Death: Energy, Life: Matter

If death is energy and life matter, which is more alive? Death or life? The mind is the bridge. Let there be light.

E = mc2

Buddha said this before Einstein did, about 2,500 years before.

And, by the way, life is as abundant in the universe as the stars.

Life is death being in a hurry. And this is modern physics, this is modern biology. Life speeds up the law of entropy.

India: Solar Is The Cure

India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary

India is home to 30 percent of the world’s poorest, those living on less than $1.90 a day. Of the 1.3 billion Indians, 304 million do not have access to electricity; 92 million have no access to safe drinking water. ...... India’s rivers depend on the health of thousands of Himalayan glaciers at risk of melting because of a warming climate, while 150 million people are at risk from storm surges associated with rising sea levels. ..... The United Nations expects India’s population to reach 1.5 billion by 2030, bigger than China’s......

the world’s greenhouse gas emissions must be brought close to zero by the end of the century

.... economies like China and India must totally decarbonize their electricity supply around midcentury and achieve negative emissions from then on, using carbon capture technologies and vastly increased forests, to suck excessive carbon out of the atmosphere. ........ India must continue to grow at 7.5 to 8 percent a year for the next 15 years. ..... Even under the most ambitious goals for nuclear power and renewable energy, more than half of this power is expected to come from coal, the dirtiest fuel. “By 2030 India’s coal consumption could triple or quadruple” ...... It aims to get 40 percent of its electricity from nonfossil fuels by 2030 and to reduce its emissions intensity by 33 to 35 percent from 2005 to 2030. It also offers to vastly increase its forest cover. ..... India’s energy consumption amounts to only 0.6 metric tons of oil equivalent per person, about a third of the world average. It explains that “no country in the world” has ever achieved the development level of today’s advanced nations without consuming at least four tons.

The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy

In the 1980s, leading consultants were skeptical about cellular phones. McKinsey & Company noted that the handsets were heavy, batteries didn’t last long, coverage was patchy, and the cost per minute was exorbitant. It predicted that in 20 years the total market size would be about 900,000 units, and advised AT&T to pull out. McKinsey was wrong, of course. There were more than 100 million cellular phones in use in 2000; there are billions now. Costs have fallen so far that even the poor — all over world — can afford a cellular phone.......... The experts are saying the same about solar energy now. They note that after decades of development, solar power hardly supplies 1 percent of the world’s energy needs. They say that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies. They too are wrong.

Solar will be as ubiquitous as cellular phones are.

...... solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. He says

solar energy is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs

. ....... inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth. ...... By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world. Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil-fuel-based alternatives do. ....... wind, biomass, thermal, tidal, and waste-breakdown energy, and research projects all over the world are working on improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Wind power, for example, has also come down sharply in price and is now competitive with the cost of new coal-burning power plants in the United States. It will, without doubt, give solar energy a run for its money. There will be breakthroughs in many different technologies, and these will accelerate overall progress. ........

We will be able to create unlimited clean water — by boiling ocean water and condensing it.

With inexpensive energy, our farmers can also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables in vertical farms located near consumers. Imagine skyscrapers located in cities that grow food in glass buildings without the need for pesticides, and that recycle nutrients and materials to ensure there is no ecological impact.

Why Obama should stop pushing nuclear energy on India

It no longer makes sense for any country to install a technology that can create a catastrophe such as Chernobyl or Fukushima — especially when far better alternatives are available. Technologies such as solar and wind are advancing so rapidly that by the time the first new nuclear reactors are installed in India, they will be less costly than nuclear energy. ...... Solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. At this rate, solar is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting practically all of today’s energy needs. Even with this, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth. ....... For India, energy production using solar will alleviate the problems of its decaying national electricity grid. Energy can be generated and stored locally — at the village level. ......

The president should not be prescribing medicine that he would not take himself.

