Plus all the other DC Comics Easter Eggs in "League of Assassins."
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Dino Knudsen
dinoknudsen@hum.ku.dk
45-28-14-44-38
University of Copenhagen
In the 1970s, a network of businessmen, politicians, and academics from the US, Europe, and Japan, also known as the Trilateral Commission, changed the way international politics was conducted. Informal links between Commission members, governments, and organisations paved the way for recognition of the new economic superpower Japan as an equal partner in international politics, concludes University of Copenhagen historian Dino Knudsen, who is the first researcher to get access to the Commission's own archives.
In 1973, American financier David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission out of fear that the world's three industrial centres the US, Europe, and Japan were drifting apart. The aim of the Commission was to ensure that particularly the American government understood that it had to collaborate and negotiate with Europe and new economic superpower Japan. The Trilateral Commission is still active and has headquarters in Washington, Tokyo, and Paris.
"The Trilateral Commission must be credited with the inclusion of Japan as an equal partner of Europe and the US; the launch of the G7 meetings, which Japan took part in, was in many respects merely a formalisation of the Commission's informal political and diplomatic efforts," explains PhD Dino Knudsen, the first historian who has gained access to the Trilateral Commission's own hitherto closed archives.
He has just published the results of his extensive archival research in the PhD dissertation 'The Trilateral Commission The Global Dawn of Informal Elite Governance and Diplomacy', which he defended at University of Copenhagen 4 November 2013.
Hidden elitist governance
In the beginning of the 1970's, in the context of the Vietnam War, many Americans began to voice demands for a democratisation of foreign policy decision-making processes. But with the foundation of the Trilateral Commission, elite circles got a refuge from public scrutiny, where they could seek influence on foreign policy without being held accountable.
"The Commission's modus operandi constitutes an obvious democratic dilemma; it is an exclusive, elitist organisation that attempts to exert influence on the political sphere but secretly," Dino Knudsen points out and adds:
"It is important for the Commission to strike a balance between being independent from state bodies but at the same time having strong ties to formal political power. Many members hold or have held political office or top positions in businesses, and many are influential opinion makers with important networks in formal political circles, e.g. Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, George W. H. Bush, Mario Monti, and Romano Prodi.""
Dino Knudsen concludes that we need to reconsider the way we think of decision-making in international politics in light of the Trilateral Commission's work. Today, politics and diplomacy are, thanks to the Trilateral Commission and similar organizations, the results of collaborative processes in transnational elite networks. And these networks are informal but highly influential actors on the political stage.
###
Contact
PhD Dino Knudsen
University of Copenhagen
Phone: + 45 28 14 44 38
Mail: dinoknudsen@hum.ku.dk
Press officer Carsten Munk Hansen
Faculty of Humanities
Phone: + 45 28 75 80 23
Mail: carstenhansen@hum.ku.dk
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Dino Knudsen
dinoknudsen@hum.ku.dk
45-28-14-44-38
University of Copenhagen
In the 1970s, a network of businessmen, politicians, and academics from the US, Europe, and Japan, also known as the Trilateral Commission, changed the way international politics was conducted. Informal links between Commission members, governments, and organisations paved the way for recognition of the new economic superpower Japan as an equal partner in international politics, concludes University of Copenhagen historian Dino Knudsen, who is the first researcher to get access to the Commission's own archives.
In 1973, American financier David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission out of fear that the world's three industrial centres the US, Europe, and Japan were drifting apart. The aim of the Commission was to ensure that particularly the American government understood that it had to collaborate and negotiate with Europe and new economic superpower Japan. The Trilateral Commission is still active and has headquarters in Washington, Tokyo, and Paris.
"The Trilateral Commission must be credited with the inclusion of Japan as an equal partner of Europe and the US; the launch of the G7 meetings, which Japan took part in, was in many respects merely a formalisation of the Commission's informal political and diplomatic efforts," explains PhD Dino Knudsen, the first historian who has gained access to the Trilateral Commission's own hitherto closed archives.
He has just published the results of his extensive archival research in the PhD dissertation 'The Trilateral Commission The Global Dawn of Informal Elite Governance and Diplomacy', which he defended at University of Copenhagen 4 November 2013.
