IV. International
(8-01-08)
.
Xenophobia
has returned to
China a few weeks
before the 2008 Olympics. Racism is back. The
Chinese do not like blacks. The presence of police where
foreigners gather, e.g., bar, are discouraging visitors
to go to places where foreigners and Chinese have
traditionally mixed. The insecurity of authorities is
palpable and laughable. When confronted about it,
they’ll deny it till they’re blue in the face. Their
racism has deep roots.
.
In some sections of Beijing, the police hauled out black
customers, including the innocent son of Granada’s
ambassador. Blacks are watched closely. The same is true
of Tibetan nationals who might mount disturbances in
sympathy with widespread protests this spring against
Chinese repression. Bar owners must sign a pledge
not to serve certain
groups, e.g., Mongolians whose women are stereotyped as
prostitutes.
.
The Olympics, which many thought would bring thousands
of customers, has instead driven many away, and business
owners say they are counting the days until the closing
ceremony. Several black patrons interviewed recently in
the Sanlitum area, said they had not been denied service
although some acknowledged being harassed by the police.
. The IOC
and the Chinese government acknowledged that reporters
coming to the Olympics will be blocked from accessing
the Internet sites that Chinese authorities consider
politically sensitive, contradicting an earlier pledge
of unfettered Web access.
.
Riots shook
India
after the government trimmed oil subsidies. Truckers in
South Korea
clogged the roads to protest rising fuel prices. In the
Philippines,
soaring prices for oil and petroleum-based fertilizer
have derailed the economy and ignited calls for a cut in
the tax on oil imports.
. China has
carefully plotted to take advantage of the situation of
having thousands of foreigners on its soil and set up a
system to spy and gather information about each and
every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are
located. China’s targets will include journalists,
athletes’ families and human rights advocates, report
the Hill newspaper and other media outlets.
.
Attorneys for international hotel chains said the
Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSB) told
foreign-owned hotels to install Internet monitoring
equipment.
.
Thousands of foreign
residents are finding
China
less hospitable these days that it once was because of
visa restrictions lightened ahead of the Olympic Games
and reported increasing hostility towards outsiders,
perhaps influenced by the controversy over Tibet and the
Olympic torch relay.
.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed any
suggestion that China, which issued 8.13 million visas
last year, has changed the way it treats foreigners, and
said it continues to welcome overseas visitors.
.
Some human rights activists, business associations and
foreign visitors say the visa crackdown has more to do
with keeping out potential foreign protesters upset
about China’s control of Tibet, investment in Sudan
despite oppression in Darfur, or other human rights
issues.
.
A powerful typhoon
struck Taiwan,
closing schools and businesses, and grounding air
traffic. Typhoon Fung Wong made landfall on the east
central coast, packing winds of up to 105mph.
. Former
ruling Kuomintang lawmaker (Her Jyh-huel)is expected to
serve 10 years in prison after the Taiwan High Court
found him guilty of corruption and breach of contracts,
e.g., illegal loans from Hsinchu Business Ban and from
Kuo Hua Insurance Co., Ltd.
.
The government is
confident in keeping the annual consumer price index
(CPI) below 3.5% as the country’s inflation is expected
to ease for August, said the Council for Economic
Planning & Development.
.
While
North Korea
has declared how much plutonium it possesses and has
broadly agreed to cooperate in the verification of its
claims, the technical details of the process remain
under discussion. It has not provided details on other
possible programs or its participation in building a
Syrian reactor destroyed by Israel last year.
.
South Korea’s
presidential
elections have been bruising, down-to-the-wire contests
that exposed the nation’s ideological schisms and raw
emotions over its tortured relations with
North Korea and US. In a
campaign that has otherwise failed to grab the
electorate’s attention, there has been really only one
issue: the economy.
.
South Korea, fearing a
water attack from the North, began work on the Peace
Dam in the 1980s, abandoned halfway as misguided
cold war scheme, but did not finish until 2005. It was a
concept of monstrous walls of water released from a
North Korean dam, wiping out most of Seoul, 120 miles
downtown with the impact of a nuclear explosion during
the 1988 Olympics.
. South
Korea conducted naval defense drills around a cluster of
islands at the center of a dispute with Japan over their
ownership. The drills came a day after South Korea’s
pose under-highly publicized visit to the outcrop, which
it calls Dokdo and Japan calls Takeshima.
