From Fareed Zakaria’s Global Briefing for May 31, 2017
Driven by a combination of strategic expediency and a desire to secure access to much-needed resources, China has gone from small-time player to the big league in Antarctica, suggests Anne-Marie Brady in the Lowy Interpreter.
“China doesn’t have a formal claim over Antarctic territory (and the Antarctic Treaty forbids any new claims) but it has steadily extended its presence over a triangle-shaped area in East Antarctica. Three of China’s Antarctic bases, three of its air fields, and its two field camps are in this sector; which is within the existing Antarctic territorial claim of Australia. Through its advanced logistics capabilities, China is able to project its power and continually maintain its presence in this zone, something Australia, with its much more limited Antarctic capacity cannot do,” Brady argues.
“China’s focus on becoming a polar great power represents a fundamental re-orientation; a completely new way of imagining the world.
The polar regions, the deep seabed, and outer space are the new strategic territories where China will draw the resources to become a global power.”
Green Prophet. Sustainable News for the Middle East.
This article base on news from Australia.
Sundrop Farms grows tomatoes with seawater.
Posted on January 2, 2017 by Karin Kloosterman in Green Tech and Gadgets.
Saltwater greenhouses can save the Middle East and humanity from drought and climate change. Three cheers to Sundrop Farms in Australia for pioneering saltwater greenhouses in Australia: they are now harvesting tomatoes for a leading grocery store called Coles. And Sundrop is producing what they say is a “better product, better for the people, better for the planet –– all year round.”
Sundrop Farms is using hydroponics, a method of growing plants on a treated water medium, without soil. It’s an extremely efficient way for growing plants, and it’s now becoming a leading choice for growing food in difficult climates, in urban centers or in areas where water is poor and lacking. In China for instance where the soil is contaminated with cadmium and lead, people are very eager to buy organic food grown hydroponically.
Sundrop says it’s the first farming system of its kind to have reached commercial scale. The 65-hectare facility was made possible with an investment of 200 million Australian dollars ($148 million) which paid for a desalination plant, greenhouses and other installations needed to grow the tomatoes.
It’s a bet worth betting as we see the rise in agricultural crops in Australia and the world.
The Sundrop greenhouses are powered by sunlight, using 23,000 mirrors that reflect rays toward the top of a 127-meter high receiver tower that turns the sun into electricity.
This power is used to pump seawater from 5km away. Beyond producing tomatoes, the facility also produces 1 million liters of fresh water every single day.
Sundrop Farms CEO Philipp Saumweber, a former investment banker, says the agriculture model as “innovative” in that it harnesses only seawater and sunlight.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, and, most recently, The Age of Sustainable Development.
NEW YORK –The United Nations will mark its 70th anniversary when world leaders assemble next month at its headquarters in New York. Though there will be plenty of fanfare, it will inadequately reflect the UN’s value, not only as the most important political innovation of the twentieth century, but also as the best bargain on the planet. But if the UN is to continue to fulfill its unique and vital global role in the twenty-first century, it must be upgraded in three key ways.
Fortunately, there is plenty to motivate world leaders to do what it takes. Indeed, the UN has had two major recent triumphs, with two more on the way before the end of this year.
The first triumph is the nuclear agreement with Iran. Sometimes misinterpreted as an agreement between Iran and the United States, the accord is in fact between Iran and the UN, represented by the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the US), plus Germany. An Iranian diplomat, in explaining why his country will scrupulously honor the agreement, made the point vividly: “Do you really think that Iran would dare to cheat on the very five UN Security Council permanent members that can seal our country’s fate?”
The second big triumph is the successful conclusion, after 15 years, of the Millennium Development Goals, which have underpinned the largest, longest, and most effective global poverty-reduction effort ever undertaken. Two UN Secretaries-General have overseen the MDGs: Kofi Annan, who introduced them in 2000, and Ban Ki-moon, who, since succeeding Annan at the start of 2007, has led vigorously and effectively to achieve them.
The MDGs have engendered impressive progress in poverty reduction, public health, school enrollment, gender equality in education, and other areas. Since 1990 (the reference date for the targets), the global rate of extreme poverty has been reduced by well over half – more than fulfilling the agenda’s number one goal.
Inspired by the MDGs’ success, the UN’s member countries are set to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – which will aim to end extreme poverty in all its forms everywhere, narrow inequalities, and ensure environmental sustainability by 2030 – next month. This, the UN’s third triumph of 2015, could help to bring about the fourth: a global agreement on climate control, under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Paris in December.
The precise value of the peace, poverty reduction, and environmental cooperation made possible by the UN is incalculable. If we were to put it in monetary terms, however, we might estimate their value at trillions of dollars per year – at least a few percent of the world economy’s annual GDP of $100 trillion.
Yet spending on all UN bodies and activities – from the Secretariat and the Security Council to peacekeeping operations, emergency responses to epidemics, and humanitarian operations for natural disasters, famines, and refugees – totaled roughly $45 billion in 2013, roughly $6 per person on the planet. That is not just a bargain; it is a significant underinvestment. Given the rapidly growing need for global cooperation, the UN simply cannot get by on its current budget.
Given this, the first reform that I would suggest is an increase in funding, with high-income countries contributing at least $40 per capita annually, upper middle-income countries giving $8, lower-middle-income countries $2, and low-income countries $1. With these contributions – which amount to roughly 0.1% of the group’s average per capita income – the UN would have about $75 billion annually with which to strengthen the quality and reach of vital programs, beginning with those needed to achieve the SDGs. Once the world is on a robust path to achieve the SDGs, the need for, say, peacekeeping and emergency-relief operations should decline as conflicts diminish in number and scale, and natural disasters are better prevented or anticipated.
This brings us to the second major area of reform: ensuring that the UN is fit for the new age of sustainable development. Specifically, the UN needs to strengthen its expertise in areas such as ocean health, renewable energy systems, urban design, disease control, technological innovation, public-private partnerships, and peaceful cultural cooperation. Some UN programs should be merged or closed, while other new SDG-related UN programs should be created.
The third major reform imperative is the UN’s governance, starting with the Security Council, the composition of which no longer reflects global geopolitical realities. Indeed, the Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) now accounts for three of the five permanent members (France, the United Kingdom, and the US). That leaves only one permanent position for the Eastern European Group (Russia), one for the Asia-Pacific Group (China), and none for Africa or Latin America.
The rotating seats on the Security Council do not adequately restore regional balance. Even with two of the ten rotating Security Council seats, the Asia-Pacific region is still massively under-represented. The Asia-Pacific region accounts for roughly 55% of the world’s population and 44% of its annual income but has just 20% (three out of 15) of the seats on the Security Council.
Asia’s inadequate representation poses a serious threat to the UN’s legitimacy, which will only increase as the world’s most dynamic and populous region assumes an increasingly important global role. One possible way to resolve the problem would be to add at least four Asian seats: one permanent seat for India, one shared by Japan and South Korea (perhaps in a two-year, one-year rotation), one for the ASEAN countries (representing the group as a single constituency), and a fourth rotating among the other Asian countries.
As the UN enters its eighth decade, it continues to inspire humanity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains the world’s moral charter, and the SDGs promise to provide new guideposts for global development cooperation. Yet the UN’s ability to continue to fulfill its vast potential in a new and challenging century requires its member states to commit to support the organization with the resources, political backing, and reforms that this new era demands.
OXFORD – When the United Nations elects a new secretary-general next year, the world will face a crucial choice. With crises erupting in every region of the world, the need for strong, decisive leadership is self-evident. And yet the selection process for filling important international posts has often been characterized more by political horse-trading than a meritocratic search for the best candidate.
The tools to improve the process are available, and the time is right to ensure their adoption by the UN and other international organizations. A new report by the World Economic Forum and Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government lays out a series of best practices – each one of which has already been implemented by at least one international agency – that can guarantee that leaders are drawn from the most qualified candidates, and that the organizations for which they work are vested with the best possible management practices.
For starters, it is important to professionalize the selection process. For too long, backroom deals among governments have taken precedence over searching for a candidate with the relevant skills and experience. When Pascal Lamy, one of the authors of the report, was chosen to become head of the World Trade Organization, there was not even a description of the job against which his qualifications could be measured.
Once a candidate has been chosen, it is important to set clear performance expectations that can be evaluated annually. Groups like the World Health Organization – which came under fierce criticism during the Ebola crisis – can learn from the 80% of American non-profit boards that have a formal process in place for a yearly evaluation of their CEO.
Ethical standards also need to be strengthened. In April, Spanish police questioned Rodrigo Rato, a former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, as part of a corruption probe. Not long before that, his successor at the IMF, Dominique Strauss Kahn, faced pimping charges in France.
Putting in place a code that sets out clear standards for identifying conflicts of interest and robust methods for dealing with complaints about a leader’s behavior is crucial. In recent years, allegations of improper behavior have led to resignations by the heads of the IMF, the World Bank, and the UN Refugee Agency.
A leader is only as good as the people who work for him, so organizations must make it a high priority to attract and retain good staff and rid themselves of those who lack professional integrity or competence. Many global agencies are introducing systematic surveys of their employees, but much remains to be improved. Crucially, international organizations must build up the capacity to resist governments’ efforts to protect their underperforming nationals. Performance evaluations should be made public, allowing outsiders to measure progress (or the lack thereof).
Organizations also need to focus more on delivering results and tracking outcomes. For decades, countries borrowing from the World Bank and regional development banks have begged for the loan process to be expedited; most cannot afford to wait more than two years to find out whether a loan has been approved. Halving the time it takes to approve a loan is the kind of operational goal that a good leader can set, and for which he or she can subsequently be held to account.
It is also important to ensure well-structured, systematic engagement with stakeholders and civil-society groups, which is necessary to ensure high-quality and innovative inputs. Adopting an ad hoc approach, as many organizations currently do, frequently yields poor results.
Finally, it is crucial that organizations learn from their mistakes. Fortunately, almost all global agencies have instituted processes for independent evaluation. Less happily, most are still grappling with how to implement lessons learned. Evaluation is important, but it needs to be followed up with strong governance reforms that require leaders to shift incentives and behavior.
Pressure for change is mounting. In November 2014, Avaaz, the United Nations Association, and other NGOs launched a campaign to reform the selection process by which the UN secretary-general is chosen, replacing an opaque process dominated by the permanent members of the Security Council with a transparent one, in which all countries have a say. Among their demands are a clear job description for the role, public scrutiny of candidates, and a shortlist with more than one candidate.
Progress is being made in some agencies. The UN High Commission for Refugees now describes its objectives in its Global Strategic Priorities and evaluates progress toward them annually. And all senior UN officials must file an annual financial-disclosure statement with the organization’s ethics office.
One notably successful agency in this regard is the African Development Bank (AfDB), which has introduced an organization-wide whistle-blowing policy, an anti-corruption and fraud framework, and an office to investigate disclosures. The AfDB will choose a new president in May, and it has not only defined the job clearly; it has also identified eight candidates and asked each to set out their strategy in advance of the election.
The world relies on international organizations to coordinate the global response to a host of critical threats, from pandemics to financial crises. An effective UN leader needs to be able to persuade member states to cooperate, manage the organization well, and deliver results. Without good leadership, any organization – even the UN – is destined to fail.
Gareth Evans, former Foreign Minister of Australia (1988-1996) and President of the International Crisis Group (2000-2009), is currently Chancellor of the Australian National University.
He co-chairs the New York-based Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect and the Canberra-based Center for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
He is the author of The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All and co-author of Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015.
MAR 26, 2013 – Project Syndicate
Valuing the United Nations.
MELBOURNE – There is nothing like exposure to smart and idealistic young people to make jaded and world-weary policymakers and commentators feel better about the future. I have just had that experience meeting delegates to the 22nd World Model United Nations Conference, which brought together in Australia more than 2,000 students from every continent and major culture to debate peace, development, and human rights, and the role of the UN in securing them.
What impressed me most is how passionately this generation of future leaders felt about the relevance and capacity of the UN system. They are right: the UN can deliver when it comes to national security, human security, and human dignity. But, as I told them, they have a big task of persuasion ahead of them.
No organization in the world embodies as many dreams, yet provides so many frustrations, as the United Nations. For most of its history, the Security Council has been the prisoner of great-power maneuvering; the General Assembly a theater of empty rhetoric; the Economic and Social Council a largely dysfunctional irrelevance; and the Secretariat, for all the dedication and brilliance of a host of individuals, alarmingly inefficient.
My own efforts to advance the cause of UN reform when I was Australia’s foreign minister were about as quixotic and unproductive as anything I have ever tried to do. Overhauling Secretariat structures and processes to reduce duplication, waste, and irrelevance? Forget it. Changing the composition of the Security Council to ensure that it began to reflect the world of the twenty-first century, not that of the 1950’s? No way.
But I have also had some exhilarating experiences of the UN at its best. The peace plan for Cambodia in the early 1990’s, for example, dragged the country back from hellish decades of horrifying genocide and ugly and protracted civil war. Likewise, the Chemical Weapons Convention, steered through the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, is still the most robust arms-control treaty related to weapons of mass destruction ever negotiated.
Perhaps one experience stands out above all. In 2005, on the UN’s 60th anniversary, the General Assembly, convening at head of state and government level, unanimously endorsed the concept of states’ responsibility to protect populations at risk of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes. With that vote, the international community began to eradicate the shameful indifference that accompanied the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur, and too many similar catastrophes.
What needs to be better understood publicly is just how many different roles the UN plays. The various departments, programs, organs, and agencies within the UN system address a broad spectrum of issues, from peace and security between and within states to human rights, health, education, poverty alleviation, disaster relief, refugee protection, trafficking of people and drugs, heritage protection, climate change and the environment, and much else. What is least appreciated of all is how cost-effectively these agencies – for all their limitations – perform overall, in both absolute and comparative terms.
