Positive moves amid all the gloom

Positive moves amid all the gloom

One significant feature of the just-ended Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was that speaker after speaker hammered home the same message: Globalisation is here to stay; it is the way of the future.''

Yes, the summit was held in the shadow of financial turmoil in Asia. But the majority of delegates obviously felt that countries in this region and elsewhere can still profit from the global system.

There is still a strong case, they insisted, for the view that open economies and the unhindered movement of capital are net creators of wealth.

In the post-Cold War world the concept of Pacific defence is no longer a narrow matter of military deployments alone.

A majority of APEC delegates clearly believe that security in the broadest and most important sense, in an interdependent world where no one nation stands omnipotent, is a matter of fostering ties to others based on common interests. They also believe that these common interests include the ideal of global free markets and unimpeded flows of capital.

There can be no doubt that the growing integration of the world economy has in general been an engine of mutual enrichment.

Why, then, do the critics of globalisation continue to strike such a responsive chord? It is human nature to fear change and the instinct of many nationalists to oppose it. But this kind of narrow, nationalist thinking did not carry much weight in Vancouver. Participants in APEC meetings have in the past spent too much time chasing concepts which are, in large part, intangible.

But this meeting was different. The gloomy news from Asia forced delegates to come up with some practical, tangible steps aimed at avoiding a repetition of this kind of financial turmoil in the future. And this was the biggest achievement of the APEC summit.

--Hong Kong Standard

;AFP;HBK; ANPAk..r.. Australia-racism-policy Being Pauline can be perilous JP/4/OTHER2

Being Pauline can be perilous

There's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to stir the imagination of people who like to talk in hushed tones of sinister and bizarre plots to turn us all into automatons.

The best of theories always seems to revolve around international conspiracies financed by mega-rich industrialists, bankers and, of course, arms merchants who want devilish foreigners to foist alien traditions upon god-fearing, decent folk who like to go to home improvement stores at weekends.

In extreme cases, the plotters grand design is to force noodles upon people who prefer fish and chips.

To qualify for a starring role in any such conspiracy theory, it helps if the subject is no longer of this planet.

Pauline Hanson, however, has a problem. In the physical sense, the sole member of Australia's One Nation Party is still very much of this planet, in Canberra, to be precise, even if her ideas belong to a more distant corner of the Milky Way.

In her movie debut, Pauline does not explain how she came to be murdered but we suspect the agent of her demise was a horrible hairy spider from the jungles of Borneo or perhaps the driver of a 10-wheel truck. She does not say if she expects to meet Elvis.

Back on Planet Earth, the late Pauline has said she would like her video to be broadcast on national television in the event of her death, which will, of course, be untimely. "Fellow Australians," explains the ex-Pauline, "if you are seeing me now, it means I have been murdered. For the sake of our children and our children's children, you must fight on. Do not let my passing distract you for one moment."

The fight that the former Pauline refers to is her campaign to stop Asian immigrants from swamping Australia and native Australians from making claims to some of the nations bounty.

The independent MP from the semi-tropical state of Queensland, who also insists that Aborigines ate one another and that people of a darker hue to herself are inferior, has made her move at a time when her credibility is flagging.

Her bid for celluloid immortality, it seems, is a desperate attempt to revive the populist fortunes of a woman who is patently dim.

--Bangkok Post

;JP;HPR; ANPAk..r.. Otheropinion-APEC A speedy end to the crisis? JP/4/OTHER3

A speedy end to the crisis?

Considering the results achieved at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM) in Vancouver -- particularly in relation to efforts to surmount the monetary crisis which is at present engulfing several APEC countries, including Indonesia -- there appears to be reason to be optimistic that the turmoil which began in July this year can be ended before very long.

The Vancouver declaration, among other things, designates 1997 as the APEC Year of Action to speed up liberalization in trade and investment as a follow-up to the Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA). For Indonesia, this means that the efforts that are now being made to overcome the present monetary crisis must also serve as a starting point for taking follow-up actions related to MAPA.

Finally it seems that, after the Vancouver Declaration, there is no choice for Indonesia but to intensify our economic reformation efforts so that we will be able to reap the greatest possible benefits.

-- Suara Karya, Jakarta