Condolezza Rice Urges New Chapter in US-Europe Relations

USA Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on
Tuesday for a new chapter in relations with Europe after
a rift over the Iraq war and began repairing ties with
France, one of the biggest critics of the conflict.

Rice pointedly made the appeal in Paris during an
eight-nation tour, underlining the message that
President Bush wants Europe to be a partner and not a
rival.

Calling each other Michel and Condi at a joint news
conference, Rice and French Foreign Minister Michel
Barnier pledged to give U.S.-French relations a new
start and emphasized areas of cooperation rather than
strains.

"It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the
past. It is time to open a new chapter in our
relationship and a new chapter in our alliance," Rice
said in a speech to students and academics at Paris's
prestigious Sciences Politiques university.

"America stands ready to work with Europe on our common
agenda and Europe must stand ready to work with
America," said Rice, a former university provost.

She made Paris the venue for the main speech of her tour
to show Europe that the Bush administration has ended an
internal debate about whether to view a united Europe as
a rival or as a partner, a senior U.S. official said.

She chose to make the speech at the university because
it has been at the center of intellectual and political
debate over transatlantic ties.

Rice was greeted by warm applause and, although she
appeared nervous and delivered the speech with little
flair, she did not face a grilling in questions after
the speech.

"When we disagreed, we still disagreed as friends," she
said of relations with France. Later, standing beside
Barnier at their news conference, she said: "When the
United States and France work together there's a great
deal we can achieve."

Trying out his English, which he is brushing up, Barnier
said: "Chere Condi, it's time for a fresh start."

Underlining the desire for reconciliation, French
President Jacques Chirac -- who met Rice but did not
speak to reporters -- is due to meet Bush for dinner in
Brussels on Feb. 21 and will soon visit Washington.

A French government source also said Washington had
agreed to hand over to France its last three citizens
held by U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. This
would remove one obstacle to better ties, but French
officials did not confirm the deal.

Barnier and Rice underlined cooperation in regional
conflicts such as Afghanistan (news - web sites) and
Kosovo before starting talks, and avoided mention of
their differences over Iraq.

Barnier did, however, call for U.S. support in trying to
persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program, which
Washington says is aimed at developing nuclear arms.
Iran denies this.

Rice took a tough line against Iran, saying it must not
be allowed to dictate terms for proving it is meeting
pledges not to produce a nuclear arsenal. A trio of
European countries are holding talks with Iran but
Washington is not taking part.

Rice has chosen mainly to underline shared values with
Europe rather than potentially divisive issues on her
first trip as the top U.S. diplomat.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rice had no difficulty in winning
backing from Italy, a U.S. ally with 3,000 troops in
Iraq -- the fourth largest foreign contingent there
after U.S., British and South Korean forces.

Italy's support has stood in stark contrast to German
and French opposition to the war. But diplomats across
Europe have welcomed U.S. overtures to mend the
partnership, especially after the Jan. 30 election in
Iraq.

They have also praised Rice for leading the renewed U.S.
peacemaking role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israeli and Palestinian leaders proclaimed a formal
end to bloodshed at a summit in Egypt on Tuesday.

Japan talks with the US on developing missile defense system

This telex of local press agency Kyodo does not mention
or refuses to mention or reject the journalistic need to
clarify for the readers that there still is a ban on
export of defense equipments imposed by the Japanese
laws, neither the pressure on Japanese authorities by US
administration asking major financial contributions from
Tokyo.

Quotes :

"Japan and the United States have started talks to move
the ongoing joint research on a missile defense system
to the development stage, a U.S. Defense Department
official said Monday.

The talks came after the Pentagon decided to embark on
the development in fiscal 2007 of an enhanced version of
its independently developed Standard Missile 3
interceptor, the official said. The two nations have
been jointly researching the enhanced version.

If the two nations agree on joint development, they are
likely to step up their moves toward production and
actual deployment, making the bilateral missile defense
cooperation the centerpiece of the security alliance.

Japan eased its arms export ban in December to enable
sales of missile components to the United States ahead
of a planned upgrading of the joint research.

The research involves a sea-based SM3 interceptor with a
diameter of 53 centimeters, an upgraded version of the
34-cm type developed by the United States. It focuses on
four key components, including nosecones and kinetic
warheads.

