Public Sees U.S. Power Declining as Support for Global Engagement Slips
PEW RESEARCH - December 3, 2013
Growing numbers of Americans believe that U.S. global power and prestige
are in decline. And support for U.S. global engagement, already near a
historic low, has fallen further.
The public thinks that the nation does too much to solve world
problems, and increasing percentages want the U.S. to “mind its own
business internationally” and pay more attention to problems here at
home.
Yet this reticence is not an expression of across-the-board
isolationism. Even as doubts grow about the United States’ geopolitical
role, most Americans say the benefits from U.S. participation in the
global economy outweigh the risks. And support for closer trade and
business ties with other nations stands at its highest point in more
than a decade.
These are among the principal findings of America’s Place in the
World, a quadrennial survey of foreign policy attitudes conducted in
partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a nonpartisan
membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign
policy.
To read more....
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
China's cabinet announces appointments
China Daily - 2013-11-23 09:54 (Xinhua)
BEIJING - The State Council, China's cabinet, on Friday announced a number of government appointments.
Mao Weiming was appointed vice minister of Industry and Information Technology.
Chen Zongrong was appointed vice director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
Wu Wenxue was appointed vice director of the China National Tourism Administration, replacing Zhu Shanzhong.
Ren Xianliang was appointed vice director of the State Internet Information Office.
Li Yafei and Gong Qinggai were appointed vice directors of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, replacing Zheng Lizhong and Sun Yafu.
Huang Hong was appointed vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) while Li Kemu was removed from the post. Liang Tao was appointed CIRC assistant chairman.
Wang Zhiyong was appointed vice director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, replacing Li Daning.
Lu Yong was appointed director of the sixth executive council of the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF). Sun Xiande, Cheng Kai, Jia Yong and Wang Meimei were appointed vice directors of the sixth executive council of the CDPF.
To read more....
BEIJING - The State Council, China's cabinet, on Friday announced a number of government appointments.
Mao Weiming was appointed vice minister of Industry and Information Technology.
Chen Zongrong was appointed vice director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
Wu Wenxue was appointed vice director of the China National Tourism Administration, replacing Zhu Shanzhong.
Ren Xianliang was appointed vice director of the State Internet Information Office.
Li Yafei and Gong Qinggai were appointed vice directors of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, replacing Zheng Lizhong and Sun Yafu.
Huang Hong was appointed vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) while Li Kemu was removed from the post. Liang Tao was appointed CIRC assistant chairman.
Wang Zhiyong was appointed vice director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, replacing Li Daning.
Lu Yong was appointed director of the sixth executive council of the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF). Sun Xiande, Cheng Kai, Jia Yong and Wang Meimei were appointed vice directors of the sixth executive council of the CDPF.
To read more....
So Much for Exporting Democracy: Afghanistan Is as Corrupt as North Korea
By Catherine A. Traywick
Foreign Policy - Tuesday, December 3, 2013
After 12 years, nearly $700 billion, and more than 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers, here's what the United States has to show for its efforts in Afghanistan: a government that's perceived to be as corrupt as North Korea, according to a new report from the anti-corruption group Transparency International. File it away under things U.S. officials would probably rather ignore.
The Corruptions Perception Index culls expert opinions from groups like the World Bank, Freedom House, and the Economist Intelligence Unit on public sector corruption in 177 countries. Afghanistan has lingered near the bottom of the list for years, but since 2012 has shared last place with perennial losers North Korea and Somalia, countries where "corruption perceptions ... indicate a near-total absence of an honest and functioning public sector," according to Transparency International.
To read more....
Foreign Policy - Tuesday, December 3, 2013
After 12 years, nearly $700 billion, and more than 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers, here's what the United States has to show for its efforts in Afghanistan: a government that's perceived to be as corrupt as North Korea, according to a new report from the anti-corruption group Transparency International. File it away under things U.S. officials would probably rather ignore.
The Corruptions Perception Index culls expert opinions from groups like the World Bank, Freedom House, and the Economist Intelligence Unit on public sector corruption in 177 countries. Afghanistan has lingered near the bottom of the list for years, but since 2012 has shared last place with perennial losers North Korea and Somalia, countries where "corruption perceptions ... indicate a near-total absence of an honest and functioning public sector," according to Transparency International.
To read more....
Monday, December 2, 2013
Amazon.com sees delivery drones as future
Today's Zaman - December 2, 2013
The world's largest e-commerce
company said it's working on the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft
project in its research and development labs. But Amazon admits it will
take years to advance the needed technology and for the needed Federal
Aviation Administration rules and regulations to be created.
The project was first reported Sunday by CBS' "60 Minutes."
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said during the primetime interview that while the octocopters look like something out of science fiction, there's no reason they can't be used as delivery vehicles.
Bezos said the drones can carry packages that weigh up to five pounds (2.3 kilograms), which covers about 86 percent of the items Amazon delivers. And the current generation of drones that the company is testing has a range of about 10 miles (16 kilometers), which Bezos noted could cover a significant portion of the population in urban areas.
To read more...
Amazon.com is working on a way to get customers their goods in 30 minutes or less - by drone.
The project was first reported Sunday by CBS' "60 Minutes."
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said during the primetime interview that while the octocopters look like something out of science fiction, there's no reason they can't be used as delivery vehicles.
Bezos said the drones can carry packages that weigh up to five pounds (2.3 kilograms), which covers about 86 percent of the items Amazon delivers. And the current generation of drones that the company is testing has a range of about 10 miles (16 kilometers), which Bezos noted could cover a significant portion of the population in urban areas.
To read more...
The Long Story of U.S. Debt, From 1790 to 2011, in 1 Little Chart
By Matt Phillips
The Atlantic - Nov 13 2012
As the high-stakes wrangling over the fiscal cliff gets underway, we though it might be the proper moment to remind everybody just how the United States managed to become the world's biggest debtor.
So, here's how.
To read more...
The Atlantic - Nov 13 2012
As the high-stakes wrangling over the fiscal cliff gets underway, we though it might be the proper moment to remind everybody just how the United States managed to become the world's biggest debtor.
So, here's how.
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
The
US was born in debt. The earliest full reckoning of US national debt
was compiled by Alexander Hamilton, the first US Treasury Secretary, who
was sort of like the Nate Silver of his era--a self-taught economist.To read more...
Accused of Cyberspying, Huawei Is ‘Exiting the U.S. Market’
By Shane Harris and Isaac Stone Fish
Foreign Policy - Monday, December 2, 2013
The CEO of the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker, which for years has been labeled by U.S. officials as a proxy for Chinese military and intelligence agencies, says he's giving up on America.
In a rare interview on Nov. 25 with French journalists, Ren Zhengfei, the 69-year-old founder and CEO of China-based Huawei, said he would no longer look for business in the United States, in the wake of accusations from lawmakers and government officials that the company is a de facto arm of the Chinese authorities. "If Huawei gets in the middle of U.S-China relations," and causes problems, "it's not worth it," Ren reportedly said, according to a Chinese transcript of the interview. "Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle."
To read more....
Foreign Policy - Monday, December 2, 2013
The CEO of the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker, which for years has been labeled by U.S. officials as a proxy for Chinese military and intelligence agencies, says he's giving up on America.
In a rare interview on Nov. 25 with French journalists, Ren Zhengfei, the 69-year-old founder and CEO of China-based Huawei, said he would no longer look for business in the United States, in the wake of accusations from lawmakers and government officials that the company is a de facto arm of the Chinese authorities. "If Huawei gets in the middle of U.S-China relations," and causes problems, "it's not worth it," Ren reportedly said, according to a Chinese transcript of the interview. "Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle."
To read more....
Are Europeans Giving Up on Europe?
Countries like Italy and Spain are turning away from the world, with grave consequences for the European project.
By Moisés Naím
The Atlantic - Nov 29 2013
The collective mood of a nation mired in a prolonged economic recession shows many of the symptoms of clinical depression: despair, fatalism, an inability to make decisions, lack of motivation, and irritability. This is one of the impressions I got from a recent trip to Spain and Italy, two nations I know well and visit often. While both countries have recently made small strides on the path to recovery, I nevertheless came away with the strong sense that their economies are in recession and their societies are in depression. In the course of my travels, I also felt more than ever before that Europeans have fallen out of love with Europe—or, more precisely, with the idea of building a Europe-wide union.
To read more....
By Moisés Naím
The Atlantic - Nov 29 2013
The collective mood of a nation mired in a prolonged economic recession shows many of the symptoms of clinical depression: despair, fatalism, an inability to make decisions, lack of motivation, and irritability. This is one of the impressions I got from a recent trip to Spain and Italy, two nations I know well and visit often. While both countries have recently made small strides on the path to recovery, I nevertheless came away with the strong sense that their economies are in recession and their societies are in depression. In the course of my travels, I also felt more than ever before that Europeans have fallen out of love with Europe—or, more precisely, with the idea of building a Europe-wide union.
To read more....
Humanities Studies Under Strain Around the Globe
By ELLA DELANY
The New York Times - December 1, 2013
NEW YORK — In the global marketplace of higher education, the humanities are increasingly threatened by decreased funding and political attacks.
Financing for humanities research in the United States has fallen steadily since 2009, and in 2011 was less than half of one percent of the amount dedicated to science and engineering research and development. This trend is echoed globally: According to a report in Research Trends magazine, by Gali Halevi and Judit Bar-Ilan, international arts and humanities funding has been in constant decline since 2009.
To read more...
The New York Times - December 1, 2013
NEW YORK — In the global marketplace of higher education, the humanities are increasingly threatened by decreased funding and political attacks.
Financing for humanities research in the United States has fallen steadily since 2009, and in 2011 was less than half of one percent of the amount dedicated to science and engineering research and development. This trend is echoed globally: According to a report in Research Trends magazine, by Gali Halevi and Judit Bar-Ilan, international arts and humanities funding has been in constant decline since 2009.
To read more...
Why is the U.S. okay with Israel having nuclear weapons but not Iran?
By Max Fisher
The Washington Post - December 2 2013
Iranian officials sometimes respond to accusations that Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability by replying that, not only do they not want a bomb, they'd actually like to see a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Yes, this is surely in part a deflection, meant to shift attention away from concerns about Iran's nuclear activities by not-so-subtly nodding to the one country in the region that does have nuclear weapons: Israel.
But could Iran have a point? Is there something hypocritical about the world tolerating Israel's nuclear arsenal, which the country does not officially acknowledge but has been publicly known for decades, and yet punishing Iran with severe economic sanctions just for its suspected steps toward a weapons program? Even Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its implacable enemy and made its accommodations with Israel long ago, often joins Tehran's calls for a "nuclear-free region." And anyone not closely versed in Middle East issues might naturally wonder why the United States would accept Israeli warheads but not an Iranian program.
To read more....
The Washington Post - December 2 2013
Iranian officials sometimes respond to accusations that Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability by replying that, not only do they not want a bomb, they'd actually like to see a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Yes, this is surely in part a deflection, meant to shift attention away from concerns about Iran's nuclear activities by not-so-subtly nodding to the one country in the region that does have nuclear weapons: Israel.
