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Ketamine has been used as an anesthetic for decades. It's also a widely popular but illegal club drug known as "Special K." When administered in low doses, patients report a rapid reduction in depression symptoms.

There's no quick fix for severe depression.

Although antidepressants like Prozac have been around since the 1970s, they usually take weeks to make a difference. And for up to 40 percent of patients, they simply don't work.

As a result, there are limited options when patients show up in an emergency room with suicidal depression.

The doctors and nurses at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston say they see this problem every day.

You can get a sense of what they're up against by visiting the cavernous, bustling emergency center at Ben Taub, which is part of the massive Texas Medical Center. More than 100,000 patients a year get emergency care here and about 5,000 of them need psychiatric evaluation.

Enlarge Ben Taub General Hospital

Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston sees 100,000 emergency patients a year, 5,000 of whom need psychiatric evaluation.

Ben Taub General Hospital

Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston sees 100,000 emergency patients a year, 5,000 of whom need psychiatric evaluation.

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The hospital's 24-hour Psychiatric Emergency Center gets a steady stream of people with suicidal depression, says Charlzta McMurray-Horton, who is in charge of mental health nursing.

"If the police bring them in, they're going to come through this door," McMurray-Horton says, pointing to one entrance. "If the ambulance brings them in, they're going to come through this door," she says, pointing to a different entrance.

And one of the challenges in treating these severely depressed patients is that there simply isn't any drug that provides quick relief, says Anu Matorin, medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Center.

Matorin talks about one recent patient. The woman had suffered bouts of depression since college, Matorin says. But after she had a baby, it became severe. She stopped eating and sleeping. She began to think about suicide.

Finally, the woman made a desperate call to her mother, Matorin says.

"She was very emotional, very tearful, not making sense," Matorin says. "She says, 'I just can't take it anymore. I don't know how to feed the child.' The mother could hear the infant crying in the background."

The family called 9-1-1 and the woman arrived at the hospital with a police escort. Matorin says she evaluated the woman and put her on antidepressants.

Then came the hard part, Matorin says. She knew the drugs might help the woman eventually. But they weren't going to do anything about her suicidal thoughts during the next few critical days.

So Matorin did the only thing she could for her patient. She admitted her to the hospital's locked inpatient unit.

I ask to see the facility, so McMurray Horton takes me there.

'Keep Them Safe, Keep Them Alive'

The unit can handle 20 patients, and its main room is warmer, softer and more colorful than you might expect. Think Holiday Inn, without any sharp objects or hard edges.

But there's no avoiding the fact that this is a place where safety is paramount and privacy isn't, says McMurray-Horton. Shatterproof plastic windows around the nurses' station provide unobstructed sight-lines to pretty much everywhere.

"Patients don't want to be here," says McMurray-Horton, explaining that about three-quarters of them are in the unit because they have been deemed a threat to themselves or someone else.

So it's not surprising that our tour of the unit is interrupted by the loud protests of one enraged patient.

Units like this are necessary in part because drugs for depression don't work fast enough to help someone in the early days of a crisis, Matorin says.

And McMurray-Horton says staff members here have a simple goal for patients in crisis: "Keep them safe, keep them alive until they're in a different space."

Counseling can help, McMurray-Horton says. So can family. And she says most people in crisis just start to feel better after a few days in a place where staff make sure that "they stay in and the world stays out."

That was certainly true of the depressed young mother that Matorin admitted. She got better and went home several days later.

But that woman probably could have skipped the hospital stay altogether if the drugs used to treat depression were as quick and effective as, say, painkillers, Matorin says.

If drugs were more effective, "I think it would transform psychiatric care and really eliminate some of the stigma and fear and concern about treatment," she says.

'A Completely Different Mechanism'

A growing number of scientists think it won't be long before psychiatric care is transformed.

Traditional antidepressants like Prozac work on a group of chemical messengers in the brain called the serotonin system. Researchers once thought that a lack of serotonin was the cause of depression, and that these drugs worked simply by boosting serotonin levels.

Recent research suggests a more complicated explanation. Serotonin drugs work by stimulating the birth of new neurons, which eventually form new connections in the brain. But creating new neurons takes time ? a few weeks, at least ? which is thought to explain the delay in responding to antidepressant medications.

Ketamine, in contrast, activates a different chemical system in the brain ? the glutamate system. Researcher Ron Duman at Yale believes that ketamine rapidly increases the communication among existing neurons by creating new connections. This is a quicker process than waiting for new neurons to form and accomplishes the same goal of enhancing brain circuit activity.

To study how ketamine might work, Duman turned to rats. The first image below shows the neuron of a rat that has received no ketamine treatment. The small bumps and spots on the side of the neuron are budding connections between neurons.

A rat neuron without ketamine treatment.

Enlarge Ronald Duman/Yale University

Ronald Duman/Yale University

Just hours after giving the rats doses of ketamine, Duman saw a dramatic increase in the number of new connections between brain cells. This increase in neuronal connectivity is thought to relieve depression.

A rat neuron after treatment with ketamine.

Enlarge Ronald Duman/Yale University

Ronald Duman/Yale University

And they are particularly excited about an experimental drug that's being tried over in the NeuroPsychiatric Center next to Ben Taub Hospital.

It's here that drug researchers are studying a drug that's unlike anything now used to treat depression. And they're giving it to patients who haven't done well on existing drugs.

One of these patients is Heather Merrill, who speaks to me in a small conference room that's part of the large and very busy outpatient clinic.

Merill is 41, with three kids and nice house in the suburbs.

"I've suffered from depression for most of my adult life," she says. "It got to the point where I kind of felt like there wasn't going to be anything that was going to be able to help me."

At times her depression gets so bad she can't take care of her family or even herself, she says. And that's how she was feeling the day before, she says, when doctors placed an IV in her arm and began to administer a drug.

Because it was part of an experiment, there were two possibilities. The drug could have been just a sedative. Or it might have been something called ketamine.

Ketamine has been used for decades as an anesthetic. It's also become a wildly popular but illegal club drug known as "Special K."

Mental health researchers got interested in ketamine because of reports that it could make depression vanish almost instantly.

In contrast, drugs like Prozac take weeks or even months. And the frustrating thing is that depression medications really haven't changed much since Prozac arrived in the 1970s, says Sanjay Mathew from Baylor College of Medicine, who is in charge of the ketamine study at Ben Taub.

"Everything since then has been essentially incremental," he says. "There have been tweaks of existing molecules."

But ketamine represents much more than a tweak, Mathews says.

"It's a completely different mechanism," he says. "And the focus is on really rapidly helping someone get out of a depressive episode."

'No More Fogginess. No More Heaviness'

Heather Merrill says she's pretty sure it was ketamine that flowed into her veins 24 hours earlier.

"It was almost immediate, the sense of calmness and relaxation," she says.

Some of the doctors think she might be right.

"Her demeanor has changed tremendously," says Dr. Asim Shah, who directs the mood disorder program at Ben Taub. "She looks like a happy person who is genuinely happy, whereas before the study, she looked very down, very withdrawn, sort of almost tearful."

But of course, nobody knows whether Merrill actually got ketamine. That information will be kept secret until the study is done, months from now.

So I decide to see how Merrill's experience compares with those of people who definitely took ketamine for depression.

I talk to Carlos Zarate, who does ketamine research at the NIH and has never met Merrill. Zarate says patients typically say, "'I feel that something's lifted or feel that I've never been depressed in my life. I feel I can work. I feel I can contribute to society.' And it was a different experience from feeling high. This was feeling that something has been removed."

I compare this to what Heather Merrill said about her experience: "No more fogginess. No more heaviness. I feel like I'm a clean slate right now. I want to go home and see friends or, you know, go to the grocery store and cook the family dinner."

The similarities are hard to ignore.

And researchers say the consistent patient reactions have actually made it more difficult to do good studies of ketamine. The drug's effects are so powerful and distinctive, they say, it's hard to prevent doctors and patients in an experiment from figuring out who got the drug and who didn't.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/27/145992588/could-a-club-drug-offer-almost-immediate-relief-from-depression?ft=1&f=1007

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Microsoft and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) are teaming up today on the public release of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365,?a name which surely Microsoft itself had a hand in creating. The new service will allow corporate customers to manage their deployed BlackBerry devices using Exchange Online, the hosted version of Microsoft's messaging platform.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fF0F0wnB8sI/

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration is proposing new rules to help military families care for service members when they are called to active duty or become injured.

First lady Michelle Obama was set to join Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on Monday to announce the plan that updates the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The proposal would let family members take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to help a service member deployed on short notice. Family caregivers could attend military functions, deal with child care issues, or update financial affairs without fear of losing their jobs.

It would also give family members up to 26 weeks of leave to care for a service member with a serious injury or illness.

Officials also are announcing other efforts to support military families.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-30-Military-Family%20Leave/id-c7da8d2ff4a549a5ba82fe103d00c387

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Power couple Jay-Z and Beyonce joined a list of top music executives, led by Live Nation Entertainment chairman Irving Azoff, on Billboard magazine's first Power 100 chart on Friday.

