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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/15/2014 4:31:51 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217574

The sad part of the Ukrainian episode with Russia taking over Crimea adn amassing forces on Ukraine border is that this generation forgot the imperialistic past of the Soviet Union, like the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 or Hungarian Uprising of 1956 with Imre Nagy as the elected PM which was repressed in a very cruel way. en.wikipedia.org I remember vividly how at the time night and day long columns of armored Russian military hardware where passing trough our town invading Hungary and how worried and frightened people where. At the time I was a little kid but it made a very lasting impression who communist Russian are fact is that I remember this even today s may years after the event and this memory only instigate feeling of anger. Another event that people forgot is the rise and fall of Dubcek within Czehoslovakia who initiated the Prague Spring en.wikipedia.org As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the Soviets began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite states to subordinate their national interests to those of the " Eastern Bloc" (through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. [44] On the night of 20–21 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union, the GDR, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary—invaded the CSSR. [45] [46] That night, 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country. [47] They first occupied the Ruzyne International Airport, where air deployment of more troops was arranged. The Czechoslovak forces were confined to their barracks, which were surrounded until the threat of a counter-attack was assuaged. By the morning of 21 August Czechoslovakia was occupied. [46] Neither Romania nor Albania took part in the invasion. [48] During the invasion by the Warsaw Pact armies, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia), 266 severely wounded and another 436 slightly injured. [49] [50] Alexander Dubcek called upon his people not to resist. [50] Nevertheless, there was scattered resistance in the streets. Road signs in towns were removed or painted over—except for those indicating the way to Moscow. [51] Many small villages renamed themselves "Dubcek" or "Svoboda"; thus, without navigational equipment, the invaders were often confused. [52] This is why Russia under Putin must be stopped at all cost, because if they will not be stopped who knows who will be next. Most Western countries seem not to get this very simple fact that since Ivan Grozny and the Rurik dynasty Russia systematically had an expansionist policy by military force. One should know to differentiate between the ethnic Slavic part of Russia and the Vanagrian descendants who established the Kiev Rus and brutally destroyed Khazar Kingdom which was east of the Dniper River.to the Caspina sea en.wikipedia.org The Khazar Kingdom was destroyed by Vlodimir the son of Olga because they controlled the trading routes used by the Kiev Rus Varangians to what is now Iraq or the Arab Caliphate and Far East in their trades where they sold Slavic slaves captured in what is today Russia and furs from the same region. The Kiev Rus wanted access ot the Balck sea in their trade with Southern Europe and Byzantine. It is all about economics

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:18:31 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 217574

