The Panda War

Turns out China is working on the soft touch in order to get it's way in the world. Close to home, they are offering up a pair of pandas to Taiwan. Of course, the pandas names are similar to the Chinese word for "reunion." No ulterior motive there, right?

Next, is this article in this month's Wired concerning the aggressive push by China to make Mandarin the most spoken second language on the planet. This, of course, would mean replacing English. Once again, the action seems kind of cuddly, the motives not so much.