Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Greenpeace pide a los países industrializados que dejen la retórica y asuman compromisos para salvar el clima

La Organización lamenta que discursos esperanzadores como los de China o Japón no hayan sido correspondidos por los países desarrollados.

Después de la reunión de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas obre cambio climático, celebrada a principios de semana en Nueva York, los líderes del G-20 viajaron a Pittsburgh, para abordar, entre otros, el tema de la financiación de la lucha internacional por el clima, un elemento crucial para asegurar un buen acuerdo en Copenhague.

Desafortunadamente, la reunión económica del G-20 terminó sin ningún acuerdo en relación con los fondos necesarios para hacer frente a las inversiones en adaptación protección de los bosques y transición hacia las energías renovables que requieren los países en desarrollo que han quedado nuevamente pospuestos hasta la próxima reunión.“

En los discursos que los líderes políticos pronunciaron en la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas quedó claro que la alarma climática ya está sonando, sin embargo en Pittsburgh nadie puso medidas concretas sobre la mesa para solucionar esta crisis” ha declarado Patricia Lerner de Greenpeace Internacional. Según Lerner, “El G-20 se ha quedado, nuevamente, en el plano retórico y ha evitado cualquier compromiso capaz de salvar el clima”.

El G20 acordó eliminar los subsidios a los combustibles fósiles ‘a medio plazo’ pero no estableció plazos concretos para que los ministros de economía y finanzas y las instituciones relevantes establezcan las estrategias para conseguirlo, de cara a la siguiente reunión. “Greenpeace da la bienvenida a esta decisión, no en vano ha estado pidiendo el cese de estos subsidios perversos desde hace más de diez años, pero considera indispensable el establecimiento de un calendario” ha añadido Lerner.

La cumbre climática de Copenhague empieza dentro de 72 días y, según Greenpeace, después de las reuniones internacionales celebradas esta semana cualquiera que esté preocupado por el cambio climático y ansioso por ver como los líderes políticos mundiales van a hacerle frente está decepcionado.

La organización destaca que, mientras China y Japón ponían sobre la mesa su voluntad de comprometerse a adoptar medidas ambiciosas en unos términos idóneos para dinamizar las negociaciones climáticas, el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, fallaba una vez más en demostrar al mundo que su país está también dispuesto a hacer lo que sea necesario para evitar un desastre climático.

No fueron los líderes de los países desarrollados sino los mandatarios de más de 40 pequeñas islas-estado los que resaltaron el imperativo moral de actuar de forma urgente y decisiva para salvar el clima y evitar que sus territorios queden sumergidos bajo las aguas, “una dura realidad que sólo ellos parecen tener asumida pero que debería inspirar las acciones de los países desarrollados de ahora en adelante” según Lerner.

Greenpeace destaca la tibieza de las declaraciones de Obama, Merkel y Sarkozy que fueron incapaces de ofrecer los fondos que los países en desarrollo necesitan para abordar la crisis climática, generando nuevas desconfianzas acerca de si este ofrecimiento va a realizarse o no en un futuro próximo y, por lo tanto, dinamitando el que habría podido ser el momento idóneo para crear el ambiente necesario para alcanzar un buen acuerdo en Copenhague.

Vía | greenpeace.org

Relacionado | Greenpeace despliega una gigantesca pancarta ante el G20 para decirles que el clima es importante

Hi Ho, Hi Ho It's Off To Work We Go!

So who's laughing at us now ?

OMG. No really, OMG. A  group of pissed off Chinese dwarves, who had it up to here (or a little bit lower) with being bullied and discriminated against by the non vertically challenged, have turned themselves into a tourist attraction. No I swear, it’s true. The 120 residents of a private mountain commune in Kunming, who banned anyone over 4ft 3 ” from entering, have had a change of heart.They have turned their village into a friggin theme park, which includes mushroom houses and the little people dressed up like fairies. Hmm, nothing like perpetuating the myth. Good luck with that!

Psst I know where you can get a nice log cabin on wheels!

2nd Psst Wanna see them? Check out the photo at The Sun.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

New Site

This blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic but in case you wanted to see more, I’ve set up my own website:

www.truestoriesfromnature.com

This blog is being continued at www.truestoriesfromnature.com/worstofmesses

I set up my own website out of geekiness, but also out of frustration with WordPress. I have really fought with the templates to get them to do exactly what I wanted, and have never been able to win that fight. All I wanted was to be able to make text a bit bigger so we didn’t have to sit with our noses pressed to our screens in order to read the site. Oh, and I also wanted all my previous posts to be properly visible. And also WordPress is blocked in China, so I couldn’t see this site. I have everything I want in my new site. It’s awesome.

I hope to see you there.

Pakistan celeberates China Cultural week

Pakistan launches China Culture Week (Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-29 04:32

 Pakistan launches China Culture WeekPakistan,China,culture,china culture week

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani prime minister and Chinese ambassador to Pakistan inaugurated here Monday the China Culture Week as a part of the high-profile events to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.Addressing a China culture show, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani said that the relations between Pakistan and China cover all spectrums including political, strategic, defense, cultural, economic and trade areas.

Gilani said the two countries have worked steadfastly to build this ideal relationship during the last six decades. He said both countries would continue their endeavors for peace and prosperity in the world and the region.

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 Around the World: Pakistan

The prime minister congratulated the government and the people of China on behalf of the people of Pakistan on the cultural week.

Chinese Ambassador Lou Zhaohui said that China greatly values its deep rooted friendship with Pakistan, stressing that the friendship is all weather and in all dimensions of life.

Chinese artists staged performances including Chinese acrobats, folk tune, songs and magic show. A large number of audiences witnessed the thrilling shows and showed great interest in the Chinese culture.

Earlier, the prime minister and the Chinese ambassador inaugurated a photographic exhibition to depict various stages of development and culture of China, featuring the Sino-Pak relations, a kaleidoscope of China and Chinese marital customs.

After touring around the three sections of the exhibition, Gilani left a message on the visitors’ book saying that Pakistan greatly values its friendship with China.

The China Cultural Week, jointly organized by the Pakistani Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan, is held at Pakistan National Council of the Arts.

Besides the culture show and the photographic exhibition, the China Culture Week will also showcase Chinese documentaries and other films. China Daily

Monday, September 28, 2009

Google Konfuzius Image

Today the google image contains a quotation from the first didactic play of Lùnyǔ:

有朋自遠方來,不亦樂乎?

In pinyin this meens

1 2 3 4 5 6, 7 yǒu péng zì yuǎn fāng lái, bùyìyuèhū 有 朋 自 远 方 来, 不亦乐乎

1 exists, have, there is 2 friend 3 from 4 far, away 5 square 6 come 7 ???

If a friend visits you from far away, it is always a joy. Isn’t it?

or in german

Wenn ein Freund von weit her kommt, ist das nicht auch eine Freude?

One more time to Gorinchem

After exactly two months and two weeks and 6464 kms in China, we have just another 10 kms to before entering Laos. Or ‘one more time to Gorinchem’ in Loes’ own version of the metric system.

Time nor tears are wasted at the border. For all its beauty, with western Sichuan as the absolute highlight, China will be remembered mostly as an impolite and ill-mannered country. A people struggling with a system that has turned them into weasels, severed from their past. For it is certainly not the great nation rooted in ancient culture many people, including the Chinese, like to think it is.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sleek & Chic ~ The Opposite House, Beijing, China

By Dian Hasan | September 26, 2009

Situated in the heart if Beijing within Sanlitun Village, the award-winning Opposite House is a breathtaking hotel, unlike any other. Designed by celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the hotel features a vibrant mix of modern and traditional design, with a striking emerald green glass exterior and a spacious, light-infused interior each studio is comfortably large and strikingly simple, with natural wooden floors and subtle touches of Chinese décor.

Indulgent enities include a sauna, gym, and 22-meter stainless steel swimming pool, plus three inspiring restaurants, a cool, contemporary lounge bar. And a late-night bar. Opposite Hotel has ushered in a distinctive air of luxe that has not been seen in Beijing.

Pool at The Opposite House, Beijing, China. Photo: Giles Sabrie for The New York Times


Pakistan's future lies with China

ISLAMABAD (APP) – Speakers at a seminar here on Saturday stressed the need for enhancing bilateral relations with China with which they said future of Pakistan lies.

Chinese Pakistani Nexus map. The Trade between China and Pakistan consolidates a friendship as old as the Himalayas

China-Pakistan Economic Cooperation Seminar was organized by Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Association of Chinese Enterprises in Pakistan (ACEP) with an aim to explore ways and means for further boosting relations between the two countries particularly economic cooperation.

Among others, the seminar was attended by Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati, Ambassador of China in Pakistan, Luo Zhaohui, Counsellor, Yao Jing, Economic and Commercial Counsellor Zhou Zhencheng, Deputy Director of visa office Xiang Shan and representative from ICCI and ACEP.

“Pakistan’s future lies in East with China,” remarked Azam Khan Swati while speaking on the occasion as chief guest.

4 Ancient Superpowers: China (Yangtze valley), Egypt (Nile Valley), Iraq (Tigris Valley), Pakistan (Indus Valley)

He stressed the need for enhancing relations with China on all fronts saying that the Chinese government, business community as well as people have great respect for Pakistan and are interested in enhancing bilateral relations.

Swati was of the view that science and technology was engine of economy and stressed the need for developing Science and Technology Ministry in Pakistan in line with the relevant ministry in China for the better future of country.

In his address, Ambassador Luo Zhaohui said although there were some security concerns in Pakistan, however the government was fully cooperating with Chinese companies and providing conducive atmosphere for them to do business in the country. He also highlighted the importance of enhancing trade relations between the two countries for mutual benefit.

He said that Pakistan was very much interested in enhancing economic relations with China adding that President Zardari has made four visits to China for seeking cooperation to build Pakistan’s economy on. Pakistan future lies with China Published: September 27, 2009

Saturday, September 26, 2009

G20 Police Use Military Sound Weapons On Students

G20 Police Use Military Sound Weapons On Pittsburgh University Students

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etv8YEqaWgA

 

Police Use Intimidation Tactics, Military Weapons To Break Up Peaceful Protests
This is a first time in American history of law enforcement using military sonic weapons on peaceful protesters

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
September 25, 2009

We Are Change founder Luke Rudkowski speaks truth to police and gets hit with LRAD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akwjAjcQnqM

Video footage is pouring onto Youtube that clearly shows riot police in Pittsburgh using intimidation tactics and military weapons to disperse peaceful assemblies in the vicinity of the G20 summit.

In the first video an officer appears on the scene where protesters are peacefully gathered and immediately tells them to leave the area, threatening everyone with arrest should they not comply.

The in a scene that looks as if it took place in Communist China, riot officers form a line parallel to the protesters, extending to both ends of the street, and slowly walk towards them, noisily and simultaneously marching and beating their shields with their batons.

This is a clear intimidation tactic to cause fear and psychologically effect the peaceful protesters in an effort to herd them and get them to disperse.

