Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China

Overview
"China represents and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come. As such, the need for a more coherent U.S. response to increasing Chinese power is long overdue," write CFR Senior Fellow Robert D. Blackwill and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis in a new Council Special Report, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China.

"Because the American effort to 'integrate' China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy."

The authors argue that such a strategy is designed to limit the dangers that China's geoeconomic and military power pose to U.S. national interests in Asia and globally, even as the United States and its allies maintain diplomatic and economic interactions with China.

Blackwill and Tellis recommend that Washington do the following:

Revitalize the U.S. economy
Strengthen the U.S. military
Expand Asian trade networks
Create a technology-control regime
Implement effective cyber policies
Reinforce Indo-Pacific partnerships
Energize high-level diplomacy with Beijing

http://www.cfr.org/china/revising-us-grand-strategy-toward-china/p36371

Complete report downloadable at the link

An Austrian court reckons America's attempt to prosecute Dmitry Firtash for bribery is political

LAST week an Austrian judge snubbed American prosecutors by refusing to extradite Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch whom they had charged with bribery. Mr Firtash, the reclusive son of a truck driver and an accountant, made his fortune as a middleman helping sell Russian and Central Asian gas to Ukraine. He became a political kingmaker during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych (pictured at left, with Mr Firtash, at the opening of one of Mr Firtash's factories). In March 2014, after Mr Yanukovych was ousted by the Maidan revolution, Mr Firtash was arrested in Vienna at the behest of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation. He claims that his real offence was to get in the way of American interests in Ukraine. The Austrian judge agreed, ruling that the American charges were “politically motivated". The decision exposed the limits of American influence in Europe, and offered a reminder that Ukraine’s disarray is not a simple tale of Russian aggression, but also the result of its homegrown demons.

Mr Firtash has long been of interest to American law enforcement. His gas company RosUkrEnergo, which he co-owned with Russia's Gazprom, was seen as a means for the Kremlin to influence Kiev's politics—until Yulia Tymoshenko, then prime minister, cut him out of the business. He allegedly had ties to Semyon Mogilevich, a notorious Russian organised-crime boss. American prosecutors say that Mr Firtash and his associates paid Indian officials $18.5m in bribes to help close a titanium-mining deal. (Mr Firtash's business empire included a large titanium-dioxide manufacturing operation.) In his defence, Mr Firtash cast himself as a victim of Western geopolitical intrigue. Defence lawyers linked his arrest with the comings and goings of Victoria Nuland, an American assistant secretary of state. The judge noted that the evidence of bribery in India provided by the Americans was minimal compared with the political interests at stake.

To bolster the claim that America wanted him sidelined, Mr Firtash boasted of his influence in Ukrainian politics. Last spring, he recounted, he arranged a summit in Vienna between two prospective presidential candidates: Vitaly Klitschko, the champion boxer turned politician, and Petro Poroshenko, the so-called "Chocolate King". After the meeting, Mr Klitschko withdrew from the race, opting instead to become mayor of Kiev and clearing Mr Poroshenko's path to the presidency. Mr Klitschko's political party later became the foundation for Mr Poroshenko's parliamentary fraction. "We achieved what we wanted: Poroshenko became president, and Klitschko became mayor," Mr Firtash said. Both Mr Klitschko's and Mr Poroshenko's camps reject Mr Firtash's claim to have brokered a deal for the presidency. Yuriy Lutsenko, head of Mr Poroshenko's party, calls Mr Firtash's defence the reaction of a "cornered predator".

While Mr Firtash may be cornered, he appears determined to stay in the ring. He has remained active in Vienna, where he has been free since a week after his arrest after posting bail of $125m (allegedly paid by a Russian billionaire close to Vladimir Putin's inner circle). In March, he launched the Agency for Modernisation of Ukraine, holding an international conference in Vienna that attracted British, French and German business figures. Mr Firtash's long-time partner, Sergei Levochkin, is one of the leaders of the Opposition Bloc party, a successor to Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions. Opposition Bloc has been positioning itself for a comeback in local elections this fall, campaigning against unpopular austerity measures demanded by Western donors.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21650382-america-wants-prosecute-dmitry-firtash-austrian-court-refuses-extradite-him-catch-me-if

Forget Tanks. It’s Russia’s Ruble That’s Conquering East Ukraine

As a wobbly cease-fire keeps eastern Ukraine’s warring factions apart, Russia’s ruble is conquering new territory across the breakaway republics.

In Donetsk, the conflict zone’s biggest city, supermarkets have opened ruble-only checkout counters to serve the fighters in camouflage lining up along pensioners. Bus and tram tickets come with a conversion from Ukraine’s hryvnia to the Russian currency. Gas-station workers are paid in rubles because that’s what their rebel customers use to fuel their armored jeeps.

“There are no problems in shops, they all accept rubles,” said Natalya, 36, a hairdresser buying groceries for her parents, who declined to give her surname for fear of reprisals. “They don’t always have small change, but they can give you chewing gum or a cigarette lighter instead.”

The ruble’s creeping advance shows how the troubled regions are slipping further from the government’s grasp, even as a peace accord brokered by Germany, France and Russia calls for the nation of more than 40 million to remain whole. Separatist officials haven’t yet made their currency plans clear. The precedent in ex-Soviet countries from Georgia to Moldova shows that similar shifts can help entrench pro-Russian insurgents.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-04/forget-tanks-it-s-russia-s-ruble-that-s-conquering-east-ukraine

Toyota G's Japanese Baseball Commercial

Global spending on cancer drugs surges to $100bn

Global annual spending on cancer drugs has hit $100bn for the first time as the pharmaceuticals industry prepares to launch a fresh generation of treatments that promise to push costs even higher.