But could Iran have a point? Is there something hypocritical about the world tolerating Israel's nuclear arsenal, which the country does not officially acknowledge but has been publicly known for decades, and yet punishing Iran with severe economic sanctions just for its suspected steps toward a weapons program? Even Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its implacable enemy and made its accommodations with Israel long ago, often joins Tehran's calls for a "nuclear-free region." And anyone not closely versed in Middle East issues might naturally wonder why the United States would accept Israeli warheads but not an Iranian program.
To read more....
Is Dubai the future of cities?
As instant boomtowns compete with ancient metropolises, the Middle East debates what makes a true urban center.
By Thanassis Cambanis
Boston Globe | December 01, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Palestinian poet and filmmaker Hind Shoufani moved to Dubai for the same reasons that have attracted millions of other expatriates to the glitzy emirate. In 2009, after decades in the storied and mercurial Arab capital cities of Damascus and Beirut and a sojourn in New York, she wanted to live somewhere stable and cosmopolitan where she also could earn a living.
Five years later, she’s won a devoted following for the Poeticians, a Dubai spoken-word literary performance collective she founded. The group has created a vibrant subculture of writers, all of them expats.
To its critics—and even many of its fans—“culture” and “Dubai” barely belong in the same sentence. The city is perhaps the world’s most extreme example of a business-first, built-from-the-sand boomtown. But Shoufani and her fellow Poeticians have become a prime exhibit in a debate that has broken out with renewed vigor in the Arab world and among urban theorists worldwide: whether the gleaming boomtowns of the Gulf are finally establishing themselves as true cities with a sustainable economy and an authentic culture, and, in the process, creating a genuine new path for the Middle East.
To read more....
By Thanassis Cambanis
Boston Globe | December 01, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Palestinian poet and filmmaker Hind Shoufani moved to Dubai for the same reasons that have attracted millions of other expatriates to the glitzy emirate. In 2009, after decades in the storied and mercurial Arab capital cities of Damascus and Beirut and a sojourn in New York, she wanted to live somewhere stable and cosmopolitan where she also could earn a living.
Five years later, she’s won a devoted following for the Poeticians, a Dubai spoken-word literary performance collective she founded. The group has created a vibrant subculture of writers, all of them expats.
To its critics—and even many of its fans—“culture” and “Dubai” barely belong in the same sentence. The city is perhaps the world’s most extreme example of a business-first, built-from-the-sand boomtown. But Shoufani and her fellow Poeticians have become a prime exhibit in a debate that has broken out with renewed vigor in the Arab world and among urban theorists worldwide: whether the gleaming boomtowns of the Gulf are finally establishing themselves as true cities with a sustainable economy and an authentic culture, and, in the process, creating a genuine new path for the Middle East.
To read more....
Are Arabs Capable of Democracy?
The Arab Spring and Political Change
Jan Kuhlmann
© Qantara.de - 9/2/2012
The question reflected serious concerns about what will follow after the mass protests in the Arab world. Above all, many fear that Islamists in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia will pursue the model of Iran or Saudi Arabia and establish strict religious rule. There is now even talk of an "Islamic Spring" in the Arab world.
The election results in Egypt confirm the views of many sceptics that the triumphal march of religion has now begun. The Muslim Brotherhood amassed almost 50 percent of the vote, while the ultra-conservative Salafists garnered 25 percent. One might suppose that the country is firmly in the grip of sinister, bearded religious fanatics.
To read more....
Jan Kuhlmann
© Qantara.de - 9/2/2012
The
Arab states currently undergoing democratic change will most certainly
encounter setbacks. Democracy is not something that can be practiced
beforehand, such as under the protective care of a monarchy. Jan
Kuhlmann argues why we should give the people in the Arab world the
benefit of the doubt
The
question came unexpectedly. No one had posed anything similar up to
that point. During a recent public discussion with journalists and
experts in Berlin on the situation in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni
Mubarak, a member of the audience came forward. The Egyptians lack any
experience in democracy, he said. Wouldn't it therefore be better, he
proposed, to reinstate the monarchy that had been swept away in 1952 by a
military putsch?The question reflected serious concerns about what will follow after the mass protests in the Arab world. Above all, many fear that Islamists in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia will pursue the model of Iran or Saudi Arabia and establish strict religious rule. There is now even talk of an "Islamic Spring" in the Arab world.
The election results in Egypt confirm the views of many sceptics that the triumphal march of religion has now begun. The Muslim Brotherhood amassed almost 50 percent of the vote, while the ultra-conservative Salafists garnered 25 percent. One might suppose that the country is firmly in the grip of sinister, bearded religious fanatics.
To read more....
What happens to your digital life after death?
By Maeve Duggan
PEW Research - December 2, 2013
What happens to your digital life after you die? It’s a question not many consider given how embedded the internet is in their lives. The typical web user has 25 online accounts, ranging from email to social media profiles and bank accounts, according to a 2007 study from Microsoft. But families, companies and legislators are just starting to sort out who owns and has access to these accounts after someone has died.
The issue came up recently in Virginia, when a couple, seeking answers after their son’s suicide, realized they couldn’t access his Facebook account. Now Virginia is one of a growing number of states that have passed laws governing the digital accounts of the deceased. Meanwhile, technology companies are forming their own policies regarding deceased users. While still in the early stages, the laws and policies taking shape so far indicate that designating one’s “digital assets” may soon become a critical part of estate planning.
To read more...
PEW Research - December 2, 2013
What happens to your digital life after you die? It’s a question not many consider given how embedded the internet is in their lives. The typical web user has 25 online accounts, ranging from email to social media profiles and bank accounts, according to a 2007 study from Microsoft. But families, companies and legislators are just starting to sort out who owns and has access to these accounts after someone has died.
The issue came up recently in Virginia, when a couple, seeking answers after their son’s suicide, realized they couldn’t access his Facebook account. Now Virginia is one of a growing number of states that have passed laws governing the digital accounts of the deceased. Meanwhile, technology companies are forming their own policies regarding deceased users. While still in the early stages, the laws and policies taking shape so far indicate that designating one’s “digital assets” may soon become a critical part of estate planning.
To read more...
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Rich-poor higher education gap ‘wider than in 1963’
By John Morgan
Social class ‘still biggest predictor of university attendance post-Robbins report’, conferences hear
Times Higher Education - 31 October 2013 |
Increasing the number of poorer students in higher education has not proved to be the “great social leveller” that it was expected to be in the Robbins era.
That was the argument set out by Anna Vignoles, professor of education at the University of Cambridge, at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Robbins report held at the London School of Economics on 22 October.
Lord Robbins was head of the economics department at the LSE at the time his report was published.
Professor Vignoles said that the higher education participation rate for people with backgrounds in manual occupations was about 4 per cent at the time of Robbins in 1963, whereas by the year 2000 it was about 20 per cent – a “massive” rise.
To read more...
Social class ‘still biggest predictor of university attendance post-Robbins report’, conferences hear
Times Higher Education - 31 October 2013 |
Increasing the number of poorer students in higher education has not proved to be the “great social leveller” that it was expected to be in the Robbins era.
That was the argument set out by Anna Vignoles, professor of education at the University of Cambridge, at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Robbins report held at the London School of Economics on 22 October.
Lord Robbins was head of the economics department at the LSE at the time his report was published.
Professor Vignoles said that the higher education participation rate for people with backgrounds in manual occupations was about 4 per cent at the time of Robbins in 1963, whereas by the year 2000 it was about 20 per cent – a “massive” rise.
To read more...
Revealed: How British Empire’s dirty secrets went up in smoke in the colonies
Thousands of confidential papers were destroyed as British rule neared its end in many colonies
By Cahal Milmo
The Guardian - November 29, 2013
In April 1957, five unmarked lorries left the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur and drove to a Royal Navy base in Singapore with their cargo of files detailing the secrets of Britain’s rule in Malaya. Their destination was, in the words of one official, a “splendid incinerator”.
This “discreet” mission in the closing days of British rule over what became Malaysia was one of hundreds of similar operations. As the sun finally set on the Empire, diplomats scurried to repatriate or destroy hundreds of thousands “dirty” documents containing evidence that London had decided should never see the light of day. Some 50 years later, the sheer scale of the operation to hide the secrets of British rule overseas – including details of atrocities committed during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya – is revealed in documents released today by the National Archives in Kew, west London.
To read more....
By Cahal Milmo
The Guardian - November 29, 2013
In April 1957, five unmarked lorries left the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur and drove to a Royal Navy base in Singapore with their cargo of files detailing the secrets of Britain’s rule in Malaya. Their destination was, in the words of one official, a “splendid incinerator”.
This “discreet” mission in the closing days of British rule over what became Malaysia was one of hundreds of similar operations. As the sun finally set on the Empire, diplomats scurried to repatriate or destroy hundreds of thousands “dirty” documents containing evidence that London had decided should never see the light of day. Some 50 years later, the sheer scale of the operation to hide the secrets of British rule overseas – including details of atrocities committed during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya – is revealed in documents released today by the National Archives in Kew, west London.
To read more....
Mapping the 'Time Boundaries' of a City
By Emily Badger
The Atlantic - Oct 14, 2013
Maps don't typically convey time very well. They're static snapshots of a moment in history. They tell you what exists, not when people go there, or how the value of a place might be tied to time – whether it's a nightlife district or a public park most popular with early-morning joggers.
We've come across a handful of animated maps that do a good job combining time and space, frequently using either transit data or geo-tagged social-media hits. Now a new project, called Geographies of Time, is trying to do something similar with a more typical two-dimensional map. The effort is part of a broader EU-funded project called UrbanSensing that's building platforms to detect patterns in how people use urban spaces.
With Geographies of Time, the researchers wanted to erase how we typically think of boundaries within cities – between neighborhoods, for instance – and replace them with new ones dictated by time. Which parts of a city come alive between midnight and 3 a.m.? How about at lunch time? And what might those patterns tell us about how individual places – and whole cities – are experienced differently over the course of a day?
To read more...
The Atlantic - Oct 14, 2013
Maps don't typically convey time very well. They're static snapshots of a moment in history. They tell you what exists, not when people go there, or how the value of a place might be tied to time – whether it's a nightlife district or a public park most popular with early-morning joggers.
We've come across a handful of animated maps that do a good job combining time and space, frequently using either transit data or geo-tagged social-media hits. Now a new project, called Geographies of Time, is trying to do something similar with a more typical two-dimensional map. The effort is part of a broader EU-funded project called UrbanSensing that's building platforms to detect patterns in how people use urban spaces.
With Geographies of Time, the researchers wanted to erase how we typically think of boundaries within cities – between neighborhoods, for instance – and replace them with new ones dictated by time. Which parts of a city come alive between midnight and 3 a.m.? How about at lunch time? And what might those patterns tell us about how individual places – and whole cities – are experienced differently over the course of a day?
To read more...
