It's true, it is now January 1st 2011. Or to put it another way;
1/1/11.
Now before my massive cold and I celebrate this fact by going to bed I've just got a quick question for the Brits. Will it be the beginning of 2012 or the end of 2012 before you accept that you've failed miserably and need to try a new path?
I only ask because I'm trying to work out your final bill.
Friday, 31 December 2010
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Oh Dear, the council bastards are on the march.
Just stepped out the back of my house and some little shit has torn down all the (wire) fencing that keeps all the foxes out of their natural home. The other neighbour who built this giant lateral shed did so without planning permission and now the usual suspects dog is getting all upset. While this should never be entered into evidence I think Croydon council have just realised the the Belgian/Wallington dog murder was a turf war that they started.
Yep it's 23:09 and while you can stay with me until it gets white phos I don't think it's going to get any better.
Yep it's 23:09 and while you can stay with me until it gets white phos I don't think it's going to get any better.
Fuck You Canada!
For some inexplicable reason yesterday I decided to start watching that copy of V: The New Series my brother gave me on my birthday and it turns out I'm not the one that needs to apologise. My second mistake was to decide to have a day off the booze. As this means my blood can no longer be used as an effective anti-septic so I've now got a bit of a sore throat. And not even the mild fever makes it any better.
So seeing as how my Christmas is now ruined I may as well share the hate;
Kara Tointon is a 27 year old Essex girl who starred in cheapo BBC soap opera "Eastenders." After leaving the role of Dawn Swann in 2009 she struggled to find another acting job. During this time of personal weakness she was approached by people from the Wellcome Trust who managed to convince her that rather then being due to limited acting talent her inability to find work was due to her dyslexia preventing her from learning scripts. She then spent the next three months being poked, prodded, brain scanned and tested by those nice people at the Wellcome trust while a camera crew followed her round, Katie Price style, for a documentary called "Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid" which was shown on BBC3 and therefore watched by no-one.
After helping to prove that while dyslexia doesn't make you thick thick people can indeed suffer from it Ms Tointon was rewarded with a place on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. This is the show that spawned Dancing with the Stars and involves taking celebrities with no experience and training them in ballroom dancing. At the start of the show Kara Tointon was introduced to her government issue husband in the form of her dance partner, Artem Chigvintsev and subjected to the form of physical training that would provide a mountain of data on the possible link between dyslexia and dyspraxia, both of which are considered autism spectrum disorders.
In order to provide further positive re-enforcement Kara Tointon went on to be crowned winner of Strictly Come Dancing 2010 and sadly thinks she's going to be a big star in 2011. While she will get some work because the idea is to hold her up a shining example to enforce the belief in the British public that if they're good little slaves their masters will reward them the plan is that the new husband will be able to shut her up by around September.
Strictly did a similar thing a few years back with alleged pop star, Alesha Dixon who, incidentally, must now be really starting to worry about her seat on the judging panel.
Oh and don't even get me started on N-Dubz. Apparently for their next album they're going to team up with Kaite B to re-record the soundtrack to My Fair Lady.
So seeing as how my Christmas is now ruined I may as well share the hate;
Kara Tointon is a 27 year old Essex girl who starred in cheapo BBC soap opera "Eastenders." After leaving the role of Dawn Swann in 2009 she struggled to find another acting job. During this time of personal weakness she was approached by people from the Wellcome Trust who managed to convince her that rather then being due to limited acting talent her inability to find work was due to her dyslexia preventing her from learning scripts. She then spent the next three months being poked, prodded, brain scanned and tested by those nice people at the Wellcome trust while a camera crew followed her round, Katie Price style, for a documentary called "Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid" which was shown on BBC3 and therefore watched by no-one.
After helping to prove that while dyslexia doesn't make you thick thick people can indeed suffer from it Ms Tointon was rewarded with a place on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. This is the show that spawned Dancing with the Stars and involves taking celebrities with no experience and training them in ballroom dancing. At the start of the show Kara Tointon was introduced to her government issue husband in the form of her dance partner, Artem Chigvintsev and subjected to the form of physical training that would provide a mountain of data on the possible link between dyslexia and dyspraxia, both of which are considered autism spectrum disorders.
In order to provide further positive re-enforcement Kara Tointon went on to be crowned winner of Strictly Come Dancing 2010 and sadly thinks she's going to be a big star in 2011. While she will get some work because the idea is to hold her up a shining example to enforce the belief in the British public that if they're good little slaves their masters will reward them the plan is that the new husband will be able to shut her up by around September.
Strictly did a similar thing a few years back with alleged pop star, Alesha Dixon who, incidentally, must now be really starting to worry about her seat on the judging panel.
Oh and don't even get me started on N-Dubz. Apparently for their next album they're going to team up with Kaite B to re-record the soundtrack to My Fair Lady.
Northern Ireland Water Crisis
After a period of very cold temperatures for the region the big thaw started in Northern Ireland around December 20th bringing with it burst pipes and drained reservoirs. This is a problem that's actually been affecting other parts of the UK including Wales, Northwest England and even London but is at its worst in Northern Ireland where tens of thousands of homes have been without running, mains water for up to eleven days. Being Northern Ireland this is fast becoming a sectarian issue with Loyalists blaming the crisis on the Republicans in the Northern Irish Assembly and using it as an example of how much better everything was when the province was ruled directly from London. To further this end there are no doubt some civil servants who are perhaps not working as hard as they could to solve the problem. However the main reason for the crisis is twofold;
Global Warming. After 10-15 years of unseasonably warm winters all across the UK we now have an entire generation of people who have no idea how to cope with snow in December. Up and down the country people are only now realising that if the temperature drops below freezing then you need to drain your outside pipes otherwise they will freeze and burst. Likewise if your pipes do freeze you need to thaw them out as soon as possible because any pipes on your side of the pavement are your problem, not the water companies.
Water Pricing. An exciting topic if there ever was one(!) Unlike most of the rest of the developed world households in Northern Ireland don't pay a service charge to the water company for their mains water supply. Instead the state run company is funded through indirect taxation and the block grant from London. As a result it is pretty much paralysed by sectarian infighting and doesn't really have the resources to carry out proper maintenance and educate their customers how to maintain their own properties. Although for most of the last 40 years Northern Ireland has been ruled directly from London where water service charges are normal the province has avoided introducing the policy as a nod to the Republicans because in the Republic of Ireland they don't pay service charges either. Well I say don't, one of the conditions of the EU/IMF bailout is that the Irish Republic will have to introduce some form of water pricing which does rather prove that the IMF do think these things through occasionally.
Oh and there's been a shocking development in the Joanna Yeates saga. It turns out that Avon & Somerset police are so immature that they've renamed their Scenes of Crime Officer's (SOCO's) Crime Scene Investigators (CSI's) and given them black utility vests like the ones they wear on that there US TV show.
Global Warming. After 10-15 years of unseasonably warm winters all across the UK we now have an entire generation of people who have no idea how to cope with snow in December. Up and down the country people are only now realising that if the temperature drops below freezing then you need to drain your outside pipes otherwise they will freeze and burst. Likewise if your pipes do freeze you need to thaw them out as soon as possible because any pipes on your side of the pavement are your problem, not the water companies.
Water Pricing. An exciting topic if there ever was one(!) Unlike most of the rest of the developed world households in Northern Ireland don't pay a service charge to the water company for their mains water supply. Instead the state run company is funded through indirect taxation and the block grant from London. As a result it is pretty much paralysed by sectarian infighting and doesn't really have the resources to carry out proper maintenance and educate their customers how to maintain their own properties. Although for most of the last 40 years Northern Ireland has been ruled directly from London where water service charges are normal the province has avoided introducing the policy as a nod to the Republicans because in the Republic of Ireland they don't pay service charges either. Well I say don't, one of the conditions of the EU/IMF bailout is that the Irish Republic will have to introduce some form of water pricing which does rather prove that the IMF do think these things through occasionally.
Oh and there's been a shocking development in the Joanna Yeates saga. It turns out that Avon & Somerset police are so immature that they've renamed their Scenes of Crime Officer's (SOCO's) Crime Scene Investigators (CSI's) and given them black utility vests like the ones they wear on that there US TV show.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
The Snow.
Starting in mid-November most of Britain, northern Europe and now north America experienced early, rapid and heavy snowfall.
Co-inciding with the start of the Cancun COP16 Summit this was perhaps not the best weather to underline the need for global action on climate change. Although during the same period 42 Israeli's were killed by wild fires in region that has been blighted by drought, Australia's monsoon rains and Colombia's lethal flooding meant that the globes weather was more wet and cold then dry and warm. However these extreme weather patterns are actually fit perfectly in line with current, accepted global warming theory.
Since the early to mid-1980's global temperature's have risen. This warming has caused ice caps, glaciers and other so called ice masses to melt and become water. Once melted this water becomes part of the hydrological cycle and gets circulated between the seas and oceans, the atmosphere and the land. In recent years this global warming has made sure that this water remains as water meaning that when it falls from the atmosphere back to the land it does so as rain rather then snow. However in 2008 a solar cycle ended dramatically reducing the amount of heat emitted from the sun causing global temperatures to drop sharply. This caused increased snowfall in 2009 because generally speaking sea water is better at retaining heat then the land so when rain clouds moved from the warm sea onto the cold land they froze meaning that the water fell out of them as snow rather then rain.
In 2010 there was the added problem that a stream of air, commonly know as the jet stream moved. This meant that the warm air that normally flows across the eastern United States, the Atlantic ocean and western Europe was diverted south across the Mediterranean and on to the middle east. This then created a vacuum into which very cold Arctic air flowed further cooling the land and turning all that rain into snow.
So while it might be hard to believe all these blizzards and record low temperatures within the Ferrel cell* are actually pretty conclusive proof of global warming. Regardless of what some fools at the University of East Anglia might say the increased amount of rain and snow demonstrate that global ice masses have actually melted. Assuming that we've ruled out magic as a cause this melting proves that global temperatures have increased.
With the fact of global warming conclusively proved the only debate left is what to do about it. If you believe that global warming is the product of human greenhouse gas emissions then we obviously need to find some way to cut those emissions. However if you believe that global warming is solely caused by unpredictable solar cycles then you also believe that these harsh winters are going to become the normal over the next decade and governments and companies need to invest heavily in infrastructure to cope with them.
*Trying to use national borders to explain the behaviour of weather patterns is damn near impossible. Therefore in modern thought the northern and southern hemispheres are both divided into three cells; the Hadley Cell (approx 0-30 latitude), the Ferrel Cell (approx 30-60 latitude) and the Polar Cell (approx 60-90 latitude). Europe and north America (including Canada) are all parts of the Ferrel Cell.
Co-inciding with the start of the Cancun COP16 Summit this was perhaps not the best weather to underline the need for global action on climate change. Although during the same period 42 Israeli's were killed by wild fires in region that has been blighted by drought, Australia's monsoon rains and Colombia's lethal flooding meant that the globes weather was more wet and cold then dry and warm. However these extreme weather patterns are actually fit perfectly in line with current, accepted global warming theory.
Since the early to mid-1980's global temperature's have risen. This warming has caused ice caps, glaciers and other so called ice masses to melt and become water. Once melted this water becomes part of the hydrological cycle and gets circulated between the seas and oceans, the atmosphere and the land. In recent years this global warming has made sure that this water remains as water meaning that when it falls from the atmosphere back to the land it does so as rain rather then snow. However in 2008 a solar cycle ended dramatically reducing the amount of heat emitted from the sun causing global temperatures to drop sharply. This caused increased snowfall in 2009 because generally speaking sea water is better at retaining heat then the land so when rain clouds moved from the warm sea onto the cold land they froze meaning that the water fell out of them as snow rather then rain.
In 2010 there was the added problem that a stream of air, commonly know as the jet stream moved. This meant that the warm air that normally flows across the eastern United States, the Atlantic ocean and western Europe was diverted south across the Mediterranean and on to the middle east. This then created a vacuum into which very cold Arctic air flowed further cooling the land and turning all that rain into snow.
So while it might be hard to believe all these blizzards and record low temperatures within the Ferrel cell* are actually pretty conclusive proof of global warming. Regardless of what some fools at the University of East Anglia might say the increased amount of rain and snow demonstrate that global ice masses have actually melted. Assuming that we've ruled out magic as a cause this melting proves that global temperatures have increased.
With the fact of global warming conclusively proved the only debate left is what to do about it. If you believe that global warming is the product of human greenhouse gas emissions then we obviously need to find some way to cut those emissions. However if you believe that global warming is solely caused by unpredictable solar cycles then you also believe that these harsh winters are going to become the normal over the next decade and governments and companies need to invest heavily in infrastructure to cope with them.
*Trying to use national borders to explain the behaviour of weather patterns is damn near impossible. Therefore in modern thought the northern and southern hemispheres are both divided into three cells; the Hadley Cell (approx 0-30 latitude), the Ferrel Cell (approx 30-60 latitude) and the Polar Cell (approx 60-90 latitude). Europe and north America (including Canada) are all parts of the Ferrel Cell.
Monday, 27 December 2010
So That Was Christmas
And now we get straight on to New Years. Due to my slightly unconventional family we actually get to stretch the traditional one day Christmas celebration into three or four days and we enjoyed them. We ate too much, drank too much and gave each other presents, some of which were better then others. Now it's all over though I can't help but admit that I'm getting a little bit bored.
We didn't have this problem last year because some Nigerian tried to blow up a plane over Detroit and I got to briefly tangle with the anti-terrorist police as they went to raid his London flat. In 2008 Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Gaza which led to a 24 day war that killed close to 1500 people. This year there's been nothing and seeing as don't know much about politics in the Ivory Coast I am a bit of a loose end.
I suppose there's always the JoAnna Yeates story but personally I don't see what all the fuss is about. The Brits agreed to pay the penalty clause on October 12th 2010 and re-affirmed that commitment on November 3rd. In fact I only bring the matter up because now we've had the week long search for the missing woman and Christmas day discovery of her body the investigation is now focusing on Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge. For those of you who don't follow these sort of things the Clifton Suspension Bridge is a very famous suicide spot which is why it is covered by dozens of CCTV cameras and patrolled 24 hours a day by security guards. So focusing on it looks a lot like an attempt to assist a suicide. That's a shame because if we have to ruin the Christmas of a woman associated with the Wellcome Trust I thought we should start with Kara Tointon. After all it's not like she can actually read this.
Oh well there's always DVD's I suppose.
We didn't have this problem last year because some Nigerian tried to blow up a plane over Detroit and I got to briefly tangle with the anti-terrorist police as they went to raid his London flat. In 2008 Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Gaza which led to a 24 day war that killed close to 1500 people. This year there's been nothing and seeing as don't know much about politics in the Ivory Coast I am a bit of a loose end.
I suppose there's always the JoAnna Yeates story but personally I don't see what all the fuss is about. The Brits agreed to pay the penalty clause on October 12th 2010 and re-affirmed that commitment on November 3rd. In fact I only bring the matter up because now we've had the week long search for the missing woman and Christmas day discovery of her body the investigation is now focusing on Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge. For those of you who don't follow these sort of things the Clifton Suspension Bridge is a very famous suicide spot which is why it is covered by dozens of CCTV cameras and patrolled 24 hours a day by security guards. So focusing on it looks a lot like an attempt to assist a suicide. That's a shame because if we have to ruin the Christmas of a woman associated with the Wellcome Trust I thought we should start with Kara Tointon. After all it's not like she can actually read this.
Oh well there's always DVD's I suppose.
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Good Evenings
I'd like to tell you that Christmas has ended but clearly I've got another two to three days until my blood/alcohol mix has become more of an alcohol/blood mix. So while we're waiting for that to happen let's have a look at the days news.
- Dutch Terror Plot. In the Netherlands the authorities have raided a number of internet cafe's and arrested a number of Somali men on Al Qeda related terror charges. The other day I went into a Somali owned internet cafe and did something with computers. As soon as the Dutch worked out exactly what I did it would be nice if they could tell me.
- Pakistani Terror Blasts. Around 40 people have been killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan. I don't mean to be racist but wouldn't it be easier if the Pakistanis told us when they'd had a day without a terror bomb attack.
