Latest Development, September 8

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Latest Developments is undergoing a format change in order to free up time for original Beyond Aid reporting. All constructive feedback is welcome.

In the latest news and analysis…

Global governance

Former British foreign secretary David Miliband argues the “war on terror” has distracted world leaders from matters of more pressing existential import.
“If you think the blame game in Europe over Greece is bad, just wait for arguments about who is causing drought and food-price inflation. These are not just “environmental” questions. They are questions of justice and responsibility, and stronger regional and international institutions are needed to address them.”

Human rights

Al Jazeera reports that a UK inquiry into a 2003 detainee death found no evidence of systemic abuse but had harsh words for those involved in this particular incident.
“A three year-long investigation into the death of an Iraqi civilian in British army custody has concluded that Baha Mousa died after suffering an ‘appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence.’ Mousa died after being detained for two days by UK forces in Basra in 2003 after suffering 93 individual wounds to his body.”

UC-Santa Barbara sociologist Lisa Hajjar writes about the US-run Guantánamo detention facility which remains open despite of President Barack Obama’s pledge to shut it down.
“Only three Guantánamo prisoners were convicted in the military commissions over the course of the Bush administration, none for perpetrating the 9/11 attacks. Of the total population of 779 people ever confined at this facility, over 500 of these ostensibly “worst of the worst” men had been released or transferred by the time President Bush left office.”

Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered evidence of “high level of cooperation” among US, UK and Libyan intelligence services.
“The documents, discovered on September 3, 2011, describe US offers to transfer, or render, at least four detainees from US to Libyan custody, one with the active participation of the UK; US requests for detention and interrogation of other suspects; UK requests for information about terrorism suspects; and the sharing of information about Libyans living in the UK. This cooperation took place despite Libya’s extensive and widely known record of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.”

Reuters reports that a pair of lawsuits alleging Cisco Systems facilitated human rights abuses in China could change how US technology companies do business abroad.
“Both cases could provide answers to an evolving legal question: Can U.S. companies be held liable if foreign governments use their products for repression?”

Taxes

A coalition of French NGOs is slamming recent deals signed by Switzerland with Germany and the UK that will provide the latter two countries with tax revenue from their nationals who store wealth in Swiss accounts but will not impact banking secrecy.
“These so-called Rubik accords, which still have to be ratified at the parliamentary level, call into question pledges made within the G20, OECD and EU to promote greater tax haven transparency.”

Tax-News.com reports France and Germany are making progress towards a common corporate tax rate.
“[French Finance Minister François] Baroin explained that plans for a complete project would be drawn up for 2012, with planned implementation in 2013.”

The Nation reports Nigeria has begun recovering the assets of former president Sani Abacha’s family from the Channel Island tax haven Jersey.
“The Federal Government has recovered £22.5m (about N6.18 billion) loot from the family of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. There are plans to recover $400million more, it was learnt yesterday.”

Unsavoury friends

Former secretary general of the European Green Party, Arnold Cassola, writes that Libya’s deposed leader Moammar Gadhafi could not have remained in power for over four decades without some high-placed Western allies.
“The International Criminal Court in The Hague, one hopes, will one day bring Qaddafi, his family, and his minions to justice. But one should also hope that Libya’s new government will expose the links between Western politicians and the Qaddafi regime. At that point, the court of public opinion, at the very least, can render its judgement on their actions.”

Wired’s Danger Room reports one of the top general’s of Somalia’s US-backed government is widely known as “The Butcher.”
“If you thought it was bad that Washington is paying a shady French mercenary to do its dirty work in Somalia, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait to you see our latest ally: an admirer of Osama bin Laden with a gory past.”

Immigration

The Canadian Press reports Canada’s government has set up a hotline for people to report those they suspect of citizenship fraud.
“Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is declaring that “Canadian citizenship is not for sale” and he’s encouraging people to use the tip line to report suspected cases of citizenship fraud.”

The Australian reports Australia’s government and opposition close to agreeing over controversial proposed immigration measures that would outsource the processing of refugee claims.
“A face-saving deal that includes Labor’s Malaysian refugee swap and offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island has emerged as the most likely solution to the nation’s border protection impasse.”

Thanks but no thanks

The Guardian reports on attempts to provide poor countries with low-tech, context-appropriate medical instruments such as a donkey ambulance.
“It is a familiar problem. A well-meaning donor gives a shiny new piece of equipment to a poor country only for it to gather dust. Parts that are expensive and difficult to replace, the need for a constant electricity supply, a lack of trained operators, unsuitability to rough terrain are all factors preventing the use of these devices in the developing world.”

