Chinese R & R experts team arrives
China sends massive relief, aid package
Japan, Unicef, UN, WB and ADB announce relief packages
From Javed Akhtar (APP) in Beijing and Uzma Zafar in Islamabad

BEIJING/ISLAMABAD—China became the most generous and major country that have responded to Pakistan’s disaster with a massive financial and material aid package, bigger with a wide margin to those announced by other countries so far.
China Sunday announced to provide emergency aid, including cash and material support to earthquake’s victims in Pakistan.
The announcement was made by the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang at a ceremony, held here at the Beijing airport to see off 50-member rescue and relief team to Pakistan.
The emergency aid includes dollar 6.2 million, blankets, tents and medicines. Talking to APP, the Minister said, “Pakistan is our great friend and very close neighbour. We consider the tragedy faced by the people of Pakistan, in wake of the server earthquake, as our tragedy”.
“We are all out for the people of Pakistan to help them at this difficult time”, he said adding, China as a time-tested and all-weather friend of Pakistan considers its obligation and responsibility to take part in the rescue and relief mission. He assured China will provide all necessary help to Pakistan, enabling it to face this grave disaster.
Shen Guofang said the government of China is in contact with the Pakistani leaders and Pakistan Embassy in Beijing to see what kind of more help would be required from the Chinese side.
He expressed his confidence that the government and the people of Pakistan would be able overcome the present difficulties. About the rescue team, the Minister said it is experienced one and well-equipped to join the rescue operation.
The team left here by special aircraft, carrying 2000 blankets, life-detector equipments, small electric generators and sniffer dogs, besides medicines.
Sai Danxia, Director General, Department of Aid to Foreign countries of the Commerce Ministry said on the occasion that the Chinese government will be sending more aid to Pakistan as soon as possible. The leader of the Rescue team Zhao Heping said the team would do its best to help the earthquake’s victims.
Addressing the seen-off ceremony, Pakistan ambassador Salman Bashir expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for responding so promptly in meeting Pakistan’s emergency requirement. “The government and the people of Pakistan highly appreciate the noble and goodwill gesture, shown by the Chinese side,” he added.
Uzma Zafar adds from Islamabad: A 50-member team of Chinese relief and rescue experts arrived here at Islamabad Airport Sunday afternoon. The Chinese R & R experts, soon after their arrival were driven to the Capital city, where they were briefed about the disaster-hit areas and the situation there. The Chinese disaster experts discussed the situation with their Pakistani counterparts and other international rescuers and formed different strategies. It is learnt that the local authorities are pinning very high hopes in Chinese R & R experts as it is believed that they have an ample experience of R & R operations in remote areas like those of Azad Kashmir and NWFP, while the Western experts are considered of having experience of dealing with the situation of earthquake and other devastation in city areas. The Chinese R & R experts have brought along special tools that are used only in mud-hit and landslide affected areas. The body language of the Chinese rescuers was very positive and they were looking very confident. Some unconfirmed reports suggest that the Chinese rescuers have already been despatched to the quake-hit areas in Kashmir region and NWFP.
Meanwhile, the Government of Japan, in light of the large-scale destruction caused by the earthquake on Saturday, has announced the dispatch of relief items worth 25 million yen (approximately US $238,000) for the victims of the devastating quake. The relief goods include blankets, tents, a water purification device, generators, plastic tanks for water storage, sleeping mats, plastic ground sheets and portable water tanks. The materials described above are being dispatched from a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) depot located in London, England. These items are expected to be carried to Pakistan very soon.
Japan has also committed to dispatch a “Disaster Relief Team” to help the earthquake affected casualties in the major disaster prone areas. The Japanese team headed by Mitsunori Nanba comprised of 49 rescue operation specialists arrived at the Lahore airport at 22:40 hours tonight followed about 25 medical experts who will arrive at the Lahore airport at 22:40 hours on 10th October. The Japanese relief team will provide help and support to the casualties of this massive earthquake. The Japanese team symbolizes the sentiments and goodwill of the people and Government of Japan towards the Pakistani people in these difficult times. At present a substantially large number of people have been severely injured and a significant number of those are still under rubble or are forced to live without shelter. The Japanese emergency relief efforts are aimed at search and rescue missions to help those affected. The team will be active in rescue operations and medical relief activities in severe disaster hit areas such as Muzaffarabad, AJK and other Northern parts of the country.
Agencies add: The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Sunday it was rushing assistance to the Government of Pakistan in the wake of Saturday’s massive earthquake. Just hours after the quake struck, UNICEF began moving supplies from a Karachi warehouse into the affected region, a press release of the UN’s children agency said. The supplies include blankets, clothing, tents, emergency medical supplies, food for infants, and water purification tablets. It said UNICEF will work closely with the Government of Pakistan to determine what additional relief supplies may be needed. UNICEF is standing by to mobilize needed supplies from its operations elsewhere in the region and from its global supply hub in Copenhagen.
