Ian Bremmer
2015·01·05:These Are the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks of 2015
1. The politics of Europe
2. Russia
3. The effects of China slowdown
4. The weaponization of finance
5. ISIS, beyond Iraq and Syria
6. Weak incumbents
7. The rise of strategic sectors
8. Saudi Arabia vs Iran
9. Taiwan/China
10. Turkey
An American soldier wants to come home. They want to survive. But these people want to die. They want to win and they are ready to die.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/want-win-ready-die-german-writer-spends-10-days-islamic-state/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mHxs7X-sC0
China Water Stress May Worsen Even With Transfer Projects
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-12/china-water-stress-may-worsen-even-with-transfer-projects.html
【美国土法碱水面】 Homemade Ramen Noodles
Potassium Carbonate: 碳酸钾 Sodium Bi-Carbonate: 双碳酸钠
Potassium hydroxide:氢氧化钾
Sodium hydroxide: 氢氧化钠
Lye:碱水,碱液
A lye is a liquid obtained by leaching ashes (containing largely potassium carbonate or "potash"), or a strong alkali which is highly soluble in water producing caustic basic solutions. "Lye" is commonly the alternative name of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or historically potassium hydroxide (KOH).
这样的转基因,你会接受吗?
Researchers hope this whale’s genes will help reverse human aging
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/06/researchers-hope-this-whales-genes-will-help-reverse-human-aging/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost
(just testing)
Embryo Testing Should Not Be Controversial
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/03/pre_implantation_genetic_testing_with_ivf_it_won_t_create_designer_babies.html
(moe research)
A Baby With Three Genetic Parents? Yes, I’ll Explain!
http://www.parents.com/blogs/everything-pregnancy/2014/02/27/healthy-pregnancy/ivf-3-parent-dna-gene-manipulation/ Telegraph
30 Aug 2014 Three-parent babies: good or bad?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11065445/Three-parent-babies-good-or-bad.html
23 Nov 2014 Scientists hail new '3 parent baby' technique
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11245532/Scientists-hail-new-3-parent-baby-technique.html
30 Jan 2015 Scientists accuse Church of ignorance over three parent babies
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11380543/Scientists-accuse-Church-of-ignorance-over-three-parent-babies.html
01 Feb 2015 Three-parent baby technique no more sinister than blood transfusion, says Robert Winston
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11383004/Three-parent-baby-technique-no-more-sinister-than-blood-transfusion-says-Robert-Winston.html
01 Feb 2015 Don’t let science fall victim to ignorance on DNA transfer IVF
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11383128/Dont-let-science-fall-victim-to-ignorance-on-DNA-transfer-IVF.html
Scientists raise alarm on China's fishy aqua farms
BY CHRIS ARSENAULT Fri Jan 16, 2015
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/16/us-food-fish-china-idUSKBN0KP1TE20150116
Expect No Easing of ‘Chinese Whirlwind’ - WSJ A more likely explanation for the conciliatory rhetoric is that China has come to the realization that its neighbors don’t wish to be bullied into accepting a revived Sinocentric order in their part of the world. Yet that seems to be precisely what “connectivity” and “whirlwind” diplomacy are intended to achieve through peaceful means. By the time China has hooked the region into its expanding economic grid, America’s position in the region will have shrunk without a shot being fired.
华尔街日报
In Sri Lanka’s Post-Tsunami Rise, China Is Key
Town’s $1 Billion Port, Quiet Airport Raise Questions of What Strings Are Attached
http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-sri-lankas-post-tsunami-rise-china-is-key-1418938382
WALL STREET JOURNAL
By PATRICK BARTA
Dec. 18, 2014 4:33 p.m. ET
A billion-dollar port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, is being built with Chinese money
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka—When the Indian Ocean tsunami pulverized much of this town 10 years ago, locals wondered if it would ever recover. Then China stepped in.
It came through with money for big projects including a $1 billion port and a $209 million airport.
It is also providing assistance for other developments across Sri Lanka, including a $500 million Colombo port expansion, new highways and rail links, a $1.4 billion landfill project near Colombo’s financial district and a $1.3 billion power plant.
Such aid reflects how Beijing has stepped up to replace Western-backed financing for many projects in developing countries as it vies for greater economic and strategic influence in Asia. In Sri Lanka, such aid has been key in the reconstruction after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 35,000 people here on Dec. 26, 2004.
But it has also raised concern over what strings may be attached.
