<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/americas/editorials?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Renegade Flu Virus]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61588-2005Apr17.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61588-2005Apr17.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  MORE THAN three weeks have passed since a Canadian laboratory discovered that it unknowingly possessed a sample of a dangerous strain of flu virus, one that caused an epidemic in 1957. The lab informed the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which subsequently discovered that the Canadian lab was one of 6,000 labs around the world that had received the same strain of virus. Ironically, the virus had been sent out as part of a "quality assurance" testing exercise organized by the College of American Pathologists and other organizations. To maintain their accreditation, diagnostic labs have to periodically prove that they can identify particular viruses. Normally, the viruses used in these routine procedures are relatively benign, but in this case, Meridian Bioscience Inc., whose lab contracted to produce the testing panels, broke with accepted practice and sent out a virus against which very few people would have immunity if it escaped.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Big Sugar]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57782-2005Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57782-2005Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  LAST YEAR the Bush administration negotiated a free-trade agreement with the five Central American nations and the Dominican Republic. It has yet to submit the deal to Congress because trade politics has grown so poisonous. Even though the Central America deal, known by its acronym, CAFTA, would help a struggling region on the doorstep of the United States, and even though it would modestly boost U.S. prosperity, a coalition of special interests has seized Congress by the throat. The most aggressive and least deserving of these is the sugar lobby.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Decision on Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28426-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28426-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  FIVE YEARS AFTER Mexico established itself as an electoral democracy, its   Congress faces a decision that could undermine that hard-won progress and invite political turmoil. As soon as  tomorrow, the Chamber of Deputies will vote on whether to lift the legal immunity of Mexico City's mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leftist who currently leads the polls for next year's presidential election. If the measure passes, prosecutors plan to criminally charge Mr. Lopez Obrador with contempt of court in a municipal land dispute, a step that could block his presidential candidacy. The short-term winners of this maneuver would be the presidential candidates from the party of the current president, Vicente Fox, and the largest opposition party, which between them control a majority in Congress. But Mr.  Lopez Obrador's disqualification would be a disaster for Mexico's political system, and perhaps for its long-term stability.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Case for Truth]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17612-2005Feb11.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17612-2005Feb11.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   WHEN MAHER ARAR filed a lawsuit last year over the government's sending him to Syria against his will, the case seemed like an opportunity to clear the air over one of the stranger episodes in the war on terrorism. Mr. Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York while traveling between Tunisia and Canada in the fall of 2002. Unbeknownst to him, his name had been placed on a terrorist watch list, and when his flight path took him to New York, authorities detained him as a suspected al Qaeda operative. He was held for several days, and then, despite his pleas to be sent to Canada, he was packed off to Syria, where he was held for 10 months and, he alleges, savagely tortured. The government denies any wrongdoing. But unfortunately, the Bush administration is not going to use the lawsuit to make clear what happened. In fact, it has decided not to say anything. In a recent court filing, the government asserted what is called the state secrets privilege to avoid releasing any information about the circumstances of Mr. Arar's detention and removal to Syria. And because it refuses to release any information, the Justice Department argues, Mr. Arar will not be able to prove his case, which should therefore be largely dismissed.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Drug Trade]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5298-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5298-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   JUST BEFORE Christmas, the Bush administration released a report on drug reimportation, concluding that it would be a bad idea to legalize the growing trade in prescription drugs between the United States and Canada. Perhaps not coincidentally, a few days ago -- after President Bush's visit to Ottawa -- the Canadian health minister announced his intention to impose greater restrictions on Canadian mail-order pharmacies that export drugs to the United States. How strange, now, to think back on Mr. Bush's  rhetoric before the election. "It may very well be," he told the nation in the heat of the campaign, that "you'll hear me say, 'I think there's a safe way to do it.' " If he meant that when he said it, which seems unlikely, he certainly changed his mind quickly.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[It's Not Personal, It's Business]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57864-2005Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57864-2005Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The Post [editorial, Jan. 3] perpetuates the myth that business owners avoid Prince George's County because its population is mostly black, but business knows only one color: green. When an upscale business (or a business at any level, for that matter) develops a plan to expand its reach, affirmative action is seldom a motivator.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Deadly Management]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40041-2004Dec31.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40041-2004Dec31.