The two nations are planning to conduct the first flight
test sometime in the second half of this year, and if
successful the second test in early next year.

Despite doubts expressed by some experts about the
effectiveness of the bigger SM3 interceptor, the U.S.
Navy has pressed for building it, citing its longer
range and higher interception capability.

Japan and the United States launched the joint research
in 1999 after North Korea fired a long-range rocket in
August 1998 that flew over Japan into the Pacific.

The two nations maintain the rocket was a multistage
missile, but the North insists it was for sending a
satellite into orbit.

In his budget plan unveiled Monday for fiscal 2006, U.S.
President George W. Bush reduced spending for
developing, testing and fielding missile defense systems
to $9.9 billion from $8.8 billion in fiscal 2005.

But the Pentagon plans to add 16 interceptors for
ballistic missiles -- five ground-based interceptors for
a total of 21 and 11 SM3 interceptors for a total of 22,
according to the budget plan.

The United States also plans to deploy 18 Aegis
destroyers and guided missile cruisers with SM3
interceptors in the Pacific and the Sea of Japan."

Pentagon plans to do PR on the Internet sites

This article is set to distinguish the narrow border
between information and propaganda in today's
american journalism.

Quotes :

"The U.S. Department of Defense plans to add more sites
on the Internet to provide information to a global
audience -- but critics question whether the Pentagon is
violating President Bush's pledge not to pay journalists
to promote his policies.

The Defense Department runs two Web sites overseas, one
aimed at people in the Balkan region in Europe, the
other for the Maghreb area of North Africa.

It is preparing another site, even as the Pentagon
inspector general investigates whether the sites are
appropriate.

The Web sites carry stories on subjects such as
politics, sports and entertainment.

The sites are run by U.S. military troops trained in
"information warfare," a specialty that can include
battlefield deception.

Pentagon officials say the goal is to counter
"misinformation" about the United States in overseas
media.

At first glance, the Web pages appear to be independent
news sites. To find out who is actually behind the
content, a visitor would have to click on a small link
-- at the bottom of the page -- to a disclaimer, which
says, in part, that the site is "sponsored by" the U.S.
Department of Defense.

"There is an element of deception," said Tom Rosenstiel,
director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
"The problem," he said, is that it looks like a news
site unless a visitor looks at the disclaimer, which is
"sort of oblique."

The Pentagon maintains that the information on the sites
is true and accurate. But in a recent memo, Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz insisted that the
Web site contractor should only hire journalists who
"will not reflect discredit on the U.S. government."

The Defense Department has hired more than 50 freelance
writers for the sites.

Some senior military officers have told CNN the Web
sites may clash with President Bush's recent statements.
"We will not be paying commentators to advance our
agenda," Bush told reporters on January 26. "Our agenda
ought to be able to stand on its own two feet." (Full
story)

Bush made those comments after it came to light that the
administration had paid several commentators to support
U.S. policies in the U.S. media.

Many Democrats have called for an end to what they call
administration propaganda within the United States.

But many lawmakers view the rules for handling
information overseas as a separate issue.

On Thursday, Lawrence Di Rita, the principal deputy
assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, asked
the Pentagon inspector general to examine Defense
Department activities, including the Web sites in
question, to see that they fall within the guidelines
Bush laid out.

Di Rita said the department wanted "to make sure that we
are staying well within the lines, and I believe we
are."

Rosenstiel said there is a reason why rules exist to
separate journalism from government information.
"Anytime that the government has to assure you, 'Believe
me, take my word for it, I'm telling you nothing but the
truth,' you know you should be worried"."

Women in Japan : the long and winding road of discrimination

In the quagmire of Japanese gender discrimination this
article of the JT attempts to justify its habit at home
and office.

Quotes :

"For the first time since such polls have been taken,
the percentage of respondents to a government survey who
say a woman's place is in the home was exceeded by those
who believe the opposite, it was learned Saturday.

According to results of the Cabinet Office's opinion
poll on the roles of the two sexes in society, 48.9
percent of some 3,500 respondents said they do not agree
with the idea that "a husband should work outside the
home while the wife protects the household," as opposed
to 45.2 percent who said they agree.

When the government started the survey in 1979, 72.5
percent of respondents agreed with the concept, compared
to 20.4 percent who disagreed.

