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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/09/security-council-john-hughes/" rel="bookmark">If international relations were a John Hughes movie</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 9, 2009 at 1:25 pm | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/alexevans/">Alex Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/off-topic/" title="View all posts in Off topic" rel="category tag">Off topic</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/09/security-council-john-hughes/#respond" title="Comment on If international relations were a John Hughes movie">Comment</a></p> <p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/07/if_international_relations_were_like_a_john_hughes_movie">Dan Drezner </a>sets it out:</p> <blockquote> <p style="text-align: justify;">CLOSING SCENE OF “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://corky.net/scripts/breakfastClube.html" target="_blank">THE SECURITY COUNCIL CLUB</a>“:</p> <p>INT. SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY — we see the U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL enter the Security Council room and pick up an essay. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">CHINA (voice-over)</p> <p>Dear Mr. Secretary-General, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in Security Council session for whatever international problem that we failed to address. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care?</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">But what we found out is that each one of us is an economic engine…</p> <p>UNITED STATES (voice-over)<br/> …and a military power…</p> <p>RUSSIA (voice-over)<br/> …and a basket case…</p> <p>EUROPEAN UNION (voice-over)<br/> …and a princess…</p> <p>IRAN (voice-over)<br/> …and a rogue state…</p> <p>CHINA (voice-over)<br/> Does that answer your question?<br/> Sincerely yours, the Security Council Club.</p> <p>We see SUSAN RICE walking across the football field as she thrusts her fist into the air in a silent cheer and freezes there.</p></blockquote> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/08/moo-hoo/" rel="bookmark">Moo hoo</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 8, 2009 at 8:28 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/alexevans/">Alex Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts in Climate and resource scarcity" rel="category tag">Climate and resource scarcity</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/08/moo-hoo/#respond" title="Comment on Moo hoo">Comment</a></p> <p><p>I’ve just been having another look at FAO’s seminal 2006 report about the environmental impact of meat consumption, <em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM">Livestock’s Long Shadow</a>. </em>I figured I knew most of the stats about meat’s massive contribution to scarcity issues - but nope, I found myself astonished once again by the report’s headline stats. Livestock:</p> <ul> <li>Uses 26% of the ice-free terrestrial surface for grazing, and 33% of the planet’s arable area for feedstock - in total, 70% of all agricultural land, and 30% of the land surface of the planet;</li> <li>Accounts for 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon (and that’s just the pasture - feedcrops are another big chunk again);</li> <li>Are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions in carbon dioxide equivalent - that’s <em>larger than transport - </em>and for 37% of methane emissions (23 times as potent as CO2 in its warming effect);</li> <li>Uses 8% of global human water use, mostly in irrigation for feedcrops, and is probably the single largest sectoral source of water pollution;</li> <li>Accounts for 20% of total terrestrial animal biomass - squeezing out space for other species and hence contributing massively to biodiversity loss, mainly through destroying habitats (30% of the land surface of the planet, remember)?</li> </ul> <p>I love eating meat, but since I wrote <em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/01/26/the-feeding-of-the-nine-billion/">The Feeding of the Nine Billion</a></em>, I’ve been aiming to cut it out for 3 days a week. Having re-read FAO’s report, I’m going to up that to four or five - as ways of reducing your carbon footprint and wider environmental impact go, this is a <em>very</em> low hassle,high impact option (especially if you have <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegetable-Bible-Definitive-Guide/dp/0007289588/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249720084&sr=1-1">Sophie Grigson </a>on your shelf).</p> <p>Also, if you haven’t seen coverage of Tristram Stuart’s new book on food waste, then <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jul/17/food-waste-tristram-stuart">take a look</a>…</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/07/tcktcktck-tsk-tsk-tsk/" rel="bookmark">Tcktcktck? Tsk tsk tsk</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 7, 2009 at 9:33 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/alexevans/">Alex Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts in Climate and resource scarcity" rel="category tag">Climate and resource scarcity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/influence-and-networks/" title="View all posts in Influence and networks" rel="category tag">Influence and networks</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/07/tcktcktck-tsk-tsk-tsk/#respond" title="Comment on Tcktcktck? Tsk tsk tsk">Comment</a></p> <p><p>Back in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/02/12/g20-ngo-pointlessness/">February</a>, I figured that the pre-G20 “Jobs, Justice, Climate” NGO campaign was probably the “pointless NGO campaign of the year”, naively arguing that,</p> <blockquote><p>Yes, it’s only February, but it seems pretty unlikely that anything will top this for sheer pointlessness and banality. </p></blockquote> <p>Alas, would that it were so. With 121 days to go until December’s critical UN climate summit, it’s clear that Jobs, Justice, Climate was merely a <em>prototype</em>, a <em>limbering up</em> for the road to Copenhagen.</p> <p>And so to ”<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://tcktcktck.org/">tcktcktck.org</a>“, who profess themselves to be building “the world’s biggest mandate for change”. They’re determined to “show our leaders people are ready for bold climate action, now”. So you might suppose that with that end in mind, they’d have some kind of idea of what <em>constitutes </em>sufficiently “bold climate action, now”. But you’d be wrong. Here’s their full policy platform, in glorious technicolour:</p> <blockquote><p>“An ambitious, fair and binding climate change agreement.”