Almost a month after it was struck by an earthquake the relief effort in Haiti is continuing. Although in a situation like that you can never have enough food, water and medicine the multiple agencies involved are now able to meet the absolute basic needs of the survivors. This allows them to concentrate on more medium term needs like providing emergency shelter in time for the rainy season and providing the most seriously injured with more advanced medical care. While there are around 3 million people who need emergency shelter the task of providing medical care is in itself massive. There are hundreds of thousands of people with complex fractures and dislocations along with associated bone and soft tissue infections. All of these people require specialist surgery and those who don't get it will have to have limbs amputated. All those amputees will then need to be fitted with prosthetics and have months of aftercare to be taught how to use them because you do not want to be disabled in Haiti where there is no social safety net.
Amid these hundreds of thousands of cases the reporting of the relief effort has focused in on the case of Landina Seigon. Although she was completely alone when she was pulled from the rubble rescuers believe that Landina is about three months old and both her parents were killed in the earthquake. Because it took so long to dig her from the ruins doctors were forced to amputate her arm. Since then they have discovered that she is suffering from a bone disease which has killed part of her skull leaving it to press dangerously onto her brain. In order to stop this killing her she needs brain surgery to remove the diseased bone and plastic surgery to replace it with a titanium plate. At the moment her primary physician is Dr David Nott, a British doctor working for Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF)* and her case has been taken up by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
The way the FCO have gone about helping Landina is more then a little bit suspicious. The obvious thing to do would be to ask the US Navy if she could be treated aboard the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship that is equipped to handle the surgery and could have specialist surgeons on deck within 24 hours. Instead the FCO and it must be said MSF are insisting that she must be flown to either Britain or France for treatment. As Landina is an orphan this has meant that the British government, the French government and sadly some elements of Unicef have spent the last four days bombarding the already overstretched Haitian government with incredibly detailed questions about the circumstances that people will be allowed to take orphans out of Haiti. The interrogation has got so idiotic the Haitian government have perhaps understandably got paranoid over how serious the girls condition is and how complicated the brain surgery she requires really is.
It would be nice to pretend that all the foreigners are doing this out of a genuine desire to stop Haitian children being trafficked out of the country but this is quite frankly ridiculous. Both the British and French governments can be trusted to take a small number of injured children out of Haiti for treatment and then bring them back after a few weeks of positive media coverage. Even if they weren't there are no doubt millions of trustworthy Haitian adults who would jump at the chance to travel abroad with the children to act as guardians.
Instead this is all being done to fish for information about the US Missionaries who were recently arrested for child trafficking. Specifically what they're trying to find out is;
1. Was the whole thing staged by the Americans to provoke debate over the risk of child trafficking.
2. If it was a stunt how did the Americans go about organising it and carrying out.
3. If it was a stunt to what extent was the Haitian government involved.
4. What are the power structures within the Haitian government and how do they operate.
5. What will happen to the missionary's and in what conditions are they being held.
Of course absolutely none of this has anything whatsoever to do with helping the Haitians and is probably making the situation much worse. It does though highlight why it would be a very good idea, in the exceptional situation that is Haiti, for the UN to set up a parallel authority to handle relief and reconstruction. This authority could be led by a statesmen like Bill Clinton who is well practiced in the evils and idiocies of international diplomacy meaning that the difficult things get done more efficiently while the Haitian government, and by extension the Haitian people, are better protected from the wolves in sheep's clothing.
In slightly better news Simon Cowell and lots of musicians have recorded a charity single for Haiti. It sold a million copies before it was released and is expected to sell a million more before it goes straight to number 1 in the charts. This should help to bring in some much needed cash to the relief effort.
*I should point out that despite being French dominated MSF are a truly international charity. Therefore they need to maintain good relations with lots of governments in order to be able to operate.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
OMG, So Thick!
At some point this week NATO forces will be launching a large offensive against Taliban positions in Helmand province Afghanistan. Unusually for a military operation the British Army have exceptionally open about the operation telling everyone where they plan to attack, how they intend to carry out the attack and how they expect the enemy to respond. The fact the army are being so open about it means that the story's been all over the British news for the last three days and probably four out of the five main news stories yesterday were all about this attack.
