Sunday, August 31, 2014

The Young Adult Generation

They impress me. They know no boundaries to communications. They have friends, acquaintances, business affiliates around the world. I don't recall exactly, Google or Facebook, but there is a capacity to map all the people that have befriended you. 

When I was their age I had a friend or two in far away lands, but, I used special "Air Mail" paper to lighten the envelope of the letters I sent. Now, they share more than words on a page, or an occasional picture caught in time, they share their lives and moments via video and Skype. I can't imagine any of them expecting to find their friends in China or Russia are suffering from nuclear burns to their bodies or worse and still consider themselves worthy of the air they breath. They share more than friendships, they share values. I can pull up a Japanese artist with a different video and cultural setting but the message is exactly the same. Love and acceptance.

The imagery in the video is one of their values and their loyalty to wholeness of each human being. Charli XCX has another album/video out called "Break the Rules." She has her issues as do many young people, but, she is not really a youngster so to speak. She is currently 22 years old. Some people never grow up.

But, that isn't the point. I am not going to make an enemy of a young woman willing to use incredibly benevolent visuals. I find it interesting there is a trend not only to be affiliated with an organization such as Jolie-Pitt Foundation which of course was self founded. It was Miley Cyrus who had her acceptance speech said by a homeless young man. There is this 'thing' that goes on with them that is incredibly magnificent. These are our kids and their children.

We, as a generation, always wanted our children to be exceptional and safe. We wanted a world far more peaceful and prosperous. We wanted a country of benevolence.

Some of us now have grandchildren and wonder will the world we committed to so long ago ever realize it's manifestation. I mean the USA can't even get it's act together on the climate crisis, why expect it to ever realize there are no greater enemies than ourselves and the mishandling of world affairs.

I have lived more than half a century now. I grew up with fears of nuclear annihilation and never witnessed the deployment of a nuclear weapon ever in my lifetime and I expect that not to change. 

How can fifty years of non-nuclear war and a global history of only two nuclear bombs being deployed ever be met with so much fear that this nightmare keeps being proliferated over and over.

We are better than that. They, THE ENEMY, is better than that. We know the horror. Japan gratefully found no shame in telling the world the truth of the atomic bombs the USA deployed leveling cities and killing massive numbers of people. Every year Japan makes the message we all should be heeding very clear. The nuclear weapon is unthinkable. In that reality, it is undeployable. 

Today, our nuclear facilities have proven to be a menace and the personnel that is suppose to be standing guard for the nation unreliable. I am confident the USA is not alone in that reality either. I can't quite imagine Russia coming through a collapse of the Soviet Union unscathed. And the Chinese. They would still not have their technology if the USA hadn't been accommodating in correcting it's technology to fire missiles in a trajectory into space. AND with that reality I am supposed to believe China has something nuclear of greater capacity than this country? No.

In our politics we never stop to take inventory in how completely stupid it all is. The Republican right wing wants to hang on to the Manhattan Project as if it only happened yesterday. The Democrats speak of peace and non-proliferation. I think it is time to take a real look at where the world is now and plot a different course of survival of all people and every country. 

We really aren't fighting another cold war as Putin expects there to be for the purpose of his politics. We are fighting individuals now. We are ridiculing religious zealotry. We, as a planet, are in a very, very dangerous place. 

In complete honesty, Charli's video may as well be that of China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and every country in Africa. Every country on every continent has a generation of young people that have it right. They absolutely have it right. The challenge of their lives is equity, not superiority. They want to be as prosperous as they need to be, but, they also want their piers around the world to mirror their values and prosperity. 

I think it is time to defer to the kids and work toward a world where they can all live and be happy. Ideologies be damned. They have a common thread they carry in their hearts and they know what it is. I think they are a great generation and they do have their own answers. It is time to hand them the world they deserve.

60 minutes to Dooms Day. Really?

August 27, 2014
By Sarah Lazare

The U.S. military (click here) is taking the global arms race to new speeds, with the second test launching of an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon that has the ultimate aim of hitting targets anywhere on earth within an hour by traveling up to five times the speed of sound....

What have we talked ourselves into?

The Ethics of Bombing Civilians after WWII...

