Get me those GMO seeds--stat!

U.S. NEWS: "Biotech Firms Seek Speedier Reviews of Seeds: Approval Times for Genetically Modified Crops Doubles under Obama as Some Fear Tougher Stance; Feds Blame Logjam," by Scott Kilman, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2010.

Biotech companies complaining, as the average length of time for US Ag approval doubles under Obama's short tenure.

Their big concern: Monsanto owns the market until their alternatives are approved.

Many fear that, although Obama's team presented itself as pro-biotech, it's proving a tougher regulator. The government counters that the logjam is being worked, with part of it blamed on the volume of submissions and part on the volume of "comments" from the public.

The Dept. of Ag has never turned down a genetically modified crop, and is generally viewed as a booster of the industry.

Meanwhile, everybody complains that foreign companies are getting a jump on us, stifling what has been a bright spot in the US economy. Serious competition comes from companies in Brazil, Argentina and China. It's a $9B industry worldwide right now. The USDA has cleared 80 such crops since the 1990s.

Ma pushes the trade pact with the Mainland

Found here

WORLD NEWS: "Taiwan's President Ma Promotes China Free-Trade Pact," by Tin-I Tsai, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2010.

Ma plays down fears that the free-trade pact set with China will make Taiwan "overreliant" on the Mainland, "saying the deal could lead to similar ones with other countries that would help diversify the island's economy."

Back to my point long emphasized here: Hong Kong was the first unwitting member of a future Asian Union centered on China, Macao the second. Taiwan becomes the third.

Ma's point is right on: how this gets down will either open the door for a larger networking effect in the region or dampen movement in that direction. But with China's deal with ASEAN now in effect (1 Jan 2010, creating the word's largest FTA by population--1.9B!), the dynamic appears in full historical swing.

Inconceivable just a few years ago, but reality unfolding today.

Ma's other point equally important: "Everybody has to understand that Taiwan is not Hong Kong," meaning this is "not a first step toward ultimate unification."

I don't think Taiwan ever--quote unquote--"unifies" with China, and I say this to everyone I met with every time I go to China. I think Taiwan joins an Asian Union built around China, as does just about everybody in the region.

To me, that's the integration China should focus on--not unification.

Unification and unitary states have no future in this globalized world. Integration and members in federations is the way ahead.

And yes, we are the original model of note, but hardly the sole blueprint.

Russia rebids to WTO--sans the Kazakhs and Belarus . . . sians(?)

From this:

Found here

To this:

Found here

WORLD NEWS: "Russia Plans Its Solo Bid For WTO," by John W. Miller, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2010.

Prior plan: go as trio of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

New plan: Russia seeks WTO membership on its own.

Why? WTO has no precedent for admitting a customs union.

Sign: Moscow now serious about trying to get in.

Why? Hurting for foreign direct investment and see this as way to plus it up.

Trade-wise, Russia seen as losing more than gaining, as WTO doesn't cover energy and energy is most of what Russia exports.

Russia is described--legitimately--as "the most protectionist large economy in the world."

Well, that country will soon apply to the WTO, as Putin's state capitalism has lost it genius tint with lower oil prices.

India to China: the unkindest cuts

 

See Indian diamond mining history

WORLD NEWS: "India faces diamond threat: Call to combat Chinese efforts; Surprise at New Delhi's allegations," by James Lamont, Geoff Dyer and William MacNamara, Financial Times, 28 April 2010.

COMPANIES & MARKETS: "India bars purchases of telecom equipment from China sellers," by Joe Leahy and Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, 30 April 2010.

Indian diamond cutters and polishers lobby their gov to "combat Chinese efforts to secure rough diamonds from Africa by providing the continent's nations with medicine and resources to build infrastructure."

Fear? China seeks it own cutting and polishing industry, effectively disintermediating India, which currently owns a 60% share of the global market.

Not an effort to stop China's actions, but to counter with India's version of the same (fight fire with fire). Industry is looking for a $4B fund from the gov to do this.

Last year India exported $18B in cut and polished diamonds, to give you some sense of the market.

