"Lesotho is to harness the power of wind and water in a China-funded US$15-billion green energy project, the biggest of its kind in Africa. The Lesotho highlands power project (LHPP) will generate 6 000 megawatts (MW) of wind power and 4 000MW of hydropower, equivalent to about 5% of South Africa's electricity needs."
"Lesotho says the scheme will help end its plight as one of the world's poorest countries, “making it a case study in how investing in renewable energy can transform a nation's fortunes”

Beijing may be designing the city of the future on order to control traffic problems. They are overhauling everything from building new roads, limiting cars and licenses, providing bike sharing, increased bus routes, and limiting driving hours. Below are some highlights of the changes taking place in Beijing.

“Beijing Traffic Control Restriction Policy Limit on new car licenses Only 240,000 car licenses will be issued in 2011 through number-drawing (lottery), with a monthly average of20,000.

China has long been building infrastructure throughout Africa, but is now being contracted to build an entire city just outside of Angola’s capital.

“In a field 30km south of Angola's chaotic capital, a US$3.5-billion city seems to rise from nothing, a showpiece in government's drive to build one million new homes. Dubbed the “new city of Kilamba Kiaxi”, it is the antithesis of overcrowded Luanda's traffic-choked streets and is being built – like so much else in Angola -- by Chinese contractors.

“As tattered laborers wait beachside in a secluded Mumbai port, an aging ship making its twilight voyage runs aground, settling its hull into the sand before flopping, listlessly, on its thick steel side . The shipbreakers rush to the death scene of the expired vessel and, without hesitation, begin the long, laborious process of dismantling the scrapped ship by hand. Wading through toxins, pulling apart asbestos-laden pieces and inhaling oil, gas and other hazardous fumes earns them a meager wage for the day.

"The Philippines government launched the Philippines-Australia Community Assistance Program (PACAP), aiming to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development partly through social entrepreneurship. The program was set up as a grant and mentoring program to help community entrepreneurs develop their community development projects. PACAP has worked with over 500 NGOs and grass-roots organizations to support over a thousand community-based projects, benefiting 250,000 poor people. During its last phase (2005 - 2010) PACAP funded almost 500 more projects.

The latest census data shows that Indians are aborting more female fetuses now than at any other time in India’s history. According to the data, there are now 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six. Female feticide is not isolated to the poorer classes. Factors for this trend in feticide can be attributed to easier access to ultrasound technology, as well as the reluctance of India’s growing middle class to pay dowries. “…As a family gets wealthier, it is unwilling to part with a share of its property to its daughters,” says Dr.

Growing trade between China and individual Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) member countries are a "weak force" that is "pulling apart ASEAN integration."

Key issues in relationship between China and Southeast Asia:

[Issues id'ed by Noviscape, explanation by IFTF]

"The Spratly dispute" A territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands, some of which are claimed by China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei. The islands are a valuable fishing, shipping and oil and natural gas resource.

Singapore is profoundly shaped by both the Singaporean diaspora around the world, and the many diasporic communities from other countries that settle in Singapore.

According to Noviscape, July 2011, the government has recognized the power of the Singaporean diaspora and is attempting to leverage it.

The Strategic Foresight Group writes,

"Research & Development of emerging technologies in India is expected to be focused on cost reduction through process innovation of products and technologies developed elsewhere in the world. The prospects of original inventions appear dismal, despite 2010– 2020 having been declared as the ‘Decade of Innovation’ by the Indian Government." Compared to China, India files a paltry handful of patent applications.

“South African FDI, along with flows from transnational corporations (TNCs) in other developing countries, such as China and India, had proved less volatile during the recent economic crisis than had been the case with flows from developed economy TNCs, which slumped markedly… [as such] emerging country investors like China and South Africa are expected to be more resilient than traditional ones, providing a potential buffer against further developed world economic stagnation and/or crises.”

Implications from Institute for the Future: