By Sami Zubaida
Open Democracy - 24 June 2013
The current protests in Turkey are sparked by the increasingly authoritarian measures by the AKP government and its prime minister Tayip Erdogan. Part of it is the perceived creeping Islamisation of public life, notably the measures to prohibit the sale and serving of alcoholic drinks between 10 pm and 6am, effectively restricting night life and entertainment, which will hit hardest in Istanbul’s Beyoglu and similar districts of bars, restaurants and music venues. This is seen as an assault on the life style of many Istanbulus, especially the young. This reminds us of the iconic significance of alcohol in socio-cultural and ideological boundaries throughout Muslim history, and especially in Turkey since the nineteenth century reforms.
Now, after a decade of electoral success and economic growth, governing without a coalition, the army neutralised, in control of the media, the judiciary and the police, Erdogan feels free to move on this crucial symbolic issue of alcohol and its venues.
The mention of wine, khamr, in the Quran is various. It is clear that wine, made from fermented dates or grape, was commonly known and drunk in the Arabian milieu of early Islam. Earlier verses in the Quran praise the benefits of wine, and wine is promised to the pious in paradise. But the consensus of opinion considers later verses which were against wine to have overruled the earlier ones. The decisive verse:
To read more......
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
China Analysis: The reform of China’s defence economy
by François Godement
European Council on Foreign Relations - 17 Jun 13
China’s growing defence budget is a symbol for China’s military rise. However, little is known about the state of China’s defence sector. Beijing is not only developing its own military-industrial complex, the country is also struggling with the reform of its defence sector.
The latest issue of China Analysis - The reform of China's defence economy - shows that China’s defence sector is changing: New management reforms are being introduced, there are serious attempts to improve civil-military integration and there are debates about how the defence sector can become more innovative.
To read more...
European Council on Foreign Relations - 17 Jun 13
China’s growing defence budget is a symbol for China’s military rise. However, little is known about the state of China’s defence sector. Beijing is not only developing its own military-industrial complex, the country is also struggling with the reform of its defence sector.
The latest issue of China Analysis - The reform of China's defence economy - shows that China’s defence sector is changing: New management reforms are being introduced, there are serious attempts to improve civil-military integration and there are debates about how the defence sector can become more innovative.
To read more...
Challenging Casino Capitalism and Authoritarian Politics in the Age of Disposability
By Henry A Giroux
Truthout - Monday, 24 June 2013
There is by now an overwhelming catalogue of evidence revealing the depth and breadth of the corporate- and state-sponsored assaults being waged against democracy in the United States. Indeed, it appears that the nation has entered a new and more ruthless historical era, marked by a growing disinvestment in the social state, public institutions, and civic morality. The attack on the social state is of particular importance because it represents an attempt to shift social protections to the responsibility of individuals while at the same time privatizing investments in the public good and undermining the bonds of communal solidarity. The renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman makes this clear in his definition and defense of the social state:
To read more.....
Truthout - Monday, 24 June 2013
There is by now an overwhelming catalogue of evidence revealing the depth and breadth of the corporate- and state-sponsored assaults being waged against democracy in the United States. Indeed, it appears that the nation has entered a new and more ruthless historical era, marked by a growing disinvestment in the social state, public institutions, and civic morality. The attack on the social state is of particular importance because it represents an attempt to shift social protections to the responsibility of individuals while at the same time privatizing investments in the public good and undermining the bonds of communal solidarity. The renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman makes this clear in his definition and defense of the social state:
To read more.....
Sheikh Tamim succeeds father Sheikh Hamad as Emir of Qatar
Doha News - June 25, 2013
Qatar is buzzing today over former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s move to hand power over to his fourth son, Sheikh Tamim. Sheikh Hamad made his abdication official in remarks broadcast this morning at 8am, and today has been declared a state holiday.
Qatar is buzzing today over former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s move to hand power over to his fourth son, Sheikh Tamim. Sheikh Hamad made his abdication official in remarks broadcast this morning at 8am, and today has been declared a state holiday.
Chinese, U.S. factories struggle, Europe still in slump
By Jonathan Cable and Steven C. Johnson
Reuters - Thu, Jun 20 2013
Factory output in China weakened to a nine-month low in June while U.S. manufacturing closed out its worst quarter in the last four, suggesting the road to recovery for the world economy remained an uneven one.
A day earlier, the Federal Reserve said the U.S. economy was expanding strongly enough for the central bank to begin slowing the pace of its stimulative bond purchases later this year.
Other major economies are lagging America's, however, which could limit the strength of global growth. China, the world's second largest economy, grew at its slowest pace in 13 years in 2012 and incoming data this year has been weaker than expected.
That's evident in the country's large manufacturing sector, which, according to the flash HSBC Purchasing Managers Index, contracted again in June as demand fell.
"A slowdown in the Chinese economy doesn't help the outlook for the U.S. particularly, but American growth isn't entirely dependent on what happens in China," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec.
To read more......
Reuters - Thu, Jun 20 2013
Factory output in China weakened to a nine-month low in June while U.S. manufacturing closed out its worst quarter in the last four, suggesting the road to recovery for the world economy remained an uneven one.
A day earlier, the Federal Reserve said the U.S. economy was expanding strongly enough for the central bank to begin slowing the pace of its stimulative bond purchases later this year.
Other major economies are lagging America's, however, which could limit the strength of global growth. China, the world's second largest economy, grew at its slowest pace in 13 years in 2012 and incoming data this year has been weaker than expected.
That's evident in the country's large manufacturing sector, which, according to the flash HSBC Purchasing Managers Index, contracted again in June as demand fell.
"A slowdown in the Chinese economy doesn't help the outlook for the U.S. particularly, but American growth isn't entirely dependent on what happens in China," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec.
To read more......
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Decline and fall: how American society unravelled
Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed. Was it an inevitable process – or was it engineered by self-interested elites?
By George Packer
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 June 2013
In or around 1978, America's character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people. You might call it the period of the Roosevelt Republic. Wars, strikes, racial tensions and youth rebellion all roiled national life, but a basic deal among Americans still held, in belief if not always in fact: work hard, follow the rules, educate your children, and you will be rewarded, not just with a decent life and the prospect of a better one for your kids, but with recognition from society, a place at the table.
This unwritten contract came with a series of riders and clauses that left large numbers of Americans – black people and other minorities, women, gay people – out, or only halfway in. But the country had the tools to correct its own flaws, and it used them: healthy democratic institutions such as Congress, courts, churches, schools, news organisations, business-labour partnerships. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a nonviolent mass uprising led by black southerners, but it drew essential support from all of these institutions, which recognised the moral and legal justice of its claims, or, at the very least, the need for social peace. The Roosevelt Republic had plenty of injustice, but it also had the power of self-correction.
To read more......
By George Packer
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 June 2013
In or around 1978, America's character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people. You might call it the period of the Roosevelt Republic. Wars, strikes, racial tensions and youth rebellion all roiled national life, but a basic deal among Americans still held, in belief if not always in fact: work hard, follow the rules, educate your children, and you will be rewarded, not just with a decent life and the prospect of a better one for your kids, but with recognition from society, a place at the table.
This unwritten contract came with a series of riders and clauses that left large numbers of Americans – black people and other minorities, women, gay people – out, or only halfway in. But the country had the tools to correct its own flaws, and it used them: healthy democratic institutions such as Congress, courts, churches, schools, news organisations, business-labour partnerships. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a nonviolent mass uprising led by black southerners, but it drew essential support from all of these institutions, which recognised the moral and legal justice of its claims, or, at the very least, the need for social peace. The Roosevelt Republic had plenty of injustice, but it also had the power of self-correction.
To read more......
What Stories Do Turkey’s Protests Tell?
By Elif Shafak
Bloomberg News - Jun 21, 2013
I was in London working on a novel a few weeks ago when I heard from a friend in Istanbul that he was on his way to Gezi Park. “To guard the sycamores,” he said, laughter in his voice. “We will camp by the trees and make sure the bulldozers don’t hurt them.”
Wishing him luck, suspecting nothing, I returned to my story of a young Indian elephant driver, an outsider, finding his way through 16th-century Istanbul. All day long, I remained in the past, unaware of what was happening in my home city as police raided Gezi Park, dousing peaceful protesters with water cannons and tear gas. Tents were set on fire. Unarmed young people were subjected to violence.
To read more....
Bloomberg News - Jun 21, 2013
I was in London working on a novel a few weeks ago when I heard from a friend in Istanbul that he was on his way to Gezi Park. “To guard the sycamores,” he said, laughter in his voice. “We will camp by the trees and make sure the bulldozers don’t hurt them.”
Wishing him luck, suspecting nothing, I returned to my story of a young Indian elephant driver, an outsider, finding his way through 16th-century Istanbul. All day long, I remained in the past, unaware of what was happening in my home city as police raided Gezi Park, dousing peaceful protesters with water cannons and tear gas. Tents were set on fire. Unarmed young people were subjected to violence.
To read more....
Reforming China’s State-Owned Enterprises
By Eve Cary
The Diplomat - June 19, 2013
Although it faces strong resistance, reforms will be vital if the Chinese economy is to continue to evolve.
China’s huge apparatus of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a popular punching bag: economists decry its inefficiencies; foreign politicians complain about unfair competition; and many Chinese citizens criticize public displays of waste, like elaborate banquets. The Chinese government would counter that they provide a foundation for the economy as a whole.
As China’s economy evolves (and it does, albeit slowly at times), the clamor for SOE reform grows louder from all sides. What is the potential for reform? How damaging are SOEs to the Chinese economy? On the flip side, how have SOEs strengthened the system?
But first, a little background. According to Xinhua, at the end of 2011, there were 144,700 state-owned enterprises with total assets of 85.4 trillion yuan, revenues of 39.25 trillion yuan, and profits of 2.6 trillion yuan (43 percent of China’s total industrial and business profit).
To read more.....
The Diplomat - June 19, 2013
Although it faces strong resistance, reforms will be vital if the Chinese economy is to continue to evolve.
China’s huge apparatus of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a popular punching bag: economists decry its inefficiencies; foreign politicians complain about unfair competition; and many Chinese citizens criticize public displays of waste, like elaborate banquets. The Chinese government would counter that they provide a foundation for the economy as a whole.
As China’s economy evolves (and it does, albeit slowly at times), the clamor for SOE reform grows louder from all sides. What is the potential for reform? How damaging are SOEs to the Chinese economy? On the flip side, how have SOEs strengthened the system?
But first, a little background. According to Xinhua, at the end of 2011, there were 144,700 state-owned enterprises with total assets of 85.4 trillion yuan, revenues of 39.25 trillion yuan, and profits of 2.6 trillion yuan (43 percent of China’s total industrial and business profit).
To read more.....
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Brazil's protests raise fears for World Cup as a million take to the streets
Football becomes focus of furious outcry against corruption, police brutality, dire public services, high prices and street crime
By Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro
The Guardian, Friday 21 June 2013
Football supporters fleeing rubber bullets, roads into stadiums blocked by angry crowds, mobs throwing stones at Fifa offices, Confederations Cup placards being ripped down and burned in the midst of mass protests.
