JAPAN: Japan Airlines to cut 16,500 jobs

A passenger (R) tries to use a Japan Airlines' ticket machine as an airlines employee assists him at New Chitose airport, northern Japan January 19, 2010. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Tue Apr 6, 1:56 pm ET

(Reuters) – Japan Airlines Corp (JALFQ.PK) plans to reduce its workforce by a third within the fiscal year to lower labor costs by 81.7 billion yen a year, the Nikkei business daily said.

The restructuring proposal compiled by the carrier and the state-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan suggests to cut 16,500 jobs.

The proposed cuts include 5,405 workers from cargo and other peripheral operations, 2,460 flight attendants, 2,043 sales representatives and 775 pilots. Staffing at Kansai International Airport and Central Japan International Airport will be slashed 70 percent to 642 employees, reflecting reduced flight schedules, the Nikkei added.

Japan Airlines is currently soliciting 2,700 volunteers for early retirement, with two more rounds slated in the coming months, the newspaper said.

The airline had planned to cut 15,700 jobs over three years under the rehabilitation plan submitted with its bankruptcy filing in January. But operating losses of up to 1 billion yen a day have forced the faster restructuring, the Nikkei said.

(Reporting by Vinay Sarawagi in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)

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CHINA: A man's home is his castle-in-the-air in China

Created: 2010-4-7, Updated: 2010-4-6 22:34:04

Author:Jacob von Bisterfeld

"AN Englishman's home is his castle," or so the saying goes.  For many Chinese people, these days, their coveted future home appears to be priced like a castle, totally out of reach for most young people under their own steam.

Sure, some young couples do manage to move into new digs but more often than not with gargantuan efforts from both parents and/or grand parents who had been lucky enough to raise substantial mortgages on their continuously appreciating real estate.

In China, private property ownership became the norm, albeit hesitatingly, in the 1990s, when the majority of work unit-owned housing was sold for a token sum to all workers who had been employed for a lengthy period of time.

In 2002, it was possible to purchase a nice, new and modern 120-square-meter apartment at the perimeter of Century Park in Shanghai's Pudong for around 200,000 yuan (US$29,300). Newly built apartments in the same area of the same standard now cost easily 2 or 3 million yuan or more.

A more than 10-fold price increase in a mere eight years. Monthly salaries for most office workers in 2002 were about 2,500 yuan and are now, when pushing it a bit, 4,000 yuan.

A less than doubling of income and a 10-fold increase in apartment prices do not match. Building material increases amounted to about 30 percent in the same period. So, what went wrong? Well, a lot, actually.

The economy needed a boost, so bank loans became easy. Besides, there was quite a bit of cash sloshing around, both legitimate and money from the black and gray markets that was looking for investment projects.

And looking for investment projects they came, spearheaded by ultra-wealthy syndicates from the leather and shoe city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, who bought up entire apartment blocks comprising 120 flats of 120 square meters in one fell swoop and, yes, with truckloads of 100 yuan notes (90 euro cents) which, much to many investor's chagrin, is still the largest currency note around.

A most appalling and sickening revelation in Shanghai Daily a few weeks ago showed a picture of some giant circular tower blocks with around 1,000 apartments standing empty since they were constructed in 2006. This calls into doubt that there actually IS a housing shortage. Far from it.

There may well be a frightening oversupply of apartments and houses. This abomination is repeated over and over again in most major cities in China. The result was (and still is) that the market is thus starved of new apartments for sale, driving up the market price beyond any investors' wildest dreams and becoming every prospective house buyer's nightmare.

Especially in the past five years, every man and his dog were buying new and second-hand real estate that was sure to double in price every three years or thereabouts. Several of my colleagues, and they are by no means wealthy people, own three or more (highly leveraged, with easy bank money) empty new houses, and they are awaiting the next doubling in property prices.
Is it thus more than likely that China is in for a repeat of the recent US burst housing bubble, probably only worse? Let's see.

In many Western countries, the income level of the average young couple is such that, with a minimal deposit, a mortgage and decorating loan can be paid off comfortably, within a period of 10 to 15 years.

In China, such repayments would not only consume the lion share of the couples' aggregate earnings, but also require a huge deposit and take 25 years or more to repay or, in many cases, beyond retirement age. China is a people's republic, but some real estate tycoons have spoken loudly that they will never build apartments for the ordinary people, they serve only the rich. What an irony.

No easy solution appears to be in sight yet. There are simply too many vested interests that would be hurt with any drastic change.
What can be done?

Clearly, the land-right sales price should be capped at 2002 levels or below. Taking cognizance of the fact that material prices and salaries have increased only moderately in the past eight years, new property prices resembling those of 2002 should be relatively easy to achieve.

Possessing more than one dwelling house or apartment, in most cases, is obviously for investment purposes and should be subject to progressive tax increases (the more properties, the higher the taxes). The tax structure should be such that affordable rental accommodation remains adequate.

Real estate profits, both for developers as well as individuals should be taxed at prohibitive rates to discourage speculation. En-block sales and sales of more that two units to the same buyer or extended family should be prohibited.

Banks should lower the minimum deposit rate for people with a steady job to 5 percent or 10 percent to make owning a property for most newly married couples a reality, rather than a pipe dream.

(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai. The views are his own.)

View Shanghai Daily Article...

JAPAN: Japan hoping 'endless discovery' catchphrase attracts foreign tourists

The government has decided on a new logo and catchphrase -- "Japan. Endless Discovery." -- to promote tourism in the country, with the aim of more than quadrupling the number of foreign tourists to 30 million at some point in the future, tourism minister said Tuesday. The slogan is aimed at encouraging repeat visitors, while the logo is a red-and-white design evoking the sun and cherry blossoms. The catchphrase replaces "Yokoso! Japan" which some said lacked sufficient impact, as the Japanese word for welcome is not widely recognized by non-Japanese speakers. (AP)

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TOKYO, JAPAN: Tuna auction at Tsukiji market to shut out sightseers for a month

Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market will shut out sightseers from its popular frozen tuna auction from April 8 to May 8 as the excessive numbers of visitors to the auction area obstruct business transactions, market officials said Tuesday. The touring section of the auction is scheduled to reopen on May 10, which falls on Monday. Wholesale sections and eating areas in the market will remain open, they said. On Monday, more than 500 sightseers, mostly foreign, swarmed the visitors' section which has a capacity of only 70 to 80 to see the tuna auction and the excessive numbers disrupted the hauling of tunas, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government. (AP)

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JAPAN & US: Japan says it has no plans to ease US beef restrictions

Japan said Tuesday it has no plans to ease long-standing trade restrictions on US beef imposed over mad cow disease, two days before talks in Tokyo between the two on the issue. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was travelling to Japan Tuesday for a four-day visit in a renewed attempt to settle the long-running dispute that has created friction between the allies. But Japan's Agriculture Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said he "has no plan to ask the government's food safety commission to review US beef", even if Vilsack demands it during their meeting scheduled for Thursday. (AFP)

JAPAN: Toyota Prius tops Japan's March auto sales

Toyota's Prius hybrid was Japan's top-selling car in March for an 11th straight month despite global recall woes, an industry group said Tuesday. Toyota Motor Corp., reeling after recalls over issues that included braking problems with the Prius, sold 35,546 units of the gas-electric vehicle in Japan last month, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. Consumers were choosing the Prius with the help of tax breaks and government subsidies for environmentally friendly vehicles, Miyake said. (AP)

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CHINA: Big Mess

MARITIME SAFETY QUEENSLAND / EPA

A Chinese registered coal tanker went aground on a reef off of Australia. The boat was carrying about 65,000 tones of coal from Gladstone and had 950 tones of oil on board spilling an unknown amount into the environmentally protected waters.

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CHINA: Dozens found alive in flooded Chinese mine

9:54 PM PDT, April 4, 2010

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Rescuers cheer as some of the workers trapped for more than a week are brought to the surface.

