Geopolitical thread

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Paul
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Post by Paul »

Right after the Axis of evil speech in 2002, I went to Seoul to work on a very high profile project. There was tremendous resentment against the American team. We stayed at the Shilla hotel which is like the top hotel there. Post dinner discussions tended to turn very political and centered on the superiority and sense of entitlement of Americans in general. The american view was that SOKo has come up due to American patronage (they was a hot discussion on the Rafale/F15 contract dogfight which went to F15) and they should be eternally grateful for the prosperity which has come up under the American Chatra-Chaya.

During one of these discussions, I mentioned that the origin of the world "Shilla" was in India and must have come to Korea with the Buddhist missionaries. In that sense, I said Korea has imbibed and accepted indian culture. There were blank stares from the Koreans followed by hostile/disparaging vibes from the anglo-saxons who were in the American team.
Last edited by Paul on 01 May 2008 23:50, edited 1 time in total.
satya
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Post by satya »

the article on market or military driven empires is all wet. Successful empires need both as it is not an either or paradigm. But above all need a superior and adaptable culture. Indian was an empire of the mind that is still enduring in parts of Asia. the writer doesnt understand it.
Ramana

Could it be one of the reasons for failure of a successful empire building by the Americans ie not taking both miltary-market aspects as two sides of same coin to be used alternatively and some times both at same time ?

On issue of culture , if we go by other than US , most other powers can be said to have this advatage or am wrong?
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Post by vsudhir »

Paul,

Just playing the devil's advocate here but but...
The american view was that SOKo has come up due to American patronage (they was a hot discussion on the Rafale/F15 contract dogfight which went to F15) and they should be eternally grateful for the prosperity which has come up under the American Chatra-Chaya.
The above view finds an echo in BD talking points about India. They think just becoz India liberated them, India expects Dhaka to eternally toe Delhi's line blah blah.

Personally, I think Soko did gain a lot of economic dev elopment as a result of GUBOing to yamriki security and geopolitical (and EJ) interests.
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Post by Prem »

http://stconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... n-new.html

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sea Change China, India & Africa in a New Century
Martin Walker, interviewed on MhZ's program Dialog, talked about his theory:
Chimea is a region you have probably never heard of. It is composed of China, India the Middle East and Africa. The Indian Ocean is its central trade route. Powered by the dynamic economic growth of China and India, “Chimea,â€
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The New Geopolitics of Energy
While the day-to-day focus of US military planning remains Iraq and Afghanistan, American strategists are increasingly looking beyond these two conflicts to envision the global combat environment of the emerging period--and the world they see is one where the struggle over vital resources, rather than ideology or balance-of-power politics, dominates the martial landscape. Believing that the United States must reconfigure its doctrines and forces in order to prevail in such an environment, senior officials have taken steps to enhance strategic planning and combat capabilities. Although little of this has reached the public domain, there have been a number of key indicators.

Since 2006 the Defense Department, in its annual report Military Power of the People's Republic of China, has equated competition over resources with conflict over Taiwan as a potential spark for a US war with China. Preparation for a clash over Taiwan remains "an important driver" of China's military modernization, the 2008 edition noted, but "analysis of China's military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests Beijing is also developing capabilities for use in other contingencies, such as conflict over resources." The report went on to suggest that the Chinese are planning to enhance their capacity for "power projection" in areas that provide them with critical raw materials, especially fossil fuels, and that such efforts would pose a significant threat to America's security interests.

The Pentagon is also requesting funds this year for the establishment of the Africa Command (Africom), the first overseas joint command to be formed since 1983, when President Reagan created the Central Command (Centcom) to guard Persian Gulf oil. Supposedly, the new organization will focus its efforts on humanitarian aid and the "war on terror." But in a presentation delivered at the National Defense University in February, Africom's deputy commander, Vice Adm. Robert Moeller, said, "Africa holds growing geostrategic importance" to the United States--with oil a key factor in this equation--and that among the key challenges to US strategic interests in the region is China's "Growing Influence in Africa."

Russia, too, is being viewed through the lens of global resource competition. Although Russia, unlike the United States and China, does not need to import oil and natural gas to satisfy its domestic requirements, it seeks to dominate the transportation of energy, especially to Europe. This has alarmed senior White House officials, who resent restoration of Russia's great-power status and fear that its growing control over the distribution of oil and gas in Eurasia will undercut America's influence in the region. In response to the Russian energy drive, the Bush Administration is undertaking countermoves. "I do intend to appoint...a special energy coordinator who could especially spend time on the Central Asian and Caspian region," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February. "It is a really important part of diplomacy." A key job of the coordinator, she suggested, would be to encourage the establishment of oil and gas pipelines that bypass Russia, thereby diminishing its control over the regional flow of energy.

Taken together, these and like moves suggest that a momentous shift has occurred. At a time when world supplies of oil, natural gas, uranium and key industrial minerals like copper and cobalt are beginning to shrink and the demand for them is exploding, the major industrial powers are becoming more desperate in their drive to gain control over what remains of the planet's untapped reserves [for more evidence of major shortages in fossil fuels, see Klare, "Beyond the Age of Petroleum," November 12, 2007, and Mark Hertsgaard, "Running on Empty," May 12]. These efforts typically entail intense bidding wars for supplies on international markets--hence the record high prices for all these commodities. But they also take military form, as arms transfers and the deployment of overseas missions and bases. It is to bolster America's advantage--and to counter similar moves by China and other resource competitors--that the Pentagon has placed resource competition at the center of its strategic planning.

Alfred Thayer Mahan Revisited

This is not the first time that American strategists have placed a high priority on the global struggle over vital resources. At the end of the nineteenth century a bold and outspoken group of military thinkers, led by naval historian and Naval War College president Alfred Thayer Mahan and his protégé, then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, campaigned for a strong American Navy and the acquisition of colonies to ensure access to overseas markets and raw materials. Eventually, their views helped generate public support for the Spanish-American War and, upon its conclusion, the establishment of a Caribbean and Pacific empire by the United States.

During the cold war, ideology reigned supreme as containment of the USSR and the defeat of Communism were the overriding objectives of American strategy. But even then, resource considerations were not entirely neglected. The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957 and the Carter Doctrine of 1980, though couched in the standard anti-Soviet rhetoric of the day, were principally intended to ensure continued US access to the Persian Gulf's prolific oil reserves. And when President Carter established the nucleus of Centcom in 1980, its primary responsibility was protection of the Persian Gulf oil flow--not containment of the Soviet Union.
After the cold war, the first President Bush tried, and failed, to establish a global coalition of like-minded states--a "new world order"--that would maintain global stability and allow Western corporate interests (American firms foremost among them) to extend their reach across the planet. This approach, in watered-down form, was subsequently embraced by President Clinton. But 9/11 and the current Administration's relentless campaign against "rogue states," notably Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Iran, has reinjected an ideological element into US strategic planning. As George W. Bush tells it, the "war on terror" and rogue states are the contemporary equivalents of earlier ideological struggles against Fascism and Communism. Examine the issues closely, however, and it is impossible to disentangle the problem of Middle Eastern terrorism or the challenge posed by Iraq and Iran from the history of Western oil extraction in those regions.

Islamic extremism of the sort propagated by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda has many roots, but one of its major claims is that the Western assault on and occupation of Islamic lands--and the resulting defilement of Muslim peoples and cultures--has been driven by the West's craving for Middle Eastern oil. "Remember too that the biggest reason for our enemies' control over our lands is to steal our oil," bin Laden told his sympathizers in a December 2004 audiotaped address. "So give everything you can to stop the greatest theft of oil in history."

Likewise, the US conflict with Iraq and Iran has largely been shaped by the fundamental tenet of the Carter Doctrine: that the United States will not permit the emergence of a hostile power that might gain control over the flow of Persian Gulf oil and thus--in Vice President Cheney's words--"be able to dictate the future of worldwide energy policy." The fact that these countries might be seeking weapons of mass destruction only complicates the task of neutralizing the threat they pose, but it does not alter the underlying strategic logic.

Concern over the safety of vital resource supplies has, therefore, been a central feature of strategic planning for a long time. But the attention now devoted to this issue represents a qualitative shift in US thinking, matched only by the imperial impulses that led to the Spanish-American War a century ago. This time, however, the shift is driven not by an optimistic faith in America's capacity to dominate the world economy but by a largely pessimistic outlook regarding the future availability of vital resources and the intense competition over them waged by China and other rising economic dynamos. Faced with these dual challenges, Pentagon strategists believe that ensuring US primacy in the global resource struggle must be the top priority of American military policy.

Back to the Future

In line with this new outlook, fresh emphasis is being placed on the global role of the Navy. Using language that would sound surprisingly familiar to Alfred Mahan and the first President Roosevelt, the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard unveiled A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower in October; it emphasizes America's need to dominate the oceans and guard the vital sea lanes that connect this country to its overseas markets and resource supplies:

Over the past four decades, total sea borne trade has more than quadrupled: 90% of world trade and two-thirds of its petroleum are transported by sea. The sea-lanes and supporting shore infrastructure are the lifelines of the modern global economy.... Heightened popular expectations and increased competition for resources, coupled with scarcity, may encourage nations to exert wider claims of sovereignty over greater expanses of ocean, waterways, and natural resources--potentially resulting in conflict.

To address this danger, the Defense Department has undertaken a massive modernization of the combat fleet, entailing the design and procurement of new aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, submarines and a new type of "littoral combat" (coastal warfare) ship--an endeavor that could take decades to complete and consume hundreds of billions of dollars. Elements of this plan were unveiled by President Bush and Defense Secretary Gates in the budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2009, submitted in February. Among the big-ticket items highlighted in the shipbuilding budget are:

§ $4.2 billion for the lead ship of a new generation of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers;

§ $3.2 billion for a third Zumwalt class missile destroyer; these warships with advanced stealth capabilities will also serve as a "testbed" for a new class of missile cruisers, the CG(X);

§ $1.3 billion for the first two littoral combat ships;

§ $3.6 billion for another Virginia class submarine, the world's most advanced undersea combat vessel in production.

Proposed shipbuilding programs will cost $16.9 billion in FY 2009, on top of $24.6 billion voted in FY 2007 and FY 2008.

The Navy's new strategic outlook is reflected not only in the procurement of new vessels but also in the disposition of existing ones. Until recently most naval assets were concentrated in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Northwest Pacific in support of American forces assigned to NATO and the defense pacts with South Korea and Japan. These ties still figure prominently in strategic calculations, but ever-increasing weight is placed on the protection of vital trade links in the Persian Gulf, the Southwest Pacific and the Gulf of Guinea (close to Africa's major oil producers). In 2003, for example, the head of the US European Command declared that the aircraft carrier battle groups under his command would be spending fewer months in the Mediterranean and "half their time going down the west coast of Africa."

A similar outlook is guiding the realignment of overseas bases, which has been under way for the past several years. When the Bush Administration came into office, most major bases were in Western Europe, Japan or South Korea. Under the prodding of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, however, the Pentagon began to relocate forces from the outer fringes of Eurasia to its central and southern regions--especially East-Central Europe, Central Asia and Southwest Asia--as well as to North and Central Africa. True, these areas are home to Al Qaeda and the Middle Eastern "rogue states"--but they also contain 80 percent or more of the world's oil and natural gas, as well as reserves of uranium, copper, cobalt and other critical industrial materials. And, as noted, it is impossible to separate the one from the other in US strategic calculations.

A case in point is the US plan to maintain a basing infrastructure to support combat operations in the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia. American ties with states in this area were established several years before 9/11, to protect the flow of Caspian Sea oil to the West. Believing that the Caspian basin could prove a valuable new source of oil and natural gas, President Clinton worked assiduously to open the doors to US involvement in the area's energy production; aware also of the endemic ethnic antagonisms in the region, he sought to bolster the military capabilities of friendly local powers and to prepare for possible intervention by American forces. President Bush later built on these efforts, increasing the flow of US military aid and establishing bases in the Central Asian republics.

A corresponding mix of priorities governs the Pentagon's plans to retain a constellation of "enduring" bases in Iraq. Many of these installations will no doubt be used to support continuing operations against insurgent forces, for intelligence activities or for the training of Iraqi army and police units. Even if all US combat troops are withdrawn in accordance with plans announced by senators Clinton and Obama, some of these bases will probably be retained for the training activities they say will continue. At least some bases, moreover, are specifically earmarked for the protection of Iraqi oil exports. In 2007, for example, the Navy revealed that it had established a command-and-control facility atop an offshore Iraqi oil terminal in the Persian Gulf to oversee the protection of vital terminals.

A Global Struggle

No other major power is capable of matching the United States when it comes to the global deployment of military power in the pursuit or protection of vital raw materials. Nevertheless, other powers are beginning to challenge this country in various ways. In particular, China and Russia are providing arms to oil and gas producers in the developing world and beginning to enhance their military capacity in key energy-producing areas.

China's drive to gain access to foreign supplies is most evident in Africa, where Beijing has established ties with the oil-producing governments of Algeria, Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Sudan. China has also sought access to Africa's abundant mineral supplies, pursuing copper in Zambia and Congo, chromium in Zimbabwe and a range of minerals in South Africa. In each case the Chinese have wooed suppliers through vigorous diplomacy, offers of development assistance and low-interest loans, high-visibility cultural projects--and, in many cases, arms. China is now a major supplier of basic combat gear to many of these countries and is especially known for its weapons sales to Sudan--arms that reportedly have been used by government forces in attacks on civilian communities in Darfur. Moreover, like the United States, China has supplemented its arms transfers with military-support agreements, leading to a steady buildup of Chinese instructors, advisers and technicians, who now compete with their US counterparts for the loyalty of African military officers.