Tax Justice Network reviews a new book on Africa’s “odious debts” that estimates capital flight from the continent at $700 billion over the last 40 years.
“More than half of the money borrowed by African governments in recent decades departed in the same year, with a significant portion of it winding up in private accounts at the very banks that provided the loans in the first place. Meanwhile, debt-service payments continue to drain scarce resources from Africa, cutting into funds available for public health and other needs.”

Latest Developments, September 7

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In the latest news and analysis…

Libya

Embassy Magazine’s Scott Taylor suggests NATO propaganda has exaggerated the role of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa fighting among Gadhafi loyalists in Libya and may bear some of the blame for the violent backlash against dark-skinned Libyans: “Fully one-third of the Libyan population is dark-skinned and come from sub-Saharan Africa. And in pre-war prosperous Libya, migrant workers from central African countries performed most menial labour jobs. With emotions running high and Gaddafi loyalists still battling in several cities, many dark-skinned males have been summarily executed by rebels for no other reason than they are black.” Taylor does not deny the presence of some foreign mercenary troops but wonders if NATO’s support for the rebels makes its soldiers much different. With the fighting still not over, he says “it is as yet impossible to calculate how many Libyans were killed in the name of protecting Libyans.”

Meanwhile, Moammar Gadhafi is deposed but defiant and apparently still in Libya, and the embarrassments are beginning to pile up for his foreign opponents. Especially in the UK where allegations are swirling regarding renditions to Libya and a deal in which the man thought to be behind the Lockerbie boming was sent home in order to facilitate an oil contract for BP.

Somalia

As Somalia’s famine spreads, the Heritage Foundation’s Brett Schaefer and Morgan Roach worry about the impact of alleged food aid theft on American taxpayer dollars and are calling for congressional oversight to prevent such misdeeds. So far, the US has given just over $60 million in humanitarian assistance to Somalia, which amounts to roughly 40 cents per taxpayer.

Aid

The Center for Global Development’s Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz suggest that, since American troops are already engaged in “development” projects in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, it makes sense to give them the tools to be more effective.  Especially given talk of integrating the national defence, diplomacy and development budgets. As things stand, if one is to believe a former Pentagon logistician, the amount the US military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan is greater than the US Agency for International Development’s program budget. The Pentagon, however, disputes the retired brigadier general’s math.

A trio of researchers from MIT and the World Bank looked into the impacts of incentivized aid, whereby the size of grants provided to Indonesian villages depended on their progress toward reaching a number of health and education objectives. They found that such incentives led to improvements in health, but not education.

A new European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) report entitled “How to spend it: smart procurement for more effective aid” suggests that despite decade-old pledges by wealthy donor countries to untie aid, roughly 20 percent of development assistance requires recipients to spend money in donor countries. Moreover, because of the nature of the tendering and procurement system, a further 60 percent of aid contracts end up going to donor-country companies. In other words, 80 percent of aid is either formally or informally tied, making it “boomerang aid: a financial flow that is only channelled to developing countries on the books.” According to the report, “ tied aid disallows developing countries from taking full responsibility of their own development. It puts purchasing decisions in donors’ hands instead, often resulting in the purchase of inadequate goods or failed services.”

Human rights

Bard College’s Ian Buruma looks at the impacts of culture and religion on women’s rights. He argues that, as is the case with both the Taleban and disgraced former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, “culture comes to the rescue of the powerful more often than it protects the weak.” He believes culture needs to be subordinated to laws that protect those at risk. But while recognizing there are places where such goals are distant ones, he cautions against overzealous outside interference: “As for women in Muslim countries, there may not be much that people in the West can do to improve their lot. But it is unlikely that much good will come from bombing them.”

Globalization

Oxfam’s Duncan Green asks: “When did talking on the subject of ‘globalization and development’ start to feel so retro?” He describes an investigation into who benefits from globalization and how to spread those benefits around more equitably as “a very last-decade kind of gig.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports the World Bank is in “very early stage” discussions with China to collaborate on exporting low-end manufacturing jobs to Africa, as the Asian giant adjusts to a shrinking workforce and an increased emphasis on producing higher-value products. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said shifting 5 million jobs to Africa would increase manufacturing employment on the continent by 50 percent.One of the possible methods for the transition would be the creation of industrial zones, a tactic that has proved controversial in Haiti, for example. Zoellick also sees potential for Chinese assistance in agriculture.

Latest Developments, August 25

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In today’s latest news and analysis…

Amnesty International says Libya’s Transitional National Council, which has now been recognized by the Arab League and is relocating to the capital Tripoli, is legally obligated to hand Moammar Gadhafi over to the International Criminal Court if and when he is captured. But Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations says the principle of “complementarity” means the ICC “can claim jurisdiction on one of only two conditions: when the country lacks a functioning judicial system, or when state authorities have manifestly failed to carry out a credible investigation into alleged atrocity crimes.” He argues, however, “if there were ever a strong case for ICC jurisdiction, it is Libya–a country with no functioning judicial system after four decades of arbitrary, dictatorial rule.” But as ICC lawyers wrapped up their first ever war crimes trial, the Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Baldauf asks if the fledgling Court is capable of trying Gadhafi, given its short but shaky history. And South Africa’s deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, wants the ICC to investigate possible human rights violations by NATO. He also said the military alliance’s disregard for UN Security Council resolutions was having a ripple effect in the region: “Because of this situation created in Libya, the Security Council has not been able to agree on how to intervene in Syria.”

