Future of Journalism Queensland 3: Paying for journalism

This is the third in a series of posts about last Saturday’s Future of Journalism Queensland summit at QUT, Brisbane. See links to part one and two. The next session was about business models and was entitled “Who is going to pay for journalism?” The session was moderated by Antony Funnell, the host of ABC Radio National’s Media Report, an excellent weekly program that is compulsory listening for anyone with an interest in journalism in Australia and the world beyond.

Funnell moderated a three person panel. They included Dr Jean Burgess, a postdoctorate research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation where she works on cultural participation and user-led innovation in new media. Also on the panel was Phil McDonald, Queensland managing director of marketing and communication firm George Patterson Y&R. He is also a board director of the company nationally. Completing the panel was Cameron Reilly, founder and CEO of new media company The Podcast Network.

Cameron Reilly began the discussion by describing big media as an anomaly of the 20th century. In the middle of the 19th century there were hundreds of newspapers in the big cities of the world. Then the economics changed when newspapers began subsidising the selling price with advertising. But the era it ushered in has been now been undermined by the Internet. Reilly said the Internet has taken us back to the type of communication that dominated the previous 40,000 years: that of telling stories to each other. The fundamentals of the economy has changed, he said and “there was no putting the genie back in the bottle”. He said there were now 75 million blogs and 100 million videos (a day) on Youtube. Reilly said these diverse platforms were undermining “the controlled oligopoly” of big media.

Funnell asked the panel if the future meant there would be many small-sized business in place of a few large ones. Reilly noted the fact that Crikey had bought up several important political blogs in the previous day or so but would ever only employ a handful of journalists. Given that traditionally news in print form was paid for by classified ads, he asked rhetorically: “Is Seek going to be the new investigative journalism site?”

Phil McDonald took up the conversational cudgels from the adman’s perspective. He said consumers were consuming more news than ever. But how to target them in the new environment is the frustration for advertisers. He said what clients wanted was a return on investment and were prepared to take risks to follow the news online. However the charging of advertising has not kept up with the provision of news. He said producers need to create more, to make money for his clients. But habits have also changed and people now consume news when and where they want it. “A credible source of news is where people start and what advertisers want,” he said.

Jean Burgess spoke next. She said the mass media need to be seen in the context across the creative industries. She said news was only one of the creative industries obsessed with “delivering to the consumer”. Burgess said its “here is the news – you can now comment” is “not respectful” and not how the blogosphere works or how audiences engage with media. She asked whether media organisations were interested in engaging with social media, an area where there was “lots of experimentation”.

Burgess saw the Viacom law suit against Google’s YouTube as a clash of business models. A better way, she thought, than "Viacom's belligerent charge to the courts" might be to get some component of the revenue generated, rather than asking for the content to be taken down. She said the agenda was now being driven by the demands of an engaged audience and people could make a living out of the new media. “Maybe not a river of gold,” she said, “but a trickle of silver.”.

Reilly said his company “breaks even” using a mixture of subscription, advertising and consultancy work. He was unsure where the revenue might be in five years. Advertising was the “easiest guess” but lots of work was required to make it happen. And he warned that it would be a serious problem if he was hit by a major lawsuit. He said he had respect for journalists but it wasn’t what he did. “99 percent of bloggers and podcasters don’t want to make money (and) don’t consider themselves journalists,” he said. “If anyone said I was a journalist, I’d be horrified.”

The panel then took several diverse questions from the floor. Reilly said he got 90 percent of his news from Twitter and believed the 20th century economic model where we “supported fat rich white guys in Mercs and Jags is gone.” But he was very pessimistic about the future for journalists saying there was a “tough decade ahead”. But the writing was on the wall for a long time before the recent Fairfax bloodletting and his question to journalists was “why did you fiddle while Rome burned for 20 years.” Burgess suggested that if the Courier-Mail disappeared “then maybe the ABC would blossom”. McDonald concluded that brands like the Courier-Mail won’t die, “but (they) need to realise impact in different forms”.

Turnbull defeats Nelson to become new Liberal Party leader

Malcolm Turnbull is the new Liberal party leader after this morning’s surprise leadership spill rebounded on Brendan Nelson. Nelson almost salvaged a mostly disastrous ten months at the helm of the Opposition with his audacious move to call the spill last night. It caught the overseas-returning Turnbull on the hop while simultaneously denying Party-pooper Peter Costello the media attention his book launch so richly did not deserve. But the writing seemed on the wall after the ABC’s 7.30 Report revealed Turnbull had the numbers. And so it proved in the party room vote which Turnbull won by 45 votes to 41.

The result almost exactly overturns the margin he was defeated by in November’s leadership election after the Coalition was tossed out of office. It looks like at most just one or two people have changed their vote in the meantime. However crucially, the make-up of the party in the Senate has changed since 1 July with six members retiring and four new incoming members.

The political narrative also changed rapidly last week after it became clear that Peter Costello was merely using the leadership speculation to fuel sales of his newly-published memoirs. Nelson’s supporters immediately rallied around their boss demanding he be given “clear air” to establish his leadership. However with the latest opinion poll still only giving him a 16 percent approval rating, the air remained heavily polluted around the good doctor and the narrative quickly moved on to the expected Turnbull spill.

Although he didn't control them, the sudden turn of events has nicely suited the member for Wentworth. As Turnbull did not call the spill, no-one can now accuse him of putting the knife into Nelson’s back. And he has always been open about his long-term goals. While the margin of victory was narrow, his election is likely to immediately halt Liberal leadership speculation and turn the focus back on the Government.

For Kevin Rudd, Turnbull’s victory is probably the most challenging outcome. Nelson was an embarassingly inept leader who failed to land a heavy blow against the Government. Though a Government minister in the Howard administration, Turnbull is not as tainted as Costello would have been over the tattered economic record Labor inherited. And Turnbull will be likely to commit to a “small target” strategy agreeing with the Government in the main, on the intent of its environmental and social agenda. What Turnbull will do is provide a strong intellectual focus that “Emo Man” Nelson so conspicuously failed to deliver in his tumultuous months at the top.

Despite the departure of Australia's answer to Comical Ali, Labor will still be favourite to win the next federal election in 2010 or earlier. But the possibility of their becoming a one-term Government rose with today’s news. These are tough economic times for any Government, and the tide is turning against Labor in the states. A likely heavy (and thoroughly justified) defeat in NSW in the 12 months leading up to the election would give Turnbull further momentum. On the positive side, the difficult task of a political sell for an emissions trading scheme may now win bi-partisan support. All in all, today’s result is a good one for the health of Australian democracy that sees heavyweights now leading both major parties. Most mercifully of all, the media will finally have to find something else to talk about now that Dr Nelson has been put out of his long, slow and lingering misery.