Much the same process is under way in Central Asia, where China and Russia cooperate under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to provide arms and technical assistance to the military forces of the Central Asian "stans"--again competing with the United States to win the loyalty of local military elites. In the 1990s Russia was too preoccupied with Chechnya to pay much attention to this area, and China was likewise consumed with other priorities, so Washington enjoyed a temporary advantage; in the past five years, however, Moscow and Beijing have made concerted efforts to gain influence in the region. The result has been a far more competitive geopolitical environment, with Russia and China, linked through the SCO, gaining ground in their drive to diminish US influence.

A clear expression of this drive was the military exercise the SCO conducted last summer, the first of its kind to feature participation by all member states. The maneuvers involved some 6,500 personnel from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and took place in Russia and China. Aside from its symbolic significance, the exercise was indicative of China's and Russia's efforts to enhance their capabilities, placing a heavy emphasis on long-range assault forces. For the first time, a contingent of Chinese airborne troops were deployed outside Chinese territory, a clear sign of Beijing's growing assertiveness.

To ensure that the intended message of these exercises did not go unnoticed, the presidents of China and Russia used the occasion of an accompanying SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan to warn the United States (though not by name) against meddling in Central Asian affairs. In calling for a "multipolar" world, for example, Vladimir Putin declared that "any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless." For his part, Hu Jintao noted, "The SCO nations have a clear understanding of the threats faced by the region and thus must ensure their security themselves."

These and other efforts by Russia and China, combined with stepped-up US military aid to states in the region, are part of a larger, though often hidden, struggle to control the flow of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea basin to markets in Europe and Asia. And this struggle, in turn, is but part of a global struggle over energy.

The great risk is that this struggle will someday breach the boundaries of economic and diplomatic competition and enter the military realm. This will not be because any of the states involved make a deliberate decision to provoke a conflict with a competitor--the leaders of all these countries know that the price of violence is far too high to pay for any conceivable return. The problem, instead, is that all are engaging in behaviors that make the outbreak of inadvertent escalation ever more likely. These include, for example, the deployment of growing numbers of American, Russian and Chinese military instructors and advisers in areas of instability where there is every risk that these outsiders will someday be caught up in local conflicts on opposite sides.

This risk is made all the greater because intensified production of oil, natural gas, uranium and minerals is itself a source of instability, acting as a magnet for arms deliveries and outside intervention. The nations involved are largely poor, so whoever controls the resources controls the one sure source of abundant wealth. This is an invitation for the monopolization of power by greedy elites who use control over military and police to suppress rivals. The result, more often than not, is a wealthy strata of crony capitalists kept in power by brutal security forces and surrounded by disaffected and impoverished masses, often belonging to a different ethnic group--a recipe for unrest and insurgency. This is the situation today in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, in Darfur and southern Sudan, in the uranium-producing areas of Niger, in Zimbabwe, in the Cabinda province of Angola (where most of that country's oil lies) and in numerous other areas suffering from what's been called the "resource curse."

The danger, of course, is that the great powers will be sucked into these internal conflicts. This is not a far-fetched scenario; the United States, Russia and China are already providing arms and military-support services to factions in many of these disputes. The United States is arming government forces in Nigeria and Angola, China is aiding government forces in Sudan and Zimbabwe, and so on. An even more dangerous situation prevails in Georgia, where the United States is backing the pro-Western government of President Mikhail Saakashvili with arms and military support while Russia is backing the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia plays an important strategic role for both countries because it harbors the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a US-backed conduit carrying Caspian Sea oil to markets in the West. There are US and Russian military advisers/instructors in both areas, in some cases within visual range of each other. It is not difficult, therefore, to conjure up scenarios in which a future blow-up between Georgian and separatist forces could lead, willy-nilly, to a clash between American and Russian soldiers, sparking a much greater crisis.

It is essential that America reverse the militarization of its dependence on imported energy and ease geopolitical competition with China and Russia over control of foreign resources. Because this would require greater investment in energy alternatives, it would also lead to an improved energy economy at home (with lower prices in the long run) and a better chance at overcoming global warming.

Any strategy aimed at reducing reliance on imported energy, especially oil, must include a huge increase in spending on alternative fuels, especially renewable sources of energy (solar and wind), second-generation biofuels (those made from nonedible plant matter), coal gasification with carbon capture and burial (so that no carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere to heat the planet) and hydrogen fuel cells, along with high-speed rail, public transit and other advanced transportation systems. The science and technology for these advances is already largely in place, but the funding to move them from the lab or pilot-project stage to full-scale development is not. The challenge, then, is to assemble the many billions--even trillions--of dollars that will be needed.

The principal obstacle to this herculean task is the very reason for its necessity in the first place: massive spending on the military dimensions of overseas resource competition. I estimate that it costs approximately $100 billion to $150 billion per year to enforce the Carter Doctrine, not including the war in Iraq. Extending that doctrine to the Caspian Sea basin and Africa will add billions. A new cold war with China, with an accompanying naval arms race, will require trillions in additional military expenditures over the next few decades. This is sheer lunacy: it will not guarantee access to more sources of energy, lower the cost of gasoline at home or discourage China from seeking new energy resources. What it will do is sop up all the money we need to develop alternative energy sources and avert the worst effects of global climate change.

And this leads to a final recommendation: rather than engage in militarized competition with China, we should cooperate with Beijing in developing alternative energy sources and more efficient transportation systems. The arguments in favor of collaboration are overwhelming: together, we are projected to consume 35 percent of the world's oil supply by 2025, most of which will have to be imported from dysfunctional states. If, as is widely predicted, global oil reserves have begun to shrink by then, both of our countries could be locked in a dangerous struggle for dwindling supplies in chronically unstable areas of the world. The costs, in terms of rising military outlays and the inability to invest in more worthwhile social, economic and environmental endeavors, would be staggering. Far better to forswear this sort of competition and work together on the development of advanced petroleum alternatives, super-fuel-efficient vehicles and other energy innovations. Many American and Chinese universities and corporations have already initiated joint ventures of this sort, so it is not hard to envision a much grander regime of cooperation.

As we approach the 2008 elections, two paths lie before us. One leads to greater reliance on imported fuels, increased militarization of our foreign fuel dependency and prolonged struggle with other powers for control over the world's remaining supplies of fossil fuels. The other leads toward diminished reliance on petroleum as a main source of our fuel, the rapid development of energy alternatives, a reduced US military profile abroad and cooperation with China in the development of innovative energy options. Rarely has a policy choice been as stark or as momentous for the future of our country.
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Post by satya »

Russo-Turkish reproachment through the idea of Eurasia

Good commentary ( file in pdf format so save it not sure if its archived or not ).
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Post by Singha »

BBC


China's new South Pacific influence
By Nick Squires
BBC, South Pacific

As China extends its economic and political potential in the world, nowhere is too remote or too small to merit Beijing's interest, not even the tiny nations which slumber in the South Pacific.

If you were ever fortunate enough to venture to the palm-fringed islands of the South Pacific, you would probably look forward to tucking into some tropical fruit and freshly caught fish.

These days, though, you might be disappointed.

While mangoes and marlin are certainly available in the tourist resorts, in towns and villages it is more likely to be fried rice and springs rolls you would be dining on.
:twisted:

Chinese restaurants have sprung up all over the region, some of them big and grand, most little more than shacks with corrugated-iron roofs.

Often they are next door to Chinese-run trade stores, where shopkeepers hunker down behind iron-bar grilles and sell everything from candles to corned beef.

The shops and restaurants are the most visible sign of a growing Chinese presence in the South Pacific.

New kid on the block

Beijing is boosting its political and economic influence in a region which was long dominated by European powers such as France and Britain.

China needs the mineral resources South Pacific nations can provide

Gallic pretensions to world power status ensure it retains three colonies - including New Caledonia and French Polynesia - but Britain's commitment has long since waned.

China is the new kid on the block.

But why the Chinese interest in a region regarded by most of the world as an obscure backwater?

Well, for a start, the Chinese are looking to satisfy their voracious appetite for natural resources.

Copper, zinc and nickel from Papua New Guinea, timber from the Solomon Islands, manganese and cobalt from the sea-bed are all vital to feed China's extraordinary pace of development.

But it is politics - not business - that is really turning the gaze of the Chinese dragon towards these pearls of the South Seas.

Diplomatic war

Pacific nations may be miniscule and little known - the likes of Palau and Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass) are hardly household names - but they are vitally important in the diplomatic war between Beijing and Taiwan (which China regards as a breakaway province).

Six countries in the Pacific grant official recognition to Taiwan's capital Taipei, and the Taiwanese do all they can to retain their loyalty.

Climb out of the plane in remote Tuvalu, for instance, and the first building you notice - because it is the only structure taller than a coconut palm in the entire atoll nation - is the government's new office complex, built with Taiwanese money.

On a recent trip to the tiny nation of Nauru, I came across a pungent piggery, again paid for by Taiwan.

Taipei maintains one of the very few diplomatic missions on Nauru, a country so small it can be driven around in half an hour.

Red carpet treatment

The ambassador lives in a little bungalow by the beach, the Taiwanese flag flapping wanly in the tropical breeze from a white pole. It must be one of the loneliest postings in the world.


Australian soldier on aircraft carrier off East Timor [Photo: Nick Squires]
In the last few years, I have watched Australian soldiers and police deploy to hotspots like East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomons

China, of course, is not to be outdone in the cheque-book diplomacy stakes.

It, too, has lavished money on its loyal South Pacific allies, paying for everything from sports stadiums to health schemes.

Beijing frequently rolls out the red carpet for the leaders of countries like Tonga and Samoa.

What makes its aid attractive is that it is bestowed with no strings attached, unlike the assistance received from the European Union or Australia and New Zealand, which rather awkwardly harp on about good governance and other tricky issues.

As one Pacific analyst puts it: "Chinese aid is quite different from other countries, it goes straight for the jugular."


But with China's increasing presence come tensions.

Flinging money around among the political elite can exacerbate already high levels of official corruption.

The business acumen of Chinese entrepreneurs stirs intense resentment in the famously laid-back Pacific, where initiative is often stifled by the custom of having to share profits with your extended family.

Criminal activity

And while the majority of Chinese settlers who have emigrated to the region in recent years are honest and hardworking, there is a criminal element which is involved in people smuggling, prostitution and illegal gambling.

Four years ago, police in Fiji busted a massive Chinese-run drug factory described as the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

All of which is a worry for powers like Australia and New Zealand, which regard the South Pacific as their patch.

In the last few years, I have watched Australian soldiers and police deploy to hotspots like East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomons.

No-one is suggesting China wants to do the same, at least not yet. But the old order is changing.

Canberra, Wellington and Washington can no longer take for granted their influence in the South Pacific.

It may have a reputation as an earthly paradise of coral reefs and coconut groves, but it is fast becoming a stage on which Beijing flexes its political and economic muscle.

Unlike those plates of chicken fried rice and chow mein, that is something which Pacific islanders may find hard to digest
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Post by Sanjay M »

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Post by satya »

They're Global Citizens. They're Hugely Rich. And They Pull the Strings.

We didn't elect them. We can't throw them out. And they're getting more powerful every day.

Call them the superclass.

At the moment, Americans are fixated on the political campaign. In the meantime, many are missing a reality of the global era that may matter much more than their presidential choice: On an ever-growing list of issues, the big decisions are being made or profoundly influenced by a little-understood international network of business, financial, government, cultural and military leaders who are beyond the reach of American voters.
In addition to top officials, these people include corporate executives, leading investors, top bankers, media moguls, heads of state, generals, religious leaders, heads of terrorist and criminal organizations and a handful of important cultural and scientific figures. Each of these roughly 6,000 individuals is set apart by their power and ability to regularly influence millions of lives across international borders. The group is not monolithic, but none is more globalized or has more influence over the direction in which the global era is heading.

Doubt it? Just look at the current financial crisis. As government regulators have sought to head off further market losses, they've found that perhaps the most effective tool at their disposal is what the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank described to me as their "convening power" -- their ability to get the big boys of Wall Street and world financial capitals into a room or on a conference call to collaborate on solving a problem. This has, in fact, become a central part of crisis management, both because national governments have limited regulatory authority over global markets and because financial flows have become so large that the real power lies with the biggest players -- such as the top 50 financial institutions that control almost $50 trillion in assets, by one measure nearly a third of all assets worldwide.

Most major companies are both bigger and more global today, which effectively makes them able to pick and choose among various governments' regulatory regimes or investment incentive programs. They play officials in country X against those in country Y, gaining leverage that makes the old rules of trade obsolete. The world's biggest corporations, such as Exxon or Wal-Mart, have annual sales (and thus financial resources) that rival the gross domestic product of all but the 20 or so wealthiest nations. The top 250 companies in the world have sales equal to about a third of global GDP (these are very different measures, but they give a rough sense of relative size).

Major media organizations such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which is effectively controlled by a single individual, touch far more people each day than any national government can. Just a few weeks ago, Italian media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi once again used his extraordinary resources to win election as prime minister, which will give him a seat at G-8 summits and other global conclaves. Even global terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah have both the ability, through their international networks, and the will to project force more effectively on an international level than all but a handful of governments.

The people who run these big international organizations can have much more power over key aspects of your daily life and over global trends than most officials in Washington are likely to have, except in the most extreme circumstances. They can affect investments and job creation, shape culture and influence lawmakers. The Federal Reserve Bank has played a critical role in the financial crisis, but it couldn't have intervened successfully without a financial leader like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase, which stepped in to purchase the failing investment bank Bear Stearns.

The rise of the global superclass signals the latest evolution in the age-old tale of the few who corner the market on power. There have always been elites. But this contemporary group is very different from those that preceded it. Study these 6,000 or so individuals, and you'll find that unlike past aristocrats who inherited their wealth, many -- Bill Gates, for instance, or Warren Buffett -- have built their fortunes over their lifetimes. Many more come from the worlds of business, finance and media than in the past.

What's more, many acknowledge that they increasingly have more in common with fellow members of the global elite than they do with the people of their own nations. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, for instance, may be governor of a Siberian province, but he also manages to live large in London, where he owns a famous English soccer club. Even though he has donated millions to help his province, he spends considerably more time with global business partners or his posh neighbors in Britain than he does with his constituents back home.

