Premier Dilemma: Whither Morris Iemma?

A week out from his 47th birthday, NSW Premier Morris Iemma announced his intention to fight on as leader saying he is listening to the criticism which is “sending him a clear message to work harder”. Many in politics and the media have interpreted these criticisms (both in poor opinion polls and from factions within the ruling party) as a sign that Iemma cannot “take a trick” and should quit. The calls come in the wake of criticism after a string of recent scandals. These included his disgraceful “annoyance laws” for World Youth Day (laws the Catholic Church says it didn’t ask for), his senior Minister John Della Bosca’s resignation for his role in the Iguanagate farce, a Labor MP’s involvement in a Wollongong bribery scandal and the revolt by trade unions over Iemma’s plans for privatisation of the electricity retail sector.

But writing in the Australian yesterday (unfortunately article not online), Imre Salusinszky poured cold water on the arguments that Iemma is on his way out. He said his party enemies lacked the numbers to replace him and the Sydney media outlets which have predicted his demise have been writing the same exclusives since December last year. Salusinszky may not be totally neutral observer, he wrote a feature article on Iemma for the Weekend Australian in early 2007. Crikey have commented on the strangeness of a “fevered anti-communist and hard right ideologue from Quadrant” supporting Iemma, himself the son of a Communist.

Iemma’s father Giuseppe was a member of the Communist Party in the tough southern province of Reggio Calabria, in the boot heel of Italy. The Iemmas owned a patch of land outside Martone in the hills of Calabria. But poverty forced Giuseppe and his wife Maria to emigrate to Sydney in 1960. They faced this new and strange environment among friends; they shared a house with five other newly arrived Italian families on an estate in Glebe. Morris Iemma was born a year later. The Iemma family moved to Sydney’s Beverly Hills (which thirty years earlier changed its name from the dumpy Dumbleton to match the California suburb where movie stars lived).

The life of the Iemma family was typical for what Anglo Australians called “wogs” in the 1960s and 70s. Both Giuseppe and Maria worked long hours going from job to job in metal foundries, blanket factories and clothing sweatshops. Morris Iemma remembers how his mother’s fingers were bent from years of working in sweatshops. I poked my head inside some of those clothing factories, one in Sussex Street - they were terrible places,” he remembered. “My mother's neck and hands, knees. Her fingers are all bent, ganglions.”

Giuseppe’s political passion seeped into his son and Morris was active in Young Labor by the time he turned 16. Iemma studied economics and majored in industrial relations and politics at the University of Sydney. He took the traditional Labor route to power first with a bank union, then worked for federal ALP senator and factional powerbroker Graham Richardson for five years. Under his tutelage young Morris learned all about the backroom deal and how to use political opportunism.

In the 1991 election Iemma ran for the marginal seat of Hurstville against a Liberal sitting member. Then a shy 29 year old, he ran a on a campaign of “a local who listens”. He asked Labor leader Bob Carr to come out and make only one promise: to reopen the estate's Housing Commission office, closed by Liberal Premier. Iemma won the seat but Nick Greiner retained government. He retained the seat as Labor swept to power in 1995. When Hurstville was abolished in 1999, Bob Carr rewarded Iemma with the nearby safe seat of Lakemba. That same year Iemma was promoted to the outer ministry. His rose through Public Works and then the Sport portfolio. However he was catapulted out of obscurity in 2003 and when Carr appointed him Health Secretary.

When Carr unexpectedly resigned in 2005, the mantle was expected to fall on planning Minister Craig Knowles. There was also deputy leader and treasurer Andrew Refshauge, however he, like Carr, had decided his time was up. When Knowles was convicted of a drink-driving offence Iemma was suddenly the favourite. After Carr anointed him, unpopular Police Minister Carl Scully resigned from the race. Iemma, the last man standing, was unanimously appointed Premier. With two years before he would face the people, Iemma took over as Labor were on the nose, politically. Iemma tried to distance himself from the Carr legacy and was assisted by an incompetent Liberal opposition who put forward a succession of weak leaders. The apparently electable John Brogden nosedived after making a racist remark about Bob Carr’s Malaysian wife and attempted suicide.

Labor almost committed political suicide of its own as Iemma survived the series of scandals before the election. Ports Minister Joe Tripodi was accused of profiting from public land and not disclosing his shareholdings. Carl Scully was sacked as Police Minister after misleading the parliament over the Cronulla Riots. Then there was the Milton Orkopoulos fallout. Iemma sacked the former Aboriginal affairs Minister after he was accused of 30 child sex and drug charges. There were claims senior party officials knew about Orkopoulos but said nothing. Meanwhile, safe Labor seat MP Steven Chaytor was forced to resign after being convicted of assaulting his girlfriend. Parliamentary secretary Tony Stewart resigned after a drink-driving offence and a Minister Kerry Hickey admitted to speeding offences.

Yet the Coalition was unable to turn these fiascos into political capital for itself. New leader Peter Debnam was from the hard right of the party and too focussed on ‘laura norder’ to the detriment of all other issues. When he allowed himself to be photographed in Speedos, he was ridiculed by the media while the people winced at his dick-togs. The same people did give him a three percent swing against the Government, but he needed eight. Iemma had won and was at the peak of his career; finally, he was an elected Premier. In his victory speech he cautioned for humility and gratitude. “Tonight we have been given another chance,” he said. “ The mandate is to get back to work, keep your promises and get services we rely on moving in the right direction”.

But March 2007 was Iemma’s high-water mark. It was all downhill from the election. The biggest issue he faced was a stark divide between his “green” and “brown” ministers. The Green wing (led by Phil Koperberg) was worried about the health of the planet but the brown wing (Michael Costa, Tony Kelly and Ian MacDonald) was more worried the health of the Government which depended on the state’s rich lode of brown coal. Costa went on record accusing the federal Government of Chicken Little politics on global warming, Costa was also behind Iemma’s decision to privatise the retail end of electricity industry attracted by the multi-billion dollar revenues earned by Victoria and Queensland’s privatisation programs. But those plans have now attracted the ire of the union movement who concerned by redundancies have threatened to derail the program,

In other words, very little has changed in the last few years. Iemma’s government has lurched from crisis to crisis. But there is change on the Opposition side. Barry O’Farrell is the best Liberal party leader of the last ten years, though that is not really saying much. ABC pollster Antony Green noted after the last election that the Coalition was better placed to win in 2011 than the overall result indicated. The lesson from 2007 was that no matter how unhappy the electorate was with an incumbent government, voters are reluctant to change unless they are reasonably confident it is for the better. The Liberals are still a fractious mob stacked by the hard right, but recent opinion polls suggest O’Farrell has finally given them a sniff of electability. Labor cannot rely on another Morris minor miracle.

Gorbachev blasts increasing US military spend

As the US looks to push through 1980s-style missile defence shields in Eastern Europe, the last Soviet Cold War leader blamed the downturn in the world economy on increased American military spending. Writing in the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Mikhail Gorbachev said the US has primarily addressed its problems through “threats and pressure” and needed an alternative approach to international action. According to Gorbachev the current talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament is an example of an alternative, more effective policy, which, he said, Washington finally started “after several years of belligerent rhetoric”.

Gorbachev is certainly someone who deserves to be listened to. His leadership of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991 not only halved the number of strategic nuclear weapons but also hastened the end of what Eric Hobsbawm called the shorter twentieth century (1914-1991). His was a short but an extraordinarily active regime which tried to transform the USSR economically and socially. His slogans for economic reform ("perestroika") and the end to censorship ("glasnost") became known the world over. What it set in motion spun out of control politically and ended with a Nobel Peace Prize, the destruction of the Warsaw Pact, the defeat of Communism, and its own state disintegrated into 15 constituent republics.

