03/24 News-UN

Serbian president, Kosovo envoy address UN Security Council
23/03/2009 21:48

UNITED NATIONS, March 23 (RIA Novosti) - Serbian President Boris Tadic and Kosovan Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni took part on Monday in an open session of the UN Security Council on the situation in Kosovo.
The meeting is dedicated to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's report on the United Nations mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which holds a neutral stance in regard to Kosovo's independence.

Tadic said he did not share the secretary general's optimistic evaluations of the situation in Kosovo.
"The Serbs in Kosovo have no security, no freedom of movement, no rule of law, no electricity, and no water. In short, the respect of basic civilized norms is denied to them," Tadic said in his opening statement.
Neither the Serbian president nor the United Nation recognizes Kosovo's representative at the meeting as foreign minister as neither Serbia nor the UN has recognized Kosovo as an independent state.

"The Republic of Serbia supports new negotiations on Kosovo's future status," Tadic said. "Serbia will never recognize the independence of Kosovo, either directly or indirectly."
Russia's envoy to the UN said all forms of the international presence in Kosovo should be streamlined under the aegis of UNMIK to improve the lot of the Serbian minority in the region.

"The only chance to normalize the situation in Kosovo is to preserve the UN mission in Kosovo and to streamline under its aegis... the activity of the OSCE, EU and NATO missions," Vitaly Churkin said. "The UN mission should retain not only its coordination and political, but also administrative functions."
Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008, but has only been recognized by 56 of the 192 UN member states.

3/17 News (Politics)

House panel: Somali stability is crucial to fighting piracy

March 5, 2009 -CNN

Piracy off the East African coast will not be fully controlled until stability is restored to the troubled nation of Somalia, participants in a key U.S. House committee's hearing concluded Thursday.

"There will be no lasting solution to the problem of piracy ... until Somalia's failed state is addressed," Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, said in a special hearing on the issue.
"I fear that the situation on the ground in Somalia will be repeated in other failed states and in states with vast areas of ungoverned territory within their borders," he said. "Piracy could not exist on this scale and with this level of brazenness if there was effective governmental control of that nation."

Incidents of piracy have skyrocketed over the course of the past year. In 2008, there were 293 pirate attacks worldwide, with 111 in Gulf of Aden or off the Somali coast, according to Skelton.
"Ultimately, piracy is a problem that starts ashore and requires an international solution ashore," agreed Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, head of a coalition of more than 20 nations now patrolling waters off the cost of East Africa and in the Gulf of Aden.
"We cannot guarantee safety in this vast region," he said. "Our role in preventing some of these attacks is only one part of the solution to preventing further attacks."
Gortney's remarks came hours after the U.S. Navy handed over seven piracy suspects to Kenyan authorities.

The handover was the first since the United States and Kenya struck an agreement to move piracy suspects caught off Africa's east coast to Kenya for prosecution.
The suspected pirates had been held by the United States since February 11, when they were captured off the coast of Somalia after attempting to take over a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker.
Rep. John McHugh of New York, the committee's ranking Republican, expressed concern that the piracy spike may be fueled at least in part by certain radical Islamist factions seeking to expand their control over Somalia.
Skelton hypothesized that the spike is a consequence of economic globalization, "which radicalizes significant numbers of people who feel alienated and disenfranchised, and who seek to undermine the security and prosperity of those they hold responsible."

The issue of piracy is crucial, Skelton noted, because the "maintenance of free trade and free passage of vessels are crucial components of our national security," particularly in light of U.S. dependence on foreign energy supplies.
Skelton called for the creation of an "international counter-piracy league under the auspices of the United Nations" to help confront piracy.
"Neighboring nations must get involved and the collective weight of the international community must be felt in this regard," he said.

Reference:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/05/house.piracy.hearing/index.html

WEEK4-Quote the week

"I would love a trip to the Amazon, but I suspect the Republican Party here would love to see me travel through the Amazon and maybe get lost." -Barack Obama

3/10 Discussion

West 'uses Tibet to attack China'

China has published a paper praising its rule in Tibet and accusing the West of trying to inflame tensions there.

12:27 GMT, Monday, 2 March 2009

China had developed Tibet's economy and improved both the human rights and living conditions of its residents, the white paper said.
Reports of a "Tibet issue" were an attempt by "western anti-China forces" to demonise China, it said.

The paper comes ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's exile and amid reports of regional unrest.
Tibet itself appears to be closed to foreigners ahead of the anniversary and access to surrounding areas is restricted, making independent confirmation of accounts of fresh monk-led disturbances and protests very difficult.