XIANGNING, China - Dozens of Chinese miners were pulled out alive after being trapped for more than a week in a flooded coal mine, sparking cheers among the hundreds of rescue workers who had raced to save them and had almost given up hope.

A live state television broadcast counted off the number of survivors -- now up to 35 -- as miners wrapped in blankets were hurried to ambulances that sped to nearby hospitals.

State television said rescuers were preparing to pull as many as 70 to 80 miners out of the mine, though conditions underground remain complicated. A total of 153 workers had been trapped, and there was no word on the fate of the rest.

"A miracle has finally happened," a rescue headquarters spokesman, Liu Dezheng, told reporters Monday morning.

The first rescue early Monday morning had seemed beyond hope for days before crews heard tapping from deep underground Friday.

Some of the soaked miners had hung from shaft walls by their belts for days. Hundreds of rescuers were underground with hopes that glimpses of swinging lights and new tapping sounds meant even more survivors could be found.

Liu said the first batch of nine rescued miners, who were pulled out Monday morning shortly after midnight, were in stable condition. The state-run New China News Agency said all nine were conscious and could say their name and hometown, but their bodies had suffered from being soaked for so long. Television footage showed at least one miner was brought out barefoot.
China Central Television said some miners managed to attach themselves to a wall with their belts when the water rushed in, and they hung there for three days before getting into a mining cart that floated by.

The miners had been trapped since March 28 when workers digging tunnels broke into a water-filled abandoned shaft.
Before rescuers heard tapping noises from below Friday, they had feared this would be China's deadliest mine disaster in more than two years.

View Los Angeles Times Article...

CHINA: The Tour, It Is A-Changin’

Published: April 4, 2010

Arts, Briefly, Compiled by RACHEL LEE HARRIS

Bob Dylan canceled a leg of his Asian tour after the Chinese government refused him permission to play scheduled performances in Shanghai and Beijing this month, Agence France-Presse reported.

Brokers Brothers Herald, Mr. Dylan’s Taiwan-based promoter, said the Chinese culture ministry gave Mr. Dylan “no alternative” but to cancel subsequent shows in Hong Kong and Taiwan. “The chance to play in China was the main attraction for him,” Jeffrey Wu, Brokers’ chief of operations, told The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. “When that fell through, everything else was called off.”

The ministry did not respond to telephone calls from Agence France-Presse on Sunday, but Mr. Wu said that the Chinese government had become more selective about performances by foreigners after Bjork’s 2008 concert in Shanghai, where she shouted “Tibet, Tibet!” while performing her song “Declare Independence.” Later that year China imposed rules on such concerts, including one that said, “Those who used to take part in activities that harm our nation’s sovereignty are firmly not allowed to perform in China.”

View New York Times Article...

JAPAN: Transfer of 'whale meat' blocked

Cutting the supply chain: Greenpeace activists chain themselves to the mooring ropes of container ship the NYK Orion and display banners in Rotterdam on Friday in protest over an alleged attempt to transport fin whale meat to Japan. AP / GREENPEACE

Sunday, April 4, 2010

AMSTERDAM (AP) A ship unloaded seven containers believed to contain meat from endangered fin whales bound for Japan on Friday after Greenpeace activists chained themselves to its mooring ropes to prevent it from leaving Rotterdam harbor.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Arja Helmig said the organization had acted after receiving a credible tip that the ship, the NYK Orion, was carrying meat shipped by whalers from Iceland to a Japanese customer.

The 15 activists unchained themselves after the contested meat was unloaded.

NYK Lines spokesman Robin de Pauw said the company was preparing a statement about the incident.

Rotterdam police spokeswoman Tine De Jonge said the NYK Orion had proper permits to transport the meat, and nobody was arrested Friday.

She said NYK had voluntarily agreed to unload the containers.

"It's an absurd situation," said Greenpeace's Helmig. "It's illegal to import this meat into the Netherlands, but the authorities turn a blind eye when it passes through."

It was unclear what will happen with the meat.

View Japan Times Article...

THE KOREAS: S. Korea ends search for sailors

Hopes have faded for sailors who went down with the corvette

Page last updated at 20:28 GMT, Saturday, 3 April 2010 21:28 UK

South Korea has called off a rescue operation for more than 40 sailors missing since a warship sank last week.

A navy spokesman said the operation will now focus on salvaging the wreck, Yonhap news agency reported.

Earlier, the South Korean military said that it had recovered the body of one of the crew.

The corvette Cheonan exploded and sank in unexplained circumstances off Baengnyeong Island, near the disputed maritime border with North Korea.

Families of the lost sailors asked the military to suspend the operation for fear of additional casualties, Yonhap reported.

"We called off a rescue operation... at 11pm [1400 GMT Saturday] following the request from the relatives," the navy spokesman said.

"From Sunday we will focus on salvaging the wreckage."

Rescue teams had hoped survivors could have been trapped in watertight sections of the vessel.

Officials have said the salvage effort could last a month.

Rescuers lost

A total of 58 people were rescued from the bow of the ship soon after it started sinking but efforts to find the missing 46 have been hampered by bad weather and strong currents.

In a subsequent tragedy, one person has died and eight others are missing after a fishing boat taking part in the search sank late on Friday, officials said.

One report said the boat appeared to have collided with a freighter.

Last week a navy diver died while taking part in the rescue operation.

The South Korean press is full of speculation about the possible causes of the explosion that sunk the Cheonan, says the BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul.

Theories include a deliberate attack by North Korea - a possibility not yet ruled out by the South.

On Friday, South Korea's defence minister renewed speculation that a torpedo could have caused the blast that sank the ship.

Kim Tae-young, who had previously said a sea mine could have caused the blast, called it a "likely possibility" the Cheonan had been hit by a torpedo.

Shortly after the sinking, Seoul said it did not believe North Korea had fired on the ship.

Pyongyang has made no official comment about the incident.

View BBC News Article...

CHINA: China's Currency Distortion Affects U.S. Workers

April 2, 2010

In two weeks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will deliver a report to Congress, in which he will say whether the Chinese government is manipulating its currency. Lawmaker from both sides are calling for Geithner to label the Chinese manipulators. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) says the currency distortion puts "a lot of Americans out of work."

TRANSCRIPT:

MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:

The United States government is also thinking about its financial relationship with China. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are calling for Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to declare that China is manipulating its currency. Geithner will deliver a report to Congress about two weeks from now.

In the meantime, lawmakers like Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan are saying things like Chinese currency distortion is putting a lot of Americans out of work. And if you're wondering what a decision by the Central Bank of China has to do with workers in Ohio, we have an explanation from Alex Blumberg of our Planet Money team.

ALEX BLUMBERG: To understand why American lawmakers are so upset about Chinese currency policy, it helps to follow the money. So let's start with someone pretty typical - an American businessman who gets stuff made in Chinese factories.

Here's one - a guy named Emron Kareem(ph).

Mr. EMRON KAREEM: My business is called Trophy Skin. We produce medical devices that treat skin conditions using light therapy.

BLUMBERG: Picture a medical-looking lamp with a blue light that kills acne bacteria. Kareem has his lamps manufactured in China at a factory he found online. Every couple of months he wires the Chinese factory money for a new order - American money.

KAREEM: They always quote in U.S. dollars. I found that across pretty much every supplier that I've worked with.

BLUMBERG: Okay, so this is the first stop in following the money, the first step in understanding what people mean when they say Chinese currency manipulation.

Kareem is not the only person in America wiring dollars to Chinese factories. No, no, no. Every day thousands of American companies send billions of dollars to Chinese suppliers. And what we're interested in - what happens to those dollars when they get to the Chinese factories?

To answer that question, you need an economist. I have one of those too: Paul Wachtel at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Professor PAUL WACHTEL (New York University): Those Chinese factories need to buy electricity. They need to pay their labor. Theyve got to pay for transportation. But if they're operating, obviously, in the Chinese economy, they need to do it with the local currency. So they take those dollars and they buy Chinese currency.

