Fareed Zakaria asks Kishore Mahbubani on the CNN/GPS program March 24, 2013 – One thing historically that has always happened is when you have the rise of a middle class, countries tend to become more democratic. Do you think China will become a democracy?
Mahbubani: “I think China will eventually become a democracy. The destination is not in doubt. The only question is the route and timing.
But China is not going to become democratic in the near future, in the next 10 to 20 years. And, by the way, one point people forget is that if you go to Chinese universities and you talk to bright young Chinese and ask them, would you like to get rid of the Communist Party and immediately become democratic tomorrow, most of them would say no. Because they do know that the Chinese Communist Party, over the last 30 years, has delivered the fastest growth in the standard of living.
And they do know that if you dismantle this and if China falls apart, all their dreams of becoming number one in the world will disappear. And the Chinese…the feeling is that they are almost there, the feeling that they’re going to become number one very soon is a very powerful driving force that’s also keeping them together.”
Starting with China and India and looking at the rest of Asia – today there are 500 million people in the middle class – the growth is immense and by 2020 the expectation is that this number will more then triple and there will be 1.75 billion people of that region that will be in the middle class.
The West must show the wisdom to learn to manage the entrance of these Asian states into the Global multinational system – and what more – the US must learn how to be a #2 when finally another Nation becomes #1. Mahbubani talks of THE GREAT CONVERSION as a final result of the development process. He is mostly interested in the political sphere. Today we have a strong International Society and a very weak International Government. Some must learn to conceive that the time of being clear #1 will be over.
Mahbubani is practical and aims at the end of the present system of the so called 5 Superpowers. He shreds the UN Security Council and wants to se it replaced by a set of new 7 Permanent Members augmented with another 7 Semi-permanent Members.
The first set of the NEW PERMANENTS is to be made up of:
The US, CHINA, RUSSIA, INDIA, The EU, BRAZIL, and NIGERIA
The Set of Semi-Permanents will then be made up by counties like Korea, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia ….
We were flabbergasted as his scheme, except for replacing Nigeria for South Africa, is identical with what we were advocating years ago. So, to be honest, this posting comes about because we feel justified by the content of Professor Mahbubani’s remarks.
Further, on the Fareed Zakaria program today he had also Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson advocate the US put more money into Space as the present situation of not having a US Space-ship and the need to rent place on Russia’s equipment, not just harms US research, but in effect became a give-away to Russia, China, India, even Canada, of the potential for inovation that comes with investment in space Programs. This is another reason for fore-seable US decline.
TPP foe: A protester holds a sign reading ‘We oppose Japan’s participation in the TPP talks’ during a Thursday rally in Tokyo against the Trans-Pacific Partnership accord. | AP
After taking time to lay the groundwork amid pressure from lobby groups and lawmakers from rural constituencies, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally announced Friday that Japan will join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks.
Abe’s government also unveiled its estimate of the possible economic impacts of joining the trade initiative, showing Japan’s participation would drive up its gross domestic product by 0.66 percent, or around ¥3.2 trillion, but that production in the farm, fishery and forestry sectors could decrease by ¥3 trillion annually if all tariffs are abolished unconditionally.
“The TPP is turning the Pacific Ocean into an inland sea and a huge economic zone,” Abe told reporters at his office.
As 11 member countries have already spent the last three years deciding rules to free up trade, services and investment in the Pacific Rim, Japan needs to actively engage in the talks to make them as advantageous as possible for the country, Abe said.
“This is the last chance. If we miss this opportunity, it would immediately mean that we would be left out of setting global regulations” on free trade, he said. “If Japan becomes only inward-looking, there will no longer be a chance of economic growth.”
At the same time, Abe admitted that “it will be difficult to overturn rules already set” by the 11 TPP member countries in past rounds of talks. But he also stressed that he will defend the nation’s interests throughout the discussions, which are scheduled to end by December, in particular by mitigating the negative impact on the domestic agriculture and fisheries industries.
He declined to answer whether Japan would withdraw from the discussions if it fails to persuade the other TPP members to allow existing tariffs on rice, pork, beef, wheat, dairy products and sugar to continue, as demanded earlier by Abe’s own Liberal Democratic Party.
“We will negotiate based on the national interests. Commenting on whether to withdraw (from the TPP) at this point won’t serve that purpose,” he said.
Still, Abe’s LDP administration faces an uphill battle with time running out for Japan to negotiate any exemptions — especially in the key areas of rice, sugar and dairy products — with the other 11 TPP member states, making it more difficult for Tokyo to exert much leverage and ensure the minimum damage to the domestic agriculture industry.
The founding members of the TPP talks have been hammering out a framework for the regional accord since 2010, and their number has swelled to 11 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand and Peru.
With little information available to nonmember nations, many are worried that Japan is taking its place at the table far too late if it hopes to amend agreements already settled by the current TPP participants.
“If (Japan) wants to take part in the talks, it needs to obey our ‘dress code,’ which has been already decided,” an official of one of the 11 countries reportedly said.
Led by the United States, the TTP members finished the 16th round of talks covering 21 trade and service areas Thursday in Singapore, and aim to reach a final agreement by the end of the year.
Japan’s participation requires the prior approval of every other TPP member, a process that is expected to take until mid-June to complete. That means the earliest opportunity for Japan to enter the fray could be a round of talks eyed for July, giving Abe’s government less than six months to negotiate any tariff exemptions before the final accord is inked.
But failing to join the regional trade zone would still be too big a risk for Japan to run, according to Abe and many experts.
The combined gross domestic product of the 11 TPP countries comes to around $21 trillion (around ¥2 quadrillion) and if Japan’s nearly $6 trillion (roughly ¥575 trillion) GDP is included, the bloc would account for 40 percent of total global economic output.
Yorizumi Watanabe, a former trade negotiator at the Foreign Ministry who is now a professor at Keio University, said Japan’s accession to the TPP is critical because it is likely to become a key platform for Asia-Pacific countries in setting rules for cross-border trade and services.
The Doha Round of tariff elimination talks at the World Trade Organization has remained stalled for years, he said, making it even more likely the TPP framework will serve as a template for future free-trade accords.
And with China and a number of other key economies showing interest in joining the TPP, Japan’s presence will be essential not only for its firms that are trying to tap overseas markets but also for those seeking to build production bases abroad, Watanabe said, adding, “It’s a big opportunity. Japan has wasted the past three years (by not joining the TPP talks).”
That said, the damage to Japan’s agricultural sector is likely to be equally substantial.
Prompted by farm lobbies, the LDP on Thursday adopted a resolution demanding Abe’s government prioritize the exclusion of rice, wheat, beef, pork and sugar from tariff exemptions in the TPP discussions.
Farmers argue that maintaining the current level of output is vital to ensure the nation can produce the minimum food supply that would be necessary in times of severe emergencies, such as wars or global food shortages.
Opening up rice and other sectors to foreign imports would devastate rural economies and communities, but Japan’s agricultural industry already seems to be dying a slow death despite the current protections against foreign products.
According to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the average age of the nation’s 2.6 million farmers stood at 65.9 as of 2011, and most of them lacked successors. The farm industry, meanwhile, accounted for just 1 percent of Japan’s GDP that year.
“Rice consumption came to 12 million tons in 1994, but it has shrunk to 8 million tons at present,” said Kazuhito Yamashita, a former farm ministry official who now serves as research director of the Canon Institute for Global Studies. “(Agricultural) production will further shrink because of the aging society and decreasing population numbers.
“Japan will no longer be able to maintain its farm industry (at its current level). Everybody is aware of that.”
Yamashita also argued that Japan, if necessary, could still protect its farmers by providing them with direct payments if tariffs against foreign produce are scrapped. A similar policy has been adopted by many other major industrialized countries and is widely considered acceptable in a free-trade agreement like the TPP, he said.
To survive, some domestic farmers will need to begin exporting high-quality produce overseas, Yamashita argued, adding that in that sense, Japan’s participation in the TPP is essential.
Kyodo Graphic – How Participation in TPP may impact Japan – just click on to see it.
KISHORE MAHBUBANI – The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World. [Hardcover]
The twenty-first century has seen a rise in the global middle class that brings an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Kishore Mahbubani is optimistic. We are creating a new global civilization. Eighty-eight percent of the world’s population outside the West is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. Yet Mahbubani, one of the most perceptive global commentators, also warns that a new global order needs new policies and attitudes.
Policymakers all over the world must change their preconceptions and accept that we live in one world.
National interests must be balanced with global interests. Power must be shared. The U.S. and Europe must cede some power. China and India, Africa and the Islamic world must be integrated. Mahbubani urges that only through these actions can we create a world that converges benignly. This timely book explains how to move forward and confront many pressing global challenges.
Kishore Mahbubani is the Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. From 1971-2004 he served in the Singapore Foreign Ministry, where he was Permanent Secretary from 1993-1998, served twice as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN, and in January 2001 and May 2002 served as President of the UN Security Council.
For years former diplomat and academic Kishore Mahbubani has studied the changing relationship between Asia and the U.S. in works like “Can Asians Think?” and “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.” “Then Beyond the Age of Innocence:Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World,
In The Great Convergence, he assesses East and West at a remarkable turning point in world history and reaches an incredible conclusion: China stands poised to become the world’s largest economy as soon as 2016.
Unprecedented numbers of the world’s population, driven by Asian economic growth, are being lifted out of poverty and into the middle class. And with this creation of a world-wide middle class, there is an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values: a truly global civilization.
Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines have listed him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, and in 2009 The Financial Times included him on their list of the top 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of capitalism. In 2010 and 2011 he was selected as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers.
On February 6, 2013, at the Asia Society in New York, before a full room and in a give and take with Ian Bremmer (who is President of Eurasia Group and worked with Henry Kissinger), the lively discussion was being beamed to Australia, where the local Asia Society was gathered to follow New York.
Mahbubani sees the rise of China and India, but the reality is that in this last decade while another 1,25 million Asians joined National militaries – but this was a decade of no wars. He projects that while today there are 500 million Asians of Middle Class, the number will be 1.5 billion by 2025.
His vision of the World is that of a boat with 193 compartments and steering-less. The Americans who are now steering their boat in a competition with the another 192 boats will soon decide that it is better to get their own compartment in the large united boat, and not rock it from inside.
He was adamant at saying that he has not yet met an American leader who is contemplating the day that America will not be Number 1 anymore and that this position will actually be passed on to China just in 3-4 years from now – maybe 5 years. But he expects his change to happen smoothly, and the only problem he follows is that of the small islands of the coast of China, that the Japanese are holding but do not own yet, and will have eventually to negotiate away between their Nationalists and the Chinese Nationalists. Mahbubani moderated this January 11 a panel on the future of the American power at Davos, and did not get the feedback and recognition he feels as obvious to him.
He also said that it is hard to find Chinese that recognize they are on the way of being #1 – like it is hard to find Americans that recognize they will not be #1. Both sides are not ready to see the reality – so they will co-operate in hiding it.
The Mahbubani logic is that we converge in aspirational goals first, and then find people to get us there. At Davos he saw convergence of perspective, but he did not see there many people from China yet.
The magic is the rising of the global consumer and the rising of the global conscience of the problems.
Global leadership? There is a decrease of demand at the time the supply is diminishing.
Geopolitics? The middle classes in China want the economic growth to continue – “to pivot poison or make peace.” Multilateralism and multilateral organizations are needed to help solve global problems like global warming, environmental pollution, and climate change, but we decreased the stature of the multinational organizations, so it will end up with National governments working on solutions within their compartments in the common boat.
Capitalism in China? It was the accession to WTO that killed the Chinese State enterprises and opened up the way to privatization – but the illusion of communism will continue in order to justify the State structure. He had an anecdote that mentioned a Chinese leader who was able to look with humor at this false face of communism that has taken roots in the fast growing Chinese economy of today.
Sheldon Adelson: Casino magnate, mega-donor is a man of many motives.
JASON REED/REUTERS – Chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands casino Sheldon Adelson (C), a donor to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, speaks with other attendees at the end of the first presidential debate Oct. 3 in Denver.
By Marc Fisher, Published: October 23, 2012, The Washington Post
When casino magnate Sheldon Adelson switched his support from Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney during the spring primaries, the billionaire and the candidate were eager to shed their skepticism of each other. If Adelson was going to give a political campaign more money than anyone ever had, he wanted to be certain Romney would join him in steadfast support of Israel. And Romney, according to friends of both, sought assurance that Adelson wouldn’t embarrass him.
Since then, Adelson has joined Romney during the candidate’s visit to Israel this summer, attended presidential debates and gotten together with Romney so often that their wives have become friends, according to confidants of the two men.
Although Adelson, 79, has said he will give $100 million to help Romney and quash President Obama’s “socialist-style” approach to the economy, he remains skeptical, believing that politicians don’t deliver on promises and can’t be trusted.