The record 2014 figure marks a 10 per cent increase from a year earlier, largely because of rising drug prices and increased incidence of cancer.

The data, from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a respected US research organisation, comes at a time of growing excitement among medics and investors over new cancer drugs heralded as the biggest step forward in oncology for decades.

Merck & Co, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche and AstraZeneca are among those developing so-called cancer immunotherapies that harness the body’s immune system to fight tumours.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/40d7c23c-f256-11e4-b914-00144feab7de.html

UN calls for suspension of TTIP talks over fears of human rights abuses

Source: Guardian UK

A senior UN official has called for controversial trade talks between the European Union and the US to be suspended over fears that a mooted system of secret courts used by major corporations would undermine human rights.

Alfred de Zayas, a UN human rights campaigner, said there should be a moratorium on negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which are on course to turn the EU and US blocs into the largest free-trade area in the world.

Speaking to the Guardian, the Cuban-born US lawyer warned that the lesson from other trade agreements around the world was that major corporations had succeeded in blocking government policies with the support of secret arbitration tribunals that operated outside the jurisdiction of domestic courts.

He said he would becompiling a report on the tactics used by multinationals to illustrate the flaws in current plans for the TTIP.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/may/04/ttip-united-nations-human-right-secret-courts-multinationals

Kerry tries to calm Israel

Source: Politico

Secretary of State John Kerry sought to pacify Israeli worries over an emerging nuclear deal with Iran in an interview aired Sunday, dismissing some concerns as brought on by “hysteria” over the possible agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been one of the harshest critics the U.S.-led framework deal with the Islamic Republic, which offers it sanctions relief in exchange for scaling back its contested nuclear program.

Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran an existential threat, citing hostile Iranian rhetoric toward the Jewish state, Iran’s missile capabilities and its support for violent militant groups. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Speaking to Israel’s Channel 10 television, Kerry said the deal wouldn’t affect American options to counter any possible effort by Iran to build atomic weapons.

“I say to every Israeli that today we have the ability to stop them if they decided to move quickly to a bomb and I absolutely guarantee that in the future we will have the ability to know what they are doing so that we can still stop them if they decided to move to a bomb,” Kerry said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/kerry-tries-to-calm-israel-117579.html#ixzz3Z8ycxegb

Pilots brace for 5-day solar-powered flight from China to Hawaii

Source: McClatchy

It takes a Boeing 747 about 10 hours and 36,000 gallons of fuel to fly from eastern China to Hawaii. As soon as Tuesday, André Borschberg will attempt the same flight in a high-tech, sun-powered aircraft that resembles a dragonfly. He’ll do it over five days, without a drop of fuel.

No one before has attempted a solar-powered flight over such a large expanse of ocean – 5,070 miles. If bad weather or other problems force him to ditch his Solar Impulse plane, Borschberg will have only his wits and a life raft to save him.

Borschberg acknowledges the dangers. So does his fellow Swiss adventurer, Bertrand Piccard, who flew the single-seat plane to China in April and is slated to fly it from Hawaii to Phoenix later this month.

“Yes, we are nervous. I am nervous also,” Piccard said in an interview in Nanjing. “But more than anything, we are impressed. We’re in awe of the enormous distance over water that we have to do: André for the first part, and me for the second part.”

Piccard and Borschberg hope to be the first pilots to fly a solar-powered plane around the world. After 12 years of planning, networking and fundraising, they launched their tag-team expedition in March, flying from the United Arab Emirates to Oman, and then on to India, Myanmar, Chongqing, China, and Nanjing.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/05/01/265269/pilots-brace-for-5-day-solar-powered.html

Cable, pay-per-view problems leave viewers fighting mad

Source: AP

For some boxing fans, the big fight Saturday night turned out to be between them and their cable companies.

Strong pay-per-view demand for the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in Las Vegas caused problems for cable and satellite systems, especially when people tried to order at the last second, which delayed the start of the fight. It's another sting to the reputation of an industry that's already beset with criticism over poor service and competition from streaming video providers.

Still other boxing fans circumvented cable companies entirely, watching the fight live video-streaming apps such as Meerkat and Twitter's Periscope, which let users broadcast video directly to the Internet from their smartphones.

Some who used this workaround had tried to buy the fight and failed. Others just didn't want to pay to watch, bragging on Twitter how they saved the $100 fee. Some went as far as calling it the future and knock-out victory for social media, although there are no concrete numbers at this time of how many people watched via Meerkat or Periscope

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOX_MAYWEATHER_PACQUIAO_TV_PROBLEMS?SITE=AP

DNA editing takes a serious step forward -- for better or worse

Source: LA Times

It's a scenario that has haunted biologists since the dawn of the DNA age: the evil scientist custom-crafting a human being with test tubes and Petri dishes.

So when a Chinese team revealed last month that it had used a new laboratory technique to alter a gene in human embryos, it set off an urgent debate over the ethics — and wisdom — of tinkering with the most basic building blocks of life.

The technology makes genetic manipulations that were theoretical in the past seem easy to achieve — and soon.

If scientists figure out how to do it in a way that's safe for patients, gene editing could produce tremendously beneficial medical treatments. The Chinese researchers, for instance, were trying to repair a defect that causes beta thalassemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-gene-editing-embryo-20150503-story.html