The United States has not installed any new nuclear plants for more than 30 years. There would be massive public protests if any were even proposed — anywhere in the country. Germany is working towards phasing out all of its nuclear plants by 2022 and many other developed countries are looking to follow its lead....... India is still reeling from the Bhopal disaster of 1984, when a leakage of cyanide gas at the Union Carbide plant killed 5,295 people and left tens of thousands with permanent disabilities. The surviving victims are stillbegging for fair compensation. This was a chemical catastrophe; a nuclear one would be far more destructive. ..... Instead of trying to chain India to the past with technologies such as nuclear, he should help the country leapfrog into the future with clean energy. This will benefit not only India, but also the world.

India And Energy

India’s Energy Crisis
Can India modernize its manufacturing economy and supply electricity to its growing population without relying heavily on coal—and quite possibly destroying the global climate?

At least 300 million of India’s 1.25 billion people live without electricity ..... Another quarter-billion or so get only spotty power from India’s decrepit grid, finding it available for as little as three or four hours a day. The lack of power affects rural and urban areas alike, limiting efforts to advance both living standards and the country’s manufacturing sector. ....... Modi ... has promised to increase India’s renewable-energy capacity to 175 gigawatts, including 100 gigawatts of solar, by 2022. ..... (That’s about the total power generation capacity of Germany.) ...... India is attempting to do something no nation has ever done: build a modern industrialized economy, and bring light and power to its entire population, without dramatically increasing carbon emissions. Simply to keep up with rising demand for electricity, it must add around 15 gigawatts each year over the next 30 years. ......

The country gets most of its electricity from aging, dirty coal-fired plants.

...... a massive 2012 outage that left more than 600 million people in the dark and drew attention to a utility sector in disarray, with an estimated $70 billion of accumulated debt. ...... China is now the world’s largest emitter of carbon..... Its population is expected to grow by another 400 million people over the next three decades, bringing it to 1.7 billion by 2050. ...... By 2050, India will have roughly 20 percent of the world’s population .....

these younger politicians tend to be pragmatists, seeking to encourage economic growth through neoliberal policies such as deregulation and privatization of state industries.

Since his appointment, Goyal has emerged as a champion of renewable energy, calling for investments of $100 billion in renewables and another $50 billion in upgrading the country’s faltering grid. Almost every week he appears in the newspapers cutting the ribbon on a new solar power plant or wind farm or hydropower installation......... coal remains the cheapest source of power, and India’s coal industry has embarked on a building boom, doubling installed capacity since 2008. India consumes around 800 million tons of coal a year and could more than double that number by 2035 ..... Almost 70 percent of India’s electricity today comes from coal-fired plants. About 17 percent comes from hydropower, much of it from large dams in the northeast. Another 3.5 percent comes from nuclear. That leaves about 10 percent, depending on daily conditions, from renewables—mostly wind farms. ...... Over the next 25 years, “with the most aggressive assumptions in terms of renewables, we could go up to 18 or 20 percent from renewables,” Ramesh told me. “Hydro takes longer—it involves displacement of people and submergence of land, but we could expect that 17 percent contribution to go up to 25 percent. Nuclear is at 3.5 percent right now and, under the most aggressive assumptions, could go up to 5 or 6 percent. So under the best scenario—the most aggressive programs for nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind—bloody coal will still be at 50 percent.” In other words, while low- or zero-carbon sources would make up a greater portion of India’s energy supply, overall carbon emissions would nearly double: from around 2.1 billion tons in 2014 to more than four billion tons by 2040..........

In 2012, when Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he presided over the launch of the world’s largest solar installation: a group of plants totaling nearly one gigawatt combined.

..... the government plans a program of building nuclear plants that would roughly triple capacity by 2024 and supply one-quarter of the country’s electricity needs by 2050. India also aims to further capitalize on its abundant potential for water power, particularly in the far northeastern states ....... the planned construction of an ultra-deepwater natural-gas pipeline across the Arabian Sea, from Iran to India’s west coast......

building all these new projects will be extremely expensive, requiring a level of fiscal discipline and political will that India’s fractious, corrupt government has seldom achieved.