While not going as far in its criticism of NATO, a Globe and Mail editorial argues the “improvised air” of Operation Unified Protector “is not a good precedent for future applications of the United Nations’ responsibility-to-protect doctrine – which they interpreted very broadly.” But author David Rieff thinks what you see is what you get: “R2P may not have been designed as the latest version of humanitarian intervention, but with the Libyan action, that is what it has become.” In fact, as with the “humanitarian intervention” in Somalia during the 1990s, he believes the mission creep in Libya was entirely predictable: “This militarization may not be what [Gareth] Evans and the other architects of R2P intended. But then it is rare that a doctrine with the power to command people’s hearts and minds ever survives in the pure form those who first promulgated it imagined.”

The African Union no doubt felt the absence of its largest financial backer, Moammar Gadhafi, – though he was in good company as only four heads of state showed up – at a special summit to raise emergency relief funds for the Horn of Africa’s food crisis. Although pledges reached $351 million, the African Development Bank’s medium-term loans and grants represented the lion’s share of that amount. The actual cash total for immediate assistance appears to be $46 million. As a result, there was no shortage of criticism, especially for continental giants Nigeria and South Africa whose governments promised a combined $3.3 million in new money. “If we truly believe in ‘African solutions for African problems‘, we need to demonstrate this very clearly, not just in words but in actions,” according to Africans Act 4 Africa. On the other hand, EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva offered a more positive spin: “This is the first such summit held by a young organization with little humanitarian experience and a small but dedicated team. It will improve in the future.”

The wider community is not doing much better, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. So far governments have provided or promised only about a third of the $161 million it needs for its plan “to restore livelihoods and build the resilience of populations in the face of climate and other shocks” in East Africa.

A new study suggests a link between climate and violence, as the 93 tropical countries examined were twice as likely to experience internal conflict in El Niño years as they were in La Niña years. Lead researcher Solomon Hsiang of Columbia University “thinks the Niño analysis shows an example of a clear link between climate and conflict, and that this puts a new onus of proof on anyone saying that no such link will be at work as the climate changes in the future, even if it does not show what that future link might be,” according to the Economist.

Alena Buyx of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics lays out five principles for ethical biofuels, according to which their production must not violate people’s “essential rights” relating to food, water, health, etc.; they must be environmentally sustainable; they must reduce greenhouse gas emissions; their exchange must accord with fair trade practices; their costs and benefits must be shared equitably. To which she adds a sixth principle: “If the first five principles are respected and if biofuels can play a crucial role in mitigating dangerous climate change then, depending on certain key considerations, there is a duty to develop such biofuels.”

Swedish clothing company H&M says it is investigating after nearly 300 people collapsed at a supplier’s factory in Cambodia over a period of three days. According to a Reuters report, “deputy provincial police chief Ly Virak blamed the mass faintings on the “weak” health of workers and said the factory suspended operations until next week to allow its 4,000 workers to rest.” About 300 workers also fell ill last month at another H&M-affiliated factory in the capital Phnom Penh. The garment industry is Cambodia’s biggest source of foreign currency but has experienced sometimes violent strikes in recent years as workers demand better pay and working conditions. The latest “faintings” began on the same day as Greenpeace released a new report entitled “Dirty Laundry II: Hung Out to Dry” in which  the NGO says it found “hormone-disrupting chemicals” in the clothing of 14 global brands, including H&M. Helena Helmersson, the company’s head of corporate social responsibility, countered that the amounts found were well below EU restricted levels and that, in any case, the chemicals in question are not dangerous for humans. The first “Dirty Laundry” report came out last month and linked H&M, among others, “to suppliers in China who were found to be releasing a cocktail of chemicals into the Pearl and Yangtze River deltas.”

Oxfam’s Duncan Green looks at a report on the impact of cash transfers which, he says, are “all the rage, especially those handed over directly to women, who are widely thought to use the money more responsibly (spending it on food, rather than booze and fags etc).” While the Oxfam/Concern study identified a number of positives resulting from cash transfers, it also raised some serious concerns. Some of these related to poor project planning and execution, but others appear to run deeper: “Where cash was given in response to a food crisis, it is clear that while food aid was shared, cash was not. This was a major concern among recipients. Community sharing is critically important to women who tend to have a range of lending and borrowing strategies, with neighbours, family, shops and so forth, that enable them to cope when things get tough. Harming these coping strategies is potentially counter-productive for women who may find themselves increasingly vulnerable and less resilient to food insecurity in the long term.”

