In South Africa, women now rape men 
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Thursday, 8 October 2009
Sowetan
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Wednesday, 7 October 2009
The idea of Non Excludability - Explained in a current context
Mark Steel:
I wonder if one day you'll be able to opt out of paying for war you don't like
Who would have guessed, when people first marvelled at the ingenuity of the earliest aircraft, that this awesome achievement would result in the miserable wretched branch of industry known as airline companies? For example, British Airways have announced plans to charge up to £40 per person for the luxury of booking a seat. So if a family doesn't pay the extra, it could find itself separated all over the plane. And the staff will probably be instructed to sell this charge by saying "If you don't pay we MAY be able to sit your children next to you, and we will TRY not to sit them in the middle of a Plymouth nursery workers hen night outing but there's no guarantee so we do recommend the service for peace of mind".
Every aspect of the journey; food, drink, luggage, is becoming an "extra", to the point where Ryanair planned to charge £1 for use of the toilet. Next they'll replace safety announcements with an auction for the only oxygen mask. If the current airlines had been around in 1941 they'd have bought up the Spitfires, and pilots returning from the Battle of Britain would have been told they'd used more than their quota of bullets and owed Ryanair seventeen shillings and threepence.
But this isn't just about air travel. The arguments used to justify these measures are along the lines of "Why should every customer pay for privileges they don't require themselves?" And there will be people who snarl "Why should part of my ticket price go towards the upkeep of a toilet when I don't use it because I prefer to go in a jar?" This attitude is seeping through every area of business. The arguments directed against the BBC from other broadcasters amount to complaints that some people have to pay for programmes they don't watch. In other words, "Why should I have to pay for yesterday's weather forecast when I stayed in all day? So these layabouts are staying dry and I'm paying for it."
Big TV companies want to go further with this, charging for individual sporting events and programmes. If they owned newspapers you'd have to pay extra for the sports results, or the crossword, and be told "Why should regular readers have to fork out for the cryptic minority?"
Local councils promote this extreme individuality. The tennis court in my local park now greets you with a sign saying "If you don't pay you won't play." So not only do they charge for what were communal facilities, they don't even do it politely. Instead they sound like The Mafia in rhyme, and might as well say "Three sets costs you twenty notes or Claudio here will slit your throats."
Even rubbish dumps come under the new system. You're now asked to provide proof of address before using a council dump, to prevent those scurrilous types who cross the border and dump stuff in an area they haven't paid for. This is probably what happened in Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic held rallies where he screamed "How long must we sit back while thieves and vagabonds come over here from Dubrovnik to throw their rotting settees in our dump? This is exactly what happened in the great turnip-dumping battles of 1352 , this means war." Soon tall people will have to pay more for bus tickets because "If they were all the same size as me, the bus could be shorter and use less red paint so why should I have to pay...." This attitude isn't natural. It has to be cultivated. When you come back from holiday your neighbours don't say "Welcome back dear. We kept an eye on the place while you were away, just to be on the safe side. So here's an invoice for security, we'll be expecting payment in thirty days or we will sue, dear, ooh you've got a lovely tan."
Society depends and thrives on a collective attitude, but there seems to be a trend now to go further than running every corner of society according to the rules of business, and sub-divide each business so everyone is responsible solely for themself. And if enough companies and politicians insist we're all being robbed by paying for toilets and tennis courts and invalidity benefits that we don't directly benefit from, we'll come to accept it must be true. In which case I wonder if in future you can opt out of paying for a war you don't agree with, as long as you yell: "Why should I have to pay for cruise missiles when I can see he hasn't even got these supposed weapons. I'm being robbed."
Every aspect of the journey; food, drink, luggage, is becoming an "extra", to the point where Ryanair planned to charge £1 for use of the toilet. Next they'll replace safety announcements with an auction for the only oxygen mask. If the current airlines had been around in 1941 they'd have bought up the Spitfires, and pilots returning from the Battle of Britain would have been told they'd used more than their quota of bullets and owed Ryanair seventeen shillings and threepence.
But this isn't just about air travel. The arguments used to justify these measures are along the lines of "Why should every customer pay for privileges they don't require themselves?" And there will be people who snarl "Why should part of my ticket price go towards the upkeep of a toilet when I don't use it because I prefer to go in a jar?" This attitude is seeping through every area of business. The arguments directed against the BBC from other broadcasters amount to complaints that some people have to pay for programmes they don't watch. In other words, "Why should I have to pay for yesterday's weather forecast when I stayed in all day? So these layabouts are staying dry and I'm paying for it."
Big TV companies want to go further with this, charging for individual sporting events and programmes. If they owned newspapers you'd have to pay extra for the sports results, or the crossword, and be told "Why should regular readers have to fork out for the cryptic minority?"
