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Showing posts with label Global Warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Warming. Show all posts

Sunday, June 30, 2013

The new old superpower (II)




As we said last week, China has all the ingredients to become a great power. It already is one at the regional level. But doubt remains about whether it can be constructed also as a real world superpower.

The traditional definition of superpower has been usually linked to a powerful army. And regarding that, China still has a long way to go.

In recent years and especially since 2011, China has prompted several major military projects. These include for example several types of aircraft under development, among which are especially relevant the J20 and J31.

These two prototypes make China, along with the U.S., the only other country which has two models of flying 5th-generation aircrafts. Russia, the third runner in possession of this technology, is developing only one model. The rest, none.

But nothing exemplifies a superpower more than its force projection capabilities. That's where come into the picture the submarine and aircraft carrier forces the Chinese navy (PLA) is developing.

Both platforms are the spearhead of any modern army. They are the ones that allow a country’s forces to be deployed rapidly anywhere in the world and until now it is what so far has lacked the Chinese army.

However the Chinese still have many years of development ahead of them to even get closer to the American potential, let alone surpass it. But the mere fact that they are providing the basis for this kind of military power has more than one brain concern in Washington.

In their favor plays something else. China doesn’t seem to want to follow the militaristic model of the United States and Russia. Surely its armed forces will continue to go abroad on an exponential basis as its influence grows. But mainly it will be for maneuvers and for humanitarian missions -something they could not do during the 2004 tsunami but learned in time for the disaster of Fukushima.

This strategy fits well with the soft power approach that China has historically exercised and exercises today in Africa, Latin America and Asia. A power that was tested in Libya, when it was forced to evacuate the large population of Chinese expatriates working there in the oil and gas industry.

The high demand for energy and resources has made China open to the world to find them. Mongolia, Australia, Venezuela and Uganda are among the countries that have benefited from Chinese soft power commercial contracts.

The case of the African country is particularly striking. In a country where until recently infrastructure was nonexistent, today you can make your way through the jungle in wide six-lane highways. Even Top Gear presenters were surprised when they saw them in the Africa special. It is the Chinese gift to Africa in exchange for their resources.

But China has shown it is also willing to play aggressively. And when we talk about today’s battlefields of economics and business, the aircraft carriers are the international companies and submarines are the rating agencies.

The Asian giant has also begun to enter with authority into these areas. Chinese companies have been for years expanding themselves into the Western market, either by geographical reach (like the introduction of Chinese goods in Europe) or acquisitions of Western companies (like the purchase of Volvo).

Meanwhile, back in May China established its first Chinese rating agency together with Russia to counter Moody's and S&P, both American and highly criticized, also from the European Union, for being biased and pro-US interest.

However, if the Asian giant is truly to become a globally dominant economy, it still has a lot of homework to do.

The main problem that China has is the same that has allowed it to create so much so fast: it is the country of the copy. Early in its development, copycats served the Chinese industry to get a head start. However, they have become accustomed to it.

A recurring theme among expatriates in China is the lack of imagination of local subordinates. They know to follow orders and they know how to copy, but they are unable to create and innovate.

Their initiative is reduced with a generation that has grown up in the shelter of not having to think about anything, just engineer retroactively or follow the instructions from blueprints purchased in questionable conditions or stolen from a foreign server. A lack of initiative that is worsened by the internet censorship.

Of course there are people who innovate, but the results are... let’s say that far from perfect. The best Chinese products today are still based on other foreign projects. When China becomes the lead of the pack, they will encounter a serious problem of innovation.

The rest of the world is now also better protected against copying. An employee of a Spanish aeronautical company told me how on a visit of potential Chinese investors they had to isolate them so they could not see or copy anything. They went as far as blocking office windows that faced the factory grounds and test labs and took off the network the computers the Chinese investors used.

The energy hunger problem, on the other hand, will curb the Chinese industry’s growth. Despite the large planned investment in nuclear power plants, to maintain the current level of production growth, China would need to increase by 50% the consumption of coal. Something that will involve both environmental and economic difficulties.

Also, many Chinese still believe today that the best future for their children is outside of China. Without a winning mentality in China, it is difficult to create a leader country. This extent is joined by the problem of an aging population that is going to be increasingly older. The one-child policy has endangered Chinese generational takeover.

Despite all this, and even if only because of its demographic weight, China is bound to have an important role this century. Their elites know this and they are preparing the ground with the military build-up. Meanwhile, America is in decline, running away from a world police role.