The UN’s core functions – leaving aside peacekeeping missions but including its operations at its New York headquarters; at offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi; and at the five regional commissions around the world – now employ 44,000 people at a cost of around $2.5 billion a year. That might sound like a lot, but the Tokyo Fire Department spends about the same amount each year, and the Australian Department of Human Services spends $3 billion more (with less staff). And that’s just two departments in two of the UN’s 193 member states.
Even including related programs and organs (like the UN Development Program and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees), as well as peacekeeping activities (which involve more than 110,000 international military, police, and civilian personnel), the UN system’s total cost is still only around $30 billion a year. That is less than half the annual budget for New York City, and well under a third of the roughly $105 billion that the US military has been spending each year, on average, in Afghanistan. Wall Street employees received more in annual bonuses ($33.2 billion) in 2007, the year before the global financial meltdown.
The whole family of the UN Secretariat and related entities, together with current peacekeepers, adds up to around 215,000 people worldwide – not a small number, but less than one-eighth of the roughly 1.8 million staff employed by McDonald’s and its franchisees worldwide!
The bottom line, as the youngsters gathered in Melbourne fully understood, is that the UN provides fabulous value for what the world spends on it, and that if it ever ceased to exist, we would have to reinvent it. The downsides are real, but we need to remember the immortal words of Dag Hammarskjold, the UN’s second secretary-general: “The UN was created not to bring us to heaven, but to save us from hell.”
oday is my last day at Rolling Stone. As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.
I’ll have plenty of time to talk about the new job elsewhere. But in this space, I just want to talk about Rolling Stone, and express my thanks. Today is a very bittersweet day for me. As excited as I am about the new opportunity, I’m sad to be leaving this company.
More than 15 years ago, Rolling Stone sent a reporter, Brian Preston, to do a story on the eXile, the biweekly English-language newspaper I was editing in Moscow at the time with Mark Ames. We abused the polite Canadian Preston terribly – I think we thought we were being hospitable – and he promptly went home and wrote a story about us that was painful, funny and somewhat embarrassingly accurate. Looking back at that story now, in fact, I’m surprised that Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana gave me a call years later, after I’d returned to the States.
I remember when Will called, because it was such an important moment in my life. I was on the American side of Niagara Falls, walking with friends, when my cell phone rang. Night had just fallen and when Will invited me to write a few things in advance of the 2004 presidential election, I nearly walked into the river just above the Falls.
At the time, I was having a hard time re-acclimating to life in America and was a mess personally. I was broke and having anxiety attacks. I specifically remember buying three cans of corned beef hash with the last dollars of available credit on my last credit card somewhere during that period. Anyway I botched several early assignments for the magazine, but Will was patient and eventually brought me on to write on a regular basis.
It was my first real job and it changed my life. Had Rolling Stone not given me a chance that year, God knows where I’d be – one of the ideas I was considering most seriously at the time was going to Ukraine to enroll in medical school, of all things.
In the years that followed, both Will and editor/publisher Jann S. Wenner were incredibly encouraging and taught me most of what I now know about this business. It’s been an amazing experience. I’ve had a front-row seat for some of the strangest and most interesting episodes of our recent history. At various times, thanks to this magazine, I’ve spent days hiding in a cell at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, gone undercover in an apocalyptic church in Texas (where I learned to vomit my demons into a paper bag), and even helped run a campaign office for George W. Bush along the I-4 corridor in Florida, getting so into the assignment that I was involuntarily happy when Bush won.
I was at the Michael Jackson trial, so close to the defendant I could see the outlines of his original nose. I met past and future presidents. I shared Udon noodles with Dennis Kucinich in a van on a highway in Maine. And I paddled down the streets of Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, so deep into the disaster zone that a soldier in a rescue copter above mistook me for a victim and threw a Meal Ready to Eat off my head. I still have that MRE, it has some kind of pop tart in it – I’m going to give it to my son someday.
To be able to say you work for Rolling Stone, it’s a feeling any journalist in his right mind should want to experience. The magazine’s very name is like a magic word. I noticed it from the very first assignment. Even people who know they probably shouldn’t talk to you, do, once they hear you’re from the magazine Dr. Hook sang about. And if they actually see the business card, forget it. People will do anything to get into the magazine, to have some of that iconic cool rub off on them.
There were times when I would think about the great reporters and writers who’ve had the same job I was so lucky to have, and it would be almost overwhelming – it was like being the Dread Pirate Roberts. It was a true honor and I’ll eternally be in the debt of Will and Jann, and Sean Woods and Coco McPherson and Victor Juhasz and Alison Weinflash and so many others with whom it was my privilege to work. I wish there was something I could say that is stronger than Thank You.
No journalist has ever been luckier than me. Thank you, Rolling Stone.
Lockheed Martin Signs Contract with Victorian Wave Partners to Develop Wave Energy Project.
Published on February 12, 2014
To advance the availability of alternative energy solutions, Lockheed Martin announced today that it has signed a contract with Victorian Wave Partners Ltd. to begin developing the world’s largest wave energy project announced to date. This is a significant step toward making ocean energy commercially available.
Wave power uses special buoys that use the rising and falling of ocean waves to generate electricity. (PRNewsFoto/Lockheed Martin)
The 62.5-megawatt peak power wave energy generation project will be built off the coast of Victoria, Australia, using the PowerBuoy® wave energy converter technology of Ocean Power Technologies (OPT). The project is scheduled to be built up in three stages, with the first stage producing approximately 2.5-megawatt peak power. Once completed, the project is expected to produce enough energy to meet the needs of 10,000 homes. As this project also contributes to Australia’s goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, it has received significant grant support from ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency).
Wave power devices extract energy from the surface motion of ocean waves. Unlike wind and solar sources, energy from ocean waves is very predictable and can generate electricity for more hours in the year than wind and solar. In addition, wave power devices are typically quieter and much less visually obtrusive as compared to wind turbines, which typically run more than 130 feet in height. In contrast, a PowerBuoy is only 30 feet in height above the waterline and is barely visible, as it is typically three miles offshore.
“We are applying our design and system integration expertise to commercialize promising, emerging alternative energy technologies, including ocean power,” said Tim Fuhr, director of ocean energy for Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Training business. “This project extends our established relationship with OPT and Australian industry and enables us to demonstrate a clean, efficient energy source for Australia and the world.”
In this project, Lockheed Martin will provide overall project management, assist with the design for manufacturing of the PowerBuoy technology, lead the production of selected PowerBuoy components and perform system integration of the wave energy converters.
“We are pleased to be working with Lockheed Martin in connection with this exciting project in Australia,” said Charles F. Dunleavy, chief executive officer of OPT. “Development of this project draws on core strengths of both our companies and represents an important undertaking for commercialization of the PowerBuoy technology.”
Victorian Wave Partners Ltd. is an Australian special purpose company owned by Ocean Power Technologies Australasia Pty Ltd. OPT is a leader in wave energy technology development. The company’s PowerBuoy wave generation technology uses a “smart,” ocean-going buoy to convert wave energy into low-cost, clean electricity. The buoy moves up and down with the rising and falling of waves. This mechanical energy drives an electrical generator, which transmits power to shore via an underwater cable. The system is electrically tuned on a wave-by-wave basis to maximize the amount of electricity produced.
Lockheed Martin takes a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate challenges, delivering solutions in the areas of energy efficiency, smart energy management, alternative power generation and climate monitoring. The company brings high-level capabilities in complex systems integration, project management, information technology, cyber security, and advanced manufacturing techniques to help address these challenges. Today, Lockheed Martin is partnering with customers and investing talent in clean, secure, and smart energy – enabling global security, a strong economic future, and climate protection for future generations.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 115,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation’s net sales for 2013 were $45.4 billion.
Administration Is Seen as Retreating on Environment in Talks on Pacific Trade.
By Coral Davenport of The New York Times, January 15, 2014
Documents obtained by WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration is pulling back on environmental protections to reach a trade deal that is a pillar of the president’s strategic shift to Asia.
Read more at www.onenewspage.com/n/Science/7509arywd/Administration-Is-Seen-as-Retreating-on-Environment-in.htm#ur9WIpYRBZj7S6E2.99
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is retreating from previous demands of strong international environmental protections in order to reach agreement on a sweeping Pacific trade deal that is a pillar of President Obama’s strategic shift to Asia,according to documents obtained by WikiLeaks, environmentalists and people close to the contentious trade talks.The negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would be one of the world’s biggest trade agreements, have exposed deep rifts over environmental policy between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. As it stands now, the documents, viewed by The New York Times, show that the disputes could undo key global environmental protections.
The environmental chapter of the trade deal has been among most highly disputed elements of negotiations in the pact. Participants in the talks, which have dragged on for three years, had hoped to complete the deal by the end of 2013.
Environmentalists said that the draft appears to signal that the United States will retreat on a variety of environmental protections — including legally binding pollution control requirements and logging regulations and a ban on harvesting sharks’ fins — to advance a trade deal that is a top priority for Mr. Obama.
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Michael Froman, the United States trade representative, said, “We’re pushing hard.” Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesIlana Solomon, the director of the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program, said the draft omits crucial language ensuring that increased trade will not lead to further environmental destruction.
“It rolls back key standards set by Congress to ensure that the environment chapters are legally enforceable, in the same way the commercial parts of free-trade agreements are,” Ms. Solomon said. The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Wildlife Fund have been following the negotiations closely and are expected to release a report on Wednesday criticizing the draft.
American officials countered that they had put forward strong environmental proposals in the pact.
“It is an uphill battle, but we’re pushing hard,” said Michael Froman, the United States trade representative. “We have worked closely with the environmental community from the start and have made our commitment clear.” Mr. Froman said he continued to pursue a robust, enforceable environmental standard that he said would be stronger than those in previous free-trade agreements.
The draft documents are dated Nov. 24 and there has been one meeting since then.
The documents consist of the environmental chapter as well as a “Report from the Chairs,” which offers an unusual behind-the-scenes look into the divisive trade negotiations, until now shrouded in secrecy. The report indicates that the United States has been pushing for tough environmental provisions, particularly legally binding language that would provide for sanctions against participating countries for environmental violations. The United States is also insisting that the nations follow existing global environmental treaties.
But many of those proposals are opposed by most or all of the other Pacific Rim nations working on the deal, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Peru. Developing Asian countries, in particular, have long resisted outside efforts to enforce strong environmental controls, arguing that they could hurt their growing economies.
The report appears to indicate that the United States is losing many of those fights, and bluntly notes the rifts: “While the chair sought to accommodate all the concerns and red lines that were identified by parties regarding the issues in the text, many of the red lines for some parties were in direct opposition to the red lines expressed by other parties.”
As of now, the draft environmental chapter does not require the nations to follow legally binding environmental provisions or other global environmental treaties. The text notes only, for example, that pollution controls could vary depending on a country’s “domestic circumstances and capabilities.”
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KarlosTJ
11 minutes agoLet’s not worry about getting the best trades we can – let’s worry about the environment. Because after all, allowing Americans to save…
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25 minutes agoOnce again, WikiLeaks shows us what we need to know. The environment is the economy. We can learn it now or after much suffering. But it…
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In addition, the draft does not contain clear requirements for a ban on shark finning, which is the practice of capturing sharks and cutting off their fins — commonly used in shark-fin soup — and throwing back the sharks to die. The dish is a delicacy in many of the Asian negotiating countries. At this point the draft says that the countries “may include” bans “as appropriate” on such practices.
Earlier pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement included only appendices, which called for cooperation on environmental issues but not legally binding terms or requirements. Environmentalists derided them as “green window dressing.”
But in May 2007, President George W. Bush struck an environmental deal with Democrats in the Senate and the House as he sought to move a free-trade agreement with Peru through Congress. In what became known as the May 10 Agreement, Democrats got Mr. Bush to agree that all American free-trade deals would include a chapter with environmental provisions, phrased in the same legally binding language as chapters on labor, agriculture and intellectual property. The Democrats also insisted that the chapter require nations to recognize existing global environmental treaties.
Since then, every American free-trade deal has included that strong language, although all have been between the United States and only one other country. It appears to be much tougher to negotiate environmental provisions in a 12-nation agreement.
“Bilateral negotiations are a very different thing,” said Jennifer Haverkamp, the former head of the United States trade representative’s environmental office. “Here, if the U.S. is the only one pushing for this, it’s a real uphill battle to get others to agree if they don’t like it.”
But business groups say the deal may need to ease up. “There are some governments with developing economies that will need more time and leeway,” said Cal Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, a group of about 100 executives and trade associations that lobbies the United States trade negotiator on the deal. “When you think about the evolution of labor provisions, you realize how many centuries the development of high standards took.”
Since the trade talks began, lawmakers and advocacy groups have assailed the negotiators for keeping the process secret, and WikiLeaks has been among the most critical voices. The environment chapter is the third in a series of Trans-Pacific Partnership documents released by WikiLeaks. In November, the group posted the draft chapter on intellectual property. In December, the site posted documents detailing disagreements between the negotiating parties on other issues. The site is expected to release more documents as the negotiations unfold.
A version of this article appears in print on January 15, 2014, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Administration Is Seen as Retreating on Environment in Talks on Pacific Trade.
A Russian ice breaker makes its way to Antarctica. Photo: Dan Smith
Australian academics have pointed to dangers that Antarctic bases are for the first time being militarised, despite the continent officially being called a land of peace and science.
Satellite systems at polar bases could be used to control offensive weapons, according to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and little could be done to prevent it due to the loose nature of the Antarctic Treaty rules.
