World – Page 13 – The Daily Brief

Red State Arabia

23. May 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Politics, World

A must read article from Fouad Ajami in OpinionJournal:

The children of Islam, and of the Arabs in particular, had taken to the road, and to terror. There were many liberal, secular Arabs now clamoring for American intervention. The claims of sovereignty were no longer adequate; a malignant political culture had to be “rehabilitated and placed in receivership,” a wise Jordanian observer conceded. Mr. Bush may not be given to excessive philosophical sophistication, but his break with “the soft bigotry of low expectations” in the Arab-Islamic world has found eager converts among Muslims and Arabs keen to repair their world, to wean it from a culture of scapegoating and self-pity. Pick up the Arabic papers today: They are curiously, and suddenly, readable. They describe the objective world; they give voice to recognition that the world has bypassed the Arabs. The doors have been thrown wide open, and the truth of that world laid bare. Grant Mr. Bush his due: The revolutionary message he brought forth was the simple belief that there was no Arab and Muslim “exceptionalism” to the appeal of liberty. For a people mired in historical pessimism, the message of this outsider was a powerful antidote to the culture of tyranny. Hitherto, no one had bothered to tell the Palestinians that they can’t have terror and statehood at the same time, that the patronage of the world is contingent on a renunciation of old ways. This was the condition Mr. Bush attached to his support for the Palestinians. It is too early to tell whether the new restraint in the Palestinian world will hold. But it was proper that Mr. Bush put Arafat beyond the pale.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

Are We Contributing To A Mess In China?

20. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

Larry Kudlow is among the sharpest business comentators on the planet. Here he writes in NRO on the growing mess in China, and how we are contributing to it:

Why is the U.S. threatening economic warfare against China? Currency protection and trade protection not only blunt economic growth, they sour international political relations. If you add in the vexing problem of nuclear proliferation in North Korean and the historic ill-feelings between China and Japan, you’ve got a real geopolitical and economic mess brewing in northeast Asia. With no apparent solution in sight.

I have long held that revaluation of the Yuan would be counterproductive. It will slow growth in China, hurting investors in the rest of the world. Further, the advantages gained by certain sectors from higher-priced Chinese goods will be far outweighed by higher costs for consumers.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit (much more here)

Peace Declared For 1/3 Of The World

11. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

This sounds like good news to me:

CHINA and India have signed a series of agreements to boost trade and improve relations between Asia’s two fastest growing economies, including a pact aimed at resolving a decades-old border dispute.

The border accord, signed in the presence of visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sets out a program to solve the dispute without force.

The Asian giants have also set themselves a target of increasing bilateral trade to $US20 billion by 2008 from a current $US14 billion, a joint statement said.

And, in a related story:

BEIJING — A top-to-bottom modernization is transforming the Chinese military, raising the stakes for U.S. forces long dominant in the Pacific.

Several programs to improve China’s armed forces could soon produce a stronger nuclear deterrent against the United States, soldiers better trained to use high-technology weapons, and more effective cruise and anti-ship missiles for use in the waters around Taiwan, according to foreign specialists and U.S. officials.

In the past several weeks, President Bush and his senior aides, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, have expressed concern over the recent pace of China’s military progress and its effect on the regional balance of power.

FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH: JUST WHO ARE THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS? PART #1

11. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Good God, History, World

This is my second try at this, as the first one disappeared into the ether – probably because of my lack of expertise with html or something like that! I want to give my best effort at explaining those of us who are defined as evangelical Christians (NOTE: NOT fundamentalists!) so people can get the information directly from someone who knows what they are talking about without any of the myths that seem to get propagated around such a seemingly hot-button issue these days. I’ll break this up into several parts so as not to take up too much of the space here, and run the segments a few days apart. That should give you time to question me, and time for me to give the best answers I can.

I really despise the idea of tooting my own horn, but I guess it is somewhat necessary to list some of my education and expertise, and some of my history as regards the subject, if I hope to be considered remotely familiar with the truth here. After that, I will go into some of our history as a church, and detail what our doctrines and practices are, with how we got there. Folks, I’ll do my best to give you the whole picture, and if there’s something I don’t know, I’ll tell you. No BS, I just don’t believe in that, and I’ll be honest and as complete as I know how.

