Category: politics

“So, what’s it going to be?”

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Bashar Al-Assad taunts US and allies in new web article.

With the world on tenterhooks over the situation in his country, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has written an open letter to the West taunting them over their seeming lack of options with regard to intervention (or not) in Syria:

Well, here we are. It’s been two years of fighting, over 100,000 people are dead, there are no signs of this war ending, and a week ago I used chemical weapons on my own people. If you don’t do anything about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. If you do something about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. Morally speaking, you’re on the hook for those deaths no matter how you look at it.

So, it’s your move, America. What’s it going to be?

I’ve looked at your options, and I’m going to be honest here, I feel for you. Not exactly an embarrassment of riches you’ve got to choose from, strategy-wise. I mean, my God, there are just so many variables to consider, so many possible paths to choose, each fraught with incredible peril, and each leading back to the very real, very likely possibility that no matter what you do it’s going to backfire in a big, big way. It’s a good old-fashioned mess, is what this is! And now, you have to make some sort of decision that you can live with.

And he’s right, of course. This a complete no win situation for the West. And with Russia and China strongly backing Al-Assad regime, there’s the danger of things going all sorts of Taylor Swift if the US and chums move in.
Here in SA, we’re tucked away from the military side of things, but we’re still economically involved (as a developing economy, we’re the first to get shafted by this sort of unrest) and, of course, politically. Basically, the SA government will side strongly against the US on anything it can. So that means that tacitly, we’re fully in support of Syria using chemical weapons on its own men, women and children.

Nice.

It’s also interesting to note how politicians have dealt with the situation: UK opposition leader Ed Milliband, for example, has said this week that his party would back military action and also that his party would not back military action. So that’s fairly clear then.

Al-Assad leaves us with this chilling warning:

Long story short, I’m going to keep doing my best to hold on to my country no matter what the cost. If that means bombing entire towns, murdering small children, or shooting at UN weapons inspectors, so be it. I’m in this for the long haul. And you will do…whatever it is you’re going to do, which is totally up to you. Your call.

The man’s a cold, calm, calculated nutter.

No easy way out of this, and sadly there’ll be no good news coming out of Syria any time soon.

Oh, and for those of you who have been bothered to read this far down, yes, I’m completely aware that it’s a satirical article from a satirical website.

Unclear

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It appears that I didn’t make myself clear in this post.

So:

Things to do if you disagree with a bylaw:

  1. Object during the public participation step of the bylaw formulation and approval process plan.
  2. Write to your local councillor and tell him or her that you think that the bylaw should be scrapped/changed.

Things NOT to do if you disagree with a bylaw:

  1. Pretend that it doesn’t exist and encourage people to break it as much as possible.

I hope that clears things up for anyone struggling with this obviously testing concept.

This will probably not end well

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There are people who have examined the complex politics of South Africa in minute detail and there are others who have studied the mining industry of the country for many, many years.
These people have earned the right to use the moniker of “expert” in their particular field.

I are not these people.

I can, however, like to venture my opinion on the current situation regarding the wage demands and negotiations surrounding SA’s gold mining sector. And my opinion is that I don’t think things are going to work out very well.

That’s because generally, wage negotiations in SA seem to go pretty much the same way:
Employer offers low percentage – let’s say, for example 5%. Unions demand higher percentage – maybe 13%.

There are strikes, strife, usually a bit of violence and some threats. And then, after a while, and a lot of posturing, they meet halfway. Which would be 9% in this case. The overall increase just about enough to drive inflation up a bit further, but for the individual workers, not usually enough to make up for the pay they missed out on while they were striking. Perhaps the latter is why they then demand a bit more the next time around.

Of course, if I can work this out, then the employers and the unions are probably also aware of it. Thus, they come out with more extreme percentages as their starting points. Which brings me neatly back to current events in gold mining.

The employers – citing falling productivity, the lower price of gold and spiraling costs – have suggested 4%. Not a massive decease on their usual offerings, but then they don’t have a lot of space to place with. That’s not the case for the unions though. Although they have certainly outdone themselves – and each other – this time.

