CUBANS GET CELL PHONES

From Reuters

HAVANA (March 28) - Cuba said on Friday it will allow all Cubans to buy and use mobile telephones for the first time in the latest step by new President Raul Castro to improve access to consumer goods.

Cuba has the lowest rate of cellular telephone use in Latin America and the service has been restricted until now to foreigners or government officials and employees.

Cuban telecommunications monopoly ETECSA, a joint venture with Telecom Italia, said it would begin selling the service to the general public within days in hard currency.

"ETECSA is able to offer mobile phone service to the public," it said in a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

Many Cubans have for long wanted access to cellular phones and hoped it would be among the first steps taken by Raul Castro, who succeed his ailing brother Fidel Castro as Cuba's first new leader in almost half a century on February 24.

"This shows there is a change in mentality at the top and recognition that Cuba has to move into the 21st century," a young computer technician said, asking not to be named.

Raul Castro has begun lifting some of the many restrictions on the daily life of Cubans as he tries to meet popular demands for better living standards in the socialist state.

Taking office last month, he promised to start lifting "excessive regulations and prohibitions" within weeks.

Some Cubans already have mobile phones registered in the name of foreigners or their work places. They will now be able to put the contracts in their own names, ETECSA said.

Cubans will be able to buy computers and DVD players next month for the first time, if they have the hard currency to pay for them. Just two years ago, banned DVD players were being confiscated by airport customs officials on arrival in Cuba.

Raul Castro, 76, has also launched a restructuring of agriculture to reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks and boost food production.

A major public complaint that his government will have to deal with is that wages paid in Cuban pesos are too low, while consumer goods have to be paid for in convertible pesos, or CUCs, worth 24 times more than pesos.

Cubans will pay for their mobile telephones with prepaid cards bought in CUCs that will allow them to receive and make international calls.

ETECSA, in which Telecom Italia has a 27 percent stake, said the hard currency income would be invested in the expansion of land lines, where Cuba has the sixth lowest density in Latin American.

About 60 percent of Cubans have access to hard currency from cash remittances sent by relatives living abroad, mainly in the United States, or through factory and farm bonuses and tips from foreign tourists.

In the streets of Havana, the freeing of cellular phones services came as welcome news to all.

"It was an obvious measure. There will have to be more like it to get rid of the thousand and one obstacles that make life bitter in Cuba," said university student Jofre Valdes, 23.

"This was an anachronism. They have to end all unnecessary restrictions," said state employee Humberto Vega.

INDEPENDENT KOSOVO? WHY NOT VERMONT?

Sean Connery thinks a Scottish nation is a bonnie notion. How about Spain's Basque country becoming a REAL country? And what's wrong with a People's Republic of Vermont?

Kosovo's looming independence raises all those questions and more. For starters: Why is statehood OK for some people but frowned on for others? After all, isn't the right to self-determination the essence of democracy itself?

There are at least two dozen secessionist movements active in Europe alone, and scores of others agitating for sovereignty around the globe. All of them, experts warn, will be emboldened by Sunday's expected proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo.

"We live in a world which is based around states," said Florian Bieber, a professor of politics and international relations at England's University of Kent.

"The United Nations is based on states. The European Union is based on states," he said. "It's going to continue to happen. New states will emerge, and states will disappear, like East Germany."

Quirky movements
Not all independence movements are created equal.

Some are quirky, such as Second Vermont Republic _ Thomas Naylor's small but spirited campaign to break off his corner of northern New England and make it a nation.

With his spectacles, bald spot and long white hair, the retired Duke University economics professor looks like Benjamin Franklin and quotes Thomas Jefferson. He believes that if Kosovo can become a country, so can Vermont, which was independent until it joined the Union in 1791 as the 14th state.

Yet Naylor concedes: "It's a tough sell. This is not kid stuff. Secession is a radical act of rebellion driven by anger and fear."

Thousands have died in long-running quests for statehood mounted by the Palestinians, and by rebels fighting to gain Kashmir's independence from India and Pakistan.

The Basques have achieved sweeping autonomy from Spain, but militants continue to fight for full independence. On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, nationalists still set off bombs to press for independence from France.

There are also many strictly nonviolent movements willing to settle for autonomy rather than secession. And sometimes new states are born by mutual consent, such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic _ Czechoslovakia until they split in 1993.

Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, but it's been run by the U.N. since 1999, when NATO intervened to stop Slobodan Milosevic's brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Although the U.S. and key allies _ including Britain, France and Germany _ support its bid, Serbia and Russia fiercely oppose it.

Dangerous precedent?
Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that if Kosovo gains independence without U.N. approval, it will set a dangerous precedent for secessionists in Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan and further afield.

Trouble is, there's no internationally accepted standard for independence, said Marc Plattner, coeditor of the Washington-based Journal of Democracy, which analyzes movements worldwide.

You can let the people decide, he says, but first you have to decide: Who are the people?

"This is the great hole in democratic theory," Plattner said. "There isn't a sound theoretical or moral answer. One simply looks at the individual case."

Skeptics say the increasing flow of cash, goods and information across national boundaries has taken the shine off statehood.

Others wonder if the already unwieldy EU and U.N. can handle much more. The 27-nation EU already has 23 official languages, and many doubt it could cope if it had to add Albanian and Welsh to the mix.

"At a time when borders are coming down in the EU, freeing up the markets and trade, it makes no sense to put them up here," said Angus MacGregor, an insurance broker in Scotland, whose nationalist minority government is pressing to break away from Britain.