At the same time, political and military elites are fading in relative influence -- the former bound by geography, the latter by the extraordinarily high cost of modern warfare. The regional composition of the group is changing as well, as transatlantic elites who today make up about 60 percent of the class gradually give way to a rising cadre of Asian leaders, such as the 100 Chinese billionaires estimated to have emerged in the last couple of years.
In a world with only two kinds of international institutions -- weak and dysfunctional -- the members of this superclass are filling a power vacuum when it comes to influencing decisions about transnational issues such as financial-market regulation or climate change. (Many countries voted for the Kyoto accords on global warming, but it took just Exxon and a handful of other oil companies to successfully lobby the White House to opt out and undercut the entire initiative.) In so doing, they raise real questions about the future of global governance. Will the global era be more democratic or less so? Will inequality continue to grow, as it has for the past three decades of this group's rise, or recede? Will the few dominate because the government mechanisms that traditionally represent the views of the many are so underdeveloped on a global scale?
Once again, the meltdown in global financial markets brings this aspect of the story into focus. For years, financial elites have argued that markets should self-regulate even as instruments grew more complex and risks more opaque. Then, when a crisis came, they used their influence to get top government officials to come in and help cauterize their self-inflicted wounds, warning of a "systemic failure." But critics are already correctly charging that new regulations to rein in global markets are largely protecting the interests of the richest.

One distinguishing characteristic of the superclass is the concentration of extreme wealth in the hands of so few. Inequality has always existed in the world, but the international trend toward leave-it-to-the-market policies of the past 25 years has resulted both in great growth worldwide (what superclass member Martha Stewart might call "a good thing") and in growing inequality (not so much, as superclass member Jon Stewart might say). Today, the world's more than 1,100 billionaires have a net worth that's roughly double that of the bottom 2.5 billion people on the planet. The richest 10 percent of adults worldwide own 85 percent of global wealth, while the poorest half only barely one percent. The world's almost 10 million millionaires have seen their wealth double to nearly $37 trillion over the past 10 years.

Growth is taking place, but it is disproportionately benefiting the few. And there's a sense that the issue of class conflict, confined not too long ago to the ash heap by our (premature) celebration of the "end of history" after communism's fall, remains with us.

A backlash is inevitable. Are these elites especially talented? Hard-working? Lucky? Some are all of these things. But conspiracy theories don't hold water in a group whose members are so diverse and self-interested. Still, when their self-interests align to cause them to act together, they can be hard to resist. They often get their way -- and thus often get much more than the rest of us. And that leads to angry reaction. "When a CEO is making more in 10 minutes than an ordinary worker's making in an entire year . . . something is wrong, something has to change," Sen. Barack Obama declares on the stump. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chimes in that "it is wrong that somebody who makes $50 million a year on Wall Street pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 a year."

The next U.S. president will still be the most powerful person in the world because of his or her control of the nation's unparalleled military might and influence over our economic and political resources. But that influence is on the wane, for a number of reasons: the relative decline in the power of national governments; the relative rise in the power of others in the world's fastest-growing places; U.S. trade and fiscal deficits; and a third, geopolitical deficit arising from both damaged national prestige and what might be characterized either as Iraq fatigue or as having learned from the mistakes of the past several years.

None of this makes the decision that U.S. voters will make in November less important. Government still offers the average citizen the best means of counterbalancing the superclass or redressing growing inequality. And governments will have to play a key role in shaping the new regulatory frameworks and governance mechanisms that will be essential to a more balanced distribution of power in the global era. But what it does mean is that "change" isn't just a slogan in this year's campaign. It's a reality that will redefine the landscape of power worldwide for U.S. presidents of the future.
satya
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Post by satya »

The Rise of the Rest

Americans are glum at the moment. No, I mean really glum. In April, a new poll revealed that 81 percent of the American people believe that the country is on the "wrong track." In the 25 years that pollsters have asked this question, last month's response was by far the most negative. Other polls, asking similar questions, found levels of gloom that were even more alarming, often at 30- and 40-year highs. There are reasons to be pessimistic—a financial panic and looming recession, a seemingly endless war in Iraq, and the ongoing threat of terrorism. But the facts on the ground—unemployment numbers, foreclosure rates, deaths from terror attacks—are simply not dire enough to explain the present atmosphere of malaise.

American anxiety springs from something much deeper, a sense that large and disruptive forces are coursing through the world. In almost every industry, in every aspect of life, it feels like the patterns of the past are being scrambled. "Whirl is king, having driven out Zeus," wrote Aristophanes 2,400 years ago. And—for the first time in living memory—the United States does not seem to be leading the charge. Americans see that a new world is coming into being, but fear it is one being shaped in distant lands and by foreign people.

Look around. The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.

These factoids reflect a seismic shift in power and attitudes. It is one that I sense when I travel around the world. In America, we are still debating the nature and extent of anti-Americanism. One side says that the problem is real and worrying and that we must woo the world back. The other says this is the inevitable price of power and that many of these countries are envious—and vaguely French—so we can safely ignore their griping. But while we argue over why they hate us, "they" have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.

I. The End of Pax Americana
During the 1980s, when I would visit India—where I grew up—most Indians were fascinated by the United States. Their interest, I have to confess, was not in the important power players in Washington or the great intellectuals in Cambridge.

People would often ask me about … Donald Trump. He was the very symbol of the United States—brassy, rich, and modern. He symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and largest anything, you had to look to America. Today, outside of entertainment figures, there is no comparable interest in American personalities. If you wonder why, read India's newspapers or watch its television. There are dozens of Indian businessmen who are now wealthier than the Donald. Indians are obsessed by their own vulgar real estate billionaires. And that newfound interest in their own story is being replicated across much of the world.

How much? Well, consider this fact. In 2006 and 2007, 124 countries grew their economies at over 4 percent a year. That includes more than 30 countries in Africa. Over the last two decades, lands outside the industrialized West have been growing at rates that were once unthinkable. While there have been booms and busts, the overall trend has been unambiguously upward. Antoine van Agtmael, the fund manager who coined the term "emerging markets," has identified the 25 companies most likely to be the world's next great multinationals. His list includes four companies each from Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan; three from India, two from China, and one each from Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, and South Africa. This is something much broader than the much-ballyhooed rise of China or even Asia. It is the rise of the rest—the rest of the world.

We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century. It produced the world as we know it now—science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the industrial and agricultural revolutions. It also led to the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the Western world. The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the 19th century, was the rise of the United States. Once it industrialized, it soon became the most powerful nation in the world, stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For the last 20 years, America's superpower status in every realm has been largely unchallenged—something that's never happened before in history, at least since the Roman Empire dominated the known world 2,000 years ago. During this Pax Americana, the global economy has accelerated dramatically. And that expansion is the driver behind the third great power shift of the modern age—the rise of the rest.

At the military and political level, we still live in a unipolar world. But along every other dimension—industrial, financial, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance. In terms of war and peace, economics and business, ideas and art, this will produce a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now—one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.

The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

I know. That's not the world that people perceive. We are told that we live in dark, dangerous times. Terrorism, rogue states, nuclear proliferation, financial panics, recession, outsourcing, and illegal immigrants all loom large in the national discourse. Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia are all threats in some way or another. But just how violent is today's world, really?

A team of scholars at the University of Maryland has been tracking deaths caused by organized violence. Their data show that wars of all kinds have been declining since the mid-1980s and that we are now at the lowest levels of global violence since the 1950s. Deaths from terrorism are reported to have risen in recent years. But on closer examination, 80 percent of those casualties come from Afghanistan and Iraq, which are really war zones with ongoing insurgencies—and the overall numbers remain small. Looking at the evidence, Harvard's polymath professor Steven Pinker has ventured to speculate that we are probably living "in the most peaceful time of our species' existence."

Why does it not feel that way? Why do we think we live in scary times? Part of the problem is that as violence has been ebbing, information has been exploding. The last 20 years have produced an information revolution that brings us news and, most crucially, images from around the world all the time. The immediacy of the images and the intensity of the 24-hour news cycle combine to produce constant hype. Every weather disturbance is the "storm of the decade." Every bomb that explodes is BREAKING NEWS. Because the information revolution is so new, we—reporters, writers, readers, viewers—are all just now figuring out how to put everything in context.

We didn't watch daily footage of the two million people who died in Indochina in the 1970s, or the million who perished in the sands of the Iran-Iraq war ten years later. We saw little of the civil war in the Congo in the 1990s, where millions died. But today any bomb that goes off, any rocket that is fired, any death that results, is documented by someone, somewhere and ricochets instantly across the world. Add to this terrorist attacks, which are random and brutal. "That could have been me," you think. Actually, your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are tiny—for an American, smaller than drowning in your bathtub. But it doesn't feel like that.

The threats we face are real. Islamic jihadists are a nasty bunch—they do want to attack civilians everywhere. But it is increasingly clear that militants and suicide bombers make up a tiny portion of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. They can do real damage, especially if they get their hands on nuclear weapons. But the combined efforts of the world's governments have effectively put them on the run and continue to track them and their money. Jihad persists, but the jihadists have had to scatter, work in small local cells, and use simple and undetectable weapons. They have not been able to hit big, symbolic targets, especially ones involving Americans. So they blow up bombs in cafés, marketplaces, and subway stations. The problem is that in doing so, they kill locals and alienate ordinary Muslims. Look at the polls. Support for violence of any kind has dropped dramatically over the last five years in all Muslim countries.

Militant groups have reconstituted in certain areas where they exploit a particular local issue or have support from a local ethnic group or sect, most worryingly in Pakistan and Afghanistan where Islamic radicalism has become associated with Pashtun identity politics. But as a result, these groups are becoming more local and less global. Al Qaeda in Iraq, for example, has turned into a group that is more anti-Shiite than anti-American. The bottom line is this: since 9/11, Al Qaeda Central, the gang run by Osama bin Laden, has not been able to launch a single major terror attack in the West or any Arab country—its original targets. They used to do terrorism, now they make videotapes. Of course one day they will get lucky again, but that they have been stymied for almost seven years points out that in this battle between governments and terror groups, the former need not despair.

Some point to the dangers posed by countries like Iran. These rogue states present real problems, but look at them in context. The American economy is 68 times the size of Iran's. Its military budget is 110 times that of the mullahs. Were Iran to attain a nuclear capacity, it would complicate the geopolitics of the Middle East. But none of the problems we face compare with the dangers posed by a rising Germany in the first half of the 20th century or an expansionist Soviet Union in the second half. Those were great global powers bent on world domination. If this is 1938, as some neoconservatives tell us, then Iran is Romania, not Germany.

Others paint a dark picture of a world in which dictators are on the march. China and Russia and assorted other oil potentates are surging. We must draw the battle lines now, they warn, and engage in a great Manichean struggle that will define the next century. Some of John McCain's rhetoric has suggested that he adheres to this dire, dyspeptic view. But before we all sign on for a new Cold War, let's take a deep breath and gain some perspective. Today's rising great powers are relatively benign by historical measure. In the past, when countries grew rich they've wanted to become great military powers, overturn the existing order, and create their own empires or spheres of influence. But since the rise of Japan and Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, none have done this, choosing instead to get rich within the existing international order. China and India are clearly moving in this direction. Even Russia, the most aggressive and revanchist great power today, has done little that compares with past aggressors. The fact that for the first time in history, the United States can contest Russian influence in Ukraine—a country 4,800 miles away from Washington that Russia has dominated or ruled for 350 years—tells us something about the balance of power between the West and Russia.

Compare Russia and China with where they were 35 years ago. At the time both (particularly Russia) were great power threats, actively conspiring against the United States, arming guerrilla movement across the globe, funding insurgencies and civil wars, blocking every American plan in the United Nations. Now they are more integrated into the global economy and society than at any point in at least 100 years. They occupy an uncomfortable gray zone, neither friends nor foes, cooperating with the United States and the West on some issues, obstructing others. But how large is their potential for trouble? Russia's military spending is $35 billion, or 1/20th of the Pentagon's. China has about 20 nuclear missiles that can reach the United States. We have 830 missiles, most with multiple warheads, that can reach China. Who should be worried about whom? Other rising autocracies like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are close U.S. allies that shelter under America's military protection, buy its weapons, invest in its companies, and follow many of its diktats. With Iran's ambitions growing in the region, these countries are likely to become even closer allies, unless America gratuitously alienates them.

II. The Good News
In July 2006, I spoke with a senior member of the Israeli government, a few days after Israel's war with Hezbollah had ended. He was genuinely worried about his country's physical security. Hezbollah's rockets had reached farther into Israel than people had believed possible. The military response had clearly been ineffectual: Hezbollah launched as many rockets on the last day of the war as on the first. Then I asked him about the economy—the area in which he worked. His response was striking. "That's puzzled all of us," he said. "The stock market was higher on the last day of the war than on the first! The same with the shekel." The government was spooked, but the market wasn't.

Or consider the Iraq War, which has produced deep, lasting chaos and dysfunction in that country. Over two million refugees have crowded into neighboring lands. That would seem to be the kind of political crisis guaranteed to spill over. But as I've traveled in the Middle East over the last few years, I've been struck by how little Iraq's troubles have destabilized the region. Everywhere you go, people angrily denounce American foreign policy. But most Middle Eastern countries are booming. Iraq's neighbors—Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—are enjoying unprecedented prosperity. The Gulf states are busy modernizing their economies and societies, asking the Louvre, New York University, and Cornell Medical School to set up remote branches in the desert. There's little evidence of chaos, instability, and rampant Islamic fundamentalism.

