Thursday linkage

• A new Asia-focused e-zine is launched, with a rather fascinating financial model.
• China's space ambitions in pictures: they want an orbiting space station and a manned lunar mission.
• Kuwaiti women now have the right to a passport and to travel without spousal consent.
• Thomas Crampton's blog is an excellent way to follow new media trends in Asia. He has a rather jaw-dropping post on the growth of Facebook in Australia.
• A passionate op-ed about Britain's FCO that may sound familiar to observers of DFAT. Some quotes:

“If,” she said, “we go on the way we are, we will just end up a ministry for consular affairs, rescuing distressed tourists.”

The notion that “the foreign secretary is responsible for the overall conduct of overseas relations in the broadest sense of the term” (to quote a 1978 government white paper) has been undermined by the activism abroad of the prime minister’s office...

What lies beneath accusations made in 2008 by Couraud, the human resources consultancy hired by the Foreign Office itself, of “institutional timidity”, “a cultural fear of failure” and “people getting to the very top of the Foreign Office by never making any mistakes”?