- Indian Satellite Fail. An Indian rocket which was trying to launch a communications satellite into orbit exploded shortly after take off. No-one was killed.
- Wombling Gone. The creator of British children's TV show"The Wombles", Elisa Beresford, died today in her Channel Island's home. She was 84 a fulfills a great British tradition of celebrities dying on Christmas day.
- Dr Who Christmas Special. Somewhere between the references to the huge number of complaints the BBC received about Amy Pond's skirt and firefly this was mainly a campaign by the BBC's orchestras to maintain their funding. In short it was a bit rubbish.
- Bristol Death. Police in Bristol, UK have discovered the body of a young woman. We will all now desperately await news of whether it is the body of Joanna Yeates who went missing in the Bristol area about a week ago.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Oh Yeah Berlosconi Hates Me
Today (23/12) in Italy two parcel bombs exploded at the Swiss and Chilean Embassies in Rome. The Italian authorities have blamed the attacks on anarchists which is of course nonsense.
The real reason for the attacks is that yesterday (22/12) the US congress ratified the START II treaty on nuclear arms reduction. Chile actually played a crucial role in this treaty but the Italians weren't invited to the discussion so presumably they would like me to explain.
The real reason for the attacks is that yesterday (22/12) the US congress ratified the START II treaty on nuclear arms reduction. Chile actually played a crucial role in this treaty but the Italians weren't invited to the discussion so presumably they would like me to explain.
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
I Think it's Time to Accept.
That save for major emergencies I won't be posting again until after Christmas. However before I go there's a couple of things I should clear up.
December 20th Demo. The planned December 20th student protest didn't happen which is often how these things work out. Someone calls a demonstration and then people either turn up or they don't. On this occasion the person calling the demo did so without prior permission from student or the established protest groups. In response the established groups started a stupid rumour that it was a front for either the state or the English Defence League (EDL) in order to discourage people from attending. This is of course nonsense because the EDL are currently busy with their own things at the moment and there's nothing the state would have achieved that they haven't achieved already at the four previous student protests. However the whole thing does rather prove my point about the student protests that there's been perhaps a bit too much action and not enough thinking.
Anti-terror Arrests. Also on December 20th British police arrested 12 Muslim men to prevent an alleged Christmas terror attack although no weapons or explosives have yet been found. What appears to have happened is that someone started a rumour that there was going to be a terror attack in the UK over the Christmas/New Year holiday. This forced the police to arrest 12 randoms so when no attack took place it would look like the result of successful policing rather then the security services not knowing their elbows from other parts of their body. The police themselves have been trying to kill the story presumably so it doesn't cause them further embarrassment in the future.
Knives Out. Senior Liberal Democrat MP and Business Secretary, Vince Cable has been stung by undercover reporters working for the Telegraph newspaper. During the secretly taped conversations Mr Cable can be heard claiming that he is the most powerful man in government with the power to bring down the ConDem coalition and that he has declared war of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of broadcaster BSkyB, apparently pre-judging the report of the supposedly independent broadcast regulator, OFCOM. Apart from being forced to take political ownership of the increase to tuition fees Vince Cable has also been a discreet opponent of plans to cap immigration. Therefore this seems like part of the wider attempt to silence the LibDems. You see the Conservatives needed to give them a dozen Cabinet posts and entertain some of their policies in order to get the LibDems to join the coalition. Now that's done efforts are being made to sideline them and their policies to the backbenches and out of the decision making process. On the wider issue I should point out that while I'm strongly opposed to Rupert Murdoch taking over the BBC I have no problem whatsoever with him taking full control of Sky. In fact I think most people assume that he owns more then 49% of the company anyway.
December 20th Demo. The planned December 20th student protest didn't happen which is often how these things work out. Someone calls a demonstration and then people either turn up or they don't. On this occasion the person calling the demo did so without prior permission from student or the established protest groups. In response the established groups started a stupid rumour that it was a front for either the state or the English Defence League (EDL) in order to discourage people from attending. This is of course nonsense because the EDL are currently busy with their own things at the moment and there's nothing the state would have achieved that they haven't achieved already at the four previous student protests. However the whole thing does rather prove my point about the student protests that there's been perhaps a bit too much action and not enough thinking.
Anti-terror Arrests. Also on December 20th British police arrested 12 Muslim men to prevent an alleged Christmas terror attack although no weapons or explosives have yet been found. What appears to have happened is that someone started a rumour that there was going to be a terror attack in the UK over the Christmas/New Year holiday. This forced the police to arrest 12 randoms so when no attack took place it would look like the result of successful policing rather then the security services not knowing their elbows from other parts of their body. The police themselves have been trying to kill the story presumably so it doesn't cause them further embarrassment in the future.
Knives Out. Senior Liberal Democrat MP and Business Secretary, Vince Cable has been stung by undercover reporters working for the Telegraph newspaper. During the secretly taped conversations Mr Cable can be heard claiming that he is the most powerful man in government with the power to bring down the ConDem coalition and that he has declared war of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of broadcaster BSkyB, apparently pre-judging the report of the supposedly independent broadcast regulator, OFCOM. Apart from being forced to take political ownership of the increase to tuition fees Vince Cable has also been a discreet opponent of plans to cap immigration. Therefore this seems like part of the wider attempt to silence the LibDems. You see the Conservatives needed to give them a dozen Cabinet posts and entertain some of their policies in order to get the LibDems to join the coalition. Now that's done efforts are being made to sideline them and their policies to the backbenches and out of the decision making process. On the wider issue I should point out that while I'm strongly opposed to Rupert Murdoch taking over the BBC I have no problem whatsoever with him taking full control of Sky. In fact I think most people assume that he owns more then 49% of the company anyway.
Friday, 17 December 2010
Oh FFS!
I know it looks as though an iceberg's been dumped on our heads but it turns out it's just a bit of snow.
Yes that's right it has started to snow again in the UK. A northern wind blew it in so it's started in Scotland last night and rapidly made it's way down the country in the last 24 hours. In London it started at around 13:00 today (17/12) and currently has left a 1.5cm blanket. The last time this much snow fell in London it took a full 36 hours before I was stuck in a seemingly endless supermarket queue behind a man panic buying 36 litres of milk. If this happens again I will kill! However as it turns out that you can smoke cannabis without being stoned all damn day I suppose I should tell you about my last shopping trip.
On Tuesday (14/12) my headphones broke so I had to go into town to buy a replacement. While I was there I also brought a couple of long sleeved T-shirts because, well have we mentioned the snow?! I also splashed out on a cheap wi-fi tablet. Although this has set hearts a flutter it's sadly a legitimate expense because there have been so many times when my life would have been so much easier if I was able to download documents and then read them off-line. So basically I've brought a glorified e-reader. The problem is I too scared to connect it to my home internet because once I do I give it about a week before it becomes a very expensive inanimate object. In fact I'd probably give it less then that because with low sales volume and computerised inventory the Brits have probably already got the device id.
Also on Thursday (16/12) I had to go to an early routine doctors appointment. I think that's my life up to date so I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
Yes that's right it has started to snow again in the UK. A northern wind blew it in so it's started in Scotland last night and rapidly made it's way down the country in the last 24 hours. In London it started at around 13:00 today (17/12) and currently has left a 1.5cm blanket. The last time this much snow fell in London it took a full 36 hours before I was stuck in a seemingly endless supermarket queue behind a man panic buying 36 litres of milk. If this happens again I will kill! However as it turns out that you can smoke cannabis without being stoned all damn day I suppose I should tell you about my last shopping trip.
On Tuesday (14/12) my headphones broke so I had to go into town to buy a replacement. While I was there I also brought a couple of long sleeved T-shirts because, well have we mentioned the snow?! I also splashed out on a cheap wi-fi tablet. Although this has set hearts a flutter it's sadly a legitimate expense because there have been so many times when my life would have been so much easier if I was able to download documents and then read them off-line. So basically I've brought a glorified e-reader. The problem is I too scared to connect it to my home internet because once I do I give it about a week before it becomes a very expensive inanimate object. In fact I'd probably give it less then that because with low sales volume and computerised inventory the Brits have probably already got the device id.
Also on Thursday (16/12) I had to go to an early routine doctors appointment. I think that's my life up to date so I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Julian Assange Granted Bail.
After neither Britain nor Sweden could decide who was opposing it Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange was today freed on Magistrates bail after the Appeal Court in London ruled that in order to oppose bail someone actually has to oppose it. Mr Assange will be freed from Wandsworth prison just as soon as his supporters can deliver £200,000 in cash to the court and a promise of a further £40,000 is made. Those providing the money will have to registar with the police and this has scared off some of his supporters. At this point may I suggest that Mr Assange appoints a criminal lawyer to deal with this sexual offences case because his current media lawyer is relying on the BBC to explain to him the difference between a surity and a security.
Also there is an aspect to the case that I've either forgotten to mention before or didn't make clear when I did. At some point between the Wikileaks release of the Iraq war Logs and the Afghanistan war logs some of the worlds more totalitarian regimes took the USA's failure to prosecute Mr Assange and Wikileaks as a sign that the American's were running the whole operation as a way to bury foreign governments under a mountain of paper. So Britain and Sweden got together and dreamt up these rape charges as a way of taking revenge on the Americans. So what is being widely viewed as an American attack on Wikileaks is actually Wikileaks being used as a political football in a European attack on America. Of course the real reason why the Americans haven't prosecuted Assange or Wikileaks is because they can't. The first amendment to the US constitution guarantees the right to free speech and a 19th century Supreme Court precedent which I can't remember extends that right to the media. So while it is illegal to steal classified documents if someone steals those documents and passes them on to the media it is not illegal for the media to publish them. Personally I see an argument about net neutrality in there somewhere but I wouldn't worry too much. After all it wouldn't be the first time a European monarchy has been thwarted by the US constitution.
In other legal news I today received another request for that £500 hearing fee from the Court of Protection which makes me want to go out an kidnap a badger. I also opened last weeks letter from the Notting Hill Housing Group. Basically it just denies any knowledge, refuses to give me any information and urges me to call them most urgently. In short it is what I knew it would be before I'd even opened the envelope - a desperate attempt to have themselves included in the COP process. It's now too close to Christmas to take any action so I'll have a think about it and deal with it in the New Year.
Also there is an aspect to the case that I've either forgotten to mention before or didn't make clear when I did. At some point between the Wikileaks release of the Iraq war Logs and the Afghanistan war logs some of the worlds more totalitarian regimes took the USA's failure to prosecute Mr Assange and Wikileaks as a sign that the American's were running the whole operation as a way to bury foreign governments under a mountain of paper. So Britain and Sweden got together and dreamt up these rape charges as a way of taking revenge on the Americans. So what is being widely viewed as an American attack on Wikileaks is actually Wikileaks being used as a political football in a European attack on America. Of course the real reason why the Americans haven't prosecuted Assange or Wikileaks is because they can't. The first amendment to the US constitution guarantees the right to free speech and a 19th century Supreme Court precedent which I can't remember extends that right to the media. So while it is illegal to steal classified documents if someone steals those documents and passes them on to the media it is not illegal for the media to publish them. Personally I see an argument about net neutrality in there somewhere but I wouldn't worry too much. After all it wouldn't be the first time a European monarchy has been thwarted by the US constitution.
In other legal news I today received another request for that £500 hearing fee from the Court of Protection which makes me want to go out an kidnap a badger. I also opened last weeks letter from the Notting Hill Housing Group. Basically it just denies any knowledge, refuses to give me any information and urges me to call them most urgently. In short it is what I knew it would be before I'd even opened the envelope - a desperate attempt to have themselves included in the COP process. It's now too close to Christmas to take any action so I'll have a think about it and deal with it in the New Year.
Without Further Delay.
I should take the opportunity to congratulate Mexico for organising a successful COP16 Summit which was no easy task. Even to describe what took place at Cancun as the COP16 Summit is a massive understatement.
Beyond the 194 Conference of Parties (COP) process which itself is divided into various ad-hoc working groups such as the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action (AW-LCA) there was also the Conference of Parties serving as members of the Kyoto protocol (CMP) for countries that signed up to the Kyoto protocol. Then there were the various subsidiary bodies dealing with specific aspects of climate change such as the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Nairobi Work Program. Added to this there were hundreds of informal negotiations between nations and regional groups of nations. These are always contentious and difficult to host because while every country, quite rightly, thinks they have the right to hold private discussions they hate the idea of all the other countries holding private negotiations. From what I've heard the Mexican hosts were able to navigate this friction point by strictly adhering to the UN compromise of publishing lists of who is meeting who and making sure the rooms where the meetings were taking place were clearly labelled with the participants. This meant that while everybody was able to tell who was meeting who the people in those meetings were able to keep private what was being discussed.
Away from the main business of the COP16/CMP6 there were also the side events at the Cancunmesse exhibition centre which, for want of a better word, was a giant climate change trade fair. Here various nations and non-governmental organisations like charities and trade unions along with private companies like Google and the Economist magazine all set up their exhibition stands in order to share their knowledge of and point of view on climate change. Like other trade fairs there were also various cafes and restaurants where delegates were able to informally meet, chat and network. In a new feature for COP summits the Mexican hosts also set up a Climate Village. The purpose of this was to bridge the gap between the summit and the general public by having exhibitions, a film festival, a go-kart track with green vehicles and nightly music concerts featuring popular Latin acts. Maybe I'm biased but I think this is a very good idea that should stay and perhaps the people involved in climate camp can feel a little bit proud of themselves.
So I think gratitude is owed to the Mexican hosts staging a very good summit. Not only were they able to organise all this in a smooth and safe manner they were also able to inject a bit style that actually made it quite fun. Well as fun as it's possible for a two week science lesson to be.
Beyond the 194 Conference of Parties (COP) process which itself is divided into various ad-hoc working groups such as the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action (AW-LCA) there was also the Conference of Parties serving as members of the Kyoto protocol (CMP) for countries that signed up to the Kyoto protocol. Then there were the various subsidiary bodies dealing with specific aspects of climate change such as the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Nairobi Work Program. Added to this there were hundreds of informal negotiations between nations and regional groups of nations. These are always contentious and difficult to host because while every country, quite rightly, thinks they have the right to hold private discussions they hate the idea of all the other countries holding private negotiations. From what I've heard the Mexican hosts were able to navigate this friction point by strictly adhering to the UN compromise of publishing lists of who is meeting who and making sure the rooms where the meetings were taking place were clearly labelled with the participants. This meant that while everybody was able to tell who was meeting who the people in those meetings were able to keep private what was being discussed.
Away from the main business of the COP16/CMP6 there were also the side events at the Cancunmesse exhibition centre which, for want of a better word, was a giant climate change trade fair. Here various nations and non-governmental organisations like charities and trade unions along with private companies like Google and the Economist magazine all set up their exhibition stands in order to share their knowledge of and point of view on climate change. Like other trade fairs there were also various cafes and restaurants where delegates were able to informally meet, chat and network. In a new feature for COP summits the Mexican hosts also set up a Climate Village. The purpose of this was to bridge the gap between the summit and the general public by having exhibitions, a film festival, a go-kart track with green vehicles and nightly music concerts featuring popular Latin acts. Maybe I'm biased but I think this is a very good idea that should stay and perhaps the people involved in climate camp can feel a little bit proud of themselves.
So I think gratitude is owed to the Mexican hosts staging a very good summit. Not only were they able to organise all this in a smooth and safe manner they were also able to inject a bit style that actually made it quite fun. Well as fun as it's possible for a two week science lesson to be.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
London Riot: The Royal Car.
On December 9th there was a large riot in London as the British Parliament voted through plans to increase university tuition fees. Due to some strange policing decisions the Royal car carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall was caught up in the riot and attacked by protesters. Apart from the attempt to steer the domestic debate over policing tactics that has already been mentioned the purpose of this royal misfortune was to sabotage the COP16 climate change summit by drawing delegates into a complicated debate about the state of the British Monarchy.
