The Rats Return

Christian vigilantes a sign of troubled times in Mindanao

The return of Roman Catholic militiamen for the first time in 30 years is a sign of a community that's become dangerously polarized along religious lines

By Jonathan Adams | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor December 12, 2008 edition

Aleosan, Philippines - On a muddy, shaded track between fertile farmlands, 30 men lounge in flip-flops and tattered camoflauge, displaying their beaten-up M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles.

They call themselves ilaga or "rats" in a local Philippines dialect. They're vigilantes: Christian farmers who have taken up arms to protect their land and families against Muslim rebels in this troubled corner of the southern Philippines.

Most have no military training, says their puckish leader Felimon Cayang, who styles himself "Commander Max." He shows off his souped-up M-16, tattoos, and religious "amulets" – patches tied to his necklace and underwear bearing images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary and worn for protection in battle.

He says his group held their own in a day-long firefight in July with a much larger group of Muslim rebels led by Commander Umbra Kato, just a few miles away.

They suffered no casualties. As for the other side, Commander Max says with clear satisfaction, "I don't know how many we killed, but we found blood."

Here on the island of Mindanao, such Roman Catholic vigilantes haven't been a force since the 1970s, when all-out communal war raged. Their return now, some 30 years later, is a sign of a society that's again become dangerously polarized along religious lines.

It's one sad consequence of the breakdown of peace talks between the Philippines government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Four months after talks broke down, the military is still engaged in a deadly, cat-and-mouse game with three "rogue" commanders, including Mr. Kato. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim civilians remain in makeshift camps, afraid to return to their homes. And Malaysian monitors who helped enforce a cease-fire left Nov. 30 after their mandate expired.

With the peace process in tatters and no clear way forward, many fear that the gains of 11 years of negotiations are fast disappearing amid recriminations and communal mistrust.

"The opportunity for a democratic and peaceful solution to the conflict is becoming narrower and narrower," says Abhoud Lingga, director of the Institute for Bangsamoro Studies in Mindanao. "For us peace advocates, this is alarming."

The town of Aleosan lies on the faultline of communal divisions in Mindanao. The Moros – as Muslims here call themselves – regard this and surrounding areas as part of their ancestral homeland. But much of Aleosan's land has now been owned and farmed for decades by Christians from the central Philippines, who settled here after World War II with government encouragement.

Sitting in his sunlit office here, Aleosan mayor Loreto Cabaya says he helped organize a civilian militia – including some ilaga – to prevent Muslim rebels from grabbing land ahead of a peace deal. The deal, which was supposed to be signed this past summer, envisioned an expanded Muslim autonomous area with greater control over its resources and revenue. Seven of Aleosan's 19 barangay (villages) – those with Muslim-heavy populations – looked set to become part of that Muslim area.

It never happened. Instead, the Philippines Supreme Court issued an 11-hour injunction blocking the government from signing the deal. Later, it ruled the deal unconstitutional, arguing it would have effectively partitioned the Philippines.

Mr. Cabaya agrees. He says he can accept giving the Muslims more land and autonomy, but he thinks the proposed deal went too far. "I think the conflict will be worse if demands of the MILF are met, because their demand is [for] a separate state," says Cabaya. "It's being disguised as autonomy, but in essence it's a separate state."

Opposition from Christian leaders like Cabaya helped scuttle the deal. Getting them on board in any future peace process will be critical.

When the two sides do get back to the table, there will be a lot of trust to rebuild. After being burned by the Supreme Court, the MILF now has little faith that the Philippines government is a reliable negotiating partner. "We can resume talks," said MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu. "But we doubt very much [that] we can achieve a satisfactory and viable outcome."

Analysts are skeptical, too. "The fundamental problem is, how do you create an autonomous Islamic region in Mindanao that's satisfactory to everyone?" says Scott Harrison, managing director of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a Hong Kong-based risk consultancy. "If you limit it to areas of overwhelming Muslim presence, you could probably sell that. But once you get into marginal areas, it's increasingly difficult."

Aleosan is one of those areas. It's still clearly on edge. Government howitzers in a neighboring town guard against more rebel incursions. Mayor Cabaya is shadowed by two M-16-toting bodyguards, whom he's retained since tensions began this summer. "We haven't let down our guard – they're still out there," says Cabaya, referring to the rebels.