As countries tally their progress 10 years after the tsunami, which left 228,000 people dead or missing across more than a dozen countries, Sri Lanka has in some respects staged a remarkable resurgence, especially since a 26-year civil war ended in 2009. Most coastal areas are rebuilt, tourism is surging and investment is rebounding.
Many Sri Lankans credit the Chinese cash for helping fuel that recovery after decades of civil war drained its coffers.
Even though the economy has grown by more than 6% a year since the war with the Tamil Tigers ended, businesspeople say it is still sometimes hard to get cash from Western lenders, who demand highly detailed feasibility and environmental studies. Officials say some of China’s loans come with discounted interest rates.
“China just came and said, ‘Let’s get it done.’ And [things] got done,” said Ajit Gunewardene, deputy chairman of John Keells Holdings, a tourism and services conglomerate. He cited a highway from Sri Lanka’s main airport to central Colombo that cuts travel times by half. It was envisioned in 1969 but languished until China offered financing after the tsunami, he said.
To others, China’s money is a potential curse, making Sri Lanka overly dependent on a rising power that could demand payback in unexpected ways. Some worry Beijing could force Sri Lanka to welcome Chinese military vessels at facilities China is helping build in Hambantota and Colombo.
Others are concerned over what they say is a lack of transparency in the loans and over what happens if Sri Lanka can’t repay them. They worry President Mahinda Rajapaksa is pushing some projects that don’t make economic sense to bolster his support before elections next year, which Sri Lankan officials deny.
“It’s a very dangerous game we’re playing,” said Harsha de Silva, an opposition politician. “At the end of the day you give your pound of flesh.”
China’s support is also alarming India, which views greater Beijing involvement in Sri Lanka as a security risk, especially after a Chinese submarine surfaced at Colombo’s port this year.
“If these sorts of activities become more frequent, the Indian Ocean will become a familiar operating area for the Chinese Navy, bringing them much closer to the Indian peninsula,” said C. Uday Bhaskar, a retired Indian Navy commodore and director of the New Delhi-based Society for Policy Studies.
A China Foreign Ministry spokesman said its support for Sri Lanka is aimed at boosting commercial ties for “mutual benefit” and that speculation over military or other objectives is “groundless.”
In the first state visit to Sri Lanka by a Chinese head of state in 28 years, Chinese President Xi Jinping in September visited the Colombo Port City Project being built by China Harbour Engineering Co. on landfill, with plans for a Formula One track and a 100-story skyscraper.
Mr. Xi has also upped the ante recently with Chinese money for the rest of Asia, pushing a $50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and a $40 billion Chinese “Silk Road Fund,” aimed at improving trade and transport links in Asia.
David Brewster, a researcher at Australian National University, said China probably sees a number of advantages to its Sri Lanka investments, even if some projects underperform. Sri Lanka could become a new base for Chinese manufacturing as costs in China rise, he said, while big projects there yield contracts for its state companies.
Military considerations can’t be ignored, he said. “There probably is some element of truth that they’re trying to leverage their investments into some broader strategic advantage,” he said.
Chinese money is certainly changing Hambantota, a sleepy outpost of about 25,000 people, which lost more than 1,500 in the tsunami. Many survivors were moved to concrete and corrugated-metal homes a few kilometers inland.
The money really started flowing after Mr. Rajapaksa, a local politician, became president in 2005 and Sri Lanka’s war ended. In addition to China, South Korea helped pay for a new convention center; European donors also contributed.
Other big new projects in the town include a 10-story hospital under construction near signs warning of wild peacocks.
For now, many of the projects appear to be underused. Stray dogs sleep in the road leading to the airport, which opened in 2013 and handles a half-dozen flights daily. It had only one car in the parking lot during a recent afternoon visit.
But it is central to ambitions of turning Hambantota into a tourist hub, as arrivals surge nationwide.
Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts is planning a resort with more than 300 rooms. Signs advertise a Hyatt Regency opening in 2016.
But it is the sprawling port complex, already partly open, that is Hambantota’s centerpiece. Phase one is 85% financed by the Export-Import Bank of China. A joint venture of Chinese companies will handle further expansion.
Designed to be one of the biggest ports in Asia when fully built, it now attracts 45 to 50 ships a month, said Sri Lanka Ports Authority engineer Chaminda Bandara, compared with about 350 at Colombo’s port.
The goal is to take advantage of Sri Lanka’s location north of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Officials want more traffic to stop in Hambantota to refuel or transfer goods for distribution across South Asia.
