JAKARTA (JP): The three most important political and security
JAKARTA (JP): The three most important political and security portfolios in the new Cabinet lineup go to generals: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, coordinating minister for political and security affairs; Hari Sabarno, minister of home affairs; and Agum Gumelar, minister of transportation. A civilian, Matori Abdul Djalil, is now in charge of defense. It remains to be seen whether this signifies a further step toward more democratic control of the armed forces.
Indeed, by focusing on what has developed after the downfall of Soeharto, few significant trends or programs show a discernible path toward civilian supremacy.
2. 4Mideast -- Is anyone learning from Middle East chaos? 1 x 40 36 pt optima bold
LONDON: What we have in Israel and Palestine now is not crisis but chaos, a situation in which purposeful activity and intelligent policy is becoming daily less and less possible. Between the Tel Aviv bomb and the Jerusalem bomb the Israeli government and security establishment has learned nothing, the weakened Palestinian Authority has done little but appeal for outside intervention, and the United States and Europe have tried only to keep the violence below a certain level.
But you cannot moderate chaos or control the effects of profoundly dangerous and counter-productive policies. The next phase will undoubtedly be a punitive attack, or series of attacks, by the Israelis, an escalation wanted by nobody outside the leadership of fundamentalist Palestinian groups, and perhaps not even wholeheartedly there. Such attacks will serve, briefly, to assuage Israeli public opinion. But it is an index of how murderously futile things have become that Israeli staff officers and intelligence people already know, even as they present the options to the cabinet, that none of the plans can lead anywhere but to fresh violence.
2. 3Hongkong -- Ministerial system for Hong Kong 1 x 30 36 pt NCSB
As the words "Hong" and "Kong" have been separated in headline, they should be throughout the article too to be consistent.
HONGKONG: Hongkong's system of governance is still evolving.
A clearer picture could emerge in two months when Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa makes his policy speech, which observers said is likely to include an announcement on the framework for a ministerial system.
The Hongkong leader said in his policy speech last year that the territory needed to devise 'a compatible system of appointment for the principal officials' in the civil service.
When Secretary for the Civil Service Joseph Wong was sent to Australia and New Zealand in March this year, observers speculated that the purpose of the trip was to gather information on the two countries' ministerial systems.