In Beijing, where I am now, it is 94 degrees and super humid -- and I know we just won't have the smack of thunder and rain to break the mood like DC just had.

Seth Thomas' interesting blog, Like the Clock posted this great photo of Georgetown after a torrent of water and lightning and thunder rolled through.

The passage he posted with it is moving. Makes me fantasize about the possibility of that here in China.

-- Steve Clemons

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has backed up and apologized to the recently resigned/fired USDA Georgia Rural Development Director Shirley Sherrod.

And he's offered her a new job, in his words "a unique opportunity" -- the outlines of which have not yet been made public.

It would not be unreasonable to think that the job he has offered involves serving as a sort of USDA "Special Envoy" -- bridging misunderstandings, class differences, or race differences -- a sort of ombudsperson fixer -- among the USDA's constituents and within the Department.

If I was in the pickle that Vilsack was in, given that he probably still entertains visions of future political advancement, then I'd offer her some plum-sounding perch.

But note to Shirley Sherrod: KICK THE TIRES of the offer.

Call up any of the Special Envoys at the Department of State -- Farah Pandith who is a star performer for Hillary Clinton as the Secretary's Special Representative to Muslim Communities comes to mind -- and ask if they have a "budget" of their own. Almost uniformly, the nearly two dozen or so special envoys with unique tasks don't have funds to do anything with. They have jobs, and they have some staff -- but they have zero funds of their own to go out and seed programs. They must beg, borrow and steal from other parts of government for their budgets.

While much of the news from South Asia in the past few days has dealt with this week's Kabul conference on Afghanistan's future, the New York Times published a fascinating piece yesterday on the importance of water as a source of tension between Pakistan and India. In this case the point of contention is the Kishenganga Dam, currently being built in India on the Indus River, the same river that feeds Pakistan's most fertile farmland.

The construction of this dam serves both practical and political purposes for India; the dam's construction is legal under a 50-year old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, and India is in desperate need of hydroelectric power. The article's authors Lydia Polgreen and Sabrina Tavernise explain that, "About 40 percent of India's population is off the power grid, and lack of electricity has hampered industry. The Kishanganga project is a crucial part of India's plans to close that gap." India's energy needs will only grow, New America Foundation/Smart Strategy Initiative Director Patrick Doherty noted in a recent op-ed, as India struggles to integrate 250 million people into its cities by 2030.

Yet for Pakistan the issue of water is serious. Due to an undeveloped irrigation system, Pakistan's agriculture is vulnerable to changes in water flow, and a change in the Indus' flow rate or a decision by India, motivated by electrical need or a political decision, could endanger an industry that supplies 25% of Pakistan's economy and employs 50% of its workers, as Polgreen and Tavernise point out. The mere possibility of India holding this power over Pakistan can only make a bad situation worse, as talks between India and Pakistan's foreign ministers ground to a halt last week over mutual recriminations on the subjects of terrorism and Kashmiri self-determination.

The ongoing fight over Kashmir is the 800-pound gorilla in the room in South Asia; Pakistan and India maintain huge forces along the Kashmiri even in "peaceful" times, allocating resources and people to watching each other across one of the most heavily-defended borders in the world.

Much of Pakistan's strategy in Afghanistan is designed not only to create a friendly or at least pliant Afghan government, but also to keep Indian influence out. Without a solution to the Kashmir dispute and a reduction of tensions with India, Pakistan will undoubtedly continue its support for militant groups in Afghanistan, Kashmir and increasingly outside of the region. But India has shown only limited willingness to discuss Kashmir, even in the abstract.

Embedded in this current energy crisis, however, is an opportunity for the United States not only to decrease tension in an important and seemingly intractable conflict, but also to develop India's economy and to help the country transition toward sustainable development.

India's immense energy needs are currently met in large part by coal and hydroelectric power, but the government has ambitious plans to increase its output from new technologies. For instance, India hopes to produce 200,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2050, in a country that currently produces 150,000 megawatts energy from all sectors. However, the country needs an estimated $154 billion in startup costs for such a plan, and has so far only allocated $18-$22 billion. The United States could help fill this gap, either by promoting investment or providing aid; the former helps American companies while spurring a need to further develop solar technologies, while the latter could be conditioned on a reduced dependency on hydropower broadly, and specifically reducing the use of hydropower driven by sensitive water sources, like the Indus river.

While something like a water or energy deal will not come close to solving the conflict over Kashmir or bring stability to South Asia, it can help remove yet another stumbling block and chip away at the mistrust that fuels anger between officials and helps justify militancy in Pakistan. More measures to build trust and an increased effort to build cross-border trade and other tie can help create favorable conditions for peace, while creating opportunities for American industry to grow.

