JP/06/Other

JP/06/Other

Old-fashioned poisoning

The Iron Curtain is no more, or so we thought until the news that Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western presidential candidate in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, was poisoned with dioxin, possibly by Ukraine's own security services.

The good news for Yushchenko, despite his suddenly pockmarked features and tales of excruciating pain, is that he survived the attempt and now seems poised to win the Dec. 26 reprise of his runoff against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Ukraine's saga, much like the fall of the Iron Curtain, which once stood well to the west of Ukraine, is a reminder that a society spontaneously demanding to decide its own future cannot always be poisoned back into submission. The trick for Bush in his second term will be to find a way to maintain constructive ties with Russian President Putin but not at the price of abandoning clamor for more democracy in the former Soviet Union. -- LA Times, Los Angeles.

EU arms embargo

The European Union is considering lifting its arms embargo against China, which has been in place since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, next year. We are very concerned about this.

It would mean even more of a headache for Japan, as it would present a serious security problem for the nation.

Over the past year, China has been making moves that pose a threat to Japan's security.

The EU is considering lifting the ban because ties between it and China have improved over recent years. Immediately after the Tiananmen Square incident, the EU's relationship with China cooled over the latter's infringements of human rights. However, it has been improving gradually to a level where in 1998 they began holding regular summit meetings.

Their relations have become closer, particularly in trading. China is the second-largest trade partner for the EU, while the EU is the biggest for China. Between last year and this year, the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Italy -- core members of the EU -- visited China in succession because they all wanted a slice of the Chinese market.

Given these circumstances, Beijing said the continued improvement of these ties would be impaired if the arms embargo was maintained, increasing pressure on the EU to lift it. On the EU side, some countries, particularly Germany and France, were in favor of lifting the embargo.

The EU is an important player in international politics. It should refrain from pursuing its own economic interests at the expense of causing instability in Asia. -- The Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo.

Approach to North Korea

It is already mid-December and there is little likelihood the next six-way talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff will be held before year's end. North Korea, which stalled the multilateral process to await the result of the U.S. presidential election, will now set another timeline to further delay the talks in Beijing -- probably until after the second Bush administration is inaugurated in late January.

The chief U.S. negotiator, James Kelly, is to be replaced and so will most of his seniors at the State Department, hence Pyongyang would like to make its case on its "nuclear deterrent" scheme with the new U.S. lineup. Since the North Korean procrastination has some justification at the moment, it is hoped the United States and other participants use the time to tidy up their own house.

The United States, China, Japan and Russia need to take a common position on the issue of South Korea's past nuclear experiments which were exposed earlier this year and closely scrutinized by the International Atomic Energy Agency through repeated inspections here.

Pyongyang could really be cheating about the uranium enrichment program but experts find it highly improbable that North Korea, with its limited technological capabilities and resources, has developed any HEU program to a significant level.

It is recommended that the five parties in the six-way talks shelve the uranium-enrichment suspicion for the time being and make concerted efforts to dismantle the already confirmed plutonium-based nuclear weapons project in North Korea. -- The Korea Herald, Seoul.

Tanks for troops

After making excuses and pleading for patience, the Pentagon now seems to realize its soldiers don't have enough armored vehicles to carry out their dangerous missions in Iraq. That message was driven home dramatically last week during Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld's fumbling performance in handling a question about such matters.

Late last week, the Army said it was negotiating with a company to accelerate production of armored versions of the Humvee to get them to troops more quickly. And the commander of U.S. ground forces in the Middle East has promised to provide armored vehicles for every soldier in Iraq. It's about time.

Protecting the troops in Iraq is one of the military's primary missions. Without those troops, Iraq stands little chance to hold an election in January or avoid civil war. That's why it's hard to fathom the Army's treatment of six reservists, including two veteran officers who had been decorated for their heroic efforts in maintaining the gasoline supply line to troops in the war's first months. The Tribune's Aamer Madhani reported Sunday that the six have been court-martialed for doing what soldiers always do in war -- scrounging to get what their outfit needed to do its job, as safely as possible.

In this case, the soldiers of the 656th Transportation Company, based in Springfield, Ohio, grabbed two tractors and two trailers left in Kuwait by other U.S. units that had already moved into Iraq in the early weeks of the war. Several weeks later, they "liberated" a third vehicle, an abandoned five-ton cargo truck, and stripped it for parts they needed for repair of their trucks.

