by Richard Gowan | Aug 25, 2008 | Global system, North America, Off topic
Enough with the NYT op-ed page! My main point of reference in the U.S. election will be the Wu-Tang Clan. In an interview with New York magazine’s Denver bloggers, RZA goes places that Dowd, Herbert et al have never been…
What do you think of Biden?
I don’t know Mr. Biden. I just saw him on TV yesterday.
He got in trouble last year for saying Obama was the first “clean and articulate” African-American candidate we’d ever had run for president.
He got in trouble for that?!
I guess it was seen as stereotyping.
A lot of us ain’t clean and articulate, because we grew up in harsh conditions. So Mr. Obama is clean and articulate. I’m actually proud to watch him on TV, myself, as a black man, because I think we hold our dicks when we walk — know what I mean? — and he got something about him that’s really classy. It’s like in every nation and every race, you have some people that are born as a prince because of the natural way they are.
Do you support him because he’s the first black candidate or for other reasons?
I’m not really a political guy. Some of my friends were supporting Hillary in the beginning, and I do what my friends do. I was trying to help Hillary in the beginning.
Really? Why?
Because I thought, When the Clinton family was in office, my family had better food in their house. I could call my aunt up and she could say, “Yeah, things is good.” Now everybody calls me for money. So I thought that Clinton could help out families better. But when she moved out of the race and I started watching Mr. Obama, I actually became a fan of his. You know, this man has something elegant about him!
And I watched Mr. McCain, too, and I know he went through a struggle with the war and all that. But in all reality, if you’re a P.O.W., it means you’ve been locked up and in jail. And in our country, you can’t vote as a felon. A lot of people can’t vote because once you’ve been locked up and incarcerated, it changes your mentality. He did that for his country. That’s a great thing and a great sacrifice. But people I know have been making comments, saying, “You know, a man who’s been through that … Rambo was crazy!”
by Alex Evans | Aug 20, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
Full marks to WWF for their report on virtual water use today, which finds that when imports of virtual water – the water used to grow or manufacture goods that are then imported into the UK, sometimes from severely water-stressed countries – each Briton uses some 4,645 litres, making the UK the sixth largest net importer of water in the world. Only 38% of the UK’s net water use actually comes from Britain’s own resources, the report adds. (Press release; report.)
Virtual water’s a handy concept, not least in that it shows up where consumers’ real water impact takes place. Turning off the tap while brushing one’s teeth is all very well, but if you really want to have an impact, go vegetarian: here’s the amount of water it takes to produce selected foods:
1 kg of potatoes – 500 litres
1 kg of wheat – 900 litres
1 kg of rice – 1,900 litres
1 kg of poultry – 3,500 litres
1 kg of beef – 15,000 litres
(Source: the excellent Atlas of Water. Buy one today.) Agriculture’s easily the world’s largest consumer of water, too: it accounts for 70% of global water use, compared to 20% for industry and 10% for the domestic sector.
In case you wondering, WWF says the top 5 net importers of virtual water are Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China and Italy. And the top 5 exporters? The USA, Australia, Argentina, Canada and Thailand. (Sixth is India, where water tables are plummeting.)
by Richard Gowan | Aug 18, 2008 | Influence and networks, Off topic
Daniel noted a few days ago that, while the EU has ramped up aid to Georgia, U.S. efforts have got much more publicity. But there are others in the aid game:
Iran’s first convoy of relief supplies for the displaced people of the Georgian city of Gori was delivered to the city’s officials on Monday. Iran’s Embassy in Tbilisi announced that the Islamic Republic’s humanitarian supplies including canned food, flour, cooking oil, sugar, tea leaves, and biscuits, was delivered to a camp of thousands of the victims of the recent conflict in the city of Gori.
Who knew? Press TV, Iran’s faux CNN, missed the story. As would have I, had the BBC not inspired me to hunt through Iranian websites to find this press release.
The Music Office of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance denied the news pertaining live concert of Irish singer Chris de Burgh in Tehran. According to the report, no official request in this regard has been submitted to Music Office yet, adding that no permit has been issued. The Music Office also urged the mass media to make sure of the authenticity of any report before releasing it. Chris de Burgh is a world-famous musician and singer who was selected as a UN Ambassador to promote food campaign initiatives against malnutrition.