The report highlights a Chinese base inland in the Australian Antarctic Territory for its satellite intelligence gathering potential and also flags Iran’s recent interest in establishing a polar presence.
Abuses of the treaty’s strict controls on any use of military personnel are said to have already occurred with many countries not reporting their use in Antarctica, while Australia is neglecting to use defence assets there.
The report, “Cold Calculations”, released on Monday, warns that the increasing militarisation is occurring just as Australia’s Antarctic efforts face crippling budget restrictions.
“We run our Antarctic program on the smell of an oily rag,” said Australian Strategic Policy Institute deputy director Anthony Bergin. “For 2013–14, its overall budget is $169 million, an 8 per cent cut from 2012–13.”
The latest Defence White Paper said there was no credible risk to Australia’s national interests in the Antarctic that might require substantial military responses over the next few decades.
“But in the decades to come, military conflict between the major powers could well have an Antarctic dimension, given the possible role of Antarctic bases in surveillance and satellite monitoring,” Dr Bergin said.
“We’re not using our military resources to support our Antarctic program, even though many other nations use theirs. It’s part of the verification regime that they should report the use of military personnel, but many don’t.”
The central rule of the Antarctic Treaty for guaranteeing peaceful use of the continent is a agreement that any nation can inspect another’s operations.
However, the co-author of Cold Calculations, Sam Bateman of the University of Wollongong, questioned whether this inspection regime was up to assessing whether research was being conducted for non-peaceful purposes.
Professor Bateman said it was likely that Antarctic bases were being used increasingly for military research involving space and satellites.
“We could be moving towards the increased weaponisation of Antarctica through the use of Antarctic bases to control offensive weapons systems,” he said. “That possibility is worrying.”
The clear, interference-free skies of Antarctica make them suitable for space observation, and Professor Bateman pointed to China’s third Antarctic station, Kunlun, at one of the highest and coldest points on the continent.
“It’s ideally suited for sending, receiving or intercepting signals from satellites,” Professor Bateman said.
He said both China and India had active government programs and were seeking to increase the number of their bases – yet neither currently reported the use of military personnel and it may be time for the treaty to tighten reporting requirements.
“This might include, for example, widening reporting of introductions of military personnel into Antarctica to recognise the possible employment of private security contractors and other civilian personnel in activities of an essentially military nature.”
Iran’s foray into Antarctica as a maritime power was recently confirmed though the government’s semi-official Fars News Agency, which reported Rear Admiral Khadem Biqam as saying its first phase would involve co-operation with another nation.
At the same time, Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings raised doubt about the Australian Defence Force’s ability to sustain a maritime presence during a full Antarctic summer season.
“Our currently very limited capacity to operate in the far south is looking embarrassingly poor and not in keeping with the claim that this is part of the ADF’s primary operational environment.”
The strategic report comes as the Abbott government prepares to embark on developing a 20-year strategic plan, in a project to be led by the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre’s executive director, Tony Press.
Dr Press said the relentless erosion of core budget capacity ran the risk of recreating a “Sir Humphrey Appleby hospital” in Antarctica: three research stations and a marine science capability – but no means to fund and support real scientific activity.
2 days ago – By Chen Weihua in Washington and Li Xiaokun in Beijing ( China Daily) Visits to Beijing, …Biden going to Japan, China, S. Korea next month.
The following was e-mailed to us and I thought to post it because at the bottom-line it says – forget religion – that will not bring Muslims and Christians together (actually Muslims and non-Muslims) – but rather approach the issue from a common humanity direction. So, Muslim teaching will make it impossible for the Muslims to accept a different way of life as the one ordered in the Quran, but the Human side of Muslims that loosen up allows for hope.
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The Boston Bombings and Understanding the Islamic Worldview Interview with Mark Durie
David Wheaton: Perhaps you watched the Boston Marathon bombings that killed four people and injured more than 200 others and wondered, “Why would two young Muslim men, who were granted political asylum in America years ago, educated in our schools, and received financial aid from U.S. taxpayers, set off two bombs in order to murder and maim as many Americans as possible?”
It’s a very good question. It has been said that, “All Muslims are not terrorists … but almost all terrorist attacks against America are committed by Muslims.”
Why is this? What is it about Islam — or perhaps about America? — that leads two young Muslims to murder the people that have actually taken them in?
Mark Durie, an Australian pastor and author of three books on Islam joins us from Australia The Christian Worldview all the way from Australia.
Many pastors are trying to find common ground between the Christian faith and Islam, for instance the document that came out a few years ago in America, A Common Word Between Us and You signed by many evangelical leaders and the leaders of Islam. Why have you focused on the critical differences and pointed out some of the negative aspects of Islam?
Mark Durie: I think we do have precious common ground with Muslims, but it’s in our humanity, not in faith.
I think it’s really important to hold love together with truth, and not to abandon one for the other, or to pit them against each other. Truth means acknowledging the differences, which are great and significant, and not glossing over them or pretending they don’t exist. When you’re dealing with a very different faith it takes an effort and care to really understand those differences. That’s been part of my work, to help people understand what seems incomprehensible, what those differences really are.
DW: The Free Republicreported on April 15, saying this, “Shortly after terror bombs exploded and murdered over 12 people at the Boston marathon – I guess that’s an incorrect number – members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah were reported to be dancing in the streets of Gaza, handing out candies to passers by. The head of an Islamic organization in Jordan, the Muslim Salafi group, said he’s ‘happy to see the horror in America’ after the bombing attacks in Boston. ‘American blood isn’t more precious than Muslim blood,’ said Mohammad al-Chalabi, who was convicted in an Al-Qa’ida-linked plot to attack US and other Western diplomatic missions in Jordan. ‘Let the Americans feel the pain we endured by their armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and killing our people there.'”
Reportedly some people in the Muslim world celebrated the Boston bombings. The vast majority of the Muslim world not condemn it – I know there were some select Muslims who did.
MD: I think there are certainly Muslims who regard the West and America as the enemy and rejoice in what they regard as inflicting pain and harm on their enemy. So there are some like that. I think some Muslims in American also really prefer to emphasize that Muslims are the real victims – that’s a theological theme in Islam, that Muslims are the victims – so they don’t want the attention to be taken away from that. Also some Muslims don’t want to apologize for Islam. It causes them distress to have to engage with this [incidents of Islamic terrorism] and they resent being held to account for their faith. So there’s a deeper denial sometimes, at least among Western Muslims about Islamic radicalism. All these factors sometimes make it difficult for Muslims to engage.
DW: Now the response of the parents of bombers – the mother and the father – they had this to say in the immediate aftermath of the bombing: …
[Mother here:] “What happened is a terrible thing, but I know that my kids had nothing to do this.”
[Father here:] “Somebody clearly framed them. I don’t know exactly who framed them but they did. They framed them and then they were so cowardly that they shot them dead. There are policemen like that.”
[Mother:] “They were being killed just because they were Muslims. Nothing else.”
[Interviewer:] “Do you think they’ll get a fair trial?”
[Mother:] “Only Allah knows it. I don’t know.”
DW: So that was the mother and the father of the two bombers. You could understand how parents are in denial sometimes. But it seems that there is an unbridgeable truth gap between the West and the Muslim world. For instance, whether it is just denying the patently obvious of what took place in Boston, but even on a broader scale, denial of the holocaust; or saying that 9/11 was not done by Muslims, it was an inside job; or the ‘fact’ that America is out to take over the world – that sort of thing. In your studies is there an unbridgeable truth gap between the West and the Muslim world?
MD: I think there’s an emotional world-view gap that drives the truth gap. Shame and honour are very powerful forces in Islamic culture, and there’s a desire to claim the moral high ground of being a victim. They did this to them “just because they are Muslims,” the mother of the bombers said.
“We are the victims!” one Muslim scholar was screaming on al-Jazeera, in a debate with Wafa Sultan, who is a doctor who left Islam. She had challenged him, saying, look Muslims had done some bad things, but he just began to scream at her: “We are the victims!”
This sense that “We are the victims: there’s nothing wrong with us, it is someone else’s fault”: that is what drives these wild conspiracy theories and denial of obvious and plain truth. I think underlying it is something like shame or just some sort of fear, and this creates the sense of unreality. The Muslim world is awash with bizarre conspiracy theories. There is a truth gap, but it is because of an emotional world-view gap.
DW: Chris Matthews, a politially liberal host here in America, had this to say as they were trying to find a possible reason or motivation behind these bombings.
[Clint Van Zandt, FBI Profiler:] “The pieces we don’t have Chris is “Where was their inspiration? Where did they get their guidance? Who taught them how to build the bombs? Where did they build them? These are a lot of questions.”
[Chris Matthews, interrupting and shouting over Van Zandt:] “Why is that important? Why is that important to prosecuting? Is that important to prosecuting? I mean, what difference does it make why they did if they did it? I’m being tough here but I don’t know whether, when you look at all this evidence…”
Frankly Mark, I do want to know why they did this. How much credence is there to [the claim that] Muslims conducting terrorist attacks in America is because of America’s “meddling” in the Islamic world, like that previous quote, of being involving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others will say they hate our freedom and lifestyle and they try to kill us because of that.
Contrary to what Chris Matthews just said, I really do want to know what motivates these Islamic terrorists, these two young men specifically, to do this kind of thing.
MD: Well the first thing is that it is not just Americans that are being attacked by radical Muslims. Just recently the Coptic cathedral in Cairo was attacked and someone was shot. Actually Christian minorities in Muslim countries are attacked and hated as well, so it is not just America.
The root of the problem is in the Qur’an. The Qur’an says “Fighting is obligatory for you, though you dislike it.” [Sura 2:126]. The word in Arabic for fighting means “to kill.” And it says also “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers. Cut off their heads, and cut off their limbs.” [Sura 8:12]
There’s a stream that’s at the core of Islam that generates hatred against non-believers. Christians are being killed and attacked in Nigeria and in the Sudan, and that’s not because they are a world power or a dominant force.
There is an old Islamic doctrine that the blood of infidels is halal: it can be taken. It’s not a crime to attack a non-Muslim, and the radicals, like the Tsarnaev brothers, they are taught this sort of worldview. It’s the devaluation of the lives of non-Muslims in these radical versions of Islam that’s the real problem.
The blame-the-victim response – “it’s our fault that we’re being killed” – that’s a terrible mistake to fall into. That’s just what the terrorists want you to think – that it’s your fault.
DW: So if America weren’t involved in the Middle East, let’s say not involved in Afganistan and Iraq – let’s say still supporting Israel as an ally – these kind of things would still happen?
MD: Oh absolutely. The hostility would only increase. America stands for the freedom and the power and might of the non-Muslim world, and that’s enough to justify the jihad. You won’t get peace by withdrawing from those places. It’s not going to happen.
DW: I watched these Boston bombings and the aftermath in the media, and I thought “What are they really trying to accomplish, these two Muslim men, by just setting off two bombs and randomly killing some civilians on a street in Boston. One would think that would turn world opinion against them, but it doesn’t seem to. What do you think is trying to be accomplished? Are they trying to take over America? Obviously that’s not going to work. They can’t do it with a couple of bombs on a sidewalk in Boston.
MD: Well, there’s two reasons. One is, as the Qur’an says, to strike terror in the hearts of the enemy [Sura 8:60, see also 3:150, 8:], to condition fear in who they [the terrorists] regard as the enemy, which is non-Muslims.
And the other is, as a leading scholar in Syria [Al-Bouti see here] said in a ruling made about suicide bombings, it is permissible to do it to spite the enemy, that is to hurt them. So there’s the desire to hurt someone who is thought to be an enemy. That’s the pleasure of inflicting harm on your enemy.
DW: Mark, let’s come back to America, from the standpoint of Americans to this. Why don’t you think President Obama ever mentions the words Muslim or Islam in connection with terrorist attacks like this in Boston, when clearly the Islamic religion is the motivating force behind these Muslims doing this?
MD: For one thing he has a secular liberal view that all religions are much the same. So he denies that Islam is the reason or makes any contribution to these acts.
Furthermore he identifies with Islam – as he has explained to the Muslim world – because his father was a Muslim and he was exposed to Islamic worldview and background when he was a kid. So he is very deliberate about deflecting attention away from Islam. He has forbidden his spokespeople to make any links between Islam and terrorism. It is his deliberate policy to do that.
DW: The political left here in America were openly hoping that the bombers would be an American terrorist, like a Timothy McVeigh, the guy who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma, sort of a home grown right-wing extremist type person. They were hoping the bombers would not be Muslim. Why do you think the political Left want to protect Islam, especially when Islam is so against what the Left holds dear, things like sexual “freedom”, homosexuality, multiculturalism… None of these things are tenets of Islam. They stand against those things, but the political left sides with the Muslims, they go soft on calling this what it is, Islamic terrorist.
MD: It’s true, David, that those on the left wouldn’t last long in an Islamic state, but they support the Islam project. That’s a really fascinating thing and there’s a number of reasons that all come together. One is that the left hasn’t really come to terms with the failure of communism, and they don’t actually have an ideal to hold out as a result, except that they hate capitalism, and thus they hate America as well, and they share that hatred with radical Islam. So on the basis that “Whoever is my enemy’s enemy must be my friend,” there’s a natural partnering there.
Another is the victimhood thing. The left loves a victim, and Islam promotes itself – Muslims promote themselves – as victims, so there’s a partnering there.
And another is that both ideologies are totalitarian, so there’s somehow an affinity where the two work together. But as you say, radical sharia law would just destroy many of the projects that the left holds dear.
DW: I’ve often thought that the Islamic world – those who are intent on world domination – think that the bigger force to deal with first are those who hold the conservative or Christian worldview in the west, and once they are dealt with there’s going to be no problem to take out the political left.
