Photo, above: Changing Markets Push LNG Toward Export   Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas terminals try switching gears to attract new players. The sudden abundance of natural gas in the U.S. has owners of two new, but practically unused, liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals in Louisiana and Texas proposing expensive conversions to export the fuel—an unthinkable proposition just five years ago. Freeport LNG and Cheniere Energy Inc., both of Houston, have announced separate plans to convert their existing LNG import terminals into export-import terminals, plans that would cost each company about $2 billion.  [more]  Photo: Freeport Lng Development LP

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com

Hour One

 Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 1, Block A:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Pres Obama en route to two major meetings in Asia, cut out Philippines and Malaysia; rather, will go to two forums: APEC in Bali and ASEAN in the sultanate of Brunei. He claims to be cancelling on grounds that he doesn't have the money. If not, why should the two meetings take him seriously? Head of Iranian cyberwarfare, Mojtaba Ahmadi, found dead in the woods, shot twice in chest; probably not suicide.   APEC: TransPacific Partnership, cd be the world's largest free-trade zone.  Pres Obama has just spoken on CNBC; his msg on Treasurys, alluding to possible default, is terrifying to Asians.   US is obliged to defend Philippines, US did not last year with Scarborough Shoals, now China is ramping up for more aggression.   Malaysia's only dispute with China is in ht South China Sea, which Beijing actually claims it's a Chinese lake. Malaysia is in the TPP; we need it stay in but many Malaysians oppose – important for Pres Obama to go there.  Nothing much in the way of Xi-Obama relationship since the shirtsleeves encounter earlier in California.

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 1, Block B: Susan Yoshihara, Senior Vice President for Research at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, in re:  China's one-child policy has much reduced fertility; workforce peaked three years before expected.  Seventeen provinces collect a punishment fee if you have ore children than approved: $2.7 bil all together – goes to province and esp to pockets of the collectors. Explains why the bureaucracy favors maintaining the one-child policy. It’s a gang who live off intimidate families – it’s also a govt bureaucracy  at every level of govt, including in impoverished villages, where the people are terrified of the officials who collect independent income by this means. Massively corrupt. The often grab pregnant women and force them to have an abortion, including killing late-term infants.  Women fled, were hunted down and dragged back to forced abortions. In a free society, this is murder.

Husband of Chinese Woman Forced to Abort at Seven Months Speaks Out The husband of a woman brutally forced to have an abortion at seven months of pregnancy is speaking out about what happened.  As LifeNews reported yesterday, the graphic photograph of a of an aborted 7-month boy is widely circulating among Chinese people on the Internet following a horrifying forced abortion that took place on Friday.  The forced abortion took place in Chuzhou City, Anhui Province as a woman named Lü, a 33-year-old Chinese woman whose husband reported the case and released the photograph, was victimized. (WARNING, GRAPHIC: The horrifying picture can be seen here.  ) Now, ChinaAid has provided LifeNews with more details, including an interview with the woman’s husband. The human rights group says the seven-month-old fetus was killed by lethal injection, and the mother was still hospitalized.  The group interviewed the woman’s husband, who said . . . [more]

How the Chinese Government Profits from the One-Child Policy  Despite the demographic challenges presented by the three-decade old policy, local governments depend on child birth penalties to balance budgets and boost the income of politicians.  [more]

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show,  & Bob Richards, space entrepreneur and futurist. He's co-founder of the International Space University, Singularity University, SEDS, the Space Generation Foundation and Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors Odyssey Moon Ltd. and Moon Express, Inc., where he currently serves as CEO, in re: MOON EXPRESS.  Can be seen as a stepping stone to more distant points, or as a destination by itself. Google Lunar X PRIZE is a global competition,$20 mil first prize to first org to reach moon surface with a robotic lander and send back pix.  Moon express pursues the dvpt of the vast resources on Moon for the benefit of life on Earth, We hope to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Water on the Moon: not only makes life possible but can be used as rocket fuel.  With immersive imagery & 3D systems, we can follow robotic avatars on the Moon. Webcam on the Moon; Also, flying a telescope people can access over the Net –see not only the Moon but the stars above and the galactic vistas.  About 21 teams competing right now – Moon 2.0 for the human race.   The first trillionaires will be made out of space resources: Moon and asteroid belt, the battle scars of billions of years of asteroid strikes. Trillions of dollars of value left in the scars.  After the Google Lunar X PRIZE, win or lose, we aim to dvpt Moon resources, starting on its south pole, where the volatiles and aware are.  In 2018, mission to the south pole plant a permanent observatory. In 2020: our Holy Grail – return a kilogram of material worth [a great deal.  ]  Young people I speak to are so plugged in and also focused on good stewardship – how do we as a species peacefully and rationally develop society off the Earth in a way that's responsible and leaves behind the endemic cruelty. 

