Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Saturday, December 5, 2020
Who Was Responsible for Pearl Harbor?
Because the FBI failed to share a German questionnaire with U.S. military leaders, Britain inadvertabtly provided a blueprint for Japan's December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
During World War II, Japan joined the Axis by signing a Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy on September 27, 1940. Less than two months later, outdated British airplanes took off from naval carriers and launched a successful night time bombing raid on Italy's well-fortified Mediterranean naval base at Taranto. According to Larry Loftis' account in his book, Into the Lion's Mouth, Japan repeatedly asked Germany to provide details of Britain's surprise Taranto attack. Berlin had different priorities: aerial bombing Britain into submission while pressure from Senator Arthur Vandenberg's isolationists kept the United States out of the war. Nonetheless, Japan's persistence paid off. In the German questionnaire a spy carried to the United States, Taranto morphed into Pearl Harbor. The airfields, airplane hangars, wharfs, submarine stations, ammunition dumps and oil supply depots Britain destroyed in Italy became the targets Tokyo wanted to identify in Hawaii.
Posing as a wealthy playboy, Kusko Popov, said to be one of Ian Fleming's inspirations for the James Bond character, served as a double agent spying for both Germany and Britain. London knew what he was doing and helped furnish Germany with useless and false information. Hitler was not in on the charade.
When Germany sent Popov to the U.S. to replace its inept Hawaiian spy, Loftis recounts how he came to New York in August, 1941, carrying the Japanese-inspired, German questionnaire requesting him to collect detailed information about Pearl Harbor. Along with an English translation of the questionnaire were telegrams ontaining photographically-reduced information embedded in microdots the size of periods. A period containing the German version of the Pearl Harbor questionnaire could be read under a microscope. Popov turned over the German questionnaire, English translation and telegrams with microdots to FBI representatives on August 19, 1941.
London mistakenly believed the FBI would welcome counterespionage assistance from a trusted British spy like Popov and that helping William "Wild Bill" Donovan set up a new Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, would reinforce the Anglo-American bond and help encourage President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide the military assisatnce Britain urgently needed. At the FBI, although J. Edgar Hoover received an English translation of the Pearl Harbor questionnaire by August 19, 1941, on September 3, 1941, he only shared information about the microdots with the President's military secretary. Furthermore, he gave the impression Germany's new system for transmitting information by microdots was discovered during an FBI investigation. Although the FBI had pledged to counter Axis espionage by cooperating with miltiary intelligence, Hoover was not about to allow the new OSS to threaten his agency's investigative authority and budget. Loftis concludes, none of the eight, pre-1948 investigations of intelligence failutes prior to December 7, 1941, mentioned the FBI had received, ignored and failed to share the German questionnaire Dusko Popov delivered to the United States nearly four months before Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
North Korea Taps into the Power of Distraction
Magicians and medical professionals use distraction. Look over there, and while your attention is diverted, something unusual happens or a shot is administered. Distractions are useful, but, beware, they also can be dangerous. In a school lunchroom, one student calls attention to someone coming in the door; an accomplice steals a cookie or two.
In international relations, countries often need to maintain focus on more than one problem. In my eBook, A Dangerous Mix of Washington Outsiders, I imagined an espionage plot occurring while the U.S. was celebrating the first budget surplus in 28 years, impeaching President Clinton, and preparing for the 2000 elections. My plot is imaginary, but North Korea's recent missile launches are real. Dealing with the coronavirus cannot be allowed to distract world attention from North Korea sending missiles into Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone three times during the month of March, 2020. Because of COVID-19, the Olympic games, scheduled to be played in Tokyo this summer, already have been moved to July, 2021. Canceling them altogether may be necessary, it there is a danger athletes might be killed by a wayward North Korean missile.
North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, who failed to see any progress on a nuclear deal with the U.S. in 2019, resumed missile testing shortly after 700 legislators met for the country's Supreme People's Assembly. The size of the meeting also indicates North Korea, which had imposed a national lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, is no longer concerned about large congregations.
What U.S. attention is focused on Korea is devoted to figuring out how to share the cost of military defense spending with South Korea and the virus-related cancellation of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills. Those preoccupations also avoid concern, not only about North Korea's missile tests, but also about the World War II reparation claims that undermine cooperation between U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan. The lack of Russian and Chinese sanctions needed to control North Korea's nuclear ambitions also is overlooked.
At stake is more than a couple of missing cookies.
In international relations, countries often need to maintain focus on more than one problem. In my eBook, A Dangerous Mix of Washington Outsiders, I imagined an espionage plot occurring while the U.S. was celebrating the first budget surplus in 28 years, impeaching President Clinton, and preparing for the 2000 elections. My plot is imaginary, but North Korea's recent missile launches are real. Dealing with the coronavirus cannot be allowed to distract world attention from North Korea sending missiles into Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone three times during the month of March, 2020. Because of COVID-19, the Olympic games, scheduled to be played in Tokyo this summer, already have been moved to July, 2021. Canceling them altogether may be necessary, it there is a danger athletes might be killed by a wayward North Korean missile.
North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, who failed to see any progress on a nuclear deal with the U.S. in 2019, resumed missile testing shortly after 700 legislators met for the country's Supreme People's Assembly. The size of the meeting also indicates North Korea, which had imposed a national lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, is no longer concerned about large congregations.
What U.S. attention is focused on Korea is devoted to figuring out how to share the cost of military defense spending with South Korea and the virus-related cancellation of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills. Those preoccupations also avoid concern, not only about North Korea's missile tests, but also about the World War II reparation claims that undermine cooperation between U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan. The lack of Russian and Chinese sanctions needed to control North Korea's nuclear ambitions also is overlooked.
At stake is more than a couple of missing cookies.
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Threats to Olympic Sites
Insurance companies feared financial losses if the coronavirus caused the cancellation of this summer's 2020 Olympic Games in Toyota. As it turned out, the games were rescheduled for July, 2021. Violence, including World War II, that marred the noble purpose of the games in the past, could again be a factor next year, if North Korea continues to launch missiles toward Japan.
Environmental threats from pollution and climate change also have had an impact on the Olympics. Debris in the waters off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before the 2016 summer Olympics worried open-water swimmers and skippers in boating events. High winds delayed skiing events and kept spectators off the slopes at the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Despite efforts to switch away from fossil fuels and plant trees to control the sand and dirt blown south from the Gobi Desert, athletes at the 2022 winter Olympics in China could face a breathing, as well as a competitive, challenge at events in Yanqing and Chongli, north of Beijing. During winter, heating homes and factories increases pollution in an area that suffers year round. Smog is likely to obscure views from the 4-story tower built in Yanqing to give visitors to the Olympics a glimpse of the Great Wall of China.
Since the fur from four goats is needed to respond to the fashion industry's demand for one cashmere sweater, grazing goats turned the Mongolian steppes north of China into a desert no longer capable of protecting Beijing from wind-blown sand. To stabilize top soil, the government removed up to 700,000 villagers in northern China from land designated for planting trees. However, at the same time climate change reduced rainfall in arid areas, many non-native trees planted in China required more water and worsened water shortages. An attempt to plant shrubs needing less water is underway. In any case, it is hard to know if China's new trees and shrubs will be ready to shield 2022's Olympic athletes from the Gobi Desert's blowing sand. According to Congbin Fu, the director of the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research at Nanjing University, growing forests is a long-term process that "can take several decades or even 100 years."
Environmental threats from pollution and climate change also have had an impact on the Olympics. Debris in the waters off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before the 2016 summer Olympics worried open-water swimmers and skippers in boating events. High winds delayed skiing events and kept spectators off the slopes at the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Despite efforts to switch away from fossil fuels and plant trees to control the sand and dirt blown south from the Gobi Desert, athletes at the 2022 winter Olympics in China could face a breathing, as well as a competitive, challenge at events in Yanqing and Chongli, north of Beijing. During winter, heating homes and factories increases pollution in an area that suffers year round. Smog is likely to obscure views from the 4-story tower built in Yanqing to give visitors to the Olympics a glimpse of the Great Wall of China.
Since the fur from four goats is needed to respond to the fashion industry's demand for one cashmere sweater, grazing goats turned the Mongolian steppes north of China into a desert no longer capable of protecting Beijing from wind-blown sand. To stabilize top soil, the government removed up to 700,000 villagers in northern China from land designated for planting trees. However, at the same time climate change reduced rainfall in arid areas, many non-native trees planted in China required more water and worsened water shortages. An attempt to plant shrubs needing less water is underway. In any case, it is hard to know if China's new trees and shrubs will be ready to shield 2022's Olympic athletes from the Gobi Desert's blowing sand. According to Congbin Fu, the director of the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research at Nanjing University, growing forests is a long-term process that "can take several decades or even 100 years."
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Winning Oscars and Making Money at the Movies
Oscar-nominated films highlight the international contributions of the movie industry's directors, actors, and technical experts. This year, on Sunday, Feb. 24, a film-maker from Mexico, Alfonso Cuaron, or Pawel Paiolikowski from Poland could win two Academy Awards, one for best director and the other for best foreign language film.
As in the past, international filmmakers frequently are nominated in the categories: animated and live action shorts. These movies are not shown in many movie theatres, and that is not a loss this year, because, except for two films, they portray depressing themes not suitable for young audiences. Adults and children would enjoy the funny Animal Behavior, however. In this Canadian entry, a dog psychiatrist tries to cure a pig, praying mantis, bird, and other animals of their most annoying habits. A gorilla with anger management issues takes exception to the person in front of him in the "10 or Less" line who wants to count the five bananas in his one bunch separately. He reacts by tearing up her bag of frozen peas and says, "Now, you have a thousand."
Children already may have seen the Oscar-nominated Bao, a Chinese word for dumpling, that Pixar screened before Incredibles 2. On her second try, Bao's director, Domee Shi, was hired by Pixar as an intern. She is now the first female director in its shorts department. At age two, Ms. Shi migrated with her family from Chongqing, China, to Toronto, Canada. Her father, a college professor of fine art and landscape painter, recognized her talent for drawing, and her mother's dumplings sparked the idea of using food as an entry into understanding another culture. Japanese anime films and manga comics and graphic novels also inspired Ms. Shi, as well as the Mexican theme of the animated feature, Coco, that won an Academy Award last year.