The underlying reality across the globe is of enormous vitality. For the first time ever, most countries around the world are practicing sensible economics. Consider inflation. Over the past 20 years hyperinflation, a problem that used to bedevil large swaths of the world from Turkey to Brazil to Indonesia, has largely vanished, tamed by successful fiscal and monetary policies. The results are clear and stunning. The share of people living on $1 a day has plummeted from 40 percent in 1981 to 18 percent in 2004 and is estimated to drop to 12 percent by 2015. Poverty is falling in countries that house 80 percent of the world's population. There remains real poverty in the world—most worryingly in 50 basket-case countries that contain 1 billion people—but the overall trend has never been more encouraging. The global economy has more than doubled in size over the last 15 years and is now approaching $54 trillion! Global trade has grown by 133 percent in the same period. The expansion of the global economic pie has been so large, with so many countries participating, that it has become the dominating force of the current era. Wars, terrorism, and civil strife cause disruptions temporarily but eventually they are overwhelmed by the waves of globalization. These circumstances may not last, but it is worth understanding what the world has looked like for the past few decades.

III. A New Nationalism
Of course, global growth is also responsible for some of the biggest problems in the world right now. It has produced tons of money—what businesspeople call liquidity—that moves around the world. The combination of low inflation and lots of cash has meant low interest rates, which in turn have made people act greedily and/or stupidly. So we have witnessed over the last two decades a series of bubbles—in East Asian countries, technology stocks, housing, subprime mortgages, and emerging market equities. Growth also explains one of the signature events of our times—soaring commodity prices. $100 oil is just the tip of the barrel. Almost all commodities are at 200-year highs. Food, only a few decades ago in danger of price collapse, is now in the midst of a scary rise. None of this is due to dramatic fall-offs in supply. It is demand, growing global demand, that is fueling these prices. The effect of more and more people eating, drinking, washing, driving, and consuming will have seismic effects on the global system. These may be high-quality problems, but they are deep problems nonetheless.

The most immediate effect of global growth is the appearance of new economic powerhouses on the scene. It is an accident of history that for the last several centuries, the richest countries in the world have all been very small in terms of population. Denmark has 5.5 million people, the Netherlands has 16.6 million. The United States is the biggest of the bunch and has dominated the advanced industrial world. But the real giants—China, India, Brazil—have been sleeping, unable or unwilling to join the world of functioning economies. Now they are on the move and naturally, given their size, they will have a large footprint on the map of the future. Even if people in these countries remain relatively poor, as nations their total wealth will be massive. Or to put it another way, any number, no matter how small, when multiplied by 2.5 billion becomes a very big number. (2.5 billion is the population of China plus India.)

The rise of China and India is really just the most obvious manifestation of a rising world. In dozens of big countries, one can see the same set of forces at work—a growing economy, a resurgent society, a vibrant culture, and a rising sense of national pride. That pride can morph into something uglier. For me, this was vividly illustrated a few years ago when I was chatting with a young Chinese executive in an Internet café in Shanghai. He wore Western clothes, spoke fluent English, and was immersed in global pop culture. He was a product of globalization and spoke its language of bridge building and cosmopolitan values. At least, he did so until we began talking about Taiwan, Japan, and even the United States. (We did not discuss Tibet, but I'm sure had we done so, I could have added it to this list.) His responses were filled with passion, bellicosity, and intolerance. I felt as if I were in Germany in 1910, speaking to a young German professional, who would have been equally modern and yet also a staunch nationalist.

As economic fortunes rise, so inevitably does nationalism. Imagine that your country has been poor and marginal for centuries. Finally, things turn around and it becomes a symbol of economic progress and success. You would be proud, and anxious that your people win recognition and respect throughout the world.

In many countries such nationalism arises from a pent-up frustration over having to accept an entirely Western, or American, narrative of world history—one in which they are miscast or remain bit players. Russians have long chafed over the manner in which Western countries remember World War II. The American narrative is one in which the United States and Britain heroically defeat the forces of fascism. The Normandy landings are the climactic highpoint of the war—the beginning of the end. The Russians point out, however, that in fact the entire Western front was a sideshow. Three quarters of all German forces were engaged on the Eastern front fighting Russian troops, and Germany suffered 70 percent of its casualties there. The Eastern front involved more land combat than all other theaters of World War II put together.

Such divergent national perspectives always existed. But today, thanks to the information revolution, they are amplified, echoed, and disseminated. Where once there were only the narratives laid out by The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the BBC, and CNN, there are now dozens of indigenous networks and channels—from Al Jazeera to New Delhi's NDTV to Latin America's Telesur. The result is that the "rest" are now dissecting the assumptions and narratives of the West and providing alternative views. A young Chinese diplomat told me in 2006, "When you tell us that we support a dictatorship in Sudan to have access to its oil, what I want to say is, 'And how is that different from your support of a medieval monarchy in Saudi Arabia?' We see the hypocrisy, we just don't say anything—yet."

The fact that newly rising nations are more strongly asserting their ideas and interests is inevitable in a post-American world. This raises a conundrum—how to get a world of many actors to work together. The traditional mechanisms of international cooperation are fraying. The U.N. Security Council has as its permanent members the victors of a war that ended more than 60 years ago. The G8 does not include China, India or Brazil—the three fastest-growing large economies in the world—and yet claims to represent the movers and shakers of the world economy. By tradition, the IMF is always headed by a European and the World Bank by an American. This "tradition," like the segregated customs of an old country club, might be charming to an insider. But to the majority who live outside the West, it seems bigoted. Our challenge is this: Whether the problem is a trade dispute or a human rights tragedy like Darfur or climate change, the only solutions that will work are those involving many nations. But arriving at solutions when more countries and more non-governmental players are feeling empowered will be harder than ever.

IV. The Next American Century
Many look at the vitality of this emerging world and conclude that the United States has had its day. "Globalization is striking back," Gabor Steingart, an editor at Germany's leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, writes in a best-selling book. As others prosper, he argues, the United States has lost key industries, its people have stopped saving money, and its government has become increasingly indebted to Asian central banks. The current financial crisis has only given greater force to such fears.

But take a step back. Over the last 20 years, globalization has been gaining depth and breadth. America has benefited massively from these trends. It has enjoyed unusually robust growth, low unemployment and inflation, and received hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. These are not signs of economic collapse. Its companies have entered new countries and industries with great success, using global supply chains and technology to stay in the vanguard of efficiency. U.S. exports and manufacturing have actually held their ground and services have boomed.

The United States is currently ranked as the globe's most competitive economy by the World Economic Forum. It remains dominant in many industries of the future like nanotechnology, biotechnology, and dozens of smaller high-tech fields. Its universities are the finest in the world, making up 8 of the top ten and 37 of the top fifty, according to a prominent ranking produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A few years ago the National Science Foundation put out a scary and much-discussed statistic. In 2004, the group said, 950,000 engineers graduated from China and India, while only 70,000 graduated from the United States. But those numbers are wildly off the mark. If you exclude the car mechanics and repairmen—who are all counted as engineers in Chinese and Indian statistics—the numbers look quite different. Per capita, it turns out, the United States trains more engineers than either of the Asian giants.

But America's hidden secret is that most of these engineers are immigrants. Foreign students and immigrants account for almost 50 percent of all science researchers in the country. In 2006 they received 40 percent of all PhDs. By 2010, 75 percent of all science PhDs in this country will be awarded to foreign students. When these graduates settle in the country, they create economic opportunity. Half of all Silicon Valley start-ups have one founder who is an immigrant or first generation American. The potential for a new burst of American productivity depends not on our education system or R&D spending, but on our immigration policies. If these people are allowed and encouraged to stay, then innovation will happen here. If they leave, they'll take it with them
More broadly, this is America's great—and potentially insurmountable—strength. It remains the most open, flexible society in the world, able to absorb other people, cultures, ideas, goods, and services. The country thrives on the hunger and energy of poor immigrants. Faced with the new technologies of foreign companies, or growing markets overseas, it adapts and adjusts. When you compare this dynamism with the closed and hierarchical nations that were once superpowers, you sense that the United States is different and may not fall into the trap of becoming rich, and fat, and lazy.

American society can adapt to this new world. But can the American government? Washington has gotten used to a world in which all roads led to its doorstep. America has rarely had to worry about benchmarking to the rest of the world—it was always so far ahead. But the natives have gotten good at capitalism and the gap is narrowing. Look at the rise of London. It's now the world's leading financial center—less because of things that the United States did badly than those London did well, like improving regulation and becoming friendlier to foreign capital. Or take the U.S. health care system, which has become a huge liability for American companies. U.S. carmakers now employ more people in Ontario, Canada, than Michigan because in Canada their health care costs are lower. Twenty years ago, the United States had the lowest corporate taxes in the world. Today they are the second-highest. It's not that ours went up. Those of others went down.

American parochialism is particularly evident in foreign policy. Economically, as other countries grow, for the most part the pie expands and everyone wins. But geopolitics is a struggle for influence: as other nations become more active internationally, they will seek greater freedom of action. This necessarily means that America's unimpeded influence will decline. But if the world that's being created has more power centers, nearly all are invested in order, stability and progress. Rather than narrowly obsessing about our own short-term interests and interest groups, our chief priority should be to bring these rising forces into the global system, to integrate them so that they in turn broaden and deepen global economic, political, and cultural ties. If China, India, Russia, Brazil all feel that they have a stake in the existing global order, there will be less danger of war, depression, panics, and breakdowns. There will be lots of problems, crisis, and tensions, but they will occur against a backdrop of systemic stability. This benefits them but also us. It's the ultimate win-win.

To bring others into this world, the United States needs to make its own commitment to the system clear. So far, America has been able to have it both ways. It is the global rule-maker but doesn't always play by the rules. And forget about standards created by others. Only three countries in the world don't use the metric system—Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States. For America to continue to lead the world, we will have to first join it.

Americans—particularly the American government—have not really understood the rise of the rest. This is one of the most thrilling stories in history. Billions of people are escaping from abject poverty. The world will be enriched and ennobled as they become consumers, producers, inventors, thinkers, dreamers, and doers. This is all happening because of American ideas and actions. For 60 years, the United States has pushed countries to open their markets, free up their politics, and embrace trade and technology. American diplomats, businessmen, and intellectuals have urged people in distant lands to be unafraid of change, to join the advanced world, to learn the secrets of our success. Yet just as they are beginning to do so, we are losing faith in such ideas. We have become suspicious of trade, openness, immigration, and investment because now it's not Americans going abroad but foreigners coming to America. Just as the world is opening up, we are closing down.

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that by the turn of the 21st century, the United States had succeeded in its great, historical mission—globalizing the world. We don't want them to write that along the way, we forgot to globalize ourselves.
satya
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Post by satya »

Raju

Global Warming Debunked

Post by Raju »

http://www.abd.org.uk/green_myths.htm
"the fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" ... the desire to save the world usually fronts a desire to rule it."
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Post by svinayak »

satya wrote:The Rise of the Rest

Posted By: getzel @ 05/05/2008 2:23:29 PM

Comment: War ends We win: when we pass a law that makes the minimum price of gasoline at the pumps: $1.75/gallon; billion dollar/million barrel per day ethanol stills will not be built without protection from OPEC monopoly pricing rusting out our new stills.

The ethanol investors do not build ethanol distilleries because monopoly OPEC would lower the price to rust out their billion dollar million barrel a day ethanol still. Brazil is energy independent: ethanol; All their cars come built running on ethanol; Archer Daniel Midland made millions on $1.00 gallon ethanol in the 1990s; that trumps any canard/invalid objection to ethanol. Use Cellulose ethanol, not corn ethanol.

This will balance the trade deficit, create full employment, bring down the price of fuel, break the monopoly on the pricing of fuel, balance the USA government budget, create less pollution, make the USA energy independent, and end the war because we will stop funding the bad guys everyday at the gas pumps..

My view is that Osama BL et al should be referred to as "mercenary marketing directors for various government owned weapons manufacturers parading as a religious persons";( my description fits better than theirs & who would believe them if we did not promote them as religious?) no English definition of "religious person" includes flying planes into buildings. true not true, who cares; follow this strategy: War Ends We Win. After 7 years, the USA finally officially adopted my position on this portrayal of OBL..

China, Russia, and the Islamis only lead the world in repression of freedom of thought and brainwashing their people to believe and recite lies as though they are truth: like Fareed Zakarear.

Sharia people are at war with The West because Sharia people believe Islam can not survive against: a free market economy with free speech to criticize Islam.

A picture of Mohammad and they riot like mad dogs.
Continuous suicide murder in the name of Islam, and not a peep.
They are all terrorist murder supporters.

Arab, if only Israel: is only an excuse, propaganda, for Islamic terror; as we see that wherever the Mohammedans bump against another culture the Mohammedans say the same thing they say about Israel. In India: same thing, in Kosovo: same thing, In Israel: same thing. In Darfur: same thing. In Thailand: same thing, the Philippines: same thing. Wherever the Moslems are contiguous with another people: The Moslems say the same thing they say about Israel: If only: Sharia and no freedom of speech to criticize Islam.

The draft is scheduled to return to the USA in 2009 whether we elect Larry, Curly, or Mo.

Intelligence analyst: Getzel
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svinayak
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Post by svinayak »

Asian states feel rice pinch
Factors contributing to the price rise include:

-Poor harvests resulting from extreme weather
-A rise in demand in some rice-importing countries, where populations and incomes are growing
-The expectation of further price increases - resulting in hoarding
-Low stockpiles and a long term lack of agricultural investment
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Post by svinayak »

[quote]Handicapping the Next Superpower
How Not to Compare China and India

neil c. hughes
http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai ... 431&MId=19

Most Americans will no doubt remember the television commercials for a certain variety of “liteâ€
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http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501f ... power.html

The Future of American Power
How America Can Survive the Rise of the Rest

Fareed Zakaria

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008
Summary: Despite some eerie parallels between the position of the United States today and that of the British Empire a century ago, there are key differences. Britain's decline was driven by bad economics. The United States, in contrast, has the strength and dynamism to continue shaping the world -- but only if it can overcome its political dysfunction and reorient U.S. policy for a world defined by the rise of other powers.