The Scottish National Party has promised to hold a referendum on independence by 2010. Although a vote looks unlikely, it's not for lack of trying.

After 700 years of struggle dating back to William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, Scotland's latest "Braveheart" is Connery.

"All of my life experience tells me that an independent Scotland will be successful," the James Bond actor said in TV spots aired last year.

Split kingdoms
Belgium could be the next country to face a big breakup: A nasty rift between Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north and French-speaking southern Wallonia has raised speculation that the kingdom may split in two.

Other movements have been around for decades.

There's the drive to gain independence for Biafra in Nigeria's oil-rich east, and the fringe Puerto Rican Independence Party, still seeking to wrest back the island the U.S. seized in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War.

The United Kingdom looks pretty disunited, too, and not just because of Scotland.

Some in Northern Ireland still advocate unification with Ireland. The Party of Wales wants an independent Welsh state. And in southwestern England, a boisterous secessionist group is trying to carve a country out of Cornwall.

In the U.S., separatist movements advocate independence for Alaska, Texas and the southern states.

And more obscure groups abound.

Ex-Soviet Moldova, just half the size of West Virginia, already has one breakaway republic, Trans-Dniester. But there's also Gagauzia, an autonomous no man's land. Though it doesn't have a prayer of gaining independence, it still sports a flag featuring a snarling red wolf's head.

Other "stateless nations" range from the Veps _ people of Baltic Finn extraction in northwestern Russia _ to the Sorbs, a Slavonic people who occupy parts of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland.

"One thing's for sure," said Vermont's Naylor. "We didn't start this. We're just continuing the process."

Associated Press Writer Ben McConville in Edinburgh, Scotland, contributed to this report.

THOSE DANG FREEMASONS! ::WINK WINK::

Historians Unlock U.S. Seal's Secrets
By MATTHEW LEE,
AP
Posted: 2008-02-12 11:56:32
Filed Under: Nation News

WASHINGTON (Feb. 11) - Conspiracy theorists take note: The myths surrounding one of America's oldest and most enduring national symbols are about to be debunked ... if you believe the government, that is.

The keepers of the Great Seal of the United States, the familiar emblem on the back of the $1 bill, want you to know what it is not. It is not a sign that Freemasons run the country, it has nothing to do with the occult, and it does not contain clues to a fabulous hidden treasure.

It is rather the nation's stamp of authority, sovereignty and power, gracing our cash and embossing the most important of documents from its home at the State Department, which has held it since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the first secretary of state.

Not that the Seal's symbols - the all-seeing eye, the unfinished pyramid, the Latin phrases, the bald eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows and the number 13 - aren't powerful.

They are, historians say. Yet their meanings have been misidentified, misunderstood and misrepresented almost since the Continental Congress first commissioned the Seal in 1776.

It would be another six years before the original design was approved and another 128 before it evolved into its current form. Along the way, a movement to decipher the Seal's meaning with ancient Egyptian, mystical and otherwise other worldly explanations has gained currency.

The Internet age has seen an explosion in such conspiracy theories, many which have now been ingrained in public consciousness through the popular "National Treasure" movie franchise that serves up a combination of Masonic lore and historical myths in blockbuster Hollywood fashion.

Among them:

· That the Seal proves the domination of the United States by a powerful, quasi-religious cult. The Ancient Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is a perennial favorite of conspiracy theorists as some Founding Fathers were Masons and the Seal uses several Masonic symbols.

· That the Seal draws on Satanism or polytheistic ritual to promote a universal new world order under which Earth would be ruled by a single omnipotent government.

· That repeated references to 13 - the number of steps in the unfinished pyramid, stars in the constellation over the eagle's head, arrows in the eagle's claw, stripes on the eagle's shield, letters in the phrase "Annuit Coeptis" - demonstrate the power of 13 American families.

· That there are two seals: one in which the eagle's head faces the arrows for times of war and another in which the eagle's head faces the olive branch for times of peace.

All rubbish, according to historians, who say the Seal's symbolism is far less ominous or revelatory than many believe.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Seal's current custodian, will inaugurate a new exhibition to commemorate its 225th birthday and trace the history and evolution of the symbolism.

The Seal will remain at the State Department but the interactive exhibit is designed to travel and curators hope it will dispel the rumors and educate Americans about the real meaning of the symbols.

Among the highlights:

· That known Masons like the first U.S. president, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin had no role in designing the final seal, which uses elements of traditional heraldry, such as the unfinished pyramid to symbolize a work in progress, arrows for war and an olive branch for peace. Masons share some of those symbols, but they have never been exclusively the domain of the order.

· That the phrase "Novus Ordo Seculorum" below the Roman numerals for 1776 at the base of the pyramid translates as "A New Order of the Ages" that began with independence and does not imply the United States will be the lynchpin of a sinister "New World Order."

· That the words "Annuit Coeptis" ("Providence favors") and the eye of providence that hovers over the pyramid refer to unexpected interventions of fate that assisted the colonists in creating a new country.

· That the references to 13 refer to the number of colonies that formed the original United States.

"People are just not aware of the complexity and intent of the symbolism and what our Founding Fathers were trying to do with it," said Priscilla Linn, senior curator at the U.S. Diplomacy Center. "The hidden treasure in the Seal is the courage and presence of mind of the people who created it and created these values for the whole country."