World News Digest

JAPAN

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, April 28: Last September, Israeli forces bombed and destroyed a facility in a desert in Syria. At the time, neither Syria nor Israel made it clear what the building was, and the United States also remained silent.

The U.S. government has now revealed what happened in this mysterious incident. The Americans say the building was a nuclear reactor that Syria was secretly constructing, with the help of North Korea, to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The United States released photographs of the bombed-out building and its interior, which showed what appeared to be a nuclear reactor. It looks nearly identical to the graphite-moderated nuclear reactor in North Korea.

There is also a picture that allegedly shows high-ranking nuclear development officials from both North Korea and Syria standing side by side.

Amazing feat

How in the world did the United States manage to get hold of a picture like that? This amazing feat sounds like something out of a spy novel.

If this disclosure is really true, then it is glaring evidence that nuclear proliferation is a real threat to the world.

ISRAEL

Jerusalem Post, April 28: It surprises and humbles when a crisis comes, seemingly, out of nowhere, to upset the agenda we thought we had set for ourselves, our businesses or our government.

Such is the case of the global food crisis, which the U.N. World Food Program has termed a “silent tsunami.” Globalization has created a degree of interdependence never previously imagined. Whether we like it or not, the world is ever more integrated politically, culturally and economically.

We are now learning more about rice then, perhaps, we ever cared to. How many of us knew that Thailand was the world’s biggest rice exporter and the source of most of Israel’s supply? And who would have imagined that 225 million people a year could be fed on the six percent of Asian rice lost each year to rats?

Mounting demand

More significantly, experts say that there is no sudden shortage, but rather a steadily mounting demand. Rice consumption has risen 40 percent in three decades, according to the U.N.

Nothing makes people more jumpy than telling them not to panic — and yet, objectively, there’s nothing to panic about. Sure it’s regrettable that food prices are rising, but the government should not be stampeded into precipitous actions that might upset market forces in a way that does more harm than good.

TAIWAN

Taipei Times, Taipei, April 30: Just one week after Earth Day, it seems as unlikely as ever that much is in the works to achieve the environmental goals our leaders so often tout.

Earth Day brought plenty of discussion in political circles about what the individual can do to conserve energy, but too little talk about the role of the government and even less about the responsibilities of business.

The single most important voice on Earth Day was president-elect Ma Ying-jeou, the one person who will have the most sway over the next four years to kick-start national environmental efforts that until now have been a farce.

No environmental goals

But while Ma has set frantic timetables for opening up to Chinese tourists ... he has hardly shown the same impetus to get environmental goals out of the starting gate.

The risk is very real that Ma, whose party has not been very keen to pass the EPA’s proposed emissions bill in the legislature, will be perfectly content to maintain the nation’s “green” efforts at the level of token measures.