IV. International
(7-16-08)
.
Tuna fishing-boat
operators in
Japan, China, Taiwan and
South Korea
have agreed to suspend activity for several months in
the face of soaring fuel costs. It should help the
declining population of the fish to recover.
.
Mongolians endured long lines to vote in
parliamentary elections after the 2 major parties
campaigned on pledges to share more of the country’s
natural wealth with the mostly poor public, but
disagreed over whether the government or private sector
should hold a majority stake. Recently discovered
mineral deposits include copper, gold and coal.
. Seizing on
rising oil prices and coalition party stresses,
political opponents are pushing to unseat the leaders of
two S.E. Asian democracies (Thailand & Malaysia), only 2
months into their elected terms, raising the prospect of
prolonged instability and social tension.
.
GWB met Vietnam’s P.M.
Nguyen Tan Duong last month to discuss closer
ties on trade and greater religious freedom, signifying
another step forward in the slow warming of relations
between the US and its communist former enemy.
.
Paramilitary police
swarmed Weng’an in
SW China and
detained hundreds of people for allegedly torching
police and government buildings in an outburst of public
anger over a suspected police cover-up in a teen-age
girl’s rape and murder.
. Beijing is
on watch for potential trouble in the capital city on
the eve of the Olympics. The crackdown is part of a
broad effort to squelch any sign of conflict that may
disrupt the harmonious atmosphere it is attempting to
maintain to prepare the Olympic Games. It includes
increased surveillance and detention of dissidents and
denial of visas for thousands of foreigners who might be
troublemakers.
.
The Australian government’s sudden revision of foreign
policy with respect to Australia’s raw materials by
extractive companies: current targets for Chinese
direct investment.
. More than
half of Web sites (52% of more than 200k infected sites)
foisting malicious software on visitors, are located in
China, according to new data released late last month
.
China Times
(Taiwan)
reported that China was pointing new ballistic missiles
at the island despite improving ties that resulted in an
agreement to resume direct charter flights between them.
. The
legislature smoothly confirmed all Examination Yuan
hopefuls, including VP Wu Jin-lin and other members of
Taiwan’s unique government branch in charge of holding &
supervising civil service exams.
.
The new government’s
measure of lifting fuel price freeze and promoting
energy saving have sharply reduced the import of crude
oil by 26% in June.
.
In
Japan
energy consumption per person is about half that in the
US and the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slower
than anywhere else in the world. The exception is the
toilet where energy use is surging.
.
No industrialized country has been more effective in
squeezing more affluence out of less imported energy
than Japan. Relative to its economy, Japan consumes only
a third as much oil as it did 35 years ago.
.
Toto, its largest toilet maker has cut monthly cost of
electricity for its multi-featured toilet from $4.69 to
$2.59 without the involvement of the toilet user. Tito
and other manufacturers invested in the intelligent
toilet.
After a few days on the
job, it memorizes when and how family members do their
business. With history as its guide, the toilet
intermittently heats up its seat and warms its water.
. South Korea,
which eats more beef than most others in Asia, is in the
dizzying throes of a beef-triggered populist upheaval.
It has crippled a newly-elected president and kept the
National Assembly from meeting.
.
South Korean police raided the office of civic groups
that have led weeks of protest against a government plan
to resume beef imports. Officers confiscated computers
and other materials.
. A US ship
bearing 37k tons of wheat has arrived in
North Korea,
the first installment in what is scheduled to be a major
expansion of international food aid in the closed
totalitarian country.
.
The Philippine
government is involved in another scandal when
administration officials required large kickbacks from
an identified contractor, this time from
China, for the
$320-million ZTE contract where claims of at least $130
million in commissions & kickbacks have already been
made., with an advance of $41 million. This incident
makes RP the most corrupt country in Asia. Beware of
doing business there!
.
The delegation that came
to the US last month with Pres GMA was a big failure.
GWB gave her less than 30 minutes. Filipinos resented
her trip when the money could have been used to help
feed the hungry.
. A nurse
for a diplomat’s family in NY has alleged that former RP
Permanent Rep (Ambassador Lauro Baja) in UN, his wife
and adult daughter were involved in human trafficking
working her like a slave.
. Thailand’s
opposition called for a no-confidence vote against P.M.
Samack Sundaravej’s government on a range of issues,
including economic policies and territorial disputes
with neighboring Cambodia.
.
A dispute over the 11th
century Preah temple on the Cambodian-Thai border has
inflamed political tensions in the 2 countries. Thai
P.M. faced a no-confidence vote over his support for
Cambodia’s bid to have the temple declared a UNESCO
World Heritage site.
. Between 4k
and 5k small businesses ceased operations in June due to
rising fuel cost.
. Malaysian
opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, denying accusations of
homosexuality, took refuge in the Turkish embassy,
saying he feared a government plot to assassinate him.
. A 30%
windfall profit tax was imposed July 1 on independent
producers as part of government efforts to offset rising
costs to cope with rising global prices, in spite of
criticism it may hurt capital markets.
.
Australia & Malaysia are
involved in a joint venture to improve Afghan education
through teacher-training to boost literacy.
. Cambodia
has replaced
Vietnam, once
the darling of international fund managers, even though
it was once known in the West only for its political
violence and poverty.
.
Its young an inexpensive
workforce, rising productivity, a pro-business
government and 30 years of an isolating war have made
the country “one of the best investor diversification
plays around.”
. Just 10%
of Cambodians have access to Internet but a small number
are taking up the craft of blogging.
.
There is a growing
anxiety among Indian Muslims, following a
series of bomb threats carried out by radical Islamic
groups over the past 3 years. As a result, moderate
Muslims are starting to guard against Islamic groups
that advocate stricter interpretation of Islam.
.
Indian Muslims have always followed a moderate
tradition. There have been no calls to violence in the
mosques. But they can no longer remain complacent. A few
have begun giving shelter to terrorists, helping put
together the explosives and pressing the timer. But many
have publicly denounced terrorism and say that the
tradition of moderation is the strongest deterrence
against terrorism.
.
About 300 Indian Muslims have been detained or arrested
in connection with about a dozen bombings that have
ripped through
India since 2005.
Radicals are driven by 2 recent episodes:
demolition by a Hindu mob of a Muslim mosque in 1992 and
sectarian killings in
Gujarat
when 1,000 Muslims died in 2002.
.
A powerful explosion
ripped through a compound used by an armed Islamist
group (Suppression of Vice & Promotion of Virtue
Movement) in
Pakistan’s
volatile tribal areas, killing 8 people as its
paramilitary forces pushed forward with their offensive
against the insurgents.
.
A suicide-bomber detonated explosives near a crowd
commemorating a deadly government-led raid on a radical
mosque last year. The Red Mosque has been the center of
Islamist fundamentalism since its inception and was
known for its distinctive red walls as for its large
number of students from Pakistan’s religiously
conservative NW Frontier Province and tribal
areas.
.
There has been an increase in the flow of foreign
fighters to Pakistan’s tribal areas to join the
militants there. This flow makes Pakistan the preferred
destination for some Sunni extremists in the Middle
East, North Africa and Central Asia who are seeking to
take up arms against the West, say American military and
intelligence officials.