“Many people who give very significant donations to political campaigns come to me afterwards very frustrated that they don’t get what they wanted once the person is elected,” says Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, which Adelson has supported for years. “Sheldon doesn’t expect people to change. He’s very realistic about politics.”
Adelson — whose gambling operations span the globe from Las Vegas to casinos open or planned in Macau, Singapore and Spain — tells friends he finds the way U.S. elections are funded to be abhorrent, putting too much power in the hands of a wealthy few. So as one of those wealthy few, why would he pour more money into a campaign than 65 average Americans will earn in their combined lifetimes?
Adelson would not agree to an interview unless he could screen all questions in advance, a condition The Washington Post declined to meet. But more than 20 friends, critics, colleagues and beneficiaries portray a man with several motives for his massive donations to political, religious and medical causes.
He’s a scrappy fighter who defends what is his, a self-made man who held more than 50 jobs before striking gold with his Venetian casino on the Vegas Strip, and he has developed a powerful aversion to taxes and unions. He is the 12th-richest person in the nation, according to Forbes magazine, with a fortune valued at $21 billion. Under Obama, Adelson has achieved a larger increase in his wealth than anyone else in the country. In the past two decades, he has also undergone a political conversion, from a Massachusetts Democrat who considered Republicans to be the establishment that resisted newcomers like him, to a Nevada Republican who believes that his former party coddles the idle and has fallen captive to identity politics.
Adelson is driven by the idea of Israel as a muscular riposte to the Holocaust. Based on his experience as a Jewish kid who would get insulted and roughed up in a tough Boston neighborhood, Adelson believes Jewish Americans should back an Israel that puts security first and resists compromise with Arabs who do not accept its existence.
“Israel is at the core of everything he does,” says Fred Zeidman, a friend of Adelson, fellow Romney backer and former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Adelson is something of a paradox. Jewish friends and foes alike call him a “shtarker” — a Yiddish term for a tough guy — yet his pattern of giving supports both his own business interests and more selfless pursuits, such as the more than $100 million he has given to Birthright Israel, a program that sends young American Jews on all-expenses-paid trips to the Jewish state.
His political giving backs his belief in an elbows-out capitalism in which entrepreneurs fight for profits and markets with the least possible regulation, but the vast sums he has given to medical science ask researchers to shelve their competitive instincts for the social good.
Whatever field he toils in, Adelson is “incredibly stick-to-it-ive,” says Michael Leven, president of Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. “He stands up for what he believes in. That’s why lawsuits happen.”
Adelson has been involved in legal conflicts with business competitors, unions, even his children — in one 10-year period, he was involved in more than 150 suits in Clark County alone, which includes Las Vegas.
In a suit in which his sons alleged that Adelson defrauded them by pressing them to sell stock for less than its fair value, a Massachusetts judge wrote in 2001 that Adelson was “a harsh, demanding, unfeeling, successful businessman” who was “perhaps lacking paternal kindness and, indeed, cordiality generally.” But the judge ruled for Adelson, saying he had neither misled nor cheated his children.
He does not shy from spending on himself and his wife, Miriam, an Israeli physician who focuses on treating drug addicts. He flies in his own Boeing 747, is driven in a Maybach and has expansive homes in Malibu and Las Vegas. He moves around with burly bodyguards who defend him against enemies, and against those asking undesirable questions.
Childhood friend Irwin Chafetz says that when he worked with him, he sometimes backed away from confronting Adelson, who even friends describe as bullheaded and aggressive. “A lot of times, people don’t want to aggravate him, so they just stand aside and let him do what he’s going to do,” Chafetz says. “In the end, all of us who have enjoyed financial success because of him say we are where we are because he is the way he is.”
Yet Adelson knows how he can come off. Leven tells of meeting in Las Vegas with officials from Vietnam about a possible business location there. “Sheldon didn’t like the location, so he had me meet with them because I would be more tactful,” Leven says. “He would tell them, ‘Your location stinks,’ whereas I talked to them and, next thing you know, I’m going on a helicopter ride to the site next time I’m in Vietnam.”
But Adelson also makes his jets available to employees who need medical care. He bails out childhood friends who have fallen on hard times. Every year, he flies dozens of battle-torn veterans on an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas.
Adelson has no business degree — indeed, no degree of any kind. He knew little about computers or casinos before entering the fields that would make him rich. He says his success stems from his determination “to challenge and change the status quo.” Critics say his overriding goal is to solidify control of markets in which he does business.
Friends and foes say Adelson gets what he wants by relentlessly protecting his turf, spending liberally on his product and making himself valuable to those who can help him succeed.
“He’s been a fighter all his life,” Leven says. “He’s physically short in stature and he never graduated from college, so he has to be more tenacious. It’s an effort to get ahead.”
Childhood in Boston
As World War II raged across the ocean, in a neighborhood of south Boston that was home to more Jews than any American city outside New York, kids like Sheldon Adelson learned that being a Jew in America both put a target on their backs and gave them a blessed refuge.
Like other Jewish teens in Dorchester, young Sheldon was occasionally beaten up by Irish kids full of anti-Semitic vinegar. Yet he knew that millions of other Jews faced vastly worse enemies in Europe.
Other Jewish boys found refuge in street games such as stickball and halfball, but Sheldon was never interested in sports, friends say. “He was interested in making money,” Chafetz says. Before he got to high school, Adelson bought the right to sell newspapers on a busy street corner.
Adelson sold windshield cleaners, stocked vending machines and, then, as a young man, scored on a travel agency he launched with old buddies. The profits allowed him to move to a more upscale area, into a house that boasted its own bowling alley.
These days, Adelson calls the place he came from “the slums,” and he has donated more than $50 million to support Jewish schools in the Las Vegas and Boston areas. Add his gifts to Birthright and $50 million given to Israel’s Yad Vashem (making the Adelsons that Holocaust museum’s largest donor), and Adelson’s support for Jewish causes vastly outstrips his political donations.
Adelson’s passion for Israel does not stem from religious devotion; he is not a regular at synagogue, does not speak much Hebrew, and is neither kosher nor Sabbath-observant, says Klein, who is both.
When Adelson first visited the Holy Land, he wore his father’s shoes as he stepped off the plane so something of his father’s would be the first to touch the ground.
Like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he visits regularly, Adelson believes the Jewish state’s neighbors have proved unwilling to accept its existence.
To promote his view, Adelson five years ago launched a free tabloid, Israel Today, that has become the No. 1 newspaper in Israel and a loyal booster of Netanyahu, leading critics to charge that a foreign investor is having undue influence on domestic affairs.
Adelson’s attachment to Israel dates back decades, so few friends were surprised when, after his divorce, “he asked friends to fix him up only with Israelis,” Klein recalls. Adelson was introduced to Miriam Ochsorn, now 66. They married in 1991.
Adelson’s passion for Israel did not develop into Republican activism until the past two decades.
Well into adulthood, he was a Democrat, making large donations to the party until 1996. The next year, he switched to the GOP.
“As Jews in Boston, no one voted Republican, because the Republicans were the establishment,” Leven says. “But Sheldon saw the Democrats becoming less passionate about Israel.”
Friends say two shifts in Adelson’s thinking led to his party switch. On Israel, “he saw the left as more compromising, and Sheldon is not a great compromiser,” Chafetz says.
And Adelson’s opposition to unions alienated him from Democrats.
“What makes him anti-union is not the money,” Chafetz says. “It’s the union rules. He changed philosophically. He doesn’t want to be told he has to have four people do the job if two people can do it. Sheldon is all about accomplishment. It rules his life.”
Union fight in Nevada
When Adelson took on Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Workers Union, labor groups portrayed him as a bully intent on making money on the backs of workers.
The result was a battle royal. Starting in the 1990s, Adelson and the union fought for years over whether the union could demonstrate on sidewalks outside his hotel. (The workers won.)
Adelson’s $1.5 billion Venetian remains the only major casino on the Strip that is not unionized.
The culinary union rejects Adelson’s claim that he provides his 6,300 workers with better pay and benefits than they would get under union contracts.
“He’s refused to speak to us,” says D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of the union local. “This is not at all about money — it’s about power. Look, there are a lot of people who grew up poor. That’s not an excuse. The workers know they are at the mercy of the boss. This is someone who will come after you.”
Adelson says that when he believes he has been wronged, he will take action. “If people do something he considers underhanded,” Chafetz says, “he’s not going to let them get away with it.”
Adelson sued the Las Vegas convention authority over its expansion plans. He fought his sons for seven years. And this summer, he sued the National Jewish Democratic Council for $60 million after it posted an article saying he “personally approved of prostitution in his Macau casinos.”
The lawsuit came a week after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee apologized to Adelson for making the same allegation on its site. The original statement came from a lawsuit in which one of his former executives, Steve Jacobs, alleges that the billionaire condoned prostitution at his Macau casino, which Adelson vehemently denies.
Jacobs’s allegations are now the basis of investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether Adelson’s company violated federal law banning bribery in foreign countries, according to federal sources, who said the probe is not expected to be completed before the November elections.
Adelson has been known to cut off those who disagree with his worldview. In 2007, when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which Adelson had supported financially, decided to support increased aid to the Palestinian Authority, Adelson halted his gifts to AIPAC.
But Adelson has remained supportive of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum despite his view, according to three friends, that it is run by liberals and its programming leans left.
Aiding medical research:
In 2004, Adelson developed a neurological problem that made it difficult for him to walk. He went from specialist to specialist. There was no clear diagnosis, no certain treatment.
He approached Bruce Dobkin, a neurologist at UCLA. After learning about the cumbersome ways in which medical research is funded and conducted, Adelson decided to launch an experiment. He set up a fund and asked Dobkin to recruit researchers who would collaborate to get results faster. The approach was a far cry from Adelson’s individualistic style in politics and business.
“In the political arena, he doesn’t want to pay any more taxes than he has to, and he hates unions, and he wants to make sure Israel survives,” Dobkin says. “He has no illusions that politicians will solve problems. He doesn’t ask them to be collaborative.”
But on social issues, Dobkin says, “the Adelsons are much more empathetic and liberal, in a sense, than people think.”
Part of that softer side stems from Adelson’s anguish over his two sons from his first marriage, both of whom struggled with drugs. Mitchell died of an overdose in 2005; Gary says he does not want to talk about his father, because they are rekindling ties after years of friction.
Adelson announced that he would spend “billions” on medical research. But it was not clear that the collaboration model would work. At a meeting with Adelson, a researcher from Harvard said he loved the idea but asked, “Who’s going to get credit?”
“I thought that was the death knell,” Dobkin recalls, “but then Sheldon perks up and says: ‘How many papers did Jonas Salk write? Do you want to be remembered as the guy who wrote 200 or 300 papers or the guy who actually found a treatment that helps people?’?”
The Harvard guy signed up. In the first years, Adelson researchers published hundreds of articles and shared results openly. Then came the financial collapse of 2008, drying up funding.
Leven says his boss remains committed to research. He acknowledges that the Adelson who plays political hardball may look very different from the philanthropist who preaches the gospel of collective research. But in the end, it’s all about getting what you want.
“In business, he doesn’t need cooperation from [casino magnate] Steve Wynn or MGM,” Leven says. “But in medicine, he found he could get a better result with a cooperative approach. He’s just being pragmatic. Sheldon is not a complex person. What you see is what you get.”
Aviation emissions, after a phase of confrontation, are back on the negotiating table with Washington calling a meeting, scheduled for the end of July 2012. The policy shift will directly affect climate negotiations at the meeting to be held in Qatar this Decmber.
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The papers wrote today, November 18th, on the small Asian Scene but missed the much bigger significance. After years of playing big power economic politics on the side of China and a mumbling and stumbling EU – the US did a reset, as per the following and most recent, news.
“BALI, Indonesia — Hours before Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar’s most prominent democracy campaigner, announced her return to formal politics on Friday, President Obama disclosed that he was sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a visit there next month, the first by a secretary of state in more than 50 years.
The twin events underscored the remarkable and sudden pace of change in Myanmar, which has stunned observers inside and outside the country, analysts said.”
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Actually what happened these last three weeks is that Obama’s Administration is distancing itself from the troubles of the EU and in an effort to decrease its dependence on China financing, the US has moved to use the Asian-Pacific region minus China, but in in alliance with Australia, to forge a new FREE MARKET from an enlarged NAFTA (Canada, Mexico, Columbia) to embrace some of the countries of the old APEC. This market is 1.6 times larger then the EU and will have a military base in Darwin, Australia, so China takes notice of a massive new US interest in Asia.
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This is just a small reaction to the news and we intend to return to this new and intriguing situation that is clearly intended as well to show the American people that this Administration is still capable of doing great novel things. We say BRAVO.
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Europe will take advantage of this RESET by trying to increase its activities in the Arab World – i.e. Austria readies a new mission to Qatar where it will open December 11-12, 2011 a new Embassy in Doha with a visit by Austria’s Federal President Dr. Heinz Fischer who travels at the head of a business delegation as it was done these weeks as well by Austrian interests going to Iraq, Libya and Turkmenistan. Please note that the new Embassy in Doha is being opened while Austria is busy saving money by closing up to 30 Consulates and Embassies elsewhere i.e. in Chicago!