Hidden elitist governance
In the beginning of the 1970's, in the context of the Vietnam War, many Americans began to voice demands for a democratisation of foreign policy decision-making processes. But with the foundation of the Trilateral Commission, elite circles got a refuge from public scrutiny, where they could seek influence on foreign policy without being held accountable.
"The Commission's modus operandi constitutes an obvious democratic dilemma; it is an exclusive, elitist organisation that attempts to exert influence on the political sphere but secretly," Dino Knudsen points out and adds:
"It is important for the Commission to strike a balance between being independent from state bodies but at the same time having strong ties to formal political power. Many members hold or have held political office or top positions in businesses, and many are influential opinion makers with important networks in formal political circles, e.g. Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, George W. H. Bush, Mario Monti, and Romano Prodi.""
Dino Knudsen concludes that we need to reconsider the way we think of decision-making in international politics in light of the Trilateral Commission's work. Today, politics and diplomacy are, thanks to the Trilateral Commission and similar organizations, the results of collaborative processes in transnational elite networks. And these networks are informal but highly influential actors on the political stage.
###
Contact
PhD Dino Knudsen
University of Copenhagen
Phone: + 45 28 14 44 38
Mail: dinoknudsen@hum.ku.dk
Press officer Carsten Munk Hansen
Faculty of Humanities
Phone: + 45 28 75 80 23
Mail: carstenhansen@hum.ku.dk
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
J-Law and her co-stars got very personal during a live Facebook panel Wednesday night.
By Kase Wickman
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 5-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Terry Collins
tc@tca.tc
416-878-8712
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Most of the world's nations unanimously committed to protecting biodiversity nevertheless cannot measure and assess their genetic and biological resources, nor the value of key ecosystem services nature provides to them, international experts from 72 countries warned this week.
In addition to taxonomists, nations lack economists able to put a value on the water purification, storm protection and other services of nature, which would inform trade-off choices in development planning. And fewer still deploy social scientists to estimate nature's non-economic (e.g. cultural) values, or to find ways to effect needed changes in human attitudes and behaviour.
Those concerns drove a three-day meeting of 300 scientists ending today in Malaysia, looking at how best to help countries develop relevant expertise across a span of disciplines to take up these critical tasks.
Strengthening the ability of nations to conduct biodiversity and ecosystem service-related assessments for better informed policy decision-making is a key mandate of the UN's new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which convened the meeting, hosted by the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology and supported by the Government of Norway.
Often likened to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the new Bonn-based IPBES is chaired by Zakri Abdul Hamid, science advisor to Malaysia's prime minister.
"There's an old saying: We measure what we treasure," said Dr. Zakri, recently appointed also to the UN Secretary-General's new Science Advisory Board. "Unfortunately, though we profess to treasure biodiversity, most nations have yet to devote adequate resources to properly measure and assess it along with the value of ecosystem services. Correcting that is a priority assignment from the world community to IPBES."
The UN's new Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, now under consideration, are expected to include biodiversity-related targets for achievement by 2030, together with indicators of progress, he said.
"To be effective, obviously, it is vital that nations have the tools and personnel to establish authoritative scientific baselines and collect ongoing data to know whether headway is being made or not," Dr. Zakri said.
Delegates in Kuala Lumpur broke the capacity-building challenge down into three immediate tasks: identify the widely-varying existing resources and needs of individual nations and regions, set priorities for helping them address deficits, and create a way to monitor the adequacy of national capacities on an ongoing basis.
Dr. Zakri said biodiversity scientists, who see a crisis looming in the rapid rate of loss of species and ecosystem services in many areas, "need to stop talking amongst ourselves. The message needs to get through to policy makers, politicians, captains of industry and the general public. We need to start talking in terms people understand economics and health, for example."
Scientific papers have documented that biodiversity, for example, provides a kind of human health insurance, he noted, by diluting the pool of virus targets.
Other research in recent years has revealed enormous dollar values of ecosystem services including food, pollution treatment and climate regulation - provided by forests and coral reefs.
A single hectare of coral reef, for example, provides annual services to humans estimated at US $130,000 on average, rising to as much as $1.2 million, according to researchers with The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).
TEEB estimated in 2010 that the planet's 63 million hectares of wetlands provide some $3.4 billion in storm protection, food and other services to humans each year. Up to half of the $640 billion pharmaceutical market relies on genetic resources, with anti-cancer agents from marine organisms alone valued at up to $1 billion annually. And the loss of biodiversity through deforestation will cost the global economy up to $4.5 trillion every year.
