President Jonathan has appointed a new head of the anti-corruption agency. The position has long been the center of contention depending upon whose corruption has been exposed. So, how much legitimacy does the agency and the director (and the president) still have?
Nigeria's president unexpectedly fired the head of the oil-rich and graft-prone nation's lead anti-corruption agency Wednesday, removing an official who has been criticized and portrayed as being controlled by the country's political elite.
Farida Waziri still had at least another year in her tenure as chairwoman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before the sudden decision by President Goodluck Jonathan, agency spokesman Femi Babafemi said. Babafemi confirmed Waziri had been fired, but said he didn't know the president's reasons for pushing Waziri out…
The anti-graft agency came into existence only a few years after Nigeria became a democracy in 1999 following a series of military rulers and failed civilian governments. Its first chief, Nuhu Ribadu, claimed at one point that Africa's most populous nation likely lost more than $380 billion to graft between 1960 and 1999, the country's post-independence period that saw a string of military dictatorships and failed civilian governments.
Theft may also be rising as crude oil prices have spiked in recent years, sending more unaccounted-for cash into one of the top suppliers to the U.S.
The administration of late President Umaru Yar'Adua forced Ribadu from the agency in 2008. Waziri, who took over the commission, has been criticized by U.S. diplomats in leaked cables for being unprepared and for apparently being controlled by politicians. Others have leveled corruption allegations against her and operatives of the commission, though none have been proven.
The commission under Waziri has charged several prominent bankers over the fraud that caused the near-collapse of the country's banks in 2009. It also recently arrested and charged former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole over corruption allegations -- the first major strike against the nation's political elite in many months.
Still, prosecutions by the agency have not risen since 2007, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report…
The president appointed agency deputy Ibrahim Lamurde as the commission's acting chairman, Babafemi said. Lamurde served as a trusted official under Ribadu, but later was sidelined following his departure.
The return of Lamurde could signal a more robust and aggressive pursuit of corruption in Nigeria. However, the agency under Ribadu trampled on suspects' rights while avoiding targeting the allies of then-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Human Rights Watch has said.
Henry Farrell, one of the main contributors to The Monkey Cage blog, announced that "Scott Page at University of Michigan is offering a free graded course on ‘thinking with models.’" The topic is relevant to the study of comparative politics.
We live in a complex world with diverse people, firms, and governments whose behaviors aggregate to produce novel, unexpected phenomena. We see political uprisings, market crashes, and a never ending array of social trends. How do we make sense of it?
Models. Evidence shows that people who think with models consistently outperform those who don't. And, moreover people who think with lots of models outperform people who use only one…
I present a starter kit of models: I start with models of tipping points. I move on to cover models explain the wisdom of crowds, models that show why some countries are rich and some are poor, and models that help unpack the strategic decisions of firm and politicians.
The models cover in this class provide a foundation for future social science classes, whether they be in economics, political science, business, or sociology. Mastering this material will give you a huge leg up in advanced courses. They also help you in life.
Here's how the course will work.
For each model, I present a short, easily digestible overview lecture. Then, I'll dig deeper. I'll go into the technical details of the model. Those technical lectures won't require calculus but be prepared for some algebra. For all the lectures, I'll offer some questions and we'll have quizzes and even a final exam. If you decide to do the deep dive, and take all the quizzes and the exam, you'll receive a certificate of completion. If you just decide to follow along for the introductory lectures to gain some exposure that's fine too.
It's all free.
And it's all here to help make you a better thinker!
Andrew J. Orzel who teaches in Alexandria, VA, posted, on the College Board discussion list (thank you, Andrew), a link to this Pew Research Center poll. The poll results might be a way of opening discussion about comparative government and politics. There are many bits of data and implications for politics and policies. It would have been preferable to have some Eastern European, Asian, African, and Latin American countries considered, but this task is huge already.
There is a good section on the polling methodology and it's possible to download a PDF version of the full report.
As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans…
These differences between Americans and Western Europeans echo findings from previous surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. However, the current polling shows the American public is coming closer to Europeans in not seeing their culture as superior to that of other nations…
These are among the findings from a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Spain from March 21 to April 14 as part of the broader 23-nation poll in spring 2011…
Over the last 18 months, President Dmitry Medvedev has signed two laws meant to rein in Russia’s notorious pretrial detention system, an institution often used to extract bribes and enforce widespread corruption. He is trying to make the country more governable and conducive to business.
Medvedev sought to discourage police, prosecutors and judges from throwing businesspeopleinto jail on false charges, often in return for bribes from competitors bent on destroying a rival.
But the system quickly proved itself more powerful than the president. The laws were ignored. Yet another of Medvedev’s promised reforms would go unkept, and Russians would remain fearful of their courts and police.
The failed attempt to strengthen the rule of law illustrates an odd paradox: Even as the government has grown more authoritarian, it has become less capable of exerting its will over the vast bureaucracy beneath when that bureaucracy has other interests.
“Of course, they can say whatever they want,” said Yana Yakovleva, who leads Business Solidarity, an organization that fights for the rights of Russian businesspeople. “But there is not a single agency not poisoned with corruption here, and they will listen to what they’re told only if it’s profitable or when their fear is stronger than the desire for money.”
When a compliant judge denies bail, detention gets a businessman out of the way while his company is stolen. It’s a powerful tool for corrupt officials to extract a bribe: Pay up or go to jail…
In April 2010, Medvedev signed a law prescribing bail or release on personal recognizance for economic crimes and, in January, signed another law stipulating that seriously ill detainees need not await trial in jail.
Yelena Panfilova, who monitors corruption as director of Transparency International in Moscow, said this month that corruption has grown more entrenched in Russia over the last decade: If businesspeople once gave bribes voluntarily, perhaps to get a permit faster, now payoffs have become required. Those who refuse to pay often find themselves in jail, despite the new laws…
The early frontrunner for next year's presidential election in Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, has formally registered his candidacy.
Mr Pena Nieto is standing for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed for 71 years before losing power in 2000…
Mr Nieto, 45, is often described as Mexico's most handsome politician.
In September he stepped down as governor of the state of Mexico, the country's most populous state, where he gained a strong support by delivering public works…
After registering his candidacy in Mexico City, he told supporters that the PRI could deliver positive change.
"Today in Mexico there is fear, but better times are coming," he said.
"A wind of hope and change is blowing: the PRI will restore the greatness of Mexico because we believe in solutions, not illusions."…
The election campaign is likely to be dominated by debate over how to combat drug-related violence, which has killed more than 40,000 Mexicans since Mr Calderon became president in December 2006.
Mr Nieto has called Mr Calderon's decision to use the army against drugs cartels "rushed and poorly planned," but he has not said if he would take the troops off the streets.
Two months after Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin revealed his intention to reclaim the Russian presidency, he returned on Sunday to the same podium, facing the same sea of rippling flags, to accept his party’s nomination…
It is now clear that instead of restoring public confidence in the political system, the announcement that Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev would switch jobs annoyed many Russians. Mr. Putin’s approval rating briefly dipped to 61 percent this month, high by international standards but lower than at any point in a decade.
Meanwhile, the governing party, United Russia, has had to scale back its expectations for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, when it is likely to lose the two-thirds majority it has held since 2007…
Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who is studying the role of public opinion in Russian politics [said] “But something has changed. The biggest problem is that people have gotten fed up with them. If you look at long-serving leaders like Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, you see that their ratings tank in the latter half of the decade. It’s like the seven-year itch of politics.”…
Ms. Hill, who is studying fluctuations in poll numbers, said… The current dynamic, she said, is reminiscent of the late years of Lady Thatcher or Helmut Kohl, who also enjoyed great popularity early on…
“By the end, the brand is shot; you can’t rebrand it,” she said. Russian authorities, she said, “seem too confident that they can pull it off.”…
Next year 11 British cities will have the chance to replace the existing local-government structure, in which leaders are chosen from the ranks of councillors, with directly elected mayors. The coalition government sees this as a way of devolving power and strengthening localism…
Elected mayors are still a political novelty. Londoners embraced a mayoralty in 2000…
London’s mayor controls transport policy (hence the capital’s congestion charge), oversees the capital’s policing through the Metropolitan Police Authority and sets a council-tax “precept”—a small addition to the property taxes levied by boroughs. His regional counterparts probably won’t get anything like that degree of freedom. David Cameron, the prime minister, has backed away from earlier plans for powerful “executive mayors”. A consultation on powers, which will conclude in January, hints vaguely that mayors will be “ambassadors and champions” for their area…
So it is by no means certain that Britain’s cities will vote for mayors next year… In some solidly Labour cities, the reform is derided as a “Tory” gimmick. Councillors in towns like Coventry are already campaigning against a change.
There are reasonable doubts about how effective mayors can be without clear new powers. Sam Sims of the Institute for Government, a think-tank, notes that people are more likely to vote for mayors if they know local government will be reshaped as a result…
Pronunciation: \-ˈmi-tənt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin intermittent-, intermittens, present participle of intermittere
Date: 1601
: coming and going at intervals : not continuous ; also : occasional
— in·ter·mit·tent·ly adverb
Source: Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Intermittent
Retrieved 2 December 2010 The US version of harvest festival, Thanksgiving, happens tomorrow. It celebrates a mythical event in the early days of European immigration to the "new" world and serves as a harvest festival. Most of us will be busy, schools will be closed, more than 10% of us will travel to be with family, and, if we can afford it, we'll share a traditional meal.
Harvest festivals are not unique to the US. Canada celebrates on the 2nd Monday in October (harvest comes a bit earlier in Canada than in the US). Nearly all farming cultures celebrated harvests. In many countries, those celebrations have evolved into holidays for non-agricultural socieiies.
In the UK, Harvest Home is observed at the time of the full moon nearest the autumn equinox (late September or early October).
Peasant communities in Russia celebrated harvest time, and farmers still do.
The Chinese Moon Festival also takes place near the autumn equinox. Its origins can be traced back nearly 3,000 years.
The Yoruba in Nigeria recognize Ikore as a harvest festival.
Mehrgan or the Persian Festival of Autumn has been celebrated since pre-Islamic times. Because of the complex cultural history, modern observations have been on October 2nd.
Celebrate in your own way. The blog will resume next week. If you find a bit of information that might be useful for teaching comparative politics, post it at Sharing Comparative or send me a note with the information.
Remember, nearly all the approximately 2,500 entries here are indexed at the delicio.us index. There are 78 categories and you can use more than one category at a time to find something appropriate to your needs.The Fourth Edition ofWhat You Need to Knowis available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
For months, Iran’s clerical establishment and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders have been trying to curb the powers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In recent weeks, the president has fought back, using combative speeches and threats to reveal his opponents’ corruption in order to hold on to his job.
The tactics appear to be working, according to parliament members and analysts.