An inauthentic Chris de Burgh concert in Iran should not, however, be ruled out. At least one impressionist has plans for a “new world order”:
[Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu6uMDfBN88]
UPDATE: check out this wonderful footage of Chris in Iran in May.
by Daniel Korski | Aug 15, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
At the risk of sounding morbid, it’s now possible to designate winners and losers in the heats of what will hopefully not become a new Olympic discipline: Russo-Georgian Warfare.
The ex-Soviet heat: Between Medvedev and Shakashvili, the winner’s clearly Russia’s new leader who, while having to initially share the stage with ex-president and former champion Vladimir Putin, was gradually allowed a greater role. Losers include ordinary Georgians and their government.
The ex-Warsaw Pact heat: Strong showing by the leaders of Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states, but the medal goes to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk who announced Thursday that his country had agreed to host 10 American missile-defense interceptors in return for enhanced promise of mutual defense between the U.S. and Poland. Poor showing by the Czech, Slovak and Hungarian leaders – memories of losses in the 1956 and 1968 heats clearly weighed down the contestants.
The US heat: Between Barack Obama and John McCain, the Arizonian comes out on top. On holiday, Obama issued the occasional and concerned-sounding press release while McCain talked daily and tough, building on his tough-guy image. Polls suggest McCain’s come out better than Obama. Worst of all did George W Bush who’s belated reaction to the war’s horrors – preceded by photographed bonhomie with Vladimir Putin – guaranteed a poor showing.
The European heat: The French president has clearly come out on top despite a strong early showing by Sweden’s Carl Bildt who likened Russia’s tactics to those of Nazi Germany. A surprisingly strong showing by Finland’s youthful foreign minister Alex Stubb. One to watch in future competitions.
There was no Middle Eastern, Asian or Central Asian heats whilst the UN pulled out at the last minute.
Correction: In reference to my earlier posting on Georgia’s reconstruction, it has been pointed out that the U.S did not steal a march on the EU’s reconstruction efforts. As David Ringrose, Head of the Information and Communication unit in DG External Relations of the European Commission, points out, the EU’s assistance arm provided € 1 million for medical assistance, water & sanitation, food, blankets, clothes, and shelter for victims of the conflict. I guess the U.S were just better at publicizing their contribution….
by Alex Evans | Aug 8, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
Although all the attention lately has been on food prices and the effect of their sharp rise for inflation, development and security, the rises seen on food have been as nothing compared to some of the increases seen on fertilisers over the same period.
A briefing by Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton, published in June by the Future Agricultures consortium, gives chapter and verse. Between May 2006 and May 2008, here’s what prices did for selected key foods and fertilisers:
Cotton – up 29%
Beverages – up 41%
Wheat – up 61%
Maize – up 108%
Rice – up 185%
Urea (a key nitrogen fertiliser) – up 160%
DAP (a major phosphate fertiliser) – up 318%
The underlying causes cover both sides of the supply / demand line. On the demand side, there’s the basic fact that the need for fertilisers is soaring as a result of higher food prices and demand for crops as biofuels.
On the supply side, energy costs are a huge factor (especially in the case of nitrogen fertilisers); some fertiliser exporters (like China) have imposed export controls; and in the background, there are capacity limits to increasing production, especially for phosphates – a point that has the peak oil crowd already thinking hard about the concept of peak phosphorus.
None of this, needless to say, is good news for farmers, who according to the paper find themselves hit twice: once on the affordability of fertilisers when purchasing them, and then again (given food / fertiliser price differentials) on their profitability when using them.
Dorward and Poulton argue that in the short term, it’s still worth developing country governments’ while to subsidise fertiliser use, even if the rates of return are lower – and that donors need to step up fast with additional financing (a proposal that the World Bank signalled its openness to in its ten point plan on food). Dorward, Poulton and the Bank all agree that the question of getting them to the right place – fast – is as important as the question of who picks up the bill.
In the longer term, the paper suggests, the focus needs to be on more integrated soil fertility management with greater use of organic materials [i.e. compost and manure] together with smarter use of inorganic fertilisers – an area of work that the big agricultural research institutes like CIMMYT are already focusing on heavily. Moving towards more integrated soil fertility management already makes sense for reasons of environmental sustainability. If fertiliser prices fail to fall in the longer term, these areas of research are also going to be one of the critical front lines in feeding 10 billion of us.
