Global News Journal

from FaithWorld:

Will the Arab Spring bring U.S.-style “culture wars” to the Middle East?

(From left: Olivier Roy, Cardinal Angelo Scola and Martino Diez of the Oasis Foundation at the conference on San Servolo island, Venice, June 20, 2011/Giorgia Dalle Ore/Oasis)

Where is the Arab Spring leading the Middle East? What will be the longer-term outcome of the popular protests that have shaken the region since the beginning of this year? Of course, it’s still too early to say with any certainty, even in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt that succeeded in toppling their authoritarian regimes. Some trends have emerged, however, and they’re on the agenda at a conference in Venice I’m attending entitled “Medio Oriente verso dove?” (Where is the Middle East heading?). The host is the Oasis Foundation, a group chaired by Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Roman Catholic patriarch of this historic city, and guests include Christian and Muslim religious leaders and academics from the Middle East and Europe.

In one of the most interesting -- and hotly debated -- presentations, the French Islam specialist Olivier Roy described the Arab Spring as “a break with the culture and ideologies that dominated the Arab world from the 1950s until recently.” It marks a clear change in the demographic, political and religious paradigms operating there, he said. The old dichotomy of the authoritarian regime or the Islamist state has broken down, he argued, and Islam is taking on a new role in the political process. In the end, the region -- or at least the states where the Arab Spring brings real change -- could see democratic politics marked not by major efforts to establish an Islamic state but by Muslim “culture war” controversies not unlike the way hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage emerge in U.S. political debates.

(Newly wed Egyptian anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 10, 2011/Dylan Martinez)

The first trend Roy cited to back up this thesis is the sharp drop in fertility levels in the Arab world since the late 1980s and the 1990s. Several Arab countries, especially those in North Africa, now have birthrates of around two children per woman, close but still above the European average. Tunisia’s birthrate is actually lower than France's.  “The generation that is now on the job market is the last generation of big families,” said Roy, who is now director of the Mediterranean Programme at the European University Institute in Florence. “It’s a generation that has many fewer children and marries much later.”

Acronym soup swamps Malaysia reform drive

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak says he has embarked on a series of radical economic reforms. In reality it feels as if he has unleashed a barrage of incomprehensible acronyms on the unsuspecting public of this Southeast Asian nation.

The charge for economic reform is being led by the snappily named PEMANDU. As well as being the Malay word for “driver” it stands for the government’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit.

PEMANDU is in charge of formulating and implementing NKRAs (National Key Result Areas), MKRAs (Ministerial Key Result Areas) and getting “Big Results Fast”, according to its website, although it singularly failed to win political backing for a radical revamp of Malaysia’s costly subsidy regime.

It is also helping to formulate the 10th Malaysia Plan, 10MP for those in the know, a communist-era sounding 5-year plan that aims to help lift this middle income country to developed nation status by 2020.

PEMANDU is part of the GTP, the Government Transformation Programme, which also involves the SITF (Special Implementation Task Force). Throw in the NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas), another thinktank known as the EPU (Economic Planning Unit) and you haven’t reached the end of the alphabet spaghetti dreamed up by Malaysia’s civil servants…. There’s still the ETP. the NEP (sometimes good, sometimes bad) and the NEM (New Economic Model).  

To be fair to Malaysia, it is not the only country in the world that is wallowing in economic acronyms, the U.S. gave the world TARP, a $700 billion bank bailout programme, and the even more mind-numbing ABCP MMMFLF   (don’t ask), but it is fair to ask what Malaysians have got from all of this.

Ordinary Indonesians mourn loss of Finance Minister Indrawati

By Sunanda Creagh

The decision by Indonesia’s reformist Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to move to the World Bank must have thrilled those politicians who lobbied hard to dethrone her and derail her anti-corruption drive. But if letters to the editor in the local media are any guide, Indonesia’s ‘wong cilik’ or the little people, as the man on the street is called here — are in mourning. “It was a black Wednesday in the history of our nation,” read one reader’s letter to the Jakarta Post. “One of the most honest and qualified people and someone who is known as the hope, finally succumbed to political pressure by the political elite that prefer to remain.” Many letter-writers have begged her to return in 2014 to run for president, while others have expressed fears that, without her, Indonesia will return to the bad old days of cronyism. “We didn’t want to see you driven out. Take pity on the people of Indonesia!” one reader, Daslam Al Maliki, wrote on the Indonesian-language news website Tempo Interaktif. Indrawati, as well as being a widely respected economist, is a notoriously tough cookie who stood up to powerful businessmen and politicians who wanted the rules bent in their favour. In retaliation, she was made the target of an inquiry into the 2008 decision to bail out the ailing Bank Century.

