Heavy flooding hits 350,000 in Africa, killing at least 32
　

DAM DANGER: Burkinan authorities have been forced to open the gate of a dam near the border with Ghana, threatening people in both countries

AP, UNITED NATIONS
Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 1

Heavy flooding is affecting some 350,000 people across West Africa, killing at least 25 in Ghana and seven in Burkina Faso, UN officials said on Friday.

The most badly affected appears to be Burkina Faso, where 110,000 have been forced to flee their homes, mainly in the capital, Ouagadougou.

On Friday, a seven-member assessment team from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) was expected to arrive in Ouagadougou. The country’s main hospital is three-quarters flooded, requiring early discharges and massive evacuations of patients, some with infectious diseases.

Benin, too, has been flooded since July, and a UN team was there assessing its needs. Also hard hit are the Western African nations of Guinea, Niger and Senegal.

Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for OCHA in Geneva, Switzerland, said the amount of rain that fell on Thursday in Ouagadougou equaled a quarter of all Burkina Faso’s typical annual rainfall.

“It was a deluge, but you also have Ghana, where 25 people died from the bad weather and from the floods,” she told UN Radio. “The death toll is likely to increase in the coming days.”

In Burkina Faso, Minister of Social Welfare Pascaline Tamini said on state radio on Wednesday that she expected the number of people affected to grow significantly in the coming hours. Burkinan President Blaise Compaore appealed to the international community for help.

Flood damages in the nation had risen to US$152 million as of Friday, Burkinan Prime Minister Tertius Zongo said.

That included a dam destroyed and 12 bridges damaged in Ouagadougou and a dam destroyed in the northern Sahel region.

The rain in Ouagadougou last week was the worst in recent memory, but heavy rain two years ago caused flooding throughout the country, killing 84 people and displacing 146,000.

Local authorities have been forced to open the main gate of a hydroelectric dam in the Volta River basin, near the Ghana border, threatening people in both countries with additional flooding, the UN said.

When the state-run electricity company opened the dam’s gate on Friday morning, the water was less than 8cm from reaching the dam’s capacity, said Venance Bouda, the firm’s director of hydroelectric power.

“Even when we operate normally and release water, some people drown while crossing [the river] downstream,” Bouda said. “Cultivated land on the reservoir’s shores and further upstream will be flooded. We warn riverside residents to stay away from the shores.”

It is only the sixth time since the dam was built in 1994 that it has had to be opened — an instance two years ago caused flooding in parts of northern Ghana.

Ghanaian officials told the UN they had less than a day’s notice before the gate was opened, but that no one could have expected the rainfall to fill the reservoir so quickly.

Papal envoy arrives in southern Taiwan
　

HELPING HAND: The German cardinal is a long-standing friend of Taiwan, who visited the nation in January 2000 to comfort survivors of the devastating 1999 earthquake

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 3
　

Papal envoy Cardinal Paul Cordes arrived in Kaohsiung yesterday, where he prayed for the victims of Typhoon Marakot.

Cardinal Cordes, who is president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which coordinates Catholic charities, attended a mass at a Catholic church in Kaohsiung City, where he conveyed Pope Benedict XVI’s concern for survivors of one of the deadliest storms in Taiwan in half a century.

Cordes said in his prayers at the church that in several masses said over the past month, the pope had prayed for Taiwan and those who suffered in the devastation.

“The pope is with you and offers his condolences to those who lost their loved ones,” Cordes said.

HEAVEN

He consoled survivors by saying that although their relatives and loved ones were gone, they were now in heaven.

After the mass, the cardinal, accompanied by Monsignor Paul Russell, the Holy See’s new charge d’affaires in Taiwan, headed to the Republic of China Military Academy to console people displaced by floodwaters and mudslides triggered by the typhoon who are temporarily sheltering at the academy.

Liu Chen-chung (劉振忠), bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaohsiung, said the cardinal donated US$25,000 on behalf of the pope as a gesture of sympathy for the victims.

raising money

Ma Yi-nan (馬以南), elder sister of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who also accompanied the cardinal during his trip, said she personally raised more than NT$10 million (US$304,000) in the US for the victims.

Of the total, she said, NT$8 million was donated to the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaohsiung and the remaining NT$2 million was distributed to several other charitable organizations.

