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Due to a public holiday, Asia Times Online will not be updated until November 29. Dollar drops: Good news and bad The best way to tackle a falling dollar is, ironically, to allow it to fall further. There's no easy way out of this mess as the world financial order itself is based on an unequal arrangement under which the US spends what Asia saves. But engineering a coordinated fall in the dollar is no easy task either, fraught as it is with its own set of risks. - Jack Crooks Startling Stroupe headline The US foreign policy hawks who pushed for the Iraq invasion are now pushing President George W Bush to take extreme measures with North Korea, including planning for an economic embargo or for military strikes to bring about regime change and a better class of dictator. - Jim Lobe THE ROVING EYE The recipe for civil war Fallujah plus elections amounts to civil war in Iraq. This tragic equation may come to life in January when Iraqis are due to go to the polls. Most Sunnis will boycott the elections and denounce them as illegitimate, while Shi'ites, for the first time, will be in power. - Pepe Escobar Further into the Iraqi labyrinth According to the Bush administration's thinking, the elixir for Iraq's swirling chaos remains the inexorable march of freedom, a keystone of which will be the recently announced January 30 elections. But in lieu of a miraculous election that unites Iraqis and ends the insurgency, a long bloody occupation is in store. - Ashraf Fahim The burden of the wounded The US military death toll in Iraq for November has been at least 101 so far, 54 of which took place in the Fallujah offensive, bringing the overall figure to 1,227 deaths since the war began last year. Many thousands more soldiers have been wounded or maimed, which is where the problems begin. - David Isenberg SPEAKING FREELY GI Joes who just want to go home US soldiers in Iraq increasingly want to live forever, or at least for as long as it takes to get home, whereas insurgents and jihadis are increasingly willing to die - to be killed and kill themselves and also their own - to make sure the Americans go. - Sarah Whalen   Russia ups the nuclear ante Russia's announcement that it is building advanced nuclear missiles is viewed not only as a reaction to the US missile defense system, but also a sign of Moscow's increased assertiveness internationally. Washington, meanwhile, doesn't seem too concerned. - Sergei Blagov The convoluted case of the coveted Kurils Japan has flatly refused Russia's offer to return two of the four contested Kuril Islands - believed rich in oil and gas, and definitely fish - seized at the end of World War II. Tokyo demands all four islands back and some analysts say the US should mediate, since it has good ties with both Tokyo and Moscow. - Kosuke Takahashi Pakistan's Bhutan gambit worries Delhi By sending a large delegation to Bhutan, Pakistan has left New Delhi - long suspicious of Islamabad's role in fueling anti-India activities in neighboring countries - with a sense of unease, particularly given India's success in making its border with Bhutan virtually insurgent-free. Washington's silence, too, is cause for concern. - Ramtanu Maitra Anwar the Malaysian chameleon While speculation continues as to where Anwar Ibrahim will place his political allegiances, Malaysia's former deputy premier has quietly gone about courting minorities and the disfranchised. Often accused of being a chameleon, he'll need to hone his message. But it appears that Anwar may be on to something. - Ioannis Gatsiounis James Borton eyes the media OhmyNews' wired red devils South Korea's OhmyNews, a youthful, anti-establishment and frequently anti-American website, is shaking up stodgy national media and galvanizing politics in a country where the Internet reaches almost 64% of the country's 49 million people. The secret: Thousands of paid "netizen" journalists and "wired red devils".   BEST OF BEFORE Seoul rows against the US tide South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun stunned foreign-policy experts and the State Department by saying that North Korea's central argument for its nuclear weapons program - that it is a necessary defense against hostility and threat - is not entirely illogical. A frank assertion. And a wakeup call for the US. - David Scofield (Nov 23, '04)  Hawks push regime change in N Korea The US foreign policy hawks that pushed for the Iraq invasion are now pushing President George W Bush to take extreme measures with North Korea, including planning for an economic embargo or for military strikes to bring about regime change and a better class of dictator. - Jim Lobe (Nov 23, '04) Allawi struggles for acceptance US-appointed interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has