Future of Journalism Queensland 2: Students and Editors

Yesterday I wrote about the first session in Saturday’s Future of Journalism Queensland conference at QUT in Brisbane. Today’s post will cover off the next two sessions: “The future as we see it” and “adapt or die: the news managers on their survival strategy”. These two sessions took on the views of those diametrically opposite in the local mediascape. The “we” in the title of the first of these two sessions were three third year Griffith University journalism students whereas the news managers of the second session (Hugh Martin, David Fagan, Stuart Watt and Liz Deegan) are the among the most important media players in Australia.

The university student session was chaired by John Taylor who is the presenter of the Queensland version of ABC TV’s Stateline. The three students were from diverse backgrounds. Amy Bradney-George is from Bellingen, in northern NSW. Tran Nguyen was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia with her family when she was one year old. She is fluent in Indonesian and Vietnamese. Denis Semchenko emigrated from Russia when he was 17 and now edits the Griffith student newspaper The Source.

Taylor began by giving all three the floor to discuss their background, their aspirations and concerns, their media habits and their reasons for studying journalism. Amy Bradney-George began by talking about her home town of Bellingen where there was a “strong sense of social conscience”. But, she said, people were cynical about journalism and this was something she wanted to change. Her media diet was rich and varied, listening to ABC Radio National, watching the various TV news and current affairs shows, reading newspapers and online sites. She was a fan of social network sites as “word of mouth” tools to quickly spread information. Bradney-George liked the “personal trust” aspect of radio, the “visual context” of television and the enjoyment of reading of a newspaper with a cup of coffee. However, she said, the Internet had the potential to combine all three media. She concluded by expressing a concern about the concentration of media ownership, “which is why I get news from different places” she said.

Tran Nguyen began her speech by saying she rarely reads a newspaper or watches television. The Internet was her dominant source of news which she liked for its ease of access and the ability to get news when you needed it. “Generation Y loves instant gratification,” she said, “the Internet gives me news now”. Time was the most important thing for her as a busy university student. “TV news times doesn’t suit us,” she said. However, she acknowledged that when she compared news articles in their online form against the same article in the newspaper, they were often shortened. She also said that online doesn't place as much news value on stories as print, but the Internet was convenient, accessible and up-to-date. Nguyen enjoys working with refugee groups and said because she was also studying International Relations she might not necessarily end up in journalism. “I’d like to work as a communications officer for a regional aid program,” she said.

Denis Semshenko said he too got most of his news information online which he supplements with some newspapers. He was a fan of local bloggers such as John Birmingham. Semshenko is a keen musician and a guitarist in a Brisbane band Dream Sequence, and reads a lot of music street press such as Rave and Time Off. He said he goes online “four or five times a day” to check for news and also subscribes to social networks such as Myspace and Facebook. Semshenko said that community newspapers were important in the way that they introduced stories that often made it into metropolitan and national media.

The students’ views and media habits may not have been music to the ears for the next panel which brought in some of the heavy hitters of the Brisbane media scene. Talking about the survival strategies involved in “adapt or die” were moderator Hugh Martin manager of APN online (“the largest media organisation no-one has heard of in Australia” according to Martin), David Fagan, editor of the Courier-Mail, Liz Deegan, editor of the Mail’s weekend stablemate, The Sunday Mail and Stuart Watt, the web development manager at ABC Online News.

Liz Deegan began the discussion. Deegan edits the Brisbane Sunday Mail which attracts a weekly readership of three quarters of a million people. She defined adaptation not as a threat but a challenge and an opportunity. She wanted to see journalists who were creative, and what was needed was “journalists with passion, integrity and hunger for news stories.” Deegan said we now operate in a competitive media landscape. “20 years ago there was nowhere near the same competition in news delivery,” she said. Deegan believes that newspapers needed to “have innovative product, (be) relevant to audiences and offer the best product they can.”

David Fagan spoke next. The Courier-Mail editor is a little-known but extraordinarily influential figure whose paper reaches one in three Queenslanders and he is the person politicians most fear in a one newspaper town. He agreed that adaptability was one of the biggest issues facing journalism. He said there needed to be a continual push for change and journalists should not be content with “ten pars in the paper” but also look to re-purpose the material online or as magazine pieces. “We need to adapt to audience needs,” he said. “the (key) thing is the story”. Fagan used the example of what he called “a terrific story” in today’s paper Qweekend magazine insert. The story “the six lives of Andre Fromm” about Dieter Fromm whose son Andre died. Dieter now regards the six people who inherited his son’s organs as family. This was a story Fagan heard on the radio. He sent a reporter and a video operator to capture for print and the Internet “the power of this guy with a strong story to tell”. That was the approach we need to take, he said.

Morgan asked Fagan about the difference between the Mail’s print and Internet editions and how much of that was explained by editorial influence. Fagan said ten percent of newspaper content ends up online. He said younger people prefer to read the online edition. It was a matter of experimenting he said, trying and failing new things. While many have complained about the dumbed down content online compared to print (an issue shared by Fairfax Media), Fagan said he was “not uncomfortable” with the difference between the newspaper and the website. “There is a lot of depth in there,” he said. “Don’t judge it on the home page”.

Stuart Watt spoke next. Watt was one of the innovators of the ABC News online website in 1996 and has risen through the ranks to manage the news development team. He said the fundamentals of journalism were the same as they always were. “A good story is a good story (and that has) not changed in a hundred years,” he said. He believed it was an exciting time to be involved in media but it was a case of “innovate or die”. However he was grateful that the “resource rich” 75 year old ABC did not have the commercial imperative of his rivals and it allowed them to experiment with new methods and “try and fail” until they find something that works. “If go down enough rabbit holes,” he said, “you eventually come to a parallel universe”.

Morgan concluded by asking the panel what skill sets new journalists needed in the parallel universe. Watt said it was important they were aware of what was going on in the world. There were too many people who had no idea what was going on. “I’ve had people tell me Brazil is a country in Europe”, he said. Spelling was also important. Watt said those who combine news values with web expertise would also have a future. He wanted to see “digital citizens interested in how it all hangs together and exploring different ways of telling a story.” Liz Deegan said she wanted graduates who have “tested themselves” in work experience, have video skills and are very well read.

All of the panel believed their institutions would successfully adapt to the changing times. And if the impressive quality of the young journalism students at the conference is anything to go by, industrial journalism's confidence in the future may be justified. A bullish Fagan concluded “death is something that is going to happen to someone else”.

Future of Journalism Queensland 1: The state of the global news media

The QUT Gardens Theatre was the venue yesterday for an all day summit devoted to a discussion of the Future of Journalism sponsored by the journalist union MEAA and the Walkley Foundation. It follows on from the successful Sydney summit in May and about a hundred journalists, managers, bloggers, educators and students came along to listen to the words of wisdom of many of Brisbane’s key media players. The day was broken up into six sessions that covered the state of global media, media students’ vision of the future, news managers’ survival strategies, future business models, blogging, and techniques and technologies. I will cover off my notes on these sessions in a series of articles and this first post is about the opening session entitled “the state of the global news media”.

