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US zeroes in on China's clout in Myanmar
A senior United States State Department mission is going to Myanmar to
ostensibly discuss democracy and human rights, but the subtext will clearly be
boosting ties and building influence in a country long considered to be in
China's diplomatic pocket. The competition between Washington and Beijing for
influence in Southeast Asia could hinge on how Myanmar's generals react. - Brian
McCartan (Oct 23, '09)
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COMMENT
How Australia can help the junta
The message the Australian government has for the military regime in Myanmar is
roughly: "We don't like what you're doing, but we are dead-set on continuing to
help your people." This is precisely what the generals need to hear. It is also
what Myanmar's business-focused neighbors - China, India and Thailand - need to
recognize in order to modify their approaches. - David Scott Mathieson
(Oct 23, '09)
Hour of decision on Iran
Iran, Russia, the United States and France are considering a draft agreement
that would see low-enriched Iranian uranium further processed in Russia and
France before being returned to Iran for use at a research reactor. The deal
has the potential to significantly defuse the crisis over Iran's nuclear
program, but Tehran is wary of making any hasty decisions. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi
(Oct 23, '09)
Korean summit not such a sick idea
As Washington pledges continuous military support for South Korea and issues
cautious words for the North, South Korean media are hinting that an
inter-Korean summit might not be as absurd an idea as previously believed.
Maybe the Dear Leader will go on a medical tourism journey to Seoul. - Donald
Kirk (Oct 23, '09)
Toxic alert as US ship heads for
India
Indian environmentalists claim a United States ship on the way to the country's
ship-breaking "graveyard", Alang, is the latest toxic vessel engaged in
trickery to avoid port-of-origin detoxification laws. Eyeing profits, the 4,000
unskilled laborers who would tear the possibly mercury- and asbestos-laden
vessel apart with basic tools don't seem to share their concerns. - Sudha
Ramachandran (Oct 23, '09)
China trumps Taiwan's 'democracy card'
As neither unification with mainland China nor independence will likely occur
in the near future, it is more important than ever for Taiwan to figure out an
appropriate position in the international community. Taipei is in the global
"liberal democratic community", but its volatile politics fail to solicit
majority support at home or to remove threats from Beijing. - Erdong Chen
(Oct 23, '09)
INTERVIEW
Prevention better than cure?
The British government's 
counter-terrorism policy, "Preventing Violent Extremism", has been accused of
being used to gather intelligence about people's political views and other
information related to their personal circumstances. Dr Abdul Wahid, a key
player in the British Muslim community, offers his views on the "sinister aims
and ideological agenda" of this strategy, and provides an alternative approach.
- Mahan Abedin (Oct 23, '09)
America, condoms and the Taliban
The United States didn't seem to care that it was unprecedented for a tribal
chief like Afghan President Hamid Karzai to be made to admit defeat in front of
his people - as he did in a press conference to announce a run-off election.
Whether Karzai was efficient or corrupt is no more the issue. The crux now is
the Afghan perception that Westerners use their friends like condoms - to be
discarded after use. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct
22, '09)
The spy who lost his thumb drives
American space scientist, missile defense expert and leading lunar researcher,
Stewart Nozette, arrested this week in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting,
is known to have expressed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence.
What is not known is what he did with two thumb drives he took to "Country A",
which is speculated to be India. - Peter J Brown
(Oct 22, '09)
Where Pakistan's militants go to
ground
The Pakistani military is taking the fight to militants in the South Waziristan
tribal area, even as the United States takes its Afghan fight to Pakistan. This
draws Pakistan into an ever-deepening quagmire, one in which militants are
carving havens. One of these is the Lyari area of Karachi, where an odd
assortment of groups - including the Iranian Jundallah and anti-Shi'ite terror
outfits - rub shoulders beyond the reach of the law. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Oct 22, '09)
Islamabad dismayed by 'dithering' US
The view that the United States will eventually abandon Pakistan, leaving it
alone to fend off insurgent groups and suicide bombers, is pervasive in
Islamabad. And when US President Barack Obama appears perplexed over questions
on Afghanistan such as "How many troops?" and "For what purpose?", it does
nothing to instill confidence in a besieged ally. The fine line between
"rethinking" and "dithering" is fast fading. - Zahid U Kramet
(Oct 22, '09)
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Property too hot to handle in Hong Kong
A world-record price for an apartment in Hong Kong highlights rising demand
from wealthy mainland Chinese, while a 26% surge in prices since January raises
fears of a bubble. This boom has prompted calls for restrictions on non-Hong
Kong residents buying residential housing, and for the government to release
its vice-like grip on land. - Olivia Chung (Oct
22, '09)
Azerbaijan and Turkey clash over
energy
A public cry of "no more cheap gas to Turkey" by Azerbaijan's President Ilham
Aliev has exacerbated rising Azeri-Turkish energy tensions. Ankara's efforts to
play different suppliers against one other - and position itself as a regional
energy hub - are not a fatal blow to the stalled Nabucco pipeline, but the
rival White Stream may come more to the fore. - R M Cutler
(Oct 22, '09)
Iran trapped in a ring of unrest
Whether the United States directed Jundallah to conduct the weekend's terrorist
attack in Iran is irrelevant. What is significant is that the Americans have
created - through their actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan - a strategic
environment in which such attacks are both practically and ideologically
possible. If Iran is to rid itself of Jundallah, and the close ties the group
has to organized crime, it has to actively lobby for the exit of foreign forces
from the region. - Mahan Abedin (Oct 21, '09)
China's navy sails past India's dock
Three Chinese naval vessels do not make a fleet, but they do make a statement.