Modi, who has surrounded himself with a group of capable, mostly well-respected technocrats like Goyal, has limited power to compel the states to implement and enforce clean-energy mandates, beyond the promise of central-government largesse. Rules requiring utilities to use a minimum amount of renewable power have mostly been ignored. Key pieces of legislation, including important amendments to the Electricity Act of 2003, are stalled in parliament because few of the country’s politicians are willing to tackle the key issue: utilities are currently forced to sell electricity at below costs. Efforts to modernize the country’s antiquated utilities—as must happen if there is to be any chance of implementing Modi’s ambitious energy agenda—seem no closer to success than they did when he took office...........

“The West will have to pay for the damage they have caused to the world and the planet,” Goyal said in a climate-change address in London in May.

........ Modi is trying to create a world-class renewable-energy industry while reforming a corrupt and bankrupt utility sector, growing the country’s manufacturing sector, keeping deficits low, and sustaining economic growth at around 8 percent a year. ......... Power losses in transmission and distribution across India average around 25 percent, and in some areas they can reach 50 percent. That means that half of the electricity being generated either never reaches an end user or is used but never paid for. Power losses in the developed world seldom reach 10 percent. For a grid about to be tested by the addition of large amounts of power from intermittent renewable sources, that outdated infrastructure is a huge problem............ the daily rolling brownouts that plague Delhi, along with most other Indian cities. With grid power uncertain, major Indian companies such as IT giant Infosys have installed their own power plants: Infosys is planning a 50-megawatt solar park to serve its offices in Bangalore, Mysore, and Mangalore.......

Promising free water and electricity, without specifying a way to pay for it, is an old tradition in Indian state and local election campaigns.

Under the Aam Aadmi Party’s platform, Delhi families will get 20,000 liters of free water a month, and those who use less than 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month will get a 50 percent discount on their electric bills. Those subsidies will cost the government up to 16.7 billion rupees ($250 million) annually—and they will not help the discoms run profitable businesses......... Under the agricultural subsidies that have become the third rail of energy politics in India, farmers essentially get free power, which means the utilities that serve them lose money on every customer. Some of the loss is made up in handouts from the central government—but upgrading the grid will be of little use unless utilities can develop viable business models. The sector has been bailed out, to the tune of billions of rupees, twice in the last 13 years. The cumulative losses have increased so drastically that they could “pull down the whole growth agenda” of the Modi government .......

Full reform, however, will require steps that remain politically off limits for now: complete privatization, less interference by state governments in utility operations, and, above all, an end to free electricity for farmers.

..... India’s vastness. ..... Expanding the grid to reach every home and business would require many trillions of rupees that the central and state governments simply don’t have. For many, gaining access to electricity through solar microgrids and other local power sources that bypass the traditional utility model is a far more practical option.........

India’s energy problems will require solutions tailored to the country’s history, its technology and economy, and its place in the world.

..... Although Appapur is located inside a tiger reserve, the real problems are leopards, snakes, and wild boars. Leopards take 10 to 15 domestic cows and goats a year ...... A number of Indian and foreign providers, including fast-growing companies like Visionary Lighting and Energy and Greenlight Planet, are spreading small home solar systems across South Asia, driven by government incentives, plummeting costs for the technology, and high demand......... Every town in India, even the dustiest roadside hamlet, has banners and billboards advertising small battery and inverter systems. A new energy ecosystem is arising in complex and not always predictable ways...... The combination of failing utilities, heavy reliance on coal, a faulty grid, and an energy sector crippled by government subsidies and interference seems to argue that India has no chance: no path to economic growth and energy abundance except one that’s disastrous for the environment. But at ground level, the picture is more complicated and less bleak........ “The central government and outside investors are, naturally, focused on these big mega-projects, where they’re getting ridiculous financing, but

the real innovation is happening at the village level

,” says Anshu Bharadwaj, the executive director of the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy, a Delhi think tank.

