Xi Jinping is the most powerful man on earth. He has more direct power over more people (1.3 billion) than anyone else - and is consolidating that power further by purges and anti-corruption campaigns (often the same thing). This article from the New Yorker is a detailed portrait of a man born and bred in the centre of the Communist Party with the all the persecutions and advantages that have gone with that status. This quote reveals a man well versed in power. 'People who have little experience with power, those who have been far away from it, tend to regard these things as mysterious and novel. But I look past the superficial things: the power and the flowers and the glory and the applause. I see the detention houses, the fickleness of human relationships. I understand politics on a deeper level.' His tightening of the Party's control over all aspects of life in China will strengthen its power - but may weaken China as a power by cutting it off from the currents of ideas circling the world.
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18:55
420 trillion times brighter than the Sun
Astronomers have discovered a black hole 12 billion times more massive than our sun, in the early universe. The object is at the centr...
18:07
Cement in China
Apparently China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than America did in the whole 20th century. This is incredible - but the figures ar...
11:33
Artificial Super Intelligence
I read this article in the FT. It is a the very best sort of review/essay that looks at the possibility of Artificial Super Intelligence an...
09:14
Alzheimers
I saw Still Alice last week - a remarkable film With Julienne Moore as an articulate academic dealing with early onset Alzheimers. It is pa...
18:54
Plagiarism
Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams have just lost a case in America to the estate of Marvin Gaye who claimed that Blurred Lines (if you h...
18:30
Why doesn't the bank of England cancel the Gilts they hold? (2)
In December I quoted a rather civilised blog conversation about whether it was possible for the Bank of England - probably in unison with ...
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