The ilaga are also keeping their powder dry. They're a ragtag bunch, some in their 60s and even 70s – veterans of the vicious 1970s vigilante wars here. They keep a wary watch over their farmlands, fearing another round of fighting – especially now that international monitors have left.

"Both sides are always preparing," says Eduardo Cabaya, who doubles as a municipal councilor. "As long as Umbra Kato is out there, we'll be here."

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Trouble on the eastern front

Renewed violence in the southern Philippines shows the difficulty of wiping out terrorists

BY JONATHAN ADAMS

Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 11, 2008

MANILA -- Just a couple years ago, the Philippines was hailed as a success story in the US-led War on Terror.

A military campaign by US-backed Philippines special forces had routed al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists from their stronghold in the southern island of Basilan, killed their leaders, and confined surviving diehards to a more remote island to lick their wounds.

Combined with generous economic aid and "hearts-and-minds" outreach efforts, it was called the "Philippines model" -- a lesson for counter-terror operations across the globe. "A concerted combination ... -- the iron fist and the hand of friendship -- succeeded in driving the ASG [Abu Sayyaf Group] from Basilan and restoring both peace and hope to the island," crowed an August 2006 State Department report.

But recent violence shows how hard it is to keep the peace -- and to uproot terrorists for good.

Fighting broke out in Basilan early last week between the Philippines military and a regrouped Abu Sayyaf (the name is Arabic for "Father of the Sword"). Battles Sunday left five soldiers dead and 24 injured, and reports say some 3,000 civilians have fled their villages amid the violence. The Abu Sayyaf is blamed for a recent spate of kidnappings, the latest of a 9-year-old girl and a nursing student.

How did Basilan go back to being a basketcase?

In an interview last week, one US official explained, "if you withdraw too quickly without leaving appropriate law enforcement to maintain order, you leave a vacuum."

The lesson: terrorists love a vacuum.

But in the southern Philippines, it's not clear how much more the government can do. Its resources are already stretched to the limit there fighting a major communist insurgency, hunting "rogue" Muslim rebels and dealing with a witch's brew of kidnapping gangs, extortionists, gun-runners and international terrorists in dense jungle terrain.

One minor victory: Last week police arrested in Mindanao a suspected bomb-maker for Jema’ah Islamiyah, the Indonesia-based terror outfit.

And analysts say despite Abu Sayyaf's resurgence in Basilan, it's still a shadow of its former self -- lacking leadership, money and strong foreign sponsorship. Where it once pulled off high-profile abductions of foreigners (including Americans) from distant tourist resorts, now it's going after easier, more local targets in a desperate fund-raising bid.

Still, U.S. officials and analysts say fighting Abu Sayyaf and other terrorists here is a long-term mission with no clear end in sight. Abu Sayyaf numbers as many as 200, with another 200 to 400 "lurking in the wings," says Scott Harrison, managing director of Pacific Strategies and Assessments.

"It's like a cancer -- it's immune to destruction. If the [counter-terrorism] efforts are successful, their numbers just contract. People bury their weapons, disappear back into the villages, wait for the dust to settle, and then recoup themselves to various degrees. But they are by no means destroyed."

In Basilan, the terrorists typically have relatives willing to harbor and hide them, rather than help turn them in. "These people are very clannish – their families don't want to expose them," said Patricia Cabiguin, a research analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. "There are strong blood bonds."

Another reason there's no quick fix to the problem, says Harrison and others, is because Abu Sayyaf and other terrorists are products of decades of dysfunctional policies that aren't easy to reverse. "These are areas that have suffered from generations of abuse at the hands of the Filipino government and Filipino military," says Harrison. "Poverty, neglect and abuse is what continues to fuel the Abu Sayyaf Group."

A second U.S. official adds, "You need a concerted effort of hard power and soft power to make up for a century of insecurity and underdevelopment."

The U.S. is doing its part – spending US$220 million on development in the southern Philippines between 2001 and 2005 alone. Since 2002 it's also trained Philippines special forces, supplied high-tech equipment like night-vision goggles, and provided an "eye in the sky" for the hunt for terrorists with its unmanned aerial vehicles.

