Nimo-ism

EU= Peewee football Team

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:52:00 +0000

What does the EU and a typical American peewee football team have in common?
Often, the last picks (read: unpopular kids) end up pulling their own weight on the team,while the quarterbacks and runningbacks enjoy the glory but shy away from real responsibility when the game is lost.

The last picks being Poland,Latvia,Malta,Lithuania,Bulgaria and the like. When these countries joined the EU in the 2000s there was a lot of negative sentiment from the citizens of the already existing EU member countries,which I experienced first-hand while traveling.These 'last-pick' countries seemed unable to convince anyone that they deserved to play in the major league,although they clearly and by their own right, met the requirements for sitting at the big-kid table ,also known as the Copenhagen Criteria.

Nevertheless, the 27 member countries of the EU have spent all year trying to tighten its financial belt, but a lack of consensus has made it impossible to belt that notch. Not surprisingly, smaller, dorkier ,last-pick countries on the pee-wee team have not been the ones gracing the international first-pages with their indecision, rather the larger, more confident countries have. British Prime Minister James Cameron has refused to abide by all the regulations in the new fiscal treaty, claiming that not all of them are in "Britains interest". Someone should have let him know that there's no I in TEAM. Hungary and Sweden are also reluctant to commit. Incidentally, both Britain and Hungary continue to use their on currency, both valued higher than the euro, despite enjoying the rest of the membership benefits of a currency union.

One simply must wonder when all the bickering will end and each nation will realize that joining the EU means taking responsibility for ones own actions but also dealing with the consequences of others'.

Slumdog. No Millionaire.

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:53:00 +0000

It comes as no surprise that the capital cities of developing countries tend to be the most densely populated areas of those countries. Globalization is forcing developing countries across the world to undergo their own industrial and technological revolutions in a New York minute,ready or not. Along with revolution comes migration,typically in the way of rural populations moving to the capital city in search of work.Manila,however, stands out from her sister DCs (developing countries), not for being the most densely populated city in the world (111,576 people per mi²) but for having more than 50% of its metropolitan population living in slums.

Manilans are in great danger as population continues to grow and rural communities continue to migrate into the city in search of a meager $2 per day. NGOs worldwide have taken an interest in reducing the slum population, but I cant help but feel repulsed by the Filipino government's passive aggressive approach. Following a steady population growth rate in the late 1990s, a sudden jump in the year 2000 caused great concern when it became obvious that the capital city would be unable to handle the influx of rural migrants. As of 2002, the federal government began encouraging these rural dwellers to return to the countryside in order to alleviate the growth of slums in Manila. According to a report by BBC's Paul Mason, the slumdwellers made it clear that they were unwilling to return to their commerce-starved village centres and depleted rivers and land. Nevertheless, the government has been building homes in rural towns such as Cabuyao and relocating indignant slumdwellers there, to non-electrified, sparsely populated, commercially stagnant communities.The fact that the government is relocating slumdwellers to the exact stale communities they escaped seems to be of no importance.

Undoubtedly,the living conditions are better than those in the slums,where collapse,arson and flooding are a constant concern due to the poor construction of the dwellings. Even more so in the past few years, with slumdwellers claiming occurrences of mysterious fires following refusal to relocate to the countryside. The government denies any accusations of foul play pointed at it and states that although it is using police forces to enforce the relocation, it has not resorted to arson. Nevertheless, suspicious fires which leave hundreds homeless, sourced to 'faulty electrical wires' have become common in the slum of Tondo in manila,among others. With aggressive relocation to communities with stagnant economies and a passive[read: nonexistent} approach to providing incentives to the slumdwellers, the government is literally putting its citizens between a rock and a hard place.

urban upgrading success stories

I'm all for relieving the slum populace, but ideally, the government would provide agricultural subsidies if indeed the agricultural sector grew by 5.8% in the first half of 2011 as stated by the Philippines Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. Additionally, the government could also try to provide or source small-business incentives with micro-credit programs. The more ambitious architects and developmental economists are pursuing variations of urban upgrading , a term coined by MIT to describe the improvement of slums to bring them up to living standards. Urban upgrading aims to add the necessary infrastructure to slums in an effort to avoid forced relocation of slumdwellers to rural communities.

The best solution is likely a combination of both urban upgrading and incentive-driven voluntary relocation outside the over-populated capital, as globalization has a well-earned reputation of producing more slumdogs than millionaires.

All The World's Estranged IV

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:34:00 +0000

AFRICA
Libya and the EU kissed and made up this week by lifting visa bans on each others citizens. The session was complete with an apology from the Spanish Foreign Ministry for blacklisting Libyans, all of which began two years ago when Hannibal Gaddafi was arrested in Geneva and Switzerland initiated a diplomatic tiff.

In the DRC a massacre by the LRA in December has finally come to light, revealing the continued threat of the terrorist group despite the assurances of the government. A former LRA spokesman has denied the association, claiming that it is the Uganda People's Defense Force that is carrying out the killings. After mounting pressure in Washington from groups such as Invisible Children and Resolve Uganda the Senate passed a bill this month authorizing funding for humanitarian efforts in the region as well as military action against the LRA which the US will likely effect using AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa.

ANTARCTICA
Drilling efforts to reach the largest body of freshwater on the continent and the fourth largest lake on the planet are close to fruition as a multi-national team of British, American and Russian scientists revealed today that they are 300 ft of Lake Vostok. The project is fueled in part by a quest for life on the planet's most harsh environment as well as beyond (Mars, Europa), and also in part by a search for more answers on the prospect of climate change.

Korea is joining the list of nations securing plots of ice for building research stations in Antarctica. The Ministry of Maritime Affairs plans to complete the $88 million research site by 2014 at Terra Nova bay

ASIA
The NLD, Burma's main opposition party has declared that it will not participate in the country's first elections in 20 years, after the Junta banned its leader Suu Kyi from participating in the process due to a criminal record. The junta recently passed electoral laws stating that parties may not have members with criminal records, which excludes many NLD members who have been prison records for activism.

The theme at the 2010 AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) meeting was" Israel: Tell the Story" , which seems to emphasize the revelation of a side of Israel that is often hidden. The council aimed to convince those in attendance that Israel "that Israel is making the world a better place", although some critics viewed it as another "bomb Iran special".

AUSTRALIA
Partyiers in Sydney spend a few more minutes than usual in line at Home nightclub in order to get their pictures taken and fingerprints and IDs scanned into a bio-metric system being tested at club. While Home nightclub is the only one to use the fingerprinting technology, other clubs are using a variety of 13 ID-scanning technologies for the stated purpose of increasing safety for their patrons. ID-tect, the software company which provides the software states that if the patron is not a "ban list", their information is deleted within 28 days, otherwise it may be stored indefinitely.

In Mayo Clinic v CSL Limited, the renowned Mayo clinic has made allegations of conspiracy against CSL, Australia's largest health care company of forming a conspiracy between its wholly-owned blood-plasma subsidiary CSL Behring and Baxter International, the health care industry's peak medical products company.

EUROPE
The largest trade union in Britain has revealed that it has a piggy bank of £700,000 which it plans to use to aid its British Airways members who are facing up to £900 pay cuts for participating in the recent cabin crew walkout.

Last week's EU summit saw Greece receiving a sustained brush off from Germany, which for the past two years has consistently vetoed proposals for bank bailouts. Germany has a well-known post-war policy of placing European unity before national interests which has been upheld by all post-war chancellors up to this point which is why Chancellor Merkel's ardent stance on the Greek bailout has caught some off guard.

LATIN AMERICA
Brazil's is the country of the month, with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledging mid last week to maintain a steady stream of economic stability and later showing a bit of prowess after receiving authorization from the WTO to enforce cross-retaliation measures against the US cotton policy which was found to be illegal in 2008. Brazil has already applied surcharges to many of US products and will be announcing more on US IPR. GM also announced that it will invest $780 million in two Brazilian plants towards adding two new models to the country's lineup. Furthermore, the WSJ sang Brazil's praises and speculated on a promising future for the biggest economy in Latin America and the 10th biggest in the world. Da Silva also found his popularity rate at its highest since taking office as he finishes his last term.

NORTH AMERICA
A Guardian article raises the question, 'when is the last time Haiti was run by its own government, and not NGOs?'. Clinton, the US special envoy to Haiti publicly questioned this week whether US aid was actually materializing into self-reliance in Haiti despite his role in the historic sandbagging of Haiti by the US.

For a president who did not finish paying off his college loans until taking office due to the increasing costs higher education, one would expect Obama to place higher education initiatives high on his priorities, which he did, for a short while.In the summer of 2009 Obama unveiled a plan to propel 5 million university graduates by 2020, however the education bill that was pork-barreled with the recently passed health care bill catered meagerly to higher education and in almost no way to community colleges, which typically receive no attention from the federal government.

The Airbus/Boeing Catfight

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:47:00 +0000

The WTO has not yet revealed its official ruling on the legality of the aid provided by EU members to Airbus, although it is suspected that the advance loan system will be judged legal, while some of the aid itself will be judged illegal based on section 4.1 of the Agreement;

4.1. Governments shall provide support for the development of a new large civil aircraft programme only where a critical project appraisal, based on conservative assumptions, has established that there is a reasonable expectation of recoupment, within 17 years from the date of first disbursement of such support, of all costs as defined in Article 6(2) of the Aircraft Agreement, including repayment of government supports on the terms and conditions specified below.

