Media and Natural Disasters - Global Issues: "what world news from a media outlet really is: is it coverage of events occurring around the world, or is it selective coverage of events occurring around the world, presented in a framework that meets other, local needs, interests, and demands?"

Foreign Affairs - Who Will Control the Internet? - Kenneth Neil Cukier: "Power, before it comes from arms or wealth, emanates from ideas. The Internet has emerged as a piece of critical information infrastructure for every nation. Developed countries increasingly rely on it for their economic livelihood and basic communications; developing nations recognize it as a way of linking people together, enabling commercial relationships, and generating the transparency and civic dialogue that undergird democratic governance. Information technology can also strengthen the hand of authoritarian regimes, but there seems little doubt that in its current form the Internet's general influence is progressive rather than regressive."

The Observer | UK News | 2050 - and immortality is within our grasp: "Philips, the electronics giant, is developing the world's first rollable display which is just a millimetre thick and has a 12.5cm screen which can be wrapped around the arm. It expects to start production within two years. "

The Observer | UK News | 2050 - and immortality is within our grasp: "He believes that today's youngsters may never have to die, and points to the rapid advances in computing power demonstrated last week, when Sony released the first details of its PlayStation 3. It is 35 times more powerful than previous games consoles. 'The new PlayStation is 1 per cent as powerful as a human brain,' he said. 'It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain.' "

Numerous countries are providing models of the different components of Plan B. Denmark, for example, today gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind and has plans to push this to 50 percent by 2030. Similarly, Brazil is on its way to automotive fuel self-sufficiency. With highly efficient sugarcane-based ethanol supplying 40 percent of its automotive fuel in 2005, it could phase out gasoline within a matter of years.39

The dysfunctional global economy The central challenge, the key to building the new economy, is getting the market to tell the ecological truth. The dysfunctional global economy of today has been shaped by distorted market prices that do not incorporate environmental costs.

The first big test of the international community’s capacity to manage scarcity may come with oil or it could come with grain. If the latter is the case, this could occur when China—whose grain harvest fell by 34 million tons, or 9 percent, between 1998 and 2005—turns to the world market for massive imports of 30 million, 50 million, or possibly even 100 million tons of grain per year.

Many early civilizations that moved onto an economic path that nature could not sustain. We, too, are on such a path.

The western economic model—the fossilfuel- based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy—will not work for China’s 1.45 billion in 2031. If it does not work for China, it will not work for India either, which by 2031 is projected to have even more people than China. Nor will it work for the other 3 billion people in developing countries who are also dreaming the “American dream.” And in an increasingly integrated world economy, where countries everywhere are competing for the same resources—the same oil, grain, and iron ore—the existing economic model will not work for industrial countries either.21

Two major countries driving climate change. With this level of coal use and with oil and natural gas use also climbing fast, it is only a matter of time before China’s carbon emissions match those of the United States. Then the world will have two major countries driving climate change.

Half the world’s pigs are now found in China.13Although eating hamburgers is a defining element of the U.S. lifestyle, China’s 2005 meat consumption of 67 million tons is far above the 38 million tons eaten in the United States. While U.S. meat intake is rather evenly distributed between beef, pork, and poultry, in China pork totally dominates. Indeed, half the world’s pigs are now found in China.13

China has replaced the United States as the leading consumer of basic commodities.11For many years environmentalists have pointed to the United States as the world’s leading consumer, noting that 5 percent of the world’s people were consuming nearly a third of the earth’s resources. Although that was true for some time, it no longer is. China has replaced the United States as the leading consumer of basic commodities.11

The world is facing the emergence of a geopolitics of scarcityThe world is facing the emergence of a geopolitics of scarcity, which is already highly visible in the efforts by China, India, and other developing countries to ensure their access to oil supplies. In the future, the issue will be who gets access to not only Middle Eastern oil but also Brazilian ethanol and North American grain. Pressures on land and water resources, already excessive in most of the world, will intensify further as the demand for biofuels climbs. This geopolitics of scarcity is an early manifestation of civilization in an overshoot-and-collapse mode, much like the one that emerged among the Mayan cities competing for food in that civilization’s waning years.10

The globalization of the world food economy will also be reversed, as the higher price of oil raises the cost of transporting food internationally. In response, food production and consumption will become much more localized, leading to diets based more on locally produced food and seasonal availability.

