By
The Guardian -
The California Institute for Technology has retained its place at the top of rankings of the top 100 universities in the world. See how they compare
The California Institute for Technology (Caltech) has been named the
best university in the world for the third year in a row in a league
table of the world's best institutions published by Times Higher Education (THE).
Harvard University
jumps two places to join Oxford at joint second place whilst Standford
university drops two to fourth. Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Princeton University and Cambridge retain their positions from the 2012
rankings with the University of California, Berkeley and the University
of Chicago both climbing one place to eighth and ninth place
respectively. Imperial College London has slipped to tenth place from
eighth in last year's rankings.
To read more....
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Tom Clancy, Author Who Conjured Threats to U.S., Dies at 66
By Laurence Arnold
Bloomberg News - Oct 2, 2013
Tom Clancy, whose chillingly realistic novels reflected his knowledge of the military and the changing nature of threats to the U.S. while providing Hollywood with fodder for blockbuster movies, has died. He was 66.
He died yesterday in Baltimore, according to an e-mailed statement from Penguin Group, his publisher. No cause of death was given.
Clancy’s biggest hits featured the character Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst whose smarts and bravery stand out among the lesser lights of the government around him. He rises through the ranks all the way to the Oval Office. Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck played Ryan in film versions of Clancy’s books.
Later novels were built around John Clark, a veteran of U.S. Navy special operations. Clancy also wrote a series on real-life military leaders.
Clancy’s novels that reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list include “The Hunt for Red October” (1984), “Patriot Games” (1987), “Clear and Present Danger” (1989), “The Sum of All Fears” (1991) and “The Bear and the Dragon” (2000). His publisher said his 17th novel, “Command Authority,” is due out in December.
“He was a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and was one of the most visionary storytellers of our time,” David Shanks, chief executive officer of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., said in the statement.
Prescient Vision
The company Clancy co-founded in 1996, Red Storm Entertainment Inc., makes video games including the “Ghost Recon” and “Rainbow Six” series. UbiSoft Entertainment SA, based in Montreuil, France, bought Red Storm in 2000 for $45 million.
His 1994 novel “Debt of Honor,” proved eerily prescient, culminating in a then-unthinkable breach of U.S. air defenses: a 747, under the control of a suicidal terrorist pilot, crashing into the U.S. Capitol during the president’s State of the Union address.
The book got a burst of renewed publicity after real hijackers turned airplanes into missiles on Sept. 11, 2001.
In its final report, released in 2004, the U.S. commission that studied the 9/11 attacks found that the government had suffered a “failure of imagination” in not grasping the capabilities and intentions of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terror group.
Imaginative Thinker
“We were often advised during the course of the hearings to read very imaginative writers, like Tom Clancy, and encouraged to think outside the box,” said the commission’s vice chairman, former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton.
Clancy said in an interview that he had little faith in U.S. authorities to outwit their enemies.
“I don’t see much imagination in government, except maybe looking for new ways to take money in taxes,” he said.
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was born on April 12, 1947, in Baltimore, the middle child of three, according to a 1998 profile in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. His father, Thomas, worked for the U.S. Postal Service. His mother, Catherine, went to work to help put Clancy through private Catholic high school.
He graduated from Loyola University in Baltimore, where, he said, he was president of the chess club and “had a reputation for dealing with abstract problems.”
To read more...
Bloomberg News - Oct 2, 2013
Tom Clancy, whose chillingly realistic novels reflected his knowledge of the military and the changing nature of threats to the U.S. while providing Hollywood with fodder for blockbuster movies, has died. He was 66.
He died yesterday in Baltimore, according to an e-mailed statement from Penguin Group, his publisher. No cause of death was given.
Clancy’s biggest hits featured the character Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst whose smarts and bravery stand out among the lesser lights of the government around him. He rises through the ranks all the way to the Oval Office. Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck played Ryan in film versions of Clancy’s books.
Later novels were built around John Clark, a veteran of U.S. Navy special operations. Clancy also wrote a series on real-life military leaders.
Clancy’s novels that reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list include “The Hunt for Red October” (1984), “Patriot Games” (1987), “Clear and Present Danger” (1989), “The Sum of All Fears” (1991) and “The Bear and the Dragon” (2000). His publisher said his 17th novel, “Command Authority,” is due out in December.
“He was a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and was one of the most visionary storytellers of our time,” David Shanks, chief executive officer of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., said in the statement.
Prescient Vision
The company Clancy co-founded in 1996, Red Storm Entertainment Inc., makes video games including the “Ghost Recon” and “Rainbow Six” series. UbiSoft Entertainment SA, based in Montreuil, France, bought Red Storm in 2000 for $45 million.
His 1994 novel “Debt of Honor,” proved eerily prescient, culminating in a then-unthinkable breach of U.S. air defenses: a 747, under the control of a suicidal terrorist pilot, crashing into the U.S. Capitol during the president’s State of the Union address.
The book got a burst of renewed publicity after real hijackers turned airplanes into missiles on Sept. 11, 2001.
In its final report, released in 2004, the U.S. commission that studied the 9/11 attacks found that the government had suffered a “failure of imagination” in not grasping the capabilities and intentions of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terror group.
Imaginative Thinker
“We were often advised during the course of the hearings to read very imaginative writers, like Tom Clancy, and encouraged to think outside the box,” said the commission’s vice chairman, former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton.
Clancy said in an interview that he had little faith in U.S. authorities to outwit their enemies.
“I don’t see much imagination in government, except maybe looking for new ways to take money in taxes,” he said.
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was born on April 12, 1947, in Baltimore, the middle child of three, according to a 1998 profile in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. His father, Thomas, worked for the U.S. Postal Service. His mother, Catherine, went to work to help put Clancy through private Catholic high school.
He graduated from Loyola University in Baltimore, where, he said, he was president of the chess club and “had a reputation for dealing with abstract problems.”
To read more...
Student-Loan Defaults Rise in U.S. as Borrowers Struggle
By Janet Lorin & John Hechinger
Bloomberg News - Sep 30, 2013
About one in seven borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans, showing how former students are buckling under higher-education costs in a weak economy.
The default rate, for the first three years that students are required to make payments, was 14.7 percent, up from 13.4 percent the year before, the U.S. Education Department said today. Based on a related measure, defaults are at the highest level since 1995.
The fresh data follows the announcement by Barack Obama’s administration that it would seek to restrain skyrocketing college expenses by tying federal financial aid to a new government rating of costs and educational outcomes. The rising number of defaults shows the pain of borrowers, said Rory O’Sullivan, policy and research director at Young Invincibles, a Washington nonprofit group.
“Our generation is behind in the economic recovery and not recovering as fast as we need to,” said O’Sullivan, whose group represents the interests of people ages 18 to 34. “It’s financial disaster for borrowers. Defaults can dramatically affect their credit rating and make it harder to borrow in the future.”
To read more....
Bloomberg News - Sep 30, 2013
About one in seven borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans, showing how former students are buckling under higher-education costs in a weak economy.
The default rate, for the first three years that students are required to make payments, was 14.7 percent, up from 13.4 percent the year before, the U.S. Education Department said today. Based on a related measure, defaults are at the highest level since 1995.
The fresh data follows the announcement by Barack Obama’s administration that it would seek to restrain skyrocketing college expenses by tying federal financial aid to a new government rating of costs and educational outcomes. The rising number of defaults shows the pain of borrowers, said Rory O’Sullivan, policy and research director at Young Invincibles, a Washington nonprofit group.
“Our generation is behind in the economic recovery and not recovering as fast as we need to,” said O’Sullivan, whose group represents the interests of people ages 18 to 34. “It’s financial disaster for borrowers. Defaults can dramatically affect their credit rating and make it harder to borrow in the future.”
To read more....
“This Is Not Huntington’s World”
Rousbeh Legatis interviews HARALD MÜLLER of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
- While a fine wine might get better with age, the same is not true for flawed political theories.
Celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, the much-debated theory of the “Clash of Civilisations” (CoC) prescribes a good-versus-evil logic to explain international relations and violent conflicts around the globe.
“It is wrong, but it serves basic needs,” says Harald Müller, executive director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF).
In 1993, Samuel Huntington, then a professor at Harvard University, wrote an article for Foreign Affairs which later became a book. He divided the world into eight civilisations “defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people.”
Huntington predicted that in the post Cold War era, cultural differences would be the key driving factor behind war and conflict.
In an interview with U.N. correspondent Rousbeh Legatis, Müller explains why Huntington’s theory gained so much traction despite its implausibility.
Excerpts from the interview follow.
Q: “A good way to measure the power of a theory is to look at the scale and intensity and quality of the debate it provokes. On those grounds, ‘Clash’ is one of the most powerful theoretical contributions in recent generations,” reads the introduction of the Foreign Affairs special 20th anniversary issue to Huntington’s theory. In your opinion, what determines a good political theory? And how do you assess Huntington’s success accordingly?
A: There is obviously a difference between “powerful theory” and [academically] “good theory”. A theory is “powerful” when it hits a public nerve on an issue of great saliency at the time of publication. If it is easy to grasp and simple enough to be grasped by a great number of people, and when a good selling job is done, it can gain considerable traction.
But it is not necessarily a good theory. Social Darwinism was very powerful at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th theory, but it was a scientifically fairly bad theory.
To read more...
How much longer will universities exist?