Only a handful of artists broke onto the list that sought to name the recording industry's most influential people and was dominated by businessmen and women. The selection was determined by a combination of money, market share, Billboard chart data and other information, and a team of 15 magazine editors analyzed the results to produce the list.

Both Jay-Z and Beyonce made it due to numerous ventures outside their singing careers including Jay-Z's Roc Nation music, management and entertainment company and Beyonce's sponsorship deals with brands such as L'Oreal. Collectively, they were placed at No. 13 on the Power 100 list.

Azoff has been at the helm of Live Nation Entertainment, a ticket sales and concert company, since 2008 and previously represented artists such as Christina Aguilera and Van Halen.

Just behind Azoff at No. 2 was Coran Capshaw, the founder and partner of Red Light Management, who helps run the careers of groups such as the Dave Matthews Band. Rounding out the top three was Universal Music Group's chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge.

Others on the list included Creative Artists Agency's managing partner and head of music Rob Light at No. 7 and Interscope Geffen A&M Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine at No. 10.

Rock band U2 came in at No. 27 along with their manager Paul McGuinness based on their ability to sell more than 7 million tickets to their last tour along with their prolific chart career. Fellow rocker Jon Bon Jovi clocked in at No. 50.

Country music star Taylor Swift, 22, made the list at No. 78 for being a "branding powerhouse" with her own management company and lucrative contracts with companies such as CoverGirl. Pop sensation Lady Gaga followed Swift at No. 84, picked for the sway she holds over millions of loyal followers on Facebook and Twitter.

The list held some surprises as "The X Factor" creator and television mogul Simon Cowell ranked last at No. 100, beaten by his former "American Idol" colleague, host Ryan Seacrest, who ranked No. 64.

Seacrest was placed higher due to his numerous ventures including his syndicated daily radio show, "American Idol" hosting gig, production company at NBC Universal and his newest venture to reshape HDNet as a pop culture TV network in collaboration with billionaire Mark Cuban, Creative Artists Agency and live entertainment company, AEG.

The full list can be viewed at Billboard.biz and in the upcoming issue of Billboard Magazine, on newsstands January 30.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/music_nm/us_billboard_powerlist

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The ?Tigertails? took off from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. NBC?s Brian Williams reports.

>>> we want to make note of a history-making flight this week for the u.s. navy . the first all-female combat mission . the five took off in an e-2-c hawkeye aircraft from the aircraft carrier uss carl vincent. there is your crew. the navy says this is a significant achievement given that the number of female pilots in the fleet, less than 5%. though the number of female officers is growing.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46170067/

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Our Weekly Read column features Fortune staffers' and contributors' takes on recently?published books about the business world and beyond. We've invited the entire Fortune family -- from our writers and editors to our photo editors and designers -- to weigh in on books of their choosing based on their individual tastes or curiosities. In this installment, reporter Caitlin Keating reviews Smart Trust, The Trustworthy Leader, and The Progress Principle, three new books that address the role that trust and related emotional issues play in business success.

FORTUNE -- In business as in private life, all successful relationships run on trust. Yet we often get trust wrong, giving it either too readily or too stingily. From Bernie Madoff to the mortgage industry, con artists have always operated by persuading na?ve investors to give their trust. On the other hand, relationships often fail because one or both parties are afraid to give trust.

That's the premise of Stephen M.R. Covey's Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy and Joy in a Low-Trust World. "[T]hose who live in blind trust eventually get burned; those who live with distrust eventually experience financial, social, and emotional losses," writes Covey, the son of Stephen R. Covey of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fame.

Successful companies and people find a middle way that Covey and co-authors Greg Link and Rebecca R. Merrill call "smart trust." For example, eBay's (EBAY) 235 million registered users are mostly strangers to each other. Yet they engage in one million financial transactions a day. According to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman: "[M]ore than a decade later, I still believe ? the fundamental reason eBay worked was that people everywhere are basically good."

So how do successful companies manage risk in a low-trust world? Among many other examples, the authors point to Netflix (NFLX), which built a thriving movie rental business on trust. Netflix trusted all customers to mail back their DVDs, occasionally eliminating unreliable customers as a cost of doing business. If Netflix hadn't extended this original trust, they wouldn't have nearly as many subscribers. Less happily, Netflix's business suffered last year when it abruptly changed its pricing structure, which many customers viewed as a violation of trust.

A related topic is how successful leaders inspire trust. Amy Lyman, cofounder of the Great Place to Work Institute, has been studying this question for about 30 years. In The Trustworthy Leader, Lyman argues that trustworthy leaders inspire cooperation from their employees, which in turn produces a strong sense of commitment and loyalty throughout the organization.

While Covey and co. highlight the important of trust in general, Lyman focuses on the workplace. She presents detailed examples from many industries, including healthcare, retail and real estate, using her institute's Trust Index to measure the quality of relationships between employees and their leaders. (Fortune partners with the Great Place to Work Institute to produce our annual list of the Best Companies to Work For. The Trust Index is a pillar of our ranking methodology.)

Finally, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer wrote The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work to try and understand how various aspects of an employee's work and personal life affect performance and motivation at work. Amabile teaches at Harvard Business School. Kramer is an independent writer and researcher, as well as Amabile's husband. In the course of their research the authors analyzed nearly 12,000 diary entries from hundreds of employees at many organizations.

Although Amabile and Kramer pile up an impressive mound of data, their conclusions are generally unsurprising. For example, they found that "participants ? experienced much more positive emotion when they made progress than when they had setbacks." They also found that happy employees tend to perform better. Strikingly, managers are often clueless about the importance of these "small wins". In a survey conducted for the book, only 35 out of 669 managers ranked progress as the number-one motivator, after recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, and clear goals.

Source: http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/27/trust-business-books/

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Expendables 2 with Bieber

Just a week or so ago, action film fans were upset to discover that The Expendables 2 was going to arrive in theaters with a PG-13 rating ? thanks, apparently, to Chuck Norris. Norris was unhappy with the vulgar language in the script and the idea that it would keep some audience members from seeing the film, so Stallone and company decided to go with the more family-friendly PG-13. Fans, expecting a hard R-rating and all the violence it ensures, are now convinced the film will be a compromised and somewhat restrained creation (Stallone says this is untrue, but we?ll have to wait and see).

This is hardly the first time in recent years that a film getting a PG-13 instead of an R rating has upset fans. It seems like a relatively new trend, but horror geeks were displeased when Sam Raimi?s Drag Me to Hell premiered with the lower rating (and many skipped seeing it entirely, convinced it wouldn?t deliver the gory goods) and fans of the Terminator were also vocal in their displeasure when Salvation went for the more commercially viable PG-13.

Those concerned that the planned?fifth Terminator?film would also be stuck with the rating can now breathe easy. Megan Ellison, owner of Annapurna Pictures (the company producing the next installment), has taken to Twitter to tell everyone that the film will return to the series' R-rated roots. Here?s the exchange, with a Terminator fansite, courtesy of the guys at ComicBookMovie.

TheTerminatorFans.com : @meganeellison We hope you can bring this franchise back from the brink of PG-13 HELL!

Megan Ellison : @terminatorfans We can't really tell you guys anything about Terminator BUT it will be an R rated film as God and James Cameron intended.

Speaking of The Expendables 2, some enterprising photoshoppers have used their skills to show us just what a PG-13 version of the film might look like. If you were hoping for more Bieber and Barney the Dinosaur in your action flick, this should thrill you.

Check out a few of our favorites (as well as the new synopsis below) and then swing by JoBlo for the full gallery. Remember kids, stay in school.?

Realizing that kids have a hard time sneaking into R-Rated flicks and that it costs the studio 2.5 trillion dollars when this happens, Barney (Stallone) and his crew meet at the treehouse where they are hired by Bruce Willis to collect his prized stolen GI Joe action figure collection, which was taken by a Belgian karate coach/toy collector (Van Dammage). After getting their permission slips signed they stage a raid at his dojo with Nerf guns, water balloons, and TV-14 swear words and break in to take back the action figures. There, they encounter a disgraced security guard (Schwarzenegger) who will stop at nothing to get a Turbo Man action?shit, wrong movie?who will stop at nothing to keep Barney and friends from getting the figures back. Also, since blood can only be shown in limited quantities (except INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, which was rated PG and they ripped f*cking hearts out!) they will save a shit-ton of cash in squibs.

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Expendables school tattoo

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924396/news/1924396/

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JERUSALEM (AP) ? The budgets are bare-bones and the talent pool is limited, but Israel has emerged as a surprising powerhouse in the foreign film industry.

The Israeli film "Footnote," up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, is Israel's fourth such nomination in the past five years, giving Israel more nominations during that period than any other country.

It's an indication to the renaissance of Israeli cinema, which has grown from a fledgling industry with poor cinematography and low box office sales to a darling of world film festivals. That's in spite ? or perhaps because ? of the country's troubled international reputation, due to its lengthy conflict with the Arab world.

