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Latest Developments, October 30

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In the latest news and analysis…

Prison torture
The Guardian reports on allegations of forced drug injection and electroshocking at a South African jail run by British security firm G4S:

“Prisoners, warders and health care workers said that involuntary medication was regularly practised at the Mangaung Correctional Centre near Bloemfontein. G4S denies any acts of assault or torture.
…
[A former G4S employee] admitted using an electric shield on inmates to make them talk. ‘Yeah, we stripped them naked and we throw with water so the electricity can work nicely … Again and again. Up until he tell you what you want to hear, even if he will lie, but if he can tells you what I want to hear. He can tell the truth but if that’s not the truth that I want, I will shock him until he tells the truth that I want even if it’s a lie.’ ”

Money to go
Haaretz reports that the Israeli government plans to “more than triple” the money if offers African migrants to leave the country and promise never to return:

“Over the past few months, hundreds of migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, have accepted the previous offer [of $1,5000], which also included a free plane ticket.
Ever since mid-September, when the High Court of Justice overturned a law that allowed illegal migrants to be jailed for up to three years, the state has been scrambling to find a new solution to the migrant problem.
…
Aside from the grants, the interior and justice ministries are also discussing other measures to deal with the migrant problem. [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has given approval in principle to establishing an open detention center for illegal migrants and enacting new legislation that would allow them to be jailed for 18 months instead of three years.”

Held without charge
Agence France-Presse reports that the International Criminal Court has ruled that ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo must remain in detention even though he still has not been formally charged with crimes against humanity:

“The ICC has yet to confirm the charges against Gbagbo for his role in the bloody election standoff nearly three years ago.
Judges said in June that they needed more evidence before charging the former Ivory Coast strongman, who has been held by the ICC for almost two years.”

Sustainable listings
The Guardian’s Jo Confino wants the world’s stock exchanges to demand companies divulge “basic data” about the social and environmental impacts of their business:

“A new study benchmarking sustainability disclosures on the world’s stock exchanges points to a worrying levelling off in the number of companies that are reporting on six basic ‘first generation’ metrics; employee turnover, energy, greenhouse gases (GHGs), lost-time injury rate, payroll, waste and water.
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It also does not take a great deal of intelligence to see that regulators need to get their acts together if we are to significantly change the current situation in which only 3% of the 3,972 world’s largest listed companies and 0.04% of the world’s small listed companies (20 out of 56,710) offer their stakeholders complete first generation sustainability reporting.”

Domestic rights
Inter Press Service reports that domestic workers from around the world have gathered in Uruguay to “speak for ourselves”:

“ ‘For many years only non-governmental organisations spoke for us, through studies and research…but we domestic employees and our unions have done the day-to-day hard slogging,’ said [Ernestina] Ochoa, vice president of the International Domestic Workers Network (IDWN), which changed its name to Federation at the congress.
‘Now we have said “enough’s enough”, let’s found a large federation that unites us, let’s work together to organise ourselves, defend our rights, create unions, improve the laws and help countries where there are no laws, empower domestic workers, train leaders and have a voice vis-à-vis governments and employers,’ she said in an interview with IPS.
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The basic rights established by the [International Labour Organisation Convention No.189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (C189)] include weekly days off, limits to hours of work, a minimum wage, overtime compensation, and social security.
So far, C189 has been ratified by Bolivia, Germany, Guyana, Italy, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa and Uruguay.”

Treating symptoms
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Matt Wade writes that current efforts to control migration tend to ignore “the global economic forces that drive the mass movement of people”:

“The global income gap has become common knowledge among the world’s 7 billion people and that has fuelled the motivation for migration. Surveys have found that more than 40 per cent of adults in the poorest quarter of the world’s countries would like to move permanently to another country if they had the opportunity. Hundreds of millions of people see migration as their only hope of improving their economic standing.
Economists call this a ‘disequilibrium phase’ – a huge mismatch between supply and demand. Because migration is one of the only mechanisms to fix this disequilibrium, migration pressures will exist until the income gap between countries becomes much smaller.”

