Singapore | November 12

World Bank - World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said in 15 years the Chinese yuan can become an alternative to US dollar as a global reserve currency, with China's fast economic growth and efforts to internationalise the currency.

Montréal, Québec | November 19

CBC - China's terracotta warriors are coming to Montreal in 2011.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal will receive rare visit of 14 of the warriors — life-sized replicas of soldiers of the Qin dynasty — it announced on Thursday.

The publisher--they wanted me to review the book?!?-- recently sent me a copy of Christopher I. Beckwith's book, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. I've already read the book and have my own well worn, dog-eared, underlined and highlighted copy. So, the first person to email me at my personal email address--or a PM--I'll mail this copy to, if you are so inclined.

Book has already been claimed.

Dhaka | Nov 19

DPA - Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of five men convicted in the assassination of the country's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, upholding a previous death verdict against 12 former soldiers convicted for the murder.

A five-judge panel headed by Justice Tafazzul Islam delivered the verdict Thursday, after 29 days of hearings, in a crowded court amid heightened security, state attorney Anisul Haq said.

Five of those convicted are on death row in Dhaka Central Jail while the rest have absconded abroad.

Mujibur, one of Bangladesh's independence heroes, was killed along with most of his family on August 15, 1975 by a group of disgruntled army officers in a military putsch which overthrew the South Asian country's elected government.

The verdict of death by hanging will be carried out in a month unless the convicts file a review petition to the court and seek presidential pardon for their convictions, Haq said.

Andrew Buncombe | Nov 19

The Independent - The magician who mesmerised the world has been reduced to performing in a fast-food joint as his country embraces the ways of the West

20 of 50 Greatest Magic Tricks - Indian Rope Trick (Amazing)

Download @ Punjabi Lok Virsa Media Center
By any standard, Ishamuddin Khan is a man of remarkable talents. Back in 1995, this traditional Indian magician or madari, completed the first successful outdoor performance of a trick that had been whispered about for centuries but that no one before had mastered. When, before an amazed audience on the southern edge of Delhi, Ishamuddin managed a convincing rendition of the legendary Indian rope trick, it made headlines around the world that ought to have secured his place in the history of magic and won him lasting recognition at home.

Yet that has not happened. Almost 15 years after he performed a trick that many experts believed to be impossible – in 1934 the Magic Circle in London offered a prize of 500 guineas to anyone who could do it – Ishamuddin is struggling, not only for recognition but simply to get by. While he has toured Britain, Europe and Japan to display his mesmerising skills, he says that India is increasingly turning its back on traditional performers such as himself in its race to become all things modern. To supplement his job devising magic tricks to encourage school children to learn science, he sometimes works as a conjurer at McDonald's.

"Every capital city around the world that I have been in has an area for street performers," said the 42-year-old, who lives in a crowded cluster of tiny homes in west Delhi known as the Kathputli – or puppeteers' – colony: an area rich with the skills of performers, musicians and craftsmen but sorely lacking in facilities. "But rich people in India are offended if you talk about street performing. They are only interested in computers or software. I am poor but I am suffering not so much from poverty as I am from the attitude of the Indian government. I am happy in my poverty but I would like people to respect me as I am. I would like recognition."

For centuries, stories have been told in India and beyond about a magic trick in which an ordinary rope is made to rise upwards before a young boy climbs up and disappears into the sky. The spellbinding story may have been partly inspired by the fairy tales of King Bhoja, who throws a thread into the sky and then ascends. Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Moroccan explorer and scholar, also wrote of seeing such a trick performed in China, while mention of the deed in India was made by the 17th-century Indian emperor Jahangir, whose memoirs were first translated in 1829.

President Obama visited the Great Wall of China yesterday. Having seen the Wall in many different places in China, from the Badaling, where Obama visited, to the perilous angles and heights of Simitai and then all the way out in the West at the Jade Gate where the Han and T'ang walls peter out into the sand I can attest to its hold on the imagination. I've seen some amazing places in my travels but my first experience with the Wall stands head and shoulders above any other experience in China. The Great Wall is one of those places that is both cliche and profoundly impressing. It lives up to the hype.

If you are inclined to learn more about the Great Wall, its provenance and history I highly recommend this book by Julia Lowell. It is an insightful narrative history of the 'Long Wall,' its place in the Chinese psyche and that of the West. From the first tentative tamped earth ramparts built to keep out the marauding Rong and Di tribes to the massive Qing Walls that President Obama visited yesterday it is a wonderful, easy to read romp through Chinese history.

M K Bhadrakumar | Nov 17

Asia Times - When a tea sapling was brought into Ceylon - present-day Sri Lanka - in 1824 from China and planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens, the British had no commercial interests in mind. It took another 40 years before a plucky Scotsman planted the first seedling, which blossomed into the famous Ceylon Tea and became today's unshakeable pillar of Sri Lanka's economy.

The "Emerald Island" has obscure tales to tell. That is why when a swashbuckling army chief by the improbable name of Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka abruptly discards his uniform and plunges into the country's steamy politics, it becomes no simple matter. Sri Lankan democracy may never be the same again.

