2020 computingMilestones in scientific computing : Nature: "1946 ENIAC, widely thought of as the first electronic digital computer, is formally unveiled. Designed to compute ballistics during the Second World War, it performs calculations in a variety of scientific fields including randomnumber studies, wind-tunnel design and weather prediction. Its first 24-hour forecast takes about 24 hours to do."

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "'When all channels are closed to us, we use violence. We don't have jets, we don't have tanks. So we made the decision. It is one of the ways we resist, it is not the only way.' "

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists divided over longevity: "But while the debate continues, all involved do agree that life extension is within the realms of possibility for science; but how exactly we do it, how long we can postpone death for, and whether modern society can handle the burden of an increasingly aged population is still being debated.
'I think we will hopefully be able to get some means to make a significant impact on processes of ageing. These will not necessarily result immediately in substantive life extension, but they may change the profile of health that people experience as they go through [old age]. We haven't begun seriously to discus what should be our priorities and how we should develop strategies,' explained Professor Kirkwood at the conference. "

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists divided over longevity: "The increase in life expectancy enjoyed by many societies is a triumph of modern science.
Our understanding of the human body and how to repair it when it breaks down have continued to push 'old age' into the distance - and researchers intend to keep pushing.
But the claims made by Dr Aubrey de Grey, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, that lifespan can be increased by over 1,000 years, have proven too much for some; and a dispute has now broken out within the gerontology community. "

KurzweilAI.net: "No nation lacking the nanotech advantage will be able to resist a foe�no matter how small or weak in conventional terms�that wields the power of molecular manufacturing.3
It is not certain, of course, that large-scale war will occur within the next few decades. But if it does, and if both (or all) sides are nano-enabled, that event could last a relatively long time, and casualties could be in the billions. If, on the other hand, only one combatant possesses the awesome capabilities of nano-built weapons, computers, and infrastructure, that war might be over very quickly, and could leave the victor in total command of the world."

KurzweilAI.net: "Diamond lists superior military technology based on guns, steel weapons, and horses; infectious diseases; maritime technology; centralized political organization; and writing.
These advantages can be categorized as follows (with items from 1532 in parentheses):
Battle technology (guns, steel weapons, and horses)
Physical fitness (infectious diseases)
Transportation technology (maritime)
Effective command and control (centralized organization)
Communications technology (writing) "

KurzweilAI.net: "Some wars are between opponents of roughly equal fighting ability. As a result, these conflicts tend to drag on, often for years and killing millions, until finally one side emerges victorious. Recent examples include the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II.
Occasionally one adversary will possess huge advantages over the other, in which case the war typically is quite short. A famous instance is the spectacular one-sided victory of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro over the Incan empire in 1532."

KurzweilAI.net: "We like to look back admiringly on other things our species has produced: great works of art, brilliant inventions, sage philosophers, brave explorers, and selfless peacemakers. But the real star of the human story is war. In fact, very often those things we admire�philosophy, technology, leadership, superb writing and speechmaking�are put to maximum use in the service of war.
The story is not yet over. Within our lifetimes, we are likely to witness battles on a scale never before seen. Powered by molecular manufacturing, an advanced form of nanotechnology, these near-future wars1 may threaten our freedom, our way of life, and even our survival. "

KurzweilAI.net: "Conflicts, clashes, battles, and wars: this is the stuff of which history is made. The world as we know it today is largely a product of wars fought and peoples conquered."

emcc - european monitoring centre on change - home page: "EMCC: understanding,
anticipating and
managing change
The European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC) is a place for exchanging practice, information and ideas on the management and anticipation of change."

Political, economic and technological forces are underpinning some longstanding characteristics of employment in the
performing arts sector, namely, the high proportion of part-time and short-term jobs, and of self-employment. At the
same time, technological developments provide greater resources to performing artists, or others, to promote and market
their work, thus facilitating the persistence of micro-enterprises in this sector. However, digitalisation and the Internet
are also bringing the transmission of performing arts products increasingly under the control of wealthy media
companies or broadcasters. Their position, too, may soon be threatened by the transmission of television and films
through the Internet, using enhanced broadband. The overall tendency is towards greater uncertainty for those working
in the sector.

http://www.emcc.eurofound.eu.int/publications/2005/ef0563en1-3.pdf
As discussed in the previous section, the live performing arts cannot cut or control their costs by substituting capital or
technology for the labour of performers. In most European countries, it is a matter of social policy not to have the whole
cost of traditional performances borne through admission prices, as this would greatly restrict the audience. There is also
a long historical tradition of public funding for ‘high culture’, not only in artistic performances but also in museums and
other sources of education. The reasons underlying this tradition are very complex, and are certainly not explained by
considerations of financial return or economic growth.

http://karlalbrecht.com/downloads/Trends-WhitePaper-Albrecht.pdf
Two of the central elements of the strategic conversation are 1) the “environmental
scan,” or “E-scan,” which is the continuous study of the business environment to identify
trends, events, and contingencies which can pose threats or present opportunities; and
2) the “organizational scan,” or “org-scan,” which is the realistic and objective
assessment of the organization’s capacity for achieving its mission and adapting to the
changing demands of its environment.

automates-intelligents-html@kiosqueist.com: "The planet-sized 'Web' computer is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence as calculated by Ray Kurzweil. In 10 years, it will be ubiquitous. So will superintelligence emerge on the Web, not a supercomputer?"