-- Andrew Lebovich

I am a believer in strong relations with Great Britain -- which has been a key ally and partner of the US for many decades and with which America has deep historical and cultural connections.

But there is a point when the trappings that define a relationship look too frilly and antiquated to fit the modern world. UK-US relations need reinvention and need to be about something the world needs -- which is something like delivering for real on Israel-Palestine peace or, perhaps alternatively, creative revision of the world's global governance structures.

No two nations have been more important than the United Kingdom and the United States in defining the current world order and nearly all of its most vital global institutions. They built themselves in with stacked dacks of power -- and need to somehow cede that power in new arrangements without necessarily losing influence.

That is how to take US-UK relations and put them on a new and potentially vital course.

(This is the full rather than edited version of Shirley Sherrod's comments at a recent NAACP dinner)

I can't believe that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is taking even a moment to "reconsider" his intemperate and uninformed firing of Georgia State USDA rural development director Shirley Sherrod for 'alleged' racially-tinged remarks.

. . .try the single scoop of ultra "Awfully Chocolate" ice cream in a Chinese take out box. Expensive but still affordably exotic. I got this in the Raffles City Mall in Dongzhimen.

My time in Beijing this round is highly unscripted and not the sort of excursion in which I have sequenced priorities or established any order -- but I have seen some great sites and visited some great clubs and restaurants that just didn't use to exist in Beijing.

And what is really interesting is that these places are packed with Chinese, with an occasional foreigner here and there. What is growing here -- even though there is still spectacular poverty in China -- is an ultra modern, sleek Beijing that the Chinese want for themselves.

I hope that these links and some of this commentary about TWN's tracks in China are useful for others who visit.

Tomorrow morning, 8:00 am, Vice President Joe Biden will be meeting with his successor as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry.

Their meeting is closed to press - but I imagine that besides their low carb meals, they'll work through their angles on how to get the important START Treaty ratified and then may discuss America's slogs in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they get to Iran, which I hope they do, that will lead to the Israel-Palestine standoff and how weak America's hand there is right now.

On Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel today, George Washington University professor and Middle East Channel co-editor Marc Lynch has an incisive piece critiquing the recent surge in calls to bomb Iran or allow Israel to do so. While I think Lynch overplays the extent to which this push for war is new (it's never really gone away), Lynch does an admirable job of demonstrating how different the political situation is in the Middle East compared to when President Obama took office or even at the end of the Bush Administration, and describes particularly well the fact that Iran seems to be getting weaker without any outside attack.

Here are two key paragraphs from the post:

Why is the argument [to bomb Iran] weaker? Mainly because Iran is weaker. If you set aside the hype, it is pretty obvious that for all of the flaws in President Obama's strategy, Iran today is considerably weaker than it was when he took office. Go back to 2005-07, when the Bush administration was supposedly taking the Iranian threat seriously, with a regional diplomacy focused upon polarizing the region against Iran. In that period, Iranian "soft power" throughout the region rose rapidly, as it seized the mantle of the leader of the "resistance" camp which the U.S. eagerly granted it. Hezbollah and Hamas, viewed in Washington at least as Iranian proxies, were riding high both in their own arenas and in the broader Arab public arena. Iranian allies were in the driver's seat in Iraq. Arab leaders certainly feared and hated this rising Iranian power, whispering darkly to Bush officials about how badly they wanted the U.S. to confront it and flooding their state-backed media with anti-Iranian propaganda. But this did not translate to the popular level and did little to reverse Iran's strategic gains. The Bush administration's polarization strategy was very good to Iran...

...I suspect that the real reason for the new flood of commentary calling for attacks on Iran is simply that hawks hope to pocket their winnings from the long argument over sanctions, such as they are, and now push to the next stage in the confrontation they've long demanded. Hopefully, this pressure will not gain immediate traction. Congress can proudly demonstrate their sanctions-passingness, so the artificial Washington timeline should recede for a while. The Pentagon is now working closely with Israel, it's said, in order to reassure them and prevent their making a unilateral strike, which should hopefully push back another artificial clock. That should buy some time for the administration's strategy to unfold, for better or for worse. An attack on Iran would still be a disaster, unnecessary and counterproductive, and the White House knows that, and it's exceedingly unlikely that it will happen anytime soon. But the real risk is that the public discourse about an attack on Iran normalizes the idea and makes it seem plausible, if not inevitable, and that the administration talks itself into a political corner. That shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, who predicted that Israel would strike during the first six months of this year, offers four reasons to explain why nothing has happened (yet).