</p></blockquote> <p>That’s it. I tweeted tcktcktck HQ to ask if there was any more than this, and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://twitter.com/tcktcktck/status/3113932269">reply </a>I got said “<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">Bear with us” - this from a campaign whose entire brand is built on the ”there’s not a second to lose” vibe. </span></span></p> <p><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">Not that this lack of specificity has stopped tcktcktck from fanning out in pursuit of its fabulously vague objectives - oh no. Thus for example their “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://adoptanegotiator.org/">adopt a negotiator</a>” platform:</span></span></p> <blockquote><p>…as we really want all of our countries to agree to a safe and fair Climate Change treaty in December, we decided to do something about it. That’s why we thought we would Adopt a Negotiator, and follow them through the many meetings, conference and events that they will take part in from now to December…</p></blockquote> <p>I asked an actual negotiator whether they had been adopted. The reply: “Oh yes, them! They seem very nice, but I’m not sure what they actually want.” </p> <p>Sigh. Welcome to NGO campaigning in 2009 - where it doesn’t matter whether you have anything to say, as long as you’re getting the donations, attention, members and airtime.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/06/another-free-lunch-for-investment-banks/" rel="bookmark">Another free lunch for investment banks</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 6, 2009 at 7:25 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/julesevans/">Jules Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/economics-and-development/" title="View all posts in Economics and development" rel="category tag">Economics and development</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/06/another-free-lunch-for-investment-banks/#comments" title="Comment on Another free lunch for investment banks">1 Comment</a></p> <p><p>The Bank of England today <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8187360.stm">decided</a> to inject another £50bn into its asset purchase facility. Since February, it has already spent £125bn buying bonds from UK investment banks to try and support the credit markets.</p> <p>Thanks to this and other quantitative easing by the Fed (spending $1.25tn on MBS alone), the ECB (won’t say how much its spending) and other central banks, this has been the best six months <em>ever</em> for investment banks’ fixed income teams.</p> <p>JP Morgan, for example, made $2.2bn in investment banking fees in the second quarter, which is a record on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs made about $6bn in fixed income trading in the first six months. Barclays Capital made £1bn in profit in the second quarter. Its head of investment banking, who I interviewed a few weeks ago, told me ‘It’s been a phenomenal six months for fixed income.’ HSBC also made the most its ever made in investment banking, making $6.3bn in profit in the first six months. Happy days are here again.</p> <p>So our present economic system is quite simple really: central banks print money, then give it to private investment banks.</p> <p>And no one criticizes this enormous free lunch. No one is really even aware it’s going on. Evan Davis on the Today show this morning discussed the BoE’s asset purchase facility, and his two interviewees were a person from the British Chamber of Commerce, and the UK economist of Goldman Sachs. Both were in support of the programme, surprisingly enough. At no point did Davis suggest the facility was a huge free lunch for investment banks. Instead, he concluded ‘it doesn’t seem to do any harm’.</p> <p>In fact, the only criticism I can find of the asset purchase facility comes from the unlikely source of the head of fixed income research at Schroders, Jamie Stuttard, who<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://talkingpoint.brighttalk.com/node/601"> says</a> in passing that one of the unintended consequences of the facility will be:</p> <blockquote><p>New sellside profits as a direct result of government policy (riddle me this: what will happen to bonuses of RBS traders linked to trading book performance when those traders should be making very neat turns out of the gilt & corporate bond programs ??)</p></blockquote> <p>Quite.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/05/blackwater-founder-implicated-in-murder/" rel="bookmark">Blackwater founder implicated in murder</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 5, 2009 at 7:54 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/alexevans/">Alex Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/conflict-and-security/" title="View all posts in Conflict and security" rel="category tag">Conflict and security</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/middle-east-and-north-africa/" title="View all posts in Middle East and North Africa" rel="category tag">Middle East and North Africa</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/north-america/" title="View all posts in North America" rel="category tag">North America</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/05/blackwater-founder-implicated-in-murder/#respond" title="Comment on Blackwater founder implicated in murder">Comment</a></p> <p><p>Okaay:</p> <blockquote><p>A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.</p> <p>The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”</p></blockquote> <p>From <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill">the Nation</a>, who also have the full sworn depositions - in which it just goes on and on. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/JohnDoe2Declaration.pdf">Such as</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>“Mr Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar [sic], the warriors who fought the Crusades.”</p> <p>“Mr Prince generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade … [including] on Mr Prince’s private planes.”</p></blockquote> <p>The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/JohnDoe1Declaration.pdf">other deposition </a>goes on,</p> <blockquote><p>“When I first arrived in Baghdad, I was asked to assist with unloading bags of dog food into the Armory. As I unloaded the bags of dog food, another Blackwater employee opened the bags and pulled out weapons from the dog food. Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq.”</p></blockquote> <p>See also <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2007/10/12/the-bad-boys-of-blackwater/">this</a>.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/new-media-good-for-thinking-not-tweeting/" rel="bookmark">New media good for thinking, not tweeting</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 4, 2009 at 9:06 pm | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/richardgowan/">Richard Gowan</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/influence-and-networks/" title="View all posts in Influence and networks" rel="category tag">Influence and networks</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/north-america/" title="View all posts in North America" rel="category tag">North America</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/new-media-good-for-thinking-not-tweeting/#respond" title="Comment on New media good for thinking, not tweeting">Comment</a></p> <p><p><em>New York</em> magazine offers some hope for people who like a sensible discussion, in a <a title="NYMag" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://nymag.com/news/politics/58199/" target="_blank">new profile of Barack Obama</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>Despite his agility in skipping from topic to topic, the president is clearly most comfortable when he can drill deep into one. During the presidential campaign, when Reverend Wright’s antics threatened to steer Obama clear off the rails, his advisers had varying ideas about how to handle the situation. Ultimately, though, it was Obama who decided on the solution: He’d give a 37-minute speech about race.