China’s trade to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) might be affected if the yuan continues to appreciate, an economist said Sunday at a forum in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

“This year, ASEAN is likely to surpass Japan to become China’s third largest trading partner,” Xu Ningning, executive secretary general of the China-ASEAN Business Council, told the Global Times. “If the yuan continues its revaluation, the trade to those countries will be affected.”

In March, China’s trade deficit with ASEAN was up by $2.7 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

In the first five months of the year, the bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN reached $52.7 billion, including $6.4 billion of China’s trade deficit, which jumped from $1.09 billion compared with a year earlier.

According to data from the US-China Business Council, Sino-US trade reached the peak of $409.2 billion in 2008.

The figure plummeted to $366 billion in 2009, dropping by 10.6 percent, mostly due to yuan revaluation, according to analysts.

In June, the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the central bank, added flexibility to the exchange rate and ensured that the yuan would appreciate gradually by 2 to 5 percent a year.

The International Monetary Fund said last month that a stronger yuan would help achieve China’s goal of reducing dependence on exports and making its economy more self-reliant.

“The way to make up for the bigger trade deficit in manufacturing is to improve efficiency and technology,” Xu said.

The yuan has gained 22 percent against the dollar since July 2005.

“If the yuan keeps appreciating, we will need to encourage domestic enterprises to go out and invest in other countries that have cheaper labor costs,” Lü Yusheng, director of Guangxi Institute of Beibu Gulf Development, told the Global Times.

Last year China’s foreign reserves jumped $453 billion, or nearly a quarter, to become the world largest of $2.4 trillion amid the global financial crisis, according to the PBC.

The South China Sea issue should be solved through bilateral negotiations between China and its neighboring countries, rather than between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mr. Yang said in a speech at a forum of the 10 members of Asean, the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries.

Mrs. Clinton said on Friday at the same meeting that the U.S., as a Pacific Ocean nation and trading power, has grown increasingly concerned about the competing claims for territory in the South China Sea. China and Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines have historically tussled over the region’s waterways, islands and atolls.

Mrs. Clinton said Washington was seeking to work with Asean nations, China and other countries to develop a formal mechanism to resolve the disputes. She said the process should be institutionalized through Asean and based on the international law of the sea.

The dispute has raised concerns that an increasingly powerful Chinese military could seek to dominate Asian waters. Tensions have risen as Chinese companies have increased exploration efforts in the region to look for new deposits of energy and minerals.

Mr. Yang said in his speech that Mrs. Clinton’s “seemingly fair remarks were actually aimed to attack China by creating an illusion that the situation of the South China Sea is alarming.

“Turning the bilateral issue into an international, or multilateral one would only worsen the situation and add difficulties to solving the issue,” Mr. Yang said. He added that during China’s bilateral talks with Asean countries, “nobody believes there’s anything that is threatening the region’s peace and stability.”

China has become the largest trading partner of many countries in the region, Mr. Yang said. Some countries were unable to increase exports to China because they have set barriers on exports of high-tech products, rather than because of restricted navigation rights, he said.

The Friday forum provided an opportunity for China to present its view on the South China Sea issue, the foreign ministry’s statement said.

—Yajun Zhang and Victoria Ruan

From R. Ravichandran

DA NANG (Vietnam), Aug 16 (Bernama) — Malaysia has proposed that the Asean Socio-Cultural Community Council (ASCC) set up a fund to carry out programmes, particularly cultural programmes, involving member countries, Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said.

The proposal was well received by Asean members who suggested that the fund should not only come from contributions from member countries but also from their private sectors, he said.

“Without sufficient fund, we won’t be able to push ahead with our socio-cultural activities and they will remain on the negotiation table,” he told Bernama and RTM journalists at the end of the Fourth ASCC meeting here, Monday.

He added that the Asean Secretariat in Jakarta would now look into the matter and would inform member countries of the necessary follow through actions.

Without the fund, he said, cultural activities of member countries would be confined to only within their respective national framework and could not proliferate under the bigger Asean umbrella.

“It is for this reason that we proposed the setting up of the fund and maybe sometime in the future, it can be endorsed at the Asean Summit,” he said.