Avoidance mechanisms
The World Bank’s Otaviano Canuto writes that Switzerland’s financial industry may bear substantial responsibility for depriving poor countries of the “means to finance development”:

“Switzerland, whose financial sector manages $2.2 trillion of offshore assets according to Boston Consulting Group, happens to be one of the main global transaction hubs for the oil, gas and mining sector, which in many developing countries dominates production and exports. Companies in this sector, it has been claimed, frequently dodge billions of dollars in taxes payable to developing countries by shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions.
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In many developing countries, these practices take place in a tax environment that is already heavily tilted towards the private sector, particularly in the form of large tax incentives for oil and mining multinationals.”

US inequality
CNN’s John Sutter writes on the correlation between income inequality and a range of social and health problems:

“When the researchers plotted income inequality against an index of social problems that included infant mortality, mental health and others, they got the chart below, which shows that more unequal places tend to have more of these issues. The United States, the most unequal of the developed countries, for example, also has the world’s highest incarceration rate and a higher infant mortality rate than comparable nations. Sweden, meanwhile, has a low level of income inequality and fares much better on these social measures.
When the researchers plotted the same data according to average income, the correlation dissolved — the poorer societies were not more likely to suffer the social ills.”

Latest Developments, October 19

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Drone investigation
New York University’s Sarah Knuckey provides a brief summary of the new interim report on the UN’s investigation into drone strikes and targeted killings:

“There is ‘strong evidence’ that between 2004 and 2008, Pakistani intelligence and military officials consented to US strikes, and that senior government officials acquiesced and at times gave ‘active approval’ (¶53). However, the report states that only the democratically elected Government of Pakistan can provide legal consent to US strikes, and (now) only in accordance with consent procedures announced in a 2012 parliamentary resolution. Any current cooperation ‘at the military or intelligence level’ does not ‘affect the position in international law’ (¶54). On this basis, the report finds that there is currently no legal consent, and thus that the continued US use of force in Pakistan violates Pakistani sovereignty (absent valid US self-defence).”

African test case
The New York Times reports that the US military, eager for new missions after Iraq and Afghanistan, is using its Africa Command to try out “a new Army program of regionally aligned brigades”:

“The first-of-its-kind program is drawing on troops from a 3,500-member brigade in the Army’s storied First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year. The missions range from a two-man sniper team in Burundi to 350 soldiers conducting airborne and humanitarian exercises in South Africa.
The brigade has also sent a 150-member rapid-response force to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to protect embassies in emergencies, a direct reply to the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed four Americans.
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Before deploying, the troops in Kansas receive six days of cultural training and instruction from Africa-born graduate students at nearby Kansas State University.”

Françafrique redux
In an interview with La Voix du Nord, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian indicates that France is also looking to increase its military capacities in Africa:

“We can carry out two or three [UN-led] operations simultaneously. We do, after all, have 280,000 troops and there are only 3,000 in Mali, as far as I know. I would even say that, with the changes to the military budget I’ve undertaken, we could do another Mali alone, without the Americans. With drones – the first two Reapers will arrive in Niamey by the end of the year –, the transport planes and the supplies that have been ordered. The puny little French army I’ve been hearing about will be able to do another Mali all by itself in the years to come.
The key is our reactivity in Africa between the prepositioned forces and, shall we say, the long-term foreign operations. If we succeeded in Mali, it’s because we had troops in Ouagadougou. We’re on the ground in Dakar, Abidjan, Bangui, Libreville, Bamako, N’Djamena, Niamey. The time has come to think about improved reactivity, particularly with regards to managing the Sahel question.” [Translated from the French.]

Migrant deaths
The Miami Herald reports that a boat carrying Caribbean migrants has capsized off the Florida coast, killing at least four:

“ ‘It was difficult to ascertain truly how many people were on this overloaded vessel,’ said Commander Darren Caprara, chief response officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Miami.
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Once in U.S. custody, Haitian and Jamaican migrants may ask for asylum, after which asylum officers would determine whether each one has a ‘credible fear’ of being returned home.
If they pass the credible-fear test, the migrants would have their cases heard in front of immigration judges. A win there would allow them to be freed and to apply for a green card after a year in the United States. If they lose, including appeals, they would be deported.
A separate policy known as wet foot/dry foot applies to undocumented Cuban migrants. Those caught at sea are generally returned to the island nation, while those who reach U.S. land can stay.”