The last three Israeli films that made it to the Oscar shortlist all mine the country's troubles with its Arab neighbors. "Beaufort," nominated in 2008, and "Waltz with Bashir," nominated a year after, both explored Israeli soldiers' experiences in Lebanon. "Ajami," the 2010 nominee, centers on Arab-Jewish tensions in a violence-ridden neighborhood near Tel Aviv.

This year's nomination went to an Israeli film featuring a more internal conflict ? two professors of Talmud, a father and son, dueling for academic prestige and a coveted national prize.

"It's a badge of honor for Israel," said Moshe Edery, producer of "Footnote," at a news conference after the Oscar nomination. "It's Israel's best business card around the world, especially these days."

Israeli cinema was long an embarrassment. Cheap comic melodramas were the norm in the 1960s and 1970s. Called "bourekas films" ? the Israeli equivalent of spaghetti Westerns ? they dealt with ethnic stereotypes of European and Middle Eastern Jews.

Sick of those tired tropes, a group of Israeli moviemakers created an Israeli national movie fund in 1979, hopefully named the "Israeli Fund to Encourage Quality Films."

With meager funding from studios and other private entities, filmmakers rely on public funds. But even with help from the new fund, the industry still floundered for two decades.

In 1995, the government cut public funding for cinema in half, leaving enough money to produce only five films a year. Three years later the industry hit an all-time low: Only 0.3 percent of Israeli moviegoers bought tickets to Hebrew-language cinema.

The national film body took on a new name, the Israel Film Fund, and in 2000 it begged Israel's parliament to save Israeli cinema. It did, boosting the budget to $10 million a year for investment in feature films, mandating that young filmmakers get a chance to make themselves known.

It's what gave Joseph Cedar, the Israeli director of the Oscar-nominated films "Footnote" and "Beaufort," his first big break fresh out of film school: The Israel Film Fund supported his first feature, "Time of Favor," which debuted in 2000.

"We didn't know him, but he had enthusiasm. There was something about his passion," said Katriel Schory, executive director of the national fund. "We took a chance."

In the past, "cinema funds would not support a filmmaker's first feature," said Renen Schorr, founder and director of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. "Today, Israel wants young people to make their first films."

The boost in public funding has dovetailed with investments in Israeli cinema by European and Canadian producers, totaling about $15 million and increasing the number of films Israel puts out annually to nearly 20, according to the Film Fund.

Israel's television industry has also blossomed in recent years. After cable channels and a commercial TV station broke the monopoly and monotony of a lone state-run channel in the early 90s, there was a sudden need for new TV content, spurring competition and creativity among local screenwriters.

Now Hollywood TV executives are taking notice, adapting Israeli shows for American audiences. Showtime's hit thriller "Homeland" is adapted from the Israeli drama "Prisoners of War," the NBC game show "Who's Still Standing" originated in Israel, and other Israeli adaptations are currently in development for American TV.

Despite the surge in budgets, funding is a fraction of public money available for filmmakers in European countries.

While Israel has scored some Academy Award nominations in recent years, it hasn't won. None of the 10 Israeli films that made the best foreign language film shortlist over the years has won the big prize.

Now the focus is on Cedar, director of "Footnote," but he told reporters that the coveted Oscar isn't the only measure of success for a filmmaker.

That is exactly the lesson that his Oscar-nominated film imparts, he said.

"'Footnote' deals with the question of what happens when, while you're living your daily life, a prize is offered, which really takes over your moral reasoning and changes your perspective and sometimes completely destroys your perspective," Cedar said, summarizing the main plot line of his movie.

___

Follow Daniel Estrin: www.twitter.com/danielestrin

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-27-ML-Israel-Film-Frenzy/id-1fd8ad65cc254d9ab6a7a322cfd3e83d

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Nuclear fusion, like flying cars, is one of those transparent, dangling carrots that've been stymying the scientific community and tickling our collective noses for decades. But recent research out of the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory might help us inch a few baby steps closer to that Jetsonian future. The experiment, conducted by a group of Oxford University scientists, utilized the DOE's Linac Coherent Light Source -- an X-ray laser capable of pulsing "more than a billion times brighter" than current synchrotron sources -- to transmute a piece of aluminum foil heated to 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (or 2 million degrees Celsius) into a cube of solid plasma. So, why go to such lengths to fry a tiny piece of metal at that extreme temperature? Simple: to replicate conditions found within stars and planets. Alright, so it's not that easy and we're still a ways off from actually duping celestial bodies, but the findings could help advance theories in the field and eventually unlock the powers of the Sun. Until that fateful day arrives, however, we'll just have to let these pedigreed pyros continue to play with their high-tech toys.

Continue reading X-ray laser bakes solid plasma from aluminum foil, brings us closer to nuclear fusion

X-ray laser bakes solid plasma from aluminum foil, brings us closer to nuclear fusion originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46137732/

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For the second time I'm off to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos, and again, looking at my schedule, I have over-extended myself... on top of that it seems to be extremely cold and coming from the nice comfortable South East Asian weather, I am certain to end up in a state of hypothermia...

However, frozen or not, this Forum promises to be of extreme interest to me and my organization Friends-International for two main reasons.

Firstly, the World Economic Forum has just published its Global Risks report, stating main risks as youth unemployment and the income gap: exactly what we at Friends-International have been tackling for the past 17 years. It is our strong belief that there can be no development and no good business if an increasing number of children and youth are relentlessly pushed on the margins of their societies. In the current model with the existing responses, their numbers just keep increasing with clear social consequences across the globe.

We believe that we need to invent a new way, that takes the best of the NGO world and mixes it with the best of the business world, and that mix presents tremendous opportunities as our various social businesses prove.

This is where the second reason for my special interest in this Forum kicks in: it is about Shaping New Models. I am especially interested in the topic of Shared Values and will actually lead some discussions on that topic. This idea has the promise of a different model of development ("reinventing capitalism"), stressing the connections between societal and economic progress. In addition, it is clearly an effort that needs to be carried out not only by businesses and Governments, but also by civil society and communities. As such it is entirely in line with how we conceive our work; our tagline says it all: "Together, Building Futures" a good summary for this very essential discussion.

I really hope to build some solid partnerships during this Forum based on the principles of shared values, so we can build a model that brings growth for everyone, everywhere... Together, Building Futures!

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sebastien-marot/going-to-davos_b_1228521.html

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AP

Judge Wesley Brown is shown in this June 2007 photo.

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By msnbc.com staff and news services

WICHITA, Kan. -- U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown, the nation?s oldest sitting federal judge, has died at age 104.

Brown died Monday evening at Larksfield Place, an assisted-living center where he had lived for several years, Judge Monti Belot told The Wichita Eagle.

?There comes a time, and he was just ready,? Belot, who also sits on the federal bench in Wichita, told The Eagle.

Brown was appointed as a federal district judge in 1962 by then-President John F. Kennedy. In 1979, Brown officially took senior status, a type of semi-retirement. But he continued to carry a full load of cases for the next three decades. It was only in recent years that he began to lighten his workload.
??
Brown's long tenure on the federal bench rivals that of Joseph Woodrough, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, who had been the longest practicing judge in the federal judiciary when he died in 1977 at age 104.

?Belot said Brown had been in weaker health and had not come to the courthouse within the past month.

?I hope to be remembered as a good judge, and not just an old judge,? Brown told The Eagle last year, sitting in his office.

Brown graduated from law school at the University of Kansas in 1933. He was appointed a bankruptcy judge in Wichita in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On March 8, 1962, Kennedy nominated him to a seat on the U.S. District Court for Kansas vacated by Delmas C. Hill. Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments.

Brown was known for his compassion for defendants, according to a 2010 profile in the Huffington Post.

In sentencing a 28-year-old woman to more than three years in prison in March 2010, he told the tearful defendant how much he and other court officials wanted her to succeed in the future. "As an old man, it is hard for me to say I am sorry it happened," Brown told her, according to The Huffington Post. "I know you will do the right thing. Good luck and be well."

The Associated Press and msnbc.com's James Eng contributed to this story.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/24/10225145-nations-oldest-federal-judge-dies-at-104

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If becoming your own boss is high on the to-do list for 2012, your best bet is to listen to the advice of those who have blazed the path of starting a business before you, so 2013, 2014 and beyond may still find you in the driver?s seat.

Nellie Akalp has been there on a number of occasions and wants to pass on the things she wished she knew when starting her first ? and even second ? business.

1. Don?t underestimate a business plan.

If you?re not seeking outside funding at the start, it?s tempting to forgo writing out a formal business plan. However, taking the time to write out your business plan, forecasts and marketing strategy is a particularly effective way to hone your vision. All planning should center around two essential questions: How is my business serving a particular need or pain point, and does this represent a major market opportunity?