But the U.S. can do little to address Muslims' deeply-rooted historical and political grievances. That's strictly a job for Manila. The government tried to take a step in that direction this past summer, with a preliminary peace deal with the main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to expand a Muslim autonomous area and give it greater control over resources and revenue.

Unfortunately, that peace process collapsed in August amid violence, recriminations and a Supreme Court injunction.

The Philippines military is now going after three "rogue" MILF commanders accused of atrocities against civilians. And the MILF too has gotten caught up in the Basilan fighting, with three rebels killed there, including a member of the MILF's ceasefire monitoring team, in strikes the military says were aimed at Abu Sayyaf.

The MILF insists it does not engage in terrorism and denies links with Abu Sayyaf. But in Basilan ties are close, say analysts. "The relationship between the two is blurry," says Cabiguin.

A tactical alliance between the two amid the current military strikes could further escalate the situation – and make it even harder to weed out the real, hard-core terrorists.

On the Eastern Front, too, it turns out, there are no easy victories.

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Letter from Cotabato City

Tensions simmer over pig in Cotabato City

In this majority-Muslim Filipino city, a fight over roast pig sheds light on bigger hurdles Christians and Muslims here navigate.

Christian Science Monitor
December 5, 2008

COTABATO CITY -- To understand the culture clash wracking the southern Philippines, consider the lechon.

That's the name for the roast pig that's a Philippines' signature dish. Sold by the kilo in public markets, it's a must-have at any Filipino celebration.

But pork is taboo for Muslims, now a majority in this city (about 60 percent, compared with 40 percent Christian), and who see this part of the southern Philippines island of Mindanao as their ancestral homeland.

Eating pork is a no-no, and even smelling or seeing it is offensive to some.

So what to do about the street lechon sellers?

In Cotabato City last year, shop-owners were ordered to cover their lechon, says Flordeliza Cavite. I found her selling her swine at a stall downtown. Vendors had to use curtains, paint over windows, or move their pork inside to avoid offending passersby and to comply with the ordinance.

This year, rules were relaxed, she said – possibly the result of a power struggle between the Muslim mayor and the city council (mostly Christians).

In a region that's seen bloody, on-and-off warfare between the Philippines military and Muslim rebels for decades, the lechon problem may seem trivial. But it highlights the tricky compromises needed in order for Christians and Muslims to live here in peace as neighbors.

For the fundamental question now is how to expand and enhance an already-existing, nearby, Muslim autonomous region, while respecting Christian neighbors' rights and way of life.

The stakes are higher than dead pig displays. Get the balance right, and peace could finally come to Mindanao. Get it wrong, and the insurgency that's racked the island for some 40 years will grind on.

That conflict has drained Manila's coffers, killed thousands, displaced more, and caused a refugee problem in Malaysia. It's also created a lawless haven in this area for gunrunners, arms smugglers, kidnappers, and terrorists – including some involved in the murderous Bali bombings.

In early August, the government and Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), were on the verge of signing a preliminary peace deal. If signed, Cotabato City and some nearby, Muslim-majority communities would have become part of an expanded Muslim autonomous region. And not only a bigger region, but one with greatly expanded powers – to run its own courts, and security force, and control much more of its own resources.

Only an 11th-hour Supreme Court injunction stopped the deal. That outcome sparked renewed skirmishes between the MILF and the Philippines military, stalling the peace process.

But many of the area's Christians were relieved. Ms. Cavite worries that if the city becomes part of the Muslim autonomous area, Muslim leaders will ban the public sale of lechon. Her feelings are raw. "Muslims are very bad," she says. "They will control us Christians."

Other Christian locals say they'll move if it becomes a Muslim autonomous area.

Their fears are misplaced, says MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu. "Mindanao is totally different than in other parts of the Muslim world – here we are living side by side with Christians. So we will be liberal on [these] issues," he says.

Comforting talk. But not likely to allay anxieties when it's widely known that in MILF camps, where rebels live with their families, women are shrouded in head-to-toe coverings that leave only their eyes visible, and Islamic shariah law is strictly enforced.

