Forbes Billionaires List Shifts To China, India & Mexico
Carlos Slim Helú. Photo: José Cruz/ABr (CC)
A sure sign that the balance of power is shifting away from the United States and Europe towards developing nations is shown in the new Forbes list, with the Mexican Carlos Slim Helu beating out Bill Gates for the top spot and China claiming more billionaires than any country outside the US.
India’s billionaires, however, are richer, as reported in the Christian Science Monitor:
With the release of the latest Forbes rich list of billionaires, India is finding much to brag about – even as other fast-growing economies like China make their mark.
Eight Indians made Forbes magazine’s latest list of the top 100 billionaires, and two – energy tycoon Mukesh Ambani and steel mogul Lakshmi Mittal – sit in the top 5. Mr. Ambani is now…
Woman’s Growth of a 6 centimeter Horn on Forehead Baffles Village
MSN reports:
A woman has alarmed her small village in China after growing a 6cm horn on her forehead in less than a year.
Zhang Ruifang, 101, says she is also concerned about the appearance of a second mark on the other side of her forehead.
“We didn’t pay too much attention to it [at first] … but as time went on a horn grew out of her head,” said Mrs Zhang’s son Zhang Guozheng.
China Looks to Master Its Control Over the Weather
Aileen McCabe writes in the National Post:
China plans to step up its use of the weather modification techniques that brought sunny skies for both the Beijing Olympics and last year’s giant military parade on National Day.
The official China Daily newspaper reported Thursday that China is even going to try to regulate the weather during the five-month long Shanghai Expo that begins on May 1.
“The Shanghai event will be a challenge as it lasts 184 days and may be affected by monsoons and high temperatures,” the paper said.
Zheng Guoguang, head of China’s Meteorological Administration, told the paper that manipulating the weather is a developing science that needed more research and study. “It is still at a research-and-use stage and there are still a lot of problems to be resolved.”
Still, Zheng said…
China: The World’s Next Great Economic Crash
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Has the global economy recovered? Forecasters say there will be an uptick this year of 2.4 percent, but they’re forgetting something. China could fail soon, and, if it does, the world’s most populous state will drag the rest of us down.
At this moment, a Chinese crisis seems like the last thing we should be worried about. After all, last year China overtook America as the planet’s largest car market and passed Germany as the biggest exporter.
On Thursday, Beijing announced that growth for the fourth quarter of 2009 was 10.7 percent and 8.7 percent for the entire year. Some analysts said the numbers were so strong that the country zoomed past Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Stock markets, property prices, you name it: Everything Chinese…
Thousands Of Dinosaur Footprints Uncovered In China
From PhysOrg.com:
A mound strewn with dinosaur bones is seen October 2009 in Zhucheng, in northeast China’s Shandong province. Paleontologists in China have uncovered more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, state media reported, in an area said to be the world’s largest grouping of fossilised bones belonging to the ancient animals.
Archaeologists in China have uncovered more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, state media reported, in an area said to be the world’s largest grouping of fossilised bones belonging to the ancient animals.
The footprints, believed to be more than 100 million years old, were discovered after a three-month excavation at a gully in Zhucheng in the eastern province of Shandong, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The prints range from 10 to 80 centimetres (four to 32 inches) in length, and belonged to at least six…
China Cancels 80 Percent of Iraq Debt
Reported by the American Free Press via the Tehran Times:
BAGHDAD (AFP) — China has agreed to cancel 80 percent of the 8.5-billion-dollar debt it is owed by Iraq, the finance ministry in Baghdad said in an official statement on Tuesday.
It said a bilateral agreement was signed in Beijing, without specifying the date, and that China’s ambassador to Iraq had met officials in Baghdad to confirm the agreement.
The statement added that the two countries entered into trade deals valued at 3.8 billion dollars in 2009.
China’s Real-Life Munchkin Land
Yet another way in which 21st-century China trumps America: The Telegraph reports on a mountain town in Kunming, China, where all of the citizens are dwarves. This sounds so magical:
Everyone in the commune must be under 4ft 3 ins tall and they run their own police force and fire brigade from their 120 residents. Now the group has turned itself into a tourist attraction by building mushroom houses and living and dressing like fairy tale characters.
“As small people we are used to being pushed around and exploited by big people. But here there aren’t any big people and everything we do is for us,” said spokesman Fu Tien.
Why America And China Will Clash
Gideon Rachman explains in the Financial Times:
Google’s clash with China is about much more than the fate of a single, powerful firm. The company’s decision to pull out of China, unless the government there changes its policies on censorship, is a harbinger of increasingly stormy relations between the US and China.
The reason that the Google case is so significant is because it suggests that the assumptions on which US policy to China have been based since the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 could be plain wrong. The US has accepted – even welcomed – China’s emergence as a giant economic power because American policymakers convinced themselves that economic opening would lead to political liberalisation in China.
If that assumption changes, American policy towards China could change with it. Welcoming the rise of…
Chinese Internet Activists Applaud Google, See No Backdown
From Reuters:
Google’s announcement that it may quit China over censorship and hacking drew applause, warnings and bouquets from dissidents and Internet activists on Wednesday, with few seeing much chance of the wary government giving ground.
Google, the world’s top search engine, said it might shut its Chinese-language google.cn website after China-based cyber attacks on dissidents using its Gmail service.
