‘Majestic’ Forbidden City Wows Obama
Anyone who has visited Beijing’s Forbidden City, the historic former home of China’s emperors during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, knows even an entire day inside the massive architectural masterpiece is barely enough time to scratch the surface.
And for a president on a tight schedule, a whistle-stop tour of the landmark was always likely to be more of a photo opportunity than a learning experience.
But for United States President Barack Obama, a visit to the world-famous complex was not to be missed, no matter how limited his time.
Obama took a break from his diplomatic mission to Asia yesterday to spend 50 minutes inside the Forbidden City, which is also known as the Palace Museum.
Today, he will carve a little more me-time from his busy four-day agenda in China to visit the Great Wall before he leaves the country for the next leg of his tour in the Republic of Korea.
“It’s beautiful. It’s a magnificent place to visit. I will come back with my girls and my wife,” Obama said before leaving the museum through the northern Gate of Divine Prowess (Shenwu Men).
Fifty minutes earlier, Obama and Forbidden City curator Zheng Xinmiao had entered the palace through the main entrance on the south side – the Meridian Gate (Wu Men). The president had walked along the museum’s central axis, which is also the north-south line along which Beijing is orientated.
The Forbidden City was closed to the public for Obama’s visit.
In the bright sunshine and cool wind, without the usual hoards of visitors, the palace was a peaceful place. Its golden glazed rooftops still bore a dusting of snow that had fallen several days earlier.
Obama, who was dressed in a brown leather jacket and matching leather shoes spoke warmly about the palace.
“Very good!” he exclaimed in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe Dian) while standing before dozens of journalists and photographers. He also posed for photographs in the square in front of the hall.
Inside Taihe Dian, Zheng told Obama about the building’s history and its architecture and Obama asked about the words hanging on a board in the middle of the hall.
“Jian Ji Sui You,” he was told. It meant “emperors should make good rules”.
Taihe Dian was one of the largest wooden structures ever built in China and is the biggest hall in the Forbidden City.
At the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (Kunning Gong), Obama peered through the glass into the rooms that were used on the emperors’ wedding night.
“It is truly majestic, and a testimony to the greatness and longevity of Chinese civilization,” Obama wrote in the official guest book before leaving the museum.
Obama was the fourth incumbent US president to visit the Forbidden City, following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton.
Asked by reporters what he thought of the Forbidden City, Obama flashed his trademark smile. “Beautiful,” he said. After a slight pause he added, “spectacular”. By Lin Shujuan , China Daily
Pak Forces Close To Uprooting Taliban In Waziristan: Petraeus
Pakistani forces are close to uprooting Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the country’s lawless area of south Waziristan, a top US General said on Saturday, but advised that the military needed to hold onto these captured territories.
Pakistan should put the cleared territories under a senior Corps Commander for post-conflict vigilance and rebuilding to ensure that these areas don’t slide back to become terrorist havens, General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command, said.
Attributing the sudden rise in Taliban suicide attacks across Pakistan to the army striking decisive blows to their strongholds, the US commander said the military needed to continue their focus on the campaign.
“When you go into the enemy’s safe havens and sanctuaries, they come after you; and they try to open up new areas. It’s always been the case,” Patreaus said in an interview.
I think we have said that as Pakistan remains serious, and continues to build on the progress it achieved in Swat in NWFP. They have launched the operations into South Waziristan, as they have now, and are almost getting close to their final objectives, the enemy is going to fight back, he said.
While commending the strong military action taken by the Pakistani forces against terrorist groups inside the country, Petraeus said the situation there is still tough.
The US General, whose command stretches to US forces in Afghanistan, said the Pakistani military campaign in Waziristan, Swat and other rescue areas close to the Afghan frontier indicated that Islamabad had now come to realise that the existential threat to the country that is most pressing, at the very least, is the internal extremists, not necessarily India.
Not saying that that threat has gone away in their assessments, but the fact is, the threat that is most immediate — “the wolf closest to the sled,” as they say, indeed, was the internal extremists, Petraeus said.
“They have acted on that,” the US commander said.
Saying that the situation in Pakistan was “heartening” as compared to the critical situation there 10 months ago, Petraeus said.
The politicians including opposition leaders like Nawaz Sharif, the clergy and citizenry had now come to recognize that it was the internal militants that were threatening the very existence of Pakistan, he said.
But, he said, the need in the situation was “to hold and rebuild.”