My history: I was raised Southern Baptist until age 16, when I started attending a Pentecostal church, the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) – there are several denominations with the same name – and it was with the Church of God that I got my first formal and semi-formal Bible education courses. I attended Lee College via correspondence, graduating with diploma in Theology. Later, I moved over to the Assemblies of God, a denomination with identical theology and doctrine but different structure and polity, and received further education from Berean University- an AA in Christian Pastoral Ministry. Most of this was done while I was on active duty with the US Air Force, from which I retired in 1993. Also, during a break in service, from 1973-1977, I attended New Hampshire College in Portsmouth, NH, where I earned a BA in Business Management. Not related, I had almost 2 years of electronics tech schools in the AF, and graduated from EMT school in 1978, then paramedic school a few years later.

While in the service, I managed to pastor several small churches part-time, and after retirement I also pastored churches. An injury while working as a paramedic forced me to resign my last church, and today my ministry is mostly teaching and writing, with preaching as a fill-in when I can. Truthfully, teaching has always been the love of my heart as regards ministry, and I think that’s where the Lord can use me best. Today I spend a lot of time on this weblog, and also with my own weblog site, here. On that site, I have a number of links that can be used to explore other Christian websites and get into their doctrines should one so desire.

Aside from all that, I’m trying to get a small business started doing business writing such as technical/mechanical manuals, business proposals, and such type of work for companies who need a professional writer to help them out with composition and publishing/printing. Not being busy enough, I’m still working on a manuscript that I started on a laptop in the back of a C-130 during Gulf War I, true stories of ambulance calls and the heroes who save lives. The title is “LIFESAVERS!”, and with God’s help, I may finish it and get it published someday! Believe me, writing is hard work…..

OK, that’s enough for now. Next, I’ll take a look at Evangelicals and our doctrines, faith, and practice. Thank you for your patience, stay tuned!

The Ultimate Victory – Over Death!

26. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Good God, The Final Frontier, World

It never fails that just when things are going great, I manage to get humbled. Tonight as I was preparing to write my three Easter posts, for this site, and for Patriot Flyer and BNN, my DSL signal went bumping off into the night, taking a holiday. Panicky, I swapped modems, swapped computers, strung wires all over the place, nothing. I got on my dialup – backup, and that worked fine. Calling Bellsouth, I found out that there was a problem, that it couldn’t be fixed tonight, and I will have to suffer the ignominious dragging slowness of dialup until Monday! Check the temper, Joe old boy, you can’t do anything about it, so thank the Lord for dialup, spend a weekend working in a medium that you’ve already forgotten about, and come Monday you’ll be much more thankful for your speedy little dsl signal! OK, Thank the Lord, pass the asdfgqwerty’s and let’s see what is in store for Easter 2005! God bless you every one!

Easter, though some things like the easter bunny crop up to muddy the waters, is a particularly Christian holy day; not a holiday in our secular sense, but truly a very holy day, the very pinnacle of the Christian faith. It is not replicated in any other religion, it was not borrowed from any other culture, it is unique, just as what we celebrate is unique. Let me digress for a moment. I posted on Patriot Flyer yesterday a sort of terse sentence, wherein I said that anyone who is offended by Christianity should just take a hike while we celebrate Easter. I say it again. I promise I won’t get offended by your religion or whatever, if you will just leave the Christians to their celebration without a lot of whining. You might even learn something, if you’re not a Christian and wish to read on, and we most cordially invite you to do so.

Central to the message of the Bible is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. I do understand that our Jewish brothers do not accept Him as Lord, but we do share the Old Testament Scriptures, and counter to the stories of hatred on the part of many Christians in earlier centuries, we Evangelical Christians today closely embrace the Jews, and we are indeed the best friends Israel has in the world. Continuing with my message today, Jesus is central to Christianity, and central to all of that is the resurrection. My views are somewhat narrow here, by design. I believe, supported by scripture, that Jesus did arise from the dead, that he ascended to the Father, and that He is coming again. If we do not accept those truths, there is no Christianity. The Apostle Paul stated in First Corinthians 15, that it is a fact that Jesus arose from the dead. He went on to say(v.20) that Jesus is only the first of a great harvest of those to follow who will be raised from the dead! “So you see,” he continues, “just as death came into the world by one man, Adam, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man, Christ Jesus.” In a nutshell, by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, death came to us, God having given his son Jesus to die on the cross as propitiation for our sins, has provided for us life, resurrection from our state of death, to live in eternity with God. Redemption. That is the subject of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Not a “religion that someone wants to ram down anyone’s throat,” but a genuine message of God’s love for us all, love that transcends even death. Christianity is an invitation for us to bask in the love and forgiveness of God.

