Historic Decision Confers Equal Right to Marriage to Same-Sex Couples
(New York, May 15, 2008) – The California Supreme Court’s ruling today striking down state law that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples is a victory for equality that should set a national and international example, Human Rights Watch said today.
“California’s highest court has affirmed that equality does not come with exceptions,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “This historic decision should push the US government to stop obstructing equal treatment of relationships and families.”
On May 15, by a vote of 4 to 3, the court overturned a 2000 ballot measure that had limited the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The ballot measure presaged the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples by the city and county of San Francisco in 2004. The court had ordered the city and county of San Francisco in 2004 to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, pending resolution of whether California’s restriction of marriage to different-sex couples violated the state’s constitution. The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and the National Center of Lesbian Rights filed suit under the California constitution’s provisions guaranteeing equality, liberty, and privacy to all state residents.
Opponents of marriage equality in California have been collecting signatures for a further ballot measure this year, which would amend the Constitution to enshrine a discriminatory definition of marriage as restricted to a man and a woman. State authorities will determine next month whether advocates have collected enough signatures to force the measure onto the ballot, which would also invalidate any marriages performed under the court’s decision.
“Human rights aren’t things to be revoked or repossessed,” said Long. “California’s voters, if it comes to that, will respect the principles behind this decision, and refuse to treat equality as transitory.”
In 2005 and again in 2007, the California legislature passed bills which would have ensured equal treatment under the law by allowing same-sex couples to marry in California. Both times, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bills. However, Schwarzenegger has stated he would oppose a discriminatory ballot measure this year. Under the 1996 “Defense of Marriage Act,” the US government is barred from recognizing same-sex relationships. Thus the California decision will still have no effect on marriage rights under federal law.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Friday, May 16, 2008
The Guantanamo Hearings
In November 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration announced that it planned to try foreign terrorism suspects by special military commissions.
In January 2002 the US began sending persons apprehended in the “war on terror” to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, and the Pentagon drafted rules to hold military commissions there. These measures were taken in part to prevent US courts from hearing claims by detainees about the legal basis for their detention or charges of mistreatment. Human Rights Watch believes that the US federal courts are fully capable of prosecuting terrorism suspects.
In June 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were unlawful because they violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions and because the president had not sought congressional authority establishing them. In September 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, authorizing a new system of military commissions.
Now, more than six years after the commissions were first announced, no case has gone to trial, and only one person -- Australian David Hicks -- has been convicted. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorism in exchange for a nine-month sentence, which he served in Australia.
Meanwhile, the military commissions have been subjected to numerous legal challenges and come under a barrage of criticism that they do not provide fundamental fair trial rights. Last year the commissions’ chief military prosecutor resigned stating that it would be impossible for detainees to receive full, fair and open trials in the presently constituted system. Among the primary concerns are the commissions’ vulnerability to executive pressure, what looks like an effort to rush the cases to trial and the allowance of evidence obtained through abuse. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has warned that commission trials at Guantanamo will have a “taint” to them.
Despite widespread concerns about the commissions raised in the United States and abroad, commission hearings are proceeding. To date, the US government has announced charges against 15 men, including six cases in which the US is seeking the death penalty.
1) Ali Abdul Aziz Ali; Nationality: Pakistani
2) Walid bin ‘Attash; Nationality: Yemeni
3) Ali Hamza al-Bahlul; Nationality: Yemeni
4) Ramzi Binalshibh; Nationality: Yemeni
5) Ahmed al-Darbi; Nationality: Saudi
6) Ahmed Ghailani; Nationality: Tanzanian
7) Salim Hamdan; Nationality: Yemeni
8) Mustafa al-Hawsawi; Nationality: Saudi
9) David Hicks; Nationality: Australian
10) Mohammed Jawad; Nationality: Afghan
11) Mohammed Kamin; Nationality: Afghan
12) Omar Khadr; Nationality: Canadian
13) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Nationality: Kuwaiti
14) Mohammed al-Qahtani; Nationality: Saudi
15) Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi; Nationality: Sudanese
Source: Human Rights Watch
p/s: Don't you feel something fishy is going on in the military commission? There's only one non-Muslim among the 15 charged and well, he's the only one convicted while the rest remain pending infinitely..
Cher Linn
In January 2002 the US began sending persons apprehended in the “war on terror” to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, and the Pentagon drafted rules to hold military commissions there. These measures were taken in part to prevent US courts from hearing claims by detainees about the legal basis for their detention or charges of mistreatment. Human Rights Watch believes that the US federal courts are fully capable of prosecuting terrorism suspects.
In June 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were unlawful because they violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions and because the president had not sought congressional authority establishing them. In September 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, authorizing a new system of military commissions.
Now, more than six years after the commissions were first announced, no case has gone to trial, and only one person -- Australian David Hicks -- has been convicted. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorism in exchange for a nine-month sentence, which he served in Australia.
Meanwhile, the military commissions have been subjected to numerous legal challenges and come under a barrage of criticism that they do not provide fundamental fair trial rights. Last year the commissions’ chief military prosecutor resigned stating that it would be impossible for detainees to receive full, fair and open trials in the presently constituted system. Among the primary concerns are the commissions’ vulnerability to executive pressure, what looks like an effort to rush the cases to trial and the allowance of evidence obtained through abuse. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has warned that commission trials at Guantanamo will have a “taint” to them.
Despite widespread concerns about the commissions raised in the United States and abroad, commission hearings are proceeding. To date, the US government has announced charges against 15 men, including six cases in which the US is seeking the death penalty.