These are unlikely scenes in a football-mad country and the last thing organisers of the World Cup wanted to see in Brazil before next year's tournament, but for the past week they have become an almost daily occurrence as the country's favourite sport has become the focus of the biggest demonstrations in decades.
In a speech broadcast nationally on Friday night the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, said she accepted the need for change but warned that violence would not be tolerated and appealed to protesters not to endanger the World Cup.
More than a million people took to the streets on Thursday night in at least 80 cities in a rising wave of protest that has coincided with the Confederations Cup. This Fifa event was supposed to be a dry run for players and organisers before next year's finals, but it is police and protesters who are getting the most practice.
The host cities have been the focus of furious demonstrations, prompting local authorities to request security reinforcements from the national government.
To read more.....
By Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro
The Guardian, Friday 21 June 2013
Football supporters fleeing rubber bullets, roads into stadiums blocked by angry crowds, mobs throwing stones at Fifa offices, Confederations Cup placards being ripped down and burned in the midst of mass protests.
These are unlikely scenes in a football-mad country and the last thing organisers of the World Cup wanted to see in Brazil before next year's tournament, but for the past week they have become an almost daily occurrence as the country's favourite sport has become the focus of the biggest demonstrations in decades.
In a speech broadcast nationally on Friday night the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, said she accepted the need for change but warned that violence would not be tolerated and appealed to protesters not to endanger the World Cup.
More than a million people took to the streets on Thursday night in at least 80 cities in a rising wave of protest that has coincided with the Confederations Cup. This Fifa event was supposed to be a dry run for players and organisers before next year's finals, but it is police and protesters who are getting the most practice.
The host cities have been the focus of furious demonstrations, prompting local authorities to request security reinforcements from the national government.
To read more.....
How Giving Spying Power to Giant Corporations Is Dangerous to Your Future
After two decades of downsizing government, we shouldn't be surprised that corporate spooks are surveilling us.
By Joshua Holland
Alternet - June 19, 2013
By Joshua Holland
Alternet - June 19, 2013
Whether one views Edward Snowden as a hero or a villain, perhaps we
could all agree that if the government is to keep secrets, a 29-year-old
private contractor with a soft spot for Ron Paul shouldn't have access
to a treasure trove of its most sensitive information.
Of course, that assumes that there still exists a bright line between
government and the private sector. But that's become an antiquated
notion after two decades of ideologically driven outsourcing of what
were once considered core government functions. As a result of that
effort, there are now a million potential Edward Snowdons – or, more
precisely, 483,263 contractors with top-secret clearances, according to James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence – any of whom could slip out with sensitive data on a thumb drive if they have a personal or ideological axe to grind.
Xi Jinping’s Decade And The Future Of Sino-American Relations – Analysis
By Keshav Prasad Bhattarai
Eurasia Review - June 22, 2013
A recent Heritage report says that America’s total debt has reached $17 trillion that means $53,769 on the head of every citizen. It is eating up $11,000 from the income of every American family – eliminating opportunities for career advancement, paralyzing job creation, lowering wages and salaries and according to President Obama’s former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, it is the biggest threat to security.
In 2012, United States imported $425.6 billion, in goods from China that is about one third of China’s total exports. However, total exports to China from United States in 2012 were just $110.6 billion. According to Ian Bremmer, a terrific American political analyst, “United States now borrows about $ 4 billion per day, nearly half of that from China”. China, on the other hand has begun to express its anxiety about the safety of its assets and U.S.’s ability to pay back its debt. China holds some $1.2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt, about 8 percent of the total outstanding.
A country that was one of the poorest in world has become a lender to world’s wealthiest and most powerful country in just a period of 30 years.
To read more....
Eurasia Review - June 22, 2013
A recent Heritage report says that America’s total debt has reached $17 trillion that means $53,769 on the head of every citizen. It is eating up $11,000 from the income of every American family – eliminating opportunities for career advancement, paralyzing job creation, lowering wages and salaries and according to President Obama’s former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, it is the biggest threat to security.
In 2012, United States imported $425.6 billion, in goods from China that is about one third of China’s total exports. However, total exports to China from United States in 2012 were just $110.6 billion. According to Ian Bremmer, a terrific American political analyst, “United States now borrows about $ 4 billion per day, nearly half of that from China”. China, on the other hand has begun to express its anxiety about the safety of its assets and U.S.’s ability to pay back its debt. China holds some $1.2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt, about 8 percent of the total outstanding.
A country that was one of the poorest in world has become a lender to world’s wealthiest and most powerful country in just a period of 30 years.
To read more....
Friday, June 14, 2013
The Shocking Amount of Wealth and Power Held by 0.001% of the World Population
The level of inequality around the world is truly staggering.
By Andrew Gavin Marshall
Alternet - June 12, 2013
Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps.
In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the “super rich.” More than a third of the world’s super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world’s richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population – more than 3 billion people – owned less than 1% of the world’s wealth.
Looking specifically at the United States, the top 1% own more than 36% of the national wealth and more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%. Almost all of the wealth gains over the previous decade went to the top 1%. In the mid-1970s, the top 1% earned 8% of all national income; this number rose to 21% by 2010. At the highest sliver at the top, the 400 wealthiest individuals in America have more wealth than the bottom 150 million.
To read more.....
By Andrew Gavin Marshall
Alternet - June 12, 2013
Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps.
In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the “super rich.” More than a third of the world’s super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world’s richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population – more than 3 billion people – owned less than 1% of the world’s wealth.
Looking specifically at the United States, the top 1% own more than 36% of the national wealth and more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%. Almost all of the wealth gains over the previous decade went to the top 1%. In the mid-1970s, the top 1% earned 8% of all national income; this number rose to 21% by 2010. At the highest sliver at the top, the 400 wealthiest individuals in America have more wealth than the bottom 150 million.
To read more.....
Global Power Project Part 1: Exposing the Transnational Capitalist Class
Andrew Gavin Marshall
Nation of Change - June 14, 2014
The Global Power Project, an investigative series produced by Occupy.com, aims to identify and connect the worldwide institutions and individuals who comprise today's global power oligarchy. By studying the relationships and varying levels of leadership that govern our planet's most influential institutions — from banks, corporations and financial institutions to think tanks, foundations and universities — this project seeks to expose the complex, highly integrated network of influence wielded by relatively few individuals on a national and transnational basis. This is not a study of wealth, but a study of power.
Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps. This rhetoric and imagery was made popular by the growth of the Occupy movement, so it seems appropriate that a project of Occupy.com should expand on this understanding and bring the activities of the global elite further to light.
In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the “super rich.” More than a third of the world’s super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world’s richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population – more than 3 billion people – owned less than 1% of the world’s wealth.
To read more....
Nation of Change - June 14, 2014
The Global Power Project, an investigative series produced by Occupy.com, aims to identify and connect the worldwide institutions and individuals who comprise today's global power oligarchy. By studying the relationships and varying levels of leadership that govern our planet's most influential institutions — from banks, corporations and financial institutions to think tanks, foundations and universities — this project seeks to expose the complex, highly integrated network of influence wielded by relatively few individuals on a national and transnational basis. This is not a study of wealth, but a study of power.
Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps. This rhetoric and imagery was made popular by the growth of the Occupy movement, so it seems appropriate that a project of Occupy.com should expand on this understanding and bring the activities of the global elite further to light.
In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the “super rich.” More than a third of the world’s super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world’s richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population – more than 3 billion people – owned less than 1% of the world’s wealth.
To read more....
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Yes, Iran Has Reform Candidates and Engaged Citizens
Signs of promise in the Islamic Republic, ahead of Friday's elections.
By Shervin Malekzadeh
The Atlantic - Jun 12 2013
Iranians return to the polls this Friday to elect a new president, and this year's voter turnout drive by state media has been noticeably more urgent than in years past. Days begin and end with reminders on TV and radio that voting is a national duty, that with each election the people of Iran strike a blow against the doshman, the enemy, by again showing the Americans that Iranians remain committed to their revolution and to the Islamic Republic. In a campaign season marked by the expressed disinclination of many Iranians to care about -- much less vote for -- the next president, the regime has become understandably anxious that citizens, especially the youth, will not participate.
But a rally held Saturday by reformist candidate Hassan Rouhani at Shahid Shiroodi, a sprawling sports complex, suggests that a shift in the electorate's mood is underway, or at least a moderate-sized swell, and the youth are becoming more energized.
Flanked by banners of wrestling heroes and triumphs past and present, they quickly filled the arena to capacity with some 5,000 people standing cheek to jowl in the sweltering gymnasium, with many more waiting outside. Many of the attendees arrived festooned in purple, the official color of the Rouhani campaign: Purple signs and polo shirts, purple ribbons wrapped around wrists and fingers; in the women's section one lady stood wrapped in a purple hijab.
To read more....
By Shervin Malekzadeh
The Atlantic - Jun 12 2013
Iranians return to the polls this Friday to elect a new president, and this year's voter turnout drive by state media has been noticeably more urgent than in years past. Days begin and end with reminders on TV and radio that voting is a national duty, that with each election the people of Iran strike a blow against the doshman, the enemy, by again showing the Americans that Iranians remain committed to their revolution and to the Islamic Republic. In a campaign season marked by the expressed disinclination of many Iranians to care about -- much less vote for -- the next president, the regime has become understandably anxious that citizens, especially the youth, will not participate.
But a rally held Saturday by reformist candidate Hassan Rouhani at Shahid Shiroodi, a sprawling sports complex, suggests that a shift in the electorate's mood is underway, or at least a moderate-sized swell, and the youth are becoming more energized.
Flanked by banners of wrestling heroes and triumphs past and present, they quickly filled the arena to capacity with some 5,000 people standing cheek to jowl in the sweltering gymnasium, with many more waiting outside. Many of the attendees arrived festooned in purple, the official color of the Rouhani campaign: Purple signs and polo shirts, purple ribbons wrapped around wrists and fingers; in the women's section one lady stood wrapped in a purple hijab.
To read more....