-- Andrew Lebovich

This is a guest note by Fadi Elsalameen, managing director of Palestine Note. Elsalameen shares this post with us from Ramallah where he is today.

Fayyadism is not Authoritarianism

In Nathan J. Brown's recent commentary published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brown accuses Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of authoritarianism and says his governance has failed to ensure democracy and institution building.

Brown argues that, "what Fayyad has managed to do is to maintain many of the institutions built earlier and make a few of them more efficient. But he has done so in an authoritarian context that robs the results of domestic legitimacy."

Brown describes disorder in the Bar Association and the Teachers Union as failures in two major institutional areas: the rule of law and the educational system. He concludes: what Fayyad's government claims to be institution building is in fact institution maintenance or revival.

So to follow Brown's logic, if the Bar Association and the Teachers Union's ills were cured, then Fayyad's work would be what Brown would call institution building.

From what I know, in order to cure a body from an illness, one's body needs "maintenance and revival," and since Brown's logic leads one to believe that if the "illness" is cured, institution building is accomplished, I can't help but point out the obvious: Brown's argument at best means Fayyad is in the middle of institution building, not at the end, and Fayyad himself never claimed that he has finished building Palestinian institutions.

Reading through the article, Brown fails to prove how Fayyad is an autocrat and in fact convinces me of the opposite. He shows that Salam Fayyad and his government have been steadily, if unevenly, building and maintaining Palestinian institutions and rule of the law.

Brown accuses Fayyad of not adding or naming a single new institution built under his government but rather maintained the institutions he inherited from Arafat and improved some of them. At the same time, Brown does not recommend or name one area where a new institution is needed.

Furthermore, Brown lays the blame on some vague structural problem that he does not name. But those problems have names, chief among them "occupation." Faced with underlying problems from Fatah party politics, the split with Hamas, and the ubiquitous Israeli occupation, I would argue that it has been independent Fayyad's leadership that has kept the Palestinian Authority functioning. Palestine is still in process, and Fayyad is working tirelessly to curtail corruption in the ministries to maintain the rule of law. Misuses and abuses are expected while the state is being built, but on the ground one can already see the fruits of Fayyad's labors.

In front of my own eyes today, a fight broke out between two large families in the south of Hebron in the West bank. One of the family members was a policeman who used his gun in the fight. Within minutes the entire town was full of police, intelligence, detectives and Preventative Forces, and all offending parties were arrested, including the policeman who used his service weapon illegally. The police were on the scene after one call from a town resident.

I asked one of the detectives if there were other policemen coming and his answer was "we are waiting for an Israeli approval to allow two more units to join us from a neighboring town." Brown never mentions the obstacles and difficulties posed by the Israeli occupation to Prime Minister Fayyad's institution building.

And contrary to Brown's argument of institutional rivalry, although representatives of each security apparatus were present at the fight, the police force took the lead in the investigation, and the rest acted as support. "There is no rivalry, everyone respects their role, if this was a terrorism issue, the Preventative Forces would take the lead in the investigation and the police would support," one of the security members told me.

Therefore, contrary to what Brown argues, Fayyadism has more to show than international respect; it has local, visible Palestinian respect.

He says that the Fayyad government has shown spotty success and that most of its tenure has been a failure, but in fact from what he shows, there has been spotty failures and an overwhelming success.

Brown discusses the lack of progress in certain areas of the educational system, and attributes it to Fayyad's governance. He fails to mention even once the enormous difficulties occupation puts in front of Palestinian education. I have known of teachers who were arrested by the Israelis from Area A and threatened with expulsion from the Palestinian Ministry of Education by alerting the Palestinian Authority that these individuals are posing a security risk and must be arrested.

Such Israeli actions undermine the legitimacy of any Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation and indicate that Israel can take advantage of the Palestinian split to undermine the Palestinian institution-building process.

To his credit, PM Fayyad personally answered a letter from a teacher in the southern Hebron area and issued instructions to the Ministry of Education to investigate a case where a school's headmaster complained that the Ministry of Education demoted him based on accusations that he was linked to Hamas and therefore posed a security risk. Immediately, Fayyad asked the Ministry of Education to form a committee where everyone from the teacher to the head of the regional office of the Ministry of Education was investigated. The head of the school was restored in his previous position and certain individuals in the Ministry of Education were reprimanded based on the investigation's results.

Contrary to Brown's study, Fayyad is not an authoritarian. Fayyad is building a state, despite all difficulties and engaging all avenues, and he is not yet finished.

-- Fadi Elsalameen

I was shocked to watch the sun rise this morning -- and actually saw the sun, not some gauzy, cotton candy like Beijing permanent haze.