When broken down by gender, the percentage of men who
agreed with the idea -- 49.8 percent -- was still higher
than the 43.3 percent who said they did not.
Nevertheless, the figure was 1.5 percentage points lower
than in the last survey conducted in 2002.

Meanwhile, among women, those who disagreed came to 53.8
percent, as compared to 41.3 percent who agreed.

"In addition to changes in views that have come about
with the increased social participation of women,
difficult economic conditions under which both husband
and wife need to work to make ends meet may be another
factor" behind the trend, a Cabinet Office official
said.

When the survey, conducted in November and December,
asked married people who has greater authority in their
household, 48.5 percent replied that it was the husband,
down 7.1 percent from the previous survey and dropping
below 50 percent. There was a 5.8 point rise in the
number of respondents who said it was the wife, reaching
22.7 percent.

When asked who controlled the purse strings, 67.1
percent said it was the wife, while 14.1 percent said it
was the husband.

When asked their views about working women, 40.4 percent
of respondents said it is better for women to continue
working even after having children, the highest figure
on record. This was followed by 34.9 percent who said
they should resume working after the children get older
and 10.2 percent who said they should stop working when
they have children.

But while female participation in the workforce is
growing, the reality is that men have not been taking up
a bigger share of housework and the burden of household
chores still falls on the wives, according to the poll.

When asked about sharing housework, only 4 percent said
the husband is in charge of cleaning the house, 1.2
percent in preparing meals and 3.5 percent in washing
dishes."

Condoleezza’s choices

There are inherent tensions in Bush’s new foreign
policy team writes Walter Andersen.

Quotes :

"The writer is associate director, South Asia Studies
Programme, School of Advanced International Studies,
Johns Hopkins University

George W. Bush was sworn in as president in 2001 with no
intention of focusing on foreign policy. The second
inauguration of George W. Bush on January 20 was quite
the reverse. In his inaugural speech, he laid out one of
the most expansive manifestos ever offered from an
inaugural platform as he dedicated his presidency to
spreading democracy and freedom. He portrayed the US as
a beacon for the subjugated and promised to
confront despots who enchain them. The catalyst for this
about-face in foreign policy, of course, was 9/11 and
the subsequent Global War on Terrorism.

It was the military activity in Afghanistan and then
Iraq that provided an opportunity for Secretary of
Defence Donald Rumsfeld to assume the dominant role in
the fight against terrorism, America’s major foreign
policy engagement. In this, he was ably assisted by Paul
Wolfowitz, his brilliant deputy secretary who is the
intellectual father of the notion of pre-emptive
military action that was employed against Saddam
Hussein, and by Douglas Feith, the under secretary of
defence policy. Vice President Richard Cheney’s support
for Rumsfeld guaranteed the victory of Rumsfeld and the
Department of Defence against the Department of State
headed by Colin Powell, in the bureaucratic battle for
control of Iraq policy. The Defence Department’s
preeminence was revealed when it asserted control over
the postwar reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

The botched reconstruction efforts, the emergence of
Iraq as a centre of terrorist activity and the
continuous killing of American soldiers in Iraq have not
been held against Rumsfeld and his team. Not only was he
asked to continue in office soon after Bush’s November 2
victory. his chief deputies, Wolfowitz and Feith, appear
to be remaining in place as well. Given the Bush
campaign’s refusal to admit any mistakes in Iraq, it was
inevitable that the Pentagon leadership that managed US
policy in Iraq would remain. Any other course would have
reflected badly on the administration’s policy line.
Powell, however, was expendable and he was not invited
to stay on. His loyal deputy, Richard Armitage, too has
left. Armitage had played a major role in the US
formulation of policy toward South Asia that witnessed
the effective end of nuclear related sanctions on India
and Pakistan, the revival of military ties with the two
countries that was shaped by larger counter-terrorism
objectives, and US efforts to reduce tensions between
them.

Taking Powell’s place will be Condoleezza Rice, the
president’s national security advisor during his first
term. Looming foreign policy challenges such as nuclear
weapons programmes in Iran and North Korea, the
Palestinian issue, and a post-election Iraq will test
her bureaucratic skills against rivals, especially in
the Department of Defence, and will determine how
effectively she can rebuild international alliances to
address these issues. At least on the bureaucratic
politics, Rice has several advantages over her
predecessor: she is personally close to the president;
she goes into her job with a wealth of knowledge about
the issues and the complicated bureaucratic policy
formulation process; her loyal deputy at the National
Security Council, Stephen Hadley, has been appointed her
successor.

