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Asia’s trade outwits West’s aid in Africa (The Peninsula) THE WORLD Bank is “broadly optimistic” that Africa is undergoing a fundamental change. After decades, Africa’s real GDP grew by over six percent in 2007, outpacing the world economic growth of about five percent. This is considered just short of the seven percent growth needed to reduce poverty. Further, over the last seven years, Africa’s real GDP growth has averaged over 4.5 percent – the strongest since 1970s. This transformation is not the result of increasing or better utilisation of Western aid, but mutually beneficial and growing Asia-Africa economic engagement. The Bank states that Asia’s growing trade and investment in Africa holds great potential for African growth. Asia now gets 27 percent of Africa’s exports, three times more than in 1990, and Asian exports to Africa is growing 18 percent per year, faster than anywhere else. Accelerating Asia-Africa engagement is part of a new global trend towards growing “South-South commerce among developing countries.” The chief architects of this are China and India, whose trade bills with Africa, for example, have risen from less than $1bn each in 1991 to $56bn and $30bn, respectively, in 2007. The trade approach is contrastingly different from the emphasis on aid as a way of ending African poverty. In his book, “The white man’s burden: why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good,” William Easterly asserts that the aid industry is deeply flawed. Challenging the Western notion that African nations are stuck in a “poverty trap” from which they can extricate themselves only with outside help, Easterly argues that some of the Asian countries that battled poverty effectively received very little aid per capita. “Economic development in Africa will depend – as it has elsewhere and throughout the history of the modern world – on the success of private-sector entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and African political reformers. It will not depend on the activities of patronising, bureaucratic, unaccountable and poorly informed outsiders,” he stresses. Further, in a column aptly titled “The West can’t save Africa,” Easterly criticised G-8 doubling foreign aid to $50bn and forgiving the debt incurred to fund previous “big pushes.” (It is another point altogether that aid averaged only about $14 per person annually in the poorest countries over the last 50 years and estimates show the G-8 missing their 2010 aid target by almost $30bn) While the West focused on genocides and their casualties, child soldiers, AIDS patients and famine, Asia tackled the African crisis from a practical, and not moral, viewpoint. It engaged Africa in trade and made it the beneficiary of a process that it created and benefited from. To condemn Western efforts as futile would be wrong, but the fact is while aid is a one-way commitment, trade makes both parties stakeholders, thereby making transformation of poor societies easier. The other difference is that while aid has a patronising quality to it, trade partnership is based on the “fundamental principles of equality, mutual respect and understanding ... for mutual benefit.” Thirdly, Asia does not look at Africa in a homogenous fashion; its partnership is based on reality and particular conditions of the countries involved. This is reflected in the African Union’s statement that Asia has “truly understood” Africa’s needs and aspirations. “Today, Africa does not need a guiding hand...we are equal partners in this race like everyone else.” In fact, Asia’s engagement with Africa is not new. Among others, India was an unflinching supporter of Africa’s independence struggle against Western colonialism. But the gradual Asian shift towards Western alliances amid market reforms took the sheen of their African ties. The Asian economic boom, however, mandated both raw materials for their manufacturing sector and a huge market for their finished products, which Africa meets. Apart from hydrocarbons, Asia has helped push up the prices of other African exports such as platinum, iron and copper, all commodities used in manufacturing. As a result, copper prices, for example, increased six-fold since 2001 and platinum prices tripled. Moreover, after being written off by many Western governments and companies, Africa has also witnessed a dramatic rise in Asian investment. Even the Gulf countries are not far behind in contributing towards African resurgence. This region’s investors have had a big influence on Africa’s foreign direct investment doubling to $36bn between 2004 and 2006. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE are actively involved in a range of sectors, focusing primarily on infrastructure, telecoms, banking and tourism. As part of its expanding businesses abroad, the UAE, for example, is the second largest investor in Sudan after China with total investments of $7bn. And, IAS International, a Qatar-based investment company, announced in March the launch of about $6bn worth of projects in the Central African Republic. Though the George W Bush administration has outspent Bill Clinton government’s African aid by three times, Bush has visited Africa only twice after taking over as president. In contrast, Chinese leaders visited nearly 50 African countries during 2006-07. Apart from presidential and prime ministerial visits, China also hosted the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in November 2006, during which China proposed measures to increase bilateral trade to $100bn by 2010. To realise this, Beijing committed to double aid and offered $5bn in loans and credits by 2009, as well as promised to cancel “more” debt owed by African countries. Reiterating that “common development is the shared aspiration of the Chinese and African peoples,” it also announced a $5bn development fund to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa. India too hosted its first-ever summit with 14 African countries this April – not only to strengthen ties by pledging to work as partners to solve economic and development challenges, but also to ensure that it is not eclipsed by its continental competitor – China. India has assured that it will ease access for not just African exports, but for several other poor countries as well. As a way of combating Asia’s growing influence, European and African leaders signed a pact promoting free trade and democracy in December 2007, but failed to make a breakthrough on formal trade agreements. (Dr Janardhan is a UAE-based analyst on Gulf-Asia affairs.) |
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Hillary’s ‘right’ isn’t the right thing (Lat-wp) IS IT FINALLY TIME FOR SENATOR Hillary Rodham Clinton to give up? After Tuesday’s North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Senator Barack Obama has added to his virtually insurmountable lead in delegates and the popular vote, but Clinton’s still hanging in there. Depending on your political preferences, she’s like the Energiser Bunny . . . or Rocky . . . or the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead.” I know, I know, Clinton has a right to stay in the race. In fact, the issue of her “rights” has become the dominant framework within which her supporters defend her continued candidacy. In early March, after 11 straight Obama wins, Clinton superdelegate Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California denounced calls for Clinton to drop out, asserting that “she has every right to stay in the race if she chooses to do so.” Now, her supporters lose few opportunities to remind us that Clinton enjoys a God-given right to stay in the Democratic nominating race, more or less forever. Even Ralph Nader has jumped to defend Clinton’s “rights.” “Don’t listen to people when they tell you not to run anymore,” he urged her. “That’s just political bigotry. Listen to your own inner citizen Fi... |
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A black Republican and her case for Obama (Lat-wp) I AM A BLACK REPUBLICAN. I have a confession to make. I am an Obama “girl.” Most black Republicans who support John McCain won’t tell you this – but if Barack Obama is the nominee for the Democratic ticket, they will go into the voting booth in November and vote for Obama. In 2005, when I was in Chicago on business, I attended NFL Hall of Famer Richard Dent’s annual foundation fundraiser. My business associate, also a Republican and former executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said he wanted me to meet a friend of his who was going places. His friend was Sen Barack Obama. All I knew about this light-skinned, cute boyish face-looking, kind of tall, lanky man was his great speech at the Democratic national convention and his position against the war in Iraq. When we met, I identified myself as a Republican and be... |
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The glass ceiling inside a woman’s head (The Times) IN my dwindling band of friends who are still combining work and motherhood, there is a common fear. It is fear of promotion. Few say it, few even acknowledge it to themselves. These women are in their thirties, educated, in good jobs. But the next move up the career ladder – or at least the conventional career ladder – seems to produce in them a secret dread. I realised this recently when one friend, who has been wanting more responsibility for ages, ducked a planned meeting with her boss. “I think I'm OK where I am,” she said. “Why risk climbing up another notch?” Only a few days later yet another friend turned down a job offer that most of the men she consulted said she’d be crazy to reject. This has become a familiar pattern. We mothers hold a steady course, fearing that any deviation will send our households veering out of control. While most of the men we know have their feet clamped hard on the career accelerator, their eyes in almost permanent rotation between the conquests ahead and the rear-view mirror. “If you were to predict the future on the basis of school achievement,” says Susan Pinker, in her new book The Sexual Paradox, “the world would be a matriarchy.” Women are powering ahead of men in education. As graduates, many are earning more than their male peers. But by their mid-thirties they stick in the middle ranks or drop out altogether, while men who may have much... |