Still, there's some cause from optimism. Moslems and Christians now have long experience living here as neighbors -- creating a town where the sound of the Moslem call to prayer alternates with the sound of the Roman Catholic mass broadcast from a downtown church.

And some things unite Cotabato City residents. One is the "MacDoh", as abbreviation-happy Filipinos call it. A McDonalds -- the impoverished city's first -- is due to open in a matter of days. Locals, both Muslim and Christian alike, are eagerly anticipating the event, and expect long lines on opening day.

Then there's Pac-Man. That's the nickname for Manny Pacquiao, the boxer and local pride of Mindanao. He's set to take on Olympic champion and US boxer Oscar de la Hoya in Las Vegas on Saturday night, and the Filipino media is playing up the fight as if it were the final battle of Armaggedon. Across Mindanao, Muslim and Christian alike are expected to be glued to their TV screens to root for the local boy.

That means a de facto ceasefire between the Philippines military and the MILF this weekend, when the fight will be broadcast live. "If there was a Pacquiao fight every day, there could be peace in Mindanao," said the MILF spokesman Kabalo, as he thumbed through the sports pages after our interview.

It was a joke, of course. But behind the humor, there's the hope for Mindanao: that the commonalities of the Moslems and Christians in this troubled corner of Asia will prevail over their seemingly irreconcilable differences.

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Mystery over Kosovo blast

Three Germans detained related to attack on EU office in Kosovo

The men's detention may be related to Kosovars who object to an EU peacekeeping mission, a security expert says.

Christian Science Monitor
Security and Terrorism Update
November 24, 2008

The detention of three Germans in connection with a recent bomb attack on a European Union office in Pristina, Kosovo, has highlighted tensions over a plan to replace a nine-year UN presence with an EU mission.

On Saturday, a judge ordered the three suspects held for one month while prosecutors gather evidence for terrorism charges. The three are accused of carrying out a Nov. 14 dynamite attack that shattered glass windows at the EU office, but harmed no one.

The plot thickened in recent days, with some reports claiming that the three men are German spies and one observer saying the men were investigating organized crime ties to local officials, who may have wanted them out of the picture. .

Citing court documents, the Associated Press reported that the Kosovo prosecutors believe the Germans "intended to disrupt the bloc's efforts to deploy its new police mission."

Prosecutor Feti Tunuzliu alleged that the three suspects wanted to "hamper and hinder" the mission, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Tunuzliu wrote that one of the suspects threw 300 grams (0.6 pounds) of dynamite at the EU offices from a building across the street Nov. 14 as the two others kept watch.

But the BBC reported that the three detained men insist they were themselves investigating the blast site.

German and Kosovo media report that the men are German intelligence agents but officials in Berlin refuse to comment.

Lawyers for the detainees say the prosecution is seeking terrorism charges that carry a maximum 20-year sentence....

The German weekly Der Spiegel said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February, and has been recognized by more than 50 countries, including the US and Germany. But Serbia refuses to recognize the breakaway nation.

The blast and subsequent arrests come amid a dispute over a plan to deploy an EU police and justice mission to replace UN peacekeepers.

The EU agreed to send a mission in February, but plans were delayed due to Serbia's objections. The UN signaled in June that it was ready to end its mission in Kosovo, The Christian Science Monitor reported, and later brokered a deal with Serbia over the deployment of a replacement EU mission. But now some in Kosovo reject the deal as an affront to the nation's fledgling sovereignty.

A Reuters report noted that the Nov. 14 attack came four days after Kosovo leaders rejected the UN deal.

The AP reported that Kosovo can't accept Serbia's terms for the EU mission's deployment.

Serbia has demanded strict conditions to the EU deployment, demanding that the mission remain neutral in regard to Kosovo's status.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, in turn, reject any conditions on the mission's work.

The 2,000-strong mission is known by its acronym, EULEX. It will include 88 American police officers, judges and prosecutors.

Last Friday, The Washington Post reported that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hoped the EU mission could be deployed by early next month.

The paper noted that under the UN-backed deal, police, judges, and customs officials in minority Serb-run areas would work under UN authority, while those in majority Albanian areas would work with the EU mission.