Ever since the US pulled out of the 1992 bilateral pact which created mandates on government aid to commercial jet manufacturers in 2004, the blame game has been tirelessly played with fingers pointing in no meaningful direction.The US alleges that approximately $205 billion in unfair aid was provided to Airbus by the EU and especially France, Germany, Spain and Britain. The EU alleges that Boeing is receiving aid from NASA and the DOD. Both sides accuse the other of hiding aid in various schemes, such as the US calling part of the aid "overhead" and the EU claiming a €750 million site for the A380 was a multi-purpose site.

The WTO must contend with several issues:

The US and EU have their own definitions of the term "subsidy" each one's likely defined for national favor and an absent objective definition in the text of the 1992 European Union Agreement On Trade In Large Civil Aircraft. Are subsidies from states such as those from Toulouse to Airbus/Washington state to Boeing allowed?
The WTO must determine how to evaluate the adherence of a party to a bilateral agreement in which said party officially withdrew its participation six years ago.
How to enforce the transparency measures set forth in Article 8 of the agreement; " public information will include at minimum the total amount of government support for new development projects and its share of total development costs, aggregate data on disbursements and repayments relating to direct government supports for commercial aircraft programmed, the annual commercial turnovers of the civil aircraft industry"
How to address accusations of price-cutting and other aggressive measures from each side of the Atlantic, since the 1992 Agreement explicitly states that "Action with respect to "matters covered by the present Agreement" refers to trade actions relating to direct and indirect government support as defined by this Agreement. It does not include actions relating to dumping, intellectual property protection, or anti-trust or competition laws."

The term "subsidy" which is {defined by the unabridged dictionary as "a direct pecuniary aid furnished by a government to .."} at the core of the dispute is not exclusively defined in context of the Agreement, however the following are:

- "indirect government support": financial support provided by a  government or by any public body within the territory of a Party for  aeronautical applications, including research and development,  demonstration projects and development of military aircraft, which  provide, an identifiable benefit to the development or production of one  or more specific large civil aircraft programmes. 

- "direct government support" means any financial support provided  by a government or by any public body within the territory of a Party  which is provided: 

1) for specific large civil aircraft programmes or derivatives or 

2) to specific companies-to the extent that large civil aircraft  programmes or derivatives directly benefit. 

The challenge will be to determine how far along the 'balance sheet' indirect support transforms into direct support.

The jet manufacture dispute is an extension of the trade retaliations that began in 2004 with Bush's protectionism of the US steel industry in exchange for re-election votes in the rust belt. As Florida's orange exports and Harley Davidson's motorcycles suffered, the cost of the policy was deemed bearable, however the aircraft dispute bears a price sticker of up to $3 trillion over the next 20 years. The EU and the US, each believing( or at least claiming) itself to be in the right, incredulously questions the others motive in prolonging the dispute.

Airbus trade adviser Charles Hamilton  points to a possible larger consequence of the conflict;

Unfortunately, these two WTO cases have enabled future competitors to  look at how Boeing and Airbus funded their aircraft programs. Under WTO  dispute-settlement rules, both parties had to hand over confidential  information to substantiate their claims. Watching from the sidelines  were "interested parties" such as the Canadians, Brazilians, Chinese,  Russians and Japanese. As a result, potential subsidized competitors  have their eyes on a share of the Boeing/Airbus market. Boeing and  Airbus are now being forced to upgrade their respective 737 and A320  programs to remain competitive and maintain market share. Boeing's  misdirected WTO litigation has enabled others to take on the duopoly. 

Hamilton's point is valid albeit the fact that it cannot be ultimately proven until one of the aforementioned spectators pools funds to launch/propel its own jet manufacturing industry. The EU and US have become so accustomed to dominating manufacturing, technology and financial markets that they rarely consider the threat of competition from DC's and LDC's.

Update:

29 minutes ago, the WTO ruled that Airbus received $13 billion in illegal aid from its EU donors, based on a mandate from the 1992 EU-US agreement which prohibits loan subsidies at rates below the market rate. The WTO has ordered that the $13 billion subsidies pinpointed for Airbus' A380 jet must be withdrawn "without delay" and further loans for other smaller aircraft must be withdrawn within 6 months. The full text of dispute settlement and ruling will not be available until sometime in May after requisite bureaucracy.

The ruling will no doubt tilt the bid for the $40 billion Air force tanker project in favor of Boeing as Airbus will struggle to continue funding its R&D. Although the US has won the subsidy battle, the war is not won yet, as the mudslinging will surely proceed until the bidding is closed.

Currently Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:20:00 +0000

Twelve Intervention points of a system as proposed by Donella Meadows on Joseph Fouche's Committee of Public Safety

Intervention points:

"These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything. "

Debates about protectionist policies from the PRC's refusal to revalue its currency to the Boeing-favored specifications for the replacement of US Air Force fueling tankers on International Political Economy Zone

"Earlier this week, a rival consortium composed of Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. withdrew from the competition, in part because it said the terms favored Boeing. "Such methods by the United States are not good for its European allies, and such methods are not good for the United States, a great, leading nation with which we are on close and friendly terms," Mr. Sarkozy said. "If they want to be heard in the fight against protectionism, they should not set the example of protectionism." In addition, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told the Wall Street Journal Friday that "avoiding protectionism, avoiding exclusion and restrictions is something we should all be very keen to do."

US preparations for the next-generation of war; cyber-war in this article on Common Dreams adapted from BBC news

"Summer of 2008, Beijing Olympics. As the world settles down to watch  the Games, war erupts deep in the Caucasus Mountains. Georgian rockets  fly, Russian tanks roll, - and Russian hackers storm Georgian websites.

Some  experts regard this as the first cyber war" 

All The World'S Estranged III

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:33:00 +0000

AFRICA
The United States consumes 22.5% of annual oil production and most of that oil comes from Africa- not the Middle East. China, the next largest consumer at 9.6% as of 2008 is on a path of relentless economic growth and has set it sights on Africa,specifically Ghana and Uganda, as a resource for oil among other things. In the past, there have been many deterrents to {liquid}gold diggers who eyed African nations, however better drilling technology and current periods of dwindling conflict in some nations have revived the thirst for African oil once more. "Explorers salivate in particular at the prospect of peace in Somalia".

Niger is making large strides (we hope) towards transparency and independence in its elections, as supported by its declaration that yesterday , excluding many government officials who would otherwise have a conflict of interest, from running in state elections.

In anticipation of the celebratory activities soon to be beckoned by the 2010 World Cup, Britain has pledged £1,000,000 to the hosting nation of South Africa for the appropriation of condoms. South Africa is the continent's worst afflicted country in the fight against AIDS.

ANTARCTICA
There is time to waste in what I call the Arctic race as proven by the unveiled plans to restore and activate the Polar Star by 2013, one of three icebreakers owned by the U.S. The Polar Star can pierce up to 21 ft of ice and will cost approximately $56 million for a 'fresh paint job'.

"You're one in a million"- says many a high school crush trying to express that immature albeit convincing phenomenon of puppy love. Perhaps the effect of uttering those words could be compounded by upping the stakes- "You're one in a zillion". While such statistics are difficult to prove, this penguin can enjoy the royalties of knowing that it is truly one in a zillion. The all-black penguin was discovered by Andrew Evans for National Geographic Traveler Magazine during a recent trip.

ASIA
Google and China are on the cusp of a nasty breakup as China remains unyielding on its internet censorship policy.

This afternoon in Doha, {Qatar} ,Japan is ramping up to voice its opposition against the proposed ban on the cross-border trade of bluefin tuna, of which it consumes 80% of the world's annual catch . The ban will be debated at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Japan consumes 80% of the species

AUSTRALIA
Victorians have discovered that the Australian government in conjunction with the Victorian Police has contracted a private company AquaSure to gather "intelligence" on protesters during recent protests of the desalination plant project.

PM Tony Abott is {as usual} the subject on the lips of most Australians for his vague proposal to fund a "fake" parental-leave policy by raising corporate taxes .

EUROPE
British PM Gordon Brown stated during the Iraq Inquiry that the 2003 invasion "was the right decision and it was for the right reasons" while his Foreign Secretary John Milliband supposed that the result has been a positive Middle Eastern inclination towards during business with the UK, saying " “People in the region do respect those who are willing to see through what they say [they will do],".

The EU and Microsoft found themselves embroiled in another inevitable anti-trust spat over the packaging of IE with Windows OS as the default browser. The EU won, with Microsoft offering five browser options for install on the Windows 7 OS. The options are Safari, Firefox,Opera, IE and Google Chrome.

LATIN AMERICA
The largest of Canada's mining companies have been accused of staging a real-life version of the movie Avatar, facing allegations of human rights abuses in the name of retrieving natural resources in Guatemala.

Twenty-seven years into a class action suit by indigenous inhabitants of the Ecuadorian Amazon against Chevron for pollution and death caused by the company's oil drilling in the 1960s, a US justice recently determined that the blame would be shared by both Chevron and the national company Petroecuador.

NORTH AMERICA
The U.S DOS- Bureau on Democracy, Human Rights and Labor released a 2009 report claiming that anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise in Europe. The Bureau backed the claim by calling on the November 29 ban in Switzerland on building minarets as well as the continued ban on burqas and head scarves in France, Germany an the Netherlands.

In an absolute coincidence with the increased interest in African oil, Obama (buttressed by the opinions of some economists and health officials) has frozen US aid distributed from President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, (PEPFAR) to AIDS treatment projects in many African countries, stating that efforts should be redirected from treatment to prevention.

