IV. International
(10-01-08)
. Japan
posted a highly-unusual
trade deficit in August. Exports to US dropped
21.8% from a year ago, the strongest monthly decline on
record, the government said. Its trade surplus with US
has fallen after twelve consecutive months.
.
The government
attributed trade deficits to short-term imbalance:
falling car exports and higher energy costs.
Four of its 5 largest carmakers said last week that
global demand was falling, especially in the US, while
cost of imported oil and coal soared to record high.
.
Japan’s
aging population and declining earnings and savings of
retiring baby boomers is certain to be another drag on
the long-term capacity of Japan to invest abroad. The
Japanese government, however, will continue to invest in
the US.
. China’s
elite state-run athletic
training academies are modeled after those of the Soviet
Union to train, push and discipline more than 250k
pupils into superstar athletes. They have produced
nearly all of the Chinese Olympians who competed last
August.
.
While the schools’
success at producing world-class competitors is
unquestioned, their methods have made some foreign
coaches and athletes uncomfortable. Derided as medal
factories, even some Chinese analysts say there’s too
much pressure to win.
.
Many of these academies turn out little robots rather
than athletes who love the sport. Those who don’t
perform well often are retired by age 15 or 16 and will
have trouble making the transition to a non-sport school
where emphasis on academics is stronger.
.
Washington’s bailout of
Wall Street may also help bail out
Japan,
a nation hobbled by
aimless leadership, punishing public debt, a dwindling
workforce and growing weakness in exports that
powers the world’s second-largest economy.
.
The central bank’s (Bank of Japan) financial
reserves and the country’s economy are so inextricably
tied to the fortunes of the US that Japan simply cannot
afford to criticize Washington or consider withdrawing
its roughly $860 billion in US investments, mostly
Treasury bonds.
.
Japan’s ace in the hole for reckless leadership is the
world’s largest pile of cash. It has about $15 trillion
in personal assets, about $8 trillion of it on deposit
in banks. Many Japanese banks and major corporations
also have enormous cash reserves, which would enable
many of them to weather a prolonged slump in the world
economy.
. North Korea
(NK) has tested
engine mechanism for international ballistic missiles
that might be able to hit major cities on the US west
coast, according to South Korean newspaper Chosun
Ilbo. It is diverting scarce resources from a
collapsing economy that has brought about chronic food
shortages.
.
Analysts in Seoul were
not surprised by reports of NK’s continuing missile
development which they saw as distinct from the
country’s nuclear ambitions. Attention was focused on
the nuclear issue which allowed its missile development
without much attention from the outside world.
.
If NK curtails its nuclear program in exchange for
economic aid and a reduction of diplomatic sanctions,
government officials in Pyongyang will feel very nervous
as it is their only remaining leverage against an
outside threat.
. South Korea’s
(SK)
constitutional court overturned a ban on doctors telling
parents the gender of unborn babies, saying the
restriction violates parental rights. It introduced the
ban in 1987 to prevent abortion of female fetuses in a
country that traditionally favored sons for carrying on
family lines.
.
NK says it will reject
South Koreans from a mountain resort for being deemed
“unnecessary” from the area.
.
A dispute over a cluster
of nearly uninhabitable islets and outcroppings
administered by SK but claimed by Japan intensified in
recent years.
.
The Philippine
Supreme Court, acting on petition by Christian
politicians, blocked the signing of a key accord
granting an expanded southern homeland to minority
Muslims as part of a deal to end decades of bloody
Islamist rebellion. The addition of 712 more villages
sparked protests from Christian residents who were in
the dark.
.
An employee of Christian Children’s Fund (Ludy
Borja Dakit) was released by kidnappers in southern PI
after being held for several. Communal violence has
recently erupted among Muslims and Christians.
.
Five Philippine banks wet under with the demise of
Lehman Bros: BDO (Henry SY), Allied (Lucio Tan),
BPI, Union Bank (Aboitiz) and RCBC (Al Yuchengco). BDO
is the biggest loser with more than P1 billion lost.
. With tough
economic reforms instituted by Pres. GMA firmly in
place, RP will be able to breeze through the fallout of
the current US financial turmoil, Citigroup CEO Bill
Rhodes said.
.
Liberal party president Sen. Mar Roxas is seeking
immediate rehabilitation of provinces in western Visayas
which are still reeling from damage caused by Typhoon
Frank last June through a P20-billion supplementary
budget labeled “Paglaum” (Hope) Fund on top of the 2008
national budget.