1) Ali Abdul Aziz Ali; Nationality: Pakistani
2) Walid bin ‘Attash; Nationality: Yemeni
3) Ali Hamza al-Bahlul; Nationality: Yemeni
4) Ramzi Binalshibh; Nationality: Yemeni
5) Ahmed al-Darbi; Nationality: Saudi
6) Ahmed Ghailani; Nationality: Tanzanian
7) Salim Hamdan; Nationality: Yemeni
8) Mustafa al-Hawsawi; Nationality: Saudi
9) David Hicks; Nationality: Australian
10) Mohammed Jawad; Nationality: Afghan
11) Mohammed Kamin; Nationality: Afghan
12) Omar Khadr; Nationality: Canadian
13) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Nationality: Kuwaiti
14) Mohammed al-Qahtani; Nationality: Saudi
15) Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi; Nationality: Sudanese
Source: Human Rights Watch
p/s: Don't you feel something fishy is going on in the military commission? There's only one non-Muslim among the 15 charged and well, he's the only one convicted while the rest remain pending infinitely..
Cher Linn
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Clean Energy Scam
This is a blog post written by a friend of mine. I find that he did a good summary on what's on about this supposely environmentally friendly + resource saving + profit generatng industry of alternative fuel and what is really the backlash of it.
Cheers,
Cher Linn
"Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class. But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it." - Michael Grunwald, The Clean Energy Scam.
In the latest cover story of TIME Magazine, Grunwald writes about the basic problem concerning the use of alternative fuels (in this case, corn ethanol): since researchers have mostly ignored the prospect of using corn ethanol on a wide scale, the sudden transition means that the land used to grow fuel leads to deforestation of areas which store large amounts of carbon.
I found the entire article to be extremely interesting, so I feel compelled to share some bits of information about it on this blog. (You can read the full article here.)
The article focuses on the deforestation of the Amazon forest in Brazil. What happens is:
1. 1/5 of the US corn crop is diverted in more than 100 ethanol refineries. The increased demand boosts the price of corn to record levels.
2. Eager to cash in, many US soybean farmers switch to corn. Soybean prices rise as supplies decline.
3. To meet global demand for soybeans, Brazilian farmers expand into fields previously used as cattle pasturelands. Displaced ranchers clear new grazing lands in the Amazon or the Cerrado savanna, releasing carbon.
When the deforestation is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline (Science magazine). In other words, the apparent solution to the one of the world's biggest problems is one big problem on its own.
The math of all this is surprisingly simple, and I'm knocking myself on the head for never even thinking about this before. And clearly, a lot of people have not thought about it (or have, and chose to ignore it for political reasons) - The US quintupled its production of ethanol and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. And since there's much more money to be made from tearing the forests down than to preserve them, it's extremely difficult to tell Brazilian farmers not to make use of the resources they have to grow crops for the alternative fuel market.
Also, the article also touches on the other non-environmentally-related consequences of the so-called 'clean energy myth'. For example, because corn is being grown for production of ethanol fuels, there is less food available on the market, so the poor will eat less due to soaring food prices. It is predicted that by 2025, the ranks of the hungry will increase to 1.2 billion after adjusting inflationary effects of biofuels (four years ago, it was predicted to fall to 625 million).
Cheers,
Cher Linn
"Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class. But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it." - Michael Grunwald, The Clean Energy Scam.
In the latest cover story of TIME Magazine, Grunwald writes about the basic problem concerning the use of alternative fuels (in this case, corn ethanol): since researchers have mostly ignored the prospect of using corn ethanol on a wide scale, the sudden transition means that the land used to grow fuel leads to deforestation of areas which store large amounts of carbon.
I found the entire article to be extremely interesting, so I feel compelled to share some bits of information about it on this blog. (You can read the full article here.)
The article focuses on the deforestation of the Amazon forest in Brazil. What happens is:
1. 1/5 of the US corn crop is diverted in more than 100 ethanol refineries. The increased demand boosts the price of corn to record levels.
2. Eager to cash in, many US soybean farmers switch to corn. Soybean prices rise as supplies decline.
3. To meet global demand for soybeans, Brazilian farmers expand into fields previously used as cattle pasturelands. Displaced ranchers clear new grazing lands in the Amazon or the Cerrado savanna, releasing carbon.
When the deforestation is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline (Science magazine). In other words, the apparent solution to the one of the world's biggest problems is one big problem on its own.
The math of all this is surprisingly simple, and I'm knocking myself on the head for never even thinking about this before. And clearly, a lot of people have not thought about it (or have, and chose to ignore it for political reasons) - The US quintupled its production of ethanol and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. And since there's much more money to be made from tearing the forests down than to preserve them, it's extremely difficult to tell Brazilian farmers not to make use of the resources they have to grow crops for the alternative fuel market.
Also, the article also touches on the other non-environmentally-related consequences of the so-called 'clean energy myth'. For example, because corn is being grown for production of ethanol fuels, there is less food available on the market, so the poor will eat less due to soaring food prices. It is predicted that by 2025, the ranks of the hungry will increase to 1.2 billion after adjusting inflationary effects of biofuels (four years ago, it was predicted to fall to 625 million).
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tsunami: the political one and climate change
Cheers :) W2
Political change: worldwide trend
Malaysia's political sea change
March 9, 2008
Malaysians awoke today to the biggest sea change in politics in almost 40 years, with opposition Islamists and reformists winning control of five states and giving the Government a humiliating wake-up call.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's multi-racial Barisan Nasional coalition (BN) won just a simple majority in Parliament, and his future as leader is in doubt after he watched a record majority collapse to the weakest level ever.
His predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, urged him to quit.
"He should accept responsibility," said Mahathir who now says he made a mistake in picking Abdullah as his successor and that the current deputy premier, Najib Razak, should have taken over.
Mahathir, who led the ruling United National Malays Organisation (UMNO), which leads the BN, for 22 years before stepping down in 2003, lashed out after the coalition's worst performance in history.