Further down in the I Corinthians passage, Paul writes of how our bodies will be transformed into everlasting spiritual bodies when Jesus comes back for us, and calls to mind a passage from Hosea in the Old Testament, regarding the victory that death seems right now to have over us. He says, that when this time comes, we will see fulfillment of that scripture, that death is swallowed up in victory. “O Death, he says, “where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (15:55)

I really do anticipate with joy the day when I can join the throng of millions of believers from across the centuries, bought from death with the blood of Jesus Christ, as we march into the holy city, the New Jerusalem, as described in Revelation 21 -22. That day is coming as surely as I write this tonight, and I look forward to meeting you there.

And it’s all because Jesus loved us, died for us, and rose again on the first Easter!

God bless you, and may you have a blessed, holy, and happy easter!

Joe Comer

(all scripture quotations from the New Living Translationof the Bible)

Winds Of War Stirring Again In The Middle East

23. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iran, Memoir, World

This from India Daily:

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and is possibly headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. The convergence of three carrier groups in the corridor of the Middle East will send very strong message to the Syrians and Iranians. There are indications that soon US is moving two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. This will spell a formidable strike force for Iran and Syria who are in defiance on issues of Lebanon and Nuclear weapons development.

[…]

In addition more than 100,000 battle hardened force in Iraq will be another major force in case US has to use force against Iran and Syria.

It seems American are preparing to deal with Syria and Iran in the next several months. The first priority right now is diplomacy in association with the Europeans and the rest of the world. But the leadership in Teheran and Damascus are taking notice of the power build up in the region.

Bush, Feminists, And American Muslims Failing Middle Eastern Women

18. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iraq, Politics, World

TNR’s Joseph Braude sees substantial room for improvement in the policies of the Bush administration, and American NGO’s in their policies towards women in the middle east, particularly Iraq:

Having invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has arguably set in motion a wave of political change that stands to weaken authoritarian rule in numerous other countries. In this respect, setbacks for women in Afghanistan and Iraq that stem from weakened central authority, physical insecurity, and a rise of Islamist political influence may be a harbinger of things to come in many places. Which is why it’s so important for American politicians and grassroots movements across the spectrum to shed their ideological baggage and formulate coherent stances on the use of soft power to advance Arab and Muslim women.

There are some encouraging signs that this process has already begun. The National Women’s Charter weighed in with a statement on women’s rights in Iraq on February 25. Other organizations with a global reach, like Women for Women International, have been active and influential on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq, and across Africa and Asia for years. This afternoon at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York City, in a move of symbolic importance, the Progressive Muslim Union will publicly break with a Muslim tradition of long standing that denies women the right to lead mixed-gender prayer services. The leader of the Friday prayer, who will also deliver the afternoon’s sermon, is Amina Wadud, an African-American Muslim theologian from Virginia Commonwealth University. A New York mosque refused to host the event, claiming it would be incompatible with Islamic law. Wadud, who has already drawn coverage on the satellite network Al Arabiya, says she has received numerous death threats in the past few weeks. At a recent lecture in Toronto, she was accused by one Muslim man of being a “CIA agent.” He apparently had no idea of the gap that often divides the U.S. government from American grassroots movements. This disconnect is intolerable at a time when American policy stands to affect millions of Muslim women–for better or for worse, and whether the U.S. manages to formulate a coherent strategy or not.

I see American, and other, government’s policies towards middle eastern women as par-for-the-course. This is quite similar to the dichotomy between our support for the One China policy, coupled with the pledge to defend Taiwan

The Bush administration needs to divorce itself from involvement in internal Iraqi politics. But, also similar to the China-Taiwan situation, I feel far more can be accomplished through western businesses and NGO’s. NOW’s total sell-out of Iraqi women, for no better reason than blind Bush-hatred, makes no sense.

An Invasion Of Taiwan?

15. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

Brian J. Dunn makes a strong argument that mainland China is preparing for an inevidable invasion of Taiwan:

The only question is when China will go. I think it will be on the eve of the 2008 Peking summer Olympics. China will have the security issue to cover mobilization and movement of military units. And everybody will assume China is using the attention as a coming out party to highlight their advances and their place in the sun. I think swallowing China under the nose of US and Japanese protection will be even better to demonstrate their power. Why else go on a crash building program for naval units?

This article in the Taipei Times, however, thinks China will use the 2008 Olympics to whip up nationalism and then focus on absorbing Taiwan in the years that follow:

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

Babes For Liberty

15. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

Jonathan Wilde has a roundup of beautiful Lebanese women, protesting for freedom.

Hat Tip: Wizbang

Gardens of Delight

13. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, World

Captain Loggie has e-mailed me this weekend, to let us know that he has arrived in Herat, Afghanistan, and had been given a tour of the city. I expect they told him that it is one of the cities founded and named originally after Alexander the Great, and that it was a rich, powerful and cultured place, full of monuments and gardens, under the reign of the Timurid kinds of the 15th century…. and is supposed to be still full of lavish gardens, most particularly of roses. And yet, Afghanistan is so often portrayed to us as a harsh and barren place, either cold and dusty, or hot and harsh and totally barbaric. But one of the gardens in Herat was written up in this book, which I gave to my mother for a Christmas present after I scored a very marked-down but pristine copy at Half-Price Books— but I read it first!
The thing is though, in a harsh and desolate climate, a garden— a green and thriving garden— is most particularly cherished, since it is achieved with such great effort and against such odds. Water is the thing, water and shelter; high walls and deep wells. A garden in the Islamic tradition may be large, but most always it is enclosed, sometimes no more than a courtyard in the center of, or adjacent to a house. Sometimes no more than a collection of plants in pots and tubs, there is nearly always a fountain or a pool. The largest gardens are sometimes meant to look like an elaborate carpet, with raised paths between the beds, which would be planted with elaborate arrangements of blooming plants. And always there would be shade, and water, and a place to sit and look at it all… for after all, Paradise is most assuredly a garden, the most lavish and beautiful of all.

Garden in the Generalife, Alhambra, Spain

This is one of those gardens, in the Summer Palace by the Alhambra complex in Granada, Spain. More here, from my archive.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Demands Apology From Livingstone

12. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Reader Mail, World

Received this via email today:

SWC To London Mayor: Apologize Now For Antisemitic And Anti-Israel Comments

At a time when violent antisemitic attacks on British Jews increased 42% last year reaching greater levels than in France, where just days before Holocaust Memorial Day Jewish gravestones were desecrated with swastikas, while at the same time there was a spate of violent attacks against Jews in North London, where Jewish students feel increasingly intimidated on university campuses for openly expressing their support for Israel, and when young people in the UK increasingly display a lack of understanding of the Nazi Holocaust, the slanderous comments against a Jewish reporter and the State of Israel by London’s controversial mayor have fueled an already dangerous environment.

Mayor Ken Livingstone’s most recent statements accusing the Israeli government of “ethnic cleansing” and his description of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a “war criminal who should be in prison” have added to the anger over comments made last month when he compared a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard. Livingstone has refused consistent calls from Prime Minister Tony Blair, British officials, Holocaust survivors, and London’s Jewish community to apologize.

Therefore, we are asking our supporters in Britain and around the world to join the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s protest directly to London Mayor Ken Livingstone to urge him to immediately apologize for his comments trivializing the Holocaust and demonizing Zionism and Israel.

Livingstone has had a long history of conflict with British Jews. Last year, he hosted Sheik Yusuf al Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood Imam who has endorsed suicide bombings against civilians in Israel and attacks on foreign civilians in Iraq. In 2000, he made a speech claiming that global capitalism was responsible for more deaths that the Nazis. And as far back as 1983, in his capacity as a newspaper editor, he published a cartoon of then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin dressed in an SS uniform with a caption reading, “The Final Solution.”

Additionally, the Center is urging mayors of all cities to refuse to officially welcome Livingstone to their cities until he apologizes for his reckless and incendiary behavior.

By signing this petition, you will be sending a letter directly to Mayor Livingstone urging him to apologize for his anitsemitic and anti-Israel comments.