By Daniel Stacey
Daily Life - September 16, 2013
It’s a constant refrain of parents, teachers, and self-appointed guardians of Kultur everywhere – society is getting dumber.
This is a perfectly acceptable accusation, so long as those pointing fingers are willing to stomach that it’s academic institutions, not students, who are responsible for declining standards.
Last week I saw for the first time photos of what has recently been happening at my alma mater. The University of Sydney’s Fisher Library is having its stacks uprooted, and roughly half the collection will end up in storage, never to return.
To read more....
Daily Life - September 16, 2013
It’s a constant refrain of parents, teachers, and self-appointed guardians of Kultur everywhere – society is getting dumber.
This is a perfectly acceptable accusation, so long as those pointing fingers are willing to stomach that it’s academic institutions, not students, who are responsible for declining standards.
Last week I saw for the first time photos of what has recently been happening at my alma mater. The University of Sydney’s Fisher Library is having its stacks uprooted, and roughly half the collection will end up in storage, never to return.
To read more....
Birth in India’s “surrogacy capital”
Anand, India
By Mansi Thapliyal
Reuters - September 30, 2013
A smooth, modern road in the prosperous Indian state of Gujarat leads to 35-year-old Chimanlal’s small, windowless brick hut that he lives in with his wife, young son and two daughters. Earning 2500 rupees ($38) a month as a driver, Chimanial says it is not enough to feed his children. Only his son goes to school. But in a year’s time, their lives are set to change.
Some 50 kilometers (31 miles) away is the small city of Anand, known as India’s “surrogacy capital”. Chimanlai’s wife is carrying a baby for a Japanese couple in which she will be paid 450,000 rupees ($7,200), an unimaginably large amount of money for a family like theirs.
Since 2004, over 500 Indian women have traveled to Anand from neighboring villages and towns to become surrogate mothers for families from nearly 30 countries. Dr Nayana Patel and her husband run Akanksha clinic, the city’s only surrogacy facility.
To read more....
By Mansi Thapliyal
Reuters - September 30, 2013
A smooth, modern road in the prosperous Indian state of Gujarat leads to 35-year-old Chimanlal’s small, windowless brick hut that he lives in with his wife, young son and two daughters. Earning 2500 rupees ($38) a month as a driver, Chimanial says it is not enough to feed his children. Only his son goes to school. But in a year’s time, their lives are set to change.
Some 50 kilometers (31 miles) away is the small city of Anand, known as India’s “surrogacy capital”. Chimanlai’s wife is carrying a baby for a Japanese couple in which she will be paid 450,000 rupees ($7,200), an unimaginably large amount of money for a family like theirs.
Since 2004, over 500 Indian women have traveled to Anand from neighboring villages and towns to become surrogate mothers for families from nearly 30 countries. Dr Nayana Patel and her husband run Akanksha clinic, the city’s only surrogacy facility.
To read more....
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Tiny white elite dominates US political donor landscape – study
Russia Today - October 01, 2013
A tiny wealthy male elite is behind most of the biggest contributions to the 2012 election cycle in the US, a new study shows. The report comes just as the US Supreme Court considers whether it should strip a ceiling on political donations.
In a case the Supreme Court will begin hearing next Thursday, Shaun McCutcheon, a wealthy donor backed by the Republican National Committee, is challenging this aggregate limit on how much an individual may donate overall to candidates, parties and political action committees (PACs) over an election cycle.
To read more....
A tiny wealthy male elite is behind most of the biggest contributions to the 2012 election cycle in the US, a new study shows. The report comes just as the US Supreme Court considers whether it should strip a ceiling on political donations.
In a case the Supreme Court will begin hearing next Thursday, Shaun McCutcheon, a wealthy donor backed by the Republican National Committee, is challenging this aggregate limit on how much an individual may donate overall to candidates, parties and political action committees (PACs) over an election cycle.
To read more....
Monday, September 30, 2013
Cancer-Stricken Angola 3 Prisoner Herman Wallace Given Just Days to Live After 42 Years in Solitary
DemocracyNow.org - September 30, 2013
Angola prisoner Herman Wallace is dying of liver cancer after 42 years in solitary confinement. A member of the so-called Angola Three, Wallace and two others were in jail for armed robbery, then accused in 1972 of murdering a prison guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola prison. The men say they were framed because of their political activism as members one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panther Party. Wallace’s supporters say he has just days to live, but his requests for compassionate release has so far gone unanswered. We speak with Jackie Sumell, a New Orleans-based artist behind "Herman’s House," a collaboration with Wallace, which is the subject of a new documentary by the same name. "I’m not sure in the state of Louisiana if compassion is part of the vocabulary of those who are in power. I always felt that compassionate release, or asking for compassionate release, was important in terms of a multipronged effort to have Herman released," Sumell says. "But there’s been 42 years of the state continuing to deny Herman’s due process. It’s incredible. He’s the longest known serving in solitary confinement in the United States." We are also joined by Malik Rahim, one of the founders of the Louisiana chapter of the Black Panther Party and a co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, which helped bring thousands of people from all over the world to help rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Angola prisoner Herman Wallace is dying of liver cancer after 42 years in solitary confinement. A member of the so-called Angola Three, Wallace and two others were in jail for armed robbery, then accused in 1972 of murdering a prison guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola prison. The men say they were framed because of their political activism as members one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panther Party. Wallace’s supporters say he has just days to live, but his requests for compassionate release has so far gone unanswered. We speak with Jackie Sumell, a New Orleans-based artist behind "Herman’s House," a collaboration with Wallace, which is the subject of a new documentary by the same name. "I’m not sure in the state of Louisiana if compassion is part of the vocabulary of those who are in power. I always felt that compassionate release, or asking for compassionate release, was important in terms of a multipronged effort to have Herman released," Sumell says. "But there’s been 42 years of the state continuing to deny Herman’s due process. It’s incredible. He’s the longest known serving in solitary confinement in the United States." We are also joined by Malik Rahim, one of the founders of the Louisiana chapter of the Black Panther Party and a co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, which helped bring thousands of people from all over the world to help rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re on the road in New Orleans, Louisiana. We’re broadcasting from New Orleans Public Television station WLAE.
We turn now to look at the case of a man who’s spent more than 42 years
in solitary confinement in Louisiana, believed to be one of the
longest-serving prisoners who served on death row for that amount of
time. He is dying now of liver cancer. His supporters are pleading for
his compassionate release.To read and watch more....
Obedience to Corporate-State Authority Makes Consumer Society Increasingly Dangerous
By Yosef Brody
Truthout | Op-Ed Sunday, 29 September 2013
Fifty years ago this month, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram published a groundbreaking article describing a unique human behavior experiment. The study and its many variations, while ethically controversial, gave us new insight into human tendencies to obey authority, surprising the experts and everyone else on just how susceptible we are to doing the bidding of others. The original experiment revealed that a majority of participants would dutifully administer increasingly severe electric shocks to strangers - up to and including potentially lethal doses - because an authority told them that pulling the levers was necessary and required (the "shocks," subjects found out later, were fake). People who obeyed all the way to the end did so even as they experienced tremendous moral conflict. Despite their distress, they never questioned the basic premise of the situation that was fed to them: the institution needed their compliance for the betterment of the common good.
To read more....
Truthout | Op-Ed Sunday, 29 September 2013
Fifty years ago this month, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram published a groundbreaking article describing a unique human behavior experiment. The study and its many variations, while ethically controversial, gave us new insight into human tendencies to obey authority, surprising the experts and everyone else on just how susceptible we are to doing the bidding of others. The original experiment revealed that a majority of participants would dutifully administer increasingly severe electric shocks to strangers - up to and including potentially lethal doses - because an authority told them that pulling the levers was necessary and required (the "shocks," subjects found out later, were fake). People who obeyed all the way to the end did so even as they experienced tremendous moral conflict. Despite their distress, they never questioned the basic premise of the situation that was fed to them: the institution needed their compliance for the betterment of the common good.
To read more....
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media
Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'
By Lisa O'Carroll
The Guardian - Friday 27 September 2013
Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.
To read more.....
By Lisa O'Carroll
The Guardian - Friday 27 September 2013
Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.
To read more.....
Morales: Obama can invade any country for US energy needs
Russia Today - September 27, 2013
In his dramatic speech in New York, Bolivian President Evo Morales called for the UN to be moved out of the US and for Barack Obama to be tried for crimes against humanity. Speaking to RT, Morales explained his controversial proposals.
In his most controversial demand, Morales said that Obama should face an international trial with human rights watchdogs among the judges. The Bolivian president accused his US counterpart of instigating conflicts in the Middle East to make the region more volatile and to increase the US’s grip on the natural resources it abounds in. He gave Libya as an example of a country where “they arranged for the president to be killed, and they usurped Libya’s oil.”
“Now they are funding the rebels that fight against presidents who don’t support capitalism or imperialism,” Morales told Eva Golinger of RT’s Spanish sister channel, Actualidad. “And where a coup d’état is impossible, they seek to divide the people in order to weaken the nation – a provocation designed to trigger an intervention by peacekeeping forces, NATO, the UN Security Council. But the intervention itself is meant to get hold of oil resources and gain geopolitical control, rather than enforce respect for human rights.”
The US also operates in the same imperialist way outside the Middle East, Morales argued. At the General Assembly Obama said that the US “is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure these core interests” in the Middle East. Among the core interests, he mentioned “the free flow of energy from the region to the world.” Morales said that Obama’s statement should make any country possessing natural resources worried.
