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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
Week of July 2, 1999
BEIJING A serious investigation is necessary to prove that Serb forces engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the government says. The stance coincides with China's continuing anger over the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade during the U.S.-led NATO operations in Yugoslavia see INTELLIGENCE. Meanwhile, NATO admitted that the success of its bombing tactics was over-estimated - and that its pilots had often been duped by inflatable decoy military hardware.SCIENTISTS WORKING ON THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT are five years ahead of schedule. They reckon they will have identified all of the 80,000 genes in human DNA - the chemical sequences that form the "blueprint of human beings," as they put it - by the spring of 2000. By then they will also have all the tools needed to analyze the 3 billion chemical combinations of which DNA is made. The coordinated effort to decipher the genetic code started in 1990, when organizers predicted they would complete their work by 2005.
Week of June 25, 1999
SHARE PRICES OF IRIDIUM - the troubled U.S. satellite telecommunications company - slid to an all-time low after the company fired 15% of its staff, including several executives. Iridium is the first of several planned satellite phone networks designed to make calls from anywhere on Earth. It reported losses of close to $1 billion since services started in November.AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF SCIENTISTS identified a pollution cloud over the Indian Ocean covering more than 10 million square kilometers - about the size of the U.S. They think it is caused by microscopic particles and dangerous gases generated by the growing industrialization in the emerging nations that ring the ocean.
The New York Times reports that the U.S. Commerce Department thinks the new Sony Playstation II is based on such powerful technology that the government must be notified before the videogames are shipped to China.
U.S. COMPANIES GENERATED $301 billion in revenue last year from online-related goods and services, including $102 billion worth of e-commerce. The study was funded by Cisco Systems, which makes much of the hardware needed to operate the Internet.
BY 2005, 57% OF INTERNET USERS' mother tongues will be a language other than English. And while the number of English-speaking Internet users is expected to rise 60% over the next six years, industry analysts predict the number of non-English speaking users to increase by 150%.
Week of June 18, 1999
FARM PRODUCTS INCLUDING cattle, pigs, chickens, baby formula and all dairy products from Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands were pulled from Asian store shelves because of possible contamination by the cancer-causing chemical dioxin. Up to 80 tons of the tainted animal feed from Belgium was distributed in January in the four countries. But the Belgian Agriculture Ministry, having learned of the problem in April, withheld the information for a month.EVERY SIXTH HOME - that's about 15% - bought in California during the first quarter of 1999 was paid for by buyers who cashed in stock market holdings, according to the California Association of Realtors.
Scientists extracting two-mile deep cores of ice in Antarctica estimate that we are about 18,000 years into our fifth long - about 100,000 years - ice age. Some of them say that's all the more reason to give credence to the alarms being raised by the steadily increasing temperatures meteorologists have been reporting for the last 100 years or so. Something is amiss, and they fear their findings are more evidence that a new factor - human-generated global warming - has upset the world's natural warming-cooling cycle.
Week of June 11, 1999
Computer industry giant Hewlett-Packard and American toy maker Mattel launched a new Barbie ink-jet printer aimed at young girls. The must-have $79 peripheral is "mist gray with glitter pink accents" and features a Barbie logo.Watch out for the "other" Y2K problem. The number of sunspots and flares, solar storms and other "space weather" will hit an 11-year peak in 2000. At their worst such phenomena can cause electrical power outages, drive satellites off course and disrupt telephone and pager services. The cyclical increase in solar activity occurs because the sun's magnetic field reverses every 10 or 11 years. January to April of 2000 will see the worst of the activity.
Week of May 28, 1999
PIRACY ON THE HIGH SEAS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD rose substantially in the first three months of 1999, with Indonesia remaining the most dangerous spot, the London-based International Maritime Bureau said. The IMB reported 66 cases of piracy, up from 47 worldwide during the previous three-month period. Half of the 66 reported attacks occured in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and the Singapore Straits accounting for 18 and 10 cases respectively.ISLAND DISPUTES Up to 12 Chinese warships entered what Tokyo considers Japan's exclusive economic zone near the Senkaku islands (which the mainland calls the Diaoyutais), but Japan's Self-Defense Force took no action other than to monitor their movement. In Hong Kong, Philippine President Joseph Estrada hit out at Beijing for its activities in the Spratlys. "China's efforts in the South China Sea will undermine Southeast Asia's bottom-line security," Estrada told a meeting of senior Pacific Rim business leaders. He warned that ASEAN countries might not remain neutral in the face of China's "ambition."