Local councils promote this extreme individuality. The tennis court in my local park now greets you with a sign saying "If you don't pay you won't play." So not only do they charge for what were communal facilities, they don't even do it politely. Instead they sound like The Mafia in rhyme, and might as well say "Three sets costs you twenty notes or Claudio here will slit your throats."
Even rubbish dumps come under the new system. You're now asked to provide proof of address before using a council dump, to prevent those scurrilous types who cross the border and dump stuff in an area they haven't paid for. This is probably what happened in Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic held rallies where he screamed "How long must we sit back while thieves and vagabonds come over here from Dubrovnik to throw their rotting settees in our dump? This is exactly what happened in the great turnip-dumping battles of 1352 , this means war." Soon tall people will have to pay more for bus tickets because "If they were all the same size as me, the bus could be shorter and use less red paint so why should I have to pay...." This attitude isn't natural. It has to be cultivated. When you come back from holiday your neighbours don't say "Welcome back dear. We kept an eye on the place while you were away, just to be on the safe side. So here's an invoice for security, we'll be expecting payment in thirty days or we will sue, dear, ooh you've got a lovely tan."
Society depends and thrives on a collective attitude, but there seems to be a trend now to go further than running every corner of society according to the rules of business, and sub-divide each business so everyone is responsible solely for themself. And if enough companies and politicians insist we're all being robbed by paying for toilets and tennis courts and invalidity benefits that we don't directly benefit from, we'll come to accept it must be true. In which case I wonder if in future you can opt out of paying for a war you don't agree with, as long as you yell: "Why should I have to pay for cruise missiles when I can see he hasn't even got these supposed weapons. I'm being robbed."
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The British Energy Sector - An Example of Collussion by Oligopolies and regulatory failure
The great energy rip-off (and how you can avoid it)
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Consumers suffer as energy firms cash in on huge profits
Fuel bills have become a "scandal" as the biggest suppliers in the £25bn-a-year industry make vast profits supplying gas and electricity to Britain's 20 million families, independent experts say.
Today The Independent launches a campaign demanding that the "Big Six" power companies lower their prices, amid accusations that they failed to pass on cuts in fuel bills after the price of oil fell from last summer's record highs.
Utility companies put up power prices by about 42 per cent last year, or about £382 per household. Since then, the wholesale cost of gas and electricity has halved but bills have fallen by only 4 per cent.
Critics say there is too little competition between British Gas, E.ON, EDF Energy, Npower, Scottish & Southern and ScottishPower. The average domestic fuel bill paid by direct debit is £1,141 - but it varies by less than £20 between the six companies.
Over the past month, the mark-up charged by the established power suppliers has been exposed by two new operators who are taking advantage of rock-bottom wholesale gas and electricity prices to slash bills. First:Utility's typical tariff for bills paid online is £954, while Ovo Energy charges £978, a saving of £163 to £187 over the Big Six. Quarterly and pre-payment customers who switch to Ovo or First:Utility would save £287.
By contrast, millions of Big Six customers are languishing on standard deals far costlier than online tariffs offered to savvy customers who shop around.
Some of those expensive packages will hit home this winter when the two British-owned power companies reveal their profits to the City. One million families served by E.ON, ScottishPower and EDF Energy will also find themselves paying up to £296 a year more for gas and electricity after their fixed tariffs ended last week.
As part of the "Great Energy Rip-Off" campaign, The Independent is encouraging its readers to switch supplier to spark greater competition. We are also calling on the Big Six to lower prices by 10 per cent, or about £125 a year, and urging ministers to remove the licences of suppliers that do not pass on falls in wholesale fuel prices.
Of the Big Six, four are owned by foreign corporations which have been accused of treating Britain like a "treasure island". They are expected to report vastly higher profits thanks to falling wholesale costs. While the firms were paying 85p per therm of gas last September, the price now is 35p. Electricity prices have fallen from £90 to £40 per megawatt hour.
According to a review by the Energy Contract Company, an independent energy forecaster, wholesale gas prices will stay low this winter and remain so for three years. "The fall in spot prices has meant the domestic market is now highly profitable," it said in its Gas Market Review, which put current profit margins at 20 to 30 per cent.
In August, the energy regulator Ofgem's request for price cuts was rejected by suppliers who warned that they might even raise bills. Using confidential commercial data, Ofgem - which has been accused of treating the Big Six too leniently - estimated that while they usually made £110 per year on "dual fuel" customers who obtained gas and electricity from one company, this year they would make £170 per customer - an increase of 55 per cent.
According to a "conservative" estimate by the campaign group Consumer Focus, bills are about £100 too high. But an independent energy expert, David Hunter, said that given Ofgem's "caution" he estimated that a figure of £120 a year was more accurate.
"The failure of the suppliers to pass on the massive reductions in energy prices... is approaching scandal proportions," said Mr Hunter, of Britain's biggest independent energy analyst McKinnon & Clarke. "Some suppliers have recently made small reductions to niche tariffs. However, these token discounts are only open to direct debit and online customers and do not change the overall trend."
