Not again
Do you know why President Jonathan's brief illness in London caused such a stir back home? (hint: think Yar'Ardua)
Jonathan Falls Ill, Undergoes Medical Check-Up in London
President Goodluck Jonathan could not attend the meeting of Nigeria's Honorary International Investors' Council Thursday in London as he fell ill and had to undergo a medical check-up…
Presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, said in a statement that Jonathan, after the doctors' examination, was advised to rest for a few days. "In the course of his ongoing visit to London for a meeting of Nigeria's Honorary International Investors' Council, President Goodluck Jonathan became indisposed and could not be present at the opening of the meeting today (yesterday).
"President Jonathan has since been examined by competent medical practitioners. He has been advised to rest for a few days.
"The presidency wishes to assure all Nigerians that President Jonathan's condition is nothing serious and that the medical attention he has sought is only precautionary," the statement said…
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Labels: history, leadership, Nigeria, politics
Searching blog entries
A reader asked about how to search these blog entries.
I thought I knew. But when I went to the blog and to the "Delicious" index, I couldn't find where to enter search terms.
My son, the IT major sorted out part of the problem very quickly.
When I sign in as blog author, the search boxes don't appear. When I'm not signed in, they do appear. So, they should appear for you.
When opening the blog, you should see this in the top left hand corner:
Type in your search term, hit return and you should get a list of blog entries than have been tagged with that term.
On the
"Delicious" index (link on the right hand menu of the blog), you should see this:
Type in your search term next to the magnifying glass icon and blog name,
hit return and you should get a list of blog entries that include that term.
An advantage of the "Delicious" index is that you can search by more than one term if you put commas between search terms.
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Labels: concepts
A day for giving thanks and remembering the past
As you should expect, this is not an American, or even a Western, tradition. The list is long (and not comprehensive).
Harvest Festivals from Around the World
Nigerian Harvest Festivals
Chinese Harvest Festivals
British Harvest Festivals
Mexican Harvest Festivals
Thanksgiving Day
United States of America Harvest Festivals
And this year, let's not forget
Festivals converge into Thanksgivikkah
The fall months are marked as a time to harvest in both secular and religious communities. Harvest festivals across the country celebrate big yields and let communities come together to give thanks in their own unique ways.
This year is unique because two harvest festivals converge in what has been coined as “Thanksgivikkah.” …
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Don't rock the boat
It's been 24 years since the demonstrations and massacre on Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government has no interest in allowing those ancient events to upset the harmony of today's government and politics.
Tiananmen leader denied in bid to return to China
 |
| Wu'er Kaixi in 1989 |
The second most-wanted student leader from the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests was turned back from Hong Kong on Monday in his latest attempt to surrender to Chinese authorities and return home.
It was the fourth such attempt by Wu'er Kaixi, who said his lack of success so far was the result of ‘‘absurd’’ actions by the Chinese government…
‘‘What I'm doing today is a result of the Chinese government’s absurd act of ordering my arrest, while at the same time refusing to allow me to return,’’ he wrote. He added that he wants to be reunited with his relatives ‘‘even if the reunion would have to take place behind a glass wall.’’…
Wu'er rose to fame as a pajama-clad hunger striker haranguing then-Chinese Premier Li Peng during a televised meeting during the Tiananmen protests in Beijing.
He was named No. 2 on the Chinese government’s list of 21 wanted student leaders after the military crushed the protests, killing at least hundreds. He has lived in exile in the United States and the self-ruled island of Taiwan since fleeing China.
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More signs of Mexico's middle class
Damien Cave reports to
The New York Times about more signs of a growing middle class in Mexico. Are those also signs of political change?
In the Middle of Mexico, a Middle Class Is Rising
A decade ago, Ivan Zamora, 23, might have already left for the United States. Instead, he graduated in May from a gleaming new university [in Guanajuato], then moved on to an engineering internship at one of the many multinational companies just beyond the campus gates…
“There’s just a lot more opportunity to study and to succeed,” Mr. Zamora said at the factory, surrounded by robots, steel, glass and young technicians…
Education. More sophisticated work. Higher pay… Here, in a mostly poor state long known as one of the country’s main sources of illegal immigrants to the United States, a new Mexico has begun to emerge…
This is a Mexico far different from the popular American conception: it is neither the grinding, low-skilled assembly work at maquiladoras… nor the ugliness of drug cartels. But the question many experts and officials are asking is whether Mexico as a whole can keep up with the rising demand for educated labor — and overcome concerns about crime and corruption — to propel its 112 million people into the club of developed nations.