Faced with a seemingly insatiable demand for automotive fuel, farmers will want to clear more and more of the remaining tropical forests to produce sugarcane, oil palms, and other highyielding fuel crops. Already, billions of dollars of private capital are moving into this effort. In effect, the rising price of oil is generating a massive new threat to the earth’s biological diversity.

As of 2005, some 42 countries have populations that are stable or declining slightly in size as a result of falling birth rates. But now for the first time ever, demographers are projecting population declines in some countries because of rising death rates, among them Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland. In the absence of an accelerated shift to smaller families, this list of countries is likely to grow much longer in the years immediately ahead.6 The most recent mid-level U.N. demographic projections show world population increasing from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.1 billion in 2050. But such an increase seems highly unlikely, considering the deterioration in life-support systems now under way in much of the world.

Human physical presence In a rather ingenious approach to calculating the human physical presence on the planet, Paul MacCready, the founder and Chairman of AeroVironment and designer of the first solar-powered aircraft, has calculated the weight of all vertebrates on the land and in the air. He notes that when agriculture began, humans, their livestock, and pets together accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the total. Today, he estimates, this group accounts for 98 percent of the earth’s total vertebrate biomass, leaving only 2 percent for the wild portion, the latter including all the deer, wildebeests, elephants, great cats, birds, small mammals, and so forth.3

A century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in billions of dollars. Today it is measured in trillions. As a result, we are consuming renewable resources faster than they can regenerate. Forests are shrinking, grasslands are deteriorating, water tables are falling, fisheries are collapsing,and soils are eroding.

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "A barrel of oil contains the equivalent of almost 25,000 hours of human labour. A gallon of petrol contains the energy equivalent of 500 hours � enough to propel a three-ton 4x4 along 10 miles; to push it yourself would take nearly three weeks. To support economic growth, the world currently requires more than 30 billion barrels of oil a year."

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "Of course, the end of the world has been promised by Jews, Christians, Muslims and assorted crazies with sandwich boards for as long as there has been a human world to end. But those doomsdays were the product of faith; reason always used to say the world will continue. The point about the new apocalypse is that this situation has reversed. Now faith tells us we will be able to solve our problems; reason says we have no answers now and none are likely in the future."

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "There are many ways in which this might turn out to be true. First, the human population is continuing to rise exponentially. It is currently approaching 6.5 billion, in 1900 it was 1.65 billion, in 1800 it was around a billion, in 1500 it was 500m. The figures show that economic and technological progress is loading the planet with billions more people. By keeping humans alive longer and by feeding them better, progress is continually pushing population levels. With population comes pollution. "

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "Some suggest that this institutional breakdown is now happening in the developed world, in the form of a 'democratic deficit'. This is happening at a number of levels. There is the supranational. In this, either large corporations or large institutions � the EU, the World Bank � gradually remove large areas of decision-making from the electorate, hollowing out local democracies."

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "But there are, as he readily admits, flies in the ointment of his optimism. First, he makes the crucial concession that, though a society may progress, individuals don't. Human nature does not progress at all. Our aggressive, tribal nature is hard-wired, unreformed and unreformable. Individually we are animals and, as animals, incapable of progress. The trick is to cage these animal natures in effective institutions: education, the law, government. But these can go wrong. 'The thing that scares me,' he says, 'is that these institutions can misfire.'"

