The Arab Peace Initiative: Now or Never

It has been almost a year now since President Obama set out for Cairo to deliver what has been seen as one of the largest overtures by the United States to publicly engage the Middle East. Unfortunately, despite the high hopes that this new administration garnered and the continuous efforts of high‐level American officials to put an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict, there is little fruit to bear on the ground. More often than not, the diplomatic breaches and hurdles to even get to the negotiating table have consumed the headlines, and 1 year later the multilateral relations in the region seem tepid at best. The repeated failures of the bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria may be attributed to a number of factors, including a deep‐seated mistrust that has not been addressed, concerns over the long‐term security, and domestic political constraints to make the required concessions to reach an agreement. Yet while all of these elements contributed to the despondent current state of affairs, the one critical missing ingredient has been the absence of a comprehensive framework for peace representing the collective will of the Arab states. Now more than ever, the Arab Peace Initiative (API) offers the best possible chance of achieving an inclusive peace, provided that all parties to the conflict understand its significance and historic implications that have eluded all parties for more than six decades. The likelihood that the current lull in violence will continue if no progress is made on the political front is slim. If the Arab states want to show a united front, especially as the Iranian nuclear advances threaten the regional balance of power, they must finally and publically resolve to promote the API in earnest.     

中国古代采矿工程技术史研究的几个问题

采用矿山考古、模拟实验等方法,对中国古代采矿技术的起源与发展进行系统论证后,得出三个论点：一是关于中国古代采矿工程技术的历史进程,可分为萌芽期(史前时期)、形成期(商代中期)、初步发展期(西周时期)、创新期(春秋至战国中期)、充实提高期(秦汉至元代)、全面发展期(明清时期)这六个发展阶段。二是中国古代采矿工程技术有着浓重的中国特色并具独特的发展体系,其多种技术的配合,在很大程度上基于中国古代各种社会要素的综合。三是中国古代采矿技术观是一种有机的、整体和综合的“和”的技术观,“和”明白地表述了采矿技术观的本质特征。     

The Nature of Value and the Value of Nature: a Philosophical Overview

In an article exploring the philosophical issues raised by environmentalism, Ben Rogers argues for an alternative both to the narrowly economic and to an extravagantly mystical concept of Nature. Species and ecosystems, mountain ranges and mineral reserves have an intrinsic value in the sense that Nature moves and disturbs us independently of our concern for our own welfare or happiness. This analysis enables us to see the inadequacy of cost-benefit analysis, which treats natural goods as commodities. At the same time, recognizing that the natural environment has an intrinsic value does not in itself release us from the necessity of making difficult choices or from hard decisions as to what is and what is not 'natural'. One way of clarifying the place that Nature occupies in our scheme of values is by way of analogies with heirlooms, works of art and historic towns and cities. These analogies shed light on what it means to insist that natural goods are not commodities, but are something we hold in trust.