At her January 18-19 confirmation hearings, Rice said
the State Department would be the “primary instrument�
of foreign relations. She stressed the importance of
alliances in fighting the war on terror and encouraging
the spread of democracy and asserted that the “time for
diplomacy is now.� She made specific reference to the
creation of an office at the Department to handle
reconstruction in crisis situations, a not-so-subtle
reminder that State will not abdicate this traditional
diplomatic responsibility to the Department of Defence,
as it was forced to do two years earlier. Her initial
appointments suggest the continuation of a
non-ideological approach to issues at the State
Department. Her first personnel action was the choice of
a deputy and she selected Robert Zoellick, the US trade
representative and a moderate, an appointment that also
points to a more focused approach to economic issues.
Bush gave his personal blessing to this team, stating in
their presence that the two “will form one of the really
strong, capable foreign policy teams our country has
ever had.� Rice bypassed John Bolton, the under
secretary of state for arms control and international
security, a hardline ideologue who is widely believed to
have lobbied for the position. Bolton’s likely
replacement is Robert G. Joseph, who worked closely with
Rice on non- proliferation issues at the NSC. These
appointments would represent a victory for foreign
policy realists in the Republican Party over
neo-conservatives who dominated foreign policy in Bush’s
first term. The pragmatic thrust will be further
strengthened by the likely appointment of NATO
Ambassador Nicholas Burns, a skilled negotiator and
career diplomat, in the number three position at State,
the under secretary for political affairs. Informed
opinion in Washington predicts that most assistant
secretaries in charge of the regional and functional
bureaus at the State Department will be her appointees
and not ideologues thrust on the Department to curb
dissent, as was once widely rumoured would be the case.

Regarding South Asia, Rice has an opportunity to build a
strategic relationship with India, a stated US goal that
has lacked momentum, in part due to the focus on Iraq. A
tentative start was taken in the decision to work
closely with key Asian powers of India, Japan and
Australia on tsunami relief. While this coordinating
function was turned over to the UN, it is a sound model.
These are democracies with no expansionist ambitions and
share the fundamental security views of the US. The
president in his inaugural address dedicated his second
term to the spread of democracy and the curbing of
tyranny. A good place to begin is to seek the
cooperation of the world’s largest democracy, India. Key
to this happening will be the appointment of a forceful
and politically well-connected assistant secretary for
South Asia."

Tokyo MP's role to be ignored under missile attack?

This article speculates on the current government
discussions trends regarding the chain of command and
the political control of the SDF in case of an attack on
the archipelago.

Quotes :

"The government plans to diminish the roles of
lawmakers-including the prime minister-in decisions to
counter surprise missile attacks from foreign nations.

A draft bill on amending the Self-Defense Forces Law
includes a plan that does not require the prime
minister's prior approval for the SDF to intercept an
incoming missile in a surprise attack. In addition, the
government would not be obliged to report to the Diet
any countermeasures taken in such emergencies.

Instead, the counterattack would follow procedures
established in advance by the director-general of the
Defense Agency. The final decision to launch interceptor
missiles would be left to the SDF commander-even without
an order from the defense chief.

The plan is intended to accelerate the process in the
limited time available to protect the populace from a
missile attack. A North Korean Nodong missile, for
example, could reach Japan within 10 minutes after its
launch.

But the proposed revisions will likely raise serious
concerns about the loss of civilian control over the
SDF.

The government plans to gain Cabinet approval of the
revision bill on Feb. 10 and submit it to the current
Diet session. Pacifist lawmakers are certain to oppose
the legislation.

The plan in countering a ballistic missile attack has
two sets of procedures.

One is for cases when there are ``risks of a missile
directed toward Japan.'' The other concerns a missile
attack without any warning sign.

If there are prior signs, the defense chief is to report
the threat to the prime minister. The prime minister
would then approve the carrying out of countermeasures
and give the defense chief the authority to give the
orders.

If an attack occurs, the SDF commander would act
according to rules of engagement compiled beforehand.

If an attack comes without any warning sign, the SDF
commander would decide whether to take countermeasures
based on an emergency manual, which will be compiled by
the defense chief.