Mark, these young men, the Boston bombers, had been in America – they were actually given politcal asylum here in America, escaping their homeland over in the former Soviet Republic of Chechenya. They had been in America for many years – I think at least one of them had been here for about ten years -– and were supported financially to a large extent by Americans taxpayers. From your understanding, your research, how does one get radicalized to the point that they would actually attack the country that had helped them?
MD: I think there’s two reasons. One was explained by their uncle, Uncle Ruslan, [here] who had absolute contempt for them. He said they did not ‘settle’ – that is, they couldn’t find a meaningful way of making a path for themselves. Tamerlan had wanted to be an engineer, but he did not do well enough; then he wanted to do boxing, but he wasn’t quite good enough at that; he felt superior but he wasn’t getting on.
But the [second] key factor then was that they were exposed to radical teachers who told them about their superiority as conservative Muslims, and offered them this sense of significance, the hope of achieving paradise if they gave their lives in jihad. It’s that radicalisation, the teaching, the doctrine, which was the key issue.
DW: The wife of the older bomber. She was just a regular American girl. I think she was just in college. She met the older bomber and then was married to him, and she actually converted to Islam, which is to me very unusual, to grow up in America, to know the lifestyle here in America of personal freedom versus voluntarily taking on the constrictions of Islam with the headcovering and the different kinds of lifestyle restrictions. What is allure of Islam for a American girl who decides all of a sudden to convert to that religion?
MD: It’s interesting David that quite a lot of women are converting to Islam in the West, more perhaps than men. One woman explained to me that sometimes Muslim men are good looking and attractive, so there’s that factor.
And for some young women, the modern secular west seems rootless, and morally and spiritually lost and Islam seems to offer safe-haven, a place where you know what you are supposed to do, where you’ve got a clear place, and where you don’t have to put yourself on show.
Sometimes women are ignorant and deceived.
There’s also the issue of dominance. It seems that Katharine Russell partnered with a young man who was abusive and dominating and he put a lot of pressure on her. All those factors can come together.
DW: A strain of Islam, both preached by some Imams and practiced by certain followers, actually encourages death – either death by martyrdom for the cause of Islam, as the only sure path to Allah, or also death to non-Muslims, as you have been talking about, and that’s where we see these terrorist attacks as something that pleases Allah. Now it’s just the opposite in the Christian faith. Jesus said “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Jesus also said in John 8:44 “He, Satan, was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and a father of lies.” I don’t want to be too extreme on this, because Satan is the father of all false religions, because he’s very happy that people are religious but not following the one and only true way through Jesus Christ. How do you categorise Islam compared to other false ways?
MD: I think it’s true that Islam does emphasize death, and the Qur’an criticizes the Jews for loving life [Sura 2:96]. And it’s also true that Islam is in many respects very antagonistic to core values of the gospel. Muhammad, for example, hated crosses and would destroy anything that had a cross on it. Also Islam has been the most devastating ideology in terms of its impact on the Christian world. Most of the ancient Christian world was overwhelmed. His track record is really incredibly devastating. I believe Muhammad was a false prophet. His message was not true. He did not lead people to God but away from God.
Is it the ultimate? Is it the worst expression of the Satanic delusion, that all of us can be affected by? I’m reluctant to say that, but certainly militant Islam has had a hugely devastating effect.
This is one reason why I find it very distressing when people in the West speak of “the prophet Muhammad”. He’s not a prophet. He’s a false prophet. And we need to find ways that really distance ourselves from the claims of Islam, so that we don’t just accept them or speak about it with reverence and respect. Because it is not a true religion.
DW: What would you say to those professing Christians that think that Islam and Christianity can work together because of our shared values of “loving God and loving neighbor”? A lot of Christians think that Allah and God – and Muslims used those words interchangeably — are the same thing. How would you respond to that Mark?
MD: I think it’s tempting to think that people of a different faith just believe more or less the same things that we do. We look at another faith and think “Oh it must be the same.” But that’s just too easy. You need to pay attention to what people actually teach and believe. And even some leading Christian thinkers and writers like Miroslav Volf from Yale University have said “Islam teaches love of the neighbor.” It’s not true. Islam teaches love of the Muslim neighbor, but not of the non-Muslim neighbor.
The Qur’an actually teaches Muslims to show harshness to non-Muslim neighbors and to fight against them [Sura 9:123, Sura 48:29] so you shouldn’t look to religion to be the basis of working together. You should look to common humanity.
I think Christians and Muslims can work together, but not based on a shared religious belief, but rather on their shared humanity, their conscience, their awareness of right and wrong that’s not necessarily based on religion at all, but is just part of the human condition.
DW: What have you found that helps Christians and people in general understand and deal with Islam in the best way?
MD: I think it’s really important to study Islam for yourself. Look at the original sources. There are some very good books that make those sources available. Take the Life of Muhammad: to understand how different it actually is, you really need to be confronted with teachings that say do not love non-Muslims. You need to read those things thoroughly. My book The Third Choice explains Islam clearly, and that’s a resource.
Another thing is you need to set aside the need to be comforted, such as thinking that all religions are the same, or everyone is basically decent: that’s not a good basis for examining these differences. You have to pay attention and look at the issues for what they are.
Another is don’t try to find solutions too quickly. Solutions come later. First you have to understand the problem and live with that and understand that first. The solutions will come as you allow those facts to come to your mind.
DW: Tell us what the situation is like in Australia with regards to Australia? Are you experiencing a lot of the same things, maybe more, because you are closer to the Islamic world? What’s it like down there Mark?
MD: About 2.4% of the Australian population is Muslim. They come from many, many different countries, so their stories are very diverse, because they come from different places. Some Muslims have had difficulties settling here, and we have certainly have the radicals here too – as in the US, where I think there have been hundreds of potential Boston bombings that have been thwarted by the FBI – we’ve had issues here too: people have been arrested and imprisoned for plotting here. In general most Muslims are doing pretty well and adapting well to Australia, but it’s not all roses by any means.
One really good thing that’s happened here is that both sides of politics have repeatedly said very clearly we’re not going to have sharia law here. There’s one law for all. All people are going to be equal before the law. That’s our common law tradition. And if you want to live in Australia that’s what have to put up with, and that’s the way it works. That’s been good: our government has made very clear statements about our values and our legal system to the Muslims that have come into the country. And I wish government leaders around the world would say that very clearly to their Muslim immigrants.
DW: Now Mark one final question. You’ve written three books on Islam. You’re a pastor. You speak very graciously and yet the truth that you speak might be offensive to some Muslims in Australia and Muslims who are listening today. What has been the response to a pastor saying the kinds of things you say? It doesn’t seem to be inflammatory. You point out the differences, which I think is completely fair game. What has been the response that you get from the Muslim world.
MD: I’ve had a range of responses. Sometimes Muslims have been intrigued by what I’ve had to say and I’ve had some very interesting interactions with them. Understanding the religion enables that to happen. Occasionally people have just been offended and they dismiss you, but I find that if you love people and you express your views graciously, and you don’t assume that the person who you’re speaking to has certain beliefs, and you ask them what they believe, and inquire about what they believe, you can have a very good relationship with them. I have friends who debate with Muslims in Hyde Park in London, and often if you can engage in a very frank and open way you can connect very powerfully, much better than if you have a wishy-washy fearful “Oh we’ll all the same” approach. You are much less likely to have a significant engagement with Muslims if you have that view.
Mark Durie is an Anglican vicar in Melbourne, Australia, author ofThe Third Choice, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum.
As April heats up and that midnight-on-the-15th deadline approaches, even the most civic-minded of us can end up feeling stressed and crabby about taxes. A quarter of households (like mine) will procrastinate until the last two weeks to take care of a task that can feel like an annual headache. As odd as it may sound in this context, reframing those tax forms as an opportunity to count your personal blessings and America’s blessings might be a mental health lifesaver.
Research shows that deliberately counting blessings or keeping “gratitude lists” has a host of mental health benefits, and cultivating a habit of gratitude reduces negative affect like resentment, irritability, stress, and depression.
My cousin Robyn is a hard-working mother of three whose joints don’t function as well as they once did. In fact, they hurt. A lot. The day-to-day can be a challenge, and most people in her situation do a fair bit of grumbling. But Robyn recently posted on Facebook: Lord, I thank You for dirty clothes, muddy shoes, messy rooms, a dusty house, tired legs, aching knees, and taxes. I thank You that I have clothes, shoes, a room to make a mess in, a house to get dirty, legs that work, knees that bend and a free country in which I can pay taxes.
Her words transported me all the way back to my childhood, to the 1962 tract house where I shared a room with two sisters, and a bathroom with another two brothers, and kitchen chores with the whole family – except that left of the kitchen sink was frequently stacked high with items waiting to be scrubbed, and the drainer seemed always full. But on the other side of the sink, attached to the upper cabinet, was a little sign that read, “Thank God for dirty dishes; they have a tale to tell; while others may be hungry; we’re eating very well. . . .” As a short child up to my elbows in soapy water, I liked the sign and I liked washing dishes, and I still like them both – most of the time – to this day.
I first broadened my appreciation from dirty dishes to taxes on a trip to Guatemala. My husband and I were winding our way up unpaved mountain roads in a “retired” American school bus, three to a seat, knees to our chests, on our way to language school in the highland village of Todos Santos. As the bus ground around gullies and erosion and potholes, it struck me, rather hard, that we get something for our tax money. The thought struck again when, once settled with a village family, we visited the local grade school. There, children were attempting to learn math, reading and writing without such basics as textbooks and paper, let alone the brightly colored posters and media and other learning tools I had taken for granted as a child. I’ve had a Canadian attitude toward taxes ever since (well, at least when my better self is in charge).
The Guatemalan roads and school may have brought the pattern into focus, but really, it was my parents who sketched the lines. If any bunch of five kids were primed to appreciate the bounty that we Americans share and that our taxes sustain, it was us. Public school classrooms that did have books and paper gave way each spring to summers spent traversing the interstate highway system, hiking, and sleeping in state parks, and poking through small-town museums and stretching out on picnic benches in a roadside rest stops. We saw astounding wonders – the Grand Canyon and the Mississippi River, Carlsbad Caverns, the Badlands – and got our heads filled with history at old monuments like Montezuma’s Castle and the Vicksburg Civil War cemetery. We slogged single file in scruffy boots up Pikes Peak and through Maroon Bells wilderness, with backpacks on, and eventually learned to love it.
As a teen, I read a book called Mama’s Bank Account about a Norwegian immigrant family scraping by in San Francisco at the turn of the century. Week after week, in the story, they carefully count out money to cover expenses, and the mother comments how good it is that they don’t have to take money from their bank account. Only after the children are grown do they find that the bank account doesn’t exist; Mama has made it up to give them a sense of security and prosperity. For me as a child, the delicious knowledge that I was a part-owner, albeit a very small shareholder, in America the Beautiful was my equivalent of Mama’s bank account. When life felt overwhelming, I imagined those highways and parks, familiar and beautiful, all places I was allowed to be because I had been born in the Land of the Free. To this day, when I travel to other countries, and natural wonders like caves or geysers are fenced off with private property signs and exorbitant entry fees, the child in me protests: But, but they’re supposed to belong to everyone!
As one who has received so many benefits from this country, it pains me sometimes how much of our national conversation is about taxes. It’s like going into a department store where the merchandise is all hidden behind enormous price tags. Our representatives spend so much time quarreling about who’s going to carry what share of the tax “burden,” that there’s no time left for the dish-washing, mess-scrubbing, everyday work that it takes to keep our communities great. We get so ground down from fighting with each other that we have a hard time coming together to ask the important questions: What do we want for our children? What do we want for our community? What do we want for our country? We put so much emotional energy into nursing resentment about those so-called “burdens” that we sometimes forget how astoundingly much we have received, both from those who came before us and from this extraordinary land of purple mountains and spacious skies.
Robyn’s Facebook prayer and my mother’s sign both were notes to self. They were small acts of commitment to living deliberately in a sense of bounty and gratitude, even when knees are sore and hands are chapped and the housekeeping seems endless. Affirmations like theirs get us out of our normal way of thinking and focus us on life’s goodness, and they have clear health and mental health benefits for us and people around us. Cultivating gratitude leads to better sleep, greater goal attainment, better relationships, more mutual support, and a stronger love life.
Gratitude as a life posture or a sense of being “blessed” is something that religious people talk about mostly in church and secular people like me, who have given up that traditional forum and vocabulary, mostly keep to ourselves. But Robyn, in her note, did an interesting thing. By adding taxes to her list, she crossed a boundary. Not the boundary between church and state – that one’s been crossed plenty of late – but the boundary between civic life and spiritual life. I wonder what it would it mean for our country if more of us said, to a God or to the universe: “I thank You that I have roads to maintain, schoolbooks to buy, a sewer to mend, rivers and mountains to protect and a free country in which I can pay taxes.”
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist. She is the author of ‘Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light.” She is also the founder of WisdomCommons.org.
In sync: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) and Mongolian Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag hold a joint news conference in Ulan Bator following their meeting Saturday. | KYODO
Abe, Mongolian chiefs to cooperate on resource projects, North Korea
Kyodo,
ULAN BATOR – After meeting with Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj and Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag in Ulan Bator, Abe told a news conference the two sides will accelerate ongoing bilateral negotiations toward inking a free-trade accord. The two sides agreed to hold a third round of trade liberalization talks in the Mongolian capital from Tuesday.
“As Mongolia is rich in natural resources, Japan’s technological cooperation will lead to a win-win scenario for both countries,” Abe, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Mongolia in nearly seven years, said after the talks.
