Downturn Accelerates As It Circles The Globe, Riots in China

The world economy is deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago, with Britain yesterday becoming the latest nation to surprise analysts with the depth of its economic pain.

Britain posted its worst quarterly contraction since 1980 on the heels of sharper than expected slowdowns reported from Germany to China to South Korea. The grim data, analysts said, underscores how the burst of the biggest credit bubble in history is seeping into the real economies around the world, silencing construction cranes, bankrupting businesses and throwing millions of people out of work. ... -washingtonpost

Today millions will leave the cities to return to their rural family homes for the new year celebrations. But this year Beijing hopes the newly jobless revellers will stay there - to prevent a fresh wave of unrest in the citiesThey surged into the grimy streets around the factory: first scores, then hundreds, then more than a thousand, as word spread and tension loaded the stale, grey air. The boldest overturned a police van and smashed up motorcycles, then tore through the building destroying computers and equipment. The mood was exhilarated, angry and frightened. hey surged into the grimy streets around the factory: first scores, then hundreds, the

"It happened so quickly ... There were maybe 500 involved and another 1,000 watching them. People were yelling: 'It's good to smash'," said a witness.

But the riot late last year at the Kai Da factory in Dongguan, amid the grim industrial sprawl of the Pearl River Delta, was not an isolated incident. It was one of tens of thousands of protests, many erupting from the same mixture of economic grievances, resentment of police and swirling rumour.

The numbers have been climbing steadily for years. But as the Chinese New Year dawns and the global economic crisis deepens, the government fears that mass unrest could challenge its control of the country, threatening a communist regime that has embraced capitalism with spectacular results. ...

via China fears riots will spread as boom goes sour | World news | The Observer.

Everyone is struggling to some degree due ultimately to overpopulation. It is in the world's best interests right now to mobilize our massive numbers of people to find new solutions to our limited resources. Otherwise, we are headed for even bigger problems which some leaders will think can be solved most quickly by World War III.