The Croydon network got all a bit confused by this and decided that the coverage was all about me and was a signal to re-start their operations against me. As a result the usual suspects were up to their usual tricks last night slamming doors, rattling locks on their own sheds and drumming on plastic wheelie bins.
Obviously with 20,000 troops about to go into battle it would probably be best if I didn't explain what this was all about. However I think it is safe to say that it was not fully intended to be a signal to the Croydon network and the people planning the operation know exactly what they were doing. If the operation does go badly then I suppose at least the Croydon network have given everybody a good laugh.
The Croydon network got all a bit confused by this and decided that the coverage was all about me and was a signal to re-start their operations against me. As a result the usual suspects were up to their usual tricks last night slamming doors, rattling locks on their own sheds and drumming on plastic wheelie bins.
Obviously with 20,000 troops about to go into battle it would probably be best if I didn't explain what this was all about. However I think it is safe to say that it was not fully intended to be a signal to the Croydon network and the people planning the operation know exactly what they were doing. If the operation does go badly then I suppose at least the Croydon network have given everybody a good laugh.
Monday, 8 February 2010
I Should Clear One Thing Up.
In my earlier post I said that the amount of control the Crown has over the Northern Irish Assembly is a very contentious issue. Another very contentious issue is whether it is called an "Assembly" or a "Parliament." I should explain that I refer to it as a Parliament for the simple reason that is the easiest way to give the most number of people a general idea of how it functions. The correct term is of course "Assembly" but only the most technically minded political nerds will understand the difference.
Now I've cleared that up it's time to confuse everyone again by making a cryptic reference to something I will try and explain in more detail tomorrow time and a pub full of Swansea soccer permitting; They're fishing. If possible appoint a guardian but allow to travel.
Now I've cleared that up it's time to confuse everyone again by making a cryptic reference to something I will try and explain in more detail tomorrow time and a pub full of Swansea soccer permitting; They're fishing. If possible appoint a guardian but allow to travel.
It's Back Again
In the UK the MP's Expenses Scandal has once again reared its ugly head. The latest development came on Friday (05/02) when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that it is going to prosecute three Labour MP's and one Conservative Peer for various offences under the 1967 Theft Act. As major criminality has never been much of a bar to sitting in the House of Lords the Conservative Peer has remained largely silent on the issue. The Labour MP's though, probably with little choice, have announced that they intend to use the defence of "Parliamentary Privilege" to fight the charges.
Unusually in law but pretty typically in British constitutional matters Parliamentary Privilege is not a clearly defined set of rules. Instead it is more of a vague principle that MP's are answerable to Parliament first and the Crown Courts second. The idea of the principle is to prevent the Crown, the Police or, in the case of libel, a private citizen from interfering with the business of Parliament. For example if a voter had been writing to their MP to complain about their local hospital doing something illegal Parliamentary Privilege would prevent the hospital getting a friendly local judge to issue a warrant forcing the MP to hand over the letters from the voter and the details of any possible action that was going to be taken against the hospital. Likewise if Parliament was voting on a law that would cut the police's pay by 90% Parliamentary Privilege would stop the police arresting MP's on false charges in order to stop them voting for the bill.
Although Parliamentary Privilege in no way exempts MP's from the law of the land and was never intended to help them escape legitimate prosecution in this case I think the MP's have a point. That is Parliament should have been allowed to vote on whether to allow the prosecutions long before any judge was able to issue an indictment.
Quite apart from dragging the reputations of Britain's MP's even further into disrepute this new twist in the expenses scandal creates a whole new set of problems for the Northern Irish Devolution/Peace process. The idea of Parliamentary Privilege was invented at the end of England's last civil war. Its purpose was to reassure the Republicans in the House of Commons that the Crown and its Loyalists in the House of Lords would no longer be able to control the activites of the House of Commons by jailing, murdering and generally harassing its members.