At the company’s China headquarters in Beijing’s university district, a dozen locals laid a bouquet of red roses and white lilies on Google’s sign at the company entrance.
They praised the company, shouting some salty Beijing slang.
“We want to express outrage, but not at Google. Coming here is a type of support for Google,” said IT worker Zhao Gang, 30.
“Google faces very strict and adverse conditions in China. Something we knew in our hearts…
Google Uncensors In China
The times they are a-changin’. Google sent “shockwaves” through the Chinese government as they uncensored search results on their Chinese site. As an example, for the first time, images of “tianamen” shows photos of tanks, soldiers, and protests. (Previous results below). The Wall Street Journal reports:
The U.S. search giant’s announcement that it will stop censoring its Chinese search site, and may withdraw from the country altogether, triggered an outpouring of concern, and some anger, among Chinese Internet users. Students…gathered at Google’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai Wednesday with flowers in an emotional show of support for the company.
Tomb of Legendary General Cao Cao Unearthed in Central China
Posted on China View:
BEIJING — The tomb of Cao Cao, a renowned warlord and politician in the third century, was unearthed in Anyang City of central China’s Henan Province, archaeologists said Sunday.
Cao Cao (155–220 A.D.), who built the strongest and most prosperous state during the Three Kingdom period (208–280 A.D.), is remembered for his outstanding military and political talents. Cao Cao is also known for his poems that reflected his strong character. Some of the poems are included in China’s middle school textbooks.
Three ancient corpses, one man and two women, were found in the two-chamber tomb in Xigaoxue village of Anyang. The man was found to have died in his sixties, which coincides the age of Cao Cao when he died, Liu Qingzhu, director of the academic committee of Chinese Academy…
China Jails Dissident Liu Xiaobo for 11 years
From Reuters:
China’s most prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was jailed on Friday for 11 years for campaigning for political freedoms, with the stiff sentence on a subversion charge swiftly condemned by rights groups and Washington.
Liu, who turns 54 on Monday, helped organize the “Charter 08″ petition which called for sweeping political reforms, and before that was prominent in the 1989 pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Square that were crushed by armed troops.
He stood quietly in a Beijing courtroom as a judge found him guilty of “inciting subversion of state power” for his role in the petition and for online essays critical of the ruling Communist Party, defense lawyer Shang Baojun said.
Liu was not allowed to respond in court to the sentence.
“Xiaobo and I were very calm when the verdict was read.…
China Ties Climate Change To Population Control
In a report that’s likely to get the New World Order crowd up in arms, China Daily is reporting that its country is looking to use the Copenhagen climate change summit to push its population control measures:
Population and climate change are intertwined but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC).
“Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture,” said Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese government delegation.
Many studies link population growth with emissions and the effect…
Chairman Mao’s Underground City
From Vice:
In 1969, Chairman Mao commanded the construction of a second Beijing beneath the surface of the original city, designed to accommodate all six million of its then inhabitants so that if nuclear war did kick off, folk would still have somewhere to hang out and play Mah Jong while the rest of us burnt to death in a shower of atomic rain. War never came, but the city is still there.
Check it out…
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2009/11/17/chairman-mao%E2%80%99s-underground-city/
Meat, Milk and Motors: The New China Syndrome
By Robert Singer
August 21, theatres around the nation screened the documentary I.O.U.S.A. and a live discussion with America’s most notable financial leaders and policy experts, including Warren Buffett; William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute; Pete Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and former U.S. Comptroller General, Dave Walker.
August 25, Mr. William Niskanen, CEO of the Cato Institute, confirmed his remarks on the I.O.U.S.A. post-broadcast panel discussion.
Dear Mr. Singer,
I do not have a tape of my remarks last Thursday evening. As I remember, however, I expressed being puzzled why the central banks of China, Japan, and South Korea have continued to invest so much in U.S. Treasury securities. For these central banks have earned a negative real return on these securities, for which the interest rate has been lower…
Obama Snubs Dalai Lama To Please China
The New York Times reports:
For the first time in 18 years, the Dalai Lama is visiting Washington this week without stopping by to see the U.S. president.
Tibet’s exiled religious leader — brushed aside by U.S. President Barack Obama in favor of communist China — was saluted at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday for his work for human rights. The presentation ceremony underscored Obama’s dilemma in dealing with China, a growing power and the biggest holder of U.S. debt.
The decision not to meet the Tibetan leader was made amid efforts to improve U.S.-Chinese relations on issues from stemming global warming to reigning in North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
In a statement, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Obama of “kowtowing to Beijing” by refusing to meet with the 74-year-old…
Artists Test Limits as China Lets (a Few) Flowers Bloom
Ian Johnson and Sky Canaves, Wall Street Journal:
BEIJING — When Qiu Zhijie organized a show of fellow young artists in the basement of a suburban Beijing apartment complex a decade ago, police burst in and closed it after just one day. Contemporary art was taboo, and Mr. Qiu was especially provocative, with installations that mocked China’s rising consumerism.
Today, Mr. Qiu is as active as ever. His current project looks at the costs of China’s 60 years of communism by contrasting the official, heroic history of a giant bridge over the Yangtze River with the span’s role as China’s top place for suicides.
But there’s a key difference: Mr. Qiu is now a member of the Chinese cultural establishment. He has a senior teaching post at the National Academy of Art in…