Last year, Ofgem dismissed any suggestion that the power companies were colluding to fix prices. However, after initially insisting that the market was working, the regulator's Energy Supply Probe found that pre-payment and electricity-only customers were being overcharged by £500m. Energywatch, the disbanded consumer body, blamed a lack of competition.
As a result of takeovers since privatisation in the 1980s, the number of household power suppliers has fallen from 20 to six. EDF Energy, E.ON, ScottishPower and Npower have been taken over by overseas corporations, making them more resistant to national pressure to lower bills.
Confusing bills from the firms, which have a baffling array of 4,000 different tariffs, also make customers less likely to search for a better deal.
The Government urged firms to lower prices this spring, but since then ministers have been quiet and the Department for Energy and Climate Change has issued no press releases on household bills all year. The Big Six, which control 99 per cent of the domestic market, are likely to face new pressure later this year as they reveal bumper earnings. This month, Scottish & Southern is expected to announce interim profits of almost £600m - twice last year's figure.
Today The Independent launches a campaign demanding that the "Big Six" power companies lower their prices, amid accusations that they failed to pass on cuts in fuel bills after the price of oil fell from last summer's record highs.
Utility companies put up power prices by about 42 per cent last year, or about £382 per household. Since then, the wholesale cost of gas and electricity has halved but bills have fallen by only 4 per cent.
Critics say there is too little competition between British Gas, E.ON, EDF Energy, Npower, Scottish & Southern and ScottishPower. The average domestic fuel bill paid by direct debit is £1,141 - but it varies by less than £20 between the six companies.
Over the past month, the mark-up charged by the established power suppliers has been exposed by two new operators who are taking advantage of rock-bottom wholesale gas and electricity prices to slash bills. First:Utility's typical tariff for bills paid online is £954, while Ovo Energy charges £978, a saving of £163 to £187 over the Big Six. Quarterly and pre-payment customers who switch to Ovo or First:Utility would save £287.
By contrast, millions of Big Six customers are languishing on standard deals far costlier than online tariffs offered to savvy customers who shop around.
Some of those expensive packages will hit home this winter when the two British-owned power companies reveal their profits to the City. One million families served by E.ON, ScottishPower and EDF Energy will also find themselves paying up to £296 a year more for gas and electricity after their fixed tariffs ended last week.
As part of the "Great Energy Rip-Off" campaign, The Independent is encouraging its readers to switch supplier to spark greater competition. We are also calling on the Big Six to lower prices by 10 per cent, or about £125 a year, and urging ministers to remove the licences of suppliers that do not pass on falls in wholesale fuel prices.
Of the Big Six, four are owned by foreign corporations which have been accused of treating Britain like a "treasure island". They are expected to report vastly higher profits thanks to falling wholesale costs. While the firms were paying 85p per therm of gas last September, the price now is 35p. Electricity prices have fallen from £90 to £40 per megawatt hour.
According to a review by the Energy Contract Company, an independent energy forecaster, wholesale gas prices will stay low this winter and remain so for three years. "The fall in spot prices has meant the domestic market is now highly profitable," it said in its Gas Market Review, which put current profit margins at 20 to 30 per cent.
In August, the energy regulator Ofgem's request for price cuts was rejected by suppliers who warned that they might even raise bills. Using confidential commercial data, Ofgem - which has been accused of treating the Big Six too leniently - estimated that while they usually made £110 per year on "dual fuel" customers who obtained gas and electricity from one company, this year they would make £170 per customer - an increase of 55 per cent.
According to a "conservative" estimate by the campaign group Consumer Focus, bills are about £100 too high. But an independent energy expert, David Hunter, said that given Ofgem's "caution" he estimated that a figure of £120 a year was more accurate.
"The failure of the suppliers to pass on the massive reductions in energy prices... is approaching scandal proportions," said Mr Hunter, of Britain's biggest independent energy analyst McKinnon & Clarke. "Some suppliers have recently made small reductions to niche tariffs. However, these token discounts are only open to direct debit and online customers and do not change the overall trend."
Last year, Ofgem dismissed any suggestion that the power companies were colluding to fix prices. However, after initially insisting that the market was working, the regulator's Energy Supply Probe found that pre-payment and electricity-only customers were being overcharged by £500m. Energywatch, the disbanded consumer body, blamed a lack of competition.
As a result of takeovers since privatisation in the 1980s, the number of household power suppliers has fallen from 20 to six. EDF Energy, E.ON, ScottishPower and Npower have been taken over by overseas corporations, making them more resistant to national pressure to lower bills.
Confusing bills from the firms, which have a baffling array of 4,000 different tariffs, also make customers less likely to search for a better deal.
