Month: May 2012

  • NPR on Mongolia, mining, and decline of pastoral nomadism

    This is a bookmark to note the very good series under way NPR’s Morning Edition on the changing economy in Mongolia. With a mining-driven boom in progress, the first segment I heard looked at the risk to water supplies in pastureland and the desiccation of grazing areas resulting from plumes of dust that rise from trucking lines…

  • Key U.S.–Japan meeting overshadowed by U.S.–China diplomacy

    BEIJING — As Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko visited the White House Monday, the continued strength of the U.S.–Japan relationship was a central message. But this first Washington summit of U.S. and Japanese leaders since the Democratic Party of Japan took control in 2009 was overshadowed in the transpacific news cycle by the U.S. relationship…