FAREED ZAKARIA is Editor of Newsweek International. This essay is adapted from his book The Post-American World (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., © 2008 by Fareed Zakaria).
Of Related Interest

*
Topics:
U.S. Policy and Politics
Globalization

On June 22, 1897, about 400 million people around the world -- one-fourth of humanity -- got the day off. It was the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the British throne. The Diamond Jubilee stretched over five days on land and sea, but its high point was the parade and thanksgiving service on June 22. The 11 premiers of Britain's self-governing colonies were in attendance, along with princes, dukes, ambassadors, and envoys from the rest of the world. A military procession of 50,000 soldiers included hussars from Canada, cavalrymen from New South Wales, carabineers from Naples, camel troops from Bikaner, and Gurkhas from Nepal. It was, as one historian wrote, "a Roman moment."

In London, eight-year-old Arnold Toynbee was perched on his uncle's shoulders, eagerly watching the parade. Toynbee, who grew up to become the most famous historian of his age, recalled that, watching the grandeur of the day, it felt as if the sun were "standing still in the midst of Heaven." "I remember the atmosphere," he wrote. "It was: 'Well, here we are on top of the world, and we have arrived at this peak to stay there forever. There is, of course, a thing called history, but history is something unpleasant that happens to other people. We are comfortably outside all of that I am sure.'"

But of course, history did happen to Britain. The question for the superpower of the current age is, Will history happen to the United States as well? Is it already happening? No analogy is exact, but the British Empire in its heyday is the closest any nation in the modern age has come to the United States' position today. In considering whether and how the forces of change will affect the United States, it is worth paying close attention to the experience of Britain.

There are many contemporary echoes. The United States' recent military interventions in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq all have parallels in British military interventions decades ago. The basic strategic dilemma of being the only truly global player on the world stage is strikingly similar. But there are also fundamental differences between Britain then and the United States now. For Britain, as it tried to maintain its superpower status, the largest challenge was economic rather than political. For the United States, it is the other way around.

Through shrewd strategic choices and some sophisticated diplomacy, Britain was able to maintain and even extend its influence for decades. In the end, however, it could not alter the fact that its power position -- its economic and technological dynamism -- was fast eroding. Britain declined gracefully -- but inexorably. The United States today faces a problem that is quite different. The U.S. economy (despite its current crisis) remains fundamentally vigorous when compared with others. American society is vibrant. It is the United States' political system that is dysfunctional, unable to make the relatively simple reforms that would place the country on extremely solid footing for the future. Washington seems largely unaware of the new world rising around it -- and shows few signs of being able to reorient U.S. policy for this new age.

BRITANNIA'S DEMISE

Today, it is difficult even to imagine the magnitude of the British Empire. At its height, it covered about a quarter of the earth's land surface and included a quarter of its population. London's network of colonies, territories, bases, and ports spanned the globe. The empire was protected by the Royal Navy, the greatest seafaring force in history, and linked by 170,000 nautical miles of ocean cables and 662,000 miles of aerial and buried cables. British ships had facilitated the development of the first global communications network, via the telegraph. Railways and canals (the Suez Canal most importantly) deepened the connectivity of the system. Through all of this, the British Empire created the first truly global market.

Americans often talk about the appeal of their culture and ideas, but "soft power" really began with Britain. The historian Claudio Véliz points out that in the seventeenth century, the two imperial powers of the day, Britain and Spain, both tried to export their ideas and practices to their western colonies. Spain wanted the Counter-Reformation to take hold in the New World; Britain wanted religious pluralism and capitalism to flourish. As it turned out, British ideas proved more universal. In fact, Britain has arguably been the most successful exporter of its culture in human history. Before the American dream, there was an "English way of life" -- one that was watched, admired, and copied throughout the world. And also thanks to the British Empire, English spread as a global language, spoken from the Caribbean to Cape Town to Calcutta.

Not all of this was recognized in June 1897, but much of it was. The British were hardly alone in making comparisons between their empire and Rome. Paris' Le Figaro declared that Rome itself had been "equaled, if not surpassed, by the Power which in Canada, Australia, India, in the China Seas, in Egypt, Central and Southern Africa, in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean rules the peoples and governs their interests." The Kreuz-Zeitung in Berlin described the empire as "practically unassailable." Across the Atlantic, The New York Times gushed, "We are a part, and a great part, of the Greater Britain which seems so plainly destined to dominate this planet."
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Post by svinayak »

Winter 2007/08, Vol. 24, No. 4, Pages 1-9
Posted Online March 19, 2008.
(doi:10.1162/wopj.2008.24.4.1)
The End of Liberal Globalization


Michael F. Oppenheimer

Michael F. Oppenheimer is clinical associate professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs ... 008.24.4.1
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Post by Rye »

Putin signing the 123 with USA just before leaving office seems to be a diplomatic signal of some sort to someone. Anyone have any ideas of the possibilities?
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Post by JE Menon »

Source? Link?
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Post by Ananth »

JE Menon wrote:Source? Link?
Whom are you asking? :P
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Post by vsudhir »

JE Menon wrote:Source? Link?
Right click on the image and click 'Properties'. The URL of the image contains clues as to that of the source/ link. Seems like sepiamutiny.com.
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Post by JE Menon »

vsudhir, yeah, I saw that but there's no connection between that and anything else I could find on that blog... no indication of who did the survey or anything like that...

could well be POOA... by the sepiamutiny guys who knows?
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Post by Sanku »

GP uvacha:

Pipeline of uncertainty
Pipeline of uncertainty


The debate on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline has generated more heat than light. There has been a wide chasm between rhetoric and reality, with little informed public debate. It is indisputable that the booming, but energy starved, Indian economy needs to tap every possible source of energy that is economically viable, with its security and continuity suitably guaranteed. By 2020, India's demand for natural gas is expected to rise three-fold to 270 million cubic metres daily, with 200 million cubic metres coming from existing sources -- domestic and foreign. India currently has only one significant contract with Qatar, for import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which is presently for five million tonnes per year, with an additional two million tonnes annually being available from 2009.

In June 2005, India signed a $22 billion deal with Iran for the supply of five million tonnes of LNG annually, with Iran agreeing to consider supply of an additional 2.5 million tonnes annually. Iran unilaterally repudiated this agreement and demanded higher prices, calling into question its credibility as a reliable energy supplier. Talks are on to renegotiate this agreement. But India should be under no doubt that despite sentimental rhetoric about "civilisational ties" with Iran, the Iranians are not given to sentimentalism, merely because our officials claim that we have a large population of Shias in India.

In today's global scenario, three countries -- Russia, Iran and Qatar -- account for 58 per cent of global gas reserves. Japan imports LNG primarily from Australia and its neighbours. With natural gas meeting 20 per cent of its power needs, the growing US demand is being met largely from Canada and to a lesser extent from West Asia. Russian strategic analysts would like to use their energy resources to make Europe extensively dependent on Russia, to counter NATO's inroads into Russian strategic space in former Soviet Republics like Ukraine and Georgia. Russia would, therefore, support Iran's quest for markets towards its east in countries like China and India.

China's state-owned Sinopec signed a $60 billion agreement in 2004 to buy 250 million tonnes of LNG over 30 years from Iran and develop the giant Yadavaran gas field. Iran is also committed to export 150,000 barrels per day of oil to China for 25 years. Given Russian strategic interest in dominating the energy markets of the European Union, Russia has a substantial interest in Iranian gas being sold increasingly to Asian economies, rather than European markets.

Should India worry about US pressures over the IPI pipeline? In August 2006, the US Congress unanimously passed the 'Iran, Libya Sanctions Act' (ILSA), which provides for imposition of US sanctions on companies, irrespective of their "corporate nationality" that invest more than $20 million annually in the Iranian oil and gas sector. Despite this legislation, Iran has attracted more than $30 billion of foreign investment in its energy sector since the sanctions were imposed. The European Union has opposed the ILSA sanctions and passed a resolution on November 22, 1996, directing its companies not to comply with the sanctions.

A number of European Companies, including TOTAL of France and Italy's ENI, have ignored the sanctions, as have Petronas from Malaysia and Russian energy giant GAZPROM. In these circumstances, there is no reason for India to hesitate to proceed with the IPI pipeline, merely because of apprehensions of the adverse impact of possible American sanctions. If Washington expresses displeasure, it can be politely told that given our need for eco-friendly sources of energy we have no option but to seek access to natural gas to meet our energy needs.

According to Russian estimates, the 2,700-km IPI pipeline will have a capacity of 54 billion cubic metres of gas per annum, with 32 billion cubic metres supplied to India and 22 billion cubic metres to Pakistan. The project is estimated to cost $7.6 billion. China has not yet expressed an interest in extending the IPI pipeline to its Xingjian province. Despite Pakistan's advocacy, the economic viability of such a pipeline through the high Himalayas is questionable. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has exuded optimism that negotiations on the ISI pipeline can be finalised in a matter of months. Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, however, noted that much work needed to be done to ensure that the IPI project was commercially viable, financially acceptable and India's security concerns were addressed.

In 1996, then Pakistan's President Farooq Leghari told Indian High Commissioner Satish Chandra that it was entirely conceivable that Pakistan could cut off supplies at times of tensions, nonchalantly adding that as conflicts between India and Pakistan seldom lasted more than a few weeks India should not be unduly concerned about temporary dislocations in gas supplies! Moreover, the pipeline will traverse through both Iranian and Pakistan Baluchistan. Over the past three years, Pakistan's pipelines have been systematically blown up by Baluch separatists. In Iranian Baluchistan, a shadowy Sunni organisation (believed to be American-backed) called Jundullah has been attacking Iranian Government targets.

The new Government in Pakistan appears to be more realistic in dealing with Baluch aspirations than Gen Pervez Musharraf. But will it be prudent for New Delhi to become heavily dependent on a pipeline through Baluchistan till it is clear that issues like royalty payable to the province are sorted out and Baluch aspirations addressed? Financially, given the spiralling costs of oil and given that gas prices are linked to prices of oil, at what stage will gas-based energy plants become uneconomical for India? Finally, any agreement has to provide penalty clauses for non-delivery and for gas reserves to cater for disruptions in supply.

These are issues that need to be sorted out in discussions with Iran and Pakistan. At the same time, India's interests require that a major power like Russia is involved in investment in and construction of the pipeline, as a guarantor of continuity of supplies. GAZPROM would be an ideal partner to play such a role. GAZPROM could agree to undertake an undersea pipeline bypassing Pakistan, which would substantially meet concerns of energy security. Moreover, New Delhi should show caution in proceeding with the proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan for the supply of gas to India. The situation in Southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban controls vast tracts of the countryside, is far too turbulent for requirements of energy security to be met.

The Manmohan Singh Government has been less than transparent and forthcoming in explaining such issues to the people. In the absence of informed public debate, demagogues voicing the empty rhetoric of the Cold War inevitably dominate the public discourse.
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Post by Apu »

PM offers economic assistance package to Bhutan

TOI
THIMPU: Making his first-ever visit to Bhutan close on the heels of its transition to democracy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday offered a package of economic assistance that includes building a railway line and doubling power generation from its hydel projects.

Singh, who became the first international leader to visit Bhutan after it entered the club of democratic nations in March, met his Bhutanese counterpart Jigme Thinley and King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck and made the offer.

"India is committed to building a railway line to Bhutan to improve connectivity and to help the two economies to grow together," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said after the high-level meetings.

"India has prepared a detailed project report and a link will be from Hashimara in West Bengal to Phuntsholing in Bhutan. The details of the project would be worked out later," he said.

Singh, the first Prime Minister to visit the Himalayan state after late P V Narasimha Rao's visit in 1993, instructed officials to double the targets of hydro-electricity to be generated in Bhutan by 2020.

The earlier target of 5,000 MW was to be raised to 10,000 MW by that year as per the new instructions.

India's contribution to Bhutan's 10th five-year plan will also be discussed with the new government, Menon said. So far, the two sides have held two rounds of meeting on the same subject.

Earlier in the day, Singh received a warm welcome from the Bhutanese people, who turned out in their traditional and colourful costumes to greet him at the formal reception ceremony. Thinley drove more than 50 kms to personally receive the guest, who is here on a two-day visit.
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Post by rocky »

Brazil's sub-standard treatment to Pratibha Patil on her recent tour could probably be linked to Chidambaram's statements on bio-fuels and ethanol ...
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Post by Philip »

Cubans accuse US diplomutt of terror links.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/20/cuba.usa

Cuba accuses envoy of terror linkWill Weissert, Associated Press in Havana The Guardian, Tuesday May 20 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 20 2008 on p20 of the International section. It was last updated at 03:37 on May 20 2008. Cuba yesterday accused the top US diplomat in Havana of carrying mail to dissidents containing funds from an organisation run by the benefactor of an alleged terrorist. The authorities presented emails and other correspondence they said supported their claim against Michael Parmly, the chief of the US interests section in the Cuban capital. But while the evidence referred to "letters", it included no direct proof that there was money involved.

Cuba claimed that funds were sent to two political opposition leaders, Martha Beatriz Roque and Laura Pollan, from a Miami-based organisation called Fundacion Rescate Juridica, headed by Santiago Alvarez. Alvarez, the authorities said, was a benefactor of Luis Posada Carriles, accused by Cuba of masterminding bombings of aircraft and hotels.

"This reveals the connection between the counter-revolutionaries in Cuba and the terrorists," said Josefina Vidal Ferreira, the director of the Cuban foreign ministry's north American department.

Roque heads the Assembly for Civil Society while Pollan is a member of the Ladies in White group of political prisoners' wives. Neither was immediately available for comment yesterday.

Cuba has for years accused US officials of providing government funds and material support to the island's tiny opposition. American officials have acknowledged sending books, radios, tape recorders and other items, purchased through the US Agency for International Development, but have denied giving dissidents cash.

During a 2003 crackdown Cuba charged 75 opposition members with being "mercenaries" working with US officials to overthrow the communist system and sentenced them to long prison terms.
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Post by Kalantak »

India doesn't contribute to global food crisis

India has no role to play in the present global food crisis. On the other hand, Indian farmers have saved the country from the need for importing food from outside says M.S.Swaminathan...

