Definition of Terrorism: Israel is "only" half as bad as Al Qaeda?

The definition of terrorism is killing innocent civilian without targeting military target. There is no ambiguity in the case of Munich 1972, many of IRA activities, Bali/Madrid bombing, ETIM bombing of Chinese cities. All victims are civilians in these cases.

But things are not always black and white, as Israel and Hezbollah are accusing each other of terrorism in the recent conflict. Both side also claimed their striking of civilian targets are part of their act of war. Israel claimed the civilians are sheltering the Hezbollah militants. Hezbollah claimed since all Israeli need to serve in the army, their rockets are attacking legitimate enemy soldiers. Israel said it has reason to believe the targets are related to the rocket attacks but occasionally missed; Hezbollah said it is targetting military targets but its weapons are less accurate than Israel's.

There is no end to this argument. Even Al Qaeda can claim its attack on the Pentagon is an act of war, not terrorism, as the victims of UA175 were collateral. So I decided to calculate the collateral damage quantitatively, by computing the Terrorism Ratio (T.R.), which I define as #collateral/#enemy combatant. Here is the result I got (using the wiki data as of today - Aug 6),

	Killed				Total (casualty+capture)
	Enemy	Collateral	T.R.		Enemy	Collateral	T.R.
Israel	62	706	11.4		416	4,182	10.1
Hz	53
Amal	8
PFLP	1
Total (Israel claim)					400
Captured					16
Leb min/max		508				3,400
		828
Neutral soldier		34				73
UN		4				3
Hezbollah	58	38	0.7		249	1,331	5.3
wounded					189	incl shock
captured					2
Al Qaeda: 911	125	2,851	22.8
WTC		2,605
AA11		88
UA175		59
Pentagon	125
AA77		59
UA93		40
Al Qaeda: Pentagon	125	59	0.5
Axis: WWII (M)	17	33	1.9
Allies: WWII (M)	8	4	0.5
US: Gulf War (k)	63	200	3.2
low estimate	25	100	4.0
high estimate	100	300	3.0

Al Qaeda's TR in 9-11 is 22.8. WTC alone is a full terrorism attack by any definition. But if you look at the Pentagon attack alone, the TR is only 0.5. However, one could argue even inside the Pentagon, there may be civilians who were innocent to this "war", such as secretaries and janitors. But then Al Qaeda can argue that they are no different from army chefs and engineers. I think I will just use 22.8 as a reference. a TR of 22.8 is way too high for any reasonable war, as we can compare it with figures from the WWII and the Gulf War.

Israel has a TR of 11.4 in its assault in Israel. It is half as bad as Al Qaeda!

Hezbollah's number is surprising low, at only 0.5. But wait a minute, this is not fair for Israel, because invader usually causes more civilian damage, as we can see in the TR number of the 2 sides in WWII (Axis invasion lasted a lot longer than Allies invasion, though the Axis did killed innocents on purpose). But even if you take this into account and multiple Hezbollah's number by a factor of 4 or 6, it is still no comparison to Israel's atrocity.

Wait another minute, the TR in discussion is calculated using the number of dead. If we use the total casuaty number (include enemy captured and wounded soldier and civilians), Israel's TR is 10.1 and Hezbollah's 5.3. The TR's are both higher than the TR of any other war (0.5-4).

I think Al Qaeda's act in 9-11 was definitely terrorism. I think Hezbollah was also guilty of terrorism, although most of what it has done was normal guerilla warfare until the rocket race. Israel's TR number in this conflict is sandwiched between Hezbollah's and Al Qaeda's. Israel is either extremely inefficient at achieving its goal (if such thing exists at all), or it purposedly planned to "punish" the Lebanese civilian by creating terror. So, is Israel guilty of terrorism?

