Editor's protest
To outsiders, the resignation of an editor over content restrictions might not seem unusual. In China, a voluntary resignation is nearly unheard of.
Editor Says He Is Resigning Over Media Controls in China
An editor at a prominent Chinese newspaper said he was stepping down from his job because he could no longer withstand the pressures of strict control of the country’s media, according to a resignation note posted online.
The announcement follows increasing emphasis by Chinese leaders on control of the media…
The resigning journalist, Yu Shaolei, has worked at Southern Metropolis Daily, a newspaper based in the southern city of Guangzhou, since 2000, and most recently he served as editor of the culture department…
Mr. Yu’s post included a short explanation of his decision. China Digital Times, a website affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, gave this translation of the message:
“This spring, let’s make a clean break. I’m getting old; after bowing for so long, I can’t stand it anymore. I want to see if I can adopt a new posture. To the person responsible for monitoring my Weibo and notifying his superiors about what I should be made to delete: You can heave a sigh of relief. Sorry for the stress I’ve caused you these last few years, and I sincerely hope your career can take a new direction. And to those friends who care about me, I won’t even say goodbye, Southern Media Group.”
The Southern Media Group, also called the Nanfang Media Group, is the parent company for some of the country’s most aggressive publications. But those outlets have increasingly been restrained and muzzled…
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Labels: censorship, China, journalism, politics
Corruption in Nigeria's military
Decades of military rule and the election of retired military officers means that government and the military are very integrated. Recent reports from Abuja indicate that the military and corruption are tied together as well.
Nigeria indicts firms over arms fraud contracts
Nigeria has indicted more than 300 local and foreign companies and individuals, including senior military officers, over an arms scandal.
They are accused of defrauding the country of $241m (£170m) in fake contracts, a government statement says.
President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a probe last year after funds meant to buy weapons to fight Boko Haram militants were allegedly diverted.
More than $35m has been recovered in the investigation so far…
The investigation was done by a special committee appointed President Buhari, who came to office in May partly on a promise to clamp down on corruption.
The committee found that contracts were awarded "without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed", the statement says…
This is the first time such a detailed report has been made public and the fact that both serving and retired military officers have been indicted appears to show the president's commitment to rooting out endemic corruption that has stagnated the development of Africa's largest economy and oil producer…
Many Nigerians will welcome the news that the government is not only uncovering who allegedly looted funds but has also started recovering some of it.
Under the previous government, some soldiers complained that despite the military's huge budget, they were ill-equipped to fight Boko Haram…
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Labels: corruption, military, Nigeria
Executive power and corruption
Nigeria's President Buhari has promised to end corruption. But the corruption surrounding petroleum, oil, and gasoline might be bigger than the executive power Buhari holds.
Buhari's battle to clean up Nigeria's oil industry
The revelation by Nigeria's auditor general that $16bn (£11bn) of oil revenue went missing in 2014 has emphasised the scale of the task facing President Muhammadu Buhari in his efforts to clean up the oil sector…
There are many ways of illegally tapping oil revenues, and crime in the oil sector is easily the second biggest industry in the country after oil production…
The state oil company is involved in oil production but also regulates the sector and handles government oil revenues, creating conflicts of interest and opportunities for theft.
Last May, Mr Buhari chose Emmanuel Kachikwu [the former executive vice-chairman at ExxonMobil Africa] as the man to sort it out…
Now as NNPC group managing director and junior oil minister he has replaced the heads of all eight of the firm's divisions and said the corporation's monthly losses have been reduced to $15m (£11m)…
 |
| Refinery for "bunkered" oil |
Oil theft - or bunkering as it is known in Nigeria - grew out of protests against the lack of benefit that people form the Delta were getting from oil production. They saw little investment and received few skilled jobs but experienced water, soil and land pollution.
Estimates vary, but bunkerers now take about 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day…
As a president from the north, Mr Buhari will find calming the southern Delta region almost impossible in this divided country, particularly as some security and political officials have been accused of being involved in bunkering…
Some of the least reported but most lucrative forms of crime in the oil industry revolve around fuel imports.
Although Nigeria is an important crude oil exporter, it imports most of its refined petroleum products and there are many ways to exploit the subsidies paid on these shipments…
The entire fuel distribution and refining sector will have to be rebuilt from the ground up, if Mr Buhari is to end the corruption and theft.
A good method of judging his success will be if the NNPC's four refineries are brought back into full use or replaced.