People's Daily Online -- Why does world oil price soar up?: "Although the two wars the US launched came to an end, the troubles have never stopped. Until now, al-Qaeda still make trouble from time to time in Afghanistan. The situation in Iraq is even worse, American troops, more than one hundred thousand, cannot withdraw, while the civil wars took place constantly. Meanwhile, the US started to shift its attention to Iran on the latter's nuclear issue. Terrorist attacks and threats also happened in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. These all contribute to the crude oil price hike.
Secondly, the strong world economy promotes the growing world demand for crude oil. Over the past years, although the US has involved in wars, its economy is quite good; the economies of emerging industrial countries including China and India also develop rapidly; Japan and European countries such as Germany, Britain and France also see economic revival. The oil demand of a country, whether developed or develop, is bound to grow as long as its economy develops fast. "

We believe that computer science concepts and tools in science form a third,
and vital component of enabling a ‘golden triangle’ to be formed with novel
mathematical and statistical techniques in science, and scientific computing
platforms and applications integrated into experimental and theoretical
science. This combination is likely to accelerate key breakthroughs in science
and benefits to society, from understanding biology and revolutionising
medicine and healthcare, and from understanding the universe to the origin of
life, and understanding and helping to protect the life-support systems of Earth
on which we all depend for our survival.

news @ nature.com�-� 2020 computingEverything, everywhere�-�Tiny computers that constantly monitor ecosystems, buildings and even human bodies could turn science on its head. Declan Butler investigates.: "The world's stock of computing power, and the number of devices over which it is distributed, has increased exponentially since then, as has the capacity of networking technology. These trends show no sign of slowing down, and that makes pervasive sensor nets not so much possible as inevitable. One does not need to be a visionary to see that soon, tiny devices with the power of today's desktops will be cheap enough to put everywhere.

Gaetano Borriello, a computer scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, argues that such widely distributed computing power will trigger a paradigm shift as great as that brought about by the development of experimental science itself. 'We will be getting real-time data from the physical world for the first time on a large scale.'"

news @ nature.com�-� 2020 computingEverything, everywhere�-�Tiny computers that constantly monitor ecosystems, buildings and even human bodies could turn science on its head. Declan Butler investigates.: "These new computers would take the form of networks of sensors with data-processing and transmission facilities built in. Millions or billions of tiny computers � called 'motes', 'nodes' or 'pods' � would be embedded into the fabric of the real world. They would act in concert, sharing the data that each of them gathers so as to process them into meaningful digital representations of the world. Researchers could tap into these 'sensor webs' to ask new questions or test hypotheses. Even when the scientists were busy elsewhere, the webs would go on analysing events autonomously, modifying their behaviour to suit their changing experience of the world."

http://research.microsoft.com/towards2020science/downloads/T2020S_Report.pdf
An important development in science is occurring at the intersection of
computer science and the sciences that has the potential to have a profound
impact on science. It is a leap from the application of computing to support
scientists to ‘do’ science (i.e. ‘computational science’) to the integration of
computer science concepts, tools and theorems into the very fabric of science.
While on the face of it, this change may seem subtle, we believe it to be
fundamental to science and the way science is practiced. Indeed,we believe this
development represents the foundations of a new revolution in science.

http://research.microsoft.com/towards2020science/downloads/T2020S_Report.pdf
The urban environments where the majority of people live are complex evolving
ecosystems where the next stage of evolution could be driven by information
and communications technologies which become integral to all parts of our
domestic and shared infrastructure.

The urban environments where the majority of people live are complex evolving
ecosystems where the next stage of evolution could be driven by information
and communications technologies which become integral to all parts of our
domestic and shared infrastructure.

Two key
uncertainties form the framework for those scenarios. The section on challenges
highlights the first: will society embrace a world where we track, and perhaps
control, the movement of all goods and people? The second is whether or not
we develop an alternative source of energy for transport that has minimal impact
on the climate. If we do have this energy source, we would want to use IIS to
support as much movement of goods and people as we desired. If we don’t, we
would want to use IIS to minimise the movement of goods and people, while still
supporting economic growth.

For example, levels of obesity have risen
from 6% in 1980 to 22% today, with an annual health cost to the UK of £3 billion
a year. We might be able to spot the next ‘obesity’ before it reaches such a level
and could seek to act before it imposes such costs on human lives and on the
health service.

Historically, when we have improved the transport system and reduced costs,
people have travelled more. We changed our patterns of behaviour to reflect the
increase in ease of travel – living further away from our place of work, developing
cities and shopping facilities that are based around use of the car, and travelling
for leisure on a national and international basis. While this has supported
economic growth, it has led to congestion, rising costs of maintaining the
infrastructure we already have in place, greater fragility of the system, and
environmental costs.

The UK has an extensive transport infrastructure. We currently have: 724,000 km
of road lanes; 16,600 km of railway track; 47 major ports, of which 20 account
for 87% of traffic across all cargo types; and 28 major airports, 18 with more than
1 million scheduled passengers passing through them each year. As a nation,
we travel approximately 500 billion km by road per year, 50 billion km by rail and
275 billion km by air

Putting a human on the moon was the greatest transport challenge of the past
half-century. The transport challenge of the next 50 years will be to use
technology to deliver infrastructure that will stimulate economic growth, support
social cohesion and be environmentally sustainable.

Just as science and technology gave us the freedom to move, they will play a
key role in helping us to respond to these new challenges. Advances in sensor
technology, computing power and telecommunications can allow us to build
intelligence into the infrastructure.

http://www.foresight.gov.uk/Intelligent Infrastructure Systems/Reports and Publications/Intelligent_Infrastructure_Futures/Project_Overview.pdf
However, we now face the challenges of global warming and limited supplies of oil, set against increasing demands for oil. At a national level, we face increasing congestion on roads and rail.

Challenges to the US Empire - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "Since the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US has dominated the globe politically, economically and, above all, militarily. However, analysts increasingly point at a number of challenges to US global preponderance. Geopolitical competitors are rising. China, enjoying unrivalled economic growth, is pursuing diplomatic offensives in Africa and South America and has modernized its military forces. India and Russia, both with rapidly growing economies, are bolstering their geopolitical clout. The European Union, an economic juggernaut, rivals the US with its single currency and seeks to forge a common foreign and security policy to gain more international influence. The economic base on which the US system rests is beginning to show serious weaknesses."

KurzweilAI.net: "Molecular manufacturing will give its wielders extreme power�certainly enough power to overcome all significant non-human limits (at least within the context of the planet; in space, there will be other limits such as scarcity of materials and speed of light). Even if the problem of cheaters could be overcome, we do not have many internal limits these days; the current trend in capitalism is to deny the desirability of all limits except those that arise from competition. What's left?"

