In 2009 I began the year by attempting to bring attention to the plight of indigenous Australians - as downtrodden and disenfranchised a group as I have encountered - and ended it discussing issues of freedom of expression, secularism and women’s rights with a Bangladeshi author here in Europe. It was, as it turned out, a year during which I had the opportunity to visit a place that I had long wanted to see but never thought I would be able to get to (Papua New Guinea) and returned to my first love, Haiti, for the first time in three years, only to find it dishearteningly poised to lurch away from tentative progress to yet another politically-inspired crisis.
It was a year that began with great hope as we watched Barack Obama, whose candidacy I strongly supported, inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, and ended with more trepidation in the wake of the strong whiff of violence, racism and xenophobia that characterized opposition to Obama’s plan to reform America’s broken healthcare system, and the sober realization that 30,000 more American troops would be sent into harm’s way in Afghanistan in the coming months.
As the whittling down of serious, investigative foreign coverage became ever more dire, I found myself speaking to audiences at places such as the Florida International University in Miami, and the Indonesian Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Denpasar, Bali, wondering aloud what the future holds for a profession in which many of those in positions of power have become ever-more timid in the face of demands that the news business serve as little more than light entertainment for an otherwise-occupied populace.
Since I began reporting professionally a decade ago, I have never for a moment doubted the value of independent journalism, and how it gives voice to suffering and helps to advance the concerns of the disenfranchised in the global discussion of their fate. I have always believed that the highest goal the profession can have, and the reason that we ultimately have to exist as journalists, is to serve the people, not to repeat what the powerful would have us say.
Those wanting to stifle debate about important issues come in many guises, whether as executives of rapacious big-businesses, or as well-heeled intellectuals who seek to deform the struggles of places as complex as Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo to fit into their own narrow and often dilettantish understanding of the world. But I continue to believe that we as journalists, whatever the cost and whatever the financial and societal pressures we may feel, must continue to work for the poor majority that make up this world and whom, in my experience reporting now for a decade from six continents, want little more than an honest wage and a decent government for all their hard labours.
It is to those people who took time to speak with me this year - people such as the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara of Borroloola in Australia’s Northern Territory, and the peasants of Haiti’s Artibonite Valley - that I dedicate these articles, and with them my hope for a gentler, more human and more just 2010.
Much love,
MD
Women’s untold stories: A Conversation with Taslima Nasrin for Le Monde diplomatique (5 November 2009)
A few notes on the dismissal of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis for AlterPresse (3 November 2009)
A conflict of interests: Corruption case against three African leaders throws into question economic relationships between developed countries and former colonies for Foreign Direct Investment (15 October 2009)
Haiti: Back to life for Foreign Direct Investment (15 October 2009)
Challenges to Haiti’s Security Gains: An Address to the Applied Research Center and the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University for AlterPresse (10 October 2009)
Haiti: "We Have Never Had Justice" for the Inter Press Service (21 July 2009)
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti for the Washington Times (19 July 2009)
Haiti: Deportees from U.S. Face Culture Shock, Retain Hope for the Inter Press Service (8 July 2009)
"The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti": Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis for the Inter Press Service (3 July 2009)
Measuring the Drowned and the Saved in Sudan: A Review of Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors : Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror for the Social Science Research Council (15 June 2009)
Manufactured diversity: Economies of North Africa’s Maghreb region are branching out into manufacturing as the demand for hydrocarbon exports continues to decline for Foreign Direct Investment (12 June 2009)
Papua New Guinea: Time to explore for Foreign Direct Investment (12 June 2009)
More Calls to Ban Zimbabwe’s Blood Diamonds for the Inter Press Service (24 May 2009)
The Final Testament of Rodrigo Rosenberg for the World Policy Journal (15 May 2009)
World crisis spurs protest from French workers for the Washington Times (11 May 2009)
A Note on Violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University for the World Policy Journal (4 May 2009)
‘‘King of Kings’’ Gaddafi Tries to Flex Regional Muscles for the Inter Press Service (24 April 2009)
Australia’s Parched Landscape for the World Policy Journal, (26 February 2009)
Bone dry to blazing in Australia for the Washington Times (20 February 2009)
Xstrata Dreaming: The Struggle of Aboriginal Australians against a Swiss Mining Giant for CorpWatch (16 February 2009)
Echoes of Obama on Australia Day for the World Policy Journal (26 January 2009)
Selectively shrugging off world conflicts: A review of Stealth Conflicts: How the World's Worst Violence is Ignored for the Miami Herald (20 January 2009)
Drugs vs. Democracy in Guatemala for the World Policy Journal (Winter 2008/09)
Politics of brutality: A review of An Encounter with Haiti for the Miami Herald (4 January 2009)
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
A note of apology to Noel Nannup and the Nyoongar people
As a journalist who generally tries to cover matters of relevance to the disenfranchised and dispossessed of the world, I generally don’t delve into the genre of travel writing. To me, stories of wealthy airheads sunning themselves in day spas as the world goes up in flames around them are somewhat less compelling than such topics as, say, the use of natural resources to fuel conflict, or the struggles of fragile civil societies to create more democratic, responsive and humane nations, often against great odds.
However, when I was approached by Ink Publishing to pen an article for Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine of United Airlines, on the vast expanse of Western Australia, with the promise that the article would be an opportunity to do something different rather than traditional travel writing, I thought of it as an opportunity not to be missed. As I have observed before, during my four months in Australia, I was extremely disturbed by what I found to be a hard kernel of racism and xenophobia that I found there, not only in relatively remote regions such as the Northern Territory and Western Australia, but also in urban centres such as Sydney. Not to tar an entire nation based on my personal experiences, but, having traveled to New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, I found both the pervasiveness and the intensity of such sentiments among the local population frankly shocking. I also found the level of poverty, disenfranchisement and exploitation among Australia’s indigenous inhabitants, commonly referred to as Aborigines, as bad as nearly anything I had seen while reporting form Africa, a continent where I covered civil wars.
I had several indigenous Australians who were extremely helpful to me in my understanding of the complex reality of modern Australia: Northern Land Council chief executive Kim Hill, representative for Arnhem in the Northern Territory government Malarndirri McCarthy, Alan Pigram of the renowned Pigram Brothers band, and Nyoongar elder Noel Nannup, to name a few. The last two individuals featured prominently in the article that I penned for Ink Publishing, as both are, in their own ways, symbolic of the unique nature of Western Australia, Alan Pigram through his musical accomplishments in the remote northwestern town of Broome, and Noel Nannup as a riveting tour guide on Rottnest Island, a former prison for indigenous Australians that should, thankfully, pass back into the hands of its traditional (Aboriginal) owners in the near future.
Given the great respect I have for indigenous Australian history and culture, I was therefore startled and dismayed to discover that, during the editorial process of my article at Ink Publishing, someone at the magazine had apparently created out of whole cloth quotes from Mr. Nannup that were never said by him, and which never appeared in either of the two drafts of the article that I sent to the magazine.
In the story as it was published, Mr. Nannup is quoted as follows:
“You might call its past checkered,” he says slowly. “Long before it was this magical place, it was the worst kind of prison.”
Mr. Nannup never said those words to me nor, I am now reasonably certain, to anyone at the magazine connected with the article.
In the second troubling instance, the article quotes Mr. Nannup as saying the following:
“Of the 3,700 of my people who were brought out to the island, at least 364 are known to have died in prison,” Nannup says. “Sadly, the total is believed to have been many more.”