Kosovo said that would violate its constitution and amounted to a de facto partition of the fledgling state....

Kosovo's population is 90 percent Albanian. The remaining 120,000 Serbs refuse to cooperate with Albanian-run institutions.

The English-language website of German broadcaster Deustche Welle quoted one security expert as saying the public details of the case don't add up.

German terrorism and security expert Elmar Thevessen told DW-RADIO that problems within Kosovo's government might be responsible for the detention. While some within the government support an EU mission that's due to take assume oversight of law-enforcement in Kosovo after more than eight years as a United Nations protectorate, others reject it.

"It looks to me that it is a matter of political intrigue within Kosovo," he said. "It doesn't make any sense at all for the German intelligence service to get involved in a bomb going off in an office of the European Union. As a matter of fact the German government has been known to be one of the biggest supporters of that mission."

Thevessen added that BND agents were also investigating organized crime ties to the Kosovo government and that this might be yet another reason why local officials were trying to get rid of them.

The Deutsche Welle report quoted the German tabloid newspaper Bild as saying that "the bomb attack had been the work of an anti-EU faction of Kosovars."

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Slump smacks Taiwan tech

Global downturn has Taiwan high-tech companies reeling

By Jonathan Adams
International Herald Tribune

November 20, 2008

TAIPEI: The global downturn has sent the two leading high-technology manufacturing industries in Taiwan - semiconductors and flat-panel screens - reeling, a cautionary tale for technology companies competing in low-margin industries with huge capital costs and extreme cycles of boom and bust.

In good times, the island companies have managed to rake in profit anyway. But their weakness compared with rivals from South Korea and Japan in terms of technology, customer base, scale and currency valuation has become painfully evident during a recent supply glut and, now, a decline in orders from the United States and Europe.

Some Taiwanese technology companies remain in good shape to ride out the downturn. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing retains a leading edge in chip-making technology, for example, and contract electronics giants like Hon Hai are somewhat insulated by their big economies of scale.

The smaller players in lower-margin businesses are most vulnerable, analysts say - companies like the memory-chip maker ProMOS and the flat-panel makers Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Chunghwa Picture Tubes.

For now, the gravest concern is focused on memory-chip makers. Taiwanese firms account for 40 percent of worldwide production of latest-generation dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, chips, compared with 30 percent to 35 percent for South Korean companies, according to the market researcher DRAMeXchange, based in Taiwan.

The island's capacity edge was made possible by huge capital expenditure, often on credit, in pricey, cutting-edge "fabs," or wafer factories.Now, that spending binge is looking unwise.

The top four memory chip makers in Taiwan - Powerchip, Nanya, ProMOS and Inotera - are expected to lose a combined 112.5 billion New Taiwan dollars, or $3.4 billion, this year, according to an estimate from the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. And they are carrying an estimated 420 billion dollars in debt, mostly to local banks.

Powerchip's net debt-to-equity ratio was 1.6 in the third quarter; ProMOS's was 1.7 at midyear - some of the worst numbers in the industry.

Iris Guo, DRAM analyst at Yuanta Securities in Taipei, estimated in a report last month that ProMOS would run out of cash in about three months and Powerchip in about four and a half months without forbearance from banks, new funding or government help.

For now, the government has come to the rescue. On Nov. 10, it directed banks to give memory-chip companies a six-month grace period on repaying debt. The government also injected 100 million dollars more into a National Development Fund, to be used starting next month to help DRAM makers and other troubled companies in any industry to restructure or merge.

But the government said it would not approve new loans for the companies, and would urge the industry to consolidate and increase its competitiveness.

That reflects the government's attempt to strike a balance in its intervention. Analysts say the government is wary of offering life support to money-losing, uncompetitive companies in an overcrowded sector. But it cannot afford to let Taiwanese DRAM makers fail, because their loan defaults could send shock waves through the island's financial sector.

"I think their long-term competitiveness will vanish, but I don't think they'll go bust," said Guo of the troubled island memory-chip makers. "The Taiwan government won't let them go bankrupt, because that would cause a big crisis for Taiwan banks."

