Group items tagged

Real power in North Korea now probably belongs to a coterie of advisers following the death of Kim Jong-il, not his youngest son, an untested man in his 20s who has been anointed the "Great Successor."

These advisers will decide whether North Korea launches military action against South Korea to strengthen the succession around Kim Jong-un -- or seeks a peaceful transition.

The most powerful adviser is Jang Song-thaek, 65, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il.

A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming recently reported that its data-crunching effort produced results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view on climate change.

The forecasts for the shape of the "global talent pool" in 2020 show China as rapidly expanding its graduate numbers - set to account for 29% of the world's graduates aged between 25 and 34.

The biggest faller is going to be the United States - down to 11% - and for the first time pushed into third place, behind India.

The US and the countries of the European Union combined are expected to account for little more than a quarter of young graduates.

The gap between rich and poor in Russia is a growing problem for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he prepares to return to the presidency in an election next March.During his 12-year rule, as president and then prime minister, Russians have broadly speaking become wealthier than they were in the chaotic years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the citizen of Putin's Russia can easily lose even a modest sense of well being when confronted with the sometimes flamboyant ostentation of the rich.In Soviet times privilege was often a well guarded secret.

Many people cited the wealth gap in ditching Putin's ruling party in a December 4 election that cut its majority in parliament.

If a gap has widened between individuals, it is also evident between Russia's many poor regions and wealthy cities like Moscow and the booming oil heartland.

Local officials say the unrest broke out as news spread of a fight between young patrons at a casino in Osh. The groups of young Kyrgyz patrolling the streets of Osh and Jalalabad blame Uzbeks for starting the fighting as part of a plot by neighboring Uzbekistan to wrest control of the region.

the Kyrgyz provisional government has accused deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev -- who draws much of his support from the Southern Kyrgyz --  of instigating the unrest through proxies as a way to disrupt a planned constitutional referendum on June 27. The referendum would have given the country's new leaders a foundation for establishing legitimacy.

Kyrgyz military officials say that agents of Bakiyev dispatched well-trained mercenary snipers to Osh and Jalalabad who shot indiscriminately at locals to spread chaos. While it's not surprising that the new government would seek to pin the blame on its predecessor, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the unrest may have been carefully orchestrated. These include attempts by unidentified armed groups to seize control of TV channels, universities, and local government buildings during the fighting, unlikely targets for a mob driven purely by ethnic animosity.

The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."

Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

"One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."

The UK government statement stressed that, unlike the Scottish government, it had obtained formal advice from its law officers and that Scotland would have to negotiate the terms of its EU membership with the UK and all other 26 member states.It said: "This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state."The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."Referring to statements by European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and his deputy, Viviane Reding, that a newly independent country would be seen as a new applicant, it added: "Recent pronouncements from the commission support that view."

Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.

almond retaliated by quoting from an expert on the EU's borders, Graham Avery, a former strategy director at the commission who was made one of a number of honorary directors general of the European commission after he retired.In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Avery supported Salmond's position that it was inconceivable that an independent Scotland would be expected to leave the EU and then reapply. Salmond said his opinion "rather puts the lie to the scaremongering campaign of Labour and their unionist colleagues in the Conservative party".

The Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has swatted aside warnings that his government faces a middle class revolt if it does not embrace deeper economic and political reforms.

A session on Russia at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday heard that the Russian Federation faces several negative scenarios, including the potential threat of civil unrest. A straw poll of WEF associates in the audience found nearly 80% saw better governance as Russia's biggest challenge.

Alexey Kudrin, a professor at Saint Petersburg State University, said there were "serious, negative" warnings coming from Russia's business community. He outlined a scenario in which falling oil prices send Russia's budget forecasts off track, forcing the government to hike taxes and slash spending on social programmes, and freezing reform efforts.

Henrique Capriles, who has gained ground in recent polls, said he would halt arms purchases from Russia, rethink relations with Iran and revise deals to exploit one of the world's biggest recoverable oil resources in the Orinoco belt.

Capriles said he would end the Chávez policy of promoting worldwide revolution and focus on Venezuela's needs."The foreign policy of this government is driven by politics – to extend a revolution worldwide. My objective with regards to foreign relations is to benefit all Venezuelans," he said.

"We have spent more than $14bn (£8.66bn) on arms purchases from Russia," Capriles said. "I am not going to buy more weapons. I think the policy has been mistaken."

In a speech to business leaders in New York City Oct. 11, Panetta for the first time admitted the U.S. armed forces were prepared to take on an offensive role against any cyber attackers who seek to cause significant harm to the U.S. - or the loss of life to its citizens. Prior to this statement, the military has acknowledged only a defensive stance against such attacks.

The Washington Post reports that among those new rules of engagement, "for the first time, military cyber-specialists would be able to immediately block malware outside the Pentagon’s networks in an effort to defend the private sector against an imminent, significant physical attack, The Post has reported. At present, such action requires special permission from the President."

at least one academic paper has argued that companies be drafted to participate in cyberwarfare. "Cyberwarfare… will penetrate the territorial borders of the attacked state and target high-value civilian businesses," wrote University of Dayton Professor Susan Brenner in 2011. "Nation-states will therefore need to integrate the civilian employees of these (and perhaps other) companies into their cyberwarfare response structures if a state is able to respond effectively to cyberattacks. "While many companies may voluntarily elect to participate in such an effort, others may decline to do so, which creates a need, in effect, to conscript companies for this purpose," Brenner and her co-author, attorney Leo Clarke, added.