Poland's government has made the country a laughingstock—but who else can take the reins?
By William Underhill
Newsweek International
July 30, 2007 issue - For a European politician, Andrzej Lepper always cut an unlikely figure. Over the years, the Polish deputy prime minister has been convicted of slander and assault. Allegations of an attempted rape of a prostitute (which he refuses to comment on) and taking part in a sex-for-jobs scam (which he denies) have been widely reported in the press. Then two weeks ago Lepper, leader of the populist Self Defence Party, a junior partner in the ruling coalition, was forced from his job over allegations of bribery (which Lepper also denied): a black mark for a government supposed to be leading a moral revolution.
So what's new? True, the latest rumpus threatens to bring down the government, but in recent years Polish politics has regularly provided a troubling show of turbulence. Under the rule of identical twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski—president and prime minister, respectively, and founders of the Law and Justice party—the country has assumed an outsize importance in the affairs of the European Union. Up to 2 million of its young have headed West to take jobs elsewhere in the bloc, while leaders have alienated their EU counterparts with a macho disregard for diplomatic niceties, reviving decades-old grievances and blocking the tidy compromises the Union requires to function.
Such behavior is winning Poland few friends at a time when the EU is still struggling to work through the implications of its grand 2004 expansion and devise a common foreign policy to meet the challenges of a newly assertive Russia (the president ruffled feathers in Europe and Russia last week by signaling approval of a U.S. missile base in Poland during a visit to Washington). While some Poles feel a visceral link to their leaders' prejudices, their fellow Europeans don't. As Marcin Zaborowski of the Institute for Security Studies in Paris ruefully observes: "Even the EU has its own Texas—and that's Poland."
Now there are signs that even the Poles' own tolerance for their wayward leaders may finally be waning. Surveys suggest that support for their party is running at just 17 percent, down 10 points over the past year (one poll pegged the prime minister as the worst since the collapse of communism). If the coalition does indeed crumble and early elections are called, the Kaczynskis might face a struggle to retain their natural supporters. Underpaid state employees (along with others who gained little from globalization and the transition to democracy) form an obvious constituency. Yet the party's leadership is now locked in conflict with the country's doctors and nurses, currently on strike over pay and conditions. At the same time, the twins have clashed with hard-liners in the Roman Catholic Church (another former support base). One of the country's leading clerics, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, earlier this month described the president's wife as a "witch" who deserved to "euthanize" herself for her failure to support tougher restrictions on abortion.
Mainstream critics allege more-serious offenses by the twins that seem utterly out of place in a modern European state. On the list: cramming the civil service with cronies, overriding the Constitution and botching moves to strip jobs from those linked with the Soviet-era regime.
No surprise, then, that smart young metropolitan Poles are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the twins' pronouncements and private eccentricities (the 58-year-old P.M. still lives with Mom). Political disenchantment has been one key reason for mass emigration, causing a labor shortage that threatens even the government's commitment to hosting the 2012 European football championships. Even the Kaczynskis have suffered: the president himself has had problems finding a decorator to paint his Warsaw flat.
Beyond the border, friends are scarcer still. According to Eurobarometer, Poles continually rank as the EU's keenest supporters, and the flow of funds from Brussels is one reason for an economic boom that's seen unemployment—once close to one in five—fall by four points over the past year. But the twins have made little effort to win allies among their benefactors. Last month's tricky negotiations over a new constitutional treaty almost broke down over Warsaw's insistence that Poland's position in the Union would be undervalued. Jaroslaw Kaczynski even used an argument related to the Second World War, which reportedly infuriated German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He suggested that if Poland had not had to live through the years of the Second World War today we would be looking at a country of 66 million instead of 38 million. And last year the government called off an official visit to Berlin after a German daily compared the president to a potato. No wonder diplomats blush for their country—by one reckoning, more than a third of Polish embassies now lack an ambassador.
Most worrisome is the way in which the twins' intransigent attitudes may doom the attempt to form a common European approach toward Russia. At the fractious EU-Russia summit in Samara earlier this summer, the EU rallied behind Poland in its fight against a meat-export embargo imposed by Moscow. But the subsequent spat over voting rights in Brussels suggests Poland has learned little about gratitude. "The Poles seem to have drawn the wrong lesson [from Samara]: that the harder they play the game, the more they will gain," says Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform in London. "It's hard to see now how other member states would not be worried about going into battle alongside them."
That said, all the mishaps won't necessarily translate into an electoral drubbing. Indeed, recent polls suggested that a small majority of voters would still like to see Law and Justice as members of any future coalition. The government has cosseted the pensioners who make up 25 percent of the population of 38 million, and events outside Poland have conspired to fortify some old fears the party can play on. Doesn't the German decision to collaborate with Russia on building a pipeline under the Baltic—bypassing Poland—illustrate the risk of encirclement by hostile powers?
Widespread voter indifference underscores opposition worries. Turnout in the last elections, in 2005, fell to just 41 percent. Many of those who might vote against Law and Justice—and the new generation of politicians who might stand against it—have already left the country. As for those who've stayed behind, they seem unable and unlikely to redeem Poland's name in Europe.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
Source: Newseek
The Joke Is On Poland
vendredi 24 août 2007
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit (alternately written as limpbizkit) is a nu metal band from Jacksonville, Florida.