KurzweilAI.net: "Any active system without limits will run off the rails. The simplest example is a reproducing population, which will indulge in exponential growth until it exhausts its resources and crashes. Another example can be found in the 'excesses' of behavior that are seen in political revolutions. Humans systems need limits as much as any other system, for all that we try to overcome them.
Through all of history, the presence of limits has been a reasonable assumption. Nations were limited by other nations; populations were limited by geography, climate, or disease; and societies would sometimes be stable long enough to develop and agree on a morality that provided additional useful limits. A society that overstepped its bounds could expect to collapse or be out-competed by other societies."

KurzweilAI.net: "Molecular manufacturing has the potential to remove or bypass many of today's limits. It is not far wrong to say that the most significant remaining limits will be human, and that we will be trying our hardest to bypass even those. To people with faith in humanity's good nature and high potential, this will come as welcome news. For many who have studied history, it will be rather frightening. A near-total lack of limits could lead straight to a planet-wide dictatorship, or to any of several forms of irreversible destruction.
Many of the plans that have been proposed to deal with molecular manufacturing, by CRN and others, assume (usually implicitly) that the plan will be implemented within some bigger system, such as the rule of law. This will be problematic if molecular manufacturing is powerful enough that its users can make their own law. We cannot assume that existing world systems will continue to provide a framework in which molecular manufacturing will play out. Those systems that adopt the new technology will be transformed; those that do not will be comparatively impotent. We will have to find ways for multiple actors empowered by molecular manufacturing to coexist constructively, without reliance on the stabilizing forces provided by today's global institutions."

KurzweilAI.net: "Humans are good at pushing limits. We can survive in scorching deserts and in the frozen Arctic. We have flown faster than sound and sent robots to other planets. We have managed, with help from fossil fuels, to feed six billion people. Even before we had motors and technological navigation equipment, some of us were able to find and colonize islands in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.
Pushing limits has its darker side as well. Humans are not good at respecting each other's rights; the ferocity of the Mongol hordes remains legendary, and the 20th century provides multiple examples of state-sponsored mass murder. Natural limits frequently are pushed too far, and whole civilizations have been wiped out by environmental backlash. We are too good at justifying our disrespect of limits, and then we often become increasingly destructive as the problem becomes more acute. More than a century ago, Lord Acton warned that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.' This can be restated as, 'Complete lack of limits leads to unlimited destruction.'"

KurzweilAI.net: "Within the next 100 years, the growing human influence on earth's climate could lead to a long and irreversible rise in sea levels by eroding Earth's vast polar ice sheets, according to new observations and analysis by several teams of scientists.

One team, using computer models of climate and ice, found that by about 2100, average temperatures could be 4 degrees warmer than today and that over the coming centuries, the world's oceans could rise 13 to 20 feet --conditions last seen 129,000 years ago, between the last two ice ages."

The lesson
here for states is simple: if the opportunity to gain an advantage over another state
arises, take advantage of it.

However, once you marry those five assumptions together, powerful incentives
are created for states to behave aggressively toward each other. Specifically, states
look for opportunities to gain power at the expense of other states, and to make sure
that other states don’t take advantage of them. In other words, states seek to
maximize their power. The system leaves them no choice if they want to survive. It
does not matter whether they are content with the status quo or not.

In brief, the two key factors that underpin the tragic nature of international
politics are anarchy and uncertainty about the intentions of other states.

The reason for this tragic situation is that states cannot discern the intentions of
other states with a high degree of confidence. Moreover, it is almost impossible to
know the future intentions of other states. Therefore, leaders have little choice but
to assume worst case about other great powers’ intentions. The reason for believing
the worst is that there is no higher authority that states can turn to if they guess
wrong about another state’s intentions. States operate in an anarchic system, which
means that they have nobody to turn to if they assume that another state has benign
intentions, but that judgment proves wrong.

I think that many commentators and security experts overestimate the power
of the United States. Despite all the talk about global hegemony, it is especially
difficult to dominate the entire planet, not only because it is very large, but also
because it is necessary to project power over large bodies of water, which is a
formidable task. For sure, the United States is a hegemon in the western hemisphere.
That is because the Americas are its backyard and because there is no state
in the region that has the military power to stand up to the United States in a war.
But dominating the rest of the globe is virtually impossible at this point in time. To
accomplish that end, the United States would need immense power projection
capabilities and lots more land power or boots on the ground than it now has or is
likely to have anytime soon.

There is no doubt that the United States is by far the most powerful state on
the face of the earth. But that does not mean that it is the only great power in the
system, which is by definition what is necessary to have unipolarity or global
hegemony. Remember, bipolarity means two great powers, multipolarity means
three or more, and unipolarity means one. Thus, the key to determining the polarity
of a system is figuring out how many great powers there are around the globe, and
that depends mainly on how one defines a great power.
For me, a great power is a state that has the military wherewithal to put up a
serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the
system. A modern great power must also have a nuclear deterrent. Today, China and
Russia have the conventional capabilities to give the United States a good fight in
a major war, and they both have nuclear arsenals. Neither country would be easy to
conquer in a conventional war. Thus, both qualify as great powers. Germany and
Japan are not great powers in my account, because they do not have nuclear
weapons. So I think that we live in a multipolar world that has three great powers –
China, Russia, and the United States, the mightiest of them all.

http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0039.pdf
The taproot of our disagreement lies in the assumptions that underpin our
structural theories. Waltz says that his theory is built on two simple assumptions:
(1) the system is anarchic, and (2) states seek to survive. He explicitly says that he
does not assume that states are rational actors. My theory is based on five
assumptions: (1) the system is anarchic, (2) all great powers have some offensive
military capability, (3) states can never be certain about other states’ intentions, (4)
states seek to survive, and (5) great powers are rational actors or strategic
calculators.