Most fuel imports are only necessary because all four have been out of use or operated intermittently for many years, generating a lot of money for those behind the scams.
The enormity of the task makes it unlikely that the president will manage to tackle all forms of crime in the oil sector, even if he serves two four-year terms of office.
Given Nigeria's track record, he would do well to win the battle on even one front.
But his tough reputation on corruption means the chances of success are greater than they have been for many years.
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Labels: corruption, leadership, Nigeria, politics
Rentier states
Adam Davidson begins by trying to explain Donald Trump's understanding of economics, but goes on to explain
rentier states and why they are prone to corruption and authoritarianism. Your judicious editing might make this good for understanding Iran, Russia, or Nigeria (or maybe even Mexico and Iran).
What Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand About ‘the Deal’
Donald Trump loves the word ‘‘deal.’’… His view of trade with China is summarized in this quotation from his speech announcing his candidacy for president: ‘‘When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.’’…
I have spent much of the past few months trying to make sense of Trump’s policy proposals… Any serious economic proposal to ‘‘make America great again’’ would surely mention education, fiscal policy, entrepreneurship and trade with the entire world, not just China — issues he makes little or no reference to.
In Microeconomics 101, deals are an afterthought: Transactions have the most socially optimal outcome when buyer and seller reach a mutually beneficial agreement. The very idea of a ‘‘good’’ deal for one party and a ‘‘bad’’ deal for another suggests a suboptimal outcome; an economy built on tough deal-making, with clear winners and losers, will always be a poorer one. Meanwhile, in macroeconomics — which covers the big, broad issues that a president typically worries about — the concept of the ‘‘deal’’ hardly exists at all. The key issues at play in a national or global economy (inflation, currency-exchange rates, unemployment, overall growth) are impossible to control through any sort of deal. They reflect underlying structural forces in an economy, like the level of education and skill of the population, the productivity of companies, the amount of government spending and the actions of the central bank…
But I’ve come to see [Trump] as a canny spokesman for a different sort of economy, one that often goes by the technical name ‘‘rent seeking.’’ In economics, a ‘‘rent’’ is money you make because you control something scarce and desirable, whether it’s an oil field or a monopolistic position in a market…
I learned a great deal about rentier economies, as they’re sometimes known, when I spent a year in Baghdad, covering the American occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2004. I met many of Iraq’s leading businesspeople, and they always talked about ‘‘deals.’’ As one explained to me, there would be some business opportunity — building a hospital, say, or getting a license to import a new line of cars — and Saddam Hussein’s family would essentially auction off the opportunity to the handful of wealthy businesspeople whom they deemed trustworthy. Success came not from being better at building hospitals or more efficient at importing cars. It came from understanding the internal family politics of the Husseins and the power of the state bureaucracy…
Many economists and political scientists now think that the United States economy has shifted, over the past few decades, toward one in which a higher proportion of the economy comes from so-called rents… The left, right and center of the economics profession all agree that reducing rent-seeking behavior, and improving overall growth, is essential if we want to ‘‘make America great again.’’…
In a rentier state, every ambitious person knows that the way to become rich and powerful is to grab the sources of wealth and hold onto them, by force if necessary. It’s no accident that, around the world, rentier states tend to be run by unelected dictators — the ultimate dealmakers in chief.
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Labels: concepts, rentier economy
Chinese critique of democracy
It should be obvious that Chinese leaders prefer democratic centralism to democracy. Here's an official explanation.
Trump opens Pandora’s box in US
Fist fights among voters who have different political orientations is quite common in developing countries during election seasons. Now, a similar show is shockingly staged in the US, which boasts one of the most developed and mature democratic election systems…
Trump's rise was not anticipated by most analysts and observers. At the beginning of the election, Trump, a rich, narcissist and inflammatory candidate, was only treated as an underdog. His job was basically to act as a clown to attract more voters' attention to the GOP. However, knocking down most other promising candidates, the clown is now the biggest dark horse.
Trump is the last option for the GOP establishment…
The rise of Trump has opened a Pandora's box in US society…
Despite candidates' promises, Americans know elections cannot really change their lives. Then, why not support Trump and vent their spleen?
The rise of a racist in the US political arena worries the whole world. Usually, the tempo of the evolution of US politics can be predicted, while Trump's ascent indicates all possibilities and unpredictability. He has even been called another Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler by some Western media.
Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections, a heavy lesson for Western democracy. Now, most analysts believe the US election system will stop Trump from being president eventually. The process will be scary but not dangerous.
Even if Trump is simply a false alarm, the impact has already left a dent. The US faces the prospect of an institutional failure, which might be triggered by a growing mass of real-life problems.
The US had better watch itself for not being a source of destructive forces against world peace, more than pointing fingers at other countries for their so-called nationalism and tyranny.
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Labels: China, concepts, democracy, democratic centralism
More on women's roles in Nigeria
How is the rejection of the Nigerian bill different from the rejection, in the USA, of the
Equal Rights Amendment?
Most of the opposition to this bill came from northern Senators who are Muslim.
Senate Rejects Bill to Boost Women Status
The Senate… has rejected a bill seeking to empower and boost women status politically and economically, as well as guarantee their equal opportunities with men in diverse human endeavours.
Those who opposed the bill argued that most of its provisions were in conflict with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria…
The bill, sponsored by the Senate Minority Whip, Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South)… which was scheduled to pass second reading, initially received the support of some senators but suddenly suffered a setback and finally died on the floor of the Chamber as the debate progressed…
However, a former Governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed Sani, vehemently kicked against the proposal, saying that most of its provisions contradict the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria…
Emmanuel Bwacha… said that the bill, if allowed to pass into law, would work against morality in the society, as women would take advantage of the provisions to indulge in unhindered freedom that would worsen the rate of moral decadence in the polity.
When the President of the Senate put the bill to voice vote, those who rejected the document overwhelmed those in support and the initiative died.
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Voting results from China's legislature
Fewer "no" votes this year than last.
Delegates Endorse China’s 5-Year Plan
Not long after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, a line of buses roared onto cordoned-off Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing to drop off hundreds of delegates to the National People’s Congress. They walked quickly to the granite-pillared Great Hall of the People on the west side of the square for the final meeting of this year’s session.
Inside, for about an hour, they voted on some of the most important government measures this year, approving all by large majorities. As the delegates silently pressed buttons, the results flashed on large blue screens in the huge red-and-gold hall…
The votes included:
- The 13th Five-Year-Plan, the first formulated under Mr. Xi. The result: 2,778 for, 53 against, 25 abstentions.
- The annual government budget: 2,467 for, 299 against, 90 abstentions.
- The Supreme People’s Court report: 2,600 for, 208 against, 46 abstentions.
- A law regulating charitable organizations and fund-raising: 2,636 for, 131 against, 83 abstentions.
“Pretty much what I expected. Kind of the same as last year,” said Cao Jingxing, a commentator for Phoenix TV, based in Hong Kong…
The “yes” votes for crucial reports on Wednesday were similar to or higher than in recent years…
[One] reason for the high level of uniformity. Free speech at this legislative session has been crimped, some delegates say, as Mr. Xi continues to consolidate his power and assert the Communist Party’s hold over the news media…
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Labels: China, legislature, politics
Women in government
A competition in Britain received a series of photoshopped political images showing only the women. Want to see the results?
The numbers of women in legislatures you're studying are available — often at the official web sites.
What are the implications for policy? for legitimacy? for politics?
Artist Photoshops Men Out of Political Images to Prove We Still Need Feminism
 |
| House of Commons |
 |
| Women in Commons |
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Labels: cleavages, gender, legislature, politics
What women in urban, northern Nigeria face
Those of us without first-hand experience probably wonder at women's inactivity in politics, business, and society in places like the northern Nigerian states. The life of Balaraba Ramat Yakubu, while extraordinary, might give us outsiders some clues.
From illiterate child bride to famous Nigerian novelist
She was taken out of primary school at the age of 12 to marry a man in his 40s whom she had never met before…
Today, that illiterate girl… has become one of northern Nigeria's most well-known writers and the first female Hausa-language author to be translated into English…
Yakubu used this traumatic experience [of her first marriage] in her novel Wa Zai Auri Jahila? (Who Would Marry an Ignorant Woman?), published in 1990… [as] a statement against child marriage as well as a plea for girls' education…
Her popularity did not come overnight. After she published her first novel… religious leaders would preach against her, and she would receive threatening letters denouncing her…
As a female Hausa writer, Yakubu is seen as one of the pioneers of the "soyayya" genre. These romance novels (soyayya means love) written by northern Nigerian women, have become very popular among female readers in that part of the country. At every market in Kano, stalls sell these books and female customers - from veiled schoolgirls to grandmothers - can be seen browsing through the books…
Nowadays, soyayya stories are even broadcast on radio, giving the female authors an almost star-like status in communities where women traditionally don't play significant public roles.
 |
| Balaraba Ramat Yakubu |
Her own struggle to regain control over her life and claim her voice as a woman has made Yakubu an outspoken advocate of women's rights. She sees northern women claiming more and more public territory. At one time, she was the only female writer in Kano; now, the local association for women authors… counts more than 200 members.