TAIWAN
A WHITE-HATTED President Lee Teng-hui inspected the country's revamped armed forces, as military exercises roughly coincided with the release of Lee's book Taiwan's Viewpoint - an unorthodox analysis that calls on Beijing to grant greater autonomy to seven regions, based on cultural and nationalistic features. If Lee and Taiwan are serious about pushing that sort of line, they had better have the best military forces they can come up with - Beijing cursorily dismissed the book, and was no doubt less than amused by the thought of slicing up China into seven pieces. The anti-amphibious military exercises, fittingly, were held on Penghu, an island in the middle of the Taiwan Strait which was used by Dutch, French and Japanese invaders in the past. The impressive display reflects the 10-year effort to reduce troop numbers while enhancing combat capabilities.For $49.95 you can send your DNA (in the form of strands of hair), a photograph of yourself and a message to other life forms in the universe. And for $39.95 more, you can give the same privilege to a friend as a gift. Launch date is set for late 2001 and the organizers, Encounter 2001, expect 1.5 million applicants. Encounter will get your essence onboard, but it won't be tracking the Ariane V rocket, not even for the first 12 years it will take it to depart our solar system. That's your responsibility.
Week of May 21, 1999
WTO LEADERSHIP European ministers meeting in Berlin admitted that the EU has no unified position on who should lead the WTO, Supachai Panitchpakdi or Mike Moore, and will leave the decision up to the WTO in Geneva.TO CLEAR THE WAY FOR NEW interactive equipment in cars, General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Renault agreed to develop an industry-wide standard to make the devices interchangeable by 2002. The pact reduces the cost of such gear - everything from paging systems to electronic mail to Web hookups - by allowing suppliers to standardize manufacturing processes.
Week of May 14, 1999
WESTERN DONORS WANT the Asian Development Bank to limit its role to easing the social consequences of the Crisis. At its May 1 session in Manila, the bank's managers received a tongue-lashing for stepping out of line by lending heavily to help rescue South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand from currency meltdown.Week of May 7, 1999
BEIJING State Councilor Wu Yi, who for years directly handled trade negotiations with the U.S., said Washington is demanding "too high a price" by putting "impractical and unacceptable" conditions on China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Wu was speaking from Beijing to an American women's group in New York when she made her comments.SEOUL "Inter-Korean economic cooperation should be extended to joint ventures and equal partnerships" - not just one-off projects, Senior Presidential Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security Lim Dong Won told businessmen from the Federation of Korean Industries. Lim said the government will support chaebol who move idle factories to the North, as well as Hyundai's plans for an industrial complex on North Korea's west coast.
TOKYO Days before a U.S.-Japan summit meeting in Washington, the lower house of parliament passed legislation bolstering defense ties with the United States, despite strong protests at home and in China. The legislation is expected to easily pass through the upper house in late May. Under the law, American naval forces will be allowed to use Japanese civilian ports and Japanese ships could conduct blue-water minesweeping operations. But earlier plans for Japanese naval vessels to carry out inspections on the high seas during crises had to be dropped because of domestic concerns about Japanese forces being dragged into violent conflict.
U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL Kofi Annan announced that Portugal and Indonesia agreed to a May 5 signing date for an autonomy package for East Timor which paves the way for 850,000 East Timorese to determine their future. After the agreement goes into effect, U.N. personnel, specifically not identified as peace-keeping troops or military observers but civilians (most likely police), from six countries could move into the troubled territory to curtail ethnic violence. The agreement will effectively allow the people of the former Portuguese colony to choose, on Aug. 8, between autonomy within Indonesia or complete independence.
Late evening trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market could arrive by mid-year. The move to longer Wall Street days is driven by Internet-based investors who want to deal beyond traditional hours but can't because they hold daytime jobs. The New York Stock Exchange is considering a morning session for trading European stocks and possibly a late session - the Big Board could be open for nearly 20 hours a day within two years.
