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World Bank Urges Developing
Countries to Adopt Food Safety Standards
Developing countries faced with rising
sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in their export markets can
improve their market access by adopting a proactive approach to food
safety, agricultural health and trade, The Press Trust of India Limited
notes a new World Bank said. At the same time, high-income countries should
reorient assistance flows to such countries to help them build the capacity
to effectively manage food safety and agricultural health safety risks,
says the report, "Food Safety and Agricultural Health Standards:
Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Country Exports." SPS
standards have been used by some countries as barriers to trade, but
developing countries should see them as potential catalysts for modernizing
their export supply and regulatory systems and adopting safer and more
sustainable production and processing systems, a senior World Bank official
said on Wednesday. "Developing countries that have adopted a strategic
approach to tackling the challenge of standards have been able to maintain
or improve market access and position themselves for the long-term,"
World Bank senior rural development specialist Cornelius van der Meer said.
"Food safety and agricultural health risk management should be
considered as a core competence in the competitiveness of developing
countries," the report says. "For those countries and suppliers
who are well prepared, rising standards represent an opportunity; for those
who are poorly prepared, they pose safety and market access risks."
The benefits of compliance [to SPS standards] often exceed the costs, said
World Bank Senior Economist Steven Jaffee. Additionally, rich countries
could do more to harmonize their SPS product and process requirements and
adopt standards that do not "unduly restrict trade," the report
said. The World Bank and its partners can also do more to encourage greater
standards harmonization among developing countries and use standards to
facilitate, rather than block, regional trade, the report said. In
preparing the report, the World Bank used case studies of high-value food
products like fish and shrimp, fruits and vegetables, animals and animal
products, and nuts and spices that have posed SPS compliance challenges for
a significant number of developing countries. High-value food products now
account for 50 percent of the total value of food exports of developing
countries, up from 31 percent in 1980-1981, the report said. The report
noted that a series of well-publicized adverse events in recent years
involving product tampering, inappropriate use of farm inputs,
contamination by food-borne pathogens and animal diseases have drawn
increased attention to food safety and agricultural health issues around
the world. Simultaneously, it said, trends in consumer demand in
industrialized countries have elevated food safety and quality over other
product considerations. The result has been a "complex, variable and
dynamic environment for standards that constitutes a major challenge for
developing countries," it said.
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 02/04/2005
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Tackling the Challenge of Poverty:
Money Matters, but So Do Good Policies and Governance
This summary is prepared by the External
Affairs Department of the World Bank. All material is taken directly from
published and copyright wire service stories and newspaper articles. The
daily summary and other news can be found on the World Bank’s external
website at http://www.worldbank.org/news. For inquiries call (202) 473-7660
or send a written request to the News Bureau. "Make poverty
history" - this is the slogan on the placards surrounding this
weekend's meeting of the finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading
high-income countries, reports The Financial Times. Inside, Gordon Brown,
the chancellor and current chairman of the G7, seems set to repeat his call
for "a modern Marshall Plan for the developing world.” If
demonstrations and good intentions could cure poverty, the world would be
well on its way to doing so. Unfortunately, what is needed for that is
successful development in some of the world's poorest and most unsuccessful
countries. That is no simple task. The populist campaign against debt has
come to dominate the debate on aid. It is important to remember, however,
that aid merely allows countries (and governments) to spend more than their
domestically available incomes. From this point of view it is not the
outstanding stocks of debt but the flows of resources, and even then not
the outflows from poor countries alone but both the outflows and the
inflows, that matter. The debt debate should concentrate on these net flows
and how they are used rather than on stocks of debt. More important, the
elimination of debt will trigger no renaissance. The existence of so much
unpayable debt is proof of past failures, not a guarantee of future successes.
The Treasury does indeed understand that flows, not the debt stocks,
matter. This is the rationale for the ingenious IFF, which calls for
off-budget borrowing against future aid commitments. No private business
would be permitted to do this. But that is not the biggest issue. More
important is whether disbursements should be brought forward. There are
some arguments for front-loading, particularly with health spending where a
small amount of money spent on prevention now can save enormous sums on
treatment later. But overall returns on capital in the world's poorest
countries are very low. What is needed is more aid overall, not more aid
now and then less aid in future years. The passion behind Mr Brown's call
to eliminate mass poverty is impressive. This is, beyond doubt, the great
moral imperative of our age. But a focus on global trade liberalisation,
debt reduction and the IFF will not by itself be enough. Aid should indeed
be increased. But it must build up steadily, along with the absorptive
capacity of the recipient countries. Above all, it must go to countries
with tolerable governments and sensible economic policies. The rich can -
and must - do more to help. But only the governments and peoples of the
world's poor countries can deliver. In a related story, finance ministers
from the world's seven richest nations agreed in principle Saturday to
write off up to 100 percent of the debts of the world's poorest countries
but remained deeply divided on the best way to do it, reports The
Washington Post (02/06).Treasury Chancellor Gordon Brown of Britain, the
meeting's host, said Group of Seven ministers had achieved a breakthrough
by agreeing not only to work toward wiping clean the debts owed to their
nations by the 27 poorest countries -- most them in Africa -- but also to
eliminate debts these countries owe to multilateral institutions such as
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But while US officials
insisted they supported debt relief and increased aid in principle, they
made clear they could not support the specific mechanisms Brown and other
European leaders had proposed. The New York Times reports that Brown is
pressing the IMF to revalue its gold reserves to create funds for the
alleviation of poverty. France has proposed a series of international
taxes. The Bush administration ''is not convinced that gold sales are a
necessary way,'' John B. Taylor, the United States Treasury under
secretary, said. Rather, Taylor said, the United States is promoting its
own plan to ease poverty through a separate system that has allocated --
but not yet disbursed -- some $2.5 billion for assistance to 17 countries.
He also said American law would not permit the Bush administration to take
part in Britain's proposed International Finance Facility. In their
communiqué, the Group of 7 ministers said they would work toward resolving
differences at meetings before the July meeting. But it seemed that, while
the United States was prepared to accept different ways of financing
poverty relief, it wanted agreement on the way debt should be forgiven. The
Associated Press (02/06) adds the G7 ministers said that if a nation is
approved for relief, their governments would be willing to take on up to
100 percent of the country's debt owed to international bodies such as the
World Bank and African Development Bank, meeting interest repayments and
paying off the principle. "We are agreed on a case-by-case basis
analysis of HIPC (heavily indebted poor countries) based on our willingness
to provide as much as 100 percent multilateral debt relief," the
ministers said in a statement. To qualify, developing countries must have
"sound, accountable and transparent institutions." Nations in
sub-Saharan Africa alone owe some $68 billion to international bodies such as
the World Bank, the African Development Bank and IMF. The Financial Times
(02/07) explains that the stress on a "case-by-case" basis was
designed to meet German concerns about the dangers of blanket debt relief -
for all debtors. The phrase "as much as" was inserted because
some G7 members, including Japan, oppose 100 percent debt relief - of all
debt. Domenico Siniscalco, the Italian finance minister, described how the
awkward compromise was reached: "On the wording of the debt relief we
started with '100 per cent', which then became 'up to 100 percent' and
ended with 'as much as 100 percent'." Even among countries that
support 100 percent relief, large differences remain. The US favors writing
off the stock of multilateral debt, most of which is owed to the World
Bank. Canada, the UK and other European countries focus on reducing the
burden of debt service paid to international institutions. Reuters (02/06)
further reports that Britain said on Sunday it would provide immediate debt
relief for 19 of the world's poorest countries in a move that will cost $50
million this year. On his recent visit to Africa, Brown signed agreements
with Tanzania and Mozambique to take over 10 percent of their debt to the
World Bank and African Development Bank, and said that the same offer was
potentially available to the world's 70 poorest countries provided they met
the conditions for relief. Similar agreements have now been reached with 17
more poor countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali,
Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Uganda, Bolivia, Guyana, Nicaragua,
Armenia, Mongolia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. In related news, The Wall Street
Journal (02/07) notes that the G7 also agreed to suspend until the end of
the year collecting loan payments from countries affected by the Indian
Ocean tsunami, extending an earlier, short-term debt moratorium.
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 02/07/2005
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Japan Seeks Transparency in WTO
Economies' Trade Laws
(Kyodo) -- Japan has proposed at a meeting
of the World Trade Organization this week that member economies should
ensure transparency in their trade laws by releasing provisions and
procedures via government reports and the Internet, Japanese officials said
Wednesday. At the meeting of the WTO trade facilitation negotiation group
held Monday and Wednesday in Geneva, Japan made the proposal with economies
such as Mongolia and Taiwan, the officials said. The proposal is aimed at
rectifying the current situation in developing countries, in which trade
law operations vary depending on law enforcement officials and changing
regulations, they said. WTO economies decided to launch trade
liberalization talks under the Doha Round when they reached a framework
agreement on Aug. 1 last year. The meeting this week was the third of its
kind following talks held last November and December. The next meeting is
scheduled for late March. The Doha Round, launched in November 2001, has
stalled as developed and developing countries remain at odds over key
issues ranging from tariff cuts to farm subsidies. Last August, the WTO
extended the deadline for the 148 member economies to wrap up the Doha
Round by at least one year from the originally set date of Jan. 1 this year
following the collapse of a WTO ministerial conference in September 2003 in
Mexico.
From http://asia.news.yahoo.com/ 02/10/2005
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Trading Nations Play for
"Endgame" in December in Hong Kong
World Trade Organization member states
said Monday they were aiming to come up with an "endgame
document" by the end of the year as they stepped up the pace of
troubled global trade talks, reports Agence France Presse. Negotiators said
after a meeting of the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) that there
was a widespread desire to agree on the outlines of a new round of
liberalization in agriculture and industrial goods at a ministerial
conference in Hong Kong in December. The news agency writes that the most
pessimistic assessment came from negotiations on opening up trade in
services, which were felt to be progressing too slowly in both the number
of offers of liberalization on the table and their quality, a trade source
said. However, diplomats stressed there was a "different rhythm"
for each of the sectors. Other milestones on the road to Hong Kong include
another informal mini-ministerial in Kenya next month and a meeting of the
G20 group of developing countries later in March. Reuters writes that WTO
chief Supachai Panitchpakdi said Monday that in Hong Kong members must
agree on specific targets for slashing subsidies and opening up markets for
agriculture and industrial goods. Agreement on how these should then be
applied to individual member states would take a further year, so without
the numbers in Hong Kong, the late 2006 date could also slip. On
agriculture, officials told the TNC that progress had been made, although
they said technical issues such as transforming monetary tariffs into
percentages, something which had to be done before a formula for lowering
import duties could be fixed, risked slowing talks. The chief mediator also
said talks on opening up services' markets, including energy and banking,
were still lagging, with more than 40 countries still to offer any kind of
liberalization. Kyodo further adds that the WTO is considering compiling a
document in July charting the course for comprehensive negotiations, which will
also cover trade in services and trade facilitation, in addition to farm
and non-farm trade. In related news, Reuters reports that a top World Bank
economist said on Tuesday that a recent deal reviving free-trade talks
would yield only a fraction of the potential gains that would flow from
removing all barriers to global commerce. While a framework pact was agreed
on in Geneva on Aug. 1 to put the Doha round back on track, World Bank
analysis suggests the deal would generate global welfare gains of $94 billion
a year by 2015, just a third of the $278 billion that would spring from
completely freeing up merchandise trade. "And that's actually a
generous interpretation of the framework agreement. If you take a
lower-bound estimate instead of a higher-bound estimate of what was in
there, it's basically zero," Kym Anderson, lead economist in the World
Bank's International Trade Unit, told the news agency. According to the
World Bank's analysis, 62 percent of the potential gains from free trade
would come from agriculture, 14 percent from textiles and 24 percent from
other goods. One of the features of the Geneva framework is that rich
countries would be allowed to declare 2 percent of their products as
"sensitive", for instance rice in the case of Japan, and exclude
them from any agreed tariff cuts. Yet Anderson said it is precisely these
heavily protected categories that offer the greatest potential welfare
gains. If developing countries win a matching concession and earmark 4
percent of their farm products for "special and differentiated
treatment" in WTO jargon, the global gains from farm liberalization
would shrink to just $16 billion and developing countries would end up net
losers, according to the World Bank. "Most of the potential gains come
from these sensitive products," he said. But Anderson said the lesson
of past trade negotiations was clear: "If developing countries don't
give very much they won't get very much in return," he said.
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 02/15/2005
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Historic Kyoto Treaty Inked Without
the World's Biggest Polluter the US
KYOTO, Japan (AFP) - The Kyoto Protocol,
the landmark treaty requiring cuts in gas emissions which cause global
warming, is now in effect with the support of 141 nations but not of the
world's biggest polluter the United States. The 34 industrialized countries
which have ratified the treaty are legally bound to slash output of
greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent before 2012, with targets set for each
nation based on their 1990 levels. The treaty was reached in this ancient
Japanese capital in 1997 amid fear that the rise in global temperatures
could eventually lead to droughts and the extinction of some species.
"We sincerely welcome that the framework in which the world will cooperate
to stop global warming has finally come into effect," Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi said. The United States pulled out of Kyoto in
2001 in one of President George W. Bush's first acts in office, saying it
would hurt the US economy. The United States and Australia, the only other
major industrial country to reject the treaty, account together for 30
percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush administration
points out that developing countries such as China and India have no obligations
under Kyoto, meaning that their growing economies would not face the same
economic burden as the United States. China, with growth close to double
digits, is by some forecasts expected to exceed the United States as the
world's top polluter by 2020. Developing countries will be asked to make
commitments in the next phase of Kyoto negotiations to begin later this
year. More than 300 environmental activists marched through Kyoto under
persistent rain to celebrate the start of the pact despite years of doubt,
with some dressed as monkeys or penguins or wearing mock tiger ears to
highlight global warming's impact on animals. "Skiing and snowboarding
in danger!" read one banner held up by demonstrators who marched to
the sound of African drums. "Bush should listen to Earth, not to his
businesspeople," said Deborah Mantle, a 36-year-old Briton who teaches
English in Kyoto. The United States and Australia were on the defensive
before Kyoto took effect, insisting that they rejected the treaty for
legitimate reasons and were committed to reducing pollution. "Until
such times as the major polluters of the world, including the United States
and China, are made part of the Kyoto regime it is next to useless and
indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up for the Kyoto
Protocol," Prime Minister John Howard told parliament. White House
press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration has "made
an unprecedented commitment to reduce the growth of greenhouse gas
emissions in a way that continues to grow our economy. "There's a lot
that we are still learning about the science of climate change, but this
administration is working to advance that science and to learn more about
climate change itself and its effect on the world," he said. But the
Bush administration's view on global warming is disputed by most of the
scientific community which believes pollution can in time shrink polar ice
gaps and melt alpine glaciers. The world's average temperature rose by 0.6
C (1.08 F) from 1900-1990 alone, and could increase by another 5.8 C (10.4
F) by 2100, depending on how much carbon dioxide is in the air, according
to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The golden toad
(bufo periglenes), a colorful amphibian which made its home in Costa Rica,
is believed to be the first species to have gone extinct because of
greenhouse gases. The World Wildlife Fund says polar bears could be wiped
out in just over 20 years due to global warming. To highlight the point,
five Japanese activists dressed as the bears held a rally Wednesday in
central Tokyo. But even for countries that have signed on to Kyoto, meeting
the goals could be difficult. Failure would mean a country would have even
tougher pollution cut requirements at a later date. Koizumi said "it
is not easy" to meet the Kyoto guidelines in Japan, where a trade
ministry survey has found that 11 out of 30 industry sectors could fail to
meet self-imposed targets. "The government will support actions of
individual citizens aimed at stopping global warming," Koizumi said.
From http://au.news.yahoo.com/ 02/16/2005
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CHINA: Anti-secession Law to Boost
Cross-Straits Ties
China's Anti-secession Law, of which the
legislation procedures has been recently set in motion, will uphold the
basic policy of "peaceful reunification and one country, two
systems" and the eight-point proposal made by former Chinese President
Jiang Zemin on the Taiwan question. The remarks were made by Jia Qinglin,
chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and member of the Standing Committee of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
(CPC), at a meeting held Friday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of
Comrade Jiang Zemin's speech entitled "Continuing to endeavor for the
accomplishment of the grand cause of reunification of the motherland"
made on January 30, 1995. The Anti-secession Law "will put in a
codified form the policies of our Party and Government over the past 20
years and more for a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question, and embody
China's consistent position of utmost efforts and maximum sincerity for a
peaceful reunification," Jia said. The Law will define the principles
and guidelines on the settlement of the Taiwan question, such as measures
to encourage and facilitate personnel, economic and cultural exchanges,
including direct trade, mail, and air and shipping services, while
protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the Taiwan compatriots,
and such as steps to facilitate cross-Straits consultation and
negotiations, including on the basis of the one China principle, any subject
can be put on table, according to Jia. In the meantime, the Anti-secession
Law will demonstrate the common will of the entire Chinese people to
maintain China's sovereignty and territorial integrity by resisting
attempted secession of Taiwan from China under any name and by any means,
Jia added. The Law is designed to promote cross-Straits relations and the
prospect of a peaceful reunification, to safeguard China's sovereignty and
territorial integrity, to oppose and check Taiwan's secession from China,
to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, and to advance the
fundamental interests of the Chinese nation on the whole, Jia noted.
From Xinhua News Agency 01/29/2005
TOP↑
Gov't Slams Taiwan 'Anti-annexation
Law'
A spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs
Office of the State Council said on Wednesday that the
"anti-annexation law" that some in Taiwan have promoted recently
is a move for independence and is resolutely opposed by all Chinese people.
Li Weiyi reaffirmed at a regular press conference that there is only one
China, and both the mainland and Taiwan belong to it. Its sovereignty and
territorial integrity cannot be altered, he underscored. The Anti-secession
Law that China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is
enacting, aims to fight and curb any secessionist attempts in Taiwan, Li
said. He went on to say "we will adhere to the basic principles of
'peaceful reunification' and 'one country, two systems,' and continue to
pursue peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and effort."
"But we will never tolerate pro-independence activities and will never
allow anyone to separate Taiwan from China by any means," the
spokesperson said. Li also expressed regret that Taiwan authorities have
forbidden Taiwan students studying on the Chinese mainland to take charter
flights back home during the Spring Festival. He said the mainland hopes
that Taiwan students studying on the mainland will be able to travel across
the Straits during the holiday. "Since we are trying to provide easy
access for Taiwan compatriots, why not do it better?" Li said.
"Besides, each side will have six airlines operating 24 non-stop
round-trip flights, which are enough for the task." Li said that
Taiwan students studying on the mainland, who are not economically
independent, deserve more care and protection. "We hope the Taiwan
side will carefully consider the issue." The major reason for the
Taiwan authorities' decision was that students attending university on the
mainland are studying without their approval. Chinese mainland and Taiwan
civil aviation circles reached a consensus on January 15 about non-stop
charter flights for Taiwan business people during the Spring Festival, or
Chinese Lunar New Year. Li said China's airlines have set up special
working offices in Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai, the three mainland
destinations involved. According to Li, the successful arrangement for
charter flights during the coming festival does not mean the resumption of
talks across the Taiwan Straits. He said that the arrangement was only a
practical one to meet the needs of Taiwan business people who work on the
Chinese mainland and want to spend the holiday at home. There was no
ready-made model to follow during future festivals, he added. "We will
consider some practical arrangements in line with the interests of the
people across the Taiwan Straits," Li said. It depended on the demand
from Taiwan compatriots whether similar charter flights would be launched
over future festivals or whether the mainland would promote charter freight
flights across the Straits, he said. In 2003, Taiwanese civil aviation
airplanes were allowed to fly to the mainland for the first time since
1949. However, due to restrictions from the Taiwan authorities, the flights
had to make stopovers in Hong Kong or Macao on their way to Shanghai or
returning trips, and no airlines from the mainland were involved. Li said
the situation of cross-Straits relations remained serious, though
non-governmental exchanges had continued to develop last year. According to
Li, last year, the Taiwan authorities further intensified their
pro-independence activities. "The Taiwan authorities twisted the will
of the Taiwan people, incited hostile sentiments among them to the
mainland, did their utmost to challenge the fact that the mainland and
Taiwan belong to one China, and continued pro-independence activities by
pushing ahead with so-called 'constitutional reform' that had brought the
cross-Straits relationship to a dangerous edge," Li said. Provocative
moves by the Taiwan authorities posed a severe threat to peace and
stability across the Straits and in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole,
aroused resolute opposition among the 1.3 billion Chinese people and Taiwan
compatriots, and were strongly blamed by an increasing number of countries
all over the world, said the spokesperson. Chen Shui-bian formulated a new
term of "constitutional reform" to replace the former term of
"establishing a new Taiwan constitution" and promised that it
would not touch upon the issues of territory, sovereignty and reunification
after he started his second tenure last May. But in fact he had been
attempting to legitimatize independence through it. Since last September,
particularly during the election, Chen announced a series of
pro-independence policies, covering almost all major aspects of changing
Taiwan's status. He had been making preparations for independence in a
planned way and through his attempt to revise the "law on
referendum" and promote "rectification" of Taiwan's name and
"desinification" in political, cultural and other areas. Li
stressed that currently it is the urgent task for compatriots on both sides
of the Taiwan Straits to stop pro-independence activities and safeguard
peace and stability. He said the mainland will continue to promote economic
and cultural exchanges across the Straits and push forward the three
"direct links" so as to realize the resumption of cross-Straits
dialogue and negotiation on the basis of the one-China principle at an early
date. Last year, he said, the mainland received 3.686 million visitors from
Taiwan, a year-on-year increase of 34.9 percent; and mainland residents
paid 145,000 visits to Taiwan, up 14.2 percent. Customs statistics also
showed that in 2004 indirect trade volume across the Taiwan Straits for the
first time exceeded US$70 billion, up 34.2 percent on 2003, while
contractual investment in the mainland by Taiwan business people totaled
US$9.306 billion, up 8.74 percent, Li said.
From Xinhua News Agency 01/27/2005
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Public Emergency, Environmental
Programs Approved
The State Council passed a national
program in principle for coping with public emergencies at an executive
meeting held in Beijing on Wednesday. The meeting, chaired by Premier Wen
Jiabao, also gave in principle approval to a plan for ecological protection
and construction in the Sanjiangyuan nature reserve in the northwestern
province of Qinghai. The reserve is the source area of three major rivers:
the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang. On the public emergencies program, one
meeting participant said, "It is an important guideline for regional
governments and various departments to effectively handle public
emergencies, safeguard the life and property of the people and reduce
disaster-triggered losses. "The meeting noted that the program has to
be tested and improved, and there is still a lot of work to do in
formulating plans for grassroots units, forming a rapid-response rescue
mechanism, improving management and skills of rescue operations and launching
a disaster-relief awareness campaign. According to the meeting, the plan
for Sanjiangyuan aims to protect and rejuvenate its ecology, promote
environmentally sound development and improve the lives of local citizens.
The meeting called the reserve, which covers 316,000 square kilometers of
area, China's most important and influential environmental zone. It called
the implementation of the protection and construction plan of
"strategic importance to boosting sustainable development of the whole
country".
From Xinhua News Agency 01/27/2005
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State Aims to Strengthen
Agricultural Capacity
Yesterday, the Communist Party of China
(CPC) Central Committee and State Council jointly published a set of
general aims to strengthen overall agricultural production capacity this
year. The intention is to improve infrastructure and accelerate progress in
science and technology, and will require coordinated development between
urban and rural areas. It will also strive for stable food growth and
sustained increases in farmers' incomes. The nine strands listed in the
document were: To further motivate farmers by stabilizing and enhancing
policies to prop up agricultural development; To resolutely implement rigid
practices to protect farmland and raise the quality of its use; To
strengthen water conservation and ecological construction whilst increasing
capacity; To accelerate innovation in science and technology; To speed up
construction of rural infrastructure and establish a better environment for
development; To continue to adapt economic structures and increase
competitive power; To reform and improve rural investment and financing
systems; To improve the competency of rural laborers and promote the
all-round development of farmers and rural society; and To reinforce and
improve the leadership of the CPC over rural work.
From China Daily 01/31/2005
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Antitrust Law in Legislative
Pipeline
Creating an antitrust code is on the
agenda of the law-making Standing Committee of the 10th National People's
Congress, whose tenure ends in 2008.A draft of the code has been completed
by the Ministry of Commerce and is currently being reviewed by the State
Council's Legal Affairs Office. The draft will eventually be sent to
lawmakers to read. The draft law contains articles regulating monopoly
agreements, abuse of dominant market status and large-scale consolidations.
It defines "monopoly" as a single operator controlling half or
more of an industry's overall market share, or two operators colluding to
hold two-thirds, or three holding three quarters. "Being a monopoly is
not an offence in itself. The trouble comes only when monopolies wield
their dominant status to curb competition," said Huang Yong, an
anti-monopoly consultant of the Ministry of Commerce, adding that the law
does not specifically target multinationals as some quarters of the media
have hyped. "When drawing up laws, legislators need to study
professional areas such as IPR, and strike the right balance between
protecting patents and restricting abuse." The World Trade Organization's
benchmark Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS) allows member countries to take measures to restrict IPR
abuses or practise which curb international transfer of technology,
provided that these measures are consistent with TRIPS. Vice-Minister of
Commerce Yu Guangzhou said late last month he was hopeful the antitrust law
can be passed this year.
From China Daily 02/02/2005
TOP↑
China to Make Its First State
Informatization Strategy
A senior Chinese official said Tuesday
that China will make its first state information-oriented strategy this
year. The strategy would be published before the end of the year, said Zhao
Xiaofan with the State Council Informatization Office. Zhao said his office
would initiate the drafting of a regulation on publicizing government
information. "The regulation would be delivered to the State Council
for deliberation and is likely to be issued within the year," said
Zhao. In 2005, the Informatization Office will also work on legislation to
create a good environment for informatization, including creating laws
dealing with information safety and the protection of minors online. China
will continue to promote online government forums and information,
e-commerce and development of information resources, Zhao said.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/02/2005
TOP↑
All 30 Unapproved Projects Suspended
On Wednesday, the State Environmental
Protection Administration (SEPA) issued a statement by Vice Minister Pan
Yue saying that all 30 of the environmentally unapproved projects it had
publicized on January 18 have now ceased construction. The projects,
involving billions of US dollars in 13 provinces and municipalities, were
accused of starting work before their environmental impact assessment
reports were approved by authorities, contravening laws in place since
September 2003. On January 24, the SEPA announced that work on 22 had frozen,
but that eight had still not complied. These included the biggest project
on the administration's original list: the Xiluodu Hydropower Plant, which
is on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and involves investment of
over 44 billion yuan (US$5.3 billion).It was one of three hydropower plants
run by the China Three Gorges Project Corporation that did not respond to
the environmental regulator's initial call to halt operations. Pan said
that the eight are now awaiting approval of their assessment documents. Shu
Jianmin, director of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences'
environmental impact assessment center, said the move showed a
strengthening in law enforcement. It is not that the companies do not have
an awareness of environmental protection, Shu said, but a question of
compliance. Liao Xiaoyi, president of the non-governmental organization
(NGO) Global Village of Beijing, said she was "delighted" at
hearing the news. "The storm has taken effect at last," she said,
adding that she had doubted whether all 30 projects could be stopped
because they are large ventures. Liao said that public participation in
environmental impact assessment should be reinforced, too. Last Thursday,
the SEPA also blacklisted 46 coal-fired power plants, ordering them to
install desulfurization equipment as previously agreed and warning legal
action should they fail to do so. China's air and water quality remains
amongst the worst in the world. The crackdown has been initiated as central
government tries to rein in growth and curb investment, especially in the
power sector, for sustainable economic growth. The SEPA and National
Development and Reform Commission have also issued a joint notice on
environmental protection during the building of hydropower plants. It was welcomed
as a big step forward by Wang Yongchen, founder of the Beijing-based NGO
Green Earth Volunteers, who stressed the importance of written policies
being put into practice. She said it was good to see development and reform
authorities recognizing that economic development needs to be balanced with
environmental concerns for sustainability.