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We posted the above on November 18th, then on November 19th we found on the CNN/GPS the following, and we realize that our AMERICA IN A NEW ASIA RESET editorial note was our correct reading of the news. Again – we expect to enlarge on this very soon.
Editor’s Note: Every week, the Global Public Square brings you some must-read editorials from around the world addressed to America and Americans. The series is called Listen up, America!
President Obama is focused on East Asia and the Pacific this week. After attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hawaii last weekend, Obama traveled to Australia where, on Thursday, he addressed the parliament. His message: “In the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in.”
Later that day, President Obama traveled to the city of Darwin along the northern coast, where the U.S. announced it will station 2,500 Marines. The summit and travel, which also include a stop in Indonesia, are seen as the U.S. shifting attention to the Pacific – and to a rising China – as troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are some of the international responses to what Secretary of State Clinton recently dubbed “America’s Pacific Century.”
Australia – “Despite the rising economic, diplomatic and military reach of China, U.S. supremacy is the bedrock of security in the region,” says an editorial in the Sydney-based Australian.
“[The United States] underwrites the security of South Korea and Japan, it quells the tensions across the Taiwan Straits, it keeps the seaways open, bolsters the counter-terrorism operations of countries such as Indonesia, and even, in a less direct fashion, has added ballast to Australia’s life-saving interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. And when natural disasters, such as the Boxing Day tsunami strike, the region looks automatically to Washington, not Beijing, for assistance.”
Indonesia – NIMBY, or “not in my backyard,” says an editorial in the Jakarta Postof stationing U.S. troops in northern Australia.
“The presence of the U.S. base just south of Indonesia is simply too close for comfort. … there are many fruitful and less threatening ways of increasing U.S. engagement other than building a greater military presence.”
China –“Is there any country in the region that wants the United States to be its leader?” asks Wei Jianhua in China’s state-run Xinhua news. The provided answer: “No.”
“It’s hard to envision what kind of ‘leadership’ the United States aspires to have in the region. What the region really needs – right now – is a strong and reliable partner that can help the region stave off the current financial crisis and seek balanced and sustained growth.”
Japan –“Tokyo and Washington are concerned about how to respond to Beijing,” says an editorial in the Tokyo-basedYomiuri Shimbun.
“China has been rapidly enhancing its influence and becoming more assertive, increasing frictions with other countries in the South China Sea. To lead China in the direction of complying with international rules and working together with its neighbors in the medium and long term, Japan and the United States must closely cooperate with South Korea, Australia and Southeast Asian countries.”
Saudi Arabia —“Really?” asks an editorial in the Jeddah-basedArab Newsof President Obama saying the Pacific is the top priority.
“The Asia Pacific region is more important than the Middle East with all its crises? More important than solving the Palestinian-Israeli issue? More important than famine and political instability in the Horn of Africa and the dangers of it becoming a hub of international terrorism? More important than the nuclear ambitions that the U.S. is convinced Iran harbors?”
Australia – A Sydney Morning Herald editorial says stationing U.S. Marines in Australia is “a significant turn in the direction of Australia’s foreign policy.” While Australia “had been negotiating a potentially tricky course part-way between” the U.S. and China, the “helm has now been turned decisively to one side.”
“Australia would have had much to gain from keeping to its middle course between two great powers. Having taken sides early, though, we have taken a risk. We will find out in coming years how much was at stake in that premature decision.”
China—“Americans should realize that neither side would win in a trade war and must prevent the Obama administration from taking any rash decision,” writes Deng Yuwen in the China Daily. President Obama, the U.S. Congress and Republican Presidential candidates have in recent weeks sought to pressure China over its currency policy, claiming the yuan is undervalued.
“Many of the goods China exports to the U.S. are inexpensive daily necessities and favored by Americans because of their low prices. Therefore, if the yuan’s value increases by 30 percent, the majority of Americans’ cost of living could go up by a similar percentage.”
Early in his term, President Obama was too deferential to China. On his Asia trip last week, he sent a clear message that this country is not ceding anything in the Pacific. That is good news.
New York Times EDITORIAL Published November 19th, printed in the November 20, 2011, paper.
President Obama in Asia.
Like President George W. Bush, Mr. Obama’s preference is to engage Beijing in international organizations and agreements in hopes that will encourage China’s leaders to behave more responsibly. It is a sound long-range strategy. But China has made clear that without serious and sustained push-back, it will use its economic and military clout to bully and intimidate its neighbors.
The most brazen example is its broad claim to energy reserves in the South China Sea that are also claimed by five other countries. On Friday, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, said at an Asian summit meeting that “outside forces” had no right to get involved in the dispute.
On his trip, Mr. Obama insisted he would “seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing.” But he also made clear that his patience has limits, at one point saying that China has now “grown up” and should act responsibly in its trade and currency practices.
In Australia, he announced an agreement to deploy 2,500 Marines plus naval ships and aircraft to a base in Darwin starting next year. That is not a huge number, but it is a pointed symbol of America’s interest.
At the same time, we were concerned by Mr. Obama’s declaration to Australia’s Parliament that budget reductions “will not — I repeat, will not — come at the expense of the Asia-Pacific.” Allies, of course, need to hear that. But any new mission in Asia cannot become another excuse for Pentagon planners to avoid making needed cuts.
On his trip, the president also rightly championed the benefits of freer trade — a position made more credible after Congress finally passed the trade deal with South Korea. His push to negotiate a trade deal with eight other Pacific Rim countries is important. He must keep reminding Beijing that it is welcome to join if it makes the necessary economic reforms.
What the United States should not do is overreach. Beijing already suspects that the real American goal is to “contain” its power. Washington must be transparent about its dealings and consult and include China when possible. American and Chinese political leaders have a regular dialogue. The Pentagon needs to do more to cultivate relationships with its resistant counterparts.
Dealing with a rising China requires a deft hand and a willingness to push back when Beijing oversteps. Being there is a big part of it.
Three of them are – The UK, Isle of Man and Jersey Island – Like the Isle of Man, Jersey is a separate possession of the Crown and is not part of the United Kingdom.[
Seven independent States – AUSTRALIA, CANADA, LICHTENSTEIN, LUXEMBOURG, NORWAY, SINGAPORE and SWITZERLAND.
Seven EURO States – AUSTRIA, DENMARK, FINLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, and SWEDEN.
and HONG KONG that sits on the rib of China.
Of these France seems to be next State to fall of this economists’ tree of life.
By KISHORE MAHBUBANI
SINGAPORE — While Egypt has had too little democracy and is moving toward more, California has had too much democracy and is moving toward less. The common mean point they should arrive at is democracy that delivers good government — not mushy “governance.”
For decades, “government” has been demonized. Ronald Reagan famously said “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” But Reagan was only the most eloquent spokesman for this zeitgeist. He did not manufacture it. Following an explosion of government programs in the 1960s, a belief developed in the minds of key American policymakers that the best government is the least government.
Reagan captured this assumption well, recalling the sixth-century B.C. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu’s famous words: “Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish: too much handling will spoil it.”
Two dangerous corollaries emerged from this view. The first was the belief that taxes are inherently bad, and thus that reducing them is the only solution to any public problem.
In California, many taxes were reduced by voter initiatives, demonstrating the damaging consequences of too much democracy. Indeed, such direct democracy helped make California ungovernable. For example, direct ballots on hot-button issues made prison sentencing mandatory, while simultaneously reducing taxes and funding for prisons.
In 1978, Proposition 13 capped California property taxes — the main source of public school funding. School revenues slumped, and from 1974 to 1979, California fell from ninth place to 44th among the 50 U.S. states in per capita spending on public high schools, with California’s students soon slipping down the rankings as well.
The second dangerous corollary was that markets know best. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the world’s leading financial regulator of the past quarter century, seemed to have little faith in either regulators or the need for regulation. In an April 2008 article in The Financial Times, he wrote, “Bank loan officers, in my experience, know far more about the risks and workings of their counterparties than do bank regulators.”
Deep down, Greenspan must have believed that he was allowing Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” to deliver the public good. But Smith stressed that private interests always pursue selfish interests: “To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. . . . The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined.”
Egypt’s problems are, of course, vastly different from those of California. Despite the economic growth resulting from reforms undertaken by Hosni Mubarak’s regime in recent years, unemployment and poverty remained at high levels. With a heavy and stifling bureaucracy and the prospect of a dynastic political succession, sheer lack of hope drove hundreds of thousands of Egyptians onto the streets. With the dictator driven from power, Egyptians, too, must redefine government.
People in both Cairo and California should look to East Asia. Despite their ideological differences, governments throughout the region have delivered rapid economic growth and improved their populations’ livelihoods.
Despite the fact that most leading East Asian policymakers were trained in American universities, none was seduced by Reagan’s belief that “government is the problem.” Millennia-old cultural beliefs in East Asia underpin the view that if government is not part of the solution, no public good can be achieved.
Confucius, for example, said: “the man who uses his brain should govern; the man who uses his strength should be governed.”
The quality of American public services has deteriorated over the past few decades, while that of Chinese public services has improved dramatically. The Chinese government has been strengthened without oppressing the growth and dynamism of the Chinese economy. There must be some principles of good government that China has developed.
Of course, neither Egyptians nor Americans would ever allow a communist party to rule them. But both must find the right principles of good government to resolve their very different public policy challenges. Abandoning the Reaganesque ideology that government is inherently bad is a necessary first step.
The bottom line is that the commodity in greatest demand all over the world is good government, which provides the best means of improving living standards, especially for those at the bottom.
Unfortunately, good government is in limited supply, in part because there is no global consensus about what constitutes it — to the detriment of people from Cairo to California and beyond.
Kishore Mahbubani is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and the author of “The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.”
Sunday, October 25th, 2010 Fareed Zakaria, on his CNN/GPS program – 9 days before the US Mid-term Elections of November 2, 2010 – started his analysis of the changing World – and he promised to continue to deal with this subject in his Halloween – Sunday, October 31st Very Special program to be seen also in the evening – and in a Special Time Magazine issue.
The World has changed in the last two decades mainly because of two developments – and the US must learn that it is no-more the one Super-power and that it will have to adapt to the idea that it might not even be the leading power anymore. These two developments are:
(A) the Technology Revolution – particularly the information technology which since the 1990s has started the economic spiral of job losses.
(B) Globalization that resulted in the largest 500 US companies getting an average of 26% of their profits from overseas and among the largest of theses companies this figure could be as high as 80%.
In global politics – Vietnam 1973 has changed to Bosnia 1996 and the art of negotiation that will be reapplied to a readiness to talk with the Taliban. Richard Holbrooke was on the program, and very thoughtfully said that at the moment there are not yet negotiations but “contact and discussions” – it is not yet the stage of secret negotiations that went on towards the end of the war in Vietnam. We are not trying to win the Afghanistan War and a Dayton-type of negotiations is in the cards – but we are not there yet, he said. If no-body noted this earlier, Holbrooke was appointed by Hillary Clinton in the name of President Obama to the AF/Pak desk – just for this purpose – and he surely is eager to justify the trust in him.
The US must face it – 9 years of war and a half trillion dollars expenditures since 9/11, and the US has not started to scratch the issue of finding Bin Laden. The US must learn and reassess – and Fareed brought in a truly stellar panel to start this analysis.
SIMON SCHAMA – the author of “The American Future: A History”, where he takes the long view of how the United States has come today to this anguished moment of truth about its own identity as a nation and its place in the world.
He was born in London, son of Jewish parents with roots in Lithuania, Romania, and Turkey – a renown British historian – he has lived half his life in the US and is now a Professor at Columbia University having taught in the 80s at Harvard.
Schama is a supporter of President Obama and a critic of President G.W. Bush. He appeared on the BBC’s coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, clashing with John Bolton.
SHASHI THAROOR – now a member of the Indian Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. On 2 May 2010, he was nominated to be a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for External Affairs.
Tharoor previously served as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information. He ran for UN Secretary General and lost to the present chief – Mr. Ban Ki-moon who had the G.W. Bush backing. Tharoor’s loss was the World’s loss of highly intellectual, outspoken, potential World leader. Born in London and educated in the US – His doctoral thesis at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, “Reasons of State”, was a required reading in courses on Indian foreign-policy making. He was with the UN from 1978 till April 1, 2007 and we knew him well in his last years as UN Undersecretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and as the head of Department of Public Information (UNDPI) under UNSG Kofi Annan. During his tenure at the UNDPI, Tharoor reformed his Department and undertook a number of initiatives, ranging from organizing and conducting the first-ever UN seminar on anti-Semitism, the first-ever UN seminar on Islamophobia and launching an annual list of “Ten Under-Reported Stories the World Ought to Know About.”