To read more....
In his dramatic speech in New York, Bolivian President Evo Morales called for the UN to be moved out of the US and for Barack Obama to be tried for crimes against humanity. Speaking to RT, Morales explained his controversial proposals.
In his most controversial demand, Morales said that Obama should face an international trial with human rights watchdogs among the judges. The Bolivian president accused his US counterpart of instigating conflicts in the Middle East to make the region more volatile and to increase the US’s grip on the natural resources it abounds in. He gave Libya as an example of a country where “they arranged for the president to be killed, and they usurped Libya’s oil.”
“Now they are funding the rebels that fight against presidents who don’t support capitalism or imperialism,” Morales told Eva Golinger of RT’s Spanish sister channel, Actualidad. “And where a coup d’état is impossible, they seek to divide the people in order to weaken the nation – a provocation designed to trigger an intervention by peacekeeping forces, NATO, the UN Security Council. But the intervention itself is meant to get hold of oil resources and gain geopolitical control, rather than enforce respect for human rights.”
The US also operates in the same imperialist way outside the Middle East, Morales argued. At the General Assembly Obama said that the US “is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure these core interests” in the Middle East. Among the core interests, he mentioned “the free flow of energy from the region to the world.” Morales said that Obama’s statement should make any country possessing natural resources worried.
To read more....
The secret history of democratic thought in the Middle East
Are constitutional ideals alien to the region? Not at all.
By Thanassis Cambanis
Boston Globe | August 18, 2013
Is democracy possible in the Middle East? When observers worry about the future of the region, it’s in part because of the dispiriting political narrative that has held sway for much of the last half century.
The conventional wisdom is that secular liberalism has been all but wiped out as a political idea in the Middle East. The strains of the 20th century—Western colonial interference, wars with Israel, windfall oil profits, impoverished populations—long ago extinguished any meaningful tradition of openness in its young nations. Totalitarian ideas won the day, whether in the form of repressive Islamic rule, capricious secular dictatorships, or hereditary oligarchs. As a result, the recent flowerings of democracy are planted in such thin soil they may be hopeless.
This understanding shapes policy not only in the West, but in the Middle East itself. The American government approaches “democracy promotion” in the Middle East as if it’s introducing some exotic foreign species. Reformists in the Arab world often repeat the canard that politicized Islam is incompatible with democracy to justify savage repression of religious activists. And even after the revolts that began in 2010, a majority of the power brokers in the wider Middle East govern as if popular forces were a nuisance to be placated rather than the source of sovereignty.
To read more.....
By Thanassis Cambanis
Boston Globe | August 18, 2013
Is democracy possible in the Middle East? When observers worry about the future of the region, it’s in part because of the dispiriting political narrative that has held sway for much of the last half century.
The conventional wisdom is that secular liberalism has been all but wiped out as a political idea in the Middle East. The strains of the 20th century—Western colonial interference, wars with Israel, windfall oil profits, impoverished populations—long ago extinguished any meaningful tradition of openness in its young nations. Totalitarian ideas won the day, whether in the form of repressive Islamic rule, capricious secular dictatorships, or hereditary oligarchs. As a result, the recent flowerings of democracy are planted in such thin soil they may be hopeless.
This understanding shapes policy not only in the West, but in the Middle East itself. The American government approaches “democracy promotion” in the Middle East as if it’s introducing some exotic foreign species. Reformists in the Arab world often repeat the canard that politicized Islam is incompatible with democracy to justify savage repression of religious activists. And even after the revolts that began in 2010, a majority of the power brokers in the wider Middle East govern as if popular forces were a nuisance to be placated rather than the source of sovereignty.
To read more.....
Pew Study Shows Women Leading Breadwinners in 40 Percent of Households
by CNBC May 29, 2013
The phenomenon of women bringing home the bacon is nothing new. But a new study shows that women are now the leading – or only -- breadwinners in 40 percent of American households.
The phenomenon of women bringing home the bacon is nothing new. But a new study shows that women are now the leading – or only -- breadwinners in 40 percent of American households.
Women
earn more than men in almost a quarter of U.S. households, a huge leap
from 50 years ago, when only a handful of women brought home more
income, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research
Center.
Women
are now the leading or solo breadwinners in 40 percent of households,
compared with just 11 percent in 1960, according to Census Bureau data
analyzed by Pew.
To read more.....
To read more.....
Here are the top 10 American corporations profiting from Egypt's military
The US government gives Egypt $1.3 billion a year. Egypt then uses that money to buy weapons from US corporations.
By Kyle Kim
Global Post - August 16, 2013
The irony is thick: Obama calls on Egypt’s interim government to stop its bloody crackdown on protesters, but continues to give it $1.3 billion a year in military aid.
For decades, Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of US foreign military aid, receiving everything from F-16s to teargas grenades.
So who are the companies reaping the benefits?
The list below were the 10 biggest US Defense contracts involving direct military aid to Egypt from 2009 to 2011, according to The Institute for Southern Studies.
See the table at the bottom of the page for full details of the contracts.
1. Lockheed Martin
Amount: $259 million
To read more.....
By Kyle Kim
Global Post - August 16, 2013
The irony is thick: Obama calls on Egypt’s interim government to stop its bloody crackdown on protesters, but continues to give it $1.3 billion a year in military aid.
For decades, Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of US foreign military aid, receiving everything from F-16s to teargas grenades.
So who are the companies reaping the benefits?
The list below were the 10 biggest US Defense contracts involving direct military aid to Egypt from 2009 to 2011, according to The Institute for Southern Studies.
See the table at the bottom of the page for full details of the contracts.
1. Lockheed Martin
Amount: $259 million
To read more.....
A Point of View: Democracy and Islamic law
Should a nation be defined by language and territory, by ruling party or by faith, asks Roger Scruton.
To understand what is happening in the Middle East today we
must look back to the end of World War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire
had been destroyed, and from the ruins emerged a collection of nation
states. These nation states - including Austria, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia - were not arbitrary creations. Their boundaries reflected long-standing divisions of language, religion, culture and ethnicity. And although the whole arrangement collapsed within two decades, this was in part because of the rise of Nazism and communism, both ideologies of conquest.
Today we take the nation states of central Europe for granted. They are settled political entities, each with a government elected by the citizens who live on its soil.
When the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, so too did the Ottoman Empire, whose territories embraced the whole of the Middle East and North Africa.
To read more....
Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you By Lynn Parramore
Reuters - August 29, 2013
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
To read more....
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
To read more....
America’s Jobless Generation By Jeff Madrick
The New York Review of Books - September 3, 2013
In his speech commemorating the Martin Luther King March on Washington last week, President Obama got it partly right. It’s not only about civil rights. It’s also, crucially, about jobs. Of the marchers back in 1963, Obama said, “They were there seeking jobs as well as justice—not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal?”
The need for gainful work is desperately important now, with overall unemployment, even after recent improvements, still stubbornly high, and blacks, as has long been the case, around twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. Indeed, Obama’s speech heralded the arrival of a bleak Labor Day, at a time when so many young Americans cannot find work.
But then Obama got it wrong. “The twin forces of technology and global competition,” he said, “have subtracted those jobs that once provided a foothold into the middle class, reduced the bargaining power of American workers.” This is the centrist economist in Obama talking, who buys into current economic orthodoxy: technological advances in many industries, so the explanation goes, have in many cases replaced a human labor force with an automated one; and thanks to global markets, what human labor is needed is moving to countries where wages are low.
What about government policy? Many aspects of our current employment crisis have less to do with technology or globalization than with the administration’s failure to adopt policies to strengthen the labor force, and more precisely, those parts of the labor force that are most crucial to the nation’s long-term social and economic health.
To read more.....
In his speech commemorating the Martin Luther King March on Washington last week, President Obama got it partly right. It’s not only about civil rights. It’s also, crucially, about jobs. Of the marchers back in 1963, Obama said, “They were there seeking jobs as well as justice—not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal?”
The need for gainful work is desperately important now, with overall unemployment, even after recent improvements, still stubbornly high, and blacks, as has long been the case, around twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. Indeed, Obama’s speech heralded the arrival of a bleak Labor Day, at a time when so many young Americans cannot find work.
But then Obama got it wrong. “The twin forces of technology and global competition,” he said, “have subtracted those jobs that once provided a foothold into the middle class, reduced the bargaining power of American workers.” This is the centrist economist in Obama talking, who buys into current economic orthodoxy: technological advances in many industries, so the explanation goes, have in many cases replaced a human labor force with an automated one; and thanks to global markets, what human labor is needed is moving to countries where wages are low.
What about government policy? Many aspects of our current employment crisis have less to do with technology or globalization than with the administration’s failure to adopt policies to strengthen the labor force, and more precisely, those parts of the labor force that are most crucial to the nation’s long-term social and economic health.
To read more.....
US Military Contractors Celebrate Record High Profits and Stock Prices
The business of war is more profitable than ever.
The Real News - September 5, 13
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore. When Congress passed the budget cuts in 2011 known as the sequester, the CEOs of defense companies repeatedly warned of widespread job and wage losses resulting from the proposed cuts. But six months after the sequester officially kicked in, the seven major military contractors are celebrating record profits, and their stocks are near all-time highs. In addition, the future looks just as bright as their backlog of orders is nearly as large as the total $37 billion in defense cuts. Now joining us to discuss this is Dina Rasor. She's an investigator, journalist, author of several books. She writes the Solutions: Making Government Work column for truth out, but this year is Truthout's acting director executive director. Rasor been fighting waste while working for transparency and accountability in government for three decades.