Mauricio Martínez, 29, an engineer at the Italian tiremaker Pirelli… said he and his wife, Mariana, still saw their trip to Prague after his training in Romania as a fairy tale.
“I’m a small-town guy,” he said one day after work, in his kitchen with a beer. “But there I was; an Italian company from Milan hired a small-town guy from Mexico.”
He said he now makes $2,250 a month ($27,000 a year), far more than at his old job at a tow-truck company and roughly double the median household income nationwide…
And as is common in other countries with an expanding middle class, such as Brazil, their economic rise has led to demands for better government.
When someone recently stole Mrs. Martínez’s cellphone, she said she went straight to the police over the objections of her father, who warned her nothing would be done. “He was right,” she said. “But next time it happens, I want my complaint to be there. I’m trying to make a living here, and I want a legal life.”…
Many young, middle-class Mexicans are coming to similar realizations, propelled by 13 years of democracy and the Internet. But their ranks are small…. many foreign employers say that skilled employees are harder to find and keep, while the mass of Mexican workers do not measure up to what many companies need.
Only 36 percent of Mexicans between 25 and 64 have earned the equivalent of a high school degree, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…
But on a smaller scale in Guanajuato, individual success is creating a sense of possibility [that]… pervades the polytechnic, where students in pristine industrial labs, like Javier Eduardo Luna Zapata, 24, have begun to dream of more than work at an auto plant.
He and a few classmates won a prestigious design award this year for a scanner that would check airport runways for debris. “We want to start a company,” he said, displaying a video of the project on his cellphone. “We’re going to look for investors when we graduate.”
His classmates, representing a new generation of Mexicans — mostly geeks in jeans carrying smartphones — all nodded with approval.
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Labels: demographics, economics, Mexico, political culture
Monty Python and Dr. Who
The Pythons announced a reunion show and a world wide audience (including yours truly) celebrated the 50th anniversary of
Dr. Who during a global simulcast.
I did learn a few things about
British political culture from the Pythons, but mostly as adjuncts to what I read in more scholarly sources. (
One of my favorites.)
The really cheesy
Dr. Who sets and "special" effects are mostly in the past, but
Dr. Who and the Pythons are bits of British culture, although probably not political culture.
I avidly watched doctors three, four, and five before losing touch until the tenth doctor. Saturday's broadcast was a sentimental treat and a good bit of British sci-fi television. Look for reruns.
Millions tune in for Doctor Who 50th anniversary show
More than 10 million people tuned in to see the special 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who in the UK, according to overnight viewing figures.
At its peak, the show was watched by 10.61 million viewers, with an average of 10.2 million across the 75-minute running time…
But Strictly Come Dancing was Saturday night's most popular show, peaking at 11.7 million viewers (10.6m average).
The Day of the Doctor was broadcast in 94 countries at the same time as it aired on BBC One on Saturday night - earning it a Guinness World Record as "the world's largest ever simulcast of a TV drama"…
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Labels: UK
Politics in Iran
The relevant questions for comparative politics center around the political changes within Iran, both those that came recently and those to come. I would expect to see some signs of the political struggle surface in the next few months.
Iran agrees to curb nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief
Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signaling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that could ease the risk of a wider Middle East war.
Aimed at ending a long festering standoff, the interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…
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Are Parliamentary politics changing?
Thanks to Alan Carter for helping me understand things like the debates over grammar schools, comprehensive schools, and assisted places in the UK. (The debates are similar to those I learned about in Germany some 20 years ago.)
Thanks too to the editors at
The Economist for writing (in the American edition at least) about politics in ways insulated Americans can understand.
The big question, seems to me, to be whether party and Parliamentary politics are heading for significant changes. The
Economist editors hint at those possiblities. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
The 2015 in-tray: A mighty pile of unfinished business teeters over Britain’s next government
DURING the 2010 general-election campaign, the Conservative Party created a satirical broadcast on behalf of the imaginary Hung Parliament Party…. The implication was that voters should return a Tory government with a nice big majority. Perhaps it was too subtle: Britain ended up with precisely the hung parliament the Tories feared.
In many ways the warning was exaggerated…. Yet the government is struggling to deal with many big, difficult issues. A growing pile of tough decisions has been put aside until after the next election, due to take place in 2015. This will profoundly shape the next government—if it does not smother it.
The latest thing to land in the in-tray is press regulation…
Another folder, marked “London’s airports”, has gathered dust for more than a year…
Even on its defining mission of repairing the national finances… but have delayed much of the pain until after the 2015 vote.
