World Takes A Short Pause ...

A short lead post this week ...  

World Takes A Short Pause ...

... Trump's US still hasn't extracted itself from Iran, so the real world is kind of on a short pause.

A World In Flames?

Has the world gone gone to hell?

The World In Flames?

That question has to be asked if you just look around at the state it's in.

The Trump Supporters Plans

For reasons that I can't really explain, I get copied into a hard-line pro-Trump news group letter ....

 
.... I suspect that I must have posted a comment on something on their site, or in response to an email, as I can't imagine just finding their news letter by chance ... anyway however it happened they have this blogs email address, and so I get the regular mails from them.

The World Awaits

Well, the US is making the most important decision since, well, the last one.

Divisive Politics Now The US Norm?

Yes, it's US Presidential Election day.

Brutal Policing States

More than 1,300 people were arrested for unsanctioned protesting against the order, by Russian President Vladimir Putin, that a further 300,000 Russian men were to be called up go fight in his war against the Ukraine ... 

Russian Protestors Meet Usual Brutality

... the protests were met with the usual dictatorship brutality, which we see in all authoritarian states similar to Russia.

Hostage Diplomacy Is Hostage Taking

 If anything tells you that China is, like Iran ....

State Hostage Taking - Practised By Both China And Iran

..... now a serial state hostage taker, aka 'hostage diplomacy', and not subject to the internationally recognised rule of law, then its the sudden release on the 25th of September 2021, of not one, but two Canadian citizens.

Fun and Games In Tokyo

There has been fun and games at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 ....

The Tokyo Olympics 2020 - In 2021

 .... and I don't mean the sports.

Economic And Social - Electoral Brinkmanship

As we edge toward the US Presidential election day on November the third ....

Same Old Politics In The "New Normal" ....

... the political stakes grow higher.

Not Top Table

After the hullabaloo of a US President visiting India, there was the usual talk about a meeting of equals, and of India emerging as the next 'Superpower' ....

Trump And Modi Enjoyed The Big Stage .....

Such talk has occasionally popped up for at least the last 20 years, but the country is seemingly no nearer that status now, than then.

Wet Wall Of China

Its been observed by many, that the Chinese often lack some of the social graces expected in the West, especially with regards to expectorations, and public expulsions of body matter generally.

 

No Spitting Sign

 

This lack of social graces in public led to Singapore, a state largely populated by people of Chinese descent, introducing some infamous edicts, with fines or even imprisonment, simply for spitting in public places, or even being caught chewing gum ... a $500 fine is not uncommon.

 

Cane Toads Forever

The cane toad story is one that we have followed with much interest and not a little amusement for a number of years .... whilst I am aware that the cane toads are not really a laughing matter .. the fact is that toads are essentially funny (toad of toad hall et al) in the Western culture.

So the latest cunning plan, which is to reintroduce the tadpoles of a small green frog, into the breeding ponds of the cane toads is mildly amusing ... apparently the tadpoles of this frog (a native to Australia), are better competitors for the food supply in the ponds than cane toad tadpoles, and it means that less cane toads reach a size big enough to leave the tadpole stage .... the green tree frog spawn can't actually eat the cane toad tadpoles, but the restriction in the food supply they cause, cuts their overall numbers.

Its been party time for Cane Toads

However I can't help thinking that a toad that migrates 40 km per annum, has so far crossed every barrier except total desert, and conquered the north east of Australia, is not going to be beaten back by some competitive tadpoles ..... so we won't hold our breath.

World Policeman

Being the worlds policeman is a tough job, but someone has to do it ... the first really major player (at least in Europe ... The Persians Had Tried It In Asia), was the Roman Empire ....

 

Pax Romana

 

..... which acted as policemen in a manner in which no other ancient state managed with its 'Pax Romana'. Various other 'players' tried the role on for size after the Roman Empire fell, but never quite fitted the bill.

Tiger Can't Change Stripes

When I was doing history studies, I was told that when there were one party states, the way to tell if they were Communist or Fascist was who owned the means of production - if it was the state, then they were Communists e.g. USSR and it it was in private hands, then it was Fascist like National Socialist Germany.

In the 1970's 100% of all the means of production in China was in state hands - now 80% is in private hands and its still a one party state ..... by this logic is China now a Fascist state? I ask because a story on the BBC states that the Chinese authorities are going to try and crack down on private police and 'black jails', where opponents to the regime are taken and tortured or even killed.

In a story that reminds one of Hitlers Germany, Chinese local government ministers and officials hire private thugs to dress as police, drive cars marked like the police, and then stop people who travel to Beijing to voice grievances about perceived injustices in their areas. In Beijing alone, there are estimated to be about 300,000 private security guards in the city. 

 

When a tourist was mistaken for a petitioner, and was kidnapped, tortured and killed in error, the officials responsible appear to have merely been reprimanded for the mistake of killing a tourist instead of a petitioner, not for kidnapping four people in the first place.

Tibetan Monks Leading Resistance

In Tibet, reports suggest that passive resistance in Tibet and Tibetan areas is spreading, with monks setting fire to themselves in increasing numbers ..... reports suggest that 11 monks and former monks have set themselves on fire so far this year, but all the incidents have all taken place in Tibetan areas of China proper.