It is also happening on the political level; China is building-up influence, venturing into issues that had not mattered before to Chinese officials, like the conflict between Israel and Palestine. To interfere in a regional issue so far from its area of ​​influence is a clear sign of the dominant role that China is called to exercise. Whether America likes it or not.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The new old superpower (I)




The decline of the U.S. as a lone superpower looms on the horizon. China comes pushing hard. Sometime between 2015 and 2020, depending on whose analysis you rely on, the Asian giant will become the world's largest economy.

In a time where soldiers have given way to traders and territorial invasions to company takeovers, that means power and control.

It has been a relatively short journey for China. Its economic evolution has been exponential in the last three decades. Back in 2003, China was the world's sixth largest economy. In 2004 it overcame France. In 2006 it was the turn for the United Kingdom to bite the dust. In 2009 fell Germany. And in 2011 Japan gave away the silver medal. Now only the US stands in the way to the top.

Today, China leads the ranking of population by country. But also in the number of internet connections, energy consumption per capita and the country vehicle fleet. These factors -its huge population and huge domestic market- are what have allowed the country to grow at an average rate of around 10% annually.

This growth has gone hand in hand with the Chinese increase in the life quality index. The Chinese live in general way better now than just a decade ago and have gained in that time what others countries accomplished over half a century. On average, their wages have grown too 10% annually since 2006.

Something similar has happened with the development of the industry. In twenty years it has seen a fast pace industrial revolution that in Europe and the U.S. lasted for over 200 years. Today it is the largest manufacturer in the world of all kinds of goods.

Contributing to this explosion was the massive rural migration to the cities. 120 million Chinese people have left behind the fields to sit behind machines at factories in huge new cities with the population of entire countries.

It also helps its industry that China controls the production of rare earth metals, essential elements for all kinds of modern electronic devices, from mobile phones to washing machines.

The economic boom and rapid development has brought unique situations. It has extremes that to the foreign eye cause shock and awe. As the good replicators they are, the Chinese took what they wanted from the capitalist system -the economy- and what they wanted from the communist system -the administrative organization- creating a quirky cocktail, which is unique and sometimes extremely wild.

The communist legacy makes the Chinese bureaucracy extremely dreaded, especially by expatriates working there. It is a mixture of communist-era rules and timid liberal openings as difficult to navigate as a maze. Moreover, that same mixed bureaucracy makes sometimes the capitalist economy to have to bend around stupid or wild assumptions, creating a result that is neither capitalist nor communist but a mixture of the worst of both.

A clear example of this are the nail houses. In the 60s, the communist government could expropriate land at will paying very low compensation. With the introduction of private property laws in 2007, the owners won some bargaining power. 

This led to stupid situations. Throughout China there are examples of residents who refused to sell their homes and builders built everything from shopping centers to roads around them. The results are simply surreal in most of the cases.

However, one of the things that the Chinese have learned to do extremely well is to protest. Sometimes their voices are heard, sometimes not.

In recent years, the environmental issue has been a continuing focus of protests: the depletion of aquifers, pollution of the air or the cancer villages are just a few examples.

Corruption, human rights and civil rights have been at the center stake as well, this last one a field where the artist Ai Weiwei has been its most prominent spokesman in recent years.

However, advances in both environmental issues and human rights and civil rights issues have been timid. The Chinese government considers both a collateral damage that it is willing to take if in exchange progress is achieved.

That is not the case with corruption, an area where Beijing’s government seems to be starting to consider more seriously.

Inside its own country, the Chinese government has been concerned to make clear to its own citizens that the global importance of the country has increased. The architectural mega-projects like the world's largest dam, the highest altitude railway or one of the longest bridges in the world have put China once more in the map.

But not only concrete jungles drive Chinese pride. Since it hosted the Olympic Games in 2008, China has come to control them in the arena in the latest edition in London. In addition, part military, part civilian, the Chinese indigenous space program is a feat that few countries can boast.

This increasing prestige has been joined with the increase in living standards. Higher wages have made the Chinese tourists the biggest spenders outside its borders and, therefore, the most desirable. But also be the most problematic ones.

China has all the ingredients to become a great power. It already is one at the regional level. But doubt remains about whether it can be constructed also as a world superpower. 

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Did we expect too much?

In the end, Copenhagen ended as Obama’s current approval rate: disappointing. The UN summit had from the beginning the same problem as the American President; too many expectations were lying on it to be accomplished. Some even copied Obama’s claim, from Copenhagen to Hopenhagen. But trying to achieve a global goal, with a global agreement, that has been delayed for ten years, in just a week; looked like a hopeless mission.

