Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 6, 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnipeg free press tuesday july 6, 2004 Freedom of Trade comment editor Terence Moore 697-7044 Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorials let couples decide t he popularity of common Law relationships is underscored by statistics Canada surveys which show an increasing number of couples in Canada choosing not to get officially married. In Manitoba those living common Law can Register themselves As a conjugal couple and thereby accept most if not All the benefits and responsibilities of those who marry. Why then would the provincial government in the ultimate act of a Nanny state Force upon couples living together for three years the equivalent status of marriage Bill 53, today known As the common Law part ners property and related amendments act was passed two years ago but came into effect june 30. The Bill arose As the Means to recognize the rights and obligations of heterosexual and homosexual com Mon Law couples. The debate preceding the Bill a drafting concerned giving equal Access to those rights to Gay couples previously shut out of Many Legal benefits and obligations of the married lot. Nowhere was there a Hue and cry from Manitoban who chose not to get married that their Basic rights were being trampled because they were not automatically deemed to have for exam ple an equal share of marital property upon the passage of a fixed number of years. Did anyone implore the government not to Force a married Sta Tus upon them did anyone imagine that such mis guided and intrusive protectionism would have been at the Root of the nip governments intent As of june 30, conjugal couples who have been Liv ing together for three years or longer or a year or less if the couple has a child Are legally obligated to Divide equally the property of that relationship ? the assets accumulated or appreciated in the time they have been living together ? including real property pensions and other possessions. If one of those partners Dies without a will the other inherits All the possessions. Common Law couples can opt out of these provisions by signing agreements much like prenuptial agreements. This negative option provision is not a simple act of signing a form but one in which couples Are More Likely to need the assistance of lawyers. The provincial Justice department did not adequately advertise or explain the consequences of a Law that slipped into obscurity before it was put into effect last week. Indeed this is a poorly constructed administrative Law that has no place in a society that assumes individuals have the natural Freedom and capacity to determine the details of their lives. The act should be overhauled to permit common Law couples opting in to the property rights and obligations of married couples. It can do that by requiring such couples to Register their Union with the vital statistics Branch. Africa could act the foreign ministers of the african Union showed a rare initiative on sunday. Meeting in Addis Ababa in Advance of the a Summit that opens today the organizations executive Council condemned presi Dent Robert Mugabe a government of Zimbabwe for the intimidation arrest and torture of opposition politicians and human rights activists suppression of Freedom of the press and Freedom of expression and widespread human rights violations. This was a Long overdue expression of concern on the part of Africa coming As it does years after the rest of International Community had recognized and deplored the increasingly despotic nature of or. Mugabe a regime. The leaders of the governments that form the african Union Are expected to endorse the executive a criticism of Zimbabwe. Having set this Prece Dent the a should not Stop there. This week serves As a grim reminder of one the cruellest fail ures of both Africa and the International Community particularly the United nations. Ten years ago the government of Rwanda was overthrown. It was the government that was responsible for the last great genocide of the 20th Century the Slaughter of Between 500,000 and one million Tutsi tribesmen by their traditional Hutu enemies. The West refused to acknowledge the genocide the in refused to act and most tellingly Africa turned a Blind Eye to the bloodshed on the grounds that the massacres were the internal affair of the rwandan nation. Today Africa is witnessing a new genocide in the Sudan or rather a continuing one As the killing there has been going on in one form or another for decades. The world has watched this with some con Cern although no one has taken serious action. Africa however has remained in an apparent state of oblivion to the carnage there. Last week both . Secretary of state Colin pow Ell and in Secretary general Kofi Annan visited the Sudan to witness personally the