South Korea will start carbon trading from 2015

This week South Korea became the latest country to announce a carbon emission trading system. The Korean ETS will start in 2015 and country is the first in Asia to announce such a scheme. As Australia’s fourth largest trading partner with a two-way trade of $31.9 billion in 2010-11, the move puts a further lie to the idea an Abbott Government will rollback the carbon tax if it wins office in the next 12 months.  The Korean strategy plans for the republic to become one of the top seven ranked green economies by 2020 and one of the top five by 2050.

Unlike Australia where the issue has been politically divisive, the Korean bill was passed unanimously in a 148-0 vote with 3 abstentions. Companies that emit 125,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide a year will be subject to Korea’s cap-and-trade system, along with factories, buildings and livestock farms that produce at least 25,000 tons of the gas annually, according to the bill.  

Not surprisingly the Korean decision has been welcomed by the Australian Government. Climate change minister Greg Combet was quick off the mark with amedia release on Thursday. Combet congratulated the South Korean Government for “taking this important step to drive sustainable growth and reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. Combet said Australia was now one of 34 countries around the world to use emissions trading as the primary vehicle to drive carbon pollution reduction. “We are far from leading the world, as some have claimed,” Combet said referring to Coalition carping that Australia was taking too much of a risk with its tax.

The South Korean cap and trade ETS will cover around 500 of the country’s largest emitters. The Government will set emissions caps and reduction targets for each trading period. South Korea’s carbon price is yet to be determined but the penalty for non-compliance will be capped at $83 a tonne. The environment ministry launched a voluntary “cap without trade” Target Management System this year. But from 2015, the ETS will be mandatory for installations emitting 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and firms emitting 125,000 tonnes, with smaller entities continuing with the TMS. Three three-year phases are planned, with at least 95% of allowances given for free in the first two.

The bill that passed the national assembly this week was authored by the Green Growth Committee. The GCC was launched by Korean President Lee Myung-bak in 2009. A year earlier, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Korea, President Lee explained why the ETS was needed. “Green growth is not a matter of choice, but a requirement that we must fulfil by all means for our future survival,” he said. “What matters is whether we can take the lead based on our own original technology, or whether we have to lag behind other countries.”

South Korea was the world's eighth largest emitter of carbon in 2010. In November 2009, the government adopted a medium-term emissions reduction target of 30%, relative to ‘business-as-usual’, by 2020. Just as they have done in Australia, the Korean business community strongly objected saying the plan was over ambitious and would make Korean industry uncompetitiveness. However, the Presidential Committee considered an ambitious target necessary in order to stimulate a broad range of clean technology innovation for greater energy efficiency across the economy, as well as for the deployment of renewable energies.

Korea  enacted legislation in April 2010 to permit the government to intervene in the market “to address market failures in promoting green growth”. The law made provisions for the emissions rights trading system. Sustained industry opposition forced many revisions was followed by inter-party parliamentary squabbles that almost killed the bill. But on 2 May, the law passed during a surprise lame-duck session. The program was passed despite fears it would hurt the economy, because of the long-term benefits to the country’s huge conglomerates from being more energy-efficient and exporting greener goods.

Eritrea remains the black hole of news

The Horn of Africa nation Eritrea won a very dubious award this week: the world’s most censored nation. The list of the world’s 10 worst countries was put together by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Eritrea fought off the tough competition of North Korea, Syria, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Belarus to win this uncoveted award.  The CPJ research is based on 15 benchmarks, including blocking of websites; restrictions on electronic recording and dissemination; the absence of privately owned or independent media; and restrictions on journalist movements.

Eritrea has allowed no foreign journalists in since 2007 and domestic media are tightly controlled. Eritrea has been a dictatorship for 20 years since it achieved independence in  a bloody war with Ethiopia.  All domestic media are controlled by the government and the Orwellian "Ministry of Information" direct every detail of coverage. CPJ quoted an exiled journalist who said every time they had a story it was the Ministry who arranged interview subjects and gave instructions on the news angle to follow. Eight journalists from Eritrea are on CPJ's Journalist Assistance Program which supports exiled journalists who cannot be helped by advocacy alone.