Saudi no
Al Jazeera reports that Saudi Arabia has turned down a two-year stint on the Security Council, accusing the UN of “double standards”

“ ‘Work mechanisms and double-standards on the Security Council prevent it from carrying out its duties and assuming its responsibilities in keeping world peace,’ the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.
‘Therefore Saudi Arabia… has no other option but to turn down Security Council membership until it is reformed and given the means to accomplish its duties and assume its responsibilities in preserving the world’s peace and security,’ it added.”

Illegal texts
The BBC reports that UK Prime Minister David Cameron has backed an “illegal-immigrant text message campaign” despite some wrong numbers:

“The Home Office says just 14 people out of a total of 58,800 contacted were mistakenly asked if they had overstayed their visas.
But campaigners say the true number of people wrongly contacted is far higher.
Labour described the government’s tactic as ‘shambolic and incompetent’
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Originally, [the texts] had included the phrase: ‘You are required to leave the UK as you no longer have the right to remain.’ ”

Kyrgyz pullout
Foreign Policy reports that the US military has announced it will return the Manas airbase to Kyrgyzstan by next July, after years of bumpy relations with the host government:

“The Defense Department instead will expand its use of an air base in eastern Romania called Forward Operating Site Mihail Kogalniceanu, or ‘MK,’ which now serves as a logistics hub for U.S. European Command. MIK is already used to house as many as 1,350 troops at any one time, typically for rotational use for troops deployed to Romania. Now that will be used for troops leaving Afghanistan.”

Casting stones
The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders suggests it is problematic for Canada to apply “the ‘G’ word” to countries like Turkey when its own past may be no less genocidal:

“The UN Genocide Convention, which Canada ratified more than six decades ago and has applied against other countries, defines the crime as including ‘any of’ a list of acts committed against an identifiable group, including not just mass killing and mass physical or mental harm but also ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part,’ ‘imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,’ and ‘forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’ You can find sustained examples of many of these in Canadian history, plus acts of cultural destruction such as forcing thousands of Inuit to replace their names with metal number plates.”

Latest Development, October 17

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Excess deaths
The Los Angeles Times reports on a new study that claims nearly half a million people died as a result of the Iraq War and its fallout:

“In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers concluded that at least 461,000 ‘excess’ Iraqi deaths occurred in the troubled nation after the U.S.-led invasion that resulted in the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. Those were defined as fatalities that would not have occurred in the absence of an invasion and occupation.
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Of those deaths determined to be the result of direct violence, the study attributed 35% to coalition forces, 32% to sectarian militias and 11% to criminals. Contrary to public perception of mayhem in Iraq, bombings accounted for just 12% of violent deaths. The overall majority of violent deaths, 63%, were the result of gunfire.”

“Fucking natives”
The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network reports on the anti-fracking standoff between Canadian police and First Nations protesters at Elsipogtog:

“Heavily armed RCMP officers, some clad in full camouflage and wielding assault weapons, moved in early Thursday morning to enforce an injunction against a Mi’kmaq barricade that has trapped exploration vehicles belonging to a Houston-based firm conducting shale gas exploration in New Brunswick.
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Tensions were high on both sides as the raid unfolded.
‘Crown land belongs to the government, not to fucking natives,’ APTN’s Ossie Michelin heard one of the camouflaged officers involved in the raid shout to protestors.”

Angry students
Agence France-Presse reports that thousands of French students have taken to the streets in protest over the deportation of foreign-born peers:

“Leonarda Dibrani was detained during a school trip earlier this month and deported to Kosovo with her parents and siblings, in a case that has raised questions over France’s immigration policies, shattered the unity of the ruling Socialist party and landed France’s popular interior minister Manuel Valls in hot water.
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Last month, [Valls] caused an outcry by saying most of the 20,000 Roma in France had no intention of integrating and should be sent back to their countries of origin.
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Last year, 36,822 immigrants were deported from France, a nearly 12 percent rise from 2011 that the Socialist government attributes to a steep rise at the beginning of the year when former president Nicolas Sarkozy was still in power.”