In addition, don?t overlook the exit strategy at the beginning. Do you want your children to take over the company? Do you want to sell it? It?s critical to think about these questions from the start, as the building blocks of your company (such as legal structure) should vary depending on your preferred final outcome.

2. Don?t get stuck in the past.

My husband and I launched our first online legal document filing service in 1997, and then re-entered the market with our second company in 2009. While our previous experience certainly gave us a leg up the second time around, we soon realized the market landscape had changed dramatically since our first company. We had to stop dwelling on previous competitors, customer needs and service expectations and write a brand new playbook.

The marketplace and your business plan are living entities; they?re continually in flux. Whether it?s your first company or fifth in a given market, you?ve got to keep asking: What do we need to do today?

Full story at Mashable.

Giving your business a head start.

Photo credit: Fotolia

Source: http://holykaw.alltop.com/6-considerations-before-starting-a-business

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Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Lee Evans (83) is stripped of the ball by New England Patriots free safety Sterling Moore (29) during the second half of the AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. Right is New England Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty (32). The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? Lee Evans had victory in his hands. Billy Cundiff had a tie game on his toe.

Two chances in the final 30 seconds to keep their Super Bowl hopes alive and the Baltimore Ravens let both slip away.

Evans was stripped after briefly hauling in Joe Flacco's pass in the back right corner of the end zone and, two plays later, Cundiff hooked a 32-yard field goal attempt wide left in Sunday's AFC championship game. The New England Patriots won 23-20 and the Ravens ended their season disappointed but not disgraced.

"We're grinders," linebacker Ray Lewis said. "We're coming home and we're coming home with smiles. But, most importantly, when we start back training, we're coming back (ticked) off. Why wouldn't we be?"

The Ravens gave the Patriots all they could handle.

The much-maligned Flacco played one of his best games of the season. The third-ranked Baltimore defense held Tom Brady without a touchdown pass for the first time in 36 games. And the Ravens moved from their 21-yard line to a second-and-1 at the Patriots 14 with 27 seconds left.

Plenty of time to at least tie the score.

On the next play, Evans had the ball in his grasp. But Sterling Moore, a rookie free agent who was cut once by the Patriots this season, arrived just in time to knock out the ball.

"I feel like I had it, but it came out," Evans said. "I don't know how to put it into words. Honestly, it's the most disappointing part of all of this that I feel personally that I let everybody down.

"It hit me right where you would want to be hit. It was a great pass by Joe and a play not completed by me. Nobody else can take the fault."

But the Ravens weren't done.

On the next play, needing a yard for a first down, Flacco threw toward Dennis Pitta. Again, Moore made a late move to knock the ball away.

Still, there was a chance to send the game into overtime. And Cundiff had kicked field goals of 48 and 44 yards a week earlier in a 20-13 win over the Houston Texans. He had made 10 of 12 field goals between 30 and 39 yards this season.

Not this time.

Morgan Cox snapped, Sam Koch held. Cundiff swung his leg.

"The timing was just a little off," Cundiff said. "I'm disappointed. I let my teammates down."

His teammates didn't think so. The kick was one of dozens of plays that affected the outcome.

"Not one play won or lost this game," Lewis said. "There's no 'Oh, Billy's the fault. Billy missed the (kick).' There's no freaking 'Billy missed the kick.' It happened. Move on."

Flacco will move on after answering his doubters by completing 22 of 36 passes for 306 yards, his third most of the season. He had two touchdowns but threw a costly interception to Brandon Spikes at the Patriots 31.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-22-AFC%20Championship-Ravens/id-d35cddd30ede44aba9e2d3082950ffc0

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ARLINGTON, Texas ? Yu Darvish leaned over and looked at his name and the No. 11 on the back of his Texas Rangers jersey. Then he looked up and smiled.

"Excited, that's all I feel right now," Darvish said through a translator. "Just excited going forward."

Japan's best pitcher is now officially a member of the two-time defending American League champions, with his formal introduction Friday night in Texas coming two days after the right-hander agreed to a six-year contract that guarantees him $56 million.

The 25-year-old Darvish, who exceled in Japan's Pacific League the past seven seasons, said he wasn't prepared to go into specifics about the several different reasons why he decided to make the move to United States now.

But he said he felt no pressure and planned to keep an open mind and be relaxed ? with his new team and in a new country.

"I have no worries," he said. "What I'm looking forward to is a different environment, a different league and different hitters. I'm looking forward to it full of excitement."

There is a lot of excitement in Texas, where fans are hoping Darvish is the missing piece that will help lift the Rangers to their first World Series title.

The Rangers spent more than two years scouting Darvish and getting to know him personally before committing more than $107 million to get him. On top of his contract, they had to pay a record $51,703,411 posting bid to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, Darvish's team in Japan.

Rangers pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training in Arizona on Feb. 22, and Darvish said he was planning to immediately return home to Japan.

Darvish said he would continue with his offseason workouts there and hold another news conference to express his feelings to fans in Japan.

Joe Furukawa, a Rangers scout in the Pacific Rim and one of their primary contacts with Darvish over the last couple of years, will spend this season with the pitcher to help his transition to the major leagues and the United States. Furukawa sat to his right on Friday night and served as the translator during the bilingual news conference.

Darvish smiled often during the question-and-answer session, though he said he wasn't prepared yet to say anything in English.

The press conference was broadcast live in Darvish's homeland, where it was Saturday morning. It was held in a much bigger room that is part of the team's Hall of Fame area at Rangers Ballpark, instead of the usual interview room down the hall from the clubhouse.

Among those sitting in the front row were Ray Davis and Bob Simpson, the oil-and-gas billionaires who are co-chairmen of the Rangers ownership group, and slugger Josh Hamilton. Simpson smiled when he walked in and saw the room full of international media.

"We've had a lot of big moments on the field the last couple of years, in October and the things we've accomplished," general manager Jon Daniels said while introducing Darvish. "There haven't been many bigger off-the-field moments than what brings us here."

After the news conference, the 6-foot-5 Darvish donned his new jersey and went on the field, where he stood on the mound and tossed a couple of balls toward the plate.

Highlights of Darvish's career in Japan were being shown on the huge videoboard high above right field. The two-time Pacific League MVP had a 93-38 record and 1.99 ERA in 167 games.

The electronic ribbon boards around the stadium were lit up with Darvish's image with his number and name, switching back and forth between English and Japanese.

Darvish's contract is worth up to $60 million including bonuses and incentives, but there was one thing he apparently didn't get in his deal after standing on the mound and looking out to the right-center field fence in his only other visit to Rangers Ballpark two weeks ago.

"It seemed a little close, I asked my GM if they could back that up a little bit, not sure where they are on that," he said.

When asked about that, Daniels laughed and motioned toward Hamilton.

"I don't think Josh wants us to move them back," Daniels said. "We'll let them arm wrestle and figure it out."

Hamilton was one of his new teammates that he met during his trip to Texas earlier this month.

"He has confidence in his ability and all the things he does as a player," Hamilton said. "I think he's going to enjoy it here and is going to have a good time."

Darvish arrived about three hours earlier at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where he was greeted by a large group of media cameras and a handful of Rangers fans.

There was a bit of a stir created by the photos of the arrival, when Darvish wore a T-shirt with the phrase "I Will Survive" surrounding the image of a Japanese Maple Leaf, which looks similar to a marijuana leaf.

"In Japan, anything that's like a T-shirt with English words on it," he said. "We just tend to wear it, we don't really actually know what it means."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bba_rangers_darvish

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GIGLIO, Italy ? Natives of the tiny Italian island of Giglio come from hardy stock whose distant ancestors were accustomed to surviving ruthless raids by pirates and where today many eke out a living from often perilous seas.

But when islanders gaze out on the capsized wreck of the Costa Concordia, lying lifelessly on its side just outside their port like some giant beached creature from the sea, they pray and sigh in sorrow.

"Mamma mia, please excuse me, it makes me so emotional. Mamma mia," said Ornella Monti, whose house on Giglio, near the customs police station at the port, looks squarely out at the shipwreck.

"I had it all in front of my house," a weeping Monti said Sunday, as she lit electric candles in San Lorenzo church. "Dear God, help us."

"Let's give a lot of light for this girl," said Monti, lighting another candle and referring to a 5-year-old Dayana Arlotti, an Italian girl, who along with her father, is among the missing in the Jan. 13 accident.

Many of the 1,500 islanders, a tough breed of fishermen and their families who repair fishing nets by hand in the winter and take tourists out in painted wooden boats after a night of fishing at sea, were still shaken by the tragedy which unfolded in front of their eyes.

Women rushed out with blankets when shivering survivors stepped off lifeboats or staggered up rocks after swimming ashore when the evacuation of the 4,200 passengers and crew turned chaotic. Islanders offered children milk and biscuits, and invited stunned families into their homes to warm and calm themselves.

On a table in the church where Mass was celebrated Sunday were an array of items that surviving passengers had brought into San Lorenzo the night of the shipwreck ? life vests, helmets, pieces of rope ? reminders of the precarious nature of life at sea that islanders, 15 kilometers (11 miles) across from the mainland, know well.