China is among the growing number of countries joining Hollywood, India's Bollywood, and Nigeria's Nollywood in the film and music video industries. By 2019, however, authoritarian control by Chinese authorities was causing film investors to flee. On the other hand, filmmakers in Nigeria aided government efforts, when suspicious circumstances delayed a presidential election in Nigeria. A drone camera was deployed to record singing Nigerian film stars urging voters to remain cool in a video shown on social media. Off the east coast on the other side of Africa, the island of Mauritius is using the advantage of year round good weather to attract job-creating firm-makers.
Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin of the Dalian Wanda Group had high hopes for the 400-acre, 30 sound stage, $8 billion Oriental Movie Metropolis he opened in the east coast port city of Qingdao three years ago. Although offering to pay film-makers 40% of their production costs, producers were wary of censoring by China's State Administration of Press Publications, Radio, Film and Television. Other setbacks included: the failure of China's big budget film tribute to Tibetan mythology, Asura; social media references to Chinese President Xi's resemblance to Disney's Winnie the Pooh; and the ill-advised joint U.S.-Chinese film, Great Wall, starring Matt Damon as a mercenary soldier fighting with a secret Chinese army defending the Great Wall of China from monsters.
Recent films produced for China's domestic market are generating higher box office returns. Dying to Survive opened with a $200 million weekend by telling the story of Lu Yong, who took on the high Chinese prices of Western medicine by importing illegal cancer drugs from India. The Wandering Earth, a sci-fi thriller about the expanding sun's threat to Earth, trapped in Jupiter's gravitational pull, netted $440 million during the first ten days of China's New Year of the Pig. By downplaying its Warner Bros. connection, the U.S.-Chinese co-production, The Meg, a film about a deep sea diver who saved a submersible disabled by a prehistoric Megalodon shark, earned $528 million globally.
As in the past, international filmmakers frequently are nominated in the categories: animated and live action shorts. These movies are not shown in many movie theatres, and that is not a loss this year, because, except for two films, they portray depressing themes not suitable for young audiences. Adults and children would enjoy the funny Animal Behavior, however. In this Canadian entry, a dog psychiatrist tries to cure a pig, praying mantis, bird, and other animals of their most annoying habits. A gorilla with anger management issues takes exception to the person in front of him in the "10 or Less" line who wants to count the five bananas in his one bunch separately. He reacts by tearing up her bag of frozen peas and says, "Now, you have a thousand."
Children already may have seen the Oscar-nominated Bao, a Chinese word for dumpling, that Pixar screened before Incredibles 2. On her second try, Bao's director, Domee Shi, was hired by Pixar as an intern. She is now the first female director in its shorts department. At age two, Ms. Shi migrated with her family from Chongqing, China, to Toronto, Canada. Her father, a college professor of fine art and landscape painter, recognized her talent for drawing, and her mother's dumplings sparked the idea of using food as an entry into understanding another culture. Japanese anime films and manga comics and graphic novels also inspired Ms. Shi, as well as the Mexican theme of the animated feature, Coco, that won an Academy Award last year.
China is among the growing number of countries joining Hollywood, India's Bollywood, and Nigeria's Nollywood in the film and music video industries. By 2019, however, authoritarian control by Chinese authorities was causing film investors to flee. On the other hand, filmmakers in Nigeria aided government efforts, when suspicious circumstances delayed a presidential election in Nigeria. A drone camera was deployed to record singing Nigerian film stars urging voters to remain cool in a video shown on social media. Off the east coast on the other side of Africa, the island of Mauritius is using the advantage of year round good weather to attract job-creating firm-makers.
Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin of the Dalian Wanda Group had high hopes for the 400-acre, 30 sound stage, $8 billion Oriental Movie Metropolis he opened in the east coast port city of Qingdao three years ago. Although offering to pay film-makers 40% of their production costs, producers were wary of censoring by China's State Administration of Press Publications, Radio, Film and Television. Other setbacks included: the failure of China's big budget film tribute to Tibetan mythology, Asura; social media references to Chinese President Xi's resemblance to Disney's Winnie the Pooh; and the ill-advised joint U.S.-Chinese film, Great Wall, starring Matt Damon as a mercenary soldier fighting with a secret Chinese army defending the Great Wall of China from monsters.
Recent films produced for China's domestic market are generating higher box office returns. Dying to Survive opened with a $200 million weekend by telling the story of Lu Yong, who took on the high Chinese prices of Western medicine by importing illegal cancer drugs from India. The Wandering Earth, a sci-fi thriller about the expanding sun's threat to Earth, trapped in Jupiter's gravitational pull, netted $440 million during the first ten days of China's New Year of the Pig. By downplaying its Warner Bros. connection, the U.S.-Chinese co-production, The Meg, a film about a deep sea diver who saved a submersible disabled by a prehistoric Megalodon shark, earned $528 million globally.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Are Kind Kids Cool?
Social media showed a young motor scooter rider risking his life to stop the traffic behind him in order to let an elderly woman with a cane cross a busy street.
Coty-owned cosmetic company, Rimmel, found a partner to help the one in four women aged 16 to 25 in ten countries who experienced cyberbullying and the nearly half of those who began harming themselves. While not a perfect solution, Rimmel began directing customers to the Cybersmile Foundation's website, which, according to trendwatching.com, guides users to local resources and organizations that offer help to those attacked by cyberbullies.
National Geographic's website claims helping others satisfies a basic human desire to feel good about oneself. At nationalgeographic.com/family/help-your-kid-make-world-better/, there are ideas for what children can do when they see others being bullied.
Japan, a country with one of the highest densities of robots in the world, 303 to 10,000 industrial employees according to The Economist magazine (Nov. 10, 2018), found robots do not satisfy customers in department stores, beauty salons, hotels, and restaurants.
Studies show robots could replace half of Japan's workers in 20 years. But will the driverless vehicles Japan plans to employ during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics stop to help a lost tourist or a man with a walker who has fallen in the street? Social media reported bus drivers, without any prompting or promise of reward, performed both services in the last couple of weeks.
Are kids cool if they seek out and sit with lonely kids in school lunchrooms? (See the earlier post, "Overcome Lunch Table Loneliness.") They are to everyone in the world who ever has needed a little help and received it from a friend or stranger.
Coty-owned cosmetic company, Rimmel, found a partner to help the one in four women aged 16 to 25 in ten countries who experienced cyberbullying and the nearly half of those who began harming themselves. While not a perfect solution, Rimmel began directing customers to the Cybersmile Foundation's website, which, according to trendwatching.com, guides users to local resources and organizations that offer help to those attacked by cyberbullies.
National Geographic's website claims helping others satisfies a basic human desire to feel good about oneself. At nationalgeographic.com/family/help-your-kid-make-world-better/, there are ideas for what children can do when they see others being bullied.
Japan, a country with one of the highest densities of robots in the world, 303 to 10,000 industrial employees according to The Economist magazine (Nov. 10, 2018), found robots do not satisfy customers in department stores, beauty salons, hotels, and restaurants.
Studies show robots could replace half of Japan's workers in 20 years. But will the driverless vehicles Japan plans to employ during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics stop to help a lost tourist or a man with a walker who has fallen in the street? Social media reported bus drivers, without any prompting or promise of reward, performed both services in the last couple of weeks.
Are kids cool if they seek out and sit with lonely kids in school lunchrooms? (See the earlier post, "Overcome Lunch Table Loneliness.") They are to everyone in the world who ever has needed a little help and received it from a friend or stranger.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Globalization's Impact on Fashion
Hard to believe in times past fashion confined itself to separate French, Italian, and US markets rather than to today's cross-cultural global industry. Even when Vogue magazine has separate international editions in Arabic and for Latin America, Poland, and the Czech Republic, Vogue's original edition features a global array of designers and models, such as Somali-American Halima Aden, the Tanzanian-Norwegian twins Martine and Gunnhild Chioko, and Grace Bol from South Sudan.
Although global e-commerce, references to no borders or boundaries, diversity, and presentations in exotic locations seem to be the mode, a former culture minister in Italy observed, "a globalized world puts greater value on the distinctions and sense of identity...." Brands with strong national identities, like Chanel and Burberry, do not shy away from projecting their heritage and point-of-view in the global marketplace. At Chanel, Hamburg's Karl Lagerfeld insured the future of the Lesage embroidery house. Japanese designer, Jun Takahashi, admits his inspiration from the British punk rock youth culture.
Fashion will always search for what is new and different. Flappers cast off their constrictive undergarments to Charleston in short shifts that could move. Dior fashioned voluminous skirts to signal the end of fabric rationing in World War II. The man who put on a Lumumba University
T-shirt to work out in CIA's gym wanted the attention he received.
Today, creating an individual identity is easy. Simply incorporate a touch of another country's culture. I treasure an African "gold" necklace of straw and wax a friend brought me from Mali. On my coffee table, guests can pick up and examine the carved wooden sling shot I found at a bazaar sponsored by West African missionaries. Add stuffed dates and rice wrapped in grape leaves to your dinner menu. And when you browse through mail order magazines from a museum (store.metmuseum.org) or a nonprofit (unicefmarket.org/catalog), look for foreign items for yourself and for holiday gifts that might introduce children and older friends to a new culture and distinctive identity.
Although global e-commerce, references to no borders or boundaries, diversity, and presentations in exotic locations seem to be the mode, a former culture minister in Italy observed, "a globalized world puts greater value on the distinctions and sense of identity...." Brands with strong national identities, like Chanel and Burberry, do not shy away from projecting their heritage and point-of-view in the global marketplace. At Chanel, Hamburg's Karl Lagerfeld insured the future of the Lesage embroidery house. Japanese designer, Jun Takahashi, admits his inspiration from the British punk rock youth culture.