Memory chip companies are at a disadvantage in technology, analysts say, because they lease technology from South Korean and Japanese manufacturers and in exchange provide those foreign companies with DRAM chips at below-market cost. That saves research and development and other costs in good times. But it is a punishing pricing arrangement in bad times, when memory chips are selling on the open market at below the cost of production.

"If you don't have technology, you can't drive down costs," said Joyce Yang, an analyst at DRAMeXchange.

ProMOS is a case in point. It leases technology from Hynix, a South Korean company, and in return makes cut-rate chips on contract for its partner. Hynix keeps its own supply flexible by outsourcing some DRAM chip orders to its Taiwan partner ProMOS, giving it extra capacity to fill orders in boom times. In a downturn, it can decrease those orders first.

The DRAM analysts Yang and Guo say this puts Taiwan makers at a disadvantage compared with Korean and Japanese competitors and partners.

Makers of flat-panel screens are also struggling, hurt by a supply glut and flagging export markets that are pushing smaller Taiwan firms to the wall.

Here, too, Taiwan is likely to fall behind the South Koreans. The two countries now evenly divide the majority of the world's flat-panel market, with Taiwan accounting for 44 percent of global shipments of large panels used in TVs and computer monitors, and South Korea 43 percent, according to the market researcher DisplaySearch, based in Taiwan.

But David Hsieh, head of DisplaySearch's Taiwan office, expects the South Koreans to push up their market share to 46 percent by the end of this year, while Taiwan makers fall to 41 percent or 42 percent.

"Korean makers are becoming more aggressive in taking more market share, and that will be a crisis for Taiwan panel makers," Hsieh said.

The depreciated won will make Korean panels cheaper, making it easier for Korean firms like Samsung to undercut the Taiwanese on price and grab market share. As Citigroup's Andrew Lu said, there is also a sourcing issue: Korean companies can stop outsourcing orders to Taiwan in tough times, and "in-source" instead by keeping all orders or filling them from other Korean makers. This will also increase their market share, measured in shipments.

In flat panels, smaller Taiwan companies have a disadvantage in their customer base. The leading Taiwan flat-panel maker, AU Optronics, has somewhat more ability to endure a downturn because its customers include the top-tier electronics names Samsung and Sony. But Chi Mei, the No. 2 manufacturer, mostly supplies Haier and other Chinese TV makers, said Hsieh, and the third-largest maker, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, sells mostly low-margin monitor screens.

Here the benefits of the Korean conglomerates also come into play. The leading Korean flat-panel makers, Samsung and LG Display, have a guaranteed customer base in their own sister firms, which make and sell the finished products. The conglomerates, known as chaebol, also source extra capacity from Taiwanese firms, but as with memory chips, those orders are among the first cut in a downturn.

Huge conglomerates also have deeper pockets to tap in harsh market conditions. This year for the first time, prices for large liquid-crystal-display panels used in flat-screen TVs and computer monitors dipped below production cost. Last month, a 19-inch panel that cost about $72 to $75 to produce was selling for about $70, according to Hsieh.

That especially hurts for a firm like Chi Mei, which went on a spending spree to expand capacity by 40 percent this year over last, according to Pu of Yuanta, only to see the market take a nosedive.

The sharply depreciating won has given South Korean exporters a huge edge over Taiwanese and Japanese rivals. The currency has declined about 35 percent against the dollar this year, making Korean exports far less expensive, while the New Taiwan dollar has only declined slightly, about 3 percent.

Still, analysts do not see Taiwan flat-panel makers failing, either. Even if banks will not extend new loans, each has a parent company that is unlikely to let it fail. Chi Mei Optoelectronics, for example, is part of the sprawling, Taiwan-based Chi Mei conglomerate, and Chunghwa's parent company, Datong, can keep feeding it cash.

Consolidation would be another possible solution. In both the memory-chip and flat-panel sectors, it could create one or two larger companies big enough to compete with the Koreans, instead of a crowd of smaller players.

But analysts say mergers in the memory-chip sector are difficult because each Taiwan company's technology is leased from a different foreign partner. And flat-panel makers have long resisted government appeals to merge.

Lu, the Citigroup analyst, wrote that Taiwan flat-panel makers must merge to remain competitive, allowing them to cut research costs and expenses.

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