KISHORE MAHBUBANI – the author of “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Power to the East,” as well as “Can Asians Think?” and “Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World”. Now he is the Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he served for 33 years as a diplomat for Singapore, and has written many articles on world affairs. We met him several years ago at the Asia Society in New York and got material directly from him.
Mr. Tharoor observed that Americans are moving away from the concept of Globalization that they themselves managed to sell to the World. He said that a G-2 concept of the US and China is unacceptable to “THE REST OF US.”
Mr. Mahbubani reminded Mr. Schama that in the past he also advocated a 5% Consumption tax that could be used to change the system – and flatly stated that China’s views get more sympathy from us – meaning also THE REST OF US then the US does. Simply stated – The US capacity to provide leadership has diminished.
Mr. Schama pointed out that recently China threatened Japan unnecessarily, China’s currency is undervalued, and that China’s relationships with the rest of the world is based on what it can get in term of resources. To this Mahbubani answered that indeed China overplayed Japan and the Chinese President went to Japan for a making-up visit.
Mr. Schama reviewed the November 2nd 2010 US elections today as part of the Financial Times www.ft.com /obamaatbay series. He says that if Mr. Obama’s good works – and they were the best since the Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society years of the 1960s, and the momentous opening charge of the New Deal of 1933 – he calls for Mr. Obama to discard his Plato and to summon instead his “inner Machiavelli” – but these topics are not the subject of our present article.
We will get back to them in a later – elections related posting.
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Watching the Fareed Zakaria stellar program that touched upon the reality of a new world of global blocks – I decided to come up with a summation of our own views of the kind of World the Obama II Administration will be facing in the 2011-2013 years when preparing for the 2012 US elections.
The World population is pushing to the 7 Billion figure – presently as per US Census Bureau estimates it is 6.88 Billion – well over half of which is made up by clear three blocks – as we will see the agreed upon three blocks account for 4 Billion out of the 7 Billion :
CHINA – by the end of 2010 it is expected to be 1.4 Billion.
INDIA – presently at 1.2 Billion and by 2030, because of higher birth rates, India’s population will surpass China’s that will have stabilized at 1.45 Billion.
THE MUSLIMS presently at 1.2 Billion. Now still an agglomerate but with developing Turkish leadership.
In our opinion rather then continuing the Fareed Zakaria panel’s talk of the US as the fourth block, a failed G-2 concept of the US and China – which by the way is a concept we presented many times on our own website, and which we still see as a stepping stone on the way the World will eventually tackle the climate change issue – and their fifth block – the members of the panel called THE REST – simply does not agree with our gut-feelings and mental analysis – rather WE THINK THAT THE REMAINING 3 BILLION PEOPLE WILL BELONG TO A DIFFERENT SET OF Rather THREE BLOCKS as follows:
– THE CHRISTIAN EUROPE – LED BY GERMANY AND RUSSIA – about 750 million that is Continental Europe –
up to and including Russia, Georgia and Armenia – excluding possibly the UK.
– THE US and MORE-OR-LESS ANGLO ALLIES – 310 million and about 650 million when including Canada, the UK,
Australia, New Zealand, and some others from among Japan, Korea, Mexico.
– THE REST – which will be BRAZILIAN LED including Sub-Sahara Africa, Central and South America, parts of Asia and
the Island States. This block remains the largest in total numbers of people.
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Having seen the papers of Monday and Tuesday I found further justification to above suggestions I am making in the fact that some in the US, and perhaps even the UK, starting the blame game of WHO HAS LOST EUROPE TO RUSSIA.
We rather think that Europe getting together with resources rich Russia may prove to be in Europe’s self-interest in the six-block World we see in the future and we rather find further justification in the attitudes expressed by the Fareed panel.
Jorge Benitez – NatSource of the Atlantic Council of NATO, October 26, 2010 notes:
From John Vinocur, the International Herald Tribune: Germany and France, meeting with Russia in Deauville, northern France, last week, signaled that they planned to make such three-cornered get-togethers on international foreign policy and security matters routine, and even extend them to inviting other “partners” — pointing, according to diplomats from two countries, to Turkey becoming a future participant.
PARIS — The United States used to call wayward members of NATO back to the reservation with a whistle or a shout. It decided what was deviation from doctrine, and that decision was pretty much law.
When the Obama administration stamped its foot this time, no one snapped to attention.
Rather, Germany and France, meeting with Russia in Deauville, northern France, last week, signaled that they planned to make such three-cornered get-togethers on international foreign policy and security matters routine, and even extend them to inviting other “partners” — pointing, according to diplomats from two countries, to Turkey becoming a future participant.
That can look like an effort to deal with European security concerns in a manner that keeps NATO, at least in part, at a distance. And it could seem a formula making it easier for Russia to play off — absolutely no novelty here — the European allies against the United States, or NATO and the European Union, against one another.
But there’s more detail in the theoretical Euro-Atlantic apostasy department: Add Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal, made in June, that the European Union and Russia establish their own Political and Security Committee, and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s intention, enunciated in Deauville, to establish an E.U.-Russia economic space “with common security concepts.”
Just before the Deauville meeting, Vladimir Chizov, Russia’s ambassador to the E.U., leapt ahead of the Merkel/Sarkozy plans and told a reporter that Russia now wants a formalized relationship with the existing E.U. committee on foreign and security policy. “I don’t expect to be sitting at every committee session,” he said, “but there should be some mechanism that would enable us to take joint steps.”
As for the Obama administration stamping its foot, what it came down to was a senior U.S. official saying: “Since when, I wonder, is European security no longer an issue of American concern, but something for Europe and Russia to resolve? After being at the center of European security for 70 years, it’s strange to hear that it’s no longer a matter of U.S. concern.”
So, a follow-on burst of European contrition? I asked a German official about it. He spoke of German and French loyalty to NATO. And he said, “I understand there are American suspicions.”
“But,” he added, “the United States must accept that the times are changing. There are examples of it having done this. Why wouldn’t it accept our view in this respect?”
The official did not list them, but there are obvious factors explaining the French and German initiatives.
A major one is President Barack Obama’s perceived lack of interest and engagement in Europe. His failure to attend a Berlin ceremony commemorating the end of the Cold War and his cancellation of a meeting involving the E.U.’s new president has had symbolic weight.
Example: Ivo H. Daalder, the United States’ permanent representative at NATO, gave a speech in Paris last week in which he skipped over the Russians’ maneuvering, but described as “baffling” and “very strange” that “NATO doesn’t have a real strategic partnership with the E.U.”
True enough. On the other hand, Russia is getting a whole series of passes: Ten days ago, when Mr. Medvedev offered Hugo Chávez of Venezuela help to build the country’s first nuclear power station, the State Department expressed concern about technology migrating to “countries that should not have that technology” — but added (bafflingly), that the relationship between Venezuela and Russia (for years Iran’s supplier of nuclear wherewithal) “is not of concern to us.”
Last week, more of the same. When Mr. Medvedev bestowed Russia’s highest honors at a Kremlin ceremony on a group of sleeper spies who were expelled from the United States last July, a State Department spokesman turned away a reporter’s question with a “no comment.” Washington chooses not to say anything either about Mr. Medvedev’s support, repeated in Deauville, for Mr. Sarkozy’s plan, as next year’s president of the G-20 consultative grouping, to focus its attention on limiting the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.
In the Deauville aftermath, the Americans have preferred applauding Mr. Medvedev’s decision to come to a NATO summit meeting in Lisbon next month, following U.S. congressional elections. He is not expected to announce Russian participation in or endorsement of a U.S.-initiated antimissile shield for Europe — the United States’ notionally organic bond in strengthening the alliance’s trans-Atlantic future — yet the Russian president’s appearance as a guest on NATO’s turf could be seen as an important gesture of real cooperation.
Still, for all the Americans’ concern about Europe dealing with Russia on its own, there hardly has been a corresponding public statement from the administration that’s a call for caution about Moscow’s interest in setting up rivalries between NATO and the E.U. For David J. Kramer, a former senior State Department official with responsibility for Russia, the new circumstances show “the Russians now have far more leverage in the U.S. relationship than they should.”
It was unexpected in the circumstances, but at a briefing in the run-up to the Deauville meeting the administration liked so little, a French presidential source put a big asterisk — more than Washington does openly — next to France’s desire to create “an anchorage in the West” out of “fragile” indications of change in Russia.
“We do not have assurance there is a permanent strategic turn,” the Élysée Palace said.
That can look like an effort to deal with European security concerns in a manner that keeps NATO, at least in part, at a distance. And it could seem a formula making it easier for Russia to play off — absolutely no novelty here — the European allies against the United States, or NATO and the European Union, against one another.
But there’s more detail in the theoretical Euro-Atlantic apostasy department: Add Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal, made in June, that the European Union and Russia establish their own Political and Security Committee, and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s intention, enunciated in Deauville, to establish an E.U.-Russia economic space “with common security concepts. …”
At the same time, the U.S. reset with Russia and the administration’s willingness to treat President Dmitri A. Medvedev as a potential Western-oriented partner has given the Germans and French the sense they were free to act on the basis of their own interpretations of the changes in Moscow.
In this European view, the United States has become significantly dependent on Russia through its maintenance of military supply routes to Afghanistan and its heightened pressure, albeit in wavering measure, on Iran. Because the reset is portrayed by the administration to be a U.S. foreign policy success, criticism from Washington of Russia is at a minimum.
Consider this irony: the more Russia makes entry into the E.U.’s decision-making processes on security issues a seeming condition for deals the French and/or Germans want (think, for example, of France’s proposed sale to Moscow of Mistral attack vessels), the more the impression takes hold that the administration’s focus for complaint about the situation has been off-loaded onto the Europeans.
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Looking at these last lines, our opinion is that the EU is a work in progress, as we said many times previously, with three EU Presidents still functioning in parallel, while talking of extending invitation Eastwards and Southwards to the Ukraine and Serbia. This latter moves bring it clearly into the elbow space of Russia – so extending an invitation for co-operation with Russia becomes more and more the only option available to the EU. These are parts of the reasoning of our futuristic proposition.
The week before Labor Day we were traveling along the coast of Upper New England along the stretch from Lynn and Marblehead North of Boston in Massachusetts, through Cape Ann, Plum Island, the shores of New Hampshire and up to Kennebunkport in Maine. That was the route that Hurricane Earl was expected to take – but Earl the Good did us no harm.
I intend to write about stops on that trip, and the rather good conditions in the States we visited, but this posting deals instead with global issues – what I found going over the papers upon return to New York.
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What surprised me was the fact that though mentioned as details in the papers, the underlying reality that struck me seemed to be an issue with a common link that no paper mentioned – something we feel is the start of the demise of the WTO construct – that colossus of World Trade Organization that is being hailed as the epitome of global international structure that everyone was supposed to strive to get in through its doors – an achievement that was going to reward States for good behavior. But first what struck me was The Financial Times note that gave away the reality – seemingly Russia has decided that it just makes no sense to them to allow the outside world to dictate to them rules of behavior.
Russia has suffered because of the climate change effects from severe drought and decreased yield of wheat – so Russia simply closed its doors to those that want to buy its wheat as Mr. Putin does not want riots because of shortages of buckwheat. He knows that we will call this interference with free trade, but he decided that the chaff of free trade is rubbish if it causes foreseeable difficulties yo his leadership.
But that was just the beginning. Russia also closed the door to imports of cars by way of tariffs – a clear no-no with WTO. And why did they do that? Simple enough – they want investments in Russia for manufacturing cars inside Russia and eventually they will get their way.
China is even more important – it clearly does what it wants with impunity and the WTO label is plainly superfluous. Yes or no – Hugo Boss – the German fashion house has announced that it will open 100 stores in China to add to the 450 stores it owns globally now, and the further 150 stores it will open by 2015 outside China. This is a neat increase and clear vote of confidence in the growing Chinese middle class.
The US talks tough to China in public but sent high level delegations to China to reach all sorts of agreements so it will not be outplayed in business terms by others. Lawrence Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council and Thomas Donilon the Deputy National Security Adviser came to Beijing to fashion “new pacts” – a nice combination of the tough and the economic. We will clearly not know exactly what they talked about, but we assume that it finally doomed on Washington that wage increases in China so the Middle Class becomes faster a buying class – is more of a win-win situation then pushing the Chinese to increase the exchange rate in order to become less competitive with their exports. In the end, we trust that the Chinese, like the Russians, will do what is best for them according to their own internal calculations. WTO is not part of these calculations and it will be the US that will have to adjust when talking to the Chinese bankers – China having become the lender that allows the US to live above its means while still keeping some control over the money-printing presses. To top this – Bill Gates and Warren Buffet also went to China – this seemingly to suggest to the Chinese tycoons to recycle some of their gains as philanthropies and this then becomes a second route on the same road to help the earning power of the lower classes in China.
Similarly, India has restricted its exports of cotton and other raw materials, provided incentives for inflow of investments and watched its stockmarkets out perform those of the other fast developing markets.