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "This 'social knowledge' is progressive because it allows ideas to be tested and the most effective to survive. This knowledge is embodied in institutions, which, unlike individuals, can rise above our animal natures. "

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "Ormerod suspects that capitalism is indeed, like cities, a lasting change in the human condition. 'Immense strides forward have been taken,' he says. It may be that, after millennia of striving, we have found the right course. Capitalism may be the Darwinian survivor of a process of natural selection that has seen all other systems fail."

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "For Ormerod, there may be very rare but similar qualitative leaps in the organisation of society. The creation of cities, he believes, is one. Cities emerged perhaps 10,000 years ago, not long after humanity ceased being hunter-gatherers and became farmers. Other apparently progressive developments cannot compete. The Roman empire, for example, once seemed eternal, bringing progress to the world. But then, one day, it collapsed and died. The question thus becomes: is our liberal-democratic-capitalist way of doing things, like cities, an irreversible improvement in the human condition, or is it like the Roman empire, a shooting star of wealth and success, soon to be extinguished?"

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: "Or it may be that the massive accumulation of knowledge means that innovators have to stay in education longer to learn enough to invent something new and, as a result, less of their active life is spent innovating."

KurzweilAI.net: "The idea that comets and meteorites seeded an early Earth with the tools to make life gained momentum recently as scientists scanning a galaxy 12 million light-years away detected copious amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), molecules critical to all known forms of life. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In order to do so, some reforms are needed, but if the price to pay is the end of Germany's social agreement, national elites may accept a 'trade off' between a diminished capitalist vitality and the preservation of its social model. "

Waiting for the lights to go out - Sunday Times - Times Online: " Born today, you could expect to live 25 to 30 years longer than your Victorian forebears, up to 45 years longer than your medieval ancestors and at least 55 years longer than your Stone Age precursors. It is highly unlikely that your birth will kill you or your mother or that, in later life, you will suffer typhoid, plague, smallpox, dysentery, polio, or dentistry without anaesthetic. You will enjoy a standard of living that would have glazed the eyes of the Emperor Nero, thanks to the 2% annual economic growth rate sustained by the developed world since the industrial revolution."

Aljazeera.Net - The great power games in the Middle East: "Rather than reaching out to the Muslim masses through their real representatives, the West has been indulging in a futile monologue, conversing only with those who echo its own words and speak for its own interests."

Aljazeera.Net - The great power games in the Middle East: "The policy of engineering the cultural and political Islamic map through pockets of alienated elites imposed on the Muslim majority is at the root of the crisis of confidence and climate of tension marking relations between the Western world and Islam."

Aljazeera.Net - The great power games in the Middle East: "The problem with 'Arab democracy' is that the forces it is likely to yield will not be the West's proteges, but the so-called hardliners: those committed to their nations' sovereignty over their lands and resources.
That the political status quo has remained resolutely unchanged in the Arab world has nothing to do with culture or religion. It is all down to the global strategies of dominance that require a domesticated democracy at the service of foreign interests in the region."

Aljazeera.Net - The great power games in the Middle East: "Two years ago, the Rand Corporation, a think-tank close to decision-making circles in Washington, issued a 66-page report entitled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners & Resources, which identified three elements within the Islamic mix, 'the traditionalists, the fundamentalists, the modernists and secularists'.
The document recommended a strategy that strengthens the latter, or those who are 'closest to the West in terms of values and policies' and compatible with 'the contemporary international order'."

A welcome surprise: war waning globally | csmonitor.com: "At the same time, he says that a strengthening sense of an 'international community' is changing world thinking on when warfare is acceptable."

A welcome surprise: war waning globally | csmonitor.com: "The report finds that the total number of conflicts declined by 40 percent since the cold war ended. The average number of deaths per conflict has also declined dramatically, from 37,000 in 1950 to 600 in 2002. The study found 25 civil conflicts last year - the lowest number since 1976."