Once thought to be a political has-been, Ahmadinejad has defied expectations…
After a falling out in the spring with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad’s position had appeared untenable…
Even before the public dispute began, tensions between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei had been brewing for more than a year. Ahmadinejad’s government had refused to enforce what hard-line clerics consider the proper etiquette for women wearing the veil, promoted Iran’s pre-Islamic history and flirted with talks with the United States — all of which defied the supreme leader or his allies.
Ahmadinejad’s opponents now accuse the president and his close advisers of being a “deviant current” plotting to take power from the Shiite clerics who have led Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
But Ahmadinejad has struck back with equal ferocity. Allegations of corruption against senior leaders of Iran’s system were long considered taboo but have now become a recurring theme of the president’s speeches. Such allegations are popular with ordinary Iranians, many of whom have long accused top clerics of accumulating wealth through their influential positions…
About the same time as the speech, documents were leaked to the press linking a key Ahmadinejad opponent in parliament to a major embezzlement case. Meanwhile, the president won a key vote in parliament that he had been widely expected to lose…
Analysts say the president’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric is forcing the clerical and security establishment to make a decision on Ahmadinejad’s political future.
“It is clear there will be no compromise possible with Ahmadinejad,” said Abbas Abdi, a political analyst who opposes the government’s policies and some decisions by Iran’s clerical leaders. “If anybody wants to put him aside, it will come at great political costs.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media adviser was arrested on Monday in his office by the judiciary, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported, without giving a reason for his arrest…
Iranian authorities shut down reformist Etemad newspaper on Sunday after it published a scathing attack by Javanfekr on the president's rival conservatives…
Iran's conservatives accuse Ahmadinejad of being in the thrall of a "deviant current" of advisers seeking to undermine the authority of the clergy in the Islamic Republic's system of government.
Textbooks and critics talk about the "democratic deficit" in the EU. Even though people elect members of the European Parliament, the EU is far from a democratic institution. Now comes the proposal to elect the EU president. Will that help diminish the deficiency?
The European Union is often derided for being run by faceless bureaucrats. Germany's ruling party thinks it has a solution: a direct vote to pick the face that runs the union…
"We want the European Union to get a face," the Christian Democratic Union said in a resolution. "Therefore the President of the European Commission should in the future be directly elected by all of the Union's citizens."
The CDU is the leading party in Germany's ruling coalition, and Germany is one of the EU's most powerful countries. Still, its vocal backing for direct elections doesn't necessarily mean they will happen: That would involve a treaty change and the consent of all 27 EU countries.
But its an idea that if embraced could help overcome one of the most persistent criticisms of the EU.
The common perception is that EU citizens feel disconnected from the union's headquarters in Brussels, that few of them can name their members of the European Parliament, and that many feel that EU regulations issue forth from anonymous bureaucrats who've never dwelt among the people they're regulating…
The proposal turns out already to have won some support from none other than European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso himself, who declared in a YouTube interview in October that he would be "delighted" if the commission president were to be elected directly one day.
Electing Barroso involved a cumbersome process that for many symbolizes the EU's bureaucratic red tape and lack of direct democratic participation. The president is nominated by the 27 EU heads of government, then questioned by the European Parliament, which must approve the candidacy by a two-thirds majority.
The president is responsible for assigning posts to the various commissioners who have been nominated by national governments. He or she also determines the commission's agenda and supervises the legislative proposals it produces, which must then go to heads of government and to the parliament…
It sounds like the Chinese government is looking for more than thousands of online censors to keep track of "illegal publications." Do you want to guess what "illegal" means in this context?
China will use advanced technologies to crack down on illegal publications and "harmful information" posted online, according to an cooperative agreement signed on Tuesday between the authorities and the country's top sciences academy.
According to the agreement signed between the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publication (NOAPIP) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Tuesday, the two sides will make joint efforts in research and development of core Internet technologies in cracking down on illegal and pornographic publications.
Those core technologies include related monitoring and administering methods, discovering and recognizing of online publications, and evidence collecting of "illegal promulgation" on the Internet, according to the agreement…
If you have time to consider the European debt crisis, here's dramatic interactive tool. Melody Dickison sent me a link to a great graphic I'd missed. It shows the amount of debt the European countries (and the US) owe each other. Unfortunately, China is not included because, "no comprehensive figures are available."
There is a link to a good set of frequently asked questions.
The circle below shows the gross external, or foreign, debt of some of the main players in the eurozone as well as other big world economies. The arrows show how much money is owed by each country to banks in other nations. The arrows point from the debtor to the creditor and are proportional to the money owed as of the end of June 2011. The colours attributed to countries are a rough guide to how much trouble each economy is in.
In some ways we know how the UK fits into this shift, but does Putin's United Russia fit into this pattern?
(Americans, please don't get confused by the long-standing tradition of European politicians, journalists, and academics. They refer to leftish politics as red and rightish politics as blue. Somehow, those colors got reversed by journalists reporting in the U.S.A. I think its a sign of how ahistorical Americans are and how thoroughly Cold War politics changed the American political vocabulary.)
On Sunday night, after Spain’s national-election votes have been counted, the last major patch of red will probably disappear from the European map. For the first time in modern history every major capital in the continent, from Lisbon to Helsinki, will be home to a conservative government…
The blue-tide reversal has been extraordinary. A decade ago, in the midst of an economic boom, Europe was a near-solid wall of social-democratic red, with only Ireland, Spain and a handful of Eastern European states held by conservatives…
Still, not since the early 1990s, when a wide bloc of centre-right parties helped create the euro, has conservatism been the dominant European idea…
Indeed, this time Europe’s conservatives seem to be divided by a common ideology: Frictions between Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s David Cameron have all but paralyzed economic recovery. This has left some pining for the deep co-operation that existed a few years ago between leftists in Britain and Germany and conservatives in France and Spain…
When the European crisis began three years ago, there was an influential school of thought which held that it would produce a natural rush to the political left…
But it hasn’t worked out that way. While there have been huge protests against the centre-left governments of Greece and Spain from even further to the left, and successful “occupy” protests in several capitals, the voters have been overwhelmingly sending their protest votes rightward…
[I]t may be possible that the left-wing parties drove themselves out of office by beating the right at its own game.
