Shadi Hamid
BROOKINGS | October 1, 2015
Political scientists, myself included, have tended to see religion,
ideology, and identity as “epiphenomenal”—products of a given set of
material factors. These factors are the things we can touch, grasp, and
measure. For example, when explaining why suicide bombers do what they
do, we assume that these young men are depressed about their own
accumulated failures, frustrated with a dire economic situation, or
humiliated by political repression and foreign occupation. While these
are all undoubtedly factors, they are not—and cannot be—the whole story.
But the role, and power, of religion in the modern Middle East is
more mundane than that (after all, the overwhelming majority of Muslims
do not think about becoming suicide bombers). “Islamism” has become a
bad word, because the Islamists we hear about most often are those of
ISIS and al-Qaeda. Most Islamists, however, are not jihadists or
extremists; they are members of mainstream Islamist movements like the
Muslim Brotherhood whose distinguishing feature is their gradualism
(historically eschewing revolution), acceptance of parliamentary
politics, and willingness to work within existing state structures, even
secular ones. Contrary to popular imagination, Islamists do not
necessarily harken back to seventh century Arabia.
READ MORE....
Sunday, November 8, 2015
China has more than 200,000 journalists
English.news.cn - 2015-11-08
BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- China has about 208,000 registered journalists, including more than 1,100 reporters working for Internet news portals, press authorities said on Sunday, the country's 16th Journalists' Day.
Male reporters make up about 53 percent, and most of the country's journalists have university degrees, said a statement of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
Among them, more than 82,000 journalists are employed by newspapers and about 5,400 by periodicals. About 2,600 reporters work for news agencies and there are nearly 117,000 TV reporters and 1,100 Internet reporters, the statement said.
The number of reporters younger than 30 makes up more than 12 percent; those aged between 30 and 40 about 40 percent. Nearly 33 percent are between 40 and 50, with only 14 percent over 50.
READ MORE....
BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- China has about 208,000 registered journalists, including more than 1,100 reporters working for Internet news portals, press authorities said on Sunday, the country's 16th Journalists' Day.
Male reporters make up about 53 percent, and most of the country's journalists have university degrees, said a statement of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
Among them, more than 82,000 journalists are employed by newspapers and about 5,400 by periodicals. About 2,600 reporters work for news agencies and there are nearly 117,000 TV reporters and 1,100 Internet reporters, the statement said.
The number of reporters younger than 30 makes up more than 12 percent; those aged between 30 and 40 about 40 percent. Nearly 33 percent are between 40 and 50, with only 14 percent over 50.
READ MORE....
Dispatch from Italy: Ending Rural Hunger
Homi Kharas and John McArthur
BROOKINGS | October 21, 2015
Italy hosted two major events for global food and nutrition security last week. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) convened its 42nd annual session in Rome. And leading figures then gathered to honor World Food Day at Expo 2015 in Milan, which has already been visited by over 20 million people.
The CFS was first launched in 1974. It forms an inclusive international and intergovernmental platform to promote coordination on norms and standards for food security and nutrition (FSN). This year, the committee agreed to place implementation of the sustainable development goals, especially Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger and malnutrition, at the center of its efforts through 2030. The multi-year work program is being developed with that in mind.
READ MORE....
BROOKINGS | October 21, 2015
Italy hosted two major events for global food and nutrition security last week. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) convened its 42nd annual session in Rome. And leading figures then gathered to honor World Food Day at Expo 2015 in Milan, which has already been visited by over 20 million people.
The CFS was first launched in 1974. It forms an inclusive international and intergovernmental platform to promote coordination on norms and standards for food security and nutrition (FSN). This year, the committee agreed to place implementation of the sustainable development goals, especially Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger and malnutrition, at the center of its efforts through 2030. The multi-year work program is being developed with that in mind.
READ MORE....
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Gūney Amerika'da Kūltūr ve Siyaset, Erol Anar
Yazar Erol Anar'ın, İstanbul Maltepe Üniversitesi Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararasi Iliskiler bölūmū
öǧrencilerine verdiǧi tele konferanstır. Bu konferans, aynı
ūniversitenin Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararasi Iliskiler bölūmūnde ders veren Yrd. Doç. Dr. Tuǧrul
Keskin'in talebi ūzerine gerçekleşmiştir. Brezilya, 3 Kasım 2015.
Birinci Bolum
Ikinci Bolum
Ucuncu Bolum
Sunday, November 1, 2015
A Mass Migration Crisis, and It May Yet Get Worse
By ROD NORDLAND
THE NEW YORK TIMES - OCT. 31, 2015
READ MORE......
THE NEW YORK TIMES - OCT. 31, 2015
SID,
Serbia — They arrived in an unceasing stream, 10,000 a day at the
height, as many as a million migrants heading for Europe this year,
pushing infants in strollers and elderly parents in wheelchairs,
carrying children on their shoulders and life savings in their socks.
They came in search of a new life, but in many ways they were the
heralds of a new age.
There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history — 60 million in all — and they are on the march in numbers not seen since World War II. They are coming not just from Syria, but from an array of countries and regions, including Afghanistan, Iraq,
Gaza, even Haiti, as well as any of a dozen or so nations in
sub-Saharan and North Africa. They are unofficial ambassadors of failed
states, unending wars, intractable conflicts.
The most striking thing about the current migration crisis, however, is how much bigger it could still get.
READ MORE......
Thursday, October 29, 2015
China issues 13th Five-Year Plan communique
CCTV.com 10-29-2015
The 5th plenary session of the 18th CPC central committee came to an end early this afternoon. During the last day of the plenum, party leaders issued suggestions to the 13th Five-Year Plan that maps out strategies for the economic and social development in China from 2016 to 2020. Tang Bo has more.
The 5th plenary session of the 18th CPC central committee stresses that, to achieve the goals of building a moderately prosperous society and promoting sustainable and healthy economic and social development, the following principles should be followed:
They are adherence to the dominant position of the people, to scientific development and deepening reform, to the rule of law, to the consideration of both domestic and international situations, and adherence to the party's leadership.
The plenum also stresses on the requirements needed for building up a well-off society, which include maintaining the economic growth at a midium-high speed, doubling the gross domestic product and per capita income of urban and rural residents by 2020 from 2010, increasing the contribution of consumption to economic growth, and improving the household population urbanization rate.
The requirements also include the significant improvement of agricultural modernization and people's living standards and qualities, overcoming poverty in rural area under the current standards of fighting poverty, as well as the improvement of social civilization and ecological environmental quality.
READ MORE AND WATCH FULL COVERAGE OF The Fifth Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee.....
The 5th plenary session of the 18th CPC central committee came to an end early this afternoon. During the last day of the plenum, party leaders issued suggestions to the 13th Five-Year Plan that maps out strategies for the economic and social development in China from 2016 to 2020. Tang Bo has more.
The 5th plenary session of the 18th CPC central committee stresses that, to achieve the goals of building a moderately prosperous society and promoting sustainable and healthy economic and social development, the following principles should be followed:
They are adherence to the dominant position of the people, to scientific development and deepening reform, to the rule of law, to the consideration of both domestic and international situations, and adherence to the party's leadership.
The plenum also stresses on the requirements needed for building up a well-off society, which include maintaining the economic growth at a midium-high speed, doubling the gross domestic product and per capita income of urban and rural residents by 2020 from 2010, increasing the contribution of consumption to economic growth, and improving the household population urbanization rate.
The requirements also include the significant improvement of agricultural modernization and people's living standards and qualities, overcoming poverty in rural area under the current standards of fighting poverty, as well as the improvement of social civilization and ecological environmental quality.
READ MORE AND WATCH FULL COVERAGE OF The Fifth Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee.....
There Are No Peasants Here
Honduras’ brave new economic experiment is buoying an era of development by kicking poor farmers off their land.
By Lauren Carasik
FOREIGN AFFAIRS - October 23, 2015
Standing in the shade of his modest house in the still-sweltering Honduran heat, Santos Hernandez Ortiz pointed to the wall that had been recently built just a few feet from his home, cutting him off from the land and trees he has been cultivating for 40 years. The wall — which stands more than 10 feet tall and is made of stone, runs through Ortiz’s modest lot as well as his neighbors’ — was constructed under the watchful eye of seven balaclava-clad police officers after a wealthy landowner claimed it for his own. Now, the leaves of the partitioned trees hang over the wall, but its fruits are maddeningly out of reach. Ortiz worries that he might lose his house next.
READ MORE....
By Lauren Carasik
FOREIGN AFFAIRS - October 23, 2015
Standing in the shade of his modest house in the still-sweltering Honduran heat, Santos Hernandez Ortiz pointed to the wall that had been recently built just a few feet from his home, cutting him off from the land and trees he has been cultivating for 40 years. The wall — which stands more than 10 feet tall and is made of stone, runs through Ortiz’s modest lot as well as his neighbors’ — was constructed under the watchful eye of seven balaclava-clad police officers after a wealthy landowner claimed it for his own. Now, the leaves of the partitioned trees hang over the wall, but its fruits are maddeningly out of reach. Ortiz worries that he might lose his house next.
READ MORE....
A New Book: The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China By Guobin Yang
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015
Raised to be "flowers of the nation," the first generation born after
the founding of the People's Republic of China was united in its
political outlook and ambitions. Its members embraced the Cultural
Revolution of 1966 but soon split into warring factions. Guobin Yang
investigates the causes of this fracture and argues that Chinese youth
engaged in an imaginary revolution from 1966 to 1968, enacting a
political mythology that encouraged violence as a way to prove one's
revolutionary credentials. This same competitive dynamic would later
turn the Red Guard against the communist government. Throughout
the 1970s, the majority of Red Guard youth were sent to work in rural
villages. These relocated revolutionaries developed an appreciation for
the values of ordinary life, and an underground cultural movement was
born. Rejecting idolatry, their new form of resistance marked a distinct
reversal of Red Guard radicalism and signaled a new era of
enlightenment, culminating in the Democracy Wall movement of the late
1970s and, finally, the Tiananmen protest of 1989. Yang completes his
significant recasting of Red Guard activism with a chapter on the
politics of history and memory, arguing that contemporary memories of
the Cultural Revolution are factionalized along the lines of political
division that formed fifty years before.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
1. Violence in Chongqing
2. Flowers of the Nation
3. Theory and Dissent
4. Ordinary Life
5. Underground Culture
6. New Enlightenment
7. Factionalized Memories
Conclusion
READ MORE.......
CONTENTS:
Introduction
1. Violence in Chongqing
2. Flowers of the Nation
3. Theory and Dissent
4. Ordinary Life
5. Underground Culture
6. New Enlightenment
7. Factionalized Memories
Conclusion
READ MORE.......
Half of top leadership reshuffled before plenum
Global Times - October 26, 2015
More than half of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee members elected during the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 have been moved to different positions or were removed from their current jobs ahead of the CPC's fifth plenary session that kicks off on Monday.
The large-scale reshuffle is extremely rare in the history of the CPC, a result, said observers of the anti-graft campaign, which has been of unprecedented severity, and to guarantee a solid start to China's new five-year blueprint amid a slowing economy.
A WeChat account operated by Beijing's Party organ newspaper, the Beijing Daily, revealed that a total of 104 out of the 205 CPC Central Committee members have been promoted, demoted or expelled from their positions since 2012.