Proof to this booming – non WTO related Asian growth – Julius Baer, the Swiss private bank, has moved to double its Asian assets to 20-25% of its total in the next 5 years as it recruits new staff and opens more offices in the region. The bank has identified Asia as its second “home market” after Europe. They will have offices in Hong Konk, Shanghai, and Singapore – the latter with a new office space for 700 people.
And if all of the above is not enough – here comes Brazil – the champion of them all that used to fight the US at WTO on ethanol fuel issues and agricultural produce. Now they do not bother with this way of time waste. They have it too good to need it.
Petrobras, the Brazilian energy champion is making a global offering of shares in the $32 Billion range with investment plans of $224 Billion. The Wall Street Journal’s BUZZ mentions even Share Sales of $65 Billion! – The above is the highest issue of shares ever – period. This week I participated at two events of the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, one of them a Day of Independence reception, and the other an evaluation of the capital markets and Brazilian tax laws for US investments in Brazil – and both events were gang-ho.
Further, a trio of Brazilian billionaires, the folks that took the Brahma beer company and built InBev that eventually bought Anheuser-Busch to become a global beverage Brazilian-run power house – they just announced that they are buying the Burger King US corporation to get a taste of the US fast-food business. And what does this mean to Brazilian beef imports to the US?
In any case – later this year, Brazilian-born Bernardo Hees, a railroad executive, will go from managing shippments of grain to bringing burgers to new markets around the world as the new CEO of Burger King Holdings Inc. once 3G Capital Management Inc. completes the $3.3 Billion leveraged buyout of the chain.
Let us see – with the WTO Brazil achieved nothing because the US cattlemen were able to hide behind sanitary issues, and I understand that only specialty meets like corn beef were allowed into the US. Not like the ethanol case where doors were closed with tariffs. You go to a Brazilian Churrascaria, or an Argentinian place in New York, and you get Australian grass-fed beef because the Latin variety is not allowed. What will the new Burger King owners say to this? Watch out – we predict some interesting protracted new actions and eventual political give and take!
OK, so will there be any loss if the WTO is allowed to disintegrate? After all – it was established as a tool by the industrialized countries to control commerce with the commodity countries – to the detriment of the latter and the net result that it interfered with the industrialization process as well as with the development of indigenous agriculture to feed the developing country.
What kind of “Free Trade” was it anyway – when banana producers were not free to export to the banana consumers they would have loved to reach?
Now, with such powerhouses like China, Brazil, India, and still reluctance to allow for their full participation in the system of preferences in mutual trade, more of these countries will return to write their own laws, and those that did not become members of the club will simply lose interest in it.
I think this was the real Earl I felt following last week.
Plate’s comments were made at a book party for the first in the series, about Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan Yew. Plate said that the second would be about Mahathir of Malaysia and the third would be about “someone who is in the room, who is Secretary General, whose name I will not mention.”
While Plate is or was a journalist, strangely requests were made just before the book party that no Press be present. It was too late, invitations had been made.
The entire event was witnessed, hence the follow up question Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky after Thursday’s backtracking. From the UN’s transcript of its August 12 noon briefing:
Inner City Press: yesterday, I’d asked you about this Giants of Asia series and the Secretary-General being the third subject of it. You said, “I’ll look into it.” Have you? And is he going to do it? And how much time will it take? And what’s the benefit to the UN organization?
Spokesperson: What I can tell you is that the Secretary-General has made no commitment to Mr. [Tom] Plate, or indeed to anyone else, with regard to a book.
Question: Mr. Plate said on Monday that he had, and I’ve talked to some other senior UN officials who have said he is the third one in the series, so I guess is there some… has there been some change?
Spokesperson: Well, I can tell you that the Secretary-General has made no commitment to Mr. Plate or indeed to anyone else.
Question: Okay, when was the last time he saw Mr. Plate?
Spokesperson: What’s that got to do with it?
Question: Because I, well…
Spokesperson: That’s got nothing to do with it, Matthew. I can tell you that the Secretary-General has made no commitment to Mr. Plate or indeed anyone else. Okay.
UNITED NATIONS, ICP, August 11, 2010 — Starting with a 200 page book of “Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew,” the get-things-done founder of modern Singapore, American author Tom Plate is engaged in a Giants of Asia trilogy. The next in the series is Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia.
The third Giant of Asia, Plate said at a VIP book party on August 10, will be UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Plate told an audience including the Permanent Representatives to the UN of Vietnam, Costa Rica, The Netherlands and of course Singapore, which hosted the event, that in his experience Asian leaders are more concerned about community rights than individual or human rights.
He asked rhetorically, do you want to solve the problem of drug gangs in Los Angeles? Give Lee Kuan Yew $10 billion, and look away for 18 months. Come back and it will be solved.
Some in the audience wondered what might happen during those 18 months, from the leader who instituted caning for the mis disposal or even chewing of gum. A professor in the audience asked about the balance between development and human rights.
Plate responded that while to the “Western” mind, publicly punishing the wrong person in order to send a message to others might violate due process, to Lee Kuan Yew and presumably the other Giants of Asia, the calculus is not so simple.
If the mis-punishment helps the community at large, it might on balance be a good thing, Plate said.
Inner City Press, invited without conditions to the event but then asked to not mention at least one of the attendees, asked Plate if he would consider interviewing some of the some openly authoritarian strong men of Asia, including Than Shwe of Myanmar and Kim Jong-Il of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Plate replied that if asked to go to Pyongyang and given access to Kim Jong-Il, he would be on the next plane. He said that he doubted Than Shwe, at 76, could endure the type of multi-day interview process which he engaged in with Lee Kuan Yew.
One wonders, then, how a sitting Secretary General, embroiled in a management scandal triggered most recently by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing lead UN investigator Inga Britt Ahlenius, will have time to sit for this Giants of Asia profile.
Without attributing the concerns, there seem to have been a belated request not to publicize the identity of Plate’s third Giant of Asia until after Mr. Ban’s second term is more secure.
But, one cynical in the audience asked, is the problem the publicity or the vanity book project itself?
UN’s Ban Depicted in Sri Lanka: Giant of Asia?
Inner City Press first heard of Plate’s book when a section about Sri Lanka was circulated, largely by the Tamil diaspora. Lee Kwan Yew is quoted on page 55 saying the –
“example is Sri Lanka. It is not a happy, united country. Yes, they [the majority Sinhalese government] have beaten the Tamil Tigers this time, but the Sinhalese who are less capable are putting down a minority of Jaffna Tamils who are more capable. They were squeezing them out. That’s why the Tamils rebelled. But I do not see them ethnic cleansing all two million plus Jaffna Tamils. The Jaffna Tamils have been in Sri Lanka as long as the Sinhalese…[referring to Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa] ‘I’ve read his speeches and I knew he was a Sinhalese extremist. I cannot change his mind.’”
Plate was asked about this section of the book, and said that it was difficult to keep it in. Afterward, Inner City Press asked Plate to explain: how had wanted the section to come out? Of all that he said Tuesday night, this was the only time that Plate asked to go off the record. We will respect that, just as we’ll respect the request to omit the presence of at least one individual and entourage.
Singapore’s Mission to the UN, its Permanent Representative Vanu Gopala Menon, his Deputy, wife and staff are to be commended for hosting such an eclectic crowd, and serving afterward such good food, including the Indian paratha break renamed roti — and tinged with coconut — when it arrived in Lee Kuan Yew’s giant laboratory in one of the smallest nation states.
There was Tamil advocates among the attendees, including the son of the plaintiff in a recent free speech case in the U.S. Supreme Court. Some wondered at the irony of Ban Ki-moon, who long delayed naming, and still has not begun, a panel about accountability for civilian deaths in Sri Lanka in 2009, choosing as his conversational biographer the writer who coaxed the above quoted analysis of ethnic cleansing and Sinhalese extremism in Sri Lanka, to the level of the president.
We will have more on this and on the rest of Plate’s illuminating talk, including his and Lee Kuan Yew’s views of the UN and the ways in which its Secretary General are elected and, at times, re-elected. The interplay of Ban’s drive for re-election and his participation at Plate’s third “Giant of Asia” will also be explored.
* * *
At UN, Ban’s Travails Trigger Candidacy Tales, De Mistura, Zeid, Kubis, Kerim or even Bachelet or Bill Clinton, Game On
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 9 — Alternate candidates to Ban Ki-moon are emerging before the next UN Secretary General term begins on January 1, 2012. Tellingly, even people given UN posts by Ban Ki-moon are among reported candidates.
But, people recruited to work for the UN in Afghanistan tell Inner City Press, de Mistura harbors the dream of swooping in as a dark horse candidate to replace Ban in late 2011.
The problem for de Mistura and other non-Asian contenders is that the S-G position is said to belong to a regional group for at least 10 years.
When the U.S. vetoed Egypt’s Boutros Boutros Ghali in 2005, the post next went to another African. So it would be with Ban, the assumption goes, with China demanding equal treatment for Asia.
De Mistura, having served as U.S. ground cover and fig leaf in Iraq and then Afghanistan, feels he would have U.S. support. A long shot candidate mentioned is Bill Clinton. Others point to Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste,in the Asian group like another candidate, Zeid Bin Ra’ad of Jordan.
UN’s Ban and de Mistura: one bleary eyed with lack of sleep, the other looking long
Lula of Brazil would appear to have lost U.S. support, given his country’s vote against the recent sanctions on Iran. Shashi Tharoor appears to have shot himself in the foot with Cricket-gate.
More savvy, some say, is Michelle Bachelet. She is understood to have not leaped at the offer of the top UN Women post. Does this mean that, like with the UNICEF post given to Tony Lake, she is shooting higher?
From those heights, at UNDP, Helen Clark is often mentioned.
Next in line, they argue, are the Eastern European states. From 2006, there is Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Jan Kubis is mentioned (Ban gave him a temporary post during the violence in Kyrgyzstan), along with former General Assembly president Srgjan Kerim, to whom Ban gave a Special Envoy on Climate Change UN post. Do you see a pattern here?
“There are candidates galore, and there is blood in the water,” as one source puts it. Let the games begin.
This all comes, as Inner City Press first reported, against the backdrop of ad hoc meetings to “revitalize the General Assembly” which are discussing requiring Ban Ki-moon to come before the GA to seek his second term, and not only the Security Council.
Specifically, under the heading “Selection of the Secretary General,” the draft “takes note of the views expressed at the Ad Hoc Working Group at the 64th session and bearing in mind the provisions of Article 97 of the Charter, emphasizes the need for the process of selection of the Secretary General to be inclusive of all Member States and to be made more transparent.. including through presentation of candidates for the position of the Secretary General in an informal plenary of the General Assembly.”
Interestingly, the marked up draft of this pending paragraph reads as follows:
“10. Affirms its commitment to continuing its consideration of the revitalization of the General Assembly’s role in the selection and appointment of the Secretary General, including through (encouraging (Algeria / NAM: delete and add ‘the’) Russian Federation: retain) presentation of candidates for the position of Secretary General in an informal plenary of the General Assembly before the Security Council considers the matter (Russian Federation); Russian Federation: bracket entire para.”
10 Alt. Also encourages formal presentation of candidatures for the position of the Secretary General in a manner than allows sufficient time for interaction with member states, and requests candidates to present their views to all Member States of the General Assembly (Belgium / EU, US & Russia) (Algeria / NAM supports Islamic Republic of Iran proposal of retaining as OP 10 bis).”
In the Security Council, placating or giving patronage to the five Permanent Members would be enough to gain the second term. But if the GA and regional grouping get involved, Ban’s snubs like that of Africa for the deputy post in the UN Development Program, and the devaluation of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, could come back to haunt Ban, along with his more recent appointment of Alvaro Uribe to his Gaza flotilla panel, over the objections of Venezuela which wil head the Group of 77 and China.
* * *
At UN, As Ban Denies Deals with Israel and for OIOS Posts, Doubts Raised About Both, What was US Told?
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 10 — Just as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated on August 9 that he made no “agreement behind the scenes” that Israeli Defense Forces will not be interviewed by his Panel of Inquiry, he now maintains that no commitment of posts in the Office of Internal Oversight Services was made to gain support for his replacement candidate to head OIOS, Carman Lapoint-Young.
“he was one of the finalists, the South African whom you are talking about. If he [had been] willing to take the job, then I was okay [for him] to fill that post. There are certain cases when someone was applying for a certain post, and where she or he was not successful for that post, and because of the excellent quality of the candidate – we really wanted to keep certain candidates in our system – we offered a lower rank.”
“The Secretary-General wants to make it absolutely clear that the recruitment process for the Director of the Investigations Division will start only after the new Under-Secretary-General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services has taken up her post. This selection will be conducted strictly in accordance with the established rules and procedures. The assertion that a South African was offered the job is completely unfounded.”
Inner City Press on August 10 asked Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky had Ban had meant by “we offered a lower rank.” Nesirky resplied that Ban “was confused by what the question was,” and claimed that the comment was a “general statement of principle not related to OIOS.” Video here, from Minute 31:26.