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Related: INTERVIEW WITH ISRAELI AUTHOR MEIR SHALEV

• At the beginning of the war you could see from the declarations of various Lebanese leaders that even they were quite satisfied that Israel took care of the Hezbollah. But we went into Lebanon like angry bulls into the arena, attacking anything that moved.
• Olmert should have defined the objectives of the war from the beginning. But all he said was: "We will be victorious" without defining what victory means...What does [the destruction of the Hezbollah] mean? Is it getting all of them to crawl on their hands and knees and hand over their weapons?
• We lost, when Olmert said, we will win. Despite that, we will win at the end, because the Israeli society is smarter than its political leaders.

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Update (Aug 14 ceasefire #, no fundamental change in the terror ratios)

	Killed				Total (casualty+capture)
	Enemy	Collateral	T.R.		Enemy	Collateral	T.R.
Israel	127	908	7.1		498	4,611	9.3
Hz	65
Amal	8
PFLP	1
Total (Israel claim)	180				530
Captured					21
Leb min/max		727				3,600
		1,009
Neutral soldier		36				100
UN		4				3
Hezbollah	114	52	0.5		518	150	0.3
wounded					402	1200 lightly
captured					2

Categories:

• world
• pol

Taiwan's friends: One down, 24 to go?

Nine months ago, when Senegal recognized the mainland as the sole government representing China, I predicted in a post ,

• "...the next to go (other than the well anticipated Holy See) will be those with large population and/or GDP, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Chad and less likely, Guatemala, Dominican Republic or Paraguay."

I was right. Taiwan lost another friend yesterday, as the land-locked African country of Chad severed diplomatic relationship with the Republic of China, in favor of the People's Republic of China. The ROC Foreign Minister Michel Lu's speech was comical

• "Knuckling under China's huge pressure, Chad has decided to restore diplomatic ties with Beijing," foreign ministry spokesman Michel Lu told a midnight press conference. "To safeguard national dignity, sovereignty, the Republic of China, Taiwan government decided to cut off diplomatic ties with Chad and immediately suspended all of the aid projects to the country," Mr Lu said.

Yeah, I said I dumped you before you said you dumped me. Ha!

But Taiwanese people should celebrate for losing such an unreliable friend. All it can do to Taiwan is taking bribe and blackmailing.

Chad has proved itself to be a flip-flopper, incentivized solely by bribe. It befriended ROC in 1962 soon after it became independent, flipped to PRC in 1972 when PRC replaced ROC as the only legitimate government representing China in the UN, flopped back to ROC in 1997 presumably taking an enormous bribe. Then it flip-flopped again yesterday.

• Ironically, the switch this time is perhaps not a result of bribe because pure bribery no longer works on Chad, as its "mighty" GDP/cap of $1555 puts it in the middle class in Africa where the normal is 1/3 of that level. Moreover, Chad's fortunte has risen steadily with the oil price.
  

We should not have to wait too long for another to go, either among the shortlist in my previsous post, or Solomon Islands.

One down, 24 to go? I do not really think so.

1. The number has more or less been at an equilibrium for the past few years. Taiwan's list may drop to below 20, but not likely to fall further. For every 2 friends lost, Taiwan may be able to bribe one back
   
2. Because all these micro-states are bribable, as demonstrated by the case of Chad and all previous cases. However, the larger the state, the more expensive it is to bribe (compared with natutal economic benefits for befriending the mainland government, PRC)
3. So we would see larger states going, and nano-states joining the list. i.e the average population, area, GDP for Taiwan's friend will continue to dwindle, so will the total
   
4. Although it is unlikely for ROC to gain new friend when Chen Shui Bian is too busy with his own family's (and his own) multiple scandals, in the rest of his term (if he succeeds in severing his ties with the scandals), hopefully the bleeding will stop when the more mainland-friendly Ma takes position in 2008 - perhaps some agreement will be reached
   

---

Tidbits of Chad geography

• Chad Lake, once the 2nd largest in Africa, has shrunked by 90% in the past 3 decades. An ecological disater
• Chad is about 3x the size of California (countries near the equators are bigger than they appear on the maps). Chad is the largest country in Taiwan's list of 25, with half a million square miles. The runners-up are Paraguay and Burkina Faso (Upper Volta). Perhaps B.K will be the next to go.
  
