BBC reports on US Trade with China

It's interesting to see one country speculate on the trade between another two. In the article "US says China is working towards rebalancing its trade" the BBC shows a optimistic side and suggests that cooperation is going well between the two countries. The article quotes another article from The China Daily Newspaper-

"China understands they can no longer depend on demand from US consumption being such a substantial contributor to growth," Mr Geithner said during testimony to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"They have no alternative but to shift their growth strategy to a growth strategy that relies more on domestic demand," he added.

"They are moving in that direction but it can't happen unless they let their exchange rate move too."

I guess it's nice to see other countries learning to not depend on America so much. The original article can be found HERE.

BP loves Facebook

British Petroleum has discovered the most efficient way to communicate with Americans- Facebook.

This was on my wall today, and I thought that it was interesting that they've decided to be trendy and reach out to American Youth through their most favorite medium- social networking sites. Ha.

Paying for the world....

I know that this issue I'm about to tackle isn't necessarily WORLD news- on the surface at least... It has come to my attention that Obama is considering cutting the funding to community groups such as food banks, NPR, and other community programs.

There's a petition that can be found HERE to help fight against this, it's in support of one group in particular, "Community Services". My question is this: How much of our nations budget are we sending overseas to help support other countries, and why are we sending aid to other countries before making sure that everyone in America is first taken care of?

Sudan Splits

Last month Southern Sudan voted to split from North Sudan. According to their reporting services, this has been a peaceful split.

The chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, which organized the vote, said 98.83% voted for separation, while 1.17% voted for unity.



In processing this split, Sudan has been trying to play by the rules, inviting UN officials and other world leaders to witness this process, to show that no laws have been broken.


"It was a peaceful process," said chairman Muhammad Ibrahim Khali at a ceremony in Khartoum attended by Sudanese politicians, international diplomats, U.N. staff, academics and others. "It was a transparent process."




It is important to note however, that while this individual vote has been peaceful, Sudan has been involved in a civil war for the past two decades over this issue. It is estimated that over 2 million people have died during this conflict.



This war has remained in conflict because the North, where the government was located was dominated by black Christians, while the south where the Oil Reserves are located is dominated by Arab Muslims. These two groups disagree on many issues, as is evidenced by their lack of shared commonalities.


The question I post is: When two parts of a country are so obviously different, what is the global responsibility to step in and help them peacefully split? I believe that we SHOULD step in and help countries management their splitting- once they've shown that they can't manage it on their own (and as long as nothing evil- like slavery- is going on). Obviously, the US has gone through its own civil war, but quite frankly with recent technology this is NOT the same situation.


Articles on this can be found on CNN or on NPR.