IV. International
(02-01-08)
.
Suspected Muslim
insurgents ambushed an army patrol in
Thailand’s
restive south, killing all 8 soldiers and beheading one
of them in a rebellion entering its 5th year.
More than 2800 have been killed in the past 4 years in
the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and
some parts of neighboring Songkhla.
. The CIA has
concluded that members of al Quaeda and allies of
Pakistan’s tribal leader Baitullah Mahmed were
responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and that
they also stand behind a new wave of violence
threatening the country’s stability.
.
A Chinese newspaper reported that Bank of China
is exposed to sub-prime US mortgage loans to a degree it
had not previously disclosed and may have to write down
the value of its $8 billion in such investments.
.
Stock markets across
Asia
plunged further and faster on 1/22 than on 1/21 as
anxious sellers dumped huge numbers of shares on worries
that an economic slowdown in the
US
could drag down growth worldwide, with
Japan
down 4.4% in trading. Shares in
India
fell 9.5% and trading was halted. The only country whose
stock market rose was
Sri Lanka.
.
Monks in Myanmar, lawyers in Pakistan, bloggers in China
and students in (Venezuela and) Bangladesh: these
forces pushing back against restrictive moves by
increasingly anti-democratic regimes are among the
bright spots that a new report finds in global trend
towards less political freedom in the last year.
.
Developing economies in the Asian Pacific region
will face a slight slowdown in 2008 as exports are
likely to fall due to a wobbly US economy, a UN report
said. But overall economies will remain robust thanks to
surging growth in China and India, the world’s
fastest-growing economies, as India’s economy is seen up
9% with China’s 10.8% in 2008. The economies which
exclude Australia, New Zealand and Japan, are set to
grow by 7.8% this year, down from 8.2% in 2007, said
UNESCAP.
.
After a challenging year
of recalls in 2007,
China’s
manufacturers are facing more problems this year,
including rising prices for oil and other raw materials,
labor shortages and increased regulatory scrutiny.
.
Accidents in China’s coal mines killed 3,786 people last
year, state media reported, a toll that is a marked
improvement from previous years but still leaves China’s
mines the world’s deadliest.
.
Shares of Bank of China dropped 6.4% in Hong Kong after
the South China Morning Post reported the bank is
expected to announce a “significant write-down” in US
sub-prime mortgage securities, citing unidentified
sources. In Shanghai, the bank’s stock declined 4.1%.
.
All
China’s rural land is
still owned by the state. Farmers have usually been
allowed to lease plots for 30 years at a stretch, after
which they can renew the lease. But ownership and the
right to sell have remained in the hands of
village-level leaders and party secretaries.
.
The Fujin farmers focused on 250k acres that had been
taken over by local officials in the 1990s for sale to
private agricultural companies. The farmers have since
moved beyond the issue of the seized land and asserted
the right to own all the collective farmland that they
currently work under lease.
.
This nascent movement (out of 700 million peasant
population) has confronted the CCP with a difficult
challenge: If experience of the last 30 years has
shown the wisdom of privatizing state-owned industry and
moving toward a market economy, why would it not go to
privatize the land and bring it to the market economy as
well?
. Japan’s
defense minister (Shigeru Ishiba) ordered the navy to
resume a US-backed refueling mission in the Indian
Ocean, ending a 3-month hiatus but deepening divisions
between the government and the opposition.
.
A standoff in the Antartic waters ended when 2 activists
who had boarded a Japanese whaling boat were returned to
their ship by Australian officials. Their return cleared
the way for the Japanese fleet to resume killing whales
and for their most staunch opponents to restart their
campaign of harassment.
.
Foreigner registration system will be revised to focus
on foreign residents in the household, instead of the
individual, and the information will be kept by local
governments.
.
The opposition
Nationalist Party scored an overwhelming victory in
Taiwan’s
legislative elections in a repudiation of President Shen
Shui-bian’s confrontational drive to push this
self-ruled island toward formal independence.
.
Taiwan is a hustler nation that manipulated
Washington for 2 decades to support Taiwan. The
following 3 points summarize this false image: 1) Taiwan
is a democracy; it opposes Beijing’s policies and
support Washington’s interests; 2) Mainland Chinese
terrify Taiwanese; 3) Taiwan is a good friend of the US
and hence must continue selling weapons to
Taiwan.
.