All these events seemed an unlikely prospect when Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March 1985. Gorbachev was then 54 years old. While that might regarded as peak political age in the West, the Soviet Union was a gerontocracy and Gorbachev was one of the youngest members of the ruling Politburo. But what went in his favour was the death of the three previous party secretaries in less than three years, Leonid Brezhnev in November 1982, Yuri Andropov in February 1984 and Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985. Their deaths left a large vacuum at the top and it was the protégé of Andropov, Gorbachev, who rose to fill it.

Both Andropov and Gorbachev had been promoted to the inner sanctum of the Politburo at the same time in 1980. Both men were natives of the southern city of Stavropol and knew each other well. However the KGB leader was 17 years Gorbachev’s senior and it was he who anointed boss when Brezhnev’s long and undistinguished reign came to an end in 1982. Under Andropov, the younger man shined as the new leader tried to shrug off the lethargy that had dogged the Communist nation through the 1970s and early 80s. But just as Andropov was about to implement drastic changes, he died suddenly of acute renal failure. Konstantin Chernenko, Brezhnev’s backroom fixer, took the reigns and reversed all the previous reforms.

Gorbachev, an ally of the former leader, was on the outer, but remained on the Politburo. He gained fame in the West with two overseas trips in 1984. In June he attended the funeral in Rome of Enrico Berlinguer, the Italian Communist leader. There he told bewildered local Communists looking for direction from Moscow that they were free, independent and “there was no centre”.

Later than year Gorbachev led a Soviet parliamentary delegation to the UK and met Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He began by telling Thatcher he admired her values and principles but was of the same ilk. He assured her he was no under instruction to persuade her to join the Communist Party. She burst out laughing and the pair began to strike up a good relationship.

But greatness still lay ahead for Gorbachev as the new year dawned in 1985. Chernenko proved no healthier than Andropov and died in March, aged 74. Gorbachev was quickly appointed his successor despite grumblings from Politburo member and Council of Ministers chair Nikolai Tikhonov, who six years older than Chernenko. Gorbachev moved quickly in the new role to institute reform. The CPSU adopted a course towards “acceleration of the social and economic development of the country”. Gorbachev opened up competition in industry and allowed farmers to buy out their land plots. His reforms were supported by the general population but caused outrage among vested interests and party bosses.

His reforms also ran into stormy waters as food prices increased. Gorbachev abolished wage controls and many salaries rose unduly. Too much money was printed and destabilised the consumer market. As a result, basic consumer items such as sugar, tobacco, soap and washing powder disappeared from supermarket shelves. The results made Gorbachev look for even more rapid reforms. A new theme of openness would be needed and took its name from the Russian word for transparency: “glasnost”.

But Glasnost worked both ways and allowed others to be open in their criticism of the regime. Slowly but surely dissident voices, which had previously lurked in Soviet corners, came out to denounce Communism and all who sailed in her; even those like Gorbachev who sailed her into very stormy waters. Intoxicated by the new freedoms, many were quick to denounce the current government as the inheritors of the tradition of terror most associated with the Stalin regime but never dismantled under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. The tragedy of Chernobyl added to the country’s economic stagnation and made it easier to condemn the man than allowed himself to be condemned.

While troubled stirred at home, his reputation flourished abroad. To most people in the West, it was obvious Mikhail Gorbachev was the genuine article and represented the best chance to end the Cold War in a generation. The US then, as now, had grandiose plans to install a missile shield. Then it was Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) or Star Wars, as it was dubbed. But Gorbachev formed substantial relations with Thatcher, Germany’s Helmut Kohl, and finally Reagan as they met in Reykjavik and Geneva. Their arms talks made significant breakthroughs in nuclear arms and set about the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In 1988, Gorbachev rolled back the Brezhnev Doctrine and allowed Eastern European countries to determine their own internal affairs. The floodgates opened in 1989 as a string of mostly peaceful revolutions overthrew the Communists in all the satellite states. When the Berlin Wall fell, Gorbachev ensured that all the Soviet troops in East Berlin remained consigned to barracks and did not interfere.

But the stones were loosening at home too. The Baltic nations were first to demand independence. Then Russia herself said it was no longer part of the Soviet Union. Led by the pugnacious former Mayor Moscow, Boris Yeltsin, it worked actively to smash the Union from the inside. Old-style Communists inside the Kremlin were alarmed and launched a coup against Gorbachev while he was on holidays in the Crimea in August 1991. For three tense days, the coup leaders pretended Gorbachev was too ill to rule as they tried to consolidate their power. But Yeltsin led the fightback from the Russian White House and the coup plotters surrendered.

Gorbachev returned to Moscow in what would prove to be a short-lived triumph. Yeltsin now had the taste of power and wanted more. As 1991 went by, he formed an alliance with the leaders of the Ukraine and Belarus to bypass the power of the Soviet Union. By December the writing was on the wall for Gorbachev. He was gradually squeezed out of power and resigned on Christmas Day. He handed over control of the Soviet military might that day to the Russian leader Yeltsin. The Soviet Union was no more.

Over the new few years, Gorbachev was persona non grata in the new country. Yeltsin used the state-controlled media to launch a personal campaign against him. The coup plotters against him were eventually all released without charge and Gorbachev had to rely on his huge reputation abroad to make a living on the circuit tour and from his books. It was not until the late 1990s that Gorbachev could speak freely in his native land. While his reputation has been mostly restored today, he remains a greater presence in the West than in Russia. More than most, he will look wryly at Russia’s burgeoning oil-fuelled wealth today and its desire to reclaim its military might.

While reminding the US of its obligations, Gorbachev is not frightened to do the same to Medvedev’s Russia. Writing in The Times after the new president's election in March, Gorbachev said Russia need to take advantage of the stability and confidence it achieved in the past few years and “move decisively on the path of modernisation”. He said Russia needed to modernise governance, as well as “create an innovative economy, re-emphasise education and health and, as top priority, work to narrow the gap between rich and poor while fighting corruption and bureaucracy.” Gorbachev prescribed a course of more democracy for Russia. But the practical-minded Putin and Medvedev are only too aware of what happened when their brilliant predecessor ordered more democracy for himself. It was always going to be the tragic fate of Gorbachev to fall on his own sword.

US to replace War Powers Act

Two former American Secretaries of State from opposite sides of politics have joined forces to recommend US Congress replace the controversial 1973 War Powers Act. Republican James Baker and Democrat Warren Christopher recommended this week that the Act be replaced by a new law that would provide for more meaningful consultation between the president and Congress. The original act was put in place over the veto of Richard Nixon and stated the President could only send troops in action abroad by authorisation of Congress or else if the US is already under attack or serious threat.

According to the Act, the president is required to report to both Houses of Congress within 48 hours of having taken such action. Congress may then restrict the continuation of troop deployment despite any presidential veto. The act was aimed at restricting the president's introduction of US forces into potentially hostile situations without Congressional declaration of war. However it has been considered unconstitutional by each president since its passage, and its provisions generally have been ignored by both Congress and presidents. The resolution has never been formally invoked despite numerous armed conflicts ranging from US invasions of Grenada and Panama to military action in the Balkans and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Baker and Christopher were co-chairs of the National War Powers Commission which released their report (pdf) after 13 months of study this week. The report prefaced its remarks by noting that the war powers of Congress and the president have been a thorny issue since independence. The Constitution provides both parties with explicit war powers, as well as a host of arguments for implied powers. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to declare war, but Article II makes the president the commander in chief and nowhere does it say where one jurisdiction ends and the other begins. The only law on the books relating to war power – the 1973 act – is impractical and more often breached than followed. The War Powers Act was a poorly thought-out response to the use Lyndon Johnson made of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964.