Abe also pushed the participation of Japanese companies in developing one of the largest coal deposits in the world, at the Tavan Tolgoi site in the Gobi Desert, during the talks. Japan hopes to secure cheaper supplies of natural resources abroad while its nuclear power stations remains stalled in view of the Fukushima disaster.
The suspension of atomic power plants will drive up utilities’ fuel costs for the operation of thermal power stations to a sky-high ¥3.2 trillion in fiscal 2012, which ends Sunday, far in excess of levels seen before the 2011 meltdowns crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
As well as its abundance of coal, Mongolia is also known for rich mineral resources such as gold, copper and uranium, while rare metals and rare earths deposits could also possibly be extracted.
Aside from economic issues, Tokyo also considers Mongolia an important ally from a diplomatic and security perspective since it has diplomatic relations with North Korea — unlike Japan, which has no formal ties with the communist country — and borders China to the south and Russia to the north.
On North Korea, Abe said the two countries had agreed to deal with its recent provocations to the international community in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions. Given Ulan Bator’s ties with Pyongyang, Abe was especially eager to secure its support in resolving the long-standing issue of the North’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ’80s, government officials said.
Last November, Ulan Bator hosted the first talks between senior Japanese and North Korean officials since 2008 on the abduction issue.
Meanwhile, Japan, the largest donor to Mongolia, also intends to provide technical assistance to help the country cope with serious air pollution in the capital and assist the building of new transport infrastructure as a way of alleviating heavy traffic in and around it.
Japan was Mongolia’s fourth-largest trading partner last year, when the fast-growing country’s economy jumped 17.3 percent from a year earlier. China, Russia and the United States occupied the top three positions.
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ALSO: Japan-Mexico summit eyed in April Japan and Mexico are arranging to hold a summit for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Enrique Pena Nieto in Tokyo on April 8, when Japan will kick off its diplomatic campaign to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, government sources said.
[MORE] -> www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/31/national/japan-mexico-summit-eyed-in-april/
—————— Last post: Japan’s outdated model is dead; long live the emerging vision As of today, Roger Pulvers takes leave of Counterpoint, for which he has written weekly since its inception on April 3, 2005. In his final three columns, he set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is the concluding part of that trilogy.
[MORE] -> www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/03/31/commentary/last-post-japans-outdated-model-is-dead-long-live-the-emerging-vision/
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.
Australia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, spoke from the Island Republic of Kiribati, the Bikenikora Village, where he went to visit with President Anote Tong of the Republic of Kiribati. and prepared there a tape to be used for the Arria formula non-meeting at the UN Security Council, February 15, 2013. We made some excerpts because it presents interesting angles of what sea-rise could mean to an Island State. This is a potential clear wipe-out. A UN Member State might simply be discontinued because we emit greenhouse gasses.Just think of it.
What happens with the water area where there used to be an inhabited land? Who takes over the non-existent sunken State? What happens to the mineral and oil rights at the bottom of the former territorial waters?
How do you organize the migration of the inhabitants to another country? Do you establish training centers in the country of origin so that the incoming folks fit better into the adopting society? This is what Australia and New Zealand have to consider in their relations to Kiribati.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr has recorded a video message that he says is intended as a call to action at the United Nations. He says that climate change is now a matter of security.
The Foreign Minister says his video message is about approaching the problem of getting world consensus on climate change from a slightly different tack.
Senator Carr recorded his message in the low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati, and warned that rising sea levels will make the place uninhabitable within 10 to 20 years and force the mass migration of its population.
Bob Carr’s recorded message will be a contribution to a climate debate in the United Nations early next month. He says Kiribati is in the frontline of climate change and president Tong is keen for the world to understand his country’s special message.
The message is to be played at next month’s UN Security Council debate on climate change, as Alexandra Kirk reported for ABC News.
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BOB CARR: My name’s Bob Carr, I’m the Foreign Minister of Australia. I’m here in Kiribati with the president of this small, island country, president Tong. And what I’m looking at here is the living reality of climate change. This is a village; the tide rises and floods it. This did not happen in the past, and it sends a message of what might happen to this nation of 100,000 people over six islands should the temperature continue to warm and the sea levels continue to rise.
Australia’s working with Kiribati on mitigation measures, like planting mangroves to hold back the tides – even so, Kiribati still faces a future determined by climate change.
Well the president spoke about two decades being all they’ve got left if ocean levels continue to rise. We’re sending to the UN Security Council this key notion that climate change is a security issue.
You take Kiribati as an early warning sign. If they have to evacuate because rising levels of salt water have inundated their fresh water and there’s no drinking water on the islands, then they will be an example of environmental migration. They would be environmental refugees.
The UN is concerned with problems of peace and security. That defines its charter, especially that of the Security Council. We’re saying that if, for example, a population is driven from its traditional home by rising sea level, then this creates a problem of peace and security.
And if it can happen with Kiribati, it can happen with other vulnerable low-lying areas in poor developing countries.
If Kiribati ends up being a victim of climate change, presumably the burden will fall on Australia and possibly New Zealand. Is that correct?
I think we have to accept that as a given, hence our very big commitment to English language and technical education.
I was at a training college in Kiribati and I saw Australian teachers provided by AusAid, some of them volunteers, working hard to lift English education and provide training in carpentry and motor mechanics so that if it does arise that the population has to be relocated, they can enter the workforce of countries like New Zealand and Australia, with Australian qualifications.
That’s the key, they’re being educated to Australian qualifications, they’re winning Australian trade certificates.
That means, that presents, not as desperate environmental refugees, but as proud skilled migrants, and that’s a serious strategic commitment on our part.
A new study by the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has found that unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels like coal and gas. In fact, it’s a lot cheaper.
Data shows that wind farms in Australia can produce energy at AU$80/MWh. Meanwhile, coal plants are producing energy at AU$143/MWh and gas at AU$116/MWh.
THE SECRET: Unlike the United States, where energy companies can pollute and have the costs (from illness to environmental degradation) picked up by the taxpayers, Australia has a carbon tax, which partially explains why renewables have a price advantage. But the data shows that even without the cost of carbon tax factored in; wind energy is still 14-cents cheaper than coal and 18-cents cheaper than gas.
And this is in a nation that relies more heavily on coal than any other industrialized nation in the world. But that coal reliance will soon change, as companies in Australia are quickly adopting new, cheaper renewable energies. As the study found, banks and lending institutions in Australia are now less and less likely to finance new coal plants, because they’ve simply become a bad investment.
And, while Australian wind is cheapest now, by 2020 – and maybe sooner – solar power will also be cheaper than coal and gas in Australia. The energy game is rapidly changing in that country.
Michael Liebrich, the chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, noted, “The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date.”
Well, here’s a news flash: That perception has been out of date for a while now – even right here in the United States.
According to the Energy Information Administration, looking ahead to 2016, natural gas is the cheapest energy in the United States at roughly $66/MWh. Coal comes in second at $94/MWh. But right behind coal is renewable wind at $97/MWh, which in large part accounts for why U.S. wind energy production has tripled since 2000.
And, unlike in Australia, none of those US prices account for the externalities associated with fossil fuels like pollution, cancers, military protection, or global warming. In America, the fossil fuel industry has made sure those externalities are paid for not by the coal and gas energy producers, but instead by you and me.
The fossil fuel industry doesn’t pay a penny of the cost of rapidly accelerating climate change. Or the healthcare costs from exhaust- and refinery-driven diseases and deaths from air, water, and other pollution. Not to mention the community costs of decreasing property values when a coal plant is put in your backyard. Nor do they put a cent toward the cost of our Navy keeping the oil shipping lanes open or our soldiers “protecting” the countries that “produce” all that oil.
All of these externalities come with fossil fuel production, but pretty much don’t exist with renewable energy production. And those externality costs are not only not paid for by the fossil fuel industry – they’re never even mentioned in the corporate-run “news” media in America.
Research from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences concludes that the total cost of these externalities, if paid by the polluters themselves, would raise US fossil fuel prices by as much as nearly $3/MWh. And that’s an extremely conservative estimate. Which puts wind power on parity with coal in America.
The trend lines here are pretty clear: Buggywhip, meet automobile!
Renewables are getting cheaper, and fossil fuels are getting more expensive.
Which is why we as a nation need to throw everything we have at making renewable energies our primary way of powering America into the 21st century.
Think of it as a new Manhattan Project. We need green energy, local energy, and a 21st century smart grid to handle it all.
Over time, the marketplace will do this for us. But with just about every developed country in the world ahead of us, and our dependence on oil making us more and more tightly bound to Middle Eastern dictators and radicals, to wait and hope big transnational corporations will help birth a new America is both naïve and stupid. Instead of depending on them, we should be recovering from them the cost of those externalities – a carbon tax – that can be used to build a new energy infrastructure in America.
Let’s take a lesson from Australia and the Eurozone, which have both set up carbon taxes to make 19th century energy barons pay for at least some of the damage they’ve done. And then use that revenue for a green energy revolution here in America.
Considering the threats of climate change, war, and disease, only an idiot – or a fossil-fuel billionaire like Charles or David Koch – would want us to bring in more oil with a pipeline or take any other steps to continue America’s dependence on dirty and costly last-century fuels.
This article was first published as well on Truthout as an OP-ED article – his website and find out what stations broadcast his radio program.
He also has a daily independent television program, The Big Picture, syndicated by FreeSpeech TV, RT TV, and 2oo community TV stations.
You can also listen or watch Thom over the Internet.
In Australia – unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels. A new study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that wind farms in Australia are supplying energy at $80/MWh, while coal plants are more costly, at $143/MWh. As the chief executive at Bloomberg New Energy Finance said, “The perception that fossil fuels are cheap, and renewables are expensive, is now out of date.” It’s actually been out of date for a while if you account for all the externalities of fossil fuels – from diseases to war – that are being paid for by taxpayers instead of by oil companies. It’s time for a Manhattan Project for renewable energy right here in America.
November 21, 2012 The Clean Energy Solutions Center, ClimateWorks, and the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership are pleased to invite you to the following side event to be held at COP18:
If you are unable to attend in person, video streaming capabilities are provided through the following link.
Webcast: www.ustream.tv/uscenter
Twitter: Follow @US_Center and use hashtag #AskUSCenter to participate in Q&A.
ABOUT THIS EVENT: Join the Clean Energy Solutions Center (cleanenergysolutions.org) , the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), and the ClimateWorks Foundation for this COP18 side event on clean energy policy best practices and resources. Learn about the wealth of clean energy policy information (country policy data, policy and incentives databases) and tools (interactive resource maps, no-cost virtual expert assistance) provided on the Clean Energy Solutions Center. The ClimateWorks portion of this event will focus on “Policies that Work” from two sectors: transportation and appliance efficiency.
Speakers (in alphabetical order):
• Eva Oberender – Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP)
• Francisco Posada Sanchez – International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT)
• Laura Segafredo – The ClimateWorks Foundation
• Veronica Westacott – Australia’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (DRET)
• Moderator: Ron Benioff, U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Irith Jawetz reported from Vienna about Day 1 of the Conference – October 24rd, 2012 which happens to be the days after the last face-to-face Debate of the 2012 US Presidential contest. The inevitable just happened and American Economist Thomas Schelling depicted the present situation in the US as a country with two main parties competing – one which believes in Climate Change but does not do enough about it, and one which does not deal with Climate Change {and past experience is that it has a soft spot in their heart for those that claim that it is better not to listen to real scientists.}
Opening Session:
Welcome Statement by Pavel Kabat, Director/CEO IIASA, thanking President Heinz Fischer for his support, and mentioning that UNSG Ban Ki-moon was not going to be here but is sending a video message which we saw later on further giving a short history of IIASA.
Karl Heinz Töchterle, Federal Minister for Science & Research of Austria, acknowledged, among other things, the great achievements of IIASA.
IIASA was established 40 years ago to promote East West collaboration during the Cold War, and it has work ed towards International cooperation until today, He said challenges cannot be answered on a national level, and that is why an Institution like IIASA is so important.
Then came a video message from the General Secretary Ban Ki-moon who thanked the Austrian Government and IIASA for hosting this conference and said IIASA is very well respected at the UN.
Federal President Heinz Fischer was next and gave the opening address. He said he was happy to be present at the Conference. Delegates from all over the world have come to Vienna and, although he knows that the conference will take up most of their time, he hopes very much that they will also have some time to enjoy the Cultural and Social advantages of this City. He asked the delegates to take some time off and enjoy this very hospitable city.
He also made notice of the establishment of IIASA during the Cold War, and mentioned the Helsinky Conference in 1975 where Chancellor Kreisky, President Johnson, and Prime Minister Kossigyn, agreed on scientific cooperation.
IIASA was established in 1972 in Laxenburg, and the son in law of Mr. Kossigyn was its first President of IIASA. Thus it had very good contacts to Moscow and the West from its beginnings. It is a very important institution working to find solutions leading to human well being. He wished everybody a successful conference.
The First High Level Session dealt with Science Support for Global Transitions. You have to look at the speakers further on. The basic consensus was that there need to be more cooperation between scientists and Governments and scientists and policy makers.
Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, made an interesting remark stating that in the United States there are two parties, one which believes in Climate Change but does not do enough about it and one which does not deal with Climate Change.
We have to convince governments to listen to scientists and work together with them.
Climate Change has been a study by itself.
Second High Level Morning Session – Policy Support for Global Transitions: dealt, among other topics, with educating young people about Climate Change and the importance of Science in education.
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Afternoon:
Session 2: Drivers of Global Change – People, Institutions and Technology: A System Prospective –
Thomas Schelling stressed the importance of the English language in Science and the importance of girl’s education, Yolanda Kakabadse, President WWF International, talked about the importance of Civil Society and the necessity to take theory into action and the necessity to think out of the box and build bridges between Science & organizations that will do the work. Again – science alone is not enough.
the next session was about food and water and was more technical with lots of charts. Jacqueline McGlade showed a short film on destroying nature and the conclusion was that in 2030 we will need two planets. She gave a more emotional presentation and mentioned three things we need to do:
Re-Use; Re-Cycle; Re-think.