Leaking billions
The Thomson Reuters Foundation reports on Tanzania’s efforts to rein in “illicit transfers”, estimated to cost the country five percent of GDP annually:

“Some of the biggest multinationals operating in Tanzania aggressively avoid paying tax there by using tax havens such as Luxembourg and the Netherlands, he added. Several of them are registered in London.
‘Tanzania has agreements with more than 19 countries, some of them very old. With the United Kingdom, (we agreed) a tax treaty and investment treaty in 1963. We only had 12 graduates. Part of the campaign should be to review all these agreements,’ said [Zitto Kabwe, chairman of the parliamentary committee on public accounts], whose committee will present its report in February next year.
Seven of Tanzania’s top 10 taxpayers in the extractive and communications sectors use tax havens to the detriment of the country’s economy, he said. Two of the three largest mobile phone companies in the country are registered in the tax havens of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, costing Tanzania a large amount of revenue.”

Counting slaves
The Guardian reports on criticism of “the first index to attempt to measure the scale of modern-day slavery on a country-by-country basis”:

“Bridget Anderson, deputy director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford, who has researched and written about human trafficking, said any attempt to gather ‘unjust situations’ across the planet and label them as ‘slavery’ is already getting off on the wrong foot.
‘I wouldn’t find it useful. You have a definitional problem, everything depends on the definition and if you use tricky words like “forced”, you are already straying into difficult territory,” she said.
‘Say with sex trafficking: if you are dealing with people who have very constrained choices, and you are so horrified with the choices, you say you are not allowed to make that choice, it’s too terrible for me on my nice sofa to tolerate. Is it right that you shut that choice down?’”

Ocean decline
Former Chilean finance minister Andrés Velasco argues that “improved governance mechanisms” are needed to end the degradation of the world’s oceans:

“Degradation is particularly serious in the one substantial part of the world that is governed internationally – the high seas. These waters are outside maritime states’ exclusive economic zones; they comprise two-thirds of the oceans’ area, covering fully 45% of the earth’s surface.
It is not enough to document that the losses are big. Obviously, the next question is what to do about it. No single official body has overall responsibility for the high seas. So, even if the economic losses turn out to be much higher than previous estimates, there are currently few effective mechanisms to bring about change. The basic pillar of ocean governance, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, was established 30 years ago. Since then, huge technological advances have occurred, and demand for resources has increased massively.”

Help wanted
The BBC reports that the UN is appealing for more troops and equipment for MINUSMA, its peacekeeping mission in Mali:

“The UN force, which took over security duties in July, has less than half of its mandated strength of more than 12,000 military personnel.
…
‘We are faced with numerous challenges,’ [the UN’s special representative to Mali, Bert Koenders] told the UN Security Council.
‘The mission lacks critical enablers – such as helicopters – to facilitate rapid deployment and access to remote areas to ensure the protection of civilians. Troop generation will have to accelerate.’ ”

Latest Developments, July 30

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Official xenophobia
The Guardian reports on divisions within the British government over a campaign telling illegal immigrants to “go home” and a possible move to require residents of certain countries to pay a security deposit before visiting:

“A day after the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, called the campaign ‘stupid and offensive’, a No 10 [Downing Street] spokesman said [UK PM] David Cameron disagreed, adding that the posters and leaflets were attracting ‘a great deal of interest’.
In a separate move, Lib Dem sources said that a Home Office plan to force visitors from certain Asian and African countries to pay a £3,000 bond before being allowed to visit the UK had not been agreed within the coalition. Reports saying the plan had been signed off prompted a particularly angry reaction from India.”

Mali election
Reuters reports that Mali’s presidential vote went fairly smoothly on Sunday, suggesting “world powers, especially France” were right to insist on the hastily organized election:

“Chief EU observer Louis Michel said on Monday the election took place in a calm atmosphere and participation exceeded 50 percent in some places.
Turnout at some polling stations visited by Reuters on Sunday was more than 50 percent, while participation in previous presidential elections has never exceeded 40 percent.
‘No major incidents were reported even though there were some imperfections,’ Michel told journalists in Bamako.
Some Malians had difficulty finding polling stations and thousands displaced by the war are likely to have missed the vote as they would not have received the newly-printed ID cards.”