http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0039.pdf
It took me a long time, I am embarrassed to say, to recognize that Waltz has
a rather benign theory of international politics. He believes that international
anarchy encourages aggression, but not too much of it, mainly because he thinks
that states balance efficiently against aggressors. If a great power gets too greedy,
according to Waltz, the other great powers will gang up on it and crush it. Still,
Waltz’s theory does allow for moderate levels of aggression. The follow-on wave
of ‘defensive realists’, especially Jack Snyder and Steve Van Evera, go further than
Waltz and argue that war hardly ever pays. Structural factors, according to them,
should discourage aggression altogether and encourage peaceful policies.
Once I fully understood what Randall Schweller calls the ‘status quo bias’ in the
writings of Waltz and his followers, I found myself dissatisfied with their theories.
Simply put, they did not accord with how I saw states behaving over time. I then
began to think about developing a different theory. I found that I agreed with
Morgenthau that states were constantly looking for opportunities to increase their
power, but I did not share his starting assumption that states were hard-wired with
an all-encompassing will to power. With regard to starting assumptions, I was a
structural realist like Waltz, but I did not share his view that states should not
maximize their power. Thus, I recognized that I had to come up with a structural
theory that explained why it is rational for states to pursue hegemony. My efforts
resulted in my theory of offensive realism.

John Mearsheimer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In this world, there is no such thing as a status quo power, since according to Mearsheimer, 'a great power that has a marked power advantage over its rivals is likely to behave more aggressively because it has the capability as well as the incentive to do so.' He has also dismissed democratic peace theory (which claims that democracies - specifically, liberal democracies - never or rarely go to war with one another)."

John Mearsheimer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to become hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive. "

LRB | John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt : The Israel Lobby: "This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America�s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities."

FlightAware > Statistics & Analysis > A Day In United States Airspace: "A day (from 4am until midnight) of snapshots of all the radar/radio contact air traffic in US airspace. Timestamps and flight counts are visible in the lower left corner of each image. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "In any case, the point of this paper is not to prescribe precise blueprints for change, but rather to affirm that major change is possible. Recall, after all, that few people in the 1910s envisioned a fully-fledged welfare state 30 years later. Few people in the 1930s anticipated worldwide decolonization 30 years later. Few people in the 1960s imagined wholesale neoliberalism 30 years later. So it is not fanciful to imagine that substantially different regimes of globalization will have replaced neoliberalism 30 years from now. Whether, in what ways, and how far the new globalizations turn out to be better ones will depend on critical public choices and extended political struggles. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "It is crucial to combine negative protest with positive proposal, deconstruction with reconstruction. People will be more ready to reject neoliberalism when they see clear and attractive replacements. Efforts to rethink policies can be pursued through a number of channels, including:
official circles that are sympathetic to change, such as much of the UN system;
certain business arenas, like fair trade schemes;
various academic quarters, preferably through interdisciplinary and intercultural enquiry; and
large parts of wider civil society, such as the World Social Forum process. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Rises in production and productivity should serve the higher aims and do not become ends in their own right. The transcendence of neoliberalism requires a major shift in prevailing values among policy-making communities and the general public. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Good arguments might exist for greater subsidiarity in the governance of global relations, but the notion that globality itself can be eliminated is unsustainable. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Neoliberal policies have been generated by a powerful combination of forces related to decentred governance, supraterritorial capitalism, modern economic science and global elite networks. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Neoliberalism has in various cases promoted gains in efficiency and material welfare, but it has also tended to neglect other important issues and to produce or exacerbate a number of cultural, ecological, economic, political and social harms. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "All in all, then, the sociohistorical dynamics behind neoliberal globalization over the past quarter-century have been very powerful indeed. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Such ostrich responses will be sustainable so long as the global managerial class lacks a powerful counterpoint. Indeed, to date critics of neoliberalism have lacked the resources and in many cases, also the political imagination to form effective transborder opposition blocs. Labour movements have so far failed to use regional and transworld networks to mount more than feeble challenges to global capital. Other social movements�of anarchists, environmentalists, feminists, indigenous peoples, peace activists, religious revivalists, etc.�have likewise had nothing approaching the resources and cohesion of the global managerial class. Indeed, many non-governmental organizations have sooner been co-opted into the global elite. Initiatives of recent years like the World Social Forum�as a counter-point to the WEF�and the Hemispheric Social Alliance�as a counter-point to the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement�confirm that some fertile ground exists for transborder formations to challenge the global managers, but as yet these projects remain very fragile. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "In turn, these networks of official, corporate and intellectual circles have been deeply interlinked in an overarching global managerial class. The three sectors regularly intersect, for instance, at WEF events, WTO meetings, AEA conventions and conferences of national bankers associations. The different elite elements also have constant casual encounters in hotel lobbies, airport lounges, cocktail parties and social clubs. Indeed, the people concerned have generally attended the same elite universities and often also send their children to the same schools. Both deliberately and subtly, these continual interactions have provided a strong social basis for neoliberal discourse. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Through regular encounters in multilateral forums, as well as frequent communications in between these meetings, many economic policy makers have come to have closer relations with their counterparts in other states than with colleagues in other ministries of their own state. Likewise, staff of different multilateral economic institutions have developed close ties with each other and with national policy makers for finance, trade and industry, while often having relatively few links with officials in social, cultural and environmental agencies. These transworld economic governance networks have provided key channels not only to spread neoliberalism across the planet in the first place, but subsequently also to provide continual reinforcement of the doctrine. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "A fourth key general development that has underpinned the rise and continuing strength of neoliberalism has been the growth of transborder connections between, and solidarity among, regulators, business managers and knowledge producers who promote neoliberalism. To speak of a global managerial class is not to say that perfect harmony has reigned among its many elements. Nor, to repeat an earlier disclaimer, is it to suggest that this class has embarked on deliberate global conspiracies to create the harms of neoliberalism. However, these transworld social networks in and between official, corporate and academic circles have helped to consolidate a powerful general elite consensus behind neoliberal policies. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "The forces that have generated and sustained neoliberal policy frameworks over the past quarter-century are located in four interrelated areas: governance, production, knowledge, and social networks. Regarding governance, the key shift advancing neoliberalism has been a move, with globalization, from statist to decentred regulation. Concerning production, the main trend has been the rise of supraterritorial capitalism�more specifically, neoliberal policies have responded to, and reinforced, certain expanded fields of surplus accumulation such as finance and information, and certain new forms of capitalist organization such as transborder firms and offshore arrangements. With respect to knowledge, neoliberalism has thrived in an environment dominated by rationalist constructions of knowledge, particularly in the form of modern economic science. In terms of social networks, neoliberalism has been furthered through the consolidation of a global managerial class, namely, transborder elite bonds that have interlinked powerful official, corporate and intellectual circles. "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Sixty years ago Karl Polanyi observed that ultra-liberalism in the nineteenth century world economy produced social dislocations that generated demands for reform and an eventual reregulation of capitalism "