America’s Role as Consumer of Last Resort Goes Missing
By Simon Kennedy
Bloomberg Markets Magazine - Dec 1, 2013
Not long ago, before the financial crisis and the global recession it triggered, economists referred to Americans as the consumers of last resort. When the U.S. grew at a healthy pace, its citizens were buyers, fueling demand for the goods China and other nations produced. They kept the world economy humming.
It may not work that way anymore, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its January issue. A rebounding U.S. is giving less support to global growth than in the past. Homegrown demand and production are more important drivers of the world’s biggest economy than they were a decade ago.
To read more...
Bloomberg Markets Magazine - Dec 1, 2013
Not long ago, before the financial crisis and the global recession it triggered, economists referred to Americans as the consumers of last resort. When the U.S. grew at a healthy pace, its citizens were buyers, fueling demand for the goods China and other nations produced. They kept the world economy humming.
It may not work that way anymore, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its January issue. A rebounding U.S. is giving less support to global growth than in the past. Homegrown demand and production are more important drivers of the world’s biggest economy than they were a decade ago.
To read more...
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Is the Pope Getting the Catholics Ready for an Economic Revolution?
By Lynn Stuart Parramore
Is the Pope Getting the Catholics Ready for an Economic Revolution? (Maybe He Read Marx) A specter is haunting the Vatican.
AlterNet / November 27, 2013
In 1992, the Catholic Church officially apologized for persecuting 17th-century astronomer Galileo, who dared to assert that the Earth revolved around the sun. In 2008, the Vatican even considered putting up a statue of him. Could a certain 19th-century atheist philosopher be next?
It is true that in 2009, a Vatican newspaper article put a positive spin on one Karl Marx. The author, German historian Georg Sans, praised Marx for his criticism of the alienation and injustice faced by working people in a world where the privileged few own the capital. Sans suggested that Marx’s view was relevant today: “We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system....” Indeed.
To read more....
Is the Pope Getting the Catholics Ready for an Economic Revolution? (Maybe He Read Marx) A specter is haunting the Vatican.
AlterNet / November 27, 2013
In 1992, the Catholic Church officially apologized for persecuting 17th-century astronomer Galileo, who dared to assert that the Earth revolved around the sun. In 2008, the Vatican even considered putting up a statue of him. Could a certain 19th-century atheist philosopher be next?
It is true that in 2009, a Vatican newspaper article put a positive spin on one Karl Marx. The author, German historian Georg Sans, praised Marx for his criticism of the alienation and injustice faced by working people in a world where the privileged few own the capital. Sans suggested that Marx’s view was relevant today: “We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system....” Indeed.
To read more....
Coming Out as a Modern Family
By MARIA BELLO
The New York Times - November 29, 2013
When my 12-year-old son, Jackson, asked me if there was something I wasn’t telling him, I replied, “There are a lot of things I don’t tell you.”
To read more....
The New York Times - November 29, 2013
When my 12-year-old son, Jackson, asked me if there was something I wasn’t telling him, I replied, “There are a lot of things I don’t tell you.”
“Like what?”
“Adult stuff.”
He persisted: “What kind of adult stuff?”
This was the moment I had been anticipating and dreading for months. “Like romantic stuff,” I said, fumbling for words.
“What kind of romantic stuff?”
“Well,” I said. “Like how sometimes you can be friends with someone, and
then it turns romantic, and then you’re friends again. Like with Dad
and me. Or romantic like Bryn and me were, and then he and I became
friends.”
To read more....
The marketisation of our universities
By Luke Martell
Economic criteria get precedence over what’s good in human terms
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 29, 2013
In 2010 the UK government announced 100 percent cuts to the funding of most teaching at universities. To fill the gap, students’ contributions to fees in England trebled widely to £9000 a year or close to that. 12 years earlier higher education had been free. The government say the changes are necessary for deficit reduction, the reason also given for cuts and marketisation across health, welfare and local government.
But these cuts are not necessitated by budget deficits. Tuition fees, already low, are being abolished in Germany. In the UK there isn’t less money involved. It’s just that students cough up rather than taxpayers, without getting more for the greater contribution they make. Loans and defaults might actually cost the government more. And students could find interest rates hiked, so their debt is retrospectively increased.
The marketisation of universities is a political choice, made without a democratic mandate. Changes are in line with conservative ideology to reduce, privatise and marketise the public sector. They alter what a university and society are all about. It’s argued that working class applications haven’t been hit by students paying fees. But the data’s flawed. Since the Robbins Report more people from all classes are going to university but the relative chances for working class people have reduced.
To read more....
Economic criteria get precedence over what’s good in human terms
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 29, 2013
In 2010 the UK government announced 100 percent cuts to the funding of most teaching at universities. To fill the gap, students’ contributions to fees in England trebled widely to £9000 a year or close to that. 12 years earlier higher education had been free. The government say the changes are necessary for deficit reduction, the reason also given for cuts and marketisation across health, welfare and local government.
But these cuts are not necessitated by budget deficits. Tuition fees, already low, are being abolished in Germany. In the UK there isn’t less money involved. It’s just that students cough up rather than taxpayers, without getting more for the greater contribution they make. Loans and defaults might actually cost the government more. And students could find interest rates hiked, so their debt is retrospectively increased.
The marketisation of universities is a political choice, made without a democratic mandate. Changes are in line with conservative ideology to reduce, privatise and marketise the public sector. They alter what a university and society are all about. It’s argued that working class applications haven’t been hit by students paying fees. But the data’s flawed. Since the Robbins Report more people from all classes are going to university but the relative chances for working class people have reduced.
To read more....
Arab World Sinks Deeper into Water Crisis, Warns UNDP
By Thalif Deen
Inter Press Service - November 30, 2013
The Arab world is widely perceived as blessed with an embarrassment of riches: an abundance of oil (Saudi Arabia), one of the world’s highest per capita incomes (Qatar), and home to the world’s tallest luxury building (United Arab Emirates).
But it lacks one of the most finite resources necessary for human survival: water.
“The average Arab citizen has eight times less access to renewable water than the average global citizen, and more than two thirds of surface water resources originate from outside the region,” says the U.N.Development Program (UNDP) in a new study released this week.
Titled “Water Governance in the Arab Region: Managing Scarcity and Securing the Future,” the report warns that water scarcity in the region is fast reaching “alarming levels, with dire consequences to human development”.
To read more...
Inter Press Service - November 30, 2013
The Arab world is widely perceived as blessed with an embarrassment of riches: an abundance of oil (Saudi Arabia), one of the world’s highest per capita incomes (Qatar), and home to the world’s tallest luxury building (United Arab Emirates).
But it lacks one of the most finite resources necessary for human survival: water.
“The average Arab citizen has eight times less access to renewable water than the average global citizen, and more than two thirds of surface water resources originate from outside the region,” says the U.N.Development Program (UNDP) in a new study released this week.
Titled “Water Governance in the Arab Region: Managing Scarcity and Securing the Future,” the report warns that water scarcity in the region is fast reaching “alarming levels, with dire consequences to human development”.
To read more...
Friday, November 29, 2013
China in the Middle East Lecture Series: Zan Tao Wednesday, December 11, 2013
CHINA IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Tao Zan (PEKING UNIVERSITY)
Wednesday December 11, 2013
Urban Center - room 710 - 12:00 - 2:00 PM
Portland State University
Dr. Zan Tao is an Associate Professor of Turkish Studies, History Department, and Deputy Director of the Center for Global Modernization Studies at Peking University. He completed his PhD in History at Peking University in 2007. He has been a visiting scholar at Middle East Technical University (2005-2006), Center of Afro-Oriental Studies in Brazil (2008), Bogazici Univeristy (2008), and Indiana University-Bloomington (2012-2013). He had also worked for one year at Tibetan University (2010-2011). He is the author of Modern State and Nation Building: A Study on Turkish Nationalism in the Early 20th Century[Xian Dai Guo Jia Yu Min Zu Jian Gou: 20 Shi Ji Qian Qi Tu'erqi Min Zu Zhu Yi Yan Jiu] (Beijing: Sanlian Publisher, August, 2011), "Turkish Model: history and present" [tu'er qi mo shi: li shi yu xian shi] Journal of Xinjiang, Normal University (March, 2012), "A analysis on contemporary foreign strategy of Turkey" [shi xi dang dai tu'er qi de dui wai zhan lve] Peking University Center for Study of International Strategy: Chinese International Strategy Review (Beijing: World Affairs Publishers, 2011), “An Overview of Turkish Studies in China," Turkish Studies Review, Issue 15 (Spring 2010), “Meeting Kurds in Turkey,”SEPHIS: Global South (April 2009), “Sino-Turkish Relationship and Turkey’s Perceptions on the Rise of China,” Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in Asia, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2009).
CO-SPONSORED BY
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
CENTER FOR TURKISH STUDIES
HATFIELD SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES
CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE
OTTOMAN AND MODERN TURKISH STUDIES AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Monday, November 25, 2013
'Golden rice bowl' attracts China's best and brightest
By Feng Ke and Katie Hunt
CNN November 25, 2013
College student Wang Zixu was among the 1.1 million hopefuls who packed out school and universities across China on Sunday to sit the country's civil service exams.
To read more....
CNN November 25, 2013
College student Wang Zixu was among the 1.1 million hopefuls who packed out school and universities across China on Sunday to sit the country's civil service exams.
It's a tradition that
dates back more than 1,300 years when exams were first held to select
the best applicants for ancient imperial bureaucracy. Today's young job
seekers are vying for government posts in record numbers.
Like many of the
candidates, Wang, who will graduate next year, says the prospect of
stable salary and good benefits make more it appealing than the private
sector that attracts many of the most ambitious minds in the U.S. and
Europe.
"I think the exam wasn't
too hard. I answered all the questions," Wang told CNN after taking the
three-hour exam outside the China Institute of Political Science and
Law.
To read more....
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Iran's Nuclear Triumph
Tehran can continue to enrich uranium at 10,000 working centrifuges.
The Wall Street Journal - November 24, 2013
President
Obama
is hailing a weekend accord that he says has "halted the progress
of the Iranian nuclear program," and we devoutly wish this were true.
The reality is that the agreement in Geneva with five Western nations
takes Iran a giant step closer to becoming a de facto nuclear power.
To read more...
The Wall Street Journal - November 24, 2013
President
Obama
is hailing a weekend accord that he says has "halted the progress
of the Iranian nuclear program," and we devoutly wish this were true.
The reality is that the agreement in Geneva with five Western nations
takes Iran a giant step closer to becoming a de facto nuclear power.
Start
with the fact that this "interim" accord fails to meet the terms of
several United Nations resolutions, which specify no sanctions relief
until Iran suspends all uranium enrichment. Under this deal Iran gets
sanctions relief, but it does not have to give up its centrifuges that
enrich uranium, does not have to stop enriching, does not have to
transfer control of its enrichment stockpiles, and does not have to shut
down its plutonium reactor at Arak.
To read more...
