The level of play of the Korean team was a revelation?

ANAHEIM -- The World Baseball Classic was supposed to celebrate the internationalization of the game. It turns out that the game has been internationalized so thoroughly that it is going to be extremely difficult for the team from baseball's birthplace, the good old US of A, to win the tournament.
It was one thing when the Japanese, and more recently, the Koreans, were producing, for instance, better automobiles than the U.S. You could chalk this up to disciplined, diligent, ingenious peoples alertly seizing their opportunities in the global market place and simply give them credit.
It is a little harder to take when they defeat us in our national game, as the Koreans did Monday night at Angel Stadium by a convincing 7-3 margin. Team USA, as in the first round of pool play, will be scrambling to advance after this defeat. As serious as this is for American fans, it is not actually the larger point made by the World Baseball Classic.
The U.S. is now 1-1 in this pool, 3-2 overall, but merely 2-2 when playing against teams that are not using 17-year-olds. Against reputable global competition in the Classic, the U.S. is a .500 ballclub.
This might be the cause for national chagrin, the U.S. playing like one of many instead of the obvious class of the field. One game has been lost to Canada, one game has been lost to Korea, and one game could have been lost to Japan, if not for an unusual and, ultimately incorrect, umpire's call.
But without endless rationalizations, there is another side to this issue. Boiled down, it is this: These other nations are playing much better baseball than we knew, or possibly even imagined.
After a time, these results become trends rather than flukes. In the last two U.S. games, you saw the East Asian teams both play fundamentally sound baseball, including flawless, sometimes brilliant defense and what we in America like to call "the little things." They advance runners when runners need to be advanced. They routinely take the extra base with alertness and aggression.
They are better at this than the Americans, or at least this team of Americans. You saw this vividly in the Korea game. In the third inning, the Koreans put two on with no outs and asked their No. 5 hitter, Ji Han Song, to sacrifice. He did and a single subsequently produced a run.
In the fourth, the Americans put two on with nobody out. First Mark Teixeira was up, and you apparently can't ask him to bunt, because he's a slugger. He struck out, no one was advanced, and even though one out later Chase Utley produced a single, the U.S. did not score in this inning.
Team USA has lived by the home run and died without it. Not counting the game against South Africa, and there are reasons not to count it, the Americans have scored 15 runs in this tournament. Ten of those runs have come from home runs.
This sort of thing would have worked, if the quality of the opposition pitching wasn't very compelling. But that has not been the case. The only team that the U.S. exploded against was South Africa. We can all agree that the American team not only can hit, it is absolutely loaded with hitters. Therefore, the only explanation left to us is that the teams from Mexico, Canada, Japan and Korea all have at least enough superior pitching to contain this team, and in two cases, to defeat it.
U.S. manager Buck Martinez, suitably gracious in defeat, complimented every aspect of the Koreans' play, but concentrated most on the job done by the six Korean pitchers. These six gave up nine hits and six walks, but for the most part, in the most critical spots, they made the pitches that had to be made.
"Tonight, Korea made great pitches when they had to," Martinez said. "You have to commend their pitchers. You have to tip your hat to them."
The level of play of the Korean team was a revelation, although not a particularly pleasant revelation for Team USA. First baseman Seong Yeop Lee turns out to be a slugger of the first class, leading the Classic with five home runs.
The shortstop, Jin Man Park, took the U.S. out of an inning, turning what looked like a base hit in the hole by Chipper Jones into a double play. It was the kind of thing you could only expect to see from, perhaps, Omar Vizquel, who, in all candor, isn't American either. The second baseman, Min Jae Kim, made a superb stop on a smash by Derek Jeter that saved another run, because the next hitter, Ken Griffey, Jr., homered.
The Koreans are unbeaten in this tournament. After watching them beat the U.S. for nine innings, you understand that this record is exactly what it is supposed to be. They pitch, they catch and they perform the fundamentals without flaw. When they need an offensive lift, off the bench comes a Major Leaguer, Hee-Seop Choi, with a three-run home run.
At the end of the day, it is possible that Team USA is still the best national team in the world, and that the results of these games have been aberrations. But it is just as possible that the globalization of the game has already occurred to such an extent that these results are just what can happen when two very good baseball teams play each other.
No, the U.S. team is not a perfect assemblage of baseball talent. But the real message of this tournament is on the flip side. The international teams at this point are all fully equipped to win a baseball game against anybody on any given night. Monday night, was Korea's given night and the Koreans didn't waste it.
From a fan's perspective, OK, perhaps American dominance in baseball is slipping away. But the plus for baseball is that the global game is obviously growing and improving. Or, look at it this way: We are all, in one way or another, proud to be Americans. But Monday night, some of us left Angel Stadium proud to be Hyundai owners.
Mike Bauman is a national columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Iraq Executes 13 Insurgents