The commission report said that consistent poll data showed that the President and Congress should consult each other before going to war. However this has not always happened and there is no clear mechanism for it to happen. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 contains only vague consultation requirements and if Congress fails to act on a presidential report, all hostilities must cease within 60 to 90 days. In practicality Presidents have gotten around this requirement merely by failing to issue a report. The commission acknowledges this is “unhealthy” and a failure of law.

They proposed instead a new War Powers Consultation Act of 2009 to be signed by the incoming President. The new act requires consultation between the arms of government before the US engages in combat operations expected to last more than a week (what it calls “significant armed conflict”). Once Congress is consulted and fails to immediately support the war resolution, it must hold a vote within 30 days calling for its approval. If both houses support a joint resolution of disapproval, it has the force of law overriding presidential veto.

The commission was averse to getting the Supreme Court to decide the issue which generally has steered clear of arbitrating a "political question" arising from a conflict between the elected branches. Speaking from Capitol Hill on Tuesday Baker and Christopher said their recommendation was not a response to the Iraq war which was authorised by a vote of Congress. Nor would they provide any examples where US military action did not exhibit consultation between the executive and legislative branches. "We have tried very hard not to call balls and strikes on past history," said Christopher.

Text and the city: the urban role in the Australian bush legend

Australia is the most urbanised nation on Earth. Yet the bush has iconic status and provides the core of a national imagining. The Australian “bush legend” has a great influence on the national psyche. The legend dates back to the 1890s and remains a powerful image with mass appeal for national consumption. The bush legend is often trotted out for advertising or tourist purposes, or both, as in the case of the Gold Coast’s Australian Outback Spectacular (sponsored by R.M. Williams, “Australia’s leading bush outfitter”). Through the work of three historians (Sean Glynn, Graeme Davison and Richard White), this post will look at some of the reasons why the legend became so engrained in Australian culture. It will examine the critical influence of Russel Ward’s attempt to analyse the bush mystique and the economic and cultural that contributed to the making of the legend. The paper will then touch on the growing importance of Sydney in the 1890s, the Bulletin newspaper that emerged from that city, and the writers that brought its ideas to light. Out of all these factors grew a legend that fed on the creativity of the city to construct a powerful image of the bush.

The historian Russel Ward acknowledged this opposition between the city and the bush in his study of the legend but traced its birthright to bush workers. In his major academic work, "The Australian Legend" he identified a “national mystique” in which outback manners and mores subtly diffused through the whole of society allowing a “bush ethos” to become synonymous with Australian nationalism. Ward argued that in the 1890s this bush ethos was romanticised and spread by the poetry and prose of new nationalist writers of the Bulletin school such as Furphy, Lawson and Paterson. Davison, Glynn and White drew on Ward’s work but came to different conclusions as to the provenance of the legend. Davison argues this glorification was not the transmission of frontier values to the city, but rather the projection onto the outback of the values of alienated urban writers. Glynn notes that by 1890 urbanisation was the dominant experience for a majority of Australians and it was their ideological needs that forced the acceptance of the bush legend. White argued that Ward’s ‘noble frontiersman’ was a symbol of escape from the tyranny of industrialised civilisation. All three historians were agreed upon the importance of the urban context in the Ward’s definition of Australian character.

But merely pointing to its city birthright does not throw any real light on how the legend emerged. To understand it in more detail, requires an understanding of the nature of Australian identity. White noted three factors in the making of this identity: the cultural baggage of Western ideas on science, nature and society; the intelligentsia that framed those ideas in an Australian setting; and the attitudes of the ruling class that patronised the intelligentsia. Glynn, Davison and White have noted how all three factors played a role in the formation of the bush mythology. In the late 19th century, Australians ransacked the history, nature and folklore of Europe and North America to construct a uniquely national Australian culture. It was the product of an emerging urban intelligentsia in literary media rather than a rural folk culture. Most importantly, the timing for this assertive nationalism was crucial: the vested interests in 1890s colonial society realised that there were advantages to a federal Australia that could solve economic problems in the areas of communication, finance and transport. But federation itself never captured the public imagination. The hardships that most of the population faced during the 1890s economic depression, made the urban image makers turn to the bush legend for a more fulfilling vision of Australian nationalism.

Invention and imagination are key components in any legend. Benedict Anderson defined the nation itself as an imagined political community. It was imagined because most members of a nation will never know most of their fellow members but in each of their minds lived what Anderson called, “the image of their communion”. Ward’s images of Australian communion rested heavily on the interpretation of popular folksong and literary work of the era. But the three later historians all agree this was a simplistic deduction. Davison used other tools such as electoral rolls and directories to show the concentration of boarding houses and radical institutions and individuals made Sydney the real powerhouse of the development of the legend. White also used census data to show NSW's cultural vitality. Glynn argues that literary evidence of the emergence of national character is “suspect and dangerous” and does not give enough credence to the economic upheavals and political flux that dominated depression-ridden Australia in the 1890s. That disillusionment was particularly felt in Melbourne which had grown wealthy on the back of Victoria’s goldfields. According to White, the depression caused the old faith in constant progress to decline which was matched by a new vitality in art and literature. It was this Sydney-led vitality that reached out to the Bush to capture a new image of Australia in the 1890s.

No one outlet was as much responsible for that image as the Sydney Bulletin. This year, the newspaper (now a magazine) closed down after 128 years of continuous publication. While the publication had a mostly long and undistinguished adulthood, Sylvia Lawson described the Bulletin’s first 20 years as “an astounding conflagration of cultural and journalistic energy”. The Bulletin’s influence can not be understated; by the turn of the century its circulation was around 100,000 in a population of three million. Again, White, Davidson and Glynn all acknowledge its critical role in the distillation of the legend. Glynn noted how the newspaper encouraged “larrikin literature” which portrayed social extremes. According to White, the Bulletin created its own legend as sensible commercial enterprise, a sort of self-advertising in keeping with the brash, new journalism of the era. But as Davison notes, all but a few of staple contributors and occasional correspondents lived in the coastal littoral, especially Sydney and Melbourne. The Bulletin’s writers were also deeply influenced by London trends and especially by the penmanship of Charles Dickens. The bush myth was brilliantly packaged by the Bulletin with its vibrant brashness, city-centric contributors and its Dickensian contextualisation.

The Bulletin was successful because it filled a crucial niche for its audience. Glynn states that the acceptance of the bush legend is more related to the ideological needs of a highly urbanised population. The very title of Davison’s article “Sydney and the Bush” made a play on words on what he described as two important literary touchstones to 1890s writers. According to the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian Slang, the phrase “Sydney or the Bush!” means “all or nothing, as in making a do or die attempt, gambling against the odds, etc”. Many of the legend's formative writers made that do or die attempt both literally and figuratively to the bush. Davison notes how Paterson fled “from the horrors of the city” and allowed his imagination to permanently reside on permanent vacation with “the western drovers”. White points out that other artists found the reality of the bush did not live up to their hopes. He described four self-styled Bohemians whose bush journey left them depressed by “soul-destroying sameness” which was relieved only by “dreams of city pleasures and delights”. Nevertheless, this dichotomy of Sydney or the bush produced much creative endeavour; what these artists created was a new moral universe that fulfilled a great need in Australia’s urbanised population.

The bush legend they created remains an enduring force to this day. Russel Ward anointed the legend and the “bush mystique” that goes with it. The timing of the legend’s birth was crucial; occurring as it did when Australia was in a depression and on the precipice of great political change. The Sydney Bulletin drove it forward with energetic and entertaining writing. But its writers and most of its audience were city folk all looking for ways to escape, however fleetingly, from the economic depression of the times. The bush legend was an experience imagined and packaged by city folk, but no less true or powerful for it.

Lithuania looks to sign up for US missile shield

It looks increasingly likely that Baltic nation Lithuania has signed up to take on the US’s missile interceptor shield. The system is part of the US’s belligerent offensive policy and they have already threatened to use it on Iran. The US has already signed a deal with the Czech Republic to one half of its missile interceptor system and was initially dealing with Poland to site the second half. But after talks stalled with the Polish government, Lithuania moved in.