In January David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, tried to placate Eurosceptics in his party by promising a renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership…
Partly, this backlog is the product of the hung parliament, just as the Tories warned in 2010. Conservatives and Lib Dems have long disagreed on Europe, nuclear weapons and the role of the state. Where they cannot agree, they do not have a majority. But the in-tray has also swelled because the parties are split internally…
And the pile of unresolved issues tells a bigger story: the British parliamentary machine is under strain. It is designed to generate decisions not through bipartisanship (as in some of its European counterparts) but through debate and confrontation. Government and opposition MPs sit on opposing benches behind their leaders, the two pistons of the decision-making engine. Leaders are supposed to clash, MPs to obey them and one side to prevail.
Three things are jamming this motor. First, smaller parties are curbing the dominance of the two big parties (down from 81% of the vote in 1979 to 65% in 2010), making coalitions more likely and complicating debates… It is harder for Mr Cameron to be sensible about Europe with the UK Independence Party, which wants Britain to leave the EU, nipping at his heels.
Second, constituents are becoming more demanding—petitioning MPs, tracking their voting records online and hectoring them over cherished issues…
Third, partly under pressure from constituents—and partly because the internet also enables MPs to develop profiles independently of their parties—parliamentarians are much less obedient to their leaders…
The next prime minister will enter Downing Street with this pile of unfinished business looming over him. Events will force him to confront much of it. And when he does, it could rend his party, particularly if he has a small majority and is thus at the mercy of troublesome backbenchers. Labour is just as divided over Europe, press regulation, airports and austerity as the Conservatives are… For that reason, the large to-do list may determine who runs Britain. If the result of the election is close, even the most tribal leader may see safety (and political stability) in numbers, and plump for another coalition.
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Gorbachev, NO; Putin, YES
The New York Times' Chris Buckley contends in this analysis that a result of the Third Plenum is the elevating of Chinese President Xi to a "godfather" like status or an emulation of Putin.
Buckley's analysis makes the prosecution of
Bo Xilai an integral part of Xi's rise to power.
Xi, in ‘Godfather’ Mold, Looks Assertive and Even Imperial
Mr. Xi emerged from a four-day meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee stronger. He won endorsement for a new national security commission that is likely to enhance his influence, as well as for a leadership group on reform that could give him a more direct say in economic policy, which has tended to be the prime minister’s domain.
 |
| President Xi |
One year after taking leadership of the party, Mr. Xi is looking like an assertive, even imperial president, who sits well above his six colleagues on the Politburo Standing Committee…
Xiao Gongqin, one of China’s most prominent proponents of “neo-authoritarianism,” thinks Mr. Xi is very a good thing: a new incarnation of his idea of a model leader, Deng Xiaoping.
Professor Xiao, who teaches history at Shanghai Normal University, attracted fame, and controversy, in the late 1980s for arguing that China needed a pro-market strongman to extinguish political opposition while shepherding the country into economic modernity…
But advocates of democratic liberalization see many perils in Mr. Xi’s potential amassing of power, as well as the formation of the new, possibly powerful security committee. Rong Jian, an outspoken opponent of neo-authoritarian thought in the 1980s, said he was alarmed by the outcome of the Central Committee meeting.
“He wants to be Putin,” said Mr. Rong, a political commentator…
Many economists and political analysts say that Mr. Xi’s immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, failed to provide that authority… Mr. Xi has been polite but muted in his comments on Mr. Hu’s record. He has, however, mocked the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, as a coward….
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The public face of policy making in China
The 2013 Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has announced more policy decisions. Keep in mind that announcements are not the same as process in making policy. Oh, to be an observer of the proposal/debate/adoption process.
More announcements will probably follow. Look for something about residency permits.
China to End Prison Labor Camps and Ease 1-Child Policy
The Chinese government will ease its one-child family restriction and abolish its “re-education through labor” camps, significantly curtailing two policies that for decades have defined the state’s power to control citizens’ lives, the Communist Party said on Friday.
The changes were announced in a party decision that also laid out ambitious proposals to restructure the economy by encouraging greater private participation in finance and market competition in key economic sectors, as well as promising farmers better property protection and compensation for confiscated land.
Senior party officials, led by President Xi Jinping, endorsed the raft of 60 reform proposals at a four-day Central Committee conference that ended Tuesday, but the decision was announced days later…
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Concentrating power in China
In China, the seven guys on the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee pretty much make the macro level decisions for the country.