'Split and demonise'

The white paper was released by the State Council Information Office, China's official news agency Xinhua said.
Chinese rule in Tibet had overthrown "the feudal serfdom system" and liberated about one million serfs and slaves, the paper said, likening the move to America's abolition of slavery.

The government had invested heavily in Tibet and worked to protect Tibetans' culture and heritage, it said.
Westerners were ignoring historical facts and had "confused right and wrong", it added.
"In fact, the so-called 'Tibet issue' is by no means an ethnic, religious and human rights issue, but rather the western anti-China forces' attempt to restrain, split and demonise China," Xinhua quoted the paper as saying.

A separate commentary in the People's Daily newspaper said that the West was attacking China over Tibet because it feared China's growing strength.
Reports from Tibetan areas suggest that security is tight ahead of the upcoming 10 March anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising 50 years ago.

Last year, a protest by monks on that date led to deadly anti-China riots in Lhasa a few days later, and several weeks of unrest in surrounding regions.
It was the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet for two decades.
Despite repeated media campaigns, the Chinese government is painfully aware the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Tibetans is far from over, says the BBC's China editor, Shirong Chen.

Reference: BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7918713.stm

WEEK3-3/10 News(Politics)

Clinton, Lavrov differ over Kosovo
2009-03-07 06:20:18

GENEVA, March 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday voiced their different positions over Kosovo.
Speaking to a press conference after their first meeting in the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, Clinton said she congratulated Kosovo leader over the "first year" of Kosovo independence, while Lavrov warned that Kosovo's unilateral announcement of independence posed "danger" to stability in the Balkan region.
Clinton said the United States would continue to support Kosovo in their future efforts.
However, Lavrov said Kosovo's independence did not conform to relevant U.N. resolution of 1999.
Lavrov said he hoped that the situation in the Balkans could be stabilized, and that Russia is willing to help strengthen the security in the region.
In February last year, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, which has triggered controversy in international politics. Russia does not recognize Kosovo's independence.
Later last year, Abkhazia and South Ossetia followed suit and proclaimed their sovereignty, which won recognition from Russia.
Editor: Mu Xuequan


Refrence: Xinhua
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/07/content_10959767.htm

3/3 Discussion

North Korea holds talks with UN as tensions rise



Reuters Published: March 2, 2009


North Korean generals met the U.S.-led military command of the United Nations in South Korea for the first time in about seven years on Monday after Pyongyang warned over the weekend that "arrogant" acts by U.S. troops could spark a war.


News reports had said that North Korea protested the joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled to start next week and the activities of American troops stationed in South Korea.


"North Korea argued that holding the joint military training at a moment when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is already tense would only raise more tension," the Yonhap news agency of South Korea reported, quoting a military official.


The United Nations said North Korea had requested the meeting, but it gave no details on the results of the talks, which were held at Panmunjom, a village inside the demilitarized zone.
North Korea has stoked tensions in recent weeks by preparing a test flight of its longest-range missile, which is designed to carry a weapon as far as Alaska but has never successfully flown, U.S. and South Korean officials have said.


North Korea also has severed dialogue with the South and threatened to reduce its neighbor to ashes in anger at President Lee Myung Bak's policy of cutting off what once had been a free flow of unconditional aid and tying handouts to the North's nuclear disarmament.


The Korean Central News Agency of North Korea on Saturday quoted a military official from the North as saying in a note to the South Korean military: "If the U.S. forces keep behaving arrogantly in the area under the control of the North and the South," the North Korean Army "will take a resolute counteraction."


The official said U.S. troops had come near the border several times in the past two months, warning that such acts "may touch off unpredictable military conflicts."


The border, called the Military Demarcation Line, is at the center of the demilitarized zone. North Korea puts most of its 1.2 million troops near this zone.


North Korean, South Korean and U.S. soldiers are on their respective sides of the Military Demarcation Line on a daily basis in Panmunjom, where low-level meetings can be arranged by shouting into a bullhorn to the other side.


U.S.-led United Nations forces signed an armistice in 1953 and the United States has kept troops in the South after the fighting ended to deter North Korea from attacking again.


There are about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to support its 670,000 soldiers.
North Korea over the weekend denounced the South Korean-U.S. military drills as a prelude to an invasion. The annual drills have been held without major incident for years.


The new U.S. administration will be sending Stephen Bosworth, its special envoy for North Korea, to the region this week, with stops in China, Japan and South Korea, the State Department said.