.
Lawmakers of
Thailand
turned to the brother-in-law of deposed leader Thaksin
Shinawatra to be the new PM setting up a showdown with
protesters determined to tear down Thaksin’s political
legacy.
.
A Thai court sentenced the wife (Potjaman Shinawatra) of
ousted PM Thaksin to 3 years in jail after finding her
guilty of tax fraud. She has been a major force in her
husband’s political and business empire.
. Shares on
the Stock Exchange Thailand shed 2.56% of their
value 9/29 as investors remained uncertain about the
global outlook despite the proposed US $700 billion
bailout.
. Less than
2 weeks after being elected PM, Somchai Wongsawat could
lose the post and his seat in Parliament on another
shares scandal.
.
Human rights groups say
more than 1,800 political detainees languish long-term
in about 20 prisons and labor camps in
Burma
(Myanmar). Torture is
rampant in these prisons; countless more people have
disappeared altogether.
.
Indignities to political and criminal detainees remain
manifold, e.g., beating with bamboo canes, tearing of
flesh by iron rods, crawling over broken glass or
sharpened gravel, deprivation of sleep or water,
shackled in painful positions, trapped in cells too
small for them to stand upright, surrounded by barking
dogs, and solitary confinement.
.
Most of the founders of the ‘88 Generation Students, a
clandestine group, now in their 40s, were first rounded
up as activist university students who helped steer a
failed pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Bound for
professions in medicine, engineering or law, many never
graduated. The prisons became their university.
. The police
erected checkpoints on the outskirts of Yangon and
hunted for dissidents or critics of their rule—anyone
who might want to commemorate the protests.
.
In Jan’06 an Indian
government agency purchased newspaper ads seeking help
in building an obscure piece of metal machinery. Details
of the project available to bidders were laid out in a
series of drawings that jolted nuclear weapons experts
who discovered them that spring.
.
Blueprints depicted inner workings of centrifuge, a
machine used to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. In the
west, such drawings would be considered secret,
but the Indian diagrams were available for a fee.
.
India
has since tightened
its bidding procedures, but the incident has fueled
concerns among opponents of a US-Indian civilian nuclear
deal that Congress is expected to consider in the coming
weeks.
.
India’s most notorious
bandit (Abika Patel) who faced multiple charges for
murder, kidnapping, extortion and robbery, was shot and
killed by police in the Chitrakoot district in central
India, officials said.
. A UN
nuclear watchdog unanimously approved an inspection plan
for India’s civilian nuclear energy plants, a key step
toward completing a controversial nuclear deal between
US and India.
.
US intelligence
officials have concluded that elements of
Pakistan’s
military intelligence service provided logistical
support to militants who staged last month’s deadly car
bombing at the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
.
The 4-month coalition government in Islamabad has
emphasized negotiation with militants and has
characterized military action as a last resort. Pakistan
has resisted suggestions that troops from the US and
other countries be allowed into the region.
.
Pakistan’s army recently launched a series of large
operations against Islamist militants in some tribal
areas, but only after a long period of half-hearted or
failed actions that has frustrated US officials.
.
Nearly 170
Bangladeshi workers returned home from Kuwait,
saying they had been beaten and expelled after taking
part in a rare labor protest in the Persian Gulf state.
More than 1,000 have been deported to date with hundreds
facing a similar fate.
.
Tamil Tiger separatists and government forces
fought intense battles across
Sri Lanka’s
violent northern region, killing at least 62 rebels and
8 soldiers, the military said.
.
Police in South India have arrested a senior
leader of a right-wing Hindu group (Bajrang Dal) in
connection with attacks on at least 20 Christian
churches and prayer halls last month, following weeks of
violence in the eastern state of Orissa.
.
The Vietnamese government said AP’s bureau
chief (Ben Stocking) was arrested when he photographed a
demonstration by land protesters in Hanoi. It denied
beating the journalist while he was in custody. He
emerged from the police station with matted blood on his
head and trousers and a gash in his head requiring four
stitches.
.
At least 23 Indonesians were crushed to death
while trying to collect $4.25 in cash handouts from a
rich family at a charity event, marking the Islamic holy
month of Ramadan, officials said. Eight were critically
injured in the stampede.
.
Cambodia’s
government says with hydropower and coal capacity
expected to peak in the next decade, nuclear energy is
the best option for the country.
. Malaysia’s
deputy leader called for an end to political squabbles,
urging the people to unite to face the global financial
crisis that could derail the country’s growth.