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
US Foreign Policy and Human Rights
Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (Book)
http://www.amazon.com/Promoting-Polyarchy-Globalization-Intervention-International/dp/0521566916
Promoting Human Rights: Is U.S. Consistency Desirable or Possible?
http://www.cfr.org/human-rights/promoting-human-rights-us-consistency-desirable-possible/p26228
Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2150826?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102304106011
Human Rights, the National Interest, and U. S. Foreign Policy
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1046651?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102304106011
What Price Principle? - U.S. Policy on Human Rights
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/29530/sandra-vogelgesang/what-price-principle-us-policy-on-human-rights
Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (Book)
http://www.amazon.com/Bait-Switch-Rights-Foreign-Horizons/dp/0415948517
US Foreign Policy
http://www.freedomhouse.org/issues/us-foreign-policy
Donnelly, Jack. 2012. International Human Rights. Westview Press.
http://www.westviewpress.com/book.php?isbn=9780813345017
Bricmont, Jean. 2006. Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War. Montly Review Press.
http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb1471
Judith Blau and Mark Frezzo, 2011. Sociology and Human Rights: A Bill of Rights for the Twenty-First Century
http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book235439
RESOURCE BOOK: Hayden, Patrick. 1999. Philosophy of Human Rights: Readings in Context. Paragon House.
http://www.paragonhouse.com/Philosophy-of-Human-Rights-Readings-in-Context.html
http://www.amazon.com/Promoting-Polyarchy-Globalization-Intervention-International/dp/0521566916
Promoting Human Rights: Is U.S. Consistency Desirable or Possible?
http://www.cfr.org/human-rights/promoting-human-rights-us-consistency-desirable-possible/p26228
Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2150826?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102304106011
Human Rights, the National Interest, and U. S. Foreign Policy
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1046651?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102304106011
What Price Principle? - U.S. Policy on Human Rights
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/29530/sandra-vogelgesang/what-price-principle-us-policy-on-human-rights
Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (Book)
http://www.amazon.com/Bait-Switch-Rights-Foreign-Horizons/dp/0415948517
US Foreign Policy
http://www.freedomhouse.org/issues/us-foreign-policy
Donnelly, Jack. 2012. International Human Rights. Westview Press.
http://www.westviewpress.com/book.php?isbn=9780813345017
Bricmont, Jean. 2006. Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War. Montly Review Press.
http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb1471
Judith Blau and Mark Frezzo, 2011. Sociology and Human Rights: A Bill of Rights for the Twenty-First Century
http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book235439
RESOURCE BOOK: Hayden, Patrick. 1999. Philosophy of Human Rights: Readings in Context. Paragon House.
http://www.paragonhouse.com/Philosophy-of-Human-Rights-Readings-in-Context.html
U.S. Relations with China (1949 - Present) - Council on Foreign Relations
U.S. Relations with China (1949 - Present) Timeline
Qatar preparing for leadership transition
Qatar is preparing to launch a leadership transition this summer that will see the emir relinquish power to his son, and his cousin, the owner of Harrods, step down as prime minister.
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
The Telegraph - 09 Jun 2013
To read more.....
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
The Telegraph - 09 Jun 2013
Senior figures in Qatar
have briefed foreign counterparts that the time has come for Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad, the 33-year-old crown prince to take over the leadership of the
gas-rich Gulf state, the Daily Telegraph has learned.
The succession plan, which is due to be launched by the end of the month, will
see Hamad bin Jassim, the prime minister and one of the biggest investors in
Britain, give up his post.
Within weeks of that decision the royal court will announce that the emir,
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, who has struggled with health problems, will cede
powers to the Sandhurst-educated crown prince.
A prominent British visitor to the gas-rich Gulf state was told of the plans
earlier this year and sources said other key states, including the US and
Iran, have also been briefed about the succession.
To read more.....
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Sectarianism and the Politics of the New Middle East
F. Gregory Gause
Brookings | June 8, 2013
With fighting raging in Syria, spill-over effects becoming more apparent in Lebanon, violence increasing in Iraq, tensions simmering in Bahrain and clerical politicians like Hassan Nasrallah and Yusif al-Qaradawi launching calls for war, it is no surprise that sectarianism is the lens through which most outsiders are viewing events in the Middle East. Even the New York Times thinks so, so it must be true.
There is no denying that sectarianism is a real factor in the politics of all these places, and more places, in the region. But it is important to recognize the political context in which sectarianism becomes prominent in a country’s politics and to realize that neither sectarian conflict nor sectarian political alliances are immutable. While religious identities are extremely important and powerful elements of how people define themselves politically, they are neither always dominant nor do they always mean the same thing. The contemporary political context is more important for understanding how sectarianism plays into modern conflicts than is the history of the first Islamic century.
To read more....
Brookings | June 8, 2013
With fighting raging in Syria, spill-over effects becoming more apparent in Lebanon, violence increasing in Iraq, tensions simmering in Bahrain and clerical politicians like Hassan Nasrallah and Yusif al-Qaradawi launching calls for war, it is no surprise that sectarianism is the lens through which most outsiders are viewing events in the Middle East. Even the New York Times thinks so, so it must be true.
There is no denying that sectarianism is a real factor in the politics of all these places, and more places, in the region. But it is important to recognize the political context in which sectarianism becomes prominent in a country’s politics and to realize that neither sectarian conflict nor sectarian political alliances are immutable. While religious identities are extremely important and powerful elements of how people define themselves politically, they are neither always dominant nor do they always mean the same thing. The contemporary political context is more important for understanding how sectarianism plays into modern conflicts than is the history of the first Islamic century.
To read more....
Friday, June 7, 2013
World’s Muslim population more widespread than you might think
By Drew DeSilver
Pew Research Center - June 7, 2013
An estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Muslims, making Islam the world’s second-largest religious tradition after Christianity, according to the December 2012 Global Religious Landscape report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Although many people, especially in the United States, may associate
Islam with countries in the Middle East or North Africa, nearly
two-thirds (62%) of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, according
to the Pew Research analysis. In fact, more Muslims live in India and
Pakistan (344 million combined) than in the entire Middle East-North
Africa region (317 million).
However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest concentration Muslims of any region of the world: 93% of its approximately 341 million inhabitants are Muslim, compared with 30% in sub-Saharan Africa and 24% in the Asia-Pacific region.
Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries around the world. The country with the largest number (about 209 million) is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim. India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly 176 million) though Muslims make up just 14.4% of India’s total population.
To read more.....
Pew Research Center - June 7, 2013
An estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Muslims, making Islam the world’s second-largest religious tradition after Christianity, according to the December 2012 Global Religious Landscape report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest concentration Muslims of any region of the world: 93% of its approximately 341 million inhabitants are Muslim, compared with 30% in sub-Saharan Africa and 24% in the Asia-Pacific region.
Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries around the world. The country with the largest number (about 209 million) is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim. India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly 176 million) though Muslims make up just 14.4% of India’s total population.
To read more.....
Creating a New Class of Keynesian Villain
By Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed
Counterpunch - Thursday, 06 June 2013
Ken Rogoff, the Harvard economist whose work with Carmen Reinhart has played a central role in the debate about austerity policies, recently wrote a syndicated column that is structured as an argument against Those Who: those who believe that Europe's problems result solely from excessive austerity, and would all be solved with a bit of Keynesianism. It might help if he would name names, otherwise people might imagine that he's talking about, say, the economist Martin Wolf or me. But he can't be, can he? Because neither of us — nor, for that matter, anyone else I can think of — is making that argument.
Everyone with a bit of sense has argued all along that Europe has a big problem resulting from its single currency: Countries on the periphery of the euro zone experienced a sharp rise in relative costs and prices during the boom years, and the process of correcting that overvaluation through "internal devaluation" has been extremely difficult and painful.
To read more.....
Counterpunch - Thursday, 06 June 2013
Ken Rogoff, the Harvard economist whose work with Carmen Reinhart has played a central role in the debate about austerity policies, recently wrote a syndicated column that is structured as an argument against Those Who: those who believe that Europe's problems result solely from excessive austerity, and would all be solved with a bit of Keynesianism. It might help if he would name names, otherwise people might imagine that he's talking about, say, the economist Martin Wolf or me. But he can't be, can he? Because neither of us — nor, for that matter, anyone else I can think of — is making that argument.
Everyone with a bit of sense has argued all along that Europe has a big problem resulting from its single currency: Countries on the periphery of the euro zone experienced a sharp rise in relative costs and prices during the boom years, and the process of correcting that overvaluation through "internal devaluation" has been extremely difficult and painful.
To read more.....
China Can’t Be Contained; It Has to Be Accommodated
by John Cassidy
The New Yorker - June 6, 2013
At the start of the twentieth century, Britain, the superpower of the time, was faced with a strategic dilemma: what to do about a newly unified and nationalist Germany, which was rising fast economically and building up its military. One school of thought held that Germany could be accommodated within the existing international system; the other argument was that it needed to be confronted and contained. The hawks won out. During the Boer War, London threatened to blockade the German coast if Berlin intervened in favor of the Dutch settlers in South Africa. There followed a big arms race, as Germany, which had already been strengthening its marine capabilities, rushed to catch up with the Royal Navy, and Britain responded by constructing the dreadnoughts, a deadly family of steam-powered battleships. In 1907, Britain joined France and Russia in an alliance—the Triple Entente—against Germany and Austria-Hungary.
We all know how the story ended: a devastating, continent-wide conflict that lasted more than four years, killed over nine million combatants, and facilitated the rise of Communism and Fascism. And one of the worst things about the First World War was that it could quite possibly have been avoided. Although the rise of Wilhelmine Germany represented a dangerous challenge to the balance of power in Europe, neither side wanted a full-scale confrontation. In 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, the European powers blundered into war because of decisions they had made, and commitments they had taken on, during the years of heightening rivalry.
To read more......
The New Yorker - June 6, 2013
At the start of the twentieth century, Britain, the superpower of the time, was faced with a strategic dilemma: what to do about a newly unified and nationalist Germany, which was rising fast economically and building up its military. One school of thought held that Germany could be accommodated within the existing international system; the other argument was that it needed to be confronted and contained. The hawks won out. During the Boer War, London threatened to blockade the German coast if Berlin intervened in favor of the Dutch settlers in South Africa. There followed a big arms race, as Germany, which had already been strengthening its marine capabilities, rushed to catch up with the Royal Navy, and Britain responded by constructing the dreadnoughts, a deadly family of steam-powered battleships. In 1907, Britain joined France and Russia in an alliance—the Triple Entente—against Germany and Austria-Hungary.
We all know how the story ended: a devastating, continent-wide conflict that lasted more than four years, killed over nine million combatants, and facilitated the rise of Communism and Fascism. And one of the worst things about the First World War was that it could quite possibly have been avoided. Although the rise of Wilhelmine Germany represented a dangerous challenge to the balance of power in Europe, neither side wanted a full-scale confrontation. In 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, the European powers blundered into war because of decisions they had made, and commitments they had taken on, during the years of heightening rivalry.
To read more......
China's economy might be No 1 in 2030
English.news.cn
2013-06-07
By Andrew Moody and Lv Chang
BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhuanet) -- China's economy will become twice as big as that of the United States and larger than both the US and the EU combined within just 17 years, according to one of China's leading economists.
Hu Angang, dean of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies, one of China's leading think tanks, makes the prediction in his new book, China 2030.
The book, already out in Chinese and to be published in English next month, is likely to attract major interest around the world.
His forecast - which also sees China becoming the biggest economy by 2020 - is the boldest and most optimistic prediction yet about China's economic future.
It also comes at a time when there are concerns about China's short-term prospects with GDP growth slower than expected in the first quarter at 7.7 percent, down from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of last year.
To read more.....
2013-06-07
By Andrew Moody and Lv Chang
BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhuanet) -- China's economy will become twice as big as that of the United States and larger than both the US and the EU combined within just 17 years, according to one of China's leading economists.
Hu Angang, dean of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies, one of China's leading think tanks, makes the prediction in his new book, China 2030.