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Omni-American candidate (Washington Post Writers Group) Barack Obama called himself an “imperfect messenger” in his victory speech in North Carolina last Tuesday. That was a refreshing touch of humility, but it was also a fact. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is far from perfect. But he has demonstrated the most mysterious and precious gift in politics, which is grace under pressure. Obama has remained “Mr Cool,” even when his campaign seemed to be blowing up around him. He didn’t do the politically expedient things: He didn’t wear his patriotism on his lapel with an American flag pin; he didn’t promptly disown his race-baiting former pastor, Jeremiah Wright; he didn’t apologise for comments by his wife Michelle that many Americans found unpatriotic. You can say what you like about the substance of these positions, but the interesting fact is that Obama didn’t flinch. “Yes, we know what’s coming. I’m not naive,” Obama said in the North Carolina speech. “We’ve already seen it ... pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along.” That’s the message: Attack me; attack my pastor... |
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First lesson of diplomacy: Pronunciation (LAT-WP) In the delicate world of diplomatic protocol, mispronouncing a foreign leader’s name ranks among the worst of faux pas. But that is lost on many Americans. Who can forget Hillary Rodham Clinton’s verbal gymnastics after being asked by Tim Russert to name the new president of Russia? Most transcripts cleaned it up as “Medvedev-whatever.” Or recall the guffawing last September after a draft of President Bush’s speech before the United Nations included the phonetic spellings of several names of foreign countries and leaders. Among them: Harare (hah-RAR-ray) and Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee). At a time when the United States is trying to improve its image abroad, mangling the names of foreign dignitaries does not help. Nowhere is this issue more sensitive than at the United Nations, where diplom... |
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Pakistan Panorama: The ire of Pakistan’s paper tiger (The Peninsula) THERE IS never a dull moment with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Mr Musharraf’s top former ally, around. Not in the least for his incoherent speech and mumbo-jumbo when it comes to tough questions surrounding his party’s genuflection to the former military ruler. Mitti paao or bury the hatchet is his favourite expression for all matters contentious. However, last week he held Pakistan spellbound by refusing to accede to Musharraf’s request to step down from the leadership of his Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid. A veteran politician from Gujarat in the country’s most populous province Punjab, he left former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) when Sharif was deposed in the October 12, 1999 military coup. Subsequently, he weaned away dozens of Sharif MPs to form a new faction of the PML with help from intelligence agencies working on cue from the-then military ruler to provide a civilian face to his rule. The Chaudhary shot to prominence alongside his cousin, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, who then became the chief minister of the strategically important province of Punjab. The Chaudhrys, who would not move so to speak without a nodding approval from their patron saint Musharraf – Elahi once infamously pledged to elect the-now retired general in uniform ten times – last week rejected calls from the beleaguered president to quit party leadership. The irony of the demands from Musharraf could not have been more stark. As one observer pointed out: “He may have forgotten how these Chaudhr... |
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Who will be the next president (Lat-wp) WE PUT TOO MUCH STOCK IN THE Oedipal theory of history, my late polymath friend Jim Chapin, the most generous of mentors to historians and journalists, used to argue. More common than children overthrowing their parents, Chapin said, was parents stamping out their children’s revolts. More revolutions fail than succeed. Chapin called this the Cronus theory, after the Titan in Greek mythology who, on hearing that one of his children would overthrow him, swallowed them whole (except, unfortunately for Cronus, Zeus, who, sure enough, overthrew him). In recent weeks, the specter of Cronus has haunted Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. It has appeared in two forms – the Rev Jeremiah Wright and, counting two as one, Hillary and Bill Clinton. With his appearance at the National Press Club last week, Wright endeavoured, whether consciously or not, to swallow both Obama and Obamaism. His onetime parishioner might be telling Americans that it was time to end our historic divisions, and Obama’s young followers might be chanting “Race doesn’t matter,” but Wright would set them all straight. By heightening racial polarisation, Wright delivered self-fulfilling p... |