Among them, 81 were promoted to key positions, 16 were transferred to less important posts, and seven were removed from their jobs.
Some of the seven members may have their membership revoked during the fifth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee that runs until Thursday, experts said.
Since the sweeping anti-graft campaign was launched in 2012, the announcement of any personnel reshuffles has drawn greater attention.
READ MORE....
More than half of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee members elected during the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 have been moved to different positions or were removed from their current jobs ahead of the CPC's fifth plenary session that kicks off on Monday.
The large-scale reshuffle is extremely rare in the history of the CPC, a result, said observers of the anti-graft campaign, which has been of unprecedented severity, and to guarantee a solid start to China's new five-year blueprint amid a slowing economy.
A WeChat account operated by Beijing's Party organ newspaper, the Beijing Daily, revealed that a total of 104 out of the 205 CPC Central Committee members have been promoted, demoted or expelled from their positions since 2012.
Among them, 81 were promoted to key positions, 16 were transferred to less important posts, and seven were removed from their jobs.
Some of the seven members may have their membership revoked during the fifth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee that runs until Thursday, experts said.
Since the sweeping anti-graft campaign was launched in 2012, the announcement of any personnel reshuffles has drawn greater attention.
READ MORE....
Commentary: Where will China go in the next five years?
(People's Daily Online) - October 26, 2015
The autumn in Beijing is not only about foliage. We always have more to expect.
Chinese Communist Party will hold a vital meeting in Beijing from October 26 to October 29, at which the development roadmap for China from 2016 to 2020 will be discussed, namely China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.
The Five-Year plans are China’s development agendas set by CPC. We have accomplished 12 Five-Year plans in the past, and here comes the 13th. In Chinese traditions, every 60 years marks a circle, so the year 2016 will be the beginning of a new circle. Hence, we have good reasons to believe that the 13th Five-Year Plan will be a brand new start for China.
People all around China are paying close attention to this plan. In accordance with China’s development goal, a moderately prosperous society shall be built by 2020. The phrase “moderately prosperous society” or in Chinese “Xiaokang”, has its special meaning to Chinese people. For thousands of years, it describes a promising prospect for the development of our nation and the improvement of people’s life. It means not only steady economic growth, but also a real leap-forward for people’s living standard, including the 70 million impoverished populations in China.
READ MORE....
The autumn in Beijing is not only about foliage. We always have more to expect.
Chinese Communist Party will hold a vital meeting in Beijing from October 26 to October 29, at which the development roadmap for China from 2016 to 2020 will be discussed, namely China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.
The Five-Year plans are China’s development agendas set by CPC. We have accomplished 12 Five-Year plans in the past, and here comes the 13th. In Chinese traditions, every 60 years marks a circle, so the year 2016 will be the beginning of a new circle. Hence, we have good reasons to believe that the 13th Five-Year Plan will be a brand new start for China.
People all around China are paying close attention to this plan. In accordance with China’s development goal, a moderately prosperous society shall be built by 2020. The phrase “moderately prosperous society” or in Chinese “Xiaokang”, has its special meaning to Chinese people. For thousands of years, it describes a promising prospect for the development of our nation and the improvement of people’s life. It means not only steady economic growth, but also a real leap-forward for people’s living standard, including the 70 million impoverished populations in China.
READ MORE....
The Making of Salafism Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century By Henri Lauzière
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015
Some Islamic scholars hold that Salafism is an innovative and
rationalist effort at Islamic reform that emerged in the late nineteenth
century but disappeared in the mid twentieth. Others argue Salafism is
an anti-innovative and antirationalist movement of Islamic purism that
dates back to the medieval period yet persists today. Though they
contradict each other, both narratives are considered authoritative,
making it hard for outsiders to grasp the history of the ideology and
its core beliefs.
Introducing a third, empirically based genealogy, The Making of Salafism understands the movement as a recent conception of Islam projected back onto the past, and it sees its purist evolution as a direct result of decolonization. Henri Lauzière builds his history on the transnational networks of Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894-1987), a Moroccan Salafi who, with his associates, oversaw Salafism's modern development. Traveling from Rabat to Mecca, from Calcutta to Berlin, al-Hilali interacted with high-profile Salafi scholars and activists who eventually abandoned Islamic modernism in favor of a more purist approach to Islam. Today, Salafis claim a monopoly on religious truth and freely confront other Muslims on theological and legal issues. Lauzière's pathbreaking history recognizes the social forces behind this purist turn, uncovering the popular origins of what has become a global phenomenon.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
1. Being Salafi in the Early Twentieth Century
2. Rashid Rida's Rehabilitation of the Wahhabis and Its Consequences
3. Purist Salafism in the Age of Islamic Nationalism
4. The Ironies of Modernity and the Advent of Modernist Salafism
5. Searching for a Raison d'Être in the Postindependence Era
6. The Triumph and Ideologization of Purist Salafism
Conclusion
READ MORE.....
Introducing a third, empirically based genealogy, The Making of Salafism understands the movement as a recent conception of Islam projected back onto the past, and it sees its purist evolution as a direct result of decolonization. Henri Lauzière builds his history on the transnational networks of Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894-1987), a Moroccan Salafi who, with his associates, oversaw Salafism's modern development. Traveling from Rabat to Mecca, from Calcutta to Berlin, al-Hilali interacted with high-profile Salafi scholars and activists who eventually abandoned Islamic modernism in favor of a more purist approach to Islam. Today, Salafis claim a monopoly on religious truth and freely confront other Muslims on theological and legal issues. Lauzière's pathbreaking history recognizes the social forces behind this purist turn, uncovering the popular origins of what has become a global phenomenon.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
1. Being Salafi in the Early Twentieth Century
2. Rashid Rida's Rehabilitation of the Wahhabis and Its Consequences
3. Purist Salafism in the Age of Islamic Nationalism
4. The Ironies of Modernity and the Advent of Modernist Salafism
5. Searching for a Raison d'Être in the Postindependence Era
6. The Triumph and Ideologization of Purist Salafism
Conclusion
READ MORE.....
BRICS bank, AIIB well on track for start of operations: officials
English.news.cn 2015-10-28
BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Preparations are going smoothly for the the New Development Bank (NDB) for BRICS countries, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), officials said Wednesday. The NDB, initiated by BRICS members -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- is expected to approve its first loans next April, said NDB vice president Vladimir Kazbekov at a seminar in Beijing. The bank has already received loan applications and is hoping to issue its first loan to an energy-efficient project, Kazbekov said, noting that the bank plans to increase its staff to 100 from more than 20.
Aimed at financing infrastructure projects, mainly in BRICS countries, the NDB opened in Shanghai in July and is scheduled to start operations at the end of this year or early 2016. Work is also going well for the multilateral AIIB, with formal operations beginning next year, said Chen Huan, who is in charge of preparations for the bank's launch.
READ MORE.....
BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Preparations are going smoothly for the the New Development Bank (NDB) for BRICS countries, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), officials said Wednesday. The NDB, initiated by BRICS members -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- is expected to approve its first loans next April, said NDB vice president Vladimir Kazbekov at a seminar in Beijing. The bank has already received loan applications and is hoping to issue its first loan to an energy-efficient project, Kazbekov said, noting that the bank plans to increase its staff to 100 from more than 20.
Aimed at financing infrastructure projects, mainly in BRICS countries, the NDB opened in Shanghai in July and is scheduled to start operations at the end of this year or early 2016. Work is also going well for the multilateral AIIB, with formal operations beginning next year, said Chen Huan, who is in charge of preparations for the bank's launch.
READ MORE.....
Premier Li meets German Chancellor Merkel in Beijing
By Shen Chen
(People's Daily Online) - October 29, 2015
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Thursday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The two sides agreed to continue carrying out the consensus reached at last round of China–Germany governmental consultation to deepen mutual trust and enhance cooperation at various areas. An upgraded version of Sino-German cooperation is expected from both sides.
After the meeting, Premier Li and Chancellor Merkel witnessed the signing of 13 agreements in fields like finance, manufacturing and communication between youth in two countries.
At Li's invitation, Merkel is making an official visit to China from Thursday to Friday. It is her eighth visit to China since 2005 in the capacity of chancellor.
READ MORE.....
(People's Daily Online) - October 29, 2015
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Thursday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The two sides agreed to continue carrying out the consensus reached at last round of China–Germany governmental consultation to deepen mutual trust and enhance cooperation at various areas. An upgraded version of Sino-German cooperation is expected from both sides.
After the meeting, Premier Li and Chancellor Merkel witnessed the signing of 13 agreements in fields like finance, manufacturing and communication between youth in two countries.
At Li's invitation, Merkel is making an official visit to China from Thursday to Friday. It is her eighth visit to China since 2005 in the capacity of chancellor.
READ MORE.....
Advancing financial inclusion in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East
Robin Lewis, John Villasenor and Darrell M. West
BROOKINGS | September 16, 2015
Of the 21 countries ranked in the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, no countries in Asia placed in the top 5 in the overall ranking. However, all of the FDIP Asian countries have demonstrated progress within at least one of the four dimensions of the 2015 Scorecard: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of traditional and digital financial services.
This blog post will dive into a few of the obstacles and opportunities facing FDIP countries in central Asia, the Middle East, and southeast Asia as they move toward greater access to and usage of financial services among marginalized groups. We explore these countries in order of their overall score: Turkey (74 percent), Indonesia (70 percent), the Philippines (68 percent), Bangladesh (67 percent), Pakistan (65 percent), and Afghanistan (58 percent). You can also read our separate post on financial inclusion in India, available here.
READ MORE....
BROOKINGS | September 16, 2015
Of the 21 countries ranked in the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, no countries in Asia placed in the top 5 in the overall ranking. However, all of the FDIP Asian countries have demonstrated progress within at least one of the four dimensions of the 2015 Scorecard: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of traditional and digital financial services.
This blog post will dive into a few of the obstacles and opportunities facing FDIP countries in central Asia, the Middle East, and southeast Asia as they move toward greater access to and usage of financial services among marginalized groups. We explore these countries in order of their overall score: Turkey (74 percent), Indonesia (70 percent), the Philippines (68 percent), Bangladesh (67 percent), Pakistan (65 percent), and Afghanistan (58 percent). You can also read our separate post on financial inclusion in India, available here.
READ MORE....
Nubia announces first eye-scan smartphone
China Daily, October 29, 2015
Nubia, the handset brand that has been used by Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan, unveiled a series of upgraded smartphones on Wednesday to mark three-year anniversary of the company's establishment. One of the devices, Nubia Z9 Mini Elite, has been upgraded with new biometric authentication -- eye pattern recognition, the same technology embedded on ZTE's latest flagship Axon. "Our users can use eye-scan to unlock their phone or encrypt applications," said Ni Fei, senior vice-president of Nubia Technology. "The technology brings maximum protection of user's privacy as well as creates a new interactive experience." ZTE, the parent firm of Nubia before the latter announced financial autonomy in June, has jointly worked with US biometric security technology startup EyeVerify Inc to launch the "world's first smartphone" with eye-based biometric solution, called the Grand S3, at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. Nubia Z9 Max Elite and rose gold colored Nubia "MyPrague" were also introduced at the launch event.
READ MORE.....