By Sahr Conway-Lanz
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 35, No. 2, September 1, 2014

...Although the norm against targeting civilians (click here) remained robust in the face of the technological transformations surrounding air power, the new bombing capabilities did foster several related changes in thinking about war’s harm to civilians and in international humanitarian law. One of the most significant was the increased importance of intention in rationalizing harm to noncombatants. For Americans, the crucial dividing line between justifiable and unjustifiable violence increasingly became whether their armed forces intentionally harmed civilians. With this reasoning, unintended harm—what later would be called “collateral damage”—became a tragic but acceptable cost of war. The difficulties of controlling the violence of air power made common and widespread unintended harm plausible....

I'm just sayin'...


ETTP is home to the DOE Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Incinerator off Blair Road, the only U.S. facility permitted to burn certain radioactive and/or hazardous wastes.  The Incinerator treats both solid and liquid wastes originating from only DOE sites.

The Incinerator is located on the eastern edge of the site and has operated since 1991. The Incinerator operator develops and follows detailed procedures to ensure safety and compliance with rules and regulations issued by DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Tennessee

Periodic tests and evaluations are conducted to ensure performance meets requirements. A burn plan detailing what waste will be treated is available on the Web site
http://www.bechteljacobs.com/tsca.

June 1, 2010
By Kay Grant

In 1943, (click here) after graduating from Washington and Lee University, Bill Wilcox landed a coveted job as a government chemist and was sent to a city that didn't exist.
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, then known only as the Clinton Engineering Works, was conspicuously absent from any map. On 60,000 acres of farmland framed by the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, it was one of the United States' three secret cities—remote sites chosen by Manhattan Project director Gen. Leslie Groves, evacuated of their civilian inhabitants, and developed for the specific purpose of producing an atomic bomb. The men and women of the Clinton Engineering Works would help provide the material for the bomb. "I was told I would be working on uranium, and was sternly cautioned, 'That's the last time you will hear that word, and you must never speak it,'" Wilcox, now 87, recalled....

August 4, 2012
By Jacob Sloan
The task of keeping the government (click here) compound safe is handled by a private company–global security giant G4S, also known for a bungling job at the ongoing London Olympics.

The U.S. government’s only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.

WSI Oak Ridge, the contractor responsible for protecting the facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is owned by the international security firm G4S, which was at the center of a dispute over security at the London Olympic Games.
Officials said the facility was shut down on Wednesday at least until next week after three activists cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key nuclear bomb component, is stored....

The region has every reason to come together to eliminate any potential for estranging the faithful.

June 24, 2014

BAGHDAD — Whether a person (click here) is a Shiite or a Sunni Muslim in Iraq can now be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

As the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized vast territories in western and northern Iraq, there have been frequent accounts of fighters’ capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shiites are singled out for execution.

ISIS believes that the Shiites are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam. The two main branches of Islam diverge in their beliefs over who is the true inheritor of the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad. The Shiites believe that Islam was transmitted through the household of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis believe that it comes down through followers of the Prophet Muhammad who, they say, are his chosen people....

The region has a problem. The group within Syria is the problem. It has perverted the faith far beyond that of the jihadist as an instrument of war as al Qaeda did. But, the actual belief system of the IS/IS/L has no basis in the Quran. If this group of radical soldiers are allowed to continue their plague on Syria and then the region the true meanings of the Quran can be lost to both branches of the Muslim faith.

Their jihadist methodology is genocidal in it's outcomes. What is most troubling is the very same method is used over 2600 miles away, inside of Nigeria by Boko Haram. Now, the question is why the similarity in methodology. I first I thought there must be a common thread such as a communication tool. But, even al Qaeda is rejecting IS/IS/L, which means they more than likely disagree with their methodology.

Let me propose this. I believe each group has studied the extreme success of the Rwandan genocide depending what one calls success. Interahamwe was the Hutu paramilitary. It is widely accepted there was propaganda that made the killing in general easier. But, the Tutsi women were viewed as sexually seductive. The Hutu women stood down while the Tutsi women were raped. When a Hutu woman dared to stand up to the rapists she also fell victim to the rapists.

29 January 1996
by Mr. René Degni-Ségui, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights

...The perpetration of the genocide (click here) and other crimes took on special connotations when women were the victims. The massacres took place according to the following scenario: the husbands and male children were killed first, for the most part in front of their spouses and mothers; then it was the turn of the latter, often after having been tortured and raped....

I believe both leaders of these vicious groups are well read in their ideologies and how to carry them out.

The region has to come together to end this tragedy in Syria and also to commit to never providing productive ground in any form of the Muslim faith to be this perverted to remove the meaning of the faith. The two branches of the Muslim faith have to accept the existence of the other. There does not have to be complete agreement, but, acceptance is vital. 