The session was a discussion between MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren and media academic, journalist and author Margaret Simons. Warren began by hailing Simons’ 2007 book The Content Makers as “the text that summarises where we at” with the Australian media (an assessment I fully agree with). He then asked her where she thought the local industry was headed. Simons said that the industry had gotten industry into dire straights in the last twenty years and “it would get worse before it got better”. She said new media technologies (Internet, mobile, digital broadband) had put a bomb under the establishment and we had reached the “end of Empire” stage of the two major powers in Australian media: Murdoch and Packer.

But Simons did not necessarily want to put the boot in; she said it was almost a situation of “what did the Roman Empire ever do for us?” Both Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch supported unprofitable outlets but both The Bulletin and the Sunday program were killed off after Packer died and the same may happen to the loss-making The Australian when the “old man” Rupert Murdoch dies. Nevertheless there remains an “embarrassment of riches” available in terms of media content which is being repurposed in different places and different times. The problem is that the business of selling has changed as the classified ads migrate to new digital homes. “It is possible now," said Simons, “to buy a house or a car without buying Michelle Grattan.

Simons said the audience is fragmenting but that represents an opportunity as well as a threat. She believes we need to rethink what quality means and said that interaction with the audience is necessary. Some journalists are struggling with this concept. Mark Day wrote off bloggers this week in The Australian while George Megalogenis told the Byron Bay writers festival he would only allow “expert” opinion in his blog comments. But while some Australian journalists were dismissing the hoi polloi, over in the US Jay Rosen was an “exciting pioneer” with his pro am experiment Assignment Zero and its wisdom of the crowds approach.

Simons also noted how that approach influences newer media where there is “instant redaction” when there is an error. Simons said journalists need to acknowledge when they get something wrong. “It is a very human, but extremely destructive, impulse to back away from error.” But fixing it was “something we are bad at doing at the moment”. Simons also stressed the need for journalistic independence. By this she didn’t necessarily mean an independent voice but the ability to stand up to their editors when asked to provide objectionable reporting. She said those who criticise bloggers for their partisan positions should realise that this is also how the newspaper industry started. It wasn’t until the 19th century and an increasing reliance on advertising revenue that the notion of objectivity took hold.

Warren then moved on to ask Simons for some scenarios of the future for mass media. She said mass media would survive with “bite size” chunks of interactive news. However Simons was doubtful whether there would be enough of a mass to support national news journalism in Australia. She said high quality journalism will migrate to other platforms but won’t appear in the mass media. But she said other avenues were opening up for quality journalists to make a living. Simons said the non-fiction market has thrived in recent years and books such as “Dark Victory” by David Marr and Marion Wilkinson have achieved commercial success. Simons noted also that this type of journalism follows a true “user pays” approach where people who want a product pay full price for it.

Simons went on to discuss the importance of the national broadcaster. She said that if Jay Rosen was Australian, he would probably be working for the ABC. They have 3,000 content makers who are paid by what Rosen called “The People formerly known as the audience” (a slogan that several speakers would return to, as the day progressed). Simons said it would only be a slight step to make that process more direct and she believed ABC is moving towards the model. She said ABC boss Mark Scott is aware of the issues. While not totally in agreement with the way he is running the corporation, she said she was “glad ABC was aware of citizen journalism and what the challenges are.”

Warren asked about her views on how journalists should adapt to the changing landscape. Simons said that an increasing number of journalists were starting their own business. Stephen Mayne was a pioneer with Crikey and since he sold it, it is now making a small profit. Mayne is now involved a new video journalism experiment The Mayne Report. Meanwhile Alan Kohler and Stephen Bartholomeusz quit Fairfax to start their own subscriber-based “Eureka Report”. She said it was important to note that journalism and media were not the same thing and advised those at the start of their career to put together a business plan not necessarily to make huge profit but at least to pay a salary. She said small niches were the way to attract dedicated readership “but the challenge is connecting the niches”. Simons wondered how democracy would function if people only read their own niche.

Warren then expanded the democracy question to ask what role journalism had in the post-nation state era. Simons stated that the invention of the printing press caused democratic forms to change. She said there was 200 hundred years between Gutenberg’s press and the rise of the newspaper. “But only 30 years has passed since the invention of the Internet and we don’t know where it is taking us,” she said. “And democracy is not in great shape now”. But, she said, the growth of literacy and the communication of news in the 16th and 17th century had everything to do with the growth of democracy. What is needed is a return to the “high public purpose of journalism”.

Simons then moved on to the gift economy. She said this was a concept borrowed from anthropology where services are given for intangible rewards. Similar to potlatch rituals, people freely give away their services in return for kudos, pleasure and power. She said most blogs are not written for profit and the best of them, such as Larvatus Prodeo and the (now rebadged) Pollytics have given newspapers such as The Australian a run for its money.

Simons concluded the session by answering questions from the floor. One Courier-Mail journalist asked whether traditional journalism “craft skills” would still be relevant in the future. Simons agreed that the skills of writing things in newsworthy fashion, and extracting information in interviews were difficult to attain. She said that these craft skills were the key difference between journalists and bloggers. But her advice back to the journalist was to find out what your audience needs in terms of journalism and provide it for them.

On other questions Simons said the code of ethics needed to be constantly reviewed and updated, the staged political interview (such as those conducted by Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 report) were a “tired cat-and-mouse game” and there were also hopeful signs for the industry in the Pay TV and documentary sectors. She said we needed to work out where the mass audience will be in the diversified market when analog TV finally switches off. Simons concluded on a positive note. “There was no evidence of declining appetite for journalism,” she said. “It is the business model that is at risk”.

National broadcast wars: ABC refuses to provide footage to SBS

Last Monday’s Media Watch reported a stoush between its host station ABC and fellow national broadcaster SBS. Australia’s two public television networks are involved in an ugly squabble over the rights to footage for separate documentaries on John Howard’s time in government to be aired on either channel in the next 12 months. The footage required belongs to ABC who have reneged on an earlier deal to supply SBS in order to protect the ratings of its own product. Given that the taxpayer pays for both channels, the stoush is all the more ludicrous and counter-productive, and the fault is almost entirely that of the ABC.

The SBS project was conceived in 2006 when Sydney documentary filmmakers Nick Torrens and Frank Haines approached the broadcaster to make a make a three part series called “Liberal Rules” on the Liberal Party over the last 30 years. The documentary would be presented by Gary Sturgess, journalist, lawyer and a fellow documentary maker. They then attempted to secure funding and approached ABC in April 2007 to acquire archival material for their show.

Media Watch obtained the email correspondence which showed that ABC offered to provide 60 minutes of footage at a discount price of $160,000. While the generous offer was half of ABC’s normal going rate, Torrens and Haines had not fully secured their funding. They thanked the ABC for the offer and promised to get back to them. Fast forward one year to May 2008 and the SBS team had their funding in place and were ready to activate ABC’s offer. But something had changed in the interim. Haines’s email to order the material encountered only a deafening silence from ABC library sales.