Fashion will always search for what is new and different. Flappers cast off their constrictive undergarments to Charleston in short shifts that could move. Dior fashioned voluminous skirts to signal the end of fabric rationing in World War II. The man who put on a Lumumba University
T-shirt to work out in CIA's gym wanted the attention he received.
Today, creating an individual identity is easy. Simply incorporate a touch of another country's culture. I treasure an African "gold" necklace of straw and wax a friend brought me from Mali. On my coffee table, guests can pick up and examine the carved wooden sling shot I found at a bazaar sponsored by West African missionaries. Add stuffed dates and rice wrapped in grape leaves to your dinner menu. And when you browse through mail order magazines from a museum (store.metmuseum.org) or a nonprofit (unicefmarket.org/catalog), look for foreign items for yourself and for holiday gifts that might introduce children and older friends to a new culture and distinctive identity.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Virtual Reality Goes to School
To prepare students for future success, they need early exposure to new technologies the way Bill Gates learned computer science in his teens.
California-based, Facebook-owned Oculus recognized the importance of getting kids up to speed on virtual reality (VR) and donated its VR headsets to schools, libraries, and museums in Japan, China, and the United States. According to an "Innovation of the Day" post on trendwatching.com, Oculus also is helping the public school system in Seattle, Washington, develop a course intended to teach how to create VR and helping teachers learn how to make the most educational use out of VR technology.
Virtual reality is already a hit in the gaming world of China's Tencent company's "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and "MonsterHunter: World." Competitors played Tencent's "Honour of Kings" at the 2018 Asian Games' eSports demonstration event in Indonesia. The eSports' event will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games but not a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Although the games include such sports as boxing and shooting, the International Olympic Committee said electronic sports promoted violence and contradicted Olympia values.
It should be noted: VR is not just for kids. Elderly folks, physically unable to enjoy the foreign travel of their younger days, readily put on VR headsets to travel on new adventures.
California-based, Facebook-owned Oculus recognized the importance of getting kids up to speed on virtual reality (VR) and donated its VR headsets to schools, libraries, and museums in Japan, China, and the United States. According to an "Innovation of the Day" post on trendwatching.com, Oculus also is helping the public school system in Seattle, Washington, develop a course intended to teach how to create VR and helping teachers learn how to make the most educational use out of VR technology.
Virtual reality is already a hit in the gaming world of China's Tencent company's "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and "MonsterHunter: World." Competitors played Tencent's "Honour of Kings" at the 2018 Asian Games' eSports demonstration event in Indonesia. The eSports' event will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games but not a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Although the games include such sports as boxing and shooting, the International Olympic Committee said electronic sports promoted violence and contradicted Olympia values.
It should be noted: VR is not just for kids. Elderly folks, physically unable to enjoy the foreign travel of their younger days, readily put on VR headsets to travel on new adventures.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Santa Opens Arctic Ocean for Business
Reindeer have new competition. Between now and next March, ice thickens in the Arctic Ocean, but, because of climate change, gradual melting after March opens a shipping channel in August. Ships with stronger hulls and expensive icebreaker escorts even can use the route for up to three months.
Up until about five years ago, the dark cold South Pole was home to penguins, and the far north only housed Eskimos and Russian prisoners in Siberia. Oleg Sentson, the Ukrainian film director on a hunger strike, is still there in a penal colony serving a 20-year sentence for protesting Russia's annexation of Crimea. But Russia's President Putin also now hikes on vacations in Siberia, and Russian ships travel from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg on a Northern Sea Route Putin calls "a matter of national pride."
Why are countries scrambling for claims to sea routes through the Arctic Ocean and not around Antarctica? Examine the North and South Poles on a globe or map. How many degrees latitude does it take from both poles before you find at least five countries? What potential problems do you see when passing between Russia and Alaska?
Arctic shipping routes, according to a paper prepared by the engineering faculty at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, are most dangerous in the East Siberian Sea. In the shallowest area of the Arctic Ocean, ice builds up earlier and faster after summer, and uncharted waters are more likely to cause ships to run aground. Even during summer, half of the East Siberian Sea can remain ice covered.
Go North, Young Men
Despite the harsh environment and high insurance rates, activity is expected to increase in the far north due to a variety of factors. Arctic routes shorten navigation time, and they are free of pirates. Oil and gas reserves in the area already have attracted exploration. (See the earlier posts: "Troubled Northwest Passage Found" and "North Pole Flag.")
Accidents, seldom now, can be expected to increase as shipping traffic increases, however. Ship captains who ply the Arctic Ocean cannot help but feel a little like captains of potential Titanics. Ice can trap ships, and they still can hit icebergs, as well as icebreaker escorts and other ships. Captains need constant weather station updates about the changing wave heights, wind speeds, and temperatures that affect icing in each section along their routes, information they also need in order to know how long crew members should stay out on deck. They want protocols about plans for emergency assistance and oil spill clean ups from members of the Arctic Council (Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark-Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States).
Tourists Who Have Been Everywhere
Possible perils failed to deter 900 passengers from paying anywhere from $20,000 to one million dollars per person to book passage on the Crystal Serenity's first cruise through the Arctic Ocean in 2016. The ship sailed from Seward to Nome, Alaska, where it docked to unload solar panels ordered by the city's population of 3800. In groups, cruise passengers took turns sailing to shore in transport boats to photograph wild musk oxen; eat $5 slices of blueberry pie; watch Eskimo dancers; and purchase locally made seal gloves and wallets. From Nome, a month long voyage passed by Greenland and ended in New York.
The trip required a crew of 600, a special navigation satellite system, and chartering cargo planes to deliver perishable food for pickups at communities along northern Canada. The Crystal Serenity made another, and its final, passenger voyage in 2017.
Faster Cargo Shipments
After the Crystal Serenity tested the Arctic route for passenger cruises, the Danish-based Maersk line, the world's largest shipping company, launched the Russian Venta Maersk's container ship north from Vladivostok, west across the Arctic Ocean, and south around Norway and Sweden to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea. Carrying 3600 containers of Russian frozen fish and electronics from South Korea, the ship cut off about two weeks from the usual time it takes to use the southern route from Asia and enter Europe using the Suez Canal. While time was saved, profit was lost, because container ships are used to dropping off and picking up a thousand containers at a dozen or more ports along the way. No such transshipment points exist on the Arctic route. Following the test trip, Maersk announced no immediate plans to substitute the Northern Sea Route for its usual schedule.
Russian cargo ships already do service domestic ports on an irregular basis. Now Moscow is building roads, a railroad, and facilities to establish regular ports of call along its Northern Sea Route. China also has made overtures to Iceland and Greenland to establish outposts on what Beijing calls its "Polar Silk Road." (See the earlier posts, "Iceland Gives China the Cold Shoulder" and "China Stakes New Claim to Arctic.")
After China's President Xi Jinping determined to reduce pollution by switching from coal to natural gas, a serious shortage left Chinese homes without heat and shut down factories. To prevent future natural gas shortages, China's state-owned COSCO shipping company and Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines formed a 50-50 partnership to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) east on the Arctic Ocean and south to Asia from Russia's Novartek producer on the Yamal Peninsula. While a tanker can make this trip in 15 days in summer, compared to 35 days by going west and south through the Suez Canal, ice is too thick in the winter. Yet, there is pressure to increase China's shipments through the most dangerous East Siberian Sea.
Up until about five years ago, the dark cold South Pole was home to penguins, and the far north only housed Eskimos and Russian prisoners in Siberia. Oleg Sentson, the Ukrainian film director on a hunger strike, is still there in a penal colony serving a 20-year sentence for protesting Russia's annexation of Crimea. But Russia's President Putin also now hikes on vacations in Siberia, and Russian ships travel from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg on a Northern Sea Route Putin calls "a matter of national pride."
Why are countries scrambling for claims to sea routes through the Arctic Ocean and not around Antarctica? Examine the North and South Poles on a globe or map. How many degrees latitude does it take from both poles before you find at least five countries? What potential problems do you see when passing between Russia and Alaska?
Arctic shipping routes, according to a paper prepared by the engineering faculty at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, are most dangerous in the East Siberian Sea. In the shallowest area of the Arctic Ocean, ice builds up earlier and faster after summer, and uncharted waters are more likely to cause ships to run aground. Even during summer, half of the East Siberian Sea can remain ice covered.
Go North, Young Men
Despite the harsh environment and high insurance rates, activity is expected to increase in the far north due to a variety of factors. Arctic routes shorten navigation time, and they are free of pirates. Oil and gas reserves in the area already have attracted exploration. (See the earlier posts: "Troubled Northwest Passage Found" and "North Pole Flag.")
Accidents, seldom now, can be expected to increase as shipping traffic increases, however. Ship captains who ply the Arctic Ocean cannot help but feel a little like captains of potential Titanics. Ice can trap ships, and they still can hit icebergs, as well as icebreaker escorts and other ships. Captains need constant weather station updates about the changing wave heights, wind speeds, and temperatures that affect icing in each section along their routes, information they also need in order to know how long crew members should stay out on deck. They want protocols about plans for emergency assistance and oil spill clean ups from members of the Arctic Council (Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark-Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States).
Tourists Who Have Been Everywhere
Possible perils failed to deter 900 passengers from paying anywhere from $20,000 to one million dollars per person to book passage on the Crystal Serenity's first cruise through the Arctic Ocean in 2016. The ship sailed from Seward to Nome, Alaska, where it docked to unload solar panels ordered by the city's population of 3800. In groups, cruise passengers took turns sailing to shore in transport boats to photograph wild musk oxen; eat $5 slices of blueberry pie; watch Eskimo dancers; and purchase locally made seal gloves and wallets. From Nome, a month long voyage passed by Greenland and ended in New York.
The trip required a crew of 600, a special navigation satellite system, and chartering cargo planes to deliver perishable food for pickups at communities along northern Canada. The Crystal Serenity made another, and its final, passenger voyage in 2017.
