Rabble also has an article on the link between cellphones and the crisis in the DR Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo, but referred to as "Congo" in the article). It shows the link that Canada, including 2 former Prime Ministers, have with this exploitative relationship. For those who don't know about the Congo crisis, here's a good little primer from Democracy Now.

Rabble news features an interesting conversation with the author of Planet of slums on the socioeconomic disparities and other details of Dubai, the extravagant world-famous city in the UAE known for its plethora of ambitious architectural and economic projects. Yet the excessively grand schemes of this opulent city also contains a significant undercurrent of shame and exploitation, as the author Mike Davis talks about. Dubai mainly relies on a huge number of migrant foreign laborers, who actually outnumber the locals, from South Asian countries like India and Pakistan to build its buildings and perform menial tasks like domestic labor and waitering. Many of these workers experience poor living conditions like cramped quarters, long hours of work, dangerous work environments and low pay. This has led to outbreaks of unrest and attempts at reforms by the authorities but which are not adequate.
Davis also tells how on a broader regional plane, while Dubai's extravagance might make it a juicy target for being in the midst of much poverty and conflict, it protects itself through its connections with major regional players like Iran and the US.

So hopefully the next time you hear about or see Dubai and its grand projects in the news, consider the vast socio-economic inequalities behind their constructions and how superficial that grandeur is.

The poorest billionaires in the world

This article shows how low the economy has sank in Zimbabwe. Inflation has been sky-high for a long time now but it seems new heights are always being reached.
According to the IRIN article:
"A loaf of bread costs Z$100 billion at the official rate, a kilogramme of meat Z$450 billion, (around US$5.60) and a half-litre sachet of milk sells for Z$200 billion (about US$2.50)."

Just a few days ago in July 19, Zimbabwe's Central Bank released $100 billion notes, actually "bearer checks". This is a rapid increase from earlier this year in January, when it issued bills in denominations of $1 million, $5 million, and $10 million -- and then in May, bills from $25 million and $50 million up to $25 billion and $50 billion.

The IRIN article also says that the official inflation rate is at 2.2 million percent and rising every day. What this means is that money is constantly depreciating so that what may cost, say $10 million today may cost $15 million Friday. The casual labourer quoted in the article tells of having to line up outside the bank for 4 hours to withdraw $100 billion, the daily limit imposed by Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, and that he will have to come back the next day to do the same because of fears the money will depreciate even more, not to mention the fact that he will need more money because the $100 billion withdrawn will not last more than a few days.

A look at India-China relations.

This Taiwan Journal article offers an interesting commentary on India-China relations, painting a not so rosy picture despite increased ties between the two. The article instead claims that on different issues like India's push for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, border and territorial negotiations and most importantly, a proposal by India for an "open and inclusive security architecture" in Asia, China has not responded warmly. The article also describes the alarming incursion by Chinese troops into Indian territory, such as this one.
One would think that if these two Asian heavyweights were ever to truly cooperate in any sort of vital issue, they could indeed wield some substantial influence on the world stage. Instead there's still lingering suspicions between the two despite growing trade.

The Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui writes about the huge cost to Iraq that has been caused by the American occupation and which America needs to take full responsibility for solving.
"An age-old civilization and its remnants have been destroyed.

A whole generation of Iraqi civilians has been killed, maimed and uprooted. Between 80,000 and 1.2 million are dead (depending on which estimate you go by). More than 4 million have been made refugees – half forced into exile in Jordan and Syria, and the other half internally uprooted."

This just has to be the largest catastrophe in the world in this decade, surpassing those of even the Darfur genocide, Afghanistan (which also involves the US) and even the great natural disasters like the Asian tsunami. The DR Congo might be the only one to rival it though.