I see this as a sign of future competition between India and China in Africa, with the former increasingly waking up to the latter's efforts to lock-in resources. The competition from India will be to Africa's benefit--and ultimately China's too.

On another note: the Indian gov now blocks purchases of telecom gear from China "on national security grounds." The local mobile industry is unhappy, because it's dealing with huge growth and needs the parts.

Two drivers: 1) China's $16B trade surplus and 2) Indian fears that China inserts bugging devices in its network gear.

Teeing up Idiot Son #3: the Un-Kim Jong

INTERNATIONAL: "North Korea Appears to Tap Leader's Son as Enigmatic Heir," by Martin Fackler, New York Times, 25 April 2010.

This is almost too hilarious for words:

The black-and-white photographs that were published last month in a North Korean newspaper appear no different from other propaganda coming from North Korea: they show the supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, touring a steel plant in a fur cap and his trademark sunglasses.

It is the pudgy but stern-faced young man next to him, dressed in a snappy Western suit and dutifully scribbling in a notebook, who has spurred intense speculation. Could this unidentified man be just a plant manager? Or could this be the first public appearance of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader's third son and heir apparent?

"There, see how his face is in focus and illuminated even more than Kim Jong-il himself?" said Cheong Seong-chang, a specialist on North Korean politics at the Sejong Institute. "There is a high possibility that this is Kim Jong-un."

Little is known about the inner workings of the secretive North Korean government, not even the identity of the heir apparent. But if Mr. Cheong is right, the enigmatic photographs are the latest signs of the desperate push that the North Korean government is making to build a cult of personality around the son, who is believed to be 27, to prepare him to assume control as the current leader's health declines.

I expect great things from this man, whoever the f--k he is.

Analysts say that if Mr. Kim dies too soon, his son could be pushed aside in a scramble for power among political and military elites that would end the family's dynastic rule and might even bring about the collapse of the impoverished totalitarian state.

Or maybe not.

Recently, the government is said to have given mass promotions and luxury cars to officers in the nation's powerful military, in a bid to cement their loyalty.

Hmm, impressive. I mean, it's not like we or the Chinese might be able to buy off these clowns with the right figure. We're talking a promotion AND a car here!

Indeed, the sinking last month of a South Korean warship, which many South Koreans now suspect was the work of a North Korean torpedo, is widely seen in the South as a show of strength by the North aimed at winning the military's support for the younger Mr. Kim.

Looks like that was the case, and it's the typical NorKo crudeness. As WSJ's Bret Stephens cracked recently, it's like these guy say to themselves, "Let's torpedo our military relationship with the South" and then they go all literal in the litoral. By comparison, the foaming-at-the-mouths Iranians are masters of subtlety.

The good news at the end of the piece:

"The signs are that the elite do not take Kim Jong-un seriously," said Kim Yeon-su, a professor of North Korean studies at the National Defense University in Seoul. "This is the final stage of the Kim family dictatorship."

In PNM, I said the Kim regime would fall by 2010. I could be off by several months, to my eternal disgrace.

China: another glorious client state obtained in stable, prosperous, un-needy Niger

INTERNATIONAL: "After a Coup, Niger Resumes Business as Usual With China," by Adam Nossiter, New York Times, 25 April 2010.

Clearly a sign of China's strength: it deals with the corrupt government in Niger on raw materials before the coup, and after it, it goes right back to dealing with the new guys. My, what a triumph of the Chinese model of development!

At this rate, China will lock in every unstable, corrupt, impoverished Third World state into its economic orbit. What a supreme challenge that will represent to the U.S.! I mean, don't we want to keep these horrible regimes to ourselves? What politician can stand before his congressional district and answer sufficiently to the charge of having "lost Niger!"

[Wait a tick! You might want to inform the Member as to the correct pronunciation of that word before he or she dives into the pre-recorded soundbite.]

Naturally, the Chinese will only pick up more resources--not any responsibilities or uncertainties.

Yes, I see that working out perfectly for the "non-interference" boys from Beijing. It'll be all love and peace and harmony from here on out.