Poland President Donald Tusk wanted $1 billion in compensation for hosting the missile shield but Washington baulked at this demand. The US put a deadline of mid July for Poland to lower their price but Tusk has shown no interest in changing the Polish position. He said the American proposals were not satisfactory from a Polish perspective. “The United States, our ally, is completely free to make decisions,” he said. “We have the rights and we will exercise the right to formulate our own conditions, our expectations.”

Now it seems the US have found a willing alternative in Vilnius. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates travelled to Lithuania in February for a NATO meeting and has since met Prime Minister Kirkilas to discuss the shield deal. Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Lithuania was willing to consider hosting the interceptors” But he said the US preference was still to work out a deal with the Poles. “But prudent planning requires that we simultaneously look at backups, if necessary,” he said. “Lithuania would geographically serve as a good alternative.”

Polish diplomats were in Washington on Monday still aiming to hammer out a deal. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorki met Condoleeza Rice to talk about hosting the interceptors a day before she was due to fly to Prague to sign the Czech end of the deal (an early warning radar). Sikorski wants to use the billion dollars he hopes the US will pay in order to modernise Polish air defences. He played coy with the media after the meeting saying the deal was still on track. Asked if he could salvage a deal, Sikorski said, "There is no need to salvage, because talks have continued all along and will continue."

The US insists the missile interceptor system is for dealing with what it euphemistically calls “rogue nations”. However nearby Russia is unimpressed. It rightly argues that if the intended target is supposedly Iran, then the missile site should be in Turkey or somewhere else nearby. Russia says the real purpose of the shield is to neutralise the Russian nuclear arsenal, and tilt the nuclear balance which exists in Europe in favour of Washington. New President Dmitri Medvedev criticised the shield on a recent visit to Berlin. He said American military expansion worried Moscow and could destroy relations between East and West "in a radical way, for a long time".

Lithuania, meanwhile, would need very little encouragement to rattle Moscow. Even before independence in 1990, then Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis needed very little prodding to provoke the Soviet Union. Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs how the Soviets acknowledged Lithuania’s right to self-determination and the desire to leave the Union. But, they were not interested in Gorbachev’s request to “respect legal procedures and a proper timetable for the divorce”. His heirs appear to want to continue to thumb their nose at its big neighbour, and likely at a much cheaper price than the Poles.

Double challenge for Turkey’s embattled Premier Erdogan

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been forced to defend his country’s democracy in the face of two major challenges to his power. Turkey is still coming to grips with the news of a planned military coup by an ultra-nationalist organisation probably backed by the military. Meanwhile his own Justice and Development Party (AKP) faces court charges accused of introducing Islamic rule. Erdogan went on the attack overnight against this double challenge. "I want to stress once again that the democratic system is working with its institutions and rules in Turkey within the framework of the law," he told party members. "Turkey has the experience to overcome this painful period and solve its problems with its domestic dynamics. Nobody should be worried.”

But many in his audience are very worried. The court case will decide the very future of the AKP. This landmark case in the country’s highest court, the constitutional court, will have to decide this week not only whether to shut the party down but to also ban its leaders including Prime Minister Erdogan, from politics for five years. The chief prosecutor accuses the AKP of anti-secularism and of seeking to dismantle the secular political system introduced by Ataturk in the 1920s. The AKP dismisses the charges as a politically motivated elitist judicial coup. It says they court is threatened by the party's electoral strength, drawn from a broad cross-section of the emerging middle classes.

While the AKP has its day in court, Ankara police are shedding more light on Ergenekon Operation. The operation is named for an ultra-nationalist political gang which has been carrying out secret preparation for an overthrow of the government. Dozens of high profile arrests have been made including a former chief of police, the head of Ankara’s chamber of commerce and several retired army generals. The plot shows the increasing desperation of the military elite at the continued popularity of Erdogan’s party.

The AKP has governed since 2002 and won a landslide second successive election victory last summer. Their reign of power in Turkey has been matched by the growing Islamism at a local level. Turkish academic Professor Sarif Mardin calls it "neighbourhood pressure" aimed at forcing secularists to conform to a more religious environment. Mardin says the secularist middle class is succumbing to mounting social pressure at the hands of rising conservative class, which, although increasingly westernised and globalised, has questioned several social values upon which the state was founded. Importantly, this included the role of religion in shaping public space and social ethics.

Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 out of the ruins of the old Ottoman Empire. His grand aim was to modernise the nation. He set upon a course of rapid secularisation and quickly disestablished the Islamic institutions that held a stranglehold over the legal and education systems. Active opposition to Kemal’s reforms was ruthlessly stamped out. When a pro-Islamic party won power after World War II (thanks to elections encouraged by the US), the pro-Kemal army removed it in a coup after a decade of rule.

Under military rule, the Islamists retreated to the domains of education and the press to get their message across. In the seventies a revitalised Islamist National Salvation party formed the balance of power between left and right wing groups in Turkey until another military coup ended democracy in 1980. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was active in National Salvation and joined its successor party Welfare in 1983. He successfully ran for mayor of Istanbul in 1994 on the strength of his excellent skill in oratory. With Welfare growing to become the largest party in Turkey, the army clamped down and banned it in 1997. Erdogan was arrested and convicted of “religious hatred” and spent four months in prison.

Erdogan and others formed the AKP out of the ashes of Welfare in 2001 claiming it to be a “moderate conservative party” to avoid further armed interference. Just a year later, AKP won a crushing victory in a general election despite winning just 34 percent of the vote. Their victory was widely interpreted as a protest against Turkey corruption-ridden body politic rather than a sweeping endorsement of Erdogan’s religious nationalism. But Erdogan has proved to be a competent and attractive leader and was comfortably re-elected last year. As Angus Reid points out, since taking office Erdogan has reconciled the secularist principles of the Turkish Republic with the democratic code that demands that the State respect individual freedoms. But his party’s Islamist roots leave the military deeply suspicious. They may be ready to step in again, either under the cloak of the courts or a coup.

Garnaut sets off to sell the Emissions Trading Scheme

Ross Garnaut set off on his state capital tour of Australia this week to explain his report to the people in public forums. With the government promising to implement an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) by 2010, Garnaut has the difficult job of persuading a wary public that the scheme is in their best interests. While Labor was voted into office on the platform of addressing climate change, recent polls suggest that the public may not yet be ready to make the required lifestyle changes or understand what the impacts of the ETS are.

On ABC’s Insiders this Sunday, Kevin Rudd struggled to answer the question: what in “plain simple terms” is an Emissions Trading Scheme? Rudd prefaced his answer by reiterating the need to act. In a line that will be used as a mantra by all Government climate change spokespeople, he said the cost of inaction was greater than the cost of action. Rudd said the trading scheme would put a cap on emissions, with permit allocated across the economy to the total amount of carbon. A carbon market would be allowed to trade up to the cap. A government green paper will decide the difficult question of who gets the permits and for what.

Garnaut’s report acknowledges Australia’s trade-exposed, emissions-intensive industries have valid concerns. The key elements demanded by the report are that the scheme be introduced without delay; it must be broad based and should include transport and fuel. He recommended carbon sales be sold before trading begins to help guide the market on price. Half the revenue raised from the permits would go to low income households, 30 percent to trade exposed carbon intensive industries and the remaining 20 percent to R&D.

The Government has lain down five tests for an ETS. Firstly, it must be a ‘cap and trade’ approach; in other words, an effective scheme must be one where total emissions are capped with permits allocated up to the cap. Secondly, the ETS must effectively reduce emissions by 60 percent by 2050. Thirdly, it must be economically responsible, keeping costs low and Australian industry competitive. Fourthly, it must be fair with costs and benefits shared across the community. Finally, it needs to act now because economic modelling shows that delayed action increases the cost.