Nannup never said those words to me. In the article as I sent it to Ink Publishing, I wrote the following:
Behind the hospital, there is a large, unmarked burial ground of windblown sand and a handful of lonely trees, a place that is heavily melancholy in feeling beneath an early autumn sun. Exploration by traditional owners with a Global Positioning System located close to 400 separate cavities in the ground of the cemetery before the project ran out of funding. Of the 3,700 indigenous brought out to the island, at least 364 are known to have died in prison, though the total is believed to have been many more.
Asked if Noel Nannup said these words in some sort of later telephone interview with editors at Ink Publishing after the article was submitted, the response I received from my editor thee, was as follows:
The second point is an editing error. The first point, I’m looking into.
Up to this point, and despite ample evidence that the publication attributed words to an interview subject that appeared nowhere in the actual reporting of the piece itself, the publishing house has been unwilling to correct these erroneous quotations. This has never happened to me before in my decade as a journalist.
Acutely aware of how indigenous people are often brazenly misquoted by journalists, I did my best in the writing of the piece to adhere to my practice of close sound-recording of my interviews and meticulous note-taking, so as to accurately represent the situation of the Nyoongar and other indigenous people in Western Australia. The perplexing behavior of the editors at Ink Publishing once the article left my hands was not, I confess, a potential complication that had occurred to me while doing so.
Though the editors at Ink Publishing may feel themselves above such concerns as bearing a certain amount of responsibility to the subjects whose stories appear in their pages, as a journalist with a finely honed sense of justice and injustice, I believe that the magazine owed the indigenous people of Australia, who have been so maligned and mistreated throughout the history of white settlement of the country, a more conscientious dedication to the facts than they have shown. Therefore, for my part and for the public record, I apologize to Noel Nannup and the Nyoongar people for being prevented, through shoddy editing, from telling their story with the accuracy and transparency that I bring to my non-travel reporting. Quite simply, they deserve better, and it is a shame that Ink Publishing could not give it to them.
Stay strong in Western Australia. Where the rain falls, the water flows. So does the spirit.
However, when I was approached by Ink Publishing to pen an article for Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine of United Airlines, on the vast expanse of Western Australia, with the promise that the article would be an opportunity to do something different rather than traditional travel writing, I thought of it as an opportunity not to be missed. As I have observed before, during my four months in Australia, I was extremely disturbed by what I found to be a hard kernel of racism and xenophobia that I found there, not only in relatively remote regions such as the Northern Territory and Western Australia, but also in urban centres such as Sydney. Not to tar an entire nation based on my personal experiences, but, having traveled to New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, I found both the pervasiveness and the intensity of such sentiments among the local population frankly shocking. I also found the level of poverty, disenfranchisement and exploitation among Australia’s indigenous inhabitants, commonly referred to as Aborigines, as bad as nearly anything I had seen while reporting form Africa, a continent where I covered civil wars.
I had several indigenous Australians who were extremely helpful to me in my understanding of the complex reality of modern Australia: Northern Land Council chief executive Kim Hill, representative for Arnhem in the Northern Territory government Malarndirri McCarthy, Alan Pigram of the renowned Pigram Brothers band, and Nyoongar elder Noel Nannup, to name a few. The last two individuals featured prominently in the article that I penned for Ink Publishing, as both are, in their own ways, symbolic of the unique nature of Western Australia, Alan Pigram through his musical accomplishments in the remote northwestern town of Broome, and Noel Nannup as a riveting tour guide on Rottnest Island, a former prison for indigenous Australians that should, thankfully, pass back into the hands of its traditional (Aboriginal) owners in the near future.
Given the great respect I have for indigenous Australian history and culture, I was therefore startled and dismayed to discover that, during the editorial process of my article at Ink Publishing, someone at the magazine had apparently created out of whole cloth quotes from Mr. Nannup that were never said by him, and which never appeared in either of the two drafts of the article that I sent to the magazine.
In the story as it was published, Mr. Nannup is quoted as follows:
“You might call its past checkered,” he says slowly. “Long before it was this magical place, it was the worst kind of prison.”
Mr. Nannup never said those words to me nor, I am now reasonably certain, to anyone at the magazine connected with the article.
In the second troubling instance, the article quotes Mr. Nannup as saying the following:
“Of the 3,700 of my people who were brought out to the island, at least 364 are known to have died in prison,” Nannup says. “Sadly, the total is believed to have been many more.”
Nannup never said those words to me. In the article as I sent it to Ink Publishing, I wrote the following:
Behind the hospital, there is a large, unmarked burial ground of windblown sand and a handful of lonely trees, a place that is heavily melancholy in feeling beneath an early autumn sun. Exploration by traditional owners with a Global Positioning System located close to 400 separate cavities in the ground of the cemetery before the project ran out of funding. Of the 3,700 indigenous brought out to the island, at least 364 are known to have died in prison, though the total is believed to have been many more.
Asked if Noel Nannup said these words in some sort of later telephone interview with editors at Ink Publishing after the article was submitted, the response I received from my editor thee, was as follows:
The second point is an editing error. The first point, I’m looking into.
Up to this point, and despite ample evidence that the publication attributed words to an interview subject that appeared nowhere in the actual reporting of the piece itself, the publishing house has been unwilling to correct these erroneous quotations. This has never happened to me before in my decade as a journalist.
Acutely aware of how indigenous people are often brazenly misquoted by journalists, I did my best in the writing of the piece to adhere to my practice of close sound-recording of my interviews and meticulous note-taking, so as to accurately represent the situation of the Nyoongar and other indigenous people in Western Australia. The perplexing behavior of the editors at Ink Publishing once the article left my hands was not, I confess, a potential complication that had occurred to me while doing so.
Though the editors at Ink Publishing may feel themselves above such concerns as bearing a certain amount of responsibility to the subjects whose stories appear in their pages, as a journalist with a finely honed sense of justice and injustice, I believe that the magazine owed the indigenous people of Australia, who have been so maligned and mistreated throughout the history of white settlement of the country, a more conscientious dedication to the facts than they have shown. Therefore, for my part and for the public record, I apologize to Noel Nannup and the Nyoongar people for being prevented, through shoddy editing, from telling their story with the accuracy and transparency that I bring to my non-travel reporting. Quite simply, they deserve better, and it is a shame that Ink Publishing could not give it to them.
Stay strong in Western Australia. Where the rain falls, the water flows. So does the spirit.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Michael Deibert interviewed on KDVS
An interview that I did a few weeks ago with KDVS host France Kassing was broadcast today on her Davis, California-based program It's About You. We touched on quite a few subjects including the situation with the McArthur River Mine in Australia, the effect of drug-related violence on the political process in Guatemala and, as ever, Haiti. Please listen to the full interview here.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Michael Deibert: Australia’s Parched Landscape
Michael Deibert: Australia’s Parched Landscape
February 26th, 2009
(This posting originally appeared on the blog of the World Policy Journal, and can be read in its original form here)
When Australia was ravaged by wildfires that killed over 200 people earlier this month, the acts of arson that police suspect were behind at least some of the blazes were made even worse by the decade-long dry spell the country has been enduring.
Though this heavily eroded and sparsely populated continent has experienced two other major droughts over the last century, both the intensity and duration of the current lack of rainfall has scientists worried that the country’s environment may be permanently shifting to a drier regime.