</p> <p>In the days when just a handful of media outlets drove the news, such a move would have been politically contraindicated, if not outright suicidal. The speech contained no pithy or rhyming sound bites (“Mend it, don’t end it,” “Read my lips”). It practically defied quoting. It demanded, rather, to be heard or read in its entirety. Yet within 48 hours, more than 1.6 million viewers tuned in, making it the single-most-watched video on YouTube for that period.</p> <p>There’s a reason for this. Sound bites, says Clay Shirky, the NYU new-media philosopher and recent author of Here Comes Everybody, were a product of media scarcity, when public figures had a finite amount of time and space to make their points. Now we live in a world of “Publish, then filter,” he points out, rather than “Filter, then publish,” a time when the question is “Why not film this?” rather than “Why film this?” This makes Obama our first post-sound-bite president. If he wants to give a 37-minute speech about race, he can give a 37-minute speech about race, knowing that millions of Americans (now more than 6 million) will eventually hear it, even if they fail to catch it in real time. Not only is ubiquity strategy in a world of unlimited content, volume is too.</p> <p>Reviving the long-form address may seem strange in an era when the 140-character tweet and two-sentence blog post form a major part of our communications repertoire. But Nate Silver, the founder of fivethirtyeight.com, points out that the long form may, in fact, be a natural part of it. “If you speak and leave out details,” he notes, “bloggers will fill them in.” And for those who despair at the telegraphic nature of Twitter and blog posts, Obama’s long speeches—like long books and long movies—are a canny form of counterprogramming.</p> <p>During his presidency, Obama has repeatedly chosen a long speech over staccato remarks or scattered statements by surrogates. When the Senate refused to include funding in an appropriations bill to shut down Guantánamo Bay, he spoke for over 50 minutes at the National Archives about civil liberties. When he made overtures to the Arab world in Cairo, he spoke for 55 minutes. When congressional Republicans first began to mount their resistance to his health-care bill, he flew to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and conducted a 62-minute town hall. Laurence Tribe, Obama’s onetime mentor at Harvard Law School, says that the president’s speeches remind him of “carefully worded judicial opinions—he avoids overreaching, he carefully states opposing arguments and considerations. He gently leads the viewers or readers or listeners to their own conclusions rather than ramming one down their throats.” Lincoln used to do this in his debates with Douglas, which raises a tantalizing possibility about the future: Perhaps the post-sound-bite age will seem more like the pre-sound-bite age, when most politicians could hold their own in a debate.</p></blockquote> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/gddigest040809/" rel="bookmark">On the web: rumbles in the Caucasus, the QDR, land grabbing, Sarko on climate change and British declinism…</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 4, 2009 at 1:54 pm | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/Michael Harvey/">Michael Harvey</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts in Climate and resource scarcity" rel="category tag">Climate and resource scarcity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/conflict-and-security/" title="View all posts in Conflict and security" rel="category tag">Conflict and security</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/cooperation-and-coherence/" title="View all posts in Cooperation and coherence" rel="category tag">Cooperation and coherence</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/europe-and-central-asia/" title="View all posts in Europe and Central Asia" rel="category tag">Europe and Central Asia</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/globalsystem/" title="View all posts in Global system" rel="category tag">Global system</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/north-america/" title="View all posts in North America" rel="category tag">North America</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/uk/" title="View all posts in UK" rel="category tag">UK</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/gddigest040809/#respond" title="Comment on On the web: rumbles in the Caucasus, the QDR, land grabbing, Sarko on climate change and British declinism…">Comment</a></p> <p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- In the week leading up to the first anniversary of the Russia-Georgia conflict, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/df6d3fca-7f85-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fdf6d3fca-7f85-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcomment%2Fanalysis" target="_blank">FT reports</a> on the lingering regional tensions still apparent, while openDemocracy assesses some of the war’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-guns-of-august-non-event-with-consequences" target="_blank">wider implications</a> for the US, EU, China and Turkey. Georgia aside, James F. Collins, former US ambassador to Russia, highlights the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/380047.htm" target="_blank">current fragility</a> of US-Russia relations and the importance of “sustained dialogue within a solid institutional framework” if measured progress is to continue.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Elsewhere, in a taster of the forthcoming Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR), two senior Pentagon officials <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?print=Y&STORY_ID=1950" target="_blank">survey the global landscape</a> and assess what this means for the US’s strategic outlook. The main challenge (alongside adapting to the realities of hybrid warfare and a growing number of failing states), Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley suggest, will likely revolve around competition for the global commons (sea, space, air and cyberspace). A successful approach, they argue, should see the US refocus its efforts on building strong global governance structures and taking the “lead in the creation of international norms”. Andrew Bast at <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=4148" target="_blank">WPR</a> comments that this could once again herald a US foreign policy with Wilsonianism firmly at its core.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,639224,00.html" target="_blank">Der Spiegel</a>, meanwhile, takes an in-depth look at the growing global market for farmland. In what it labels the “new colonialism”, the article notes the implications of such investment flows for states in Africa and Asia, as well as gauging the impact on local farmers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">- <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.climaticoanalysis.org/post/sarkozy-continues-his-pledge-of-leadership-on-climate-change/" target="_blank"><span>Climatico</span></a> assesses Nicolas Sarkozy’s climate change credentials, highlighting his “erratic behaviour” on the issue and suggesting that the French stance is one to watch in the run up to Copenhagen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Finally, an interesting <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://page.politicshome.com/uk/voters_labour_has_weakened_uks_moral_authority_abroad.html" target="_blank">PoliticsHome poll</a> on attitudes of the British public to the country’s foreign policy. 