Nubia, the handset brand that has been used by Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan, unveiled a series of upgraded smartphones on Wednesday to mark three-year anniversary of the company's establishment. One of the devices, Nubia Z9 Mini Elite, has been upgraded with new biometric authentication -- eye pattern recognition, the same technology embedded on ZTE's latest flagship Axon. "Our users can use eye-scan to unlock their phone or encrypt applications," said Ni Fei, senior vice-president of Nubia Technology. "The technology brings maximum protection of user's privacy as well as creates a new interactive experience." ZTE, the parent firm of Nubia before the latter announced financial autonomy in June, has jointly worked with US biometric security technology startup EyeVerify Inc to launch the "world's first smartphone" with eye-based biometric solution, called the Grand S3, at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. Nubia Z9 Max Elite and rose gold colored Nubia "MyPrague" were also introduced at the launch event.
READ MORE.....
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Chinese films win big at Chicago Film Fest
Xinhua, October 25, 2015
Emerging Chinese director Song
Pengfei could hardly believe that his first try at film directing would
turn out to be an immediate success. At Friday night, amid applause and
enthusiasm, Song, director of a movie entitled "Underground Fragrance,"
came to the stage at the Peninsula Hotel, Chicago, a city in the U.S.
state of Illinois, to claim Gold Hugo for New Directors at the 51st
Chicago International Film Festival. "Underground Fragrance" is a
feature film presenting ordinary people striving to move up in today's
China. Song was joined by Song Zhantao,
director of the documentary "In the Underground," which tells about the
lives of miners in north China's Hebei Province, who won the Silver Hugo
Award for the documentary, and Jia Shaowei, producer of "In the
Underground." The two Songs are not related. "I'm mesmerized by the film," said
Claudia Landsberger, jury of New Directors Competition, referring Song
Pengfei's feature film "Underground Fragrance." "When you watch the movie, you can
actually feel it, smell it. It's your life there," she said. "When the
film ends, you want to know what happened to the people afterwards." Landsberger said the film tells so much about modern China and it's amazing that such a film is from a new director.
Chinese bribed top official to stall UN reforms?
Indrani Bagchi
TNN | Oct 23, 2015
NEW DELHI: The arrest of former president of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, on charges of bribery by the Chinese has vindicated India's suspicion that key top level officials in the UN system were being paid off to delay or scuttle the Security Council reform process, among other things.
Earlier this month, Ashe, former envoy from Antigua & Barbuda was charged by US attorney Preet Bharara for accepting a bribe of $1.3 million from Chinese businessmen and officials for support for a multi-billion dollar "south south" UN-sponsored conference centre in casino capital Macau. Bharara's complaint also stated that other Chinese nationals paid Ashe hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate their businesses in Antigua. While only some of the details of the bribery processes have been made public, they are enough to provide a clue to the methods China uses to influence UN processes.
READ MORE....
TNN | Oct 23, 2015
NEW DELHI: The arrest of former president of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, on charges of bribery by the Chinese has vindicated India's suspicion that key top level officials in the UN system were being paid off to delay or scuttle the Security Council reform process, among other things.
Earlier this month, Ashe, former envoy from Antigua & Barbuda was charged by US attorney Preet Bharara for accepting a bribe of $1.3 million from Chinese businessmen and officials for support for a multi-billion dollar "south south" UN-sponsored conference centre in casino capital Macau. Bharara's complaint also stated that other Chinese nationals paid Ashe hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate their businesses in Antigua. While only some of the details of the bribery processes have been made public, they are enough to provide a clue to the methods China uses to influence UN processes.
READ MORE....
Obama vetoes US defense bill, sends it back to Congress
CHINA DAILY - 2015-10-23
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama vetoed a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill on Thursday, returning the measure to the Republican-controlled Congress because of the way it uses money meant for war spending to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs.
"I'm going to be sending it back to Congress and my message to them is very simple: 'Let's do this right,'" Obama told reporters.
"We're in the midst of budget discussions. Let's have a budget that properly funds our national security as well as economic security," he said.
Obama also said he disagreed with provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have limited his ability to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center before he leaves office in January 2017.
"Guantanamo is one of the premier mechanisms for jihadists to recruit," he told reporters at a rare White House veto signing ceremony.
READ MORE....
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama vetoed a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill on Thursday, returning the measure to the Republican-controlled Congress because of the way it uses money meant for war spending to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs.
"I'm going to be sending it back to Congress and my message to them is very simple: 'Let's do this right,'" Obama told reporters.
"We're in the midst of budget discussions. Let's have a budget that properly funds our national security as well as economic security," he said.
Obama also said he disagreed with provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have limited his ability to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center before he leaves office in January 2017.
"Guantanamo is one of the premier mechanisms for jihadists to recruit," he told reporters at a rare White House veto signing ceremony.
READ MORE....
Obama vs. Putin: Mutual finger-pointing deepens ideological clash
RUSSIA DIRECT - Sep 29, 2015
BY Ivan Tsvetkov
The recent speeches made by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the 70th UN General Assembly clearly show that Russian and American leaders are once again locked in a global ideological confrontation of the type once witnessed during the Cold War. The unusual excitement preceding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to New York seemed fully understandable. This was the first time in ten years that the Russian leader had come to speak at the UN General Assembly and his first full-fledged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis. Moreover, there were hopes for overcoming the deadlock over Syria, as well as hopes for forming effective international mechanisms to confront the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terrorists. And yet, especially after all the scheduled meetings and performances had already taken place, it is hard to escape the feeling that most people are unwilling to believe that a pair of beautiful speeches and an hour and a half conversation behind closed doors can interrupt the course of history.
READ MORE....
BY Ivan Tsvetkov
The recent speeches made by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the 70th UN General Assembly clearly show that Russian and American leaders are once again locked in a global ideological confrontation of the type once witnessed during the Cold War. The unusual excitement preceding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to New York seemed fully understandable. This was the first time in ten years that the Russian leader had come to speak at the UN General Assembly and his first full-fledged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis. Moreover, there were hopes for overcoming the deadlock over Syria, as well as hopes for forming effective international mechanisms to confront the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terrorists. And yet, especially after all the scheduled meetings and performances had already taken place, it is hard to escape the feeling that most people are unwilling to believe that a pair of beautiful speeches and an hour and a half conversation behind closed doors can interrupt the course of history.
READ MORE....
Book Review: On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman
LONDON SCHOOL SO ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Alice Goffman. University of Chicago Press.
There are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in American prisons
and jails. There are a further five million or more under some form of
penal supervision – generally parole or probation. Such is the scale of
imprisonment (America’s rate is close to five times that of England, and
we are at record levels), and the disproportionate nature of its impact
(one in 15 African-American males aged 18 or older is incarcerated
compared with one in every 106 white males of the same age) that
scholars have started to refer to what is occurring as mass incarceration. This
unprecedented social ‘experiment’ has generated some wonderful,
critical scholarship, most recently in the form of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Becky Pettit’s Invisible Men, both published in 2012.
READ MORE....
On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Alice Goffman. University of Chicago Press.
There are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in American prisons
and jails. There are a further five million or more under some form of
penal supervision – generally parole or probation. Such is the scale of
imprisonment (America’s rate is close to five times that of England, and
we are at record levels), and the disproportionate nature of its impact
(one in 15 African-American males aged 18 or older is incarcerated
compared with one in every 106 white males of the same age) that
scholars have started to refer to what is occurring as mass incarceration. This
unprecedented social ‘experiment’ has generated some wonderful,
critical scholarship, most recently in the form of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Becky Pettit’s Invisible Men, both published in 2012.READ MORE....
Man completes his sociology Ph.D. at age 90
By Kathy Hovis
CORNELL CHRONICLE - Oct. 22, 2015
Back in 1972, Benjamin Franco Suarez was diligently working toward his doctorate in sociology at Cornell, studying the fertility behavior of Bolivian women as part of his work on demography, economic development in developing countries and Latin American studies.
He passed his B exams, but needed money and a job, so he took what he thought would be a short leave of absence to earn some money, planning to return quickly to finish up.
Forty-three years later, Franco Suarez, now 90, received his doctorate in September and was honored at an Oct. 19 campus reception. He spent the last year confirming his results by using correlation analysis on the data he’s been carrying with him for nearly four decades.
READ MORE....
CORNELL CHRONICLE - Oct. 22, 2015
Back in 1972, Benjamin Franco Suarez was diligently working toward his doctorate in sociology at Cornell, studying the fertility behavior of Bolivian women as part of his work on demography, economic development in developing countries and Latin American studies.
He passed his B exams, but needed money and a job, so he took what he thought would be a short leave of absence to earn some money, planning to return quickly to finish up.
Forty-three years later, Franco Suarez, now 90, received his doctorate in September and was honored at an Oct. 19 campus reception. He spent the last year confirming his results by using correlation analysis on the data he’s been carrying with him for nearly four decades.
READ MORE....
Screw Finding Your Passion
MARKMANSON - October 22, 2015
Remember back when you were a kid? You would just do things. You never thought to yourself, “What are the relative merits of learning baseball versus football?” You just ran around the playground and played baseball and football. You built sand castles and played tag and asked silly questions and looked for bugs and dug up grass and pretended you were a sewer monster. Nobody told you to do it, you just did it. You were led merely by your curiosity and excitement. And the beautiful thing was, if you hated baseball, you just stopped playing it. There was no guilt involved. There was no arguing or debate. You either liked it, or you didn’t. And if you loved looking for bugs, you just did that. There was no second-level analysis of, “Well, is looking for bugs really what I should be doing with my time as a child? Nobody else wants to look for bugs, does that mean there’s something wrong with me? How will looking for bugs affect my future prospects?” There was no bullshit. If you liked something, you just did it.
READ MORE....
Remember back when you were a kid? You would just do things. You never thought to yourself, “What are the relative merits of learning baseball versus football?” You just ran around the playground and played baseball and football. You built sand castles and played tag and asked silly questions and looked for bugs and dug up grass and pretended you were a sewer monster. Nobody told you to do it, you just did it. You were led merely by your curiosity and excitement. And the beautiful thing was, if you hated baseball, you just stopped playing it. There was no guilt involved. There was no arguing or debate. You either liked it, or you didn’t. And if you loved looking for bugs, you just did that. There was no second-level analysis of, “Well, is looking for bugs really what I should be doing with my time as a child? Nobody else wants to look for bugs, does that mean there’s something wrong with me? How will looking for bugs affect my future prospects?” There was no bullshit. If you liked something, you just did it.
READ MORE....
Germany's oldest student, 102, gets PhD denied by Nazis
By Damien McGuinness
BBC News, Berlin - 9 June 2015
A 102-year-old German woman has become the world's oldest person to be awarded a doctorate on Tuesday, almost 80 years after the Nazis prevented her from sitting her final exam. Ingeborg Rapoport (then Syllm) finished her medical studies in 1937 and wrote her doctoral thesis on diphtheria - a serious problem in Germany at the time. But because of Nazi oppression she has had to wait almost eight decades before being awarded her PhD. Her mother was a Jewish pianist. So, under Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic race laws, Ingeborg was refused entry to the final oral exam. She had written confirmation from Hamburg University that she would have received her doctorate "if the applicable laws did not prohibit Ms Syllm's admission to the doctoral exam due to her ancestry".
READ MORE....