To understand how this was meant to work you first need to know a couple of things about the British Monarchy. This first is that they're all mental. The second lesson is that the current Monarch is Queen Elizabeth the Second. She inherited the job when her father, King George the Sixth died in 1952. With her husband, Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth had three sons, Charles Andrew and Edward. When Queen Elizabeth dies her eldest son, Charles will become the Monarch and be known as King George the Seventh*. With his first wife, Princess Diana, Charles had two sons, William and Henry (Harry). When King George the Seventh dies his eldest son, Prince William will become King. Prince William has recently announced that he is going to marry his long term girlfriend, Kate Middleton, in April 2011 when she will become Princess Katherine.
The problem is that even before he married Princess Diana Prince Charles was having an affair with a married woman, Camilla Parker-Bowles. This affair carried on throughout Charles and Diana's unhappy marriage and eventually ended it when Charles divorced Diana in order to marry a newly divorced Camilla. Apart from causing a huge constitutional problem because the British Monarch is also the head of the Church of England which, at the time, opposed divorce and especially re-marriage the scandal did huge damage to the public reputation of the Royal family with them being viewed as evil bullies who ruined the life of the young, innocent Princess Diana. This got much worse after Princess Diana died an untimely death in a car accident in 1997. There are to this day persistent conspiracy theories that Prince Phillip ordered Diana's assassination in order to stop her embarrassing the Royal family further.
In Royalist circles a lot of people blame Camilla for the way that Diana was treated and there is some doubt whether they would ever tolerate her becoming Queen. So by driving Camilla into a riot where she was allegedly assaulted by protesters the Royal Family was trying to boost it's popularity with their core supporters by showing that they too were prepared to give Camilla a, quite literally, rough ride. Of course the real reason for the Royal families current animosity towards Camilla is that she described the announcement of Prince Williams engagement as "wicked." Now this could have been an older lady trying to sound like she was down with the kids by using street slang that's been out of date for about 20 years. Alternatively is could be someone who has gone through the trauma of marrying into the Royal family and their spiteful ways describing the decision to force Prince William into marriage in order to distract the British public from the current economic and political turmoil in the country as morally bad or evil.
So that's the British Royal Family then. They're not actually reptiles but you can seen how some people got confused.
*Britain's actually had two King Charles'. Both were beheaded so apparently the title is considered bad luck.
To understand how this was meant to work you first need to know a couple of things about the British Monarchy. This first is that they're all mental. The second lesson is that the current Monarch is Queen Elizabeth the Second. She inherited the job when her father, King George the Sixth died in 1952. With her husband, Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth had three sons, Charles Andrew and Edward. When Queen Elizabeth dies her eldest son, Charles will become the Monarch and be known as King George the Seventh*. With his first wife, Princess Diana, Charles had two sons, William and Henry (Harry). When King George the Seventh dies his eldest son, Prince William will become King. Prince William has recently announced that he is going to marry his long term girlfriend, Kate Middleton, in April 2011 when she will become Princess Katherine.
The problem is that even before he married Princess Diana Prince Charles was having an affair with a married woman, Camilla Parker-Bowles. This affair carried on throughout Charles and Diana's unhappy marriage and eventually ended it when Charles divorced Diana in order to marry a newly divorced Camilla. Apart from causing a huge constitutional problem because the British Monarch is also the head of the Church of England which, at the time, opposed divorce and especially re-marriage the scandal did huge damage to the public reputation of the Royal family with them being viewed as evil bullies who ruined the life of the young, innocent Princess Diana. This got much worse after Princess Diana died an untimely death in a car accident in 1997. There are to this day persistent conspiracy theories that Prince Phillip ordered Diana's assassination in order to stop her embarrassing the Royal family further.
In Royalist circles a lot of people blame Camilla for the way that Diana was treated and there is some doubt whether they would ever tolerate her becoming Queen. So by driving Camilla into a riot where she was allegedly assaulted by protesters the Royal Family was trying to boost it's popularity with their core supporters by showing that they too were prepared to give Camilla a, quite literally, rough ride. Of course the real reason for the Royal families current animosity towards Camilla is that she described the announcement of Prince Williams engagement as "wicked." Now this could have been an older lady trying to sound like she was down with the kids by using street slang that's been out of date for about 20 years. Alternatively is could be someone who has gone through the trauma of marrying into the Royal family and their spiteful ways describing the decision to force Prince William into marriage in order to distract the British public from the current economic and political turmoil in the country as morally bad or evil.
So that's the British Royal Family then. They're not actually reptiles but you can seen how some people got confused.
*Britain's actually had two King Charles'. Both were beheaded so apparently the title is considered bad luck.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Dewani Murder Case
For those of you who aren't familiar with this story it is a trilateral matter that was running in the background to the COP16 Summit between India, Britain and South Africa who will host the COP17 Summit.
On November 13th a newlywed British/Indian couple, Shrien and Anni Dewani from Bristol were honeymooning in Cape Town, South Africa. After having a meal at a restaurant they took a taxi back to their hotel and strangely passed through the poor Gugulethu Township. In the township their taxi was hijacked by two armed men who dumped the taxi driver and Shrien Dewani on the side of the road and drove off with Anni Dewani still in the car. The following day Anni Dewani's corpse was discovered in the abandoned taxi.
Worried about the impact the incident would have on their tourist industry the South African authorities swiftly arrested two men and the taxi driver for Anni Dewani's murder. At the first part of their trial all three men pleaded guilty and claimed that they'd been paid to carry out the murder by the victim's husband, Shrien Dewani. On December 8th the South African's issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Dewani and on December 9th he was remanded to Wandsworth prison by Westminster Magistrates Court in the UK. This is the same prison and court that handled the Julian Assange arrest warrant the day before. The following day, December 10th, the same court changed it's mind and granted Mr Dewani bail and he is currently residing at his mansion just outside Bristol.
Obviously Shrien Dewani deserves the right to a fair trial but one of the accusations is that although Mr Dewani is himself wealthy his new wife's family, the Hindochas, are a very wealthy Indian family of high social standing. Under Indian tradition once Shrien Dewani married Anni Hindocha he became part of the Hindocha family and entitled to part of their wealth. So the accusation follows that the marriage was simply one of convenience and Shrien Dewani always intended to kill his bride once the marriage had become legal. As for why he decided to stage the murder in South Africa it has been suggested that Mr Dewani has some previous experience in arranging murders in the country. There is also a suspicion that he may have been influenced by British media coverage of the attempted assassination of Faustin Kayumba Nyumwasa, the former head of Rwanda's intelligence service in South Africa during 2010's World Cup. There is no suspicion though that the murder was planned with any involvement from either the South African, Indian or British governments or intelligence services.
I apologise for not commenting on this sooner but I'm sure you'll understand that me commenting on it would probably only have made it much more complicated.
On November 13th a newlywed British/Indian couple, Shrien and Anni Dewani from Bristol were honeymooning in Cape Town, South Africa. After having a meal at a restaurant they took a taxi back to their hotel and strangely passed through the poor Gugulethu Township. In the township their taxi was hijacked by two armed men who dumped the taxi driver and Shrien Dewani on the side of the road and drove off with Anni Dewani still in the car. The following day Anni Dewani's corpse was discovered in the abandoned taxi.
Worried about the impact the incident would have on their tourist industry the South African authorities swiftly arrested two men and the taxi driver for Anni Dewani's murder. At the first part of their trial all three men pleaded guilty and claimed that they'd been paid to carry out the murder by the victim's husband, Shrien Dewani. On December 8th the South African's issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Dewani and on December 9th he was remanded to Wandsworth prison by Westminster Magistrates Court in the UK. This is the same prison and court that handled the Julian Assange arrest warrant the day before. The following day, December 10th, the same court changed it's mind and granted Mr Dewani bail and he is currently residing at his mansion just outside Bristol.
Obviously Shrien Dewani deserves the right to a fair trial but one of the accusations is that although Mr Dewani is himself wealthy his new wife's family, the Hindochas, are a very wealthy Indian family of high social standing. Under Indian tradition once Shrien Dewani married Anni Hindocha he became part of the Hindocha family and entitled to part of their wealth. So the accusation follows that the marriage was simply one of convenience and Shrien Dewani always intended to kill his bride once the marriage had become legal. As for why he decided to stage the murder in South Africa it has been suggested that Mr Dewani has some previous experience in arranging murders in the country. There is also a suspicion that he may have been influenced by British media coverage of the attempted assassination of Faustin Kayumba Nyumwasa, the former head of Rwanda's intelligence service in South Africa during 2010's World Cup. There is no suspicion though that the murder was planned with any involvement from either the South African, Indian or British governments or intelligence services.
I apologise for not commenting on this sooner but I'm sure you'll understand that me commenting on it would probably only have made it much more complicated.
Monday, 13 December 2010
So You Fought The Law...
...And the law won.
I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet but in Britain the government has been trying to increase university tuition fees by 300%. As the Liberal Democrat part of the governing coalition were elected on a specific mandate not to do this the plans have provoked four, separate days of large and sometimes violent protest. The most recent of these, on December 9th, was so ferocious that it saw 12 police officers and 45 protesters hospitalised including one 19 year old who needed emergency brain surgery after suffering a brain hemorrhage. There are even rumours that members of the British Army's SAS stationed a Wellington Barracks were given a days leave to make sure that the days events went off with that extra bit of oomph. Despite all this December 9th also saw Parliament vote through the government's plan. This creates the obvious question of where does the student protest movement go from here?
In the policing of the December 9th protest the state was trying to impose it's own answer by turning the demonstration into "the protesters last stand." The idea being that with the Parliamentary battle lost the level of violence used by the police would discourage protesters from taking part in any future demonstrations and the movement would die out. However it was also calculated that a smaller group, around 25%, would take the politician's disregard for their views and the police's violence as a provocation to fight on further and harder. To this end another protest has already been called for December 20th at Piccadilly Circus in central London. As the police have made over 300 arrests (1 charged) they have managed to gather a significant amount of intelligence on the student protesters and the hope is that this 25% will now go and join in with the growing campaign against wider spending cuts. The idea being that these inexperienced student protesters will provide the state with an entry point to gather intelligence on that wider campaign in the hope of being able to to destroy it before it gets off the ground. There is also a hope that the involvement of the student protesters who are being portrayed as violent extremists will discourage ordinary members of the public from getting involved in the spending cuts which would be a shame because if they don't get involved they're likely to end up as the innocent victims of the government's war.
If I had been involved in the student protests I'd be very tempted to take the winter break to rest and assess my situation before getting involved in more protests but I might just be saying that because after Cancun I'm really, really tired.
I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet but in Britain the government has been trying to increase university tuition fees by 300%. As the Liberal Democrat part of the governing coalition were elected on a specific mandate not to do this the plans have provoked four, separate days of large and sometimes violent protest. The most recent of these, on December 9th, was so ferocious that it saw 12 police officers and 45 protesters hospitalised including one 19 year old who needed emergency brain surgery after suffering a brain hemorrhage. There are even rumours that members of the British Army's SAS stationed a Wellington Barracks were given a days leave to make sure that the days events went off with that extra bit of oomph. Despite all this December 9th also saw Parliament vote through the government's plan. This creates the obvious question of where does the student protest movement go from here?
In the policing of the December 9th protest the state was trying to impose it's own answer by turning the demonstration into "the protesters last stand." The idea being that with the Parliamentary battle lost the level of violence used by the police would discourage protesters from taking part in any future demonstrations and the movement would die out. However it was also calculated that a smaller group, around 25%, would take the politician's disregard for their views and the police's violence as a provocation to fight on further and harder. To this end another protest has already been called for December 20th at Piccadilly Circus in central London. As the police have made over 300 arrests (1 charged) they have managed to gather a significant amount of intelligence on the student protesters and the hope is that this 25% will now go and join in with the growing campaign against wider spending cuts. The idea being that these inexperienced student protesters will provide the state with an entry point to gather intelligence on that wider campaign in the hope of being able to to destroy it before it gets off the ground. There is also a hope that the involvement of the student protesters who are being portrayed as violent extremists will discourage ordinary members of the public from getting involved in the spending cuts which would be a shame because if they don't get involved they're likely to end up as the innocent victims of the government's war.
If I had been involved in the student protests I'd be very tempted to take the winter break to rest and assess my situation before getting involved in more protests but I might just be saying that because after Cancun I'm really, really tired.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Agreement at Cancun.
I know, I surprised too.
Following a marathon final session delegates at the 16th Conference of Parties agreed amendments to the Kyoto protocol on climate change that substantially improve the chances of a replacement protocol being put in place for when Kyoto expires in 2012. Although these amendments have certainly been agreed they still need to go through the technicality of a formal vote before they can be published and publicly circulated. As a result I've only been able to read through the draft document that contains a variety of options of what the final agreement will be. However it's clear that the agreement will focus on three main areas;
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts. The annex 1 parties (developed nations) have agreed to cut their emissions to either 25/30/45/X % of their 1990 levels by 2020 and either 80/95/X % by 2050. In return for the pledges being made these targets are in no way legally binding and there is no international inspection mechanism. Therefore they rely on the goodwill and honour of the pledging nations for enforcement.
Greenhouse Gas Absorption This is the area where by far the most progress has been made with the parties agreeing to set up a voluntary, global emissions trading mechanism. This has allowed for significant agreement over vast technical aspects of what constitutes an emissions sink, what volume of reduction constitutes an emissions credit and an inspection system to make sure that claimed credits actually exist. Basically this provides all nations but especially the developing ones with a financial incentive to either stop cutting down forests or to plant new ones. That money can then be used to mitigate the effects of climate change or to buy green technology that reduces emissions further. Most importantly it will increase the amount of emissions being absorbed reducing the amount in the atmosphere and therefore reducing the pressure on countries to cut their emissions.
Adaption and Mitigation. The headline grabber from Cancun has been the agreement to set up a so called Green Fund. This will allow money and technical knowledge to flow into vulnerable nations to allow them to mitigate and adapt to the problems created by climate change. Unfortunately I've not even been able to read a draft of the structure of this fund so have no idea of the details in which the devil will most certainly hide. The two main areas of concern I have is whether this is independent of the wider process so that countries can access it without a legally binding agreement to cut emissions being reached because a lot of the problems it will tackle can't wait for that to happen. The second area is who will have the final say over where the money will be spent because if it is the donor nations then the recipient nations face having their sovereignty undermined.
Although not going anywhere near far enough this agreement is a significant breakthrough for the COP process. To put it in perspective the main obstructions this year came not from the USA or China but from Hugo Chavez's Confederation of Latin American Republics fronted by Bolivia. Their Marxist ideology meant that they were unhappy that although this agreement will help to tackle climate change it won't lead to a sort of one world government. Also they objected to the setting up of a global emissions trading mechanism because it was a capitalist idea. Personally I find that almost amusingly hypocritical because Venezuela especially is an oil based economy meaning that it is already deeply involved in a global capitalist carbon trading system.
Following a marathon final session delegates at the 16th Conference of Parties agreed amendments to the Kyoto protocol on climate change that substantially improve the chances of a replacement protocol being put in place for when Kyoto expires in 2012. Although these amendments have certainly been agreed they still need to go through the technicality of a formal vote before they can be published and publicly circulated. As a result I've only been able to read through the draft document that contains a variety of options of what the final agreement will be. However it's clear that the agreement will focus on three main areas;
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts. The annex 1 parties (developed nations) have agreed to cut their emissions to either 25/30/45/X % of their 1990 levels by 2020 and either 80/95/X % by 2050. In return for the pledges being made these targets are in no way legally binding and there is no international inspection mechanism. Therefore they rely on the goodwill and honour of the pledging nations for enforcement.
Greenhouse Gas Absorption This is the area where by far the most progress has been made with the parties agreeing to set up a voluntary, global emissions trading mechanism. This has allowed for significant agreement over vast technical aspects of what constitutes an emissions sink, what volume of reduction constitutes an emissions credit and an inspection system to make sure that claimed credits actually exist. Basically this provides all nations but especially the developing ones with a financial incentive to either stop cutting down forests or to plant new ones. That money can then be used to mitigate the effects of climate change or to buy green technology that reduces emissions further. Most importantly it will increase the amount of emissions being absorbed reducing the amount in the atmosphere and therefore reducing the pressure on countries to cut their emissions.
