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CHINA News:
20081106
Chinese
-  Hackers
-  US
-  Government
-  E-Mail
-  Network
-  Military
-  Technology
-  Intelligence
-  Politics
"Chinese
hack into White House network." ... "Chinese hackers
have penetrated the White House computer network on multiple occasions,
and obtained e-mails between government officials, a senior US [United
States] official told the Financial Times." ... "On each occasion, the
cyber attackers accessed the [Republican President Bush] White House computer
system for brief periods, allowing them enough time to steal information
before US computer experts patched the system." ... "US government cyber
intelligence experts suspect the attacks were sponsored by the Chinese
government because of their targeted nature. But they concede that it is
extremely difficult to trace the exact source of an attack beyond a server
in a particular country." ... "The official said the Chinese cyber attacks
had the hallmarks of the “grain of sands” approach taken by Chinese intelligence,
which involves obtaining and pouring through lots of - often low-level
- information to find a few nuggets." ... "Some US defence companies have
privately warned about attacks on their systems, which they believe are
attempts to learn about future weapons systems." ... "The National Cyber
Investigative Joint Task Force, a new unit established in 2007 to tackle
cyber security, detected the attacks on the White House. But the official
stressed that the hackers had only accessed the unclassified computer network,
not the more secure classified network." ... "The US has increased efforts
to tackle cyber security, particularly since Chinese hackers believed to
be associated with the Peoples’ Liberation Army last year perpetrated a
major attack on the Pentagon." ... "US military computer experts battled
for weeks against a sustained attack that eventually overcame the Pentagon’s
defences. The cyber attackers managed to obtain information and emails
traffic from the unclassified computer system that supports Robert Gates,
the defence secretary. Pentagon IT technicians were forced to take the
network down for days to conduct repairs." -By Demetri
Sevastopulo -FT.com
20081105
 Barack
Obama -  John
McCain -  Sarah
Palin -  Fashion
-  Money
- Internet
- Hacking
- Federal
-  Investigation
- 2008
Election - Technology
- Politics
- US
-  Russia
- China
"Hackers
and Spending Sprees." ... "The computer systems of
both the [2008 Election Presidential Candidates] Obama and McCain campaigns
were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity,"
prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today." ... "At the
Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they
initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of
hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by
the next day, both the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and the Secret
Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem
way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You
have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off
your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard
from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have
a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's
aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been
similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that
the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become
involved." ... "Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama
campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to
gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information
that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The
Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political
opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were
Russian or Chinese.)" ... "NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping
spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously
reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately
fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide
said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention
and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying
for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such
as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable
sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor,
who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers
to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found
out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that
she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that
$20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of
clothing have apparently been lost." (1, 2)
-Newsweek
20080806
Hacking
- Business
-  Computer
- Consumer
- Data
- Identity
Theft -  Privacy
- US
-  Ukraine
- China
"Theft
ring accused of hacking 41 million credit card numbers."
... "Eleven people, including a U.S. [United States] Secret Service informant,
have been charged in connection with the hacking of nine major retailers
and the theft and sale of more than 41 million credit- and debit-card numbers,
the Justice Department announced Tuesday." ... "The data breach is believed
to be the largest hacking and identity-theft case ever prosecuted by the
Department of Justice, which said the suspects were charged with conspiracy,
computer intrusion, fraud and identity theft." ... "Three of those charged
are U.S. citizens, while the others are from places such as Estonia, Ukraine,
Belarus and China." -StarTribune
20080702
Secret
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Prisons
- US
- Guantanamo
-  Cuba
- Chinese
-   Korean
-  History
-  Medical
- Science
-  Psychological
- Military
- Intelligence
- Politics
- Investigators
"China
Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo." ...
"The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay [Cuba] in December
2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects
of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including
“sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”" ... "What
the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart
had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist
techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them
false, from American prisoners." ... "The recycled chart is the latest
and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that
the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations
both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by
the Central Intelligence Agency." ... "Some methods were used against a
small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress
banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized
by [Republican] President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative”
interrogation methods." ... "Several Guantánamo documents, including
the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came
to be employed." ... "But committee investigators were not aware of the
chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed
out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who
spoke on condition of anonymity." ... "The 1957 article from which the
chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions
From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist
then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed
American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed
by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities."
