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...Just three months ago, boxing was preparing for its version of the Super Bowl. Fresh from his mega-fight win over Miguel Cotto, Pacquiao had begun negotiations with Floyd Mayweather Jr., a brash welterweight whom non-sports fans know best from his appearance on Dancing with the Stars. The proposed battle was being compared to some of the greatest matchups in boxing history. Even people who had given up on boxing or hadn't really thought about it much were talking about the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, which would probably earn each boxer $40 million, the most lucrative match ever...
...undertaken by Zheng's vast "treasure fleets" with nationwide celebrations; the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing dramatized his explorations from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and the shores of Africa. On Feb. 26, China's Ministry of Commerce announced it was funding a three-year project with the assistance of the Kenyan government to search for Ming-era vessels that had supposedly foundered off the East African coast. "Historical records indicate Chinese merchant ships sank in the seas around Kenya," Zhang Wei, a curator for a state museum, told China's official Xinhua news agency...
...legacy of Zheng's voyages - involving hundreds of ships, some exponentially larger than the three captained by Christopher Columbus decades later, in 1492 - is being invoked by the Chinese as historical proof of the difference between China's and the West's roles in the world. Though the unprecedented display of maritime power was meant to extend the Ming dynasty's reach over a network of tributary states, Zheng rarely resorted to the type of violent, coercive measures taken for centuries by European colonizers, especially in Africa. "Zheng's a nominal symbol of China's peaceful engagement with the world...
...military observers have long cautioned that China's official defense budget figures shouldn't be taken at face value, and that actual spending could be two or three times higher than what is reported. China is engaged in a significant number of expensive military equipment development programs, including likely efforts to develop its first aircraft carrier. Those all make it difficult to curtail spending, says Andrei Chang, Hong Kong-based editor-in-chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly. "There are very ambitious military plans for the Chinese," he says. "This is the reason it's impossible to have an increase...
...three-way split of the Protestant vote among the DUP, the TUV and the moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) could throw power sharing into complete disarray and allow Sinn Fein to emerge as Northern Ireland's largest party. That would mean a Sinn Fein politician, most likely Martin McGuinness, would assume the role of First Minister. The prospect of serving as McGuinness's deputy would be anathema to most Protestant politicians, and the government could well fall apart. (See pictures of the British army leaving Northern Ireland...