Forty years on, no justice for Bhopal victims – Asian media report

This week marks 40 years since the horror of India’s Bhopal gas disaster, the world’s worst industrial catastrophe. In all that time, not one person responsible for the tragedy has spent a single day in a prison cell.

Bhopal has been called a health holocaust. An estimated 3500 people died when deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide insecticide factory in Bhopal, central India, on the night of December 2, 1984. Some 25,000 people have died since then.

Warren Anderson, the American businessman who was chief executive of the Union Carbide Corporation, escaped the law, says an article in The Diplomat, the Asian online newsmagazine – despite the magnitude of the tragedy and widespread allegations of criminal negligence.

Friends helped him leave India shortly after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He died in the US 10 years ago, without returning to face trial. The US government rejected four requests from India for his extradition.

“Neither have the Indian officials who were pronounced guilty of causing death by negligence in 2010 spent a single day in jail,” the story says. “They received bail on the day of conviction and their appeals are yet to be adjudicated.”

An article in The Hindu newspaper says several hundred tonnes of toxic waste remain at the site. The Madhya Pradesh state government has received about $A22 million to incinerate 340 tonnes of above-ground material but others have resisted the plan, saying burning the waste will release poisonous fumes.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper recalls that on the night of the disaster some 27 tonnes of the deadly MIC gas swept over Bhopal, then a city of 2 million people, after a storage tank shattered its concrete casing. People started collapsing in the streets.

The paper tells the story of a woman called Gas Devi, who was born on that night. She now has constant pain in her chest and she keeps falling sick.

“My life is a living hell,” Devi says. “My parents named me Gas. I believe this name is a curse. I wish I had died that night.”

Khan’s party says 12 killed in protest skirmishes

Protestors and government figures in Pakistan have been taking part in a macabre debate over the number of demonstrators killed in last week’s anti-government skirmishing in Islamabad.

Dawn newspaper reported social media posts – and some statements by leaders of Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – had claimed the death toll was between 20 and 300 people.

In an official statement, Dawn said, PTI this week put the number of deaths at 12.

The government said no one was killed.

November 26, Dawn reported at the time, was a day of pitched battles in the capital between thousands of PTI protestors and security forces, ending in a hasty night-time retreat, with PTI leaders telling supporters to go home, have dinner and return the next day. 

The leaders included Bushra Bibi, wife of Imran Khan.

The skirmishes followed what was called Khan’s “final call” for nationwide protests.

Al Jazeera spoke to the families of four PTI supporters known to have been killed in the clashes, giving details of their deaths.

Other family members told the news site how difficult it was for them to claim the bodies of their loved ones.

Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar mocked the discrepancies in early accounts of the death toll, Al Jazeera said. “These bodies will only be found on Tik Tok, Facebook and WhatsApp,” he said.

The government has set up a task force to identify and track down people involved in what it said was a massive, malicious campaign to discredit the state.

Dawn reported the government had accused the PTI of mounting a fake propaganda campaign about the number of deaths.

But the paper said in an editorial the government had set up the task force because it was worried about PTI's social media narrative.

“Instead of focusing all its energies on hunting down the PTI’s keyboard warriors, the state would be better off supporting a transparent investigation into the reported deaths,” the editorial said.

AUKUS threatened by Trump’s neglect

The implications for AUKUS of Donald Trump’s re-election are a matter of speculation in Australia, but UK academic Christopher Featherstone is clear in his view: Trump’s second term is crisis time for the tri-nation agreement.

Featherstone bases his judgment not on what Trump has said about AUKUS (which is not a word) but on how he has acted in the past.

Writing in The Diplomat, the Asian newsmagazine, Featherstone lists four strikes against AUKUS under a Trump administration:

1. Trump dislikes successful policies implemented by his predecessors (think of Obamacare and the Paris climate agreement)
2. He dislikes international co-operation (his disregard for NATO and the WHO)
3. He dislikes at least one of the AUKUS partners – the UK (he had poor relationships with Theresa May and Boris Johnson and he accused UK Labour of involving itself in the recent presidential election)
4. Trump has neglected AUKUS (and when he does not know about a topic, he tends to dismiss it).

“Trump has made no public reference to AUKUS,” says Featherstone, an associate lecturer in the politics and international relations department at the University of York. “This lack of interest is likely to be one of the most significant risks to the AUKUS deal and US involvement in it.”