... "Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American
prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its
training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh
methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured." ...
"In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance,
Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and
the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical
amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware
that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions
by American prisoners." ... "The only change made in the chart presented
at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive
Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”" (1, 2)
-By Scott
Shane -NYTimes
PDF
Documents via NYTimes:
"Communist
Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force Prisoners of War
(pdf) [September
1957 article by A. D. Biderman, Bull, N.Y. Acad. Med, Vol. 33, No.9, pp
616-625. 10 pages. NB: p. 4 (619), Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting
Individual Compliance]."
"Documents
Released at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on SERE Tactics (pdf)."
20080621
China
- Hackers
- US
- GOV
-  Lawmakers
- Human
Rights - Politics
- Military
-Intelligence
- Investigation
-  Va
-  NJ
-  Ill
"More
congressional computers hacked from China." ... "More
Members of Congress have had their computers infiltrated by hackers within
China than initially suspected, a lawmaker has revealed." ... "[Representatives]
Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va. [Republican-Virginia), Chris Smith (R-N.J. [Republican-New
Jersey), and Mark Kirk (R-Ill. [Republican-Illinois]) admitted to having
data removed from their Capitol Hill computers last week, but Wolf says
there are more." ... "“I would suspect that the Foreign Affairs, Armed
Services, Intelligence, (and) Appropriations committees would all be top
targets,” Kirk said." ... "Wolf and Smith said they believe the hackers
focused on them because of their continued objections to China’s human
rights violations, and suspected that the hackers were looking for information
on dissidents." ... "The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] asked the
lawmakers not to speak publicly, fearing that if they did, they would be
unable to track the IP addresses of the hackers, Kirk said." ... "“When
you’re in the middle of a criminal investigation, you try not to alert
the criminal of what’s happened so you can track it down,” he said." -By
Jordy Yager -TheHill.com
20080520
-
US
- Chinese
- Torture- Intelligence
- Politics
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Government
- Prison
- Investigation
- Law
- "Report:
U.S. Soldiers Did 'Dirty Work' for Chinese Interrogators:
Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese
Intelligence." ... "U.S. [United States] military personnel at Guantanamo
Bay [Cuba] allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence
officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men --
or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according
to claims in a new government report." ... "Buried in a Department of Justice
report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between
the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit
Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there." ... "According
to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI
[Federal Bureau of Investigation] agent reported a detainee belonging to
China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur
detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced
to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators."
... "Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held
at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar." ...
"U.S. personnel "are engaging in abusive tactics on behalf of the Chinese,"
she said Tuesday. When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators
in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment,
she said." ... ""Why are we doing China's dirty work?" Manning said. "Surely
we're better than that." " (1, 2)
-By Justin Rood -ABCNEWS.com
20080517
-
Obama
- McCain
- Osama
bin Laden
- US
-
 Iraq
-  Iran
- Palestine
-  Israel
- Russia
- China
-  Foreign
- Military
-  Terrorism
- Intelligence
- Politics
- History
- Illinois
- 2008
Election - "Obama
Strikes Back at Bush On Diplomacy." ... "[2008 Election
Democratic Presidential Candidate and Illinois Senator] Sen. Barack Obama
pushed back Friday against [Republican] President Bush's implicit criticism
of his approach to foreign policy, condemning his administration for not
capturing Osama bin Laden and blaming its Iraq war policy for strengthening
and emboldening Iran." ... ""If [Republicans] George Bush and John McCain
want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that
is a debate that I'm happy to have anytime, anyplace, and that is a debate
I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,"
the Democratic front-runner said." ... "At a news conference later Friday,
Obama called it "disingenuous" to assert that he was not the clear target
of the president's comments. Obama then used the exchange to link Bush's
foreign policy record to McCain's stance toward the Middle East, and to
outline the ways his own approach to the world's most vexing problems would
differ from those of the current administration." ... "His list of grievances
included a war fought on the premise of weapons of mass destruction that
were never found, the failure to capture bin Laden and turning Iran into
the "greatest beneficiary" of the Iraq war." ... "He said McCain will "need
to answer" for a strengthened al-Qaeda leadership, Hamas's control of the
Gaza Strip [Palestine], and Iran's ability to fund Hezbollah and pose "the
greatest threat to America and Israel and the Middle East in a generation.""