From China Daily 02/03/2005
TOP↑
China Plans for Great Wall
Preservation
A project to enhance the study of China's
Great Wall in Inner Mongolia has begun. The Great Wall Culture Research
Center of Inner Mongolia will organize an international forum on the
preservation of the wall, reported Xinhua, China's main government-run news
agency Saturday. "The Great Wall in Inner Mongolia boasts the longest
history and length in the whole country, and spans the most dynasties, from
Spring and Autumn Period, over 2,000 years ago, to the last two feudal
dynasties of the Ming and the Qing," said Li Yongsheng, director of
the Great Wall Culture Research Center of Inner Mongolia. "We will
collect and compile the documents and historical records about the Wall,
moreover, we will complete a map of the structure which will clearly mark
the appropriate location of its various parts. A museum, magazine and website
are also in our plan." Most preservation tasks for the Great Wall are
currently carried out by non governmental organizations such as the
research center, according to Li.
From http://www.wpherald.com/ 02/05/2005
TOP↑
Management Buyout Rules to Be
Unveiled
Li Rongrong, director of the State-owned
Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said the
regulation on management buyouts (MBOs) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
is currently being consulted on and will be published soon. Speaking on a
CCTV program on February 2, he reiterated his opposition to MBOs, saying
that it was currently inappropriate to adopt them as a general approach.
"Many state assets are priced and bought by the same executives,"
he pointed out. The issue has been under the spotlight since Larry Lang, a
professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, published reports saying
that many executives of large SOEs encroached on state assets and that MBOs
were bad for China's reforms. The SASAC later ordered for all MBOs to stop
whilst they were debated. Senior executives of SOEs directly supervised by
the SASAC attended a meeting on December 14, which agreed that MBOs should
be regulated. Small and medium-sized SOEs would be able to progress with
MBOs, on condition that they guarantee capital providers, equity and
responsibility, whilst large SOEs would not be allowed to go ahead with
them. According to Li, the draft regulation will encourage and standardize
the state equity trade. The SASAC has appointed three equity exchanges in
Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin as centers for state assets trading. The
primary measure to prevent state assets loss is to ascertain the
responsibilities of executives, he said. In November, the commission signed
operation contracts with senior executives of 187 SOEs. They regulate four
areas of achievement appraisal, including profit and net return of assets.
Those who don't fulfill their targets will be punished by being sacked or
losing wages. Li said the most urgent things for 2005 are to accelerate
establishment of boards of directors in all state-invested companies, to
continue checking and auditing state assets, and to adjust the structure of
SOEs. He reaffirmed that SOEs will be sold or merged if they don't make it
into the top three of their respective sectors. The SASAC, a special branch
of the State Council, was established in March 2003 to oversee state
assets. It now directly controls 187 central government-invested companies
and 9.2 trillion yuan (US$1.11 trillion) in state assets. (by Tang Fuchun)
From China.org.cn 02/07/2005
TOP↑
China Pledges Severer Punishments
for Corrupt Party Officials This Year
China pledged to impose more severe punishments on corrupt
officials while improving the system to crack down graft, a senior official
said. Wu Guanzheng, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made the comments in a
report to the commission's Fifth Plenary Session on Jan. 10. The report was
published on Tuesday. Given being found taking or giving bribes in form of
cash, securities or other forms of payments, party cadres will be removed
from the posts before being further punished, Wu, also a member of the Standing
Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said in the
report. Officials who use public resources for the private businesses of
their spouses or children should resign, or be forced to resign. They will
receive disciplinary penalties afterwards, he said in the report.
Resignation also applies to officials who are involved in gambling, with
more severe punishments imposed on those who gamble in overseas casinos,
according to the report. Wu said the 2005 anti-graft campaign will focus on
disciplining officials who abuse their power, in particular those who
violates rules on personnel and legal matters, in handling administrative
licenses, or in matters concerning construction, finance, land management
and government procurement. In his report, Wu emphasized the importance of
improving the personnel system, and further enhancing supervision on fund
management, construction projects bidding and administrative licensing
work.
From http://english.people.com.cn/ 02/16/2005
TOP↑
New Regulations Issued on Press
Cards
China's new media regulations, concerning
the press cards, will go into effect on March 1, the General Administration
of Press and Publication, the country's press watchdog, said in Beijing
Wednesday. Nearly 150,000 journalists throughout the country have so far
received the newly designed press cards. According to the relevant
stipulations, Chinese reporters should change their press cards every five
years. The work for current press card change began in November 2003. By
January 2005,the General Administration of Press and Publication had issued
146,541 new press cards. Taking advantage of the reissuing of the cards,
the government launched a series of reforms on the making, issuance,
checking and management of press cards. The old cards were marked according
to the type of media. Reporters from newspapers, magazines, news agencies,
broadcasting stations and TV stations used to carry different style press
cards. The practice made it difficult to distinguish phony cards and made
it easy to impersonate a reporter, said an official with the
administration. The new cards have nine new counterfeit-proof technologies.
The cards are all registered in the administration's official website,
press.gapp.gov.cn, allowing interviewees to check the authenticity of the
cards. The new regulations also order reporters to carry and show press
cards on their own initiative in interviews. The regulations also stipulate
that government officials should not hold concurrent posts in local offices
of newspapers. The law also forbids newspaper offices from engaging in
commercial activities. The government used the issuing of the new cards to
create update statistics about journalists working in China. Of the 150,000
journalists in China, more than 70,000 are writers for newspapers and
magazines. More than 60,000 are from broadcasting and TV stations and
others represent news agencies. Statistics from the General Administration
of Press and Publication show that 98 percent of Chinese journalists have
received higher education; 64 percent joined the occupation after
undergraduate work and 13 percent earned master's degrees. According to the
statistics, most of the reporters are young and middle-aged, with those
aged between 20 and 30 accounting for 29 percent, those 30 to 40 making up
27 percent and reporters aged40 to 50 accounting for 24 percent. Women have
hold up the "half sky" of the press, as they account for 41
percent of total reporters. With 1,300 journalists working for magazines,
700 are women.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/17/2005
TOP↑
Regulation of Law Firms to Tighten
China has 11,000 law firms throughout the country, 70
percent of which are owned by lawyers, according to the Ministry of
Justice. In the past, all Chinese law firms were run by the government,
under central, provincial or local justice departments. In recent years,
however, the government reformed the sector to bring the legal profession
in line with international practice. More than 100 overseas law firms have
been permitted to open offices in cities including Beijing, Shanghai and
Guangzhou. Under the current law, a law firm must be operated by at least
three lawyers who have practiced for five years or longer. According to the
ministry, some of the new domestic firms are not well managed and are not
operating in accordance with the law, with members working as separate
individuals rather than as a team. The ministry urged lawyers to abide by
the law and professional ethics. The government will work in the year ahead
to regulate the operation of law firms and bring the activities of lawyers
under control.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/17/2005
TOP↑
Gov't Sets 2005 Investment Plan
The National Development and Reform Commission announced
Thursday the central government's investment plan in 2005. Investments will
flow to large-scale infrastructure projects and to the construction of
public facilities. In addition, the government will continue to support the
rejuvenation of central and western regions as well as the traditional
industrial rust belt in the northeast, and the development of rural areas.
The commission's Investment Department director, Yang Qingwei, said that in
2005, the government would issue fewer long-term treasury bonds. Thirteen
billion bonds were issued last year. He said this is in line with current
efforts to create a stable monetary policy, but stressed investment in key
areas will not be affected. Yang said, "Firstly we will continue
investment in ongoing projects, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the
water diversion project from south to north; secondly we will continue to
invest in agricultural sector. In addition, we will intensify our efforts
to save resources so as to maintain the sustainable development of the
economy." However, rises in producer price and in investment cost
remain as major problems. The director said the country will continue to
keep a close eye on overheated sectors, such as iron and steel makers and
cement works. He also said the government is alert to the possibility that
investment in fixed assets may rebound.
From CCTV.com 02/19/2005
TOP↑
JAPAN: Comments on New Immigration Rules Sought
The Justice Ministry has made an outline
of its new basic immigration control plan and will solicit comments from
the public before finalizing it around spring, ministry officials said
Tuesday. The outline includes a proposal on expanding the hiring of foreign
workers in Japan in more fields to deal with the projected decline in
population. The outline of the basic immigration control plan, the nation's
third, essentially follows the recommendations made by a ministry advisory
panel in December. The proposal on hiring more foreign workers focuses on
areas currently not recognized as specialized or technical fields. It is
expected there will be a need for more foreign workers in these areas to
counter the negative economic impact of Japan's projected population
decline, while taking the views of the public into account. The document
also recommends exploring the idea of expanding the time limit on visas
issued to foreign specialists, which is currently set at a maximum of three
years, and relaxing conditions for granting permanent residency status to
such workers to encourage more talented people to come work in Japan. Under
the current immigration system, the justice minister has the discretion to
grant foreign nationals who are illegally living in Japan special permits
to stay in the country. But the outline calls for more transparency in
these decisions due to criticism that the standards for granting such
permits are unclear. In a report submitted to the minister on Dec. 21, the
advisory panel proposed examining the idea of accepting workers in such
industries as agriculture and forestry, which are expected to suffer from a
labor shortage. The panel did not recommend accepting unskilled workers,
but noted there may be more sectors that can accept foreign workers than
the ones now recognized as specialist or technical fields. The public can
give its views on the outline to the ministry until March 1 via fax or
other methods, the officials said. The outline will be put on the Internet
on Wednesday at the ministry's official Web site -- www.moj.go.jp -- and
will also be available at the ministry.
From The Japan Times 02/02/2005
TOP↑
State to Resubmit Bill Criticized
for Restricting Media
The government and the ruling coalition
plan to resubmit to the current Diet session a bill to protect human rights
after revising it in response to criticism that it restricts the media,
coalition sources said Wednesday. The bill was first submitted to the Diet
in 2002 but was scrapped in 2003.Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda
told a news conference Wednesday that the government "is still
considering" whether to submit the revised bill to the current Diet
session. The dominant Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition ally, New
Komeito, plan to decide on the details of alterations to the bill at a
meeting on Thursday, the sources said. The bill is intended to protect
human rights and provide relief to victims, including the establishment of
a human rights committee as an auxiliary entity of the Justice Ministry.
The opposition camp had strongly criticized the ruling coalition for
failing to take measures to ensure the independence of the proposed entity.
From The Japan Times 02/03/2005
TOP↑
Article 9 Changes Could Threaten
Regional Security: NGOs
Japan should not revise the war-renouncing
provision of Article 9 in its Constitution, East Asian nongovernmental
organizations told a news conference in Tokyo on Friday. The NGOs --
representing Japan, South Korea, mainland China, Mongolia, Hong Kong,
Taiwan and Russia -- said that by changing Article 9, Japan would open the
door to militarization. The provision is fundamental in preventing armed
conflict in the region. There has been increasing support among lawmakers
to change the Constitution, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the
opposition Democratic Party of Japan are presently drafting revisions to
Article 9.Lee Jae Young, a member of the South Korean NGO Korea Anabaptist
Center, said that the people of North and South Korea are concerned about
any attempt to amend Article 9 due to Japan's past colonization of the
Korean Peninsula. Changes would be seen as a real threat by Japan's
neighbors, according to Lee. The news conference was held by East Asian
citizens' groups that have joined an international initiative of NGOs that
will submit recommendations to the United Nations on conflict prevention.
The NGOs' proposals for the U.N. -- also released Friday -- say Article 9
has contained militarism in Japan and is key to maintaining peace in the
region. "We all agree that Article 9 is not just a idealistic concept
but an effective mechanism that prevents conflict in the region,"
according to Tatsuya Yoshioka, director of Japan-based Peace Boat. (by
Eriko Arita)
From The Japan Times 02/05/2005
TOP↑
Bill To Tighten Juvenile Law
TOKYO - A Justice Ministry advisory panel
proposed Wednesday to eliminate the 14-year-old lower limit for juvenile
offenders to be detained at reformatories by revising the Juvenile Law. The
proposal of the Legislative Council, submitted to Justice Minister Chieko
Nono, included crime law revision to punish those involved in human
trafficking.
From Kyodo News 02/10/2005
TOP↑
Adult Entertainment Law to Be
Revised to Fight Human Trafficking
TOKYO - The National Police Agency has
drafted an amendment to the adult entertainment business law to help
prevent human trafficking, agency officials said Thursday. The proposed
amendment includes a provision requiring entertainment business operators
to confirm that foreign workers have work authorization documents, the
officials said. Law enforcement authorities could file criminal charges
against employers of such foreign workers under the immigration control and
refugee law but they could get away by saying they did not know the workers
were not legally authorized to work. Under the revised adult entertainment
business law, entertainment service operators will be punished if they fail
to ensure that foreign workers have work permits, the officials said.
From Kyodo News 02/04/2005
TOP↑
Japan's Cabinet Approves
Interception of Missiles Without Prior Permission
TOKYO (AFX) - Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's government has approved legislation that would allow the defense
chief to order the interception of an incoming missile without first
seeking permission from the cabinet or informing parliament, an official
said. The cabinet approved the bill with an amendment requiring the prime
minister to inform parliament after the launch of interceptor missiles, the
official said. The bill was drafted amid worry that Japan, which is
officially pacifist, would waste time in administrative procedures before
reacting to an attack, as a missile fired from North Korea would reach the
country in 10 minutes. North Korea provoked an international outcry in 1998
by firing a missile over Japan, in what Pyongyang said was a satellite
launch. 'The legislation will be sent to the parliament for their
deliberation,' said a spokesman for the Japan Defense Agency.
From http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/ 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Japan's Cabinet OKs Missile Defense
Bill
TOKYO - Japan's defense chief could order
the military to shoot down incoming missiles under legislation endorsed by
the Cabinet on Tuesday, less than a week after North Korea (news - web
sites) claimed that it has built nuclear weapons. The bill is part of
sweeping changes to Japan's defense policy launched by Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi long before the North Korean announcement. Critics say
the reforms are dismantling the country's post-World War II policy of
pacifism. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda stressed that the Defense
Agency head could only give the order to launch missiles if the nation were
under attack. That authority normally rests with Parliament. "Lately,
there are more countries equipped with missiles. We need to deal with the
situation immediately if a missile were to be launched at Japan,"
Hosoda said at a news conference. Hosoda said Japan probably won't have a
fully functioning missile-defense system, which is being jointly developed
with the United States, for another few years. He said the failure of a
U.S. missile defense test at an island base in the Pacific Ocean on Monday
wouldn't affect Tokyo's plans because the U.S.-Japan missile shield works
on different technology. Japan is in the midst of a major defense review
prompted by concerns about possible terrorist attacks and hostilities with
neighboring North Korea. In December, Japan adopted new defense guidelines
that ease its nearly three-decades-old ban on arms exports to allow it to
develop a missile defense program with its closest ally, the United States.
North Korea became one of Tokyo's biggest security worries after it
test-fired a long-range ballistic missile over Japan in 1998, prompting
Tokyo to begin researching missile defense. On Thursday, the secretive
communist nation announced that it has built nuclear weapons and was
staying away from international disarmament talks - raising the stakes of a
two-year-old international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions.
Following Tuesday's Cabinet approval, the bill is expected to go to
Parliament later this week, Koizumi spokesman Yu Kameoka said. Under the
legislation, the Defense Agency, Cabinet and top security officials would
compile a plan of action to protect the nation from a missile attack. The
prime minister would be required to notify Parliament that Japan's military
had been ordered to defend against incoming missiles. Currently, the prime
minister must get permission from the Cabinet before activating the
military, even in emergencies. Parliament then must give its approval for
the mobilization after the fact. Japan's postwar pacifist constitution
renounces war and the use of military force in settling international
disputes. The country's military possesses short-range missiles under a
defensive policy that falls within government interpretations of the
constitution. But Japan is also reportedly studying long-range
surface-to-surface missiles, giving it the ability to make a pre-emptive
strike in foreign territory. (by Chisaki Watanabe)
From http://news.yahoo.com/ 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Japan to Enact Anti-Sex Trafficking
Law
Filipina entertainers wave Japanese flags during a protest
rally outside the Japanese embassy in Manila last month, to demand that the
government intercede on their behalf following the Japanese government's
move to lessen the number of Filipino entertainers working in Japan. The
move allegedly will force more than 80,000 Filipino entertainers to be
jobless. The entertainers also protested the ``prostitutes'' tag allegedly
leveled against them by the Japan and US governments. PHOTO: EPA After
years of denying it had a problem with trafficking in humans, Japan is now
putting the finishing touches on a law that would make the practice illegal
in this country and help foreigners forced into the sex industry here. Over
the next months, the new law, along with programs to assist victims
testifying against traffickers, could begin to staunch the illegal flow of
women into one of the world's biggest destinations for foreign prostitutes.
In Japan, the foreign women who are victims of trafficking end up working
everywhere from Tokyo's sprawling red-light districts to rural areas
unfamiliar to most foreigners. They stand on street corners and sit behind
glass windows; they serve as sex performers or hostesses at clubs outside
of which they are expected to date customers. A Colombian woman, age 28,
spent four years working as a prostitute in Japan, mostly to repay
US$45,000 she owed criminals who sold and bought her, finally fled to her
embassy here late last year. Having given testimony that could help arrest
her traffickers, she now waits for authorization from immigration officials
to return to Medellin, Colombia, to be reunited with her 12-year-old son
and 11-year-old daughter. "We shouldn't be treated as criminals to be
deported out of Japan, but as victims," she said in an interview at
the Colombian Embassy. Starting in March, the government is expected to
severely restrict the number of entertainer visas granted, a category that
has allowed the entry of, and sometimes trafficking in, women with dubious
skills as entertainers. The number of such visas granted Filipinos alone,
now 80,000 annually, could be slashed to 8,000.But advocates for
trafficking victims are watching cautiously. They say the government seemed
ambivalent about addressing this problem, which they describe as a form of
modern slavery, and began taking serious steps only after US pressure. John
Miller, director of the US State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons, said the Japanese authorities were skeptical about
the problem one year ago. "We had some frank and candid discussions,
and there was a lot of tussle back and forth," Miller said. "In
the course of the succeeding months, there was a turnaround." "But
the final result is not in," he added. "We don't know whether the
proposed law will lead to real change and whether these anti-trafficking
programs will be funded. Nonetheless, the foundation seems to be in the
process of being laid." Japan, which signed the 2002 UN protocol
against human trafficking but could not ratify it without a law against it,
has long been known for its lax attitudes on the issue. The State
Department in June placed it on a watch list in a report that ranks
governments' efforts to fight human trafficking. It was the only developed
nation on the list. In Japan, some come knowing they will work in the sex
industry. But few are aware that they will incur huge debts to traffickers,
who typically confiscate their passports, restrict their movements and sometimes
sell them to Japanese criminals. Japan has always taken a business-like
attitude toward the sex industry, regarding it as necessary, and not
necessarily evil. The Japanese government organized Asian sex slaves for
its soldiers during World War II and brothels for American soldiers during
the postwar occupation. Today, the Japanese authorities take a
laissez-faire attitude. At the main crossroads in the Shibuya district
here, the equivalent of Times Square, touts openly solicit young women for
the sex trade. Japanese schoolgirls meet older men in a widespread practice
euphemistically called "compensated dating." The sex industry
remains a part of the business culture, as was shown in 2003 when an Osaka
company organized a three-day sex party with 500 prostitutes in Zhuhai, a
city in southern China. The party infuriated Chinese, especially because it
ended on Sept. 18, the anniversary of Japan's invasion of China in 1931.For
the first nine months of 2004, Japan's National Police Agency recorded 46
cases of human trafficking, and arrested 12 brokers on immigration or other
charges. But the figures hide the problem's true magnitude, since most
cases are never reported, according to diplomats, victims' advocates and
the Japanese authorities. Victims are said to number in the thousands, with
the three largest sources being Thailand, Colombia and the Philippines. The
Colombian Embassy estimates that 3,500 Colombian women work as prostitutes
in Japan. How many were brought by traffickers is unclear.
From http://www.taipeitimes.com/ 02/17/2005
TOP↑
SOUTH KOREA: Parties to Focus on
Economic Bills
The National Assembly will convene an extraordinary session
tomorrow to help revive the nation’s sagging economy and the so-called
reform bills, including one to scrap the anti-communist National Security
Law. The ruling and opposition parties have vowed in recent weeks to make
this year ``strife-free’’ and place top priority on dealing with the
economy-related bills to boost the economy, offering people a flicker of
hope that the session might not repeat the painful scenes from the
parliamentary session last December. Some of the economic bills with
relatively less controversial points are expected to pass without much
noise, thanks partly to the leadership change of the ruling Uri Party in
declaring the adoption of pragmatism. Among them are those on governing
free economic zones and establishing foreign educational institutions on
Cheju Island. A revised bill designed to exempt listed companies from the
class action lawsuit over the past two years’ wrongdoings, including
accounting irregularities, however, might trigger controversy. Some of the
ruling party lawmakers and civic group members oppose the idea, despite
repeated appeals hinting at the revision from businesses and remarks made
by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan last Friday. A law regarding the launch of
the Korea Investment Corporation proposed by the government is also less
likely to pass as the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) has
objected to its establishment. The most volatile economy-related bill,
however, is the revision of the national pension fund operation. The ruling
party submitted the revision aimed at introducing an independent company to
operate the fund. The GNP opposes it, arguing that the whole system must be
reviewed. Another issue in point will be the legislation of the
``administrative town’’ in South Chungchong Province. While the government
and ruling party already agreed on the plan to relocate government agencies
to the Yongi-Kongju area, the GNP opposes the relocation scale as well as
the timing. As for the controversial ``reform bills,’’ pundits believe the
parties still have the potential to turn the session to a half-coma state
that devoured the last session. There is a law to review modern history
after the nation’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, a revision to
reform private schools and the scrapping of the National Security Law.
Unlike some lawmakers of the ruling party and the minority Democratic Labor
Party, the 121-seat opposition GNP is strongly against dealing with the
bills during the February extraordinary session. The ruling party has 149
seats in the 297-member unicameral legislature. ``If the ruling party
brings up those bills, the situation will be aggravated once again,’’ Rep.
Kim Moo-sung, secretary general of the GNP, said. ``If they, the Uri Party,
aim to revive the economy, there is no time for pursuing these political
debates.’’ Rep. Chung Sye-kyun, new floor leader of the ruling party, has
hinted on several occasions that the party might withhold its reform drive
to tackle bills directly related to people’s livelihood. However, it
remains to be seen how many lawmakers of the governing party will agree
with him. (by Seo Dong-shin)
From The Korea Times 01/30/2005
TOP↑
Laughlin Steps Back from KAIST
Reform
Robert Laughlin, president of Korea Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (KAIST), takes a step backward from his hardline
push for KAIST reform in the face of strong opposition. The 1998 Nobel
laureate in physics, who took the helm of the nation’s top technology
university last July, made the point Tuesday at a press conference at the
Kwachon Government Complex in southern Seoul. ``Privatization of KAIST is
not on the table. We are only discussing securing money for the advancement
of KAIST as a world-class institution,’’ the 54-year-old president said.
Laughlin also denied the swirling suspicions that he plans to transform
KAIST to a general-purpose, undergraduate-focused college from the current
research-oriented graduate school.`` The issue we are discussing is moving
the business model of KAIST toward the one used by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, not changing KAIST’s structure,’’ he said. This is
a retreat from his original plan to fundamentally overhaul the state-funded
KAIST to a market-oriented institute by several aggressive measures. In a
new investment strategy for KAIST in December, roughly five months after
his tenure began, Laughlin said KAIST is trapped in a funding squeeze from
which there appears to be no exit. He then suggested revamping its
traditional emphasis on graduate education because this type of system has
come to be out of tune with the market. He even proposed expanding the
enrollment of KAIST to 20,000 from the current total of 7,500 and charging
tuition fees of 3 million won per semester from the current fee of under
850,000 won. The surprise reform plan created a backlash from KAIST
faculty, students and government officials, who regarded the scheme as a
privatization attempt. In the process, professor Park O-ok, dean of the
school’s planning office, resigned from his position in early December and
asked Laughlin to abandon the reform. In response, Laughlin said the
miscommunication resulted from the secret process of KAIST reform
discussion. He expected policy announcement in early March to clear up
misconceptions. Regarding Park’s protests, he said: ``I had a personality
problem with him but that has now been fixed.’’ Yesterday, Laughlin
appointed Chang Soon-heung, professor in the Department of Nuclear and
Quantum Engineering, to fill Park’s position. (by Kim Tae-gyu)
From The korea Times 02/01/2005
TOP↑
Constitutional Revision Proposed
A senior official of the main opposition Grand National
Party (GNP) suggested Wednesday that the ruling and opposition parties
discuss a constitutional revision to change the government's power
structure as part of efforts to reform the nation's politics. ``The parties
can conduct a study on constitutional reform in a cautious manner,
regardless of partisan interests,'' Rep. Kim Deog-ryong, the party's floor
leader, said during a plenary session of the National Assembly. He did not
elaborate, however. The issue of constitutional reform has resurfaced since
the Uri Party Foundation, the ruling party's think tank, last month
unveiled plans to review the issue of constitutional amendment as one of
its 15 study projects for this year. The institute said it has been
studying some options such as the introduction of a parliamentary cabinet
system and dual executive system of government, as well as a four-year
presidential system under which the president is entitled to seek a second
term. At present, the country has a five-year presidential system under
which the president is not allowed to seek a second term. It has been
criticized for fostering a monopoly of power. President Roh Moo-hyun called
for the introduction of a four-year presidential system under which the
president is allowed to seek another term during campaigns for the 2002
presidential election. Kim welcomed the government's plan to give companies
a two-year grace period to correct past accounting irregularities and
called for deregulation regarding corporate activities to help revive the
nation's sagging economy. On Jan. 28, Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said the
government would consider employing a grandfather clause to exempt listed
firms from a securities class action lawsuit over corporate wrongdoings
before Jan. 19 last year. Under the class action suit system that went into
effect from last month, small shareholders can file a lawsuit against
listed companies involved in irregular book keeping, false disclosure,
stock price manipulation and other wrongdoings. As the ruling party has
been changing its policy direction toward pragmatism, chances for the
passage of the revised bill over the class action rules during the current
parliamentary session seem high. The GNP floor leader also stressed the
need to relax regulations such as the 25 percent cap on large
conglomerates' investment in other firms. ``To boost domestic investment,
regulations in corporate activities and the service industry need to be
eased,'' Kim said. Currently conglomerates with 5 trillion won ($4.8
billion) in assets cannot invest more than 25 percent of net assets in
other companies. Businesses have insisted that this rule discourages
investment and makes it hard for companies to protect managerial control.