"My view is he has destroyed UMNO, destroyed the BN and he has been responsible for this," Mahathir told reporters.
The streets were unusually quiet today, with many older Malaysians fearful of trouble.
The last time the coalition suffered a heavy setback, in 1969, race riots erupted.
Barisan has effectively ruled since independence from Britain in 1957.
"I am shocked. It feels Malaysia is a whole new country. It feels like it has been reborn," Daniel Sia, a 27-year-old civil engineer, said as he did some shopping in the capital.
Lai Yee Fei, 28, who works at a coffee bar beneath Kuala Lumpur's soaring twin towers, said she was glad that Malaysia now had a strong opposition to press the Government.
"It's good to give some pressure for Barisan Nasional," she said.
"If the opposition parties can stand up for us, on behalf of us, I think it's good."
Abdullah, who only four years ago led the coalition to a record election victory on a wave of hope for change, faced a bleak political future today, his aides stunned but not willing to concede that he must step down.
"Frankly, this is not really the time because a lot of component parties [of Barisan] have been decimated," one close aide said, declining to be identified.
"We have lost a few people and I think it's time to consolidate."
Abdullah's humbling performance nationally - the coalition ended up with 62 per cent of federal seats, down from 90 per cent previously - was compounded by the fact that his own home state, the industrial heartland of Penang, fell to the opposition.
The leftist Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) won Penang, the hub for Malaysia's electronics industry, which accounts for about half of exports.
The opposition Islamist party PAS scored shock victories in the northern heartland states of Kedah and Perak and easily retained power in its stronghold in north-eastern Kelantan state.
DAP and PAS also joined the People's Justice Party, or Parti Keadilan, to take control of the industrial state of Selangor and almost all the seats in capital Kuala Lumpur.
Political experts and economists wondered aloud whether the Barisan government could now pursue its agenda, including plans for $US325 billion ($351.5 billion) in development zones across the country.
Without a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Barisan can no longer change the constitution or make some key appointments and could struggle to alter electoral boundaries, powers that the opposition have long maintained were abused by Barisan.
"This is probably not good news for the equity market or the ringgit," said Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asia research for investment bank ING.
The pro-government media, Abdullah's cheer-leader during the campaign, changed tack today, urging Barisan to ensure better job and education opportunities in the multi-racial nation.
Malaysia is largely a mix of ethnic Malays, which make up about 55 per cent of the population, and ethnic Chinese and Indians, who account for about a third.
A protest vote from Chinese and Indians, upset over what they saw as racial inequality in terms of business, job and education opportunities, had been expected.
The Indians were merciless, voting out the leader of the coalition's Indian component party and handing a seat to an Indian activist now in detention.
But Malays, who are all Muslims and traditionally support Barisan in good times and bad, completed a perfect storm for the Government, handing the opposition Islamists a record vote in what was perceived as a protest against rising prices.
"Tomorrow we will start building a brighter future," said opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, de facto leader of Parti Keadilan, which emerged as the biggest opposition party in federal parliament with 31 seats.
"This is a new dawn for Malaysia."
Anwar, a Malay and former deputy premier, is widely seen as the only politician who could unify the ideologically divided opposition into a coherent and credible political force, though many political experts see this an almost possible task.
Anwar was banned from standing in the elections because of a criminal record - he spent six years in jail until 2004 on what he called trumped-up charges - but is expected to take over his old seat from his wife, who has held it since his 1998 jailing.
Results from the elections commission late today showed the National Front with 137 seats in the 222-seat Parliament versus 82 for the opposition, with three seats still being tallied.
Reuters, AFP
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/03/09/1204998272533.html
Kenya
The Kenya public needs to see progress
Story by KEN OUKO
Publication Date: 3/30/2008
Kenneth Boulding authored these famous words back in 1970 in reference to a Europe stuck at the crossroads. He cautioned that what Europe required most was progress but that the feeling of progress had to seep through to the public, be felt by the public and, by subsequence, endorsed by the public. This is the point our two crest-wave leaders are missing.
The Kenyan public needs to be imbued with a sense of progress. The Kenyan public needs to feel a part of this progress. We need to indulge in the renewal of hope clad in the attire of progress.
Oxford Concise offers a variety of definitions of the word public, the most relevant of which is “of or engaged in the affairs or service of the people.” The immediate implication here is that whatever leaders do, it ought to be for the good of the people they serve. In Kenya it seems to be the opposite. What the leaders do seems to be for their own good and for the good of their advisers.
Sociologists, on the other hand, define the public as “a large collectivity of persons with effective inter-member communication regarding an ongoing issue, event or person.” The public plays a critical role in determining who governs them and the pursuant quality of such governance.
Recent Kenyan history has revealed that it doesn’t matter what the declared outcome of an election is until there is public consensus about the mandate to govern. It has also revealed that public sentiment can easily rubbish procedurally endorsed legitimacy given to a leader by existing institutionalised methods.
Global history also teaches that leaders who undermine the need for public goodwill do so at their fatalistic peril. Sadly, this appears to be the precipice President Kibaki and PM-Designate Odinga seem to be dangling their fortunes on.
For, as long as our country has a leadership that seems insensitive to public sentiment, we will never experience change in the true form of the concept.
A sociologist’s take on change is that it must entail two prime components -- progress and an evolved mindset.
The benefits of such progress must be appreciated by the governed public while the transformation of mindset must be exhibited by the leadership. This is the current mouse-trap fix we, as a country, find ourselves in.
The Kenyan public is increasingly becoming disenchanted with its leadership while the leadership is unflinchingly exhibiting a rigidity of mindset that is almost pathological.
Our leaders cannot pretend to have inhaled fresh breath and exhaled steamy hope from the Kofi Annan-led mediation process when their mindsets remain collectively sandwiched between political rigmarole and rhetorical gerrymandering.
