Having attended the launch of the Demos pamphlet “Building Character” a couple of weeks ago, it was quite interesting to see how the findings of the report were covered in the press. Mostly, it seems, it is a sidenote in a hoo ha about lesbian parents.

I remember taking note that there was a journalist from The Sunday Times behind me. Lo and behold in The Sunday Times that week: attention grabbing headline (albeit at the bottom of the page, somewhere in the middle of the paper), “Lesbian parents better at raising children“. Assemblage of bits on lesbian parents, gay adoption, a quote from Mary Cheney, that hadn’t found a home in the print of the Times yet, spun around a quote from Stephen Scott who was on the panel of the Building Character event.

Stephen Scott of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, which joint-hosted the event with Demos, did refer in passing to research that suggested lesbian parents were “better” than a man and a woman. Hmm, and then strangely that little juicy snippet was what was most discussed from the whole thing in the papers. Discussed by The Daily Mail and Jeremy Clarkson…

Thing is, Jeremy Clarkson’s column in The Sunday Times the next week pointed quite well to how silly it was to say that, definitively, lesbians make better parents. And (worryingly?) Clarkson was funnier than I thought he was (although still nowhere near properly funny, he was starting from a very low estimation). Similarly, a piece on the blog of the think tank Civitas questions what this research was. Civitas is a think tank that I don’t hold in very high esteem either, and amusingly all the quotes from “newspaper reports” were from that original Sunday Times article, so maybe it wasn’t as “widely reported” as Civitas insinuates. (Shame on me too for only scouring the pages of The Sunday Times for references to something I attended. At least by attending I know that Scott’s mention of lesbian parents was not in a speech *ahem, Civitas*).

Anyhow, it’s come to Clarkson and Civitas (god forbid) to asking what-the-hell-is-this-research?!?!? Shame on you, Mr. most-popular Sunday broadsheet, for such a cobbled-together article.

What I found on the NAPP website was “Evaluating the evidence: are lesbians better parents?“. This, quite rightly, tentatively concludes that:

“Although children with lesbian mothers, on average, do slightly (but significantly) better on some measures than children raised by opposite sex parents, a positive relationship with one’s father is also strongly associated with positive child outcomes… Research consistently and clearly suggests that regardless of parent gender and family structure, children who report a close and positive relationship with their mother and father are more likely to feel good about themselves and do better in school and later adulthood.” [italics in original]

The point about good parent-child relationships was the very point of the whole Building Character event where this recent lesbian parent hoo ha began. It was the point being made when this, rather distracting point, was thrown in: quality relationships matter more than family structure.

The research on lesbian parents, from what I have seen, does seem rather dubious though. I took a look at Golombok et al “Children with Lesbian Parents: A Community Study“, the first cited research in the above menioned NAPP review. Here I’d be inclined to agree with Jeremy Clarkson; “You can’t possibly draw any conclusions after testing 20 lesbians.” The sample was tiny. Not quite as tiny as 20, but a grand total of 39 lesbian-mother families.

As I, and Civitas (hmm), suspected it also appeared that the lesbian-mother families on average were of a higher socioeconomic status that the straight-mother families. The qualities of better parenting were defined as less use of smacking, greater frequency of imaginative play, etc. which also correlate well with middle-class families in general. Findings from elsewhere that daughters of lesbians are more likely to aspire to be a doctor or lawyer or “professions that were traditionally considered male” and children brought up in an all-female household are “more confident in championing social justice” (see that first Sunday Times article), could also readily be attributed to these being more middle-class traits. It does not necessarilly follow that lesbian parents are a causal factor of this “better” parenting. A common sense answer would be that lesbian parents are more likely to be middle-class and these determinants of better parenting are generally reflective of middle-class parenting. Girls from your average middle-class home want to be doctors and lawyers and were most likely not smacked either.

Elsewhere in that Sunday Times (15 Nov- I am so slow in writing stuff. Have a decent memory though) were graphs of the number of women compared to men entering the professions across the last 3-4 decades – they all steadily climbed upward. Annoyingly the graphs aren’t on the web version, but I can tell you that last year 60% of new solicitors were women. But I digress…

Yes, so this study by Golombok et al did not account for socio-economic status bearing an infuence on the results. They got some stats on the socio-economic make up of the sample, but then dismissed its importance. I think it’s important. The covariates the study accounts for are instead just the child’s age and the number of children in the family. I’m not a social scientist (yet…) but I wouldn’t agree that “no group difference was found for social class”  when about 1/10 lesbian mothers had no qualifications compared to 1/4 straight mothers. Surely it may well be something like this that has the greater impact on parenting style and children’s aspirations?

Without good longitudinal studies of gay parenting, which also factors in variables of social class and education, and is done on a much larger scale of 39, we shouldn’t be making any suggestions as to lesbians being “better parents.” And refraining from slipping a remark as Stephen Scott did at the Demos launch wouldn’t go a miss either…

“

PKKH

By Shahid R. Siddiqi. Axis of Logic

When the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets President Obama during his visit to the US this week, the two leaders will discuss the framework for strategic dialogue between the two countries.

Singh seeks to solidify a relationship, transformed under the Bush administration from distant friendship to that of a ‘key ally’. That transformation led to a nuclear cooperation deal, increasing trade and investment, educational exchanges and unprecedented security collaboration. He is keen to finalize the civilian nuclear deal and seek Obama’s support for his bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Singh may also seek reassurance that the Indo-US relationship will not be overshadowed by the increasing Sino-US collaboration.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, India’s former mentor and ally, India sought an alliance with the United States who also had interest in wooing it. In the US containment-of-China policy under Bush, India could prove extremely useful to advance U.S. interests, particularly because of strained Sino-Indian relations over regional ambitions and border disputes which led it into a war with China in 1962, though with a humiliating outcome.