Not surprisingly, the country’s president Isaias Afewerki who has ruled since independence in 1993, dominates coverage.  Equally unsurprising, the coverage is universally positive. As with all secretive countries, the media chose silence as a way of dealing with bad news. When Afewerki had a health scare recently it reported nothing for several weeks. Intense rumour-mongering filled the vacuum. Opposition websites and social media commented on the fact president had not appeared on television for nearly a month and many speculated on whether he had died.  (photo of Afewerki: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Finally on 29 April, Information Minister Ali Abdu told the BBC he saw Afewerki every day and the 66-year-old president was “in robust health.” A day later Afewerki went on television to dispel the rumours. "I do not have any kind of sickness," he said and accused those peddling such rumours of being "sick" and said they were indulging in psychological warfare to "disturb" the people.

The real psychological warfare is being conducted by the government suspicious of its own people. Government spies routinely report opinions in the street and even intimidate their opponents abroad.  All Internet service providers are required to connect to the web through government-operated EriTel. While Eritrea's journalists in exile run diaspora websites from London, Houston and Toronto, domestic Internet access is only affordable for the government elite. In 2011 the country had plans to implement mobile Internet capability but as the social media impact on the Arab Spring became widely known, Afewerki’s government abandoned the idea. 

The Eritrean Government has become increasingly paranoid as the country slowly becomes an international pariah. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea in 2009 for its support of Al Shabaab and other insurgents fighting neighbouring Somalia’s transitional government. The UN resolution also referenced a longstanding border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti and demanded Eritrea cease “arming, training, and equipping armed groups that aim to destabilize the region or incite violence and civil strife in Djibouti.”

Eritrea’s friendlessness has allowed another longstanding enemy make incursions into its territory. In March, the Guardian reported Ethiopia had attacked Eritrea for the first time in a decade with few repercussions. Ethiopia's forces carried out a dawn raid in what it called a successful attack against military targets. Ethiopia claimed Eritrea used the military base to train an Ethiopian rebel group which has killed foreigners in Afar. 

The Guardian put the lack of international attention to the border incursion down to Afewerki's poor reputation, “a piece of work” as the British broadsheet called him. It quoted a Wikileak cable by US ambassador to Eritrea, Ronald McMullen, which said Afewerki was an unhinged dictator and his regime was very good at controlling all aspects of Eritrean society.

Media censorship is a key part of that control and the reason why the “award” for the most censored country is not as frivolous as it sounds.  As far back as 2005 Reporters Without Borders described Eritrea as a “black hole for news”.  Seven years later nothing has yet emerged from Afewerki’s vortex. And as the San Francisco Chronicle says, no one cares.

Bahrain's Formula 1 for failure

Activist Ala’a al-Shehabi is the latest victim of Bahrain’s dictatorship arrested after a series of articles critical of the repressive regime. Al-Shehabi was arrested last week while taking journalists on a trip around the country during the Grand Prix weekend. She was possible arrested while travelling with the Channel 4 News crew led by Jonathan Miller which was filming illegally in hot spot areas before they were arrested and deported.  Al-Shehabi announced her own arrest on Twitter saying “Under arrest. Surrounded by.”  She was unable to complete the sentence because she was surrounded by 11 police vehicles.  There has been no word of any charges laid since the arrest.

Dr. Ala’a al-Shehabi is an economics lecturer, a founding member of Bahrain Watch and an outspoken democracy advocate. Her arrest came a week after she published a piece for Foreign Policy called Hunger, heroism and hope in Bahrain where she wrote about another prominent Bahraini activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. Al-Khawaja was then into his 64^th day of a hunger strike. Al-Shehabi said if he died it could end the regime's efforts to rehabilitate itself. The regime was obviously paying attention. Not only did it arrest her, it also forcibly ended the hunger strike after 77 days by force feeding al-Khawaja who now plans to resume it.

His survival removed another potential embarrassing moment for Bahrain as it dealt with the fall-out from the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Leaving aside the disgrace of Bernie Ecclestone and the sport’s governing body heaped upon motor racing by agreeing for the event to go ahead (exposing once again the oft-repeated lie that sport and politics do not mix), the event did bring some good to Bahrain – it shone a light on the nation’s grievous problems. These problems have only got worse since the regime crushed the Shiite protests in March 2011 with Saudi help and US acquiescence.