More people need to get involved and participate in science and help the scientists by telling them what is happening in their world.
David Grey also said that science without policy is just science. This was the consensus through the day.
The last session was The Multiple Co-benefits of a Cleaner, More Equitable World – Energy and Climate Change. This was also to scientific and specific.
Keywan Riahi mentioned a study – GEA (Global Ebergy Assessment) and quoted from it.
Zbigniew Klimant talked about co-benefits of neat-term climate change mitigation and you can find some of his findings on gains.iiasa.at.
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Australia joins IIASA
IIASA announced concurrent with the first day of the meeting that Australia will become its newest member – the 20th – country.
Australia’s largest national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), will serve as Australia’s National Member Organization (NMO), joining a group of 19 other national science organizations that fund IIASA and help guide the Institute’s research priorities.
In welcoming the announcement, CSIRO Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark said that there were very significant synergies to be realized by bringing together IIASA and CSIRO’s internationally regarded systems science, especially in the areas of water, energy, climate and food. “I am confident that our membership of IIASA will provide a very positive platform to further strengthen Australia’s global connections in these critical areas for humanity,” Clark said.
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The full program of presentations and discussions of October 24th was:
HIGH-LEVEL SESSION: Science Support for Global Transitions
Statements:
Gusti Muhammad Hatta, Minister of Research and Technology, Republic of Indonesia
Nina Fedoroff, Chair, AAAS Board of Directors; Distinguished Professor, Biosciences, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; and Evan Pugh Professor, Penn State University
Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Yuan-Tseh Lee, Nobel Prize Recipient (Chemistry) and President, International Council for Science (ICSU)
Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Prize Recipient (Physics) and Scientific Director, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) e.V.
Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize Recipient (Economics) and Distinguished Professor, University of Maryland
HIGH-LEVEL SESSION: Policy Support for Global Transitions
Statements:
Johannes Kyrle, Secretary General, Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs of Austria
Kandeh K. Yumkella, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All; Director General, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); and Chairman, UN-Energy
William Colglazier, Science and Technology Adviser to the US Secretary of State
Sergey Glaziev, Presidential Counselor, The Administration of the President of the Russian Federation
Andrew Johnson, Group Executive, Environment, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and IIASA Council Member
Eun-Kyung Park, Ambassador for Water Resources, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea
Björn Stigson, Chairman, Stigson & Partners AB and Former President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
A WORLD IN TRANSFORMATION—EXPECTATION, POTENTIAL, REALITY
Today’s world is undergoing fast-paced, unprecedented global transformations. These changes include new levels of globalization and market integration, fundamental shifts in economic and global power from west to east and north to south, environmental challenges from location-specific to global scales, and unpredictable social conflict. This session will focus on characterizing and better understanding these changes and their main drivers. It will explore possible futures for the world we live in and also how people, institutions, and technology might combine to determine the dynamics and the direction of change.
Session 1: Global Transformations—Understanding the World We Live in and its Possible Futures
Transformative changes are more than just marginal deviations from “business as usual”. They include phases of radical change and sometimes turbulence, interlaced with phases of development and decline as we move toward new configurations. Moreover systems are not changing in isolation, but are interfering with each other resulting in ever more complex patterns. For population dynamics in natural systems or human societies such patterns can be described just as in technological systems, e.g., of the substitution of one technology for another. Sometimes dynamics of land-cover change as well as revolutions in political systems follow such behavior.
The industrial revolution catapulted humanity to unprecedented but uneven levels of affluence and amplified the reach of human activities to such an extent that it was proposed to name the present geologic epoch the “Anthropocene”, to highlight the enormous, unintended impact that our actions have inflicted at a global and geologically significant level. Examples include modifications of the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, biodiversity loss, amplified greenhouse gas concentrations, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, overexploitation of global freshwater, changes in land use (deforestation, desertification, soil loss etc.), atmospheric aerosol loading, and chemical pollution.
Moderator:
Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director, European Environment Agency (EEA)
Framing Presentations:
Jeffrey Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (video message)
The New Millennium Goals – After Rio+20: What Next
Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director/Deputy CEO, IIASA and Professor, Vienna University of Technology
Global Transformations Toward Sustainable Futures
Panel Presentations:
Katherine Richardson, Professor, Biological Oceanography and Leader, Sustainability Science Centre, University of Copenhagen
Sustainability Transformations
Björn Stigson, Chairman, Stigson & Partners AB and Former President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Business for Sustainable Development
Berrien Moore III, Dean, College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences; Director, National Weather Center; and Vice President, Weather and Climate Programs, University of Oklahoma
Earth Systems Boundaries
Rapporteur:
Jessica Jewell, Research Assistant, Energy (ENE) Program, IIASA
Statement:
Günter Liebel, Director General, Head of Department General Environmental Policy, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management of Austria
Statement on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management of Austria
13:00-14:30
Lunch and Poster session
Sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management of Austria and IIASA (Breakout Activities: Posters, research tools, publications, and much more will be on display throughout the conference.)
Session 2: Drivers of Global Change—People, Institutions, and Technology: A Systems Perspective
While demographic, economic, and technological developments are generally recognized as basic drivers of transformative change, the interactions of their dynamics present a major challenge and an area from which significant new insights are possible. How, for example, does education affect demographic processes or economic development? What differences do distributional and spatial income variations make to the behavior of the coupled social-environmental systems? What is the appropriate scale to study each of those phenomena? What will it mean to add another three billion, predominantly urban, healthier, and longer-lived people to the global middle class? What technologies, norms and institutions are effective in propagating sustainable production and consumption? What are the new challenges in modeling drivers and scenarios to depict alternative development pathways?
Moderator:
Dirk Messner, Director, German Development Institute (DIE)
Framing Presentations:
Wolfgang Lutz, Leader, World Population (POP) Program, IIASA, Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, and Director of the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID)
Human Resources for Sustainable Development: Population, Education and Health
Charlie Wilson, Research Scholar, Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program, IIASA and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia
Technology: The Art of the Science of the Possible
Panel Presentations:
Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize Recipient (Economics) and Distinguished Professor, University of Maryland
Adil Najam, Vice Chancellor, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and IIASA Council Member
Governance and Institutions
Justin Yifu Lin, Professor and Honorary Dean, National School of Development, Peking University and Former Senior Vice President, Development Economics, and Chief Economist, World Bank (video message)
The Quest for Prosperity: How Developing Economies Can Take Off
Rapporteur:
Simon de Stercke, Research Assistant, Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program, IIASA
15:45-16:15
Coffee Break
A WORLD OF INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT—THE POWER OF SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
This session will focus on the power of systems analysis to provide integrated, science-based solutions to major global challenges. It will explore these challenges from the perspective of IIASA’s three major research areas: Energy and Climate Change; Food and Water; and Poverty and Equity. This requires in depth understanding and analyses of interactions, both within and between these areas. Moreover, the spatial and temporal dynamics of each challenge needs to be considered to anticipate synergistic effects and unintended consequences to optimize interventions.
Session 3: Respecting Nature’s Boundaries for a Fair and Secure World – Food and Water
Human exploitation of land, marine, and freshwater resources has resulted in land and vegetation degradation over vast areas, overuse of marine resources, depletion of aquifers, and the unsustainable restructuring of natural landscapes. These trends are escalating under climate change. This panel will consider how new technologies, investment strategies, policies, and institutional innovations can ensure not only sufficient food and water resources for the planet, but that those resources are developed to allow environmental sustainability objectives to be met and that everyone, especially those living in poverty, receive their share.
Moderator:
Carlos Nobre, National Secretary, Secretariat of Policies and Programs in Research and Development, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Brazil and IIASA Council Member
Framing Presentation:
Sabine Fuss, Research Scholar, Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program, IIASA
Food Security in an Uncertain World
Ulf Dieckmann, Leader, Evolution and Ecology (EEP) Program, IIASA
Future Oceans: Meeting the Challenges of Securing Aquatic Food Resources
Panel Presentations:
Joseph Alcamo, Chief Scientist, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
The Global Water Quality Challenge
Nina Fedoroff, Chair, AAAS Board of Directors; Distinguished Professor, Biosciences, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; and Evan Pugh Professor, Penn State University
Where Will the Food Come from in a Hotter, More Crowded World?
Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director, European Environment Agency (EEA)
Food and Sustainable Environment
David Grey, Visiting Professor, School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University and Honorary Visiting Professor, Exeter University
The Challenges of Transboundary Water Management in a Changing World
Rapporteur:
Hugo Valin, Research Scholar, Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program, IIASA
Session 4: The Multiple Co-benefits of a Cleaner, More Equitable World – Energy and Climate Change
Lack of access to modern energy services imposes enormous health costs and impedes economic development, while the use of fossil fuels by modern, industrialized societies threatens to irreversibly alter the Earth’s climate. Transformation to a low-carbon energy system is critical, as global energy production, currently generated largely by fossil fuels, will increase significantly if the nearly three billion people currently living without modern energy are to gain access. This panel will focus on reframing the climate change debate, using a transformation of the energy system as the catalyst for green growth, sustainable development and resource efficient economies. IIASA will contribute by outlining a framework to achieve a decarbonized, more climate sensitive and socially equitable world.
Moderator:
John Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Chair, German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
The night before Day 1 – that is the Tuesday the 23rd Gala Evening – included the lecture and the “knighting” of Dr. Norman Neureiter of the US who was awarded the AUSTRIAN CROSS OF HONOUR FOR SCIENCE AND ART 1st Class on behalf of the Federal President of the Republic of Austria.
Day 0 / 1900 Pre conference Gala Dinner at the Hofburg Festsaal
Day 0 / 1900 Pre conference Gala Dinner at the Hofburg Festsaal
For SC Seat Cambodia Rep Contrasts “Rich” South Korea of Ban Ki-moon and Idealistic Bhutan.
By Matthew Russell Lee, an Exclusive of Inner City Press.
UNITED NATIONS, October 11, updated — In the race for one UN Security Council seat among South Korea, Cambodia and Bhutan many assume that Seoul’s financial pledges and having Ban Ki-moon already in place as Secretary General guarantees that country victory.
On Thursday morning in front of the General Assembly as Inner City Press covered the other race — Australia, Finland and Luxembourg — a Cambodian duo sat on a couch behind the stakeout campaigning. There was a small wooden box on the table in front of their couch.
They summoned over an African Permanent Representative and met with him for some time. Then they summoned over Inner City Press.
“Who do you think will win?” was the question. Inner City Press related what it has heard, that despite Bhutan’s “cute” campaign around the theme of Happiness, South Korea was campaigning in the same way they did to get Ban Ki-moon elected Secretary General.
The lead Cambodia campaigner, who gave Inner City Press his business card and said it was fine to report on the meeting, said that Ban as Secretary General should count AGAINST South Korea.
“It’s too much,” he said. “I’m hearing about the Koreanization of the UN.” He paused. “Some day we’ll come here and it will be nothing but Samsung.”
“This should not just be about money,” he said. “It should be about values”…
Inner City Press asked about the spats between Cambodia and the UN, particularly its human rights office in the country. He smiled and said, the UN is free to be in our country, and we are free to comment, that is democracy.
He called Bhutan’s Happiness campaign “idealistic,” contrasting it with real world concerns like peacekeeping. He snarked that India, which is supporting Bhutan, just wanted allies on the Security Council as it leaves in December.
Inner City Press asked about the border dispute with Thailand; he said that would be no problem. [There was a reference to another candidate’s dispute, and a later granted request to remove.]
It would be good to have more public campaigning and even debating for these Security Council seat, and other UN posts. This reporting is in that spirit.
The Cambodia campaigner, we will then report, was and is Hor Nam Bora, whose job outside New York is listed on his business card as the country’s London-based Ambassador to UK, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. After first publication he noted he’s also Special Envoy of the Prime Minister and Ambassador to Ethiopia and to the African Union.
Covering that many countries is indicative of Cambodia’s lower budget than South Korea. But, he argued, people want smaller or poorer states to be on the Security Council. He said the meeting could and even should be reported on. He said, “Help us.” Does this?
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We think Bhutan and Australia are the best choices the body of the UN could make if the intent were to bring in fresh ideas to the Security Council.
We posted the following on February 17, 2008 (four and a half years ago – still in the GW Bush Presidency days !) and we re-post this again – without any changes – because of the flack that Al Gore gets now from the Romney campaign. Our own old posting came to our attention because of the amount of new visits it earned in the last few days.
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www.generationim.com/media/pdf-ws… is the reference for a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece (commentary), of March 28, 2006, by Al Gore and David Blood, the cofounders of Generation Investment Management LLP. David Blood is a former Head Of Goldman-Sachs. The Company is based in Washington, London, and will open this year also offices in Melbourne Australia. The President, working out of Washington DC is Peter Knight who has a history of over 30 years of having worked with Al Gore. The company was established already in April 2004. Comprised of a team of 27 people, the company includes 14 investment professionals. Out of profits, 5% are allocated to the Generation Foundation. The Generation Foundation is dedicated to strengthening the field of sustainable development and sustainability research worldwide.
The title of the WSJ article; “For People and Planet” comes about because the two authors believe that capitalism and sustainability are now increasingly interrelated and “not until we more broadly ‘price in’ the external costs of investment decisions across all sectors will we have a sustainable economy and society.” Until now, economists called externalities the costs created by industry but paid for by society. Pollution is such an externality. “The sad thing is that companies have been rewarded financially for maximizing externalities in order to minimize costs” – says the article. For saying this truth, as the joke goes, Generation’s founders were deemed as “Blood & Gore” by those that do not want to stare this reality in the face.