Chief among her detractors was Golkar, the party of former President Suharto, now headed by business magnate and politician Aburizal Bakrie. Her departure has also been met with a deafening silence from the country’s business elite. Few among Indonesia’s tycoons seem sad to see the back of a politician who made it her mission to end collusion between powerful businessmen and crooked officials and lawmakers. Several have paid lip service to her abilities as an economist but no-one — except the distressed letter-writers — appears to be pleading for her to stay. The yawning gap between the reponses of the public on the one hand and the political and business elite on the other underlines how out of touch those in power are with their constituents. Last year’s elections were fought over the issue of reform, the fight against corruption, as means to deliver better economic growth and more jobs in a country of high unemployment and underemployment. A recent poll by the Indonesian Survey Institute found that those parties that pushed hardest to investigate Indrawati and the Bank Century bailout decision have actually lost support. Political analysts and economists are now wondering if her departure is a sign that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s commitment to institutional reform is flagging. “What is wrong with Indonesia? While the top brains are needed to run this country, even the President approves this brain drain,” one reader, ‘Walt’, wrote in the Jakarta Post. Not all letter-writers are Indrawati fans; several are suspicious she is leaving the country to avoid further questioning over the Bank Century case, an allegation Indrawati has dismissed. But to many Indonesians, her bruising political battles have turned her into a national heroine while her new job on the international stage will bring prestige to Indonesia Indrawati herself appears relieved and happy she is moving on to a job that will, hopefully, involve a little less mud-slinging. “Don’t cry for me, Indonesia. I go for the good of all,” read one headline in the Jakarta Post, a wry reference to Argentinian leader Evita Peron.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sri Mulyani Indrawati addresses reporters. REUTERS/Enny Nuraheni

Irish fly from Brussels to push through EU treaty

If this morning’s flight from Brussels to Dublin is an indication of how Irish people will vote in Friday’s referendum on the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty, then the result will be an emphatic Yes on Saturday afternoon when the final results are expected to be known.

The majority of the Aer Lingus flight packed with Irish diaspora from Brussels – some of who hold office in the EU capital – seemed set to vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty, which aims to give the 27-nation bloc greater sway in world affairs and streamline its decision-making.

Irish MEP (member of the European Parliament) Liam Aylward said he was “quietly confident” of a positive vote in favour for the treaty.

The Fianna Fail politician from Ireland’s eastern region was accompanied on the flight by his British Liberal colleague Andrew Duff, who was among the lawmakers who helped shape the new Lisbon treaty after French and Dutch voters rejected the EU’s doomed constitution in 2005.

“I am travelling to Dublin because I want to hear from the people themselves, whether they vote Yes or they vote No. I am not going to make any predictions,” Duff said.

Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum in June 2008, plunging the bloc into crisis and halting its expansion.

Polls ahead of Friday’s plebiscite pointed towards a victory for the Yes camp this time around after the Irish government received guarantees from its EU partners in the sensitive areas of military neutrality, taxation, abortion and the right to retain an Irish commissioner in Brussels.

Indonesia’s election: faster, better … boring?

By Sara Webb

It takes India weeks to complete an election and it never passes without flashes of violence.

But the much younger democracy of Indonesia voted calmly for their president on Wednesday and got the voting over in five hours with a good indication of the result — a second term for the reformist ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — out just a couple of hours later.

“Faster, Better,” was the racy campaign slogan of Jusuf Kalla, one of Yudhoyono’s challengers. He trailed in a distant

third, but his rally cry somehow seems fitting for the country’s remarkable journey since the chaotic coda of President Suharto’s authoritarian rule a decade ago.

And yet if you talk to many Indonesians, they’ll tell you that the whole campaign, which kicked off in January and encompassed parliamentary elections before Wednesday’s vote, has been one long bore.

The series of televised debates by the presidential and vice presidential candidates were so polite and deferential, so Javanese really, that it was hard at times to believe that here were three teams actually competing against each other. Perhaps it’s unfair to mention it on his victory day, but Yudhoyono himself has been known to send listener’s off to sleep with his speeches.

from FaithWorld:

Pope urges bold world economic reform before G8 summit

Pope Benedict issued an ambitious call to reform the way the world works on Tuesday shortly before its most powerful leaders meet at the G8 summit in Italy. His latest encyclical, entitled "Charity in Truth," presents a long list of steps he thinks are needed to overcome the financial crisis and shift economic activity from the profit motive to a goal of solidarity of all people.

Following are some of his proposals. The italics are from the original text. Do you think they are realistic food for thought or idealistic notions with no hope of being put into practice?

• "There is urgent need of a true world political authority. .. to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration... such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights."
• The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly - not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred..."
• "Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another."
• "Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for businesses is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their social value... there is nevertheless a growing conviction that business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference... What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development."
• "One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State."

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A Taxi, an accountant and his four sons

By Edmund Blair

It was a simple question but it touched a raw nerve.