“The most impactful way is to develop a large number of 100-kilowatt, half-a-megawatt projects that are distributed across the country, close to rural loads.”

........... You can’t extend the grid to every village and hut in India, but you also can’t develop and operate a 21st-century manufacturing base using unpredictable distributed solar power. ....... Bihar is typical of India’s rural states: it has more than 100 million people, less than one-fifth of whom have access to reliable electricity. The state discom is more or less bankrupt, subsidized electricity bills are artificially low, and electricity losses on the grid are close to 50 percent. The reach of the grid is random ...... “I visited a village today that doesn’t have electricity,” he told me in July,

“and 100 meters away, the next village has good electricity. It’s confusing.

They may get it next month, next decade, or never.” ...... happens to be embarking on its modernization phase at a time when prices for renewable-energy generation, and for the technology to make it work at the local level, are starting to rival prices for traditional fossil-fuel-generated power. ...... Every microgrid and local solar system deployed reduces by a fraction the need to extend the grid; every new renewable-energy system installed by a business or factory reduces the pressure to build ultra-mega power plants........

The Indian genius for adaptation and survival in chaotic and challenging circumstances

provides hope that the country can solve the seemingly insurmountable challenge of expanding its economy in a clean and sustainable fashion. In many ways there is no choice. “India cannot afford to replicate the American or Chinese ‘Grow now, pay later’ model,” says Jairam Ramesh. “We cannot afford to say, ‘We’re going to have 25 years of 8 percent GDP growth, then do a cleanup act later.’”

Africa Deserves To Manufacture

In a sane world, this map would bring about a rapid realignment of forces. Manufacturing and installing these solar panels is the next industrial revolution all on its own.

Quagmire in the Sahara: Desertec's Promise of Solar Power for Europe Fades

Supporters hailed the Desertec Industrial Initiative as the most ambitious solar energy project ever when it was founded in 2009. Major industrial backers pledged active involvement, politicians saw a win-win proposition and environmentalists fawned over Europe's green energy future. For a projected budget of €400 billion ($560 billion), the venture was to pipe clean solar power from the Sahara Desert through a Mediterranean super-grid to energy-hungry European countries. ..... Spain recently balked at signing a declaration of intent to connect high-voltage lines between Morocco and the rest of Europe. In recent weeks, two of the biggest industrial supporters at the founding of the initiative, Siemens and Bosch, backed out. And perhaps most tellingly, though last week's third annual Desertec conference was held in Berlin's Foreign Ministry, not a single German cabinet minister bothered to attend. .... Political backing for energy from the desert, in other words, is evaporating. ...... For all the initial enthusiasm, countries have been hesitant about plunging into a large, cooperative grid in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. ....... "We should say we're closing the whole thing down because we have no political support." ...... Renewable energy projects remain more expensive than traditional fossil fuel plants and tend to require government subsidies. And Desertec is an order of magnitude larger and more complicated than the offshore wind parks currently under construction in the North Sea. The idea is to generate a significant percentage of Europe's energy needs using solar thermal plants in sunny North Africa and then transmitting that power via an ultramodern grid across the Mediterranean. ....... Part of the problem is historical distrust. No country wants to import electricity and energy security is often at the top of national objectives. ....... Exporting the green power involves connecting the countries with the sun to consumer countries like Germany by way of long-distance high-voltage power lines. That is expensive, and any country that is to be part of the proposed new grid, like Spain, can throw a wrench in the works.

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नीला आसमान और भारतका विकास

चीनने विकास तो किया लेकिन वहाँ क्या है कि आजकल आकाश दिखता ही नहीं है। भारत को वो गलती दुहरानी नहीं चाहिए। प्रदुषण ज्यादा हो तो quality of life ख़राब हो जाती है -- तो वैसे विकास का क्या फ़ायदा कि सबको दम्मा का बीमारी हो जाए?

