International

According to SatireWire.com, "The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them." SatireWire has some other funny news parodies too, such as "Foot-and-mouth Believed to Be First Virus Unable to Spread Through Microsoft Outlook" and "Mad Cows Use Cell Phones."

The head of Japan's fisheries agency admitted that his country uses foreign aid to pressure other countries into voting against restrictions on its whaling activities. Masayuki Komatsu added that there is "nothing wrong" with killing whales, comparing them to "cockroaches" and saying, "There are too many." We reported on the PR firms that help greenwash Japanese whaling in the 1st Quarter 2001 issue of PR Watch.

The Government of Chile picked top-dog PR firm Fleishman-Hillard to guide its effort to win a Free Trade Agreement with the US. Rory Davenport, F-H Senior VP in Washington, DC, expects the White House and Chile will iron out negotiations for an FTA by the end of the year. "The Congressional focus will be next year," he said. Also at this link, the most recent Foreign Agents Registration Act filings.

Serbia is looking to "establish friendly and constructive relations" with the U.S., and is using consultant Jim Denton, Alexandria, Va., to do so. He is receiving $120K from the "Serbian diaspora community," according to the one-year contract filed with the Justice Dept.