However, a new bit of governing organization concentrates even more power in the presidency.
New Chinese Panel Said to Oversee Domestic Security and Foreign Policy
 |
| President Xi |
China’s new national security committee is mainly based on the Washington model. It will put at the disposal of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, a highly empowered group of security experts who can work the levers of the country’s vast security apparatus — and presumably respond more nimbly than the country’s multilayered party, police and military bureaucracies have been known to do…
The Chinese version will have dual duties with responsibility over domestic security as well as foreign policy, Chinese experts say.
That means the new body will deal with cybersecurity as well as the unrest in China’s Tibet and Xinjiang regions, where resistance against the Han majority population is continuing, according to Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing…
The decision by Mr. Xi to push ahead with the national security committee drew special attention because although two of his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, had contemplated forming such a coordinating policy group, bureaucratic resistance, particularly from the military, had prevented its creation, the experts said…
It seemed clear from the Chinese announcement that Mr. Xi would head the new Chinese agency and that his position at the helm would serve to increase his already firm grasp on power
Another obvious difference between the American model and the new Chinese agency is the dominant role of the Communist Party in China. “The Standing Committee will still be king for all important things,” said Mr. Shi, referring to the seven men, including Mr. Xi, who are decision makers of the Politburo…
Mr. Xi would dominate the new national security committee and would add the title to the three major responsibilities he already holds: general secretary of the Communist Party, head of the People’s Liberation Army and head of state…
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The Central Committee speaks
But what does the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China really say?
China promises to give markets 'decisive role' in economy
China's ruling party pledged to let markets play a decisive role in allocating resources as it unveiled a reform agenda for the next decade…
China aims to achieve decisive results in its reform push by 2020, with economic changes a central focus… the ruling Communist party said in a communique released by state media at the end of a four-day closed-door meeting of the party's 205-member central committee.
"The core issue is to straighten out the relationship between government and the market, allowing the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and improving the government's role," the statement said…
In previous policy statements, the Communist party had often described markets as playing a basic role in allocating resources, Xinhua news agency said, meaning the new language amounts to an upgrading of its role in the party philosophy.
Still, the party did not issue any bold reform plans for the country's state-owned enterprises (SOEs), saying that while both state firms and the private sector were important and it would encourage private enterprise, the dominance of the "public sector" in the economy would be maintained…
Among the issues singled out for reform, the party said it would work to deepen fiscal and tax reform, establish a unified land market in cities and the countryside, set up a sustainable social security system, and give farmers more property rights – all seen as necessary for putting the world's second-largest economy on a more sustainable footing…
Some reforms could face stiff resistance from powerful interest groups such as local governments or state-owned monopolies, people involved in reform discussions have said.
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Super Bonyad
In Iran, the
bonyads are officially charitable trusts. They were created to take possession of the property "abandoned" by Iranians who left the country because of the overthrow of the Shah. The
bonyads were to use their confiscated wealth to support those in need, especially those who suffered because of the Iran-Iraq war. Today, the
bonyads may control 20% of the Iranian economy outside the oil industry. They are officially run by clerics who rely on technocrats for management. The
bonyads pay no taxes and do not have to publicly account for their activities.
In 1989, after that initial round of property seizures, the original supreme leader, Khomeini, created
Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam – Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam. It was to continue the "work" of the
bonyads under the office of the Supreme Leader.
Reuters news agency is in the process of publishing a three-part investigation of
Setad… and the first report offers some insights into the governing of Iran. Look for the subsequent reports.
Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures
The Persian name of the organization… is "Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam" – Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam. The name refers to an edict signed by the Islamic Republic's first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, shortly before his death in 1989. His order spawned a new entity to manage and sell properties abandoned…
Setad has become one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, though many Iranians, and the wider world, know very little about it. In the past six years, it has morphed into a business juggernaut that now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.
The organization's total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts. But Setad's holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion, Reuters has calculated…
Just one person controls that economic empire – Khamenei…
The supreme leader's acolytes praise his spartan lifestyle, and point to his modest wardrobe and a threadbare carpet in his Tehran home. Reuters found no evidence that Khamenei is tapping Setad to enrich himself.
But Setad has empowered him. Through Setad, Khamenei has at his disposal financial resources whose value rivals the holdings of the shah, the Western-backed monarch who was overthrown in 1979.