Asia Times Online :: Asian news hub providing the latest news and analysis from Asia: "Revving up the China threat
There is a drive in the US to refocus attention on the long-term challenge posed by China, and also fresh concerns over Beijing's pursuit of oil supplies in strategic areas of the globe. These trends have joined to propel a new swing of the pendulum that calls for a major US buildup to counter China's recent arms acquisitions, in the process shaping America's military policy. - "

The Real Threat of Fascism - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "The racist hatred of Arabs, fundamentalist Christianity or an illusory sense of perpetual war may well be taking the place of Hitler�s hatred for communists and Jews. " ...Thomas Freidman of the New York Times has written enthusiastically that “the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist”, and that “McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15…”.

The Real Threat of Fascism - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "Fewer, larger competitors dominate all economic activity, and their political will is expressed with the millions of dollars they spend lobbying politicians and funding policy formulation in the many right-wing institutes which now limit public discourse to the question of how best to serve the interests of business. "

The Real Threat of Fascism - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the end result of political and economic processes which these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany. "

OECD Observer: Old glory: "One of the most striking paradoxes of today�s OECD societies is that, although people live longer and healthier, they also tend to retire earlier and younger. The trend in the US is not as marked as in some countries, but it is there nonetheless. By 2030, almost a fifth of the American population is projected to be aged 65 and over, compared with around an eighth only five years ago. On the basis of current employment rates, the ratio of workers to retirees will decline from over 3 to 1 in 2000 to around 2 to 1 in 2030, putting pressure on pension budgets."

OECD Observer: Globalisation is still just beginning: "Just how integrated is today�s global economy? One indicator is trade, now a major engine of growth in developed and developing countries alike. The volume of world merchandise traded today is about 22 times what it was in 1950. During the same period, the value of the world�s output has increased seven times over."

OECD Observer: Globalisation is still just beginning: "The difference is that the extent of global integration between national markets is much greater than in the past�although in many respects, less than popular opinion would have us believe. Moreover, it is the fast pace of change which has put enormous pressure on societies to adapt and to create new skills."

Foreign Policy In Focus | Commentary | A Story of Leaders, Partners, and Clients: "The U.S. officials have made clear the purpose of this agreement. A senior official announced that �Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century � We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement.� The deputy State Department spokesman explained further that the United States was ready to �help India� with command and control, early warning and missile defense, and noted that �Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I think for those of you who follow defense issues you�ll appreciate the significance.� "

Foreign Policy In Focus | Commentary | A Story of Leaders, Partners, and Clients: "As the Cold War ended, the United States determined that no other power would be allowed to emerge as a potential rival. The now infamous 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance prepared by Paul Wolfowitz, the under-secretary of defense for policy for Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, that was leaked to the press declared �Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.�"

Foreign Policy In Focus | Commentary | A Story of Leaders, Partners, and Clients: "Much of the commentary has focused resolutely and rightly on the wisdom and possible consequences of the new agreements on military and nuclear policy and programs. But these recent agreements need also to be seen in the light of the more than 50 years of U.S. efforts to have India become a part of American political, strategic, and economic plans for Asia. What becomes clear is how difficult this proved to be over the years. "

Association of Professional Futurists, World Future Society, World Futures Studies Federation , World Future Council , futures studies and alternative futures .

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People's Daily Online -- World population exceeds 6.4 billion: UN Population Fund: "According to report of NHK TV, the United Nations Population Fund revealed Oct 12 in its white book on world population that the world population has reached 6.4647 billion. "

Behind Artificial Intelligence, a Squadron of Bright Real People - New York Times: "New artificial intelligence systems - like that embodied in Stanley - are now capable of evaluating a huge amount of data from sensors and then making probabilistic decisions."

“wild cards”—We have described the future world—or future worlds—according to analyses based in large measure on trends that are observable in the mid-1990s. In addition to these trends, there are a number of potential “wild cards”—unforeseen events that could cause a major discontinuity or fundamental change in U.S. national security objectives and/or the role of the U.S. military in pursuing them.