BLUMBERG: And this right here, this is a critical moment in our story. You have all these Chinese factory owners with billions of dollars. To pay their bills they need to convert dollars into the Chinese currency, renminbi. So they're all saying: I need renminbi. There's this huge demand for renminbi and therefore it should cost more dollars to buy it. The demand has increased, the cost should go up as we'll - at least if the supply of renminbi is constant.

Except that the supply isn’t constant, and this is where the manipulation comes in. Someone is increasing the supply of renminbi. Who has the power to do that?

Prof. WACHTEL: The Central Bank of China. Whenever it sees the value of the currency beginning to rise, they're ready and willing to supply the renminbi to make sure the price doesn’t increase.

BLUMBERG: So this is the charge: The Central Bank of China is creating additional renminbi for the sole purpose of keeping it undervalued. Manipulation.

Now, why would the Chinese want to do that? And why do Ohio congressmen want it stopped? Well, the Chinese do it because it makes their exports more attractive. It makes it cheaper for people here in the U.S. and all over the world, actually, to buy things made in China.

But the flipside is, and here's the problem: It makes our stuff more expensive in China, so Chinese people can't afford to buy as many iPods and Polo shirts and Kindles, and for that matter, acne lamps, from America.

Again, Paul Wachtel.

Prof. WACHTEL: China should be importing more, which would increase exports from developed countries like the United States, and the lead the robust growth evenly around the world.

BLUMBERG: Recently a new group came forward saying the Chinese government should let the renminbi rise in value - not the first group you'd expect to publicly question the Chinese government either. It was a group of Chinese business leaders.

One of them, the president of a Chinese computer company, said it wouldn’t be a bad thing if ordinary people in China had more purchasing power. He, like the rest of the world, wants to sell more stuff to China.

For NPR's Planet Money, I’m Alex Blumberg.

CHINA: Has China's Business Climate Cooled To U.S. Firms?

April 2, 2010

Google recently announced it is moving part of its operations to Hong Kong; and harsh corruption sentences have been handed down to China-based executives of the British-Australian firm Rio Tinto. Zachary Karabell, author of Superfusion tells Renee Montagne that the recent events don't mean the business environment is souring for foreign firms in China.

TRANSCRIPT:

MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

And I'm Renee Montagne. For foreign companies based in China, the last few weeks have been hard on morale. There was Google's high profile showdown with China and the company's decision to move part of its operations to Hong Kong. And this week a Chinese court handed down harsh sentences to executives of the mining giant Rio Tinto, who were convicted of bribery.

Some see this as a sign that business environment there is souring. Zachary Karabell is not one of them. He's the author of "Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy."

Mr. ZACHARY KARABELL (Author): Look, I think Google is a fascinating story, but Google may be representative of Google. It's an unusual company. It has a moral mission that's woven into its corporate statement. Google also is immensely profitable. And Google wasn't doing so well in China. So you add all those things up and you have a company that can kind of afford to stand on principle and does so.

MONTAGNE: Do you think censorship, though, is something that companies other than Google, whose business it is, is information - do you think censorship is something other companies should be worried about in China?

Mr. KARABELL: Well, first of all, there are by some estimates at least 25 other countries in the world where Google and other companies that are in that information business globally accept levels of censorship, whether that's in large parts of the Middle East about certain type of moral content, certainly Iran. We know about North Korea. We know about - but the point is, censorship is not confined to China, nor are the issues of information companies dealing with that confined to China.

MONTAGNE: Let's turn to another event that's been in the news and had people wringing their hands about the business environment in China. And that's the sentences handed down for these Rio Tinto executives and managers. And Rio Tinto is this huge - second biggest, I think, mining corporation in the world. Is there any way not to see this as something political or at least a commentary on foreign companies being in China?

Mr. KARABELL: Look, none of us know whether or not the executives who were sentenced actually did accept bribes or engaged in some level of corporate espionage or not. It's an opaque court system. It's not like there's enough evidence out there that you and I can judge.

So a lot of the discussion then is - given that we don't know the facts here, and we never will - is this politically motivated or were these just four corrupt executives? If it was just four corrupt executives, then it signifies nothing other than four executives of a very large company immersed in the Chinese economy being caught red-handed.

Even if it's politically motivated, which it absolutely may be, that doesn't necessarily signify a cooling climate toward foreign businesses in China any more than when a U.S. spy plane went down in China and the Chinese took it apart and then sent it back in pieces after having copied the entire thing, or the Wen Ho Lee case - the physicist in Los Alamos who was accused of espionage. You know, there are crises that go on as part and parcel of a complicated relationship that do not then spell the end of this relationship.

MONTAGNE: Is it possible though that the perception that there are barriers there would make foreign companies look around for other options in Asia?

Mr. KARABELL: Well, first of all, there are barriers there, and I don't want to be construed as suggesting that there aren't. But there are barriers to entry in any foreign market. But in terms of going elsewhere, there's really nowhere else to go where you have 10 percent growth, three to six hundred million emerging middle class consumers who want stuff and have the means to actually buy stuff, and an environment that is more porous than not, where the rule of law is increasingly at least adequate to enforcement of contracts, getting your investments out if you put them in. So in many respects that's what makes Google so exceptional. It's one of the only companies that could literally afford not to do business in China.

MONTAGNE: Zachary Karabell has managed money for the China U.S. Growth Fund, and his new book is "Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World's Prosperity Depends On It."

 

RUSSIA: Russia's Caucasus Region Ripe For Trouble

April 2, 2010

By David Greene and Renee Montagne

A Chechen militant group has claimed responsibility for Monday's double bombing on the Moscow subway that killed dozens. There were also attacks in Dagestan. Analysts say the bombings are part of the long-running campaign for independence by militant Muslims in Russia's North Caucasus region. It's an impoverished area that has become a battleground involving an Islamist insurgency.

TRANSCRIPT:

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

A pair of shocking suicide bombings in the Moscow metro has got us talking this week about the Caucasus, in particular the mostly Muslim north, which is part of Russia. It contains Chechnya and its troubled neighbor Dagestan, which was also hit this week with suicide bombings.

We'll be hearing more in the coming days, so we asked NPR Moscow correspondent David Greene to help us out with some background.

David, let's begin this primer, this lesson, if you will, on the Caucasus, with geography, because I imagine listeners are beginning to get lost in the Caucasus.

DAVID GREENE: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: In relation to Russia, where is this North Caucasus region that we've been hearing about?

GREENE: And that is really important, Renee, because a lot of people, when they think of Russia, I think, have a picture of eastern Europe and maybe traveling from, you know, Berlin or Ukraine into Russia. I want to take you to a totally different area. I want you to think more about Iraq and Iran, because the Caucasus are closer to those countries than they are to Moscow.

And it's been an area that has been one of the most diverse over the centuries. It has been fought over by different countries and different cultures for centuries. There are endless numbers of ethnic clans and languages. But now, in the world we live in today, it has all the ingredients for trouble.

It's very impoverished. Unemployment is incredibly high. There's a lot of anger at the world. And so it's become one of these real battlegrounds involving an Islamist insurgency.

MONTAGNE: Okay. So you've just came back from Dagestan and they've been fighting for independence from Russia for, as you say, centuries. What do the people there that you met in Dagestan say to you about the strive to escape Moscow's rule?

GREENE: We should say there are people even there who believe in Russia and who support Russian leaders, but there's also a lot of frustration among people who don't feel part of Russian society, if you will. There's complaints of workplace discrimination against Muslims. There's a feeling that Russia is not incredibly tolerant of Muslim traditions.

And, you know, one of the uneasy things to see, Renee, is when people from the Caucasus travel to Moscow and go to some other Russian cities up to the north. You know, you can see it in train stations. They're the first to be stopped and searched for documents.

MONTAGNE: But why are the Russians so determined to maintain their dominance of the region?