65% of voters, it indicates, agree that foreign policy has weakened Britain’s “moral authority” abroad - a view held across the political spectrum. Perhaps more strikingly, however, a majority (54%) felt the country should scale down its overseas military commitments, even if this meant ceding global influence. Interestingly, 57% were in favour of humanitarian intervention. Writing in Newsweek, meanwhile, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.newsweek.com/id/209953" target="_blank">Stryker McGuire</a> adds to the narrative of declinism. The current economic crisis, he argues, has finally put paid to Britain’s attempts to maintain its world role and place at the international top table.</span></p> <p></p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/03/give-a-man-a-fish-and-hell-eat-for-a-day-teach-him-to-fish-and-actually-just-give-the-man-a-bloody-fish-now/" rel="bookmark">Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish… actually just give him a bloody fish</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 3, 2009 at 10:47 pm | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/richardgowan/">Richard Gowan</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/africa/" title="View all posts in Africa" rel="category tag">Africa</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts in Climate and resource scarcity" rel="category tag">Climate and resource scarcity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/conflict-and-security/" title="View all posts in Conflict and security" rel="category tag">Conflict and security</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/03/give-a-man-a-fish-and-hell-eat-for-a-day-teach-him-to-fish-and-actually-just-give-the-man-a-bloody-fish-now/#respond" title="Comment on Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish… actually just give him a bloody fish">Comment</a></p> <p><p>Bad news from <a title="BBC1" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8181969.stm" target="_blank">South Sudan</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>At least 185 people - mostly women and children - have been killed in ethnic violence in South Sudan, officials say.</p> <p>Members of the Lou Nuer community had gone fishing south of Akobo town amid a severe food shortage when ethnic Murle fighters reportedly attacked them.</p> <p>Eleven soldiers from the South Sudan army, the SPLA, who were protecting the Lou Nuer, were among those killed.</p> <p>Several hundred people have died in such clashes this year - more than in Sudan’s Darfur conflict, the UN says.</p></blockquote> <p>How can this be stopped?</p> <blockquote><p>The state’s governor, Kuol Manyang, told the BBC that a few survivors had made it back to Akobo town, though many of them were wounded.</p> <p>Those killed, he said, were on the fishing expedition because food supplies were running out following an attack in June on river barges carrying aid.</p> <p>He appealed to the UN World Food Programme to find a way of getting food to them.</p></blockquote> <p>But there’s a bit of problem with that, <a title="BBC2" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8179250.stm" target="_blank">highlighted by the BBC last week</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>The UN food agency says it is facing critical funding shortages that have forced it to cut aid deliveries to millions of people facing starvation.</p> <p>The World Food Programme (WFP) said it could have to close parts of its airway, used to fly aid workers to humanitarian trouble-spots.</p> <p>Deliveries have already been suspended to north Uganda, Ivory Coast and Niger.</p> <p>The organisation has issued similar warnings in the past when facing funding shortages.</p> <p>The UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), operated by WFP, has a budget for 2009 of $160m (£96m) but has received less than $90m in fees and contributions this year.</p> <p>WFP spokesman Greg Barrow said UNHAS was “a vital component of humanitarian operations across the world”.</p> <p>“But because of a funding shortfall there is now a grave risk that the air service … could literally be grounded in the next few weeks due to a lack of funds,” he said.</p></blockquote> <p>It’s less than a month since the G8 leaders promised billions of dollars to food aid - with a focus on increasing agricultural capacity rather than crisis response. That’s the right approach. But we need crisis response too, or this sort of violence is going to get worse.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/03/ecb-tight-lipped-on-abs-bail-out/" rel="bookmark">ECB tight-lipped on ABS bail-out</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 3, 2009 at 2:12 pm | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/julesevans/">Jules Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/economics-and-development/" title="View all posts in Economics and development" rel="category tag">Economics and development</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/globalsystem/" title="View all posts in Global system" rel="category tag">Global system</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/03/ecb-tight-lipped-on-abs-bail-out/#respond" title="Comment on ECB tight-lipped on ABS bail-out">Comment</a></p> <p><p>As you probably know, one of the main causes of the huge debt bubble of the last few years was the fact banks created Special Investment Vehicles (SIVs) - or off-balance-sheet virtual companies - which then bought trillions of dollars in securitized debt (or asset-backed securities - ABS).</p> <p>This enabled banks to lend like mad - in loans, mortgages, credit cards etc - then securitize the loans into ABS, take them off their balance sheet, insure them, then buy them back via the SIVs. </p> <p>This led to the growth of a $60 trillion - yes, a $60 trillion - securitization market, according to ECB estimates, with average issuance every quarter of $900bn. </p> <p>Then the market collapsed, because it turned out a lot of the mortgages that had been securitized were dodgier than thought, and the rating agencies had got the ratings wrong, and the insurers didn’t have enough capital to cover the losses, and, well, it got a bit messy. </p> <p>Then no one wanted to lend to the SIVs anymore, so they went bust or were unwound. That meant suddenly there was no demand left for ABS in the securitization market, so no financing for all those mortgage and credit card lenders out there. </p> <p>Faced with the prospect of the collapse of retail lending, US and European central banks stepped in and agreed to buy banks’ mortgage-backed bonds from them, to try and get demand going in the securitization market. </p> <p>The Fed, for example, has said it will buy $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed bonds from the market. Its buying around $20 billion in mortgage bonds a week. </p> <p>The ECB has also agreed to buy ABS and MBS from the market, via its repo auction system - essentially, banks can use ABS as collateral for ECB liquidity, as long as the ABS was once rated AAA and is now rated no lower than A (or, at one point, BB -). </p> <p>European banks have leapt on this magnanimous gesture from the ECB, and raced to re-securitize their toxic waste and swap it with the ECB for something worth a bit more. </p> <p>I rang up the ECB to ask them how much ABS it had accepted as repo collateral from European banks. I was told: </p> <p>‘Oh, we don’t tell people. You won’t be able to find it out. We don’t reveal that information.’