*Must Read
Geoffrey Garrett from the University of Sydney presented an interesting case for the G-2 comprising the US and China, within the global group of the G-20.

ABSTRACT

The post-global ﬁnancial crisis world will be increasingly dominated by China and the United States. What the de facto G2 do, together, independently or in conﬂict, will increasingly deﬁne the global bounds of the possible. Both countries want to embed their bilateral diplomacy in the multilateralism of the G20. The problem for the emergent G2 in G20 global architecture is that economic relations between China and the US will be increasingly difﬁcult to manage. The large economic imbalances between the two countries, in which China buys American debt and Americans buy Chinese goods, will endure. Before the crisis, the codependence these imbalances created was a source of stability in Sino–American relations. After the crisis, they will be a source of frustration and conﬂict, as the second half of 2009 showed. To manage economic relations between China and the US effectively, the G20 agenda will have to move from crisis management to strategic planning for the global economy. The G20 will also have to become more institutionalized, but in a way that resembles more a nonexecutive board of directors of a multinational ﬁrm than a management committee of C-level executives.

Internet Freedoms in China - Part 3 of 3

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Even more divulging is the claim by Dr. Hung that the Ministry of Information Industry aimed this regulation at free, personal websites, rather than business enterprises. Thus far, thousands of personal websites have been shut down for failure to register. Shortly thereafter in July 2005, newer regulations were passed, requiring instant message users and bloggers to use their real names to log in online. These actions, whose alleged purpose was national security and social stability, were also highly recommended to universities by the Ministry of Education (Hung 14). In this case, Singapore and China utilize equally stringent policies to promote self-censorship in the public. Licensing functions to further intimidate those who may otherwise risk sharing and collecting information, because it requires the disclosure of one's identity. The reason why there exists such a wealth of information (whether good or bad) is likely attributable to the ability of anyone to share personal as well as academic ideas without the need for self-disclosure. Taking away anonymity is taking away new material out of that stagnant pool of information that is especially reinforced in one-party states such as China and Singapore.

The last significant measure taken by Singapore and China to limit internet freedom is nationwide surveillance of users and web spaces. These governments require ISPs to retain information on users that is collected in the course of their online activities, in addition to surveillance on cellular phones and mobile devices (Gomez 143). Chinese authorities exert more effort, by training and employing a reported 40,000 cyber police whose intended purpose as stated by China's People's Daily newspaper is "to intensify real-time monitoring, to intercept and delete harmful information and to capture and check illegal server data" (Hung 40). The roaring Chinese economy has even inspired "censorship entrepreneurs who, provide advanced text mining solutions to enable censors to monitor, forecast and manage online public opinion, thereby avoiding scandalous and damaging revelations" (OpenNet.net). These solutions have been used in situations such as that of a popular internet post in 2007 that exposed the kidnapping and forced slave labor of children at illegal brick kilns in Shanxi province. The post was promptly deleted as soon as the authorities were notified. China is able to maintain such penetrating and prompt measures largely due to its large bureaucracy (Yang 416). The bureaucracy also reduces the transparency of operations and makes it difficult for internet users to appeal unfair practices to higher levels of government. Internet surveillance and regulations that require licensing/registration are incredibly intrusive into and obstructive of socio-political and cultural discourse in Singapore and China. In fact, these two policies are further detrimental because they could deter some internet users from internet activity entirely. The fewer internet users there are posting and collecting ideas and information, the less information is circulated, and the self-reinforcing cycle of stagnation emerges once more.

The Chinese media's declining ranking by the RSF in the new millennium indicates that the progression of internet freedom is likely in decline as well. In 2004 the Chinese government deemed websites hosted by the CNN and BBC to be "subversive" websites, and restricted access to them with strict laws, jail sentences and even crackdowns on cybercafés. Case in point, in 2003, a Chinese activist was imprisoned for 8 years for posting content that aligned with the Chinese Democratic Party. In 1999, then Senior Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew gave a speech at the Asian Media Conference stating that Singapore did not intend to block incoming information, rather to state its position on the information. Within a perplexing matter of minutes, he also admitted that “information technology is rapidly undermining whatever monopoly control of the media government might have had" (Hung 22). In addition, he Minister Yew spoke of the promising joint ventures between the Chinese media and U.S-based FOX network. Despite this, the government continues to monitor and regularly block television channels such as CNN and BBC World News. On April 20, 2006, CNN and BBC were repeatedly blocked, apparently to prevent viewers in China from seeing Wang Wenyi, a Falun Gong protester, heckling Chinese President Hu Jintao on the South Lawn of the White House during Hu’s official visit to the U.S (Chung 735). This reveals that while foreign media enterprises may be allowed to join the media networks in China and Singapore, their material is also subject to filtering, and surveillance. Every government retains the right to determine the policies it implements, however these policies seem redundant. What is the purpose of permitting foreign information via the internet if after the filtering, censorship, and surveillance processes, it is only available to a minority who has passed the licensing requirements?

A recurring theme, especially in the new millennium is the citation of "national security" as a reason for any and all measures to limit internet freedoms. These two words have become as common as grammatical articles in the English language, ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and as some scholars suspect, are used as an all-purpose cover for authoritarianism. Gomez states that “the repressive practices of media control, from the colonial era to post-colonial and contemporary governments, have been applied to the internet and the information carried by mobile information devices. Thus, to a large extent, the cyber security measures resulting from the ‘war against terrorism‘are simply an extension of existing censorship laws and surveillance strategies (145).Propaganda and other media control has likely not ceased to exist in China and Singapore, but has instead taken on a more digital and more ambiguous form (Kalathil 44).

The most distressing factor about China’s and Singapore’s authoritarian governments’ limitation on internet freedom is that it greatly reduces the democratizing power of the internet. I concur with Gomez when he implores that “democracy requires a public culture of participation”; the internet is presently the most promising tool for fostering democracy across borders but is under intense control. Given the opportunity to defend China and Singapore amongst other nations using similar policies, former Senior Minister of Singapore might say

“The Internet is as much a purveyor of truth as it is of outright lies. Although it may take some time, morality and wisdom must find a way to control and tame the new technology to preserve the fundamental values of society by which parents bring up their children to be good citizens. In responding to this challenge of new technology, Asian societies will seek solutions different from those of the West” (lawac.org)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wang, Stephanie. "China | OpenNet Initiative." ONI Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 15 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .
Chung, Jongpil. "Comparing Online Activities in China and South Kore." Asian Survey 8.5 (2008): 727-51. Ww.ucpressjournals.com. University of California. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .
Gomez, James. "Dumbing Down Democracy: Trends in Internet Regulation, Surveillance and Control in Asia." Pacific Journalism Review 10.2 (2004): 130-50. Auckland University of Technology. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .
Hassid, Jonathan. "Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business." Asian Survey 48.3 (2008): 414-30. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .
Kalathil, Shanthi. "Dot.com for Dictators." Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 42-49. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .
"The Media and Asia." Speech. World Affairs Council. Los Angeles. 19 Oct. 1998. Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .
"Media Development Authority - About Us." Media Development Authority - Home. Media Development Authority, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .
"Press Freedom Index 2009." Reporters Sans Frontières. Reporters Sans Frontières. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .
"World Economic Forum - Global Information Technology Report." World Economic Forum - Home. Ed. World Economic Forum. 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .
Yang, Gubon. "The Coevolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China." Asian Survey 43.3 (2003): 405-22. 2 Dec. 2003. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .

State of the Union

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:02:00 +0000

"the country is now immersed in a "doomsday cycle" wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management -- and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government"

-Matthew Jaffe, Common Dreams

All the World's Estranged II

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:49:00 +0000

AFRICA
Obama pledged this week to extend economic sanctions on Zimbabwe by one year following a similar extension by the EU despite the south African nation's inflation topping 321 million percent. That bears repeating. 321 million percent. The sanctions, including an arms embargo by the EU ,were imposed in response to human rights abuses by President Mugabe and his government, as well as suspected election fraud . A coalition government is present, partly Mugabe's ZANU-PF and Prime Minister Tsvangira's MDC, and although British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has expressed interest in cooperating with the MDC party, the sanctions are likely to stay in place, as international leaders struggle to differentiate Mugabe's abusive influence from that of the new coalition government. Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara goes so far as to call the sanctions illegal

Ministers, assistant ministers, MPs and others allegedly associated with the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya are to be named during a continuing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The list if left unsealed, will reveal those alleged to have planned and even financed the violence that occurred after President Mwai Kibaki emerged victorious in a heated competition between Kibaki's (Party of National Unity) PNU and RailA Odinga's (Orange Democratic Movement) ODM in which tribalism was a dividing factor.

ANTARCTICA
China has joined the list of nations clamoring to claim some access to Arctic waters, in response to retreating Arctic sea ice. A report by the Stockholm International Peace Institute inds the Acting Programme Director Linda Jakobson relaying that, "To date China has adopted a wait-and-see approach to Arctic developments, wary that active overtures would cause alarm in other countries due to China's size and status as a rising global power". The report, titled China Prepares For an Ice-Free Arctic can be found here.