Europe's first secular Jew is born Philosopher
Baruch de Spinoza was banned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam for his allegedly heretical views on God and religion.
By David B. Green
Hareetz | Nov. 24, 2013
November 24, 1632, is the day that philosopher Baruch de Spinoza was
born, in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. The son of a family that
originated in Spain before the Inquisition, and eventually settled in
Holland, Spinoza was banned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam for his
original and allegedly heretical views on God and religion. Although he
never recanted his beliefs, he also did not convert to Christianity,
and continued developing his philosophy, producing a number of works
that are studied to this day. As such, he has been called Europe’s first
secular – or modern – Jew.
Baruch de Spinoza (after his excommunication, he Latinized his name to Benedict de Spinoza) was the second son of Miguel, a Portuguese-born merchant, and his second wife, Hanna Debora de Espinoza, conversos who re-embraced their Judaism on their immigration to Amsterdam.
To read more...
By David B. Green
Hareetz | Nov. 24, 2013
November 24, 1632, is the day that philosopher Baruch de Spinoza was
born, in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. The son of a family that
originated in Spain before the Inquisition, and eventually settled in
Holland, Spinoza was banned by the Jewish community of Amsterdam for his
original and allegedly heretical views on God and religion. Although he
never recanted his beliefs, he also did not convert to Christianity,
and continued developing his philosophy, producing a number of works
that are studied to this day. As such, he has been called Europe’s first
secular – or modern – Jew.
Baruch de Spinoza (after his excommunication, he Latinized his name to Benedict de Spinoza) was the second son of Miguel, a Portuguese-born merchant, and his second wife, Hanna Debora de Espinoza, conversos who re-embraced their Judaism on their immigration to Amsterdam.
To read more...
Chongqing’s Challenge
Tom Miller
The Cairo Review of Global Affairs - November 24, 2013
China’s urban
expansion is breathtaking. In 1980, fewer than 200 million Chinese people lived
in towns and cities. Over the next thirty years, China’s cities expanded by
nearly 500 million—the equivalent of adding the combined current populations of
the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Today more than 700
million people are crammed into urban areas, a little over half the population.
By 2030, China’s cities will be home to one in every eight people on earth.
Nowhere is China’s urban transformation more striking than in Chongqing, the largest city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, with a population of around seven million. Once a rusting laggard, marooned far from the dynamic cities of the eastern seaboard, this rough-and-ready river port is undergoing spectacular change. Over the past decade, hundreds of towering apartment blocks have sprouted from the city’s deep red soil and new bridges have soared across its muddy riverbanks. Chongqing’s skyline, now a thicket of skyscrapers, resembles Hong Kong’s. And the construction frenzy shows no sign of slowing down. On the city’s northern outskirts, bulldozers flatten wooded hills and lush ravines to satisfy property developers’ insatiable appetite for land. Near the airport, teams of construction workers lay track on a new monorail that will eventually run to nine lines. And at the heart of the old city, wreckers armed with pickaxes hack at a tangle of grimy slums.
To read more....
The Cairo Review of Global Affairs - November 24, 2013
China’s urban
expansion is breathtaking. In 1980, fewer than 200 million Chinese people lived
in towns and cities. Over the next thirty years, China’s cities expanded by
nearly 500 million—the equivalent of adding the combined current populations of
the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Today more than 700
million people are crammed into urban areas, a little over half the population.
By 2030, China’s cities will be home to one in every eight people on earth.Nowhere is China’s urban transformation more striking than in Chongqing, the largest city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, with a population of around seven million. Once a rusting laggard, marooned far from the dynamic cities of the eastern seaboard, this rough-and-ready river port is undergoing spectacular change. Over the past decade, hundreds of towering apartment blocks have sprouted from the city’s deep red soil and new bridges have soared across its muddy riverbanks. Chongqing’s skyline, now a thicket of skyscrapers, resembles Hong Kong’s. And the construction frenzy shows no sign of slowing down. On the city’s northern outskirts, bulldozers flatten wooded hills and lush ravines to satisfy property developers’ insatiable appetite for land. Near the airport, teams of construction workers lay track on a new monorail that will eventually run to nine lines. And at the heart of the old city, wreckers armed with pickaxes hack at a tangle of grimy slums.
To read more....
Inflation, corruption, inequality top list of Chinese public’s concerns
By Jacob Poushter
PEW Research - November 8, 2013
This weekend, top leaders in China plan to focus on a whole host of reforms, ranging from initiatives to open up the nation’s economy to addressing challenges such as corruption, environmental problems, and social issues. In our years of asking the Chinese questions about their views about the state of their country, here are their answers on key issues:
Inflation – Rising prices are seen as a very big problem by 59% in China, according to a spring 2013 Pew Research Center survey. When asked which is the issue most important for the government to address first, 53% of the Chinese public said inflation, while 26% named inequality and only 11% cited unemployment. Inflation shot up to 3.1% in September, making it a pressing issue for China’s Communist party elite.
To read more....
PEW Research - November 8, 2013
This weekend, top leaders in China plan to focus on a whole host of reforms, ranging from initiatives to open up the nation’s economy to addressing challenges such as corruption, environmental problems, and social issues. In our years of asking the Chinese questions about their views about the state of their country, here are their answers on key issues:
Inflation – Rising prices are seen as a very big problem by 59% in China, according to a spring 2013 Pew Research Center survey. When asked which is the issue most important for the government to address first, 53% of the Chinese public said inflation, while 26% named inequality and only 11% cited unemployment. Inflation shot up to 3.1% in September, making it a pressing issue for China’s Communist party elite.
To read more....
Do Skyscrapers Promote Inequality?
It's not an accident that China and New York City, which have perhaps the greatest distance between their rich and poor, also lead the world in skyscraper construction.
by Alex Marshall
Governing.com | December 2013
Like tall, new, elegantly dressed kids in class, they poke their shoulders and heads above their classmates, peering out over and into Central Park. There is the just-completed One57, a 1,004-foot-tall building where a duplex inside its shimmering, multicolored glass walls costs $90 million. There’s the under-construction 432 Park, designed by South American architect Rafael Viñoly, whose top floor at 1,398 feet will be higher than that of the Empire State Building’s. And there’s the planned 1,550-foot Nordstrom Tower, where the luxury department store will take up the first eight floors and residences most of the rest.
It’s the latest trend in New York City: “super tall” residential skyscrapers. A half dozen or so, maybe more, are going up, and they are remaking the city’s skyline. Not many other American cities are joining New York in this trend, but it’s a different story across the waters.
To read more....
by Alex Marshall
Governing.com | December 2013
Like tall, new, elegantly dressed kids in class, they poke their shoulders and heads above their classmates, peering out over and into Central Park. There is the just-completed One57, a 1,004-foot-tall building where a duplex inside its shimmering, multicolored glass walls costs $90 million. There’s the under-construction 432 Park, designed by South American architect Rafael Viñoly, whose top floor at 1,398 feet will be higher than that of the Empire State Building’s. And there’s the planned 1,550-foot Nordstrom Tower, where the luxury department store will take up the first eight floors and residences most of the rest.
It’s the latest trend in New York City: “super tall” residential skyscrapers. A half dozen or so, maybe more, are going up, and they are remaking the city’s skyline. Not many other American cities are joining New York in this trend, but it’s a different story across the waters.
To read more....
Stark inequality: Why political mobilisation on the basis of caste & class is likely to persist
By Avinash Celestine
ET Bureau | 24 Nov, 2013
Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/26278468.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
ET Bureau | 24 Nov, 2013
Despite
heavy political mobilization, inequality between Dalits, tribals,
OBCs and the rest of the population is still stark, and has changed
little in the past decade.
As elections approach, with a series of state polls already underway and a general election next year, appeals by various parties for votes of the Dalit, tribal and other backward classes will only intensify.
Ever since the Janata Party government set up the Mandal Commission in the late '70s to identify the ..
Despite heavy political mobilization, inequality between Dalits, tribals, OBCs and the rest of the population is still stark, and has changed little in the past decade. As elections approach, with a series of state polls already underway and a general election next year, appeals by various parties for votes of the Dalit, tribal and other backward classes will only intensify. Ever since the Janata Party government set up the Mandal Commission in the late '70s to identify the socially or educationally backward - and even before - parties in both the north and the south have tapped these castes for votes. Historically less-welloff than upper castes despite being in the majority, they were ripe for political mobilization. Politicians and parties as diverseAs elections approach, with a series of state polls already underway and a general election next year, appeals by various parties for votes of the Dalit, tribal and other backward classes will only intensify.
Ever since the Janata Party government set up the Mandal Commission in the late '70s to identify the ..
Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/26278468.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
The blood libel that reawakened racism in Europe
The wave of kidnapping accusations brought against the Roma is in line with hundreds of years of racism, discrimination, neglect and poverty.
By Asaf Ronel
Hareetz | Oct. 30, 2013
To read more....
By Asaf Ronel
Hareetz | Oct. 30, 2013
The affair of Maria, described by the Greek media as "the blonde angel",
has unfolded in a manner that is a far cry from the story weaved by the
newspaper headlines decrying a Roma ring that kidnapped children for
the purpose of sex trafficking.
The
little girl's biological mother, also a Roma, was located in Bulgaria
and told how she had given her daughter to the adoptive parents of her
own free will because of financial distress. The Greek authorities have
not yet decided what to do with the girl, whose adoptive parents are
still under arrest, but the entire affair points at a serious problem of
racism in Greek society.
Such
severe accusations against a Roma couple and an entire ostracized
minority group would not have arisen without the fierce hatred of
foreigners in Greece. The same xenophobia also characterized the
behavior of the police and other authorities involved in the affair, who
hastened to assume the worst possible about the parents, and also
leaked details to the press.
To read more....
14 unbelievably racist things European politicians are saying about the Roma
Anti-Roma hate speech in Europe is nothing new. But somehow, it's always worse than you expect.
Sarah Dougherty
The Global Post - November 21, 2013
Last month Greek and Irish authorities did something truly ironic. In three separate incidents, they took blond, blue-eyed children away from their Roma families and put them in state care. Why? They saw their light skin and assumed the kids must have been — wait for it — stolen from their families.
The Roma are a linguistically and culturally diverse group of people who originated from northern India about 1,500 years ago. They make up Europe’s largest ethnic minority, with at least 10 to 12 million members. Most Roma are European Union citizens. But even though they've lived in Europe for more than 700 years, they’re still treated with suspicion and hostility.
DNA tests now confirm that all three of the blond children are Roma, but an informal witch hunt had already begun, feeding into centuries of superstition that the Roma steal children.
To read more....
Sarah Dougherty
The Global Post - November 21, 2013
Last month Greek and Irish authorities did something truly ironic. In three separate incidents, they took blond, blue-eyed children away from their Roma families and put them in state care. Why? They saw their light skin and assumed the kids must have been — wait for it — stolen from their families.
The Roma are a linguistically and culturally diverse group of people who originated from northern India about 1,500 years ago. They make up Europe’s largest ethnic minority, with at least 10 to 12 million members. Most Roma are European Union citizens. But even though they've lived in Europe for more than 700 years, they’re still treated with suspicion and hostility.
