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But Timber Doesn’t Sink, Right?

Rambo with a missile, photo: Andrew Becraft / flickr
Lego Rambo with a missile, photo: Andrew Becraft / flickr

In one of the most bizarre stories of the month, a Finnish-owned ship with a timber load belonging to Stora Enso (a Finnish company and the second largest paper producer in the world) worth an estimated 1.3 million euros, vanished (yes, vanished!) as it was passing through the English Channel nearly three weeks ago on its way to Algeria. The ship and its all-Russian crew have not been heard from since. Reports state that the ship was hijacked off the Swedish coast in July and subsequently released by suspected pirates who had reportedly boarded the vessel dressed up as Swedish anti-narcotics police. The ship, upon failing to bring its load to Algeria on 4 August was reported missing.

While the Finns seem oddly indifferent and blasé about the whole thing, Putin is already flexing his well-toned muscles and threatening to launch a Rambo-mission to find the poor hijackees (with the help of his sidekick, Medvedev, of course). We needn’t worry though- apparently timber can’t sink, so the ship will be found, intact or as a sea of floating Finnish timber in the Atlantic.

ISN Weekly Theme: US Achievements in Iraq

Welcome to Baghdad, photo: Austin King / flickr
Welcome to Baghdad, photo: Austin King / flickr

In the wake of US troop withdrawals from Iraqi cities and with the scheduling of full withrawal still ahead, the ISN looks at the past, present and future of US involvement in Iraq. With a new president, a new strategy and a set of new challenges at home, the level of US engagement is changing drastically and rapidly altering the realities and demands on the ground. Will Iraqi troops stand up once Americans stand down? Will political reconciliation and institution-building take root?

Twitter, Revisited

Twitter bird illustration, photo and illustration: Matt Hamm/ flickr
Twitter bird illustration, photo and illustration: Matt Hamm/ flickr

With constant overcapacity problems, seemingly incurable slowness and a cyber-environment filled with spammers of all shapes and sizes, it seems almost surprising to me that the whole Twitter thing has gained any fraction at all. But it has, and particularly in the wake of the Moldovan and Iranian protests the buzz about so-called ‘Twitter revolutions’ reached astronomically unreasonable proportions.

Foreign Policy has laid out the good, the bad and the ugly of Twitter for us in two excellent pieces. One takes a closer look at Twitter– where it matters and where it falls short of often inflated expectations; the other lays out the ‘Twitterati’ of the micro-blogosphrere– the one hundred best Twitter users in the international affairs field.

Worth a read and an eye-opener for those of us who thought that tweets could save the world.

CCTV (In-)action

Screenshot of CCTV Arabic logo on website

As China gears up to cash in its credibility tokens, accumulated as a result of its unexpectedly efficient handling of the global financial crisis, it’s more eager than ever to educate the world about itself on its own terms. Through its vast and disciplined state-controlled media machine China is engaging in a massive public relations exercise, presumably to make existing businesses around the world run more smoothly, and to prepare for world domination. Well, not quite.

Like any rising star, China is looking to expand its network of media outlets and to contextualize these so that audiences outside its cultural and linguistic sphere get their daily dose of Chinese news in their local language. It has reportedly budgeted nearly $7 billion for global media expansion and upgrades.

The most recent addition to the Xinhua-People’s Daily-CCTV family is CCTV Arabic, a channel purported to reach nearly 300 million Arab speakers via satellite in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Undoubtedly it considers this to be a major addition to its current portfolio which, in addition to its monopoly over Chinese media, includes CCTV in English, Spanish and French (plans are in place for Russian and Portuguese channels too).

ISN Weekly Theme: Urbanization

Tokyo skyline at night, photo: Peter Morgan / flickr
Tokyo skyline at night, photo: Peter Morgan / flickr

Mushrooming megacities, migrational pressures, cultural and political collisions and ecosystems and environments under stress- as humans continue to move into cities, we are faced with a new set of challenges that directly impact both domestic policies and international relations. Cities are becoming the microcosms of life in the 21st century where overcrowding, resource scarceness, poverty and migration define the challenges that no country can afford to ignore.

This week the ISN focuses on urbanization and brings you a wide set of resources to delve deep into this highly consequential and topical issue.

  • The ISN Special Report The Future is Urban examines urbanization from the perspective of migration, societal conflict, and environmental politics. In Migration: Politics of Cultural Conflict , Robert A Beauregard places urbanization in a triumvirate of forces, together with globalization and nationalism, that direct contemporary migration flows and feed into political conflicts. In Urbanization: Environmental Problem or Solution? Leiwen Jiang and Karen Hardee examine the environmental impact of urbanization, with a particular focus on population growth and energy consumption in the urban context.
  • In our Policy Briefs section the ODI’s Opportunity and Exploitation in Urban Labour Markets discusses the relation between economic growth and urban poverty reduction.
  • The UN’s paper titled World Urbanization Prospects, found in our Primary Resources, includes interesting projections for urban and rural populations worldwide.
  • In Events, a Chatham House conference on the Future of Cities will examine how rapid urban growth can be planned, managed and financed.