People's Daily Online -- China to lose labor advantage in a decade, scholar: "China's advantage in cheap labor will disappear and its industrial structure will be forced to upgrade ten yens later when the 'baby boom' generation born in the 1950s and 60s enter their old age. "

SEMI NanoForum Highlights Opportunities, Challenges in Emerging Industry: "During a keynote speech on the first day of NanoForum, Richard Smalley,
director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory at Rice University in Houston, Texas, identified the shortage of fossil fuels as the most
significant problem facing human civilization. Nanotechnology has the potential to provide an energy storage capability so that alternative energy
sources can be widely adopted. 'We need new technology to solve the energy problem,' he said.
However, Smalley warned that the U.S. would experience a shortage of future scientists to find solutions to these problems. That's because fewer young people were pursuing science and technology as careers."

Gmail - FUTUREdition Volume 7, Number 21: "In a British court, people with inherited forms of cancer have won the right to select embryos free from the genes that might trigger the disease in future generations"

Headlines for Monday, November 15, 2004: "Sachs says the coils of Africa's poverty trap include: Very high transport costs, with many Africans living in the interior of a continent with few navigable rivers; low agricultural productivity, with erratic rainfall, few rivers for irrigation, and not enough fertilizer to replace nutrients in an increasingly withered soil. Africa has also missed out on much of the 'Green Revolution', which has focused on wheat, rice and maize. Only the latter is widely grown in Africa, which is also heavily dependent on millet and tubers. A very high disease burden, especially from HIV/AIDS and malaria, climatic and biological factors that make African malaria particularly intractable, adverse geopolitics, including ruthless exploitation by colonial powers, a vast slave trade stretching back centuries undermining state formation; and, finally, a very slow diffusion of technology from abroad all have added to Africa s woes."

Gary Leupp: Imperialist France Destroys an African Air Force: "Chirac's government challenged the U.S. on Iraq, not because of some higher Gallic moral standard, nor because of cozy business ties with Saddam (such as the neocons alleged as they pronounced this old ally an 'enemy'). It opposed the invasion because it understood its goal: to secure U.S. hegemony over the entire, strategically located and oil-rich Middle East, to ensure that in what the neocons posit as the 'New American Century' no other power (including a united Europe) will be able to challenge America's 'full spectrum dominance' of the planet."

People's Daily Online -- Middle East enters a 'post-Arafat era': News analysis: "The death of Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine National Authority (PNA), affects the nerve of the Middle East and the world as a whole. What does the departure of this decades-long influential fighter imply to Palestine? After his death, how will the various political forces regroup themselves and distribute powers? And what will be the prospect of the Middle East peace process? "

The Sources of American Legitimacy - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "World public opinion now sees the United States increasingly as an outlier-invoking international law when convenient, and ignoring it when not; using international institutions when they work to its advantage, and disdaining them when they pose obstacles to U.S. designs. "

China/Iran: Beijing Looking To Tehran to Fuel Its Booming Economy - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: "China's economy is booming, witnessed by its skyrocketing energy needs. Oil imports have doubled over the past five years and surged nearly 40 percent during the first eight months of 2004 alone. In an effort to secure future energy reserves, state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong agreed earlier this year to buy $20 billion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran over the next 25 years. More recently, Beijing signed a much bigger accord with Tehran under which China will buy Iranian oil and gas and help develop the country's giant Yadavaran oil field. "

Africa: Diminishing Water Resources Could Fuel Conflict - Experts - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: Experts at a conference organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the African Union, and the Dutch and Ethiopian governments warned that water scarcity in Africa could lead to conflict, disease and food shortages. "Unsustainable use of water, poor management, pollution, increasing consumption and rapid population growth" cause water shortages, and the UN says that by 2025 one out of two Africans will be living in countries facing water scarcity. (Integrated Regional Information Networks)

J'accuse: War Crimes & Iraq - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council Conn Hallinan charges that the US has systematically violated international law in its fight against terrorism. The US has violated the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention Against Torture through mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The Bush administration justifies its acts by pointing to the "changed nature of the post-9/11 world," a world in which international law apparently does not apply to Washington's decision-makers. (Foreign Policy in Focus)

Global Issues of the Twenty-First Century: United Nations Challenges: "Each person now being a member of a surviving group(state?), fighting/competing/cooperating with others individuals or groups for dominance/benefits/survival, and also able to threaten any function or survival of the environment, has'suddenly'become one of a species with potential planetary-scale creation or destruction. "

Global Issues of the Twenty-First Century: United Nations Challenges: "About five centuries ago, the human race - for the first time in a million-year history - began an increasingly disciplined study of itself and the whole world. In the resulting'evolutionary instant', we have already discovered enough about laws of physics to fundamentally change our conditions and capacities. We may possess the power to transform our entire planet - and ourselves - for good or ill."