Nowhere in the absurd charges against these soldiers was any suggestion that they had done so for their personal gain. Indeed, no one had reported the equipment missing.

Now Maj. Cathy Kaus, the commanding officer, and Darrell Birt, chief warrant officer of the unit, have been dishonorably discharged and stripped of all military benefits. Kaus is still in the brig; Birt was released in October.

That may not be the worst of it. Since they've got a felony conviction on their military records, Birt has been fired from his civilian job and Kaus faces likely termination. Both Birt and Kaus are pleading for clemency, so their benefits can be reinstated and they will have a chance to continue their military careers or salvage their civilian jobs.

Birt, Kaus and their compatriots should never have been charged. The punishment is far beyond anything that would be reasonable. The Army must grant the clemency.

Between now and Election Day in Iraq, America's military forces are going to need all the ingenuity and strength they can muster to protect the troops on the ground and provide security for Iraq's voters. The terrorist insurgents have been targeting, with bloody precision, Iraqis who work for the military coalition or the Iraq interim government. Insurgents have killed hundreds of police officers and civilians who dared work to make their country free and democratic.

More than a year ago, this page argued that the world should flood Iraq with troops to secure the peace and help reconstruct that country. That didn't happen.

Since the president's re-election, there have been some words of reconciliation from some of America's European allies that strongly opposed the war. But so far, that's all it is: talk. These countries, to their everlasting disgrace, have been unwilling to lift a finger to help Iraq.

The most recent example: While NATO has agreed to increase its forces training soldiers in Baghdad, six member countries have refused to take part. Those six include the familiar refuseniks France and Germany, but also Belgium, Greece, Spain and Luxembourg.

They're not being asked to send soldiers to fight, they're being asked to train Iraqis as part of the crucial effort to ensure safe and viable elections in January. All of the countries in NATO should recognize their interest in a free and stable Iraq. They should back that up with thousands of troops to ensure a free and fair election there.

The Pentagon is increasing the number of American troops in Iraq to 150,000 from 138,000 by early January, to help provide security for the Iraqi election and keep pressure on insurgents. It should, and could, provide substantially more troop strength than that. The U.S. should have a much greater troop presence to reduce the flow of insurgents into the country and secure polling places. And it needs the help of NATO to do that.

A successful election in Iraq will not, on its own, quell the insurrection there. But it will be a powerful statement of the will of the Iraqi people to defeat those who sow chaos and get on with building a free and prosperous nation.

-- Chicago Tribune, Chicago.

More gridlock in the Taiwan Strait

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian had a disappointing weekend. His Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was unable to win a majority in parliamentary elections held Saturday. The result is likely to be continuing gridlock in Taiwanese politics, as different parties control the presidency and the legislature. More troubling, the results will encourage more intransigence from Beijing. The outcome will support those in China who argue that their government's hard line against . Chen has checked his political popularity and forced Taiwanese voters to opt for moderation. Given . Chen's history of responding emotionally to defeat, relations across the Strait could worsen.

. Chen's DPP has made steady gains over the last decade. He used the party as a springboard for presidential election victories in 2000 and 2004, and it has gradually increased its seats in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (LY). Although the DPP won 87 seats in the last ballot, making it the largest single party in the LY, it was unable to claim a majority even in combination with its ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), an unabashedly proindependence party established by former President Lee Teng- hui.

Instead, the opposition Nationalist Party, the KMT, and its allies won 114 of 225 legislative seats -- an increase of three -- to retain control of the LY. The DPP and its ally won 101 seats. The DPP and the KMT both increased their share of the popular vote, with the KMT picking up 11 additional seats and the DPP, two. The losers were the more radical parties: The TSU lost one of its 13 seats, and the prounification People's First Party, a KMT ally, lost 12 seats, tumbling from 46 to 34. That should take some of the sharp edges off Taiwanese politics.

. Chen accepted the results with good grace, and he called for "reconciliation and cooperation." He called on all parties to "unite Taiwan, stabilize ties across the Taiwan Strait and work together for economic prosperity." Taiwan needs that sort of political maturity. Both major parties have put opposition above national interest. The result has been political gridlock while the economy deteriorated and tensions with China and the U.S. increased. It will take cooperative effort by both major parties to get Taiwan back on track, but the two parties have little history of working together.

