Wired News: Bioscientists: Gods or Monsters?: "what these scientists will do with their growing knowledge and power. "

Rise of the Plagiosphere: "The concept of the biosphere exposed our environmental fragility; the emergence of the plagiosphere perhaps represents our textual impasse. Copernicus may have deprived us of our centrality in the cosmos, and Darwin of our uniqueness in the biosphere, but at least they left us the illusion of the originality of our words. Soon that, too, will be gone."

Rise of the Plagiosphere: "A third technology will add yet more capacity to find similarities in writing. Artificial-intelligence researchers at MIT and other universities are developing techniques for identifying nonverbatim similarity between documents to make possible the detection of nonverbatim plagiarism. While the investigators may have in mind only cases of brazen paraphrase, a program of this kind can multiply the number of parallel passages severalfold."

Rise of the Plagiosphere: "What NASA did to our conception of the planet, Web-based technologies are beginning to do to our understanding of our written thoughts. We look at our ideas with less wonder, and with a greater sense that others have already noted what we're seeing for the first time. The plagiosphere is arising from three movements: Web indexing, text matching, and paraphrase detection."

Rise of the Plagiosphere: "The 1960s gave us, among other mind-altering ideas, a revolutionary new metaphor for our physical and chemical surroundings: the biosphere. But an even more momentous change is coming. Emerging technologies are causing a shift in our mental ecology, one that will turn our culture into the plagiosphere, a closing frontier of ideas."

Foreign Policy: Put Growth Ahead of Aid: "The two approaches are not incompatible. Local firms and international investors need well-trained, healthy workers to become competitive, expand employment, and penetrate new markets. But under outgoing bank President James Wolfensohn, the bank has overemphasized trying to relieve the problems of poor people directly. The more effective way to bring people above the poverty line is to stimulate economic growth. Seven years of growth at 5 percent in India reduced national poverty by 6 percent. During the same time period, 6 percent economic growth in Vietnam reduced national poverty by 7 percent; 8 percent growth in China reduced national poverty by 8 percent."

Wilson Quarterly @ the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: It’s premature to write an obituary, but there’s no question that America’s news media—the newspapers, newsmagazines, and television networks that people once turned to for all their news—are experiencing what psychologists might call a major life passage. They’ve seen their audiences shrink, they’ve had to worry about vigorous new competitors, and they’ve suffered more than a few self-inflicted wounds—scandals of their own making. They know that more and more people have lost confidence in what they do. To many Americans, today’s newspaper is irrelevant, and network news is as compelling as whatever is being offered over on the Home Shopping Network. Maybe less.

Looking Forward: "This site is dedicated to long-range and future-oriented work by public sector organizations. It includes links to examples from around the world."

Battelle - Technology Forecasts: "Substantial innovations in the energy industry and its energy technologies are occurring. Deregulation of the natural gas and electric utilities will continue, resulting in more competition and more mergers. Small, independent utilities will decline and be swept up into the emerging Super Utilities. Oil companies will become energy companies, competing in both the mobile and stationary energy markets. New players, such as automobile companies, may emerge as formidable influences in the energy industry. '"

Gmail - Press Review for May 25, 2005: Europe To Double Aid To $80 Billion A Year: "James Wolfensohn, the outgoing World Bank president, said Tuesday that the international financial institution should change the way it selects its
leader, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune report. Instead of allowing the United States alone to appoint a candidate, as has
been the case throughout the history of the World Bank, Wolfensohn said the president of the world's largest development agency should be selected from a range of candidates and in a transparent fashion. He said he would support a switch to the model of the World Trade Organization, which recently chose its new director general from four public candidates through the consensus of all its members. The Financial Times adds Wolfensohn said 'I would personally wish that one could make all those decisions based on merit and on the appropriateness of the person, when we have found the best people in the world to do those jobs."

Newsletter from The Copenhagen Institute for Futures StudiesConveyance of goods is crucial for continued growth of affluence and international division of labour. We can expect great changes in the future with increasing volumes of goods, changing markets and new technologies in energy and transportation. At the same time, increasing demands are made to environmentally sound modes of transportation.

Future Teller Doctors tell us whats wrong with our bodies today. Computer scientist Astro Teller says his software will predict what is going wrong tomorrow. Eric Teller's Ph.D. is in artificial intelligence, but his practice is more in medicine. He collects numbers, lots of them, from tiny computers silently monitoring subtle changes on thousands of bodies. "Your body is spewing off millions of data points a second," he says.