They are often credited, along with their discoverers Korn, for creating the nu metal genre and starting to widen its popularity[1]. Limp Bizkit was very popular during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and their albums have sold over 50 million copies worldwide. Limp Bizkit's current members are vocalist Fred Durst, bassist Sam Rivers, drummer John Otto (Rivers' cousin), and Latvian turntablist/sampler player DJ Lethal. The band's guitarist Wes Borland departed in 2001 following the release of their first three albums to be replaced by Mike Smith for the band's fourth release Results May Vary. Wes rejoined for The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) only to quit once again in 2006 to work with other projects Black Light Burns and From First to Last. It's unknown if Wes will rejoin Limp Bizkit in 2007 for The Unquestionable Truth (Part 2).
Source: Limp Bizkit wikipedia's page
Official website: www.limpbizkit.com
Limp Bizkit - Take a look around
Limp Bizkit - Rollin'
Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff
Limp Bizkit - Nookie
jeudi 23 août 2007
Ahmadinejad held to election promises
By Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago, winning 62% of the popular vote, is rapidly losing popularity for failure to make good on election promises to improve the lives of ordinary people by sharing Iran's vast oil revenues with them and to respect their private lives.
A poll run by the Tehran-based news website Baztab on the second anniversary of the elections that brought Ahmadinejad to power found his popularity plummeting. The poll of 20,000 people showed that 62.5% of respondents who voted for Ahmadinejad in 2005 would not elect him president again. And only 3.5% of those who did not vote for him said they would now vote for him for the presidency.
"The advocates of the [hardline] Ahmadinejad administration claim the Baztab poll was biased, but even a poll run by Fars news agency, which is known to be very pro-government, revealed that 44.6% of the respondents to the poll believed his economic policies had not had any positive effects on the economy, compared [with] 30.3% who believed he had made things better," a reformist activist in Tehran said on the condition of anonymity. Another 25.1% said things are worse economically than they were before Ahmadinejad came to power, said the activist.
"His campaign was mainly focused on promises of fighting corruption and improving people's lives economically," the activist said. "He claimed the oil money was being misappropriated and wasted. These were on the top of the list of the millions of ordinary people outside the minority hardline religious establishment, whose main concerns were issues of religious morality and religious values. The president's failure to deliver his economic promises has naturally disillusioned this large group of voters, who find themselves under even greater pressure than before.
"Voters clearly stated their disappointment with the government last December when they refused to vote for the electoral lists that the president's allies had put out for city councils and the Assembly of Experts. Things are worse now. Gasoline rationing and the problems it has caused in transportation, tourism, agriculture and many other areas are greatly contributing to people's disillusionment with the government," he said.
Criticism of the Ahmadinejad administration's performance in the economy is not limited to the reformists. Many among the hardliners and conservatives who joined forces to bring him to power are also very unhappy with his policies and their outcome. There is no ground anymore for saying the government should be granted more time, the hardline Jomhuri Eslami newspaper said in an editorial recently.
"Nearly two years have passed since the present administration became established. All this time has been enough for gaining mastery of things, control over whatever they needed to take control of and establishing order of whatever they wanted to give order to. Excuses such as saying their performance is hindered [by adversaries] are no longer acceptable to the people because the government enjoys the Supreme Leader's special support and no one and no group is able to stand up against such a government," the Jomhuri Eslami wrote.
Ahmadinejad persistently accuses his adversaries of sabotaging his government's efforts. "The mafia", as he calls them, were responsible for the shocking hike in housing prices, failure of the country's pharmaceutical system, and excessive importation of sugar, Aftab news agency reported the president as telling Parliament members from his native Semnan province recently. "The mafia" fabricated deceitful news to make the government look responsible for the increase in inflation, the president railed.
According to the results of an Internet poll run by Aftab, 66% of more than 66,000 respondents believe that wrong economic decisions by the government are the cause of inflation. Only 11% said problems created by his adversaries caused inflation, and 12% found the country's economic structure at fault.
"The problem is that the government wants to improve things through spending cash, and they have plenty of that at their disposal," an economic observer in Tehran said, requesting anonymity. "Government expenditures from oil revenues over the past two years amounted to [US]$120 billion, the highest during the past 20 years. [Mohammad] Khatami's and Hashemi Rafsanjani's governments had $30 billion and $29 billion to spend in their first two years respectively.
"When Khatami handed his office over to Ahmadinejad, $15 billion had been saved in the Oil Stabilization Fund. Inflation was constantly going down before Ahmadinejad took over, but the trend has reversed. The present government has succeeded in spending all the $120 billion in oil revenues as well as draining the fund and failed even to keep the economic growth rate, just above 5% now, at the level it had been," he said.
"The huge growth in liquidity, doubled in the past two years, is obviously the cause of the high inflation, but very stubbornly and categorically the president refuses to acknowledge the problem or to correct his ways."
The latest figure for inflation, for the three-month period ending last December, that was recently released by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran was 14.2%, up from 12.6% in 2005. The International Monetary Fund has predicted inflation in Iran to rise to 17.6% this year, the third-highest among the Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. Critics in Iran claim the real inflation figure is much higher. Last year the Parliament Research Center found inflation at 21%, while the inflation rate announced by the central bank was 13.2%.
To control inflation and regulate the market, the government has opened the country up to imports by lowering, and in some cases removing, all tariffs. The huge increase in imports is damaging the national industries, agriculture and producers of household items, 57 economists cautioned the president in an open letter two months ago. The policy will also cause greater dependence on oil revenues and make the national economy more vulnerable to unexpected plunges in oil revenues, they warned him.
The administration's aggressive and unyielding foreign policy is seen by many as the cause of increasing isolation of Iran and the sanctions imposed on the country for refusing to halt its controversial nuclear program. Many foreign banks are now refusing to deal with Iran, and foreign companies, many of which have been working on Iran's oil and gas fields, are on their way out.
"For lack of a reasonable foreign policy our government has to bribe other countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Pakistan and India to win allies," the economic observer said.