The Kielburger brothers always write interesting and informative articles on many international social issues. Here they've written something different from their regular articles, as their latest article is about the relationship between China and the US which binds them more tighter than many would think. Specifically this is referring to their economic trade relations in which China has a huge surplus with the US, exporting more to the US than importing, while also buying up a lot of American treasury securities.
As the authors note:

"China is now so deeply invested in U.S. securities, any disruption to the value of the dollar would be a serious blow to its own reserves. Reliant as they are on the U.S. market for goods, the Chinese are forced to buy up new securities as soon as they're issued to prevent their currency, the yuan, from appreciating against the U.S. dollar. Neither country holds a significant advantage over the other."

The thing is not only does China depend on the US to buy a lot of its products, but it also needs the US to keep a strong economy and currency in order for its own vast holdings of American treasuries to maintain their value, to the point of propping up the US currency by continuously buying up American treasury securities. In essence, the US has little leverage over China.

Of course, China does realise the vulnerability of their situation and raised some concerns by suggesting selling off some of their US dollars last year which they later retracted. They have also tried to invest in more US-dollar non-treasury investments such as Morgan Stanley.
See this table for the list of foreign countries who own American treasury securities. As you can see, China is by far the number two owner though it is relatively a little behind Japan. Keep in mind Japan's economy is greater than China's.

The Economist has a decent article on the recent direct flights between China and Taiwan which clearly describes the intricacies in the visits by Chinese tourists which outline the delicate relationship between the two "Chinas". For instance, the flights still have to fly through Hong Kong airspace rather than directly between Taiwan and China "because Taiwan's military is on constant alert for an air attack from the mainland, and analysts say it cannot afford to let civilian flights clutter cross-straits radars."
There seems to be a lot of goodwill and hope surrounding these visits by politicians and leaders of both sides, as these visits are a potential significant step to improving and closer relations. One wonders how the majority of Taiwanese feel.

Straight out of some James Bond or Tom Clancy Rainbow six novel, longtime hostage and cause celebre Ingrid Betancourt was rescued from captivity in a bloodless operation carried out Wednesday involving some admirable ingenuity, trickery and betrayal. In all seriousness, this was great news, not just because of her status and length captivity but also the fact no blood was shed.

The background of this event is the recent declining fortune of FARC-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the leftist rebel army that has been fighting a longstanding guerilla war against the Colombian state for over 40 years. Over the past year, they've suffered some defeats and setbacks including the assasination of top leaders, the capture of key documents which almost precipitated a Colombia-Venezuela war a few months ago, and numerous defections. The US government has helped Colombia a lot with confronting the FARC, providing over $4 billion in military aid (Plan Colombia) since 2000 such as training and providing equipment. While this aid is ostensibly for anti-narcotic actions on cocaine, which the FARC also derives a significant income from, much of the military aid goes towards anti-FARC military operations.
The FARC has its origins in the aftermath of concentrated state campaigns against Marxist enclaves in the sixties but it seems over time their goals have shifted from Marxist revolutionary social change to greed, trafficking and wanton thuggery. Newsweek has a recent piece on this decline of the FARC to "a bunch of crooks".

This does not mean they are wholly responsible for this enduring civil conflict because right-wing paramilitaries and even the state have also engaged in oppressive and violent acts as well.
Global exchange has a bunch of articles critical towards the role of the US and Colombian state in the civil conflict. But in all essence, this is a guerilla movement who has lost its purpose, fighting for no one but itself.

McClatchy has a good article on the human toll in Zimbabwe and the probable reasons for Mugabe's resurgence through using violence and intimidation. The main reason- the hardliner former "freedom fighters" from Zimbabwe's independence struggles in the seventies and eighties who still retain a lot of power in Mugabe's ZANU-PF ruling party and the armed forces. Former ZANU-PF high-ranker and presidential contender Simba Makoni also lost substantial support because of these hardliners. This makes a lot of sense because in reality, oppressive regimes are often more than just the work and actions of one man and Zimbabwe is no different. As notorious and infamous as Mugabe is, he alone cannot be held responsible for Zimbabwe's failings and oppression. Kind of similar with the US where George W. despite the widespread amount of loathing for him, also cannot be solely blamed for all America's actions under his rule.

