rfmcdonald | [LINK] Some Friday links (Reply)

Over at Alpha Sources, Claus Vistesen argues that recent trends in trade and currency fluctuations suggest that Europe and Japan won't be able to replace the United States as the engines of the world economy. Instead, emerging economies of note like the BRIC countries and others like Turkey may take up that role.

Meph at 'Aqoul places the Gibbons affair in the context of class and religious tensions in Sudan, arguing that the teddy bear charges constituted an attempt to mobilize international Muslim solidarity behind Sudan and strike a blow at ideologically-suspect upper classes. This failed, badly: "[T]the real perception is of a joke of a regime that really has no perspective. The frustrating thing is that in the absence of a closer examination of the aforementioned issues, Muslims are being portrayed as primitive grunting zealots. Again."

Cabalamat's Phil Hunt goes after the eminently go-afterable Melanie Phillips. If only she was consistent in her claims and actions.

Via Boingboing, news from Andrew Stroehlein at ReutersNet that the Chinese are very unhappy with the treatment of the teddy bear in the Gibbons affair, who is apparently a native of Guangzhou.

Condemnation also came from countries that have traditionally been closer to Khartoum in the recent past. After mass protests in Beijing in which the Sudanese flag was burned, China recalled its ambassador to Khartoum, and its foreign ministry issued an unusually harsh statement.

"This bear was born in Guangzhou, and we consider the actions of the Sudanese government an attack on all Chinese plush toys", it read. "The teddy bear must be released unharmed immediately."

A source within China’s permanent representation to the UN, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his country was drafting a new Security Council resolution that "would be so tough, it would make the Americans and the British seem like the champions of sovereignty". He said they wanted to give the UN/AU hybrid force for Darfur a revised mandate to "shoot anything that moves as long as it’s connected to the government."

But a police spokesman in Khartoum defended the state’s actions, saying, "This bear has committed a most serious offence. The Sudanese government must be firm in demonstrating that it can easily divert the world’s attention away from its failure to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and its continuing instigation of devastating chaos in Darfur.

Centauri Dreams examines new ideas about how to manufacture working laser-launched solar sails, in the fictional tradition of Robert L. Forward.

Joel at Far Outliers has posted some interesting excerpts from a study on a mixed language spoken in Japan's Bonin Islands in the generation after the Second World War.

The Glory of Carniola links to an amusing 1970s-vintage audio guide to Slovenia's Postojna Cave.

You read Francis Strand's How to read Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons, right? Good for you!

Via Joe.My.God, news that US GLBT television broadcaster Logo is broadcasting a new reality dating show featuring MTF transsexual Calpernia Addams

At Language Log, Geoffrey Pullum condemns the Sudanese government's misuse of language in the Gibbons affiar, while Bill Poser points out that Muhammud and its variants, while commonly used as personal names throughout the Muslim world, aren't used in Turkey.

Alex Tabarrok posts a libertarian argument in favour of treating marriage like any other contract, in a return to what he identifies as the traditional pre-19th century view of marriage.

Norman Geras touches upon the time-honoured question of how diasporas should relate to parent states in his criticism of the Israeli plan to recruit Soviet Jewish immigrants from Germany in order to avoid said immigrants' assimilation: "The encouragement of Jewish immigration to Israel shouldn't be undertaken in a spirit that would treat Jewish life elsewhere as intrinsically problematic."