<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/asia/editorials?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Barriers to Freedom]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40585-2005Apr9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40585-2005Apr9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ASKAR AKAYEV, the president of Kyrgyzstan who resigned on Monday, was a corrupt and autocratic ruler during most of his 15 years in office. Paradoxically, however, he helped make possible the revolution that ousted him, by tolerating some of its building blocks. Opposition parties operated under his regime, though some of their leaders were persecuted; independent media existed, despite sporadic attempts to shut them down. Western nongovernmental organizations with pro-democracy agendas were tolerated: The United States spent $12 million on such programs last year. Sadly, these facts have been quickly absorbed by the surviving strongmen of the former Soviet Union, which means that the hurdles to democratization in Eurasia are getting higher.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Another Post-Soviet Revolt]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58482-2005Mar22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58482-2005Mar22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE LATEST uprising against autocracy in the former Soviet Union is not proceeding as smoothly  --  or as peacefully  --  as its predecessors. In the small, mountainous country of Kyrgyzstan, which is squeezed between Central Asia and China, opposition forces armed with clubs and molotov cocktails stormed government buildings and an airport in the second-largest city Monday. By yesterday  order was reportedly restored, but the opposition appeared to control the southern half of the country and was demanding the resignation of President Askar Akayev, a former Soviet apparatchik who has ruled the country since before it gained independence. Mr. Akayev provoked the rebellion by staging parliamentary elections that international observers said were unfair. His opposition, however, won't succeed in replicating the democratic revolutions that followed such fraud in Ukraine and Georgia unless it can control its militants and pursue negotiations.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dollar Jitters]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61644-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61644-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[LAST WEEK brought a warning to economic policymakers on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A rumor  that South Korea's central bank had decided to shift its reserves away from dollars triggered a sharp fall in the greenback and a retreat on Wall Street. The fact that the South Koreans later denied this rumor is only half-comforting. Economic logic is pushing Asia's central banks to quit propping up the dollar. If a hollow rumor can rattle the currency, what would a real policy change do?]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Counterrevolution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62095-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62095-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   PRESIDENT BUSH and other Western leaders are still celebrating the democratic revolution in Ukraine, but in other former republics of the Soviet Union an entirely different response is underway. Post-Soviet leaders who, like Ukraine's former regime, have lived by corruption, rigged elections and thuggish repression are frantically seeking to head off a repeat of the popular "orange revolution," or the earlier "rose revolution" in Georgia. In recent weeks they have banned opposition parties, thrown their most plausible democratic challengers in jail and cracked down on Western pro-democracy organizations. They have also sought help from a familiar address: the Kremlin of Russian President Vladimir Putin.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Response to Enormity]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32614-2004Dec28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32614-2004Dec28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE DEATH COUNT has mounted with a horrifying momentum. The first reports of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated shorelines around the Indian Ocean spoke of 500 deaths.  In Monday morning's newspapers the number had reached 13,000; by yesterday morning 25,000. This morning, the newspapers will deliver the sickening estimate of  at least 55,000 deaths -- in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Somalia, Maldives and Burma, among other countries. The raw figures are attached to appalling stories: of 1,000 people killed in the Indonesian province of Aceh when a three-story-high wall of water slammed into a sports field during a match; of at least 1,000 people killed on a single train in Sri Lanka that was swamped with waves; of more than 700 dead at Thailand's Khao Lak beach resort, including hundreds of vacationing tourists. One senior Red Cross official in Southeast Asia put it succinctly: "The enormity of the disaster is unbelievable."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Dangerous Events]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14661-2004Oct31.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14661-2004Oct31.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IN EVERY PRESIDENCY crises arise in parts of the world that received no attention whatsoever during the campaign season. Two seemingly unrelated events in the past few days suggest that the next president may have to focus sooner rather than later on a corner of South Asia that didn't figure in this year's debates.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Diversity in Montgomery]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60539-2004Jul18.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60539-2004Jul18.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IN LITTLE MORE than a decade, immigration has transformed the racial composition of Montgomery County and with it the expectations of its residents. As recently as the 1990 Census, 77 percent of Montgomery's inhabitants were white. Today that number has declined to 60 percent, while 14 percent are African American, 12 percent Asian and 11 percent Latino. That's why the makeup of the county's current crop of recruits for its Fire and Rescue Department has raised so many eyebrows. Of 46 recruits, 43 are white (including just two women). Of the remaining three, two are Hispanic and one is African American; there are no Asian recruits.