Inspire Antarctic Expedition, a program by the 2041 organization will be taking an Antarctic expedition between March 5-18 with group of corporate leaders, environmentalists, entrepreneurs and others in tow. Ok, perhaps that sentence will make less sense upon the extrapolation that 2041 is an organization dedicated to preserving the continent Antarctica, especially with the impending expiration in 2012 of the Kyoto Protocol for the Environment program. In 2041 specifically, the Protocol for Environmental Protection is open for amendment, hence the name of the program. Upon visiting the sponsors page, one discovers Coca Cola and BP among others. I am puzzled as to why the polar explorer and environmentalist who founded 2041 believes an oil company,a socially irresponsible corporation and a team of corporate leaders will take genuine interest in preserving the fondly described "last wilderness in the world".

ASIA
Iranian authorities have banned several newspapers including the reformist daily paper Etemad, for unspecified violations. Weekly paper Irandokht which is also in opposition of the re-election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was banned due to "not meeting the conditions in the press law on practical commitment to the constitution"

Indonesia's Vice President and Finance Minister were the subject of an impeachment debate
on Tuesday March 2 amid criticism of the $700 million bailout of private Bank Century.

AUSTRALIA
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposal of a federal takeover of the nations state-run hospital system has been challenged by some, being viewed as a diversion tactic to distract critics of his home insulation program and other controversial programs. {Search queries for the definition and purpose of the program only yield statements of the programs closing as of Feb,19 2010 in addition to criticisms.}

Drought policies in Australia are under amendment as Agriculture minister Tony Burke claims that "Government support and assistance is conditional upon how much debt you are in. If, for whatever reason, you've made some really hard decisions during the good times and are not in debt, your reward for that is to get no government assistance."

EUROPE
French president Nicolas Sarkozy admitted last week that France had made "grave errors' in its judgment on Rwanda's 1994 genocide, although refrained from an official apology. Several days later, Rwandan authorities have commended the arrest by French police of Agathe Habyarimana , the widow of former president Juvenal Habyarimana whose death is said to have triggered the genocide. French police have not declared the national interest in arresting the widow, and although it is assumed they would extradite her, French officials deny an official request of extradition while Rwandan officials confirm it. After the 2006 accusation by a Paris judge that the current government is responsible for Habyarimana's assassination in 1994, relations between the two nations soured, leaving one to wonder why the French police bothered with an arrest if there is no intention to honor extradition requests.

In response to the use of fake Irish passports in the assassination of a Hamas leader attributed to Israeli agency Mossad, as well as "a wholesale disregard for international law", the Irish town council of Carrickmacross has torn from its guest book, the signature of Israel's ambassador to Ireland. I seriosuly doubt the effectiveness of this measure, although I am almost certain more public displays of Israeli disapproval will follow from the other nations whose passports were faked.

LATIN AMERICA
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro are the most vocal national proponents of an organization to represent political consensus in the Americas. The organization is to be called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and is expected to consolidate the international interests of those states, especially as a separation from North American interest.

A Spanish judge presiding over the plotted assassination case of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe claims there is evidence linking Venezuelan government official Arturo Cubillas Fontan to Colmbian guerilla organization FARC and Basque separatist group ETA.

NORTH AMERICA
A trick is a trick and that is it. Or is it? Pennsylvania State University professor and climatologist Michael Mann has been cleared after an investigation of emails between himself and a climatologist at the British University of East Anglia. Emails hacked from the Climate Research Institute at the UEA showed a graph publicly used by Mann to profess global warming as having being created using a "trick". The word trick raised suspicions surrounding the accuracy of the data, however, Mann has been cleared after describing the 'trick' as a statistical method of displaying various ranges of data. So when is a trick really a trick?

A prominent advocate of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 ,a standards-based educational program enacted by George Bush II has recalled her advocacy of the program, joining myriad critics of the controversial program. Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch has authored a book titled The Death and Life of the Great American School System in which she disapproves of the emphasis of standardized testing and other measures which detract from the real subject, which is successfully educating students.NPR's Steven Inskeep interviews her here

Blogs of Note

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:09:00 +0000

I have recently discovered some excellent blogs worth noting :

Andrew Bacevich is an International Relations professor at Boston University and is blogging for the World Affairs Journal {where I dream to be published someday}.Among other works Bocevich has authored The Limits of Power and more recently American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy. His no-nonsense blog is titled Anti-Imperialist

Jagdish Bhagwati professes at Columbia University and is a preeminent economist, especially in the realm of free trade and is also blogging for World Affairs journal. Magnanimous as ever, his blog is titled Globalization Has a Human Face

*His most recent post 'The Dalai Lama, Obama, and China' is less cynical and rather optimistic, compared to the one I opined regarding Obama's recent meeting with the Dalai Lama

Rethinking Development by Sumita Kale consistently reports and provides discourse on this crucial subject.

All The World's Estranged- I

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:00:00 +0000

* Google Translate may be necessary for some of these links

ASIA

Transfer of troops from Okinawa,Japan to the US territory of Guam expected to increase the island's population by 50%

As unemployment and national debts are compunded worldwide, this author questions whether China should succum to pressure to increase the value of the yuan

AFRICA
For the first time in 36 years a US ambassador to Libya arrived in 2008, but over a year later, Libyan trade official Mohamed Tahar Siala is calling out the US on dragging its feet to implement its side of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), a trade agreement between the two countries

You might not be able to pick up a pound of Kenya blend coffee next time you visit your local gourmet coffee shop, as production of coffee in Kenya and Uganda decreases

ANTARTICA
Japan plans to continue whaling in Antarctica despite the threat of legal action by Australia

The fossil of an extinct four-legged animal found in Antarctica 30 years ago continues to propel paleontology experts who claim that many species sought refuge in Antarctica to avoid extinction over 250 million years ago

NORTH AMERICA

New credit card laws supported by the Credit Card Accountability ,Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act) go into effect on Monday March 1

The news media have been haphazardly tossing around statistics that are intended to boost our financial ego's but the truth is, statistics do not matter to us if we are not a part of it. Perhaps this is why stimulus initiatives are ineffective.

LATIN/SOUTH AMERICA
Colombia is faced with disapproval from the Spanish principlaity of Asturias in regards to an Colombia-EU trade agreement. The Asturian Human Rights Commision plans to show evidence of human rights violations in Colombia.

Latin American and Caribbean countries are coming together to form a united front for the purpose of eradicating poverty ,reducing economic inequality and boosting economic development

EUROPE
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to apologize to abused victims of the Child Migrant Programme

Transparency in appointment of EU Commission ambassador to US called into question as protocol is ignored

Airline strikes must be fashionable in February, as French air traffic controllers strike within 48 hours of a srike by German airline Lufthansa's pilots

AUSTRALIA
The 14th round of trade negotiations between Australia and China, its largest trading partner, resume as Australia insists on further investment in China

Migration of Muslims to Australia continues to be the target topic of hate groups.

Extra Extra,Read All About It! Global News Series coming to Nimo-ism

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:40:00 +0000

It has been obvious to me for quite awhile that my book review topics and other postings may not always be closely relevant to current events. {By the time I finish reading a book and reviewing it, the material may not be quite as 'hot off the presses}.While certain issues can almost always be considered current events, I have been wanting to incorporate current events,preferably in keeping with my blog's main topics; globalization, international relations, global economics/finance and international politics.

Enter: My new bi-weekly series titled " All The World's Estranged'. Eighty seconds is the amount of time it should take you to catch up on current events from around the world. The posts will be concise but will contain links for further information for those long Sundays for which spending hours catching up to the world simply seems appropriate. I will not designate specific days of the week for posting the series, although Tuesdays and Fridays seem best for keeping in the definition of the term 'current' :)

What will be different about this series from other news blogs and sites you ask? I aim to gather my information from a wide range of sources, from private and public, to independent sources in order to let you decide what is news and what isnt. In order to ensure comprehensive coverage, the news will be divided by continent- yes, even Antarctica!

Oh yes- the title. The title 'All The World's Estranged' is a play on words on the famous Shakespeare quote "all the world's a stage" from his play As You Like It. Jacques, a malcontent Lord from the Exiled Court of Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden opines;

Act II Scene VII

All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players

They have their exits and their entrances

And one man in his time plays many parts

His acts being seven ages

I do not concur with Thomas Friedman's view that the world is flat, nevertheless I find it a futile effort to deny that globalization has smoothed out some curves on the international relations landscape. The global interconnectivity of goods, services, ideologies and cultures has significantly contracted the conceptual distance between physically distant supply and demand marriages. As borders come down , the saying 'it's a small world' seems more relevant and simultaneouly, current events of one country are regurgiated by popular news media world wide, feeding into the idea that globalization = homogeneity.

All the world's a stage, indeed, but the monologue and dialogue of the players differ. Globalization brings the world to our fingertips, and the task at hand {pun intendend} is to determine the associations and correlations relayed by the information we have access to. In lieu of dealing with the seven stages of a man's life pronounced byShakespeare's Jacques, I will attempt to provide snippets of associations in current events, from the seven grand theatres -Asia,Africa, Antarctica,Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

Curtain Up.

The Works of William Shakespeare

Internet Freedoms in China - Part 2 of 3

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:19:00 +0000

Has the use of mass media in China and Singapore changed over time, or have new technologies simply been used to further traditional mass media enterprise?

PART 2

Dr. Chin-fu Hung of the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan reminds us that the mass media has traditionally been used by authoritarian governments as tools of propaganda (20). China may not be specifically generating propaganda, but by disallowing any idea opposed to the ruling political party, a silent form of propaganda is maintained. Repressing the political ideas of those who do not absolutely agree with the Four Cardinal Principles creates a reinforcing cycle of ignorance. Pioneers, scholars and youth who may have novel ideas do not get to share them and simultaneously, those who may be interested in their ideas do not get access to them. The amount of academic, socio-cultural and political information in the country's circulation is stagnated as long as it represents the ancient views of the ruling party which has been in power for the recent history of China’s self-governance . While technological advance may continue in such an environment, it does not benefit from the creative participation of society.