But yet some have extracted a few valuable lessons from the meeting. According to the Economist, ten years ago, in Kyoto, it was difficult even bring the developing countries to the table in order to talk. This time, they have been talking since the beginning. However, the main problem continues there (and will be there for long). The developing countries’ leaders -China and India- had led the ‘No’ group. In fact, many analysts blame China for the huge failure of Copenhagen.

According to a report from Mark Lynas, a freelance journalist present in Copenhagen, China “not only rejected targets for itself, but also refused to allow any other country to take on binding targets”. By putting pressure on Asian and African countries that depend on their trade with China, they blocked the deal. It’s the first punch of a new superpower, without military bases or the need to invade foreign countries.

Truth is, Africa and Asia didn’t need too much encouragement either to commit to China’s goal. Besides from the fact of the trade-related pressure from China, in Copenhagen, the main fight came from the demand of the developed countries -specially the Umbrella group- to the developed countries to commit themselves too to cut the carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the developing countries insist that much of the problem was caused by the developed countries, and they cannot sacrifice their technological growth just now. Or at least, not for free.

This might have had a reasonable point in 1990, when their emissions were half of the developed world. And it still might work for many African and Asian nations. But right now, China is the first polluter of the world and between them and the Indians, almost equalize the total carbon emissions of the developed world. It doesn’t matter now who polluted more in the past; what matters now is to stop polluting. All of us.

The problem for China is that, if they want to become a real superpower as the USA is today, they need that CO2 in the air. China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. Their strategy is a long shot. They have the advantage of not having the NGOs and the ecologist groups putting pressure on them -it always goes to the US and the EU. Not even internally will have problems: they don’t respond before a strong public opinion nor they have to be elected every four years.


Photo: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images.
Activists demonstrate outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen at the end of the COP15 UN Climate Change Conference.

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Monday, December 07, 2009

What's at stake in Copenhagen?

This.



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Ahead of Copenhagen summit...

Some really useful data and graphics on carbon emissions by country since the 80's. Data published by the Guardian Data Blog.




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Copenhagen challenges

The Danish capital will host from today and for two weeks a UN summit to tackle some action on carbon emissions. A total of 192 countries will attend a meeting that rises as much hope and expectations as doubts and questions.

With Kyoto protocol formally dead for everyone -some because consider it too few; some because never even started working on it- Copenhagen looks like the perfect opportunity to encourage a new green deal worldwide. But the meeting comes just after a conference in Barcelona that didn’t resolve anything. To that we need to add the questions rose following the leak of several email correspondence between some investigators that undermined the results of the global warming studies -and therefore, the whole thing around it.

But hope comes by the hand of the main actors -including Obama. Brazil, the US, China and India have promised each important CO2 emission cuts from now to 2020. Australia, Russia, Japan, Canada and other developed countries have followed them. Europe is the A student, ahead of everyone else, and has promised a further reduction by 30%.

But all those promises are worthless without action, as Kyoto has shown. Only Europe has achieved the agreed goals, and with internal differences. Italy, Spain and, surprisingly, the host country of this summit, Denmark, have struggled to meet the requirements and are not likely to do it in a near future.

In general, developed countries offer cuts between an 8% and 14% of the CO2 emissions. Even that is not enough. Most scientists claim for a need to meet a reduction of a 25% to 40% in the developed countries to avoid any serious problems by half this century. And those weak compromises not only are not enough, but also will be difficult to agree.

Everyone seems to agree on major issues. Maldives’ cabinet, an archipelago nation seriously endangered by the rise of sea levels, held a meeting under the sea in October to illustrate the urgency of the matter. Last week, the Nepalese government did the same in Mount Everest, helped with winter clothes and oxygen, to rise awareness over the glacial meltdown.

But it is something to agree on the obvious and something different to act in deep to avoid it. When the details about what to do appear is when discrepancies come to the surface too. The countries of the so called Umbrella group (USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Russia) are asking for more compromises from the developing countries, something the latter and the EU oppose to.

Even in the way of controlling the emissions are disagreements. Some countries, like the US, want a carbon market where countries or even companies can trade over a fixed total of allowed emissions. This way, if a country -or company- doesn’t pollute as much as it’s allowed to do, it could sell that extra allowance to another country in need to pollute more; never over passing the total already fixed. For the EU, however, this is too complex and difficult to control and regulate, so they are opting for a carbon tax.