We Are Change and Infowars reporter Luke Rudkowski speaks into a bullhorn throughout, as this complete violation of the First Amendment unfolds. He notes how LRAD sound weapons used in Afghanistan and Iraq are now being used against peaceful American citizens on the streets of Pittsburgh by armed military troops.

Chants of “USA, USA” ring out and protesters holding cameras and signs break into applause at Luke’s words as the jackboot police continue to advance. It is hard to believe that this is America.

The LRAD Weapons are then brought to the scene and an announcement blasts out towards the protesters:

“BY ORDER OF THE CITY OF PITTBURGH CHIEF OF POLICE WE HEREBY DECLARE THIS TO BE AN UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY.”

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOUR PURPOSE IS, YOU MUST LEAVE. IF YOU DO NOT DISPERSE, YOU MAY BE ARRESTED AND/OR SUBJECT TO OTHER POLICE ACTION. OTHER POLICE ACTION MAY INCLUDE ACTUAL PHYSICAL REMOVAL, THE USE OF RIOT CONTROL AGENTS AND/OR LESS LETHAL MUNITIONS WHICH COULD CAUSE RISK OF INJURY TO THOSE WHO REMAIN.”

 

G20 Police Randomly Beating Students With Nightsticks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPfNRJGSV0Y

G20 Police Forced Students To Stay In Their Dorms

 

Ahead in the recovery, Asia wants bigger say in global economy

Heda Bayron/Hong Kong

Every business day, at around noon, Mrs. Chang ties homemade banners outside a branch of Citibank in Hong Kong. The banners say “Citibank is an evil bank”.

“Citibank cheated and took my money. I lost one million Hong Kong dollars [$125,000]” she said.

Mrs. Chang is among about 30,000 Hong Kong investors who say they were misled into buying Lehman Brothers “mini-bonds” – complex financial instruments linked to U.S. home mortgages developed by the American investment bank. Several banks in Hong Kong sold the bonds, including Citibank.

When Lehman Brothers collapsed a year ago, many of these investors say they did not know it had anything to do with them. How the bankruptcy of one bank halfway across the globe could affect a retired tailor in Hong Kong exemplifies the globalization of the financial system.

Over the years, the global economic and financial system has become increasingly interlinked, yet polarized into the big spending West and savers in Asia.

Consumers in the West were the biggest buyers of cheap Asian exports, which allowed Asian governments to pile up trillions of dollars in foreign currency reserves. The West also borrowed heavily from Asia. And when the asset bubble in the U.S. burst last year, consumers in the West cut back on spending – and that hit Asia hard.

Nicholas Kwan, Asia economist at the British bank Standard Chartered, says the G20 needs to address this imbalance because it is part of the complex set of factors that led to the crisis.

IFC Tower, Hong Kong.

“We know that it’s not just one country’s problem that this crisis started with,” Kwan noted. “We have to come up with something that will allow a more balanced economy around the world, like between the West and the East. Can the West leverage less, which means they need to save more, but they need to save in a way that they don’t crunch the demand too sharply.”
Reform from both sides

At the recent World Economic Forum in China, David Dollar, the U.S. Treasury Department’s representative to China, says it takes reforms from both sides.

“The U.S. will not be same source of demand as it has been over the past decade,” Dollar said. “So we do feel it’s important for the big surplus economies of the recent period, which would primarily be China, Japan and Germany, … to stimulate more domestic demand and more consumption so that there’s sufficient demand in the world.”

Governments from China to Thailand are trying to do so, through stimulus spending, subsidies and other means. But some countries have a long way to go. Muhammad Lutfi, chairman of Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board, says his country is held back by the poverty of large percentage of its population. Indonesia is a member of the G20.

“I have 240 million people, only 53 percent with electricity. Because we don’t have electricity that means 100 million people are not included in the production cycle,” he explained. “If I can develop a power plant, these people can be developed into a new middle class, they can produce and they can consume. And that is I think the responsibility of emerging markets like Indonesia.”

Reluctance to spend

The reluctance to spend in Asia stems largely from the lack of social safety nets – inadequate public options for health care, pensions and education. In Hong Kong, Mrs. Chang says she and her husband saved hard for their retirement, only to see it disappear.

Trade liberalization and currencies have something to do with the rebalancing process. China and the United States have long disagreed over the value of the yuan. Washington says the yuan is too weak, making Chinese exports cheap and contributing to China’s huge trade imbalance. Recently, Chinese officials called for an alternative to the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency – a topic that is likely to find its way in Pittsburgh.

Global readjustment

Economists say a global readjustment is needed to stabilize the economy and to ensure the recovery will be sustainable. Kwan at Standard Chartered says the region is not yet on solid footing, despite signs of an early recovery.

“We are much better now than six months ago,” Kwan said. “But don’t be taken that we are safe from here. Many of the so-called recovery are still, probably, only temporary because much of those are because of inventory restocking, some of those are because of these fiscal stimulus, which will not last too long.”

When and how to start ending stimulus measures is also expected to be high on the summit’s agenda. Beijing plans to continue its loose monetary policy and government spending.

Quest for greater voice

Business leaders in Asia and elsewhere say the crisis has further shifted economic power to Asia. Many say the region, particularly China, should have more say in shaping the future. Like other major developing economies, such as India and Brazil, Asian governments say they should have a greater voice in multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank.

Caio Koch-Weser is a vice chairman of Deutsche Bank and a former German financial official at the G20. He says it is a better platform for global cooperation than the G8 group of leading industrialized nations.

“Use the G20 now. I think it is the right forum now for dealing with how you orchestrate, how you enhance surveillance for better governance of the international monetary and financial system,” Caio said. “And again my plea to China would be – you are now big, the spillover effects of what you do are so enormous to the world that responsible leadership and not hesitating to assume leadership in these international fora is in everybody’s interest.”

* Written ahead of the G20 summit; originally published here http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-09-17-voa8.cfm

Friday, September 25, 2009

Anchiornis huxleyi un terópodo del Jurásico tardío

FUENTE | elpais.com

Los tesoros de dinosaurios fósiles de China no hacen más que aumentar y confirman la transición hacia las aves de algunos de ellos. Un nuevo especímen de un pequeño dinosaurio que parece tener cuatro alas y numerosas plumas se añade ahora al ejemplar original, descrito este mismo año. Encontrado en el yacimiento de Tiaojishan, del noreste de China, este ejemplar de Anchiornis huxleyi, que publica la revista Nature, está magnificamente preservado e indica que largas plumas cubrían sus brazos y su cola y también tenía plumas más cortas en las patas.
Al principio se creyó que Anchiornis huxleyi, de unos 50 centímetros de longitud, era un ave primitiva, pero ahora se sitúa entre los dinosaurios terópodos, muy relacionados con los pájaros. La edad del nuevo fósil es de 155 millones de años (en el Jurásico tardío), lo que indica que es más antiguo que Archaeopteryx, el ave más antigua, hallada en Alemania y datada en menos de 150 millones de años. Los investigadores, liderados por Xing Xu, creen que este hallazgo rebate la llamada paradoja temporal, que sostiene que, dada la antigüedad de los fósiles encontrados hasta ahora, los dinosaurios similares a las aves aparecieron demasiado tarde para ser los antepasados de éstas.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Lin completes tryouts in China

Taiwan Beer forward Lin Chih-chieh is back to Taiwan and will make a signing decision soon after tryouts with a pair of Chinese CBA teams.

Lin, who will be possibly the most high-profile Taiwanese player to play in China in years, participated in special tryouts with Shanghai Dongfang Sharks and Zhejiang Guangsha Lions in a four-day trip to China.

Saying that he was happy with his performance in the tryouts and very excited about the opportunity to play in China, Lin admitted that he was a little bit tired.

He hasn’t made the final decision but said he prefers Zhejiang at the moment.

"The competition level is obviously different. Players are taller and it seems to me that more physical contacts are allowed here. There is more pounding, " he talked about Chinese style of play.

Taiwanese media reported that Shanghai team management loved what they saw, especially Lin’s explosiveness. They would love to have Lin as the motor that keeps the Sharks, who finished next-to-last last season and was purchased by Yao Ming recently, running.

Lin had a tryout with Zhejing Thursday morning and did not disappoint. Zhejiang head coach Wang Fei even had a number of set plays designated for Lin in the two-hour practice.

Lin is expected to sign with either team for about US$10,000 per month plus incentives.

(Photo: Apple Daily)

9th Brazilian Graphic Design Biennial in Shanghai 09.10.14-21

The 9th issue of the biggest graphic design event in South America features the best 283 design projects created in the last couple years by a wide range of Brazilian professionals, from big traditional agencies to recently graduated designers.

When: Oct 14th to oct 21st 9am – 5:30 pm

Where: Shanghai International Creative Industry Week 2009 上海国际创意产业活动 800 Changde Road, Building 3 静安区常德路 800号 3号楼(靠近昌平路)

for more information click here

Sarah Palin's Address to Asian Investors

Former Governor Touches on Budget Deficit, Health Care and China

In what is billed as her first public-speaking engagement outside North America, Sarah Palin blames the world financial crisis on government excesses and calls for a new round of deregulation and tax cuts for U.S. businesses, in comments delivered at a Hong Kong investment conference on Sept. 23rd.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first public-speaking engagement outside North America, blamed the world financial crisis on government excesses and called for a new round of deregulation and tax cuts for U.S. businesses.

“We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place,” the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. “We’re not interested in government fixes, we’re interested in freedom,” she added.

On the foreign-policy front, she told the room full of bankers and executives of the importance of the global fight against terrorism and of finding ways to engage China as a global power. She said China “rightfully makes a lot of people nervous.”

Her speech marks an effort to reach out to an international audience and define her political identity since resigning from office earlier this year. Ms. Palin is among a handful of high-profile Republicans seeking a path back to power for a party that lost control of both houses of Congress and White House in last year’s U.S. elections.

Ms. Palin’s address, which drew strong applause at the end, was officially closed to the media. The Wall Street Journal reviewed a recording of the speech.

In the wide-ranging address, Ms. Palin touched on the rising U.S. budget deficit, the debate over a proposed health-care overhaul, the war in Afghanistan and China’s role in world affairs.

She described her political philosophy as a “common-sense conservatism,” and said the free-market policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher should be guides for how to get out of the current economic situation. “Liberalism holds that there is no human problem that government can’t fix if only the right people are put in charge,” she said.

Ms. Palin didn’t refer to President Barack Obama by name, but said his promise for change during the election hasn’t taken hold. She called his campaign promises “nebulous, utopian sounding…Now 10 months later, though, a lot of Americans are asking: more government? Is that the change we want?”

In an echo of last year’s presidential campaign, she criticized government policies that result in what she called a redistribution of wealth. “There is no justice in taking from one person and giving to another,” she said. “History shows it simply does not work.”

Ms. Palin blamed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s low interest-rate policy of previous years for setting the stage for last year’s global financial crisis. She opposed appointing the Fed as the chief overseer of systemic risk in the U.S. financial system. “The words ‘fox’ and ‘henhouse’ come to mind. The Fed’s decisions have created the bubble,” she said.