Donate now to fight antisemitism and to help us continue our work.
Please support the work of the Simon Wiesenthal Center .
Send inquiries to: information@wiesenthal.net

Livingstone is a wart on the face of Britain. I think he should step down.

US No Longer Technology Leader.

09. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Technology, World

This from Forbes:

NEW YORK – Singapore has displaced the United States as the top economy in information technology competitiveness, according to the World Economic Forum’s latest annual Global Information Technology Report released today.

The U.S. drops from first to fifth in the rankings, which measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology (ICT).

Iceland, Finland and Denmark occupy positions two, three and four out of 104 countries surveyed, with Iceland achieving the most improvement among the top countries, moving up from tenth last year.

Viva De La Revolution!

07. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Drug Prohibition, World

The United States’ Evil War on Drugs has turned Bolivia into another failed Latin American state. This fact is confirmed today, by the resignation of Bolivian President Carlos Mesa.

Of course, who cares about the suffering and death of our brown-skinned southern neighbors? The prohibitionists are doing “G_d’s work.”

Hat Tip: InstaPundit (suggest you check additional material there)

A Whole New Era In Nuclear Power On The Horizon

18. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Technology, World

PMBR technology promises to do for nuclear power what the Model T did for automobiles. And the Chinese are taking the lead:

The difference between incumbent nuke designs and PBMR is like night and day. Western reactors reflect the “bigger is better” mentality that prevailed when plants were first built. Industry mismanagement in the 1970’s and 1980’s added layers of safety systems to already complex designs. U.S. nuclear plants are run much better today than a decade ago, but next generation designs still feature tons of safety-oriented concrete and mazes of redundant valves, controls, and piping. PBMRs, by contrast, epitomize Internet Age principles of miniaturization and modularity. Each PBMR is about one-fifth the size of a conventional reactor. They are designed without many backup cooling systems in existing plants, relying instead on a reactor core that theoretically cools itself if nuclear fuel gets too hot. PBMR’s smaller footprint and simplified design, it’s hoped, will allow multiple reactors to be built on one site faster and cheaper.

But the challenge to incumbent nuclear companies does not end there. Most of today’s nuclear industry profits come from making and replacing fuel in operating plants not building new ones. Western companies have a large stake in preserving how nuclear fuel is now made, a tightly controlled system run by quasi-government entities and nuclear service companies. The status quo works for everyone, consumers included, so long as existing reactor designs are the only viable options. PBMR commercialization would upset this arrangement. PBMR uses a totally different fuel design to current reactors. PBMRs should refuel while running whereas Western designs require refueling shutdowns every two years. So PBMRs do not need either Western-style fuel or Western companies’ refueling services. Faced with this challenge, nuclear vendors — with future plant sales and lucrative fuel and services businesses at stake — have attacked PBMR as an idea whose time will never come.

Until recently, the incumbents were winning. Then China, facing a monumental power shortage, put its top scientific brains to work to commercialize PBMRs. China needs electricity, a lot of it and fast. Coal and oil-fired power plants can meet some of this gap but the only long-term option that can provide China with the amount of power it needs at stable costs and without worsening air pollution is nuclear. China will buy some Western-style nuclear plants but it will not go “all-Western” for important strategic and practical reasons.

What, You Never Saw Cabaret?

09. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

We all know German society breeds this sort of thing:

Zoo Uses Aversion Therapy ‘To Cure’ Gay Penguins
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: February 8, 2005 5:01 pm. ET

(Bremen, Germany) A German zoo is trying “to cure” three gay penguin couples using a form of aversion therapy. The Bremerhaven Zoo is splitting up the couples, and has imported four female penguins from Sweden which it will use to try to “turn” the penguins “straight”.

The three gay couples are part of the zoo’s 10 penguin exhibit. The others are apparently straight and coupled. But, for more than a year zookeepers were mystified why the three couples didn’t have any offspring.

They did the usual courting dances, built nests together, appeared to have sex, and still no little penguins. Finally they did a DNA test to see if there was something genetically wrong. That is when they discovered the three couples were all male.

Zoo director Heike Kueck said each of the males will be given special secluded separate quarters and a female will be introduced. They will rotate the females to see which pairings “click”.

