I just love it when ancient stuff is revived!

[the_future_modernes]

RELIGION-ASIA: Singapore to Help Revive Ancient Indian University

SINGAPORE, Nov 15 (IPS) - With support from Singapore, Japan and other countries interested in Buddhism, India's ancient Nalanda University, dating back to 5th century B.C., may soon be restored to its past glory as a primary seat of learning in Asia.

An ambitious 150 million US-dollar project was unfolded at an international symposium titled ‘Reviving Buddhist Cultural Links', held here this week. Essentially a joint venture between the provincial government of India's eastern Bihar state - where Nalanda is located - and the Singapore government, it envisages the participation of several countries with large Buddhist populations, including Sri Lanka, Thailand and China.

Opening the symposium on Monday, Singapore's foreign minister George Yeo said the project was not about the religion but "Buddhist values and philosophy which have become an integral part of East Asian civilisation".

Yeo added that as Asia reemerges on the world stage, Asians could "look back to their own past and derive inspiration from it for the future." Thus he noted, "We should develop Nalanda as an icon of the Asian renaissance, attracting scholars and students from a much wider region as the ancient university once did."

Indian President Abdul Kalam, delivering a keynote address via live multimedia videocast from New Delhi, described the project as a "model for evolving a happy, prosperous and peaceful society in our planet" and helpful in the "evolution of the enlightened citizen." The process, he said, has three components - education with a value system, religion transforming into spirituality and economic development for societal transformation.

"The mission of unity of minds is indeed gaining momentum from Bihar, the birthplace of ancient Nalanda," observed Kalam.

The symposium was attended by over 200 Asian scholars, government officials and Buddhist monks and nuns from Singapore, India, Thailand, Japan, China and many other countries. MORE

The hajj has begun

[the_future_modernes]

A road to Hajj - China - 24 Nov 09 - Pt 1

Mecca undergoes expansion project - 24 Nov 09

Saudi fears H1N1 spread at Hajj - 24 Nov 09

As many as three million Muslims have been gathering in Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

As well as the usual security concerns that come with dealing with such huge crowds, Saudi Arabian authorities have mobilised thousands of health workers due to concerns about the possible spread of the H1N1 flu virus.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Mecca.

The Arab Street

[the_future_modernes]

The Arab street - Cairo - 16 Nov - Pt 1

In the Arab world, everyone has an opinion about everything. This week we go to Cairo and with 19 million residents - thats a lot of opinions.

The Arab street - Cairo - 16 Nov - Pt 2

The Arab street - Marrakesh - 23 Nov 09 - Pt 1

Terrorism, the economy and the USA's role in the Middle East all are issues that excite strong opinion and argument in Morocco's third largest city.

The Arab street - Marrakesh - 23 November 09 - Pt 2

having stolen africa's precious stones and metal, now they have come for their farm land....

[the_future_modernes]

Riz Khan - Land Grab or Investment - 19 Nov 09 - Part 1

Some of the countries in Africa may be among the world's pporest but their lush farmlands and natural resources are the envy of more prosperous nations, mostly in Western Europe and the Middle east.

They say African farmland represents a new economic opportunity but are new investments in African resources simply a land grab at the expense of the people living there?



Riz Khan - Land Grab or Investment - 19 Nov 09 - Part 2

Will Africa’s farmland become a “resource curse”?

In his Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis teases out the mechanisms of famine in British-ruled 19th century India. When a drought would wipe out a grain harvest in one region of India, the price of grain would spike. People all over the subcontinent would suddenly find themselves priced out of grain markets—even in places where grain harvests went well. Grain would then flow out of India to the “mother country,” where people could afford it, and literally millions of Indians would starve. That’s one way relatively minor natural disasters become vast human catastrophes.
Devastatingly, Davis details how the British Empire (wittingly or not) used these eminently avoidable famines to consolidate its grip over the Indian Raj.

I got to thinking of Davis’ dark masterpiece while reading Andrew Rice’s excellent, nuanced report, “Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?,” in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.
Rice follows the gusher of money flowing from cash-rich, arable-land-poor countries like Saudi Arabia to buy up or lease farmland in Africa.
One thing that strikes me is the disconnect in what we hear about the quality of African farmland from rich investors, and what we hear about it from rich philanthropists.

Gates Foundation rhetoric makes Africa sound like a basket case, land-wise: references to “depleted” or “degraded” soils.
We hear relatively little about the continent’s vast agricultural assets—which wealthy investors are now busily snapping up. Andrew Rice visits Africa’s “billion-acre Guinea Savannah zone,” which he describes as “a crescent-shaped swath that runs east across Africa all the way to Ethiopia, and southward to Congo and Angola. “The World Bank and the FAO have declared the tract “one of the earth’s last large reserves of underused land,” Rice reports.
It evidently won’t be for long. A stampede of investors, ranging from governments like Saudi Arabia’s to U.S. hedge funds, are moving in. And many of the region’s pro-Westen, “modernizing” governments are inviting them. Ethiopia, for example, is planning to lease out 3.5 million acres of prime farmland to foreign interests for 50 cents an acre, Rice reports.MORE

La Vida Locavore says

"Is there such a thing as agro-imperialism?" The article correctly looks at the huge farm land grab going on these days, and they are right on to point out Middle Eastern countries buying up land in Africa. But what about the other type of agro-imperialism? The type where we look to poor people in other countries as "markets" for our farm inputs (seeds, fertilizer, pesticides), so they can produce commodity crops to sell for cheap to our corporations.