Latest News Clips 2014.05.12

                        

1. China, Vietnam, Philippines collide amid escalating South China Sea tensions 

CNN    May 9, 2014  

 

After using water cannons on Vietnamese ships in disputed waters, Beijing demanded Thursday that they withdraw. 

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Tensions escalated in the South China Sea region this week after China, Vietnam and the Philippines were involved in a series of potentially explosive confrontations over disputed territory. 

Vietnamese officials say Chinese military and civilian ships have been intimidating their vessels near the Paracel Islands -- which are controlled by Beijing but claimed by Hanoi -- since Sunday, even accusing the Chinese of repeatedly ramming into them and shooting water cannons. 

But China blames Vietnam for forcefully disrupting drilling activities, and demand that it withdraw all vessels from the area, said Yi Xianliang, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs in a press briefing yesterday. 

Meanwhile, a Chinese fishing boat and its 11 crew members were apprehended on Tuesday by Philippine authorities near the Spratly Islands, another disputed region in the South China Sea. 

Philippine officials say the boat was carrying a large number of endangered species and they seized the boat "to uphold Philippine sovereign rights" in the disputed waters. 

"It's possible that an armed clash could occur, but not a full-fledged war. The situation with Vietnam is serious -- more serious than the situation with the Philippines," said M. Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

"China has controlled the northern half of the Paracel Islands since the 1950s and the southern half since 1974. Unlike the Spratly Islands, China maintains that no dispute exists over the Paracels. So we can see that China believes that its claim there is quite strong," he added. 

2.Protesters descend on Thai capital seeking government's ouster 

CNN   May 9, 2014 

 

Thai anti-government protesters rally 

Bangkok (CNN) -- Thousands of protesters have surrounded Bangkok's Government House seeking the removal of Thailand's embattled caretaker government, amid soaring political tensions in the wake of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's ouster. 

The People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), which has been protesting against the government since November, is pushing to replace the country's caretaker administration with an unelected interim government. 

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban took to the stage and told those gathered: "We will sleep here tonight, we will eat here. After lunch ... we will go to visit the Parliament House, because there is a meeting to select a new Speaker of the House today. 

"If the Speaker is a slave of Thaksin, there will be one treatment; if not, there will be another treatment for them." 

The PDRC has been seeking to rid Thai politics of the alleged influence of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's telecommunications tycoon brother who was overthrown in a 2006 military coup and has since lived in self-imposed exile to avoid a corruption conviction. 

Lt. Gen. Paradon Patthanathabut, security adviser to the prime minister told CNN that the PDRC had mobilized supporters from the countryside to join the protests in the capital. "It is still difficult to estimate the crowd at this moment. But roughly, we think between 30,000-60,000 people might join today's rally." 

He said smaller groups of PDRC protesters were also gathering around Bangkok television stations. 

"We are monitoring (the situation) closely," he said, adding that 60,000 security forces were on standby. 

Despite the large crowds gathered, the scene at Government House was relaxed, with stalls being erected and free food and drink handed out. A minute's silence was held for those killed in the country's longstanding political conflict. 

At another demonstration at the Royal Thai Police Club, police used tear gas and water cannon on protesters who attempted to enter the complex, said Paradon. 

'Judicial coup'? 

The march comes at the end of a week of political chaos in Thailand, which saw Yingluck removed from office by a top court Wednesday, in what her supporters see as a "judicial coup," and indicted by an anti-corruption body Thursday. 

Her supporters are planning their own mass rally to protest the decisions Saturday. 

Members of the National Anti-Corruption Committee unanimously decided to indict Yingluck for dereliction of duty over her government's controversial rice subsidy scheme, NACC member Wicha Mahakun told reporters in Bangkok Thursday. The Senate will now vote on whether to impeach her. 

3.  Ukraine crisis: Why did Putin intervene in referendum? 

BBC   8 May, 2014 

 

As Eastern Ukraine spiralled into violence in the last few weeks there has been lots of fury from Moscow, but few insights into President Vladimir Putin's strategy. 

That all changed on Wednesday, when he met Swiss President Didier Burkhalter. 

Straight after the meeting he told a surprised Kremlin press corps that he was calling on the armed pro-Russian activists in Eastern Ukraine to postpone their controversial referendum. 

It was the first sign that he wanted to try to bring Ukraine back from the brink of civil war. Though he made it clear who he thought had taken it there. 

"The responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine now," he declaimed, "lies with the people who carried out an anti-constitutional seizure of power, a coup d'etat, and with those who supported these actions and gave them financial, political information and other kinds of support and pushed the situation to the tragic events that took place in Odessa." 

"I can understand the people in southeast Ukraine, who say that if others can do what they like in Kiev, take up arms and seize government buildings, police stations and military garrisons, then why shouldn't they be allowed to defend their interests and lawful rights?" 

But what is his plan now? Why did he intervene in the referendum at this late stage? 

Well firstly he told us that it was not Russia's job to solve the crisis. 