It is not a general statement of principle to say ““he was one of the finalists, the South African.. we offered a lower rank.” It is a statement about a particular individual being made an offer.
Likewise, Israel’s Benyamin Netanyahu insisted on August 10 that despite Ban’s August 9 denials, Ban has made a “discrete” agreement that the panel would not interview IDF personnel. Ban had said he made no “agreement behind the scenes.”
At the end of his August 9 press conference, Ban urged journalists to focus on the “big issues” and not personnel (or “personal”) disputes. But if an answer about offering OIOS post(s) in order to gain support for a candidate for OIOS does not have credibility, how does an answer about a “discrete” agreement about the mandate of the UN Gaza flotilla panel?
UN’s Ban and Barak, discrete agreement not shown
A Security Council diplomat on August 10 approached Inner City Press with another connection between the August 9 OIOS questions and Ban’s panels on Gaza and Sri Lanka. If Ban was so rattled and pushed by a single journalist — even the“overgrown schoolboy” –imagine, the diplomat mused, what happens between Ban and Israel, or Sri Lanka.
As for the outgrown schoolboy, he points out: wasn’t it a schoolboy who said “the Emperor has no clothes”? Indeed…
Footnote: further to US Ambassador Susan Rice’s statement that the UN’s Gaza flotilla panel is “not a substitute” for national proceedings, Inner City Press is that during the Security Council consultations on the press statement by which Council welcomed Ban’s panel, the U.S. opposed linking the panel to the Council’s own May 31 – April 1 President Statement calling for an investigation.
So what did Ban tell Susan Rice and the US about the panel and its scope? Or about post promises made to get Ms. Lapoint confirmed as head of OIOS?
* * *
At UN, Ban “Melts Down, Admits” Dealing An OIOS Post to a South African, Calls Ethics Questions Small, 2d Term in Play
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 9, updated — “I always do the right thing,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday, faced with long pending questions about mis-management and undermining the independence of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services.
But Ban appeared to admit violating a founding principle of OIOS, that the Secretary General not intrude and give out top OIOS jobs on a political basis.
He was asked repeatedly to confirm or deny that he promised the second level OIOS post to a South African, to gain support for his appointment of a Canadian, Ms. Lapointe Young, to replace outgoing Inga Britt Ahlenius. (Inner City Press was the first to report this deal, here.)
At first Ban suggested these questions be dealt with in a separate session. Then he portrayed them as “small” questions. Many reporters were unclear if they were being directed to not get into “personal” or “personnel” questions.
The latter seems difficult, since Ban ultimately said he had personally taken the personnel decision to give the second OIOS post, even before the ostensibly independent new director comes in, to a South African candidate.
Many correspondents were frustrated at how the press conference was run, with no questions taken on Sudan — which is threatening to throw the UN out, while starving the residents of the Kalma Camp — or the Rwanda election or the Ban administrations flip-flip on Kashmir.
But even those most focused on UN management and Ms. Ahlenius’ damning End of Assignment Report were dissatisfied by Ban’s answer that any questioning of his administration’s ethics is unfair. There are a range of questions, including about Ban’s most senior advisers. These, they say, will be coming out as a second term for Ban is considered.
UN’s Ban pre melt down, post deals not shown
Ban was asked about his Gaza flotilla panel — he said no side agreement was made with Israel not to interview its soldiers — but not about his stalled and even most constrained panel on Sri Lanka war crimes.
He was asked about appointing Alvaro Uribe to the Gaza panel, despite Venezuela’s recent complaints. Ban said he has known Uribe as Secretary General for a long time, and that Uribe has his “full confidence.” What will Venezuela, the next head of the Group of 77 and China, say?
As one snarky correspondent said after what he called Ban’s “melt down,” this politically is the time when alternate candidates to become Secretary General in 2012 will begin to appear, even before the upcoming General Debate in mid September. Watch this site.
Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesperson if the meeting involved the offering of a UN position of any kind. It was just a courtesy call, Inner City Press was repeatedly told — even after Rudd, back in Australia, bragged through his spokesman about the offer of a post.
At the end of Ban’s press conference, Inner City Press asked Pasztor if in the meeting with Rudd, the supposed courtesy call, this post was discussed. Yes, Pasztor said. Some courtesy call. The same snarky reporter laughed at the inclusion of US Ambassador Susan Rice on the panel, calling it a craven attempt to nail down US support for a second term as Secretary General. We’ll see.
Update of 12:41 pm: after publication of the above, UN Spokesperson – Do Not Reply sent this:
Subject: UN Spokesperson’s clarification regarding the Office of Internal Oversight Services
Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:34 PM
The Secretary-General wants to make it absolutely clear that the recruitment process for the Director of the Investigations Division will start only after the new Under-Secretary-General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services has taken up her post. This selection will be conducted strictly in accordance with the established rules and procedures. The assertion that a South African was offered the job is completely unfounded.
“If you say so.” Compare to video, here. And, there are two D-2 posts in OIOS…
Posted By Colum Lynch Monday, August 2, 2010 – 7:39 PM
A top former U.N. investigator who was passed over for the top job in the U.N.’s investigations division has filed a grievance before the U.N.’s personnel disputes tribunal accusing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top advisors of discriminating against him because he is an American male, and demanding about $1.4 million in damages and wages, according to the complaint.
Robert Appleton, a former federal prosecutor in the United States who once headed a U.N. task force that probed about 300 cases of potential wrongdoing, claimed that Ban’s refusal to endorse his nomination for the senior U.N. anti-corruption job on two occasions, primarily on the basis of his gender and nationality, “constitutes a discriminatory practice, directly contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.”
The complaint, which was filed Monday in the U.N.’s administrative disputes tribunal, marks a deepening of a political crisis over Ban’s handling of the U.N.’s anti-corruption efforts. It will subject the case to a review by U.N. judges who have frequently clashed with the U.N. leadership over its treatment of staff. Last month, the tribunal awarded $700,000 to a former senior U.N. official who contested the U.N.’s refusal to promote him to a more senior job.
The administrative battle comes more than a week after the U.N.’s outgoing chief of internal oversight, Inga- Britt Ahlenius of Sweden, wrote a sharply worded end-of-assignment report that accused Ban of undercutting her independence and interfering with her effort to hire Appleton. The confidential report, which I reported on first for the Washington Post and Turtle Bay, accused Ban of “deplorable” and “reprehensible” behavior. She also accused Ban of leading the U.N. into an era of “irrelevance” and “decline.”
Today’s filing marks the first time Appleton has weighed in on the matter. Appleton headed the U.N. Procurement Task Force, which conducted a series of aggressive investigations into wrongdoing from 2006 through 2009.
The task force’s probes have resulted in 17 misconduct findings against U.N. staff and triggered several criminal investigations by federal prosecutors.
The task force also cooperated in a federal probe of Vladimir Kuznetzov, a Russian diplomat, who was convicted in 2007 of money laundering in connection with a kickback scheme.
The task force infuriated governments, including Singapore and Russia, whose nationals it targeted. In late 2008, Russia sought unsuccessfully to push for the adoption of a resolution that would have prevented the U.N. from hiring Appleton or any member of a white-collar criminal team.
The task force, which was intended to be temporary, was shut down at the end of 2008, but its expertise was supposed to be preserved in the U.N.’s investigations division.
Martin Nesirky, the U.N.’s chief spokesman, declined to comment on the Appleton case, saying “consistent with our practice, it would be inappropriate to comment on a case pending before the Dispute Tribunal.” A senior U.N. official, who recently briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that no political pressure had been applied on Ban to block Appleton’s hiring. U.N. officials said the appointment was blocked because Ahlenius had manipulated the recruitment process so that Appleton would get the job.
Angela Kane, the U.N. under secretary-general for management, claimed last month that Ahlenius’s account contained “many inaccuracies, misrepresentations and distortions.” Ahlenius, she noted, “did not comply with established U.N. rules and policies” designed to ensure the integrity of the recruitment process. “The Secretary-General and his team consider these instruments key to building a modern U.N. that strives for excellence and reflects our diverse membership – including true gender balance. Indeed, the Secretary-General has appointed more women to senior positions than ever before in the Organization’s history.”
But another senior U.N. official hinted that there might be other reasons for the U.N.’s decision to reject Appleton, and suggested that he had outlived his usefulness to the United Nations. “There is only one American in the whole wide world who can run the investigations division?” the official said in a recent interview. “I certainly don’t believe that.”
The U.N. Charter states that the “the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.” In practice, U.N. secretaries-general have always relied heavily on key member states to recommend candidates for top posts. Many of the top jobs, including the heads of the departments of peacekeeping and political affairs, are generally reserved for candidates from the United States, Britain and France.
The power struggle between Ban and Ahlenius has its roots in an ambiguous mandate that provided her office with “operational independence” but placed it under the authority of the secretary-general, and makes it dependent on the U.N. secretariat for funding. Ban’s advisors maintain that while Ahlenius had the authority to propose a shortlist of three candidates for the job, Ban had the ultimate authority to pick the winning candidate.
Appleton’s complaint cites administrative instructions that bolster Ahlenius’s claim that she had the sole authority to hire her own top advisors. David Walker, a former U.S. controller general who chairs the U.N.’s Independent Audit Advisory Committee, noted that her “operational independence” provides that “the Under Secretary General for Internal Oversight Services will have authority to appoint all staff members whose appointments are limited to service with the office up to the D-2 level.” Appleton’s post was a D-2 job.
Appleton argues that the U.N. leadership had an obligation under the U.N. Charter and various General Assembly resolutions and staff directives to give him “full and fair consideration” for the job. He cited a 2008 General Assembly resolution saying that employment “should be based on merit, and that no person should be refused employment based upon race or gender or any other impermissible purpose.” But Ban issued a bulletin imposing a rule that he be allowed to appoint senior staff in the investigation’s division in January 2009, after Ahlenius had selected Appleton for the job, according to Ban and Ahlenius.
“There is no such rule that women be considered for every D2 position…it is a singular effort to operate outside the rule of law for their own political purpose and even more incredibly to do so retroactively,” Appleton asserts. The process, according to Appleton’s claim, calls into question Ban’s top advisors’ respect “for the most basic principles of the organization, and the fundamental rule of law. They should be held accountable for these acts.”
Appleton also claims that a senior official in the U.N. Office of Human Resources Management made an “inappropriate attempt” to persuade Ahlenius to consider unqualified candidates for the job, including a U.N. staffer who was married to one of the senior official’s subordinates, implying a conflict of interest. U.N. official’s said that the candidate’s spouse was a personnel officer in the U.N. peacekeeping department, not in the Office of Human Resources, and that there was no conflict of interest.
Appleton writes that the protracted hiring process, which played out over more than two-and-a-half years, has caused him financial hardship and damaged his reputation. “The applicant has been subjected to the embarrassment of having his candidacy discussed by the organizations officials in the public media for a continuous and extended period of time, promoting the false perception that the process was not legitimate or transparent; thereby impugning his own character.”
Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Discusses Advancing Agreement at COP 16
1 July 2010: The seventh Meeting at the Leaders’ representative level of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate took place in Rome, Italy, from 30 June-1 July 2010.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the 17 major economies, UN officials, and representatives from Bangladesh, Denmark, Barbados, Ethiopia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
Participants discussed various issues related to the international climate change negotiations and, according to the Chair’s Summary, they emphasized the importance of quickly implementing the Copenhagen Accord’s fast-start financing provisions, highlighting that maximum clarity and transparency will build international confidence and be an essential part of a balanced outcome of the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 16) to be held Cancun, Mexico, in late 2010.
Participants exchanged ideas on Annex I Parties mitigation and support. They also addressed non-Annex I Parties mitigation, highlighting that it should be party-driven, non-politicized, have a “multilateral anchor” and be based on national communications. Participants discussed whether the targets and actions included in the Copenhagen Accord may be reflected in a future outcome and whether such outcome will be legally binding and contained in a single instrument or two. Extensive discussion focused on progress on measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) at COP 16 with regard to: Annex I Parties mitigation; financial and technological support of non-Annex I Parties mitigation; and non-Annex I Parties mitigation. Participants also emphasized the need to focus adaptation efforts on vulnerable countries.
Follow-up meetings were also announced, including: a Clean Energy Ministerial meeting to be held from 19-20 July 2010, in Washington, DC, US, to follow up on the Technology Action Plans of the Global Partnership launched by G-8 leaders in L’Aquila, Italy, in 2009; and a ministerial meeting on technology to be co-hosted by Mexico and India from 8-9 November 2010.
[Co-Chair’s Summary] [Major Economies Forum website]
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The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) was launched on March 28, 2009.
The MEF is intended to facilitate a candid dialogue among major developed and developing economies, help generate the political leadership necessary to achieve a successful outcome at the December UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, and advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The 17 major economies participating in the MEF are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. That is 16 + EU + Denmark as host to the Copenhagen Meeting.