.
There is a growing
hostility against Pres GMA of the
Philippines
for her inability to feed her people, worsening poverty
& increasing chasm between rich and poor, deteriorating
basic social services, nationwide corruption, abuse of
power, aura of presidential illegitimacy and
mismanagement.
. Pres GMA
rejected appeals to scrap an unpopular sales tax because
of surging inflation, warning the food and fuel prices
would likely remain high. But she said her government
would maintain a 12% value-added tax on oil, the
proceeds of which will fund projects for the poor.
.
San Miguel Corp said its packaging units
operating projects surged 164% from a year earlier P782
million ($17.6 million) despite a challenging economic
environment.
.
Money Gram, a leading money transfer company,
attempts to stabilize and expand its network in two of
Asia’s largest client territories:
Philippines
and China.
.
A stupid escalation of
nationalist fervor may end up hurting a lot of innocent
people because of an old temple. After years of
Thai-Cambodian feuding over ownership of Preah Vihear
temple, the Intl Court of Justice ruled in 1962
that it belonged to
Cambodia.
That decision was formally accepted by Thailand, which
added that it never agreed on the precise location of
the border (about 1.8 square miles around it). How can
Cambodia own the temple and not the land on which it
stands?
. Cambodia’s
recent elections failed to meet the standards because of
bias in favor of the country’s ruling party, the
European Union said. The criticism came a day after P.M.
Hun Sen’s ruling party asserted it had won a landslide
victory in parliamentary elections.
.
A new generation of
democracy activists in
Burma
fights on, its ranks strengthened by revulsion over last
year’s bloodletting and the government’s inept response
after a cyclone killed 130k a month ago. Largely
clandestine, they make up a diffuse network of students,
militant Buddhist monks, social service workers and
leaders of the 1988 uprising.
.
The 1988 Generation has acted on its own, critical of
the National League for Democracy (NDL) for
losing the trust of the people. The government has
turned a deaf ear on its announcements. Anyone involved
with NLD gets into trouble. The group criticized the
Junta for holding a referendum on the new constitution
while bodies floated in the Irrawaddy Delta.
.
Outside experts have compared the network to Poland’s
Solidarity Movement in the early 1980s, a
broad-based coalition of workers, intellectuals and
students that emerged as a key political player during
the country’s transition to democracy.
.
The mild-mannered
Oxford-educated economist who became
India’s
prime minister 4 years ago fought the biggest political
battle of his life as he tried to implement the historic
nuclear energy agreement with the US.
.
Over the past 4 years, he has frequently been hamstrung
by opposition from his Communist allies. He watched
helplessly when some allies insisted on involving some
corrupt politicians in his cabinet. His repeated
insistence on austerity in government spending fell on
deaf ears. He kept a low profile and led a frugal life
that many Indians admired.
.
When it came to the nuclear deal that he hopes will
transform India in the 21st century, he is
willing to give up power for something he believes in.
It is something no ordinary go-with-the-flow politician
(anywhere in the world) will do these days. Everyone
seems consumed by desire to win and so is willing to
sacrifice principles.
.
In
Pakistan,
Taliban militants have tightened their grip on 3 sides
of Peshawar, a strategic city of 3 million people near
the frontier with
Afghanistan.
.
Indian and Pakistani
soldiers traded fire across the heavily-armed
Kashmir frontier
for more than 12 hours overnight into the next day in
what the Indian army called the worst violation of a
2003 cease-fire agreement between the nuclear-armed
neighbors.
. The White
House reminded Pakistan that it an international
obligation to fight terrorism, and besides protecting
its own people, it also has an obligation to protect its
own neighbors.
.
The new republic of
Nepal
failed to elect its
first president when none of the 3 candidates was able
to muster the majority needed to begin the process to
form a new government.
. Maoist
leaders took the initiative to form a new government.
They expressed dissatisfaction over the Prime Minister’s
(Girija Prasad Korala) to lead the Nepali delegation to
the 15th SAARC Summit in Colombo,
Sri Lanka.
.
Finance Minister (Dr. Ram Sharon Mabat) said Nepal would
table a special proposal on measures to meet the
increasing demand of energy, not only in Nepal but also
the South Asian region.