But this created a paradox for the US. Pakistan was once a key ally of the U.S., an important link in their strategy to contain communism during the cold war era and a member of the U.S.-sponsored, but now defunct military pacts – SEATO & CENTO. Pakistan became highly suspicious of this U.S. ‘tilt’ towards India. Pakistan had an acrimonious relationship with India mainly over the Kashmir and water and India’s blatant role in the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.

The consistent Indian threat to Pakistan’s security led Pakistan to develop a nuclear response to Indian acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1974 to maintain the balance of power and ward off Indian hegemonic designs. Despite Pakistan’s efforts and calls by the international community, India refused negotiated settlements of disputes. This has kept the pot simmering, maintaining an uneasy peace in the region. In the absence of progress in resolving the root causes of tensions, recent assurances by Obama and Singh, that India poses no threat to Pakistan – were rejected outright in Pakistan.

The US has used Pakistan for its own geopolitical objectives in the past during the cold war, to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and then for its war on terror in Afghanistan after 9/11. While it aided and equipped Pakistan for the role it wanted Pakistan to play, Pakistan’s relationship with the US has swung from being the ‘most allied ally’ to being the “most neglected ally” and then to being the ‘most sanctioned ally’, depending upon how much the US needed Pakistan’s services at any given time. In Pakistan, the US has come to be perceived as most unreliable and is viewed with deep suspicion.

Presently, the deepening U.S. relations with India result from the changing American perspective of the region. India could prove to be a huge market for American high tech goods and weapon systems in the future. Also its growing nuclear and military strength coupled with regional ambitions could be useful to the US as its proxy for policing the region.

Realizing that he cannot maintain a military presence in Afghanistan for long, Obama needs to install a proxy power there too when he decides to pull out, most likely by 2011. India fits the bill. The US expects India to keep the government in Kabul under check, keep peace among warring factions and protect American interests.

India has its own interests too. The nuclear deterrence will not allow India to launch military aggression against Pakistan, but it can work for the dismemberment of Pakistan by promoting an Eastern Pakistan style insurgency in Balochistan and by continuing to squeeze Pakistan on the western border using rogue elements from the tribal belt. It has already begun to position its troops there under cover of “development work”.

The belief that India can hold the fort for the US is a fallacy. If the Afghans, who fiercely oppose foreign occupiers whom they have thrown out unceremoniously in the past and if the U.S. is also on the verge of withdrawal, what makes anyone think that Indian forces would be welcome to stay? Besides, the Taliban, who are bound to gain political influence in Kabul sooner or later, will reject Indian military presence on their soil, as it will represent American interests.

This Indo-US partnership, which seeks to serve divergent geopolitical objectives and is based on taking advantage of one and other, will neither be smooth nor lasting. Above all, it will seriously jeopardize peace in South Asia by alienating Pakistan and adding to its existing tensions with India. This will also ring alarm bells in Tehran and Beijing.

As of now in the current US matrix, cordial Sino-US relations are very important for a variety of reasons, mainly owing to U.S. reliance on Chinese economic support and that will not end any time soon. It is clearly not feasible for Obama to promote relations with India at the cost of its relations with China.

But this will not sit well with a sensitive India, given the history of Sino-Indian rivalry. Only recently the Indian officials, says a Washington Post report, in an outburst of Brahmanic self importance expressed concern that New Delhi has suddenly been relegated to the second tier of U.S.-Asian relations because Obama did not mention India in his speech on US relations in Asia recently. The speech was delivered in Tokyo and focused on the Asia-Pacific region and not South Asia. This, the Indians believe, is Obama’s failure to recognize India’s broader regional aspirations, something that the Bush administration had encouraged. The Indians were upset that “Washington was leaning too closely to China”.

Then to India’s chagrin came a call made through the joint statement on conclusion of Obama’s visit to China, in which Obama suggested that Beijing mediate between India and Pakistan. The statement said,

“China and the United States are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.”

“A third-country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary” to solve disputes between India and Pakistan, was the retort by Indian Foreign Ministry. The influential Times of India headline read “Obama’s China [credit] card casts shadow on PM’s US visit,” referring to the $800 billion in U.S. Treasury securities held by China.

Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment said he detected in India “a sense of exclusion that’s been gnawing at them since the Tokyo speech.” He added: “The joint statement prompted new fears that somehow the United States and China would collude to manage events in South Asia.”

Tellis said this has caused particular neuralgia in India because tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have risen recently over competing border claims. India is also upset over Chinese plans to divert waters of Brahmaputra River that originates in Tibet and flows into Northeastern India, without whose water its plains would lay waste. In addition, Indians are concerned that the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, views India as part of the South Asian problem, which includes the instability in Pakistan.

China’s interest in South Asia, a natural outcome of its regional security concerns in its sensitive underbelly and its very close relations with Pakistan, is unpalatable for India which considers South Asia as its exclusive domain.

These Indian sensitivities will keep the US on the edge. To assure them that India was in its own league in South Asia and of America’s growing closeness, Secretary Clinton spent four days in India in July but refrained from a stopover in neighboring Pakistan.

In a geopolitically sensitive region, where the US has to cater to important bilateral interests with China, even handedly deal with a Pakistan whose cooperation in Afghanistan is key to its success and which is increasingly angry over repeated American betrayals, and to keep the Taliban and Pashtun sensitivities in mind while negotiating a exit deal with them, the tendency to throw tantrums on the part of Indian leadership could make the new partnership difficult to sustain.

Therefore, before rushing into a collaborative arrangement with India and offering highly sensitive nuclear technologies, the US will be well-advised to first test out the prickly world of relations with New Delhi.

Despite tall claims about being the biggest democracy, India remains high on the list of human rights violations and has a long way to go in ensuring equal social status to Dalits (also called the untouchables) who form 20 percent of the population. It has been repeatedly accused of ethnic and religious cleansing of minorities.

