seeking trade and contact with Europe. Yushchenko, the candidate of western Ukrainians, is himself from eastern Ukraine and served as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, who is supported by Putin. He is certainly no American stooge. He opposes, for example, the use of Ukrainian troops in Iraq. And as president, he will have to make overtures to the east and to Moscow to avoid a national split.
The real contest in Ukraine is not so much between East and West, but between a corrupt regime supported by powerful economic clans and a relatively fresher and apparently more democratic opposition. That, we hope, is what drew so many Ukrainians into the streets when the government blatantly stole the election for Yanukovich.
IHT.COM

Afghanistan's three-year drive for stability reached a milestone when Mr. Hamid Karzai was sworn in Tuesday as its first popularly elected president. But the road is strewn with obstacles. Ethnic and tribal divisions are clouding prospects for national unity. As yet, there is no end in sight to terrorist attacks, apparently by remnants of the Taliban.
Local warlords, meanwhile, continue to defy central authority, and the opium trade is preventing the growth of a healthy economy. The good news is that a full-fledged administration is emerging in Kabul with the blessing of the international community.
The new administration has two overriding aims: achieving national reconciliation and establishing a functioning democracy. These efforts, of course, require continued international support, but it should be provided in ways that respect the sovereignty of the Afghan people. Although President Karzai enjoys the solid backing of the United States, he would be wise to adopt a reconstruction process that does not rely solely on U.S. military power.
An immediate task for the president is to form a new Cabinet of unity. That won't be easy. First of all, he will need to reach accommodation with leaders of the Northern Alliance, which took part in the U.S.-led military campaign to oust the Taliban regime in 2001. Among his critics is a former education minister who lost in the Oct. 9 presidential election.
The election result, a landslide for Mr. Karzai, reflected the ethnic makeup of Afghanistan, which consists largely of majority Pashtuns and minority Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun, won big particularly in the Pashtun regions. To achieve some semblance of national unity, therefore, he must forge a factional balance. If he gives a cold shoulder to the Northern Alliance and packs his new team with Pashtuns loyal to him, the country could again become embroiled in ethnic conflict and power struggles.
President Karzai has said his presidency represents the will of the Afghan people, not the will of the majority group alone. He should bear this in mind as he tries to assemble an ethnically balanced government. At the same time, he should be careful not to give any special treatment to influential warlords. A unity Cabinet should be one that comprises capable men and women from various ethnic groups.
The biggest obstacle to national reconciliation is the continued presence of warlords who effectively rule the countryside. Disarming their powerful militias, reportedly numbering as many as 100,000, remains an urgent priority. So far only about 20,000 are said to have surrendered their arms. Most of these local militia commanders aligned themselves with the U.S. military during the anti-Taliban campaign. The new administration, working together with the international community, should step up efforts to dismantle the militias and help their members return to normal life.
It is also critical to restore security ahead of parliamentary elections next spring. Stamping out the opium trade is also an urgent necessity. Afghanistan, the world's largest opium producer, reportedly continues to cultivate ever more poppies in violation of an international ban. The opium industry represents a grave threat to national reconstruction. With this year's opium exports accounting for an estimated 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product, donor nations should strive to improve on projects that help reduce chronic poverty.
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

If these were ordinary times, the chief of staff would be out of a job. For one thing, because both at home and abroad the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is losing its time-honored reputation of being an ethical army, an army that regards human life as sacred. From a series of recent incidents, a bleak picture arises of barbaric conduct toward the enemy and a serious decline in morale as highly motivated young soldiers find themselves operating in the heart of a civilian population. Bereaved families no longer feel that they have sacrificed their sons for some lofty patriotic goal. And the more soldiers feel that their comrades have been killed in vain, the greater the incidence of barbaric behavior toward the Palestinians.
The IDF spokeswoman, asked whether occupation corrupts, replied: "That is something only the citizen can say, not the army. The army receives orders and carries them out." Heaven help us that such words should fall on Jewish ears--words that were struck from the lexicon after World War II. Soldiers have an obligation to refuse illegal orders in the same way that armies are forbidden to issue them. It is hard enough that many of the soldiers sent to police the territories have to choose between their desire to be "ethical" soldiers and staying alive.
"The heavier the burden on the army, the more mistakes it makes," says Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. "But there is no justification for an ethical or moral mistake. Lying is something you don't do even if you are tired. And being under pressure is certainly no excuse for `confirming' a kill."
Retired general Yoram (Ya-Ya) Yair, a bereaved father himself, says that the ethical codes of the IDF were formulated for a war between armies. The rules have changed now that suicide has been turned into a non-conventional weapon. In the four years of the Intifada, more than 100 people, some of them women and children, have blown themselves up in the midst of Israel's civilian population. An enemy that no longer cares about the sanctity of preserving its own life has led to this erosion of values that were once so dear. It is easy to say that occupation corrupts, but what are lovers of life supposed to do in a confrontation with those who want to die?
The rules of combat have changed with the times. We are looking not at a moral flaw per se but at a decline that must be stopped. There are more than 100 military checkpoints today whose job is to filter out potential suicide bombers trying to get into line with innocent Arabs. These checkpoints are manned by young soldiers who have to deal with masses of Palestinians trying to get from place to place. In light of the fact that there have been bombings at some checkpoints, it is only natural for the soldiers to be primarily interested in looking out for themselves and keeping terrorists from sneaking into Israel.
Thorough security checks are humiliating--and not only at IDF checkpoints. That's the way it is. Those who have experienced mega-attacks carried out by suicide bombers can't be nice at checkpoints. Soldiers have to treat every Palestinian standing on line as if he or she were wired to a bomb.
Yoel Marcus
HAARETZ.COM