So odd: China actually seeks to protect--on its own--its growing dependency on Middle Eastern energy

INTERNATIONAL: "Chinese Military Seeks to Extend Its Naval Power," by Edward Wong, New York Times, 24 April 2010.

The cat is out of the bag:

The Chinese military is seeking to project naval power well beyond the Chinese coast, from the oil ports of the Middle East to the shipping lanes of the Pacific, where the United States Navy has long reigned as the dominant force, military officials and analysts say.

China calls the new strategy "far sea defense," and the speed with which it is building long-range capabilities has surprised foreign military officials.

The strategy is a sharp break from the traditional, narrower doctrine of preparing for war over the self-governing island of Taiwan or defending the Chinese coast. Now, Chinese admirals say they want warships to escort commercial vessels that are crucial to the country's economy, from as far as the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, and to help secure Chinese interests in the resource-rich South and East China Seas.

In late March, two Chinese warships docked in Abu Dhabi, the first time the modern Chinese Navy made a port visit in the Middle East.

The overall plan reflects China's growing sense of self-confidence and increasing willingness to assert its interests abroad. China's naval ambitions are being felt, too, in recent muscle flexing with the United States: in March, Chinese officials told senior American officials privately that China would brook no foreign interference in its territorial issues in the South China Sea, said a senior American official involved in China policy.

The naval expansion will not make China a serious rival to American naval hegemony in the near future, and there are few indications that China has aggressive intentions toward the United States or other countries.

But China, now the world's leading exporter and a giant buyer of oil and other natural resources, is also no longer content to trust the security of sea lanes to the Americans, and its definition of its own core interests has expanded along with its economic clout.

My tact over the years has been dual: 1) belittling China's military ambitions beyond Taiwan and its regional waters (where all the rockets and new subs are focused); and 2) preaching--going all the way back to PNM--that China's military (i.e., its navy) is logically coming to the Middle East for all the same reasons why we once came.

As I say, the cat's pretty much out of the bag now on the second one. And it's little surprise. Actually, on the basis of the real numbers, the shift is long overdue: the Middle East is hugely important to Asia, which takes out over half of its exports, whereas the PG ranks behind Africa, Latin America, Mexico & Canada (i.e., non-US NorthAm) and the U.S. itself as the fifth most important source of our oil. If not for our century-plus grand strategic instinct for the "open door," the real question would be, Why is the US Navy there to that degree?

So like I said for years in the brief, "The question isn't whether the Chinese are coming. The question is how we greet them."

As for China's growing assertiveness in its home seas, that much is both expected and typically petty of the Chinese (back to my point #1). Should we drawn into it?

We will because the locals will fear it, and that's the best way to be drawn in.

I mean, when Lee Kuan Yew starts worrying publicly . . .

Last fall, during a speech in Washington, Lee Kuan Yew, the former Singaporean leader, reflected widespread anxieties when he noted China's naval rise and urged the United States to maintain its regional presence. "U.S. core interest requires that it remains the superior power on the Pacific," he said. "To give up this position would diminish America's role throughout the world."

. . . you know the local backlash has begun. This is fine and predictable. We want to meet the expectations of allies without picking any stupid fights, even though the occasional sort-of-stupid fight can be useful in triggering dialogue. Actually, our Navy is fairly sophisticated on that score.

Here's hoping we pick our moments well.

Just what the world needs now: America's non-nuclear ICBMs striking anywhere within a matter of minutes

ARTICLE: "U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes," by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 22 April 2010.

The gist:

In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America's reliance on its nuclear arsenal . . .

Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site -- all without crossing the nuclear threshold. In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localized destructive power of a nuclear warhead.

Hmm. No chance for accidental nuclear war in that world, methinks.

The idea is not new: President George W. Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.

In face-to-face meetings with President Bush, Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones. Mr. Bush and his aides concluded that the Russians were right.

Partly as a result, the idea "really hadn't gone anywhere in the Bush administration," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has served both presidents, said recently on ABC's "This Week." But he added that it was "embraced by the new administration."