The Government urged firms to lower prices this spring, but since then ministers have been quiet and the Department for Energy and Climate Change has issued no press releases on household bills all year. The Big Six, which control 99 per cent of the domestic market, are likely to face new pressure later this year as they reveal bumper earnings. This month, Scottish & Southern is expected to announce interim profits of almost £600m - twice last year's figure.
Martin Hickman: Suppliers run rings around regulators
Britain's energy sector is failing. The infrastructure is old and crumbling, the proportion of climate-friendly renewables such as wind and solar is rumbling along at 5 per cent despite a 9.7 per cent target, metering is antiquated and bills are confusing and complex. And, perhaps the most immediate concern in a recession, bills are too high.
The Big Six energy suppliers don't need to collude to fix prices - they simply watch what their rivals are charging and tweak tariffs accordingly. They leave millions of people on expensive tariffs, leaving the juiciest rates for price-sensitive internet surfers.
They have little to fear from the regulator Ofgem. They have run rings around it, even managing to keep their outrageous right to inform customers of price rises two months later.
With the regulator in their pocket and a weak Government, they have almost complete control of the market. While the biggest six supermarkets - themselves subject to bitter claims that they stifle consumer choice - have 77 per cent of food spending and the biggest six banks and building societies have 94 per cent of current accounts, the Big Six energy suppliers have 99 per cent of customers. True, they have occasionally limited domestic rises when the oil price has spiked particularly spectacularly; not all years have been bumper ones.
Now, though, the trough in wholesale prices is so deep and is predicted to last so long, they are set for years of bonanza profits.
Even Ofgem has finally acknowledged bills are too high. But it ceded its last price controls in 2002, when it concluded that the market was working fine. At the start of 2008 it also insisted the market was working - before launching an investigation and finding £500m overcharging. Given its regulatory failure, only a customer exodus will sharpen competition. Last month two new operators, First: Utility and Ovo Energy, undercut the big boys by taking advantage of cheap wholesale energy.
Although the big suppliers have more expensive long-term contracts, almost everyone believes they could still cut bills. Some of their customers already pay hundreds of pounds less than others.
Ministers seem relaxed about prices, with only occasional harrumphing from the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Consumers don't have to be.
The Big Six energy suppliers don't need to collude to fix prices - they simply watch what their rivals are charging and tweak tariffs accordingly. They leave millions of people on expensive tariffs, leaving the juiciest rates for price-sensitive internet surfers.
They have little to fear from the regulator Ofgem. They have run rings around it, even managing to keep their outrageous right to inform customers of price rises two months later.
With the regulator in their pocket and a weak Government, they have almost complete control of the market. While the biggest six supermarkets - themselves subject to bitter claims that they stifle consumer choice - have 77 per cent of food spending and the biggest six banks and building societies have 94 per cent of current accounts, the Big Six energy suppliers have 99 per cent of customers. True, they have occasionally limited domestic rises when the oil price has spiked particularly spectacularly; not all years have been bumper ones.
Now, though, the trough in wholesale prices is so deep and is predicted to last so long, they are set for years of bonanza profits.
Even Ofgem has finally acknowledged bills are too high. But it ceded its last price controls in 2002, when it concluded that the market was working fine. At the start of 2008 it also insisted the market was working - before launching an investigation and finding £500m overcharging. Given its regulatory failure, only a customer exodus will sharpen competition. Last month two new operators, First: Utility and Ovo Energy, undercut the big boys by taking advantage of cheap wholesale energy.
Although the big suppliers have more expensive long-term contracts, almost everyone believes they could still cut bills. Some of their customers already pay hundreds of pounds less than others.
Ministers seem relaxed about prices, with only occasional harrumphing from the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Consumers don't have to be.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
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Friday, 2 October 2009
If we care about the BBC, we must fight to defend it
Johann Hari
The Tories' plan to scrap impartiality would mean Sky mutating into Fox News
There is a scandal in British politics that is passing almost unnoticed in the night. It will alter the ecology of our politics - and our culture - in ways that will damage us for decades to come.
There is one thing most British people think we do best: broadcasting. A recent ICM poll found that 77 per cent think the BBC is an institution to be proud of, and 63 per cent say it is good value for money. This makes the BBC by a long way the most popular public institution in Britain - yet both main political parties are lining up to happy-slap Auntie. The link between the licence fee and the Beeb is about to be broken by a Labour government, and a Tory government will sweep in and widen the gap, while unleashing a snarling pack of Fox News-style hounds across the rest of the channels. And for what? To win the favour of a foreign right-wing billionaire.
Let's start with the good news. The BBC works. For just £2.60 a week, the British get a package of the best television and radio in the world. We get the best comedies, the best drama and the best news. There's a reason why we have won seven of the past 10 international Emmies, and the BBC News website is the most popular on earth. As soon as he took power, Nicolas Sarkozy asked how he could make French broadcasting more like ours. It is a model for the world of how to create journalism that isn't contaminated by either corporate advertisers and proprietors on one side, or state ownership on the other. Three independent polls have found that a large majority of Brits would happily pay more for it.