During the past two years, Ahmadinejad has traveled to more than 350 cities and towns in various provinces with his cabinet members to meet the locals. During his provincial trips the president has been handed some 9 million petitions by the local people.
Seventy people have been appointed in the President's Office to look into the petitions, an official in the office said. Forty percent of those who gave petitions asked for financial assistance, 15% wanted help to find employment, 5% wanted housing assistance and another 5% needed assistance for medical care. The President's Office has so far granted more than $10 million as cash financial assistance to them, Bijan Shahbazkhani, a member of Parliament, was quoted by Aftab News as saying.
"Things might have been more bearable if we were at least given a share of the oil money," said the 35-year-old owner of a small restaurant at one of the Caspian area resorts badly stricken by gasoline rationing that has stopped the flow of holiday makers. "Ahmadinejad promised he would place food on our tables and jobs that were supposed to change our lives. We are offered low-interest loans to create our own jobs, but investment is very risky and most of the people I know who have received the loans are using the money in the profitable real-estate market.
"I even know a few people who want to return the loans they have received because they don't know what to do with the money to be able to pay the loan and the interest back.
"Ahmadinejad has failed us not only economically but also in other respects," he said. "At the time of his campaign, he expressly promised that his government would have nothing to do with the way people looked or dressed. For several months now the police have been harassing people on every corner for bad hejab [Islamic dress code] and all the things they consider immoral."
(Inter Press Service)
Source: Asia Times Online
Ahmadinejad held to election promises
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago, winning 62% of the popular vote, is rapidly losing popularity for failure to make good on election promises to improve the lives of ordinary people by sharing Iran's vast oil revenues with them and to respect their private lives.
A poll run by the Tehran-based news website Baztab on the second anniversary of the elections that brought Ahmadinejad to power found his popularity plummeting. The poll of 20,000 people showed that 62.5% of respondents who voted for Ahmadinejad in 2005 would not elect him president again. And only 3.5% of those who did not vote for him said they would now vote for him for the presidency.
"The advocates of the [hardline] Ahmadinejad administration claim the Baztab poll was biased, but even a poll run by Fars news agency, which is known to be very pro-government, revealed that 44.6% of the respondents to the poll believed his economic policies had not had any positive effects on the economy, compared [with] 30.3% who believed he had made things better," a reformist activist in Tehran said on the condition of anonymity. Another 25.1% said things are worse economically than they were before Ahmadinejad came to power, said the activist.
"His campaign was mainly focused on promises of fighting corruption and improving people's lives economically," the activist said. "He claimed the oil money was being misappropriated and wasted. These were on the top of the list of the millions of ordinary people outside the minority hardline religious establishment, whose main concerns were issues of religious morality and religious values. The president's failure to deliver his economic promises has naturally disillusioned this large group of voters, who find themselves under even greater pressure than before.
"Voters clearly stated their disappointment with the government last December when they refused to vote for the electoral lists that the president's allies had put out for city councils and the Assembly of Experts. Things are worse now. Gasoline rationing and the problems it has caused in transportation, tourism, agriculture and many other areas are greatly contributing to people's disillusionment with the government," he said.
Criticism of the Ahmadinejad administration's performance in the economy is not limited to the reformists. Many among the hardliners and conservatives who joined forces to bring him to power are also very unhappy with his policies and their outcome. There is no ground anymore for saying the government should be granted more time, the hardline Jomhuri Eslami newspaper said in an editorial recently.
"Nearly two years have passed since the present administration became established. All this time has been enough for gaining mastery of things, control over whatever they needed to take control of and establishing order of whatever they wanted to give order to. Excuses such as saying their performance is hindered [by adversaries] are no longer acceptable to the people because the government enjoys the Supreme Leader's special support and no one and no group is able to stand up against such a government," the Jomhuri Eslami wrote.
Ahmadinejad persistently accuses his adversaries of sabotaging his government's efforts. "The mafia", as he calls them, were responsible for the shocking hike in housing prices, failure of the country's pharmaceutical system, and excessive importation of sugar, Aftab news agency reported the president as telling Parliament members from his native Semnan province recently. "The mafia" fabricated deceitful news to make the government look responsible for the increase in inflation, the president railed.
According to the results of an Internet poll run by Aftab, 66% of more than 66,000 respondents believe that wrong economic decisions by the government are the cause of inflation. Only 11% said problems created by his adversaries caused inflation, and 12% found the country's economic structure at fault.
"The problem is that the government wants to improve things through spending cash, and they have plenty of that at their disposal," an economic observer in Tehran said, requesting anonymity. "Government expenditures from oil revenues over the past two years amounted to [US]$120 billion, the highest during the past 20 years. [Mohammad] Khatami's and Hashemi Rafsanjani's governments had $30 billion and $29 billion to spend in their first two years respectively.
"When Khatami handed his office over to Ahmadinejad, $15 billion had been saved in the Oil Stabilization Fund. Inflation was constantly going down before Ahmadinejad took over, but the trend has reversed. The present government has succeeded in spending all the $120 billion in oil revenues as well as draining the fund and failed even to keep the economic growth rate, just above 5% now, at the level it had been," he said.
"The huge growth in liquidity, doubled in the past two years, is obviously the cause of the high inflation, but very stubbornly and categorically the president refuses to acknowledge the problem or to correct his ways."
The latest figure for inflation, for the three-month period ending last December, that was recently released by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran was 14.2%, up from 12.6% in 2005. The International Monetary Fund has predicted inflation in Iran to rise to 17.6% this year, the third-highest among the Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. Critics in Iran claim the real inflation figure is much higher. Last year the Parliament Research Center found inflation at 21%, while the inflation rate announced by the central bank was 13.2%.
