Oberg - What is peace? Summarising 35 years of thinking and practising: "The only realistic way to handle conflict is to accept and embrace them, become clever at handling them – in short, stop conflict avoidance and reduce conflict illiteracy, i.e. intensify across the board education and professionalization when it comes to learning how to “quarrel well.” This means that, grosso modo, peace can be learnt and has extremely little to do with good versus evil human beings as some will have us believe.
So, the dynamics or peace is perfectly compatible with conflict, indeed it can’t be separated from it. What it is incompatible with and must be separated from is violence. Thus, for true peace we need violence prevention or, to quote the UN Charter most significant and globally recognized (but violated) norm: peace by peaceful means (Article 1.1) and the abolition of war as an accepted social institution (the Preamble’s first sentence)."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Conflict over increasing energy needs is foreseeable; consequently, although demand for energy resources at the global level may be a catalyst for short-term cooperation, it may also lead to conflicts. "

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian economy 'to overtake UK': "India could overtake Britain and have the world's fifth largest economy within a decade as the country's growth accelerates, a new report says.

If trends continue, India's economy may then surpass the US and be second only to China's by mid-century, the report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says."

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space: "The third fundamental problem is of a strategic nature. The implications of space militarization are enormous, and its consequences can't be predicted. It is certain that -- in the short term -- U.S. financial and technological superiority would increase the already prominent gap in military power between Washington and the rest of the world. In addition, some of the new weapons could give the White House new effective tools to fight against symmetrical (states) and asymmetrical (terror networks) threats. However, in the long run, a military colonization of outer space could very well be started by other powers -- which would hardly tolerate Washington's quasi-private use of space.

The Clinton administration decided to take the opposite route and avoided international space militarization, as it considered a new front useless because of the U.S. military's overwhelming dominance on land, sea and air."

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space: "The White House will face several problems if it wants to pursue the ambitious project of space militarization consisting of both offensive and defensive weapons.

The first point is the political issue. International reactions to U.S. plans have already appeared: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov recently evoked an immediate reaction from Moscow, and serious consequences were threatened should an orbital weapon deployment be performed by Washington. Such a reaction could consist of a modified version of the SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of putting into orbit a remarkable quantity of space vehicles -- which could even carry military nukes, thus making the U.S. planned intercepting effort much more difficult."

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space

PINR - The Pentagon's Bid to Militarize Space: "series of Pentagon initiatives aimed at space militarization and at the creation of new types of armament -- capable of precisely striking small targets in every corner of the world and of neutralizing most of today's anti-aircraft defenses -- will likely result in a new power battlefield in the near future.

While the implementation of space weapons is likely to increase the capability gap between Washington and other powers at first, a broader vision reveals dangers involved in the move that could affect U.S. interests, for it will likely trigger off determined reactions by its competitors. Competitor states could successfully deploy a small number of low cost orbital weapons, thus forcing the U.S. to design an extremely expensive space defense system.

At the moment, a space weaponization policy may generate more troubles than advantages for Washington."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4203874.html
If Pentagon strategists get their way, there will be no place on the planet to hide from such a US assault. The plan is part of a program — in slow development since the 1990s, and now quickly coalescing in military circles — called Prompt Global Strike. The goal, according to the U.S. Strategic Command's deputy commander Lt. Gen. C. Robert Kehler, is 'to strike virtually anywhere on the face of the Earth within 60 minutes.' "

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: Is Energo-fascism in Your Future? : : The Pentagon Energy-Protection Racket: "Such future possibilities are generating great anxiety among officials of the major energy-consuming nations, especially the United States, China, Japan, and the European powers. All of these countries have undertaken major reviews of energy policy in recent years, and all have come to the same conclusion: Market forces alone can no longer be relied upon to satisfy essential national energy requirements, and so the state must assume ever-increasing responsibility for performing this role. "

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: Is Energo-fascism in Your Future? : : The Pentagon Energy-Protection Racket: "Powerful, potentially planet-altering trends like this do not occur in a vacuum. The rise of Energo-fascism can be traced to two overarching phenomena: an imminent collision between energy demand and energy supplies, and the historic migration of the center of gravity of planetary energy output from the global north to the global south.
For the past 60 years, the international energy industry has largely succeeded in satisfying the world's ever-growing thirst for energy in all its forms. When it comes to oil alone, global demand jumped from 15 to 82 million barrels per day between 1955 and 2005, an increase of 450%. Global output rose by a like amount in those years. Worldwide demand is expected to keep growing at this rate, if not faster, for years to come -- propelled in large part by rising affluence in China, India, and other developing nations. There is, however, no expectation that global output can continue to keep pace. "