Finally weeks later, they responded. And the response was brief and to the point: “After discussion with our News and Current Affairs division we have decided that we cannot supply footage for your production at this time.” A stunned Haines wrote to ABC Managing Director asking for an explanation on the change of heart. Scott responded sticking to the line that the ABC maintained it had not agreed to licence the footage. The ABC library manager followed up with another email with a softer line that suggested ABC would be prepared to licence the material on the condition that the use of the material “would commence on date not before January 2009”.

As David Tiley points out in his excellent and scathing article on the stoush, the production company had no power over that question, which is the province of the broadcaster. And SBS were unhappy with the embargo, planning to show the series later this year. Torrens and Haines followed up on this point with Media Watch stating reasonably that as the ABC archive is a publicly funded resource it had no justification for placing an embargo on the use of its material by independent documentary producers.

When Media Watch addressed their questions to Scott and the ABC board, they were referred to ABC’s head of national programs, Alan Sunderland. Sunderland began his response by talking about the ABC’s own documentary called The Howard Years which ABC was now scripting and editing. He said the ABC would require exclusive access to the archive and claims no agreement was reached in 2007 with the SBS team. It was his idea to put in place the embargo. He claimed the use of ABC footage by outside parties was always of “secondary importance” and said SBS had its own extensive archive. According to Sunderland, the ABC was under “no moral obligation” to make the material available.

Sunderland’s reply was incorrect on many counts. Firstly he did not accurately state the nature of SBS’s reply to ABC’s offer (though in fairness, Haines email was ambiguous and he should have explicitly agreed on the spot, pending finance). Secondly SBS’s archive is nowhere near as extensive as ABC’s (as Sunderland would well know as an ex-SBS employee) and the broadcaster itself did not exist prior to 1980. Thirdly, it makes no reference to the fact that SBS is also a public broadcaster, whose primary responsibility is also to make programs for the Australian public. Tiley called the response “arrogant horseshit” and said the ABC has a responsibility to make available the heritage of its program making, as part of the Australian cultural fabric.

The SBS filmmakers were equally unimpressed and are now scrambling to find the material they need from the commercial broadcasters (at probably much higher cost). They released a statement saying the ABC had no justification to place the embargo, and turn down commercial opportunity of archive recoupment in the process. “For us, this is a clear and salutary reminder of Australia’s new and commercially competitive public broadcasting environment,” said the filmmakers. “The implications for filmmakers, audiences and taxpayers of these decisions and events are dire and of great importance.”

Belarus tiptoes towards the West

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko appeared to be making signals to the West when he said yesterday he would not immediately recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The normally fiercely pro-Russian president also said he was in no rush to station weapons on Belarus’s western border in response to the US missile defence system to be based in Poland. Taken together the two statements reveal Lukashenko may be about cool relations with Moscow in order to do a deal with the US and the EU.

The EU is happy to encourage these signs that a tense relationship with the West may be on the mend. EU foreign policy head Javier Solana, noted that Belarus had taken the positive step of releasing a number of political prisoners. Solana talked about the EU “rewarding that behaviour”. Neighbour Poland has been at the forefront of the push for normalisation and wants Europe to remove sanctions it imposed on Belarus after a dubious presidential election in 2006 in which Lukashenko won with 82.6 percent of the vote.

While Lukashenko is showing no signs of loosening his iron-clad grip on Belarus’s polity, there are several indications he is about to come out from Russia’s warm embrace. Previously Lukashenko was at the forefront of calls to reunite Belarus with its large Russian neighbour, but now is backing away from that idea. On Monday he said recent events in the Caucasus meant Belarus’ joining the Russian Federation was unacceptable. “You know that there were such ideas in due time. Today many politicians acknowledge, though not out loud, that I was right,” he said. “This is absolutely not needed, either for Belarus or Russia. Otherwise, Russia will simply lose a reliable ally and a subject of international law.”

Belarus has relied on Russian gas to fuel its economy and annual imports 21 million metric tons of Russian crude. This is almost three times as much as it needs for its domestic economy. The surplus allows Belarus to refine the rest and sell the product at profit to the EU. However relations with Putin's regime have cooled since Russia ended subsidised oil and gas supplies last year. The new price, $100 per thousand cubic meters more than doubled the previous price of $46 and was exacerbated by a separate decision by Russia to impose a customs duty of $180 per metric ton on Russian oil. In response Lukashenko imposed a Belarussian transit fee on Russian oil bound for Europe.

Alexander Lukashenko has run Belarus on Soviet economic lines and was a dogged supporter of Russia, even proposing the two countries unite. He came to power in a landslide 1994 election. He deliberately played up to his pariah role in the west by cultivating relationships with the leaders of Iran and Cuba. Lukashenko is a dogmatic leader who harassed opposition voices and removed an awkward parliament in 1996. He rewrote the constitution four years later to favour himself by allowing presidents to serve three or more terms.

His authoritarian style was noted as far back as 1991 when he supported the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev as a then member of the Belarusian parliament. Since 2006, he has been in talks with Russia to form a “union state” But the happy relationship soured after Moscow demanded that Minsk pay market prices for its energy. The regime is now faced with crippling fuel bills and in need of new friends. Hence Lukashenko’s subtle overtures to the west. The US responded last week by suspending some economic sanctions against Belarusian companies. However other key sanctions remain, including the freezing of bank accounts of the state-controlled oil and chemical company, Belneftekhim. Lukashenko’s latest announcements may prove to be the key to defrosting the lucrative oil account in the west.

“Bhutto is alive”: Asif Ali Zardari sworn in as new Pakistan president

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was sworn in as the new president of Pakistan at a ceremony at President House in the capital Islamabad today. Zardari recited the oath of office "I will bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan” in front of supporters who chanted "Long live Bhutto" and "Bhutto is alive". The ceremony marks the completion of a stunning rise to power for the 53 year old Zardari who was thrust into the spotlight after his wife was assassinated at an election rally in December last year.

But while Zardari is still considered a political novice by some, he did show great nous in the last month as he removed the final obstacles to his ascension to the top job. He firstly oversaw a deal in which former president Pervez Musharraf resigned to avoid impeachment. Then Zardari neatly sidestepped his reluctant coalition partner Nawaz Sharif to convincingly win the presidential vote of the electoral college consisting of two houses of the parliament and four provincial assemblies on the weekend. Zardari’s swearing in now formally completes Pakistan's return to civilian rule nearly nine years after General Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup.

Zardari’s two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and his son, Bilawal were also in attendance at the inauguration ceremony. It was the Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who was anointed his mother’s chosen successor as leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the emotional aftermath of Bhutto’s assassination. But because of Bilawal’s youth (he turns 20 in a fortnight), he remains a figurehead only and his father was appointed co-chairman of the party. This was a strategic move as Zardari carried a lot of baggage having spent 11 years in prison on various charges including blackmail and corruption, for which he earned the nickname "Mr 10 per cent”.