She called for tax cuts as well as the elimination of the capital-gains and estate tax. Then, she said, the world will “watch the U.S. economy roar back to life.”

On health care, Ms. Palin defended her previous criticisms that the health-care overhaul proposed by Democrats would lead to health-care rationing and what she called “death panels.” “It’s just common sense that government attempts to solve problems like health care problem will just create new problems.” She called for “market friendly” health care reform that gives tax breaks to individuals to buy health insurance.

She acknowledged the economic rise of both China and India but called for a vision of Asia in which no one country would dominate.

“We all hope to see a China that is stable and peaceful and prosperous,” she said. But she added that the U.S. must work with Asian allies in case “China goes in a different direction.”

She said greater political openness in China could help soothe tensions. “Many believed that with China liberalizing its economy, greater political freedom would follow, but that hasn’t happened,” she said. “The more open [China] is, the less we’ll be concerned about its military buildup and its intentions.”

On U.S.-China trade relations, Ms. Palin called for more openness and warned against protectionism. “We need China to improve its rule of law, and protect our intellectual property,” she said. “On our part, we should be more open to Chinese investment where our national security interests are not threatened.”

She talked about the recent protests of ethnic minority Muslim Uighurs, Chinese labor conditions, and Tibet. Ms. Palin mentioned Charter 08, a document signed by prominent academics and dissidents calling for greater democracy and openness in China.

In other areas, she criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for speaking skeptically about the need for more troops in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan is where the 9/11 attacks were planned and if we are not successful there, al Qaeda will find a safe haven there again,” she said.

Ms. Palin warmed up the crowd with her impressions of Hong Kong, one of the densest urban areas in the world. “The wildlife-to-human ratio is different from Alaska, but I could get used to it,” she said.

She also spoke about how Alaska once shared a land bridge with Asia. And she noted that her husband’s Eskimo ancestors crossed that bridge. “To consider that connection that allowed sharing of peoples and bloodlines and wildlife and flora and fauna, that connection to me is quite fascinating,” she said.

Melvin Goodé, a 49-year-old New York-based property consultant who attended the speech, said he voted for Mr. Obama in last year’s election but was curious to hear what Ms. Palin had to say. He shrugged his shoulders when asked his thoughts on the speech but said that she generally did all right, given that she “wasn’t supposed to know anything about the continent.” “Now, let’s see what the critics say,” he said.

Jonathan Cheng and Alex Frangos
The Wall Street Journal

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Weber Shandwick to launch in Korea

Word reaches me that Weber Shandwick is poaching Edelman Korea chief Tyler Kim to launch its presence in that market.

It’s an interesting move. Korea has been a blind spot for WS for a while now and some of its key clients – such as Microsoft and MasterCard – must be wanting support in the country. And, no doubt, the agency is shelling out plenty of money to affiliates anyway.

WS Asia-Pacific supremo Tim Sutton confirmed the development, but his Edelman counterpart Alan VanderMolen declined to comment. More comments after the jump.

Sutton said WS is hoping to go live before the end of the year:

“I’m not going to make any bombastic claims about what we are going to do there. We want to be a top three player, however long it takes to get there.”

Sutton also said that this may eventually lead to GolinHarris launching in Korea too.

As for Edelman, it appears that Charles Lankester will shift from Beijing to Seoul to head North Asia. It has been a rapidly expanding brief for Lankester since he returned to Asia. First Hong Kong, then China, now North Asia!

Estados Unidos podría colapsar en Noviembre del 2009 según el científico Igor Panarin

 

Igor Panarin, el científico ruso predice el colapso de Estados Unidos para Noviembre del 2009

El Profesor ruso Igor Panarin dice que los acontecimientos siguen confirmando su predicción sobre el día del juicio final que  hizo hace más de 10 años,  los Estados Unidos caerán completamente como la Unión Soviética antes del final de 2010 y advierte que el caos podría comenzar a desplegarse tan pronto como dos meses.

Panarin, doctor en ciencias políticas y profesor del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de la Academia Diplomática rusa, dijo a periodistas durante la presentación de su nuevo libro ayer que el Presidente Obama no ha hecho nada para prevenir la crisis próxima  y que esto podría empezar a manifestarse  en noviembre.“Obama es “el presidente de la esperanza”, pero en un año no habrá ninguna esperanza,” dijo Panarin. “Él es prácticamente otro Gorbachov – le gusta hablar, pero realmente no ha logrado hacer algo. Gorbachev al menos fue un secretario de una administración del partido comunista regional, mientras que Obama es sólo un trabajador social. Su mentalidad es totalmente diferente. Él es una persona agradable y habla amablemente – pero él no es un líder y  llevará a los  Estados Unidos a un accidente. Cuando los americanos lo sepan – será como la  explosión de una bomba.”

 Desde 1998, Panarin a estado advirtiendo de una futura desintegración de los Estados Unidos y el colapso del dólar. La reciente victoria en las elecciones  del Partido demócrata de Japón es otro signo que el colapso económico de los Estados Unidos es inminente, según Panarin.

“Hoy recibí otra confirmación de que el colapso del dólar y los EE.UU es inevitable. El Partido demócrata de Japón ganó la elecciones, y me gustaría recordarle que su líder [Yukio Hatoyama] rechazará el dólar entre sus proyectos económicos. En palabras más claras, él planea transferir las reservas monetarias de Japón de dólares americanos en otro dinero. El movimiento acelerará el  cambio del dólar tan pronto como este noviembre. La desintegración seguirá dentro de poco,” dijo, añadiendo que el próximo año China también comenzaría a deshacerse del dólar y Rusia comenzaría a vender el petróleo y gas en rublos. El peso del endeudamiento originado en los monstruosos gastos militares y la crisis económica desatada a partir del “crack de Wall Street”, llevan inevitablemente al colapso del dólar y de los Estados Unidos, aunado a  las deficiencias de información del Gobierno de los Estados Unidos, al fracaso de los centros de investigación anglosajones (y en particular de la “Trilateral”, creada por Rockefeller en 1973), a las desmedidas ambiciones de las empresas petroleras y al gasto militar norteamericano, que estimó igual al doble del total del gasto militar de los restantes países del mundo.

Panarin declaró que el dólar sería finalmente sustituido por “una moneda común como una nueva unidad monetaria”, refiriéndose al acuerdo Seguridad y Prosperidad entre los Estados Unidos, Canadá y México. De hecho, este proceso de desintegración, que terminará con el surgimiento de seis estados autónomos, ya ha comenzado a través de distintas decisiones que habrían tomado 35 de los 48 estados de la Unión y se agravó recientemente con la decisión de emitir moneda propia por parte de California.

Él preve los Estados Unidos se romperá en seis partes diferentes, aproximadamente a lo largo de líneas similares a las de 1865 durante la Guerra Civil, “la costa Pacífica, con su población china creciente; el Sur, con sus hispanos; Texas, donde los movimientos de independencia crecen; la costa Atlántica, con su mentalidad distinta y separada; cinco de los estados centrales más pobres con sus poblaciones indígenas grandes; y los estados del norte, donde la influencia de Canadá es fuerte,” según Panarin.

A largo plazo, Panarin predice que los estados rotos  serán finalmente asumidos por la Unión Europea, Canadá, China, México, Japón y Rusia y América dejará de existir totalmente, como se representa en la ilustración anterior.

Panarin culpa del colapso “a una élite política que pone en práctica una política absurda y agresiva que pretende crear conflictos alrededor del planeta” y advierte que el aumento de ventas de armas de fuego en los Estados Unidos es un signo que la gente se prepara para “el caos” después de una fusión accidental financiera total. La fórmula para hacer frente a las consecuencias del colapso norteamericano pasa por el establecimiento de un nuevo orden mundial, basado en un entendimiento entre Rusia y China, en el reemplazo del dólar por otras monedas, en la creación de nuevos centros financieros que reemplacen a Londres y New York y en el surgimiento de un grupo de nuevos centros de investigación prospectiva, que prescindan de la visión anglosajona y de la influencia hebrea, dado que, con su retirada del Líbano ante la resistencia de Hezbolla, “Israel puso también en evidencia su fracaso militar y el de las concepciones ideológicas que alimentan ese pensamiento”.

Hablando de Rusia, su país, Panarin sostuvo que “Moscú es la tercera Roma” y que su imperio fue construido gracias a tres grandes figuras: Alejandro Nevski, Iván el Terrible y Stalin. De este último, dijo que había sido “llorado por el pueblo ruso en la misma forma en que el pueblo argentino lloró a Evita” y que la lucha por su sucesión aún no ha terminado: la mantienen dos sectores, uno nacionalista, hoy encabezado por Putin, y otro, ligado a los capitalistas de Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos. A Rusia le corresponderá jugar un rol central en el surgimiento del nuevo orden mundial, a través de la recreación del Imperio sobre el modelo de lo que fue la URSS y comenzando, en una etapa que podría extenderse hasta 2012, con la unión de Rusia, Belarús y Kazajstán y terminando de completarse antes del 2020. En este nuevo Imperio, Panarin ve una sola figura como posible Emperador, el actual Primer Ministro Putin, manteniendo en sus funciones de Presidente de Rusia, al actual Presidente Mevdev. China sería el eje de un segundo gran centro de poder y la Unión Europea, ampliada (incluso con parte de los estados de la costa este que se independizaran de los Estados Unidos), sería el tercero. De este modo, el dólar sería reemplazado por tres monedas: el euro, el rublo y una nueva moneda que surgiría de la unión del yuan chino y el yen japonés.

En el camino hacia esta nueva conformación geopolítica del mundo, Panarin apoya la presencia de tropas rusas en Venezuela, urgió por el restablecimiento de las bases militares en Cuba y pregonó la necesidad de que no se hagan más transacciones comerciales en dólares, tal como sostuvo que ya han hecho en parte Rusia y China con las transacciones de petróleo y otras materias primas.

Respondiendo a las preguntas de algunos de los embajadores presentes en la reunión, que se llevó a cabo ayer en el Consejo Argentino de Relaciones Internacionales (CARI), el Prof. Panarin, lamentó que en 1983 la URSS no hubiera intervenido en el conflicto de las Malvinas, pues de haberlo hecho “habría cambiado el rumbo de la historia”.

“En mi opinión, la probabilidad de que  los EE.UU dejen de existir hacia junio de 2010 excede el 50 %. A este punto, la misión de todos los poderes internacionales principales es prevenir el caos en los EE.UU,” concluyó Panarin.

En una reciente entrevista a Panarin expuesta a continuación, el diario Izvestia pone a juicio de los lectores la opinión del experto en torno a cómo puede evolucionar la situación actual, con pronósticos tan o más controvertidos que los pronunciados hace una década.

Pregunta: ¿De adonde sacó la tesis sobre el colapso de EEUU precisamente en 1998 cuando ese país gozaba de prosperidad y era líder mundial indiscutible?

