Around the World Monday

->Paul Krugman recognizes the right-wing warnings about China:

Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waters collided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained the trawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to crucial raw materials.

And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths, minerals that play an essential role in many high-technology products, including military equipment. Sure enough, Japan soon let the captain go.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both for what it says about China and what it says about us.

->Ever wonder what normal Palestinians say when they are on-line?  Ever consider what that means for the prospects for peace?

->Though it occasionally makes the headlines the violence of Central Africa is largely overlooked in the press (warning: not for the easily traumatized).

->There is a Presidential election in process in Brazil. 

Dilma Rousseff, the former Marxist guerrilla who fell just short of an overall majority in the first round of voting in the presidential election in Brazil, is increasingly confident of victory in the second round to be held at the end of this month.

Ms Rousseff, a former chief of staff for the hugely popular outgoing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Workers’ Party candidate, won 47 per cent of the popular vote on Sunday October 3 while her main opponent, José Serra, a former Mayor of Sao Paulo and the candidate for the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, won 33 per cent while Marina Silva, the Green Party candidate, got 19 per cent.

Angela Merckel, the mainstream Chancellor of Germany proclaims that multiculturalism has failed.

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

In 2012/2013 China (in a process no one seems to understand) will choose its next generation of leaders.  The Kremlinology has begun.

China's Vice-President Xi Jinping has been named vice-chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, in a move widely seen as a boost to his likely succession of President Hu Jintao.

It comes on the last day of the ruling Communist Party's annual meeting.

• The New York Times reports that the new generation of Chinese military officers are more hostile to the United States.
• The budding political leadership came of age during the more insular period of the Cultural Revolution, while their predecessors at least had the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union and the later generations in the West.
• Stratfor has a free analysis of the next generation of Chinese Leadership, but they want your email address.