More Chinese Whispers

 Its about time we had tales from the mysterious orient ....

Yangtze Monster

An unidentified creature was filmed making its way down the Yangtze, Asia's longest river near Yichang City, in central China's Hubei Province. The boat was travelling the three Gorges Dam Scenic Area, which is popular for cruises.

Yangtze Monster - Or Snake?

It was estimated to be at least 10ft long, and also appears to have a hump-like feature at the back of its slender body. After all the 'monster' speculation, its actually most likely to be a Burmese python, which are often found in China, and are capable of growing to the size seen in the video.

Giving Away Our Money

Most governments are good at handing over money that is not theirs i.e. Taxes and Revenues, to people who are not worthy of such largess and who are often not our friends at all. In the UK this can be irksome when for example, it’s a vast waste of money and incompetence, such as the Kids Company, and its founder Camila Batmanghelidjh ... who may have done some small good, but with very large amounts of money.

But it’s outrageous when it’s a foreign country. Prime Minister David Cameron for example, is apparently obsessed in giving vast amounts of money to countries, who are often little short of bandits states, or even our active enemies or competitors.

Western Foreign Aid Wasted?

Tax Evasion Taliban Style

Britain currently pays £446 million to Pakistan in 'Foreign Aid money.

Tax Evasion Endemic In Pakistan

 
What annoys me about this fact is that, aside from the fact that Pakistan has spent millions developing nuclear weapons (and the missile delivery systems) solely to threaten India with, or the fact that most of Britain's militant Islamic threats comes from or are taught by, Pakistan based clerics. Or even the fact that Pakistan has supported the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill our soldiers .... all of which seem very good reasons to stop any aid to Pakistan or even breaking all relations .....

 

BRIC's Float On UK Aid Money

The BRIC countries are those whose economies are considered to be some of the world's fastest-growing second world economies - China, India, Brazil and Russia ...... they have called for Russia (where the rule of law is non existent, as BP and many other companies have found to their cost), to be allowed into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where no doubt like China, they will steal industrial secrets at a national level, and ignore all copyright laws. Oddly, South Africa, which is not one of the world's fastest-growing second world economies ... rather more third world in fact, has started attending these summits .... obviously there are 'geopolitical reasons' for this, but even seasoned pundits were unable to work out why.

However they are marked by one other common factor .... They nearly all are, or were until this year, recipients of foreign aid from the UK ... you can't make this up. We are actually helping to create the countries that will displace us in the world, while our own economy grinds through yet another major recession (what ever happened to the end of "Boom and Bust" in Britain?).

• China, India, and Russia all have bigger space programs than the UK
• China, India, and Russia are all nuclear weapons holders

In fact when you look at the UK's aid program generally its surprising who we give lots of money to:

Its interesting to note that:

• Misspending on the Military instead of their own people (Pakistan stands out in this regard, where education spending is pitiful, but military spending is huge - but Burma must also be a dubious aid recipient in this regard), is not a deterrent to UK taxes being passed over.
• Nor is rampant corruption (Pakistan has this as well), but virtually all these countries features at the wrong end of the world corruption index tables, and finally
• Democracy ..... most of the aid countries have very poor democracy and human rights records, but we reward them with aid money.

It seems to me that there is no coincidence in these facts, and that the West has got this issue utterly and fundamentally wrong  ... and that in fact we are giving aid for the wrong  criteria and we should only give aid to countries with:

• Good democracy records,
• Low levels of security spending, and
• High levels of Education / Health spending  

In other words as an encouragement to achieve the standards we want and a disincentive to acting badly .... the Corruption and Democracy Index tables should be the criteria for determining UK and Western Aid.