(by Jung Sung-ki)
From The Korea Times 02/10/2005
TOP↑
Defense Ministry to Publish White
Paper on Civil Affairs
The Ministry of National Defense will publish a white paper
on civil affairs late this year for the first time since the founding of
the nation’s armed forces in an effort to enhance understanding of
defense-related civil affairs and publicity for the military. The
ministry’s office of auditors said Monday (Feb. 14) that the publication
was aimed at fostering trust between civilians and the military and
maximizing the effect of publicity. A spokesman for the office said the 300
to 400 page-long white paper will contain the status, improvements,
personal experiences, and FAQs of defense-related civil affairs and their
future policy direction. Work on it will be completed by the end of October
to get ready for publication by the year’s end.
From http://www.korea.net/ 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Chaebol Condemn Fair Trade Policy
Economists and local conglomerates
condemned the function and organizational structure of the Fair Trade
Commission (FTC).The offensive movement came after the FTC rejected local
conglomerates’ demand that the government ease rules on equity investment
by big businesses in their affiliated firms and other small domestic firms.
At a forum organized by the Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI), an
economic think tank under the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI),
economists poured out grievances on the FTC’s antitrust and market
competition policies on behalf of the local conglomerates.`` The FTC is a government
agency that should promote market competition but it is recognized as an
authority that punishes big business groups and the commission is
responsible for making people believe that wrong idea,’’ said Lee In-kwon,
a researcher with KERI.`` Even though the FTC claims there is no
relationship between corporate investment and equity investment, citing a
study by the Korea Development Institute, a KERI study verified that the
greater the equity investment by conglomerates, the greater the corporate investment,’’
said Lee. He said the relationship between corporate investment and equity
investment, which is investment through purchase of stocks of existing
firms, should be redefined.`` The FTC can regulate conglomerates
individually if they violate the Fair Trade Law and I don’t see why the
government seeks to control investments of local conglomerates on the whole
with the shareholding limit regulation,’’ said Soh Il-seop, a researcher
with Korea Life Insurance. Soh also contended that the FTC’s restrictive
measures on chaebol are reverse discrimination against local conglomerates.
Cho Sung-bong, a KERI researcher, said he supports the FTC’s plan to
ultimately scrap the shareholding limit regulation but he cannot give
credence to the consistency of the agency’s policies.`` In the past, the
FTC has abolished the shareholding limit regulation and discarded its right
to trace corporate accounts but both were restored later on,’’ Cho said.
``The FTC is failing to maintain consistency in implementing its policies
and I’m concerned about how requirements to graduate from the shareholding
limit regulation will change later on,’’ he added. Chang Jin-won, vice
president of SK Corp., said even though his company had made concerted
efforts to meet the level of management transparency demanded by the global
market, ranking No. 1 in corporate governance structure in a survey
conducted by Asia Money in January, the company is still far from meeting
the requirements to graduate from the shareholding limit regulation. Meanwhile,
the FKI reported that the FTC should abandon its function aimed at curbing
the economic strength of local conglomerates and transform into an agency
aimed at encouraging free market competition. The FKI called on the
government to transfer the FTC’s authority to regulate corporate governance
structure and the financial health of local conglomerates to another
government ministry. It also demanded the FTC improve impartiality and
transparency in ruling procedures, as the commission currently fails to provide
clear criteria for imposing fines on companies that violate the fair trade
rule. It also criticized the government procedure for appointing chairmen
and other ranking officials of the FTC. The appointment of FTC chairmen and
vice chairmen should receive parliamentary approval as the Japanese
antitrust authority does to screen out under-qualified candidates. (by Kim
Sung-jin)
From The Korea Times 02/16/2005
TOP↑
Seoul to Tighten Control on Nuclear
Experiments
South Korea plans to establish a law aimed
at better controlling the use of nuclear power and banning any attempts to
develop nuclear weapons. The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said
Thursday it is looking to draw up a draft in March for presentation to the
National Assembly. If the bill passes, it would be implemented in
September. The new act will contain all regulations related to nuclear
security, which until now have been scattered in different laws. Under the
strengthened regulations, Korea's nuclear researchers will be required to
periodically go through security education sessions. The government will
also create a long-term plan to ensure nuclear safety and have a science
minister lead a panel to monitor the plan and its implementation. ``We
decided to beef up nuclear regulations to prevent awkward situations like
that of last year from recurring. We also want to express our commitment to
the non-proliferation of nuclear arms and transparency in nuclear
technology,'' MOST official Ahn Sang-joon said. Last year Seoul was
embarrassed after it was found to have produced plutonium in 1982 and
enriched uranium in 2000 without informing the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA). ``Violators of nuclear-related regulations will be subject
to severe punishments, including jail terms. We are thinking of introducing
a term of life imprisonment for extreme cases,'' Ahn said. Furthermore, the
envisioned law will contain clauses regarding the nation's extended
reporting duties with the IAEA, imposed when the nation ratified the IAEA
Additional Protocol in February last year The comprehensive safeguard
requires member nations to report to the Vienna-based institute any
separation of uranium at research institutes and universities in addition
to power plants. In a related move, Korea is also seeking to create a new
nuclear fuel incapable of being used in the production of weapons together
with the United States. Toward that end, the two nations completed a
bilateral research agreement early this month to develop nuclear fuels that
cannot be reprocessed or enriched into weapons grade material. South Korea
has long sought a nuclear fission energy system that provides a secure
power source without causing any concerns over the enrichment of uranium.
South Korea currently depends on nuclear power for more than 40 percent of
its energy needs. (by Kim Tae-gyu)
From The Korea Times 02/17/2005
TOP↑
NORTH KOREA: Kim Rains on 'Sunshine Policy'
SEOUL - North Korea's announcement last
week that it possesses nuclear weapons has dealt a devastating blow to
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's government. Ever since entering the
Blue House in 2003, Roh has vigorously pursued a lenient, and to an extent
benign, policy toward the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, even
to the detriment of his own nation's half-century-old alliance with the
United States. The South Korean president has on numerous occasions
emphasized that his North Korea policy remains in line with that of his
predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, known as the "Sunshine Policy" of
openness and engagement with the North. Will this policy shine as brightly
for Roh as it as it did for Kim Dae-jung, crowning the latter with the Nobel
Peace Prize? Will the continuation of the Sunshine Policy generate its
intended consequences, inducing the North to emerge bereft of nuclear
weapons, thus leading to the reunification of the two Koreas? Under the
current circumstances, the prospects for sunshine for Roh of for the
intended results do not seem to be bright at all. So what is causing Roh to
pursue such a policy?
'Independent and autonomous'
In terms of strategy, rather than relying on a unilateral approach in
inducing Pyongyang to change its position toward the South by pouring in
economic and humanitarian aid, Roh's government claims to have adopted a
pragmatic approach. Many South Korean people, however, are not too clear
about what such an approach actually means. However, based on its endeavors
thus far, we can make an educated guess that it means a persistent
development of a friendly relationship with Pyongyang regardless of the
nature of the troubles inflicted by that regime. The consequences of Roh's
pro-North Korea stance are vividly reflected in the fragility of the
current US-South Korea alliance, and a rising lack of confidence and trust
in Seoul by Washington. In addition, for the first time in more than a
decade, Roh's government succeeded in renouncing North Korea as the "main
enemy" in its recently published Defense White Paper. Furthermore, Roh
and his aides are still working hard to forge an opportunity for high-level
talks and/or a summit meeting with Pyongyang irrespective of what is
regarded by many in the region as a "crisis" due to the North's
unyielding nuclear ambitions and despite its declaration last week that it
does indeed have nukes and is suspending participation in disarmament
talks. All this has been camouflaged by Roh's so-called "independent
and autonomous" foreign policy. From this perspective, Roh's North
Korea policy went far beyond the scope and range of what the original
Sunshine Policy had intended. It shifted the fundamental orientation of the
Sunshine Policy, taking sides with the North and China, while diverging
from the United States. Roh's government has struggled to remain consistent
with its North-oriented policy. Such efforts have sometimes invited great
controversy at home and abroad. En route to Chile to attend the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting last November, for
instance, Roh delivered a controversial speech before a US audience in Los
Angeles. In his speech, he explicitly stated his understanding that the
North was pursuing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles for security
reasons, in order to deter threats from the outside. His statement was in
total congruence with Pyongyang's recent justification and rationale -
security from a hostile United States - when it officially announced last
Thursday that it possesses nuclear weapons. In his California speech Roh
went further, expressing his opposition to any kind of sanctions against
the North, implying his opposition to taking the case to the United Nations
Security Council. Whether his efforts will deflect the US from hardline
measures (after official US statements about Pyongyang as an "outpost
of tyranny" and the need for regime transformation) remains to be
considered. Despite Roh's recent emphasis on the importance of South
Korea's relationship with the US in an attempt to mend the already fragile
alliance, his words do not match his deeds. Although he reiterated the
success of the six-party talks as a prerequisite of the summit meeting with
Kim Jong-il, he is very much preoccupied by the goal of such a summit.
Quest for the summit
In the midst of the current "crisis", Roh's government is
searching for every possible way to have Kim Jong-il accept the Russian
invitation to attend the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in World
War II to be held in May in St Petersburg. The occasion is widely perceived
to provide a natural opportunity for an inter-Korean summit. The prospect
for this is very dim, however, because the North would not view the
occasion with the same respect as either the South or Russia. The end of
World War II is perceived by the North as a victory for the imperialists,
in which Korea had no part. In other words, there is a lack of
justification for Kim Jong-il to attend such a ceremony. However, the
efforts of Roh's government do not stop there. Last month at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for instance, the minister of
unification in his speech extended an invitation to Kim Jong-il to attend
the APEC leaders' meeting to be held in November in Busan, South Korea.
This month in Shenyang, China, a couple of South Korean national
assemblymen in their roles as representatives of the Korean Council for
Reconciliation and Cooperation, a non-governmental organization that was
founded in 1998 for improving implementation of the Sunshine Policy, met the
Northern representative of the same organization to discuss the possibility
of co-hosting a celebration in August of the 60th anniversary of Korea's
liberation. Although these national assemblymen were from an opposition
party, their intentions and actions are provoking quite a debate in South
Korea because their party has yet to join the organization officially, and
they acted as individual members. Details of the proposed August event have
not been revealed but there is speculation it would include an official
meeting at the highest level, including the leaders of the two Koreas. In
addition, Roh's government has indicated continued support for the current
inter-Korean economic cooperation, despite the North's rejection of the
six-party talks for an indefinite period. Seoul has continued to insist
that the current standoff will not affect the economic issues, emphasizing
the humanitarian aspect of the South's economic assistance. Furthermore, it
pledged continuing operation of South Korean companies in Gaeseong
Industrial Complex across the border in North Korea, as well as more visits
by South Korean tourists to Mount Geumgang in the North. The government's
rhetoric is widely interpreted as indicating its wish to avoid offending
Pyongyang, thereby keeping alive its hope to lay the ground for the summit
meeting. For Roh to realize his wish to meet with Kim Jong-il, he needs to
find some good reasons and justifications for such a summit. Otherwise,
meeting with a man perceived by most of the world as a tyrant - and one who
has admitted possessing nuclear weapons to boot - would only backfire and
undermine Roh's already low public support, which currently stands in the
low-20% range. Roh, therefore, is becoming particularly edgy, as the clock
is ticking to his disadvantage - he is already in his third year of a
five-year presidency. If he does not handle the situation and his allies
adroitly, his wish may never be fulfilled. This is not 2000 - George W Bush
is not Bill Clinton and Roh Moo-hyun is simply not Kim Dae-jung. (by Jaewoo
Choo)
From http://www.atimes.com/ 02/16/2005
TOP↑
MONGOLIA: Draft Law on Public TV
& Radio Discussed
On January 25, a draft law on Public TV
and Radio was discussed at a joint meeting of the Parliament Standing
Committees on Information, Communications and Technology Development, and
State Structure. The members of the two standing committees considered that
it would be right to approve the first discussion of the draft law. Thanks
to the law, state Radio and TV station would be transferred to a public
ownership status. According to the draft law, transferring station of Radio
and TV would be remained under the state power. The station has over 400
staffs and its capital property is equal to 8,3 billion togrogs.
From Udriin sonin 01/30/2005
TOP↑
Law to Be Amended
The law on regulations for selecting the
executors of services and goods purchase by the means of state and local
properties was approved in 2000. As a result of the approval of the law, a
legal environment for the Government purchasing power was created, and the
principles of effectiveness, economy, openness and fair competition were
established in the budget expenditure. Some pressing issues and breaches
have been revealed during the implementation process of the law. The
Ministry of Finance together with the Ministry of Justice and Internal
Affairs have drawn up a draft on amending the law. This draft was discussed
at a regular cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. The cabinet accepted the
draft and made a decision to submit it to the Parliament with proposals of
the cabinet members.
From MONTSAME 02/09/2005
TOP↑
President Vetoes Provisions of 3
Laws
The President of Mongolia N.Bagabandi has
vetoed some provisions of the laws on the public radio and television;
political parties, and the transference of state owned properties to the
public ownership. These laws have been approved by the Parliament recently.
The President considers that the law on political parties regulates
excessively the internal affairs of parties and it has indefinite
terminologies. Mr. Bagabandi pointed out that there are demands to clarify
some provisions of the law on public radio and TV. A share of TV
advertisements of the public radio and television is set to be a two
percent of the total programming time. The President assumes that the above
provision is in conflict with the fact that the public radio and TV is a
non-profit organization.
From MONTSAME 02/16/2005
TOP↑
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INDONESIA: Priority Bills Includes
Pacts on Antiterrorism
The House of Representatives (DPR) said on
Monday it planned to deliberate 55 bills this year, including three bills
on the ratification of an international convention to suppress terrorism
and transnational crimes. However, the ability of the lawmakers to meet
their legislation targets, observers say, much depends on the availability
of budget funds and the capabilities of their expert advisors. The three
conventions up for ratification are the International Convention for the
Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, the International Convention for
the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, and the United Nations Convention
Against Transnational Organized Crime. Although the legislative program has
been discussed during the past three months, several legislators still
protested the exclusion of some bills from the list. Soekartono Hadiwarsito
of the Democratic Party suggested that the legislators should also include
bills on oil and gas and electricity on this year's priority list.
"The two bills should be prioritized because they are important,"
he said at a plenary meeting presided over by House deputy speaker Zaenal
Ma'arif. Fellow legislator Suryama M. Sastra of the Prosperous Justice
Party (PKS) also questioned the exclusion of the bill on state intelligence
agencies from the list. He suggested the intelligence bill should be
deliberated simultaneously with the bills on freedom of information and
state secrecy, which have been given priority. Suryama said a simultaneous
deliberation of the three bills would reduce possible conflicting articles
in the three related laws. Zaenal reminded the House that legislators or
the government could still propose other bills for urgency. In his speech,
chairman of the House's Legislation Body (Baleg) Muhammad AS Hikam said
that the House's approval of the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas)
would be a reference for the legislators in the law-making process. The 55
bills set to be deliberated in 2005 were part of 284 bills to be tabled for
deliberation during the 2005-2009 period, Hikam said. Some of these bill,
however, could be merged into one to avoid unnecessary duplication and
faster deliberation, he said, citing specifically the bills on the
presidency, the presidential advisory board, and on the Cabinet. House
bills are prioritized if they are left over from the 1999-2004 period, function
as supplementary regulations, relate to other existing laws or are linked
to the ratification of international conventions. Separately, the Ministry
of Justice and Human Rights legal representative Abdulgani Abdullah said
the revision of the Criminal Code would be among the 55 prioritized bills.
"The Criminal Code consists of more than 700 articles, therefore
deliberations about its revision should be started as soon as possible.
They could take three years to finish," he said. Legislators are also set
to deliberate bills on immigration, citizenship, the religious courts, and
the protection of witnesses.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com/ 02/02/2005
TOP↑
Government Scraps Aceh Authority
Board Plan
The government has decided to drop its
plan to set up a special authority for Aceh since the tsunami-stricken
areas in the province already had functioning local governments, according
to Vice President Jusuf Kalla. "The government has discussed this and
decided to scrap the plan," he told reporters on Friday. "This
kind of authority only exists in empty, underdeveloped areas, like Batam
used to be. It was an empty island back then," Kalla said, referring
to the Batam Authority, which governs the industrial island of Batam
together with the local administration. The plan to set up the Aceh
Authority came at the suggestion of the House of Representatives during a
meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the aftermath of the
Dec. 26 tsunami disaster. The authority was supposed to oversee the
rehabilitation and reconstruction work in Aceh and would have been directly
responsible to the President. The plan also came as Susilo openly
criticized the poor handling of emergency relief operations in Aceh, citing
a lack of coordination, a criticism that raised speculation about a rift
between Susilo and Kalla as the latter is also the chairman of the National
Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board (Bakornas PBP), which
oversees the relief work. Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng told the
press earlier this week that the authority was expected to start
functioning on March 26 as the government was still discussing the
structure of the organization. Andi said that the members of the authority
would include both formal and informal Acehnese leaders to help ensure that
the reconstruction of Aceh would be in line with local values and culture.
According to Kalla, Aceh already had an administration and therefore it did
not need a new authority to govern the province. It only needed an
organizing body that would fit in with the existing rules. "Therefore,
it is not feasible for Aceh to be governed by such an authority,"
Kalla said. He added that currently the government was still considering
the best ways of rebuilding infrastructure in the province. The
reconstruction effort would be need to maximize local resources in Aceh so
that the country would not become overly dependent on foreign aid. Nearly two
months after the Indian Ocean tsunami ravaged many parts of
oil-and-gas-rich Aceh province, the government said that the emergency in
the affect areas was nearly over and that the government and foreign
agencies working in the region had commenced the rehabilitation and
reconstruction phase. The government is now pushing to complete the
construction of barracks for the more than 400,000 tsunami survivors.
Meanwhile, foreign volunteers and warships have started to withdraw from
the area. The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier and the first naval
vessel to arrive off the coast of Aceh after the Dec. 26 disaster, departed
on Friday according to AFP. Australia was also set to withdraw up to 1,000
of its troops from Aceh. Military contingents from Singapore and Malaysia
had previously started to withdraw their troops and equipment from Aceh.
Meanwhile, workers cleaning up the debris left by the tsunami found 1,108
more bodies, increasing the confirmed death toll from the disaster to
112,279, Bakornas PBP said on Friday.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com/ 02/05/2005
TOP↑
President Signs Regulation on Direx
Regional Elections
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has
signed off regulations on the direct election of regional leaders but
senior officials say some specific issues still require discussion.
Minister of Home Affairs M. Ma'ruf said on Monday the unfinished business
included revisions to the state-funded regional budgets, the preparation of
each region for the elections and other technical matters, including the
procurement of election materials. Anticipating problems in the field, a
team comprised of officials from the ministry and other related
institutions -- the General Election Commission (KPU), the National Police,
the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) --
has been set up to monitor the implementation of the regulations, Ma'ruf
said. "Based on the schedule, the direct elections should be held
simultaneously nationwide in the middle of this year. Right now, we (the
ministry) have already classified two provinces that are likely to face
difficulties. They are Aceh, which is still suffering from the tsunami
devastation, and West Irian Jaya, which has just been established,"
Ma'ruf said. "I've talked to Aceh councillors and they said the
elections could be held in regencies not affected by the tsunami. The
election in West Irian Jaya, meanwhile, will be held after Papua completes
the establishment of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) as stipulated by
its special autonomy law," he said. Each voter would receive a new
voter card to differentiate the regional elections from the recent
national-level direct general election, Ma'ruf said. A total of 225
regencies and municipalities along with 13 provinces are due to hold
regional direct elections to vote for local administrations in June this
year. It will be the first direct regional elections in the country, which
analysts say are a crucial move to promote further democracy. Meanwhile,
former director general of regional autonomy Ryaas Rasyid warned the
government to prepare well for the elections in order to avoid local
conflicts. "It may even be better to postpone the elections,
especially if the support facilities are not ready yet. One vital step is
to familiarize the regions with the processes and their consequences
because some of the regulations could be ambiguous if they are not properly
understood," he said. Ryaas emphasized the importance of prioritizing
education programs over meeting election deadlines. "We should just
leave the schedules for each region to arrange. The elections don't have to
be carried out all together at the same time," he said quoted by
Antara.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Finance Ministry Signs MOU on
Corruption Eradication
Despite his "I don't care"
response to a recent survey that found two institutions under his
supervision to be among the most corrupt a day earlier, Minister of Finance
Yusuf Anwar on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). KPK chairman Taufiqurrahman Ruki
said the MoU was very important since the KPK had indicated potential
loopholes for corruption in the state budgetary accounting system handled
by the finance ministry. The finance ministry established a new
investigation bureau specifically for corruption within its inspectorate
general late last year. The tax and customs offices have been under fire of
late following numerous studies highlighting the gross level of corruption
within each, including this week's survey by Transparency International
Indonesia (TII). The 2004 Indonesian Corruption Perception Index survey,
with 1,305 business owners and top managers of local and multinational firms
as respondents, revealed that the customs service had the highest incidence
of corrupt interactions at 62 percent. Some 140 respondents said they had
to pay bribes to the customs service approximately 31 times per year, with
each bribe averaging Rp 38 million (US4,086). The tax office, which is also
supervised by the finance ministry, was ranked as the 11th most corrupt
institution on the list. However, Yusuf was not exactly overjoyed by the
survey. "It (the corruption within my ministry) is an old story. I
know about it, you know about it and everybody knows about it," he
said. "That's why we shouldn't make a fuss about it. What's more
important is that we keep on working to improve things."
Adapted From http://www.thejakartapost.com 02/19/2005
TOP↑
MALAYSIA: Code Introduced to Curb
Money Politics
The code of conduct for MCA elections was
introduced to prevent money politics from becoming serious, party deputy
president Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy said yesterday. Money politics is not
serious so far but we don’t want it to reach a more serious level. So we
think it is better to act now, he said at the Transport Ministry here
yesterday. Party president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting had on Tuesday said
disciplinary action would be taken against any member who violated the
code, which will come into effect on Feb 27. Chan reminded members that
although an implementation date was set, it did not mean that contenders or
their supporters could ignore the code before the date. For example, giving
or receiving free meals was a norm during a non-election year. However,
party leaders felt that, to ensure a level playing field, this should not
be allowed during an election year, he said. He also said the disciplinary
committee would be monitoring wrongdoings by members.
From http://thestar.com.my 02/17/2005
TOP↑
PHILIPPINES: Senate Approves
P907-Billion Budget
The Senate on Thursday unanimously
approved on third and final reading the proposed national budget of P907.35
billion, which is P240 million less than the budget passed by the House of
Representatives. Sen. Manuel Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on
Finance and the budget’s sponsor, said the Senate cut 20 percent from all
proposed funds for training, advertising, travel and intelligence, totaling
P800 million. “The only exception is the Department of Tourism because
travel and advertising are part of its work,” Villar explained. The
senators’ priority development assistance fund, which has already been
slashed from P200 million each to P120 million, could be cut further with
the decision of Sen. Panfilo Lacson and other senators not to touch their
pork barrel, he said. The cuts were realigned with a number of items, the
most notable of which is the increase in the budget of the Office of the
Ombudsman to make it more effective in fighting graft and corruption. The
House has already raised the proposed P535-million budget of the Ombudsman
by P140 million, but the Senate increased this by P60 million more so there
could be more field investigators and prosecutors. Earlier, Ombudsman
Simeon Marcelo told Villar that he had only 88 prosecutors to handle
antigraft cases all over the country. Villar said the increase in the
Ombudsman’s budget would enable the office to hire resident ombudsmen in
sensitive offices like the GSIS, the SSS and other government-owned and
-controlled corporations. “We did not touch the budgets of the
constitutional bodies out of courtesy,” he said, alluding to the Commission
on Elections, the Commission on Audit and the judiciary. He said the Senate
concentrated not on cutting the “already bare-boned budget” but on taking
measures to safeguard government funds. “We included a provision
prohibiting the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao from drawing funds
unless it could account for previous releases,” Villar said. He paid tribute
to members of the minority for giving added insights that improved the
budget measure. The House and the Senate bicameral conference committee is
expected to meet Monday to reconcile the differing provisions of their
budget versions. Villar said the final bicameral report might be ready by
February 21. Sen. Edgardo Angara was quick to criticize the budget, saying
it will not improve the lives or the future of Filipinos. Angara said the
budget is programmed only to pay debts and would make the government “impotent”
in funding critical social programs and fighting poverty. He made the
criticism in his speech on the budget Wednesday night. “We need to
unshackle ourselves from the iron grip of the budgetary status quo if we
want to free our people from the vicious circle of poverty. We need to
rethink our tired and uninspired budget priorities if we want to create an
environment for sustained growth and development,” Angara said. He noted
that the approved budget is P46 billion higher in 2004 and that 65.6 percent
of that will automatically go to interest payment of national debts. Angara
appealed to the Arroyo administration to recast the budget so it would
shift its focus from debt service to funding vital social expenditures such
as health, education and agricultural modernization.
From http://www.manilatimes.net 02/11/2005
TOP↑
VAT Bill Can Offset Downgrade
The passage of the bill on value-added tax
will offset the effects of the two-notch downgrade the country received
from Moody’s Investor Services, President Arroyo said at a press conference
in Lapu Lapu City in Cebu Thursday. Mrs. Arroyo said passing the bill would
prove to critics that the government is serious in its efforts to improve
the country’s fiscal condition. The Philippines, she added, would remain
poor if her administration hesitates to take essential steps needed to
generate additional revenue for the government. The President also turned
down the request of several Cebu provincial officials for her to stop
supporting the VAT bill. “I’m sorry, but if we don’t raise P80 billion from
legislative measures and P100 billion from administrative measures, we will
not be able to pass all the things that we need, [including] Cebu, which is
one of the beneficiaries of our infrastructure programs,” Mrs. Arroyo said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ralph Recto, chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and
Means, backed the retention of the present 10-percent VAT rate and
expanding its coverage by lifting VAT exemptions. Lifting the exemptions
would generate an additional P70 billion in revenue, he said. Finance
Secretary Cesar Purisima, however, disagreed with Recto’s idea, saying
nonpassage of the bill, which imposes an additional 2 percent on VAT, will
delay the upgrade of the country’s credit rating.
