InternationalRelations

Thursday's raid, the paper said, proved that Britain was motivated by "nostalgia for its imperial glory," that prompted it to act unilaterally. Its treatment of Italy showed it treated the country as "hardly reliable".

"To be honest, there are a lot more regulations on the export of corn, cars or any other product, than on arms," said Nicholas Marsh from the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers. "Everything has to be registered with the WTO. Commerce is well-regulated. Meanwhile, arms commerce has always been excluded from international treaties."

since 2006, there is a WTO negotiation about establishing an international treaty to regulate the international commerce of conventional arms, whether heavy or light. Nuclear arms or high-lethality arms, such as clusterbombs, would be treated specifically. At the time, the negotiations for the Arms Trade Treaty were supported by 153 countries -- including Brazil -- but were rejected by the US, the world's biggest arms exporter. Although the Obama administration had supported the initiative, the majority of US senators were opposed, which resulted in an enormous international impasse. Such an idea also came up against fierce resistance from arms industry representatives in Brazil. "You are not going to have global organizations taking care of the market. Each nation is sovereign. Its people deserve respect and have the right to self-determination. Whether they have a bloody dictator or not, the people deserve it," said Jairo Candido, president of Com Defesa, a group from the Federation of Industries of São Paulo (FIESP) that lobbies for the sector.

The United Nations usually draws the line for alarm at 0.4. Above that number indicates a high potential for social instability. China's National Bureau of Statistics released the number 0.375 for the year 1996. It reached 0.412 in year 2000. After that, the Bureau stopped releasing the number. The report released last month only mentioned that it was a “little higher.” When questioned by a reporter, an official from the Bureau responded that “numbers like this are intended for researchers only, not for the general public.”

Lang’s assessment that the regime is bankrupt was based on five conjectures. Firstly, that the regime’s debt sits at about 36 trillion yuan (US$5.68 trillion). This calculation is arrived at by adding up Chinese local government debt (between 16 trillion and 19.5 trillion yuan, or US$2.5 trillion and US$3 trillion), and the debt owed by state-owned enterprises (another 16 trillion, he said). But with interest of two trillion per year, he thinks things will unravel quickly. Secondly, that the regime’s officially published inflation rate of 6.2 percent is fabricated. The real inflation rate is 16 percent, according to Lang. Thirdly, that there is serious excess capacity in the economy, and that private consumption is only 30 percent of economic activity. Lang said that beginning this July, the Purchasing Managers Index, a measure of the manufacturing industry, plunged to a new low of 50.7. This is an indication, in his view, that China’s economy is in recession. Fourthly, that the regime’s officially published GDP of 9 percent is also fabricated. According to Lang’s data, China’s GDP has decreased 10 percent. He said that the bloated figures come from the dramatic increase in infrastructure construction, including real estate development, railways, and highways each year (accounting for up to 70 percent of GDP in 2010). Fifthly, that taxes are too high. Last year, the taxes on Chinese businesses (including direct and indirect taxes) were at 70 percent of earnings. The individual tax rate sits at 51.6 percent, Lang said. Once the “economic tsunami” starts, the regime will lose credibility and China will become the poorest country in the world, Lang said. Several commentators have expressed broad agreement with Lang’s analysis.

Even in slow motion, this is no game for amateurs

the big loser from the Arab Spring has been Iran because the uprisings are about accountability and representation, which is precisely what the Iranian Revolution denied its authors after promising freedom. Nobody finds inspiration in the Iranian model.