Respuesta: En la Conferencia Internacional “Guerra de la Información” celebrada en Austria en septiembre de 1998, tuve la oportunidad de exponer ante 400 expertos, entre ellos 150 de EEUU, un informe analítico sobre la situación mundial.

Cuando en mi discurso hablé de que EEUU se desmembraría en pedazos, en la sala se escucharon gritos salvajes. Pero mi tesis tenía fundamento. Ya en ese entonces estaba claro que la fuerza destinada a destruir EEUU tendría una naturaleza financiera y económica a partir del dólar que no tiene ningún respaldo y en consecuencia es una moneda carente de valor.

La deuda externa de EEUU ha crecido y crece con la dinámica de un alud, desde una deuda casi cero a comienzos de 1980, hasta 2 billones de dólares en 1998 cuando expuse mi informe.

Ahora esa deuda supera los 11 billones de dólares, y esta situación no es otra cosa que una típica pirámide financiera que irremediablemente se derrumbará.

Pregunta: ¿Y caída de esa pirámide puede desplomar a toda la economía estadounidense?

Respuesta: Ya la está derrumbando. A consecuencia de la crisis financiera de los cinco bancos más antiguos e importantes de Wall Street han dejado de existir tres, y los dos restantes, a duras penas sobreviven porque han tenido que soportar las pérdidas más grandes de la historia. Ahora, se habla de cambiar el sistema de regulación de las finanzas a dimensiones globales y EEUU ya no puede desempeñar la función de regulador mundial.

Pregunta: ¿Y quién lo puede reemplazar?

Respuesta: Hay dos pretendientes, China con sus enormes reservas y Rusia como país que puede desempeñar un papel de regulador en el entorno asiático y europeo.

Recientemente, se celebró la cumbre del G-20 en Washington que promovió la propuesta de crear una arquitectura nueva en las relaciones internacionales en la que el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) tendrá un protagonismo especial, pero el FMI necesita recursos.

Los participantes del G-20 pidieron esos recursos a China y Japón. Las reservas de oro de China equivalen a más de 2 billones de dólares, es el principal acreedor de EEUU, y a partir de ahora, China inevitablemente influirá en la política del FMI.

En este sentido no fue ocasional que en la cumbre del G-20 el presidente chino, Hu Jintao, se entrevistara con el presidente ruso, Dmitri Medvédev y con el primer ministro británico Gordon Brown.

Inglaterra será sede de la próxima reunión del G-20 en la primavera boreal de 2009, y Rusia fue uno de los países que en la cumbre de Washington propuso los principios básicos del nuevo sistema financiero mundial, que por visto, coincide con la visión que tiene China con respecto a ese proceso reformador.

“El armazón que une a EEUU es muy frágil”

Pregunta: Con los líderes mundiales el asunto está claro, volvamos de nuevo a EEUU, ¿Cuáles son los síntomas que apuntan hacia un posible desmoronamiento del país?

Respuesta: Varios factores evidentes. Primero que todo, a medida que avanza el tiempo, los problemas financieros y económicos de EEUU se agudizarán. Millones de estadounidenses perderán sus ahorros y a lo largo y ancho del país aumentarán los precios y el desempleo.

Gigantes industriales como General Motors y Ford están al borde de la quiebra y esto quiere decir que ciudades enteras quedarán sin fuentes de empleo, los gobernadores de los estados federados en términos cada vez más perentorios exigirán ayuda de la Reserva Federal, que no podrá atender todos los frentes, y aumentará peligrosamente el descontento nacional.

Por un tiempo, ese descontento lo contuvo las elecciones presidenciales y la esperanza de que Obama haría el milagro, pero ya en la próxima primavera boreal, todos los estadounidenses comprenderán que en EEUU no ocurrirá ningún milagro.

Otro segundo factor importante es la vulnerabilidad legal de EEUU. En EEUU no existe un marco jurídico único que impere en todo el territorio del país, incluso en asuntos relativamente triviales como las normas de tránsito son diferentes en cada estado.

El armazón legal que sostiene a EEUU es muy frágil, incluso en el ejército norteamericano en Irak prestan servicio extranjeros que aceptaron combatir a cambio de la ciudadanía estadounidense. De esta manera, las Fuerzas Armadas no pueden ser garante de las instituciones públicas y finalmente, la división entre las élites políticas que de forma palpable se manifiesta en condiciones de crisis.

Pregunta: ¿Cómo se fragmentará el país? Está claro que en el sur estadounidense aparecerá algo parecido a México, ¿Cómo será el resto?

Respuesta: EEUU se dividirá en al menos seis pedazos. El primero abarcará la costa del Pacífico y al respecto, se puede citar que, por ejemplo, en San Francisco, el 53% de la población son de origen chino, que un descendiente chino ya fue gobernador del estado de Washington, y que la ciudad de Seatlle es considerada la puerta de la emigración china a EEUU. Es evidente que el litoral pacífico tras el desmoronamiento de EEUU quedará bajo la influencia de China.

Un segundo pedazo en sur, será una formación muy afín a México, sobre todo porque en muchos estados sureños de EEUU el idioma español ya es lengua oficial. Una tercera zona corresponderá a Texas donde siempre han existido fuertes tendencias independentistas.

A pesar de que la costa Atlántica de EEUU supone un conglomerado étnico y de mentalidad muy heterogénea se podrá fraccionar en dos partes y el centro del país donde se encuentran los estados menos prósperos habitan las minorías indígenas que ya declararon su independencia del gobierno federal. Aunque esas declaraciones independentistas fueron interpretadas como simples gestos políticos, no obstante, ese precedente tiene su importancia.

En la zona norte de EEUU siempre ha sido muy fuerte la influencia de Canadá y en lo que respecta a Alaska, incluso Rusia puede albergar ciertos planes pues, si se recuerda la historia, la Rusia zarista cedió ese territorio en arriendo…

“Los billetes de cien dólares que circulan en el mundo, sencillamente quedarán congelados”

Pregunta: ¿Y qué va a pasar con el dólar?

Respuesta: En 2006 EEUU, Canadá y México firmaron un pacto secreto sobre los preparativos para la introducción del amero, una especie de unidad monetaria para los tres países, y esto quiere decir que Washington prepara una reforma monetaria. En el desarrollo de esta reforma los billetes de cien dólares que circulan en el mundo sencillamente pueden quedar congelados.

Por ejemplo, bajo el pretexto de una falsificación masiva perpetrada por terroristas, lo que obligará una comprobación de autenticidad de todos los billetes en circulación.

“Los clanes políticos de EEUU se enfrentan abiertamente “

Pregunta: Explique su tesis sobre la división de la élite política de EEUU, ¿se refiere a las diferencias entre demócratas y republicanos?

Respuesta: No del todo, en la dirección política de EEUU existen dos grupos o clanes. El primero se les puede llamar “globalistas” e incluso hasta “trotskistas” porque su plataforma ideológica tiene ciertas analogías tácticas a las de Trotsky, que no se conformó con la revolución en Rusia sino que aspiró a la revolución del proletariado mundial.

Los globalistas estadounidenses siempre consideraron que había que vencer a la Unión Soviética como punto de partida para controlar el resto del mundo y esa es su meta.

Al segundo grupo se pueden denominar como los “patriotas” que aspiran a la prosperidad de su país. Partidarios de ambos clanes militan tanto en el partido democrático como en el republicano, un ejemplo que explica esa situación fue la votación del plan anticrisis propuesto por la Administración republicana, que en un comienzo fue rechazada por los mismos republicanos en el Congreso.

Pregunta: ¿Y quiénes son los líderes de los dos clanes?

Respuesta: Entre los globalistas las figuras clave son el vicepresidente de EEUU Dick Cheney, la Secretaria de Estado Condoleezza Rice y entre los patriotas el Secretario de Defensa Robert Gates, el director de la CIA Michael Hayden y el Director de Inteligencia Nacional almirante Michael McConnell.

La mayoría de los globalistas pertenecen a la élite financiera y los patriotas predominan en entidades de las Fuerzas Armadas, el Servicios Secreto y la industria militar.

Los clanes políticos de EEUU se enfrentan abiertamente, por ejemplo, el año pasado un informe elaborado por el clan de patriotas negó categóricamente que el programa nuclear de Irán tiene componente militar en abierta contradicción con las posturas expuestas por Cheney y Rice.

Otra situación similar ocurrió hace poco en una audiencia del Congreso dedicado a la “guerra de los cinco días” en el Cáucaso.

Los globalistas bajo la batuta de Rice afirmaron que Rusia había comenzado el conflicto y que por ello debería ser castigada con sanciones, pero los patriotas representados por los servicios secretos intervinieron con una postura diametralmente opuesta al afirmar que Georgia había comenzado el conflicto con Rusia al agredir a Osetia del Sur.

Pregunta: ¿Y con cuál de los clanes simpatiza Obama?

Respuesta: Los patriotas encabezados por Gates desempeñaron un papel clave en la victoria obtenida por Obama en las elecciones y por ello, es de esperar que ese clan exigirá al nuevo presidente cambios en la política general.

En este sentido, es interesante el hecho de que el republicano Gates sea considerado como uno de los candidatos de más opción para ocupar la Secretaria de Defensa o incluso la Secretaria de Estado. La influencia de los patriotas en el presidente electo es notable, a propósito, una de las primeras reuniones convocadas por Obama fue con representantes de los servicios secretos.

“Debemos cortar la cuerda que nos tiene atados al Titanic”

Pregunta: ¿Qué significado tiene para Rusia la victoria de los patriotas en EEUU?

Respuesta: Para nosotros es una de las variantes menos perjudicial, porque precisamente los patriotas se pusieron de nuestro lado en el conflicto del Cáucaso. En la reciente visita de Medvédev a EEUU no fue objeto de tensiones a consecuencia del conflicto con Georgia, en cambio hubo una atmósfera muy tranquila y favorable.

Pregunta: ¿Qué tiene que hacer Rusia para evitar las convulsiones que pueden provocar el colapso de EEUU?

Respuesta: Desarrollar el rublo como moneda de circulación regional. No dilatar más la creación de la bolsa de hidrocarburos para vender crudo y gas en rublos. Hace unos días, Rusia y Bielorrusia firmaron un acuerdo sobre el pago por el crudo y el gas en rublos, esto es el comienzo del proceso para convertir al rublo en una divisa regional.

Kazajstán y Bielorrusia ya pagan por la electricidad generada en Rusia en rublos, ahora el objetivo debe ser firmar para finales de 2008 el mayor número posible de contratos para que el año próximo las exportaciones rusas sean pagables en rublos, en este caso, Rusia podrá evitar algunos impactos de la crisis global que todavía no repunta.

Debemos cortar la cuerda que nos tiene atados al “Titanic financiero”, que a mi juicio, se hundirá definitivamente en poco tiempo.