The amount of control that the Crown will have over Northern Ireland's devolved Parliament is a massively inflammatory issue. The Loyalists obviously want the Crown to have as much control as possible because they'd rather not have any sort of devolved Parliament. However if there is too much control by the Crown it would stop it being a devolved Parliament and just be another form of direct rule by the Crown putting the Republicans back where they were at the start of the Troubles. To make matters even worse Parliamentary Privilege is outlined in the English Bill of Rights which was introduced under the reign of King William of Orange. Apparently he's considered quite an important figure by Orange Order of Northern Irish parading fame.
In case you haven't worked it out by now the first court hearings in the expenses case are scheduled for the first week in March. That means that amid much argument a court will be ruling on Parliamentary Privilege* days before voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls in the devolution referendum.
*In itself that's insane because if a court is able to rule on Parliamentary Privilege then clearly Parliamentary Privilege doesn't exist.
Unusually in law but pretty typically in British constitutional matters Parliamentary Privilege is not a clearly defined set of rules. Instead it is more of a vague principle that MP's are answerable to Parliament first and the Crown Courts second. The idea of the principle is to prevent the Crown, the Police or, in the case of libel, a private citizen from interfering with the business of Parliament. For example if a voter had been writing to their MP to complain about their local hospital doing something illegal Parliamentary Privilege would prevent the hospital getting a friendly local judge to issue a warrant forcing the MP to hand over the letters from the voter and the details of any possible action that was going to be taken against the hospital. Likewise if Parliament was voting on a law that would cut the police's pay by 90% Parliamentary Privilege would stop the police arresting MP's on false charges in order to stop them voting for the bill.
Although Parliamentary Privilege in no way exempts MP's from the law of the land and was never intended to help them escape legitimate prosecution in this case I think the MP's have a point. That is Parliament should have been allowed to vote on whether to allow the prosecutions long before any judge was able to issue an indictment.
Quite apart from dragging the reputations of Britain's MP's even further into disrepute this new twist in the expenses scandal creates a whole new set of problems for the Northern Irish Devolution/Peace process. The idea of Parliamentary Privilege was invented at the end of England's last civil war. Its purpose was to reassure the Republicans in the House of Commons that the Crown and its Loyalists in the House of Lords would no longer be able to control the activites of the House of Commons by jailing, murdering and generally harassing its members.
The amount of control that the Crown will have over Northern Ireland's devolved Parliament is a massively inflammatory issue. The Loyalists obviously want the Crown to have as much control as possible because they'd rather not have any sort of devolved Parliament. However if there is too much control by the Crown it would stop it being a devolved Parliament and just be another form of direct rule by the Crown putting the Republicans back where they were at the start of the Troubles. To make matters even worse Parliamentary Privilege is outlined in the English Bill of Rights which was introduced under the reign of King William of Orange. Apparently he's considered quite an important figure by Orange Order of Northern Irish parading fame.
In case you haven't worked it out by now the first court hearings in the expenses case are scheduled for the first week in March. That means that amid much argument a court will be ruling on Parliamentary Privilege* days before voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls in the devolution referendum.
*In itself that's insane because if a court is able to rule on Parliamentary Privilege then clearly Parliamentary Privilege doesn't exist.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Agreement at Hillsborough Castle
After 12 days of intense negotiation talks at Hillsborough Castle over the devolution of powers to the Northern Irish Assembly finally reached an agreement on Friday (05/02). Compared to the high drama of the talks the agreement itself is actually very dull and can be read in full here;
http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/agreement
While it includes some of the usual bureaucratic matters such unfinished business and suggestions of how tweak the political process to avoid further delays and future unfinished business the agreement concentrates on two main topics. The devolution of policing and justice powers and the controversial issue of parades.
On the issue of devolution both parties agreed to set up a Northern Irish Department of Justice (DoJ). As is the case in pretty much every democratic country the DoJ will have responsibility for criminals. This includes the running of prisons, non-custodial punishments like community service and offender management programs like probation, bail hostels and the sex offenders register. It will also serve to protect the rights of victims of crime through victim support and criminal injury compensation services. The DoJ though does not have any direct responsibility for either the judiciary or the police. This independence for the police and courts is again pretty much standard in modern democracies as it is important to prevent politicians from only appointing judges and police chiefs who are too scared to prosecute politicians who break the law.