hello 2mar$, the agenda is now set, and as i hoped for, the front n centre be ... nanowerk.com 'Space Odyssey': China's aspiration in future space exploration (Nanowerk News) In near future, in outer space, Chinese scientists and their international colleagues, perhaps in the company of robots, will seek knowledge in labs on China's future space station.Aboard the space station, deep in space, researchers will probe the profound mysteries of the universe, while explorers penetrate the darkness beyond both Moon and Mars.This is no sci-fi movie, but a vision of the future presented to the people' s congress and members of the CPPCC during the two sessions. The vision is of a "space odyssey" for China' s future and for space exploration.China's future Space StationBy the year of 2020, the International Space Station is expected to be retired, while, in that same year, China's space station should be complete. China's station may then be mankind's only foothold in space.Zhang Bonan, chief designer of the program, told Xinhua that the station will be multi-cabin with a large capacity and high power. "The 2020 space station will be a national space lab," Zhang said."Experiments there will be diverse and flexible," he said, "International cooperation will be encouraged and the door of the lab will open for any experiments that fit the requirements."New flight systemThe first step to the stars is new technology, principally in supply lines. A cargo ship named "Tianzhou" (Heavenly Vessel) is planned to ferry cargo back and forth to the station.China is expected to launch a cargo ship around 2016 to serve the Tiangong-2 space laboratory, said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the manned space program and member of the National Committee of the CPPCC.The cargo ship will be delivered into space by the new Long March-7 carrier rocket and dock with Tiangong-2 automatically, Zhou said.A cargo transportation system that supplies goods and propellants is key to China building its own space station, he said.Liang Xiaohong, Party chief of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, also a member of the National Committee, explained that the Long March carrier rocket series is already industrialized. By 2020, China will meet a market demand of more than 270 domestic and 460 foreign launches.The Tianzhou cargo ship and the Long March rocket will be ready around 2016, heralding a new era in space transportation. Moreover, China is expected to launch a "space shuttle bus" this year to carry payload.The "space shuttle bus", Yuanzheng-1 (Expedition-1) is an upper stage aircraft attached to a carrier rocket. It can carry spacecraft, using its own power, into an initial orbit, Liang Xiaohong said. It has the same function as a carrier rocket and can take multiple craft to different locations, Liang said.Yuanzheng-1 will play an important role in future moon and Mars exploration as well as orbital transfer and space debris clearing, he said.While the Jade Rabbit moon rover sleeps on the moon, other dreams are taking wing.Preparation for the 2017 launch of lunar probe Chang'e-5 is going as planned, said Ye Peijia, a top scientist with the Chang'e-3 lunar probe mission.Chang'e-5, as part of China's third-phase lunar program, is expected to bring back moonrock samples to Earth, which Ye believes will be "a historic moment".The more sophisticated Chang'e-5, including unmanned sampling and returning, requires breakthroughs in moon surface takeoff technology, sampling encapsulation, rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit, as well as high-speed Earth reentry.To make sure the mission is a success, a Chang'e-5 test probe will be launched this year to rehearse the route, Ye disclosed.Chang'e-2, launched on Oct. 1, 2010, is now China's first man-made asteroid, about 70 million km from Earth and heading into deep space. Ye said the ship could travel as far as 300 million km from Earth. "New discoveries cannot be ruled out," Ye said."We plan to send a manned mission to the moon. The Earth is our cradle, and humanity will go out from here someday. The moon is the nearest: if we cannot land on it, where else can we go?" he said.The Martian ChroniclesChina now has the capability to explore Mars by sending a probe to circle the planet and land, Ye said. The only question is when.Humanity has launched more than 40 missions to planets in the solar system and over half of them have failed.Zhang Bonan said that the logjam for a manned mission to Mars is still the technology."Exploration is the ultimate target of human beings. If we cannot break through the technological bottleneck, the future for the whole species will be bleak."The life of Earth is limited compared with that of the whole universe, Zhang said."The future lies beyond the Earth," he said."We know so little about the Milky Way, and the whole universe is even more vast. There's too much for us to know," he said, adding that the "unknown" is the biggest drive for humans to explore. Read more: 'Space Odyssey': China's aspiration in future space exploration nanowerk.com Follow us: @nanowerk on Twitter

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:21:01 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217574