Ria Novosti

www.sp.rian.ru

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Secret China: Opium Saved The Communist Party

Opium saved the communist party 06/07/2009 13:29:00 Translated from Kan Zhongguo by Marina Leung

An intensely angry CCP veteran still cannot quite fathom what happened years ago in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Region, when competing, emerging forces struggling for power in China during the early 1940s committed all manner of strange deeds. This man describes personal experiences he lived through – the spread of drug use and drug proliferation in the Shaanxi area during the CCP’s entrenchment in Shaanbei.

It was the time of Chinese troop resistance to the Japanese invasion. On orders from above, the CCP allied itself with the Kuomintang to participate in the resistance. The disgruntled veteran, under the command of Liu Chideng, was dispatched to an anti-Japanese base in Shaanxi Province, charged with administering finances. But the base ran out of money and food in 1941. The regime turned to Yan’an for help whose response came promptly. Soon a string of mules arrived, loaded with uniforms and several hundred pounds of opium. A letter from Chen Win accompanied the drugs, demanding the sale of the opium to people in the Japanese Puppet Regime-occupied territories and to the Kuomintang troops, in exchange for urgently needed military supplies and daily living necessities.

The veteran could not deal with the idea of trading opium for these supplies. This landed him back with the Yan’an and eventual training in anti-Japanese strategies at the Military and Political University. Studying part time and doing military duty the other time, his training saw him in Nanniwan where he was assigned to Brigade 359 under Wang Zhen’s leadership, having to cultivate wasteland. Part of this acreage was devoted to food production, but the larger portion was used to grow opium. At harvest, Wang Zhen hired opium specialists to process the lucrative crop that was stored in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region, for delivery at any time to Shanxi, Hebei and other locations. Whoever had money – the KMT garrison people or those from the Japanese Puppet Regime would be the buyer.

The older generations in China might remember Mao’s article, ” Serving the people,” that led the people to believe that one of the CCP’s Central committee soldiers “died for the country” in a charcoal processing plant, when he was actually a victim of opium processing. The place collapsed around him and burned him alive.

Additional information of these days from China’s infamous history can be found in a well-done research paper authored by professor Chen Yongfa, “Poppy Flowers in the Red Sun: Opium Trade and the Yan’an Model.” Other writers’ essays, “the Long March – The Untold Story,” by Harrison Salisbury, and “Diary of Yan’an,” by Peter Vladimirov, augment these historic accounts.

Secret China (English subsite) – Opium saved the communist party.

Miss Nectarine Supersweet!

If you wear delightful perfume that captures the attention of everyone you meet, but actually are a grumpy old woman with yellow teeth, then this is the fruit for you!

PEAK SEASON May – September

ORIGIN China

GROWN California

PURCHASED Grocery Store

—————————————————————

OVERALL
I want to smell this nectarine all day every day.  I don’t want to eat it, I am not disappointed about throwing it out and I don’t recommend it to anyone.  I may try this one again though because the fragrance was so damn awesome.  (Note: tried this again two weeks later and my conclusions are exactly the same – sad).

APPEARANCE
Very pretty rich red orange yellow coloring, smooth skin, medium yellow flesh
AROMA
perfection – just smells completely delightful, perfumy, sweet, makes me want to shove it up my nose permanently
TEXTURE
slightly mealy but not awful, not my favorite texture though
TASTE
Completely ho hum, general nectarine flavor but not sweet really – a disappointment after how amazing the fragrance was

———————————————————————————————-

NOTES

This particular nectarine is a white and yellow nectarine combined.  The note at the grocery store indicated that they are “super sweet” when ripe.  I’m not sure how one would attain that.  Mine was at the perfect pressure for ripeness and looked beautiful.

RECIPES
David Lebovitz’s Nectarine Sorbet
Grilled Nectarines with Feta

Monday, September 21, 2009

Arte nas plantações de arroz do Japão(incrivel)

Olhando para a foto acima ninguém consegue imaginar que se trata de uma imensa obra de arte ao ar livre.

Com a chegada do verão algumas plantações de arroz no Japão ganham um colorido todo especial. A comunidade de agricultores de Inakadate,  na província de Aomori é uma das mais conhecidas por produzir os trabalhos mais impressionantes desta combinação de arte e agricultura.

Esse resultado é conseguido plantando mudas de folhas de cores diferentes que vistas a partir de uma determinada altura, transformam- se em lindos quadros nas plantações de arroz.

Sinopharm IPO - 600x subscription

From Marketwatch,

At times like this, fundamentals get removed from the investor lexicon, as mass psychology takes over. Fear has been replaced by that more painful emotion: missing out.

That’s one way to look at the new Sinopharm IPO that has taken in $113 billion in orders, including a 600-times subscription for the retail portion of the issue.

No, the company hasn’t found a cure for cancer, but is simply a distributor of pharmaceuticals in China and comes at a steep 25 times its 2010 earnings. The only numbers under scrutiny are the amount of money chasing the issue and level of margin financing on offer.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

बुतों का बाजार-हास्य व्यंग्य कविता (buton ka bazar-hindi hasya kavita)

चौराहे पर खड़े पत्थर के बुत पर

कंकड़ लगने पर भी लोग

भड़क जाते हैं।

अगला निशाना खुद होंगे

यह भय सताता है

या पत्थर के बुत से भी

उनको हमदर्दी है

यह जमाने को दिखाते हैं।

कहना मुश्किल है कि

लोग ज्यादा जज्बाती हो गये हैं

या पत्थरों के बुतों के सहारे ही

खड़े हैं उनके घर

जिनके ढहने का रहता है डर

जिसे शोर कर वह छिपाते हैं।

यह मासूमियत है जिसके पीछे चालाकी छिपी

जो लोग कंकड़ लगने से कांप जाते हैं।

……………………….

बुतों के पेट से ही

बुत बनाकर वह बाजार में सजायेंगे।

समाज में विरासत मिलती है

जिस तरह अगली पीढ़ी को

उसी तरह खेल सजायेंगे।

जज्बातों के सौदागर

कभी जमाने में बदलाव नहीं लाते

वह तो बेचने में ही फायदा पायेंगे।

करना व्यापार है

पर लोगों के जज्बातों की

कद्र करते हुए सामान सजायेंगे।

………………………………

‘दीपक भारतदीप की हिन्दी-पत्रिका’ पर मूल रूप से लिखा गया है। इसके अन्य कहीं भी प्रकाशन की अनुमति नहीं है।

अन्य ब्लाग

1.दीपक भारतदीप की शब्द पत्रिका

2.दीपक भारतदीप का चिंतन

3.दीपक भारतदीप की शब्दयोग-पत्रिका

लेखक संपादक-दीपक भारतदीप

It’s the End of Free Trade as We Know It and I (Don’t) Feel Fine

To Whom It May Concern (and it should concern all):

During the campaign for the Democratic primary, then-candidate Obama fell into a mild form of populism by decrying the North American Free Trade Agreement and declaring his intention to “renegotiate NAFTA.”  With that simple declaration, many progressives and classical liberals came to fear that the positive and message of Mr. Obama’s campaign was at best only applicable to his domestic plans for the United States and at worst completely beholden to the special interests of the Democratic Party.  At the time, left-of-center political pundits and other supporters of Mr. Obama dismissed his critics’ fears about his stance on free trade by saying that his skepticism of NAFTA was only “campaign rhetoric” designed to garner support for his campaign.

After arriving in office, however, President Obama surrounded himself with many centrist politicians and technocrats, including many from the Clinton Administration, who were at least nominally in favor open markets and free trade.  Indeed, at last years’ April G20 summit, Mr. Obama, along with many other world leaders, affirmed the importance of maintaining liberal trade policies.

Despite setbacks in Congress and dangerous “buy American” clauses in its stimulus package, the Obama Administration seemed not to be a major hindrance to progressive policies on free trade.  It seemed that the Administration would not be beholden to the protectionist policies of the populists in Congress.  It seemed that way, that is, until last Friday’s announcement by the administration that it would impose a 35% tariff on Chinese tires imported into the United States.

With this move, the President has shown that he is willing to sacrifice America’s good standing in the world and its relations with one of its most important trading partners in the name of his domestic pursuits.  By acting to preserve the political good will of his trade-union backers on his health care reform package, the President has demonstrated, once again, that far too few American politicians are willing to fight for the good of all Americans.

Yes, it is true that few politicians, either on the right or the left, fight for the cause of free trade.  Republican legislators criticize the Democrats for being anti-free trade and then advocate an expensive and inefficient farm bill in the same breath.  Representative Nancy Pelosi visits China’s trade ministry while at the same time effectively demolishing a the good faith of the United States by underhandedly nixing its Columbia Free Trade Agreement.  Indeed, the “icon of free trade,” former President George W. Bush, could not resist appealing to important constituencies by imposing steel tariffs in order to placate powerful trade unions in America’s rust belt.  Even fewer politicians make the case that free trade benefits both American consumers and the vast majority of American producers.

It is safe to say that the President’s recent tariffs demonstrate that the he is little different than many of his predecessors, including those who effectively destroyed the Doha Round of trade talks.  Unfortunately, the illiberal trade rhetoric of Mr. Obama’s campaign is all too real.  That, however, is not a policy of change.  It is distressingly much more of the same.

Sincerely,

Further In

© Farther Up and Further In

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Congress Govt forgetful of its inept past is promoting jingoism against China for its own party gain

Myth and reality in India-China relations

Subramanian Swamy The Hindu, 17 Sept. 2009

Some myths are frightening and need to be exploded. Some realities are potentially so dangerous that we can ignore them only at our peril.

India and China are neighbours — each with a billion-plus population, together accounting for 38 per cent of the world’s population, with the fastest GDP growth rates for large economies, with China already (in PPP terms) the world’s second largest economy and India set to become the third largest in the intermediate future. How the two big neighbours bond together in the future is crucial for global order. Further, how they interact with the United States will determine the international trends of the foreseeable future.

For at least two millennia, and until about 300 years ago, these two countries were considered by the then prevailing criteria as the most developed in the world, accounting for about 50 per cent of the world’s GDP. However, owing to similar experiences with foreign aggression, imperialism, and internal orthodoxy, India and China underwent a two-century long decline whereby by the mid-20th century, they became the world’s poorest nations.

Despite being neighbours and having flourishing economies over centuries, the two nations until 1962 neither ever went to war, nor took advantage of local civil wars. This is a most extraordinary and unparalleled experience of neighbourly peace in world civilisational history. Contrast this with what happened in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa.

The two peoples traded goods, exchanged visitors, borrowed ideas, and generally respected each other at the ruler and ruled levels — until foreign invasions and imperialism cut off normal interactions and relations became frozen. They were revived only in 1950, but fizzled out by 1959. War followed in 1962, for the first time in millennia.

It took a lot of effort thereafter to restore some modicum of good relations, in which this writer, with the encouragement of the Sankaracharya of Kanchi Mutt, Sri Chandrashekharendra Saraswati, played some shaping role.

When the Janata Party government came to power in 1977, Prime Minister Morarji Desai asked me to go to China to explore the situation and see if normalisation of relations would be possible. He chose me to go first, despite peer jealousies and objections in the party, because I knew Mandarin, had researched and taught courses (at Harvard) on China, and also because, as Morarji told me, I viewed China, “without wearing rose-tinted glasses.”