Adaption and Mitigation. The headline grabber from Cancun has been the agreement to set up a so called Green Fund. This will allow money and technical knowledge to flow into vulnerable nations to allow them to mitigate and adapt to the problems created by climate change. Unfortunately I've not even been able to read a draft of the structure of this fund so have no idea of the details in which the devil will most certainly hide. The two main areas of concern I have is whether this is independent of the wider process so that countries can access it without a legally binding agreement to cut emissions being reached because a lot of the problems it will tackle can't wait for that to happen. The second area is who will have the final say over where the money will be spent because if it is the donor nations then the recipient nations face having their sovereignty undermined.
Although not going anywhere near far enough this agreement is a significant breakthrough for the COP process. To put it in perspective the main obstructions this year came not from the USA or China but from Hugo Chavez's Confederation of Latin American Republics fronted by Bolivia. Their Marxist ideology meant that they were unhappy that although this agreement will help to tackle climate change it won't lead to a sort of one world government. Also they objected to the setting up of a global emissions trading mechanism because it was a capitalist idea. Personally I find that almost amusingly hypocritical because Venezuela especially is an oil based economy meaning that it is already deeply involved in a global capitalist carbon trading system.
Friday, 10 December 2010
The COP16 Is Running Late.
What a surprise(!) Anyway because 18:00 local means about midnight in my time I'm going to bed before my eyeballs fall out.
COP16: Final Day
In Cancun, Mexico the 16th Conference of Parties will today (10/12) come to an end. With little expectation that the conference will create a binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions there is still great hope that significant progress can be made on the issues surrounding global warming and climate change.
Due to the time difference, the rioting and the sheer numbers involved I've been having trouble keeping up to date with the goings on at the summit. So assuming no-one's yet chewed off their own fingers in frustration I should cover some of the things I've either failed to cover fully or not covered at all.
London Riots/Prince Charles. Without blinding everybody with technical detail there are basically two approaches to riot control; containment and dispersal. Dispersal involves using tear gas, water cannon, baton charges etc to break up and disperse a rioting crowd. Containment involves a gathering a rioting crowd into a small space in order to contain the riot and it's potential for damage. Britain's Metropolitan police have always tended to use containment tactics but since the London G20 protests have received increasing public criticism for doing so because the tactic doesn't discriminate between rioters and innocent passers-by. During the December 9th riot the Metropolitan police used both tactics containing part of the crowd with Parliament Square and dispersing the rest away through the streets of London. It was the dispersed group that was able to damage Prince Charles car so the incident is likely to be used to shore up public support for containment tactics.
Egyptian Shark Attack. On December 5th a German tourist was attacked and killed by a shark at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheik. At the time I didn't think anything of it. Then a low level, local Egyptian Mayor claimed that the attack was an Israeli plot to destroy the Egyptian tourist industry and that Mossad had released a specially trained shark into the Red Sea. Although clearly demonstrating the anti-semitism that is routinely used by middle-eastern governments to distract their populations for their own failings this is not as insane as it sounds. Since the attack it has emerged that the shark in question was attracted to the shore because someone in Egypt had been dumping sheep carcasses into the sea which acted as shark bait. Therefore the Mayor may have thought that by spreading the Israel story he was drawing attention away from an Egyptian plot to bring up the issue of changes to the worlds oceans at the COP16. However I've not seen any evidence of Egypt or anyone else pushing the issue of oceans at COP16 so I think it was just an accident caused by someone dumping sheep carcasses into the sea without thinking about the consequences.
Operation Payback. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently in prison in the UK awaiting extradition to Sweden answer a Swedish arrest warrant for a sexual offence that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. In response the loose collective of hackers known as "Anonymous" have launched Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attacks against the websites and computer systems of American companies such as Mastercard, Visa and Paypal who they accuse of attacking Wikileaks by refusing to handle donations of money to the site. This is a nonsense because the Swiss post office have frozen Wikileaks bank accounts making it impossible for Mastercard, Visa, Paypal or anyone else to handle donations to Wikileaks. As Anonymous played a crucial role in Iran's failed Green Revolution people are now trying to work out if they have spectacularly bad judgement of if they're getting helped by Israel.
Apologises if there's anything important that I haven't covered but the chances are that I haven't heard about it because at the moment it feels like my brain is under DDOS attack.
Due to the time difference, the rioting and the sheer numbers involved I've been having trouble keeping up to date with the goings on at the summit. So assuming no-one's yet chewed off their own fingers in frustration I should cover some of the things I've either failed to cover fully or not covered at all.
London Riots/Prince Charles. Without blinding everybody with technical detail there are basically two approaches to riot control; containment and dispersal. Dispersal involves using tear gas, water cannon, baton charges etc to break up and disperse a rioting crowd. Containment involves a gathering a rioting crowd into a small space in order to contain the riot and it's potential for damage. Britain's Metropolitan police have always tended to use containment tactics but since the London G20 protests have received increasing public criticism for doing so because the tactic doesn't discriminate between rioters and innocent passers-by. During the December 9th riot the Metropolitan police used both tactics containing part of the crowd with Parliament Square and dispersing the rest away through the streets of London. It was the dispersed group that was able to damage Prince Charles car so the incident is likely to be used to shore up public support for containment tactics.
Egyptian Shark Attack. On December 5th a German tourist was attacked and killed by a shark at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheik. At the time I didn't think anything of it. Then a low level, local Egyptian Mayor claimed that the attack was an Israeli plot to destroy the Egyptian tourist industry and that Mossad had released a specially trained shark into the Red Sea. Although clearly demonstrating the anti-semitism that is routinely used by middle-eastern governments to distract their populations for their own failings this is not as insane as it sounds. Since the attack it has emerged that the shark in question was attracted to the shore because someone in Egypt had been dumping sheep carcasses into the sea which acted as shark bait. Therefore the Mayor may have thought that by spreading the Israel story he was drawing attention away from an Egyptian plot to bring up the issue of changes to the worlds oceans at the COP16. However I've not seen any evidence of Egypt or anyone else pushing the issue of oceans at COP16 so I think it was just an accident caused by someone dumping sheep carcasses into the sea without thinking about the consequences.
Operation Payback. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently in prison in the UK awaiting extradition to Sweden answer a Swedish arrest warrant for a sexual offence that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. In response the loose collective of hackers known as "Anonymous" have launched Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attacks against the websites and computer systems of American companies such as Mastercard, Visa and Paypal who they accuse of attacking Wikileaks by refusing to handle donations of money to the site. This is a nonsense because the Swiss post office have frozen Wikileaks bank accounts making it impossible for Mastercard, Visa, Paypal or anyone else to handle donations to Wikileaks. As Anonymous played a crucial role in Iran's failed Green Revolution people are now trying to work out if they have spectacularly bad judgement of if they're getting helped by Israel.
Apologises if there's anything important that I haven't covered but the chances are that I haven't heard about it because at the moment it feels like my brain is under DDOS attack.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
London Riots: Almost Over.
As of 22:40 the violent protests against a rise in university tuition fees that have gripped London today are gradually coming to an end. I use the term riot because that is exactly what today has been. Normally I would try and gauge the level of protest by talking about the numbers who attended and the numbers who have been arrested. Today it seems more appropriate to talk about the number who have been hospitalised. So far this stands at 22 protesters and 9 police officers including one who got assaulted by his own horse.
Since my earlier post the stand off in Parliament Square continued with protesters attacking the Treasury building and the Supreme Court building both of which form part of the square. At around 19:20 protesters who had avoided containment in Parliament Square set off to the London shopping district of Oxford Street and Regent Street. There they began to attack shops that have been accused of avoiding tax, something that they have been conditioned to do since the Millbank Tower protest on November 10th. While they were there they came across a Royal limousine containing the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. Obviously the car was surrounded and attacked with white paint being thrown over it and one (bullet proof) window cracked but the integrity of the vehicle remained and no-one was injured
Tonight even the police are questioning the wisdom of driving the heir to the British Crown into a riot in a clearly marked Royal limousine. Of course by tomorrow even they'll have worked out that it was a set up to provoke discussion about the dispersal/containment debate over policing tactics with a view to supporting the controversial containment tactics. Also it grabs headlines across the globe and stops people talking about the cavalry charge of mounted police officer earlier in the day.
Since my earlier post the stand off in Parliament Square continued with protesters attacking the Treasury building and the Supreme Court building both of which form part of the square. At around 19:20 protesters who had avoided containment in Parliament Square set off to the London shopping district of Oxford Street and Regent Street. There they began to attack shops that have been accused of avoiding tax, something that they have been conditioned to do since the Millbank Tower protest on November 10th. While they were there they came across a Royal limousine containing the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. Obviously the car was surrounded and attacked with white paint being thrown over it and one (bullet proof) window cracked but the integrity of the vehicle remained and no-one was injured
Tonight even the police are questioning the wisdom of driving the heir to the British Crown into a riot in a clearly marked Royal limousine. Of course by tomorrow even they'll have worked out that it was a set up to provoke discussion about the dispersal/containment debate over policing tactics with a view to supporting the controversial containment tactics. Also it grabs headlines across the globe and stops people talking about the cavalry charge of mounted police officer earlier in the day.
University Tutiton Fees Vote.
In Britain the Parliamentary vote to raise university tuition fess has been passed by 323 for, 302 against. A majority of 21.
The vote has been marked by violent protests outside Parliament. The police began the day by turning away buses of students who were making their way to London to join the protest. This obviously raised the tension and meant that the protest was limited to a little over 3000. As this group entered Parliament Square at around 14:00(GMT) the police put in place containment cordons (A Kettle) which prevented the protesters reaching the agreed end point of Victoria Embankment. This led to the now traditional pushing and shoving as protesters tried to force their way through police lines.
At around 15:00 a group of police officers in full riot gear tried to enter the crowd from Victoria Street. As these police officers were clearly identifiable as coming from Croydon Borough (ZD prefix) the crowd took this as a provocative act and the violence intensified. In response at around 15:20 the police used 15 police on horseback to charge the crowd. This is a dispersal tactic that has not been seen in Britain since the the early 1990's. The reason for this is that since then the police have favoured containment tactics. Using a dispersal tactic in a contained crowd that has nowhere else to go will only lead to injuries and 11 protesters have been hospitalised. Obviously this inflamed the crowd even further and real violence ensued. The police are claiming that three of their officers have been seriously injured including one who received "serious neck injuries" although having seen footage of him being treated by medics the extent of his injuries are being dramatically overstated.
By around 16:00 the situation had calmed as the crowd awaited the vote that came at 17:40. The result of the vote has increased the tension in Parliament Square again and the seriousness of the disorder mean the police are currently using long riot shields in an attempt to tighten the containment. Protesters seem to be trying to break into buildings that surround the square in an attempt to escape the kettle.
At the time of writing the situation is ongoing and is expected to continue long it to the night with reports of protesters regrouping around Trafalgar Square and Victoria railway station.
The vote has been marked by violent protests outside Parliament. The police began the day by turning away buses of students who were making their way to London to join the protest. This obviously raised the tension and meant that the protest was limited to a little over 3000. As this group entered Parliament Square at around 14:00(GMT) the police put in place containment cordons (A Kettle) which prevented the protesters reaching the agreed end point of Victoria Embankment. This led to the now traditional pushing and shoving as protesters tried to force their way through police lines.
At around 15:00 a group of police officers in full riot gear tried to enter the crowd from Victoria Street. As these police officers were clearly identifiable as coming from Croydon Borough (ZD prefix) the crowd took this as a provocative act and the violence intensified. In response at around 15:20 the police used 15 police on horseback to charge the crowd. This is a dispersal tactic that has not been seen in Britain since the the early 1990's. The reason for this is that since then the police have favoured containment tactics. Using a dispersal tactic in a contained crowd that has nowhere else to go will only lead to injuries and 11 protesters have been hospitalised. Obviously this inflamed the crowd even further and real violence ensued. The police are claiming that three of their officers have been seriously injured including one who received "serious neck injuries" although having seen footage of him being treated by medics the extent of his injuries are being dramatically overstated.
By around 16:00 the situation had calmed as the crowd awaited the vote that came at 17:40. The result of the vote has increased the tension in Parliament Square again and the seriousness of the disorder mean the police are currently using long riot shields in an attempt to tighten the containment. Protesters seem to be trying to break into buildings that surround the square in an attempt to escape the kettle.
At the time of writing the situation is ongoing and is expected to continue long it to the night with reports of protesters regrouping around Trafalgar Square and Victoria railway station.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Advance Warning.
With malice, aforethought and full sinister intent Britain will be holding the Parliamentary vote on university tuition fees on December 9th. This is the issue that prompted mass student protests on November 10, November 24th and November 30th along with various university occupations and countless smaller, local demonstrations. Obviously students are planning to hold a very large demonstration outside Parliament on the day of the vote.
The plan is that protesters will assemble at the University of London Union (ULU) on Mallet street at 11:00(GMT)/05:00(CET) and march through the streets of London to the Houses of Parliament for 13:00. There they will attempt to lobby MP's to vote against the bill as the MP's make their way into the House. Then the protesters intend to hold a vigil outside Parliament fro the duration of the debate and the vote itself which is expected around 20:00.
Despite being hyped to ridiculous proportions there is little doubt that the bill will be passed because even if every single Liberal Democrat MP abstained there would still be enough votes from the Conservatives. So you don't need me to tell you that once the passing of the bill has been announced the protest is going to kick off like a motherf**ker.
The police's plan is to limit any violence to mere pushing and shoving by containing or kettling the crowd within Parliament square. They will then detain the crowd up to until around 00:00 before letting them out one by one and using the threat of arrest for prevention of a breach of the peace to collect personal information on the protesters such as names, addresses, photographs, fingerprints etc. In itself this is an illegal act because while prevention of a breach of the peace is an arrestable offence it is not a criminal offence. That means that the police cannot take people to court over it, they cannot collect personal data for it and the cannot detain people for any length of time after the threat of the breach of the peace has passed. So if the police do attempt to collect personal information the protesters are perfectly entitled to ignore them.
Beyond that I think the only advice I can give to anyone attending is to make sure they dress up warm. That means at least a coat, hat, gloves and scarf along with a backpack with plenty of food and water because if they do get kettled for 10-11 hours it's going to get very cold indeed. I of course will be staying in the warm and watching the whole thing on television.
The plan is that protesters will assemble at the University of London Union (ULU) on Mallet street at 11:00(GMT)/05:00(CET) and march through the streets of London to the Houses of Parliament for 13:00. There they will attempt to lobby MP's to vote against the bill as the MP's make their way into the House. Then the protesters intend to hold a vigil outside Parliament fro the duration of the debate and the vote itself which is expected around 20:00.
Despite being hyped to ridiculous proportions there is little doubt that the bill will be passed because even if every single Liberal Democrat MP abstained there would still be enough votes from the Conservatives. So you don't need me to tell you that once the passing of the bill has been announced the protest is going to kick off like a motherf**ker.
The police's plan is to limit any violence to mere pushing and shoving by containing or kettling the crowd within Parliament square. They will then detain the crowd up to until around 00:00 before letting them out one by one and using the threat of arrest for prevention of a breach of the peace to collect personal information on the protesters such as names, addresses, photographs, fingerprints etc. In itself this is an illegal act because while prevention of a breach of the peace is an arrestable offence it is not a criminal offence. That means that the police cannot take people to court over it, they cannot collect personal data for it and the cannot detain people for any length of time after the threat of the breach of the peace has passed. So if the police do attempt to collect personal information the protesters are perfectly entitled to ignore them.
Beyond that I think the only advice I can give to anyone attending is to make sure they dress up warm. That means at least a coat, hat, gloves and scarf along with a backpack with plenty of food and water because if they do get kettled for 10-11 hours it's going to get very cold indeed. I of course will be staying in the warm and watching the whole thing on television.
Haiti's Election Result.
On December 7th Haiti published the provisional results of it's November 28th election. As expected there was no clear winner with only 3 of the 19 Presidential candidates receiving over 10% of the vote leaving a top 3 of;
1. Mirlande Maniget, RDNP, 31.37%
2. Jude Celestin, INITE, 22.48%
3. Michel Martelly, Repons Peyizan, 21.84%
This means that Mirlande Maniget and Jude Celestin will go head to head in a run off poll on January 15th. Worryingly Michel Martelly's supporters have responded to his elimination from the poll with violence.