The KMT continues to protest the results of the March presidential race -- which may have turned on a mysterious assassination attempt on . Chen during the final days of the campaign. For his part, the president has a history of reacting emotionally to defeat: When he was outmaneuvered in the LY last year on legislation permitting referendums, he hastily exploited a loophole in the bill -- permitting so-called defensive referendums, even though the move infuriated China and the United States. What surprises does . Chen have up his sleeve after these disappointing election results?

Taiwanese voters appear uncomfortable with . Chen's policies and statements, and would like him to move back toward the center. Most opinion surveys show that an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese favor the status quo rather than proindependence policies. They want recognition of their island's status and their many impressive economic and political accomplishments, but they are not willing to risk conflict with the mainland.

The Chinese government is ready to exploit that fear. Beijing is convinced that . Chen aims to declare independence before his term expires in 2008. It has said that there will be no cross- Strait political discussions until . Chen acknowledges the "one China" principle, a step that the president will not take. He demands talks without preconditions. Neither side is willing to budge and options are shrinking as each sees compromise as a victory for the other.

Beijing will use the election results to validate its hard line. China has stepped up its anti-Chen rhetoric since he won re- election in March, and the KMT win will be interpreted as a sign that Taiwanese voters are worried that the president is pushing too far, too fast. Given the ill will between Taipei and Beijing, neither side of the Strait is likely to compromise on its core concerns. The outcome of the vote then is likely to be gridlock -- within Taiwanese politics and in cross-Strait relations.

. Chen should now focus on his legacy. He has two choices. He can pursue the consolidation of Taiwanese democracy or he can push the independence agenda. The former requires compromising with the KMT, working on modernizing Taiwan's political institutions and putting independence aspirations on hold. The latter may be the president's longtime dream -- and that of other Taiwanese -- but it risks conflict and the destruction of much of what Taiwan has built in recent years. The choice appears easy.

-- The Japan Times, Tokyo.

Beware of U.S. donations

Some recent international media reports awaken us to the power of America as the world's only superpower, lavishly exercised with money and influence bought with it. The recent case in Ukraine offers a significant message to whoever is engaged in activities either in accord with or against American interests here or elsewhere.

The Associated Press reported that at least $65 million from the Bush administration and public and private U.S. sources has been spent over the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine with a view to helping the pro-West opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, gain power. The American money is via organizations like the Carnegie Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy that is directly funded by Congress, the Eurasia Foundation financed by the State Department, and the Renaissance Foundation connected to George Soros.

No U.S. money is sent directly to the pro-American candidate or any Ukrainian political parties. It is used in diverse ways such as arranging Yushchenko's meetings with U.S. leaders, underwriting exit polls during last month's presidential runoff election and educating Ukrainian citizens about reforming their nation's government and economy, methods that can reject Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim of U.S. interference in the election in the former Soviet republic.

Korea's civil society, replete with numerous civic groups and individual activists, is showing a growing trend of anti-Ame- ricanism these years that may attract concerns of those who hold the purse strings in the U.S. State Department and some "foundations" with goals to disseminate the "American values" worldwide.

In spite of their increasingly active role on political, economic and environmental issues, Korea's civic organizations generally have weak finance with low membership contributions. They should be too cautious about financial offerings from obscure foreign sources, because they could become unwitting beneficiaries of part of the $1 billion U.S. taxpayers' money the State Department spends each year to "build democracy" overseas or the "charity" operations of the Soros Fund. Inflow of such American money into Korean civil society movements will do harm to their credibility.

-- The Korea Herald, Seoul.

Terrorism's Trojan horse

A terrorist attack involving a dirty bomb hidden in a cargo container wouldn't have to match the human toll of Sept. 11, 2001, to be effective. Shutting down even a few of the largest ports would have a devastating economic effect, so it's puzzling that so little is being spent to avoid such a catastrophe.

Oceangoing freighters will offload more than 9 million cargo containers at U.S. ports this year. Until we can know with certainty what's inside them, the boxes will remain, as U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner has said, "the potential Trojan horse of the 21st century."

Some progress is being made. The major foreign ports have agreed to give U.S. customs agents 24 hours' notice before U.S.-bound containers are loaded, and the port of Dubai on Monday became the first port in the Middle East to join the program. The United States also is dispatching customs agents to the world's busiest ports to establish offices. Shipping companies and cargo handlers around the world are completing self-evaluations to help identify weaknesses that terrorists might try to exploit.