Iraq Executes 13 Insurgents
By VOA News 09 March 2006

Iraq has hanged 13 insurgents in the first government executions since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Authorities gave few details about the men.
Thursday's executions came as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged Iraqis to form a national unity government to lessen the threat of civil war.
He also told a U.S. Senate committee that if a civil war did erupt, Iraqi forces would deal with it to the extent they are able to.
The general who commands U.S. military activities in the Middle East said at the same hearing that sectarian tensions in Iraq are at their highest level so far. But he said the security situation in the country is controllable by Iraqi and coalition forces.
Also Thursday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani agreed to postpone the first session of parliament to March 19th -- a week beyond the constitutional deadline for the opening session of the legislature.
And the U.S.-led multinational force says Iraqi soldiers found weapons caches south of Baghdad near the Euphrates River that included items to detonate roadside bombs.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Shi'ite leaders have ordered the Health Ministry to stop counting execution-style killings after the recent bombing of a Shi'ite shrine sparked weeks of violence.
The government put the official death toll from the first week of sectarian killings at 379 -- far lower than the one thousand tallied by some Iraqi officials.
At least 10 more people were killed in a wave of attacks across Baghdad Thursday.

Study: Iraqi Insurgents' Web Skills Boost Communications, Confidence

By Meredith Buel Washington09 March 2006
Buel report - Download 365k Listen to Buel report
[Picture] An Iraqi man walks past unexploded ordnance next to the wreckage of a car bomb blast, in Baghdad,Iraq

The International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-governmental organization that analyzes international conflict zones, says insurgents in Iraq are finding better ways to communicate and are gaining confidence in their ability to fight against U.S.-led coalition forces. The information comes in a new report that analyzes websites, films and magazines produced by insurgents in Iraq.

The report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), focuses on communications and propaganda efforts by insurgent groups in Iraq, and what it says are their efforts to maximize support among Sunni Arabs that form the backbone for the opposition to the U.S.-led occupation.
The director of ICG's Middle East and North Africa program, Rob Malley, says the Internet has become a valuable tool for armed militant groups in Iraq.

"If you think about how the insurgents today communicate with one another, it is very much through the Internet, through chat rooms, because they don't have other means of communication," he explained. "It is not easy for them to meet. It is not easy for them to have live, in-person gatherings. So what they do is that they communicate in the only way they know how."

Malley says the insurgency is no longer a scattered, chaotic phenomenon.
He says the groups are well organized, produce regular publications and react rapidly to political developments.

"You see a marked improvement in their communication, a real multi-media communications strategy," he explained. "When they go out now for a sniper attack they often bring their camera crew with them. They bring a media team so that immediately posted on the Internet they have a report of their attack, with details so they can substantiate it and gain credibility."

The co-author of the report, senior analyst Peter Harling, lived in Iraq between 1998 and 2003.
He says insurgent groups and the U.S. military focus efforts to sway public opinion on vastly different audiences.

"At the level of discourse and propaganda, winning hearts and minds, the U.S. government has been focusing far more on its own home audience than on the insurgents' target audience, which is the reservoir of volunteers fighting against U.S. forces," he noted.

The ICG report says Iraqi insurgent groups are acutely aware of public opinion and increasingly mindful of their image.
The report says the groups, for the most part, have abandoned some gruesome and locally controversial practices such as beheading hostages and attacking voters going to the polls.
Rob Malley of the ICG says insurgents are increasingly optimistic.

