CHINA INVADES TAIWAN!
An airborne assault directly on Taipei by Chinese airborne divisions took place less than 48 hours after the Taiwanese parliament voted to declare its independence from the mainland. Most of the initial fighting has been in the Zhong Zheng District, Taipei, where China's airborne forces have met immediate and ferocious resistance from regular army units of the Taiwanese army.
Pre-positioned Chinese special forces, smuggled into Taiwan months before, began assassinating key leaders and attacked radar and communication facilities around Taiwan a few hours before the main attack. Infiltrators apparently received assistance from sympathetic elements within Taiwan's military and police.
US military forces have responded. The US Navy's Pacific Fleet with six aircraft carriers has been forward-deployed to the conflict area. The US has also moved a squadron of nuclear-armed B-52 bombers to nearby Guam, while the US Marine Corps in Okinawa is currently readying seven amphibious assault ships equipped with a variety of helicopters, fighter aircraft and troops to reinforce the Taiwanese resistance.
Japan has sent nine squadrons of F-15 fighters to throw into the fight, while has also threatened to intervene and engage Chinese naval forces off in the Pacific.
The People's Republic of China claims that "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China" and has reserved the right to use force to unify Taiwan with the mainland. Tthe U.S. position is that "any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means is a threat to peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the the United States." The President has said that "the U.S. takes its obligation to assist Taiwan in defend itself very seriously."
In an escalating conflict involving the US and Japan, there is a possibility that China might attack US military bases in the region. According to analysts, Beijing would consider this to be an option only after US forces have engaged Chinese naval vessels and aircraft crossing the Taiwan Strait. China might even get more aggressive by using special forces against US military bases in Japan, Alaska and Hawaii. All these options would give China more time to consolidate forces on Taiwan, and forestall US intervention, but have the potential to lead to nuclear confrontation and escalation.
CONCERN RISES OVER WORLDWIDE SPREAD OF AIDS
An estimated 5 million adults and children around the world were newly infected during 2003, bringing the total number living with HIV/AIDS to 62 million, according to a new report released by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The annual report also shows that the epidemic is rapidly expanding into new areas, especially Eastern Europe and the Central Asian Republics. China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea may also face a huge growth in the number of those infected with HIV/AIDS. The report also focuses on the way HIV/AIDS is fueling other crises, such as the famine in southern Africa, and undermining development programs in low-and middle-income countries.
UNAIDS officials also warn that globally the epidemic is in its early phases and donors must be prepared to fund HIV/AIDS programs for the long term. "Overall we are looking at a marathon, basically, in terms of how long we are going to be able to address this," said Catherine Hankins, UNAIDS associate director of strategic information. "We can hit it much more quickly and control it much more quickly if we increase the resources." A maximum of $3,000 million was spent on the epidemic in 2002 in contrast with the UNAIDS estimate that $10,500 million is needed for an adequate comprehensive prevention and care campaign in low and middle-income countries, Hankins said.
The effect of the AIDS epidemic on the famine crisis in sub-Saharan Africa was highlighted in the report with an outline of the downward spiral of problems as African families try to cope with illness, drought, and hunger. Dr. Desmond Johns, the UNAIDS representative at UN headquarters, said, "Women are responsible for 50 to 80 percent of food production in sub-Saharan Africa, including the most labor-intensive work such as planting, fertilizing, irrigating, weeding, harvesting and marketing. Now, however, a majority of that population is living with HIV/AIDS. The AIDS epidemic has upended this traditional division of labor,and AIDS-related deaths in a farm household have caused crop output to plummet, often by up to 60 percent." A 2002 study in central Malawi found that about 70 percent of the households had suffered losses due to sickness.
In some areas of the world, the growth in HIV/AIDS cases is startling, according to the report. In Eastern Europe, for example, there were almost as many new infections reported in the first six months of 2003 as in the entire previous ten years. Southeast Asia is seeing a sharp rise in injecting drug use and could develop a major HIV/AIDS epidemic; the area now has as many as 500,000 injecting drug users, and statistics indicated that up to 50 percent of them may be HIV-positive compared to 0 percent in 1998. The epidemics in Latin America and the Caribbean are well established, and the report notes a danger that they could spread more quickly and more widely without a stronger response. UNAIDS estimates that 1.9 million adults and children -- including 310,000 people who acquired the virus in 2003 -- are living with HIV in the region. Another concern of UNAIDS is the complacency that is on the rise in high-income countries. Some evidence from Australia, the United States and Europe suggests that young gay men and drug users now see AIDS as a problem in the older population, believing that safe sexual practices are unnecessary if treatment for HIV infection is available.
