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To: Dayuhan who wrote (14829)	11/2/2003 6:26:57 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793652

What's going on? NSC must have got whiff of NK planning to pull a "Carter" with this delegation. Doesn't make sense to pull the trip at the last minute. ________________________________________________ The White House Keeps Congress at Home A canceled North Korea trip has a congressional delegation fuming By TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND JAMES CARNEY TIME MAGAZINE Iraq isn't the only foreign policy issue that is fraying the GOP's normally seamless support for President Bush. After the White House abruptly scotched a long-planned fact-finding trip to North Korea by a bipartisan delegation of House members, the members — led by GOP congressman Curt Weldon — wrote a blistering letter to the President on Thursday saying they were "dismayed and outraged with your decision to 'pull the plug' on our totally positive mission to North Korea." Two days before the delegation's scheduled departure for Pyongyang on Oct. 25, Weldon received a phone call from White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, who said the administration had withdrawn its support for the trip and was canceling the delegation's use of a military plane. The five-page complaint, which was obtained by TIME, targets Bush's National Security Council staff, led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, for particular scorn and fury. "As individual Members that have cast extremely difficult votes and delivered speeches in favor of your major foreign policy initiatives and agenda — we are offended and believe you are being ill-served by your National Security Council Staff," it reads. "The treatment of the delegation by your national security team has been offensive and arrogant." But the most cutting paragraph of all, given that the letter was signed by six Republican lawmakers, might be the one that compares Bush unfavorably to former President Clinton. It cites several occasions when Clinton could have prevented congressional delegations from taking trips that he opposed, but never did. "As Members of Congress, constitutionally equal to the executive branch, we have the right and duty of oversight and fact-finding," the letter says. "To our knowledge, with the exception of travel to an active war zone, never has a president prohibited congressional travel." According to a spokesman for Rep. Weldon, the White House told him that "it wasn't the right time" for the delegation to visit North Korea, despite the fact that Weldon had been in constant contact with the State and Defense departments about the trip in the weeks and days before Card suddenly pulled the plug. Asked for a response, a spokesperson for the National Security Council gave this statement to TIME: “Given the progress the President has made on a multi-lateral approach to convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program, we believe any bilateral delegation to North Korea would be inappropriate at this time. We regret the inconvenience caused to Congressman Weldon and his delegation concerning this matter.” time.com

To: Dayuhan who wrote (14829)	11/5/2003 4:08:18 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793652

Are North Korea's creditors going to force it into Bankruptcy? Maybe our present policy is working. ___________________________________________ S&P highlights costs of Korean reunification By Andrew Ward in Seoul Financial Times Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, said on Monday the collapse of Kim Jong-il's communist regime was more likely than gradual reform in North Korea and urged South Korea to build financial reserves to cope with the cost of reunification. John Chambers, managing director for sovereign ratings at S&P, told reporters in Seoul that state collapse in North Korea was just a matter of time and could cause a bigger shock to the South's economy than the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The comments brought a reminder of the threats posed to Asia's third-largest economy by its poverty-stricken but heavily armed neighbour. North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons has focused attention on the risk of war on the divided peninsula but most analysts say internal collapse in the North is a more likely event. North Korea has started to reform its rigid command economy in recent months by liberalising prices and wages but S&P said the regime was too rigid to emulate the market openings adopted by communist governments in China and Vietnam. "Although some other Asian nations that used to have centrally planned economies have successfully moved to a market-based system, the North Korean leadership probably lacks the flexibility and the vision to undertake such a change," said S&P in a statement. "Unless South Korea has substantially built up fiscal reserves in the meantime, its [credit] ratings would fall from their current level upon sudden reunification of the peninsula." Analysts have been predicting collapse of the North Korean regime since 1989, when communist states started to fail in eastern Europe. The state has proved more resilient than many expected, surviving a famine in the mid-1990s that killed at least 1m people and recording modest economic growth over the past three years. However, dwindling international food aid to the country and US attempts to block some of the regime's most important sources of cash, such as exports of arms and drugs, has prompted fresh doubts about the durability of the world's last Stalinist state. Mr Chambers said reunification with the North could cost South Korea up to 300 per cent of its annual gross domestic product, considering the reconstruction and welfare provisions that would be necessary. South Korea's policy of engagement with its neighbour - including humanitarian aid and economic co-operation - is designed to prevent economic failure in the North and encourage gradual reform of its economy and political system. However, engagement has been disrupted by the international dispute about Pyongyang's suspected weapons of mass destruction. In a recent report, Dominique Dwor-Frecaut, economist at Barclays Capital, said state failure in North Korea need not lead to credit rating downgrades in the South. She said the cost of reconstruction would be spread over many years and would be offset by the economic benefits of reunification. "The Korean peninsula could become a new Asian economic powerhouse if it could associate Chinese-level labour costs in the North with OECD-level financial and legal systems and R&D in the South," she said. Find this article at: news.ft.com