Monti's apology for her tears contrasted sharply with the unabashed gawking of hundreds of mainlanders who hopped ferries in Porto Santo Stefano on the Tuscan coast to visit Giglio, renowned for its crystal clear waters and beauty as far back as ancient Roman times, over the weekend. Clambering over portside rocks, they snapped photos and made videos of the wreck to bring back home with them macabre mementos.

"They called us jackals," said Silvana Pasqualetti, of the islanders after she and her family set foot on the dock to view the wreckage. With her husband, adult son, and the son's girlfriend and niece, the family set out before daybreak from their home in Viterbo north of Rome on the mainland for Giglio.

"It's something you don't see every day," said her son, Massimo Menghini, 29, as the family caught an evening ferry back to the mainland. "Your jaw drops open when you see it in person, because it's history," he said

Pasqualetti added that she didn't "feel like a jackal" because "this macabre tourism brings tourist revenue to the islanders," whom she described as "exquisite" people.

From atop Giglio's highest peak, nearly 500 meters (1,650 feet) above sea level, and aided by binoculars, spectators to the tragedy can spy stacks of lounge chairs, chained together on the deck near the ship's swimming pool and kiddie pool, emptied of their water when the Concordia pitched over some 90 degrees.

On the other side of the Concordia, visible only from those approaching on boats is the gaping, 70-meter (230-foot) long gash, sliced into the hull of the ship when it sailed too close to a reef well known to scuba divers and sailors and near an isolated stretch of coast a few kilometers south of the bustling port.

___

Frances D'Emilio reported from Rome.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_cruise_aground_islanders

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Charting the outlook for Texas Instruments and the tech sector, with Abigail Doolittle, Peak Theories, and Peter Boockvar, Miller Tabak.

Etymology

| zha=Cunghvaz Yinzminz Gunghozgoz | order=st }} The word "China" is derived from Cin (???), a Persian name for China popularized in Europe by the account of the 13th-century explorer Marco Polo. The first recorded use in English dates from 1555. The Persian word is, in turn, derived from the Sanskrit word C?na (???), which was used as a name for China as early as AD 150. There are various scholarly theories regarding the origin of this word. The traditional theory, proposed in the 17th century by Martino Martini, is that "China" is derived from "Qin" (?), the westernmost of the Chinese kingdoms during the Zhou Dynasty, or from the succeeding Qin Dynasty (221?206 BC). In the Hindu scriptures Mah?bh?rata and Manusm?ti (Laws of Manu), the word C?na is used to refer to a country located in the Tibetan-Burman borderlands east of India.

In China, common names for the country include Zh?nggu? () and Zh?nghu? (). The official name of China changed with each dynasty or with each new government. The term Zhongguo appeared various ancient texts such as the Classic of History, and in earlier times the term was used in various senses. In pre-imperial times, it was often as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia from the barbarians. Sometimes Zhongguo, which can be either singular or plural, referring to the group of states in the central plain. The Chinese were not unique in regarding their country as "central", since other civilizations had the same view.

History

Prehistory

Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest hominids in China date from 250,000 to 2.24 million years ago. A cave in Zhoukoudian (near present-day Beijing) has fossils dated at somewhere between 300,000 to 780,000 years. The fossils are of Peking Man, an example of Homo erectus who used fire.

The earliest evidence of a fully modern human in China comes from Liujiang County, Guangxi, where a cranium has been found and dated at approximately 67,000 years old. Controversy persists over the dating of the Liujiang remains (a partial skeleton from Minatogawa in Okinawa).

Early dynastic rule

Chinese tradition names the first dynasty Xia, but it was considered mythical until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou in Henan Province in 1959. Archaeologists have since uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs in locations cited as Xia's in ancient historical texts, but it is impossible to verify that these remains are of the Xia without written records from the period.

The first Chinese dynasty that left historical records, the loosely feudal Shang (Yin), settled along the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BC. The oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty represent the oldest forms of Chinese writing found and the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters used throughout East Asia. The Shang were invaded from the west by the Zhou, who ruled from the 12th to the 5th century BC, until their centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Many independent states eventually emerged out of the weakened Zhou state, and continually waged war with each other in the Spring and Autumn Period, only occasionally deferring to the Zhou king. By the time of the Warring States Period, there were seven powerful sovereign states, each with its own king, ministry and army.

Imperial China

The first unified Chinese state was established by Qin Shi Huang of the Qin state in 221 BC. Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the "First Emperor" (???), and imposed many reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of the Chinese language, measurements, length of cart axles, and currency. The Qin Dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after Qin Shi Huang's death, as its harsh legalist and authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion.

The subsequent Han Dynasty ruled China between 206 BC and 220 AD, and created a lasting Han cultural identity among its populace that extends to the present day. The Han Dynasty expanded the empire's territory considerably with military campaigns reaching Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia and Central Asia, and also helped establish the Silk Road in Central Asia. China was for a large part of the last two millennia the world's largest economy. However, in the later part of the Qing Dynasty, China's economic development began to slow and Europe's rapid development during and after the Industrial Revolution enabled it to surpass China.

After the collapse of Han, another period of disunion followed, including the highly chivalric period of the Three Kingdoms. Independent Chinese states of this period such as Wu opened diplomatic relations with Japan, introducing the Chinese writing system there. In 580 AD, China was reunited under the Sui. However, the Sui Dynasty was short-lived after a failure in the Goguryeo-Sui Wars (598?614) weakened it.

Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese technology and culture reached its zenith. The Tang Empire was at its height of power until the middle of the 8th century, when the An Shi Rebellion destroyed the prosperity of the empire. The Song Dynasty was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size. This growth came about through expanded rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses.

Within its borders, the Northern Song Dynasty had a population of some 100 million people. The Song Dynasty was a culturally rich period for philosophy and the arts. Landscape art and portrait painting were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity after the Tang Dynasty, and social elites gathered to view art, share their own, and trade precious artworks. Philosophers such as Cheng Yi and Chu Hsi reinvigorated Confucianism with new commentary, infused Buddhist ideals, and emphasized a new organization of classic texts that brought about the core doctrine of Neo-Confucianism. In 1271, the Mongol leader and fifth Khagan of the Mongol Empire Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, with the last remnant of the Song Dynasty falling to the Yuan in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest was completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people.

Late dynastic rule

A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 and founded the Ming Dynasty. Ming Dynasty thinkers such as Wang Yangming would further critique and expand Neo-Confucianism with ideas of individualism and innate morality that would have tremendous impact on later Japanese thought. Chosun Korea also became a nominal vassal state of Ming China and adopted much of its Neo-Confucian bureaucratic structure.

Under the Ming Dynasty, China had another golden age, with one of the strongest navies in the world, a rich and prosperous economy and a flourishing of the arts and culture. It was during this period that Zheng He led explorations throughout the world, possibly reaching America. During the early Ming Dynasty China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. In 1644 Beijing was sacked by a coalition of rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, a minor Ming official turned leader of the peasant revolt. The last Ming Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing Dynasty then allied with Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and overthrew Li's short-lived Shun Dynasty, and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty, which lasted until 1912, was the last dynasty in China. In the 19th century the Qing Dynasty adopted a defensive posture towards European imperialism, even though it engaged in imperialistic expansion into Central Asia. At this time China awoke to the significance of the rest of the world, the West in particular. As China opened up to foreign trade and missionary activity, opium produced by British India was forced onto Qing China. Two Opium Wars with Britain weakened the Emperor's control. European imperialism proved to be disastrous for China:

The Arrow War (1856?1860) [2nd Opium War] saw another disastrous defeat for China. The subsequent passing of the humiliating Treaty of Tianjin in 1856 and the Beijing Conventions of 1860 opened up more of the country to foreign penetrations and more ports for their vessels. Hong Kong was ceded over to the British. Thus, the "unequal treaties system" was established. Heavy indemnities had to be paid by China, and more territory and control were taken over by the foreigners.''

The weakening of the Qing regime, and the apparent humiliation of the unequal treaties in the eyes of the Chinese people had several consequences. One consequence was the Taiping Civil War, which lasted from 1851 to 1862. It was led by Hong Xiuquan, who was partly influenced by an idiosyncratic interpretation of Christianity. Hong believed himself to be the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus. Although the Qing forces were eventually victorious, the civil war was one of the bloodiest in human history, costing at least 20 million lives (more than the total number of fatalities in the World War I), with some estimates of up to two hundred million. Other costly rebellions followed the Taiping Rebellion, such as the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1855?67), Nien Rebellion (1851?1868), Miao Rebellion (1854?73), Panthay Rebellion (1856?1873) and the Dungan revolt (1862?1877). These rebellions resulted in an estimated loss of several million lives each and led to disastrous results for the economy and the countryside. The flow of British opium hastened the empire's decline. In the 19th century, the age of colonialism was at its height and the great Chinese Diaspora began. About 35 million overseas Chinese live in Southeast Asia today. The famine in 1876?79 claimed between 9 and 13 million lives in northern China. From 108 BC to 1911 AD, China experienced 1,828 famines, or one per year, somewhere in the empire.

