IV. International
(08-16-07)
.
Deploying missionaries
abroad has been one of the quickest ways for a church to
broaden its reputation and attract members. The more
volatile the area, the holier is the mission. It is
rapidly reinventing itself as the most evangelical
Christian nation in the world.
.
India
received US aid under
“Atoms for Peace” program in the early Cold War era,
only to lose its US supply because India, which had
refused to sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), exploded a nuclear “device” in 1974.
.
Only Filipinos
remained loyal t their former colonial masters (Americans),
while the Indochinese turned on the French,
the Indonesians the Dutch, and Malaya &
Burma turned on the British. It was their
unbelievable loyalty that provided the environment
necessary to build the massive guerrilla forces that
made it impossible for the Japanese to defend.
. In China
and India, large majorities think the next
generation will be better off—a vote of confidence in
their surging economies which are providing cheaper
products for Americans and are growing as markets for
American goods and services.
.
Dara Colwell reports for
AlterNet.org that
China
is combating deforestation by planting genetically
engineered poplar trees, in what have been called
“frankenforests.” Pushed forward by biotech and the
multibillion-dollar
timber industry, genetically engineered trees are the
latest invention.
. Ben
Blanchard reports for Reuters that China has called
global warming the cause of recent flooding that killed
more than 700 people. People were told that extreme
weather patterns will only increase.
.
Beijing unveiled new controls aimed at fighting
counterfeit drugs and substandard exports. High-ranking
officials and regulators vowed to strengthen China’s
food safety system, tighten controls over chemical use
by large seafood and meat producers and create a system
that holds producers more accountable for selling unsafe
products.
.
Burma (Myanmar) provides
an early glimpse of what
China
is becoming. After years of focusing on its own economy,
China is going global in influence as well as in
economics. It can no longer abide by its doctrine of
non-intervention. It is using its influence in Africa,
Latin America, Asia and the Middle East in ways that may
prove problematic to the US in the long run.
.
Like a young America of 200 years ago, it’s just a
matter of time before China declares its own “Monroe
Doctrine” in the eastern hemisphere, declaring itself as
the sole dominant power in Asia.
.
Chinese companies have a greater advantage in Africa in
their government’s backing of commercial ventures with
lavish financing and tax benefits. China Eximbank’s
lending practices don’t include stipulations on
transparent governance, improved human rights and
anti-corruption practices. Its aid comes with no strings
attached.
.
Nobody doubts that a
rearmed and forward-looking
Japan,
benefiting from the best technological engineering in
the world, would be a formidable force. No one doubts
that Japan could put together a handful of nuclear bombs
readily and merrily as a perfectly made Honda or Toyota
rolls down an assembly line.
. Profit at
Toshiba Corp jumped 5x in the April-June quarter
on brisk sale of personal computers and semiconductors.
Net income rose to 20.65 billion yen ($173.8
million) in the electronics company’s fiscal first
quarter, from 4.04 billion yen a year ago.
.
Sony said its April-June profit more than doubled
to 66.46 billion yen($551.5 million) from a year
ago on solid sales of flat-panel TVs, digital cameras
and video camcorders. But its game operations are still
in the red due to strategic pricing of the PlayStation 3
video game console below production costs.
.
Yuko Tojo, granddaughter
of wartime leader Gen. Hideki Tojo has ambitious plans
for defending Japan and scrapping its pacifist
constitution and developing a full-pledged military. She
often prays at a Tokyo war shrine for Japan’s fallen
soldiers, including her grandfather.
.
Surging sales of
Nintendo’s Wii and DS video game lifted the
company’s quarterly profit 5x, prompting the Japanese
game maker to raise its annual earnings forecast 40 %.
It posted a net income of 80.25 billion yen ($667
million) for the April-June period, up from 15.55
billion yen a year earlier.
.
PM Shinzo Abe’s cabinet
reshuffle on 9/27 will test whether he has learned from
the Liberal Democratic Party’s dramatic slump by
jettisoning cronies cluttering important posts.
.
Despite its
long-standing and Shamanist, Buddhist & Confucian
roots,
South Korea
has about 12k missionaries in 173 countries, second only
to US. Today, almost half of S. Korea’s population is
Christian.
. The
Taliban’s abduction in Afghanistan has put S. Korean
evangelical fervor under a microscope. The hostages,
members of Saemmul Church from Bundang, near Seoul,
appear to have been somewhat naïve, mostly women in
their 20s and 30s.