And she can name many more examples like that. "These days, we have women in politics, business and the military. We even have female pilots. To the West, it might not seem like much. But to women here, it is progress."
With the enrollment of girls in schools and universities on the rise, she is optimistic that the position of women will improve. The next generation of women will continue the struggle more effectively, she thinks…
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Labels: gender, Nigeria, political culture, women
Illustration of basic principles
Could this be the beginning of an FRQ? About collective responsibility? about
noblesse oblige? about fiscal policy? about Brexit?
Prominent Tory Quits British Cabinet Over Welfare Cuts
A former leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned from the cabinet on Friday over proposed cuts to welfare payments…
Mr. Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said in a statement that he was quitting over planned changes in benefits for disabled people that were announced… by the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
Mr. Duncan Smith’s departure underscores the deep tensions within the government before a referendum scheduled for June 23 on whether Britain should leave the European Union…
Mr. Duncan Smith is one of several cabinet ministers who want the country to quit the union.
“I have for some time and rather reluctantly come to believe that the latest changes to benefits to the disabled… are a compromise too far,” Mr. Duncan Smith said in a resignation letter.
He added that while such reductions were “defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a budget that benefits higher-earning taxpayers.” …
Though the government insisted that overall spending on disability benefits would grow, the changes outlined Wednesday suggested an eventual savings of more than 4 billion pounds… At the same time, Mr. Osborne outlined plans to reduce corporate taxes and the capital gains tax…
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Labels: collective responsibility, fiscal policy, noblesse oblige, UK
Analysis of Chinese politics
Yesterday's blog post featured
The Guardian (UK) article about some resistance to political censorship in China. Today, Chris Buckley, writing in
The New York Times offers more details and more analysis.
Tempest in a teapot? China is a huge teapot and this is a little tempest, but we won't know much until much later.
Chinese Tycoon Criticizes Leader, and Wins Surprising Support
When a sharp-tongued real estate tycoon publicly derided President Xi Jinping’s demand for unstinting loyalty to the Communist Party from the Chinese news media, the party’s response was predictably swift and harsh.
 |
| Ren Zhiqiang |
His microblogs, which had tens of millions of followers, were erased overnight. Party websites unleashed an onslaught, calling the tycoon, Ren Zhiqiang, a capitalist traitor in language reminiscent of the Mao-era purges. The authorities vowed further punishment.
What happened next, however, was a startling departure from the standard script.
Journalists, scholars and party insiders came forward to defend Mr. Ren. A professor at the party’s top academy spoke up. A prominent magazine rebuked censors. A letter supporting him signed by a staff member at the state news agency spread online. A party newspaper warned about the risks of crushing all dissent.
The unexpected backlash sent a shiver through the political landscape here, exposing deepening unease about the adulatory promotion of Mr. Xi and his demands for unquestioning public obedience…
Until these remarks, Mr. Ren, 65, had seemed to be at least partly protected by his elite status in the Communist Party as… a friend of the party’s powerful anticorruption chief, Wang Qishan… Mr. Wang was Mr. Ren’s political instructor in junior high school…
Several of Ren's defenders said the episode had crystallized their fears that the exaltation of Mr. Xi and severe treatment of even mild dissent threatened to curtail the already limited room for debate. Some said that Mr. Ren’s vilification carried worrisome echoes of the “mass criticism” of the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966...
The controversy does not suggest that Mr. Xi’s control is in danger; he remains powerful and popular with many Chinese people, who have welcomed his drive against graft…
Mr. Ren’s connection with Mr. Wang has kindled speculation that the case is a sign of a higher-level power play. Was Mr. Wang sending a signal to Mr. Xi? Could the cracks of dissent exposed by Mr. Ren point to more destabilizing internal rifts?
No one outside the party’s inner circle knows, but if officials have held back from punishing Mr. Ren, his connections may explain why…
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Labels: censorship, China, Communist Party, leadership, politics
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
