John Quiggin welcomes the agreement to commence power-sharing talks in Zimbabwe, though there’s obviously still some scepticism about. Crikey has a very useful links page to comments from Zimbabwean blogs.
Archive for the 'Developing world' Category
The government’s green paper on the ETS postpones discussion on actual emissions targets, and says nothing about the government’s negotiating position on a post-Kyoto agreement. While Garnaut’s draft report has similarly postponed discussion of domestic targets, he does have a fair bit to say about how targets might be allocated amongst nations in such an agreement, and how those targets might be structured in a way that actually drags the the big developing countries in.
According to Chapter 12, the world has essentially decided on a path where each participating nation will have targets allocated to it. Nations unable to meet their target will be able to buy permits from nations that go under theirs. But the key question is, of course, how these targets should be set, whether all nations should face the same form of targets, and what form of carrots and sticks would apply to encourage countries to meet the targets.
It’s been ages since we’ve done a competition. I’ll donate $300 for the best entry in a microfiction comp to Medecins Sans Frontieres. The idea is to write a story in 300 words or less. Must be prose. No haikus! The theme is “The Postmodern Pirate Queen”. In your story, you must include the phrases “peg leg” and “time streams”. Steampunk is a suggested but not compulsory genre. That’s all!
Suggestions on judging and criteria solicited. And matching donations encouraged! You have til midnight on Saturday.
It sounds like some dumb reality tv show, doesn’t it? But we all know who didn’t get voted out of the house.
As almost everyone in the world knows, it’s election year in America.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (don’t ask, you already know the answer!) might be in trouble. Iraq might be - kinda, sorta - an election issue. But if - like me - you’re following the American Election via either the blogosphere or (oh noes!) the MSM, you’d notice a huge disconnect between how big an issue climate change is here, and how totally miniscule it is in the U S of A.
I hope Al Gore might have something to say at the Democratic Convention.
But that might not occur. And even if it does, and that and all the Arnie stuff aside, it’s going to be pretty much a side issue. Lord only knows what we can do, but those of us who, like me, are Democrats Overseas, might consider a bit of lobbying. But we might think as well about remembering that climate change is a global issue, and trying to get the Australian government to use whatever leverage it has to get it treated as such. Continue reading ‘The World’s Top Emitter’
Although he tried to put the best face on it, Malcolm Turnbull could barely paper over the cracks in the Liberal Party’s stance on an emissions trading scheme on Lateline tonight. Turnbull states that the Liberals are maintaining their policy position prior to the 2007 election - the introduction of an ETS by 2012 at the latest, and no intention of tying its introduction to any commitments by developing countries. His former leader, John Howard, appeared to be happily trashing what he avowed last year, gleefully reliving the days of non-core promises, and the current leader, Brendan Nelson, has tied himself up in complete gobbledygook but left the strong impression that he opposes an ETS until after international agreement is reached.
In Crikey today, Bernard Keane characterises the Liberal shenanigans as a tussle between Greg Hunt and Malcolm Turnbull on one hand and denialist-in-chief and hard rightist Nick Minchin on the other.
Hunt, while resisting the opportunity to comment on what other shadow ministers have been saying, also stressed that he and Malcolm Turnbull are running the Coalition’s ETS policy. Yes, he admitted, Nick Minchin — who appears to have licence to comment on any issue that takes his fancy – has a different view on climate change and an ETS. But it’s his and Malcolm’s show, and they’re both absolutely committed to addressing the historical challenge of climate change, through an ETS and supporting measures such as energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies.
Peter Murphy from the Zimbabwe Information Centre writes:
Opening Remarks
This story of Zimbabwe and its political, economic and social turmoil is really a story about how women are trying to have their human right to a say in their society, about how the people want to help those millions who have HIV, about how the trade unions want to develop a prosperous, peaceful and just society, about how the professional classes want to create a way of governing that is straightforward, fair and works.
It is a story for the whole of Africa, and that is why all of Africa and in particular South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana are part of this story.
As I write the people of Zimbabwe are being called out to a one-horse election that they don’t want, because it has already been drowned in blood, violence and cheating.
Between the March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections and today, almost 100 activists from the Movement for Democratic Change have been murdered, often in the most terrible way, over 3,000 have been very badly injured through torture, and now about 100,000 have been internally displaced because their homes and property have been looted or completely destroyed.
Zimbabwe now faces a chaotic regime collapse, with perhaps a minimal role for the international community in the immediate crisis.