GREENE: Part of the deal current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - who's former President Vladimir Putin. Part of the deal he made with the Russian people was, you know, we're going to make life better for you, but you have to accept some level of an iron fist, some level of control. I will keep you safe. We'll have a powerful government. I will protect you from terrorism. And so it's very politically important for Prime Minister Putin to keep control of that area. It's politically beneficial for him to show that, you know, he's sending Russian Special Forces down there to control the region. And so this is a big battle for Putin and his prestige.

MONTAGNE: After hideous wars in Chechnya, the school massacre in Beslan, the theater siege in Moscow where hundreds of people died, airliner, metro bombings - is there any sign of an end to the cycle of terrorist attacks and then state repression?

GREENE: The suicide bombings in the metro this week sadly are nothing new. I mean, it hasn't happened in Moscow for some time, but this is something that Russians have learned to experience. But the timing was interesting, because Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has tried to change the policy strategy in the last few months.

He said he wants to improve the economy in the North Caucasus. That's absolutely vital. Give people, you know, something to look to that is not, you know, joining an insurgent group. And now, you know, we have these two bombings. Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin both come out. They say we're going to go after, we're going to kill these terrorists. And whether Medvedev can return to that policy now in this current climate of actually focusing on the economy instead of just making this something very close to a war will be very interesting. I think people will be wondering right if that effort is going to go by the wayside.

MONTAGNE: NPR's Moscow correspondent David Greene, thanks very much for joining us.

GREENE: Always a pleasure, Renee.

THE KOREAS: Islanders Aim For Normalcy In North Korea's Shadow

South Korean marines return to a beach on Baengnyeong Island following a search operation to find 46 missing sailors after a mysterious explosion ripped the sailors' ship in half March 26.  Doualy Xaykaothao for NPR

April 1, 2010

The South Korean military has suspended a rescue operation to find 46 missing sailors because of bad weather in the Yellow Sea. The missing crew members are thought to be trapped in a small navy ship that went down March 26 after a mysterious explosion split the vessel in half.

The base of rescue operations is Baengnyeong Island, which is about the size of Bermuda and is less than 10 miles from North Korea's west coast. On a recent afternoon, as South Korean recovery divers gathered around rubber boats on the beach, a bitterly cold wind blew.

Situated between the declared enemies, the island's residents try to live their lives as normally as possible — but are among the first to suffer when tensions rise.

On the island's main wharf, a deceptive tranquility prevails. Half of the 10,000 people on Baengnyeong are soldiers, and even the civilians — male and female — are trained to handle guns, just in case the North Koreans should attack. Fishermen must return to port by nightfall lest they be mistaken for the enemy.

But 22-year-old Kim Dong-joon plays down the danger.

"When the weather is good, you can see North Korea's Hwanghae province from Baengnyeong Island, but that doesn't mean that we think about North Korea all the time," he says. "We live normally like people everywhere else. It's not like we're afraid of North Korea or anything."

But these islanders are the first to suffer economic consequences whenever tensions rise between the two Koreas. Naval clashes in the Yellow Sea have disrupted fishing and discouraged tourists from making the four-hour boat ride from the mainland.

Locals take turns bringing coffee and tea to soldiers involved in the sailor rescue efforts. As U Pil-yeo hands a cup to an officer, her thoughts turn to the missing South Korean sailors.

"It's heartrending. These young men were working hard to defend our island, only to meet with an unfortunate event like this," she says. "When you think of the parents, it really hits home, and because this happened at sea and not on land, they can't even see anything."

On a windy observation deck, on a cliff overlooking the sea, local bed-and-breakfast owner Park Ji-young says some tourists think the islanders don't have any feelings.

"It's not that we don't have feelings, but there's nothing that we can do about it. If the military can't do anything, what can we do?" she says. "All we can do is to live our lives the best we can."

N. KOREA: N. Korean Refugees View Regime With Skepticism

April 1, 2010

A new survey of North Korean refugees living in South Korea and China suggests an increasing number of North Koreans view Kim Jong Il's regime with skepticism. Marcus Noland, deputy director of the Peterson Institute, one of the authors of the study, offers his insight.

TRANSCRIPT:

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, I'm Robert Siegel.

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

I'm Michele Norris, and this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

SIEGEL: North Korea is notoriously opaque: a dynastic, communist dictatorship where dissent is not tolerated, and the media are state-controlled. So assessing public opinion among North Koreans sounds like, at best, a crude business.

A new study attempts to do that by sampling opinion among North Korean refugees, and the authors conclude that opposition to the North Korean regime, cynicism about it and listening to foreign news sources about it are all on the rise.

Marcus Noland is one of the authors. He's deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.

Mr. MARCUS NOLAND (Deputy Director, Peterson Institute for International Economics): My pleasure.

SIEGEL: And first, the obvious question of method here is: Do a few hundred North Koreans who have left and now live in South Korea, are they representative of the millions of North Koreans who still live there?

Mr. NOLAND: What we can do is we can take the pattern of responses and analyze it statistically. We can try to identify demographic characteristics like gender, or life experiences like receiving food aid, that may affect people's responses. And then having done that statistical analysis, we can make a counterfactual projection onto the remaining local population.

It appears that the refugees' views are not that different from what we project onto the resident population, but having voted with their feet, this could be a community that simply has characteristics or views that we cannot observe that would make them distinct. That is certainly the case.

SIEGEL: So if you can construct a model of what public opinion is in North Korea, what they think of the regime, how are those views changing now over time?

Mr. NOLAND: The projections are that public opinion about the regime is pretty low and falling.

SIEGEL: To the extent of taking part in any kind of dissident political behavior or expressing such views publicly? How would you measure that?

Mr. NOLAND: What we can observe is that people increasingly do not accept the regime's narrative, the explanation that all of their ills are due to hostile foreign forces. People increasingly regard the regime as the reason for their situation.

Moreover, the disastrous currency reform that the country undertook on 30th November of last year is a fiasco that is so obviously incompatible with this explanation that everything that is wrong is due to hostile foreigners since it's so obviously self-inflicted. And I think that simply will add an exclamation point to this trend of increasing disbelief about the regime's explanations.

SIEGEL: You asked people about the use of foreign media, and it does appear that the so-called hermit kingdom is not so hermetically sealed as it once was.

Mr. NOLAND: I wouldn't want to exaggerate sources of information that they have at their disposal, but the numbers that report that they had access but had declined to listen has basically disappeared completely.

So people who have access are now listening, and that's an increasing share of the population.

SIEGEL: There's a question you ask that I find interesting. It's whether people in North Korea make jokes about Kim Jong Il, the leader, or his regime, for that matter.

Mr. NOLAND: Well, we ask a series of questions that could be thought of as political anthropology. First, you know, among your peers, when you were in North Korea, did you joke about conditions? Did you complain about conditions? Did you joke about Kim Jong Il? Did you complain about Kim Jong Il?

And what emerges from this is that even amongst this population, which one would expect them to be about as dissenting a group as one could identify, is the degree of atomization. Although the numbers of affirmative responses to those questions are rising, they still remain relatively low, and Kim Jong Il himself remains absolutely sacrosanct. Nobody jokes about Kim Jong Il.

SIEGEL: Marcus Noland, co-author of the study, "Political Attitudes Under Repression: Evidence from North Korean Refugees." The study was conducted for the East-West Center. Thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. NOLAND: My pleasure.

Read the full East-West Center report

SHANGHAI, CHINA: Shanghai's Expo Is Chance For World To Court China

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE STORY ON NPR

April 2, 2010

NPR

The World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904 gave the world X-rays and ice cream cones. In 1939, the New York World's fair unveiled television broadcasts, the tape recorder and nylon stockings.

On May 1, the modern-day equivalent, the World Expo, will open in Shanghai, China. Given China's rising international profile, the Shanghai Expo seems to be less about inventions and more about geopolitics.

Countries are thinking up ever more inventive ways to tout the national brand to the expo's expected 70 million visitors, most of whom will be Chinese.