To coincide with the release of the election results a French scientist has released a report that claims to conclusively prove that Haiti's cholera outbreak was caused by UN peacekeepers. Something which has inflamed the situation further. While they've acknowledged the report the UN have been unable to accept of reject it's findings because sadly it will probably never be possible to conclusively say what caused the outbreak. It is worth remembering though that Haiti is a former French colony so the release of this report seems to be an attempt by France to disrupt the recovery effort by getting Maniget elected as President, something that would be almost certain if she was to face Martelly in a run-off poll. The idea being that if France is able to keep Haiti poor then it will be able to maintain it's influence in the country.
In other news the COP16 Summit has now entered it's high level phase. This is where government ministers and heads of state from across the globe descend on the summit and the tension rises dramatically. Venezuela have called on all delegates to make sure that the high level phase doesn't become a parallel summit and for once I agree with them. Fortunately no heads of state from any of the dominant world powers such as the USA or China will be attending. Britain has prepared by sending Chris Huhne who as a Liberal Democrat will be a controversial figure and the Notting Hill Housing Group have decided today to send me a letter which I haven't opened because it can certainly wait until the weekend.
1. Mirlande Maniget, RDNP, 31.37%
2. Jude Celestin, INITE, 22.48%
3. Michel Martelly, Repons Peyizan, 21.84%
This means that Mirlande Maniget and Jude Celestin will go head to head in a run off poll on January 15th. Worryingly Michel Martelly's supporters have responded to his elimination from the poll with violence.
To coincide with the release of the election results a French scientist has released a report that claims to conclusively prove that Haiti's cholera outbreak was caused by UN peacekeepers. Something which has inflamed the situation further. While they've acknowledged the report the UN have been unable to accept of reject it's findings because sadly it will probably never be possible to conclusively say what caused the outbreak. It is worth remembering though that Haiti is a former French colony so the release of this report seems to be an attempt by France to disrupt the recovery effort by getting Maniget elected as President, something that would be almost certain if she was to face Martelly in a run-off poll. The idea being that if France is able to keep Haiti poor then it will be able to maintain it's influence in the country.
In other news the COP16 Summit has now entered it's high level phase. This is where government ministers and heads of state from across the globe descend on the summit and the tension rises dramatically. Venezuela have called on all delegates to make sure that the high level phase doesn't become a parallel summit and for once I agree with them. Fortunately no heads of state from any of the dominant world powers such as the USA or China will be attending. Britain has prepared by sending Chris Huhne who as a Liberal Democrat will be a controversial figure and the Notting Hill Housing Group have decided today to send me a letter which I haven't opened because it can certainly wait until the weekend.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Ireland's Budget.
Today, December 7th the government of the Republic of Ireland unveiled the budget that is designed to solve the country's economic crisis and is essential to secure an E85bn rescue package from the EU/IMF.
I have to say that this budget was nowhere near as brutal as I'd been expecting. Due to opposition pressure the government seem to have taken most of the pain themselves with a pay cut for government ministers, a salary cap for civil servants and efficiency savings like the replacement with the Income/Health levies tax system with an universal social credit which will save money by simplifying the tax system. This has allowed them to protect some of the most poor in society by leaving the state pension unchanged and taking minimum wage earners out of the income tax system.
However there is still plenty of pain to go around including;
While these dates coincide with the final days of the COP16 I don't think there is anything sinister about the timing. This budget is just a really important thing that Ireland needs to do now.
I have to say that this budget was nowhere near as brutal as I'd been expecting. Due to opposition pressure the government seem to have taken most of the pain themselves with a pay cut for government ministers, a salary cap for civil servants and efficiency savings like the replacement with the Income/Health levies tax system with an universal social credit which will save money by simplifying the tax system. This has allowed them to protect some of the most poor in society by leaving the state pension unchanged and taking minimum wage earners out of the income tax system.
However there is still plenty of pain to go around including;
- Lowering all income tax bands by 10%. Basically this means that lower rate taxpayers are now paying middle rate rate tax and middle rate taxpayers are now paying higher rate tax payers. This is actually quite fair because in a recession people normally end up earning less so unless the tax system changes the government loses a lot of money and needs to make even deeper cuts.
- Disability allowance cut by E8 per week. This means that people who are too ill to work will be paid 8 euros less by the government
- Carers allowance cut by E8 per week. The people who care for the disabled will also be paid 8 euros less by the government.
- Child Benefit cut by E10. The money the government gives to parents to look after their children will be 10 euros less a week.
- Student grants cut by 4%. The money the government pays university students to study will also be cut.
While these dates coincide with the final days of the COP16 I don't think there is anything sinister about the timing. This budget is just a really important thing that Ireland needs to do now.
Monday, 6 December 2010
A Change of Plan, How Exciting.
Today, a Monday, my father and I went food shopping when we normally go on a Tuesday. That's because we were worried that it might snow again and you'd be surprised how quickly British society collapses under a thin layer of snow. I don't know about you but this break from routine left me thrilled, exhilarated and possibly a little sarcastic.
As that's really not enough for a blogpost I may as well talk about Britain's latest spy scandal. Although the arrest was actually made in the evening of December 2nd on December 5th it emerged that a Parliamentary researcher for the Liberal Democrat MP, Mike Hancock had been arrested and is to be deported for spying for Russia. At the moment the only evidence seems to be that the researcher, Katia Zatulveter, is Russian and the MP she worked for sits on the all party defence committee. No criminal charges are expected because it will be near impossible to prove espionage because even MP's on the defence committee don't get access to secret information. Instead the case is to be heard by a secret immigration court which was set up to deal with terrorism suspects. So like the northwest terrorism arrests that were dealt with in the same manner this seems to be a set up for a number of purposes;
As that's really not enough for a blogpost I may as well talk about Britain's latest spy scandal. Although the arrest was actually made in the evening of December 2nd on December 5th it emerged that a Parliamentary researcher for the Liberal Democrat MP, Mike Hancock had been arrested and is to be deported for spying for Russia. At the moment the only evidence seems to be that the researcher, Katia Zatulveter, is Russian and the MP she worked for sits on the all party defence committee. No criminal charges are expected because it will be near impossible to prove espionage because even MP's on the defence committee don't get access to secret information. Instead the case is to be heard by a secret immigration court which was set up to deal with terrorism suspects. So like the northwest terrorism arrests that were dealt with in the same manner this seems to be a set up for a number of purposes;
- Sabotage COP16. Talk of spies and espionage always increases the paranoia at summits and leads to distrust between delegates even if they come from the same nation. This makes hard work out of even the simplest of tasks.
- Discipline the LibDems. Seven months into Britain's coalition government some of the LibDems have still not accepted that their role in the coalition is simply to protect the Conservatives for public anger. Portraying them as treacherous communist sympathisers and a threat to national security should help to keep them in line.
- Increase Parliamentary security. This will obviously spread a bit of paranoia around British political circles and will make civil servants, MP's and their staff more cautious about who they share information with. If the purpose was to protect national security from foreign powers this would be a good idea. Unfortunately it's part of one of the more worrying aspects of Britain's new politics which is to disconnect the public from politics by reducing the amount of access the press have to government. The idea is to create a society where the public serve the government rather then one where the government serve the public. This is why the BBC news channel has gradually been reduced to the two people sitting behind a desk looking bored channel.
- Russia will be hosting the 2018 World Cup. Britain won't be.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
The WikiLeaks Cablegate Thing
Apparently it's still going on although I've not been paying it much attention. In fact I've actually come in for some criticism for not covering it so allow me to explain why I haven't.
In the early part of 2010 a low level US Army intelligence analyst stole a lot of data of which the diplomatic cables were the most sensitive. Quite why he did this is still a bit of a mystery but it's worth remembering that this year US gay rights campaigners are battling to do away with the don't ask, don't tell policy that prevents homosexuals from serving openly in the military. The man who stole the information did so by smuggling it out on his collection of Lady Gaga CD's
During the release of the Iraq war logs it became obvious that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has a defiant personality and sees himself as a crusader against censorship and for information freedom. Therefore if he feels that the authorities are trying to silence him he will respond aggressively by publishing even more sensitive information. The Swedish authorities took advantage of this personality trait by possibly setting Assange up for and certainly prosecuting him over some spurious rape allegations. An arrest warrant was issued on November 18th and an appeal hearing was held on December 1st. True to form Assange responded to this provocation by releasing the diplomatic cables on November 29th and in doing so gave the Swedes and their anti-COP16 agenda a huge reward.
While everybody involved in international diplomacy knows in the back of their mind that what people say in public and what they think in private are two different things the release of these cables brought the issue into sharp focus. This created a, hopefully temporary, culture of fear and paranoia within international relations especially at the COP16 Summit. As these are US diplomatic cables they have put the US negotiation team in an especially difficult situation which is a shame because after almost two decades of ardent climate change denial the US now seem ready to engage with the COP process if only to get a better idea of what is going on.
So I've not been commenting on cablegate because I don't wish to perpetuate what is a very cheap, Swedish trick that Assange should be ashamed of himself for falling for. Also why I obviously support information freedom I do believe that there are some things that it is just irresponsible to publish widely. For example publishing what some in the US government think the Chinese government think about North Korea makes that volatile situation even more difficult and could increase the chances of a nuclear armed North Korea doing something very silly indeed. That's not something I would want on my conscience.
In the early part of 2010 a low level US Army intelligence analyst stole a lot of data of which the diplomatic cables were the most sensitive. Quite why he did this is still a bit of a mystery but it's worth remembering that this year US gay rights campaigners are battling to do away with the don't ask, don't tell policy that prevents homosexuals from serving openly in the military. The man who stole the information did so by smuggling it out on his collection of Lady Gaga CD's
During the release of the Iraq war logs it became obvious that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has a defiant personality and sees himself as a crusader against censorship and for information freedom. Therefore if he feels that the authorities are trying to silence him he will respond aggressively by publishing even more sensitive information. The Swedish authorities took advantage of this personality trait by possibly setting Assange up for and certainly prosecuting him over some spurious rape allegations. An arrest warrant was issued on November 18th and an appeal hearing was held on December 1st. True to form Assange responded to this provocation by releasing the diplomatic cables on November 29th and in doing so gave the Swedes and their anti-COP16 agenda a huge reward.
While everybody involved in international diplomacy knows in the back of their mind that what people say in public and what they think in private are two different things the release of these cables brought the issue into sharp focus. This created a, hopefully temporary, culture of fear and paranoia within international relations especially at the COP16 Summit. As these are US diplomatic cables they have put the US negotiation team in an especially difficult situation which is a shame because after almost two decades of ardent climate change denial the US now seem ready to engage with the COP process if only to get a better idea of what is going on.
So I've not been commenting on cablegate because I don't wish to perpetuate what is a very cheap, Swedish trick that Assange should be ashamed of himself for falling for. Also why I obviously support information freedom I do believe that there are some things that it is just irresponsible to publish widely. For example publishing what some in the US government think the Chinese government think about North Korea makes that volatile situation even more difficult and could increase the chances of a nuclear armed North Korea doing something very silly indeed. That's not something I would want on my conscience.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
What a Sad Little Man.
Today my father and grandmother went to a Christmas dinner at the London Welsh Guards association. There's no need to get excited about it because it's just an opportunity for my father to feel important and for the British Army to feel better about themselves by laughing at him. In fact one year they actually gave him a toy solider as a souvenir.
Before he went out for the day my father put on this huge performance about how the boiler had broken so I would have to spend the entire, very cold, day without central heating or hot water. After he'd left I inspected the boiler and discovered that the fault was the on/off switch that had been placed in the off position. So that was a problem solved with my day disrupted for a full minute. I only bring it up to explain what frisson of excitement the Brits have been feeling all day because they are really violently opposed to this COP16 thing.
Before he went out for the day my father put on this huge performance about how the boiler had broken so I would have to spend the entire, very cold, day without central heating or hot water. After he'd left I inspected the boiler and discovered that the fault was the on/off switch that had been placed in the off position. So that was a problem solved with my day disrupted for a full minute. I only bring it up to explain what frisson of excitement the Brits have been feeling all day because they are really violently opposed to this COP16 thing.
Friday, 3 December 2010
COP16: Day Five.
The 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) is currently being held in Cancun, Mexico with the aim of expanding scientific knowledge of global warming and to provide economic and political solutions to climate change. While there is no expectation that this summit will result in a legally binding, global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions there is one area where the summit should be able to make great progress. The vulnerability of human populations to the problems created by global warming and how best to adapt to these problems. In the unlikely event that it's found that greenhouse gases do not cause global warming this aspect of the summit becomes all the more important. If humans are not causing global warming then there is very little that can be done to stop climate change meaning that these problems will become even more widespread and the challenge of adapting to them even greater.
The classic example of humans vulnerability to climate change comes from the Sahel belt in Africa. Stretching from Senegal on the west of the continent to Somalia on the east this region suffered from almost thirty years of continuous drought between the late 1960's and the early 1990's causing many famines including the infamous 1984 Ethiopian famine which gave the world the Live Aid concerts. Although the rains did come for a few years during the 1990's they failed again at the end of the decade meaning the region is now entering it's 11th year of drought. In 2010 alone this has created a continent wide famine that has put 10 million people (1.3 million children) in need of emergency food aid which has cost the United Nations alone US$190 million.
Although so heavily contested that the argument is actually disrupting the aid effort the role of climate change in the Sahel crisis is obvious. Changes to rainfall patterns mean that the region is almost constantly in drought which makes farming next to impossible. This makes the people there more dependent on animals which leads to overgrazing. Combined with increased sunlight and temperature this strips the land of its vegetation turning once arable farmland into desert where humans, plants and animals simply cannot live.
Within the COP process there are two main mechanisms to help the Sahel region and other vulnerable nations to tackle the problems of climate change. The adaptation fund and the Nairobi work program on impact, vulnerability and adaptation. The adaptation fund is simply a financial mechanism that allows rich countries to give money to poor countries so they can adapt to climate change. At COP15 in Copenhagen the main debate about this fund was how large it should be and how much of it should be "faststart" money that can be paid out immediately. At COP16 the debate is more about how this money should be spent with progress being made on the idea that it should be spent by the donor country with little or no input from the recipient country. This has the obvious advantage that the donor countries are more scientifically advanced then the recipient countries meaning that they are more knowledgeable about how to spend the money. It also provides assurance that the money won't be stolen by corrupt governments. The problem is that donor countries can't always be trusted to behave ethically and this approach dramatically undermines the sovereignty of the developing nations. In fact it is reminiscent of the European colonialism that caused so many problems in the 19th century and continues to create problems in places like Rwanda in the 21st century. I have always been a firm believer that the best way to create economic and social development is by supporting countries and governments to develop themselves. Therefore I cannot undermine that in the name of climate change especially as such a move will create tension in Africa between the USA and China.
The Nairobi work program is more focused on the technical aspects of vulnerability and adaptation. Apart from increasing the scientific observation and monitoring of conditions in vulnerable regions in order to better understand the effects of climate change the Nairobi program is focused on providing practical solutions to real world problems. Within the Nairobi program there is a debate over which of two approaches is best to take.
Microfinace and Farming Reform. Although one of the most revolutionary ideas in global development in that last 30 years microfinace is incredibly simple. It involves lending small amounts of money to small business owners in the developing world in order to allow them to expand their businesses. As the amounts of money involved are tiny, even by local standards, and the high interest rates mean that only ideas with a high chance of success apply these loans are invariably paid back increasing the amount of money available allowing the scheme to expand as it achieves self-sustaining growth. In terms of adaptation to climate change microfinance is used to allow farmers to buy equipment that increases the amount of food they are able to grow on their farms. While climate change is undoubtedly a major contributor to the Sahel crisis the region does have other problems in growing food such as a lack of irrigation systems, a shortage of fertilisers and a lack of basic tools such as shovels and plows. Along with an increased flow of knowledge from developed to developing countries the microfinance approach would allow farmers in vulnerable areas to buy little things like plastic piping for an irrigation system and fertiliser in order to boost their crop yields, improve their resistance to drought and improve their food security. The advantage of this approach is that it is incredibly high value with an investment of as little as US$500 able to make a small community self-sufficient. The problem is that no farming technique is 100% drought resistant because without rain an irrigation system simply isn't going to work. So while this approach will dramatically reduce vulnerability to drought it will still leave a degree of vulnerability.