The German cardinal arrived in Taiwan on Friday for a nine-day visit, primarily to attend an international humanitarian assistance conference in Taipei and to provide spiritual guidance and comfort to the survivors of Morakot.

SPIRITUAL EXERCISE

Cordes is scheduled to preside over the Spiritual Exercise for the Leaders of the Church’s Charitable Organization in Asia 2009, scheduled to open today at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taipei.

The event, to be held in Taiwan for the first time, is not only bringing together four other cardinals and more than 60 archbishops from around the region, but is also expected to be attended by 450 people from 29 Asian countries who participate in charity activities.

On behalf of the Pope, the Holy See’s embassy in Taiwan has donated US$50,000 to help with disaster relief and reconstruction operations.

Cordes is a long-standing friend of Taiwan and he visited the nation in January 2000 to comfort survivors of the Sept. 21, 1999 earthquake, which killed nearly 2,500 people.

Magazine lists Ma as one of world’s ‘gutsiest’ leaders
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been selected as one of the world’s “gutsiest” leaders in the September-October issue of the humorous US public affairs magazine mental_floss.

The author of the article, Jennifer Drapkin, said all the people in it have had unbelievable lives.

Describing Ma as the “world’s best marriage counselor,” Drapkin said Ma shared a deeply held desire with his former dictator mentor, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), to “reunite” China and Taiwan.

The so-called “1992 consensus” was “a masterpiece of diplomatic ambiguity” that opened up a dialogue with China and led to increased commerce “between the two nations,” Drapkin said.

It also helped Ma gain a reputation as a savvy politician, which, she said “along with his general handsomeness got him elected mayor of Taipei in 1998. (In a poll of Taipei women, asking which public figure they would most like to father their children, Ma was the resounding winner.)”

After being elected president of Taiwan in March last year by campaigning on the idea of a “Great China market,” Drapkin said Ma reaffirmed his belief in “one China” and Taiwan’s relationship with China improved almost immediately.

“Now, about 3,000 Chinese tourists arrive to invade Taipei’s shopping malls each day,” she said. “And when China offered Taiwan the pandas Tuan-tuan and Yuan-yuan again, President Ma gladly accepted them.”

Improved cross-strait relations also ameliorated ties with Washington, she said, adding that the global economic crisis has unfortunately dealt a blow to Ma’s administration.

“But many economists believe that with money pouring in from both China and the United States, Taiwan may be on the road to recovery,” she said.

Will Ma’s dream of “reuniting” Taiwan and China come true? Drapkin asked.

“Many foreign affairs experts would tell Ma to keep dreaming,” she said. “Today, they are giving each other pandas. Anything is possible.”

The five “gutsiest” world leaders selected by the magazine are Ma, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

A blogger with the nickname Tumwijuke commented on Museveni’s selection as one of the world’s gutsiest leaders as “a laugh,” saying they did not get the magazine in Uganda but he was “itching to read the misinformation contained therein.”

According to the magazine’s Web site, mental_floss is “an intelligent read, but not too intelligent — the sort of intelligence that “you hang out with for a while, enjoy our company, laugh a little, smile a lot and then we part ways.”

Rebuilding should factor in climate change: experts
　

By Shelley Shan
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 3
　

Transportation experts have suggested that the government factor in climate change and reconsider construction methods used for transportation infrastructure when repairing or rebuilding highways and bridges devastated by Typhoon Morakot.

Professor Jason Chang (張學孔) of the civil engineering department at National Taiwan University said the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) should raise construction standards for highways and bridges to counter challenges brought on by climate change.

“Many of the nation’s transportation facilities were built with the premise that big floods will only occur once every 100 years or 200 years,” Chang said. “But given the changing rainfall patterns nowadays, we might have to change that premise by shortening the presumed frequency to perhaps once every 50 years.”

“Each transportation facility must be built with a stronger structure to withstand such floods,” he said.

Aside from challenges brought by extreme weather conditions, Chang said that the methods used to construct highways or bridges would also have to change.

“In the past, we liked to straighten supposedly meandering routes to reduce travel time for people,” Chang said. “So if we could use any method to shorten the route, we just went ahead and did it.”

“After the damage suffered this time, we should start building bridges or roads by yielding to the form of natural terrain as much as possible,” Chang said.