Continue reading ‘Guest post by Peter Murphy - Zimbabwe: Despotism or Democracy?’
Yeah, you might have noticed already. I’m in a Truthiness mood tonight, as Stephen Colbert might say. Remember all the loud denunciations I copped from Harry Clarke, Tim Blair et al et al etc. - all the feminists of total convenience - for not denouncing the female genital mutilation loudly enough? Coz it’s all about teh Islam and threats to Western Civ, etc., and that mob are all on the side of women’s rights, and that manly man of steel John Howard is taking us to war to free Afghani women from burqas. And George W. Bush is going to hunt those Al-Qaeda evildoers down. (And Islam is not a race, and some of my best friends… oops, hang on?) While Laura and Condi look after the oppressed women. Or something… Oh yeah, it isn’t 2003 any more… Remember that word fistula - you might not have read that on teh Blair blog - being a word of three syllables and all. And in Latin.
But I talked about it at the time. Now that Pamela Bone is dead (and God rest her soul, may she be blessed with eternal rest, and may perpetual light shine upon her), where are the voices with the loud condemn? What’s with that Australian crusade for women’s rights in benighted Islamic Middle Eastern countries? After all, we - Dolly Downer and John Howard and Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt and Planet Janet told us so - are all (post?) feminists now. It’s on the citizenship test, dude - and dudette a la 50s pinup style no doubt. (Ps - don’t use that politically correct, activist judge f-word though…)
Well, never mind. Here’s a post from The Global Sociology Blog for the benefit of anyone who wanted to continue highlighting the horrors perpetrated on women in the developing world even if there’s not a convenient culture wars damn the left angle in it. (And that’s not to say that women in the developed world don’t still cop a lot - but there’s something to celebrate about a very large majority of Australians agreeing - at least in theory when asked by pollsters - that women have rights over their own choices and bodies - even if that masks continued gender inequality in oh, so many ways…).
You can donate to Medicins San Frontieres here.
And you might be interested in the fact that rape has finally been recognised by the UN as a war crime, something I wrote about last year, but something the keyboard warriors seem to… well, gloss over is far too kind. Because the fact that women are overwhelmingly the victims of war seems to be recognised neither by the pro-war Right nor the “humanitarian intervention” so-called Left. Continue reading ‘Now that Pamela Bone is dead…’
There’s some fantastic coverage of the current situation in Zimbabwe in the lead up to the runoff Presidential election at the New Statesman this week - this link takes you through to all the articles.
Much as I like the bloke, the headline on one of several op/eds Paul Keating has in the papers today criticising Kevin Rudd’s Asian Union idea says it all really - “I got it right the first time”.
I found it interesting this week to see what some of my students in Political Communication at QUT - doing group presentations on political leadership and campaigns - made of PJK. Most of them were very young indeed when Paul Keating was PM, and landmarks such as his Redfern Speech, or for that matter, the famous hand on the Queen incident aren’t present in their recollection. Researching Keating from scratch, as it were, you turn up lots of stuff about his colourful rhetoric, but seemingly, you also come to the conclusion that the man isn’t happy with his place in history - which I think is probably right.
When I was thinking about this, I decided that his criticism of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd’s advisors last year probably related to this - because of his great hatred of John Howard, he was worried that Labor wouldn’t get over the line when Howard’s defeat looked so likely, and speculating in his mind how he might have fought such a campaign.
I’m still a little suspicious that PJK might have, in one way or another, contributed to the spate of criticism of Kevin Rudd early this week on the grounds of supposed policy drift. Continue reading ‘Keating v. Rudd’
Surely the bedrock responsibility of any state is to protect its citizens in the case of natural disaster. The bungling and incompetence shown in New Orleans was the lever for Bush’s free fall in the opinion polls. Far graver is the appalling regime in Burma, which has never shown any interest in doing so, and which held an absurd constitutional referendum to entrench itself in power and ban Aung San Suu Kyi from ever holding office even as many of its citizens were being devastated and killed by Cyclone Nargis and its aftermath. Its military is more interested in oppressing ethnic minorities than in disaster relief, and attempts at aid are failing because of the regime’s strict insistence on its border security and sovereignty.
Interestingly, there have been calls for humanitarian intervention from French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, from dissident Burmese media and Gareth Evans. The legal basis for such calls is disputed, although it may have legitimacy from the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine adopted by the UN in 2005. [The case for the invocation of this doctrine is discussed here.] But, while lip service is being paid to their own responsibility by the “international community”, will anything happen?