"The idea that Russia holds the key to resolving the problem is a trick thought up by our Western partners and does not have any grounds in reality. No sooner do our colleagues in Europe or the US drive the situation into a dead end, they always say that Moscow holds the keys to a solution and put all the responsibility on us." 

But he did say that he believed a "full-fledged and equal" dialogue between the government in Kiev and people representing the southeast is the best solution. 

A bloody dead-end? 

A senior source close to President Putin told me that Russia would even support the Ukrainian presidential election on 25 May if the talks started, and if Kiev stopped using violence in the southeast. 

It may be a sign the President Putin thought the fighting in the Donetsk region was heading into a bloody dead-end that might be about spiral out of control. 

Or it may be a sign that he feels that the next round of sanctions would hurt Russia too much, and he thinks the annexation of Crimea is sufficient punishment of Kiev and the EU and the US for now. 

But it may just be a delaying tactic, a way of seeming to be doing something while knowing that the conflict will continue, further undermining the government in Kiev. 

Certainly his closing remarks were not very optimistic. 

4.  Young Blood May Hold Key to Reversing Aging 

The New York Times   MAY 4, 2014 

       

In the 1950s, Clive M. McCay of Cornell University and his colleagues tested the notion by delivering the blood of young rats into old ones. To do so, they joined rats in pairs by stitching together the skin on their flanks. After this procedure, called parabiosis, blood vessels grew and joined the rats’ circulatory systems. The blood from the young rat flowed into the old one, and vice versa. 

Later, Dr. McCay and his colleagues performed necropsies and found that the cartilage of the old rats looked more youthful than it would have otherwise. But the scientists could not say how the transformations happened. There was not enough known at the time about how the body rejuvenates itself. 

It later became clear that stem cells are essential for keeping tissues vital. When tissues are damaged, stem cells move in and produce new cells to replace the dying ones. As people get older, their stem cells gradually falter. 

In the early 2000s, scientists realized that stem cells were not dying off in aging tissues. 

“There were plenty of stem cells there,” recalled Thomas A. Rando, a professor of neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine. “They just don’t get the right signals.” 

Dr. Rando and his colleagues wondered what signals the old stem cells would receive if they were bathed in young blood. To find out, they revived Dr. McCay’s experiments. 

The scientists joined old and young mice for five weeks and then examined them. The muscles of the old mice had healed about as quickly as those of the young mice, the scientists reported in 2005. In addition, the old mice had grown new liver cells at a youthful rate. 

The young mice, on the other hand, had effectively grown prematurely old. Their muscles had healed more slowly, and their stem cells had not turned into new cells as quickly as they had before the procedure. 

The experiment indicated that there were compounds in the blood of the young mice that could awaken old stem cells and rejuvenate aging tissue. Likewise, the blood of the old mice had compounds that dampened the resilience of the young mice. 

Amy J. Wagers, a member of Dr. Rando’s team, continued to study the blood of young mice after she moved in 2004 to Harvard, where she is an associate professor. Last year, she and her colleagues demonstrated that it could rejuvenate the hearts of old mice. 

To pinpoint the molecules responsible for the change, Dr. Wagers and her colleagues screened the animals’ blood and found that a protein called GDF11 was abundant in young mice and scarce in old ones. To see if GDF11 was crucial to the parabiosis effect, the scientists produced a supply of the protein and injected it into old mice. Even on its own, GDF11 rejuvenated their hearts. 

Latest News Clips 2014.05.05

1. Ending Asia Trip, Obama Defends His Foreign Policy

The New York Times APRIL 28, 2014

President Obama and President Benigno S. Aquino III during a state dinner Monday night at Malacanang Palace in Manila. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

MANILA — President Obama, stung by criticism of his response to turmoil from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, defended his approach to foreign policy as a slow but steady pursuit of American interests while avoiding military conflict, and he lashed out at those he said reflexively call for the use of force.

Standing next to the Philippine president, Benigno S. Aquino III, a visibly frustrated Mr. Obama said on Monday that his critics had failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq war.

On a day in which he announced new sanctions against Russia for its continued threats to Ukraine, Mr. Obama said his foreign policy was based on a workmanlike tending to American priorities that might lack the high drama of a wartime presidency but also avoided ruinous mistakes.

“You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference with Mr. Aquino. “But we steadily advance the interests of the American people and our partnership with folks around the world.”

Mr. Obama’s statement, delivered at the end of a weeklong trip to Asia, was a rare insight into a second-term president already sizing up his legacy as a statesman. By turns angry and rueful, his words suggested the distance he had traveled from the confident young leader who accepted a Nobel Peace Prize with a speech about the occasional necessity of war.

While he flatly rejected the Republican portrait of him as feckless in the face of crises like Syria, Mr. Obama seemed to be wrestling with a more nuanced critique, that aside from one or two swings for the fences — the nuclear negotiations with Iran, for example — his foreign policy had become a game of small ball.

2. The fuel of the future, unfortunately

A cheap, ubiquitous and flexible fuel, with just one problem

The Economist Apr 19th 2014 

WHAT more could one want? It is cheap and simple to extract, ship and burn. It is abundant: proven reserves amount to 109 years of current consumption, reckons BP, a British energy giant. They are mostly in politically stable places. There is a wide choice of dependable sellers, such as BHP Billiton (Anglo-Australian), Glencore (Anglo-Swiss), Peabody Energy and Arch Coal (both American).