Latest Developments, August 24

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In today’s news and analysis…

Libya’s rebels are calling for $5 billion in emergency funds to be unfrozen from Gadhafi regime assets. The US is working in the UN on getting $1.5 billion. Of course, as the Globe and Mail’s Eric Reguly writes, it is no secret that Libya has something everybody wants: “By Wednesday it was amply clear that NATO’s mission creep was lubricated by oil.” The question, he says, is “who will get the prizes.” Earlier in the week, a rebel spokesman said they had good relations with an eager bunch of NATO countries but “may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil” who were less keen on providing military support against Gadhafi. And although the rebels have pledged to honour all legal contracts, Reguly writes that “Libya is looking suspiciously like an oil war and the countries that delivered the bombs want their rewards.” But human rights NGO Global Witness is calling first for measures “to guard against a Libyan “oil grab” and ensure the Libyan people benefit fully from the exploitation of Libya’s natural resources.” It wants no new oil deals before democratic elections are held, extensive and “concrete” transparency measures, recovery of Gadhafi-regime money stashed abroad and sanctions against banks that sheltered such funds.

Anticipating a possible European oil embargo against Syria, international petroleum companies are not signing any new deals with the increasingly isolated country, which announced the discovery of a new gas field just last week. But for the time being, company executives said they “still had outstanding contracts that were signed months ago, to either supply refined products or buy crude,” according to the Financial Times. Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney took a much harder line with Damascus in his day, as he reveals in his upcoming autobiography that he wanted to bomb Syria in 2007. The New York Times reports he also defends the use of waterboarding in interrogations and is “happy to note” that current US President Barack Obama has not shut down the prison at Guantánamo Bay as promised.

Meanwhile, there is still a famine going on in Somalia and the African Union is holding a “pledge summit” to address the Horn of Africa food crisis. International Foundation for Agricultural Development President Kanayo Nwanze welcomed the intiative, saying Africa cannot wait for other countries to solve its problems: “No nation, no people ever had sustainable growth that sprang solely from external support. Africa’s development must be made in Africa, by Africans, for Africans.”

The UK and Switzerland have agreed on a new deal that would require taxes be paid in Britain on money held in by British citizens in Swiss bank accounts but would preserve the anonymity of the account holders. Drawing a parallel with the tough-on-crime frenzy that has taken hold in Britain since the riots, the Tax Justice Network’s Richard Murphy is livid: “So at a time when the government is demanding respect for the law, high moral standards and responsibility by all in society one group of criminals – those who have deliberately and knowingly broken the law by tax evading in Switzerland – are going to be let off without paying anything like what they owe even in tax, let alone in penalties and interest. What is more, instead of these people being brought before an all night court sitting to make sure justice is done with names and addresses being published for all to see anonymity is instead being guaranteed to those criminals so they can still held (sic) their heads up high in polite society.”

The Canadian Medical Association has denounced the federal government for blocking the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos on a UN treaty’s list of hazardous substances. “This is an important health care issue and a product that causes significant illness and even death,” according to the organization’s outgoing president Jeff Turnbull. “Canada should not be in the business of exporting such a dangerous product.”

The Guardian’s John Vidal says “plans for a US-based investment company to lease up to 1m hectares of South Sudan for only $25,000 a year appears to have stalled following protests by local communities over the potential “land grab“.” But Indian agribusiness investors are showing major interest in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda, where they say there is as much arable land as in their home country. As in South Sudan, however, local populations are expressing misgivings: “No one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans, create jobs or improve food security,” according Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia’s Obang Metho.

Also writing in the Guardian, Rick Rowden argues that the UK’s Department for International Development’s new emphasis on promoting private sector growth in poor countries fails to distinguish “between the needs and interests of domestic private sector firms and those of foreign investors” and “perpetuates the foggy notion that the needs and interests of the two parties are somehow exactly the same. They are not.” He argues that, in countries where the private sector has taken off over the past decades, domestic companies got help from their own governments, whether in the form of temporary trade protection, cheap credit or R&D investment. But far from encouraging such measures today, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the proliferating bilateral trade agreements between rich and poor countries proscribe them as “bad government intervention.”

Richard Falk, a retired Princeton law professor, argues “the Afghanistan war is being fought against the nationalist Taliban and on behalf of a corrupted and incompetent Kabul regime for political control of the country” and as such is hurting America’s image and giving “extremism a good name” in the region. “Such an analysis yields a single moral, legal and prudential imperative: when foreign intervention is losing out to determined national resistance, leave the country quickly, stop the killing immediately, and declare victory with pomp and circumstance.”