BBC News, Berlin - 9 June 2015
A 102-year-old German woman has become the world's oldest person to be awarded a doctorate on Tuesday, almost 80 years after the Nazis prevented her from sitting her final exam. Ingeborg Rapoport (then Syllm) finished her medical studies in 1937 and wrote her doctoral thesis on diphtheria - a serious problem in Germany at the time. But because of Nazi oppression she has had to wait almost eight decades before being awarded her PhD. Her mother was a Jewish pianist. So, under Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic race laws, Ingeborg was refused entry to the final oral exam. She had written confirmation from Hamburg University that she would have received her doctorate "if the applicable laws did not prohibit Ms Syllm's admission to the doctoral exam due to her ancestry".
READ MORE....
1150 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
OPEN CULTURE
Get 1150 free online courses from the world’s leading universities — Stanford, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford and more. You can download these audio & video courses (often from iTunes, YouTube, or university web sites) straight to your computer or mp3 player. Over 30,000 hours of free audio & video lectures, await you now.
READ MORE.....
Get 1150 free online courses from the world’s leading universities — Stanford, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford and more. You can download these audio & video courses (often from iTunes, YouTube, or university web sites) straight to your computer or mp3 player. Over 30,000 hours of free audio & video lectures, await you now.
READ MORE.....
Turks Clash With Kurds in Tokyo, at Least 4 Injured
SPUTNIK - 25.10.2015
At least four people were injured in scuffle between Turks and Kurds near the Turkish embassy in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, local media reported Sunday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the Japanese NHK broadcaster, some 600 Turkish citizens both of Turkish and Kurdish origin came to the embassy to participate in the snap parliamentary elections.
Brawl between Turks and Kurds outside turkish embassy in Tokyo this morning. pic.twitter.com/3uapgsq6eV — Tom Wilson (@tomwilson1983) 25 октября 2015 Soon after the clashes broke out, Japanese police arrived at the accident site and took actions to reconcile the rival groups.
READ MORE.....
At least four people were injured in scuffle between Turks and Kurds near the Turkish embassy in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, local media reported Sunday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the Japanese NHK broadcaster, some 600 Turkish citizens both of Turkish and Kurdish origin came to the embassy to participate in the snap parliamentary elections.
Brawl between Turks and Kurds outside turkish embassy in Tokyo this morning. pic.twitter.com/3uapgsq6eV — Tom Wilson (@tomwilson1983) 25 октября 2015 Soon after the clashes broke out, Japanese police arrived at the accident site and took actions to reconcile the rival groups.
READ MORE.....
What America’s immigrants looked like when they arrived on Ellis Island
By Ana Swanson
THE WASHINGTON POST - October 24, 2015
We hear so often that America is "a nation of immigrants" or a "cultural mixing pot" that the phrase has become kind of a tired cliche. But actually seeing that history is a different story. The fascinating photographs below -- of people in their native costume passing through Ellis Island in the early 20th Century -- hint at just how incredible and unique America's history is as a nation of immigrants.
These photos were taken by Augustus Sherman, an amateur photographer who worked as the chief registry clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. Sherman snapped these photographs of people passing through customs in their native costume. They were published in National Geographic in 1907 and once hung on the walls in the headquarters of the federal Immigration Service in Manhattan, according to the Public Domain Review. They are now housed by the New York Public Library.
READ MORE.....
THE WASHINGTON POST - October 24, 2015
We hear so often that America is "a nation of immigrants" or a "cultural mixing pot" that the phrase has become kind of a tired cliche. But actually seeing that history is a different story. The fascinating photographs below -- of people in their native costume passing through Ellis Island in the early 20th Century -- hint at just how incredible and unique America's history is as a nation of immigrants.
These photos were taken by Augustus Sherman, an amateur photographer who worked as the chief registry clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. Sherman snapped these photographs of people passing through customs in their native costume. They were published in National Geographic in 1907 and once hung on the walls in the headquarters of the federal Immigration Service in Manhattan, according to the Public Domain Review. They are now housed by the New York Public Library.
READ MORE.....
1906-1912 Ellis Island portraits
The faces that became America
by Alex Q. Arbuckle
MASHABLE
First opened in 1892, the immigration station at Ellis Island in New York harbor processed more than 12 million immigrants before being closed in 1954. At the station's peak in 1907, more than one million immigrants passed through in a single year, with 3,000 to 5,000 entering every day, mostly from Europe and its periphery. While most entrants to Ellis Island answered a few questions and passed through to the mainland within a few hours, some were detained on the island for longer periods. Augustus Francis Sherman was the chief registry clerk at Ellis Island, and an avid amateur photographer. He had special access to the immigrants who were temporarily detained while waiting on escorts, money or travel tickets. Sherman persuaded many of these immigrants to pose for his camera, encouraging them to put on their finest clothes or national dress. His photographs, captioned simply with the subject’s place of origin, were published in National Geographic in 1907 and hung for many years in the headquarters of the Federal Immigration Service.
READ MORE.....
by Alex Q. Arbuckle
MASHABLE
First opened in 1892, the immigration station at Ellis Island in New York harbor processed more than 12 million immigrants before being closed in 1954. At the station's peak in 1907, more than one million immigrants passed through in a single year, with 3,000 to 5,000 entering every day, mostly from Europe and its periphery. While most entrants to Ellis Island answered a few questions and passed through to the mainland within a few hours, some were detained on the island for longer periods. Augustus Francis Sherman was the chief registry clerk at Ellis Island, and an avid amateur photographer. He had special access to the immigrants who were temporarily detained while waiting on escorts, money or travel tickets. Sherman persuaded many of these immigrants to pose for his camera, encouraging them to put on their finest clothes or national dress. His photographs, captioned simply with the subject’s place of origin, were published in National Geographic in 1907 and hung for many years in the headquarters of the Federal Immigration Service.
READ MORE.....
Blair, the Iraq War and me
How my doctoral thesis was used by Tony Blair's government to concoct a credible public case to invade Iraq in 2003.
AL-JAZEERA - 25 Oct 2015
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
How was I, a PhD student at Oxford University in 2003, linked to Tony Blair, the case for the Iraq War, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email affair?
For the first time, Blair has apologised for his role in the Iraq War, just a week after the UK Daily Mail reported on a recently released memo by Colin Powell, dated a year before the Iraq war of 2003. That memo reveals how I would become connected to a political controversy that continues to this day in the UK. The timing of this released memo in the US and Blair's apology on Fareed Zakaria's CNN programme coincides with the anticipated release of the Chilcot Inquiry report, an investigation that has been going for several years into the circumstances that led the UK into the Iraq war.
READ MORE.....
AL-JAZEERA - 25 Oct 2015
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
How was I, a PhD student at Oxford University in 2003, linked to Tony Blair, the case for the Iraq War, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email affair?
For the first time, Blair has apologised for his role in the Iraq War, just a week after the UK Daily Mail reported on a recently released memo by Colin Powell, dated a year before the Iraq war of 2003. That memo reveals how I would become connected to a political controversy that continues to this day in the UK. The timing of this released memo in the US and Blair's apology on Fareed Zakaria's CNN programme coincides with the anticipated release of the Chilcot Inquiry report, an investigation that has been going for several years into the circumstances that led the UK into the Iraq war.
READ MORE.....
China's Yantai Xinchao to buy U.S. oilfields for $1.3 bln
REUTERS - Sun Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25 China's Yantai Xinchao Industry Co Ltd has agreed to spend about 8.3 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) to buy oilfields in the U.S. state of Texas, the company said in a corporate filing late on Saturday.
The oilfields, in Howard and Borden counties, will be bought from Tall City Exploration LLC and Plymouth Petroleum LLC, Xinchao said in the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The transaction has aready been approved by the U.S. Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investment, it added. ($1 = 6.3488 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Meng Meng; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
READ MORE.....
Oct 25 China's Yantai Xinchao Industry Co Ltd has agreed to spend about 8.3 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) to buy oilfields in the U.S. state of Texas, the company said in a corporate filing late on Saturday.
The oilfields, in Howard and Borden counties, will be bought from Tall City Exploration LLC and Plymouth Petroleum LLC, Xinchao said in the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The transaction has aready been approved by the U.S. Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investment, it added. ($1 = 6.3488 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Meng Meng; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
READ MORE.....
The Bizarre, Dangerous Worldview of Kissinger and Washington
The Cairo Review Of the Global Affairs - October 25, 2015
Rami G. Khouri
In an important op-ed article published earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Henry Kissinger provided a fascinating window into the foreign policy mindset of American officialdom that he has so consistently mirrored for nearly half a century now. His important article, entitled “A Path out of the Middle East Collapse,” captures concisely two things that the world should grasp about American foreign policy—especially in the Middle East, where it has been actively engaged in warfare for over a quarter of a century, as its relations and interests frayed.
Rather than offering any path out of anywhere, Kissinger inadvertently clarifies the American role in the path that has brought the Middle East to this point of turbulence, violence, and occasional state contraction or collapse. I see several main problems in the text—and in the official American mindset in Washington that it reflects.
READ MORE.....
Rami G. Khouri
In an important op-ed article published earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Henry Kissinger provided a fascinating window into the foreign policy mindset of American officialdom that he has so consistently mirrored for nearly half a century now. His important article, entitled “A Path out of the Middle East Collapse,” captures concisely two things that the world should grasp about American foreign policy—especially in the Middle East, where it has been actively engaged in warfare for over a quarter of a century, as its relations and interests frayed.
Rather than offering any path out of anywhere, Kissinger inadvertently clarifies the American role in the path that has brought the Middle East to this point of turbulence, violence, and occasional state contraction or collapse. I see several main problems in the text—and in the official American mindset in Washington that it reflects.
READ MORE.....
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Inside Iran’s Revolutionary Courts
By Jenny Norton
BBC World Service - 17 October 2015
After Iran's Islamic Revolution secretive courts were set up to try suspected ideological opponents of the regime, with no jury, no defence lawyers and often no evidence beyond a confession extracted from the defendant by means of torture. Those who survived them still bear the psychological scars today. In the living room of their flat in Calgary, Canada, Shoreh Roshani and her mother Parvin are watching a flickering video. Shoreh has her arm around her mother, and both women are weeping softly. The grainy footage, which only recently came to light, is of a trial in 1981 and shows the final hours in the life of Shoreh's father, Sirus. Shortly after it ended, he and the other six defendants were taken away and shot.
READ MORE....
BBC World Service - 17 October 2015
After Iran's Islamic Revolution secretive courts were set up to try suspected ideological opponents of the regime, with no jury, no defence lawyers and often no evidence beyond a confession extracted from the defendant by means of torture. Those who survived them still bear the psychological scars today. In the living room of their flat in Calgary, Canada, Shoreh Roshani and her mother Parvin are watching a flickering video. Shoreh has her arm around her mother, and both women are weeping softly. The grainy footage, which only recently came to light, is of a trial in 1981 and shows the final hours in the life of Shoreh's father, Sirus. Shortly after it ended, he and the other six defendants were taken away and shot.
READ MORE....
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
Mapping Migration in the United States
THE NEW YORK TIMES - AUG. 15, 2014
Continue reading the main story Select a year 1900 1950 2012 Where people who lived in each state in 2012 were born Each shape represents where the people living in a state were born. Within a state, larger shapes mean a group makes up a larger share of the population.
READ MORE....
Continue reading the main story Select a year 1900 1950 2012 Where people who lived in each state in 2012 were born Each shape represents where the people living in a state were born. Within a state, larger shapes mean a group makes up a larger share of the population.
