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Week 12, 2006
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles):
1) Reuters: Study says global spread of English threatens UK [Une étude indique que ce n'est plus un avantage d'être de langue maternelle anglaise.]
2) Rendez-vous France.com: Interview with David Sedaris [Entretien avec l'humoriste américain David Sedaris, responsable de l'engouement américain avec Picard Surgelés.]
3) India Financing: Major components [Les entreprises et les clients du leasing en Inde.]
4) The Economist: French raid [OPA de BNP sur BNL dans le contexte de consolidation européenne.]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: All about dogs [Tout sur les chiens.]
6) Puzzle: Apple orchard [Un casse-tête.]
7) Business Week: Manuals for dummies [Une alternative aux modes d'emploi illisibles.]
8) AUDIO/Radio National/Perspective: A Fair and Credible Trial [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci la radio nationale australienne, sur l'avenir de la justice criminelle internationale.]

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1) Reuters: Study says global spread of English threatens UK [Une étude indique que ce n'est plus un avantage d'être de langue maternelle anglaise.]
http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=1094508&src=UK_DskTopTkr/GetContent

Study says global spread of English threatens UK
Tue Feb 21, 2006 04:07 PM GMT
Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS
By Chris Johnson

LONDON (Reuters) - The dominance of English as the world's top language -- until recently an advantage to both Britain and the United States -- is now beginning to undermine the competitiveness of both nations, according to a major research report. The report commissioned by the British Council says monolingual English graduates "face a bleak economic future" as multilingual competitors flood into the workforce from all corners of the globe.

A massive increase in the number of people learning English is under way and likely to peak at around 2 billion in the next decade, according to the report entitled "English Next". More than half of all primary school children in China now learn English and the number of English speakers in India and China -- 500 million -- now exceeds the total number of mother-tongue English speakers elsewhere in the world. These new polyglots, and the companies that employ them, have significant competitive advantages over their monoglot rivals, including a vital understanding of different cultures, in a world faced with rapid globalisation.

"The competitive advantage of speaking English is ebbing away," said the author of the report, linguistic consultant David Graddol. "Once everyone speaks English, advantage can only be maintained by having something else -- other skills, such as speaking several languages. "At a corporate level, the UK and U.S. economies have been enjoying a huge benefit from having so many English speakers elsewhere in the world," he told Reuters on Tuesday. "They can outsource overseas to India, for example, allowing them to cut costs and boost growth."

But Graddol said there were mounting disadvantages for U.S. and British companies if they stayed monolingual. Companies from other countries could use exactly the same methods to cut costs. And those foreign competitors could also trade and take orders in other languages. "We know from trade associations that small and medium-sized British firms are losing a lot of business because they can't even answer calls from abroad on the switchboard," he said. "Calls don't get to the right people because the telephone operators don't have the languages needed."

Around 30 percent of the British population speaks a language other than English, but about half of these people have that other language as a mother tongue, Graddol said. In the United States, 22 percent of the population speaks a language other than English, mainly Spanish, and many of these people have Spanish as their first language, figures from the U.S. Modern Language Association show.

British higher education may already be suffering from being monolingual, Graddol suggests. The number of foreign, particularly Chinese, students entering UK universities was falling as colleges in other parts of the world offered courses in English at lower cost, he said. English-language teaching now earns Britain up to 1.3 billion pounds directly and other education-related exports bring in a further 10 billion pounds a year, the report said.

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2) Rendez-vous France.com: Interview with David Sedaris [Entretien avec l'humoriste américain David Sedaris, responsable de l'engouement américain avec Picard Surgelés.]
http://www.rendezvousfrance.com/sedaris.html

Some years ago, David Sedaris decided to move to Paris. "It was like taking off a heavy coat," he says. "I was not aware of it in New York or Chicago, but I always had my eyes out for danger. Not here." The author of the best-selling Me Talk Pretty One Day, Barrel Fever, and Naked, now lives in Paris a good part of the year. He has found a vast and beautiful apartment on the Left Bank, under the protective shadow of the Sorbonne, in a very "BoBo" neighborhood - full or bourgeois bohemians. His latest book, Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little Brown), stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for over 20 weeks. His inspiration and field of exploration come from his personal experiences.
Sedaris, 43, has kept voluminous journals and first started reading them at friends' parties, in Chicago. He then moved to New York, where he held a series of jobs, including being an elf at Macy's, at Christmas. In 1993, Ira Glass, producer of the National Public Radio show This American Life, asked him if he'd like to read one of his pieces on the air. The Sedaris cult started that winter. We recently met him in Paris where he is beginning to be a celebrity despite his limited - but original - command of the French language.

Q. How did you decide to move to Paris ?
A. I would come to France in the summer with my boyfriend and stop in Paris. I love to shop more than anything, I love to speak French, so I thought it would be good to live here. There are new words to learn. I was having such a lovely time here that I said "Let's buy an apartment." In New York, if you buy an apartment, your maintenance fee is something like $2,000. Here, I pay $125.

Q. How did the experience turn out ?
A. I like being in a foreign land, I like not being responsible for anything. I can't vote. I like the feeling of not belonging. I think one can become French, but one can't ever be French. It is not hard to become an American. It involves paperwork. But even with the paperwork, I could not become French. But I have a place, I go to the movies each day. It is a great place to be.

Q. How your perception of French life changed?
A. In the US, I understand what's going on. In France, I don't. I don't understand, for instance, why people go on strike all the time. But I like the work involved in understanding what's going on. In America, you grow up hearing that it is the land of freedom, but you go outside and you realize it is not true. Also, I am delighted by so many things, in France. I went to the dentist. For the first time in 13 years I could afford it. It cost me $40. I went to the eye doctor. It took me 5 minutes. In New York, I waited for 5 hours for a kidney stone.

Q. What do you like best in your Parisian life?
A. I have never been afraid here. It is like taking off a heavy coat. I was not aware of it in New York or Chicago. I always had my eyes out for danger. Not here. It is so beautiful here, such a beautiful place. I am waiting for someone to tell me "You don't deserve this ". Beauty does not pay the bills but it shakes you. Also, you'd never find movies like here. I never run out of choices.

Q. What difference moving from New York has made in your work?
A. By the time I left New York, I did not have much to complain about. But I work better when I struggle against something. Here, I have to struggle for everything. The language makes everything a struggle. Parisians love exact change. I was frightened at the grocery store the first time I was asked something and I did not understand. The first movie I saw here was Saving Private Ryan. I gave 50F and the guy said "51F because we charge more for tourists." ! I have to go on TV and I am terrified. I don't understand if the show is funny, interesting or what.