The DoJ itself will be headed by a Minister of Justice (MoJ) who will have full operational control over the department and sole discretion on quasi-judicial decisions like sentencing guidelines. On more general items of assembly business the MoJ will have equal status and say as other ministers. The big difference is that unlike in other parliaments where ministerial jobs are appointed by the leader of the largest party normally to members of that same party the Northern Irish MoJ will be chosen by a cross-community vote in the assembly. This means that any member of the assembly who wants the job can apply and the one who gets the most votes from the other members of the assembly gets the job. Of course this means that the largest party still has the most say in who will be the MoJ but that is just a problem of parliamentary democracy. Putting the matter to a free vote though is certainly more fair then having the leader of a Loyalist of Republican party simply appointing a MoJ.
As with all aspects of devolution this arrangement still needs to be endorsed by a public referendum that will take place on March 9th, 2010. As there have been no major changes to suggested model of devolved powers and the agreement seems to have broad support this is highly likely to happen and the new DoJ will come into being on April 12th, 2010.
On the issue of parades both parties have agreed to replace the Parades Commission. Instead they will set up a co-chaired, 6 member working group to produce a mechanism to resolve disputes that arise from these parades. The new mechanism will concentrate on bringing the members of the group that wants to parade together with residents of the area that is going to be paraded through in order to mediate a compromise. If no such local resolution can be found the mechanism will include an independent and transparent adjudication board made up of local and legal experts who will have final say how and if a parade can take place. The working group will report back to the assembly in three weeks and it's proposals will become a bill before hopefully becoming law by December 2010.
As the mechanism for dealing with parades has yet to be written it is a little difficult to tell how effective it will be. However as it is based on local resolution it looks very promising. This is because although parades are a contentious and symbolic issue there are actually only about half a dozen parades that cause problems and those problems only directly a few thousand. Therefore allowing these people to solve these problems amongst themselves is far more likely to succeed then having those problems blown out of all proportion by national and international politicians.
All things considered the Hillsborough agreement represents a compromise over some very technical issues in which nobody won and nobody lost making it very difficult to get excited about. It is though a very sensible compromise that keeps the devolution process on track and marks another important step towards a future where Northern Irish politics is dominated by pedestrian issues like the economy and health-care spending.
http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/agreement
While it includes some of the usual bureaucratic matters such unfinished business and suggestions of how tweak the political process to avoid further delays and future unfinished business the agreement concentrates on two main topics. The devolution of policing and justice powers and the controversial issue of parades.
On the issue of devolution both parties agreed to set up a Northern Irish Department of Justice (DoJ). As is the case in pretty much every democratic country the DoJ will have responsibility for criminals. This includes the running of prisons, non-custodial punishments like community service and offender management programs like probation, bail hostels and the sex offenders register. It will also serve to protect the rights of victims of crime through victim support and criminal injury compensation services. The DoJ though does not have any direct responsibility for either the judiciary or the police. This independence for the police and courts is again pretty much standard in modern democracies as it is important to prevent politicians from only appointing judges and police chiefs who are too scared to prosecute politicians who break the law.
The DoJ itself will be headed by a Minister of Justice (MoJ) who will have full operational control over the department and sole discretion on quasi-judicial decisions like sentencing guidelines. On more general items of assembly business the MoJ will have equal status and say as other ministers. The big difference is that unlike in other parliaments where ministerial jobs are appointed by the leader of the largest party normally to members of that same party the Northern Irish MoJ will be chosen by a cross-community vote in the assembly. This means that any member of the assembly who wants the job can apply and the one who gets the most votes from the other members of the assembly gets the job. Of course this means that the largest party still has the most say in who will be the MoJ but that is just a problem of parliamentary democracy. Putting the matter to a free vote though is certainly more fair then having the leader of a Loyalist of Republican party simply appointing a MoJ.
As with all aspects of devolution this arrangement still needs to be endorsed by a public referendum that will take place on March 9th, 2010. As there have been no major changes to suggested model of devolved powers and the agreement seems to have broad support this is highly likely to happen and the new DoJ will come into being on April 12th, 2010.