By sending them to patrol off the coast of Somalia as part of the multinational
force operating there, in effect, China is saying to India, "We're back." - Peter
J Brown (Oct 21, '09)
DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
A 'long war' in the blowback world
America tends to think of "blowback" as something in the past, something that
ended with the attacks of September 11, 2001. But in the Greater Middle East,
one lesson seems clear enough: for 30 years, the United States has been deeply
involved in creating, financing and sometimes arming an entire blowback world
that will strike again. - Tom Engelhardt (Oct
21, '09)
 SINOGRAPH
Ten years to tackle
the Taiwan equation
Instead of China and the United States sparring over Washington's next arms
sale to Taiwan, they should concentrate on the core issue: the reunification of
Taiwan with the mainland. At the rate of China's current economic growth, they
have about 10 years to prepare for this. - Francesco Sisci
(Oct 21, '09)
COMMENT
Why an East Asian Community matters
Historical feuds, territorial disputes and centuries of neighborly mistrust
have kept the concept of an East Asian Community on the drawing board for
decades. Some critics have called the bloc's formation a "mission impossible",
but nothing will be achieved until a first step is taken. - Jian Junbo
(Oct 21, '09)
Gloating with Wall Street's
goodfellas
If the intention of United States economic mandarins was that tough regulations
would force the large investment banks that survived the crisis to adapt to
quiet, reserved suburban lifestyles, the reality is that they've acted more
like former gangsters placed into a witness protection program, taking over the
numbers racket on the Saturday pee-wee sports fields. - Julian Delasantellis
(Oct 21, '09)
Saudi-Iranian hostility hits
boiling point
Escalating tensions between Riyadh and Tehran may have played a role in
Sunday's suicide strike that killed seven senior commanders of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps as well as 42 other people in Iran's southeast.
Riyadh is concerned that Iran's growing power will erode Saudi pre-eminence in
the region, and the Saudis might have a vested interest in disrupting the
United States-Iran nuclear talks. - M K Bhadrakumar
(Oct 20, '09)
THE ROVING EYE
Jundallah versus the mullahtariat
Sunday's suicide bombing in Iran has set off a war: it's the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps against Pakistani Balochistan-based Jundallah and
the massive drug trafficking network in the area. In terms of the turbulent,
internal political equation in Iran, the show of force against a key element of
the mullahtariat could not be more devastating. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 20, '09)
Iran's nuclear talks also hit
The strike in Iran raises the possibility of Iran retaliating with attacks on
bases inside Pakistan from which the main suspects operate. Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad will also now be under pressure to unravel the recent gains
made with the United States in talks over Tehran's nuclear program. - Kaveh L
Afrasiabi (Oct 20, '09)
China opens a new front in Kashmir
China, by issuing residents from Indian-administered Kashmir visas different
from those given to Indians from other parts of the country, is treating the
disputed area as a sovereign entity. This is a surprising departure from
Beijing's traditional policy of leaving the Kashmir issue to India and Pakistan
to resolve. Delhi suspects a hidden agenda. - Sudha Ramachandran
(Oct 20, '09)
Swarms of rats plague rural
Myanmar
Some 100,000 residents of Myanmar's Chin State are without proper food after a
rare mass flowering of nearby bamboo forests triggered an infestation of
ravenous rat armies which promptly devoured local crops. Thousands of people
are migrating to neighboring countries, especially India, in search of food and
employment. - Colin Hinshelwood (Oct 20, '09)
Red meat back on (some) Russian
tables
Russia has agreed to accept shipments of Canadian beef in a deal expected to be
worth about US$31 million for Ottawa annually. The move marks a mini-revival in
Russia's battered meat imports, but also points to the inability of the
domestic industry to come up with the goods. - John Helmer
(Oct 20, '09)
THE BEAR'S LAIR
Rent-seekers' nirvana
The explosion in derivatives and trading volumes can be seen as a gigantic
smokescreen which has enabled Wall Street to extract larger and larger rents
from the remainder of the economy. - Martin Hutchinson
(Oct 20, '09)
A new battle begins in Pakistan
Pakistani troops are pouring into the South Waziristan tribal area for a
conflict against militants that they have little chance of winning outright.