STRATEGIC ANALYSTS AT THE RAND CORPORATION think-tank are making the distinction between "cyberwar" - a military operation - and "Netwar," which, Rand predicts, will consist of non-military attacks perpetrated by individuals rather than countries. "Whereas cyberwar usually pits formal military forces against each other, Netwar is more likely to involve nonstate, paramilitary, and irregular forces."
Week of April 30, 1999
BEIJING Even as Premier Zhu Rongji was in Canada completing his North American tour, Beijing and Washington were "moving intensively" on outstanding issues to reach a bilateral agreement expected to form the basis of China's entry into the World Trade Organization. In Toronto, Zhu predicted a conclusion could be reached as early as the end of April, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Commerce Secretary William Daley agreed that a deal was close at hand.WASHINGTON The U.S. February trade deficit rose to a record $19.4 billion - almost 16% more than the previous high, set in January. So far this year, the annual deficit rate is running at about $215 billion; in 1998 it was $169 billion. Sluggish export markets and strong domestic demand for imports are driving the increase.
IF YOU MISSED IT, THAT MIGHT NOT be a bad thing. April 9 was deemed the most likely day to conceive a child who would be born on Jan. 1, 2000 - a so-called "Millennium Baby." "April 9 was not an auspicious day for conception, though, because Saturn and Mars were in opposition, which denotes trouble and this will be proven with deformity in one of the legs of a new-born," according to Balbahdra Aggarwala, one of India's top astrologers.
Week of April 23, 1999
WORRIED ABOUT DEFLATING PRICES? Here's something that will drive them up, but it won't make you happy: Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, told customers in Japan and South Korea that their May supply of oil will be cut by between 17% and 19% - and most other Asian countries will see similar rollbacks from other suppliers. But if prices rise much beyond $18 per barrel, analysts expect OPEC members to begin "cheating" on the amount of crude they pump. And that could drive oil - and other - prices down again, so you can renew your concerns about deflation.THERE WILL BE MORE THAN 6 billion people on Earth when the new millennium arrives, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2026, that number is expected to be 8 billion; by 2050, 9.3 billion - despite the slowing rate of population growth.
Week of April 16, 1999
AIDS - SOUTHEAST ASIA The United Nations Aids Program says South and Southeast Asia are seeing dramatic increases in HIV, the precursor to AIDS. There are an estimated 1.2 million new infections annually, of which 700,000 are in people under 25. The head of UNAIDS, Peter Piot says that people who became infected in the cities are returning to the countryside and contributing to the spread of HIV. Citing Cambodia as an example, Piot estimated that at the current levels of infection - there are about 180,000 Cambodians with HIV today - it will cost the country from $2 billion to $3 billion by 2004, due to a decline in productivity, tourism and foreign investment.SINGAPORE WILL PROPOSE a 30-nation Asia-Latin America summit next year to tackle the financial crisis, according to a report in Tokyo's Nihon Keizai Shimbun. PM Goh Chok Tong wants Japan to back the proposal.
SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT OF "What's happening in Kosovo today may happen to Taiwan tomorrow," is what President Boris Yeltsin reportedly told Premier Zhu Rongji when he made his official trip to Moscow in March. The message resonated deeply and is most likely the main underlying cause for China's adamant rejection of NATO's American-led airstrikes into Yugoslavia. The Chinese are concerned about an international precedent being set that condones the use of military force against nations with restive minorities or independence-minded regions like Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang. Couple that with Washington's policy of including Taiwan in its North Asian theater missile defense system and you can see why Beijing is so negative about the attack on the Serbs.