"Harvard professor E.O. Wilson put it well," said Dr. Zakri, "Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal." The rainforest in Malaysia is estimated to be around 130 million years old.
"The knowledge deficit is high," Dr. Zakri added. "Of the estimated 10.8 million species on land and in the oceans, less than 2 million have been scientifically described. If we don't know what species there are out there, we don't know what niche they fill in a healthy ecosystem or perhaps in remedying some human condition," he said, citing the Kalahari desert's San people plant (Hoodia gordinii) recently found to help curb obesity among those who include it in their diet.
Sir Robert Watson, IPBES vice-chair, stressed that social scientists are needed as well to evaluate nature's non-economic such as cultural and social values to be factored also into trade-off considerations by policy-makers.
"I'm not convinced there's even a handful of countries today that could do a proper evaluation of ecosystem services," he said, noting that the UK's efforts at such an assessment involved detailed databases dating back several decades, a highly-skilled scientific community, and about $5 million in expense despite the donation of time to the cause by many experts.
"In essence, three abilities are needed: generate knowledge, assess it, and then use it not only in government but in the private sector and civil society as well. Capacity-building is needed everywhere, even in the most developed countries."
In some parts of the world, he said, individual countries may need to begin by pooling and sharing resources to create, interpret and use regional and sub-regional rather than strictly national assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Recommendations from the Malaysia meeting will be taken up by the 114 members nations of IPBES at the organization's second world plenary session, December 9-14 in Antalya, Turkey.
###
About the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
http://www.ipbes.net
About the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)
http://www.might.org.my
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 5-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Terry Collins
tc@tca.tc
416-878-8712
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Most of the world's nations unanimously committed to protecting biodiversity nevertheless cannot measure and assess their genetic and biological resources, nor the value of key ecosystem services nature provides to them, international experts from 72 countries warned this week.
In addition to taxonomists, nations lack economists able to put a value on the water purification, storm protection and other services of nature, which would inform trade-off choices in development planning. And fewer still deploy social scientists to estimate nature's non-economic (e.g. cultural) values, or to find ways to effect needed changes in human attitudes and behaviour.
Those concerns drove a three-day meeting of 300 scientists ending today in Malaysia, looking at how best to help countries develop relevant expertise across a span of disciplines to take up these critical tasks.
Strengthening the ability of nations to conduct biodiversity and ecosystem service-related assessments for better informed policy decision-making is a key mandate of the UN's new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which convened the meeting, hosted by the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology and supported by the Government of Norway.
Often likened to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the new Bonn-based IPBES is chaired by Zakri Abdul Hamid, science advisor to Malaysia's prime minister.
"There's an old saying: We measure what we treasure," said Dr. Zakri, recently appointed also to the UN Secretary-General's new Science Advisory Board. "Unfortunately, though we profess to treasure biodiversity, most nations have yet to devote adequate resources to properly measure and assess it along with the value of ecosystem services. Correcting that is a priority assignment from the world community to IPBES."
The UN's new Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, now under consideration, are expected to include biodiversity-related targets for achievement by 2030, together with indicators of progress, he said.
"To be effective, obviously, it is vital that nations have the tools and personnel to establish authoritative scientific baselines and collect ongoing data to know whether headway is being made or not," Dr. Zakri said.
Delegates in Kuala Lumpur broke the capacity-building challenge down into three immediate tasks: identify the widely-varying existing resources and needs of individual nations and regions, set priorities for helping them address deficits, and create a way to monitor the adequacy of national capacities on an ongoing basis.
Dr. Zakri said biodiversity scientists, who see a crisis looming in the rapid rate of loss of species and ecosystem services in many areas, "need to stop talking amongst ourselves. The message needs to get through to policy makers, politicians, captains of industry and the general public. We need to start talking in terms people understand economics and health, for example."
Scientific papers have documented that biodiversity, for example, provides a kind of human health insurance, he noted, by diluting the pool of virus targets.
Other research in recent years has revealed enormous dollar values of ecosystem services including food, pollution treatment and climate regulation - provided by forests and coral reefs.
A single hectare of coral reef, for example, provides annual services to humans estimated at US $130,000 on average, rising to as much as $1.2 million, according to researchers with The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).