And now we see lots of blue. This is rare I'm told at this time of year.

-- Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Dana Priest and William Arkin have in the Washington Post blown the top of America's fear-fueled national intelligence complex that has grown so large and extensive that the government can't track redundancies, costs, personnel, and the like.

More later -- but read the series, which will continue during the next two days.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: lyng833's Photostream)

This is a guest note by Sean Kay, who is a professor of politics at Ohio Wesleyan University and an associate of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University. He is the author of Global Security in the Twenty-first Century: The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace (Rowman and Littlefield).

Over the past week, I visited Northern Ireland as part of a book I am writing on post-Celtic Tiger and post-peace process Ireland. If one were to tune into short media clips of riots in Belfast and gunshots in Derry, they might conclude that the peace process in Northern Ireland is coming unglued. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having walked the streets of Derry, and visited Ardoyne in Belfast on the morning after the last of three nights of rioting, it is important to report that the positive transformation of Northern Ireland remains on track - though it is a fragile one to be sure.

As has been increasingly the case, each 12th of July, parades by Orangemen honoring their sense of tradition are sources of sectarian tension. Last weeks' perpetrators, however, largely used the Orangemen as an excuse for violence that had nothing to do with Ireland's troubles. In fact, the violence by Catholics in the streets of Ardoyne and other areas of Belfast took place either after the Orangemen had long gone home - and in some cases where none had marched at all.

The primary target of Catholic street rioters was not Protestants, but rather the police - a force that is a vital symbol of growing success in Northern Ireland. In Belfast and Derry, shots were fired at police and in an horrific incident, a policewoman was severely injured when hit by a brick in the head. Rioters apparently continued to pelt her and her colleagues as rescuers sought to extract the wounded officer. In another major incident, a young man attempted to take over the Enterprise Train between Dublin and Belfast and was apparently quite willing to firebomb it and kill women and children. What is striking is the degree to which the police acted with restraint - refusing to take the bait of those spewing violence. Today the security services are part of the solution, not the problem - and their restraint has served to increase the confidence that this vital institution of peace building is playing.

Some Northern Ireland officials have been quick to say that dissident nationalist groups are behind the violence - while others seek to downplay this element to enhance a view of normalization setting in. While there may be a small number of these dissident characters behind the scenes, the images of the violence show a much more complicated scenario.

The areas of Belfast that historically reflected the Troubles such as Falls Road and Shankill are today quite calm. There is, however, as with many things on this island, a range of levels below the obvious and that is especially true in the complex back streets of some very small areas of Belfast. The key challenge to the peace process has much more to do with bottom up pressure from a small but growing population who has not reaped the benefits of peace. Right now, this is quite limited to a street by street tension, but has a serious risk of proliferating up into the political architecture on which the positive model for peace is being successfully consolidated.

Perhaps most significant is that in some areas of Belfast, there are small segments of Protestant society who feel they have been abandoned. They no longer dominate employment in major industry as much of traditional industry has left them behind. Meanwhile, increasing opportunities for Catholics in employment combined with a higher degree of emphasis on education have led to a growing sense of isolation and abandonment for these unionists. These people have felt no benefit at all from peace and feel more isolated than ever. Indeed, they have now lost the one thing they always clung to - an arrogant and uniformed sense of superiority over Catholics. Meanwhile, the Catholic population also suffers from a large group of disaffected youth who have not benefited from new opportunities and who continue to blame others for their own lot in life.

On a street-to-street level, disaffected Protestant and Catholic groups - both concentrated in public housing settings which remain segregated - suffer from the same kinds of problems that afflict most major urban populations - gangs, thugs, drugs, and crime. Only, in Belfast, one can label it political paint a mural and suddenly it takes on a broader and dangerous symbolism.

A major irony of the peace process is that it has left a vacuum in areas where in the past crime was dealt with by "street justice" - internal order provided by the nationalist and unionist paramilitary forces. Both sides' paramilitary forces historically were deeply involved in criminal activity and violence. Now that they have accepted peace and disarmed, they are no longer there to enforce order within their own populations. At the same time, as the economy spirals downward, an entire generation of youth is now coming of age that has no idea what the peace process was or the horrifying events that preceded it.

The "rioters" in the Ardoyne area of Belfast this past week were in fact largely children - teens, and some as young as eight years old. Some in the press characterized this as a "Disneyland of rioting" for these youth. It is likely that there are dissident republicans helping to coordinate these children - lining up petrol bombs and busing them around town. But the real message of these dissidents is not to the peace process. The message is to the former IRA leaders who are now involved in peace building that they no longer control the streets.