If the US could make a political issue out of Tiananmen Square and Obama could refer to human rights issues during his China visit, why should not India be held to the same standard during Singh’s visit.

As for the Indian request for a permanent seat on the Security Council, it is important to bear in mind that India itself is involved in Kashmir dispute pending before the Security Council and whose Resolutions it has refused to implement. At the bottom of the dispute is the issue of exercise of the people’s will in determining Kashmir’s final dispensation. The dispute has led India to fight three wars with Pakistan and one with China. India has stationed several army divisions in Kashmir to subjugate the people and independent sources have confirmed killings of thousands of unarmed Kashmiris and sexual abuse perpetrated on thousands of women by these security forces.

In response to a similar bid earlier, India was advised to first settle the Kashmir dispute. Then the U.S.-India relationship had just begun to take shape with limited US influence over India. But now that the US enjoys greater clout, it could more effectively pressure India for a negotiated settlement, which is in every one’s interest, as well as in the interest of peace.

© Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

As Peter Thiel said at TSI’s recent conference (talk video), the prospects for freedom over the coming decades depend enormously on whether we end up with more or fewer sovereign jurisdictions.  Even governments respond to competition and the threat of exit.  But that does not mean voice does not matter at all – far from it, the two are complementary.

Let’s consider the case of pirate radio in the UK, as covered in the old seasteading book, and featured in the movie “Pirate Radio” which recently came out in the US.  From Erwin Strauss’ book:

In the 1960’s, a new form of offshore activity emerged. Commercial radio as known in the United States didn’t exist in Europe at the time. With few exceptions, all that was to be heard were staid government stations. Then a ship named Veronica dropped anchor just off the Dutch coast, with a transmitter beaming programing filled with the latest popular music. Advertisers eagerly bought up all the available time at premium rates, and imitators soon followed in the Scandinavian and British markets…

International agreements were entered into to ban broadcasting from ships, but the African country of Sierra Leone chose to offer its flag as a flag of convenience rather than subscribe to the treaties …

In addition to competition giving rise to friendly flags, another source reports that it ensured access to supplies:

…on January 22nd, the governments of Belgium, France, Greece, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Britain signed a Council of Europe Agreement that not only banned broadcasts ‘on board ships, aircraft or any other floating or airborne objects’ but also banned anyone from those countries from supplying the pirates with materials, supplies or equipment. The stations were forced to obtain new sources of supply from either Holland or Spain, neither of whom had been party to the agreement…Caroline’ was also in the happier position of being able to obtain supplies from Dublin or even the Isle of Man as the Manx government were reluctant to ratify legislation against the pirate ship due to the trade and tourism she brought to the island. “

Most importantly, pirate radio won, as Strauss reports:

The British finally knocked their offshore broadcasters off the air by banning advertising on them by firms doing business in the United Kingdom…then the coup de grace was delivered: the opening of popular music stations on land.

The waves from pirate radio washed inland, eventually forcing the UK government to give people what they wanted: rock-and-roll music on the radio.  The pirates shut down, not because they were forced out of existence, but because the changes on land ended the arbitrage opportunity and eliminated their market.  Which is the ultimate victory – helping those in current countries get more of what they want, through the existing systems they are comfortable with, and without the extra cost of ocean operations (what we call the “ocean tax”).

Jurisdictional competition movements can provide experiments, empirical evidence, and competition – which I believe are almost indispensible requirements for political change.  But the greatest leverage will come from the effects on existing countries, which are far more populous than seasteads will be for many decades to come.  Hammering home the lessons of failed policies and reminding people that there are better alternatives is exactly what domestic activist institutions such as policy think tanks specialize in.  Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between movements like seasteading, Free Zones, and Charter Cities, and domestic organizations such as Cato, The Independent Institute, Pacific Research Institute, etc.

Without A Thousand Nations to serve as examples and provide incentive for governments to improve, think tanks will only be an expression of dissatisfaction, not a force for change.  But without think tanks to advocate for more effective government which incorporates the lessons learned in these experimental communities, the Thousand Nations will have no effect beyond those small communities.  Think tanks need nation-startups to make waves, and the world needs think tanks to help those waves wash inland.

(this post is based on recent discussions with Michael Strong & Gayle Young, as well as Doug Bandow and David Boaz’s comments on my Cato talk last spring).

Mein Lesetipp für den späten Sonntag!

Deutschlandfunk: Warum die Qualität im Journalismus abnimmt

Dass Journalisten bei Themen am Ball bleiben, nachhaken, recherchieren, wird immer seltener. Der Redaktionsalltag, in dem immer weniger fest angestellte Journalisten immer mehr Arbeit leisten müssen, lässt meist keine Zeit dazu. Recherche ist zeitaufwendig, teuer und man weiß im Einzelfall nie, ob sie zu wirklich verwertbaren Ergebnissen führt.

Der Journalismus steckt in einer Strukturkrise. Weniger Anzeigen in den Blättern als noch vor Jahren, sinkende Abonentenzahlen und die immer stärker werdende Konkurrenz durch das Internet untergraben die alten Grundlagen für Qualität: nämlich Unabhängigkeit, Geld und Zeit. Tom Schimmeck, ehemals Spiegel-Redakteur und Mitbegründer der Berliner taz beklagt vor zwei Wochen beim Mainzer Mediendisput, dass die Journalisten inzwischen in einem realitätsfernen Raum arbeiteten.

The Open Planning Project hosted New Technology for Participatory Planning – an ‘unconference’ last Friday, and what a grade A way to spend a grey day at the end of the week. The crowd was a pretty even split of techies and planners – the Regional Planning Association co-hosted. So the room was full of smarty-pants (is the plural smarties-pants?).

Lightning presentations – following the 5-minute pdf slam Pecha Kucha model – showcased All Our Ideas from Princeton University’s Sociology department; Robert Lane from the RPA reverently quoting (bow down for the second time this week) Kevin Lynch and Laura Kurgan; a data orgy of dynamic maps of possibly the most mapped city – from DoITT, including the GIS NY City Map and others, like the urban research maps, exploring open public data sets.

