From Volume 4, Issue Number 45 of EIR Online, Published Nov. 8, 2005
Asia News Digest

UN's Eglund Blames Donors for Looming Death of Thousands in Pakistan

Appearing on the Jim Lehrer News Hour Nov. 1, UN Emergency Relief chief Jan Eglund said the lack of international help, and the enormity of logistical requirements, have led to the sure death of thousands of Pakistani earthquake victims lodged somewhere in the Himalayas. He said there are at least 150,000 people fighting death up in the slopes of the mountains. With snow showers reported from the area, Eglund believes these 150,000 have a maximum of five weeks to live. After that, death from hypothermia and starvation is almost a certainty. Already, 60,000 people have been confirmed dead.

Eglund pointed out that following the tsunami in Asia, at least 1,000 helicopters were mobilized in no time. The post-tsunami logistics were a cake-walk compared to the logistical nightmare facing the UN now. Following the earthquake, so far only 100 helicopters have been mobilized. He said the only way to save the people up there is to reach them with helicopters. Roads are broken in thousands of places, rocks are loose, aftershocks are occurring daily, and there is no way the roads can be opened before thousands die.

The UN relief chief said the United Nations is still looking for 600,000 tents for sheltering the quake victims. So far, only 140,000 have been found. He said on the fifth day after the quake, he visited one village and found children frozen and starved to death. He said that now, we have no idea how many are gone. Only those children with broken limbs who could get medical help within 48 hours, had their limbs saved. Thousands of children could not get such attention within 48 hours. Most of them lost their limbs and many others died of gangrene.

Will Koizumi's Neo-con Deputy and Cabinet Go Fascist?

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed a new neo-con deputy and cabinet Oct. 31, which would mean Japan will go fascist, as the global media insist. Koizumi gave the "heir apparent" post of Chief Cabinet Minister to Shinzo Abe, grandson of Japan's wartime Minister of Munitions, Nobosuke Kishi. Kishi was convicted of war crimes during the U.S. occupation led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, but was released on the insistence of John Foster Dulles as part of "Operation Gladio" in Japan to whitewash fascists. Grandson Abe often attacks China and North Korea, making him a media celebrity. Another China-basher, neo-con Taro Aso, was named Foreign Minister. Economics czar Heizo "surgery without anesthesia" Takenaka, the Harvard IMF asset, kept his post and was given the additional post of Home Minister, to control the postal system and the rest of Japan's $14 trillion government funds. With Abe and Aso thus in line to vie for Prime Minister when Koizumi retires in 2006, Japan is apparently making a beeline for the 1930s, just as LaRouche wrote one week ago.

LaRouche Sparks New Debate on Fascism in Japan

An article by Lyndon LaRouche, "Government Crisis Looms; Japan Faces the Future," in EIR Nov. 4, has sparked a new debate on fascism in Japan, as to how far Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can go, if LaRouche destroys Vice President Dick Cheney in the United States. "It depends on what happens in Washington," said a Tokyo intelligence insider, author of a book attacking Wall Street. "Koizumi and his comrades are childish fascists living in virtual reality," puffed up by Japan's jingoist media. "There are no Japanese politicians left with brains." He acknowledged that global synarchy might be able to push Japan's power elite into fascism even if LaRouche wins in the U.S., but joked, "maybe the Japanese and U.S. neo-cons intend to barricade themselves inside Japan" as their "last stand."

A Japanese Socialist Party leader who has made a career attacking Koizumi and the LDP also said: "Everything depends on what happens in the U.S." If the U.S. goes fascist under Bush-Cheney, "Koizumi will go the same way. Koizumi himself can't understand what he is doing. He obeys only; he will be not able to be fascist without his leader" in Washington. "Therefore, I hope and expect that Mr. LaRouche will succeed to stop Cheney and Bush from the inside. Then we can fight against American neo-cons from outside, to make, together, our democracy in the 21st Century. The problem does not start in Japan."

A senior Korean peace movement leader, however, was more alarmed. "Pushed by the U.S. neo-cons," he said, "Koizumi's group wishes to establish its military power over all of Asia, most directly over the Korean peninsula, similarly as they did during the last century." He compared them to Hitler.

China-India Strategic Partnership

Liu Yunshan, member of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo and head of the Propaganda Department under the CCP Central Committee, had an extended meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, Indian media reported Nov. 2. Liu said the Chinese government thinks highly of developing a peace-and-prosperity-oriented strategic partnership with India. He was heading a CCP delegation invited by the government of India for a five-day visit (Oct. 27-Nov. 1).

Liu pointed out that to develop friendly and cooperative Sino-Indian relations is not only in the interests of the people of the two countries, but also in keeping with their aspirations.

Islamic Militants Plan Attacks To Sink South Asia Summit

Islamic militants have plans for bombing all five capitals of the nations of South Asia before the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit on Nov. 12-13 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Bengali-language daily Ittefaq Oct. 31 quoted a source saying that "militants had planned to bomb the capitals—Dhaka, New Delhi, Colombo, Islamabad, and Kathmandu, to foil the summit." Indian central intelligence linked the bombings in New Delhi on Oct. 29 to these terrorist threats. The Bangladesh government is taking extraordinary security measures for the summit.

Asian Technocrats Look To 'Post Cheney Era'

"Congratulations on knocking out the Cheney group! We read it first in EIR!," a physical economist in Seoul said Nov. 3. "Now I have a new request: Next we must knock out those standing in way of the New Bretton Woods and the global New Deal such as Eurasian Land-Bridge. So, can't EIR do a similar expose campaign against the financier kingpins of the Washington Consensus and their overseas controllers: Rohatyn, Soros, and, who is it in Europe?"

"Politicians here are quite stupid," he said. "It would really help us, if we can target financiers of the Washington consensus, like your campaign against Cheney."

"The IMF's [post-1971] floating-rate system has been a disaster, and on this, there is consensus in Japan, China, and Korea," a senior Korean Finance Ministry official said. Former Japanese Vice Finance Minister Haruhiko Kuroda's "criticism of floating rates [in his Asian Development Bank speech] was given with the official permission of the Japanese authorities. Korean and Chinese financial technocrats agree. Politicians come and go; but we three nations have increasingly close coordination.

"You tell me the Washington Consensus on 'free trade fundamentalism' is also breaking down, with the end of the Cheney regime. That is very important." The better it goes, he said, the more likely the Asian side would start discussing the New Bretton Woods in a more aggressive way.

He took Helga Zepp-LaRouche and United Auto Workers leader Mark Sweazy's Berlin Call to "Save the American Auto Sector" to use as a model for "constructive criticism," and said they would consider a way to contact Sen. Hillary Clinton's office to support her call for saving the U.S. auto industry, since the world needs the U.S. industrial base for great projects.

Indian Army Chief in Yangon on Goodwill Mission

A goodwill delegation led by Indian Army Chief J.J. Singh arrived in Myanmar at the invitation of the Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Vice-Senior Gen. Maung Aye, India Daily reported Nov. 1.

At the airport, the Indian Army chief was received by Gen. Maung Aye, Commander-in-Chief (Navy) Vice Adm. Soe Thein, Commander-in Chief (Air) Lt.Gen. Myat Hein; Chief of Military Affairs Security Lt.Gen. Myint Swe, and other high-ranking military officials.

The visit is related to India's ongoing negotiations with Myanmar for joint military operations along the India-Myanmar border, where a number of Indian secessionist groups have set up camps. In addition, New Delhi is moving ahead with building a deep sea port at Dawei along the Myanmar coast, facing India's Andaman Islands.

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