DNA tests now confirm that all three of the blond children are Roma, but an informal witch hunt had already begun, feeding into centuries of superstition that the Roma steal children.
To read more....
Yes, America Has Gotten Better About Racism, but It Really Doesn’t Matter
By Mychal Denzel Smith
The Nation - November 22, 2013
Because I write about race and racism in the United States, I’m often asked some variation of this question: are things better now?
I don’t mean to be condescending when I answer, but usually my response is frustrated laughter followed by a firm “no.” It’s the most polite thing I can think to do in the moment. At least, it’s more polite than saying, “That’s a stupid fucking question.”
But that’s how I actually feel. It sounds harsh, but I truly believe “Are things better?” is one of the most useless questions in a discussion about racism. It’s another in a repertoire of rhetorical tricks we use in this country to avoid the hard work of addressing racism in its modern form. By reframing the conversation around how much progress has been made, we further the false narrative that racism is a problem that belongs to history. While we pat ourselves on the back for not being as horrible as we once were, we allow racism to become further entrenched in every aspect of American life.
Of course we’re doing better than chattel slavery. Of course we’re doing better than legal segregation. But what material benefit do we get from the comparison?
To read more...
The Nation - November 22, 2013
Because I write about race and racism in the United States, I’m often asked some variation of this question: are things better now?
I don’t mean to be condescending when I answer, but usually my response is frustrated laughter followed by a firm “no.” It’s the most polite thing I can think to do in the moment. At least, it’s more polite than saying, “That’s a stupid fucking question.”
But that’s how I actually feel. It sounds harsh, but I truly believe “Are things better?” is one of the most useless questions in a discussion about racism. It’s another in a repertoire of rhetorical tricks we use in this country to avoid the hard work of addressing racism in its modern form. By reframing the conversation around how much progress has been made, we further the false narrative that racism is a problem that belongs to history. While we pat ourselves on the back for not being as horrible as we once were, we allow racism to become further entrenched in every aspect of American life.
Of course we’re doing better than chattel slavery. Of course we’re doing better than legal segregation. But what material benefit do we get from the comparison?
To read more...
The Banality of Televised Anti-Chinese Racism
Recent incidents on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and on Holland's Got Talent reveal the persistence of casual bigotry—intended or not—toward China and Chinese people.
By Matt Schiavenza
The Atlantic - Nov 22 2013
Last week's episode of Holland's Got Talent featured a 30-year-old Chinese-born contestant named Xiao Wang, a PhD candidate who moonlights as an opera singer. Xiao was on hand to sing "La donna e mobile," an aria from Verdi's Rigoletto, and performed beautifully.
However, one of the talent judges on the show, a Dutch singer named Cornelis Willem Heuckeroth, used the segment as an opportunity to mock Xiao's Chinese-ness.
Here were a few of Heuckeroth's comments:
"Which number are you singing? Number 39 with rice?"
"This is the best Chinese I've had in weeks, and it's not takeaway!"
"He looks like a waiter from a Chinese restaurant."
"This is the best Chinese person I've ever seen, and he's not even a delivery boy."
Hueckeroth, who for some reason goes by the name "Gordon," also called Xiao's performance a "surplise."
The other two panelists on the show both looked embarrassed by Gordon's remarks; one, an American named Dan Karaty, even told him that he's "really not supposed to say things like that."
To read more.....
By Matt Schiavenza
The Atlantic - Nov 22 2013
Last week's episode of Holland's Got Talent featured a 30-year-old Chinese-born contestant named Xiao Wang, a PhD candidate who moonlights as an opera singer. Xiao was on hand to sing "La donna e mobile," an aria from Verdi's Rigoletto, and performed beautifully.
However, one of the talent judges on the show, a Dutch singer named Cornelis Willem Heuckeroth, used the segment as an opportunity to mock Xiao's Chinese-ness.
Here were a few of Heuckeroth's comments:
"Which number are you singing? Number 39 with rice?"
"This is the best Chinese I've had in weeks, and it's not takeaway!"
"He looks like a waiter from a Chinese restaurant."
"This is the best Chinese person I've ever seen, and he's not even a delivery boy."
Hueckeroth, who for some reason goes by the name "Gordon," also called Xiao's performance a "surplise."
The other two panelists on the show both looked embarrassed by Gordon's remarks; one, an American named Dan Karaty, even told him that he's "really not supposed to say things like that."
To read more.....
An issue of men By Shashish Shami Kamal
The Daily Star - November 25, 2013
THE issue of gender inequality and violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Bangladesh is mainly placed on the public agenda by women and women-focused organisations only. Men and boys still remain passive participants by being the target group of workshops, posters, leaflets telling them to ‘Stop Violence.’ This approach of men’s participation in the issues of gender inequality and VAWG is an effective short term solution for awareness building and information dissemination. But we do realise that the issue of VAWG is rooted in the unequal position of women in the gender order of the society. That is why a sustainable change in the society requires the interventions to go beyond individual and interpersonal levels and address the institutional and structural levels of the society. This needs active engagement of men and boys. Men’s capacity should be utilised for changing the social practices that reproduce the systematic dominance of men over women. Active engagement proposes that men and boys.
To read more...
THE issue of gender inequality and violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Bangladesh is mainly placed on the public agenda by women and women-focused organisations only. Men and boys still remain passive participants by being the target group of workshops, posters, leaflets telling them to ‘Stop Violence.’ This approach of men’s participation in the issues of gender inequality and VAWG is an effective short term solution for awareness building and information dissemination. But we do realise that the issue of VAWG is rooted in the unequal position of women in the gender order of the society. That is why a sustainable change in the society requires the interventions to go beyond individual and interpersonal levels and address the institutional and structural levels of the society. This needs active engagement of men and boys. Men’s capacity should be utilised for changing the social practices that reproduce the systematic dominance of men over women. Active engagement proposes that men and boys.
To read more...
Fact Sheet: First Step Understandings Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program
The P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, Germany,
France, Russia, and China, facilitated by the European Union) has been
engaged in serious and substantive negotiations with Iran with the goal
of reaching a verifiable diplomatic resolution that would prevent Iran
from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
President Obama has been clear that achieving a peaceful
resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is in
America’s national security interest. Today, the P5+1 and Iran reached a
set of initial understandings that halts the progress of Iran's nuclear
program and rolls it back in key respects. These are the first
meaningful limits that Iran has accepted on its nuclear program in close
to a decade. The initial, six month step includes significant limits
on Iran's nuclear program and begins to address our most urgent concerns
including Iran’s enrichment capabilities; its existing stockpiles of
enriched uranium; the number and capabilities of its centrifuges; and
its ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium using the Arak reactor.
The concessions Iran has committed to make as part of this first step
will also provide us with increased transparency and intrusive
monitoring of its nuclear program. In the past, the concern has been
expressed that Iran will use negotiations to buy time to advance their
program. Taken together, these first step measures will help prevent
Iran from using the cover of negotiations to continue advancing its
nuclear program as we seek to negotiate a long-term, comprehensive
solution that addresses all of the international community's concerns.
In return, as part of this initial step, the P5+1 will
provide limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible relief to Iran.
This relief is structured so that the overwhelming majority of the
sanctions regime, including the key oil, banking, and financial
sanctions architecture, remains in place. The P5+1 will continue to
enforce these sanctions vigorously. If Iran fails to meet its
commitments, we will revoke the limited relief and impose additional
sanctions on Iran.
‘We chose democracy & human rights over banks’ – Iceland president
Russia Today - September 27, 2013
As Iceland’s banking system went into meltdown at the start of the global financial crisis, it came under enormous pressure from the rest of Europe to accept crippling austerity measures that would have burdened its people for generations to come. And yet the tiny island nation stood up to the European Goliath, defiantly opting for democracy even as it stood on the brink of bankruptcy.
What can Iceland teach the world about the power of the people and the rule of law? To discuss these issues, Oksana is joined by the President of Iceland, Olafur Grimsson.
As Iceland’s banking system went into meltdown at the start of the global financial crisis, it came under enormous pressure from the rest of Europe to accept crippling austerity measures that would have burdened its people for generations to come. And yet the tiny island nation stood up to the European Goliath, defiantly opting for democracy even as it stood on the brink of bankruptcy.
What can Iceland teach the world about the power of the people and the rule of law? To discuss these issues, Oksana is joined by the President of Iceland, Olafur Grimsson.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal: An Ally Frets About American Retreat
Influential Saudi royal Prince Alwaleed bin Talal talks about the U.S. debacle in Syria, the Iranian threat, and 'this perception that America is going down.'
By Matthew Kaminski
The Wall Street Journal - Nov. 22, 2013
To read more....
By Matthew Kaminski
The Wall Street Journal - Nov. 22, 2013
'The U.S. has to have a foreign policy.
Well-defined, well-structured. You don't have it right now,
unfortunately. It's just complete chaos. Confusion. No policy. I mean,
we feel it. We sense it, you know."
Members
of the Saudi royal family have voiced their displeasure with the
Obama
administration's approach to the Middle East through private
channels and recently in public as well. None of them puts it quite like
HRH
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.
One of some three-dozen living
grandsons of the first Saudi King Abdulaziz, this prince is a prominent
but atypical royal. His investment company made him the Arab world's
richest businessman. He strikes a modern image for a Saudi, employing
female aides and jet-setting on a private
Boeing
BA +2.29%
747. He's at ease with Western media.
Passing
through New York earlier this week,
Mr. Alwaleed,
who is 58, sits down with the Journal editorial board between a
couple of television appearances. He wears a blue suit, shirt and tie.
These days, his bouffant widow's peak has more salt than pepper. The
prince holds no important government post in Saudi Arabia, but it's hard
to shake the impression that here is the uncensored id of the reserved
House of
Saud.
To read more....
Friday, November 22, 2013
Book Review: Unrecognized States: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Modern International System
By James Ker-Lindsay
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 16, 2013
Until recently the subject of recognition received relatively scant attention amongst politics and international relations academics. Long the preserve of international law scholars, the topic was often seen as rather dry and pointless. However, in recent years, this perception has started to change with the emergence of a number of states that have yet to establish a firm and uncontested presence on the world stage.
At the more successful end of the scale is Kosovo. After having unilaterally declared independence in 2008, it is now recognised by the majority of UN members. In contrast, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have only been recognised by Russia and a handful of other countries. Then there are Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria, which have yet to be recognised by any UN members. Meanwhile, a number of other territories, such Kurdistan, seem poised to make a claim for full statehood in the years ahead. Against this backdrop, the subjects of secession and recognition are therefore becoming an ever more interesting area of study, especially as many of the seemingly arcane theoretical issues regarding statehood and recognition – such as the possibility of engaging with these states without recognising them – have become pressing questions for policy makers.
To read more....
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 16, 2013
Until recently the subject of recognition received relatively scant attention amongst politics and international relations academics. Long the preserve of international law scholars, the topic was often seen as rather dry and pointless. However, in recent years, this perception has started to change with the emergence of a number of states that have yet to establish a firm and uncontested presence on the world stage.
