. Over 1,600 people in 9 Asian countries were
asked what they would do in 10 everyday situations. The
“honesty test” was carried out by researchers in shopping
malls in the Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
.
Filipinos (82%), according to the survey, have few qualms about
turning a shoplifter in or telling a friend his or her spouse
was having a romantic dinner with a stranger.
.
The lowest score came from Taiwan (48%) where personal safety
ranked high among people reluctant to get involved.
.
In personal relationship, Indonesia had the lowest score (33%),
where respondents said it was none of their business, and would
not want to be involved.
. Authoritarian governments, e.g., former regimes of S.
Korea & Taiwan, while depressive toward political
dissidents, leave others unmolested. Civil society exists and
nonpolitical independent institutions are left alone. A
totalitarian government, e.g., N. Korea, politicizes every
aspect of life with an all-encompassing ideology and an idolized
leader. It was true as well with Stalinist Russia and Maoist
China.
. The health of China’s already troubled
banking industry may deteriorate further if Beijing is
successful in its effort to slow the issuance of new loans, but
a financial crisis is unlikely, said credit-rating agency
officials.
. Anheuser
Busch bought a 29% stake in Harbin Brewery Group, China’s 4th
largest brewery, for $139 million. It already owns a 9.9% stake
in Tsingtao brewery, China’s largest beer-maker.
. Datang Intl. Power Generation, the 2nd
largest Hong Kong-listed electricity generation in China,
plans to raise $724 million, selling shares locally to help find
construction of more power plants.
. Taiwan’s exports rose 22.8% in April from a year earlier on
strong demand from China, its largest export market.
. The Japanese Govt. was dealt a severe blow
when Yasuo Fukuda, chief cabinet secretary, quit over his
failure to contribute to a state pension plan.
. Japan
Air Lines posted a record annual loss, citing SARS and avian flu
epidemics. It reported loss of $788 million for the year ending
March 31.
.
NTT DoCoMo said profits this year would be sharply lower than
the market expected, reflecting competition to lure users to 3rd-generation
technology.
. The 2 Koreas ended 3 days of cabinet-level
meetings in Pyongyang. Without agreement on increasing economic
exchanges or reducing military tension along the border.
. Defense Ministry officials said Shin Il
Soon, deputy commander of the South Korea-US Combined Forces
Command, was arrested on embezzlement charges.
.
Intelligence officials have broadly concluded that a separate N.
Korean uranium-enrichment program will be operational by 2007,
producing enough material for as many as 6 additional weapons a
year.
. DaimlerChrysler has decided to sell its
10.5% stake in South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and is sharply
scaling back other aspects of their 4-year old partnership.
. The Philippine budget deficit is $3.6 billion
and unemployment is at 11%. About 44% of the nation’s 84
million live on less than $2 a day.
. The
proportion of overseas Filipinos who have registered to vote is
small (with the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore)—only
368,000 of an estimated 1.7 million qualified voters worldwide,
or 21%. Turnout could be even lower. Only 140,000 overseas
voters had cast their votes by May 1.
. Workers in the Middle East face long
distances and have to organize car pools to save on fuel costs
to get to voting centers located in just 2 cities, e.g., Abu
Dhabi and Dubai.
.
Voting by mail is allowed only in Japan, Canada & UK,
countries perceived to have highly reliable postal systems.
.
Many overseas Filipinos were further discouraged by a govt.
requirement that they return to RP for good within 3 years of
voting, or lose their chance to vote again overseas.
. Polling
firm Social Weather Stations projected GMA as the winner in the
May 10 presidential elections with 41% of the votes, compared
with 32% for her closest rival, FPJ. Eighty-one percent of 43
million registered voters went to the polls Monday.
. Manila
released a report done last year warning of about 50 Abu Sayyaf
terrorists being trained as suicide bombers by Indonesian
instructors who are members of Jemaah Islamiyah.