So the election in Zimbabwe came and went with the expected result. Mugabe won easily due to the pullout of the opposition candidate Tsvangirai because of serious intimidation, violence and expected tampering by the state, though apparently some voters still were able to voice displeasure by writing on ballot papers. Sure the UN and other Western powers criticised the result but this just highlights their impotence because Mugabe will continue to paint them as imperialists who want to dominate Africans. I think that the regional body SADC and Zimbabwe's neighbors have to take the main initiative to confront Mugabe.

The ordeal in Zimbabwe continues with no end in sight as events have deteriorated significantly since elections back in March. By ordeal, I'm referring to the political crisis which began in March and also the general situation for most many Zimbabweans in which basic necessities of life such as food, water, electricity, jobs and of course, personal safety, have been severely reduced. Since the March elections in which the opposition won the majority of seats in parliament, a presidential run-off was announced for June 27, 2 days from now and there have been killings committed by the state and Mugabe supporters on opposition members and supporters, not to mention widespread torture, imprisonment and intimidation, all in an effort to dissuade opposition supporters from voting. Things have gotten so bad that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of the run-off because of fears that it will be unfair due to state tampering and intimidation. Zimbabwean leader (tyrant) Robert Mugabe's reign seems set to continue unimpeded for the near future.
The international community, the regional community and Zimbabwe's heavyweight neighbor South Africa have all been helpless in creating a solution to this crisis and force Mugabe to cease his oppression, reduced to weak criticisms and a non-binding resolution. The regional body of state, SADC (Southern African Development Community) has called for a postponement of the poll and talks to be held between the ruling party Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC.
Even with the tremendous amount of state oppression and violence in Zimbabwe, regional leaders are still divided in their stance towards Mugabe with sentiment of old shared anti-colonial struggle still playing a role, no doubt concerning Mugabe's past as an African independence hero, a past which seems less and less real.

The economic troubles of the West, specifically in the US and to a lesser extent Europe has led some pundits to highlight the coming decline of the West while the East rises. This Asiatimes article proclaims that while Western capitalist bastions have fallen into serious debt, unemployment and inflation, Eastern powers like China and India as well as lesser former communist countries are experiencing the opposite fate as their economies power on. While my first sentence was a bit simple and filled with cliches, it still features some truth. What's really interesting is the writer's reference to an academic's claim that the defeat of communism emboldened and enabled Western capitalist elites to ramp up their economic dominance at the expense of the broader cross-section of their countries' society. The article also criticises Western economic elites and institutions for unsound economic policies such as reckless spending and actions like "collateralized borrowing and lending" in which certain assets are packaged into markets and borrowed over and over. Now my understanding of the complexities of economics and finance are virtually non-existent but I do think that reckless spending by both the public and the state, increasing budgetary deficits and capital based on over-valued assets is not very healthy.
I do find that this critique is much too optimistic of the "rise" of Asian countries, as with many similar pieces on the growing economic power of developing powers, because there are so many significant mostly domestic problems they face which can't or aren't yet addressed by their economic progress.

Burundi peace

A rebel group in Burundi has finally signed a peace agreement with the government after recent fighting which lasted for 6 weeks and threatened to escalate. This now means that peace has been agreed to with all major rebel groups in this small, blighted country. Why this is so important is also why Burundi is so blighted. The country has the misfortune of suffering a civil war which has lasted for about 15 years and killed over 250,000 people while situated next to Rwanda. By now, Rwanda's genocide in 1994 is world-famous and an extremely notorious example in human rights abuse and neglect by world powers and the UN.
By comparison, extremely little has been written or reported about Burundi's civil war, which also has a Hutu-Tutsi emnity like Rwanda. Situated right next to each other and formerly part of the same colony, they both have the same ethnic groups and similar clashes and conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi. Doubtless the tremendous loss of life in Burundi's civil war has been largely ignored or overlooked by international media as it is overshadowed by Rwanda's genocide and the DR Congo's conflicts and wars, both of which have higher death tolls.