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  YOU MIGHT NOT expect that people die as a result of bad database management. But then again, you probably haven't read the growing string of reports by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine on the incompatibilities between the fingerprint identification systems run by the FBI and by immigration authorities. These reports, the latest of which Mr. Fine released this week, have spurred significant improvements, but unfortunately, as the new one details, the problem persists. As long as it does, tragedies are waiting to happen.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Labor Day]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64586-2004Sep5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64586-2004Sep5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ONE DAY LAST winter, during morning rush hour, a cold front hit the city with unusual speed and intensity -- a high wind coming straight in from the north, temperatures dropping by the minute. People on the streets, not quite dressed for the weather, stepped up their pace, hurrying to get into the office and grab a cup of coffee. Fifty or sixty feet above them, meanwhile, a mostly unnoticed lesson was going on. Several window washers, at the end of long ropes on what looked like kids' swings, were swaying in the bitter wind, making their way slowly down the building. They might have been from Mexico or El Salvador -- some place where the wind doesn't barrel in from Canada and turn your wet hands to stone -- and yet they kept on working, story by story, along the building's face. They had a job to do.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Step Forward]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38124-2004Aug3.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38124-2004Aug3.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[GLOBAL TRADE talks have a rocky history. Riotous protests at the Seattle summit five years ago marked the birth of the anti-globalization movement, and although the special atmosphere after the terrorist attacks of 2001 made possible a successful meeting that year in Doha, Qatar, the 2003 summit in Cancun, Mexico, fell apart in acrimony. This record has raised questions about whether further global trade liberalization is possible. The new (and justified) assertiveness of developing-country negotiators, often advised by nongovernmental organizations impatient with compromise, has complicated the process of reaching consensus. And the entanglement of  trade with other emotionally charged issues -- labor rights, the environment -- has made the negotiators' job more difficult still.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Drug Dealing]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29171-2004Jul30.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29171-2004Jul30.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE MONTGOMERY County Council is well within its rights to debate, as it recently did, whether to begin purchasing prescription drugs from Canada. The county says it could save $6 million to $10 million every year by giving its employees and retirees the choice of filling their long-term prescriptions  through county-certified Canadian online pharmacies. Because prices in Canada are so much lower, the county could also eliminate co-payments for those who avail themselves of the service, saving millions for county residents as well. A similar program has recently been launched in Boston and a host of other cities and states. It's no surprise that the Montgomery council wants to try it too, and council members have made enormous, laudable efforts to find safe and legal ways to do so.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fresh Trade Politics]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48235-2004Jul13.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48235-2004Jul13.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   PRESIDENT BUSH signed an Africa trade bill yesterday, an achievement that raises broader questions about trade politics. Just a few weeks ago, Senate passage of the AGOA Acceleration Act of 2004 was deemed almost impossible amid the crush of business competing for floor time, but an imaginative coalition proved the impossible possible. The business lobby -- the standard source of advocacy for trade liberalization -- made common cause with surprising partners: religious groups such as Bread for the World, anti-poverty spokesmen such as the rock star Bono, and the Congressional Black Caucus. Thanks to this coalition, the Africa deal, which gives preferential access to the U.S. market, went through the Senate unopposed. And the administration, which had taken no great interest in the legislation until it passed, staged a showy signing ceremony.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Trade and Mr. Kerry]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59013-2004May26.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59013-2004May26.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[TOMORROW President Bush's trade representative, Robert B. Zoellick, will sign the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Relative to the grander parts of the administration's trade agenda, such as a Free Trade Area of the Americas or global trade liberalization, the Central American agreement is not a momentous breakthrough. But the five countries of the region nonetheless imported more U.S. products than Russia, India and Indonesia combined last year, and the trade deal means a lot to a struggling region that is close to the United States and the source of many migrants. When the Dominican Republic joins the deal, as it is expected to do shortly, the six-country bloc will represent the second-largest export market for the United States in Latin America, behind Mexico.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Attack of the Killer Fish]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48573-2004May22.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48573-2004May22.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THEY LOOK LIKE aliens from a science fiction movie. Their reputation -- a killer fish that breathes air -- is appealingly ghoulish. But the discovery of three northern snakeheads in the waters of the Potomac has implications far beyond the tabloid headlines they inspire. Jerry McKnight of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources puts it succinctly: "The northern snakehead is the nasty, slimy, toothy tip of the iceberg."