The Murray-Darling Basin—a river system in the southeast that drains one-seventh of Australia’s land mass—has been particularly hard hit, with official figures showing that, from 2006 until 2007, the amount of water flow into the basin was just 1,000 gigaliters. Normal inflows into the basin previously measured about 10,000 gigaliters a year. From 2007 until 2008 it improved marginally to a still-meager 3,000 gigaliters. The region had record low inflows of water between 2006 and 2008, with the inflows for 2006-2007 less than 60 percent of the previous minimum—a figure based on 117 years of records. Helping to irrigate such states such as Victoria, the site of the worst wildfires, as well as New South Wales and Queensland, the basin was once wet enough to irrigate crops that produced 1.2 million metric tons of rice. Last year, the rice harvest fell to 18,000 metric tons.
Across southern Australia, scientists have also witnessed an intensification of the subtropical ridge phenomenon, a swath of high pressure characterized by a reduction in the amount of rainfall in autumn and late winter. The expansion of the ridge has been closely linked to global warming.
What has the Australian government’s response been to this growing disaster? Not much, it appears.
Though a 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that by 2030 “water security problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia,” and recommended a worldwide reduction in carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, Australian environmentalists were outraged when the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that included a far more modest cut of 5 percent to 15 percent by 2020.
The Rudd government conditioned cuts beyond that level to government demands for a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as exemptions for energy-intensive industries in a broad carbon trading arrangement. Compensation for electricity producers and users was also an attached condition.
Subsequent research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment advisory firm, estimated that in the first year of the CPRS, $939 million of aid would go to the aluminum smelting industry, $297 million to petroleum refiners, $261 million to steel makers, $182 million to natural gas producers, and $157 million to cement makers. Companies such as Rio Tinto, Alcoa, and Woodside stand to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the system.
With a relatively small population of slightly more than 20 million for a land mass nearly as large as the United States, Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse emission rates in the thirty-member Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), chiefly due to the country’s intensive use of coal.
Australia emits 28.1 tons of carbon per person into the atmosphere, five times greater than the per person total for China.
With the European Union having recently adopted a goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, one must hope that Australia’s environmental lobby will succeed in pressuring the Rudd government to adopt a more aggressive approach to combating Australia’s contribution to climate change, and to help move to heal the continent’s already-ravaged environment.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press). He last wrote for the World Policy Journal from Guatemala.
February 26th, 2009
(This posting originally appeared on the blog of the World Policy Journal, and can be read in its original form here)
When Australia was ravaged by wildfires that killed over 200 people earlier this month, the acts of arson that police suspect were behind at least some of the blazes were made even worse by the decade-long dry spell the country has been enduring.
Though this heavily eroded and sparsely populated continent has experienced two other major droughts over the last century, both the intensity and duration of the current lack of rainfall has scientists worried that the country’s environment may be permanently shifting to a drier regime.
The Murray-Darling Basin—a river system in the southeast that drains one-seventh of Australia’s land mass—has been particularly hard hit, with official figures showing that, from 2006 until 2007, the amount of water flow into the basin was just 1,000 gigaliters. Normal inflows into the basin previously measured about 10,000 gigaliters a year. From 2007 until 2008 it improved marginally to a still-meager 3,000 gigaliters. The region had record low inflows of water between 2006 and 2008, with the inflows for 2006-2007 less than 60 percent of the previous minimum—a figure based on 117 years of records. Helping to irrigate such states such as Victoria, the site of the worst wildfires, as well as New South Wales and Queensland, the basin was once wet enough to irrigate crops that produced 1.2 million metric tons of rice. Last year, the rice harvest fell to 18,000 metric tons.
Across southern Australia, scientists have also witnessed an intensification of the subtropical ridge phenomenon, a swath of high pressure characterized by a reduction in the amount of rainfall in autumn and late winter. The expansion of the ridge has been closely linked to global warming.
What has the Australian government’s response been to this growing disaster? Not much, it appears.
Though a 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that by 2030 “water security problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia,” and recommended a worldwide reduction in carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, Australian environmentalists were outraged when the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that included a far more modest cut of 5 percent to 15 percent by 2020.
The Rudd government conditioned cuts beyond that level to government demands for a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as exemptions for energy-intensive industries in a broad carbon trading arrangement. Compensation for electricity producers and users was also an attached condition.
Subsequent research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment advisory firm, estimated that in the first year of the CPRS, $939 million of aid would go to the aluminum smelting industry, $297 million to petroleum refiners, $261 million to steel makers, $182 million to natural gas producers, and $157 million to cement makers. Companies such as Rio Tinto, Alcoa, and Woodside stand to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the system.
With a relatively small population of slightly more than 20 million for a land mass nearly as large as the United States, Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse emission rates in the thirty-member Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), chiefly due to the country’s intensive use of coal.
Australia emits 28.1 tons of carbon per person into the atmosphere, five times greater than the per person total for China.
With the European Union having recently adopted a goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, one must hope that Australia’s environmental lobby will succeed in pressuring the Rudd government to adopt a more aggressive approach to combating Australia’s contribution to climate change, and to help move to heal the continent’s already-ravaged environment.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press). He last wrote for the World Policy Journal from Guatemala.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Bone dry to blazing in Australia
Friday, February 20, 2009
Bone dry to blazing in Australia
By Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
SYDNEY, Australia
The combination of Australia's worst-ever wildfires at a time when the nation is suffering its worst drought on record has fueled an intense debate on the effects of climate change in this vast and sparsely populated continent.
Officials say that at least some of the fires, which have killed more than 200 people, were the result of arson. But the fires were made worse by a decade-long dry spell, which has outstripped previous droughts going back at least a century.
Far from being a temporary lack of rainfall, it is a phenomenon that has observers worried that Australia might be witnessing a permanent altering of its environment, with the Murray-Darling Basin - a river system in the southeast that drains one-seventh of Australia's land mass - being particularly hard hit.
"While rainfall might be about the same as during the previous two droughts, the inflows into the river system are much lower, and a fair bit of the cause of that is linked to global warming," said Wendy Craik, chief executive for the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.
The commission has existed in some form or another for most of the past hundred years.
"There has been quite a shift in autumn rainfall," Ms. Craik said. "Before, it would wet the catchment, and when it rained in winter, we would get runoff into the system. Now, when you do get rain, it just sucks into a very dry catchment and you don't get the runoff."
As an inter-jurisdictional venture between four states, the region of Australia's capital, Canberra, and the federal government, figures collected by the commission in recent years have proved especially alarming.
Helping to water such states such as Victoria, the site of the wildfires, as well as New South Wales and Queensland, the Murray-Darling Basin was once wet enough to irrigate crops that produced 1.2 million metric tons of rice. Last year, the rice harvest fell to 18,000 metric tons.
Once fertile scrubland has become cracked and arid desert.
Commission figures show that the region had record low inflows of water between 2006 and 2008, with the inflows for 2006-2007 less than 60 percent of the previous minimum - a figure based on 117 years of records.
Whereas the normal inflows have measured about 10,000 gigaliters a year, from 2006 until 2007 the amount was just 1,000 gigaliters. From 2007 until 2008 it improved marginally to a still-meager 3,000 gigaliters.
Last year, the state of South Australia, the country's driest, was forced to purchase water from other states for the first time in its history to ensure that it would have enough water to meets its basic needs.
Late last year, the federal government announced it was assuming full control of the commission for the first time in the body's history.
Beyond the crop-growing regions of southern Australia, the effects of the drought have been felt as far north as the coastal city of Brisbane, hundreds of miles away, with residents forbidden from watering lawns, washing cars or using water for many other activities without a government permit.
