Greenland invaded by Chinese forces

13 May 2050
From our correspondent in Nuuk, Greenland
Bo Xi Li

The VII Expeditionary Security Force of the People's Liberation Army today went ashore at Nuuk in Greenland, to 'ensure the security of Chinese nationals', according to PLA sources.

High ranking officers in the PLA have told Zurich Intermedia that the action was deemed necessary after 3,000 striking Chinese mine workers in the region of Paamiut entered the tenth day of a hunger strike, with 23 hospitalised.

The Chinese workers were striking over the Greenland government decision to expel all foreign national workers by 2055.

Greenland has been independent from Denmark since a 2023 vote on nationhood, but has a mutual defence treaty with Denmark.

Danish Foreign Minister, Mette Jellerup, has advised that Denmark has not received a formal request for assistance from the Greenland government, but is ready to respond if that request is received.

At stake are the huge gold reserves at Naluanaq, where Chinese companies own a controlling interest in the mines. The Greenland government decision to expel all foreign workers is seen as a precursor to full nationalisation of the countries resources industry.

The Greenland economy boomed following the Oil Wars, when the oil reserves of the Middle East became inaccessible due to the nuclear conflict there. Oil exploration opened up Greenland for further investment, leading to the discovery of the world's largest gold deposits at Naluanaq, by Chinese Resources Company Ijing Enterprises, which is 40% owned by the PLA.

There is no information yet on how many Chinese troops have gone ashore in Greenland, nor what their objectives are.

Trans species marriage legalised

by Sanjeev Gupta
San Francisco, November 6 2050

The Independent US City State of San Francisco voted in its State Legislature today to legalise marriage between humans and 'defined species', from 2051.

The long awaited law has been the subject of acrimonious debate since 2045 when it was first proposed by members of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA, as a means of creating greater protection for animals in society.

The list of defined species which can be wed with their human masters includes dogs, cats, horses, certain household bird species, rabbits, gerbils and housemice.

Contentious species such as snakes and other reptiles, or predatory birds, did not make the list.

"I have already booked the celebrant for our ceremony," said 43 year old dog lover, Sabine Sertains, of Santa Cruz. Sertains plans to wed her 5 year old Labrador, Theodore.

The law was passed despite strong opposition from Church leaders of all denominations, 126 of whom stood on the steps of the San Francisco legislature in protest on the day of final debate of the bill.

"Marriage is a sacred ceremony that should only be allowed between man and man, woman and woman, or man and woman. To extend it to pets demeans and degrades the sanctity of that union."

Sertains had one thing to say to Church leaders when she heard the news, "Give me a Labrador over a man any day!" she said, "He will never let you down."

European Republic on the verge of dissolution



Berlin, European Republic, October 23 2050

by ZI finance reporter, Kun Lee

As mass protests continue in European capitals for the fourth week, the government of the European Republic is debating a motion by the state of France to dissolve the Republic and return to a loose Federation of nation states.



Euro slum dwellers are refusing to pay super-tax

The people's revolution has already caused the resignation of the ER Finance Minister, Gerhardt Buller, after a rescue package designed to enable the Republic Government to avoid insolvency was rejected by the Chinese Legislative Yuan in Beijing on Thursday.

The crisis was provoked by the refusal of millions of Europeans to pay the new super-tax imposed by Berlin for the recovery and relocation work needed after the inundation of Holland by rising sea levels. The ER economy has already buckled under the demands of its remilitarisation program, intended to enable it to secure fresh water resources into the next century.

"They can build a great big wooden shoe and sail off in it for all I care," said Pedro Alondra, a café worker in Paris. "We don't even have running water 4 hours a day, and we are expected to open our doors, and our wallets, to 5 million Dutch who have known for 20 years this would happen?"

The time had come for every European state to take responsibility for its own citizens, said French governor, Phillipe Le Guymont.

"We can no longer expect the bureaucrats of Berlin to solve the problems of the squatters of Marseille, or the displaced from Rotterdam. Only the French can solve French problems, and the Dutch must solve their own."

It is 35 years since the national bankruptcies of  Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal led to the collapse of the then European Union, and the formation of a European Republic incorporating the free states of Germany, France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Austria.

Yahoogle update causes net chaos

Delhi, March 15, 2050: Omninet cloud traffic suffered a worldwide blackout for 13 minutes today when a bad security patch applied by Yahoogle caused satellite based routing to crash.

"It was 13 minutes where the world stood still," said Global OmniCall magnate, Majit Singh. "All our vidphone lines were down, updates to virtual billboards and store shelves stalled, television and direct to eyeware feed went black," he said.

Mr Singh has estimated it will take his company alone two days and millions of dollars to resolve all the customer issues created by the Yahoogle patch.

A spokesperson for Yahoogle Omninet said the company reacted immediately when the issue with the new patch became apparent, and normal service was continued for all non-satellite based traffic. She refused to speculate on the global economic cost of the blackout, "That will be an issue for our legal advisors to address," she said.

Not all consumer groups were upset at the blackout. "For 13 blessed minutes today there was silence," said the CEO of the anti-omninet Institute for Information Management, Maureen Haerdigan.

"The bus stops stopped hawking fast food at passengers, shopping center walls weren't strobing advertising, the prices on the supermarket shelves weren't changing in front of our eyes, and even the vidphone spammers couldn't get through," she said. "People on public transit took off their eyeware and talked to each other. It was a revolution."

European Republic Anti-Monopoly Trust chairperson, Yuri Vedloff, said the blackout was more evidence, if it was needed, of the dangers of concentrating global information traffic coordination in the hands of only one or two suppliers.

