Democracy on Trial

Your recent articles, including "The Dark Side of the Olympics," strive to do justice to the topic of Tibet and China's occupation of the territory since 1951, when the People's Liberation Army invaded it. China still feels the need to assert to the world that Tibet is an integral part of China. But like the Player Queen in Hamlet, it protests too much. If China really had a valid case, it wouldn't be so paranoid and oversensitive about the issue. Hapless Tibet has a rich, highly evolved and esoteric spiritual culture. When it was brutally invaded, it sent repeated appeals to the United Nations asking for help. However, the world stood by while the Chinese took over (and it still does). Although many countries have been occupied at some time by a neighbor, that is no justification for annexation.
Gun Nidhi Dalmia
New Delhi, India

Death of the Death Penalty
Having just read in your April 14 issue that "a decade ago … Britain still employed the death penalty," I would be fascinated to know where you got that information ("If Lethal Dictators Ban the Death Penalty, Who Cares?"). To my certain knowledge, the death penalty was abolished in Britain at least 40 years ago, and it has been nearly 50 years since anyone was hanged in the United Kingdom.
John Wadman
Birmingham, England

Your item on the death penalty is misleading. You write that "a decade ago … pillars of Western civilization like Canada and Britain still employed the death penalty." This is not so. While the death penalty was removed from military codes of justice in the United Kingdom and Canada only in 1998, it had much earlier been removed from their respective civil codes; the last execution in Canada took place in 1962, and in the United Kingdom in 1964.
Nicholas Coghlan
Ottawa, Canada

Merchants of Ivory
It is tragic that so many people in Asia, and especially China, are so ignorant when it comes to saving the species of the world ("Extinction Trade," March 10). They have no thought of how it will change our biological balance. If, for example, you eliminate sharks, which are the top predators of the seas, you wreak havoc—another species will take over, and that might have dire consequences. Maybe Asians will finally open their eyes now and realize that they are supporting ecoterrorism and guerrillas. I was also very disturbed to see NEWSWEEK PROMOTING items made from woolly-mammoth ivory in the GOOD LIFE SECTION of the same issue. When your readers see this photo of chess pawns, it will create a demand that will renew the demand for elephant ivory. We all have a duty to stop the killing.
Eva Maimstrom Shivdasani
Bangkok, Thailand

Who Are the Terrorists?
Why do both the British and the American governments support the Israeli massacre of unarmed civilians, including women and children, in Gaza ("Talking to the Enemy," March 17)? It would seem that we are happy to be compliant in the obvious dehumanization of Palestinians on the grounds that their elected representatives are from Hamas and that that political party has been declared a terrorist organization by the Bush administration, notwithstanding that Hamas's legitimate aim is to end the illegal Israeli occupation of Arab land. Terrorism is defined as violence and intimidation against civilians. Is this not precisely the acts of the Israel Defense Forces? Who exactly are the terrorists, Palestinians or Israelis? How many Israeli civilians have been killed or injured by homemade rockets in the past five years, and how many Palestinians by American missiles, cluster bombs and tank fire? The conclusion must inevitably be that Israel, shamefully supported by the United Kingdom, uses terrorism as a deliberate tactic in order to implement a strategy that is directly in breach of the Geneva Conventions and international law and of bilateral EU trade agreements. Now, for the first time since the terrorist actions of the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvai Leumi following the second world war, against both the Arabs and the British in Palestine, we are again witnessing—dare we say it?—Jewish terrorism.
Michael Halpern
Westbourne, England

The One-Child Policy Grows Up
Reading your march 17 article about China's one-child policy, I was pleased to know that Beijing is considering scrapping this policy, which was introduced in 1979 ("Playing With the Old Blood Rules"). I agree that the policy succeeded in controlling population growth, but it had other profound consequences for those Chinese couples having only one child. Now, after almost 30 years, this policy begins to near its next generation. This means that an adult born after 1979 would have to provide support for his or her two parents as well as four grandparents. I believe this would create an enormous burden on China's poor grown children, especially those living in rural areas. Besides, sooner or later the one-child policy will transform family structures and relationships to the extent where there will be no kin to call brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew or niece. In other parts of the world, most families usually depend on their relatives for support during difficult times. It's a pity that many children of the new generation in China will not have any close relatives to call on for support in times of need. They would have to depend on their friends or neighbors. This would not have been the case if a two-child policy had been adopted instead.
Suresh H. Punjabi
Hong Kong

Teens Who Choose Suicide
I have just read your March 10 article "How Grim Is My Valley." It is really heartbreaking that the suicide rate is increasing. It is another serious problem—and one that may not have an easy solution. It is not like the global-warming problem, where using your car less could make a difference. It is worse because it involves trying to understand the minds of teenagers, knowing what they think and their worries. Teenagers may sometimes be as impenetrable as a rock when it comes to letting others know their anxiety. I am a teenager, and I have experienced such attitudes in my daily life. Even though I understand other teens, I can't help them, because when it comes to personal problems only the person involved can help himself. Part of the real reason some teenagers have problems and want to kill themselves is, I believe, the parents: after all, parents are our first educators. I am not blaming all parents—it also depends on how teenagers respond to their help—but parents sure determine our future. They are our guides through life; without them teenagers get lost really easily, and finding our way back onto the right path on our own may seem impossible because of our limited experience, and that's when suicide presents itself as a tempting but heartbreaking way out of problems.
Mariana Lopez Durand
Mexico City, Mexico

Correction
In "Mysteries and Complications" (March 24), we said that the MMR vaccine once contained thimerosal. It did not. Other childhood vaccines, however, did contain the mercury-based preservative. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.

© 2008