What was important, he said, was for the fund to be accepted in its conceptual form at the Asean Summit in Jakarta, next year.

Expressing satisfaction over the meeting’s outcome, Rais said the fund proposal was for the benefit of the grouping, saying it was important for member countries to also look into cultural aspects in the Asean context.

Malaysia, he said, supported other proposals forwarded by member countries but stressed on the importance of taking into account their humanity, civilisation and cultural aspects.

In this respect, he said, Malaysia conveyed its views on the need to promote human connectivity among the peoples of Asean.

Malaysia, he said, had also conveyed its views on the need for the ASCC to think of ways how Asean could develop its ICT contents based on the region’s own point of views and not rely on contents from the West.

Rais said Malaysia also forwarded the idea for creative projects for the grouping, which would bring together Asean writers and documentary producers to come up with works on their respective countries.

On Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s suggestion when opening the meeting today that the ASCC Blueprint should be incorporated into the national development plans of member countries, Rais said it was a practical suggestion.

“When I present the report to the cabinet later on, I will take such views into account,” he said.

– BERNAMA

ASEAN officials have warned that the rivalry between the two powers could divide members of the ASEAN bloc, potentially hampering their efforts to work together as allegiances are torn in two directions.

In areas that could draw ASEAN members into open conflict, discussion with good intentions must be prioritized between members, officials said recently.

“There is no future of military solutions in each of the conflicts,” Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told visiting ASEAN journalist in press conference last week.

“The key is ASEAN’s unity. If we are not united then there is a danger of us being balkanized. We should not invite them into our own internal affairs, because it will divide us,” Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeoh said earlier.

Yeoh cited the example of the interplay between China and India in Myanmar.

“If Myanmar was not a member of ASEAN then India and China would intervene in self-defense. It would tear Myanmar apart,” he said.

However, Yeoh urged ASEAN countries to be open and more friendly toward all major powers, quoting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s submission, “A thousands friends, zero enemies”.

“They have their rivalry but we should be friendly, neutral and open with them,” he said.

Apparent acrimony between the US and China emerged last month when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi that the US was willing to mediate in territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. Many Southeast Asian countries see Beijing increasingly views the contested maritime area as a Chinese lake.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi responded bluntly to Clinton’s remarks, saying they amounted to “an attack on China”, before reminding Southeast Asian countries that China is a big country, implying that individually they were small.

In response, Cambodia and Vietnam are following countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in trying to forge new links with the US to counterbalance China’s rapid rise to power.

After meeting with Yudhoyono last month, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the US would re-engage with Kopassus, Indonesian Army’s special forces unit.

In a move that will further increase regional tensions, the US is also conducting negotiations with Vietnam over a deal to allow the purchase of nuclear fuel, as well as American nuclear technology and reactors. The issue became controversial as the deal would allow Vietnam to enrich its own uranium to produce fuel for its power reactors, subject to monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Zhai Dequan, the deputy secretary of the China Arms Control & Disarmament Association, said the US negotiation with Vietnam was a “double standard” in comparison to the UAE agreement. He said China was worried about the potential for Vietnam to have nuclear enrichment capabilities.

The US government had also agreed to help manage and develop the Mekong river, which Washington had lost interest in soon after its defeat in the US war in Vietnam, another sign that the Obama administration is engaged in an aggressive strategy to counter Chinese influence throughout the Asian region.

Author: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE and DVB

Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 8 p.m.

“Extinction is a very messy business,” says biology teacher Khim Phan. He knows from firsthand experience, having lost his family and 2 million countrymen in the killing fields of Cambodia.

E.M. Lewis’ “Song of Extinction” interweaves the genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge with the imminent extinction of a rare insect and a son’s grief over his mother’s terminal cancer. Lewis’ 2008 play is a lyrical, metaphor-laden meditation on family, loss, hope and new beginnings. Despite uneven acting and some technical issues, the San Diego premiere at Ion Theatre is a quietly affecting piece.

The story revolves around three men dealing with extinction in their own way. When Phan (Diep Huynh) teaches his students the chapter on extinction, it reminds him of his family, country and history. “Maybe I teach them about Cambodia without saying its name,” he muses.