"People questioned our motives at the turn of the century, when we aggressively pursued large software and infrastructure monopolies for non-competitive behaviour," he said. "I think now they realise that our motives were based in fear of the reality we have seen again today."

Mr Vedloff was referring to a situation at the turn of the century where nearly all business and leisure computing systems relied on the operating system of a single provider. Concerted efforts by the EU to dismantle the monopoly were ineffective, largely due to the financial pressure the company was able to bring to bear against the EU legislators. Eventually that company went the way of the dinosaur, and Yahoogle emerged dominant.

"The genius of Yahoogle made the operating system irrelevent," Taiwan Provincial Bank Omninet Analyst Kevin Lee said, "Yahoogle services and applications can run on anything with a chip in it, as long as it is hooked up to Omninet."
"And what isn't?" he asked.
Today, for 13 minutes, a lot wasn't.

World Health Pandemic Organization Censured

Beijing, March 15, 2050: In a dramatic session of the UN Security Council in Beijing today the council voted to censure the World Health and Pandemic Organization for its recent public call for governments to devote significant resources to preparing for a PN-561 Rodent Flu pandemic.

Council Chairperson, Wen Hei, said the WHPO call was 'scaremongering of the most base kind, intended purely to improve the deterioriating financial situation of an organisation created to deal with pandemics which have never materialised.' The Council censure motion called for the WHPO to withdraw its current evaluation of the global risk of PN-561, but stopped short of calling for the WHPO to be disbanded. 'The WHPO has cried 'wolf' once too often. There is a credibility gap it needs to address,' Mr Hei said.

The WHPO recommended immediate financing of a new Rodent Flu educational campaign in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, an increase in stockpiling of the vaccine HOP-411 manufactured by pharmaceutical company Bristolofi, and an increase in WHPO funding of 209bn. Euro to pay for increased research and field intervention.

The Council was presented with a case study compiled by the University of Western China, looking at the 2014 WHPO led campaign against the H4-N3 bat virus, its first and most significant global campaign to date. The UWC report concluded that:

-the WHPO overstated the speed at which such a virus could mutate and pose a threat to humans
-it consistently overstated the likelihood of human to human transfer of the virus
-it provided funding to scientists whose research supported the Bat Flu Pandemic hypothesis, and cut or denied funding to scientists who argued against it
-it paid a global PR agency to track and publicise all cases of suspected Bat Flu, ensuring the issue remained high on the media agenda
-it received grants from vaccine manufacturers for Bat Flu related projects
-it more than quadrupled its operating budget in the period between 2008 and 2024, mostly as a result of funding related to Bat Flu research, PR and field work

The UWC noted that the WHOs own records demonstrated that between 2008 and 2019, only 1050 people globally died of Bat Flu, and no case of human to human transmission was ever proven. Investigators compared this to the approximately two million people who died of common influenza in China in the same period.

China moves in private security to 'safeguard investments'

by ZI Beijing Bureau Chief Wang Li


In a move which many reactionary commentators have described as 'invasion by another name' the Chinese government has appointed a global security firm to mobilise armed security forces to protect its investments in the North Sea, South America, New Zealand and Africa.


During the economic crisis of the early part of the century, and again in the financial meltdown that followed the Oil Wars, China bought heavily into primary industry and mining resources throughout the world.


By so doing it secured profitable sources of raw materials to feed its furious expansion through the middle of the Century to become the dominant Superpower of today.


However the recent nationalisation of coal and iron ore producers in Australia has triggered a strong response from Beijing.


After brief but ineffective attempts at diplomacy, China has now dispatched heavily armed security forces to protect oil and mining operations throughout the world in which it has a controlling financial interest from 'protectionist forces' such as those in Australia.


It has stopped short of landing troops in Australia to restore control of the nationalised assets in that country but the Australian Defence minister has said his forces are on high alert to 'resist any incursion by Chinese military or paramilitary forces into Australian territory'.


Governments in the effected regions were taken by surprise by the Chinese actions, and proved powerless to resist the Chinese government through its enterprise arms, installing private security forces on oil platforms, mines and in mining towns.


CEO of Norwegian oil giant NorNimeng (which is 49% owned by Chinese govt oil refiner Nimeng Co), Victor Rudel, said he and his management team had been advised by Canton Security Services that they were to provide space in the NorNimeng headquarters for Security Advisers immediately and that all NorNimeng corporate assets were being placed under Canton Security Services 'protection'.


"A helicopter full of armed men landed on the roof of our building, and on every platform we have in the North Sea, the same thing," Rudel. "A group even rappelled onto the deck of one of our freighters at sea."


"I have been told we need all executive decisions to be passed through the new Security Advisory group in our head office, and all operational activities on our oil platforms and ships are now under the protection of Canton Security - we have no idea what that means in practical terms."


No Canton Security spokesman was available for comment but Chinese Goverment Minister for External Commercial Relations, Ms Lucy Liu, stated in a press release that, "The Chinese Government is happy to announce that it has placed the services of Canton Security at the disposal of Chinese commercial interests throughout the world to safeguard their investments."

Iranian city 'inhabitable' claim Shanghai scientists

by ZI staff reporters

Shanghai, April 15 2050: Scientists who have finished analysing the findings of their controversial expedition into the middle of the Iranian hot zone have shocked the world by announcing not only that they have discovered the ancient city of Aratta containing a perfectly preserved Noah's Ark style wooden boat - but also that parts of the underground city are 'suitable for recolonisation'.

(See the first ZI story on the expedition here: http://news2050.blogspot.com/2006/04/secret-hidden-in-sands-will-at-last-be.html )

Rumours had emerged from the University that the Ark-like boat had been found, but Chinese authorities locked down the news flow when several members of the exploring party became sick, and two were rumoured to have died from radiation poisoning.