The book, already out in Chinese and to be published in English next month, is likely to attract major interest around the world.
His forecast - which also sees China becoming the biggest economy by 2020 - is the boldest and most optimistic prediction yet about China's economic future.
It also comes at a time when there are concerns about China's short-term prospects with GDP growth slower than expected in the first quarter at 7.7 percent, down from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of last year.
To read more.....
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Spatial Turn Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre By Tugrul Keskin
The Spatial Turn
Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre
By Tugrul Keskin
Portland State University
The
modern understanding of ‘urbanization’ began with the industrialization process
in England and later flourished all over Europe at the end of the 18th
century as a result of capitalism. Consequently, the city or the metropolis
cannot be separated from the capitalist mode of production. This new economic
condition and process also changed and shaped social and political conditions,
which has resulted modernization, individualism and the most importantly –
because of the class subject – space. The term space has a very different
meaning in modern societies than it does to primitive and traditional
societies, because space as a new modern political and social geography has
culminated in the 19 and 20th century political, social and economic
life; and has tried to eliminate traditional ways of life. Concepts such as
colonialism, the nation-state, metropolis, territorialization, urban life, individualism,
suburbs, downtowns, ghettos, and stateless nations (for example the Kurds,
Uyghurs and Tamils) are related with space. Malls too, are less or more related
with space or the concept of spatial. We can expand the list from politics to
individual life as George Simmel attempted to do in his analysis of the late 19
and early 20th century Germany as a comparison between city life and the
individual; Simmel tried to understand how these two concepts related to each
other and affected one another within the modern way of life as a new urban
phenomenon.
According
to Simmel, the metropolis freed man from his taboos or dogmas, which are rooted
in tradition, and religion that connected men to community-based life. However,
Simmel also argues that man’s freedom and individuality does not really mean
that man is really free, but that he is instead more dependent on others.
Classical theorists, such as Marx, Weber and Durkheim, all see urbanization as
a product of the industrialization that created a more complex societal
structure and way of life.
As
capitalism has regulated every part of human life in order to create its mode
of production through cities, it has also attempted to control social and
cultural structures and mentalities from the individual level to that of the
societal. In this context, museums, zoos, theaters, entertainment centers and
many other structures have also been created as a new space. In the
industrialization process, examples of sacred spaces that were created included
churches and cemeteries.
In
modern times, the 20th century space was treated as death, fixed,
the undialectical and the immobile; however, space shouldn’t be reviewed in the
context of a static concept, it changes over time and geography. For example,
public and private spaces show us that the concept rapidly changes even from
the personal level to the societal level. One of the most important
observations might be found in the construction of human geographies, the
social production of space and the restless formation and reformation of
geographical landscape in the metropolis. In Muslim populated societies, space
have also been produced and reproduced in the context of the relation between
Islam and capitalism, such as Islamic versus secular space - Istanbul versus
Ankara (Turkey), Riyadh versus Mecca (Saudi Arabia), Tehran versus Qum (Iran)
or newly capitalist cities have been also created like Dubai, or the old versus
the new Cairo, and has reformed itself and stays between the secular and
religious as a chaotic space. Hence, space also can be seen as the geography of
social and political resistance. In this context, There are Mosques in
Istanbul, Turkey and some of them are 400 or 300 years old, neighborhood around
these mosques are actually a space that Islamic groups and movements or Islamic
orders called Tariqahs have used the space for political mobilization following
the secularization process in Turkey. This has been a space for resistance. Political
groups have tried to control space in order claim their hegemony. On the other hand, secularists use non-Mosque
neighborhoods in order to separate themselves from other neighborhoods. This
reminds me of Lefebvre’s understanding of space, in which space is a part of
domination and control. Groups or individuals try to control space and form,
and reform the concept of spatiality in order to have more power. In this
context, space is understood as power; therefore, space is an ongoing process
of the reformation of power. Resistance can be seen as external space as
Foucault argues, because this is a socially – as well as politically-produced
space. However, in the case of museums, space exercises its power through
time.
Another
example of Lefebvre’s approach can be found in examining HG TV. This TV channel
is dedicated to TV shows for home renovations and personal space. This reminds
me of hegemony and power of personal space through renovations. This seems to
be a reflection of the inability of an individual to exercise his or her power
outside and the absence of control over social space, but their homes become
their resistance against external space.
In short, space or the metropolis is part of the historical geography of capitalism in which power is employed through the new spatiality of capitalism. Personally, I have read Lefebvre’s book on the Sociology of Marx and I found it very interesting that he is a Marxist, yet is not as rigid as Althusser, and not as light as Foucault. On the other hand, Soja’s view of the spatial, and modern cities cannot be applied to any other parts of world but Los Angeles.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Consumerism and Its Discontents
By Charles Derber
Truthout | Op-Ed
Monday, 27 May 2013
A quiet revolutionary struggle is brewing in the minds of the US "millennial" generation, those 80 million Americans between ages 16 and 34. They are wrestling with the fundamental edict of capitalism: Buy and you shall be happy. The millennials have not rejected consumerism, but they have also not embraced it fully. They experience its very real downsides - that also afflict millions of older Americans and go to the heart of capitalist sustainability and morality.
Recent polls by marketing firms and the respected Pew Research Center show strong environmental concerns among millennials, but hint at a broader issue: whether consumerism itself makes for a good life and society. Americans, especially the young, love their computers and sleep with their iPhones next to their pillows, but still worry about the negative sides of consumerism.
Technology itself may be contributing to what commentators have called the "death of ownership" culture, since the issue is not owning a book or television set, but having access through the web. Technology is changing the very idea of ownership. But broader factors - including the very availability of so much "stuff" - are contributing to making consumerism less new, exciting and "cool."
To read more.....
Truthout | Op-Ed
Monday, 27 May 2013
A quiet revolutionary struggle is brewing in the minds of the US "millennial" generation, those 80 million Americans between ages 16 and 34. They are wrestling with the fundamental edict of capitalism: Buy and you shall be happy. The millennials have not rejected consumerism, but they have also not embraced it fully. They experience its very real downsides - that also afflict millions of older Americans and go to the heart of capitalist sustainability and morality.
Recent polls by marketing firms and the respected Pew Research Center show strong environmental concerns among millennials, but hint at a broader issue: whether consumerism itself makes for a good life and society. Americans, especially the young, love their computers and sleep with their iPhones next to their pillows, but still worry about the negative sides of consumerism.
Technology itself may be contributing to what commentators have called the "death of ownership" culture, since the issue is not owning a book or television set, but having access through the web. Technology is changing the very idea of ownership. But broader factors - including the very availability of so much "stuff" - are contributing to making consumerism less new, exciting and "cool."
To read more.....
The Problem Is Capitalism
Only radical reforms will solve neoliberalism’s crisis of democracy.
BY Joseph M. Schwartz and Maria Svart
In These Times - May 27, 2013
In “Lean Socialist: Why Liberalism Needs Socialism—and Vice Versa” (May 2013), Bhaskar Sunkara calls for the rebirth of a socialist movement that would work alongside liberals for immediate gains for working people, while simultaneously offering a vision of a socialist society that would extend democracy into the economic sphere. And, at the same time, that movement would fight for the structural reforms most likely to lead towards that goal. We at Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including our founding co-chair Michael Harrington, have always embraced this strategy. The problem? Socialists became indistinguishable from liberals because the liberals and a strong labor movement disappeared, swept away when “the tides of neoliberalism moved in.” As Barbara Ehrenreich frequently noted in the 1990s, with liberals and social democrats endorsing Clinton’s and Blair’s “kinder, gentler” dismantling of the welfare state, socialists were often the last defenders of the liberal gains of the 1930s and 1960s. But to go beyond liberalism, we absolutely agree with Sunkara that work must be done alongside movement activists, rather than so-called liberal technocrats. Socialists need to teach the liberals to fight once again. But how?
First, we must remind liberals of history. Before social democracy retreated, socialists foresaw the dangers of insufficiently radical reforms. In the 1970s and 1980s, European socialist theorists such as Nicos Poulantzas and Andre Gorz joined Harrington in warning that if the Left failed to socialize control over investment, the corporate drive for profit would lead capital to abandon the “social contract” compromise of the welfare state. Socialist governments in France, Sweden and elsewhere pushed for democratizing investment. But capital immediately fought back, beginning with the CIA-aided overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile in 1973 and continuing with French capital’s strike of the early 1980s. In the face of the onslaught, democracy and old-style liberalism began to crumble. This time around, liberals must recognize the true enemy and embrace radical reforms. Socialists will be there to push them to do so.
To read more....
BY Joseph M. Schwartz and Maria Svart
In These Times - May 27, 2013
In “Lean Socialist: Why Liberalism Needs Socialism—and Vice Versa” (May 2013), Bhaskar Sunkara calls for the rebirth of a socialist movement that would work alongside liberals for immediate gains for working people, while simultaneously offering a vision of a socialist society that would extend democracy into the economic sphere. And, at the same time, that movement would fight for the structural reforms most likely to lead towards that goal. We at Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including our founding co-chair Michael Harrington, have always embraced this strategy. The problem? Socialists became indistinguishable from liberals because the liberals and a strong labor movement disappeared, swept away when “the tides of neoliberalism moved in.” As Barbara Ehrenreich frequently noted in the 1990s, with liberals and social democrats endorsing Clinton’s and Blair’s “kinder, gentler” dismantling of the welfare state, socialists were often the last defenders of the liberal gains of the 1930s and 1960s. But to go beyond liberalism, we absolutely agree with Sunkara that work must be done alongside movement activists, rather than so-called liberal technocrats. Socialists need to teach the liberals to fight once again. But how?
First, we must remind liberals of history. Before social democracy retreated, socialists foresaw the dangers of insufficiently radical reforms. In the 1970s and 1980s, European socialist theorists such as Nicos Poulantzas and Andre Gorz joined Harrington in warning that if the Left failed to socialize control over investment, the corporate drive for profit would lead capital to abandon the “social contract” compromise of the welfare state. Socialist governments in France, Sweden and elsewhere pushed for democratizing investment. But capital immediately fought back, beginning with the CIA-aided overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile in 1973 and continuing with French capital’s strike of the early 1980s. In the face of the onslaught, democracy and old-style liberalism began to crumble. This time around, liberals must recognize the true enemy and embrace radical reforms. Socialists will be there to push them to do so.
To read more....
What’s the point of political philosophy?
by Alex Worsnip
Prospect / May 17, 2013
It is a near-truism that philosophy operates at a remove from the “real world.” Many philosophers suppose that the answers to questions in logic, epistemology and metaphysics are independent of particular empirical facts about how human society happens to be set up. But what about ethics and political philosophy? How far should philosophers concerned with these areas take into account the messy reality of everyday life?
Not far at all, says one venerable tradition that dates back at least to Kant in the 18th century, and probably as far as Plato. From this perspective, the job of ethics and political philosophy is to work out how things ought to be. This need not be closely related to how things actually are. For the philosopher trying to imagine the ideal society or specify the nature of virtue, engaging in detail with the world in its current state (or in its historical forms) may be unnecessary or even unhelpful.
