China 2020

“China 2020” presents three alternate future scenarios based on different trajectories China might follow out to 2020: “Fragmentation,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faces escalating demands from a range of actors who have slowly chipped away at its legitimacy and capacity, placing the very survival of the CCP in question; “Strong State,” having engaged its best and brightest to successfully address the many challenges faced by China, the CCP remains highly autocratic, making extensive use of technology to improve government performance and suppress dissent; and “Partial “Democracy,” the CCP is able to maintain a powerful position only by accommodating greater popular demand for openness and participation in shaping China’s political and economic agenda. The narratives were developed based on insights shared by some of the most knowledgeable China observers in the field, at an intensive, daylong workshop convened at the CGA in October 2009.

China 2020 Scenerio


The China 2020 workshop and report included input from several leading minds in Chinese and global policy, including Daniel Ahn, Director of Macroeconomic and Portfolio Strategies Research, Louis Capital Markets; Nayan Chanda, Director of Publications, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; David Denoon, Professor of Politics and Economics at New York University; John Frankenstein, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Taylor Fravel, Cecil & Ida Green Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT; Dru Gladney, President, Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College; François Godement, Professor of Political Science, Institut d’Études Politiques, Paris; Roberto Herrera-Lim, Director, Asia Practice, Eurasia Group; Nazrul Islam, Senior Economics Affairs Officer, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations; Cheng Li, Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution; James Mulvenon, Director, Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, Defense Group, Inc; Stephen Orlins, President, National Committee on United States-China Relations; Dudley Poston, Professor of Sociology, Abell Endowed Professor of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University; Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China, Council on Foreign Relations; Julian Wong, Senior Policy Analyst, Center for American Progress; Geng Xiao, Professor at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing; Qiang Xiao, Director, China Internet Project; and Wei Zhang, Lecturer in Chinese Economy, University of Cambridge, England.


Source: NYU

MASSIVE RIOT CIVIL UNREST: Kryzgystan

Kyrgyzstan's opposition has taken over government headquarters, the site of deadly rioting on Wednesday, and appears to be in control of the capital Thursday. The government of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev appears to have fled.The Health Ministry says the death toll from the anti-government rioting is now 68, with 400 people hospitalized. Opposition leader Rosa Otunbayeva has declared herself head of an interim government of this Central Asian nation housing a key U.S. air base. The opposition has called for the closure of the U.S. air base outside the capital, which is a transit point for supplies to the war in Afghanistan. U.S. military officials said Kyrgyzstan officials halted flights for 12 hours at the Manas air base on Wednesday.


Watch the video:




From AP:
Protests escalated in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday, where demonstrators stormed the main government building and state television station in the capital of Bishkek, and there were scenes of violence in other cities in this central Asian nation.



Read:
Kyrgyzstan's "Analog Revolution"

BBC:Kyrgyzstan unrest



Sources: AP,BBC,Foreign Policy.

Blood Diamonds - The True Story

This instalment examines the little-known truth about how the worldwide diamond trade has funded wars across western and central Africa, leading to the deaths of millions of people.


Blood diamonds, often called conflict diamonds, are mined in war torn African countries by rebels to fund their conflict. The rebels grossly abuse human rights, often murdering and enslaving the local populations to mine the diamonds.

Blue Gold: World Water Wars DVD

In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth.

Corporate giants force developing countries to privatize their water supply for profit. Wall Street investors target desalination and mass bulk water export schemes. Corrupt governments use water for economic and political gain. Military control of water emerges and a new geo-political map and power structure forms, setting the stage for world water wars.

Watch the trailer:



Blue Gold World Water Wars Official Website

Fighting Hunger in Africa: Gebisa Ejeta

Dr. Ejeta’s personal journey would lead him from a childhood in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia to the height of scientific acclaim as a distinguished professor, plant breeder, and geneticist at Purdue University. His work with sorghum, which is a staple in the diet of 500 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa, began in Ethiopia in the 1970s. Working in Sudan in the early 1980s, he developed Hageen Dura-1, the first ever commercial hybrid sorghum in Africa. This hybrid variety was tolerant to drought and out-yielded traditional varieties by up to 150 percent.

