I have been to China over the years more than a dozen times. I have spoken with people at all levels of policy-making, and one thing I have come to realize is that when Beijing makes a major policy change, they make it carefully and with great deliberation. And when they arrive at a new consensus, they execute it with remarkable effect on all levels. That is the secret to their thirty-year economic miracle. Now China's top leadership has made such a policy decision. It will transform our world over the next decade.

On November 29, 2014, a little-noted but highly significant meeting took place in Beijing as Washington was absorbed with its various attempts to cripple and ultimately destabilize Putin's Russia. They held what was termed The Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs. Xi Jinping, Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivered what was called "An Important Address" there.

Careful reading of the official Foreign Ministry statement on the meeting confirms it was indeed "important." The central leadership of China has now made official a strategic global shift in geopolitical priorities in Chinese foreign policy.

No longer does China regard its relationship with the United Sates or even the EU as of highest priority. Rather they have defined a new grouping of priority countries in their carefully-deliberated geopolitical map. It includes Russia, as well as the entire BRICS rapidly-developing economies; it includes China's Asian neighbors as well as Africa and other developing countries.

To give a perspective, as recently as 2012 China's foreign ptries in the world, including China); Multilateral Organizations (UN, APEC, ASEAN, IMF, World Bank etc.), and public diplomacy which determines which situations to become engaged in around the world. Clearly China has decided those priorities no longer work to her advantage olicy priorities were described in a general framework: Great Powers (principally the USA, EU, Japan, and Russia); Periphery (all countries bordering China); Developing Countries (all lower income coun.

Representative of the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian authorities will make decision about Mistral deal with France after February, 2015.

The Russian Defense Ministry will not take any action until February over France's failure to deliver the first Mistral-class helicopter carrier, a high-ranking Russian military source told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

"We'll wait until February and then we'll make a decision depending on the situation," the source said.

On Tuesday, the official from the Defense Ministry's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation told RIA Novosti that Moscow has sent Paris an official inquiry about its failure to deliver the Mistral.

Local sources said that the Israeli assailant lives in one of the illegal colonial outposts in the Old City, and that he started walking provocatively in the market, while carrying his government-issued automatic rifle.

He then started shouting and cursing at the Palestinian merchants and residents before assaulting a young man, identified as Anwar Mona, 24 years of age.

The settler also opened fire at the Palestinians in the area, causing no injuries, while Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene, provided protection to the Israeli assailant, and kidnapped Anwar.

The soldiers also installed sudden roadblocks, on Saturday evening, blocking most Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, especially Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate), Bab al-Asbat (Gate of the Tribes) and Bab al-Khalil (Hebron Gate), and prevented the Palestinian from entering or leaving the area for more than 30 minutes.

The soldiers also stopped and interrogated dozens of Palestinians, especially young men, and inspected their ID cards.

The European Union may rethink its sanctions against Russia if the latter abides by ceasefire agreements and abides by the terms of its gas supply deal.

The EU is considering the possibility of scaling down its sanctions against Russia and resuming previously-suspended discussions with the country on a broad range of issues, depending on how the situation in Ukraine develops, according to a European Union discussion paper cited by the Wall Street Journal.

The paper was drafted ahead of the upcoming meeting of the EU member-states' foreign ministers in Brussels, and hasn't been disseminated yet.

"With the rapid increase in sophisticated and effective cyber attacks, what we need is more and better security tools, not fewer and weaker ones." - Lance Cottrell, Chief Scientist at Ntrepid, Jan 14, 2015.

This week, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, decided to throw a confused cat among even more confused pigeons. He made comments suggesting that end-to-end encryption should be a thing of the past, a necessary measure to combat that ever woeful virus many deem terrorism. "Are we going to allow a means of communication between people which even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the Home Secretary personally, that we cannot read?" Naturally for him, the answer was no. "The first duty of any government is to keep our country and our people safe."