On Thursday, we published a series of interactive charts
showing how Americans have moved between states since 1900. The charts
show striking patterns for many states: You can trace the rise of
migrant and immigrant populations all along the Southwest, particularly
in Texas and Arizona; the influx of New Yorkers and other
Northeasterners into Florida starting in the 1970s; and the growth in
the Southern share of the Illinois population during the Great
Migration.
In
1900, 95 percent of the people living in the Carolinas were born there,
with similarly high numbers all through the Southeast. More than a
hundred years later, those percentages are nearly cut in half.
Taken
individually, each state tells its own story, and each makes for
fascinating reading. As a follow-up, here is the big picture: a map
showing all of the states at a given time.
READ MORE....
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Which U.S.-China Tech Leaders Met with Xi Jinping (And Why)
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 24, 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday in Seattle with top executives of U.S. and Chinese tech companies. Here’s a look at the 28 executives — two of them women — who joined the gathering, which comes at a time of mounting tension over cyberattacks and restrictions on U.S. firms.
READ MORE.....
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday in Seattle with top executives of U.S. and Chinese tech companies. Here’s a look at the 28 executives — two of them women — who joined the gathering, which comes at a time of mounting tension over cyberattacks and restrictions on U.S. firms.
READ MORE.....
Call for Abstracts: True Detective and Philosophy
Call for Abstracts
True Detective and Philosophy
Edited by Jacob Graham & Tom Sparrow
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series
Please circulate and post widely. Apologies for Cross-posting.
To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu
Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.
Possible themes and topics may include, but are not limited to:
The Virtues of Rust and the Vices of Marty; Ray’s and Marty’s Habits and the Failure of Character; Does Rust Really Know Who He Is?; Where is the Real Woodrugh?; Green Paint and the Contingency of Redemption; The Masks of Criminals and Detectives and the Face of the True Self; Self-Consciousness as an Evolutionary Mistake; Rust’s Pessimism and the Limits of the Bleak; Nietzschean Evaluation of the City of Vinci and its Denizens; Are Ray, Ani, and Frank Beyond Redemption?; True Nihilists in the Bayou?; If “the light’s winning,” Should Rust Despair?; It’s All About the Kids, Maggie: Antinatalism, Happiness, and Parenthood; Erroll Childress: More Than Just a Psychopath; Logic and the Truth of Detective Work; Philosophy as Detection; Frank’s Debts and Debt as a Moral Category; Marty’s Noble Lie and the Murder of Ledoux; Vinci Cops, Crooks, and the Complexity of Social Contracts; Antigone Bezzerides and the Law; Ani Bezzerides and the Women of True Detective; Fragile Masculinity and the Men of True Detective; Feminism and Sexual Violence as Aesthetic Device; True Direction: Pizzolatto, Season 2, and the Risks of Collaborative Creation; Maggie and the Subtleties of Sexism/Misogyny; Thrasymachus’s Challenge to Socrates and the Empty Promise of Justice; Is Ani a Pawn of Patriarchy? Ani and Double Standards; “Time is a Flat Circle”; The Problem of Evil and Theodicy in a World Beyond Good and Evil; Tent Revivals and the Manipulation of the Masses; Rust on Our Capacity for Illusion as Virtue; The “Ontological Fallacy” of Optimism; Rust’s Anti-Teleology: “Surely this is all for me… I’m so fucking important… Fuck You!”; Truth and Falsity of the Cynic; Marty, Rust, and Aristotelian Friendship; Monsters, Maniacs, and the Mundane; Thin Conceptions of Flourishing in a Bleak World; Carcosa, Mythology, and Mysticism; Drugs, Alcohol, and the Doors of Perception; Dependency and the Myth of Autonomy; Rust and the Rationalization of Belief; Tuttle’s and Ledoux’s Master Morality; “The world needs bad men” (Rust).
Submission Guidelines:
- Deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and brief CVs: November 1, 2015
- Deadline for first drafts of accepted chapters: February 1, 2016
The Truth About Chávez Bernie Sanders is wrong — Hugo Chávez was no dictator.
by Gabriel Hetland
jacobinmag.com - /2015/09
Dear Bernie,
Like millions of Americans, I’ve been watching your campaign with growing excitement. You’re spot on about the pernicious effects of rising inequality and absolutely correct that the United States now resembles an oligarchy more than a democracy. I applaud your willingness to directly and repeatedly denounce the billionaire class that runs this country. And I wholeheartedly support your call for universal health care. It’s been a joy to watch you make Hillary Clinton squirm as your poll numbers rise. I smile every time I imagine the possibility of a self-described socialist calling for a political revolution winning the Democratic nomination. I’m encouraged that you have made fighting racism a priority in your campaign, alongside the rest of your progressive agenda.
READ MORE....
jacobinmag.com - /2015/09
Dear Bernie,
Like millions of Americans, I’ve been watching your campaign with growing excitement. You’re spot on about the pernicious effects of rising inequality and absolutely correct that the United States now resembles an oligarchy more than a democracy. I applaud your willingness to directly and repeatedly denounce the billionaire class that runs this country. And I wholeheartedly support your call for universal health care. It’s been a joy to watch you make Hillary Clinton squirm as your poll numbers rise. I smile every time I imagine the possibility of a self-described socialist calling for a political revolution winning the Democratic nomination. I’m encouraged that you have made fighting racism a priority in your campaign, alongside the rest of your progressive agenda.
READ MORE....
The day 100,000 Iranian women protested the head scarf
A seldom-seen collection of photographs, shot in Tehran in 1979, is challenging perceptions of the feminist movement in Iran
Pip Cummings
WOMEN IN THE WORLD - 09.15.15
When 34-year-old photographer Azadeh Fatehrad first laid eyes on an image by Hengameh Golestan, of women protesting in the streets of Tehran in 1979, she was struck immediately — it was unlike anything she had seen before. Born in 1981 in Iran, Fatehrad had learned in school that women made a smooth transition to Islamic rules imposed after the 1979 Revolution — in particular adopting a compulsory dress code, the hijab. But Golestan’s image told a different story: thousands of women in the street, protesting the announcement that the headwear would be mandatory. “I couldn’t believe that photo was taken in Iran — I was completely surprised,” Fatehrad tells Women in the World by email. She describes this kind of historical record as “inaccessible” in Iran.
READ MORE....
Pip Cummings
WOMEN IN THE WORLD - 09.15.15
When 34-year-old photographer Azadeh Fatehrad first laid eyes on an image by Hengameh Golestan, of women protesting in the streets of Tehran in 1979, she was struck immediately — it was unlike anything she had seen before. Born in 1981 in Iran, Fatehrad had learned in school that women made a smooth transition to Islamic rules imposed after the 1979 Revolution — in particular adopting a compulsory dress code, the hijab. But Golestan’s image told a different story: thousands of women in the street, protesting the announcement that the headwear would be mandatory. “I couldn’t believe that photo was taken in Iran — I was completely surprised,” Fatehrad tells Women in the World by email. She describes this kind of historical record as “inaccessible” in Iran.
READ MORE....
The Most Diverse Cities Are Often The Most Segregated
By Nate Silver
Urban Diversity - May 1, 2015
When I was a freshman at the University of Chicago in 1996, I heard the same thing again and again: Do not leave the boundaries of Hyde Park. Do not go north of 47th Street. Do not go south of 61st Street. Do not go west of Cottage Grove Avenue. 1 These boundaries were fairly explicit, almost to the point of being an official university policy. The campus police department was not committed to protecting students beyond the area,2 and the campus safety brochure advised students not to use the “El” train stops just a couple of blocks beyond them unless “traveling in groups and during the daytime.” What usually wasn’t said — on a campus that brags about the diversity of its urban setting but where only about 5 percent of students are black — was that the neighborhoods beyond these boundaries were overwhelmingly black and poor. The U. of C. has, for many decades, treated Hyde Park as its “fortress on the South Side,” and its legacy of trying to keep its students within the neighborhood — and the black residents of surrounding communities out — has left its mark on Chicago.
READ MORE...
Urban Diversity - May 1, 2015
When I was a freshman at the University of Chicago in 1996, I heard the same thing again and again: Do not leave the boundaries of Hyde Park. Do not go north of 47th Street. Do not go south of 61st Street. Do not go west of Cottage Grove Avenue. 1 These boundaries were fairly explicit, almost to the point of being an official university policy. The campus police department was not committed to protecting students beyond the area,2 and the campus safety brochure advised students not to use the “El” train stops just a couple of blocks beyond them unless “traveling in groups and during the daytime.” What usually wasn’t said — on a campus that brags about the diversity of its urban setting but where only about 5 percent of students are black — was that the neighborhoods beyond these boundaries were overwhelmingly black and poor. The U. of C. has, for many decades, treated Hyde Park as its “fortress on the South Side,” and its legacy of trying to keep its students within the neighborhood — and the black residents of surrounding communities out — has left its mark on Chicago.
READ MORE...
Improvement of Global Governance Needs Joint Efforts from China and the US: President Xi
People's Daily - September 22, 2015
China and the US should work together to improve the global governance system, enhance cooperation and jointly respond to major challenges facing mankind, said Xi Jinping on Tuesday ahead of his first official state visit to the US as the Chinese President. “The global governance system is built and shared by the world, not monopolized by a single country, ” said Xi in a written interview with The Wall Street Journal. “China certainly has no intention to do so.” China is involved in building the current international system, and has always done its part to uphold the international order and system with the UN as its core and the purposes and principles of the UN charter as its foundation, Xi said. He added that China stands ready to work with all the other UN member states to build a new type of international relationship featuring win-win cooperation, improve the architecture of global governance, and build a community of shared future for mankind. Citing the annual shortfall in funding for Asian infrastructural development is around $800 billion, he noted that the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) is established mainly to meet the need of Asian countries for infrastructure development and further cooperation. “China welcomes the US to join the AIIB. This has been our position from the very outset,” said the president.
READ MORE....
China and the US should work together to improve the global governance system, enhance cooperation and jointly respond to major challenges facing mankind, said Xi Jinping on Tuesday ahead of his first official state visit to the US as the Chinese President. “The global governance system is built and shared by the world, not monopolized by a single country, ” said Xi in a written interview with The Wall Street Journal. “China certainly has no intention to do so.” China is involved in building the current international system, and has always done its part to uphold the international order and system with the UN as its core and the purposes and principles of the UN charter as its foundation, Xi said. He added that China stands ready to work with all the other UN member states to build a new type of international relationship featuring win-win cooperation, improve the architecture of global governance, and build a community of shared future for mankind. Citing the annual shortfall in funding for Asian infrastructural development is around $800 billion, he noted that the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) is established mainly to meet the need of Asian countries for infrastructure development and further cooperation. “China welcomes the US to join the AIIB. This has been our position from the very outset,” said the president.
READ MORE....
