Dear Mr. Prime Minister Tony Blair,
　　 Mr. President Jacques Chirac,
　　 Mr. Chancellor Gerhard Schr(der,
　　 Mr. Prime Minister John Howard,
　　 Mr. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi,
　　 Mr. Secretary-General George Robertson,
　　 Mr. Trent Lott,
　　 Mr. Denny Hastert,

Human right is the focus of "basic survivalism" over the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs.

China delivered a resounding rejected of any military intervention aimed at ending human rights abuses, a policy promoted by the United States, its European allies and most recently U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"The issue of human rights is, in essence, an internal affair of a country." China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, dismissing the argument that human rights should take precedence over sovereignty.

The debate over humanitarian intervention to protect civilians in strife-torn regions is shaping up as the most contentious of the assembly's current session.

Taking place against the backdrop of NATO air strikes to halt violence against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and the deployment of multinational peacekeepers in East Timor, the debate moved to the front burner when Annan declared Monday that the main challenge facing the United Nations in the 21st century is its role in protecting civilians.

With ethnic minorities and innocent civilians more and more often the targets of warring parties, Annan said the United Nations, and the Security Council in particular, must be willing to take action, even when individual nations' interests are not at stake.

But China's strong opposition signaled the difficult, if not impossible challenge that Annan, the United States and its European allies face in trying to get the Security Council to enshrine the concept of humanitarian intervention.

China would almost surely veto any attempt and it is not alone in its opposition.

China's foreign minister said NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in the name of "humanitarianism" and "human rights" for the people of Kosovo bypassed the United Nations and created "an ominous precedent in international relations."

Not only did Tang insist that human rights were a national prerogative but he called for the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries to be strengthened.

Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika called the idea of "strategic interference" to fix emergencies in other countries a "seductive" rationale which must be resisted.

"I cannot ascribe to the idea that if a child is in distress because of the parents, I can break into their house to help the child," he said.

What's the Just War doctrine, neither for government nor for military power, but for people's wills.

Orange County Register by Steven Green Hut ---
So many countries, so little time.

That must be the new motto of the U.S. armed forces as the Clinton administration prepares to send logistical troops to East Timor, the latest "where is it on a map?" locale where American lives and dollars will be put at risk.

Despite the seriousness of the issues involved, there is no more of a debate in Congress or the public over this latest U.S. military intervention than there was over recent or continuing actions in Serbia, Haiti, Somalia, Macedonia ...

Yet as America embraces the policies of an empire, the American people need to focus their attention on the moral foundations of the policy of endless militarism.

Yes, I'm taking about morals.

America's current adventurism is defended in moral language, as the administration and its supporters argue that America must intervene in the name of protecting the international order, in stopping ethnic cleansing, in upholding democratic values.

In essence, the United States has said that it will intervene anywhere for any reason, though it will usually work in concert with other governments to lend legitimacy to these ever more wide-ranging military operations.

That means that either the United States is the world's moral exemplar, a country where the president and his top foreign policy advisers are so wise and honorable that they have a God-given duty to determine what's best for everyone.

Or that might makes right, that a country as strong as ours can do whatever it darn well pleases --- drop bombs on civilians, impose child-killing sanctions on whole populations, or bomb a pharmeceutical plant.

My point: Warmaking needs to be restrained by ruled and laws that are informed by moral judgments. Yet this administration, like other Democratic and Republic administrations before it, has wantonly violated national and international checks on state-sanctioned violence.

The best tool regarding war is what's called the Just War doctrine. The idea is associated with the Catholic Church, mainly because of its unwavering defense of it. But it has resonated throughout Western civilization, and may have originated with Roman philosopher Cicero, whose birth predated Christ's by about a century, according to a British group called Peace Pledge.

Cicero's just war required a just cause, the group explained, such as stopping an invasion; a formal declaration of war to give the other side a chance to make amends; and the just prosecution of the war by not targeting unarmed civilians.

There is nothing defensive about sending U.S. troops far and wide, to places such as East Timor (though the people there clearly have the moral right to defend themselves). There is nothing proportionate about killing thousands of Serb civilians because of a civil war that, prior to NATO attacks, had claimed the lives of about 2,000. There is no "last resort" about this administration's ultimatums.

What America needs now is a thoroughgoing moral debate about the justness of our nation's military actions. Is there any political or religious leader with the courage to start one?

Knight Ridder newspapers by Trudy Rubin ---
President Clinton debated U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week over when the international community should intervene in civil wars to halt mass slaughter.

They addressed the opening session of the General Assembly on different days. But they wee really sniping at each other, about their divisions over what was or wasn't done to help the people of Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor. Neither leader got to the heart of the matter.

On Monday, Annan pushed for more and quicker humanitarian intervention in civil wars. He decried the outdated emphasis U.N. members still place on state sovereignty. Prime example: Security Council members insisted on waiting for Indonesia's permission before sending a peacekeeping mission to East Timor, by which time the Indonesian military had already sacked the island.