• Territory dispute with Libya on Aozou Strip, relics of their colonial masters (recognizable by the ruler-straight boundary of the strip), led to 2 wars and an International Court of Justic verdict

Categories:

• geo
• taiwan

Site stats: top posts by # unique visits

My post ranked by number of visits from Apr-Jul (as usual, note the caveat of sampling):

1. Map: world population and GDP scaled maps
2. Chinese and Korean Family Names
3. When will China's GDP overtake the US?
4. Where did the North Korea missiles land?
5. China vs India (and the Muslim world): equality and meritocracy, Productivity Lost Index
6. The Translucent Box: China's RMB "Managed Peg" & Singapore Dollar's "Managed Float"
7. Lee Kuan Yew's wisdom
8. Qinghai Tibet railway videos
9. Export market share -- when will china's export saturate?
10. China population (i) - gender ratio problem and "one-child policy"
11. What is wrong with Bus Uncle profiteering?
12. China's oil price (ii) - and transition of SOE
13. Is China a threat? (III)
14. Poincare conjecture proved by Chinese/Russian/American mathematician
15. Sun Bin - The crippled strategist
16. Valuation of the Cathay Pacific Dragon Airline Merger
17. How much would the RMB peg drift
18. Price Control for Oil in China
19. RMB revaluation - the commodity peg scenario
20. The billion people market dream comes true: Yum! Brands in China
21. China's "bargaining power" on East China Sea gas field: Very Strong
22. Why RMB revaluation is good for China
23. Super Girl economics
24. Hu's gift to Bush: Art of War
25. Li Yi on Apple Daily
26. China's migrant worker: unlimited labor supply?
27. Ukraine gas price, industry unit convention, and the core issues
28. Commodity demand and the China factor
29. Why the RMB USD swap is set at 7.85
30. The Myth of the strategic location of the Taiwan Strait
31. China wage rising
32. How does the new RMB peg work?
33. RMB peg mechanism updated
34. How to reform China's oil industry (iii) - oligarchs and deregulation
35. Map: a detailed but old ethnolinguistic map for China

You can use the blog search bar in this page to find the post, just copy and paste onto the google site search box below (or above). Example here.

sun-bin.blogspot.com

Guo Jia (iv): Olmert, the tragic paradox of history

Had Guo Jia been advising Israel's Olmert, he would have said, "If you drive Hezbollah away from the South, it will have to go to the North. Illustrious Sir, you are on no account to attack the north at any time, for the North has long lived in fear lest the Hezbollah should absorb its part of the country. When they arrive, the North will hesitate. But if you attack the North, it will save Hezbollah and help him; if you wait, they will work against each other. This is evident." (Original: 今闻袁熙、袁尚往投辽东，明公切不可加兵。公孙康久畏袁氏吞并，二袁 往投必疑。若以兵击之，必并力迎敌，急不可下；若缓之，公孙康、袁氏必自相图： 其势然也。)

Olmert could have alienated Hezbollah from the rest of the Lebanese, especially those in the North. Instead, he chose to provoke the Northern Lebanese and drove them together. It was arrogance and over-confidence that led him to make such grave mistakes.

As written in Israeli newspaper Harretz, when comparing Sharon and Olmert

• "Over and over again, the paradox is revealed: Retired generals discover the limits of power when they become political leaders, while "civilian" leaders tend to be deceived by the magical power of the IDF..."

History is full of tragic paradox. Mao Zedong, who exceled in every war he led, against the KMT and even against the mighty US in Korea, failed miserably in ruling a state. Olmert, perhaps a great politician who has won the support of Israeli people, may go down in history for making a war he knew nothing about.

Buy Google, Short Yahoo!

This is the search engine referral on this blog site. My readers may not be representative of the general market, nor is the sample size large enough to be statistically significant. But the trend couldn't be clearer. Google is winning the search engine war.

I would appreciate if other site-owners can compare their results with mine. Many thanks.