Remember the USA tanks and the attack on the Imam Ali Mosque? What if attacking mosques is a bad habit of USA forces in the Middle East?

What the hell was going on in Iraq? It just seems as though the USA never respected mosques while it was there. The al-Askari Mosque is in Sāmarrā about 77 miles from Baghdad.
So, let me get this right. The USA went around attacking mosques on a right regular basis and now the people of the USA are suppose to trust their military with a continued war with troops on the ground? I don't think so. 

This is pure speculation, but, with this added evidence to what was transpiring in Iraq under Bush, there appears to have been a holy war being conducted against the Shi'ites. I believe the Shi'ites were being blamed for whatever unrest existed in the region. I also believe it came from the overthrow of the Shah. The USA labeled the Shea as radicals and an enemy of the USA and simply continued to carry through that policy in Iraq.
June 30, 2014
By Jeremy Bender and Michael B. Kelley
ISIS terrorists (click here) fired mortars on one of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam today, nearly hitting a potential tripwire for a larger sectarian conflict in Iraq.
Terrorists from ISIS, the Sunni extremist group that's taken over much of Iraq's north and west, attacked the Samarra shrine, one of the holiest in Shi'ism. ISIS lobbed three mortar rounds at the shrine, which landed near the complex's gate and wounded nine people. 
The al-Askari Mosque contains the mausoleums of two Shia Imams, making it a key pilgrimage point and one of the most significant sites of worship for Shia worldwide.
The bombing of the mosque in 2006 set off a vicious cycle of violence that was followed by Shiites carrying out revenge attacks against Sunni mosques and religious leaders....

Two years later, the same polling agency.

February 24, 2014
Michael Winter, USA

China, not Iran, (click here) is now America's No. 1 enemy, according to a new Gallup Poll.

The Chinese hold that distinction primarily because Americans have spread their negative views across several perceived threats — Iran (16%), North Korea (16%), Russia (9%), Iraq (7%), Afghanistan (5%) and Syria (3%) — while holding relatively constant in their mistrust of China (20%) over the past few years.

The poll, reported Thursday, also found that a slight majority (52%) sees China's growing economic power as a "critical threat" to "the vital interests" of the United States in the next decade, while 46% cite such a threat from the country's military....

But, look at those percentages. The perception of threat as an enemy of the USA is really diverse. 

China ranks high not necessarily due to superior military power and/or space potential, but, because of the adversity the USA has experienced economically.

Let me state that again. China is viewed as an enemy because of the USA's experience economically. That view was dearly held in majority by independent voters, not exclusively Democrat or Republican. 

September 11, 2013
On Wednesday's "Morning on the Mall" (click here) on WMAL 105.9 FM in Washington, DC, Kentucky Republicans Sen. Rand Paul argued the best means for the United States to influence rogue nations like Iran and North Korea would be to flex it's economic muscle against those nations' trading partners, especially China and Russia.

Paul noted the United States doesn't have trade relations with either North Korea or Iran, so it would have to be done so through intermediaries like Russia and China.

"I think the first thing we have to do is understand that the answer to a lot of the vexing problems of the Middle East, as well as North Korea, I think do involve engagement and this means engaging with some of the people who have been the trading partners of both Iran and North Korea," Paul said. "You know, we don't have any trade with them, so it's not like we influence either nation through withholding trade. I have been in favor of sanctions, and I think they have helped to a certain degree. But I think ultimately we need to convince people like Russia and China that it is in their self-interest to trade with America, that we are a much bigger self-interest for them than either North Korea or Iran is."...

This is a survey from, 2012. Presidential election year.

American's Still Rate Iran Top US Enemy (click here)

How much is Iran actually the enemy of the USA? Even in 2012? 

It really isn't. There is nothing threatening about Iran and certainly not to the USA. 

But, what is perceived of Iran to rank it so high in concern? Nukes. The idea Iran has been able to build a nuclear reactor from plans that were originally sabotaged by the USA is what ranks it among the worst of our enemies.

Iran is 6,578 miles from Washington, DC. They haven't got the capacity to be our enemy. The USA concern regarding Iran is for Israel, it's ally. 

Do you know who Iran considers it's worst enemy?

July 25, 2014
Iranians rallied nationwide (click here) on Friday in a show of support for Palestinians as 
archfoe Israel pursued its campaign against Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrations were held in Tehran and more than 700 towns and cities across the country on the last day of prayer and rest of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, state television reported.