But none of his chequered history was mentioned today as he feted by the country’s luminaries. Zardari was presented a guard of honour by a contingent of the armed forces and then visited by the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, as well as members of the federal cabinet, Senate chairman, Chief Justice of Pakistan, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and chiefs of the three services. Zardari was anxious, however, to appear humble in his new role and ordered government departments not to issue advertisements congratulating him on his election. “We are a poor country and cannot afford such extravagance at the expense of taxpayers’ money,” he said. “The world is watching us and the government is facing many internal and external challenges.”

Chief among those challenges will be his ability to cobble together an effective ruling coalition now that Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) party pulled out of government on 25 August. On Monday, Sharif rebuffed the president-elect’s offer to rejoin the coalition but pledged to play a constructive role in opposition. Sharif had been threatening to pull out of the coalition since May claiming the PPP had not kept its promises to restore judges sacked by Musharraf. Sharif did not contest the presidential election himself, but Zardari outpolled PML-N's candidate, former chief justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, by a margin of three to one.

Another of Zardari’s challenges will be to present a moderate front to the extremism that racks Pakistan’s lawless fringes. While he was being sworn in, news emerged of a US missile attack a day earlier on Pakistani soil. The attack targeted a Taliban stronghold in the tribal province of North Waziristan. The attack backfired as it killed 23 people (mostly women and children) but failed to claim its target, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, whom the US accused of organising raids across the border in Afghanistan.

Haqqani senior had previously had the backing of Pakistani’s powerful spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence so the attack potentially signals a change of policy. Zardari has also been talking up the fight against the Taliban having raised eyebrows last month when he said Pakistan was losing the war. “The issue, which is not just a bad-case scenario as far as Pakistan is concerned or as Afghanistan is concerned but it is going to be spreading further,” he said. “The whole world is going to be affected by it." The world will now be watching Zardari to see what he does about it in his new role.

Unita disputes ruling MPLA landslide victory in Angolan election

The opposition Unita Party has claimed elections were rigged after Angola’s ruling party won a landslide victory claiming 80 per cent of the vote in Friday’s election. The poll was the first in 16 years. The right-wing Unita (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), which fought a bitter civil war for 27 years, claimed just 10 percent with two-thirds of the vote counted. With final results expected later today, Unita has lodged a complaint with Angola's electoral commission over the running of the vote. "The final result might not fully reflect the will that was expressed by the people of Angola in the ballot," Isaias Samakuva, Unita's leader, said yesterday.

The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has claimed victory and called Unita “bad losers”. The MPLA has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975 and fought a civil war with Unita which was supported by the South African apartheid regime and also covertly by the US. Half a million people died in the 27 year war which ended when Unita’s leader Jonas Savimbi was killed by government soldiers in 2002. Within six weeks of his death, the two sides then agreed on a ceasefire and Unita became the official opposition party.

The 2008 election is the first poll since the failed 1992 poll sponsored by the ill-fated Portuguese sponsored Bicesse Accords. In that election, the MPLA won with 54 percent of the vote to Unita's 34 percent. Like this time, Unita disputed those results and resumed a civil war with immediate success. However, when they threatened to disrupt the supply from the oil-rich province of Cabinda, the Clinton administration withdrew their support in favour of the Luanda government. Unita have spent the last few years attempting to shore up their political support in advance of this year’s promised election.

Now many are wondering whether Unita’s failure will be a trigger for a return to war. The government has denied they have been up to any electoral shenanigans though have admitted the existence of “administrative glitches” in some areas, particularly in the capital, Luanda , home to nearly a quarter of the country's almost 8.3 million registered voters. Unita and three smaller rivals have called for the election to be annulled in the Luanda province. They claim a new poll is necessary because controls over the ballots were inadequate and many people were denied the opportunity to vote,

There are mixed reports from the 1,200 foreign election observers from 17 international organisations in the country. Monitors from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said the vote had been "transparent and credible" among the eight million voters. However an EU observer who visited several polling stations said the voting in Luanda was a “disaster” caused by poor planning and inadequate infrastructure. Luisa Morgantini, chief of the EU observer mission, said problems included lack of polling officials, ballots and the ink used to mark voters' fingers and prevent multiple voting. "Voting was a disaster in Luanda following woeful organisation," she said. “The situation was better outside the capital, though there also were problems there.”

The vote took two days to complete. Candidates from 10 parties and four coalition groups contested 220 parliamentary seats. If the MPLA gets its expected two-thirds majority, it will be in a position to make sweeping changes to Angola’s constitution. The result will also shore up the position of long-standing President Jose Eduardo dos Santos who is up for re-election next year. Santos’s international position is solid thanks to the country’s rich oil interests. And Dos Santos is perfectly placed to take advantage of the boom. During the Soviet era, he graduated from Baku’s Oil Academy with a degree in Petroleum Engineering after studying six years on scholarship there.

Angola has recently joined OPEC and has replaced Saudi Arabia as China’s leading source of crude oil. But little of the proceeds have trickled down to Angola’s poor and the country's dilapidated infrastructure also affected its ability to hold an election. Millions of Angolans have moved to Luanda in recent years as they are unable to make a living in rural areas and civil war land mines remain an ever present danger. 22-year-old unemployed Pai Bando told AFP he would not vote for Unita, despite its promise of a fairer distribution of wealth, because he feels only the MPLA is strong enough to make changes. But he remained sceptical of the promise of all parties. "They (the elite) get all the money from the oil and the diamonds, they get everything and we get nothing," he said.

Africa takes to citizen journalism

A conference of African journalists commencing tomorrow in South Africa will look at the emerging trend of citizen journalism. Held at Grahamstown’s Rhodes University in Eastern Cape Province each year, this event is the 12th Highway Africa Conference. 700 Delegates (including journalists, media educators, bloggers, publishers and students) from 40 African countries will take part in three days of talks, workshops and skills training and will hear a keynote address from technology writer and author of “We the Media”, Dan Gillmor.

The conference is an exciting event for the world’s least Internet connected continent. The theme “Citizen Journalism, Journalism for Citizens” will focus on how media professionals and citizens can improve their contributions and work better together. According to Rhodes University’s school of journalism head Guy Berger the conference will examine the extent African journalists contribute to democracy. “Much media content around Africa calls itself journalism, but is really a far cry from promoting citizens' rights,” he said. “It shamelessly promotes the rights of political rulers at the expense of broader human rights.”

Berger’s lament is not unique to Africa and is one of the common drivers for citizen journalism across the world. Queensland academics Terry Flew and Jason Wilson examine this and some of the other issues around citizen journalism in their paper “Journalism as Social Networking: The Australian youdecide project and the 2007 federal election” (pdf) which has been submitted to the journal Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism” for peer review.

The paper draws on the authors’ experience in the youdecide2007 project which acted as an online news and opinion site in the lead-up to last year’s federal Australian election. The site was founded with the aid of a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) research grant to invigorate public debate about Australian politics in a digital arena and worked with industry partners such as the public broadcaster SBS (who provided legal services for a site-prepared citizen journalism manual), as well as IT company Cisco, online publishers The National Forum (publishers of On Line Opinion) and The Brisbane Institute public affairs think-tank.

