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To: elmatador who wrote (24767)	10/30/2002 8:31:53 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 74559

Elmat, <<Thais cannot compete either>> Yup, particularly because we may have to write them off to WAT-WOT-whatnot asia.scmp.com Thursday, October 31, 2002 Blasts and arson attacks create 'political noise' in southern Thailand REUTERS in Bangkok A bomb blast rocked a hotel in southern Thailand yesterday - the latest in a series of arson and bomb attacks in the mainly Muslim region - but no one was hurt, police said. The blast followed warnings from some Western governments to their citizens about travel in the region, including southern parts of Thailand, a mostly Buddhist country, in the wake of the October 12 blasts in Bali. The bomb, which was hidden in a stolen motorcycle, exploded just before midnight on Tuesday in the car park of the My Garden Hotel in Pattani province, 1,400km south of Bangkok, police said. It shattered windows in the hotel and destroyed several vehicles. "We think it was the work of the same group of people who carried out the other incidents here and in Songkhla province," a Pattani police headquarters spokesman said. "It was obviously not intended to hurt people but was aimed at making political noise," he said. Five schools were hit by arson attacks and a small bomb exploded at a Buddhist temple on Tuesday in incidents described by the government as attempts to create political instability. Bomb threats also were made against five railway stations in southern Narathiwat province the same day, media reported. No one was injured in any of the incidents that occurred in a region with a history of political violence and some support for Islamic separatism. Australia and Britain have told their citizens travelling in Southeast Asia to be more vigilant after the Bali bomb attacks. Britain issued its latest warning on Tuesday, saying threats to Westerners on the southern Thai resort island of Phuket had increased sharply. Denmark last week also singled out Phuket as a potential target for an attack. "The threat to British nationals in Thailand, including popular tourist areas and the island of Phuket in particular, has increased significantly," the British warning said. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday dismissed the attacks in the south as non-political acts by "criminals". Mr Thaksin said he believed a single, unidentified group was behind the attacks and he had ordered police to hunt them down "dead or alive". He has said repeatedly there were no terrorists in Thailand. The Pattani hotel blast came hours after Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Noor Matha inspected the area following the earlier attacks.

To: elmatador who wrote (24767)	10/30/2002 8:35:26 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Elmat, Hong Kong can try this, according to my favored money manager Marc Faber (Dr. Doom), and it sounds like your recommended solution: biz.scmp.com Thursday, October 31, 2002 Faber offers 'borderless' solution to HK's woes JON OGDEN Investment adviser Marc Faber has come up with a radical solution to Hong Kong's seemingly intractable economic problems: tear down the border. "One country, two systems" could be done away with in a stroke. Creating the Special Administrative Region may turn out to be an unfortunate legacy left behind by Hong Kong's former colonial masters - the British. "They have kind of built this wall around the economy. It may be better for Hong Kong if it was formally integrated into the Chinese economy, used the [yuan] and became just another city in China," said Mr Faber, who is famed for his bearish views on the SAR. Some sectors of the economy, such as property, might suffer if the border was knocked down, Mr Faber said. He estimated it could cause flat prices to drop another 30 per cent, but at least the overhang from the ongoing arbitrage with lower real estate prices across the border would be ended in one fell swoop. "Property prices would diminish, that would be quite likely. Then they would become cheap enough to attract buyers again," he said. He believed the gains in other sectors might outweigh the pain elsewhere, with tourism and transport, for example, getting a boost from better access to the mainland's booming economy. Hong Kong's port operations should see more throughput if there were no border to slow shipments, particularly if handling charges were lowered. Trade could be further enhanced if the opening of the border was accompanied by building better links, including the Zhuhai bridge. With manufacturing already moved across the border, Hong Kong was now 90 per cent a service economy, with that 90 per cent split 70:30 between trading and financial services, Mr Faber said. Modern communications and the opening up of China were eroding Hong Kong's traditional middleman role, making its position as an enclave increasingly untenable. A borderless Hong Kong shorn of its own currency could still retain its role as a financial centre by running a US dollar capital market, he said. Without doing something radical, "I don't see where a catalyst can come from to lift the economy out of the doldrums", he said. Under the Sino-British agreement, Hong Kong would eventually lose its special status anyway, said Mr Faber. As for the loss of the government, that should not be a burden as at "international meetings nobody takes them seriously . . . everybody knows it is a puppet government". Opening the border might not be the complete solution for Hong Kong's problems but "it's something people ought to consider", said Mr Faber.