 

Latest reports suggest that a monk in Tibet itself has just killed himself in this manner this week.

China: Cold War Hots Up

Increasingly the US and China are acting as though the 'Cold War' that had existed between the US and USSR in earlier decades has never ended and that they have inherited that mantle. I say that, because its increasingly obvious that the Chinese have two expansionist foreign policy objectives (as well as their interests in Africa), that are going to require the deployment (or the credible threat) of armed force.

 The two main objectives are:

1. "Reunion" with Taiwan, by whatever means, and 
2. The Chinese quite ridiculously claim all the islands in the South China seas, including the Spratly Isles (which as you can see from this map, actually run up to within 30 miles of the Philippines), that are well over a 1,000 miles from the Chinese mainland at their furthest point.  

 

The Taiwan issue is complicated by the fact that its a long-standing ally of the United States, and the Chinese Military need to be able to stop the US Military from supporting Taiwan, if Chinese forces ever blockaded, or even invaded Taiwan.

New Bully Boy On The Block

"Such an act has grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged the Sino-American relations" ... these are the words of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in a written statement yesterday. And the cause of these aggressive sentiments? US spy planes flying over the one party, undemocratic, communist state? No. Err maybe the US have been caught spying? No. Oh well maybe the US has retaliated to  the spate of Chinese sponsored cyber attacks on Western businesses, Pro Tibetan sites, Pro democracy, or Government websites and computer systems, by attacking Chinese sites? Nope.

Obama And Dalai Lama ....

Well what was it that caused the Chinese dictatorship to use such intemperate language? President Obama had the nerve to hold a private meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama of a free Tibet.

Nobel Prize, Ignoble Politics

China's behaviour over the award of the Noble Peace prize to Liu Xiaobo one of their own citizens, but one who is in prison for protesting for human rights, has been nothing less than shameful

..... but the behaviour of some of their 'friends' around the world has been equally disgraceful.

 

Cane Toad Burgers

Cane toads - I thought this story was finished with my last post on the subject, when it looked as though they were going to be sold to China ......

Cane Toads - Burgers

 

However those darn cane toads are still proving a problem and now its proposed to make "Caneburgers" for the local wild life, in order to 'teach them' that they are poisonous with out killing them off.

One suspects that this is not the last we will hear of these pesky toads ....

Solution To The Cane Toad Problem!

Finally a solution to the great Cane Toad problem .........eat them!

Yes finally the Chinese appetite for eating or using as medicine everything that walks, crawls, swims, wriggles or otherwise exists on the planet, may come in useful at last. This is because one enterprising businessman has finally spotted a gap in the market and the possibility of filling it with Australia's number one enemy, the Cane Toad!

Yes a representative from a Queensland meat processing firm is travelling to China next month to negotiate an export deal, to sell a large number of the estimated 200 million cane toads in Australia. It appears that in China the cane toad is a popular ingredient in a range of traditional medicines in China. Its toxins are used as a heart stimulant and as a diuretic as well a remedy for sinusitis and toothache. The animal's skin and organs are also thought to have powerful therapeutic qualities......... a bit like the Chinese views on every other living creature in fact.

Anyway, this is not the time to be churlish and despite the need to overcome various quarantine and licensing formalities before exports can begin, an end to the problem may just be in sight.

The Tiger Is Still Red In Tooth And Claw

The Chinese have stopped playing nice since the Olympics and President Clinton's stupidly short sighted declaration that 'Human Rights' should not be allowed to interfere with relations with China.

This report from the BBC's correspondent details how far from moving slowly towards democracy as the liberal left like to suggest, China is in fact retrenching communist hegemony's over both law and the state.

The Chief Justice, is Mr Wang Shengjun is a party apparatchik who has never been to law school. The slow (and many hoped irreversible) court and legal reform reforms, that had established some concept of the rule of law and primacy of the state constitution, have been cancelled at a stroke, by Mr Shengjun telling China's judiciary to reject the concept of independent courts.

Instead they have been told that they should consider Communist Party interests first, then the people's interests, and finally after all else, constitutional law.

The effects on China have not necessarily been the supine acceptance of this situation that maybe the Chinese Communists expected, with a certain degree of mass resistance

• On the island of Xiamen protests to stop a chemical plant being built near their homes;
• In Shanghai it was the threat of a new railway line that caused the protests;
• In Guangdong, a protest against a planned waste incinerator.

And in each case it was the middle class, those newly rich, those who had apparently benefited from the party's rule, who were taking to the streets. With little or no faith in the courts, the protesters have little choice but to take direct action, if they dare.

Don't let anyone tell you that China is 'like us' (unless their a North Korean), because they are not.

UN Irony? Egyptian Infamy

Proving once again that Muslims and the UN don't do irony, Egypt, the land of the imprisoned blogger and non bastion of free speech, has now got its own Internet domain name ......

Web Freedom

 

...... which was announced at a UN sponsored the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) during a session at the Internet Governance Forum held in Egypt.