Mohamed, my 46-year-old taxi driver, had been wondering where I learnt Arabic. So I explained that I had been based in Egypt a few years ago and had now returned to take up a new post in the Reuters bureau. So, I asked, how’s life these days?

And then it began. He launched into a tirade about an economy where the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer,a government that only seemed concerned about staying in power and the difficulty of paying for the education of his four sons — the eldest of whom he is now supporting through university.

Taxi drivers are an all-too-common sounding ground for foreign journalists and the kind of rant I listened to is probably not so unusual the world over. But what made Mohamed’s comments striking is that taxi drivers in other countries probably aren’t, like him, fully qualified accountants.

“There are doctors, engineers, teachers, all of them driving taxis. They just don’t earn enough otherwise,” he told me, grinding to a halt as a pick-up tried to do a U-turn in the middle of a narrow road. “This government doesn’t even provide order.” It’s hard to argue with that point on the streets of the capital where even the newest cars have scratches and dents, testimony to traffic rules that seem to be regarded — at least to any visitor — as optional.

Mohamed quit accountancy 15 years ago when he realised it couldn’t pay the bills. Now he earns about 50 to 60 Egyptian pounds, $9 to $11, for each 10-hour day. That’s what he takes home after paying for fuel and keeping his car on the road, giving him about 1,200 to 1,400 pounds a month. He might earn just half that as an accountant for the government, which still dominates the job market despite a raft of liberalising reforms introduced by a cabinet appointed in 2004.

from Africa News blog:

Tale of an African whistleblower

A new book on corruption in Kenya is considered so explosive there that copies are only being sold under the counter in Nairobi by some book sellers too nervous to display them openly.

"Within these pages, we stand eyeball to eyeball with corruption. The book is an ironclad tell-all that mercilessly bares all to the light," said the local Sunday Nation newspaper in a review of Michela Wrong's book. "It feels dangerous to just read, let alone write."

Just published, "It's Our Turn to Eat" tells the story of Kenyan anti-corruption whistleblower John Githongo, who uncovered details of one of the country's biggest scandals, the $750 million Anglo Leasing affair involving inflated security contracts.

At the heart of the book is a portrayal of an ethnic clique intent on enriching itself and holding on to power - a picture familiar to many other African states.

We are told that, as Githongo's investigation deepens, the circle of suspects widens to include many senior officials, members of the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's biggest, to which Githongo and President Mwai Kibaki belong. When he made his findings public in 2006, Githongo was vilified by critics for betraying his tribe in exposing "Africa's Watergate".

"The title of the book is an appeal Githongo's colleagues made to him: 'It's our turn to eat, John. Don't rock the boat'," said former British envoy, Edward Clay, who once equated the Kenyan government's tolerance of grand corruption to vomiting on the shoes of the donors who provide aid. "For the corrupters it is a sweat provoker," he said at the book's launch in London.

Wrong's book is being serialised in Kenya's biggest newspapers, The Nation and The Standard, at a time when the government is again tainted by scandal.

China’s elusive land reform

It is ironic that 30 years after they gave birth to the reforms that transformed China into an economic powerhouse, the country’s vast hinterlands are still dogged by poverty.

The breathtaking growth of the economy since the pro-market reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping has led to an extraordinary increase in real living standards and an unprecedented decline in poverty. According to World Bank estimates, more than 60 percent of the population lived under the $1 per day poverty line at the beginning of economic reform. This had fallen to 10 percent by 2004, so - on this narrow measure at least – about 500 million people were lifted out of poverty in a single generation.

“Only development makes hard sense,” said President Hu Jintao in a December 18 speech to mark the anniversary of reform, reviving a slogan that Deng used to spur on investment and spending. 

And yet vast swathes of China’s countryside were bypassed by the economic boom that transformed its cities and eastern seaboard. Agriculture now accounts for only about one-tenth of China’s GDP even though it supports more than half the population.

Much of the rural poverty problem in China can be traced to the inadequacy of the land reform introduced after 1978 and the fact that, even today, rural land is still legally under “collective” ownership. 

Although collectivised farming was replaced by a system that assigned 30-year, non-transferable land-use contracts to households, peasants were not given marketable ownership rights to the land they farmed or the freedom to use it as security on which to borrow and invest. Worse, land was not necessarily allocated to the most efficient farmers and the vast majority worked on so-called “noodle strip” patches that were too small for economies of scale. One of the biggest failings of the de-collectivised system, however, was that it did not shield farmers from the threat of expropriation by officialdom, a major disincentive to investment.

This led to local governments exploiting the countryside as a source of money and power, with the weak legal foothold that farmers had on their land only making life easier for unscrupulous and corrupt officials. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Xiaobo Zhang in a speech “land is being grabbed at a fraction of its market value for supposed public purposes, and then being provided to private investors to promote local economic growth”.