Denmark, in its capacity as the President of the December 2009 Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the United Nations have also been invited to participate in this dialogue.
By Nick Hodge, Energy & Capital | Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
I’ve got the Asian itch, and it won’t be hard to see why…
I’ve got this itch because the region’s economies continue to grow while economic tremors continue to rock Europe and the United States.
I’ve got this itch because Asia’s investment in cleantech continues to grow while it shrinks in other areas:
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I’ve got this itch because Asian governments turned to cleantech as the obvious choice for financial stimulus — with China, South Korea, and Japan allocating $20 billion more to the sector than the United States:
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I’ve got this itch because China out-invested us 2:1 last year in new energy technologies:
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Which makes their long-term cleantech investment curve look like this:
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While ours looks like this:
Scratching the itch…
With a financial investment edge like that, you can bet Asia’s — particularly China’s — dedication is translating to wins in the public markets as well.
Five years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find more than one or two Chinese companies on global top ten lists…
Now, they’ve taken three of the top 10 global wind spots and six in the solar race:
And not only are they whooping us in investment and production capacity; European and U.S. companies look silly next to Chinese stars:
That’s why 19 of the last 60 or so winners I’ve closed in the Alternative Energy Speculator have been China-based.
But my itch isn’t satisfied yet…
You see, only Asia’s dominance of the solar market has been thoroughly established in U.S. markets, where Chinese ADRs are common.
And while their dominance of wind and smart grid industries is definitely being plotted and executed, there’s been no way to play it in domestic markets — until now.
Sinovel (the #3 company in the table above) has announced ambitions to be the world wind leader in the next five years. I’m guessing this company, along with a few other Chinese entrants, will go the initial public offering route.
And if you think there’s work to be done on our grid, you should have a look at Asia where, in some places, there is no grid at all.
In fact it’s being built from scratch.
Just last week, Bloomberg broke news that “smart grid technology will be one of the key industries for research and development support in China’s upcoming 12th Five Year development plan, due to be enacted at the beginning of 2011.”
China’s largest grid operator, the State Grid Corp., has already said it will invest $37 billion this year alone to build a nationwide smart grid network.
So to recap…
China has leveraged its massive economy to become world leaders in solar and wind technology, outinvesting other nations by far.
Now they’re turning to the smart grid, which we’ll be necessary if they’re ever to harness that solar and wind potential effectively.
And make no mistake — only the Chinese survive in China. They take care of and nurture their own.
As you can tell from all the data above, China is betting on a clean energy future.
And it’s winning.
While the U.S. continues to lag behind, you can satisfy your Asian itch by following China’s lead.
Call it like you see it.
Nick
P.S. China’s thirst for energy is incomparable. And it’s not just clean energy they’re after… My friend Christian DeHaemer is fresh off a trip to Mongolia, where he cozied up with a tiny company sitting on $51 billion worth of crude. And China wants it — bad.
He’s going to release a full report on the company and its massive find tomorrow. But because you’re a loyal reader of Energy & Capital, I figured I’d give you early access to it today.
———————–
China’s Next Cleantech Takeover: World’s Largest Automaker!
It was just a tiny, $10 battery company…
But right now, as part of China’s rapid cleantech mission, this little gem is rapidly on the verge of becoming the world’s largest automaker!
Monday, 28 June 2010 at 09:26, By Ron Robins, Founder & Analyst – Investing for the Soul.
Sustainability issues and financial crises have spurred ethical and Shariah-compliant investing globally.
U.K. green & ethical funds increased to £9.5 Billion in 2009 from just £2.4 billion in 1999 reports EIRIS. In the U.S., ethical and socially responsible investing in all its varied forms grew significantly to $2.71 trillion in 2007 (the latest data available) from $1.2 trillion in 1997, says the Social Investment Forum. Presently, about one in every nine U.S. investment dollars has gone through some type of non-financial screen.
Sharia-compliant investments have taken off as well. “…investors globally hold more than $1.5 trillion in Sharia-compliant investments… [and] there are more than 500 funds globally that comply with Islamic principles, of which one-third of these funds were launched during the past four years, and the figure is projected to double in the coming five years… ” said Abdul Rahman Al Baker, executive director of financial institutions supervision at the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) at the Sixth World Conference of Islamic capital markets and investment funds on May 24, 2010.
“Due to its widening acceptance and its appeal as a means for ethical investment, the [Shariah-compliant finance] industry is expected to continue growing at twice the pace of its conventional counterpart… ” stated Lim Hung Kiang Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister speaking on June 14 at the World Islamic Banking Conference Asia Summit in Singapore. Shariah-compliant funds are now found in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Many believe that Western ethical investing also has its roots in religious traditions. For instance, the Bible proffers ethical business conduct and the Quakers and Methodists of the 1700s offered strict rules concerning investments as well.
Most investors intuitively understand ethical investing: one applies personal values and ethics to investing. However, ethical investing has spawned, and shares, a close kinship to numerous other investment styles.
The ‘sister’ to ethical investing is socially responsible investing (SRI). In fact the terms ethical investing and SRI are frequently used interchangeably. SRI however, has been associated with left wing political views for a long time. Largely because of this association many in the industry have dropped the word ‘socially’ so that the term ‘responsible’ investing is now commonplace.
One new variant of ethical investing is ‘impact’ investing. This term relates to only using positive screens to find investments that have the most beneficial impact on society. Ethical-SRI funds usually use both positive and negative screens—the latter might screen out companies related to tobacco or defence etc.
Another type of ethical investing that is increasingly popular is sustainable or green investing. And for religious communities there are ‘faith-based’ funds, guided by the precepts of the associated group.
Shariah-compliant investing is also faith-based, rooted in the strictures of the Koran. Shariah-compliant investments must be approved by an independent Shariah supervisory board in accordance with religious Muslim principles.
However, in today’s complex world supervisory boards in different countries can vary in their interpretations of what is Shariah-compliant. Hence, many Islamic financial institutions are desirous of creating a pan-Arab/Muslim Shariah supervisory board. A Bloomberg report published on alrroya.com June 10 indicated that a supreme Shariah board could exist among Gulf Arab states by 2013.
Shariah-compliant investments prohibit investing in institutions that pay interest, or firms involved in gambling, speculation, pornography, tobacco, alcohol or pork products. They also generally shun financial institutions that have high leverage.
Both ethical and Shariah investing appear to have a bright long term future. However, it would not surprise me to see various western ethical funds take on some of the characteristics of Shariah-compliant funds. These might include stricter ethical practices, an external board governing ethical standards, and limiting investments in financial institutions with high leverage or risk.
Even the Vatican’s official newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, seems to promote such changes in western financial institutions and funds. Stating that (from Bloomberg on March 4, 2009), “the ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service.”
Because of their comparatively lower risk profile, Shariah-compliant funds may do better than ethical funds when there is an aversion to risk, and the converse might be true when investors believe they can go further out on the risk curve.
Globally, both ethical and Shariah-compliant funds are likely to continue growing faster than their ‘conventional’ counterparts. They share a commonality in that non-financial factors such as ethics and morality are instrumental in shaping investment decisions. Also, both arise from principally religious traditions.
Now, and most importantly, the awareness of climate change and continuing financial disorder are compelling regulatory authorities and investors everywhere to raise their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards—to the benefit of ethical and Shariah-compliant funds.
A future column will compare the performance of ethical and Shariah-compliant funds with conventionally oriented portfolios.
The International Conference on Applied Energy (ICAE) looks set to become a truly integrated forum on research, development and application of energy technology and policy. ICAE2010 aims to facilitate debate on a wide range of topics under the theme, “Energy Solutions for a Sustainable World”. Besides the usual technical presentations and posters, the Conference will feature a number of keynote lectures and special focused sessions incorporating panel discussions and Q and A sessions.
We invite specialists from all over the world to come and share experiences and contribute towards building the framework for sustainable development in the 21st century.
As authors proceed to develop the full papers for the conference, I wish to inform all that a selection of the papers presented at ICAE2010 will be reviewed for publication in a special issue of Applied Energy and a number of other international peer-reviewed journals. In addition, best paper awards will be presented at the Conference.
International Conference on Applied Energy, April 21-23, 2010, Singapore
CONFERENCE TOPICS
Renewable and Green Energy Resources and Technologies
-Biomass, wind and solar energy resources and technologies
-Alternative fuels
– Fuel cells and hydrogen energy
– Energy storage technologies
– Biomass Gasification
Energy Conservation in Buildings
-Green and “zero energy” buildings
– Green building envelopes
– Energy efficient heating and cooling systems
– Heat pump, thermal storage and energy recovery systems
Advanced Energy Technologies
– Micro- and nano-technology applied to energy systems
– Carbon capture and storage systems
– Combustion and engine technology
– Novel and advanced energy conversion systems
Energy Systems for Power Generation
– Energy efficiency and management
– Energy process and system modeling and optimization
– Advanced power generation, transmission and automation
– Distributed energy systems
– Poly-generation systems
Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development
– Greenhouse gas and climate change mitigation
– Pollutant emission control and abatement
– Energy efficiency in transportation
– Energy Efficiency in water production
– Energy and sustainable development
– Energy policy, economics, and planning
– Low Carbon Society and Sustainable Cities
Please visit at www.icae2010.org for your registration to attend the conference.
Professor J. Yan
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Malardalen University (MDU), Sweden
UN Stumbles by Degrees in Nopenhagen, Stealing the Deal?
By Matthew Russell Lee of the Inner City Press.
UNITED NATIONS, December 17 — In the months leading to the Copenhagen climate talks, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon veered back and forth between reading out specific statements on how the deal should be sealed and saying it is up to member states, the UN is just the venue.
Then he and his advisors including Janos Pasztor and top humanitarian John Holmes announced that $10 billion for adaptation — or reparations — to developing countries would be enough, or “a good start.”
Inner City Press asked each of these three about the African Union’s much higher figure and threat to walk out. Each was to varying degrees dismissive.
Now with the Danish police pepper spraying demonstrators in the street, along with a crowd of UN accredited but excluded reporters, representatives of non governmental organizations and even some UN personnel, the mainstream media coverage turns negative and Ban urges poor countries to stop pointing fingers.
He also, at least according to them, has inappropriately accepted not only the developed countries’ $10 billion figure, but now their two degree Celsius temperature rise cap, versus the 1.5 degree figure.
UN’s Ban at Bella Center, excluded and pepper spray and 0.5 degrees not shown
In New York, Inner City Press has asked Ban’s spokesman about each of these. On December 15, Inner City Press asked
Inner City Press: I just want to follow up on Copenhagen. Do you have any, a large number of us have received the complaints of people who were there, who went yesterday and were unable, both journalists and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and even some UN staff, were unable to get into the building. And they seemed to say that the UN accredited 45,000 people, even though only 15,000 could fit in the building. If that’s true, why would the UN have done that?
Spokesperson Nesirky: Two things, the figure I’ve heard is not 45,000 but 34,000. That’s still a lot of people, absolutely.
Inner City Press: The same question.
Spokesperson: Yes, the same question. As I understand it, and as we’ve heard from Copenhagen, they have a system to try to rotate the number of people going into the building, because, obviously, they’re over capacity. Part of it is also, it’s not just NGOs, it’s journalists as well. There are large numbers. And as I’ve said here before, it clearly demonstrates the considerable interest there is in this event and in having access to this event. As for why there was an over-accreditation, I would refer you to the organizers, actually the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change], who are actually on the ground organizing this, and they have a media team there who I’m sure could help you with that.
On December 16, Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky answered
I was asked yesterday about the delays in accessing the Bella Centre in Copenhagen, that’s obviously where the UN Conference on Climate Change is taking place. The United Nations regrets the long delays today for people wishing to gain access or pick up accreditation, and is doing all it can to alleviate further delays.
And more than 45,000 people did indeed apply to attend the Conference. And an overwhelming number of those who applied actually arrived on Monday. This is what caused the congestion in the area outside the UN venue, which is under the control of the Danish police, and also long delays at the UN accreditation counters.
The access to the venue for NGOs will continue to be controlled by the quota system that I mentioned to allow balanced access by various NGO groups. And the NGO representatives are given over half of the capacity of the Bella Centre, and that’s more than ever for a climate change conference. As of tomorrow, only NGO organizations that have the secondary badges will be able to enter the Bella Centre. And the Danish Government and the Danish NGO Network are organizing an alternative venue for NGOs who can’t get into the Bella Centre over the next two days.
Inner City Press asked two more questions:
Inner City Press: I want to ask you about two things that the Secretary-General said in Copenhagen; maybe you can clarify them. One was, he said that the goal is to cap temperature rise at 2° C, and small island States and other participants, Member States of the United Nations, had set their goal at 1.5° C. So, I guess they’re wondering where he came up with the 2° C number. Maybe you can clarify if that really is what he thinks should happen? And also he was quoted as saying that Kenya should lobby to make UNEP [the United Nations Environment Programme] in Nairobi the global environmental agency. You, know, France has a separate proposal that created a new agency. I’m wondering, does that indicate that he doesn’t support France’s proposal or what does it indicate?