Singapore's political propaganda comes in the form of its restrictive policies on electoral campaigning via the internet. Survey and poll data can no longer be published for campaign purposes as of 2001, as supported by the Minister for Information and the Arts, Lee Yock Suan. In a public speech to Parliament, Suan claimed that surveys and polls "gave the illusion of reflecting public opinion but were often based on small sample sizes, bad question design and improper sampling, which led to inaccurate and slanted results" (Gomez 137). Those in opposition saw this as an attempt to curb the success of their campaigns; however the more important issue is that without what few objective polls may have existed, the information provided by the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) will likely be biased. Biased information purported to be objective public opinion is essentially masked propaganda and at any rate, an even cloudier illusion.

In addition to censorship of political and socio-cultural ideas, both China and Singapore use filtering systems to screen information incoming to their networks, before it ever reaches internet users. OpenNet Initiative is a non-partisan organization that studies internet filtering and surveillance practices in countries across the globe. According to their website OpenNet.net, China has allocated billions of dollars to building one of the largest and most advanced filtering systems in the world. The studies also reveal that the Chinese government focuses resources on restricting access to any content that potentially undermines the state's control or social stability, by enforcing strict supervision of domestic media, imposing liability on online content providers, and increasingly, a propaganda approach to online debate and discussion (OpenNet.net). James Gomez summons us to consider which one of these national priorities are threatened by the gay and lesbian community. In 2001, the Chinese government proposed the use of website-rating systems as an additional measure of over-reaching oversight. In Hong Kong, the most internet-liberal region of China, the government began rating websites representing the gay and lesbian community as "harmful media" and required that this rating be displayed on the websites by the owners. Filtering software for minors was also required to be installed by the owners, with imprisonment as a consequence of refusal (Gomez 135). These measures are inappropriately harsh, as they do not address the stated priorities of national and public security. In its effort to create and maintain social stability, the Chinese government is enforcing a cultural mandate that not only shelters its society without society members’ consideration but also oppresses a part of that society.

The Chinese government has no intention of performing all filtering tasks on its own. Website hosts are installing keyword filtering software under pressure, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as well as Internet Content Providers (ICPs) also filter “politically sensitive" websites (Chung 734). ISPs and ICPs gain access to the internet through inter-connecting networks created during the Golden Bridge Project. The networks are owned by the government, so the ISPs and ICPs are forced to cooperate with the government in order to stay in business. Along with internet café owners, they are entrusted to report anyone involved in the creation, replication, retrieval and transmission of information that falls under nine categories. These categories include material that spreads rumors, promote cults and feudal superstitions, and materials that insult or slander others (Hung 11-12). It seems that for every appropriate measure taken by the Chinese government, another politically inconsonant one is tacked onto the same regulation. Pairing insult with slander or terrorism with gambling in the same regulation or under the same priority is the equivalent of pork barreling measures used in democratic legislative bodies; all are efforts to mislead others into approving of something they otherwise might not.

The MDA in Singapore has significantly less conservative regulations on internet filtering. According to the OpenNet Initiative, filters are used mainly for pornographic websites, and in fact not all such websites are blocked, rather the most popular ones. This reveals that the MDA generally aims to make a statement about its disapproval of this material, but does not focus extensive technological resources on actually filtering every single website, as is the case with China. An alternative preferred by the SDP and the MDA is a combination of legal and political persuasion, both of which result in the intended objective of self-censorship. To see the influence of the pair, one can review the effect on all media providers, as shown by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) {Reporters Without Borders}. RSF is a Paris-based NGO promoting world press freedom, which discloses press freedom statistics worldwide in an annual online report. In 2009, Singapore’s press freedom is ranked 133thrd (up by 7) out of 175 countries, and China was ranked 168 (down by 9). The report supports that although Singapore’s filtering system for political, religious, and ethnic content is primarily low-tech, it is effective nonetheless.

Threats of lawsuits, fines, and criminal prosecution are enough incentive for Chinese and Singaporean internet users to censor themselves, but yet another measure is utilized. Licensing is used in both countries, at as many levels as bureaucracy will allow. The government of Singapore requires that ISPs, ICPs and any political or religious groups with websites to register with the MDA .They must obtain a license before operating a website and as licensees; ISPs and ICPs are bound by the MDA’s Internet Code of Practice. As recently as 2005, the Chinese authorities tightened its controlling grip by implementing the Computer Information Network and International Internet Security Protection and Administration Regulations, which require that all website operators register their sites with the local Public Security Bureau within thirty days of operation(Hung 14).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wang, Stephanie. "China | OpenNet Initiative." ONI Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 15 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://opennet.net/research/profiles/china#footnote38_1j5nfzr>.

Chung, Jongpil. "Comparing Online Activities in China and South Kore." Asian Survey 8.5 (2008): 727-51. Ww.ucpressjournals.com. University of California. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=as>.

Gomez, James. "Dumbing Down Democracy: Trends in Internet Regulation, Surveillance and Control in Asia." Pacific Journalism Review 10.2 (2004): 130-50. Auckland University of Technology. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pjreview.info/>.

Hassid, Jonathan. "Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business." Asian Survey 48.3 (2008): 414-30. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/pqdlink?index=3&did=1507544931&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1256691609&clientId=4305&aid=1>.

Kalathil, Shanthi. "Dot.com for Dictators." Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 42-49. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <www.jstor.org>.

"The Media and Asia." Speech. World Affairs Council. Los Angeles. 19 Oct. 1998. Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.lawac.org/speech/pre%20sept%2004%20speeches/yew.html>.

"Media Development Authority - About Us." Media Development Authority - Home. Media Development Authority, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/aboutus.aspx>.

"Press Freedom Index 2009." Reporters Sans Frontières. Reporters Sans Frontières. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html>.

"World Economic Forum - Global Information Technology Report." World Economic Forum - Home. Ed. World Economic Forum. 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm>.

Yang, Gubon. "The Coevolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China." Asian Survey 43.3 (2003): 405-22. 2 Dec. 2003. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/as.2003.43.3.405>.

Internet Freedoms in China - Part 1 of 3

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Possible Reality or Distant Illusion?

The battle between search engine and multimedia giant Google and the People's Republic of China over the restriction of internet access is of enormous proportions. In terms of technology, the consequences are obvious, as Google would lose a potential client base of over 1 billion people while Chinese search engines would soar in popularity and profitability. The ramifications of the Google vs China battle on international relations are less obvious and unpredictable, given the recently building tension between the US and China. The tension can be attributed to many conflicts of interest, but no doubt has been aggravated by issues such as the hacking of Google servers traced to China and more recently,the meeting between President Obama and The Dalai Lama.

PART 1

The People's Republic of China and the Republic of Singapore are both authoritarian governments, although to widely varying degrees. China bases its core principles in Communism and sometimes socialism, while Singapore is a parliamentary democracy whose constitution is based on English common law and British Indian law. The authoritarian aspects of both governments are evident in their control over their citizens' freedom of expression. Specifically, both Singapore and China, despite the variance in the size of their populations, share similar positions in their policies toward internet use and access. One crucial determinant of the similar approaches used by both is the fact that they are relatively young nations, based on their independence from recent colonists. China only began political and economic reform in the 1980s after the death of Mao Zedong, and Singapore attained independence from Britain in 1963 and separation from Malaysia in 1965.

China and Singapore needed to determine the fastest and most effective methods of industrializing and advancing to the economic heights of countries such as the US and Europe. These decisions would've been more simple and straightforward for a democracy; build telecommunications infrastructure, and open up access freely to all citizens and enterprises alike, in accordance with the democratic right to freedom of speech. For authoritative governments however, balancing the introduction of far-reaching technology such as the internet, with the desired level of control over the people has proved to be less simple. This paper will examine the approaches taken by both China and Singapore, in their attempt to strike a balance between technological industrialization and limitation of civil liberty in regard to internet access and use. The purpose of this paper is to understand why these countries have chosen their respective policies, and to make note of the consequences.

China is a strictly authoritarian state, with a Communist Party backed by the Constitution, whose priorities include social order, public security and national security. Public opposition to the Communist People's Party (CPC) is disallowed, as well the expression of any other information that may be deemed subversive to the CPC (Hassid). The range of topics considered to be subversive is not exclusively defined, nonetheless scholar Jongpil Chung suggests as a guide, the Four Cardinal Principles. Introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 as a response to the 'Democracy Wall" erected in Beijing, these principles represent key stances of the Communist Party Doctrine. The Four Cardinal Principles are socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought (Chung 732). It is noteworthy that while the CPC sets social order as one of its goals, its method of achieving this is by repressing political expression, and using the Four Cardinal Principles as a shield. The internet poses a challenge to the repression of political discourse, due to its unsurpassed collective and disseminating capabilities in regards to information. The potential benefits of advancing industrial and commercial development through the internet outweighed the threats perceived by the Chinese government nevertheless, and construction of an information infrastructure was begun in the 1990s.