This very recent peace agreement which I mentioned above, represents a hope that things can continue to improve, in light of successful elections in 2005 and a relative stability since at least 2006.
This excerpt from a yahoo news article gives a decent brief summary of the civil war:

"Burundi, like neighbouring Rwanda, has been marked by differences between Hutus and Tutsis.
The central African country's civil war broke out in 1993. That year, the country's first Hutu president was assassinated during a failed coup organised by Tutsi military officers.
The conflict stretched more than a decade and killed 300,000 people, and the country today faces a stagnant economy and a paralysed parliament.
A ceasefire agreement was signed in December 2002 by the government and the main Hutu rebel movement, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), which finally entered government in November 2003. The FNL, however, also a Hutu group, refused to enter into talks with the government at the time."

This article gives a good summary of China's rescue attempts for the Sichuan earthquake aftermath. So China does have good infrastructure in general and its leaders do have a bit of empathy and concern of its citizens, in stark contrast to many authoritarian regimes like Burma's junta or going way back, Ethiopia's Marxist regime in the eighties during its infamous famine. The author does reiterate an allegation I've seen elsewhere that several buildings like schools collapsed very quickly while some government buildings remained upright, signifying local corruption in terms of possibly using cheaper or less material to build schools while money saved is pocketed by others. Anyways, assuming the writer is reliable and knows his stuff, I am impressed by his complimentary description of China's capabilities in physical infrastructural-wise sense:

Within hours of the quake, China was able to mobilize its vast human resources and target them at a massive disaster in a remote and forbidding region. More than 100,000 troops, police, medical workers and volunteers of every kind were astonishingly quick to reach the worst-hit cities, to search for survivors, offer relief, and evacuate the homeless to sports stadiums and tents.

It may have seemed chaotic at first, but a closer look revealed it as an impressive display of China's economic prowess. China's modern infrastructure - expressways, bridges, airports, bulldozers, excavators, cranes, trucks and vast fleets of private cars - allowed most of the quake victims to get help within days (even though many villages were bypassed in the early response).

As an organizational feat, it was extraordinary. Much of the response was improvised and instinctive, yet it meshed together in unexpectedly efficient ways, using the best of government muscle, military power, corporate resources, individual volunteerism and grassroots creativity.

On the other hand:
Chinese rescue workers readily admitted that their efforts were hobbled by a severe shortage of life-detecting equipment and sniffer dogs, which the foreign teams would have provided.

Overall, I would think that China, in terms of its authorities and its people, are making a very solid, conscientious effort to deal with this disaster such as rescuing trapped victims and helping survivors. Long term, the challenge will be to help the survivors rebuild their lives and to enforce more stringent building regulations to ensure this amount of destruction will never occur again.

Earthquake photos

This page, again from EastSouthWestNorth, has literally hundreds of photos of scenes from the Sichuan earthquake-affected areas in China such as debris, searchers, debris and unfortunately victims.

EastSouthWestNorth has some gripping coverage, from Chinese news agencies, of the earthquake including a girl who had to undergo a foot amputation and a man who was trapped in debris for 3 days and at the end, talked to reporters while still trapped.
In addition, there is also criticism of the response by the authorities to the earthquake by writers, bloggers and online forum users. This isn't surprising given that authorities have been criticised for other disasters such as the transportation pileups caused by snow storms and several environmental pollution problems. There are complaints of the slow response times by the authorities and the inadequacies of China's disaster response efforts, the bulk of which are conducted by the army. The structural designs of many of the buildings which collapsed were also called into question because they may have been inferior or poorly designed to withstand physical disasters like earthquakes.