What our leaders are putting us through is not very different from inviting the whole world to witness the spectacle of a serial rapist graduate with an exemplary PhD in Gynaecology.
The PNU outfit in particular does not seem to care much for public perception or sentiment.
To even suggest a bloated cabinet at this point in our history is to deliberately stir negative public perception.
Of particular wonder is how a president who has recently been on the mend with the Kenyan public as a man with the interests of the nation at heart can succumb to the avaricious interests of those surrounding him by suggesting the creation of absurdly christened ministries for their comfort.
From the onset of the coalition agreement, observers immediately became aware of the president’s dilemma especially in regard to the incorporation of ODM-K into the PNU side of the bread.
The President needs to realise that ODM is not necessarily composed of angels but his PNU side is suddenly making the ODM brigade look heavenly, which is bad for business. For as long as our leaders remain caught in the spinney-web of combative mindsets and the tiring rhetoric of reductionism, this country will simply never experience meaningful change.
It is hard to name any Kenyan leader in all 44 years of independence with the ideological originality of Napoleon Bonaparte, the pragmatism of Muammar Gaddafi, the fieriness of Fidel Castro or the charisma of Nelson Mandela.
Such is the dearth of leadership quality in Kenya that one has to scratch his head trying to locate a leader who could have or who will lead us into the new Kenya we all thirst for.
A revolution need not be a bloody and violent affair. Modern revolutions simply imply a complete overhaul of the political and economic structures of a nation complete with the transformative social existence that follows such overhaul by natural subsequence.
Only last week, I was cheering the constructive symbolism hidden in Minister Amos Kimunya’s proclamation of goodwill from Mr Odinga. Days later, Mr Odinga contemptuously dismissed Mr Kimunya as unqualified to speak on his behalf.
Meanwhile, as Mr Kimunya is dismissing Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o’s concerns as the whimpering of a misguided individual, ODM MPs are giving ultimatums to Education Minister Sam Ongeri to nullify the KCSE examination results. When did the new-found spirit of joint leadership evaporate?
Ken Ouko is a sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi
Political change: worldwide trend
Malaysia's political sea change
March 9, 2008
Malaysians awoke today to the biggest sea change in politics in almost 40 years, with opposition Islamists and reformists winning control of five states and giving the Government a humiliating wake-up call.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's multi-racial Barisan Nasional coalition (BN) won just a simple majority in Parliament, and his future as leader is in doubt after he watched a record majority collapse to the weakest level ever.
His predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, urged him to quit.
"He should accept responsibility," said Mahathir who now says he made a mistake in picking Abdullah as his successor and that the current deputy premier, Najib Razak, should have taken over.
Mahathir, who led the ruling United National Malays Organisation (UMNO), which leads the BN, for 22 years before stepping down in 2003, lashed out after the coalition's worst performance in history.
"My view is he has destroyed UMNO, destroyed the BN and he has been responsible for this," Mahathir told reporters.
The streets were unusually quiet today, with many older Malaysians fearful of trouble.
The last time the coalition suffered a heavy setback, in 1969, race riots erupted.
Barisan has effectively ruled since independence from Britain in 1957.
"I am shocked. It feels Malaysia is a whole new country. It feels like it has been reborn," Daniel Sia, a 27-year-old civil engineer, said as he did some shopping in the capital.
Lai Yee Fei, 28, who works at a coffee bar beneath Kuala Lumpur's soaring twin towers, said she was glad that Malaysia now had a strong opposition to press the Government.
"It's good to give some pressure for Barisan Nasional," she said.
"If the opposition parties can stand up for us, on behalf of us, I think it's good."
Abdullah, who only four years ago led the coalition to a record election victory on a wave of hope for change, faced a bleak political future today, his aides stunned but not willing to concede that he must step down.
"Frankly, this is not really the time because a lot of component parties [of Barisan] have been decimated," one close aide said, declining to be identified.
"We have lost a few people and I think it's time to consolidate."
Abdullah's humbling performance nationally - the coalition ended up with 62 per cent of federal seats, down from 90 per cent previously - was compounded by the fact that his own home state, the industrial heartland of Penang, fell to the opposition.
The leftist Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) won Penang, the hub for Malaysia's electronics industry, which accounts for about half of exports.
The opposition Islamist party PAS scored shock victories in the northern heartland states of Kedah and Perak and easily retained power in its stronghold in north-eastern Kelantan state.
DAP and PAS also joined the People's Justice Party, or Parti Keadilan, to take control of the industrial state of Selangor and almost all the seats in capital Kuala Lumpur.
Political experts and economists wondered aloud whether the Barisan government could now pursue its agenda, including plans for $US325 billion ($351.5 billion) in development zones across the country.
Without a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Barisan can no longer change the constitution or make some key appointments and could struggle to alter electoral boundaries, powers that the opposition have long maintained were abused by Barisan.
"This is probably not good news for the equity market or the ringgit," said Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asia research for investment bank ING.
The pro-government media, Abdullah's cheer-leader during the campaign, changed tack today, urging Barisan to ensure better job and education opportunities in the multi-racial nation.
Malaysia is largely a mix of ethnic Malays, which make up about 55 per cent of the population, and ethnic Chinese and Indians, who account for about a third.
A protest vote from Chinese and Indians, upset over what they saw as racial inequality in terms of business, job and education opportunities, had been expected.
The Indians were merciless, voting out the leader of the coalition's Indian component party and handing a seat to an Indian activist now in detention.
But Malays, who are all Muslims and traditionally support Barisan in good times and bad, completed a perfect storm for the Government, handing the opposition Islamists a record vote in what was perceived as a protest against rising prices.
"Tomorrow we will start building a brighter future," said opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, de facto leader of Parti Keadilan, which emerged as the biggest opposition party in federal parliament with 31 seats.