Do you think they were all “just born that way?” 🙂

Update: I’m still chuckling thinking of Joel Gray’s voice coming out of the mouth of a penguin: “life is beautiful … the women are beautiful … and the men are beautiful…”

Conservation As A Foreign Policy Tool

06. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Politics, World

Arnold Kling comments in this TCS article on the falicy of attempting to cut back on oil consumption to effect the politics of nations such as Saudi Arabia:

Energy conservation sounds like a painless way to lower the Saudis’ income. Who could be against conservation?

The point to keep in mind is that any oil conservation program will do two things. First, it will reduce our ratio of oil consumption to Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the total value of goods and services produced each year). Second, oil conservation will reduce GDP. The reason it will reduce GDP is that we will have to substitute other factors of production, including labor, capital, and more costly forms of energy, in order to conserve on oil.

I have received emails suggesting that the United States should aim for a 10 percent reduction in its energy consumption, because this would cause a significant drop in the price of oil. But how much would this reduce our GDP? Perhaps by as much as 10 percent. Even if it only were to reduce our GDP by 5 percent, that would be $500 billion. If your goal is to change the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, my guess is that there are ways of doing so that would cost less than $500 billion.

The reality is that energy conservation is a feeble tool for foreign policy. Significant conservation could be very costly to our own country. It might have only a small effect on Saudi oil revenue. It is not at all clear that a drop in Saudi oil revenue would bring about favorable changes in their policies toward terrorism

Read the whole thing. The politico-economics of oil is a very complex matter. I might also add to Kling’s excellent work that it’s falicy to increase domestic oil production (perticularly if subsidies are involved) to reduce “dependence” on foreign oil. If we are going to be using up the world’s oil reserves, doesn’t it make more sense to be using up their’s than our’s?

Proliferation Of Counterfeiting

28. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, World

It seems that product counterfeiting has become quite rampant. Might we consider this to be a matter of vital national interest?

The scale of the threat is prompting new efforts by multinationals to stop, or at least curb, the spread of counterfeits. Companies are deploying detectives around the globe in greater force than ever, pressuring governments from Beijing to Brasília to crack down, and trying everything from electronic tagging to redesigned products to aggressive pricing in order to thwart the counterfeiters. Even some Chinese companies, stung by fakes themselves, are getting into the act. “Once Chinese companies start to sue other Chinese companies, the situation will become more balanced,” says Stephen Vickers, chief executive of International Risk, a Hong Kong-based brand-protection consultant.

China is key to any solution. Since the country is an economic gorilla, its counterfeiting is turning into quite the beast as well — accounting for nearly two-thirds of all the fake and pirated goods worldwide. Daimler’s Glatz figures phony Daimler parts — from fenders to engine blocks — have grabbed 30% of the market in China, Taiwan, and Korea. And Chinese counterfeiters make millions of motorcycles a year, with knockoffs of Honda’s (HMC ) workhorse CG125 — selling for about $300, or less than half the cost of a real Honda — especially popular. It’s tales like this that prompt some trade hawks in the U.S. to call for a World Trade Organization action against China related to counterfeits and intellectual-property rights violations in general. Such pressure is beginning to have some effect. “The Chinese government is starting to take things more seriously because of the unprecedented uniform shouting coming from the U.S., Europe, and Japan,” says Joseph Simone, a lawyer specializing in IPR issues at Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong.

CIA: Brazil To Surpass Europe

20. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: European Disunion, World

A new 120 page report by the CIA, Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, is predicting the continued stagnation and decline of Europe and Japan, and the growth to prominence of the emerging economies of China, India, and even Brazil:

Branding Japan and Europe as the “ageing” powers, the experts predict that ageing populations and shrinking work forces will become a major economic and political challenge for the years to come.

“Either European countries adapt their work forces, reform their social welfare, education, and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations or they face a period of protracted economic stasis that could threaten the huge successes made in creating a more United Europe”, the US report warned.

Splintering Europe
The current welfare state is thought by to be “unsustainable” and the lack of any economic revitalization could lead to the “splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the European Union, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role”, the experts said.

A total break from the post-World War II welfare state model may, however, not be necessary, as shown in Sweden’s successful example of providing more flexibility for businesses while conserving many worker rights.

US on top
Going under the title, ‘Mapping the Global Future’, the report concluded that no other state in the world would match the US by 2020.

