Asia News Digest
More Talks on North Korea, But Impasse Not Broken Yet
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was in Beijing on Jan. 15, following meetings the day before in Seoul. While Kelly was meeting with PRC Deputy Foreign Minister Li, the Chinese government was offering to provide a venue for direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea. According to Washington Post accounts, it was Chinese President Jiang Zemin who initiated the Jan. 10 hotline call to President Bush, rather than the other way around, signalling a willingness on the part of China to play a pivotal role in resolving the conflict around North Korea.
The Washington Post also reported that during the summer, President Bush and Colin Powell had discussed a broad offer of economic assistance to North Korea, including development of an electric power grid to fully utilize the two new lightwater reactors, and agricultural training, as well expanded food aid. The North Koreans responded to the Jan. 15 U.S. offers by saying that the American proposal was not serious (a "painted cake pie in the sky," the North called it). However, sources say that there are a number of "back channel" talks going on, along the lines of New Mexico Governor Richardson's talks last week (Jan. 8-10) with North Korean UN representatives.
On Jan. 17, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the U.S. was prepared to sign a formal statement assuring North Korea that the U.S. would not attack them. While falling short of the non-aggression treaty sought by North Korea, the Armitage statements were aimed at moving talks forward. Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer wrote on Jan. 18 that President Bush flubbed policy opportunities with North Korea during his first two years in office, due to bad advice from Paul Wolfowitz, leader of the neo-conservative warhawks in the Administration, and the "Vulcans" group of early Bush national security advisers that had been put together by former Secretary of State George Shultz.
Asian Bond Market Discussed for 2003
Plans to create an Asian bond market this year are being discussed by Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. For more, see ECONOMICS NEWS DIGEST.
China Infrastructure Plan Could Provide 'Escape' from Worldwide Economic Slowdown
Weeks after EIW and EIR featured the breakthrough infrastructure projects taking place in mainland China, the New York Times published an unusual front-page article on Jan. 13 which praised the Chinese insfrastructure programs as the way to "escape the worldwide slowdown and maintain growth."
Calling it a program which "dwarfs the New Deal and the Marshall Plan," reporter Joseph Kahn described the Chinese program to "pump 48 billion cubic meters of water each year from south to north, transport natural gas from Central Asia to China's southeast coast, and construct the world's largest dam, longest bridge, fastest train and highest railroad." He also reviewed progress on the Three Gorges, the maglev, the water diversion, the railroad to Tibet, and more.
Kahn wrote from Chongqing, the city up the Yangtze which served as the capital of Free China during the Japanese invasion of World War II, and which is now undergoing a $200-billion remake. He said that the amount being spent is "a bit more than the U.S. Congress spent, in adjusted dollars, to build the American interstate highway system in the 1950s." This is almost entirely government-generated credit, Kahn pointed out.
He ended his piece by stating that the new leadership under Hu Jintao is not about to slow down, and quoting Huang Qifan, a former top Shanghai official who is now the executive vice mayor of Chongqing, to the effect that the project is long-term. "It's a little crazy to be talking about adding so much capacity today," Huang Quifan was quoted as saying, "but in 20 years you will see what happens to this place and it will all make sense."