instituted martial law, revived the secret police and acquiesced to the assault on Fallujah. His minister of justice has brought back the death penalty and spoken of chopping off the heads of those described as insurgents. Allawi has an uphill struggle in winning over Iraqis. (Nov 23, '04) SPENGLER Muslim anger and Western hypocrisy Smugness oozes from European politicians who demand that Muslims repudiate violence as a precondition for residence in the West. To repudiate the death sentence for blasphemy, as meted out to Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, would be the same as abandoning the Islamic order. (Nov 22, '04) THE DRAGON IN CENTRAL ASIA PART 2: Fighting thirst, and militants China's "go west" policy aimed at further developing its northwestern retgion requires ever-growing amounts of water, which has long-term adverse implications for Kazakhstan. And while China and Central Asia face similar threats from militant Islamic groups, Beijing is more concerned with restricting the activities of Uighur nationalists. This is the concluding article in a two-part report. (Nov 23, '04) Beijing says the 's' word It is taboo in most diplomacy, especially in China, to say "sorry" or to "apologize". But lo and behold, China came very close last week when Japan demanded an apology for a submarine intrusion. After stonewalling for days, China came up with a formula involving the word "sorry". - Li YongYan (Nov 22, '04) THE ROVING EYE The Sunni-Shi'ite power play Under the current US-imposed timetable for Iraq, the Shi'ites will be in power after elections scheduled for next January. This will leave a Shi'ite-dominated government to combat a widespread Sunni res istance movement with only a ragged bunch of guerrilla-infiltrated Iraqi security forces. - Pepe Escobar Battle plans unravel The US is faced with the choice of leaving Fallujah and allowing the "rebel" government that has ruled it since April to return to power, or allow the resistance to take power in other cities. Either option will leave the US in a significantly worse position than it was in before the attack. - Michael Schwartz  US military on the scent of oil The Pentagon's Global Posture Review, when fully implemented next year, will determine US air and naval bases and ground force posts, access or basing rights and transit agreements around the world. These will allow for rapid responses to contingencies that could arise from a number of "vital national security interests". Contingencies, that is, that relate to transport and source considerations for oil. (Nov 19, '04)  The case for China to pull the peg Despite the serious pitfalls, there are also excellent reasons why China should move toward a more flexible currency regime by easing the yuan's tight peg to the greenback. Beijing, though, is averse to fast moves in large steps - in particular, in response to foreign pressure - so the first steps will probably be small. - Ying Trong (Nov 19, '04)   Calvin Klein lands in India First Tommy Hilfiger, now Calvin Klein. The arrival of top fashion brands in India in droves points to the evolution of India from a low-income, low-cost destination to a vibrant economy where the most expensive labels can find a market. - Siddharth Srivastava  BOOK REVIEW A march of mediocrity Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium, edited by Marcelo M Suarez-Orozco and Desiree Baolian Qin-Hilliard In the already vast sea of academic writing on globalization, this collection of 10 essays fails to stand out - indeed, seven of its 10 essays are laughably shallow. Yet stranded within the volume's visceral maze are essays by three authors who have done their homework and actually have something to say. - Piyush Mathur Daily Forex Commentary Due to technical problems, there is no Jack Crooks column for Tuesday.   Market Indices   Asian Markets Report Business in Brief Economics Infrastructure Banking Energy IT Autos Telecoms Aviation Company Briefs (Advertorial) WSI Internet's Asian franchise expansion soars WSI Internet continues its rapid Asian franchise expansion - amidst record levels of Internet use in Asia-Pacific.  WEEKEND CARTOON by Gavin Coates See Gavin's page for more. FROM OUR MAILBOX Your article on the promotion of Mandarin in Singapore [Singapore talks to the Dragon, Nov 24] had a definite Mandarin-centrist and Sino-centrist point of view. Your comment that the Chinese communities in Taiwan "would speak Mandarin rather than a dialect as a mark of elegance and education" may be true for the Chinese refugees who came to Taiwan in 1949, but for the Taiwanese population who spoke the Hoklo/Taiwanese language it [Mandarin] was a language that was forced upon them ... Gene Deune Baltimore, Maryland Go to the Letters page A 7-part ATol exclusive (Jul 04) THE WORLD AT NIGHT