. This is not
the first time S. Korean missionaries have endangered
themselves by entering war zones to gain converts. A
32-year old translator (Kim Sun Il) who had hoped to do
missionary work in Iraq, was taken hostage and beheaded.
Last summer, more than 1k Korean Christians, including
many children, entered Kabul for a peace rally, only to
be deported. Proselytizing is illegal I Afghanistan
where the Taliban threatened to kill missionaries.
.
The Philippine
peso jumped 7% this year, buoyed by OFW remittances
and overseas funds buying stocks. While helping hold
down inflation, the stronger currency has weakened
export growth and may restrict economic expansion in
2007 to the lower end of the government’s 6.1% to 6.7%
target.
.
At least 75 small- and
medium-sized exporters in industries, including
handicrafts and processed food have closed operations
since late 2006, said the president of the Philippine
Exporters Confederation in Manila. Practically
everybody has cut production.
. Fifty
million Filipinos who depend on monthly remittances from
relatives working abroad have lost 18% of peso proceeds
of their dollars compared to 2 years ago. The same is
true with business depending on tourism, e.g., hotels,
restaurants, tour operators, resorts, souvenir makers,
tourist bus owners.
.
The Thai cabinet
approved an independent committee to conduct a
retro-investigation into some 2500 extra-judicial
killings carried at during former PM Thaksin
Shinawatra’s nationwide war on drugs.
.
The Supreme Court’s political crime section issued an
arrest warrant for Shinawatra and his wife (Khunying
Pojaman) for failing to answer a summons to testify in a
corruption case.
.
The property market sowed sharply in Q2, with new land
registrations down more than 50% from the same period
last year, said the latest data from the Bank of
Thailand.
.
Ten years ago,
Asia’s financial crisis
hit Indonesia.
Within a year, SE Asia’s
largest “tiger” economy had collapsed. Gross domestic
product fell 14%, the currency dropped from 2,250 to
17,500 to the dollar. Jakarta Stock Exchange plunged 91%
in dollar terms. Millions lost jobs as most large banks
and many domestic firms went bankrupt.
.
Today, Indonesia is back: a working, if imperfect
democracy and a recovering economic tiger. The emergence
of s solid democratic regime has quelled regional
separatism and Islamic militancy. They are bullish on
foreign investment and US brands, though they are
skittish about economic liberalization.
.
Since Suharto fell, Indonesia has held two free
elections, in 1999 and 2004, both with turnout over 90%.
Neither election was marred by serious fraud or
violence; the political system has become open and
vibrant. Almost all important segments of society, eve
the military, accept the legitimacy of the political
system.
. Vietnam’s
Party and State have always attached government
importance to strengthening multi-faceted cooperation
and friendly relationship with Japan, said the Party
General Secretary.
.
The PMs of
Vietnam
and Singapore
were full of praises for the development of their
diplomatic and economic relationship & Vietnam’s PM
talked with his counterpart during his official visit to
the island state.
.
PM Nguyen Tan Dung has urged ministries and
sectors to take drastic measures to keep inflations rate
below that of national economic growth.
.
Thailand’s PM said his
government will continue to send ethnic Hmong refugees
back to Laos
despite appeals by US lawmakers to let them stay.
Thirteen members of Congress wrote the king of Thailand
to stop the Thai authorities from deporting around 8k
Lao Hmong refugees in Phetachabun province.
. While Lao
are in growing numbers leaving their country, Laos is
increasingly a transit and destination country for
migrant workers for China (for lack of employment
opportunities) and Vietnam (for overcrowding).
. Laos has
also become a destination for Chinese and Vietnamese
women who are trafficked into brothels there, especially
Route 3 connecting China with Laos and Thailand, along
Route 9 connecting Vietnam with Laos and Thailand, and
around the Nam Thuen hydropower in central Laos.
.
Top Pentagon and State
officials said that US Special Forces would enter
Pakistan
if they had specific
intelligence about an impending terrorist strike against
the US, despite Pakistan’s warnings it would not accept
US troops operating independently inside its borders.
.
Pakistan’s president Gen. Pervez Musharraf and former PM
Benazir Bhutto held discussions in the U.A.E. aimed at
creating a power-sharing arrangement. Representatives
for Bhutto who has been living in exile since 1999,
leads the country’s opposition party. Both are regarded
as moderates.
.
Pakistan will do what it takes to eliminate extremists
operating in the country for its own sake, not because
of rising pressure from US, said PM Shaukat Aziz who
said that Pakistan’s government was disappointed by US
legislation that ties aid for the country to its
performance in fighting terrorism.