After all, these were not the tax-and-spend leftists of earlier decades. The big socialist and social-democratic governments of the 2000s were dominated by parties of fiscal restraint…
And, in a final reversal of fate, it will likely be Europe’s true-blue conservative parties who, like it or not, will end up raising taxes, increasing government spending and building even bigger government – because they’ll have little choice if they want to resolve the crisis. In the process, they might reverse a decade of lower taxes and smaller government delivered by leftists…
[I]mportantly, the conservative parties now in office will bear the brunt of the austerity and bailout programs, which will be unpopular with voters: Unless they can stay in office until the next wave of economic growth, they could be punished in the future for their currently popular policies. If the trends of the past 20 years are any guide, it could mark the beginning of a shift back to an all-red map.
The party that held power in Mexico for seven decades appears to have won a key state election before the country's presidential race by transforming itself into the party of change.
Monday's official vote count shows that the Institutional Revolutionary party, or PRI, surged to victory by winning back hundreds of thousands of votes from the leftist party that pushed it out of the governorship 10 years ago in a pattern that, according to polls, may be spreading across the country.
The PRI's Fausto Vallejo Figueroa won by 35% to 33% over his closest competitor, Luisa Maria Calderón, who is the sister of President Felipe Calderón. Finishing a distant third, with 29%, was the party that has dominated the state in recent years, the Democratic Revolution party, or PRD…
[W]ith local turnout higher than that seen in the last presidential election, there was more evidence that angry voters rather than armed men or threatening messages were behind the PRI's win.
"It was a referendum on the PRD during the last 10 to 12 years. Violence has increased and economic issues that have led to migration have not changed," said Shannon O'Neil, an expert on Mexican politics at the Council on Foreign Relations…
A row has erupted in Mexico after boxer Juan Manuel Marquez wore shorts bearing a political party's logo for Saturday's Las Vegas fight against Manny Pacquiao.
Marquez (left), with PRI's logo on his leg, narrowly lost on points to Pacquiao
The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) said that by wearing the logo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) he had violated a ban on campaigning ahead of elections…
When he stepped into the ring with the Philippines' Pacquiao for the world title fight in Las Vegas, Marquez was wearing black shorts emblazoned with the PRI logo…
The PRD… said many of those at the match at the MGM Grand arena in Las Vegas were Mexican and that millions of Mexicans were watching the fight on television…
A newborn baby in Nigeria was added to a government payroll, earning about $150 (£93) a month for two or three years, highlighting the widespread corruption starving the oil-rich country of funds, authorities said.
The baby was one of many so-called "ghost workers" found to be getting salaries without performing a job, said Garba Gajam, attorney general of Zamfara state in Nigeria's impoverished north-west.
The employee was listed as being a month old in government records, but Gajam said the child's father actually started collecting the salary before the baby was born. Records also show that the baby has a diploma…
"There is no state in Nigeria that doesn't have ghost workers," says Thompson Ayodele, director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis in Lagos. "In this case, at least the baby is alive, what about the thousands of ghost workers who don't even exist?"
Ghost workers collect salaries and eventually qualify for pensions as well. The money is paid into the accounts of the people who created the identities…
PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN recently invited a group of businessmen to a cattle ranch for a retreat to discuss how to generate faster economic growth. At one point he handed the assembled notables unmarked brown envelopes. Raised eyebrows rippled around the room. The president often castigates corruption. Yet he motioned for the tycoons to open the envelopes. Inside they found not cash but blank pieces of paper, on which he asked them each to write the names of three rent-seeking officials hurting their businesses, promising to investigate.
It is the sort of story Nigerians like to hear about their president, following his re-election in April…
All the same, the high expectations that came with the president’s re-election may not be met. His signature policy, a plan to liberalise the electricity industry, has plainly fallen behind schedule. The start of privatisation has slipped from this year to next. Most Nigerians have no more than a few hours of mains supply a day—the economy’s single biggest bottleneck. Africa’s most populous nation gets as much grid power as a mid-size European city.
If power reform fails, the country’s hopes of becoming a G-20 economy in the next decade will remain fanciful, despite its vast size, plentiful resources and undoubted entrepreneurial spirit. Warning lights are flashing. The unemployment rate in the formal economy has reached a new high of 21%. Inflation has spiked…
A proposed phasing out of fuel subsidies is making people tense. The plan is sound in theory. The government spends billions of dollars every year on refined fuel it buys on international markets and retails for only 60 cents a litre at home. Smugglers take some of it to neighbouring countries for resale at full value. Better to spend money on roads and power stations, says the government. Yet poor Nigerians fear that corrupt officials will pocket the savings…
Public security has sharply worsened. Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group, was once a nuisance confined to the far north-east. It has now extended its reach across the country…
During his election campaign the president talked of improving relations between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south. Instead the gulf is deepening…
Still, many Nigerians remain optimistic. They are used to bad news, and there is still a bit of the good sort. Millions are being lifted out of poverty every year, though at a slower rate than in some other booming African countries. The president has also had some foreign-policy successes…
Putin seemed to be spontaneous about his hopes for changes to the regime and the government. Was he just playing to a critical audience? Will anyone in Russia outside of the equestrian club hear this?
Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, admitted that his government had lost of the trust of its people and pledged to introduce what he called "direct democracy" to refresh it, when he is returned for a third presidential term next March.
Challenged during a meeting with foreign academics and journalists to admit that power in Russia was too centralised, that 80% of President Dmitry Medvedev's decrees were ignored or not fully implemented by the regions, and that no one trusted the power structure he had created, Putin astonished everyone by agreeing. He said: "I tell you, I agree. I don't object to anything you have said."
He said when he first became president 11 years ago the country was in so much chaos it was on the verge of civil war. He established a system of "manual control" over the regions, abolishing elections and appointing governors himself.
… Putin said it was time to devolve certain powers and taxation back to the regions: "I have every intention to do that, but we have to act carefully. We have certain ideas about how to expand direct democracy, but it would be premature to announce them now. The British say it took 400 years for a lawn to be made, but we have not got that time."
Putin was speaking after a survey conducted by the Kremlin about the unpopularity of regional governors was leaked to Gazeta.ru. It showed that a large number of governors, many of whom were heading Putin's United Russia party's regional lists – had poll ratings below 20%…
While this is not expected to change the fact that United Russia will get the majority in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in December - because United Russia is a party of bureaucrats and is infamous for strongarming teachers, students and millions of public sector workers to vote for them - it is a clear indication to Mr Putin that he has to act…
Putin scorned criticism that March's presidential election would be a fix after his decision to swap places with Medvedev. He said Gordon Brown had taken over from Tony Blair without any election and no one had said that had deprived the British people of a vote.
Where have I heard the idea that a political party and a government are one and the same? Oh, yes, China. Now Putin and United Russia may be taking lessons from the Chinese.
Even the not-so-casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that with the elections less than a month away, Bruce Willis was one of the front-runners in the campaign for Russia’s equivalent of Congress.
Hardly. The tough-guy American actor has been occupying prime billboard space for months, but he’s the attention-getting face of Trust Bank’s advertising campaign…
Over the past week or so, a civic-minded series of posters has sprouted up along avenues and in subway stations in the white, blue and red national colors, urging voters to go to the polls on Dec. 4 for the State Duma elections. Now even more of those posters are up, looking very much the same, except they have the logo of the ruling United Russia party at the top, with a vote-for-us check mark…
After the federal election commission disbursed the equivalent of $230 million to local commissions to prepare for the elections, he said, the city of Moscow awarded its advertising contract to a favored firm…
“The company is also in charge of advertising materials for United Russia,” Andrei Buzin, who monitors elections for an American-style, and even American-financed, civic watchdog called Golos (Vote) said…
So the city paid for the first round of ads, he said, and United Russia paid for the second, adding its logo to the poster. It’s a gross violation of the election law, he said, and attempts have been made to stop it. And yes, it’s only one step of many toward elections widely expected to be unfair…
“This is only natural, because United Russia is not a party in the classical meaning of the word. United Russia is a branch of the administration,” Buzin said. In other words, why not use the same advertising if the ruling party and the country are one?…
It's good to be the king or the head of the Politburo
Occupy Tiananmen was done in 1989 with awful results. Maybe occupy Zhongnanhai? (If the commoners could even get in.) But, once again, some people are more equal than others -- even in the Peoples Republic.
Membership in the upper ranks of the Chinese Communist Party has always had a few undeniable advantages. There are the state-supplied luxury sedans, special schools for the young ones and even organic produce grown on well-guarded, government-run farms. When they fall ill, senior leaders can check into 301 Military Hospital, long considered the capital’s premier medical institution.
But even in their most addled moments of envy, ordinary Beijingers could take some comfort in the knowledge that the soupy air they breathe on especially polluted days also finds its way into the lungs of the privileged and pampered.
Such assumptions, it seems, are not entirely accurate.
As it turns out, the homes and offices of many top leaders are filtered by high-end devices, at least according to a Chinese company, the Broad Group, which has been promoting its air-purifying machines in advertisements that highlight their ubiquity in places where many officials work and live.
The company’s vice president, Zhang Zhong, said there were more than 200 purifiers scattered throughout Great Hall of the People, the office of China’s president, Hu Jintao, and Zhongnanhai, the walled compound for senior leaders and their families. “Creating clean, healthy air for our national leaders is a blessing to the people,” boasts the company’s promotional material, which includes endorsements from a variety of government and corporate leaders, among them Long Yongtu, a top economic official who insists on bringing the device along for car rides and hotel stays. “Breathing clean air is a basic human need,” he says in a testimonial.
In some countries, the gushing endorsement of a well-placed official would be considered a public relations coup. But in China, where resentment of the high and mighty is on the rise, news of the company’s advertising campaign is stirring a maelstrom of criticism…
Three major political parties are campaigning in the Mexican president's home state, but it's the groups that aren't on Sunday's ballot that have everyone worried: the drug cartels.
In hilly, rural Michoacan, a state known for its avocados, marijuana and meth, the mobsters are putting Mexico's halting democracy to a test, using violence and bribes to influence elections for governor, the legislature and all 113 mayors.
While many other Mexican states have been penetrated by narco-politics, nowhere is that influence as overt as in Michoacan, where the electoral season so far has featured the kidnapping of nine pollsters, the gunning down of a mayor, and the withdrawal of at least a dozen candidates frightened off the campaign trail by organized crime.
