What’s the plan if North Korea collapses?
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appears to be making an orderly transition after the death of leader Kim Jong-il last week, but the risk of collapse is higher than before and regional powers need to start discussing that contingency with China, diplomats and analysts say.
The problem is China refuses to contemplate any unravelling of North Korea which has nuclear ambitions and is its long-term ally. Beijing has rebuffed such overtures from the United States, Japan and South Korea.
“Secret talks with China to plan for contingencies have long been overdue,” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a paper this week.
“Beijing has been reluctant to engage in this kind of dialogue, although Chinese thinkers have increasingly acknowledged privately the need for such an authoritative conversation.”
Yet little evidence has emerged that such talks have taken place or are being planned, despite a flurry of discussions betweeen the four countries in the aftermath of Kim’s death last Saturday.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda travels to Beijing at the weekend, but it is unlikely that China would entertain anything more than platitudes. No contingency plan can be coordinated without China’s agreement, since it borders North Korea and supplies much of its food and fuel.
Christopher Hill, a former envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea nuclear disarmament, said it was difficult to raise North Korean instability scenarios with China.
Analysis: What’s the plan if North Korea collapses?
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appears to be making an orderly transition after the death of leader Kim Jong-il last week, but the risk of collapse is higher than before and regional powers need to start discussing that contingency with China, diplomats and analysts say.
The problem is China refuses to contemplate any unraveling of North Korea which has nuclear ambitions and is its long-term ally. Beijing has rebuffed such overtures from the United States, Japan and South Korea.
“Secret talks with China to plan for contingencies have long been overdue,” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a paper this week.
“Beijing has been reluctant to engage in this kind of dialogue, although Chinese thinkers have increasingly acknowledged privately the need for such an authoritative conversation.”
Yet little evidence has emerged that such talks have taken place or are being planned, despite a flurry of discussions between the four countries in the aftermath of Kim’s death last Saturday.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda travels to Beijing at the weekend, but it is unlikely that China would entertain anything more than platitudes. No contingency plan can be coordinated without China’s agreement, since it borders North Korea and supplies much of its food and fuel.
Christopher Hill, a former envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea nuclear disarmament, said it was difficult to raise North Korean instability scenarios with China.
Tragedy or stagecraft: N. Korea’s food crisis
Tim Large, editor of Thomson Reuters Foundation’s AlertNet humanitarian news service, gives the back story to his special report Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl <http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-korea-north-food-idUSTRE7956DU20111007> . Any opinions expressed are his own.
Malnourished children presented at a clinic in North Korea during a guided tour of a disaster-hit province. (Reuters/Tim Large)
Could a malnourished eight-year-old really look like a three-year-old? Were the 28 orphans in the primary school clinic really so stunted by years of hunger that they had the bodies of toddlers, as the authorities claimed?
Or had they been assembled here for our benefit, infant imposters wheeled in to add poignancy to North Korea’s appeal for food aid?
Western nutrition experts who have worked in the country for years assured me that such extreme stunting was absolutely the norm.
Special Report: Can Malaysia reform and discriminate?
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) – Dr. Mahathir Mohamad sits at a vast desk cluttered with work, hands clasped before him and looking at his visitors with a slight smile.
Dr. M, as he is popularly known, was prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, the first commoner to ever hold the post in a land with nine sultans. His demeanor suggests the country physician he once was, ready with a frank diagnosis — and in his first interview with the foreign media in five years, he doles out prescriptions for what ails his nation.
The man who made Malaysia part of the “East Asia Miracle” with a massive inflow of foreign direct investment doesn’t think much of it today. The former miracle economy, now a muddle, needs a new policy direction, he says in his office in Putrajaya, the administrative capital he built on old plantation land in the 1990s.
“We should not be too dependent on FDI anymore,” says Mahathir. “We’ve come to the stage when locals can invest. They have now the capital. They have the technology. They know the market. And I think they can manage big industries.”
His thinking is at odds with government policy. But it gets to the heart of a debate over the future of Malaysia, a former emerging market star now in danger of becoming an also-ran, stuck in the dreaded “middle income trap.”
Foreign investment has been dwindling since the onset of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Capital outflows have even exceeded inflows in four of the past five years. This has been accompanied by an alarming “brain drain” of emigres voting with their feet against Malaysia’s prospects.
Malaysia is counting on foreign investment to provide a quarter of the investments needed to fund projects under its “Economic Transformation Programme,” which aims to turn the country of 28 million into a fully developed nation by 2020.
Malaysia’s Mahathir: racial divide deepening
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) – Malaysian Chinese have stopped supporting the government because they no longer feel they are getting their share of projects, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
The former prime minister looked back on his two decades in power in a May interview at his office in Putrajaya, the showcase administrative capital he built in the 1990s and one of the “mega-projects” that helped define his regime.
Chinese and Indians make up a third of the population but have become increasingly unhappy about an official policy that discriminates against them in favor of majority Malays.
“Yes, it’s worse now,” Mahathir says of the racial divide in Malaysia. “During my time, I could rely on Chinese support for my party. Now the government is threatened with losing Chinese support.”
He noted that his government two decades ago bowed to Chinese demands to have their own schools taught in the Chinese language, and said it showed how accommodating it was to minority races. “Despite having a national (Malay) language, they don’t teach in the national language. They can’t speak the national language.”
But he acknowledged that having separate schools had become a major factor in the racial divide.
“We would like them to come to national schools. We even suggested you can have your Chinese school, you can have your Tamil school, but why not put all three schools on one campus? So they can eat together, they can play together, and each gets to know that in the real world they have to interact with different races. But the Chinese say no. They say if you do that, we won’t support the government.”
