IV. International
(09-15-07)
.
Last month saw sudden
eruptions of popular protests, breaking a graveyard
peace preserved for long at gunpoint in two neighboring
South Asian countries. The people of
Burma
and Bangladesh,
however, are showing no readiness to rejoice too soon.
To many of them, democracy still seems a considerable
distance away.
. Separatist
militants in
Thailand’s
mostly Muslim southern provinces have stepped up a
decades-long, low-intensity insurgency into a wave of
brutal bomb attacks.
. Three bombs
exploded almost simultaneously in and around
Nepal’s
capital, killing at least 2 people and injuring 13 in
the first attack on Katmandu since a Communist
insurgency ended last year, authorities said.
.
Polluters along two of
China’s main rivers (Huai and Liao)
have defied a decade-old clean-up effort, leaving much
of the water unfit to touch, let alone drink, and poses
a risk to a sixth of the population.
.
China’s ruling Communist
Party will hold a major Congress beginning Oct 15, a
twice-a-decade event at which Pres Hu Jintao will see
his tenure as party leader renewed, state television
reported.
. Two Chinese
brothers clawed their way out of a collapsed mine after
surviving underground for nearly 6 days, shocking
grieving relatives who had burned money for the men’s
souls to use in the afterlife, state media said. With no
food, they “ate coal and drank urine” to survive.
.
Computer maker Acer
of Taiwan
announced it would acquire Gateway, the 3rd
biggest US personal-computer company for about $710
million in cash, doubling its US market share to 11.1%
from 4.8%.
. Minister
of Foreign Affairs James Huang said that Taiwan
shares the same stance as US in opposing changes to the
“status quo” for the Taiwan Strait, accusing China for
making every effort for the change.
.
Fitch Ratings said it was concerned that the
nation’s smaller and under-capitalize banks would pose a
growing threat to the overall banking system as their
financial health has deteriorated fast since last year.
.
Matsushita Electric
Industrial Co.
of Japan said that Nokia’s replacement of
mobile phone batteries made by the Japanese electronics
maker is likely to cost it 10 to 20 billion yen($86
to $172 million). It involves 46 million batteries which
will be replaced for free.
.
Sony has developed an environmentally-friendly
prototype battery that runs on sugar and generates
enough electricity to power music and a pair of
speakers, the Japanese company said. The bio battery’s
casing is made of vegetable-based plastic. It works by
pouring sugar solution into the unit, when enzymes break
it down to generate electricity.
. Just a week
after naming a new cabinet in an effort to regain public
trust, P.M. Shinzo Abe was hit with another scandal,
e.g., calls for his environment minister to resign over
misreported political funds. It was the 6th
scandal involving a cabinet member in his first year.
Four have resigned this month, and 1 killed himself.
He resigned as well.
.
Taliban militants
released the last batch of 7 of the 23 South Korean
lay missionaries as they traveled by bus from
Kabul to the former
Taliban stronghold of Kandahar on 7/18. This brought to
an end the 6-week hostage drama, witnesses said.
. In South
Korea, where calibrations of human worth are
obsessively tied to college achievement, admired
performers (Yoon Suk Hwa), beloved media personalities,
assorted scholars (Shin Yeong Ah has since vanished),
and a Buddhist monk (Ji Gwang) have been exposed as
long-time resume’ inflators. There are also talks of
fraudulent credentials among Christian ministers.
.
North Korea
thanked the outside world, including the US, for aid
donations after devastating floods last month that
killed hundreds and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The flood caused major damage to its outdated
infrastructure and dealt a heavy blow to its already
anemic economy.
.
Only 30 years ago, most
top officials and professionals came from the same old
elite of noble lineages and long-settled Chinese
families. There were few cars on
Bangkok’s
streets that did not belong to a company, government
office or international agency. From there upwards, the
middle class grew like mushrooms.
.
Foreign firms arrived in a trickle and then a flood.
University expansion in the 1970s produced a flood of
new graduates in the 1980s. In the middle of the great
boom in 1986-1996, there was a cultural transition: the
Chinese heritage became the focus of legitimate pride.
TV dramas celebrated the role of Chinese immigrants that
had been left out of history books. Chinese language
teaching boomed.
.
The new middle class grew with the globalization of the
Thai economy and seemed to appreciate that fact, and
even celebrate it. Time spent in a university, however
short and perfunctory, was the required finishing touch
for a proper education. The picture of the new middle
class lifestyle, e.g., house, car, appliances, foreign
holiday was copied from western models and expanded
through advertising. The language of modern commerce and
retail was English.