My initiative in September 1978 produced enough of a thaw for Morarjibhai to clear the way for External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to make a trip in February 1979, the first by any Indian Minister since 1960. But the outcome of the visit was, alas, scuttled by mishandling the fallout of the Sino-Vietnam war that was launched when he was there, and Mr. Vajpayee had to cut short his stay in China.

In 1981, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent my good friend and External Affairs Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, to request me to visit China again, and in a back-channel format obtain some clarifications about China’s attitude to the re-opening of relations with India, as also its intentions about some extremist leaders of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) who were planning to visit China clandestinely to obtain weapons.

In April 1981, I did visit Beijing and was received by Deng Xiaoping. It was during that meeting that he announced that Foreign Minister Huang Hua would go to India, and that China was open to a negotiated settlement on the Sino-Indian border dispute.

Border delineation discussions began thereafter and are still continuing on preliminaries! Deng Xiaoping conceded my demand, then pending for three years, for re-opening the Kailash-Manasarovar route in Tibet but only for Hindu pilgrims (China’s condition). I led the first delegation of 20 pilgrims in the freezing cold weather of September 1981, and since then Hindu pilgrims in batches have continued to go to Kailash-Manasarovar without any hitch till today.

In December 1988, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi finally cut the Gordian knot in his wide-ranging talks with Deng Xiaoping by declaring that the Sino-Indian border was, in parts undemarcated and in parts disputed, thereby putting on hold (although not undoing) the consequences of the 1962 Parliament Resolution. Undoing, however, can be done only by a new Resolution in Parliament for which the time will come if there is a satisfactory end to the border dispute.

After this landmark visit, Prime Ministers Narasimha Rao and Deve Gowda contributed by signing agreements for various confidence-building measures. In 2003, as Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee visited China and reiterated India’s commitment to regarding Tibet as an inalienable part of China.

That commitment had already been made by Jawaharlal Nehru, and formalised in a treaty in 1954. Was the reiteration to build further confidence in the relations? I am not sure since I have not been able yet to fathom it. But Prime Minister Vajpayee’s reiteration means now (his then Cabinet Minister Arun Shourie’s recent polemics notwithstanding) that in India there is bilateral political commitment to regard Tibet as a part of China. It would require an audacious break with the past or an extraordinary paradigm-changing event to alter that reality.

Since 2007, relations between India and China have begun to cool. Outside government, but in the penumbra of officialdom, there is now a developing hysteria about our heading for war with China, or more precisely, about China planning to attack India. This hysteria mystery needs to be unravelled because neither can we be complacent about China’s capacity to inflict damage on us, nor should we have a fevered imagination about China’s alleged evil intentions to harm us.

Both dimensions of our attitude to China are dangerous. As a China watcher of long standing, I am curious about how this huge bilateral consensus, built over three decades, on the desirability or possibility of good relations with China, is weakening so fast. Who are the catalysts in this, what are the dynamics behind this change of this attitude, and how will it end? Is this projected Chinese threat real or just a myth?

We need to separate the myths and realities in our relations with China. Some myths are frightening and need to be exploded. Some realities are potentially so dangerous that we can ignore them only at our peril.

The most frightening myth in currency today is that China and Pakistan will co-ordinate an invasion of India, and balkanise the nation, or at least destroy our economy. This is expected no later than 2012, as precise as that! This we are hearing in some think tanks of Delhi populated by former officials of the government.

This mythical scenario is bogus because, first, China and the rest of the world learnt by the events of 1962, and by subsequent unconnected events, that if anything, the Indian people unite and India nationally consolidates when attacked from abroad. This Chanakya had noted as the concept of Chakravartin. Secondly, with Tibet and Sinkiang simmering, attacking India is not a one-way street or a picnic. On our borders and contiguous areas, moreover, the Indian Air Force is far superior while the terrain on our side of the border provides a much shorter and friendlier supply chain. China’s is very long and through more hostile terrain. Invasion therefore cannot be in the mind of the rational Chinese strategist. Most of these inflamed reports and the surrounding hysteria in India is because the propagators have been brought up on the British Imperialist version of our history, which is that India is a sitting duck for anyone who wants to invade the country.

The most potentially dangerous reality of the Sino-Indian relation today is India’s abdication of vital national interests for the domestic political survival of ruling coalitions. To counter China, some in India are advocating strategic bonding with the U.S. This is not in our national interest because the U.S. will then make us another Australia or Japan, a concubine, so to speak. The bottom line in U.S.-China relations at present is that China has a veto over U.S. actions in South Asia. Unless we can change that bottom line, the U.S. partnership is not going to mitigate our hysteria about China. In the meantime, China has us ringed in like a circus lion. It does not need to invade us when we are in such a state of impotence.

Shorn of the myths, the realistic and appropriate policy course for India is to match Chinese military capacity by concrete action (for example, spending 7 per cent of GDP on defence) and be conciliatory in policy, attitude, and words. Or to put it bluntly, take full care of national security but work for peace and good neighbourliness. At present we are doing precisely the opposite.

(The author is a Harvard-trained economist and China scholar and has made significant contributions to promoting India-China relations since 1978. He is a former Union Law Minister.)

http://beta. thehindu. com/opinion/ lead/article2176 2.ece?css= print

The Capitalist Struggle With The Internet's Socialist Soul.

The original culture of the Internet has always struck me as predominantly socialist. Consider the concept of ‘open source’ programming and you’ll see what I mean. While socialism is a dirty word in our healthcare debate, it’s an important consideration as capitalism continues to integrate with the Internet. WIRED recently ran an entire article on the ‘new socialism’ though I think they left out some important aspects.

Of particular interest is the Social Web (or Web 2.0) which I find more left leaning than Web 1.0 ever was. From the name on down, social media is all about collectivism and sharing. But if Web 2.0 is to grow up, my belief is it will need to follow the trail of Web 1.0. That means making some concessions to capitalism. The reason is innovation, pure and simple.

Socialism has historically proven limited in its ability to facilitate sustained innovation and the widespread distribution of continually improved-upon tools and services.

The USSR surprised the world when the Berlin Wall collapsed. Behind the iron curtain, the Soviet Union was decaying from the inside out and its industrial apparatus was decades behind other first world economies. China didn’t begin its ascent onto the world economic stage until it adopted some capitalist trappings. More hardline socialist nations North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela struggle on the global stage today. Even nations with strong socialist programs that are noted for innovation, like Norway, pay for it via the money from taxes generated through an aggressive capitalist marketplace.

Capitalism facilitates innovation by rewarding hardwork and efficiency in a way socialism does not.

The Internet is a curious place. Many of it’s inventors start with lofty and selfless ambitions to make the world a better place (or at least to offer people some cool opportunities to do interesting things). However, to take these inventions from a niche fringe or early adopters to the masses usually requires infrastructure, people and a means of paying for these two. The aim remains socialist (improvement for all people) but the means is necessarily capitalist. Here’s why:

Most people want some type of personal benefit in exchange for their efforts. You may find a handful of selfless people willing to work for free, but its hard to staff a floor of accountants or managers or customer support staff with selfless do-gooders say nothing for material costs.

I believe much of the tension online among ad agencies, marketers, businesses, and investors is due to incompatibilities between the internet’s socialist soul and the capitalist methodologies necessary to see innovation reach a widely dispersed online audience. This isn’t just my thought, it’s rather old in fact. The Cluetrain Manifesto expressed anticipation of some of this friction a decade ago. Here are some of the friction points I see today that are undermining the integration of capitalist-driven sustainability with altruistic socialism online.

Friction point #1: Free isn’t free.

Inventors are often driven by sheer curiosity, lofty desires to make the world a better place or baser desires like sharing music with friends, make their inventions available for free. Early adopters glom onto these tools and free becomes a viral accelerator. The problem, as any businessman knows, is free isn’t really free. At infancy an inventor may be able to build his tool by investing purely through sweat equity. Success however means wider awareness and demand. This traditionally results in one of two scenarios. One is that a threatened entity or industry stomps the innovation into oblivion (as the music industry did to Napster).

The other outcome is a realization that to grow, one must acquire staff and infrastructure. This in turn takes capital. The choice then is either to become beholden to investors or to stick to your guns and deal with the consequences. Either way, there is a price tag for ‘free’  be it a tiresome battle with the incumbents (as with Napster), sacrificing some degree of freedom (as with taking on shareholders) or struggling against diminishing returns (as with refusing to adapt while competitors invest in innovation advantages).

Friction point #2: There’s no historical precedent.

Web 1.0 had a much easier transition from socialism to capitalism. Though it felt revolutionary at the time, in many ways businesses took a tried and true construct of capitalism – purchase transactions – and simply moved it online. Voila! e-commerce was born and it became easier to cleanly map old world business practices like advertising revenue and shopping carts to the Internet.

The going will be harder for Web 2.0. One problem is that there is no old world model to work from. Conforming these tools of collectivism to capitalist markets has not been tried before. Ratings, reviews, comments and forums are all becoming standard features on business websites, that is true. They empower consumers like good socialist media and therefore are enjoying huge demand. But like email and instant messaging before them, they also don’t directly generate revenue making them harder for capitalists to work into their value calculations. This has lead to rampant experimentation – some successful, some not so much. Rampant, baseless experimentation is an expensive way to move forward. In the quantifiable world of capitalism its hard to get behind the mushy world of social media. Even with its sizeable traffic the metrics of measurement do not align clearly with capitalist needs. How many comments equal a sale and how much does it cost to create those comments? This is an exacerbated extension of the problem marketers have always faced. What is the value of a positive brand perception and how much does it cost to make? Over a half century into modern advertising those answers remain allusive. There’s no reason to expect social media will be able to provide satisfactory answers any time soon either.

Could community applications lie Twitter, Facebook and Skype be headed for the same status as email and instant messaging? Could they become must-have features that no consumer is willing to pay for? That would be bad for capitalist investors who bet millions that these socialist tools could be bent to serve capitalist needs. But if you can’t get someone to pay for a service, you can at least serve them ads through it right?

Friction point #3: Advertising is breaking down online.

The most obvious way to bend the socialist Web to the capitalist will is to monetize the traffic through advertising.  This worked reasonably well with Web 1.0 even if it took the advertising agencies a bit longer to pick up on it. It’s getting hard now though. One problem is that since Web 1.0, the model has moved from impressions (pay per view) to actions (pay per clicks), and that means lower volumes and higher costs, especially since click through rates have been trending downward almost since day one.

Another dilemma is the increasingly important question of how much advertising we can pack into our environment. Forget people even clicking on ads, with so many of them out there, we’re having an ever harder time recalling any of them – let alone acting on them.

Worse still, social media itself throws wrenches in the centuries-old methods of marketing by adding a readily available layer of untethered consumer feedback into mix.