To control inflation and regulate the market, the government has opened the country up to imports by lowering, and in some cases removing, all tariffs. The huge increase in imports is damaging the national industries, agriculture and producers of household items, 57 economists cautioned the president in an open letter two months ago. The policy will also cause greater dependence on oil revenues and make the national economy more vulnerable to unexpected plunges in oil revenues, they warned him.
The administration's aggressive and unyielding foreign policy is seen by many as the cause of increasing isolation of Iran and the sanctions imposed on the country for refusing to halt its controversial nuclear program. Many foreign banks are now refusing to deal with Iran, and foreign companies, many of which have been working on Iran's oil and gas fields, are on their way out.
"For lack of a reasonable foreign policy our government has to bribe other countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Pakistan and India to win allies," the economic observer said.
During the past two years, Ahmadinejad has traveled to more than 350 cities and towns in various provinces with his cabinet members to meet the locals. During his provincial trips the president has been handed some 9 million petitions by the local people.
Seventy people have been appointed in the President's Office to look into the petitions, an official in the office said. Forty percent of those who gave petitions asked for financial assistance, 15% wanted help to find employment, 5% wanted housing assistance and another 5% needed assistance for medical care. The President's Office has so far granted more than $10 million as cash financial assistance to them, Bijan Shahbazkhani, a member of Parliament, was quoted by Aftab News as saying.
"Things might have been more bearable if we were at least given a share of the oil money," said the 35-year-old owner of a small restaurant at one of the Caspian area resorts badly stricken by gasoline rationing that has stopped the flow of holiday makers. "Ahmadinejad promised he would place food on our tables and jobs that were supposed to change our lives. We are offered low-interest loans to create our own jobs, but investment is very risky and most of the people I know who have received the loans are using the money in the profitable real-estate market.
"I even know a few people who want to return the loans they have received because they don't know what to do with the money to be able to pay the loan and the interest back.
"Ahmadinejad has failed us not only economically but also in other respects," he said. "At the time of his campaign, he expressly promised that his government would have nothing to do with the way people looked or dressed. For several months now the police have been harassing people on every corner for bad hejab [Islamic dress code] and all the things they consider immoral."
(Inter Press Service)
Source: Asia Times Online
Ahmadinejad held to election promises
China pushes back following scandals
By David Lague
Thursday, August 23, 2007
BEIJING: The ruling Communist Party is intensifying its campaign to shore up the reputation of China as a trading powerhouse following a spate of embarrassing product recalls and contamination scandals.
As China feverishly prepares to play host to the Olympic Games next year, the government is becoming pointedly antagonistic.
China is sending a clear message that it intends to crack down on tainted or defective exports. But officials are also shifting the blame: accusing the United States of protectionism, faulting multinationals for sloppiness, charging foreign media with sensationalism and finding flaws with U.S. goods like soybeans.
The sharp rhetoric is a harsher side of an internal public relations campaign. State controlled media on Sunday began broadcasting a weeklong television series, "Believe in Made in China."
On Thursday, Chinese officials described as exaggerated claims about shoddy products as a pretext to impose protectionist measures, particularly in the United States and Europe.
"As trade volume increases and economic ties become closer between China and the U.S., it's only natural that trade frictions arise," China's assistant commerce minister, Wang Chao, said, Bloomberg News reported.
"Recently, a series of U.S. trade actions has shown clear signs of increased protectionism," the official said, referring to pressure from the United States for assurances about the quality of goods from China.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Susan Stevenson, would not comment on the accusations of protectionism.
In a separate statement, the Ministry of Commerce said the U.S. media were "playing up" quality and safety fears about Chinese products, which have featured prominently in newspapers and evening news broadcasts.
In the latest toy recall, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a notice Wednesday covering more than 300,000 Chinese-made products for children because they may contain excessive levels of lead.
After executing the former head of its food and drug safety agency and blacklisting hundreds of domestic manufacturers in response to safety concerns, China now appears to be determined to draw attention to what it sees as the shortcomings of its trading partners.
Senior Chinese officials say that foreign companies, including Mattel, which recalled millions of toys made in China, should also shoulder some of the blame for failing to detect defective or dangerous products.
Some trade experts agree that importers, particularly large multinationals with manufacturing operations in China or substantial contracts with Chinese suppliers, were also responsible for product safety.
"Nobody forbids these companies having their own quality control guys in China," said Enzio Von Pfeil, chief executive of Commercial Economics Asia, an economic consultant. "This is another one of those cases where everybody gets to beat up on China."
The Chinese authorities have begun to aggressively publicize faults they say have been detected in imports from the United States.
China said Wednesday that it had detected pesticides, noxious weeds and soil in soybeans imported from America and had demanded that U.S. authorities investigate, according to a statement on the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Web site.
The same agency said Monday that 272 heart pacemakers imported from the United States in April had been returned after failing to meet safety standards.
For China, this is more than a public relations exercise, trade analysts say.
While playing host to the Olympics is mostly about image, symbolizing the re-emergence of China as an important power, the performance of its export industries is crucial to the standing of the last important Communist Party.
Exports drive the rapid economic expansion that China needs to provide jobs for millions of surplus rural workers and raise living standards across a country where poverty and hardship remain widespread.
Poor quality control, particularly if it is linked to corruption and lax regulation, could also hurt the domestic popularity of the government.
Chinese consumers are by far the biggest victims of substandard or fake products.
So far, there is no evidence that scandals over toxic residues contaminating exported food, toys, clothing, drugs and toothpaste or other substandard products have curtailed foreign orders for Chinese manufactured goods.