"This is a new dawn for Malaysia."
Anwar, a Malay and former deputy premier, is widely seen as the only politician who could unify the ideologically divided opposition into a coherent and credible political force, though many political experts see this an almost possible task.
Anwar was banned from standing in the elections because of a criminal record - he spent six years in jail until 2004 on what he called trumped-up charges - but is expected to take over his old seat from his wife, who has held it since his 1998 jailing.
Results from the elections commission late today showed the National Front with 137 seats in the 222-seat Parliament versus 82 for the opposition, with three seats still being tallied.
Reuters, AFP
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/03/09/1204998272533.html
Kenya
The Kenya public needs to see progress
Story by KEN OUKO
Publication Date: 3/30/2008
Kenneth Boulding authored these famous words back in 1970 in reference to a Europe stuck at the crossroads. He cautioned that what Europe required most was progress but that the feeling of progress had to seep through to the public, be felt by the public and, by subsequence, endorsed by the public. This is the point our two crest-wave leaders are missing.
The Kenyan public needs to be imbued with a sense of progress. The Kenyan public needs to feel a part of this progress. We need to indulge in the renewal of hope clad in the attire of progress.
Oxford Concise offers a variety of definitions of the word public, the most relevant of which is “of or engaged in the affairs or service of the people.” The immediate implication here is that whatever leaders do, it ought to be for the good of the people they serve. In Kenya it seems to be the opposite. What the leaders do seems to be for their own good and for the good of their advisers.
Sociologists, on the other hand, define the public as “a large collectivity of persons with effective inter-member communication regarding an ongoing issue, event or person.” The public plays a critical role in determining who governs them and the pursuant quality of such governance.
Recent Kenyan history has revealed that it doesn’t matter what the declared outcome of an election is until there is public consensus about the mandate to govern. It has also revealed that public sentiment can easily rubbish procedurally endorsed legitimacy given to a leader by existing institutionalised methods.
Global history also teaches that leaders who undermine the need for public goodwill do so at their fatalistic peril. Sadly, this appears to be the precipice President Kibaki and PM-Designate Odinga seem to be dangling their fortunes on.
For, as long as our country has a leadership that seems insensitive to public sentiment, we will never experience change in the true form of the concept.
A sociologist’s take on change is that it must entail two prime components -- progress and an evolved mindset.
The benefits of such progress must be appreciated by the governed public while the transformation of mindset must be exhibited by the leadership. This is the current mouse-trap fix we, as a country, find ourselves in.
The Kenyan public is increasingly becoming disenchanted with its leadership while the leadership is unflinchingly exhibiting a rigidity of mindset that is almost pathological.
Our leaders cannot pretend to have inhaled fresh breath and exhaled steamy hope from the Kofi Annan-led mediation process when their mindsets remain collectively sandwiched between political rigmarole and rhetorical gerrymandering.
What our leaders are putting us through is not very different from inviting the whole world to witness the spectacle of a serial rapist graduate with an exemplary PhD in Gynaecology.
The PNU outfit in particular does not seem to care much for public perception or sentiment.
To even suggest a bloated cabinet at this point in our history is to deliberately stir negative public perception.
Of particular wonder is how a president who has recently been on the mend with the Kenyan public as a man with the interests of the nation at heart can succumb to the avaricious interests of those surrounding him by suggesting the creation of absurdly christened ministries for their comfort.
From the onset of the coalition agreement, observers immediately became aware of the president’s dilemma especially in regard to the incorporation of ODM-K into the PNU side of the bread.
The President needs to realise that ODM is not necessarily composed of angels but his PNU side is suddenly making the ODM brigade look heavenly, which is bad for business. For as long as our leaders remain caught in the spinney-web of combative mindsets and the tiring rhetoric of reductionism, this country will simply never experience meaningful change.
It is hard to name any Kenyan leader in all 44 years of independence with the ideological originality of Napoleon Bonaparte, the pragmatism of Muammar Gaddafi, the fieriness of Fidel Castro or the charisma of Nelson Mandela.
Such is the dearth of leadership quality in Kenya that one has to scratch his head trying to locate a leader who could have or who will lead us into the new Kenya we all thirst for.
A revolution need not be a bloody and violent affair. Modern revolutions simply imply a complete overhaul of the political and economic structures of a nation complete with the transformative social existence that follows such overhaul by natural subsequence.
Only last week, I was cheering the constructive symbolism hidden in Minister Amos Kimunya’s proclamation of goodwill from Mr Odinga. Days later, Mr Odinga contemptuously dismissed Mr Kimunya as unqualified to speak on his behalf.
Meanwhile, as Mr Kimunya is dismissing Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o’s concerns as the whimpering of a misguided individual, ODM MPs are giving ultimatums to Education Minister Sam Ongeri to nullify the KCSE examination results. When did the new-found spirit of joint leadership evaporate?
Ken Ouko is a sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
News Updates
Hi, here are several links to articles or recent happenings around the globe. Check them out and be informed.
Kind regards,
Cher Linn
A hit of a decade:
Earthquake hits much of England
Kenya Crisis: Crying Out for Resolution
Annan suspends talks with Kenyan crisis negotiators
Mr. Mugabe:
Zimbabwe : Divide and conquer
Raul Castro: A Change?
Hints of Change Are Met in Cuba by Cautious Eyes
Bioethics:
Transplant Surgeon Charged in Patient’s Death
Kind regards,
Cher Linn
A hit of a decade:
Earthquake hits much of England
Kenya Crisis: Crying Out for Resolution
Annan suspends talks with Kenyan crisis negotiators
Mr. Mugabe:
Zimbabwe : Divide and conquer
Raul Castro: A Change?