</p> <p>Can you imagine - this is a public bail-out of private European banks for their bad decisions in buying so much asset-backed debt, and we can’t even find out how big the bail out is, or what sort of price the ECB paid for the debt. </p> <p>All we know is that, in contrast to the UK Treasury’s programme, banks have fallen over themselves to participate, suggesting the ECB’s terms are more than generous to the hapless banks. </p> <p>And we also know that many banks - Barclays Capital, HSBC and others - have posted record profits this quarter…</p> <p>But we have no way of knowing quite how much we have helped the banks to their record profits, because the ECB won’t reveal the terms. I rang up some securitization analysts at investment banks to find out how much the ECB had bought, but funnily enough, they wouldn’t tell me either. </p> <p>This isn’t democracy. It’s a financial oligarchy. </p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/01/palestinian-factions-adopt-israeli-tactics/" rel="bookmark">Palestinian factions adopt Israeli tactics</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 1, 2009 at 11:01 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/elizabethsellwood/">Elizabeth Sellwood</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/middle-east-and-north-africa/" title="View all posts in Middle East and North Africa" rel="category tag">Middle East and North Africa</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/01/palestinian-factions-adopt-israeli-tactics/#respond" title="Comment on Palestinian factions adopt Israeli tactics">Comment</a></p> <p><p>Palestinian President Abbas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority face regular criticism that they are being “more Israeli than the Israelis” in their efforts to control Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank. While leading Israelis and Americans are impressed by the PA’s efforts to oust terrorist cells and arrest suspects in Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank towns, sceptical Palestinians are beginning mockingly to refer to General Dayton, the US military adviser, as the “Palestinian minister of defence”. Members of Abbas’s Fatah party are also reportedly concerned that its leaders’ efforts to quell “resistance” against the Israeli occupation will limit its popularity among ordinary Palestinians. </p> <p>Now Hamas, Fatah’s main rival, has begun to adopt an Israeli tactic too: closure. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports that </p> <blockquote><p>Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, denied Fatah members permission to travel to the West Bank to take part in an internal Fatah election. The 400-odd Gazans want to to to Bethlehem, where they would be among 1,550 Fatah officials voting to elect the organisation’s leadership. But Hamas has announced that it will not allow them to attend until “the issue of political arrests in the West Bank is resolved” - meaning, until Hamas men are released from Palestinian Authority prisons.</p></blockquote> <p>Israel has long used its capacity to deny movement between the West Bank and Gaza as a way to control Palestinian political developments. The fact that the occupied are beginning to adopt the tactics of the occupiers in their efforts to prevent progress by their domestic political rivals is a sad indication of the dire state of inter-Palestinian politics.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/01/greenpeace-oil-demand/" rel="bookmark">Department of wishful thinking</a></h3> <p class="authreadmore">August 1, 2009 at 8:50 am | <a href="/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/authors/alexevans/">Alex Evans</a> | More on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts in Climate and resource scarcity" rel="category tag">Climate and resource scarcity</a> | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/01/greenpeace-oil-demand/#respond" title="Comment on Department of wishful thinking">Comment</a></p> <p><p>Is a peak for global oil demand in sight, wonders the Guardian’s<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/28/oil-peak-demand-tar-sands"> Data Blog </a>this morning? Er, no - what might make them think that, you wonder? Answer: a new Greenpeace report called <em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/climate/shifting-sands-bp-shell-rising-risks-update-2.pdf">Shifting Sands</a></em>, which argues that the case for developing tar sands in Canada is rapidly diminishing as oil demand falls. The report pulls together demand forecasts from OPEC and IEA, and argues that on top of the effects of the recession,</p> <blockquote><p>“In the longer term, the impact of two key policy instruments adopted in the US and EU are cited as gaining in influence. These are the US Energy Independence and Security Act and the EU Climate and Energy package. These policies, and the fact that there has been a degree of saturation in these markets, have led to the unanimous conclusion among these agencies that oil demand in the OECD has peaked.”</p></blockquote> <p>OECD, schm-OECD! They’re beside the point! Let’s remind ourselves of what the last IEA <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2008/WEO2008_es_english.pdf">Outlook </a>report <em>actually</em> said:</p> <blockquote><p>Global primary demand for oil (excluding biofuels) rises by 1% per year on average [in the report's Reference Scenario], from 85 million barrels per day in 2007 to 106 mb/d in 2030 … <strong>all of the projected increase in world oil demand comes from non-OECD countries</strong>. </p></blockquote> <p>It is entirely true to point out, as Greenpeace do, that investment in tar sands has fallen off a cliff as oil prices have crashed from $147 last July to their current level of around $60, and that investor uncertainty over future demand is the big driver here.</p> <p>But to go from there to talking about a peak in world oil demand? I <em>wish</em>.