Asia News Digest
Joint Russia/India Cruise Missile Test Successful
With a "100% successful" flight of the BrahMos ('Brah' for River Brahmaputra and 'Mos' for Moscow) from an operations ship of the Indian Navy in the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Navy has announced that the supersonic cruise missile is now ready to join the navy, The Hindu reported Nov. 3. This is the eighth test of the BrahMos, which was developed jointly by India and Russia.
BrahMos flies at a speed of Mach 2.8, and it can take out targets 290 km (about 180 miles) away. The missile launched on Nov. 3 had advanced fire-control systems. Its maneuverability towards the target was verified. It has a fire-and-forget capability. That is, when launched from a ship, it will locate the area where the target is available and home in on the target. Whatever may be the movement of the target in the sea, the missile will zero in on it.
Southern Thailand Disintegrating Following Muslim Deaths
The situation in southern Thailand is continuing to disintegrate, after 78 Muslim protesters were smothered to death in custody: In the 24 hours between Nov. 3 and 4, ten people, including nine Buddhists, have been killed in the continuing violence in the southernmost Thai provinces. A policeman, two state railway workers, a salesman, and a former official have been shot dead, while a Buddhist monk from Songkhla province was in critical condition after being shot by a man on a motorbike.
The violence in southern Thailand erupted following the Oct. 28 riot in Tak Bai in Narathiwat (on the Malaysian border) by Muslims protesting the arrest of six men in the local defense force, which was horrendously mishandled by the Thai military. More than 1,000 handcuffed prisoners were packed, face-down, five deep, in enclosed trucks for a five-hour drive, leaving 78 dead by suffocation (in addition to six killed in the suppression of the demonstration/riot). Retaliations across the southern region so far include several random killings, with notes left behind about the killing of innocents at Tak Bai, and the beheading of a Buddhist village leader.
The Thai Army says the riot was not spontaneous, but was run by a separatist "operations group" controlled by a religious teacher in the area. But the treatment of the arrested demonstrators has sent the region into a fury, with official protests from Islamic countries across Asia. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has yet to issue an apology, although he expressed "regret," and set up an investigation of the incident. When former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad suggested autonomy for the three Islamic provinces in the south of Thailand, the Thai government strongly protested, and a 20,000-strong rally in Bangkok burned Mahathir's image in effigy. The Singapore Straits Times (a voice of the British banking interests in Asia) claimed that there were now terrorist training camps in the Thai south.
Thai officials reached by EIR are in a state of shock, with the sense that the situation in the south is now out of control. The deputy chairman of the Central Islamic Committee of Thailand, Dato Nieder Waba, who is a member of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party, said he would organize a 60,000-person demonstration after Ramadan against the killings at Tak Bai, and called on the King to appoint a new government (which he is not allowed to do by law). He resigned from the Thai Rak Thai Party.
There will be national elections early next year, which Thaksin is expected to win overwhelmingly.
Thai King's Unusual Intervention in Politics
Thailand's highly respected King Bumibol Adulyadej made a rare intervention Nov. 3, calling on Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to exercise more restraint on troops in handling the difficult situation especially in the southern, predominantly Muslim provinces of Thailand. He also called on residents in the three provinces to bring peace to the region.
In a statement made after the King's intervention, Prime Minister Thaksin told reporters that the King "expressed his concern over the situation in the South, and asked the government to consider being more lenient in dealing with problems, and to allow locals to participate in problem-solving.
Thaksin added that the King "has urged both sides to refrain from violenceboth the government and militants."
King Bhumibol, age 76, is the world's longest-reigning monarch, and his usually silent manner is seen to embody Thai nationhood. Both the King and Queen care deeply about the southern provinces.
UN Issues Warning to Staff in Bangkok
Following the horrific deaths of 78 Muslim protesters in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand on Oct. 28, the UN office in Bangkok has issued an e-mail warning to its staff in Thailand to be careful, following e-mail threats, allegedly from the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), which has been inactive since the 1980s. PULO allegedly issued an e-mail saying that it would now take its fight to the capital, Bangkok.
'Bush Doctrine' May Bring Down 'American Empire'
The "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive war threatens to bring down the "American Empire," warned former Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, in a strongly worded criticism of the Bush Administration and the neo-cons, published Nov. 1 in the China Daily. Qian Qichen, also a former Vice Premier, is the "eminence grise" of Chinese foreign policy. His signed commentary, issued on the eve of the U.S. Presidential elections, noted that the Iraq war issue is a "heated topic" in the elections. "Both history and practices of 'the myth of empires' have demonstrated that the preemptive strategy will bring the Bush Administration an outcome that it is most unwilling to see, that is, absolute insecurity of the 'American Empire' and its demise because of expansion it cannot cope with," Qian warned.
The U.S. has launched two wars under the "Bush Doctrine" already, and "tightened its control" in the "arc of crisis" in Asia, from southwest to northeast Asia. This "all testifies that Washington's anti-terror campaign has already gone beyond the scope of self-defense. The philosophy of the 'Bush Doctrine' is, in essence, force. It advocates the United States should rule over the whole world with overwhelming force, military force in particular," wrote Qian.
In Iraq, "Washington has opened a Pandora's box, intensifying various intermingled conflicts," while its "democratization" policy is only increasing existing conflicts between the United States and the Muslim world. "The Iraq War has made the United States even more unpopular in the international community than its war in Vietnam," Qian warned. There is also much dissension inside the U.S. about the Bush Doctrine, including in the election campaign, he wrote.
State Department Issues Terror-Threat Warning in Philippines
The U.S. State Department on Nov. 1 advised Americans in the Philippines to exercise caution and maintain heightened security awareness amid concerns over possible terrorist attacks.
In an updated "public announcement" reminding travellers of ongoing security concerns in the Southeast Asian archipelago, the Department said, "The terrorist threat to Americans in the Philippines remains high."
The U.S. embassy in Manila said it continues to receive reports of ongoing activities by known terrorist groups, naming the alleged "al-Qaeda"-linked Abu Sayyaf, better known as a kidnap-for-ransom gang, and the Communist Party of the Philippines.
The State Department advised U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to central, southern, and western Mindanao, and the islands located in the Sulu archipelago, due to military operations against kidnappings and other criminal activity.
Badawi Offers Advice to Bush Following Reelection
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who also serves as the chairman of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference, and is simultaneously the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, carefully commented on Bush's reelection, stating: "If there will be new approaches in issues such as Iraq and Palestine, I hope that Bush will consider the opinions of world leaders and other organizations.
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