Message From the Director-General: "How will our mass consumption, such as automobiles, airplanes, electric device and chemical products which we have created, influence the futurity of global environment?
Although we have been faced with various forms of highly unusual events such as earthquakes or global warming phenomena, we had never a measure of how to accurately predict what is going to happen in the future.
By means of Earth Simulator, we have come to a point where we can predict the future by recreation of Earth, basing from the present to distant past."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Only in the unlikely case that Washington manages to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq in the short term will other powers think twice about probing U.S. vulnerabilities. In South America, Brazil will attempt to secure a foothold for the Mercosur customs union and beat back Washington's efforts to extend the N.A.F.T.A. formula south. In East Asia, China will push for regional hegemony and is likely to put pressure on Taiwan and to try to draw Southeast Asian states into its sphere of influence. Beijing can also be expected to drag its feet on North Korean denuclearization and to continue to oppose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Russia will attempt to increase its influence over the states on its periphery that were formerly Soviet republics. Moscow will try to strengthen ties in Central Asia, the Transcaucasus and Eastern Europe (Belarus and Ukraine), and to fend off Washington's inroads into those areas. The European Union, with the Franco-German combine at its heart, will continue its moves to assimilate its Eastern European members and extend its sphere of influence to the entire Mediterranean basin through trade agreements. In each of these regions, Washington will face tests leading to the possibility of an overload of challenges and a decreased likelihood that any one of them will be handled with sufficient attention and resources."

PINR - The Waning Influence of Neo-Conservative Strategists: "Now, due to pursuing these idealistic policies, the U.S. is embroiled in a difficult conflict in Iraq, only marginally successful in its intervention in Afghanistan, and is witnessing a rise in Islamist activity around the world -- couple this with a mounting a U.S. budget deficit, and the United States is in a precarious geopolitical position."

PINR - The Waning Influence of Neo-Conservative Strategists: " Brought to power through the inauguration of the Bush administration, a group of individuals who pursued neo-conservative ideology managed to institute their policy directives during the window of opportunity created after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The central goal of this neo-conservative faction was, and remains, to sustain the U.S. as the unchallenged superpower in the world, capable of launching military strikes against any states or groups that threaten this status."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Since all of bin Laden's complaints are key components in U.S. interests, it will be difficult for the U.S. to compromise on any of them. The dilemma, however, is that these important U.S. interests are affecting Muslims in adverse ways. Through U.S. support of Israel, Muslims in Palestine are oppressed, in addition to Arab and Persian aspirations for regional dominance. Through the proliferation of U.S. troops in the region, Muslims see themselves weak in the face of superior U.S. technology and control. U.S. support of regional dictatorships has resulted in these leaders having the financial and political support to crack down on dissidents, often imprisoning or torturing these individuals who care to exercise democratic rights -- whether through violent or peaceful means. Finally, U.S. demand for below-market oil prices is seen by Muslims as theft of their oil resources. Indeed, thus far, the U.S. has not compromised on any of these interests which explains why al-Qaeda still considers the U.S. a threat and a target, and demonstrates why Muslims continue to hold a negative view of the United States.

This fundamental clash of interests, which is only heightened by the difference in cultures, exemplifies why the United States and Islamic revolutionaries have not been able to find common ground on issues that affect them both."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "attacks are meant to advance bin Laden's clear, focused, limited, and widely popular foreign policy goals: the end of U.S. aid to Israel and the ultimate elimination of that state; the removal of U.S. and Western forces from the Arabian Peninsula; the removal of U.S. and Western military forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim lands; the end of U.S. support for the oppression of Muslims by Russia, China, and India; the end of U.S. protection for repressive, apostate Muslim regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, et cetera; and the conservation of the Muslim world's energy resources and their sale at higher prices."