"Extended periods of lack of rainfall have occurred in the past, but the difference we are seeing with this drought is that the impacts on hydrology seem to be much more severe than what we experienced before," said Ian Smith, coordinator of the South East Australia Climate Initiative with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency.
"The temperatures are warmer and that has exacerbated the effect on runoff into dams and rivers," Mr. Smith said. "The [low] inflows into the system are unprecedented, and that's the thing that we're worried about."
In southern Australia there has been an intensification of the phenomenon known as the subtropical ridge, a swath of high pressure characterized by a reduction in the amount of rainfall in autumn and late winter. The expansion of the ridge has been closely linked by many scientists to global warming.
The debate about the drought also has a political dimension.
A 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that by 2030, "water security problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia." The report recommended a worldwide reduction in carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Australian environmentalists were subsequently outraged when the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that included a far more modest cut of 5 percent to 15 percent by 2020.
Cuts beyond that level were tied to government demands for a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as exemptions for energy-intensive industries in a broad carbon trading arrangement. Compensation for electricity producers and users was also an attached condition
By contrast, the European Union recently adopted a goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020.
A December Australian government white paper struck a cautious tone on the issue of climate change, saying that the country's most emissions-intensive industries would be given "assistance in as practical and effective a fashion as possible," but that the government would "explicitly support" the continued growth of such industries.
Subsequent research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment advisory firm, estimated that in the first year of the CPRS, $939 million of aid would go to the aluminum smelting industry, $297 million to petroleum refiners, $261 million to steel makers, $182 million to natural gas producers and $157 million to cement makers.
Companies such as Rio Tinto, Alcoa and Woodside stand to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the system, the investment firm says.
With a relatively small population of slightly more than 20 million for a land mass nearly as large as the United States, Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse emission rates in the 30-member Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), chiefly due to the country's intensive use of coal.
Australia emits 28.1 tons of carbon per person into the atmosphere, five times greater than the per person total for China.
Many Australians fear that their country may be heading toward a largely rainless future.
"There is massive stress, uncertainly and fear," said Mike Young, executive director of the Water Economics and Management program at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in South Australia. "There is a difference between a drought and what we're experiencing, which looks like a shift to a drier regime."
"We're in uncharted policy territory, and we're dealing with things with which we've had no previous experience," he said.
Bone dry to blazing in Australia
By Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
SYDNEY, Australia
The combination of Australia's worst-ever wildfires at a time when the nation is suffering its worst drought on record has fueled an intense debate on the effects of climate change in this vast and sparsely populated continent.
Officials say that at least some of the fires, which have killed more than 200 people, were the result of arson. But the fires were made worse by a decade-long dry spell, which has outstripped previous droughts going back at least a century.
Far from being a temporary lack of rainfall, it is a phenomenon that has observers worried that Australia might be witnessing a permanent altering of its environment, with the Murray-Darling Basin - a river system in the southeast that drains one-seventh of Australia's land mass - being particularly hard hit.
"While rainfall might be about the same as during the previous two droughts, the inflows into the river system are much lower, and a fair bit of the cause of that is linked to global warming," said Wendy Craik, chief executive for the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.
The commission has existed in some form or another for most of the past hundred years.
"There has been quite a shift in autumn rainfall," Ms. Craik said. "Before, it would wet the catchment, and when it rained in winter, we would get runoff into the system. Now, when you do get rain, it just sucks into a very dry catchment and you don't get the runoff."
As an inter-jurisdictional venture between four states, the region of Australia's capital, Canberra, and the federal government, figures collected by the commission in recent years have proved especially alarming.
Helping to water such states such as Victoria, the site of the wildfires, as well as New South Wales and Queensland, the Murray-Darling Basin was once wet enough to irrigate crops that produced 1.2 million metric tons of rice. Last year, the rice harvest fell to 18,000 metric tons.
Once fertile scrubland has become cracked and arid desert.
Commission figures show that the region had record low inflows of water between 2006 and 2008, with the inflows for 2006-2007 less than 60 percent of the previous minimum - a figure based on 117 years of records.
Whereas the normal inflows have measured about 10,000 gigaliters a year, from 2006 until 2007 the amount was just 1,000 gigaliters. From 2007 until 2008 it improved marginally to a still-meager 3,000 gigaliters.
Last year, the state of South Australia, the country's driest, was forced to purchase water from other states for the first time in its history to ensure that it would have enough water to meets its basic needs.
Late last year, the federal government announced it was assuming full control of the commission for the first time in the body's history.
Beyond the crop-growing regions of southern Australia, the effects of the drought have been felt as far north as the coastal city of Brisbane, hundreds of miles away, with residents forbidden from watering lawns, washing cars or using water for many other activities without a government permit.
"Extended periods of lack of rainfall have occurred in the past, but the difference we are seeing with this drought is that the impacts on hydrology seem to be much more severe than what we experienced before," said Ian Smith, coordinator of the South East Australia Climate Initiative with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency.
"The temperatures are warmer and that has exacerbated the effect on runoff into dams and rivers," Mr. Smith said. "The [low] inflows into the system are unprecedented, and that's the thing that we're worried about."
In southern Australia there has been an intensification of the phenomenon known as the subtropical ridge, a swath of high pressure characterized by a reduction in the amount of rainfall in autumn and late winter. The expansion of the ridge has been closely linked by many scientists to global warming.
The debate about the drought also has a political dimension.
A 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that by 2030, "water security problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia." The report recommended a worldwide reduction in carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Australian environmentalists were subsequently outraged when the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that included a far more modest cut of 5 percent to 15 percent by 2020.
Cuts beyond that level were tied to government demands for a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as exemptions for energy-intensive industries in a broad carbon trading arrangement. Compensation for electricity producers and users was also an attached condition
By contrast, the European Union recently adopted a goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020.
A December Australian government white paper struck a cautious tone on the issue of climate change, saying that the country's most emissions-intensive industries would be given "assistance in as practical and effective a fashion as possible," but that the government would "explicitly support" the continued growth of such industries.
Subsequent research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment advisory firm, estimated that in the first year of the CPRS, $939 million of aid would go to the aluminum smelting industry, $297 million to petroleum refiners, $261 million to steel makers, $182 million to natural gas producers and $157 million to cement makers.
Companies such as Rio Tinto, Alcoa and Woodside stand to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the system, the investment firm says.
With a relatively small population of slightly more than 20 million for a land mass nearly as large as the United States, Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse emission rates in the 30-member Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), chiefly due to the country's intensive use of coal.
Australia emits 28.1 tons of carbon per person into the atmosphere, five times greater than the per person total for China.
Many Australians fear that their country may be heading toward a largely rainless future.
"There is massive stress, uncertainly and fear," said Mike Young, executive director of the Water Economics and Management program at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in South Australia. "There is a difference between a drought and what we're experiencing, which looks like a shift to a drier regime."
"We're in uncharted policy territory, and we're dealing with things with which we've had no previous experience," he said.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Xstrata Dreaming: The Struggle of Aboriginal Australians against a Swiss Mining Giant
Xstrata Dreaming: The Struggle of Aboriginal Australians against a Swiss Mining Giant
by Michael Deibert, Special to CorpWatch
February 16th, 2009
The McArthur River winds through Australia's remote Northern Territory creating lush floodplains that sustain vast herds of kangaroos, wallabies and cattle. Above them, finches, wild turkeys, and flocks of migratory birds fill an endless sky. The area around the river, which runs 300 kilometers before emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria, also provides spiritual sustenance to the region's four main Aboriginal linguistic groups: the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara.