Significantly, the biggest failing of the peace process to date is that in both Protestant and Catholic communities in areas like Ardoyne and similar neighborhoods an entire generation of children is at risk of being lost. These young people do not have role models to aspire to. Their parents are grossly disengaged from child rearing. These young people see local organized crime figures as the main role models. Showing that they can throw bricks at police - is the best way they can show their "toughness" - while those behind the scenes stake out their territory street by street - mainly to sell drugs.

It is at this sub-level of social disconnect - driven not by Troubles of the past - but rather economic dislocation and class - that the peace process faces its most significant challenge. If the reconciled Protestant and Catholic political leaders feel increasingly pulled back into their core communities rather than building on the benefits of their growing political relationships, there could be a need to further posture back along nationalist and unionist political lines. If left unaddressed, then these bottom up security problems could proliferate upward into the larger peace process.

In reality, however, there has been a sea change in Northern Ireland. I saw this close up in Washington during St. Patrick's Day festivities when First and Second Ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness demonstrated their clear desire to put the past far behind them. They were united on the need to promote investment and to advance economic development in their shared land.

More effort must be done to gain understanding around the July marching season requiring accommodation to Catholic sensitivities by the marching Orangemen. But crucially, in a time of economic crisis and tightening budgets, innovative and creative approaches to reaching out to this new generation of young, disaffected Catholics and Protestants must be achieved. Both communities share a similar problem on the streets of Belfast and it will take a society-wide effort to bring these lost children of peace along. If there is to be a new priority for American leadership in consolidating peace, it is here that low costs investment in education can create major long-term benefit.

Northern Ireland is doing well. One visiting would have to work hard to find the trouble brewing. Foreign direct investment is taking root and ironically, the historical ties to the United Kingdom have shielded it form the economic shocks being felt to the south in the Republic of Ireland. Former adversaries have reconciled into a good working government. No one wants a return to the past except those who either never experienced it or have another agenda.

-- Sean Kay

It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.

-- Deng Xiaoping

Li Zhaoxing, pictured to the left, on my new Capitol One credit card is a very cool diplomat. During part of the Cultural Revolution, he worked in China's Embassy in Kenya and learned Swahili.

Li, who is now a professor at Peking University and Honorable President of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs after having served both as China's Ambassador to the U.S. and recently as Foreign Minister of China, hopefully will be thrilled to be China's first ever Foreign Minister depicted on a credit card -- or at least I hope so.

I figured that since I have this picture of the two of us in my office, it's not too much of a leap to think it would be fine with everyone to carry the pic in my wallet -- and sort of like Deng Xiaoping said, the credit card thing is, well. . ."my cat".

I'm going to use this card next time I pay my visa fee at the Consulate.

For those interested, not only does Capital One permit you to put your own image on a credit card, but at this point, does not charge the 3% international transaction fee that most other bank cards impose.

-- Steve Clemons

(Shop along South Luogo Alley, Beijing; photo credit: Andrew Oros)

I have seen a lot of foreigners wearing this ObaMao shirt, but no Chinese yet.

What would converse be with Hu Jintao?

-- Steve Clemons

(Learning about Wuxi's New District Industrial Park; photo credit, Peter Pi)

So far, any slice of China and the Chinese people one wants to cut out is full of economic, cultural and intellectual diversity -- so I fear that it is very easy for an observer to see what he or she wants to see in this country. That in itself, though, seems to be a huge change from what this place was like 30, or even 20 years ago.

One of the behavioral characteristics many before me have seen in China is the well developed sense of self interest in China. Japanese citizens in contrast seem to me to be much more focused on their group, and clubs, and other vastly sprawling social networks. The Chinese want to do business, do projects, engage in hobbies, be pragmatic and get ahead.

In my encounters here, I don't get a sense from many people of deep concern for the common good, for the broad public welfare. They expect the government to see to these needs and to make the choices that promote public happiness and well-being, and when the government doesn't -- as many feel in environmental issues -- the public gets frustrated. Otherwise, the average citizen doesn't really ponder these larger issues and has mentally delegated them to the political order.

The one exception I have found to this in Beijing, Wuxi, Shenzhen, Shanghai and some other places in speaking both to municipal officials, Shanghai port designers and engineers, industrial park managers, and even military representatives is that the global financial crisis created the potential of an economic tsunami for China that might have wiped out not only a great deal of China's wealth -- but the state's ability to promulgate "hope" for a better economic future among its advancement-hungry citizens.