</p> </p> <div class="postspace"> </div> <br/> <p><div class="wp-pagenavi"> <span class="pages"> Page 1 of 127 </span><span class="current"> 1 </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/page/2/" title="2"> 2 </a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/page/3/" title="3"> 3 </a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/page/2/">»</a><span class="extend"> ... </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/page/127/" title="Last »"> Last » </a></div> </p> </div> </div> <div id="midcolumn"> <div class="subbox">  <h2>Browse the archives</h2> <select name="cat" id="cat" class="postform"> <option value="-1">Select category</option> <option class="level-0" value="5">Climate and resource scarcity</option> <option class="level-0" value="15">Conflict and security</option> <option class="level-0" 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value="4748">Daniel Korski</option> <option class="level-0" value="4750">David Steven</option> <option class="level-0" value="4754">Jules Evans</option> <option class="level-0" value="4756">Leo Horn</option> <option class="level-0" value="4758">Elizabeth Sellwood</option> <option class="level-0" value="4760">Mark Weston</option> <option class="level-0" value="4762">Richard Gowan</option> <option class="level-0" value="9118">Andrew Pickering</option> <option class="level-0" value="9124">Peter Hodge</option> <option class="level-0" value="10719">Michael Harvey</option> <option class="level-0" value="10819">Alanna Shaikh</option> <option class="level-0" value="10823">Owen Barder</option> </select> </form> </div> <div class="subbox">  <h2>What we're reading</h2> <div class="simplepie"><p class="error">cURL error 28: Operation timed out after 120000 milliseconds with 0 bytes received</p><span class="date">06/08 10:16</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jb7aYlanpMk7_1iLgokikpzKFh8wD99TDT580">The Associated Press: Hiroshima mayor calls for abolishing nuke weapons</a> Hiroshima Mayor calls for elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">06/08 09:37</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080600997.html">Clinton Says U.S. Supports International Criminal Court - washingtonpost.com</a> Secretary of State tells Kenyans it is 'a great regret' U.S. has not yet become a formal member<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">06/08 05:54</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/05/andrew-stott-twitter-whitehall-government">How Andrew Stott is setting Whitehall a-Twitter | The Guardian</a> The government's head of digital engagement on new media strategy<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">05/08 13:21</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/08/05/obamas-new-concerns-about-cameron-highlighted/">Liberal Conspiracy » Obama’s new concerns about Cameron</a> Democrat source close to Administration: "there are concerns about Cameron among top members of [Obama's] foreign policy team"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">05/08 11:50</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/05/lord-patten-eu-foreign-minister">Tories warn Patten to keep quiet about EU 'foreign minister' job | World news | guardian.co.uk</a> William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said a story in the Financial Times about Patten wanting the job was likely to be "unhelpful" to his chances of getting it<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">05/08 09:43</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.gsdrc.org/">GSDRC: Governance and Social Development Resource Centre</a> Using this site increasingly often as first port of call for governance research in the development context<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">05/08 06:05</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6739297.ece">No, minister. Change would not be a good idea | The Times</a> Paul Richards: "My experiences in Whitehall suggest that reform of the Civil Service by an incoming government, led by Gordon Brown, Mr Cameron or anyone else, would be a Sisyphean task."<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">05/08 05:19</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c7414148-7d60-11de-b8ee-00144feabdc0.html">Lunch with the FT: Rory Stewart | FT</a> " 'I do a lot of work with policymakers, but how much effect am I having?' he asks, pronging a mussel out of its shell".<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">04/08 08:43</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_plummeting_taxes">Federal tax revenues plummeting - AP News</a> Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">04/08 08:39</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/britain-to-put-cctv-cameras-inside-private-homes/">Britain To Put CCTV Cameras Inside Private Homes | Gadget Lab | Wired.com</a> "I’m well aware of the authorities’ love of surveillance and snooping, but even I, a pessimistic cynic, am amazed by the governments latest plan: to install Orwell’s telescreens in 20,000 homes"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">04/08 08:37</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/can-climate-panel-have-climate-impact/">Can Climate Panel Have Climate Impact? - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com</a> Andy Revkin discusses how the IPCC's task of being "policy relevant but policy neutral" gets ever harder<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">03/08 06:30</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8180816.stm">Second plague death in west China | BBC NEWS</a> Pneumonic plague claims a second victim in Qinghai province<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">03/08 06:16</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22952">Iran: The Tragedy & the Future | New York Review of Books</a> Roger Cohen reflects on post-election Iran, charting the “undiluted contempt” with which Iranian citizens now hold the regime.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">03/08 05:33</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/03/nuclear-disarmament">My plan to stop the bomb - Ban Ki-Moon | The Guardian</a> UN Secretary General's five point plan towards global nuclear disarmament<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">02/08 04:41</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2009/08/international-financial-stability-architecture-for-the-21st-century/">FT.com | The Economists' Forum | International financial stability architecture for the 21st century</a> "...it is not entirely clear why there is an expectation that the FSB will succeed where the FSF failed - with a far more heterogeneous membership of G20 plus countries..."<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">01/08 08:06</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://english.pravda.ru/business/companies/24-07-2009/108384-skype-0">Skype To Be Banned in Russia for State Reasons - Pravda.Ru</a> Mobile phone companies lobby against voice over internet by pointing to the fact that it can't be wiretapped<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">01/08 07:43</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ef20a360-7d61-11de-b8ee-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fef20a360-7d61-11de-b8ee-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fhome%2Fuk">What a carve up | FT</a> John Kay on the best books for understanding the financial crisis<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">01/08 04:29</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://tcktcktck.org/">tcktcktck.org</a> 127 days to Copenhagen. Lots of NGOs. Lots of "make your voice heard". No policy platform. No specific asks. What a surprise<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 14:09</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.theonion.com/content/news/apple_claims_new_iphone_only?utm_source=most_pop_dugg">Apple Claims New iPhone Only Visible To Most Loyal Of Customers | The Onion</a> Steve Jobs: "Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it's also the most handsome product we've ever designed."