The contents of the manual, which must be approved by
the prime minister, will fall under a government
ordinance and not be included in the main part of the
amended law, according to the government plan.

Under the current SDF law, approval from Japan's
Security Council, the Cabinet and the Diet must be
obtained before the prime minister can order the SDF to
engage in activities involving the use of force. Diet
approval is required after the fact, even for
emergencies."

Japan's re-emergence as a military power

Quotes :

"Earlier last week, 950 personnel from Japan's
Self-Defense Force (SDF) arrived on Indonesia's Aceh
coast, bearing humanitarian aid for victims of last
month's tsunami disaster.

The task force comprising three navy ships and several
helicopters arrived late: other militaries from the
United States and Singapore had already scaled down
similar missions to make way for non-military
organizations.

Nonetheless, the deployment is historic in both timing
and scope - it constitutes the country's largest mission
since World War II, and represents more proof that Japan
is shrugging out of its straitjacket pacifist
Constitution.

Significantly, the deployment did not provoke negative
reaction in Asia, including Southeast Asian countries
that previously suffered under Japan's wartime
occupation.

Jusuf Wanandi, from an Indonesian think tank, told the
Straits Times he had absolutely "no problems" with Japan
playing a bigger role in the region, so long as the
Japanese did not "go nuclear" and create a new arms
race.

Japanese officials have indeed been thinking about such
a wider role for the country's military. In its first
defense review in a decade, they sketched out plans for
a more proactive and assertive military last month.

Disaster relief and peacekeeping operations were added
to the SDF's defensive duties in a defense policy
document which candidly fingered North Korea and China
as "grave factors of insecurity."

That review marked the latest step in an often-tentative
Japanese experiment to "modernize" its military that had
begun in the early 1990s, in the wake of the first Gulf
War.

Japan contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. war
chest for that conflict, but sent no troops to liberate
Kuwait. That led to accusations of checkbook diplomacy
which stung some Japanese. The following year, in 1992,
Japan passed laws to allow the SDF to venture abroad, so
long as its troops were under a United Nations mandate.

Over the next decade, Japanese peacekeepers were sent to
countries like Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Timor
Leste.

In 2003, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi deployed about
600 troops in Iraq - a move which fuelled controversy
because it was the first time that Japanese forces were
sent to a country still seeing active warfare.

This sparked much soul-searching in the country, and
beyond, about Japan's global role. The capture of three
Japanese as hostages by Islamic militants and the
beheading of another last year upped the ante in the
debate swirling around Koizumi's bid to make Japan a
normal state.

The problem here, however, is not so much Japan's past -
but its future. While it has repeatedly stressed that
its goals are peaceful, other recent measures have had
countries like China and South Korea on edge.

These include plans to:

- Seek a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council;

- Upgrade its Defense Agency into a full-fledged
ministry (a status lost after World War II);

- Beef up civilian control over the SDF to speed up
response to threats, such as recent incursions into its
territory by North Korean and Chinese vessels;

- Build a mid-range ballistic missile system that can
hit targets in Shanghai, Beijing and Pyongyang:

- Develop jointly with the United States a missile
defense system that will help ensure that any
pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes will be struck down.

The ultimate prize for Koizumi would be the refashioning
of Article 9 of the country's pacifist Constitution,
which expressly forbids Japan from having any armed
forces. He has hitherto stretched the interpretation of
Article 9 to justify his actions.

A new draft, which is expected late this year, will lend
more legitimacy to what one commentator called a "shift
from passive pacifism to proactive pacifism."

" Koizumi is trying to make the Constitution more honest
to reality," said Dr. Hiro Katsumata, a post-doctoral
fellow at Sin-gapore's Institute of Defense and
Strategic Studies.

These moves all portray a Japan that is becoming more
assertive. In November last year, for example, Japan
extracted a rare apology from China after it tracked
down a Chinese nuclear attack submarine in its waters.

Whether Japan's bid for a bigger global role will be
viewed benignly by Ch.ina and South Korea - immediate
neighbors which carry scars of Japan's wartime past - is
another matter.

"Having Japan as a reinvigorated military power will
significantly alter Asia's political and security
environment and give other regional powers something
else to consider in their own planning," Stratfor, a
U.S.-based intelligence firm, said in a recent report.

