Emerging Scientific Powers.

Yesterday the Royal Society published the analysis of a report into scientific output and investments of countries across the world. The report showed that emerging countries like China and Brazil are rapidly expanding their role in the scientific community and investing more funding into it's development, while growth in the scientific community of the United States, the United Kingdom and other European countries has slowed down considerably.

In 1996 the United States published 292,513 Scientific papers, around ten times more then China's 25,474 papers however since then China has invested billions into expanding it's educational system and actively promoted for pupils to move into the field of science. In 2008 China published 184,080 scientific papers a massive increase since 1996. The United States still out-published China producing 316,317 Scientific papers however it's a minor increase when compared to China's sevenfold increase in scientific output.

Chinese Space Programme

The Report also found that China is not the only emerging country that is actively promoting and funding the improvement of scientific research across the globe. Iran is the fastest growing country in terms of scientific publications, rapidly expanding from publishing just 736 Scientific Papers in 1996 to 13,238 in 2008. The Iranian Government has also boosted R&D spending planning to increase it to 4% by 2030 from just 0.59% in GDP in 2006

Iran University of Science and Technology

China and the rest of the emerging scientific powers still have a few more years of funding and modernization to go to over-take the quality of science seen in the United Kingdom and the United States though and scientists need to work together to solve issues like climate change and the rapidly growing population.

Emerging countries are simply taking a more active role in their scientific community, with the current economic crisis still in full-effect countries like China, Turkey, Singapore and Brazil are increasing funding and assistance to their scientific communities and getting good results while funding from projects in the United States and the United Kingdom has been on the decline with educational systems not providing enough motivation for people to get involved with the field of science.

University of Science and Technology in China

China has already replaced the United Kingdom becoming the worlds second largest producer of research and already people are predicting that China could replace the United States as the worlds largest producer by around 2013-2020. The reasons for these predictions are quite clear, China has been increasing 20% per year since 1999 and the country spends over $100bn on scientific research. The educational system in China is also another factor for China's rapid growth in the scientific community, as in 2006 approximately 1.5 million students graduated from Chinese Universities with fields focused on engineering and science.

In the passing decades with governments in Europe and North America taking part in vast austerity measures and emerging countries in Asia and South America increasing government spending including that in the educational and R&D sector it's becoming increasingly clear that European and North American scientific facilities will soon have a new series of rivals to compete and work with in the future.

What next in Libya?

After Libyan Rebel Forces launched a successful offensive operation against Pro-Gaddafi forces, supported by NATO air-strikes that liberated the coastal towns of Ras Lanuf, Brega, Uqayla and Bin Jawad. What next for NATO and the Libyan Rebels?


Early on into the no-fly operation over Libya, the Libyan Rebels have been on the defensive. Defending from assaults from Loyalist forces and launching counter-offensives against towns that used to be under their control, these actions were supported by the NATO air-forces operating over the country who have launched strikes destroying large amounts of Loyalist armour and artillery that have been attacking Rebel positions and endangering civilian lives.


After the fall of Ras Lanuf, Brega, Uqayla and Bin Jawad the situation on the ground changes, the Rebels that have been on the defensive and counter-offensive in the past, however when assaulting Loyalist towns and cities like the birthplace of Gaddafi the Loyalists become the defenders and the Rebels becoming the attackers. Instead of protecting civilians are the Rebels endangering civilian lives by assaulting cities with old inaccurate rocket artillery?

Rebel Artillery

NATO Commanders are discussing the future role of their air-operations over the country. Should they actively support the Rebels against Loyalist forces? Even though the United Nations Resolution clearly states that protecting civilian lives in the country takes priority over choosing sides in the conflict? Would it be illegal for NATO forces to strike Loyalist forces defending cities like Sirte? What about the possibility that this conflict can be solved without virtually forcing the conflict to turn into a civil war and creating a possible East/West divide of the country like it was under Italian control?

Map of current NATO operations

An offer of mediation and peace was accepted by Gaddafi before the no-fly zone was formed. Venezuela and the government of Hugo Chavez made a proposal for mediation between Gaddafi and the Rebels. This offer was being looked at by the Arab League while being brushed along by France and the United States, France led by an unpopular President who wishes to use this conflict to increase his support in the country and the United States a country which has had an anti-libya stance for decades and even tried to assassinate Gaddafi in 1986 when they bombed his compound. 


The Venezuelan offer of mediation seems like the only decent proposal so far. It gives room for international mediation to solve this crisis people and adopt a stable democracy after Gaddafi. It also creates room for Gaddafi to leave the country peacefully without any jealous retribution and execution like after the Romanian Revolution in the 90's.

Forgotten situation in Ivory Coast?

Currently over 1 million people have fled the Ivory Coast after Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo refused to hand-over power to political rival Alassane Ouattara being internationally recognized as the winner of the countries recent elections, with the African Union concluding an investigation into the countries election that concluded the facts.

