posted September 07, 2007 01:03 AM              

quote:

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No, democracy is definitely not something we should seek as a nation.
The framers of the Constitution called democracy the most vile form of government possible.

Example:

2 wolves and a lamb are deciding "what's for lunch".

Democracies DO NOT protect the rights, interests and property of the minority.

-- Jwhop

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/003527.html

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someone should alert gwb to this notion...

Bush urges nations on anti-terror fight By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

SYDNEY, Australia - President Bush on Friday urged Asia-Pacific nations to keep up the anti-terror fight, deploying both military might and democratic ideals to turn the tide against extremists. "Pressure keeps the terrorists on the run, and when on the run, we're safer," he said. "We must be determined, we must be focused and we must not let up."

In the speech to business leaders, Bush prodded Russia and China to honor democratic principles and allow more freedoms. He appealed for international pressure against the military government in Myanmar to stop its crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the Southeast Asian nation.

The president added that North Koreans should share the same liberties that citizens of their democratic neighbors enjoy.

Bush spoke optimistically about the war in Iraq and urged other nations not to turn away.

"We're going to succeed in Iraq," he said.

Bush said nations across Asia should understand the importance of fighting terrorism, since they have so often been its victims.

Bush was about 15 minutes late starting his speech, as aides hustled audience members down from the balcony to fill the many empty seats below. He started his remarks with a gaffe. In Sydney to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, a 21-nation group of Pacific Rim countries whose economies account for nearly half of all global trade, Bush first referred to the group as OPEC, the cartel of major oil producers. The audience remained quiet through his speech.

Earlier Thursday, the president met with China's President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the summit. Later Friday, he had lunch with South East Asian leaders and was meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bush and Hu, leaders of two of the world's worst polluting nations, both called on Thursday for greater international cooperation in tackling climate change without stifling economic growth. Bush repeated that theme in his speech Friday, calling on Pacific Rim nations to lead the way toward a worldwide trade agreement.

"Our challenge is to strengthen the forces of freedom and prosperity in this region," Bush said.

He said the best way to open markets was to achieve a breakthrough in global trade negotiations known in the economic world as the Doha round.

"The United States is committed to seizing this opportunity — and we need partners in this region to help lead the effort," the president said. "No single country can make Doha a success, but it is possible for a handful of countries that are unwilling to make the necessary contributions to bring Doha to a halt."

Bush also asked the Asia-Pacific leaders for their cooperation on climate change. He acknowledged the fears of some that the United States was trying to construct a successor to the Kyoto Protocol outside of international efforts already under way.

"We agree these issues must be addressed in an integrated way," he said. "We take climate change seriously in America."

The U.S has called for a Sept. 27-28 conference in Washington of the 15 biggest polluters. And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a broader conference in New York on Sept. 24.

The high-level discussions at APEC could shape talks at a U.N. conference in December in Bali, Indonesia, that will start to chart a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The United States never ratified Kyoto, which requires 35 nations to cut emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Bush has been criticized by environmentalists and others for his opposition to the 1997 Kyoto pact, and China has long been slammed for the huge amounts of greenhouse gases its power plants and industries pump into the atmosphere. The fact that neither China nor India, another major global polluter, were covered by Kyoto was one reason Bush has opposed it.

But both leaders seemed to be generally in agreement on the subject.

"We believe that the issue of climate change bears on the welfare of the whole humanity and sustainable development of the whole world," Hu told reporters after his meeting with Bush. "And this issue should be appropriately tackled through stronger international cooperation."

Climate control has been designated a top agenda item for this year's APEC meeting.

"We talked about climate change and our desire to work together on climate change," Bush said.

Bush has proposed eliminating tariffs on environmental and clean-energy technologies. In his talks with Hu, Bush invited the Chinese leader to consider doing the same, said Dan Price, a presidential economic adviser on the National Security Council.

Hu had suggested the United Nations should be the one to spearhead climate control efforts. Price said that wasn't necessarily contradictory with the Bush approach.