Faster Cargo Shipments
After the Crystal Serenity tested the Arctic route for passenger cruises, the Danish-based Maersk line, the world's largest shipping company, launched the Russian Venta Maersk's container ship north from Vladivostok, west across the Arctic Ocean, and south around Norway and Sweden to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea. Carrying 3600 containers of Russian frozen fish and electronics from South Korea, the ship cut off about two weeks from the usual time it takes to use the southern route from Asia and enter Europe using the Suez Canal. While time was saved, profit was lost, because container ships are used to dropping off and picking up a thousand containers at a dozen or more ports along the way. No such transshipment points exist on the Arctic route. Following the test trip, Maersk announced no immediate plans to substitute the Northern Sea Route for its usual schedule.
Russian cargo ships already do service domestic ports on an irregular basis. Now Moscow is building roads, a railroad, and facilities to establish regular ports of call along its Northern Sea Route. China also has made overtures to Iceland and Greenland to establish outposts on what Beijing calls its "Polar Silk Road." (See the earlier posts, "Iceland Gives China the Cold Shoulder" and "China Stakes New Claim to Arctic.")
After China's President Xi Jinping determined to reduce pollution by switching from coal to natural gas, a serious shortage left Chinese homes without heat and shut down factories. To prevent future natural gas shortages, China's state-owned COSCO shipping company and Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines formed a 50-50 partnership to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) east on the Arctic Ocean and south to Asia from Russia's Novartek producer on the Yamal Peninsula. While a tanker can make this trip in 15 days in summer, compared to 35 days by going west and south through the Suez Canal, ice is too thick in the winter. Yet, there is pressure to increase China's shipments through the most dangerous East Siberian Sea.
Friday, July 20, 2018
Weekend Retail Therapy
Shopping for new clothes on a weekend is a favorite pastime, even when it's not raining. Around the world, I see marketers adding new twists to what some call the "retail therapy" experience.
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
Saturday, March 10, 2018
China's Plan for World Domination
What developing country could resist participating in China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) and Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiatives to construct roads, railroads, bridges, and power plants that would enable a rural exodus to jobs in urban centers, employ the unemployed, stimulate manufacturing, and facilitate trade? What developed country could resist participating in the financial enterprise of investing in China's estimated $1 trillion to $8 trillion project?
That's the good news. Students are challenged to activate their critical thinking to anticipate, and even suggest solutions for, the problems that have and will develop along these routes.
Finance: Traditionally, the international financial institutions charged with funding major projects include the World Bank, dominated by the United States; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose president comes from Europe; and the Asian Development Bank headed by a president from Japan. Because the funding process of these institutions was considered too slow and the required plan preparation was too costly, a New Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Silk Road Fund were established to pick up the pace.
Since then, the Islamic Development Bank has agreed to jointly finance African projects with the AIIB, and Japanese, British, and US banks also are looking into ways to cooperate with China. Japan and the United States did not join the AIIB, because they suspected the bank would lack concern about labor, environmental sustainability, and requirements for democratic reform, since China considers all political systems equal and claims not to interfere with a recipient's sovereignty. As it has turned out, the AIIB is careful to abide by international norms, but the bank seems to retain its image by avoiding involvement with One Belt, One Road (OBOR) projects.
After World War II, the Marshall Plan helped rebuild a Europe that had existed. China's One Belt, One Road plan attempts to build something that never existed before what exits is ready to use it. As a result, Chinese development projects and financing bury recipients, such as Angola and Zambia, in debt. Half the countries in sub-Sahara Africa now have public debt greater than half their GDPs. There is growing concern about the raw materials, state power utilities, and other compensation China might require in case of loan defaults. Sri Lanka already was asked to share intelligence about traffic passing through its now bankrupt and Chinese-seized port. Zambia's default on a Chinese loan repayment resulted in immediate discussions that could lead to seizure of Zambia's electric company, ZESCO. The following eight countries have been singled out as in danger of assuming too great a Chinese debt burden: Laos, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Montenegro, Djibouti, Tajikistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan.
Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, found out countries cannot escape hard financial realities. Fed up with "hand outs from the West," Pakistan hoped to avoid the scrutiny of loan requests submitted to the IMF. But even China, in the process of using Pakistan to gain access to the mineral riches in Afghanistan's mountains and to encircle India with its OBOR projects, balked at loaning funds to cover the $10 billion Pakistan needs for the next few month's fuel imports and foreign debt repayments. Saudi Arabia only offered to consider investing in the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the part of China's OBOR that includes a deep water port at Gwadar, Pakistan, and a major dam at Karot on the Pakistan-India-Chinese border. Now that the IMF is evaluating Pakistan's loan application, China also faces scrutiny of the secret terms of its CPEC contracts.
Reminiscent of the way Britain achieved control over the Suez Canal, China is creating influence and economic dependency in a wide swath of territory. With complex partnerships, including with the developing countries themselves, and enormous amounts of money at risk, diverse financial instruments handle equity participation, public-private partnerships, insurance, loan guarantees, debt instruments, first-loss equity, challenge funds, grants, and project preparation support. In cases of shared risk, allocating amounts to partners is challenging. Reducing risks also requires staff to monitor project progress and maximize the speed of fixing mistakes. At any time, China can call in loans for non-payment.
Political conflict: Beijing's Maritime Silk Road includes the deep water port China is building at Gwadar, Pakistan, to gain access to the Arabian Sea and avoid shipping oil farther east through the congested Malacca Straight. From Gwadar, China plans a route north and east toward the Karot hydroelectric power plant on the Jhelum River southeast of Islamabad and into China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, which already uses facial recognition technology to track 2.5 million in its Xinjiang province, also would gain another way to control the restive Uighur Muslim minority that lives among the Chinese Han majority. Since China's President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has pushed the idea that China's atheistic political system should be considered just as valid, especially for maintaining China's peace and security, as the governments of any other countries.
Try as hard as it might, however, the Chinese Communist Party has been unable to squelch Muslim Uighurs, but also Christians and Taoists in Chengdu's panda-breeding city and Buddhists in Tibet (as well as democracy activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan). More than a million Uighurs are said to be confined in re-education camps. Increased surveillance using facial recognition, AI, and computer monitoring systems tries to catch violations. Rather than be shut out of a major market, even Google was poised to develop a "Dragonfly" search engine that would meet China's censorship requirements by excluding keywords, such as Tiananmen, until its employees refused to compromise their ethics in order to work on the project.
A part of the Pakistan to China road also passes through Kashmir, the primarily Muslim site of a territorial dispute between the nuclear powers, Pakistan and Hindu India. For the first time in 30 years, the Kashmir flash point came under a major attack in February, 2019, when a suicide bomber from Pakistan killed 40 of India's security forces. To further complicate border tensions, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, who is accused of directing the murder of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, seemed to challenge China's influence in the area by visiting with a promise to invest in Pakistan and India.
Thus far, India's military buildup, economic shortfalls in the region, and ethnic/religious conflict have prevented Beijing from surrounding India. The two countries, India and China, already needed to resolve a 2017 border dispute by establishing a hotline between them. With the launch of its Arihant submarine in November, 2018, India enhanced its military capability in the area by adding sea-based, short-range nuclear missiles capable of reaching China and Pakistan to its air- and land-based missile systems.
In the south, the Indian Ocean's strategic Maldive Islands ousted China's hand-picked president. Under former President Yameen, Chinese influence had started to replace the protection India provided after the Maldives and India achieved independence from Britain. Millions in low interest Chinese loans began funding construction of a bridge from the Maldive capital in Male to the main airport, as well as housing and a hospital that could support a naval base. Saudi Arabia also has showed interest in the Maldive atolls and constructed a major mosque there.
Beijing's effort to eliminate the need to import oil through the congested Malacca Straight also moves China closer to India in the southeast. China plans to construct a road-rail-pipeline corridor through Myanmar, from its Shan state in the east to a port on the Bay of Bengal in the Rakhine state on the Bangladesh border. The Chinese conglomerate constructing the port is financing 70% of the project, but Myanmar is hard-pressed to fund its 30%, much less the rest of the country-wide project. Myanmar's Buddhist government and military face warring factions: the Muslim Rohingyas; the Arakan Army of Buddhist Rakhine that opposes the Burman-dominated Buddhist government; and the Northern Alliance Brotherhood, a coalition of insurgents from Kachin and Shan states.
In Central Asia, China runs into conflict with Russia, especially in resource-rich Kazakhstan, sometimes called the buckle of the new Silk Road.
The South China Sea finds China challenged by the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Brunei. Of course, there is a chance that rising waters on the overheated planet may swamp the atolls, small islands, and reefs China has militarized there, as well as in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
Finally, any country's government can stall, kill, or seize a project on China's land and sea routes. History recalls how France and England struggled to build and finance the Suez Canal only to have Gamal Nasser seize it in the spirit of anti-colonial nationalism. Three months into his new position, after defeating Chinese-backed Najib Razak, Malaysia's new, 93-year-old prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, termed Chinese loans Chinese "colonialism." He traveled to Beijing to cancel the previous government's $20 billion agreement to let China build a high speed railway and two oil pipelines. China may have a way to regain these contracts, however. Malaysia is eager to prosecute Jho Low, the Malaysian mastermind behind a plot that misappropriated funds raised by three bond offerings Goldman Sachs underwrote for a Malaysian wealth fund. China could offer to turn over Mr. Low in exchange for the resumption of the cancelled projects. To block a Chinese-financed upscale Malaysian housing project wealthy Chinese investors, but not most Malaysians, could afford, Dr. Mohamad said Malaysia would not grant visas for foreigners to live there. Anwar Ibrahim is expected to replace Mahathir Mohamad, when he resigns as prime minister.
Sierra Leone's new president, Julius Maada Bio, canceled the previous administration's contract for the Chinese-financed Mamamah International Airport. As the country's aviation ministry observed, construction of a new airport would be uneconomical when the existing one is underutilized.
China also experienced opposition, when Nepal referred a Chinese project to review by anti-corruption watchdogs. Feeling overextended, Pakistan shut down projects on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Beijing views as its access to the Arabian Sea. It seeks more lending from China instead of an IMF loan. Even at home, Chinese citizens are beginning to view potential defaults on loans, especially to Africa, as foreign aid better used to finance domestic needs.