Week of April 9, 1999
ACCORDING TO SOME CLIMATOLOGISTS, the average global temperature has risen by half a degree centigrade since 1900 and is estimated to rise between one and three degrees in the next century. The sea level will go up between 20 and 90 cm, causing many small islands to disappear.Week of April 2, 1999
CHINA PRESIDENT JIANG ZEMIN made the most of his 10-day trip across Europe, which started in Italy. On the first day of his tour, the European Union's foreign ministers announced their decision not to support a motion censuring Beijing for its human-rights record on the opening day of the Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva. And in Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi responded to comments made by the Vatican's foreign minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran that the Church must modify its relationship with Taipei to win mainland support. "The Vatican must sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Vatican must also not interfere in China's internal affairs, and that means religious activities," Sun said.THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION says the last case of polio in the Western Pacific Region was reported two years ago and more are unlikely to re-appear. The agency wants to eradicate polio worldwide by the end of 2000. Three areas of transmission still exist - South Asia and West and Central Africa. The next challenge:tuberculosis. China and the Philippines are lagging in prevention efforts. WHO estimates 500,000 people die yearly of TB in Asia and wants to cut that number in half in five to 10 years.
IN AN ATTEMPT TO END THE GLUT OF OIL and the record low prices on world markets, OPEC members and allied countries agreed to cut production by 2.7% after a 20-minute meeting in Vienna.
THE GROUP OF SEVEN countries are considering waiving all their development aid loans, worth some $20 billion, to 41 low-income, heavily indebted countries - mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar would be the Asian beneficiaries.
SALES OF INTERNET SERVERS IN 1998 in Asia shrank by 13% from 1997 to $3.4 billion. But watch for a rise this year. Sales of the computers, which store and route information on the Web, dropped by only 5% in the second half of the year compared with 20% in the first half.
A SACK OF MONEY - a piggybank and a biplane were the other candidates - was voted to be the newest player-token in Monopoly, the board game that teaches the rudiments of capitalism. The announcement of the choice coincided with the first breakthrough of the 10,000-level Dow Jones Industrial Average.
AN ESTIMATED ONE BILLION PEOPLE will have mobile phones by 2005. As much as 15% of that market will be "information devices" that allow customers to make phone calls, store information and access the Internet, industry analysts predict.
Week of March 19, 1999
Software manufacturers warn users of pirated programming that they face a disaster at the turn of the century. Unlike legitimate users, firms using bootleg software will not have access to Y2K updates or support assistance. "On January 1, those countries [where piracy is predominant] are going to be caught with their pants down around their ankles, and there's not much they can do about it," warns Peter Beruk, of the Software and Information Industry Association.Week of March 12, 1999
The prediction from within the computer industry: expect worldwide PC sales to overtake television sales by 2000. The trend is already well established in Australia, Canada, Denmark and South Korea. It's being led by machines which cost below $1,000, which now account for 25% of all PCs sold.Week of March 5, 1999
Worldwide, over 147 million people had access to the Internet at the close of 1998, up from 61 million in 1996, the Computer Industry Almanac reported. It estimates the number of Internet users will increase to 320 million by 2000, rising to 720 million by 2005.Week of February 26, 1999
KIRIBATI A scheme to launch commercial rockets from this modified oil-drilling platform looks set to meet its deadline. Sea Launch Limited Partnership, a joint venture of Boeing Aircraft and companies from Norway, Russia and Ukraine, will fire a three-stage Zenit-3SL rocket from a site about 800 km southeast of the South Pacific island-nation in March.SPRATLY ISLANDS Philippine defense secretary Orlando Mercado says that China has completed its work on enlarging structures on the chain of reefs. Mercado referred to surveillance photographs showing a three-story concrete building, a wharf, a helicopter landing platform and possible gun and radar emplacements.
THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION says 52 countries remain on track to sign the March 1 agreement reducing trade barriers in global financial services, even though 18 of them have not ratified the pact domestically. Watch for the U.S. to increase pressure specifically on Japan to uphold the pact. The agreement covers $38 trillion in bank lending, $19.5 trillion in securities trading and $2.1 trillion in insurance premiums.
WASHINGTON Fallout from the failed conviction of President Bill Clinton has not ended. Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr might indict Clinton in court, the first time a sitting American president would face criminal charges. It appears that Starr will most likely wait until Clinton leaves office, though. There is a growing concern that future presidents and their advisers will be reluctant to speak frankly in the White House, fearing that they could face Congressional investigation in the future.