Then, between insights-ever-so-constrained-by-140-characters tweets, Turnstone waded into a couple of fascinating break out sessions, one on (and I paraphrase heavily from the question that the NYC Transit specialist, Sarah Kaufman posed) the input monster that civic agencies create when they invite the public’s participation, the other on what’s wrong with the Request for Proposal process. To summarize a lot of intelligent, interdisciplinary, carpe diem discussion in these groups, here are some references, questions raised and other highlights:

• Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change by Neil Postman
• Community as functionality, a technology to understand itself (quoting from Lynch’s Image of the City)
• What’s the difference between drawing and mapping?
• What is civic engagement for? When is participation appropriate? What role, what value? To validate? Legitimate?
• What impact does the ubiquity of mobile devices have – on narrowing the digital divide? On recording public processes? On capturing site-specific participation (that is, enabling just-in-time input – comments or uploads – about something in a particular location)?
• Place still has primacy, as much as we like to run about with glee in information space
• Innovation in public policy and planning process is as crucial to the success of gov2.0/public data apps as any tech innovation
• The goals, culture, workflows and vocabulary of bureaucratic organizations is different from that of tech start ups. We need to recognize, celebrate, enhance or overcome these differences. Empathizing with the end user is a good way to unite them. Bring on the empathic user-experience design process into the mix…sure, call us the tile grout. It’s not glamorous or the thing you notice, but you sure as hell would have problems without it.
• Needs of gov agencies are not the same as wants of the public.
• Tech-mediated applications might work best (ie serve the public best) when situated in bigger experience ecologies, where other forms of media also form part of an integrated service experience. Jargon for: Beware tech-determinism and don’t separate analog from digital where both are appropriate.

Many of the rest of the big ideas are captured on here.

Sure, everyone’s making fun of and pillorying Sarah Palin and her recent bildungsroman. But she deflects all the criticisms of the media elite, remember? Bad news for her, then: the everyday voice of young, hip Kansas City is taking her down. So long, 2012.

That leading voice of light and wisdom — the “frink” panel — takes it upon itself to set Sarah and the rest of the Palinistas straight. And their reasoning is solid, logical, and free of prejudice. The prompt this week is “As a leader, Sarah Palin is…,” and our favorite “frinks” let her have it. The answers:

… in need of some more polishing.

… a joke.

Quitting during your first large political appointment and writing a book doesn’t somehow give you all kinds of wisdom and ability.

Way too conservative, anti-women’s rights, anti-animal rights – not to mention basically stupid!

she seems to be an idiot and a hypocrite.

I believe she is a national embarrassment and I am insulted that if her party thought they had to pick a female running mate, she was the best they could come up with!

No interest in reading her book. I can only imagine the long-winded explanations crammed into this literary masterpiece.

Sarah Palin is a proudly ignorant caricature, with about as much thoughtful leadership skills as Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Pinkos! Is there no voice of Burkean wisdom among us to rise up and strike the tone of conservative ascendancy? Hey, look! It’s Christopher O’Connor! Remember him? Surely he will defend Sarah.

She represents everything bad about the Republican Party, and makes it more difficult for true spokespeople like myself – visionaries, nay prophets, actually, with an eye toward a future of staying out of people’s lives and wallets simultaneously – to cut through the clutter.

She has those same “charming” Obama-esque qualities that make her equally as reprehensible to me – a tenuous grasp of the issues (at best), an abounding hypocrisy to do as I say, not as I do, and the irritating need to hear their own voice ad nauseam although there is nothing of substance coming out.

In fact, they would be an ideal ticket. Maybe if they each keep boycotting news organizations, soon we will never have to hear from them again.

Ah, yes. Declaring oneself a prophet and/or visionary is indeed the correct path to the top of the “frink” heap.

So heed this call, Sarah Palin. You may have won over the tea party movement, but you’ve got a long way to go with this extraordinarily thin cross-section of a post-industrial Midwestern city.

Er, we’re back. Getting a new computer is not unlike moving house. The boxes are all organized but in the wrong rooms, some crockery gets broken, any kind of normal day-to-day admin – including the odd blog post – seems like a luxury. But we’re here, surrounded by the online equivalent of popped bubble wrap, to report in:

This week we’ll give a full run down on the Open Planning Project’s most excellent Tech For Participatory Planning Unconference last Friday, which you can follow on Twitter if you look for  #planningtech.

Meantime, if you don’t mind Turnstone returning to our geographer roots: Get to the last day of the Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture this Saturday – David Harvey (bow down, po-mo geographers) is giving the keynote lecture at noon, at the Gair Building, No 6, 81 Front St in Dumbo (Brooklyn NY 11201 for those who are info-spatially-sensitive). If you want to blog about this here, let’s hear from you.

My professional readings of late have immersed me in public policy documents regarding charity and how it contributes to society.   In the context of Cardus’ recent release of A Canadian Culture of Generosity and our soon-to-be-publicly announced 29to42 campaign, I have been thinking about the next steps from a research perspective.   There is lots of interesting work being done in the field.   Linda Graff has done some fascinating work helping us understand the motives of volunteers, highlighting how mandating volunteer programs and utilizing volunteers simply for political ends up being another form of “genetic engineering.” Susan Phillips has done some interesting work on the nature of citizenship and the role of volunteers and volunteer organizations in public policy processes.   In a recent publication entitled The Intersection of Governance and Citizenship in Canada:  Not Quite the Third Way, she provocatively notes that the rhetoric and theory regarding citizen participation does not match the front-line reality, suggesting three reasons for this disconnect:   a public policy focus on political accountability which has necessitated an emphasis on defined contractual relationships which limits collaboration; the fact that “Canada has not developed or remodeled the architecture that supports the capacity of voluntary organizations to collaborate effectively in governing”; and third, a perception of the voluntary sector as service providers with the consequence that it has not built its own policy capacity.