Bonapartism isn't altogether new to the region. Pakistan's Ayub Khan showed the way, back in the 1950s. Bangladesh followed 20 years later. Now Sri Lanka, an entrenched democracy, seems fatally attracted to it. The presidential election is not due until November 2011, but there are signs it may be held as early as January.

There is nothing necessarily fatal if a soldier develops a passion for politics. An Indian commentator pointed out that, after all, there is the precedent of US president Dwight D Eisenhower, a five-star general. But then, the nagging worry remains whether in the South Asian clime, like the sapling brought in from distant China, Fonseka, a US Green Card holder, may blossom and outgrow the botanical garden that Sri Lankan democracy used to be.

Syed Saleem Shahzad | Islamabad | Nov 17

Asia Times - After a month of operations against militants in the South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan's military establishment realizes it is chasing shadows; the adversary has simply melted into the vastness of the inhospitable surrounding territory.

Unlike in previous operations in other troubled tribal areas, though, there is unlikely to be any peace agreement. The militants, headed by the Pakistani Taliban - the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - are bent on a long-term insurgency against the security apparatus, which they now see as heretic as the United States forces in Afghanistan.

In the past, the militants viewed the military as "firing friendly fire" under duress, mostly from the United States. In a fundamental shift, this is no longer the case and the militants will step up their activities.

The implications for Pakistan are profound. The civilian government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari is under relentless pressure from the US to crack down on militants, which includes al-Qaeda. If the militants carry through with their new attitude towards the military, and if the government steps up its efforts, ever-bloodier and broadening clashes are inevitable.

ChinaDaily - Growing up as a farmer's son, Lin Zuojun used to play hide-and-seek with his friends in the bamboo forest of Fujian province. Little did he know back then that he would one day make millions of yuan by selling those most common plants of the region.

Harvesting more than 1.6 million bamboo trees and 25,000 tons of bamboo shoots every year, his company, Asian Bamboo, is China's biggest bamboo producer today.

It is also one of the only three Chinese companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany - the third-largest stock exchange in the world.

Asia Times, By Andrei Lankov, November 12

SEOUL - In the past few weeks, North Korean watchers have been confronted with a sight they do not see frequently: Americans outsmarting North Koreans.

Usually, the opposite is the case. North Korea might be a failing state, balancing on the verge of famine, but when it comes to diplomatic games, North Korean politicians are second to none.

They have studied the dangerous art of manipulating great powers since the 1960s, when they played Russians and Chinese against one another. They perfected their skills in the 1990s, when they managed to manipulate the US, South Korea and China into providing large amounts of food and energy aid while giving essentially nothing in return.

Nov 15

Reuters - The United States and China sparred over exchange rates at a meeting of Asia Pacific leaders today, pointing to tricky talks ahead for President Barack Obama when he flies to China to address economic tensions.

The discord surfaced at a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore when a reference to "market-oriented exchange rates" was cut from a communique issued at the end of two days of talks. An APEC delegation official said Washington and Beijing could not agree on the wording.

That underscored strains likely to feature when Obama flies to Shanghai later on Sunday following moves by Washington to slap duties on various Chinese-made products and a growing drumbeat of pressure on Beijing to let its yuan currency strengthen.

Chinese officials have grown testy about the pressure over the yuan. Chinese banking regulator Liu Mingkang told a forum in Beijing on Sunday that ultra-low interest rates in the United States were fuelling speculation in overseas asset markets and threatened the global economic recovery.

Obama pledged on Saturday to deepen dialogue with China rather than seek to contain the rising power, which is set to overtake Japan next year as the world's second largest economy.

But issues ranging from the yuan and trade tensions to human rights could complicate what many regard as the most important relationship of the 21st century.

Singapore | Nov 15

AFP - US President Barack Obama pressed Sunday for Myanmar's military junta to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during a landmark encounter with the regime's prime minister, the White House said.
"He brought up the release of Aung San Suu Kyi with that government (Myanmar)," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters, as Obama met Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein and nine other Southeast Asian leaders.

Harmeet Shah Singh | New Delhi | Nov 12

CNN - Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists.Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.

But now, they will have the choice to tick "O" -- for others -- when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement. "Enumerators and booth-level officers (BLOs) shall be instructed to indicate the sex of eunuchs/transsexuals etc as 'O' if they so desire, while undertaking any house-to-house enumeration/verification of any application," a statement from election authorities said.

Related: New Delhi's 'eunuchs' forge lives in conservative nation

R. Jeffrey Smith & Joby Warrick | Urumqi, China | November 13

WaPo - In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post.

The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to the accounts by Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan.

Takehiko Kambayashi | Tokyo | November 13

CSM - Obama, in first stop of his Asia trip, addressed the thorny issue of a US military base in Okinawa. Despite recent tensions, Obamamania is still strong in Japan.

President Barack Obama's first trip to Asia as head of state began with a warm welcome Friday in the highly guarded Japanese capital, where excitement over the president persists despite recent tensions over the two nations' security alliance – in particular the presence of United States military bases in the Japan.