Gmail - World Bank Development News Headlines for Wednesday, November 10, 2004The United States are on "a very dangerous path" because it is spending $450 billion annually on the military and just $15 billion to promote development in poor countries, Dow Jones reports the head of the UN anti-poverty effort warned Tuesday.

Foreign Policy: Devour and Conquer: "Such was the distraction that while the perpetrators of September 11 were taking flight lessons and buying box cutters, the U.S. defense establishment was consumed debating the merits of a multibillion-dollar, multi-year investment in a national shield against ballistic missiles that can only be lobbed by other nations. This in a country where 60 million people enter on more than 675,000 flights each year, where 116 million vehicles cross land borders, and more than 90,000 merchant ships carrying over 9 million cargo containers come to dock. Within this massive flow, termites are sure to lurk, and national missile defense is of no use."

Foreign Policy: The Cost of Living Dangerously: "More severe security measures are probably necessary and inevitable, even from a narrow economic perspective. Another atrocity on the scale of September 11 would wreak havoc on energy prices, stock markets, and consumer confidence, slamming the brakes on today�s global economic recovery. But just like other desirable government initiatives (such as environmental regulations or workplace safety laws), antiterrorism measures can work at far less cost when they are flexible and market-friendly. For example, just as some countries provide fast-track airport security lines to high-paying business travelers, shippers ought to be able to pay higher fees to move more quickly to the head of the customs queue. Similarly, higher fees should help accelerate visa applications. No doubt, such measures may offend some people�s sense of egalitarianism, but these policies and others like them are essential. The benefits of today�s interconnected market economies won�t survive under a vast and inflexible command-and-control security arrangement."

Foreign Policy: The Cost of Living Dangerously: "Consider, for example, the likely consequence of enhanced security at shipping ports worldwide to monitor for biological or nuclear weapons material, a precaution many experts consider inevitable. Currently, only about 2 percent of all cargo reaching U.S. shores is subject to inspection. The July 2004 report of the U.S. 9/11 Commission noted that, until better technologies become available, authorities should improve methods of �identifying and tracking the high-risk containers, operators, and facilities that require added scrutiny."

Foreign Policy: Four More Years: Whatever some hawks might like to do, the reality is that the Bush administration will face a series of constraints—military, diplomatic, political, and economic—that will curb its ability to launch new preventive wars. Moreover, say adherents of the Skeptic school, the power of the neoconservatives inside the administration will probably be diminished, not augmented, during Bush’s second term.

Labor is less mobile By some measures, capital markets were more integrated at the beginning of the century, and labor is less mobile than in the second half of the 19th century when sixty million people left Europe for new worlds.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Globalization and Trade: "Globalism" does not imply universality. At the turn of the millenium, a quarter of the American population used the World Wide Web compared to one hundredth of one percent of the population of South Asia. Most people in the world today do not have telephones; hundreds of millions of people live as peasants in remote villages with only slight connections to world markets or the global flow of ideas. Indeed, globalization is accompanied by increasing gaps, in many respects, between the rich and the poor.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Globalization and Trade: Islam's quite rapid diffusion from Arabia across Asia to what is now Indonesia was a clear instance of globalization;

Bioinvasion Fears of “bioinvasion” led some environmental groups to call for a reduction in global trade and travel.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Globalization and Trade: "During the European colonial period, traders, invaders, settlers, and slaves were transported via ocean-going ships from one continent to another. These colonists brought new diseases and exotic species with them that ravaged human populations and ecosystems in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia. The modes of transportation, and the speed at which items have been transported, have increased exponentially over time. As these capabilities have developed, new communications technologies were introduced that have enabled corporations, governments, and militaries to significantly increase the transportation of goods, services, and information from continent to continent. "

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Globalization and Trade: "Species once spread across the earth very slowly, blocked by deep oceans and varying climates on land. Human beings took more than one million years to move from Africa to all the other continents. Human trade and communication over great distance dates back more than 2,000 years, when products first began to travel between China and Europe along the Silk Road. Within a few centuries the Silk Road carried Buddhism from India to China. It was the desire to trade that drove European nations to develop great sailing ships at the end of the fifteenth century, breaking the Venetian monopoly on trade with Asia and causing the European discovery of the Americas in 1492. These ships became the technology that allowed large numbers of plants, animals, people, and viruses to be transported from one continent to another."