Singapore has a unicameral parliamentary system of government, whereby there is only one level of government- federal. The simplicity of the Singaporean government system is considerably distinct from the Chinese government, which has 3 levels of government, and a notoriously large bureaucracy. Further on, we will see how the structure of a government system has an effect on the level of control wielded by it. The Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore is charged with regulation of the media industry and its development of global communications (mda.gov.sg). The priorities of MDA internet policies appear to be ethnic and religious harmony, as well as socio-political stability and national security. Singapore's Internet Code of Practice mostly focuses on harmful material like pornography, and defines relatively succinct boundaries on socio-political expression. Section 4(2) g of the

Singapore Internet Code of Conduct "prohibits material that ‘glorifies, incites or endorses ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance'" (Gomez 135). With its uniquely diverse population, it is evident that Singapore aims for egalitarian treatment of all races, but the most liberal of scholars might argue that those who do not share in this value, are being silenced. Optimistically however, Singapore's focus on ethnic and religious harmony eases the pressure on political censorship, at least in comparison to China. In the 1990’s, Singapore was on its way to becoming an Asian Tiger, and began to build its own information infrastructure.

China's approach to entering the information age was to embark on a series of projects known as the Golden Projects. They included the Golden Bridge Project, Golden Card Project and the Golden Gate Project. The main goals of the latter two were e-banking and e-trade, while the Golden Bridge Project was intended to create a public network that would link the state ministries with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across China ( Chung 732). As early as 1991, Singapore launched a project known as IT2000 with the goal of converting the state it into "the vision of an 'Intelligent Island' where information technology is further and better applied to enhance the quality of life of the population" (Hung 9). Both countries are bringing their projects into fruition, with Singapore receiving a No. 4 ranking in global IT from the World Economic Forum ,and China leading the world with 298 million internet users. While the plans for commercial development are becoming realities for these governments, the freedom of expression has been held back from progression.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wang, Stephanie. "China | OpenNet Initiative." ONI Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 15 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://opennet.net/research/profiles/china#footnote38_1j5nfzr>.

Kalathil, Shanthi. "Dot.com for Dictators." Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 42-49. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <www.jstor.org>.

"Media Development Authority - About Us." Media Development Authority - Home. Media Development Authority, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/aboutus.aspx>.

"Press Freedom Index 2009." Reporters Sans Frontières. Reporters Sans Frontières. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html>.

Need a Job?

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:24:00 +0000

Mint.com {my favorite site for personal finance}has compiled a list of top 10 cities expected to have the most promising job growth through the next two decades. I have to admit I'm disappointed that Virginia is not ranked in the top 10 growing job states, especially considering its repertoire for excellence in primary education and business development. Virginia is ranked the best state for business by Forbes and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology was ranked the best High School in the US by U.S. News & World Report's rankings.

Budgeting – Mint.com

Ok so maybe the experts dont consider that to be relevant, but what about this cartoon from the BLS?

As chart shows, the Government ties with Trade & Transportation for the highest percentage of employment, which is positive because the government is the least likely employer to hand out pink slips during economic recessions.

The BLS website provides that Virginia is among the 12 states that had less than 2% change in unemployment over 2008{from 5%-6.9%) and is one of only 4 states in the East Coast with an employment-population ratio higher than 64%

Furthermore, according to yesvirginia.org ,Virginia enjoys these additional accolades:

More than 15,700 high-tech establishments operate in Virginia.
At least 60 firms with annual revenue over $500 million are headquartered in Virginia.
Virginia is headquarters to 32 Fortune 1000 firms.
More than 800 internationally-owned businesses from 45 countries are located in the Commonwealth.
Virginia ranks third among the 50 states as a recipient of federal R&D funds.

In terms of productivity, Virginia is number one amongst the states in the Southeastern Region.
Virginia ranks among the top 10 states best positioned for robust growth and innovation over the next decade, in terms of being knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven, and innovation-based, according to the "2008 State New Economy Index” published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Virginia exported $18.93 billion of merchandise in 2008.

Okay, I think I'm done campaigning for VA. Get packing.

PS. The BLS has a great compilation of comparison maps showing the change in unemployment rates from 1976 -2008.

Nimo-ism buzz words of 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:55:00 +0000

I just discovered this fun tool called Wordle that creates customizable tag clouds of the most reoccurring words in a given text. Quite apparently, I over-used the name 'Dalai Lama' in my last post- but how else could I refer to him?

Check it out here

You and What Army?

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:21:00 +0000

You know what they say- you should never provoke anyone who can answer that question with confidence. In the past few years, there has been a tug of war for public support between The People's Republic of China and a single man- the Dalai Lama. I doubt The Dalai Lama teases the Chinese Republic by proposing liberties then responding to discouragement by saying "you and what army?"...still - The Dalai Lama has been working overtime to keep civil liberties among the list of international conversation topics for governments and citizens alike.The civil liberties of the Tibetan people are a special focus for him, thus given the bitter history between Tibet and China, the end of the battle is but a thought. China's most visible stratagem has been the discouragement of meetings between the Dalai Lama and heads of governments across the globe.A few months back, the Dalai Lama claimed that he had a meeting arranged with President Obama for a future, albeit uncertain date, and it appeared most doubted him, viewing it as an appeal than a confirmation. On Thursday Feb 18th,2010 The Dalai Lama met with President Obama at the white House, where he restated his hope for the recognized autonomy of Tibet with a succinct distinction from independence for Tibet.

The purpose of the meeting itself was not 'characterized' by the White House press secretary although a statement reveals that President Obama's "strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity, and the protection of human rights for Tibetans,".

President Obama did not respond in any manner other than expected of the populist, politically correct,pacifier, while The Dalai Lama stood his ground on the Tibetan platform. I am curious as to why the president was happy to postpone his meeting with The Dalai Lama when he visited last fall in favor of meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao, yet in the face of strained US-China relations, the president finds a blank spot on his calendar. I am inclined to believe that meeting with the Dalai Lama is an integral part of promoting and securing the reputation of President Obama as a genuine democratic concerned about the protection of democratic and civil liberties for all. A quick glimpse in a tv guide reveals upcoming specials by different networks , with the focus on evaluating President Obama's first year in office. After the first year, presidential approval and evaluation is often the media hot story, and the telling statistics may set the tone for the remainder of the term. The meeting was a strategically balanced move, to fortify the desired public opinion of the president , while providing a civil rights leader a platform for expression, despite lacking intent on the president's part to take definitive action.

Appease the Tibetans and civil liberties activists a lot, and anger a the Chinese a little

According to CNN, Chinese officials have expressed to the US ambassador to China, their "strong dissastisfaction" in regards to the meeting.

Nevertheless, for all intensive purposes, the status quo is maintained.

Case of the Februarys

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Its Tax Time- everyone's least favorite time of the year for a reason:

- Robert Hershey at the NYT discusses what you should consider when determining your tax strategies

- Just to make sure the recession has hit your financial ego hard enough, David Wessel of WSJ dares to bring up the subject of the tax returns of the top 400 taxpayers and Bloomberg News'

and Bloomberg News' Ryan J. Donmoyer follows suit, teasing you with their Cap Gains and income statistics

- Filing your taxes may actually take second place to a dentist appointment as you rleast favorite chore if you qualify for the Make Work Pay tax credit

- The new year is a great time to make fresh starts, so if you resolved to make better financial decisions, consider NYT's David Cay Johnston's two cents on effecting some changes in your Roth IRA contributions and personal finance topics

- If attached to your hip, you find an iPhone, then consider Mint's suggestions on useful iphone apps for personal finance, including the MileBug which tracks your mileage for expense deductions. Use your handy iphone to search for other useful apps such as the Federal Tax Calculator app

Joseph Stiglitz- The economist who cried wolf

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:16:00 +0000

American economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned us before, and he's doing it again. Listen.

As interviewed by Larry Elliott of The Guardian

Feb,12,2010

Joseph Stiglitz feels depressed. Having been a voice in the wilderness urging caution when financial capitalism was in a speculative frenzy, he wants the crisis to be the catalyst for radical thinking. But he fears it won't be: Greece is being forced to cut its deficit, the bankers are behaving as if nothing has changed since August 2007, and the political running in the United States is being made by the right-wing anti-state Tea Party.

"There was a moment of euphoria when we were all Keynesians," he said in an interview to mark the publication of his new book.* "Those ideas were working and every government stood behind them. It was not just Keynesian macro-economic policies, it was the need for regulation and the recognition that economics had failed."

Since those heady days of optimism a year ago, when unprecedented government action hauled the global economy back from the brink of a new Depression, Stiglitz says two things have happened to derail prospects of change. "Plans to re-regulate the financial markets have run into a political quagmire and there has been a resurgence of deficit fetishism."

He says he is surprised at how fast the forces in favour of the pre-2007 status quo have re-grouped. "The optimist in me is hopeful we won't need another crisis to finally motivate the political process," he said. "The pessimist in me says it may need to happen."

Pessimistic

Now 67, Stiglitz has been a critic of the Chicago School of free-market economics and its international cousin – the Washington consensus – throughout his career. His trenchant objections to the deflationary policies imposed on Asian countries by the International Monetary Fund in the late 1990s led to him being ousted as the World Bank's chief economist after lobbying from Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, Larry Summers. (Stiglitz's nemesis is now head of Barack Obama's National Economic Council.)Since then, he has written books on the defects in globalisation, the 1990s boom, the cost of the Iraq war and now on the Great Recession. Freefall attacks all his familiar betes noires: the IMF, the US treasury, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, the mainstream economics profession and, of course, Summers.