Now, with Global Warming upon us, “the interests of shareholders, over time, will be best served by companies that maximize their financial performance by strategically managing their economic, social, environmental, and ethical performance.” The “polluter pays principle – PPP – is just one example of how companies will be held accountable for full costs of doing business. Further, companies will have to design products so their clients can compete in a carbon-constrained world. Companies that do the right thing will not do this out of altruism – but this will be the way to make money for their shareholders. Ceres is just organization that understands this reality ( Ceres is the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies) and is just one NGO that deals with corporate responsibility and comes up with new business strategy. Other such NGOs include the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Transparency International (TI).
CHINA DAILY – ASIA PACIFIC has sections on Asia Pacific, Mainland China, HK/Macao, and Taiwan – quite balanced news and tacitly reminding the US that there are global issues that are unfettered by the US elections. Simply said – the US Administration must be engaged all the time and cannot afford the luxury of taking time out while electing the President of Ohio and Florida.
Some articles today are:
Washington does not accept Japan’s claims to Diaoyu Islands
A US Congressional report said Washington has never recognized Japan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and takes no position over the territorial row between Japan and China.
The report, published on Sept 25 by the Congressional Research Service, said the US recognizes only Japan’s administrative power over the Diaoyu Islands after the Okinawa Reversion Treaty was signed in 1971.
China-Japan relations hit the lowest point in years after Tokyo’s so-called purchase of the Diaoyu Islands on Sept 10, a move sparking wide protest across China. The islands have been Chinese territory for centuries.
During Senate deliberations on whether to consent to the ratification of the treaty, the US State Department asserted that the US took a neutral position with regard to the competing claims of Japan and China, despite the US’ return of the islands to Japanese administration.
“Department officials asserted that reversion of administrative rights to Japan did not prejudice any claims to the islands,” said the report from the Congress’ think tank, the public-policy research arm of the US Congress.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Monday said he noted the US’ neutral position on the Diaoyu Islands in the report and added he hopes the US will “walk the talk”.
Analysts said the report, which reflects the Obama administration’s stance over the territorial row between its ally and China, is an effort to ease the escalating tension but can hardly change the US’ Japan-tilt policy.
However, according to the report, the Diaoyu Islands fall under the scope of the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty since 1972, which stipulates that the US is bound to protect “the territories under the administration of Japan”.
Under the treaty, the US guarantees Japan’s security in return for the right to station US troops – about 50,000 – in dozens of bases throughout the Japanese archipelago.
Washington has been ambiguous on the Diaoyu Islands issue as it supports Tokyo with the US-Japan Security Treaty, but has warned Tokyo not to break the “red line” of China or cause large-scale conflicts, said Feng Wei, an expert on Japanese studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Both Japan and the US have made some compromises in front of China’s all-round countermeasures over the issue, and “Washington is especially worried that the China-Japan territorial dispute could threaten US and Japan’s economy as well as the Asia-Pacific stability amid its strategic pivot to the region”, he said.
On Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba delivered a written statement to Taiwan saying that the Japanese government hopes to resume talks on fishing in the waters in the East China Sea.
But at the same time, two US aircraft carrier strike groups have been deployed since mid-September to the Western Pacific in an apparent attempt to keep the activities of the Chinese military in check and as a response to China’s launch of its first aircraft carrier at the end of September, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun said on Oct 6.
Hong told a regular news conference that Chinese marine surveillance ships and fishery patrol ships will continue their official duties in waters near the Diaoyu Islands, which are under China’s jurisdiction.
Fishery authorities said on Saturday that five fishery patrol ships were in the area during the National Day holiday from Sept 30 through Sunday to continue their patrol missions. Four Chinese marine surveillance ships also arrived in the waters on Oct 2.
“Safeguarding China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests is the Chinese military’s sacred duty,” Hong said.
He also once again urged Tokyo to correct its mistakes and return to negotiations to resolve the dispute, as well as to strictly comply with the one-China policy and properly handle relevant issues.
In sensitive situations like this, favoring one party helps little in de-escalating a potentially violent conflict, Mike Honda, a Japanese-American and US representative for California, said on his blog earlier this month.
“If this conflict becomes violent on the East China Sea, we will see shipping thwarted, more factories closed, costs of imports climb and other foreign policy decisions affected,” he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday established the Department of International Economic Affairs to serve economic diplomacy, which is increasingly important in China’s diplomatic blueprint.
The move shows that Beijing has recognized its increasing power in the economic field and is moving forward to make better use of it, Chinese experts said.
A rapidly growing number of international business disputes intertwined with political factors forced the Foreign Ministry to set up the new body to protect national economic security, they added.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily briefing on Tuesday that the new body will assume responsibility for international economic affairs including preparation for, and follow-up actions resulting from, Chinese leaders’ attendance at significant events such as the G20 and APEC summits, and meetings of BRICS countries.
The department is set to work with other Chinese government organs to make arrangements for the country to cooperate in economic and development fields within the United Nations and other international and regional cooperation frameworks, Hong said.
It will also focus on research work on issues such as global economic governance, international economic and financial situation and regional economic cooperation, he added.
Zhang Jun, former Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, was appointed as the first chief of the newly established department.
Zhang, 52, returned from the Netherlands in July. He previously served as deputy director-general of the ministry’s international department from 2002 to 2004.
Economic topics closely related to politics are increasingly dominating major international forums like the G20, said Zhu Caihua, vice-dean of the School of International Economy under the China Foreign Affairs University.
That is why China needs a specialized organ to study relevant strategies, she said.
“China’s soaring economic strength enables it to provide due assistance to developing countries and the European Union hit by the debt crisis. These moves also give China more say and flexibility in foreign relations,” she said.
Hong said China is willing to strengthen financial cooperation with Europe, when commenting on the inaugural board meeting of the European Stability Mechanism in Luxembourg on Monday.
Earlier this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said China was considering how to get “more deeply involved” in resolving Europe’s debt crisis through the mechanism and European Financial Stability Facility.
Another case where the new department can play an important role is the recent spontaneous boycott by Chinese of Japanese products to protest Tokyo’s so-called purchase of Diaoyu Islands in September.
The Chinese government did not instigate these boycotts, and called for rational patriotism after Japanese-owned businesses were looted and damaged in some Chinese cities.
The new department will also help handle economic disputes with political backgrounds, which cannot be solved solely by the Ministry of Commerce, Zhu said.
On Sept 6, the EU launched an anti-dumping investigation of Chinese solar panels, involving more than $20 billion in Chinese exports, the largest so far. The move constitutes a test of the EU’s commitment to free trade.
In the run-up to the US presidential election in November, both US President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney frequently blamed China for domestic economic woes.
The latest case is a report by the US House Intelligence Committee accusing two Chinese technology firms – Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp – of posing a national security threat to the US.
A spokesman for Huawei on Monday refuted the allegation, saying “the report is little more than an exercise in China-bashing and misguided protectionism”.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at the inaugural ceremony on Tuesday that the new department will help safeguard China’s national development interests and economic security, and contribute to world economic growth.
State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who is in charge of foreign policies, has required the Foreign Ministry to “deeply understand the reality and long-term significance of intensifying economic diplomacy under the new situation”.
Still, experts warned when handling business disputes China should be prudent with economic sanctions, a double-edged sword with an adverse effect.
The Foreign Ministry has expanded its organization based on the development of China’s foreign relations, said Dong Manyuan, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies.
The ministry set up the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs in 2009 and increased its news conferences from twice to five times a week in 2011.
People line up to meet the Los Angeles Lakers star Robery Horry (right) at the Haier stand at 2012 International CES, a consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Chinese appliance maker has hired 350 people in its South Carolina plant. (Provided to China Daily)
Direct investment deals add 27,000 to payrolls in the country since 2000
Although US politicians often raise fears about Chinese investment stealing US jobs and posing threats to national security, analysts paint a very different picture.
The latest report released by New York-based Rhodium Group shows that the 600 Chinese direct investment transactions made between 2000 and 2012 support 27,000 jobs in the United States today, compared with 10,000 jobs five years ago.
The companies in the study are all US subsidiaries with Chinese majority ownership. They do not include those in which Chinese hold a minority interest – which account for $8 billion, or 40 percent of Chinese investment in the US during the 12 years – or indirect job creation related to the construction of factories or at suppliers. For example, Tianjin Pipe Corp’s new steel plant in Texas is estimated to employ up to 2,000 construction workers.
The study on the employment impact of Chinese FDI in the US also finds that more than $3.5 billion worth of greenfield investment, or investment in new facilities, since 2000 has created 8,000 US jobs.
Major job creators include auto parts maker Wanxiang, which employs 6,000 Americans, mostly in Illinois; appliance maker Haier hiring 350 in South Carolina; telecom equipment firm Huawei with 1,500 in California, Texas and New Jersey; and Sany, which runs a facility in Georgia employing more than 130 people.
Admitting that the impact on US jobs of mergers and acquisitions is less clear, the study finds that the 170 transactions in which Chinese investors have majority control of US firms were “overwhelmingly positive”.
“We see no evidence of asset-stripping behavior and find that most Chinese parent firms have maintained or added staff after acquiring companies in the US,” wrote Thilo Hanemann, research director of Rhodium Group, and Adam Lysenko, research analyst at Rhodium.
Compared with previous owners, Chinese investors were able to inject capital to maintain expenditure in times of crisis, bring better access to the fast-growing Chinese market and create synergies with existing operations in China that increased the value of US assets.
Even the few acquisitions that have resulted in job losses have not been subject to asset stripping by Chinese companies, but rather structural adjustment and reorganization of value chains to react to changes in costs or demand, according to the report.
Although the 27,000 jobs associated with Chinese investment now make up less than 1 percent of the 6 million jobs created by US-based foreign affiliates, the report emphasized that the potential is huge, given that Chinese FDI is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decade.
It projects that if the US can attract between $150 billion of Chinese global outbound investment by 2020, there will be 300,000 Americans on the payroll of Chinese US affiliates. Rhodium expects total Chinese outbound investment to hit $1 trillion by 2020.
The report, however, noted that such a result is not guaranteed. Chinese companies will only continue to invest in the US if the US manages to sustain its attractiveness to foreign investors by fixing its structural problems.
“If fear mongering and populism gain the upper hand, Chinese firms may choose more hospitable investment destinations in Europe or Asia to expand their overseas business and generate jobs there,” the report said.
The report also called for improved corporate governance and transparency on the part of Chinese investors and less Chinese government involvement in overseas investment decisions.
Both Hanemann and Dan Rosen, a partner at Rhodium Group, do not believe that US President Barack Obama’s recent executive order requiring Ralls Corp, owned by executives of China’s Sany Group, to abandon a wind farm project near a military base in Oregon and divest all related assets is politically motivated or signals a more restrictive US policy toward Chinese investment.
But Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, described Obama’s decision as sending the wrong message.
Saying Obama was the first president in 22 years to issue a formal order blocking foreign investment into the US on national security grounds, Alden said the decision will unfortunately be seen as yet another signal – this time from the highest possible level – that the US does not really want Chinese investment.
“And for an economy still struggling to create jobs, that’s the wrong signal to send,” Alden said.
He said the Obama administration had handled the case “abysmally”.
“If the location of the wind farm did indeed pose real security concerns, the US government should have worked quietly with the company to help it find a reasonable way to divest,” he said. “By forcing a presidential action, it becomes a big, public slapdown to another Chinese company. That is not in the economic interest of the US that needs all the foreign investment it can get.”
Joel Backaler, director of the Frontier Strategy Group in Washington, said that Obama’s motivation may have been to help his presidential campaign. “Cracking down on China” is a spotlight issue for both Democratic and Republican parties.
“If future investment decisions by Chinese companies meet similar resistance, though, the end result of such decisions will hinder, not help the US economic recovery,” Backaler wrote in the Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.
Despite being crowned the gaming capital of the world, the Macao Special Administrative Region is striving to become a more diversified economy as its gambling business has weighed way too much on the region’s overall growth.
It is a city where almost all the local residents are more or less implicated to its one and only compellingly dominated business: gambling. As the only place that has a legalized gaming sector throughout the Chinese territory till today, the importance of buoyant gaming economy to Macao remains phenomenal.
A 20-year-old Macao resident, who does not want to identify himself, told China Daily that although he didn’t even study at a university, after working only two years as a dealer in one of the most prestigious casinos in the city, he is now able to earn almost 17,000 patacas ($2,130) a month.
This compares with the median monthly wage of 10,000 patacas reported in a Macao government employment survey for the third quarter of 2011 — a historic high record in the city, which also outstripped the median HK$13,000 ($1,677) earned by its neighboring Hong Kong people.
“To many of us who are content with the status quo, working in a casino is almost a guaranteed life-time job,” the dealer said, adding that the casinos in Macao these days generally have to put in a great deal of effort to recruit new employees as the number of applicants are so huge due to the low entrance threshold.
Other data also demonstrated the city’s extreme over reliance on gambling revenue these days. By the end of 2011, over 50,000 local residents of Macao’s 345,000 working population were working in the gaming and related sector, such as hotel and restaurants inside the casinos.
At the same time, the booming gaming industry accounts for over 60 percent of the city’s gross domestic product (GDP) today, and which even pays nearly 90 percent of the total taxes that the local government collects every year, according to news reports.
Concerns over the monotonous money-making pattern never stop reverberating in Macao since the city’s casino operators have seen explosive gains from the visitors particularly from the mainland. Some skeptics even pictured a bleak outlook for Macao, claiming that the whole economy will fall out once dice players no longer favor the city any more.