As the official World Expo song is unveiled to mark the one-month countdown, frenzied preparations are under way. Denmark is bringing its Little Mermaid statue; a real chairlift tops the Swiss exhibit, and Belgium is even giving away free diamonds to a chosen few.

It's a sign of China's political importance that the millions being spent are seen as a small price to pay.

The World's Most Expensive Vanity Project?

Shanghai is in a multibillion-dollar frenzy of self-transformation as the clock ticks down to opening day. Roads are being widened, boulevards built and temporary pavilions erected at warp speed on a huge tract of riverside land set aside for the expo.

The half-year-long exposition will end up costing more than the Beijing Olympics. Critics say it is a chance for countries to cozy up to China and kowtow visibly by building costly national pavilions, which will be torn down in six months' time after the expo is over.

But those responsible for the pavilions disagree about their political role.

Peter Sams, director of the Australian pavilion, says that ties with China are important to Australia. "We [very much see] the expo and a substantial presence — us helping China have a successful expo — as a very important part of our bilateral relationship," he says.

The country's pavilion is one of the most expensive per capita, at $76 million. Its rust-red steel exterior hints at the massive business of exporting natural resources from Canberra to Beijing. This trade indirectly led to one of the lowest points in the bilateral relationship, the sentencing earlier this week of Australian citizen Stern Hu to 10 years in prison for bribery and stealing commercial secrets about China's steel needs.

Earlier this year, Chinese President Hu Jintao toured Australia's pavilion, which is almost finished. Expo officials admit that about 10 percent of the 91 national pavilions are not expected to be ready in time for the opening, but the Australian staffers were cocky with delight as they showed off Aboriginal art in the form of painted poles and the auditorium where a nine-minute show will be performed.

Not A Political Event?

Others disagree about the expo's political function, including Rajesh Kumar, director of the India pavilion's organizing team. Dressed in a bejeweled Indian shirt, he beams with pride as he gestures at the gigantic bamboo dome housing India's offerings.

India is spending a total of $50 million, he says, but its motivation isn't political.

"This is the World Expo, not a political forum," Kumar says. "This is not at all to do with any kind of politics or any kind of diplomacy. Nothing."

That, however, may be disingenuous, given that India is actually bringing 2,000 artists to tour 40 cities across China. That includes 50 Bollywood stars, who will strut their stuff in a one-time special show in Shanghai. Funded by the Ministry of Commerce, this Festival of India certainly sounds like an act of dance diplomacy.

U.S.: 'Rising To The Challenge'

When it comes to the U.S., Consul General Beatrice Camp says the expo is "a bright spot" in bilateral relations.

But the $61 million pavilion very nearly didn't get built after funding difficulties. It is still under construction, and on a visit to the expo site, journalists weren't taken to the building.

It's the only privately funded national pavilion, and with just a month to go, it's still short of millions of dollars. Jose Villarreal, the U.S. commissioner general to the Shanghai Expo, has pledged that it will be ready for opening day.

Fittingly, the U.S. pavilion's theme is "Rising to the Challenge." Private sponsors may be footing the bill, but Mark Germyn, chief operating officer of the pavilion, says it won't simply be a corporate advertisement.

"We are not a trade show format by any means. Our sponsor partners are ... participating because they believe ... that this is a very worthwhile opportunity to support America and America's presence in expressing, in a very positive way, American culture and society to Chinese here," Germyn says.

Japan: Mending Ties

For its part, Japan is spending big time: $140 million, almost as much as the biggest spender of all, Saudi Arabia, which is shelling out $146 million. For that price tag, Japan has built a lilac cocoon from high-tech breathable material, populated by violin-playing robots.

Noriyoshi Ehara, Japan's pavilion director, is so protective of it that he asked foreign journalists to remove their shoes before entry. Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been haunted by Japan's wartime atrocities. But Ehara is confident that the pavilion will remake ties anew.

"We have historical issues, but now we are going to create new relations. This is it," he says, gesturing around the pavilion. "Japan's pavilion expresses the new relation with China. This is the main motif."

Click here for A Sneak Peek Of The Shanghai World Expo Exhibits

N. KOREA & CHINA: Facing food shortages and sanctions, Kim Jong Il appears to reach out to China

Thursday, April 1, 2010; 11:22 AM

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service

SEOUL -- Squeezed by food shortages and financial sanctions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il appears to be reaching out to China and Chinese investors.

Kim may soon travel to China, according to the office of South Korea's president and U.S. officials. They cited preparations that appear to be underway in the Chinese border city of Dandong and in Beijing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday it does not have information on whether Kim will visit China.

The potential trip could help restart six-party talks, hosted by China, aimed at persuading North Korea to denuclearize in return for economic and political benefits.

Kim is also attempting to accelerate Chinese investment in his destitute country. To that end, he has ordered the creation of a State Development Bank.

Officials from the new bank told a South Korean professor last week that they intend to allow the construction of foreign-owned factories in major North Korean cities. This would allow Chinese firms, many of which are running short of low-cost factory workers, access to North Korea's pool of low-wage laborers.

If the investments move forward, they would mark an extraordinary opening in the North's shuttered economy -- and represent a major policy reversal by the government. For the past six decades, North Korea has sealed almost all its citizens off from the "poisons" of capitalism.

Outreach to China comes at a time of sharply increased pressure on Kim's leadership.

On the inside, food shortages have worsened because of botched currency reform that disrupted the private markets that feed most of the country's 22.5 million people. In addition, Kim's medical ills now include kidney failure, and he undergoes dialysis every two weeks, according to the head of a state-run think tank in Seoul.

On the outside, U.N. sanctions are reportedly limiting the North's ability to profit from weapons sales. State trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes and illicit drugs appears to be dwindling. In addition, large-scale food aid from South Korea has stopped until Pyongyang agrees to junk its nuclear weapons.

What North Korea desperately needs is foreign capital.

"Through this State Development Bank, North Korea is trying to lure foreign investment in agriculture, ports, railroads and also light industry," said Lim Eul-chul, a research professor at the Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies. He spent four days in Pyongyang last week, talking to officials from the bank and to Chinese businessmen.

They told Lim that the bank is offering itself to foreign investors as a one-stop investment shop. A deputy director of the board of the new state bank is Pak Chol Su, an ethnic Korean who lives in China.

The bank, whose board includes senior members of the military and the ruling party, will be able to conduct transactions with foreign commercial banks and invest in major projects, North Korean state-controlled media has said. The bank has been allocated $10 billion from Kim's government as pump-priming capital, Chinese news media said.

"The North is now planning to open foreign-owned factories not just in closed-off special economic zones, but in major cities like Nampo and Wonsan," Lim said.

Until now, the government has confined nearly all foreign business operations to sealed-off economic zones, such as Kaesong near the South Korea border.

"This is a major new departure for North Korea," said Lim, who has been a regular visitor to Pyongyang for the past two decades. "The military is closely cooperating with the State Development Bank to try to increase foreign investment."

While the repressive power of the army and multiple security forces remains strong, the North's command-style economy is a ruin, with unconfirmed reports of starvation deaths in some areas this winter.

Private markets, run by entrepreneurs who do not depend on the state, account for most of the country's economic activity. But a state-ordered currency reform late last year roiled the markets for months, worsened food shortages from a bad fall harvest and lead to isolated riots. The government has apologized for the currency fiasco -- and, reportedly, executed the finance official responsible for it.

Kim, 68, and showing the effects of a 2008 stroke, is in the early stages of handing power over to his untested 27-year-old son, Kim Jong Eun. But the legitimacy of the succession -- and of the state itself -- is being weakened by the growth of the markets and increased public access to foreign media. Refugee surveys show that many North Koreans blame Kim's government for food shortages, corruption and incompetence.

"Kim Jong Il doesn't have many cards to play, so there is more and more pressure on him to return to the six-party talks," said Koh Yu-whan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "He is also aiming to get investment from ethnic Korean businesses in China."