Political Struggles Will Determine Better Globalisation - Globalization - Global Policy Forum: "Concerns about adverse consequences of neoliberalism, together with pressure from protest movements, have in recent years provoked considerable discussion about changes of policy toward globalization. Already a number of reforms have attenuated the ultra-liberal marketism that prevailed in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. As of late 2002, it remained far from clear how deep these revisions would go. However, the relative modesty of policy alterations to that date suggested that neoliberalism would retain general primacy in our (mis)management of globalization. No full-scale shift of approach is in immediate prospect. "

People's Daily Online -- UN issues warning on mass extinctions: "The report paints a grim picture of life on earth, with declining numbers of plants, animals, insects and birds across the globe, and warns that the current extinction rate is up to 1,000 times faster than in the past. Some 844 animals and plants are known to have disappeared in the last 500 years. "

Foreign Affairs - Ensuring Energy Security - Daniel Yergin: "The renewed focus on energy security is driven in part by an exceedingly tight oil market and by high oil prices, which have doubled over the past three years. But it is also fueled by the threat of terrorism, instability in some exporting nations, a nationalist backlash, fears of a scramble for supplies, geopolitical rivalries, and countries' fundamental need for energy to power their economic growth. In the background -- but not too far back -- is renewed anxiety over whether there will be sufficient resources to meet the world's energy requirements in the decades ahead."

Foreign Affairs - Ensuring Energy Security - Daniel Yergin: "On the eve of World War I, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made a historic decision: to shift the power source of the British navy's ships from coal to oil. He intended to make the fleet faster than its German counterpart. But the switch also meant that the Royal Navy would rely not on coal from Wales but on insecure oil supplies from what was then Persia. Energy security thus became a question of national strategy. Churchill's answer? 'Safety and certainty in oil,' he said, 'lie in variety and variety alone.'"

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Although the U.S. remains the world's strongest military power and its largest economy, it is no longer plausible to call the U.S. an undisputed global 'leader' -- it has neither the international trust necessary to lead by persuasion nor the overwhelming might required to impose its policies globally -- and its economic leverage has been weakened by massive indebtedness."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The best that Washington can hope for is that a break-up of the country, whether or not preceded by a civil war, will be averted by the formation of a confederal state in which regions dominated by Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish religious-ethnic groups have sufficient autonomy to thwart the effectiveness of a central government. Washington is currently adjusting to that scenario on the ground, yet the N.S.S. gives no indication of the shift, which has been going on for more than two years."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In the N.S.S., realism about means translates into a repetition of current U.S. positions on specific concerns such as the victory of Hamas in recent Palestinian elections, Iran's program of uranium enrichment, China's bid for energy resources and its currency policy, Russia's drift toward authoritarianism, Venezuela's moves to encourage Latin American autonomy, and the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Rice forthrightly embraced the view that world politics is moving toward a multipolar power configuration and outlined plans to reallocate State Department resources to emerging power centers, including China, India, Indonesia and Egypt. She stressed the importance of 'partnering' with regional powers and avoided making claims to U.S. global supremacy. In contrast, the Q.D.R. maintained a qualified unipolar perspective based on achieving absolute U.S. military supremacy and offered a maximalist program geared to building the 'capability' to respond to every possible threat."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "the position of the United States in the global power configuration."

The Coming Resource Wars - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum: "No doubt there will be many politicians and pundits -- especially in this country -- who will tout the superiority of the military option, emphasizing America's preponderance of strength. By fortifying our borders and sea-shores to keep out unwanted migrants and by fighting around the world for needed oil supplies, it will be argued, we can maintain our privileged standard of living for longer than other countries that are less well endowed with instruments of power. Maybe so. But the grueling, inconclusive war in Iraq and the failed national response to Hurricane Katrina show just how ineffectual such instruments can be when confronted with the harsh realities of an unforgiving world. And as the 2003 Pentagon report reminds us, 'constant battles over diminishing resources' will 'further reduce [resources] even beyond the climatic effects.' "

The Coming Resource Wars - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum: "It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major London address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy. Climate change, he indicated, 'will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer' -- and this will 'make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely.' "

EETimes.com - Delving into the meaning of artificial life: " the regulation approach, researchers are trying to identify the signaling systems with which cells modify their growth and behavior. By making those systems program-mable, it might be possible to repurpose biological systems for engineering objectives."

EETimes.com - Delving into the meaning of artificial life: "Synthetic biology is the engineering of biological components and systems that do not exist in nature and the re-engineering of existing biological elements; it is determined on the intentional design of artificial biological systems, rather than on the understanding of natural biology.'"

KurzweilAI.net: "Biologists have identified three critical principles that must be present in any living system: They must be self-creating, self-organizing and self-sustaining. The self-sustaining capability includes the ability to replicate components, process information and steadily consume energy from the environment. While electronic systems are highly adept at information processing, they are not self-replicating except at the software level, and they consume only one type of strictly defined electrical energy.