Bush said he accepted Hu's invitation to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics. And the two leaders talked about establishing a hot line like the longtime one between Washington and Moscow to alert each other to possible military situations that might seem threatening or be ambiguous.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070907/ap_on_re_au_an/bush

wonder why the U.S. doesn't care about communism in China, but it's a big pulsating issue elsewhere? perhaps only those countries that refuse to allow outside influences to exploit their people and resources? it seems that the real issue with countries such as Cuba and Venezuela is that they don't allow cheap and violent labor practices, or resources to be raped, for first world countries to make obscene profits from. or gambling and casinos....(the reason Batista was a favorite in Cuba....)

posted September 07, 2007 02:14 AM              

quote:

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Bush said he accepted Hu's invitation to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics. And the two leaders talked about establishing a hot line like the longtime one between Washington and Moscow to alert each other to possible military situations that might seem threatening or be ambiguous.

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perhaps they could start with this ~

Taleban 'getting Chinese arms'
By Paul Danahar
BBC Asia bureau chief, Beijing

A large number of British troops are based in Afghanistan
Britain has privately complained to Beijing that Chinese-made weapons are being used by the Taleban to attack British troops in Afghanistan.

The BBC has been told that on several occasions Chinese arms have been recovered after attacks on British and American troops by Afghan insurgents.

The authorities in Beijing have promised to carry out an investigation.

This appears to be the first time Britain has asked China how its arms are ending up with the Taleban.

Boasting

At a meeting held recently at the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, a British official expressed the UK's growing concern about the incidents.

When asked about the latest British concerns, the Chinese foreign ministry referred back to a statement made by their spokesman Qin Gang in July who said China's arms exports were carried out "in strict accordance with our law and our international obligations".

For their part, the Taleban have recently begun boasting that they have now got hold of much more sophisticated weaponry although they refused to say from where.

Afghan officials have also privately confirmed to the BBC that sophisticated Chinese weapons are now in the hands of the Taleban.

Taleban forces fled Kabul in 2001

They said these included Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, landmines, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs.

A senior Afghan official told the BBC: "Chinese HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles are with the Taleban, we know this... and we are worried where do the Taleban get them, some of these weapons have been made recently in Chinese factories."

Another Afghan official who deals with counter-terrorism said: "Serial numbers and other information from most of the Chinese weapons have been removed in most cases and it's almost impossible for us to find out where they come from but we have shared our concerns with the Chinese and the Americans also."

Worried

The Afghan government considers China to be a friend, and a much less meddlesome ally than the other big player in its neighbourhood, India.

But, the counter-terrorism official added, "China is worried about the presence of the US in the region".

Southern Afghanistan has been awash with Chinese made arms for decades which are some of the cheapest on the market.

In the past the Taleban got them via the Pakistan intelligence agency, the ISI, or bought them directly from arms smugglers.

But it is extremely unlikely the ISI would now allow them access to anti-aircraft missiles or armour-piercing ammunition.

Taleban regularly target foreign troops in Afghanistan

The Pakistani army's relationship between militants in its tribal areas along the Afghan border has deteriorated sharply in recent years after Washington put pressure on President Musharraf post-9/11 to crack down on al-Qaeda and Taleban groups operating inside Pakistani territory.

So the Taleban might well use any sophisticated new weapons it received against the Pakistani army.

It is not in China's interest either to arm Pakistan-based militants.

Over the last couple of years Chinese workers in Pakistan have been targeted by militants, in retaliation for the Pakistani army allegedly going after hard-line Muslim Uighur leaders from China's Xinjiang province, hiding in the tribal areas.

Proxy network

So instead of Pakistan being the transit point for these weapons, the finger is being pointed by many commentators towards Iran.

The Afghan government has long acknowledged privately that Iranian intelligence agencies have been active in southern Afghanistan post-9/11.

Iran has been pursuing a policy of building up proxy networks to be able to attack American forces in response to any US attacks against Teheran's nuclear infrastructure.

The Americans are suspicious of Iran's role in Afghanistan

A Shia Iran and the Sunni Taleban had been firm enemies since 1998.