In South Korea and China, there is widespread skepticism about North Korea's willingness to create modern banking systems and enforce laws that allow foreign companies to operate under standardized accounting rules.

Companies that have invested in North Korean mineral ventures have complained for years of corruption and outright theft by the government.

Special correspondent June Lee contributed to this report.

View Washington Post Article...

HONG KONG: Buffalo Mozzarella: Hong Kong's Prodigal Cheese

Made with passion Oschetti's sea-bass involtini/SHEILA ZHAO

Few Italians would admit that they had anyone to thank but il bel paese (or "the beautiful country," as it's poetically called) for the cream-filled cheese known as burrata. But the Ferrari, one could say, of buffalo mozzarella owes its smooth intensity to the rich milk of the water buffalo, first taken to Italy from Asia in the Middle Ages by those marauding Crusaders.

Today, Hong Kong fromage-ophiles will be pleased to know that burrata is having a homecoming. At Posto Publico, postopubblico.com, one of the latest and best additions to the city's dining scene, the ambrosial white pouches are served alongside fresh tomatoes as one of several tapas-style Italian dishes. "Amazing Burrata" also graces the chalkboard menus of Wanchai's Classified Mozzarella Bar, classifiedfoodshops.com.hk, a 10-minute drive away.

The prodigal cheese owes its sudden ubiquity to Hong Kong's new crop of boutique Italian eateries. The city has long had an affinity for classic Italian fare: spaghetti and macaroni are standbys in street stalls and Cantonese diners, and many of the city's loftiest fine-dining establishments are headed by Italian chefs. But this generation has a different flavor — it's focused on artisanal foods, emphasizing ingredients first, flash second.

Cuore, cuoreprivatechef.com, started by Milanese chef Andrea Oschetti in September 2009, stages exquisite dinners in Oschetti's own apartment in central Hong Kong. Mixing up entrees like sea bass crusted in olives on eggplant fry, and black-sesame panna cotta with blackberry coulis, Oschetti's gatherings are select and sweet, lubricated with carefully chosen wine from family-run Italian vineyards. He argues that Hong Kong is full of big, high-concept restaurants that often cut back on food costs to afford exorbitant rents, and that has created the demand for the new, authentic breed of Italian venues. These days, he says, diners are "looking for a real experience, driven by passion." Spoken like a true crusader.

View Time Travel Article

 

CHINA: Bodies Of 21 Babies Found Dumped Along China River

March 30, 2010

by The Associated Press

The bodies of 21 babies washed ashore on a riverbank in eastern China and two hospital mortuary workers were detained for allegedly dumping them, state media reported Tuesday.

Video footage showed the bodies — at least one of which was stuffed in a yellow plastic bag marked "medical waste" — included some infants who appeared several months old. Some wore identification tags with their mothers' names, birth dates, measurements and weights.

The official Xinhua News Agency said there were also fetuses among the bodies. The number of girls or boys was not reported.

Residents discovered the remains under a bridge in the city of Jining, Shandong province, over the weekend. The tags on the ankles of eight of the babies helped investigators trace them back to Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University, Xinhua said.

An official from the hospital confirmed it was involved.

Hospital mortuary workers Zhu Zhenyu and Wang Zhijun were fired and detained by police, Xinhua reported, citing Jining city government spokesman Gong Zhenhua.

The babies' families had paid to have the bodies disposed, but instead the two workers dumped them at the Guangfu River, Gong said.

Three other top hospital officials were fired or suspended, Xinhua said.

The Shandong Broadcasting Company Web site broadcast interviews with residents who discovered the bodies. Video footage showed the bodies lying on parts of the riverbank, some in bags. They are all small and covered in dirt. At least one bag has "medical waste" written on it.

One of the identification tags visible in the video indicates the baby was born in April 2009.

An official from the information office of China's Health Ministry said she was not aware of the case. Phone calls to the Jining Health Bureau and the Shandong Health Bureau were unanswered Tuesday.

View article...

 

N. KOREA: North Korean Economic Crisis Complicates Transition

March 30, 2010

by Anthony Kuhn

Economic upheaval in North Korea may have cost one of the country's top economic policy officials his job, and maybe even his life.

If media reports in South Korea are accurate, earlier this month, North Korea hauled its equivalent of Alan Greenspan in front of a firing squad.

If not, then Pak Nam Gi, in charge of finance and planning for the ruling Workers' Party, may be doing just fine.

After all, even experts don't know who many North Korean officials are, much less whether they've been shot. But North Korea watchers agree that the economic reforms Pak presided over have failed disastrously, complicating North Korea's leadership transition.

Many analysts believe Pak was made a scapegoat for the currency reform.

"Pak Nam Gi's a technocrat. He's not a power man. He has just implemented what the politicians have wanted, but he was blamed for the failures of the currency reform," says Park Hyung-jung, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of National Unification, a government think tank in Seoul.

 North Korea kicked off economic reforms by replacing its old currency for new (shown here) at the end of November 2009. But the effects of the changes have been devastating.  Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images

Currency Reform

At the end of November, North Korea scrapped its old currency for new. This wiped out household savings and investment capital, and sent food prices soaring.

The currency reforms were meant to confiscate merchants' wealth and give it to farmers, workers and soldiers in the state sector. Many state-owned firms have fallen idle, and their workers have gradually migrated to the free markets to survive.

The plan worked, at least for a while, says Kim Yun-tae, secretary general of the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights, a Seoul-based group that gets information from a network of informants in North Korea.

"The government printed money and distributed it to farmers and the lower classes," Kim says. "People loved it at first. But when the working class spent all that money, it was eaten up by inflation, and their lives got even harder."

At the same time, the government has cracked down on foreign trade and the use of hard currency. Park, the researcher, says that the government may not have confiscated hard currency only for its own use, but also to generally exert central government control over trade, while punishing political rivals and rewarding allies.

Succession Dilemma

All of this complicates what is perhaps North Korea's most destabilizing problem: the succession to a third generation of the ruling Kim family.

In a clandestine video shot in North Korea, schoolchildren march through the streets of Pyongyang singing a song called "Footsteps." The lyrics declare: "Commander Kim is stepping forward" and "taking over." The song is believed to refer to ailing leader Kim Jong Il's third son and presumed heir, Kim Jong Un.

But North Korea's cryptocratic regime has never publicly mentioned the fact that Kim Jong Il even has a family, much less a presumed heir.

North Korea expert Kim Yun-tae says the currency reforms were supposed to be a curtain raiser for Kim Jong Un, who is still in his 20s and lacks leadership experience.

"Kim Jong Un could have gotten the credit for the currency reform, if it had succeeded," he says. "But since it failed, he can't. So this situation makes it hard to introduce him."

For now, Kim Yun-tae says, the succession is only mentioned within the ruling Workers' Party.

Critical Voices

Outside the party, meanwhile, signs of opposition to government policies are growing, says Kang Chol-hwan, a journalist at South Korea's Chosun Daily. He co-authored The Aquariums of Pyongyang, about the decade he spent in a North Korean labor camp before defecting to the South in 1992.

He says that under the threat of harsh punishment, North Koreans' only way to defy their government is through passive resistance.

"To express their resentment against the government, North Koreans stopped obeying official orders," Kang explains. "This became widespread in the 1990s. This time, with the currency reform, North Koreans have gone from refusing orders to speaking critically about the government."

For now, that criticism is spoken in private and in hushed tones. But the voices appear to be growing louder and bolder.

View article...

RUSSIA: Suicide Bomber Hit Station Next to Russia's Top Security Agency

Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A15

By Greg Miller and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers

The twin suicide bombings that killed at least 38 people in Moscow's crowded subway system on Monday included an attack on a station just steps away from the headquarters of Russia's premier security service.

The strike shortly before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station -- named for the forbidding building that houses Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB -- is part of a wave of suicide assaults that target spy services engaged in violent confrontations with militant Islamist groups.