Huynh marks a welcomed return to the stage after a three-year hiatus. Though playing a much older character, Huynh is grounded, sturdy and wise as he delivers some of the play’s most poignant and humorous lines about extinction and teaching.

An expert in extinction, Phan helps his student Max (Matthew Alexander) through the pain of losing his mother (Robin Christ), and also aids the mother on her final journey.

Max’s father (Tom Hall), a biologist fighting to save a patch of Bolivian rain forest that’s home to a rare beetle, is so preoccupied with his work that he hardly notices his son’s despair.

Alexander brings teen angst, anger and resentment to his role as Max, whose pain is as palpable as his facade of apathy.

Hall obsesses as the biologist who cannot save his wife and instead focuses on saving an insect, while Christ wholly embodies the dying wife who has a broken body and sharp mind.

Yet Hall and Christ seem oddly matched as the scientific couple, and their lack of chemistry is most apparent in their few scenes of tenderness.

A series of curtains and movable panels helps shift locales between home, school and hospital. Scene changes often require moving set pieces, such as the hospital bed, and can make interludes feel lengthy, especially since the scenes are so short. Lighting by Karin Filijan tends to run dim, darkening the tone more than is warranted.

After all, “Song of Extinction” is not really a story of death and destruction, but rather hope and renewal. The play tells a complex story in a simple way, through vignettes, brief monologues and dream sequences. The result, under Claudio Raygoza’s direction, is a ruminative, poetic production that underscores the fragility and interconnectedness of life. Playwright Lewis ultimately presents an argument for nurturing relationships and social involvement.

Darren Stone/Times Colonist

The MV Sun Sea.

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David Karp, Postmedia News · Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/RCMP+confirms+died+aboard+migrant+ship+route+Canada/3402025/story.html#ixzz0wkL72WAd

Associated Press – August 15, 2010 10:55 PM ET

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) – The mother of an American slain at a resort in Thailand after a bar dispute with a pugnacious customer says the victim was a graduate of Norman High School.

The body of Dashawn Longfellow, 23, was found before dawn Saturday at the Yanui Paradise Resort on Phuket Island with several stab wounds in his chest, said police Lt. Col. Anukul Nuket. Longfellow’s passport said he came from Littleton, Colo., police said.

Longfellow’s mother, Tammy Longfellow of Norman, told Oklahoma City television station KOCO that her son had traveled to Thailand in an effort to gain more knowledge of a form of martial arts.

She said her son joined the Marine Corps after graduating from Norman High School in 2005, with hopes of traveling the world.

“He accomplished a lot,” she said. “He mastered every test they gave him. He worked his hardest and he did the best he could. He was very competitive. He always wants to win, and that’s what he did.”

Information from: KOCO-TV, http://www.koco.com

BEKASI (INDONESIA) – TIRED of government inaction, Christians and other religious minorities in Indonesia are pushing back against rising violence by Islamic hard-liners.

For months, Christians in the industrial city of Bekasi have been warned against worshipping on a field that houses their shuttered church. They’ve arrived to find human faeces dumped on the land and sermons have been interrupted by demonstrators chanting ‘Infidels!’ and ‘Leave now!’ But last week, tensions finally exploded.

Twenty worshippers were met by 300 Islamic hard-liners, many of whom hurled shoes and water bottles before pushing past a row of riot police. The mob chased down and punched several members of the group.

‘The constitution guarantees our right to practice our religion!’ Yudi Pasaribu of the Batak Christian Protestant Church, vowing to return every Sunday until their request for a place of worship, made more than two years ago, is approved. ‘And we want to do that on our own property, in our own church.’ Indonesia, a secular country of 237 million people, has more Muslims than any other in the world. Though it has a long history of religious tolerance, a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

Hard-liners have also become more violent, according to the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, a human rights group, which said there have already been 28 attacks on religious freedom in 2010, including everything from preventing groups from performing prayers to burning houses of worship. The institute said there were 18 such incidents in all of 2009 and 17 in 2008.

Though most Indonesians are moderate and oppose violence, critics say President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government has been slow to intervene because it relies heavily on the support of Islamic parties in parliament. — AP