From http://www.manilatimes.net 02/18/2005
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Palace Backs Move of Local
Government Units on ID System
Malaca?ang today threw its support behind
the move of local government units (LGUs) to adopt their own personal
identification (ID) scheme pending the approval of a national ID system.
Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said in a radio
interview that LGUs have the inherent power to legislate ordinances and
adopt local laws to protect the interest and ensure the security of their
constituents. Unless these local legislations are challenged and ruled as
unconstitutional, they are presumed to be legal, Bunye added. Heightened
concern over terrorist attacks in the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day
bombings in Makati and the southern cities of Davao and General Santos has
prompted LGUs to shore up their respective security capabilities and
bolster safety measures, including the proposed adoption of the ID system.
Members of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) are leading the
move to establish the ID system in the local government level. Bunye
explained that the Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional the
administrative order establishing the national ID system ordered by
President Fidel V. Ramos in 1997 because it constituted "an improper
delegation of legislative power." This means, Bunye said, that a
Congress-legislated national ID system with the necessary safeguards of
people’s rights would pass the requirements of the Constitution. The
Malaca?ang official stressed that while the proposed national ID is basically
a security measure, it has many other advantages. Instead of logging
several IDs, a national ID could be used to facilitate various personal
transactions with government as well as private entities, he said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has expressed support for a national ID
system in the wake of continuing terrorist rampages. She has called for
tougher laws to "defeat terror and defeat poverty." Terror and
poverty, she said, are the twin scourges that every Filipino and "all
our institutions, of Congress, and the local governments and our
communities" must fight to win. "We must fight terror as
vigorously as we address corruption and grow the economy to create jobs and
prosperity," the President said.
From http://www.gov.ph/ 02/19/2005
TOP↑
Recto Pushes New Tax Scheme
SEN. Ralph Recto is studying the
possibility of introducing changes in income tax policies, among them
exempting families of six earning not more than P120,000 annually from
paying income taxes. Recto, chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and
Means, made the proposal after consulting with Finance Secretary Cesar
Purisima. Recto is considering raising the corporate income tax rate to 25
percent from the current 22 percent to go along with the income tax exemption.
The plan would still follow the basic taxation principle in the context of
the country’s present fiscal situation that taxes should be higher for
high-income earners. Purisima emphasized, however, that he does not want
any income tax loss. He conceptually agrees with Recto’s proposal to
stagger the proposed value-added tax increase, although he reiterated the
need for a 2-percent increase in value-added tax (VAT). Preliminary figures
from the Department of Finance show that the government would earn P17.5
billion from a 1-percent rise in VAT in 2006 based on a 70-percent
tax-efficiency rate. The government is looking forward to collecting a
total of P62 billion from the VAT increase and the proposals to repeal
exemptions from VAT. The 2-percent VAT increase, meanwhile, will take place
in 2007. Malaca?ang, in an earlier report, warned that a watered-down bill
on VAT increase would lead to more taxes, saying that the cash-strapped
government would have to formulate other tax measures to reach its P80-billion
revenue target. The Senate and the House initially proposed a multitiered
or multirated VAT system, wherein products consumed by the masses would
have lower VAT rates compared to those consumed by more affluent ones. The
Bureau of Internal Revenue and the finance department turned down the
measures, saying it would be harder to keep track of those who do not pay
the right amount of taxes.
From http://www.manilatimes.net/ 02/21/2005
TOP↑
SINGAPORE: Income Tax Cuts Likely in
Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will likely
cut income tax rates when he presents Singapore's annual budget later
Friday, possibly paving the way for a general election, economists said.
Lee, who is also finance minister, was not expected to announce any major
structural reforms for the fiscal year to March 2006, but will probably
focus instead on fine-tuning policies already in place to bolster the
country's competitive edge. The budget comes against a backdrop of a solid
economic expansion last year, when Singapore's trade-dependent economy grew
8.4 percent, its best showing in four years. This year authorities expect
growth of between 3 percent and 5 percent. United Overseas Bank economists
Teh Kwee Chin and Jimmy Koh said in a research note to clients this week
that "speculation is rife" that the highest personal income tax
rate could be cut to 20 percent from 22 percent. One local paper stoked
expectations that national polls could soon follow Friday's financial
presentation, dubbing the annual policymaking exercise as a "Yam Seng
Budget". "Yam Seng" is Cantonese for cheers, or cheering
loudly. "Don't expect budget proposals that will set the local equity
market on fire; instead it will be a more 'people friendly' budget this
year," said Song Seng Wun, an economist at G.K. Goh Securities in
Singapore. The prime minister may also announce measures to help small- and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which often complain that the government
focuses too much on large, state-linked companies and multinationals.
"We expect the forthcoming budget will focus on helping SME employers
to cope with the changing business environment," said Teh and Koh's
note, adding that the sector accounted for half of the country's jobs. Lee,
son of modern Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, took the top job
last August after serving as his predecessor Goh Chok Tong's deputy for
more than a decade. Since then, there has been speculation that he might
call early polls to garner his own mandate and strengthen his political
standing. He doesn't need to call a general election until 2007. Lee's
People Action Party has ruled Singapore without interruption since
independence in 1965, and is expected to sweep the next election whenever
it is held. It holds all but two of the elected seats in parliament.
From http://www.forbes.com 02/17/2005
TOP↑
Telecoms Competition Code Offers
Greater Regulatory Transparency and Clarity
To promote healthy growth of Singapore's
telecoms market, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has
today amended the Telecoms Competition Code1 (the Code) at the conclusion
of its first triennial review2 of the Code. Amendments3 to the Code enhance
competition through removing unnecessary regulations in competitive market
segments, and strengthening regulatory provisions in segments with limited
competition. IDA has also issued advisory guidelines on regulatory
processes to provide the telecoms industry with more business certainty.
These are guidelines on procedures for dispute resolution and, assessment
of proposed changes in ownership and consolidations. They provide greater
clarity to the framework and procedures for IDA reviews of telecoms sector
consolidations, and the processes for telecoms licensees to approach IDA
for reconsideration of regulatory decisions. In market segments where there
is effective competition, IDA will scale back its regulatory role. There
will be stronger reliance on market forces and industry self-regulation as
more effective means of sustaining competition in the long term. For
example, IDA will encourage non-dominant licensees to resolve disputes
through commercial negotiations or alternative means of dispute resolution.
Where there are service choices, IDA will relieve dominant licensees of
certain interconnection requirements, such as co-location at satellite
earth stations.IDA will continue to monitor developments and maintain
regulatory oversight in market segments with limited competition. This
ensures that facilities, essential for competition, are accessible to
competing players while maintaining a balance towards facilities-based
competition. In line with international practices, the definition of a
'dominant licensee' has been revised to reflect control over telecom
facilities that are costly or difficult to replicate, or the ability to
restrict output or raise prices above competitive levels. Other Code
amendments include the mandate for dominant licensees to publicise all
IDA-approved telecoms prices, discount structures and service termination
terms on their website, and to offer mandated wholesale services at cost-based
or retail-minus prices. An explanatory memorandum for the revisions to the
Code will be available at the 'Policy & Regulation' section of the IDA
website at http://www.ida.gov.sg. The amended Code will come into effect on
4 March 2005.
From http://www.ida.gov.sg/ 02/18/2005
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Govt Announces Top-Ups to Help
Singaporeans Cope With Changes
The Government has announced top-ups to
the Edusave, Medisave, Medifund and CPF Special and Retirement accounts to
help Singaporeans cope with changes. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he
intended to distribute some of the projected budget surplus this year back
to Singaporeans to foster a caring and inclusive society. This year's
budget will help Singaporeans cope with changes, encourage savings for
retirement, support families and promote community involvement and
philanthropy. Mr Lee said this when he delivered the Budget statement in
Parliament on Friday. To develop the young, he says he will make a special,
one-off top-up of $100 to the Edusave Account of every eligible primary and
secondary school student. This is over and above the Edusave cotnributions
given annually by the Government. The top-up will cost the Government $50
million. Mr Lee also announced that the Government will give Medisave
top-ups to adult Singaporeans. It will pay between $50 and $350 into each
Medisave account, depending on age. Older Singaporeans will receive larger
top-ups. The top-up will cost the Government $320 million. The Government
will also inject another $100 million into the Medifund, to build it up
from $1 billion today to the target fund size of $2 billion. This will help
Singaporeans or older people who are not covered by Medishield to meet
their healthcare expenses. Mr Lee also announced that the government will
top up the CPF accounts of older Singaporeans. To help older Singaporens
aged 50 and above save more for their retirement needs, he will top up
their CPF Special or Retirement Accounts by $100. This will cost the
Government $80 million. The Government will also provide more support to lower-income
households. Mr Lee said he had decided to top up the utilities accounts of
households under the Utilities Save Scheme. Households in one- and two-room
HDB flats will enjoy $200 in rebates in 2005. 3-roomers will get $100 in
rebates, 4-roomers $80 and 5-roomers $60. The rebates will be paid in two
instalments in July 2005 and January 2006. They will cost the Government
$62 million. More programmes will be included under the ComCare Fund, which
is being created intially with $500 million and with a target size of $1
billion. Mr Lee said a committee, to be chaired by Minister of State Yu-Foo
Yee Shoon, will be set up to formulate new programmes and streamline
existing schemes. The committee will also include Mayors of CDCs and
leaders of voluntary welfare organisations. This will ensure that help
reaches the needy so that any Singaporean in genuine need will know where
to go for help.
From http://sg.news.yahoo.com 02/19/2005
TOP↑
THAILAND: New Zoning Policy in South
Queried
Business leaders in the southern border
provinces have called on the government to clarify its new zoning policy.
Members of the Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat chambers of commerce cautioned
that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's new policy to withhold state
development aid to villages deemed to be in collusion with alleged
separatists would only worsen the poor business and public sentiment in the
region. The prime minister on Wednesday indicated that provincial and
village development funds would be cut off from so-called red zones to
pressure residents to clamp down on an underground movement responsible for
hundreds of deaths over the past year. Out of the 1,570 villages in the
three Muslim-majority border provinces, 358 are classified as red zones,
including 204 in Narathiwat alone. The latest escalation in the southern
violence came late Thursday when a car bomb exploded near the Marina Hotel
in Narathiwat, killing six and wounding dozens more. But while Mr Thaksin
vowed to take a tougher line to curb the violence, business leaders in the
area questioned whether the strategy would only harden public resistance
against security forces and the central government. Damrong Chaiwanon,
president of the Pattani Chamber of Commerce, said Mr Thaksin should
clarify the new policy to avoid public misunderstandings.'' The business
environment in the area is already down to its lowest level. Local people
are still wondering what exactly is going on here,'' Mr Damrong said. Over
the past several months, several factories have relocated outside of
Pattani, while the tourism industry was ''100% dead'', he said. Mr Damrong
said small businesses were suffering the most, as many were unable to
relocate their operations to other markets. Poj Paiboonkasemsutt, the
president of the Yala Chamber of Commerce, agreed that it was questionable
whether the new zoning policy would actually help curb the attacks. ''I
understand that [Mr Thaksin] wants to place pressure on villagers to give
more co-operation to security officers. But he has to first assure them
that they will be safe if they provide information,'' he said. Most of the
killings since the beginning of 2004 have been of security officers and
state employees, although Thursday's bombing is considered a dangerous
escalation given the indiscriminate scope of the violence. Somboon
Boonthamrong, president of the Narathiwat Chamber of Commerce, urged the
government to better communicate with residents in the region. He said only
small retail operations were growing in the area, thanks in part to
business from the more than 30,000 soldiers and policemen in the area.
From http://www.bangkokpost.com 02/19/2005
TOP↑
VIETNAM: Finance Ministry Asked to
Streamline Policies
The Government has recently assigned the
Ministry of Finance to formulate a comprehensive financial policy to
liberalise internal resources and attract more external investment for
socio-economic development. The policy will ensure fair and rational
allocation and use of public finance, and increase transparency and
standardisation of broader financial management. Since the development of
the financial sector is crucial for the country’s economy and an important
catalyst for overall growth, the policy will aim to build a strong and
efficient national finance system rapidly while maintaining a sustainable
economic growth rate, Minister of Finance Nguyen Sinh Hung said. The
ministry, according to Hung, has developed four objectives for the sector.
1) To increase all available financial resources for development investment
while trying to stabilise the expenditure ratio from the State budget for
development investment. If Viet Nam wants to double its GDP by 2010, it
must sustain a social investment of 36-40 per cent of the GDP. Between 2000
and 2004, social investment reached 35-36 per cent, surpassing the 31-32
per cent target set in the strategy for socio-economic development in the
2001-2010 period. 2) To maintain the State budget’s capital mobilisation at
its current 22 per cent share level, with 21 per cent collected in taxes
and fees. The increase in capital mobilisation for the State budget will
boost the nation’s economics, culture, education, health care, society,
national defence and security development. 3) This year the State plans to
spend about 18 percent of its budget on education and training and 2
percent on science and technology. By 2010, education and training will
account for 20 per cent, science and technology 2.1 per cent and culture
1.8 per cent. 4) To effectively control and maintain the State’s spending
surplus, while keeping it under 5 per cent of the GDP. All the government
and foreign debts will be capped in accordance with international
practices. With respect to renewing enterprises’ immediate investment and
development in the financial market, Minister Hung said his ministry will
continue to make concerted efforts to complete the financial policy for
enterprises on the basis of equality for all economic sectors in hopes to
improve their competitive edge in both the domestic and international
markets. Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung further elaborated that in equitising
state owned enterprises, his ministry is committed to practising capital
management in an open and transparent manner. The Government is considering
a plan to allow foreign investors to buy unlimited shares of equitised
enterprises. Viet Nam, Hung said, will accelerate financial and capital
service market development in response to the requirements for development
investment and the gradual elimination of the capital subsidisation for
state owned enterprises. The security market will likely be the main
channel to provide long term credits for enterprises, enabling them to
become strong enough to issue their own bonds internationally. The
development of the security market should go hand in hand with the security
market as well as the capital market in order to create a balance in the
financial structure so that all resources will be tapped for the country’s
development.
From http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/ 02/18/2005
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BANGLADESH: Govt Accused of
Influencing Judiciary over Granting Bail
The family members of nine arrested Jubo
Mohila League activists have accused the government of influencing the
judiciary in not granting bails to those picked up during the hartal on
January 31, reports UNB. The accusation came during a press conference at
Jatiya Press Club on Friday, where Russel Kamali Bidyut, husband of Dhaka
north Jubo Mohila League general secretary Sabina Akhter Tuhin read out a
written statement. Other family members of the arrested Jubo Mohila League
activists, who were present at the press conference, included Shanaz
Akhter''s husband M Asaduzzaman, her sister Afroza Akhter, Lutfa''s father
M Abdus Samad and Parul Akhter''s father Abdul Monu Miah. The arrested Jubo
Mohila League activists are Sabina Akther Tuhin, Shahnaz Akther, Khadija
Parvin, Chayan Akther, Umme Kulsum Sumi, Shilpi Akther, Zulekha Begum, Moni
Mukta and Parul Akther. "It is quite normal for the government to
influence the judiciary as the case against the Jubo Mohila League
activists was filed on political consideration," said Russel Kamali
Bidyut. He alleged that the male police personnel suddenly attacked a Jubo
Mohila League procession at Green Road without any provocation on January 31
and arrested the nine activists. "It was quite inhuman that the male
police beat the Jubo Mohila League workers mercilessly… this was a
violation of Article 37 and 39 of the Constitution of the country."
Narrating an incident of police excess, Bidyuyt alleged that sub-inspector
Ful Miah misbehaved with him and used abusive words when he, along with his
son Andolon, went to Dhanmondi thana to meet his wife Tuhin. As
six-month-old Andolon tried to go to his mother''s lap from mine, "SI
Ful Miah pushed me and my son down on to the floor and uttered some
indecent words," he said. The relatives of the arrested Jubo Mohila
League activists demanded their immediate unconditional release on
humanitarian ground.
From http://bangladesh-web.com/ 02/05/2005
TOP↑
BHUTAN: Government to Ban Smoking in
Public Places
Two months after the nationwide ban on the
sale of tobacco products the government has announced a ban on smoking in
“public places”, public places being defined as “all places where people
gather”. These include parks, discotheques, entertainment centers, sports
facilities like football grounds and archery ranges, commercial centres
including shops, bars and restaurants, institutions like dzongs, hospitals,
schools, and government offices, public transport carriers, public
gatherings such as tshechus, official receptions, national celebrations,
and vegetable markets. There will not be smoking corners as suggested by
smokers and observers see the council of ministers’ decision as a move to make
Bhutan a smoke-free nation. The new ban was received with much support and
enthusiasm by the members of the health ministry-led tobacco control body
which met this week in Thimphu. Various strategies will be drawn to
implement the ban nationwide, according to the joint director of the
ministry’s Information and Communication Bureau, Sonam Phuntsho. “It is a
sensitive issue because it deals with personal rights,” said Sonam
Phuntsho, also a member of the tobacco control body. “We are trying to
approach the ban in a holistic and multi-sectoral way.” Endorsed by the
National Assembly in 2004 the ban has pushed tobacco off the shelves in
shops across the country. Many government offices have also taken the
initiative to make their premises smoke free. It is estimated that three
percent of the people in the urban areas and one percent in the villages
smoked or chewed tobacco. It is also public knowledge that cigarettes and
chewing tobacco are available under the counter in many shops. Government
officials are levying heavy penalties on those found selling tobacco.
Business licenses of six shops in Samdrup Jongkhar were cancelled and their
owners fined Nu. 10,000 each when caught selling tobacco under the counter.
Revenue and custom officials have seized 34 cartons of imported cigarettes
worth about Nu. 20,000 at Paro airport. Another Nu. 30,500 worth of Indian
cigarettes were seized in the border town of Phuentsholing. Custom
officials also raided a shop in Trashigang and seized several cartons of
tobacco products. “Nobody will be excused,” said the joint director of the
trade department, Dophu Tshering. “Violators will be fined and their
business licenses immediately cancelled.” However a new trend has emerged,
devised by those eager to cash in on the ban. In Thimphu, according to
trade officials, individuals sold tobacco products in their apartments.
There were also non smokers who imported cigarettes for “personal
consumption” and then sold it to smokers who were desperate enough to pay
three to four times its actual cost. Recently the trade inspection team
raided an apartment in Thimphu and seized 72 kg of chewing tobacco. The
culprit, an expatriate worker, got away.
From http://www.kuenselonline.com/ 02/19/2005
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INDIA: India Says
Non-govt Pension Funds Can Buy Equities
New Delhi: India took a major step on
Friday to reform its financial sector and boost the country's stock markets
by allowing non-government pension funds to invest up to 5 percent of their
portfolios in equities. A government statement said non-government pension
funds could also invest up to 10 percent of their portfolios in corporate
debt instruments or equity mutual funds and another 10 percent in
government securities. Analysts cheered the latest reform by the
Communist-backed government, which has often been criticised for slowing
the pace of reforms under pressure from its left-wing allies, which provide
crucial support to the ruling coalition. "It is one step in reforming
India's capital markets and will allow pension funds greater flexibility in
managing their assets," Siddharth Mathur, a strategist at JP Morgan.
"This step would increase the potential demand for equities relative
to other asset classes." The government estimates put non-government
pension fund assets at around 1.3 trillion rupees ($29.8 billion), and the
government expects nearly 200 billion rupees to flow into equity markets.
Analysts said the latest reform would lead to significant inflows into
Indian stocks and might lead to lower price volatility. "It will have
a magical effect on our stock markets," said Dhirendra Kumar, director
of New Delhi-based Value Research. "In our markets there is an absence
of long-term domestic players, and most long-term player are the promoters
themselves. This step will bring in really genuine long-term
investors." The Indian stock market has been on a roll. On Friday the
key Bombay index surged to a three-week closing high on
better-than-expected earnings from India's biggest commercial bank and its top
cement producer. The 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange index ended up 2.88
percent at 6,419.09 points. The index was up 3.8 percent on the week but
down 2.8 percent this year. India has been reforming its unwieldy pension
sector. It issued a presidential decree last month to set up a pension fund
regulator and also started a defined contribution pension scheme in 2004
for all federal government employees. The new system, under which benefits
are determined by the market returns of pension investments, represents a
shift from the old system, under which the burden for covering a fixed
level of benefits was borne entirely by the federal government. The burden
of salaries, pensions, interest payments and subsidies is blamed for
India's high fiscal deficit, which the government aims to rein in at 4.4
percent of GDP in the year to March 2005.
From http://www.expressindia.com/ 01/29/2005
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Govt Pegs Down GDP Growth to 6.9 pc
NEW DELHI: Lower agricultural performance in the current
financial year is likely to pull the economic growth down to 6.9 per cent
from 8.5 per cent in the last financial year. According to advance
estimates of national income released by the government, growth in the
agricultural sector is expected to be 1.1 per cent in the current fiscal
over 9.6 per cent last year. Even the robust manufacturing sector
performance at 8.9 per cent in 2004-05 compared to 6.9 per cent in 2003-04
could not check the fall in overall economic growth, the advance estimates
said. Last month government had revised the GDP growth for last financial
year to 8.5 per cent while releasing the quick estimates of national
income. Electricity, gas and water supply sector is likely to post higher
growth rate at 6.3 per cent this fiscal compared to 3.7 per cent in the
previous fiscal. The growth rate of community, social and personal services
is also expected to be higher at 6 per cent as against 5.8 per cent in
2003-04. Other sectors are estimated to register lower growth rates in
2004-05 with mining at 5.3 per cent, construction at 5.7 per cent and
services at 11.3 per cent as compared to 6.4, 7 and 11.8 per cent
respectively in 2003-04. The slowdown in construction sector is primarily
due to the fall in steel production at 3.8 per cent in April-December
2004-05 as against 11.8 per cent in the year ago period, even though cement
sector posted a higher growth at 6.8 per cent during the first nine months
compared to 5.6 per cent in the corresponding period previous fiscal. The
financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector is likely to
maintain a similar growth of 7.1 per cent, the estimates said. In rupee
terms, the GDP in 2004-05 is likely to attain a level of Rs 15,29,366 crore
as against the quick estimates of Rs 14,30,548 crore for 2003-04. Per
capital income in real terms during 2004-05 is likely to be Rs 12,414
compared to the quick estimates of Rs 11,799 for 2003-04. The growth rate
in per capital income is estimated at 5.2 per cent in the current financial
year as against the previous year's estimate of 7.1 per cent.
From http://financialexpress.com/ 02/07/2005
TOP↑
Govt Considering Allowing FDI in
Retail and Construction Industries
India is examining a proposal to allow foreign direct
investment (FDI) in retail trade industry and ease the norms for overseas
capital in the construction sector, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said on
Wednesday. "I have begun consulting industry on foreign direct
investment in retail trade. We should be out with a policy in one or two
months," Nath told reporters on the sidelines of an infrastructure
conference. "In construction sector, I am not interested in
investments for acquisition or trading in land. I want incremental
investment, new technologies to come in so that the cost of commercial
property becomes cheaper," the minister said. The Government presently
permits foreign investment in real estate as long as the minimum land
acquired for such projects is 100 acre. The proposal now is for evaluating
and approving projects on the basis of construction. "What's the point
if commercial space does not become cheaper? Merely acquiring land serves
no purpose," the minister said. According to Nath, only two per cent
of India's retail trade sector was in the organised sector and out of the
remaining 98 per cent, close to 50 per cent was accounted for by
subsistence, family-run small businesses. "Our idea is not to disturb
small and tiny retailers who dominate the industry. Any change would only
help up get incremental investment in large stores and chains," he
said. Commerce Ministry officials said Nath had a meeting with a section of
the stakeholders on Wednesday on the proposed foreign investment policy on
retail trade, including Shoppers' Stop, Pantaloon, Crossroads, RPG Retail
and Trade.
From http://hindustantimes.com/ 02/09/2005
TOP↑
India Looks to Kabul for Better Ties
PRAGUE - Afghan President Karzai told
Indian Foreign Secretary Saran in Kabul this week that New Delhi should
seriously consider joining a proposed project to build a pipeline for
natural gas from Turkmenistan. The proposal calls for a pipeline passing
from eastern Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan and Pakistan. Energy
industry analysts say the project will not be economically feasible unless
it also links into the Indian market. Saran reportedly told Karzai that New
Delhi is considering the project. Speaking to reporters aboard his flight
out of Kabul, Saran said New Delhi was interested in the regional impact of
improved bilateral ties with Afghanistan. "You should look at
Afghanistan as an economic opportunity - for example, access to Central
Asia," Saran said. "There is tremendous potential that remains to
be tapped between India and Afghanistan." Speaking about his talks
with Karzai, Saran said Karzai also expressed the desire to bolster
relations. "He was looking forward to his visit to India [on February
23] where he would try and further expand our cooperation in many new
areas," he said. Saran said five Afghan cabinet ministers joined his
talks with Karzai. Those officials reportedly included Afghan Foreign
Minister Abdullah Abdullah as well as the defense, trade, commerce, public
health, and economy ministers. India was a key supporter of the Afghan
forces that overthrew the Taliban regime with US backing in 2001. It also
has been one of the main regional backers of Karzai's government, pledging
aid of about US$400 million. But this week marked the first time an Indian
foreign secretary met directly with an Afghan defense minister in the
post-Taliban era. Saran used the occasion to donate 50 trucks to the new
Afghan National Army. He also pledged to accelerate a project to train
Afghan diplomats and government officials. Analysts say those moves suggest
possible further military and diplomatic cooperation between India and
Afghanistan. Niklas Swanstrom, the director of the Program for Contemporary
Silk Road Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden, told RFE/RL there are
several reasons why it makes sense for India to seek greater ties with
Afghanistan. "Economic ones - trade. But also oil, [natural] gas, etc,
which is still not reality but could happen. But also, you have a political
aspect, which is [combating cross-border] terrorism and controlling [the
regional influence of] Pakistan. Pakistan traditionally has a very strong
influence over Afghanistan, both positive and negative. If India comes in,
it will decrease [Islamabad's] leverage over Afghanistan. [So,] by engaging
Central Asia and Afghanistan they will get leverage over political
developments in the region - which means decreasing Pakistan's influence
over those states," Swanstrom said.
From http://www.atimes.com/ 02/18/2005
TOP↑
MALDIVES: Government Decides on
Post-Tsunami Austerity Measures
MALE: Following the enormous budgetary
pressures in the wake of expenditures on reconstruction after the tsunami,
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has decided on a set of austerity measures
to reduce public expenditures in other areas, the President’s Office
announced Sunday. The measures that have been adopted were announced in a
Directive issued by the President’s Office on Sunday. The measures include
reducing to a bare minimum all events such as receptions and celebrations
of occasions by various government offices during the current year. The
same also applies to various tournaments that are organized by various
government offices. Foreign travel will also be reduced to those which are
deemed essential, the President’s Office said in a press release. In
addition, the directive also calls on government offices to identify other
areas in which expenses can be reduced and to act upon them.