Monday's attack in central Moscow appeared designed to maximize the chance that Russian intelligence officials would be among the commuters caught in the carnage. If so, the assault would extend a string of losses for intelligence services, which are more accustomed to carrying out lethal operations than being attacked themselves.

A December bombing killed seven CIA employees and contractors near the Afghan city of Khost; the deputy chief of Afghanistan's intelligence service was assassinated in September; and a series of suicide strikes killed dozens of Pakistani operatives at facilities used by the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in cities from Peshawar to Lahore.

A U.S. intelligence official said that spy services have become priority targets for militant groups, since spies are at the forefront of counterterrorist campaigns.

"While every counterterror conflict is different, the fact that the enemy wears no uniform and relies on stealth means that intelligence officers will be playing key roles," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. "The more effective they are, the more likely they are to be targets."

The sophistication in a spree of recent attacks on spy services suggests that militant groups are also becoming more skilled at stalking their pursuers. Abdullah Laghmani, the No. 2 in the Afghan intelligence service, was killed last year by a suicide bomber who caught the deputy spy chief as he was leaving a mosque.

In some cases, militants have become adept at using methods that have long been the preserve of espionage agencies. The bombing of the CIA base in Khost was carried out by an al-Qaeda double agent who convinced CIA operatives that he was their asset, and lured officials to their deaths by promising to inform them of the whereabouts of top al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.

Monday's attacks in Moscow were aimed at a more vulnerable target: a subway system used by millions of commuters every day. It was carried out by female suicide bombers who penetrated security systems that were strengthened several years ago after a previous wave of strikes.

A second, less powerful blast at the Park Kultury station on Monday killed 12 people, but Lubyanka appears to have been the main target. It was the site of the first explosion, and at least 23 people were killed there. Security experts said Lubyanka was almost certainly selected because the name serves as such a potent symbol of Soviet and Russian security services.

"The choice of that station is a strategic one," said Sarah Mendelson, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and co-author of the report "Violence in the North Caucasus: 2009, A Bloody Year." "They were trying to get people who work at Lubyanka on their way to work."

Alexander Bortnikov, director of the FSB, Russia's domestic security service, said those responsible for the bombings have links to insurgencies in the North Caucasus, a largely Muslim region of Russia that has been plagued by violence. The number of suicide bombings in the North Caucasus nearly quadrupled in 2009, according to the CSIS report, with most of the attacks directed at police and security services in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

The FSB has been heavily involved in counterterrorism operations in the Caucasus, battling what appear to be coalescing insurgencies in the republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, as well as Chechnya. Rebels increasingly are adopting the tactics and language of militant Islamists.

Doku Umarov, an insurgent leader who has called for an Islamic emirate in the Caucasus, warned recently that he would strike at Russian cities, where he said the fighting in distant and impoverished Muslim-majority republics barely registers with the public.

"Blood will no longer be limited to our cities and towns," said Umarov in an interview with an extremist Web site. "The war is coming to their cities."

The FSB is routinely involved in raids, arrests and interrogations in the Caucasus. Human-rights groups have charged that Russia's campaigns in the region have also been marked by the torture, disappearances or targeted killings of suspected terrorists -- tactics that have deeply alienated the general population and bred extremism.

Russian officials have not yet said whether any FSB personnel were killed in Monday's attack.

Targeted agencies have tended to respond with promises of renewed vigor. The CIA has stepped up drone strikes in the remote corner of Pakistan where the Khost bombing is thought to have been planned.

Even so, the bombings have taken a significant toll. Among the CIA operatives killed in Khost was a longtime agency veteran who served as base chief and was one of the CIA's leading experts on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. In Pakistan, officials said that a string of bombings has forced the ISI to put operations on hold while it repairs buildings, assesses security breakdowns and finds officers to replace those who died.

At least 74 ISI operatives were killed over the past year in attacks that included the car bombing of an ISI facility in Lahore, a suicide strike at the agency's main base in Peshawar and a follow-on attack that damaged an agency building in Multan. Each was "a very significant setback," said a Pakistani military official. Intelligence operations "are a very specialized task in which only certain people can fit in."

Special correspondent Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.

View Washington Post Article...

S. KOREA: A Korean Artist's Origins, by Parachute

Published: March 29, 2010

By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP

SINGAPORE — Back in 2003 at the International Istanbul Biennial, the Korean artist Do-Ho Suh presented one of his large-scale fabric installations “Staircase (Installation for Poetic Justice),” a red ethereal fabric staircase suspended from the ceiling and running through two floors without quite reaching the ground. The artist is now revisiting the idea on a smaller scale and in a different medium. Working in residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Mr. Suh is creating a staircase in red threads laid over paper pulp.

“Almost all my fabric pieces are suspended from the ceiling and this accentuates the sense of gravity,” he said. “So here, I’ve tried to find a way to simulate lines that would almost be suspended in space, with thread in pulp and water, because the way the water pushes and pulls the thread on the paper creates these beautiful lines. The staircase connection is a literal one, but in my mind the connection and continuation with my previous installation is dealing with gravity in two-dimensional drawings,” the artist, who is based in New York, explained while recently in Singapore.

Thread, fabrics and sewing have played an important role in Mr. Suh’s site-specific installations which regularly explore the issue of cultural displacement and the relationship between individuality and collectivism.

Born in Seoul in 1962, Mr. Suh grew up in an artistic family. His father, Suh Se-ok, was a pivotal figure in Korean modern art for his use of traditional ink painting in an abstract style. In the 1960s, many of Korea’s traditional homes were destroyed to make way for modern buildings, but Mr. Suh’s parents had a small, traditional scholar’s house built of discarded wood from a demolished palace building.

This house and its traditional decorative elements have become central to the artist’s work as he reflects on his own feelings of cultural displacement and longing after moving to the United States in 1991. Right after his graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1994, he was living in a noisy apartment in New York when he thought about recreating his quiet Seoul home using translucent organza.

“In many ways, this was a pivotal piece in my career because it was one of two or three major pieces that I did right after school,” Mr. Suh said. “I first sewed my studio and made some samples of the Korean house.” Then he got a grant and was able to realize the full version.

Two years later, Mr. Suh was invited to present four works in the Venice Biennale, which brought him international recognition. In “Some/One,” he used Korean military dog tags to form a giant imperial robe, and in “Floor,” 180,000 fragile plastic figures tightly placed against each other hold up a glass floor. The works reflect on the power and strength of the collective, sometimes at the expense of the individual.

“All of my works really come from the same idea. They all deal with space; being an architectural one or a figurative one like your personal space,” he said.

At the Singapore institute, Mr. Suh has revisited some of his previous themes but also explores some new ones. Several of his new works portray isolated figures with shadowlike forms hovering over them.

They are “based on the belief that one is not exactly one” but “many different things — other people’s influence, history, different personalities. But you don’t see it, it’s invisible,” he said.

The artist is now preparing a fabric installation for the Venice Biennale of Architecture (Aug. 29 to Nov. 21), where he will represent the facade of his brownstone apartment in New York. He’s also planning an installation for the 2010 Liverpool Biennial (Sept. 18 to Nov. 18), where he will place a replica of his childhood house in an empty lot with a parachute and the scattered contents of the house. The Liverpool installation continues work on a theme that explores a story Mr. Suh wrote in 1999 that resembles the opening scenes of “The Wizard of Oz.” A Korean house is lifted by a tornado over the Pacific, landing in Providence. With a parachute slowing its fall, the house gets stuck in the corner of a brownstone building similar to the one the artist lives in today.

In “Fallen Star: Wind of Destiny,” (2006), Mr. Suh represented that Korean house atop a tornado of carved Styrofoam and resin, and in “New Beginning,” (2006) he showed a large dollhouse-like representation of his 18th-century apartment in Providence with his family’s Korean home stuck in the middle of it.