The focus of each of these works is very different and yet there are lots of threads that intersect and warrant an interdisciplinary conversation.   In the Cardus work, we mused about the connection between the declining civic core as we measured it in the context of volunteering, giving, and belonging and the concern about declining voter turnout and the democratic deficit in the political sphere.  Graff’s work  focuses our attention on understanding the motivation for volunteerism and not blindly thinking we can conscript their efforts for whatever political ends suit us and link closely with the “otherness” syndrome that we — borrowing from the work of Paul Reed – identified in our report.

Musing as I have been on how what sort of picture was being created by these intersecting threads, I could not help but be reminded of a book on my shelf entitled Charity and Its Fruits – a collection of sermons preached on I Corinthians 13 back in 1738 by Jonathan Edwards.  Obviously it has a very different tone than any of the reports I just cited, given that these sermons were preached in a setting of religious revival in a relatively homogeneous Massachusetts small town almost three centuries ago.  Yet these sermons in characteristically Edwardsian fashion (for my take and appreciation of this, I refer you to my recent Comment piece), insist on both the supernatural aspect of religion but take great pains to highlight the daily practices that should flow from this.  ”All true Christian grace tends to practice.”

Dealing with the fruits of charity (or our present fear of the decline in charitable fruits, in the Canadian case) is a matter of culture and practice.  The benefits of a policy change such as our proposal to change the charitable tax rate from 29 to 42 percent will probably be as much the focus and conversation that is brought to the subject of giving and what it means to be a citizen and a neighbour, than the tangible impact that will be measured by charitable dollars receipted and claimed on tax returns.   But rather than to be lamented, this is I think an opportunity to be embraced.  It is a means of engaging a diverse society with a multiple of belief systems having to sort out what it means to live civilly alongside each other.  Such conversations require us to engage such questions as “Who is my neighbour?” and what I ought to do to help him or her.  The answers may range from the trivial through the superficial to the profound, but engaging the question and seeking to consistently live out our answers provide each of a challenge.

I would like to start by saying that I bare no ill will towards the political think tank I worked for or any of its staff, they were all doing the best they could in difficult funding circumstances and I do believe they had a genuine concern for their interns’ wellbeing. However, there needs to be a debate over internship practice because it has a big impact on working practices in the UK’s professional sector.

When I applied for the internship I already had my reservations; it was unpaid work with limited travelling expenses (I just managed to creep in under their limit), no lunch expenses and with full-time working hours. In many ways I was lucky, my parents were both able and willing to subsidise me and I lived within commuting distance of London (although, as I was to discover, train networks meant this journey would take more than four hours out of my day – my fault, but the London-centric nature of this sector is a real concern).

As it was to turn out my internship was no tea-making and photo-copying job, I had in effect been hired to replace a full-time research assistant who had left the month before due to a loss of research funding. To make matters worse my supervisor, who as the organisation’s director, was frequently unavailable and disappeared off for a significant chunk of my internship leaving me essentially to my own devices. Without effective supervision the quantity of work the task entailed shot up, so on top of the four hour commute and eight hour working day I was working for a few hours when I got home as well just to get my projects done. It was a learning curve and I probably came out stronger in the end but for months all the stress and exhaustion really made an impact on my mental – and physical – health.

That aside, what really got to me, and what almost brought me to tears, was that after all of the effort I put in to my published work (as went out to university libraries) I was to discover upon leaving that my name wasn’t on the front of any of it.

After that I got an internship with a left-wing pressure group. It was part-time, full-expenses and there certainly wasn’t the pressure to turn up or do set duties that I had previously had. I enjoyed it a lot, I was thanked at the end of every day and my contribution was recognised in print on anything I produced.

In the end, however, neither of these internships helped me to get a job in the political sector. I genuinely believe in equality of opportunity but in a system which doesn’t seem to recognise it my attempt at a principled stand gradually crumbled and I eventually gave in and used personal connections to get my current job. Indeed, having spoken to people in similar positions to my own this seems to be the norm in a sector, which at least in this aspect, is in desperate need of reform.

By: RupeeNews

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has alleged Afghanistan is under influence of Indian intelligence agencies and he has documentary evidence against it.

“Afghan intelligence, Afghan President, Afghan Government. Don’t talk of them. I know what they do. They are, by design, they mislead the world. They talk against Pakistan, because they are under the influence of Indian intelligence, all of them,” Musharraf told reporters on Sunday. “The Afghan intelligence is entirely under the influence of Indian intelligence. We know that,” Musharraf said when asked that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is in the Quetta city of Pakistan.

14 Bharati “Consulates” are RAW terror centers spreading sabotage across the border in Pakistan. ‘Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.’ (Gen Stanley McChrystal). Central Asia Tajikistan Pakistan: RAW trail of terror from Tajik bases to Indian Consulates in Afghanistan to targets in Pakistan. “They (the Indians) have to justify their interest. They do not share a border with Afghanistan, whereas we do. So the level of engagement has to be commensurate with that,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an extensive interview with The Los Angeles Times, when asked about India’s building up its commercial and political presence in Afghanistan.

“Whatever I am saying, I am not saying it here for the first time. I have given documentary evidence of all this to everyone. There is the documentary evidence. And we know the involvement of Indian intelligence, in India, with their intelligence,” Musharraf, currently in London, charged. “I have given documentary evidence to everyone from top to bottom. Everyone knows it. And we have the documentary evidence,” the former Pakistan Army chief said. Musharraf denied reports and statements coming from the US leaders that ISI still has contacts with the terrorists. “They (ISI) will not support it (terrorists). That was not the government policy. That was not the military policy. However, there was ingress,” he said.