There are two competing schools of thought: those who
believe that Tokyo is reverting to its "hegemonic
intent" of old, and pragmatists who argue that Japan is
simply reacting to a deteriorating security environment
- a nuclear-armed North Korea, a more confident Chinese
military and the threat from terrorism.

Japan's recent deployment in Indonesia, the pragmatists
say, is the country's latest bid to add a positive
element to international security.

In the long run, however, only time will tell. And much
of this, say analysts, will depend on China's reactions
to Japan's re-emergence as a military power.

"Japan's planned revision of the Constitution is causing
some tension," professor Zhu Feng, an international
relations lecturer at Beijing University, told the
Straits Times.

"But it reflects a new drive for respect in the region.
The majority of the Chinese can understand such an
endeavor." W Choong ST Singapore"

America abandoned

HOW THE U.S. BECAME THE WORLD'S DISPENSABLE NATION

by Michael Lind (Financial Times)

In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical
zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks
anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the
world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world
order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being
drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which
Americans have not been invited.

Consider Asean Plus Three (APT), which unites the member
countries of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations
with China, Japan and South Korea. This group has the
potential to be the world's largest trade bloc, dwarfing
the European Union and North American Free Trade
Association. The deepening ties of the APT member states
represent a major diplomatic defeat for the US, which
hoped to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation
forum to limit the growth of Asian economic regionalism
at American expense. In the same way, recent moves by
South American countries to bolster an economic
community represent a clear rejection of US aims to
dominate a western-hemisphere free trade zone.

Consider, as well, the EU's rapid progress toward
military independence. American protests failed to
prevent the EU establishing its own military planning
agency, independent of the NATO alliance (and thus of
Washington). Europe is building up its own rapid
reaction force. And despite US resistance, the EU is
developing Galileo, its own satellite network, which
will break the monopoly of the US global positioning
satellite system.

The participation of China in Europe's Galileo project
has alarmed the US military. But China shares an
interest with other aspiring space powers in preventing
American control of space for military and commercial
uses. Even while collaborating with Europe on Galileo,
China is partnering Brazil to launch satellites. And in
an unprecedented move, China recently agreed to host
Russian forces for joint Russo-Chinese military
exercises.

The US is being sidelined even in the area that Mr Bush
identified in last week's address as America's mission:
the promotion of democracy and human rights. The EU has
devoted far more resources to consolidating democracy in
post-communist Europe than has the US. By contrast,
under Mr Bush, the US hypocritically uses the promotion
of democracy as the rationale for campaigns against
states it opposes for strategic reasons. Washington
denounces tyranny in Iran but tolerates it in Pakistan.
In Iraq, the goal of democratisation was invoked only
after the invasion, which was justified earlier by
claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction and was collaborating with al-Qaeda.

Nor is American democracy a shining example to mankind.
The present one-party rule in the US has been produced
in part by the artificial redrawing of political
districts to favour Republicans, reinforcing the
domination of money in American politics. America's
judges -- many of whom will be appointed by Mr Bush --
increasingly behave as partisan political activists in
black robes. America's antiquated winner-take-all
electoral system has been abandoned by most other
democracies for more inclusive versions of proportional
representation.

In other areas of global moral and institutional reform,
the US today is a follower rather than a leader. Human
rights? Europe has banned the death penalty and torture,
while the US is a leading practitioner of execution.
Under Mr Bush, the US has constructed an international
military gulag in which the torture of suspects has
frequently occurred. The international rule of law? For
generations, promoting international law in
collaboration with other nations was a US goal. But the
neoconservatives who dominate Washington today mock the
very idea of international law. The next US attorney
general will be the White House counsel who scorned the
Geneva Conventions as obsolete.

A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who
argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather
than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing
against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of
foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is
everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional
trade blocs that exclude the US to international space
projects and military exercises in which the US is
conspicuous by its absence.

It is true that the US remains the only country capable
of projecting military power throughout the world. But
unipolarity in the military sphere, narrowly defined, is
not preventing the rapid development of multipolarity in
the geopolitical and economic arenas -- far from it. And
the other great powers are content to let the US waste
blood and treasure on its doomed attempt to recreate the
post-first world war British imperium in the Middle
East.

