Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 25, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A14 Winniw Fri May 2000 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights lebanese Gamble i Fri he Nightmare is Over that was the cry i shouted again and again by prisoners a released from South Lebanon infamous Khiam jail this the doors to the which has been called Lebanon were thrown open As the israeli army fled leaving its the South Lebanon to surrender or die at the hands of the victorious Hezbollah nothing in israels 22year involvement in Lebanon was As unbecoming As its the occupation of South Lebanon was paid for by the israeli army with a Small but steady Stream of casualties and a huge and constant military it was to staunch the flow of either lives or Money in Lebanon that israeli prime min ister Ehud Barak made the decision to with draw it was a Gamble in the peace talks with it is too Early to know whether that Gamble will pay but the Early indications raise the Odds against israeli the withdrawal from Lebanon took place earlier than planned and in a More disorderly and undignified fashion than Israel might have Israel also left under attack by the islamic Funda mentalists of abandoning its longtime allies in the South Lebanon army to their Hezbollah wasted no time in filling the resulting vacuum they Are now on the israeli making Israel More vulnerable to terrorist attack than it has been for three what happens in South Lebanon now May deter mine whether there will be peace in the Middle or a continuing War of attrition As Israel and the terrorists take turns bombing each there could even be a full scale Only Syria can answer those Syria rules Lebanon through a puppet government Syria can control the activities of Hezbollah in Lebanon Syria can bring to the bargaining table what Israel most wants and is willing to pay for peace and peace with Israel can bring Syria what it most needs a ticket Back into the International com an end to its isolation and Access to Aid from the United states and other Western Syria was affected by the end of the cold War More than any other Middle Eastern abandoned by his soviet syrian dictator Hafez Assad could find no friends Syria has and a pariah has opened the door for the israeli withdrawal from Lebanon gives him the Opportunity to prove his Good the vacuum in South Lebanon can be filled in one of two Assad can rein in Hezbollah and allow the lebanese government to assert its author Ity Over the Region without threat to that would go a Long Way toward realizing the dream of or it can turn Hezbollah Loose to rain terror Down on Northern in that the True Nightmare will have Only just its no secret culture minister Diane Mcgifford could Proba Bly work on her she announced that the nip government intends to review the Freedom of information and Protection of privacy act just As labour minister Becky Barrett was being admonished by ombudsman Barry Tuckett for stonewalling a free press request for information under the the As they were not nor were they made better when is Mcgifford let it be known that she is concerned about the time civil servants spend filling Nippa As if their inconvenience was of greater import than the implications were that new who decried stonewalling in oppose were hypocritically practising it in govern and what is they intended to tighten the screws that May be what comes out of the but for now there is no reason to expect that is Mcgifford is doing anything More than her party promised to do in which is to review the legislation in is in seems to want to improve the she is open to the idea of establishing a Pri Vacy commissioner with Powers to compel bureaucrats to release something Tuckett cannot now As his vain admonitions of is bar Retts department she also is open to the idea of legislated Protection for whistle blow ers civil servants who in Good conscience feel professionally obliged to make Public information that their political masters want covered the real test of her will lie in the manner with which she addresses the Issue of fulfilling Nippa requests can be time this week her staff reported spending hours on one but could Bill an hour for Only hours spent searching and preparing the Docu the minister says she is concerned that Access requests Are keeping staff from other the should not be fret Ting about the time she should be asking whether the rules for vetting information for release Are takes a lot of time and Energy to keep a is Mcgifford should be finding ways to reduce that time by relaxing rules that require excessive More than will test the extent of her belief that the Public has a right to t spreading the myths Long before i was even old enough to i knew the grandmother of All Urban legends a Babysitter gets threatening phone Calls All repeatedly asking if Shes checked the she Calls the who Call the Babysitter Back to inform her Treyve traced the and there coming this tale was believed to be completely especially by teenage girls who after there was a movie made in 1979 followed by a to remake about the Inci the idea of a murdering stranger calling from inside the House Doest ring so True what with Call Dis play and in not sure you can even dial your own number from an Extension As you once but if technological advances have killed one Urban Treyve allowed Many More to flour ish and spread More quickly than Ever consider the Power and Speed of the and the ease with which images and text can be shared with the for several an Anonymous email Mes Sage has been warning that antiperspirants can cause breast it claims that toxins from the product collect in the Lymph and can Lead to cell mutations and a Canadian press Story yesterday reported that this email has been so the Canadian cancer society and its counterpart have taken the unusual step of posting a rebuttal to the email on their own web the Canadian statement says no epidemiology study has Ever found antiperspirants to be a risk Factor for developing breast and