Long time readers of TalkLeft know that Shanghai is one of our favorite cities. It's one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. They build things with an eye towards what they will need ten years in the future. A lot of completed projects are half empty--intentionally. They know they will grow into them. We blogged from Shanghai on one of our trips there, in late November, 2002. Here's a description of what we found so appealing.

China may be the most service-people friendly country we've ever been in. From the airport pickup which consists of a driver and a hotel staff person waiting at baggage claim to drive us to the hotel in a brand new Audi, to the reception people who showed us three rooms at check-in and gave us our choice, to the staff at the executive lounge who provide three meals a day and cocktails gratis along with big screen tv's tuned to CNN and every important newspaper and magazine we can think of, to the three 20-something year olds who just spent an hour in our room at 10 at night because the hotel's broadband server went down and they wanted to make sure we knew how to get dialup access in the interim--even though they don't speak English and we can't speak a word of Chinese--we are duly impressed.

Shanghai is rolling out every stop to get the 2010 World Expo--the papers here report that all the citizens, from the elderly to the working class to the college kids are in favor of it. It truly is a city of the future and wants badly to compete in every sense with New York, London and Hong Kong. In our book it already does. Business and the economy here are robust and China tends to build things with an eye towards what will be needed ten years from now. The streets are safe and so is the drinking water--parks are filled in the early morning with people doing T'ai Chi--the art museum is world class, Placido Domingo played here last night with two other famous tenors...we're even more impressed with Shanghai than we were last year on our first trip.

By coincidence, we were there for World Aid's Day, and again, were duly impressed.

The New York Times reports Shanghai has just pulled off another coup: Shanghai's Magic Levitation Train.

The House of Commons today endorsed a sweeping change for law enforcement in Great Britain by approving the creation of a new crime-fighting agency, similar to our F.B.I. It sounds just awful:

The creation of a new "British FBI" to combat organised crime, with informants being offered reduced sentences to snitch on their gangland bosses, was given unanimous support in the Commons today - despite a controversial raft of new powers. The home secretary, David Blunkett, told MPs he was in favour of allowing intercept material - bugged phone calls and emails - to be used as evidence, pending a review which would report back in June.

And he would also, for the first time, force professionals such as lawyers and solicitors to cooperate with police enquiries into organised crime, even if it meant betraying client confidentiality.

The new agency will be called SOCA, which stands for the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. Copying a page from the U.S., there will now be benefits for turning "Queen's Evidence."

by TChris

President Bush was spectacularly unsuccessful in his efforts to recruit foreign governments to join the United States in its plan to invade and occupy Iraq. Now one of the few governments that supported Bush has paid the price, as voters in Spain handed an election victory to the country's Socialist party on Sunday.

Spain's incoming leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday he would probably pull Madrid's troops out of the "disastrous" occupation of Iraq, in a major swing from his predecessor's pro-American foreign policy.

Zapatero said his Socialists' surprise win in Sunday's general election -- overshadowed by the Madrid train bombings that killed 200 people -- was the first consequence of the unpopularity among Spaniards of the Iraq war. "The second will be that the Spanish troops will come back," he told a Spanish radio station. "Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism... you can't organize a war with lies."

In a stinging rebuke to Spain's conservative government that supported the war in Iraq, voters booted them out at the polls today--

It was the first time a government that backed the Iraq war has been voted out of office. Incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to bring home the 1,300 troops Spain has stationed in Iraq when their tour of duty ends in July.....Pre-election polls had favored the ruling party to win handily. But on election day voters expressed anger with the government, accusing it of provoking the Madrid attacks by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which most Spaniards opposed.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewed exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by cell phone in the Central African Republic. The program says his comments represent the most extensive English-language interview Aristide has given since he was removed from office and his country. You can read the transcript here or listen to the 30 minute interview here.

It begins with Aristide saying:

Liberal Oasis dissects four questions from reporters that Scott McClellan refused to answer yesterday on Haiti:

1. “Did the United States at any point say that it would not protect him if he stayed?”

2. “Who is it that gave permission for the plane [that took Aristide away] to land in Haiti?”

3. “You said we took steps to protect him as he left Haiti [but] our forces were not around him as he left, [so] then what were the steps we took to protect him?”

4. “Three weeks ago, the administration was stressing the fact that Aristide's was a democratically-elected government. Two days ago, you began saying that Aristide had failed as a leader. What changed over that time period to shift your focus?”

What's the real deal with the U.S. Government and Haiti? We've met Ira Kurzman and he is beyond well-regarded as just about the most knowledgeable lawyer out there on immigration issues. Cursor reports,

Ira Kurzman, a U.S. lawyer for the Haitian government, tells "Democracy Now!" that anti-government paramilitary forces in Haiti are "armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States," and that "some kind of theater of the absurd" is being played out involving "opposition" leaders such as Andy Apaid (a U.S. citizen) and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Kurzman also rejects bribery accusations aimed at Aristide by "one of Haiti's most flamboyant drug traffickers," as "just another piece of the effort to politically assassinate President Aristide before the U.S.-directed military coup physically eliminates him."