The world has been growing steadily smaller for hundreds of years; in
the next century, it will no longer be possible for any country, including the United States, to rely on physical distance to separate it from the dangers of the world.

For several hundred years, Europe and North America have been the
world’s centers of wealth and power. Just as this millennium fadesinto the new, so, too, will Western dominance decline. The world’s liveliest economies are in Asia. Led by China and the four “tigers”—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—the region has experienced some of the highest rates of sustained economic growthin recent history, rates that are likely to remain relatively high for at least another two decades

Any of a baker’s dozen of potential wild cards may come into play:
• A highly lethal airborne virus emerges and kills millions.
• Astronomers identify an asteroid or comet on a collision course
with earth.
• A powerful earthquake devastates highly populated areas of
coastal California.
• Unchecked global temperature increases cause massive crop
failure and large-scale coastal flooding around the world.
• An economic depression grips the United States.
• A major regional ally suffers revolutionary collapse and disorder.
• Congress repeals or dramatically revises the restrictions on U.S.
military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
• Neofascists or extreme fundamentalists come to power in a
nuclear-armed country.
• A new cold war arises along “civilizational” cleavages (i.e., Islam
versus the West).
• An energy source is developed that provides clean, inexpensive,
and virtually limitless power.

We begin this overview with nine tenets about global trends in the
next 25 years.
1. The United States will remain a globally engaged actor.
2. The global distribution of power will change.
3. Great-power relationships will be in flux.
4. Regional divisions will be increasingly blurred.
5. The U.S. homeland will be more exposed to attack.
6. The rise of a “global competitor” is uncertain.
7. Technology, including military technology, will spread rapidly.
8. The spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological (NBC) weapons
will remain a major problem.

Systemic changes in the global economy , communications, and, not least, military technology might alter strategic stakes and capabilities.

Looking beyond the next five to ten years poses formidable challenges
for the imagination. How many of today’s leading adversaries, from Iran to North Korea, will remain adversaries long after the end of the century? Leaderships will change, perhaps many times. Longstanding allies may change their orientation. New opponents, whether state or nonstate actors, might arise as a result of ideological, latent economic, or geopolitical cleavages.

First, the sources and types of conflict for which military establishments must plan have become more diverse and less predictable even if less dangerous in the worst case. For the United States in
particular, the end of the Cold War has opened up new debates about how, where, and why the employment of military forces should be
considered. The range of potential adversaries is larger, despite the likelihood that the United States will have no true military peersthrough the year 2000 and beyond.

Although many people criticize globalization’s potential cultural impacts, it is increasingly clear that cultural change is necessary to address global challenges. The development of genuine democracy requires cultural change, preventing AIDS requires cultural change, sustainable development requires cultural change, ending violence against women requires cultural change, and ending ethnic violence requires cultural change. The tools of globalization, such as the Internet and global trade, should be used to help cultures adapt in a way that preserves their unique contributions to humanity while improving the human condition.

We know the world is increasingly complex and that the most serious challenges are global in nature yet we don’t seem to know how to improve and deploy Internet-based management tools and concepts fast enough to get on top of the situation.

The panel rated the following as increasing over time:
• Harmony with nature is more important that economic progress.
• Protection of the environment and biodiversity should be considered in any policy.
• The rights of women and children are uninfringeable and fundamental for a healthy society.
• World interests should prevail over nationstate interests.
• Human space migration is part of human evolution.
• Any artificial form of life intelligent enough to request rights should be given these rights and be treated with the same respect as humans.