<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 11:46</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/07/William_Hague_The_Future_of_British_Foreign_Policy.aspx">William Hague: The Future of British Foreign Policy - Conservative Party | Speeches</a> "it will become more difficult over time for Britain to exert on world affairs the influence which we are used to, but not impossibly difficult"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 09:34</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/31/tamiflu-side-effects-children">Half of children taking Tamiflu have side-effects | Society | guardian.co.uk</a> More than half the children in England taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu suffer side-effects such as nausea, insomnia and nightmares, researchers have found.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 08:18</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/30/david_cameron_does_the_impossible_finds_a_political_bedfellow_who_is_strange_even_b">David Cameron does the impossible, finds a political bedfellow who is strange even by UK standards | David Rothkopf / Foreign Policy</a> "I used to think David Cameron was just an empty suit. But it is increasingly clear that the former PR guy, is a spin-ster who ought to be ditched at the altar"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 07:54</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/761/">Is the Eurozone the key risk? - Chatham House</a> China is strengthening and the recession may be bottoming out in the US, the UK and France, but conditions in most of the Eurozone and emerging Europe are still deteriorating<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 07:28</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6734604.ece">Britain's fighter jet fleet of Eurofighter/Typhoons cut by a third | The Times</a> Confirmed today, RAF will buy 160 jets rather than the planned 232<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 05:42</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-13/obamas-other-wife-1/full/">Obama's Other Wife - Tina Brown</a> "Obama brilliantly checkmated Hillary by putting her at State: Secretary Clinton can’t be seen to differ from the president without sabotaging her own power"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">31/07 04:37</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://detnews.com/article/20090730/OPINION01/907300347/1008/Detroit-mechanic-hid-life-as-Klansman">Detroit mechanic hid life as Klansman | detnews.com | The Detroit News</a> Donor to the Black Panthers by day, Klansman by night - you couldn't make it up<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">30/07 06:17</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17221c4e-7c28-11de-a7bf-00144feabdc0.html">The crushing responsibility of economists | The FT</a> Paul De Grauwe: macroeconomics no longer a science, having "fallen victim to a confirmation bias".<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">30/07 04:57</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/30/desmond-tutu-aung-san-suu-kyi">Desmond Tutu: my tribute to Burma's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi | The Guardian</a> The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi "is a crime and an indictment of an international community that often substitutes the issuance of repeated statements of concern for effective diplomacy".<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">29/07 15:52</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/hale/entry/how_to_train_a_digital">How to train a digital diplomat | FCO blogs</a> The FCO's Stephen Hale on delivering digital diplomacy in practice<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">29/07 14:11</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Indias-stand-on-terror-not-diluted-says-PM/articleshow/4835166.cms">India's stand on terror not diluted, says PM - The Times of India</a> Manmohan Singh treads on eggshells to defend case for constructive engagement with Pakistan against domestic criticism<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">29/07 13:41</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/28/an_insiders_guide_to_washingtons_china_war?page=0,0">An Insider's Guide to Washington's China War | Foreign Policy</a> Hudson Institute's John Lee describes battle between competition and cooperation-minded folk in DC - and frets that the latter are winning<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">27/07 05:01</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/26/757944/-3-for-3">The Belwind Rescue</a> Putting the finance together to build Europe's largest offshore wind farm.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">27/07 04:51</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/27/economic-reform-banking-markets">Economic reform needs a dose of reality | guardian.co.uk</a> Robert Skidelsky: regulators and financial institutions continue to overlook "Keynes's crucial distinction between 'risk' and 'uncertainty'"<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">21/07 19:43</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/5881731/Minister-Lord-Malloch-Brown-admits-to-Afghanistan-helicopter-shortage.html">Minister Lord Malloch-Brown admits to Afghanistan helicopter shortage | Telegraph</a> Lord Malloch-Brown: “We definitely don’t have enough helicopters. When you have these modern operations and insurgent strikes what you need, above all else, is mobility.”<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">21/07 14:55</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6721148.ece">Rock of Ages | The Times</a> Talks with Spain will not imperil British sovereignty over Gibraltar<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">21/07 05:05</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/nassim-taleb-clown-of-quantitative-finance/">Nassim Taleb: clown of quantitative finance</a> Mountebanks like Taleb sell their wares by making the regular jamoke reading his books and essays feel fiendishly intelligent for understanding the concept of fat tails.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">20/07 10:16</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/hillary-clinton-indian-of_n_240792.html">Hillary Clinton, Indian Official Clash Over Climate Change Efforts</a> If this report is to be believed, Clinton is going out of her way to irritate the Indians on climate.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">20/07 06:09</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/638214c6-748b-11de-8ad5-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F638214c6-748b-11de-8ad5-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcomment">Blair and Barroso: Europe’s team from hell | FT</a> Wolfgang Münchau: "the EU has a history of strange appointments. What I just cannot see is how anybody in their right mind could opt for the two simultaneously".<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">20/07 05:33</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.0yenhouse.com/en/A_Solar_Zero_Yen_House/index.html">A Solar Zero Yen House</a> Extraordinary zero carbon, portable house, designed, built and lived in by a homeless man on the streets of Tokyo - pictures, plans and illustrations.<div class="postspace"></div><span class="date">19/07 07:51</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/technology/internet/19unboxed.html?_r=3&th&emc=th">Crowdsourcing Works, When It’s Focused</a> Open-innovation models succeed only when carefully designed for a particular task and when the incentives are tailored to attract the most effective collaborators.