From http://www.haveeru.com.mv/ 02/14/2005
TOP↑
Constitutional Reform Proposals
Presented to Special Majlis
MALE: President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on
Monday presented detailed proposals for constitutional reform to Abbas
Ibrahim, the Speaker of the People’s Special Majlis, which is sitting to
revise the constitution. The proposals were presented to Abbas at a
ceremony at the President’s Office. Gayoom also presented to the Speaker 16
bound volumes containing nearly 2,000 submissions for constitutional
revision that had been sent to Gayoom from members of the public, and from
civil society organizations such as the Law Society of Maldives. The
Special Majlis, which is in the final stages of adopting its rules of
procedure, is expected to begin its substantive sessions in early March.
Speaking at the ceremony, Gayoom said: “My aim in submitting these
proposals is to help the Maldives become a mature, 21st century democracy
in the shortest possible timeframe. These reforms will strengthen the
fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution adopted in 1998, and
further modernize the country’s political system by introducing multiparty
democracy. “On the back of the tremendous strides of social development
made by the country recently, the time is now right for our nation to usher
in a modern democracy. The people and I hope the Special Majlis will be
able to complete its mandate of constitutional reform in about a year.”
From http://www.haveeru.com.mv/ 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Special Majlis Begins Adopting Rules
of Business
MALE: The Special Majlis has started
adopting its Rules of Business, provision by provision. This decision came
during its sixth meeting held on Wednesday to decide upon the adoption of
the second draft of its Rules of Business as revised by the Rules
Committee, the Majlis secretariat said. Earlier in October, the Majlis
elected a 25-member Rules Committee to draft its Rules of Business. Some 10
members had proposed 111 amendments to the first draft, and at the fifth
meeting of the Majlis, it was decided to re-empower the Rules Committee to
re-consider the draft Rules in view of those 111 amendments and to make
necessary revisions. Hence, the second draft incorporating revisions to the
first draft in view of the 111 amendments was tabled on Wednesday. And the
ensuing debate resulted in most members favoring a method of provision by
provision adoption of the Rules, providing greater opportunity for debate
on each of the various. The Special Majlis will continue its meeting every
working day until the 65 provision Rules of Business is duly adopted by the
Majlis. The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by Speaker Abbas Ibrahim,
concluded at 1230 hours. At the end of the meeting, only the 1st provision
was adopted.
From http://www.haveeru.com.mv/ 02/17/2005
TOP↑
PAKISTAN: Govt to Grant Gwadar
7-Years Tax Holiday
ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to
grant seven years’ tax exemption to industrial and business establishments
in Gwadar Special Economic Zone (GSEZ) despite opposition from the Central
Board of Revenue (CBR) and the Ministry of Labour and Manpower, Daily Times
learned on Wednesday. This decision is likely to be endorsed by the federal
cabinet which meets today (Thursday) with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in
the chair. The cabinet is also likely to endorse trade agreements and
extradition treaties with various countries. The cabinet is likely to allow
the Commerce Ministry to begin talks with Morocco, Malaysia and Indonesia
on the Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) and renew the same with China.
The cabinet will also ratify extradition treaties with the UAE and China
and start negotiations with Tunisia on a similar agreement. The cabinet
meeting may also decide to exempt Sri Lankan students from visa fees on a
reciprocal basis. According to a document made available to Daily Times,
the Ministry of Ports and Shipping has recommended exempting GSEZ from the
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947 and the Protection of Economic
Reforms1992 despite strong opposition by the Revenue Division. The Ministry
of Ports and Shipping, in its summary has claimed that the Finance Division
has its concurrence to the proposal to exempt GSEZ from the two laws.
However, CBR did not agree with the proposal, saying that no area in
Pakistan could be exempted except under the Constitution of Pakistan as in
the case of FATA/PATA. The Ministry of Labour and Manpower is also opposing
the decision on different grounds. Sources said that it had also been
decided to covert the Army Welfare Housing Scheme into Defence Housing Authority
and to set up the Pakistan Council for Renewable Energy Technologies
(PCRET). The Defence Ministry submitted a summary in this regard to the
cabinet some time ago, which was rejected on the grounds that other public
sector stakeholders were not consulted.
From http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/ 02/10/2005
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IRAN: Law to Enforce Greater State
Control over Monetary Market
Parliament Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel
submitted the law seeking greater state control over open monetary market
to the chief executive on Monday. The law marks the enforcement of the
long-sought initiative and the end of financial crimes by the so-called
'non-profit' funds and financial institutions. According to ISNA, the
people would henceforth be able to invest their money in authorized
financial institutions whose activities are endorsed and closely supervised
by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).As per the law, the bank would prevent
non-profit funds from doing business unless they register with the CBI
within the next four weeks. The controversial bill was finally ratified
earlier this month after being rejected five times by the
conservative-dominated constitutional supervisory body Guardians Council
(GC).The law stipulates that the Central Bank of Iran must supervise the
activities of all real and legal entities involved in any kind of banking
operations. It covers all non-profit investment funds, leasing firms and
all other companies and institutions, which collect public savings to
render financial facilities. The law commits all companies involved in
monetary transactions with the public to revise their articles of
association in compliance with CBI regulations. Very many people have lost
their savings in recent years after they deposited them with non-profit
funds, which usually take advantage of sacred titles to develop their
illegal business.
From http://www.iran-daily.com/ 02/01/2005
TOP↑
General Outlines of Irancell Bill
Ratified
The Majlis on Sunday approved the general
outlines of a bill for implementing a deal on the network license and
mobile telephone services--Irancell, IRNA reported. The bill authorizes the
Ministry of Information and Communication Technology to execute the deal
which has been concluded with the Irancell Company in implementation of
Article 124 of the Third Five-Year Development Plan (2000-2005) with
preserved principles. The Majlis Joint Commission had earlier ratified the
bill on Irancell making certain changes. Based on the bill ratified by the
Majlis Joint Commission, the Iranian side would have a 51 percent share
while the foreign party would have the remaining 49 percent stake in the
deal. The bill also envisages the Supreme National Security Council's
consent on security related aspects of the deal as pinpointed by the
Intelligence Ministry. The commission also lowered the price of mobile
phone subscription from 1.2 million rials to one million rials. The
commission cited changes in the content of the deal as beneficial for
increasing the scientific and technical role of the Iranian side. Turkish
telecommunications major Turkcell earlier threatened to abandon a
multi-billion-dollar deal to set up Iran's first mobile telephone network
after a special commission trimmed down the company's stake. Turkey's
leading GSM operator Turkcell is expected to invest about $3 billion in the
project, making it one of the biggest foreign investments in Iran since the
1979 Islamic Revolution. The company, however, has failed to go ahead with
the project amid political saber-rattling inside Iran over worries that the
country's security could be compromised. Like Irancell, the fate of a deal
to build and operate a major airport in southern Tehran by a Turkish
consortium, TAV, has remained in balance amid security concerns.
From http://www.iran-daily.com/ 02/14/2005
TOP↑
KAZAKHSTAN: Draft Law on Chambers of
Industry and Commerce Approved
Deputies of the mazhilis have approved a draft law "On
chambers of industry and commerce" today, February 9, at a plenary
session of the chamber, KZ-today correspondent reports from Astana. The
objective of the law is to define the peculiarity of the legal status of
the CIC as a separate legal organisational form of a non-lucrative
organisation. As per the draft law the main tasks of the CIC are to promote
development of business activities in Kazakhstan, provide practical aid to
individual entrepreneurs, and juridical persons in RK in new forms of
commercial, economic, scientific, and technical co-operation. The draft law
has been forwarded to the senate for consideration.
From http://eng.gazeta.kz/ 02/09/2005
TOP↑
Kazakh Parliament Passes
Anti-Extremism Bill
Kazakhstan's Mazhilis (lower chamber of
parliament) on 9 February passed a draft law on combating extremism,
Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. The bill, which now awaits the signature of
President Nursultan Nazarbaev, contains amendments proposed by the upper
chamber, including a definition of what constitutes financing extremism. It
also provides definitions of political, national, and religious extremism,
and it stipulates that the city court of Astana will have the right to
declare groups extremist organizations. "Any group calling for
liquidation of a legitimate power should be defined as an extremist
organization," parliamentarian Serik Abdurakhamov told RFE/RL's Kazakh
Service. "Also, those who are causing interethnic hostility." Andrei
Kravchenko, an official within the Prosecutor-General's Office, told
RFE/RL, "If this draft bill is adopted, then all the Hizb
ut-Tahrir-type organizations will be banned on Kazakhstan's
territory." DK
From http://www.rferl.org/ 02/10/2005
TOP↑
TURKEY: Digital Signature Act Comes
into Effect
A new regulation concerning the
distribution and usage of digital signatures entitled, “The Ordinance on
the Procedures and Principles Pertaining to the Implementation of
Electronic Signature Law,” has come into effect after being published in
the Official Gazette on Jan. 6. The ordinance covers the procedures and
principles regarding the creation and verification of electronic signatures
and devices used to generate them. According to the ordinance, which was
prepared within the framework of the Digital Signature Act enacted on Jan.
1, 2005, public institutions, legal and actual individuals and entities
wanting to become digital certificate service providers (DCSPs) will have
apply to the Telecommunication Authority (TK), supplying the required
information and documents. The authority will assess the application
immediately after its submission and complete the process within two months
of the date of application. The institutions authorized to become DCSPs
will then be allowed to operate in this capacity starting from the end of
this period. According to the ordinance, a DCSP will identify a person
based on existing officially valid documentation such as identification
cards, driving licenses or passports, and then issue a licensed digital
certificate. In cases where a licensed digital certificate owner has the
authority to act on behalf of another legal or actual person or entity, the
DCSP will confirm the reliability of the information provided about this
other person by referring to officially valid documents that must be
provided. The DCSP is not allowed to request any personal or legal
information apart from that which is required for the generation of the
particular digital certificate concerned. The DCSP is also not allowed to
transfer licensed information to any third party. The DCSP will generate a
digital signature and will give it to the signatory (i.e. certificate
owner). The period of validity of the digital signature will be determined
by the contract. The DCSP may publish the licensed digital certificate in a
public directory with the permission of the signatory. The DCSP does not
have the authority to cancel the digital certificate retrospectively. The
owner of a licensed digital certificate will be responsible for not passing
that digital certificate to a third party. Digital Certificate Service
Providers will generate the digital signature and certificate, using the
relevant verification data. This certificate must be generated within the
borders of the Republic of Turkey; furthermore the verification information
must not be exported abroad. The period of validity of both the information
required for generating the digital signature, and the data required for
verification, will not exceed ten years. The ordinance places
responsibility for taking all necessary measures to ensure the security of
the digital signature on the DCSP in all situations apart from those
resulting from misconduct on the part of the certificate owner. The
Telecommunication Authority can choose to end the DCSP contract in cases
where the DCSP fails to satisfy the required criteria.
From http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/ 02/16/2005
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AUSTRALIA: Increased Health Rebates
for Elderly
Older Australians would receive a private
health insurance rebate of up to 40 per cent under laws passed in the House
of Representatives. If the Senate also approves the law, the private health
insurance rebate for those aged between 65 and 69 would be increased from
30 per cent to 35 per cent and to 40 per cent for a person aged 70 or older.
The changes would come into effect on April 1. Health Minister Tony Abbott
said the changes recognised older people were more likely to need health
care and it was important they could afford it. "This is an important
piece of legislation. It will significantly strengthen the private health
sector in this country," he said. "I think that older Australians
can be confident that their future, their health security, is in good hands
with the Howard government." However, Mr Abbott admitted the law may
need fine tuning down the track. "The government will monitor the
implementation of the seniors rebate, review its operation after the first
six to 12 months and if necessary make any legislative fine tuning that is
desirable," he said. Opposition health spokeswoman Julia Gillard
failed to have an amendment passed condemning the government for failing to
ensure private health insurance provided real choice and value in health
care and to adequately address the health care needs of all older
Australians.
From http://theage.com.au/ 02/02/2005
TOP↑
Bankruptcy Laws Could Be Changed
High-flying businesspeople who claim
bankruptcy to avoid paying their debts will be targeted under changes being
considered by the government. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock released a
discussion paper canvassing changes to bankruptcy laws that would prevent
high income earners from living luxurious lifestyles while bankrupt. The
latest government move to close the loophole comes after it was forced to
withdraw proposed laws last year after a parliamentary committee found no
justification for the changes. Mr Ruddock singled out barristers as one
group that would be unable to place assets into the name of their spouses
or other entities to stop creditors getting access to them. "The
government remains committed to preventing high income earners, including
barristers, from shielding their real assets from creditors by placing them
in the name of their spouses or another party," Mr Ruddock said in a
statement. "The discussion paper I have released today contains
options and invites suggestions to strengthen the Bankruptcy Act to address
this problem." Mr Ruddock said the government had listened to the
concerns about the previous anti-avoidance proposals. "The government
... now invites comments from stakeholders on revision of those changes.
"However, the government remains determined to toughen bankruptcy laws
so that bankrupts cannot live the high life while their creditors remain
unpaid."
From http://theage.com.au/ 02/08/2005
TOP↑
Disabled Students'
Fund Cut Reversed
A public outcry prompts the Government to
spend an extra $7 million on children with disabilities. The State
Government has backed down on effective education funding cuts for children
with disabilities by preparing to spend an extra $7 million a year.
Following public anger and an outcry from distressed parents, Premier Steve
Bracks yesterday intervened, with the Government reversing a decision that
threatened the education of thousands of students with disabilities. Mr
Bracks yesterday pledged that "no student who receives money currently
will be disadvantaged. They will receive the same funding they've had in
the past." Under contentious changes announced in December, two days
before school ended, eligibility rules for new students with disabilities
were altered so that those entering specialist or mainstream schools this
year would receive $6000 to $12,000 less than they would have received last
year. Less funding meant fewer teachers and therapists and also threatened
the viability of some specialist schools. After Mr Bracks spoke to
Education Services Minister Jacinta Allan yesterday morning, Ms Allan later
announced that extra money would be made available. She said the December
funding changes went "further than what we'd intended" and had
led to "unintended consequences". "I have listened to
concerns raised with me about the assessment of students and I want to
reassure parents no student will be worse off as a result of these
changes," she said. Ms Allan said she had directed the Education
Department to contact every school with students who had been affected to
"make arrangements to adjust their budget as necessary". Ms Allan
declined to reveal how much extra money would be allocated, but it is
believed that the Education Department reckons an extra $7 million will be
needed. Some estimates have put the funding shortfall at $14 million. A
working party examining the funding of education for children with
disabilities will continue. The Government's decision was cautiously welcomed
by the Association for Children with a Disability. The group's chief
executive, Michael Gourlay, said it was "fantastic" that the
Government had acknowledged the funding shortfall and made a commitment
that no student would be disadvantaged. But "we will need to see the
detailed workings of the formula, and the department's costings, before
we're reassured that $7 million is enough to achieve the objectives the
Government has stated," he said. The head of the Principals
Association of Specialist Schools, David Giddings, also welcomed the
Government's recognition of "serious inequities" in the funding
system. "We'll be interested to see the detail as it unfolds in the
next few days," he said. In the past four years the State Government
increased funding in the area by $111 million, but this has failed to match
the growth in the number of students diagnosed with a disability. Until
yesterday, the Government's solution was to tinker with eligibility rules
rather than to increase funding. (by Shane Green)
From http://theage.com.au/ 02/09/2005
TOP↑
Nation's Road Plan Passes Lower
House
The federal government's plan for the
nation's road and transport system was the latest instalment in a sorry
tale of Australia's collapsing spending on infrastructure, Opposition
Leader Kim Beazley said. But the government's Auslink national land
transport plan overcame its first hurdle on Wednesday night when it passed
the House of Representatives. Under the plan, $8 billion would be spent on
national roads and railways in the next five years, $1.6 million was
earmarked for regional and local transport needs and $180 million would be
provided for the national black spot program. Mr Beazley attacked the
scheme and said rather than coming to terms with the nation's
infrastructure problems and lack of strategic planning, the government was
making them worse. "This is the latest instalment in a sorry tale of
the progressive collapsing of the nation's infrastructure spending into a
series of National Party slush funds," he told parliament. "We
see a complacent government planning to entrench its self interested
political decision making in this bill." Labor backbencher Lindsay
Tanner said there were positive aspects to the Auslink strategy,
particularly steps to improving funding assessments for road and rail, but
the scheme failed to ensure funds went to areas of greatest need. "The
government is also introducing a discretionary fund for strategic regional
projects," he said. "As recent events indicate, that is simply
code for a slush fund that can be doled out, particularly prior to election
campaigns, in order to assist National Party candidates to hold and to win
marginal seats. "It is simply to enable further pork-barrelling by the
National Party in particular, and in some areas to Liberal Party ... in
order to maximise their political position." Roads Minister Jim Lloyd
said the Auslink program heralded the most important change to national
land transport policy in the past 30 years. "The Auslink program has a
generational commitment to transport infrastructure improvement," he
said. "It will help deliver on the government's vision for a land
transport system that can both meet the challengers of the transport task
and make its contribution to a stronger economy." The bill must now be
passed by the Senate before becoming law.
From http://news.ninemsn.com.au/ 02/10/2005
TOP↑
PM Signals Tight Budget
Prime Minister John Howard said the
government would bring down a tight Budget. And he warned company chief
executives about setting a precedent for wage rises by rewarding themselves
with bumper salaries. Excessive wage claims could not be sustained without
high productivity, Mr Howard said. The government had a responsibility to bring
down a Budget in May that did not affect the surplus, he told Melbourne
radio 3AW. "This will have to be a fairly tight Budget coming up.
"I'm not foreshadowing draconian cuts or anything that represents a
repudiation of fundamental things," he said. Mr Howard said he was
worried there were signs of problems with the economy. "I just worry a
little bit that there are some signs and it's better to say so and to
identify some of the problems before they gather traction." But he
refused to answer questions about the impact a tight Budget might have on
flagged tax cuts. "I'm not going to get into the detail of it,"
he said. "I'm not ruling anything out." His comments on the
Budget came on the back of warnings to chief executives of big companies
that large remuneration packages could set a bad precedent for wage rises.
"I think in this particular situation senior executives of companies
have got a responsibility to make sure, whilst their remuneration remains
adequate, appropriate and competitive, it is not so large and so excessive
in some cases that their employees are entitled to say: `Well if it's good
enough for the bosses to get very large amounts, why isn't it good enough
for us to have a big increase?'" Any trend in this direction could
damage the economy, he said. "If this becomes a trend - that is, wage
rises that are in advance of productivity - then it will damage the
economy," he said. "Whilst I'd be the last person to argue that
chief executives shouldn't be well paid ... there have been some examples
of excess in that area, let's face it." But he said the unions
couldn't be blamed for taking this position when CEOs set the tune.
"I'm in favour of wage increases," he said. "High wages
based on high productivity are terrific. That's what we all want."
From http://theage.com.au 02/11/2005
TOP↑
Cabinet to Consider IR Restructuring
The Federal Industrial Relations (IR)
Minister is expected to brief Cabinet this week on broad proposals to
overhaul Australia's IR laws. The Government gains control of the Senate in
July and it has already flagged major industrial relations changes,
including a single national system, award simplification and incentives to
get the disabled into work. Opposition industrial relations spokesman Stephen
Smith is already concerned. "They will seek to embark upon a very
extreme and dangerous approach," he said. Coalition backbencher Bruce
Baird has told Channel Ten it is an area the Reserve Bank wants addressed.
"Governor Macfarlane did talk about a whole long laundry list of
issues he thought we should address and taxation reform was clearly on the
agenda and industrial relations reform," he said. Labor says it would
consider a single national system, but does not want a war with unions.
From http://au.news.yahoo.com/ 02/20/2005
TOP↑
CNMI: Emergency Evacuation Plan
Drawn Up
An evacuation plan for schoolchildren has
been drawn up in the Northern Marianas to deal with natural disasters.
School System Deputy Commissioner David Borja says the plan was created to
allay parents fears for the safety of their children in schools should a
tsunami strike. The majority of public schools on the islands are very near
the beaches. Borja says eight regular and four special education buses are
on standby to evacuate the schoolchildren to higher grounds in case of a
tsunami alert. He admits though, that the buses are not enough to carry the
estimated 11-thousand public school students in case of an emergency.
Scientists from the US Geological Survey say the islands are surrounded by
the potential to generate tsunamis and it would be best if the islands
prepare now for any eventualities.
From http://www.pacificislands.cc/ 02/14/2005
TOP↑
NEW ZEALAND: Government to Extend
All Support for Textiles R & D
The government has extended all support to
the textiles, carpet, footwear, and apparel industry according to the
Minister for Economic Development, Jim Anderton. He said, "The
Textiles, Carpet, Footwear and Apparel (TCFA) sector has been pledged
support of $1.125 over the next two years to meet the sector's need to
adapt in light of lower tariffs and potential trade agreements with
China." The government is additionally funding the sector collectively
contributing $250,000. "We need to ensure that New Zealand's TCFA
sector maintains and enhances its ability to develop high-value products
and improve the sector's already growing contribution to New Zealand's
economy.” "The introduction of lower tariffs and the development of a
Free Trade Agreement with China means many TCFA firms will need to adjust
their focus from commodity manufacturing to high value products by
developing advanced textile technologies. That means they will need to
build up their research and development capability," Jim Anderton
said. Textiles New Zealand, the industry development organisation, will
work with TCFA firms to determine the projects to be undertaken, and the
funds will be administered by the Foundation for Research Science and
Technology. This will ensure the projects are supported by the industry,
market driven and thoroughly monitored. This is in addition to the earlier
$2.3 million package the government provided to Textiles New Zealand and
the TCFA sector as part of the 2004/05 budget.
From http://www.fibre2fashion.com/ 08/02/2005
TOP↑
Kyoto Protocol in Force Today
The Kyoto Protocol comes into force today,
and the Government says New Zealand will play its part in reducing
greenhouse gases which are causing climate change. The protocol, so far
ratified by 141 nations, sets binding emission reduction targets for the
world's developed nations. The United States and Australia are among the
small number of developed countries which have not signed up to it. Pete
Hodgson, the minister in charge of climate change policy, said today the
protocol would drive significant technological changes in the years ahead.
"New Zealanders have never chosen to be left behind as the world
changes," he said in a statement. "We're proud to be doing our
bit alongside 140 other nations... we're now rising to the challenge posed
by climate change, arguably the most important environmental issue the
world has ever faced." The protocol sets reduction levels which have
to be achieved by 2012, and introduces an international carbon trading scheme
-- countries which do well can benefit by selling carbon credits to others
who are having difficulty meeting targets. The Government signed the
protocol in 2002. The National Party opposed ratification and has said it
will pull out of the agreement if it comes to power. National believes New
Zealand will be disadvantaged by having to meet emission targets while its
major trading partners do not.
From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ 02/16/2005
TOP↑
Electronic Road Tolls Supported by Public, Says Transit
The prospect of New Zealand drivers having
to pay electronic road tolls is a step closer with Transit to review
methods of collection. Transit New Zealand, the Government's roadbuilder,
today released a consultation report on toll systems for roads, which found
"support" for electronic tolls. "The report found that there
is support for the concept of a nationally integrated electronic toll
collection system for toll roads in New Zealand," Transit chief
executive Rick van Barneveld said. Transit wants to use tolls to pay for
the construction of new roads. But in its full consultation report, Transit
says "many individual submitters queried the introduction of toll
roads in principle, arguing that significant revenue is already collected
through petrol excise tax". Most submitters also said a cost-free
route must also be available as well as any toll route. All Maori
organisations which made submissions were against the toll project.
Transit's preferred tolling option is one with no barriers and tolls
collected electronically as vehicles drive by. The report recommends
Transit investigate toll payment options for cars not fitted with an
"electronic toll collection device" and a toll payment option
that does not record toll payers' personal details.
From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ 02/17/2005
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Extra Petrol Tax Tied to Inflation
Parliament last night passed legislation
allowing the Government to increase the price of petrol so it can raise
about $207 million a year for roading. The petrol duty can be increased by
5c a litre (excluding GST) and it will be linked to inflation. Customs
Minister Rick Barker, who is in charge of the Customs and Excise (Motor
Spirits) Amendment Bill, said all the money raised would be spent on
roading. The bill does not set a date for the increase. Instead, it allows
it to be introduced on or after April 1.
From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ 02/17/2005
TOP↑
It's 24-Hour Drinking in Auckland
City
Auckland City has pressed ahead with moves
to officially sanction 24-hour licensing of bars despite warnings from
alcohol watchdogs it will lead to increased violence. A council committee
has voted to entrench 24-hour licensing in its new alcohol strategy,
disappointing alcohol groups who say they have grave fears about the move.
The decision, which is expected to be approved by the full council this
week, allows for a year-long 3am probation period after which bars can
apply to go all-hours. Nightclubs would be granted 24-hour licences
immediately. Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard said he was happy with 24-hour
drinking in the city as long as there were no problems. "If there are
problems we want to make sure that the ability to restrict licences is used
to control the problems." He said the new policy was better than the
current ad hoc granting of 24-hour licences, as bars would be denied the
opportunity to open all-hours if there were problems under their 3am probation.
"It puts you in a lot stronger position if you are extending for good
behaviour, rather than withdrawing licences for bad behaviour," he
said. The council has been promoting the draft alcohol policy as a key to
creating a dynamic, vibrant city. But alcohol watchdogs are disappointed
that their warnings about allowing more all-hour drinking establishments
have apparently gone ignored. Government policy advisers, the Alcohol
Advisory Council, along with Alcohol Healthwatch and Massey University
researchers, warned that increased violence and alcohol-related harm were
almost inevitable with all-hour bars. "People just have that much more
alcohol on board that they are going to be much more likely to be involved
in violent incidents," said Kim Conway from Massey University's Centre
for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE). Studies by
SHORE, whose director Sally Casswell chairs a World Health Organisation
committee on alcohol policy, have already shown a link between longer
opening hours and violence in Auckland. Ms Conway said a 2001 survey of
police data found about two thirds of drink-related violence involving
young people in the city occurred between midnight and 4am. The figures did
not include drink-driving arrests or hospital admissions. The theory that
longer opening hours would encourage more controlled drinking and avoid the
problems of binge drinking atclosing time did not stack up, Ms Conway said.