Nevertheless, Featherstone believes AUKUS represents a strong step towards balancing China in the Pacific. “Backtracking on the deal would send the wrong signals to Beijing,” he says.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post has also published a story with potential implications for AUKUS. It says Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in submarine detection by creating a radio-emitting source in the sky, producing extremely low-frequency (ELF) electronic waves that can detect submarines hundreds of metres beneath the surface.

The story, written by Stephen Chen, the paper’s science news editor, says ELF signals at present require enormous antennae. But the Chinese team has reduced the necessary signalling equipment to a size small enough to install on ships. Further, undersea targets can be detected by detectors placed on drones, the story says.

Martial law putsch shows democracy’s fragility and resilience

The martial law putsch by South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol showed the president’s contempt for democracy. But it also underlined the strength of the country’s democratic system.

Yoon declared martial law at 10.20pm on Tuesday. The National Assembly met just after 1.00am and voted to end the military rule. Yoon accepted the decision.

“The chaos ended in 155 minutes,” commentator Wang Son-teak wrote in The Korea Herald. “After that absurd dawn, I came to think again that Korea’s democracy has some weaknesses but its resilience has also been confirmed.”

Wang, an adjunct professor at Seoul’s Sogang University, said there is a powerful element of a pro-people approach in Korean traditional culture. This laid a strong foundation for the country’s democratic development.

“Yoon may have been unaware how deep-rooted Korean democracy is,” Wang said.

A commentary in The Korea Times was given the headline: “South Korea’s democratic moment.”

Chun In-bum, a former general in the South Korean army and commander of the special forces, said a declaration of martial law was, constitutionally, an extraordinary measure. 

“Historically, such declarations have been tools of political control, reflecting the nation’s challenging journey from authoritarian governance to democratic pluralism,” Chun said.

This week’s martial law episode revealed the fragility and resilience of South Korea’s democratic institutions.

“It underscores that democracy is not a static achievement but a continuous process requiring active participation, critical oversight and an unwavering commitment to constitutional principles,” he said.

China blames US drug firms for opioid emergency

Donald Trump’s threat last week to impose tariffs on China and Mexico if they failed to stop the flow of fentanyl (and migrants) into the US risks endangering co-operation on drug-policing.

Singapore’s The Straits Times said China-US collaboration on fighting fentanyl  had improved this year.

But Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted a social media text from Trump saying he had had many discussions with China about the massive amount of drugs, especially fentanyl, being sent to the US – but to no avail.

Beijing’s Global Times newspaper hit back at Trump’s accusation with an investigative series on America’s fentanyl crisis.

The first article quoted China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying: “Fentanyl is an issue for the US.”

The ministry said China had co-operated with the US in a spirit of humanity.

“The problem of fentanyl in the US is the result of its own drug manufacturing industry,” the Global Times report said.

“The origins of the fentanyl crisis are closely linked to the widespread abuse of opioids.”

Fentanyl, originally developed for pain relief, had an astonishing addictive potential – 50 times stronger than heroin, the paper said.

US drug manufacturers understated the addictive potential of opioids. They influenced drug policy through political donations. And officials from drug enforcement agencies went on to work in the pharmaceutical industry.

It quoted a US inquiry into opioids as saying this increased the collusion between government and business.

In an interview with Global Times, Anna Lembke, author of the book Drug Dealers, MD, said the pharmaceutical industry overstated opioid benefits and understated their addictive potential when prescribed by doctors, producing a false sense of security around prescribing and using opioids.

Small will be good for future populations

Falling birth rates in East Asia are causing consternation among governments.

China’s population is shrinking and Beijing has dropped the one-child policy and increased the retirement age. South Korea, which has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, has appointed a birth tsar. South Korea, as it happens, is experiencing a stroller boom but they are used for pooches, not babies.

And in Japan a bus company is so worried about not having enough passengers that it has gone into the hedge fund business.

But an opinion piece published on Singapore’s Channel News Asia website makes a vital point: “Women have experienced the freedom of having fewer children, or none at all, and there is no going back for them.”

The article, written by Bloomberg commentator Daniel Moss, says there is an undercurrent of doom in discussions of changes in fertility and longevity.

Policymakers are alternatively urged to boost food security in a crowded and hungry world and to plan for a future where the population contracts too much.

Moss says: “We should proceed deliberately with responses that buttress the ability to lead a good life in a world that’s a touch smaller, not one that’s empty…

“The fertility ship has sailed. It’s time to focus on adaptation and remember the good that has come our way as families have become smaller.”