Q. How do you see French people now that you live among them?
A. Americans want to believe that the French are really nasty. They assume the French are really awful. They are desperate to have their myths about France repeated because something frightens them about the French. But Parisians must be like people in SoHo, in Manhattan : after a while they get tired of people with maps, five abreast. But Parisians can be strange. I went to a café and ordered coffee at 6pm and the waiter said to me "Coffee, finished" in English. The impulse is to say the French are assholes but my boyfriend Hugh has many friends and he can counter that. If I am not critical enough, I will be seen as a francophile and that's scary! American francophiles are scary.

Q. Was living in Paris a dream of yours ?
A. No. But there is a lot of stuff to buy here, so much stuff. I do my Christmas shopping in September, here. I go to flea markets. Any store you go you'll find something. I thought if I bought a lot, people would love me in the stores! But I like living in Paris because I can smoke.

Q. What do you smoke ?
A. Kool cigarettes ! I smoke them because I am the only white person in America to smoke them, and no one borrows cigarettes from me.

Q. What about food ?
A. I wanted to eat horse meat the moment I was here. I finally had it last night. It was good. There is an open air market just up the street. Hugh knows the people, the products. I love neighborhood supermarkets. I love going to Shopi [a sort of French 7-11] on Sundays. I love standing in a very long line. I think the best job in France is to work at a cash register. They don't do anything, don't even bag your stuff. I love a chain called Picard Surgelés. That would be making a lot of money in the U.S. Here, when people bag, they are so slow. It is as if they need to color coordinate.

Q. Do you read French newspapers ?
A. I only read Voici [a French National Enquirer]. I discover new words I would not find anywhere else, like "mangeuse d'hommes". I love it when on the cover they have "publication judiciaire" when they have libeled someone. Growing up, I thought France was the top of sophistication. It is great to find gossip magazines and bad taste. But I have the reverse experience when I go to a movie and I see previews of American films: I want to get up and say I am sorry.

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Indian Leasing: Major components

In this section, we take a look at the major constituents of the leasing industry in India: the lessors and the lessees.

Lessors:

1. Specialized leasing companies:

There are about 400-odd large companies which have an organizational focus on leasing, and hence, are known as leasing companies.

Till recently, most of them were diversified financial houses, offering several fund-based and non-fund based financial services. However, recent SEBI rules on bifurcation of fund-based and non-fund based activities has resulted into hiving-off of merchant banking divisions of these entities. Most of these companies also offer hire-purchase activities, and some of them might have a consumer finance division as well.

These companies are known, in regulator's jargon, as non-banking financial companies, or NBFCs for short. The terms NBFCs includes several other financial concerns too, and all such companies are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. There were no entry barriers to leasing business till recently, but the January 1997 amendments to the RBI law now require any non-banking finance company to have a prior registration with the RBI, and the conditions of registration virtually amount to authorization by the RBI.

2. Banks and bank-subsidiaries:

Till 1991, there were some ten bank subsidiaries active in leasing, and over-active in stock-investing. The latter variety was ravaged in the aftermath of the 1992 securities scam.

In Feb., 1994, the RBI allowed banks to directly enter leasing. So long, only bank subsidiaries were allowed to engage in leasing operations, which was regarded by the RBI as a non-banking activity. However, the 1994 Notification saw an essential thread of similarity between financial leasing and traditional lending.

Though State Bank of India, Canara Bank etc have set up leasing activity, it is not currently at a scale to make any difference on the leasing scenario. This is different from the rest of the World, where banks are front-runners in leasing markets.

3. Specialized Financial institutions:

There is a wide variety of financial institutions at the Central as well as the State level in India. Apart from the apex financial institutions, viz., the Industrial Development Bank of India, the Industrial Finance Corporation of India, and the ICICI, there are several financing agencies devoted to specific causes, such as sick-industries, tourism, agriculture, small industries, housing, shipping, railways, roads, power, etc. In most States too, there are multiple financing agencies for generic or focussed cause.

Most of these institutions are using the lease instrument along with traditional financing instruments. Significantly, the ICICI was one of the pioneers in Indian leasing. At State level also, financial institutions are active in leasing business.

4. One-off lessors :

Some of the companies engaged in some other business which gives them huge taxable profits, have resorted to one-off leasing on a casual basis to defer their taxes. These people are interested only in leasing of high-depreciation items, preferably those entitled to 100% depreciation. The major items eligible for 100% depreciation are gas cylinders, certain energy-saving devices, pollution control devices etc. Severe scrutiny by revenue officials into lease transactions at the time of assessment has dampened the enthusiasm in this line of leasing activity, however it carries on. Mostly such lease transactions are syndicated, at times even funded, by active players in leasing markets.

5. Manufacturer-lessors :

This part of the lessor-industry is in highly under-grown form in India, for simple reasons. Vendor leasing is a product of competition in the product market. As competition forces the manufacturer to add value to his sales, he finds the best way to sell the product is to sell it without the buyer having to pay for it instantly. Product markets so far for most durables were oligopolistic, and good products used to sell even otherwise at a premium. With the economy decisively moving towards market orientation, competition has become inevitable, and competition brings in its wake sales-aid tools. Hence, the potential for vendor leasing is truly great.

Presently, vendors of automobiles, consumer durables, etc. have alliances or joint ventures with leasing companies to offer lease finance against their products. However, there is no devoted vendor leasing of the type popular in most of the advanced markets, where a specific leasing company or leasing program takes exclusive charge of a vendor's products.

The lessees

1. Corporate customers with very high credit ratings: These essentially look at leasing to leverage against assets which are otherwise not bankable, or for pure junk financing.

2. Public sector undertakings: This market has witnessed a very rate of growth in the past. With budgetary grants to the PSUs coming to a virtual halt, there is an increasing number of both centrally as well as State-owned entities which have resorted to lease financing. Their requirements are usually massive.
3. Mid-market companies: The mid-market companies, that is, companies with reasonably good creditworthiness but with lower public profile have resorted to lease financing basically as an alternative to bank/institutional financing, which to them is time-consuming and tedious.
4. Consumers: Retail funding for consumer durables was frowned-upon at one point of time, but recent bad experience with corporate financing has focussed attention towards consumer durables which incidentally, is all the all-time favorite of financiers World-over. Most of the larger companies have expressed interest in consumer funding, with ticket size going as low as Rs. 5000.
5. Car customers: Car leasing World-over is a very big market, and the same is true for India. So long, most car leases were plain-vanilla financial leases but one now finds few instances of value-added car lease services also being offered.
6. Commercial vehicles: Commercial vehicles customers have always relied upon funding by hire-purchase companies. The customer profile ranges from large fleet owners to individual truckers.
7. Earth-moving machinery customers: These customers have also traditionally relied upon lease financing. Their requirements are generally large - each excavators costs more than Rs. 25 lacs. The income-stream is based on contracts they have - at times, the income generation may be sporadic, or the need might itself be temporary. In fact, operating leases would have been ideal in this market, but they are yet to be launched to any serious degree.
8. Govt. deptts. and authorities: One of the latest entrants in leasing markets is the Govt. itself. The Deptt. of Telecommunications of the Central Govt. took the lead by floating tenders for lease finance worth about Rs. 1000 crores. In its reforms programme, India has limits to the extent to which it can resort to deficit financing, and leasing is easily going to appeal to the Govt. , if not for cost reasons, at least for the fact that it will not feature in national accounts as a commercial financing. As a spin-off, it might even help reducing the reported deficit, as the Govt. resorts to what is loved World-over as a tool of off-balance-sheet financing.