Synthetic biology will be able to remedy that problem by creating artificial-life systems employing the same flexible molecular strategy of living systems. Several avenues of attack are being developed to do that. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "With instability in other oil-producing regions, the rising energy demands of China and India, and the approaching maturity of major oil fields, Africa's hydrocarbons are an increasingly attractive resource. Competition for these resources, mostly between Washington and Beijing, will play an important role in determining the future of the continent. Divergent political philosophies between the world's two largest oil importers have raised the stakes in the competition. The West has seen its influence in Africa repeatedly challenged by China and India. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "China, now the world's second-largest importer of oil, imports 28 percent of its oil from Africa, mostly from Sudan, Angola, Congo, and Nigeria. In each of these countries, a similar pattern emerges: China moves in after Western companies are forced to pull out because of domestic pressure, thus undermining the ability of Western countries to use economic isolation and economic aid to influence the policies of the oil-producing countries. China, however, is also buying oil that would otherwise be taken off the global market, which effectively reduces the price of oil for all oil-importing countries. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "China has been involved in Africa since before the 1960s, but, recently, the nature and level of its involvement has changed. China is primarily invested in Africa in order to secure access to the region's natural resources to fuel its expanding economy. Beijing is outbidding Western contractors on infrastructure projects, providing soft loans, and using political means to increase its competitive advantage in acquiring natural resource assets in Africa."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The rise of Africa's energy industry is changing the geopolitical landscape of the region. The West has found its leverage in the region challenged by China's willingness to invest in oil-producing states in order to ensure Beijing's energy security. For instance, a $2 billion low-interest loan from China has all but scuttled the International Monetary Fund's (I.M.F.) attempts to tie economic assistance to reform in Angola. In other areas, China and the West find their interests aligned, such as on the north-south peace accord in Sudan. In the coming years, Washington will be forced to adjust its policies toward Africa in order to compensate for China's rising influence. "

World Progresses Towards Sustainable Forestry: "New FAO data shows progress
towards sustainable forest management at the global level, but also that
biological diversity and forest ecosystems remain seriously threatened in
several regions.
The main report of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, launched
yesterday at the sixth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF6)
in New York, gauged progress towards sustainable forest management defined and
measured in terms of the extent of forest resources and their contribution to
the global carbon cycle; biological diversity; forest health and vitality; and
productive, protective and socio-economic functions of forests.
'This is a first attempt to globally quantify progress toward sustainable
forest management, which will stimulate the debate on the objectives of forest
management worldwide,' said Peter Holmgren, Chief of the Forest Resources
Development Service."

Ad chief foresees major changes ahead: "The third trend is that consumers are learning new ways to select the information they want.
He said 54 per cent of people talk on the telephone while watching television. Seventeen per cent use the Internet, 38 per cent read a newspaper, and 9 per cent listen to the radio � all while watching television.
Nearly half of European consumers actively avoid advertising because they want to protect their personal time. Forty million homes in the US have personal video recorders, which they can use to skip commercials and about 25 per cent of Americans claim that they never watch advertisements."

Ad chief foresees major changes ahead: "The second trend is the destruction of traditional communications and distribution models, driven by more media choices at home.
�While the mass media spend more time and involvement, which leads to them competing for attention, mass audiences are becoming scarcer,� he said, adding that the number of television programmes in the UK with audiences of more than 15 million has declined from 230 in 1995 to just 12 or 13."

Ad chief foresees major changes ahead: "There�s also increasing consolidation, with 80 per cent of the world�s output already controlled by the top 1,000 companies, he said."

WSWS International Editorial Board meeting Nick Beams: Report on world economy in 2006--Part 3: "International relations are characterised by increased tensions. Not only is there the impact of China on the immediate region, but the relationship of China to other areas of the world, such as Latin America, the Middle East and Europe, where conflicts will, and already are, arising over raw materials, markets and political influence. China�s relationships with each of the major powers will exacerbate the conflicts among them. For example, despite its unconditional support for the Iraq war and Bush�s �war on terror� even the Howard government has warned Washington that it should not assume Australia will line up behind the US if a conflict were to develop with China over Taiwan."

WSWS International Editorial Board meeting Nick Beams: Report on world economy in 2006--Part 3: "The growth of exotic financial instruments, many of which did not exist even a few years ago, is quite extraordinary. Hedge funds now have at their disposal at least $1 trillion, an amount which has doubled since 1998. And it is estimated that in 2006 the derivatives market will grow to half a quadrillion; that is, to $500 trillion, more than 10 times the world�s GDP�which is around $45 trillion."

IOL: SA solar research eclipses rest of the world: "In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun."

New Scientist Technology - Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas: "Fisheries scientists are investigating the use of neural implants to control the behaviour of farmed fish. They hope the tags will eliminate the need to pen and feed fish, a practice that pollutes the surrounding waters and promotes disease. Instead, the plan is to let the fish loose to forage for themselves and then retrieve them when they are large enough to harvest.
One way to contain the fish would be an acoustic fence, a barrier of sound signals that would trigger the implants to deliver a warning signal to the fish's brain, possibly by mimicking a bad smell. Barry Costa-Pierce, a marine researcher at the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett, says his team has already developed implants that can make the fish surface on command. The project is focusing on bluefin and bigeye tuna, cobia and salmon."

New Scientist Technology - Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas: "That team is among a number of groups around the world that have gained ethical approval to develop implants that can monitor and influence the behaviour of animals, from sharks and tuna to rats and monkeys. These researchers hope such implants will improve our understanding of how the animals interact with their environment, as well as boosting research into tackling human paralysis."

New Scientist Technology - Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas: "IMAGINE getting inside the mind of a shark: swimming silently through the ocean, sensing faint electrical fields, homing in on the trace of a scent, and navigating through the featureless depths for hour after hour.
We may soon be able to do just that via electrical probes in the shark's brain. Engineers funded by the US military have created a neural implant designed to enable a shark's brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling."

AlterNet: The CIA's Pain Project: "A new expose gives an account of the C.I.A.'s secret efforts to develop new forms of torture, spanning half a century. It reveals how the C.I.A. perfected its methods, distributing them across the world, from Vietnam to Iran to Central America, uncovering the roots of the Abu Ghraib and Guant�namo torture scandals."