New Scientist Breaking News - The 2020 vision of robotic assistants unveiled: "Housekeeping also appears to have been entirely delegated to domestic robots in the home of the future. For example, Japanese company Miraikikai will demonstrate WallWalker, a bot capable of sticking to windows and cleaning them autonomously. A luggage-carrying robot developed at Meijo University is another autonomous assistant at the exhibition."

New Scientist Breaking News - The 2020 vision of robotic assistants unveiled: "The home of 2020 contains several robotic companions to keep human inhabitants company and help with everyday tasks. Among these are ApriAlpha and ApriAttenda, autonomous assistants developed by Japanese company Toshiba to keep elderly people company or young children occupied at home."

But an entirely different logical process is created by the idea that the world is an interconnected system in which we need others and they need us to solve common problems.

Research on human cognition, according to anthropologist Axel Aubrun and linguist Joe Grady f Cultural Logic, shows that deeply held views of the world and assumptions about how the orld works guide people’s thinking and reasoning in largely unconscious and automatic ways.
These mental constructs, which are derived from various sources—personal experience, cultural orms, mainstream news and entertainment, fables nd popular sayings, religious beliefs, ethical alues—function as “shortcuts,” familiar points of reference that enable people to process and ssign meaning to new information by relating it to something they already know.

America now faces critical choices about who it is and wants to be in
an increasingly interdependent world—choices that will have a profound impact on Americans, on other peoples
and countries, and on future generations.

World History Connected | Vol. 2 No. 2 | Tom Laichas: A Conversation with Jared Diamond: "Historians traditionally focus on a narrow slice of space and time; most are uncomfortable with the kind of broad comparisons I do. They routinely call them 'superficial.' Also, historians define history as the study of archival writings; if it's before the writing, [historians call it] archaeology . . . . 26
As far as I'm concerned, history is human experience. There's a seamless transition from 'archaeology' to 'history.' Once you get writing, well, okay, you've got another type of evidence. But [writing only] adds to the linguistic, archeological and genetic evidence. As far as I'm concerned, by focusing on [written evidence], historians throw away most history. "

World History Connected | Vol. 2 No. 2 | Tom Laichas: A Conversation with Jared Diamond: "As for environmental determinism, it's not the case that the environment determines what's going to happen. The environment places limits on what's possible. In some cases, there are severe limits, in some cases there are fuzzy limits. An example of [a people facing] severe limits on environment is the Eskimos, or Inuit, in the Arctic. Why didn't the Inuit develop agriculture? Yes, that's environmental determinism. There's no way in the Arctic that you can practice agriculture."

World History Connected | Vol. 2 No. 2 | Jeffrey Sommers: The Contradictions of a Contrarian: Andre Gunder Frank: "Karl Marx put it, to 'change the world, not just understand it.' "

Worldwatch: China Is Rising: "Yet there is reason for cautious optimism that China is beginning to recognize that environmental sustainability is one of the keys to the country's successful economic development:
China has assumed a leadership role by declaring its commitment to generate at least 10 percent of its electricity using renewable energy sources by 2010. Five years.
China has mandated that by next year, financial incentives must be in place for widespread development of wind power and other options.
Five years ago the number of non-governmental organizations addressing environmental concerns in China was negligible. This year there are well over 2,000.
Most U.S cars cannot be sold in China because they cannot meet stiff new efficiency standards
China has quickly leapfrogged over Europe and the United States to become the world's top producer and user of compact fluorescent light bulbs.
In 2003, China had 75 percent of the world market for solar water heating devices. "

Fuel for the New Millennium: "As a future fuel source, hydrogen inspires a lot of hope -- and more than a little wariness. But one New Jersey startup has developed a hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology for portable devices that it's promising can be as safe and even longer-lasting than today's batteries. "

KurzweilAI.net: "Evolution
A process in which diverse entities, commonly called organisms, compete for limited resources in an environment, with the more successful organisms able to survive and reproduce (to a greater extent) into subsequent generations. Over many such generations, the organisms become better adapted at survival. The order (suitability of information for a purpose) of the design of the organisms also increases, with the purpose being survival. In an evolutionary algorithm, the purpose may be defined to be the discovery of a solution to a complex problem. Evolution also refers to a theory in which each life-form on Earth has its origin in an earlier form."

news @ nature.com�-�Past century sees biodiversity dive�-�The latest of the Ecosystem Assessment reports is bad news.: "Biodiversity is disappearing faster than ever, according to a report backed by the United Nations. Without action to curb the rate of ecosystem damage, its authors argue, the health and livelihoods of people around the world could be under threat.

Humans have done more damage to the world's stock of biological diversity in the past 50 years than at any other time in history, say the researchers behind the study, titled Ecosystems and Human Well-being: The Biodiversity Synthesis Report. Over the past century, species extinctions have reached about 1,000 times their natural rate, because of human actions.