> “This means that it might take longer to build. But there is always a tradeoff. Do we want something that was built fast and is potentially unsafe, or do we sacrifice expediency to build something that can coexist with nature and last longer?” he asked.

When rebuilding damaged infrastructure in new locations, the MOTC will have to be very careful in choosing the sites and avoid geologically sensitive zones, Chang said.

“The problem has already occurred when they constructed the Hsuehshan Tunnel, with the route they chose passing through several water veins in northern regions,” Chang said.

Professor Wang Jung-yue (王仲宇) of National Central University is one of a number of consultants recruited by the Public Construction Commission (PCC) to draw up a set of guidelines for rebuilding damaged bridges. Wang also stressed the importance of climate change.

“Any bridge reconstruction that fails to take into account climate change would only be a waste of money and labor,” Wang said.

Earlier this year, the Directorate General of Highways (DGH) completed a comprehensive inspection on bridges of provincial and county highways nationwide and listed 50 bridges that need to be repaired.

The directorate’s general secretary Mile Chen (陳茂南) said the DGH had to not only conduct a new nationwide inspection of bridges, but also had to review the conditions previously set for closing the bridges.

“We have learned something this time from the Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園大橋), which collapsed before the water in the river rose to the height that had been deemed dangerous enough to shut down the bridge,” Chen said.

Chen said the bridge is located at the mouth of a river, which makes it difficult to gauge the real water level because of tidal differences.

“We cannot use the water level as the only indicator to decide if we should close the bridge anymore,” Chen said. “When we set the standards, we also need to consider other factors, such as the speed of the river flow, the characteristics of the river basin and the extent to which the water scours the bridge piers.”

Meanwhile, Chen said, there was a need to set up an alarm system that monitors changes in water level upstream during stormy weather.

The engineers at the DGH also have to be trained to interpret various data provided by the Water Resources Agency to make better judgments on how it could take proactive action to protect bridges.

The MOTC has estimated that it needs a total of approximately NT$31 billion (US$942 million) to repair damaged facilities under its administration. Among them, about NT$29 billion will be appropriated to the DGH to restore devastated highways.

The Central Weather Bureau has identified the towns in southern Taiwan that received the highest accumulated rainfall when the nation was hit by Morakot between Aug. 7 and Aug. 10: Dapu (大埔), Alishan (阿里山) and Juci (竹崎) in Chiayi, Liouguei (六龜), Jiasian (甲仙) and Taoyuan (桃源) in Kaohsiung and Sandimen (三地門) in Pingtung.

These towns received an average of 74 percent of their usual annual rainfall during the three days.

Liouguei, Jiasian and Juci were also on the nation’s top 10 accumulated rainfall list when Tropical Storm Kalmaegi hit last year.

Liu Chung-ming (柳中明), director of the Global Change Research Center at National Taiwan University, said the nation had to get used to extreme weather.

“We just had the highest temperature ever recorded, 39.5˚C, in Hsinchu the week before Morakot came,” Liu said. “The next thing you know we receive the heaviest rainfall so far this year.”

Liu said that between 1960 and 2000, an average of 30 typhoons and tropical storms formed in the Northwest Pacific Ocean per year. Between 2000 and last year, the number dropped to an average of 24 per year.

Before 2000, only about 4.5 typhoons would actually affect Taiwan, but from 2000 to last year, an average of 7.1 typhoons hit the nation each year.

So far, three typhoons have made landfall this year and only nine tropical storms and typhoons have formed in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.

Soft power is the future

Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 8

Following Kaohsiung’s successful hosting of the World Games in July, the 21st Deaflympics opened in Taipei with a spectacular ceremony on Saturday. Thousands of people have volunteered to help the athletes and other visitors during their stay. Taiwan’s hosting of the World Games and Deaflympics has strengthened the self-confidence of its citizens and broadened their horizons, while offering an opportunity to present Taiwan to the world.

The World Games and the Deaflympics are not as flashy as the Olympics and do not draw as much international attention. Nevertheless, Taiwan has demonstrated its concern for the disadvantaged as well as its ability to organize large-scale events. It shows that Taiwan can play an effective role internationally.

Taiwan has often been excluded from international events because of pressure from China. This has been a loss not just for Taiwan but also for the world. There are many ways in which international organizations could benefit from Taiwan’s assistance or participation. Both Taiwan and the international community would benefit from exploring these possibilities.