The Indian farmer is not responsible for the food crisis, says renowned agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan. In fact, the farmer has saved India from going in for imports when the world is facing a food crisis. At the same time, the rise in food prices is attributable to the increase in input costs. The farmer is not rewarded suitably at the end of the day, says Dr Swaminathan in this e-mail interview to S Murari of Deccan Herald. Excerpts:

What is your take on US President Bush’s remark that growing consumption by the burgeoning middle class in India and China is partly responsible for the current world food crisis?

The US President seems to have made the remark in the context of the high economic growth occurring in India. Normally, when a person’s financial position improves, there is a tendency to eat less of the basic staple and consume more vegetables, fruits, and animal products. In our country, poultry and fish products are the ones widely consumed by those who are non-vegetarian. More than half of our population is vegetarian, either because of personal principles or because of economic compulsion. India has no role to play in the present global food crisis. On the other hand, Indian farmers have saved the country from the need for importing food from outside.

To what extent has diversion of farmland for bio-fuel in the developed world contributed to the crisis?

The diversion of farmland from food to biofuel has received impetus recently because of the steep escalation in the price of petroleum products. Unless, petroleum-based fuel cost comes to reasonable levels, countries which are importing such expensive fuel will try to produce biofuels and other renewable sources of energy like solar, biomass, biogas, wind, etc to the extent possible.

The Centre says India is a net exporter of food items. Then what is the reason for the increase in food prices?

The price of farm commodities is going up because of the high cost of inputs. Take wheat, for example. Our farm men and women have provided to government over 17 million tonnes of wheat in a global food environment marked by a crisis atmosphere.

Nearly 80 per cent of our farmers, who belong to small and marginal category, have no holding capacity and they have to sell their produce as soon the crop is harvested since the government’s warehousing and godown schemes are yet to take off in a significant manner. This is why they appreciate government efforts through Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other agencies to provide cash immediately for the produce they bring to the market.

During the last rabi season, the usual winter rains failed and there were unseasonal rains at harvest time. Fertilisers like DAP were not available in adequate quantities at the right time and place. In many parts of Punjab, the water table has also gone down, involving a greater expenditure of energy in pumping water. This is why I have been feeling that the procurement price should take into account the prevailing national and international market price as well as the escalation in the cost of production since the announcement of the support price.

Most small farmers may have at the best about 50-100 quintals to sell. If the margin between the cost of production and the procurement price is even 250 rupees per quintal, the ‘net take home pay’ of the farmer will come only to Rs 25,000. This is all the reward for the hard work over a period of six months by a family of 4-5 persons. This is one of the reasons for the persistence of pervasive rural poverty.

Following the amendment to the APMC Act, we will have two kinds of farmers — those who sell for public good and those who sell for commercial profit to private trade. Those who contribute grains for the public good through FCI and other government agencies should be given a Smart Card, which would entitle them to seeds, fertiliser, implements and other essential inputs at concessional prices at sowing time.

Inflation has touched a new high of 7.8 per cent. Do you think steps taken by the government like a ban on the export of rice and edible oil and duty cuts on imports will help rein in inflation?

The ban on export of essential commodities and liberal imports will certainly help to check inflation arising from a demand-supply gap and consequent tendency to hoard. However, great care should be exercised in allowing cheap import of pulses and oil seeds at a time when our crops are getting ready for harvest. These are important crops for the dry farming areas and hence we should insulate small and marginal farmers in rainfed areas from an artificial depression in price.
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Post by Philip »

Unfortunate travails of the Canadian Foreign minister,leading to his resignation over his controversial girlfriend.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 35209.html

Foreign minister of Canada quits over 'biker's moll' girlfriend

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Wednesday, 28 May 2008

Maxime Bernier with his former girlfriend Julie Couillard, who raised eyebrows with her choice of dress when she attended Mr Bernier's swearing-in ceremony

The curtain came down yesterday on the brief and embattled cabinet career of Canada's Foreign Minister after a scandal involving his relationship with a woman who was once linked to criminal biker gangs.


The gaffe-prone Maxime Bernier – who promised to send Burma aid on a plane that does not exist and was sworn in with the so-called bikers' moll on his arm –will likely be remembered for longer than he served as his exit cast fresh doubts on the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The resignation came only hours before a television interview with the Julie Couillard, 38, was due to be broadcast. Her life and loves have become a staple for the Canadian press as they have raked over her supposed live-in mobster lover who was murdered, her subsequent marriage to a biker and her latest relationship to the man who became Canada's Foreign Minister.

For weeks, Canada's conservative Prime Minister has been defending Mr Bernier's right to privacy over his relationship with Ms Couillard. The dam finally burst hours before her broadcast.

"This is not to do with the minister's private life... I don't think it matters who a minister is dating," Mr. Harper had said before departing for Europe.

But on Monday, Mr Bernier was forced to walk the plank just before Ms Couillard revealed on television she had discovered secret Nato documents in her apartment after one of the minister's visits. Within 24 hours of the classified documents being returned, Mr Bernier was out of a job.

Ms Couillard spiced up the grey world of Canadian politics last August when she wore a jaw-dropping dress at her boyfriend's swearing in ceremony. That earned him a rebuke from Prime Minister Harper.

When he introduced Ms Couillard to President George Bush at a summit, there was only admiration.

"Well, well, well, haven't you been keeping good company," Mr Bush told Mr Bernier when he approached the couple.

In office, Mr Bernier seemed to attract controversy. In April, Mr Bernier had to retract comments calling for the removal of Kandahar's governor Asadullah Khalid, and recently he promised to deliver aid to Burma on a Canadian cargo plane that was unavailable. Mr. Bernier also managed to get the name of the Haitian President wrong in Canada's House of Commons.

Ms Couillard said she told Mr Bernier about the biker past of her ex-husband and ex-boyfriend from the "very beginning" of their relationship. The two had been seeing each other for more than a month before he asked her to be his official companion for the purposes of taxpayer-funded government travel, she said. "Already then, Maxime was completely aware of everything."

She said Mr Bernier told her she had not had an easy life but did not question much more, and as far as she knows, did not inform anyone in government. It was a stream of revelations about Ms Couillard's Hells Angels associates and biker husband that brought Mr Bernier's career low.

The two met at a dinner party in 2007 and she claims she was approached by the Conservatives to become a parliamentary candidate. However, the relationship was ending at the time Mr Bernier left the sensitive documents at her flat in April. Ms Couillard kept them while controversy raged about her links to Montreal's Hells Angels.

Ms Couillard had a three-year relationship to a mob enforcer, Giles Giguere, which ended with his death in 1996. He became a police informant after being arrested with a stash of submachine guns and was found dead in a ditch. The gang also considered killing Ms Couillard in the Nineties Quebec biker wars.

In her TV interview, Ms Couillard said she had lived with two men who were "not choir boys."

Ms Couillard then married Stephane Sirois, a key lieutenant of Montreal's former Hells Angels boss, Maurice Boucher. Ms. Couillard said she warned Mr Bernier about the biker past of her ex-husband and deceased former boyfriend from the "very beginning".

In 1997, she began dating and later married Mr Sirois, an enforcer for a biker gang named the Rockers. He too became an informant and subsequently testified against a dozen fellow bikers at a trial 2002. The couple divorced in 1999.

"When I met Stephane, yes he was a biker and I told him that I was not interested in seeing him because of that fact," she said. "Stephane made a choice of leaving the biker gang that he was with, the Rockers, and while I was with him he was not a biker any more." She denied being a "biker's chick" and said that she had no contact with that world.

But the revelations that Ms Couillard had links to Quebec bikers during a vicious turf war over drugs, brought her relationship with Mr Bernier to the floor. Ms Couillard now says the controversy has destroyed her career as an estate agent and that she has been hiding out in her apartment for the past three weeks.

She sais she went public in order to regain her credibility, saying: "I was humiliated as a woman, I haven't done anything wrong."
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Post by ramana »

A book review and commentary

Beware intra-Asian rivalry

Beware intra-Asian rivalry

Subir Roy / New Delhi May 28, 2008, 5:49 IST

Bill Emmott, a former editor of the Economist, has argued that power struggle between the three Asian giants — China, India and Japan (in alphabetical order) — will shape the way the world runs in the next decade. He has little faith in seeking to project the future too far ahead and so sticks to a meaningful time frame. That is fine but the slide back in Afghanistan, unresolved mess in Iraq, uncertainty over Iran, the continued cauldron that is West Asia and unabated Islamic fundamentalist terrorism across the globe seem to indicate that right now peace is threatened most of all by conflicts with many followers of Islam, and this will continue for the next several years.


Few will argue with Emmott that "despite the understandable focus after September 11 2001 on the Middle East and Central Asia, the most important long-term trend in the world affairs does indeed remain the shift in economic and political power to Asia." But we aren't quite talking long-term here, are we? Is ten years long-term in a historical sense?

Rapid growth and rising prosperity in Asia, which signal the "end of Western dominance of Asia", "will change the relative balance of power in the world". But what is important is "Asia is becoming an arena of balance-of-power politics, with no clear leader". Hence the rivalry and the inevitable potential for conflict. So managing the relationship between the three "promises to be one of the most important tasks in global affairs during the next decade and beyond…"

What makes the intra-Asian rivalry serious is that Asians see little purchase in the idea of Asia. It is more of a cartographer's creation and has been a Western or European concept. Asians are more driven by their own perceptions rooted in their civilisational psyches. Perhaps the most telling quote in the whole book is from a senior official in India's MEA who told the author, "The thing you have to understand is that both of us [India and China] think that the future belongs to us. We can't both be right."

On the three countries focused, Emmott knows Japan best and gives a panoramic account of its evolution in the last two decades. After the hubris of the eighties and nemesis of the nineties, Japan has reformed somewhat but must do more. This is needed to improve productivity so as to pay for its ageing population as working age numbers dwindle. He recalls from personal experience the arrogance of Japan's leaders in the eighties, which is now gone but which can be reemerging among the Chinese, who are currently racing ahead.

To lessen the danger of conflict arising out of the rivalry between Asian giants, Emmott outlines a wish list of what needs doing. The US has to fix the NPT, which is broken because of the exception made for India and the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament. It has also to lead in combating climate change by working for emission reduction targets for all, including itself. It should start a fund to help poor countries bear the cost of new technology to reduce energy intensity and harmful emissions. :(

An even bigger agenda is set for multilateral institutions and forums, which must be restructured so as to include the emerging Asian powers, without which these entities will be meaningless. The list is formidable — G8, UN Security Council, and proper shareholding and voting powers in multilateral bodies like the IMF and the World Bank.

Action points are also laid out for the big three. India should settle with its neighbours and lower tariffs for them and China should at least become more transparent, it being pointless to call for more democracy. The list for Japan is the longest. It should bury the past, say sorry for war atrocities committed by the imperial army, appoint a commission for fixing compensation for the atrocities and put the controversial Yasukuni shrine under public control. The US and its wartime allies should re-examine the status of the Tokyo trials, which have been described as "profoundly misconceived".

There can be no argument that emerging Asia will matter more and more but there seems to have been a glaring omission in not examining in detail South Korea. It is already a developed country and a member of the OECD. It is at the cutting edge of technology embodied in its firms like Samsung and Hyundai. Should the two Koreas unite it will be a nation of over 70 million educated people who will form a large domestic market and earn the country a demographic dividend. Economic clout, a strong sense of its own history and fierce nationalism make South Korea itself an Asian power which needs to be counted. Should unification come, the country's importance will be even greater.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


RIVALS
HOW THE POWER STRUGGLE BETWEEN CHINA, INDIA AND JAPAN WILL SHAPE OUR NEXT DECADE

Bill Emmott
Allen Lane
314 pages; £20

Greatful to the reviewer for pointing out the book but he is off base.Korea does not matter unless it merges with NoKo which China wont allow.
Also there is a japanese line of thinking that these threee Asian countries are the Three kingdoms. Emmots book also has a blind view of the Middle East which is a mess due to the GB policies of the early 20th century. US only stirred badly.
Philip
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Post by Philip »

More Cold War 2 symptoms.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 036313.ece

As TNK-BP director Jean-Luc Vermeulen quits, spy allegations fly in Moscow.

Tony Halpin in Moscow and Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor
The dispute over ownership of BP’s joint venture with Russia erupted again yesterday as a senior director abruptly resigned after admitting he could no longer help to resolve the issue.

The departure of Jean-Luc Vermeulen, a former executive of Elf Aquitaine, the French oil group, from TNK-BP came at the end of a week of high drama for TNK-BP and the Russian billionaires who own 50 per cent of the venture. Mr Vermeulen was one of five directors appointed by the Russian side after TNK-BP’s formation in 2003. Five other directors were appointed by BP.

Compounding the company’s problems yesterday, the Tvoi Den newspaper claimed in a front-page story that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had unmasked a senior BP manager as a spy. It did not name the man but published what it said was a photograph of him with his face blurred out.

The paper, which has close ties to the FSB, alleged that the man was linked to Alexander and Ilya Zaslavsky, brothers who were arrested on espionage charges in March. Ilya Zaslavsky had been employed by TNK-BP.

Russian agents raid BP office in Moscow
BP suspends 148 staff over visa row with Russia
TNK-BP raid steps up fears over Kremlin line

The FSB accused the brothers, who are prominent members of the alumni club of the British Council in Moscow, of collecting classified information on behalf of foreign companies that “wished to have advantages over their Russian rivalsâ€
Sanjay M
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Post by Sanjay M »

Read this one:

SAUDI ARABIA: THE STRATEGIC SHIFT TOWARDS RUSSIA?

If true, then this is a masterstroke by the Kremlin. They are forging an axis between the largest OPEC and non-OPEC powers.

Yes, it would be bad for India from the point of view of energy prices. But it would be positive for India in the sense that the Western world will be increasingly stuck in the same boat, once its Saudi puppets have broken ranks with them.