Far from being a small "Parthian trading town", the archeologists statement claimed that:

* The city unearthed in a nuclear blast was Aratta, an ancient Sumerian capital, which appears to have been built on the banks of an ancient river, possibly the former course of the modern day Halil river.

* The ruins show evidence of a catastrophic flood destroying most of the city around 2200 BC, which puts it in the range of dates scholars estimate as likely for the flood described in the Old Testament.

* The city was rebuilt post flood, with the most modern artifacts found dating to the year 1100 BC when scholars have postulated the city-state established its capital in modern day Iran and Aratta declined and was abandoned.

* The city temple, clearly visible in Yahoogle Earth images of the site, contained a partially intact boat of immense proportions: 1.5m cubic feet, or the capacity of 570 maglev freight cars. These dimensions approximate those of the biblical Ark.

* Most of the stone and marble buildings of the city are still intact under the sands, and connected by an intricate system of tunnels, many collapsed but some still open, which may have been built as part of city defenses. An underground aquifer estimated to hold about 5m gigalitres of water was at about 30% capacity.

* Radiation levels in these underground buildings were 'not inimical to human life'

The terse and factual statements above were released without further comment by the University of Shanghai Archeology department, and a publication on their findings is awaiting peer review.

However the statements have created furor among the Iranian diaspora, with leaders of the New York Iranian Cultural Preservation Society among the most vocal.

"Aratta was the birthplace of Persian civilisation, we must return to Aratta, and make it once more the birthplace for a new Iran," ICPS Executive Mirza Abdolvahhab said to the NY and Times of India Post. "We are already raising funds to establish a new capital in Aratta for the whole diaspora."

"Any attempt to recolonise this irradiated wasteland would just lead to a senseless loss of life - it will be 500 years before people will walk the soil of Iran again," said Doctor Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Health Minister for the Iranian Diaspora Government in Geneva.

"We cannot stop people determined to die, from going to their deaths," he said, "But if they take their wives and children with them, may Allah have mercy on their souls."

Longevity therapy the road to oblivion?

by Salim ali Salim, Jakarta
March 30 2050

"If longevity therapy had been available two hundred years ago, Charles Darwin might have called it the 'Doomsday Drug' "

This is the stark warning to emerge from one of the speakers at the WHO CCR5 Gene Therapy global crisis meeting in Jakarta this week.

The conference was urgently called by the WHO to discuss the implications of CCR5 based therapies going off patent in 2055 and becoming both cheap, and widely available throughout the world.

Unless you are Rumplestiltskin, you would know the CCR5 was the wonder treatment launched in 2019 in Europe, as a cure for HIV, but it had the side effect of making CCR5 treated patients highly resistant to a range of other mortal conditions such as skin and breast cancer, pneumonia, influenza and various other contagious diseases. People treated with CCR5 were soon shown to have an average life expectancy 20 years longer than the normal population, with one documented case of a CCR5 treated man living to the age of 153.

Until now though, the incredibly expensive therapy has been limited by most governments to either people who can prove they have either HIV or relevant cancers, or to the very rich who fly to clinics in South Korea, Thailand, or Brazil for a course of CCR5.

The therapy is not without side effects. It does not slow the aging process and has no beneficial effect on brain function, so although CCR5 treated patients are not beset by chronic diseases, they can still become demented or be effected by Alzheimers disease, and have to live with it for decades.

Similarly, they can be effected by strokes and brain haemmorages, and face decades in a vegetative state, or handicapped. The cost to society is already huge and has forced several nations, led by the richer Scandinavian states, to enact laws allowing euthenasia of CCR5 patients who have been diagnosed with dementia or final stage Alzheimers disease.

"If copy-drug makers are able to start mass producing CCR5 therapy, and it gets down to a price where the average middle class person can afford it, we could be looking at a species killer," Professor of Immunology at the Bangkok University Hospital, Pak Thang Wilson, told ZI today.

"Our models show 60% of the population by 2070 would be over the age of 100. 25% of those in the age range of 100-110 would be severly handicapped, either mentally or physically. Of those who survive to 120-130 years, 55% would be handicapped," he said.

Your ZI reporter hit the streets to ask the average Jakarta pedestrian what they thought of this scenario. "If I have a 45% chance of staying relatively healthy until the age of 130, I'm going to take it thankyou!" was the typical response.

"That's why we are calling it the Doomsday Drug," Professor Pak said when I told him this, "You are going to finish up with a minority healthy population under the age of 70, working to support a majority unhealthy population who will become decrepit from the age of 100 and may live another 50 years!"

World's first 'Stock Market' in 40 years opens

October 13 2050

By Calcutta ZI finance reporter: Carl Zietpunda

Largely unnoticed by the broader financial world, the CFX or Calcutta Financial Exchange, opened for trading today - the first legal 'stock market' allowed to trade since the global financial collapse of 2015.

Younger readers may not remember, but 'stock markets' ruled the financial world in the pre-Binary era, and the rise and fall of the company 'shares' traded on the market could make or break the wealth of individuals, corporations, or even countries.

Stock markets and share trading, in all its various flavours, were outlawed in the major economies in 2010 and since then simpler forms of 'share trading' have only been seen in developing countries and these rogue exchanges are shut down just as quickly as they spring up.

Calcutta Finance Minister Shuri Evewattra says the new CFX will lead to more transparent financial dealings between major government institutions.

"Since governments took control of the finance sector globally in 2008, much of the trading and deals between governments has been hidden behind freedom of information and state security laws which prohibit ordinary citizens from gaining true insight into what their governments are doing with their tax dollars," Evewattra says.