A six-month Reuters investigation has found that Setad built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians: members of religious minorities… as well as Shi'ite Muslims, business people and Iranians living abroad…
Khamenei's grip on Iran's politics and its military forces has been apparent for years. The investigation into Setad shows that there is a third dimension to his power: economic might. The revenue stream generated by Setad helps explain why Khamenei has not only held on for 24 years but also in some ways has more control than even his revered predecessor. Setad gives him the financial means to operate independently of parliament and the national budget, insulating him from Iran's messy factional infighting…
Under Khamenei's control, Setad began acquiring property for itself, and kept much of the funds rather than simply redistributing them. With those revenues, the organization also helps to fund the ultimate seat of power in Iran, the Beite Rahbar, or Leader's House… To run the country today, Khamenei employs about 500 people in his administrative offices, many recruited from the military and security services.
A complete picture of Setad's spending and income isn't possible. Its books are off limits even to Iran's legislative branch…
Reuters has put together the fullest account yet of the organization's holdings. They include a giant property portfolio and an investment unit worth tens of billions of dollars…
Part two:
Khamenei’s conglomerate thrived as sanctions squeezed Iran
Part three:
To expand Khamenei’s grip on the economy, Iran stretched its laws
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Is Sir John Major just waking up?
I'm willing to bet that every student of comparative politics who has studied the UK knows what former PM Major is now shocked to "discover." Was he asleep all that time he worked for Lady Thatcher and all that time he was Prime Minister?
And someone will have to explain the logic behind his assertion that the last Labour government is to blame for this state of affairs.
Private school influence in public life 'shocking' says Major
The influence that a privately educated, middle-class elite have on public life is "shocking", former prime minister Sir John Major has said.
 |
| Sir John |
Sir John said the "upper echelons of power" were dominated by those from a similar background.
In a speech to Tory activists reported in the Daily Telegraph he blamed "the collapse in social mobility" on the failures of the last Labour government.
More than half the current cabinet were educated at private schools…
In a speech to the South Norfolk Conservative Association's annual dinner, he bemoaned what he said was the lack of people from working and lower middle class backgrounds in positions of influence in British institutions…
The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said he did not believe the comments were an attack on the current Conservative leadership but a plea for those from modest backgrounds to have more influence in public life.
The former prime minister, Nick Robinson added, was speaking up for what he regarded as his party's natural constituency, the hard-working but aspiring majority who were not well-off…
For Labour, Kevin Brennan, shadow schools minister, said Sir John was "telling people what they already knew", saying the government was "out of touch" with "the next generation being locked out of opportunity"…
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A reason for skepticism
This is a good explanation of
one of the reasons that journalistic sources cannot be considered definitive when learning about government and politics anywhere.
Bloomberg News Is Said to Curb Articles That Might Anger China
The decision came in an early evening call to four journalists huddled in a Hong Kong conference room…
The investigative report they had been working on for the better part of a year, which detailed the hidden financial ties between one of the wealthiest men in China and the families of top Chinese leaders, would not be published…
“[Mr. Winkler] said, ‘If we run the story, we’ll be kicked out of China,’” one of the employees said. Less than a week later, a second article, about the children of senior Chinese officials employed by foreign banks, was also declared dead, employees said…
Bloomberg News infuriated the government in 2012 by publishing a series of articles on the personal wealth of the families of Chinese leaders, including the new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping. Bloomberg’s operations in China have suffered since, as new journalists have been denied residency and sales of its financial terminals to state enterprises have slowed…
Other news organizations have come under similar pressure. The websites of The New York Times, including a new Chinese-language edition, were blocked when it published an article in October 2012 on the family wealth of Wen Jiabao, then the prime minister. Like Bloomberg, The Times has also not received residency visas for new journalists…
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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson, an 18th century British author was critiquing the "false patriotism" of his political opponents, but the quotation has been used in many other ways since 1775.
(That year Johnson also wrote that if colonists in America wanted representation in Parliament all they had to do was come back to England and buy an estate to be eligible to vote.)
All of which may be irrelevant to Russia's President Putin and his desire to bring Russians "back… to patriotic feelings."
But, if you judge Putin to be a scoundrel…
Putin calls for wider use of Russian flag and anthem
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tabled [introduced] a bill in parliament for wider use of state symbols such as the flag and national anthem.
He told a meeting of legal academics that their increased use in colleges would help foster patriotism among young Russians in particular…
"The wider use, at least in educational institutions, will contribute to increasing patriotism, especially among the younger generation," Mr Putin said.
"[Watching] the flying of the state flag and listening to the anthem will bring our citizens back... to patriotic feelings."
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Tilting at the big windmill
Bo Xilai's best chance may now be to develop a "medical condition" that requires treatment in the United States.
