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Syria and Lebanon stare into the abyss
Fears are growing that sectarian clashes in Lebanon's major cities signal the
country is being drawn into Syria's deadly uprising, as violence in Syria
reaches new heights. As the Sunni Muslim community in Lebanon increasingly
perceives the government to be acting in the interests of Damascus, there is a
danger that geographical borders between the countries could effectively be
erased, leading to fragmentation along sectarian lines.
- Victor Kotsev (May 23, '12)
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Pakistan hoist by its own petard
An apparent u-turn on reopening North Atlantic Treaty Organization supply lines
to Afghanistan led to embarrassing snubs for Pakistan's President Asif Ali
Zardari at NATO's Chicago summit. It seems Zardari backtracked in cold
realization that Islamabad's leadership has placed itself between a furious
Pakistani public and the country's principal source of weapons and funding. - Karamatullah
K Ghori (May 23, '12)
 SUN
WUKONG
Disparities in data
Data releases on corruption and home ownership are arousing huge controversy in
China for being wildly out of step with reality. An anti-graft survey showing
more than 70% of the people happy with state efforts to tackle the scourge is
being widely derided as faked, while the destitute in particular are outraged
by figures pointing to the average urban family owning more than one home. - Wu
Zhong (May 23, '12)
Russia sends sea signals as
China blusters
The Chinese media emphasized unity and an implicitly anti-American tone in
reporting naval exercises between China and Russia, befitting its stance that
the reorientation of US forces to East Asia is unfriendly and hostile. Russia
was more circumspect, discreetly signaling that too much US pressure on
checking China in Asia will lead Moscow closer to Beijing.
- Stephen Blank (May 23, '12)
 SINOGRAPH
We're all zombies in the
communism of the mall
About 400 million unborn Chinese have been sacrificed on the altar of economic
development since 1980. They, like all of us, are zombies in the unnatural
quest for an eternal life lived in shopping malls. Closeness to death, from
Tiananmen to the SARS epidemic and beyond, is breeding an indomitable vitality
in China, whereas the West needs new ideas and old religions to give sense to
life. - Francesco Sisci (May 23, '12)
Pitfalls of surrogacy in India
exposed
The death of an Indian surrogate mother in her eight month of pregnancy has
thrown a spotlight on the country's booming fertility tourism industry.
Concerns the treatment of Premila Vaghela was geared towards saving the baby -
which did survive - and not her, suggest a starkly unequal relationship between
wealthy foreign customers and the poverty-stricken women whose wombs they rent.
- Neeta Lal (May 23, '12)
 Spend,
spend, spend
War American-style, already long detached from the lives of most Americans, is
growing more so: ever more secret, presidential, and beyond the control of, or
accountability to, citizens or congress. In only one way is this not true:
taxpayers still fork over the massive sums that make the US's perpetual state
of war and war state possible. - Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer
(May 23, '12)
SPEAKING FREELY
Changing the names of the
game
It's hard to imagine the President of the United State saying: "Allah Bless
America!" or the Pope calling Jesus Christ and St Nikolas "a Buddha" and "a
Shengren". Yet we demand at all times that Muslims have a God and that
Confucius is a saint. The destruction of non-Western ideas with Western
concepts of philosophy, religion, and science was hardly ever challenged, yet
this could now change. - Thorsten Pattberg (May
23, '12)
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Speaking Freely click
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Singapore, Hong Kong unite against
'locusts'
A fatal car smash after a speeding Ferrari jumped a red light in Singapore has
brought resentment against mainland Chinese into sharp focus, igniting a tirade
of abuse against "locusts" flooding the job and property markets. Inflamed
opinion spread with rumors that the "financial investor" dead at the wheel of
the limited edition sports car was the brother of a Chongqing mafia boss and
had been accused of money laundering in Hong Kong. - Augustine Tan
(May 22, '12)
Lebanon's new wild card: Shaker
al-Barjawi
The murder of prominent Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Wahed on Sunday, and
the street battles that followed, forced open a new chapter in Lebanon's
supercharged sectarian tensions and put the name of pro-Syria Arab Movement
Party leader Shaker al-Barjawi on everyone's lips. A civil war veteran with the
credentials needed to lead a Sunni militia serving as Hezbollah's proxy,
Barjawi is the new wild card in a polarized political mix. - Sami Moubayed
(May 22, '12)
INTERVIEW
The 'limitless horizon" of
capitalism
Costanzo Preve, born of Italian parents and with an Armenian grandmother, never
had it easy; he chose the path of uncompromising philosophy, and he begun to
recognize the historical failure of communism very early. He is also convinced
that globalization has produced a storm, an economic tsunami that has created a
series of common problems that in the past centuries did not exist. - Claudio
Gallo (May 22, '12)
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North Korea's 'organizational life'
in decline
Since the 1950s, weekly indoctrination and mutual criticism sessions have done
more to instill the greatness of the Kim family into the North Korean psyche
than state-run media, with local committees also more active in punishments
than political police. However, as Kim Il-sung's "national Stalinism" is eroded
and the black economy explodes, "organizational life" is increasingly seen as a
troublesome formality.