"At this point we are facing an insurgency that is gaining in confidence, that is gaining in unity, that is gaining in uniformity in a way, and that is able to play the political game it appears, given its capacity to renew itself, to replenish its resources, to replenish its ranks, playing the political game far better than most people would assume," added Mr. Malley.

The ICG report says the emergence (cf.emergency) of a better organized and coordinated insurgency has profound implications for policy-makers.
The report says countering the insurgency requires taking its discourse seriously, reducing its legitimacy, and increasing the Iraqi people's confidence in their new government.

Summary March. 10

The state department criticized the United Arab Emirates today over human rights. An annual report said the UAE used floggings as punishment for adultery and drug abuse. It also criticized Egypt and Saudi Arabia over torture and lack of religious freedom. And it said Iraq is plagued by extreme violence and corruption.

President Bush pressed congress today to make good on promised aid for the Gulf Coast. He went to New Orleans’ hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, and he urged approval of 4.2 billion dollars for Louisiana alone to fix levees and replace homes. In Washington, the head of the army corps of engineers discussed levee repairs at a Senate hearing. Lieutenant general Carl Strock denied the corps is cutting corners.

Federal agents in Alabama arrested three men today in a string of (a series of) church fires last month. All were college students in Birmingham. They were charged with church arson. On February 3rd, five churches were set afire south of Birmingham. Four days later, four more churches were burned in west Alabama. In Tuscaloosa today, investigators said it appeared to be a case of thrill seeking. "In the complaint, you'll see that they said that after they lit the first two fires in Bibb County, that it became too spontaneous. After they saw the fire trucks and the lights, it became very spontaneous. That’s in the complaint. That’s indicative of an excitement thrill motive. All of the churches were Baptist’s. Some of the congregations were mostly black, others mostly white".

Photographer and film director Gordon Parks died Tuesday at his home in New York City. He was the first black American to work as a photojournalist for Life magazine starting in 1948. Twenty years later, he moved into movies with “The Learning Tree.” That was followed by the crime thriller “Shaft” in 1971.

Differences between American and British English

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Iraq. Harbey Muhammad Ali asks about differences between American and British English.
Language experts say that spoken English was almost the same in the American colonies and Britain. Americans began to change the sound of their speech after the Revolutionary War in seventeen seventy-six. They wanted to separate themselves from the British in language as they had separated themselves from the British government.
Some American leaders proposed major changes in the language. Benjamin Franklin wanted a new system of spelling. His reforms were rejected. But his ideas influenced others. One was Noah Webster.
Webster wrote language books for schools. He thought Americans should learn from American books. He published his first spelling book in seventeen eighty-three. Webster published The American Dictionary of the English Language in eighteen twenty-eight. It established rules for speaking and spelling the words used in American English.
Webster believed that British English spelling rules were too complex. So he worked to establish an American version of the English language. For example, he spelled the word “center” “c-e-n-t-e-r” instead of the British spelling, “c-e-n-t-r-e”. He spelled the word “honor” “h-o-n-o-r” instead of “h-o-n-o-u-r” as it is spelled in Britain.
Noah Webster said every part of a word should be spoken. That is why Americans say “sec-re-ta-ry” instead of “sec-re-t’ry” as the British do. Webster’s rule for saying every part of a word made American English easier for immigrants to learn. For example, they learned to say “waist-coat” the way it is spelled instead of the British “wes-kit”.
The different languages of the immigrants who came to the United States also helped make American English different from British English. Many foreign words and expressions became part of English as Americans speak it.
Sometimes Americans and British people do not understand each other because of different word meanings. For example, a “jumper” in Britain is a sweater. In the United States, it is a kind of a dress. The British word “brolly” is an “umbrella” in America. A “wastebasket” in America is a “dustbin” in Britain. French fried potatoes in the United States are called “chips” in Britain.
All these differences led British writer George Bernard Shaw to joke that Britain and America are two countries separated by the same language.

On the Iran nuclear story

On the Iran nuclear story: The Associated Press reported Iran offered to stop large-scale work on nuclear fuel for two years, but it insisted on continuing small-scale efforts. The proposal circulated at a meeting of the UN nuclear agency in Vienna, Austria. The Iranian delegate said his country is committed to resolving the issue. --- We still hope that a wise decision is made and the Russians and others spare no effort to make sure that there would be peaceful settlement of this issue and do not let unilateral policy of the United States to take the multilateral diplomacy as a hostage.But in Washington, vice president Cheney warned Iran would face meaningful consequences if it continues a nuclear program. Russia has been negotiating with Iran, but the Russian foreign minister said today there was no compromise in sight.