Hands Across The Water, Heads Across The Sky

15. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: World

After five decades, a limited number of direct flights are to travel between China and Taiwan:

The agreement allows a total of 48 round-trip charter flights to carry Taiwanese working in China home and back during the Chinese New Year holiday next month, Chinese negotiator Pu Zhaozhou said.

[…]

China and Taiwan, rivals who spend much of their time arguing over semantics and arcane details, reached an agreement just two hours into their meeting in the Chinese territory of Macau, near Hong Kong.

The “rivalry” between China and Taiwan has been a half-century carnival of silliness. These are two nations bound together tightly by blood, tradition, trade, and investment. The saber-rattling of the past has never made any sense.

The Death Squad Scare

13. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iraq, War, World

Glenn Reynolds has a few interesting links on the death-squad todo. Of note to me is this bit from Jonah Goldberg:

Okay now, let’s clear a few things up. First of all, the “El Salvador Option” was used in — hold on, let me get my map, yes, yes, that’s right — El Salvador, not Nicaragua. Whatever the merits or demerits of American policy in El Salvador or Nicaragua, the effort in El Salvador did not lead to the Iran-Contra scandal. Newsweek seems to think that piling on negative associations with Latin American foreign policy will help dramatize a story they might not even have in the first place. After all, the substance of the initial story is that people inside the Pentagon are discussing their options. Someone reorder my adult diapers, that is scary!

This seems to be a common thing with foreign policy doves, and particularly conspiracy theorists. Iraq becomes El Salvador, which becomes Nicaragua, which becomes Guatemala and Iran, and then Vietnam. And it all blends together into some grand continuum, with total loss of historical perspective.

The real world, particularly the Islamosphere, is a very complex place. And any Special Operation, designed to terminate hostiles surgically, can be considered a Death Squad. But can anyone deny their strategic importance, particularly in a guerilla war?

After the election, the Iraqis themselves, much more familiar with the lay of the land, and with the aegis of a legitimate government, are actually far more likely to employ Death Squads than we are. And if they are effective at dealing with ex-Ba’athist and foreign terrorist elements within their borders, and maintain military discipline, can we demonize them for it?

On One Of The Islamofascist War’s Lesser-Known Fronts…

13. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: War, World

…Where US Special Operations Forces have been operating for some time, officials have happily announced that the Al-Qaeda-linked GIA, claimed to be responsible for over 100,000 deaths, is all but extinct:

Algiers, Algeria, Jan. 12 (UPI) — Algeria announced it has nearly stamped out the Islamic armed group known as GIA, the country’s most dangerous during the 1990s.

The breakaway Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), our primary target, is weaked, but still active:

The Al-Qaida-linked faction in Algeria known as the Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) has appointed a new amir, or commander, in the wake of the deaths of past commanders Hassan Hattab (a.k.a. Abu Hamza) and Nabil Sahraoui (a.k.a. Abu Ibrahim Mustafa). According to a statement from the group, the new commander has been named as Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud.

Swept Away

10. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, World

Of all the appalling things about the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the thing that is the most horrifying to me— after the horrific loss of life, and knowing that after two weeks those who are missing are most likely dead, and that many localities were so thoroughly swamped that there is no one left to report the others missing, no one who will ever come and pick out someone among the pictures of the known dead, and so many of the bodies will never be found at all— are the pictures and accounts of people going out onto the sand flats to look at the fish flopping around, and the pools of water left, when the sea mysteriously and unaccountably withdrew.

There are accounts, here and here, and here, of a few people (and even animals) who knew what it portended, and either fled in good order or raised an alarm, but I am left somewhat boggled at how few people recognized the signs and portents. It is something I have know for so long that I cannot remember first being told it; that if the ocean tide ever, ever unaccountably pulls out— gone, vanished, fish left flopping, no water left— than you should run, run as fast as you can, as far as you can, inland, to the highest farthest bit of ground you can get to, because all that water will come back, crashing down in the biggest wave imaginable. This is knowledge on the order of “bears crap in the woods” and “the Pope is Catholic” sort of thing, even “lost in the woods, follow a watercourse downstream” sort of general basic survival knowledge. Or so I thought.