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Michael Auslin, AEI, in re:  . . .  Chinese people's view of he world is increasingly paranoic. Xi unfortunately is being parroted in Seoul – Mme Park of ROK clearly disapproves of Japan, privileges China, repeats Chinese statements n  history. True that Japan has a long way to go in acknowledging its past, but both ROK and China are using this to reduce Japan.  Abe uses dry humor to point out that he's hardly a 1930s revanchist; that the point is that China has a huge military budget and ignoring this is mightily dangerous to its neighbors. Abe's remarks at the UN. Chinese issues and Japanese airspace.

Hour Two

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  Tashi Namgyal, member of Tibetan Parliament from North America, in re: the squabble in Washington has damaged the hopes and aspirations of Tibetans who want to talk about what the US should be doing in regard to China ; was to be on Mon 7 Oct – but permit was cancelled because of the DC food fight.  Was then to have been Lafayette Park, but officialdom refused more than 25 people at once.   The Tibetan Parliamentarians in North America are being turned away by the same beefy Natl Park Police who turned away 80-year-old veterans earlier today.  Universal values and fundamental human rights need to be the basis of US policy. UNHCR.  US got unable to bring u a meaningful solution to the Tibetan issue; it's always focused on peace in the Middle east, work hard to bring groups together to find a solution, and we want that sort of thing.  Heartbroken at 122 self-immolations in Tibet to bring world attention to the depredations in Tibet by China, which blames self-immolators as acting for different reasons.  China entered Tibet and fired on mining protestors who were simply sitting, passively, in Yushu Autonomous ____; some were injured, maybe some killed

Tibetan protestors were gassed and shot by China; the protestors in the US were turned back by – Washington. 

Remains of Tibetan self immolator forced into river Phayu  The site of Shichung's self immolation protest, Chinese policemen with fire extinguishers and troops are also seen.  The Chinese authorities in Ngaba County have forced the family members of the latest Tibetan self immolator to throw his remains into a river, a Tibetan source said.   According to Tsayang Gyatso, a Tibetan living in exile, some monks of Jonang Se monastery and the family members of the deceased approached the County authorities to collect the ashes of Shichung, the 41 year old Tibetan who died immediately after his self immolations protest in Gomang Thawa township in Ngaba county on September 28.   “However, a day after his self immolation Chinese officials and the police barred them from taking Shichung's remains to their home, compelling them to throw it into the Ngachu river.”  Shichung, a father of two, set himself on fire on Saturday around 4.30 PM (local time) in Gomang Thawa Township in Ngaba County. He lit a butter lamp in front of a portrait of the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama before taking setting himself ablaze.   Sources said that local Tibetans confronted the Chinese security forces numbering over 150 trying to stop the body from being taken away. A major confrontation was avoided, sources said, after local Tibetan elders present there calmed the situation down. However . . .  [more]

'Exiled Tibetans protest 121st case of self immolation'  The reports of yet another case of self immolation in Tibet have stir up a wave of protests and demonstrations at the Tibetan exile headquarters.  A 41-year-old protester died after setting himself on fire in Gomang Thawa Township in Ngaba County of Tibet. Engulfed in flames, Shichung, 41, ran from his house towards the main road before collapsing. He later succumbed to his burn injuries.  [more]

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 2, Block B: Mike Davis, professor at Hong Kong University Law School, in re: Use civil disobedience to highlight need for democracy for Hong Kong.  Committed to nonviolence. The success of heir effort is largely in the hands of the govt. Last time, a half-million people took to the street because he got was arrogant and unresponsive.  If he misbehave in handling it, they know what may happen.  In the 2017 election for Hong Kong chief executive, need to allow all Hong Kongnese to vote instead of only a tiny group hand-picked by Beijing.   Educating members, making the sign a proclamation not to engage in any illegal behavior except congregating without a permit. C Y Leung, HK CRO, is – really –  a stooge for Beijing. Was elected in a small-circle election, is perfectly compliant.  Public is upset with him.  Hong Kong is one of he most advanced societies in the world, yet Beijing argues that it’s not ready to vote!  Beijing now demands to vet all the candidates – meaning, exclude the whole democratic camp – which angers the Occupy Central we'll see chaos on the streets. 

