World of Opinion
On food poisonings: The mystery continues regarding the spate of food poisonings caused by frozen gyoza dumplings produced in China that were contaminated with pesticide.
The facts now emerging are merely adding to the questions that remain unanswered.
Last week it was reported that 10 people from three families in Chiba and Hyogo prefectures were diagnosed with food poisoning after they ate frozen gyoza produced at a factory owned by Tianyang Food in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province.
Police and the product’s importers are investigating. Traces of the pesticide were found inside the packages of the gyoza the victims ate.
A Chinese team of food safety experts has arrived in Japan, and they will work together with Japanese experts to solve this mystery.
They will compare notes to bring the case to a swift resolution.
Until the cause of the food poisonings is made clear, appropriate measures cannot be taken. The distrust by Japanese consumers of Chinese food imports will further spread, while Chinese people will take umbrage against Japan because they believe that Japan is falsely accusing China of wrongdoing.
This situation, if mishandled, could seriously injure the bilateral relationship between Japan and China.
The experts from both countries must do as they have promised and settle the case as soon as possible. They must establish a firm framework for cooperation, and both sides must be fully prepared to disclose and share all information, including anything that might incriminate parties on either side.
On external reserves and economic management:
Ordinarily, keeping external reserves by any nation is a normal part of economic management. Properly utilised it is supposed to shore up the economy, rekindle confidence of the international economic community and creditors in the nations business transactions, and under a good monetary regime, it helps solidify the value of the nations currency.
However, in the last five years, Nigeria’s keeping of external reserve, instead of generating debates on level to keep it, has been more a subject of controversy, rebuke and resentments both from the well-informed and the uninformed who are peeved by the stark reality of Nigerian economy vis-a-vis its externalities.
Leading the debate as to its uses and abuses is the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, who had expressed reservation at non-utilisation of the nation’s huge foreign reserves for the common good.
He had cautioned the federal Government against maintaining external reserves when there are no functional hospitals, good roads and universities in the country.
He said if care was not taken, the reserve could be spent on hiring expatriates knowledge if the nation fails to plough it back into its educational system.
We can not agree more with the governor’s position. This is one position we have consistently maintained in the last five-years.
The nation wants to be one of best 20 economies by year 2020, yet it is not investing in its infrastructure such as roads, electricity, water supply, and crime fighting and knowledge industry, yet it is keeping money that its citizens may be unable to use judiciously in future when they are not adequately catered for or prepared for that future.
The American Government is intervening to prevent the collapse of Mortgage Industry by helping out the most affected Americans.
So why continue to keep billions abroad when the Nigerian people are suffering and the economy is not making progress?
We urge the Yar’Adua Government to think and think again before the social conditions become too dangerous to sustain our democracy.
On Google and Microsoft:
It is tempting, when looking at the battle between Google and Microsoft over the latter’s proposed purchase of Yahoo!, to wish that there was some way that they could both lose.
It is a little rich to hear Microsoft protesting the virtues of its capture of the second most important search engine on the grounds of competition.
Indeed, such is the degree of blurring brought about by the World Wide Web that Google, rather than any other technology company, has emerged as Microsoft’s most potent rival and threat.
Software that is arguably better than Microsoft’s and can be distributed easily and cheaply via the internet is the single biggest threat to Microsoft’s future, and much of the developing rivalry to Microsoft’s products may well emanate from Google or its allies.
So what is the Google case? That “the openness of the Internet is what made Google and Yahoo! possible. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the internet: openness and innovation.”
Despite the questionable commercial motivations underlying Microsoft’s move, some form of competitor to the ubiquitous Google might be a good thing for web users.
Oddly, Microsoft’s holding in Apple helped that once arch-rival survive and move into more promising businesses such as the iPod. Yahoo!’s future is a tricky question that may end up being resolved by lawyers.
Just don’t expect to find the answer by Googling it.
On the border with Egypt:
A woman was killed and 40 others wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself yesterday in Dimona. A second suicide bomber, stunned by the first blast, was killed by an alert police officer before he could explode himself, saving many lives.
On Saturday, two brothers from Gaza wearing explosive belts were caught in the Sinai by Egyptian security forces. A day earlier, Egypt arrested 15 Palestinian terrorists, 12 of whom were members of Hamas. Last week, Egypt arrested another five Palestinians carrying explosive belts.
These arrests, however welcome and necessary, are not near enough. Whichever route yesterday’s bombers took, the wide-open border between Israel and Egypt is “a disaster waiting to happen,” as this newspaper editorialized just one week ago. To their credit, at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, before yesterday’s attack, ministers Ehud Barak, Haim Ramon, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer all called to build a new security fence along the border with Egypt.
Promises are cheap and have been repeatedly broken. A plan and the rhetorical support of ministers are worth nothing without a commitment to find the budget to fund this project. If Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert truly support Hourglass, they need to find the money to fund it now, before the current promises disperse with the wind like all the others.