- Andrei Lankov (May 22, '12)
NATO agrees to Afghan timetable
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has approved at its Chicago summit plans
to hand over security in Afghanistan to local forces by mid-2013 and to
withdraw combat troops by 2014, pledging that Kabul "won't stand alone" and
that Afghan troops will be ready to battle the Taliban. Scant progress in
repairing ties with Pakistan suggests the withdrawal presents its own
challenges. (May 22, '12)
No settlement in sight for
Thailand's south
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra appears more ready than previous governments
to negotiate a settlement of the Muslim insurgency in the south, but her
ability to end the violent stalemate is limited. Car bombings are thought to
reflect insurgent opposition to talks with an administration aligned to
Yingluck's brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, while the army opposes
decentralization. - Jason Johnson (May 22,
'12)
China trade move with Japan,
Korea is Asian game-changer
A trilateral free-trade agreement between China, Japan and South Korea, though
tough to achieve, will have significant effects on the global economy and on
the strategic environment in Asia, with the willingness to hold formal talks
nearly as important as the FTA itself. - Brendan O’Reilly
(May 22, '12)
Oil boost for Bangladesh
Two new oil discoveries in the north of Bangladesh will help relieve the
country's dire energy shortages and ease pressure on its balance of payments.
Production may begin next year, with the prospect of more finds to come in the
same area. - Syed Tashfin Chowdhury (May 22,
'12)
Iran nuclear talks gaining traction
Iran's leadership is confidently reassuring the public that any nuclear deal
with the "Iran Six" in Baghdad talks on Wednesday will not sacrifice the
national interest. Tehran has calculated that France's presidential change and
the eurozone crisis have sapped Europe's fighting spirit, with the need to keep
oil prices stable before November's election also cooling hawkish sentiment in
the United States. - M K Bhadrakumar (May 21,
'12)
 THE
ROVING EYE
War and cheeseburgers
The new cheeseburger diplomacy, sealed at the Oval Office by President Barack
Obama and French President Francois Hollande, is supposed to save Greece,
revamp the eurozone and reignite the US economy, just in time for the November
US presidential election. It also means agreeing to talk some more with Iran.
- Pepe Escobar (May 21, '12)
 SPENGLER
What if Facebook is
really
worth $100 billion?
Facebook and its social media imitators diminish us by substituting
unpredictable human interaction with a pre-arranged display window whose
purpose is to block our gaze from the real person behind it. Sadly, the system
- and its raison d'etre to advertise one's conformity to commercial culture
while preserving the illusion of individuality - is worth a great deal of
money. And even sadder, it is unlikely to fail. (May
21, '12)
 CHAN
AKYA
Penalty shoot-out -
the
political edition
English soccer team Chelsea emphatically showed that context and chance can
overcome all expectations in the sporting arena, a point relevant for leaders
of the Group of Eight nations engrossed by Saturday's European final when
applied to their own bitter political and economic games.
(May 22, '12)
<IT WORLD>
Facebook floats
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now officially worth close to US$20 billion
after successfully bringing off the initial public offering for his young
social network site. Fans keen to grab a piece of the company may have to pay
50% more than the initial price when the shares start trading Friday.
(May 18, '12)
Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in computing, science,
gaming and gizmos.
BOOK REVIEW
Cherry-picking from
China's
success
What the US Can Learn from China by Ann Lee
This book forces the reader to confront China's growth in the midst of
America's decline, drawing attention to the reasons US politics became too
self-serving, too short-sighted and too partisan. The author doesn't argue the
Chinese approach is flawless, but she does hold up China's single-minded
fixation on economic growth and a leadership process based on experience as
examples US policymakers must consider. - Benjamin Shobert
(May 18, '12)
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Iraqi
Kurdistan plans
oil pipeline to Turkey
The Kurdistan government in northern Iraq has announced a plan to build an oil
pipeline to Turkey, a move that could cause shifts in the geo-economics of
greater Southwest Asia. The Basra governate in southern Iraq may also now
assert greater authority over deals in its own region. - Robert M Cutler
Myanmar's precarious opening
The advent of signs of democracy in Myanmar means leading multilateral lenders,
with their questionable track record in assisting poor countries, and foreign
investors are moving into the country. Care is required to avoid opening the
doors to further imbalanced exploitation of the country. - Kim Jolliffe
Banks fail school funding
test
Local governments across the United States are closing schools in order to
balance budgets, leaving doubts over their students' future and driving
experienced teachers out of work. Yet adoption of public banking would allow
funding appropriate for education and society's future. - Ellen Brown
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
The jig is up
One remarkable feature of JPMorgan Chase's recent US$3 billion-plus loss is
boss Jamie Dimon's lack of familiarity with the details in spite of prior
publicity on the bank's precarious position. Yet his incredible complacency
merely mirrors that of the wider financial world.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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Obama
at crossroads on Iran
United States President Barack Obama literally finds himself at a crossroads on
Iran where, as Robert Frost wrote, two roads diverge in a yellow wood. Of
course, he can't travel both and "be one traveller" ... - M K Bhadrakumar
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