US News . com links to 40+ foreign newspapers in English

As you probably know, I have been looking at how different peoples of the
world view the events of the last week & along the way finding some useful &
interesting links worth bookmarking for future interest.

US News & World Report is a magazine that was used heavily in the US school
systems to teach current events, when I was in the system.  I not know if
that is still the case today.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/terror/worldpress.htm
A sampling of sentiments from many newspapers around the world & links to
more such as the positively wonderful

http://www.wheretodoresearch.com/news/foreign_newspapers.htm
This is a chart of top foreign daily newspapers in English with links to
newspapers in: Australia; Britain; Canada, China; Czech Republic; India;
Ireland; Israel; New Zealand; Russia; Singapore; South Africa; South Korea;
Thailand; and the International Herald Tribune - over 40 links in all.

I dipped into some of these & found some have not been updated since before
Sep 11 - I guess a lot of people world wide are in a state of shock.   I will
be dipping into more in the days ahead.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010924/misc/24world.b.htm
Titled "an International Cooperation wish list", the article is really about
the challenges to Pakistan's leadership

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010924/misc/24islam.htm
The unfortunate reality that we are having sporadic outbursts of blind rage
directed at Arab-Americans, Muslims, and people who look like this ethnic
minority to the ignorant savages who cannot make the distinction between a
sub-group of people & the evil people who happen to be members of that
sub-group.  We are being told that Bin Laden's ideology is diametrically
opposed to the teachings of the Koran and traditional Islamic doctrine, but a
lot of people here are not hearing that message.

The more disturbing message is what elements of global society find the Bin
Labin  philosophy appealing.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010924/misc/24aviation.htm
This is a rather disappointing article titled "A wing and a prayer" about the
reasons why we may not get good airport security even in the wake of this
national disaster.

After the disaster, airport security seemed to be between extremes of same
old lack of any pretense at security, as reported by journalists inspecting
what passed for security at various airports, and other cases where the
security was extremely intense.

Passengers hate high ticket prices and long delays.
Passengers hate airlines lying as to why planes delayed.

Pilots want cockpit doors strengthened & a change in the rules that order
them to cooperate with hijackers.

Airlines claim their profit margins will not sustain expensive security
upgrades.
But there are numerous security upgrades that are quite inexpensive that get
labeled as too expensive to do.

Airlines want cheap labor that they do not have to subject to security checks.

Technology has long existed to match baggage in aircraft hold with passengers
on planes, but airlines resist this, arguing added cost.  I think bar coding
is dirt cheap, and the costs of airlines running lost bags around to catch up
with their owners, and what must the insurance rates be thanks to all the
lost luggage & occasional bombs be?

I have long favored bar code on ticket we use to board aircraft, that will
give them a passenger manifest, in which the bar code matches passenger
identification onour checked in luggage, which can be read by scanners on the
conveyer belt that carries luggage into the belly of the plane, and match
that with airline records on what bags traveling with which passengers.

An FAA study last year said that bag matching would cost 40 cents per
passenger & delay flights by an average of 7 minutes  The airlines say this
would cost $300.00 million a year & is just too much to burden them with.

There's airports that don't want to install security cameras, citing expense.
I think the insurance companies need to get on their case about this, setting
rates such that

Security x Insurance Cost = not a constant, but save money by increasing
Security.
Alternatively, families of the victims of the WTC & the other crashes might
do a class action suit against the cheap skates on airport security, in which
an acceptable settlement would be for them to clean up their act.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)