In the capital, footage showed demonstrators, carrying placards proclaiming “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” converging from nine different points on Tehran University in the city center.
Iran holds al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) rallies in support of the Palestinians every year on the last Friday of Ramadan, but this year’s demonstrations came on the 18th day of Israel’s campaign against rocket-firing and tunnel-digging Hamas extremists in Gaza. Hamas has fired over 2,000 rockets into Israel. It has also built dozens of “attack tunnels” under the border, and attempted five attacks from the tunnels in the past two weeks, killing six Israeli soldiers; Israel killed 20 gunmen emerging from the tunnels....
To that reality and loyalty, many Americans would agree with Iran, in that Israel has gone too far in it's attacks on Palestinians.
Is it likely the USA will ever exchange nuclear capacity with Iran? 
No.

October 8, 2013
By Armando Cordoba

ERBIL, Kurdistan - Ansar al-Islam, (click here) an umbrella group for Sunni Iraqi and Arab jihadists, has called for Iranian Sunnis to unite in a jihad against their Shiite clerical government.
In a message on its official website and Facebook page, the jihadist organization said all Sunnis in Iran must “collect under a single banner that is right, and use Jihad,” to make Iran “one nation, a nation of the Quran and the sword.”
AI said that the justification for jihad against the Tehran government was the growing Shiite influence in the country.
AI’s call comes as Iran’s newly-elected President Hassan Rohani – a moderate Shiite cleric -- was inaugurated into office recently and vowed to bring more rights to Iran.
AI leaders said that Shiites in Iran were after money, power, the removal of Islam, and that they wanted to “switch religions.”  It said Shiite leaders do not represent the Islamic nation....

Iran has it's own problems and it has nothing to do with Israel. What I find interesting when I measure Iran's willingness to go to war, even in defense of itself, it is somewhat lacking. If Iran is receiving threats from errant groups in the region, it has a right to secure from that danger for it's citizens. Iran probably relied on Assad to contain groups that would cause danger to them. Today, I doubt that threat is any less and probably more than in 2013. There is every reason for all the nations of the Middle East, including Israel, to come together to find solutions in ending this danger to others within sovereign nations.

Will that happen? Will Sunni and Shi'ite nations come together to solve common threats? Most probably not, which leave Iran alone and in need of a sovereign military.

The region has a lot of issues and it is easy to blame the USA as a scapegoat to it's alliance with Israel, supposedly another common foe. Israel doesn't make it easy to alleviate the concerns of these nations either. In the case of the growth of jihadists out of Syria, The West can stake it's claim to that mess. Absolutely.

Are the words of Senator Sanders more important than can be realized?

How distracting is war during political campaigns? When war is an issue for the USA who benefits politically? I think Senator Sanders has been around long enough to know the priorities of this country. I think we need a liberator to remove the stigma of our past and provide us with a vision for the future.

How correct was Russia to oppose the seven nations in favor of arming rebels in Syria?

Russia has it's own policies and priorities, as of late some are very worrisome. They are worrisome for the people of Russia and it's radical change in citizenship. Requiring ID to claim their right to be Russia. An official Russian language.

The radical change in economic strategies and cutting itself off almost longingly so, for an isolationist country. I don't see any global alliance as anything but a change in economic strategy. The Eurasian Union with it's closed markets is more or less a military alliance, perhaps, to compete with NATO.

But, in this instance in Syria, Russia was correct. It is elemental. When more munitions enter a region there will be more death. Even domestically the USA has come to realize the guns on the street lead to more citizen deaths and suicides. It is basic physics. More killing machines and guns the more death that occurs.

With the Syrian civil war now three years on and Russia having left Syria for other places such as the Black Sea; is the world seeing a white flag in surrendering to any war posture?

Russia was all to silent during Bush's Iraq War. The permissiveness of which Rumsfeld military crossed into Iraq without any opposition except that of a UN resigned to the insistence by Bush's White House there were reasons beyond that of al Qaeda's Afghanistan to go to war.

Has the political ideology of the right wing in the USA actually been defeated and it's lingering only the negligence of people to realize it.

How astoundingly stupid was this?

June 18, 2013

...The hardware for the rebels is coming in from three sources: (click here)

1. NATO stores in Europe, which have been filling up in the past year with arms evacuated from Afghanistan. These weapons have been in operational use and are not new.