On the issue of parades both parties have agreed to replace the Parades Commission. Instead they will set up a co-chaired, 6 member working group to produce a mechanism to resolve disputes that arise from these parades. The new mechanism will concentrate on bringing the members of the group that wants to parade together with residents of the area that is going to be paraded through in order to mediate a compromise. If no such local resolution can be found the mechanism will include an independent and transparent adjudication board made up of local and legal experts who will have final say how and if a parade can take place. The working group will report back to the assembly in three weeks and it's proposals will become a bill before hopefully becoming law by December 2010.
As the mechanism for dealing with parades has yet to be written it is a little difficult to tell how effective it will be. However as it is based on local resolution it looks very promising. This is because although parades are a contentious and symbolic issue there are actually only about half a dozen parades that cause problems and those problems only directly a few thousand. Therefore allowing these people to solve these problems amongst themselves is far more likely to succeed then having those problems blown out of all proportion by national and international politicians.
All things considered the Hillsborough agreement represents a compromise over some very technical issues in which nobody won and nobody lost making it very difficult to get excited about. It is though a very sensible compromise that keeps the devolution process on track and marks another important step towards a future where Northern Irish politics is dominated by pedestrian issues like the economy and health-care spending.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
I've Just Had Dinner With my Mother
I think it was a pleasant evening however the memory has been erased by an unpleasant taxi driver who seemed to think that I didn't know my way around the town where I've lived for twenty something years. After a short discussion I paid him a reasonable fare and he wasn't even told to f**k off once.
I suppose it would be nice to have a night out in Croydon that didn't end in a fight but then I suppose it wouldn't be a proper night out in Croydon.
I suppose it would be nice to have a night out in Croydon that didn't end in a fight but then I suppose it wouldn't be a proper night out in Croydon.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Northern Ireland Devolution Talks STILL Ongoing.
After a marathon 10 day session negotiations are continuing over the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. A widely anticipated breakthrough on Monday (01/02) failed to materialise after Unionist Assembly members rejected a deal that had been agreed by Democratic Unionist Party negotiators on their behalf.
Although my access to the negotiations is poor to none and the Unionist rejection was done by secret ballot I think it is fair to say that an agreement is being held up by other Unionist factions like the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the United Unionist Assembly Party (UUAP). Rather then being done because of any legitimate problem with the agreement this seems to be an attempt to stall the process in order to allow the Unionists to play for time. The hope is that if devolution can be delayed long enough it will allow the Unionist parties time to re-organise into a uniform Unionist block and force an assembly election that this Unionist block will dominate and use to secure a majority in the assembly. Coupled with an expected Conservative government in Westminster come June a Unionist majority in the Assembly is more then likely to permanently block the devolution of police and justice powers and roll back other aspects of devolution. This is made more likely by the fact that in the event of a hung Parliament in Westminster Unionist MP's would be the second choice kingmakers in a coalition government.
With the Unionist parties behaving like that if I was Sinn Fein I would let the Orange Order have their silly little marches in order to get a deal done. However as with everything else in Northern Irish politics it's sadly not going to be that simple.
Although my access to the negotiations is poor to none and the Unionist rejection was done by secret ballot I think it is fair to say that an agreement is being held up by other Unionist factions like the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the United Unionist Assembly Party (UUAP). Rather then being done because of any legitimate problem with the agreement this seems to be an attempt to stall the process in order to allow the Unionists to play for time. The hope is that if devolution can be delayed long enough it will allow the Unionist parties time to re-organise into a uniform Unionist block and force an assembly election that this Unionist block will dominate and use to secure a majority in the assembly. Coupled with an expected Conservative government in Westminster come June a Unionist majority in the Assembly is more then likely to permanently block the devolution of police and justice powers and roll back other aspects of devolution. This is made more likely by the fact that in the event of a hung Parliament in Westminster Unionist MP's would be the second choice kingmakers in a coalition government.
With the Unionist parties behaving like that if I was Sinn Fein I would let the Orange Order have their silly little marches in order to get a deal done. However as with everything else in Northern Irish politics it's sadly not going to be that simple.
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