SINGAPORE: A non-official interaction among China, India and the United States, with government officials listening in, is being planned by Peking University.
The move was outlined by a Chinese security expert in a conversation with 'The Hindu' on the sidelines of the Singapore Air Show.
Zhu Feng, Deputy Director and Professor at the Peking University Centre for International & Strategic Studies, said preparations were under way to try and hold the dialogue by year-end. The exercise could be characterised as “Track One-and-a-Half Diplomacy.”
Prof. Zhu was here to take part in the Air Show-related Asia Pacific Security Conference, co-organised by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies here.
How Weed Won the West -- TRAILER a film by Kevin Booth
It is time to exclude Marijuana from the so called drug war. These are two videos that expose what is really going on.
In the follow-up to his ground-breaking documentary ‘American Drug War,’ filmmaker Kevin Booth traces the fight
against Federal drug regulation in the State of California. A public majority has spoken and said yes to states
rights, allowing for the use of medicinal marijuana and opening up a new front in controversial medicinal ‘dispensaries.’
While users herald the freedom of legally-licensed “weed,” powerful forces at the DEA and law enforcement haven’t
given up their federal enforcement power yet. Many dispensaries have been raided, targeting their distribution of marijuana and challenging their
authority to rise into legitimate business.
In the backdrop of this public dispute is the Dark Alliance-- where governments handle the volume
of drug trafficking and work with cartels and drug dealers to manage the drug flow. Just like the prohibition of alcohol, drugs have thrived on
their illicit appeal, and doomed millions of non-violent offenders to incarceration and prosecution. Now, those swearing by
the healing power of medicinal marijuana as well as those who simply refuse to be outlawed by a hypocritical rogue government are
daring to stand up and declare that the violence, corruption and uncontrolled flow of drugs is due to the prohibition of the substance,
not the substance itself.
Big Pharma has put millions of non-”drug” users on hallucinogenic prescription drugs and instituted new forms of addiction
and dependency, challenging our outdated notions that is only “illegal” drugs doing harm to our people.
The State of California, in a key position to assert its 10th Amendment rights under the Constitution, has pushed the issue to
a tipping point. The bankrupt government hopes to capitalize on taxation of a legal and prosperous marijuana trade that could, ironically,
fight off big government and offer free humanity new hope. Whether or not you love or loathe marijuana or the drug culture, everyone
needs to fight for a more peaceful solution to the drug dilemma. How can we best manage the reality of drug use and minimize the harm to individuals and society at large?
Clearly seventy years plus has proven that the drug war has the wrong approach.
This is a fantastic article that tells it like it is on why allowing open Eros in the military is a bad idea.
As expected, President Obama pledged during his State of the Union address to “work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” This law—often mistakenly referred to as “don't ask, don't tell”—was passed in 1993 by a veto-proof margin in a Democratic controlled Congress.
The law codified regulations in effect before President Bill Clinton's inauguration, making the historical prohibition against military service for homosexuals a matter of statute. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates observed in June of last year, “What we have is a law, not a policy or regulation. And as I discovered when I got into it, it is a very prescriptive law. It doesn't leave a lot to the imagination or a lot of flexibility.”
The congressional findings supporting the 1993 law (section 654 of title 10, United States Code) reflect the common-sense observation that military organizations exist to win wars. To maximize the chances of battlefield success, military organizations must overcome the paralyzing effects of fear on the individual soldier and what the famous Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz called “friction” and the “fog of uncertainty.”