Environment: Constructing roads, railroads, bridges, and power plants has a major impact on the environment. At the same time cutting trees to make way for roads, rails, and tunnels, and laying thousands of miles of concrete invite flooding by eliminating anchors for soil and ground to absorb rain, increased truck and car traffic and the added heat from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity from power plants will warm the planet and increase the need for trees to absorb greenhouse gases.
Railroad projects in Kenya and seaport construction at Walvis Bay, Namibia, led locals to demand protection for wild life. China remains a major market for the ivory and rhino horn poachers obtain by killing Africa's elephants and rhino.
Infrastructure projects also can be expected to encounter objections from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with environmental, as well as religious, human rights, and other concerns.
Employment: With a population of 1.4 billion people, China is in a position to provide all the skilled and unskilled labor needed to design, engineer, construct, administer, staff, monitor, and maintain its OBOR and MSR projects. Should governments along these routes expect China to employ their countries' unemployed, China will see no need to pay desirable wages nor to establish exemplary working conditions. Experience in Africa shows China's railroad projects have generated protests over poor pay and treatment. African construction companies even have seen contracts to build government buildings go to Chinese firms instead of local ones. Also, African industries and shop owners that expected to benefit from Chinese-financed roads and rails have found themselves unable to compete with cheaper Chinese imports.
What cannot be ignored is how the hundreds of migrant workers employed on China's widespread infrastructure projects could pose a major threat of disease transmission, especially of AIDS. Despite the attempt of Chinese managers to confine workers to monitored compounds, employees likely will be determined to find ways to meet local women.
Looking at topographical maps will give students an idea of the challenges of constructing routes through mountains, forests, and deserts and over rivers. (The earlier post, "All Aboard for China's African Railroads," describes problems of terrain, as well as financial and other problems, that can arise with projects in developing countries.) All in all, watching the progress along China's One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road will give students an interesting learning experience for years to come.
That's the good news. Students are challenged to activate their critical thinking to anticipate, and even suggest solutions for, the problems that have and will develop along these routes.
Finance: Traditionally, the international financial institutions charged with funding major projects include the World Bank, dominated by the United States; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose president comes from Europe; and the Asian Development Bank headed by a president from Japan. Because the funding process of these institutions was considered too slow and the required plan preparation was too costly, a New Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Silk Road Fund were established to pick up the pace.
Since then, the Islamic Development Bank has agreed to jointly finance African projects with the AIIB, and Japanese, British, and US banks also are looking into ways to cooperate with China. Japan and the United States did not join the AIIB, because they suspected the bank would lack concern about labor, environmental sustainability, and requirements for democratic reform, since China considers all political systems equal and claims not to interfere with a recipient's sovereignty. As it has turned out, the AIIB is careful to abide by international norms, but the bank seems to retain its image by avoiding involvement with One Belt, One Road (OBOR) projects.
After World War II, the Marshall Plan helped rebuild a Europe that had existed. China's One Belt, One Road plan attempts to build something that never existed before what exits is ready to use it. As a result, Chinese development projects and financing bury recipients, such as Angola and Zambia, in debt. Half the countries in sub-Sahara Africa now have public debt greater than half their GDPs. There is growing concern about the raw materials, state power utilities, and other compensation China might require in case of loan defaults. Sri Lanka already was asked to share intelligence about traffic passing through its now bankrupt and Chinese-seized port. Zambia's default on a Chinese loan repayment resulted in immediate discussions that could lead to seizure of Zambia's electric company, ZESCO. The following eight countries have been singled out as in danger of assuming too great a Chinese debt burden: Laos, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Montenegro, Djibouti, Tajikistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan.
Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, found out countries cannot escape hard financial realities. Fed up with "hand outs from the West," Pakistan hoped to avoid the scrutiny of loan requests submitted to the IMF. But even China, in the process of using Pakistan to gain access to the mineral riches in Afghanistan's mountains and to encircle India with its OBOR projects, balked at loaning funds to cover the $10 billion Pakistan needs for the next few month's fuel imports and foreign debt repayments. Saudi Arabia only offered to consider investing in the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the part of China's OBOR that includes a deep water port at Gwadar, Pakistan, and a major dam at Karot on the Pakistan-India-Chinese border. Now that the IMF is evaluating Pakistan's loan application, China also faces scrutiny of the secret terms of its CPEC contracts.
Reminiscent of the way Britain achieved control over the Suez Canal, China is creating influence and economic dependency in a wide swath of territory. With complex partnerships, including with the developing countries themselves, and enormous amounts of money at risk, diverse financial instruments handle equity participation, public-private partnerships, insurance, loan guarantees, debt instruments, first-loss equity, challenge funds, grants, and project preparation support. In cases of shared risk, allocating amounts to partners is challenging. Reducing risks also requires staff to monitor project progress and maximize the speed of fixing mistakes. At any time, China can call in loans for non-payment.
Political conflict: Beijing's Maritime Silk Road includes the deep water port China is building at Gwadar, Pakistan, to gain access to the Arabian Sea and avoid shipping oil farther east through the congested Malacca Straight. From Gwadar, China plans a route north and east toward the Karot hydroelectric power plant on the Jhelum River southeast of Islamabad and into China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, which already uses facial recognition technology to track 2.5 million in its Xinjiang province, also would gain another way to control the restive Uighur Muslim minority that lives among the Chinese Han majority. Since China's President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has pushed the idea that China's atheistic political system should be considered just as valid, especially for maintaining China's peace and security, as the governments of any other countries.
Try as hard as it might, however, the Chinese Communist Party has been unable to squelch Muslim Uighurs, but also Christians and Taoists in Chengdu's panda-breeding city and Buddhists in Tibet (as well as democracy activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan). More than a million Uighurs are said to be confined in re-education camps. Increased surveillance using facial recognition, AI, and computer monitoring systems tries to catch violations. Rather than be shut out of a major market, even Google was poised to develop a "Dragonfly" search engine that would meet China's censorship requirements by excluding keywords, such as Tiananmen, until its employees refused to compromise their ethics in order to work on the project.
A part of the Pakistan to China road also passes through Kashmir, the primarily Muslim site of a territorial dispute between the nuclear powers, Pakistan and Hindu India. For the first time in 30 years, the Kashmir flash point came under a major attack in February, 2019, when a suicide bomber from Pakistan killed 40 of India's security forces. To further complicate border tensions, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, who is accused of directing the murder of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, seemed to challenge China's influence in the area by visiting with a promise to invest in Pakistan and India.
Thus far, India's military buildup, economic shortfalls in the region, and ethnic/religious conflict have prevented Beijing from surrounding India. The two countries, India and China, already needed to resolve a 2017 border dispute by establishing a hotline between them. With the launch of its Arihant submarine in November, 2018, India enhanced its military capability in the area by adding sea-based, short-range nuclear missiles capable of reaching China and Pakistan to its air- and land-based missile systems.
In the south, the Indian Ocean's strategic Maldive Islands ousted China's hand-picked president. Under former President Yameen, Chinese influence had started to replace the protection India provided after the Maldives and India achieved independence from Britain. Millions in low interest Chinese loans began funding construction of a bridge from the Maldive capital in Male to the main airport, as well as housing and a hospital that could support a naval base. Saudi Arabia also has showed interest in the Maldive atolls and constructed a major mosque there.
Beijing's effort to eliminate the need to import oil through the congested Malacca Straight also moves China closer to India in the southeast. China plans to construct a road-rail-pipeline corridor through Myanmar, from its Shan state in the east to a port on the Bay of Bengal in the Rakhine state on the Bangladesh border. The Chinese conglomerate constructing the port is financing 70% of the project, but Myanmar is hard-pressed to fund its 30%, much less the rest of the country-wide project. Myanmar's Buddhist government and military face warring factions: the Muslim Rohingyas; the Arakan Army of Buddhist Rakhine that opposes the Burman-dominated Buddhist government; and the Northern Alliance Brotherhood, a coalition of insurgents from Kachin and Shan states.
In Central Asia, China runs into conflict with Russia, especially in resource-rich Kazakhstan, sometimes called the buckle of the new Silk Road.
The South China Sea finds China challenged by the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Brunei. Of course, there is a chance that rising waters on the overheated planet may swamp the atolls, small islands, and reefs China has militarized there, as well as in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
Finally, any country's government can stall, kill, or seize a project on China's land and sea routes. History recalls how France and England struggled to build and finance the Suez Canal only to have Gamal Nasser seize it in the spirit of anti-colonial nationalism. Three months into his new position, after defeating Chinese-backed Najib Razak, Malaysia's new, 93-year-old prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, termed Chinese loans Chinese "colonialism." He traveled to Beijing to cancel the previous government's $20 billion agreement to let China build a high speed railway and two oil pipelines. China may have a way to regain these contracts, however. Malaysia is eager to prosecute Jho Low, the Malaysian mastermind behind a plot that misappropriated funds raised by three bond offerings Goldman Sachs underwrote for a Malaysian wealth fund. China could offer to turn over Mr. Low in exchange for the resumption of the cancelled projects. To block a Chinese-financed upscale Malaysian housing project wealthy Chinese investors, but not most Malaysians, could afford, Dr. Mohamad said Malaysia would not grant visas for foreigners to live there. Anwar Ibrahim is expected to replace Mahathir Mohamad, when he resigns as prime minister.
Sierra Leone's new president, Julius Maada Bio, canceled the previous administration's contract for the Chinese-financed Mamamah International Airport. As the country's aviation ministry observed, construction of a new airport would be uneconomical when the existing one is underutilized.
China also experienced opposition, when Nepal referred a Chinese project to review by anti-corruption watchdogs. Feeling overextended, Pakistan shut down projects on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Beijing views as its access to the Arabian Sea. It seeks more lending from China instead of an IMF loan. Even at home, Chinese citizens are beginning to view potential defaults on loans, especially to Africa, as foreign aid better used to finance domestic needs.