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4) The Economist: French raid [OPA de BNP sur BNL dans le contexte de consolidation européenne.]
http://www.economist.co

European banks: French raid

Feb 9th 2006 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition
BNP Paribas's swoop for Italy's BNL is unlikely to start a rush

THE move was quick, bold and unexpected. On February 3rd BNP Paribas, France's second-biggest bank by assets, declared that it was buying a 48% stake in Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) and would bid for the rest. The offer values BNL, Italy's sixth-biggest bank, at about €9 billion ($10.8 billion). If approved by regulators, this will be the biggest foreign acquisition ever by a French bank and the fifth-largest cross-border takeover in European banking (see chart).

BNL has been seen as a takeover target for three years, but BNP Paribas was never thought to be a potential buyer. Last year Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), which owns 15% of BNL, tried to buy the lot but hardly received enthusiastic encouragement from the Italian authorities. Unipol, an Italian insurer, then tried to play the national white knight. Its bid was eventually rejected by the central bank last week. When Unipol and 12 other shareholders were ready to sell, the opportunity was too good to let pass, says Baudouin Prot, chief executive of BNP.

Mr Prot's strike shows the attraction of Italy's banking market. It looks ripe for consolidation: the top five banks have a share of only 35%, against 72% in France and 80% in Britain. It ought to be profitable: Italians save more than the European Union average and pay higher bank fees. BNP's Italian operations, in consumer finance, insurance and corporate finance, already produce revenue of €750m a year.

Better still, following last year's battles over both BNL and Banca Antonveneta, the ninth-biggest bank, the country is now more open to foreign buyers. The rumpus over Antonveneta, which is now being bought by the Netherlands' ABN Amro, led to the resignation in December of Antonio Fazio, governor of the Bank of Italy, and his replacement by Mario Draghi, formerly of Goldman Sachs. Under Mr Fazio it was all but impossible even for foreigners with a big stake in Italian banks to buy control; those without did not even try.

The French bank's swoop is the biggest and latest of many purchases since it was forged from Banque Nationale de Paris and Paribas in 2000. BNP Paribas has since spent €13 billion on takeovers, mainly on smallish retail-banking deals. Last year it bought 14 companies, including Commercial Federal, an American retail bank, for $1.4 billion. “If the opportunity to buy BNL had not come up we would have continued our baby-step strategy,” says Mr Prot.

Despite BNP's bold move, a series of big cross-border deals looks improbable. No doubt BNP Paribas's domestic rivals, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale, would like a coup of their own. So might the thwarted BBVA, which is selling its stake in BNL to BNP Paribas. The trouble is that few big banks are worth buying. Analysts at Merrill Lynch say the number of possible prey has dwindled further now that ABN Amro, Germany's Commerzbank and Austria's Erste Bank have become buyers.

Surely, though, Italy is now open for business? After all, several foreign banks already own slices of Italian institutions. Spain's Grupo Santander holds 8% of Sanpaolo IMI, the third-biggest bank. ABN Amro has 9% of Capitalia, the number four. Crédit Agricole owns 18% of Banca Intesa, the largest. Italian banks are not huge: even Intesa, with a market capitalisation of €28 billion, would be no match for the top dogs of France, Germany and Spain. However, a bid for one of Italy's biggest and best would test its new openness: BNL is no giant and no jewel. Moreover, the top banks are subject to fairly tight shareholder pacts, which leaves only small regional banks as easy meat.

If deals across borders happen, they are likely to be takeovers of small banks by bigger institutions. Mergers of near-equals have rarely progressed beyond initial flirtations and have not always been happy experiences. The products of one or two have even been spoken of as takeover targets themselves. But none are so alluring as to be leapt upon à la française.

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5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: All about dogs [Tout sur les chiens.]
http://kidzworld.com/site/p1674.htm

All About Dogs

Dogs are man's best friend. But if they're supposed to be your BFF, then you should know a lot about them, right? In case ya don't, here are some doggie tidbits for you to chew on.

Dogs - The Beginning of Dogkind
It is said that dogs come from a creature similar to a wolf called Tomarctus ("father of dogs"), which roamed the earth about 15 million years ago. Dogs first became pets for cavemen, while the Greeks used them for hunting and as guards. Romans traveled through Europe and brought their dogs with them. These dogs bred with the local dogs, and gradually many different breeds were created.

Dogs - A Breed Apart
Dogs are generally classified into seven different breeds.
# Toy - Chihuahua, Maltese, Pomeranian, Pug.
# Terrier - Miniature Schnauzer, Scottish Terrier, Yorkshire Terrier.
# Hound - Basset Hound, Beagle, Bloodhound, Whippet.
# Herding - Border Collie, German Shepherd, Australian Cattle Dog, Sheepdog.
# Sporting - Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, Cocker Spaniel, Weimaraner.
# Non-Sporting - Boston Terrier, Bulldog, Dalmatian, Chow Chow, Poodle.
# Working
A German Shepherd.
German Shepherd
- Boxer, Bullmastiff, Saint Bernard, Great Dane, Rottweiler.

Dogs - Docking and Cropping
Docking is removing all or most of a dog's tail. Cropping is removing part of the ears so they stand up. Tails are docked before a puppy is even three days old, while cropping is usually done within four months. Docking and cropping goes back hundreds of years. It was done to prevent injury to ears in fights and to protect tails from the underbrush when hunting. For some breeds, docking and cropping is mandatory by the breed standards. However, some countries like England, Australia and most of Europe have made it illegal because it was considered cruel.

Dogs - Did U Know?
# The smartest dogs are the Border Collie, the Poodle and the Golden Retriever. The dumbest dog is the Afghan.
# German Shepherds are known to bite humans more than any other breed.
# For dogs, the nose knows. They have between 120 million to 300 million scent cells along their nostrils.
# Many dogs have a sweet tooth and love chocolate, but it's poisonous for dogs!
# Have you ever wondered why poodles wear pom-poms on their legs? Originally, the haircut helped the poodle to swim faster, and the pom-poms were left on to keep the joints warm.