Ah, considered too stupid and dangerous by Bush-Cheney, and now revived by Obama as part of his world-without-nukes dream.

Brilliant! As the Brits say.

Even more worrisome:

Under the Obama plan, the Prompt Global Strike warhead would be mounted on a long-range missile to start its journey toward a target. It would travel through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that it would have to be shielded with special materials to avoid melting. (In that regard, it is akin to the problem that confronted designers of the space shuttle decades ago.)

But since the vehicle would remain within the atmosphere rather than going into space, it would be far more maneuverable than a ballistic missile, capable of avoiding the airspace of neutral countries, for example, or steering clear of hostile territory. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the middle of the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target.

Ask yourself, does the world need an America that cares less about what others think when it considers bombing inside nation-states? Is that really the capability we should be looking to achieve?

To me, it suggests a frightening degree of unilateralism that even Bush-Cheney refused to consider because of the perceived damage that could be done to the strategic security environment.

But this is exactly the sort of bad strategic thinking you're forced to embrace when you start peddling your dream of a nuclear-free world. Here, Obama is unable to stand up to his Air Force.

Makes you wonder what Gates secretly thinks about the idea.

The stupidity on this one simply stuns: as we head deeper into an era of state warfare against individuals, we're rehabbing our ICBMs for targeted assassination? Talk about an absurd, destabilizing overkill mentality. Fits right in with COIN, ja? ("Listen sheikh, when we fired off that ICBM, we still thought the wedding party was an al-Qaeda meeting.")

If I had a hammer . . ..

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

Can Afghanistan's parliament provide the leadership Karzai can't?

Found here

OBAMA'S WAR: "Once-docile Afghan parliament stands up to Karzai and becomes an ally of U.S.," by Griff Witte, Washington Post, 23 April 2010.

Very encouraging:

The Afghan parliament, long a bastion of dysfunction and docility, has emerged this spring as a robust check on President Hamid Karzai's power, giving the United States an unlikely ally as it tries to persuade the government here to clean up its act.

Although the United States and the parliament do not appear to be directly coordinating their strategies, their interests coincide. Both are pushing the increasingly erratic Karzai to become more accountable, to allow fair elections, and to reduce the corruption that has withered support for the government, feeding the Taliban's rise.

But unlike the United States, which had to retreat this month after public rebukes of Karzai backfired, many members of parliament say that openly defying the president makes for good election-year politics.

In recent months, the parliament has rejected Karzai's budget, much of his cabinet and, most important, his proposal to overhaul the nation's election law. Karzai's proposed changes would have, among other things, given him control of a commission assigned to investigate fraud allegations. The United States, the United Nations and many Afghans viewed the proposal as an attempted power grab and were relieved when the lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly against it. Even Karzai's staunch supporters defied him, waving red cards to signify their opposition to the president's maneuver.

"We were all surprised at the unanimity of opinion in the lower house," said one Western diplomat. "It's really unprecedented."

The original sin traced back to Bush-Cheney--naturally (given their preference for strong presidencies):

Despite Afghanistan's long history of decentralized power, the constitution that the United States helped craft for the post-Taliban era gives the president vast sway at all levels of government. That has caused problems for the Obama administration as it has become disenchanted with Karzai and has sought unsuccessfully to work around him.

The best part:

The parliament remains a rogues' gallery of drug barons, criminals and warlords. Many members are uneducated and even illiterate. But the complexion of parliament has shifted over the past year, as the warlords lost interest and a group of reformers -- including many women -- coalesced into a working group of approximately 30 that increasingly drives the body's agenda, members say.

Many of the reformers are strongly in favor of the U.S. role here and have been unsettled by Karzai's recent statements that appeared to attack the foreign presence. "We need U.S. support. If they don't support us for one day, we cannot survive to the next day," said Moeen Marastial, a parliament member who advised Karzai's reelection campaign last year.

Karzai's allies say he is convinced that parliament and Washington are working together to undermine him. After the election law changes were rejected, he angrily told a group of parliament members that "I expect you to act like Afghans, but you're behaving like Americans," according to one member present.