News Summary

Protests also flared across Pakistan in the hours before Mr. Bush arrived in Islamabad. There was heavy security as Air Force I arrived after dark with lights off and window shades pulled. Just yesterday in Karachi, a suicide bomber killed an American diplomat. Today police broke up a crowd trying to march on the consulate there.

The US defense department released today the names of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A federal judge ordered the release in a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The Bush administration withheld the names for four years. It argued that identifying the men publicly would violate their privacy and endanger them and their families.

Another video shed light on official confusion after hurricane Katrina hit. The Associated Press(AP) obtained the tape of a federal-state briefing. It was hours after the storm came ashore and officials were asking about the New Orleans levees. Governor Kathleen Blanco discussed the flooding on a telephone hookup. --- We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees. We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee, we have not breached the levee at this point of time.At that same briefing, the Federal Emergency director Michael Brown said President Bush was asking about possible levee breaks. In fact, the National Weather Service had reported a break three hours earlier.

The maker of the Blackberry wireless device settled a patent dispute today. Research in Motion agreed to pay $612 million to a small Virginia firm NTP. The settlement ensured thousands of users will not lose service. The handheld Blackberry sends and receives email and serves as a digital planner and phonebook.

The Origin of Species

Today almost 150 years after the Origin of Species first appeared, evolution theory is again in the news and stirring passions. Charles Darwin appears on magazine covers, a scientific superstar if an embattled one. But a fascinating new exhibition at New York's American Museum of Natural History looks at the man himself and his own intellectual evolution and shows him as in some ways an unlikely revolutionary who so feared the consequences of his own discoveries he kept them secret for decades. Niles Eldredge, an evolution theorist himself, is the curator of the exhibition and author of the companion book.
"I think it is almost an unparalleled opportunity to understand the essence of creativity in somebody. It wasn't just on a high; it was a long process of letting nature soak in, so to speak, and then have it sort of bubble up slowly into his conscious brain when he came up with the idea of evolution. "
Charles Darwin was born into 19th century British privilege, raised largely by his sisters after his mother died when he was eight. His one passion as a youth was collecting beetles(insect). Beyond that, he showed little direction and his father despaired.
"He was worried that the kid wasn't showing any sort of focus. He said you care about nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching, and you shall be a disgrace to yourself and to your entire family. "
"Oh, that's very low expectations for this young fellow. "
"So his dad says, okay, so let's put you off to Cambridge, take an undergraduate degree there and become a clergyman so you have some respectable thing to do and you can collect all the beetles you want while you are being a country curie. "
Hard to imagine now Charles Darwin, the country clergyman. Instead, while studying botany at Cambridge, he received an invitation that would change his life and much else, to be an unpaid naturalist on HMS Beagle, with a mission to explore and collect specimens along the coast of South America. " When he got this invitation, of course he jumped at it."
Darwin took his bible with him, but the trip he later wrote 'determined my whole career.' The would-be clergyman became a committed naturalist.

Mar.8th Summary

AT&T announced plans today to eliminate up to 10,000 jobs. It’s part of the nation’s largest telecom company’s move to get even larger, with its offer to buy Bell South for 67 billion dollars. That deal includes Cingular Wireless. Officials said both of the job reductions would come through attrition.
The federal death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui began in earnest today in Virginia. In opening statements, a federal prosecutor charged Moussaoui lied to investigators to cover the 9-11 plot. Moussaoui has admitted training with al-Qaida but denies any role in the attacks.
The US supreme court today upheld a law on military recruiting at colleges and universities. In an 8-0 unanimous decision, the justices agreed schools taking federal money must let recruiters on campus. Justice Samuel Alito did not take part in the decision because he was not on the court to hear the argument.
The governor of South Dakota signed a bill today banning nearly all abortions statewide. It’s designed to set up a direct challenge to Rowe v. Wade, the supreme court decision that legalized abortion in 1973. The South Dakota law bars any abortions except when the mother’s life is endangered. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Death Penalty Controversy

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CNN Anchor:
The United States federal government carries out Timothy McVeigh’s sentence of death. The 33-year-old drew his last breath Monday after being injected with a series of drugs. It took place at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh was executed for an act of first-degree murder that shook the nation’s sense of security. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh parked a Ryder truck full of explosives in front of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children. The execution of Timothy McVeigh has caused much speculation about capital punishment. It’s a hot topic, not only in the courts, but also in schools and among students across the nation. CNN’s student bureau’s Allison Walker reports on what students in Texas and Connecticut have to say about the death penalty.

