Backed by funding from more developed industrialized nations, Asian nations have vowed to reduce greenhouse gasses during the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held during the first two weeks in December and attended by 10,000 delegates from 192 countries in Poznan, western Poland. Major Asian nations came to the environment conclave determined to combat pollution while maintaining current levels of growth. The western developed nations and Asian developing nations who represent half of humanity and a large and rapidly growing share of the greenhouse gas pollution which leads to global warming have been debating growth versus pollution control measures for sometime now. The following are ideals the major Asian nations want in the pact that will replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.

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As the dust settles on the Mumbai terror attacks its time to look at the larger picture, dig through the layers of diplomacy, uncover where years of history, ideology and finance went wrong and strive to solve the problem without aimlessly pointing fingers. Its been established that its not a Mumbai problem, the city was just a soft target and in all probability the present Pakistani government had nothing to do with the attacks but what hangs in the future is how the newly elected Pakistani and U.S. governments, work with an Indian government that’s fighting to stay in power for the next five years.

Analyzing what would probably be the three countries greatest test in foreign policy in recent times, Paul Kapur, a faculty affiliate at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and an expert on international security in South Asia, diagnoses events of the past week on a global scale and how he expects the situation to unfold.

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A recent research report voted Tokyo, as the best place to buy real estate next year and Ho Chi Minh City as the best market for office, retail and apartment residential property. Singapore and Hong kong followed Tokyo while Mumbai, Shanghai and Bangalore followed Vietnam’s former capital city. The survey Emerging Trends in Real Estate Asia Pacific was released by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

With property values tumbling worldwide, the report found Tokyo to be least risky due to its comparatively stronger economy, high liquidity levels and quality structures. Among the 180 executives surveyed, 40 percent recommended “hold” for properties in Tokyo, 32 percent suggested “buy” and the rest said “sell” for real estate in the city, Bloomberg reported. As Tokyo rose in the ranking’s Shanghai fell from being the best place to invest in real estate to the fifth slot.

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The rising cost of college in America coupled with massive job cuts and an economy in recession means that it is becoming more difficult for American students to afford college tuition fees.  Meanwhile across the globe, the situation being not so dire, Asian students continue to apply to top American universities often paying high fees.

The New York Times quoted an annual report published by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, entitled Measuring Up saying that published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

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The thousands of anti government protesters occupying Suvarnabhumi International Airport Thailand’s main tourist gateway, since the past eight days, roared in happiness when they heard the court ruling banning Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from politics for five years and dissolved the ruling party over a case of voting fraud. Mr. Somchai’s People Power Party is Thailand’s largest party in Parliament and he was Thailand’s third prime minister this year.

With news of the turn around, the Thai baht edged up against the dollar and the stock market rose as optimism spread.

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Its increasingly evident that extremist groups or terrorists operate well coordinated global organizations that not only financially aid each other but also offer excellent intelligence and training facilities. These militants are dedicated to their cause, united against a common enemy and have obviously developed the sophistication for mass destruction while following detailed instructions from afar. The fact that they are so well prepared and a growing global menace makes their threat all the more worrisome. As fear of your next door neighbor spreads across the region, 2point6billion, takes a look at major terrorist organizations in their hotbed that is Asia.

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The terrorists that attacked Mumbai came to the city via sea. The effortless way in which they entered the city and took it hostage begs the question of why India doesn’t have a better naval security system or the larger and more important question of why an international city like Mumbai, with massive traffic woes doesn’t use its waterways better?

Other Asian cities such as Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan and Taiwan all use their waterways to some extent - either to ease traffic congestion, for tourism or for floating markets. An inexpensive and environment friendly way to commute, using inland waterways is increasingly been promoted by governments as a better way to move about.

The best example is probably Bangkok’s boats that ply both between the two banks of the Chao Phraya river as well as along the river. Transporting thousands of people a day, Thailand’s river transportation has considerably solved the massive traffic and pollution the city suffered from.

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UPDATES: As of 4pm India time (+5:30 hrs GMT)

- Large quantity of RDX found at two locations.
- 148 hostages released after Commando raid on Trident Oberoi Hotels.
- Fighting continuing between remaining terrorists and Military.
- Jewish Hostages at Nariman Point still incarcerated.

34 hours after terrorists struck the heart of south Mumbai, national security guards have almost flushed out the terrorists from the Taj hotel. Armed men and helicopters continue in their quest to drive out the terrorists holed up in a Jewish center the Nariman House and the Oberoi-Trident. While fierce gun battle still persists, 125 have been declared dead, including 14 policemen and six foreigners, 327 are injured.

While the terrorists are most probably out to make an international statement by targeting tourist hot spots, the mass number of Indian casualties too cannot be discounted. Of the 125 already declared dead 119 were Indian nationals, a majority of the injured are also Indians, casual by-standers who were killed in random firing at public places that are usually very crowded.

Sources say a majority of the Indian’s who were killed were innocent people going home after a day’s work from the center of the city from Mumbai’s biggest railway station to their homes in the suburbs, or patients in hospitals and their relatives and staff at the targeted hotels. What is disheartening is that the Indians that are believed to have been killed hail not from the affluent part of south mumbai where they worked but probably from smaller towns and cities outside the city. Being a service centered city, Mumbai is known as the melting pot of Mumbai where millions come to make it big. Many of them end up working as waiters in hotels, nurses in hospitals and everyday clergymen.

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Updates:

- Hostages held in the Taj Hotel have all been freed.
- Hostages remain at the Oberoi Trident Hotel.
- Gun battles continue at Nariman Point siege.
- More explosions heard at Oberoi Trident.
- Tata says Taj Hotel “Will be rebuilt as it was before”.

Alex De Grunwald, the well known film production director and a personal friend of mine , has reported on scenes in Mumbai direct from his residence at The Royal Bombay Yacht Club, sited just 50 yards across from the sieged Taj Hotel, opposite the Gateway of India, where the terrorists are alleged to have come ashore to attack the city.

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Mumbai, the current scene of bloody machine gun battles with grenades being thrown at civilians, firefighters and police, is India’s most cosmopolitan city. Facing the Arabian Sea, it is also it’s most Middle Eastern flavored, and the city is dotted with Parsi and Zoroastrian buildings and designs, all jostling for grandeur amongst the colonial architecture brought in by the British. For centuries, people of all faiths have traded in Mumbai. The Taj Hotel, now aflame, pock marked with bullet holes and rocked by explosions, was built by the founder of the Tata Group and is still operated by them. You were just as likely to see visiting Arabic businessmen in dish-dash-ah and headscarves in the lobby, milling around with American executives, visiting Chinese traders, and the wealthy India elite as anyone else. Yet now that same lobby has become a killing field in the name of Islam, if new reports coming to light confirm that the terrorists sped in by boat from Karachi, in southern Pakistan.

Karachi itself is the financial center of Pakistan, just as Mumbai is too India. One has to wonder about the lax security of the Naval base in Mumbai, the berths for the Indian Navy are just yards from the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel itself, and being so one would have thought in-bound vessels should have been tracked on radar and identified. Yet the discovery of a boat full of weapons and ammunition moored just off the Gateway – and literally just across the street from the Taj – would seem to indicate security was relaxed.

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