Hints of Change Are Met in Cuba by Cautious Eyes
Bioethics:
Transplant Surgeon Charged in Patient’s Death
Monday, February 18, 2008
Kosovo Independence Day
ON SUNDAY February 17th Kosovo declared that it had become the seventh state to emerge from the wreckage of the former Yugoslavia. According to a plan worked out by Kosovo's leaders with foreign counterparts, recognition of the new country is likely to follow from Monday onwards, by America, many European Union countries and others.
Tens of thousands of people packed the centre of Pristina, Kosovo's capital, to celebrate. Posters were plastered across the city, thanking America, Britain and the EU for their support.
Technically Kosovo was a province of Serbia, although its jurisdiction passed to the UN in 1999. Serbia, strongly supported by Russia has said that Kosovo's independence is an illegal act of secession and it will not recognise it. Serbia is set to lower, but not break, diplomatic relations with any state that recognises Kosovo.
Of Kosovo's 2m people some 90% are ethnic Albanians who have long demanded independence. There are believed to be fewer than 130,000 Serbs in Kosovo today. About half live in a compact territory in the north, the rest in enclaves scattered across the rest of the territory.
This is the second time Kosovo has declared independence. The first time in 1991, it was recognised by no one except Albania. This time it will be different, but still Kosovo will not become a state equal with all others. Russia will block its membership of the UN and all other international bodies where it has a veto. A big EU mission is beginning to deploy, with a mandate to keep control of police and justice in the territory. Another part of the mission is supposed to make sure that Kosovo lives up to various standards its leaders have committed themselves to.
The risk is that Kosovo becomes dependent on these missions and thus simply an EU protectorate, its leaders shoving responsibility for difficult issues on to foreigners all too willing to rule. Given Serbia's hostility to Kosovo's independence, heavy reliance on foreigners will be a necessity in any case. Today Kosovo's security is assured by some 17,000 NATO-led troops. They will remain for years, perhaps decades, to come.
One of the biggest problems now is going to be dealing with Kosovo's Serbian minority which rejects independence—the leadership of Serbia tell them to ignore independence. They will probably do so. In May, Serbia will vote in local elections. This will be a big test. What would, or could, Kosovo's authorities do when Serbs hold these polls in other parts of Kosovo? Much will become clear in the next few days. Some of Kosovo's power comes from Serbia. Will that be cut? Will Serbia close the border to Kosovo-Albanians and anyone doing business with them?
On Friday Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister, addressed journalists saying that all would be done to look after and protect minorities in Kosovo. It was a moment pregnant with symbolism. Since no one had bothered to provide a translation none of the now angry Serbian journalists had a clue what he was saying. For too long Serbs and Albanians have been talking at each other not to each other. In the short term this is bound to get worse. Serbia has also, for now, angrily opted to put aside its efforts to join the EU.
Once the parties end difficult problems must be tackled. Serbs in the north will protest against independence. Kosovo's weak economy will still be weak. Kosovo's neighbours, Macedonia and Montenegro are also bracing for trouble, worried that a vengeful Serbia will take harsh measures against them if they recognise the new state.
For years diplomats dealing with Kosovo have tried to find a way to achieve what was called “final status”. Today most Albanians are delirious, but it is unclear whether they have understood that what is happening now is not final, but rather just the end of a chapter. “We had hoped we'd be finishing the book by now,” says one diplomatic source ruefully. Ylber Hysa, a Kosovo Albanian analyst, says that as far as he is concerned the important thing is not so much independence as getting "Serbia out."
Source: The Economist 18th February 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Amazing Noncollapsing U.S. Health Care System — Is Reform Finally at Hand?
Lawrence D. Brown, Ph.D.
- The New England Journal of Medicine, 24th January 2008 -
Amid the myriad social transformations, corporate reorganizations, and policy innovations that have shaken the U.S. health care system, one great, puzzling constant endures. For roughly 40 years, health care professionals, policymakers, politicians, and the public have concurred that the system is careening toward collapse because it is indefensible and unsustainable, a study in crisis and chaos. This forecast appeared soon after Medicare and Medicaid were enacted and has never retreated. Such disquieting continuity amid change raises an intriguing question: If the consensus is so incontestable, why has the system not already collapsed? Perhaps pondering this question can yield insights into the system as the 2008 elections approach.
The diagnosis of imminent collapse rests on three symptoms. First, without affordable universal coverage, the system leaves 47 million Americans uninsured. Second, health care costs are extraordinarily high: the United States spends about 16% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP), or $6,400 per capita, on health care, whereas France, for example, covers virtually its entire population reasonably well at 11% of GDP and half the per capita spending. Third, the U.S. system is in fact a nonsystem, an incoherent pastiche that has long repulsed reforms sought by private and public stakeholders. Yet this diagnosis misses as much as it reveals.
The sources of collapsing coverage are easily sketched. High insurance costs wreak havoc on the private, voluntary, employer-based system, especially in the small-group and individual markets. As costs increase, purchasers drop or limit coverage or charge workers more for it, leading more workers to do without it. Public coverage fills some but not all of the gap. A system in which the number of the uninsured rises by a million each year must surely be toppling.
The problem with this analysis is that the U.S. health care system consists not of two sectors (private and public) but three, one of which, the safety net, rarely gets proper attention and is poorly understood. The safety net encompasses public and voluntary hospitals, community health centers, public health clinics, free clinics, and services donated by private physicians. Configurations of safety-net providers vary markedly among communities, as does their financing, a shifting patchwork of funds from Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the federal disproportionate share program, tax levies, foundation grants, state appropriations, commercial payers, and other sources. These institutions often live on the financial edge, but with 11th-hour infusions, they mostly manage to stay afloat. This fact is of paramount importance, for these providers also extend a safety net for the political legitimacy of the health care system as a whole. That Americans who lack coverage can "still get care," as President Bush recently declared, drains moral urgency from the health care reform enterprise.