To read more.....
Prospect / May 17, 2013
It is a near-truism that philosophy operates at a remove from the “real world.” Many philosophers suppose that the answers to questions in logic, epistemology and metaphysics are independent of particular empirical facts about how human society happens to be set up. But what about ethics and political philosophy? How far should philosophers concerned with these areas take into account the messy reality of everyday life?
Not far at all, says one venerable tradition that dates back at least to Kant in the 18th century, and probably as far as Plato. From this perspective, the job of ethics and political philosophy is to work out how things ought to be. This need not be closely related to how things actually are. For the philosopher trying to imagine the ideal society or specify the nature of virtue, engaging in detail with the world in its current state (or in its historical forms) may be unnecessary or even unhelpful.
To read more.....
Russia Warns Obama: Global War Over “Bee Apocalypse” Coming Soon
EU Times on May 10th, 2013
The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war.
According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to even meet with Kerry, who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled diplomatic mission, but then relented so as to not cause an even greater rift between these two nations.
At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.
To read more....
The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war.
According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to even meet with Kerry, who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled diplomatic mission, but then relented so as to not cause an even greater rift between these two nations.
At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.
To read more....
Monday, May 27, 2013
Reading Hayek in Beijing
A chronicler of Mao's depredations finds much to worry about in modern China.
In the spring of 1959, Yang Jisheng, then an 18-year-old scholarship student at a boarding school in China's Hubei Province, got an unexpected visit from a childhood friend. "Your father is starving to death!" the friend told him. "Hurry back, and take some rice if you can."
Granted leave from his school, Mr. Yang rushed to his family farm. "The elm tree in front of our house had been reduced to a barkless trunk," he recalled, "and even its roots had been dug up." Entering his home, he found his father "half-reclined on his bed, his eyes sunken and lifeless, his face gaunt, the skin creased and flaccid . . . I was shocked with the realization that the term skin and bones referred to something so horrible and cruel."
Mr. Yang's father would die within three days. Yet it would take years before Mr. Yang learned that what happened to his father was not an isolated incident. He was one of the 36 million Chinese who succumbed to famine between 1958 and 1962.
It would take years more for him to realize that the source of all the suffering was not nature: There were no major droughts or floods in China in the famine years. Rather, the cause was man, and one man in particular: Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsman, whose visage still stares down on Beijing's Tiananmen Square from atop the gates of the Forbidden City.
To read more.....
In the spring of 1959, Yang Jisheng, then an 18-year-old scholarship student at a boarding school in China's Hubei Province, got an unexpected visit from a childhood friend. "Your father is starving to death!" the friend told him. "Hurry back, and take some rice if you can."
Granted leave from his school, Mr. Yang rushed to his family farm. "The elm tree in front of our house had been reduced to a barkless trunk," he recalled, "and even its roots had been dug up." Entering his home, he found his father "half-reclined on his bed, his eyes sunken and lifeless, his face gaunt, the skin creased and flaccid . . . I was shocked with the realization that the term skin and bones referred to something so horrible and cruel."
Mr. Yang's father would die within three days. Yet it would take years before Mr. Yang learned that what happened to his father was not an isolated incident. He was one of the 36 million Chinese who succumbed to famine between 1958 and 1962.
It would take years more for him to realize that the source of all the suffering was not nature: There were no major droughts or floods in China in the famine years. Rather, the cause was man, and one man in particular: Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsman, whose visage still stares down on Beijing's Tiananmen Square from atop the gates of the Forbidden City.
To read more.....
China's President Says Ties With U.S. at 'Critical Juncture'
The Wall Street Journal - CHINA NEWS May 27, 2013
BEIJING—China's President Xi Jinping said relations with the U.S. were at a "critical juncture" during a meeting Monday with White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, ahead of a closely watched summit in California with U.S. President Barack Obama next month.
Mr. Donilon, during the first day of a visit this week to the Chinese capital, said Mr. Obama was eager to boost cooperation with senior Chinese leaders as the two sides attempt to wade through a range of issues that have chilled ties in recent months.
To read more....
BEIJING—China's President Xi Jinping said relations with the U.S. were at a "critical juncture" during a meeting Monday with White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, ahead of a closely watched summit in California with U.S. President Barack Obama next month.
Mr. Donilon, during the first day of a visit this week to the Chinese capital, said Mr. Obama was eager to boost cooperation with senior Chinese leaders as the two sides attempt to wade through a range of issues that have chilled ties in recent months.
To read more....
China’s Jia Zhangke Wins Big at Cannes
The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2013
The Cannes jury awarded major prizes to films by Jia Zhangke of China and Hirokazu Koreeda of Japan, two of Asia’s top directors whose films frequently grace the screens of the world’s major film festivals.
The award for best screenplay went to Mr. Jia for “A Touch of Sin,” which he also directed, about the struggles of ordinary people in contemporary China told through four separate stories. Mr. Jia is one of China’s most provocative filmmakers, tackling sensitive topics such as corruption, the environment and the widening economic gap between rich and poor. The prize also marks Mr. Jia’s first win at Cannes.
The Cannes jury awarded major prizes to films by Jia Zhangke of China and Hirokazu Koreeda of Japan, two of Asia’s top directors whose films frequently grace the screens of the world’s major film festivals.
The award for best screenplay went to Mr. Jia for “A Touch of Sin,” which he also directed, about the struggles of ordinary people in contemporary China told through four separate stories. Mr. Jia is one of China’s most provocative filmmakers, tackling sensitive topics such as corruption, the environment and the widening economic gap between rich and poor. The prize also marks Mr. Jia’s first win at Cannes.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
China's pragmatic Middle Eastern surprise
By John Lee
Business Spectator - 14 May, 2013
Chinese President Xi Jinping had the rare opportunity to receive both Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within days of each other last week. In a move that astounded international diplomats, President Xi issued a ‘four point peace plan’ to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, while the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a press release days later offering to host an Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in the future.
To be sure, Beijing’s peace plan is unoriginal and based on terms that have already been settled as a precondition to end the decades-old conflict, such as an enduring two-state solution. Neither has the offer to host a peace summit been taken up by either side, with the Palestinian Authority ignoring the offer and Israel subsequently characterising its visit to China as one only focusing on trade rather than politics.
But the likely lack of tangible outcomes from Xi’s peace missive is not the point. China has long stayed out of the politics of third-party conflicts outside its immediate region, preferring to follow Deng Xiaoping’s advice to 'avoid controversy' in non-core issues and ‘keep a low profile’. Its United Nations Security Council behaviour and record, where it allows Russia to take the lead when it comes to rebuffing American and European (British and French) sponsored resolutions, will attest to this. One could not imagine predecessor Hu Jintao seeking a more prominent role in what is probably the world’s most intractable dispute, given that British and then American efforts have attracted at least as much criticism as applause from other governments and commentators. Still, Xi’s unexpected outreach is early evidence that China is recognising keeping a low profile has risks as well as advantages. And as its power and interests grow, it can less afford to allow Western powers to set the agenda for issues away from Asia.
Business Spectator - 14 May, 2013
Chinese President Xi Jinping had the rare opportunity to receive both Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within days of each other last week. In a move that astounded international diplomats, President Xi issued a ‘four point peace plan’ to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, while the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a press release days later offering to host an Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in the future.
To be sure, Beijing’s peace plan is unoriginal and based on terms that have already been settled as a precondition to end the decades-old conflict, such as an enduring two-state solution. Neither has the offer to host a peace summit been taken up by either side, with the Palestinian Authority ignoring the offer and Israel subsequently characterising its visit to China as one only focusing on trade rather than politics.
But the likely lack of tangible outcomes from Xi’s peace missive is not the point. China has long stayed out of the politics of third-party conflicts outside its immediate region, preferring to follow Deng Xiaoping’s advice to 'avoid controversy' in non-core issues and ‘keep a low profile’. Its United Nations Security Council behaviour and record, where it allows Russia to take the lead when it comes to rebuffing American and European (British and French) sponsored resolutions, will attest to this. One could not imagine predecessor Hu Jintao seeking a more prominent role in what is probably the world’s most intractable dispute, given that British and then American efforts have attracted at least as much criticism as applause from other governments and commentators. Still, Xi’s unexpected outreach is early evidence that China is recognising keeping a low profile has risks as well as advantages. And as its power and interests grow, it can less afford to allow Western powers to set the agenda for issues away from Asia.
China may start taxing more luxury goods
By Wei Tian in Beijing and Yu Wei in San Francisco
China Daily - May 25, 2013
China may start levying taxes on an increasing number of luxury goods as part of the country's efforts to push forward economic reform, an official with China's top planning agency said on Friday.
More products might be taxed, as part of the country's tax reform plans for this year, said Kong Jingyuan, director-general of the department of comprehensive reform of the economic system at the National Development and Reform Commission.
Kong made the remarks when answering questions about a guideline with the key tasks to deepen economic reforms in 2013, which was published on the central government's website on Friday.
In the guideline, the NDRC pledged to "properly modify the rate and scope of consumption taxes". According to Kong, the changes will be carried out both in terms of rates and structures.
Taking into consideration the increasing national income levels, some products that used to be regarded as luxury goods are now seen as daily necessities and thus will not be taxed as luxury products, he said.
To read more.....
China Daily - May 25, 2013
China may start levying taxes on an increasing number of luxury goods as part of the country's efforts to push forward economic reform, an official with China's top planning agency said on Friday.
More products might be taxed, as part of the country's tax reform plans for this year, said Kong Jingyuan, director-general of the department of comprehensive reform of the economic system at the National Development and Reform Commission.
Kong made the remarks when answering questions about a guideline with the key tasks to deepen economic reforms in 2013, which was published on the central government's website on Friday.
In the guideline, the NDRC pledged to "properly modify the rate and scope of consumption taxes". According to Kong, the changes will be carried out both in terms of rates and structures.
Taking into consideration the increasing national income levels, some products that used to be regarded as luxury goods are now seen as daily necessities and thus will not be taxed as luxury products, he said.
To read more.....
One stabbed as Islamists attack kissing couples
Agence France-Presse May 26, 2013
ANKARA // Islamists attacked a group of kissing couples who locked lips in a Turkish metro station to protest a morality campaign by the authorities in Ankara, the local press reported on Sunday.
ANKARA // Islamists attacked a group of kissing couples who locked lips in a Turkish metro station to protest a morality campaign by the authorities in Ankara, the local press reported on Sunday.
Is China 'Pivoting' Toward the Middle East? Author Vali Nasr Says Yes
By: Larisa Epatko
PBS - May 14, 2013
As the United States eases back from involvement in the Middle East, China's influence and economic dependence there grows, author Vali Nasr recently told PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Margaret Warner in a web exclusive interview.
"For China, the Middle East is a rising strategic interest," he said. In fact, he continued to say that the Chinese don't refer to it as the Middle East but as "West Asia."
The U.S. has announced it wants to "pivot to Asia" and focus attention on China and away from the Middle East, Nasr said, but "the problem is just as we are pivoting East, the Chinese are pivoting West."