But as if only with internal disputes wasn’t enough, there are also some countries that don’t even agree to cut the dependency from fossil fuels. Not at least for free. The OPEC countries -oil producers- are asking for a compensation for the revenues they will lose if a new green deal is reached to cut carbon emissions. Some may say it is selfish to think that way, but for many of the OPEC countries, oil is the biggest contributor to their GDP, counting as much as for half of it -or even more- in some cases.

Anyway, whatever happens in the end in Copenhagen, leaders meeting there should have something clear in their minds: as Kyoto teached us, promises are nothing without action. Whatever they agree to do must be done, doesn’t matter how few it is. The world cannot afford another failed protocol.




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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Friendly fire 19/10/09

Going green to be greener.

Iran to Russia: where are our missiles?

NK boosts its special forces.

In honor to Jordan: no more 23s.

Sarah Palin still on the frontpages. Literally.

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Monday, October 05, 2009

Friendly fire 05/10/09

- Polling round: The Yes wins in Ireland. The Socialist Party wins in Greece. And Rio defeats Chicago, Madrid and Tokio in the race for the Olympics.

- Should Roman Polanski be above the law?

- While waiting for the 2009 Nobel Prizes, here are 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes.

- Seriously, what's wrong with Asia? Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis...

- Israel, in Honduras too? Unlikely.


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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Polishing European Politics

After last June European elections, the new European Parliament has already chosen his President. It will be Mr. Jerzy Buzek, former Polish Prime Minister and europarliamentary for the conservatives, the one in charge for the first two and a half years. Then, a socialdemocrat candidate will take the seat, as it was (but in reverse) during the last legislature.

Buzek is a symbol of the new Europe. He is the first President of the European Parliament who comes from a former Soviet-ally country. However, besides the challenges, changes end there. In the rest of the seats, there are few new faces.

Half of the total of 736 seats will repeat their occupant, and the European Commission will, presumably, be hosted again by Durao Barroso. The only major change is the turn to the right in the general map of the Parliament.

Those unchanged faces, anyway, will have to face many challenges. Yesterday we knew that two thirds of European habitats and species are under risk or their conservation state is undetermined. Add that to the considerable over schedule from various members in accomplish the yearly minimums for carbon emissions. A lot of work to do yet to fight climate change.

Another important issue is the energy. Yesterday too a new deal was signed between the EU and Turkey to create Nabucco a pipeline to diversify the supply of gas. This way, Europe will reduce its dependence on Russian gas and last winter problems will be easily avoided. Of course, just if the EU finds some gas to fill in the pipelines. Options are Georgian or Iraqi gas (instable countries), Iranian gas (not a friendly country) or other ex-Soviet republics’ gas (again the problem of Russia).

And all this without losing from sight the financial crisis.

Although, maybe, if in October 2 Ireland votes again against Lisbon, maybe, any of it won’t matter anymore.



Photo: European Parliament


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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day!

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Green farts

If you think you have seen everything about dumb ideas on how to save the World, think again. Maybe you though it was impressive the Discovery Channel series “How to save the Earth". But raining forests, cover the ices in Greenland or even throw tones of iron into the sea are nothing compared with what suggest an article from this week’s New Scientist magazine: using a micro-organism’s farts to produce fuel.

According to Tom Curtis, form the Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability of the University of Newcastle, in the UK, there is a micro-organism capable of producing methane (in the form of farts) from electricity and CO2. The methane, later, could be use as fuel in cars or even planes. Not to mention that it would help to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. A great fuel source.

The solution looks awesome. From the energy used on the process, an 80% is recovered. And, as there are no noble metals involved and only implies living forms, it is cheap, simple and green.

It isn’t something new or revolutionary, however. Farts have been seen as a possible solution to cool the planet since more than a year and a half. In December 2007, Athol Klive, an Australian scientific, launched a similar proposal but in the opposite way: aimed to reduce the methane expelled by cattle and sheep. Unlike the farts of the bacterias, it’s impossible (and very unpleasant) to recover cow’s and sheep’s farts. So methane from those animal’s stomachs goes directly into the atmosphere, and it becomes another greenhouse gas.

But Klieve discovered a bacteria in kangaroos' stomachs that makes their farts free of methane. His study is based on the implementation of this bacteria into cattle and sheep’s’ stomachs with genetically modified tech.

The measure, according to the Aussie scientific, not only will decrease the emissions in a 14%, but also will increase the animals’ stomachs’ efficiency in between a 15 and a 20%. This is, they will need less food. Obviously this makes happy many farmers.