Central Asia Tajikistan Pakistan: RAW trail of terror from Tajik bases to Indian Consulates in Afghanistan to targets in Pakistan. “They (the Indians) have to justify their interest. They do not share a border with Afghanistan, whereas we do. So the level of engagement has to be commensurate with that,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an extensive interview with The Los Angeles Times, when asked about India’s building up its commercial and political presence in Afghanistan.

RAW attack on Peshawar, Rawalpindi Wagah border using at least one Afghan who was captured alive. Pakistan has faced terror from Delhi for over three decades

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Tariq Majid has dismissed as ‘absurd and plain mischievous’ a report by American journalist Seymour Hersh published in The New Yorker about alleged vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear assets and facilities.

He said Pakistan did not need any foreign help to guard its nuclear facilities because they were already well protected.

On Sunday, Foreign Office rejected the report and said it amounted to ‘nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people’.

General Tariq Majid said in a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations: ‘We have operationalised a very effective nuclear security regime which incorporates very stringent custodial and access controls’.

The statement said: ‘As overall custodian of the development of our strategic programme, I reiterate in very unambiguous terms that there is absolutely no question of sharing or allowing any foreign individual, entity or a state, any access to sensitive information about our nuclear assets. Our engagement with other countries through the International Atomic Energy Agency or bilaterally is to learn more about best practices for security of such assets and are based on two clearly spelt-out red lines —non intrusiveness and our right to pick and choose.’

Gen Majid added: ‘Also, our security apparatus has the capacity and is fully geared to meet all conceivable challenges, therefore we do not need to negotiate with any other country to physically augment our security forces, which in any case, we believe, are more capable than their forces.’

Commenting on the question raised through an article headlined ‘Pakistan nuclear security plan: How much does US really know?’, Gen Majid said: ‘Only as much as they can guess and nothing more’.

Another senior security official said there should be no doubt about the security of nuclear assets. ‘Our nuclear assets are not lying in a showcase that somebody will come and take it away.’

He said the foolproof mechanism was capable of thwarting any internal or external threat to the nuclear assets.

AFP adds: Larry Schwartz, a spokesman at the US embassy in Islamabad, said on Sunday that ‘the United States had no intention to seize Pakistani nuclear weapons or material.

‘Pakistan is a key ally in our common effort to fight violent extremists and foster regional security.’

Courtesy – DAWN NEWS

Vendredi 20 novembre 2009, Rueil-Malmaison

Avec le soutien et la participation du CGDD (Commissariat général au développement durable),  de l’AMF (Association des Maires de France), de l’ADF (Assemblée des Départements de France) et de la SFE (Société Française de l’Évaluation)

Problématique

La conjonction de ces 4èmes Rencontres de Rueil-Malmaison avec la tenue de la Conférence de Copenhague sur le climat, induit à concentrer les travaux sur les engagements auxquels les différents pays s’apprêtent à souscrire. On sait que ces engagements devront être conséquents. Souscrits par les gouvernements, ils impliqueront les acteurs des territoires: entreprises, collectivités et simples citoyens.

Parmi les questions qui se posent, il y a celle de savoir si ces engagements seront bien à la hauteur des défis à relever. Il y a aussi celle de savoir si les territoires seront en mesure d’assumer la charge correspondante.

Comment apprécier «a priori» l’efficience des programmes territoriaux de réduction des gaz à effet de serre (GES)? 

La question est d’autant plus importante que les aides publiques devront aller aux programmes les plus pertinents et ne pas se diluer, alors même que, du fait de la crise économique, tous les territoires sont à la recherche d’investissements susceptibles tout à la fois d’aider l’économie à repartir, de limiter les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et de préparer l’avenir.

Sur le plan méthodologique, cette situation rejoint celle des évaluations «ex ante» auxquelles les porteurs de programmes soutenus par des fonds européens commencent à être habitués, puisqu’il s’agit dans ce cadre de faire la démonstration de la pertinence des actions programmées avant même qu’elles ne soient engagées, ce qui nous éloigne beaucoup de la culture française de l’évaluation ex post. En l’occurrence (Copenhague), la difficulté sera cependant plus grande encore, puisqu’il s’agira de pratiquer des «évaluations prospectives» portant sur des programmes ayant une portée de 10 ou 20 ans.

Mais comment évaluer ex ante les impacts attendus à long terme?

En outre, la pertinence de ces programmes de limitation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES), relèvera non seulement de critères techniques mais également de paramètres relatifs à la qualité des actions d’information, de communication, de concertation, de formation et de mobilisation des acteurs des territoires, en un mot de paramètres de «participation».

Les dispositions techniques et réglementaires sont, sans doute, des dimensions importantes du sujet, mais les comportements et la participation en sont d’autres, au moins aussi importantes et qui répondent à des ressorts complexes mal repérés.

On voit se dégager des questions d’ordre méthodologique:

• Comment évaluer une politique multidimensionnelle ciblée sur un critère dominant (la limitation des émissions de GES), mais faisant place aux critères d’efficacité économique et sociale?
• Peut-on concevoir des indicateurs synthétiques intégrant les paramètres propres au territoire et à ses acteurs? 

Enfin, on sait que parmi les activités humaines contribuant le plus fortement au réchauffement climatique, le chauffage des bâtiments et les transports se trouvent en bonne position. Les villes sont donc des acteurs de premier rang. Comment les aires urbaines vont-elles pouvoir assumer leur part de l’effort? Comment imaginer des politiques et conduire des programmes efficaces de limitation des gaz à effet de serre associant les collectivités, les entreprises et les citoyens? 

La Ville de Rueil-Malmaison, qui est engagée avec celle de Suresnes dans la construction d’une importante et emblématique Communauté d’agglomération, veut lancer la réflexion et la faire partager à ses habitants afin  d’ouvrir le chantier sans tarder.