The reporters missed the significance of the new party's name: the constitutionalism movement in China that argues for real rule of law in the country.
Bo Xilai supporters launch new political party in China
Supporters of China’s disgraced senior politician Bo Xilai, who has been jailed for corruption, have set up a political party, two separate sources said, in a direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party’s de facto ban on new political groups.
The Zhi Xian Party, literally “the constitution is the supreme authority” party, was formed on November 6…
 |
| Bo Xilai |
It named Bo as “chairman for life”, Wang Zheng, one of the party’s founders and an associate professor of international trade at the Beijing Institute of Economics and Management, told Reuters by telephone…
The Communist Party has not allowed any opposition parties to be established since it came to power following the 1949 revolution…
The party was set up because it “fully agrees with Mr Bo Xilai’s common prosperity” policy, according to a party document seen by Reuters, a reference to Bo’s leftist egalitarian policies that won him so many supporters…
Bo, once a rising star in China’s leadership circles who had cultivated a following through his populist, quasi-Maoist policies, was jailed for life in September on charges of corruption and abuse of power…
China’s Communist rulers have held an iron grip on power since the 1949 revolution, though they allow the existence of eight government-sanctioned non-Communist parties, which were founded pre-1949. Technically, their role is to advise rather than serve as a functioning opposition, ostensibly to give a veneer of democracy.
The Communist Party views the founding of opposition parties as subversion…
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Who is to blame?
Why is Amnesty International investigating this? Why not the state or national government? What are the political implications of the answers? Who is going to deal with the problem(s)? Why is there no "Co-ordinated action from the industry, government, security forces, civil society and others"? You don't think there's any corruption involved?
Nigeria oil firms 'deflect blame for spills', says Amnesty
Amnesty International has accused major oil companies, including Shell, of failing to report the true picture of oil spills in Nigeria.
Amnesty says oil companies often blame oil spills on sabotage in order to get out of paying compensation when in fact corroded pipes are the cause…
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| Niger Delta pollution |
Shell said it "firmly rejects unsubstantiated assertions".
It highlighted the issue of theft of crude oil, which it said "remains the main cause of oil pollution in the Delta"…
Working with a local human rights group, Amnesty studied the oil spill investigation process in Nigeria over six months.
It claims there is "no legitimate basis" for the oil companies' claims that the vast majority of spills are caused by sabotage and theft.
Members of the local community together with oil company staff and government officials are supposed to investigate oil spills, but Amnesty calls this Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) process "wholly unreliable" because, it says, the companies themselves are the primary investigators and the process lacks transparency.
It says this means that both the causes and severity of oil spills may therefore be misrecorded, sometimes meaning affected communities miss out on compensation…
Shell said it "firmly rejects" the claims.
"We seek to bring greater transparency and independent oversight to the issue of oil spills, and will continue to find ways to enhance this."
It said the JIV process was a federal process the company could not unilaterally change.
Stolen oil, Shell said, costs Nigeria billions of dollars in lost revenue.
"Co-ordinated action from the industry, government, security forces, civil society and others is needed to end this criminality, which remains the main cause of oil pollution in the Delta today," Shell said…
Advocacy Group Tackles Oil Companies Over Spills
"In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty International attacks the multinational company, Shell, for too quickly attributing oil spills to sabotage and theft by outsiders. It also accused Agip, a subsidiary of Eni, of not properly controlling its activities…
"The report says: 'Shell has claimed that... oil spill investigations are sound when they are not, that sites are cleaned up when they are not, and that the company is transparent when, in reality, it maintains very tight control over every piece of information - deciding what to disclose and what to withhold.'
"In a press release accompanying the report, Amnesty acknowledges Shell has improved its investigations since 2011, but says 'serious flaws remain, including weaknesses in the underlying evidence used to attribute spills to sabotage.'…
"No response was immediately forthcoming from Shell Nigeria, but The Guardian in London reported the company's London office as rejecting what it called 'unsubstantiated assertions that [Shell Nigeria] have exaggerated the impact of crude oil theft and sabotage to distract attention from operational performance.'
Shell said it wanted 'greater transparency and independent oversight' in handling oil spills. It also said it could not unilaterally change the process of investigating spills, which also involved regulatory bodies, Nigeria's ministry of environment, the police, state government and local communities.
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Labels: capacity, corruption, environment, Nigeria, politics
Listen up
There are times when the media deliver to you lots of good information, some of it teachable.