Russian Foreign Policy in Historical and Current Context A Reassessment
By Olga Oliker, Christopher S. Chivvis, Keith Crane, Olesya Tkacheva, Scott Boston
RAND - 2015
This Perspective provides an overview and analysis of sources of Russian foreign policy to help explain Russia's actions in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. It evaluates arguments based on Russian historical strategic interests, economic policy, and domestic policy to determine which explanations, alone or in combination, stand up best to Russia's actual choices and actions. The authors conclude that Russia's general attitude toward Ukraine is largely consistent with historical Russian (and Soviet) thinking about security interests and foreign policy, which have focused on buffer states, influence on its neighbors, and a perception of continued competition with the United States. However, these historical patterns alone are insufficient to fully explain Russian actions. Neither can public opinion, elite interests, or the pursuit of economic growth be defined as key drivers of Russian behavior. Moscow has sought to shape, rather than respond to, public opinion, and has done so with great success. Decisionmaking in the Kremlin has become highly centralized, obviating the possibility of elite group influence. Finally, economic growth goals have been jettisoned, rather than pursued, in this crisis. This said, the authors argue that an important component of the Kremlin's decision calculus also stems from how Russia's leaders, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, have interpreted the implications of the Maidan uprising in Ukraine for their own country. As a result, Putin's fear that popular opposition and unrest will threaten his power has led him to endanger many of the things he has worked to build over his tenure.
READ MORE...
RAND - 2015
This Perspective provides an overview and analysis of sources of Russian foreign policy to help explain Russia's actions in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. It evaluates arguments based on Russian historical strategic interests, economic policy, and domestic policy to determine which explanations, alone or in combination, stand up best to Russia's actual choices and actions. The authors conclude that Russia's general attitude toward Ukraine is largely consistent with historical Russian (and Soviet) thinking about security interests and foreign policy, which have focused on buffer states, influence on its neighbors, and a perception of continued competition with the United States. However, these historical patterns alone are insufficient to fully explain Russian actions. Neither can public opinion, elite interests, or the pursuit of economic growth be defined as key drivers of Russian behavior. Moscow has sought to shape, rather than respond to, public opinion, and has done so with great success. Decisionmaking in the Kremlin has become highly centralized, obviating the possibility of elite group influence. Finally, economic growth goals have been jettisoned, rather than pursued, in this crisis. This said, the authors argue that an important component of the Kremlin's decision calculus also stems from how Russia's leaders, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, have interpreted the implications of the Maidan uprising in Ukraine for their own country. As a result, Putin's fear that popular opposition and unrest will threaten his power has led him to endanger many of the things he has worked to build over his tenure.
READ MORE...
NGOs and Global Policy-Making
By James A. Paul
Global Policy Forum - June 2000
READ MORE...
Global Policy Forum - June 2000
Organizations like Oxfam, Greenpeace, Amnesty
International and thousands of others serve the public on a national and
international scale. Known variously as "private voluntary
organizations," "civil society organizations," and "citizen
associations," they are increasingly called "NGOs," an acronym that
stands for "non-governmental organizations." The United Nations system
uses this term to distinguish representatives of these agencies from
those of governments. While many NGOs dislike the term, it has come into
wide use, because the UN system is the main focus of international
rule-making and policy formulation in the fields where most NGOs
operate.
Charitable and community organizations, separate from
the state, have existed in many historical settings, but NGOs are
primarily a modern phenomenon. With the extension of citizenship rights
in Europe and the Americas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
people founded increasing numbers of these organizations, as instruments
to meet community needs, defend interests or promote new policies. The
French writer Alexis de Toqueville emphasized the importance of what he
called "political associations" as institutions of democracy, uniquely
numerous and influential in the United States at the time of his famous
visit in 1831. New legal rules for private corporations, emerging at
this same time, provided modern juridical authority for the
organizations and increased their defenses against state interference.
Xi Jinping’s Message to America A ChinaFile Conversation
Taisu Zhang, Graham Webster, Orville Schell, David Shambaugh
CHINA FILE - September 22, 2015
China’s President Xi Jinping addressed an audience of more than 700 American businesspeople in Seattle on Tuesday evening on the first stop on his first state visit to the United States. Regular ChinaFile Contributors who watched the speech offer their reactions below. —The Editors
There were a number of substantial themes in Xi’s speech—the usual promises to stay the course on market reforms, the insistence on China’s status as a developing country, the plea for mutual “deep” cultural understanding (something that I sympathize with), the pledge to seek peaceful growth and not hegemony, the promise to welcome NGO and NPO operations in China, and the emphasis on economic integration with Central Asia and the Asian Pacific.
The thing that caught my immediate attention, however, was how Xi defined the “Chinese Dream” at the beginning of the speech. Since the term was first issued a few years ago, its definition has always been somewhat ambiguous, indeed purposefully so—and, when defined more concretely, has usually incorporated a wide array of issues, ranging from national pride to economic growth to traditional culture to geopolitical security and prominence. For example, in his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Xi vaguely described the “Chinese Dream” as a reaction against historical humiliation and suffering, and a general desire for national “rejuvenation.”
READ MORE....
CHINA FILE - September 22, 2015
China’s President Xi Jinping addressed an audience of more than 700 American businesspeople in Seattle on Tuesday evening on the first stop on his first state visit to the United States. Regular ChinaFile Contributors who watched the speech offer their reactions below. —The Editors
There were a number of substantial themes in Xi’s speech—the usual promises to stay the course on market reforms, the insistence on China’s status as a developing country, the plea for mutual “deep” cultural understanding (something that I sympathize with), the pledge to seek peaceful growth and not hegemony, the promise to welcome NGO and NPO operations in China, and the emphasis on economic integration with Central Asia and the Asian Pacific.
The thing that caught my immediate attention, however, was how Xi defined the “Chinese Dream” at the beginning of the speech. Since the term was first issued a few years ago, its definition has always been somewhat ambiguous, indeed purposefully so—and, when defined more concretely, has usually incorporated a wide array of issues, ranging from national pride to economic growth to traditional culture to geopolitical security and prominence. For example, in his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Xi vaguely described the “Chinese Dream” as a reaction against historical humiliation and suffering, and a general desire for national “rejuvenation.”
READ MORE....
China: The Superpower of Mr. Xi
Roderick MacFarquhar
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS - August 13, 2015 Issue
The Governance of China by Xi Jinping Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 515 pp., $16.95 (paper) Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression? by Willy Wo-Lap Lam Routledge, 323 pp., $145.00; $50.95 (paper)
In the almost one-hundred-year existence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its current general secretary, Xi Jinping, is only the second leader clearly chosen by his peers. The first was Mao Zedong. Both men beat out the competition, and thus secured a legitimacy their predecessors lacked.1 Why was Xi chosen?
The Beijing rumor mill had long indicated that the outgoing elders were looking for a “princeling” successor, that is the son of a senior first- generation revolutionary. Princelings, it was apparently felt, had a bigger stake in the revolution than most people, and thus would be the most determined to preserve the rule of the CCP.
Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was a respected vice-premier and member of the CCP Central Committee known for his moderate views, but he fell afoul of Mao in 1962 and was purged, then was rehabilitated and returned to high office after the Chairman’s death. Xi Jinping thus has the additional legitimation of being “born red,” as Evan Osnos put it recently in The New Yorker.
READ MORE....
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS - August 13, 2015 Issue
The Governance of China by Xi Jinping Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 515 pp., $16.95 (paper) Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression? by Willy Wo-Lap Lam Routledge, 323 pp., $145.00; $50.95 (paper)
In the almost one-hundred-year existence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its current general secretary, Xi Jinping, is only the second leader clearly chosen by his peers. The first was Mao Zedong. Both men beat out the competition, and thus secured a legitimacy their predecessors lacked.1 Why was Xi chosen?
The Beijing rumor mill had long indicated that the outgoing elders were looking for a “princeling” successor, that is the son of a senior first- generation revolutionary. Princelings, it was apparently felt, had a bigger stake in the revolution than most people, and thus would be the most determined to preserve the rule of the CCP.
Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was a respected vice-premier and member of the CCP Central Committee known for his moderate views, but he fell afoul of Mao in 1962 and was purged, then was rehabilitated and returned to high office after the Chairman’s death. Xi Jinping thus has the additional legitimation of being “born red,” as Evan Osnos put it recently in The New Yorker.
READ MORE....
Global poor to rise as World Bank adjusts poverty line
RUSSIA TODAY - 24 Sep, 2015
READ MORE....
The World Bank has dramatically revised its definition of poverty for
the first time in 25 years, the Financial Times reports. Anyone earning
less than $1.90 a day will be classified as poor, which will greatly
increase the number living in poverty.
The last time the World Bank
raised the poverty line by 25 cents to the current $1.25 per day was in
1990. The leading countries are meeting on Friday to adopt 17 new
so-called "sustainable development goals" that will define global development policy up to 2030.READ MORE....
When Uncle Sam Rolled Out the Magic Carpet for Hajj
By Nick Danforth
In 1952 an unidentified young photographer—wearing a bow-tie, looking at his camera, presumably at work for the US government—stands by a C-54 transport plane on a Beirut tarmac. In front of him, Muslim pilgrims in white robes prepare to board the plane en route to Mecca. Another photographer for the United States Information Service captures the whole scene, complete with the US Air Force logo on the plane’s fuselage. It was an American PR dream, a propaganda coup so good that the government photographs carefully documenting it were deemed superfluous and have seldom if ever been seen. Shortly after arranging for several thousand stranded pilgrims to be airlifted from Beirut to Saudi Arabia, the State Department cabled its Middle Eastern embassies telling them best not to go overboard trumpeting the story. Local press would do the work for them, and with too much boasting the embassy risked promoting the story to the point they “killed it with self praise.”
READ MORE....
In 1952 an unidentified young photographer—wearing a bow-tie, looking at his camera, presumably at work for the US government—stands by a C-54 transport plane on a Beirut tarmac. In front of him, Muslim pilgrims in white robes prepare to board the plane en route to Mecca. Another photographer for the United States Information Service captures the whole scene, complete with the US Air Force logo on the plane’s fuselage. It was an American PR dream, a propaganda coup so good that the government photographs carefully documenting it were deemed superfluous and have seldom if ever been seen. Shortly after arranging for several thousand stranded pilgrims to be airlifted from Beirut to Saudi Arabia, the State Department cabled its Middle Eastern embassies telling them best not to go overboard trumpeting the story. Local press would do the work for them, and with too much boasting the embassy risked promoting the story to the point they “killed it with self praise.”
READ MORE....
Xi's US visit can enhance China's standing on the world stage
By Earl Bousquet
Chinese President Xi Jinping's latest visit to the United States is significant for many reasons. It will allow the USA and the PRC to once again review and exchange on the state of mutual ties, as well as bilateral concerns about global political, economic, security and cyberspace issues. Additionally, they can share their differing interpretations of other major issues and events elsewhere. Washington will lay down the usual red carpet and it will be all smiles when the two presidents meet. However, lurking in the deep recesses of their minds will be their growing mutual interests and concerns about where their respective countries stand on the world stage, today and tomorrow. China is concerned about the USA's continuous promotion of risky incursions and tensions in the South China Sea, as well as the implications of Japan's recent decision to dump pacifism in favor of a return to militarism. On the other hand, Washington is worried about the demonstrable global effects of China's growing economic power, as seen in the recent global stock exchange responses to China's currency value adjustments. Washington is also worried about the possible implications China's economic slowdown might have on the USA. Not on the agenda, however, are the two leaders' separate interpretations of China's growing role as a global political and economic game-changer. A leading member of the BRICS, China is also leading the creation of the new and growing alternative global financial institutions which offer better terms to developing countries than the World Bank and the IMF.