Ces Rencontres de Rueil-Malmaison, tout en s’adressant à un public de responsables et d’experts, sont également conçues pour intéresser les citoyens engagés dans la vie locale, par exemple à travers des comités de quartier, qui souhaitent s’impliquer dans les actions mises en œuvre par la collectivité pour lutter contre l’effet de serre.

***

Organisation et modalités pratiques

Lieu: Médiathèque Jacques Baumel

15, boulevard du Maréchal Foch (Mairie) – 92 500 Rueil-Malmaison

Horaires Accueil: à partir de 8h15 à l’auditorium de la Médiathèque

Remise des documents – accueil administratif

Allocutions de lancement à 9h00 dans l’amphithéâtre

Clôture à 16h30

Déjeuner: Buffet bio éthique servi dans la salle des mariages de la Mairie

Participation: 50 euros

Renseignements et inscriptions

Le service du Développement Durable de la Mairie de Rueil-Malmaison est à votre disposition pour tout renseignement:

Par téléphone au 01 41 39 08 96

Par télécopie au 01 47 10 01 29

Par e-mail developpementdurable@mairie-rueilmalmaison.fr

By: PakAlert Press

India, Israel linked to Pakistan plot

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI – For the past 23 years, Afghanistan has served as a proxy military playing field for different countries,

including the former Soviet Union, the United States and Pakistan. Now, after a year of the US-led war on terrorism, a new proxy war has begun in Afghanistan, this time aimed at Pakistan and involving the intelligence networks of India and Israel.

It has been learned from highly placed intelligence sources that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel’s Mossad are collaborating to train several hundred militants to be used in an attempt to destabilize the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf.

The sources say that training camps have been established near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, and the eastern city of Jalalabad, which lies close to Pakistan’s western tribal areas. It is said that RAW has arranged most of the “human resources”, while training is the responsibility of the Special Operations Division (Metsada) of Mossad. Metsada generally conducts highly sensitive assassination, sabotage, paramilitary and psychological warfare projects.

Once trained, the recruits will infiltrate the border areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan Province, where they will attempt to forge links with local tribespeople and militants in an effort to rally support for an uprising against Musharraf, who is widely discredited in these regions for abandoning the Taliban and siding with the US in its war on terror. These provinces have a strong pro-Taliban history.

Musharraf’s decision to throw in his lot with the US resulted in pressure from Washington to clamp down on militant organizations and to stem the flow of jihadis from Pakistani soil into Indian-administered Kashmir. And since Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had strong (albeit covert) links with the militant organizations, it was able to bring pressure to bear on the leaders for them to back off for the interim.

However, while most of the leaders of these groups have been ready to cooperate with the military government, some of the rank and file have been less accommodating. Although their numbers are not great – a matter of hundreds – they are still a source of concern to Musharraf as they are fully equipped and trained. Nevertheless, the chaos that had been predicted by many for Pakistan, with disgruntled militant groups causing mayhem, never materialized, largely because of the understanding between the militant groups and the ISI.

The move by RAW and Mossad, as indicated by the intelligence sources, will tap into a large section of the population in NWFP and Balochistan that feels betrayed by Musharraf over his ditching of the Taliban. For India’s part, it hopes to stoke the fires of unrest by using those militants who refuse to muzzle their guns despite the entreaties of their leaders. It has long been India’s desire to portray Pakistan as an unstable country that supports cross-border terrorism into Kashmir in order to gain international support for Delhi’s position on Kashmir – that of staging elections.

In recent times, little-known organizations such as the al-Iqwan and the al-Faran have been the brainchild of RAW, the sources said. These groups have carried out a number of relatively minor incidents in Indian-administered Kashmir, such as kidnapping foreign tourists, which New Delhi has used to back its claim that Kashmiri fighters are international terrorists. These organizations have not been heard of since.

RAW has not been capable of setting up groups to carry out larger incidents without its hand being shown, hence its collaboration with Mossad, which is undoubtedly thoroughly professonal and which is thought to have carried out a number of high-profile incidents without leaving a trail.

Within Pakistan, a few small groups are known to be beyond the control of the Pakistani government. Two of them, the al-Saiqa and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Alami, have revealed themselves through fax messages to newspaper offices in which they have claimed responsibility for incidents.

Al-Saiqa comprises only a handful of men and is based in NWFP. It has claimed responsibility for various attacks on members of different security agencies early this year. More recently, it owned up to an attack on foreign tourists visiting a Buddhist site in NWFP in which a German citizen was killed.

The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Alami is based in the Pakistani port city of Karachi and also comprises only a handful of youths. It is thought to be behind plots to assassinate Musharraf and interior minister Moinuddin Haider.

Similar small groups in Pakistan share the vision of once again turning Pakistan into a paradise for militant groups, and they all operate beyond the apparatus of the Pakistani intelligence network, as well as beyond the control of the mainstream militant groups. All have a footing of some sort in the tribal areas and remote rural regions.

It is into these groups that the new alliance between RAW and Mossad will feed their trained men in the hope of keeping the wheels of unrest moving sufficiently until popular unrest is strong enough to create anarchy in the country.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DJ08Df06.html

(©2002 Asia Times Online Co Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

A newly declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file indicates that an Israeli intelligence agent was among the staff members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“WFO files disclose that AIPAC is a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group staffed by US citizens,” says the August 13, 1984 document- a secret communication from the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) to the FBI director.

“WFO files contain an unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service was a staff member of AIPAC,” it adds.

The secret FBI document was declassified and handed over to the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) after it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

IRmep needed the documents to file a third amicus brief urging Judge T.S. Ellis not to drop the charges brought against AIPAC workers Steve J. Rosen and Keith Weissman under the 1917 Espionage Act.

On May 1, 2009, the Department of Justice dismissed the espionage charges against the two former AIPAC staffers.

Department of Defense Employee Col. Lawrence Franklin who was indicted along with the AIPAC workers in 2005, however, pleaded guilty to the charges, admitting that he had provided classified information about Iran to two AIPAC employees.