Obama and Co. screwed up big-time by sticking with Karzai in the rigged 2009 election.

[thanks to Our Man in Kabul]

Esquire's Politics Blog: 5 Missing Links Between the Times Square Bomber and Pakistan, Connected

My first post to Esquire's group blog.

As useful idiots go, Faisal Shahzad is proving himself in all directions: the naturalized terrorist who stirs up anti-immigrant fervor; the ex-pat who puts Pakistan back on America's hot seat, the screw-up bomber who almost escapes President Obama's grasp only to be Mirandized (the horror!) upon arrest, the sleeper jihadist who scores a global media bonanza for his handlers back in Waziristan (not a fake name), and the super-talkative detainee still spilling his guts to the G-Men. This numskull's got something for damn near everyone. Hell, I even feel sorry for BP, fortunate as it was to have 53 hours and 20 minutes of semi-relief from non-stop media glare.

Read the rest at Esquire.com's The Politics Blog.

 

I got the heads up last night around 6pm and turned 725 in around 9pm. Was feeling decidedly under the weather (allergens are death right now in Indy), which is why it took so long. Still, fun to be included in this new group blog at Esquire.

Why IBM points the way

BUSINESS DAY: "Global Strategy Stabilized I.B.M. During Downturn," by Steve Lohr, New York Times, 19 April 2010.

My hero: Sam Palmisano

Awkward term used in the piece: postmultinational global corporation.

I like Sam's term better: the globally integrated enterprise.

In general, IT does well in the downturn:

Technology companies held up better in the recession because they produce the tools that make it easier to operate globally -- high-speed networking, clever software and powerful, inexpensive computers -- and are in businesses tailored to exploit globalization.

Internet communications mean skilled workers anywhere in the world are potential employees, which often drives down costs. Software, by its nature, is a product that is easy to distribute worldwide.

But IBM's trick is more subtle than just moving off hardware and more to consultancy and software:

Where I.B.M. is at the forefront of the postmultinational model, analysts say, is in globalizing its operations. The multinational approach combined firm controls from headquarters over a collection of separate companies overseas, each in a different market. Each country business typically had its own staff for finance, accounting, human relations, procurement and other functions.

In the last few years, I.B.M.'s chief executive, Samuel J. Palmisano, has instead set up global centers of expertise with responsibility across the company. For example, the global purchasing and procurement unit is in China; human relations tasks like expense report processing are done in the Philippines; and back-office financial processing is done in Brazil.

Global manufacturing is well-established. But most of what I.B.M. has done has been in the trickier arenas of software and services, which together represent 80 percent of revenue and involve organizing the work of hundreds of thousands of skilled workers.

Today, I.B.M. says, 9 of every 10 employees in its country organizations are focused on working with customers.

I.B.M.'s expansion in India is a good example of the trend. The buildup has been partly to cater to the local market there, but also to tap India's large pool of lower-cost engineers, who handle software development and maintenance work on projects around the globe.

Still, India is only one source of software expertise. Today, I.B.M. has 86 software development centers worldwide, up from 25 in 2001. In the last year, the company has opened special hubs of expertise for business intelligence and analytics software in fields like finance, energy, transportation, water management and health care in locations including New York, Berlin, Beijing, Dublin, Melbourne and Taipei.

More complex management? You bet. But more competitive company on the far side.

If you can have a crush on a company, this one's mine.

Why? IBM's rushed to embrace globalization in all its challenges and complexity, and the way it's done it, like a Honda or Toyota in manufacturing, shows the political world how it's done--the globally federated structure.

There will never be a one-world government, but a one-world network of governments--the globally integrated political enterprise.

And we need to get there first, my friends.

Connectivity up, and so is censorship. Go figure!

ARTICLE: "Google releases data on governments' demands for user data, site censorship," by Cecilia Kang, Washington Post, 21 April 2010.

Google says more nations censor content as the Internet continues to explode in users and reach.