"It's simply spread over a larger period of the night." Already
99 out of Auckland's 237 bars operate under 24-hour licences and 18 out of
30 nightclubs are allowed to open all hours - none which will be affected
by the new policy. Rebecca Williams of Alcohol Health Watch said the
council obviously decided that extending 24/7 privileges to everyone was
the logical thing to do. "But it goes against the evidence to have
basically open slather 24-hour. So I suppose they have probably taken the
best option they can in making it dependent on good management." BOOZE
CULTURE Almost all (94 per cent) New Zealanders have tried alcohol 81 per
cent of adults and 52 per cent of people aged 12-17 drink 38 per cent of
adults say they are not concerned about the long-term effects of alcohol on
their physical well-being. 71 per cent of adults say they limit their
alcohol intake because of responsibilities to their family. ( by Leah
Haines)
From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ 02/20/2005
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World Leaders Still Failing on Major
Global Challenges: Report
The Global Governance Initiative, a think
tank set up by the World Economic Forum (WEF), said Monday that world
leaders have made no progress in keeping promises to tackle key global
challenges such as poverty or climate change and need to engage the
corporate world far more, Agence France Presse reports. In a report
released just two days before the Forum's annual meeting of global
political and business leaders, the Global Governance Initiative said
countries had failed to improve on last year's ratings of three to four out
of ten in cutting hunger and poverty, or improving health, education, human
rights and the environment. The annual report card also reduced the
international community's score from three to two out of ten on peace and
security, due to atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, repeated terror
attacks from Madrid to Beslan, and the situation in Iraq. Other failures
included lingering agricultural subsidies in industrialized nations that
marginalized poorest countries, "turf battles" between
international agencies and donors hampering the fight against HIV/AIDS, or
subsidies encouraging the use of polluting fossil fuels such as oil. The
report said even if business was only "part of the problem" and
"part of the solution", the resources and skills of
"profitable and responsible" private enterprise should be tapped
to create wealth, share technology and improve living standards. The WEF
underlined the response to the tsunami disaster as an example of how the
corporate world could also "contribute towards global goals". But
the think tank also warned that "bad or corrupt" business
practices contributed to conflict, poverty, human rights abuse and
environmental decline. "In the wake of major corporate scandals, the
business community faces a strong need to rebuild trust," the report
noted. "Businesses need new markets and business opportunities to
remain competitive, and those opportunities require healthy, educated,
prosperous populations in stable societies throughout the world.” Companies
could contribute more by developing new products to tackle environmental
challenges, or by investing in ventures like corporate HIV/AIDS treatment
programs or technologies that benefit poor communities even if they do not
meet a "pure business case", the group said. Britain's Prime
Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Germany's Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder, the presidents of Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa are
due to join business leaders in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos from
Wednesday to discuss many of those issues. The Wall Street Journal reports
that for the first time in five years, no one theme is set to dominate this
year's WEF. This year is "a series of new beginnings”: a newly
inaugurated US president, a newly elected Palestinian leader, a new
European Commission president, a new leader in Ukraine. It seems possible
that a confluence of these "new beginnings" could help breed
fresh ideas and new approaches to old problems, or at least make for lively
discussions among meeting participants. Here are some of the moments to watch:
Tomorrow, Blair is expected to send a clear message on climate change that
may not please Washington, which has rejected the Kyoto accord aimed at
reducing global warming. Blair is expected to set out his vision of how the
Group of Eight leading nations, which he heads this year, should take joint
action on climate change. Some 30 corporate chief executives are then
expected to sign up as an international advisory committee. The next day
Blair will join Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, former President Clinton,
South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo
and rock star Bono, on a panel on debt relief in the continent. Newly
inaugurated President Yushchenko of Ukraine is expected to tell delegates
how he is working to foster democracy. Mahmoud Abbas, the newly elected
president of the Palestinian National Authority will make his Davos debut
Thursday. With the presence of Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres and three
Israeli ministers, informal Palestinian-Israeli talks seem possible. On the
corporate front, 43 CEOs are planning to launch an anticorruption
initiative, showing that corporate governance remains a hot topic. The
Guardian (UK) reports that while Blair will tomorrow tell international
business leaders at the WEF that climate change must be at the top of their
agenda to help their companies avert financial hardship, a report yesterday
from the International Climate Change Taskforce made clear the UK is not
doing enough to combat global warming. Dow Jones also reports that the UK's
Institute for Public Policy Research says in a report to be published
Tuesday that the world's major economies should mandate strict renewable
energy targets. The report says leading global economies should strive to
source a quarter of their electricity needs from renewable energy by 2025.
The report also says the biggest industrialized nations should also
institute mandatory cap-and-trade schemes for emissions like the European
Union's program. The report says the McCain-Lieberman climate stewardship act,
a bill introduced last year that would cap emissions but which failed to
win enough support in the US senate, is an example of the kind of measure
that needs to be put in place. The report calls on the G8 and other large
economies, including from the developing world, to pursue reforms that will
lead to investments in climate-friendly technology.
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 01/25/2005
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Annan to Improve UN Accountability
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, under fire for the world body's lax management of the UN
oil-for-food program in Iraq, is taking steps to improve the accountability
of the world body, The Associated Press reports Annan's new chief of staff
said Monday. Mark Malloch Brown, who took up his new post on Jan. 19, said
former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker will probably "land
some very heavy blows" in an interim report on his investigation of
alleged corruption in the humanitarian program for Iraq which is expected
in the coming week. Volcker has already criticized UN oil-for-food audits.
The United Nations has to come up "with a substantive response"
that focuses on improving management of the organization, Malloch Brown
said. Management wins back people's trust," he said. One step is to
try to open up the selection process for top UN posts, Malloch Brown said
in an interview with news agencies. Annan announced in mid-January that
following the departure of several key members, he planned to remake his
top team for his final two years as UN chief. The appointment of Malloch
Brown, the highly respected head of the UN Development Fund, as chief of
staff was the first major change. Annan now needs to find a new development
chief to replace him as well as a new management chief, controller, Mideast
envoy, and head of the agency that deals with Palestinian refugees. Malloch
Brown said when it comes to management accountability "we've got to
show that we take it deadly seriously, and are going to take action and
address these problems." Last Friday, Malloch Brown met with Rosemarie
Waters, head of the UN Staff Union, which represents over 5,000 employees.
The union has strongly criticized senior UN management as well as a UN
investigation that led Annan to clear the UN's top investigator, Dileep Nair,
of allegations of wrongdoing. "Until the whole organization exudes
renewed motivation, enthusiasm, morale, a sense of direction and
performance, all the fine words from here won't make a difference -- so
getting the staff back on side is a real priority," Malloch Brown
said. The Associated Press further writes that in a new initiative, Annan
opened the search for a new development chief to "the best qualified
candidates in the world," and set three criteria -- political,
fundraising and leadership skills; knowledge of development issues; and
management expertise. Traditionally, the top appointed posts at UN funds
and agencies have often gone to specific countries that are major
contributors. Until Malloch Brown, who is British, took over UNDP, its administrator
had always been an American. "It's always been galling to see how many
senior appointments are stitched up by governments in back corridors,"
Malloch Brown said. "I think there's a very profound feeling that it's
time that the selection processes to choose these key international jobs
were more transparent and inclusive." Annan is also planning to revamp
the selection process for senior staff, bringing in professional
headhunters and a retired ambassador to participate in the interview process.
"We're breaking a sacred taboo here," Malloch Brown said.
"Let's see where it goes."
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 02/01/2005
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New ADB Chief Vows to Pursue Broad
Reforms
Haruhiko Kuroda, the new Asian Development
Bank (ADB) president, promised yesterday to improve relations with member
countries, cut bureaucracy and actively promote regional co-operation to
boost the lender's effectiveness in reducing poverty in the region, the
Financial Times reports. In his first news conference since taking office
on February 1, the former Japanese vice-minister of finance also said the
bank would "improve the range of financial instruments" to
mobilize savings from the region to meet the needs of borrowing members. He
said new financial instruments, such as local currency-denominated ADB
bonds, should also help to accelerate economic and financial integration.
The ADB is preparing to launch its first renminbi-denominated bond in China
to raise money to finance private sector-initiated infrastructure projects
in the country. Juanito Limandibrata, the bank's assistant treasurer, said
the bond would have a maturity of at least three years and could amount to
Rmb1bn, though the final terms of the bond sale have yet to be fixed. In
raising funds to address poverty, which afflicts 700 million of Asia's
people, Kuroda said the ADB should not just rely on rich member countries
but should strive to mobilize the savings from the private sector in the
region. "To promote private sector development, ADB should expand its
enhancement function through the proactive use of equity investments and
guarantees," he told ADB employees on the day he took office. Dow
Jones also reports that Kuroda wants a leaner and more aggressive bank
attuned to the fast-changing economic landscape and diverse cultures of the
Asia-Pacific region. "The ADB should streamline procedures and reduce
bureaucracy," Kuroda said Tuesday. "The region is changing and we
have to be responsive to its changing needs. We should improve the skills
of the staff, our human resources management." He said decentralizing
the ADB's functions will be a major challenge, but will be key if the bank
is to become more effective. The ADB was established to foster economic
growth and cooperation in the region and help developing countries reduce
poverty. From its inception in 1996 to the end of 2003, the ADB has
approved a total $76.28 billion in loans. Kuroda said harnessing the
resources of the private sector, promoting regional economic integration,
and replicating the bank's successful undertakings such as the Greater
Mekong subregion program are all part of the bank's poverty reduction
strategy. The Greater Mekong subregion program involves promoting economic
cooperation among Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China. The
ADB helped design the cooperation program and financed infrastructure and
other projects aimed at promoting development and drawing investments into
those countries.
From http://www.worldbank.org/ 02/09/2005
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CHINA: To Be or Not to Be a Civil
Servant?
At the first Young Chinese Jurists Forum
on January 16, Mo Jihong, recently named one of the country's top ten young
jurists, proposed that primary and middle school teachers be given the
status of civil servants. Mo's argument was that, as their role is central
in implementing fundamental national policy, they should have civil
servants status to "better protect and promote the welfare of teachers
who are helping realize nine-year compulsory education, especially in poor
areas." The idea has provoked a mixed response, with Rednet.com.cn
welcoming it with open arms. Rednet is an official Hunan-based website, the
name of which alludes to patriotism. It said teachers are involved in a
grand project to enlighten the younger generation -- work stipulated by the
government. Because of this they should also be managed by the government
as civil servants are. Their counterparts in France, Germany, Sweden,
Italy, Finland and Portugal enjoy this status, and their jobs are regulated
as civil servants' at national and local levels. n Japan, primary and
middle school teachers fall into a special category of civil servant, with
their own specific regulations. According to these laws, candidates compete
openly for vacancies and, once employed, enjoy civil servants' benefits. On
the other hand, they are also required to fulfill related duties. Rednet
said this system would guarantee a relatively high social status for
teachers, and help promote an ethos of respect for them. The Shenzhen
Economic Daily came out against the proposal, saying that China probably
has more primary and middle school teachers -- 10 million -- than any other
country in the world and that it would be inadvisable to add to the already
growing number of civil servants. There are currently more than 600,000
primary and middle schools in China, enrolling 200 million students. The
newspaper also pointed out that many different kinds of employees perform
duties on behalf of the government in one way or another, yet there has
been no talk of categorizing them as civil servants; to do so in the case
of teachers would be unfair. It also said that, in many areas, particularly
impoverished ones, the salaries and welfare of teachers do catch people's
attention. But few are aware that the Teachers' Law stipulates that their
average salary should be "equal to, or above that of civil servants,
and should be increased incrementally." As long as this is the case,
giving them civil servant status may be a redundant move, the paper said.
(by Wind Gu)
From China.org.cn 01/26/2005
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Former Higher People's Court Chief
of Hunan Province Detained
Wu Zhenjiang, former president of the
Higher People's Court of central China's Hunan Province, was detained for
suspicion of bribe-taking, local sources said. Wu has also been stripped of
his civil servant rank, according to Jiang Bixin, who was elected as
president of Hunan Provincial Higher People's Court at the third session of
the 10th Hunan Provincial People's Congress on Tuesday. In addition to Wu,
152 other judicial officers in the province were also investigated for
alleged law-breaking activities or malpractice in the process of performing
their duties in the past year, with 140 of the investigations completed.
Penalties, including criminal charges, disciplinary punishment within the
Party and removal from leading posts, have been rendered accordingly, Jiang
said.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/02/2005
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Officials Sentenced, Removed for
Dereliction
At the end of last month, two public
health officials in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were found guilty
of malpractice that led to 11 people contracting HIV. Li Zhanping, former
director of Qingshuihe County Public Health Bureau, was sentenced to three
years in prison, suspended for five years. His former deputy Yang Fei also
received three years, suspended for four years. They had both violated
blood donation law and regulations for the clinical use of blood. A
hospital in the county illegally collected and provided blood to about 30
patients for transfusions, and carried out various blood tests during the
course of about a year from November 27, 1999.People who received
transfusions and two of their spouses were infected with HIV, and one of
the spouses died. The hospital had been banned from conducting tests for
hepatitis C, HIV and syphilis due to a lack of screening procedures, but
continued to do so. Li and Yang were fully aware of the situation and did
nothing to stop it. Wang Xiaoling, former president of the hospital, Zhang
Jun, former vice-president, and three others associated with it have also
been charged with dereliction of duty, but are yet to appear before the
court. In another development, three senior Public Security Bureau
officials in Haicheng, northeast China's Liaoning Province, have been
removed from their posts for failing to crack down on gambling. When
provincial-level police raided Zhisheng Recreation Town, a gambling house
in the city on January 26, they found a well-organized and packed gambling
house in full swing. Bai Yuexian, in charge of discipline inspection for
Liaoning Provincial Public Security Bureau, described the case as typical,
grave and alarming. Provincial public security authorities accused the
Haicheng force of failing in their duty, and the chief, political commissar
and deputy chief in charge of security have all been removed from their
posts.
From China Daily 02/02/2005
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Anti-corruption Agencies Reshuffled
China's top anti-corruption agencies have
experienced an unprecedented reshuffle, according to a report in Tuesday's
Legal Evening Post. The internal reshuffle involved 108 high-ranking
officials in eight departments of the Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Ministry of
Supervision. Sixty-seven officials were reassigned between departments and
41 reallocated positions within them. They were selected according to the
time they had been in post (over five, eight or ten years) and to the
particular posts that they held. "If an official stays in one post for
too long, they are more prone to corruption," Shao Daosheng, a
researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the newspaper.
"The reshuffle will not only prevent them from indulging in nepotism,
it should also stimulate creativity and encourage mutual supervision,"
Shao added. In 1996, the Ministry of Personnel issued the Provisional Regulations
on Reshuffling of Government Civil Servants, which required officials in
post for over five years to change positions. "Many government
departments implement the regulations but such a big reshuffle involving
over a hundred high-ranking officials is unprecedented," the newspaper
quoted the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee as saying.
The commission and the ministry plan to widen the range of officials
involved in reshuffles and to carry them out each year.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/03/2005
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Lawmaker's Resignation Sparks Debate
The resignation of a provincial lawmaker
in east China's Anhui Province last week has sparked a hot debate on the
reform of the country's legislatures. Gao Minglun, member of the Standing
Committee of the Provincial People's Congress (PC), proposed his
resignation to the plenary annual session of the provincial PC and was
approved last week. As a 59-year-old science professor with a number of
important posts in universities, Gao said he was "too busy to fulfill his
duty as a provincial lawmaker" and "cannot afford to his duty for
lack of essential law knowledge." It's not rare for local lawmakers to
resign, but Gao is the first who did so because of self-claimed
"limitations in energy and competence," sources with the
provincial legislature said. Some media coverage regards Gao's resignation
as promoting the adoption of full-time lawmakers, who have more expertise
in the country's legislatures. China has long focused on a wide scope of
public opinions by incorporating people from all walks of life in the
legislature. But, it has also shown little concern on their law knowledge
and experience. "The change may bar the posts of lawmakers from
reducing the post to merely a honorary one or a symbolic identity,"
said Hua Guoqing, member of Anhui's provincial NPC standing committee. Some
experts, however, said the significance of such individual cases should not
be magnified. It may mislead the public and may even impair the principle
of broad representation held by the country's legislatures.
"Overemphasis on law expertise will inevitably offset the general
public's say in the legislation. Professionals can voice their ideas in law
drafting and opinion-soliciting processes, while the NPC deputies are the
only channel for the public to declare themselves," said a member of
the NPC Standing Committee who declined to be named. Yu Junbo, chairman of
the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress of Beijing, also
said last week that the municipal legislature currently has no plan to
introduce more law professionals as lawmakers. It was reported that some
local legislatures like the city of Shenzhen in south China have tried to
improve the lawmakers' legislation competence by providing them legislative
assistants. There are also some lawmakers who solicited public views on
legislation through personal websites, newspapers or TV advertisements.
"All these efforts will help lawmakers improve their knowledge and
skills on legislation. The enrollment of more law professionals is not the
only way to improve the country's legislation," according to analysts.
Analysts here also acknowledged the debate itself means that the role of
the NPC as a legislature has been increasing, and it implies the people's
high expectations for the lawmakers. Although he has resigned his post in
provincial NPC standing committee, Gao said he will go on performing his
duty as a provincial NPC deputy.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/03/2005
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Liu Peng Elected COC President
Liu Peng, Director of the General
Administration of Sport of China, has been elected President of the Chinese
Olympic Committee. Yuan Weimin, the former President, was elected Honorary
President. In his inaugural speech, the newly-elected COC President Liu
Peng made it clear that he will do his best together with all the COC
members to help promote and spread the Olympic spirit throughout China. Liu
points out that the Olympic Games have entered the Beijing 2008 cycle,
therefore preparations for the next Olympic Games have entered the critical
final stage. The COC is quite aware, he added, that while acting in close
coordination with the Beijing 2008 Organizing Committee (BOCOG) in
organization and management of sports events. The COC will try everything possible
to help raise the athletes' performance so that China, as the host nation,
will have athletes in more sports events at the 2008 Games. Liu adds that
the COC will, with the preparations for the 2008 Olympics as a turning
point, strengthen its efforts in promoting the coordinated and sustainable
development of the mass sports and competitive sports in this country.
From CRI 02/04/2005
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Leaders Greet Festival with
Disadvantaged
Patting baby cheeks, pounding sticky rice
to make traditional food; kissing cheeks of orphans of AIDS patients and
having pictures taken with AIDS patients -- this is how China's top leaders
spent their Spring Festival. President Hu Jintao Tuesday asked local
officials to help farmer Zha Lanming to build up family fortunes and
improve living standards when he visited Zha's home in a village in Xingyi
City of Guizhou Province, southwest China, on the eve of the Spring
Festival. [Xinhua] President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao greeted the
Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, together with the most
disadvantaged group of the Chinese population: the rural poor in a
southwestern mountainous Guizhou Province and villagers suffering from the
AIDS epidemic in central Henan Province. Once again China's top leaders
spent the most important family reunion holiday outside their own homes.
President Hu made Jiaozi (dumplings) at a farmer home on the Spring
Festival eve last year in southwest China's Guizhou Prvince, when Premier
Wen ate Jiaozi with miners hundreds of meters down the earth two years ago.
On Tuesday, the eve of the Spring Festival, Hu was welcomed by villagers of
Nahui in Xingyi City of Guizhou Province, who were singing and dancing to
the traditional festive tunes of the Bouyei ethnic group. He sipped tea
with villagers and lifted up a kettle to examine a villager's stove. After
pounding sticky rice, Hu took a bite of the local traditional food, eating
it with his hands. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (center) extends to shake
hands with an AIDS patent (back to camera) on the eve of the Chinese lunar
new year in a village in Shangcai, Central China's Henan Province February
8, 2005. [Xinhua] During his tour, Hu instructed the local officials to
help reduce poverty in the mountainous region mainly populated by ethnic
minorities. Hu served as Party chief in Guizhou between 1985 and 1988.
"All of our minorities must struggle together in order to realize our
national goal of creating a relatively affluent society in an all-round
way," Hu said. China's per capita annual income has passed US$1,000,
but many rural families still live in poverty. Premier Wen visited several
AIDS villages in Shangcai County of Henan Province Tuesday. Following
President Hu's widely-acclaimed handshake with AIDS patients in November
2004 on the World AIDS Day in a Beijing hospital, AIDS prevention and the
welfare of HIV/AIDS victims, once a largely neglected and even taboo topic
for many Chinese officials, has attracted much greater attention from both
central and local governments. In Henan, where farmers in dozens of
villages contracted HIV/AIDS from contaminated blood selling, provincial
officials were dispatched to live in so-called "AIDS villages"
and help villagers get treatment and assistance. To the delight of Wen, government
promises to offer free treatment to poor patients have been fulfilled there
and living conditions greatly improved with more paved roads, running water
and various government assistance. Wen kissed an orphan whose parents died
of AIDS during a Lunar New Year party at "Sunny Homestead" for
the homeless who lost their families due to AIDS, and ate Jiaozi with the
children and old people. Wu Jiang, professor with the State Administrative
College, said that the Spring Festival is a time for family gatherings, but
it, together with other holidays, is also a time for the top leaders to get
in touch with the common people. "The new leadership has issued a
series of policies to benefit the common people. Now they are making use of
the holiday to chec khow the policies have been enforced and what effects
they are having." To China observer Gregg Whycherley, a New Zealand
journalist working in Beijing, President Hu and Premier Wen's moves are
admirable. "I think it's a new approach on behalf of the Chinese government
to show concern for disadvantaged people," he said.
From http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ 02/09/2005
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Social Salvation System to Be Built
in 90% of China
Chinese minister of civil affairs Li Xueju
says that china is making efforts to build social salvation system in 90
percent of its provinces. Some related departments will further improve its
disaster rescue system, especially in rural areas. By the end of last year,
China has provided 18 billion yuan (2.2 billion USD) to poor people, and
established nearly thirty thousands salvation stations.
From CRI 02/10/2005
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China Communist Party Members
Misused $300M Funds in '04
BEIJING (AP)--China's Communist Party
disciplined more than 150,000 corrupt party members in 2004 and uncovered
more than US$300 million in misused public funds, the government said
Wednesday. Fifteen of the 164,831 party members disciplined in 2004 were at
the ministerial level, a party watchdog said in a report cited by the
official Xinhua News Agency. "We punish every rotten cadre we can
find," Wu Guanzheng, secretary of the Communist Party's Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection was quoted as saying. The report,
which was issued Tuesday, didn't say what sort of disciplinary action the
cadres faced. Only 4,775 "serious offenders" were transferred to
judiciary departments, it said. Despite continual campaigns and the arrests
of thousands of officials, bribery, embezzlement, fraud and other forms of
corruption are widespread throughout China, especially in bidding for
construction projects. Scams often piggyback on the nation's surging economic
growth. The report said the party had particularly cracked down on
corruption affecting the disadvantaged "such as farmers in land
acquisition deals, urban residents in relocation projects, employees of
state-owned firms in corporate regrouping and bankruptcy deals and migrant
workers with delayed wages. "It didn't specify what new measures had
been taken. Xinhua said the watchdog detected 2.5 billion yuan (US$303
million) in public funds misused by party officials last year. Another
CNY1.46 billion (US$176 million) was spent on the prohibited purchase of
commercial insurance for staffers, Xinhua said.
From Dow Jones Newswires 02/16/2005
TOP↑
Premier Orders Intensified Efforts
Against Corruption
Premier Wen Jiabao said on Wednesday that the government
will redouble its anti-graft efforts this year. At the State Council's
third meeting on clean governance, Wen noted that progress had been made in
the fight against corruption in 2004. This year, the government will focus
on establishing a system that puts equal emphasis on punishment of crooked
officials and prevention of corruption. Eight major areas have been
targeted for improvement in the year ahead. Policy-making concerning major
issues will be reformed and improved by incorporating group
decision-making, professional consultation and assessment, public hearings
and a responsibility system. Administrative licensing will be further
reformed. Administrative permit procedures will be simplified, and existing
regulations will be streamlined and refined. Reform of the financial
management system will accelerate, with emphasis on budget-based management
in government departments. Both the scope and scale of government
procurement will be expanded. Supervision of government spending will be
improved, with control over major projects and sectors such as
transportation and urban construction strengthened. Supervision of state
assets will also be strengthened, especially of state-owned financial
institutions. Land acquisition procedures will be strictly enforced and
oversight of land leasing improved. A responsibility system for
administrative law enforcement will be established to enhance control and
clarify officials' rights and obligations. Government transparency will be
improved to ensure the right of the people to know what it is doing,
especially in such areas as schools, hospitals, water, electricity and gas
supply, and public transportation. Work safety must be strengthened to
safeguard the lives of the people, the premier stressed. In reviewing
progress in 2004, Wen cited the payment of land acquisition compensation to
farmers, of salaries in arrears to construction workers and of resettlement
allowances to people displaced for urban construction. Advances were also
made in enterprise reorganization and bankruptcy procedures, as well as in
revamping and streamlining administrative licensing. Wen noted that
unreasonable education charges were rectified to some extent, as were
arbitrary fees and taxes imposed on farmers.
From Xinhua News Agency 02/17/2005
TOP↑
JAPAN: Koizumi Told to Be Humble as
Controversial Postal Reforms Split Party
TOKYO : Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
was warned to be more humble by a key backer in his ruling party amid a
simmering row over his controversial plans to privatize postal services.
Mikio Aoki, who represents upper house lawmakers from the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP), told parliament that Koizumi must consult more
rather than ram through his proposals that have divided the party. "We
did not support you only for the postal privatization issue. Make no
mistake about it," Aoki told a plenary session. "There are many
people who oppose your idea," Aoki said. "It is necessary for you
to be sincere and courteous, and show your humble attitude in asking for
cooperation of others. That's your duty." Aoki, a party old guard, has
defended Koizumi since he took power in April 2001 with promises of
government and banking reforms, a move political analysts said is aimed at
keeping opposing views from splitting the party. In response, the prime
minister promised his cabinet will coordinate with different factions of
the party. "I absolutely will conduct full discussions with the ruling
party," Koizumi said. "I accept the comment from Mr. Aoki, who is
the central figure and will do my utmost to strive for the passage of the
postal reform legislation." The 150-day parliamentary session has
opened with stormy debates over Koizumi's pet project. House of
Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono on Monday admonished the premier for
lack of "sincerity" as he reopened a full session in the lower
house after the opposition ended its two-hour walkout over Koizumi's reform
policy speech. Koizumi vowed to split Japan's mammoth postal services into
four private entities in April 2007, risking dividing his ruling party,
which is concerned that the move could offend Japan Post's 270,000 workers
and their families. The postal sector is reputed to be capable of
mobilizing a million votes, making it a major political force. The post
office manages some 355 trillion yen (3.5 trillion dollars) in savings and
insurance funds, making it the world's largest financial institution in
terms of assets.
From http://www.channelnewsasia.com/ 01/25/2005
TOP↑
Economist to Join BOJ Policy Panel
The government plans to appoint Kiyohiko
Nishimura, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo, to the Bank
of Japan's policy-setting panel in April, government officials said
Wednesday. Nishimura, 51, will succeed Kazuo Ueda, whose five-year term on
the nine-member Policy Board expires April 7, the officials said. The
Cabinet will formalize the appointment after gaining the approval of the
House of Representatives and the House of Councilors, they said. Nishimura,
also an executive research fellow at the Economics and Social Research
Institute in the Cabinet Office, is versed in theoretical economics and
economic statistics.