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: Is Energo-fascism in Your Future? : : The Pentagon Energy-Protection Racket: "A ruthless scramble among the great powers for the remaining oil, natural gas, and uranium reserves of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, accompanied by recurring military interventions, the constant installation and replacement of client regimes, systemic corruption and repression, and the continued impoverishment of the great majority of those who have the misfortune to inhabit such energy-rich regions. "

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: Is Energo-fascism in Your Future? : : The Pentagon Energy-Protection Racket: "the world actually faces a far more substantial and universal threat, which might be dubbed: Energo-fascism, or the militarization of the global struggle over ever-diminishing supplies of energy.
Unlike Islamo-fascism, Energo-fascism will, in time, affect nearly every person on the planet. Either we will be compelled to participate in or finance foreign wars to secure vital supplies of energy"

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Iraq's history outlines the gravity of today's circumstances. The Ba'athist establishment suppressed Iraq's different power factions for decades. Upon the removal of that establishment, it was natural that the different power factions would engage in conflict until a proper power sharing balance, or state disunion, was eventuated. In all conflicts, the quest for a power balance often involves violent struggle, similar to the struggles seen in other non-homogonous countries such as Lebanon and Yugoslavia. The one way to avoid this in Iraq was to foster Iraqi nationalism as a unifying force. However, throughout the process of forming transitional governments, drafting a constitution, and forming the permanent government, maintaining self-imposed deadlines was given greater importance than containing sectarian divisions. In fact, political parties were formed on sectarian lines, and the constitution itself now provides more space to the divvying up of resources and power along these lines than to the actual form of the government."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The removal from power of Saddam Hussein acted as a giant release valve for Iraq's competing interest groups. Throughout the process of drafting a constitution and fielding political parties, sectarian divisions were placed above national ties. After the constitution was completed, sectarian groups used their own security forces and militias to protect their territorial holdings and gain leverage over other power factions. With the bombing of the al-Askariya mosque in February 2006, the sectarian violence increasingly took on the nature of a civil war.

The country is now engaged in a non-polarized civil war, where the different parties are using their resources to gain the instruments of power."

Foreign Affairs - The Myth Behind China's Miracle - George J. Gilboy: "Summary: Washington need not worry about China's economic boom, much less respond with protectionism. Although China controls more of the world's exports than ever before, its high-return high-tech industries are dominated by foreign companies. And Chinese firms will not displace them any time soon: Beijing's one-party politics have bred a timid business culture that prevents domestic firms from developing key technologies and keeps them dependent on the West."

UN Pulse | A Service/Blog of the United Nations Library - Connecting to UN Information: "The Report of the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations has been presented to the Secretary-General today at a meeting in Istanbul. The report concludes that the key reasons for the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies are not religious, but political. Part I of the report presents an analysis of the global context and of the state of relations between Muslim and Western societies; Part II reflects the Group's view that tensions across cultures have spread beyond the political level into the hearts and minds of populations."

Jamaica Gleaner News - Global trends in missions - Saturday | November 11, 2006: "For centuries European Christians were in the forefront of sending missionaries to serve in non-Western nations. But within the last 100 years, the centre of gravity of Christianity has shifted to the Southern hemisphere.
European Christianity is today a shadow of itself. Some even describe Europe as post-Christian and even anti-Christian. The new centre of gravity for Christianity includes Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific nations...
Evangelical Christianity, he said, is the fastest growing religious movement in the world at this time. 'We are growing at more than double the closest religion and more than triple of the world's population growth rate,' he told the audience."

The Arlington Institute: "A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare -- (MIT Technology Review -- October 27, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17668&ch=infotech
The release of the U.S. National Space Policy has worried many experts, who say the policy marks a strategic shift toward a more military-oriented, unilateral approach to space for the United States. They fear that the policy, if followed, could begin an arms race leading to catastrophic space warfare."