Somewhat ironically, companies today pay for the very social media applications on their sites that lead to the flaming, complaining and ‘outing’ that often costs them their own customers. True, it works in the inverse too, and good ratings mean better sales but the reality is, negative travels faster and is more compelling. Think of the stories that make press headlines…

In addition, because consumer commentary is both plentiful and accessible, it undermines the efficacy of any advertising message. Suddenly the content that costs so much to make (advertising) isn’t worth as much as the stuff consumers write as comments to that content. That’s a capitalist nightmare. Worse still, companies can’t really control what consumers say. Instead they must invest more and more to make every experience flawless lest they wind up the number one search term on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.

If anything, in gross aggregate I’d wager that social media thus far has cost capitalists more than it has earned them.

Why can’t we all get along?

Is social media incompatible with capitalism? Is it less a market gainer than a necessary market defense? Do the sales it creates offset the costs it requires?

Social media gathers people better than any technology in history. Ironically it also undermines many of the traditional ways capitalists have made money from these aggregated groups. But social media and online communities need capitalists as much as the capitalists need the communities.

Capitalism provides the motivation for sustained innovation just as socialism provides The People with a collective voice that allows them to keep from being exploited.

A lot of digital ink is rightly committed to discussing the imperative of business to be transparent. Less ink is offered up on the responsibilities of the consumer in this symbiotic relationship. This is not to say we must begin to click on banners to support corporations. We should however re-evaluate our expectation that everything be free. We should view ourselves as contributing to innovation every time we write a positive review or recommend a product to a peer. Ranting and ripping some company a new one might be a lot of fun, and is necessary at times. But so is the flip side.

The system works best when both sides benefit.



Interestingly Web 3.0, the Semantic Web, may in fact have an easier time reconciling itself to capitalism. Of course if it works really well, none of us will actually know it as it will be com pletely invisible even as it delivers a more individually customized online experience.

The inherent benefits of semantic intelligence are right in line with the holy grail of business – connecting products and services precisely to the people who want them right then and there. In hindsight, Web 2.0 might be a bump in the road. Right now, its a battleground as socialism and capitalism come to terms with each other in an uncomfortable dance.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Torpediert China den US Dollar?

How China is Torpedoing the U.S. Dollar…

Dazu braucht es China nicht, das tut die FED schon ganz alleine indem sie uferlos “Geld” aus dem Nichts schafft – fiat money – “es werde Geld”.

Tatsache ist: Der Dollar verliert starkt an Wert. Der Dollar mutiert zum Schwundgeld?

Hochinteressant in diesem Zusammenhang ist: Die FED von Atlanta publizierte den Index des Dollar. Sie hat damit aufgehört! Warum?

(Wenn Sie meine Erklärung hören wollen: “Die Fed will nicht selber darauf aufmerksam machen, dass der US Dollar sich in Schwundgeld verwandelt.”)

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta:

(Please note that the Atlanta Fed has discontinued the Dollar Index.)

US Agenda and Foreign Policy



US Agenda & Foreign Policy



In order to understand the present US foreign policy we need to understand the various global political agendas of various groups in the US. Depending on the administration one group or the other or a combination of these groups will be in power….Oil and Islam. Will America Shift Away from Its Past Unilateralist Policies?

Agenda-1: Neo-Con Agenda

This agenda’s main philosophy is making US super powerful even at the cost of other nations or other people. People who follow this agenda are generally Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld etc. The present US administration is mainly controlled by the people who believe in this ideology. This group believes that

1. US should be the only leader/king nation in this World. US should be able to subjugate any nation which does not follow US order (famous words “you are with us or against us”). This implies only US needs to have most sophisticated weapons. As there are some nations which already have nukes, hence this group wishes that US develop more sophisticated weapons like “space nukes” by which they can even control nuclear weapon states. This also involves discouraging and also threatening other nations who wish to develop nukes.

2. This group believes only pure White Christian Americans should rule the World. They believe in a hierarchy of power structure based on the races and religions. In their belief US comes first and next comes Europe’s some main states like UK, France, and Germany etc. Next in the order are Israel, Russia, China and India. The bottoms of this list are Islamic nations like Pakistan, Iraq, Iran etc.

3. This group also believes US should have the first right on entire World’s resources. Presently if they don’t have such a right they try to get that control through various means. Adding to this if US can’t have the resource then make the region messy so that no other nation will be able to use those resources.

4. This group also believes that there should be continuous conflict in the Middle East so that US will have complete control over the resources. This group also wants to have a permanent US military in this region so that they control the region better.

5. This group supported and wanted the “Iraq War” mainly because it showed the World US military strength (by hanging Saddam) and they wish to have permanent presence in Iraq. They really don’t really care about the chaos in Iraq as long as US causalities are minimum. The logic is that as long as Iraq is under civil war the resources are used by none. And the US force in Iraq will enable it control the control the wreaked country after few years of civil war. The only problem now is that US causalities are increasing daily and it is becoming difficult with US electorate (Republicans lost US congress).

6. This group doesn’t mind India having nukes as long they are minimal and US has control over India’s foreign policy. Adding to this India’s nukes will never be a threat to US as US will develop more sophisticated nukes by which small time nuclear states like India will be no match.

Agenda-2: Conservative Agenda

This is a slightly milder version of Neo-Con agenda. This is basically a modified colonial agenda. This agenda involves making US a superpower and making other powerful nations like China, Russia, Europe perpetually dependent on US economy and technology. This group mainly believes in using political and financial strengths of US. The best example of a person who propagates this agenda is “Henry Kissinger”. The US administration which closely resembles this agenda was Ronald Regan’s US administration.

1. This agenda involves “Anglo-White” imperialistic World order (Ronald Regan + Margaret Thatcher does this ring the bell?). This group in the olden times used to believe in colonial power structure. In order to maintain power these people employ generally the following strategies viz. creating client states by bribing the leaders or continuously keeping certain regions of the World under conflict or arming the guerillas. These strategies fail with democratic states and hence the US never creates any democratic state. US only created puppet client states.

2. This agenda involves sharing the World resources only with the worthy nations or people. The first in the list of worthy nations are obviously the western nations. Reluctantly these people have come to the conclusion that they need to share some resources with China. Adding to this China is managing the US administration very

intelligently.

3. This group believes in creating huge number of client states globally like Iran under Shaw, entire Latin America under dummy governments etc. These people don’t like if a country becomes extremely nationalistic. They try some way or the other to create problems. They hate the present Venezuela’s president Chavez as his policies are complete contrary to their political vision.

4. This group also supported and wanted the Iraq war. The reason is that after 911 attack they felt the “Anglo-White” order was threatened and US needed to show them (Muslims and others) who controls the World. This was the reason Henry Kissinger said just attacking Afghanistan was not enough after the 911 attacks; US needed to remove Saddam also. His exact words were “we need to teach them a lesson”. Teach whom the answer is obvious!!

5. This group after winning the Iraq war would have setup a puppet Iraq regime and left the country once satisfied the Iraq’s resources are under their control. These people will be satisfied if Iraq becomes a client state like Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately the present Iraq war has strengthen Iran as US will be leaving Iraq in about a year.

6. This group also supports India-US nuclear deal but want to make sure US is getting enough in return for their “kindness”. Like support for squeezing Iran etc. These people always hated India’s independent foreign policy as it gives ideas for other states and also their opponents. They must have wished for India’s democracy to become failure as that didn’t happen they wish to control India through some

carrots. Adding to this India’s independent behavior didn’t fit in their “Anglo-White” supremacy principle.

Agenda-3: Realistic Agenda

This agenda is followed by people like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright etc. This involves making the US a World leader by proving to the World that US is the only country which can solve all the World’s problems (because US is powerful and has money). This group is neither racists nor anti-religious. This group believes in pluralistic World order having leadership centered on US. This group has lot of intellectuals.

1. This group is willing to cut down some US nuclear weapons if other countries are willing to give up their nuclear weapons. This vision will never happen because as Agenda-1&2 groups will block any attempt to make US a less nuclear weapon state. Remember the way they have rejected the CTBT during Clinton’s regime.

2. This group will try to settle the World’s disputes with whatever way it is possible, which may not be fair and they try to create balance. Generally they have soft corner for Islamic nations, I guess because they are more noisier. As India is a soft state they squeeze India.

3. This group will always try to keep India and Pakistan at the same level. And they will always support Pakistan over India. The main reason being by supporting Pakistan they get extra leverage with other Islamic nations.

4. War is the last resort for this group and they try to rally all the nations if they wish to punish a dictator like Saddam.

5. This group wants neither India nor Pakistan have any nukes. Hence they will try very hard to push both these countries for peaceful talks (remember during Clinton’s time Vajpayee invited Musharaff). This group is very bad for India remember the sanctions slapped on India after the 1998 nuclear tests.

6. This group will aggressively push NPT and they are not happy with the India-US nuke deal. They agreed for the deal as they could get NPT+CTBT in the final deal. US have already tightened the NSG rules so that India is denied any help if US decides not to support India. India will end up in multi-level Tarapore traps with this US-India nuclear deal.

Agenda-4: Puritan Agenda

This is a highly fair agenda for the World. These people are very honest and sincere. People like Howard Dean (Dem) follow this agenda. They neither want the US to be the World leader nor a superpower. They want total Worldwide nuclear disarmament (including US) and US not getting involved in World’s conflicts. These people would like the US to become like Canada. As we all know Islamic terrorists only want to bomb US but they are not bothering with Canada.

Conclusion

I have always noticed US administration following Agenda-1 or Agenda-2 or Agenda-1+2 or Agenda-2+3 only. Agenda-4 is purely academic. Even Clinton administration followed Agenda-3+2, it was not purely Agenda-3. I have also noticed India gained maximum by making deals with US administration that follows Agenda-1 or Agenda-2. Other US administrations (i.e mainly Agenda-3 administrations) generally sermon India rather than helping India with anything worth mentioning.

It is always better for India to evaluate the behavior of all the groups before getting in to any deals with US. Most of the times US gives guarantees only orally which means they are valid only for that administration, while they extract perpetual guarantees from the other nations. The best example is India-US nuclear deal. The conditions attached by the US congress may be considered as advisory by the present Bush administration but the next president of the US most certainly will act differently.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Best PR, no PR - China's consistent PR blunders

A country with over a billion people and many minorities, some of them in conflict, should be considered a threat to international security. Asia has two such countries; only one is deemed dangerous.

India has a nuclear program, under no non-proliferation regime. North Korea and Iran are believed to be in a similar status. After India decided to place its nuclear development within some kind of legal framework and agreed on nuclear cooperation with the US, journalists, analysts and pundits never said that would be a threat to global stability. Objections were in terms of the possible interpretations that some members of the axis of evil could draw from that.

China increased its defense spending 14.9% compared to last year’s budget, according to official figures. A recent US Defense Department report claimed China’s growth in defense spending was higher. The US report was accompanied by a choir of calls for transparency and comments underscoring China’s growing assertiveness as a threat to global security.

India increased its defense spending 34% for the 2009 budget, according to Jane’s -a defense think tank. This fact was overlooked by most of the international press.