The clean Energy Council said emissions trading would provide a massive boost to the economy, unlocking $20 billion in clean energy investment. The Council’s policy general manager Rob Jackson said it was critical that the scheme began as promised in 2010 to provide business certainty. He said now was the time to make decisions for long-term energy infrastructure investment. “An early start and a secure trajectory will give business the sign it needs to invest in emissions reduction,” he said.

Importantly Jackson believes the ETS needs to be implemented along with complementary measures such as the 20 per cent renewable energy target. This target was a key plank (pdf) of Labor’s election policy. The policy read “A Rudd Labor Government will ensure that the equivalent of at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply is generated from renewable sources by 2020”. This amounts approximately 60,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) or the electricity used in 7.5 million homes and would deliver a reduction of almost 350 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in the next two decades. But with Labor ruling out nuclear power, that may prove an impossible ask. Hence the importance of the 20 percent R&D windfall from the ETS.

However Garnaut’s call for a bi-partisan approach looks completely dashed now that Opposition leader refused to commit to supporting an ETS by 2012. Nelson backed away from the coalition’s pre-election commitment on the 2012 date and went back to the tired old Howard line that it would be “economic suicide” for Australia to act alone. He urged Rudd to use the upcoming G8 conference in Japan to push for a global response. But party colleague and former federal environment minister Ian Campbell says Nelson should avoid playing populist politics and support a carbon trading scheme. Campbell attended a public gathering in support of Garnaut’s report. "I think what the opposition needs to realise is they can be quite proud of the role that we played in government to get a trading scheme on to the policy agenda,” he said.

The big question will be what will be the price of carbon? Current offset prices vary from 50 cents to $30 a tonne. The ‘cap and trade’ system where companies decide the most economical way to meet an overall cap, include widely varying details with unknown impact. The market will very much depend on how governments implement the system. That's why finding the right price of carbon is key. In Europe the price has varied wildly with fundamentals such as weather, policy, market psychology and a host of miscellaneous factors all influencing the price. But the benefits are there if the price signal is right. There will be a massive opportunity to generate income from activities that previously attracted no additional revenue, such as investment in emission reduction, renewable energy generation, greenhouse friendly fuels and carbon sequestration. The age of carbon ‘user pays’ is at hand.

Fitzgibbon on Federation: Abolish the states

Federal defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has called for the states to be abolished and said Australia is still paying for the compromises made before Federation in 1901. Fitzgibbon told the inaugural Edmund Barton lecture at Newcastle University that Australia was the most over-governed nation in the world with 14 houses of parliament for just 22 million people. "I'm sure the current model frustrates even the most patient in our society whether it be the individual trying to secure an answer to a health policy issue or a business trying to work across state borders and facing six to eight regulatory frameworks, he said. ''The duplication, the inefficiencies, the buck-passing and blame-shifting cost our economy billions.”

Federation snuck up on most Australians. It wasn’t even the most important matter on the nation’s mind as the nineteenth century ended. In 1900, bubonic plague was raging throughout the country. It started in Adelaide the year before when the city’s harbour was declared “an infected place”. It spread to Sydney where xenophobic locals blamed it on rats from a French Caledonian ship. By August over a hundred people had died of the plague in a city with the poorest sanitation in the country. But locals were loath to blame poor hygiene, it was more likely to be the fault of “the Queen’s Nigger Empire” which brought plague and pestilence to Sydney’s “British” shores.

These illogical views reflected the fact that jealous Australians felt they deserved more attention and respect from the Mother Country. They resented the fact that despite Australians modelling themselves on Britain, the British regarded India as the jewel in the crown. It was reflected in two of the earliest acts of Federation, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, (the basis of what became known as the White Australia Policy) and the lesser known 1908 Quarantine Act. While both laws were designed to keep Australia ‘white and pure’, it was this latter piece of law that first encouraged Australians to see themselves as an integral whole, a new island-nation.

This was a new concept. Before federation, the continent was dominated by colonial practices that did not take any national interest into account. For instance, travelling to Australia was unnecessarily difficult because the six colonies did not have a co-ordinated policy on navigation in dangerous waters. Politicians had been talking about a national federation since the 1840s but whenever the six Premiers would get together, the proposal would be buried in yet another committee to examine it in detail. Each colony was too keen to protect its own interests and there were sharp differences between the two major colonies - NSW was predominantly freemarket while Victoria was implacably protectionist.

The other states had their gripes too. South Australia saw itself as a cut above because it was never a convict colony. Western Australia resented its distance from the others which meant it was more or less totally ignored. Queensland had delusions of empire of its own, wanting to gobble up eastern New Guinea, New Hebrides and Samoa. It was the NSW Premier Henry Parkes who talked up the future of “Australia.” He made a powerful case for Federation at Tenterfield in 1889 where he said the population of Australia was similar to that of the US at the time it was formed. “Surely what the Americans have done by war,” he said, “Australia can bring about in peace”.

Two years later Parkes drafted up a constitution for “the United States of Australia”. The motion was sent to the individual parliaments for approval and another four years ticked away in inaction. Parkes died aged 80 in 1896 with his dream still unfulfilled. But in Adelaide one year later, delegates from all states met to hammer out the disagreements in the draft. The key question was whether power should reside with the people or some elite minority group.

Edmund Barton (who would become the nation’s first Prime Minister) convinced the delegates they had to choose a middle way. He proposed a referendum in each of the colonies to agree to a Federation with a Governor-General appointed by the Queen, who would have vested in him (not till 2008 would that person be a ‘her’) all the powers of the Crown. But the referendum failed in NSW and the Melbourne Age blamed the free-trade premier of that state for “striking a blow below the belt at the federal cause”.

The states tried another referendum in 1899 after negotiations with NSW. There was a decisive yes vote in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The ‘yes’ vote barely made it in Queensland and Western Australia held out until July 1900. As the only colony to avoid the depression of the 1890s, they had serious concerns about effect of Federation on the West, but eventually signed up to make it a continent-wide affair.

But as Fitzgibbon noted yesterday, Federation was a botched affair. Its leaders were unable to fully break with their colonial mentality. Instead of a lean and efficient system of government, As Phillip Knightley points out in his “Australia: Biography of a nation”, the nation ended up with three tiers and 15 governments as well as a Governor-General, six state Governors, overlapping bureaucracies, and “a tangle of disparate laws, taxes, railway gauges, land titles and education systems.” One hundred years later states still compete against each other for foreign trade contracts allowing Australian states to be played off against each other in a bidding war that is detrimental to the nation as a whole.

The problem with Federation is that at no stage did it succeed in capturing the imagination of the people. There was never a widespread determination among ordinary Australians to forge their own path in history. They were all too busy being British, and Australia, united or not, was merely a part of the Greatest Empire on Earth. When on the eve of Federation, Britain declared war on the Boer states of South Africa, 16,000 Australians troops volunteered to serve. That service did engender the first feelings of nationalism. Despite the nastiness of that war, there was a feeling that Australian troops were invincible, helping the British out of their troubles. NSW Premier William Lyne welcomed home the first troops by saying: We will shortly have a federation of the colonies and this is a forerunner of when we will find Australian contingents going to the front, fighting together, shoulder to shoulder”. Lyne was uncommonly prescient. That bloody fighting in World War I would do more to encourage a sense of nationhood than Federation ever could.

The Media, Dennis Ferguson and the Garnaut Report

After finishing watching the best American news show on television this evening (the PBS NewsHour), I switched over to Channel Nine for the six o’clock news and their take on local events. First up were the good citizens of Miles who, egged on by media and politicians, did their civic duty and ran a man out of town. The man is Dennis Ferguson; a man who faces court over child sex charges but who is likely to walk free because he is incapable of receiving a fair trial in Queensland. The resultant vigilante hysteria merely makes matters worse.

