| Friday, April 25, 2003 |  |
| Nazi Hunter Says His Work Is Done | 0 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31NAZI HUNTER SAYS HIS WORK IS DONE Reuters April 18, 2003 VIENNA (Reuters) - Renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal has been quoted as saying he will soon close his files after nearly half a century because his work to track down the perpetrators of the Holocaust is complete. "I found the mass murderers I was looking for, and I have outlived all of them. If there's a few I didn't look for, they are now too old and fragile to stand trial. My work is done," the 94-year-old told the Austrian weekly magazine "Format". "It is very difficult to get the public to really understand the crimes of these people," Wiesenthal was quoted in a statement released ahead of the magazine's publication on Friday. "Still I have to bother with people and groups that claim that the Holocaust never happened." Wiesenthal spent decades tracking down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals responsible for the mass murder of Jews in World War Two and played a role in the capture of Adolf Hitler's close associate Adolf Eichmann. Wiesenthal was born in 1908 to a comfortable Jewish family in Buczacz in present-day Ukraine, then in the Austro-Hungarian empire, before moving to Prague to train as an architect. His studies were interrupted by the war, most of which he spent in labour and concentration camps. When he was released he travelled to Nuremberg to pore over 110,000 tonnes of documents for evidence leading to Nazi suspects. He worked initially for the war crimes section of the U.S. Army, and then with backing from the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre he founded in Linz, and later in Vienna. The Jewish rights organisation Simon Wiesenthal Center was established in Los Angeles in 1977 in honour of his life's work. |
| The Dreamcatcher | 0 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31THE DREAMCATCHER By Barbara Kiser New Scientist We live in mad times. The WHO (World Health Organization) predicts depression will soon rank second in the global disease burden, suicide rates are rising, and the trauma caused by war, conflict or domestic abuse is everywhere. The toll is horrific: mental illness costs Britain alone £32 billion a year. And people looking for therapy face a tower of psychobabble, with 400-plus often warring schools. Enter Joe Griffin , who says there is away to lift depression in a day, and told Barbara Kiser he can prove it. Full Story |
| US Tax Returns To India Causing Stir | 0 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31US Tax Returns To India Causing Stir CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2003 08:28:39 PM ] WASHINGTON: Millions of Americans sweated it out on Tuesday, struggling to meet the deadline - April 15 - for filing their annual tax returns as accountants and post offices stayed open late to accommodate the laggards. Many will be hoping the Indians have lived up to their reputation for sound number-crunching. In keeping with the great outsourcing trend that has swept across American businesses, thousands of US tax returns are now being processed in India, a development that has led to quite a stir in the accounting community. Numbers are hard to pin down, but according to Kishore Mirchandani, president of Outsource Partners International, the firm that claims to have triggered the development, more than 10,000 returns went to India for scrutiny this year. The accounting firm Ernst and Young alone is believed to have forwarded 7500 American tax returns to its subsidiary in India after transferring a tax partner familiar with US tax laws there. Scores of other smaller accounting firms have also sent returns numbering hundreds to India after a pilot study last year showed encouraging results. "The business is still in its infancy, but we are looking at over 100,000 returns going to India this coming year," says Mirchandani, whose firm has a 300-person operation in Bangalore and is looking to expand because of the growing demand. Several traditional American firms are also lining up to send returns to India, after pilot projects showed significant reductions in costs and turn-around times. "More and more firms are jumping on the bandwagon after seeing the results. They seem very satisfied with the quality, not to speak of the speed and cost factors," says Bill Carlino, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Accounting Today, which has tracked the trend over the past year. Expectedly, not everyone is thrilled with the outsourcing of what some regard as sensitive financial information. In the latest issue, the magazine Practical Accountant ran a column by a New York accounting professor questioning the trend on grounds of security and job loss to Americans. "If you were to stop by any downtown skyscraper where Ernst & Young has an office, I guarantee that you could not just walk to the elevators and go up to the company's offices. You would be stopped by at least one security officer before you got anywhere near the elevator bank," wrote Prof Lloyd Caroll, head of the accounting department at Manhattan Borough Community College. "Yet the company does not appear to be troubled by the notion of putting taxpayer security in peril by sending returns out of the United States." "The very notion of transmitting confidential tax data - from Social Security and employer identification numbers to financial information - to any foreign country, even Canada, borders on the reprehensible at best, and is treasonous at worst," Caroll fumed. But accounting firms say security is a non-issue. What they are moving to India are only images and the original data remains with the US firm. The software used by the firms is also web-enabled and is accessed by the Indian subsidiary through a server in US. Firms also reported a 50 to 60 per cent cost reduction, besides improved scrutiny because they are able to hire better qualified people. In the US, simple returns are often viewed by junior staff who are not CPAs. Although the pilot studies of last year involved sending simple low end returns, some firms such as Toronto's Horwath Ornstein are now said to be sending high-end returns. In turn, firms are also posting Indian-American CPAs qualified in US tax laws to India to oversee the work. "The accounting profession in India itself has improved a great deal and quality should not be a problem," says Ram Ganesan, a Maryland-based CPA, who practices in the United States but sees outsourcing as an encouraging trend. |