. Petron, Shell & Caltex, the so-called
Big Three of the oil industry, earned an estimated P1.1 billion
from overpriced oil products last year.
. Hameiraji Sale, a top leader of the Abu Sayyaf , and
5 other terrorists were killed last month. He had a $5-million
bounty on his head and had taken part in numerous abductions
& killings of Americans in RP.
. RP’s leading non-traditional media
provider RP Concepts has clinched a major deal with the Bangkok
Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), the 4th largest
company in the world.
. Clashes in southern Thailand last week
littered the streets with the dead Muslim militants, shattering
the country’s reputation as a land of peace & tolerance.
. Indonesia appears to be most vulnerable to terror at present,
facing a 3-pronged problem: political
transition, ethnic violence and economic instability.
. May 7, 1954 fifty years ago, silence fell upon the
hills of Dien Bien hu in N. Vietnam. This once calm
mountain valley had become the symbolic graveyard of 60,000
French soldiers who died in the Indochina War.
. In
a regime that is now making way to Capitalism, silence remains
the mark of Communism. When facing their own history, the
Vietnamese are well trained in concealing their unspeakable
sufferings, their anger and their fears.
.
The reasons for the French silence are easier to understand. The
vanquished lie low. Many survivors are content to end their
lives without answering the question their children never ask:
Did you participate in acts of torture? Some did, burning
villages, killing children they mistook for terrorists, raping
women.
. It seems the echoes of Dien Bien Phu are
heard in the streets of Fallujah at the Abu Ghraib prison. Forty
years ago, French friends of America tried to warn Washington
about the pitfalls of Vietnam. The French themselves
repeated their mistakes in Algeria.
. Standoff between the Burmese military and
pro-democracy forces continues to e a source of embarrassment
for all ASEAN and humiliation for Thailand, which sees itself as
capable of brokering a political settlement in Burma.
. Indian troops staged fake combat and made false claims
about killing Pakistani soldiers north of Kashmir last year to
win medals for gallantry, the Defense Ministry said last week.
. Outsourcing
of service jobs in India accounts for only a tiny share
of India’s farm-dominated economy, absorbing only
100,000 of the 2.4 million students who graduate from college
every year.
.
According to the IMF, good harvests and low interest rates
helped the Indian economy expand by about 8.2% in the year that
ended March 31.
. Last Friday’s bombing (of the Hyderi mosque) was
the 3rd attack in as many months against Shiites who
make up less than 15% of Pakistan’s 150 million Muslims
and have often been targeted by radicals from the majority Sunni
population.
. Authorities
have blamed religious organizations in Saudi Arabia for funding
radical Muslim Sunni groups in Pakistan. Iran, which is
predominantly Shiite, has been accused of backing Pakistani
Shiite extremists who have sometimes carried out the attacks on
Sunnis.
. A powerful car bomb killed 3 Chinese
engineers wounded
11 other people as they rode to their jobs at a massive port
construction project in SW Pakistan.
. Pakistani intelligence officials said they
have received reports confirming Chinese claims that Muslim
radical groups in Pakistan have forged links to militants in
China’s majority Muslim Xinjiang province.
.
The port is supposed to provide a shipping outlet for
Afghanistan & other land-locked Central Asian countries. It
is also envisioned as the centerpiece of a major new economic
zone in a remote area that has long been starved for
development. China & Pakistan are close allies with a long
history of cooperation in military and other fields.
. The brother of deposed P.M. Nawaz Sharif was
deported to Saudi Arabia Tuesday after he landed in Pakistan
from more than 3 years in exile.
. Nepal’s Prime Minister (Surya Bahadur Thapa) resigned last
Friday after weeks of protests demanding the return of democracy
in the Himalayan kingdom, wracked by political instability and a
Maoist insurgency.
. The commander of US military forces in Afghanistan
(Lt. Gen. David Barno) expressed concern that Pakistan was
taking an overly conciliatory approach toward foreign fighters w
have taken refuge in its territory.