Notes:
1) to say shorting Yahoo is probably an overstatement, because search engine is not the predominant revenue source for Yahoo. But it is sizeable. And buy-short will mitigate the industry risk (i.e. neutral to industry/market cycles).
-- Just like what I have advocated when HP acquired Compaq -- buy Dell, Short HP
2) This result is also insensitive to my new posts, because most of the search results pointed to some old posts (eg RMB currency issues, GDP-scaled maps, etc.)
3) This result does not tell you directly the % of search engine market share. Instead, it tells you who CLICKED THROUGH the result returned by the search command. So, Google has been turning in results that are more relevant to what users have in mind as well.

Categories:

• tech
• biz

Calculating Taepodong-2's range, charting its planned path

Commentator Bobby Fletcher sent me (via comment) this marvelous site of course material of MIT Political Science course "Technology and Policy". Many great lecture notes for the layman including Game Theory, Space Shuttle, Environment, Risk Assessment and Missile Defense, etc.

The relevant data for Taepodong-2 comes from the first lecture of Missile Defense of the Block 4 Materials, where typical missile trajectory (and other technical informations, which are all publicly available) were provided, illustrated by Titan-II missile of the USA, which is also a liquid-fuel rocket based on similar technology of TPD-2. After all, there are not many varieties in rocket technology, such that given certain size and weight, the property of the rocket is more or less determined. TPD-2's technical parameters may be different from that of Titan-II, but it should be within a factor of 2-3, or at worse that of 3-5. After all, it is the weight of the fuel (the type is already known), and the weight of the rockets (with vs without load).

An analogy would be comparing the gas mileage and time to accelerate to 60 mph for a car with known weight, type of engine, and size of fuel tank.

So here is an illustration of based on Titan-II trajectory.


It can be easily seen here how GS's Vick was able to deduce correctly the range of TPD-2 that Pentagon later disclosed. In fact, anyone who has taken that MIT course (or similar ones) should know that.

All one needs is the magic number 42 second (which is observed by US satellite). After the explosion, it is unlikely the rocket continues to fly since it is still under the attraction of gravity (and the velocity might have been lost due to the explosion). Even if the main chamber is undamaged, it can at best double the range based on inertia (gravity drags down the rocket a lot faster than 42 second because there is now no upward thrust). Vick probably made some adjustment based on the load and weight of fuel, but it turned out the results were almost the same, and only 0.1km different from analysis released later by the Pentagon and Japan's SDF.

Since the missile explodes so quickly after taking off, it is no wonder why Japan, Korea and China all failed to detect the event. In fact, Japan's state-of-the-art Aegis destroyer, Kongo (金剛), did not detect any trace of ballistic missiles with its radar. That Japan later disseminated various false information (it flew 640km) was either a desperate act to cover its embarassment or create excuse to re-arm. Given the simplicity of this calculation, the fact that Japanese SDF's announcement (640km) so obviously contradict US observation (35-42 seconds), and the delayed clarification by US (and finally indirectly released via Japanese SDF), is clearly showing US obliged to Japan's request.

---

Vick also correctly predicted TPD-2 ground trace (i.e. the shadow it would cast on the earth surface had there be a sun directly over) based on the launch angle (itself very hard to measure due to the short time span after took off). It is no where near Pearl Harbor which Japan alleged. Vick actually believed it is more likely it is a real satellite launch (which makes sense for NK, since it is the same technology anyway, but satellite launch has more peaceful element, as Japan tried it since about 20 years ago). If it would land, Vick said it could be " in the south Pacific relative to South America", as illustrated by the orange lines below, which is far from any path to reach any continental. Perhaps conincidentally, the ground tace passes through Tsugaru Strait, minimizing the possibility of falling onto any land mass, and avoid the Japanese main island Honshu, had the rocket failed in the middle of its trajectory.

Categories:

• korea
• science
• pol
• geo

The key to changing North Korea

Thomas Friedman compared Lybia, Iran and North Korea (cached if the link dies), quoting Robert Litwak, the director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Brilliant analysis. He provided the key to that "axis-of-something" problems.