Meanwhile, Europe has just approved what was discussed a year ago about the reduction of CO2 emissions in a 20% and increase of the renewable energy sources use up to the 20% by 2020. The so called 20-20-20 deal.

Surprisingly, data from 2008 suggest that they are on the right road. Last year, emissions in Europe were down a 6%. But to be fair, recession has had a lot to say on that.

At least it’s going down. With everyone (media, scientifics, even the defence industry) proposing solutions, politicians finally jumped into the green car of global warming.

Of course, it’s not purely altruistic. It has a lot to do with newcoming threats. Global warming is not just something affecting Africa or the penguins in Antarctica. It can fire up wars and there are a few spots worldwide that will be seriously threatened by this. They are about to become hot zones, but not because of the increase of temperatures.

However, not everyone is doing it well. Even the good guys, like Germany, Norway, Japan or Spain. In the latter, green energies are having a great backing from the government, but money goes into the implementation, not into investigation and development. The end of this cycle is just the same as the house bubble, especially because of how it is being implemented (likewise the housing permits before).

Also the debate about nuclear energy has arisen again. There is a lot of hipocresy around the official position. The Government bans new nuclear plants, but doesn’t hesitate to buy energy to France, mostly produced in nuclear plants.

Today, green energies aren’t as profitable -energetically speaking- as the rest. And to fill the gap until they are, the most efficient, clean and safe way to do so is with the nuclear energy. And even better if we can discover the fusion. That’s even truer if we think about emerging markets’ demands in Brazil, India and, of course, China.

Neither Japan nor Norway are doing it well. There is a lot of external image but few real interest. Japan is the world largest manufacturer of solar panels, but still three of each four units of energy he spends come from non-renewvable sources and it is one of the ten biggest contributors of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Norway, on the other hand, is a extremely green minded country. Probably the most. But as the Economist states, he doesn’t hesitate to drill his own marine floor to seek oil to sell to others. Double moral?

Maybe the only good example, up to now, is Germany.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Friendly Fire 21/03/09

As I’ve been out for a while, here is a double portion of Friendly fire.

- Another March Madness for the Americans: Sarah Palin’s daughter, in the end, won’t marry the redneck.

- Drone wars: if they are up to the challenge in Afghanistan, they are up to the challenge for Global Warming. Northrop Grumman dixit.

- Russia wants to rearm itself. Heavily. USA wants more updated nuclear bombs. So, cold war is not already over? Apparently, not.

- Madagascar’s descend into chaos.

- If you are on a tour in Iraq, better get cover: back at home, war wounded are not under Social Security insurance. Socialist Obama dixit.

- Financial crisis arrives to the media. First was Colorado’s oldest newspaper, the Rocky Mountain. Now it is the turn for the Seattle Post-Intelligence.

- No more back to the future in Iran: Khatami pulls out of presidential election.

- Ospreys ready for action in Afghanistan.

- Amstettem monster pleads guilty.

- Ireland, on the road to make History in the 6 Nations.

- Not even in OZ they got out from the breakdown.


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Monday, March 16, 2009

Friendly fire 16/03/09

- AIG will never learn. Now, daddy is angry.

- The war is on in Mexico. The market of drugs is hot in Canada. And the USA is the supermarket for the narcos. Call it a NAFTA for the narcos.

- Israel goes further right: Lieberman appointed as Foreign minister.

- How to turn a black menace into a green opportunity.

- ISS evacuated.

Extra: Everyone cheers with Jon Stewart.



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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Under siege

Australia is these days under fire. The high temperatures on record this summer have set up fires all around the South East of the country. The death toll has risen to more than 170 at the time of publishing this and the Government expects more bodies remaining in the ashes.

Human tragedies run along with the ecological loss. Not only for the obvious burnt of trees and bushes, but also for the animal deaths. However, hope sometimes appears in between firefighters’ desperation in the form of a survivor. Like Sam, a koala nationwidely famous after surviving the hell of the fires.

The material losses are of around $2 billion. Australian Government has started to do something by sending the Army to combat the bush fire and promising aid to the affected ones. It is more than what will get the 160 people that died in a fire blast in Kenya. But as almost always happens, it is the Australian people who has been more deeply involved from the beginning.

They were the own Australians the first ones to fight the fires, in the frontline just besides the firefighters and the Army. In a country isolated and used to deal for themselves with their own problems, its people learnt how to solve everything without waiting for the help from the Queen.

