Taking a first swing at knocking down “the toll booth on the road to the middle class” — President George W. Bush’s words — Bush today sent his 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax cut proposal to a divided Congress. The tax relief package, the largest in two decades, has met with skepticism from opposition Democrats, who say it’s too big, and with undisguised glee from some of Bush’s Republican colleagues, who say it could be even bigger. Democrats contend most of the dollars in Bush’s tax cut go to the wealthiest Americans, and propose instead between $750 and $900 billion in tax cuts targeted at the neediest. Working to slow the tax train that left the station last week when the Congressional Budget Office estimated a federal government surplus of $5.6 trillion over the next decade, $1 trillion more than previously anticipated, Democrats argue that Bush’s cut will deplete the nation’s coffers. A New York Democrat, Michael McNulty, said, “The last time I saw a tax cut of this size coupled with proposals for significant increases in defense spending was 20 years ago in the first term of Ronald Reagan.”

In a challenge to big drug manufacturers, an Indian company is offering to supply AIDS drugs to a medical relief agency at 3.5% of the cost charged in Western countries, as long as they’re distributed for free. The Bombay Cipla Limited will sell the three-drug antiretroviral cocktail to Doctors Without Borders for $350 a year per patient, instead of the $10,000 to $15,000 charged in the United States and Europe. The decision could revolutionize the treatment of HIV patients in developing countries, where the virus is most rampant, but it’s unclear if the companies holding patents on the drugs will go along. Bristol Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim all hold patents on the drugs in the cocktail. Under WTO rules, if a country fails to enforce international patent laws, punitive trade sanctions could be imposed. But whether the big drug companies pressure their national governments to bring a case in the WTO remains to be seen.

Radical French farm leader José Bové stood trial today on charges of raiding a research center and destroying genetically modified rice plants in the latest action by anti-globalization activists. Bové shot to fame in 1999 when he led an attack on a McDonald’s restaurant in southern France to protest against corporate-led globalization, in general, and U.S. tariffs on French cheese, in particular. Today in France, several hundred protesters marched to the court with Bové, who faces up to five years in prison and a fine, if convicted of breaking into the Cirad research institute in the southern city of Montpellier, France, in June 1999 and damaging public property. Bové told journalists, “Today we do not need to burn our hand in a flame to know that there is a danger. The experiments confirming the danger are more than sufficient.”

Only two days after Ariel Sharon won power, Israel rejected a Palestinian call to pick up peace talks where they left off. A new Israeli adviser said today that everything that was spoken about or said is not binding on Israel or any government. The Palestinian Authority had called yesterday for the resumption of negotiations “from the point they have reached.”

The Russian parliament gave early approval to a Kremlin-sponsored bill that sets tough rules for forming and funding political parties, provisions critics assail as state interference. President Vladimir Putin has said the bill would promote the creation of effective political parties. Opponents contend it would push most of Russia’s parties out of existence and make the rest dependent on government handouts. Under the bill, a political party must have at least 10,000 members nationwide and no fewer than 100 members in more than half of Russia’s 89 provinces. Parties that receive more than 3% of the vote would receive state financing. The bill allows some private donations but sharply limits their size and who can give. Russia has some 200 parties on paper. Twenty-six groups contested the 1999 parliamentary election.

Two important coffee-growing provinces in Vietnam’s Central Highlands were tense yesterday after several days of land and rights protests by thousands of ethnic minority people. The protests in the provinces of Dak Lak and Gia Lai were the biggest known for years. Residents and diplomats said the protests appeared to have been started by disputes including land encroachment by members of the Vietnamese majority. The relocation of large numbers of lowland-residing Vietnamese people to the highlands has created friction with members of ethnic groups who have lived there for generations.