• How so? Go back to the impressive deal that the Bush team did pull off in 2003 to get Libya’s leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, to give up his crude nuclear weapons program. How did that happen?
• “What actually brought Qaddafi around was a tacit but clear U.S. security assurance that if he did give up his nuclear program the U.S. would not seek to oust him from power,” said Mr. Litwak. “That is what made the difference. ... If Libya gave up its unconventional weapons, the U.S. would give up its efforts at regime change.”
• What has been missing from the Bush approach to Iran and North Korea is that kind of clear choice. If the North Koreans want direct talks with the U.S. and bilateral relations, who cares? Give it to them — provided it is in return for a verifiable limit on their nuclear program. If Iran’s ayatollahs want a tacit security assurance from the U.S. — in return for a verifiable curb on their ability to produce nukes — give it to them.
• Iran and North Korea will also collapse from within — but it takes time. And in that time they could build lots of nukes. So we need to end their programs now, even if it means giving them tacit U.S. security guarantees, à la Libya.
• “This is not an endorsement of either regime,” added Mr. Litwak, author of the forthcoming “Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11.” “Rather, it is a pragmatic approach to deal with the fact that the nuclear weapons development timeline is not in sync with the time it takes for regime change to unfold.”
• Five decades of America’s isolating Cuba has produced five decades of Fidel Castro. As long as we maintain our ambiguity vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea — regime change or change in behavior — they will maintain their ambiguity about their nuclear programs. I have no idea if they would give up their weapons now, even if the Bush team gave them security guarantees. It may be that things are too far gone. But we need to test.
• If we do not test that proposition, we will never know if there is a peaceful solution to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear challenges — and we will never have allies for a tougher policy if there isn’t.

The only concern is, are there interest groups (e.g. defense industry) who would prefer a non-solution? Would the strong be willing to give up the ambiguity which provides it with more option (does it know that more option does not neccessarily lead to better strategy?) ?

Dr Barnett agrees in general but dissents on North Korea

• Where I part with Friedman is casually lumping North Korea in with Iran. Iran is a real country, the DPRK is not. Tehran sports a tired authoritarianism, amply susceptible to death-by-connectivity, while Pyongyang is true totalitarianism, not given to such taming techniques.
• Am I being realistic here? Two good examples: Iran appproached us back in 2001 on helping us with the Taliban takedown. China's military has very quietly approached the Pentagon on cooperating when Pyongyang falls (which means we're in the same zip code on discussing a more pro-active approach).

IMHO the argument for DPRK may deserve more debate, but i found the China-1978 analogy quite useful. Even for a totalitarian regime, it is not impossible to change. China in 1978 under Mao was not much different from NK today.

But before going into the analogy I would like to address Dr Barnett's concerns above.

1. "Pyongyang might not give in to the taming techniques" -- but as Friedman said, "We need to test"
2. "North Korea has a battered population that is literally shrinking from malnutrition (so a moral argument for regime change that's just not there with Iran)." -- But China 1978 was worse (see below)
   
3. "[KJI He has no desire to be Lee Kuan Yew..." -- Kim Jong-il approached Albright/Clinton is the past; had been asking to direct conversation with US all the time (though this continues to confuse the world, is it easier to blackmail on a one-one basis, i.e. without witnesses?); KJI also made multiple attempts on economic reform, first setting up a special economic zone in Sinujiu and then touring

However, Dr Barnett is right that the China-1978 analogy difference ends there.

• Mao had to die for Deng to arise. KJI is still very healthy and 'young'
• China also had a battered population suffering from malnutrition, plus a less educated population sitting on the ruins of the infamous Cultural Revolution.
• For PRC, the threat of admitting to failure vs Taiwan/HK is smaller since the sizes are incomparable, as Dr Barnett correctly pointed out, "[KJI] has no desire to be Lee Kuan Yew because once he stakes his regime legitimacy on economic development, the dangerous comparisons to the South ensue."