Solidarity (not the Polish one) has demanded 10%.
The NUM has demanded… *drumroll* 60%! Lolz all round.
Oh yes, and AMCU has asked for 159%.

I’d like a pay increase too. 10% would be lovely. 4% would even be quite nice. But with this news, I’m tempted to hold out for 159%. And once I go for it, I will only back down ever so slightly (and maybe I’m guilty of showing my hand a little here, but no further than 158%).

But seriously, with the parties starting so very far apart, the upcoming mining wage negotiation are going to take a while. And all that time, tensions, frustration and desperation are going to increase. And just in case you have no memory, there is history here.

Colour me pessimistic, but I really can’t see this working out well.

Stamping out exceptionalism

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There are problems in SA. Many of them. No sane person would deny that.
Jacob Zuma denies it, but that says more about him than it does about the problems in SA.

However, there are problems everywhere else as well. But all too many people here in South Africa think that we’re the only ones and use their misguided viewpoint to drag the country down whenever and wherever possible.

Chief among the issues usually raised in this regard is Jacob Zuma Eskom and our ongoing power shortages, which have actually been ongoing for ages now.

As I’ve pointed out before, people laugh at the idea that the parastatal suggests that we should be using less of their product, but that’s not an unusual policy: even at school, we were bombarded with YEB (Yorkshire Electricity Board) leaflets and campaigns telling us to switch off lights and not fill up the kettle with more water than we needed. This is nothing new, nor is it exceptional to Eskom and SA.

And now, without enough electricity to go around, the UK finds itself in the same boat as South Africa. The situation there is not quite as acute as it is here; Eskom were down to a margin of just 0.1% the other day (they’d prefer 10%), whereas the UK energy regulator (Ofgem) report warns that the UK could be down to a 2% margin within a couple of years:

“If the projected decline in demand does not materialise margins could fall to 2%.”

Ofgem has been working with Government and National Grid to explore options that would provide consumers with additional safeguards against the increased risk to security of supply, including giving National Grid the option to buy extra reserve generation to balance the electricity network.

But this is a First World country we’re comparing ourselves to here, without the disastrous political history of South Africa (although they did have Tony Blair for a decade or so).

This doesn’t mean, however, is that they aren’t pressing issues. They are, and they need resolving.

What is does mean is that we are not alone in facing these sort of problems, and before we have another pop at “typical useless South Africa”, we should probably remember that the rest of the world isn’t actually much (any?) better off.

Some interesting stories

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Too much to do, too little time to blog, so here’s some stuff I enjoyed to keep you going.

From some science: on the weird, hugely interesting and currently unexplained early spring peak in suicides in the Western world:

…people usually commit suicide because personal, social-system and environmental factors combine to push them to a new place of energized despair.

In this view, spring somehow adds weight to an already unbearable load. But how?

One traditional candidate, favored by both Dr. Jamison and Dr. Kaslow, is the “broken promise effect” — the sometimes crushing disappointment that spring fails to bring the relief the sufferer has hoped for.

To science meeting religion: and the push to erricate polio in Pakistan, which is up against strong – and deadly – opposition from local religious leaders:

On Sunday 16 June, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two polio workers carrying out a vaccination drive in Peshawar, a crowded city in Pakistan’s north-west. One of the men who died was a schoolteacher, the other a paramedic. Both left behind grieving families. Their deaths bring the total tally of polio workers assassinated in Pakistan up to nearly 20 since last December.

To religion: as a paralysed child gets an answer to his prayers.

Said Angela Schlosser, a day nurse who witnessed the Divine Manifestation: “An incredible, booming voice said to Timmy, ‘I am the Lord thy God, who created the rivers and the mountains, the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars. Before Me sits My beloved child, whose faith is that of the mustard seed from which grows mighty and powerful things. My child, Timmy Yu, I say unto you thus: I have heard your prayers, and now I shall answer them. No, you cannot get out of your wheelchair. Not ever.'”

That last link via @grant_mcdermott in response to my tweet about the lack of any response to the tens of millions of prayers being said for Nelson Mandela at the moment.