Chinese factories could also use local labor in an industrial zone being set up nearby.
The port doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay its debt obligations, Mr. Bandara said. Sri Lanka’s government is responsible for the difference.
That is not a problem, said Eraj Ravindra Fernando, the local mayor. There will be new jobs and “significant profits, massive profits,” he said.
For some families, the upside remains to be seen. Locals displaced by the tsunami say they are grateful for the houses and land they got from the government and aid groups. But conditions are grim, with standing water in dirt roads, piles of trash and a greater distance to travel to fish or work.
Benefits from Hambantota’s big developments “may not come to us,” said 42-year-old N.M. Salahuddin, a laborer. Inside his house of concrete blocks painted aqua blue. “But we hope it will come to our children.”
—Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo, Niharika Mandhana in New Delhi and Lilian Lin in Beijing contributed to this article.
【附录】 Warning Sounded on Cuts to Pilot Training
2014·12·19
A decision by Air Force officials to reduce flying time in order to cut costs has meant many U.S. pilots now receive fewer training hours than counterparts among some European allies, India and even China, according to U.S. military officials.
The training cutbacks, ordered as part of a government budget squeeze, are giving rise to concerns about the preparedness of fighter squadrons in some areas, notably South Korea, where tensions with North Korea remain high.
U.S. pilots in South Korea flew only 120 training hours this year, Air Force officials said, and pilots in the U.S. flew on average even fewer hours—far less than a generation ago, when officers logged up to 300 hours yearly.
According to U.S. intelligence assessments, Chinese pilots receive as many as 150 hours of training a year, officials said.
An Air Force F-16 fighter jet set to land during an exercise at the Osan U.S. Air Base in South Korea in April. Associated Press
U.S. officials noted China is investing heavily in pilot training and developing a new stealth fighter. "They are making a concerted effort to increase the quantity and quality of their training while we are doing the opposite," said one official. A Chinese embassy representative in Washington didn't respond to a request for comment.
In addition to training cutbacks, the Air Force last year temporarily closed its elite training center in Nevada, the Weapons School, and canceled its top training exercise, known as Red Flag, meant to improve pilots' combat-survivability skills.
The Air Force had planned to spend $4.7 billion this fiscal year on training, but budget cutbacks trimmed that by $434 million.
Some liberals and deficit hawks in Congress argue that Pentagon spending should be curbed even more. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) noted Thursday that the U.S. spends as much on defense as the rest of the world combined.
Military officials counter that spending cuts in the past two years have led to a decline in "readiness"—a euphemism for the likelihood service members can survive a fight and overpower U.S. enemies.
Independent defense analysts said the budget dynamics of recent years have forced many short-term Pentagon fixes—such as grounding planes and cutting flying time—instead of long-term or permanent changes such as reducing the force, closing bases or retiring older planes.
"The strength of the Department of Defense is to think beyond today," said David Berteau, a defense analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. But he said the budget dynamic has inhibited the ability to do that. "The question is do you maintain more airplanes and airmen or do you have a smaller force but a more ready one?" he said. "That is the core trade off; it is capability vs. capacity."
The budget bill cleared Wednesday by the Senate will allow the Air Force to restore some flying hours. But many of the cuts will continue. "Readiness and training problems will persist because the top line is coming down," said Raymond Conley, a defense analyst at Rand Corp., a think tank that does research for the government.
Many lawmakers oppose solutions such as closing bases or retiring older airplanes. "Once you retire a whole air platform, it's not like you can press a button and bring them out of mothballs," said Rep. Rob Wittman (R., Va.), chairman of the readiness subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. "The whole idea of this nation's strategy needs to be driven by where the threats exist, not budgets."
Air Force officials warn that the reductions could have national security implications. "Our training system is still the best in the world," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Burton M. Field, the service's deputy chief of staff for operations. But funding cuts are putting that at risk, he said. "Are we there yet? I don't think so. But I do know we are at a place where we have a lot of squadrons that aren't ready to go to the Korea fight."
The Air Force's budget squeeze is compounded by the bills it faces to modernize its force. To offset purchases and restore training, officials are considering the elimination its KC-10 refueling tankers, A-10 ground attack planes, and MQ-1 Predator drones. But those cuts are unpopular with some lawmakers, who appear likely to block them, officials said.
The training cutbacks have fallen heaviest on younger, more inexperienced pilots. Experienced pilots resumed flying first because they have responsibility for training junior officers. As a result, it takes longer for young pilots to move from wingman to flight lead to instructor pilot, according to the Air Force.
