http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/20/report-calls-eritrea-worlds-worst-country-for-press-freedom/
(CNN) - How bad is it to be a journalist in Eritrea? Even reporters who leave the Horn of Africa nation are fearful of talking about what happens there, according to Reporters Without Borders.
The group rated Eritrea as the world's worst place to be a journalist in its annual report on press freedom, issued Tuesday.
"Nobody knows about that country, because you can't report on what's going on there," said Clothilde Le Coz, the Washington director of Reporters Without Borders. Eritrean journalists who travel abroad won't talk, she said, because "they really fear for their lives."
The group's report offered a mixed view of how much freedom journalists had in 175 nations from September 1, 2008, through August 31, 2009, based on a 40-question survey completed by hundreds of media figures around the world.
It showed the Baltic Sea region as the best place for media freedom, with five of the top six nations on the list - Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Sweden - located there.
Conversely, Eritrea was rated the worst - No. 175 - slightly behind North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Burma and Cuba.
The United States was rated No. 20, an improvement of 20 places over the previous year, with the report citing "Barack Obama's election as president and the fact that he has a less hawkish approach than his predecessor."
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Why Don't We All Drive on the Same Side of the Road?
John Lamb / Photographer's Choice / Getty
Times of London, "Cars are going to crash, people are going to die, not to mention the huge expense to our small country."
(Read "Zero-Emission Cars: A Battle Among Technologies.")
It remains a curiosity and a bit of a historical mystery why the world is divided over something as basic as which side of the road to drive on. The fact that most people are right-handed has a lot to do with it; that's why, for much of history, travelers have stuck to the left. Ancient Romans using chariots are believed to have held the reins with their right hands and a whip with their left; to avoid whipping oncoming drivers, they favored the left-hand side of the road (called "left-hand traffic"). It's also easier for right-handers to mount a horse from the left, so riders gravitated to that side to avoid oncoming traffic as they climbed on and off. Finally, knights and other armed travelers favored the left so they could do battle, if necessary, with their good hand.
(Read the 1962 TIME article "Western Samoa: Coming of Age.")
So why does most of the world travel on the right side today? Theories differ, but there's no doubt Napoleon was a major influence. The French have used the right since at least the late 18th century (there's evidence of a Parisian "keep-right" law dating to 1794). Some say that before the French Revolution, aristocrats drove their carriages on the left, forcing the peasantry to the right. Amid the upheaval, fearful aristocrats sought to blend in with the proletariat by traveling on the right as well. Regardless of the origin, Napoleon brought right-hand traffic to the nations he conquered, including Russia, Switzerland and Germany. Hitler, in turn, ordered right-hand traffic in Czechoslovakia and Austria in the 1930s. Nations that escaped right-handed conquest, like Great Britain, preserved their left-handed tradition.
The U.S. has not always been a nation of right-hand drivers; earlier in its history, carriage and horse traffic traveled on the left, as it did in England. But by the late 1700s, the theory goes, teamsters driving large wagons pulled by several pairs of horses began prompting a shift to the right. A driver would sit on the rear left horse in order to wield his whip with his right hand; to see opposite traffic clearly, the teamsters traveled on the right.
One of the final moves to firmly standardize traffic directions in the U.S. occurred in the 20th century, when Henry Ford decided to mass-produce his cars with controls on the left (one reason, stated in a 1908 catalog: the convenience for passengers exiting directly onto the curb, "especially ... if there is a lady to be considered"). Once these norms were set, many countries eventually adjusted to conform to the right-hand standard, including Canada in the 1920s, Sweden in 1967 and Burma in 1970. The U.K. and former colonies such as Australia and India are among the Western world's few remaining holdouts. Several Asian nations, including Japan, use the left as well — a possible legacy of samurai warriors who wore their swords on their left and didn't want to bump anyone — though many places use both right-hand-drive and left-hand-drive cars.
Despite widespread opposition to the changeover in Samoa, the government insists it's prepared for the move. Officials have added road humps to slow traffic and, according to the Wall Street Journal, set up a training area near a sports stadium where people can practice driving on the flip side. Sept. 7 and 8 have been declared national holidays to help people ease into the new law. Leau Apisaloma, a village chief, told the Journal there's no cause for alarm: "In the beginning, it will be hard, but we'll learn — we're not stupid."