Even inter-county solidarity has been a keen example of what should be done. An example provided with some irony: the victims from Queen Island’s floods (after the cyclone Ellie) will donate some of the aid they got for their own reconstruction to the victims of the fires. They could lend them some water as well.

However, the fire continues growing. The high number of deaths and the suspicion of the provocated origin of some of the fires made the Australian executive make of the burnt areas a crime scene, waiting for the test that expert forensics will run in search for evidences. Some prefer not to wait for the evidences and start blaming the offender, with more imagination than wisdom, if I have to say.


Photo via Alex Coppel/News Limited.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

We are still racists

Christmas is round the corner. You can tell it for the millions of commercials on TV about peace, love and family getting together. It's funny that while some are trying to reunite between ourselves, others look after the differences. Ok, I’m first on the line to be proud of each one own heritage, but it ends being sick when you bring it to the extreme.

USA has been critizised many times in the past few years for their despair of anything not WASP. But it seems that’s about to change with Mr. Obama. The Government of the new kid in the block (sorry, in the Office) will include minorities from almost everywhere: gays, women, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians...)

Meanwhile in Europe, the Old Europe proud of having left behind racism in spite of integration, the situation is slightly different. From the reborn of the Nazism in Germany to the difficult adaptation of the Arabs to the European cities -and thedoubts that awakes-, giving birth to the Euroarabism. All this without forgetting the already known antisemitism, that is more and more más extended worldwide -specially in the Muslim countries- and growths at a worrying fast rate. But is true as well that the Jews are capable enough by themselves of generate that hate. It’s need only a few Israeli extremists -helped by the sinking of the Israeli Laborism- to give enough reasons to the World for being worry about them. And in between all this, almost in the border with human stupidity -if not plenty inside it- the Jewish Nazis.



Irony about this comes from the fact that they are immigrants who benefit from the Law of Return in Israel. Usually it’s the opposite: the natural from the country is the one who hates the outsider. And normally, those outsiders are the first ones suffering from the economic breakdown. They are just a temporal solution, and once have being used and are any more useful, they are sent back. Like a jacket that you bought but you realize you don’t like once at home.

However, only a few reckons that immigration is need. In both sides of the Atlantic ocean, but even more in countries with a low birth rate, like in USA or Europe. Without the African immigration, the fields of Spain and Italy would be in lack of workers. And even in the North, in countries like Ireland people is wondering what will do the Polish outsiders now in Hibernia. They are many, and they can boost the Irish economy -now in recession- or sink it. On the ground, the Polish are measuring their own options. Some are willing to stay, others are leaving and back at home are being encouraged to keep claiming benefits to the countries where they emigrated... by the Polish Government!

But, an addition of different issues -financial crisis, World warming, ageing of the population- can make this migration flow reverse in the next century. In my opinion, this could be an oxygen boost for many countries, too xenophobic for a Global World -that in fact, at least for now, it’s only global for a few ones and in only one direction.

I always though that racism and xenophobia disappear when you travel. Or even better, when you live abroad for a while. I’m not talking of those one month holidays of many executives or their kids’ holidays in a foreign country to learn the language. Not. I’m talking of the experience of having to speak everyday in another language, deal with another culture, another system to measure your drinks or your meal (not everywhere people use liters and kilograms), and survive to that and solve your problems by your own in those conditions. Of course is not something easy to accept. Ask the American lawyers that are being sent to Shangai, Dubai or Bombay. Or bye bye.

Some other countries like Spain could be seriously threatened in the next century by the challenges of the global warming, and that force their inhabitants to emigrate. Greenpeace has made some aggressive campaigns about that in the past. Even the UN has been warning the unbelievers about the dangers hidden round the corner. It won’t do any good if they are still believing more their cousins opinions than the scientific proofs -after all, they are the same ones that say those lies about evolution. It won’t help either that they will continue being paid by oil business like Exxon Mobile.



Who cares? If we need, we’ll ask for help to the Third World countries -if there is something to take from them by then. By any means, we’ll get it. The West is proud of being the world protector, but abandones at their own risk those places without anything profitable to steal.

Later, they will wonder why the fishmen whom we stole their fishes will become pirates. Or why they would like to expell our companies from their land, the same one that we drill. Or why the people we went to liberate from the oppression of a tyranny throw at us now their shoes and call us dogs.

After all we did for them...





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Are you afraid? Well, this works in that way. First you do what scares you and it's later when you get the courage
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