While China was wracked by continuous war, Meiji Japan succeeded in rapidly modernizing its military and set its sights on Korea and Manchuria. At the request of the Korean emperor, the Chinese government sent troops to aid in suppressing the Tonghak Rebellion in 1894. However, Japan also sent troops to Korea, leading to the First Sino-Japanese War, which resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula as well as the cession of Taiwan to Japan.

Following this series of defeats, a reform plan for the empire to become a modern Meiji-style constitutional monarchy was drafted by the Guangxu Emperor in 1898, but was opposed and stopped by the Empress Dowager Cixi, who placed Emperor Guangxu under house arrest in a coup d'?tat. Further destruction followed the ill-fated 1900 Boxer Rebellion against westerners in Beijing.

By the early 20th century, mass civil disorder had begun, and calls for reform and revolution were heard across the country. The 38-year-old Emperor Guangxu died under house arrest on 14 November 1908, suspiciously just a day before Cixi's own death. With the throne empty, he was succeeded by Cixi's handpicked heir, his two year old nephew Puyi, who became the Xuantong Emperor. Guangxu's consort became the Empress Dowager Longyu. In another coup de'tat, Yuan Shikai overthrew the last Qing emperor, and forced empress Dowager Longyu to sign the abdication decree as regent in 1912, ending two thousand years of imperial rule in China. She died, childless, in 1913.

Republic of China (1912-1949)

On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China was established, heralding the end of the Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (the KMT or Nationalist Party) was proclaimed provisional president of the republic. However, the presidency was later given to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general, who had ensured the defection of the entire Beiyang Army from the Qing Empire to the revolution. In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself Emperor of China but was forced to abdicate and return the state to a republic when he realized it was an unpopular move, not only with the population but also with his own Beiyang Army and its commanders.

After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented, with an internationally recognized but virtually powerless national government seated in Beijing. Warlords in various regions exercised actual control over their respective territories. In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control, moving the nation's capital to Nanjing and implementing "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's program for transforming China into a modern, democratic state. Effectively, political tutelage meant one-party rule by the Kuomintang.

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937?1945) (part of World War II) forced an uneasy alliance between the Nationalists and the Communists as well as causing around 20 million Chinese civilian deaths. The Japanese "three-all policy" in north China?"kill all, burn all and destroy all", was one example of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population. With the surrender of Japan in 1945, China emerged victorious but financially drained. The continued distrust between the Nationalists and the Communists led to the resumption of the Chinese Civil War. In 1947, constitutional rule was established, but because of the ongoing Civil War many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China.

1949 to present

Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the Communist Party of China in control of mainland China, and the Kuomintang (KMT) retreating to Taiwan, reducing the ROC territory to only Taiwan and surrounding islands. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. "Communist China" and "Red China" were two common names for the PRC.

Mao encouraged population growth and China's population almost doubled from around 550 to over 900 million during the period of his leadership. The economic and social plan known as the Great Leap Forward resulted in an estimated 45?million deaths. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which would last until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society. In 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations in place of the Republic of China for China's membership of the United Nations, and permanent membership of the Security Council.

After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although he never became the head of the party or state himself, Deng was in fact the Paramount Leader of China at that time, his influence within the Party led the country to significant economic reforms. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some "market socialism", and officially by the Communist Party of China "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982.

The death of pro-reform official Hu Yaobang helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which students and others campaigned for several months, speaking out against corruption and in favour of greater political reform, including democratic rights and freedom of speech. However, they were eventually put down on 4 June when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared the square, resulting in numerous casualties. This event was widely reported and brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government. The "Tank Man" incident in particular became famous.

CPC General Secretary, President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen PRC in the 1990s. Under Jiang and Zhu's ten years of administration, the PRC's economic performance pulled an estimated 150?million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Although the PRC needs economic growth to spur its development, the government has begun to worry that rapid economic growth has negatively impacted the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from the PRC's economic development; one example of this is the wide gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, under current CPC General Secretary, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC has initiated policies to address these issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome remains to be seen. More than 40?million farmers have been displaced from their land, usually for economic development, contributing to the 87,000 demonstrations and riots across China in 2005. For much of the PRC's population, living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand, but political controls remain tight and rural areas poor.

Geography

Political geography

The People's Republic of China is the second-largest country in the world by land area after Russia and is either the third- or fourth-largest by total area, after Russia, Canada and, depending on the definition of total area, the United States. China's total area is generally stated as approximately . Specific area figures range from of Encyclop?dia Britiannica, to of U.N. Demographic Yearbook, to of CIA World Factbook and that includes Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract, which are controlled by China and claimed by India. None of the aforementioned total area figures includes the of territory ceded to the PRC by the Tajikistan following the ratification of a Sino-Tajik border agreement by the Tajik Parliament on January 12, 2011.

According to Encyclop?dia Britannica, the total area of the United States, at , is slightly smaller than China. In the CIA Factbook, until the coastal waters of the Great Lakes was added to the United States' total area in 1996, China's total area was also greater than that of the United States.

China has the longest land borders in the world, measuring from the mouth of the Yalu River to the Gulf of Tonkin. China borders 14 nations, more than any other country except Russia, which also borders 14. China extends across much of the East Asian continent bordering Vietnam, Laos, and Burma in Southeast Asia; India, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, in South Asia; Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia; a small section of Russian Altai and Mongolia in Inner Asia; and the Russian Far East and North Korea in Northeast Asia.

Additionally, China shares maritime boundaries with South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The PRC and the Republic of China (Taiwan) make mutual claims over each other's territority and the frontier between areas under their respective control is closest near the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, off the Fujian coast, but otherwise run through the Taiwan Strait. The PRC and ROC assert identical claims over the entirety of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and the southern-most extent of these claims reach Zengmu Ansha (James Shoal), which would form a maritime frontier with Malaysia.

Landscape and climate

The territory of China lies between latitudes 18? and 54? N, and longitudes 73? and 135? E. The country's vast size gives it a wide variety of landscapes. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, broad grasslands are visible. Southern China is dominated by hill country and low mountain ranges, while the central-east hosts the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Other major rivers include the Xi, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur. To the west, major mountain ranges, most notably the Himalayas, and high plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes of the north, such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert. China's highest point, Mt. Everest (8848m), lies on the Sino-Nepalese border. The country's lowest point is the dried lake bed of Ayding Lake (-154m) in the Turpan Depression.

A major environmental issue in China is the continued expansion of its deserts, particularly the Gobi Desert, which is currently the world's fifth-largest desert. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms, prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices have resulted in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which then spread to other parts of East Asia, including Korea and Japan. According to China's environmental watchdog, Sepa, China is losing a million acres (4,000?km?) per year to desertification. Water quality, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries. Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could potentially lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

China's climate is mainly dominated by dry seasons and wet monsoons, which lead to a pronounced temperature differences between winter and summer. In the winter, northern winds coming from high-altitude areas are cold and dry; in summer, southern winds from coastal areas at lower altitudes are warm and moist. The climate in China differs from region to region because of the country's extensive and complex topography.

Biodiversity

One of 17 megadiverse countries, China lies in two of the world's major ecozones: the Palearctic and the Indomalaya. In the Palearctic zone, mammals such as the horse, camel, tapir, and jerboa can be found. Among the species found in the Indomalaya region are the Leopard Cat, bamboo rat, treeshrew, and various monkey and ape species. Some overlap exists between the two regions due to natural dispersal and migration; deer, antelope, bears, wolves, pigs, and numerous rodent species can all be found in China's diverse climatic and geological environments. The famous giant panda is found only in a limited area along the Yangtze River. China suffers from a continuing problem with trade in endangered species, although there are now laws to prohibit such activities.

China also hosts a variety of forest types. Cold coniferous forests predominate in the north of the country, supporting animal species such as moose and the Asian black bear, along with over 120 bird species. Moist conifer forests can have thickets of bamboo as an understorey, replaced by rhododendrons in higher montane stands of juniper and yew. Subtropical forests, which dominate central and southern China, support as many as 146,000 species of flora. Tropical and seasonal rainforests, though confined to Yunnan and Hainan Island, contain a quarter of all the plant and animal species found in China.

Environment

China suffers from severe environmental deterioration and pollution. While regulations such as the 1979 Environmental Protection Law are fairly stringent, enforcement of them is poor, as they are frequently disregarded by local communities or governments in favour of rapid economic development.

Leading Chinese environmental campaigner Ma Jun has warned of the danger that water pollution poses to Chinese society. According to the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources, roughly 300?million Chinese are drinking unsafe water. According ot Jiao Yong, 40% of China?s rivers are already polluted due to the country?s rapid economic growth. This crisis is compounded by the perennial problem of water shortages, with 400 out of 600 cities reportedly short of drinking water.