We are meant to be dismayed, but a more realistic understanding says, as I've long maintained, with connectivity comes scary content and thus the desire to censor, both for legitimate reasons ("The Internet is for porn," as they sing in "Avenue Q," so check out democracies Brazil and Germany as the number 1 and 2 requesters that offensive online material be removed) and regressive ones (single-party rule maintenance). To expect censor-less connectivity right off the bat and globalization expands is a fantasy.

Hell, America remains the top requester for user data, for plenty of good reasons.

China, of course, demands Google not release any info on its activities, considering them "state secrets." Some take this as a sign of strength, others a sign of profound and increasingly pathetic weakness and fear. I lean toward the latter, naturally.

The big lesson?

The information highlights how some nations handle online content differently than others. Italy, for example, has stronger privacy laws online than the United States. In India, defamation complaints have been taken to local police, who then contact Google to sniff out impostors on Orkut.

Every regime/culture at its own pace.
So the Internet doesn't erase all borders. Wah-wah! It also doesn't erase all cultural differences, thank God.

North Africa plans on being ready

NEWS: "Saharan states to open joint military headquarters: Four Saharan desert states are to open a joint command headquarters in Algeria to coordinate efforts to counter the growing regional threat from al-Qaeda," BBC, 21 April 2010.

As the long war squeezes the Middle East, the resistance can go northeast or southwest into Central Asia and/or Africa, respectively. In the northeast, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation awaits. In the southwest, it's Africom. Great powers displaying similar strategic instincts--not a bad thing.

This story is about the locals networking, and it's a good sign.

Yes, I expect Africom was plenty involved behind the scenes:

The Joint Military Staff Committee of Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger will be based in Tamanrasset.
They want to increase co-operation and move towards joint operations against terrorism, kidnappings and trafficking.

Frankly, you want such HQs spread all over Africa more than you want explicit versions of the same from Africom.

Truly fifth-generational. Their victories are your victories, while your enemies losses are all their own.

Think I wrote that in a book a while back.

[thanks to Michal Shapiro and John Ryan]

A solution in search of a problem to fix

ARTICLE: "The Illogic of Zero," by Bruno Tertrais, The Washington Quarterly, April 2010.

Very solidly argued piece, as Judah noted in his own post.

The start:

The intellectual and political movement in favor
of abolition suffers from unconvincing rationales, inherent contradictions, and
unrealistic expectations. A nuclear-weapons-free world is an illogical goal.

Already I'm hooked.

First mistake: thinking we must abolish them to legitimize non-proliferation. My point: no wannabe great power seeks nukes to hold off an American nuclear attack but an American conventional one.

Second: the "immorality" argument. I'll take all the immorality you can dish out so long as the moratorium on great-power war continues--and so will the 80-or-so-million dead from world wars I and II.

Next is the fallacy of thinking super conventional weapons can replace nukes. My fear: going down this route only reduces the barrier-to-entry into the marketplace of great-power war. Plus, this strategic stupidity requires the world to agree with you. The author here notes also the dearth of chem and bio attacks since 1945 and fears the inevitable rearming that come, seeing it as far more destabilizing. I agree.

The dumbest logic: we must rid the world of nukes to prevent accidental use or--GODFORBID!--the terrorists get one and use it. So let me get this: we should put the worldwide moratorium on great-power war at risk because of terrorists? Talk about the tactical tail wagging the strategic dog.

Rest of the piece amplifies such logic.

Worth reading.

Me? I attribute this nonsense to a lot of near-the-end-of-their-lieves Cold Warriors trying to clear their consciences before they go. I believe they should be summarily ignored.

[thanks to Judah Grunstein at WPR]

Pakistan: the tyranny of the minority

INTERNATIONAL: "At Top University, a Fight for Pakistan's Future," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 21 April 2010.

The lead is excellent and worth reposting:

The professor was working in his office here on the campus of Pakistan's largest university this month when members of an Islamic student group battered open the door, beat him with metal rods and bashed him over the head with a giant flower pot.