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Korean Border Reopens
Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press
South Korean soldiers passed cargo trucks lined up to enter North Korea at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, on Tuesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/world/asia/02korea.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=fb_nyt531&WT.mc_ev=click
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea restored regular border crossings for traffic going to South Korean factories in the North on Tuesday, while its leader, Kim Jong-il, reiterated his government’s call for a peace treaty with the United States.
North Korea had previously called for talks with Washington to replace the truce — which fell short of a formal treaty — that ended the Korean War in 1953.
“We can ease tensions and remove the danger of war on the peninsula when the United States abandons its hostile policy and signs a peace treaty with us,” Mr. Kim said in a commentary carried on Pyongyang Radio, which broadcasts North Korean government statements abroad.
The dispatch, which was released late Monday, did not say when Mr. Kim made the statement. But the remark was the latest in a number of recent conciliatory overtures from the North.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, North Korea restored regular traffic for South Korean companies that have operations in a joint industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong. The North had sharply curtailed such traffic in December.
The border will now open 23 times a day to traffic to and from Kaesong, up from 6 times, said Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman with the Unification Ministry in Seoul. About 110 South Korean factories employ 40,000 North Korean workers at Kaesong.
Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said Monday that Washington was “encouraged” by the North’s recent gestures toward the South, but he said he had no comment on the North’s call for a peace treaty.
Mr. Kelly urged North Korea to return to six-nation talks with regional powers about the dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs. The North, which prefers a bilateral dialogue with the United States, has said the six-party framework is dead.
Also on Tuesday, a diplomatic delegation left Pyongyang, the North’s capital, for a visit to Beijing, according to KCNA, the official North Korean news agency.
China is North Korea’s principal trading partner and its biggest supplier of aid.
Washington has said that negotiating a peace treaty with the North is possible only as part of a broader process that addresses the North’s nuclear disarmament. North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in May, and there is a growing suspicion among analysts in Seoul that the North is trying to win diplomatic recognition from Washington while also being accepted as a nuclear power.
The United States led the United Nations forces that fought on South Korea’s behalf during the Korean War and then signed the truce. North Korea has tried for years to drag American administrations into peace talks while arguing that it was building nuclear weapons because of Washington’s “hostile policies.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
US ranks 28th in Internet connection speed
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090825/tc_afp/ustelecombroadbanditinternet_20090825230334
WASHINGTON (AFP) -
The United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) -- four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps.
Japan trails South Korea with an average of 15.8 mbps followed by Sweden at 12.8 mbps and the Netherlands at 11.0 mbps, the report said.
It said tests conducted by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between 2008 and 2009 -- from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps.
"The US has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet," the report said. "Our nation continues to fall far behind other countries."
"People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed," the report said.
It said 18 percent of those who took a US speed test recorded download speeds that were slower than 768 kilobits per second, which does not even qualify as basic broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Sixty-four percent connected at up to 10 mbps, 19 percent connected at speeds greater than 10 mbps and two percent exceeded 25 mbps.
The United States was ranked 20th in broadband penetration in a survey of 58 countries released earlier this year by Boston-based Strategy Analytics.
South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, Denmark and Taiwan were the top five countries listed in terms of access to high-speed Internet.
US President Barack Obama has pledged to put broadband in every home and the FCC has embarked on an ambitious project to bring high-speed Internet access to every corner of the United States.
According to the CWA report, the fastest download speeds in the United States are in the northeastern parts of the country while the slowest are in states such as Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
WASHINGTON (AFP) -
The United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) -- four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps.
Japan trails South Korea with an average of 15.8 mbps followed by Sweden at 12.8 mbps and the Netherlands at 11.0 mbps, the report said.
It said tests conducted by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between 2008 and 2009 -- from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps.
"The US has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet," the report said. "Our nation continues to fall far behind other countries."
"People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed," the report said.
It said 18 percent of those who took a US speed test recorded download speeds that were slower than 768 kilobits per second, which does not even qualify as basic broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Sixty-four percent connected at up to 10 mbps, 19 percent connected at speeds greater than 10 mbps and two percent exceeded 25 mbps.
The United States was ranked 20th in broadband penetration in a survey of 58 countries released earlier this year by Boston-based Strategy Analytics.
South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, Denmark and Taiwan were the top five countries listed in terms of access to high-speed Internet.
US President Barack Obama has pledged to put broadband in every home and the FCC has embarked on an ambitious project to bring high-speed Internet access to every corner of the United States.
According to the CWA report, the fastest download speeds in the United States are in the northeastern parts of the country while the slowest are in states such as Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
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