Security, economic worries make Xmas less merry

Security, economic worries make Xmas less merry

Lauren Gelfand, Agence France-Presse, Hong Kong, China

Boughs of holly and garlands of tinsel are all-too likely to be
hiding security cameras in Asia this Christmas as fears of
terrorism and economic gloom cast a pall over the festive season.

Following the Oct. 12 bombing on the Indonesian resort island
of Bali blamed on the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror
network, much of the region is on edge.

"We are preparing for the worst," said Indonesian national
police spokesman Zainuri Lubis.

Two-thirds of the country's 270,000 police officers are to be
patrolling churches, shopping malls and other public places in
Jakarta and around the world's largest Muslim nation.

Papua, one of the only predominantly Christian provinces where
separatists are fighting Indonesian rule, is to host President
Megawati Soekarnoputri for a Christmas Day celebration.

Security guards, not ruddy-cheeked Santa Clauses, will greet
shoppers at malls in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines
in efforts to thwart fresh bomb attacks such as those that killed
more than 20 people since October in the capital Manila and in
the south.

A traditional Christmas cease-fire with the communist New
People's Army has been called, but rather than extending for the
typical two weeks it will cover only Dec. 24-25 and Dec. 31-Jan.
1.

Barricades surround Singapore's famous Newton Hawker Center,
one of three public places cordoned off by authorities as part of
enhanced security.

"There is currently no specific threat," stressed Ang Poon
Seng, the assistant superintendent of police in the city-state
where 31 people remain in custody over plots to bomb U.S. and
other targets.

"Nevertheless our security agencies have introduced
appropriate measures at all checkpoints and certain premises."

Concern and grief infuses Pakistan's Christian community,
where the memories of a wave of anti-Christian violence this year
are still fresh.

The discrimination normally felt by Christians in 97-percent
Muslim Pakistan was accompanied by bullets in 2002.

The International Protestant Church in Islamabad was attacked
with grenades in March, killing five. In August a Christian
school was raided by gunmen who left six dead and days later
another group of extremists attacked a Christian Hospital in
nearby Taxila, killing four.

"Some ugly things have been happening over the years," said
Doctor Aschchenaz Lall, the hospital's director. "We were and
still are one of the targets."

Christians in Pakistan are identified with the United States,
the scourge of some of Pakistan's Islamic fundamentalists who
still champion the fallen Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Osama
bin Laden.

But Syed Murawat Ali Shah, police chief of Islamabad's twin
city of Rawalpindi, said police have taken "very effective
security measures against terrorists, keeping in view the
celebrations of Christmas."

New government warnings about terrorist attacks by the al-
Qaeda network, a spate of fires sparked by arsonists and
collective mourning for the loss of 88 nationals in the Bali
bombing means Australia is likely to feel blue this holiday
season.

With a relatively tiny Catholic community in mostly-Buddhist
Vietnam, the Christmas season is an excuse for retailers to kick-
off the spending spree that leads up to Chinese New Year.

Economic woes in the communist country, however, have put the
kibosh on traditional outdoor festivities planned by churches.

Some of South Korea's nine million Christians may gather
around a massive Christmas tree erected in downtown Seoul, but it
will be for a candlelight demonstration rather than carol
singing.

Christmas Eve this year is to be a celebration of the anti-
U.S. sentiment that has burned like a yule log since a U.S.
decision to acquit two U.S. soldiers over the deaths of two South
Korean teenagers in a road accident.