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Importing the Expos]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5842-2004May5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5842-2004May5.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IT IS WITHIN Major League Baseball's power to end the sad, nomadic life of the Expos, give relief to the 20 major league clubs that now own and operate the Montreal team, and satisfy a market of 4.5 million residents by moving the Expos to this wealthy and baseball-starved area. The league's relocation committee will meet with D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams and other city leaders today to review the city's revised case for returning baseball to the nation's capital. The committee also reportedly has in hand a strengthened bid from a Northern Virginia group. A strong recommendation from the relocation committee at the owners' meeting scheduled for later this month in New York should, if a decision is made on the merits, place competing Washington-area contingents ahead of Portland, Ore.; Norfolk; Las Vegas; and Monterrey, Mexico.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Revolution From Below]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32083-2004Mar28.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32083-2004Mar28.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE BEAUTY OF federalism is that when national politicians fail to resolve a problem, local politicians get a chance. That is happening in phase two of the drug wars -- the battle to force down the price of some prescription drugs. Methods proposed in the first, national phase -- importing drugs from Canada or introducing federal purchasing for Medicare -- have been problematic, and they have not won approval from Congress. Now the battle has moved to the state and local level. In Wisconsin, government Web sites direct residents to Canadian drug exporters; in Maine, courts and legislators are arguing over a bill designed to force prices down.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dealing Drugs]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58869-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58869-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ONLY WEEKS AFTER congressional leaders  excised the issue from the Medicare bill, there is once again a clamor for legislation to permit Americans to buy lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada. The House of Representatives has already voted once to lift the current ban on drug imports -- or rather reimports, since many of the drugs concerned are made in the United States and then sold in Canada at prices negotiated by the state-run health care system there. Now AARP, the seniors organization, has sharpened its support for reimportation, presumably to better reflect the views of its members. Local governments, Montgomery County among them, are debating whether to buy drugs abroad for their employees. Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) have announced they'll change their votes and support reimportation the next time it comes up. Last week, two other senators, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), held up the nomination of Mark B. McClellan, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to head the federal Medicare program, demanding that he first explain why the FDA opposes reimportation.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Trade and the Campaign]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58870-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58870-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[GEORGE W. BUSH has a rubber spine on trade. He campaigned as a free-trader, and his administration launched a new round of multilateral trade talks, but he has caved in to steel protectionists and farm protectionists. It is therefore pleasantly surprising that, during a thinly disguised campaign stop in Ohio last week, Mr. Bush denounced "economic isolationism." Ohio is a swing state with 6 percent unemployment, higher than the national average: the sort of place where Mr. Bush might have been expected to echo the protectionist tone of the Democratic primary campaign.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Deadly Incompatibility]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39114-2004Mar7.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39114-2004Mar7.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IN 2000 THE JUSTICE Department's inspector general issued a report detailing the disturbing case of Rafael Resendez-Ramirez. Mr. Resendez-Ramirez had been arrested while crossing the Mexican border illegally, and the Border Patrol -- unaware that he was wanted for murder -- had returned him to Mexico. He subsequently sneaked over again and killed several more people before being caught. A large part of the problem, the report concluded, was that the fingerprint database of the Immigration and Naturalization Service was not fully linked to the FBI's, so when the Border Patrol checked the prints of Mr. Resendez-Ramirez, the system didn't flag him as a wanted man.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[All Jobs Count]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28713-2004Mar3.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28713-2004Mar3.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[NOBODY CAN SAY for sure how many U.S. jobs will be "offshored" to places such as India, but the best estimates are around 3.5 million between now and 2015. If that number sounds scary, try this one: The total number of U.S. jobs destroyed over the same period is likely to be well over 300 million. Capitalism eliminates jobs constantly, but except during recessions it creates new ones even more quickly: In 1999 alone, 33 million jobs were destroyed and 36 million created.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Free for All]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12591-2004Feb27.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12591-2004Feb27.html?nav=rss_world/americas/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:13:57 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Mushy Thinking on Nushu<br>Thank you for the interesting article about nushu, a language used by Chinese women [front page, Feb. 24]. But because nushu has been used since about the third century, it seems strange for your writer to have written that it was "discovered" in 1982 when Zhou...]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>