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7) Business Week: Manuals for dummies [Une alternative aux modes d'emploi illisibles.]
http://www.businessweek.com

Manuals for Dummies
Frustrated with the cryptic or flabby instruction books that accompany products, consumers are choosing reader-friendly alternatives

From hardware to software to that new robot that mops the floor and scares the cat — nobody ever wants to read the manual that comes with a new widget.

And why should you? Most product manuals are either flimsy pamphlet things with terse, tiny-type instructions in eight different languages or thick, impenetrable softcover doorstops that have all the visual excitement of a real-estate contract. Hardcore techies who read and write these things came up with a snarky, online abbreviation to smack down people who skipped the instruction book, but showed up in user forums asking obvious questions. You may have heard of it: RTFM, which stands for Read The [Really Bad Word] Manual.

Easier said than done. I write about computers and technology for a large part of my income, and I can barely get through some of the mind-numbing documentation out there. Much of it is unreadable and also boring to look at. If I want to look at walls of gray, I'll go meditate on the Munsell in a photo-retouching lab.

But whether it's deciphering Adobe Photoshop Elements or trying to set up a wireless home network, many people have ditched the official documentation and turned to a friendlier alternative: the sassy, savvy, consumer-oriented technical book that explains a program, process or product in regular ol' English — aided by slick graphic design that keeps the harried reader comforted and entertained as he or she scales the learning curve.

Hitting the shelves in 1991, DOS For Dummies was the granddaddy of the User-Friendly User Manual. With conversational chunks of text peppered with cartoons, friendly icons and jaunty typefaces, this ur-Dummies title proved that non-nerds could cuddle up with a technical tome. The series, from Wiley Publishing, now boasts 125 million books (on a gajillion topics) in print, so it's safe to say somebody out there finds the Dummies pretty darn smart.

This combination of elements gently eases the reader into the technical information. It's sort of like how people, intimidated by the columns and columns of type in The New Yorker, feel secure knowing there's a cynically whimsical Roz Chast cartoon to rest upon during the long eyeball march through an intense 10-page burst of short fiction.

In addition to the predictable interior design that anchors every book in the series, each volume in the Dummies brand screams for attention on the store shelf with its loud, proud, yellow-and-black cover. (Wiley must get some sort of yellow ink bulk discount since they also publish the Cliffs Notes literary guides, the main reason most high-school sophomores can pass a test on Silas Marner.) There's comfort in consistency.

Needless to say, the concept of the saucy, snappily designed guidebooks took off. Witness the proliferation over the years: the Complete Idiots Guides from the Penguin Group, the Visual QuickStart books from Peachpit Press and the Missing Manuals from Pogue Press/O'Reilly Media.

I was heavily biased towards the Missing Manual series even before I was asked to write one about the iPod, as it's the brainchild book line of David Pogue, who wrote Macs for Dummies before incorporating Pogue Press and joining forces with computer-book giant O'Reilly Media in 2000. If you're into graphics arts, digital video or publishing, odds are you've got at least one edition of his Mac OS X: The Missing Manual next to your computer by that can of Coke.

Thanks to designer Phil Simpson, the Missing Manual series has its own distinct look, with sidebar boxes, blurb-like tips and attention-getting graphics on just about every page. A lot of thought went into that design, particularly because most of the books in the series are printed in economical monochrome. Without the pedagogically proficient use of color within the text to call out specific points or display illustrations, the books have to make due with varying amounts of black ink on the page.

"The original idea behind Phil's design," recalled David when I called him to ask about the look of the Missing Manuals, "was how can we make it look like color just with shades of gray. If you look through the books, you'll see six or seven different, distinct shades of gray used as basically color elements to make it a little more vivid and lively." (See for yourself.)

While imparting technological wisdom in short humorous sections, the text itself also becomes something of a visual element within a Missing Manual. The discussion in any given chapter intertwines around short sidebars focused on one aspect of the topic at hand. Boxed graphics displaying captioned screenshots and brief "tips 'n' tricks" info-nuggets centered between horizontal rules also serve to enhance the main text.

"On the Missing Manual series, our idea was to let you open the book in the bookstore and stick your finger in at random and you will find three or four different entry points to the page," said David, citing the various elements mentioned above. "We never wanted to have just two pages of plain text." In a Missing Manual, the reader has plenty of graphical rest stops on the road to enlightenment.

"From my personal-training history of teaching people computers," David continued, "I know that it's wearying to be fed a nonstop river of new information in something that it's not immediately apparent to you how you need it yet. We're basically bending over backwards to keep the interest level high and the entertainment level high."

So fear not, gentle nontechnical reader. There are computer books out there that will not put you in a state of visual vegetation. With the Missing Manuals, Dummies books, Complete Idiots Guides and all the rest here to help, maybe that old techie snark will morph into a new meaning: "Read That Fantastic Manual!"

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8) AUDIO/Radio National/Perspective: A Fair and Credible Trial [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci la radio nationale australienne, sur l'avenir de la justice criminelle internationale.]
Transcription : http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective/stories/s1587961.htm
Télécharger le fichier audio : http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/perspective_20060309.mp3

Steven Freeland
Thursday 9 March 2006

Topic: A Fair and Credible Trial

Program Transcript:

Late last month, reports emerged, although these were subsequently denied, that Ratko Mladic had been arrested in Serbia and was on his way to the detention centre of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Sadly, it seems that Mladic, who has been indicted for alleged international crimes including the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebrenica, remains at large, despite the fact that these atrocities occurred over ten years ago.

This is also the case with Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political leader, who has been in hiding since 1995.

The failure to arrest these two men may appear to suggest that the operation of the international criminal courts and tribunals is ineffectual and of marginal benefit. Certainly it remains a major sore point that these alleged war criminals have not yet been brought before the law, thus depriving the many thousands of victims and their families of any sense of justice.

However, the blame does not lie with the War Crimes Tribunal. Rather it is the case that the various international criminal courts set up since the mid-1990s have been very important in countering the culture of impunity that had previously existed for decades. We are now witnessing the ‘internationalization of justice’ – a process that will, over time, see many of those most responsible for international crimes being brought to account.

This phenomenon has raised the level of international consciousness in relation to acts that constitute a gross violation of human rights. Moreover, the jurisprudence of the international courts has broadened the scope of these crimes, for example affording proper recognition to the true nature of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which can now constitute a crime against humanity or even genocide.