Wang said that demand from abroad remained strong.
To some trade experts, that is hardly surprising as Chinese manufacturers continue to expand the range of increasingly sophisticated products they sell on world markets.
From consumer electronics to supertankers, Chinese goods are seizing market share and most meet international standards for performance and safety, trade experts say.
Even a 7 percent appreciation in the value of the yuan against the dollar since July 2005 and a host of official measures aimed at restraining runaway economic growth have seemingly had little effect on exports.
China's monthly trade surplus for July reached $24.36 billion, the second biggest on record, according to official statistics released this month.
This export boom along with surging domestic investment propelled economic growth to 11.9 percent in the second quarter against the like period in 2006, the fastest expansion in more than 12 years.
The trade surplus for the year to the end of July increased by 81 percent to $136 billion and some analysts expect the full year surplus to reach $300 billion, easily exceeding the record last year of $177.5 billion.
Despite this strong performance, the authorities appear to be worried about the damage to the international image of the nation.
As part of its response to the growing chorus of foreign complaints, China has appointed one of its top officials, Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi, a tough bureaucrat who negotiated the entry of China into the World Trade Organization, to head a panel that will investigate food and product safety.
Wu, who some analysts regard as a government troubleshooter, was also drafted to lead the fight against the 2003 SARS outbreak and restore domestic and international confidence in the health system in the nation.
Her panel will also include Health Minister Chen Zhu, Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai and the senior official responsible for quality control, Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
While acknowledging that as a developing nation it does suffer from quality problems, China on Friday published a report defending its domestic and international food safety record.
It said food exports had increased by 13.29 percent in 2006 to 24.2 million metric tons worth $26.7 billion.
"The qualification rate of exported food products has been over 99 percent for many years," the report said.
It noted that 477 batches of 55,000 food product exports to the United States had been rejected in the first half of 2007, an acceptance rate of 99.1 percent, while 99.8 percent of food exports to the European Union had been accepted.
The report also cited Japanese data that showed that Chinese food products shipped to Japan were more widely sampled and had a higher acceptance rate in that country than exports from the European Union and the United States.
"Over the years, the Chinese government has endeavored to improve food quality, ensure food safety and protect consumers around the world," it said.
China is also considering setting up recall systems for faulty products, according to reports in the state-run media.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
China pushes back following scandals
Thursday, August 23, 2007
BEIJING: The ruling Communist Party is intensifying its campaign to shore up the reputation of China as a trading powerhouse following a spate of embarrassing product recalls and contamination scandals.
As China feverishly prepares to play host to the Olympic Games next year, the government is becoming pointedly antagonistic.
China is sending a clear message that it intends to crack down on tainted or defective exports. But officials are also shifting the blame: accusing the United States of protectionism, faulting multinationals for sloppiness, charging foreign media with sensationalism and finding flaws with U.S. goods like soybeans.
The sharp rhetoric is a harsher side of an internal public relations campaign. State controlled media on Sunday began broadcasting a weeklong television series, "Believe in Made in China."
On Thursday, Chinese officials described as exaggerated claims about shoddy products as a pretext to impose protectionist measures, particularly in the United States and Europe.
"As trade volume increases and economic ties become closer between China and the U.S., it's only natural that trade frictions arise," China's assistant commerce minister, Wang Chao, said, Bloomberg News reported.
"Recently, a series of U.S. trade actions has shown clear signs of increased protectionism," the official said, referring to pressure from the United States for assurances about the quality of goods from China.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Susan Stevenson, would not comment on the accusations of protectionism.
In a separate statement, the Ministry of Commerce said the U.S. media were "playing up" quality and safety fears about Chinese products, which have featured prominently in newspapers and evening news broadcasts.
In the latest toy recall, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a notice Wednesday covering more than 300,000 Chinese-made products for children because they may contain excessive levels of lead.
After executing the former head of its food and drug safety agency and blacklisting hundreds of domestic manufacturers in response to safety concerns, China now appears to be determined to draw attention to what it sees as the shortcomings of its trading partners.
Senior Chinese officials say that foreign companies, including Mattel, which recalled millions of toys made in China, should also shoulder some of the blame for failing to detect defective or dangerous products.
Some trade experts agree that importers, particularly large multinationals with manufacturing operations in China or substantial contracts with Chinese suppliers, were also responsible for product safety.
"Nobody forbids these companies having their own quality control guys in China," said Enzio Von Pfeil, chief executive of Commercial Economics Asia, an economic consultant. "This is another one of those cases where everybody gets to beat up on China."
The Chinese authorities have begun to aggressively publicize faults they say have been detected in imports from the United States.
China said Wednesday that it had detected pesticides, noxious weeds and soil in soybeans imported from America and had demanded that U.S. authorities investigate, according to a statement on the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Web site.
The same agency said Monday that 272 heart pacemakers imported from the United States in April had been returned after failing to meet safety standards.
For China, this is more than a public relations exercise, trade analysts say.
While playing host to the Olympics is mostly about image, symbolizing the re-emergence of China as an important power, the performance of its export industries is crucial to the standing of the last important Communist Party.
Exports drive the rapid economic expansion that China needs to provide jobs for millions of surplus rural workers and raise living standards across a country where poverty and hardship remain widespread.
Poor quality control, particularly if it is linked to corruption and lax regulation, could also hurt the domestic popularity of the government.
Chinese consumers are by far the biggest victims of substandard or fake products.
So far, there is no evidence that scandals over toxic residues contaminating exported food, toys, clothing, drugs and toothpaste or other substandard products have curtailed foreign orders for Chinese manufactured goods.
Wang said that demand from abroad remained strong.