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "Many analysts see a change away from the culture of consumption as a more promising way of reducing environmental degradation. The consumption choices of middle- and upper-class people drive much of the world�s pollution. These choices are encouraged by mass advertising and are rarely discouraged by government policy. Furthermore, according to capitalist economic theory, a lack of growth in consumption could lead to serious economic recessions. Economists and government officials are working to develop tools that could guide a more environmentally sustainable economy."

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "Pollution created by transportation use is growing quickly for a number of interrelated reasons. The use of airplanes is rising, which creates pollution that incites increases in greenhouse gases that contribute to the intensity and frequency of unusual climate events. The international transportation of consumer goods is growing, commutes are lengthening as the world�s cities increase their urban sprawl, and automobiles are quickly becoming more common in some of the world�s most populous nations (e.g., China, India, etc.). "

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "Reliance on fossil fuels is entrenched in current technologies in many sectors (e.g., energy, transportation, industrial production, etc.) and replacing the fuels that drive these industries with sustainable energy sources will be a complicated process that must include considerations such as: the introduction of more environmentally sustainable technological inventions, the retrofitting of fueling stations, and ethically related cultural changes that support the reduction of consumption. "

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "In 2002 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued the third edition of its biennial report, Global Environment Outlook. This GEO3 report describes four scenarios for the environment and human society over the next thirty years. The four scenarios are entitled: Markets First, Policy First, Security First, Sustainability First.
The authors of GEO3 consider the Sustainability First scenario to be the most positive outcome for developing societies hoping to move forward in an environmentally sustainable manner."

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: The contrast between the “haves” who accumulate excess consumer goods and the “have-nots” who still lack basic necessities (e.g., electricity and transportation) affects global economic and environmental interests.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "Most water, land, and atmospheric pollution can be traced to the production and increased consumption of various products. A large proportion of the world�s energy is devoted to middle- and upper-class consumption of expensive products (e.g., cars, televisions, meat, etc.). Advertising by the mass communications industry, for example, encourages the consumption of more products, often specialty products that require extended transportation over longer distances. Yet the details of how the manufacture of various products is linked to increases in pollution levels are practically unknown to the typical consumer. Though there are limits to many natural resources, many people believe that there is no limit to the products they should be able to purchase, as long as they can earn enough money to buy them. "

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "Several trends are increasing the use of transportation. Lower tariffs on imported goods (agreed upon through international trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conferences) are encourages increases in international trade and this is, in turn, encouraging production which in turn encourages pollution through both the production and transportation of these goods. "

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: As humans become accustomed to inexpensive mobility and consumer products transported from other countries, it becomes more difficult to limit the carbon-dioxide emissions that are changing the Earth’s climate.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Energy, Transportation, Consumer Culture: "For these reasons, new technologies must be developed not only for energy production, but also for energy conservation and for the infrastructure that links production to consumption. For example, since the infrastructure to fuel vehicles powered by alternative fuels (e.g., hydrogen, electricity) does not yet exist on a widespread basis, a new generation of automobile fueling stations will need to be constructed."

UK's Brown Says Poverty Breeds Terrorism, Urges More Aid - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "China's rivals are suffering, but capital goods producers are winning, reports the Australian Financial Review. How has the Chinese export juggernaut affected the development of its neighbors? It's no trivial issue. The developing countries of the region, in which we have a major strategic and economic interest, depend on export-oriented growth to power their development and lift their citizens out of poverty. Indonesia is one example. It needs strong export growth to recapture the dynamic growth of the pre-crisis decades. But Indonesia's export performance has been weak, although its exchange rate has been, on average, 30 per cent below its pre-crisis level. Part of Indonesia's problem, according to the International Monetary Fund, is intense competition from Chinese exporters. "

We Want to Elect the American President - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: "It seems to me that to democratize the Middle East we need to liberate ourselves from not one but three authorities: autocratic power structures throughout the region; the authorities above the law, i.e. Israel; and the most overreaching authority of all, the United States of America. None of these authorities, as far as the 'Middle East' is concerned, is genuinely democratic. "

We Want to Elect the American President - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: "Therefore, the nation state is no longer the only suitable locus for democracy. For if the situation continues as is, the contradictions resulting from the application of democratic principles in sovereign states will increase, leading us to a new colonial era where calls for democracy from around the world would remain largely unanswered. This new colonial wave already has its own ideology: the clash of civilizations, militarism and Bushism. "