As this international system of criminal justice evolves, national governments can no longer ignore the moral imperative to recognise these crimes within their own legal systems. Australia has recently ‘upgraded’ its criminal code to include both genocide and crimes against humanity within our domestic laws. While the motive behind this was, at least partially, political – for practical purposes it avoids the possibility that an Australian will ever face trial before the International Criminal Court – it represents both a symbolic and tangible recognition that these actions constitute behaviour that is no longer acceptable to the international community.

We have seen former leaders such as Milosevic and Pinochet brought within the legal processes. Even Saddam Hussein is now before an Iraqi court, although it appears that the procedures underlying his trial are so badly flawed that an international tribunal now represents a far better option from the point of view of a fair and credible trial. The point is, however, that it would have been unthinkable even ten years ago that leaders or former leaders such as this would ever have faced trial in such a public forum for international crimes.

This process of accountability is being further developed by the International Criminal Court, the world’s first permanent court of this nature. Other internationalised tribunals have also been established in Sierra Leone, East Timor and Cambodia. While each of these have had varying degrees of ‘success’, they all point to the fact that today’s and tomorrow’s senior political and military leaders can no longer assume that they will be able to get away with acts that constitute international crimes.

Yet, for all of the progress that has been made, there is still much to be done. The international system that is evolving is by no means perfect. Some of the crimes are still too narrow in their scope. By necessity, these courts can only prosecute relatively few people, so a degree of selectivity is inevitable, although it is to be hoped that countries themselves will also take action against other perpetrators of these crimes.

Above all, this system still relies on the assistance and cooperation of governments and of international organisations such as NATO and the African Union. The International Criminal Court has recently issued arrest warrants against five senior leaders of the Lords’ Resistance Army in Uganda for very serious crimes involving the kidnapping, killing, sexual abuse and enslavement of children. The ICC has no police force. It has neither the power nor infrastructure in place to capture these men. This will only happen with the support of the local government and the absence of safe havens.

This also appears to be the case for Mladic and Karadzic. The political will must be present if the international justice system is to have the greatest possible effect. Every effort, including appropriate diplomatic and political pressure, must be utilised in order to ‘convince’ governments of their responsibilities to support this process of accountability.

Guests on this program:
Steven Freeland
Associate Professor of International Law, University of Western Sydney
Visiting Professional, International Criminal Court, The Hague.

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9) New York Times: Male drivers waste six million hours a year [Les conducteurs masculins british qui refusent de demander leur chemin perdent six millions d'heures par an.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/19food.html

Male drivers waste six million hours a year

Tue Mar 14, 6:42 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - British male drivers waste nearly six million hours a year lost on the road because they are reluctant to ask for directions. Men who are lost wait an average of 20 minutes before giving up and asking for directions, while women only wait 10 minutes before seeking help, according to a survey from Royal Automobile Club Direct Insurance.

Men even endure a "nagging period" of around 10 minutes from their partner before throwing in the towel and stopping to ask the way, the poll showed.

Based on responses from 2,000 adults, the survey also revealed:
-- Some 64 percent of couples admitted to having arguments over getting lost on the road.
-- Only 27 percent of couples plan their journeys before setting off.
-- Just 36 percent of couples rely on landmarks and road signs to find their destination
-- One in four couples still scribble down basic directions on a bit of scrap paper.

RAC Direct Insurance product manager Craig Martin said awareness of the problem could improve driving standards. "The anxiety, increased stress levels and road rage that can be caused by getting lost are unnecessary distractions on today's busy roads when motorists need to be alert and able to concentrate," Martin said. "These problems can easily be avoided just by motorists taking a bit more time to plan their journeys," he added. Martin said new technology installed in cars, including satellite navigation systems, were now being used by about one in five drivers.

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10) The Guardian: Oyster data use rises in crime clampdown [La police -- et d'autres -- exploitent les fichiers des déplacements liés à l'utilisation de l'équivalent londonien du pass Navigo.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1729999,00.html?gusrc=rss

Oyster data use rises in crime clampdown

Monday March 13, 2006

Police hunting criminals are increasingly seeking information from electronically stored travel records, such as those created by users of the popular Oyster card in London. Figures disclosed today show a huge leap in police requests to Transport for London, which operates the Oyster cards used to travel on buses, trains and the underground.

Just seven information requests were made by police in the whole of 2004, compared with 61 requests made in January this year alone. Overall, police have requested to see journey information 243 times, and been given it 229 times, according to figures obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, the Press Association reported.

Some civil liberties campaigners are opposed to systems such as Oyster, which is used by more than 5 million people, fearing the growth of a "Big Brother" surveillance society. Today a Metropolitan police spokeswoman said requests to access Oyster information were a "straightforward investigative tool". She said officers decided on a "case-by-case" basis whether they needed the information to help them trace an individual's movements.

A TfL spokesman said that with 5 million Oyster card users, 65 requests for information per month was a small proportion. The spokesman said: "Transport for London complies fully with the Data Protection Act. Information on individual travel is kept for a maximum of eight weeks and is only used for customer service purposes, to check charges for particular journeys or for refund inquiries. "A very few authorised individuals can access this data and there is no bulk disclosure of personal data to third parties for any commercial purposes. There is no bulk disclosure of personal data to any law enforcement agency. If information is disclosed, it is always done so in accordance with the Data Protection Act after a case-by-case evaluation. "Police requests must be made under Association of Chief Police Officers guidance."

Introduced in 2003, Oyster cards rely on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology embedded in silicon chips and antennas which transmit information to a receiver, for example in a barrier at a tube station. When hit by a radio signal, an electrical charge is generated in the card which is enough to transmit information. The technology was first used during the second world war in bugging devices.

Details of where the card has been swiped are kept on a database and could show someone's journey across London's transport network. But authorities could not, for example, locate someone with an Oyster card when it was away from a receiver.

Police use of travel records was highlighted recently in the hunt for those responsible for the death of the City lawyer Tom ap Rhys Pryce in January. The 31-year-old was stabbed to death just yards from his home in Willesden, north-west London, as he walked home from Kensal Green tube station. The investigation focused on one particular man the day after the killing when he attempted to use the dead man's Oyster card at the same station.

Each card has a unique identification number and users can access details online of their travel over the previous eight weeks. Last month it emerged that people were using the information to track their partners' movements. Oyster supporters, including London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, argue it is a cheaper and more efficient method of buying tickets.

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11) The Rocky Mountain News: Heed the 'Fat Bald Guy' rule [Une bonne règle : à CV égal, un gros chauve est plus compétent qu'un beau sportif chevelu... en tant que gros chauve, je me sens visé...]
http://www.rockymountainnews.com

Heed the Fat Bald Guy Rule
Paul Campos

March 7, 2006
Last week, a friend and I were discussing a college basketball coach who has managed to retain his job despite an unimpressive record. We concluded that an important factor in his otherwise surprising survival is that the coach in question is a rather handsome man (he is also African-American and "well-spoken," which is how white people describe black people who speak standard English).