Offending national sovereignty is apparently fine when it involves oil, opium, Islam or a macho yearning to boast “regime change”. It is not to be contemplated when it is just a matter of saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
The exact magnitude of the effects of Cyclone Nargis on the people of Bruma remain unclear, and will likely be so for some time. But what we do know already is it’s the biggest natural disaster in the region since the Boxing Day tsunami, and without sufficient and timely aid it will get far worse.
In the aftermath of that earlier disaster, the blogosphere did its bit to help out, notably through the efforts of the good Professor Quiggin, who matched his readers’ donations one-for-one, raising nearly $5000. This time around, Club Troppo and the Professor are trying their hand again:
He is doing the same thing again, this time in collaboration with Club Troppo. We are hoping to persuade readers to give generously in the knowledge that every dollar of disposable income sacrificed translates to nearly four dollars of aid. John will donate fifty cents for every dollar pledged in the comments threads for this post, the comments thread for the twin post at his own site, or by email to John or me. Club Troppo contributors will put in another fifty cents.
Go over to Troppo to find out how to donate. I’m going to put in $100. How about you?
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has finally released the results of the Presidential election - 47.8% for Morgan Tsvangirai and 43.2% for Robert Mugabe. I’m not sure whether the fact that the parliamentary recounts failed to dislodge the MDC majority in Parliament is a sign that this count is an accurate one, but it seems to tally with what most independent observers were reporting - the MDC claims 50.3%. There are multiple reports of intimidation and violence against Opposition sources since the election way back in March, and it would seem that the delay represents a decision within ZANU-PF for Mugabe to stay on and a failure of the informal diplomatic talks to produce a result where Mugabe accepted the result. What happens now? The MDC have stated repeatedly they will refuse to participate in a runoff election. Nor can I see them agreeing to a power-sharing deal where Mugabe remains President. Scary times ahead.
The grandiosely professioned “author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer”, Hal Colebatch, aka Quadrant contributor and freelance culture warrior, has the ultimate reductive explanation for the tragic situation in Zimbabwe - it was all Malcolm Fraser’s fault, and he should fix it. I’m sure Fraser - if he felt that he had any influence on Mugabe - would exercise it of his own accord, but the article really isn’t about a solution to the impasse which sees Zimbabwe on a most troubling precipice. Rather, Colebatch is playing one of the favoured games of the culture warrior - take advantage of atrocity to pin the blame on your domestic political opponents. It’s a habit they just can’t break. It appears to stem from some sort of Cold War nostalgia. Unable any more to tar even the most centrist of lefties with the communist brush, they (and we) stand condemned before the bar of history’s judgement for Stalin and Saddam (and in the whackier reaches of the right, Hitler as well - National Socialist, don’t you know?).
Leaving aside the fact that apparently African tyrants have no agency, and are pawns manipulated by liberal graziers from Victoria, there’s at least one big furphy in Colebatch’s article:
First it was oil. Now it’s food, and the people of the developing world are, as usual, copping the worst of it:
Basic access to food is slipping out of reach for many people in developing countries. The cost of the rice has risen by more than three-quarters in two months and the price of wheat has more than doubled in the same time.
The desperation in dozens of countries has turned deadly of late. In the past week alone there have been violent, food-related riots in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cameroon.
While there are short term factors pushing up food prices - amongst them, the drought in south-eastern Australia - there are also long-term factors pushing the price up, some not easily fixable, and some that are. Continue reading ‘The food crisis’
The New York Times’ environmental blog, Dot Earth, has the story
The troubling tension between propelling prosperity and limiting climate risks in a world still wedded to fossil fuels is on full display this week. India’s Tata Power group just gained important financial backing from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, for its planned $4 billion, 4-billion watt “Ultra Mega” coal-burning power plant complex in Gujarat state.
While it might be tempting to decry this development (and I’m very, very tempted), the alternatives aren’t exactly cheery either. This plant might be huge, but they’re at least built with state-of-the-art coal technology, which is substantially more efficient than the alternatives. And the global abstract concerns of climate change are brought into perspective when you realize (As pointed out in their comments thread) hundreds of thousands of Indians die every year from pollution - the pollution of the air in their house from cooking fires. And while we all might like this to be made redundant by solar panels or windmills, the more likely alternatives are millions of petroleum-fuelled small generators, or dozens of small, inefficient, and even more polluting smaller coal-fired plants. Or nukes - if they could get the uranium from somewhere…
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