Double Digit Growth चाहिए भारतको। Clean Energy can actually help. It is one of the industries of tomorrow. And not only should India emphasize clean energy as much as possible, it should make it an export item.

नीला आसमान और भारतका विकास ---- सबका साथ जो कहते हैं उसमें आसमान को भी समेटिये।

9/11, Great Recession, Gulf Oil Spill: Paradigm Shifts

Image via Wikipedia

To the three items I just listed - 9/11, the Great Recession, and the Gulf Oil Spill - I should perhaps add a fourth, while the three are of the negative kind, Obama's election to the White House has been a positive kind of paradigm shift, race being America's original sin.

9/11 is accepted as having been a paradigm shift event. It hijacked the Bush presidency. Obama's presidency has similarly been taken over by major events that he could not have foreseen. Reminds one of the famous Lincoln line, that he does not control events, it is the other way round.

This has been a strange recession. Now there is talk it might end up being a double dip recession. The recovery sure is not full. The jobs that were lost, not enough new jobs have been created. And if that were not headache enough, the oil spill happened. The ocean remains less explored than outer space in many ways.

The private and the public sectors have not even begun to measure the size of the damage, they sure have not managed to bring the spill to an end. The damage will last at least a decade, maybe more. And it might not be just the gulf that stays affected. It is one scary scenario no matter which way you look at it.

The term superpower is a term in the human realm. The pressures one mile deep in the ocean do not care for that term, apparently. Human technology can do only so much stretching when basic human values and a way of life themselves are in question.

The Gulf Oil Spill is a wake up call that the planet is surely on an unsustainable path, environmentally speaking.

All three - 9/11, the Great Recession, and the Gulf Oil Spill - challenge the notion that the nation state is the be all and end all. All three force us to face the fact that globalization can not be stopped, but it can be shaped. We are all global players now. We have been a while.

Obama did not ask for the recession, he sure did not ask for the spill, but he gets to rally the nation to lessons learned from both.

Gulf Oil Spill
A Dirty Bomb Just Went Off In The Gulf

Obama's Gulf Oil Speech

Because there has never been a leak of this size at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology. ..... We now have nearly 30,000 personnel who are working across four states to contain and cleanup the oil. Thousands of ships and other vessels are responding in the Gulf. And I have authorized the deployment of over 17,000 National Guard members along the coast....... millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water through burning, skimming, and other collection methods. Over five and a half million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil. We have approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try and stop the oil before it reaches the shore ....... oil has already caused damage to our coastline and its wildlife. ..... no matter how effective our response becomes, there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done ....... a wrenching anxiety that their way of life may be lost. ....... BP will pay for the impact this spill has had on the region. ...... Oil companies showered regulators with gifts and favors, and were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and write their own regulations. ....... we need better regulations better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling ........ oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean - because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water. ...... The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. ..... The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again.

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A Dirty Bomb Just Went Off In The Gulf

FoxNews.com: Massive Gulf Oil Spill From Space

Bill Clinton on his way out told Bush the Al Qaeda was the number one security threat he needed to worry about as president. Bush did not pay attention. 9/11 changed that. 9/11 has gone on to define an era, or at least a decade; it sure hijacked the Bush presidency.

By now many of the smart people in the relevant government agencies are on the lookout for the dirty bomb. The terrorist threats persist and are real, but the environmental threats are much bigger. It is like a dirty bomb just went off in the Gulf Of Mexico.

This spill - the word does not quite capture it - just might destroy the fishing and tourism industries in a few different states. That alone is tens of billions of dollars.

The scale of this thing is mind boggling.

Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez - Yahoo! News
Louisiana Oil Spill 2010 PHOTOSOil Spill Gulf Oil Spill Photos...
Oil Leak from Damaged Well in Gulf of Mexico : Natural Hazards
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Iraq, Energy, Global Warming: All Interlinked

Withdrawing From Iraq

The idea is not to withdraw from Iraq and let that new state collapse. The idea is to withdraw in a way that every inch of military withdrawal is replaced by two inches of fervent political activity.