This writer writes a critical well-articulated letter which openly criticises the government but also stresses the right to do so, in the face of criticisms against him by others. Unity in the time of disasters like this is important but just as, or more important is accountability which letters like this serve to enforce.
What is certain is that despite China's roaring economy and gigantic foreign reserves, it still lacks in vital areas such as physical infrastructure and disaster response capabilities.

The recent earthquake in China's Sichuan province has exacted a gigantic toll in terms of lives, infrastructure and other resources. Yet it may also provide a significant example of China's actual rescue, military and other capabilities through China's response to this tragedy.
The reason why this issue is relevant is because of popular line of thinking of China as an emerging superpower. This is a notion that sounds good and might have some merits but on the whole, it is not very true. This Asia Times Online piece tries to debunk this thinking with some comparative facts of China's economic growth. The author also questions the soundness of China's institutions like its legal framework and social welfare capabilities as being inadequate. While the bleak predictions may be a bit farfetched-China breaking up into separate regional zones for one- most of the descriptions of China's weaknesses and the falseness of claims of China as an "emerging superpower" are spot on, in my opinion.

This Newsweek article is a fine piece of work which makes several good points regarding China's military spending which are often not found in many other articles and news stories. Primarily that China's military spending, as large as it may seem, is nothing significant at all compared to the US as well as in the context of its geostrategic position. The writer notes accurately, that the majority of China's fighters, submarines and army vehicles are old. Regarding the geostrategic position, here's a short paragraph from the article:

"The Middle Kingdom, moreover, sits in the middle of a tough neighborhood. It's not only the U.S. fleet off its shores Beijing must contend with. Of China's four nuclear neighbors—Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea—two (Russia and India) spend almost as much on defense as China does (so does nonnuclear Japan), and at least two (Pakistan and North Korea) are potentially unstable. Just a generation ago, China was defeated in war by tiny Vietnam."

I just saw this and I was quite taken aback though not in a bad way. Taiwan will allow direct chartered weekend flights between China and Taiwan from July 4, and then plans are in place to expand the service to daily flights, by the end of the year, which is even more astounding and impressive.
Recently the Vice-President elect Vincent Siew held a one-on-one meeting with China's President Hu Jintao at the Boao forum in Hainan, the most high-level interaction between China and Taiwan in over half a century. It seems progress is definitely being made on cross-straits relations and better economic performance will happen for Taiwan, at least in tourism due to the expected influx of visitors from China.
Direct air links will bring about a significant impact of normalization in cross-straits relations due to enabling the actual arrival of Chinese and Taiwanese on each other's soils after taking direct flights. This will obviously bring both "countries" closer together and some might believe, eventual reunification. How would people in Taiwan react to having loads of visitors from the mainland coming into Taiwan every week? Of course, people from Taiwan constantly visit China anyways but then Taiwan is always the one on the defensive in this cross-straits geopolitics.
I'm personally a bit skeptical of course, because of my personal experience of hearing how strong some Taiwanese people identify with Taiwan. I think some people, including from Hong Kong, underestimate the pride and faith that many Taiwanese feel for Taiwan and I don't think they will easily accept losing any of their current autonomy and allow China to regain Taiwan in their present state. Despite the idealism, for some Taiwanese, things like democracy, free media and a vibrant open society are things to be treasured. I guarantee that the time when China has a reasonable level of those three things, Taiwan would lose a lot of its reluctance and defiance for reunification.
But certainly this latest development-the announcement of direct air flights-bodes well for the near future.

The situation in Zimbabwe continues to muddle along as Robert Mugabe prolongs his reign by any means necessary with the latest being to hold recounts in several constituencies which were supposedly won by the opposition MDC, helped by the less-than-firm remarks by South African leader Thabo Mbeki. One must sympathise a bit with the opposition who have had to endure so much tribulations in the past and in the recent weeks. Kofi Annan speaks out to demand more action by African leaders, especially regional leaders to resolve this issue. As long as Mugabe has the support of Mbeki, however lukewarm and reluctant, as well as access to arms and control of the army, he stands a good chance of maintaining his dictatorial control for now.