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‘War on terror’ failing: global poll

AFP, LONDON
Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008, Page 1
 

Most people across the world believe the US-led “war on terror” has failed to weaken al-Qaeda and many think the group has actually grown stronger, a BBC World Service poll revealed yesterday.

Seven years after the US launched its campaign following the Sept. 11 attacks, even Americans appear unsure about its success.

On average only 22 percent of people polled across 23 countries thought US action had weakened Osama bin Laden’s network, while 29 percent thought it had no effect and 30 percent believed it had actually made al-Qaeda stronger.

Just 34 percent of Americans questioned believed al-Qaeda had been weakened, while 26 percent thought the “war on terror” has had no effect and 33 percent said they thought the campaign had made the group stronger.

“Despite its overwhelming military power, America’s war against al-Qaeda is widely seen as having achieved nothing better than a stalemate and many believe that it has even strengthened al-Qaeda,” said Steven Kull, director of the US-based Program on International Policy and Attitudes.

The survey of 24,000 people, carried out between July 8 and Sept. 12, also revealed that the predominant view in 15 countries polled is that neither the US nor al-Qaeda is winning the conflict.

On average, just 10 percent of respondents thought al-Qaeda was winning, 22 percent thought the US was winning and 47 percent said neither.

Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt were most positive about the impact of the “war on terror” and US success, while one-fifth of Pakistanis questioned believed al-Qaeda was winning — although 24 percent believed neither was.

A majority of those polled had a negative opinion of al-Qaeda, except in two countries seen as on the frontline of the conflict — Egypt and Pakistan.

One-fifth of Egyptians said they had a favorable view of al-Qaeda, 40 percent were neutral and 35 percent had a negative view. In Pakistan, 19 percent were positive, 22 percent were neutral and 19 percent were negative.

“The fact that so many people in Egypt and Pakistan have mixed or even positive views of al-Qaeda is yet another indicator that the US ‘war on terror’ is not winning hearts and minds,” said Doug Miller, chairman of international polling firm GlobeScan.

 


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DPP says China should pay victims of melamine

TIMING: The KMT said the DPP was trying to obstruct cross-strait negotiations by demanding compensation before it would welcome the ARATS head to Taiwan
 

By Ko Shu-Ling
STAFF REPORTER, WITH STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008, Page 3


The chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) will not be welcome to visit Taiwan until Beijing apologizes for the toxic milk scare it caused in Taiwan and compensates the victims and affected businesses, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.

ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) is expected to visit Taiwan sometime next month. The exact date is uncertain.

“The toxic milk powder issue has caused great panic in Taiwan and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government should demand an apology and compensation from China,” said Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), director of the DPP’s Department of Culture and Communications.

It was discovered two weeks ago that 25 tonnes of milk powder that had been imported from Sanlu Group in China in June as an ingredient for food manufacturing contained dangerously high levels of melamine.

Last week, officials discovered that some Chinese non-dairy creamers and malt extract that had been imported into Taiwan were also contaminated with the chemical, resulting in a massive recall of products on the domestic market.

Unless China apologizes and compensates Taiwanese whose health has been undermined as well as the companies that have sustained massive losses because of the tainted imports, Chen is not welcome in Taiwan, Cheng said.

DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said on Saturday that Chen owed Taiwan “many apologies,” and that it would fuel public anger if he were to visit the country amid the toxic milk powder scare.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday the DPP was trying to prevent the Chinese official from visiting Taiwan to conduct cross-strait negotiations next month.

The KMT issued a statement on behalf of party Deputy Secretary-General Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) blasting Tsai for saying that the timing was not right for Chen to come to Taiwan next month.

Chang said Tsai’s remarks were aimed at hampering the sound development of cross-strait relations and creating a political stumbling block to negotiations.

Chang said Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart, ARATS, were established to conduct cross-strait negotiations, setting aside cross-strait disputes over Taiwan’s sovereignty.

This has not only won the support of the Taiwanese public, but also gained recognition from the international community, he said.