The offensive does, though, emphatically shift the focus from Afghanistan,
which is what the United States has wanted for some time. Iran, following
Sunday's attack on commanders of its Revolutionary Guards Corps, also has
Pakistan on its mind. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct
19, '09)
 SPENGLER
When the cat's away,
the mice kill each other
It is most astonishing that official Washington seems oblivious to the crack-up
of American influence occurring in front of its eyes. Without America to
mediate and restrain, each of the small powers in the Middle East has no choice
but to test its strength against the others. Those who wish to reduce American
power may get what they wish for, but they might not like it.
(Oct 19, '09)
AN ATol EXCLUSIVE
Al-Qaeda's guerrilla chief lays out
strategy
 The
top field commander of al-Qaeda, in an exclusive interview with Asia Times
Online, proves he is alive and well after repeated drone attacks and delineates
in broad strokes al-Qaeda's strategy. The Afghanistan trap, baited on September
11, 2001, has been sprung, says formidable guerrilla leader Ilyas Kashmiri, and
events from Gaza to Mumbai should not be seen in isolation but as part of the
master plan to bloody the United States and its proxies. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Oct 14, '09)
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David P
Goldman
(Oct 21, '09)
Insatiable hunger for savings instruments by the world's aging savers is
responsible for the great financial crisis.
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 CHAN
AKYA
The
truth about banks and dogs
Over-aggressive, yappy and totally incapable of fending for themselves -
today's banks are similar to small breeds of dogs created by man's manipulation
of nature. Banks know full well that any misstep will lead to a government
rescue, just as Chihuahuas and Pekinese turn into furry balls of trembling fear
without their masters.
MARKET RAP
Asia stops to catch its breath
Aside from the significant exceptions of Shanghai, Hong Kong and India, the
region's markets remained largely neutral. By far the biggest gainer on the
week, Shanghai, may now have a clear field for a charge.
R M Cutler runs his eye over the ups and downs in the week's markets.
Windows users in
seventh heaven
Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, was launched with promises the
software will deliver above and beyond its much-maligned predecessors. With
Google and Apple snapping at its heels, Microsoft has finally introduced a new
version that doesn't require expensive hardware upgrades to run it.
Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in computing, science,
gaming and gizmos.
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FROM THE BLOG
Global surfeit of
savings caused crisis
Every sort of idiotic explanation is offered by academic economists for the
financial crisis, by and large they haven't a clue. The investors who bought
subprime assets in 2006 weren't any greedier than when they bought prime assets
in 2004. The difference is that monstrous demand crushed the returns on prime
assets. - David Goldman
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
Clinging to misguided
mentalities
Inflationists like those running the United States Federal Reserve see easy
credit and the government printing press as the solutions to unemployment and
other economic problems. But they fail to recognize that aggressive stimulus
is, once again, fostering problematic bubbles. (Oct
19, '09)
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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"[C]ontrary to Liang's suggestion, at a strategic level China is choosing to
engage the Muslim peoples. This is a good sign ..." - ding73ding
"... China should [pursue] a new global policy based on the best interest of
China. This may include cooperating with the US to eliminate the radical
Muslims while befriending the moderate Muslims. But ... the CCP mindlessly
pursues exports while neglecting China's own internal development and domestic
technological development. What is even more dangerous is that the CCP is
allowing foreigners to buy up China's domestic companies and dominate China's
internal economy." - Liang
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From Our Mailbox
Shawn W Crispin's article (Thailand
mulls royal succession, October 19) raises a few issues that need to be
clarified ...
Vimon Kidchob
Director-General
Department of Information
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand
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ATol Specials
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By Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Jan '09) |
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VIDEO
Taliban's new breed of leader
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The
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Syed Saleem Shahzad reports on
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How
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Mark
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China:
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The Coming
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A series
by Henry C K Liu
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Sinoroving
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Money, Power
and
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Andre Gunder Frank on Uncle Sam and his
shrinking dollar
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By Pepe Escobar with
photographs by Kevin Nortz
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Nir Rosen goes inside the Iraqi
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Nir Rosen rides with the US 3rd
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