The book of Highway Africa’s keynote speaker, Dan Gillmor was also quoted by the Queensland authors. In “We The Media”, Gillmor pointed out the difference between big media journalism and citizen journalism as that of the evolution from “the news as a lecture” to “journalism as a conversation”. And when that happens, he said, the lines between producers and consumers will blur and the communications networks would “become a medium for everyone’s voice”.

Such was the aim of the youdecide site which deliberately set out to provide hyperlocal “bottom up” content that would act as a counterpoint to the “presidential narratives” of news-lecturing big media. But the experiences of Wilson, Flew and others at youdecide showed that new hybrid forms of media still require a significant amount of professional mediation. For starters, they needed to be technically proficient. The site managers (“produsers”) tailored an open-source content management system called Joomla! to allow the submission of multimedia content through the public areas of the site as well as editorial work in the “back end”. They also ran a weekly television show each Friday on Brisbane community television which attracted a decent audience of 12,000 viewers, about half that of the ABC’s Stateline show which appears in a similar timeslot.

Site staff also generated a significant amount of “seed content” for the site as well as editing user content for legal and quality concerns. In this they perform a similar gatekeeping function to the Korean Ohmynews! which is perhaps the most successful international template for citizen journalism. The youdecide experience was that the “pro” content was crucial in attracting visitors to the site and was generally the most-read stories (though intriguing the “am” content generated more comments!). The site’s one “gotcha” story was a staff story: the so-called “Crategate” affair when Jason Wilson’s interview of a Liberal MP was quoted in parliament by then-Opposition leader Kevin Rudd.

Another crucial learning experience from youdecide was the value of networking. In order to get attention for the site, staff members needed to draw on their connections and make alliances with the mainstream journalists. For all its faults, big media is still the best way to get in contact with a mass audience and can help citizen journalism sites thrive if site managers can cultivate relationships with professional journalists and political operatives. Content can also be networked across platforms and the Briz31 output was repurposed on Youtube.

Staff members also provided mentoring services for their amateur content providers. They provided user training in legal and licencing issues, how to post content (and make it compelling), how to register or comment, or how to use linked off-site technologies like digital editing technologies or YouTube. They provided site specific information and also mediation services to stop flame wars, respond to objections and ban repeat offender users.

Flew and Wilson’s key conclusions were fourfold. Firstly, citizen journalism remains at the margins of news production but the production values and multi-skilling at such sites as youdecide are moving to the centre. Secondly the relationship between mainstream media and independent sites is becoming increasingly inter-connected (“porous and permeable” as the authors put it). Thirdly all citizen journalism endeavours should be seen as works in progress and should seek out new areas to engage. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, networked journalism has significant repercussions to the future of journalism and will contribute, as those at Fairfax known only too well, to a further decline in the traditional newsroom environment. “Learning from citizen journalism initiatives,” conclude the authors, “will be an important part of what will define journalism as a professional practice in the 21st century.”

Why I'll be watching the senate

This article of mine was originally posted at Getup's new and sexy Project Democracy. Kudos to Jason Wilson for his terrific work on the site.

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When parliament resumes in the new term, the television cameras will be trained to the Lower House dispatch box to capture the ten second grabs of wisdom emerging from the mouths of Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson (or whoever replaces that Dead Man Walking). Yet the real drama of the next parliamentary session will be happening in the purple chamber where a changing of the guard gives the new Senate an unpredictable make-up.

As of 1 July, the Coalition finally tipped over the poisoned chalice of its majority, the Democrats lost all their seats, and Labor will now be relying on a rainbow coalition of Greens, social conservatives and single-issue independents to push through their legislation. Fraught with hazard as the need to negotiate is, even John Howard might now admit it is no bad thing.

As Harry Evans wrote, only in a non-Government controlled Senate are the classic parliamentary functions of legislation, inquiry, and accountability exercised to any great extent. But from 2004 to 2007 the Upper House was merely an echo chamber. The Liberals used their majority to throttle debate to the extent that in their final year, the Senate passed less than one percent of all non-Government amendments. Their untrammelled power brought about hubris, and eventually their own demise. Kevin Rudd will have watched and learned.

Already, he is speaking in code to the new South Australian maverick Nick Xenophon by launching an independent water audit of the Murray-Darling Basin. Rudd;s own social conservatism may also yet find a sympathetic soul mate in Family First's Steve Fielding. And the Greens, while likely to grumble about the speed of Labor's reform, won't seriously tamper with the core direction.

The minor parties may also serve the useful function of bringing down some of Labor's more fanciful election promises, such as the oversold Fuel Watch, without the accompanying problem of having to justify why it won't be implemented. It also means Labor will need to negotiate every scrap of their agenda with the independents including some unpalatable amendments along the way. Some might complain about the Senate's "unrepresentative swill" ignoring a "mandate to govern" but this is parliamentary procedure as it should be. In any case, Rudd's favourable opinion polls gives him a big stick of a double dissolution threat if too many carrots of vested interests stick in his throat.

Tentative truce: Obama agrees to appear on Fox News

Rupert Murdoch has brokered a backroom deal that will see Barack Obama appear tomorrow on the Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor with its abrasive right-wing host Bill O’Reilly. The interview will end a long boycott of Obama appearances on the Murdoch-owned network. While many will question the wisdom of his appearance on a station that often appears to be a paid-advertorial for the Republican Party, the timing is crucial as it is designed to deflect attention from John McCain’s acceptance speech at the GOP Convention in St Paul. Fox news chief Roger Ailes confirmed the interview after a face-to-face meeting with Obama where he quoted the senator as saying "I just want to know if I'm going to get a fair shake from Fox News channel.”

Obama’s request for a "fair shake" was eminently reasonable as the station has been consistently hostile against the Democratic Presidential candidate. Fox has long been accused of conducting a campaign against him with frequent references to his middle name Hussein and their oft-repeated but incorrect allegation he was educated in an Indonesian madrassa. But with Obama still favourite to take the presidency, Murdoch was keen to broker a “tentative truce” between Obama and Ailes.

The three men met a couple of months ago at the New York Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. According to Vanity Fair’s media commentator Michael Wolff, who subsequently interviewed Murdoch, Obama was deferential to Murdoch but was highly critical of Ailes. "He said that he didn't want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife,” said Wolff. “Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome - just short of a terrorist.”

The question is now whether the interview means Murdoch is preparing to switch sides and support an Obama presidency. Such a move would not sit well with Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly or the many others that have given Fox such a Republican ideological slant over the last ten years. Fox News has been closely allied with the Bush Presidency and played a crucial role in his both his presidential victories in 2000 and 2004.