We should not be surprised at this as the whole stupidity of the Bill Henson case revealed. The latest enemy of the people was forced to seek police protection as the media revealed not only his identity but his whereabouts and encouraged locals to take matters into their own hands. As a result the civil liberties lawyer Terry Gorman was placed in the invidious position of recommending the media back off and give people some privacy. If ever a case required a suppression order, then this was it. The Gold Coast Bulletin was the chief offender with a series of headlines about the case that "sent a clear message to the Bligh Government” (not particularly worrying about separation of powers).

The paper wrote a page one lead on Wednesday (interestingly, not available online) screaming at its readers to "dob in a monster". The article continued: “In the past, men like Ferguson have been placed in communities without the knowledge of the parents or children living there. If you see him, call The Bulletin and tell us where he is. Phone us on 5584 2469. Help us put pressure on authorities to have him locked away and to keep our children safe.” When I rang that number late this evening to complain that the Bulletin was the real monster here, I only got the cadet who dutifully took my message. Nevertheless the Ferguson story is rightly front page news, if only to show the shameful treatment of him by the people and media of Queensland. Of course, it wasn’t played that way. What we got instead was the deification of a lynch mob dressed up as “outraged citizens”. Shame those citizens weren’t half as concerned by the consequences of the real news of the day buried down Nine’s schedule.

That news was Ross Garnaut’s climate report. His address at the Press Club was newspaper gold but hardly unmissable television. So ratings reasons alone determined this was not the main news on Australia’s Fourth of July (for the most part still 3 July in America). So while whenever he said “carbon emissions scheme,” people used the remote control to switch him off. While this would apparently be the behaviour Garnaut wishes to encourage, people don’t switch off their TV but merely change the channel to something more amenable.

Whereas there are signs that the US is treating the problem serious, it seems people in Australua are not interested in the truth of climate change. How else to explain the rise in sales of SUVs in Australia? The two biggest price signals at the moment are the cost of oil and the cost of a mortgage. The central bank crudely controls the levers of the latter, while supposedly unpredictable “market forces” form the former. It remains a mostly unknown truth, that the higher price of petrol is actually a good thing, despite Aussie SUV sales, a price signal that will put a brake on car-induced emissions.

Nevertheless there remains considerable resistance to the understanding that climate change is actually at all. Many prefer to believe climate change will be turned into pumpkins at midnight. In his draft report (pdf) today on the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, Ross Garnaut had a word or two for these people. He said “The outsider to climate science has no rational choice but to accept that, on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream science is right.” Garnaut reminds them about the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is the classic betting problem of multi-party decision-making. The dilemma is not a zero sum game, but the idea behind it is there are deceptively simple decision problems that don’t have elegant solution. So, for instance, the simplest short-term cure for global warming is to go nuclear but that argument is treated like someone who "painted himself red, glued horns on his head, strapped on a three-headed phallus and walked naked into St. Peter’s in Rome shouting “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?”

But who your daddy is, is of little consequence to global warming. The argument is not aabout decisions of the past but of the future. And the jury remains firmly out on the efficacy of nuclear power compared to its perceived dangers. The solution to the Prisoner's Dilemma is that the best decision for an individual can depend on what he/she knows or can guess about the other’s intentions and therefore it is best to be in a position to share intentions. In other words, without global co-operation we are all pretty much screwed.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m no scientist but am happy to report their findings. Of all the official UN-sanctioned recommendations in the last few years, none of them have recommended that there is no problem and we need not do anything about it. On the contrary, official dry-as-dust summaries such as Garnaut’s and Stein’s reviews suggest that the cost of doing nothing is higher than the cost of doing something.

Try telling that to climate change sceptics. The posse led by Blair and Andrew Bolt have no time for the voice of science. As Garnaut points out, "‘sceptic’ is a misnomer for their position, because these dissenters hold strongly to the belief that the mainstream science is wrong". There is a clue to their behaviour in another thesis I read this evening: “There is active debate among political scientists and political theorists over the relationship between participation and deliberation among citizens with different political viewpoints.” Readers tend to read that accord with their political beliefs. Those who believe there is no climate change, get a constant reminder they are right.

But what about those readers who don’t have political beliefs – what do they read? The politic agnostics are the vast majority and they will probably not read blogs at all. They will be wrapped up in Channel Nine and the like. Their rage will be misdirected. Instead of doing something about the elephant in the room, they will be ringing up the Bulletin and dobbing in a monster.

Downer swaps Canberra for Cyprus

With the support of the Labor Government, former Liberal foreign minister Alexander Downer is now likely to become the UN Special Envoy for Cyprus. Although not yet officially announced by the UN itself, Downer made the announcement himself from London where he is involved in private discussions about his future. The 56 year old South Australian said Australia has a humanitarian interest in a resolution to the Cyprus dispute because of its own large community of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. "I will be working toward helping the Cyprus saga,” he said. "I will be working toward helping the Cyprus saga, working as an envoy to try and resolve that long standing issue." “Working as an envoy to try and resolve that long standing issue."

The news came as Downer officially announced his retirement from federal politics today. The news brings an end to speculation of what role he might play in a future Liberal leadership contest. His last day in Canberra will be 14 July and there will follow a by-election in the Liberal blue ribbon seat of Mayo. Apart from the Cyprus role, Downer plans to work in an Adelaide consulting firm and also take up a part-time position in a South Australian university. Downer was Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister, lasting 11 years in the job throughout the entire period of the Howard Government.

Bernard Keane in Crikey was scathing about Downer’s legacy. Keane called him Australia’s “worst foreign minister of recent decades” who was the White House’s lapdog for most of his 11 year stint in the job (coinciding with seven years of the Bush administration). Keane castigates Downer’s role in the decision to go to war with Iraq, his intellectual dishonesty in the AWB scandal, and the damage he caused to the relationship with Papua New Guinea.

But Downer is not without his supporters. Writing today in the Wall Street Journal (the cross-benefits of Murdoch’s ownership becoming increasingly apparent), Australian right-wing journalist Janet Albrechtsen described Downer as a “stalwart and articulate defender of the legitimate right of Australians to determine their national sovereignty”. She claims that Downer’s determination to stay the course in Iraq has won Australia influence in Washington which will benefit Kevin Rudd while he (Downer) heads off to become Ban Ki Moon’s “fix-it man in the Mediterranean”.

Downer will have a difficult act to follow in current Cyprus special envoy, the Ethiopian-born Taye-Brook Zerihoun. Zerihoun is an experienced diplomat who formerly served as a UN envoy in Sudan. He spent his last few days in office in the island nation talking to both the Cypriot Greek leader Dimitris Christofias, and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat. He told a Medal Parade of the UN peacekeeping mission that there's been marked progress in the peace process in the last few months, a development which he adds, has engendered much optimism and goodwill in Cyprus and around the world.

One of Zerihoun’s last acts was to bring Christofias and Ali Talat together again on Tuesday for further talks on reunification. The leaders agreed in principle on the issues of single sovereignty and citizenship. Citizenship has been a key concern for Greek Cypriots particularly as they try to halt the growing number of naturalised mainland Turks who have moved to the island since Turkey’s 1974 invasion. The Turkish Cypriots, meanwhile, want the federation of the two communities foreseen in the UN-brokered peace talks to be an entirely new creation. This is opposed by the Greeks who want their government (recognised across the world except by Ankara) to continue to be recognised.

While these basic issues will take some time to resolve, Zerihoun has brokered other initiatives in recent months in an attempt to make life easier for both sides. They include educational programmes on cultural heritage; steps on road safety; easing the movement of ambulances between the two sides; the establishment of a Cyprus Joint Committee on Health; cooperation for an island-wide assessment of all major waste streams; and agreement on environmental education. Zerihoun has been backed up by the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) which has been on the island since 1964 charged with preventing communal violence.