The Chinese are looking to the region -- from Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- to help supply their vast need for energy and products, said Nasr, author of "The Dispensable Nation," which critiques the Obama administration's foreign policy. And China considers stability in the Middle East important to its own stability, he said.
To Read more and watch the video......
PBS - May 14, 2013
As the United States eases back from involvement in the Middle East, China's influence and economic dependence there grows, author Vali Nasr recently told PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Margaret Warner in a web exclusive interview.
"For China, the Middle East is a rising strategic interest," he said. In fact, he continued to say that the Chinese don't refer to it as the Middle East but as "West Asia."
The U.S. has announced it wants to "pivot to Asia" and focus attention on China and away from the Middle East, Nasr said, but "the problem is just as we are pivoting East, the Chinese are pivoting West."
The Chinese are looking to the region -- from Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- to help supply their vast need for energy and products, said Nasr, author of "The Dispensable Nation," which critiques the Obama administration's foreign policy. And China considers stability in the Middle East important to its own stability, he said.
To Read more and watch the video......
Monday, May 13, 2013
Against the Brahmins: An Interview with Pankaj Mishra
Interviewed by Wajahat Ali
Boston Review - ONLINE MAY 2, 2013
Pankaj Mishra enjoys upsetting the alleged status quo. The 43-year-old Indian writer has become a leading critic of Western imperialism, globalization, and abuses of power among the political and intellectual upper crust. He charges India’s privileged class with manipulating the democratic process for self-preservation and profit. He publicly blasts peers, such as Salman Rushdie, whom he accuses of choosing to “amplify the orthodoxies of political and military elites.” and Niall Ferguson, whom he condemned as a cheerleader of “neo-imperialist wars.”
Born and raised in Northern India, Mishra was expected to join the civil service after graduating from university. Instead, he moved to a small village in the Himalayas for five years and wrote literary reviews for the Indian press. In 1995, he published his first book, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India, a travelogue populated by colorful and diverse characters living at the intersection of globalization and Indian tradition.
Since then, he has written numerous essays, edited an anthology, and published a novel and three books of nonfiction, including last year’s From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia, which was just short-listed for the 2013 Orwell Prize, a prestigious British award for political writing.
In From the Ruins of Empire, Mishra crafts an epic narrative interlinking the lives of three 19th-century revolutionary protagonists: the pan-Islamist Jamal al-Din Afghani, Lian Qichao of China, and Bengali writer and Nobel Prize–winner Rabindranath Tagor. Independently, these intellectual upstarts sought to create an empowered Asian identity rising from the humiliation of colonization and Western imperialism. Their attempts left an influential legacy for modern Middle Eastern and Asian communities struggling to achieve political, economic, and intellectual dignity and autonomy in an age of declining and shifting empires.
In this email interview, Mishra discusses modern South Asian identity; the consequences of democracy, modernization, and religious extremism in India; the role and responsibility of intellectuals; and the question of whether global power is shifting from the West to the East.
—Wajahat Ali
Wajahat Ali: Reflecting on recent events, could an argument be made that the disastrous Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis have shifted the axis of power from the United States to rising Asia?
Pankaj Mishra: I don’t think Asians and South Asians have much cause for celebration if power is indeed shifting to the East due to the disastrous blunders of the United States. One still has to ask, whose power? And to whom is it shifting and who in Asia will it eventually benefit? We Asians have shown ourselves very capable of making the same kind of mistakes. I write from Japan, which has its own history of militarism and imperialism, and where the ghost of nationalism is yet to be exorcised. And we know about South Asia’s inability to defuse its toxic nationalisms or provide a degree of social and economic justice to its billion-plus populations.
WA: Your book focuses on late 19th-century cosmopolitan intellectuals, such as Jamal al din Afghani, Liang Qichao, and Tagore, who were early resisters to Western imperialism and colonialism. Do their lives and ideas inform and relate to the dissidents of today, such as the protestors in Tahrir Square, the revolutionaries in Syria, or civil society groups in Malaysia?
PM: People like al-Afghani, Liang, and Tagore were responding, in another era of globalization, to the growing predominance of a mode of political economy vindicated by the great power of the West and to the increasing violence and suffering of non-Western societies as they scrambled to organize themselves for life in the new, ruthless world of international relations. They were at the beginning of the process that we now seem more clearly in places like Egypt, Syria, or Malaysia—the formation of unwieldy and unviable nation-states over multicultural mosaics, the invocation of religious-ethnic solidarities (Malaysia), or the creation and eventual collapse of pro-Western military dictatorships (Egypt) to sustain and legitimize the rule of local elites. I think al-Afghani in 1890s Iran or Liang in early 19th-century imperial China would have recognized the daunting backdrop to ordinary struggles for freedom and dignity today—the general political fragmentation, the loss of the state’s legitimacy everywhere, and the rise of transnational elites who owe primary allegiance to themselves.
To read more.....
Boston Review - ONLINE MAY 2, 2013
Pankaj Mishra enjoys upsetting the alleged status quo. The 43-year-old Indian writer has become a leading critic of Western imperialism, globalization, and abuses of power among the political and intellectual upper crust. He charges India’s privileged class with manipulating the democratic process for self-preservation and profit. He publicly blasts peers, such as Salman Rushdie, whom he accuses of choosing to “amplify the orthodoxies of political and military elites.” and Niall Ferguson, whom he condemned as a cheerleader of “neo-imperialist wars.”
Born and raised in Northern India, Mishra was expected to join the civil service after graduating from university. Instead, he moved to a small village in the Himalayas for five years and wrote literary reviews for the Indian press. In 1995, he published his first book, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India, a travelogue populated by colorful and diverse characters living at the intersection of globalization and Indian tradition.
Since then, he has written numerous essays, edited an anthology, and published a novel and three books of nonfiction, including last year’s From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia, which was just short-listed for the 2013 Orwell Prize, a prestigious British award for political writing.
In From the Ruins of Empire, Mishra crafts an epic narrative interlinking the lives of three 19th-century revolutionary protagonists: the pan-Islamist Jamal al-Din Afghani, Lian Qichao of China, and Bengali writer and Nobel Prize–winner Rabindranath Tagor. Independently, these intellectual upstarts sought to create an empowered Asian identity rising from the humiliation of colonization and Western imperialism. Their attempts left an influential legacy for modern Middle Eastern and Asian communities struggling to achieve political, economic, and intellectual dignity and autonomy in an age of declining and shifting empires.
In this email interview, Mishra discusses modern South Asian identity; the consequences of democracy, modernization, and religious extremism in India; the role and responsibility of intellectuals; and the question of whether global power is shifting from the West to the East.
—Wajahat Ali
Wajahat Ali: Reflecting on recent events, could an argument be made that the disastrous Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis have shifted the axis of power from the United States to rising Asia?
Pankaj Mishra: I don’t think Asians and South Asians have much cause for celebration if power is indeed shifting to the East due to the disastrous blunders of the United States. One still has to ask, whose power? And to whom is it shifting and who in Asia will it eventually benefit? We Asians have shown ourselves very capable of making the same kind of mistakes. I write from Japan, which has its own history of militarism and imperialism, and where the ghost of nationalism is yet to be exorcised. And we know about South Asia’s inability to defuse its toxic nationalisms or provide a degree of social and economic justice to its billion-plus populations.
WA: Your book focuses on late 19th-century cosmopolitan intellectuals, such as Jamal al din Afghani, Liang Qichao, and Tagore, who were early resisters to Western imperialism and colonialism. Do their lives and ideas inform and relate to the dissidents of today, such as the protestors in Tahrir Square, the revolutionaries in Syria, or civil society groups in Malaysia?
PM: People like al-Afghani, Liang, and Tagore were responding, in another era of globalization, to the growing predominance of a mode of political economy vindicated by the great power of the West and to the increasing violence and suffering of non-Western societies as they scrambled to organize themselves for life in the new, ruthless world of international relations. They were at the beginning of the process that we now seem more clearly in places like Egypt, Syria, or Malaysia—the formation of unwieldy and unviable nation-states over multicultural mosaics, the invocation of religious-ethnic solidarities (Malaysia), or the creation and eventual collapse of pro-Western military dictatorships (Egypt) to sustain and legitimize the rule of local elites. I think al-Afghani in 1890s Iran or Liang in early 19th-century imperial China would have recognized the daunting backdrop to ordinary struggles for freedom and dignity today—the general political fragmentation, the loss of the state’s legitimacy everywhere, and the rise of transnational elites who owe primary allegiance to themselves.
To read more.....
How China is educating Africa
– and what it means for the west In an extract from a new book, China's aspirational approach to education and investment in Africa is distinguished from the west's focus on basic needs.
By Stephen Chan
The Guardian - May 12, 2013
The da xue (Mandarin: the big study, or the big reading) or dai ho(k) (Cantonese: the big learning) are Chinese terms for a university. In the romance of the "old days", learning was the only way to bypass the class system. China's annual imperial exams allowed even the poorest subject to step outside his poverty and feudal status to become an official. When, later, learning became concentrated in universities, the institutions became prestigious and symbolic. They were the portals of escape.
With this in mind, it is amazing that Chinese aid to Africa has not seized earlier upon the building of universities. The addition of universities was unremarked in the original Chinese proposal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2008. China pledged a $9bn loan, $3bn of which was to develop mines, over which China entered a 68/32% joint venture involving Sinohydro Corporation and DRC's previously almost defunct Gecamines; and $6bn was for infrastructure, with China Railway Engineering Corporation playing a major role.
The Chinese expected to gain 6.8m tonnes of copper and 620,000 tonnes of cobalt over a 25-year period. However, China would also build huge expanses of road and railway and, along those transport routes, a large number of clinics, schools and universities. It was an unheard-of proposal; it would have transformed development in the south of DRC, with provision for a huge increase in the national pool of trained personnel; and it thoroughly alarmed the west, which saw an exponential increase of Chinese influence in central Africa.
To read more....
By Stephen Chan
The Guardian - May 12, 2013
The da xue (Mandarin: the big study, or the big reading) or dai ho(k) (Cantonese: the big learning) are Chinese terms for a university. In the romance of the "old days", learning was the only way to bypass the class system. China's annual imperial exams allowed even the poorest subject to step outside his poverty and feudal status to become an official. When, later, learning became concentrated in universities, the institutions became prestigious and symbolic. They were the portals of escape.
With this in mind, it is amazing that Chinese aid to Africa has not seized earlier upon the building of universities. The addition of universities was unremarked in the original Chinese proposal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2008. China pledged a $9bn loan, $3bn of which was to develop mines, over which China entered a 68/32% joint venture involving Sinohydro Corporation and DRC's previously almost defunct Gecamines; and $6bn was for infrastructure, with China Railway Engineering Corporation playing a major role.
The Chinese expected to gain 6.8m tonnes of copper and 620,000 tonnes of cobalt over a 25-year period. However, China would also build huge expanses of road and railway and, along those transport routes, a large number of clinics, schools and universities. It was an unheard-of proposal; it would have transformed development in the south of DRC, with provision for a huge increase in the national pool of trained personnel; and it thoroughly alarmed the west, which saw an exponential increase of Chinese influence in central Africa.
