LONDON
In the last few weeks, Europe’s fabled shift toward the right has gained new momentum. Not surprisingly, news commentators tend to see this phenomenon in political terms. In fact, there’s a disturbing moral issue at stake here as well. Here’s why.

Last month, France was dumbfounded when the presidential candidate of the ultra-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, drew so many votes in the pre-election runoff that he, rather than the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, ended up on the final ballot. Mr. Le Pen was roundly quashed in the final election by President Jacques Chirac, but only after causing the typically introspective French to plunge even deeper into national soul searching about why Le Pen was so popular. The principal reason: In a country flooded with immigrants, Le Pen played the anti-immigration card very skillfully.

Hardly had that election ended when Dutch voters were shocked by the assassination of their rightist candidate, Pim Fortuyn — the first political murder in their peaceable country since the seventeenth century. Though campaigning was halted, the election went forward, sweeping right-of-center parties into power and pushing Mr. Fortuyn’s new party up into second place. His central theme: It’s time to end immigration, especially among Muslims.

Europe’s rightward lurch, however, didn’t begin with Le Pen and Fortuyn. In Austria, the xenophobic Jörg Haider took 27 percent of the vote in the last general election, while in Italy the right-wing Silvio Berlusconi, a media mogul, is now prime minister.

If this rightward shift were rooted in sound economic argument, it would have fewer moral overtones. But Europe isn’t debating the virtues of individual economic initiative (classic conservatism) as opposed to a state-sponsored redistribution of wealth (classic liberalism). This new trend is, quite simply, a lurch toward racism, aimed at the immigrants who are daily making Europe more multicultural. Europe is generally feeling discomfort about immigrants — and making immigrants feel uncomfortable.

At its most virulent, under Le Pen’s banner, this new bluntness about immigrants seems to have been seethed in the same nationalistic pot as the rancor of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s deposed tyrant. Whatever the form, it comes down to a dislike of “them” because they’re not like “us.”

That’s often difficult for Americans to see. Everyone in the United States, except its Native American population, is descended from “them.” What’s in danger of decaying across Europe is a core moral value — respect for others — that appears to show up in every culture around the world. At its most basic level, respect is fundamentally moral — so much so that those who behave without it, even though they reflect such other core values as responsibility or honesty, are deservedly described as “unethical.”

This sense of respect is one of the principal measures of a society’s moral health. The measure of greatness of any culture is not how well it treats “us” but what it does with “them.” The moral progress of a nation, in fact, can be charted by measuring the expansiveness of its moral boundaries. Even America, a nation of immigrants, had to fight its own civil war over the boundary that kept African Americans outside the circle of moral concern. It then had to fight another sort of battle to stretch the boundary to include women. And it’s still battling over a literal boundary with Mexico, and the extent to which it will grant full moral respect to those of Latin American descent.

This latter set of issues — those raised by immigration — probably constitutes the most pressing moral-boundary question of our time. In a globalizing age, that’s not surprising. The speed of market transactions accelerates the pace at which rich nations get richer. The media makes plain to poor nations the disparity between themselves and their wealthy neighbors. And global transportation makes it possible and affordable for citizens of poorer nations who have any get-up-and-go to get up and go elsewhere. Naturally, they head for the more prosperous nations, including Europe and America.

This rightward drift, then, may be no mere blip. It appears set to be a long-term trend, and one that will get more intense. Politics can help. So can stronger, fairer immigration laws, potent anti-crime efforts, and strict enforcement. But at bottom the issue is a moral one. Just what do we think of others? How large is our moral boundary? Can we really express a sense of respect to those unlike us? Can we build a nation whose moral boundaries are so large that no one is left out?

We can address these questions morally and ethically. Or we can watch as they are addressed xenophobically and frenetically by the Le Pens of this world. The choice is ours.

(c)2002 by the Institute for Global Ethics

“For over 40 years, our policy toward Cuba has yielded no results. Castro hasn’t held free and fair elections, he hasn’t improved human rights, and he hasn’t stopped preaching his hate for democracy and the United States. I think it’s safe to say that our current policy has failed. It’s time to try something new.”

WASHINGTON
The White House last week denied any responsibility for a fundraising pitch that used a September 11 photograph of President Bush to woo donors to a June dinner benefiting the Republican Party.

