Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 24, 2001, Winnipeg, Manitoba A18 finnic and 2001 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights War against women in most rape in times of War has been viewed simply As spoil or the bedfellow of the rules of War have tolerated this mis Conception too sexual enslavement and degradation Are often in fact a tool for military tacticians to dominate and even eliminate the and Are As old As War this week the International War tribunal on the Bosnia hostilities gave official recognition to sexual enslavement As a crime against it was a hard won Vic tory for human rights advocates and the victims and a first in the adjudication of War the Impact of the decision should not rest with the prison sentences handed to Dragoljub Radomir Lovac and Zoran human rights and Relief workers had a difficult time convincing bosnian victims to the women of the so called rape fac tories set up in school sports centres or cafes provocatively called nymphs hair chose Between death and becoming sex toys used for the soldiers pleasure and for the propagation of the enemy the victims who would Tell their Sto Ries were most often unmarried or wid to admit to defilement by a Man was to bring irreparable shame to the family and humiliation to the husband and so for Many it was Best to remain the crime the prosecution of the three serbs was Only the tip of the iceberg invading armies of All sides estimates of Vic Tims in Bosnia Range from to Only 19 men were charged before the War All of this Speaks not Only of the ways of but of the culture that permits crimes against humanity to be carried out around the in recent years the world has been called upon to give greater recognition to crimes against the human rights abuses targeted against women because of their this includes genital mutilation and the subjugation of females by societies in which they Are regarded As objects of prop women fleeing those perils should be admitted As refugees to Canada and other countries where they can be the United nations should protect women in its refugee Camps from sexual a woman such As 17yearold Bari a Ibrahim Magazu in Nigeria should enjoy Strong for want of world she was lashed 100 times for having premarital sex with three men associates of her father that is Magazu and others testified in the International spotlight on the crimes against women should not be allowed to fade but should Shine also on the enslavement of various kinds perpetrated every Day in Many parts of the the jailing of three War criminals at the Hague is a Small beginning on a huge keep testing mos a recent article in nature Magazine adds further fuel to the controversy Over genetically modified pm foods Are plants that have had foreign genetic material inserted in them to make them More resistant to for or less vulnerable to they have become big business in the last few but they have also inspired great fear among some researchers and members of the two possible catastrophes Are most commonly raised by one is that they might Over the Long serious health problems for con Sumers the other is genetically modified crops May spread their foreign genes to natural crops with unknown the study published in nature by a team of researchers from the Imperial London helps to alleviate that latter the 10year study indicates that rather than being the pm crops Are in fact genetic weaklings that cannot compete with natural ones without constant human tending left to themselves in the wild they Are almost certain to the reason for this is nature so called Nat ural crop As they exist Are the product of centuries of Breeding by but Are still the result of natural seems reluctant to embrace genetic alterations unattended by pm crops Are a theory Worth some thought by scientists experimenting with genetic alteration of the idea that pm foods May be insidiously poisonous is perhaps More its Arpad was in Canada this month to defend his the which has received wide support among environmental although scientists remain far less Pusztai critics Point out that he has published very Little of the research he has done in this area his defenders counter that the biotech companies that produce pm plants publish very Little of theirs without More openness in both this controversy will there is no convincing evidence of the danger of pm foods and Canadian authorities have gone much further than the europeans in permit Ting their but while the debate so should the and if Canada is to be a Leader in the use of pm it should become a Leader in exploring the consequences As this its personal do you feel like you Are in a recession is your income or your company income falling As your costs Rise dont want to go out and buy that new car any More feeling just More glum about your future than you were a couple of months ago North american Stock markets Are telling us that we Are moving into a As the wag Stock markets have predicted seven out of the past five i remember gloomily predicting a recession in these pages As a result of the economic asian flu a couple of years no such thing Hap As the chairman of the fed eral Reserve has been quoted Over and Over again As Stock markets moved into a state of irrational exuberance and the Amer ican Economy advanced at a rate that was not a slowdown was but will the slow Down push the american economies into reverse if it what will it mean for us personally i am feeling Cost the first Winter Gas Bill hit my Kitchen table look ing More like a mortgage payment and that was before the february increases approved by the Public utilities the of reassessed my House to the value that equalled its actual Cost in so that put the taxes Gas for the car its a Small car has the Furnace needs repairing or replacing and the decrease in taxes instituted by Paul Martin in his min budget late last year Doest seem to have had much of i know that i am keeping quite a bit More of the Money i earn than i was this time last but those inflationary pressures from the City and Centra Gas Arent making me feel that Ive been looking at but the rebates and cheap financing that were making them look attractive Are not As prevalent