Editorial voices from elsewhere
Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
Twelve years ago, the beheading of the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl by al-Qaida jihadis in Pakistan reaffirmed the dangers of reporting from the world’s most dangerous places.
Caught up in the turbulent times just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pearl died at the hands of radical Islamists committed to violence against America and its closest allies. The ghastly manner in which he perished – a videotaped beheading – made it all the worse.
Twelve years later, two more American journalists have suffered similar fates – not by al-Qaida, but by the Islamic State, a nebulous group that claims to have established an Islamic Caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. James Foley, a reporter and videographer captured in Syria in 2012, was beheaded in August as retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State sites. On Tuesday, the world learned that another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, had also been beheaded.
Journalists have died in dangerous places for as long as newspapers and war correspondents have existed. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 1,073 journalists have died, worldwide, since 1992. The deadliest places for journalists coincide with nations corrupted by war and unrest, and those whose governments turn a blind eye toward press freedoms.
We remind those who say journalists shouldn’t be in these places of extreme violence that despots, warlords and jihadis would act free of detailed scrutiny if this reporting was silenced.
Kicking the tobacco habit just got easier, especially if you shop at CVS drug stores.
The retail chain said earlier this year that it would remove tobacco products from its 7,700 stores by Oct. 1. They beat their own deadline by almost a month by ending sales of tobacco products Wednesday.
When CVS announced its plans, company leaders said the sales of tobacco, and its harmful and widespread effects on people, contradicted the company’s broader mission in delivering health care – the pharmacies also have about 900 walk-in clinics.
The move is a fascinating curve in a business arc, and it also demonstrates responsible corporate citizenship that other companies should emulate.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have noted, cigarette smoking harms almost every organ in the body. It causes almost 500,000 deaths in the nation each year – and it’s responsible for 10 times as many premature deaths than all the deaths in all the wars in U.S. history. It causes 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths (more than 159,000) each year; there are about 224,210 new cases of lung cancer every year.
Way to go, CVS.
The end of September will be do or die for the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
Congress must do or the Ex-Im Bank will die. The tea party has targeted the agency as a purveyor of corporate welfare. It’s been noted that there have been some publicized cases of fraud in Ex-Im transactions. It is a rare government program, however, that doesn’t have such incidents. If the programs provide a critical service, this means they should be cleaned and tightened up, not eliminated.
The Ex-Im Bank provides such a service.
Between 2007 and 2014, the bank helped 1,338 Texas exporters sell $21 billion in goods. Its loans returned $1 billion to the agency in fiscal year 2013, and its loan default rate has been just above 0.2 percent per quarter.
Yes, private banks can also provide such services, but at terms likely to be more expensive. That means less growth for U.S. export companies. Other countries have programs similar to what the Ex-Im Bank provides.
If the nation didn’t have the Ex-Im Bank, it would be less competitive globally.