Iftikhar Baloch, an environmental science professor, had expelled members of the group for violent behavior. The retribution left him bloodied and nearly unconscious, and it united his fellow professors, who protested with a nearly three-week strike that ended Monday.

The attack and the anger it provoked have drawn attention to the student group, Islami Jamiat Talaba, whose morals police have for years terrorized this graceful, century-old institution by brandishing a chauvinistic form of Islam, teachers here say.

But the group has help from a surprising source -- national political leaders who have given it free rein, because they sometimes make political alliances with its parent organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's oldest and most powerful religious party, they say.

The university's plight encapsulates Pakistan's predicament: an intolerant, aggressive minority terrorizes a more open-minded, peaceful majority, while an opportunistic political class dithers, benefiting from alliances with the aggressors.

Nothing in our current interactions with Pakistan changes this reality. Indeed, our growing "partnership" re: Afghanistan--such as it is--only reinforces such dynamics.

Scary and depressing article. As always, it makes me regret the conventional wisdom that says we prioritize Pakistan over India.

We are on the wrong side of history here: we back the fragile Seam State or an emerging--and truly democratic--pillar of the New Core.

Women in USN submarines: another sign of the coming apocalypse

ARTICLE: "Plans to allow women and gays, ban smoking shake world of Navy submarines," by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 22 April 2010.

The fraternity is up in arms, no doubt.

But necessity is the mother of practicality on this one:

Navy officials said they don't anticipate a problem. In fact, they said one motivation in enabling women to serve on submarines is to increase their pool of potential recruits; it's not always easy to persuade people to live and work underwater for months at a time in a cramped, steel tube.

"We literally could not run the Navy without women today," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Wednesday, pointing to the decision 17 years ago to allow women to serve on warships. The decision to open the Silent Service to women, he added, was "probably long overdue."

In ten years, we'll read studies wondering what all the fuss was about.

Weird: you mean perceived monopolists attract competition if the price is right?

BUSINESS DAY: "Challenging China in Rare Earth Mining," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 21 April 2010.

The gist:

On a high plateau where burros and jackrabbits wander an hour's drive southwest of Las Vegas, a 400-foot-deep chasm hewn from volcanic rock sits at the center of an international policy debate. The chasm, in Mountain Pass, Calif., used to be the world's main mine for rare earth elements -- minerals crucial to military hardware and the latest wind turbines and hybrid gasoline-electric cars. Molycorp Minerals, which owns the mine, announced on Monday that it had registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering to help raise the nearly $500 million needed to reopen and expand the mine.

Molycorp is making a big bet that its mine -- once the world leader in production of rare earth elements, but now a rusting relic -- can be made competitive again. Global demand is surging for the minerals. And customers, particularly the American military, are seeking alternatives to China, which now mines 97 percent of the world's rare earth elements.

As part of reopening the mine, Molycorp plans to increase its capacity to mine and refine neodymium for rare earth magnets, which are extremely lightweight and are used in many high-tech applications.

China's near-monopoly has raised all sorts of holding-the-world-at-gunpoint fears, most of which are complete nonsense.

Why? China only keeps that grip by keeping the price cheap.

Even riskier are efforts by nearly six dozen other companies in the United States, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere to open new rare earth mines in response to the surging demand.

Worldwide sales of freshly mined rare earth oxides, although growing more than 10 percent a year, were still only worth about $1.4 billion last year, limiting the potential sales of new mines. Molycorp and the other companies face a challenge to match China's low costs, a result of low wages and China's willingness to tolerate heavy environmental damage from rare earth element mines, which have turned some areas into moonscapes.

So China's supply-based "power" is really non-existent; it continues only so long as it remains unprofitable for competitors to simply snatch it away. The minute China tried to act tough on this subject, it would be declared a matter of national economic security the rest of the world over and all these alternative mines would be exploited like crazy, no matter the government-subsidized cost.

Remember: in globalization, supply doesn't equate to power, demand does.