At the more successful end of the scale is Kosovo. After having unilaterally declared independence in 2008, it is now recognised by the majority of UN members. In contrast, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have only been recognised by Russia and a handful of other countries. Then there are Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria, which have yet to be recognised by any UN members. Meanwhile, a number of other territories, such Kurdistan, seem poised to make a claim for full statehood in the years ahead. Against this backdrop, the subjects of secession and recognition are therefore becoming an ever more interesting area of study, especially as many of the seemingly arcane theoretical issues regarding statehood and recognition – such as the possibility of engaging with these states without recognising them – have become pressing questions for policy makers.
To read more....
A Belated Triumph for French Soccer
By Siddhartha Mitter
The New Yorker - November 22, 2013
The Stade de France, just outside of the Paris city limits, is the site
of France’s greatest sporting triumph: its victory in the 1998 World Cup
final, when the peerless midfielder Zinedine Zidane scored twice in a
3–0 defeat of Brazil. Since then, the French soccer team has delivered
mostly disappointment, and when France took the field against Ukraine
before eighty thousand fans at the same stadium on Tuesday night, all
signs pointed toward ignominy. At stake was a berth in the 2014 World
Cup: France had placed second in its qualifying group, and needed to win
a two-match playoff to earn a trip to Brazil. A listless and clumsy
French squad had lost the first game, in Kiev, two goals to none. Les
Bleus (as the team is known) needed to win by three goals, no easy
task—or miss the World Cup for the first time in twenty years.
After the first match, gloom had descended on the French media, which anticipated a failure even more abject than the team’s past three World Cup efforts: the mediocrity of 2002, when the defending champions didn’t make it past the preliminary stage of the tournament; the epic collapse of 2006, when France lost to Italy in the final after Zidane was ejected for head-butting a defender; and the implosion of 2010, when the players rebelled against their coach and went home early again. Some reasoned that a failure to qualify altogether might have its benefits—among them a long overdue housecleaning of the team’s leadership and the sport’s national governing body. It might even do the country good, for a couple of years, not to have to think about soccer at all.
To read more....
The New Yorker - November 22, 2013
After the first match, gloom had descended on the French media, which anticipated a failure even more abject than the team’s past three World Cup efforts: the mediocrity of 2002, when the defending champions didn’t make it past the preliminary stage of the tournament; the epic collapse of 2006, when France lost to Italy in the final after Zidane was ejected for head-butting a defender; and the implosion of 2010, when the players rebelled against their coach and went home early again. Some reasoned that a failure to qualify altogether might have its benefits—among them a long overdue housecleaning of the team’s leadership and the sport’s national governing body. It might even do the country good, for a couple of years, not to have to think about soccer at all.
To read more....
We live in a world where social class is strongly inherited
By Neil Cummins
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 8, 2013
Findings from a recent study by Neil Cummins and a colleague suggest that social mobility in modern day England is little greater than in pre-industrial times. Using surnames, they show that intergenerational correlation in status is close to .85, meaning that the progeny of the rich and poor will take over 20 generations, or 600 years, to converge to the average of society. This indicates that there is very little effective policy that could affect an improvement in social mobility in human societies.
When I ask students or friends about social mobility, the impression they usually convey is one of a class system that is strongly inherited over generations. There is a loose notion that we live in a world stratified by timeless elites at the top, a persistent middle class and a lower class, the kind usually ridiculed on reality TV. Academic economists know better and for decades the data has shown that the economy constantly ‘churns’ family fortunes over time. My students and friends had it wildly wrong: Status does not persist in families beyond a few generations. So are academic economists correct in this characterization?
To read more....
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 8, 2013
Findings from a recent study by Neil Cummins and a colleague suggest that social mobility in modern day England is little greater than in pre-industrial times. Using surnames, they show that intergenerational correlation in status is close to .85, meaning that the progeny of the rich and poor will take over 20 generations, or 600 years, to converge to the average of society. This indicates that there is very little effective policy that could affect an improvement in social mobility in human societies.
When I ask students or friends about social mobility, the impression they usually convey is one of a class system that is strongly inherited over generations. There is a loose notion that we live in a world stratified by timeless elites at the top, a persistent middle class and a lower class, the kind usually ridiculed on reality TV. Academic economists know better and for decades the data has shown that the economy constantly ‘churns’ family fortunes over time. My students and friends had it wildly wrong: Status does not persist in families beyond a few generations. So are academic economists correct in this characterization?
To read more....
17 Most Offensive Adverts That Would Be Banned Today
In the present age of marketing, advertisements often tend to cross limits in a race to elevate the sales or to get the limelight of media. Advertisements often use lies and exaggerations as their main tool for grasping the attention of the masses. But what line did advertisements cross in the past? The answer lies in these offensive, racist vintage adverts:
To see more of these advertisements....
To see more of these advertisements....
Review: Susan Buck-Morss, Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left
By Arya Zahedi
Insurgent Notes - Oct 5, 2013
The current global crisis has once again brought the questions of global struggle and world revolution into a position of importance. The basic questions posed are whether it is possible to build a “global Left” and how to rethink the idea of universal human liberation, which was the utopia once central to the left, and which has perhaps re-emerged once again. The unity of the world is indeed clearest to us in times of crisis. Susan Buck-Morss’s book on the relationship between critical theory and political Islam is an interesting and important contribution to this discussion, as it attempts to create a dialogue between critical thought in the “west” and that within the Islamic world. In keeping with her previous work on Hegel and the Haitian Revolution [Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009), Zahedi is somewhat off in the chronology], she attempts to resurrect and redeem the idea of universality after it had become a bad word among many in the academic activist milieu. Although the book was published some time ago, its relevance has only increased.
Insurgent Notes - Oct 5, 2013
The current global crisis has once again brought the questions of global struggle and world revolution into a position of importance. The basic questions posed are whether it is possible to build a “global Left” and how to rethink the idea of universal human liberation, which was the utopia once central to the left, and which has perhaps re-emerged once again. The unity of the world is indeed clearest to us in times of crisis. Susan Buck-Morss’s book on the relationship between critical theory and political Islam is an interesting and important contribution to this discussion, as it attempts to create a dialogue between critical thought in the “west” and that within the Islamic world. In keeping with her previous work on Hegel and the Haitian Revolution [Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009), Zahedi is somewhat off in the chronology], she attempts to resurrect and redeem the idea of universality after it had become a bad word among many in the academic activist milieu. Although the book was published some time ago, its relevance has only increased.
The loss of any conception of human
universality, especially as it relates to the political struggle, has
affected the understanding of social revolution. Many events have
occurred since the publication of the book that demonstrate the
importance of returning to the discussion of the world revolution and
the universal subject that is supposed to be the agent of this
revolution. Events such as the “Arab Spring” and the Iranian “Green
Movement,” the riots and strikes against austerity, the unrest in Brazil
in the midst of the World Cup qualifiers, Occupy Wall Street, all
demonstrate some sort of global shift.
I was Virginia's executioner from 1982 to 1999. Any questions for me?
I was responsible for putting 62 inmates to death in Virginia. I regret it deeply and now campaign to end capital punishment
Jerry Givens
theguardian.com, Thursday 21 November 2013
Jerry Givens worked for 25 years for Virginia's department of corrections. He was the state's executioner from 1982 to 1999 and administered the death penalty to 62 inmates, some by lethal injection and some by electrocution. For many years, even his own family did not know the truth about his job. Now Jerry campaigns to end capital punishment. He is the author of Another Day Not Promised and is on the board of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Today he opens up on Comment is free about his old job, what caused him to change his mind and the realities of America's criminal justice system.
Post questions for Jerry in the comments below. He will respond to as many as he can later today.
1. Can you describe what the day was like when you had to perform an execution?
On the day before, we begin what we call a 24-hour "death watch". Normally I would be there starting at 9pm during the death watch and spend the night at the institution in case something would occur during that period. Everything is reported that happens. We have security guys for the "death team", a special group of people who simply maintain security for the death chamber. Inmates arrive at Greensville, the institution with the death chamber, 15 days prior to the execution date. For those days, we have to provide security around the clock.
To read more.....
Jerry Givens
theguardian.com, Thursday 21 November 2013
Jerry Givens worked for 25 years for Virginia's department of corrections. He was the state's executioner from 1982 to 1999 and administered the death penalty to 62 inmates, some by lethal injection and some by electrocution. For many years, even his own family did not know the truth about his job. Now Jerry campaigns to end capital punishment. He is the author of Another Day Not Promised and is on the board of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Today he opens up on Comment is free about his old job, what caused him to change his mind and the realities of America's criminal justice system.
Post questions for Jerry in the comments below. He will respond to as many as he can later today.
1. Can you describe what the day was like when you had to perform an execution?
On the day before, we begin what we call a 24-hour "death watch". Normally I would be there starting at 9pm during the death watch and spend the night at the institution in case something would occur during that period. Everything is reported that happens. We have security guys for the "death team", a special group of people who simply maintain security for the death chamber. Inmates arrive at Greensville, the institution with the death chamber, 15 days prior to the execution date. For those days, we have to provide security around the clock.
To read more.....
Thursday, November 21, 2013
China's Economic Blueprint: Who Wins? Who Loses?
The Wall Street Journal - Nov. 21, 2013
Business could win big if China follows through on its pledges to give the market a greater role in the world's second-biggest economy. The Chinese Communist Party's leaders last week issued a broad blueprint for overhaul over the next decade that calls for empowering consumers and easing Beijing's grip on key industries long controlled by the state. Its sweeping goals include easing barriers for foreign capital in some industries,...
To read more...
Business could win big if China follows through on its pledges to give the market a greater role in the world's second-biggest economy. The Chinese Communist Party's leaders last week issued a broad blueprint for overhaul over the next decade that calls for empowering consumers and easing Beijing's grip on key industries long controlled by the state. Its sweeping goals include easing barriers for foreign capital in some industries,...
Business could win big if China follows
through on its pledges to give the market a greater role in the world's
second-biggest economy.
The Chinese
Communist Party's leaders last week issued a broad blueprint for
overhaul over the next decade that calls for empowering consumers and
easing Beijing's grip on key industries long controlled by the state.
Its sweeping goals include easing barriers for foreign capital in some
industries, increasing the involvement of private investors in
state-dominated businesses and giving the country's vast rural
population greater access to money.
Over
the long term, one significant move—a call to ease China's one-child
policy—signals a willingness to grapple with the mounting pressures of
an aging society. Many demographers say even more dramatic moves are
needed.
But Beijing's statement
suggests that leaders want to ensure that China has a stable pool of
labor—and remains a robust growth market—for years to come.
To read more...
Shanghai's Forgotten Jewish Past
In the 1930s and 40s, the Chinese city hosted a large, vibrant community of refugees fleeing persecution in Europe. Can survivors, rabbis, and historians preserve this heritage?