Genetically Modified (GM) Crops. This approach is for scientists to create crops which are resistant to drought so the droughts don't matter anymore. It is so simple it sounds like the magic, silver bullet that will solve all the problems of governments of developing nations. They should be very cautious though because this technology is still very young. Putting aside the usual worries about the impact that GM crops have on biodiversity early indications are that many of these new crop varieties actually result in lower yields making it impossible for governments to stockpile staples for times when crops may be damaged by things other then drought. Also GM crops are hugely expensive and because they have been designed, created and patented the seeds and the crops they grow into remain the property of the biotechnology companies that created them. This creates huge problems for farmers in developing countries because they will no longer be able to produce, buy and sell seeds themselves. Instead they are forced to buy their seeds, at an inflated price, from a sole supplier who in return is able to lay claim to the farmers crops and the farms themselves. This loss of sovereignty plays directly into the strategy of some developed countries of ensuring their own food security by taking control of farmland in the developing world and using it to grow food for their own populations. That approach is not neo-colonial it is simply colonial. Also it is worth remembering that throughout the 1980's and 1990's biotechnology firms like Monsanto spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing GM crops for the developed world only to discover that nobody wanted them. Therefore it must be very tempting for those biotech companies to use the panic over climate change and world food prices to recoup some of their huge losses by dumping those unwanted GM products on the developing world.
The classic example of humans vulnerability to climate change comes from the Sahel belt in Africa. Stretching from Senegal on the west of the continent to Somalia on the east this region suffered from almost thirty years of continuous drought between the late 1960's and the early 1990's causing many famines including the infamous 1984 Ethiopian famine which gave the world the Live Aid concerts. Although the rains did come for a few years during the 1990's they failed again at the end of the decade meaning the region is now entering it's 11th year of drought. In 2010 alone this has created a continent wide famine that has put 10 million people (1.3 million children) in need of emergency food aid which has cost the United Nations alone US$190 million.
Although so heavily contested that the argument is actually disrupting the aid effort the role of climate change in the Sahel crisis is obvious. Changes to rainfall patterns mean that the region is almost constantly in drought which makes farming next to impossible. This makes the people there more dependent on animals which leads to overgrazing. Combined with increased sunlight and temperature this strips the land of its vegetation turning once arable farmland into desert where humans, plants and animals simply cannot live.
Within the COP process there are two main mechanisms to help the Sahel region and other vulnerable nations to tackle the problems of climate change. The adaptation fund and the Nairobi work program on impact, vulnerability and adaptation. The adaptation fund is simply a financial mechanism that allows rich countries to give money to poor countries so they can adapt to climate change. At COP15 in Copenhagen the main debate about this fund was how large it should be and how much of it should be "faststart" money that can be paid out immediately. At COP16 the debate is more about how this money should be spent with progress being made on the idea that it should be spent by the donor country with little or no input from the recipient country. This has the obvious advantage that the donor countries are more scientifically advanced then the recipient countries meaning that they are more knowledgeable about how to spend the money. It also provides assurance that the money won't be stolen by corrupt governments. The problem is that donor countries can't always be trusted to behave ethically and this approach dramatically undermines the sovereignty of the developing nations. In fact it is reminiscent of the European colonialism that caused so many problems in the 19th century and continues to create problems in places like Rwanda in the 21st century. I have always been a firm believer that the best way to create economic and social development is by supporting countries and governments to develop themselves. Therefore I cannot undermine that in the name of climate change especially as such a move will create tension in Africa between the USA and China.
The Nairobi work program is more focused on the technical aspects of vulnerability and adaptation. Apart from increasing the scientific observation and monitoring of conditions in vulnerable regions in order to better understand the effects of climate change the Nairobi program is focused on providing practical solutions to real world problems. Within the Nairobi program there is a debate over which of two approaches is best to take.
Microfinace and Farming Reform. Although one of the most revolutionary ideas in global development in that last 30 years microfinace is incredibly simple. It involves lending small amounts of money to small business owners in the developing world in order to allow them to expand their businesses. As the amounts of money involved are tiny, even by local standards, and the high interest rates mean that only ideas with a high chance of success apply these loans are invariably paid back increasing the amount of money available allowing the scheme to expand as it achieves self-sustaining growth. In terms of adaptation to climate change microfinance is used to allow farmers to buy equipment that increases the amount of food they are able to grow on their farms. While climate change is undoubtedly a major contributor to the Sahel crisis the region does have other problems in growing food such as a lack of irrigation systems, a shortage of fertilisers and a lack of basic tools such as shovels and plows. Along with an increased flow of knowledge from developed to developing countries the microfinance approach would allow farmers in vulnerable areas to buy little things like plastic piping for an irrigation system and fertiliser in order to boost their crop yields, improve their resistance to drought and improve their food security. The advantage of this approach is that it is incredibly high value with an investment of as little as US$500 able to make a small community self-sufficient. The problem is that no farming technique is 100% drought resistant because without rain an irrigation system simply isn't going to work. So while this approach will dramatically reduce vulnerability to drought it will still leave a degree of vulnerability.
Genetically Modified (GM) Crops. This approach is for scientists to create crops which are resistant to drought so the droughts don't matter anymore. It is so simple it sounds like the magic, silver bullet that will solve all the problems of governments of developing nations. They should be very cautious though because this technology is still very young. Putting aside the usual worries about the impact that GM crops have on biodiversity early indications are that many of these new crop varieties actually result in lower yields making it impossible for governments to stockpile staples for times when crops may be damaged by things other then drought. Also GM crops are hugely expensive and because they have been designed, created and patented the seeds and the crops they grow into remain the property of the biotechnology companies that created them. This creates huge problems for farmers in developing countries because they will no longer be able to produce, buy and sell seeds themselves. Instead they are forced to buy their seeds, at an inflated price, from a sole supplier who in return is able to lay claim to the farmers crops and the farms themselves. This loss of sovereignty plays directly into the strategy of some developed countries of ensuring their own food security by taking control of farmland in the developing world and using it to grow food for their own populations. That approach is not neo-colonial it is simply colonial. Also it is worth remembering that throughout the 1980's and 1990's biotechnology firms like Monsanto spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing GM crops for the developed world only to discover that nobody wanted them. Therefore it must be very tempting for those biotech companies to use the panic over climate change and world food prices to recoup some of their huge losses by dumping those unwanted GM products on the developing world.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
World Cup Results Are In.
The 2018 Tournament will be held in Russia.
The 2022 Tournament will be held in Qatar.
Although the fact England were knocked out in the first round of voting sticks in my throat a bit this was probably the best result for the sport. In choosing which nation gets to host the World Cup finals FIFA tries to build a passion for football across the globe. With the 2010 tournament being held in Africa and the 2014 tournament being held in South America there was a strong feeling that in 2018 and 2022 it would be the turn of Europe and Asia. Logically that meant that Russia would be the obvious choice for 2018 and the 2022 finals would go to either Qatar or Australia.
Although Russia is very much part of Europe it is almost a continent in itself stretching all the way to the Pacific ocean and the south of the country bordering central Asia. That means a World Cup being played in Russia would take place in a time zone that is accessible to most of the Worlds population on TV. Some of the games would also physically accessible to visitors from the -khstans, India and China which is an area of the World where there is the most potential for growth in football as a sport. Plus there is a huge passion for football in Russia but a serious lack of investment with many top-flight games being played in crumbling Soviet-era stadiums. By hosting the World Cup Russia is able to unlock investment that will build 14 new stadiums and encourage further, private investment in the country's domestic game. Also there are elements of Russian society, such as their treatment of journalists, that could do well from being brought under the spotlight of global scrutiny. Therefore hosting the World Cup in Russia allows FIFA to build a very large and very real legacy for football.
Likewise in Qatar there is huge public interest in foreign football, especially England's Premier League, but no real domestic game to speak of. So hosting the 2022 tournament there will see 22 new stadium built there and the opportunity to create real, grassroots support for the sport. Also because parts of Russia and Qatar are more or less in the same time zone World Cup matches played there would be accessible to TV viewers in Europe, Africa and the all important Asian region.
By contrast England, Spain & Portugal, Belgium & the Netherlands are all nations that pretty much have football in their DNA with rich domestic leagues that are already part of the national psyche. As the England bid team kept on reminding everyone those nations could host the tournament tomorrow meaning that while it would be fun a World Cup held there would have very little impact on football in those countries. Also games played in Europe suffer because they'd be on far too early in the morning for viewers in the America's to watch on TV and on far to late for viewers in Asia to watch.
Therefore in terms of the sport I think FIFA have made the right choice. In fact if their being honest I think the England bid team knew that they never really stood a chance. I would even go so far to say that all the scandal in the British press and on the BBC about bribery and corruption in the bidding process was just an attempt to get their excuses in early. So when England inevitably didn't win it could all get blamed on corrupt FIFA officials, Rupert Murdoch and the BBC rather then just accepting England just didn't have the best bid.
The 2022 Tournament will be held in Qatar.
Although the fact England were knocked out in the first round of voting sticks in my throat a bit this was probably the best result for the sport. In choosing which nation gets to host the World Cup finals FIFA tries to build a passion for football across the globe. With the 2010 tournament being held in Africa and the 2014 tournament being held in South America there was a strong feeling that in 2018 and 2022 it would be the turn of Europe and Asia. Logically that meant that Russia would be the obvious choice for 2018 and the 2022 finals would go to either Qatar or Australia.
Although Russia is very much part of Europe it is almost a continent in itself stretching all the way to the Pacific ocean and the south of the country bordering central Asia. That means a World Cup being played in Russia would take place in a time zone that is accessible to most of the Worlds population on TV. Some of the games would also physically accessible to visitors from the -khstans, India and China which is an area of the World where there is the most potential for growth in football as a sport. Plus there is a huge passion for football in Russia but a serious lack of investment with many top-flight games being played in crumbling Soviet-era stadiums. By hosting the World Cup Russia is able to unlock investment that will build 14 new stadiums and encourage further, private investment in the country's domestic game. Also there are elements of Russian society, such as their treatment of journalists, that could do well from being brought under the spotlight of global scrutiny. Therefore hosting the World Cup in Russia allows FIFA to build a very large and very real legacy for football.
Likewise in Qatar there is huge public interest in foreign football, especially England's Premier League, but no real domestic game to speak of. So hosting the 2022 tournament there will see 22 new stadium built there and the opportunity to create real, grassroots support for the sport. Also because parts of Russia and Qatar are more or less in the same time zone World Cup matches played there would be accessible to TV viewers in Europe, Africa and the all important Asian region.
By contrast England, Spain & Portugal, Belgium & the Netherlands are all nations that pretty much have football in their DNA with rich domestic leagues that are already part of the national psyche. As the England bid team kept on reminding everyone those nations could host the tournament tomorrow meaning that while it would be fun a World Cup held there would have very little impact on football in those countries. Also games played in Europe suffer because they'd be on far too early in the morning for viewers in the America's to watch on TV and on far to late for viewers in Asia to watch.
Therefore in terms of the sport I think FIFA have made the right choice. In fact if their being honest I think the England bid team knew that they never really stood a chance. I would even go so far to say that all the scandal in the British press and on the BBC about bribery and corruption in the bidding process was just an attempt to get their excuses in early. So when England inevitably didn't win it could all get blamed on corrupt FIFA officials, Rupert Murdoch and the BBC rather then just accepting England just didn't have the best bid.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
That's a Bit Cheeky.
Tomorrow, December 2nd football's world governing body FIFA will decide where the 2018 World Cup finals will be held. Britain's bid team is currently in Zurich frantically lobbying to win the honour.
Tonight in Britain Birmingham City played Aston Villa in the Carling Cup. Although Birmingham and Villa fans are both pretty harmless this is a long standing local derby grudge match. So when Birmingham scored a late winner their fans invaded the pitch to celebrate. As the fans were celebrating rather then fighting there wasn't any trouble and the pitch invasion was quickly brought under control. So it was a timely demonstration of how good the British police and football clubs have become at controlling crowds. While the timings a little bit suspicious it's actually a fair point because the British police are probably some of the best in the world at dealing with football hooligans.
Tonight in Britain Birmingham City played Aston Villa in the Carling Cup. Although Birmingham and Villa fans are both pretty harmless this is a long standing local derby grudge match. So when Birmingham scored a late winner their fans invaded the pitch to celebrate. As the fans were celebrating rather then fighting there wasn't any trouble and the pitch invasion was quickly brought under control. So it was a timely demonstration of how good the British police and football clubs have become at controlling crowds. While the timings a little bit suspicious it's actually a fair point because the British police are probably some of the best in the world at dealing with football hooligans.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Signing In. Back From the Pub.
Snow delays aside I'm basically reporting that there is nothing to report. I suppose then it's a good time to update you all on the problems I've been having with my domestic situation.
As the Court of Protection ruled against me there has been no change in my grandmother's situation. She's still being prescribed inappropriate medication and is therefore suffering the effects of long term drug abuse, mainly impaired judgement. I've been able to work some of my top secret, extra special "magic" to mitigate the situation and through the Court process I've been able to bring her spending down to a manageable rate.
Demonstrating that sometimes it's the journey rather then the destination that matters although unsuccessful the statutory nuisance proceedings have severely reduced the tactical options available to the Notting Hill Housing Group's "henhouse." Therefore since the October 12th Court date their harassment has been limited to turning the TV in my backroom on and off with a universal remote control. They've done this so many times that they actually broke the TV about two weeks ago forcing me to listen to music instead. They're unable to interfere with the music system so for now the biggest problem I have to put up with from them is their silent fury at not having any influence whatsoever.
As the Court of Protection ruled against me there has been no change in my grandmother's situation. She's still being prescribed inappropriate medication and is therefore suffering the effects of long term drug abuse, mainly impaired judgement. I've been able to work some of my top secret, extra special "magic" to mitigate the situation and through the Court process I've been able to bring her spending down to a manageable rate.
Demonstrating that sometimes it's the journey rather then the destination that matters although unsuccessful the statutory nuisance proceedings have severely reduced the tactical options available to the Notting Hill Housing Group's "henhouse." Therefore since the October 12th Court date their harassment has been limited to turning the TV in my backroom on and off with a universal remote control. They've done this so many times that they actually broke the TV about two weeks ago forcing me to listen to music instead. They're unable to interfere with the music system so for now the biggest problem I have to put up with from them is their silent fury at not having any influence whatsoever.
It's Snowing!
Well in the UK at least. It's actually been snowing in some parts of the country for about a week but today (30/11) around 70mm settled in London. As London is a large city in the south of the country if it snows there it normally means that it's snowing across the entire country.
Funnily enough this meant that the N30 student protests didn't really get started. Around 100 people protested in Birmingham, 400 in Liverpool and 1000 in London. There the police did everything they could to provoke trouble by suddenly going back on an agreement with protest organisers that they could march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square via Whitehall by placing a cordon across Whitehall. However the low turnout meant that there was no confrontation and the protesters dispersed in small groups. This meant that all that really happened was a large of police officers spent the day standing around looking really cold.
Last night (29/11) there was a similarly over-hyped demonstration in the South London borough of Lewisham. Here around 100 people gathered to witness a vote on the local council budget. They weren't allowed in leading to some pushing and shoving between the protesters, the building security and the local police. Once everything had died down the Territorial Support Group (TSG) were deployed mainly so the Metropolitan police could issue a press release saying they'd been forced to send in the riot squad.
Also there's currently an emergency ambulance parked outside the front of my property but I have no idea why because it's certainly not nothing to do with me.
Funnily enough this meant that the N30 student protests didn't really get started. Around 100 people protested in Birmingham, 400 in Liverpool and 1000 in London. There the police did everything they could to provoke trouble by suddenly going back on an agreement with protest organisers that they could march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square via Whitehall by placing a cordon across Whitehall. However the low turnout meant that there was no confrontation and the protesters dispersed in small groups. This meant that all that really happened was a large of police officers spent the day standing around looking really cold.