1) Being a democracy does not necessarily mean that
Taiwan supports Western interests. It advocates all the
geopolitical objectives of Beijing; 2) Its educational
system teaches children that Tibet has been rightfully
part of China since time immemorial; 3) Not
surprisingly, the plurality of spies who steal American
military technology to give to Beijing are born and
raised in Taiwan. One company (Econu Enterprise Co)
gave technology to Iranians to improve their missiles
against Americans in future conflict.
Taiwan is no more friend
of the US than China.
. South Korea’s
incoming president plans to abolish the government
agency that has acted as
North Korea’s
strongest advocate in Seoul (Unification Ministry) and
will be absorbed into a renamed Foreign and
Unification Ministry.
.
North Korea
may soon be on its way to being the second country
(Libya being the first in 2006) taken off the State
Dept’s list of state sponsors of terrorism during the
Bush administration’s war on terrorism. Japan opposes it
until North Korea provides a full account of Japanese
citizens abducted by North Korean agents.
.
Special envoy Jay Lefkowitz on North Korean human
rights, said the North is not serious about discussing,
and will probably remain in its present, nuclear status
after GWB leaves office a year from now.
.
Social Weather Station
(SWS) and other pollsters share that there is
overwhelming public distrust of the Arroyo
administration (and most politicians) in the
Philippines.
The SWS polls show that the majority of Filipinos are
hopeful that they will be alright for 2008.
.
The success of GMA administration in raising the GNP
these past 6 years to the highest level of growth in the
last 20-plus years has no meaning to the common people
because none of the wealth generated is filtering down
to the poor.
.
Existing foreign investors are bullish on the country’s
business prospects and are planning to further expand
their operations, revealed a survey and an aftercare
program conducted by the Board of Investments.
. Indonesia’s
Supreme Court sentenced a former pilot 20 years in
prison for the murder of a human rights activist (Munir
Said Thalib) who had exposed military abuses during the
US-backed dictatorship of former president Suharto.
Police said they would question intelligence about their
alleged involvement in the case.
,
Despite the fear that a
possible US recession could hurt the country’s economic
growth, the government says it will maintain the 2008
State budget assumptions. Former president Suharto
passed away last week.
.
Publicly-listed
chartered airline company PT Indonesia Air Transport
is upbeat about business prospects in the country, amid
an intensified drive by the government to boost oil
production.
.
In a major blow to the
Coca-Cola in
India, a
report commissioned by the company itself has called for
the closure of one of its bottling plants in India in
the village of
Kala Dera
in the state of Rajasthan citing widespread water
shortages.
.
India is on course to
signing its first free trade agreement with the Western
world after Commerce & Industry minister Kamal Nath
launched a government task force to deal with 4 European
nations (Iceland,
Liechtenstein,
Norway and Switzerland).
.
The Indian economy is set to grow at a rate of 8.5%
during the 2008-2009 after factoring in the volatility
of the global financial turbulence, said Finance
Minister at the World Economic Forum.
.
When Pervez Musharraf
grabbed power 8 years ago, he was cheered for rescuing
Pakistan
from corrupt
and incompetent politicians who had forestalled
democracy and dragged the country to the brink of
bankruptcy. Surveys showed an astonishingly 70% of
Pakistanis supported the military’s overthrow of the
elected govt.
.
Under his stewardship, foreign reserves grew from $1.4
billion to $15.7 billion; the GNP doubled to about $125
billion, foreign investments nearly quadrupled, and
poverty rates declined by about 10%. He oversaw a
massive increase in the number of private television
stations and other media, more stable relations with
India and a burgeoning of the middle class.
.
For many, his greatest failure has been his inability to
break Pakistan’s addiction to dynastic parties and
personality cult, evidenced by 10 years of corrupt,
failed governments led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz
Shariff, both of whom were accused by Musharraf of
presiding over an era of sham democracy.
.
Pres Musharraf warned in an interview that any
unilateral attacks by US against al Quaeda and Taliban
fighters in his country’s tribal areas would be treated
as an invasion.
.
A court in
Bangladesh
charged former P.M. Sheikh Hasina with extortion after
weeks of checking prosecution witnesses. She is jointly
accused with her sister and cousin of taking $400k from
a businessman when she was in power. Another former P.M.
(Khaled Zia) is under detention and likely to face trial
for graft.
.
Bangladesh misses the opportunity of earning over TK 400
extra yearly cruore as more than 60%
passenger-handling capacity of Zia International
Airport (ZIA) remains underutilized.
.
Biman is currently considering an offer from US-based
Boeing to purchase 8 aircraft in two phases. Boeing has
said Bangladesh
needs to ratify a treaty and protocol to have access to
a loan guarantee from the US-based Exim Bank.