Thank you so much for joining us. DINA RASOR, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRUTHOUT: Glad to be here. NOOR: So, Dina, Congress sold the sequester to the American people as a shared sacrifice. Where is the burden of the sacrifice lain right now?
To read more....
The Real News - September 5, 13
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore. When Congress passed the budget cuts in 2011 known as the sequester, the CEOs of defense companies repeatedly warned of widespread job and wage losses resulting from the proposed cuts. But six months after the sequester officially kicked in, the seven major military contractors are celebrating record profits, and their stocks are near all-time highs. In addition, the future looks just as bright as their backlog of orders is nearly as large as the total $37 billion in defense cuts. Now joining us to discuss this is Dina Rasor. She's an investigator, journalist, author of several books. She writes the Solutions: Making Government Work column for truth out, but this year is Truthout's acting director executive director. Rasor been fighting waste while working for transparency and accountability in government for three decades.
Thank you so much for joining us. DINA RASOR, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRUTHOUT: Glad to be here. NOOR: So, Dina, Congress sold the sequester to the American people as a shared sacrifice. Where is the burden of the sacrifice lain right now?
To read more....
Is the US a force for good in the world?
Mehdi Hasan goes head to head with Thomas Friedman on the morality of America's global role.
Al-Jazeera - 15 Jun 2013
The US appears to have taken a back seat role in international relations. Is the US in decline? Or is it just taking stock as it accommodates to the new emerging world order?
In this episode of Head to Head at the Oxford Union, Mehdi Hasan challenges one of the world’s most influential columnists and authors, Thomas L Friedman.
Advisor to presidents and kings, Tom Friedman of the New York Times has won the Pulitzer Prize not once or twice, but three times.
He is the best-selling author, among many others, of The World is Flat and he argues in his latest book, That Used to Be US, that the US must rebuild itself to remain a global power.
Critics say American self-interest has trumped democracy and human rights time and again, and that Obama’s America is no different. So is the US foreign policy counter-productive? Or is America a force for good in the world?
The US “is not an NGO”, admits Friedman, explaining that America “is a country like any country with its interests, it pursues them, and sometimes pursues them very narrowly.”
To read more....
Al-Jazeera - 15 Jun 2013
The US appears to have taken a back seat role in international relations. Is the US in decline? Or is it just taking stock as it accommodates to the new emerging world order?
In this episode of Head to Head at the Oxford Union, Mehdi Hasan challenges one of the world’s most influential columnists and authors, Thomas L Friedman.
He is the best-selling author, among many others, of The World is Flat and he argues in his latest book, That Used to Be US, that the US must rebuild itself to remain a global power.
Critics say American self-interest has trumped democracy and human rights time and again, and that Obama’s America is no different. So is the US foreign policy counter-productive? Or is America a force for good in the world?
The US “is not an NGO”, admits Friedman, explaining that America “is a country like any country with its interests, it pursues them, and sometimes pursues them very narrowly.”
To read more....
How Putin Turned Moscow Back Into a Middle East Powerhouse
It took a mix of religion, guile, and a stumbling Obama to pull it off.
BY DAVID KENNER
Foreign Policy | SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Arab Spring, from the viewpoint of the Kremlin, has been one prolonged headache. Russia has sustained a battering across the Middle East: It was unable to stop the 2011 NATO intervention that toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi, and it has been excoriated by its former friends in the Arab world for its continuing military support of President Bashar al-Assad, even after more than 120,000 people have lost their lives in Syria.
But today, President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov can celebrate the end of their best week in the Middle East in the past two and a half years. Rather than being dismissed as irrelevant or supporters of the region's most brutal dictators, they're being described with a different sobriquet -- statesmen.
The proximate reasons for this change, of course, lie with a Russian-brokered proposal that would see Assad relinquish his chemical weapons. But Moscow has been quietly building support from Cairo to Beirut to Damascus -- putting Putin in a position to pounce.
To read more....
BY DAVID KENNER
Foreign Policy | SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Arab Spring, from the viewpoint of the Kremlin, has been one prolonged headache. Russia has sustained a battering across the Middle East: It was unable to stop the 2011 NATO intervention that toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi, and it has been excoriated by its former friends in the Arab world for its continuing military support of President Bashar al-Assad, even after more than 120,000 people have lost their lives in Syria.
But today, President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov can celebrate the end of their best week in the Middle East in the past two and a half years. Rather than being dismissed as irrelevant or supporters of the region's most brutal dictators, they're being described with a different sobriquet -- statesmen.
The proximate reasons for this change, of course, lie with a Russian-brokered proposal that would see Assad relinquish his chemical weapons. But Moscow has been quietly building support from Cairo to Beirut to Damascus -- putting Putin in a position to pounce.
To read more....
The Origins of Our Police State
By Chris Hedges
TruthDig | Report | Monday, 16 September 2013
Elizabeth, New Jersey - JaQuan LaPierre, 22, was riding a bicycle down a sidewalk Sept. 5 when he noticed a squad car pulling up beside him. It was 8:30 on a hot Thursday night at the intersection of Bond Street and Jackson Avenue here in Elizabeth, N.J. LaPierre had 10 glass vials of crack cocaine—probably what the cops were hoping to find—and he hastily swallowed them. He halted and faced the two officers who emerged from the cruiser.
“We are tired of you niggers,” he remembers one of the officers saying. “We’re tired of all this shooting and robberies and violence. And we are going to make you an example.”
He was thrown spread-eagle onto the patrol car.
“What I bein’ arrested for?” LaPierre asked.
A small crowd gathered.
“Why you harassin’ him?” someone asked the cops. “He ain’t resisting. Why you doin’ this?”
To read more....
TruthDig | Report | Monday, 16 September 2013
Elizabeth, New Jersey - JaQuan LaPierre, 22, was riding a bicycle down a sidewalk Sept. 5 when he noticed a squad car pulling up beside him. It was 8:30 on a hot Thursday night at the intersection of Bond Street and Jackson Avenue here in Elizabeth, N.J. LaPierre had 10 glass vials of crack cocaine—probably what the cops were hoping to find—and he hastily swallowed them. He halted and faced the two officers who emerged from the cruiser.
“We are tired of you niggers,” he remembers one of the officers saying. “We’re tired of all this shooting and robberies and violence. And we are going to make you an example.”
He was thrown spread-eagle onto the patrol car.
“What I bein’ arrested for?” LaPierre asked.
A small crowd gathered.
“Why you harassin’ him?” someone asked the cops. “He ain’t resisting. Why you doin’ this?”
To read more....
Native American Tribes Seek Help from UN, World Court
By Bethania Palma Markus,
Truthout | News - Tuesday, 10 September 2013
After setting out from their homes in Manitoba and upstate New York, respectively, teams from the Dakota and Onondaga nations in full traditional dress marched through Lower Manhattan on their way to the United Nations building on August 9, 2013. The Dakota had traversed thousands of miles and an international border on a horseback "Unity Ride" to plead with the international governing body for help.
The march signified what the Dakota and Onondaga consider a state of emergency: desecration of their way of life, ongoing environmental destruction and their home governments' inability or unwillingness to do anything about it.
"We're doing this for all mankind, not just our own people," said Dakota Chief Gus High Eagle. "In the next 10 years, what's going to happen? Are we going to have any clean water?"
To read more.....
Truthout | News - Tuesday, 10 September 2013
After setting out from their homes in Manitoba and upstate New York, respectively, teams from the Dakota and Onondaga nations in full traditional dress marched through Lower Manhattan on their way to the United Nations building on August 9, 2013. The Dakota had traversed thousands of miles and an international border on a horseback "Unity Ride" to plead with the international governing body for help.
The march signified what the Dakota and Onondaga consider a state of emergency: desecration of their way of life, ongoing environmental destruction and their home governments' inability or unwillingness to do anything about it.
"We're doing this for all mankind, not just our own people," said Dakota Chief Gus High Eagle. "In the next 10 years, what's going to happen? Are we going to have any clean water?"
To read more.....
Muslim beauty pageant challenges Miss World contest
Muslim women from six countries defy western beauty ideals, emphasize spirituality
Al-Jazeera - September 18, 2013
Muslim women from six countries wore headscarves and elaborately embroidered dresses as they took to the stage Wednesday for the finale of an Islamic beauty pageant in Jakarta, Indonesia, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger.
Twenty contestants showed off the latest Islamic fashion trends in the Muslimah World pageant and will also take part in other activities, such as reciting the Koran.
"We're just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful," said Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola, a 21-year-old contestant from Nigeria told Agence France Presse. "We are free and the hijab is our pride." On Wednesday, Ajibola was crowned the winner of the pageant.
Organizers of the event said they wanted to show Muslim women there is an alternative to the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run Miss World pageant. They also stress that opposition to the pageant can be expressed non-violently.
Organizer Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years ago after losing her job as TV news anchor for refusing to remove her headscarf, bills the contest as "Islam's answer to Miss World."
To read more....
Al-Jazeera - September 18, 2013
Muslim women from six countries wore headscarves and elaborately embroidered dresses as they took to the stage Wednesday for the finale of an Islamic beauty pageant in Jakarta, Indonesia, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger.