In Seoul, Bosworth is expected to meet Wi Sung Lac, a specialist in North American affairs and an adviser to the foreign minister, who was named Monday as South Korea's new chief for six-country talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program.



Source:

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=284892410779679689

WEEK2-3/3 News (Culture&History)

Chinese furious over Laurent sale of 'treasures'

February 27, 2009

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- When Christie's announced its plans to auction off two 18th-century bronze sculptures, the Chinese flatly said "no."

At the center of the dispute are two bronze sculptures, part of the late Yves Saint Laurent's private collection of arts and antiquities. The two 18th-century pieces -- fountainheads of a rabbit and a rat -- disappeared when French and British Allied forces pillaged Beijing's Old Summer Palace during the second Opium War in 1860.

China says the relics are part of its cultural heritage and should be returned.
Christie's, saying that legal ownership of the two pieces had been "clearly confirmed," defied Chinese objections. At a three-day auction in Paris, it sold the two sculptures for €14 million (US$17.92 million) each to two anonymous phone bidders.

The sale of the lost treasures has whipped up nationalistic passion among Chinese in and outside China.

Luo Zhewen, chairman of the Chinese Heritage Society said, "The biggest value of the bronze heads is that they are evidence of the crime committed by imperialists who invaded China. The despicable part the auction is not that it has breached international agreements, but that it is trading criminal evidence for a massive profit."

"It has broken the hearts of the 1.3 billion people of China," he said. "All these national treasures should be returned to their home countries. In future, these fountainheads will not belong to anybody and they should all be returned to the Summer Palace."

In a survey on Sina.com, 89 percent of respondents opposed the auction "because (the relics) belong to China." Only 8.5 percent found it "understandable" because the auction is "legitimate" and "China could try to buy them back with high bids."

Many reacted with raw sentiments.

"Boycott French products!" wrote a person on the discussion forum of the government-run Global Times. "As the current financial crisis goes on, we have to let the French suffer."
In another posting in China Daily's chat room, a person wrote: "In desperate times, when they are in need of money, they can sell anything regardless!"

They said the episode offered a lesson for young Chinese: "When you are weak and subdued, no matter how loud you scream, they will walk over you!"

To many Chinese, the two bronze sculptures are painful reminders of what China-watchers call the "hundred years of humiliation syndrome," especially because the antiquities disappeared when a weak China was subjected to invasion and bullying by Western powers.

"This episode has become one of the saddest symbols of what we call 'national humiliation,'" said a history professor in Beijing.

This national humiliation syndrome at times resurfaces as a violent backlash whenever Chinese perceive a put-down of China. In 1999, for example, Chinese mobs besieged the U.S. Embassy in Beijing when U.S. missiles hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and killed several Chinese staff members. Last year, some Chinese launched a campaign against the Western media in protest of what they called "negative, anti-China" reporting on the Olympic torch relay and the Tibet protests.

A debate is raging in China's mainstream media and cyberspace over China's lost treasures.

"We don't have to be so angry over losing historical relics," wrote a person in ifeng.com. "China has countless historical pieces lost overseas. We have to build many museums if we get all of them back. If we put them in foreign museums, people still can see China's ancient civilization and understand the history of crimes committed by foreign countries."

Others were more introspective.

"If the Red Guards smashed the Rabbit Head in the Old Summer Palace, whom will you cry to?" asks one person posting in the People's Daily Forum. "We Chinese have destroyed our own things more than the invaders, and the destruction is more extensive, lasting, and thorough."Tao Duanfang, an international affairs commentator in Beijing, said that, though the bronze sculptures were national treasures, "what are really valuable are not these 'dead relics,' but China's economic progress, social stability and systemic progress."

Meantime, China has quickly moved to punish the auction house. Aiming to strike back where it could hurt most, China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage decreed tighter inspections on all cultural relics that Christie's seeks to bring in and out of China. That is meant to choke Christie's small but potentially big auction business in the country.

Comment:

This is a international dispute between 1.3billion Chinese people and the auctioneering company,Christie's. Looting national treasures is a very common in war period. Why these artifacts are so valuable?Perhaps on account of the cultural and historical meaning of these sculptures, they are evidence and witness while China was invaded.The rising patriotic sentiments made the event more complicated.Next, let's see how the bidder deals with these two bronze sculptures. Will he give in Christie's and pay for them? Or, is a huge argument between the two coutries about to burst? Through this event, we may think about if there's something happened in the future in U.S.-Iraq war.

Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/27/china.treasures.laurent.christies/index.html#cnnSTCText