A new briefing from the Project on Middle East Political Science called Breaking Bahrain surveys Bahrain’s political stalemate, how it got to this point, and what the future might hold. The briefing said the crackdown torpedoed a political compromise and had wider implications to the region blunting the momentum for change (a strong motivation for Saudi intervention). It also hardened sectarian attitudes between Sunnis and Shiites and exposes US hypocrisy at the same time as it intervened in Libya.

Bahrain’s own Independent Commission of Inquiry report found the Bahraini regime committed wide scale human rights violations during the crackdown. The report documented 35 deaths and found  13 of them were caused by security forces, five more dying of torture and eight more “not attributable to a perpetrator”.  Torture included extremely tight handcuffing, forced standing, severe beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes, beating of the soles of the feet, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, threats of rape and sexual abuse.

A year on, the Bahraini regime has refused to implement the recommendations of the report. They show no sign of admitting there is a problem and are unwilling to countenance any power sharing. When protests started again on 13 February to mark the one year anniversary, the response was swift and brutal. Police fired teargas and stun grenades at protesters who tried to occupy the old Pearl Square, the demolished rallying point of the 2011 protests.  The Government blamed outsiders for the riots. Field Marshall Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, the Bahrain Defence Forces commander in chief told local press a vast array of countries had “mobilised their media, embassies, agents and fifth columns in the Gulf” against Bahrain’s government.

The Grand Prix gave the regime only brief respite. Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa claimed cancelling the race would have empowered the extremists. But the security blanket Bahrain put on to ensure its “success” fooled no-one inside or outside the kingdom.  The protester Salah Abbas Habib was beaten to death by riot police on the eve of the race while there were more journalists in the country more interested in race issues rather than the race. Formula One is a loss leader for Bahrain costing $40 million to run but supposedly stimulating knock-on effect to other business.  But with the country on the front pages and first five minutes of international news, tourism remains on the nose and investment is seen as too risky. Bahrain’s problems will continue indefinitely in the absence of any serious attempts at political compromise.

Convergence Review review

The Convergence Review final report released today by the Federal Government is an intriguing document with a raft of new proposals aimed at solving a problem in our media legislation: communications law differing by type.  The fact print and internet journalism is the remit of a different independent inquiry shows politicians still like to make these distinctions.

Australia’s content services policy and regulatory framework is focussed on what was around in 1992: broadcasting and telecommunications. But in real life the networks of the way we communicate are extremely complex and interchangeable. Convergence of computers, televisions and telephones and the plethora of services afforded by digital technology have the left the law looking like an un-updated ass.  

Issues over ownership, regulation, promotion and standards cannot be resolved using existing media laws, most of which were bastard political compromises in the first place designed to suit Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. Overregulation was rife and there were absurd contradictions about what was legal and what wasn’t depending on the technology used. 

The drafters of the Convergence Review (chaired by my former IBM Australia boss Glen Boreham) had a noble remit: "Citizens and organisations should be able to communicate freely,” they said “and, where regulation is required, it should be the minimum necessary to achieve a clear public purpose.”

Their libertarian conclusion: the licensing of broadcasters should stop and with it would go the cost of administering those licences. Instead broadcasting spectrum pricing would be brought in line with other types of radio-communications spectrum.  The so-called “sixth channel” would be allocated to a range of providers to maximise diversity.

The Review was less laissez faire about media ownership, content standards and local content protection. On ownership, the Review was well aware markets like Australia can (and have) become distorted. Some regulation is necessary, it said to maintain a diversity of views. They proposed abolishing a raft of rules such as the ‘75 per cent audience reach’ rule, the ‘2 out of 3’ rule, the ‘two-to-a-market’ rule and the ‘one-to-a-market’ rule by a  ‘minimum number of owners’ rule and a “public interest test.”

Diversity was also used as the reason to intervene in the area of local content “If left to the market alone, some culturally significant forms of Australian content, such as drama, documentary and children’s programs, would be under-produced,” it said.  Though it is questionable whether government should be picking winners this way, most taxpayers don’t seem to resent money going into organisations like the ABC.

Citizen standards were cited for the third area of government intervention in the media market. Media and Communication services, said the document, “should reflect community standards and the expectations of the Australian public. As an example, children should be protected from inappropriate content”. Again, this is something that most people see as an acceptable use of taxpayers’ money.