Twenty contestants showed off the latest Islamic fashion trends in the Muslimah World pageant and will also take part in other activities, such as reciting the Koran.
"We're just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful," said Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola, a 21-year-old contestant from Nigeria told Agence France Presse. "We are free and the hijab is our pride." On Wednesday, Ajibola was crowned the winner of the pageant.
Organizers of the event said they wanted to show Muslim women there is an alternative to the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run Miss World pageant. They also stress that opposition to the pageant can be expressed non-violently.
Organizer Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years ago after losing her job as TV news anchor for refusing to remove her headscarf, bills the contest as "Islam's answer to Miss World."
To read more....
Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan
BBC - September 20, 2013
Many believe that this election could change the region's political landscape, partly because for the first time since 1992 the main contenders are taking part individually in the race.
This raises the question of whether the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) can retain their control over the Kurdistan Region for a third successive decade.
While the five main regional parties are expected to dominate the 111-seat parliament, it is hard to say which will come out on top.
To read more....
Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region goes to the polls on Saturday to elect a new parliament.
This is the fourth parliamentary polls since Iraqi Kurds
established the region in Irbil, Sulaimaniya and Dahuk provinces in
1991.Many believe that this election could change the region's political landscape, partly because for the first time since 1992 the main contenders are taking part individually in the race.
This raises the question of whether the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) can retain their control over the Kurdistan Region for a third successive decade.
While the five main regional parties are expected to dominate the 111-seat parliament, it is hard to say which will come out on top.
To read more....
Speedy Trains Transform China
By KEITH BRADSHER
The New York Times - September 23, 2013CHANGSHA, China — The cavernous rail station here for China’s new high-speed trains was nearly deserted when it opened less than four years ago.
Not anymore. Practically every train is sold out, although they leave
for cities all over the country every several minutes. Long lines snake
back from ticket windows under the 50-foot ceiling of white, gently
undulating steel that floats cloudlike over the departure hall. An
ambitious construction program will soon nearly double the size of the
16-platform station.
Just five years after China’s high-speed rail system opened, it is
carrying nearly twice as many passengers each month as the country’s
domestic airline industry. With traffic growing 28 percent a year for
the last several years, China’s high-speed rail network will handle more
passengers by early next year than the 54 million people a month who
board domestic flights in the United States.
From Reagan to Obama: Secrecy and Covert Operations in the Fight against “Terrorism”
Ronald Reagan was the first American president to put “terrorism” at the heart of his foreign policy discourse. During his first term, Reagan did so mostly in reference to conflicts in Central America. In El Salvador, his administration presented US military aid as necessary to help the Salvadoran armed forces fight the “terrorist threat” posed by the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional, an umbrella group of leftist guerilla organizations). In neighboring Nicaragua, Reagan repeatedly accused the Sandinistas of supporting the “terrorist” FMLN and belonging to a Moscow-led “international terrorist network” bent on exporting “subversion” and “terrorism” throughout the region.
In Nicaragua, US policy followed the covert route, namely the provision of military aid to various anti-Sandinista groups collectively known as the Contras. Revelations in the press rapidly pulled Reagan’s “secret war” from the shadows and led many in Congress to question the program’s morality and legality. The Executive branch systematically met such inquiries with claims to secrecy.
These debates highlight the difficulties involved in defining “terrorism” not in the abstract, but as applied to a specific conflict, especially one about which, as was the case with Nicaragua, Democrats and Republicans were deeply divided. They also bear striking similarities to contemporary debates on the Obama administration’s policies of “targeted killings” or the provision of aid to the Syrian rebels. These debates were for the most never covered in the US press at the time. Consequently, this article is based on a study of the Congressional Record itself (A much more comprehensive version of this research can be found in my dissertation). This “hidden history” of Congressional debates over US covert policies in the first “war on terrorism” suggests historical parallels that may shed light on the present situation.
China reportedly just bought 5% of Ukraine (but the Ukrainian partner denies it)
By Lily Kuo
Quartz - September 23, 2013
Ukraine’s KSG Agro released a statement today, Sept. 24, denying reports that it had reached an agreement to sell 3 million hectares to a Chinese firm. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post had reported a deal between KSG Agro and China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, (XPCC) in which China would be able to farm the area for up to 50 years. The paper cited a statement from XPCC as the source of its report. Quartz and other media also reported on the story.
To read more.....
Quartz - September 23, 2013
Ukraine’s KSG Agro released a statement today, Sept. 24, denying reports that it had reached an agreement to sell 3 million hectares to a Chinese firm. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post had reported a deal between KSG Agro and China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, (XPCC) in which China would be able to farm the area for up to 50 years. The paper cited a statement from XPCC as the source of its report. Quartz and other media also reported on the story.
+
In
its statement, the Warsaw-listed agricultural firm said that it is only
working with its Chinese partners on a project to install
drip-irrigation systems over an area of 3,000 hectares in Ukraine next
year. “KSG Agro does not intend or have any right to sell land to
foreigners, including the Chinese,” the statement posted on their
website said. China’s XPCC could not be immediately reached for comment.
+
Original (September 23): China has inked a deal to farm three million hectares (paywall),
or about 11, 583 square miles of Ukrainian land over the span of half a
century—which means the eastern European country will give up about 5%
of its total land, or 9% of its arable farmland to feed China’s
burgeoning population.
To read more.....
China to audit military officials in move to fight graft - Xinhua
BEIJING | Tue Sep 24, 2013
(Reuters) - Chinese military officials will have to undergo an audit before they can retire or be promoted, state media reported on Tuesday, in the latest measure in the leadership's campaign against corruption.
The audit will encompass officials' "real estate property, their use of power, official cars and service personnel", the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a guideline issued by the Central Military Commission.
The guideline aims to improve the "work style" of military officials and fight against graft, the report said.
To read more....
(Reuters) - Chinese military officials will have to undergo an audit before they can retire or be promoted, state media reported on Tuesday, in the latest measure in the leadership's campaign against corruption.
The audit will encompass officials' "real estate property, their use of power, official cars and service personnel", the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a guideline issued by the Central Military Commission.
The guideline aims to improve the "work style" of military officials and fight against graft, the report said.
To read more....
India’s Women: The Mixed Truth By Amartya Sen
The New York Review of Books - October 10, 2013
“I am not a boy, I am a girl,” wrote a twenty-one-year-old woman in Delhi, called Jyoti, who was studying at a medical college to be a physiotherapist. This was in a text message sent in December 2010 to a twenty-six-year-old man who worked in information technology and who had initially taken Jyoti to be a man. They met, and what began as a casual communication became a close friendship.
Two years later, on December 16, 2012, after they had seen a film, The Life of Pi, Jyoti was gang-raped with extreme brutality, and the man was severely beaten as he tried to protect her. They had been tricked into boarding a bus that seemed to be going their way and that had offered them a ride. It was a closed bus with darkened windows in which five determined rapists were waiting for their prey, with their impatience heightened, it is alleged, by the drugs they had taken. The battered bodies of the abused pair were dropped off on a lonely street, and by the time Jyoti received medical attention, she was on her way to death from the injuries, despite specialized medical care in Delhi, and later in Singapore.
To read more.....
“I am not a boy, I am a girl,” wrote a twenty-one-year-old woman in Delhi, called Jyoti, who was studying at a medical college to be a physiotherapist. This was in a text message sent in December 2010 to a twenty-six-year-old man who worked in information technology and who had initially taken Jyoti to be a man. They met, and what began as a casual communication became a close friendship.
Two years later, on December 16, 2012, after they had seen a film, The Life of Pi, Jyoti was gang-raped with extreme brutality, and the man was severely beaten as he tried to protect her. They had been tricked into boarding a bus that seemed to be going their way and that had offered them a ride. It was a closed bus with darkened windows in which five determined rapists were waiting for their prey, with their impatience heightened, it is alleged, by the drugs they had taken. The battered bodies of the abused pair were dropped off on a lonely street, and by the time Jyoti received medical attention, she was on her way to death from the injuries, despite specialized medical care in Delhi, and later in Singapore.
To read more.....
China's Next Great Challenge: Scarcity
China will soon surpass the United States as the world's largest economy, but this is the least interesting thing about it.
Damien Ma and William Adams
The Atlantic - Sep 24 2013
The following is excerpted from the book In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade.
One Beijing morning in early November 2012, seven men in dark suits strode onto the stage of the Great Hall of the People. China’s newly elected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping stood at the center of the ensemble, flanked on each side by three members of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee. It was the outside world’s first chance to take stock of the committee that will run China for the next decade—one that will mark many milestones. Under Xi’s watch, which is scheduled to last until 2022, China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy. That moment when it arrives will likely lead many in the West to pontificate about the reshuffling of the global pecking order. Inevitably, they will breathlessly proclaim that having held the world’s “gold medal” for largest GDP since around the turn of the 20th century, the United States, will have to yield to China, the new “number one.”
That Chinese economic growth has been a success is beyond dispute. Since 2005, China has sprinted past Germany and Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. By the end of 2012, with a GDP preliminarily estimated at $8.3 trillion, the gap between China and number-three Japan in terms of economic output is as large as the entire French economy. Little wonder that “an American 20th century yielding to a Chinese 21st century” has become a popular refrain, as a flurry of commentators and authors argue that the world should prepare for the possibility that it will once again be centered on the Middle Kingdom.
To read more....