also featured ... per imperative bna.com China Outlines Environmental Action in ‘War’ on Air, Water and Soil Pollution Wednesday, March 12, 2014 By Michael Standaert March 5 --China's Premier Li Keqiang pledged that the country would take stronger measures over the coming year to reduce and control air, water and soil pollution, speaking in his annual address at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC) meetings in Beijing. Li said China would “declare war” on pollution, and would raise energy efficiency, reduce vehicle emissions and prevent and monitor airborne dust. He said that “blind and inefficient development” had led to major pollution problems in the nation. Li said that around 50,000 smaller coal-fired furnaces would be shut down and that China would increase the use of denitrification and desulfurization technology in larger coal-fired power plants. China will continue the policy goal of having China IV diesel provided nationwide, and removing around 6 million older vehicles from the roadways, by the end of the year, Li said March 5. A separate report released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) before Li's speech outlined goals for reducing energy intensity per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 3.9 percent, and reducing carbon intensity per unit of GDP by 4 percent by the end of the year, compared with the year before. Outlining goals for key pollutants targeted for reduction in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the NDRC said the aim is to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 2 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 5 percent, compared with the year before. Both discharge levels of chemical oxygen and ammonia nitrogen have 2 percent reduction targets. Soil and Water Plans Coming SoonOn March 4, Fu Ying, deputy secretary-general of the NPC, said in a news briefing that environmental legislation would be a “top priority” in 2014 and that action plans on water and soil pollution prevention and control are still in the planning phase . Zhou Jian, vice minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), was quoted March 4 as saying the process of finalizing the soil pollution prevention and control plan is being speeded up and that it would be released this year. Pan Biling, head of the Hunan provincial Environmental Protection Bureau and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, also meeting in Beijing, was quoted by state-run Beijing Youth Daily on March 4 as saying that data from a national soil pollution census conducted over several years by the MEP and Ministry of Land and Resources could be released soon after the NPC meetings. Hunan province, which has seen particularly severe heavy metal contamination of soil and waterways, has begun piloting a system of 3- to 7-year special municipal bonds to help fund remediation along the Xiangjiang River area of the province, a report from the MEP website on March 3 indicated. In his work report, Li said that China expects to spend 70 billion yuan ($11.4 billion) through the year to fund water diversion, protection and efficient irrigation projects. A total of 648 billion yuan ($105 billion) has been budgeted from the central government for agriculture, forestry and water conservation, according to the Ministry of Finance annual budget report released before Li's speech, an increase of 9.8 percent over the previous year. Spending on energy conservation and environmental protection also is expected to increase by 7.1 percent, with 210 billion yuan ($34 billion) allocated from the central budget. Fu also said that amendments to the Environmental Protection Law are still being deliberated by the NPC but did not give a date when those would be finalized. At the briefing, Fu said that while current enforcement action is progressing related to the air pollution action plan released in the latter half of 2013, legislators also are considering further amendments to the action plan . Fines Expected to Rise to Curtail Air PollutionIncreased fines for violation of air pollution regulations could be among changes to the action plan, according to several reports. State-run China Daily newspaper on Feb. 28 quoted officials from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau as saying more severe punishments are likely to be added to revisions of the capital's own air pollution action plan, which officially took effect March 1. Fines for businesses in Beijing that do not reduce or suspend production when ordered to do so during air pollution emergencies will be increased to 500,000 yuan ($81,500), up from a current 100,000 yuan ($16,300) level, the paper reported. The paper reported on Feb. 27 that MEP is also working on drafting an Air Pollution Prevention Law that will be reviewed by the Standing Committee of the NPC this year, and would include fines for local governments that do not fulfill air pollution reduction targets. The policy has been piloted in the province of Liaoning in northeast China, which fined eight cities in 2013 for not meeting their targets. Increased Enforcement ActionAfter the introduction of the air pollution action plan in 2013, the level of environmental law enforcement notably increased, particularly in areas of northeast China around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. At a news briefing on Feb. 27, the Supreme People's Procuratorate stated it would concentrate more on environmental crimes in the coming year, according to a report from Legal Daily, a newspaper attached to the Ministry of Justice. In an interview at his Beijing office on March 4, Feng Yongfeng, head of the nongovernmental Green Beagle Environment Institute in Beijing, told Bloomberg BNA that environmental law enforcement has increased because of air pollution problems, but that more could be done regarding water and solid waste emissions, particularly at the local level. Feng said that fines are too low to change behavior, and that there are problems monitoring smaller companies. “Pollution from smaller facilities can actually be more acute than those from a large steel company, which has more advanced facilities,” Feng said. Technical Standards for Polluted SitesOn Feb. 26, the MEP approved a series of technical instructions related to remediation of contaminated sites, according to a statement from the ministry website. Full texts of the instructions have not been released by the MEP, but the statement quoted an MEP official saying that the instructions would be important for forthcoming soil pollution and groundwater pollution policies and regulations, with the instructions used for fulfilling certain targets in treating soil and groundwater pollution. The documents reportedly focus on technical surveying instructions, technical instructions for monitoring, instructions on evaluating risk, instructions on remediation and a glossary of terms related to contaminated sites. The MEP official said that site remediation faced obstacles because of the lack of professional experience in China in remediation, lack of or incomplete data on sites and the lack of domestically produced technology for surveying, monitoring and remediating those sites. To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Standaert in Shenzhen, China, at correspondents@bna.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Greg Henderson at ghenderson@bna.com The MEP statement on forthcoming contaminated site remediation instructions is available, in Chinese, at bit.ly.

