The Guardian 26 January, 2005
Global briefs
CANADA: Late last year the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for child care agreed to develop a public child care program for Canada. Now the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is calling on Canadians to press for a program with four basic principles: a publicly funded, sustainable system with low parent fees; a Child Care Act that guarantees standards and key principles; public accountability; and money for children, not profits. "Quebec has taken a giant step, establishing an affordable public system of quality care", CUPE said in a statement. "It's time for the rest of the country to follow their lead. We need to speak out now for a high-quality, non-profit child care system with long-term public funding, a system that's accessible and affordable to everyone, and that supports children's development."
HAITI: The US-backed Haitian government has begun to hand out pay cheques to former members of Haiti's brutal military who helped overthrow democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. David Bazile, Secretary for Public Security, announced that the government will give the ex-soldiers 10 years' back pay at a cost of US$29 million, upholding their claim that Aristide illegally disbanded the army in 1994. Haiti's military overthrew Aristide in 1991, soon after he was elected to office, and a military junta governed the country until 1994. The junta was implicated in widespread human rights abuses, including the use of torture and murder. When Aristide was restored to power with the help of US troops in 1994, one of his first acts was to disband the armed forces and replace them with a lightly armed police force. He was ousted in another coup last February.
CUBA: At ceremonies in Havana, December 14, Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela signed agreements calling for closer integration of their nations' economies and announced new co-operative ventures in health care, education, and social services. In a joint declaration, the two leaders said that "integration is an essential prerequisite for the Latin American and Caribbean countries to achieve development". They said they seek integration based on "co-operation, solidarity, and a common will", with the objective transforming Latin American societies "by making them more just, educated, participatory … with the elimination of social inequalities". The US State Department expressed alarm at the new agreement.
CHINA: Taiwan has dropped its 56-year-old ban on direct flights between the island and mainland China to allow family visits over the Chinese New Year holidays. Direct flights will commence on January 29 between the mainland cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and Taiwan's cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. Taiwan instituted a ban on all contact — including transport, communication and culture — in 1949 after the Communist Party of China took power in Beijing. The ban has been relaxed piecemeal in recent years — Taiwan residents were officially allowed to travel to the mainland in 2003, although only after stopover in Hong Kong or Macau which added four hours to the brief journey. The first joint cultural project was the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000.