The CIA's Pain Project -- (AlterNet -- February 24, 2006)
Alfred McCoy exposes how the Bush administration gave the CIA an opportunity to perfect its research on psychological torture. This is an edited transcript of an interview between Amy Goodman and Alfred McCoy from Democracy Now! It originally aired on February 17, and is available for download from DemocracyNow.org

The CIA's Pain Project -- (AlterNet -- February 24, 2006)/a>
Alfred McCoy exposes how the Bush administration gave the CIA an opportunity to perfect its research on psychological torture. This is an edited transcript of an interview between Amy Goodman and Alfred McCoy from Democracy Now! It originally aired on February 17, and is available for download from DemocracyNow.org

KurzweilAI.net: "As robots increasingly migrate from heavy industrial tasks, like welding automobile chassis on assembly lines, to home uses as restless toys and venturesome vacuum cleaners, a fetching personality and appealing appearance become critically important."

KurzweilAI.net: "DARPA scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. "

KurzweilAI.net: "Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, according to scientists meeting at Oxford University for a conference on life extension and enhancement"

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "The precautionary principle developed for environmental policy states that 'where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage to the environment, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.' This is generally interpreted to mean that a lower level of proof of harm can be used in policymaking whenever the consequences of waiting for higher levels of proof may be very costly and/or irreversible. "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "The fusion of nanotechnology and biotechnology, now called nanobiotechnology, will result in the complete elimination of the barrier between living and nonliving materials. In other words, nanobiotechnology not only has the goal, it has the mandate to break through the 'carbon barrier' of life. The result: We will produce not mere cyborgs, but true hybrid artificial life forms -- or manifestations of synthetic biology, take your pick. In a previous article on nanomedicine I described a few of the rudimentary 'things' that will emerge from nanobiotechnology: molecular machines that contain parts from both the worlds of biology and human engineering. Single-walled carbon nanotubes linked to DNA. Gold nanoshells linked to antibody proteins. "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "The federal government is in the game big-time as well. For example, the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tells us it has established the world's first Synthetic Biology Department, 'to understand and design biological systems�' "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "What Ray, and Craig, and Eric, and Arthur can't see is the power of pure chemistry -- what Bertrand Russell called 'chemical imperialism.' What they don't get is this -- a system does not have to be complex to be transcendently, transformatively powerful. After all, we and everything we have created are nothing but the product of 'carbon imperialism' -- carbon being the element that all known life is based on. Nothing but the power of pure chemistry. Living and nonliving materials, everything that exists in the physical world of our experience burns with that same electron fire. The fire of the chemical bond. "

Wired 14.03: PLAY: "Some folks think life and technology and mind can keep expanding forever. Others say it can't. We are still not clear on that."

Wired 14.03: PLAY: "Absolutely. Atoms and electrons are bits. Atomic collisions are 'ops.' Machine language is the laws of physics. The universe is a quantum computer."

People's Daily Online -- Coal-to-oil plant to begin work next year: "China's biggest coal company, the Shenhua Group, will start production at its first coal-to-liquid project at the end of next year, a scheme that will supply 1 million tons of oil products a year to North China.
The project will be the country's first facility producing oil from coal and has great market potential in China, which relies on coal for about 70 per cent of its energy needs and aims to cut the import of high-priced oil. "

People's Daily Online -- The charm of China's soft power: "Joseph Nye, former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University put forward the concept of 'soft power' for the first time 15 years ago. He pointed out that hard power, 'the ability to use carrots and sticks of weapons and economic might to make others to follow your will' is essential to show a country's capability, but what is indispensable is the inexpensive soft power, 'the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals'. He held that the soft power in the US mainly comes from the non-governmental organizations, especially Hollywood, Harvard University and Microsoft etc."

News & Broadcast - Press Reviews: "In a commentary published in The Straits Times (Singapore, 03/11), World Bank Regional Chief Economist for South Asia, Shantayanan Devarajan, and Regional Chief Economist for East Asia and the Pacific, Homi Kharas, write that Asia is a puzzle. China, India and several other countries are enjoying rapid economic growth. Yet some 600 million Asians - more than the entire population of Latin America - live on less than a dollar a day.
But this puzzle is also an opportunity: If China and India can sustain their 8 to 10 percent annual GDP growth, and bring the rest of Asia with them, the continent with the largest concentration of poor people in the world has a very good chance of eliminating poverty by 2015. This issue among others was the subject of a conference [last] week on the region's future. "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "Some people might argue that it is pretty cavalier to work on 'artificial life' or 'synthetic biology' before we have even agreed on definitions for these 'things.' They might even point out that 'artificial life' containing nonbiological components or new forms of biology could drastically alter the ecological balance or even the evolutionary trajectory of life on Earth. Of course the Lawrence Berkeley folks tell us we 'need' synthetic biology for all kinds of excellent reasons. We need it for the efficient conversion of waste into energy and sunlight into hydrogen. We need it to create new life forms to use as 'soft' biomaterials for tissue/organ growth. We need it to spawn new cells that will swim through the air or water to get to chemical and biological threats and decontaminate them. We need it, and we will build it, and it will be OK because we are the good guys (and gals). Our new life forms will only do good things. "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "The federal government is in the game big-time as well. For example, the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tells us it has established the world's first Synthetic Biology Department, 'to understand and design biological systems�' "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "Linus Pauling would have gotten it right away. Erwin Schr�dinger too, and probably Robert Oppenheimer. Bertrand Russell got it. In fact he named it. What Ray, and Craig, and Eric, and Arthur can't see is the power of pure chemistry -- what Bertrand Russell called 'chemical imperialism.' What they don't get is this -- a system does not have to be complex to be transcendently, transformatively powerful. After all, we and everything we have created are nothing but the product of 'carbon imperialism' -- carbon being the element that all known life is based on. Nothing but the power of pure chemistry. Living and nonliving materials, everything that exists in the physical world of our experience burns with that same electron fire. The fire of the chemical bond. "

Salon.com Technology | I, Nanobot: "The usual suspects -- those who have become known for predicting the evolution of humans and their technology -- just don't get it. Mainly because they don't understand what the definition of 'it' is. They don't realize what evolution is. They have come to the problem from artificial intelligence, or systems analysis, or mathematics, or astronomy, or aerospace engineering. Folks like Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy and Eric Drexler have raised some alarms, but they are too dazzled by the complexity and power of human cybersystems, devices and networks to see it coming. They think the power of our tools lies in their ever-increasing complexity -- but they are wrong."