What China’s slowdown means for BRICS
RUSSIA AND INDIA REPORT - 23 September 2015
S C Ralhan, specially for RIR The shock devaluation of the Chinese Yuan has hit other emerging market economies, from Russia, South Africa, India to Brazil, whose exports are now comparatively more expensive, and there are fears of a round of copycat depreciations that could see a "currency war" break out.
China has cut its growth target for 2015 to 7%, the slowest expansion in over two decades. August Data shows it will be a stretch to hit even that. China is faring worse than many had expected. Its deceleration is a major reason for the sell-off of global commodities, from iron ore to coal, over the past two years. At a basic level, it was inevitable that the Chinese growth rates of the past three decades, which averaged 10% a year, would wane. The law of large numbers (financial, rather than statistical) applies to nations as well as to companies: the bigger an economy gets, the harder it is to keep growing at a fast clip.
Growth is a prime function of changes in labour, capital and productivity. When all three increase, as they did in China for over one and half decade, growth rates are superlative. But they are all slowing now. China’s working-age population peaked in 2012. Investment also looks to have topped out (at 49% of GDP, a level few countries have ever seen). Finally, China’s technological gap with rich countries is narrower than in the past, implying that productivity growth will reduce, too.
READ MORE....
S C Ralhan, specially for RIR The shock devaluation of the Chinese Yuan has hit other emerging market economies, from Russia, South Africa, India to Brazil, whose exports are now comparatively more expensive, and there are fears of a round of copycat depreciations that could see a "currency war" break out.
China has cut its growth target for 2015 to 7%, the slowest expansion in over two decades. August Data shows it will be a stretch to hit even that. China is faring worse than many had expected. Its deceleration is a major reason for the sell-off of global commodities, from iron ore to coal, over the past two years. At a basic level, it was inevitable that the Chinese growth rates of the past three decades, which averaged 10% a year, would wane. The law of large numbers (financial, rather than statistical) applies to nations as well as to companies: the bigger an economy gets, the harder it is to keep growing at a fast clip.
Growth is a prime function of changes in labour, capital and productivity. When all three increase, as they did in China for over one and half decade, growth rates are superlative. But they are all slowing now. China’s working-age population peaked in 2012. Investment also looks to have topped out (at 49% of GDP, a level few countries have ever seen). Finally, China’s technological gap with rich countries is narrower than in the past, implying that productivity growth will reduce, too.
READ MORE....
Fifty Year Later: A Brief History of the Immigration Act of 1965
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVE
Today’s post comes from Rebecca Brenner, an intern in the History Office at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Fifty years ago on October 3, 1965, at the base of the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965 into law.
The act was an important milestone in American immigration history. It was a significant improvement from the National Origins Act of 1924, which barred Asian immigrants, limited Latin American immigrants, and established rigid immigration quotas for European countries.
These quotas, established in an era of post–World War I isolationism and xenophobia, lasted from 1924 through 1965:
READ MORE.....
Today’s post comes from Rebecca Brenner, an intern in the History Office at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Fifty years ago on October 3, 1965, at the base of the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965 into law.
The act was an important milestone in American immigration history. It was a significant improvement from the National Origins Act of 1924, which barred Asian immigrants, limited Latin American immigrants, and established rigid immigration quotas for European countries.
These quotas, established in an era of post–World War I isolationism and xenophobia, lasted from 1924 through 1965:
- Armenia: 124
- Australia: 121
- Austria: 785
- Belgium: 512
- Czechoslovakia: 3,073
- Estonia: 124
- France: 3,954
- Germany: 51,227
- Great Britain and Northern Ireland: 34,007
- Hungary: 473
- Irish Free State: 28,567
- Italy: 3,845
- Latvia: 142
- Lithuania: 344
- Netherlands: 1,648
- Norway: 6,453
- Poland: 5,962
- Russia: 2,248
- Sweden: 9,561
- Switzerland: 2,081
- Yugoslavia: 671
READ MORE.....
Walter Benjamin Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia
Intellectual currents can generate a sufficient head
of water for the critic to instal his power station on them. The
necessary gradient, in the case of Surrealism, is produced by the
difference in intellectual level between France and Germany. What sprang
up in 1919 in France in a small circle of literati—we shall give the
most important names at once: André Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe
Soupault, Robert Desnos, Paul Eluard—may have been a meagre stream, fed
on the damp boredom of postwar Europe and the last trickle of French
decadence. The know-alls who even today have not advanced beyond the
‘authentic origins’ of the movement, and even now have nothing to say
about it except that yet another clique of literati is here mystifying
the honourable public, are a little like a gathering of experts at a
spring who, after lengthy deliberation, arrive at the conviction that
this paltry stream will never drive turbines.
Cultural Revolution Shaped Xi Jinping, From Schoolboy to Survivor
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
THE NEW YORK TIMES - SEPT. 24, 2015
READ MORE....
THE NEW YORK TIMES - SEPT. 24, 2015
BEIJING
— When the pandemonium of the Cultural Revolution erupted, he was a
slight, softly spoken 13-year-old who loved classical Chinese poetry.
Two years later, adrift in a city torn apart by warring Red Guards, Xi Jinping had hardened into a combative street survivor.
His
father, a senior Communist Party official who had been purged a few
years earlier, was seized and repeatedly beaten. Student militants
ransacked his family’s home, forcing them to flee, and one of his
sisters died in the mayhem. Paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the
revolution and denounced by his own mother, the future president of China was on the edge of being thrown into a prison for delinquent children of the party elite.
READ MORE....
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
U.S. Eases Some Limits on Cuban Travel and Commerce
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
THE NEW YORK TIMES - SEPT. 18, 2015
READ MORE....
THE NEW YORK TIMES - SEPT. 18, 2015
WASHINGTON
— The White House on Friday announced wide-ranging changes to loosen
travel, commerce and investment restrictions on Cuba, moving to fulfill President Obama’s goal of breaking down barriers between Washington and Havana even as the American embargo remains in place.
The
rules will allow American companies, including telecommunications and
Internet providers, to open locations and hire workers in Cuba,
facilitate financial transactions between the two nations and remove
limits on the sums that can be taken to the island nation. They are to
take effect on Monday on the eve of the visit to Washington by Pope Francis, a proponent of the reconciliation who quietly helped broker the agreement between Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro last year.
READ MORE....
China Has a Plan to Take Over Central Asia — and America Loves It
By John Hudson
FOREIGN POLICY - September 18, 2015
LAHORE, Pakistan — Moments after landing at Lahore’s international airport one ordinary day in September, crowds of Chinese professionals jockeyed for position in an immigration line that was as long as it was slow. For airport officials in Pakistan’s second-largest city, the sudden influx of Chinese nationals was unremarkable: The same thing is happening in cities and towns across the country.
In the southwestern town of Gwadar, Chinese nationals run a deep-sea port offering direct access to the Indian Ocean. In the Gilgit-Baltistan region near Kashmir, Chinese laborers just finished the restoration of five tunnels on a critical 500-mile highway that connects Pakistan to China. And at a hill town resort near the capital of Islamabad, Chinese diplomats recently dove headfirst into the kind of messy internal politics they’ve long sought to avoid, rolling up their sleeves and taking part in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
READ MORE.....
FOREIGN POLICY - September 18, 2015
LAHORE, Pakistan — Moments after landing at Lahore’s international airport one ordinary day in September, crowds of Chinese professionals jockeyed for position in an immigration line that was as long as it was slow. For airport officials in Pakistan’s second-largest city, the sudden influx of Chinese nationals was unremarkable: The same thing is happening in cities and towns across the country.
In the southwestern town of Gwadar, Chinese nationals run a deep-sea port offering direct access to the Indian Ocean. In the Gilgit-Baltistan region near Kashmir, Chinese laborers just finished the restoration of five tunnels on a critical 500-mile highway that connects Pakistan to China. And at a hill town resort near the capital of Islamabad, Chinese diplomats recently dove headfirst into the kind of messy internal politics they’ve long sought to avoid, rolling up their sleeves and taking part in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
READ MORE.....
Descent into hell: Mumbai's dehumanised sewer workers
BBC - 16 September 2015
About 30,000 conservancy workers, also known as sweepers, are employed by the civic authorities in the Indian city of Mumbai. The workers, all of them Dalits - formerly known as untouchables - collect garbage, sweep the city streets, clean the gutters, load and unload garbage trucks and work in the dumping grounds. And "without exception, all of them despise their work", says photographer Sudharak Olwe who documented their lives over a period of a year.
READ MORE......
About 30,000 conservancy workers, also known as sweepers, are employed by the civic authorities in the Indian city of Mumbai. The workers, all of them Dalits - formerly known as untouchables - collect garbage, sweep the city streets, clean the gutters, load and unload garbage trucks and work in the dumping grounds. And "without exception, all of them despise their work", says photographer Sudharak Olwe who documented their lives over a period of a year.
READ MORE......
Monday, September 21, 2015
How to Be Emotionally Intelligent
By DANIEL GOLEMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES - APRIL 7, 2015
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THE NEW YORK TIMES - APRIL 7, 2015
What makes a great leader? Knowledge, smarts and vision, to be sure. To that, Daniel Goleman,
author of “Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence,” would add
the ability to identify and monitor emotions — your own and others’ —
and to manage relationships. Qualities associated with such “emotional
intelligence” distinguish the best leaders in the corporate world,
according to Mr. Goleman, a former New York Times science reporter, a
psychologist and co-director of a consortium at Rutgers University to
foster research on the role emotional intelligence plays in excellence.
He shares his short list of the competencies.
1. SELF-AWARENESS
Realistic self-confidence:
You understand your own strengths and limitations; you operate from
competence and know when to rely on someone else on the team.
Emotional insight: You understand your feelings. Being aware of what makes you angry, for instance, can help you manage that anger.
2. SELF-MANAGEMENT
Resilience:
You stay calm under pressure and recover quickly from upsets. You don’t
brood or panic. In a crisis, people look to the leader for reassurance;
if the leader is calm, they can be, too.
Emotional balance:
You keep any distressful feelings in check — instead of blowing up at
people, you let them know what’s wrong and what the solution is.
Self-motivation: You keep moving toward distant goals despite setbacks.READ MORE....
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Islamic fashion market set to be worth $327bn by 2020
ARABIAN BUSINESS - September 7, 2015
The Islamic fashion market is projected to grow by six percent annually to be worth $327 billion by 2020, according to new figures released ahead of a major summit being held in Dubai next month.
In 2014, Islamic, or modest, fashion sector expenditure reached $230 billion, constituting 11 percent of the global fashion market.
But the sector will be worth $327 billion by 2020, according to the upcoming State of the Global Islamic Economy report, to be published in conjunction with the Global Islamic Economy Summit taking place in Dubai this October.
The 2015 summit, organised by Dubai Chamber, the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC) and Thomson Reuters, is set to gather over 2,000 policymakers, thinkers and business leaders on October 5-6 at Madinat Jumeirah.
READ MORE.....
The Islamic fashion market is projected to grow by six percent annually to be worth $327 billion by 2020, according to new figures released ahead of a major summit being held in Dubai next month.
In 2014, Islamic, or modest, fashion sector expenditure reached $230 billion, constituting 11 percent of the global fashion market.
But the sector will be worth $327 billion by 2020, according to the upcoming State of the Global Islamic Economy report, to be published in conjunction with the Global Islamic Economy Summit taking place in Dubai this October.