Geography rules have been a major problem of media legislation over the years and I am not sure the Review is fixing that with its solution to lack of media ownership. It suggests a ‘minimum number of owners’ rule to ensure that no media operator has a dominant influence in a local market for “news and commentary”.  But the  "local market" definition is to be abolished and the Reviewers have not stated what should replace other than leaving it to the regulator to define

It is also in danger of over-regulating in response to local content rules. The same rules for content across platforms is a good idea and a “new communications regulator” (replacing the Press Council and ACMA) who would conduct “a public interest test” seems laudable but the public interest is such a contested concept, I wonder how it will operate.  

Similarly the “‘uniform content scheme” to police local content production is beset with difficulties. The scheme will force “qualifying content service enterprises, with significant revenues from television-like content” to put dollars into Australian drama, documentary and children’s programs. I suspect the idea of “television-like content” will seem very dated in ten years and again, who is to say what is like television?

The qualification for this scheme will make many content providers nervous and anxious to fall just under the qualification mark for revenue. The “service” provisions may force borderline profitable operators in drama, documentary or children’s programs to get out of those markets entirely. If as the Review says, Australians prefer local content, then why not have faith in the market to provide a good product at profit? Everything else is just tariff walls. Nevertheless the document is a good addition to the debate on media regulation and will no doubt be chopped to pieces by politicians before any of its recommendations are adopted.

Certainly Stephen Conroy spoke in polished non-committal language announcing the Final Review today. “The release of the report provides an opportunity for stakeholders to engage with the Committee’s recommendations. I expect the recommendations will generate robust public debate,” Senator Conroy said. “The government will respond to the report in due course.”

Labor trounced in another Queensland election

The City of Brisbane has not yet finished punishing Labor delivering a handsome victory to the LNP in the Council elections. Suffering a swing of 5% since 2008, Labor is likely to lose three seats barely a month after being trounced in the State election. The city is Australia’s largest municipality and incumbent Mayor Graham Quirk is heading towards an easy victory with 60% of the vote with almost 65% counted.  Labor’s Ray Smith is polling a disappointing 24.69% while the Greens candidate the high profile and former Democrat senator candidate Andrew Bartlett is also not doing as well as some expected with 10.36% of the vote.

The Greens are doing much better in the councillor vote, in some inner western seats overturning Labor as the main opposition.  The LNP will comfortably retain their big majority in council and are likely to take three seats from Labor with another two Labor seats in the balance. In Central, Heather Beattie (wife of former premier Peter Beattie) is heading for defeat as she trails Vicki Howard by 51-31 percent with over half the vote counted. This was the seat vacated by Labor powerbroker and former deputy mayor David Hinchliffe ending a 24 year run by Labor in the seat.

There are 26 one-member constituency wards in Brisbane and at the time of writing, the result looks like being LNP 19, Labor 7 (20-7 including the Mayor). Two of those seven Labor seats are still in the balance: Wynnum-Manly (43-41) and Northgate (51-49).  Two more are definitely lost. In Karawatha (Woodridge) sitting ALP councillor Gail MacPherson stood down but her replacement Adrienne Cremin is losing easily to a candidate with a very un-LNP like name: Kim Marx. 

Labor's John Campbell is the only sitting councillor likely to be unseated as he trails Ryan Murphy in Doboy (Tingalpa) by 54-46. In the Indooroopilly-based Walter Taylor ward, the Green’s candidate Tim Dangerfield (19.77 per cent) outpolled Labor’s Adam Atkins (14.33 per cent) to finish second to LNP’s Julian Simmonds (65.91 per cent), with nearly two-thirds of the vote counted. 

Meanwhile Labor looks set to retain The Gabba which is in Anna Bligh’s old seat of South Brisbane. Bligh’s former election agent Jackie Trad has narrowly won the South Brisbane by-election which also took place yesterday though the LNP is not yet conceding just 800 votes behind with over half the votes counted. 

Delighted with his own win and the win in Central, returned Brisbane Mayor Graham Quirk said it was the first time the LNP had held inner-city Brisbane at all three levels of government.  "Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is an opportunity - a very unique opportunity - for a high level of co-operation between the Premier of this state and the lord mayor of this city, to work in a cohesive and co-operative way," Cr Quirk said. "I think it is a very good thing for Brisbane and for Queensland."

correction: Tennyson was won by an independent not by the LNP making the result LNP 18, Lab 7 Ind 1 - thanks to Bird of Paradox for the pick-up.