The statements prompted some commentators to wonder what had gotten into Cameron. Certainly, he is moving the gear into electoral mode, with a general poll set for May. And there were the Paris killings, with various decrepit responses from politicians to out bid each other in terms of who could look tough on terrorism. Cameron, evidently, felt he could outdo all of them with a spike of hawkishness. For all of that, Twitter went into apoplectic overdrive, drumming with WebCameronClangers or #CameronCryptoBollox (TechCrunch, Jan 13).

The free speech imperative is aligned with the notions of privacy - these are the Siamese twins of political and social practice in the democratic realm. Central to this is the messaging phenomenon in which encryption is king, be it such services as ChatSecure, Cryptocat, Signal/Redphone, Silent Phone and Silent Text, to name but a few star performers outlined by the EFF (TechCrunch, Jan 13). The British Prime Minister is showing a rather scant knowledge of their workings, not to mention the way technology plays out. Then again, he may simply be playing the cheapest of populist cards.

Recent events, such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the secession of Crimea and its decision to join the Russian Federation, the subsequent military campaign against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, western sanctions against Russia, and, most recently, the attack on the ruble, have caused a certain phase transition to occur within Russian society, which, I believe, is very poorly, if at all, understood in the west. This lack of understanding puts Europe at a significant disadvantage in being able to negotiate an end to this crisis.

Whereas prior to these events the Russians were rather content to consider themselves "just another European country," they have now remembered that they are a distinct civilization, with different civilizational roots (Byzantium rather than Rome) - one that has been subject to concerted western efforts to destroy it once or twice a century, be it by Sweden, Poland, France, Germany, or some combination of the above. This has conditioned the Russian character in a specific set of ways which, if not adequately understood, is likely to lead to disaster for Europe and the world.

Lest you think that Byzantium is some minor cultural influence on Russia, it is, in fact, rather key. Byzantine cultural influences, which came along with Orthodox Christianity, first through Crimea (the birthplace of Christianity in Russia), then through the Russian capital Kiev (the same Kiev that is now the capital of Ukraine), allowed Russia to leapfrog across a millennium or so of cultural development. Such influences include the opaque and ponderously bureaucratic nature of Russian governance, which the westerners, who love transparency (if only in others) find so unnerving, along with many other things. Russians sometimes like to call Moscow the Third Rome - third after Rome itself and Constantinople - and this is not an entirely empty claim. But this is not to say that Russian civilization is derivative; yes, it has managed to absorb the entire classical heritage, viewed through a distinctly eastern lens, but its vast northern environment has transformed that heritage into something radically different.

Having unveiled his non-boots-on-the-ground strategy in September, President Obama's "promise" was quickly proved fragile when General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, indicated to the House of Representatives armed services committee that the strength of ISIS relative to the Iraqi army may be such that he would recommend abandoning Obama's oft-repeated pledge against returning US ground troops to combat in Iraq. It seems another promise is about to be broken as Bloomberg reports Senator John Cornyn said President Obama told congressional leaders during meeting today at White House he would seek authorization for military force on Islamic State. Boehner's office, in separate statement after meeting, said Republicans would work with him to build support.

As Bloomberg reports, Obama to Seek Authorization for Military Force.

President Obama told congressional leaders during meeting today at White House he would seek authorization for actions on Islamic State, Republican Sen. John Cornyn tells reporters.

No details on timing or substance.

Cornyn, fellow Republican Sen. John Thune say Obama's intention is good development, may help smooth way for confirmation of Ashton Carter as next defense secretary.

House Speaker John Boehner, other Republicans have been pressing Obama to seek authorization

Boehner's office, in separate statement after meeting, said he encouraged Obama to send Congress the authorization and said Republicans would work with him to build support.

The Charlie Hebdo affair has many of the characteristics of a false flag operation. The attack on the cartoonists' office was a disciplined professional attack of the kind associated with highly trained special forces; yet the suspects who were later corralled and killed seemed bumbling and unprofessional. It is like two different sets of people.