To read more....
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Former Guatemala Dictator Rios Montt Convicted of Genocide
By REUTERSMay 10, 2013
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty on Friday of genocide and crimes against humanity during the bloodiest phase of the country's 36-year civil war and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
Hundreds of people who were packed into the courtroom burst into applause, chanting, "Justice!" as Rios Montt received a 50-year term for the genocide charge and an additional 30 years for crimes against humanity.
It was the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide in his or her own country.
Rios Montt, now 86, took power after a coup in 1982 and was accused of implementing a scorched-earth policy in which troops massacred thousands of indigenous villagers thought to be helping leftist rebels. He proclaimed his innocence in court.
"I feel happy. May no one else ever have to go through what I did. My community has been sad ever since this happened," said Elena de Paz, an ethnic Maya Ixil who was two years old in 1983 when soldiers stormed her village, killed her parents and burned her home.
Prosecutors say Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson to try to rid Guatemala of leftist rebels during his 1982-1983 rule, the most violent period of a 1960-1996 civil war in which as many as 250,000 people died.
To read more....
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty on Friday of genocide and crimes against humanity during the bloodiest phase of the country's 36-year civil war and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
Hundreds of people who were packed into the courtroom burst into applause, chanting, "Justice!" as Rios Montt received a 50-year term for the genocide charge and an additional 30 years for crimes against humanity.
It was the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide in his or her own country.
Rios Montt, now 86, took power after a coup in 1982 and was accused of implementing a scorched-earth policy in which troops massacred thousands of indigenous villagers thought to be helping leftist rebels. He proclaimed his innocence in court.
"I feel happy. May no one else ever have to go through what I did. My community has been sad ever since this happened," said Elena de Paz, an ethnic Maya Ixil who was two years old in 1983 when soldiers stormed her village, killed her parents and burned her home.
Prosecutors say Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson to try to rid Guatemala of leftist rebels during his 1982-1983 rule, the most violent period of a 1960-1996 civil war in which as many as 250,000 people died.
To read more....
Pakistanis Vote in Landmark Election
By Alex Rodriguez
Los Angeles Times12 May 2013
Islamabad - Millions of Pakistanis braved threats from militants and voted Saturday in national elections that marked the country's first democratic transfer of governance and appeared to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on track for a potential return to power.
The elections change Pakistan's political landscape and probably will sideline the Pakistan People's Party, which has ruled the country for five years. But the results are not expected to lead to any major shift in U.S.-Pakistan relations because the country's powerful military still holds sway over crucial issues such as Pakistan's role in peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan and the country's relationship with its nuclear archrival, India.
Nevertheless, the elections carried heavy symbolic value, bringing the first democratic transition of one civilian government to another. Through coups and political ousters, the country's powerful military has ruled for more than half of Pakistan's 65-year existence.
To read more.....
Los Angeles Times12 May 2013
Islamabad - Millions of Pakistanis braved threats from militants and voted Saturday in national elections that marked the country's first democratic transfer of governance and appeared to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on track for a potential return to power.
The elections change Pakistan's political landscape and probably will sideline the Pakistan People's Party, which has ruled the country for five years. But the results are not expected to lead to any major shift in U.S.-Pakistan relations because the country's powerful military still holds sway over crucial issues such as Pakistan's role in peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan and the country's relationship with its nuclear archrival, India.
Nevertheless, the elections carried heavy symbolic value, bringing the first democratic transition of one civilian government to another. Through coups and political ousters, the country's powerful military has ruled for more than half of Pakistan's 65-year existence.
To read more.....
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Jack Ma of Alibaba
How Is an IPO Like a Marriage? The Billionaire Founder of China's Alibaba Goes Public.
By ALEXANDRA WOLFE
The Wall Street Journal - May 11, 2013
A week before he was set to step down as chief executive of Alibaba, one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, Jack Ma was enjoying breakfast on an outdoor patio in Santa Monica, Calif. Worth an estimated $4.2 billion, the Chinese entrepreneur may grow even richer if the company he founded 14 years ago goes public. Philanthropy has brought him to California on this trip, but he has no intention of joining the famous billionaires' pledge and donating at least half his money to charity. "This idea of giving your money out was not created by Gates and Buffett. It was created by the Communist Party in the 1950s!" he says with a laugh.
That wasn't the only thing that had Mr. Ma, 48, chuckling. Since he announced his transition to executive chairman in January—he handed over the reins Friday—he has stoked speculation about a potential Alibaba IPO. With an estimated value of about $60 billion, the company could be one of the year's hottest tech offerings if it makes the move.
To read more....
By ALEXANDRA WOLFE
The Wall Street Journal - May 11, 2013
A week before he was set to step down as chief executive of Alibaba, one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, Jack Ma was enjoying breakfast on an outdoor patio in Santa Monica, Calif. Worth an estimated $4.2 billion, the Chinese entrepreneur may grow even richer if the company he founded 14 years ago goes public. Philanthropy has brought him to California on this trip, but he has no intention of joining the famous billionaires' pledge and donating at least half his money to charity. "This idea of giving your money out was not created by Gates and Buffett. It was created by the Communist Party in the 1950s!" he says with a laugh.
That wasn't the only thing that had Mr. Ma, 48, chuckling. Since he announced his transition to executive chairman in January—he handed over the reins Friday—he has stoked speculation about a potential Alibaba IPO. With an estimated value of about $60 billion, the company could be one of the year's hottest tech offerings if it makes the move.
To read more....
Democracy Is on Ballot in Pakistan
Political Stability and U.S. Alliance Put to Test in Election Saturday Focusing on Economy, Corruption
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
LAHORE, Pakistan
The Wall Street Journal - May 11, 2013
The election here on Saturday is a fiercely contested three-way race that looks poised to solidify the nuclear-armed nation's transition to democracy even as it could further dent fragile relations with the U.S.
The voting will follow the bloodiest election campaign in recent Pakistani history. Taliban militants killed more than 100 people as they sought to influence voters by launching attacks on the secular parties that dominated the outgoing government. They have also warned people to stay away from the polls.
The Pakistan Peoples Party of President Asif Ali Zardari is likely to lose much of its support, with the conservative Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif leading opinion polls. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of cricket legend Imran Khan, who boycotted the previous election in 2008, is also likely to emerge as a major—and possibly decisive—force in Saturday's vote, analysts and diplomats predict.
To read more....
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
LAHORE, Pakistan
The Wall Street Journal - May 11, 2013
The election here on Saturday is a fiercely contested three-way race that looks poised to solidify the nuclear-armed nation's transition to democracy even as it could further dent fragile relations with the U.S.
The voting will follow the bloodiest election campaign in recent Pakistani history. Taliban militants killed more than 100 people as they sought to influence voters by launching attacks on the secular parties that dominated the outgoing government. They have also warned people to stay away from the polls.
The Pakistan Peoples Party of President Asif Ali Zardari is likely to lose much of its support, with the conservative Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif leading opinion polls. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of cricket legend Imran Khan, who boycotted the previous election in 2008, is also likely to emerge as a major—and possibly decisive—force in Saturday's vote, analysts and diplomats predict.
To read more....
A look into Cheung Kong, China’s most elitist and expensive business school
Asia Pacific Watch - November 26, 2012
In their latest recruitment ad, Cheung Kong Graduate Business School says, ‘The Business School that Best Understands China’. As the most expensive business school in China, Cheung Kong’s EMBA programs enroll only three types of students: government officials, entrepreneurs, celebrities. Public curiosity over Cheung Kong started from the gossip column. 61-year-old Wang Shi, owner of China’s largest real estate developer Vanke and one of the country’s best-known entrepreneurs, has reportedly divorced his wife after 30 years’ marriage and fallen in love with an actress 30 years his junior. The news was first broken on Sina Weibo, the country’s most vibrant social media site, by numerous verified users, and immediately spread like wildfire. Within two days, the posts were shared over 45,000 times. The relationship, on which neither Wang Shi or Tian Pujun, the actress, publicly commented, received harsh judgment from Chinese netizens. For one thing, May-December romance seldom receives any blessing in China, as in this case, Chinese love to presume that Wang is a lustful cradle robber and Tian is a gold digger. For another, with aversion for mistresses and marital infidelity getting increasingly ferocious in China, Tian is publicly accused of being the reason for destroying their marriage. Evidence? Wang Shi and Tian Pujun apparently met at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business a few years ago.
To read more.....
In their latest recruitment ad, Cheung Kong Graduate Business School says, ‘The Business School that Best Understands China’. As the most expensive business school in China, Cheung Kong’s EMBA programs enroll only three types of students: government officials, entrepreneurs, celebrities. Public curiosity over Cheung Kong started from the gossip column. 61-year-old Wang Shi, owner of China’s largest real estate developer Vanke and one of the country’s best-known entrepreneurs, has reportedly divorced his wife after 30 years’ marriage and fallen in love with an actress 30 years his junior. The news was first broken on Sina Weibo, the country’s most vibrant social media site, by numerous verified users, and immediately spread like wildfire. Within two days, the posts were shared over 45,000 times. The relationship, on which neither Wang Shi or Tian Pujun, the actress, publicly commented, received harsh judgment from Chinese netizens. For one thing, May-December romance seldom receives any blessing in China, as in this case, Chinese love to presume that Wang is a lustful cradle robber and Tian is a gold digger. For another, with aversion for mistresses and marital infidelity getting increasingly ferocious in China, Tian is publicly accused of being the reason for destroying their marriage. Evidence? Wang Shi and Tian Pujun apparently met at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business a few years ago.
To read more.....
The Death of Truth
By Chris Hedges
Nation of Change - May 9, 2013
This interview is a joint project of Truthdig and The Nation magazine.
A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world’s best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange’s bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange’s ground-floor suite.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million.
Britain has rejected an Ecuadorean request that Assange be granted safe passage to an airport. He is in limbo. It is, he said, like living in a “space station.”
“The status quo, for them, is a loss,” Assange said of the U.S.-led campaign against him as we sat in his small workroom, cluttered with cables and computer equipment. He had a full head of gray hair and gray stubble on his face and was wearing a traditional white embroidered Ecuadorean shirt. “The Pentagon threatened WikiLeaks and me personally, threatened us before the whole world, demanded that we destroy everything we had published, demanded we cease ‘soliciting’ new information from U.S. government whistle-blowers, demanded, in other words, the total annihilation of a publisher. It stated that if we did not self-destruct in this way that we would be ‘compelled’ to do so.”
“But they have failed,” he went on. “They set the rules about what a win was. They lost in every battle they defined. Their loss is total. We’ve won the big stuff. The loss of face is hard to overstate. The Pentagon reissued its threats on Sept. 28 last year. This time we laughed. Threats inflate quickly. Now the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department intend to show the world what vindictive losers they are through the persecution of Bradley Manning, myself and the organization more generally.”
To read more....
Nation of Change - May 9, 2013
This interview is a joint project of Truthdig and The Nation magazine.
A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world’s best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange’s bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange’s ground-floor suite.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million.