As they in any i am nervous that the Economy could look Grimmer As the year so maybe it is a Grood idea not to Rush into a new commitment right come to think of perhaps the painting can wait and the fur Nace will Limp on with so no need to buy a new one just thank we got that computer Pur Chase out of the wont have to get another of those for a few likewise the did so i sound like a Middle class whatever your income you get the when i wrote about the fears connected with the asian flu none of it seemed this time around its its hard to find stuff that cheaper than it More difficult to justify that extra Manitoban were already being cautious last the growth in our retail sales at per cent was less than half the rate in Alberta and Only slightly More than half the rate in in retail sales Here went up an exuberant per the slowdown in retail sales is making itself Felt by a slowdown in by cutbacks in automobile production and slowing com Puter and communications think Nortel got caught by Surprise with the downturn in the but if it it had come to believe its own Public when you can see for yourself in your own spending and saving patterns that economic life is not what it you can be sure that change is really my gut tells me that it wont get that at least not in Are still Good signs in our diversified office space is going up near the the big complaint of Busi Nesses in Manitoba int rising costs or slowing its still a Lack of skilled in the Greenspan is ready to aggressively lower interest Canada will it will make the Middle class feel but the slowdown that is naturally occurring in the once rapidly expanding communications sector will not turn around what we have to Hope is that the mass psychology that causes recession int mass the Stock Market May have exhibited irrational exuberance but the technological gains that created it Are there Are More gains to particularly in productivity in Cana my bet is severe some digestion of the rapid change of the last few years and another orderly move learning to live with risk no Canadian has Ever won the Nobel prize for but before we get to there Are a couple of recent news reports that Are Worth Dis earlier this parents were advised that they should think twice before let Ting their children have cellular cel Lular it give off minus Cule doses of radiation and children have still developing As everyone the ear is the corridor to the and that racing Down the ear canal to the immature might Lead to cancer or Tumours or whatever or 60 years Down the there absolutely no evidence for it appears to be just that we All know that radiation is and someone thought that perhaps and it could happen and so the world should be Given something new to be afraid there Are Many sources of Radia Tion microwave ovens and watches with Luminous dials have been the sources of two previous radiation although no one is known Ever to have died from on the other the Earth itself gives off mild radiation and almost everyone who Ever lived on it has died or will so perhaps we should not Dis miss this warning about cellular phones out of despite the fact that no one can offer a Good reason to believe the second alarm sounded this week has to do with some of the aids that people use to help them quit we All know that tobacco is bad for the people who smoke it and that the pleasure that it gives Sublime tobacco which from East to cheers the tars labour or the turkmens rest must be balanced against the evil that it does tis a a a violent Purger of Devilish and damned the ruin and overthrow of body and that first quotation in Praise of tobacco of from the second is As Many readers May taken from a speech by mayor Glen Murray or councillor Mark who Are currently in the process of drafting a bylaw to drive the Demon from the decent streets of Winnipeg it is far too Elo quent for is Robert Best known As the author of the Anatomy of Melan and melancholy is what smokers who Hope to quit will be feeling following the announcement that such things As nicotine patches and nicotine which smokers use to help ease the pains of May be almost As bad for in the Long As the cigarettes there is no evidence for it appears to be just that we All know that nicotine is and someone thought that perhaps and pos it could happen and so smokers should be Given something new to be afraid in the event that this presently imagined danger turns out to be it gives some Comfort to smokers driven to quit by the puritanical tyranny of if their nicotine Patch makes them sick 20 years Down the they can try to sue the Given the rate of turnover at City Murray and Lubosch May still be people Are ringing the Tocsin for All kinds of things these risks real or there is an expectation that we should be Able to live in a risk free mad cow disease is no imaginary but the fact remains that in the years since it was first Only a few dozen people worldwide have died from on Csc television the other an activist demanded that a vaccine commonly used to protect children from serious be banned because it contains a Bovine by prod even though doctors and researchers say the risk from it is Only theoretical and that Chil Dren would die without the Why should we tolerate even a theoretical she and that sentiment echoes throughout society a society so enslaved to the concept of safety that it has forgotten that life itself is a safety is something we should All be concerned about we should do what we can to avoid real but we should at least accurately identify them before we raise the having said i must return to the problem of the Nobel prize and raise an alarm no As i has Ever won the literature although Sev eral have been mentioned Robertson Mordecai Rich Margaret there is a that the Nobel prize might be Given to i have never actually written any but i might some and if i there is a theoretical Chance i would win the this is a Prospect that will alarm Only read ers of this newspaper and the Canadian literary it and some thing should be done about Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 129 no 81 2001 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 it the Manitoba press Council Rudy publisher email Nicholas editor ;