1 Japan GDP revised down (Sydney Morning Herald) Japan's economy grew 0.2 per cent in October-December from the previous quarter, government data shows, revised down from a preliminary 0.3 per cent expansion due to slower growth in capital spending and private consumption.
The
revised gross domestic product figure translated into annualised growth of 0.7
percent in real, price-adjusted terms, against an initial reading of 1.0
percent. Economists had forecast annualised growth of 1.0 percent.
Capital
spending rose 0.8 percent in October-December, revised down from an initial 1.3
percent increase, the GDP data showed. Private consumption rose 0.4 percent
during the quarter, slower than an initial estimate of 0.5 percent growth.
2 A quarter century of the Internet (Melissa Sim in Straits Times) Twenty-five years ago, a British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee wrote a paper modestly titled: "Information Management: A Proposal". That paper by Sir Tim - who has since been knighted - contained the idea that would ultimately become what we now know as the World Wide Web. Make no mistake, the Internet had been around for years and military personnel and computer scientists had used it to transfer information and communicate.
But having a website or an address for each site - something we now take for granted - was a completely new concept. Last year, the Internet was used by more than 2.7 billion people, or about 39 per cent of the world's population. Many people now cannot imagine life without the Internet.
But there weren't always that many people online. Data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - an agency of the United Nations - shows that in 2003, only 12.3 per cent of the world were using the Internet. Between 2003 and last year, he says, the cost of the computing power required to use the Internet fell by 100 times, making it more accessible. Many countries have "feature phones", which are a step down from smartphones but allow users to access the Internet for e-mail or Facebook.
One of the more recent developments on the Internet is the introduction of new generic top-level domains or gTLDs - the segment of the domain name after the dot. Internet users are familiar with .com, .org or .net but now, .actor, .diamond, and even .christmas are up for grabs. The title of Sir Tim's 1989 paper may have been studiously neutral, but the ubiquity of the Internet in our lives today has provoked strong feelings about whether it has brought more harm or good.
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/technology/story/25-years-many-cannot-live-without-the-internet-20140310
3 India's defences -- running on empty (MJ Akbar in Dawn) Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed out that you fight with the army you have rather than the one you want. This truism underscores the basic responsibility of a defence minister: to maintain and hone during periods of peace the army that will be needed during times of conflict.
Every war is different. Armies train to fight the next battles rather than repeat previous ones. The set-piece formations of military engagement now seem what they are, history. The enemy no longer necessarily wears a uniform, creating a dysfunctional battlefield. Newspapers are already giving us a glimpse of what the withdrawal of Nato from south and central Asia will mean. There is a visible sense of triumph as theocratic forces pause and regroup in their long march towards the “liberation” of “Muslim lands”. They do not accept the concept of a secular state; for them Muslims, whether in India or Pakistan or China, who believe in secular societies are enemies twice over.
We know only too well how difficult it was for the Indian Army to restore peace in Kashmir after the onslaught that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan two decades ago. Today, China is also on their radar, as are southern Russia and Central Asia. The question before Delhi is simple: Is it prepared for a multi-dimensional conflict where the struggle against terrorists could conflate with conventional war if provocation multiplies?
The answer is pessimistic. One of the great casualties of indecisive government in the last five years has been India’s defence preparedness. Under the inert, comatose and debilitating leadership of Defence Minister A.K. Antony, India’s security capability has weakened, even while tensions have risen. The equipment is degraded; essential purchases have been neglected. The collapse of morale in India's navy is only one symptom of a prevailing disease that is gradually immobilising the nerve centres of its defence. There has been no political accountability. The enemy is at the door, and Antony is in a stupor.
If nothing else, at least the coming elections will ensure that India has a new defence minister by June. But the amount of repair and reconstruction needed is enormous, and time is very short. An enemy’s enemy does not automatically become a friend, but he can become an associate on the battlefield. India and China may need each other more than they suspect. Russia will not need persuasion for it understands the danger to Central Asia. Ideally, Pakistan should be equally wary of gun-toting theocrats, but perhaps it will take a deeper crisis to bring such clarity. What China and Pakistan do is for them to decide. India must fight its own battles. But battles are fought by armies. Does India still have the one it needs?
http://www.dawn.com/news/1091982/running-on-empty
Still, Andrukhovych’s words are remembered as a comment on how difficult the marriage between eastern and western Ukraine has been. Any group in a diverse country may one day want to divorce its government. But in every divorce, there are matters to settle fairly — of property, of obligations, of the weaker party’s rights. Which is why divorce courts exist. Amicable divorce is next to impossible when there is nobody to apply the rule of law.
So it is worth considering the extent of legal and political dysfunction introduced after Viktor F. Yanukovych assumed power in 2010 and installed a huge number of Donbas people in the central government and local administrations throughout Ukraine. This transferred his region’s corrupt political habits to the central government, undermining respect for law and encouraging the use of the state apparatus for blackmail and racketeering.
Profound popular dissatisfaction followed, but for a time, people could hope that an association agreement with the European Union that Yanukovych had said he would sign would temper his predatory regime. But then he shelved the agreement, turning to Russia for help instead. For many, this clarified the kind of future he was building; the revolution known as Maidan, after the Kiev square where protests mushroomed, followed.
In one 2012 survey more than 90 per cent of respondents in the west and 70-plus per cent in the east considered themselves “a patriot of Ukraine.” Crimea is perhaps the most complex case, because its Tatars are the only ethnic group truly native to the peninsula. Before 1783, they had a state. Then Russia seized the peninsula and subjugated them; in 1944, the Soviets deported them to Central Asia. It was 1989 before they could return — only to encounter neglect by the government and Russian chauvinism, racism and Islamophobia from the Russian-speaking majority. Their hopes for security and prosperity now point more to Kiev and the European Union than to Moscow.
The Kremlin’s efforts to ignite tensions in other Ukrainian regions are likely to fail. Ukraine is divided along many lines, but there are encouraging signs in the sudden support that Ukrainian oligarchs have shown for the new government in Kiev, and in thousands of letters from Ukrainians, Russians and Russophones to Putin urging him to spare them from the Kremlin’s “protection.” These actions, alongside the polls, show that Ukrainians as a whole are not much divided over their territorial integrity. So, Putin, spare them your help. They can help themselves without bloodshed, as they had done for more than 22 years of independence from Moscow.
http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/March/opinion_March13.xml§ion=opinion
No comments:
Post a Comment