BRITAIN

BRITAIN
The Observer, London, March 4: One day, society will look back on the treatment of women prisoners at the start of this millennium as scandalous. The alarming and simple conclusion will be that we locked up vulnerable people who had no place in prison. In 2007, we have scarcely advanced from the 19th century, when people were jailed for no offense greater than an inability to pay their debts or the misfortune of suffering from a mental illness. Most of Britain's 4,300 female inmates have at least one psychiatric problem; many are drug addicts; more than half have suffered domestic violence. Fewer than 10 per cent have committed a violent crime.
Later this month, the Corston Review, commissioned by the Home Office following the deaths of six female offenders at Styal prison in Cheshire, will be published. ... The report will recommend the expansion of options to custody and new ways of improving women's life chances. Such approaches require investment. But they would bring long-term dividends by curbing recidivism.
Huge gulf
In 2001, the government said the best strategy to reduce offending would be: "To improve women's access to work; to improve women's mental health services; to tackle drug abuse by women; to improve family ties; and to improve the life chances of young women at school and in the community." But the huge gulf between that goal and action to meet it has not closed.
The government must pay heed to the Corston Review, implementing its recommendations for non-custodial, community-based punishments for non-violent offenders. The alternative is to continue with discredited practice that brings shame on our society.
ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post, March 5: In a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Chicago ... Sen. Barack Obama explained his approach toward this region.
Though he followed much the same line as the other main contenders for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination -- Hillary Clinton and John Edwards -- some slight differences are instructive and even encouraging.
After warning that Teheran's threats to destroy Israel cannot be dismissed as "mere rhetoric," Obama said: "The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. ... And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."
International security
We do not subscribe to the notion that ignoring Saddam, particularly after the U.N. sanctions and weapons inspection efforts had collapsed, would have been good for human rights or international security. Nor do we agree that Iraq can now simply be written off and abandoned to its fate, and that this would advance the West's cause rather than that of Iran and its terrorist proxies.
We also see attempts to negotiate with Iran as naive and potentially harmful, if they are allowed to undermine the international campaign to force Teheran to abandon its nuclear program.
That said, we see an important area of agreement between Bush and his Democratic opponents. Both sides agree on the objective of stopping Iran and on the means of doing so: tightening sanctions while keeping the military option on the table.
Obama was particularly explicit on the sanctions point. He called for "Tough-minded diplomacy (that) would include real leverage through stronger sanctions ... (This) would mean harnessing the collective power of our friends in Europe who are Iran's major trading partners."
This may be the first time a Democratic candidate has implicitly advocated pushing the Europeans harder on Iran. The question, of course, is whether this was just a throw-away line for a pro-Israel audience, or whether Obama and his Democratic colleagues will translate it into action.
SOUTH AFRICA
The Star, Johannesburg, March 7: Ghana celebrated 50 years of independence ... in a grand ceremony attended by many African leaders, including President Mbeki. They were there not only to mark the huge moment in Ghana's history but also, more broadly, the start of the liberation of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa from colonialism.
The country has been a leader and a microcosm of the continent all along. Its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, led Ghana and Africa down an adventurous but often rocky road. He inspired and helped other countries to break their shackles. But he also led the way in introducing one-party, dictatorial rule and state-controlled communist economist policies that aggravated poverty and provoked military coups. Nkrumah himself was toppled by the generals in 1966, starting a turbulent period in Ghana's history that really only ended in 2000, when Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, who had seized power in a 1979 coup, allowed it to pass peacefully to John Kufuor, who had won the election.
Road to recovery
Ghana has now become one of the leaders in Africa, showing other nations a new road to recovery, via multiparty democracy and free-market economics.
This isn't to say Ghana doesn't have problems. It has many.