However, China is the world's leading investor in renewable energy technologies, with $34.6?billion invested in 2009 alone. China produces more wind turbines and solar panels than any other country, and renewable energy projects, such as solar water heating, are widely pursued at the local level. By 2009, over 17% of China's energy was derived from renewable sources - most notably hydroelectric power plants, of which China has a total installed capacity of 197 GW. Also, in 2011, the Chinese government, in its annual No.1 central document, announced plans to invest four trillion yuan (US$618.55 billion) in water infrastructure projects over a ten-year period and complete construction of a flood prevention and anti-drought system by 2020.

Politics

The PRC is regarded by several political scientists as one of the world's five last remaining Communist states (along with Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and Cuba), but simple characterizations of PRC's political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible. The PRC government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the Internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and freedom of religion. Its current political/economic system has been termed by its leaders as "Communism with Chinese characteristics".

Compared to its closed-door policies until the mid-1970s, the liberalization of the PRC has resulted in the administrative climate being less restrictive than before. The PRC is far different from liberal democracy or social democracy that exists in most of Europe or North America, and the National People's Congress (highest state body) has been described as a "rubber stamp" body. The PRC's incumbent President is Hu Jintao who is also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and his Premier is Wen Jiabao who is also a member of the CPC Politburo Standing Committee.

The country is ruled by the Communist Party of China (CPC), whose power is enshrined in China's constitution. The political system is very decentralized with limited democratic processes internal to the party and at local village levels, although these experiments have been marred by corruption. There are other political parties in the PRC, referred to in China as democratic parties, which participate in the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

There have been some moves toward political liberalization, in that open contested elections are now held at the village and town levels, and that legislatures have shown some assertiveness from time to time. However, the Party retains effective control over government appointments: in the absence of meaningful opposition, the CPC wins by default most of the time. Political concerns in the PRC include lessening the growing gap between rich and poor and fighting corruption within the government leadership.

The level of support to the government action and the management of the nation is among the highest in the world, with 86% of people who express satisfaction with the way things are going in their country and with their nation's economy according to a 2008 Pew Research Center survey.

Administrative divisions

The People's Republic of China has administrative control over 22 provinces, and considers Taiwan to be its 23rd province, although Taiwan is currently governed by the Republic of China, which disputes the PRC's claim. China also has five autonomous regions, each with a designated minority group; four municipalities; and two Special Administrative Regions, which enjoy a degree of political autonomy. These 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, and four municipalities can be collectively referred to as "mainland China", a term which usually excludes the Special Autonomous Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Foreign relations

The PRC has diplomatic relations with 171 countries and maintains embassies in 162. Its legitimacy is disputed by the Republic of China and a few other countries; it is thus the largest and wealthiest state with limited recognition. Sweden was the first western country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic on 9 May 1950. In 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China as the sole representative of China in the United Nations and as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The PRC was also a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and still considers itself an advocate for developing countries.

Under its interpretation of the One-China policy, the PRC has made it a precondition to establishing diplomatic relations that the other country acknowledges its claim to Taiwan and severs official ties with the government of the Republic of China. PRC officials have protested on numerous occasions when foreign countries have made diplomatic overtures to Taiwan, especially in the matter of armament sales. Political meetings between foreign government officials and the 14th Dalai Lama are also opposed by the PRC, as it considers Tibet to be formally part of China.

Much of China's current foreign policy is reportedly based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence of Zhou Enlai?non-interference in other states' affairs, non-aggression, peaceful coexistence, equality and mutual benefits. China's foreign policy is also driven by the concept of "harmony without uniformity", which encourages diplomatic relations between states despite ideological differences. This policy has led China to support states that are regarded as dangerous or repressive by Western nations, such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran. Conflicts with foreign countries have occurred at times in China's recent history, particularly with the United States; for example, the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict in May 1999 and the US-China spy plane incident in April 2001. The PRC's foreign relations with many Western nations suffered for a time following the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, although in recent years China has improved its diplomatic links with the West.

Trade relations

In recent decades, the PRC has played an increasing role in calling for free trade areas and security pacts amongst its Asia-Pacific neighbors. In 2004, the PRC proposed an entirely new East Asia Summit (EAS) framework as a forum for regional security issues, pointedly excluding the United States. The EAS, which includes ASEAN Plus Three, India, Australia and New Zealand, held its inaugural summit in 2005. The PRC is also a founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), along with Russia and the Central Asian republics.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress approved "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) with China, allowing Chinese exports in at the same low tariffs as goods from most other countries. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. Bush was furthermore an advocate of China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). China has a significant trade surplus with the United States, its most important export market. In the early 2010s, U.S. politicians argued that the Chinese yuan was significantly undervalued, giving China an unfair trade advantage.

Sinophobic attitudes often target Chinese minorities and nationals living outside of China. Sometimes, such anti-Chinese attitudes turn violent, as occurred during the 13 May Incident in Malaysia in 1969 and the Jakarta riots of May 1998 in Indonesia, in which more than 2,000 people died. In recent years, a number of anti-Chinese riots and incidents have also occurred in Africa and Oceania. Anti-Chinese sentiment is often rooted in socio-economics.

Sino-Japanese relations

The relationship between China and Japan has been strained at times by Japan's perceived refusal to acknowledge its wartime past to the satisfaction of the PRC. Revisionist comments made by prominent Japanese officials and some Japanese history textbooks regarding the 1937 Rape of Nanking have been a focus of particular controversy. Sino-Japanese relations warmed considerably after Shinzo Abe became the Prime Minister of Japan in September 2006, and a joint historical study conducted by the PRC and Japan released a report in 2010 which pointed toward a new consensus on the issue of World War 2-era atrocities. However, in the early 2010s, relations cooled once more, with Japan accusing China of withholding its reserves of valuable rare earth elements.

Territorial disputes

China has been involved in a number of international territorial disputes, mostly resulting from the legacy of unequal treaties imposed on China during the historical period of New Imperialism. Since the 1990s, the PRC has been entering negotiations to resolve its disputed land borders, usually by offering concessions and accepting less than half of the disputed territory with each party. The PRC's only remaining land border disputes are a disputed border with India and an undefined border with Bhutan. China is additionally involved in more minor multilateral disputes over the ownership of several small islands in the East and South China Seas.

China and the developing world

China is heavily engaged, both politically and economically, with numerous nations in the developing world. Most notably, the PRC has started a policy of wooing African nations for trade and bilateral co-operation. Xinhua, China's official news agency, states that there are no less than 750,000 Chinese nationals working or living in Africa. China has furthermore strengthened its ties with larger developing economies, becoming the largest trading partner of Brazil and building strategic links with Argentina. Along with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, China is a member of the BRICS group of emerging major economies, and hosted the group's third official summit at Sanya in Hainan Province in April 2011.

Emerging superpower

China is regularly cited as a potential new superpower, with certain commentators pointing out that its rapid economic progress, military might, very large population, and increasing international influence could see it attain a prominent global role in the 21st century. Others, however, warn that economic bubbles and demographic imbalances could slow China's growth as the century progresses.

Sociopolitical issues and reform

The Chinese democracy movement, social activists, and some members of the Communist Party of China have all identified the need for social and political reform. While economic and social controls have been greatly relaxed in China since the 1970s, political freedom is still tightly restricted. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China states that the "fundamental rights" of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights. However, in practice, these provisions do not afford significant protection against criminal prosecution by the State.

As the Chinese economy expanded following Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, tens of millions of rural Chinese who have moved to the cities find themselves treated as second-class citizens by China's hukou household registration system, which controls state benefits. Property rights are often poorly protected, and eminent domain land seizures have had a disproportionate effect on poorer peasants. In 2003, the average Chinese farmer paid three times more taxes than the average urban dweller, despite having one-sixth of the annual income. However, a number of rural taxes have since been reduced or abolished, and additional social services provided to rural dwellers.

Censorship of political speech and information, most notably on the Internet, is openly and routinely used in China to silence criticism of the government and the ruling Communist Party. In 2005, Reporters Without Borders ranked the PRC 159th out of 167 states in its Annual World Press Freedom Index, indicating a very low level of perceived press freedom. The government has suppressed demonstrations by organizations that it considers a potential threat to "social stability", as was the case with the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Communist Party has had mixed success in controlling information: a powerful and pervasive media control system faces equally strong market forces, an increasingly educated citizenry, and technological and cultural changes that are making China more open to the wider world, especially on environmental issues. However, attempts are still made by the Chinese government to control public access to outside information, with online searches for politically sensitive material being blocked by the so-called Great Firewall.

A number of foreign governments and NGOs routinely criticize the PRC's human rights record, alleging widespread civil rights violations, including systematic use of lengthy detention without trial, forced confessions, torture, mistreatment of prisoners, and restrictions of freedom of speech, assembly, association, religion, the press, and labor rights. China executes more people than any other country, accounting for 72% of the world's total in 2009, though it is not the largest executioner per capita.