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Message to Tashkent]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53556-2004Jul15.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53556-2004Jul15.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   FOR SOME TIME President Bush has been promising to change the long-standing U.S. practice of cultivating dictators in strategically important parts of the world in exchange for their support on security issues or reliable supplies of oil. This week his administration took a significant step in that direction -- and in a region where it could have an important impact. The State Department announced that $18 million in military and economic aid to Uzbekistan, a Muslim country in Central Asia, would be suspended because of its failure to carry out a promised political liberalization or improve its human rights record. Driven in part by congressional pressure, the cutoff should send a message to Uzbekistan's authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, as well as several of his neighbors in a region where oil, gas and military bases have recently become important: The old formula for partnership with Washington may no longer work.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Attack of the Killer Fish]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48573-2004May22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48573-2004May22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THEY LOOK LIKE aliens from a science fiction movie. Their reputation -- a killer fish that breathes air -- is appealingly ghoulish. But the discovery of three northern snakeheads in the waters of the Potomac has implications far beyond the tabloid headlines they inspire. Jerry McKnight of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources puts it succinctly: "The northern snakehead is the nasty, slimy, toothy tip of the iceberg."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Good News on Development]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35278-2004Apr22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35278-2004Apr22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THIS WEEKEND'S meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington promise to be relatively subdued. An "unhappy birthday party" staged by protesters opposite the bank's headquarters on Wednesday was quiet, and Saturday's demonstration won't match the chaos of the anti-globalization mobilization of four years ago. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for their part, are taking a break from announcing new initiatives, though there will be discussion of additional debt relief for poor countries.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chicken Flu]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58871-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58871-2004Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[SO FAR, OUTBREAKS of avian flu in Texas, Delaware and, most recently, Maryland's Eastern Shore seem unrelated to the virus that has swept across poultry farms in Asia. That epidemic, which involves a highly pathogenic flu strain, has been carried across the continent by migratory birds, as well as by live poultry heading to market.  To date, poultry farmers in Asia have been forced to slaughter more than 100 million birds; 22 people in Thailand and Vietnam have died as well. By contrast, the American outbreaks involve a less dangerous strain of the virus, which has not yet infected humans. The main cost has been to farmers, such as those who recently were forced to destroy 328,000 chickens at two farms in Maryland. A longer-term price will be paid by poultry exporters, since several countries have slapped temporary bans on American poultry.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Help for Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28573-2003Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28573-2003Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[VLADIMIR PUTIN'S latest campaign of persecution against a perceived political opponent, oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has demonstrated that neither democracy nor capitalism has taken hold in Russia. Sadly, the same is true in many of Russia's neighbors: From Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan to Ukraine and the Balkans, those who support free elections, a free press and free enterprise struggle against a daunting array of adversaries, from murderous criminal syndicates to resurgent secret police. There are limits to what the United States can do to help the liberal politicians and independent journalists and young entrepreneurs of this region -- yet one of the few things it has done well is now in danger. Blaming budget pressure, the Senate is moving toward elimination of funding for exchange and training programs in Russia, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans -- an extraordinarily shortsighted decision.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Message for Asia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32664-2003Oct15.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32664-2003Oct15.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[PRESIDENT BUSH is about to spend six days in Asia visiting vital U.S. economic and political partners that haven't gotten much of the administration's attention during the past two years. Yet Asians hoping for a revitalization of their relations with the United States will probably be disappointed: Though he will zip through six countries in six days, Mr. Bush will not be guided by any coherent vision. There is, of course, the war on terrorism: The governments of the Philippines and Indonesia will be rewarded with presidential stopovers of eight and three hours, respectively, in recognition of their efforts to stamp out alleged Asian affiliates of al Qaeda. There is also the hunt for help in Iraq: Mr. Bush is hoping to extract pledges of money, troops or both from Japan and South Korea. But American engagement with Asia itself -- its continuing struggle with globalization, its mix of developing democracies and dictatorships, its shifting security balance amid China's military buildup -- seems to have been all but squeezed off the agenda.