http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interview_china-s-investment-led-growth-a-time-bomb_1245641
http://www.china.org.cn/business/2010-02/02/content_19356083.htm
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/chinas-looming-demographic-problem-moves-steadily-up-over-the-radar/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-overhang-of-empty-apartments-2010-08-03

There are a shit tonne more articles, it's becoming more and more evident that China's massive growth over the past decade has really just been a string of massive bubbles, and they are going to need to collapse.

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As for Africa, while there are a few companies there, namely mining companies, the amount of investment in African countries is minimal. FDI (the amount that foreign companies spend building factories, shops, infrastructure, etc) in last year across the African continent was roughly similar to just that of the UK.... and the UK had a /really/ bad year last year for FDI (it fell by half) - that's over a billion people, versus 60 million in the UK.

The problem is... if you were, say, Sony... why would you invest in Africa? Crime rates and war are major problems... no point spending billions on a new factory if it's got a high chance of being vandalised, burgled, or blown up. Once you get past that, you have an extremely-uneducated work force, meaning that you'd have to pay for all the education itself. You also can't rely on the electrical grid, or water supplies... so there's even more money that you'd have to spend, to become more independant. And how are you going to get materials into the factory/finished goods out? The roads are in poor condition, the ports and airports are outdated, under-resources, and severely lacking capacity. And, at every step of the way, you'll probably have to pay off a load of corrupt officials to keep it from happening.

The reason why you see mining companies operating in Africa is because the amount of profit they make, exceeds all of those costs I've highlighted above... very few industries offer the same kind of profit margins as oil and mining.

The only way Africa can move forward, is if they fix their governance. Fix corruption and reduce bureacracy so that the African entrepeneurs can start building businesses, end trade barriers between African nations to encourage trade, and facililate infrastructure sharing (rather than every country having to build their own world-class airports and ports), and spend money tackling crime and ending militant activity.

Muslims don't get much respect in the mainstream media, maybe from papers like The Guardian, but from the likes of the Daily Mail and other such outlets, there is some Islamaphobia.

The reason why Christains don't stand up, is because they're not mistreated. There would be uproar if the Government was to openly support /any/ religious ideal or institution. This is just a part of our culture. I know for a fact that many Christains would probably be annoyed if the Government were to openly support Christianity. Although our country is built on Christain ideals, and the Church of England has a role in our insitutions, any kind of direct involvement between Government and religion would not go down well in our country.

As for papers depicting images of the Prophet Mohammad, why do people not understand that it's offensive? Any images depicting the Prophet is forbidden by the religion. There are no laws forbidding the press from printing an image, but they choose not to. If there was a specific rule on the presentation of Jesus for Christainity, or whatever, the press would hopefully choose to stick to those rules. There is no real reason to break those rules, and they only cause anger and tension when broken. What good reason is there for printing a picture of the Prophet? Other than to stick the middle finger up?

I agree with all of it apart from the last part. People are offended by everything, if they don't like it they don't have to read it. It pisses me off when people find something offensive so they go and use violence to prove their point. If anything, all they are doing is strengthening the case for those who hate islam and say that it is a religion of violence. Even better is when these protesters are trying to argue that islam is a religion of peace and then go ballistic over a cartoon, creating violence ...

I know that sometimes it's pointless to publish something which you know will probably be offensive, but unfortunately there will always be some who choose to do so. All the massive hysteria over the Danish cartoons achieved was more negative attitudes towards muslims, even though it was just a militant minority who caused the trouble.

and saying its forbidden in islam is like making generalizations about christianity based on the book of mormon.  also if we are going to get into it like that, the hadiths dont specifically forbid his picture.

Create a shit-storm where? Reading the daily mail it's pretty obvious that if anything, people were annoyed that funding would be based on gay rights rather than persecution of Christians. All I've read or heard for the last few months is people getting fed up because, in their view, minorities such as gays/muslims are given priority over the majority population.

1) You'd be surprised.  It could be different in the UK, but in the US only Ron Paul type libretarians want to cut foreign aid.

Republic and Democratic politicians see it as their duty as a more advanced country...

While the average voter either sees it  as needed charity work (Even a lot of below the poverty line people often give to charity)

or

Proof of America's "superiority" for the pessimistic side.

People seem more willing to give money to a starving African, then to a starving american because in general the american is perceived as at least has/had a chance.  Oddly pretty much anyone would cut Welfare programs before they cut foreign aid.

2)  Yeah, i probably agree... on both fronts as far as whether it should be cut off and whether it should help.  Applying basic civil rights for people is way more complicated then it should be, then again what isn't.

3)  There could be three reasons.  The first is... shame really.   I mean, who wants to admit they're accepting handouts from another country? 

The Second is the corruption.  Why advertise something when your stealing 90% of it. (A common foreign aid problem.)

The third is dislike of america can be a powerful tool.  In general American hate has made a great scapegoat for all kinds of rulers and their problems.

It's why I'm actually against most economic sanctions... pretty much all of them except military based ones.

All sanctions do is hurt the poor people since the rich corrupt people are rich, and can then just use the sanctions as an excuse for why things are bad for the poor.