Unless this trend is halted, people will lose vital benefits from the natural world, dubbed 'ecosystem services', said Kaveh Zahedi at the report's launch in London on 19 May. 'Everyone depends on nature for a secure livelihood,' said Zahedi, who is head of the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, UK."

Global history: "Thanks to productivity, the income surpassed what the worker needed to renew his workforce. It remained a large surplus which grew every year with new inventions. In this situation it was not useful to confiscate a portion of the production through violence. All the repressive network suddenly became useless."

Global history: "In 1860, a new Mikado got the power. In a single day, he abolished the samurai power, liberated the Japanese society, and sent young people to study in England. As a result, Japan is today one of the most developed country of the world !"

Global history: "Scholars says that technical progress depends upon a slow accumulation of knowledge. In fact, the truth seemed quite different."

Global history: "The absence of technical progress was the result of a political choice. Technical progress was connected to knowledge and knowledge was itself connected to creativity and freedom. Authorities hated freedom. So they also forbade knowledge and progress. "

Global history: "Scholars say that the authoritarian religions were more elaborated than the primitive animism. In our opinion there is some uncertainty on this matter. In fact, they hated knowledge and free thought. They appeared to be far more repressive than the former Roman or Greek religion and they downgraded all the scientific achievements from antiquity. For example, the great libraries were destroyed. Vivisection was forbidden. Diseases were regarded as punishment for sin. Free thinkers were burned at the stake"

Global history: "In order to confiscate the vital portion, the authorities ( Emperor, king, gentry, chivalry, samurai and so on) had to exercise a constant violence.
The authorities were supposed to establish justice and peace. In fact, The early landowners were often illiterate, fierce and real savages. They enjoyed rather in raping, sacking, plundering, and killing. With the extension of times and territories, the use of force met some limits and the authorities had to use some others means.
Churches brought these new means. Since the beginning of the authoritarian society, new religions had spread over the different Empires, kingdoms and Cities. In short, they all told people to be closely subordinated to God, the king and every authority. Thanks to this worship, most of the illiterate poor believed that their subordination was a fast track to paradise. In this situation, it was not necessary to systematically use violence.
In some countries, in addition to violence and religion, authorities dehumanized some part of the population, in saying that they belonged to a lower cast or race."

Global history: "On the other side, state authorities in towns are mainly busy in confiscating the portion of crops to feed themselves. For example, instead of keeping peace and order, soldiers spent their time in cutting the roads, racketing wanderers or plundering villages inhabited by ethnic or religious minorities ( for example in south Sudan where a forty years civil war caused the death of two million people )
In these countries the confiscated portion is already divided into four parts. The most important remains devoted to the repressive network: Civil servants, soldiers, policemen, custom officers, forestry guards, agricultural officers, rural assistants and so on. The second part is used to build up presidential palaces or state owned plants which never worked. The third part does not finance jewels or fine arts but is sent abroad to leaders private bank accounts. At least the fourth part finances arms traffic instead of silk or spices."

Global history: "Ground property was not the result of an economic process. It was a war process. The job of these early land owners was to maintain order and to furnish soldiers to the King. Their core business was authority and not economic accomplishment. This situation had nothing to do with 'economic classes'
On the other side, conquered populations became slaves, serfs and later share-croppers. They were devoted to farming, herding, hard work in the mines and family service of the noblemen. Of course, slaves and serfs were the majority ( about 90% of the whole population). By 200 BC Athenian 'democracy' counted 400.000 slaves for 20.00 free citizens ! "

Global history: "Our primitive tribes stopped their camping trip and thanks to farming founded small cities. Farming occurred sweat and labor. It was not the same joke as hunting , herding or fishing. What was the problem ? Get slaves to cultivate and good times will go on !
Herders became warriors. Cities warred constantly in order to capture people from others cities and to turn them into slaves. There was a strong link between farming and slavery."

Global history: "At birth, everybody is ignorant. Whatever age, any ignorant is able to learn: Remember Plato s young slave who discovered the geometric laws that he had never learnt before. He was able to learn because his spirit contained logical categories.
Negative knowledge destroys these logical categories: Take an actual child and imagine that instead of reading and calculating, you force him to learn every day some stupid beliefs. When he is twenty years old, his intellectual capacity has waned and he will be unable to do the exercise proposed by Plato. "

Global history: "At first glance, Creativity is a mental event occurring into an individual mind. Clearly, the possibility to express creativity depends on the freedom of consciousness. According to this fact, Freedom should be the cause of creativity and technical progress. No freedom= No creativity= No change.
It means that the entire history is a struggle of the individual creativity against the aggression coming from the authoritarian society. Clearly, it looks like a freedom odyssey."