... ""That's the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country," Obama
said. "Those are the failed policies that John McCain wants to double down
on."" ... "In a later appearance, Obama added that he is "puzzled" that
the concept of meeting with controversial foreign leaders is a point of
debate "when this has been the history of U.S. [United States] diplomacy
until very recently."" ... "He pointed to [Democratic] President John F.
Kennedy's meetings with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev when the United
States and Russia were on the brink of nuclear war, and to [Republican]
President Richard M. Nixon's meeting with China's Mao Zedong, "with the
knowledge that Mao had exterminated millions of people." " -By
Matthew Mosk with contributions by Perry Bacon Jr., Michael D. Shear and
Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost
-
Obama
- McCain
- Russia
- China
- Foreign
- Military
- Politics
- History
- Health-Care
- Marketplace
-
 Arizona
- Illinois
-  Ore- US
- 2008
Election - "Obama:
Bush, McCain Should 'Explain Why They Have a Problem With JFK'."
... "ABC News Sunlen Miller reports: [2008 Election Democratic Presidential
Candidate and Illinois Senator] Sen. Barack Obama went one step further
today in his pushback against presumptive GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican]
presidential nominee [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and
Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain and [Republican] President Bush on appeasement,
suggesting that both Republicans have a problem with presidents past who
have engaged in direct diplomacy." ... ""If George Bush and John McCain
have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the president of the United
States, then they can explain why they have a problem with [Democratic
President] John F. Kennedy because that's what he did with [Soviet leader
Nikita] Khrushchev, or [Republican President] Ronald Reagan, 'cause that's
what he did with [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, or [Republican President]
Richard Nixon 'cause that's what they did with [Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung],"
Obama said in Roseburg, Ore. [Oregon.] "That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy
we need to keep us safe."" ... "Obama also blasted McCain's healthcare
proposals during a town-hall meeting." ... ""Essentially his plan is we’re
gonna dismantle the employer-based system and give everybody a tax break
and then see if you can fend for yourself in the marketplace," Obama told
the crowd. "He wants to give you the failed Bush health-care polices for
another four years."" -ABCNEWS.com
20080514
-
John
McCain -
 Sudan
- China
-  India
-  Oil
- Politics
- International
- US
- 2008
Election - "McCain's
wife sells Sudan investments." ... "The wife of [2008
Election] Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has been a
critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual
funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African
nation." ... "The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned
Cindy McCain's investments in light of calls by her husband for international
financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership." ... "According to
McCain's personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain's investments include
two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American
Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund — that are listed by the Sudan
Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment." ... "Both funds have
holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp. [Corporation], an India-based company
that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth &
Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned
oil company with vast investments in Sudan."
-AP via -USATODAY
20080430
-
 Hillary
Clinton -  Indiana
-  Workers
- 2008
Election - US
- China
- Military
- Technology
- Manufacturing
- Corporation
- "Clinton
blasts Bush for not stopping a project Bill OK'd."
... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Hillary Clinton
loves to tell the story about how the Chinese government bought a good
American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical
defense technology work to China." ... "It’s a story with a dramatic, political
ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but
he didn’t." ... "If she were president, Clinton says, she’d fight to protect
those jobs. It’s just the kind of talk that’s helping her win support from
working-class Democrats worried about their jobs and paychecks, not to
mention their country’s security." ... "What Clinton never includes in
the oft-repeated tale is the role that prominent Democrats played in selling
the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that
big-time Democratic contributor George Soros [who also contributed to Republican
John McCain's 2000 Presidential Candidacy] helped put together the deal
to sell the company or that the sale was approved by her husband's [former
Democratic President Bill Clinton's] administration." ... "In response,
the Clinton campaign said that Bill Clinton's administration had gotten
assurances at the time it approved the deal that production would remain
inside the United States, and that the shift of jobs to China didn't occur
until under the Bush administration." ... "In 2001, it [the Chinese manufacturing
company] closed its original plant in Anderson, Ind[Indiana]." ... "And
in 2003, it decided to close the Valparaiso [Indiana] plant, laying off
its 225 workers." ... "Indiana politicians asked the Bush administration
to intervene." ... "The [Republican President Bush] administration didn't
block the move." -By
Steven
Thomma -McClatchyDC.com
-
Chinese
-
 Child
- Labor
- Human
Rights - Politics
- "Chinese
children sold "like cabbages" into slavery." ...
"Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like
"cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming
southern province of Guangdong [China], a newspaper said on Tuesday." ...
"China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last
year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally
disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and
neighboring Henan." (1, 2)
-Contributed to by Nick Macfie and Valerie Lee
-Reuters
20080421
-
Global
-
 Planet
- Oil
-  Food
- Agriculture
-  Car
- Economy
- China
- "Running
Out of Planet to Exploit." ... "Last week, oil hit
$117." ... "Food prices have also soared, as have the prices of basic metals.
And the global surge in commodity prices is reviving a question we haven’t
heard much since the 1970s: Will limited supplies of natural resources
pose an obstacle to future world economic growth?" ... "How you answer
this question depends largely on what you believe is driving the rise in
resource prices. Broadly speaking, there are three competing views." ...
"The first is that it’s mainly speculation — that investors, looking for
high returns at a time of low interest rates, have piled into commodity
futures, driving up prices." ... "The second view is that soaring resource
prices do, in fact, have a basis in fundamentals — especially rapidly growing
demand from newly meat-eating, car-driving Chinese — but that given time
we’ll drill more wells, plant more acres, and increased supply will push
prices right back down again." ... "The third view is that the era of cheap
resources is over for good — that we’re running out of oil, running out
of land to expand food production and generally running out of planet to
exploit." ... "I find myself somewhere between the second and third views."
... "There are some very smart people — not least, George Soros — who believe
that we’re in a commodities bubble (although Mr. Soros says that the bubble
is still in its “growth phase”)." -By Paul
Krugman -NYTimes
20080420
-
 Don
Young -  Abramoff
-  Bob
Schaffer - Money
- Politics
-  Mariana
Islands
- Chinese
- Garment
- Factory
- Industry
- Labor
-  Women
- Abortion
- Human
Rights - Investigations
- Government
- Immigration
- Law- History
- US
-  Colorado
-  Alaska
- "Records
expose Young-Abramoff ties: MARIANA ISLANDS." ...
"[Alaska Republican Represenative] Rep. Don Young has said he never allowed
convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be an influential force over him in
Congress." ... "But now a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff's
firms show that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young's
personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with
Young himself." ... "The available records cover a single Abramoff client,
the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. [United States]
territory in the Pacific that Young oversaw when he chaired the House Resources
Committee from 1995 to 2001." ... "The records show that one of the looming
concerns of Abramoff and his fellow lobbyists at the time was a bill introduced
by Young's fellow Alaskan, [Republican Senator] Sen. Frank Murkowski, to
reform labor and immigration practices feeding the island's notorious Chinese-owned
sweatshops. In 2000, Murkowski's bill passed the Senate unanimously, but
Young stopped it cold in his committee, refusing to hold even a hearing."
... "Investigations by the government, media and human rights groups uncovered
widespread abuses in the garment industry and among sex workers there starting
in the mid-1990s, but Young asserted those investigations were bogus."