Last night (29/11) there was a similarly over-hyped demonstration in the South London borough of Lewisham. Here around 100 people gathered to witness a vote on the local council budget. They weren't allowed in leading to some pushing and shoving between the protesters, the building security and the local police. Once everything had died down the Territorial Support Group (TSG) were deployed mainly so the Metropolitan police could issue a press release saying they'd been forced to send in the riot squad.
Also there's currently an emergency ambulance parked outside the front of my property but I have no idea why because it's certainly not nothing to do with me.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Here We Go Again.
Today, November 29th, the 16th Conference of Parties Summit (COP16) begins in Cancun, Mexico. Running until December 10th COP16 gathers together delegations from most nations on earth to discuss the causes of and how to solve the problems created by global warming and climate change.
The mere fact that this summit is being held is a victory in itself because there are a lot of powerful people who had hoped that the entire COP process would die a death in Copenhagen. That means that the first objective of the summit is to make sure that none of the delegates are driven to suicide by frustration at the sheer lunacy of it all. Beyond that I am looking for a commitment that there will be a COP17 summit, a sharing of climate data between nations, a discussion of how to mitigate the effects of climate change and hopefully an increase in signatories to the Copenhagen Accord.
It will be interesting though to see if the summit will even get time to discuss these matters because there's already so much else going on in the world at the moment.
Ireland's Bailout. Yesterday (28/11) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) formally announced a seven year economic recovery plan for the Republic of Ireland. The plan will see Ireland receive a total of E85bn in loans from the IMF (E22.5bn), European Financial Stability Mechanism (E22.5bn), the European Financial Stability Fund (E22.5bn) and Ireland itself (17.5bn) all which will be charged an interest rate of 5.8%. The bailout is dependent of the Irish government passing it's budget on December 7th. That budget includes plans to increase to Ireland's carbon tax creating a discussion about a carbon tax versus a cap n' trade style system of carbon pricing.
North and South Korea. On November 28th US/South Korea military exercises began and China called for a resumption of stalled six party talks while the North and South Korean governments exchanged verbal insults. I refer to my original post on the matter entitled; "That's not good."
Haiti's Election. Held on November 28th the results are not expected for a couple of days. However it immediately apparent that the election was an utter shambles. With almost 10% of the countries electorate having been killed or incapacitated through illness, another 20% being displaced and no real functioning state to speak of it was almost impossible to tell who was eligible to vote and where. That meant that a lot of people were unable to vote while others took advantage of the chaos to vote multiple times. As a result whoever wins will have little credibility with voters and the RNDP are already accusing the USA of rigging the election to install Jude Celestin as a puppet president. This is a shame because if the Americans had actually gone to the trouble of rigging Haiti's election it would be much less chaotic then this.
Wikileaks. Starting on November 28th the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, is planning to release 250,000 diplomatic cables between the US government and their embassies overseas. These are rumoured to include some very sensitive information such as what US diplomats really think of foreign diplomats and governments. Although I've only been able to read the 220 documents that have been posted on the website so far which contain nothing really juicy it's obvious that these documents are much more serious then the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. For example 08STATE116392 explains exactly what sort of intelligence US diplomats are expected to gather on the Palestinians and the Israel/Palestine peace talks. Therefore I'm worried about how explosive documents released during the COP16 will be. I'm especially worried because Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is currently being investigated by the Swedish authorities over some less then credible allegations of rape. That means that even by simple provocation alone the Swedish Monarchy has great influence over what Wikileaks will publish and when.
Iran Bombings. On November 29th Iran had one of it's nuclear scientists killed and another seriously injured in two seperate bomb attacks. Almost automatically Iran has blamed these attacks on US and Israeli intelligence agencies. Although I haven't looked at it in great detail the attacks are probably the work of Baluchistan separatists operating with intelligence support from either Britain, Israel or Saudi Arabia. Given the proximity to the COP16 and the Wikileaks story Britain or Saudi Arabia are the most likely suspects.
Student Protests. On November 30th UK students plan to hold a third day of protest against increases to university tuition fees. Incredibly disrespectfully they are calling this protests "N30." This name should sound familiar to a lot of people because the original N30 protests were an important event in modern history. On November 30th 1999 the World Trade Organisation held it's summit in Seattle, USA. What followed was three days of unprecedented protest and rioting that saw the public unveiling of the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement. By tricking the students into holding a large and possibly violent demonstration under the N30 banner Britain is trying to send the false message to the COP16 that the public will not tolerate globalised summits. So I can only apologise for the protesters in advance. After all they are just students.
Ravi Gurumurthy. As a director of the Notting Hill Housing Group Gurumurthy has played a key role in the troubles I've been having over the last year. He is also the head of strategy on climate change for the British government. I've not checked to see if he's actually attending the COP16 but if he is he's only there to draw attention to himself. Therefore if you're not prepared to actually punch him in the face he's best ignored.
Britain's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Technically old news but I missed it at the time. Britain's CSR changed the way that revenue from something called the Crown Estate is distributed. Basically the Crown Estate is all non-privately owned land in the UK including the sea bed in UK territorial waters. Previously money generated by this land was paid to something called the Civil List which distributed it between minor Royals, Dukes, Lords, Bishops etc. The CSR changed that and now the money is paid directly to the Queen's personal fortune. Short version; if Britain builds off-shore wind turbines the Queen will make about £800million. So while I don't think the British delegation's position on global warming has changed dramatically at COP16 I expect them to be very big on wind.
Now I hope everyone's stocked up on aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen because I feel more then one headache coming on.
The mere fact that this summit is being held is a victory in itself because there are a lot of powerful people who had hoped that the entire COP process would die a death in Copenhagen. That means that the first objective of the summit is to make sure that none of the delegates are driven to suicide by frustration at the sheer lunacy of it all. Beyond that I am looking for a commitment that there will be a COP17 summit, a sharing of climate data between nations, a discussion of how to mitigate the effects of climate change and hopefully an increase in signatories to the Copenhagen Accord.
It will be interesting though to see if the summit will even get time to discuss these matters because there's already so much else going on in the world at the moment.
Ireland's Bailout. Yesterday (28/11) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) formally announced a seven year economic recovery plan for the Republic of Ireland. The plan will see Ireland receive a total of E85bn in loans from the IMF (E22.5bn), European Financial Stability Mechanism (E22.5bn), the European Financial Stability Fund (E22.5bn) and Ireland itself (17.5bn) all which will be charged an interest rate of 5.8%. The bailout is dependent of the Irish government passing it's budget on December 7th. That budget includes plans to increase to Ireland's carbon tax creating a discussion about a carbon tax versus a cap n' trade style system of carbon pricing.
North and South Korea. On November 28th US/South Korea military exercises began and China called for a resumption of stalled six party talks while the North and South Korean governments exchanged verbal insults. I refer to my original post on the matter entitled; "That's not good."
Haiti's Election. Held on November 28th the results are not expected for a couple of days. However it immediately apparent that the election was an utter shambles. With almost 10% of the countries electorate having been killed or incapacitated through illness, another 20% being displaced and no real functioning state to speak of it was almost impossible to tell who was eligible to vote and where. That meant that a lot of people were unable to vote while others took advantage of the chaos to vote multiple times. As a result whoever wins will have little credibility with voters and the RNDP are already accusing the USA of rigging the election to install Jude Celestin as a puppet president. This is a shame because if the Americans had actually gone to the trouble of rigging Haiti's election it would be much less chaotic then this.
Wikileaks. Starting on November 28th the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, is planning to release 250,000 diplomatic cables between the US government and their embassies overseas. These are rumoured to include some very sensitive information such as what US diplomats really think of foreign diplomats and governments. Although I've only been able to read the 220 documents that have been posted on the website so far which contain nothing really juicy it's obvious that these documents are much more serious then the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. For example 08STATE116392 explains exactly what sort of intelligence US diplomats are expected to gather on the Palestinians and the Israel/Palestine peace talks. Therefore I'm worried about how explosive documents released during the COP16 will be. I'm especially worried because Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is currently being investigated by the Swedish authorities over some less then credible allegations of rape. That means that even by simple provocation alone the Swedish Monarchy has great influence over what Wikileaks will publish and when.
Iran Bombings. On November 29th Iran had one of it's nuclear scientists killed and another seriously injured in two seperate bomb attacks. Almost automatically Iran has blamed these attacks on US and Israeli intelligence agencies. Although I haven't looked at it in great detail the attacks are probably the work of Baluchistan separatists operating with intelligence support from either Britain, Israel or Saudi Arabia. Given the proximity to the COP16 and the Wikileaks story Britain or Saudi Arabia are the most likely suspects.
Student Protests. On November 30th UK students plan to hold a third day of protest against increases to university tuition fees. Incredibly disrespectfully they are calling this protests "N30." This name should sound familiar to a lot of people because the original N30 protests were an important event in modern history. On November 30th 1999 the World Trade Organisation held it's summit in Seattle, USA. What followed was three days of unprecedented protest and rioting that saw the public unveiling of the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement. By tricking the students into holding a large and possibly violent demonstration under the N30 banner Britain is trying to send the false message to the COP16 that the public will not tolerate globalised summits. So I can only apologise for the protesters in advance. After all they are just students.
Ravi Gurumurthy. As a director of the Notting Hill Housing Group Gurumurthy has played a key role in the troubles I've been having over the last year. He is also the head of strategy on climate change for the British government. I've not checked to see if he's actually attending the COP16 but if he is he's only there to draw attention to himself. Therefore if you're not prepared to actually punch him in the face he's best ignored.
Britain's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Technically old news but I missed it at the time. Britain's CSR changed the way that revenue from something called the Crown Estate is distributed. Basically the Crown Estate is all non-privately owned land in the UK including the sea bed in UK territorial waters. Previously money generated by this land was paid to something called the Civil List which distributed it between minor Royals, Dukes, Lords, Bishops etc. The CSR changed that and now the money is paid directly to the Queen's personal fortune. Short version; if Britain builds off-shore wind turbines the Queen will make about £800million. So while I don't think the British delegation's position on global warming has changed dramatically at COP16 I expect them to be very big on wind.
Now I hope everyone's stocked up on aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen because I feel more then one headache coming on.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Haiti's Election is Here.
After months of hype Haitians will go to the polls on November 28th to choose their next President. As I'm sure you can imagine there is really just one issue in Haitian politics at the moment. How best to rebuild the country after January's earthquake.
It is a bitter irony then that the election itself has delayed and will continue to delay the reconstruction efforts. Even without Wyclef Jean there are 19 individual candidates for the Presidency. This vast choice coupled with and expected low voter turn out due to the country's Cholera epidemic and the general post-'quake chaos mean that there is expected to be no clear winner. Instead Haiti will have to once again hold it's breath and wait until January 15th for a run-off vote between the two most popular candidates.
Mirlande Manigat. The wife of ex-President Leslie Manigat who was deposed in the 1988 coup that led to the introduction of Haiti's constitution it is no surprise that the main plank of Mrs Manigat's campaign is to do away with the constitution that did away with her husband. Educated in Paris in the late 1960's and a founder member of Haiti's Assembly of Progressive National Democrats (RNDP) Party Mirlande Manigat is a career Marxist theorist who has published many books on women's rights, international relations and political reform. An ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez the main aim of the RNDP are to bring the variety of international aid agencies in the country under government control and increase the role of the state in what passes for an economy in Haiti.
Jude Celestin. A 48 year bachelor with limited social skills Jude Celestin is the ultimate technocratic nerd. With an advanced degree in mechanical engineering from Switzerland Celestin has pretty much dedicated his life to his career. He is the founder and until recently the head of Haiti's National Centre for Equipment (CNE) which provides trucks and heavy machinery that were essential in clearing up the rubble and burying the dead after the earthquake. A member of the governing Unity Party (INITE) Celestin has the endorsement of the successful, but not that popular, outgoing President Rene Preval. His main aims are to continue Preval's good work by working with international aid agencies and the UN to attract money and talent to help build a better future for Haiti.
Although a certain level of corruption has to be expected in Haitian politics the candidate that worries me most is Mirlande Manigat. Her Marxist agenda is going to terrify potential aid donors and make it near impossible for the Haitian government to work with international development bodies like the UN and the World Bank. Also her links to Hugo Chavez mean that her election as President pretty much guarantees that Haiti will receive no further help from the United States.
Plus I have also heard strong rumours that the RNDP caused the recent rioting by spreading the lie that MINUSTAH caused Haiti's Cholera outbreak. This was done to damage the election chances of INITE who have strong links with MINUSTAH and the UN. Those riots killed ten people, stopped aid flights arriving on the island and prevented thousands of people receiving medical treatment for Cholera. Any political party or Presidential candidate that is prepared to do something like that to win power simply does not deserve to be elected because they clearly don't have Haiti's best interests at heart.
So if I was able to vote I would vote for Jude Celestin.
It is a bitter irony then that the election itself has delayed and will continue to delay the reconstruction efforts. Even without Wyclef Jean there are 19 individual candidates for the Presidency. This vast choice coupled with and expected low voter turn out due to the country's Cholera epidemic and the general post-'quake chaos mean that there is expected to be no clear winner. Instead Haiti will have to once again hold it's breath and wait until January 15th for a run-off vote between the two most popular candidates.
Mirlande Manigat. The wife of ex-President Leslie Manigat who was deposed in the 1988 coup that led to the introduction of Haiti's constitution it is no surprise that the main plank of Mrs Manigat's campaign is to do away with the constitution that did away with her husband. Educated in Paris in the late 1960's and a founder member of Haiti's Assembly of Progressive National Democrats (RNDP) Party Mirlande Manigat is a career Marxist theorist who has published many books on women's rights, international relations and political reform. An ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez the main aim of the RNDP are to bring the variety of international aid agencies in the country under government control and increase the role of the state in what passes for an economy in Haiti.
Jude Celestin. A 48 year bachelor with limited social skills Jude Celestin is the ultimate technocratic nerd. With an advanced degree in mechanical engineering from Switzerland Celestin has pretty much dedicated his life to his career. He is the founder and until recently the head of Haiti's National Centre for Equipment (CNE) which provides trucks and heavy machinery that were essential in clearing up the rubble and burying the dead after the earthquake. A member of the governing Unity Party (INITE) Celestin has the endorsement of the successful, but not that popular, outgoing President Rene Preval. His main aims are to continue Preval's good work by working with international aid agencies and the UN to attract money and talent to help build a better future for Haiti.
Although a certain level of corruption has to be expected in Haitian politics the candidate that worries me most is Mirlande Manigat. Her Marxist agenda is going to terrify potential aid donors and make it near impossible for the Haitian government to work with international development bodies like the UN and the World Bank. Also her links to Hugo Chavez mean that her election as President pretty much guarantees that Haiti will receive no further help from the United States.
Plus I have also heard strong rumours that the RNDP caused the recent rioting by spreading the lie that MINUSTAH caused Haiti's Cholera outbreak. This was done to damage the election chances of INITE who have strong links with MINUSTAH and the UN. Those riots killed ten people, stopped aid flights arriving on the island and prevented thousands of people receiving medical treatment for Cholera. Any political party or Presidential candidate that is prepared to do something like that to win power simply does not deserve to be elected because they clearly don't have Haiti's best interests at heart.
So if I was able to vote I would vote for Jude Celestin.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Wednesday's Student Protests
As advertised on November 24th British students again took to the streets to protest against an increase in university tuition fees and other changes to the education system. There were at least four large demonstrations in cities across the UK and a dozen smaller protests in towns and university campuses across the country. Obviously it's going to take me ages to report on exactly what happened on every single one of them so for now I'll concentrate on the protest that received the most media attention. The London protest.
The day began at around 11:00 when students walked out of universities, higher education colleges and schools across the capital. In groups of 50-100 they then made their way to Trafalgar Square to join up for a single, large march at around 12:00. The plan was for this group of around 5000 to march down Whitehall to Parliament Square and on to LibDem headquarters in Cowley Street before returning to Trafalgar Square. The problem was that as the group made it's way down Whitehall the Metropolitan police had left one of the old pattern Mercedes Sprinter vans that they're in the process of phasing out locked but totally unattended in the middle of the street. Something which is a major breach of the police's standard operating procedure.