Of course we can all find some parts of its output we don't like. I can't stand Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Neil's blatant editorialising, Chris Moyles, or bogus questions about whether Gordon Brown is popping pills. A right-wing bias still seeps into a lot of its news coverage: see the new book Newspeak by David Edwards and David Cromwell for details. But other people will loathe the parts I love - In Our Time, Start the Week, EastEnders, Question Time, Lauren Laverne, Mark Kermode, BBC4. It's a package: it's impossible for every part to delight every individual. But when there are so many riches, we almost all find something to enjoy: a London Business School found that 99 per cent of us use it every week.
Far from becoming outdated, the BBC model is more necessary than ever. Commercial television is losing its ability to produce quality programmes, fast. Advertising money is leaking away to the internet: this week, for the first time, online advertising overtook TV ads in Britain. Revenues are expected to fall by 20 per cent in the next decade, and to continue spiralling after that. As more of us get digital packages that make it possible to record programmes and fast-forward through the ads, it will only get worse. Budgets for shows on commercial channels are in freefall. We won't get good programmes for nothing again. The BBC is the simplest answer, and we are overwhelmingly happy to pay it.
So why would our politicians start trashing this system? Rupert Murdoch has long despised the BBC, for the simple reason that although it works well for us, it works badly for him. He can't step in and make a profit by providing his import-filled alternatives, because we're happy with what we have. So he has launched a long campaign through his newspapers to delegitimise the BBC. They relentlessly present it as poor value, biased to the left, and bloated. It's not working with the public: the BBC is 9 per cent more popular today than a decade ago. But he is determined to shrink the BBC to a feeble service like PBS in the US, producing worthy programmes watched by a handful.
Despite losing the public argument, Murdoch has another way to exert influence: his newspapers have long applauded the politicians who most serve his interests, and savaged the politicians who lag behind. It's part of a long pattern that stretches across continents. In the debate about The Sun's endorsement of David Cameron this week, many naive observers have acted as if the newspaper is a pressure group with only the interests of the British people at heart, rather than the arm of a corporate machine acting bluntly in its own self-interest.
The Labour government began the bidding for Murdoch's favour by proposing - for the first time - to break the link between the licence fee and the BBC. From now on, a chunk of it will be given to other broadcasters like Channel 4 and regional news providers. At first it sounds like a small and reasonable step - it will go to support valuable programming - but it begins a process that will bleed the BBC. You won't be able to see so clearly where your money is going. Gradually, more and more money will be dispersed from the BBC by a Tory government eager to keep Murdoch's favour, and the corporation will shrink back. As it provides less easily traceable value, it will be harder to defend the license fee itself - and Murdoch will win.
The Tories then upped the bidding. This summer Ofcom - Britain's broadcasting regulators - found Murdoch's BSkyB guilty of effectively pricing other companies out of the pay-TV market. David Cameron responded by saying he will quietly put Ofcom to sleep, scrapping most of its regulations. Then he gave Murdoch another bauble he has craved for decades: he is going to scrap all the political impartiality rules covering British television (except on the BBC). If Cameron succeeds, Sky News will mutate into Fox News, pumping its poison 24/7. Murdoch duly endorsed the Tories.
This quid pro quo is unspoken - there are no meetings in darkened rooms - but Murdoch is quids in nonetheless. His son James Murdoch has been at the forefront of trying to rationalise these grabs for profit. He called the impartiality rules "an impingement on the right to free speech". This is based on a basic error. Your right to free speech - which is the closest thing I have to a sacred belief - doesn't include the right to speak wherever you want. I don't have a primetime show on BBC1 to expound my views, but that doesn't mean I'm being censored. Your right to say what you want doesn't entail a right to say it on the public airwaves. They are a shared public resource, and it is right to regulate them in the public interest.
James Murdoch then claimed the BBC "penalises the poorest in our society with regressive taxes and policies". This is hilarious. If James Murdoch is against regressive taxes, why has News International - which makes billions - paid no net taxation in Britain for more than a decade? Why do his newspapers vehemently oppose moves to tax the rich more and the poor less?
After this argument belly-flopped, he claimed the only "guarantor of independence [in broadcasting] is profit". Perhaps he should visit Italy, where the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, owns half the TV channels, and makes them support his political campaigns.
Enough. We can't tolerate a clandestine campaign to trash one of our great national institutions, just so a foreign billionaire can make more profit. Where are these politicians' spines? Where is their patriotism?
j.hari@independent.co.uk [j.hari@independent.co.uk]
There is one thing most British people think we do best: broadcasting. A recent ICM poll found that 77 per cent think the BBC is an institution to be proud of, and 63 per cent say it is good value for money. This makes the BBC by a long way the most popular public institution in Britain - yet both main political parties are lining up to happy-slap Auntie. The link between the licence fee and the Beeb is about to be broken by a Labour government, and a Tory government will sweep in and widen the gap, while unleashing a snarling pack of Fox News-style hounds across the rest of the channels. And for what? To win the favour of a foreign right-wing billionaire.