China takes jobs seriously -- hugely seriously. During the financial crisis, the country's provincial authorities and national government created incentives for firms to retain rather than layoff workers. They invested heavily in training and re-training programs with highly detailed job replacement support for those workers displaced during the crisis.

The kinds of programs China deployed are enormously expensive -- and in most capitalist societies, these programs are modest if not trivial, and often used more as fig leafs to seduce recalcitrant political parties, and occasionally labor unions, to accept economic arrangements that can have harsh displacement impact on, for example, American workers.

One could argue that it would have been more economically efficient for China to just let the hand of economic fate reorganize the Chinese political economy -- to reward the most competitive parts of China's economic base and to punish the parts that were too dependent on American and European consumption, or too costly and uncompetitive given new pressures from places like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

But China's national interest -- and sense of concern for average citizens in the group sense -- prompted these large scale supports in job retention, retraining, and new job creation.

It's not possible to observe what China has done without a significant amount of respect for its commitment to its workers -- which prompts the question of what tools does the U.S. government not have at its disposal to make similar efforts on behalf of U.S. citizens during a time of severe economic crisis.

The U.S. economy is back in wobbly territory -- and there is much that can be learned from China in my view in the way that the country here mixes individual economic self interest and national economic objectives.

America needs to be making substantially greater investments in high-wage job generating infrastructure development that can help generate for the US economy recurring returns over generations. That is what China is doing -- and there is no excuse that is rational for the U.S. not to be doing what it needs to do to leapfrog out of its current economic morass into a more dynamic, innovation-driven future.

-- Steve Clemons

When James and Deborah Fallows lived in Beijing, Jim regularly featured on his blog pictures of the weather -- well, the smog -- from his balcony.

This is not from my balcony but it does capture just how thick the smog is in Beijing right now. After several days here of living in a sunless, puffy, misty fluorescent haze, we finally caught a glimpse of the sun. We rejoiced.

When one engages in conversation with Chinese about how they see their country, the biggest area of concern for the future and criticism of the government targets environmental mismanagement. Given the amount of coverage that "green issues" get in the Chinese press -- on TV and in print journalism -- to some degree it seems like the government is inviting public criticism, or at least trying to give space for this frustration to vent.

Beijing -- which is a political city for the most part -- is pulsing with change and growth. The people I see are consuming and want more, and the city is being torn up and rebuilt with a peculiar mix of hard labor workers and machines.

I'm increasingly convinced that China is making enormous investments in green technologies and deployment at a level substantially greater than the United States is doing -- but it's dependence on carbon-based energy is erupting upward right along with China's renewable sectors.

China, it seems to me, will have a mix of every type of energy option built into its economic structure -- but the negative environmental consequences have no where to go but get worse.

-- Steve Clemons

On this trip to China, I haven't yet made it up to the Shanghai Expo, but I hope to go soon. China's Pavilion towers among the rest and is a testament to the fact that after a few hundred tough years, China is back.

Living in Washington, I'm used to seeing world leaders come through regularly -- most recently for the nuclear materials summit hosted by President Obama.

However, China keeps a dizzying pace of welcoming and sending off leaders -- at a rate comparable and possibly greater than what Washington receives today.

Right now German Chancellor Angela Merkel is doing the China thing -- and British Foreign Minister William Hague is in town. And in recent days, Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner was here.

Beijing is where the global game is moving to.

-- Steve Clemons

I've been in Beijing for a few days, but in contrast to most of my previous trips here, my schedule thus far has been driven more by happenstance and serendipity than planning.

My first evening, I attended a free lecture organized by Columbia University at Studio X on the subject of " Beijing: The Implications of Urban Aging in World Cities" with Michael Gusmano, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. I hesitated before going to this session as it didn't seem to be the sort of topic that would help me stay awake and fight jet lag, but Gusmano was excellent and shared much about the lethal side of social networks deficits of some elder citizens.

During the 2003 great heat wave in Europe for instance, Gusmano argues that there were 1200 "excess deaths" of older aged people in Paris -- most probably due to the fact that their relations and much of the population had gone South and that these folks were not checked up on -- in contrast to Rome which hired young people to bike around the city knocking on doors of older aged citizens and helping with water and other needs. I also learned that the world had 20 mega-cities today with populations greater than 20 million -- but that in coming decades we will have 23 mega-cities, with populations on average significantly older than the case today.

About 50 people attended the meeting -- a mix of mostly Chinese alums, some current Columbia undergrads in language programs here and some other notables including SIPA Professor Merit Janow and China expert Daniel Rosen.

On the second day in Beijing, I attended another networking gathering as the guest of a Beijing-based former New America Foundation research assistant Oliver Lough, an energy analyst.