"Organized crime is getting involved in discouraging candidates, to force (elections) with only one candidate," said Fausto Vallejo, gubernatorial candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. "And that is happening not only to the PRI, but in all the three political parties."
The stakes in Sunday's vote are heightened by the fact that President Felipe Calderon is from Michoacan, and made his home state the launch pad for his war against the drug cartels five years ago. His sister, Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon, is running for governor and pledges to deepen her brother's offensive…
Federal efforts to arrest narco-politicians here in the past have been an embarrassing failure. In 2009, prosecutors ordered the arrest of 12 Michoacan mayors and 23 other state and local officials on allegations that they had protected the La Familia cartel. But by April, every one of them had been acquitted…
The remote mountain town of Arteaga is the hometown of Servando Gomez, alias "La Tuta," founder of the Knights Templar cartel, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine. But residents here know Gomez as a former grade-school teacher and a humble man who is said to have helped people pay their medical bills.
Vallejo, the PRI candidate, says Michoacan cartels try to win over residents by casting themselves "in the social angle, like Robin Hood."
"Sometimes they will punish a guy who beats his wife," Vallejo said. "They'll tell they money lender, even 'you're charging too much, it's not fair what you're charging. And you, lime grower, pay your workers better.'"
In places like Apatzingan the cartel is so strong it has rallied hundreds of supporters to demand the withdrawal of federal police, ostensibly for abusing townspeople with unjustified shootings and searches. Some marchers painted "Templars 100 percent" on their clothing…
According to the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbank, young people in Tehran can find some havens from constant supervision by the morality policy without going to the ski resorts.
Hidden in a corner of the atrium of the tiny Feresteh shopping center, right behind Tehran’s only Victoria’s Secret and a traditional pastry seller, the high-end Lime coffee shop is only for those who know where to find it.
The music of pop singer Ricky Martin filled the air as customers ordered $4 shots of espresso and connected to the shop’s wireless Internet with their cellphones. Girls with long hair spilling out from under their obligatory Islamic head scarves giggled shyly as they held hands with their boyfriends…
[C]offee shops are mushrooming in Iran’s cities, providing small retreats from busy streets and prying eyes.
Tehran’s coffee shops numbered just a handful 10 years ago. But now hundreds dot the city, with a new one popping up every few days it seems, even in places such as car washes and movie theaters. They are among the very few semi-public places where young people meet and artists and intellectuals debate.
But reality is never far away. On a recent evening, just outside the shopping center where Lime opened its doors in 2009, officers with Iran’s morality police — a unit that controls the streets to “promote virtue and prevent vice” — were stopping cars filled with boys and girls…
In Cafe Alme, near the campus of Tehran University, young couples gave a nod to the broad-shouldered owner, Abbas, before walking up a small staircase leading to a secluded area. Six months ago the morality police sealed off the section to “prevent flirting,” said Abbas, 30, who did not want his family name given. “I reopened it, because I need customers,” he said.
As Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” played in the background, Abbas poured a latte. “If young people want to be outside of their parents’ houses, coffee shops are often the only place they can afford to go to,” he said…
The first snow of the season fell in Tehran this week, but female ski bums planning to carve fresh lines at one of the three resorts in the Alborz mountain range will be able to hit the slopes only if they are accompanied by a male guardian.
A police circular, reported Thursday on the pro-government Etedaal Web site, states that women and girls are no longer allowed to ski in the absence of a husband, father or brother…
Iran’s ski resorts became something of a haven from the Islamic dress code — and from laws against boys and girls mixing. Young people would mix and meet on the mountains, while some women would ski without their head scarves…
Monitoring the miles-long slopes proved difficult for the morality police. Unfamiliar with skiing, officers were often unable to pursue the affluent young of northern Tehran, with their greater experience on the slopes. It is unclear whether the police will do any better trying to check the relationships of those heading out to the popular resorts now…
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual Human Development Index on Wednesday, painting a grim picture of the prospects for millions of people in some of the world's poorest nations.
The Human Development Index ranks countries based on development issues, progress and policies, the UNDP report explains. This year's study focuses on the connection between development, equity and environmental sustainability. The UNDP argues that global development will be unable to continue unless the world takes bold measures to battle inequality and environmental threats. Deforestation, soil erosion and rising food prices have disproportionally hit poor populations across the world, widening the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries.
The first Human Development Report introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI…
Iran’s election office has banned three reformist parties from taking part in the upcoming legislative polls…
The Islamic Participation Front, Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization and Freedom Movement of Iran allegedly do not have the licenses required to run for parliament…
An Iranian court had banned the Islamic Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organizationafter they protested the controversial results of the 2009 presidential elections.
Before the court had issued its ruling against the parties, many of their leaders had been detained or imprisoned…
Moussa Sharifi, a writer and political analyst of Iranian affairs, said that Iran does not have a political spectrum with diverse political parties. He said that prominent opposition parties have been banned since 1980s, such as the leftist Tudeh Party of Iran, the nationalist National Front and the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
Sharifi, added that the regime in Tehran reportedly executed 120,000 political dissidents…
In the US, there is a great deal of concern about the achievement gap between racial and socio-economic groups. The UK has a similar problem and the political and social results are similar. What's a government to do?
It would be interesting to compare the map below with one of where the worst of last summer's riots took place. It would also be interesting to compare this map with voting results from the last election.
Blackspots for youth disengagement where high levels of youngsters are not in education, work or training (Neet) have been revealed in a new report.
In Grimsby, Doncaster, Warrington and Wigan, nearly a quarter of 16 to 24-year-olds are Neet.