Australia's indigenous culture is among the oldest continuously existing communities in the world, and one whose spiritual cosmology, known as the Dreamtime, ties its members closely to the land of their ancestors. At once a mythical time of creation and a present-day spiritual cycle, the Dreamtime includes such totemic animals as the Rainbow Snake, the Turtle and the Alligator. Rituals in tribute to these symbolic guides and protectors must be performed at certain times and in specific places around the expanse of this immense but sparsely populated continent.
Despite the region's glaring lack of basic services, education and employment opportunities, Aboriginal residents value the McArthur River area for its spiritual wealth. But a multinational mining company's pursuit of material riches threatens the core of this already beleaguered culture. In the 1950s, Mount Isa Mines (MIM), a mining concern based in neighboring Queensland state, discovered vast lead, silver and zinc deposits beneath and around the river, and conducted extensive exploratory drilling and feasibility studies.
The Yanyuwa had lived in the region for millennia and were able to legally claim the land in 1977 under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, which allows indigenous people to establish ownership of land based on traditional occupation. Nonetheless, MIM, which by then had been operating in the area for three decades, began underground mining activities along the river in 1995.
In 2003, the government of the Northern Territory approved MIM's application to transition from underground to above-ground ("open-cut") mining, a process involving the diversion of the McArthur River. A short time later, MIM sold its operations to Switzerland-based Xstrata Plc, Europe's largest zinc producer. Described on the company's website as "a global diversified mining group" with a "meaningful position in seven major international commodity markets: copper, coking coal, thermal coal, ferrochrome, nickel, vanadium, and zinc," Xstrata has operations that span 18 countries.
Now, as full owners of McArthur River Mining Pty Ltd, Xstrata is authorized to extract 43 million tons of the resource over the next 20 years.
Read the full article here.
by Michael Deibert, Special to CorpWatch
February 16th, 2009
The McArthur River winds through Australia's remote Northern Territory creating lush floodplains that sustain vast herds of kangaroos, wallabies and cattle. Above them, finches, wild turkeys, and flocks of migratory birds fill an endless sky. The area around the river, which runs 300 kilometers before emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria, also provides spiritual sustenance to the region's four main Aboriginal linguistic groups: the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara.
Australia's indigenous culture is among the oldest continuously existing communities in the world, and one whose spiritual cosmology, known as the Dreamtime, ties its members closely to the land of their ancestors. At once a mythical time of creation and a present-day spiritual cycle, the Dreamtime includes such totemic animals as the Rainbow Snake, the Turtle and the Alligator. Rituals in tribute to these symbolic guides and protectors must be performed at certain times and in specific places around the expanse of this immense but sparsely populated continent.
Despite the region's glaring lack of basic services, education and employment opportunities, Aboriginal residents value the McArthur River area for its spiritual wealth. But a multinational mining company's pursuit of material riches threatens the core of this already beleaguered culture. In the 1950s, Mount Isa Mines (MIM), a mining concern based in neighboring Queensland state, discovered vast lead, silver and zinc deposits beneath and around the river, and conducted extensive exploratory drilling and feasibility studies.
The Yanyuwa had lived in the region for millennia and were able to legally claim the land in 1977 under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, which allows indigenous people to establish ownership of land based on traditional occupation. Nonetheless, MIM, which by then had been operating in the area for three decades, began underground mining activities along the river in 1995.
In 2003, the government of the Northern Territory approved MIM's application to transition from underground to above-ground ("open-cut") mining, a process involving the diversion of the McArthur River. A short time later, MIM sold its operations to Switzerland-based Xstrata Plc, Europe's largest zinc producer. Described on the company's website as "a global diversified mining group" with a "meaningful position in seven major international commodity markets: copper, coking coal, thermal coal, ferrochrome, nickel, vanadium, and zinc," Xstrata has operations that span 18 countries.
Now, as full owners of McArthur River Mining Pty Ltd, Xstrata is authorized to extract 43 million tons of the resource over the next 20 years.
Read the full article here.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Michael Deibert: Echoes of Obama on Australia Day
Michael Deibert: Echoes of Obama on Australia Day
(This article first appeared on the blog of the World Policy Journal and can be read here)
There we were, at a community meeting of indigenous Australians in the remote Northern Territory town of Borroloola, where dispersed communities of this frontier province come together only a scant few miles away from the Gulf of Carpentaria as it empties out into the Arafura Sea. Representatives of the region’s four main linguistic groups—the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa, and Mara—were all here, discussing with a government minister and with one another the impact of a local mine that had, without consultation with the region’s traditional owners, expanded its operations from underground to open-cut. In the process, the company had destroyed sacred sites belonging to the clans and, so they feared, wreaked environmental havoc on the region’s fragile ecosystem.
(This article first appeared on the blog of the World Policy Journal and can be read here)
There we were, at a community meeting of indigenous Australians in the remote Northern Territory town of Borroloola, where dispersed communities of this frontier province come together only a scant few miles away from the Gulf of Carpentaria as it empties out into the Arafura Sea. Representatives of the region’s four main linguistic groups—the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa, and Mara—were all here, discussing with a government minister and with one another the impact of a local mine that had, without consultation with the region’s traditional owners, expanded its operations from underground to open-cut. In the process, the company had destroyed sacred sites belonging to the clans and, so they feared, wreaked environmental havoc on the region’s fragile ecosystem.
In addition to the discussion of local issues, talk turned to the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States. The assemblage approved, and, as one indigenous person told me in simply, “he’s one of us.”
Such has been the change of being an American abroad over the last few months, replacing the smirking frat boy of years past with a figure whom, as one Norwegian friend told me, “radiates dignity in a really intense way.” There is a new face of the U.S. global brand abroad, as I witnessed in my reporting travels over the last year, which took me to five continents and countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Spain, Japan, and now Australia.
Australia, my base for the next few months and which commemorates the arrival of Europeans in Australia today, has grappled with its own issues of racial division and violence since the first British settlers arrived in 1788, with the country’s Aboriginal population bearing the brunt of massacre and mistreatment since that time. In recent years, newer arrivals to the country from places like India, Lebanon, and Vietnam have also had to confront a hard kernel of xenophobia here which can be rather shocking to visitors expecting tropical bliss as depicted in tourist brochures.
Though it will no doubt pain and even perhaps offend many Australians to read the words I am about to write, while traveling around the nation and observing the deplorable state of the lives of its original inhabitants—whose communities remind me of some of the impoverished African villages that I have seen and who regularly fall at the bottom of the country’s quality-of-life indicators—it seems that a sombre reflection on the follies of the past, rather than macho braggadocio about “the lucky country,” might not only be a necessary but welcome theme on this year’s occasion, known here as Australia Day. With considerable tensions continuing between the country’s European-descended population and those of Asian, Arab, and Aboriginal descent, it is hard to see when Australia will perhaps have its own Obama moment.
The country’s current prime minister, Kevin Rudd, bravely apologized last year for the nation’s treatment of Aborigines, referring before parliament to “this blemished chapter in our nation’s history…the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering, and loss on these our fellow Australians.” It was the right thing to do, and, given this example, hopefully more and more Australians will begin moving towards this direction of openness and reconciliation.