"I was nominated to this position because I believe in transparency and a public exchange, properly regulated and managed by the Ministry, is the best way to achieve that."

Only Government listed commercial entities will be allowed to trade 'shares' on the CFX. In order to list they will be required to disclose all details of the financial status at least once every five years.

Managing Gen-XX
‘Get bots’ or get out

By Anthony Germaine
ZI Moscow business writer
24 Sept 2050

You can pay a self-important consultant 20,000 Yen to tell you what I am about to tell you in this article for free.

Or you can read it, and trust me.

I’ve just spent two weeks of my holidays helping a friend who runs a small media consulting firm. He, like any business, deals on a daily basis with the challenge of finding staff to keep his business working.

He, like any business, is finding the biggest of those challenges is attracting and retaining Gen XXers, the generation born in the 2020s.

“By our generation’s standards they are lazy, lack personal responsibility, have outrageous demands around social networking and have an inflated sense of their own importance,” he says in frustration.

“But whenever I advertise a job, they form the bulk of the applicants, so I have to live with it.”

Gen XX: Touchy-feely reborn

If this sounds familiar to you, let me share with you what he has learned:

It’s all about the bots.

Gen XXers have grown up completely reliant on bots to perform the most mundane of tasks. If you just emerged from the cave of a doomsday sect, you may not ‘get bots’ as the saying goes, but you need to understand that GenXXers not only ‘get bots’, they can’t live without them.

I’m not talking about robots – those handy little domestic devices that clean your home or trim your lawn – I’m talking about software bots.

GenXXers use bots for EVERYTHING, from ordering pizza, to getting a bank loan, arranging pickup and delivery of their dry cleaning, researching their university homework, or inviting friends to parties.

Why do anything yourself when there is a bot on MyValet that will do it for you?

“Gen XXers honestly think that sending a bunch of bots out into the Omninet and having to manage them, is real work,” my friend groans.

“If I ask my staff to do a media feed for a client about his new product, they plug the details of the assignment into a bot, and send it out into the world for quotes from a vendor. Then someone in Arkansas or Chechnya does the job for them and sends it back to them.

“Most of the time they do accept the cost of doing this should come from their own salary, but I recently had an employee who demanded a ‘bot allowance’ because his bot costs were starting to increase because of my ‘unreasonable’ demands!”

Personal ownership of work results is totally missing, and has to be managed as well, he said.

“When the bots come back with the result and I tell them it isn’t good enough, they shrug and say, “Blame the Bot dude.” They don’t see that it is their responsibility to deliver a quality result, not the bot’s.”

The answer, he says, is not to try to re-educate them, but to accept or even, god-forbid, embrace the way Gen-XXers use bots.

“I hired an in-house coder to take the open-source bots my staff were using, and reconfigure them to use higher quality sources or more reliable vendors,” he said.

“Results improved immediately.”

We want face-time and we want it now

 The second struggle many Gen XX employers have, is with the Gen XXer’s need for personal face to face contact.

Most corporations transitioned to virtual offices and streaming conferencing twenty years ago, and the turn-of-the-century model of housing workers in office blocks like so many honey bees died an unlamented death.

But so did collective schooling, Eyeware(R) and home schooling with tactile simulation interfaces has meant that families now spend most of their working and leisure time together, in the home, interacting face to face.

“Gen XXers just entering the workforce, are demanding an environment which is just like home,” my friend tells me.

“They expect me to be like mum or dad – they want us to be located physically together, so that they can just wander in and out of my personal space whenever they have a question or want to chat.

“There was one persistent employee who kept complaining that my Party Line™ status was always ‘busy’ or ‘out’ and he was sick of waiting in line to talk with me.

“One day he just turned up at my house and was sitting there in at my dining table like one of my kids!”

After fighting it for a year, he gave in, and has rented a disused community centre downtown which he visits three days a week for two hours a day, so that any employees who want to interact with him personally can do so.

“I know I sound like my grandfather, but I actually have to commute to work!” he laughs. “And they love it. They get more energised by that two hours of face-time than they do with five hours of conferencing.”

The moral of this story is you may not understand them, you may blame their parents, society or the media for who they are, but if you can learn to see the world through their eyes, you may just be able to make them productive and happy employees.

Anthony Germaine signing out! (Note: this stream was not created by a bot. Or, was it?)

Could new RTG technology lead to a revival of the ‘car’?

By Sirhan Gupta,
ZI Sacramento Transport Writer
5 May 2050

You have seen it in movies from the turn of the century – the motor vehicle built for a family, but usually only driven by one person.

It’s a heresy today but back in the days of cheap energy and climate vandalism it wasn’t unusual to see two or more of these parked in the front gardens of the average suburban home, one for each member of the family.

And in these days of on-demand mass transit, is there any reason to think of the motor car as anything but a dinosaur?

Certainly the new concepts division at Yahoogle-GMH in Sacramento California thinks there is. And the secret is Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generation, or RTGs.

“People don’t realise it but 50 year old RTG technologies are still powering the Gallileo and Cassini space probes today, and operating at 80% of their original capacity,” said team leader Yin Hu.

“We have revisited the RTG technology which has basically sat undeveloped since the oil wars, because of the general taboo on all things nuclear.”

Hu is quick to point out the RTG does not use nuclear fission.

“RTGs use nuclear decay to generate heat, not fission. There is absolutely no chance of a meltdown or explosion from one of these things.”

RTGs take a nuclear fuel, usually plutonium, and using an array of thermocouples translate the heat from radioactive decay into electricity which can drive engines or computer systems.

“The RTGs in the Cassini probe were the size of a standing person, and weighed 150kg,” Hu said.

