I am still chuckling over this photo of Carl Bernstein deeply engrossed in his very own A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton on the plane. I want to read it too!

Check out our take on the closing year in 2008 in Review. FPA has asked all of the bloggers to answer those five questions. We would also love to hear your thoughts on what issues you'd like to see us cover in 2009.

As nation-states gradually give way to quasi-imperial geopolitical spheres of influence, artificial city-states are appearing in Asia and the Middle East to punctuate global crossroads. Beyond Singapore, these uber-habitats are signposts of the future intersections of radically conceived designer realities and a millennial world culture. Famous examples, such as Dubai's man-made archipelagoes‚ “The World” and “The Palm Islands”‚ may not excite much serious speculation in this regard. But they are only the most visually contrived of many such projects, which reflect the impact of global affairs on modern life. These cities and islands are built as hyper-localized hothouses and are set to become bastions of over-specialization. At the same time, they project a peculiar cosmopolitanism, with their great potential for cultural overlap, exchange and conflict, standing as they do at the flashpoints of international trade and interaction. Increasingly referred to as “international free zones” in their areas of expertise, these districts recall both ancient and medieval free cities, founded on common interests in the face of imperial disarray.

The first centers of note are the academic cities. These post-secondary educational bases are offshoots of the increasingly fashionable international collaborations between universities. Foreign university franchises are clustered together, shopping-mall-style, on campuses that also function as self-sufficient towns. These knowledge importers include:Education City in Qatar; Dubai International Academic City; Dubai Knowledge Village; Abu Dhabi's University City; and the Global Academic Complex at New Songdo City in South Korea.

New Songdo City, estimated to cost over $40 billion, and to be built on reclaimed land off Incheon's coastline, is planned as the first truly “ubiquitous city,” or U-city. Like other U-cities, it will provide a smorgasbord of features from western metropolises. Its designers promise a Central Park like New York, canals like Venice, and pocket parks like those in Savannah. But it still appears that New Songdo will specialize as an international business hub. Other such cities will be industry-specific: Robot City in South Korea is to be devoted to the manufacture of robots and artificial intelligence; while Eco City will be Abu Dhabi's showcase of renewable energy.

Most of these centers will be artificial islands, created from waste from nearby port cities. Aside from Dubai's famous enterprises, Bahrain is currently building the artificial island, Durrat Al Bahrain; Federation Island will be built in the shape of Russia in the Black Sea to serve the 2014 Winter Olympics site of Sochi; and X-Seed 4000 will be constructed as the world's most populated island in Tokyo harbor, featuring the world's tallest sky-scraper as a high-rise city in and of itself. Another anticipated single-building city is Ziggurat : a carbon-neutral green pyramid, conceived to house and employ one million people in Dubai.

These utopian islands and towers revive a new classical aesthetic for the 21st century. Current city-state architecture implicitly recalls the wonders of the ancient world, yet retains none of the caveats that the latter convey. There is a hubris in the designers' "post-Postmodern" blank-slate philosophy that pushes design to extremes. Will there be human costs in these idealized, fully-tech-integrated spaces? The Canadian comedy Waydowntown (2000) probes the mentality among workers who never leave their downtown Calgary complex of apartments, skyways, shopping concourses and offices: three office drones bet on who can last the longest without going outside. Mercifully, this film probes the dark psychology inside the urban bubble with a dose of satire. By contrast, there is no hint of irony in the international marketing campaigns that promote these futuristic utopias, which often seem less a template for optimistic global commerce‚ and more a model for space exploration.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, 2008 is a year for serious reflection on the meaning of globalization and the importance of economic policy coordination. The overall attitude amongst the leading industrial powers at this November's G20 summit is to maintain domestic stability under a framework for reform of the global financial system. It is no longer enough for a few nations to make the final call. As Chinese President Hu Jintao argues, the way forward is to include more nations in global policy making, ensure domestic and regional stability first, and then let the ripple effects to take place. Key issues agreed by world leaders at the summit to enhance coordination included:

*reform of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund;
*a global agreement by the end of 2008 leading to a free trade deal;
*improvements to financial market transparency, including complete and accurate disclosure by firms of their financial conditions;
*ensuring that banks and financial institutions' incentives "prevent excessive risk taking";
asking finance ministers to draw-up a list of financial institutions whose collapse would endanger the global economic system.

Already, rescue plans have been drawn up and implemented one after the other to ease domestic economic pressures. In the U.S., following bailouts of the American International Group, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup and a historic rescue plan of $700 billion, another stimulus package from the Fed for $800 billion is underway. Of the $800 billion, the Fed is to buy up to $100 billion in debt from the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Fed said that it would also buy another $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities‚ pools of mortgages that are bundled together and sold to investors. Will the big three auto manufacturers be the next in line to receive financial assistance? The answer is a likely "yes" owing to the sheer size of these businesses.

On the other side of the globe, the emerging markets in China are also suffering. President Hu Jintao warned that the economic situation is a test of the Communist Party's ability to govern. From snowstorms that shattered south China in the beginning of the year, unrest in Tibet, a historic earthquake, the Olympics, product quality scares, to the recent financial crisis, the Chinese government has been consistently managing crises leading to its own historic stimulus package of $586 billion to get through the next year or two. To maintain overall stability, China needs to ensure at least an eight percent growth rate through more forceful and effective policy measures, including the biggest cut in interest rates in more than a decade from 6.66 percent to 5.58 percent, to stabilize property markets and encourage domestic consumption. As Zhang Ping, head of the National Development and Reform commission admitted, excessive bankruptcies and production cuts will lead to massive unemployment and stir social unrest. In spite all of the hype, as things stand, it is too early for a reversal of roles between the U.S. and China. Rather, we should expect more communication and coordination amongst nations as they become more realistic about their own capacities.