Such influence did not seem likely when Murdoch launched Fox on 7 October, 1996. At the time CNN was king of the news networks. Ted Turner set the template for 24 hours news coverage and CNN came into its own with viewers glued to its Baghdad-based reporters when the US bombed Iraq in 1991. But by 1996 Turner had sold out to Time Warner and the Republicans were complaining CNN stood for “Clinton News Network”. Even non-conservative viewers were finding its format predictable and no longer innovative. Fox News’s bright and sassy programming, modelled on the entertainment values of the Fox Network, began to slowly attract attention.

By 2000, it was regularly beating CNN in the ratings and Bill O’Reilly had overtaken CNN’s Larry King as the most popular presenter. Fox had charged ahead by changing the rules of news journalism. They were openly partisan, arrogant and pompous, sensationalistic, relied on style over substance, and openly supported the reigning government of the day and its wars. The station appealed to what the 2004 documentary Outfoxed called “the disgruntled, disillusioned and neutered male” by blaming everyone for his faults and failures except himself.

Fox also increased their popularity by vigorously attacking its critics. Bill O’Reilly became notorious for his on-air tactics. He yelled at guests whom he didn’t agree with, hectored and abused them, called them “idiots” and “boobs” and often cut off their mikes if they were becoming too “uppity”. But management never chastised O’Reilly for his heavy-handed tactics. On the contrary, Roger Ailes and his management team encouraged it. Ailes has deep roots in Republican politics (he was media advisor to three Republican presidents, Nixon, Reagan and Bush 41) and Murdoch drafted him in to run Fox News after he was sacked by rival station CNBC (now merged with MSNBC).

It was Ailes who recruited Bill O’Reilly to anchor Fox’s flagship show when the station started up. It didn’t take long for him to become the network’s biggest star. O’Reilly had been round the news traps, and was a multi-Emmy winning nomadic TV reporter and anchor of the syndicated show Inside Edition. When Inside Edition sacked him in 1995 he went back to university and got his second masters degree (to go with his earlier one in broadcast journalism) in public administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Ailes gave O’Reilly free rein to do what he liked on his show The O’Reilly Factor. He was successful by not sounding or acting like a journalist.

O’Reilly courted controversy as a self-styled “culture warrior” and became the cornerstone of the network. He was rewarded by huge ratings, a syndicated radio show and several successful books. He quickly became loathed by the left as he cleverly conflated liberals with rapists, child molesters and murderers. Despite taking the high moral ground, O’Reilly has no manners and regularly operates outside traditional journalistic boundaries of decorum. He regularly rides roughshod over progressive voices while giving conservatives an easy ride. His audiences lapped this up.

Ahead of tomorrow’s interview with Obama, O’Reilly is conciliatory but continues to show a distinct preference for McCain. On Tuesday he called Obama “a charismatic man, he'll win among minority voters, and his entitlement message is powerful.” But, said O’Reilly, the US media are overselling him, and the voters “want their family safe and someone who will get control of the economy.” O’Reilly left his viewers in little doubt which candidate he believed would be better on those two issues.

But McCain does not fit the Bush ideological template that Fox has so assiduously nurtured over the last eight years. He is a renegade Republican. More importantly, he may not win and Murdoch does not like backing losers. According to Wolff, when Murdoch met Obama he had just one simple message to share with him. He had met every American president from Harry Truman on and believed none of them got much time to make an impression. Leadership, according to Murdoch, was about what you did in the first six months. The truce the two men subsequently declared, said Wolff, could be of “vast historical significance”. But even if this is true, can Murdoch drag his ideologically-heavy network with him towards the middle? The O’Reilly Factor will be the first test. As the Scotsman says, it could be a short truce.

Japan deckchair shuffle: Aso favourite to replace Fukuda.

Ruling party secretary-general Taro Aso is the odds-on favourite to become Japan’s next Prime Minister later this month. He will be the 11th prime minister in the last 15 years. The 67 year old Aso was runner up to incumbent Yasuo Fukuda in last year’s election for premier and remains a popular and congenial figure. It is possible he will now be the only candidate to replace Fukuda who resigned on Monday. The chair of the ruling LDP's general affairs committee, Takashi Sasagawa said the party would meet on Wednesday to formally set a date for the internal leadership vote. Japanese media expect the vote to occur on September 20 or 22. Aso announced his intension to run yesterday. "I think [Fukuda] felt he had work that was left undone, and he said he wanted it to be carried out," he said. "As someone who discussed these issues with him…I think I have the credentials to take that on”.

Aso is a former foreign minister and a hawkish and straight-talking right-winger. His power is based in the party’s grassroots and he is no friend of Fukuda. In a cabinet shuffle last month Yoshiro Mori, one of the LDP’s power brokers (and a former unsuccessful PM himself), foisted Aso onto a reluctant Fukuda as the party’s new secretary-general. According to The Economist, Aso has done nothing since his appointment but work behind the scenes to undermine Fukuda.

Though his resignation was not unexpected, there was no obvious trigger for its announcement. Fukuda,72, called it a day on Monday saying he had decided several days earlier to step down to avoid creating a "political vacuum". At his farewell media conference, Fukuda said a cabinet reshuffle and the recent announcement of $107 billion in spending and tax cuts had not lifted his deeply unpopular administration in the polls. Fukuda was deeply unpopular and has been hampered by a hostile Upper House where the opposition Democrats blocked government bills and appointments, including Fukuda's candidate to be governor of the Bank of Japan.

The moderate conservative only took office last September after his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, quit in similar circumstances and after a similar time period in the job. Malcolm Cook at The Interpreter believes Aso has a better chance of staying longer in the job than either Abe or Fukuda. Unlike the two previous leaders Aso is popular and charismatic and can provide a message of hope and renewal. In that respects he most resembles the country’s last successful leader Junichiro Koizumi. Cook calls Aso a “Koizumi plus” candidate who will take a very strong line on strengthening the US alliance and on viewing China as a strategic competitor and a threat to Japan.

But for now the biggest threat to Japan remains Japanese politics. Fukuda struggled to cope with a divided parliament where opposition parties have the power to delay legislation. He tried and failed several times to compromise with Democrats' leader, Ichiro Ozawa (who quit the LDP in the 1990s). Important legislation could be rammed through the Diet thanks only to the two-third’s “supermajority” enjoyed by the ruling coalition in the lower house. But most notable was the failure to pass a bill to renew the Japanese navy’s refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean, an embarrassing set-back to the country’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Fukuda’s sudden exit now raises questions about the LDP’s ability to cling to power or even avoid splitting up after ruling Japan for most of the past 53 years. The LDP does not have to call an election until next year but the Democrats are now pushing for an early vote. The party’s secretary-general Yukio Hatoyama said Fukuda’s sudden department showed that LDP didn’t have the ability to hold the reins of government. “I am deeply resentful towards Fukuda for not caring about people,” he said. “All we want is the calling of early elections.”

