Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Afghan Journal:
Can the West salvage Karzai’s reputation?
That sure was fast.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American TV audiences that Afghan President Hamid Karzai needed to take steps to fight graft, including setting up a new anti-corruption task force, if he wants to keep U.S. support. Less than 24 hours later, there was Karzai’s interior minister at a luxury hotel in Kabul -- flanked by the U.S. and British ambassadors -- announcing exactly that. A new major crimes police task force, anti-corruption prosecution unit and special court will be set up, at least the third time that Afghan authorities and their foreign backers have launched special units to tackle corruption.
There are just a couple of days left before Karzai is inaugurated for a new term as president. Perhaps a few more days after that, U.S. President Barack Obama will announce whether he is sending tens of thousands of additional troops to join the 68,000 Americans and 40,000 NATO-led allies fighting there.
Indonesia goes for digital people power
By Sunanda Creagh
Just over a decade ago, Indonesians took to the streets to protest. Now they can make themselves heard without even leaving home.
A Facebook group supporting two senior officials from the anti-corruption agency, who many people think have been framed, has attracted almost half a million members in just four days.
Social networking is, like global social mobility, a consequence of globalisation that the original free-market proponents of globalisation did not intend. Globalisation was meant to be a one-way street – the mobilisation of global consumer appetites for first-world goods and services, at first-world levels of profitability to first-world shareholders. How great, and how inevitable, that Indonesians have taken advantage of emergent technology not only to refashion the Indonesian domestic political process, but also to become powerful participants in global discourse – as global consumers, global citizens, and global political and environmental activists. Wong cilik no more?
from Africa News blog:
Where will Nigerian bank crisis lead?
The list published by Nigeria's central bank of those who owe money to the banks it has just bailed out makes clear that the situation has already gone well beyond just being a banking crisis.
The list cuts across the business elite and Nigeria's regions and also includes many politically powerful figures. (And it doesn't even appear that all those who could have been named as directors of the debtor companies have been identified).
It raises a question as to whether so many of the great and good are simply unable to pay their debts and if so what that means for business in Nigeria as a whole? If they could pay up, then why haven't they?
It also raises a question as to how those 'named and shamed' will react, particularly those with major political sway, in a country where behind the scenes manipulation is a way of life.
The will to expose the bad guys is welcomed but it may require a lot of advocacy to avoid lack of confidence and a run on the banks.
from UK News:
Echoes of Italy’s Clean Hands revolution
The shockwaves reverberating through Westminster as the MPs' expenses scandal unfolds have been compared with the "Clean Hands" bribery scandal that effectively demolished Italy's post-war political establishment in the space of a couple of years in the early 1990s.
If things are going to get that bad, the guilty politicians are going to have an uncomfortable time.
As a reporter in Rome at the time, I remember how surprise turned to anger then just as it has now as the public began to realise the sheer extent of the corruption that was helping to line the pockets of the country's leading politicians and their parties.
The morning newspapers brought fresh revelations almost daily of how the main political parties routinely demanded kickbacks in return for government contracts. There were the "golden sheets" for example in which invoices for linen and bedding were inflated to thousands of pounds, and the exorbitant demands placed on suppliers to hospitals, which caused particular anger.
As an Italian living in London, in the the 90’s I was interested, but only from an observer’s point of view. I often remarked…these things thankfully do not happen in UK – however I have now come to the inevitable conclusion that they happen everywhere…even in prudish, squeaky clean England – I am disppointed, but not surprised. An Italian saying “tutto il mondo e’ paese” means “the whole world is like your own country” seems more & more accurate, sadly.
Expenses: They order this matter differently in Sweden
A scandal about expenses claimed by British members of parliament has damaged the already low standing of British politicians and helped Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party to its worst opinion poll showing since polling began.
The MPs argue that what they are doing is within the rules – correct, but missing the point that it is out of line with public sentiment especially at a time of national belt-tightening.
While some of the claims run into thousands of pounds for mortgage interest or home decoration, others are for trivial sums for items like dogfood or, bizarrely, a tampon claimed by a male MP. Hardly the stuff of kleptocracy.
Now talk about following the rule of the law. Frankly I am very disappointed with Gordon Brown’s governing skills. Scandal after scandals. The problem is the alternative is no more palatable than the current government. Sad decline of British Politics.
The Bitter End for South Korea’s Leaders
By Jon Herskovitz
There is almost no such thing as a happy retirement for South Korea’s former presidents.
Former President Roh Moo-hyun, who left office a little more than a year ago, joined the club of troubled ex-leaders on Thursday when he appeared before prosecutors to answer questions about their suspicions his family received at least $1 million in bribes from a shoe company CEO.
Scandal-plagued Greeks shrug off corruption
Bombarded with revelations of scandals for decades, Greeks have developed a slightly thick skin regarding graft. An opinion poll this week showed corruption was rated fifth among top voter concerns, coming after the global economic crisis, education, crime and health.
Fed up with years of socialist scandals, Greeks elected the conservative New Democracy government by a landslide in 2004, mostly convinced by its pledges to clean up Greek politics.
