Tuesday, October 26, 2003

Congratulations to Aviva Aron-Dine ’05 and Sonya Hoo ’05 for breaking to quarterfinals
and finishing as the 8th place team at Columbia this weekend!

*****

* The woman who campaigned for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and
virtually won the premiership for him more than two years ago is back on the
campaign trail – this time as his biggest critic. Former foreign minister Makiko
Tanaka, who has declared her intention to run in the Nov 9 elections, is feared
by her former boss and his colleagues because she is expected to conduct a fierce
‘anti-Koizumi, anti-LDP’ (Liberal Democratic Party) campaign. Although the 59-year-old
will be running as an independent, the immensely popular politician is hotly
pursued by the media and her statements are widely reported. Given her unmatched
flair for campaign rhetoric, her criticisms of Mr. Koizumi and the LDP could
be disastrous for both. Her campaign will be watched closely because of her
uncanny ability to articulate voter concerns and to build on that momentum.
It is believed that she hopes to persuade other independent lawmakers to join
her in promoting policies, but not necessarily in forming a new party.

* Call it a coup for Chinese President Hu Jintao and a resounding turnaround
for China’s foreign relations. A year ago, the China threat loomed large in
the minds of policy-makers and trade partners. This month, as the Chinese President
made his rounds through Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, it became clear
he was welcomed – even needed – for access to the Chinese market and to counter
the overwhelming influence of the United States. At the Australian Parliament
last Friday, Mr Hu delivered a speech a day after US President George W. Bush,
an arrangement observers believed gave the Chinese leader symbolic parity with
the US President. China stood out as global in outlook and serious about nurturing
all-round friendly relations with neighbours. Praise for Mr Hu was not limited
to Chinese observers, as even the agenda-setting New York Times gave him the
thumbs-up last week: ‘The Chinese leader played the gregarious; the American
President the introverted. Mr Wang Hongwei, who researches Asia Pacific affairs
at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described Mr Hu’s tour, which ended
in New Zealand yesterday, as having transformed the man. ‘The world now looks
at Mr Hu differently. He has helped to project China as a big but responsible
country.’

* Nigeria, which has the world’s highest number of polio cases, has halted
an immunisation drive by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after influential
Islamic leaders declared the vaccines unsafe. Dr Datti Ahmed, president of Nigeria’s
Supreme Council for Syariah, or Islamic law, told the BBC that reports on the
Internet suggested the vaccines might be contaminated with viruses causing cancer,
Aids or sterility. The WHO rejected the charges, saying the vaccines were entirely
safe. Nigeria would pose a threat to the whole region if the vaccination program
there were to be disrupted, UN officials warned. The WHO launched a campaign
last week to immunise more than 15 million children in west and central Africa
against polio. But three predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria – Kano,
Kaduna and Zamfara – have delayed its implementation following opposition from
influential Islamic leaders. The head of the WHO’s polio campaign, David Heymann,
told the BBC that the vaccines used in Nigeria were no different from those
used everywhere else in the world. With the take-up of vaccines so low in northern
Nigeria, polio was taking firm hold, Mr Heymann warned. ‘They are spreading
it… into the central Nigerian states and even into Lagos, and to five neighbouring
countries which are polio-free.’ These countries will now have to build, at
great costs, a wall of immunity around the imported cases. Already, new polio
cases have been identified in Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Chad, BBC
reported.

* Rescuers were racing against the clock yesterday to try to reach 13 Russian
miners who have been trapped in a flooded pit with no food or water since Thursday.
Officials said they believed all the trapped miners could still be alive as
long as they had air to breathe. Workers were digging their way towards the
trapped men from another shaft. ‘To our estimation, there are 23 to 24 meters
left for the rescuers to pass to get to the trapped miners,’ the deputy chairman
of the Russian mine safety authority, Alexander Kornichenko, said yesterday.
The men had been working at the 800m level on Thursday when water from a subterranean
lake leaked into a shaft above them, blocking their way to the surface. Despite
efforts to plug the flow of water into the dam, new torrents flooded into the
shaft on Monday. ‘As long as they have oxygen and water, they have a chance
to survive,’ Kornichenko said. ‘We are doing everything possible, and even impossible,
to find the miners alive.’ Accidents are common in Russian coal mines and workers
stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards. According
to the Independent Coal Miners Union, 68 miners were killed last year and 98
in 2001.

*****

Roundtable Discussion: ‘The Camisea Gas Pipeline Across the Andes of Peru:
Environmental and Social Costs’
Science Center 183, 9:55am

Lecture: ‘Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision’
Scheuer Room, 5:00pm

College Republicans Lecture by Bay Buchanan : ‘Lessons from a Life in Politics:
the Nastiest, but Greatest of Professions’ & Discussion of Current Events
Science Center 101, 7:00pm

Lecture by transgender activist Michelle O’Brien: ‘Reading Trans Health/Reading
Race War: Trans health organizing and neocolonial capital’
Friends Meeting House, 8:00pm

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

The match between the Garnet and Owls is rescheduled
for Tuesday, October 28th on Clothier Field at 7:00 p.m.

*****

Today:
Field Hockey hosts Haverford, 4:00

Tomorrow:
Women’s soccer at Haverford, 2:30
Men’s Soccer hosts Ursinus, 6:00
Volleyball hosts Haverford, 7:00

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Music is essentially useless, as life is.”
-George Santayana

*****

Interested in reporting or writing for the Gazette?
Got a news or sports tip for us?
Just want to tell us what you think?

Contact the staff at daily@swarthmore.edu

The Daily Gazette is published Monday through Friday by an independent
group of Swarthmore College students. The Daily Gazette Web Site is updated
regularly, as news happens. Technical support from the Swarthmore College
Computer Society is gratefully acknowledged.