Then, Iran threatened to invade western Afghanistan, when the country was largely controlled by the Taleban, after nine of its diplomats were massacred in Mazar-e-Sharif.

But times have changed, now America is a common enemy and senior American commanders in Afghanistan have acknowledged the growing ties between the two.

The complication for both the UK and US is China.

Unnamed US officials have recently been quoted as saying that China has been selling arms to Iran which Iran is then passing on to insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Iraq.

China's booming economy and its seat at the UN security council have made it an important player on the world stage.

It is a major trading partner for the UK whose economy has benefited enormously from China's cheap goods.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's newly-appointed British Minister for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch Brown acknowledged to journalists in Beijing last week that countries "need to work with China to get things done in today's world".

China is going to have to show that getting things done also means stopping its arms illegally ending up in the hands of men bent on killing British troops.

posted September 07, 2007 02:21 AM              

APEC Leaders Asked to Speak Up for China's Human Rights
By Sarah Matheson
Epoch Times staff in Sydney Sep 06, 2007

Hundreds gathered to ask APEC leaders to raise China's countless human rights violations with Chinese president Hu Jintao at a rally in Sydney on Thursday.

Representatives from around the world travelled thousands of miles to ask APEC leaders to speak up for China's people.

Human rights figures, politicians, democracy activists, representatives for the people of Darfur and the Uighyristan Autonomous Region of China, and Falun Gong pracititioners from New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan descended on Sydney, using the APEC summit to push for social change in China.

Dr Sev Ozdowski, member of the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission from 2000-2005, spoke at a rally—attended by around 1000 people—to put human rights violation in China on the APEC agenda. The rally was held in Sydney's Hyde Park on Thursday.

"When China was granted the rights to host the Beijing Olympics, it promised to improve its human rights record, however the human rights in China has grown progressively worse," Dr Ozdowski said.

He said the persecution of Falun Gong has all the hallmarks of genocide.

"Furthermore the Chinese Government has exposed its 'human rights' to other countries like Zimbabwe, Burma and supports the conduct of genocide in Darfur."

He said if the international community had boycotted the Berlin Olympics in 1936 it was likely the Holocaust could have been averted.

"It is time to act now," he warned.

Falun Gong international spokesman Erping Zhang, from the US, said more 3074 Falun Gong practitioners in China have been confirmed persecuted to death but many, many more were missing and the figure did not include those killed through the state-sanctioned organ harvesting.

International human rights lawyer David Matas, of Canada, co-authored the 'Bloody Harvest' a compilation of evidence about organ harvesting from detained Falun Gong practitioners in China.

He said it was important to use the APEC conference to publicise the gross violations of human rights abuses in China today.

"Unless the Government's of APEC are discussing humanity they are not performing their function," he said.

Asia Pacific Human Rights Charitable Trust president Pan Qing, from New Zealand, commended the Australian Government for being willing to bring up human rights issues with the Chinese regime.

"We all live in the same world. We have to stop the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party's] human rights violations," he said.

Greens senator, Kerry Nettle, said the Australian Government had a very strong trade relationship with China, but their leaders had not done enough to address the important issues at APEC.

"We should be able to raise these issues of human rights and democracy," she said.

Phil Glendenning from the Edmund Rice Centre said a number of people who had sought asylum in Australia "went missing" when they returned to China.

He said all leaders at the APEC summit needed to read the Matas-Kilgour report on forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.

"We need a leadership that is prepared to tell the truth. We don't have that at the present time."

"The world requires a China that is not afraid of human rights. The world requires a China that is worthy of its history," he said.

East Turkistan Association of Australia Dimyan Rahmet said the Chinese regime was still killing, kidnapping and raping women in East Turkistan also known as Uyghuristan.

He said the Chinese Communist Party had also enforced a language assimilation programme, forcing all Uyghurs to speak Chinese, not allowing children to learn their mother tongue.

Quit the CCP service centre Australia spokeswoman Anne Zhong said as evidence of the communist regime's crimes start to flood China, social unrest is growing. She said 25,727,155 Chinese citizens have publicly withdrawn their membership of the communist party and its related organizations since 2004.