The issues rated the most significant that may
emerge between now and 2010 were:
• What is the ethical way to intervene in the affairs of a country that is significantly endangering its or other people?
• Should religions give up the claim of certainty and/or superiority to reduce religion-related conflicts?
• Do we have a right to clone ourselves?
• Do parents have a right to create genetically altered “designer babies”?
• Should national sovereignty and cultural differences be allowed to prevent international intervention designed to stop widespread violence perpetrated by men against women?
The issues rated the most significant that may emerge between 2010 and 2025 were:
• Do we have the right to alter our genetic germ line so that future generations cannot inherit the potential for genetically related diseases or disabilities?
• To what degree should the rights and interests of future generations prevail in decisions of this generation?
• Would the advent of global ethical norms unduly constrain the differences among groups or the evolution of values?
• Should a person be subjected to psychological, social, or cultural mechanisms for having the propensity to commit a crime (including, for example, the use of weapons of mass destruction) even if he or she has not yet committed such an act?
• As the brain-machine interface becomes more sophisticated and global, do the demands of collective intelligence outweigthose associated with individual identity?

World energy demand is forecast to increase by 60% from 2002 to 2030 and to require about $568 billion in new investments every year to meet that demand. Oil production is declining among the majority of producers. Meanwhile, the Texas Transportation Institute found that traffic jams in the US alone during 2003 wasted 2.3 billion gallons of gasoline, adding greenhouse gases and hastening the day when the oil wells run dry.

World population grew by 4 billion since 1950 and may grow another 2.6 billion by 2050 before it begins to fall.

world tradeThe high technology and low wages of China and India will result in their becoming giants of world trade, which should force the developing world to rethink its trade-led economic growth strategies. China alone could produce 25% of all manufacturing in the world by 2025.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found that 60% of our life-support systems are gone or in danger of collapse.

The ratio of the average income of people in the top 5% to the bottom 5% has grown from 6 to 1 in 1980
to over 200 to 1 now.

Explosive economic growth over the previous decades has led to dramatic increases in life expectancy, literacy, and access to safe drinking water and sanitation and to decreases in infant mortality for the vast majority of the world.

This year’s annual military expenditures will reach $1 trillion, and annual income for organized crime has passed $2 trillion. Yet the world has not dedicated the resources needed to stop water tables from falling, to narrow the rich-poor gap, or to provide safe and abundant energy.

Just as it would be difficult for the human body to work if the neurons, muscles, bones, and so on were not properly connected, so too it is difficult for the world to work if people, ideas, resources, and challenges are not properly connected. The initial global infrastructure to manage globalization is being built through ISOs, WTO rules of trade, Internet protocols, and the standards and treaties of the UN and its organizations that help manage international air travel, postal systems, food quality, financial transactions, and health. Yet the moment-by-moment connectivity among ideas, people, resources, and challenges in order to create optimal solutions is yet to be developed.

The world has grown to 6.5 billion people, the annual economy is approaching $60 trillion, and the Internet is connecting 1 billion people The Future synergies among nanotechnology, biotechnology,
information technology, and cognitive science can dramatically improve the human condition by increasing the availability of food, energy, and water and by connecting people and information anywhere. The effect will be to increase collective intelligence and create value and efficiency while
lowering costs. Yet a previous and troubling finding from the Millennium Project still remains unresolved: although it is increasingly clear that humanity has the resources to address its global challenges, unfortunately it is not increasingly clear how much wisdom, goodwill, and intelligence will be focused on these challenges.

The world’s astonishing outpouring of humanitarian assistance to the victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 established a new standard in the ethical evolution of humanity. It inspired hope that we can create the will to act more decisively to address global challenges and win the race between the increasing proliferation of threats and our increasing ability to improve the human condition.