Global history: "It means that knowledge, and more largely the spirit, determine the productive forces and not inversely. It means that creativity ( And so Human consciousness) is the real driver of human History."

Global history: "Just imagine that all the productive forces (Tools and other manufactured goods) are suddenly destroyed. Let 'us suppose that the inhabitants are well educated (with scientific and technical knowledge's). Be sure that all the productive's forces will be soon restored. On the other hand, imagine that a no-educated tribe suddenly occupies an industrial state. "

Global history: "Another picture could take in account the evolution of the manufactured products toward complexity. We use to distinguish the prehistoric ages according to their tools (Stone, age, Iron age and so on). Now, let's us imagine a museum with all the manufactured products since the beginning of history. From 4000 BCE to 1800 AD, you will observe quite the same tools with regard to their complexity. For example, a light Roman chariot and a stage coach does not differ very much. Of course, there are many tiny improvements between the former and the latter. However, they all belong to the same 'age'. Today, a jet plane cannot be compared with any means of transportation produced in the past. It means that our jet plane belongs to a new 'age'"

Global history: "1-Manufactured products: Evolution in index base 100 in year 1900
Years Index
1800 -->30
1900 -->100
1950 -->600
2000 -->4500

Global knowledge: "1-Since the beginning of civilization, any past society was divided into three functions:
-Those who work: Farmers, merchants and so on. They fed all the population and provided it with goods and services. They represented about 95% of the entire society!
-Those who fight: Soldiers, knights, kings and Emperors. They did not work and only ruled cities and states through wars and repressions.
-Those who pray: Priests, Monks and so on were supposed to be God messengers. They dealt with Religion and Ethics."

Inventing Our Evolution: "Stock, in his book 'Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future,' describes it as the safest way to substantially modify humans because, he says, it would minimize unintended consequences. On top of that, the chromosome insertion sites could have an off switch activated by an injection if we wanted to stop whatever we'd started. This would give future generations a chance to undo whatever we did."

Inventing Our Evolution: "As James Watson, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, famously put it: 'No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?'"

Inventing Our Evolution: "If an implant in a paralyzed man's head can read his thoughts, if genes can be manipulated into better versions of themselves, the line between the engineered and the born begins to blur."

Inventing Our Evolution: "Steroids are merely a primitive form of human enhancement, however. H. Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that the recent Athens Olympics may have been the last without genetically enhanced athletes. "

Inventing Our Evolution: "Traditionally, human technologies have been aimed outward, to control our environment, resulting in, for example, clothing, agriculture, cities and airplanes. Now, however, we have started aiming our technologies inward. We are transforming our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities and our progeny. Serious people, including some at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, consider such modification of what it means to be human to be a radical evolution -- one that we direct ourselves. They expect it to be in full flower in the next 10 to 20 years."

Inventing Our EvolutionAt the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, programs seek to modify the metabolisms of soldiers so as to allow them to function efficiently without sleep or even food for as much as a week. For shorter periods, they might even be able to survive without oxygen.

Inventing Our Evolution: "Around the country, companies such as Memory Pharmaceuticals, Sention, Helicon Therapeutics, Saegis Pharmaceuticals and Cortex Pharmaceuticals are racing to bring memory-enhancing drugs to market before the end of this decade. If clinical trials continue successfully, these pills could be a bigger pharmaceutical bonanza than Viagra. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "However, the situation is far from static. The political future of the European Union and the German-American relationship will be the key variables in how this develops. An increased, federalist European integration coupled by a strong Euro-American relationship would probably result in a diminution of great powers' competition and in a stronger Western hold on the area, at the expense of Russian ambitions. On the contrary, a more independent German foreign policy, predicated upon strategic partnerships with Russia and China rather than upon a 'Euro-Atlantic community,' could revamp a serious intra-Western competition, and will summon Sofia and Bucharest to make difficult choices. "

Prospect - article_details: "By 2003, Tanzania was producing an average of 2,400 reports a year for external donors, and being visited by some 1,000 donor missions, each demanding the attention of senior officials."