Environment: Constructing roads, railroads, bridges, and power plants has a major impact on the environment. At the same time cutting trees to make way for roads, rails, and tunnels, and laying thousands of miles of concrete invite flooding by eliminating anchors for soil and ground to absorb rain, increased truck and car traffic and the added heat from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity from power plants will warm the planet and increase the need for trees to absorb greenhouse gases.
Railroad projects in Kenya and seaport construction at Walvis Bay, Namibia, led locals to demand protection for wild life. China remains a major market for the ivory and rhino horn poachers obtain by killing Africa's elephants and rhino.
Infrastructure projects also can be expected to encounter objections from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with environmental, as well as religious, human rights, and other concerns.
Employment: With a population of 1.4 billion people, China is in a position to provide all the skilled and unskilled labor needed to design, engineer, construct, administer, staff, monitor, and maintain its OBOR and MSR projects. Should governments along these routes expect China to employ their countries' unemployed, China will see no need to pay desirable wages nor to establish exemplary working conditions. Experience in Africa shows China's railroad projects have generated protests over poor pay and treatment. African construction companies even have seen contracts to build government buildings go to Chinese firms instead of local ones. Also, African industries and shop owners that expected to benefit from Chinese-financed roads and rails have found themselves unable to compete with cheaper Chinese imports.
What cannot be ignored is how the hundreds of migrant workers employed on China's widespread infrastructure projects could pose a major threat of disease transmission, especially of AIDS. Despite the attempt of Chinese managers to confine workers to monitored compounds, employees likely will be determined to find ways to meet local women.
Looking at topographical maps will give students an idea of the challenges of constructing routes through mountains, forests, and deserts and over rivers. (The earlier post, "All Aboard for China's African Railroads," describes problems of terrain, as well as financial and other problems, that can arise with projects in developing countries.) All in all, watching the progress along China's One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road will give students an interesting learning experience for years to come.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Look East at South Korea, China, and Japan
North Korea is not the only country drawing attention eastward. On February 9, 2018, the Winter Olympics will begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
In October, 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China confirmed Xi Jinping as China's President for his second, and probably not final, 5-year term. His Chinese Socialism for a New Era is designed to replace Russia with China as the world's other superpower.
Unlike Russia, Xi cracks down on the corruption that makes President Putin vulnerable to opposition by those suffering economic deprivation. But Xi is not confident enough of his position to lessen censorship or to release from house arrest the widow of Liu Xiaobo, a leader of China's pro-democracy demonstration in 1989, or to free, permanently, critics, such as activists, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, who organized a 2014 pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.
China's neighbor in Japan continues to push for a constitutional amendment that would give the country the right to maintain a military force. Like Xi, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide election in October, 2017 that solidified his position and plans for economic growth. In 2020, the Summer Olympics will come to Tokyo.
In October, 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China confirmed Xi Jinping as China's President for his second, and probably not final, 5-year term. His Chinese Socialism for a New Era is designed to replace Russia with China as the world's other superpower.
Unlike Russia, Xi cracks down on the corruption that makes President Putin vulnerable to opposition by those suffering economic deprivation. But Xi is not confident enough of his position to lessen censorship or to release from house arrest the widow of Liu Xiaobo, a leader of China's pro-democracy demonstration in 1989, or to free, permanently, critics, such as activists, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, who organized a 2014 pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.
China's neighbor in Japan continues to push for a constitutional amendment that would give the country the right to maintain a military force. Like Xi, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide election in October, 2017 that solidified his position and plans for economic growth. In 2020, the Summer Olympics will come to Tokyo.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Cosplay Is No Child's Play
Guess what people are spending $399 for this weekend. It's not a new phone but a chance to attend three days at Wizard World Comic-Con; to meet and get an autograph from Spider-Man's creator, Stan Lee; and to pick up a gift bag.
I used to tell bored students to use their imaginations to turn doodles into money-making characters like Snoopy and Hello Kitty. With all the emphasis on equipping students for future careers involving STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), every so often it's wise to step back and encourage students who'd prefer to make their way in the arts or to combine their interests in the arts and STEM subjects. After all, some comic book characters exist because radiation, lab accidents, and Iron Man's implant gave them superpowers. And drawing and coloring often now is done on a computer instead of by hand.
The cosplay idea that combines costumes and play grew out of science fiction conventions. In 1984, Nobuyuki Takahashi coined the cosoplay term which now applies to those who wear costumes representing characters in Japanese anime and manga or characters in cartoons, books, comic books, action films, TV series, and video games. Although people who come to today's Comic-Con conventions around the world still make their own costumes, manufacturers also produce costumes, as well as wigs, body paint, contact lenses, costume jewelry, and prop weapons, for sale.
If you think about all the revenue generated by and for those who produce and sell cartoons and comic books, films, TV shows, books, and video games, you get an idea of the major global market open to creative students. As I learned from a student who is taking a comic book course in college, there also is a market for those who teach about these "playful" subjects.
Friday, September 8, 2017
So You Want a Career in Fashion. Do It!
Don't let all the talk about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics scare you into another field. Who knows, outfits for robots may be the next new thing? In any case, you only need to watch the "Project Runway" TV show to realize interest in fashion is as global as interest in the Internet of Things. Designers on "Project Runway" are male, female, and other; Japanese-American, African-American, and Muslim. In fact, the Muslim designer's long, modest fashion won the show's second competition. And this season, "Project Runway" also requires designers to create stylish clothes for women who take every size up to and including size 22.
But "Project Runway" is not the only one breaking the traditional fashion mold. Fashion magazines, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle, have responded to competition from the international fashion reach of Facebook and Google. Where consumers and advertisers want products in local languages tailored to cultural dress codes, political policies, and local designers, models, and icons, there are separate editions, such as Vogue Arabia, Vogue Latin America, Vogue Poland, Vogue Czech Republic and Vogue Ukraine. Naomi Campbell, among others, supports the idea of launching Vogue Africa. When it is possible to create editorial content compatible with international interests and brands and using international celebrities, the same major campaign can run in as many as 25, 32, or 46 separate editions.
Based on consumer interests and advertising trends, David Carey, president of Harper's Bazaar's Hearst publisher, expects local content to shrink somewhat as global content increases in future years.
But "Project Runway" is not the only one breaking the traditional fashion mold. Fashion magazines, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle, have responded to competition from the international fashion reach of Facebook and Google. Where consumers and advertisers want products in local languages tailored to cultural dress codes, political policies, and local designers, models, and icons, there are separate editions, such as Vogue Arabia, Vogue Latin America, Vogue Poland, Vogue Czech Republic and Vogue Ukraine. Naomi Campbell, among others, supports the idea of launching Vogue Africa. When it is possible to create editorial content compatible with international interests and brands and using international celebrities, the same major campaign can run in as many as 25, 32, or 46 separate editions.
Based on consumer interests and advertising trends, David Carey, president of Harper's Bazaar's Hearst publisher, expects local content to shrink somewhat as global content increases in future years.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Modern Deterrents
Watching today's young Japanese students push their desks to the side of the room and hide under them, as teachers pull shades over the windows to deflect flying glass, only reminds us this was a procedure that couldn't protect populations from nuclear attacks in the 1950s. Strategies designed to protect a retaliatory second strike weapon system after an initial surprise bombing in the 1960s are out-of-date as well.
Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.
We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.
Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.
Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.
In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.
The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.
Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.
We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.
Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.
Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.
In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.
The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Fishing Makes Climate Change Real
Are you an ecotourist sport angler trying to catch a strong, speedy golden manseer in one of Bhutan's large free flowing rivers? Or are you an angler testing your tenkara skill with iwana (trout) lying in wait for an insect in a stream near Kamidaki in the Japanese Alps?
Fishing brings anglers face-to-face with the effects of climate change in a real life way that looking at collapsing glaciers and reading about oil drilling in the Arctic cannot. If, for example, fishermen see no mayflies, stoneflies, or caddisflies, they know the water is not healthy for fish.
To protect fishing in Himalayan rivers (and tigers in the forests around them), Bhutan's Royal Manas National Park provides a safe haven free of pollution for migratory fish. Anglers have a vested interest in organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund, that work with governments, manufacturers, and farmers to study and implement ways to maintain water quality in rivers and streams by keeping them silt-free, clear, and the right temperatures for different fish species.
Fishing brings anglers face-to-face with the effects of climate change in a real life way that looking at collapsing glaciers and reading about oil drilling in the Arctic cannot. If, for example, fishermen see no mayflies, stoneflies, or caddisflies, they know the water is not healthy for fish.
To protect fishing in Himalayan rivers (and tigers in the forests around them), Bhutan's Royal Manas National Park provides a safe haven free of pollution for migratory fish. Anglers have a vested interest in organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund, that work with governments, manufacturers, and farmers to study and implement ways to maintain water quality in rivers and streams by keeping them silt-free, clear, and the right temperatures for different fish species.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Babies Helped with Unused Vojta Therapy
Using the Vojta (YOY-tuh) method, developed by the Czech neurologist, Vaclav Vojta, in the early 1950s, pressure applied to nine zones of a baby's body can activate muscles, mental activity, and proper breathing in those born with the motor disabilities associated with cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome.
One medical book describes Down's syndrome as a birth defect of Mongoloid children who have "stubby fingers and hands, a flat face, slanted eyes and a sweet disposition." The book goes on to say, "Mongolism can usually be detected by sampling the amniotic fluid so that an abortion can be performed if the fetus is affected."
Why would doctors skip to an abortion, when the development of a baby with a sweet disposition could be helped by the Vojta method, used, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Syria?
A Vojta therapist at the Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute in Thrissur, India,
suggests the therapy is not widely used, because there is no profit payoff. Once parents are trained, they perform the pressure therapy regularly at home with no equipment or drugs. Perhaps, there also is another answer. As in the case of blue light phototherapy found to destroy the superbugs that resist the antibiotics used to kill staph infections, Western doctors discounted research on the Vojta method conducted in a country behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War (See the earlier post, "Medical Profession Suffers from International Conflict.")