Obama Gameplan: Stable, Democratic Iraq

If withdrawal leads to some kind of a breakdown, that means going right back in, not abandoning. But I don't think there will be a breakdown. The US military leaving will mean the Al Qaeda's number one gripe will have disappeared. They will have lost wind.

Iraq will do just fine. Iraq will do better once the US military has left.

Energy Solution: Go Nuclear

Before the steam engine, we had wind energy: we called them sails. Steam became diesel. And now there is talk to go back to wind. Makes no sense. There is no going back, there is only going forward.

All countries on earth deserve to grow their economies. Imagine a 7% growth rate per year for every country on earth, especially the poor countries. And do the math on how much energy consumption that will mean. You very quickly realize the only option is nuclear.

The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy

The Apollo project is not to set up wind farms across the country so that we can no longer see the sun during the day. The Apollo project is to speed up research so as to find ways to make good with the waste generated from the nuclear energy plants.

Global Warming Is Also Energy Solution

No one country can tackle global warming. That also happens to be true of the energy crisis. There is a need for a global effort, a global collaboration, global ground rules.

For example, you can not have 10,000 nuclear weapons, and keep doing research to build new ones and then go around the world telling others they may not have it. That is nuclear apartheid. The long term goal has to be total disarmament. Only within that clear commitment to that long term goal can the short term goal of nonproliferation be achieved.

The International Atomic Agency will have to be given much more teeth. All nuclear energy plants all over the world will have to come under the strict regime of that agency. The strictest safety regulations must be designed and enforced. And then peaceful use of nuclear energy must be encouraged across the world.

Economic growth is a legitimate goal of any sovereign country. Energy needs will dramatically rise over the next few decades as they should. And they have to be met with nuclear energy.