History is a funny thing. The past is not dead, as William Faulkner once wrote and Barack Obama later reminded us, in fact, it’s not even past.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press) and a regular contributor to World Policy Journal. His blog can be read at www.michaeldeibert.blogspot.com.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Notes from Borroloola
In Australia’s remote Northern Territory, the small town of Borroloola represents for many, both theoretically and literally, the end of the line, only a scant few miles away from the Gulf of Carpentaria as it empties out into the Arafura Sea. Once a way-station for outlaws and all sorts of criminal drift from Australia’s southern reaches, Borroloola has nevertheless historically been of great importance to four of the country’s most important indigenous linguistic groupings, the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara.Visiting the region to examine the controversy surrounding a mining project, its affect on the local population, and what the results of decades of official neglect and indifference have had on Australia’s indigenous inhabitants (one of the oldest continuous groupings of humanity on earth), I drove down the thinnest ribbons of road, populated by a vast array of endemic flora and fauna that were bracing in its natural beauty, so different than the civic mistakes that pose as town in the south of the country. In Borroloola itself, I felt transported back to central Africa, not only because of the landscape but, alas, from the glaring lack of basic services to the original residents of what is ostensibly one of the world’s richest democracies. I must also, say, though, that I found a great dignity and awareness of history and tradition among the Aboriginal residents there, that gives me some small hope that this ancient and important culture will not be lost entirely, no matter what forces are arrayed against it.
For my travels in Australia thus far, in addition to the novia, I have had as company some fine books, the most relevant to my understanding of the places thus far having been National Geographic writer Harvey Arden’s quite beautiful account of his conversations with Aboriginal elders, Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia, the art critic Robert Hughes’ often hair-raising account of the country’s conquest by its white population, The Fatal Shore, and, by way of a gift from Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Murray McLaughlin in Darwin last week, Nicholas Jose’s Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola, an account of his search for the true history of an opportunely long-lost relative, the Borroloola hermit Roger Jose.
Back from Borroloola and now ensconced in Sydney once more, we await, with the rest of the world, the innaugruation of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. As one indigenous person told me in Borroloola, “he’s one of us.”
Saturday, December 20, 2008
2008: A Reporter's Notebook of the Year Gone By
I was fortunate enough this past year to report from five continents, something of a personal milestone for me. The work began in Paris and continued throughout Africa, including several months in the Democratic Republic of Congo which left me distressed at the plight of the civilians there and the international community's apparent inability or unwillingness to end their suffering. It continued with a return to Central America, where I was left charmed by Nicaragua, though dismayed at its political situation, and found Guatemala, that most evocative of Latin American countries, seemingly drowning in an ocean of blood and a hail of bullets. The results of my investigation into the causes of the latter will appear in the Winter 2008 edition of the World Policy Journal, published by the World Policy Institute in New York City.
Though such events do not leave one overly optimistic for the future, there was one notable cause for celebration this year: The election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the first African-American to hold that post. Obama’s election resulted in scenes of jubilation in the United States and beyond, and served as a powerful "answer," in Obama's words, to "anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy." After the eight disastrous years of the administration of George W. Bush, it is my hope that Obama lives up to the slogan that he used throughout his campaign, change we can believe in. The United States and the world at large certainly needs it.
Based in Australia for the next few months, where the affects of climate change are increasingly present, I hope that my travels in the coming year will enable me to report on a more humane, more just and more responsive world, where that which unites us as humanity proves stronger than that which divides us, and we prove ever less susceptible to those who would exploit such divisions.
What follows is my entire oeuvre of reportage from the year 2008. Hopefully it will be of some interest, and the stories of those contained within will hold some resonance.
Much love,
MD
The Cuba problem: A review of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution by Daniel P. Erikson for the Miami Herald (7 December 2008)
Trial of Muslims grips Australians for the Washington Times (30 November 2008)
ECONOMY: EU Involvement in DRC Mining Project Draws Protest for the Inter Press Service (28 October 2008)
Mixed signals: What is an investor to make of Africa? for Foreign Direct Investment (7 October 2008)
Garífunas Confront Their Own Decline for Tierramérica (6 October 2008)
Nicaragua’s poisonous political brew for Folha de Sao Paulo (31 August 2008)
"Haiti Is Going From Catastrophe to Catastrophe": Michael Deibert interviews Chavannes Jean-Baptiste for the Inter Press Service (28 September 2008)
Congo: Between Hope and Despair for the World Policy Journal (Summer 2008)
Distilling the ties between Bacardi and Cuba: A review of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten for the Miami Herald (14 September 2008)
TRADE-AFRICA: New Technology to Sever Timber's Link to Conflict? for the Inter Press Service (8 August 2008)
CULTURE-ETHIOPIA: Debate Swirls Around Fate of Holy Sites for the Inter Press Service (3 July 2008)
A Glittering Demon: Mining, Poverty and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo for CorpWatch (26 June 2008)
POLITICS: Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Societies? An interview with Frances Stewart, Oxford University Professor of Development Economics for the Inter Press Service (26 June 2008)
POLITICS-ETHIOPIA : A Tangled Political Landscape Raises Questions About African Ally of the U.S. for the Inter Press Service (21 June 2008)
Ethiopia's Urban Poor Cannot Afford To Eat: Interview with Abera Tola, Director of Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional office for the Inter Press Service (21 June 200*)
TRADE-AFRICA: EU Seeks to Subdue Competitive China for the Inter Press Service (15 May 2008)
RIGHTS: In South Africa, Zimbabwean Refugees Find Sanctuary and Contempt for the Inter Press Service (4 May 2008)
"We Mustn't Think as South Africans That We Have Won the Day": An interview with Bishop Paul Verryn for the Inter Press Service (4 May 2008)
DRC: With Rebel Leader's Indictment, a Tentative Step to Accountability for the Inter Press Service (1 May 2008)
HEALTH-DRC: Water Everywhere, But Is It Safe To Drink? for the Inter Press Service (24 April 2008)
POLITICS-DRC: Cautious Calm Settles Over War-scarred Ituri Region for the Inter Press Service (17 April 2008)
Why I am voting for Barack Obama for Michael Deibert, Writer (15 April 2008)
Extraction from chaos: Embattled by war and corruption but laden with large deposits of diamonds and copper, DR Congo is largely avoided by investors. Might that change? for Foreign Direct Investment (10 April 2008)
The Fruits of Reform: Mozambique, whose history has been blighted by a long liberation struggle and years of civil war, is starting to reap the benefits of recent macroeconomic reforms for Foreign Direct Investment (10 April 2008)
Failure To Renew DRC Expert's Mandate Draws Criticism for the Inter Press Service (1 April 2008)
POLITICS-DRC: In a Governmental Vacuum, Yearnings for a Lost Empire for the Inter Press Service (21 March 2008)
A Review of Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment for Michael Deibert, Writer (16 March 2008)
A Humanitarian Disaster Unfolds in Eastern DRC for the Inter Press Service (1 March 2008)
Fidel's view: A Review of Fidel Castro: My Life by Fidel Castro and Ignacio Ramonet for the Miami Herald (27 January 2008)
Though such events do not leave one overly optimistic for the future, there was one notable cause for celebration this year: The election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the first African-American to hold that post. Obama’s election resulted in scenes of jubilation in the United States and beyond, and served as a powerful "answer," in Obama's words, to "anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy." After the eight disastrous years of the administration of George W. Bush, it is my hope that Obama lives up to the slogan that he used throughout his campaign, change we can believe in. The United States and the world at large certainly needs it.
