Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are bracing for a possible tsunami following a massive earthquake in Chile.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a warning for the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia and many island nations in the Pacific. A lower-level advisory was issued for the northern Pacific region.

Many countries along the Pacific Rim are evacuating residents from coastal areas.

Sirens warned residents in the French Polynesian islands to move away from the shores to higher ground. The first waves are expected to hit the Gambier archipelago.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center put that country’s eastern states on a tsunami watch. Officials said high waves could reach Australia early Sunday and cause flooding.

New Zealand also is on alert, with officials warning of waves up to three meters high. The waves are expected to end in Japan.

It is hard to predict the wave length of any tsunami, or its exact path, until after it has hit the shore. The waves may not arrive at all, or could be as high as 10 meters above normal sea level.

Experts also warn that the first waves may not be the highest.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is the most destructive on record. It was generated by a 9.0-magnitude underwater quake with an epicenter near Indonesia’s Sumatra island. It killed about 150,000 people, most of them in south Asia and southeast Asia.

Officials in the Philippines are planning for possible evacuations. The country is still recovering from last year’s deadly storms that caused flooding and landslides.

Japan suffered its own 7.0-magnitude quake Saturday, off the coast of the southernmost island of Okinawa. No injuries or major damage were reported.

Traditionally, an unmarried woman who became pregnant could have her head shaved and smeared with lime as punishment in Vietnam’s traditional rural societies.

But increasingly, young Vietnamese who move to the cities and away from traditional strictures are finding it easier to simply move in together, or to have a sexual relationship without settling down.

Vietnam’s rapid economic development also means that its surging population of young people—who now account for more than half the country’s total population of 87 million—can often afford apartments and homes of their own.

They can also discuss relationships and chat online.

A 2008 study conducted by the Health Ministry found that 66.7 percent of men believe having sex before marriage is “acceptable.”

Currently, the average reported age at which Vietnamese youth have sex for the first time is 19.6 years.

But many couples who cohabit in larger cities still keep quiet about it, especially to their families, despite signs that social attitudes to sex are relaxing.

Premarital sex, according to Hanoi-based lawyer Nguyen Viet Son, remains illegal under regulations set forth by the ruling Communist Party.

“People reject the concept that people who are not married can live together as husband and wife,” Son said.

“For example, if the police checked residency status and found out that people of two different genders were living with each other without a marriage certificate, they would receive an administrative fine,” Son said.

But he added: “Socially some say it’s bad, but others say it’s not.”

Morality, or chastity?

“When falling in love, almost every man wants to have sex with his girlfriend,” said a Hanoi-based man identified as Phuoc, 21.

But he added that traditional attitudes still linger, even among young men. “Somehow we men want to marry women who are still virgins,” he said.

One young man, identified by his nickname “Crazy,” said he sees no problem with premarital sex.

“I’m definitely not concerned about this. If all men didn’t care about this issue, it would be great,” he said.

“Girls wouldn’t suffer a loss.”

Ho Chi Minh City resident Nguyen Thuy Phuong, 34, said morality on the part of men is just as important as chastity for women.

“Sometimes a woman loses her virginity because she met a Don Juan, for example,” she said.

“They think of having sex with women the way they think about eating cakes.”

Gender politics

Instead, Phuong said, the problem lies with the perceived dominance of men in Vietnamese society.

“They think they can have sex with many women but their wives should be virgins,” she said.

“Sometimes I joke if that’s what you think, you should go to a child-care center to find a wife.”

Hanoi-based lawyer Son said he doesn’t oppose sex before marriage, though he believes chastity is better for both genders.

“In my opinion, sex is showing love. When someone is in love, sex is inevitable,” he said.

“We can’t say that when someone has sex before marriage he or she is bad, but we can say he or she loves the other person very much.”

Middle-aged women who grew up in harsher times appear to have a more open attitude to sexuality among the young.

Canada-based former Hanoi resident Nguyen Thi Lan, 45, said each case should be treated as a different situation.

Women’s risk ’still greater’

“Sometimes they love each other very much and they don’t wait, and as a result, the woman is the one to bear a loss,” Lan said.

She said she wouldn’t discourage her own 19-year-old daughter from following general social trends.

“If my daughter follows what people are doing in the society, I can’t stop her,” she said.

“If she loves someone, she has the choice.”

But she added: “If she has a child before getting married, it would be hard for her.”

Original reporting and translation by Hạnh Seide. Vietnamese service director: Khanh Nguyen. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Copyright

Government estimates released Monday indicate strong growth in the industrial and services sector is helping the economy rebound after slowing in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The forecast of 7.2 percent growth for the fiscal year that ends in March comes amid growing optimism in India.