It was Downer himself who announced Australia’s last envoy for Cyprus. He appointed John Spender to the role in 1998. Back then, Downer was worried by the continuing deadlock over efforts to bring the Greek and Turkish communities together. “Thirty-five years since the outbreak of intercommunal fighting and 24 years since the Turkish invasion of 1974, the problem of Cyprus remains unresolved, “ he said “A settlement is long overdue.” Now Downer will have a direct opportunity to make that happen.

Riots mar Mongolian election result

Mongolia’s president has declared a four-day state of emergency after deadly riots in the capital to protest election results. Nambaryn Enkhbayar ordered the state of emergency yesterday after the ruling party headquarters of the ruling party was torched. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to beat back violent protesters who smashed their way into the building. Others pushed their way into the General Election Commission offices to demand that officials resign over voting irregularities. At least five people have been killed since the weekend and another 300 injured. The capital Ulan Bator was sealed off today and police have set up roadblocks to enforce a blockade.

The crowd thinned slightly this morning after the emergency declaration, though some protesters had begun looting paintings from an art gallery while others vandalised parked cars. The country’s Minister of Justice and Home Affairs Munkhorgil said Ulan Bator was now under a 10pm to 8am curfew. "Police will use necessary force to crack down on criminals who are looting private and government property," he warned.

The riot occurred when several thousand people gathered on to the streets of the capital after results emerged from Sunday’s election. Preliminary returns showed the ruling ex-Communist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) has claimed victory with at least 45 seats in the 76-seat parliament (known as the State Great Khural http://www.parl.gov.mn/) but the opposition Democrats, who took 26 seat, allege fraud. Their Party leader Tsakhia Elbegdorj said his party was robbed of victory but the MPRP and international election monitors say the vote was free and fair.

This is the fifth election since Mongolia adopted wide-ranging economic and politic reform after the collapse of Communism. The MPRP ruled the country in a Soviet-style one party government for seven decades between 1921 and 1990. Their superior organisation helped them win the first two free elections in 1990 and 1992 until their 75 year was ended in 1996 when the opposition parties united to form the Democrats. They ruled until 2004 when a close vote in that year’s election forced the two major parties into an uneasy coalition which lasted just two years. The transition to democracy in the last 18 years has been remarkably peaceful until the events of this week.

Mongolia is struggling to modernise its nomadic, agriculture-based economy. Annual income averages just $1,500 a year in the sparse country of about 3 million people spread across an area three times the size of Spain. However recently, Mongolia has discovered a rich lode of copper, gold and coal and the country is hoping to tap into neighbouring China’s resources boom. In the election, the MPRP and Democrats both campaigned on how to tap these huge mineral deposits but disagreed over whether they should be managed by the government or private sector. The disagreement meant the outgoing parliament could not pass an amendment to the Minerals Law to allow the government seal investment agreements with international mining giants to develop mineral deposits in the Gobi Desert.

The current law gives the government 50 percent of the deposit and the MPRP proposed to increase that by one percent to give it outright control. But the Democrats say that control should stay in private hands. Large multinational mining companies such as Rio Tinto, Ivanhoe and Antofagasta actively awaited the result and although will be disappointed by the MPRP victory, they will hope the result will allow their deals to conclude. While the protests may add to the air of uncertainty, it is likely the simplest reason MPRP won the election is by promising a bribe of $1,300 in cash to each citizen once mining production starts.

Equatorial Guinea coup trial takes a new turn

The presidential overthrow trial of Simon Mann took an unexpected turn overnight with Equatorial Guinea issuing an arrest warrant for a new master suspect in the 2004 coup attempt. The government has issued an international warrant for the arrest of Lebanese businessman Ely Calil for his role in the plot to overthrow long-term dictator Teodoro Obiang. Calil is currently living in London and Equatorial Guinea’s British embassy claims it has ample evidence to support his involvement in the coup attempt. The embassy described Calil as the coup’s “organiser, intellectual conspirator, architect and financier.”

It was the 62 year old Calil who transferred $1 million to the bank account of British mercenary Simon Mann who is awaiting sentence for his involvement in the coup. Mann is under arrest in Equatorial Guinea but claims that Calil was the real leader of the coup. Mann calls Calil “Smelly” and said that a group led by Smelly was still conspiring to replace Obiang with Severo Moto, an exiled opposition leader living in Spain.


Simon Mann is a former member of Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) Mann also made headlines for accusing Margaret Thatcher’s buffoonish son Mark of a role in the coup. In 2005 Thatcher was convicted by South Africa for his role in this case. He was fined after he admitted paying $US275,000 for a helicopter but claimed he thought it was to be used as an air ambulance. Mann said Thatcher was “part of the management team”. Mann said he recruited Thatcher and took him to London to be vetted by Calil, whom he identified as the "boss" of the whole operation. After that, he said, Thatcher was "not just an investor - he came on board completely” and attended many meetings. Mann named Thatcher as one of five men "in charge of the operation". Equatorial Guinea's government has issued an international arrest warrant for him. Thatcher is currently believed to be living in hiding in either the south of Spain or Gibraltar.

Mann was arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 as he was trying to fly in weapons for the coup plot. His friends claim he was illegally deported to Equatorial Guinea after cash was handed over in suitcases to Mugabe’s henchmen. Mann was expected to be sentenced last week after he pleaded guilty but as yet there has been no verdict. His defence team asked for a ten year sentence but the prosecution has demanded 32 years. However some sources in the capital Malabo say the trial was a charade and that Mann has struck a deal with the authorities that would see him pardoned return to Britain after just a year or two. The 55 year old Mann is in a privileged cell with the ability to make phone calls and eat a daily ordered lunch with Manuel Nguema Mba, the Minister of Security.

In his trial Mann said the 2004 plot was in effect an “official operation”, sanctioned by the Spanish and South African governments, and tacitly endorsed by Washington. Mann said the Pentagon, the CIA and the US oil companies which have invested heavily in Equatorial Guinea were sounded out and all signalled that a "well-conducted change of government would be welcome". Mann said the plot was rushed through before the 2004 Spanish general elections in Spain, in case the friendly government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was defeated (which it was). Mann said Calil had told him the coup plotters had been promised immediate diplomatic recognition by Aznar's administration if they succeeded in overthrowing Obiang.

Obiang’s regime has long been seen as one of the most corrupt and repressive in Africa. He has ruled the oil rich West African nation since he grabbed power from his uncle in 1979 and his party won 99 out of 100 seats in a sham election last month. Last week, Peter Maass writing in Slate magazine called Obiang's life a ‘parody of the dictator genre’ and nominated him as Africa’s worst tyrant. Since the 1990s the country has become Africa’s third largest oil exporter but Obiang has transferred about $700 million of the revenues into his personal account. And because of the oil investment he is lauded in the US not condemned. “For the usual and shameful reasons, the White House does not use its clout to condemn Obiang as it condemns Mugabe”, writes Maass. “Instead of seeking an indictment against the man, the U.S. government is putting rent money in his pocket.”

The Tunguska Event: One hundred years on

Scientists have gathered today in Siberia to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Tunguska Event. One hundred years ago today, a fireball streaking across the sky caused a massive explosion in the Siberian hinterlands which marks the largest recorded collision between Earth and an object from space. Although largely unnoticed at the time, the explosion measured five on the Richter scale and destroyed a 2,500km area of taiga forest. But because of the area’s isolation hardly anyone died and it would take 21 years for a scientific expedition to reach the scene of the devastation.