The 2015 summit, organised by Dubai Chamber, the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC) and Thomson Reuters, is set to gather over 2,000 policymakers, thinkers and business leaders on October 5-6 at Madinat Jumeirah.
READ MORE.....
Spirit Guides
Students crave emotional mentorship from their teachers that their parents can’t give them. There’s nothing wrong with that.
By William Deresiewicz
THE ATLANTIC - Aug. 14 2014
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By William Deresiewicz
THE ATLANTIC - Aug. 14 2014
Excerpted from Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and The Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz. Out Aug. 19, from Free Press.
If you want a good education, you need to have good
teachers. It seems ridiculous to have to say as much, but such is the
state that matters have reached, both in academia and in the public
conversation that surrounds it, that apparently we do. Between the
long-term trend toward the use of adjuncts and other part-time faculty
and the recent rush to online instruction, we seem to be deciding that
we can do without teachers in college altogether, at least in any
meaningful sense. But the kind of learning that college is for is
simply not possible without themREAD MORE....
The Ivy League, Mental Illness, and the Meaning of Life
William Deresiewicz explains how an elite education can lead to a cycle of grandiosity and depression.
Lauren Cassani Davis
THE ATLANTIC - Aug 19, 2014
The former Yale English professor William Deresiewicz stirred up quite a storm earlier this month with his New Republic essay “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League”—a damning critique of the nation’s most revered and wealthy educational institutions, and the flawed meritocracy they represent. He takes these arguments even further in his upcoming book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. Part cultural commentary, part philosophical treatise on the meaning of education itself, the book reads like a self-help manual for ambitious yet internally adrift adolescents struggling to figure out how to navigate the college system, and ultimately their own lives. Deresiewicz, who is also the author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things That Really Matter, spoke to me on the phone from his home in Portland, Oregon.
READ MORE....
Lauren Cassani Davis
THE ATLANTIC - Aug 19, 2014
The former Yale English professor William Deresiewicz stirred up quite a storm earlier this month with his New Republic essay “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League”—a damning critique of the nation’s most revered and wealthy educational institutions, and the flawed meritocracy they represent. He takes these arguments even further in his upcoming book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. Part cultural commentary, part philosophical treatise on the meaning of education itself, the book reads like a self-help manual for ambitious yet internally adrift adolescents struggling to figure out how to navigate the college system, and ultimately their own lives. Deresiewicz, who is also the author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things That Really Matter, spoke to me on the phone from his home in Portland, Oregon.
READ MORE....
Class and the Classroom How Elite Universities Are Hurting America
By George Scialabba
Foreign Affairs - March/April 2015 Issue
One of the most fruitful ideas to emerge from twentieth-century social theory is Max Weber’s notion of the “iron cage” of purposive rationality. Weber argued that once some principle of organization—market competition, say, or ideological orthodoxy—has achieved dominance in the spheres of production and governance, the rest of a society’s institutions find themselves gradually but inexorably adopting the same principle. In an ideology-dominant society, everything fluid turns to stone; in a market-dominant society, everything solid melts into air.
Not everything, of course. The iron cage is, like most other useful theoretical notions, an ideal type. All societies retain protected (or neglected) spaces where not-yet-rationalized traditions and communities flourish. Still, although the mills of rationalization turn slowly, they grind exceedingly fine. In time, Weber believed, every practice or institution in a modern society, regardless of its original purpose, experiences an irresistible pressure to adapt to the society’s fundamental organizing principle.
That’s one way to understand the story told by Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz’s important jeremiad on the deterioration of higher education in the United States. Deresiewicz chronicles how in recent decades U.S. colleges and universities have reflected and reinforced the ascendance of neoliberalism, which has served as the organizing principle of American society for the past 30 years or so. Deresiewicz, who taught English at Yale for ten years before leaving academia in 2008, laments the way that U.S. universities have replaced the traditional quest for liberal enlightenment with the goals and demands of late capitalism: consumer sovereignty, labor-market flexibility, debt financing, “scientific” management and marketing, and technologically driven increases in productivity. Universities have gone from nourishing their students’ spirits to facilitating their careers—especially careers in finance and consulting.
READ MORE....
Foreign Affairs - March/April 2015 Issue
One of the most fruitful ideas to emerge from twentieth-century social theory is Max Weber’s notion of the “iron cage” of purposive rationality. Weber argued that once some principle of organization—market competition, say, or ideological orthodoxy—has achieved dominance in the spheres of production and governance, the rest of a society’s institutions find themselves gradually but inexorably adopting the same principle. In an ideology-dominant society, everything fluid turns to stone; in a market-dominant society, everything solid melts into air.
Not everything, of course. The iron cage is, like most other useful theoretical notions, an ideal type. All societies retain protected (or neglected) spaces where not-yet-rationalized traditions and communities flourish. Still, although the mills of rationalization turn slowly, they grind exceedingly fine. In time, Weber believed, every practice or institution in a modern society, regardless of its original purpose, experiences an irresistible pressure to adapt to the society’s fundamental organizing principle.
That’s one way to understand the story told by Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz’s important jeremiad on the deterioration of higher education in the United States. Deresiewicz chronicles how in recent decades U.S. colleges and universities have reflected and reinforced the ascendance of neoliberalism, which has served as the organizing principle of American society for the past 30 years or so. Deresiewicz, who taught English at Yale for ten years before leaving academia in 2008, laments the way that U.S. universities have replaced the traditional quest for liberal enlightenment with the goals and demands of late capitalism: consumer sovereignty, labor-market flexibility, debt financing, “scientific” management and marketing, and technologically driven increases in productivity. Universities have gone from nourishing their students’ spirits to facilitating their careers—especially careers in finance and consulting.
READ MORE....
Friday, September 18, 2015
Why I’ve finally given up on the left
Left-wing thought has shifted towards movements it would once have denounced as racist, imperialist and fascistic. It is insupportable
Nick Cohen
The Spectator - 19 September 2015
‘Tory, Tory, Tory. You’re a Tory.’ The level of hatred directed by the Corbyn left at Labour people who have fought Tories all their lives is as menacing as it is ridiculous. If you are a woman, you face misogyny. Kate Godfrey, the centrist Labour candidate in Stafford, told the Times she had received death threats and pornographic hate mail after challenging her local left. If you are a man, you are condemned in language not heard since the fall of Marxist Leninism. ‘This pathetic small-minded jealousy of the anti-democratic bourgeois shows them up for the reactionary neocons they really are,’ a Guardian commenter told its columnist Rafael Behr after he had criticised Corbyn.
Not that they are careful about anything, or that they will take advice from me, but the left should be careful of what it wishes for. Its accusations won’t seem ridiculous soon. The one prophesy I can make with certainty amid today’s chaos is that many on the left will head for the right. When they arrive, they will be greeted with bogus explanations for their ‘betrayal’.
Conservatives will talk as if there is a right-wing gene which, like male-pattern baldness, manifests itself with age. The US leftist-turned-neocon Irving Kristol set the pattern for the pattern-baldness theory of politics when he opined that a conservative is a liberal who has been ‘mugged by reality’. He did not understand that the effects of reality’s many muggings are never predictable, or that facts of life are not always, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, conservative. If they were, we would still have feudalism.
The standard explanation from left-wingers is equally self-serving. Turncoats are like prostitutes, they say, who sell their virtue for money. They are pure; those who disagree with them are corrupt; and that is all there is to it.
READ MORE.....
Nick Cohen
The Spectator - 19 September 2015
‘Tory, Tory, Tory. You’re a Tory.’ The level of hatred directed by the Corbyn left at Labour people who have fought Tories all their lives is as menacing as it is ridiculous. If you are a woman, you face misogyny. Kate Godfrey, the centrist Labour candidate in Stafford, told the Times she had received death threats and pornographic hate mail after challenging her local left. If you are a man, you are condemned in language not heard since the fall of Marxist Leninism. ‘This pathetic small-minded jealousy of the anti-democratic bourgeois shows them up for the reactionary neocons they really are,’ a Guardian commenter told its columnist Rafael Behr after he had criticised Corbyn.
Not that they are careful about anything, or that they will take advice from me, but the left should be careful of what it wishes for. Its accusations won’t seem ridiculous soon. The one prophesy I can make with certainty amid today’s chaos is that many on the left will head for the right. When they arrive, they will be greeted with bogus explanations for their ‘betrayal’.
Conservatives will talk as if there is a right-wing gene which, like male-pattern baldness, manifests itself with age. The US leftist-turned-neocon Irving Kristol set the pattern for the pattern-baldness theory of politics when he opined that a conservative is a liberal who has been ‘mugged by reality’. He did not understand that the effects of reality’s many muggings are never predictable, or that facts of life are not always, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, conservative. If they were, we would still have feudalism.
The standard explanation from left-wingers is equally self-serving. Turncoats are like prostitutes, they say, who sell their virtue for money. They are pure; those who disagree with them are corrupt; and that is all there is to it.
READ MORE.....
To break class barriers, students must end up in unexpected places
Universities pay lip service to equality, yet the system functions as a huge social filter. Real fairness will take a radical rethink
Tim Blackman Vice-chancellor of Middlesex University
THE GUARDIAN - SEPTEMBER 16, 2015
We are repeatedly told that higher education can advance social mobility. Universities are rewarded with extra funding for recruiting students from areas with low participation rates, and there are various schemes to help bright young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get to the “top” universities, the super-selectives.
But these initiatives operate within a sector that drives inequality through selection. Prior attainment is correlated with social class, so differentiated academic entry requirements immediately filter young people into a class hierarchy of institutions. This is compounded by companies that offer highly paid jobs recruiting only from the top of this hierarchy. Higher education should be about realising potential with great teaching, not unfair selection into privileged networks. We often say we value diversity but continue with a system that judges institutions according to their social class make-up. It is time for a radical rethink.
READ MORE....
Tim Blackman Vice-chancellor of Middlesex University
THE GUARDIAN - SEPTEMBER 16, 2015
We are repeatedly told that higher education can advance social mobility. Universities are rewarded with extra funding for recruiting students from areas with low participation rates, and there are various schemes to help bright young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get to the “top” universities, the super-selectives.
But these initiatives operate within a sector that drives inequality through selection. Prior attainment is correlated with social class, so differentiated academic entry requirements immediately filter young people into a class hierarchy of institutions. This is compounded by companies that offer highly paid jobs recruiting only from the top of this hierarchy. Higher education should be about realising potential with great teaching, not unfair selection into privileged networks. We often say we value diversity but continue with a system that judges institutions according to their social class make-up. It is time for a radical rethink.
READ MORE....
Thursday, September 17, 2015
How to Live Wisely
By RICHARD J. LIGHT
THE NEW YORK TIMES - JULY 31, 2015
THE NEW YORK TIMES - JULY 31, 2015
Imagine you are Dean for a Day. What is one actionable change you would implement to enhance the college experience on campus?
I
have asked students this question for years. The answers can be
eye-opening. A few years ago, the responses began to move away from
“tweak the history course” or “change the ways labs are structured.” A
different commentary, about learning to live wisely, has emerged.
What
does it mean to live a good life? What about a productive life? How
about a happy life? How might I think about these ideas if the answers
conflict with one another? And how do I use my time here at college to
build on the answers to these tough questions?
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