Eggers: Government 2.0: "The term used to describe the technologies that will enable these changes is intelligent transportation systems (ITS), a catch phrase for a mix of infrastructure, communications and vehicle technologies, including adaptive signal control, collision-avoidance systems, dynamic message signs, electronic toll collection, intelligent cruise control, mayday systems, virtual weighing stations, ramp metering, route navigation devices, traveler information systems and more. "

Eggers: Government 2.0: "Technology-enabled changes could profoundly impact everything from warfare to transportation, regulation and education. In these and other areas, IT has the potential to not only reinvent service delivery but also change the terms of the left/right debate and render many existing policy debates irrelevant. To fully exploit the potential of today's technologies, government officials must move beyond Web sites, Web portals and internal improvement projects to embrace fundamental transformation. "

FUTUREdition Volume 8, Number 7 Women are Powering Ahead in the Race for Riches – (News Telegraph – April 22, 2005)
Female millionaires in the UK will outnumber their male counterparts across all age groups within 20 years. A recent study predicts that women will own 60 per cent of the United Kingdom's personal wealth by 2025, with many using their professional and personal skills to extraordinary financial effect. At present, women millionaires between the ages of 18-44, and over the age of 65, outnumber male millionaires, and currently own 48 per cent of the UK's personal wealth.

Guardian Unlimited | Life | The end of oil is closer than you think: "If he is correct, then global oil production can be expected to decline steadily at about 2-3% a year, the cost of everything from travel, heating, agriculture, trade, and anything made of plastic rises. And the scramble to control oil resources intensifies. As one US analyst said this week: 'Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye.'"

FUTUREdition Volume 8, Number 7Scientists Create Animals That are Part-Human – (Associated Press – April 29, 2005) n a farm outside Reno, Nevada is a flock of about 50 sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The biological co-mingling of animal and human is now evolving into even more exotic and unsettling mixes of species. In the past two years, scientists have created pigs with human blood, fused rabbit eggs with human DNA and injected human stem cells to make paralyzed mice walk. Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep’s head?

THE CHINA FACTOR - Booming Economy Tests World's Vital Signs: Worldwatch Institute News: "2004 was a record-breaking year across the board,� said Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch. �The world economy expanded at a rate of five percent, pushing consumption and production of grain, meat, steel, and oil to new highs. Those physical indicators of growth serve to remind us that we have by no means freed ourselves from the material world and its persistent threats�among them global warming and ecological degradation�as we surf the information superhighway.�"

VITAL FACTS - Selected facts and story ideas from Vital Signs 2005: Worldwatch Institute News: "World oil consumption surged by 3.4 percent in 2004, the fastest rate of increase in 16 years. (p. 30)
Production is falling in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries, including 6 of 11 OPEC members. (p. 30)
In the continental U.S., oil production peaked at 8 million barrels per day in 1970 and fell to just 2.9 million barrels a day in 2004. "

VITAL FACTS - Selected facts and story ideas from Vital Signs 2005: Worldwatch Institute News: "High-income countries, home to only 16 percent of the world�s people, account for $662 billion, or 75 percent, of global military expenditures. (p. 76)
Military budgets of high-income countries are roughly 10 times larger than their combined development assistance. (p. 76)
Traditional military deployments abroad dwarf peacekeeping efforts. Some 530,000 soldiers (70 percent of them from the U.S.) in military operations overshadow the 125,000 peacekeepers worldwide. (p. 78) "

VITAL FACTS - Selected facts and story ideas from Vital Signs 2005: Worldwatch Institute News: "Every hour, the world spends more than $100 million on soldiers, weapons, and ammunition. ("

VITAL FACTS - Selected facts and story ideas from Vital Signs 2005: Worldwatch Institute News:
- Explosive growth in emerging markets, particularly China, was a large factor behind the 5 percent increase in the gross world product in 2004, to $55 trillion. China’s economy alone grew by 9 percent.
- China represented more than 20 percent of the increase in world trade volumes in 2004, and its share in world exports nearly doubled over the previous four years, to 5.8 percent.
- Of poorer countries, China was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2003, at $54 billion.
- China increased its oil consumption by 11 percent in 2004, cementing its position as the world’s number two user (after the U.S.) at 6.6 million barrels per day.
- China is rapidly increasing its dependency on automobiles, with sales of cars and light commercial vehicles expected to reach 5 million units in 2005 and 7.3 million by 2007.
- China’s fleet of airplanes is due to skyrocket from 777 planes in 2003 to over 2,800 planes in 2023.
- China now ranks second (after the U.S.) in global carbon emissions, with a 14-percent share. Emissions in China are up more than 47 percent since 1990, and it accounted for half the global increase in 2003.
- Between 2001 and 2020, some 590 thousand people a year in China are projected to suffer premature deaths due to urban air pollution—nearly one third of the projected world total.

Gmail - [PR] Security Budget, Global Good Neighbor, NPT, VietnamSince September 11 and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. In Blood and Oil, world security expert, Michael Klare, shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010, the U.S. will need to import 60% of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones­the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa­our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement. Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.