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Zimbabwe’s terror (Lat-wp) AS THE WORLD LOOKS on, Robert Mugabe’s campaign of terror against the people of Zimbabwe continues unchecked. On Thursday, The Post’s Craig Timberg reported that gangs from Mugabe’s ruling party beat 11 opposition activists to death on Monday in the town of Chiweshe, 90 miles north of the capital of Harare. The same day, at least five people were murdered by the president’s thugs in the village of Dakudzwa, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times. Across the country, truckloads of men are pulling into rural villages and towns that voted against Mugabe in the March 29 elections, rounding up opposition supporters for beatings or worse and burning their homes and crops. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which won both the presidential and parliamentary ... |
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Washington’s battle over Israel’s birth (Lat-wp) IN THE CELEBRATIONS next week surrounding Israel’s 60th anniversary, it should not be forgotten that there was an epic struggle in Washington over how to respond to Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. It led to the most serious disagreement President Harry Truman ever had with his revered secretary of state, George Marshall – and with most of the foreign policy establishment. Twenty years ago, when I was helping Clark Clifford write his memoirs, I reviewed the historical record and interviewed all the living participants in that drama. The battle lines drawn then resonate still. The British planned to leave Palestine at midnight on May 14. At that moment, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new (and still unnamed) Jewish state. The neighbouring Arab states warned that fighting, which had already begun, would erupt into full-scale war at that moment. The Jewish Agency proposed partitioning Palestine into two parts – one Jewish, one Arab. But the State and Defence departments backed the British plan to turn Palestine over to the United Nations. In March, Truman privately promised Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, that he would support partition – only to learn the next day that the American ambassador to the United Nations had voted for UN trusteeship. Enraged, Truman wrote a private note on his calendar: “The State Dept pulled the rug from under me today. The first I know about it is what I read in the newspapers! Isn’t that... |
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Many faces of nationalism (Lat-wp) FREQUENTLY THE PAST FEW MONTHS, I have been asked about the wisdom of using the Olympics as an opportunity to push China to improve its human rights record. Underlying these questions is a sense that international pressure may have played into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party by triggering nationalist emotions and rallying indignant Chinese people behind the regime. This concern is understandable. It is critical, however, that people distinguish among the four types of nationalism in China today to determine how best to pressure the regime to make improvements. First there is pragmatic nationalism. In everything but name, communism is dead in China. The Communist Party’s pragmatic nationalism is one of the two lifelines to which it clings; the other is rapid economic growth. China’s leaders understand that continued prosperity is the key to their continued rule. They have engaged in a delicate balancing act of fanning nationalist emotion to promote loyalty among the populace while at the same time tightly controlling this emotion to limit its potential damage to China’s standing in the global economy. This pragmatic nationalism is a doctrine driven by national interest, not ideology. The s... |
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It’s over but who is going to tell her? (THE TIMES) WHO WILL TELL HER it’s over? Which member of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle will have the courage, the self-abandonment, the capacity for suicidal valour in a greater cause, to walk into that propeller? After the Democratic primaries on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, someone will have to do it unless the candidate saves them the horror by accepting defeat herself. Mrs Clinton can go on. She has every right. Barack Obama has still not formally clinched the number of delegates necessary to win the nomination. There are still six primaries in the next four weeks, together with a struggle for the votes of the party’s uncommitted super-delegates, and perhaps one final battle over Florida and Michigan, whose primaries she won but whose delegates are not supposed to count because the states broke party rules. Yes, she still has an arithmetical c... |
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Two eager high-flyers, two collapsed dreams (The Times) What went wrong? This week two of the most successful centre-left politicians of their generation are asking themselves this question as their dreams of glory collapse. While Hillary Clinton at least has the consolation of carrying on her political career as a respected and powerful senator, perhaps even as vice-president in a Democratic “dream ticket”, Gordon Brown can only look forward to two years of parliamentary humiliation, internecine backstabbing and lame-duck impotence, followed by electoral defeat. At the moment, however, the common features of these two defeated politicians are more interesting than the many differences between their plights. What Mr Brown and Mrs