Based in Australia for the next few months, where the affects of climate change are increasingly present, I hope that my travels in the coming year will enable me to report on a more humane, more just and more responsive world, where that which unites us as humanity proves stronger than that which divides us, and we prove ever less susceptible to those who would exploit such divisions.
What follows is my entire oeuvre of reportage from the year 2008. Hopefully it will be of some interest, and the stories of those contained within will hold some resonance.
Much love,
MD
The Cuba problem: A review of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution by Daniel P. Erikson for the Miami Herald (7 December 2008)
Trial of Muslims grips Australians for the Washington Times (30 November 2008)
ECONOMY: EU Involvement in DRC Mining Project Draws Protest for the Inter Press Service (28 October 2008)
Mixed signals: What is an investor to make of Africa? for Foreign Direct Investment (7 October 2008)
Garífunas Confront Their Own Decline for Tierramérica (6 October 2008)
Nicaragua’s poisonous political brew for Folha de Sao Paulo (31 August 2008)
"Haiti Is Going From Catastrophe to Catastrophe": Michael Deibert interviews Chavannes Jean-Baptiste for the Inter Press Service (28 September 2008)
Congo: Between Hope and Despair for the World Policy Journal (Summer 2008)
Distilling the ties between Bacardi and Cuba: A review of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten for the Miami Herald (14 September 2008)
TRADE-AFRICA: New Technology to Sever Timber's Link to Conflict? for the Inter Press Service (8 August 2008)
CULTURE-ETHIOPIA: Debate Swirls Around Fate of Holy Sites for the Inter Press Service (3 July 2008)
A Glittering Demon: Mining, Poverty and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo for CorpWatch (26 June 2008)
POLITICS: Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Societies? An interview with Frances Stewart, Oxford University Professor of Development Economics for the Inter Press Service (26 June 2008)
POLITICS-ETHIOPIA : A Tangled Political Landscape Raises Questions About African Ally of the U.S. for the Inter Press Service (21 June 2008)
Ethiopia's Urban Poor Cannot Afford To Eat: Interview with Abera Tola, Director of Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional office for the Inter Press Service (21 June 200*)
TRADE-AFRICA: EU Seeks to Subdue Competitive China for the Inter Press Service (15 May 2008)
RIGHTS: In South Africa, Zimbabwean Refugees Find Sanctuary and Contempt for the Inter Press Service (4 May 2008)
"We Mustn't Think as South Africans That We Have Won the Day": An interview with Bishop Paul Verryn for the Inter Press Service (4 May 2008)
DRC: With Rebel Leader's Indictment, a Tentative Step to Accountability for the Inter Press Service (1 May 2008)
HEALTH-DRC: Water Everywhere, But Is It Safe To Drink? for the Inter Press Service (24 April 2008)
POLITICS-DRC: Cautious Calm Settles Over War-scarred Ituri Region for the Inter Press Service (17 April 2008)
Why I am voting for Barack Obama for Michael Deibert, Writer (15 April 2008)
Extraction from chaos: Embattled by war and corruption but laden with large deposits of diamonds and copper, DR Congo is largely avoided by investors. Might that change? for Foreign Direct Investment (10 April 2008)
The Fruits of Reform: Mozambique, whose history has been blighted by a long liberation struggle and years of civil war, is starting to reap the benefits of recent macroeconomic reforms for Foreign Direct Investment (10 April 2008)
Failure To Renew DRC Expert's Mandate Draws Criticism for the Inter Press Service (1 April 2008)
POLITICS-DRC: In a Governmental Vacuum, Yearnings for a Lost Empire for the Inter Press Service (21 March 2008)
A Review of Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment for Michael Deibert, Writer (16 March 2008)
A Humanitarian Disaster Unfolds in Eastern DRC for the Inter Press Service (1 March 2008)
Fidel's view: A Review of Fidel Castro: My Life by Fidel Castro and Ignacio Ramonet for the Miami Herald (27 January 2008)
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Notes from a southern country
We are settling into life here in Sydney, amidst temperamental weather that provides us with sunshine and blue skies in the afternoon and sweeping, chilly winds in the mornings and evenings. Lorikeets serenade us in the garden out back, we get to know the local butcher, the grocer, the coffee vendor and the like, and, from the perch of a place that I never thought I’d live, I discover the convict history of Robert Hughes, re-discover the songwriting of Paul Kelly and the music of the Warumpi Band, and become enthused with the idea of tracking my way across an immense and sparely-populated continent and elsewhere along the Pacific rim. Across a churn of water, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and beyond .
The world is throwing us some curveballas these days. The events in Mumbai, with their apparent links to Kashmir, continue to reverberate, as I read my good friend Mira Kamdar’s heartfelt and heart-rending article about the deaths of her cousin Reshma and Reshma’s husband Sunil at the Oberoi hotel in last week’s Washington Post. Back in my native land of the United States, factory workers, in a show of unity that I strongly support, are occupying the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago, with president-elect Barrack Obama saying that “The workers are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned. I think they’re absolutely right and understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.” In Miami, a city where I lived briefly, the situation has gotten so bad that the group Take Back the Land is relocating homeless people illegally into foreclosed homes. From this quiet street in Sydney, it appears that there still is much to do to make the world whole again, if it ever was.
Christmas approaches these palm-dotted shores, and much work awaits.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Trial of Muslims grips Australians
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Trial of Muslims grips Australians
By Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
SYDNEY, Australia | Australians are closely following the trial of five Muslims charged with plotting a terrorist attack on Australian soil.
While few details have been released about the target of the plot, the prosecution says the men tried to obtain sulfuric acid, acetone and other chemicals that could be used in explosives and that they buried weapons and ammunition in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. Police raids on the homes of the five, who were arrested in 2005 and face life in prison if convicted, are said to have turned up a trove of extremist literature and videos.
The trial, which started on Nov. 11 and could last up to a year, is the latest high-profile event to focus attention on the area's Muslim community -- a small minority of Australia's population.
According to an annual International Religious Freedom report released by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 67 percent of Australia´s citizens considered themselves to be Christian and 1.5 percent identify themselves as Muslim -- slightly more than 280,000 out of a population of 20.5 million.
Sydney, this vast and sparsely-populated country’s most populous city, has long been the disembarkation point for new arrivals to Australia since the first landing by British captain James Cook at nearby Botany Bay in 1770. In recent years, as typified by the Sydney terror trial, it has also become ground zero for the often tense relationships between Anglo-Australians and the country’s Muslim population, who often are of Middle Eastern or Asian descent.
In recent years, as typified by the terrorism trial, it has also become the site of tensions between Anglo-Australians and Muslim immigrants of Middle Eastern and Asian origin. The disputes have sometimes spilled over into violence, particularly among the young.
Three years ago, the seafront Sydney suburb of Cronulla was shaken by mob violence that saw more than 30 people injured and a similar number arrested over a contested strip of beach. Encouraged by some Sydney talk-radio hosts, a crowd of 5,000 Anglo-Australians gathered to "reclaim" the beach at Cronulla, besieging people of Middle Eastern appearance and fighting with the authorities after several off-duty lifeguards were said to have been beaten by a gang of Middle Eastern youths.
Though some fences have been mended since the upheaval, which came on the heels of a gang rape spree by a group of Lebanese-Australian youths in Sydney, and statements by Taj Din al-Hilali. an Egyptian-born, self-proclaimed spokesman for Australia’s Muslim community, that the September 11th attacks in the United States were “God’s work against oppressors,” many fear that a signifiant social fracture remains.