The picture, taken by a White House photographer, shows Bush on the phone with Vice President Cheney while flying around the country on Air Force One hours after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The image was one of a three-photo portfolio depicting the “defining moments” of Bush’s first year in office, and was offered to donors willing to pay a minimum of $150 to attend a fund-raiser next month.

Although some, including Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (Miss.), praised the image as a worthy collectible, politicians from both lead parties criticized its use as insensitive and opportunistic.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) wrote a letter to Bush requesting that he withdraw his support for the project, saying “the memories of those who lost their lives on September 11 should not be sold to the highest bidder.”

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded by trying to distance Bush from the fracas, asserting that “nobody in the White House knew that those specific pictures were going to be used.”

But Fleischer also described Democratic criticism as little more than sour grapes. “The Democrats are having a very difficult time coming to grips with the fact that this is a very popular president,” he said.

Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Politics, said the dispute was a disturbing sign of partisan politics as usual, according to the New York Times.

“The president called for the nation to rise above politics after September 11, and then we find the Republican Party selling a picture from September 11 to $150 donors,” Noble told the Times. “It strikes a lot of people as in bad taste, and is just at odds with two claims of the Bush administration: that they were going to change the tone of fund-raising, and that September 11 wasn’t about politics.”

NEW YORK
The family of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl last week condemned CBS News for its decision to air a portion of the video showing Pearl’s torture and murder, saying the network’s action was “heartless.”

CBS rejected requests by Pearl’s family and widow, as well as a request from the Bush administration, to refrain from showing the video, the Associated Press reported.

“CBS Evening News” executive producer Jim Murphy defended the network’s decision to air the video, saying it was important to show the U.S. public how Arab extremists were using the video to recruit extremists in a war on America.

“The government called to tell us that what we were doing was helping to spread the terrorists’ word and I don’t think that’s the case,” Murphy said. “The word is already being spread. I don’t think it’s wrong to inform the American people about it.”

Pearl’s family and widow, Mariane, rejected Murphy’s argument as a rationalization for the network’s “heartless decision.”

“It is beyond our comprehension that any mother, wife, father, or sister should have to relive this horrific tragedy and watch their loved one being repeatedly terrorized,” the family said in a statement.

“Terrorists have made this video confident that the American media would broadcast it and thereby serve their exact purpose,” which is what CBS has done, they added.

Other U.S. news networks say they have received copies of the videotape, too, but have decided so far to refrain from showing it, according to the BBC.

Pearl was abducted in January while investigating a story about Islamic extremists in Pakistan. In February, his death was confirmed via a video delivered to U.S. officials. Last week, authorities were given the location of a shallow grave where remains believed to be Pearl’s were recovered.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands
The Washington Post last week moved to block the subpoena of one of the paper’s former reporters who has been asked to testify in a war-crimes trial at The Hague, arguing that forcing reporters to testify in such cases could endanger their lives.

The growing debate over forcing reporters to collaborate with war-crimes courts centers on former Post reporter Jonathan Randal, who interviewed Serbian military leader Radoslav Brdjanin for a 1993 article.

Randal’s piece profiled Brdjanin and another Serb who reportedly made comments supporting the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats. Both men are now on trial at The Hague for genocide and other war crimes.

Defense lawyer John Ackerman says Randal’s article conflicts with the report of another journalist present at the same interview, and obtained a subpoena to force Randal’s testimony, reported the New York Times.

Last week, the Washington Post appealed that decision, saying that if journalists are forced to testify in war crimes cases, their safety will be jeopardized and their job made harder, argued Geoffrey Robertson, lead counsel for the Post.

“Coerced testimony of reporters impairs the news gathering function which is so important to democracy,” Robertson said. “These concerns are particularly appropriate in the context of war zone reporting. War correspondents who take the witness stand risk being perceived by potential sources as an investigative arm of a judicial system, government, or private parties.”

Robertson noted that earlier cases have found lawyers, court employees, and Red Cross workers to be exempt from testifying, according to the Times.

“We say there is another category that should be entitled to exemption from testifying, namely journalists,” Robertson said, warning that the Randal case could set a precedent for the new International Criminal Court, whose mandate begins in July.

“The watchdog role of the journalist must be particularly protected,” Robertson said.

SAN FRANCISCO
Reacting to investor outrage, online brokerage E*Trade last week said CEO Christos Cotsakos would return $21 million in pay and benefits from his recently unveiled new two-year contract.