One could just float from event to event in this city -- every day, lunch and dinner, often hosted with beer, not so good wine, and light pick up food by leading NGOs and other organizations trying to drill down and fasten themselves into what China is becoming.

The meeting I attended with Ollie Lough and attended by about 80 folks was organized by the Beijing Energy Network and started with a short presentation on an interesting web-based resource called ChinaFAQs -- an information network for climate-related and energy policy resources in China. The World Resources Institute is the sponsor of the site and had a few of its people comment on the legislative prospects for climate change legislation passing the US Congress this year.

Interesting material presented -- though I think that WRI Legislative Affairs Director Christina Deconcini was far more optimistic than I would have been about the prospects for any -- even utility industry focused -- climate related legislation passing this year. I hope I'm wrong. She made an interesting point that WRI was working to see what was 'achievable' through executive order and regulatory approaches to carbon emissions controls that didn't depend on legislative outcomes.

I asked DeConcini how far such an approach would get the US toward the climate goals Obama declared in Copenhagen -- and she unfortunately responded that WRI was not going to announce those figures to the group that had assembled that evening at the Beijing Energy Network and that the results were embargoed for another week. It would have been more interesting frankly to have a hint or some discussion on whether a regulatory approach would yield anything serious -- but that discussion was not to be had that night in lieu of a hoped for press splash.

But the key thing is that there was an excellent roster of folks at this meeting, which interestingly was held in English rather than Chinese -- and subsequently made me wonder if any such meetings of this sort were going on with Chinese language speakers who clearly are more at the core of national power structures here than those who have a facility in English.

I don't know the answer to that.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

In the wake of Barack Obama's election, the extent to which he has continued many Bush administration counterterrorism policies has surprised many, especially when looking not only at the continuation and expansion of tactics such as drone strikes, but also at the degree to which the administration has used tools such as the state secrets privilege to justify keeping many Bush administration practices out of the public eye.

An interesting foil to this is a lawsuit currently underway in the United Kingdom, where six former Guantanamo bay detainees have sued the government, and forced the release of a trove of documents, with the potential for hundreds of thousands more, dealing with government complicity in their rendition and abuse. The British press has been particularly aggressive in covering this process, and I just want to point quickly to an interesting passage from a recent Guardian article on the stance British courts and the new British government have taken when dealing with sensitive material related to terrorism:

The government has been responding to disclosure requests by maintaining that it has identified up to 500,000 documents that may be relevant, and says it has deployed 60 lawyers to scrutinise them, a process that it suggests could take until the end of the decade. It has failed to hand over many of the documents that the men's lawyers have asked for, and on Friday failed to meet a deadline imposed by the high court for the disclosure of the secret interrogation policy that governed MI5 and MI6 officers between 2004 and earlier this year.

So far just 900 papers have been disclosed, and these have included batches of press cuttings and copies of government reports that were published several years ago. However, a number of highly revealing documents are among the released papers, as well as fragments of heavily censored emails, memos and policy documents.

Some are difficult to decipher, but together they paint a picture of a government that was determined not only to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States as it embarked upon its programme of "extraordinary rendition" and torture of terrorism suspects in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but to actively participate in that programme.

In May, after the appeal court dismissed attempts to suppress evidence of complicity in their mistreatment, the government indicated that it would attempt to settle out of court.

Today the government failed in an attempt to bring a temporary halt to the proceedings that have resulted in the disclosure of the documents. Its lawyers argued that the case should be delayed while attempts were made to mediate with the six men, in the hope that their claims could be withdrawn in advance of the judicial inquiry. Lawyers for the former Guantánamo inmates said it was far from certain that mediation would succeed, and insisted the disclosure process continue.

In rejecting the government's application, the court said it had considered the need for its lawyers to press ahead with the task of processing the 500,000 documents in any event, as the cases of the six men are among those that will be considered by the inquiry headed by Sir Peter Gibson. Last week, in announcing the inquiry, Cameron told MPs: "This inquiry will be able to look at all the information relevant to its work, including secret information. It will have access to all relevant government papers - including those held by the intelligence services."

-- Andrew Lebovich

This is a guest note by Eric Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration at the Department of State. Schwartz previously headed the Connect US Fund. He sends regular reports of his overseas work on humanitarian matters, and TWN is pleased to share them here.

Report from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan

Between June 28 and July 1, I traveled to the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to assess humanitarian response efforts in the wake of the horrific violence perpetrated in the south of Kyrgyzstan, primarily against the Uzbek community. Members of this community make up about fifteen percent of the population of Kyrgyzstan, and a much larger percentage of the population of the south.