"You know the game chutes and ladders? What we are finding right now is the chutes are longer than the ladders," said Lt. Col Brian Stahl, a F-16 pilot. "We need to get the younger pilots back flying more, and that is what we are having difficulty doing right now."
Air Force officials worry that basic skills have grown rusty. "When pilots don't fly, they make mistakes," Gen. Field said. "In a high-threat environment is when mistakes become deadly."
(见上面引的路透社报道)
On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had secured more than $20 billion in investment from China, while Ecuador said it obtained a total of $7.53 billion in credit lines and loans from China.
JINGZHOU, China — This year, believe it or not, has been good to the Sino-U.S. relationship. Cui Tiankai, Beijing’s top envoy in Washington, described growing trust between the two countries as “a fairly obvious trend” on Dec. 12. In a year-end review on Dec. 17, China’s official Xinhua News Agency compared Sino-U.S. ties to “a vessel that keeps moving ahead” even while buffeted by waves. As evidence of close relations, the piece cited the two face-to-face meetings that took place between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama in 2014, as well as the multiple joint agreements the two nations signed during President Obama’s visit to Beijing last month, including a climate change agreement and a deal to cut tariffs on high-tech goods. And person-to-person ties are only likely to grow. Statistics from Ctrip.com, China’s largest online travel agency, showed that applications for U.S. visas had gone up 50 percent since early November, when China and the U.S. agreed to a reciprocal 10-year visa policy for tourists, students and business personnel.
This all may seem counterintuitive — mutual tensions over cyber-espionage, maritime disputes, and trade often dominate both countries’ media coverage of the relationship. Yet from the perspective of China’s government, 2014 was in fact a reasonably constructive year for the world’s most important bilateral relationship, with particularly important breakthroughs in defense, high-tech trade, and the battle against climate change. Meanwhile, sentiments among Chinese people themselves remain mixed about their country’s shifting dynamics with the United States as China’s spheres of influence continue to expand. Intellectuals often find it welcoming that the two powers are trying to reach agreement in contentious areas. At the grassroots level, spontaneous nationalist reactions to perceived U.S containment are common.
In any case, the upper echelons of Chinese power share something with the country’s grassroots: Both understand that China is not the superpower that the United States is, and cannot become one without radical changes to the status quo at home and abroad.
In any case, the upper echelons of Chinese power share something with the country’s grassroots: Both understand that China is not the superpower that the United States is, and cannot become one without radical changes to the status quo at home and abroad. Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang put it bluntly and humbly in Chicago on Dec. 17, when he told the China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade that Beijing is neither willing nor able to challenge U.S. dominance of the global economic order, and that “in the process of cooperation, China hopes the United States would come to understand Chinese ideas more.” Chinese netizens across the political spectrum accept this strategy. Self-proclaimed democracy advocates such as Jing Yunchuan, a Beijing-based head lawyer, stress the necessity to cooperate with the U.S. and not resist it, while even hawkish observers like Gary Su, who edits a popular military website, welcome the strategy, believing it will buy China more time to rise as American supremacy falls. Conservative netizens like Yin Guoming, though, call that wishful thinking from Beijing. Yin, in particular, is convinced that “the U.S. will perceive China as a threat as long as China is not torn into pieces.”
Military-to-military engagement has been a particular highlight of the evolving relationship. Sino-U.S. military relations are “at their best point since the 1990s,” concluded Major General Yao Yunzhu, who heads the Center on China-U.S. Defense Relations at the Chinese Academy of Military Science, at a panel of the annual meeting of Beijing’s popular nationalist tabloid Global Times in early December. After 16 years of negotiations, Chinese and American armed forces agreed in November to notify each other of major military actions. A code of conduct was implemented in early December to cover unplanned encounters at sea. Also in December, Beijing asked the U.S. Air Force Space Command to share information on possible satellite and satellite debris collisions directly with the China National Space Administration – without needing to go through the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department. And earlier this year, from June to August, China participated for the first time in this year’s U.S.-hosted Rim of the Pacific Drills, the largest international maritime exercise. (China also sent an uninvited surveillance ship to lurk at the drills, which its U.S. host mildly but sardonically described as “a little odd.”) Online, investment analyst Hu Zhanhao, who ordinarily comments on macroeconomic trends but is also vocal on global current affairs, applauded the achievements as an illustration of China’s growing power and confidence. Pilot-turned-leftist-analyst Guo Songmin downplayed those efforts, arguing instead that “going Dutch” – the idea of working together while minding their own business – best captures Sino-U.S. relations today.