Stiglitz is a "big supporter" of Obama's plans to stop Wall Street banks speculating with customers' money. Significantly, the initiative only happened when the president stopped listening to Summers, treasury secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and turned to the veteran policy-maker Paul Volcker.

"I'm pretty pessimistic about the US. It will be a long time before unemployment returns to normal." He believes the struggling housing market – 25% of households are in negative equity – may harm one of America's traditional strengths: the ability of workers to move from state to state in search of jobs. He says US banks are hiding their exposure to commercial real estate, which he fears will be the next problem.

He says the pick-up in growth across the global economy in the latter half of 2009 will not last. "The likelihood that growth will slow is close to 100%. The likelihood that it will drop below zero is uncertain. We don't know about the policy response, we don't know whether there will be a second stimulus package in the US, and we don't know how bad the balance sheets of the banks are."

For the past couple of weeks, Stiglitz has been advising the Greek government on how to respond to its severe financial crisis. He says the speculators are not basing their decisions on what they think but are gambling on what they think other people will think about Greece. "They are gambling on the degree of irrationality going forward."

Europe, he says, should show "social solidarity": the European Central Bank provides liquidity to solvent banks to help them through the bad times, and should treat Greece in the same fashion. "If the central bank is prepared to provide liquidity support for banks it should be able to provide it for countries."

He added: "Governments had to come in after the banks mismanaged what they were supposed to do. The financial markets are now criticising countries for picking up the pieces after the financial markets failed. They are demanding the wages of workers be cut but bonuses be allowed to continue. This is an absurd situation."

The crisis has exposed a fault line in the single currency. From the outset, critics said the test of the euro would be when the poorer countries came under pressure and lacked the ability both to devalue and to access financial support from the richer parts of the euro area. "That problem was swept under the rug but has now come to the fore."

Stiglitz has long been a supporter of a financial transaction tax, the brainchild of his fellow American Keynesian James Tobin. This week a coalition of groups launched a campaign for a "Robin Hood tax" that would levy a small charge on financial transactions and re-distribute the proceeds. "A transaction tax is designed to tackle high-frequency activity for which it is hard to find any societal benefit," Stiglitz said.

"The only questions about a financial transaction tax are: can it be effectively implemented and can it be circumvented? There is a growing consensus that it can be implemented, if not perfectly then effectively enough to make a difference." Speculators themselves supported the idea of the tax because they knew their activities were "socially counter-productive", he claimed.

Wrinkles

Stiglitz won his Nobel prize for his work on asymmetric information, the notion that markets do not work as perfectly as textbooks suggest. "It is almost impossible to reconcile the description of the economy provided by the mainstream profession and what has actually been going on. These are not minor wrinkles."They acted as if the bubble would go on forever, when real incomes were falling for most Americans."

He says attempts by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to knock some of the rough edges off of Thatcherism "didn't go far enough" in correcting the Thatcher revolution. "In trying not to over-react they under-reacted."

George Osborne is precisely the sort of "deficit fetishist" Stiglitz has in his sights. Incredulous at the idea that the Conservatives would cut spending when the economy is barely out of recession, he thinks Osborne would take a different view in power. "He originally talked about big deficit cuts but seems to have backed off that in terms of timing. The reason they are doing that is that if they did it the recession would get much worse. If they get elected, they will move from rhetoric to reality."

In the years ahead, Stiglitz says the big story will be the challenge to the west from China and India. There was a time when emerging economies had no choice but to accept the free-market policies imposed by Washington. "The US treasury would be laughed out of town if it went to China or India today and told them they had to de-regulate.

"We can now see a day when the dominance of the west will end."

Further wise words can be found in Stiglitz' latest book Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy

Feliz Primerio Aniversario Obama!

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:13:00 +0000

jaja

Restoring Legitimacy to the WTO - Part 7

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:06:00 +0000

- courtesy of http://simonworld.mu.nu/

In conclusion-

Albin describes five issues that are central to WTO procedure and that require jurisprudence. These are; the structures of negotiations, the negotiation process itself, procedures, outcomes/distributive justice, and the post-agreement phase. The 'structure of negotiations' refers to the overall environment in which they take place and aims to deal with the concerns of participation, representations, power relations and agenda-setting. Discouraged participation, insufficient representation, and power politics all de-legitimize the decision making process before it even begins.. The justice issue in the negotiation process refers to the way in which the various parties interact as they build consensus. I suspect that Albin is intimating about any coercive tactics used by nation-states to achieve their desired part of the agreement. This issue differs from the structural issue in that the structure of negotiations is an atmospherically state created by overlapping parties, while the issue of justice in the negotiation process is brought about by individual parties in their approach of others. Procedures in this case, and as before, refer to mechanisms of negotiation, and the justice issue arises when the succession of procedures has loopholes which can give one nation-state an unfair advantage over another.

Loopholes come in the form of non-existent regulation of information green room caucuses in which key decisions are made. The fourth issue of distributive justice refers to the "allocation of benefits and burdens in an agreement"(760). Neither Albin nor other scholars explicitly state that they expect developing countries to receive preferential treatment, so I deduce that this justice issue supports the consideration of relativity. What I mean is, a tariff that is affordable for one wealthy country may signal the halt of exports for another, and this should be considered in determining the numerical elements of trade agreements. After distributive justice is achieved, it must be maintained, otherwise justice issues arise in the post-agreement phase.

The main concerns in this phase of WTO procedure are the implementation of and compliance with agreements by member states. When a member state is non-compliant, the aggrieved party has the option of filing a complaint with the WTO's Dispute Settlement Board (DSB). DSB panelists are usually trade experts, economists and corporate lawyers who are either untrained or choose not to focus on the socioeconomic outcomes of the rulings they determine, NGOs , which typically represent social and environmental interests are not allowed access to DSB hearings to submit their proposals (534). It is imperative that economic, social and environmental concerns be incorporated into the ruling of disputes because these concerns are all intertwined. DSB decisions are legally binding, which means that the national laws of the respective parties must amend their laws in accordance with the rulings. In Deliberative Democracy and the WTO, Kapoor notes that this shifts the center of gravity of international trade rules from negative prescription to positive rule-making (528). What this means, is that the WTO essentially asserts itself at a higher position than the legislative bodies of the respective nation-state, and promises retaliation and charges of compensation in the case of non-compliance. The legal bind of the DSB rulings transform the WTO into a law-making body where the three-member DSB panel wields power, rather than a platform for trading nations where decisions are made by consensus.

After defining the measures of legitimacy and justice, and examining the procedures entailed in the WTO negotiations, I am convinced that the credibility of the WTO is in decline. All that is required to see that the WTO deviates from its democratic aspirations is objective analysis of the individual components that culminate in the trade agreements forged between member nations. The most glaring sources of de-legitimization are the undemocratic decision-making process, the inadequate deliberation of the DSB process, the structural inequities intrinsic to negotiation power, the deficient fulfillment of promises, and the hegemonic tendencies exemplified by the Quad. During the course of analysis of each of these delegitimizing concerns, this paper has suggested reforms which can remedy them with the goal of giving the WTO back its legitimacy.

Works Cited

Albin, Cecilia. "Using Negotiation to promote legitimacy; an assessment of proposals for reforming the WTO." International Affairs 84.4 (2008): 757-75. Print.

Restoring Legitimacy to the WTO - Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:04:00 +0000

As it were..

It would seem commonly sensible that the WTO would take it upon itself to educate its students {developing countries} with the lessons learned by the graduating class { developed countries} in order to legitimize the principles of liberal trade that it promotes. Rather than prescribing sweeping measures such as ' open up markets', it would be more worthwhile to educate {developing nations}in details such as efficient export processes and innovative enterprise management systems.

The differences described above are intended to be somewhat resolved with what the WTO calls technical assistance,. One of the conditions of the Uruguay Round of WTO negotiations was that developing countries would be offered increased technical assistance to make up for the differences between their technical capabilities and those of developed countries. While this sounded promising, the reality is that the budgeted amount is $7,000 per developed country. Just what this grossly insufficient amount can provide for is dependent on the respective state of course, but it can be agreed upon that this amount is not sufficient to close the technical gap between developed and developing countries. . Kapoor describes these technicalities as "structural inequalities that result in asymmetrical deliberative capacities: (530).They are structural, in that they are inherent features that are borne from the combination of social, economic and political facets of nations-states. Recently, the WTO decided to discontinue paper publication of a large portion of its information, in favor of publishing the information online. This is a commendable effort towards reducing the environmental impact of its operations, which nonetheless does not consider the accessibility of the internet.

Poor, developing countries have haphazard telecommunications infrastructure that makes consistent internet access difficult to attain Publication of important information on the internet means that those who have no access to it will be uninformed and thus become less effective in negotiation. All in all,nations have their unique educational systems and are economically developed to varying degrees, nonetheless if negotiation of trade agreements is to be fair these inequities must at least be considered. Ignoring them leads to an imbalance of negotiation power in procedure, and on the grand scale, to the infiltration of power politics into the WTO.

Those who do not recognize the inequities in WTO negotiation procedures, or simply do not believe that they need to be addressed might argue that the WTO is not commissioned with matters of justice, only those of trade negotiation. They might point out that the WTO is a platform for trade agreements and not primarily a judicial body purposed with settling moral or ethical injustices. Based on Thomas Franck's review of legitimacy in global institutions, Albin distinguishes between justice and legitimacy, saying that "justice is substantive fairness concerned with the distribution of benefits and burdens, and often with change" (759). As such, justice and legitimacy are two separate elements, albeit important ones, which must combine to create fairness. Franck intimates that the task of fairness is to integrate or balance both justice and legitimacy. Based on the global social, economic and environmental ramifications of outcomes, it is essential that an organization charged with facilitating international trade agreements be fair. Having established the meaning of legitimacy how it is built through procedural justice, we can examine justice in and of itself, so as to see how the pair are incorporated to create fairness.