“They have acted on that. Now, not only have they acted, they have done so with considerable skill. Pakistani military cleared and left Swat twice since 9/11. This time they cleared, and they have stayed. And they are holding and they are rebuilding.,” he noted. Indian Express
US Officer Goes On Killing Spree At Army Base
Accustomed to terrible human loss overseas, the United States Army was last night struggling to come to terms with a savage outbreak of violence at home after an officer opened fire on the sprawling Fort Hood military base in Texas, which is at the tip of the spear of regular US troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
After hours of confusion when the entire complex – the largest such base in the world – located between Waco and Austin, was on a security lockdown, a military spokesman confirmed that the rampage had ended with the deaths of 12 people and the wounding of 31 others. Most of the injured had been rushed to hospitals across central Texas. The shock that was rippling across the country last night was hardly relieved after the shooter was identified as a trusted officer with medical duties. Officials said that Major Nadal Malik Hasan, a licensed doctor and psychiatrist, was shot and wounded by military police at the scene but not before he had extinguished the lives of 12 people. Military sources added that two other soldiers were apprehended after the slaughter, though by dusk last night one had been released. There was no information on what role the second may have had in the killings if any. Hasan opened fire, they said, with two handguns. There was no reason he should have been bearing arms as a doctor.
Major Hasan, said to be 39 years old, allegedly opened fire at roughly 1.30 pm, Texas time, inside a personnel processing building formally known as the Soldier Rating and Processing Center. It is a building soldiers routinely pass through while getting ready to deploy. However, at least one of the victims, was identified as a civilian.
A motive for the shooting was hard to pin down last night. However, there were reports that Hasan, who was trained also in psychiatry and medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, was preparing for deployment to Iraq and was not happy to be going there. He had previously worked at the Walter Reed veterans hospital outside Washington.
There have been six incidents on the ground in Iraq since the start of the conflict when US troops have been felled by one of their own with the loss of 14 lives. Last May, a soldier opened fire on fellow soldiers in a medical facility at Camp Liberty outside Baghdad killing five.
Lt General Bob Cone spoke to reporters on the perimeter of the base. “We have had a terrible tragedy at Fort Hood today. The situation is ongoing but we are very close to a resolution,” he said, almost three hours after the first shots were fired.
“The numbers that we are looking at are 12 dead and 31 wounded.” The wounded were being treated in hospitals across central Texas, he said.
The shooting will rekindle debate about the strains that have been placed for years on the US military community after eight years of conflict in Afghanistan and almost as many years in Iraq. For months, military leaders have been seeking ways to monitor the mental health of soldiers precisely to guard against such deadly tragedies. Fort Hood is home to a programme set up to help returning soldiers cope with stress incurred by warfare.
In Washington aides kept President Barack Obama abreast of developments at the huge complex that includes housing areas and several schools. Mr Obama called the shootings “horrifying”. Attending a conference on Native American rights, he added: “My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and with the families of those who have fallen… we will make sure we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident”.
For soldiers who are trained to face possible injury or worse while deployed abroad, there was no emotional preparation for the shock of such an indiscriminate act of mass killing taking place on US soil and indeed within the confines of one of their own bases where they would have considered themselves entirely safe.
“I am horrified just like everyone else,” Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a US Senator for Texas, said of the killings. “This is a base that has sent people time and time again to Iraq and now to Afghanistan. They have borne a lot of the responsibility for the war on terror and for this to happen at this particular base is heartbreaking.”
As many as 500 military personnel were mobilised at one stage to conduct a sweep of the base to ensure its security. Witnesses on the edge of the facility meanwhile saw ambulances coming and going from the main entrance and helicopters landing inside it to ferry the severely wounded to nearby hospitals.
Members of families were also assembled on parking lots on the edge of the base trying to determine whether any of their loved ones may have been hurt or killed in the shootings.
Fort Hood has close to 50,000 soldiers assigned to it. In addition, it is home to many military families. As well as sending solders into harm’s way in war zones – no other military base in the US has lost more men and women in Iraq than Fort Hood – it has seen many wounded soldiers returning from war.
Fort Hood: The world’s largest military base
* Fort Hood, near Austin, Texas, is the world’s largest military installation, occupying 340 square kilometres.
* It is home to more than 65,000 soldiers, civilian personnel and family members.
* Two armoured divisions are based there, and up to 40,000 US troops.
* It was opened in 1942, as a place to test anti-tank guns that were crucial to combating German blitzkrieg tactics.
* 75 troops at the base have committed suicide between the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and July this year – more than at any other army post.
* The base is home to III Corps, the official counteroffensive force, who are known as “America’s Hammer.”
* In January 2003, then President George W Bush addressed 4,500 troops at the base, and told them to be ready for war.
* The base’s Fourth Infantry Division captured Saddam Hussein in 2003.
By David Usborne, The Independent
Clinton Points Out Advances Notched in Mideast, Pakistan
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrapping up a weeklong mission to Pakistan and the Middle East, shrugged off criticism of her diplomatic tactics and said she made important advances in her efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace and promote stronger U.S. ties with the Islamic world.
Mrs. Clinton received qualified support Wednesday from Egypt’s leaders, who held three hours of talks in Cairo on the Mideast peace process with the top U.S. diplomat and her advisers.
Mrs. Clinton has been seeking Arab backing for a relaunching of direct Israel-Palestinian peace talks without the total freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that President Barack Obama has repeatedly demanded.