“Our prototype powerplant (ED: at this stage just a computer model) is the size of a home barbecue kettle, weighs 50Kg and can put out enough power to drive a half tonne vehicle at 50 miles an hour, for a hundred years.”

“It would mean a revolution in transport engineering,” Hu said. “Instead of replacing vehicles when they are obsolescent, power plant and all, you would have a removeable power plant that would go from vehicle to vehicle over time, whenever you upgraded – meaning people could upgrade more often, more cheaply.”

EnviroSceptics spokesperson Sanjiv Taylor Neilsen said he believed the announcement of the new concept project by Yahoogle-GMH was “unserious”.

“Most metropolises today have on-demand mass transit systems that mean a person can travel door to door from their home to their destination and only ever face a ten to fifteen minute waiting time between connections,” he said.

“They don’t have to think about how to get where they are going, they face almost no risk of personal accidents, they don’t have to worry about where to park and how much it will cost and they are sharing the energy cost with other travellers instead of having to carry the entire burden themselves.”

He said RTGs might have application for powering urban-rural transport networks but enzymatic engines were likely to remain the power plant of choice for these systems because of the continuing fear of abuse of nuclear power and technology.

“It is one thing to say that the RTG cannot explode or melt down, but it has a core of pure plutonium which could be used in so-called “dirty weapons” and it is highly irresponsible to even suggest a return to exploring nuclear technologies,” Taylor Neilsen said.

Veteran Sacramento Congressman, Mr Rodney King Jnr, warned ZI that he believes the Yahoogle-GMH proposal is just spin, intended to push legislators into approving their other major development proposal, the P-Mover 2055, by presenting a less attractive alternative.

“Y-GMH want to scare legislators into a corner by saying you can fund investment on this radioactive vote losing monster, or our obsolete but safe P-Mover 2055, the choice is yours,” Mr King said.

“I’ve spoken to the Mayors of New York, LA, Chicago and Baltimore and they are not interested in extending the P-Mover contract - they want new ideas, and they say Y-GMH is not offering them.”

New Battle of Britain looms
by Sanjeev Gupta, Zurich Intermedia.

London, August 20, 2050: As preparations begin for commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the iconic Battle of Britain, in which a few hundred RAF pilots held the might of the German Luftwaffe at bay, tensions within Europe over access to fresh water are threatening to ignite a new aerial war.

Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the UK, and one of the last remaining in Europe, was the scene of a dramatic conflict last month when the Euro water freighter Pelikan sailed up the Bann Estuary in Northern Island to fulfil an existing contract to load water.

The move was a deliberate provocation by the Euro Government after it failed in the World Maritime Court to force the UK Government to reverse a recent decision to ban all water exports given the current drought in the UK.

The Pelikan refused to leave the dock in Toomebridge and subsequently all traffic on the critical Bann Estuary Freshwater Route has ground to a halt.

British naval efforts to forcibly tow the Pelikan were rebuffed when the Euro Republic responded by stationing Unmanned Attack Helicopters on the deck of the Pelikan and warned they would be used to defend the vessel if attacked.

The Luftwaffe Mosquito UAH

The tension is rising against a background of unease in Europe about the complicated system of water rights negotiated in the early 2020s, and increasing pressure on natural fesh water supplies to feed demand for hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles.

Both the ER and the UK have placed their air forces on alert to respond to any military action at Lough Neagh.

SIDEBAR: Who would win a new Battle of Britain? By Damon Sin Teng, Zurich Intermedia Defence Analyst.

Ironically the British military lethargy which nearly cost them the Battle of Britain 100 years ago, may once again cost them dearly if the UK and ER come to blows over water.

The British public has elected an unbroken chain of non-interventionist governments since its unfortunate alliance with the then United States of America during the Oil Wars. Defence spending is capped under British law at 1% or less of GDP and may only be used for defense purposes.

Britain therefore lacks any ability to project air power, relying almost entirely on ground and satellite based laser interception systems which were commissioned in the early 2040s and are due for decommissioning by 2055. No successor for this air defence system has yet been announced, or field tested, though a Request for Tender was issued two years ago.

The ER on the other hand, as the lead country Pan Continental Pre-Emptive Response Initiative, engaged in a steady build up of its offensive capabilities following the damaging ER-Turkish conflict. The smaller but more modern Turkish forces exacted a heavy toll on the obsolescent ER force dispatched to Turkey (made up primarily of German land and air units).

Recent acquisitions and a home grown aeronautics and space defence sector have given the ER the most potent air force in the region, though still not comparable to China or India.

Most worrying for the UK will be the ER USV (Unmanned Space Vehicle) Dropship Luftflotte, which can be deployed from its orbiting satellite platform to any location in the UK within 30 minutes of activation.

Roughly 200 aircraft strong, and armed with thermobaric missiles, it is unlikely the UK laser defence system will be effective against it.

The next energy crisis?
Column by Sirhan Irfan, Mumbai, July 15 2050:

30 years after the Oil Wars the world teeters on the brink of a new crisis over energy. I call it Peak Enzymes.


The development of almost limitless energy through the harnessing of the Calvin-Benson photosynthesis cycle relieved the energy crisis and turned back the clock on carbon emissions - it was also supposed to end the need for energy wars, forever.


Now, a shortage in the crucial enzymes needed to power Calvin-Benson generators is leading to sabre weilding by India, disgruntled by the unreliable supply of enzymes by the world's largest producer, the Euro Republic.

This week, India placed its Kinetic Weapons Satellite System (Code named Kartikeya) in geostationary orbit over the ER capital, Berlin. The ERthreatened an immediate pre-emptive strike against the Kartikeya satellite unless it was re-deployed over the North Pole and India complied, claiming that the movement of the satellite was coincidental and not related to current tensions with the ER. But the gesture has not gone unnoticed inside the walls of the Bundestag.