Racial divide deepening: Mahathir Mohamad
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) – Malaysian Chinese have stopped supporting the government because they no longer feel they are getting their share of projects, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
The former prime minister looked back on his two decades in power in a May interview at his office in Putrajaya, the showcase administrative capital he built in the 1990s and one of the “mega-projects” that helped define his regime.
Chinese and Indians make up a third of the population but have become increasingly unhappy about an official policy that discriminates against them in favour of majority Malays.
“Yes, it’s worse now,” Mahathir says of the racial divide in Malaysia. “During my time, I could rely on Chinese support for my party. Now the government is threatened with losing Chinese support.”
He noted that his government two decades ago bowed to Chinese demands to have their own schools taught in the Chinese language, and said it showed how accommodating it was to minority races. “Despite having a national (Malay) language, they don’t teach in the national language. They can’t speak the national language.”
But he acknowledged that having separate schools had become a major factor in the racial divide.
“We would like them to come to national schools. We even suggested you can have your Chinese school, you can have your Tamil school, but why not put all three schools on one campus? So they can eat together, they can play together, and each gets to know that in the real world they have to interact with different races. But the Chinese say no. They say if you do that, we won’t support the government.”
Malaysia’s dilemma: Can it reform and discriminate?
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, July 7 (Reuters) – Dr. Mahathir Mohamad sits at a vast desk cluttered with work, hands clasped before him and looking at his visitors with a slight smile.
Dr. M, as he is popularly known, was prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, the first commoner to ever hold the post in a land with nine sultans. His demeanor suggests the country physician he once was, ready with a frank diagnosis – and in his first interview with the foreign media in five years, he doles out prescriptions for what ails his nation.
The man who made Malaysia part of the “East Asia Miracle” with a massive inflow of foreign direct investment doesn’t think much of it today. The former miracle economy, now a muddle, needs a new policy direction, he says in his office in Putrajaya, the administrative capital he built on old plantation land in the 1990s.
“We should not be too dependent on FDI anymore,” says Mahathir. “We’ve come to the stage when locals can invest. They have now the capital. They have the technology. They know the market. And I think they can manage big industries.”
His thinking is at odds with government policy. But it gets to the heart of a debate over the future of Malaysia, a former emerging market star now in danger of becoming an also-ran, stuck in the dreaded “middle income trap.”
Foreign investment has been dwindling since the onset of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Capital outflows have even exceeded inflows in four of the past five years. This has been accompanied by an alarming “brain drain” of emigres voting with their feet against Malaysia’s prospects.
Malaysia is counting on foreign investment to provide a quarter of the investments needed to fund projects under its “Economic Transformation Programme,” which aims to turn the country of 28 million into a fully developed nation by 2020.
No room at the Inn … but maybe a job in the Outback
By Rebekah Kebede
You wouldn’t think you’d have to make hotel reservations months ahead of time in Karratha, a small, dusty town on the edge of the Outback a 16-hour drive from Perth, the nearest city. But with Australia’s commodities boom, Karratha is bursting at the seams and nowhere is it more apparent than when trying to find a place to stay.
(Above photo: A kangaroo stands atop iron ore rocks outside the remote outback town of Karattha in Western Australia. Reuters/Daniel Munoz)
About two weeks ahead of my trip up to Karratha, to do a special report on Australia’s hunt for foreign labour, all hotel rooms within a 60-km radius were fully booked and after more than 20 calls, the travel agent was still coming up empty.
A few more desperate calls turned up a couple of rooms in a town called Roebourne, about 30 minutes away from Karratha at the Ieramugadu Inn, an old motel, which like many others in the area, had become worker accommodations as Karratha struggles to house the influx of labour into town. The bill came to over $200 a night—just shy of what it costs to book a room with a view of the Opera House in Sydney. The amenities at the Ieramugadu were somewhat different: a complimentary can of bug repellent, tin-foil covered windows to keep out the light for those on night shift, and a view of a truck parking lot through a hole in the tin foil.
For a fascinating read about Vietnam today called “Vietnam’s Capitalist Roaders” see http://r.reuters.com/myg26r
Vietnam’s Capitalist Roaders
A woman dressed in the traditional Vietnamese “ao dai”costume serves tea to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (front R) during the opening ceremony of the 11th Party Congress in Hanoi January 12, 2011
Vietnam’s ruling communists opened an eight-day party congress on Wednesday with a candid admission the fast-growing economy had become unstable, as delegates began the process of reshuffling leaders and charting new policies. As leaders sang the national anthem to begin the five-yearly event, streets in the chilly capital Hanoi were festooned with red and yellow banners, some bearing the iconic hammer and sickle. Propaganda posters bore the smiling likeness of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh or of proud, uniformed workers. The economic backdrop is less festive. Inflation surged to a 22-month high in December, the government is struggling to bring down a hefty fiscal deficit, the currency has been depreciating for three years and the trade deficit remains stubbornly high.
A Reuters Special Report takes a close look at Vietnam’s new breed of captitalists, as the country of 90 million takes a page out of China’s Communist Party playbook and promotes a more consumption-led economy. This is a development path divergent from that of its East Asian neighbours, whose economies became Tigers or Dragons (as the case may be) on the back of exports not consumers.
In contrast to most emerging markets, Vietnam has been a sell — up until recently, anyway. The Vietnam stock index is down 59 percent from its March 2007 peak and lost more than 3 percent last year, compared to gains of more than 40 percent in Thailand and Indonesia.
But the situation could reverse this year. The lone ETF tracking the country, Market Vectors Vietnam, has gained 10 percent over the past three months, handily outpacing the iShares NSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund.
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