IV. International
(09-01-07)
.
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom,
the longtime president of
Maldives,
a tiny Indian
Ocean nation, won
an overwhelming victory in a referendum on the country’s
future form of government. The opposition slammed the
results as rigged and called for protests.
.
Wildlife groups have
created individual photo identification cards for wild
elephants in
South India
to track the effect of poaching, conservationists said.
.
A Beijing
factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100k
pairs a day without any form of disinfection. The latest
is a string of food & product safety scares reported in
Beijing News.
. Southeast Asia
has seen increased unrest recently following the
appointment of independence hero Alexandre “Xanano”
Gusmao as E. Timor’s new P.M. and a rare bout of
democracy protests in
Myanmar,
one of the world’s most repressive states.
. Fitch
Ratings Inc. may lower its growth forecasts for
some Asian countries in the face of a possible
slowdown in the US economy, a top executive said. But it
has no plans to review the credit worthiness of Asian
countries despite recent jitters in the global credit
market.
.
US Eximbank had endeavored to strengthen
cooperation with Vietnamese businesses and
provide soft loans for projects and build infrastructure
and buy airplanes, said bank’s president Lames
Lambright.
.
A riverbank collapsed
due to heavy rainfall in
China’s
Shangdong province sending flood waters into a
local coal mine, killing 178 miners beneath the surface.
.
China’s readers were given a taste of the Mao era where
at least 5 state newspapers published nearly identical
front pages, the latest sign of tightening control ahead
of a Communist Party meeting.
.
Guangzhou City Intermediate People’s Court held
criminal proceedings of a well-known counterfeit
manufacturing case. Five people from Qiqiha No. 2
Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd are criminally charged with
causing a major liability accident.
.
A China Airlines
jet caught fire at
Naha airport in
Okinawa
after arriving from
Taiwan,
but none of the 157 passengers and 4 crew members was
injured, officials said. TV pictures showed smoke
billowing fro the wreckage.
. The smell
of rotten eggs filled Aiguo E. Road in Taipei City
as thousands of pig farmers gathered n front of the Dept
of Health (DoH) to protest a potential change in policy
on the use of rectopamine.
.
As fears over the effect of US’ sub-prime mortgage
problems continue to haunt global markets, focus has
shifted to the central bank’s likely action during its
quarterly meeting last month, with analysts split on
whether the bank is likely to raise or maintain current
rates.
. Japan
announced its decision to provide Indonesia 1.7 billion
yen ($14,763,500) in grants to help Indonesia
control bird flu virus which has seen a steady rise in
the number of human infections and deaths since the H5N1
virus was detected in poultry in late 2003.
.
A high-profile feud over personnel change at the Defense
Ministry was brought t an end at the instruction of PM
Shinzo Abe who was apparently concerned that prolonged
strife would hurt his already weakened political
standing. Takemasa Moriega stepped down as vice defense
minister to be replaced by senior ministry official
Kohei Masuda.
.
Police say a turf war is escalating among gangs of
Iranian drug dealers in
Aichi Prefecture.
Besides occasional shooting and kidnapping, their
standard modus operandi is the use of cell phone
in dealing drugs and contains numbers of dealers’
customers.
. South Korea
will send emergency aid worth $7.5 million to
impoverished
North Korea
where floods left hundreds dead or missing and made more
than 300k homeless, government officials said.
.
Five North Korean
defectors entered the Indonesian embassy in Vietnam,
apparently seeking asylum in South Korea, Foreign
Ministry officials said.
.
The dispute is
escalating between the media and government as
journalists refuse to relocate into newly built press
rooms, and fight new regulations they see as restricting
press freedom.
.
On an agricultural
research station south of
Manila,
Philippines,
a group of scientists are battling against time to breed
new varieties of rice as global warming threatens one of
the world’s major sources of food.
. Pres GMA
ordered a “humanitarian offensive” in Basilan, Sulu and
other parts of Mindanao
to avert a refugee crisis, and prevent any disruption in
the ongoing military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf.
.
RP is second a second
development policy loan from the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) as well as a new program loan that will
support the country’s local government units (LGUs).
.
The Islamist militants
jailed for suicide bombings on
Bali
that killed more than 220 people had several months
shaved off their sentences to mark
Indonesia’s
Independence Day. The decision is likely to anger
countries that lost citizens in 2002 and 2005 attacks on
the resort island’s crowded nightclubs & restaurants.
. Japanese
electronic maker Cannon plans to invest in
Indonesia following the signing of an Economic
Partnership Agreement (EPA) by Indonesia and Japan,
Industry Minister Fahmi Idis said.
.
Indonesia will build a $7.5 million Tsunami Museum
in Aceh to commemorate the 216k people who died,
when towering waves
crashed into Asian coastlines nearly three years ago.
. India
has long had an affirmative action program for
federal government jobs, setting aside 23% of positions
for the most oppressed caste. Now activists are
campaigning to open the private sector to them as well,
whether the employer is Indian or multinational.
.
Low-caste Indians still
experience severe discrimination. Dalits
are regarded as so low that they are not even part of
the system. To this day, they are not allowed to enter
many Hindu temples or to drink water from sources used
by higher castes.
.
An estimated 86% of tech workers at multinational and
large Indian outsourcing firms came from upper castes or
wealthy middle castes, according to a study in 8/2006 by
government and activist groups.
.
Celebrations of
Pakistan’s
60th years of independence have been clouded
by violence and escalated threats from extremist groups.
Coming amid an extended period of demonstrations and
political tensions, the anniversary has inspired some
Pakistanis to question their country’s direction.
. US wants to
see Pakistan’s moderate and democratic politicians
unite to fight Islamic extremism but has no interest in
picking sides ahead of upcoming elections, a top US
envoy said.
. Addressing
participants at the launching of Vision 2030, PM
Shaukat Aziz said it will guide the country towards
achieving the goals of economic development and social
justice to make it more prosperous, dynamic and a
developed state.
.
“Freedom and democracy
to … all of
Sri Lanka,”
vowed the president. Such hawkish rhetoric is by no
means a first in the country. The last 25 years is
littered with leaders who believed they would rout the
fearsome Tigers and unify the nation. None has
succeeded!
.
In the mostly Tamil north, the rebels are so entrenched
in the steamy jungles that they run a mini-state. They
were among the world’s first to use suicide bombers.
Though it claims to have given up the practice, the
rebels’ recruitment of children continues.
.
Defense already accounts for nearly 1 out 5 rupees
the government spends – a huge chunk of the national
budget, especially for a poor country as this one. At
the beginning of the year, inflation hovers at 20%. It
has since come down but still hovers in the double
digits.
.
Streets and markets
bustled again in
Bangladesh’s
biggest cities after government temporarily suspended an
independent curfew, imposed to quell violent student
protests demanding an end to emergency rule.
.
With much improvement in the flood situation, except in
the south-central parts of the country, the affected
people have started returning home. Their immediate
future looks bleak!
