Monday linkage

• A Korean view of Prime Minister Rudd's Asia Pacific community.
• 'The soft power of multilateralism has increased'. A Chicago Council report on the implications of the financial crisis for soft power in Asia.
• Russia's economy literally decimated by the global financial crisis.
• America's slow shift away from high imports and high consumption will reduce its global influence.
• Key US Senators staying away from Copenhagen — they're needed at home to shepherd through the health care bill.
• Pew has a new survey of US public opinion about America's place in the world. It also notes some interesting differences between popular opinion and foreign policy elites.
• Australian economist Stephen King blogs about his visit to Mumbai:

The slums in Bandra (an up-market suburb) are now going multi-storey with 3 to 5 floors teetering on single brick walls and no foundations. Like medieval towns, I suspect that the slum buildings stay up simply because they are jammed so close together. The cost to buy one of these ‘apartments’ (according to today’s paper) is the equivalent of about $25,000 Australian. This gets you a 10 foot by 10 foot room. A reasonably good salary for a semi-skilled worker (guard or driver) is about $5,000 Australian per year.