Though relations improved since then, many fear that a significant social fracture remains.
"For a lot of Anglo-Australians, the riots are over and done with, but for Muslim Australians it still has an impact on where they choose to go and spend their weekends," said Amanda Wise, a senior fellow at the Center for Research on Social Inclusion at Sydney's Macquarie University.
"In a sense, the tensions are not as hot as they were, but that's because the groups are not mixing as much as they were. It's more a low-level distrust and disengagement," she said.
This year, on Sept. 11, an online game designed by an Australian programmer titled "Muslim Massacre" was provided free over the Internet. The stated aim of the game is to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons."
Australian police promised to investigate whether the game violated counterterrorism legislation or statutes forbidding incitement of ethnic violence, but so far no action has been taken.
The election late last year of Australia's first Labor government since 1996, headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the withdrawal of Australia's combat forces from Iraq in 2008 have failed to reduce levels of distrust significantly.
"In some circles, things have gotten better, and in other areas, the level of apprehension and dislike for Muslims has grown tremendously," said Keysar Trad, a former spokesman for Mr. al-Hilali, who in 2003 formed the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.
International terrorism has had a strong impact on Australia even though no attacks have yet taken place on its shores. The October 2002 attack on a tourist district on the Indonesian island of Bali killed 202 people, 88 of whom were Australian, while a second attack there in 2005 killed four Australians.
The three men convicted of the 2002 bombing were executed by firing squad in Indonesia this month.
Australia's most prominent contribution to the annals of international terrorism came not from the country's Middle Eastern or South Asian communities, but in the unlikely person of David Hicks, a hapless former kangaroo skinner swept up amidst the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Imprisoned for six years in Guantanamo Bay, Hicks pled guilty to the charge of supporting terrorism and training with al Qaeda in exchange for being permitted to serve out the remainder of his sentence in Australia. Released late last year, Hicks is under a court-mandated control order that enforces a midnight-to-dawn curfew and restricts his travel and communications.
Still, many Australian Muslims see their community as unfairly depicted as one of outsiders or agitators.
At a mosque in Sydney's downtown Surry Hills district one recent Friday, hundreds of worshippers were preparing to disperse after afternoon prayers.
"It's all to do with perception. People fear what they don't understand," said Bill Chahine, a 25 year-old Australian of Lebanese descent who works as a project manager for a Sydney real estate firm.
Mr. Chahine, who enjoys cricket and Australian-rules football, said he is comfortable with his dual identity as an Australian and a Muslim.
"I was born here, raised here and educated here," he said. "There's no clash of cultures or values with the Anglo-Saxon community as far as I'm concerned.
Trial of Muslims grips Australians
By Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
SYDNEY, Australia | Australians are closely following the trial of five Muslims charged with plotting a terrorist attack on Australian soil.
While few details have been released about the target of the plot, the prosecution says the men tried to obtain sulfuric acid, acetone and other chemicals that could be used in explosives and that they buried weapons and ammunition in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. Police raids on the homes of the five, who were arrested in 2005 and face life in prison if convicted, are said to have turned up a trove of extremist literature and videos.
The trial, which started on Nov. 11 and could last up to a year, is the latest high-profile event to focus attention on the area's Muslim community -- a small minority of Australia's population.
According to an annual International Religious Freedom report released by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 67 percent of Australia´s citizens considered themselves to be Christian and 1.5 percent identify themselves as Muslim -- slightly more than 280,000 out of a population of 20.5 million.
Sydney, this vast and sparsely-populated country’s most populous city, has long been the disembarkation point for new arrivals to Australia since the first landing by British captain James Cook at nearby Botany Bay in 1770. In recent years, as typified by the Sydney terror trial, it has also become ground zero for the often tense relationships between Anglo-Australians and the country’s Muslim population, who often are of Middle Eastern or Asian descent.
In recent years, as typified by the terrorism trial, it has also become the site of tensions between Anglo-Australians and Muslim immigrants of Middle Eastern and Asian origin. The disputes have sometimes spilled over into violence, particularly among the young.
Three years ago, the seafront Sydney suburb of Cronulla was shaken by mob violence that saw more than 30 people injured and a similar number arrested over a contested strip of beach. Encouraged by some Sydney talk-radio hosts, a crowd of 5,000 Anglo-Australians gathered to "reclaim" the beach at Cronulla, besieging people of Middle Eastern appearance and fighting with the authorities after several off-duty lifeguards were said to have been beaten by a gang of Middle Eastern youths.
Though some fences have been mended since the upheaval, which came on the heels of a gang rape spree by a group of Lebanese-Australian youths in Sydney, and statements by Taj Din al-Hilali. an Egyptian-born, self-proclaimed spokesman for Australia’s Muslim community, that the September 11th attacks in the United States were “God’s work against oppressors,” many fear that a signifiant social fracture remains.
Though relations improved since then, many fear that a significant social fracture remains.
"For a lot of Anglo-Australians, the riots are over and done with, but for Muslim Australians it still has an impact on where they choose to go and spend their weekends," said Amanda Wise, a senior fellow at the Center for Research on Social Inclusion at Sydney's Macquarie University.
"In a sense, the tensions are not as hot as they were, but that's because the groups are not mixing as much as they were. It's more a low-level distrust and disengagement," she said.
This year, on Sept. 11, an online game designed by an Australian programmer titled "Muslim Massacre" was provided free over the Internet. The stated aim of the game is to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons."
Australian police promised to investigate whether the game violated counterterrorism legislation or statutes forbidding incitement of ethnic violence, but so far no action has been taken.
The election late last year of Australia's first Labor government since 1996, headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the withdrawal of Australia's combat forces from Iraq in 2008 have failed to reduce levels of distrust significantly.
"In some circles, things have gotten better, and in other areas, the level of apprehension and dislike for Muslims has grown tremendously," said Keysar Trad, a former spokesman for Mr. al-Hilali, who in 2003 formed the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.
International terrorism has had a strong impact on Australia even though no attacks have yet taken place on its shores. The October 2002 attack on a tourist district on the Indonesian island of Bali killed 202 people, 88 of whom were Australian, while a second attack there in 2005 killed four Australians.
The three men convicted of the 2002 bombing were executed by firing squad in Indonesia this month.
Australia's most prominent contribution to the annals of international terrorism came not from the country's Middle Eastern or South Asian communities, but in the unlikely person of David Hicks, a hapless former kangaroo skinner swept up amidst the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Imprisoned for six years in Guantanamo Bay, Hicks pled guilty to the charge of supporting terrorism and training with al Qaeda in exchange for being permitted to serve out the remainder of his sentence in Australia. Released late last year, Hicks is under a court-mandated control order that enforces a midnight-to-dawn curfew and restricts his travel and communications.
Still, many Australian Muslims see their community as unfairly depicted as one of outsiders or agitators.
At a mosque in Sydney's downtown Surry Hills district one recent Friday, hundreds of worshippers were preparing to disperse after afternoon prayers.
"It's all to do with perception. People fear what they don't understand," said Bill Chahine, a 25 year-old Australian of Lebanese descent who works as a project manager for a Sydney real estate firm.
Mr. Chahine, who enjoys cricket and Australian-rules football, said he is comfortable with his dual identity as an Australian and a Muslim.
"I was born here, raised here and educated here," he said. "There's no clash of cultures or values with the Anglo-Saxon community as far as I'm concerned.
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