In a further nine cities in England and Wales, dropout rates for youngsters are about one in five.
The Work Foundation report blames a tough jobs market and cuts to youth services and education…
Places with the highest Neet rates tend to be in the north of England. These include Blackpool, Rochdale and Oldham, where about 20% of 16- to 24-year-olds are Neet. Birmingham in the Midlands and Swansea in Wales also has Neet rates this high…
Cities in the south of England have the lowest Neet rates. In Oxford, Plymouth and Cambridge, fewer than 10% of 16- to 24-year-olds are Neet. But Aberdeen and York also have rates this low.
In London, very high Neet rates greater than 20% persist in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Westminster…
If this is an election day for you, please remember to vote.The Fourth Edition ofWhat You Need to Knowis available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
Over the last week, a well-known writer and a Jehovah’s Witness in Siberia have become two more Russians to fall foul of a murky and much-criticized law purported to fight terrorism but being turned against a broad and seemingly random array of people.
Grigory Chkhartishvili, better known as Boris Akunin, the writer of best-selling historical mysteries, revealed in his blog that a federal investigative body subordinate to the Kremlin had summoned his publisher for questioning about possible extremist statements in his latest book…
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said it had been alerted that Mr. Chkhartishvili’s novel might be in violation of a law pushed through by the Kremlin in 2002, purportedly to fight terrorism, and amended in 2006…
The Investigative Committee quickly concluded it had found no offending passages…
On Thursday, a court in the Gorno-Altaisk region of Siberia found Aleksandr Kalistratov, a Jehovah’s Witness, guilty on charges of disseminating extremist materials…
Religious literature distributed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses is on a list of extremist literature compiled by Russia’s Ministry of Justice…
Companies from Russia and China are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad, a survey suggests.
The two scored worst out of 28 countries in a poll of 3,000 business executives conducted by anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI).
The Netherlands and Switzerland came top, while the UK ranked eighth, just ahead of the US and France…
The report called for more international action to outlaw companies from paying bribes in foreign countries.
"G20 governments must tackle foreign bribery as a matter of urgency," said Huguette Labelle, chair of TI, who said that more resources must be dedicated to investigations and prosecutions.
Russia, which came bottom of the league, was seen by TI as a particularly challenging case.
"Unfortunately... there are no islands of integrity in Russian public and business life," said TI Russian director, Elena Panfilova…
Bribe-paying was seen as much more common by businessmen from countries whose governments were also considered to have the least integrity, according to a separate "corruption perceptions" survey carried out by TI last year.
The sector most affected by bribery was public procurement - where companies compete to win contracts from governments for everything from waste collection to road building…
TI said that paying bribes to win major infrastructure and housing projects "effectively cheats taxpayers out of their money" and can undermine safety standards…
An annual rally of radical nationalists in Moscow has cheered a fierce condemnation of the ruling party by a leading anti-corruption campaigner.
Alexei Navalny, one of Russia's most popular bloggers, told a crowd of some 7,000 that United Russia was "the party of crooks and thieves"…
[The rally] was held on Russia's National Unity Day, a public holiday introduced in 2005 to replace the Soviet celebration of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The gathering was sanctioned by the authorities but confined to a district on the outskirts of the Russian capital, Lyublino…
Speaking to Reuters, he said the Russian March was a chance to "discuss problems which really exist in the society but which are taboo and are never discussed in the parliament, on television or anywhere else".
"We have problems with illegal migration, we have the problem of the Caucasus, we have a problem of ethnic crimes...," he said…
A smaller "anti-fascist" rally was also in Moscow in protest at the "Russian March".
Large rallies by United Russia and the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement were also held in the capital to mark the holiday.
Militants staged a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria on Friday, including bombing a military base and a theological college, police and military officials said.
It was not clear how many people were killed or wounded, and no group claimed responsibility. But suspicion immediately fell on a radical Muslim sect, Boko Haram…
The attacks on Friday appeared to be the boldest and most coordinated ever carried out…
At least 63 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, a Red Cross official said Saturday…
The attacks centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said…
Gunmen… went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there…
The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east…
The bombings come ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria…
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual Human Development Index on Wednesday, painting a grim picture of the prospects for millions of people in some of the world's poorest nations.
The Human Development Index ranks countries based on development issues, progress and policies, the UNDP report explains. This year's study focuses on the connection between development, equity and environmental sustainability. The UNDP argues that global development will be unable to continue unless the world takes bold measures to battle inequality and environmental threats. Deforestation, soil erosion and rising food prices have disproportionally hit poor populations across the world, widening the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries.
The first Human Development Report introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI…
Evidently, Putin doesn't like the comparisons of him to Brezhnev that Western commentators have been making. He has his own choices for role models, according to a Reuters analysis published in The New York Times.
Vladimir Putin has an answer for Russians worried that his return to the presidency next year will usher in an era of stagnation: study the careers of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Charles de Gaulle…
The former KGB spy's history lessons… give a sense of how he views himself and could provide clues about what his next presidency will hold…
After praising Roosevelt, Putin went on to list other long-serving leaders including Helmut Kohl, who was German chancellor for 16 years. He also said he liked de Gaulle, France's president from 1959 to 1969…
Like Putin, Roosevelt, De Gaulle and Kohl rose to power in tumultuous times but used iron will and considerable popularity to gain almost complete dominance.
Styled by his ruling party as Russia's "national leader", Putin says his biggest achievement is to have saved Russia from collapse after the chaos and humiliation that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991…
Heroes of their time to supporters, Roosevelt, De Gaulle and Kohl forged fiercely independent foreign policies but, like Putin, were criticized for accruing too much power.