Apparently the Israeli agent had promised to facilitate the appointment of Harman as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in exchange for the information.

It is widely believed that the 1984 and 2005 espionage incidents were not isolated events.

As part of a defamation lawsuit he has launched against AIPAC, Rosen intends to show that obtaining and leveraging classified US government information in the service of Israel is common practice at AIPAC.

He claims it was unfair for AIPAC to fire and smear him in the press after he was indicted on espionage charges in 2005. AIPAC lawyers, however, are hoping to get the case thrown out on technicalities before it goes to trial in early 2010.

AIPAC, considered the most powerful and connected lobbying group in Washington, is known for the influence that it holds over US foreign policy.

Former US president Jimmy Carter has also accused AIPAC of putting a great deal of pressure on politicians running for office who do not share AIPAC goals.

We are one month away from the international climate change conference that will be taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark. While there have been numerous meetings since Kyoto in 1997, Copenhagen is the main follow-up to what global standards were put in place with the Kyoto Protocol.

We will be following the news coverage leading up to and during Copenhagen, but we also felt it was important to post several stories about different aspects of climate change and climate justice. These articles will look at the current data, climate deniers, what the US government is doing legislatively and an analysis of what local groups are doing to address or not address climate change.

Climate Deniers

Part of the struggle for climate justice and the fact that there are numerous entities – think tanks and corporate front groups – which deny that global warming is even an issue. These groups are so aggressive with their anti-global warming message that many news stories still include the opinions of climate deniers.

In 2004, Fairness and Accuracy in reporting conducted a study on major US media reporting on global warming and found that “53 percent of the articles gave roughly equal attention to the views that humans contribute to global warming and that climate change is exclusively the result of natural fluctuations.”

Since their 2004 study, FAIR also found that there are several national news pundits who also deny global warming, such as John Stossel (ABC), columnist George Will and Glenn Beck (CNN & FOX).

With Climate Deniers being legitimate news sources and some national media pundits denying global warming, no surprise that more and more people in the US are questioning the near-consensus in the scientific community that human actions are contributing to global warming.

Two weeks ago the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press published the finding of a survey they conducted on the current trends amongst Americans on global warming. As the chart here shows there is a significant percentage of people who don’t believe global warming is an issue and the number of those who think that has risen since 2006.

In addition, there are organizations, which deny global warming, primarily because they represent business interests, which would be negatively impacted from policies that sought to curb human actions that contributed to global warming. One group, the Global Climate Coalition, which no longer exists, was made up of oil companies and other industries, which are arguably some of the biggest contributors to global warming.

These front groups are numerous and tend to be funded by big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil. Exxon-Mobil has spent between $17 – 23 million dollars to fund groups that deny global warming, according to the research done by Exxpose Exxon. Exxon Mobil funded global warming deniers have even come to Grand Rapids. In 2007, Media Mouse reported that the local far-right think tank the Acton Institute brought a global warming denier speaker to town representing the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

This brief look into some of the forces behind climate change denial and how it impacts public perception should give us all concern for how this issue will be dealt with politically in the US and internationally at Copenhagen next month.

From grass-roots to ski-slopes, we’re shifting seamlessly from posts about London’s Bigger Picture to skip off to the New York Public Library Live event this evening (Tuesday 7pm): The Aspen Institute presents Capitalism and the Future, a light pre-dinner aperitif from the Institute’s President, Walter Isaacson, Black Swan author, Nassim Taleb, Harvard economist, Niall Ferguson, Google’s Eric Schmidt and Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

Here’s the third and final installment of Ben Reizenstein’s round up from The Bigger Picture, part of nef’s Day of Interdependence, which took place last weekend in London: 

I don’t catch the name of the woman who is suddenly standing next to the queue, talking to us, her captive audience, about local currencies in the Welsh Valleys.

An hour of time spent ‘volunteering’ gets you a Time Credit note, which you can trade for an hour of someone else’s time, or – and this is the science part – an hour of bingo or opera. In fact, the purchase of bingo and opera, two crucial fibres in the social fabric of rural South Wales, seems to provide a centre of gravity for the local currency and its economy.

Kids who might not be into bingo and opera (philistines) can spend their time credits on an hour of web access at the internet café, so if they want to read this blog, they’ll have to earn credits by helping out at the youth club. And so the local economy and the local community seem to be mutually reinforcing, with the local currency acting as a centripetal force.

As part of the regeneration of deprived post-industrial towns, it’s an exciting, and the experiments in urban areas are also worth keeping an eye on. In the UK, the rather beautiful Brixton Pound and the long-lived Lewes Pound have both faced the problem that they can summon more than face value when sold on ebay. If any major investors are reading this and looking for a new reserve currency…Before I can get carried away by thoughts of major capital inflows to South London’s hippest neighbourhood, another session comes to visit us in the queue.

This time the star speaker is Oliver James, British psychologist and author of the influential Affluenza, which makes the case that the Anglo-American relentless pursuit of wealth is making our societies mentally unwell. I resolve not to try to make a fortune selling local currencies on ebay.

Oliver James is joined by Stewart Wallis, Executive Director of nef, and together they try to persuade the queue that the recession is a hopeful moment, in which the absurdities and cruelties of a generation are being exposed. It can’t be too long, the speakers agree, before people start to stand up to the vested interests already trying to re-inflate the bubble economy.

I don’t mean to complain, but given that I’ve been standing up since the early morning, and it’s nearly 6pm, and given that we’re all here ready and willing to overthrow the old guard, it’s slightly disappointing that we’re not being incited to revolt here and now, in a queue in the rain under the OXO tower – a vignette almost worthy of V for Vendetta. Instead, we get the deferred promise of inevitable, significant, society-wide change. It sits uneasily with the localism agendas that have formed the largest part of The Bigger Picture so far. If anything, I realise, that has been the lesson of today’s festival – if we want a big change, we may have to start out small.