World Trends Research - Ten Trends Reshaping the Global Landscape: "Ninth, the largest migration in history is changing the face of nations. In China, one hundred million people are moving from the country to the city. In the West, the European Union needs 180 million immigrants in the next three decades simply to keep its population at 1995 levels, as well as to keep the current ratio of retirees to workers. In Brussels, over fifty percent of the babies born are Muslim. In Germany, the death rate has exceeded the birth rate for decades, so the government now has to fly in planeloads of technicians from India just to maintain the German high tech structure. In England, there are now more practicing Muslims than Anglicans. The Catholic Church is facing the distinct possibility (probability?) that in coming years, Islam will become the largest European faith. In coming years, what it means to be French, German, Italian or English is going to change just as radically as what it means to be American has changed in the past four decades. Such changes suggest an increased inward European orientation at a time when just the opposite is needed."

World Trends Research - Ten Trends Reshaping the Global Landscape: "Eighth, globalization has moved far beyond economics and finance, and has now moved to a stage where western political, social, cultural and philosophical ideas are gradually seeping into the fabric of the rest of the world. "

World Trends Research - Ten Trends Reshaping the Global Landscape: "Fourth, the information environment in which the individual lives has been radically altered. Throughout history, the transmission of information, ideas and images took place slowly, taking weeks, even months, to move around the world. Such a slow pace of information travel gave people time to adjust psychologically to a new information environment. Today, we zap information, ideas and images across the globe in nanoseconds. People have no time to adjust, no time to assimilate the new information and shape it into coherent meaning. The result is uncertainty and disorientation."

World Trends Research - Ten Trends Reshaping the Global Landscape: "Second, the world is still seeking a new geopolitical configuration. We are at the end of a 500-year period when the Atlantic-centered nations dominated world economic, political and military affairs. For the first time in modern history, China and Japan both have economies larger than any European national economy, and, along with India, may become the world�s center of technological innovation and production."

OECD Observer: Suicide battle: "Why does suicide happen? Work and school pressures, as well as personal and family stress, even bullying, are often cited. A lack of daylight has been blamed, too; in 2002 suicides were fewer in Mediterranean countries than in Nordic ones. Understanding suicide is complicated by factors like �suicide pacts� and the role of honour."

OECD Observer: Suicide battle: "Suicide rates have fallen in most OECD countries, but have risen sharply in others. The highest rates occur in Hungary, Finland, Japan and Korea, with the lowest in Spain, UK, Italy and Greece. Some 130,000 deaths occurred in OECD countries in 2002. Suicides are up to four times greater among men than women."

OECD Observer: Trade interdependency: "One characteristic of globalisation is the growing interdependency of countries and regions in all areas of international transactions. Take imports. According to the latest OECD Economic Globalisation Indicators, between 1995 and 2003 the share of demand met by imports in the OECD area increased from 34% to 41% for goods, and from 35% to 48% for services. Imports to the EU from other OECD countries remained very high, albeit easing slightly to 71% between 1995 and 2003."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Nevertheless, Chinese and U.S. interests in the Middle East are not identical. In many ways, there has been a role reversal for the United States and China on the world stage -- while China had originally fueled revolutionary change through sponsoring anti-colonial struggles and communist insurgencies, it is now the United States that is attempting to fuel change in the international system by rejecting international conventions (e.g. Kyoto Protocol, A.B.M. Treaty) and norms (preemptive action, granting recognition to India as a nuclear power).

On the other hand, while the United States has traditionally favored stability even at the cost of supporting unsavory regimes, it is now China that increasingly favors stability in the international system, even if it means supporting pariah regimes such as Burma, Iran, Nepal, North Korea, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe. In the Middle East, the volatile mix of long-standing disputes, great power competition and Islamist extremism create the recipe for further instability in the region. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "While gaining access to the region's vast energy resources is China's primary motivation for deepening relations with the region, there are a number of other factors driving China's Middle East policy. As the ideological center of the Islamic world, China has attempted to maintain good relations with the Arab world in order to get their support on the Uighur insurgency in Xinjiang Province and maintain amicable relations with the 55 million Muslims residing in China. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "For example, the visit by Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to China in January was the first by a Saudi monarch to China. This visit demonstrated the deepening relationship between the world's fastest growing source of oil demand (China) and the world's biggest oil supplier (Saudi Arabia). Since 2002, Saudi oil shipments to the U.S. have been declining while shipments have been increasing to China. Indeed, last year Saudi Arabia was China's leading source of oil imports. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "With the end of the Cold War and China's emergence as a net oil importer in 1993, China's primary interest in the Middle East has been to gain access to the region's vast oil and gas supplies. While China is trying to diversify its energy import supplies, it still depends on the Middle East for half of its oil imports, with Saudi Arabia and Iran providing approximately 30 percent of China's oil imports. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "wo regions have emerged as the most likely sources of great power conflict in the 21st century. The first is the Middle East, which is the focal point for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The region is important both as part of a global ideological struggle against Islamist extremism and in the quest for oil and gas resources. The second is Asia, as the rise of China presents competition for both intangible and material resources on the world stage. "

World Institute for Devel... | Aideffectiveness | Development Gateway: "This newsletter includes: * Rising Inequality in the New Global Economy (2005 WIDER Annual Lecture), by Nancy Birdsall; * Global Inequality in Historical Perspective, by Richard Jolly; * Personal Assets from a Global Perspective"