Opinion shift
The Guardian reports on a new poll indicating that for the first time since the 9/11 attacks, more Americans are worried about their civil liberties than the threat of terrorism:

“Among other things, Pew finds that ‘a majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts.’ And ‘an even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism.’ Moreover, ‘63% think the government is also gathering information about the content of communications.’ That demonstrates a decisive rejection of the US government’s three primary defenses of its secret programs: there is adequate oversight; we’re not listening to the content of communication; and the spying is only used to Keep You Safe™.”

Global citizenship
The New York Times marks the passing of Garry Davis, the “self-declared World Citizen No. 1” who believed the end of nation-states would mean the end of war:

“The One World model has had its share of prominent adherents, among them Albert Schweitzer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Einstein and E. B. White.
But where most advocates have been content to write and lecture, Mr. Davis was no armchair theorist: 60 years ago, he established the World Government of World Citizens, a self-proclaimed international governmental body that has issued documents — passports, identity cards, birth and marriage certificates — and occasional postage stamps and currency.
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In November 1948, six months after renouncing his [US] citizenship in Paris, Mr. Davis stormed a session of the United Nations General Assembly there.
‘We, the people, want the peace which only a world government can give,’ he proclaimed. ‘The sovereign states you represent divide us and lead us to the abyss of total war.’ ”

Charitable-industrial complex
Peter Buffett, chairman of the NoVo Foundation and son of multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, discusses the dangers of “philanthropic colonialism” and “conscience laundering”:

“Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left.
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As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to ‘give back.’ It’s what I would call ‘conscience laundering’ — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.
But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life.
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It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code.”

Unmanned & warrantless
The Washington Times reports that the FBI has told the US Congress it does not see any need to obtain case-by-case permission for drone surveillance:

“Then, in a follow-up letter [Senator Rand] Paul released Monday, [assistant director for the FBI’s congressional liaison office Stephen D.] Kelly said they don’t believe they ever need to obtain a warrant to conduct drone surveillance as long as it’s done within guidelines.
He said they take their lead from several Supreme Court cases that don’t deal directly with drones but do cover manned aerial surveillance.”

Smear tactics
Inter Press Service reports that the efforts by American “vulture capitalists” to make huge profits off Argentina’s 2001 debt default go well beyond the courtroom:

“The public relations effort, which focuses on Argentina’s increasingly friendly relations with Iran, comes as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is weighing whether to side with Argentina before the Supreme Court in its battle with Wall Street.
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That the White House is backing away from its earlier defences of Argentina indicates that the millions of dollars U.S. hedge funds have spent lobbying members of the administration, Congress and the press are starting to change the debate, with Iran about as popular as Iraq was in 2002.”

Latest Developments, November 16

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Green deserts
The Guardian reports on concerns over genetically modified eucalyptus plantations, which are being hailed by some as a future source of renewable energy:

“But conservationists, long opposed to such forests because of the ecological and social damage, claim the plantations are unpopular and that GM trees encourage felling of natural forests to make way for the ‘green deserts’.
‘The dramatic and dangerous impacts of non-GM industrial eucalyptus plantations are well known and include invasiveness, desertification of soils, depletion of water, increased threat of wildfire and loss of biodiversity,’ says Anne Petermann, director of the Global Justice Ecology Project in the US. ‘In Brazil, these plantations are called “green deserts” because nothing can grow in them. Now they want to genetically engineer them, which will make them even more destructive.’
She fears GM trees will put further pressure on the Amazon by encouraging firms to move deeper into the natural forest and will displace communities.”

Recognition of rights
A new report by EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade) examines 24 cases of mining conflict around the world:

“The analysis helps us understand the links between mining conflicts, the quest for economic growth and the metabolism of economies as well as the role of ecologically unequal exchanges.
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In mining conflicts the problem is not always one of ‘cleaner production’ or ‘environmental standards’ but more of recognition of rights. As in other social movements, recognition as a legitimate partner in the debate is as important as the distributional outcome.”