Speaking from New York, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said that the agency is preparing for a response to match the scale of the disaster, noting that children make up half the population of the affected areas. “Children in the affected areas will be vulnerable to hunger, cold, illness, and trauma,” Veneman said. “Getting immediate life-saving relief into the region will be our priority for the next hours and days, even as the search and rescue effort goes on”. Teams will be deployed from UNICEF’s Peshawar office in Pakistan’s North West Province early on Sunday morning into the countryside as part of a joint UN response team. A quarter of the population in the area hit by the quake, is with limited resources to cope with disaster. Omar Abdi, the head of UNICEF’s operations in Pakistan, was quoted as saying that UNICEF and WHO are providing logistics support and supplies to the surgical teams sent by the Pakistan Government to care for the most badly injured.
UNICEF said that emotional trauma will be an important concern, especially for children. Many people are likely to be too frightened to sleep in their houses or apartments tonight because of aftershocks. Schools that were not damaged or destroyed will likely remain closed or disrupted for several days but the agency said that returning children to school as soon as possible will be important to their recovery. UNICEF has staff, supplies, and ongoing operations in each of the three countries affected by the earthquake. In Pakistan, UNICEF focuses on maternal and child health, education, water and sanitation, and protection of children. In 2003, UNICEF worked closely with Pakistani authorities after devastating floods hit Sindh province and affected more than 800,000 people. Thousands of people were killed Saturday when a massive earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale shook parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, flattening houses and sweeping whole villages away. The World Bank has offered 20 million dollars to Pakistan to help deal with the tragedy unleashed by the South Asia earthquake, its chief Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday.
“This kind of situation calls forth a great deal of generosity from a great many donors,” he told reporters here on the first stop of a tour of Asia, calling on those giving funds to strive to coordinate aid efforts. Pakistan issued an urgent appeal for help from the international community in the aftermath of Saturday’s quake, which has killed more than 19,000 people. The World Bank chief touched down in Japan at the start of a two-week tour that will also take him to China and Russia ahead of a meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers near Beijing. The Asian Development Bank has, In consultation with Government, committed approximately $10 million in immediate assistance for rehabilitation work in the worst earthquake-affected areas and districts in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province.
Mr. Haruh1ko Kuroda, President of the Asian Development Bank has expressed his deep shock and regret to the Government of Pakistan on the extensive damage to life and property caused by Saturday’s earthquake. In a statement, Mr. Peter Fedon, ADB’s Country Director In Pakistan, noted that while the $10 million assistance was for Immediate rehabilitation assistance over the next 2 to 3 months, AIDE stands ready to increase Its assistance, in the context of ongoing projects, depending on the Government’s detailed assessment of the damages caused by the earthquakes. ADB will work through existing project teams Implementing various ADB assisted projects that are already In place in the hardest hit districts. These teams will be Immediately mobilized to carry out rehabilitation and reconstruction work In the affected districts. Priority areas to be covered under AD6’s assistance will include rehabilitation of affected school buildings and rura’ health centers, roads and bridges, and water supply and electricity infrastructure in rural areas.
ADB will also coordinate its assistance closely with other development partners participating in the relief and rehabilitation effort in the affected districts. In consultation with the Government authorities, ADB will dispatch a mission to the affected districts in AJK and NWFP as soon as possible. A United Nations emergency coordination team is on its way to Pakistan Sunday to help in the government’s relief efforts after an earthquake left thousands of people dead in northern parts of the country. The eight-member team from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was due in Islamabad on Sunday to help set up a center for coordinating the UN’s emergency response.
“We know that every hour counts in an earthquake of this magnitude and the United Nations is ready to assist the country affected in any possible manner,” Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for the relief group, said in a statement from UN Headquarters. In Geneva, UN Humanitarian Affairs spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told The Associated Press: “These are our top coordination officials. At least two of the staff we sent have experience from dealing with the (Indian Ocean) tsunami”. The international Red Cross said it also was preparing an emergency response. Earlier Saturday, two local Pakistan Red Crescent groups were deployed to the frontier province and another one to Azad Kashmir to assess the damage, said Marie-Francoise Borel, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “We’re hoping to have some idea of the number of dead, number of homeless and the level of damage sometime on Sunday,” Borel said. “We need to know if entire villages have been destroyed, do they have access to clean water and do they need food”.