Foreign Policy In Focus-CDI Special Report: A Unified Security Budget for the United States, 2006: "The security debate has shifted during the past year, toward broad agreement that the United States needs to invest more in nonmilitary security tools. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "If states like China, India or Germany privilege strategic partnerships in this phase, it is because they want to increase their energy and technology acquisition capabilities, thus creating conditions for a rapid accumulation of power. Compared to complex integration processes like the European Union, strategic partnerships do not involve national sovereignty transfers which more often than not damage a state's capabilities, which is why they are preferable under many aspects."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Political integration is nowadays often regarded as the most advanced strategy to build new powerful geopolitical actors. The European Union is the archetypical example of such a model, which is often quoted as a pattern to be replicated by other regions' states (Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, etc.). The E.U.'s history is, nonetheless, often misunderstood in idealistic or abstract terms. In fact, it should be remembered that the European Community was strongly supported by the United States because of the need to fully reintegrate West Germany into the Atlantic Alliance and to counter the Soviet Union's expansion in Europe. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Great and medium powers' strategy to preserve their influence and to seek their interests is therefore a combination of engagement and balancing, whose dominating character (engagement with the U.S. or attempts to balance its power) is highly dependent upon Washington's choices. Strategic partnerships like the Russo-German or the Sino-Indian ones are potentially excellent ways to increase one's capabilities without directly confronting the U.S. while at the same time maintaining a high degree of independence."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In a unipolar context, the way in which the global superpower acts is decisive. Since states tend to enhance their power continuously to better compete in world politics, the U.S. is likely to seek hegemony. It is far from established, however, whether Washington will prefer a 'liberal hegemony' predicated upon multilateralism and shared rules (as it appeared to do in the 1990s), or the consolidation of a unilateral, 'imperial hegemonic' turn. Washington's strategy will be crucial for slowing or accelerating other powers' attempts to build a multipolar world because it will change -- in one sense or another -- these states' perceptions of U.S. intentions. After all, hegemony is not merely a decisively superior military might, but also the ability to gain other states' acquiescence to one's leadership. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "A unipolar system is, of course, subject to change like any other polarity. A transition toward a bipolar or multipolar configuration is possible under certain conditions, so that one or more states accumulate enough power to emerge as 'peer competitors' against the only global superpower. However, it is first and foremost important to understand how great and medium powers try to act under unipolarity in order to understand many of today's crises and conflicts and to predict future ones. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "All these bilateral talks, deals and agreements mark an emerging trend in the international system at a time of unipolarity. Unipolarity can be defined as the disproportion between the United States and all other great and medium world powers in terms of military might, technological innovation capability, diplomatic and cultural influence, economic prosperity and ability to provide security. The fall of the Soviet Union led many analysts to talk about a coming multipolarity in the 21st Century, but the 1990s saw the rise of the U.S. as the only global geopolitical superpower. Washington is today the only real regional hegemon because it is not only the premier military and economic world power, but also the only great power whose security is not threatened by neighboring states. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Strategic partnerships also do not involve any transfer of national sovereignty to a supranational authority, for example in political integration attempts such as the European Union. The E.U.'s official goals are ones of common security, free market enhancement, shared sovereignty and the general underpinning of the role of states in the global context. Political integration is therefore aimed at both security and influence enhancement, but national independence is sacrificed in order to implement common monetary, fiscal and defense policies.

Instead, a strategic partnership is based upon the mutual goal of increasing individual power and independence, thus allowing the preservation of national sovereignty."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): " ecent developments in the international relations arena such as the new Sino-Indian cooperation agreements and the Russo-German strategic deals, both from April 2005, call for a theoretical interpretation in the context of the current phase of world affairs. These relationships are often defined as 'strategic partnerships.' A strategic partnership can be explained as a bilateral relationship with the main function being to facilitate the increase of power (at first in absolute terms) of the two states involved. In this sense, it differs both from a classical security-oriented alliance and from political and economic integration processes such as the European Union. "

Rahul Rao @ NASPIR There has been a tremendous renewal of interest in ‘empire’ as a concept relevant to the understanding of contemporary international relations. This is an entirely welcome development —if only because a term that has long been an epithet deployed by the left and denied by the right seems to be regaining the status of an analytical category enabling us to describe the way power is actually exercised in the world today.

Gmail - Libell� : Goo-Alerts: "Scientists around the world are scrambling to unlock the potential of stem cells. The United States may be leading the pack, but it owes its position more to the weakness of its competitors than to the wisdom of its approach. Europe is limping under tough restrictions and sluggish private investment. Meanwhile, Asia is coming on strong, but it must develop the expertise to match its enthusiasm. What governments do in the next few years may determine who wins the greatest scientific race ever run."