Both sides of the Strait would become embroiled in fiercer political confrontation if Taiwan’s sovereignty were to become an issue during the negotiations with Chen, as Tsai had proposed, Chang said.

What the country needed was not for the two sides to stop negotiating, he said.

The former DPP administration attempted to reopen communication channels between the SEF and ARATS, but it had never proposed talks on sovereignty, Chang said.

“The DPP’s position now is that it does not want to see both sides undertake friendly interactions,” he said. “They are afraid that once the two sides develop a friendly relationship, it would diminish the maneuvering space for Taiwanese independence.”

Following SEF-ARATS talks in June this year, the second round of negotiations between the two agencies next month would help upgrade Taiwan’s competitiveness, Chang said, adding that sovereignty would not be an issue.

The DPP would only disgrace itself if it were to continue stubbornly boycotting the upcoming meeting, he said.

Concerning the tainted milk powder scandal, Chang said both sides should engage in more communications so that the problem could be properly addressed and a mechanism be established to ensure food safety.

He said it did not make sense for the DPP to oppose Chen’s visit because of the tainted milk scandal, as the SEF and ARATS planned to include food safety in the agenda of next month’s meeting.

 


Listen to the voice
The stone age meets the space age

Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008, Page 8

 

In most cases, states that embrace capitalism will over time see a rift develop between the “haves” and the “have-nots” as the rich get richer while the less fortunate are left behind, unable to catch up socially, financially and academically. Through the “structural adjustments” imposed by the IMF, countries seeking loans from the international lender are often compelled to forsake social nets and embrace full-fledged capitalism, which again leads to a world of haves and have-nots. Sometimes the divide grows so wide that people seem to be looking at two countries rather than one.

Under Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), China also embraced capitalism, although it managed to give it its own idiosyncratic form. Nonetheless, capitalism created a socioeconomic disequilibrium between the urban areas and the hinterlands, in effect giving rise to two countries within one, where rampant destitution meets stratospheric wealth in a seemingly unbreakable cycle.

China, however, has created a third country within its borders, one that soared like a castle upon the pillars of the Beijing Olympics and, this weekend, its first spacewalk. This third China exists only in the realm of the imagination, inflated by a sense of nationalism half-believed and half-imposed. It is a China that crushes everything in its path, where the extraordinary end goal justifies the means, regardless of the impact on the millions of poor and the environment. It displaces families by the hundreds of thousands, ravages identities and religions, and drowns entire regions as monuments of grandeur — from mega-dam projects to space exploration — scream for the world’s attention.

One wonders what the implications of this schizophrenia will be. With Chinese leaders and the faithless masses gazing fixedly at some distant horizon, the suffering of the present is no less pronounced, though Beijing may use a promised Utopia as an opiate. From the mishandling of the SARS outbreak in 2003 to a less-than-optimal response to the Sichuan earthquake this summer and now the expanding crisis over tainted dairy products, it is clear that China’s “great” accomplishments are being made to the detriment of meeting the needs of a normal state.

While images of a Chinese astronaut waving the Chinese flag in space may inflate pride and nationalism, it is also evident that such costly endeavors will achieve little in addressing the grave challenge of a country of 1.3 billion people in which many live barely above Stone Age conditions. China can put a man in space, but it is unable to ensure that babies will not die from the milk of its earth.

In a way, China’s race to some Asian Utopia is a mere variant on the other “great causes” of the previous century, such as communism, whose failings left in its wake streets littered with bodies and, at its darkest hour, took everyone to the brink of nuclear extinction.

As China prepares to celebrate National Day tomorrow and gloats in its ascension to the exclusive space club, the cause marches on. Having gained a life of its own, it brooks no dissent from those — rights activists, environmentalists, reporters and disgruntled citizens — who seek not to end the dream, but simply want to address the very real social problems that haunt the country.

Through its dream, China has blinded itself and grown incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to take stock of its situation. Like a drunk driver whose eyes are glued to the final destination rather than the road ahead, the consequences for those on board or in its path could be disastrous.
 

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