Update: Haiti descends into anarchy.

Update: Jeanne at Body and Soul has a list of recommended reads on Haiti.

Bump and Update: From Tom Paine.com's Take on the News:

One important detail has been overlooked: The constitution states that "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam." Although there are provisions protecting women's rights, Afghan women are rightly concerned that there is nothing protecting them from the harsh application of Sharia—or Islamic— law.

Why is this a problem? Ziba Mir Hosseini, author of the book Islam and Gender explains: "We do not have in modern times any state which has introduced Sharia and has been able to respect women's rights." By ignoring this very troubling element of the new consitution in its laudatory statements, the Bush administration reminds us women's rights are important only when protecting them serves their foreign policy goals.

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original post 1/5/03 12:06 am

A new Constitution has been approved in Afganistan.

The charter, ratified after a last-minute deal to recognize minority languages, creates a strong presidential system that the country's U.S.-backed interim leader, Hamid Karzai, says is critical to uniting a country torn by two decades of war. It also states that men and women should be treated equally - a key demand of human rights groups. The Taliban barred girls from school and banned women from all public life.

....The new constitution is a "significant milestone" on the path to democracy, said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who worked with U.N. officials to help secure the agreement. "With the world watching, you have adopted one of the most enlightened constitutions in the Islamic world," he said in a statement. "You have made history."

The charter makes the president commander in chief of the armed forces, charges him with determining the nation's fundamental policies and gives him considerable power to press legislation.

Here's the old Constitution.

Shades of 1970 and Vietnam....we say free them.

An Israeli military court sentenced five young men to a year in prison yesterday for refusing to serve in the army as long as the Jewish state occupies the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The five are part of a growing movement that the military has had to contend with since the Palestinian uprising began more than three years ago. Hundreds of soldiers, alleging human rights abuses against Palestinians, have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza including, just last month, 13 members of the crack Sayeret Matkal, the most storied unit in the Israeli military.

Five teenaged conscientious objectors (L to R), Matan Kaminer, Adam Maor, Haggai Matar, Noam Bahat, Shomri Zameret, stand in front of a military court in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv January 4, 2004, after being sentenced to one year in prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli army. The five were convicted last month for refusing an order to carry out obligatory service. REUTERS/Yossi Aloni

But the five are different from other dissenters in several ways. For one thing, they refuse to be drafted altogether, not just to serve in the occupied territories. In a country in which the military is more venerated than any other public institution, not serving can be one of the most alienating things an Israeli can do. And the five will pay a much heavier price than other dissenters, who typically have been ordered to spend about a month in detention.

The yearlong sentence the five received is in addition to the 14 months they have been locked up while awaiting trial.

Attorney Dick Atkins provides a free initial consultation (+1 215 977 9982; Dickatkins@aol.com). He has helped thousands of Americans obtain release after being arrested in other countries. In this month's National Geographic Adventurer, he provides some tips in The Atkins Zone--The Houdini of fast escapes from international prisons advises on how to get out—and stay out—of jail while traveling abroad. Plus, some good reasons to avoid getting slammed in these six notorious tourist traps.

First, the numbers. 10,000 Americans are arrested overseas every year. The State Departments numbers are less because they don't count the ones that bribe themselves out of all but a few days in the pokey.

"Families are almost always shocked when they hear about the condition of a loved one who has been incarcerated overseas," says Atkins.

He should know. Having spent the past 23 years helping Americans get out of legal trouble abroad, Atkins approximates that he has helped win freedom for more than a thousand Americans being held in foreign custody. His services are sought by congressmen seeking help for detained constituents, travel insurance agents looking into high-stakes claims, and people who call his hotline, which offers around-the-clock legal advice.

Atkins is well-regarded in the international legal community.

Atkins's success in freeing incarcerated Americans abroad hasn't gone unnoticed. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on international prisoner transfer agreements and wrote a guide to prisoner transfer treaties for the UN. For years, human rights organizations like Amnesty International have referred clients seeking help for friends or loved ones in trouble abroad, and his expertise as the Houdini of hard times has been documented by newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Here's some of his latest free tips -- we hope you never need to use them:

Gen. Wesley Clark's testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic has been released. Here is his Monday testimony. Tuesday testimony is here. Tuesday is here. [link via Political Wire.]

Bump and Update: Time Magazine reports that Yaser Arafat has stomach cancer. Palestinian authorities have not confirmed this but they deny that he had a heart attack:

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Original Post: 10/7

We're glued to watching the recall results like the rest of you, but we just caught wind of this and thought we'd pass it on. Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat has suffered a heart attack.

Yasser Arafat has suffered a mild heart attack but the Palestinian leadership has sought to keep his health problems secret for fear it will "create panic".

The 74-year-old Palestinian president, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, disappeared from public view last week and re-emerged at the weekend looking extremely ill. His face was pale and pinched, he had lost weight and he was almost inaudible. He had trouble standing for more than a few minutes at a time.

.... "Although he has had a slight heart attack, the doctors say he will make a full recovery. He is in full control. There is nothing to worry about," said a close aide to Mr Arafat, who did not wish to be named.