Foreign Policy: Measuring Globalization: The noted international economist Joseph Stiglitz called 2003 “a disaster for globalization.” At one level, he was right. The Iraq war and its aftermath created deep fissures between the United States and its allies, and the great majority of countries who opposed the war. The U.N. Security Council, the lead body for international peace and security issues, was dealt a blow by the willingness of the coalition to launch a military campaign without its blessing. The war even prompted boycotts and muttering about possible trade embargoes.

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "We are at a critical moment in human history�perhaps not as dramatic as that of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but a moment no less crucial. Neither the Bush administration, the congress, the American people, nor the people of other nations have debated the merits of alternative, long-range nuclear weapons policies for their countries or the world. They have not examined the military utility of the weapons; the risk of inadvertent or accidental use; the moral and legal considerations relating to the use or threat of use of the weapons; or the impact of current policies on proliferation. Such debates are long overdue. If they are held, I believe they will conclude, as have I and an increasing number of senior military leaders, politicians, and civilian security experts: We must move promptly toward the elimination�or near elimination�of all nuclear weapons. For many, there is a strong temptation to cling to the strategies of the past 40 years. But to do so would be a serious mistake leading to unacceptable risks for all nations."

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: " The Bush administration s nuclear program, alongside its refusal to ratify the CTBT, will be viewed, with reason, by many nations as equivalent to a U.S. break from the treaty. It says to the nonnuclear weapons nations, We, with the strongest conventional military force in the world, require nuclear weapons in perpetuity, but you, facing potentially well-armed opponents, are never to be allowed even one nuclear weapon. "

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "In conventional war, mistakes cost lives, sometimes thousands of lives. However, if mistakes were to affect decisions relating to the use of nuclear forces, there would be no learning curve. They would result in the destruction of nations. The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons carries a very high risk of nuclear catastrophe. There is no way to reduce the risk to acceptable levels, other than to first eliminate the hair-trigger alert policy and later to eliminate or nearly eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States should move immediately to institute these actions, in cooperation with Russia. That is the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis. "

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "Among the costs of maintaining nuclear weapons is the risk�to me an unacceptable risk�of use of the weapons either by accident or as a result of misjudgment or miscalculation in times of crisis. "

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "To launch weapons against a nuclear-equipped opponent would be suicidal. To do so against a nonnuclear enemy would be militarily unnecessary, morally repugnant, and politically indefensible."

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "But the attention of many nations, including some potential new nuclear weapons states, is also on the United States. Keeping such large numbers of weapons, and maintaining them on hair-trigger alert, are potent signs that the United States is not seriously working toward the elimination of its arsenal and raises troubling questions as to why any other state should restrain its nuclear ambitions."

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes’ deliberation by the president and his advisors. But that is what we have lived with for 40 years. With very few changes, this system remains largely intact, including the “football,” the president’s constant companion.

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "How destructive are these weapons? The average U.S. warhead has a destructive power 20 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Of the 8,000 active or operational U.S. warheads, 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on 15 minutes� warning. How are these weapons to be used? The United States has never endorsed the policy of �no first use,� not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons�by the decision of one person, the president�against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so. For decades, U.S. nuclear forces have been sufficiently strong to absorb a first strike and then inflict �unacceptable� damage on an opponent. This has been and (so long as we face a nuclear-armed, potential adversary) must continue to be the foundation of our nuclear deterrent. "

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "Today, the United States has deployed approximately 4,500 strategic, offensive nuclear warheads. Russia has roughly 3,800. The strategic forces of Britain, France, and China are considerably smaller, with 200�400 nuclear weapons in each state�s arsenal. The new nuclear states of Pakistan and India have fewer than 100 weapons each. North Korea now claims to have developed nuclear weapons, and U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that Pyongyang has enough fissile material for 2�8 bombs."

Foreign Policy: Apocalypse Soon: "It is time�well past time, in my view�for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power�a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years."