The PRC government has responded to foreign criticism by arguing that the notion of human rights should take into account a country's present level of economic development, and focus more on the people's rights to subsistence and development in poorer countries. The rise in the standard of living, literacy, and life expectancy for the average Chinese in the last three decades is seen by the government as tangible progress made in human rights. Efforts in the past decade to combat deadly natural disasters, such as the perennial Yangtze River floods, and work-related accidents are also portrayed in China as progress in human rights for a still largely poor country.

The PRC government remains divided over the issue of political reform. Some high-ranking politicians have spoken out in favor reforms, while others remain more conservative. In 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao stated that the PRC needs "to gradually improve the democratic election system so that state power will truly belong to the people and state power will be used to serve the people." Despite his status, Wen's comments were later censored by the government.

As the social, cultural and political consequences of economic growth and reform become increasingly manifest, tensions between the conservatives and reformists in the Communist Party are sharpening. Zhou Tianyong, the vice director of research of the Central Party School, argues that gradual political reform as well as repression of those pushing for overly rapid change over the next thirty years will be essential if China is to avoid an overly turbulent transition to a democratic, middle-class-dominated polity. Some Chinese look back to the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, and fear chaos if the Communist Party should lose control of the domestic situation.

Military

With 2.3?million active troops, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest standing military force in the world, commanded by the Central Military Commission (CMC). The PLA consists of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF), the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and a strategic nuclear force, the Second Artillery Corps. The official announced budget of the PLA for 2009 was $70?billion. However, the United States government has claimed that China does not report its real level of military spending, which is allegedly much higher than the official budget. The Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that the real Chinese military budget for 2008 was between US$105 billion and US$150?billion. According to SIPRI, China's military expenditure in 2010 totalled US$114.3 billion (808 billion yuan), constituting the world's second-largest military budget.

As a recognised nuclear weapons state, China is considered both a major regional military power and an emerging military superpower. As of August 2011, China's Second Artillery Corps is believed to maintain at least 195 nuclear missiles, including 75 ICBMs. Nonetheless, China is the only member of the UN Security Council to have relatively limited power projection capabilities. To offset this, it has begun developing power projection assets, such as aircraft carriers, and has established a network of foreign military relationships that has been compared to a string of pearls.

The PRC has made significant progress in modernizing its military since the early 2000s. It has purchased state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets, such as the Sukhoi Su-30s, and has also produced its own modern fighters, most notably the Chinese J-10s and the J-11s. China is furthermore engaged in developing an indigenous stealth aircraft, the Chengdu J-20. The PRC's ground forces have also undergone significant modernisations, replacing its ageing Soviet-derived tank inventory with numerous variants of the modern Type 99 tank, and upgrading its battlefield C3I systems to enhance its network-centric warfare capabilities.

China has also acquired and improved upon the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which is considered to be among the most effective aircraft-intercepting systems in the world. Russia has since produced the next-generation S-400 Triumf system, with China reportedly having spent $500?million on a downgraded export version of it. A number of indigenous missile technologies have also been developed - in 2007, China conducted a successful test of an anti-satellite missile, and its first indigenous land-attack cruise missile, the CJ-10, entered service in 2009. In 2011, the Pentagon reported that China was believed to be testing the JL-2 missile, a new submarine-launched nuclear ICBM with multiple-warhead delivery capabilities.

In recent years, much attention has been focused on enhancing the blue-water capabilities of the People's Liberation Army Navy. In August 2011, China's first aircraft carrier, the refurbished Soviet vessel Varyag, began sea trials. China furthermore maintains a substantial fleet of submarines, including several nuclear-powered attack and ballistic missile submarines. On 13 March 2011, the PLAN missile frigate Xuzhou was spotted off the coast of Libya, marking the first time in history a Chinese warship sailed into the Mediterranean. The ship's entrance into the Mediterranean was officially part of a humanitarian mission to rescue PRC nationals from the 2011 Libyan civil war, though analysts such as Fareed Zakaria viewed the mission as also being an attempt to increase the PRC's global military presence.

Little information is available regarding the motivations supporting China's military modernization. A 2007 report by the US Secretary of Defense noted that "China's actions in certain areas increasingly appear inconsistent with its declaratory policies". For its part, China claims it maintains an army purely for defensive purposes.

Economy

From its founding in 1949 until late 1978, the People's Republic of China was a Soviet-style centrally planned economy, without private businesses or capitalism. To propel the country towards a modern, industrialized communist society, Mao Zedong instituted the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s, although this had decidedly mixed economic results. Following Mao's death in 1976 and the consequent end of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping and the new Chinese leadership began to reform the economy and move towards a more market-oriented mixed economy under one-party rule. Collectivization of the agriculture was dismantled and farmlands were privatized to increase productivity. In 1978, China and Japan began normalized diplomatic relations, and China started borrowing money from Japan in soft loans. Since 1978, Japan has been China's most significant foreign donor. Modern-day China is mainly characterised as having a market economy based on private property ownership, and is one of the leading examples of state capitalism.

Under the post-Mao market reforms, a wide variety of small-scale private enterprises were encouraged, while the government relaxed price controls and promoted foreign investment. Foreign trade was focused upon as a major vehicle of growth, leading to the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), first in Shenzhen and then in other Chinese cities. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were restructured by introducing western-style management systems, with unprofitable ones being closed outright, resulting in massive job losses. By the latter part of 2010, China was reversing some of its economic liberalization initiatives, with state-owned companies buying up independent businesses in the steel, auto and energy industries.

Since economic liberalization began in 1978, the PRC's investment- and export-led economy has grown 90 times bigger and is the fastest growing major economy in the world. According to the IMF, the PRC's annual average GDP growth between 2001 and 2010 was 10.5%, the Chinese economy is predicted to grow at an average annual rate of 9.5% between 2011 and 2015.Between 2007 and 2011, China's economic growth rate was equivalent to all of the G7 countries' growth combined. According to the Global Growth Generators index announced by Citigroup in February 2011, China has a very high 3G growth rating. As of 2010, China has the world's second-largest nominal GDP, at 39.8?trillion yuan (US$6.05?trillion), although its GDP per capita of US$4,300 puts the PRC behind ninety countries(out of 183 countries on the IMF list) in global GDP per capita rankings. China's primary, secondary, and tertiary industries contributed 10.6%, 46.8%, and 42.6% respectively to its total GDP in 2009. If PPP is taken into account, the PRC's economy is again second only to the US, at $10.085 trillion, corresponding to $7,518 per capita.

The PRC is the fourth-most-visited country in the world, with 50.9?million inbound international visitors in 2009. It is a member of the WTO and is the world's second-largest trading power behind the US, with a total international trade value of US$2.21?trillion?1.20?trillion in exports (#1) and US$1.01?trillion in imports (#2). Its foreign exchange reserves have reached US$2.85?trillion at end of 2010, an increase of 18.7% over the previous year, making its reserves by far the world's largest. The PRC owns an estimated $1.6?trillion of US securities. The PRC, holding US$1.16 trillion in US Treasury bonds, is the largest foreign holder of US public debt. China is the world's third-largest recipient of inward FDI, attracting US$92.4?billion in 2008 alone, and China increasingly invests abroad, with a total outward FDI of US$52.2?billion in 2008 making it the world's sixth-largest outward investor. In 2010, China's inward FDI was $106 billion, marking a 16% increase over 2009.

The PRC's success has been primarily due to manufacturing as a low-cost producer. This is attributed to a combination of cheap labor, good infrastructure, relatively high productivity, favorable government policy, and a possibly undervalued exchange rate. The latter has been sometimes blamed for the PRC's huge trade surplus (US$262.7?billion in 2007) and has become a major source of dispute between the PRC and its major trading partners?the US, EU, and Japan?despite the yuan having been de-pegged and having risen in value by 20% against the US dollar since 2005.

The state still dominates in strategic "pillar" industries (such as energy and heavy industries), but private enterprise (composed of around 30?million private businesses) has expanded enormously; in 2005, it accounted for anywhere between 33% to 70% of national GDP, while the OECD estimate for that year was over 50% of China's national output, up from 1% in 1978. Its stock market in Shanghai, the SSE, has raised record amounts of IPOs and its benchmark Shanghai Composite index has doubled since 2005. SSE's market capitalization reached US$3?trillion in 2007, making it the world's fifth-largest stock exchange.

China now ranks 29th in the Global Competitiveness Index, although it is only ranked 135th among the 179 countries measured in the Index of Economic Freedom. 46 Chinese companies made the list in the 2010

Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2012/01/18/EU_Commissioner_says_Chinese_officials_confident_in_Europe/

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Etymology

History

Prehistory

Early dynastic rule

Imperial China

Late dynastic rule

Republic of China (1912-1949)

1949 to present

Geography

Political geography

Landscape and climate

Biodiversity

Environment

Politics

Administrative divisions

Foreign relations

Trade relations

Sino-Japanese relations

Territorial disputes

China and the developing world

Emerging superpower

Sociopolitical issues and reform

Military

Economy