Since the successful reduction of motor problems depends on how early the Vojta treatment begins and how efficiently it is applied, there should be no delay in trying this therapy in every country. After undergoing treatment before a baby turns 1 year old, although there is no cure for the underlying medical defects, speech problems and a delay in crawling and walking can be overcome. Most Vojta-treated children can learn to speak and walk.
One medical book describes Down's syndrome as a birth defect of Mongoloid children who have "stubby fingers and hands, a flat face, slanted eyes and a sweet disposition." The book goes on to say, "Mongolism can usually be detected by sampling the amniotic fluid so that an abortion can be performed if the fetus is affected."
Why would doctors skip to an abortion, when the development of a baby with a sweet disposition could be helped by the Vojta method, used, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Syria?
A Vojta therapist at the Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute in Thrissur, India,
suggests the therapy is not widely used, because there is no profit payoff. Once parents are trained, they perform the pressure therapy regularly at home with no equipment or drugs. Perhaps, there also is another answer. As in the case of blue light phototherapy found to destroy the superbugs that resist the antibiotics used to kill staph infections, Western doctors discounted research on the Vojta method conducted in a country behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War (See the earlier post, "Medical Profession Suffers from International Conflict.")
Since the successful reduction of motor problems depends on how early the Vojta treatment begins and how efficiently it is applied, there should be no delay in trying this therapy in every country. After undergoing treatment before a baby turns 1 year old, although there is no cure for the underlying medical defects, speech problems and a delay in crawling and walking can be overcome. Most Vojta-treated children can learn to speak and walk.
Monday, February 20, 2017
What Does North Korea's Kim Jong-un Fear?
On February 13, 2017, Kim Jong-nam's assassination with a banned VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where North Korean nationals have visa free travel, brought to light more information about both North Korea's so-called hermit kingdom and China.
Kim Jong-un, 33, who inherited leadership of North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, was not the first choice for succession. That honor was to go to Kim Jong-nam, 45, until bad publicity followed his 2001 arrest while using a fake passport to sneak into Japan, allegedly to visit Disneyland. New information in 2018 claimed Kim Jong Il and his other son, North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong-un, tried unsuccessfully to visit the West using fake names and Brazilian passports in the 1990s.
Although Kim Jong-nam was the illegitimate son of Kim Jong-Il and Sung Hae-rim, the South Korean-born actress murdered under suspicious circumstances in Moscow in 2002, he grew up with all the advantages of an heir and attended school in Europe, where he was susceptible to capitalist teachings and playboy womanizing. A bloody shootout with Kim Jong-nam's bodyguards failed to kill him in 2011, but it showed Kim Jong-un considered his half brother a threat to his position.
When Beijing became Jong-nam's protector, Kim Jong-un also seemed to have his suspicions about China, supposedly North Korea's closest ally. Back in December, 2013, Jong-un ordered the arrest and execution of his uncle and close adviser, Jang Song-thaek, who was considered North Korea's liaison representative with China.
Despite reports that Kim Jong-nam was trying to defect to the EU, US, or South Korea, did Peking see Jong-nam as a possible hereditary backup in case China wanted to stage a North Korean takeover? At the time of his assassination in the Malaysian International Airport, Jong-nam was separated from his bodyguards, and he was en route to Macau, the "Las Vegas of Asia" and former Portuguese territory that became China's autonomous Special Administrative Region for at least 50 years beginning in 1999.
When Malaysian police began looking into possible North Korean embassy and airline personnel involvement in Jong-nam's assassination, North Korea prevented Malaysian citizens from returning home.
Kim Jong-un, 33, who inherited leadership of North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, was not the first choice for succession. That honor was to go to Kim Jong-nam, 45, until bad publicity followed his 2001 arrest while using a fake passport to sneak into Japan, allegedly to visit Disneyland. New information in 2018 claimed Kim Jong Il and his other son, North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong-un, tried unsuccessfully to visit the West using fake names and Brazilian passports in the 1990s.
Although Kim Jong-nam was the illegitimate son of Kim Jong-Il and Sung Hae-rim, the South Korean-born actress murdered under suspicious circumstances in Moscow in 2002, he grew up with all the advantages of an heir and attended school in Europe, where he was susceptible to capitalist teachings and playboy womanizing. A bloody shootout with Kim Jong-nam's bodyguards failed to kill him in 2011, but it showed Kim Jong-un considered his half brother a threat to his position.
When Beijing became Jong-nam's protector, Kim Jong-un also seemed to have his suspicions about China, supposedly North Korea's closest ally. Back in December, 2013, Jong-un ordered the arrest and execution of his uncle and close adviser, Jang Song-thaek, who was considered North Korea's liaison representative with China.
Despite reports that Kim Jong-nam was trying to defect to the EU, US, or South Korea, did Peking see Jong-nam as a possible hereditary backup in case China wanted to stage a North Korean takeover? At the time of his assassination in the Malaysian International Airport, Jong-nam was separated from his bodyguards, and he was en route to Macau, the "Las Vegas of Asia" and former Portuguese territory that became China's autonomous Special Administrative Region for at least 50 years beginning in 1999.
When Malaysian police began looking into possible North Korean embassy and airline personnel involvement in Jong-nam's assassination, North Korea prevented Malaysian citizens from returning home.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Characters with Diverse Nationalities Populate A Summer Reading List
Children who read for fun under a shady tree or beach umbrella this summer will be in good company. Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates, considers "the chance to sit outside reading a great book" summer's gift for "gutting out" the rest of the year inside.
No doubt young people will find the reading list selections made by Elizabeth Perez, a children's librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, more to their liking than the books Bill Gates put on his list:
The Vital Question by Nick Lane, who explores the role energy plays in all living things, and
How Not to be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg's take on the role of math in all things, and
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in which Noah Yuval Harari speculates on the way things like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering will change future humans.
Perez chose books featuring characters with diverse nationalities, including children from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ghana, Somalia, and Korea. Her choices also include children who have dual nationalities, American and Vietnamese, for example. She has age-appropriate selections for students from age 4 to age 14.
For ages 4-8
Emmanuel's Dream: the True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
A Ghanaian boy, born with one less developed leg, becomes a professional athlete.
For ages 5-8
I'm New Here by Anne Sebley O'Brien
Children from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea begin to adjust to a new school with the help of new classmates.
Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina
A parrot becomes a go-between for a little girl who doesn't speak Spanish and her grandmother who does.
Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat
Librarian Perez advises adults to read this book first before deciding if children should find out letters are the only way some children have contact with their parents in detention camps.
For ages 5-9
Juna's Jar by Jane Bank
Juna uses a Korean kinchi jar to store her dreams.
For ages 6-10
Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh
A non-fiction book about an illustrator famous for drawing Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons.
For ages 8-12
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
Unwillingly an American girl visits Vietnam with her Vietnamese father and grandmother to learn what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War and to discover the Vietnamese part of her identity.
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
This book uses a half Japanese girl's interest in space to describe her feeling of being an alien in a town where almost everyone is white.
For ages 9-12
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
An heroic young girl is determined to save her Caribbean island from the ghostly Jumbies that appear in folk tales.
For ages 10-14
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
During World War II a harmonica weaves together stories about a family living in Nazi Germany and a Mexican-American family and Japanese-American family living in the United States.
No doubt young people will find the reading list selections made by Elizabeth Perez, a children's librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, more to their liking than the books Bill Gates put on his list:
The Vital Question by Nick Lane, who explores the role energy plays in all living things, and
How Not to be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg's take on the role of math in all things, and
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in which Noah Yuval Harari speculates on the way things like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering will change future humans.
Perez chose books featuring characters with diverse nationalities, including children from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ghana, Somalia, and Korea. Her choices also include children who have dual nationalities, American and Vietnamese, for example. She has age-appropriate selections for students from age 4 to age 14.
For ages 4-8
Emmanuel's Dream: the True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
A Ghanaian boy, born with one less developed leg, becomes a professional athlete.
For ages 5-8
I'm New Here by Anne Sebley O'Brien
Children from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea begin to adjust to a new school with the help of new classmates.
Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina
A parrot becomes a go-between for a little girl who doesn't speak Spanish and her grandmother who does.
Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat
Librarian Perez advises adults to read this book first before deciding if children should find out letters are the only way some children have contact with their parents in detention camps.
For ages 5-9
Juna's Jar by Jane Bank
Juna uses a Korean kinchi jar to store her dreams.
For ages 6-10
Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh
A non-fiction book about an illustrator famous for drawing Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons.
For ages 8-12
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
Unwillingly an American girl visits Vietnam with her Vietnamese father and grandmother to learn what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War and to discover the Vietnamese part of her identity.
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
This book uses a half Japanese girl's interest in space to describe her feeling of being an alien in a town where almost everyone is white.
For ages 9-12
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
An heroic young girl is determined to save her Caribbean island from the ghostly Jumbies that appear in folk tales.
For ages 10-14
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
During World War II a harmonica weaves together stories about a family living in Nazi Germany and a Mexican-American family and Japanese-American family living in the United States.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Want An Exciting Career?
Students who will begin their careers in the next five to 20 years will be working to about 2060 to 2075 or longer. They can worry about being unemployed by robots or discover Africa.
Of course, Africa already has been discovered as an exotic home of wild animals, gold, diamonds, rubber, slaves, and the origin of mankind. Because of the scramble for colonies, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch are spoken there along with local languages. Currently, with advances in mobile communication; transportation, including by drones; and medicine, Africa is on track to come into its own normalcy. The middle class is growing. And the size of the continent suggests regional divisions into northern, western, southern, northeastern, and southeastern markets. A recent acquisition recognized the opportunity to finance trade in Africa. Helios Investment Partners, the private equity investment firm founded and managed by Africans, Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye, in 2004, acquired the UK's Crown Agents Bank and Crown Agents Investment Management in April, 2016.
What might be most attractive to the world's future tech-savvy, well-educated, independent workforce is the challenge Africa presents. The enticing work environment Sydney Finkelstein describes in his new book, Superbosses, is one where creative energy is purpose-focused on a vision, commitment to a task is satisfying, and talent is recognized and rewarded at an early age.