This self-congratulatory proposition is half true: many of the uninsured can make an appointment or drop in for care at a safety-net venue. Should they become seriously ill, however, and need referrals to specialists, inpatient care, high-tech procedures, or a regimen of prescription drugs, access becomes unpredictable and spotty, an ugly exercise in rationing. Yet this reality seems to sit too many layers down for the American public to appreciate it. Hence the reception to (for example) the Clinton health care reform plan of 1993–1994: why let the government muck up the system for 100% of the population merely to bring it to the 15% who can get health care without it? The problem is not so much deficiencies in the U.S. value system as it is a myopic reading of facts that keeps important values out of political play. The social mythology surrounding the safety net lends the system an eerie stability — which does not augur well for reforms requiring redistribution of resources from the haves to the have-nots.
U.S. health care costs have been in "crisis" for roughly 40 years, and they remain high for several reasons, including administrative overhead, high payments to providers, and the practice of defensive medicine. The key variable, however, seems to be a heavy reliance on specialized services and technology. Managed care was supposed to contain these "excesses," but its unhappy fate shows that the country's medical "style" is less a problem to be solved than an entrenched American cultural construct.
The Flexnerian seeds of scientific medicine began to flower 60 or so years ago when the expanding National Institutes of Health began aggressively charting medicine's endless frontier. The top health policy priority of other Western nations — securing the citizenry's access to care — was in the United States entrusted to private and voluntary arrangements backed up by charity care and the safety net. Federal health policy was primarily about encouraging, producing, and disseminating medical breakthroughs to cure disease. As research grants became central to the missions, budgets, and faculty of teaching hospitals, medical schools, and universities ("academic medical centers"), innovation and specialization became integral to medical education and to U.S. definitions of high-quality care.
To be sure, this configuration is not inviolate: advocates for public health, prevention, and primary care decry the system's inverted priorities; some argue that public policies should more accurately reflect the influence of social determinants on health outcomes; chroniclers of transformation and reorganization highlight the impact of managed care. None of these critics have much dented the medical–cultural nexus, however, and the less rapidly rising health costs of the 1990s triggered a strong backlash against managed care. Nothing in today's strategic portfolio holds much promise of disrupting these formidable medical–cultural continuities, so reformers cannot plausibly promise substantial new efficiencies and savings.
Finally, critics have long contended that the U.S. health care system cannot intelligently address problems of coverage and cost because it is really a nonsystem, a fragmented assemblage of private, voluntary, and public powers that resists any semblance of the planning that a $2 trillion annual enterprise demands. The indictment rings true: the system's stubborn localism ("health is a community affair"), voluntarism (employer-based coverage), privatism (an insurance industry free to reject bad risks or price them out of the market), and federalism (wide variation among states in Medicaid eligibility and services) defy coherent ordering.
For about 20 years, however, pundits have opined that the endless shifting of costs and the disconnect between the independent minds and interdependent fates of powerful groups have grown sufficiently frustrating that they may now accept public policies obliging them to trade some autonomy for security. Reform is indeed on the agenda of all the major relevant groups, but the crucial question is how much political capital they are prepared to spend to make it happen. Despite deep differences in the interests of its members, the axis of opposition that has throttled reform in the past — business, insurance, and providers — still concurs on three points: that reform should not make big government much bigger; that the costs of reform ought not to fall on them; and that other items on their agendas take precedence. Lacking a plausible strategy for defeating these interests, reformers may have to work around them. Doing so may admit major expansions of Medicaid and SCHIP but will not turn the patchwork into a true system.
So, though deeply dysfunctional by most standards, the U.S. health care system remains disturbingly stable. That no one really likes it does not translate into the inevitability of real change. Because the system is unlikely to collapse from within, reformers' best hopes lie with shifts in public sentiment and the election of activist and reform-minded political leaders. Such shifts can happen, as they did with lasting consequences in 1932 and 1964. But big bangs do not guarantee comprehensive health care reforms. Franklin Roosevelt declined to include national health insurance in his package of New Deal programs. Lyndon Johnson won enactment of Medicare and Medicaid but declined to fight for universal coverage. Since 1968, U.S. social politics have proceeded largely to the right of center, and the health care reform ideas whose time seemed to have come in 1993 crashed dramatically.
Underestimating the system's resilience risks leading reform astray yet again, but what exactly should be done is far from clear. No one knows how to infuse moral urgency into the push for universal coverage, make the system's medical style markedly less expensive, and thrust reform to the top of the agenda for powerful interest groups. Careful reconnoitering of historical terrain yields no formulas for success but may at least reduce the prospects of déjà vu.
Source Information
Dr. Brown is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York.
- The New England Journal of Medicine, 24th January 2008 -
Amid the myriad social transformations, corporate reorganizations, and policy innovations that have shaken the U.S. health care system, one great, puzzling constant endures. For roughly 40 years, health care professionals, policymakers, politicians, and the public have concurred that the system is careening toward collapse because it is indefensible and unsustainable, a study in crisis and chaos. This forecast appeared soon after Medicare and Medicaid were enacted and has never retreated. Such disquieting continuity amid change raises an intriguing question: If the consensus is so incontestable, why has the system not already collapsed? Perhaps pondering this question can yield insights into the system as the 2008 elections approach.
The diagnosis of imminent collapse rests on three symptoms. First, without affordable universal coverage, the system leaves 47 million Americans uninsured. Second, health care costs are extraordinarily high: the United States spends about 16% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP), or $6,400 per capita, on health care, whereas France, for example, covers virtually its entire population reasonably well at 11% of GDP and half the per capita spending. Third, the U.S. system is in fact a nonsystem, an incoherent pastiche that has long repulsed reforms sought by private and public stakeholders. Yet this diagnosis misses as much as it reveals.