Dr. Ejeta next turned his attention to battling the scourge of Striga, a deadly parasitic weed which devastates farmers’ crops and severely limits food availability. Working with a colleague at Purdue University, he discovered the biochemical basis of Striga’s relationship with sorghum, and was able to produce many sorghum varieties resistant to both drought and Striga. In 1994, eight tons of Dr. Ejeta’s drought and Striga-resistant sorghum seeds were distributed to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Yield increases were as much as four times the yield of local varieties, even in severe drought areas.





2009 World Food Prize Laureate Gebisa Ejeta

Top 5 Recomennded Books

1.Samuel P. Huntington - The Clash of Civilizations



World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis, however, all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate each other.


2.Fareed Zakaria - Post American world



In his new book, “The Post-American World,” Mr. Zakaria writes that America remains a politico-military superpower, but “in every other dimension — industrial, financial, educational, social, cultural — the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance.” With the rise of China, India and other emerging markets, with economic growth sweeping much of the planet, and the world becoming increasingly decentralized and interconnected, he contends, “we are moving into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people.

3.Joshua Kurlantzick - Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World



This book is the first to examine the significance of China’s recent reliance on soft power—diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchange opportunities, and other techniques—to project a benign national image, position itself as a model of social and economic success, and develop stronger international alliances. Drawing on years of experience tracking China’s policies in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Joshua Kurlantzick reveals how China has wooed the world with a "charm offensive" that has largely escaped the attention of American policy makers.

4.William Langewiesche - The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor




The end of the Cold War heralded the end of the superpowers' monopoly on nuclear arms, and recent technological advances have made them more affordable for Third World countries aspiring to join the "Nuclear Club." Journalist William Langewiesche examines the advent and implications of nuclear proliferation and provides an in-depth account of the relative ease with which terrorists might acquire the raw materials necessary to assemble a nuclear bomb. He also follows the career of Abdul Qadeer Khan. Dr. Khan is a Pakistani Scientist and metallurgical engineer widely regarded as the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program who stole nuclear secrets from the West and used them to establish a nuclear program in his native Pakistan before selling the information to North Korea, Iran, and Libya. "The nuclearization of the world has become the human condition," Langewiesche concludes, "and it cannot be changed.

5. Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army




On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide.

This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.

U.N: Nearly 1 billion hungry people in world

The number of hungry people in the world could soon hit a record 1 billion, despite a recent drop in food prices, the U.N. food aid organization said Wednesday.

The recent financial crisis, though it has helped bring global food prices down, has also led to falling trade and lower development aid, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization's general director, Jacques Diouf.

As a result of the crisis, an additional 104 million people were likely to go hungry this year — meaning they receive fewer than 1,800 calories a day, Diouf told reporters after a two-day meeting in Paris between the FAO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"We have never seen so many hungry people in the world," Diouf said.

The number of people considered hungry increased last year as well, by 40 million, and in 2007, when 75 million more people joined the ranks, Diouf said.

If the projection for 2009 proves accurate, that would mean that approximately 1 billion people — or roughly one-sixth of the world's population — will hungry by the end of the year, he said.

High food prices
Despite a 30 percent drop in food prices from June 2008, overall food prices still remain above 2006 levels, Diouf said.

He noted that in the developing world, food prices have dropped only 12 percent to 14 percent since June 2008.

Surveys show that prices of basic staple foods in many poor countries have barely registered any drop.

Diouf and other experts at Wednesday's conference called for more development aid to be spent on agriculture, saying it was crucial to preventing acute food shortages.

Source: U.N: Nearly 1 billion hungry people in world




Also watch "Inside Story - World hunger" by AlJazeeraEnglish.

Part 1



Part 2



AP, MSNBC.

Africa-Americas New Oil Target

As world oil reserves decline, the US and other world powers are competing for African oil. US energy and foreign policies have now merged: they militarise choke points and oil-producing countries that can be loyal to the US. Currently 14% of US oil comes from Africa, while experts predict that America's own national oil supply will run out in eight years. Thus securing an energy supply is a top strategic priority in an oil-hungry world, which explains the sudden interest from America, Europe, China and Japan for Africa. Under the guise of the wars against �terror' and �poverty' the US is setting up military bases in West Africa and planning for a possible conflict with Europe and China.



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