TEEB estimated in 2010 that the planet's 63 million hectares of wetlands provide some $3.4 billion in storm protection, food and other services to humans each year. Up to half of the $640 billion pharmaceutical market relies on genetic resources, with anti-cancer agents from marine organisms alone valued at up to $1 billion annually. And the loss of biodiversity through deforestation will cost the global economy up to $4.5 trillion every year.
"Harvard professor E.O. Wilson put it well," said Dr. Zakri, "Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal." The rainforest in Malaysia is estimated to be around 130 million years old.
"The knowledge deficit is high," Dr. Zakri added. "Of the estimated 10.8 million species on land and in the oceans, less than 2 million have been scientifically described. If we don't know what species there are out there, we don't know what niche they fill in a healthy ecosystem or perhaps in remedying some human condition," he said, citing the Kalahari desert's San people plant (Hoodia gordinii) recently found to help curb obesity among those who include it in their diet.
Sir Robert Watson, IPBES vice-chair, stressed that social scientists are needed as well to evaluate nature's non-economic such as cultural and social values to be factored also into trade-off considerations by policy-makers.
"I'm not convinced there's even a handful of countries today that could do a proper evaluation of ecosystem services," he said, noting that the UK's efforts at such an assessment involved detailed databases dating back several decades, a highly-skilled scientific community, and about $5 million in expense despite the donation of time to the cause by many experts.
"In essence, three abilities are needed: generate knowledge, assess it, and then use it not only in government but in the private sector and civil society as well. Capacity-building is needed everywhere, even in the most developed countries."
In some parts of the world, he said, individual countries may need to begin by pooling and sharing resources to create, interpret and use regional and sub-regional rather than strictly national assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Recommendations from the Malaysia meeting will be taken up by the 114 members nations of IPBES at the organization's second world plenary session, December 9-14 in Antalya, Turkey.
###
About the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
http://www.ipbes.net
About the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)
http://www.might.org.my
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Lyoto Machida made a huge impact in the middleweight division with his first-round knockout over Mark Munoz at UFC Fight Night 30 in London. "The Dragon" returns to the Octagon on Feb. 8 in Jaragua do Sul, Brazil, against Gegard Mousasi, and he needs a win to keep chasing the middleweight title.
"Mousasi is a tough fighter, I’ve seen his fights before and he won titles in other promotions, but I will only focus on his game in my last four or five weeks of camp," Machida said during a Q&A with the fans in Goiania, Brazil on Wednesday.
"He is right below me in the UFC rankings and a win over him would make me achieve even more in this division. But if I lose this fight, it would be complicated. I would fall from fifth place to hell [laughs]," Machida said.
Machida believes he could earn a shot at the middleweight title with a win over Mousasi, a former DREAM and Strikeforce champion who returns to the middleweight division after going 7-1-1 as a light-heavyweight.
"I'm ready (to fight for the title) already, but I have to follow the rankings," he said. "I don’t like to rush things. The right moment will come. I want to keep fighting because it's important for me to keep this rhythm. I want to feel well in this division, this is my place."
Anderson Silva, Machida’s teammate, fights Chris Weidman on Dec. 28 for the middleweight belt at UFC 168, and "The Dragon" doesn’t plan to fight another friend inside the Octagon.
"He said he would never fight me, that we are like brothers," Machida said. "Anderson told me he has other goals, that he was the champion for a long time and he's focused on other goals now, like superfights. He said he would even leave the title to not fight me.
"But we’ll see what happens. I still have to fight Gegard Mousasi in Jaragua do Sul, in February, and I want to think on this fight first. One step at a time."
After some mystery surrounding an American release date, Dell's Venue 11 Pro is now available in the US. The 10.8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet starts at $500 with a modest, Bay Trail-based 1.5GHz Atom chip as well as 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Those who need more processing grunt can step up to ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/tEpt1oxDdMo/
Today Only: Purchase the Swiss-Case Glacier Case for iPhone 5S and save 48%This uniquely designed iPhone 5S hard case adds style with a formidable level of protection against damage. Without question, the most eye-catching features of the Glacier case are the custom "glacier" cutouts on the back merged with an aluminum strip that gives your device that extra shine. Available in a variety of colors to choose from!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/CTjReb0uNJQ/story01.htm