The sources of collapsing coverage are easily sketched. High insurance costs wreak havoc on the private, voluntary, employer-based system, especially in the small-group and individual markets. As costs increase, purchasers drop or limit coverage or charge workers more for it, leading more workers to do without it. Public coverage fills some but not all of the gap. A system in which the number of the uninsured rises by a million each year must surely be toppling.
The problem with this analysis is that the U.S. health care system consists not of two sectors (private and public) but three, one of which, the safety net, rarely gets proper attention and is poorly understood. The safety net encompasses public and voluntary hospitals, community health centers, public health clinics, free clinics, and services donated by private physicians. Configurations of safety-net providers vary markedly among communities, as does their financing, a shifting patchwork of funds from Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the federal disproportionate share program, tax levies, foundation grants, state appropriations, commercial payers, and other sources. These institutions often live on the financial edge, but with 11th-hour infusions, they mostly manage to stay afloat. This fact is of paramount importance, for these providers also extend a safety net for the political legitimacy of the health care system as a whole. That Americans who lack coverage can "still get care," as President Bush recently declared, drains moral urgency from the health care reform enterprise.
This self-congratulatory proposition is half true: many of the uninsured can make an appointment or drop in for care at a safety-net venue. Should they become seriously ill, however, and need referrals to specialists, inpatient care, high-tech procedures, or a regimen of prescription drugs, access becomes unpredictable and spotty, an ugly exercise in rationing. Yet this reality seems to sit too many layers down for the American public to appreciate it. Hence the reception to (for example) the Clinton health care reform plan of 1993–1994: why let the government muck up the system for 100% of the population merely to bring it to the 15% who can get health care without it? The problem is not so much deficiencies in the U.S. value system as it is a myopic reading of facts that keeps important values out of political play. The social mythology surrounding the safety net lends the system an eerie stability — which does not augur well for reforms requiring redistribution of resources from the haves to the have-nots.
U.S. health care costs have been in "crisis" for roughly 40 years, and they remain high for several reasons, including administrative overhead, high payments to providers, and the practice of defensive medicine. The key variable, however, seems to be a heavy reliance on specialized services and technology. Managed care was supposed to contain these "excesses," but its unhappy fate shows that the country's medical "style" is less a problem to be solved than an entrenched American cultural construct.
The Flexnerian seeds of scientific medicine began to flower 60 or so years ago when the expanding National Institutes of Health began aggressively charting medicine's endless frontier. The top health policy priority of other Western nations — securing the citizenry's access to care — was in the United States entrusted to private and voluntary arrangements backed up by charity care and the safety net. Federal health policy was primarily about encouraging, producing, and disseminating medical breakthroughs to cure disease. As research grants became central to the missions, budgets, and faculty of teaching hospitals, medical schools, and universities ("academic medical centers"), innovation and specialization became integral to medical education and to U.S. definitions of high-quality care.
To be sure, this configuration is not inviolate: advocates for public health, prevention, and primary care decry the system's inverted priorities; some argue that public policies should more accurately reflect the influence of social determinants on health outcomes; chroniclers of transformation and reorganization highlight the impact of managed care. None of these critics have much dented the medical–cultural nexus, however, and the less rapidly rising health costs of the 1990s triggered a strong backlash against managed care. Nothing in today's strategic portfolio holds much promise of disrupting these formidable medical–cultural continuities, so reformers cannot plausibly promise substantial new efficiencies and savings.
Finally, critics have long contended that the U.S. health care system cannot intelligently address problems of coverage and cost because it is really a nonsystem, a fragmented assemblage of private, voluntary, and public powers that resists any semblance of the planning that a $2 trillion annual enterprise demands. The indictment rings true: the system's stubborn localism ("health is a community affair"), voluntarism (employer-based coverage), privatism (an insurance industry free to reject bad risks or price them out of the market), and federalism (wide variation among states in Medicaid eligibility and services) defy coherent ordering.
For about 20 years, however, pundits have opined that the endless shifting of costs and the disconnect between the independent minds and interdependent fates of powerful groups have grown sufficiently frustrating that they may now accept public policies obliging them to trade some autonomy for security. Reform is indeed on the agenda of all the major relevant groups, but the crucial question is how much political capital they are prepared to spend to make it happen. Despite deep differences in the interests of its members, the axis of opposition that has throttled reform in the past — business, insurance, and providers — still concurs on three points: that reform should not make big government much bigger; that the costs of reform ought not to fall on them; and that other items on their agendas take precedence. Lacking a plausible strategy for defeating these interests, reformers may have to work around them. Doing so may admit major expansions of Medicaid and SCHIP but will not turn the patchwork into a true system.
So, though deeply dysfunctional by most standards, the U.S. health care system remains disturbingly stable. That no one really likes it does not translate into the inevitability of real change. Because the system is unlikely to collapse from within, reformers' best hopes lie with shifts in public sentiment and the election of activist and reform-minded political leaders. Such shifts can happen, as they did with lasting consequences in 1932 and 1964. But big bangs do not guarantee comprehensive health care reforms. Franklin Roosevelt declined to include national health insurance in his package of New Deal programs. Lyndon Johnson won enactment of Medicare and Medicaid but declined to fight for universal coverage. Since 1968, U.S. social politics have proceeded largely to the right of center, and the health care reform ideas whose time seemed to have come in 1993 crashed dramatically.
Underestimating the system's resilience risks leading reform astray yet again, but what exactly should be done is far from clear. No one knows how to infuse moral urgency into the push for universal coverage, make the system's medical style markedly less expensive, and thrust reform to the top of the agenda for powerful interest groups. Careful reconnoitering of historical terrain yields no formulas for success but may at least reduce the prospects of déjà vu.
Source Information
Dr. Brown is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York.
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