The backpedaling comes only ten days after E*Trade had announced Cotsakos’s new pay package, which totaled roughly $80 million, even as the company posted a loss of $241.5 million for the past year.

In the first three months of this year, E*Trade has lost $276 million, according to the Associated Press.

The stark disparity between company profits and Cotsakos’s pay has sparked a firestorm of criticism from E*Trade shareholders like Thomas Barry, who sued the company in February for “breach of fiduciary duties, waste of corporate assets, abuse of control, and gross mismanagement,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

One of E*Trade’s largest shareholders, Thornburg Investment Management, said it shares in such discontent. “When you create an image of wasteful spending and self-aggrandizing, you carry a big sign that says your corporate culture is centered on individuals and not shareholders,” portfolio manager Bill Fries told the Journal.

Since going public in 1996, E*Trade has come under increasing fire for lavishing pay and perks on its executives, while withholding details of such deals from shareholders, noted the Journal.

Last week, Cotsakos, who is widely credited with propelling E*Trade to superpower status, said he would eliminate his base salary and return $6 million from his retirement plan to try and appease shareholders.

“I have listened to shareowner concerns and want to dispel any doubt that my commitment to the success of this company is unwavering,” Cotsakos said. “I am eager to eliminate the distraction of the compensation discussion so that we can focus on the business.”

Judith Fischer, managing director of Executive Compensation Advisory Services, told the Associated Press that such a move should have been avoided altogether.

“There were some very egregious parts of the arrangement [with Cotsakos] that obviously had to be addressed,” Fischer told the Associated Press. “But E*Trade should have figured that out before they went public with the details last week.”

Next week, shareholders will decide if Cotsakos’s recent atonement is right on the money or too little too late, voting at their annual meeting on his reinstatement as chairman on the board.

NEW YORK
U.S. companies are filing financial corrections at a record pace following several recent high-profile corporate conflagrations sparked by improper accounting practices and basic mistakes, according to a New York University study and an analysis from Bloomberg news.

Last year’s Enron meltdown, in which the company lost 97 percent of its value in three weeks following a restatement of $586 million, put the spotlight on the practice of corporate financial revisions.

Since then, other large firms — Kroger, Restoration Hardware, and Xerox among them — have followed suit, admitting that previous years’ revenue figures were overblown.

“The public’s sensitivity to the risks from financial reporting failures has become extraordinarily heightened,” Stephen Cutler, enforcement director at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told Bloomberg. “Each day seems to bring a new restatement, revelation, or allegation that calls into doubt the accuracy or completeness of another company’s financial statements.”

The trend, disturbing to investors and deadly to share prices, is not a new one, though, according to the Bloomberg report, which notes that 940 restatements have been made since 1997.

The SEC is currently investigating 49 firms for improper financial reporting.

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut
Renegade financier Martin Frankel, who siphoned roughly $215 million out of insurance companies in five states before fleeing the country, pleaded guilty last week to 24 counts of conspiracy, racketeering, and fraud.

Frankel, who was barred from securities trading in 1992, is accused of setting up a trust that purchased seven insurance companies in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

After buying the companies, Frankel transferred their funds into his personal accounts, leaving behind bankrupt shell firms as he spent the money on a lavish lifestyle of mansions and mistresses.

Investigators stumbled upon the fraud in May 1999 after firefighters responded to an alarm at Frankel’s Connecticut compound, where they found a torched file cabinet and two fireplaces full of burning documents, the Associated Press reported.

Frankel, who has admitted the fraud, faces up to 150 years in prison and $6.5 million in fines, although prosecutors say his sentence could be greatly reduced if he cooperates in fingering accomplices and tracking down the stolen funds.

To date, authorities have recovered roughly $70 million in assets and monies hidden in the States and overseas. Three of Frankel’s alleged coconspirators have also been arrested.

Last week, the Vatican was added to the list of alleged conspirators after insurance commissioners for five states sued the Catholic enclave for allegedly helping Frankel set up a bogus Catholic charity for purposes of money laundering. The Vatican denies any involvement.

CHESHIRE, Ohio
The nation’s largest utility, American Electric Power (AEP), has decided to buy an entire town rather than face possible lawsuits from residents who say the firm’s pollution is damaging their health and homes.

The 221 residents of Cheshire, Ohio, have agreed to vacate the town in exchange for $20 million in fees to be paid to homeowners, renters, and the lawyers who brokered the deal, the New York Times reported last week.