Most importantly for India, is that it will increasingly put the Islamic world at odds with Europe and Atlanticist interests. I was thinking that only the removal of Ataturkism from Turkey and its restoration of the Ottomanist Caliphate would accomplish this. But if Russia has innovated a new route for this via Saudi Arabia, then I say more power to them. A fresh Islamic threat to European interests will make the West have second thoughts about cosying upto Pakistan.

Not long ago, the Saudis were mainly busying themselves with shipping guns, Korans and even jihadi fighters over to Chechnya to use against Russian authority. But now if Saudi is willing to move closer to Russia's sphere of influence, then this will reduce the Western incentive to favor using jihadism as a geopolitical tool.

Kudos to Putin, if he's accomplished this. Russia's fortunes are certainly rising in the world, thanks to him.
svinayak
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Post by svinayak »

Gordon Brown: London Has the Qualities Needed for Global Success, But Education Needs to be Priority
HM Treasury, 6/21/2007

During his speech at the Mansion House on June 20, Chancellor Gordon Brown praised London for being number 1 in a study last week of the 50 top fincial cities but cautioned that the education system needed to be uplifted and students needed to be reached out to in order to stay at the top.

Read full speech:

My Lord Mayor, Mr Governor, my Lords, Aldermen, Mr Recorder, Sheriffs, ladies and gentlemen.

Over the 10 years that I have had the privilege of addressing you as chancellor, I have been able year by year to record how the city of London has risen by your efforts, ingenuity and creativity to become a new world leader.

Now today over 40% of the world's foreign equities are traded here, more than New York:

* over 30% of the world's currencies exchanges take place here, more than New York and Tokyo combined,
* while New York and Tokyo are reliant mainly on their large American and Asian domestic markets, 80% of our business is international, and
* in a study last week of the top 50 financial cities, the city of London came first.

So I congratulate you Lord Mayor and the city of London on these remarkable achievements, an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the city of London.

And I believe the lesson we learn from the success of the city has ramifications far beyond the city itself - that we are leading because we are first in putting to work exactly that set of qualities that is needed for global success:

* openness to the world and global reach,
* pioneers of free trade and its leading defenders,
* with a deep and abiding belief in open markets,
* champions of diversity in ownership and talent, and of flexibility and adaptability to change, and
* a basic faith that from wherever it comes and from whatever background, what matters is that the talent, ingenuity and potential of people is harnessed to drive performance.

And I believe it will be said of this age, the first decades of the 21st century, that out of the greatest restructuring of the global economy, perhaps even greater than the industrial revolution, a new world order was created.

When my predecessors spoke to this event a century or more ago, the world order of the 19th century they described was defined by the balance of military power, and saw European empires dividing the world between them from 1945 to 1990 when my predecessors of the post war years spoke to you. The world order was defined by the high-stake stand-off of the cold war years, these were orders ultimately reflected by political weight and military strength.

Today with Asia already out-producing Europe, India and China are becoming part of this new order, principally because of their economic strength and potential.

And while military and political power retain their status, future strength will depend much more on economic strength.

Indeed success will flow to, and the next stage of globalization will be driven by those countries:

* which are open and not closed, stable, pro-competition and flexible, able to adjust quickly to change, and
* can as a result find - through their social and political cultures - the best means of developing and creating wealth through the scientific, creative, and entrepreneurial talent of their people, not least through being world class in education and skills.

So why am I more optimistic than ever about the future of our islands, just 1% of the world's population, in this new era of globalization?

By your efforts Britain is already second to none:

* for our openness, pro-Europe, pro-free trade,
* a world leader in stability, and we will entrench that stability, by ensuring Britain's macroeconomic framework remains a world benchmark, and
* we are flexible, and in being vigilant against complacency, we must be, as I believe we are ready to become even more flexible.

So let me say as I begin my new job, I want to continue to work with you in helping you do yours, listening to what you say, always recognizing your international success is critical to that of Britain's overall and considering together the things that we must do - and, just as important, things we should not do - to maintain our competitiveness:

* enhancing a risk-based regulatory approach, as we did in resisting pressure for a British Sarbannes-Oxley after Enron and Worldcom,
* maintaining our competitive tax regime, and having cut our main rate of corporation tax to again the lowest in the G8, today we are publishing the next stage of implementing Sir David Varney's recommendations for a more risk based approach to the administration of the system, with greater certainty on tax matters when it's needed most; and
* ensuring a modern planning system, that balances our economic and environmental needs with a more predictable and accountable decision making process, including that for major infrastructure projects.

And because I recognize the benefits Crossrail would bring to the city, we are using every effort to find a solution to its affordability. I will ensure this work is stepped up but as you know the only financing solution that will work will require all parties - public and private - contributing significantly.

But most importantly of all in the new world order, as the city bears witness, Britain's great natural resource are our people - resourceful, enterprising, innovative - the foundation on which we will compete successfully.

The financial services sector in Britain and the city of London at the center of it, is a great example of a highly skilled, high value added, talent-driven industry that shows how we can excel in a world of global competition. Britain needs more of the vigor, ingenuity and aspiration that you already demonstrate that is the hallmark of your success.

We are unquestionably an enormously talented and creative country. Historically, we've been one of the most inventive nations in the world. And as the city shows with its high skills, if we are to be what I want Britain to be - the great global success story of this century - our first priority, and this is the theme of my final speech to you as chancellor, must be to use the talents of every individual in our country far better than we do today by ensuring we become world class in education.

But if we fail to equip people successfully for the future and then as a result of them being left behind by our competitors, they start to see themselves as the victims not beneficiaries of globalization, I have no doubt that open markets, free trade and flexibility will be challenged by protectionist pressures.

Indeed this is what we are already seeing in the USA, parts of Europe and Asia.

So the choice is for me clear: invest in education, to prevent protectionism.

It is investment in education that when combined with free trade, open markets and flexibility makes for the virtuous circle of an inclusive globalisation:

* the key to prosperity for all as well as to opportunity for all,
* the key to making globalization work, and
* to become world class in education is our mission.

And so I believe it is time for all of us, and particularly businesses who recruit skilled people, to usher in a national debate on how we, Britain, can move to becoming world class in education.

But for me the necessity for this national debate is fundamental. Because unless we widely engage people in the debate about being world class in education - and show how people themselves must now be involved in an endeavor that is essential to secure our common future prosperity - then that future prosperity is at risk.

Let me give one example.

Today there are in Britain 5 million unskilled people. By 2020 we will need only just over half a million. So we must create up to 5 million new skilled jobs and to fill them we must persuade 5 million unskilled men and women to gain skills, the biggest transformation in the skills of our economy for more than a century.

And we will need 50% more people of graduate skills. Yet, while China and India are turning out 4 million graduates a year, we produce just 400,000.

Quite simply in Britain today there is too much potential untapped, too much talent wasted, too much ability unrealized.

And so despite all the progress we have made, there is no place in the new Britain we seek for complacency and no room for inadequate skills, low aspirations, a soft approach to discipline or for a culture of the second best.

Other countries aren't standing still, rather they are pushing forward the frontiers - showing what a 21st century education system can offer. There are many good examples:

* in Finland every teacher now has a masters degree and many have PhDs,
* in Ireland 55% now go on to higher education and their target is for 90% to stay in education until 18,
* in France every pupil now learns a second language in primary school, and
* in Singapore the consistently high quality of classroom teaching has led them to be world leaders in maths and science.


The global competition to create highly skilled, value-added economies is fierce and can only get fiercer.

I am passionate about education because I want a Britain where there is no cap on ambition, no ceiling on talent, no limit to where your potential will take you and how far you can rise. A Britain of talent unleashed, driving our economy and future prosperity.

And because schools are the foundation, we need to ensure all schools are committed to high standards and are at the same time centres of creativity, innovation and enjoyment. Ready to challenge and inspire - fostering scholarship, inquisitiveness and independence of thought, teaching facts and imparting knowledge - of course. But doing far more than that - nourishing all forms of talent - because that is the future of our nation.

The foundation of our new approach is that for the first time young people in Britain will be offered education to 18 and for the first time also a clear pathway from school to a career: either through college or university and then a profession, or through an apprenticeship and skilled work. Diplomas such as engineering or for others a young apprenticeship with an employer. For those who need more support we will provide pre-apprenticeship courses as a stepping stone to a full apprenticeship of which there will, over time, be 500,000.

And I believe that taking private and public investments together, advanced industrial countries will have in future aspire to invest not 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% of their national income, on education science and innovation but 10%, ₤1 in every 10.

And to mobilize all the energies of our country - the secretary of state for Education and I propose a National Council for Educational Excellence - bringing together leaders in business, higher education, and the voluntary sector, alongside school heads, teachers and parents, all who can play their part.

It is good for our country that we have businesses involved in some schools, and I can congratulate companies who are. In future every single secondary school and primary school should have a business partner and I invite you all to participate, every secondary school should have a university or college partner, every school should work directly with the arts and cultural and sporting communities in their area, every school should work with other local schools to raise standards for all.

I am pleased that Sir Terry Leahy, Sir John Rose, Richard Lambert, Bob Wigley and Damon Buffini have agreed to join the Council.

The Council will be advised by Sir Michael Barber, Julia Cleverdon, head of Business in the Community, has agreed to report on how more businesses, small, medium and large, can play a bigger part in support of our schools.

We have asked Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University, to report on what more universities and colleges can do to help our schools.

We have asked Edward Gould, former chair of the Independent Schools Council, and Steve Munday, principal of Comberton Village College, to work jointly to identify how in areas such as sports science and languages private and state-funded schools can work together to raise standards to the benefit of all.

We would like this new Council to promote national debate, that I invite you to be part of, about our ambitions for our education system in the years to 2020: today we invest £5,500 ($10,945) in the education of a pupil in the public sector and £8,000 ($15,920) or more in the private sector, 50% per pupil less, and my aim is, over time, to raise our public investment towards that £8,000 figure.

First, our future education policy must and will champion aspiration and excellence with a renewed focus on standards and rigor in teaching methods, particularly in literacy and by reviewing fundamentally the teaching of numeracy.

So my proposal is for a far-reaching new nationwide program that will empower head teachers to provide individual guidance and support for every child in Britain:

* for each pupil, a personal learning guide or coach to help them make the right curriculum choices and to act as an easy point of contact for parents,
* to back this up, for pupils at risk of falling behind, early intervention and special support to help them catch up. This is already underway with the 'Every Child a Reader' programme for literacy, which is now being matched with the 'Every Chid Counts' initiative for numeracy, alongside one-to one tuition for up to another 600,000 children,
* for all secondary school pupils, starting with a pilot this year, access to after-school small group tuition in subjects areas they have special interest in,
* for pupils who show a special aptitude or talent, extra support through growing our gifted and talented program,
* for young people at risk of disillusion or dropping out, a mentor - often from a local business - to help them raise their sights, and
* to ensure that those on low incomes receive the support they need, I would also like to pilot a new learning credit which they, their parents and the school can agree will be spent on extra provision in order to make the most of their potential.

And because this personalized approach to learning is at the heart of the next stage of education reform, we need a renewed focus on setting by ability in the key subjects essential to our competitiveness like math, English, science and languages as the norm in all our schools; we need pupils increasingly assessed on these subjects by stage, when they are ready to move to the next level; and we need schools held to account for ensuring that every child makes progress.

Second, to achieve excellence in the classroom, future educational policy must and will champion greater diversity, the best way of both encouraging innovation and meeting the different and individual needs of every child. Already we are close to every school being either a specialist, trust or academy school - like the city of London's own academy in Bermondsey I recently visited with Lord Adonis, and applaud and like so many is flourishing. And we will now consider reduced cash contributions for universities and colleges to make it easier for them to play a fuller part in the expansion of academies.

And we should also be willing to consider new proposals for: combined all-through primary and secondary schools, employer-led skills academies to transform the quality of vocational provision, and studio schools that motivate dis-engaged pupils by allowing them to learn the curriculum alongside a chance to work in and run a real business based in the school.

Third, future education policy must and will champion excellence in teaching. Excellent standards require excellent teachers and hence greater status and respect for the difficult job they do. So we need to give heads the freedom they need to lead schools and respect the professionalism of our teachers - helping them to train and retrain, and become expert tutors and subject specialists. We also need to attract more of the most inspirational graduates from the best universities into our schools. So we will expand our 'Teach First' program for the best graduates and complement it with a new 'Teach Next' program, encouraging men and women of talent to move mid or late career into teaching.

And fourth, future education policy will champion discipline. I know parents and employers expect us to do more to help schools recognize this vital role in developing children and young people and they are right to do so. I want teachers to be in control in every classroom, so we will work with the profession not just to ensure that teachers can make maximum use of tough new powers, but to emphasize the priority of setting boundaries on what is acceptable and unacceptable, I will ask Ofsted to consider raising the bar on what is satisfactory and unsatisfactory behavior. And we will take further steps not just to stamp out bullying in and outside the school but give parents rights of appeal.

And alongside discipline there are broader educational goals that have had too little attention: good behavior, decent manners, the ability to communicate well and work in a team - these soft skills that help a young person's character develop, that are critical for their employability, and are the essential complement to the hard skills they gain from higher standards.

And we'll do this by encouraging parents to work with schools and organizations in the community that have a reputation for fostering children's character, like the cadets and skill-force; and by building a new offer of national youth community service for young people.

I have spoken about education this evening.

Only with investment in education can open markets, free trade and flexibility succeed.

And the prize is enormous. If we can show people that by equipping themselves for the future they can be the winners not losers in globalization, beneficiaries of this era of fast moving change, then people will welcome open, flexible, free trade and pro-competition economies as an emancipating force.

If we can become the education nation, great days are ahead of us.

While never the biggest in size, nor the mightiest in military hardware, I believe we are - as the city's success shows - capable of being one of the greatest success stories in the new global economy.