War plans set Tokyo at odds with Beijing

BEIJING—People are not foes until they see each other as such. Japan’s Asahi Shimbun revealed on Tuesday that the country’s Ground Self-Defence Force’s (SDF) security plan maps out military strategies based on two hypothetical ways China could attack Japan.
In the first scenario, if tensions between Beijing and Tokyo heighten over natural resources near the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, China may send troops to the islands to secure its interests.
The SDF would therefore respond by sending troops from Kyushu to the main island of Okinawa Prefecture or other southern islands to wipe out the Chinese forces and take back the islands, according to the plan.
The second eventuality is based on tempers flaring across the Taiwan Straits after Taipei declares “independence.” The mainland may attack Japan to thwart United States forces positioned in Japan that would be poised to intervene.
The SDF would dispatch core troops to the islands south of Okinawa’s main island and prepare to send specially- trained forces to protect SDF and US bases.
Though the plan noted the possibility of a military attack from China is “small,” an official from Japan’s Defence Agency argued Tokyo and the SDF must envisage the worst possible scenarios.
Such reasoning is based on a vivid imagination, is provocative and explicitly reveals Tokyo’s Cold War mentality - leading to the spread of distrust.
Some Japanese government officials have even pointed out that the plan was playing up the threat from China to maintain the SDF’s status as a special organization.
The Japanese Government’s attempt to dodge international criticism over its own military upgrades by deliberately exaggerating the so-called threats posed by neighbouring countries cannot conceal its long-held military ambitions.
In essence, the concept enshrined in the plan is an attempt by Japan to domestically legalize their claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and territory in the East China Sea, and intervene in the settlement of the Taiwan question.
Japan’s ownership claim simply does not hold water. There is overwhelming evidence to indicate the Diaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times.
As for the wrangling between the Asian powers over energy and territory in the East China Sea, China’s oil and gas explorations in the area are being carried out in China’s indisputable coastal waters. They are within the scope of China’s sovereignty.
Japan’s defence plan is nothing less than an affront to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity - particularly concerning the Taiwan question.
Taiwan’s separatists have made unremitting efforts to establish ties with Japan’s new generation of politicians, particularly those in congress.
The island’s “independence trumpeter” enjoys a high degree of popularity among a number of Japanese rightist forces.
Claiming that US-Japan defence should include Taiwan in its scope, they even propose Japan should upgrade its substantial ties with the island whatever attitude the Chinese mainland holds.
Japan’s attempt to intervene in the Taiwan Straits not only casts a shadow over Sino-Japanese relations but risks torpedoing peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
Assuming China is a foe rather than regional partner will only further undermine bilateral ties, which have already been poisoned by high-profile Japanese officials’ repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Instead of undertaking fence-mending efforts, Tokyo is wrongly bent on pursuing measures in the opposite direction.

—The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
 

4 Chinese injured in earthquake
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Four Chinese were injured in Besham district when a strong earthquake rocked many parts of Pakistan, according to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad. One of the four injured is still in coma, an embassy official told Xinhua, adding that the four were working for a hydro project in a tunnel when the earthquake occurred. Identity of four victims of Margalla Tower collapse have been ascertained while the rescue efforts for retrieving the stranded residents of the building were in full swing. Those who have been identified include Egyptian diplomat Momin Kamil, Sagheer Ahmad s/o Mohammad Ramzan resident of Tehsil Pasroor District Sialkot, Mohammad Amin s/o Fasihullah district Bhakar and a teenage boy Salman Rahat. Most parts of the country including twin cities, Peshawar, Lahore, Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir were jolted by tremors of 7.5 intensity at the Richter scale at 8:55 am on Saturday. So far 45 injured from the Margalla Tower have been rushed to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. Local administration has set up a Help Line in F-10 area and its telephone number is 051-2210901-05 whereas the help line being set up in PIMS has telephone number 051-9200187.