| Top Human Rights Offenders | 2 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31 From The Guardian The top 100 offenders. This table ranks human rights abusers in descending order ; the figures in the right-hand column are obtained by multipying a weighted score of abuses by the Human Development Index. More > |
| Carving Up Iraq | 0 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31American Power Brokers In Iraq Sunday Herald:Iraq Reconstruction Scheme In a special Sunday Herald investigation, we have charted the network of financial kickbacks, political pay-backs, cronyism, self-interest and ferocious ideology that underpins the entire reconstruction scheme. Ideology is ideology, but in the US government political theory goes hand-in-hand with big business. The end result of the lofty musings of Republican hawks fashioning the concepts behind the new world order is money-grubbing for the yankee dollar. The world isn’t just watching the spread of a political philosophy in Iraq, it is watching a conquest by and for US big business as well. The term “military-industrial” complex brings to mind crazy conspiracy theories , but let’s consider the term again. Each and every one of the companies in the running or in posession of contracts to reconstruct Iraq are either major Republican donors or have government staff working for them. The donations to the Republican party – and also to George W Bush himself – run into millions . There is more to this than just kickbacks. The Americans call it “the favour bank”, we call it more simply cronyism. The connections between the reconstructors is staggering. If these people aren’t in the same think-tank together, then they work for the same companies, have the same friends and interests. The Reconstruction Network} |
| UN Backs Scheme to Block Blood Diamond Trade | 2 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:31UN Backs Scheme to Block Blood Diamond Trade NEW YORK, New York, April 15, 2003 (ENS) - The link between the illegal trade of rough diamonds and the use of diamond trade proceeds to fuel armed conflict was weakened today when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in support of a global diamond certification process. The ongoing international process, the Kimberley Process, is aimed at detecting and preventing the trade in conflict diamonds, often called blood diamonds because of the numerous deaths resulting from the illegal trade. The Kimberley Process includes a negotiating procedure to establish minimum acceptable international standards for national certification covering the import and export of rough diamonds, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. Illicit trade in the valuable stones has financed armed conflict aimed at overthrowing legitimate governments, and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the past 10 years. Conflict diamonds represent up to 20 percent of the annual world total diamond trade, and the diamond industry is taking part in the scheme in an effort to quell fears that diamonds for sale at the world's best jewelers may be blood diamonds. More > |
| Burma In Transition: Positive Change | 0 comments |
| 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:15 Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been under military rule since a coup in 1962. The main opposition in the last decade has been the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The supposedly unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2002 came after she had endured 19 months of house arrest and some form of detention for 12 years. Her release followed extensive lobbying from the U.N.. The international community must now wait to see just how serious the junta is about political change. Action Burma |
| Apparel Industry Takes Human Rights Stand | 0 comments |
 25 Apr 2003 @ 00:15Powerful Industry Association Calls for Ban on Apparel Imports from Burma American Apparel and Footwear Association Takes Strong Stand on Human Rights ARLINGTON, VA - In an unusual move, the powerful American Association of Apparel and Footwear Manufacturers has called for the U.S. government to impose a ban on apparel and footwear products from Burma because of massive human rights abuses in that country. The Association calls for the government to enact and "maintain this ban until Burma demonstrates that it recognizes, respects, and enforces basic human and labor rights for its own citizens." The Association has almost 1,000 member companies including industry powerhouses like Levi-Strauss & Company, Sara Lee Branded Apparel, Liz Claiborne, and Perry Ellis. "The Association has done the right thing. This will strengthen our coalition's grassroots effort to boycott 'Made in Burma' products," says Aung Din, Director of Policy for the Free Burma Coalition. "No companies - U.S. or otherwise - should profit from forced labor in Burma." The Association's move follows pledges from over 40 companies in the apparel industry to shun products from Burma, ruled by the military dictator Than Shwe. Companies boycotting products "Made in Burma" include Wal-Mart, Federated Department Stores, May Department Stores, Tommy Hilfiger, Phillips-Van Heusen, Jones Apparel, Gart Sports, Saks, Adidas, The Spiegel Group, and Columbia Sportswear. Over the past year, apparel imports from Burma dropped by 27%, from $411 to $303 million, depriving the cash-hungry regime of significant income. Companies avoid production in Burma due in part to grassroots boycott campaigns that raise the issue of foreign investors doing business with Burma's dictatorship, which uses systemic forced labor. International agencies and governments, including the International Labor Organization and the U.S. State Department, have documented the regime's massive use of forced labor: "Forced labor, including forced child labor, has contributed materially to the construction of industrial parks subsequently used largely to produce manufactured exports including garments," the State Department stated in a report. Since 1995, the U.S.-based Free Burma Coalition has successfully persuaded over 70 U.S. multinational corporations to leave Burma. Currently, the coalition is calling on TIAA-CREF, the largest U.S. pension fund, to take action on its investment in companies that operate in Burma. The Free Burma Coalition's campaigns are a response to the call by Burma's National League for Democracy for companies to avoid Burma until democracy and human rights are restored. Burma has been ruled by military dictatorship since 1962. The regime prevented the democratically elected government from assuming office in 1990. The American Apparel and Footwear Association press release and statement |