View Video presented by TED.COM.
Can the interests of an individual nation be reconciled with humanity’s greater good? Can a patriotic, nationally elected politician really give people in other countries equal consideration? Following his TEDTalk calling for a global ethic, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown fields questions from TED Curator Chris Anderson
I recently wrote a 3rd Quarter Update for The ONE1 Asian DM Center which said,
“We go into the 3rd Quarter 2009 with a sense of wonderment and thankfulness. It is indeed wonderful and hopeful to see how the world and its communities, when well informed can work in synergy to counteract the systemic shocks it inevitably generates from time to time… like the financial crisis and the swine flu pandemic that we are in the midst of. Whatever the cynics may say, we are indeed living in a well tuned world!”
As the world becomes one major system…systemic failures with global effects, like what was recently experienced will occur again. Market volatility will continually challenge governments, businesses and individuals. They will have to increasingly build on their internal stability, strength and flexibility to survive and thrive.
Older generation leaders tend to believe that systems should not go wrong….when it does they point fingers, blame..and try to cut out the wounds…aggravating the situation even further.
Insulation and Isolation are hardly a solution except perhaps in the prevention of a pandemic growing into larger proportions. Even in this respect, without open communications, cooperation and collaboration between health authorities around the world, the disease will probably have spread far more extensively.
We are thankful that the new generation leaders seemed to have learned lesson from untidy, disruptive fast pace progress of the 1990s to manage the turbulence of the 2,000s.
I am not sure if the article “China Not Sole Source of Dubious Food ” By ANDREW MARTIN and GRIFF PALMER published in the New York Time , July 12, 2007 , if published earlier, may have saved Zheng Xiaoyu once ranked as one of the most powerful regulators in China from his execution.
Zheng rose from modest beginnings to help create and lead Beijing’s version of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States but ultimately could not resist the bribes and gifts offered by the food and pharmaceutical Industry.
The article identifies many countries from which the USA has had encounters of unhealthy and unsafe food. It says….
“Critics say the F.D.A. has not changed to deal with the flood of imports in the last decade, as trade agreements have opened up borders to products from across the globe.”
In defence of the FDA, one has to acknowledge that this is no easy matter. In the area of food, the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) with the objective to protect their human, animal and plant life
or health has been one of the most vexatious to implement and administer…giving rise to many charges of trade protectionism.
The area of medicines and drug manufacture is probably far more complex. A review of the website of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration will show the rash of international agreements, local and international authorities (more…)
There is no denying the power and influence of the USA in the global economy. Many would suggest that the USA derives this power increasingly more from military might, and its political influence over the many Global Governance Organizations like the WTO, World Banks, IMF etc.
The more extreme of critics label the USA a the Facist Regime in the Global economy as is depicted in the following video
Being able to communicate through one mobile pone in any other as if we are in our own is certainly the wishes of a global citizen. The African are succeeding into doing this. This is defiently an achievement when Asia, not even ASEAN can yet have a vision of this happening.
Nairobi - Celtel International, the pan-African mobile telecommunications company, has announced that it was expanding One Network, claimed to be the world’s first borderless mobile network, to include the Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of Congo. This comes nine months after the successful launch of One Network in East Africa.
In September 2006, Celtel offered its customers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda the opportunity to move freely across geographical borders without roaming call surcharges and without having to pay to receive incoming calls. This was claimed to be the first time a mobile company was able to completely remove traditional roaming charges and offer its customers the same services abroad that they could access in their home country, such as airtime transfer from friends - Me2u, voicemail and customer service in their local languages. Read More
Over the weekend I read, William I Robinson, “A Theory of Global Capitalism” John Hopkins University Press (c) 2004. A passage form the Preface of the book is worth quoting for the purpose of discussion. It says; (more…)
John Wong in an insightful article, “China’s Economy in Search of New Development” in “ASEAN-China Economic Relations” edited by Saw Swee Hock, Institute of SE Asian Studies, 2007 represented China’s international strategies through diagram below, depicting China in a focal position, arbitering between the (more…)