Chinese official blames Hong Kong youth for Occupy Central movement  A top mainland official in Hong Kong has launched a thinly veiled attack on the Occupy Central movement, saying that the city's "youth" are responsible for rejecting any action that will damage what he called "the rule of law".  The remark yesterday by Wang Zhimin, deputy director of the central government's liaison office, faithfully reflected Beijing's hardline stance against the civil disobedience plan proposed by University of Hong Kong law academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting as a last-ditch attempt to attain full democracy by 2017.  "Hong Kong is now at a crucial moment in its economic and democratic transition," Wang said in the opening speech of  . . .   [more]

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Bud Weinstein, SMU and Bush Center, in re: LNG, liquefied natural gas – has to be chilled to ship.  We export little currently, and not to Asia or Europe, but we have two export terminals under construction with 20 applications pending We may in a decade become a major exporters; would be important in knowing Mr Putin off his perch, since all he really  has is energy.  Huge world demand we can satisfy with our supplies.   Obama Administration has been slow-walking applications. . . . [more]

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Oanh Ha, Bloomberg, in Hanoi, in re:  A beautiful day here; weather has been muggy but today it’s clear and lovely. (Not as beautiful as California, but I'll take it.) Lots of factors, but here's a metaphor:  you often hear about the glass ceiling for women in the US; here in the Asia Pacific, it’s really the sticky floor – women are stuck on factory floor or on a farm. Huge cost to the region – probably $89 billion.  Govt wants to advance but spends almost naught on training. In factories, women make $100/mo but the line supervisors are men.   Also education and tradition.  In New York, there's never been a New York mayor, or a New York state governor, and certainly no woman president – unlike Sri Lanka, Korea, India.  Thailand has a woman PM but ranks near the bottom in male-female equality.  Women discouraged from taking risks – not to start a company or work in a start-up. 

Asia Losing $89 Billion a Year Failing to Recognize Women: Jobs – [Self-taught entrepreneur Vanessa] Tinitigan represents the 1 per cent of Asia’s working women who run businesses that employ staff -- less than half the rate for men -- as a lack of government support, financial illiteracy and social traditions mean they are mostly confined to lower-paid factory and service jobs, or helping till the family farm. Failure to integrate women fully into the workforce is costing the Asia-Pacific region about $89 billion a year in unrealized output, according to the United Nations.  [more]   

Hour Three

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:  Joseph Sternberg, WSJ Asia editorial board, in re:   APEC, ASEAN.  David Cunningham, head of FedEx Asia: Small and medium-sized businesses need to be able to take advantage of open trade  - big firms can always sort through  red tape, but smaller firms need simplified paperwork and common standards.  the TPP could open up enormous amounts of trade for smaller companies, esp in dvpg countries. Old mercantilist trade protections need to be cleaned out.  "Asia isn’t ready for the Internet" – entrepreneurs are totally ready; it’s the ossified pols who aren’t.  Isn't there too much govt in Asia?  Yup. They want to stand in the way: they know that's how they get paid.  Free trade leads to prosperity, jobs, growth. Negotiations on the matter are being held in secret.

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 3, Block B: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re:  Abe was able to joke drily about his being [not being] a right-wing militarist Meanwhile, China is sending ships, planes and drones into Japanese waters and over Japanese territory to bait Japan.  The new president of South Korea turns to China, away from Japan. Both ROK and Japan are treaty allies of the US; rupture in the alliance that could be difficult to solve. Pres Obama has cut out Kuala Lumpur and Manila , saying he doesn’t have the money to go there. He's undercutting his own position and [making a fool of] the US.  Stunned that a US president would openly speak about the US president discussing a US default. 

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 3, Block C: James Taranto WSJ, in re:  ACA moving toward failure land in the early goings. Obamacaid. "Everybody should hope that ObamaCare works."

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Rep Devin Nunes (CA-21), in re:  The Republican Party in dispute with the Democratic Party.   White House announces a meeting: not a negotiation, more of a soul-searching discussion.  President o CBNBC: "Worried abt the debt ceiling undermining the credit of the US.  Generates huge fear in the markets.  He's calling on many business leaders to scare people into compliance. Strategy promoted by Ted Cruz and TV: "If we don’t fund Obamacare we won’t have to face the debt limit."  If this continues, we'll be nose to nose with the debt limit.  GOP doesn’t subscribe to big govt, but neither to no govt. Three-fourth of some of the intell agencies are furloughed; the terrorists never sleep. . . . Serious problems from debt limit. The two stories are quite separate, but they're colliding.  NYT says now that Devin Nunes said, "The Republican seat-of-the-pants strategy also left some puzzled . . . "  . . .  The WWII monument has been a disaster.  Everyone knows it's open; Parks spent how much money trying to barricade them, getting veterans angry.  This was directly from the White House.    

 

 

Hour Four

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 4, Block A: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (1 of 4)

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 4, Block B: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (2 of 4)

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 4, Block C: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (3 of 4)

Wednesday  2 October 2013 / Hour 4, Block D: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (4 of 4)

..  ..  .. 

Music

Hour 1:  House of Flying Daggers, Red Dawn 

Hour 2:  Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Hour 3:  Shaolin, The Road, Knight & Day 

Hour 4:  Empire: Total War