Beginning Saturday, China's top leaders are meeting in Beijing. Decisions made there will guide policy for the next few years. Some Western journalists will hang out in Beijing and others will pour over every word that comes out of China about the meeting.
Watch for the results.
The long weekend: China’s leaders will soon reveal their ambitions for economic reform
RUNNING the world’s biggest country requires sacrifice. For the Communist Party’s top 376 officials on its central committee, the sacrifice includes the occasional weekend. From Saturday November 9th until the following Tuesday, they will gather in Beijing for the third time since Xi Jinping became head of the party nearly a year ago. The “third plenum”, as this meeting will be called, is the new leadership’s chance to lay out its stall on economic reform. In the past similar gatherings have shaken the world…
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| Central Committee on display |
In recent years China’s growth has slowed significantly to under 8%—and were it not for a timely fiscal stimulus would be slower still. Some of the slowdown is inevitable…
Will Mr Xi rise to the occasion?… Perhaps, like aristocrats everywhere, he feels free to break with established practices because it was people like him who established them…
The road map Mr Xi will submit to the third plenum has been months in the making. It draws on the advice of China’s ministries and the wider network of official research institutes and think-tanks…
China’s leaders set great store by gradualism… But gradualism is not the same as inertia. It has been many years since the last big changes. If China’s leaders wait another five or ten years to renew the momentum of reform, the consequences will take more than a long weekend to fix.
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Labels: China, economics, leadership, politics, reform
Anonymous general secretary
What does it mean, politically, when the powerful leader of the world's largest country (in population) is anonymous to one of its citizens?
In Remote Village, China’s Leader Faces Awkward Question: Who Are You?
It must have been a slightly uncomfortable moment for the village official.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, had come to Shibadong village to gauge conditions in a poor corner of Hunan Province. Upon entering the home of a family whose sole electrical appliance was a fluorescent bulb, the most powerful man in China was asked by the 64-year-old matriarch, “What do I call you?,” according to a report from Xinhua, the state-run news agency. It was a polite way of saying, “Who are you?”
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| Hunan Province |
The village official stepped in quickly, telling his constituent, “This is the general secretary.”
Mr. Xi’s focus on… agricultural economics in Xiangxi Prefecture, a region of steep valleys that is dominated by members of the Tujia and Miao ethnic groups, shouldn’t be a surprise… Rural study trips by Chinese officials, and subsequent images of them meeting with the people, are a staple of the official portrayals of Chinese leaders…
Whether in photos with his pants rolled up in a rainstorm or sweating through his shirt while meeting with earthquake victims in Sichuan, state media over the past year have emphasized the idea of Mr. Xi as a man of the people.
His trip to a remote region of Hunan is a reminder that, while China now has nearly 600 million Internet users, there is another half of the country’s population without Internet access. In the case of Shibadong village, there are people without televisions or the means to readily know… just what the country’s leader looks like…
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Labels: China, leadership, political culture
Taxation and responsive government
What is the logical link between taxation and representative government? This most often comes up when discussing
rentier systems. But the same arguments can be had about dependencies like Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Can a government that doesn't depend upon its constituents for income really be representative or legitimate?
Scotland is offered the chance to hold a referendum on independence. Wales now will be given the opportunity for a referendum on taxation. Is devolution being used to create responsive and legitimate government?
Wales offered tax raising powers
The Welsh government will be offered some control over income tax subject to a referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron has said…
At present Wales' devolved administration cannot vary taxes or borrow money, and gets its budget in a grant from the Treasury.
Last November the Silk Commission, set up by the Westminster coalition, said the Welsh government should be responsible for raising some of the money it spends.
It included a recommendation to devolve powers to vary a portion of income tax by 2020, following a referendum.
Mr Cameron said… "Today we are announcing more power for the Welsh people and the Welsh government.
"Power that's about building this country up, power that's about making sure we have real accountable government here in Wales…
"I think it is good for a government to be responsible for raising some of the money it spends… "
"WHAT THIS MEANS" by Brian Meechan BBC Wales Business Correspondent
Having more powers is one thing but, of course, it is how you use them that really matters.
The Welsh government will now be able to borrow money, like other devolved administrations.
Ministers have already indicated that this will fund the M4 relief road around Newport.
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| M4 in dark blue |
Business leaders, including the CBI Wales [CBI is the major business lobbying group in the UK], have welcomed this as a vital improvement that will benefit the economy.
The Federation of Small Businesses disagrees. It says small and micro businesses would benefit more if the expected £1bn that is planned for the M4 was spent on other projects including road improvements across Wales rather than in one area...