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:22:52 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217574

good to now go go go reuters.com China plans investment and reform to ease urbanization drive Credit: Reuters/Aly Song A man walks in an area where old residential buildings are being demolished to make room for new skyscrapers in central Shanghai January 20, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Aly Song (Reuters) - China is planning a major expansion of its transport networks and urban infrastructure as it seeks to increase migration from rural to urban areas, lifting incomes and demand to drive continued economic growth. The 2014-20 urbanization plan released on Sunday aims to boost domestic consumption by increasing the proportion of urban residents among China's population of almost 1.4 billion to 60 percent by 2020, up from 53.7 percent now. Among the biggest obstacles to the planned relocation of several hundred million rural residents is the huge infrastructure development needed to accommodate the new wave of city dwellers as well as reform of the country's "hukou" registration system. This complex system of residency registration is a major sticking point because it controls the benefits that residents can enjoy. The system denies basic services to those who relocate without permission, fanning social unrest. China's leaders, however, will make it easier for rural migrants to obtain residency status in smaller cities, with the intention of helping to unlock the nation's huge potential domestic demand. Urban salaries are higher than rural incomes, meaning that a larger city-based population should have greater spending power. "Domestic demand is the fundamental impetus for China's development, and the greatest potential for expanding domestic demand lies in urbanization," state news agency Xinhua reported, citing the plan from China's State Council, which added detail to previous announcements about the urbanization drive. RAIL LINKS The plan will create "huge" demand for investment in public infrastructure, with authorities seeking a substantial increase in social housing as well as the development of expanded urban underground transport networks by 2020. Every city with more than 200,000 residents will be covered by standard railways by 2020, the plan said, with high-speed services connecting cities with more than 500,000 residents. The civil aviation network, meanwhile, will cover about 90 percent of the population. Authorities are also targeting environmentally friendly growth, a serious issue for a nation that has been bogged down in pollution issues including toxic levels of smog, polluted waterways and so-called "cancer villages". These villages, hit by high levels of water, air and soil pollution, are a symptom of China's many years of rampant economic growth, when environmental issues took a back seat to financial rewards. The 2014-20 urbanization plan said it will improve water safety and air quality. "Green production and green consumption will become the mainstream of city economic life. The amount of power and water-saving products, recycled goods and green construction will be raised substantially," the report said. China will also increase the number of small and mid-sized cities, boosting less-developed regions in the west of the country and improving services to meet demand from the influx of rural residents, the plan said. (Reporting by Adam Jourdan; Editing by David Goodman)

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:26:45 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217574