Destructive policy
Inter Press Service reports that disgraced ex-CIA head David Petraeus’s green-lighting of the punitive destruction of Afghan villages “not only violated his own previous guidance but the international laws of war”:

“Petraeus himself clearly approved the general policy allowing the destruction of villages by Flynn and other commanders in Kandahar in late 2010. Flynn told Ackerman he had sent his plan up the chain of command and believed that International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters were informed.
Carlotta Gall reported Mar. 11, 2011 [in the New York Times] that revised guidelines ‘reissued’ by Petraeus permitted the total destruction of a village such in Tarok Kalache, according to a NATO official.
Although the large-scale demolition of homes had been reported by the Times in November, it had not generated any significant reaction in the United States. But in Afghanistan, the home destruction created frictions between Afghans and Petraeus’s command over the loss of homes and livelihoods.”

Friends of corruption
Oxford University’s Paul Collier writes that rich countries have a responsibility to help, or at least stop hindering, the efforts of “decent African governments” to tackle corruption:

“But the sharp lawyers and slick public relations consultants who counter the effort for clean governance are not based in countries such as Guinea: they are in London, Paris and New York.
Similarly, the clandestine flows of dirty money essential for corruption, which [assassinated Guinean treasury head Aissatou] Boiro was trying to trace, depend on an army of facilitating lawyers, accountants and bankers. They are the people who establish shell companies and nominee bank accounts to conceal true beneficial ownership, and whip money across borders far faster than the lumbering process of inter-governmental legal co-operation. Governments such as Guinea’s bear the brunt of these ethically wretched activities, but they are beyond their capacities to address.
They are not, however, beyond our own capacities. We could turn the system of mutual legal assistance, whereby governments are supposed to co-operate to prise information out of suspected criminals and witnesses, from a sham into a reality. We could require the documents that establish shell companies and bank accounts to carry the names of the lawyers and bankers who executed them. These people could then face legal liability to ensure that the authorities could readily establish beneficial ownership. Our governments and our associations have an obligation to rein in the unscrupulous tail of our professions.”

Elastic journalism
Télérama reports on the justification given by the editor-in-chief of French weekly L’Express for its most recent cover, which shows a veiled woman walking into a social assistance office, with ‘The Real Cost of Immigration’ as the headline:

“ ‘Society is shifting to the right,’ was the gist of a non-chalant Christophe Barbier’s message. ‘L’Express cannot lose touch with that readership. The cover aims for the gut. The pages inside talk to the brain.’ Translation: L’Express has to attract readers with sensational, even reprehensible covers…if only to educate them subsequently inside through nuanced, balanced reporting. Chrisophe Barbier calls that ‘elasticity’.”  [Translated from the French.]

The limits of control
In a conversation with Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang, music legend Brian Eno discusses the invisible rules and assumptions that shape human endeavours, from music to economics:

“Once you’ve grown to accept something and it becomes part of the system you’ve inherited, you don’t even notice it any longer. We don’t even think that not employing children is anti-free market.
So whenever you talk about the free market – or free jazz! – what you really mean is ‘constrained by rules that we’ve stopped thinking about’. This seems a long way off music, but when you set out to make something, you might just inherit all the ways of making it. If you’re a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, you don’t question the fact that there are 84 notes on the piano. You’re not bothered by the fact that you can’t get in between two of them – these are just the ground rules of the working situation.”

Sign of the times
The New York Times looks into the motivations behind the UK’s decision to discontinue aid to India, which “marks a turning point in the former colonial power’s relations with New Delhi”:

“Others say Britain’s new approach stems from the absence of quid pro quo. Last year, India’s decision to select a French company over its British rival for a multi-billion dollar contract to supply fighter planes caused great furor in London, with several British politicians saying India ought to have favored the British company on account of the millions it receives in aid from Britain.
‘They believe that British aid must get a bang for its buck, which means it must spread British influence,’ said Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at Jawaharlal National University in New Delhi. ‘The aid is just not doing that anymore.’ ”