... "As a member of Young's Resources Committee, [Colorado Republican Representative
and 2008 Election Colorado Senator Candidate Bob] Schaffer took a free
trip to the Mariana Islands arranged by Abramoff's law firm, then played
a central role in a 1989 committee hearing investigating Interior department
officials in the [Democratic President Bill] Clinton administration who
were trying to rein in the Saipan government [Saipan is the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands' capital]." ... "A growing number of reports
spoke of near slave-labor conditions, with workers kept in sealed compounds,
required to work seven days a week without overtime, and sometimes getting
no paycheck at all. There were widespread reports of women coerced into
getting abortions to keep their jobs. Some women hired abroad found themselves
working not in garment factories at all, but sex clubs." -By
Richard Mauer -ADN.com
20080417
-
-
-
 Media
- Politics
- Corporate
-  Network
- 2008
Election - 
-
-
-
- Torture
-
- Human
Rights - 
- Consumer
-
- 
- Safety
-
-
- 
- Death
Penalty - "Okay,
Now I'm Bitter." [Mary Mapes on what
DISNEY/ABC didn't cover in the 2008 Election Democratic Presidential
Candidate debate in Pennsylvania with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama]
... "In Iraq, we've seen a rebound in suicide bombings and gotten the disquieting
information that Iraqi soldiers have been fleeing the battlefield in frightening
numbers." ... "Americans learned that detailed discussions of torture techniques
had been held in the [Republican President] White House -- our White House
-- and President Bush revealed that he knew this and approved." ... "[Home]
Foreclosure rates have spiked to frightening levels." ... "U.S. [United
States] shoppers were told that food prices in this country are rising
at a higher pace than at any time in the past 17 years." ... "The airline
industry floundered through dreadful days of groundings, amidst safety
concerns, economic ailments and passenger anger." ... "Oil prices are setting
new records almost every day and $4 a gallon gas is coming soon to a service
station near you." ... "The anguish over China's human rights record and
its handling of Tibet turned the Olympic torch relay into a cross between
Spain's Running of the Bulls and 3rd grade keep-away." ... "[2008 Election
Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain, acting like a mean old
man trying to chase those pesky voters off his lawn, refused to endorse
a new GI bill that would help those currently serving our country get a
college education." ... "The Supreme Court issued a fractured opinion on
the death penalty that for the first time in years raises the real possibility
of a national debate on the value and morality of the ultimate punishment."
... "And we are in the middle of what is clearly the most important, most
consequential election of my lifetime -- and I'm no spring chicken." ...
"Instead, I sat in front of my TV open-mouthed, listening to a hodgepodge
of juvenile questions about flag jewelry, the possibility of a "dream"
ticket, elderly radicals, Charlie Gibson's personal tax concerns and ministers
who emote too much. What, no time for a question about Cindy McCain's purloined
pork chop recipe?" -By Mary Mapes
-HuffingtonPost.com
20080414
-
China
- Military
- Police
- Terrorism
- Religious
- Censorship
- Oil
- Sports
- Human
Rights - "As
world watches Tibet, China's Muslim Uighurs face growing repression."
... "Almost unnoticed amid the wide-scale protests by Tibetans over the
past month is the social unrest among the 8 million or so Muslim Uighurs
in China's resource-rich far western territory." ... "Recently, hundreds
of Muslim women in black veils gathered outside the market in this oasis
city [Khotan, China] in an impromptu protest. Some carried signs demanding
an independent state." ... ""I saw the demonstration myself. There were
500 to 700 women in black, waving placards for East Turkestan," said Wu
Jiangliang, a hydroelectric company employee." ... "China handled the unrest
forcefully, ensuring the stability of a region rich in oil, coal and minerals.
Police moved quickly to quell the March 23 protest, arresting numerous
women and shooing others away. It drew only minor notice." ... "China also
has broken up what it said were two terrorist rings that intended to disrupt
the Beijing [China's capital] Summer Olympic Games and thwarted what it
said was a terrorist attempt last month on a commercial airliner." ...
"But as state officials employed a firm hand against restive Uighurs, pronounced
WEE-gers, they also publicly demonized those behind the social unrest.
Critics now say that while the state has stabilized ethnic areas, the harsh
language may exacerbate tensions." ... ""The problem is that China's policies
are alienating," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for
Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group. "They are efficient in that political
repression works. But they increase ethnic tensions."" -By
Tim
Johnson -McClatchyDC.com
20080331
-
Food
- Crisis
- World
-
 People
- Farmers
- Land
- Fuel
- Money
- Politics
- History
-  Weather
-  Drought
- China
-  UN
- "Tensions
rise as world faces short rations." ... "Food prices
are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't
keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's
already boiling over." ... "Around the globe, people are protesting and
governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices
and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies
is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century." ... "Plundered by
severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing
nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have
been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food." ... "Drought,
a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use
of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population
growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are
likely to be more enduring factors." ... "World population is set to hit
9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in
the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding
dairy and meat, which require more land to produce." ... "In 2007 alone,
according to the U.N. [United Nations] Food and Agriculture Organization's
world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent."
[see also: Agflation]
(1, 2,
3,
4,
5)
-By Russell Blinch and Brian Love with contributions
by Ayesha Rascoe, Missy Ryan, Alistair Thomson, Ho Binh Minh and Eddie
Evans -Reuters
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