Already strong in this young century, but greater days are ahead of us.
Britain: the education nation.
Britain: a world leader for its talents and skills.
So tonight in celebrating the success of the talents, innovations and achievements of the city let us look forward to working together for even greater success in the future.
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Post by ramana »

Deccan Chronicle 3 June, 2008
Shape of world order is about to change
By Pran Chopra


Call it a coincidence or call it the consequence of many visible causes. But in the wake of the China-Japan summit the air has been full of many surmises about the present or future shape of the world order.

The speculation is not new. It has been there ever since the "third world" rose over the horizon. But it is the first time that the whole world has been a witness to a rare sight: Two of the most ancient and yet powerful countries of the world — Japan and China — shaking hands with each other. And not frostily, as they had done a few years earlier. Nor as second fiddles to big white chiefs, as Japan was to America and China to the Soviet Union. But as close and strong neighbours, each looking at the other with a newly awakened and friendly interest, or at least less unfriendly than at any time since each became an independent actor in its own cause.

This changed aspect was discussed on this page in the preceding Wide Angle (May 20). Since then, New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman has probed what he has called a "shift in the global balance of power."

Mr Friedman confined himself largely to the rise in the power of the oil producing countries, and even among them he chose to write mostly about those who are in the Islamic world. He bypassed Russia, the owner of one of the largest oil and gas deposits of the world.

But Mr Fareed Zakaria has cast his net wider. The editor of the Newsweek International has written a book titled The Post-American World (note the adjective in the title).

So has Mr David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Foundation, whose book is on a miscellany of smaller countries which, on account of their oil wealth, he clubs together as the "superclass" though he describes them collectively as "a small group of players."

But both authors have looked at their subjects mostly from an American pedestal. That is a crumbling pedestal. It could still be plastered together if Americans learnt how to drive their cars at no more than 70 miles an hour. But the main concern of the books is not with any basic feature of the world at large.

But imagine how basically the world would change if more substance went into the words and pictures which came out of Japan during the recent visit of Chinese President, Hu Jintao, to Tokyo. One set of words stands out in the speeches of President Hu: "To remember history" he said, "is not to nurse hatred, but to use history and look forward to the future... let the Chinese and Japanese people be friends generation by generation... and consider each other as partners for cooperation, not rivals." Such language may be a common place in Asian diplomacy. But when it occurs in the diplomacy between countries which till recently were embroiled in controversy (and worse) against each other, it should not be dismissed as empty routine.

The same is true about pictures. Happy pictures are usually churned out when goodwill visits are exchanged between two polite countries. But, in the first place, the visits exchanged lately between Japan and China have not been marked only by politeness or goodwill. In the second place the Japanese, even more than the Chinese, are reticent about public display of private feelings. Therefore, it was a touchingly exceptional picture which showed crown prince, Akihito, carrying his newborn in his arms, standing respectfully before President Hu, and the latter extending a grandfatherly hand towards the child swathed in protective wraps.

The words and the pictures during President Hu’s visit said more than either is reported to have said in the accounts of the visit to Tokyo by Mr Hu’s predecessor Jiang Zemin, which had ended in acrimony. Writing on President Hu’s visit, an American scholar, and at that a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said recently "Chinese attempts to draw Japan closer to its orbit could have profound effects on the future of Asia." Mr Friedman narrates the lubricating power of oil in diplomacy by quoting the following from Congressional testimony. He says if the price of oil rose to $200 a barrel, Opec could "potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week, and General Motors in just three days." But China and Japan have no oil to sell to each other with which either could keep the other happy.

What then is the explanation, if there is any, for the new-found diplomatic cordiality which China and Japan displayed toward each other during President Hu’s visit to Japan and his meetings with Prime Minister Fukuda, and that too after so many decades of friction between the two countries, and despite the concurrent near-spat between them over Tibet?

One explanation could lie in a modified version of the embarrassment which America is facing currently, according to Mr Friedman.

He says, "It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once — with so few in America’s favour." As a result there has been a steep decline in the global position of America.

On the other hand Russia and China remain as close to each other as they have been before, and now each is also stronger than it has ever been. If, as is likely, both Japan and China have taken note of this change, then both might be adjusting their own equations to this change, in respect of each other and in respect of other stakeholders in the power system of the world. That would make Russia and China even more accommodative towards each other, Japan more accommodative towards China, and China sufficiently self-assured to adjust to Japan’s sensitivities.

There is nothing in the foregoing comments which should be taken to suggest that Japan and China have already developed a new relationship between them which will drastically change Japan’s equation with America or China’s with Russia. But it would be a mistake not to take a new look at the world around us and to foresee which changes might be impending which could counsel us to reassess our own relations with any concerned country.
and
Topsy-turvy world: US will need charity
By Roger Cohen


RIO DE JANEIRO: For a while the world was flat. Now it’s upside down.

To understand it, invert your thinking. See the developed world as depending on the developing world, rather than the other way round. Understand that two-thirds of global economic growth last year came from emerging countries, whose economies will expand about 6.7 per cent in 2008, against 1.3 per cent for the United States, Japan and euro zone states.

The sharp rise in prices for energy, commodities, metals and minerals produced mainly in the developing world explains part of this shift. That has created the balance of payments surpluses fueling dollar-dripping sovereign wealth funds in the gulf and East Asia. They amuse themselves picking up a stake in BP here, a chunk of Morgan Stanley there, and why not a sliver of total.

We of the developed-world Paleolithic species are fair game for the upstarts now, our predator role exhausted. The US and Europe may one day need all the charity they can get.

To place this inversion in focus, it helps to be in Brazil, where winter (so to speak) arrives with the Northern Hemisphere summer, and economic optimism, as exuberant as the vegetation, increases at the same brisk clip as US foreclosures.

Huge offshore oil finds, a sugarcane ethanol boom, reserves of unused arable land, mineral wealth and abundant fresh water contribute to Brazilian buoyancy. But natural resources are part of the story. China and India, an expanding internal market is bolstering growth.

At the annual National Forum, a gathering of business leaders, I felt like a first-world pipsqueak as leaders of the national energy company Petrobras (bigger than BP and Shell, reeled off head-turning statistics.

Petrobras will more than double oil production to 4.2 million barrels a day in 2015 from 1.9 million barrels today. "With the latest discoveries, the South Atlantic will become a huge oil producer," predicted Jose Sergio Gabrielli de Azvedo, its chief executive.

Roger Agnelli of CVRD waved away the United States ("It’s full of debt") to focus on the company’s ambitions in Asia. It was imperative to be there, he said, because that’s where growth, capital and ambition are. China, he noted, will account for 55 per cent of iron ore consumption, 31.6 per cent of nickel, and 42 per cent of aluminum by 2012. Case closed.

Like many other big emerging-market corporations, CVRD has been on a buying spree. It’s not just sovereign wealth funds that are acquiring first-world companies these days. It’s the new giants of the NAN (Newly Acquisitive Nations).

Emerging-market mergers and acquisitions are up 17 per cent this year to $218 billion, for the rest of the world they’re down 43 per cent to $991 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

CVRD bought Canada’s Inco, a nickel miner, for $17 billion in 2006. It came close to acquiring the Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata for $90 billion this year.

That deal is being challenged by Grupo Mexico, creating a Latin-American-Asian fight for a US company. If you have trouble getting your mind around that, try standing on your head.

That’s also a good position from which to view India’s Tata Motors agreeing to buy Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford for $2.3 billion, or Tata Steel’s acquisition last year of the Anglo-Dutch Corus Group steel company for $12 billion.

Globalisation is now an Indian street with traffic weaving in all directions.

"In an inverted world, not only have developing economies become dominant forces in global exports in the space of a few years, but their companies are becoming major players in the global economy, challenging the incumbents that dominated the international scene in the 20th century," said Claudio Frischtak, a Brazilian economist and consultant.

A shift in economic power is under way to which the developed world has not yet adjusted. Of course, the G-8 and the permanent membership of the UN Security Council need to be expanded. The 21st century can’t be handled with 20th-century institutions.

That’s obvious. Less obvious is how the United States, which underwrites global security at vast expense, begins to share this burden, so that the new multi-polarity of wealth is reflected in a multipolarity of security commitments.

Headstands are in order for the next US President.
Two different writers with similar conclusions.
And strangely in the first article no whining or moaning about India!
Gerard
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Post by Gerard »

Diplomacy thriving, but without U.S.
But another reason could be at work: Is this the waning of American primacy and the dawn of an era of diffused power?
ramana
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Post by ramana »

Pioneer Op-Ed 4 june 2008

12 Steps to Poverty
Twelve steps to poverty

Climate change is a cover to promote rich nations, writes Kofi Bentil

World Environment Day offers the poor a tempting formula: Developing countries must slow economic growth to avoid becoming eco-vampires like the industrialized economies. Africans should be content to live quaintly in our mud huts lit by solar and wind power.

The hot air being emitted by the United Nations Environment Programme for World Environment Day uses the Alcoholics Anonymous model, offering "Twelve Steps To Help You Kick The CO2 Habit."

Point Number 1 asks us to "Make A Commitment" to achieving carbon neutrality. Maybe some in the developed world are happy to see a drop in economic activity and human well-being by tightening their belts but this is too much to ask of the poor, anywhere--even if carbon neutrality were possible in the first place.

The longer economic development is stifled in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, the longer people will continue to die from preventable diseases and hunger. We need to get out of poverty as fast as possible so that means some CO2 emissions in the short term.

In Step Number 2 we go from the implausible to the fantastical: "It is likely that carbon will eventually be judged as an atmospheric pollutant and regulated accordingly...". Maybe we'll get fined for breathing out the gas that plants breathe in to produce the oxygen that we breathe in.

Paradoxically, the Steps admit that progress and prosperity can help use less energy: expensive incandescent lightbulbs and "laptop computers use less energy than desktop computers." These efficient things are expensive, so the poorer you are, the more polluting your activities, your cars and your factories are likely to be.

To get out of poverty you need economic development. To get economic development you need a stable economy with property rights, the rule of law and economic freedom: so why don't we focus on how we can lift everybody out of the mud of poverty? Poverty is neither quaint nor environmentally friendly, whatever eco-tourists might think.

In Step 6, Switch To Low Carbon Energy, scientific fancy is compounded by fairytale mathematics: "coal produces twice the emissions of gas, six times the amount of solar, 40 times the amount of wind and 200 times the amount from hydro." In some laboratory somewhere this may be true but, in most of the real world, wind and solar power are hugely expensive and are so unpredictable that they need to be fully backed up by conventional power, including in Ghana where we have plenty of sunshine.

And there's no mention of nuclear power - one of the safest and lowest-CO2-emitting forms of energy.

Step 6 also includes the final insult to the poor: replacing petroleum fuel with bio-fuel--a massively subsidised US and EU policy which has helped cause higher food prices world-wide. In the developed world food is a lifestyle choice but for the poor it is a question of survival. And biofuels are generally more expensive than petroleum fuel in real terms (any cheaper prices in the EU or the USA are subsidised) and bioethanol only yields about 10 per cent more energy than it takes to produce, British Government figures show.

All this pressure by Western activists and vested interests adds up to extortion: it was revealed in late May that the UK's hugely publicised £ 800 million Environmental Transformation Fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change will in fact be loans, to be repaid with interest, not grants. Do what we say and pay for it too.

Ultimately it is market-driven economies, with free expression and accountable leaders, that produce cleaner technology. Look at the former Soviet Union, with Chernobyl, its poisoned lakes and foul pollution. Look at poor countries where wood and dung are burnt for heat and cooking, causing deforestation and making respiratory illness one of the world's biggest child-killers. Rich people are better placed to deal with eco-problems.

But the UK aid agency DFID recommends tricks for "Development By Dung" in its "Rough Guide to a Better World." The United Nations Development Programme similarly praises dung and wood as "renewables."

People who have a stake in the success of a thing are less likely to destroy it, so property-owning people are less likely to destroy by pollution the life they enjoy. But to the poor, life is a struggle: they care little for anything but daily sustenance, much less the environment.

The environmental lobby offers slogans that blame the rich and harm the poor, instead of dealing with adaptation to whatever changes might be coming our way.

The UNEP's Twelve Steps were written by rich people, for rich people. For too long, the environmental lobby has used the fate of poor people faced by climate change as a justification for opposing economic development. Not in my name.

(Kofi Bentil is a lecturer at Ashesi University in Ghana and a consultant in business strategy.)
rsingh
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Post by rsingh »

Political solutions for oil crisis ?
Facts
-Oil prices have gone up fourfold since 2003
-Oil supply does not match the demand.
-Proven oil reserves are shrinking
-Oil supply is curtailed by OPEC
-Unqualified experts (95% of all experts) cry that human activity ( which strangely started in 1991) is chocking earth to death.
-Europeans are silent. They are used to the high prices which were kept high by taxes anyway.
-US behaves as if it has a plan and everything is going as planned.
-India and China are real growth engine of world.
-Clueless Arabs are enjoying the party and Russian bear has drunk so much in celebrations that he is vomiting at friends at the same table.
- Riots in China and India over high oil prices.
Solutionsfor India and China
-Try to explore new areas in other parts of world. China has tried this but it is not looking sound policy in short term.
-Alternative fuel.....can be a part of solution but we need to be able to feed the ever growing papulation.
-Renewable energy sources are not sustainably efficient with present day technology
-Nuclear energy can be a bigger part of solution but Indian leaders indecisiveness has created such a mess that we have neither energy nor a proper deterrence.....( we always want minimum deterrent)

Question is " Is there any way we can out smart the oil cartel by floating an temporary alliance with China to twist the arm of desert people"

IMO it should include
-We create an atmosphere to squeeze out short term profit taker speculators. Could be done by low GDP forecasts in India and China, big extraordinary commitments (5 year plans) for other form of energy.
-Buy in bulk tenders where sellers bid to supply at lowest price.
-Try to break OPEC, pass laws against dealing with cartels ( bring it to same category as Mafia). Avoid oil at any cost from most fundamentalist cartel members. They will come to the senses without oil money.
-Try to impose environment tax on country that produce pollutants....ie oil

May add more soon .......gotago.

IMO this topic need a thread of its own.
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