Five years later, fresh scandals have made headlines, ranging from selling overpriced government bonds to state pension funds to suspect land deals with a wealthy monastery.
The euro zone member is among the EU’s lowest ranking countries on the Transparency International corruption watchdog’s index, actually worsening a few notches in recent years.
from Africa News blog:
Will Mandela effect help ANC?
Nelson Mandela, a global symbol of reconciliation after the end of apartheid in 1994, appeared at the ruling ANC's last election rally before Wednesday's vote, delivering a last minute campaign boost for party leader Jacob Zuma.
Wearing a Zuma t-shirt, he sat beside the ANC leader, who has been fighting corruption allegations for eight years. The case was just dropped on a technicality and some South Africans still question his innocence.
It's the second time Mandela has appeared at an ANC rally in the run up to the election, seen as the ANC's toughest test since it came to power - it is still set to win by a big margin, but perhaps by not as big a margin as before.
After the first campaign appearance, some of the ANC's foes suggested Mandela had been unfairly exploited and even that his health had been put at risk. But he certainly looked happy enough on Sunday - if as frail as might be expected for a 90 year-old.
A strong ruling party is a good thing but even more important is a strong opposition – which is a government in waiting!
Indonesia: To hell and back
By Dean Yates
(The author lived in Indonesia from 1992-1995 and 2000-2005, with various assignments in between)
It was not that long ago that Indonesia was lurching from crisis to crisis, even drawing some (misplaced) predictions it could go the way of the former Yugoslavia and break apart. These days it rarely makes the front page. It has a steady president in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, probably the freest press in Southeast Asia and political violence appears to be a thing of the past. The last major bomb attack blamed on Islamic militants was in 2005.
It’s worth recalling how bad things were in Indonesia as this country of 226 million people prepares to vote in parliamentary elections on Thursday, which will set the stage for the more important presidential poll in July. The parliamentary election will be the third time voters in the world’s most populous Muslim nation have elected their representatives at a national level since the downfall of former autocrat Suharto in 1998. As the Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial on April 8, Indonesia shows that democracy and Islam aren’t mutually exclusive.
Everything in life has it’s positive and negative, as does this article, but let’s look at the positive side.I’m a foreigner who live here. My experience of Indonesia and Indonesians are, and will be memorable as long as I live. Arguably the most courteous, polite people I’ve met. I love Indonesia, the diverse cultures and the people. Of course there are problems, but the country is moving ahead. Show me a country with no problem! They all vary. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has made immense progress in his ruling time, and hopefully he can continue his work. My respects unto SBY, Finance Minister and others. This country has taught me the meaning of care and love without being materialistic, whether one is muslim, christian, buddist or hindu. My wish be able to serve this wonderful nation for the years to come, God bless Indonesia
from Africa News blog:
France and Africa. New relationship?
Before Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, he made clear he wanted to break with France’s old way of doing business in Africa – a cosy blend of post-colonial corruption and patronage known as “Françafrique” that suited a fair few African dictators and the French establishment alike.
He has made the same point during his past visits to the continent.
“The old pattern of relations between France and Africa is no longer understood by new generations of Africans, or for that matter by public opinion in France. We need to change the pattern of relations between France and Africa if we want to look at the future together,” Sarkozy said in South Africa early last year.
This week he is back in Africa for a visit on which France’s business interests play a very prominent role.
France is one of the greatest democratic country in the world, but it is always implausible to see how uncivilised international relations it nurtured and sustained with its african partners. One does not need to search for scientific statistics to conclude that the only countries in Africa with high political, economical and social instability are either French colonised or French speaking.
Long before he set out for his latest trip to Africa, demonstrations were held in France and elsewhere about the new vision of President Sarkozy over “Democratic” Republic of Congo. His plan to have Rwanda and Uganda to exploit Congolese natural resources as a way to pacify the region bears germs of conflict for generations to come. The contrast is that France is in silent protectionism when it is shutting down car plants in Eastern Europe to boost jobs creation at home while America and Britain are spending to starve off banking financial crisis. If anything, France years of support to our dictators have left African with a bitter taste of its malicious development aid.
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So much seems to be riding on the USA’s reputation alone at the moment.They have already failed, but they see failure as something that only exists if they themselves admit it.Much like their growing economic instability, they are likewise petrified of admitting failure as though it would somehow ruin their god status and reduce them to operating on a normal diplomatic playing field without the treasured veto on international relations which is American diplomatic/economic might.Al Qaeda, is a worldwide organization which now has a completely decentralized structure outside of Afghanistan.Since the additional attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq (and others) since 2001 ‘terrorist’ organizations have grown dramatically across the world both in size and massively in number, as has Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in general inside and outside the Islamic world.Nothing has changed for the better, but much has changed for the worse. The US is still perpetrating the same crimes against the Islamic world and is still creating more and more extreme and fundamental Muslims just like in the beginning when they created some of the first true Islamic terrorists to attack the democratic Afghan government 30 years ago.In the words of Obama’s top political adviser:”It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being.”