Damien Ma and William Adams
The Atlantic - Sep 24 2013
The following is excerpted from the book In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade.
One Beijing morning in early November 2012, seven men in dark suits strode onto the stage of the Great Hall of the People. China’s newly elected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping stood at the center of the ensemble, flanked on each side by three members of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee. It was the outside world’s first chance to take stock of the committee that will run China for the next decade—one that will mark many milestones. Under Xi’s watch, which is scheduled to last until 2022, China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy. That moment when it arrives will likely lead many in the West to pontificate about the reshuffling of the global pecking order. Inevitably, they will breathlessly proclaim that having held the world’s “gold medal” for largest GDP since around the turn of the 20th century, the United States, will have to yield to China, the new “number one.”
That Chinese economic growth has been a success is beyond dispute. Since 2005, China has sprinted past Germany and Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. By the end of 2012, with a GDP preliminarily estimated at $8.3 trillion, the gap between China and number-three Japan in terms of economic output is as large as the entire French economy. Little wonder that “an American 20th century yielding to a Chinese 21st century” has become a popular refrain, as a flurry of commentators and authors argue that the world should prepare for the possibility that it will once again be centered on the Middle Kingdom.
To read more....
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Emerging Markets Are Stuck on Fed’s Elevator Ride
By Jim O’Neill
Bloomberg News - July 10, 2013
Back in the 1960s, a French finance minister called the U.S.’s ability to borrow in its own currency -- thanks to the dollar’s pre-eminence and reserve-currency status -- an “exorbitant privilege.” It’s an advantage that the rest of the world has to pay for, one way or another. This has lately given many emerging-market governments cause for complaint.
If they had the will, one or two of them could do something about it. Maybe it’s time they did.
The issue has been highlighted in recent weeks as the Federal Reserve (FDTR) unsettled global markets by signaling its intent to start tightening monetary policy -- at least, that’s what investors thought it said. There was a sell-off in global fixed-income markets, and many emerging economies saw the value of their bonds, equities and currencies drop.
Not long ago, emerging-market governments complained about the Fed’s stimulus policy. They pointed to destabilizing inflows of hot money and called it a “currency war,” an attempt to export unemployment and price emerging-economy exports out of the U.S. market. Now they’re alarmed because the policy is ending. Such is life on the receiving end of the exorbitant privilege.
New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley, a former colleague of mine at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., once warned me, “Be careful what you wish for.” The context wasn’t quite the same -- we were discussing the dangers of shrinking the U.S. current-account deficit too quickly while global demand was still weak -- but it’s still good advice.
To read more.....
Bloomberg News - July 10, 2013
Back in the 1960s, a French finance minister called the U.S.’s ability to borrow in its own currency -- thanks to the dollar’s pre-eminence and reserve-currency status -- an “exorbitant privilege.” It’s an advantage that the rest of the world has to pay for, one way or another. This has lately given many emerging-market governments cause for complaint.
If they had the will, one or two of them could do something about it. Maybe it’s time they did.
The issue has been highlighted in recent weeks as the Federal Reserve (FDTR) unsettled global markets by signaling its intent to start tightening monetary policy -- at least, that’s what investors thought it said. There was a sell-off in global fixed-income markets, and many emerging economies saw the value of their bonds, equities and currencies drop.
Not long ago, emerging-market governments complained about the Fed’s stimulus policy. They pointed to destabilizing inflows of hot money and called it a “currency war,” an attempt to export unemployment and price emerging-economy exports out of the U.S. market. Now they’re alarmed because the policy is ending. Such is life on the receiving end of the exorbitant privilege.
New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley, a former colleague of mine at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., once warned me, “Be careful what you wish for.” The context wasn’t quite the same -- we were discussing the dangers of shrinking the U.S. current-account deficit too quickly while global demand was still weak -- but it’s still good advice.
To read more.....
China’s great economic leap forward hits the wall
This was supposed to be the Asian century, but the Eastern boom is dying of
exhaustion
So here’s how it looks. Years of unsustainable, credit-fuelled growth are
brought to a halt by a crushing financial crisis which exposes deep
structural flaws at the heart of the economy. Rarely has the assumption of
ever-rising living standards looked so vulnerable, with younger generations
forced to pay not just for the crippling legacy of debt their parents leave
behind, but for the mounting costs of an ageing population and the
consequences of decades-long environmental degradation. Economic decline,
austerity and inter-generational recrimination seem to beckon as populations
adjust to the true mediocrity of their circumstances.
I’m referring to the tired old “developed” economies of the West, right?
Actually, no: it’s China where these observations seem more appropriate, and
perhaps other emerging market economies said to be about to eclipse the
hegemony of the old world, with its lazy ways and sense of entitlement.
Western “declinism” of the sort described by Dambisa Moyo in her book How the
West was Lost, and more recently by Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC,
in When the Money Runs Out, is still the narrative of our times. But
sometimes a sense of perspective is demanded; compared with the challenges
faced by China and the rest of the developing world, the relatively minor
adjustment to expectations that needs to be made in the West is a stroll in
the park.
64,019 Searches: A Dark Journey Into My Google History
Tom Gara
The Wall Street Journal - July 31, 2013
Imagine there’s a list somewhere that contains every single webpage you have visited in the last five years. It also has everything you have ever searched for, every address you looked up on GoogleGOOG -1.08% Maps, every email you sent, every chat message, every YouTube video you watched. Each entry is time-stamped, so it’s clear exactly, down to the minute, when all of this was done.
Now imagine that list is all searchable. And imagine it’s on a clean, easy-to-use website. With all that imagined, can you think of a way a hacker, with access to this, could use it against you?
And once you’ve imagined all that, go over to google.com/dashboard, and see it all become reality.
For a piece complementing today’s story on Google and privacy by the WSJ’s Amir Efrati, I took a deep dive into Google Dashboard, a kind of Grand Central Terminus for all the information the company has stored on you. It’s a truly amazing amount, especially if, like me, you have been a heavy Gmail user since its launch in 2004. As long as you are logged into Gmail, or any other Google account, the company isn’t just keeping track of how you use its own service — it’s noting every site you visit on the web.
To read more....
The Wall Street Journal - July 31, 2013
Imagine there’s a list somewhere that contains every single webpage you have visited in the last five years. It also has everything you have ever searched for, every address you looked up on GoogleGOOG -1.08% Maps, every email you sent, every chat message, every YouTube video you watched. Each entry is time-stamped, so it’s clear exactly, down to the minute, when all of this was done.
Now imagine that list is all searchable. And imagine it’s on a clean, easy-to-use website. With all that imagined, can you think of a way a hacker, with access to this, could use it against you?
And once you’ve imagined all that, go over to google.com/dashboard, and see it all become reality.
For a piece complementing today’s story on Google and privacy by the WSJ’s Amir Efrati, I took a deep dive into Google Dashboard, a kind of Grand Central Terminus for all the information the company has stored on you. It’s a truly amazing amount, especially if, like me, you have been a heavy Gmail user since its launch in 2004. As long as you are logged into Gmail, or any other Google account, the company isn’t just keeping track of how you use its own service — it’s noting every site you visit on the web.
To read more....
Turkey's Rising Middle Class Drives Demand for Islamic Fashion
By: Riada Ašimović Akyol
Al-Monitor - August 23, 2013
Two things one might notice shortly after landing in Istanbul are traffic congestion and countless billboards on the side of the road. Advertisement displays by companies from various industries is not unusual. Yet, when it comes to apparel, what is peculiar to Istanbul is the broad palette of fashion styles, and hence the market. Thus, a gigantic billboard with a model wearing a headscarf may be placed right next to a billboard promoting bikinis. Turkish society is very diverse, so accommodating different needs in all aspects — fashion included — is a sine qua non for advancing Turkish democracy.
Al-Monitor - August 23, 2013
Two things one might notice shortly after landing in Istanbul are traffic congestion and countless billboards on the side of the road. Advertisement displays by companies from various industries is not unusual. Yet, when it comes to apparel, what is peculiar to Istanbul is the broad palette of fashion styles, and hence the market. Thus, a gigantic billboard with a model wearing a headscarf may be placed right next to a billboard promoting bikinis. Turkish society is very diverse, so accommodating different needs in all aspects — fashion included — is a sine qua non for advancing Turkish democracy.
U.S. Selling Cluster Bombs Worth 641 Million to Saudi Arabia
By Carey L. Biron
Inter Press Service - August 23, 2013
Arms control advocates are decrying a new U.S. Department of Defence announcement that it will be building and selling 1,300 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, worth some 641 million dollars.
The munitions at the heart of the sale are technically legal under recently strengthened U.S. regulations aimed at reducing impact on civilian safety, but activists contend that battlefield evidence suggests the weapons actually exceed those regulations.
Opponents say the move runs counter to a strengthening push to outlaw the use of cluster bombs around the world while also contradicting recent votes by both the U.S. and Saudi governments critical of the use of these munitions.
“Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have recently condemned the use of cluster munitions by the government of Syria – that’s ironic given this new sale, because a cluster munition is a cluster munition, no matter what kind it is,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a watchdog group here in Washington, told IPS.
To read more...
Inter Press Service - August 23, 2013
Arms control advocates are decrying a new U.S. Department of Defence announcement that it will be building and selling 1,300 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, worth some 641 million dollars.
The munitions at the heart of the sale are technically legal under recently strengthened U.S. regulations aimed at reducing impact on civilian safety, but activists contend that battlefield evidence suggests the weapons actually exceed those regulations.