This discussion brought to mind a certain college football coach, whom I will call "John Smith." Coach Smith, who looked like a surfer out of a Beach Boys song, was hired to a very high profile coaching position at a very young age, despite possessing a markedly thin résumé for such a job. He proceeded to get his team into difficulties with the NCAA, whereupon he skipped town for another high-profile program, which ended up firing him for violating NCAA rules.

The careers of these two coaches illustrate what I call the Fat Bald Guy Rule. The FBGR posits that, when considering otherwise roughly equivalent candidates for any job whose formal requirements don't include being good-looking, hire the fat bald guy. The reason is simple: Society gives all sorts of unearned preferences to good-looking people, so when a fat bald guy manages to assemble a résumé that at first glance resembles that possessed by his good-looking competition, the FBGR assumes that the former record is actually far more impressive than the latter, all things considered.

Examples of the FBGR can be found all over our image-conscious and media-driven culture. For instance, the essential difference between a ranting lunatic like Ann Coulter - who at a national GOP event last month gave a speech in which she referred to Arabs as "ragheads," and who has opined that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" - and the schizophrenic bag lady who wanders the downtown mall is that Coulter is equipped with a law degree and long glossy blonde hair.

Even in academia, which prides itself on supposedly avoiding superficial judgments, the advantages of conventional good looks can be considerable. An anthropologist once pointed out to me that many an ivied quadrangle is full of what she described as "well-dressed idiots," who have parlayed an attractive countenance and a glib manner into academic success.

Of course the politics of personal appearance can be quite complex. In societies such as ours that put an especially high premium on female beauty, women in particular must maneuver through a minefield of cultural contradictions. For instance, in professional settings women who are "too pretty" often find it difficult to be taken seriously. A strikingly attractive friend of mine even went so far as to replace the photograph on her university's Web page with a less flattering image, just before she was considered for tenure (I admit I haven't had the chutzpah to ask her if this was a strategic decision).

Given the enormous amount of discrimination that takes place as a direct consequence of personal appearance, it's noteworthy that a nation as legalistic as ours has passed almost no laws that attempt to regulate such matters. Outside of a handful of municipalities (San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Calif., Washington, D.C.) it is perfectly legal to discriminate against people because of their looks, even when their looks have nothing to do with their ability to do their jobs.

Perhaps this is an admission that appearance-based discrimination is so deeply rooted in our culture that no law could hope to do much about it. More disturbingly, perhaps it's a sign that at bottom we don't actually disapprove of giving all sorts of unearned social advantages to beautiful people simply because they're beautiful.

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12) The Economist: Economic nationalism [Qui bénéficie réellement du "patriotisme économique" ?]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VVSVNGN

Economic nationalism: From Karl Marx's copybook
Mar 2nd 2006

Efforts to block foreign takeovers rest on a deceit about ownership and interests

PATRIOTISM, said Samuel Johnson, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. That may be unfair to the proper sort of patriot, but it would be an entirely valid comment about politicians today who make a fuss about foreign takeovers in their countries, in the name of “national interests”. The truth is that they are not defending their nations' interests at all. They are defending their own interests and (often) those of their cronies.

Such selfish populism has become increasingly popular. Recent weeks have seen American politicians attacking the purchase of a port management firm by DP World from the United Arab Emirates (see article) and proposing new barriers for state-owned buyers to jump; the French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, hastily arranging a merger between a state-owned gas firm, Gaz de France, and another big utility, Suez, in order to see off an Italian bid for Suez (see article), and proposing other anti-takeover measures; the Spanish government trying to block a German firm's bid for Endesa, a Spanish utility; the Polish government hindering an Italian takeover of a German bank because it involves Polish subsidiaries; South Korean politicians yelling foul at an American-led attempt to buy KT&G, formerly the state-owned tobacco and ginseng monopoly (see article); and the French and Luxembourg governments both trying to discourage a takeover by the world's biggest steel firm, Mittal, for the Franco-Belgian-Luxembourgeois Arcelor.

From the point of view of those who favour open markets for goods, services and capital it is possible to see these political reactions as good news, not bad (see article). They imply, first of all, that there are a lot more cross-border mergers and acquisitions going on than before, notably in Europe, as otherwise there would be nothing to complain about. They may also imply that other refuges of political scoundrels aren't as useful as they once were: trade barriers are hard to erect, especially within the European Union but also more widely thanks to the World Trade Organisation, and the use of public spending to rescue or “create” jobs runs up against state-aid rules, budget-deficit limits and the awkward practical fact that such subsidies don't work for very long. The forces of globalisation, moreover, look much stronger than the measures currently being deployed against them.

Commanding heights

To be entirely sanguine about this spate of economic nationalism could well, however, prove a mistake: it needs to be seen in the wider context of China-bashing in America's Congress, anti-enlargement feeling and even growing racism in some European Union countries, and the continued frailty of the Doha round of trade-liberalisation negotiations. Globalisation is a human construct, after all, not some force of nature; it can be reversed, as has happened in previous bouts of beggar-my-neighbour politics. But even if these anti-takeover movements do prove futile, and don't trigger a broader move to protectionism, that still doesn't make them benign. They introduce distortions and impose costs on the countries that deploy them. And they are, at bottom, corrupt.

The idea that it is somehow in the French national interest that a utility should not become owned by an Italian firm, or in the American interest that ports be kept out of Arab hands, is one to gladden the heart of Karl Marx. His view was that ownership, and hence the power to exploit, was all; hence socialist governments' fateful desire to nationalise the “commanding heights” of their economies. Does Britain suffer because French firms (eg, EDF and Suez) already own large British electricity and water utilities? No: they are subject to exactly the same regulations and labour laws as any other utilities. Would the management of six American ports give DP World control over security there? No: as with any port or airport, it is controlled by the government. The laws of the land and the reach of state or federal agencies are unaffected.

What is affected, however, is the ability of governments and of individual politicians to use patronage at favoured firms to help their friends, to get favours in return, to support special interests such as trade unions, and, in broad political terms, to paint themselves as patriots. Consumers aren't helped, living standards don't rise, the nation as a whole is not better off. But the political and corporate elite may well be.

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THERE has been much hullabaloo about corporate accounting scams in America, yet perhaps the biggest accounting oversight of all time remains hidden in governments' own national figures. GDP per head is the most commonly used measure of a country's success, yet it is badly flawed as a guide to a nation's economic well-being. A new study in the OECD'S 2006 Going for Growth report considers some alternatives.