Spokesperson Nesirky: Okay, on the first one, on the temperature rise, he’s made public comments on this, which we distributed this morning. The bottom line is that he has said if it’s possible to get to 1.5° C, that’s great. But if it’s not, then it’s important to have a deal that everybody can sign up to. That’s what he’s said. But I would refer you to his remarks so that you could read them in detail. On the UNEP idea, I will need to follow up on that.
Inner City Press: Just one follow-up on that, because in his press conference before he went on the trip, I think he was asked, somebody said, “What ideas are you taking to Copenhagen?” And he said that’s not his role. It’s up to the Member States to negotiate. So, I’m just wondering, I think that’s why people have this question about coming out with a 2° C number. It seems like more than leaving it up to Member States. Do you see what I’m saying? That seems to be inconsistent with what he said before he left.
Spokesperson: I don’t see any inconsistency there. He’s been consistent in saying that, yes, he has an honest broker role, but he also has firm convictions, strong convictions, about what is happening with climate change and his role in ensuring that everybody can come to the table and sign a deal. I would refer you to the remarks he made this morning, which are fairly explicit about the numbers.
And and Ban’s number is now two degrees Celsius, a figure never agreed to by developing countries. They think the UN is or is supposed to be their venue. But not anymore, it seems.
————————–
As UN Flies 700 Staff to Copenhagen, Coup Leader Set to Speak, Major Emitter Excluded.
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 10 — In the run up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, Inner City Press on December 4 asked UN climateer Janos Pasztor how many UN system staff, officials and consultants would be traveling to Denmark, with what carbon footprint. Pasztor said it wouldn’t be known until the conference began.
On December 10, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky finally answered the question, or part of it. He said that the Copenhagen conference has among its participants 477 people from the UN Secretariat and 309 from 19 specialized agencies and related organizations. That is, 786 people from the UN. But does this include consultants? And what is the carbon footprint and will it be offset?
Nesirky did however answer two questions Inner City Press asked on December 10, after an ill attended noon briefing held at the same time as a media stakeout by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. Inner City Press asked if Ban Ki-moon is aware of the request that the coup leader of Madagascar not be allowed to participate in the Copenhagen conference, just as he was barred from speaking before the General Assembly in September.
Nesirky answered, “As for Madagascar, it is scheduled to speak on next Wednesday 16 December, sometime after 6 p.m., so they seem to have been invited.” But what about the request that, as at the UN General Debate in September, they be disinvited?
On December 8, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon
Inner City Press: Has Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, has he indicated to you – we’ve heard that you’ve spoken to him weekly by videoconference – he represents the African Union. Is the $10 billion enough? They threatened to walk out if not sufficient funds were committed. What’s you stance on how that issue’s going to play out?
SG: As you know I, together with Prime Minister [Lars Løkke] Rasmussen [of Denmark], have been engaging in weekly videoconferences with major stakeholders on climate change – particularly the representatives of the most vulnerable countries, including the African Union and small island developing countries. We are going to continue to do that, as we did in Trinidad and Tobago. Now the idea of short-term fast-track financial support is supported by developing countries. We had a very in-depth discussion on this issue during our Commonwealth summit meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. As you know the 53-Member State Commonwealth adopted a consensus declaration where this financial support – fast-track support – was agreed by all the Member States, including a provision that 10% of this $10 billion will be provided to small island developing countries.
So the Commonweath agreed — but has the African Union? Inner City Press asked Ban’s top humanitarian John Holmes on December 10, but he said he hadn’t been involved in setting the $10 billion figure. So who was?
UN’s Ban pre-signs Deal, coup leader coming, major emitter not shown
Inner City Press also asking about the block on participation by Taiwan, which is a major industrial emitter. Nesirky answered only that “Taiwan is not a party to the UNFCCC.” But why not? Would the UN want a major source of emission like Taiwan to participate?
The answer, of course, in China, a senior diplomat of which told Inner City Press a good joke on Thursday. He noted that U.S.’ Susan Rice had been harsh against Iran in that morning’s Council meeting. She has to play to the electorate, he said, just as Iran’s teetered regime tries to strengthen its power by being ever more hard-line. The Chinese diplomat said, “This is the problem with democracy.” And then he laughed.
South East Asia and climate change.
Climate change is a critical and pressing issue we are faced with today. In Southeast Asia we are increasingly exposed to the results of climate change, such as the latest typhoons and floods in the region, causing loss of lives and damage to property as well as displacing familes and increasing the spread of tropical diseases.
Simon Tay, Chairman, Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and former chairman of Singapore National Energy Agency
26/11/2009
en.cop15.dk/blogs/view+blog?blogi… There is also the risk of rising sea level and increasing temperatures. A recently released report from the Asian Developing Bank (ADB) shows that South East Asia is likely to suffer more from climate change than elsewhere in the world. There will be considerable economic costs too, with a projected 7-8 per cent lost in GDP, unless climate change is addressed.
It is an issue, on which developed and developing countries should come together. Yet differences and suspicions remain.
The date for COP15 in Copenhagen is rapidly approaching and nations worldwide are going to great lengths to reach a consensus on a new climate agreement. However, after the Barcelona meetings earlier this month, it seems that the negotiations have not progressed so far that a new legal framework will be ready for Copenhagen. A realistic outcome will probably be a political framework which can form the basis for future negotiations on the post-Kyoto treaty.
South East Asian countries, including Singapore, need to think about their position on the international stage. We all see the need to bring together the US, India, China and south-east Asia, and mediators can help bring these nations together. Singapore and other countries in the region could very well play that role. South East Asia and Singapore should engage and have an active role.
If we do not, we risk having larger and more powerful countries coming to agreements alone and the decisions risk being made without our full attention and participation.
Singapore, along with the rest of the world is also looking at alternative sources of energy. It is clear that some countries are more able and capable to deploy energy saving mechanisms such as windmills and water/tidal turbines. Solar energy, though a good solution, is still very expensive and presently is not optimal for Singapore due to our small land size and cloud cover. But we can participate in helping develop the technology and know how and benefit.
Singapore drew up a sustainable blueprint earlier this year which stressed issues such as increasing energy efficiency. Singapore also has an excellent past record in many areas of environmental proection as a green city. But we, and all other nations, should also be committed to the global effort to address climate change.
Singapore has good engineering and technology and export environmental services like water treatment and recycling. We pride ourselves on our development despite the lack of natural resources. We should regard carbon emissions as a constraint, like the shortage of water, land and clean air. By doing this, we would find innovative ways to minimise such emissions. The world is moving towards being carbon neutral. Carbon markets are thriving in places like London and China. Singapore should have a slice of the cake too. Singapore is after all an energy hub and one of the world’s leading future trading hubs.
Without the big nations on board, it may be understandable that other nations approach Copenhagen cautiously. A solitary commitment by any single nation cannot solve this global challenge.
But I hope that all governments will leave Copenhagen energized and with greater political commitment. In the post-Copenhagen scenario, many Singaporeans will hope and expect Singapore to play its role.
Hatoyama outlines East Asia bloc – key concepts include regional prosperity, environmental cooperation.
SINGAPORE (Kyodo) Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Sunday highlighted four key areas of cooperation in his concept for an East Asian community — regional prosperity, the environment, protecting human life and maritime safety.
Hatoyama indicated the U.S. is a potential member of his envisaged regional grouping, saying in a speech in Singapore, “The presence of the United States has been playing and will continue to play an important role in ensuring the peace and prosperity of Asia, including Japan.”
Hatoyama said Japan will speed up negotiations for economic partnership agreements with South Korea, India and Australia, and study the possibilities of talks with other countries as a means to pursuing prosperity in the region.
Hatoyama proposed expanding maritime cooperation in Southeast Asia, such as anti-piracy operations in the Strait of Malacca, to other regions as part of efforts to build a “sea of ‘yu-ai’ (fraternity),” noting that “most regional commerce depends on sea routes.”
“The concept behind my initiative for an East Asian community stems from the philosophy of yu-ai,” he said. “Within yu-ai, people respect the freedom and human dignity of others just as they respect their own freedom and human dignity. In other words, yu-ai means not only the independence of people but also their coexistence.
“I set this goal because reconciliation in the real sense of the word is not necessarily believed to have been achieved in the region,” said Hatoyama, whose two-month-old government attaches great importance to Asian diplomacy.
“This is the current situation, although more than 60 years have passed since Japan caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly on the people of Asian nations.”
Hatoyama expressed hope that developing countries will take advantage of advanced energy-saving technologies, water purification techniques and other environment-focused technologies owned by Japanese companies as they aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissionswhile pursuing sustainable growth to achieve a “green Asia.”
He stressed that countries need to ensure the success of the key U.N. climate change meeting next month in Copenhagen, where the world will try to strike a deal on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Hatoyama said Japan will make a “proactive contribution” to encourage governments and other institutions to register their human and material assets for disaster relief, which would allow the region to conduct more prompt and effective rescue and relief activities in response to disasters.
Along with the four areas, Hatoyama cited nuclear disarmament, nuclear nonproliferation, urban issues, social security and cultural exchange as potential fields of regional cooperation.
“There may also be an opportunity for us to discuss possible political cooperation in the future,” he said.
“It may be possible that countries with the will and the capabilities to cooperate in a particular field may choose to participate in projects initially, and as their efforts bear fruit, other countries could join later.”
While welcoming Washington’s commitment to Asia as stated in President Barack Obama’s speech in Tokyo on Saturday, Hatoyama carefully avoided speaking about Washington becoming a member of his envisaged East Asian community.
As a framework of future regional cooperation, China envisions a grouping of 13 countries — Japan, China and South Korea plus the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Japan envisages a wider grouping including Australia, India, New Zealand and possibly the United States.
No to two-isle plan
SINGAPORE (Kyodo) Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday that he will not accept the idea of settling the sovereignty dispute over four Russian-controlled islands off Hokkaido by settling for the return of the two smaller islands.
“The (Japanese) public and us (the government) cannot understand (the idea of) returning two islands. I would like you to show a nonstereotypical approach that goes beyond such an idea,” Hatoyama quoted himself as saying at the meeting the Russian president in Singapore.
Medvedev told Hatoyama that Russia truly hopes to advance negotiations on the territorial row while Hatoyama is in office, a Japanese delegation source said.
Hatoyama quoted Medvedev as telling him that Moscow wants to seek a “pragmatic” solution to the dispute without employing an approach based on the thinking of the Cold War era.
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Monday, August 2, 2010 – 7:39 PM 
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<div class="articletitle"><p><a href="http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2010/01/singapore-announces-that-in-the-abscence-of-a-global-agreement-it-will-noy-live-up-to-what-it-promissed-while-going-to-copenhagen-is-this-the-first-bad-bird-of-woe/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to this article">Singapore announces that in the abscence of a global agreement, it will noy live up to what it promissed while going to Copenhagen. Is this the first bad bird of woe?</a></p></div>
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<div class="articlecredit"><p>Posted on <a href="http://www.sustainabilitank.info">Sustainabilitank.info</a> on January 12th, 2010<br />
by Pincas Jawetz (<a href="mailto:pj@sustainabilitank.info">pj@sustainabilitank.info</a>)
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<p><strong>Singapore Pares Emission Cut Plans After Copenhagen.</strong></p>
<p>Reuters, 12-Jan-10.<br />
Author: Nopporn Wong-Anan</p>
<p>SINGAPORE – Singapore said on Monday it will go ahead with existing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but further pledged reductions will depend on a successful agreement in global climate talks.</p>
<p>Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim told parliament Singapore would start implementing energy efficiency measures announced last year that would cut emissions by 7-11 percent on business as usual levels by 2020.</p>
<p>This would be below a 16 percent cut that Singapore pledged just ahead of U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen last month, which aimed to agree on a global pact but instead ended with a non-binding accord far short of its original goals.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>“When a global agreement on climate change is reached we will implement the additional measures to achieve the full 16 percent reduction below business as usual in 2020,” he said.</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>Environmentalists said they hoped countries would not lower voluntary targets to cut back emissions given the absence of a global accord, which negotiators are still aiming to reach in another round of talks scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico.<br />
</strong><br />
“We find it disappointing that countries are going to step back and lower their ambition,” WWF project coordinator Diane McFadzien told Reuters.</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen evidence of it becoming a trend yet, but I hope it will not become a trend.”</p>
<p>Wealthy city-state Singapore, with one of the world’s best living standards in terms of GDP per capita, has come under fire from environmentalists who point to its energy-intensive economy and high per-capita emissions.</p>
<p>Singapore aims to spur economic growth by increasing its population and attracting further manufacturing investment, which will make cutting absolute emissions difficult, a problem faced by many developing nations unwilling to sign up to legally binding cuts.</p>
<p>As part of the Copenhagen accord, developing nations need to put their voluntary national pledges on a global list by the end of January.</p>
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