also, of course the land reform, that which shall even up the urban haves vs rural have-nots, which, coincidentally, also fits the need to expedite inland vs coastal development globaltimes.cn Chinese farmers look to more land reform - CHINA - Globaltimes.cn While tens of thousands of rural Chinese have flocked to big cities for higher salaries, Lei Yingguo's decision to pursue green agriculture in the country has paid off, if only financially. Lei was laughed at by his peers when he began large-scale rice cultivation at Xiushi Town in east China's Jiangxi Province in 2005, a time when most rural Chinese were deserting their contracted land for cities. Lei's eco-farm, with an annual net income of about 500,000 yuan ($81,600), was the result of China's reformed land policy in 2004, which encouraged farmers to develop large-scale farming. Lei is one of the beneficiaries of the 2004 reforms, but rising land rent and a shortage of advanced planting techniques have hampered his dream of expanding the farm's business from planting to breeding and grain processing. He has new expectations for 2014, set to be a landmark year for the implementation of a reform master plan covering a spate of policies ranging from land use to anti-corruption. "I expect favorable measures in fund-raising and government support in planting techniques during the upcoming two sessions," Lei said, referring to China's annual meetings of the national legislature and political advisors. The meeting of political advisors is set to open on March 3, and the meeting of the national legislature will open on March 5. According to Chinese law, urban land is owned by the state and rural land is under collective ownership. Farmers can use the land but have no right to sell or develop it for real-estate use. But they are entitled to lease their land to other farmers or to rural cooperatives and share the profits of such cooperatives. Since the 1990s, the property market has flourished in cities and has been a major engine of growth, while ownership rules for rural land have not changed in decades, which has constricted rural development. In order to unleash the vitality of the rural sector, Chinese leaders decided to tackle the rural land issue by putting forward a number of reforms at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held in November. A reform master plan approved at the session promises to give the country's 650 million rural residents more property rights, but specific measures have yet to be announced. Farmers expect such measures to be discussed during the two sessions in March. China's per capita arable land is only about 1.35 mu, lower than half of the world average. High-yield farmland only accounts for 30 percent of the total arable land and the country has few backup resources available, according to a State Council report. To ensure grain security, the country has drawn a "red line" of 1.8 billion mu as the official minimum area of arable land needed to feed the world's largest population. The central leadership has reiterated its resolve to carry out the reform master plan in the lead-up to the two sessions. When addressing a workshop attended by principal officials at the provincial and ministerial levels last week, President Xi Jinping said that "drafting a good document is only the first step for a long march, and implementation is still the key." Wang Zhongwu, a sociology professor at Shandong University, said that regional development disparities and "unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development" will still be hot topics during the two sessions. Wang said that such problems cannot be resolved in a short time, adding that these troubles will test authorities' governance capabilities in the following years.

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:29:14 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217574

and given the even-ing-up, folks may opt to take up on the new policy initiatives and ... theguardian.com China may opt for 'two children' policy in future, says senior official China recently relaxed its tight birth control rules slightly, allowing couples to qualify for a second birth if one of the partners was an only child. Photograph: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images After decades of enforcing a one-child policy, China may in the future allow every couple to have two children, a senior family planning official has said. China's national health and family planning commission will study the impact of a universal two-child rule, its head of research, Ma Xu, told state news agency Xinhua, adding that there was no specific timetable for the decision. Experts said it was inevitable that China would make the shift, but probably not for several years. While most couples face large fines if they have more than one child, there are several exemptions, notably for ethnic minorities and rural residents. China recently relaxed its tight birth control rules slightly, allowing couples to qualify for a second birth if one of the partners was an only child; previously, both had to be without siblings. The move affects a relatively small proportion of families, but experts saw it as opening the door to further reform as the labour force begins to shrink and China faces a rapidly ageing population. Ma, who is also a deputy to the National People's Congress, spoke in the runup to the annual session of the largely rubber-stamp parliament, which opens in Beijing on Wednesday. He told Xinhua: "If the policy is introduced, the population would increase 10 million every year, which will put a lot of pressure on society." He said the latest survey showed that 60-65% of people in urban areas able to have children and 90% in rural areas were willing to have a second child. Many experts and officials have lobbied for a two-child rule, in some cases seeing it as a step towards ending birth control policies entirely. They argue China faces a demographic timebomb and many believe changes need to be made rapidly. Zhang Chewei, a population expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said it would take a year or two before the impact of the recent change was clear. "But there is no doubt that the two-child policy will be completely opened in future," he said. Yuan Xin, a policy expert at Nankai University in Tianjin, said there were concerns that changing the rules too quickly could have a dramatic effect on the allocation of resources and economic development. "At present, we cannot skip to the stage of a two-child policy without any restrictions … However, our policy will be looser and looser," he said. Yuan said if the new rules had the effects predicted, a universal two-child policy could be expected after the current five-year plan ends in 2020. Further policy adjustments would be a matter for the next generation. Du Peng, an expert on aging at Renmin University in Beijing, said a sudden opening of the policy might cause an abrupt increase in births. He noted that a 2006 strategy paper on population set a goal of controlling the fertility rate at 1.8 until 2036. In most industrialised countries, a sustained rate of 2.1 is required for a population to remain stable over the long term. Many experts estimate the current rate in China is around 1.5, with some believing it could be lower.