Doubts are also supported by sharp contracting gambling revenue results starting this year, after the city’s casino operators reported poorer results, a direct contrast to the enormous profits growth of some 40 percent over the past few years.
Gaming revenue in the world’s biggest gambling hub this July rose only a tepid 1.5 percent to 24.6 billion patacas compared with the 24.2 billion patacas a year earlier, according to Macao’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, representing the slowest pace since June 2009 when the city was impacted by the previous financial tsunami.
Global rating agency Fitch in July revised its Macao gaming revenue growth forecast to 10 to 12 percent for this year from the previous 15 percent. It cited reasons including a “more cautious view with respect to the near-term impact of the slowdown on the mainland”.
“Buying Macao’s casino stocks is like gambling these days,” said Alvin Chung, a Hong Kong-based associate director of Prudential Brokerage. “Growth of new arrivals to Macao have subsided notably, but casino operators have not even planned to halt their expansion plans, giving rise to greater opportunities for over capacity within the market, “ Chung added.
Casino operators, apparently, view it in a different way. Las Vegas Sands Corp, the world’s largest gambling group, launched its Sands Cotai Central integrated resort in Macao’s Cotai Strip this April. The project’s construction was once suspended in 2008 due to financial stress, according to the company.
US billionaire Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the group, is still convinced that its Chinese arm Sands China Ltd has yet to fully benefit from the wealth spurs among the middle-class on the mainland.
“We wouldn’t be expanding if there is no future here,” Adelson said in Macao on September 20 during the launch ceremony of its third hotel project within the resort.
“(Currently) about 13 percent of the US population visit Las Vegas each year. If it is the same story for the Chinese, the numbers will reach nearly 200 million here.”
Adelson’s bullish plan also accompanies the fact that unlike other traditional casinos which primarily feature gambling, the newly launched integrated resorts in Macao today, including Sands Cotai Central, are basically giant complexes congregated with shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, as well as some gaming places — which are not even conspicuous in the resort.
Ricardo Siu, an associate professor of business economics at the University of Macau, told China Daily that the casino operators are also determined to seek ways to diversify their business combinations in Macao as they’ve also realized that solely having gaming attractions for the visitors alone are unlikely to be sustainable if there are no other profitable channels to explore.
The move is also in line with the Central Government’s blueprint, which dates back to the year 2006, when a goal to diversify Macao’s gambling-dependent economy was set in its 11th Five-Year Plan. In the latest 12th Five-Year Plan starting 2011, the Central Government further positioned the city as a global center of tourism and leisure.
“It is not even an option. It is a must-do,” said Siu. “Since the Macao government liberalized the gambling industry in 2002, concerns over the sector has never ceased as the city relies too much on the gaming sector. Meanwhile, people also worry that the single pillared economy will be doomed once favorable policies from the Central Government fade out.”
The crux in diversifying the Macao’s economy is to boost growth of non-gaming revenues, Siu said that this was the philosophy, but in reality, it is really something easy to say but hard to achieve, particularly over the short period.
Even integrated resorts like Sands Cotai Central, which enlists over 200 shops, high-end restaurants, theaters as well as three branded hotels that provide nearly 6,000 rooms, is still unable to highlight the importance of non-gaming revenues at the moment, according to Edward Tracy, chief executive of Sands China
Without disclosing any solid data, Tracy said the non-gaming gains only take up about 12 percent of the company’s total revenue in the resort, remaining a relatively small part due to the extremely huge income from gambling.
Gambling revenue reached 268 billion patacas in Macao last year, almost six times the Las Vegas Strip’s $6.07 billion, according to data from gambling authorities of the two sides.
Estimating that Macao’s non-gaming revenue will continue to play a minor part even in the next decade, Siu said he supported the idea of stimulating developments in other areas of the economy that have failed to keep up with the gaming sector.
“Macao should be transformed from a casino gaming place to a more family and business travel destination, meaning the city should not be concerned with filling up the casinos with visitors, but also a place where everyone could come to and relax with their families over the weekends,” said Siu.
According to government reports, 16.16 million visitors from Chinese mainland visited Macao in 2011, accounting for 58 percent of the city’s total visitor arrivals.
Davis Fong, director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau believes people shouldn’t make such a fuss on Macao’s over reliance on gaming as each city needs a clear identification of its own positioning, and for Macao which is labeled as a gaming capital of the world has proven to be a success.
It is an era in which metropolitan areas compete with one another, rather than just single economies. While neighboring Hong Kong is positioned as a global financial center and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is famous for its manufacturing bases, Macao which is themed to attract tourists all over the world, has also fully played out its own advantages, according to Fong.
“On the other hand, the inflow of people to any part of the metropolitan area is tipped to benefit the overall economy particularly after transportation facilities connecting the region are fully put into use,” Fong said.
After a bridge being built across the Pearl River estuary to link Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao is completed in 2016, transportation convenience between the three cities will become greatly enhanced.
“It means the inflow of visitors to Macao will be further lifted, with more travelers from Hong Kong and the mainland who may initially only prepare to spend some time in Macao,” added Fong.
A senior member of Taiwan’s opposition party Frank Hsieh left Beijing on Monday after concluding a high-profile visit to the mainland, which experts expect to prompt more non-…
As a young boy growing up in Western Australia, a job in the resources sector was as far away from Frank Tudor’s mind as possible.
“I thought I was destined for life in the academic world, probably teaching science or mathematics,” says the CEO and managing director of Western Australia’s regional and remote electricity provider Horizon Power.
Tudor, who is also national president of the Australia China Business Council, joined the West Australian government-owned Horizon six years ago after a successful career with Woodside, Australia’s biggest oil and gas producer.
Working for BP and Woodside saw the family moving quite a bit in his early working life.
Tudor says he was interested in renewable energy and the impact it was going to have on the industry within Western Australia.
The resources-rich state, especially in iron ore that is feeding China’s enormous economic growth, occupies roughly a third of the entire continent of Australia and is home to less than two million people.
“Horizon was a good starting point; it operated in some interesting parts of the state across the complete supply chain through generation to retail.
“There were a lot of natural energy sources, such as wind and solar, and there was an opportunity to see what difference that could make (to) the state’s energy.”
Tudor went in as the general manager at Horizon. Then he was appointed CEO in April 2011. He was given the mandate to shape the strategy and work closely with the board.
“I also wanted to stay with my family in Western Australia,” he adds.
Tudor says family is important to him. “I like to keep a good balance between the two,” he says.
Speaking from his home in Perth, Tudor says his time with BP and Woodside opened many doors in China and enabled him to build relationships that are still in place.
“It never occurred to me when I was studying mechanical engineering at Curtin (University) that I would end up working in the oil and gas industry,” he says.
“It was a friend of the family (who) asked me if I would like some vocational work at BP’s Kwinana oil refinery just south of Perth. I said yes and towards the end of my studies, a full-time position came up at the refinery and I took it.
“It wasn’t planned …”
Kwinana is the largest refinery in Australia with a capacity of 137,000 barrels of crude oil a day. It is the only refinery in Western Australia.
“Within a couple of years I was in London with BP where I stayed for 10 years, then to Perth, then to Melbourne and back to Perth,” Tudor says. “All up I was with BP for just over 20 years before moving to Woodside.”
He says his experience with BP helped to widen his horizons and gave him an understanding of the emerging economic power that China has become.
The early 1990s saw him in Papua New Guinea for BP, developing gas interests for the growing Chinese energy market.
“The global financial crisis, however, hit much of that on the head,” he says. “But China was still expanding, still growing.”
In early 2000 he moved to Woodside, which had already developed strong ties with China through its massive North West Shelf oil and gas project off the northern coast of Western Australia.
Vast quantities of natural gas and condensate were discovered beneath the sea bed on the North West continental shelf in the 1970s.
The discovery marked the birth of Australia’s largest oil and gas resource development.
Since then more than A$27 billion ($28 billion) has been invested in facilities which today include offshore production platforms and sub-sea infrastructure, onshore processing and storage facilities at the Karratha gas plant.
They also include loading facilities, jetties, associated infrastructure and liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships.
Between 2003 and 2005 Tudor headed up Woodside’s business development operations in China and “up the foundation for the PetroChina gas deal on Browse which has since lapsed”, he says.
It was a 2007 agreement between PetroChina and Woodside for the potential sale of two million to three million tons of LNG per year from the Browse LNG development facility off the north-west coast of Western Australia.
“That was about the time I started to get involved with the Australia China Business Council,” he says. “For me it seemed like a pretty good fit.
“On the one hand you had China with an insatiable appetite for resources to drive its industrial base, and on the other, Australia, rich in the resources China wanted.”
Tudor sees the role of the council as a bridge builder between Australia and China and a hub for the “many ideas driving debate and highlighting opportunities associated with the Sino-Australian relationship”.
Some of the current debate in Australia over China’s investments in it, he says, is “frankly, ill informed”.
“We need to change those perceptions,” he says. “Australians need to understand just how important China is, not only for the country but to individual households.”
As a country, Australia is unique among industrialized nations as a net exporter of commodities and a net importer of manufactured goods.
“We have valuable commodities and increasingly manufactured goods and services that China needs to fuel its massive industrialization and urbanization,” he says. “At the same time we import manufactured goods and to a lesser extent services that China can supply at much lower prices than we could produce them.
“Australian households have a strong appetite for variety and value in consumer goods which China supplies, such as clothing, computers, telecoms equipment, toys, games, sporting goods, furniture and chemicals.”
He says that in 2010-11 the average value of trade with China per household in Australia was worth A$13,470 – a 93 percent increase since 2006-2007.
“These are the sort of messages we need to get across … not the ill-informed political rhetoric of some,” he says. “Education is the key.”
And Tudor knows what he is talking about when it comes to education. He has degrees from Perth’s Curtin University, London School of Economics, and the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales.
In 2008 he completed an eight-week advanced management program at Harvard Business School.
“I remember meeting a man when I first started at BP who inspired me a great deal,” he recalls.
“His name was Marcel Dell and he had emigrated from Europe. He came here with nothing but a desire to do well. He went to night school and later went on to university and a senior position with BP at Kwinana.
“I also think he may have been instrumental in my going to London with BP. He showed me what can be achieved if you work hard for it and the value of education.
“I see this all the time in China.”
Tudor says Australia lacks a coherent strategy towards China and he hopes that the government’s long awaited white paper on Australia in the Asian century will be a good start.
“Industry, academia, states and the federal government need to work much more closely to create such a strategy, and become much more tactful in the way we engage.
“Despite what we read in some sections of the media in Australia, China is playing an active role in Australia, moving from simple off-taking to investment in onshore infrastructure and greenfield developments right across the Australian economy.”
Tudor says with China’s middle class growing there are numerous opportunities for Australian companies to invest.
“You are starting to see that in education, legal and financial services. The opportunities are there, we just need to go out and do it,” he says. “Getting in the door is half the battle.”
Bio
FRANK TUDOR
CEO and managing director, Horizon Power
CAREER MILESTONES
2006-present: Joins Horizon Power as general manager and becomes its CEO in 2011
2009-present: Chairman of the board and national president of the Australia China Business Council
1980-2006: Holds a number of senior positions at BP and Woodside
EDUCATION
First class degrees in engineering, economics and business administration
QUICK TAKES
Role model:
I guess if I were to choose someone it would be a guy I got to know at the Kwinana refinery by the name of Marcel Dell. Marcel was an emigrant from Europe who started off as a boiler maker, put himself through night school, then went on to university where he got first class honours in mechanical engineering.
He went on to build an impressive career at BP. Yes, if I were to choose someone it would be him. He sort of epitomized what Australia is all about.
Walking the tightrope between work and family:
Switched from alcohol to coffee. Jokes aside, family is very important to me. I think it is important to understand that. I try not to let work interfere in that balance.
How do you relax?
I like to windsurf. There is plenty of water although we do have some large fish … fish with very sharp teeth (sharks).
The Battle of Beersheba (Turkish: Birüssebi Sava??) took place on 31 October 1917 – note please this is the day of Holloween – for what this is worth) – as part of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during World War I. Notable was the charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, which covered some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) to overrun and capture the last remaining Ottoman trenches, and secure the surviving wells at Birüssebi.
The battle of Beersheba (Then Birüssebi – and as a town established by the Ottomans in 1900) was one critical element of a wider British offensive, known as the Third Battle of Gaza, aimed at breaking the Ottoman defensive line that stretched from Gaza on the Mediterranean shore to Beersheba, an important regional centre some 50 kilometres (31 mi) inland. Earlier in 1917, two previous attempts to breach this line had failed. After the Second Battle of Gaza ended in complete failure, General Archibald Murray, the commander in chief of the British forces in Egypt and Palestine, was replaced by the distinguished cavalry commander, General Edmund Allenby, formerly the commander of the British Third Army on the Western Front.
Allenby demanded and received large reinforcements before renewing the offensive. The “Eastern Force” headquarters was replaced by two infantry corps headquarters; the XX Corps, commanded by General Philip Chetwode, and the XXI Corps commanded by Lieutenant General Edward Bulfin. More significantly, with the formation of the British Yeomanry Mounted Division, Allenby possessed three mounted divisions. The two Australian-based divisions were combined to create the new Desert Mounted Corps, commanded by the newly promoted Lieutenant General Henry Chauvel, the first Australian general to command an army corps.
If interested to watch this event – that celebrates this year the 95th anniversary which is in effect a last rehearsal before the re-enactment by descendants of the original fighters five years from now that will be the centennial celebration – you can join a trip run from Tel Aviv by a tourism organization that you can reach by phone at:03-6516065 and 052-3417492
oday is my last day at Rolling Stone. As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.
A Russian ice breaker makes its way to Antarctica. Photo: Dan Smith
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