India has nuclear weapons, deep social inequalities, a steeply rising defense budget, rampant corruption and enough Islamic fundamentalism to make anyone uncomfortable. Regardless of the Pakistan connection, attacks like the ones on international hotels in Mumbai last summer aren’t possible in countries without extremism.

And India isn’t considered a threat to global security. Not only isn’t it a threat, its media coverage is that of a lovely colorful country. India’s chaos is colorful. Meanwhile, China’s more predictable behavior is dangerous.

Both realities look disturbingly similar, but the bigger the effort China places in managing its international image the worse it seems to do.

And this is the center of the problem, according to William Nobrega -CEO of Conrad Group, a consulting firm that follows major issues in both countries. He explained that China’s desire to manage its image underscores the fact that it’s not a free country, and this is very bad for publicity.

Meanwhile India grants its journalists rights and doesn’t have a security apparatus dedicated to alienating the media, local or foreign.

All journalists who work in China have some contact with Public Security Bureau officials, on unfriendly terms, while working in the field. At the end of the day, most of the reporting gets done regardless of the harassment. But sometimes the news professionals are detained. Like most people, journalists don’t enjoy spending time in jail.

As the ample amount of negative news on China shows, PSB officials can’t stop reporters. But they can help journalists add a negative spin to a general backdrop of repression, Goebels style propaganda and media controls. Lack of understanding that the best propaganda is no propaganda is costing China dearly. PR disasters follow PR disasters. Achievements can be counted -and are mildly applauded.

As Mr. Nobrega suggested, the more China attempts to regulate its coverage the greater the backlash from the international press.

It could be inferred that the greater the backlash, the greater the resentment in the country. And the greater the resentment the greater the will to control. And thus, an even greater backlash.

The last attempts by Chinese authorities to allow some coverage by international journalists after the riots in Xinjiang was a great leap forward. Unfortunately, some members of the local security forces had a great idea: arresting a group of Hong Kong journalists covering a demonstration.

The authorities wanted to excuse themselves for the nip alleging the journalists were inciting violence.

Fortunately, few PSB officials carry fire arms. There would be many a shot foot among the ranks.

1.7% Inflation In August Due To Clunker Stupidity

Two weeks ago, my tractor broke.  It got fixed yesterday and  so I ran off this morning at sunrise to haul it home.  Then, I had to test all systems.  This meant using the backhoe for about 9 hours.  It was a long day and everything worked like a charm.  So here, very belatedly, is today’s story.  And of course, there are problems with our system.  The clunker deals whereby the US went deeper into debt to bankroll private purchases of cars, boosted the trade deficit, caused oil prices to rise and weakened the dollar.  Oops.  And this week, we are assured, there is no inflation.  HAHAHA.  In a rat’s ass.

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Producer Prices in U.S. Rise 1.7% in August as Gasoline Surges – Bloomberg.com

Wholesale prices in the U.S. rose more than twice as much as forecast in August, led by gasoline costs that have since partially receded.

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I have been around a long, long time. And I have a long, long memory. Always, in my life, when gasoline prices go up, the economy collapses. Rising gas prices is hell on our automobile-mad culture. When we have to spent money on energy, we can’t spend it on anything else. Besides that, the weak dollar also raised prices. For example, a sheet of the cheapest 4×8 chip board at Home Depot shot up in one week from $6.45 a sheet to $7.33 a sheet! This is due 100% to the dying dollar. Nothing else.

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The 1.7 percent increase in prices paid to factories, farmers and other producers was the fourth gain in five months and followed a 0.9 percent drop in July, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Excluding food and fuel, so-called core prices gained 0.2 percent, more than forecast.

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.Since we import a lot of the stuff we consume, the simple mechanism of killing the value of the dollar causes price hikes. End of story. This isn’t due to rising consumption but rather, the rising tide of dollars we spew out of the Federal Reserve and the free funny money for buying Japanese cars the Treasury handed out like candy on Halloween.

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Companies will have a hard time passing higher expenses onto customers until evidence that the economy is starting to recover translates into sustained gains in consumer spending and business investment. Economists predict inflation will stay under control, giving the Federal Reserve leeway to keep interest rates near zero for longer to spur growth.

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Good gods!  What ails everyone?  This Bloomberg analysis is totally whacked.  I see inflation all over the place.  Last time I took a customer to Home Depot to buy foreign products, EVERYTHING was up in price!  To the point of pure annoyance on my part.  This is the purest form of inflation: a weakening currency causing imports to suddenly hike in price.  This has actually been the US plan for dealing with trade deficits over the last 50 years: devalue the currency.  It doesn’t work, of course.  After a short bobble in trade numbers, the free trade guys get to work and things are pulled back deeper into the red than before.

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Below are some more Bloomberg News headlines:  Bernanke Says U.S. Recession `Very Likely’ Has Ended, Economy Still Weak—-Retail Sales in U.S. Jump 2.7%, Most in Three Years, Led by Auto Purchases–-how can ‘auto purchases’ be used as a scale of economic activity when this entire auto buying frenzy was 100% bankrolled by Uncle Sam?  Are all auto sales for the future be the same?  Instead, we had a stampede to buy new cars, the last thing the US needs since the majority of these purchases were foreign imports!  The US auto industry is still shutting down.  And this stupid clunker bill ended up causing our trade deficit to plunge much deeper in the red despite the weakening dollar.

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This is simple: the yen rose to around 90-92 to the dollar.  Normally, this would kill trade. But thanks to Uncle Sam bankrolling Japanese auto sales in the US, meant that the clunker deal totally undid the ‘good’ of the devaluing dollar!  So, we had a double deficit: our government spent yet another several billions trying to give the illusion of doing business and this increased our trade deficit!  And where do we borrow money?  Well, from the exporters our government is supporting with these clunker deals!

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U.S. trade association warns gov’t of protectionist perils_English_Xinhua

Protectionism would cause more trade disputes and drag the U.S. economy into peril, a U.S. industry association warned Monday following President Barack Obama’ s Friday decision to impose punitive tariffs on tires imported from China. .

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“With the U.S. economy on the verge of recovery, we strongly urge our leadership to follow through on G8 commitments to not erect protectionist barriers that would open the door for larger trade frictions and, more importantly, put our economic recovery in peril,” American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) President and CEO Kevin M. Burke said in a statement released Monday. .

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The AAFA is the U.S. national trade association representing apparel, footwear and other sewn products companies and their suppliers, which compete in the global market.

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The US no longer makes clothes for either export or internal consumption.  This is the fate of nearly all our industries.  The US is the world’s #1 military equipment export power, on the other hand.  So our military, that is supposed to protect us, makes money to try to balance our trade woes by selling weapons to all our trade rivals and others.  This doesn’t make the US one bit safer over the long or short run.  Since all our trade associations are now FOREIGN AGENTS pushing to have us sell weapons or import all our manufactured goods, we should have them registered at this.  Not be treated as ‘American’ organizations.  Like AIPAC, they are aliens and should be treated as such.

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Incidentally, Obama and Mitchell are in full retreat in the Middle East as Congress, AIPAC and the Israeli overlords stomp both men into the ground.  Forget the GOP Congressman calling out, ‘Liar’ to Obama.  The Israeli PM calls him every name in the book and doesn’t have to even apologize.

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BBC NEWS | South Asia | India is ‘losing Maoist battle’

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says his country is losing the battle against Maoist rebels. Mr Singh told a meeting of police chiefs from different states that rebel violence was increasing and the Maoists’ appeal was growing.

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The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor. They operate in a large swathe of territory across central India, and in some areas have almost replaced the local government. More than 6,000 people have been killed during their 20-year fight for a communist state.

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It looks like India will finally have a revolution.  The country will stay mired in a very noxious social system unless India has a full revolution.  Most every country that has shot forwards in industrialization and other areas like the sciences, etc, first has to have a social revolution to throw off the shackles of religious dogmas.  India has a very nasty social system that confines people into various castes and it is very brutal and way overdue for change.  China is finally emerging from its revolutionary bloodbath and got a new start on life thanks to the upheavals that overthrew a very powerful and ancient status quo system.

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Ditto for India: its status quo goes back in time by thousands of years and is immensely unfair.  There are readers here at my blog who hate social or government systems and imagine they should be simple individuals.  Well, I know of virtually no systems that are run this way.  We can’t be just whatever we want, we have to create systems that have many connections, the more, the better.  This is called ‘civilization’.  India is one of the main centers of the creation of ‘civilizations’ that is, the building of cities.

The Euphrates river valleys, the Nile and the big rivers in Asia are all early civilization centers and all of them have fallen into stagnation and fell behind the former barbarian sectors like Europe or the modern ones like the US empire.  The weight of the past can stifle as well as instruct.  This is why the revolutionary radicals who founded the US decided to enshrine in the Constitution two utterly different things: the separation of Church and State so the US would not become like India, and the 3/5th vote for each slave owned by mostly Southerners.

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African slaves were turned into ‘untouchables.’  And this has troubled our nation to this day.  Learning to overcome this is tremendously difficult for us.  So, in India, overturning the social system of semi-slavery of the untouchables will be equally hard.  And India, like the US,will not get very far unless this is done.

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Rockefeller Chief McDonald Dies in Apparent Suicide (Update1) – Bloomberg.com

-James McDonald, chief executive officer of New York investment firm Rockefeller & Co., died Sunday from a single gunshot wound that was probably self- inflicted, officials in Massachusetts said….

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…McDonald was appointed to CIT Group Inc.’s board of directors in October 2007 and retired from the money-losing lender in May, two months before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. refused to guarantee the company’s debt, driving it toward a possible bankruptcy.

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I suspect this death will lead to more news.  I wonder what stupid schemes troubled this guy so much, he had to end it all?  He was younger than I.  He was much, much, much richer than I.  Or at least, a lot of loot passed through his hands before he finally signed up to join the entities who live in the Cave of Wealth and Death.

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Stiglitz Says Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Pre-Lehman – Bloomberg.com

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

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“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

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Stiglitz’s views echo those of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has advised President Barack Obama’s administration to curtail the size of banks, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who suggested last month that governments may want to discourage financial institutions from growing “excessively.”

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Stiglitz is 100% correct.  The biggest guys are bigger.  Like with the clunker deal, this was 100% thanks to Uncle Sam bailing them out.   Paulson hasn’t blown his own brains out, he is trying to make up for losing 2 years of profits now that he has a firm grip on our financial system.  Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are bigger than ever and so is the Derivatives Beast.  Even talking about putting that immense monster under control has these gnomes howling with rage.  It is their main and in some cases, only money maker right now.

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As for the last sentence: talk about CHUTZPAH!  The Bank of Israel is a total leech on our system.  If the Zionists want things to not grow ‘excessively’ I would suggest the US government save us immense sums of money and cut Israel off from our finances.  This tiny country is a #1 leech on our systems.  And we should flee Afghanistan.  Let the Chinese or the Russians deal with it.  Except Russia probably has decided this is too dangerous.  So let the Chinese take over.  This would be more fun than a trade war!

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