TBC..

Works Cited

Albin, Cecilia. "Using Negotiation to promote legitimacy; an assessment of proposals for reforming the WTO." International Affairs 84.4 (2008): 757-75. Print.

Restoring Legitimacy to the WTO - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:42:00 +0000

image courtesy of Anupam Chander

Despite the repeated emphasis on equal representation and the WTO director-general's admission that reform is necessary, the Quad, a select group of four countries continue to command an ambiguous yet tangible authority over WTO affairs. For a long time, the Quad has consisted of The United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada. The Quad members often lead what are known as 'green room' caucus meetings, which regularly exclude developing countries.(Albin 761) There are no rules regulating the assembly of these meetings, which makes their outcome unfair, regardless of the parties affected. In addition, because these meetings are held almost surreptitiously, it is impossible to determine what effect they have on subsequent decisions.

The combination of inadequate legitimating procedures and lack of qualitative deliberations makes it unlikely that WTO outcomes will be just in the middle of power politics, exclusion, bargaining, and uncritical knowledge. The consensus reached in this multilateral sphere is most likely to be coerced and one-sided- to the advantage of the western countries. Proponents for the Quad contest that other member states form alliances, however the latter are used to represent common socio-economic interests between geographically neighboring states, while the Quad is simply a coalition of the most economically developed member states, which for a lack of transparency, lead us to believe that it is for the purpose of hegemony. The group should either state its primary purpose for formation and adhere to the highest standards of transparency, or be dissolved.

In a lecture to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law on 15 June 2008, Director-General Pascal Lamy stated that a decade ago, the Quad may have been a core group used for the purposed of testing new rules first, however, the major group today is the G-4, comprised of the US, EC, India and Brazil. Despite declaring the current membership of the major group, the director-general still does not shed light on what the designation means, rather he states that it is, "not possible to propose any new rule without testing the waters with countries like China , South Africa, and Indonesia, just to name a few" (Kapoor 530).

Fairness is of immense importance because of the diverse interests of nations-states and the various comparative advantages that they have in fields affected by the WTO such as technology, investment, and education .Developing countries, budgeted on extremely low appropriations often cannot afford to host as many representatives as other developed countries in Geneva or any other locations where WTO representatives may need to be permanently situated. This affects the representation of the respective nation-state at meetings and within the organization in general. The absence of any nation's representatives further reduces any chance that the interests of that nation are considered at the brainstorming or negotiation procedures. Representatives from developing countries may also have less extensive education, yet have to collaborate with lawyers and other professionals from developing countries who have more extensive education. Professionals in developing countries, especially from the Quad also have the advantage of being trained and being familiar with the business lexicon and processes of meetings. While these differences may seem subtle, variances in education and a home court advantage can have a tremendous effect on the negotiation process and ultimately, the trade policies implemented by a state.

TBC..

Works Cited

Albin, Cecilia. "Using Negotiation to promote legitimacy; an assessment of proposals for reforming the WTO." International Affairs 84.4 (2008): 757-75. Print.

Restoring Legitimacy to the WTO - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:05:00 +0000

-polyp.org.uk/cartoons

NO DEMOCRACY WITHOUT TRANSPARENCY

Albin and other trade experts such as current and former WTO-affiliated officials have pointed to the "lack of transparency and insufficient representation of parties in negotiations as key contributors to the erosion of legitimacy"(757). The procedures currently in place contain features that are eroding the legitimacy of the organization, leading to the consideration of how to build legitimacy.. Many scholars use the term 'procedural justice' to describe the constitution of legitimacy in the procedure of making a decision. To determine when procedural justice has been achieved, Albin points to G.S. Levanthal's six criteria; consistency (across persons and over time); bias suppression; accuracy; correct ability ( of decisions made in error); representativeness (of parties affected by the respective decisions), and ethicality(763). In legal studies, procedural justice is determined by: accuracy, consistency, impartiality, reversibility, transparency and voice. The latter are presented in order to show the commonly accepted characteristics across different studies. The prevailing fundamental principle of procedural justice in either field of study is the participation in decision-making by the affected party (Albin 763).

The only way to hold to the WTO and its procedures accountable for equal and fair representation is for the organization to assert a standard of 100% transparency in all affairs. In the new millennium and recent years especially, this issue has been recognized by WTO officials. Director-general Pascal Lamy has publicly admitted that the decision making procedures need to be re-modeled, stating that "the procedures and rules of this organization have not supported the weight of the task" (Albin 758).National economies and the socio-economic well being of their citizens are at stake, which is why lesser standards are unacceptable.

Despite the repeated emphasis on equal representation and the WTO director-general's admission that reform is necessary, the Quad, a select group of four countries continue to command an ambiguous yet tangible authority over WTO affairs. For a long time, the Quad has consisted of The United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada. The Quad members often lead what are known as 'green room' caucus meetings, which regularly exclude developing countries.(Albin 761) There are no rules regulating the assembly of these meetings, which makes their outcome unfair, regardless of the parties affected. In addition, because these meetings are held almost surreptitiously, it is impossible to determine what effect they have on subsequent decisions. The combination of inadequate legitimating procedures and lack of qualitative deliberations makes it unlikely that WTO outcomes will be just in the middle of power politics, exclusion, bargaining, and uncritical knowledge. The consensus reached in this multilateral sphere is most likely to be coerced and one-sided- to the advantage of the western countries. Proponents for the Quad contest that other member states form alliances, however the latter are used to represent common socio-economic interests between geographically neighboring states, while the Quad is simply a coalition of the most economically developed member states, which for a lack of transparency, lead us to believe that it is for the purpose of hegemony. The group should either state its primary purpose for formation and adhere to the highest standards of transparency, or be dissolved.

TBC..

Works Cited

Albin, Cecilia. "Using Negotiation to promote legitimacy; an assessment of proposals for reforming the WTO." International Affairs 84.4 (2008): 757-75. Print.

Restoring Legitimacy to the WTO - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Nimo) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:57:00 +0000

-proflebras.ifrance.com

WHICH CAME FIRST, CREDIBILITY OR LEGITIMACY?

The credibility of the WTO has regressed since the days of GATT, its predecessor, for today its affairs are plagued with contentions of legitimacy and hegemonic tendency. It is not easy to pinpoint where matters went wrong, although it may help to start with what is wrong. Unless an organization conducts affairs in a legitimate way, it cannot build, nor sustain credibility, in which case its purpose for existence is void. Cecilia Albin has condensed the issue of WTO legitimacy to two questions; does the WTO actually attain legitimacy from its decision making and negotiation procedures, and how have these same procedures contributed to setbacks in the organization? (757).

First, we must define legitimacy, in order to analyze the issue in a uniform fashion. The final outcome of WTO operation is the trade agreements made between nations, and since these agreements are forged through a series of processes, we can review each individual component. The main building block of legitimacy for the WTO is the series procedures taken to build consensus. "Procedures refer broadly to mechanisms used in the negotiation process to come to an agreement. They encompass formal, explicit rules and practices as well as more diffuse or informal ones"(Albin 758). The WTO website proclaims that the format for operation is a rules-based system, where the rules are borne from the agreements that nation-states reach after negotiation..Formal, explicit rules are in correlation with this system, but the diffuse, informal rules leave opportunity for faction and bias.

Albin supports the claim that brainstorming of new ideas and bargaining actually takes place at the exclusive green room caucuses which are usually convened by either the director-general or a committee chairperson. Inter-mixed with these caucuses are other informal meetings where "key players" meet as well as other "off the record plenary meetings open to all members" (761). Nevertheless, Why does the WTO need to any have any off the record meetings? For an organization of its size and far-reaching influence, any off the record affairs bring into question the transparency of its processes. Albin notes that all organizations, need the flexibility of some informal discussions, but it becomes troublesome if informality plays too large a role, as is the case at the WTO. The WTO website even points out, that informal meetings have a more decisive role than formal ones.

Informality in itself means that there are no set guidelines to which an affair must adhere to and the parties involved are responsible for drawing their own boundaries, or not. Throughout this analysis, one must not forget that nation-states have diverse interests and often use the equivalent retaliation strategy in dealing with one another. This results in only friendly nations being invited to informal meetings which may or may not affect them, and thus a total loss of the quality of fairness in the procedures. "The wide scope for informal and ad hoc procedures clearly favors the more powerful and influential members in the developed world" (Albin 762).

Informality essentially creates an atmosphere where fair practices such as equal representation are disregarded, and thus representation is based on superficial values like national wealth and commanding leaders. It is not that these values are superficial generally, rather that that they should not qualify any single nation for preferential treatment from an organization that claims to be democratic. As soon as superficial values replace democratic principles, illicit activities such as coercion and bribery can become rampant and even commonplace. For example, towards the end of the Uruguay Round, the US threatened to withdraw from the round table when developing countries hesitated to sign agreements on intellectual property rights and investments and services.

TBC..

Works Cited

Albin, Cecilia. "Using Negotiation to promote legitimacy; an assessment of proposals for reforming the WTO." International Affairs 84.4 (2008): 757-75. Print.