Clinton most obviously have in common is their personality, or lack thereof. Both are quintessential machine politicians, obsessed with tactical calculation and policy detail; lacking in eloquence, likeability and unifying vision. These personal deficiencies suggest an obvious conclusion: that the salvation of progressive politics on both sides of the Atlantic will depend on the emergence of charismatic new leaders, Barack Obama in America and a still-undiscovered reincarnation of Tony Blair over here. There are, however, three other plausible explanations for the Clinton-Brown debacles with much deeper implications for progressive parties everywhere than the simple injunction that they must choose a leader with a charming smile and a good turn of phrase. The first is Iraq. This is the elephant in the room t... |
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Hated junta facing challenge to its isolation (The Times) By Bronwen Maddox It is impossible not to hope that the catastrophe in Burma undermines one of the most oppressive and unpleasant dictatorships in the world. There are a few reasons why it might, although the regime’s brutal resilience means that this can be only a slim chance. The first is the scale of the tragedy - the number of dead, still climbing and the annihilation of much of the country’s rice crop. Any normal government would call to the world for help; even the Burmese junta is under pressure to accept the food and other help now showered on it. That did not count for much in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami when the regime spurned offers of help. Yesterday there were signs that it might accept money and food aid - but was balking at letting in the teams of workers to distribute it. Yet it has a problem if it refuses - hard to call it a... |
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What Rev Wright is right about (Lat-Wp) As a Christian preacher listening to the controversy over the Rev Jeremiah A Wright Jr, it’s somewhat gratifying to be reminded that words matter. Those of us who accept this vocation wouldn’t have it any other way. We spend hours agonising over words every week—words written in the Bible, translated from Hebrew and Greek; words that we parse, translate again, memorise, seek to understand, and ultimately shape into a new word in the sermon. But in recent days, as more and more commentators have dismissed Wright as the “crazy uncle in the attic,” my pleasure has turned to anger and dismay. Don’t get me wrong. I do not agree with Wright’s choice of words in the 30 seconds that have been played again and again on national television. I think his claim that our government created the HIV virus to destroy the black community is irresponsible, and “God damn America” is a terrible sound bite anyway you slice it. Had I been a parishioner in his church, I might well have told him so. Moreover, Wright’s recent comment equating attacks on himself with attacks on “the black church” raises disturbing questions about a man who apparently believes his own substantial ego authorises him to speak for an entity that is more diverse than eve... |
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Listening’ politicians are a menace to society (THE TIMES) I HEARD THE Prime Minister on Sunday telling Andrew Marr: “I am listening to what people have said; I have heard what people have said,” and I thought: “Oh bugger.” And this is why. The idea of listening is, of course, part of the necessary rubric of political discourse, but it is either a polite hypocrisy, because modern politicians are always horribly tuned in to what voters say (unless one imagines the PM or the Leader of the Opposition sitting in the basement of No 10 or in Notting Hill, with his hands over his ears going “lah, lah, lah”) or else it’s code for something else entirely. Interviewers love the listening moment, because it provides a reliable skewer. The troubled minister turns up for his kebabbing, attempting the impossible task of justifying both his own past actions while not criticising the electorate that is so angry about them. “Are you now listening?” demands the interlocutor. If no, the politician is a monster. If yes, that obviously means he wasn’t listening before, and has just recently been a monster. And if he has listened, then what is he going to do now that he wasn’t doing before? What will he change? This is a problem if, by and large, you (the politician) think you’ve been doing the correct things. Of course, you mess stuff up from time to time, so you could promise to be a bit more careful and hope to be a tad more lucky – but that’s clearly not enough. So “listening” instead becomes a way of saying that you will now – in the interests of saving your skin from disaster – mollify a section of voters by ... |