Opponents say the move runs counter to a strengthening push to outlaw the use of cluster bombs around the world while also contradicting recent votes by both the U.S. and Saudi governments critical of the use of these munitions.
“Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have recently condemned the use of cluster munitions by the government of Syria – that’s ironic given this new sale, because a cluster munition is a cluster munition, no matter what kind it is,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a watchdog group here in Washington, told IPS.
To read more...
So, What Is Economics Good For?
By Justin Wolfers
Bloomberg News - August 27, 2013
For now, forget about their rather odd definition of a science, which is that it must be a field whose predictive abilities are improving. Rather, focus on the central claim, which is that economics hasn’t helped us improve our predictive abilities.
Notice that this is an empirical claim. Empirical claims are usually based on facts. We present them, and we argue about what they mean. (Or at least that’s how we economists prefer to proceed.) Yet the anti-economics screed includes no actual facts.
So I asked Professor Alex Rosenberg, the philosopher, for some evidence for his claim.
Here’s his emailed response:
"Nothing seems more evident to me than the lack of a sustained increase in predictive success--either range or precision, in macro and micro. The burden of proof in this case is entirely on the shoulders of those who claim otherwise ... and I have been following this issue closely since I wrote my thesis on the subject 40 years ago."
To read more....
Bloomberg News - August 27, 2013
Aristotle was a swell philosopher, but could he have run the Fed? Photographer: Stefen Chow/Bloomberg News.
An English professor and a philosopher have made a bit of a splash with a recent New York Times opinion article asking,
“What is Economics Good For?” Their central claim is “the fact that the
discipline of economics hasn’t helped us improve our predictive
abilities suggests it is still far from being a science.”For now, forget about their rather odd definition of a science, which is that it must be a field whose predictive abilities are improving. Rather, focus on the central claim, which is that economics hasn’t helped us improve our predictive abilities.
Notice that this is an empirical claim. Empirical claims are usually based on facts. We present them, and we argue about what they mean. (Or at least that’s how we economists prefer to proceed.) Yet the anti-economics screed includes no actual facts.
So I asked Professor Alex Rosenberg, the philosopher, for some evidence for his claim.
Here’s his emailed response:
"Nothing seems more evident to me than the lack of a sustained increase in predictive success--either range or precision, in macro and micro. The burden of proof in this case is entirely on the shoulders of those who claim otherwise ... and I have been following this issue closely since I wrote my thesis on the subject 40 years ago."
To read more....
Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
By Lynn Parramore
Reuters - August 29, 2013
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour workweek over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction. But Americans have long since kissed the 40-hour workweek goodbye, and Shor’s examination of work patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the history of human labor. When workers fought for the eight-hour workday, they weren’t trying to get something radical and new, but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before industrial capitalists and the electric lightbulb came on the scene. Go back 200, 300 or 400 years and you find that most people did not work very long hours at all. In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. “The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. “Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.”
To read more.....
Reuters - August 29, 2013
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour workweek over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction. But Americans have long since kissed the 40-hour workweek goodbye, and Shor’s examination of work patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the history of human labor. When workers fought for the eight-hour workday, they weren’t trying to get something radical and new, but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before industrial capitalists and the electric lightbulb came on the scene. Go back 200, 300 or 400 years and you find that most people did not work very long hours at all. In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. “The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. “Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.”
To read more.....
The map that shows where America came from:
Fascinating illustration shows the ancestry of EVERY county in the US
Census data shows heritage of 317 million modern Americans
Clusters show where immigrants from different nations chose to settle
Largest ancestry grouping in the nation are of German descent with almost 50 million people African American or Black is the second largest grouping with just over 40 million people
Almost 20 million people claim to have 'American' ancestry for political reasons and because they are unsure of their family's genealogy
By Jessica Jerreat
Mail Online - September 2, 2013
A truly captivating map that shows the ancestry of everyone of the 317 million people who call the melting pot of America home can now be seen on a U.S. Census Bureau map.
For decades, the United States opened its doors and welcomed with open arms millions of immigrants who all arrived through New York's Ellis Island in the hope of a better life in America.
Indeed, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty in New York's harbor reads 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free' and the fascinating map identifies the truly diverse nature of the United States in the 21st century.
Although the 2010 census left out questions about ethnicity, this map shows how it looked in 2000, according to Upworthy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408591/American-ethnicity-map-shows-melting-pot-ethnicities-make-USA-today.html
Census data shows heritage of 317 million modern Americans
Clusters show where immigrants from different nations chose to settle
Largest ancestry grouping in the nation are of German descent with almost 50 million people African American or Black is the second largest grouping with just over 40 million people
Almost 20 million people claim to have 'American' ancestry for political reasons and because they are unsure of their family's genealogy
By Jessica Jerreat
Mail Online - September 2, 2013
A truly captivating map that shows the ancestry of everyone of the 317 million people who call the melting pot of America home can now be seen on a U.S. Census Bureau map.
For decades, the United States opened its doors and welcomed with open arms millions of immigrants who all arrived through New York's Ellis Island in the hope of a better life in America.
Indeed, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty in New York's harbor reads 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free' and the fascinating map identifies the truly diverse nature of the United States in the 21st century.
Although the 2010 census left out questions about ethnicity, this map shows how it looked in 2000, according to Upworthy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408591/American-ethnicity-map-shows-melting-pot-ethnicities-make-USA-today.html
NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure
The NSA has huge capabilities – and if it wants in to your computer, it's in. With that in mind, here are five ways to stay safe
Bruce Schneier
Theguardian.com, Friday 6 September 2013
Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves.
For the past two weeks, I have been working with the Guardian on NSA stories, and have read hundreds of top-secret NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. I wasn't part of today's story – it was in process well before I showed up – but everything I read confirms what the Guardian is reporting.
At this point, I feel I can provide some advice for keeping secure against such an adversary.
To read more.....
Bruce Schneier
Theguardian.com, Friday 6 September 2013
Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves.
For the past two weeks, I have been working with the Guardian on NSA stories, and have read hundreds of top-secret NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. I wasn't part of today's story – it was in process well before I showed up – but everything I read confirms what the Guardian is reporting.
At this point, I feel I can provide some advice for keeping secure against such an adversary.
To read more.....
Pakistani Folk Art and US Drones Collide in These Ornate Paintings
Pakistani-American artist Mahwish Chishty
was originally trained in painting miniatures in her native Lahore. But
these days, Chishty is also emerging as a notable conceptual artist
abroad, treading the potent line between Pakistani and American culture.
Yesterday, in an interview with Mother Jones, Chishty discussed her paintings of American drones—which she covers in traditional Pakistani ornamentation.
More than
2,000 people have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan since the
early 2000s, mostly in the rugged northwest. The proxy war, Chishty
says, “triggered her imagination,” and she began a series of paintings
that feature the familiar shapes of the MQ-9 Reaper and other UAVs
covered in ornate decoration. The patterns are borrowed from a tradition
amongst truck drivers in Pakistan, who cover their vehicles in rich ornamentation and color as a means of pure self-expression. Chishty explained the practice to Mother Jones’ Josh Harkinson:
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Identifying China's Successors
By George Friedman, Founder and Chairman of Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm Editor’s
Forbes - 7/30/2013
China has become a metaphor. It represents a certain phase of economic development, which is driven by low wages, foreign appetite for investment and a chaotic and disorderly development, magnificent in scale but deeply flawed in many ways. Its magnificence spawned the flaws, and the flaws helped create the magnificence.
The arcs along which nations rise and fall vary in length and slope. China’s has been long, as far as these things go, lasting for more than 30 years. The country will continue to exist and perhaps prosper, but this era of Chinese development — pyramiding on low wages to conquer global markets — is ending simply because there are now other nations with even lower wages and other advantages. China will have to behave differently from the way it does now, and thus other countries are poised to take its place.
To read more.....
Forbes - 7/30/2013
China has become a metaphor. It represents a certain phase of economic development, which is driven by low wages, foreign appetite for investment and a chaotic and disorderly development, magnificent in scale but deeply flawed in many ways. Its magnificence spawned the flaws, and the flaws helped create the magnificence.
The arcs along which nations rise and fall vary in length and slope. China’s has been long, as far as these things go, lasting for more than 30 years. The country will continue to exist and perhaps prosper, but this era of Chinese development — pyramiding on low wages to conquer global markets — is ending simply because there are now other nations with even lower wages and other advantages. China will have to behave differently from the way it does now, and thus other countries are poised to take its place.
Reshaping International Order
Since the Industrial Revolution, there have always been countries where comparative advantage in international trade has been rooted in low wages and a large work force. If these countries can capitalize on their advantages, they can transform themselves dramatically. These transformations, in turn, reorganize global power structures. Karl Kautsky, a German socialist in the early 1900s, wrote: “Half a century ago, Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it conceivable that in 10 or 20 years’ time the relative strength will have remained unchanged?” Lenin also saw these changes, viewing them as both progressive and eventually revolutionary. When Kautsky and Lenin described the world, they did so to change it. But the world proved difficult to change. (It is ironic that two of the four BRIC countries had been or still are Communist countries.)To read more.....
Sunday, June 30, 2013
McDonald’s closing all restaurants in Bolivia as nation rejects fast food
by Lance Devon
Underground Health - June 19, 2013
(NaturalNews) McDonald’s happy image and its golden arches aren’t the gateway to bliss in Bolivia. This South American country isn’t falling for the barrage of advertising and fast food cooking methods that so easily engulf countries like the United States.