JFK, Obama Parallels: Catholic, Black

In The News

Al Qaeda Strikes Back Foreign Affairs Decisively defeating al Qaeda will be more difficult now than it would have been a few years ago. ...... it will only be a matter of time before al Qaeda strikes the U.S. homeland again. ...... up to 60,000 Pakistani volunteers had served in the Taliban militia before 9/11, alongside dozens of active-duty Pakistani army advisers and even small Pakistani army commando units ......... For the next two years, al Qaeda focused on surviving -- and, with the Taliban, on building a new base of operations around Quetta, in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan. ....... Iraq, where it had little or no presence before 9/11. ....... al Qaeda in Iraq has continued to orchestrate massacres against Shiites in Baghdad. ...... suicide bombings and the use of improvised explosive devices, became commonplace in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in 2006, according to the U.S. military, and suicide operations grew from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. ....... Al Qaeda has also developed closer ties to Kashmiri terrorist groups, such as and Lashkar-e-TaibaJaish-e-Muhammad. ....... the hijacking of an Indian airliner by Kashmiri terrorists -- an operation .... since correctly described as the "dress rehearsal" for 9/11. ....... the spectacular multiple bombings that rocked Mumbai last July had the marks of al Qaeda's modus operandi ........ beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq ..... al Qaeda records most of its operations and transmits the gruesome coverage to jihadi Web sites all over the world ........ promising to bankrupt Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq ..... some 4,500 overtly jihadi Web sites ..... the growing breadth of its ambitions and its increasing reach throughout the Middle East ....... Muriel Degauque, a Belgian woman and a convert to Islam, who blew herself up in a car-bomb attack against a U.S. convoy in Iraq in November 2005 ...... Pakistan received 400,000 visits from British residents in 2004 ...... the United Kingdom has become a focal point of al Qaeda's activities in the West. ...... some 200 networks of Muslims of South Asian descent were being monitored in the United Kingdom ....... terrorist plots in the United Kingdom "often have links back to al Qaeda in Pakistan ....... Since 2001, these foot soldiers are suspected of having plotted 30 or so attacks on targets in the United Kingdom or aircraft leaving for the United States. ....... independent, copycat operation ..... Al Qaeda's growing connections to Europe have made the United States more vulnerable ....... the plot last August to destroy ten commercial airliners en route from the United Kingdom to the United States ...... cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe .... expanding reach in Europe. Its leadership is intact. .... al Qaeda is well placed to threaten global security in the near future. .. thrives on failed and failing states ...... The Jihad Movement in Bangladesh was one of the original signatories of bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war on the West. ...... Somalia has been a failed state for almost two decades ..... In Algeria, meanwhile, al Qaeda is trying to revive the civil war that killed over 100,000 people in the 1990s. The Algerian Islamist movement the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, swore allegiance to bin Laden last year, and he ordered that the group be renamed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It has since attacked oil targets and police stations, hoping that a spectacular series of assaults, especially on Western targets, could reignite the civil war. ......... he was eagerly looking forward to an American nuclear attack on Iran. ..... Al Qaeda would especially like a full-scale U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran, which would presumably oust the Shiite regime in Tehran, further antagonize Muslims worldwide, and expand al Qaeda's battlefield against the United States so that it extends from Anbar Province in the west to the Khyber Pass in the east. It understands that the U.S. military is already too overstretched to invade Iran, but it expects Washington to use nuclear weapons. ......... al Qaeda will deliberately provoke a war with a "false-flag" operation ...... it should not consider a military operation against Iran, as doing so would only strengthen al Qaeda's hand -- much as the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have. ........ The organization is more diffuse, and its components operate more independently. Bin Laden continues to influence its direction and provide general guidance and, on occasion, specific instructions. But overall the movement is more loosely structured, which leaves more room for independent and copycat terrorist operations. .......... target al Qaeda's leaders ...... NATO should reach out to India as well: New Delhi has already provided half a billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan, and, having long been a target of Islamist terrorism, India has a national interest in defeating it. ...... Since 2001, the international community has delivered far less aid per capita to Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, than it has to recovering states such as Bosnia. ....... Musharraf .. his government has tolerated those who harbor bin Laden and his lieutenants, Taliban fighters and their Afghan fellow travelers, and Kashmiri terrorists. .... Many senior Pakistani politicians say privately that they believe Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) still has extensive links to bin Laden; some even claim it harbors him. ...... a systematic crackdown on all terrorists -- Arab, Afghan, and Kashmiri -- is critical ....... Pakistan should no longer be rewarded for its selective counterterrorism efforts. (Washington has already given it some $10 billion in aid since 9/11.) ....... If it makes sense to bring democracy to Afghanistan, then surely it makes sense to bring it to Pakistan. The prevailing theory that strongmen such as Musharraf make for better counterterrorism partners is a canard; Musharraf, for one, has not delivered the goods. ...... disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal ..... Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure ......... the war of ideas. Washington must learn to develop more compelling narratives for its actions. ...... bring peace to Palestine and Kashmir ...... The president of the United States must get personally involved in brokering peace in both instances. ........ a failure to adjust U.S. strategy would increase the risk that al Qaeda will launch another "raid" on the United States, this time perhaps with a weapon of mass destruction. ....... According to Saudi officials, these public messages came with secret orders from bin Laden instructing cells to attack soft targets in Saudi Arabia. ....... The al Qaeda apparatus in the kingdom, which had been quiescent, exploded into action between 2003 and 2006 -- triggering the most serious and sustained domestic violence since the creation of modern Saudi Arabia in the early twentieth century. ........ The backbone of the al Qaeda movement in the kingdom was apparently broken. ..... (Zarqawi took credit for the plot but claimed that the Jordanian authorities fabricated the presence of chemical weapons; as he put it, if his group possessed such a device, "we would not hesitate one second to use it on Israeli cities.") ..... al Qaeda is still too weak to overthrow established governments equipped with effective security services; it needs failed states to thrive.