That the rest of the world is building institutions and
alliances that shut out the US should come as no
surprise. The view that American leaders can be trusted
to use a monopoly of military and economic power for the
good of humanity has never been widely shared outside of
the US. The trend toward multipolarity has probably been
accelerated by the truculent unilateralism of the Bush
administration, whose motto seems to be that of the
Hollywood mogul: "Include me out."

In recent memory, nothing could be done without the US.
Today, however, practically all new international
institution-building of any long-term importance in
global diplomacy and trade occurs without American
participation.

In 1998 Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state,
said of the U.S.: "We are the indispensable nation." By
backfiring, the unilateralism of Mr Bush has proven her
wrong. The US, it turns out, is a dispensable nation.

Europe, China, Russia, Latin America and other regions
and nations are quietly taking measures whose effect if
not sole purpose will be to cut America down to size.

Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting
the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it:
hoping that raw military power will be sufficient to
intimidate other great powers alienated by its
belligerence. To compound the irony, these other great
powers are drafting the blueprints for new international
institutions and alliances. That is what the US did
during and after the second world war.

But that was a different America, led by wise and
constructive statesmen like Dean Acheson, the secretary
of state who wrote of being "present at the creation."
The bullying approach of the Bush administration has
ensured that the US will not be invited to take part in
designing the international architecture of Europe and
Asia in the 21st century. This time, the US is absent at
the creation.

The writer is senior fellow at the New America
Foundation in Washington, DC
Financial Times, 25 January 2005

Japan, France study GPS-based tsunami warning system

Researchers in Japan and France have begun joint
research using data from the recent tsunami catastrophe
in the Indian Ocean to study the prospect of using
global positioning system to track earthquakes and warn
of tsunamis.

"If the focus of the quake is near a GPS observation
point, we will be able to see the condition of the sea
surface from above and figure out details of the size
and speed of a tsunami right after it is developed,"
said Makoto Murakami, a research coordinator at Japan's
Geographical Survey Institute.

If successful, geologists will be able to record the
conditions of tsunamis immediately after an earthquake
is detected, track the movements of any consequent
tsunamis and issue precise warnings before the waves hit
shore.

When quakes and tsunamis jolt the earth and sea
surfaces, the atmosphere above them is in turn pushed up
and down. The vibration shakes electrons in the
ionosphere and results in a delay in electric waves
transmitted to observation stations from GPS satellites
some 20,000 kilometers above ground, Murakami said.

By analyzing data at the 1,200 GPS stations operated by
the institute in Japan, scientists will be able to track
the conditions of tsunamis within several hundred
kilometers from the coast, he said.

As there are a few tsunami observation equipment set up
at sea, scientists currently can only estimate the
movement and scale of tsunamis using data from
seismometers and tide gauges along coasts.

The Japanese institute, under the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport, and the Paris Geophysical
Institute in France began basic research on the use of
GPS to track tsunamis after a June 2001 earthquake off
Peru.

North Korean narcotics : 2003's Pong Su incident

NBR North Korea: Pong Su incident Fri, 21 Jan 2005
by Professor Robyn Lim

"The Tuvalu-registered North Korean freighter Pong Su was
intercepted off the coast of eastern Australia in April
2003. After a long and dramatic chase, it was boarded at
gunpoint by the Australian Navy. It was carrying a
senior North Korean communist official as well as a
large amount of heroin.

At the trial of the crew members charged with drug
trafficking, the Australian Federal Police said that the
drugs had been loaded aboard the ship at the North
Korean port of Nampo. Some estimates of the value to
North Korea of the drug trade are in the order of US 1
billion annually.

"Small amounts" to help a poor little bankrupt nation? I
don't think so somehow. And of course it would be naive
not to think that the Dear Leader is at the centre of
it. Much of the drug trade is run out of Macao. Hard to
imagine that the PLA does not know about it or take its
cut. Indeed, criminality in the PLA is a growing problem
in China because corruption is the cancer that is eating
China. Linking up with the triads in Southeast Asia of
course. That is hardly a new connection either for the
communist regime in China.

The former head of Hong Kong police intelligence, Steve
Vickers, told the media that Macau is a base North Korea
uses to raise foreign currency through organised crime.
"In reality, it's a criminal regime. Drugs, kidnappings,
counterfeit documents, bank notes, you name it, they're
doing it"."