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Two weeks ago terrorists in Kashmir made an inferno
of two carriages of two carriages of the Friendship Express between
New Delhi (India) and Lahore (Pakistan). Most the injured in the
terrorist bombing were Pakistanis on the way home from India. There
were also some Indians on the way to Pakistan.
The Friendship Express was opened
owing to the determination of the governments of both India and
Pakistan to forge a socioeconomic solidarity despite the festering
hate some Indians feel against Pakistanis, and vice-versa. The
conflict between the two nations is a result of colonial history.
India and Pakistan were once one under the British Empire. When the
British gave back independence to the countries of the Indo-Pakistan
subcontinent, economic factors heightened the differences between
the two peoples. Muslims turned against Indian Hindus and Sikhs in
areas that became parts of Pakistan in the partition. Hindus also
oppressed Muslims who became the minority in parts of independent
India.
Kashmir, one of that part of the
world’s prettiest places, was also driven by religious, economic
and ethnic conflict.
In today’s world of the
economic global village the happiness and prosperity of neighboring
countries can only be assured by cooperation. This, plus the wisdom
that peace is better than war in every sense, has made the
governments of India and Pakistan more determined than ever to end
the conflict between the two countries, both of which are nuclear
powers.
So, despite the gruesome
terrorist bombing of the Friendship Express, the two governments
have continued their peace talks. India and Pakistan are hammering
out a system of achieving lasting peace in their region.
One of the first things the talks
must achieve is the removal of armed forces along their borders.
They could arrive at an agreement to form a common force to police
the borders and go after the terrorists. This would no longer be
difficult, now that both sides have agreed to be open to each other
about the development of their nuclear capabilities.
The two governments’ decision
not to allow the Friendship Express carnage to derail the peace
process frustrates the terrorists whose aim was to make each side
distrustful of the other to the point of scuttling the peace
process.
They had succeeded in doing that
before. In July 1986 terrorists also bombed a train in Mumbai. They
killed 182 passengers and wounded the peace talks. These were
suspended as a result of the Mumbai bombings.
The formal end of conflict will
mean that more Indians and Pakistanis will cross over to each
other’s countries to visit relatives and old friends and do
business.
Both countries have problems of
massive poverty. Both are, however, especially India, emerging
markets that can have dramatic growth rates once foreign investments
come.
India is already an
economic-growth center in South Asia.
The Philippines has excellent
diplomatic, people-to-people and commercial ties with both
countries. Their solidarity and prosperity will benefit our country.
Protect our women from toxics
INTERNATIONAL Women’s Month is
being celebrated throughout March.
We join the EcoWaste Coalition,
an environmental network on waste and pollution issues, laud the
Filipino women, especially mothers, for their paramount role in
mentoring us on ecological practices such as repairing, reusing and
recycling our discards.
Ms. Elsie Brandes-De Veyra of
EcoEaste Coalition and member of the National Commission on the Role
of Filipino Women, has asked The Times to remind our readers that in
the process of turning households into homes, our mothers have
instilled in us life-sustaining values such as caring for our
surroundings, doing more with fewer resources, cutting waste and
even creating wealth from trash.
Above all, we must thank our
mothers for nourishing us with breast-milk—the best and healthiest
food for human babies that requires no packaging and causes no
pollution.
We would like to call attention
to the need to protect our women from toxic chemicals that endanger
their health and their capacity to bear, nurture and sustain life.
With thousands of chemicals being
manufactured and traded globally, it has become “normal” to find
toxics in cosmetic products, household cleaning materials, consumer
goods, toys and, of course, the very air we breathe and in the food
and water we consume.
Many of these chemicals are
lipophilic, which means they lodge in the body’s fat cells. As
nature has endowed women’s bodies with extra stores of fat for
their childbearing and breast-feeding functions, women tend to be
more vulnerable to contamination by these chemicals.
So invasive are these chemicals
that babies are born tainted with assorted toxics. In 2005 the
Environmental Working Group and Commonweal released a report showing
an average of 200 industrial chemicals and contaminant—such as
pesticides, consumer product ingredients, waste from burning trash,
gasoline and coal—in the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies born in
US hospitals in 2004.
To honor our women and protect
our children from harm, let us prevent and reduce toxic
contamination of our environment from smoke-belching vehicles, dirty
factories and products, horrendous dumps and incinerators and other
pollution sources. Let us work together to eliminate human exposure
to toxic hazards.
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