Some international bankers already are enjoying unique opportunities to figure out how to handle complicated financial deals in Africa. Lending for African projects from Asia's investors, Japan, China, and India, for example, is secured by assets, such as the turbines Japan provided for a coal-fired power plant in Morocco, and repaid from revenue that the projects, such as the power plant, will generate. Similarly, when a loan for buses will be repaid by future bus fares, bankers have to know what questions to ask. Which government agency has authority to make the purchase? Will the buses be able to handle African road and climate conditions? Who will train drivers and maintenance workers? Is payment to be made in local or hard currency? Is there a way to hedge against the devaluation of local currency, and what are the options should emergency measures prevent hard currency from leaving the country?
Gaurav Wahi of India's Jindal Steel and Power Limited, a company with operations in South Africa and Mozambique, called attention to a May 16, 2016 Forbes article that provided excellent practical advice about doing business in Africa. Companies looking for immediate, low-risk African opportunities have limited options in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland. Half of China's $12 billion investment in Africa between 2005 and 2015, for example, went to South Africa. Few African countries currently have relatively high per capita GDP incomes and reliable infrastructure (ports, roads) and institutions (legal, police, and educational systems).
Elsewhere in Africa, companies that can become "early pan-African powerhouses" need patience and moxie to do the following:
No one doing business in Africa will be stuck implementing a bureaucratic playbook. Marketers will be reading the accounts of explorers and missionaries to identify routes to their target markets along rivers and in desert oases. Freight forwarders will fill their Rolodexes with importers and exporters, if they know which carriers can be counted on to meet delivery schedules and if they know how to fill shipping containers to get the best cargo rates. Manufacturers will prosper when they attract the best employees, because they have a reputation for providing excellent training programs and benefits.
Just considering a normal bell curve distribution of talent, not only business, but African agriculture, sports, education, security, law, fashion, and the arts are all fields ripe for development in the coming years. An exciting career awaits those willing and able to work together with Africans.
(Also see the later post, "There's No Business Like Bug Business.")
Of course, Africa already has been discovered as an exotic home of wild animals, gold, diamonds, rubber, slaves, and the origin of mankind. Because of the scramble for colonies, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch are spoken there along with local languages. Currently, with advances in mobile communication; transportation, including by drones; and medicine, Africa is on track to come into its own normalcy. The middle class is growing. And the size of the continent suggests regional divisions into northern, western, southern, northeastern, and southeastern markets. A recent acquisition recognized the opportunity to finance trade in Africa. Helios Investment Partners, the private equity investment firm founded and managed by Africans, Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye, in 2004, acquired the UK's Crown Agents Bank and Crown Agents Investment Management in April, 2016.
What might be most attractive to the world's future tech-savvy, well-educated, independent workforce is the challenge Africa presents. The enticing work environment Sydney Finkelstein describes in his new book, Superbosses, is one where creative energy is purpose-focused on a vision, commitment to a task is satisfying, and talent is recognized and rewarded at an early age.
Some international bankers already are enjoying unique opportunities to figure out how to handle complicated financial deals in Africa. Lending for African projects from Asia's investors, Japan, China, and India, for example, is secured by assets, such as the turbines Japan provided for a coal-fired power plant in Morocco, and repaid from revenue that the projects, such as the power plant, will generate. Similarly, when a loan for buses will be repaid by future bus fares, bankers have to know what questions to ask. Which government agency has authority to make the purchase? Will the buses be able to handle African road and climate conditions? Who will train drivers and maintenance workers? Is payment to be made in local or hard currency? Is there a way to hedge against the devaluation of local currency, and what are the options should emergency measures prevent hard currency from leaving the country?
Gaurav Wahi of India's Jindal Steel and Power Limited, a company with operations in South Africa and Mozambique, called attention to a May 16, 2016 Forbes article that provided excellent practical advice about doing business in Africa. Companies looking for immediate, low-risk African opportunities have limited options in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland. Half of China's $12 billion investment in Africa between 2005 and 2015, for example, went to South Africa. Few African countries currently have relatively high per capita GDP incomes and reliable infrastructure (ports, roads) and institutions (legal, police, and educational systems).
Elsewhere in Africa, companies that can become "early pan-African powerhouses" need patience and moxie to do the following:
- Identify home office talent with the ability to live in a foreign environment, to accommodate company policies and processes to local cultures, and to connect with local employees.
- Manage relations with governments (secure agreements and contracts)
- Deal with a lack of government regulations and poor land ownership records
- Develop self-sufficiency that might require vertical integration from raw material sourcing to production and distribution
- Provide low-cost products and services
- Expand uses for mobile phones (prepaid bank accounts, marketing, customer service)
- Train employees and provide benefit retention packages that prevent poaching by competitors
- Establish firm guidelines (ethical reputation requirements, experience working with other foreign companies) for evaluating potential local partnerships
- Provide security
- Form contingency plans for insurrections and political instability
- Anticipate economic volatility from commodity price swings
- Gain guarantees from multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank
No one doing business in Africa will be stuck implementing a bureaucratic playbook. Marketers will be reading the accounts of explorers and missionaries to identify routes to their target markets along rivers and in desert oases. Freight forwarders will fill their Rolodexes with importers and exporters, if they know which carriers can be counted on to meet delivery schedules and if they know how to fill shipping containers to get the best cargo rates. Manufacturers will prosper when they attract the best employees, because they have a reputation for providing excellent training programs and benefits.
Just considering a normal bell curve distribution of talent, not only business, but African agriculture, sports, education, security, law, fashion, and the arts are all fields ripe for development in the coming years. An exciting career awaits those willing and able to work together with Africans.
(Also see the later post, "There's No Business Like Bug Business.")
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Let's Talk Fashion
Rules provide fashion guidance according to the new book, Ametora (the Japanese slang abbreviation for American style tradition). With that in mind, I put together the following guidance for boys and girls with an aptitude and interest in fashion.
Fashion is one of the easiest industries to enter.
The winner of the new "Fashion Runway Jr." TV program in the US is 14 years old. Even younger kids sell their beaded jewelry at craft fairs. Whip up a bow tie on a sewing machine or print a graphic T-shirt and take it to the investors on "Shark Tank," to the etsy.com website, or to your own yard sale.
Customers look for both the new and the old, when it comes to fashion.
Wearable watches, health wristbands, and other electronics all have created demand for the devices that Sangtae Kim at MIT is designing to convert energy from walking and running into power for new wearables. At the same time other consumers are creating a demand for the designers making clothes and accessories made from recycled materials and for the designers modifying styles from the past: Ivy league/preppy, hippie, military, Hawaiian, hip hop/rapper, heavy-duty-rugged-outdoor-lifestyle, health-conscious-surfer-skateboarding-outdoor-lifestyle, gangster/rebel/delinquent, vintage, and, of course, the standard uniform for men (dark suit, white dress shirt, black plain toe shoes).
Customers look for both luxury and mass market brands.
Globalization has made it possible to carve out a niche for expensive, limited-edition goods among the superwealthy in countries throughout the world. It helps to keep an eye on markets in the shifting countries that have the strongest currencies. Or, you can create the new hoodie or infinity scarf to sell everywhere: in department and discount stores, on TV, over the internet, in direct mail catalogs, or in open air markets.
Customers demand authentic fashion and imitations.
While some customers want items only from the country that originated them, like jeans from the USA, others are satisfied wearing mandarin collars, Nehru jackets, Indonesian shirts, or hijab head scarves that are made anywhere.
Girls and boys with an interest in fashion are not limited to being designers.
They can become fashion illustrators and photographers or write the background stories some customers want along with their purchases. New styles can originate in the cartoons kids draw, what they wear in their garage bands, the costumes they design for school plays, and in how they express themselves in streetwear, that is, what they put together to wear when they walk down the street.
Fashion is a field that thrives on what's new.
Even the color that's in today can be out tomorrow. Anywhere in the world, a youngster could be thinking up the next new fashion trend.
Fashion is one of the easiest industries to enter.
The winner of the new "Fashion Runway Jr." TV program in the US is 14 years old. Even younger kids sell their beaded jewelry at craft fairs. Whip up a bow tie on a sewing machine or print a graphic T-shirt and take it to the investors on "Shark Tank," to the etsy.com website, or to your own yard sale.
Customers look for both the new and the old, when it comes to fashion.
Wearable watches, health wristbands, and other electronics all have created demand for the devices that Sangtae Kim at MIT is designing to convert energy from walking and running into power for new wearables. At the same time other consumers are creating a demand for the designers making clothes and accessories made from recycled materials and for the designers modifying styles from the past: Ivy league/preppy, hippie, military, Hawaiian, hip hop/rapper, heavy-duty-rugged-outdoor-lifestyle, health-conscious-surfer-skateboarding-outdoor-lifestyle, gangster/rebel/delinquent, vintage, and, of course, the standard uniform for men (dark suit, white dress shirt, black plain toe shoes).
Customers look for both luxury and mass market brands.
Globalization has made it possible to carve out a niche for expensive, limited-edition goods among the superwealthy in countries throughout the world. It helps to keep an eye on markets in the shifting countries that have the strongest currencies. Or, you can create the new hoodie or infinity scarf to sell everywhere: in department and discount stores, on TV, over the internet, in direct mail catalogs, or in open air markets.
Customers demand authentic fashion and imitations.
While some customers want items only from the country that originated them, like jeans from the USA, others are satisfied wearing mandarin collars, Nehru jackets, Indonesian shirts, or hijab head scarves that are made anywhere.
Girls and boys with an interest in fashion are not limited to being designers.
They can become fashion illustrators and photographers or write the background stories some customers want along with their purchases. New styles can originate in the cartoons kids draw, what they wear in their garage bands, the costumes they design for school plays, and in how they express themselves in streetwear, that is, what they put together to wear when they walk down the street.
Fashion is a field that thrives on what's new.
Even the color that's in today can be out tomorrow. Anywhere in the world, a youngster could be thinking up the next new fashion trend.
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