Economists spend much time discussing how to boost GDP growth. The OECD itself drew attention this week to the widening gap between America's and Europe's GDP per head. Yet a nation's well-being depends on many factors ignored by GDP, such as leisure time, income inequality and the quality of the environment. GDP was developed primarily as a planning tool to guide the huge production effort of the second world war. It was never intended to be the definitive yardstick of economic welfare. Would another indicator change the ranking of countries or their relative performance over time?

GDP is not even the best gauge of the monetary aspects of living standards. It measures the value of goods and services produced by the residents of a country. But some of the income earned in Britain, say, is paid to non-residents, while residents receive income from abroad. Adding net income from abroad to GDP gives us gross national income (GNI, also known as gross national product), which is more relevant for the prosperity of a nation.

Most countries' rank by GNI per head is similar to that by GDP. One exception is Ireland: its GDP per head is one of the highest in the OECD, but because of large net outflows of investment income, its GNI per head is merely around the OECD average. Its average GNI growth rate over the past decade has also been about one percentage point less than on a GDP basis.

Another flaw is that GDP makes no allowance for the depreciation of the capital stock. Subtracting this from GNI leaves net national income (NNI), which is probably the best national-account measure of welfare. Awkwardly, the numbers are harder to come by, making it difficult to compare across countries and over time.

But even NNI is an imperfect measure of people's welfare: it excludes the value of such important things as leisure, inequality and the environment. GDP should ideally be reduced to take account of pollution and the using-up of non-renewable resources, but no standard accounts that can do this are yet available.

On the other hand, the OECD has made a brave attempt to adjust GDP for the distribution of income. To most observers, a country where a few families enjoy huge wealth but most live in abject poverty would have a lower level of well-being than one with the same GDP but less poverty. A dollar of income is, in effect, worth more in the hands of the poor—though just how much more depends on attitudes towards inequality. The OECD's calculations suggest if people strongly dislike inequality, the gap between America and most other rich countries, which have a more equal distribution of income, should be greatly reduced (see chart). By this measure, adjusted income per head is higher in France than in America.

Inequality has also risen in recent years in most countries. Assuming again a strong aversion to inequality, average adjusted income per head grew by only 0.6% a year in OECD countries between 1985 and 2002, against 1.4% for GDP per head. But such estimates are sensitive to big value judgments. If, instead, people care little about inequality, then the adjustment will be much smaller.

Longer holidays and shorter working hours increase an individual's well-being, yet conventional national accounts completely overlook such benefits. America is one of the world's richest countries, yet its workers toil longer hours than those elsewhere. As a result, adjusting GDP for leisure also narrows the gap between America and Europe. The OECD uses three different methods to place a value on leisure. Using the highest valuation (based on average GDP per hour worked), Germany's leisure-adjusted GDP per head is only 6% lower than America's, compared with a 26% shortfall in conventional GDP per head. Most European countries' leisure-adjusted GDP has grown faster than the standard measure over the past few decades, as hours worked have declined.

Europeans, don't relax

GDP is clearly not the best indicator of well-being, but the OECD concludes that for most purposes it is the best that is available on a timely basis. However, GDP needs to be complemented by other measures to give a fuller picture. The OECD takes comfort from the fact that most alternative measures yield similar international rankings to GDP per head. It is true that neither the adjustment for inequality nor that for leisure alone overturns America's economic superiority. However, if both adjustments were made, then on certain assumptions, the gap between the United States and several European countries could vanish.

This does not mean that Europe can afford to abandon economic reforms. Leisure time is valuable, but it will not pay for future pensions. Nevertheless, the OECD is to be congratulated for being the first mainstream organisation to challenge the conventional GDP numbers. Its task now is to encourage governments to start producing more relevant statistics.

By Todd Leopold, CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Once upon a time -- like about, oh, 1988 -- stars didn't receive anything for presenting and participating in the Oscars. It was an honor just to be asked. Now the question is what they don't receive. Jewelry. Trips. Lingerie. Grooming products and cosmetics. Coupons for Lasik eye surgery.

And companies vie to add to the gift basket, open Oscar suites and somehow draw the attention of an A-lister, a term that has become as flexible as a 19th-century midway contortionist. (Watch Christmas in March for Oscar presenters -- 3:07)

Of course, there's a reason for giving free stuff to already wealthy individuals. In a celebrity-driven culture, it's simply good marketing. "Our industry has been fueled by pop culture magazines," Lash Fary, owner of Distinctive Assets -- a company that assembles gift bags -- told Reuters. "They need celebrity content."

And companies will pay dearly for the privilege. Fary charges up to $20,000 for firms to be included in his gift bags, according to The New York Times. The bags' items are provided to participants in a number of awards shows, including the Oscars. The contents of the official Oscar gift basket are kept secret by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences until after the broadcast, but according to press releases and news sources, this year's contributors include the Art of Shaving, which is offering a silver-tipped shaving brush and a gift certificate for a "Royal Shave and Hair Cut"; linen-maker Frette, which is supplying a cashmere travel blanket; and Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, which is providing two nights at New York's Carlyle Hotel.

Each item must be worth at least $500; according to the Chicago Sun-Times' Bill Zwecker, the total value of the 2006 bag is estimated at more than $100,000.

Connecting with the stars

Sometimes a bit of free stuff is simply a draw to attract celebrities to "Oscar suites," where the stars can try on makeup, sample fashions and perhaps get a spa-style treatment. Revlon, which sponsored what it called "the ultimate luxury suite" in a Beverly Hills hotel, offered makeup artist Kristofer Buckle, along with Henri Barguirdjian, president of the Graff jewelry firm -- who was displaying many-carat gems worth "a lot of zeroes" -- and Gilles Mendel, designer for J. Mendel fashion house. "It's a terrific way to connect with celebrities," said Ellen Maguire, Revlon's vice president of public relations. As an extra incentive, Revlon sent each best actress and best supporting actress nominee a collection of good luck notes from colleagues and co-stars, accompanied by a Le Croc crocodile clutch.

For the engaging and slightly nervous Mendel, making his first trip to Los Angeles for the Oscars, the challenge is ensuring a celebrity wears your creation. "You never know until the end," he said. But he says it's worth the risk: The red carpet "is the most important event for any fashion designer."

Stars and firms a little wary

Smaller firms must be more selective with their Oscar gifts. Mia & Kompany, a four-employee Los Angeles jewelry design firm that includes Demi Moore, Madonna and Courteney Cox among its clients, teamed with Stila Cosmetics to send the 10 actress nominees diamond right-hand rings.