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War and peace the real poll issues (Washington Post Writers Group) THE GAME-CHANGING EVENTS IN THE 2008 campaign are issues of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race. Let’s start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran. The administration is signalling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shia militias in Iraq – or run the risk of US retaliation. The Maliki government in Baghdad, worried about the danger of escalation, is passing this message to Tehran, but so far the only consequence is that the Iranians have broken off talks in Baghdad that were aimed at stabilising the situation. Sabre-rattling from the Bush White House may seem almost routine, but pay attention to the comment last week by Adm Michael G Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Iran is not going away. We need to be strong and really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable.” The risk of a US-Iranian confront... |
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Why we need a shield law (Lat-wp) ATTORNEY GENERAL Michael Mukasey is wrong when he says we do not need a federal media shield law. Mukasey recently argued in an op-ed that there is no need for Congress to provide a qualified, evidentiary privilege for journalists. As evidence, he cited a few of the many important news stories that, even in the absence of a shield law, were brought to light because of sources who provided information to journalists under a promise of confidentiality. Pending media shield legislation would impede the investigation of crimes and threats to national security, he argued. As the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I strongly disagree with him. I championed Mukasey’s confirmation as attorney general, and I certainly believe that we must protect national security and preserve effective law enforcement. But a media shield law would not primarily be protection for journalists; it would be protection ... |
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Crunch will not bring ruin, but change (THE TIMES) SO THE SKY DID not fall in. While the Chicken Littles of the world economy, led by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, George Soros and Warren Buffett, may still repeat mechanically the IMF’s surprising judgment that the world – especially America – faces its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, their hearts are no longer in it. Brown, after last week’s election woe, can no longer blame the world economy for his political failure. Buffett, having speculated against the dollar for years and declared that credit derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, has finally begun to find attractive opportunities to invest his money and told his shareholders last week that the worst of the credit crisis was probably over. Soros, in his forthcoming book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, states unequivocally: “We are in the midst of a financial crisis the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression.” But after making $3bn for Quantum Endowment Fund by anticipating last year’s bear markets, he is now hedging his bets, as is only to be expected from the world’s most successful hedge fund manager. “I may well be proven wrong,” he told The New York Times last week, adding that he might yet again turn out to be “the boy who cried wolf”. The main explanation for all this revisionism is simply the change in facts. The near-unanimity of a few weeks ago that the US was sinking into a deep, prolonged recession has been dispelled by recent data on jobs, GDP, business confidence, industrial orders and consumer spending – all telling a consist... |
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Ideology’s rude return (Lat-wp) IDEOLOGY MATTERS AGAIN. THE BIG development of recent years is the rise not only of great powers but also of the great-power autocracies of Russia and China. True realism about the international scene begins with understanding how this unanticipated shift will shape our world. Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation’s interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues of strong central government and disdain the weaknesses of the democratic system. They believe strong rule at home is necessary if their nations are to be respected in the world. Chinese and Russian leaders are not just autocrats. They believe in autocracy. And why shouldn’t they? In Russia and China, growing national wealth and autocracy have proved compatible, contrary to predictions in the liberal West. Moscow and Beijing have figured out how to permit open economic activity whil... |
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Why we volunteer (Lat-wp) BILL CLINTON WROTE A whole book about it. Oprah Winfrey turned it into an eight-week prime-time TV competition. And even President Bush is in on the act, declaring this National Volunteer Week. Volunteerism – giving and helping and donating time and energy – is all the rage. And that’s a wonderful thing. I think. I run a large annual event called Big Sunday, and over the years have worked with thousands of volunteers. Last year, for instance, about 50,000 of them pitched in, helping in all kinds of amazing ways. Certainly my organisation has benefited from all this new volunteer chic. That said, things can get sticky when volunteering becomes the “in” thing to do – like going to Kauai. Suddenly it’s an experience to be marked with photos of houses built or tallies of meals served, and rewarded with a satisfying emotional payoff. “I want,” one prospective ... |
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