Let's start with the good news. The BBC works. For just £2.60 a week, the British get a package of the best television and radio in the world. We get the best comedies, the best drama and the best news. There's a reason why we have won seven of the past 10 international Emmies, and the BBC News website is the most popular on earth. As soon as he took power, Nicolas Sarkozy asked how he could make French broadcasting more like ours. It is a model for the world of how to create journalism that isn't contaminated by either corporate advertisers and proprietors on one side, or state ownership on the other. Three independent polls have found that a large majority of Brits would happily pay more for it.
Of course we can all find some parts of its output we don't like. I can't stand Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Neil's blatant editorialising, Chris Moyles, or bogus questions about whether Gordon Brown is popping pills. A right-wing bias still seeps into a lot of its news coverage: see the new book Newspeak by David Edwards and David Cromwell for details. But other people will loathe the parts I love - In Our Time, Start the Week, EastEnders, Question Time, Lauren Laverne, Mark Kermode, BBC4. It's a package: it's impossible for every part to delight every individual. But when there are so many riches, we almost all find something to enjoy: a London Business School found that 99 per cent of us use it every week.
Far from becoming outdated, the BBC model is more necessary than ever. Commercial television is losing its ability to produce quality programmes, fast. Advertising money is leaking away to the internet: this week, for the first time, online advertising overtook TV ads in Britain. Revenues are expected to fall by 20 per cent in the next decade, and to continue spiralling after that. As more of us get digital packages that make it possible to record programmes and fast-forward through the ads, it will only get worse. Budgets for shows on commercial channels are in freefall. We won't get good programmes for nothing again. The BBC is the simplest answer, and we are overwhelmingly happy to pay it.
So why would our politicians start trashing this system? Rupert Murdoch has long despised the BBC, for the simple reason that although it works well for us, it works badly for him. He can't step in and make a profit by providing his import-filled alternatives, because we're happy with what we have. So he has launched a long campaign through his newspapers to delegitimise the BBC. They relentlessly present it as poor value, biased to the left, and bloated. It's not working with the public: the BBC is 9 per cent more popular today than a decade ago. But he is determined to shrink the BBC to a feeble service like PBS in the US, producing worthy programmes watched by a handful.
Despite losing the public argument, Murdoch has another way to exert influence: his newspapers have long applauded the politicians who most serve his interests, and savaged the politicians who lag behind. It's part of a long pattern that stretches across continents. In the debate about The Sun's endorsement of David Cameron this week, many naive observers have acted as if the newspaper is a pressure group with only the interests of the British people at heart, rather than the arm of a corporate machine acting bluntly in its own self-interest.
The Labour government began the bidding for Murdoch's favour by proposing - for the first time - to break the link between the licence fee and the BBC. From now on, a chunk of it will be given to other broadcasters like Channel 4 and regional news providers. At first it sounds like a small and reasonable step - it will go to support valuable programming - but it begins a process that will bleed the BBC. You won't be able to see so clearly where your money is going. Gradually, more and more money will be dispersed from the BBC by a Tory government eager to keep Murdoch's favour, and the corporation will shrink back. As it provides less easily traceable value, it will be harder to defend the license fee itself - and Murdoch will win.
The Tories then upped the bidding. This summer Ofcom - Britain's broadcasting regulators - found Murdoch's BSkyB guilty of effectively pricing other companies out of the pay-TV market. David Cameron responded by saying he will quietly put Ofcom to sleep, scrapping most of its regulations. Then he gave Murdoch another bauble he has craved for decades: he is going to scrap all the political impartiality rules covering British television (except on the BBC). If Cameron succeeds, Sky News will mutate into Fox News, pumping its poison 24/7. Murdoch duly endorsed the Tories.
This quid pro quo is unspoken - there are no meetings in darkened rooms - but Murdoch is quids in nonetheless. His son James Murdoch has been at the forefront of trying to rationalise these grabs for profit. He called the impartiality rules "an impingement on the right to free speech". This is based on a basic error. Your right to free speech - which is the closest thing I have to a sacred belief - doesn't include the right to speak wherever you want. I don't have a primetime show on BBC1 to expound my views, but that doesn't mean I'm being censored. Your right to say what you want doesn't entail a right to say it on the public airwaves. They are a shared public resource, and it is right to regulate them in the public interest.
James Murdoch then claimed the BBC "penalises the poorest in our society with regressive taxes and policies". This is hilarious. If James Murdoch is against regressive taxes, why has News International - which makes billions - paid no net taxation in Britain for more than a decade? Why do his newspapers vehemently oppose moves to tax the rich more and the poor less?