Alassane Ouattara

Pro-Gbagbo thugs have attacked foreigners supporting the political rival forcing many countries to send transport to the country to help their foreign national's flee the country. One of the countries doing this is Mali who has sent countless buses to the country to help an estimated 2 million of it's citizens flee from persecution from the country. Even the presence of a United Nations Peace-Keeping force in the nation has not worked to ease tensions in the fragile country, as Pro-Gbagbo thugs murder and mug foreign nationals along with known supports of Alassane.

Laurent Gbagbo

The on-going violence has had a terrible effect on the already battered economy of the Ivory Coast. As the nation's banks and business have been forced to close due to the on-going violence and chaos on the streets, journalists in the country have reports massive streams of traffic going up to 9 miles as people desperately try and flee the country. Like in Libya, Laurent Gbagbo has not been afraid to use the military and countless civilians have been murdered at the hands of his military and political criminal's, reports are even streaming that mercenaries are being hired out to carry out the most brutal crimes against civilians.

While this horrible violence goes in on the country where are the main-stream media and international community? The United States, EU and the African Union have all had strong words for the Libyan regime and have rapidly called and carried out military action in the country, whilst the international media has had a field day reporting on the current fighting in Libya between Pro and Anti-Government forces in the country, today they report on Syria and the government action's to crack down on anti-government protesters in their country, meanwhile hundreds of people are dying in the Ivory Coast.

It seems that the international community has suddenly misplaced it's spine when it comes to the Ivory Coast. While direct foreign military intervention in Libya would create a power-vacuum as the current political structure of the rebels and the current Libyan Government mean's that finding a replacement leader and political system for the country would involve placing a temporary coalition government in charge like in Iraq, the Ivory Coast already has an active political scene and a legal leader that can be easily placed in charge with the assistance of a decently sized UN force that can perform a quick blitz operation against  Laurent Gbagbo to replace him with the legal leader then actively protect the population against a civil war.

Pro-Union Protests in the United States

The recent Pro-Union protests in the United States has shown that the political system in the United States no-longer care about the people it's meant to serve but the massive corporations that contribute funding for their re-election campaigns.


This can be seen in the US State of Wisconsin. When Governor Scott Walker went ahead on the states highly unpopular bill that greatly curtailed the rights of Public Worker Union's in the state. This bill was passed even considering that Democratic members were not present when the bill was voted into action. Governor Scott Walker supported his own actions by stating that this bill will save the state vital money needed to curtail the states growing deficit.


Although that just adds more questions. If Scott Walker is on a mission to rescue the State's Finances from the disaster of a massive uncontrollable deficit then why has Wisconsin recently spent money on a bill meaning that companies won't have to pay any taxes for the first two years once they move into the state. While medicare, local government and the educational system in the state seem to be the targets for the upcoming cuts to the states budget.


That's one of the reason Governor Walker wishes to cut the right of Public sector workers to actively strike. When he starts cutting public services like education, healthcare and other public services like libraries and food-stamp programmes he would of greatly curtailed the organized efforts of the Union's to actively protest against these viscous cuts and expected redundancies. Another reason for the Union busting bill also came into view when a American blogger managed to record a phone conversation with the Governor whilst pretending to be one of the Koch brothers (a group of billionaires that founded Scott Walkers election campaign)  


In the phone call Governor Walker panders to the Fake Koch's every word, agreeing to loosen the power of Union's so that the Koch brothers have an easier time making job cuts in the various plants and offices they have in his state, completely disregarding the fact that their personal wealth has increased billions over the past few years and remain's unaffected by the global recession which continues to hit the middle/lower class hard. Governor Walker even toyed with the idea of sending a few 'troublemakers' with weapons to incite violence in the protesters in a bid to change the media's outlook on the Pro-Union protests breaking out all over his state.


http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/scott-walker-koch-brother-crank-call-wisconsin

Hypocrisy in leaked documents.

After Libyan State TV revealed footage of various corpses that it stated were civilian casualties from the latest round of NATO Air-Strikes meant to destroy air-defence and command structures belonging to Libyan regime. The Associated Press was given several classified documents from the United States Intelligence services, the reports included information from a senior Gaddafi aide that he was ordered to organize the removal of bodies from various morgues across the country to pose as civilian casualties from NATO bombing runs. 

Clearly this leak needs to be investigated? Leaking information to the national press during a time of conflict with Libya? Even though this information was key to clearing the propaganda from the Libyan Government. The person who leaked these documents is a threat to the national security of the United States, they need to be tracked down urgently, arrested and held in solitary confinement for several months without charge.

I'm comparing this leak to the files apparently released by Bradley Manning. He's being charged with leaked the same type of information, although in Bradley Manning's case it seems that showing war-crimes that would of gone unreported to the world's attention is not in the interest of the US Government and Obama, seeing that Obama ran his entire election campaign on not continuing the apparent 'mistakes' carried out by the previous administration and even hinted at investigating several actions undertook by senior officials by the US Government during the conflict in Iraq? 

So it appears your allowed to leak classified information to the international press during a time of conflict but only if these leaks support the interests of the United States Government and don't show their military in a bad light.