The ER National Enzyme Consortium claims to have abundant enzyme production capacity and promises new efficiencies will boost production. However, the ER's enzyme production peaked at 6 million megaunits per day in 2044. Since the last new production facility was opened in 2047 and is already operating at peak capacity, where will they find the new efficiencies they promise to deliver without the necessary supply of water to feed the breeders?


Furthermore to keep up with the ever-increasing demand, they would need to open several massive new production facilities every year.

The fact is they aren't.

Both public opposition and the prohibitive cost of building new facilities which comply with stringent ER safeguards virtually guarantee no new facility can be built in the EU, and to date, generic factories outside the ER and China have failed to match the production output of the superior ER enzyme technologies.


The world does not want to contemplate a future of new energy scarcities but I believe that the EU authorities are "whistling past the graveyard" to keep the world from getting scared.

Hawking's Ark passes Saturn's rings

Cairns spaceport, Australia, 15 June 2050: The space ship Hawking's Ark has passed by the rings of Saturn, the first time they have been seen by the naked human eye in recorded history.

The Ark has been sending back video of the rings and moons of Saturn for several months as it neared the planet, but the pioneers aboard the Ark held their first 'open glass' viewing of the planet today. The radiation shields protecting the Ark are designed only to be opened in emergencies but were pulled back for seven minutes today to allow the viewing.

"It was a sight I will never forget, more emotional than watching earth disappear behind Mars," said pioneer Rudi Ham Sin.

Hummingbird colony threatened

On a less upbeat note, the Ark's science blog for Monday reported that its hummingbird colony has lost six breeding pairs in the last year, with no new births. Hummingbirds were among the several thousand species which were not tested for physiological adaptability to space flight, due to the pressure to advance the departure of the Ark to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the birth of reunited China.

The Ark has traversed the space between Earth and Saturn in just over seven years, nearly as fast as was achieved by the fossil and nuclear fuel powered Cassini spacecraft which reached Saturn in 2004. The Ark's solar wind technology has been continually improved upon by pioneer scientists throughout the journey and the craft is now able to achieve non gravity assisted speeds of 10km (6 miles) per second.

Sidebar: The Ark is named after the Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, whose Hawking Foundation was dedicated to 'ensuring the future of the human race in space'. The Foundation established the first private lunar colony in 2027, to serve as a launch platform for the Ark. Financial difficulties struck the project in 2032 and a joint venture with the Chinese government rescued the project and ensured its completion, culminating in the launch of Hawking's Ark in 2043.

The nominal destination of the Ark is the star Tau Ceti, however it will leave reliable communication range within five years unless new technologies emerge. The Ark is intended to be a sustainable eco system, able to collect and store energies from gravity and radiation in space, and to mine asteroids or planets for the raw materials needed to maintain or even expand the mother ship into a fleet of Arks.

The Indian Government has announced that its Ark, the Ghandi, will launch in ten years and will follow the Hawking to Tau Ceti. The Indian Government has announced that it regards the survival of its colony and the plant and animal species within it as paramount and it will not compromise current space based testing in order to achieve an earlier launch date.

Protein oven recall warning

Hong Kong, 14 June 2050: The world's leading brand of consumer Protein Oven, the pBox, has issued a global recall of its pBox 420 oven.

The pBox 420 was the most purchased household appliance on mainland China last year, offering people the opportunity to culture their own chicken or beef-like protein 'loafs' in a simple breadbox sized unit.

"It was a boon to the modern kitchen," said celebrity chef Weechun Hai Dawson. "Protein cells, growth medium and an oven which could keep the culture at the exact temperature needed to ensure rapid growth - it was the first time this was achieved in a domestic appliance!"

Previous protein ovens were industrial sized units used to grow protein suitable only for canned goods or sauces, with a maturation time of three days. The pBox 420 was the first household unit which could grow 500 grams of chicken or beef-like protein overnight.

"It was as easy as baking bread, and produced a succulent meat which tasted almost indistinguishable from the real thing," Hai Dawson said.

The pBox manufacturer, Hitachyundai, issued a press release stating that the units were being recalled due to "growing reports of culture abnormalities". These abnormalities did not affect the safety of the protein product, the company said, but were "disturbing to some consumers".

Hong Kong consumer rights organisation, CorpWatch, said it had received several reports of cultured protein containing soft bone like tissue and an unverified claim that one consumer found a lump of tissue resembling an eyeball in a pBox Protein Loaf.

New cure for cell phone carcinoma?

Sydney, Australia, 29 April 2050: Australian researchers at the University of New South Wales claim to have identified a potential cure for the most widespread form of cancer, commonly dubbed Cell Phone Carcinoma.

Cell phone carcinoma is the leading cause of death in 70-90 year olds, who were exposed to dangerous radiation from early mobile telephone handsets before the link between these handsets and brain tumour development was proven.

The new technique involves the implantation on the skull of a subdermal patch containing anti-cancer agent interleukin IIIc, which provides a constant supply of interleukin to the site of cell phone carcinoma, in the temporal lobes.

"This is the first time interleukin has been delivered via a continuous flow subdermal deposit," said Doctor Ellen Chan, of the University of NSW Oncology Research Division.

"Our early results are so promising we stopped the study as it would have been unethical not to offer the therapy to all participants."

The five year study was only in its third year. Subdermal interleukin was given to half of the 400 participants, while a placebo patch was given to the other half. All participants were in the 75-80 year old age group, and assessed to be at high risk of developing cell phone carcinoma.