The buyout will give homeowners roughly $150,000 each — three times the estimated value of their homes, which are located in neighborhoods now sufficiently polluted that property values are crashing, making normal sales unlikely, the Times reported.

The residents who accept the payments must agree not to sue the firm for health or property damage.

“We’re not going to have another chance to leave, and financially I cannot buy another house without this,” village clerk Jennifer Harrison told the Times. “I don’t want to start all over again. This is a chance to get out. If we have to stay here and take it to court and fight it, we’d probably sit here another 10 years.”

AEP continues to deny permanently damaging the town with pollution from its Gen. James M. Gavin Power Plant, which employs two of the world’s largest coal-fired generating units, reported the Times.

AEP says occasional damage to the town has been caused, paradoxically, by new antipollution devices that malfunctioned, creating a mysterious blue plume that hovered over Cheshire and spilled into its streets, causing sore throats, burning eyes, mouth blisters, and spots on vehicles.

“We’ve become an increasing annoyance, no doubt about it,” AEP spokesman Pat Hemlepp told the Times. “The dust, the noise, the occasional blue plume, spots on vehicles and homes. These are the problems of living next to any large industrial site.”

Insisting that it has fixed the pollution problems, AEP says it decided to buy out the Cheshire townspeople for logistical reasons, saying it wanted to expand its operations and needed town lands to do so.

The fear of litigation “did factor into it,” Hemlapp explained to the Times. “But it wasn’t a primary factor.”

After the deal was first announced in April, the Environmental Protection Agency dropped its scrutiny of the AEP plant, withdrawing from Cheshire and leaving AEP to monitor its own activities.

Residents who live just outside Cheshire — who will receive no payments — say they now feel abandoned and lack the financial resources to sustain their lives alongside what will soon be a ghost town.

“We thought they were going to make the plant clean up,” the village’s oldest resident, Helen Preston, lamented. “But the village just accepted the first offer, grabbed it up. Now people are saying we sold out too cheap.”

Teresa Mills, director of the Buckeye Environmental Network, which helps communities fight environmental battles, agreed with Preston even though her group supported the buyout.

“The villagers got to the point of, ‘Just get us out of here,’” Mills told the Times. “Is $20 million fair? No. Do I think AEP got off easy? Absolutely.”

But the townspeople “just wanted out, and they reached an agreement they thought they could live with,” she added.

WASHINGTON
U.S. cellular telephone manufacturers were urged last week to develop recycling programs for the estimated 500 million cell phones that will be discarded by the year 2005.

Inform, an environmental research organization, warns that cell phone waste is already piling up, with more than 135 million cell phone users throwing outmoded devices away after an average of 18 months.

While the devices are small, their impact on the environment may not be, Inform researcher Bette Fishbein told the Associated Press.

The number of cell phone users has grown so exponentially that “the environmental and public health impacts of the waste they create are a significant concern,” Fishbein warns.

Cell phones, pagers, pocket PCs, and portable music players all contain small amounts of toxic metals that are released into the environment when thrown away and incinerated at municipal waste lots.

That common practice releases persistent toxins, including arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc into the environment, where they can cause cancer and neurological disorders, especially among children, Inform says.

Inform is pushing the cell phone industry to take responsibility for its products, advocating a cradle-to-grave system in which manufacturers build the cost of recycling and disposal programs into the price of the products.

That tactic, already employed in Australia, is also becoming popular in the European Union, which is considering similar policies for the auto industry.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
The Globe & Mail is reporting that the global mining sector will discuss a major report that focuses on the social, political, and environmental impacts of the industry worldwide and makes recommendations for changes in the way the sector operates around the world.

The Global Mining Initiative Conference, held in Toronto, was expected to discuss the findings of a two-year study by the Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development Project. The study deals with the most controversial issues facing the industry, such as small-scale mining, human rights issues, corruption, and environmental challenges that have caused the negative public image of the industry.

The hundreds of attendees at the conference come from government, civil society, and industry sectors. The Globe & Mail report asserts that at the end of the conference, the CEOs of the largest mining companies in the world or their representatives will use the results of the discussion to formulate a future agenda for the industry, which will be presented at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa in August of this year.

LONDON
A British woman was jailed last week for failing to stop her daughters from cutting classes, marking the first time a U.K. parent has been incarcerated over their children’s truancy.