As the group surrounded this van as they were walking past it the police decided that this was such a sign of impending violence that they deployed officers in riot gear to instigate crowd containment procedures. This led to two kettles being formed, one between Parliament Square and Horse Guards Parade and one between Horse Guards Parade and Trafalgar Square. Once kettled the protesters who were prepared for property damage turned their attention to the police van, street furniture and the surrounding buildings. Bored and frustrated at being unable to continue their protest march or leave the area protesters who would otherwise have been peaceful began fighting with the police in attempts to escape the kettle. As a result there was a bit of pushing and shoving and a few windows got smashed. However as no-one tried to use the abandoned police van as a battering ram to break through police lines I don't think anyone was that seriously intent on violence.
The police's decision to contain the protest in Whitehall was simply ridiculous. At one end of Whitehall you have Parliament Square. As the name suggest this is just a square where a large crowd can be contained on a patch of grass in such a way as they pose a threat to nothing but the grass. At the other end of Whitehall you have Trafalgar Square, scene of the famous 1990 Poll Tax riot. After that riot the layout of Trafalgar Square was extensively redesigned with the specific purpose of turning it into a space where a violent crowd of up 50,000 people could be contained in order to prevent widespread disorder. This is why most protests in London end with a rally in Trafalgar Square.
Instead of using these two purpose built containment areas the police decided to hold the demonstration in Whitehall itself. In terms of politics Whitehall is probably the most important street in the UK. Not only does it contain the entrance to Downing Street, home to the Prime Minister and Chancellor, it also contains the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health. So if you wanted to go and smash up the buildings, politicians and civil servants that make up the British state Whitehall is exactly where you would want to be. Therefore while there are always people who turn up to public events looking for a fight I would say that the reason why there was violence in London yesterday was because the Metropolitan police wanted there to be violence.
The reason for this is that on November 10th the Metropolitan police were completely humiliated when protesters caused £1million worth of damage to Millbank Tower, caused members of MI5 and GCHQ to lock themselves in their offices and prevented members of the House of Lords turning up to claim their expenses. This meant that senior police officers came in for serious criticism from the sort of the powerful people who could seriously affect their careers. Also there has been an unfounded rumour circulating that the police allowed the events of November 10th to take place as a way of making their own protest about government cuts to police budgets. Therefore the police needed another student riot to show that they could contain a student riot and prove their loyalty to the Crown by showing they were prepared to give protesters a damn good thrashing.
This fits is with a wider policy across the British state of trying to provoke protest and disorder. Despite the 24 hour rolling news coverage of how absolutely brilliantly Britain is doing in reality the country is facing at least ten years of serious economic misery. For at least five of those years Britain is also going to have to endure a Conservative government intent on waging a class war against it's population. This means that there are going to be plenty of riots and protests still to come. Driven by the ghost of Marget Thatcher the state's strategy to deal with this is to provoke these battles early so the opposition burns itself out before the really nasty stuff is introduced.
The day began at around 11:00 when students walked out of universities, higher education colleges and schools across the capital. In groups of 50-100 they then made their way to Trafalgar Square to join up for a single, large march at around 12:00. The plan was for this group of around 5000 to march down Whitehall to Parliament Square and on to LibDem headquarters in Cowley Street before returning to Trafalgar Square. The problem was that as the group made it's way down Whitehall the Metropolitan police had left one of the old pattern Mercedes Sprinter vans that they're in the process of phasing out locked but totally unattended in the middle of the street. Something which is a major breach of the police's standard operating procedure.
As the group surrounded this van as they were walking past it the police decided that this was such a sign of impending violence that they deployed officers in riot gear to instigate crowd containment procedures. This led to two kettles being formed, one between Parliament Square and Horse Guards Parade and one between Horse Guards Parade and Trafalgar Square. Once kettled the protesters who were prepared for property damage turned their attention to the police van, street furniture and the surrounding buildings. Bored and frustrated at being unable to continue their protest march or leave the area protesters who would otherwise have been peaceful began fighting with the police in attempts to escape the kettle. As a result there was a bit of pushing and shoving and a few windows got smashed. However as no-one tried to use the abandoned police van as a battering ram to break through police lines I don't think anyone was that seriously intent on violence.
The police's decision to contain the protest in Whitehall was simply ridiculous. At one end of Whitehall you have Parliament Square. As the name suggest this is just a square where a large crowd can be contained on a patch of grass in such a way as they pose a threat to nothing but the grass. At the other end of Whitehall you have Trafalgar Square, scene of the famous 1990 Poll Tax riot. After that riot the layout of Trafalgar Square was extensively redesigned with the specific purpose of turning it into a space where a violent crowd of up 50,000 people could be contained in order to prevent widespread disorder. This is why most protests in London end with a rally in Trafalgar Square.
Instead of using these two purpose built containment areas the police decided to hold the demonstration in Whitehall itself. In terms of politics Whitehall is probably the most important street in the UK. Not only does it contain the entrance to Downing Street, home to the Prime Minister and Chancellor, it also contains the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health. So if you wanted to go and smash up the buildings, politicians and civil servants that make up the British state Whitehall is exactly where you would want to be. Therefore while there are always people who turn up to public events looking for a fight I would say that the reason why there was violence in London yesterday was because the Metropolitan police wanted there to be violence.
The reason for this is that on November 10th the Metropolitan police were completely humiliated when protesters caused £1million worth of damage to Millbank Tower, caused members of MI5 and GCHQ to lock themselves in their offices and prevented members of the House of Lords turning up to claim their expenses. This meant that senior police officers came in for serious criticism from the sort of the powerful people who could seriously affect their careers. Also there has been an unfounded rumour circulating that the police allowed the events of November 10th to take place as a way of making their own protest about government cuts to police budgets. Therefore the police needed another student riot to show that they could contain a student riot and prove their loyalty to the Crown by showing they were prepared to give protesters a damn good thrashing.
This fits is with a wider policy across the British state of trying to provoke protest and disorder. Despite the 24 hour rolling news coverage of how absolutely brilliantly Britain is doing in reality the country is facing at least ten years of serious economic misery. For at least five of those years Britain is also going to have to endure a Conservative government intent on waging a class war against it's population. This means that there are going to be plenty of riots and protests still to come. Driven by the ghost of Marget Thatcher the state's strategy to deal with this is to provoke these battles early so the opposition burns itself out before the really nasty stuff is introduced.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Ireland's Rescue Package.
On November 22nd the Republic of Ireland formally applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic bailout to be supported by the European Union (EU). Much like when you apply for a bank loan Ireland have submitted all the paperwork and is just waiting for the IMF to agree the terms and conditions of the loan. This means that no official announcement has been made and no firm details have been released.
However from the rumours that have been circulating it is believed that the IMF will make a low interest loan of between 75 and 90bn Euros with the best guess being E85bn. The vast majority of this money will be used to recapitalise Ireland's banks. This makes perfect sense because Ireland's recession has been a property driven recession. That means that during the boom years Irish banks made lots of loans to property developments that went bust. It is the high number of these bad loans that are undermining confidence in the Irish economy. Increasing the amount of capital held in reserves increases the amount of these bad loans that Irish banks can absorb without collapsing restoring confidence in the economy as a whole. The rest on the money will be used to help the Irish government meet it's day to day expenses. Without it the Irish government would be forced to raise this money from the international bond markets at a much higher cost if they can raise it at all.
In return the IMF has asked Ireland to make E20bn in savings but has given the Irish government great freedom to choose where exactly those savings come from. This means that Ireland gets to keep its low 12.5% corporate tax rate. However the Irish government have today (24/11) have released a 4 year recovery plan which shows it intends to reach that E20bn figure through E15bn of spending cuts and E5bn of tax increases. This recovery plan will form the basis for the government's next budget. The main proposed tax increases are;
Unappealing as this all is it's important to remember that it wasn't the IMF that ruined the Irish economy. It was the Irish government that ruined the Irish economy. The fact that yesterday one of Ireland's major newspapers ran a front page featuring a picture of the Prime Minister alongside the headline "Go Now You Gobshite!" suggests that the Irish people have more then already worked that out for themselves. This has led to one of the parties in the governing coalition to threaten to bring down the government unless a General Election is called by February 2011. Sadly this actually creates more problems then it solves because if the Irish Parliament fails to pass the Prime Ministers rescue plan the IMF bailout disappears and Ireland's economic problems get much worse.
So I think that while the Ireland's politicians should rigorously question these economic proposals in order to get the most effective plan they should avoid party political grandstanding and unite to pass Ireland's budget because it would make a fitting epitaph to Brian Cowen's political career.
However from the rumours that have been circulating it is believed that the IMF will make a low interest loan of between 75 and 90bn Euros with the best guess being E85bn. The vast majority of this money will be used to recapitalise Ireland's banks. This makes perfect sense because Ireland's recession has been a property driven recession. That means that during the boom years Irish banks made lots of loans to property developments that went bust. It is the high number of these bad loans that are undermining confidence in the Irish economy. Increasing the amount of capital held in reserves increases the amount of these bad loans that Irish banks can absorb without collapsing restoring confidence in the economy as a whole. The rest on the money will be used to help the Irish government meet it's day to day expenses. Without it the Irish government would be forced to raise this money from the international bond markets at a much higher cost if they can raise it at all.
In return the IMF has asked Ireland to make E20bn in savings but has given the Irish government great freedom to choose where exactly those savings come from. This means that Ireland gets to keep its low 12.5% corporate tax rate. However the Irish government have today (24/11) have released a 4 year recovery plan which shows it intends to reach that E20bn figure through E15bn of spending cuts and E5bn of tax increases. This recovery plan will form the basis for the government's next budget. The main proposed tax increases are;
- An increase in the rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) to 23% by 2014.
- Changes to the income tax system which I don't know enough about to comment on but are expected to raise E1.2bn.
- A new property tax of around E200 per year to be paid by people who own property.
- 25,000 public sector jobs to be cut.
- Pay freezes for public sector workers.
- A 10% pay cut for new public sector employees.
- A new, less generous public sector pension scheme.
Unappealing as this all is it's important to remember that it wasn't the IMF that ruined the Irish economy. It was the Irish government that ruined the Irish economy. The fact that yesterday one of Ireland's major newspapers ran a front page featuring a picture of the Prime Minister alongside the headline "Go Now You Gobshite!" suggests that the Irish people have more then already worked that out for themselves. This has led to one of the parties in the governing coalition to threaten to bring down the government unless a General Election is called by February 2011. Sadly this actually creates more problems then it solves because if the Irish Parliament fails to pass the Prime Ministers rescue plan the IMF bailout disappears and Ireland's economic problems get much worse.
So I think that while the Ireland's politicians should rigorously question these economic proposals in order to get the most effective plan they should avoid party political grandstanding and unite to pass Ireland's budget because it would make a fitting epitaph to Brian Cowen's political career.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
More Student Protests
As you may have heard on November 10th 2010 British students held a protest against a 300% increase in university tuition fees. The day ended with a riot at Millbank Tower, the HQ of the governing Conservative Party.
Tomorrow, November 24th the students will be trying to build on that, I suppose, success by holding a second day of protests. However this time rather then gathering 50,000 people from around the country to converge on London and the Metropolitan Police's 20 strong Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) they plan to hold 36 separate demonstrations and walkouts across the country that will be covered by FIT teams from 12 police forces. No serious violence or disorder is expected but at least 24 young men are predicted to be caught on camera trying to impress a much smaller number of young women.
In preparation for the protest a group called FITWatch began by getting their website shut down by the police on an unsupported allegation of attempting to pervert the course of justice. They then moved to another web server and posted some very long and complicated advice on what the students should do if arrested and how to deal with the FIT teams. This advice included wearing masks, carrying large placards to block the police cameras, photographing the police photographers and following the FIT officers around aggressively demanding their names and shoulder numbers.
As tomorrow is expected to be one of the coldest days of the year I would have thought the best advice would have been to simply wear a scarf. Better yet would to not go in the first place because let me guess. The person who suggested these regional demos was a little bit older then everyone else in the group, had a bit more money and seems able to get on with almost everyone by telling stories about how radical they were during the Iraq war protests.
Tomorrow, November 24th the students will be trying to build on that, I suppose, success by holding a second day of protests. However this time rather then gathering 50,000 people from around the country to converge on London and the Metropolitan Police's 20 strong Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) they plan to hold 36 separate demonstrations and walkouts across the country that will be covered by FIT teams from 12 police forces. No serious violence or disorder is expected but at least 24 young men are predicted to be caught on camera trying to impress a much smaller number of young women.
In preparation for the protest a group called FITWatch began by getting their website shut down by the police on an unsupported allegation of attempting to pervert the course of justice. They then moved to another web server and posted some very long and complicated advice on what the students should do if arrested and how to deal with the FIT teams. This advice included wearing masks, carrying large placards to block the police cameras, photographing the police photographers and following the FIT officers around aggressively demanding their names and shoulder numbers.
As tomorrow is expected to be one of the coldest days of the year I would have thought the best advice would have been to simply wear a scarf. Better yet would to not go in the first place because let me guess. The person who suggested these regional demos was a little bit older then everyone else in the group, had a bit more money and seems able to get on with almost everyone by telling stories about how radical they were during the Iraq war protests.
That's Not Good.
Today (23/11) the Americans and the Chinese are meeting to discuss how best to get North Korea to give up it's nuclear weapon(s). The North Koreans have not been invited to this meeting.
Obviously angered by the perceived snub the North Koreans have responded by firing over 200 artillery shells into South Korea killing 3 South Korean Marines, injuring 17 more and at least 3 civilians. As North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war with each other this has got a lot of people very worried because this incident certainly breaches the ceasefire agreement and artillery barrages are normally the sort of thing that turn cold wars into shooting wars. When at least one side has nuclear weapons this is generally considered a very bad thing.
While this is clearly a very tense situation there shouldn't be too much to worry about because this is the sort of unsophisticated diplomacy that everyone's come to expect from North Korea. Whenever the North Korean government wants something, be it attention or more usually money, they go and do something dangerous, provocative and downright silly. This gets the World to focus on them and puts other countries under great pressure to give them things in order to stop them doing dangerous, provocative and silly things. This particular instance is more dramatic then most because North Korea is in the process of grooming Kim Jong-un to take over power from his father Kim Jong-il. As such the North Korean military are using this as an opportunity to school the younger Kim in their particular way of doing business. Also people have recently been comparing North Korea to Britain. This has offended the North Koreans because not even they would be prepared to put up with the crap the British tolerate from their own dear leaders.
Hopefully what will happen now is that the Americans will discreetly speak to the South Koreans and the Chinese will discreetly speak to the North Koreans to make sure that this doesn't escalate any further. So with a bit of luck this will calm down again right up until the North Koreans decide they want something else.
Obviously angered by the perceived snub the North Koreans have responded by firing over 200 artillery shells into South Korea killing 3 South Korean Marines, injuring 17 more and at least 3 civilians. As North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war with each other this has got a lot of people very worried because this incident certainly breaches the ceasefire agreement and artillery barrages are normally the sort of thing that turn cold wars into shooting wars. When at least one side has nuclear weapons this is generally considered a very bad thing.
While this is clearly a very tense situation there shouldn't be too much to worry about because this is the sort of unsophisticated diplomacy that everyone's come to expect from North Korea. Whenever the North Korean government wants something, be it attention or more usually money, they go and do something dangerous, provocative and downright silly. This gets the World to focus on them and puts other countries under great pressure to give them things in order to stop them doing dangerous, provocative and silly things. This particular instance is more dramatic then most because North Korea is in the process of grooming Kim Jong-un to take over power from his father Kim Jong-il. As such the North Korean military are using this as an opportunity to school the younger Kim in their particular way of doing business. Also people have recently been comparing North Korea to Britain. This has offended the North Koreans because not even they would be prepared to put up with the crap the British tolerate from their own dear leaders.
Hopefully what will happen now is that the Americans will discreetly speak to the South Koreans and the Chinese will discreetly speak to the North Koreans to make sure that this doesn't escalate any further. So with a bit of luck this will calm down again right up until the North Koreans decide they want something else.
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