"In the interleukin group only one patient developed cell phone carcinoma in the first three years, but in the control group using placebo, 15 patients have now developed the disease," Dr Chan said.

Third major breakthrough from government facility

If proven in further clinical trials, this will be the third major breakthrough in ten years to come out of the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Program (NHMRP).

Two others included the development in 2035 of a vaccine against diabetes, and the cholesterol neutralising agent Profactum, released in 2043. The program has produced numerous other minor improvements to existing therapies, most notably in the area of HIV and AIDS.

The NHMRP was the Australian Government's response to the decision by big pharma to cease all clinical research in Australia, following mandatory price reductions on prescription medicines in Australia.

The Government diverted a large part of its defence and foreign aid budgets to medical research, focused on specific health priorities which would benefit both Australia and the developing world.

"We will approach medical research like the Chinese approached the Mission to Mars," said the then Australian Health Minister, Troy Barnaby. "With single minded determination and a bloody minded will to win."

Diabetes was the first priority identified, and all research resources nationally were devoted to identifying the most promising drug candidates, and attracting the leading researchers to Australia. When a diabetes vaccine was developed to halt the body's own destruction of pancreatic cells, the research was made available free of charge to other governments under a philosophy borrowed from technology, 'open source science'.

"When insulin for diabetes was discovered by Banting and Best in Canada they didn't patent it and sell it only to the wealthy of North America. They invited European and American researchers to work with them to spread their discovery to the four corners of the world and we want to return to that model," said the international coordinator of the diabetes vaccine program in 2035, Dr Ji Nan Hsu.

The open source science model has now been adopted by all major developed nations, with China the most successful in developing breakthrough medical discoveries to date, most recently including targeted gene therapies to halt the onset and progresson of multiple sclerosis and alzheimers disease. The first and most famous breakthrough to emerge from China's focused research program was in vitro spinal cord regeneration allowing the reversal of para and quadriplegia.

Drug companies which have tried to patent and market variations of open source therapies under their own labels have been blocked in court or locked out of hospitals throughout the world.

'Father of Modern China' on display in Madison Square Gardens

But is it really him?

New York, 26 April 2050: The plasticised body of former Chinese Premier Jian Meng drew 120,000 people to its first day of public display here today.

Tens of thousands of mostly Chinese Americans waited in pouring rain all week to be among the first to view Meng's body outside China. Viewings will take place in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, before the body returns to its mausoleum in Taipei.

Meng, who died in 2048, is credited as the architect of the 'Chinese Miracle'. He led the transformation of China to a socialist free market economy, and achieved the peaceful re-integration of the island state of Taiwan in 2027.

But it was as a young firebrand, newly elected Premier that he devised the key policy which historians agree led to China's rise to be the pre-eminent global superpower - the 'Ten Years to Freedom' campaign. This was the decision in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels by motor vehicles and industry within a decade.

Meng took the dramatic step in 2020, just five years into the campaign, of banning the sale of fossil fuels for private motor vehicles.

Meng claimed in his Little Green Book that, 'the 2015 attack by perfidious (sic) USA against Iran, and the subsequent impact on our economy from instability in oil supplies made it clear to me that China must either shuck the yoke of oil tyranny, or join the horde of morally corrupt nation states fighting like alley cats over the spilled milk of the Arab sheiks.'

China's reduced dependence on fossil fuels, and advanced alternative energy economy, enabled it to ride out the shockwaves of the 2028 Oil War with minimal economic impact compared to the fossil fuel dependent economies of the USA and EU.

Questions about authenticity

Meng is revered in China, and throughout the Chinese diaspora. It is the first time his body has been moved outside of China due to the grave risk of damage during air or sea transportation.

Meng's body was transported to New York by a Chinese PLA Suborbital, after Lloyds of Hong Kong agreed to underwrite the venture for an undisclosed sum.

The decision by the Chinese government to suddenly relent and allow Meng's body to leave China has however sparked rumours that the body is in fact not Meng, but simply a simulcra in lifelike plastic - or even a clone.

"How would you ever know?" asked one woman after her ten minute viewing was finished. She had queued for three days to see Meng. "It looks like him, so real he looks like he is just sleeping, but he is sealed in polycarbon so it makes him look like a plastic doll," she said.

Another man, who claimed to have met Meng at a Washington DC Embassy reception in 2028, said he was in no doubt. "It is him. Exactly as I remember him, just older. No doubt about it."

Plasticisation of the dead was pioneered by a German shock artist at the turn of the century, and is now in use for the mummification of persons of cultural significance by several cultures including China, Ukrainian Russia and India.

The first and oldest plastified mummy is that of former Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, whose body was removed from public display in 2029 following the Second Orange Revolution, which saw Western Russia vote to merge with Ukraine, and the subsequent destruction of many former Russian cultural icons.

Secret hidden in the sands will at last be probed

Aratta, former Iran, 5 April 2050: Archeologists returned for the first time today to the site of the ancient city unearthed in a nuclear blast during the Oil War.

The city has been extensively surveyed by satellite and high altitude sideband radar, but until now the hotzone has been considered too dangerous for even temporary human habitation.

The ruins appeared in the moon like crater caused by a nuclear blast and windstorm near the former South Eastern Iranian city of Jiroft. Buildings obvious from the aerial survey include several apparent dwellings and a huge temple on a low hill, with a large plaza located at the juncture of two rivers.

Most importantly, infrared imaging appears to indicate an enormous boat shaped object within the temple building. The quest to conclusively locate Aratta has intensified since the 2020 discovery in Azerbaijan of bronze engravings of the Sumarian Enmerkar legends, which appear to indicate that 'the mount between rivers at the town of Aratta' was the resting site of the fabled Ark of Noah - not modern day Mt Ararat as some believed.