encourages women to have an annual beginning at age to give themselves the Best Chance to detect email account Holder or has come across an Urban they Are almost always change As they Are and often have a above they usually make for Good storytelling which is Why the debunking Seldom gets As much attention As the they have hoax written All Over a year or so this newspaper received a couple of dozen email messages from read ers expressing outrage about a proposed Bill that would see Canada Post receive a five cent tax for each e mail message sent in Cana they forwarded a protesting form letter ostensibly written by a crusading Toronto lawyer that was Mak ing the email rounds across the it was dismiss Able after a few Quick there was no such lawyer or Law the member of parliament who was to have pro posed the Pri vate members Bill Doest and the fictitious Bill number 602 p want even in a valid a Call to Canada Post confirmed it was a the Canadian references were later changed to american and the same Story spread through the the postal ser no stranger to bad had to Issue a press release last insisting the Rumour want True and the service support that kind of legislation people who and bits of folklore often swear that it happened to a Friend of a Friend of a maybe youve heard about the Omi Nous lips ticked message on a bathroom Mirror after a on night stand Welcome to the world of then there is the one about the Guy who meets an attractive woman who drugs him and surgically steals one of his he awakes in a Bathtub full of the Telephone at his if you want to a note by the phone Call and dont get out of the some of them sound so or that you figure they must be other like the ones involving missing Are so painfully possible that its meaner than mean to spread warnings about household products Caus ing harm Urban legend devotees Call them scare lore Are a dime a Well meaning friends and relatives May Forward these emails to you with the Send this to everyone you know in the much like the one about if enough people know your email address or you wander through enough Chat you May read that Waterproof sunscreen can cause Blind Ness and that furniture upholstery cleaner will kill your stories about gang initiation rites have hoodlums slashing or slipping into the backseat of cars to kill beware of deadly toilet cyanide on atm banking envelopes and i tainted Needles in movie the atre Urban myths have a certain ghoulish there a bit like ghost Creepy and Best told in breathless to appreciate them As a cultural a great amount of scepticism is As Well As a leap of it could Hap its Why the Blair Witch project a ghost Story about an Urban became such a theres also a moral undertone to some of these so she hitchhiked he engaged in casual sex that explains the brutal but if the internet has allowed for the mass mailing and rapid spread of it has also provided a place for relatively easy debunking or con there Are newsgroups devoted to Urban where members Trade stories and collect versions of tall As Well As shoot them ditto for web Sites on the in its notice Dis Pelling the antiperspirant the cancer society offered another caveat be cautious of any medical information or claims obtained from the unmonitored in journalism there is a similar if your Mother tells you she loves Check it Linda Rosbor Ough is a free press editorial her col in troops arrive ill prepared Bythal Deen urn appears on thurs Winnipeg free press press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 128 n0163 2000 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member w the Manitoba press Council United nations the continuing crisis in Sierra Leone has brought into focus the question of whether in troops Are adequately trained and equipped to conduct often dangerous peacekeeping we have never assumed responsibility for training peacekeeping in spokesman Fred Eckhard a knowl we expect the contributing governments to do according to in Secretary general Kofi the Best peacekeeper is a Well trained we would like to see some of the governments with Capac with Good armies and Well trained to he recently told he these countries Are not running Forward to contribute to this so we have to take the forces we he As of april the 10 largest troop contributors to Allun peacekeeping operations were Poland and the earlier this Annan appealed to the United states and France for a rapid reaction Force to move into Sierra Leone and boost the embattled in peacekeepers All three coun tries rejected his the United nations has developed training manuals for soldiers serving in peacekeeping but these Basic instructions were not enough to help the in troops in Sierra Leone mostly from Jordan and India who were quickly Over whelmed by rebel major political crisis the belonging to the Strong revolutionary United front led by foday succeeded in abduct ing and detaining about 500 in troops and causing a major political crisis for the world at the last the in peacekeeping Force in Sierra Leone had a total strength of the abductions not Only humiliated the United nations but also threatened All future peacekeeping operations since member states May now be deterred from providing the in Force deployed in Sierra Leone was equipped mostly with Light arms and armoured personnel most of these along with the troops communications have now fallen into the hands of the one news report told of a Lone teenage rebel hijacking an armoured personnel Carrier without a of the 16 armoured personnel carriers deployed with the zambian at least 13 have been lost to where it once seemed As if its peace keeping missions would soon be wind ing the United nations has now created Large missions in Sierra Leone and East and they have now authorized a Large one for the democratic Republic of the Eckhard so even As the uns budget declines and Western nations Are increasingly disinclined to contribute their the tasks of peacekeepers continue to Thal Tudeen writes for the rom based inter press Rudy email Patrick Flynn Deputy editor ;