Consumers have returned to shopping malls, and sales of cars and mobile phones have picked up rapidly in recent months. Many companies are posting good profits and hiring new staff. Economists say India’s recovery has been largely driven by strong domestic consumption among its more than one billion people.

Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla says that even the agriculture sector, which has shrunk in the wake of a widespread drought last year, could revive because of good winter harvests by farmers.

“The fourth quarter we are expecting it to be much better, more robust so overall agriculture is not going to see the kind of dip which was initially out,” Chawla said.

Although farming contributes relatively little to the country’s gross domestic product, it remains a key concern because two-thirds of the country’s population depend on agriculture for a living.

However, economists say uncertainties lie ahead. The shrinking agricultural output last year has stoked high inflation and led to a huge jump in food prices. This in turn has brought pressure on the government to scale back the stimulus measures that infused billions of dollars into the economy and helped its recovery.

A top official at the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, says the government will have to contemplate tightening monetary policy as the economy strengthens.

“It has been my consistent view that if it looks that the economy is back on seven plus per cent growth path, which it clearly now is, yes, we should say the stimulus has succeeded and we should begin to phase it down,” Ahluwalia said.

Stock markets and the private sector have been wary of such a move by the government, hoping it will not set back the tentative recovery.

However, the Indian government’s estimates of a return to a high growth path are backed by international institutions such as the World Bank. In a report last month, the World Bank said that economic revival in India remains resilient despite a slow global economic recovery.

Via

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi answers questions after a meeting with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner in Paris, 03 Feb 2010

Iran’s key allies, China and Russia, are sending divergent messages on whether to pursue further sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi warned Thursday that talk of additional sanctions is complicating the situation and hindering efforts to find a diplomatic solution.

Meantime, a leading Russian lawmaker, Konstantin Kosachyov, suggested Russia is more in agreement with Western nations calling for additional sanctions.

He told Russian state news that Iran’s recent launch of a satellite has raised concerns that the Islamic Republic could eventually fire a long-range nuclear weapon.

China and Russia, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, traditionally have opposed past efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear activity.

Western countries are pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran to try to force the country to enter into negotiations.

In another development, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said his country blocked at least three shipments of cargo to Iran after invoking an Australian law aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Rudd did not reveal the contents of the blocked cargo, but the Australian newspaper reports one shipment included pumps that could be used to cool nuclear power plants.

The Australian says Australia’s defense minister, John Faulkner, issued the order late last year.

Western nations fear Iran is working to produce atomic weapons, but Iran says its nuclear program is meant only for peaceful purposes.

Via

[googlemaps http://maps.google.cn/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=zh-CN&geocode=&q=Baekdusan&sll=50.34546,134.913483&sspn=0.375962,1.40625&brcurrent=3,0x5e347a9bededa281:0xe1ee6cf132d3798c,0,0x5e338277db99c7e1:0xc7e6e02414566b7a%3B5,0,0&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Baekdusan,+%E6%9C%9D%E9%B2%9C%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD&ll=42.001342,128.060853&spn=0.877777,2.8125&t=p&z=9&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Beneath a lavish palace used by the North Korean supreme leader, the interior of Mount Baekdusan (长白山,中国东北) has been excavated and can store helicopters and fighter jets that can take off from a nearby airfield, according to the military analysis experts of the Kanwa Information Centre’s Hong Kong bureau.

“This whole region is historically significant to the entire regime because this is where Kim Il-Song, Kim’s father, staged his guerrilla campaign against the Japanese during the occupation in the early decades of the last century,” said Andrei Chang, author of the report.

(kanwa)

Time has changed, over 60 years ago general Macarthur used to be the Overlord of Japan after second world war, but now Obama showed his respect to Japanese emperor in an unusual way — he bows to Japanese emperor. The photos tell everything.

Douglas Macarthur is pictured with Emperor Hirohito. Macarthur “treated Emperor Hirohito respectfully but, as his body language in this black and white postwar photo demonstrates, was not particularly deferential.”

Maybe this really “hurts the feelings of the American people“, but it is understandable in eastern society. We had something much worse in China. Obama may be required to kneel down when he meets a Chinese emperor. Date back to the Qing dynasty, when George Macartney , British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat first time visited China in 1793, Chinese royal court asked him to kneel down when meeting Qianlong Emperor. As a “decent gentle man”, Queen’s diplomat, George Macartney refused to kneel down on both knee, instead he accepted to kneel down on one knee. The Chinese royal court explained to Qianlong Emperor that those British have pool health condition of “rock hard knee” and they were unable to kneel down or kowtow like Chinese people. That’s the story of poor George Macartney. I would say it’s fair enough for Obama this time,  Akihito also looks pleasant on the photo.