To: Dayuhan who wrote (14829)	11/5/2003 4:43:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793652

A tale by a blogger on why Africa is going to remain the shithole it is. ___________________________________________ I've been to Kenya a few times for the sheer beauty and enjoyment of it, along with side trips to Tanzania and the other neighborhood states. On my last trip there, and probably my last trip there ever I woke up to why Africa will never progress. On this particular run, the corruption was absolutely endemic, with additional "fees" tacked on to everything you could think of. But the one thing that really convinced me that the area is genuinely hopeless started out innoucuously. I'm involved in construction here in the Los Angeles area, my company does everything from new studios in Hollyweird, to million + designer homes. As a matter of course I always take a day or two off wherever I travel, whether it be Africa, Europe or anywhere else in the states or out of them to meet with others in the same business I am and to check out their job sites, labor costs, material costs and building techniques. And no, I don't write off the whole trip for doing these investigations, I do it for fun and I've met some great folks in these side trips. My last trip to Kenya I met with some folks that were doing an upgrade on a resort in the Amboseli area, a contractor who was Indian and his investors. On our jobwalk I was watching some laborers break up old concrete and mixing it in with cement and pouring a new slab using chainlink as the reinforcement matting. Interesting enough in it's own way and definitely a workable solution for a lack of nearby aggregate supplies and the expence of purpose made concrete reinforcing materials. I did however notice that were being mighty skimpy on the amount of cement (the critical binding material) mix they were using per batch, and gently chided them for it. That brought up the expence question and the fact that it was costing them $28 on site for a 40kg bag of cement. An extra six shovels of sand/aggregate per mix saves a bunch of money in the scale of things, albeit the slab itself will definetly suffer, but as they showed me they didn't skimp their mix when it came to the actual foundations. This floored me, my cost for cement is $6 here in LA for a 90lb bag. After treating me to a fabulous lunch and trading numbers we said our goodbyes, but the rest of the trip I couldn't get out of my mind the costs they were paying for a stupid bag of cement. I returned home to LA, put out a few minor fires and applied myself to the cement and shipping industries and was pleasantly surprised to find out my supplier was more than willing to bag cement in 40kg bags for six dollars each, and then load them into containers on site. Maersk Lines was perfectly willing to ship 40k lb containers to Mombassa for approximately five dollars a bag. A quick e mail to my hosts at Amboseli confirmed that they would gladly take as much cement as I could get to Mombassa for 15 dollars a bag. A US export licence, zero effort and zero dollars. And that's when the endemic problems of dealing with African government reared it's ugly head. A call to Kenya's local consulate to make an appointment with their commercial secretary was easy enough and they set an date and time. I showed up and they didn't have a clue what I was talking about, fine, we'll set another one.And then that didn't happen either, I finally got in on the fourth try and was informed that whatever proceeds i recieved in this sale would be paid in shillings in a Kenyan bank and would be unable to transfer the money, that was fine with me, I could easily spend the proceeds of one or two containers there having a grand time with four or six or ten friends at the best resorts. This did not thrill him, but at least I got the initial paperwork, filled it out and sent it in. I shortly afterwards recieved notice that the import licence was approved and that a 10k dollar import fee could be paid in dollars only to a account number Belgian bank for issuing the shipping orders. No name, no ministry, just an account # or no papers. So lets do the Math: 400 bags of cement: 2400 dollars Shipping 36k lbs of cement to Mombassa: 2000 dollars. 11 dollars a bag Bribe: 10k dollars. 36 dollars a bag It's no wonder at all that Africa is sinking with the all out efforts of their governments just accelerating it. If there is anywhere in the world that defines the word hopeless, it's Africa, and it ain't the fault of Joe Sixback there, nor the businessmen or Governments of the West. It's endemic and it's at the top, fostering democracy and fair business in Iraq should be a snap compared to doing business with anyone in Africa with their governments encouragement. windsofchange.net