The US said on Wednesday that it supported Pakistan's deadly air raid on an Islamic school and praised President Pervez Musharraf for showing "determination" to fight terrorism.
"There was a strike and it was intended to go after al-Qaeda. And the Pakistani government did it on the basis of intelligence that it had gathered and we support them in this," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
He spoke after armed Pakistani tribesmen ransacked government buildings on Wednesday in protest at a deadly air raid on an Islamic school that officials said was visited by top militants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
A leading human rights group and Pakistani politicians meanwhile called for an independent probe into claims that the 80 people who died in Monday's strike in Bajaur tribal agency were all students and teachers.
"A tactic of the Taliban or al-Qaeda or people on both sides of that border who are trying to commit [acts] of terror -- they are going to do everything they can to create carnage and kill civilians," Snow said.
"We understand it. It makes it tough. And President Musharraf is showing determination, and is in a situation that certainly has its political perils and it requires courage," Snow said.
In a second day of demonstrations against the US and Pakistani governments more than 20,000 people, many brandishing guns, gathered at several rallies in the remote Pashtun tribal belt along the Afghan border.
The biggest protest was at Salarzae village, near the blown-up madrasah, where about 10,000 bearded men demanded Musharraf's resignation.
Anti-Western feeling has been high amid allegations by Islamist leaders that US forces based in Afghanistan either launched the raid themselves using Predator drones or ordered Pakistan to carry it out.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so