High Speed Rail: India Should Follow China

March 7 (EIRNS)—A study prepared by the institutional division of Indian Infoline Ltd. (IIFL) pointed out that, while China was building its high-speed rail (HSR) lines to advance its developmental efforts, India kept this ingredient for economic development at a planning stage. Now, just when India has identified six high-speed passenger train corridors to be executed through public-private partnership mode, China has already embarked on an ambitious plan to take its HSR length to 28,000 km, two times the length of the existing total global network, over the next four years.

"Railways is one of the sectors in which India was previously more advanced than China. In the early 1980s, China lagged behind India in both total length, and length of electrified routes. China's HSR network is shaping up at an extraordinary speed. The country saw its first experimental HSR in operation in 2003, but by 2014, it would have reached 28,000 km in length—twice as large as similar networks in the rest of the world combined," the study said.

The IIFL study said China's HSR will shrink north-to-south travel time, by an estimated 65% and from East to West by 75%. In other words, China will collapse to only 9% of its current size as measured by travel time, it added.

Last month, India's Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, presenting the Railway budget for fiscal year 2010-11, revealed the six HSR corridors and announced that a national HSR authority will be set up for planning, implementing, and monitoring these projects.

Tajikistan Arrests British-Run Jihadi Terrorists

March 11 (EIRNS)—In a sharp move against British-sponsored terrorism, Tajikistan's highest court has sentenced 56 followers of Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), a radical Muslim group, for extremist activities in the Central Asian state. TJ, headquartered in Britain, and extremely active in some of the Central Asian countries, gained international media attention when it announced plans for building the largest mosque in Europe in Dewsbury, U.K. "Twenty-three defendants were given jail terms of between 3 and 6 years, while the remaining 33 individuals were fined between [$8,000 and $16,000]," a court spokesman said.

TJ, founded in 1926 as an independent movement in India, is banned in Tajikistan. The group began its expansion in 1946, and within the past two decades, has spread its activities to Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Concerns about TJ's activities have risen since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Earlier, the Tajik Court had sentenced members of another British-run group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), which is also headquartered in Britain, and banned in many countries, including Tajikistan. Since the end of the Cold War, HuT has provided armed insurgents to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). IMU is involved in a violent campaign throughout Central Asia with the intent to dismantle sovereign nation-states, and establish a Caliphate.

Tajikistan, a soft target, is also a major transit route for Afghan opium and heroin into Russia. These terrorist groups are mostly the carriers of narcotics. These Islamic jihadis are the foot soldiers of British intelligence efforts to undermine Russia's security and weaken Russia's southern flank by unleashing violent movements.

Aquino vs. Marcos over Nuclear Power—Again!

March 7 (EIRNS)—Twenty-five years after Cory Aquino was used as a puppet of George Shultz and Henry Kissinger to replace Philippines nationalist President Ferdinand Marcos, with the (successful) intention of shutting down the completed nuclear power plant in Bataan, the battle over nuclear power, and the Bataan plant in particular, is again engaged—and by the same Marcos and Aquino, only this time their children.

Marcos's son, Rep. Ferdinand "Bong-Bong" Marcos, responded to the blackouts across the Philippine nation by demanding that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant be recommissioned. The 600 MW plant is "enough to energize Luzon" (the northern island where Manila is located), said Marcos, arguing truthfully that the plant was closed by Cory Aquino, as her first act in office, for purely political reasons, and that "there was no scientific or technical bases made."

Meanwhile, Sen. Benigno "Noy-Noy" Aquino, Cory's son, a political lightweight, who is the front-runner for the May Presidential election entirely on the basis of his mother's role in the fraudulent "People's Power" revolution which overthrew Marcos, is demanding that the Bataan plant remain shut permanently, noting that his mother did not open it because of safety concerns—the excuse used for the imperial act of nuclear sabotage against the Philippines.

Proving his slavish allegiance to the same imperial forces who controlled his mother, Aquino added that there should be no other nuclear plants either, supposedly because of a problem with waste storage. Aquino is promoting dependence on the primitive and genocidal use of solar and wind power.

The Empire Is Threatening To Use the ICC Weapon Against Myanmar

Mar. 13 (EIRNS)—The UN Special Rapporteur to Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, has threatened to blow up the Clinton State Department efforts to engage the Myanmar regime, by bringing in the British wrecking operation, the International Criminal Court (ICC). Quintana recommended to the UN that a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity be established to investigate the Myanmar government for possible referral to the ICC. As EIR has documented, the ICC is a fully British/Soros apparatus established to destroy any sovereign nation which defies British orders, with the case of Sudan being the worst example.

Quintana, formerly a human rights honcho in South America, visited Myanmar in February, and participated in a hearing at the UN last week of Soros-backed opponents of the Myanmar government. Quintana said there was "a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights" in Myanmar, and "an indication that those human rights violations are the result of a state policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels."

Why the sudden shift to using the big guns? As in Sudan, the ICC weapon is being used just as the internal situation in Myanmar is improving, with the first elections in decades to be held later this year, while several promising meetings with U.S. State Department and Congressional representatives were held over the past months.

Russia-China Relations a Model for International Relations

March 7 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a foreign policy press conference with reporters covering the annual session of the National People's Congress, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi praised the China-Russia relations as a model for good international relations. Replying to a question from ITAR-TASS, Minister Yang noted that the two countries support each other's "core interests" and have similar views and close communication on key international issues.

Yang referred to the recent October agreements between the two countries on questions of energy, oil, gas, nuclear energy, and high-speed rail as an example of this closeness. "We are also promoting cooperation at the local level between northwestern China and eastern Siberia," Yang said. "This series of infrastructural projects plays an instructive role in the nature of the relationship. The Russia-China relationship has become a model for international relations, in particular, relations between two big countries," he said. There will be a series of high-level meetings this year, which will strengthen that cooperation, Yang added.

President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and NPC chairman Wu Bangguo will have summit meetings this year with their Russian counterparts. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will be traveling to Moscow this month at the invitation of Prime Minister Putin and will attend the opening ceremony of the Year of the Chinese Language in Russia. "I'm sure the relationship will just become better and better," Yang said.