The chief U.S. diplomat’s push has been rejected in recent days by many Arab leaders, as well as the Palestinian leadership, as a concession to Israel. But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government, a key player in Mideast politics, refrained from criticizing Mrs. Clinton’s plan and suggested there was a way forward for the negotiations.
“The United States and the secretary feel that there has been progress … about the issue of freezing the settlements, even if it’s not fully complete,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit at a news briefing with Mrs. Clinton. “Here we feel that we need to focus on the endgame.”
Mr. Gheit blamed Israel for any failure in the talks. “We feel that Israel is hindering the process,” he said.
The Egyptian position helped Mrs. Clinton end a week of diplomacy on a relatively high note. Her trip was marked by public attacks on U.S. foreign policy and charges she backtracked on a key U.S. commitment to its Arab allies on the settlement issue.
Her public praise of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Saturday was widely seen as a diplomatic gaffe that undercut the Obama administration’s hopes of being seen as an honest broker between the Arabs and Israelis.
Mrs. Clinton’s swing through Pakistan, Israel and three key Arab states this week marked her most ambitious mission since taking office in January.
Some have seen the former first lady as a second-tier player within the Obama administration on Washington’s urgent foreign-policy challenges, particularly Iran, Afghanistan, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Initially, Mrs. Clinton appeared to define her role as secretary by focusing on environmental, developmental and women’s issues.
Over recent days, Mrs. Clinton significantly shook up this perception.
In Islamabad, she met senior Pakistani generals and intelligence officials and pressed the U.S. fight against al Qaeda militants. In the Middle East, Mrs. Clinton stepped out of the shadow of the administration’s special envoy to the region, former Sen. George Mitchell, and pushed Israeli and Arab leaders to move toward peace.
The secretary and her advisers said they will continue pushing the Arabs and Israelis to return to peace talks — and also explore new mechanisms to better define the diplomatic path. By Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal
You Are Not Alone, Hillary Assures Pakistan
When she arrived in Pakistan, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared she wanted to engage directly with the people of Pakistan to remove their misunderstandings about America and its role in the region.
On the second day of her three-day visit, Ms. Clinton flew to Lahore and spent a considerable amount of time doing exactly that, and was rewarded with a first-hand feel of the suspicions and mistrust that most Pakistanis have about the U.S. and its relationship with their country.
A couple of hundred students gathered for a “town hall” meeting with Ms. Clinton at the famed Government College of Lahore on Thursday, and shot off questions at her ranging from the U.S.’s perceived partial relationship with India, to the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation and the CIA drone attacks in Pakistan, to whether the U.S. would support a treason trial of former ruler Pervez Musharraf.
On a day after more than 100 people perished in one of the deadliest bombings yet witnessed in this country, the students wanted to know what Pakistan was getting in return for its cooperation with the U.S. in the “war on terror”, commonly described as America’s war.
Mum on drones
Ms. Clinton’s pitch was that this was Pakistan’s war, but Pakistan was not in it alone. The U.S., she said, stood with Pakistan and would help defeat the extremists and the terrorists whose goal was to take over the country.
She side-stepped a question on the drone attacks, and why the U.S. was chary about sharing the intelligence and letting Pakistan do the rest.
The U.S. has never acknowledged the drone attacks, and Ms. Clinton was not about to do that either. She simply responded that “there is a war going on”, and America was there to help Pakistan.
One student wanted to know why the U.S. “always” supported India despite Pakistan’s cooperation with it through difficult situations. Ms. Clinton’s responded that this was a wrong perception.
The Secretary of State conceded that there had been some “ups and downs” in relations with Pakistan, but described bilateral ties as “consistent” and said the U.S. had given far more aid to Pakistan.
“We are friends with both Pakistan and India, we work with both,” she said.
Ms. Clinton also said that while the U.S. encouraged both countries to resolve their differences, it was up to India and Pakistan to do that through bilateral means.
“What we hope is that at some point in the future — which I would like to see in the not too distant future — Pakistan and India can resolve their outstanding differences,” she said.
She predicted that Pakistan “would take off like a rocket in terms of economic development” if it had the benefit of trade and economic relations with India.
“If you had trade opening up to the north, east and west it would make a huge economic difference to your country and one of the major obstacles standing in the way is the distrust and the history between India and Pakistan, which blocks the kind of opportunities for investment that I think could make a huge difference,” she said.
The students posed tough questions on the conditions imposed in the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation, and said what she repeated to Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif at a meeting with him later in the day: Pakistan has a choice to take it or leave it.
Several roads in Lahore were closed for the day, so were schools. There was a heavy presence of police and other security personnel on the streets with Pakistan taking no chances over this visit.
Ms. Clinton’s public relations offensive in Pakistan included visits to the famous Sufi shrine of Bari Imam in Islamabad, and in Lahore, a look-in at the historic Badshahi Mosque built by the Mughal emperor Aurangazeb, and the Lahore Fort next door to it. By Nirupama Subramanian, The Hindu