Can these differences be overcome?

• China and Vietnam both provided examples of success. So reformers in NK are at a much more favorable position (it is not venturing into the wild). With vast example of precedence and lessons, it does not take a genius like Deng to do a decent job in reformation
• Would KJI risk admit to a failure compared with SK? He toured China's Shenzhen last year, and had made some half-hearted attempt in setting up Sinujiu as a special economic zone in 2003. It is definitely possible that he is ready to face that challenge. What he needs is, re-assurance from SK and US, that they would not seek to topple him when his regime is the most vulnerable. Let me bring back the China-1978(79) analogy here. Even Deng Xiaoping the visionary needed to visit US and obtain assurance before he charged ahead with his reform
  

So the key to DPRK, (a softkill is always less costly than a hardkill if at all possible, per Sun Zi's "win without fighting"), lies with a concerted effort from US, China and S Korea. Russia's influence on NK has diminished. Japan's presence in 6-party talk only proved to be feet dragging.

1. SK (and US) needs to re-assure NK that SK is not going to threaten its 'legitimacy' or engage in subvertive activities, and profit from its vulnerability. So that NK will feel safe to take the China/Vietnam road of reform. Again, "this is not an endorsement to the DPRK regime" (as in Litwak's words), it is just a pragmatic lesser evil approach for solving a problem
2. China needs to be able to subdue Kim and force for reform (it is to China's own interests if NK takes the Vietnam path). NK is not really listening to China all these times. China needs to threaten NK with reducing aids (stick). Then promise to help by sending in advisers and investors (carrot)
3. Most importantly, US needs to have the courage to give up its regime change agenda. US also needs to persuade Japan that even though NK could provide it with a bogeyman for re-arm, the danger of a rogue nuke state at the neighborhood far exceeds any benefit of re-arming, or a few disappearing hostages. Finally, US also needs to assure China that China does not need the Korea card to be treated fairly (Fortunately this is already happening, US policy has already adapted to what Zoellick and Barnett advocated)
   

This requires a full strategy and coordinated effort from US, China and SK. Without the whole package, either SK, China, or DPRK will not buy this solution.

Finally, will more economic clout lead to a more dangerous NK?

• Following Dr Barnett's thought on PNM, when people are rich they have more to lose, they will be less erratic, and tend to integrate with the core
• Imagine we give KJI 10x the cash he has today, all he has is still WWII technology, and only marginally different from what he has today. So NK is not going to present a larger threat to the world

Had Israel's assault on Lebanon closed or enlarged the gap?

Before I start, this is the quote of the month

• "the lack of critical thinking in the American press in general renders it utterly useless at present" - Aqoul

"Press" only?

Imagine you have the start-of-the-art computer, bug-free software built over elegant algorithm, but you are fed with the wrong data. Garbage in, garbage out.

Misleading reporting feeds you with the wrong data. Laziness in checking data supporting you analysis leads to wrong conclusion and major embarassment.

---
Barnett's theory stated that in the "GWOT" we need to enlarge the "core" and shrink the "gap". In PNM theory the integrating core represents the mainstream civilization which is integrating to the global economy, the gap is the area that is left out of globalism, and a potential base for instability. The "seam" is those who are in between. To fight terrorism, Barnett asserts, we need to enlarge the core and shrink the gap, hence depriving terrorism of its fodder to feed on. This is essential for a long term solution.

Therefore, one of the indicators (or proxy) to measure success of GWOT is the measurement of globalization and economy. The most sensitive and convenient among these indicators is the stock market (i.e. financial community) reaction. The specualtors and investors are betting with their real money, and responding in real time.

Lawrence Kudlow at Real Clear Politics borrowed this concept and asserted "Israel Advances, Stock Markets Rally?":

• At the close of business last Friday -- after another violent week in the Middle East -- Bloomberg chronicled the impressive performance of world stock markets: U.S. share prices had their best gain since November 2004...