Other fuels are beset by state interference and cartels, but in this industry consumers—in heating, power generation and metallurgy—are firmly in charge, keeping prices low. Just as this wonder-fuel once powered the industrial revolution, it now offers the best chance for poor countries wanting to get rich.

Such arguments are the basis of a new PR campaign launched by Peabody, the world’s largest private coal company (which unlike some rivals is profitable, thanks to its low-cost Australian mines). And coal would indeed be a boon, were it not for one small problem: it is devastatingly dirty. Mining, transport, storage and burning are fraught with mess, as well as danger. Deep mines put workers in intolerably filthy and dangerous conditions. But opencast mining, now the source of much of the world’s coal, rips away topsoil and gobbles water. Transporting coal brings a host of environmental problems.

The increased emissions of carbon dioxide from soaring coal consumption threaten to fry the planet, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reminded everyone in a new report this week (see article). The CO₂makes the oceans acid; burning coal also produces sulphur dioxide, which makes buildings crumble and lungs sting, and other toxic chemicals. By some counts, coal-fired power stations emit more radioactivity than nuclear ones. They release tiny, lethal particulates. Per unit generated, coal-fired stations cause far more deaths than nuclear ones, and more even than oil-fired ones.

3. Plying Social Media, Chinese Workers Grow Bolder in Exerting Clout

The New York Times MAY 2, 2014

Signs supporting shoe factory workers were left outside a Nike shop in Hong Kong. The signs say “Blood and sweat factory.” CreditKin Cheung/Associated Press

DONGGUAN, China — The call to action, carried by social media to thousands of smartphones across this bleak factory town, roused the workers from their jobs making Nike and Adidas sneakers.

Their Taiwanese employer, Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, the world’s largest manufacturer of branded athletic shoes, had for years underpaid the social security contributions that employees were counting on for retirement.

News of the shortfall, discovered and disseminated by a newly retired worker, stirred familiar resentments. But it was the company’s refusal to make amends that led to one of China’s largest strikes in recent memory, involving 40,000 workers who stayed off assembly lines for two weeks and cost Yue Yuen about $27 million in losses.

Last week, after government officials stepped in to resolve the impasse, the company announced it would make up the missing payments and start fully funding worker pensions as required by Chinese law.

Although played down by the state-run news media, the mass walkoutillustrates the growing might of Chinese workers amid a shrinking labor pool, a slowing economy and the Communist Party’s fears of social unrest. The strike also highlights the increasing potency of social media despite the government’s best efforts to limit news and information that might inspire workers to stand up to employers who can fire troublemakers at will — or call on the police to jail labor organizers.

“Chinese workers now have greater bargaining power, and they know how to use this power,” said Geoffrey Crothall, communications director atChina Labor Bulletin, an advocacy group in Hong Kong.

The proletariat may be a vaunted pillar of Mao’s Communist revolution, but the workaday reality for China’s low-wage army of factory workers long ago eclipsed their hallowed status. On paper, Chinese workers are afforded generous rights and protections, but since the introduction of market reforms in the 1980s, factory owners, many of them multinational companies from Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, have often set the terms of employment.

Independent trade unions are illegal in China, and government-backed unions are more interested in quickly defusing labor disputes than delivering on worker grievances. For years, a seemingly limitless supply of pliable young workers, many of them uneducated migrants from China’s rural hinterland, ensured that the factory owners could dictate wages and work hours.

But that power dynamic has begun to shift, fueled in part by increasing opportunities in the country’s expanding service sector and a shrinking work force. The mounting labor shortage has strengthened the hand of Chinese workers, who increasingly demand better work conditions, higher pay and perks like days off.

4. Trade and money laundering

Uncontained

Trade is the weakest link in the fight against dirty money

The Economist May 3rd 2014 

CUDDLY toys don’t have to be stuffed with cocaine or cash to be useful to traffickers. A few years ago American customs investigators uncovered a scheme in which a Colombian cartel used proceeds from drug sales to buy stuffed animals in Los Angeles. By exporting them to Colombia, it was able to bring its ill-gotten gains home, convert them to pesos and get them into the banking system.

This is an example of “trade-based money laundering”, the misuse of commerce to get money across borders. Sometimes the aim is to evade taxes, duties or capital controls; often it is to get dirty money into the banking system. International efforts to stamp out money laundering have targeted banks and money-transmitters, and the smuggling of bulk cash. But as the front door closes, the back door has been left open. Trade is “the next frontier in international money-laundering enforcement,” says John Cassara, who used to work for America’s Treasury department.

Adepts include traffickers, terrorists and the tax-evading rich. Some “transfer pricing”—multinationals’ shuffling of revenues to cut their tax bills—probably counts, too. Firms insist that tax arbitrage is legal, and that the fault, if any, lies with disjointed international tax rules. Campaigners counter that many ruses would be banned if governments were less afraid of scaring off mobile capital.