"Nothing in the (U.N.) Charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders," Annan argued from the U.N. podium. In his view, key U.N. members must no longer let countries use claims of national sovereignty to cover up flagrant abuses of human rights.

The real target of Annan's wrath is Security Council members who have thwarted human-rights interventions with their veto power. He is still bitter at the United States for blocking council action in 1994 to prevent genocidal killings in Rwanda.

Annan is also angry at NATO for circumventing the Security Council when NATO bombed Yugoslavia, because Russia would have vetoed any attack on the Serbs. If sovereignty is going to be violated in the name of human rights, Annan wants a Security Council consensus.

Is this realistic? Annan thinks so, contending that states must change the way they define their national interests. "A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century," he wrote this week in The Economist.

Then along came Bill Clinton to address the world body Tuesday. His stress --- in speaking about international efforts to stop outbreaks of mass killing --- was on national interests. In sharp contrast to his early human-rights rhetoric on Bosnia, he admitted that "promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little."

Here we have the nub of the difference of opinion. Annan wants U.N. members to be better than they are, to rise above crass national interests in the interests of humanity. But despite the immediacy of the scenes of global carnage beamed into our living room, history is not going his way.

If the last decade has proved anything it is that national interests still trump visions of humanitarian rescues. Most U.N. members are unwilling to risk their soldiers for humanitarian causes where no pressing national interests are involved. And even, there's little eagerness to take casualties.

Neither Western parliaments nor publics have been convinced that such casualties are worth it. Governments contemplating such interventions never present the issue squarely to their publics.

In Kosovo, we blundered into chaos; although we had interests in and moral responsibility for the outcome, NATO's goals were so murky that neither U.S. nor European public opinion supported a ground war. In Indonesia, where Australians and Asians have large stakes, no leaders wanted to go to war with the Indonesian army. Despite public support for Australian peacekeepers, it's still not clear how supportive Australians will be if their troops start being killed.

No Western leader has ever posed the question bluntly: Should our soldiers die to save African or Balkan civilians from slaughter by their own thuggish leaders? True, people might say yes in the abstract --- until the first casualties.

The debate should revolve around whether regional "coalitions of the willing" should act, under U.N. mandate if possible, when their interests were directly involved. Perhaps the issue of a U.N. rapid reaction force, made up of well-trained units from smaller powers, would arise again. Then the debate might get real.

The debate should revolve around whether regional "coalitions of the willing" should act under U.N. mandate if possible, when their interests were directly involved.

Perhaps, the issue of a U.N. rapid reaction force, made up of well-trained units from U.N. members, would arise again. Then the practice might get real, the key of "action" in time is needed urgently.

The reports from Taiwan ---
"Our main purpose in coming here is to help local authorities coordinate the work. We will stay as long as needed, and we are not going to give up hope before the (Taiwan) government," said Andreason. Nils Andreason, Wecksten's colleague, acknowledge that chances of discovering survivors are diminishing but insisted that search and rescue efforts should go on. He cited Turkey's case where several people were found alive about one week after the earthquake. "We are fighting against time, our biggest challenge," Simo, Wecksten, one of the six members from the United Nations --- Disaster Assessment coordination team that arrived in Taipei Wednesday (Sept. 22, 1999) night, told the Taiwan news.

Taiwanese and foreign rescue teams battled the clock yesterday (Sept. 23, 1999) to save 2,300 trapped victims of the earth earthquake. The disaster management canter said 2,042 persons were killed and 6,000 injured by the quake, with another 100,000 left homeless.

Taiwan is fed up with Beijing's constant intimidation. They want to be recognized by the world for their democratic and economic success and not be bullied as a "renegade province." They argue that they have existed as the "Republic of China" for the past 88 years and that reunification can only take place once the people's Republic of China also adopts democracy.

Despite Albright reiterated U.S. policy is to recognize only one China, and she said mainland China and Taiwan should be concentrating now on helping the people of Taiwan to recover from the enormous earthquake that struck Tuesday (Sept. 21, 1999).

Beijing rejected as "irresponsible and false" allegations the mainland Chinese may have obtained secret information about the design of the most advanced U.S. nuclear warhead, the W-88, and rejected a U.S. explanation that NATO's bombing of Beijing's Embassy in Yugoslavia last May was a mistake.

If U.N. want to save world's people from massacre in practice with reality, it should achieve the purpose that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the organization's annual assembly this week that the international community can and should act --- with U.N. authority --- to halt violations of human rights whenever they may take place.

Haass said Anna's speech was part of a movement towards accepting that governments enjoy "conditional contractual sovereignty," which can be forfeited if they violate their obligations to their obligations to their own people or neighboring states.

We, Taiwanese people support the idea of humanitarian.