plight of the people of the Darfur Region where in a period of months tens of thousands of non Arab sudanese have been killed and More than a million driven from their Homes by sudanese soldiers and militias. The sudanese government has promised it would act to end the atrocities but the promises of Khar Toum Are empty words without someone to compel their enforcement. The in and the . Will not act in the Sudan. Africa could if it can this week continue to exercise the newfound courage and conviction it demonstrated in condemning Zimbabwe. Nato ? keep the myth alive Jackson Diehl a couple of years ago when the Bush administration a unilateralist were still Riding High a senior official at the Pentagon told me the mocking slogan for the trans Atlantic Alliance then circulating around his building went As follows nato ? keep the myth alive no doubt he never imagined that in the run up to the 2004 election his Boss would be trying to do just that ? Only without the sarcasm. I Don to know when in the history of the Alliance we be seen so Many successes a newly enthusiastic Donald Rumsfeld told the press travelling with him last week to the nato Summit in Istanbul. He and other . Officials extolled natos decision to help train iraqi Security forces and its commitment of More troops to Afghanistan. They echoed . President George w. Bush a claim that the feuding about Iraq that nearly destroyed the Alliance last year was Over. We got every thing we wanted one White House official said. Such rhetoric is a logical response to demo cratic senator John Kerry a tactic of making or. Bush a mismanagement of nato and its consequences in Iraq a Central part of his argument to voters. It is even partly True ? at least in the sense that the Bush administration is now eager to work with the allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in contrast to the stiff Arm rums Feld delivered to the europeans hoping to join the first offensive against the Taliban in the fall of 2001. The sad part is that behind All the spin the old Pentagon gibe is looking More and More Apt. Having expanded to include most of Cen trial Europe and resolved to address the threats of the 21st Century americas most important International partnership is on the Brink of a crippling failure one that would leave a pres ident Kerry As Well As a second term president Bush Little to work with. The threat lies not in Iraq but in Afghanistan which nato Long ago adopted As a major ongo ing Mission. Last year the allies resolved to expand a modest peacekeeping Force in Kabul to provincial centres around the country an operation critical to bolstering the authority of the weak pro Western government and Mak ing possible the National elections planned for this year. Yet after months and months of haggling european governments were Only barely Able to commit at Istanbul to staffing three new provincial centres each with a couple of Hun dred troops. The cup rattling forced on Secre tary general Jaap de hoop Scheffer was humiliating with 26 nations and five million men in arms to draw on or. Scheffer struggled to obtain just three helicopters for the afghan operation. A desperate Appeal for More help by afghan president Hamid Karzai to the Istanbul Summit essentially went unanswered. A Promise was made to Supply a couple of thousand More troops at the time of the elections but no one knows where they will come from. At Best nato will have 8,400 troops under its com Mand in Afghanistan by the fall or about a fifth of the number it dispatched to tiny Kosovo in 1999. The United states has some 14,000 troops in the country but none Are under natos com Mand. It now looks possible that the afghan elections will be postponed because of Lack of Secu Rity. If so nato will get much of the blame ? and the consequences for the alliances Cohe Sion May be dire. Afghanistan is the litmus test for natos new Mission says a european ambassador in Washington. If we fail in Afghanistan we might As Well fold up and go Home because no one will take us seriously after the mess Points to the realities behind the Happy talk from Istanbul. Though it now extols nato rhetorically the Pentagon a practical approach to it has to changed no american troops have been pledged to the nato afghan Mission. European governments doubt that or. Bush a conversion to multilateralism is real ? and consequently have Little appetite for an operation that appears thankless As Well As dangerous and expensive. Yet even if the europeans were More enthusiastic they might have Little to contribute. Germany the largest country in the european Union has 270,000 soldiers in its army ? yet its commanders maintain that no More than about 10,000 can be deployed at any one time. No matter the politics the German parliament is unlikely to authorize an increase in the cur rent ceiling of 2,300 troops for