Wired News: The Future Needs Futurists: "'Making future forecasting more of a formal field could be a great step toward moving some of the techniques into public policy,' said Howard Rheingold, a futurist and author. 'I'm not saying it's possible to predict the future, but grappling with what's happening today and where it's going is an important priority that seems to be ignored on the policy level.' "

Wired News: The Future Needs Futurists: "According to the Association of Professional Futurists, prospects are starting to look quite promising. As companies and government agencies grapple with the seemingly scorching rate of technological innovation and change, more are engaging the services of self-described futurists for advice on how to adapt."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Sino-U.S. relations are going through a cold spell as a result of disputes over U.S. quotas on Chinese-made textiles and China's military expenditures, exchange rate policy, intellectual property rights infringements, human rights record, and relations with dictatorial 'rogue' or anti-U.S. regimes including Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. The recent postponement of the much-anticipated meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington as a result of the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina is likely to add insult to injury among some in Beijing."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The United States and China are not the only states vying for energy resources in Africa. Recently, Korea National Oil Corporation obtained 65 percent oil and gas production rights in two Nigerian offshore blocks, while India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Videsh obtained a 25 percent stake. South Korea and India are the world's fourth and sixth largest energy consumers respectively. India and China both hold stakes in the Greater Nile Oil Project in Sudan with India having invested US$700 million in Sudan's oil sector. China and India have also been engaged in direct competition for African energy resources, as seen in October 2004 when China outbid India to buy an interest in an offshore block in Angola. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Many of China's diplomatic initiatives in Africa are in direct conflict with U.S. policy toward the region. For example, Beijing supplied US$1 billion in arms to both Ethiopia and Eritrea during their war from 1998 to 2000. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, whose regime has been isolated from the West due to its forced eviction of slum dwellers and white farmers, has also turned to China for aid. Chinese investment in Zimbabwe amounted to US$600 million in 2004. China has upgraded Zimbabwe's transport infrastructure, provided roofing material for Mugabe's US$9 million palace, and provided the regime with Chinese-made Karakoroum military trainer jets, MA60 passenger planes, and radio-jamming equipment for a military base outside Harare, which has been used to block transmissions by opposition parties. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "However, China's relations with Africa have shifted from holding a strong ideological bias in support of communist regimes and Marxist insurgencies to being led by market and resource considerations"

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "China's growing energy partnership with Sudan represents one of a number of areas where Sino-U.S. energy interests diverge in Africa. China National Petroleum Corporation established oil exploration rights in Sudan in 1995. Two years later when Washington cut ties with Sudan, China filled the vacuum making Sudan China's largest overseas production base. More than half of Sudan's oil exports go to China, accounting for five percent of China's total oil imports. C.N.P.C. owns a 40 percent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company and pumps over 300,000 barrels per day in Sudan. Another Chinese firm, Sinopec, is constructing a 1500 kilometer (932 miles) pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where China's Petroleum Engineering Construction Group is building a tanker terminal. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "China currently derives a quarter of its oil imports from Africa, with oil interests in Algeria, Angola, Chad and Sudan and increasing stakes in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria. China's energy interests in Chad are of particular interest given that Chad still maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Africa owns about eight percent of the world's known oil reserves with Nigeria, Libya and Equatorial Guinea as the region's leading oil producers. Seventy percent of Africa's oil production is concentrated in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, which stretches from the Ivory Coast to Angola. The low sulphur content of West African crude makes it of further strategic importance.

However, the region is also vulnerable to instabilities ranging from piracy to terrorism, interstate and tribal conflict, AIDS and political uncertainties. Given the weak governments and significant Muslim populations of the region, the African continent may also emerge as a hub for al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In the contest for energy resources, numerous 'stages' of competition are emerging, including the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, and the East and South China Seas. However, Africa is fast emerging as one of the most volatile stages of Sino-U.S. energy competition, given its vast reserves of energy resources and concentration of internal security crises. "

Eldis - Searching Eldis: "Other people�s behaviour matters: people do many things by observing others and copying; people are encouraged to continue to do things when they feel other people approve of their behaviour.
Habits are important: people do many things without consciously thinking about them. These habits are hard to change � even though people might want to change their behaviour, it is not easy for them.
People are motivated to 'do the right thing': there are cases where money is de-motivating as it undermines people�s intrinsic motivation, for example, you would quickly stop inviting friends to dinner if they insisted on paying you.
People�s self-expectations influence how they behave: they want their actions to be in line with their values and their commitments.
People are loss-averse and hang on to what they consider 'theirs'
People are bad at computation when making decisions: they put undue weight on recent events and too little on far-off ones; they cannot calculate probabilities well and worry too much about unlikely events; and they are strongly influenced by how the problem/information is presented to them.
People need to feel involved and effective to make a change"

