Category: Geopolitics

Europeans to counter Google print project

Europeans to counter Google print project – Tech News & Reviews – MSNBC.com
the first culture war in cyberspace. I read this article about Google’s ambitious project to digitize several libraries and the European response to it. I think it speaks volumes about the differences between our cultures. America puts books online because a private corporation figured this is a service people want, and it would be a good way to make a profit. European heads of state decide to make this a giant public works project, and they do it because they don’t want an ‘Anglo-American’-centric online library which offers the literature people desire. I like how the article mentions French cinema as if it is a success story about how government intervention can save the arts. Which project do you think will succeed?

Don’t mis-underestimate Dubya – Indian Express

Don’t mis-underestimate Dubya
Interesting Op-Ed perspective in the “Indian Express” from a member of the growing entreprenuerial class situated in the largest democracy of the world.

The Bush family has an uncanny knack of knowing where the future will happen, says Jaithirth Rao

And from the NY Times comes this about the 2 million Indian American citizens:

These issues are of intense interest to Americans of Indian origin, who are the country’s fastest-growing ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, whose data shows they are far better educated and wealthier than the average U.S. citizen. …

According to figures compiled from census data by the U.S.-India Political Action Committee, Indian-Americans own 15 percent of Silicon Valley start-up firms, constitute 10 percent to 12 percent of U.S. medical doctors and control about 40 percent of the American hotel sector.
One in 10 Americans of Indian origin are millionaires, while the $60,093 median income of Indian-American families in 2000 was far above the U.S. average of $38,885. They post similarly striking educational statistics.

Do not condemn Putin out of hand

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment – Do not condemn Putin out of hand

(Comments by Tom Barnett) – Lieven makes about the best case you can for Putin’s renationalization of much of Russia’s energy sector.

First, as he points out, Yeltsin engaged in his share of authoritarianism, with almost no criticism from the West, plus he let that gangster-style capitalism bloom unrestricted in its class warfare.

By contrast, all reputable opinion polls still show Vladimir Putin enjoys the support of a large majority of Russians. This too is understandable, given the way in which the economy has grown and living standards improved under his presidency. And if much of this progress can be attributed to high oil prices, it is also true that greatly improved revenue-raising capability means that at last the Russian state can once again divert a reasonable proportion of these profits into improving state wages and services. To achieve this, it was necessary to restore state power and radically reduce that of the oligarchs, and it is dishonest to suggest that given Russian realities, the process of cutting down the Yeltsin-era elites could ever have been pretty.

How’s that for realism?

Lieven then goes on to note the single-party/state-heavy route has worked well for plenty of countries in their development, citing South Korea, Taiwan, China, Turkey, and even France! Fair enough. I would add Japan and Singapore, but the point is made.

Here’s the most interesting stuff:

The new Russian elite of Mr. Putin’s conception is supposed to be dynamic and capable of competing in the free market, but also to be deeply patriotic: it should be committed to the interests of the state and deferential to the wishes of the state, especially in foreign affairs. The elite will move freely between the state and the market sectors, and in the process will be handsomely rewarded, but it will keep its money within Russia, not spend it on British football clubs or French chateaux. Its members will never lobby for foreign support against their own government. In society as a whole, there will be open public debate on a range of issues, but on others it will be strictly limited. Similarly, elements of democracy will remain but be heavily managed. This will not be a personal or dynastic dictatorship such as Azerbeijan but a collective regime of this elite, with leading members succeeding each other and rotating in power. If proved correct, the rumour that Mr. Putin, after stepping down as president in 2008, will take over Gazprom or another great corporation would be very significant in this regard.

We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran

We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran – New York Times
Each time a new nuclear weapons state emerges, we rightly suspect that the world has grown more dangerous. The weapons are enormously destructive; humans are fallible, organizations can be incompetent and technology often fails us. But as we contemplate the actions, including war, that the United States and its allies might take to forestall a nuclear Iran, we need to coolly assess whether and how such a specter might be deterred and contained.

The Hindu : From Eisenhower to Clinton to Bush

The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : From Eisenhower to Clinton to Bush
An editorial in today’s edition of The Hindu, one of India’s largest circulation newspapers, suggests that while the burgeoning middle class seems to embrace the “American Dream,” this country’s poorest citizens remain suspicious, if not indifferent, to the U.S. agenda.

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism

Indland Jyllands-Posten

Salman Rushdie should soon have some more compatriots with his Fatwah death threat; after he and 11 leading secular Muslims published this manifesto in a Danish paper. Click on the link above to read the full original. Here is an excerpt:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

Needing to wake up, West just closes its eyes

Needing to wake up, West closes its eyes
Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:

”We won’t stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.”

Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it’s in the grip of sharia, and the other half’s feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates.

A common sign in Pan-Islamist demonstrations reads: “2030 – We Take Over”