Despite the historic import of military-to-military engagement, its nuances are often lost on the Chinese public. Here in Jingzhou, a town deep in the hub of the Yangtze River, discussions of Sino-U.S. military relations are mostly limited to the long-retired elderly, who fondly recall stories of fighting “U.S. imperialist wolves” as members of the “unofficial” Chinese Army of Volunteers during the Korean War of 1950-53. Teenagers, meanwhile, only unintentionally engage in the topic by playing in Internet bars, where Command & Conquer: Generals, a 2003 computer game that depicts Chinese and American armies’ joint operations against a make-believe global terrorist group, remains popular.
Beijing believes it senses weakness in the Obama administration
To be sure, Beijing believes it senses weakness in the Obama administration. Rightly or wrongly, Chinese policymakers believe they see signs of weak and unpopular leadership in the Democratic Party’s failure in the midterm elections, the widespread protests in the wake of the Aug. 9 killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, and the U.S.-led coalition’s unsuccessful attempts at containing extremist activity worldwide. China’s growing assertiveness and confidence in dealing with Uncle Sam this year was most evident at home, where authorities used anti-monopoly laws to force U.S. firms to lower their prices. U.S. firms believe they are being disproportionally targeted, but online support is strong in China, where many feel that foreign nationals and businesses have enjoyed preferential treatment for too long.
As China’s anti-monopoly crackdown suggests, it was the realm of trade and investment where jostling for position between the world’s number one and number two economies was most starkly manifest. China confronted the so-called U.S. “pivot” to Asia with the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) arrangement, which it proposed at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Beijing in November. All 21 APEC member economies endorsed the FTAAP, overshadowing the U.S.-sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China and forms the basis of President Obama’s rebalance strategy. China and the U.S. are also at odds over another Chinese-led initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which Washington suspects will challenge existing transnational financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank.
Chinese media were awash with related articles. China Comment, Xinhua’s political commentary magazine, argued that the United States, in trying to push forward TPP, seeks to regain control of the Asia Pacific, advance its ideology and political system, and maintain global hegemony. Shanghai-based Dongfang Daily cited a government-sponsored scholar saying that unlike the U.S. arrangements, which entail stricter rules, China’s initiatives focus on “inclusive integration” of the region. The liberal Southern Weekend newspaper, meanwhile, said China is the only global player now who can and wants to finance alternative transnational frameworks. Discussions on social networks were also popular, with many contending with pride that the Chinese initiatives are superior. But Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based military expert, wrote on Weibo that the race has just begun, and victory is still up for grabs. As “a poor guy whose wallets grew fat after 60 years of hard work,” Song counseled, China ought to remember to be patient.
Then there’s Chinese cyberspace, which Americans often associate with a vast system of politically-motivated censorship. Facebook-owned Instagram, once popular in the People’s Republic, has been inaccessible since late September. Gmail suffered the same fate on Dec. 26. In an editorial on Dec. 30, Global Times attempted to rationalize the latest ban by arguing that if Chinese authorities had indeed made Gmail’s services inaccessible in the country, then it is “bound to be caused by recently-surfaced major security concerns,” in which case Gmail users in China should “accept the reality.” Granted, these blocks were not well received by the Chinese public.
For most Chinese Internet users, however, cyberspace is driven by commerce and entertainment, not politics. The Internet’s primary uses for residents of first-tier cities were traffic navigation, trips, and personal finance. For those in smaller cities and towns, the web was used most often for entertainment. And for the small fraction of politically savvy Chinese netizens who feel strongly enough to leave digital footprints, views are divided between firm believers in the free flow of information and those who remain alert to alleged U.S. penetration of Chinese cyberspace. Across the board, though, most agree that the country deserves a better Internet, in terms of both technology and access. Even Global Times itself said in an editorial dated Dec. 16 that having an open Internet is a broad consensus among Chinese, and that China has no other option than to increase its Internet connectivity. Either way, those who might be pessimistic about China’s Internet governance and its dynamics with the U.S. this year should find positive light in the following facts: China has never officially acknowledged the censorship of leading websites; it is very keen on boosting Internet interconnectivity; and communism, which sees sharing as a precondition and says, in its manifesto, that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,” remains the leading ideology and ultimate goal of its ruling party. While the Sino-U.S. relationship is bound by China’s historic legacies, it can also be empowered by them.