A quick poll of my nearest and dearest and assorted acquaintances give mixed results; William, Dad, my daughter, all knew this, three or four of my co-workers— all Texas natives— didn’t. I can chalk it up to a general scientific interest, or having lived in a coastal, seismically active places… but still… I thought this was just one those these things that people just knew. Especially if you lived close to the ocean. Readers thoughts on this: did you know, before December 26th this year, that if the tide suddenly and unaccountably runs out, that this means danger so profound that you should drop what you are doing and run for your life?

He’s Lost

03. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, World

I don’t see how a former general can be so consistently out-of-touch. On tonight’s installment of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Barry McCaffrey has actually claimed that aid to tsunami victim has “stretched our military to the breaking point.” This is ridiculous. This relief effort is a mere calisthenic, relative to fighting a war.

I do, however, agree with ret. gen. Wayne Downing, who says that this has put a tax on our airlift capacity. But that is merely employed as a fast response stop-gap measure, until the NGOs can get up-to-speed. In a few days, our military will again have full mobilization capability.

I’d like to note here, that I do hope we are devoting sufficient resources to force protection. While it would be incredibly stupid for the Islamofascists to make a strike against our forces in the region during this crisis, stupidity seems to be their stock-in-trade. I would hate to see another U.S.S. Cole incident.

Musharraf Retains Control

02. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Politics, World

Those who follow the Byzantine Pakistani political scene will consider this a must-read. Those who don’t will likely find it confusing:

General Pervez Musharraf has finally pronounced on the uniform issue. His announcement that he has decided to keep both offices of army chief and president of Pakistan was long in the offing, especially after the Senate passed the two-offices bill on November 1, 2004 and its chairman, Mohammadmian Soomro, in his capacity as acting president, deemed it fit to sign the bill into law on December 1 last year.

General Musharraf says he has not violated the Constitution and is only following the decision of both houses of parliament reached through a democratic process of majority vote. There is no point in trying to look into this claim since all sides are aware of how he swung this ‘democratic’ vote and the degree of probity of this exercise. Let’s just consider that he is technically right on this count. Even so, it is important to see if he has good reasons for doing what he has done since he chose to speak directly to the people of Pakistan.

From the American perspective, this is likely a good thing. Musharraf has, thus far, shown himself to be one of the more enlightened despots of the Islamic world, as well as someone the US can deal with. He has also proven quite skilled at walking the tightrope of Pakistani power. And, while our administration agrees with me, the BBC reports “uniform dismay.” But as could be expected, they exagerate:

Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, member of the executive committee of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), said the president’s speech had reflected the aspirations and wishes of the nations. He added that the businessmen were with the president. “The president’s speech will not only promote peace but will improve the country’s image abroad,” he said.

Mr Sarhadi said at this critical time, the president should keep both offices with him. “The president’s claim that trade with Afghanistan will cross $1 billion and the economy will get a boost will have a positive affect on the stock market and will attract foreign investment also,” he added.

Pirates of the Caribbean

02. August 2004 · Comments Off · Categories: World

I thought this was a neat story from Trinidad & Tobago:

Rose walked in front, a short distance away and on reaching the back of the house was grabbed and thrown to the ground by a gun-toting man who demanded money. Standing nearby was another bandit with a cutlass.

A cutlass? Did he have a peg-leg and say, “Arr!”?

The Coast Guardsman walked into the yard soon afterwards and was greeted with a gun pointed at his face. The officer then drew his licensed firearm and fired three shots hitting the gunman in his head and face. The bandit dropped dead.

The other bandit dropped his cutlass and ran off, but he was quickly held by the fleet-footed Coast Guardsman.

Update: Fixed the link to point to the story’s archive

French Participation in Genocide?

01. August 2004 · Comments Off · Categories: World

The Rwandan government is launching its own investigation to figure out just what role the French played in the genocide of Tutsis:

Paris denies responsibility – although it has admitted supporting Rwanda’s former Hutu-led government.

The current Rwandan government, which took over after the genocide, argues that Paris knowingly armed the killers and provided an escape route after their defeat.

[…]

France has also been accused of allowing perpetrators of the genocide to escape when it launched a operation in south-western Rwanda in June 1994.

I doubt this investigation will find anything of note. The French supported the Hutu government, which would automatically implicate them in the genocide to many Tutsis. I think it’s safe to say that the French indirectly supported the Hutus, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they allowed a few to escape, but direct support doesn’t seem likely. With the French, though, you never know.

The Daily Brief