By James Griffiths
The Atlantic - Nov 21 2013
SHANGHAI—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Shanghai in May 2013 and hailed the city’s role as a “haven” for Jewish people fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 40s, his comments highlighted a part of the city’s history that many contemporary residents don’t know. Today, few would guess that this quintessentially Chinese city once played host to a bustling community of over 20,000 Jews.
While a Jewish community has existed in Shanghai since the late 19th century, the first large wave of immigrants came in the 1920s and 30s, as thousands of Russian Jews fled the Bolshevik Revolution for the more business-friendly foreign concessions in Shanghai. A decade later, the mainly Russian and Sephardic Jewish community was supplemented by tens of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, who fled during the early stages of Nazi rule in Germany.
To read more....
By James Griffiths
The Atlantic - Nov 21 2013
SHANGHAI—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Shanghai in May 2013 and hailed the city’s role as a “haven” for Jewish people fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 40s, his comments highlighted a part of the city’s history that many contemporary residents don’t know. Today, few would guess that this quintessentially Chinese city once played host to a bustling community of over 20,000 Jews.
While a Jewish community has existed in Shanghai since the late 19th century, the first large wave of immigrants came in the 1920s and 30s, as thousands of Russian Jews fled the Bolshevik Revolution for the more business-friendly foreign concessions in Shanghai. A decade later, the mainly Russian and Sephardic Jewish community was supplemented by tens of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, who fled during the early stages of Nazi rule in Germany.
To read more....
A New Book: Tony Bennett - Making Culture, Changing Society Routledge, 2013
Making Culture, Changing Society
Tony Bennett
Routledge – 2013
by Dave O'Brien
New Books in Sociology - November 13, 2013
[Cross-posted from New Books in Critical Theory] In his new book Making Culture, Changing Society (Routledge, 2013), Professor Tony Bennett aims
to change the way we think about culture. The book uses four core ideas
about the nature and meaning of culture to present a view that does not
see culture as just a set of signs and symbols. Rather culture is a
form of knowledge practice, bound up with material conditions and
institutions, which is implicated in the production of persons and
freedoms. Making Culture, Changing Society justifies this view
of culture in two ways. In the first instance the book considers how
specific humanities disciplines, associated with anthropology and
aesthetics, have been used to distribute ideas of freedom and ideas of
the person within liberal government. Bennett uses examples from
anthropological studies of colonial societies, along with discussions of
the role of aesthetics for theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, to show
the function of culture and its interdependence with forms of knowledge.
At the same time the book insists on the material aspects of these
discussions, using the example of Melbourne’s National Museum of
Victoria and Paris’ Musee de l’Homme.
The book offers an important intervention into debates on culture and public policy, grounding questions of rights and representations within the historical project of liberal government. Moreover it develops a critique of the assumptions surrounding culture as a potentially positive or beneficial force for social change, raising profound questions for public, politics and policy.
To listen the interview.....
Tony Bennett
Routledge – 2013
by Dave O'Brien
New Books in Sociology - November 13, 2013
The book offers an important intervention into debates on culture and public policy, grounding questions of rights and representations within the historical project of liberal government. Moreover it develops a critique of the assumptions surrounding culture as a potentially positive or beneficial force for social change, raising profound questions for public, politics and policy.
To listen the interview.....
A New Book: Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
A New Book: Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste:
How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
by Philip Mirowski
Verso, 2013
After the financial apocalypse, neoliberalism rose from the dead—stronger than ever
At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators concluded that the economic convictions behind the disaster would now be consigned to history. And yet, in the harsh light of a new day, we've awoken to a second nightmare more ghastly than the first: a political class still blaming government intervention, a global drive for austerity, stagflation, and an international sovereign debt crisis.
Philip Mirowski finds an apt comparison to this situation in classic studies of cognitive dissonance. He concludes that neoliberal thought has become so pervasive that any countervailing evidence serves only to further convince disciples of its ultimate truth. Once neoliberalism became a Theory of Everything, providing a revolutionary account of self, knowledge, information, markets, and government, it could no longer be falsified by anything as trifling as data from the “real” economy.
In this sharp, witty and deeply informed account, Mirowski—taking no prisoners in his pursuit of “zombie” economists—surveys the wreckage of what passes for economic thought, finally providing the basis for an anti-neoliberal assessment of the current crisis and our future prospects.
The Ottoman Caliphate And Its European Legacy
By Muhammad Jilani – Analysis
EurasiaNews - November 21, 2013
Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman State, 1922 Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman State, 1922
The Caliphate system has left its mark on history, but contrary to a basic view of history, the Caliphate did not just leave one mark but several.
It was able to adapt to different cultures and people and moved from one seat of power to another. The Ummayad Caliphs, for example, were responsible for amazingly beautiful design and inventions, including the first computer. This great civilisation managed to dominate all of Spain (except the troublesome Catalan region).
Despite its close proximity to France and Britain, it is another incarnation of the Caliphate that haunts Europe to this day, namely the Ottoman Caliphate. European historians still refer to it as the “sick man of Europe” to this day and deny its greatness, despite some of its Caliphs being unanimously regarded as the most powerful men in the world during their day. Its rule was uninterrupted for over 600 years and is comparable to any civilization throughout history. It is still a scar on the psyche of Europe and to this day breeds resentment and hatred towards Islam and Muslims.
To read more....
EurasiaNews - November 21, 2013
Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman State, 1922 Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman State, 1922
The Caliphate system has left its mark on history, but contrary to a basic view of history, the Caliphate did not just leave one mark but several.
It was able to adapt to different cultures and people and moved from one seat of power to another. The Ummayad Caliphs, for example, were responsible for amazingly beautiful design and inventions, including the first computer. This great civilisation managed to dominate all of Spain (except the troublesome Catalan region).
Despite its close proximity to France and Britain, it is another incarnation of the Caliphate that haunts Europe to this day, namely the Ottoman Caliphate. European historians still refer to it as the “sick man of Europe” to this day and deny its greatness, despite some of its Caliphs being unanimously regarded as the most powerful men in the world during their day. Its rule was uninterrupted for over 600 years and is comparable to any civilization throughout history. It is still a scar on the psyche of Europe and to this day breeds resentment and hatred towards Islam and Muslims.
To read more....
File under: Dutch Liberalism
Chandra Frank & Serginho Roosblad
Africa is a country | November 21st, 2013
In the Netherlands, many people convince themselves that racism is something that exists elsewhere — in South Africa, for example, or in the United States. For this is a ‘tolerant,’ liberal nation. To maintain the facade, often blatant acts of racism are downplayed, rationalized or swept away. As an exercise, see some of the comments on our Facebook page whenever we post something about racism in the Netherlands.
We have written before about the Dutch blackface tradition of Zwarte Piet (in English: Black Pete), and what passes for ‘debate’ on the topic at this time of year every year. This year though the debate about Zwarte Piet — dressed in a golliwog-style wig, pronounced red lips and gold earrings — has reached new levels, confronting in the process what many for a long time have tried to address: racism in Dutch society.
In September, activists pressured the Amsterdam municipality to have a public hearing into whether to give permission for Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) festivities in which Sinterklaas’ “helper” Zwarte Piet would be prominent. (The public hearing was a first, though the municipality eventually granted the permit.) Then Verene Shepherd, chairperson of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, told a TV program, “she would object to the character of Zwarte Piet if she lived in the Netherlands.” The result was a nasty racist backlash followed. Nearly 2 million people “liked” a Facebook page that expressed support for Zwarte Piet. Racist remarks in traditional and on social media were common and, as CNN reports, death treats were also made against anti-Zwarte Piet activists.
To read more....
Africa is a country | November 21st, 2013
In the Netherlands, many people convince themselves that racism is something that exists elsewhere — in South Africa, for example, or in the United States. For this is a ‘tolerant,’ liberal nation. To maintain the facade, often blatant acts of racism are downplayed, rationalized or swept away. As an exercise, see some of the comments on our Facebook page whenever we post something about racism in the Netherlands.
We have written before about the Dutch blackface tradition of Zwarte Piet (in English: Black Pete), and what passes for ‘debate’ on the topic at this time of year every year. This year though the debate about Zwarte Piet — dressed in a golliwog-style wig, pronounced red lips and gold earrings — has reached new levels, confronting in the process what many for a long time have tried to address: racism in Dutch society.
In September, activists pressured the Amsterdam municipality to have a public hearing into whether to give permission for Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) festivities in which Sinterklaas’ “helper” Zwarte Piet would be prominent. (The public hearing was a first, though the municipality eventually granted the permit.) Then Verene Shepherd, chairperson of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, told a TV program, “she would object to the character of Zwarte Piet if she lived in the Netherlands.” The result was a nasty racist backlash followed. Nearly 2 million people “liked” a Facebook page that expressed support for Zwarte Piet. Racist remarks in traditional and on social media were common and, as CNN reports, death treats were also made against anti-Zwarte Piet activists.
To read more....
Rock & Roll Ambassador
Saudi Aramco World - November/December 2013
The future impresario was born in the pine-forested, hilly enclave of Sultantepe, on the Asian side of Istanbul, on July 31, 1923, a week after the Treaty of Lausanne granted international recognition to the Turkish Republic led by Kemal Atatürk. Ertegun’s father, Mehmet Münir, was part of the Lausanne negotiating team, and he stayed on in Europe for 10 years to serve as Atatürk’s ambassador to Switzerland, France and Britain. In 1936, when surnames became mandatory in Turkey, Münir chose “Ertegün” (air-teh-gən), “living in a hopeful future,” as his family name
Ahmet Ertegun’s first childhood memory was playing in the gardens of the Turkish embassy in Bern, Switzerland. Later, in Paris, he attended an exclusive lycée, where he achieved perfect scores in French and calculus. In London, Ertegun and his younger sister, Selma, were put under the care of a strict English governess whose previous charges had been Princess Elizabeth, the future queen, and her younger sister, Princess Margaret.
Ertegun’s mother, Hayrünisa, was an accomplished musician who could play any keyboard or stringed instrument by ear. She bought the popular music of the day, and at night, Ertegun and his elder brother, Nesuhi, would sneak her records into their rooms. In 1932, Nesuhi took Ahmet to the London Palladium to see Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. “I had never really seen black people,” Ertegun recalled in a 2005 interview. “And I had never heard anything as glorious as those beautiful musicians wearing white tails, playing these incredibly gleaming horns.” His infatuation with jazz got a boost two years later when his father was posted to Washington, D.C. as the Republic of Turkey’s first ambassador to the United States.
- See more at: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201306/rock.and.roll.ambassador.htm#sthash.mNegJKAJ.dpuf
Ahmet Ertegun’s first childhood memory was playing in the gardens of the Turkish embassy in Bern, Switzerland. Later, in Paris, he attended an exclusive lycée, where he achieved perfect scores in French and calculus. In London, Ertegun and his younger sister, Selma, were put under the care of a strict English governess whose previous charges had been Princess Elizabeth, the future queen, and her younger sister, Princess Margaret.