FINANCE MINISTERS AND central bank heads of the Group of Seven are devising a scheme in which several international financial institutions will work together to monitor and tighten controls on capital transactions, particularly those by hedge funds. A full announcement will come at the G7 meeting in Bonn on Feb. 20.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Bourse in Paris, which operates the French derivatives exchange, and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange signed an agreement that will allow futures and options to be traded on an electronic network that will operate around the clock in Asia, Europe and North America.
Week of February 19, 1999
AID TO THE WORLD'S poorest countries fell in 1997 for the first time this decade, and in 1998 the trend almost surely intensified. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in an annual report that public and private financial flows to aid recipients fell 11% to $324 billion in 1997 from $365 billion in 1996, largely because of the Asian financial crisis, "and all projections suggest that this decline continued and widened in 1998." There are now some 1.3 billion people living in "acute poverty" - earning less than one dollar a day. That's almost a quarter of the world's population.PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN defied doctors' advice to attend the funeral of Jordan's King Hussein. In a break with protocol, he was allowed to view the late monarch ahead of other dignitaries. Within three hours, he flew back to Moscow with his wife, Naina. The Russian leader needed aides to steady him when he appeared publicly.
THIS YEAR, FOR THE FIRST TIME, the number of women using online services will match that of men. By late 1997, about 43% of Internet users were women, according to the International Data Group. That rose to 48% by the end of last year and will probably exceed 50 % in 1999.
A RECORD 162.9 MILLION cellular phones were sold world-wide last year, a 51% increase over 1997. The 1998 wireless phone market was valued at about $27.7 billion. Nokia replaced Motorola as the largest maker.
THE UNITED STATES Naval Observatory has identified the spot that will be the first place on Earth to greet the new millennium. It is located roughly where the Antarctic Circle meets the International Date Line, about six hours flying time south of Auckland. There, on the last midnight of the century, the sun will kiss the horizon as it sets and will immediately rise again.
Week of February 12, 1999
WASHINGTON Clinton's lawyers went on a counter-attack during his Senate impeachment trial by asking a federal judge to investigate special council Kenneth Starr. They want him charged with contempt of court for releasing information during the investigation of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.THE U.S. AND EUROPEAN COUNTRIES are increasingly concerned that while they are preparing for the Y2K bug, Russia, China and many oil-producing countries are not. The fear is that, given the impact of globalization, massive computer failure in less-developed markets will disrupt the entire world.
Week of February 5, 1999
OLYMPICS BRIBERY SCANDAL In the wake of the scandal triggered by bribery revelations surrounding the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Winter Games, International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch declined to resign but issued an apology to the world. In Sydney, officials will make public secret files explaining how they spent at least $25 million to win the 2000 Games. And in Japan, Nagano Prefecture Governor Yoshimura Goro (who headed the bid for the l998 Winter Olympics) admitted that his committee paid about 50 million yen to a Swiss firm for information gathering and other tasks.BANGKOK The Jan. 24-26 meeting between ASEAN and the European Union was canceled when the Europeans reportedly insisted, at short notice, that Laos and Myanmar could attend only if they sat behind a "New Members" sign. Other ASEAN members could not reach agreement on the demand.
WASHINGTON Republicans, with a 55-45 vote edge in the Senate, decided to call Monica Lewinsky and two other witnesses in President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial and also considered calling Clinton to testify. The trial continued even though opinion polls show most Americans want it to end. Even Republican senators admit they do not have enough votes to convict the president.
SOME 1.3 BILLION WATCHES were produced across the world last year, up just 2% from 1997, according to Citizen, the world's biggest watchmaker. Digital watches fell most behind. The number of traditional-style analog watches manufactured actually rose.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS FIRMS FROM EIGHT ASIAN countries asked the U.S. to share the costs of international Internet links with them. The carriers realize that the Internet load will soon be larger than voice messages and want help building and maintaining the Web's high-capacity lines.
Week of January 22, 1999
WASHINGTON Impeachment prosecutors were preparing to introduce evidence they insist will turn public opinion against President Clinton. The White House called their move a "cheap mystery." Separately, Clinton sent an $850,000 check to Paula Jones to settle the sexual harassment lawsuit she brought against him that opened the door to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.World Events in 1998
World Events in 1997
World Events in 1996
World Events in 1995
