UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman in a statement issued in Copenhagen on Wednesday expressed the fear that out of 120,000 children in the quake-hit remote areas, not yet reached by relief workers, some 10,000 or more would die in the coming weeks due to hunger, injuries various diseases and cold if supplies are not rushed. The UNICEF chief stated that lack of helicopters was hampering relief efforts and the children would be the first victims in a possible ` second wave of deaths”. According to cautious estimates, over one thousand remote villages have not been reached due to inaccessibility. Meanwhile, cold is increasing and the hungry survivors including the injured are languishing under the open skies. Their first priority is tent which foreign Governments, NGOs and the Government agencies are procuring from all over. However, it will take at least two weeks before tents are provided to almost all the affectees. This scenario is horrifying as the intensity of cold continues to increase by the day. Thousands of survivors including children and women would perish in the next few weeks.
During his visit to quake-devastated areas in Mansehra-Balakot on Wednesday, President Pervez Musharraf assured the survivors that no stone would be left unturned to mitigate their sufferings. He promised shelter to all the survivors before the winter season commences. While the relief operations are in full swing, supplies to remote villages are being rushed. With the arrival of additional helicopters and heavy machinery from the U.S., the relief agencies expect to extend their area of operation. The relief supplies, medical teams and other experts from various countries are arriving in Pakistan in increasing numbers and the hope for better days ahead are rising. However, this is a monumental tragedy. Indian Held Kashmir’s APHC leader Yasin Malik has arrived in Pakistan with relief supplies to help the devastated people on this side of Line of Control. He has highly commended the way Pakistanis have responded to the call for helping the quake victims. Mir Waiz Umar Farooq, former APHC Chairman, has called upon the Indian Government to accept President Musharraf’s offer to allow Kashmiris to cross LOC to help their brethren in acute pain and distress in Azad Kashmir. After meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Yasin Malik stated in Islamabad on Wednesday that if New Delhi allowed Kashmiris to cross LOC, over two million people would rush to provide help to quake victims.
While the people across the country are making all out efforts to collect and rush supplies to the victims, after shocks continue to jolt the northern parts of Pakistan. Wednesday morning tremors forced people to rush out of buildings in Islamabad, Peshawar, Muzaffarabad, Mansehra and adjoining places. According to Director General, Met Office, aftershocks, though gradually decreasing in intensity, would continue for other three weeks. The structures which developed cracks in the previous tremors may collapse. Two small girls were killed when the damaged wall of their house in a village near Muzaffarabad crumbled on Wednesday morning in the after shock whose maximum intensity on Richter’s Scale was stated to be 6.2.
Heart-rending tales of devastation are being published by media. In quite a few villages and towns, majority of the children have perished because they were in their schools at around 9 a.m. when the terrible earthquake turned their institutions into mass graves on the black day of 8th October. It seems a whole generation has been lost. Renowned social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi says that around 150,000 persons have perished. The tragedy warrants continued support to victims for quite sometime.

An uneasy friendship

US Defence Secretary’s tough talk on China betrays the growing tensions between the superpower and the emerging superpower. Rumsfeld, who is visiting Beijing, has raised serious questions about China’s growing defence spending saying the Communist country was sending ‘mixed signals’ on bilateral ties. Rumsfeld cited a ‘rapid, non-transparent’ buildup of the Chinese military and argued this makes other countries, including the US, wonder if Beijing would hold to a peaceful path. This is not the first time the US defence secretary has raised the alarm over China. In an earlier visit to Singapore, Rumsfeld had expressed similar concerns. In a report to Congress last July, the Pentagon had complained that China’s defence spending was greater than its projected defence budget. The Pentagon, which reports to Rumsfeld and whose budget is many times bigger than China’s, claimed that the Asian country’s defence budget was $90 billion and not $29 billion as projected by it.
The concerns voiced by Rumsfeld, coming just before President Bush’s visit to China next month, highlight the uneasy nature of US-China ties. Of course, the two countries have grown very close in the past few years and expanded their cooperation in many key areas. China is today one of the largest trade partners of the US, just as it is of many other Western countries. Washington and Beijing have certainly come a long way since President Richard Nixon took the initiative to normalise the US relations with the country in an attempt to check the other superpower Soviet Union. Yet as China grows in stature and influence largely thanks to its phenomenal economic growth and seeks to position itself as the world’s next superpower, its relationship with the existing superpower has come under enormous strain. Which is not really surprising.
If the US is wary of a new big player challenging its unchallenged global dominance since the demise of Soviet Union, China is equally keen to play a bigger role on the world stage in accordance with its growing power. Beijing is increasingly asserting itself taking an independent stance on issues such as Iran, the war on terror and UN Security Council expansion. The recent manned flight to space was yet another firm reminder about the country’s emergence as a big power. However, the consummate practitioners of realpolitik that they are, the Chinese wouldn’t like to be seen as challenging the might and hegemony of the existing superpower. So Beijing would never overtly seek to take on Washington, even if it’s harbouring a secret ambition to rule the world. Which is good and in the interest of a peaceful and stable world order.

—Khaleej Times