But big problems remain, and most are tied to who's going to foot the bill for added security. Private industry, including manufacturers, parts suppliers and retailers whose goods flow through publicly financed ports, should shoulder a fair share of the financial burden, which means consumers ultimately will pay more for their goods. Government also must play a role. The Coast Guard estimates the cost of security improvements needed at U.S. ports at more than $5 billion over the coming decade. Others, though, set the final cost at closer to $15 billion. Yet Congress this month approved just a third of the $400 million that port operators most of them public agencies with already tight operating budgets had set as the bare minimum of federal money needed to help cover security costs during the 2005 fiscal year.

Congress' miserly approach is at odds with the importance of ocean shipping in global trade. More than 90% of non-North American foreign trade arrives on ships. It would be relatively easy to disrupt that trade, to devastating effect. As part of a 2002 war game, a consulting firm estimated that the U.S. economy would suffer a $58-billion hit if a terrorist threat not even an actual attack forced all oceangoing ports to close for two weeks. Yet all but 10% of the Transportation Security Administration's funding goes toward making airports safe.

Waiting for containers to arrive and then inspecting them isn't the answer. Keeping U.S. ports safe will require accurately tracking millions of containers from the moment they're filled. A notice of 24 hours won't mean much if what's in the container doesn't match what's printed on the shipping bill.

A truly effective system is going to be expensive. Failing to build it could be many times more costly.

-- LA Times, Los Angeles.

Failure in Congo

ONE OF THE MOST costly wars of the past half-century is on the brink of resuming: There are reports of heavy fighting around eastern towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some say the army of neighboring Rwanda has again invaded, as its government threatened it would do last month. Congo's government is sending its own troops to the area; refugees are once again on the move. Last week the U.N. Security Council issued a stern warning to Rwanda and threatened unspecified "further actions" if it did not withdraw. Yet if Congo once again becomes a regional battleground, the United Nations will have mainly itself to blame.

Rwanda has sent its army into Congo twice before, in 1996 and 1998. In both cases, as now, the announced aim was to attack Rwandan Hutu militias based there, including fighters responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The last incursion led to a five- year war involving at least seven African countries; by common estimates more than 3 million people died, mostly from disease or starvation. A peace agreement 18 months ago was to end the war, and Rwanda and other nations withdrew their troops. But the keys to the accord were that U.N. peacekeeping troops fill the vacuum in eastern Congo, a vast area where the central government and its forces have little presence, and that the militias whose presence ignited the conflict be disarmed.

In both these tasks the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MONUC, has failed miserably. Though it is the largest such mission in the world, with more than 10,000 troops, it has failed to keep order or even to prevent massacres in some of the principal towns of the region. In Bukavu and Bunia, it has stood by while local militias have raped and murdered civilians within sight of its bases. Worse, its own troops have raped or sexually exploited women and girls; the practice "appears to be significant, widespread and ongoing," according to a confidential U.N. report described by The Post's Colum Lynch last month. With Rwandan troops massing, the U.N. force finally raided a couple of militia camps in the past few days. But its policy of relying on persuasion rather than force to disarm hard-core Hutu militants has, not surprisingly, achieved next to nothing.

Rwanda is wrong to respond to this situation with a new invasion, which may be aimed at Congo's lucrative resources as much as at the Hutu militias. If its troops have crossed the line and are not withdrawn, the Security Council should consider sanctions. But it should also, at the same time, take an honest look at the wreck of its mission in this strategic African country. Perhaps there are mitigating circumstances; it's probably true, for example, that the force has always been too small to do its job. Still, the disastrous performance of U.N. peacekeeping in Congo ought to lead to a broad reconsideration of such missions. Neither Africa nor the rest of the world can afford such failures.

-- The Washington Post, Washington DC

Coral peril

TWENTY PERCENT of the world's coral reefs "have been effectively destroyed and show no immediate prospect of recovery." An additional 24 percent "are under imminent risk of collapse through human pressures," and an additional 26 percent "are under a longer term threat of collapse." These are only some of the conclusions of an exhaustive new report by 240 scientists in 98 countries, working under the auspices of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. Coral reefs, in addition to being breathtakingly beautiful, are among the cradles of life on Earth -- hotbeds of biodiversity critical to sustaining oceanic health. But a combination of global warming, pollution, overfishing, diseases and other factors is ravaging reefs worldwide. While Australian and Pacific reefs remain relatively healthy, the report documents devastating declines elsewhere, including the Caribbean region, where coral cover on many reefs has declined by up to 80 percent. If something isn't done soon, it will be too late for many reefs to recover.