"If it is indeed shown to be Aratta, the city of Sumerian legend, it may date back as far as 2,500 BC and hold the key to the myth of the flood," said U Shanghai spokesperson, Mr Jack Chang.

Experts at Calcutta University have called the expedition 'foolhardy, and doomed.'

"Aratta has been conclusively proven to exist at the site of Phraapsa, near the river Araxes," according to Calcutta U Professor of New Archeology, Sriranjan Chaudry. "And there was no Mount, no Noah's Ark."

"Our colleagues are putting at risk their reputations, and their lives, for what could show itself to be nothing more than a Parthian trading town," he said.

Due to prevailing electromagnetic anomalies in the region, there will be no communication possible with members of the University of Shanghai expedition until their return and deradiation on Friday.

Largest ever turnout for Tehran Day marches

Kuala Lumpur, March 17, 2050: More than 20 million people worldwide are believed to have turned out for Tehran Day peace rallies this year.

The largest marches were in Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Denmark. Five million people marched in Jakarta alone and Denmark, with a population of just 10 million people, registered four million marchers.

Rallies in the rest of Europe were smaller, with two million turning out in France and similar numbers in Germany, Italy and the UK.

"The world is still in mourning over the deaths of 50 million people in the Oil War," UN Secretary General Carla DuPont said in front of 50,000 people gathered outside the UN headquarters in Beijing. "It should mourn for a thousand years."

The most dramatic march was conducted by a group of 20 representatives of the Persian Gulf diaspora who flew into the Tehran hot zone by helicopter to plant a wreath at the site of the former Shahyad Tower. The group was arrested and quarantined by Saudi police when the helicopter returned to Riyadh.

History Line

It was on this day in 2015 that armed forces of the then Superpower, the United States of America, used tactical nuclear weapons against an underground nuclear research facility in Tehran which it claimed was used to produce and store nuclear weapons. It was the first use of nuclear weapons in war since they were used to end the Second World War in 1945.

20,000 people died immediately in that attack, and up to 130,000 are believed to have died as a result of radiation induced illnesses related to the attack.

International condemnation followed, as did massive disruption to oil supplies and the global economy. This culminated in the invasion in October 2028 by Coalition Forces (principally US, Israel, Turkey) of Jordan and Saudi Arabia aimed at securing access to the Safaniya and Ghawar Oilfields.

Saudi and Iranian forces combined with Syria and Egypt to oppose the invasion and what became known as the Oil War followed. It is unclear which nation was the first to use nuclear weapons in the Oil War, but historical consensus is that Saudi Arabia detonated underground nuclear weapons in the Ghawar, Abqaiq, Hawtah and Marjan fields in order to deny them to the invaders.

A large element of the US XVIII Airborne Corp was trapped in the hotzone created by these explosions and the US, Turkey and Israel responded over the next week with tactical nuclear strikes on Iran, Syria and Egypt.

The conflict was halted when a united Russia, Pakistan, China and India threatened all out nuclear war with the US unless it ceased hostilities. US Congress removed the then US President Carlton, and Coalition nuclear forces in the Gulf and mainland USA were disarmed by the UN.

On November 3 2028, three weeks after it started, the Oil War ended, and 50 million people were dead, including more than 50% of the population of Iran.

Launch of EyePad Bioware delayed to 2051

Tokyo, March 17, 2050: Eyeware enthusiasts were weeping behind their shades today when Applesoft announced that European and Chinese regulators had asked for further clinical studies before they would consider approving the new bioware upgrade to the ubiquitious EyePad.

Applesoft had planned to launch EyePad Bioware in June this year, following what it claimed were successful clinical trials of the new EyePad’s surgically implantable sensory enhancement unit.

Published clinical study data indicates subjects who had the unit implanted, reported being able to hear, smell and taste in-game special effects.

Yahoogle Game Industry Analyst, Charles Chang, said he had seen confidential company data which was part of the EU and China submissions, showing that gamers using the implant also experienced dramatic weight gain and other side effects.

"It may just be an issue of the advertising and product placement in the games," he said. "Sonysoft chose to test the units using the RazorWire III game, which includes significant product placement from fast food companies. My sources tell me that in one study they enabled the sensory effects for the food in the game, causing subjects to dramatically increase their snacking behaviour. This is what is worrying regulators."

The vocal Taipei based Eyeware Consumer Protection Organization issued a news release praising the decision to request further clinical studies before approving the implant.

"Multiple independent studies show that long term Eyeware use can lead to social isolation, depression, aggressive behaviour and crime – all behaviours reminiscent of drug addiction," said Garda McVeigh, spokesperson for the ECPO.

"We remain deeply concerned about the impact of adding sensory enhancement to an already dangerous machine," she said. "Our information is that it is not just weight which increased in trial subjects, but also sexual self abuse."

There are currently estimated to be 1.2bn Eyeware users globally. Applesoft has captured nearly 80% of the Eyeware market with its EyePad glasses, a gaming and content viewing platform with Omninet capability.

A perceived limitation of the system is that to hear audio, users must still place earbuds in their ears. The Applesoft implant was intended to address this by providing audio direct to the aural nerve, but Applesoft also chose to explore in clinical studies the opportunity to stimulate other sensory organs with the upgrade.

"One option for Applesoft is to drop the taste, smell and other enhancers and bring the unit to market now with just the audio feature," Yahoogle’s Chang said. "The question for Applesoft marketing though - are people willing to undergo a surgical procedure just to avoid having to wear earbuds?"

"The Applesoft pipeline includes a next-gen version of the EyePad for contact lenses – I believe they would be better off trying to accelerate that product, than to keep going with Bioware now," he said.