The Curse of Kosi: Bihar floods affects millions

Two weeks after Bihar’s flooded Kosi River washed away much of the state, hundreds of thousands of people are finally giving up hope the waters will soon recede. More than a million people have been left homeless and scores killed in Bihar, one of the poorest regions in India. The Indian government has already rescued half a million people and another million still need to get out. Half the state is now under water. The worst hit areas are Supaul, Araria, Madhepura and Saharsa districts while more areas were becoming inundated while many other embankments were in danger of being breached.

The problem began after the monsoon rains when the Kosi River which flows from Nepal into India, burst its banks two weeks ago. The river changed course and flooded surrounding areas. Flood waters began flowing into Bihar when a barrage located on the Nepali side of the Kosi burst on 18 August. An employee at the crumbling 40 year old barrage says the collapse was inevitable due to negligence and the state of disrepair of the facility. “The officials came here in February like every year,” said the employee. “We told them things are bad. They didn't do anything about it.”

The Kosi is known as Bihar's Sorrow for its frequent deadly floods. The Kosi is one of the world’s most destructive waterways on account of its heavy silt deposits caused by its mountainous course in Tibet and Nepal and simultaneous rapid average water speed. Its fury has been renowned through the centuries as the Kosi curse. The curse was believed to be finally tamed by an embankment at the border. But with recurring problems at the barrage, locals now believe that the Kosi curse has returned. Most recently, floods in 2004 claimed 700 lives.

Another thousand or so have died this time round. The rising river has crumpled embankments, swamped farmlands and destroyed homes. Some locals have cashed in on the troubles of others. There are reports of people with boats and tractors were charging flood victims large amounts of money to carry them to safety. One rescuer apparently demanded a man’s ox in payment for a boat ride to safety.

The federal government in New Delhi has also been heavily criticised for its lack of basic disaster planning. NGOs say there seems to be no overall coordination for rescue operations and for the sheltering, feeding and medical care for the hundreds of thousands of those who fled from the floods. The anti-poverty charity ActionAid said "lessons from the past disasters should be kept in mind - a long-term comprehensive response is necessary to deal with relief, recovery and disaster preparedness".

Many refugees have arrived in New Delhi telling their grim stories of death and survival. Umesh Kumar from Madhepur district escaped with his mother, wife and three small children. The family hasn't eaten for two days and arrived with only a bag of clothes. They lost everything else in the floods. Kumar said he lost everything. “My kirana shop, 8 bighas of farming land - all now submerged in water. My children and mother are sick and I could not get them medical treatment.” He said. “The makeshift refugee camps set up by the state are not enough as many people are still trapped.” Another survivor said "Thousands are still trapped in outlying villages and the government is painfully slow in getting its act together”.

The government has reacted angrily to these criticisms. They claim with some justice that hardly anyone could have imagined a cataclysm on such a scale and point to the large-scale army rescues already in progress. Last week Prime Minister Manmohan Singh undertook an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas in Bihar. He called the flood a “national calamity” and announced a $200m relief package to the state. Locals are phlegmatic about the Curse of Khosi. “We fear our locked house will be burgled,” said one Bihar resident, “but jaan hai to jahan hai (You have the world only if you have the life)”.

The truth behind Thailand's “protests”: a delicate balance of forces

What exactly is going on in Thailand? Western media reports a “political crisis” but so far seems a well organised, peaceful, and most importantly supported-by-the-military crisis. The Prime Minister’s residence has been taken over by 20,000 protesters for a week but so far the PM Samak Sundaravej has not called out the police or the army. The 73-year old Samak is a Thaksin Shinawatra surrogate whose legitimacy stems from last year's election won by the People Power Party created by loyalists from Thaksin’s old party Thai Rak Thai.

The southern airports of Phuket, Hat Yai and Krabi were barricaded off by protesters who marched on their stomachs rumoured to be supplied by the military or even members of the Royal Family. Samek has refused to call an election and has vowed to rule on with the apparent support of the king whom he met today.

Samak won power in 2007 with the support of the rural majority despite the antagonism of the coup leaders. He now hangs on as a stand-in leader for the far-away Shinawatra. A growing wealthy elite in Bangkok, loath both men and are determined to force an election. But Thaksin may be about to taxi home. Today, he sold his English Premier League football "toy" Manchester City to Abu Dhabi interests. Thaksin may be cashing up for his inevitable return to his homeland and the bribes he will need to pay to stay out of prison.

And so the west reports Thailand seems delicately poised between four forces that represent the Army, the King, the country (in the name of Thaksin), and Bangkok’s growing bourgeoisie. The army has remained in barracks so far but given their past record as recently as 2006, they could be itching for the chance to “solve” the crisis. Coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin has retired but the army’s attempt to fix the 2007 election backfired spectacularly. There may be other leaders who want to take on his baton. But they will have to contend with Samak’s appointment today of General Songkitti Jaggabatara, a former classmate of Shinawatra to the role of military supreme commander.

But for now, the army is quietly working behind the scenes for the opposition umbrella group People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Some have claimed PAD actually stands for People Against Democracy because of what it is fighting for: a Parliament in which only 30 percent is elected and the rest are “appointed” by royal command. PAD’s paternalistic policy see them blame western-style democracy for Thailand’s ills. It was PAD who began the protests that led to Thaksin’s overthrow and who now want to strike at him again through Samak.

PAD have strongly invoked the royal family in their attempt to curry favour. Royalty remains sacrosanct in Thailand and there is intense jockeying for power in the event of the death of 80 year old King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Officially a constitutional monarchy, Bhumibol is extremely powerful. He has been instrumental in most Thai political dealings over his extraordinary 60 years on the throne and had a very direct bearing on the 2005 coup. He is the world’s longest-reigning monarch, and the wealthiest royal worth an estimated $35 billion. PAD knows that if Bhumibol withdraws his support it means the end for Samak.

While no-one knows how this drama will play out between Bhumibol, PAD, Samak and the army, it should be noted there is an fifth force of influence in the country: the Thai media. Television is contested but is mostly controlled by Samak. His forces say the state media should be a mouthpiece for the government, while opponents argue that it belongs to the people as these stations are established and operated using the taxpayers' money. The print scene is also vibrant. As of 2003, there were 150 newspapers of which about 40 were Bangkok dailies. The city also has two important English language dailies The Bangkok Post and the Nation and several Chinese language papers. Almost all of the country’s 73 provinces have local newspapers. Lurid tabloid journalism is extremely popular but there is also a significant well-educated elite who avidly read the broadsheets. These papers have one major taboo topic (criticism of the Royal Family) but otherwise report fairly on the political unrest. With a free Internet also available, Thailand is awash with vigorous, diverse, well-informed opinion that can quickly turn hostile.

It will take a monumental effort of will to end that unrest. The Guardian sees the crisis as a continuation of the events that ended Thaksin’s reign calling it a “never ending coup”. They see it as a struggle between “two deep-seated and irreconcilable forces” of a the traditional Thai alliance of the bureaucracy, military and monarchy, and “a populist nouveau riche from the rural areas whose support Thaksin has tapped into.” It sees an election as perhaps the only gamebreaker.