As you know, the violence was characterized by coordinated attacks and destruction of thousands of homes in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad; officials have also documented the deaths of several hundred people, although the actual number of deaths may have been much higher. And as many as 100,000 Kyrgyz citizens fled to neighboring Uzbekistan.

While those responsible for these attacks have yet to be identified, it seems clear that the violence was not a spontaneous manifestation of inter-ethnic conflict. Rather, the violence appears to have been orchestrated by individuals or groups bent on destabilizing the situation to achieve political or economic advantage.

I began my visit in Uzbekistan, where I met with government officials, representatives from international humanitarian organizations and members of civil society. The government of Uzbekistan acted quickly and constructively in response to the humanitarian crisis, providing food, water, shelter and medical assistance to some 100,000 refugees. Government officials also cooperated closely with UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and non-governmental organizations. These efforts helped many people in a time of dire need.

Although most refugees have now gone back to Kyrgyzstan, concerns have been raised about the circumstances of returns, and the situation in Kyrgyzstan remains fragile. Thus, I encouraged Uzbek officials to sustain their relationships and cooperation with international humanitarian organizations such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I also told my interlocutors that the United States believes it is important that the border stay open, and that any refugees who may still be in Uzbekistan and fear return have the option to remain temporarily. Anyone can appreciate the deep concerns of those who fear returning to the scene of such horrific violence, and it is thus important that returns be voluntary.

In Kyrgyzstan, I traveled to areas impacted by the violence, and conferred with government officials and representatives of non-governmental and international organizations. On June 30, I visited Osh, joined by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Gutteres, the U.S. Ambassador, Tatiana Gfoeller, and the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Valentin Vlasov. We went with colleagues from the United Nations and from the Russian Federation to demonstrate our commitment to work closely and collaboratively with partners in supporting the reconciliation and recovery effort. In Bishkek on July 1, I met with Interim President Rosa Otunbayeva, with deputy head of the interim government, Almazbek Atambayev, as well as with representatives of a range of UN affiliated agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and others.

I first sought to express the strong solidarity of the citizens and the government of the United States with the people and the government of Kyrgyzstan in efforts to pursue national reconciliation and recovery, and, in particular, to express our profound sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the terrible attacks of last month. The United States is helping in a number of ways. First, on the whole, the U.S. is the largest donor to major international humanitarian organizations that are playing a leading role in Kyrgyzstan, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross. In addition, the U.S. is providing some $30 million in new funding that will be focused on addressing the current crisis.

A UNHCR relief convoy enters Kyrgyzstan at the border with Uzbekistan. Since mid-June UNHCR has provided hundreds of tons of emergency relief to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. With most refugees having now returned to Kyrgyzstan the focus of help has shifted to the displaced populations in and around Osh and nearby Jalalabad. Photo courtesy of UNHCR/ S. Grigoryan

While the process of rebuilding the physical infrastructure will take great effort, the greater challenge of course is promoting reconciliation - and a future in which different communities in Kyrgyzstan live peacefully and cooperatively together. I discussed these issues at length with Kyrgyz officials, stressing that members of the Uzbek community should have a meaningful role in the critical decisions on recovery and reconstruction that will so impact their lives and well-being. The constitutional referendum, held peacefully on June 27, sends a signal of the government's commitment to constitutional development, but much more needs to be done to bring groups together.

I also discussed with President Otunbayeva and other officials the critical civilian protection concerns in the south, and welcomed Kyrgyz government support of proposals for a monitoring mission by the OSCE. A robust international presence in the south, including monitors, advisors, and relief workers can play a key role in building confidence and promoting peace and cooperation among communities who remain so seriously affected by the recent violence, and we are prepared to do what we can to help implement such proposals. With those objectives in mind, PRM will provide financial support for the monitoring and reporting efforts of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Finally, I discussed with officials the importance of an impartial international inquiry into the events of last month, as a complete accounting will serve not only the interests of justice, but also of reconciliation. The United States has supported such an inquiry, and we look forward to further discussion with officials on this issue in the days and weeks to come.

Best,

Eric Schwartz

To learn more about PRM's programs and activities, please visit our website.

(click image for larger version)

Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest. He has just returned from Tanzania.

Here's a cartoon I drew on BP's mess.

I sketched this one before I left for Tanzania last month and since I've returned that gusher is still gushing, already for 85 days. (maybe we got good news today that the well is capped -- but count me as a skeptic given all the other times they nearly had the gusher contained.)

For my money, the only solution is for BHO to take care of it himself -- roll up his sleeves, brush up on his SCUBA, and plug it himself. Hence, the TWN 'toon.

-- Jonathan Guyer