After this argument belly-flopped, he claimed the only "guarantor of independence [in broadcasting] is profit". Perhaps he should visit Italy, where the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, owns half the TV channels, and makes them support his political campaigns.
Enough. We can't tolerate a clandestine campaign to trash one of our great national institutions, just so a foreign billionaire can make more profit. Where are these politicians' spines? Where is their patriotism?
j.hari@independent.co.uk [j.hari@independent.co.uk]
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Thursday, 1 October 2009
India Needs An Independent Minded News And Analysis Channel
By Trevor Selvam
30 September, 2009
Countercurrents.org
For the past several years I have watched with some amusement, some intrigue and some sneaking admiration-- the avaricious style of India's advent into the CNN and SkyNews style of journalism. I say avaricious, because Indians like to eat up everything they can watch, feel or hear. Like ice cream. If they could, they would eat up a flat panel TV set, right off the wall mounting, with cable, bolts and everything. Including Arnab Goswami, while he would be carrying on his mendacious, Fox-style blather. India needs an Independent Minded New Channel. I am emphasizing the word Minded, because there is a wealth of Minds in India, who are not being interviewed, asked to comment on critical issues.
Indians love two phrases to describe themselves. One is the collective version of Me, Me, Me Too-ism (more like Us to-ism), which drives most TV anchors to emulate a mode that makes a mockery of mimicry itself. We can do it too! Whatever they do, we will do also! The problem is that neither CNN, nor Skynews, nor MSNBC are symbolic of any sober journalistic standards. The BBC, somewhat abstemious and even pious by contrast, is after all a preserver of a post-colonial dignity in the face of American trashiness. If there is any news and analysis channel that stands out for putting out sober, dignified and reflective journalism, it is Al Jazeera. And Indian journalists are not looking at Al Jazeera for inspiration, for sure. In my columns before, I have stated my admiration for the significantly serious journalism of Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera sends out its correspondents to the farthest corners of the world, to investigate the conditions people live in. From the remotest mountains in the Andes, the forest of the Amazons, to the backwaters of Louisiana and to the Uighur areas of China. Al Jazeera even does a report on Kolkata rickshaw pullers, which one would be hard pressed to find on an Indian channel. Their journalists are extraordinarily articulate, nuanced and non-partisan. They also handle all the hot potato items one can imagine, being based in an Islamic country.
And the other phrase is "We are like that only!" The latter is used, when glaring contradictions in behaviour, in consumption patterns, in national key statistics regarding poverty, literacy, the violence of the police forces are compared to India's recent stratospheric conquests and claims to apostolic notions of non-violence. "We are like that only." In other words, take us for what we are. Complex, unexplainable, contradictory and fitting right into the mould of the exotic and the mysterious--an enigma and a stereotype that is beyond classification.
Well, that enigma is actually turning out to be tattered at the edges, quite flaky, quite dangerous and quite an affront to the majority of India's population that live in that swathe of the country that is beginning to be called the Naxalite corridor. This corridor has India's best sources of water and therefore power, mining resources, precious metals and ah yes! The aboriginal people of India live here. With the Dalits, they are one fourth of India's population. Has anybody figured out what would happen if these people got really mad and energized, because they have finally found someone who will fight with them? Urban India better start figuring things out soon.
Indians like the boom-bang, dhoom-dhamaka style of journalism. The journalism that combines doe-eyed twenty-five year old journalists asking seemingly penetrating questions about nothing, to incoherent reporters in the field, while in the background, war-drum like sounds continue with swishy computer graphics that fly in and out in accompaniment with the sound track. The reporters themselves have gone from the realm of hard core comedy to an outright parody of live journalism.. The latest was when while reporting on Lalgarh, a young journalist in a near panic stricken voice kept asking his cameramen to zoom in on a forest in the distance saying "anytime the Maoists could come out from there and anytime I could be stepping on a mine. That is how dangerous it is." Meanwhile an Adivasi man sauntered by the camera with a tangi ( the double edged curved hatchet that Adivasis have used forever) resting on his shoulders and very casually sidestepping a distraught looking CRPF soldier who was staring into the jungle in the distance.
Suddenly, we have a generation of people using the new media, who have not been exposed to the facts of India's political history, pre-independence and post-independence. If these journalists do not know who Bhagat Singh or Khudiram were and why they were executed by the British Empire, if they do not know anything about the Santhal rebellion and Sidhu and Kanu, if they do not know what happened in Telengana and Tebhaga, long before Naxalbari, how can they ask the right questions about what is happening in Lalgarh?
The government of India has cleverly planted the debates in the media. So, for a while the Indian nation will be discussing development first or law and order, first? So there is the KPS Gill and CPI(M)/BJP school of parliamentary intellectualism that will insist on the rule of law. And then the ruling Congress will come out swinging and looking good, saying " Uh! Uh! We will not call in the Army on the Maoists! It is a development problem and we shall bring in the water, the schools, and the clinics and by the way we are mopping up the Maoists alongside." So, the debate of whether the Government of India should be "development centric" or "security centric" will meander along into an insipid ending and quietly the paramilitary operations will proceed with ruthless speed. And the TV anchormen and women will hum and haw and go on to the next debate, which could be on the topic of "Corruption in the Police" or some other insanely hackneyed issue.