From The Japan Times 02/17/2005
TOP↑
SOUTH KOREA: Kim Jin-pyo Named
Education Minister
President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday named former top economic
policymaker Kim Jin-pyo, 58, as minister of education and human resources
development. Roh promoted vice planning and budget minister Byeon
Yang-kyoon, 56, as the minister, replacing Kim Byung-il who tendered his
resignation Wednesday. It is the first time for a former finance and
economy minister to assume the post of education minister. ``This shows
Roh's determination to push for much-needed reform in the educational
sector,'' presidential secretary for personnel affairs Kim Wan-key said in
a media briefing. Roh has been stressing the introduction of market economy
in education as a means to expedite reform in higher learning institutions
and enhance national competitiveness. Kim Jin-pyo's appointment came after
former Seoul National University chancellor Lee Ki-jun stepped down as the
deputy premier-education minister due to a corruption scandal. Controversy
is expected to continue, however, with civic groups and educational
organizations poised to oppose Kim as the new minister. They cite, among
others, Kim's lack of knowledge and experience in the field of education.
``We worry about the possible chaos in education as Kim, a novice in the
relevant area, has become the education minister,'' said Park Kyong-ryang,
head of the National Association of Parents for Cham-Education. The Citizen
Movement for Educational Reform, a nationwide organization comprising
education-related bodies, issued a statement, saying, ``We cannot but
express worry over President Roh's attempt to subordinate education for
only industrial purposes.'' Chong Wa Dae, however, maintained Kim is the
proper choice as he is expected to exert a role in leading universities to
produce human resources to meet the needs of companies. ``Kim is believed
to have acquired administrative ability from his experience as deputy
premier and is in touch with the needs of the public,'' the secretary said,
noting that the new education minister is a first-term lawmaker of the
ruling Uri Party. Roh has been emphasizing that universities should serve
as the basis for supplying human resources to back up the industrial
sector. The opposition Grand National Party (GNP) criticized Roh for naming
Kim. ``It is kind of like `recycling' a figure who failed to perform well
in the initial stage of the incumbent government,'' party spokeswoman Chun
Yu-ok said. Kim served as deputy premier-finance and economy in the early
stage of the administration. (by Shim Jae-yun)
From The Korea Times 01/27/2005
TOP↑
Two Ministries to Be Renamed
The government and the ruling Uri Party on Friday decided to
rename the Ministry of Gender Equality as the Ministry of Gender Equality
and Family. The ministry will take care of policies related to family
affairs such as divorce, marriage and birth, which are currently under the
Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Ministry of Construction and
Transportation will also have its name changed to the Ministry of Homeland
Transportation. It will be in charge of transportation and the blueprints
for developing and preserving the land. The agreements were made during a
consultation meeting between officials of the government and the governing
party. The ruling camp’s decision on the changes of names and extension of
functions came following the plan of the Presidential Committee for
Government Innovation and Decentralization that was made public last
December. During yesterday’s meeting, the government and the ruling party
also endorsed several measures. For example, the Ministry of National
Defense will establish a separate procurement agency to improve
transparency in purchasing of military weapons and equipment. They also
approved a controversial plan to revise a special law governing a committee
in charge of five provinces in North Korea. Although the ruling camp wants
to take provisions regarding boosting anti-communist sentiments and
propagandizing the nation’s policies off the list of the panel’s duties,
civic organizations of a conservative bent and the main opposition Grand
National Party have been opposing it. The ruling party and the government
instead plan to strengthen the functions of investigating and assisting
North Korean defectors’ life conditions in South Korea and developing
cultures of the North Korean provinces. Conferees also endorsed plans to
introduce a dual vice minister system for four ministries that have been
undergoing diversification of duties recently _ the Ministry of Finance and
Economy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Government
Administration and Home Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and
Energy. (by Seo Dong-shin)
From The Korea Times 01/28/2005
TOP↑
North Seen Readying Succession
As his father Kim Il Sung did before him,
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il appears to be paving the way for his own
son to assume the mantle of power. Following a North Korean radio broadcast
last week that spoke of the need for a dynastic order in the communist
country, South Korean experts and intelligence officials said a series of
signs indicate Pyeongyang has started making arrangements for another
hereditary succession. Recent developments in Pyeongyang share similarities
with a series of events that took place in the 1970s before the North's
founder, Kim Il Sung, named Kim Jong-il as his successor, the experts said.
The official North Korean station aired a political commentary last
Thursday that said Kim Il Sung had said his son and his grandson would
continue the revolution in the North until it was complete. The broadcast
also said Kim Jong-il had vowed to see the revolution through even if it
took place in the next generation. The commentary is nearly identical to a
July 1971 editorial published in "Laborer," a North Korean
magazine for the Workers' Party. Kim Jong-il was selected as the successor
to the North Korean regime in February 1974 and officially named as the
next leader at the party's convention in October 1980. After his father's
death in 1994, Mr. Kim assumed control of the state apparatus. Mr. Kim has
three sons, and North Korea watchers and Seoul officials said Kim
Jong-chol, 24, is the likely successor. Ko Yong-hee, a longtime companion
of the North Korean leader and the mother of Jong-chol, has been
increasingly praised through North Korean media, a development similar to
the situation in 1974. Just before Kim Jong-il was named as the successor,
North Korea strengthened the personality cult of Kim Jong-suk, Kim Il
Sung's wife and Kim Jong-il's mother. Kim Jong-chol had studied in Bern,
Switzerland, in the mid 1990s. Quoting internal party memos, Japanese media
reported last year that Kim Jong-il had ordered his son to go through a
six-month preparation to learn North Korea's Workers' Party governance.
Speculation reached its peak at the time that he had been selected as the
heir of the North Korean regime. Power struggles were also apparent in the
North Korean leadership's bid to clear the path for Kim Jong-chol, North
Korea observers said. Jang Song-thaek, a brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il, was
removed from the communist regime's top ranks last year, Seoul officials
said. Mr. Jang, whose most recent post was the first vice department
director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party, had been regarded
as the second most powerful figure in North Korea's ruling party. The
committee groups North Korea's power elite, and Mr. Jang was a policymaker
on economic and personnel affairs at the highest level of government. The
purge was reminiscent of the elimination in 1973 of Kim Yong-ju, Kim Il
Sung's younger brother, experts said. The removal of Kim Yong-ju, who was a
top party official, cleared the way to Kim Jong-il's rise to the leadership
of the country. "Defectors have told us that any other kind of
takeover would be regarded as strange in North Korea," a Seoul
official said yesterday. (by Lee Young-jong, Kang Joo-an)
From http://joongangdaily.joins.com/ 02/01/2005
TOP↑
Roh Calls for Drive Against
Corruption
President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday called for steps to
expedite a national drive toward signing an anti-corruption pact by the
government, businesses, political circles and civic organizations.`` I
believe it is a good initiative and hope everybody will take part in the
campaign to ensure its success,’’ Roh said during a meeting at Chong Wa
Dae.`` There was considerable progress in rooting out corruption in the
public sector last year but more efforts are needed in the political
arena,’’ Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Jong-min quoted Roh as saying. Touching
upon corruption in officialdom, Roh said people needed to work to prevent
it.`` Corruption among public servants usually take place in relation to
business so companies should also take part in the anti-corruption drive,’’
he said. Roh stressed the need to set up an appropriate sponsoring system
for candidates running in local elections so that they can engage in legal
campaigns with financial support. He called for gradual steps to address
the problem of false financial statements by businesses without resorting
to excessive measures. ``We are now very concerned with the issue. We may
be able to overcome resistance by pursuing step-by-step measures,’’ he
said. Participants agreed on the need for an agreement against corruption
involving political parties, business groups and non-government
organizations to help enhance the country's competitiveness. For this end,
the Korea Independent Commission against Corruption (KICAC) plans to pursue
far-reaching reforms to eliminate corruption in government and the private
sector. Secretary General Kim Geo-seong of the National Coalition Against
Corruption hoped that a covenant would help eliminate the so-called Korea
Discount believed to cause South Korean firms to be undervalued. He also
said such a covenant would help the nation reduce the cost of
anti-corruption measures, making the economy more transparent and putting
it on an equal footing with other industrialized nations. On behalf of
business circles, Vice Chairman Hyun Myung-kwan of the Federation of Korean
Industries (FKI) pledged the organization would combine forces and joint
the agreement by putting an end to their hitherto practice of offering
political donations in return for various kickbacks. He also pledged
efforts to enhance transparency in accounting and management. ``Businesses
will also try to address unfair practices with subcontractors and place
more emphasis on strengthening corporate ethics,’’ he said. (by Shim
Jae-yun)
From The Korea Times 02/03/2005
TOP↑
Bureaucracy Hampers Recovery
The South Korean government’s intervention in the economy is
the key factor behind the delay in domestic demand recovery, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) said. In its latest review of the Korean
economy and macro-economic policies, the IMF said the government’s steps in
the early 2000s to boost credit card spending by providing tax incentives
and easier supervision of card firms resulted in a rise in overall
household debt and in turn caused consumers to rein in their spending. It
also blamed the ``highly regulated’’ domestic labor market for the
currently weak corporate capital spending.`` Since the 1997-1998 Asian
crisis, Korea has accelerated its shift toward a market-oriented
development strategy,’’ the IMF said.`` But the government has continued to
intervene in the economy, and the after-effects of these interventions are
now holding back a recovery.’’ It called the government’s bureaucracy a
``ubiquitous hand.’’ The key areas where past interventions have had
unintended costs are the household debt problem, the reluctance of large
firms to invest and the financial difficulties of small- and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs), it said.`` The primary impetus for individual credit
expansion came from card firms themselves, but the government also
contributed to the boom by introducing tax deductions for credit card users
and easing supervision on card issuers.’’ It said large firms are hesitant
to expand their investment due to the highly regulated domestic labor market.
``Regular workers in Korea continue to benefit from some of the strictest
job protection in the world, the legacy of government attempts in the past
to provide the security of lifetime employment.’’ Small- and mid-sized
firms are now plagued by over capacity and weak profitability due to the
government’s credit guarantee expansion following the financial crisis,
which resulted in a boom in bank lending to them during 2001-2003.To put
the slumping economy back on track, the government should put in place
market-friendly frameworks needed to solve the underlying problems. At the
same time, it suggested that the government take pump-priming measures both
in fiscal and monetary sides, it said.`` In order to revive the economy,
the government needs to provide a macroeconomic spark. Specifically, the
government should implement stimulative fiscal and monetary policies, while
continuing to pursue a flexible exchange rate policy,’’ the IMF said. It
said it is also ``urgent’’ to accelerate the resolution of household debt
delinquencies by strengthening the personal bankruptcy system.
``Revitalizing the SME sector by expanding the sources of private financing
is another pending issue.’’ The IMF’s prescription for the Korean economy
is widely shared by other global organizations. In an earlier interview
with The Korea Times, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) secretary general Donald Johnston said that macroeconomic policies
should be used to support the economy.`` Monetary policy should remain
expansionary until domestic demand recovers, while fiscal policy should
play a stabilizing role,’’ he said. Asia Development Bank (ADB) chief
economist Ifzal Ali also said that expansionary fiscal policy coupled with
significant improvement in corporate balance sheets should provide a
favorable backdrop for investment recovery. The IMF left its forecast for
this year’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth unchanged at 4 percent,
compared with a 4.6 percent gain projected for last year. Still, it expects
the Korean economy to maintain growth of about 5 percent until 2009, with
growth projected at 5.2 percent in 2006 and 5.5 percent in 2007. (by Kim
Jae-kyoung)
From The Korea Times 02/15/2005
TOP↑
Female Uri Members to Single Out
Woman Candidate for Party Leadership
With each faction within the ruling Uri Party seeking a
strategic alliance ahead of the national convention slated for April 2, the
party's female lawmakers appear to be joining hands to field a single woman
candidate for the party's leadership. The leading female candidate is Rep.
Han Myeong-sook, 61, former minister of environment and minister of gender
equality. The two-term lawmaker has been regarded as a dark horse for the leadership
race as most factions within the party favor her due to her moderate stance
and management abilities. The move within the ruling party draws attention
on whether the nation's three major political parties could end up being
led by female leaders or not. Currently, Rep. Park Geun-hye leads the main
opposition Grand National Party (GNP), while Kim Hye-kyung heads the
progressive Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Rep. Lee Mi-kyung, regarded as
one of the potential female candidates for the ruling party's chairmanship,
announced on Tuesday she will support Han in the upcoming national
convention, instead of running for the race. ``I've decided to support Han
who has long worked with me for the development of the nation's democracy
and promotion of women's rights,'' Lee told reporters. ``I'm sure Han is
well qualified as a leader and will show what female leadership is.'' Lee,
a third-term lawmaker, added that the party's female members should
actively take part in party management as they account for some 47 percent
of the total eligible voters. Lee's support of Han is likely to have a
positive effect on the race, making the contest a two-way competition
between Han and Moon Hee-sang, former presidential chief of staff, in
consideration of Lee's clout in the party, party officials said. Lee,
chairman of the Culture and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly,
concurrently serves as a member of the party's Central Standing Committee.
Some other possible female contenders are also reportedly reviewing plans to
run for the April 2 election, following Lee's announcement. Rep. Kim
Hee-sun said she will announce whether to run for the election next week,
while Reps. Park Young-sun, the party's spokeswoman, and Cho Bae-sook are
expected to give up their candidacy, according to party sources. Han has
not yet made an official announcement, but will openly throw her hat into
the ring next week, the sources said. Registration for candidacy will be
held on March 2-3. A preliminary vote will take place a week later to select
eight finalists. In the April 2 national convention to be held at an
Olympic gymnasium in southern Seoul, the ruling party will also choose five
members of its Central Standing Committee. (by Jung Sung-ki)
From The Korea Times 02/16/2005
TOP↑
Construction Office for New
Administrative Town to Be Built
The ruling and opposition parties on Thursday agreed to
establish a government office to oversee the building of a new
administrative city in South Chungchong Province. During an ad hoc
committee meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, the ruling Uri Party
and main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) agreed to create a
construction office under the Ministry of Construction and Transportation
for the envisaged administrative town in the Yongi-Kongju area of the
province by 2007.The two parties ironed out differences on a special bill
to build an administrative town, which was submitted by the governing party
on Feb. 5. They agreed that the total spending for the project should not
exceed 8.5 trillion won (some $8.3 billion).The bill, proposed by all 149
lawmakers of the ruling party, called for a 10-trillion won ceiling on the
possible relocation costs. The two parties also agreed to build a
``multi-functional’’ that is focused on administrative functions. The
envisaged city will house a population of between 300,000 and 500,000.But
the rival political parties failed to narrow differences on how many
government agencies would be relocated. The ruling party has insisted that
some 16 major government ministries and offices, excluding Chong Wa Dae,
the National Assembly, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, be moved to South Chungchong Province, some 150
kilometers south of Seoul. However, the GNP has argued that seven
government ministries be relocated, leaving the prosecution and economic
ministries including the Ministry of Finance and Economy in Seoul. If the
bill is approved by the Assembly, a 30-member special committee, lead by
the prime minister and a civilian, will be set up to proceed with the
relocation plan, such as land purchase in the selected region. The bill is
an alternative to the government’s capital relocation plan that was
frustrated by the Constitutional Court last October. The top court ruled
against the government’s project aimed at achieving a balanced regional
development and easing overcrowding in the metropolitan area, citing a
``customary constitution.’’ The court said that it is taken for granted
that Seoul is the nation's capital although not stated explicitly in the
Constitution. Since then, residents of the Chungchong provinces have called
for alternative measures to the overturned plan. (by Jung Sung-ki)
From The Korea Times 02/17/2005
TOP↑
MONGOLIA: Presidential Election to
Be Run in May
Parliament Standing Committee on State
Structure discussed Parliament draft resolution on announcing a date of the
Presidential Elections and on its budget. As of the General Election
Committee, regular Presidential Elections would be run on May 22, 2005.
According to it, a proposal to announce the Presidential Elections from
March 23, 2005 has been delivered to the Parliament. A total of the
expenses for the Presidential Elections would be amounted to 636 million
and 212 thousand togrogs. Of this, 136 million and 212 thousand togrogs
would be granted from the reserve properties of the Government.
From Zuunii medee 01/31/2005
TOP↑
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INDONESIA: Information Ministry to
Be Upgraded
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has
issued a presidential decree to upgrade the Office of the State Minister
for Communications and Information into a portfolio ministry that will also
be given responsibility for posts and telecommunications. The decree will
allow the new ministry to establish offices in the country's 33 provinces.
Cabinet deputy secretary Erman Radjagukguk told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday
that the decree, signed late on Monday, gave the power to the President to
transfer the posts and telecommunications directorate general from the
Ministry of Transportation to the new ministry. The President also issued
another decree to provide a legal basis for the already established
Ministry of Public Housing -- which in the previous Cabinet under president
Megawati Soekarnoputri came under the auspices of the Ministry of
Settlement and Regional Infrastructure -- and the revival of the Office of
the State Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs -- by removing the sports
directorate general from the Ministry of National Education as it existed
in the previous administration. The decree also provides for the splitting
up of the Ministry of Industry and Trade into two ministries. The above
changes, except for the new ministry, actually came into effect when Susilo
announced the line-up of his Cabinet on Oct. 21, 2004, even though a legal
basis is only being provided now. Both presidential decrees, however,
appear to contradict Article 17 (4) of the 1945 Constitution, which
stipulates that the establishment of, change in or dissolution of a Cabinet
ministry must be provided for by law. The stipulation allows the House to
intervene in the establishment of ministries, despite the fact that
Indonesia adheres to the presidential system of government. "I can
assure you that we (the government) have not contradicted any regulations,
especially the Constitution," Erman said. His statement was supported
by Constitutional Law expert Sri Soemantri of Padjadjaran University who
pointed out that the House could not claim a right to interfere in the
establishment of the new ministry as there was no specific legislation
governing the matter. "The ministry's establishment is not against the
Constitution as the House has yet to finish its deliberation on the
ministerial offices," he told the Post. The House postponed the
deliberation of the ministerial offices bill last July due to a difference
of opinion with the government. There has been no information to date as to
whether or not the legislators intend to continue the bill's deliberation.
State Minister for Communications and Information Sofyan A. Djalil had
earlier said that his new portfolio ministry would not pose any threat to
press freedom.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com 02/02/2005
TOP↑
Govt Continues to Get Criticized
Over Performance
The first 100 days of President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono's administration have passed. But criticism of his
government continues unabated, with most considering that he had so far
failed to improve the country's investment and business climate. "The
government has put the direction of its economic policy into its 100-day
program and National Medium-term Development Plan (RPJMN). But can the
program and the plan accomplish the vision and mission of the President and
Vice President and solve the people's economic problems?" asked
Aviliani of Tim Indonesia Bangkit (Indonesia Awakens Team) in a discussion
on Wednesday. She said that government programs and policy during the first
100 days did not demonstrate any of the changes promised by the state
leaders during their election campaign. Another speaker at the discussion,
Fadhil Hasan, said the 100-day program was only a compilation of routine
programs proposed by ministries and other government institutions. In its
report, the team said that during the first 100 days the government should
have established a stronger base for an improvement in tax collection, a
reduction in debt burdens, and a contraction in spending, as mentioned in
the President's vision statement. Some critics also highlighted the
government's failure to settle a number of high-profile disputes with
foreign investors such as Mexican cement giant Cemex SA's case against
state-owned PT Semen Gresik, the Karaha Bodas Company (KBC) case, and a row
between state firm Pertamina and ExxonMobil over the Cepu gas and oil
field. Fixing these matters would automatically improve the nation's
investment climate. Another team member, Binny Buchori, told the discussion
that the government was also weak in establishing strategies in development
planning. "The development plan, for example, does not mention any
plan on the privatization of state enterprises, but it presumes a revenue
worth of between 0.1 and 0.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from
privatization," she said. The RPJMN also indicated that the
government, in financing development projects, would not try to pan more
revenue from domestic sources other than taxation, such as profits from
state enterprises, but it prioritized revenue from foreign loans, she said.
She said the government had projected revenue of about 0.7 to 1.2 percent
of GDP from foreign loans. Efficiency in state enterprises could actually
help increase non-tax domestic revenue, she added.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com 02/04/2005
TOP↑
Local Direct Election Fails to Get
Vote
The direct election of the heads of
regional government is four month away but enthusiasm is still low in
Purbalingga regency, Central Java. There is still no sign that people have
expressed an intention to run for the posts of regent and deputy regent in
the upcoming direct election, except the incumbent Regent Triyono Budi
Sasongko, who is seeking reelection. Chief of Purbalingga General Elections
Commission (KPU) Sudarman expressed concern over the apathy among people to
contest the direct election, which will be the first in the nation's
history. According to Sudarman, the low enthusiasm is due to the aversion
most people feel for the current regent. Their candidacy could be
considered a threat to the regent and people choose to avoid that, said
Sudarman. He called on people not to hesitate to contest in the upcoming
election as they have the rights to do so. The law on regional governments
has ruled that every person, whether he or she is a party member or not,
has a right to run for government office as long as he or she is nominated
by a political parties. According to Sudarman, the low enthusiasm among
Purbalingga people was also caused by the absence of a governmental decree
that stipulates the technicalities of the direct election. The central
government has reportedly been drafting a decree on the direct elections,
but the decree has not yet been signed, he said. "The sluggish
deliberation of the government decree could hamper the direct election. We
are running out of time. If the government does not sign the decree
immediately, I am afraid that the direct election may be postponed,"
said Sudarman. Purbalingga is one of 15 regencies/municipalities in Central
Java gearing up for direct election of heads of regional governments. The
province has 45 regencies/municipalities. Like Purbalingga, other regencies
and municipalities in the province are waiting for the new decree. KPU
officials in Purbalingga hope that the new decree will come out soon,
because it will be instrumental for the holding of the direct election. The
decree will provide technical guidance for the regional KPUs in holding the
direct election.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com/ 02/04/2005
TOP↑
Indonesian President Vows to Curb
Red Tape, Corruption
Indonesia's president vowed Wednesday to
clear away red tape, corruption and other obstacles that have long deterred
foreign investment in his vast nation. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also
said his government planned to achieve annual growth of 6.6 percent over
the next five years, with a planned investment of US$150 billion (euro115
billion) in infrastructure. Growth was 5 percent in 2004.Susilo, a former
military general who won Indonesia's first direct presidential election
last year, spoke in English and projected confidence. One businessman who
organized international conferences on the Indonesian resort island of Bali
said business had dropped off by 90 percent since terrorist bombings there
in October 2002. He asked if Susilo could push for the repeal of foreign
traveladvisories warning of the danger of travel to Indonesia. Susilo did
not specifically address the advisory issue, but said his government would
"do our best to maintain our political stability and security,"
adding that his government would "continue conducting very intensive
operations to combat terrorism. "The operator of a company that
delivers goods by air express to Indonesia said he feared planned changes
in customs regulations would lead to "additional restrictions."
Another man said he spoke for everyone in the room when he appealed for an
end to red tape for investors who face time-consuming visa requirements
when they travel to Indonesia. The audience applauded. Susilo acknowledged
the problems, but said they could not be solved "overnight."
"We intend to streamline the bureaucracy in many key areas, including
customs," he said. "We believe that increasing transparency and
reducing red tape is the necessary first step to address corruption."
From http://admin.corisweb.org/ 02/16/2005
TOP↑
Finance Ministry Signs MOU on
Corruption Eradication
Despite his "I don't care"
response to a recent survey that found two institutions under his supervision
to be among the most corrupt a day earlier, Minister of Finance Yusuf Anwar
on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK).KPK chairman Taufiqurrahman Ruki said the MoU
was very important since the KPK had indicated potential loopholes for
corruption in the state budgetary accounting system handled by the finance
ministry. "We have discussed this matter for the past three months and
agreed upon the need for a full review of the system," he said. With
the review, Ruki said he hoped corruption, such as bribery and markups
within the state budgetary system, could be addressed, along with the
potential for graft within the ministry's own administration system. Yusuf
explained that revamping his ministry's administration system was among the
many efforts to minimize the opportunities for corruption to take place.
"That is the main reason for reviewing the taxation and customs
laws," he said. "It is also to prevent opportunities for backroom
deals." Ruki added that he expected the anticorruption drive to be
fully implemented by all ministry officials following the MoU. "I
expect the ministry's top officials to enforce monitoring against
corruption within their offices from now on," he said in a stern
manner. With the MoU, the KPK will have the authority to share information
and conduct joint investigations with the ministry's inspectorate general.
Previously, the KPK had asked Yusuf to sign "a contract" with the
Director General of Taxation Hadi Purnomo and Director General of Customs
and Excise Eddy Abdurrachman to keep them accountable for the potential
graft in their offices. The finance ministry established a new
investigation bureau specifically for corruption within its inspectorate
general late last year. The tax and customs offices have been under fire of
late following numerous studies highlighting the gross level of corruption
within each, including this week's survey by Transparency International
Indonesia (TII). The 2004 Indonesian Corruption Perception Index survey,
with 1,305 business owners and top managers of local and multinational
firms as respondents, revealed that the customs service had the highest
incidence of corrupt interactions at 62 percent. Some 140 respondents said
they had to pay bribes to the customs service approximately 31 times per
year, with each bribe averaging Rp 38 million (US4,086). The tax office,
which is also supervised by the finance ministry, was ranked as the 11th
most corrupt institution on the list. However, Yusuf was not exactly
overjoyed by the survey. "It (the corruption within my ministry) is an
old story. I know about it, you know about it and everybody knows about
it," he said. "That's why we shouldn't make a fuss about it.
What's more important is that we keep on working to improve things."
From http://www.thejakartapost.com/ 02/19/2005
TOP↑
RI, GAM Ready to Resume Talks, Focus
on Autonomy
The government is ready to resume peace
talks with Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel leaders after they agreed
negotiations should focus on the government's offer for special autonomy, a
senior minister says. However, a GAM leader said while the separatists were
prepared to start the dialog by discussing the autonomy offer, they had
already rejected it. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and
Security Affairs Widodo Adi Sucipto said a high-level delegation would fly
to Finland's capital of Helsinki on Saturday and start talks on Monday. The
Indonesian delegation will include Minister of Justice and Human Rights
Hamid Awaluddin as the chief negotiator; along with Minister of
Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil and other state officials,
while Widodo would oversee the delegation. The same group earlier held
talks with the GAM leaders in Helsinki in January but came out with no
long-term results. At that time GAM was only interested in establishing a
temporary cease fire in Aceh to ensure effective humanitarian relief
operations in the tsunami-hit province. Both the government and GAM had
earlier agreed to a temporary cease fire plan via the Cessation of
Hostilities Agreement signed in 2002. That truce broke down in 2003 and the
government later imposed martial law in the province and undertook a
large-scale military offensive against GAM rebels. Rights groups have
accused the military of killing many civilians and of committing other
human rights abuses during the offensive. Meanwhile, a GAM delegation
member Noerdin Abdulhamid said that the group was ready to talk with the
Indonesian delegation, but insisted that they would not accept the special
autonomy offer. Noerdin said that the GAM delegation, to be led by GAM's
prime minister for Aceh Malik Mahmood, had other points on their agenda,
including an offer of a cease-fire. Other GAM members set to attend the
meeting are Aceh's shadow foreign minister Zaini Abdullah, along with GAM
senior official Mohammed Nur Djuli and spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah.
