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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 08:57pm Mar 25, 2002 EST (#830 of 835)

... _{In neighbouring Liaoyang, factory workers are also angry. This is Han Dong Fang, the Director of the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong based labour rights group.}

HAN: They laid off the workers with little compensation and some of them they even the workers were being laid off without anything. And until today they spent all their money and they still cannot see any future, they cannot find new jobs, and at the same time they see all these really corrupted officials, including those factory managers and government officials they get really, really rich. So that's really a result of a non-democratic enterprise reform.

LOPRESTI: Nearly 20 years of market economic reforms have left millions unemployed or under-employed in northeast China as thousands of ailing state-run enterprises have either closed or merged.

And if the recent public protests are any guide, China could see more labour unrest in the months and years ahead as state firms prepare to shed more jobs to face up to foreign competition following China's entry to the World Trade Organisation.

HAN: We're losing jobs, we're losing enterprises, we're losing factories, we're losing companies, and that will cause more and more people lose their jobs and even without the WTO things will get worse and worse. Now, with WTO, I would say the WTO probably will open the cover and let people see what really happens under the cover.

TANG: I think in the next 12 months, you know more and more workers will become unemployed and more and more of this sort of labour unrest will take place.

LOPRESTI: Elizabeth Tang from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.

A lot of the blame for the labour unrest sits at the feet of China's stern willed premier Zhu Rongji, yet despite his pending departure this October and a sure-fired injection of a fresher younger leadership, Han Dong Fang from the China Labour Bulletin says nothing can rid China of its endemic corruption.

HAN: Those people who are in power they don't care - what the Communist Party will do, where the Communist Party will go - they don't care where the nation will go, they don't care whether the workers will survive, they don't care whether the farmers will survive. What they do care is that they use their power in their period of time as quick as possible, make them as much as possible money. So whoever is in that position after October I don't think there is an idea for them to resolve this problem, which is a result of corruption.

TANG: I'm not optimistic because even with new leadership, the position of the government is to push ahead this so-called economic reform and also we see actually the government is planning to put more control on the workers so that they are not able to 'do' unrest. But they're not going to tackle the problem at its root cause.

The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcripts. 21/03/2002 20:38:00 | Asia Pacific Programs </sub

http://www.abc.net.au/asiapacific/location/asia/GoAsiaPacificLocationStories_510460.htm

http://search.abc.net.au/search/search.cgi?collection=abcall&form=simple&num_ranks=20&query=china+news

~~~~~ bbc >>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/newsid_1287000/1287798.stm

a "floating population" of migrants, whom the Chinese authorities have estimated number at least 100 million http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1552000/1552300.stm [news http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/default.stm ]

lchic - 09:07pm Mar 25, 2002 EST (#831 of 835)

The above illustrates why China is not thrilled as the USA continualy closes her borders to free trade.

A matter to consider re globalisation is what is the true cost of a product ... in China the 'pollution' costs are a legacy to the people. A move to include the pollution factor as a real cost might make dirty industries clean up their international act.

lchic - 09:34pm Mar 25, 2002 EST (#832 of 835)

A parallel of this should happen to nukes - when will they be 'just' folklore ? http://sln.fi.edu/fellows/fellow1/apr99/abc/x.htm

lchic - 04:22am Mar 26, 2002 EST (#833 of 835)

New push for peace in Korea before World Cup South Korea is sending a senior diplomat to Pyongyang in a late effort to salvage its faltering peace negotiations with its Stalinist neighbour before this summer's World Cup. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/

lchic - 11:49am Mar 26, 2002 EST (#834 of 835)

Journals of PROCESS MANAGEMENT such as this :

http://www.inderscience.com/images/cover/coverijpmb.gif http://www.inderscience.com/catalogue/p/ijpmb/indexijpmb.html

examine at depth to every aspect of 'process' ..were nuclear missiles to be examined so, and the ethical, moral, accident and insurance issues integrated .. the resultant document would be of interest.

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