Other than the newsmagazine Tehelka, it seems none of the mainstream news journals select particularly intelligent reporters, brief them accurately, when they send them out to missions in the interiors of India. Tehelka tends to go far beyond newspeak. They provide researched and investigated data. They seem to be away from bombastic soundbytes. Shoma Choudhury, writing in the October 3 issue of Tehelka Magazine states the following --"Over this past year, the Home Ministry has been planning a major armed offensive against the Naxals, particularly in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, the plan involves stationing around 75,000 troops in the heartland of India — including special CRPF commandos, the ITBP and the BSF. Scattered newspaper accounts have spoken of forces being withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast; there is also talk of bringing in the feared Rashtriya Rifles — a battalion created specially for counter-insurgency work — and the purchase of bomb trucks, bomb blankets, bomb baskets, and sophisticated new weaponry."" Please take the time to read Shoma Choudhury at http://www.tehelka.com/story_
main42.asp?filename=Ne031009coverstory.asp
Something big is afoot in India and none of the TV channels are talking about it. The Government of India is withdrawing forces from everywhere and getting set to attack its own people in its heartland area and nobody is talking about it? How can this be?
When Mr. Kobad Gandhy, the Maoist leader was recently arrested, an epidemic of sensationalist articles appeared discussing his pedigree, his jovial mannerisms, his Doon school education etc and then there was a dumbfounded notion of how a well-to-do Parsee family could produce a Naxalite? Well, wake up! Because 40 years ago, almost 80% of the Naxalites came from well-to-do or middle class families and invariably all had solid educational backgrounds..
Why don't Indian news channels discuss violence? I am talking about the violence perpetrated by 62 years of independence that still leaves 53% of India's population below the poverty line? The violence of malnutrition, hunger, infanticide, femicide, where India rules the world in statistics? Do Indian journalists like Vikram Chandra have the balls to rise to the occasion and demand a discussion on the violence of the state? Of course not!
I have never seen any journalism anywhere in the world, where such a large mass movement of aboriginal first nations peoples are seen by the mainstream media with such racist distance and only in terms of incidents, party statements, interviews and dailyspeak.
What India needs is a renaissance in the realm of journalism and intellectual analysis. Folks who have been there and done it all, who are professionals, doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, artists, judges (especially those who were witness to the carnage in the 60s and 70s) to step forward and make that climb over the hump and point out that horizon that is beyond this Karat-Biman Bose-Montek-Chidambaran-BJP world. India needs an independent voice, an independent network and the class who can finance it. Yes, a nationalist bourgeoisie would be good. People who have a soul, have a mind and wish to contribute their resources to an India that will really shine! Because no matter how many articles we write, how many letters we sign, Indians are already in the newsbyte snapshot evening news and blackberry breaking news mode and unless you have a restrained analytical feature programming channel, Indian TV journalism remains in the dark ages with a lot of techno features and sound effects but no light, no investigative ability when it comes to the political terrain of India. One must ask ourselves why that is so? Are they afraid of the Indian government?
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Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Stop blaming the poor
Population growth is not a problem. - it's among those who consume the least. So why isn't anyone targeting the very rich
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 21.00 BST
It's no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it's about the only environmental issue for which they can't be blamed. The brilliant Earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for instance, claimed last month that "those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational." But it's Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.
A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world's population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out only 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three percent of the world's population growth happened in places with very low emissions.
Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that about one sixth of the world's population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees (£40) a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning 30,000 rupees or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.
Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to the developed nations. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for instance, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together. Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm.
The paper's author, David Satterthwaite, points out that the old formula taught to students of development – that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I = PAT) – is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I = CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world's people use so little that they wouldn't figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.
While there's a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there's a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I've been taking a look at a few super-yachts, as I'll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they are accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet's RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour I realised that it wasn't going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 litres per hour. But the raft that's really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3,400 litres per hour when travelling at 60 knots. That's nearly a litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre.
Of course, to make a real splash I'll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jetskis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar, and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I'll do more damage to the biosphere in 10 minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we're burning, baby.Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3,000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.
In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined "Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation". It revealed that "some of America's leading billionaires have met secretly" to decide which good cause they should support. "A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat." The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it's the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it's impossible to satirise.
James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust. It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven't been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.
The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons – except among wealthier populations.
The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century, probably at about 10 billion. Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.
But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don't consume less – they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock's words, "hiding from the truth". It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.
So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against super-yachts and private jets? Where's Class War when you need it?
It's time we had the guts to name the problem. It's not sex; it's money. It's not the poor; it's the rich.
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