WHILE IN THE ocean of despair, islands of hope have begun to emerge, there are countless areas, which were not accessible by road before the killer earthquake ripped through Azad Kashmir and Hazara Division of Frontier Province, have yet to receive any aid. Thousands of persons cannot move due to critical injuries they sustained when their houses collapsed. Few survivors do not have strength to carry them to locations where medical assistance has been provided as part of massive relief operations. The injured are dying inch by inch. The British medical team leader has warned that thousands of wounded persons including children and women would soon perish in areas yet to be reached by rescue and relief workers. Their desperate struggle for life may soon end unless medical aid is made available without further loss of time. The destroyed villages are now stinking as the dead bodies still under debris have started to decompose forcing survivors to leave their already damaged houses. This colossal tragedy can not be adequately faced even with the high degree of commitment demonstrated by all—- the armed forces, NGOs, international agencies and private individuals who have taken relief supplies to the devastated areas. An Army Aviation helicopter which was carrying relief goods to Bagh Valley crashed in the hills on Saturday killing four senior officers and two others. The spirit of helicopter crews has not been dampened and M-17 and Chinook are constantly busy transporting food, medicines, blankets and tents to the areas inaccessible by road.
The people all over the country continue donating generously all kinds of relief goods. Donations are pouring in from all over including foreign Governments, expatriate Pakistani community, international agencies, etc. Saudi Arabia has announced a donation of Saudi Reyal 500 million. Pakistanis have donated over Rs. 4 billion. President Musharraf told international media at Chaklala Airport on Saturday that the number of casualties could not be indicated at this point in time with any certainty. Due to inaccessibility, a very large number of far flung villages are yet to be reached. Meanwhile, survivors from devastated towns including Muzafarabad are moving out. In fact, the exodus is mounting by the hour. The President has announced that a tent city around Muzaffarabad with capacity to accommodate 500,000 affectees would soon be set up. He has however stated that rescue and relief operations will be followed by a mega phase of reconstruction for which an Authority headed by Lt. Gen. Zubair, Chief of the Army Engineering Corps, has since been established. The Prime Minister, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, has put the loss to around US$ 5 billion. Much more would be required to rebuild the infrastructure and the houses.
One American TV network has lauded the spirit of the Pakistani nation. It has observed that the response from the people of Pakistan was immediate and overwhelming not witnessed during calamities suffered by even the richest nations. It is hoped that the affluent people will continue to assist the official agencies in relief and rehabilitation operations. The thousands of dead will not return but the survivors must be given a safer and more comfortable future.

China blasts its way into space

CHINA has once again asserted its supremacy as an aspiring superpower with the launch of a second manned space mission on Wednesday. It’s a remarkable achievement for the communist giant, which is trying to match its high-octane economic growth with scientific and technological progress. The very fact that China has become the only third country in the world, after Russia and the US, to enter the portals of space with a manned flight for the second time in as many years, underlines Beijing’s ambitious space plans.
China’s affair with space began in 1970, at the height of revolutionary zeal, with the launch of a satellite using a modified inter-continental ballistic missile. The satellite is said to have sung The East is Red from space to comrades on the Earth for 26 days. After two decades of virtual hibernation that marked the turbulent period of power struggles and reforms, China once again took off by sending a biosat into space with plants and animals and recovering the satellite. More than a decade later, when the most populous country in the world emerged an economic powerhouse, China sent its first man into space in October 2003 on a short trip — less than a day — and the mission was kept under wraps. But the Wednesday’s launch with two astronauts, called taikonauts, is a departure from the traditional secrecy Beijing maintains about anything that attracts world attention. It had been given wide pre- and post-publicity and the launch was telecast live with the beaming duo in their cockpits.
That’s a sign of China’s growing confidence in the country’s high-tech skills and its robust economy. The estimated $6 billion project is only the beginning of China’s ambitious space exploration plans. In two years time, Chinese hope to walk in space, land an unmanned probe on the Moon, launch a space station, and orbit women around the Earth by the end of the decade. Beijing maintains that it doesn’t want to militarise the space and that its space mission is peaceful. Then what drives China’s vertical moves? To boost its self esteem and global image; to reap enormous socio-economic benefits from the space programmes and use them to further the country’s cutting edge technologies.

—Khaleej Times