The Hindu Business Line : World Economic Outlook, September 2005 � `The days of easy money are over': "The WEO notes that over the past 10 years, India has accounted for just under one-fifth of Asian growth and about 10 per cent of world growth, compared to 53 per cent and 28 per cent respectively for China. It is obvious that spill-overs from India's growth (on the global economy) remain limited compared to China.
India's limited role to-date as a growth engine in the global economy reflects the fact that it remains a relatively closed economy. "

Will the Future Be a Trillion Times Better? - New York Times: "If the author is right, Singularity-phobes will look no less shortsighted when the dividing line between humans and machines erodes. 'This is not because humans will have become what we think of as machines today,' he writes, 'but rather machines will have progressed to be like humans and beyond.' In other words, 'technology will be the metaphorical opposable thumb that enables our next step in evolution.' "

Will the Future Be a Trillion Times Better? - New York Times: "Mr. Kurzweil's main idea: that mankind's technological knowledge has been snowballing, with dizzying prospects for the future."

Will the Future Be a Trillion Times Better? - New York Times: "Qubits, foglets, gigaflops, haptic interfaces, probabilistic fractals: Mr. Kurzweil is not writing science for sissies. He is envisioning precise details about how and when the Singularity - a fusion of symbiotic advances in genetics, robotics and nanotechnology that creates 'a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability' - will be upon us. Mark the calendar for big doings in 2045 in case he's right."

Global Issues Email Update, October 2, 2005: "$255 billion is lost each year to governments around the world because of the no or low taxation of funds in offshore centers. Offshore tax havens allow multinational companies, rich individuals, corrupt leaders, criminals and terrorists to move or hide money. To put this in perspective, the losses each year are more than the UN Millennium Project goal of reaching $195 billion in aid levels by 2015 to help halve world poverty within a decade and prevent millions of unnecessary deaths in poor countries."

WSJ.com - Here It Comes: "People's thoughts of the future tend to follow a linear extrapolation -- steadily more of the same, only better -- while most technological progress is exponential, happening by giant leaps and thus moving farther and faster than the mind can easily grasp. Mr. Kurzweil himself, thinking exponentially, imagines a plausible future, not so far away, with extended life-spans (living to 300 will not be unusual), vastly more powerful computers (imagine more computing power in a head-sized device than exists in all the human brains alive today), other miraculous machines (nanotechnology assemblers that can make most anything out of sunlight and dirt) and, thanks to these technologies, enormous increases in wealth (the average person will be capable of feats, like traveling in space, only available to nation-states today)."

People's Daily Online -- Comment: Large-scale arms sales vs. defense of peace: "The report 'The Selling and Buying Conventional Weapons by Developing Countries' released recently by US Congress research institutions shows that since the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States has all along kept its position as the world's number one supplier of ammunitions. In 2004, US foreign arms sales were valued at US$14.5 billion. It is thus clear that under the pretext of 'defense', US military industry's 'iron triangle' is doing things for staggering profits, such things are happening in many places around the world. The United States, called 'the world's largest armament trafficker' and 'the largest death exporter', should seriously engage in self-examination. "

People's Daily Online -- Comment: Large-scale arms sales vs. defense of peace: "the main motive force boosting arms sales comes from the 'iron triangle' of US military industry, that is, the federal government departments represented by the Defense Department, the Congress departments composed mainly of the Defense Affairs Group Council in the Military Commission of the Senate and House of Representatives and the Appropriation Commission, as well as national defense industrial entities (including military enterprises, laboratories, research departments and chamber of commerce related to weapons production)."