To some trade experts, that is hardly surprising as Chinese manufacturers continue to expand the range of increasingly sophisticated products they sell on world markets.
From consumer electronics to supertankers, Chinese goods are seizing market share and most meet international standards for performance and safety, trade experts say.
Even a 7 percent appreciation in the value of the yuan against the dollar since July 2005 and a host of official measures aimed at restraining runaway economic growth have seemingly had little effect on exports.
China's monthly trade surplus for July reached $24.36 billion, the second biggest on record, according to official statistics released this month.
This export boom along with surging domestic investment propelled economic growth to 11.9 percent in the second quarter against the like period in 2006, the fastest expansion in more than 12 years.
The trade surplus for the year to the end of July increased by 81 percent to $136 billion and some analysts expect the full year surplus to reach $300 billion, easily exceeding the record last year of $177.5 billion.
Despite this strong performance, the authorities appear to be worried about the damage to the international image of the nation.
As part of its response to the growing chorus of foreign complaints, China has appointed one of its top officials, Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi, a tough bureaucrat who negotiated the entry of China into the World Trade Organization, to head a panel that will investigate food and product safety.
Wu, who some analysts regard as a government troubleshooter, was also drafted to lead the fight against the 2003 SARS outbreak and restore domestic and international confidence in the health system in the nation.
Her panel will also include Health Minister Chen Zhu, Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai and the senior official responsible for quality control, Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
While acknowledging that as a developing nation it does suffer from quality problems, China on Friday published a report defending its domestic and international food safety record.
It said food exports had increased by 13.29 percent in 2006 to 24.2 million metric tons worth $26.7 billion.
"The qualification rate of exported food products has been over 99 percent for many years," the report said.
It noted that 477 batches of 55,000 food product exports to the United States had been rejected in the first half of 2007, an acceptance rate of 99.1 percent, while 99.8 percent of food exports to the European Union had been accepted.
The report also cited Japanese data that showed that Chinese food products shipped to Japan were more widely sampled and had a higher acceptance rate in that country than exports from the European Union and the United States.
"Over the years, the Chinese government has endeavored to improve food quality, ensure food safety and protect consumers around the world," it said.
China is also considering setting up recall systems for faulty products, according to reports in the state-run media.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
China pushes back following scandals
mardi 21 août 2007
Disturbed
Disturbed is, to me, an excelent heavy metal band from the 90's.
Like former Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Korn, Papa Roach, Marylin Manson... I guess Distirbed has a place next to these huge monument of heavy metal music.
Unfortunately, I didn t find any relevant (and short) biography about it.
So my advice will be to go check the following weblinks:
Distrubed's webside
and Disturbed wikipedia's page
Now, let's get some fun with this punchy sound !!!
Disturbed - Stupify
Disturbed - Down With The Sickness
Disturbed - Shout
Disturbed - Ten thousands fists
Les mouvements de jeunesse pro-Poutine se lancent dans l'agit-prop contre l'opposition
A quatre mois des élections législatives à la Douma, les mouvements de jeunesse favorables au Kremlin multiplient les manifestations hostiles à l'opposition libérale et communiste lors d'actions de groupes dignes de l'époque de l'agit-prop, la propagande politique des années 1920. Lundi 20 août, une trentaine de militants de la Jeune Garde, le mouvement de jeunesse du parti pro-Kremlin Russie unie, est venue défier les jeunes communistes en scandant des slogans hostiles sous leurs fenêtres.
Massés face à la représentation du PC, rue Soukharevskaïa à Moscou, les jeunes favorables au pouvoir en place ont réclamé que le drapeau rouge soit relégué "au Mausolée", là où repose Lénine, le père de la révolution bolchevique. Ulcérés, les jeunes communistes ont répliqué en brandissant des pancartes sur lesquelles ils avaient écrit : "Mieux vaut être rouges que pédés." Le face-à-face a rapidement dégénéré en pugilat. La police, absente de la scène au début, est arrivée une demi-heure plus tard.
Récemment, les Nachi ("les nôtres"), l'autre mouvement de jeunesse téléguidé par le Kremlin, se sont illustrés en lançant un mot d'ordre contre le port du string, pourtant très prisé par la jeunesse moscovite. Décrit comme le symbole de la perversion occidentale, le string serait, aux dires des Nachi, une menace à la démographie chancelante du pays (142,4 millions d'habitants, contre 150 millions en 1991) car, générateur de maladies, il mettrait en péril la fertilité des femmes russes.
PORT DU STRING DÉNONCÉ
Le thème de la démographie a été au centre du séminaire champêtre des Nachi, qui s'est déroulé, comme chaque année, à la fin de juillet non loin du lac Seliguer, dans la région de Tver. Les 10 000 jeunes conviés à l'événement ont été sensibilisés au problème du déclin démographique russe - "le problème le plus grave", avait dit le président Vladimir Poutine en instaurant, en 2006, une "prime de maternité" de 250 000 roubles (7 350 euros) pour les femmes qui mettent au monde un deuxième enfant.
Une vingtaine de mariages ont été célébrés au camp d'été et les jeunes couples ont été encouragés à avoir au moins trois enfants. Selon des témoins, les invités de marque, les vice-premiers ministres Dmitri Medvedev et Sergueï Ivanov, arboraient, pour l'occasion, des maillots de corps comportant un slogan appelant les femmes à procréer. Dans ce contexte, le string a été désigné par les dirigeants du mouvement comme le symbole de la contre-révolution démographique. Lors d'une action de masse à valeur d'exemple, des centaines de jeunes ont troqué leurs minislips contre des culottes et des caleçons traditionnels.
