Island Grabbing in Asia

Why the South China Seas are So Tense

A Map of Conflicts in the South China Sea (Sam Pepple / Sample Cartography).

Last month, Japanese activists planted their country’s flag on one of the Senkaku Islands (which the Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands), a chain claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan. The move sparked protests in China and inspired headlines in the West, but the provocation was hardly surprising. The three bodies of water in East Asia — the Sea of Japan (bounded by Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Russia), the East China Sea (bordered by China and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands), and the South China Sea (surrounded by Borneo, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam) — are home to hundreds of disputed islands, atolls, and shoals. And in the last few years, the diplomatic and militaristic struggles to assert authority have become increasingly brazen.

On one level, patriotism is making things worse. Japan’s tussle with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, for example, is a touchstone for those in Japan who fear China’s growing political and economic might. Likewise, South Korea’s assertion of control over the Dokdo Islands (known as the Takeshima Islands in Japan) is viewed at home as a patriotic riposte to Japan’s 40-year occupation of the peninsula.

Beyond symbolism, however, these three bodies of water flow over East Asia’s Outer Continental Shelf and the submerged deltas of many major river systems — geological features that suggest the presence of vast deposits of oil and natural gas. Yet, although the resources have been there for millennia, it is only in the last decade that the energy sector has even started to develop extractive technologies that will eventually make these reserves accessible.

Nobody wants to lose out, especially because East Asia is energy hungry. The region is home to only three percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and eight percent of its natural gas reserves. China, for example, already imports 58 percent of the oil and 22 percent of the gas it uses each year. Japan is far more dependent, importing nearly all of its oil and gas. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in the next 25 years, Asia’s energy consumption is expected to grow faster than anywhere else in the world. Eager for energy security, these countries have long sought to exploit their offshore oil and gas reserves.

Until recently, however, given the difficulty of operating in the blue-water seas, that was all but impossible. But eager to take advantage of oil and gas reservoirs in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Africa, Western energy firms have developed drilling rigs capable of operating in a mile of water or more. Now that the necessary technology is within reach, powers in Asia are determined to assert what they argue are their rightful claims to vast amounts of energy.

Just who owns the potential riches, however, is a matter of some contention. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal states are allowed to claim a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone extending from their land borders. All of the countries in the region have done so. But China has also laid claim to virtually all of the South China Sea on the basis that it has periodically occupied the Spratly and Paracel islands, small clusters of atolls and shoals that take up the northern and southernmost reaches of the sea. China has further cited provisions of UNCLOS that allow it to develop exclusively its Outer Continental Shelf (even if the shelf extends beyond 200 miles) and stake out a large stretch of the East China Sea. Of course, many other countries have claims in those seas, too.

Read it all HERE.

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Outlaw of the Sea
Thomas Wright

Recently, a group of 34 legislators promised to vote against the UN Convention on the Law of The Seas, ensuring that the bill will not be ratified. Their move will make it harder for the United States to continue to build up a rules-based order in the South China Sea. It could also spell the end of treaties as a tool of U.S. national security policy.

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Feedback: Excessively polite signs – 07 September 2012 – New Scientist.

Lies: Why Do We Tell Them? – Science News – redOrbit.

Mining the blogosphere | e! Science News.

Even the very elderly and frail can benefit from exercise.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD will give Apple’s iPad fits | ZDNet.

Lifestyle of a killer: In wild European brown shrimp, parasitic dinoflagellates have bacteria-like endosymbionts.

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Marijuana Fights Cancer and Helps Manage Side Effects, Researchers Find

ristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells because they grow faster than normal cell lines and thus are useful for research purposes. But the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.

Instead of gaining insight into how cells function, Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. In 1998, she reported in a European biochemistry journal that THC “induces apoptosis [cell death] in C6 glioma cells,” an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Subsequent peer-reviewed studies in several countries would show that THC and other marijuana-derived compounds, known as “cannabinoids,” are effective not only for cancer-symptom management (nausea, pain, loss of appetite, fatigue), they also confer a direct antitumoral effect.

MORE.

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NASA Images “NASA Images, a service of Internet Archive, offers public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers. NASA Images in an official media partner of the NASA.”

Water accounts for 55-70% of our body weight, and typically a minimum of six to eight glasses of water is needed to keep the body performing at optimal levels (the amount of water needed differs according to an individual’s health, physical activity, environment, etc). A 20% loss of fluid from the body is usually fatal. Conversely, drinking too much water can also be fatal. – Provided by RandomHistory.com

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Imaginary Presidents and Imaginary Gods: The Real “Empty Chair” Effect

If you were to have told me just last week that one of my psychology experiments would soon be brought to life on stage by none other than Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention, all to the fêted laughter and applause of tens of millions of people who, in the true spirit of literalism for which so many of them are accustomed to thinking, would fail to see the irony of their own rapturous enjoyment of the scene before them, I’d have thought you were insane. But there it was, the old bleary-eyed star having a feverish, bizarre conversation with an empty chair beside him, a chair in which throngs of delighted viewers—viewers who happen to know a thing or two about having feverish, bizarre conversations with imaginary authority figures—were playfully led to believe sat the invisible president of our country.

The connection may not be immediately apparent to those uninitiated into my research area of the cognitive science of religion, but take my hand and allow me to walk you through this theoretical briar patch.

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[note: Truman had integrated the American military...Back home, segregation still in place]

GALLERY.

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How whipping a client is similar to teaching English to children: Confessions of a public school teacher who works as a dominatrix