There is more to cross-strait relations than military might and missiles, diplomatic rivalry and a war of words. Soft power comes into play in many situations that are not necessarily zero-sum games in which there can only be one winner and one loser — nor does size always determine the outcome.

China’s market is enormous and its international clout undeniable, but Taiwan’s path of development and its flexible and efficient business management and strategy have long been models for China to follow.

In the cultural sphere, Taiwan’s influence on China is illustrated by a recent poll in which Chinese people voted for Taiwanese singers Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) and Jay Chou (周杰倫) and writer Chiung Yao (瓊瑤) among a list of the 10 most influential cultural figures.

Taiwan and China are multi-ethnic, multilingual, multi-faith countries. During the decades in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a monopoly on political power in Taiwan, it tried through oppressive means to unite society around a single value system. Taiwan today respects the values of pluralism and freedom. Although many victims of Typhoon Morakot are Christian, they welcomed the Dalai Lama’s visit. Equally, many Buddhists have expressed their appreciation for a visit by Vatican envoy Cardinal Paul Cordes.

Different religions may have different ways of expressing their concern for human suffering, but their humanity is a common value that transcends boundaries of religion, ethnicity and language. Taiwan’s transition from a dictatorial system to one of pluralism and tolerance is one that China would do well to follow.

The rise of China makes many countries uneasy. Although Beijing says its rise is peaceful, observers around the world have their doubts, including former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀).

China’s diplomacy includes a heavy emphasis on military might, overlooking the potential of soft power. Hard power is a matter of winners and losers, of victory and defeat. Soft power implies complementary development and common prosperity. Soft power can and should form the basis for cross-strait relations.

Protecting Aboriginal rights after Morakot
　

By Lee Yung-ran 李永然
Monday, Sep 07, 2009, Page 8

Typhoon Morakot wreaked havoc across southern Taiwan and most of the worst-hit areas were Aboriginal communities. Many Aboriginal villages were destroyed, which will have an impact on the traditional way of life of those who survived. Aborigines will face many difficulties.

Historically, Aboriginal societies have been largely self-sufficient.

However, after the government started institutionalizing its policies around 50 years ago, Aboriginal groups not only saw changes in their traditional political organization, but their societies edged closer to collapse.

Once they had to rely on the free-market economy to make a living, Aborigines had to start looking for jobs.

For a long time, Taiwan’s Aborigines have been at a disadvantage.

Because of limited arable land and employment opportunities in their homelands, large numbers of Aborigines have moved to the cities.

Many who leave their homes lack the resources and channels to gain access to higher education, with the result that a high proportion of the Aboriginal population can only gain employment doing menial and dangerous jobs.

As working conditions became tougher and the economy deteriorated, the government brought in large numbers of foreign workers. This lowered average wages in Taiwan and had a heavy impact on employment opportunities for Aborigines.

Despite the Indigenous Peoples Employment Rights Protection Act (原住民族工作權保障法), unemployment rates among Aborigines continue to rise and many have trouble even securing basic living standards, including sufficient food and clothing.

In recent years, recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples has become an international trend.

After the typhoon, issues such as the reconstruction of Aboriginal areas and whether villages should be relocated have sparked debate.

A link to tradition is a basic requirement of Aboriginal life and the government’s reconstruction plans cannot overlook Aboriginal needs and demands.

Those in power should consider the situation from the perspective of Aborigines and show respect for their desire to preserve their culture.

If the government plans to relocate communities away from landslide-prone mountainous areas, it should provide assistance to preserve their culture.

In addition, while housing disaster victims temporarily at shelters, the government should draw up reconstruction plans that take Aboriginal culture into consideration.

Doing so could help restore the collective culture of Aboriginal groups.

Let us hope that Taiwan will show more concern for and identification with Aboriginal groups and help them reconstruct their homes.

We should treat Aborigines and their cultures based on the principles of equality and respect.

In addition, improving the economic conditions of Aborigines is an essential factor in promoting ethnic harmony.

Protecting the livelihood of Aboriginal groups is in line with the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Following these principles would help us align our practices with international trends and practices in Aboriginal policy.

This is the only way to protect the rights and interests of Aborigines.

Lee Yung-ran is a lawyer and president of the Chinese Association for Human Rights.