La mauvaise réputation faite au string n'a pas été du goût d'un autre mouvement de jeunesse, Les Héritiers, une émanation du Parti démocratique russe qui fait campagne pour que la Russie rejoigne un jour l'Union européenne. Volant à son secours, les Héritiers ont organisé une action de protestation face au siège des Nachi au centre de Moscou, le 9 août, avec comme mot d'ordre "Chacun est libre de porter les dessous qu'il veut". Ils ont suspendu aux grilles du bâtiment culottes et caleçons. Barricadés à l'intérieur, les Nachi n'ont pas réagi.
Dans la foulée, la presse s'est demandée si le string allait devenir un des thèmes de campagne des élections législatives de décembre et de la présidentielle de mars 2008. "La lutte politique en Russie prend parfois des formes étonnantes et inattendues", a commenté le journal Vremia Novosteï.
Marie Jégo
Source: lemonde.fr
Les mouvements de jeunesse pro-Poutine se lancent dans l'agit-prop contre l'opposition
Massés face à la représentation du PC, rue Soukharevskaïa à Moscou, les jeunes favorables au pouvoir en place ont réclamé que le drapeau rouge soit relégué "au Mausolée", là où repose Lénine, le père de la révolution bolchevique. Ulcérés, les jeunes communistes ont répliqué en brandissant des pancartes sur lesquelles ils avaient écrit : "Mieux vaut être rouges que pédés." Le face-à-face a rapidement dégénéré en pugilat. La police, absente de la scène au début, est arrivée une demi-heure plus tard.
Récemment, les Nachi ("les nôtres"), l'autre mouvement de jeunesse téléguidé par le Kremlin, se sont illustrés en lançant un mot d'ordre contre le port du string, pourtant très prisé par la jeunesse moscovite. Décrit comme le symbole de la perversion occidentale, le string serait, aux dires des Nachi, une menace à la démographie chancelante du pays (142,4 millions d'habitants, contre 150 millions en 1991) car, générateur de maladies, il mettrait en péril la fertilité des femmes russes.
PORT DU STRING DÉNONCÉ
Le thème de la démographie a été au centre du séminaire champêtre des Nachi, qui s'est déroulé, comme chaque année, à la fin de juillet non loin du lac Seliguer, dans la région de Tver. Les 10 000 jeunes conviés à l'événement ont été sensibilisés au problème du déclin démographique russe - "le problème le plus grave", avait dit le président Vladimir Poutine en instaurant, en 2006, une "prime de maternité" de 250 000 roubles (7 350 euros) pour les femmes qui mettent au monde un deuxième enfant.
Une vingtaine de mariages ont été célébrés au camp d'été et les jeunes couples ont été encouragés à avoir au moins trois enfants. Selon des témoins, les invités de marque, les vice-premiers ministres Dmitri Medvedev et Sergueï Ivanov, arboraient, pour l'occasion, des maillots de corps comportant un slogan appelant les femmes à procréer. Dans ce contexte, le string a été désigné par les dirigeants du mouvement comme le symbole de la contre-révolution démographique. Lors d'une action de masse à valeur d'exemple, des centaines de jeunes ont troqué leurs minislips contre des culottes et des caleçons traditionnels.
La mauvaise réputation faite au string n'a pas été du goût d'un autre mouvement de jeunesse, Les Héritiers, une émanation du Parti démocratique russe qui fait campagne pour que la Russie rejoigne un jour l'Union européenne. Volant à son secours, les Héritiers ont organisé une action de protestation face au siège des Nachi au centre de Moscou, le 9 août, avec comme mot d'ordre "Chacun est libre de porter les dessous qu'il veut". Ils ont suspendu aux grilles du bâtiment culottes et caleçons. Barricadés à l'intérieur, les Nachi n'ont pas réagi.
Dans la foulée, la presse s'est demandée si le string allait devenir un des thèmes de campagne des élections législatives de décembre et de la présidentielle de mars 2008. "La lutte politique en Russie prend parfois des formes étonnantes et inattendues", a commenté le journal Vremia Novosteï.
Marie Jégo
Source: lemonde.fr
Les mouvements de jeunesse pro-Poutine se lancent dans l'agit-prop contre l'opposition
Russie : près de 3 000 ONG devront fermer leurs portes
Près de 3 000 ONG russes vont devoir cesser leur activité, selon le Service fédéral d'enregistrement (FSR). Une nouvelle loi sur les organisations non gouvernementales, entrée en vigueur le 17 avril 2006, oblige en effet les ONG étrangères travaillant en Russie à se conformer à une nouvelle procédure stricte d'enregistrement auprès du FSR et exige notamment des rapports trimestriels sur ses activités et sa trésorerie. La justification officielle étant de "recueillir des statistiques sur les ONG en Russie".
"Le FSR a enregistré au total 216 279 ONG – dont 229 étrangères – sur la Liste unie d'Etat de personnes juridiques. 467 ONG, qui n'ont pas présenté la documentation nécessaire, doivent être liquidées et 2 307 autres doivent cesser leur activité en tant que personnes juridiques pour la même raison", a indiqué à l'AFP Alexandre Stepanov, directeur du département du FSR chargé des liens avec les ONG. Ces dernières "pourront toutefois continuer de fonctionner en tant que personnes physiques", a-t-il précisé.
Nombre d'ONG ont critiqué la loi, estimant qu'elle devrait compliquer l'obtention d'aides financières étrangères et fournir un prétexte pour éliminer les organisations jugées hostiles aux autorités. "Cette loi est due au désir maniaque des autorités russes de contrôler totalement toute initiative civile comme au temps de l'Union soviétique", estime Elena Jemkova, directrice exécutive de Mémorial, une organisation de défense des droits de l'homme en Russie. "La loi suit la logique du développement de tout le régime de Poutine depuis ces sept dernières années", d'après Stanislav Dmitrievski, ex-leader de la Société d'amitié russo-tchétchène.
