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Published on October 22, 2007

The BBC pitched its series as a science report of the Arctic ice cap retreating due to global warming. But trading nations and the maritime industry see a practical poser: the commercial viability or otherwise of the Passage through the Bering Strait as a new trade route. Canadian scientists estimate the Arctic ice has shrunk by a third since the 1960s. The European space agency's satellite imaging shows the stretch was fully navigable this year. What captures attention is this typical scenario: A container ship leaving London for a Japanese port can save some two weeks going northwest instead of via the Panama Canal.

The implication is that a revolution in trade dispersal is in the making. A viable Passage route will impact on different nations differently. North Asian trading giants (China, South Korea, Japan and possibly Asiatic Russia) will gain from the faster carriage of cargo between Asia and Europe. Ports of call strung along the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia could, as trade patterns stand, conceivably become less important. Creating a working route is of course subject to variables. The Canadian government, betraying nervousness about the environmental impact of tankers plying the channels, has said icebergs in summer months still will make shipping hazardous. Canada also regards the area to be internal waters but it can expect legal challenges.

The big-picture scenario to base suppositions on is that the Passage is more likely than less likely to become an alternative route, at the rate rising temperatures are altering the polar topography. Take it from there.

The Straits Times is a member of the Asia News Network.

Bhutto must fight on

The Guardian

LONDON - Benazir Bhutto's traumatic homecoming to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile has already established two political facts that will dominate the stormy months ahead. The first is that hundreds of thousands came out on to the streets of Karachi to welcome her return. Despite all the power and money at their disposal, Pakistan's military and their proxies have never managed to mobilise as many people in all their years of misrule. The second is that Bhutto's return to the political stage represents a force that so threatens some elements of Pakistani society that they are prepared to blow her up - along with the entire leadership of her Pakistan People's party.

Bhutto on Saturday accused neither the government nor the president, General Pervez Musharraf, of complicity in the atrocity in Karachi, in which over 130 people died. She pointed the finger instead at supporters of Pakistan's former military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, the general who overthrew and executed her father. Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are under military command and led by General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani - the man that Musharraf has chosen to replace him as head of the army, should he stand down and become a civilian president. But none of this precludes the possibility that rogue elements within the ISI could have used suicide bombers to try to get rid of Bhutto.

There is no doubt about the threat that a genuinely popular civilian political leader represents to the power of Pakistan's billionaire generals. Whatever corruption charges still hang over the heads of Bhutto and her husband in three different countries, they are a pale reflection of the money and land that the senior army generals have managed to accrue in the couple's absence. Pakistanis who came out on to the streets in their thousands are aware of the corruption cloud hanging over the heads of the Bhuttos. But eight years of government propaganda and innumerable court actions against her have done nothing to dent her popularity.

Musharraf's shelf life as a political leader has expired. The only viable way for him to continue is as a figurehead president who could work as an interlocutor between the prime minister and the army. For this to happen Bhutto has still to claw back substantial powers from the presidency, not least the power to sack the prime minister. Ever since she got off the plane yesterday there has been only one way forward - for Bhutto to carry on campaigning for elections that are due to take place in January.

Like all choices in Pakistani politics, Ms Bhutto's is a flawed one. She has already had two periods in government. Neither lived up to the hopes placed in her as Pakistan's first female leader. Even so, if the process of restoring democratic rule is to work and if the country is to be released from the stranglehold of its military, Ms Bhutto must be part of it and her return is something to be welcomed.