2. The Libyan black market.

3. The Balkan black market, chiefly Serbia and Montenegro.

Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad cautioned Europe it would pay the price for delivering arms to rebel forces in Syria. In an interview to in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said: “If the Europeans deliver weapons, the backyard of Europe will become terrorist…”

The volume of the new arms airlift to the Syrian rebels may be estimated by the number of airfreight flights from Libya to Turkey:  27 aircraft landings were counted in the last few days, according to our intelligence sources.

This major Western policy reversal on the arming of the Syrian opposition – combined with the Obama administration’s decision last week to provide the rebels with military aid - was graphically registered in the glum miens of Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at their meeting Monday on the first day of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. Beyond exchanging bare courtesies, neither concealed the deep rift between them on Syria – even in the presence of reporters and TV cameras.

Tuesday, the Group of Eight had its work cut out to formulate a Syrian item in its final communiqué that would be acceptable to all seven plus the Russian president. However, in Syria itself, all the signs portend the lengthening of the conflict: Russia is expected to respond to Western arms supplies to the rebels by ramping up its own military assistance to the Assad regime...

How close are we to global peace, but, the world won't admit it.

Russia is disengaging from Syria: Arms shipments stopped, warships exit Tartus (click here)

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
August 29, 2012
Russian naval vessels have unexpectedly departed the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus and Russian arms shipments to Syria have been suddenly discontinued. 

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that those and other military steps indicate that the Russians are rapidly drawing away from the Syrian arena to avoid getting caught up in the escalating hostilities expected to arise from military intervention by the US, Europe and a number of Arab states. Russian intelligence seems certain that this foreign intervention is imminent.


It's Sunday Night

The Fault In Our Stars I Charli XCX - Boom Clap I Official Video

"Boom Clap" by Charli XCX (click here)

Boom Boom Boom Clap

You're picture perfect blue
Sunbathing under moon
Stars shining as your bones illuminate
First kiss just like a drug
Under your influence
You take me over you're the magic in my veins
This must be love

Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now
Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me, come on to me now

No silver or no gold
Could dress me up so good
You're the glitter in the darkness of my world
Just tell me what to do
I'll fall right into you
Going under cast a spell just say the word
I feel your love

Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now
Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now

You are the light and I will follow
You let me lose my shadow
You are the sun, the glowing halo
And you keep burning me up with all your love, uh

Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now
Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now
Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me come on to me now
Boom Clap
The sound of my heart
The beat goes on and on and on and on and
Boom Clap
You make me feel good
Come on to me, come on to me now

Russia is no longer predictable which results in no confidence.

Economic alliances between countries are suppose to matter. When a major country turns away from economic development for simply the politics of changing borders it only proves there is no substance to any international agreement.


This is Russia's GDP. In 2009 there was a loss in GDP of 7.8 percent following the global economic collapse. 2010 rallied to 4.5 percent, but, it never got better than than. 2012 fell again to 3.4 percent and 2013 was no better experiencing only a growth of 1.3 percent.

In comparison Saudi Arabia dwarf all those years by 9.7 percent in 2009 and 2.5 percent more in 2013. Russia is an oil exporting country, but, it's performance is very low compared to others with the same product.

Not only that, but, there is absolutely no regard for human life or dignity to back rebels that kill indiscriminately and recklessly. Putin's answer to controlling the weapons that bring down jets with innocent people aboard is to expand a war rather than end it.

There is no accountability. If there is no accountability, there can be no confidence in Russia anymore.

Russia simply does not live up to any alliances be they economic or military. Russia makes up the rules for itself as time passes. There is no substance to the country when it breaks international laws and agreements. How could there be?

More and more Russia is looking like a country prepared for war rather than peace. Russia needs new leadership.

Hey, Jackass, there is already a large scale conflict with Russia in Syria, maybe Putin missed the party?

The same Mr. Strongman at the same camp who blew his image on a fry pan.

August 30, 2014
By Rich Schaprio

...Russian strongman Vladimir Putin (click here) delivered a provocative warning to his foes Friday: Don’t mess with us.

“Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia,” a defiant Putin said in a fiery speech at a youth summer camp — of all places.

“I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers,” he told the children, gathered on the banks of Lake Seliger near Moscow....

Maybe a war on two fronts is too much for Russia? Huh? One with Ukraine and one inside Syria which Russia's alliance has ignored for three years.

Putin is a strongman in image only. He picks on smaller countries in order to appear to be protecting the Russian homeland, but, the real battles in the Middle East is avoided. Isn't it?


August 29, 2014
By David Wroe


Pressure (click here) is mounting on Tony Abbott to push for a ban on President Vladimir Putin attending the Brisbane G20 meeting after Moscow moved troops and tanks into neighbouring Ukraine.