"UNE LOI MOTIVÉE PAR DES RAISONS POLITIQUES"
La conformité de cette loi, par rapport au droit international, est également mise en cause par de nombreux spécialistes. "C'est une loi de mauvaise qualité, motivée par des raisons politiques, rédigée intentionnellement de façon vague et non basée sur des principes de droit, a commenté Iouri Djibladze, du Centre pour les droits de l'homme et la démocratie. Par exemple, l'article 31 de cette loi permet de stopper un projet ou une partie d'un projet sur seule décision d'un fonctionnaire."
De plus, les rapports annuels et trimestriels et les plans détaillés de travail, causent des difficultés, en particulier aux défenseurs des droits humains : "Si nous déclarons qu'on va en Tchétchénie dans deux semaines, le gouvernement aura le temps de préparer le terrain et influencer les résultats de cette mission", explique Alexandre Petrov, le directeur adjoint de Human Rights Watch. Outre cela, la complexité de la procédure et son mode de fonctionnement, qui repose sur un seul fonctionnaire, est une porte ouverte à la corruption. Ainsi, une filiale d'une organisation humanitaire française, qui a souhaité garder l'anonymat, s'est vu proposer un enregistrement facilité en échange "d'une faible récompense".
Par ailleurs, et contrairement aux ONG russes – dont "près de 75 % n'ont toujours pas présenté toute la documentation nécessaire pour se faire enregistrer (...), les ONG étrangères ont fait preuve d'une discipline exemplaire", a indiqué M. Stepanov. "Aucune des ONG étrangères n'a vu ses activités suspendues", a confirmé à l'AFP l'experte juridique indépendante Tatiana Morchtchakova. Des ONG telles que Amnesty International ou Human Rights Watch "ont été enregistrées comme antennes russes sur la liste d'Etat, comme le stipule la nouvelle loi, mais doivent maintenant résoudre nombre de problèmes financiers et administratifs, après avoir perdu leur statut d'organisation accréditée en Russie et les privilèges fiscaux qui en découlent", a-t-elle expliqué.
Source: lemonde.fr
Russie : près de 3 000 ONG devront fermer leurs portes
"Le FSR a enregistré au total 216 279 ONG – dont 229 étrangères – sur la Liste unie d'Etat de personnes juridiques. 467 ONG, qui n'ont pas présenté la documentation nécessaire, doivent être liquidées et 2 307 autres doivent cesser leur activité en tant que personnes juridiques pour la même raison", a indiqué à l'AFP Alexandre Stepanov, directeur du département du FSR chargé des liens avec les ONG. Ces dernières "pourront toutefois continuer de fonctionner en tant que personnes physiques", a-t-il précisé.
Nombre d'ONG ont critiqué la loi, estimant qu'elle devrait compliquer l'obtention d'aides financières étrangères et fournir un prétexte pour éliminer les organisations jugées hostiles aux autorités. "Cette loi est due au désir maniaque des autorités russes de contrôler totalement toute initiative civile comme au temps de l'Union soviétique", estime Elena Jemkova, directrice exécutive de Mémorial, une organisation de défense des droits de l'homme en Russie. "La loi suit la logique du développement de tout le régime de Poutine depuis ces sept dernières années", d'après Stanislav Dmitrievski, ex-leader de la Société d'amitié russo-tchétchène.
"UNE LOI MOTIVÉE PAR DES RAISONS POLITIQUES"
La conformité de cette loi, par rapport au droit international, est également mise en cause par de nombreux spécialistes. "C'est une loi de mauvaise qualité, motivée par des raisons politiques, rédigée intentionnellement de façon vague et non basée sur des principes de droit, a commenté Iouri Djibladze, du Centre pour les droits de l'homme et la démocratie. Par exemple, l'article 31 de cette loi permet de stopper un projet ou une partie d'un projet sur seule décision d'un fonctionnaire."
De plus, les rapports annuels et trimestriels et les plans détaillés de travail, causent des difficultés, en particulier aux défenseurs des droits humains : "Si nous déclarons qu'on va en Tchétchénie dans deux semaines, le gouvernement aura le temps de préparer le terrain et influencer les résultats de cette mission", explique Alexandre Petrov, le directeur adjoint de Human Rights Watch. Outre cela, la complexité de la procédure et son mode de fonctionnement, qui repose sur un seul fonctionnaire, est une porte ouverte à la corruption. Ainsi, une filiale d'une organisation humanitaire française, qui a souhaité garder l'anonymat, s'est vu proposer un enregistrement facilité en échange "d'une faible récompense".
Par ailleurs, et contrairement aux ONG russes – dont "près de 75 % n'ont toujours pas présenté toute la documentation nécessaire pour se faire enregistrer (...), les ONG étrangères ont fait preuve d'une discipline exemplaire", a indiqué M. Stepanov. "Aucune des ONG étrangères n'a vu ses activités suspendues", a confirmé à l'AFP l'experte juridique indépendante Tatiana Morchtchakova. Des ONG telles que Amnesty International ou Human Rights Watch "ont été enregistrées comme antennes russes sur la liste d'Etat, comme le stipule la nouvelle loi, mais doivent maintenant résoudre nombre de problèmes financiers et administratifs, après avoir perdu leur statut d'organisation accréditée en Russie et les privilèges fiscaux qui en découlent", a-t-elle expliqué.
Source: lemonde.fr
Russie : près de 3 000 ONG devront fermer leurs portes
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