. Philippine
President GMA said accepting rebels back into the folds
of law through amnesty, and providing them access to the
government’s socio-economic services, are essential to
attaining peace & reconciliation.
.
The Professional
Regulation Commission (PRC) announced that 168 out
of 429 passed the Master Plumber License
Examination given by the Board of Master Plumbers in
Manila, Cebu and Davao this month.
.
Manila Electric Co (Meralco) is offering package
of discounts for electricity consumed by special
customers, primarily schools and private hospitals with
electricity demands higher than 5 kilowatts.
. Indonesia
tested this summer popular Chinese-made items and added
to a list of horrors: mercury-laced make-up that turned
the skin black, dried fruit spiked with industrial
chemical, carcinogenic children’s candy.
.
Indonesia and Russia signed a $1 billion arms
deal that many analysts see as part of a broader Russian
effort to restore
diplomatic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region
and make money too, taking only
paying customers.
Russian companies also signed deals with Indonesian
firms in mining & energy sectors.
. Muslim
clerics have declared that a nuclear power plant set to
be built in Central Java is religiously forbidden
because its danger outweighs potential benefits, a
scholar said.
.
Two dozen demonstrators
tried to mount a protest against rising fuel prices but
marched only 30 yards before being beaten and wrestled
into trucks by civilians who back
Burma’s
military govt, witnesses said.
.
Burma’s military junta halted a 170-mile opposition
march in its first steps and arrested 3 of its
organizers on one of the harshest crackdowns on dissent
in 20 years. More than 100 people have been arrested I
10 days, said the opposition National League for
Democracy.
. Twenty
Burmese security officials were held captive for several
hours by Buddhist monks in the central town of Pakokku.
EU Parliament called for an emergency meeting at UNSC
for Burma.
.
The US Educational
Organization in
Vietnam
will be mobilized to find further ways to help
Vietnamese students go to the US, said US ambassador
Michael Michalak.
.
Party, state, government and national assembly leaders
have received greetings from around the world on the
occasion of the nation’s 62nd National Day.
.
P.M. Nguyen Tan Dung told ministry officials to provide
loans for disadvantaged students attending tertiary
schools and vocational training schools.
.
Last month saw an
extraordinary demonstration of strangely selective “news
value” in the British and
US media. A pair of
synchronized bombs ripped apart two crowded night spots
in Hyderabad,
India.
The explosion killed 42 people and wounded at least 100
more. Since the attack, police have found and diffused
19 more bombs at movie theaters, bus stops and
pedestrian bridges.
.
One in three Indian women will be raped or sexually
assaulted in her lifetime—a rate 3.5 times higher than
any other racial groups. Many women who are raped do not
have access to basic public health resource. There is no
staff trained to treat them. Many cannot get rape kits,
the exams used to collect evidence after a rape. With no
forensic evidence, rapists are free to rape again.
.
Nokia, the world’s
largest cell phone maker, said India overtook the US in
Q2 to become its second-largest market in sales after
China.
.
President Pervez
Musharraf’s meticulously managed political stage was
jolted by the news that he may face challenges to his
power from not one, but two, of
Pakistan’s
exiled former prime ministers.
.
The majority of madrassas in Pakistan (more than 60%) is
affiliated with fundamentalist Deobondi sect, an
austere interpretation of Islam that calls for a
rejection of modernity and return to the “pure, 7th
century Islam of the Prophet Muhammad.” Politically
savvy and extremely well-funded, more than 10k of these
schools operate across Pakistan today, compared with
fewer than 1k before General Zia took power. Thousands
more operate unofficially.
.
Decades later, that hasn’t changed. While the military
accounts for a quarter of the national budget, less than
3% is spent on education, health and public welfare.
From a population of 450k in 1947 after the parti- tion,
to a surging metropolis of more than 15 million today,
Karachi
is among the most dangerous cities in P.
.
Police in
Bangladesh
arrested former P.M. Khaleda Zia as part of a major
campaign against corruption launched by the country’s
army-backed government. She and her son (Arafat Rahman
Coco) were remanded in custody pending an investigation
by the government’s anti-graft body, officials said.
. Streets and
markets bustled again in the biggest cities after the
government suspended an indefinite curfew imposed to
quell violent student protests demanding an end to
emergency rule.
.
The military-backed government ordered its 24-hour TV
news channel to stop operations for allegedly forging
documents for its frequency approval, a station official
said. The Ministry of Information said station
officials were guilty of fraud in frequency approval.