Malaysian Scientist Calls for Conference To Bring Back DDT
On Jan. 14, in the two leading newspapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Mohd Peter Davis was published fully endorsing the call to action by 21st Century magazine and the LaRouche movement to end the ban on DDT in order to conquer disease. The letter was published in full in The Star, the country's largest paper, and excerpted in the semi-official New Straits Times (which left out the reference to 21st Century and LaRouche). The letter follows:
"I share the public concern that dengue fever is approaching epidemic proportions claiming 54 lives in 2002 and 10,753 confirmed cases. We must get serious and unite to declare war on dengue. I add my voice to other scientists in the world. Dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and encephalitis can be effectively controlled. Just bring back the insecticide DDT! This proposal is not made to infuriate environmentalists who have long believed the emotional claim by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring (1962) that DDT exterminates birds and wildlife. Consider, instead, the scientific evidence. DDT, discovered [actually, formulateded.] in the 1940s, is the only really effective solution for controlling the mosquito population. and with it the long list of diseases they transmit to humans. Rightly regarded as the most life-saving manmade chemical in history, DDT transformed the public health of billions before it was unilaterally banned by the American government in 1972. This ban was in blatant defiance of overwhelming world scientific opinion and a seven-month, 9,000-page testimony before the American Environment Protection Agency. Its Chairman, Judge Edmond Sweeny, ruled that DDT should NOT be banned, concluding: DDT is not carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic to man (and) these uses of DDT do not have a deleterious effect on fish, birds, wildlife or estuarine organisms. Two months after this clean bill of health report, DDT was banned by the American government and ruthlessly enforced worldwide for what was later admitted to be political reasons. This centred on the evil doctrine that overpopulation in developing countries was the greatest threat to humanity. The DDT ban 30 years ago has led to an estimated 60 million needless deaths from malaria alone, 90% of them in Africa. The case for lifting the ban on DDT is comprehensively reviewed in the latest issue of 21st Century Science and Technology (see www.larouchepub.com). More dramatically, a leading advocate of DDT, Professor Gordon Edwards of San Jose University in California, has for decades been eating a tablespoon of DDT in front of each year's entomology class! So much for the harmful effects of DDT. Malaysia, as a respected spokesman for developing countries, can play a decisive role in bringing back DDT. By hosting an international conference, Malaysia can reopen, not a confrontation, but a sane and civilized meeting between informed scientists and concerned environmentalists. I have done the calculation. For a chemical cost of only RM22 million per year, just RM1 per head of population, the inside walls of every house in Malaysia can be sprayed twice per year with minute quantities of DDT, sufficient along with other sensible public health measures to adequately protect the entire population from dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases. Developing countries have been grossly misled by Rachel Carson's book and America's cruel agenda. DDT is the safe and outstanding weapon of choice for Malaysia against mosquitoes and the emerging dengue epidemic.
"Mohd Peter Davis
"Universiti Putra Malaysia"
Mahathir: 'Reinventing Civilization' Dialogue Must Replace War Rhetoric
In his keynote address to the 11th annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad told the 170 delegates, "It is time to pause and rethink." Labelling people as "great Satan" or "an axis of evil" resolves nothing. It is time to join in a global effort of "reinventing civilization." He zeroed in on the discrepancy in the handling of North Korea, Iraq, and the Palestinian crisis. Mahathir said: "There was a time when Muslim countries were in agreement over the need to stop Iraqi aggressiveness. Today that unity of purpose has disappeared. Muslims see the stance taken against Iraq as another act of discrimination against Muslims.
"Iraq, Iran and North Korea have been labelled as the Axis of Evil, but despite the fact that North Korea has admitted that it has nuclear capability, it is not being threatened with war as Iraq is. We do not want to see North Korea being threatened with war, and the country being militarily attacked, but the accommodating attitude towards North Korea is going to anger the Muslims more."
The greatest failure of U.S. and Western policy, he said, is the failure to address the Palestinian crisis. He warned, "The terrorism that assails the world today has a direct connection with the fate of the Palestinians...."
Vietnam Embarks on Nuclear Power Project
Vietnam plans to build its first nuclear power station by 2020. With an estimated 230,000 tons of uranium discovered in Quang Nam province in central Vietnam and several other areas, the country could run a nuclear power station for at least 24 years, said Do Ngoc Lien, director of the Institute of Technology for Radioactive Materials. For now the nuclear project remains on the drawing board, but an inter-departmental committee on atomic energy was set up on March 5, 2002.
Energy infrastructure is one of the most significant challenges facing Vietnam, which has a population of 90 million, making it the second most populous country in ASEAN. The World Bank estimates that to sustain a growth rate of 6-8% over the next five years will require increased electricity supplies at the rate of 10-14% per annum.
Vuong Huu Tan, director of the Institute of Atomic Energy of Vietnam said, "We intend to reduce the proportion of our hydro-electric power stations from 60% to 50% by 2010," citing difficulties in managing strong seasonal variations in river flows. He also stressed the international cooperation presently underway with Japan, South Korea, France and Canada.
In 1963, the United States installed a trial nuclear reactor in the southern city of Dalat in 1963, under the "Atoms for Peace," program, but with the second Indochina War and the broader Cold War, Vietnam relied on information exchanges with the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, and would today still need outside assistance to progress with its program.
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