Britain has rejected an Ecuadorean request that Assange be granted safe passage to an airport. He is in limbo. It is, he said, like living in a “space station.”
“The status quo, for them, is a loss,” Assange said of the U.S.-led campaign against him as we sat in his small workroom, cluttered with cables and computer equipment. He had a full head of gray hair and gray stubble on his face and was wearing a traditional white embroidered Ecuadorean shirt. “The Pentagon threatened WikiLeaks and me personally, threatened us before the whole world, demanded that we destroy everything we had published, demanded we cease ‘soliciting’ new information from U.S. government whistle-blowers, demanded, in other words, the total annihilation of a publisher. It stated that if we did not self-destruct in this way that we would be ‘compelled’ to do so.”
“But they have failed,” he went on. “They set the rules about what a win was. They lost in every battle they defined. Their loss is total. We’ve won the big stuff. The loss of face is hard to overstate. The Pentagon reissued its threats on Sept. 28 last year. This time we laughed. Threats inflate quickly. Now the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department intend to show the world what vindictive losers they are through the persecution of Bradley Manning, myself and the organization more generally.”
To read more....
Should China Try to Feed Itself?
By Bruce Einhorn
Bloomberg Business Week - May 10, 2013
The Chinese government is well aware of the political sensitivity of food, which is one reason the country is sticking to a policy that promotes self-sufficiency. The country’s farmers met about 98 percent of China’s demand for grain last year, Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua said at a news conference in March.
To read more....
Bloomberg Business Week - May 10, 2013
For China’s leaders, there was one problem in an otherwise
benign inflation report for April. First, the good news: The consumer
price index rose 2.4 percent, about in line with economists’
expectations. While inflation accelerated from 2.1 percent in March, the
April figure is still well below the government’s target of 3.5 percent
for the year.
So what’s the catch? Food prices. With vegetables getting more expensive, the cost of eating jumped
4 percent last month, compared with an increase of 2.7 percent in
March. The rising cost of food could create more difficulties in the
coming months, the People’s Bank of China warned yesterday.The Chinese government is well aware of the political sensitivity of food, which is one reason the country is sticking to a policy that promotes self-sufficiency. The country’s farmers met about 98 percent of China’s demand for grain last year, Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua said at a news conference in March.
To read more....
Friday, May 10, 2013
The American Dream Is Dead; Long Live the New Dream
By Cliff DuRand
Truthout | News Analysis
10 May 2013
The American Dream of upward mobility is dead, thanks to the neoliberal ministrations of capital and government. But a new dream could rise from the mess left by globalization, off-shoring and austerity.
The continuation of the economic crisis of 2008 up to the present has driven home a social trend that has been evident since the late 1970s, the decline of what is usually called "the middle class" and the accompanying American Dream.
The American Dream is the belief that if you work hard, if you are blessed with at least a modicum of ability and have a little luck, you can succeed. That is, you can rise in society no matter how humble your origin to something better in the way of material well-being, economic security, a settled life and social prestige. It is the dream of upward mobility for oneself, or at least for one's children.
As Richard Wolff has pointed out in Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to do About it, this upward mobility was a reality for most citizens of the United States for several generations, from 1820 to 1970. For 150 years, real wages rose. In the quarter century from 1947 to 1973, average real wages rose an astounding 75 percent. But that shared prosperity came to a halt in the mid '70s. In the next 25 years, from 1979 to 2005, wages and benefits rose less than 4 percent. The sustained rise in standards of living had been made possible by a conjunction of historical circumstances, circumstances that began to reach exhaustion by the mid 1970s.
To read more.....
Truthout | News Analysis
10 May 2013
The American Dream of upward mobility is dead, thanks to the neoliberal ministrations of capital and government. But a new dream could rise from the mess left by globalization, off-shoring and austerity.
The continuation of the economic crisis of 2008 up to the present has driven home a social trend that has been evident since the late 1970s, the decline of what is usually called "the middle class" and the accompanying American Dream.
The American Dream is the belief that if you work hard, if you are blessed with at least a modicum of ability and have a little luck, you can succeed. That is, you can rise in society no matter how humble your origin to something better in the way of material well-being, economic security, a settled life and social prestige. It is the dream of upward mobility for oneself, or at least for one's children.
As Richard Wolff has pointed out in Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to do About it, this upward mobility was a reality for most citizens of the United States for several generations, from 1820 to 1970. For 150 years, real wages rose. In the quarter century from 1947 to 1973, average real wages rose an astounding 75 percent. But that shared prosperity came to a halt in the mid '70s. In the next 25 years, from 1979 to 2005, wages and benefits rose less than 4 percent. The sustained rise in standards of living had been made possible by a conjunction of historical circumstances, circumstances that began to reach exhaustion by the mid 1970s.
To read more.....
Does the College Major Matter? Not Really
By JEFFREY J. SELINGO
The New York Times, Education - April 29, 2013
Jeffrey J. Selingo is the editor at large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and the author of “College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students,” to be published May 7 by New Harvest. This post is adapted from the book.
This week, the last of the high school seniors who have yet to make up their minds about where they’re going to college in the fall, will finally put their deposit check in the mail and end the college search process that for some began years ago.
So much time, effort and money goes into picking the right college, but then too many students fail to engage in the process that follows: getting ready for their first year and figuring out what they want to get out of the entire college experience. It’s why some 400,000 students drop out of college each year and why one-third of students now transfer at least once before earning a degree.
One of the decisions you’ll need to make early on — if you haven’t already — is picking a major. Choosing what you want to do for the rest of your life is fraught with anxiety for many students, so you’re not alone if you have no idea what to choose.
Nine in 10 college students say it is important to find a major that is interesting “no matter how practical it is,” according to a survey conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles. Almost as many say that the skills they gain in college will be useful on the job no matter what they major in.
Majors are also seen as fungible — if you don’t like your field of study, trade it in for another one or add a different major to the one you already have. By the end of their first year, a quarter of all freshmen change their minds about their field of study.
So does the college major matter? I posed that question recently to my roommate at Ithaca College, who like me, majored in journalism. He had known since middle school what he wanted to do — become a television journalist. Now almost 20 years after we both graduated, David Muir is an anchor and correspondent for ABC World News.
He works with plenty of people who do not have journalism degrees. The commonality among them, he says, is that “we all majored in what we were interested in. The curiosity and the willingness to adapt are more important than what the degree is in.”
These are many of the same qualities that employers say, in survey after survey, they want in future workers. Hiring managers complain that they often find today’s college graduates lacking in interpersonal skills, problem solving, effective written and oral communication skills, the ability to work in teams, and critical and analytical thinking. Employers say that future workplaces need degree holders who can come up with novel solutions to problems and better sort through information to filter out the most critical pieces.
The economy is changing at warp speed. Rather than recommend majors of the future, here are four activities to help develop the skills necessary to succeed in the work force of tomorrow. If you focus on these activities, the majors won’t matter as much.
It doesn’t matter what you focus on, as long as you “focus on it in a rigorous way,” says Richard Arum, the co-author of “Academically Adrift,” a 2011 book which found that nearly a third of students failed to improve their writing, complex reasoning, or critical-thinking skills after four years of college.
Like the credential itself, the high price of college has made the major a means to an end for students. For many, college increasingly is regarded as a long list to check off — classes to take, experiences to acquire, and a major to declare.
Gaining underlying skills and knowledge is often an afterthought and it shouldn’t be. Spend as much time planning the next four years as you did getting to this point.
The New York Times, Education - April 29, 2013
Jeffrey J. Selingo is the editor at large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and the author of “College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students,” to be published May 7 by New Harvest. This post is adapted from the book.
This week, the last of the high school seniors who have yet to make up their minds about where they’re going to college in the fall, will finally put their deposit check in the mail and end the college search process that for some began years ago.
So much time, effort and money goes into picking the right college, but then too many students fail to engage in the process that follows: getting ready for their first year and figuring out what they want to get out of the entire college experience. It’s why some 400,000 students drop out of college each year and why one-third of students now transfer at least once before earning a degree.
One of the decisions you’ll need to make early on — if you haven’t already — is picking a major. Choosing what you want to do for the rest of your life is fraught with anxiety for many students, so you’re not alone if you have no idea what to choose.
Nine in 10 college students say it is important to find a major that is interesting “no matter how practical it is,” according to a survey conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles. Almost as many say that the skills they gain in college will be useful on the job no matter what they major in.
Majors are also seen as fungible — if you don’t like your field of study, trade it in for another one or add a different major to the one you already have. By the end of their first year, a quarter of all freshmen change their minds about their field of study.
So does the college major matter? I posed that question recently to my roommate at Ithaca College, who like me, majored in journalism. He had known since middle school what he wanted to do — become a television journalist. Now almost 20 years after we both graduated, David Muir is an anchor and correspondent for ABC World News.
He works with plenty of people who do not have journalism degrees. The commonality among them, he says, is that “we all majored in what we were interested in. The curiosity and the willingness to adapt are more important than what the degree is in.”
These are many of the same qualities that employers say, in survey after survey, they want in future workers. Hiring managers complain that they often find today’s college graduates lacking in interpersonal skills, problem solving, effective written and oral communication skills, the ability to work in teams, and critical and analytical thinking. Employers say that future workplaces need degree holders who can come up with novel solutions to problems and better sort through information to filter out the most critical pieces.
The economy is changing at warp speed. Rather than recommend majors of the future, here are four activities to help develop the skills necessary to succeed in the work force of tomorrow. If you focus on these activities, the majors won’t matter as much.
1. Seek Passionate Faculty Members
Finding passionate, engaged professors is critically important in the first year of college, when it is easy to remain anonymous in large lecture classes. Getting to know at least one faculty member well in that year improves the chances that you will get more from your college experience (including a degree).2. Dive Deep Into a Research Project
Nearly a third of college seniors produce some sort of capstone project, and increasingly students are producing major research projects every year. Studies have found that undergraduate research stimulates critical thinking, gives students a better understanding of what they learned from a lecture, allows them to work in situations with uncertain results, and provides a sense of accomplishment.3. Go On a Transformative Global Experience
There is growing recognition that overseas study in college helps in the global job market. Those who study abroad often see it as a life-changing experience. In one survey of alumni, it was the most significant aspect of their undergraduate years, ranking higher than college friendships and courses.4. Be Creative. Take Risks. Learn How to Fail.
Many academics believe students have lost the ability to be creative — to learn through doing, to learn through failing, to learn through just having fun. Be sure to seek out learning environments where you can be creative, try things out, and, on occasion, fail.It doesn’t matter what you focus on, as long as you “focus on it in a rigorous way,” says Richard Arum, the co-author of “Academically Adrift,” a 2011 book which found that nearly a third of students failed to improve their writing, complex reasoning, or critical-thinking skills after four years of college.
Like the credential itself, the high price of college has made the major a means to an end for students. For many, college increasingly is regarded as a long list to check off — classes to take, experiences to acquire, and a major to declare.
Gaining underlying skills and knowledge is often an afterthought and it shouldn’t be. Spend as much time planning the next four years as you did getting to this point.
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