We Want to Elect the American President - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: "We ought to take seriously the findings of a recent global opinion poll in 23 countries and consider joining the citizens of the world in electing the next American president. Making this proposition a reality should be very simple since it rests on a fundamental and democratic tenet: decisions taken by the resident of the White House affect the destiny of countries, peoples and individuals all over the world. In other words, the latter is the president of the world and it is only right for those who are at the receiving end of any authority's decisions to express their opinion and participate in its election. "

Gmail By the mid-1980s the Soviets were in Kabul, and had all but defeated the Mujahedeen. The Soviet Union appeared secure in its military occupation of Afghanistan. But then, in 1986, the first US Stinger missiles reached the hands of the Afghani resistance; and, quite suddenly, Soviet helicopter gunships and MiGs began dropping out of the skies like flaming stones. The tide swiftly turned, and by 1989 it was all over but the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth in the Kremlin. Defeated, the Soviets slunk back across the frontier. The whole world cheered the American Stingers, which had carried the day.

Une Amérique chrétienne pour sauver le monde Universités, télévisions, sites internet, journaux, livres, tracts: les évangéliques et leurs pasteurs vedettes disposent de grands moyens pour convertir l’Amérique et la planète entière

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-: "Noting the self-interested nature of governments throughout history, US dispute resolution scholar Lawrence Susskind proposes innovative ways to increase compliance with international treaties, such as the posting of bond money by national governments which is then slowly recovered by each government as long as it continues to follow the treaty."

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-Predictions about the future of conflict vary widely. Some political scientists believe that the US, with economic and military strength far exceeding any other country, will be able to instill a worldwide “Pax Americana” through the twenty-first century, similar to the “Pax Romana” period under the Roman Empire when there was little international conflict in the area controlled by the Romans. Others argue that the economic and military power of the US could be successfully challenged in this century, possibly by China, by the outrage of the world’s poorest peoples, or by the growing network of militant, terrorist-oriented fundamentalist groups located throughout the world.

FORE: Disciplines-Policy-Global Trends-: "governments spent approximately $800 billion on military expenses, about $130 per human being, and employed over twenty million soldiers."

OECD Observer: Global truths: "Chief among these is the notion that globalisation places draconian limitations on national policies. This statement bears close examination. My own view is that wrong-headed policies that lead businesses and individuals to use their resources or time in wasteful, unproductive ways will bring economic decline and less prosperity, whether or not the national economy is engaged in the global economic system. We have many historical examples of countries that tried autarky and failed."

Gmail - [PINR] Nov. 5, 2004: Growing Russian Influence in Central AsiaOn the energy front, despite moves made by the U.S. and China to exercise control over energy routes, Russia still has an edge. Most of the existing Central Asian pipelines pass through Russia. At present, Russia contributes nearly 15 percent of the oil supplied to the U.S. According to Russia’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref, Russia can start to freely compete with the Arab oil-producing countries to supplement the American market.

Press Review for Nov. 3, 2004 Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the poorest regions in the world, will slide deeper into poverty over the next decade despite a bold economic recovery plan, according to a survey released by the independent South African Institute of Race Relations' (SAIRR) on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
This annual report estimates that the region, ravaged by an HIV/AIDS pandemic, will account for half the world's poor by 2015 - up from 27 percent in 1999. "Despite the efforts of New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union ... Africa will get significantly poorer during a time period that will see global povertyreduced by a third," the SAIRR said. The study predicted that the number of people living on less than a dollar a day globally would fall to 810 million from 1.17 billion by 2015. "In sub-Saharan Africa the opposite will happen. From 241 million people living on less than a dollar a day in 1990 that figure increased to 315 million in 1999 and is set to reach over 400 million by 2015," it said.
The study also found that spending on healthcare had declined by 4.8 percent in real terms in South Africa between 1996 and 2003, and that the mortality rate for children under five years of age had risen by 63.9 percent between 1998 and 2002. The SAIRR said the proportion of tuberculosis cases recorded in the country that were also HIV positive related increased from 23.4 percent in 1995 to 62 percent in 2003.
SAPA adds that apart from North Africa and the Middle East -- where the poor would increase from six million in 1999 to eight million in 2015 -- Sub Saharan Africa was the only region in the world which is getting poorer.