Usually Muslim terrorists are prepared to die in the attack; yet the two professionals who hit Charlie Hebdo were determined to escape and succeeded, an amazing feat. Their identity was allegedly established by the claim that they conveniently left for the authorities their ID in the getaway car. Such a mistake is inconsistent with the professionalism of the attack and reminds me of the undamaged passport found miraculously among the ruins of the two WTC towers that served to establish the identity of the alleged 9/11 hijackers.

It is a plausible inference that the ID left behind in the getaway car was the ID of the two Kouachi brothers, convenient patsies, later killed by police, and from whom we will never hear anything, and not the ID of the professionals who attacked Charlie Hebdo. An important fact that supports this inference is the report that the third suspect in the attack, Hamyd Mourad, the alleged driver of the getaway car, when seeing his name circulating on social media as a suspect realized the danger he was in and quickly turned himself into the police for protection against being murdered by security forces as a terrorist.

Hamyd Mourad says he has an iron-clad alibi. If so, this makes him the despoiler of a false flag attack. Authorities will have to say that despite being wrong about Mourad, they were right about the Kouachi brothers. Alternatively, Mourad could be coerced or tortured into some sort of confession that supports the official story.

Unlike western leaders he is capable of engaging in dialogue with those he has no affinity for.

One of the most striking things about the Colder War - as I explore in my new book of the same name - has been the contrast between the peevish tone of the West's leaders compared to the more grown-up and statesmanlike approach that Putin is taking in international affairs.

Western leaders and their unquestioning media propagandists appear to believe that diplomatic relations are some kind of reward for good behavior. But it's actually more important to establish a constructive dialogue with your enemies or rivals than your friends, because that's where you need to find common ground. Indeed, it's been the basis for diplomacy since time immemorial.

Reassuringly, despite having been the target of the Ukraine crisis rather than the instigator, Putin still sees the West as a potential partner, not an enemy. Nor does, he says, Russia have any interest in building an empire of its own. In theory, if Putin is sincere, there should be plenty of room for cooperation, especially in the fight against terrorism.

In keeping with the concept of "unmournable bodies" limned by Teju Cole in the New Yorker (more on this below), news arrives today of yet another clutch of unimportant, unmournable deaths at the hands of extremist violence.

From McClatchy:

A U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed at least 50 Syrian civilians late last month when it targeted a headquarters of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria [the town of Al Bab, near the Turkish border], according to an eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights organization.

... The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent opposition group that tracks casualties in Syria, said it has documented the deaths of at least 40 civilians in airstrikes in the months between the start of U.S. bombing in Syria Sept. 23 through the Dec. 28 strike on Al Bab. The deaths include 13 people killed in Idlib province on the first day of the strikes. Other deaths include 23 civilians killed in the eastern province of Deir el Zour, two in Raqqa province and two more in Idlib province.

The issue of civilian deaths in U.S. strikes is a critical one as the United States hopes to win support from average Syrians for its campaign against the Islamic State. The deaths are seen by U.S.-allied moderate rebel commanders as one reason support for their movement has eroded in northern Syria while support for radical forces such as al Qaida's Nusra Front and the Islamic State has gained. Rebel commanders say they have intelligence that could avoid civilian casualties, but that U.S. officials refuse to coordinate with them.

McClatchy located two sources who confirmed a high civilian death toll from the strike. One witness, an activist in Al Bab, gave the death toll as 61 civilian prisoners and 13 Islamic State guards. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated the death toll at 80, and said 25 of those were Islamic State Guards and another 55 were either civilians or imprisoned fighters from non-Islamic State rebel groups. Either number would make the Al Bab strike the single worst case of civilian deaths since the U.S. began bombing targets in Syria.

... [A witness] said some 35 of the prisoners had been jailed shortly before the airstrike for minor infractions of the Islamic State's harsh interpretation of Islamic law, such as smoking, wearing jeans or appearing too late for the afternoon prayer....

Huda al Ali, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Network, said its investigation had found that in addition to violators of Sharia law, the two-story building also was being used as a prison for fighters from groups opposed to the Islamic State.

In other words, the unilateral, illegal bombing campaign of the Peace Prize Laureate killed dozens of victims of Islamic extremism.