COINdistas going down the slippery slope where we--in the past--have found ODA

OBAMA'S WAR: "U.S. military, diplomats at odds over how to resolve Kandahar's electricity woes," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, 23 April 2010.

Basics:

U.S. military commanders and senior diplomats are locked in a dispute over the best way to bring more electricity to Afghanistan's second-largest city, complicating a major campaign to win over the population of Kandahar and push out the Taliban.

The standoff has reached the top two U.S. officials in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, illuminating the sometimes-sharp differences between the military and civilian officials over how to stabilize this nation.

Convinced that expanding the electricity supply will build popular support for the Afghan government and sap the Taliban's influence, some officers want to spend $200 million over the next few months to buy more generators and millions of gallons of diesel fuel. Although they acknowledge that the project will be costly and inefficient, they say President Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011 has increased pressure to demonstrate rapid results in their counterinsurgency efforts, even if it means embracing less-than-ideal solutions to provide basic public services.

"This is not about development -- it's about counterinsurgency," said a U.S military official at the NATO headquarters in Kandahar, advocating rapid action to help Afghan officials boost the power supply. "If we don't give them more fuel, we'll lose a very narrow window of opportunity."

U.S. diplomats and reconstruction specialists, who do not face the same looming drawdown, have opposed the military's plan because of concerns that the Afghan government will not be able to afford the fuel to sustain the generators. Mindful of several troubled development programs over the past eight years, they want the United States to focus on initiatives that Afghans can maintain over the long term.

"Proposals to buy generators and diesel fuel for Kandahar would be expensive, unsustainable and unlikely to have the counterinsurgency impact desired," Eikenberry wrote in a cable to the State Department in Washington this month.

The historic complaint about the West's Official Developmental Aid (ODA) is that it builds infrastructure that the local nation cannot maintain. Most ODA now tries to avoid that trap, but it's a tempting choice for the COINdistas eager to pave their strategic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Have to go with the diplomats and aid people here, given Obama's clear trajectory and goals.

The Times Square scare right before Ahmadinejad speaks at the UN

Timing-wise, the specter of something designed to go off in the middle of Manhattan the weekend just before Ahmadinejad and Clinton squared off yesterday at the UN over Iran's nuclear program is almost too good to be true, no matter what prosaic culprit may ultimately be found to have been involved. The terror angle has always been the preferred approach for marshaling the international community.

And with the arrest this morning of one Faisal Shahzad (naturalized Pakistani), the speculation re: the international nature of the plot will skyrocket. This is almost a two-for-one that energizes both big Obama's national security issues (Af-Pak, Iran's nukes).

It's like those ADT commercials with the generic scary white guy who's breaking down doors. It speaks directly to the underlying fear.

Likelihood is another subject, but the scare does fire the popular imagination. The media frenzy on the subject has already worn me out. Thank God for the Gulf oil spill and Justin Bieber (oh, look, there's a pic of him standing next to Wolf Blitzer on Twitter, now being show on CNN's The Situation Room!).

I mean, seriously, it's getting too easy for Saturday Night Live to parody the cable news networks.

Time Square is so often depicted in popular movies as the quintessential gathering space in American culture, more so than even The Mall in DC. In some ways, given all the angles of approach, it makes you wonder why nothing much has ever really happened there.

Hence the expanding "Ring of Steel."

If you want to stay pure, stay out of globalization

Found here

FIRST LOOK: "Yank acronyms MIA in China clampdown," by Clifford Coonan, Variety, 12-18 Apri 2010.

Reminds me of the French a while back.

Chinese government tells networks not to use GDP or NBA and instead come up with Chinese equivalents, no matter who unwieldy.

The gut fear? The coming impurity of the Chinese language.

If you want to be a main globalizing player, you've got to get over such stuff.

There's a reason why English spreads so easily and why we've hit million words in our vocabulary: we're not choosey.

As one Chinese prof put it:

If Western countries can accept some Chinglish words, why can't the Chinese language be mixed with English?

The Chinese official explanation cited the French precedent.

To me, you always look like a loser when you mandate content quotas.

When you protect, you play down. And when you play down, you fall behind.