Patricia Amos, a 43-year-old mother of five, was sentenced to 60 days in an Oxfordshire jail after two of her daughters continued to skip school despite repeated warnings from authorities.

Amos’s punishment comes more than two years after the U.K. government deemed jail time and a $3,600 fine suitable punishments for parents who fail to curb their children’s truancy, the Guardian reported.

Local authorities say they have been working unsuccessfully with Amos for years, and that the prison sentence was a last, but necessary resort. Amos’s lawyers say they will appeal the sentence.

U.K. Education Secretary Estelle Morris has backed the ruling, saying she hopes it will send a “shock wave” through Britain’s parents, vowing to continue cracking down on those who play hooky.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed cutting down on child benefit payments for parents of students who repeatedly skip school, according to a report from the BBC.

Official figures show a sharp correlation between truancy and crime, with 40 percent of street crime, 33 percent of car thefts, 25 percent of burglaries, and 20 percent of criminal damage being done by 10- to 16-year-olds during school hours.

From Transparency International:

“Transparency International (TI), the global anti-corruption organization, today released its Bribe Payers Index (BPI) 2002, showing very high levels of bribery in developing countries by corporations from Russia, China, Taiwan, and South Korea, as well as numerous leading industrial nations, all of which now have laws making corrupt payments to foreign officials a crime.

“‘The laws are not being properly enforced. Our new survey leaves no doubt that large numbers of multinational corporations from the richest nations are pursuing a criminal course to win contracts in the leading emerging market economies of the world,’ said TI Chairman Peter Eigen….

“The TI Chairman stressed that today’s BPI shows that companies from Russia and China, which are increasingly exporting to other emerging market countries, are using bribes ‘on an exceptional and intolerable scale. The extent to which companies from Taiwan and South Korea use bribes abroad is only marginally less. The authorities of all of these countries need to do more to prevent bribery by their firms abroad.’

“TI’s BPI is based on surveys conducted in 15 emerging market economies by Gallup International Association.

“The BPI shows that U.S. multinational corporations, which have faced the risk of criminal prosecution since 1977 under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, have a high propensity to pay bribes to foreign government officials. The U.S. score of 5.3 out of a best possible clean 10 is matched by Japanese companies and is worse than the scores for corporations from France, Spain, Germany, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. The highest scores, indicating the lowest propensity to bribe abroad, were for companies from Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium….

“‘The BPI results signal the rejection by multinational firms of the spirit of international anti-bribery conventions, while their actions lead to a huge misallocation of very scarce resources in developing countries,’ said TI Advisory Council Chairman Kamal Hossain at a press conference in Hong Kong. ‘The data also points to very heavy bribe-paying by domestic firms in developing countries. Today’s BPI underscores the fact that we have a global problem of corporate bribe-paying that demands concerted global actions by official international organizations, civil society organizations and national governments,’ he said….

“‘The BPI shows that the most flagrant corruption is seen in the public works/construction and arms and defense sectors, which are plagued by endemic bribery by foreign firms…,’ said Kamal Hossain….

“Just one in five of the respondents to the Gallup International poll across 15 leading emerging market economies is aware of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. The score is the same as in the first BPI in 1999.

“Hailed as a landmark event, the ratification by the majority of leading industrial countries of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention just over two years ago aimed to compel multinational firms to cease bribing foreign government officials by making such actions a criminal offence. The U.S. was alone in having a similar law in place for more than two decades. ‘According to the BPI data, the Convention does not seem to have made any difference, so far, to the bribery approaches of many multinational firms,’ said Eigen.

“He noted that the first TI BPI in 1999 indicated that U.S. firms, for example, were just as prone to using bribes abroad to win business as were German firms, which did not risk criminal prosecution for such actions and could set bribes abroad against their taxes. That survey also showed that only a very small percentage of overseas business executives, including representatives of Western multinationals, were informed about the Convention or had plans to enforce it. ‘Today’s new BPI data suggests that ignorance about the OECD Convention is widespread and that corporations clearly do not see the risks of criminal prosecution as particularly significant. This is a shocking conclusion.’

“Compared with the BPI 1999 survey, the propensity of U.S. firms to pay bribes abroad appears to have increased, while there has been a marginal improvement in the German situation….”

“I despise all adjectives that try to describe people as liberal or conservative, rightist or leftist, as long as they stay in the useful part of the road.”