Republican White House Hopefuls Distance Themselves From Bush FOX News
Rudy Giuliani Plans to Skip Important Republican Iowa Straw Poll LifeNews.com
Just One-Third of US Adults Would Vote for Barack Obama if He was ... PR Newswire (press release)
Obama on 'quiet riot' among black poor Chicago Tribune a "quiet riot" of despair simmering in impoverished black neighborhoods across the country ...... one of the oldest and largest annual gatherings of African-American ministers. ...... an ominous portrait of hopelessness pervading many inner-city neighborhoods and its potential to erupt into uncontrolled violence ..... pockets of endemic poverty. ..... the street corners of ghettos around the country as gathering places for "young men and women without hope, without miracles and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge -- the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities." ...... violence is "inexcusable and self-defeating." ....... many of the same frustrations continue to build in black America, stoked by poor schools, bad housing, and inadequate job opportunities. ...... when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people ... believe that things are never going to get any better ...... an expansion of programs for visiting nurses to teach parenting skills to new and expectant low-income mothers, jobs programs for disadvantaged youths, more support for ex-offenders in finding employment after prison and better public transportation for residents of low-income areas.
Is US Safer Since 9/11? Clinton and Rivals Spar New York Times Mrs. Clinton also thought the war in Iraq had been a distraction from the fight against terrorism ..... three-quarters believed that the United States was losing the war on terror. ...... “It was an important distinction that emerged at the debate. Senator Obama has often made the point that as a result of the war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism has increased.”
Brazil, India Aim To Boost Trade Fourfold By 2010 Forbes
US agents thwart planned Laos coup plot Christian Science Monitor
India, Brazil blame developed countries for climate change Gulf Times
‘The century of opportunity for India and Brazil’ Financial Express
Bush Says Russia Won't Attack Europe Forbes
Gorbachev to US: Let's not repeat the Cold War CNN International
Blair promises to tackle Putin at G8 summit Times Online
Strong Cyclone Heading for Southern Iran New York Times
'Deranged' man tries to grab hold of Pope Benedict's vehicle International Herald Tribune
China: Looming Beijing Olympics Cause Strains In Host Country RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
US Navy fires on Somalia pirates NEWS.com.au
Google, Salesforce Deepen Ties MSNBC citing its ultrafast development and simple design as paragons of Internet software ...... Salesforce's success--the company expects to grow 45% this year to at least $722 million in revenues--it isn't mature enough to absorb substantial acquisitions itself. ....... strengthen each company's hand as they prepare to battle Microsoft (MSFT), which is developing online versions of its sales management and other software ...... The companies have combined Salesforce.com with Google Maps to help sales staff find meetings. ....... Google's OneBox appliance server lets companies search data inside Salesforce's program. ...... Salesforce sells Google's Docs & Spreadsheets software through its AppExchange online store. ....... "We have a goal to make every Salesforce user an AdWords entrepreneur." ...... "Google's entry into the business software market could radically alter the competitive environment and make growth very difficult for incumbents like Microsoft" ...... a glut of venture capital-backed on-demand software companies, and the buyout wave sweeping the business software market could soon extend to them ...... Innovation Advisors, a technology-focused investment bank ....... Workday, the on-demand HR software startup founded by PeopleSoft founder David Duffield, which has raised $35 million in funding from Duffield and Greylock Partners ...... Salesforce earned $730,000 on $162.4 million in revenue and added 2,500 customers
Amitabh Bachchan challenges decision to quash transfer of land Apun Ka Choice
Bachchans had a blast at Roland Garros! Times of India
Dell follows HP's lead, delves more into services Blogging Stocks
Dell Sets Goal Of Becoming Greenest Technology Company Media Newswire (press release)
Harvard, MIT scientists report embryonic stem cell advances Boston Globe
Paris Hilton Reports to the Big House New York Times Paris Hilton, the hotel heiress everyone loves to hate and obsessively follow ....... separated from the general population but possibly sharing a cell with one other person ....... She’ll be allowed to leave the 12-by-8 foot room for at least an hour a day to shower, watch TV, take a stroll in the yard or make phone calls.