Ertegun’s mother, Hayrünisa, was an accomplished musician who could play any keyboard or stringed instrument by ear. She bought the popular music of the day, and at night, Ertegun and his elder brother, Nesuhi, would sneak her records into their rooms. In 1932, Nesuhi took Ahmet to the London Palladium to see Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. “I had never really seen black people,” Ertegun recalled in a 2005 interview. “And I had never heard anything as glorious as those beautiful musicians wearing white tails, playing these incredibly gleaming horns.” His infatuation with jazz got a boost two years later when his father was posted to Washington, D.C. as the Republic of Turkey’s first ambassador to the United States.
- See more at: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201306/rock.and.roll.ambassador.htm#sthash.mNegJKAJ.dpuf
The Man Who Knew Almost Everything
Inside the great social historian Eric Hobsbawm there was an aesthete waiting to come out.
Ramachandra Guha
The Nation - November 12, 2013
I first read Eric Hobsbawm as a doctoral student in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in the 1980s. I started with his books on popular protest, Primitive Rebels (1959) and Bandits (1969), before moving on to his trilogy on the ages, respectively, of revolution, capital and empire. In October 2012, when Hobsbawm died at 95, I happened to be in London. Curious to see how a historian of such enormous influence was remembered, I picked up every paper at the newsstand next to my hotel. The Guardian had a large photograph of Hobsbawm on the front page, a fulsome full-page obituary (by two writers associated with the Communist Party), and an editorial saying that his death was a “shared national loss.” Another news report in the same paper carried the heartfelt homage of Labour Party leader Ed Miliband (whose father, the Marxist political theorist Ralph Miliband, had been a friend). Hobsbawm was “an extraordinary historian…who brought history out of the ivory tower and into people’s lives,” Miliband the younger proclaimed.
The Guardian is, of course, the standard-bearer of left-liberalism in Britain (and beyond). Meanwhile, the centrist Times and Independent both ran long and respectful obits. However, the conservative Daily Telegraph carried a skeptical signed piece by the distinguished anti-communist historian Michael Burleigh. Captioned “A believer in the Red utopia to the very end,” it overlooked Hobsbawm’s contributions to history from below; dismissed the synthetic global histories, such as The Age of Capital and The Age of Empire, with faint praise (“dazzles readers with the author’s apparent fluency as he zigzags from First to Third World contexts—unless you happen to be an expert on Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela”); and ended by saying that “Hobsbawm’s implacable refusal to recant his [Marxist] views when faced with their grotesque consequences tells us something about the belligerent mindset of the wider British Left.”
To read more...
Ramachandra Guha
The Nation - November 12, 2013
I first read Eric Hobsbawm as a doctoral student in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in the 1980s. I started with his books on popular protest, Primitive Rebels (1959) and Bandits (1969), before moving on to his trilogy on the ages, respectively, of revolution, capital and empire. In October 2012, when Hobsbawm died at 95, I happened to be in London. Curious to see how a historian of such enormous influence was remembered, I picked up every paper at the newsstand next to my hotel. The Guardian had a large photograph of Hobsbawm on the front page, a fulsome full-page obituary (by two writers associated with the Communist Party), and an editorial saying that his death was a “shared national loss.” Another news report in the same paper carried the heartfelt homage of Labour Party leader Ed Miliband (whose father, the Marxist political theorist Ralph Miliband, had been a friend). Hobsbawm was “an extraordinary historian…who brought history out of the ivory tower and into people’s lives,” Miliband the younger proclaimed.
The Guardian is, of course, the standard-bearer of left-liberalism in Britain (and beyond). Meanwhile, the centrist Times and Independent both ran long and respectful obits. However, the conservative Daily Telegraph carried a skeptical signed piece by the distinguished anti-communist historian Michael Burleigh. Captioned “A believer in the Red utopia to the very end,” it overlooked Hobsbawm’s contributions to history from below; dismissed the synthetic global histories, such as The Age of Capital and The Age of Empire, with faint praise (“dazzles readers with the author’s apparent fluency as he zigzags from First to Third World contexts—unless you happen to be an expert on Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela”); and ended by saying that “Hobsbawm’s implacable refusal to recant his [Marxist] views when faced with their grotesque consequences tells us something about the belligerent mindset of the wider British Left.”
To read more...
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
The NSA’s Global Threat to Free Speech
By Kenneth Roth
The New York Review of Books - November 18, 2013
Following months of Snowden disclosures, the extent to which the National Security Agency’s extraordinary surveillance infringes on the privacy of our communications and other vast areas of our lives has become widely apparent. Far less appreciated, however, is the global threat that the NSA’s spying poses to freedom of expression over the Internet.
The NSA’s seemingly limitless prying into our personal electronic data is predicated on a cramped vision of our right to privacy. As I have described in this space these intrusions are facilitated by various shortcomings in current US law. For instance, the law recognizes a privacy interest in the contents of our communications, but not in what is known as our metadata, the electronic details about whom we communicate with, what we search for online, and where we go. The rationale, stated in a 1979 US Supreme Court ruling, is that we have no privacy interest in the phone numbers we dial because we share them with the phone company, even though the court could just as easily have ruled that the phone company has a fiduciary duty to respect the privacy of its customers.
In addition, on the weakest of legal authority, the NSA assumes that the mere collection of our communications does not invade our privacy until they are examined, or “queried.” Using facile metaphors about needing a haystack to find a needle, the NSA asserts that it is free to assemble that haystack unimpeded. It is as if the NSA were to mount video cameras in our bedrooms while assuring us that we have nothing to worry about until it looks at the film.
To read more....
The New York Review of Books - November 18, 2013
Following months of Snowden disclosures, the extent to which the National Security Agency’s extraordinary surveillance infringes on the privacy of our communications and other vast areas of our lives has become widely apparent. Far less appreciated, however, is the global threat that the NSA’s spying poses to freedom of expression over the Internet.
The NSA’s seemingly limitless prying into our personal electronic data is predicated on a cramped vision of our right to privacy. As I have described in this space these intrusions are facilitated by various shortcomings in current US law. For instance, the law recognizes a privacy interest in the contents of our communications, but not in what is known as our metadata, the electronic details about whom we communicate with, what we search for online, and where we go. The rationale, stated in a 1979 US Supreme Court ruling, is that we have no privacy interest in the phone numbers we dial because we share them with the phone company, even though the court could just as easily have ruled that the phone company has a fiduciary duty to respect the privacy of its customers.
In addition, on the weakest of legal authority, the NSA assumes that the mere collection of our communications does not invade our privacy until they are examined, or “queried.” Using facile metaphors about needing a haystack to find a needle, the NSA asserts that it is free to assemble that haystack unimpeded. It is as if the NSA were to mount video cameras in our bedrooms while assuring us that we have nothing to worry about until it looks at the film.
To read more....
Glimmers of Hope in Guatemala
The New York Review of Books - December 5, 2013
Stephen Kinzer
From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional with a foreword by Carlos Aguirre and a preface by Kate Doyle University of Oregon Libraries, 476 pp., available at scholarsbank.uoregon.edu
A few weeks ago in Guatemala, I participated in a long-overdue commemoration. September 14 was the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of President Jacobo Árbenz, a former army officer who was elected in 1950, then ousted in 1954 in a coup organized by the CIA, and replaced by a military junta. His name has been taboo in Guatemala for most of the time since then. Many in the ruling elite still consider the causes he championed—land reform above all—repugnant and mortally dangerous. September’s commemoration included speeches, conferences, and a vote by the city council in Quetzaltenango, where Árbenz was born in 1913, to name the local airport in his honor.
This commemoration unfolded at the end of a year during which Guatemalans’ attention was focused on a very different period of their history, the horrifically violent 1980s. In May a Guatemalan court convicted General Efraín Ríos Montt, who was head of state from 1982 to 1983, of genocide. A higher court quickly annulled the verdict, but nonetheless it was a spectacular triumph for victims of the thirty-six-year civil war that broke out soon after Árbenz was overthrown.
While I was in Guatemala, I visited a chilling police archive that reflects yet another aspect of this country’s attempt to confront its past. It came to light after investigators entered a Guatemala City police compound in 2005 and found, piled in moldy and vermin-infested heaps, nearly 80 million documents comprising a minute history of the National Police from 1882 to 1997. I was led past teams of archivists who, wearing gloves and hairnets, are meticulously digitizing this collection. They have scanned about 15 million documents so far. A single-volume collection of highlights was published in Guatemala two years ago, and an English translation, From Silence to Memory, has just appeared. It is a cold but intimate self-portrait of the terror state.
To read more...
Stephen Kinzer
From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional with a foreword by Carlos Aguirre and a preface by Kate Doyle University of Oregon Libraries, 476 pp., available at scholarsbank.uoregon.edu
A few weeks ago in Guatemala, I participated in a long-overdue commemoration. September 14 was the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of President Jacobo Árbenz, a former army officer who was elected in 1950, then ousted in 1954 in a coup organized by the CIA, and replaced by a military junta. His name has been taboo in Guatemala for most of the time since then. Many in the ruling elite still consider the causes he championed—land reform above all—repugnant and mortally dangerous. September’s commemoration included speeches, conferences, and a vote by the city council in Quetzaltenango, where Árbenz was born in 1913, to name the local airport in his honor.
This commemoration unfolded at the end of a year during which Guatemalans’ attention was focused on a very different period of their history, the horrifically violent 1980s. In May a Guatemalan court convicted General Efraín Ríos Montt, who was head of state from 1982 to 1983, of genocide. A higher court quickly annulled the verdict, but nonetheless it was a spectacular triumph for victims of the thirty-six-year civil war that broke out soon after Árbenz was overthrown.
While I was in Guatemala, I visited a chilling police archive that reflects yet another aspect of this country’s attempt to confront its past. It came to light after investigators entered a Guatemala City police compound in 2005 and found, piled in moldy and vermin-infested heaps, nearly 80 million documents comprising a minute history of the National Police from 1882 to 1997. I was led past teams of archivists who, wearing gloves and hairnets, are meticulously digitizing this collection. They have scanned about 15 million documents so far. A single-volume collection of highlights was published in Guatemala two years ago, and an English translation, From Silence to Memory, has just appeared. It is a cold but intimate self-portrait of the terror state.
To read more...
Monday, November 18, 2013
China's new mining strategy in Africa
The China Africa Project
Many of China's largest mining companies are implementing a new strategy in Africa where they no longer want to buy assets outright but rather make strategic investments and partnerships. This is a dramatic shift and further undermines the assertion made by China's critics that Beijing is engaging in a "neo-colonial" agenda in Africa.
To Listen this radio show: https://soundcloud.com/chinatalkingpoints/chinas-new-mining-strategy-in
Many of China's largest mining companies are implementing a new strategy in Africa where they no longer want to buy assets outright but rather make strategic investments and partnerships. This is a dramatic shift and further undermines the assertion made by China's critics that Beijing is engaging in a "neo-colonial" agenda in Africa.
To Listen this radio show: https://soundcloud.com/chinatalkingpoints/chinas-new-mining-strategy-in
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