Monday, November 4, 2013

How to make peace, not war.

World Peace 101: Shoot with a camera, not with a gun...

Is the world getting more dangerous? I mean, is there a time-bomb ticking away that will start World War III? Well, the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea and South Korea is said to be one of the most tinder-dry flashpoints. After all, the two Koreas are still technically at war. But take a look at this recent caption story:

    
This sounds like a great idea, but only before any shooting war starts (you wouldn't want to send in the tourist hordes into civil war-rife Syria, for instance).

So, how about Celebrity Cruises organising exotic cruises into the South China Sea? One of the isles, Taiping Island (the largest in the Spratly chain and currently occupied by Taiwan), even has a landing strip that can accommodate turbo-prop aircraft.          

   
Maybe someone with deep pockets can be persuaded to fly Miley Cyrus there to twerk her stuff in a Concert for Peace (note: Taiping means "Heavenly Peace" in Chinese). But she should leave her Wrecking Ball behind. We don't want her to demolish any of the markers that claimants (six countries in all, it seems) have erected on the atolls and reefs that dot the Spratlys.          

The waters in parts of the Spratlys are said to be pristine, ideal for scuba diving and snorkelling. I think the Malaysians, who occupy Layang-Layang, are already allowing divers to go there. Click on the link below to see how beautiful the waters around Layang-Layang are:

http://www.layanglayangnow.com/

So how about it, Mr Ban? If you can endorse Psy (your countryman), give peace a chance and make smiley Miley a UN peace ambassador with special attention to the South China Sea! She might even get tongues wagging.
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Spy vs Spy

At last some of the people who know what's going on have admitted that countries do spy on each other! (Just don't get caught)...


So it seems a bit strange to read this:


On the other hand, this report has implications. Such a no-spying accord -- to be truly worth the ink on the paper -- may mean that Germany is being invited into that close circle of US-led countries that share intelligence. Merkel seems to have played her cards right.

But when I think of Spy vs Spy, I am reminded of the Mad magazine version. Here are two YouTube tributes to those two iconic "spies", Black and White:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVGuNsqw2ZU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNq9ILO337g

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Make movies, not war!

Finally, bystanders of the world, I'm sure you'd rather have China and the US shoot movies that vilify each other than have them shoot bullets at each other, right? So this NYT article that The Sunday Times carried should be "good news"...


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