International Relations and Security Network ISN - Security Watch: "In an annual classified risk assessment report on US military capabilities issued to Congress on Monday, the US� most senior military officer, General Richard Myers, said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could hamper the country�s ability to fight other wars.
Currently the US has 17,000 troops in Afghanistan and 138,000 in Iraq.
While the report said the US could still win in another war, it noted that the military would not be able to build up its forces as quickly as it did for the Iraq war or as quickly as is expected in current contingency plans.
The report also said future armed conflicts would last longer and produce higher casualties. The depletion of stockpiles of precision weapons and the availability of pre-positioned equipment, including vehicles and reserve units, were cited as reasons why the military would have a harder time dealing with additional conflicts."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Assuming that today's geopolitical patterns hold true for the next 15 years, Russia will find itself in a political environment that will at least partially resemble multipolarity. China's and India's improved economies will give the two states greater international clout, prompting the United States to adjust its foreign policy to reflect the appearance of two more powers on the world scene. The U.S. will not likely diminish in its hegemonic status; however, major policy centers like the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington predict that it will have more difficulties in advancing its policies around the world. It is also predicted that the European Union will possibly emerge as a more unified political entity with as much desire to advance its interests as the United States, China and India. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Russia will remain a major global player in the near future for two main reason: its abundant natural resources will assume greater importance to the world's major developed economies, and its military research and development will continually earn it a top place as one of the top producers and suppliers of hardware around the world. Its economic strength is still under question -- even if major improvements take place in the Russian economy, it will still be a fraction of China's and even a smaller fraction of the U.S.' and Europe's economies for the next several decades."

The New York Times > Science > Chimeras on the Horizon, but Don't Expect Centaurs: "From the biologists' point of view, animals made to grow human tissues do not really raise novel issues because they can be categorized as animals with added human parts. Biologists are more concerned about animals in which human cells have become seeded throughout the system."

The New York Times > Science > Chimeras on the Horizon, but Don't Expect Centaurs: "Chimeras grip the imagination because people are both fascinated and repulsed by the defiance of natural order. "

The New York Times > Science > Chimeras on the Horizon, but Don't Expect Centaurs: "The promise of embryonic stem cells is that since all the tissues of the body are derived from them, they are a kind of universal clay. If biologists succeed in learning how to shape the clay into specific organs, like pancreas glands, heart muscle or kidneys, physicians may be able to provide replacement parts on demand."

The New York Times > Science > Chimeras on the Horizon, but Don't Expect Centaurs: "The promise of embryonic stem cells is that since all the tissues of the body are derived from them, they are a kind of universal clay. If biologists succeed in learning how to shape the clay into specific organs, like pancreas glands, heart muscle or kidneys, physicians may be able to provide replacement parts on demand.
Developing these new organs, and testing them to the standards required by the Food and Drug Administration, will require growing human organs in animals.
Such creations - of pigs with human hearts, monkeys with human larynxes - are likely to be unsettling to many."

Gmail - [PINR] 02 May 2005: Detente in South Asia: Euphoria Needs Caution: "India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, in 1947, 1965 and 1971, and one minor one in 1999, just a year after both countries became nuclear weapon powers. "

WorldNetDaily: Ex-CIA chief warns of EMP nuke threat: "EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.
'These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light,' said Wood. 'For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.' "

WorldNetDaily: Ex-CIA chief warns of EMP nuke threat: "In an article titled, 'Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars,' the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees. "

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "The unsettling reality is there will always be some small number of nuts and political fanatics who will use any means available to them to kill as many of us as they can. The lethal force available to them will only grow with time. This dynamic is one of my deepest worries for the future"

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "At home, this is an argument for civil discourse, since you never know when there's an excitable boy, a potential Timothy McVeigh, tuned in. Abroad, it's an argument for exercising power with grace. Sometimes you have to antagonize the world to do the right thing, but more than ever we should avoid antagonizing the world gratuitously."

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "The upshot of the technological trends that empowered Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden is that over time hatred will morph into lethality with growing efficiency. Dampening hatred is a disconcertingly vague challenge, but there are things we can do at home and abroad."

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "allowing others to inspect our facilities may be a reasonable price to pay for the right to conduct inspections in other countries. "

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "The lesson from millenia of human history is clear. All weapons, no matter how technologically sophisticated when created, ultimately become widely available. The catapult, longbow, musket, rifle, machine gun, biological weapons, and chemical weapons have gone from high technology to something any talented high school student can manufacture. Nuclear weapons are not yet that easy to make but that is primarily due to the large scale of the required infrastructure, not technology that is out of reach. And even with nukes the trend is clear. It was inconceivable in 1945 that third world nations would develop their own nuclear weapons but that is clearly possible today. It would be foolish to assume that nuclear weapons will forever remain out of reach of high school students."

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "basic source: growing ingenuity in the concoction of lethal force; wider availability of the ingredients in an ever-more-industrialized, interconnected world; and growing access, via information technology, to the knowledge needed to use them."

shiningright: Terrorism: the long term threat: "as technology advances, it will only get easier for terrorists to obtain weapons of mass destruction."