Tunguska was the largest cosmic impact event on Earth in recent history. At 7:17am local time on 30 June 1908 a shock wave flattened 80 million trees in Siberia near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now the Krasnoyarsk Krai region in central-Eastern Russia. Because of its remoteness no-one is entirely sure what happened. The most likely reason for the explosion is a meteorite which exploded at an energy force of somewhere between 10 and 15 megatons, about a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

The shock waves of the Tungunska explosion were monumental. They circled the globe twice and were registered by all observatories. In Irkutsk, 1,500kms away, a seismograph scale went wild. The ground trembled as far as Tashkent in Uzbekistan (Central Asia), Tbilisi in Georgia (South Caucasus) and even Jena, Germany. Barometers in the UK registered atmospheric pressure fluctuations. The blast caused a four-hour magnetic storm which closely resembled the geomagnetic fluctuations registered after high-altitude nuclear blasts. Over the next few days “white nights” and unusual silvery clouds were seen over the vast territory from Siberia to Europe’s western borders.

The Tunguska event is one of the most mysterious and well-studied 20th century phenomena. Evidence is elusive and only a few traces of its existence were found. The most likely explanation is an exploding fragment from a disintegrating meteorite but scientists concluded there was no actual impact. The meteorite was probably travelling at around 34,000 kms per hour when it exploded about 8km above the Earth's surface. According to local accounts a bluish fireball appeared in the sky which was followed by a flash ten minutes later. Then there was a deafening explosion that was heard 500 km away. The ground began shaking as in an earthquake, and a hot wind blew across the land, singeing crops and shattering windows.

Closer to the explosion, the object was seen in the cloudless, daytime sky as a brilliant, sun-like fireball. At distances around 60 km, people were thrown to the ground or even knocked unconscious; windows were broken and crockery knocked off shelves. The closest observers were reindeer herders asleep in their tents in camps about 30 km from the epicentre. They were blown into the air and knocked unconscious; one man was blown into a tree and later died. According to one survivor "Everything around was shrouded in smoke and fog from the burning fallen trees."

Scientists now suspect a stony asteroid exploded in mid-air because of high-pressure air resistance. From the explosion a boulder flew out at a slightly skewed angle which blasted out a crater. Later it filled in with water and sediments that disguise its shape today. New seismic studies show a candidate rock is buried under the lake. This summer Italian scientists will return to the scene at Lake Cheko to check out if this is the asteroid that flattened the forest.

But others are less certain and remain convinced the mystery will survive another hundred years. Wilder theories include an alien spacecraft which blew up, or that a black hole made a freak appearance. The problem is caused by the fact that no evidence was obtained at the time of the blast. Because of the chaotic conditions in Russia at the time, the first scientific expedition to the scene of the explosion did not arrive until Soviet times in 1927. Professor Leonid Kulik led an expedition there but was unable to establish the cause of the conflagration two decades after the fact.

To this date, no-one has found a crater which might identify the ‘ground zero’ for the explosion. But the fallen trees acted as markers pointing away from the epicentre. Kulik’s team estimated the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere travelling at a speed of about 54,000 km per hour. During its quick plunge, the 100-million-kilo space rock heated the air surrounding it to over 20,000 degrees Celsius releasing the energy of 200 atomic bombs. On average, a Tunguska-sized asteroid will enter Earth's atmosphere once every 300 years, so if statistics are right, we have 200 years to prepare for the next holocaust from space. Equally intriguingly, had the explosion had occurred some five hours later, it would have completely destroyed the then Russian capital of St. Petersburg. How would the 20th century have turned out if the Tsar had died then at the hands of nature instead of a decade later at the hands of the Bolsheviks?

Jerusalem inaugurates the Bridge of Strings

The Jerusalem skyline was changed dramatically with the lavish inauguration of a huge new bridge this week. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opened the $73 million structure in a gala presentation despite interruptions from ultra-Orthodox Jews who demanded “promiscuous” female dancers be dressed modestly with long skirts and full head cover to cover their hair. The 250 meter long and 120 meter high harp-like structure is known by two names, the “Bridge of Cords” and the “Bridge of Strings”. It has an elevated walkway and will eventually carry a new light rail line. The bridge was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and curves from the city’s main western entrance suspended by 66 white cables attached to a spire. Like all new structures, it has attracted vitriol and praise in equal measure.

Last week, Jerusalem’s opposition leader urged Israel’s President to boycott the lavish inauguration of the bridge. Nir Barkat said Shimon Peres should not attend the ceremony due to its "wasteful" expenditure of public funds. The inauguration is part of the anniversary celebrations of Israel’s 40 year occupation of the entire city which it took from Jordan during the Six Day War. The bridge celebration is eating up a large slice of the anniversary funds. Barkat wrote to Peres that it would have been appropriate for the public funds for the inauguration be invested in “other burning and more pressing needs in the city such as education, children's meals, city sanitation, job projects, and housing for young couples.”

Writing in ynetnews.com, Jackie Levy agrees with Barkat. Levy described the building of the new bridge as a “tasteless act” and a luxury Jerusalem could ill afford. He said it was difficult to recall a more “huge, pretentious, expensive and arrogant” work built for the sake of so little. Levy acknowledged the bridge was spectacular and of beautiful design. But it was ill-suited to a poor city where 40 percent of the population (Jewish and Arab) live below the poverty – four times as many as in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Levy said it was a pretentious and wasteful bridge “whose inauguration celebrations alone account for more than half of the city’s annual culture budget.”

Others were more favourable. Calatrava himself had no hesitation in calling it his favourite work. The Spaniard had built over 40 bridges around the world including ones nearing completion on Venice’s Grand Canal. But he described the Jerusalem work his “unquestionable favourite.” He said the most important aspect about the bridge was the fact it was in Jerusalem. “I have always loved Jerusalem, which is a universal city for everyone,” he said. “But now that I know the city I love it even more.”

He said the bridge was a unique engineering challenge. A nearby highway tunnel hindered the building of bridge supports there and the span had to be held by cables suspended from the mast, which was complicated by the sharp turn of the train route. The bridge design also had to accommodate the traditional urban landscape of Jerusalem, where all buildings are faced with local limestone under an ordinance dating to British rule at the end of World War I. The ramps leading to the bridge are being clad in stone, and a pedestrian plaza planned underneath will also feature stone benches and stone-faced light fixtures. Calatrava said the bridge “covers the gap between tradition and modernity.”

However the bridge will remain unused for two years due to delays in the provision of the light rail service. Digging in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shuafat in North Jerusalem has been held up by the discovery of a first century urban community. Coins found at the site date the community to between 70 and 150 AD and it appears to be a joint Jewish and Roman neighbourhood. While the find delighted archaeologists, it dismayed rail planners of the 15km network which will link Mount Herzl in southern and predominantly Jewish Jerusalem to Pisgat Ze'ev, via Shuafat, in the north. Daniel Seidemann, a Jewish lawyer who promotes Palestinian rights in Jerusalem, described the route of the railway as ideological. "It serves the mantra of the undivided eternal capital that few believe in today,” he said. “Given the reality of life here, and the glass walls between the neighbourhoods, it goes against the grain of how the city works."

But finding a solution for the future of Jerusalem is the most intractable element of the Israel-Palestine peace process. Jews demand it never again be divided as it was from 1948 to 1967 while the ultra-Orthodox demand the right to pray at the Wailing Wall. But there is a steady Jewish exodus of the secular population precisely because of the relentless campaign of the Orthodox to remodel the city in their own image. Meanwhile the Arab percentage of the city is slowly growing. The city is slowly being rundown, its infrastructure has deteriorated, and its narrow lanes have become a giant traffic jam at most times of the day. Writing in Dying For Jerusalem, American Jewish historian Walter Laqueur says that it is a mystery why this “problematic holy city should remain the main bone of contention on the road to peace”. It seems too much to hope for the road to peace to be paved by a bridge of strings.