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Labels: devolution, legitimacy, representative government, taxation, UK
Worlds colliding
Some reports suggest that there are hundreds of confrontations every year between farmers and Communist Party/government developers who want the land. Few of them are reported by Western media.
Land deal stand-off continues in China village
A stand-off is continuing a tiny hamlet in China's southern Yunnan province following a violent confrontation between villagers and police last week.
A few hundred residents of Guangji are surrounded by police eager to arrest those involved in the clashes.
Forty-four villagers and 27 police were hurt in the clashes, which began when police tried to arrest two villagers.
Wang Zhengrong, 69, and his son, Wang Chunyun are leading the village fight against a land deal.
The villagers are fighting to save their farm land from provincial developers who are building a $3.6bn dollar tourist attraction on the site…
Guangji is a 30-minute drive south of Yunnan's capital, Kunming. Twelve villages shared the farm land that is earmarked for the province's new "Ancient City" project, a vast recreation of traditional Chinese buildings dating back to Yunnan's ancient Dian Kingdom, which began in the 4th Century BC.
The project, which has high-level support from Yunnan's Communist Party leaders, is slated to cover approximately 20,000 acres, say the villagers.
Half of that land has already been claimed by the project's developers. The people in Guangji are fighting to protect 4000 acres of land that lies closest to their homes, while nearby villages are pitching in to try to save the rest. They too, have seen their share of violent confrontations with the authorities in recent months…
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Labels: China, economics, politics, violence
Inspiration for United Russia's youth groups?
A research topic: similarities between
NASHI (and its successor) and
Komsomol.
Putin recalls ‘romantic years’ of Soviet youth
The Soviet Union may be long gone but President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy, has revealed that he retains fond memories of the Communist Party’s youth wing.
Putin spoke on the eve of the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Komsomol, the youth division of the Communist Party…
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| Komsomol poster |
The Russian strongman waxed nostalgic, saying memories of one’s Komsomol youth united people from all walks of life, from scientists and public figures to artists and war veterans.
“Because Komsomol is not only politics, it’s true friendship and love, student years and the romanticism of new roads, common goals and dreams and the most important — being part of the fate of your homeland,” he said on Monday…
Membership in the organisation was considered a stepping stone to top jobs, and several generations wore red Komsomol pins featuring Lenin’s profile as a badge of honour…
Putin expressed hope that modern youth groups would find the “time-tested [Komsomol] traditions” useful in their work…
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Labels: history, leadership, parties, politics, Russia
Mexican government failures once again on display
Last spring, groups of Mexican civilians
made news fighting back against drug gangs. The incidents exposed the failures or lack of capacity of the government to provide adequate public safety. (Of course, it's always possible that rival gangs armed and organized people to take on rivals. With decent public relations planning, that could look like spontaneous citizen uprising.)
Well, citizen efforts are in the news again. What does that say about government capacity? legitimacy? and rule of law?
Mexican vigilantes take on drug cartels - and worry authorities: Militias spring up across Mexico to defend communities but authorities fear 'rebel force' and an 'undeclared civil war'
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| Tixtla |
With their scuffed shoes, baggy trousers and single shot hunting guns, the eight men preparing to patrol their hillside barrio in the southern Mexican town of Tixtla hardly looked like a disciplined military force. But this motley collection of construction workers and shopkeepers claim to have protected their community from Mexico's violent drug cartels in a way the police and military have been unable – or unwilling – to do.
"Since we got organised, the hit men don't dare come in here," said one young member of the group, which had gathered at dusk on the town's basketball court, before heading out on patrol…
Over the past year, vigilante groups like this have sprung up in towns and villages across Mexico, especially in the Pacific coast states of Guerrero and Michoacán. They make no pretence to be interrupting drug trafficking itself but they do claim to have restored a degree of tranquillity to daily life.
In a country where the police are commonly felt to commit more crime than they prevent, the militias have won significant popular support, but they have also prompted fears that the appearance of more armed groups can only provoke more violence…
Rubén Figueroa, a Guerrero state deputy who heads the local legislature's security commission is one of the few politicians who openly expresses these fears. "I have reliable information that some of these [vigilante] groups have been infiltrated by subversives.
"They are trying to take advantage of the power vacuums that exist in isolated areas."
The vigilantes deny any such links but, whether true or not, they appear to distrust the army almost as much as the cartels. That hardly bodes well for the government's efforts to bring the Guerrero self-defence groups under control…
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Labels: capacity, legitimacy, Mexico, rule of law, violence