Opponents say Russia's stability is a mirage because Putin's decision to stay in power makes a brittle and atrophied political system too dependent on one man.
By focusing on Western leaders, Putin is also underscoring to Russian voters his own image as the stout defender of the country's interests in the face of what is often portrayed as Western hypocrisy…
Even at face value, there may be other parallels.
De Gaulle put down dissent in Syria, Lebanon and Algeria. Under Putin, Russia has been accused of human rights abuses in Chechnya and other republics of the rebellious North Caucasus.
Kohl was criticized for turning a blind eye to party corruption. Putin's ruling United Russia party has been branded "a party of swindlers and thieves" by opponents…
Putin also admires Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore…
"The analogy with Brezhnev is being made... all such analogies are lame and senseless because we live in a different country, a different world," said President Dmitry Medvedev, who was swept into the Kremlin in 2008 to get round a constitutional ban on his mentor Putin serving a third successive term…
Political censorship in this authoritarian state has long been heavy-handed. But for years, the Communist Party has tolerated a creeping liberalization in popular culture, tacitly allowing everything from popular knockoffs of “American Idol”-style talent shows to freewheeling microblogs that let media groups prosper and let people blow off steam.
Now, the party appears to be saying “enough.”
Whether spooked by popular uprisings worldwide, a coming leadership transition at home or their own citizens’ increasingly provocative tastes, Communist leaders are proposing new limits on media and Internet freedoms that include some of the most restrictive measures in years.
The most striking instance occurred Tuesday, when the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television ordered 34 major satellite television stations to limit themselves to no more than two 90-minute entertainment shows each per week, and collectively 10 nationwide. They are also being ordered to broadcast two hours of state-approved news every evening and to disregard audience ratings in their programming decisions. The ministry said the measures, to go into effect on Jan. 1, were aimed at rooting out “excessive entertainment and vulgar tendencies.”...
In these times of globalization and the World Trade Organization, we, in the West, don't hear much about import substitution. After all, the policy got such a bad name after the 17th century when it was called mercantilism. Of course, when the newly independent USA followed Hamilton's version of mercantilism, it seemed more palatable to Americans than the British version had been.
After the Second World War, many African, Asian, and Latin American countries followed some version of import substitution to build up their economies. The simplistic logic seemed unassailable. Protect infant domestic industries with tax and trade policies, keep investment, consumer spending, and jobs within the national borders. However, when protected industries began inefficiently producing shoddy merchandise at high prices, many people began to question that simplistic logic.
In the '70s, the "Asian tigers" began implementing a new version of import substitution that focused on producing for export. This forced protected industries to compete on global markets and worked so well that China adopted its own version.
Former economics teacher Bisi Daniels, writing in This Day, offers his thoughts on import substitution for Nigeria.
I was one of the many Nigerians who rejoiced over the Federal Government’s decision to commit itself to an import substitution programme and to do everything to promote local industry.
As a believer in Domestic Direct Investment, I am also excited by government’s reasoning that patronizing locally-made goods is a way to “reward those who demonstrated the confidence to invest in the Nigerian economy.”…
I must also say upfront that the history of Import-substituting Industrialization (called ISI) calls for a cautious approach. Not everything must be produced locally…
ISI [import substitution industrialization] is a government strategy that replaces some agricultural or industrial imports to encourage local production for local consumption, and in some carefully planned cases, for exports. Import substitutes are traditionally meant to generate employment, reduce foreign exchange demand, stimulate innovation, and promote self-reliance in some critical sectors.
With increasing globalization and the breaking of international trade walls, ISI sounds like an old school model, but there is a robust case for its suitability in Nigeria, at least for now…
ISI was most successful in countries with large populations and income levels which allowed for the consumption of locally produced products…
Ultimately, when the popularity of ISI waned in the late 20th century, it was on account of its disadvantages and the dramatic growth effects of economic liberalization and reforms.
The disadvantages includes the fact that industries under ISI become complacent under the protection they enjoy and end up as inefficient and obsolete, producing poor quality goods. Inefficiency and low output reduce cost effectiveness. Above all, there is a build-up of unnecessary bureaucracy that breeds corruption. Nigeria has had more than a good share of this wastefulness…
A successful ISI in Nigeria will require the creation of a fertile environment for industry to thrive at minimal cost. And of course, we should be considerate of industries with clear linkages with the country’s agricultural and petroleum wealth for immediate impact...
If there was any doubt about political infighting in Iran, the Supreme Leader's recent proposals to eliminate the presidency and give him more power should make those doubts vanish. So much for Khomeini's vaunted Islamic republic.
A proposal by Iran’s supreme leader to radically alter the country’s constitution and abolish the presidency is drawing praise from his supporters but criticism from influential politicians.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was appointed supreme leader for life in 1989 by Shiite Muslim clerics, said in a speech last week that, if deemed appropriate, Iran could do without a president…
Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said publicly Tuesday that the proposal strongly undermines the ideal of an Islamic republic, in which the people elect their leaders…
Under the proposal, Iran would be ruled by Khamenei working in tandem with parliament, which would continue to be directly elected and would appoint one of its members to serve as prime minister…
If implemented, the change would widen Khamenei’s powers. Supporters said it would allow him manage the nation without the current debilitating political squabbles and that nothing would really change, since voters would still elect the parliament…
Teaching (and learning) comparative government and politics is a complex and demanding task. We can all use all the help we can get. This cyber place is somewhere to facilitate helpful interactions.