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fighting a Mystery Illness]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6548-2003Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6548-2003Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IF EVER THERE WAS an argument for international cooperation and collaboration, the rapidly moving epidemic of SARS -- severe acute respiratory syndrome -- is it. A hundred years ago this kind of disease might well have caused a local epidemic but nothing more. Thanks to modern ventilation systems, however, it has spread rapidly through buildings and hospitals, affecting more than 200 people in one Hong Kong apartment complex. Worse, thanks to airlines, the disease has spread around the world: More than 1,800 people have now contracted it, and more than 60 have died. Cases have been reported in a handful of Asian countries, Australia, Belgium, Canada and the United States. All the North American victims were people who had recently traveled from Asia or had been in contact with such travelers. SARS, in other words, is very much a disease linked to the technology of this particular historical moment.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Forgotten Detainees]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4027-2003Jan16.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4027-2003Jan16.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT started off the year with what it portrayed as a relatively clean slate in its terrorism investigation: Spokesmen announced last month that only six of the people detained in the Sept. 11 dragnet remain in U.S. custody. But that number is wildly misleading and takes advantage of a very narrow and technical definition of who counts as a detainee. In truth there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of immigrants, mostly Arabs and other Muslims, who would not be in detention but for Sept. 11, and who are now wending their way through a capricious and choked-up immigration system. Because they are not classified as "special interest" immigration cases, they receive no particular attention and aren't counted in the government's terrorism figures.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unethical Pizza]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57219-2003Jan14.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57219-2003Jan14.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[WITH WAR LOOMING in Iraq, North Korea developing nuclear weapons and the deficit soaring, House Republican leaders got down to pressing business on the opening day of Congress last week: ensuring their access to free food and all-expenses-paid trips. Over the objections of their own ethics committee chairman, the leadership significantly weakened the "gift ban" that Republicans had adopted with much self-congratulatory fanfare after winning control of the House eight years ago.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sustaining Afghanistan]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47811-2003Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47811-2003Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[SHIELDED FROM public attention by the mounting crises in Iraq and North Korea, Afghanistan slipped into the new year without having achieved the stability it desperately needs for a sustained recovery -- but also without plunging into chaos. That it has avoided famine, civil war and the resurgence of serious military challenges to U.S. forces during the past 12 months is something of an accomplishment, if only in a negative sense; so is the  survival of its liberal and Western-oriented president, Hamid Karzai. Mr. Karzai, increasingly popular around the country, has become more aggressive in trying to extend the rule of his government outside of Kabul, and lately he has made some incremental progress. A few second-rank thieves and thugs have been expelled from positions of power in the provinces, a new national currency has been introduced, a landmark highway reconstruction project is finally underway, and a burst of new reconstruction activity is lined up for the spring.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fiasco in the Making]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35833-2003Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35833-2003Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[BY THE END of today, all men who are temporarily resident in the United States and who hail from 13 countries deemed to be potential sponsors of terrorism or sources of terrorists must register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Natives of the 13 countries -- Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen -- between the ages of 16 and 45 will be fingerprinted, photographed and told to present their visa documents for inspection. This registration procedure is consistent with rules now applied to new visa applicants from those countries. In the context of the war on terrorism, it is not illegitimate to pay extra attention to citizens of countries that may harbor terrorists.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hear From Both Sides]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35820-2003Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35820-2003Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:25 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IN THE UNITED STATES, citizens have long slept easy knowing that their government could not lock them up without charge or hold them indefinitely incommunicado, and that if arrested they would get the chance to tell their side of the story to a judge. Then, last year, the military brought a man named Yaser Esam Hamdi to American shores. Mr. Hamdi, the military contended, had been captured with a Taliban unit in Afghanistan. He was shipped to a Navy brig in Virginia after military interrogators learned that, having been born in Louisiana to Saudi parents, he was likely an American citizen. Since then, the government has held him as an "enemy combatant," filing no charges against him. He has not been permitted to see a lawyer or anyone from his family. Wednesday a federal appeals court in Richmond endorsed this state of affairs. The military, ruled a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, need offer a court no more than a cursory two-page document to keep an American locked up until the war on terrorism is over -- whatever that may mean. The decision demands the Supreme Court's attention.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>