Bolivians simply don’t trust food prepared in such little time. The quick and easy, mass production method of fast food actually turns Bolivians off altogether. Sixty percent of Bolivians are an indigenous population who generally don’t find it worth their health or money to step foot in a McDonald’s. Despite its economically friendly fast food prices, McDonald’s couldn’t coax enough of the indigenous population of Bolivia to eat their BigMacs, McNuggets or McRibs.
One indigenous woman, Esther Choque, waiting for a bus to arrive outside a McDonald’s restaurant, said, “The closest I ever came was one day when a rain shower fell and I climbed the steps to keep dry by the door. Then they came out and shooed me away. They said I was dirtying the place. Why would I care if McDonald’s leaves [Bolivia]?”
Fast food chain remained for a decade, despite losses every year
The eight remaining McDonald’s fast food shops that stuck it out in the Bolivian city’s of La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, had reportedly operated on losses every year for a decade. The McDonald’s franchise had been persistent over that time, flexing its franchise’s deep pockets to continue business in Bolivia.
To read more.....
Underground Health - June 19, 2013
(NaturalNews) McDonald’s happy image and its golden arches aren’t the gateway to bliss in Bolivia. This South American country isn’t falling for the barrage of advertising and fast food cooking methods that so easily engulf countries like the United States.
Bolivians simply don’t trust food prepared in such little time. The quick and easy, mass production method of fast food actually turns Bolivians off altogether. Sixty percent of Bolivians are an indigenous population who generally don’t find it worth their health or money to step foot in a McDonald’s. Despite its economically friendly fast food prices, McDonald’s couldn’t coax enough of the indigenous population of Bolivia to eat their BigMacs, McNuggets or McRibs.
One indigenous woman, Esther Choque, waiting for a bus to arrive outside a McDonald’s restaurant, said, “The closest I ever came was one day when a rain shower fell and I climbed the steps to keep dry by the door. Then they came out and shooed me away. They said I was dirtying the place. Why would I care if McDonald’s leaves [Bolivia]?”
Fast food chain remained for a decade, despite losses every year
The eight remaining McDonald’s fast food shops that stuck it out in the Bolivian city’s of La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, had reportedly operated on losses every year for a decade. The McDonald’s franchise had been persistent over that time, flexing its franchise’s deep pockets to continue business in Bolivia.
To read more.....
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Trouble in Paradise Slavoj Žižek on the protests in Turkey and Greece
London Review of Books - June 28, 2013
In his early writings, Marx described the German situation as one in which the only answer to particular problems was the universal solution: global revolution. This is a succinct expression of the difference between a reformist and a revolutionary period: in a reformist period, global revolution remains a dream which, if it does anything, merely lends weight to attempts to change things locally; in a revolutionary period, it becomes clear that nothing will improve without radical global change. In this purely formal sense, 1990 was a revolutionary year: it was plain that partial reforms of the Communist states would not do the job and that a total break was needed to resolve even such everyday problems as making sure there was enough for people to eat.
Where do we stand today with respect to this difference? Are the problems and protests of the last few years signs of an approaching global crisis, or are they just minor obstacles that can be dealt with by means of local interventions? The most remarkable thing about the eruptions is that they are taking place not only, or even primarily, at the weak points in the system, but in places which were until now perceived as success stories. We know why people are protesting in Greece or Spain; but why is there trouble in such prosperous or fast-developing countries as Turkey, Sweden or Brazil? With hindsight, we might see the Khomeini revolution of 1979 as the original ‘trouble in paradise’, given that it happened in a country that was on the fast-track of pro-Western modernisation, and the West’s staunchest ally in the region. Maybe there is something wrong with our notion of paradise.
Before the current wave of protests, Turkey was hot: the very model of a state able to combine a thriving liberal economy with moderate Islamism, fit for Europe, a welcome contrast to the more ‘European’ Greece, caught in an ideological quagmire and bent on economic self-destruction. True, there were ominous signs here and there (Turkey’s denial of the Armenian holocaust; the arrests of journalists; the unresolved status of the Kurds; calls for a greater Turkey which would resuscitate the tradition of the Ottoman Empire; the occasional imposition of religious laws), but these were dismissed as small stains that should not be allowed to taint the overall picture.
To read more.....
In his early writings, Marx described the German situation as one in which the only answer to particular problems was the universal solution: global revolution. This is a succinct expression of the difference between a reformist and a revolutionary period: in a reformist period, global revolution remains a dream which, if it does anything, merely lends weight to attempts to change things locally; in a revolutionary period, it becomes clear that nothing will improve without radical global change. In this purely formal sense, 1990 was a revolutionary year: it was plain that partial reforms of the Communist states would not do the job and that a total break was needed to resolve even such everyday problems as making sure there was enough for people to eat.
Where do we stand today with respect to this difference? Are the problems and protests of the last few years signs of an approaching global crisis, or are they just minor obstacles that can be dealt with by means of local interventions? The most remarkable thing about the eruptions is that they are taking place not only, or even primarily, at the weak points in the system, but in places which were until now perceived as success stories. We know why people are protesting in Greece or Spain; but why is there trouble in such prosperous or fast-developing countries as Turkey, Sweden or Brazil? With hindsight, we might see the Khomeini revolution of 1979 as the original ‘trouble in paradise’, given that it happened in a country that was on the fast-track of pro-Western modernisation, and the West’s staunchest ally in the region. Maybe there is something wrong with our notion of paradise.
Before the current wave of protests, Turkey was hot: the very model of a state able to combine a thriving liberal economy with moderate Islamism, fit for Europe, a welcome contrast to the more ‘European’ Greece, caught in an ideological quagmire and bent on economic self-destruction. True, there were ominous signs here and there (Turkey’s denial of the Armenian holocaust; the arrests of journalists; the unresolved status of the Kurds; calls for a greater Turkey which would resuscitate the tradition of the Ottoman Empire; the occasional imposition of religious laws), but these were dismissed as small stains that should not be allowed to taint the overall picture.
To read more.....
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Egypt's Mohamed Morsi: I have made mistakes
President pledges radical reforms to state institutions, but also denounces 'enemies of Egypt' for sabotaging democratic system
The Guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 June 2013
The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has admitted making mistakes in his first year in office.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Morsi pledged to introduce "radical and quick" reforms in state institutions, admitting some of his goals had not been achieved.
"Today, I present an audit of my first year, with full transparency, along with a road map. Some things were achieved and others not," he said. "I have made mistakes on a number of issues."
But the president also blamed unspecified "enemies of Egypt" for sabotaging the democratic system and warned that the polarised state of the country's politics was threatening to plunge it into chaos.
His speech came before a planned mass demonstration this weekend by his opponents who are demanding that the president resigns and calls an early election.
To read more....
The Guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 June 2013
The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has admitted making mistakes in his first year in office.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Morsi pledged to introduce "radical and quick" reforms in state institutions, admitting some of his goals had not been achieved.
"Today, I present an audit of my first year, with full transparency, along with a road map. Some things were achieved and others not," he said. "I have made mistakes on a number of issues."
But the president also blamed unspecified "enemies of Egypt" for sabotaging the democratic system and warned that the polarised state of the country's politics was threatening to plunge it into chaos.
His speech came before a planned mass demonstration this weekend by his opponents who are demanding that the president resigns and calls an early election.
To read more....
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
What's Really Wrong with the Middle East?
Explaining the persistence of violence, sectarianism, and incompetence.
BY AARON DAVID MILLER
Foreign Policy | JUNE 25, 2013
The Middle East really doesn't need any more bad news.
Still, it's official. The region now has its own disease: a dangerous virus called MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome -- perhaps related to the SARS virus, but apparently deadlier.
This sad news started me thinking (again) about the sad state of the region. There are some bright spots -- or at least some spots that are not as dark. Tunisia seems to be making a relatively stable transition without paralytic violence and incompetent governance. And there's a younger generation of Arabs and Muslims who seem bent on freeing themselves from the old ways, demanding not only personal freedom but dignity, too. I'm reminded of Howard Beale's famous rant in Network: They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.
Nevertheless, much of the region looks bad: violence in Iraq; civil war in Syria and violent spillover into Lebanon; growing popular despair in Egypt; repression in Bahrain; lack of central authority in Libya; and an impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even in Turkey, the wonder state, things have become unhinged.
To read more......
BY AARON DAVID MILLER
Foreign Policy | JUNE 25, 2013
The Middle East really doesn't need any more bad news.
Still, it's official. The region now has its own disease: a dangerous virus called MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome -- perhaps related to the SARS virus, but apparently deadlier.
This sad news started me thinking (again) about the sad state of the region. There are some bright spots -- or at least some spots that are not as dark. Tunisia seems to be making a relatively stable transition without paralytic violence and incompetent governance. And there's a younger generation of Arabs and Muslims who seem bent on freeing themselves from the old ways, demanding not only personal freedom but dignity, too. I'm reminded of Howard Beale's famous rant in Network: They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.
Nevertheless, much of the region looks bad: violence in Iraq; civil war in Syria and violent spillover into Lebanon; growing popular despair in Egypt; repression in Bahrain; lack of central authority in Libya; and an impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even in Turkey, the wonder state, things have become unhinged.
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