Adapted From http://www.thejakartapost.com 02/19/2005
TOP↑
MYANMAR: MPs Push for Myanmar
Democratization
Parliamentary members from ASEAN countries
convened here on Wednesday to discuss a series of campaigns for democratic
changes in Myanmar. The parliamentarians, grouped in the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, launched a one-year program of
cooperation with the main agenda being to ensure that the Myanmar
government made significant progress towards democratization. Nursyahbani
Katjasungkana, an Indonesian legislator participating in the caucus, said
the membership of the caucus is open to all members of ASEAN parliaments.
The caucus is concerned about political conditions in Myanmar, which will
assume the chair of ASEAN in 2006. The caucus was set up in November last
year, and consists of parliamentarians from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
From http://www.thejakartapost.com/ 02/03/2005
TOP↑
MYANMAR: Myanmar's Lesson in
'Discipline Democracy'
After a seven-month break, Myanmar's
National Convention is set to open its doors again on Thursday, when more
than 1,000 delegates will attend the closely guarded gathering near Yangon
to continue work on a new constitution. Myanmar's constitution was
suspended by the military in 1988, and since that time the junta, known as
the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, has ruled by decree.
However, a "roadmap" for reform unveiled by the junta in August
2003 promised a new constitution and a fresh election, Myanmar's first
since 1990. But despite the snappy title, the SPDC's roadmap contained
little that was new. For years, the junta has been promising to write a new
constitution and hold another election, designed to usher in what it calls
"discipline democracy" where the generals still call the shots.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in the 1990
election, but the military junta refused to recognize the election results
and cracked down hard against the NLD. Many of the party's top national and
regional leaders were rounded up and thrown in prison. However, a reshuffle
in Yangon in late 2004 has made compromise with the NLD even more unlikely.
The ouster of former prime minister General Khin Nyunt in October left
Senior General Than Shwe and General Maung Aye as the two most powerful men
in the SPDC. Both are believed to strongly oppose negotiation with the NLD.
In late 2004, the NLD was informed that Aung San Suu Kyi would be held for
12 more months; on February 15, Tin Oo's detention was also extended for
another year. It is clear that the SPDC is in no mood to compromise. These
tough tactics could result in some ethnic organizations pulling out of the
National Convention. Against this unpromising backdrop, delegates will
struggle to resolve the vexed question of the division of power between the
central government and the regions. According to Thaung Htun, this issue
was a key focus at the 2004 convention session, when a number of ethnic
political groups presented proposals for more autonomy. Those ideas were
rejected outright by the SPDC. The next few weeks will be crucial. A
wide-ranging reshuffle of army and government posts is rumored to be on the
cards; if the isolationist General Maung Aye manages to strengthen his
position, relations with ethnic political groups could deteriorate still
further. Despite the hurdles, the National Convention may yet manage to
complete a constitution this year. Meanwhile, the SPDC has asked for the
international community to remain patient.
Adapted From http://www.atimes.com 02/17/2005
TOP↑
MALAYSIA: Mahaleel’s Position Up to
Government and Board
Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he supported
Proton Holdings Bhd chief executive officer Tan Sri Tengku Mahaleel Tengku
Ariff but would allow the Government and the board of directors to decide
if he should remain in that position. Refuting claims that he was exerting
his influence on the Government over the affairs of the national carmaker
whose chairman resigned early this week, the former Prime Minister said
Tengku Mahaleel had made Proton a profitable company. He was also impressed
by Tengku Mahaleel’s extensive knowledge of the auto industry, adding: “If
he didn't (have that knowledge), I think Proton would have failed by now.”
”He has not stolen any money nor has he mismanaged the company,” Dr
Mahathir, who is Proton Holdings advisor, told reporters at his office at
the Perdana Leadership Foundation here yesterday to rebut an Asian Wall
Street Journal report that he still wielded influence on Malaysia’s political
and corporate landscape. According to the report, Dr Mahathir’s
interference in Proton Holdings’ effort to revamp the company had caused
its chairman Datuk Abu Hassan Kendut to resign. Quoting unnamed government
officials, the report said Abu Hassan submitted his resignation after Prime
Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi overruled a plan by Proton’s
board of directors to remove Tengku Mahaleel after being pressured by the
former premier. Dr Mahathir said the present situation could be due to
disagreements between Tengku Mahaleel and certain board members whom he
didn't get along with. “Many of the Government’s decisions were not in
accordance with my views or the policy of the previous administration. But
I didn’t give the Government any headache,” he said. The former Prime
Minister said the board of directors and Second Finance Minister Tan Sri
Nor Mohamed Yakcop had, on separate occasions, asked his opinion about
Tengku Mahaleel. On both occasions, he said, he had supported Tengku
Mahaleel to remain in the job because the Proton CEO had made the national
carmaker a profitable and cash-rich company. He added that Tengku Mahaleel
had a good track record and one of his achievements was to build a RM1.8bil
plant in Tanjong Malim without government support. Dr Mahathir also
credited Tengku Mahaleel for securing a deal with German carmaker
Volkswagen. At last month's meeting with the entire board, Tengku Mahaleel
gave a briefing on Proton’s performance but there was no call for his
resignation at that meeting, said the former prime minister. Asked by
reporters at the PWTC here on speculations that KLSE executive chairman
Datuk Azlan Hashim would be the new Proton chairman, Abdullah said: “We
will confirm that at the board meeting of Khazanah (Proton's main
shareholder). I have already said he could be the new chairman.”
http://thestar.com.my/ 02/06/2005
TOP↑
SINGAPORE: MPs Welcome Budget, Say
May be an Election Year
Members of Parliament have welcomed the
Budget, particularly the help for lower income groups. Some MPs even
suggest that this could be an Election Year Budget. Mr S. Iswaran, MP for
West Coast GRC, said: "I think this Budget is a very cautionary one
because coming out of a period of low-growth and last year was a good year,
so the Prime Minister and Finance Minister has taken a very prudent
approach. "I think the measures to foster a caring society has been
very thoughtful, where we are trying to, the policies are trying to, the
burden of families, to reduce them. Mr Chiam See Tong, MP for Potong Pasir,
said: "I think there is something for the poor. I think everybody was
happy about the income tax coming down from 22 percent to 20 percent in two
years. I think that is very welcomed." Asked if this could be a pre-election
Budget, Mr Chiam said: "Looks like it, looks very much like it."
He added that he is always prepared for it. Mr Gan Kim Yong, MP for Tanjong
Pagar GRC, said: "The focus is on the low-income family. The
assistance that's providing to these lower income families is very timely
because over the last few years these families have suffered quite a lot
under the economic recession. "I think it is a budget that's
pro-people, whether it's pre-election or not that's a separate issue."
Dr Amy Khor, MP for Hong Kah GRC and Mayor for South-West CDC, said:
"I'm very pleased. I think this is really a people-focused and
enabling budget. Actually it shows the Government heeding the concerns of
the people. In fact the concerns of the people are adequate savings for
retirement, healthcare costs as well as jobs for the older workers. "I
think the setting up of the ComCare Fund as well as topping up of the
MediSave across the board, particularly for older Singaporeans and the CPF
top-ups for older Singaporeans are really good news to address these
concerns and actually it translates into action also. I think PM Lee's
commitment to help the needy elderly and make sure that nobody's left
behind." Ms Eunice Olsen, Nominated MP, said: "Actually it was a
really eye-opening experience for us because for all the NMPs it was the
first time. And I think it's very good because it is very much a
community-focused Budget. And I think PM really hung on to his words about
being a open and inclusive society."
From http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ 02/19/2005
TOP↑
THAILAND: Thai PM Savours
Re-Election Victory as Critics Fear One-Party State
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
Monday savoured his crushing election victory over opposition parties, as
critics voiced fears that the kingdom could effectively become a one-party
state. The policeman-turned-tycoon claimed a win in Sunday's polls less
than four hours after voting closed, based on TV exit polls that handed him
399 out of 500 seats up for grabs, beating even the most optimistic
pre-poll forecasts. Early returns with 59 percent of the ballots counted
Monday handed his ruling Thai Rak Thai party 374 seats, the main opposition
Democrat Party 91, current TRT coalition partner 30 and the newly-formed
Mahachon one. Some 33 million voters, or 76 percent eligible voters, cast
ballots in a huge turnout, compared to 69.9 percent in the 2001 polls that
swept Thaksin's then-new and populist party to its first resounding
victory. The projected win hands a historic second term to Thaksin, who has
prided himself on bringing strong leadership to the kingdom's highest
office, and makes him the most powerful person ever elected to lead the
nation. If counting stays on track, the premier could form the first
elected one-party government in Thai history, after voters gave a
resounding thumbs up to his economic management and hands-on response to
December's tsunami tragedy. "In the past four years, we have worked
hard for them, and we care, that's probably the magic of the victory,"
55-year-old Thaksin told reporters at his party headquarters on Sunday. The
Democrat Party quickly conceded defeat, saying it would have to assess
where it went wrong after coming nowhere near winning its aimed-for 201
seats. Thaksin's rivals fear that his tighter grasp on power will boost
what they label his authoritarian tendencies, particularly his strong-arm
attitude towards a 13-month-old Islamic insurgency in the far south.
"The anticipated landslide will produce a stronger government with
greater political stability and, possibly, a more forceful and
controversial prime minister," said the English-language Bangkok Post
in its editorial. "On the other hand, the opposition will be weaker,
to the extent it will be unable to function properly in parliament."
The Nation newspaper matched their trepidation. "At this juncture in
Thailand's political history, Thaksin has the luxury of choosing whether he
will go the way of the statesman and bring Thai democracy to a new level of
maturity, or whether he will become tyrannical and eventually tear down the
country's hard-earned democracy," it said. Voting took place
peacefully across the nation, with more than 210,000 police dispatched to
oversee polling, although police said one man was shot dead in an argument
after polls closed in southern Nakhon Sri Thammarat. Thaksin's enormous
edge going into the polls did not eliminate the darker side of Thai
politics, which has long been plagued by rampant vote-buying. A weekend
survey found voters believed ballots were being sold for an average rate of
513 baht (13 dollars) each. Thaksin will not take office for at least 30
days. During this period the Election Commission is tasked with
investigating complaints against candidates and holding by-elections on
February 21 if it finds evidence of foul play. At the first parliamentary
session, which must take place by March 7, a house speaker must be voted in
and MPs must select a date to formally choose a prime minister, which will
be Thaksin if early returns prove accurate. He does not have a deadline to
form a government.
From http://www.channelnewsasia.com 02/07/2005
TOP↑
PM Vows to Purge Bad Cabinet
Ministers
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says he
will get rid of any ``bad apples'' in cabinet himself, even if the
opposition lacks the numbers in parliament to censure and impeach
ministers. ``I will check on my ministers myself. Nobody knows my men
better than I do. Nearly 19 million people have voted for me. I cannot let
them down,'' Mr Thaksin said. The constitution requires a motion to censure
a cabinet member be signed by at least 100 MPs and an impeachment motion by
at least 125.The Democrat, Chart Thai and Mahachon parties, likely to work
together as the opposition, now have a combined 124 seats in the House,
according to unofficial poll results. Mr Thaksin said the
checks-and-balances system would not come to a dead-end as other
parliamentary channels were still available to scrutinise the government.
Three-fifths of the 200 senators could open a debate on problems concerning
national administration without calling a vote. The ``power of the people''
also should not be underestimated, Mr Thaksin said. ``The public will never
let a bad government rule this country. Do not think the people cannot
think for themselves,'' he said. Members of his cabinet must work hard,
know how to do their jobs and be transparent in doing so. They also must
accept that working with him was ``not a life-time job''. He said he might
let good and competent people take turns serving their country. Ministers
who were removed could be reinstated if they could improve themselves.
Frequent cabinet reshuffles would not be uncommon during his second term,
he said. Ten cabinets served in his past four years in office. Mr Thaksin
said the constitution did not need changing. Many people were worried the
government would seek to alter the charter for its own political interests.
Acting Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjaiva said the opposition accepted its
limited power and would play by the rules, but wanted the government to
give people and the media a say. It was not necessary to ask Mr Thaksin to keep
his promise to get Thai Rak Thai MPs to sign a no-confidence motion in the
event the opposition fell short of the required support. Mr Abhisit was
tied up with other functions yesterday and missed the ``Roo Rak Samakkhi''
(Joining Together in Love and Unity) reception held by the Election
Commission for the 310 poll winners now endorsed as MPs. Election
commissioner Gen Jarupat Ruangsuwan asked MPs who went to pick up their
certificates to use their positions in a way that would ensure prosperity
and security for the country. The EC has endorsed the victories of all 100
list winners _ 67 from Thai Rak Thai, 26 Democrats and seven from Chart
Thai _ and 210 winners in constituency seats _ 164 from Thai Rak Thai, 42
Democrats and four from Chart Thai. EC chairman Pol Gen Wasana Permlarp
said he was expecting the other 190 winners to be endorsed last night. The
House must meet for the first time within 30 days of election day to vote
for the parliament president and the prime minister.
From http://www.bangkokpost.com/ 02/17/2005
TOP↑
VIETNAM: Health Sector Plans
Hospital Management Restructuring
The health sector, which responded
positively to challenges and improved the quality of health services last
year, is set to restructure the system of hospital management in 2005, according
to Health Minister Tran Thi Trung Chien. Minister Chien was speaking at a
workshop held to review the activities of the health sector in 2004 and
implement the plan for 2005 in Ha Noi yesterday. The sector faces many
challenges like shortage of highly qualified medical staff especially in
rural and mountainous areas and poor infrastructure in provincial
hospitals, Chien said. At the workshop, Dr Ly Ngoc Kinh, Director of the
Department of Treatment, Ministry of Health (MoH), said the health sector should
strengthen the inspection of the private health care system in the country.
The sector has to pay more attention in providing healthcare services to
the poor and children under six, he said. Priority has to be given to
improve the professional skills, quality and quantity of healthcare
personnel, provincial and district medical offices and administration have
to be restructured, and medical equipment upgraded, Dr Kinh said.
Currently, there are more than 133,000 beds in 1040 hospitals nationwide,
or 16.3 beds per 10,000 people by the end of 2004. There are 40 private
hospitals with 3,011 beds in the country, accounting for 3.8 per cent of
total hospitals and 2.2 per cent of total beds. According to MoH, over 63
million people nationwide were provided healthcare services in 662
hospitals last year. About 20 per cent of the total population had health
insurance cards by the end of 2003, and 3.8 million poor people and
children under six received free or partial medical aid in 2004.
From http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn 02/18/2005
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BANGLADESH: Country to Be Brought
Under Early Disaster Warning System
Bangladesh will be brought under an early
disaster warning system in the wake of the recent tsunami that devastated
South and South East Asia, said Disaster Management and Relief Minister
Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yousuf at a workshop in the city yesterday. He said the
warning network is presently at a discussion level among the regional
countries. The workshop on 'People's rights and media's role at the time of
disaster' was organised by the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA)
and the Disaster Forum at the National Press Club. The minister said the
role of the community and non-government organisations is very crucial in
reducing the damage in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. The
government, under its risk reduction programme, plans to construct more
flood and cyclone centres in addition to the existing three thousand in the
coastal region, he added. "Relief is a right of every citizen, it
should not be considered a favour," said Hasan Shahriar, the CJA
global president and executive editor of the daily Ittefaq. Gawher Nayeem
Wahra of Disaster Forum and columnist Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury also spoke at
the workshop, chaired by CJA Bangladesh chapter President Farid Hossain.
From http://www.thedailystar.net/ 02/20/2005
TOP↑
SRI LANKA:
Allegations Against Public Servants Refuted
The Public Administration and Home Affairs
Ministry yesterday refuted allegations against public servants regarding
large-scale misuse of tsunami aid during relief operations. Ministry
Secretary S.A Ekanayake told the Daily News that apart from a handful of
isolated and minor incidents, Government employees carrying out tsunami
relief programs had no hand in fraudulent activities. "There are over
75,000 government employees committed to relief programs in different parts
of the country. We have received complaints only against 10 employees so
far. Therefore, they do not represent the generality of State
employees," he said. Ekanayake said the Ministry has taken
disciplinary action against 10 public servants proven guilty of
misappropriation of aid. "Most of them were minor staff who had
committed trivial offences like stealing a milk powder packet or dry
rations. Moreover, this figure is negligible given the large number of
public servants working honestly to provide relief to the affected."
The Government's relief and rehabilitation programs for the
tsunami-affected are carried out through 13 district secretariats and 82
divisional secretariats in the Southern, North-Eastern and Western
provinces.
From http://www.dailynews.lk/ 02/21/2005
TOP↑
NEPAL: Nepal King Unveils New
Cabinet
Nepal's King Gyanendra swore in a new
10-member cabinet heavily dominated by royalists, a day after firing the
government and seizing power in a move that sparked international
condemnation. Members of the new cabinet arrived at the royal palace in
black official cars for the brief oath-of-office ceremony that followed
Gyanendra's dismissal of Prime Minister Shah Bahadur Deuba and his
government yesterday. Gyanendra said the sacking of the ruling coalition
was necessary to crush an increasingly bloody Maoist revolt. The new
cabinet was mainly made up of pro-monarchists, including foreign minister
Ramesh Nath Pandey, finance minister Madhukar Shumsher Rana and Dan Bahadur
Shahi as home minister. Security was tight on the streets of Kathmandu
which were jammed as usual with traffic, while shops and businesses and
schools were open. But land and mobile phone networks and Internet links
were still not working after being shut down yesterday. The international
airport was functioning. Gyanendra, vaulted to the throne four years ago by
a palace massacre that wiped out most of the royal family, said he fired
the multi-party government for failing to hold elections and bring peace to
the country. He pledged to "restore democracy and law and order in the
country in the next three years." Security forces in the scenic
mountain kingdom known as the Land of Everest have been battling for nine
years to stamp out the revolt by Maoists seeking to topple the monarchy and
install a communist republic. The conflict has claimed over 11,000 lives.
Newspapers, operating under new state of emergency rules suspending press
freedom, used neutral language to announce the news. "His Majesty
Dissolves Deuba government," said the state-run Rising Nepal.
"Deuba cabinet dismissed, king takes charge," said the Himalaya
Times, a leading privately owned newspaper. Witnesses in the capital saw
only one demonstration under new laws banning free assembly. It was by
several hundred pro-royalists near the palace, who shouted: "Long Live
the king, peace will now prevail." Opposition leaders were out of
sight and believed to be under house arrest. Witnesses said security men
dragged away G.P. Koirala, leader of the Nepali Congress, and Madhav Kumar
Nepal, head of the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist Party,
yesterday when they emerged from their homes to try to speak to reporters.
"People are trying secretly to organise meetings but some of the
senior leaders have been arrested so they have not been able to. There are
army watchdogs at the gates (of the campus). They're asking for information
and checking ID," said a 20-year-old student at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan
University.
From http://www.thedailystar.net/ 02/03/2005
TOP↑
King Gyanendra Says Elections Need
an Environment of Peace, Security
In a message to the nation on the occasion
of 55th National Democracy Day on Friday, His Majesty King Gyanendra has
emphasized on the need to conduct impartial elections in an environment of
peace and security. "It is the duty of all those who have faith in
democracy, including every individual and political party along with
members of the intelligentsia and civil society, to ensure a vibrant
multiparty democracy through the conduct of impartial elections in an
environment of peace and security," His Majesty said. His Majesty,
however, did not mention when the fresh elections would be held.
Parliamentary elections are due in Nepal for more than last two years. In
his message carried by the official RSS news agency, His Majesty said
terrorist activities, coupled with politics far removed from the common
man, gave a fillip to instability in the nation, putting democracy at risk.
His Majesty further said as good policies lead to good governance and good
governance makes democracy viable politics, in a democracy, must be devoted
to the welfare of the nation and people. His Majesty also wished that this
day inspire all Nepalis to remain dedicated to the promotion, preservation
and prudent exercise of democracy, human civilisation's exemplary form of
governance.
From http://www.nepalnews.com/ 02/18/2005
TOP↑
Nepal's King Forms Commission to
Fight Corruption
KATMANDU: Nepal King Gyanendra announced
the formation Thursday of an anti-graft commission with broad powers to
investigate and jail corrupt politicians and government bureaucrats under
Nepal's sweeping state of emergency. Amnesty International warned that the
king was destroying human rights and taking the country to the "brink
of disaster." The group's secretary general, Irene Khan, called on
donor nations to suspend military aid to Nepal's government to pressure it
to change its policies. The royal palace said the six-member anti-graft
commission would be headed by Bhakta Bahadur Koirala, a former bureaucrat,
and would have authority equivalent to that of the nation's courts. The
commission can take action against any person found to be involved in
smuggling, tax evasion, illegal contracts or other forms of corruption, it
said. The move follows a series of draconian measures taken since Feb. 1,
when Gyanendra dismissed the government, declared the state of emergency
and suspended civil liberties. The king said the measures were needed to
combat a communist insurgency that has claimed more than 10,500 lives since
1996 and to bring political stability to the country. He also promised to
control corruption. News of the anticorruption commission was greeted with
cautious optimism. Many politicians in previous governments have been
accused of graft and bribery, and several have been forced to resign in
disgrace. "It is about time some action was taken against these
corrupt politicians who have done nothing but get fat while the country is
getting poorer every day," said Sanjay Aryal, a university student in
Katmandu. "This commission is formed by the king, who at the moment is
the highest authority in Nepal. If this fails, then there is no cure for
corruption." The move comes just a day before Nepal's annual Democracy
Day. Opposition parties plan to take to the streets to protest Gyanendra's
seizure of power. Such protests are illegal under the state of emergency,
and the police have arrested several opposition leaders in advance of the
demonstrations. Amnesty International said the state of emergency had
strengthened the security forces and reduced the chances of a political
settlement of the insurgency. "The longstanding conflict between the
Maoists and the armed forces has destroyed human rights in the countryside.
Now, the state of emergency is destroying human rights in the urban areas,
taking the country to the brink of disaster," Khan said. She said that
she had met Gyanendra during a visit to Nepal and that he had assured her
of his commitment to uphold the country's international obligations.
"The king will be judged, not by his promises, but by how these
promises are put into action," she said.
From http://www.iht.com/ 02/18/2005
TOP↑
Govt Failed to Address Unemployment
ISLAMABAD: The Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP) has accused the government of having failed to address
unemployment. A recently published HRCP report said that the overall
employment situation drove many to desperate measures, including suicide.
Of the 1,160 suicide cases reported across the country, 557 incidents took
place in Sindh, 460 in the Punjab, 93 in NWFP, and 50 in Balochistan. The
commission claimed that the existing unemployment rate was higher than the
officially declared eight percent. Citing the official record, the
commission stated that the government had told the National Assembly a few
months ago that it had failed to provide employment opportunities to
thousands of people holding post-graduate degrees. Ghulam Sarwar Khan,
minister for labour and manpower, had also admitted that there were 33,064
unemployed masters degree holders in the country. The report stated that
graduate and post-graduate students were applying for posts of constables,
office assistants and naib qasid. The commission also lashed out at the
government for not providing equal employment opportunities. The
constitutional quota for Balochistan was fixed at 5.1 percent after a
revision based on the 1998 census, but had not been implemented in the
federal services, where presently Balochistan only had a 3.5 percent share.
The HRCP also demanded immediate legislation for the protection of
home-based workers, besides implementation of labour laws in the country.
Laws on bonded labour were poorly implemented and bondage at agricultural
estates in Sindh and at brick kilns in Punjab remained widespread,
mentioned the report. According to a survey conducted by the International
Labour Organisation, there were some 1.7 million bonded labourers in Sindh
alone. Increasing cases of debt bondage were also reported from farms in
Punjab. Bonded domestic labour was also on the rise, where domestic workers
were accused of theft and then made to work without pay till the amount had
been recovered. Brick kilns and carpet weaving industries were notorious
for employing bonded labour, especially women and children. The precise
number of domestic workers in the country was unknown. There were a total
of eight million child workers in Pakistan, out of which 6.7 percent were
female. Female domestic workers were continuously facing physical and
sexual harassment, torture and molestation.
From http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/ 02/14/2005
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AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan to Appoint
1st Female Governor
President Hamid Karzai is preparing to
appoint Afghanistan's first female provincial governor, his spokesman said
Tuesday, in another step toward reviving women's rights trampled by the
former hardline Taliban government. An all-female shortlist including
former Women's Minister Habiba Sarobi has been drawn up for the governorship
of central Bamiyan province, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said,
though no decision has been taken. "One of those ladies will be the
governor of Bamiyan," Ludin said at a news conference. "If a
woman is able to do the job, the law says we can appoint her." Sarobi
said she had discussed the position with Karzai after rejecting his
suggestion that she become an Afghan ambassador abroad. "I want to be
inside the country at the service of my people," she said. Millions of
women and girls have returned to work and school since the fall of the
Taliban in late 2001. Equality before the law is embedded in a new
constitution, and some women have abandoned the head-to-toe public veiling
that was mandatory under the tough Islamist regime. Seats are also reserved
for women in the two-chamber parliament to be installed by elections this
year. However, conservative custom still confines most rural women to the
home, and health services to alleviate high levels of maternal and infant
mortality are being extended only slowly. Karzai has also been criticized
for including only three women in his new, nearly 30-strong Cabinet. Sarobi
said she had a good chance of gaining acceptance in Bamiyan, a province
inhabited almost exclusively by fellow ethnic Hazaras where women have
traditionally been freer to work and gain education. "It wouldn't be
possible for me to be governor of provinces in the south, southeast of
southwest," she said. "Karzai said that the best place would be
Bamiyan."
From http://www.myafghan.com/ 02/15/2005
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AZERBAIJAN: Opposition Party Elects
New Chairman
At a special congress on 6 February that
was closed to the media and representatives of other political parties, the
Azerbaijan National Independence Party (AMIP) elected a new chairman to
succeed its founder Etibar Mammedov, who stepped down from that post in
late December, Azerbaijani media reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"
28 December 2004). Ali Nadir ogly Aliev, head of AMIP's youth organization,
who began his career as an oppositionist when he joined the Azerbaijani
Popular Front in 1989, the year it was founded, defeated four other
candidates, receiving 151 votes from a total of 244 delegates present.
AMIP's statutes were amended to introduce the post of party leader, to
which Mamedov, who did not attend the congress, was elected. Aliev vowed
that AMIP will remain in opposition to the present Azerbaijani leadership.
He called for unity among opposition parties in the campaign to establish
democratic principles for holding elections, but rejected the idea of
opposition parties not fielding competing candidates in the upcoming
parliamentary election. LF
From http://www.rferl.org/ 02/08/2005
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