The Global Crisis/Labor Market Institute/Tibetian Media Cocerns/

SPECIAL ANOUNCEMENT FROM THE MONTHLY MUKTIDOOTH
Hello our dear readers, subscribers, associates and affiliating organizations and also all Global journalist specially Bangali who are living abroad are requested to participate having us your articles, features, news, advertisements and in every ways for participations on the coming "MUKTIDOOTH" special issue on "Liberation Day" March 26th 2009.
Authority of The Monthly Muktidooth
***********************************************************************


A global policy package to address the global crisis 'A global policy package is needed to overcome the current financial crisis, in the spirit of the historic Bretton Woods agreements. Bail-out plans of the financial sector, crucial as they are, will not be enough. Indeed the world economy is being affected by a vicious cycle of rapidly declining confidence, leading to lower demand, output and employment, which is further depressing confidence. What is needed is a global, coordinated stimulus package which breaks this vicious cycle.

In addition, as the World of Work Report 2008 demonstrates, one of the main factors of the current global financial turmoil has been rising economic and social imbalances that built up over the past two decades.1 By putting in place conditions for a more balanced distribution of the gains from economic growth, avoiding “deregulation-solves-it-all” solutions, the risk of major systemic crises like the present one would be attenuated. Acting quickly on this front and supporting disposable income through a global stimulus package is instrumental to overcome the current crisis and put the world economy on a sustainable path. The ILO has a major role to play in this global policy package.'
Language: English
Added by Imran Uddin
March 15, 2009

***********************************************************************

Civic Virtue and Labor Market Institutions

'We argue that civic virtue plays a key role in explaining the design of public insurance against unemployment risks by solving moral hazard issues which hinder the efficiency of unemployment insurance. We show in simple model that economies with stronger civic values are more prone to provide insurance through unemployment benefits rather than through job protection. We provide cross-country empirical evidence of a strong correlation between civic attitudes and the design of unemployment benefits and employment protection in OECD countries over the period 1980-2003.

We then estimate the existence of a potential causal relationship running from civic virtue to labor market insurance institutions. We show that the civic attitudes of people who were born and are living in the United States are strongly influenced by the country of origin of their ancestors. We then use this inherited part of civic attitudes by country of origin as an instrument for civic attitudes in the home country. This strategy allows us to uncover a significant causal effect of civic attitudes on labor market insurance institutions in OECD countries over the last two decades.'
*************************************************************************************

FCCC Calls for Full Media Access to Tibetan Areas
Posted: 13 Mar 2009 04:31 PM PDT

he Foreign Correspondents Club of China urged the Chinese government to allow reporters, both national and international, full access to Tibetan areas.

The statement coincides with the observation of both the 50th anniversary of the 1951 upraising that ended up with the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile and the first anniversary of last year's revolt.Here is the full FCCC statement:Beijing: The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China urges theChinese government to halt a wave of detentions of journalists andopen Tibetan areas for news coverage.Reporters from at least six news organisation have been detained,turned back or had their tapes confiscated in the past week as theytried to visit Tibetan areas of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai ahead of the one-year anniversary of the unrest in Tibet.This contravenes regulations made permanent by the Foreign Ministry inOct. 2008 that foreign reporters can travel freely without seeking prior permission everywhere outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield, two reporters for The New York Times, were detained by members of the People’s Armed Police and the
Public Security Bureau in Gansu Province for a total of 20 hours,starting on Feb. 27. They were then forced to stay overnight in
Lanzhou and board a plane for Beijing the next morning. When Wong tried to take a photograph of one of his captors, he was struck on the
arm and his camera was broken. A Japanese traveling companion and a local driver were also detained with the two reporters during the same period. The driver was subjected to interrogation and threats.
On Mar. 9, Beniamino Natale, a reporter with Italy's ANSA news agency was detained with two colleagues for more than two hours in Guinan County, Qinghai after visiting a monastery.
The previous day, Rosa María Mollo and Isabel Hormaechea, of Spanish broadcaster TVE, were detained by police in Ganzi, Sichuan province. Some of their reporting materials were confiscated and deleted. They were then escorted 200 kilometers out of the area.
Around the same time, Katri Makkonen, of Finnish Broadcasting Company, was repeatedly detained and followed on the road from Tongren to Xiningin, Qinghai. The police took her driver's driving licence and forced him to write a statement about where they had been and what
they had done. "It is despicable that now that they can't make us leave, they instead start pressuring the Chinese who are with us," Makkonen said. Associated Press reported that its journalists were detained twice in Sichuan in recent days. The FCCC has also received reports of three other cases of reporters being turned away from Xiahe, Gansu in lateJanuary. No explanation has been given of the legal basis of the police actions.
"These detentions must stop," said Jonathan Watts, FCCC president. "The reporters are within their rights to visit Tibetan areas outside
of the TAR. By locking up and blocking reporters, the security forces raise suspicions about their actions. The government should live up to
its promise of openness in all of China, including TAR and other
Tibetan areas."Of Sacred Cows and Expensive Cows
Posted: 13 Mar 2009 04:04 PM PDT
When courageous journalists in repressive countries sit down and consider the perils of telling the truth, otherwise known as self-censorship, they think about fines, suspension or even prison and physical attacks.
But when you have to measure your liabilities by the number of cows you risk to buy and give away, then you are working in Swaziland, a mountain kingdom completely surrounded by South African territory.
It also happens to be the last absolutist monarchy on the African continent, where the king is always right no matter how spectacularly wrong he may be. Saying otherwise constitutes an insult to his authority.

***************************************************************************************************************************
(Source:EJC, DG ALERT,OPEN DEMOCRACY)