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (104969)	3/16/2014 8:47:58 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217574

per latest it looks like the following mega project is on the sponsored list and therefore go go go if so, the fed-desired inflation should gain new impetus from cash earlier-printed-up as dollars go from west to east to find new home cbsnews.com Nicaragua plans its own Panama CanalNicaragua's government is just months away from breaking ground on a new waterway meant to rival the Panama Canal, despite cries of alarm from environmentalists and growing questions about the company involved in heading up the project. A lot about the new waterway, which would be three times as long as the Panama Canal and would take about a decade to complete, is still not public. But last month, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Wang Jing, president and CEO of the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company (HKND), said in a joint statement that construction on what is being called the "Nicaragua grand canal" is scheduled to start in December. Last June, HKND won a $40 billion concession to design, construct and maintain the Nicaragua Canal, which like its Panamanian counterpart would allow a shorter international shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Wang says HKND is a "strictly commercial project," with no geopolitics involved. "There was no order from the Chinese government," he said in an interview last October, "nor were any instructions given or demands made." But the project, and Wang Jing, have recently drawn scrutiny. Wang is also president and chairman of the Xinwei Telecom Enterprise Group. In a statement on the company's web site, Wang says Xinwei is "committed to providing world-leading wireless communication technologies, products and services," and to contributing "to the progress of world civilizations." But an Associated Press report published several months ago in the South China Morning Post notes that in more than half of the 20 countries where Xinwei reportedly has business ventures, there's no evidence that Xinwei or its associated firms have any "successful, large-scale project up and running." And soon after the project was announced, Business Monitor's web site said the feasibility of a Nicaraguan canal is, at best, questionable. The research firm noted that HKND has no experience with infrastructure development. It also questioned company claims that the new canal would boost Nicaragua's GDP and help create more global competition, saying the proposed Nicaraguan canal's long-term maintenance costs alone would undermine its cost-efficiency. Meanwhile, a recent article by two researchers, published in the science journal Nature, cautions the canal could create a regional enivironmental disaster in Central America by threatening fresh water supplies, cutting off wildlife migration routes and further endangering rare species. "The excavation of hundreds of kilometers from coast to coast, traversing Lake Nicaragua, the largest drinking-water reservoir in the region, will destroy around 400,000 hectares (nearly one million acres) of rainforests and wetlands," said the article's authors, a professor of zoology and evolutionary biology at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the president of the Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences. Arguments have been made for another canal. Globalization has boosted demand for international shipping. And a fact sheet on U.S-Panama relations issued in November by the White House says that, while an estimated 5 percent of global trade currently passes through the Panama Canal annually, the volume of cargo traversing that route is expected to double by 2025. Meanwhile, plans to expand the Panama Canal to accommodate the latest generation of large, transoceanic cargo ships have been delayed for months due to cost overruns and local labor disputes, and aren't expected to be completed until next year. But industry analysts have their doubts about the Chinese-Nicaraguan venture. "[T]here is no justification whatsoever for a new canal through Nicaragua," Ralph Leszczynski, head of research at the maritime agency Banchero Costa, told the Bangkok Post. "We already have a canal through Panama that works pretty well."