-WALTER STREIGLE, Student, Norwich Free Academy: It’s wrong. We should never, never kill. Capital punishment is wrong, and we need to do away with it.
-ALLISON WALKER, CNN Student Bureau Reporter: The death penalty is an emotional issue. For some, like high school student Walter Streigle, taking lives as a punishment and as a deterrent for others not to commit a crime is unjustifiable.
-STREIGLE: What we should do is we should, if we have to judge somebody and we judge that they’re guilty of a crime, then we should help that person to see that their crime is wrong.
-HEATHER LEWIS, Student, Norwich Free Academy: My favorite quote that I’ve heard of all time is “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” It kind of just shows that the death penalty is a big hypocrisy.
-WALKER: In Connecticut, there are currently seven inmates on death row but no one has been executed since 1961. Texas leads the nation in executions. There were 40 people put to death there last year alone. Kamna Balhara attends Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas.
-KAMNA BALHARA, Student, Clements High School: I’m for it in a sense because killing someone deserves reciprocations in the same way, like the killers deserve it. But at the same time, I’m against it because if you take someone’s life, you’re doing the same thing that the criminal did.
-J.C. BAXTER, Student, Clements High School: (it)Seems to me(that) the only cruel and unusual thing would be to waste the taxpayers’ money on keeping these kind of people alive.
-PAIGE NEWTON, Student, Clements High School: I think it would be better for the government to make the person spend their life in prison thinking about what they did wrong.
-WALKER: In Texas, the death sentence is handed down at a rate 10 times more than in Connecticut. Allison Walker, CNN Student Bureau, Atlanta.
-CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN Senior International Correspondent: There were a few protests in Europe, where the death penalty has been abolished and where there is a growing movement against capital punishment in the United States. Indeed, the U.S. and Japan are the only industrialized democracies that execute convicted criminals. Italy abolished the practice back in 1947.
-ELISABETTA ZAMPARUTTI, Anti Death Penalty Campaigner: The death penalty is a very primitive answer to the problem of the criminality.
-AMANPOUR: Britain stopped hanging people in 1965, and while there is virtually no support for Timothy McVeigh, there is also little support for killing him.
-UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He’s done a terrible, terrible thing, but to go and watch somebody be executed is....…
-UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it’s more of a punishment if he was locked up for life. AMANPOUR: Others say it’s no deterrent and simply reinforces violence in society.
-UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I say, I slapped my child because she slapped a child, how’s she going to learn that slapping a person is not right?
-AMANPOUR: Amnesty International is conducting a worldwide effort against the U.S. death penalty. It says there were at least 1,457 executions in 27 countries in the year 2000. 88 percent of all-known executions took place in China, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran. Amnesty says the death penalty in the U.S. is flawed and biased against blacks and poor people. -PIERS BANNISTER, Amnesty International: It’s inflicted upon the innocent. It’s inflicted after unfair trials, where people, defendants didn’t have adequate legal help under resource lawyers. It’s inflicted on the mentally retarded.
-AMANPOUR: The movement in Europe against the U.S. death penalty has grown with the presidency of George W. Bush. As Texas Governor, he signed 150 death warrants. And during his inauguration, protesters delivered bags of petitions to U.S. embassies around Europe. Abolishing the death penalty is a precondition for belonging to the European Union, and after McVeigh’s execution, a top European official said that the way he died was wrong, that the death penalty was not a deterrent, because it gave McVeigh the notoriety he so craved. And he urged the United States to change its position on the death penalty, to bring it in line with the vast majority of the free and democratic world. Christiane Amanpour, CNN, London.