Mr. Suh is also working on commissions from two American museums. One is for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Korean gallery: an in situ a royal folding screen recreated in clear acrylic resin a section of the palace where the screen initially would have been housed. For his second museum commission, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, he is recreating a traditional Korean gate, but is doing so in a negative space that visitors can walk through.

“So here it’s also about transporting two traditional buildings in Korea to those institutions; it’s also about displacement of the space and transporting the space like my other fabric installation,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 30, 2010, in The International Herald Tribune.

View New York Times Article...

CHINA & JAPAN: Arrest over China-Japan 'poisoned dumplings' row

Chinese exports to Japan were hit by the scare

Page last updated at 10:57 GMT, Saturday, 27 March 2010

A man has been arrested in China accused of poisoning dumplings in a case which led to a diplomatic rift with Japan, state media reports.

Temporary factory worker Lu Yueting, 36, allegedly put insecticide in some frozen dumplings because he was unhappy with his pay and colleagues.

The food was exported to Japan, where 10 people became ill, sparking a scare over Chinese food.

China had denied that the contamination occurred on its territory.

Chinese police have found injectors used to poison the dumplings, according to a Ministry of Public Security statement reported by the Xinhua news agency.

Traces of methamidophos, a highly toxic insecticide were found in the dumplings.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama issued a statement praising China's efforts to clear up the matter.

Chinese food exports to Japan fell sharply after the incident, reports the AP news agency.

The incident followed other scares over the safety of Chinese-made products, including poisoned pet food and concerns over dangerous toys.

View BBC News Article...

JAPAN: Okinawa Debate

 

Okinawa's peace park commemorates those who died in the bloody fighting

Page last updated at 00:15 GMT, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 01:15 UK

By Alastair Leithead
BBC News, Okinawa

The names of 200,000 Japanese troops and civilians are engraved in granite at Okinawa's memorial park, remembering the last major battle of World War II.

Alongside them are the 12,500 Americans who also perished in the brutal, inch-by-inch fight for the small, tropical island of coral 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.

The United States has been here ever since, but a peace deal signed 50 years ago was not an equal one, agreed in the aftermath of war, surrender, then occupation.

There are now 24,000 US troops on Okinawa, most of them marines, and their bases, airfields, housing and training facilities cover a fifth of the island.

The people of Okinawa felt their lives were sacrificed in the war for the sake of the country, and they now believe they are shouldering more of their share of the burden of hosting US forces - with three quarters of American facilities in Japan on their small island.

"We provide the Japanese government with a credible deterrence force - a highly effective, highly trained and very mobile force that is very strategically located," said Lieutenant General Terry Robling, commander of US marine bases in Japan.

"We think the stability of the region has been caused by our presence here. Over 50 years now there's been relative peace in the Asia region."

But it comes at a cost.

Local tensions

Japan pays $4bn (£2.6bn) a year to host the 50,000 US troops stationed across the country, and the noise, safety fears and disturbance of having so many troops in built-up areas is creating tension.

Futenma air base is surrounded by densely-packed residential areas

The 1995 gang rape of a young girl by US troops in Okinawa shook the relationship, a helicopter crash near Futenma air base in 2004 shocked people in Ginowan City which has grown to surround it, and crime by US personnel is also something local people complain about.

"We have not had an accident aboard Futenma since 2004 - there were no accidents at all that I know of prior to that or since then," said Colonel Dale Smith, who commands Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

"As far as safety goes we do a number of things. Helicopters come in at more steep angles and climb out at more steep rates, which gives more distance between us and the urban terrain and decreases the noise levels."

But at Futenma Elementary School, which has a playground backing on to the end of the runway, the deputy head teacher Muneo Nakamura says he fears for the children's safety every day.

'More equal'

After years of discussions the Japanese and American governments agreed a deal to restructure US forces on Okinawa.

We think the stability of the region has been caused by our presence here

General Robling

It involved closing Futenma air base, building a new runway on reclaimed land and relocating troops at a base in the less populated north of the island. Japan would pick up $6bn of the $10bn cost.

As part of the deal, 8,000 US marines would also move to Guam, where President Obama is due next week.

But last year Yukio Hatoyama was elected prime minister, after 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

He made a campaign promise to move US troops off Okinawa as part of a creating a "more equal" partnership with America.

The original deal was put on hold and he is now torn between a threat from ruling coalition partners to withdraw support if he breaks his promise, and pressure from the US. He has promised to announce a new plan by the end of May this year.

Mr Hatoyama's stance has strained the alliance, but America has to tread carefully as it also relies on Japan as the centre of its strategic operations in Asia.

"I think the US presence is an incredibly stabilising factor. Asia is going through a period of historic strategic change in the balance of power," said Raymond Greene, the US consul general in Okinawa.

"We have the nuclear missile programmes in North Korea; obviously the rise of China is something we welcome, but as it rises economically there are many questions about military modernisation programme and its transparency, or lack thereof."

Security hub

The razor wire on the beach surrounding the northern base where troops could be moved to is covered in ribbons and protest banners.

Crime and noise pollution have led to a rise in anti-base sentiment

Small but vocal demonstrations are held periodically - there is a growing feeling that Japan should go its own way and reduce its reliance on America.

But generations of Okinawans have made a living out of the US military.

Shinichiro Isa used to work on a base but is now retired. His son, Hiroyuki, currently works at Futenma air base and they accept the large American presence in exchange for the money it brings.

"It's not just because I worked on the base that I am in favour of the Americans being here," Mr Isa said.

"It's important not just for the security of Okinawa or Japan but for the whole of the region from South Korea to the Philippines."

But he does not know if there'll be the chance for his two year-old grandson, Shunpei, to follow the family tradition.

The future of US forces here depends on the military alliance continuing, and the direction in which Japan's new government wants to take the country.

View BBC News Article...

CHINA: Rio Tinto Reports Misguided

2010-3-30

By Jin Dou

CHINA'S investment environment is far from perfect, hampered as it is by many elements such as business bribes.

Cracking down on bribes would help clean the field for doing business in China, but CNN, BBC and a host of other Western media argued otherwise in their loaded reports of the Rio Tinto case.

The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday sentenced four employees of the British-Australian mining giant, including one Australian national (Stern Hu, who headed the firm's Shanghai office), to seven to 14 years in prison for bribery and stealing commercial secrets.

CNN reported yesterday: "Executive Stern Hu's admission of accepting bribes led to leniency, the court said, reducing his sentence to 10 years total... The case against Hu and three other employees of the British-Australian company was closely watched over fears of a government crackdown on foreign companies doing business in China."

Indeed, Stern Hu admitted he had taken bribes. It was not a forced guilty plea. How could this man's fall from grace translate into "a government crackdown on foreign companies doing business in China?" In so strenuous an argument, CNN was literally saying that Stern Hu represented most foreign business people in terms of morality. He did not.

Apparently knowing that such an argument could only turn CNN into a laughing stock, a CNN anchorman yesterday tried to appear more critical by asking why China had singled out Rio Tinto for punishment while bribery is not uncommon in China.

This anchorman should have done more solid homework by researching how many Chinese officials and business people had been arrested, even executed, for bribery or embezzlement. If he were an average, not to say a good, journalist, he would not have used the phrase "singled out" to describe China's handling of the Rio Tinto case.

The BBC wrote yesterday: "The trial has heightened concerns among the foreign business community in China. Australian diplomats have expressed concern about the lack of transparency in China's conduct of the trial."

If the trial really "heightened concerns," it did so among bribe takers, foreign or Chinese. It would only be victory for the business community, foreign or Chinese, who are clean and honest.
As for a fair trial, China's laws are there for all to see before anyone enters the Chinese market.

The laws say clearly that a case involving commercial secrets can be handled in private if one party so proposes. Rio Tinto knew that when it came to China. BBC reporters should have known that before they wrote the story. China did not twist its laws just for Rio Tinto. China is open to criticism, but critics need to be capable of critical reasoning in the first place.

View Shanghai Daily Article...