<div class="postspace"></div> <span class="date">Source: <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609im_/http://pipes.yahoo.com/favicon.ico" alt="GLOABL Dashboard Reading List" title="GLOABL Dashboard Reading List"/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=1767d9ae65091ded5f7471431ed2535e" title="Web pages that have caught our eye...">Pipes</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="subbox">  <h2> No categories</h2> <div class="toppost"> <p><span class="date">No categories</span></p> </div> </div> <div class="subboxbottom"> </div> </div>  <div id="rightcolumn"> <div class="subbox"> <h2> No categories</h2> <div class="toppost"> <div class="postspace"></div> <p><span class="date">More No categories</span></p> </div> </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>Recent Comments</h2> <ul class="nomargins"><div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/06/another-free-lunch-for-investment-banks/" title="Another free lunch for investment banks was posted on August 6, 2009">Another free lunch for investment banks</a> (1)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/cellphone-fail/" title="Cellphone fail was posted on August 4, 2009">Cellphone fail</a> (2)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/23/modern-piracy-no-one-say-arrr/" title="Modern Piracy - No One Say Arrr was posted on July 23, 2009">Modern Piracy - No One Say Arrr</a> (1)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/23/the-paper-of-rumour/" title="The paper of rumour was posted on July 23, 2009">The paper of rumour</a> (2)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/22/gddigest220709/" title="On the web: overconfident bankers, China on the high seas, the Iraq War Inquiry and the Geneva Conventions… was posted on July 22, 2009">On the web: overconfident bankers, China on the high seas, the Iraq War Inquiry and the Geneva Conventions…</a> (1)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/22/how-to-dismantle-a-nuclear-bomb/" title="How to dismantle a nuclear bomb was posted on July 22, 2009">How to dismantle a nuclear bomb </a> (1)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/14/light-up-nigeria/" title="Light Up Nigeria! 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(updated)</a> (2)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/15/climate-institutions-presentation/" title="Climate change and international institutions: presentation at Feasta was posted on July 15, 2009">Climate change and international institutions: presentation at Feasta</a> (5)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/16/so-is-tony-blair-running-for-president-of-europe/" title="So is Tony Blair running for President of Europe? was posted on July 16, 2009">So is Tony Blair running for President of Europe? </a> (1)<ul> </ul></li></div> <div class="get_recent_comments_wrap"><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/07/13/everything-sarah-palin-done-ever/" title="Everything Sarah Palin has done, ever was posted on July 13, 2009">Everything Sarah Palin has done, ever</a> (3)<ul> </ul></li></div> </ul> </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>Tags</h2> </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>No categories</h2> <div class="toppost"> </div> </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>Authors</h2> <ul class="nomargins"></ul> </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>Browse Categories</h2> <ul class="nomargins"><li><ul class="browse-cat"> <li class="cat-item cat-item-5"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/climate-and-resource-scarcity/" title="View all posts filed under Climate and resource scarcity">Climate and resource scarcity</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-15"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/conflict-and-security/" title="View all posts filed under Conflict and security">Conflict and security</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-7"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/cooperation-and-coherence/" title="View all posts filed under Cooperation and coherence">Cooperation and coherence</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-18"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/economics-and-development/" title="View all posts filed under Economics and development">Economics and development</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-9"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/globalsystem/" title="View all posts filed under Global system">Global system</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-22"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/influence-and-networks/" title="View all posts filed under Influence and networks">Influence and networks</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-259"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/london-summit/" title="View all posts filed under London Summit">London Summit</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-27"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/off-topic/" title="View all posts filed under Off topic">Off topic</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-218"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/" title="View all posts filed under Region">Region</a> <ul class="children"> <li class="cat-item cat-item-30"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/africa/" title="View all posts filed under Africa">Africa</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-74"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/east-asia-and-pacific/" title="View all posts filed under East Asia and Pacific">East Asia and Pacific</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-32"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/europe-and-central-asia/" title="View all posts filed under Europe and Central Asia">Europe and Central Asia</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-81"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/" title="View all posts filed under Latin America and the Caribbean">Latin America and the Caribbean</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-19"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/middle-east-and-north-africa/" title="View all posts filed under Middle East and North Africa">Middle East and North Africa</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-21"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/north-america/" title="View all posts filed under North America">North America</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-23"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/region/south-asia/" title="View all posts filed under South Asia">South Asia</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-28"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090810014609/http://www.globaldashboard.org/category/uk/" title="View all posts filed under UK">UK</a> </li> </ul></li></ul>  </div> <div class="subbox"> <h2>Calendar</h2> <p> <table id="wp-calendar" summary="Calendar"> <caption>August 2009</caption> <thead> <tr> <th abbr="Monday" scope="col" title="Monday">M</th> <th abbr="Tuesday" scope="col" title="Tuesday">T</th> <th abbr="Wednesday" scope="col" title="Wednesday">W</th> <th abbr="Thursday" scope="col" title="Thursday">T</th> <th abbr="Friday" scope="col" title="Friday">F</th> <th abbr="Saturday" scope="col" title="Saturday">S</th> <th abbr="Sunday" scope="col" title="Sunday">S</th> </tr> 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