More Than Meets The Eye

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This may seem to be a story about goings-on in a far distant land, but then again some of the implications may arrive a lot nearer home than we may like to admit. Most of you will have noticed that in recent days the press has been full of material about a Japanese pensions scandal. Without getting bogged-down in the minutiae, the key point seems to be that various politicians haven’t exactly been paying their dues. Now where’s the big deal in this you might ask………. well the problem is that a not insignificant number of Japanese citzens already believed before the scandal broke that the fund wouldn’t live to see the day when current contributions could be recovered in the form of benefits.

Now they have simply discovered that many of those responsible for running the thing have also come to the same conclusion….
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Die Wacht an der Oder

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Worried grumbling is a bit of a national sport here in Germany, and let me just say as a spectator that the game has rarely been as good as it is right now. Tune in any Sunday night to Christiansen for an action-packed match. Or, if you haven’t the time, let me give you a pr?cis that fairly sums up pretty much every week’s exchange:

Sabine Christiansen: We desperately need to reform, yet we can’t. Why not?

CDU/CSU/FDP (to SPD/Greens): it’s your lot’s fault.

SPD/Greens (to CDU/CSU/FDP): no, it’s your lot’s fault.

[repeat ad nauseam, week in, week out.]

Far be it from me to stand in the CDU’s corner. Still, as it’s the SPD that is in government, it’s they who’ll receive my brickbats for the moment. So here I go, nervously mindful that the only likely result is Scott von M. pounding me on the head while Edward edges carefully away, lest he be branded a neo-liberal by association.
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I’ll be darned

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They did it.

Organizers of this summer’s Olympic Games in Athens have breathed a sigh of relief after the main stadium’s roof began its long-awaited slide into position. …

The IOC had given the Greek government until May 20 to slide into place the two huge arches — or abandon the project.

The project, which has already missed one “final deadline” on April 28, was the latest to cause concern as the Greek capital races to finish work on dozens of Olympic venues ahead of the opening ceremony on August 13.

Yes, yes, I know, every Olympics has this sort of moment. It’s just that Athens, which was a bit shaky to begin with, has had more than most and still has heaps to do.

Should be quite a summer.

Everything It Appears To Be?

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The revelation yesterday that the EU was planning to offer to eliminate its agricultural export subsidies in an attempt to revive progress in the Doha world-trade round may not be all it appears to be. Astute readers of my post yesterday on China’s global impact may have noted the following:

“In the first place the Common Agricultural Policy, whose funds have long been directed to supporting farmers from prices which were considered to be too low, may find them increasingly committed towards protecting urban consumers from the consequences of world foodstuff prices which are considered to be too high. In the process the whole debate about farm subsidies may take a new and unexpected turn”.

Believe it or not I actually wrote this before the announcement. If this is right, the new and unexpected turn is not a matter of generousity, but of a changed reality (like half-empty grain silos across the planet). Cancelling subsidies may be no great sacrifice since there may not be too many to cancel: the CAP fund allocation can be eaten-up keeping the price of bread and other staples down.

Adequacy? Maybe Not Quite.

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It had already been assumed that the European Commission and the Council of Ministers would go ahead with the EU-US airline data (PNR) transfer agreement (.pdf) despite the European Parliament’s decisison to wait for a Court of Justice ruling. But now Edward Hasbrouck has it in writing: according to a US Department of Homeland Security transcript of a joint press conference with US Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, European Commissioner of Justice and Home Affairs, Antonio Vitorino apparently answered to the question whether he knew how to proceed if the court decision would (as expected) deem the EU-US agreement in violation of EU data protection regulations (and possibly in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) –

“Well, first of all, I would like to clarify that the conclusion of this process has not yet been done. And this week, the Commission will take a decision on Wednesday. And next Monday, the Council of Ministers will take the final decision. I don’t want to anticipate those decisions, but likely those decisions will be in favor in the sense to go ahead with the adequacy finding statement and with the international agreement. That will most likely change the nature of the case, the court case, that has been raised by the Parliament. But I see no obstacles for the proceedings, according to what has been agreed, until the court takes a position in some time.”

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All Along The Watchtower

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“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief”

Not in Namangan Viloyati (Uzbekistan) you’d have thought there wasn’t. But again I am obviously wrong. Man – sorry person – hole covers have been disappearing all over the Namangan region according to this link-up I’ve just discovered with the Argus.

The global watchtower at work again. If you want to know what globalisation 3.0 is all about, then here you have it. But I don’t know which of the two is the more symbolically significant detail: the scrap metal dirty dealings in Chust or the tooing-and-frowing of this little meme.

Grainy Problems

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Have you checked the manhole covers in your street lately? Maybe it would be a good idea to take a quick look: just in case. The reason this might be an advisable course of action is that hot on the heels of those other two Asian scare stories ? Sars, and chicken flu ? comes a new one: manhole-cover theft. The latest to be hit was the UK city of Gloucester, where a sudden wave of ?heavy-metal crime? left the city?s streets with 40 top-less manholes. But this unusual craze has in fact had a global reach, with cases stretching from Milwaukee, to Taegu in South Korea to Shanghai, China. And the cause of it all: rising metal prices as the needs of Chinese industrialisation and development hit the realities of a supply constrained world. In fact while China previously exported much of its steel to the US, it is now buying up US scrap metal for its own steel consumption. As a result worldwide scrap metal prices have almost doubled in the last 6 months, and it is this price explosion which has produced the sudden surge in activity on the manhole front.
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