Afghanistan. And Germany is the largest contributor to the nato operation ? France which has never liked the idea of nato operations outside of Europe has Only 800 soldiers there. For now or. Bush a interest lies in glossing Over this trouble. Senator Kerry a pitch is that he can make it go away with a new Alliance centred foreign policy. Both Are in effect counting on the myths staying alive ? at least until november. ? the Washington Post on Emerald turf a game for the Ages Bob Herbert there was nearly a full Moon Over the stadium in the Bronx and at times it seemed As though the thunderous roars of the crowd were loud enough to be heard by fans who might have been watching from a Perch on the gleam ing lunar landscape. It was simply one of the most exciting base Ball games Ever played. The youngsters Lucky enough to have seen it on thursday night will be telling their grandchildren about it in the 2050s and 2060s. It was the Yankees is. The red sox the fiercest rivalry in the sport. The game went on for four hours and 20 minutes and seemed to capture in one glorious 13-inning Span All the reasons Why baseball was invented in the first place. By the end the players themselves seemed awed. Alex Rodriguez the Yankees third baseman and perhaps the Best player in baseball said afterwards that was the greatest game i be Ever watched played or been in the Ballpark it started ugly. Red sox Pitcher Pedro Martinez got upset with Yan Kee Batter Gary Sheffield in the first inning and hit him with a fastball. The Home plate Umpire issued warnings All around and matters cooled. The Yankees built a 3-0 Lead. The new York fans used to their team winning reached for the hot dogs the Beer the Cotton Candy what Ever. Some chatted on cellphones. Some taunted the opposition with signs that said ?1918,? which was the last time the red sox won the world series. The red sox came Back. Manny Ramirez the slugger who told sports illustrated i a blessed. I got a big contract. I got nothing to worry about hit a two run Homer in the sixth inning and the red sox scored again in the seventh to tie the game. Now it became a chess match on the Emerald turf As a series of Relief pitchers sent the game into extra innings. The tone changed. If any thing the desire of each team to win height ened. Most of the sellout throng of 55,000 stayed put. A Holiday weekend was coming and the fans sensed they were watching something special. The red sox loaded the bases in the top of the 11th, but the rally was foiled by a Slick Fielding double play that actually looked like a triple play. Another Roar Rose Over the Bronx. Still another red sox rally was foiled in the 12th inning when Yankee hero Derek Jeter saved the Day by racing full tilt after a Poten tial game winning pop Fly in Short left Field. He caught it but in the process he crashed into a Low Wall and was launched like a missile head first into the crowd. He emerged with his face bloodied bruised and already beginning to swell in spots. Jeters parents watched anxiously from the stands. The fans went crazy. An unheralded Yankee Miguel Cairo led off the Bottom of the 12th with a triple and the yanks seemed certain to win. All they had to do was move Cairo 90 feet to Home plate. They could to. Like a battered fighter refusing to go Down the red sox somehow stiffened their resistance. By then the players on both sides seemed to have entered a special zone that transcended the rivalry of the two teams. They were locked in an extended Competition played out at such a High level of skill and intensity that it conferred a kind of Grace on All who participated no matter who would end up losing. In the top of the 13th the red sox went ahead 4-3 on yet another Homer by Manny i a blessed Ramirez. The fans quieted and some began to comment that they had been privileged to see such an exhibition even if the yanks were vanquished by the hated red sox. There weren to a lot of bullets left in the Yan Kee guns in the Bottom of the 13th. Jeter was being driven to a Hospital. Joe Torre the Man Ager had used almost All his reserves. The red sox who had looked beaten at various Points were now about to shake hands with Victory. Jorge Posada led off and struck out. Tony Clark grounded out. But then Ruben Sierra singled. And the unheralded Miguel Cairo Down to his last strike launched a double to right Center Field that scored Sierra. John Flaherty followed with a hit to left that scored Cairo and suddenly incredibly the Yan Kees had won. The stadium crowd erupted and it seemed that even the Moon Over the Bronx Shook a Little in the excitement. For those who saw it the game was a thrilling if temporary respite from the stresses and anxieties of the so called real world. ? new York times Rudy Redekop president up Canadian newspapers limited partnership Murdoch Davis / publisher Nicholas Hirst / editor ;