Kudlow's whole essay follows pretty sound logic that I would mostly agree, except that the data he quoted is really unclear. This is the DJIA chart (for chronology of the conflict see wiki)


As you can see, Israel attacked, Stock market tumbled. The relevant question is, where would DJIA have been had Israel reacted sanely? Would it be higher or lower than the current level? Does the market absorb and shrug off the bad news after a few days? (e.g. "rally" a few days right after the major frash in Oct/1987 and Sep/11/2001)

• Charts of other markets (see charts during the same periods of Nikkei225, FT100) tells the same story
  

I do not believe Kudlow and I are looking at different charts, so I have 2 hypotheses:

1. Kudlow committed the crime of misleading investor
2. Kudlow was as drunk as Mel Gibson when he wrote this.

Your pick.

p.s. To be fair, the market may react positively had Israel been able end the conflict quickly (and more importantly, had the oil price drop!). Unfortunately, this is not the case up to this moment. Not yet, and perhaps not for a while.

---
Here are the "Daily Market" from WSJ, which explains the main reasons for daily market changes

• July 13: Dow Drops 121.59 As Mideast Woes Unsettle Investors
• July 14: ANOTHER SURGE in oil prices to an exchange record and escalating tensions in the Middle East combined to hit stocks hard again.
• July 15: Stocks Slide, Most of Year's Gains Erased -
• July 18: STOCKS MANAGED to end their string of sharp declines, but worries about the Middle East fighting kept indexes largely flat. After falling more than 100 points in each of the previous three sessions, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 8.01 points, or 0.07%, to 10747.36, leaving it up just 29.86 points for 2006. It has fallen nearly 900 points since hitting a six-year high May 10, and is nearing its 2006 low of 10667.39. Amid optimism the Mideast fighting might be contained, some investors decided that markets had fallen too far. They began buying stocks and selling oil and gold futures.

• July 20: The market was galvanized as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers a moderation in U.S. growth "now seems to be under way," which "should help to limit inflation pressures over time."
• Investors had a strong incentive to buy "because of their perception after the comments that the Fed is almost done hiking interest rates," said Phil Orlando, senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors. "But I think they put on rose-colored glasses. There are other issues out there, including corporate earnings that appear to be slowing more rapidly than previously thought, as well as the tinderbox in the Middle East."

For July 21-30 the market absorbed the shock and reacted to US domestic statistics.

Categories:

• world
• pol
• biz

Nostalgic pictures DPRK

1) An older travelogue by Russian here -- more splendid photos, great explanation in English, with references and comparisons to pre-1990 Russia -- Must See.

• "At the end of the story I would like to say some things. The northern Koreans by their mentality are uncomparably closer to Russians, than Europeans (I'm not even talking about Americans!). Even the Czechs are more far from us.
  It's difficult to make examples (and they're not for public notes). But you must believe me: after a couple of days, when you stop pay attention to external and language differences, sometimes you get a strong feeling, that you talk to Russians.
  The same moments as: "it's impossible, but if very much desirable, then it's possible". The understanding of some ambiguous moments without the words. Very similar "everyday problems" (of course, I compare not with the "new Russians"). The same principles of high education."
  

... and Korea Map on plant!

2) (via The Marmot's Hole)

Put 1970s China in a time capsule, you get this magnificient Russia travelogue in North Korea today (full 7 pages of pictures).

Approximated translation with babelfish translator.

Rural Korea


SOE store shelf


The infamous casino built by HK tycoon Yeung Shao-Shing near Siniujiu


Click the link to see the rest.

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More
3) More Mass Game videos
Children section (note music from Small World and Chinese Songs in beginning)

Defense section


4) "Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il" March MTV


5) NK exporting labor to Russia now. These are tough low pay jobs, but better than at home.
6) Propaganda videos from Tadspot.
7) What about the DPRK that the government does not want you to see? here is a video of the NK street orphan, sad, but not unlike the underclass in other countries. Pay attention to the surrounding environment, that is real NK.

Categories:

• korea
• cul