A bigger prize -- an $80,000 diamond ring in the shape of a large star set in 18-karat white gold -- is, as of Thursday, in negotiations for a taker. The day after the Oscars, that ring is intended to go up for auction to benefit the celebrity's charity. "We can't afford to do [what large companies do], so we pick and choose projects carefully," said Mia Koniver, the head of Mia & Kompany.

It's an exciting time, she added, but also wearying. Celebrities may say they'll wear her designs but don't, and some clients make crazy purchase demands as they prepare for the show. One "needed 30 necklaces in 12 hours, and we did it. I don't know how we did it, but we did," Koniver said. It's all part of the awards-season frenzy: "We're Los Angeles-based, and this is what we do," she said.

Whether the items actually impress celebrities is an open question. Some stars have been known practically to shovel freebies into shopping bags; others ignore attempts to curry favor and give items to friends, family and assistants. "Will & Grace's" Eric McCormack, who was visiting Beverly Hills' Sonya Dakar salon with his wife, Janet, on Monday evening, stopped by because he actually purchases and enjoys the products. But the Emmy-winning actor casts a wary eye on swag. "We don't like having a lot of stuff, so we give some away," he said.

However, he added, sometimes the stuff is "amazing" -- and sometimes surprisingly appropriate. For the Golden Globes one year, McCormack's bag included a trip to Yellowknife, the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories. That destination probably isn't at the top of most celebrities' lists, but for McCormack, it was perfect. "My wife grew up there," he said.

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15) Norwalk Advocate: Young men on a mission [Les jeunes mormons consacrent deux ans de service à l'église en tant que missionnaires.]
http://www.norwalkadvocate.com

Young men on a mission: 20-year-olds take time from college for their Mormon outreach work
By Katherine Didriksen, Special Correspondent

February 20, 2006

STAMFORD -- Cameron Tanner and Matthew LeCheminant are on a mission from God. Like "The Blues Brothers," they wear dark suits, but that's where the similarities end. The two are missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Mormon rules strictly forbid packs of smokes. They also forbid alcohol, coffee, tea, and being in the same room with unaccompanied women.

That doesn't stop them from getting up at 6:30 a.m. and hitting the streets to spread the word. The outreach work is part of their two-year service with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are about 150 missionaries in the New York and Connecticut region, including eight in Stamford.

Tanner and LeCheminant, both 20, are elders in the church and now serve in Stamford's Spanish-speaking mission. Other elders serve in the city's English-speaking mission. The church operates more than 338 missions around the world. "We come out here to help people to know the truth and come into Christ," said LeCheminant, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., who has served in missions in Washington Heights, Ossining and the Bronx, N.Y., in the past year.

The duo, known as a companionship in the church, live in a house owned by the church on Clinton Avenue with two other missionaries. The two young men attempt to greet people on the streets and in their homes to talk about faith. They schedule times to meet with families and try to persuade residents to attend their church. Though they are recognized for outreach activities, teaching is the focus of their mission. Their work requires knocking on many doors. Many go unanswered. Others get closed in their faces, sometimes politely, sometimes not.

"I don't believe in anything," said one person who identified himself as a retired military man. He's seen too much death and destruction during tours of duty in Kuwait, Somalia and Iraq to keep his faith, he told the young men. He questioned them about free will, heaven, hell and the existence of God. "What do you really know is true?" he asked. The elders did not shy away. In a discussion punctuated by smiles and laughter, they were steadfast in their beliefs even as they admitted their limits.

Occasionally, they meet people who are hostile. In such situations, the elders thank them for their time as gracefully as possible and go on their way. "It makes a good journal entry," LeCheminant said. "You get a good chuckle out of it," Tanner said.

The decision to enter the missionary program is not easy. LeCheminant, who grew up in the Mormon faith, said that as a teenager he questioned what he had been taught. "It just came to the point where I had to ask God myself," he said, pointing to the final promise written by the prophet Moroni in the Book of Mormon. They understand why people doubt. They have heard the word "cult."

As a prospective missionary, LeCheminant was interviewed to make sure he was worthy of the work. To be effective, missionaries must live by the commandments they teach, he said. "If we don't know what's true, then what are we doing?" he said.

Once approved, applicants receive a letter indicating where in the world they have been called to serve. Every American missionary completes a program at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. Some students, like LeCheminant and Tanner, also elect to take one of 50 language classes taught at the center.

Men are expected to serve two years from ages 19 to 26. After that, they are expected to have a family. It is possible for a man and his wife to serve together later in life, after their family has grown. Single women and older couples generally serve for 18 months. "This is the best time of my life," LeCheminant said. "It's such a spiritually growing experience. I was a very shy and timid person back home."

Members of the Latter-day Saints are not required to serve as missionaries, but it is considered an expectation for all Mormons, LeCheminant said. Tanner, a native of Gilbert, Ariz., said missionaries live a relatively secluded life. They are more than 2,000 miles from home and are permitted to write their families and friends only once a week and call home only once every six months for their entire two-year mission. It is different, Tanner said. "But it does help you focus."

The elders keep a strict schedule, leaving the house at 10:30 a.m. daily to pound the pavement, retiring at 10:30 p.m. The closest thing they have to a day off is Wednesday, when they wash their clothes, buy groceries and other necessities and have time to e-mail home or write letters.

The church provides a monthly stipend for missionaries to cover rent, groceries and other necessities. Missionaries' families are expected to contribute $400 each month toward this expense, if possible. The church encourages the elders to raise much of the money themselves. Tanner, for example, earned nearly all of it in advance through a car-detailing business he ran before he left home.

LeCheminant and Tanner plan to return to Brigham Young University in Provo to complete their education after their missions have ended. LeCheminant completed one year of school before he left; Tanner finished one semester.

Tanner's father served as a missionary in Sweden 25 years ago. "It's been an interesting experience to now have my son 25 years later doing the same thing," Sterling Tanner said. "It's a whole range of emotions. It's exciting knowing the opportunities that he's having . . . what I know, for me, was a life-changing experience." Sterling Tanner said he and his wife still worry. "It's very heartening as a parent that he certainly in my mind is grounding himself for the rest of his life," he said.

LeCheminant's mother, Renee LeCheminant, said her family misses Matthew, particularly his upbeat attitude and the example he set for his younger siblings. "We used to call him our go-to guy," she said.

Missionaries give up school, work and the comforts of home, said Nelson Boren, president of the New York metropolitan area's Latter-day Saints Church mission. "These are really extraordinary young people," he said. As president, Boren, who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., supervises the missionaries in his region, which covers Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of upstate New York and the Connecticut coast. He meets with the elders twice a month for training. Boren said the missionaries must abide by certain rules while they serve, including no alcohol, no drugs and no dating. "They just live a really moral life," he said. LeCheminant and Tanner are "tremendous," he said. "I don't worry about them for a second," Boren said.