The visit comes against the backdrop of a newly assertive Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which in August ended a half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Greg Mitchell | Nov 10 | Huff

Early this week, President Obama -- perhaps under new pressure as a Nobel Peace Prize winner -- said he would like to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki during his presidency. If he does, he will become the first sitting U.S. president to make that trip.

Yesterday, Veterans Day arrived, so here I'd liked to pay tribute to two of the most remarkable veterans I've ever encountered.

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan 64 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years, many newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited.

The general public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the U.S. military film remained hidden for nearly four decades. I first probed the coverup back in 1983, and developed it further in later articles and in my 1995 book with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America and in a 2005 documentary Original Child Bomb.

David McNeill | Tokyo | Nov 12

The Independent - It was a speech Tsutomu Yamaguchi had waited 64 years to hear. Watching television at home in Hiroshima in April, one of Japan's most famous A-bomb survivors heard an American president call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

"As... the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon," Barack Obama said that day in Prague, "the United States has a moral responsibility to act." Mr Yamaguchi was elated. "I feel he is the only one we can now rely on the end these terrible weapons," he said.

Mr Yamaguchi's words carry more weight than most people's. In 1945 he was exposed to the only two atom bombs ever used in anger, both Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's. Now 93, Japan's only recognised double survivor has been dealing with the horrific consequences all his life. He has lost his son and wife in the past four years, both to cancer. And with only months to live himself, he is hoping that President Obama will visit his city before he too dies. "That would be very important to us, and to the world."

Political pressure at home and tight scheduling during Mr Obama's first visit to Japan on Friday and Saturday make the chances of a presidential trip to either city almost zero. Mr Obama arrives in Tokyo amid a growing firestorm over the relocation of a controversial US airbase in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. He is still trying to establish a rapport with the country's new Democrat government, which is withdrawing its support for the US war in Afghanistan and has hinted at wanting more independence from Washington. For decades, Japan has been one of America's most dependable allies.

Paris | Nov 10

DPA - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is suspected of having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three French submarines to the Pakistani Navy, the daily Liberation reported Tuesday.

In addition, investigators believe that the non-payment of the full amount of the agreed kickbacks may have led to the deaths of 11 French nationals in a 2002 terror attack in the city of Karachi.

In the report, Liberation says it acquired documents that allegedly show that Zardari received 4.3 million dollars in kickbacks from the sale of three Agosta 90 submarines for 825 million euros (currently 1.237 billion dollars).

The documents were sent to the Pakistani National Accountability Bureau (NAB) by British authorities in April 2001 and indicate that Zardari received several large payments into his Swiss bank accounts from a Lebanese businessman, Abdulrahman el-Assir, in 1994 and 1995.

According to a former executive of the French naval defence company DCN, French authorities chose el-Assir to act as intermediary in the deal.

Choe Sang-Hun | Seoul | November 9

NYT - Navy patrol boats of North and South Korea exchanged fire in disputed waters off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday, leaving a North Korean vessel heavily damaged, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The damaged patrol boat retreated to North Korea, according to the news agency, which quoted an anonymous government source in Seoul.

Washington | Nov 10

AFP - The United States said on Monday it would no longer allow its row with Myanmar to hold its ties with Southeast Asia hostage, as President Barack Obama geared up for his debut official visit to the region.

Obama is due to hold the first-ever meeting between a US president and leaders of all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, including Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, on Sunday in Singapore.

"One of the frustrations that we've had with policy toward Burma over recent years has been that the inability to have interaction with Burma has prevented certain kinds of interaction with ASEAN as a whole," said Obama's top Asia policy aide Jeffrey Bader.

"The statement we're trying to make here is that we're not going to let the Burmese tail wag the ASEAN dog."

Seymour Hersh | Nov 16 Issue | New Yorker

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

Arunachal Pradesh, India | November 8

Al Jazeera - The Dalai Lama has angered the Chinese government with a visit to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery town in the remote northeast Indian region of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Tibetan spiritual leader said his visit on Sunday was only a lecture tour, but China, which claims the region as its own, has described the event as a provocation aimed at harming China-India ties.

Beijing | November 6

Al Jazeera - China has described as protectionist new US anti-dumping duties on steel pipes and demanded Washington's recognition that it is a market economy.

The reaction came a day after the US imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties ranging up to 99 per cent on $2.63bn in Chinese-made pipes used in the oil and gas industry.

Tim Johnston | Bangkok | November 6

WaPo - After a rare trip by high-level U.S. diplomats to Burma, there was little indication from either nation Thursday about how the Obama administration's overture of engagment had been received.

Burmese state media merely noted that Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel met with Prime Minister Thein Sein during the visit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Nov 6

BBC -
China is planning to hold a robot Olympics in 2010.

The international event will be held in the city of Harbin and will see robots take part in 16 different events.

Robots will be able to compete in familiar Olympic sports such as athletics as well as those more suited to machines such as cleaning.

Entry to the competition will be restricted to robots resembling humans. They must possess two arms and legs. Wheels are banned.

The organisers of the games expect from more than 100 universities from around the world to send competitors to the event.