The dire threat to the world's -- and America's -- oceans is hardly a surprise, and it isn't limited to coral reefs either. Two major task forces have recently documented the grave ecological conditions of America's coastal waters. The studies basically show the same thing: People are using the oceans in a fashion that can't be sustained, and, absent serious change across a range of human behaviors, the oceans will die off. Yet despite the widespread agreement on the nature and severity of the problem, action has been slow.

Along with the related issue of climate change, this is the preeminent environmental issue of our time. President Bush should make it a priority of his second term. An opportunity to begin doing so is coming; the administration by law has to respond by Dec. 20 to the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which Congress created in 2000 to examine America's policy toward its coastal waters. So far, there is no indication the administration is contemplating the needed dramatic shifts in policy. But the oceans -- and their precious corals -- cannot afford delay.

-- The Washington Post, Washington DC.

Vulnerable Russian nukes

President Bush said during his campaign for re-election that allowing weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists is the "biggest threat facing this country." In fact, that's one of the few things he and his opponent, John Kerry, agreed on. President Vladimir Putin of Russia apparently agrees, too. Since the latest series of Chechen terrorist attacks in Russia this fall, Putin has dispatched more troops to guard Russia's far- flung nuclear-weapons facilities.

But politics, bureaucracy and suspicion in both countries are sabotaging the program aimed at helping Russia secure and destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

As USA TODAY reported Monday:

A half-billion dollars set aside by Congress in the past two years to protect or scrap Russian weapons sits unspent.

Hundreds of millions of dollars more have gone to ineffective projects, according to federal auditors.

Disputes between U.S. officials demanding more access to Russian weapons sites and Russians jealously guarding what were longtime state secrets are stalling progress at several key locations.

Russians also are increasingly reluctant to accept U.S. direction of U.S.-funded storage and disposal facilities or to absolve the United States of responsibility if a ghastly accident should occur.

Scariest of all: The program expires in 18 months, and there's little sign of any serious initiative on either side to renew it.

The threat is vivid. In September, undercover agents arrested a man in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan who was trying to sell plutonium-239, a substance used to make atomic weapons. Earlier this year, another suspect was picked up trying to sell cesium-137, which could contaminate large areas if used in a crude nuclear bomb.

The program Congress created in 1991 to help secure the stockpiles of dangerous materials throughout the former Soviet empire was a rare display of foresight. But the effort has been hampered by resistance in Russia and restrictions engineered by members of Congress. Some object to assisting Putin even if it might make the world safer; others want to score points on unrelated issues such as human rights.

The burden of preventing the program's collapse falls on Bush and Putin. Both need to tell those obstructing progress that the threat posed by inaction is too great. And both sides must demonstrate flexibility in getting the job done, not stonewalling in the name of national self-righteousness.

-- USAToday

The nation's fabric

"Heritage Counts" is the title of English Heritages annual audit, to be published today. The reader would be forgiven, though, for coming to the conclusion that in the new Labour philosophy, heritage counts for far too little. Although Britains stunning array of townscapes, landscapes, churches, cathedrals and stately homes form a significant part of the countrys character, they do not fit into the shiny, modern image that Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, wants to project. Even worse, they can be caricatured as part of middle and upper- class culture, lacking relevance for Labour voters. This is nonsense. The poor are not incapable of appreciating the countryside or the nations history. Churches and cathedrals welcome visitors and worshippers from all backgrounds. Restoring neglected parks and town centres benefits everyone.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has done much that fits with Labours political agenda: targeting grants to areas of social and economic deprivation and insisting that the institutions it funds attract new audiences.

But still there is the sense that Labour does not value the effort. In its new Lottery Bill, there are provisions to cream off HLF money to give to other distributors. And the latest government grant to English Heritage represents a 4.6 per cent decrease over four years. Its budget has been cut every year since 1997.

Todays report suggests that #3.4 billion is needed to save heritage that is still at risk, despite the efforts of lottery entrants. The nations character is in serious danger of neglect. Ministers must not be willing participants in character assassination. -- The Times, London.