Sierra Leone court finds Charles Taylor guilty

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding, abetting and planning serious crimes after a five year trial. Taylor is the first former head of state to be found guilty by an international court since the Nuremberg trials sentenced Karl Doenitz to 10 years imprisonment in 1946. The trial was significant as Taylor failed to quash the charges on the basis he was head of state at the time of the indictment. 

Charles Ghankay Taylor, the former President of Liberia, faced three charges over a period from 1996 to 2002 crimes against humanity including murder, rape and enslavement, violation of the Geneva Conventions including violence, terrorism and pillage, and other serious violation of international humanitarian law including use of child soldiers.

Taylor was secretly indicted on 7 March 2003. The indictment was made public three months later on his first trip outside of Liberia. He resigned in August and went into exile in Nigeria. He was transferred to the Special Court three years later. Due to security concerns about holding the trial in Sierra Leone, the Special Court arranged for the trial to be held at the ICC offices in The Hague. The trial began in June 2007, but Taylor boycotted proceedings and demanded a new legal team. The prosecution finally opened in January 2008 and took 13 months to get testimony from 91 witnesses. After a delay while an acquit notice was thrown out, the defence opened in July 2009 and took 16 months to collect testimony from 20 witnesses including Taylor.

Taylor studied in America where he protested against then leader William Tolbert in 1979. He supported the Samuel Doe coup a year later and was appointed to Doe’s government. He fled Liberia after embezzling a million dollars but was arrested in the US on another embezzlement charge.  He escaped prison though there is strong evidence he was assisted by the CIA who used him as an agent in Africa. 

Taylor went to Libya where he was one of many West African revolutionaries trained by Gaddafi’s army in the late 1980s. There he met Foday Sankoh the head of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front. As leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia Taylor provided a training camp for the RUF in Liberia as well as instructors, recruits and material support. The RUF attacked Sierra Leone from Liberia with the aid of NPLF troops in March 1991. But the two invaders fell out a year later and Taylor withdrew his NPLF army.

Nevertheless he continued to play an active involvement in the war sending arms, ammunition and other supplies across a porous border ensuring the bitter fighting continued for another five years. The RUF ignored the Abidjan Peace Accord of November 1996 and Sankoh was invited to join the government after an army coup in May 1997. But an ECOMOG force intervened in March 1998, expelled the junta from the capital Freetown, arrested Sankoh and reinstated Tejan Kabbah’s democratically elected Government.

Renegade forces under SamBockarie kept up the fight in the provinces and Bockarie went to Liberia to meet Taylor who was now president of Liberia. Taylor stressed to Bockarie the importance of re-taking the mineral stronghold of Kono so Taylor could resume the trade in guns and ammunition for Sierra Leone diamonds. Taylor told Bockarie to make his campaign fearful to pressure the Sierra Leone Government to release Sankoh from prison and use “all means” including terror tactics to take Freetown.

Bockarie named the attack OperationNo Living Thing and anything that stood in their way would be eliminated. He retook Kono in December 1998 and attacked Freetown in January 1999. All the while, he kept in close contact with Taylor who provided him with a satellite phone. The Liberian president also sent troops and facilitated the purchase and transport of a large shipment of arms and ammunition from Burkina Faso used in the Kono attack.  After Sankoh was released from prison in 1999 he personally delivered diamonds to Taylor as did other RUF leaders until cessation of hostilities in 2002. Sierra Leone diamonds were prized as much greater quality than Liberian ones.

The defence claimed Taylor was a diplomatic force for peace. But as president of Liberia and a member of the ECOWASCommittee he wielded considerable influence over the warring factions in Sierra Leone. But while publicly participating in regional efforts to broker peace, Taylor was secretly fuelling hostilities between the RUF and the Sierra Leone government. While the Court could not find a chain of command between Taylor and Sankoh it was satisfied he gave guidance, advice, guns and money that aided and abetted multiple murders, rape, slavery and other offences as well as planning the attacks on Kono and Freetown in 1998 and 1999.  Taylor is likely to appeal the decision.