The Prime Minister condemned Moscow in scathing terms on Friday, branding the stream of Russian soldiers and weapons into eastern Ukraine an apparent "invasion" and calling the actions "utterly unacceptable".

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called on Mr Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to talk to other G20 member nations about banning Mr Putin from attending the leaders' meeting in November.

Now is the time to ban Putin as Russia's representative. He has nothing to offer those countries except a lot of trouble.


August 29, 2014
By Andrey Otroukh and Chiara Albanese


MOSCOW—The Russian ruble (click here) hit a low against the dollar, as conflict in eastern Ukraine intensified with claims of the participation of Russian troops.
Kiev said Russian troops entered eastern regions of Ukraine in support of pro-Russian rebels. Moscow denied the claim that Russia now has a military presence in the neighboring country.

"Against the backdrop [of military intervention] I want to stay away from those assets affected by the mounting geopolitical risks. That includes the ruble," said Benoit Anne, emerging-market strategist at Société Générale....

Russia is too busy hacking the internet to find unclaimed Russian money before the USA finds it and it is suppose to have something to offer? The only thing Russia has to offer are broken contracts for goods.

Compare that to China. China is using every tool available to it to expand it's Middle Class and instill an sense of confidence in the path of the country.

August 29, 2014
By Chris Buckley

HONG KONG — Newly disclosed investigations (click here) into senior politicians in Shanxi Province, an area in northern China rich in coal and opportunities for graft, reveal an emerging front in Communist Party leaders’ efforts to show they are serious about eradicating corruption.

On Friday, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese Communist Party’s central agency for uncovering graft, announced that two senior Shanxi politicians faced investigation for “serious violations of discipline and the law,” a euphemism for corruption and related abuses of power.

One was Bai Yun, a member of the provincial party’s Standing Committee; the other was Ren Runhou, a deputy governor who was formerly a chairman of a Shanxi mining company....

In Brazil there are women with competing ideas to push growth back into the grasp of the people's government. This election is a battle of ideas and the promise of transparency alone isn't getting the attention of the voters.


Presidential candidate Marina Silva of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) speaks during a ceremony to launch her campaign platform in Sao Paulo August 29, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/PAULO WHITAKER

August 30, 2014
...Silva, a renowned environmentalist (click here) who has surged in the polls since entering the race last week, spoke to reporters after unveiling her government programme, which focuses on economic policies to restore growth after three years of lacklustre performance.
The programme calls for an end to the central bank interventions in the foreign exchange market that have strengthened the real currency, and propose a return to a free floating exchange rate that would protect Brazilian manufacturers and help exporters.

It also called for an overhaul of Brazil's complex and onerous tax system. Silva's programme does not include a wealth tax, but she said such a tax would be part of a tax reform debate....

India is leaving the old world behind and modernizing cities to bring about a prosperity.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe during a dinner at State Guest House in Kyoto on Saturday. (Source: PTI)

August 31, 2014
By Shubhafij Roy
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (click here) landed in Osaka on Saturday and, within hours, oversaw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to turn Varanasi into a ‘smart city’ with help from Kyoto. The pact is in line with Modi’s vision of building 100 ‘smart cities’ across India.
Under the smart heritage cities programme, Kyoto will provide cooperation in the fields of conservation and modernisation of cities, as well as art, culture and academics.
While Kyoto and Kashi share many similarities historically, there is a wide gap in where they stand today.
First, the similarities: Kyoto is called the city of ten thousand shrines, while Varanasi boasts of numerous temples and ghats. Kyoto has been the imperial capital of Japan for more than 1,000 years, while Varanasi is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Both cities also have rivers flowing alongside them.
Now, the differences: Kyoto has modernised while keeping its old city, temples and monuments alive, while Varanasi has languished in its past glory. Kyoto’s streets are wide and clean, with magnificent tree-lined boulevards — something Modi witnessed on his way to the luxurious Westin hotel. Varanasi’s squalor and narrow roads have prompted the PM to resolve to clean up the city. Varanasi’s Ganga river is polluted and the ghats need repair, while Kyoto has a number of rivers, canals and other navigable waterways. While Yodo, Kamogawa and Katsura rivers flow through Kyoto, its Late Biwa canal is a major infrastructure milestone....

There are only three countries now to fulfill the expectations of burgeoning markets and developing countries, Russia has resigned to ancient methods of international relationships and isolationist draconian economics.