Dialoguepk

Sam Geall 15.03.2016 John A Mathews and Hao Tan’s new book provides an excellent account of the policies driving China’s green transition –  but feels light on politics and power, writes  Sam Geall  The book highlights the global significance of China’s energy revolution, but overlooks local innovation and politics.  (Image of solar powered water heaters in Dezhou by  绿色和平/苏里 ) Looking at the fortunes of Italian cities in the 16 th century, the philosopher and economist Antonio Serra drew a comparison between the wealth of Venice, booming due to trade and manufacturing, and the poverty of Naples, which had based its economy on the mining of metals. It might seem an unusual point to find in a monograph about China’s electric power system, but the contrast, for the scholars John Mathews and Hao Tan, is an important one. China, they write, is “liberating itself” from the extractive economy around fossil fuels, with all its hostile “ geopolitic

Liu Qin 25.01.2016 Beijing makes gains in the fight against smog, says new report from Greenpeace (Image by  Lu Guang/ Greenpeace ) Air pollution levels fell by 10.3% in China last year. However, 80% of cities are still in breach of national standards, according to a new report by Greenpeace East Asia. China’s efforts to clean up air pollution appear to be having an effect. The average concentration of dangerous PM2.5 particulate in the air of 366 major cities has fallen to 50.2 micrograms per cubic metre. However, it remains well over the government-set standard of 35 micrograms and that of the World Health Organisation, which is 10 micrograms. The five municipalities or provinces with the worst levels of PM2.5 pollution were Henan, Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin and Shandong. The purest air was found in Hainan, Tibet, Yunnan, Fujian and Guizhou, according to the 2015 China City Rankings . Greenpeace’s city rankings are based on real-time moni

Remember “peak oil”? We were solemnly lectured that the world was running out of hydrocarbon energy sources, so we must immediately lower our standard of living and reduce energy consumption.  But as with all Malthusian predictions o...

The American Action Forum has released a scathing report taking the Obama administration to task for its paperwork reduction efforts. While the president directed the agencies to repeal, modify, or remove rules that contributed unnecessarily to th...

Bernie Sanders, the Socialist senator representing Vermont as an independent and who is now running for president of the United States as a Democrat, blusters about evil millionaires and billionaires who selfishly keep all their money, which is why n...

Zhang Chun 15.02.2016 Deaths from lung cancer have tripled in Hebei province over the last 40 years, but to what extent is air pollution to blame?  By Zhang Chun Face masks are a common sight in Hebei and other heavily-polluted areas of China as citizens try and protect themselves from deadly diseases caused by smog, which could include cancer The number of deaths caused by lung cancer in Hebei, a heavily-industrialised province just south of Beijing, has risen threefold in the last 40 years, according to a report released in recent weeks by the Hebei Cancer Institute. Big increases in the number of lung cancer-related deaths have been recorded across China. An estimated 7,500 people a day died from cancer in 2015, reported the medical paper,  CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians . Cancer is now the country’s biggest killer. “Lung cancer mortality has risen 221% nationwide over the last 40 years, with incidence rates growing by roughly the same

In Hillary Clinton's latest victory speech, she declared, "Love trumps hate." She frequently touts herself as a symbol of love, kindness, and inclusiveness, and casts Trump as a symbol of racism, prejudice, and divisiveness. H...

Dictatorships have an interest in magnifying minor problems in liberal democracies in order to divert attention from their own oppression and brutality.  One wonders if this interest played a role in facilitating a recent panel titled "Anti...

The California General Assembly voted down a proposal 35-20 to make May 26 John Wayne Day in the state.  Lawmakers cited a 1971 interview in Playboy where Wayne voiced racist views while excusing the stealing by whites of Indian lands. Sup...

You might say I was for Ann Coulter before I was against her. Or maybe that Coulter was for conservatism before she was against it, or before she was for Northeastern moderates Chris Christie, or Mitt Romney -- and certainly before she was for northe...

Speculation abounds as Fox News talking head Andrea Tantaros is no longer appearing on air. In response to a query from TV Newser, Fox issued a terse statement:  “Issues have arisen regarding Andrea’s contract, and Fox News Chan...

On Wednesday evening, I was a delegate at the convention of the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina.  The convention convened at 6 pm and lasted until the maintenance staff of the public high school complex closed down the auditorium a...

The majority of Americans are furious at the government because the government serves itself, not the people. Politicians do the will of their big donors – the donor class – not what the voters want.  Unelected "civil servant...

We’re here to listen to Curt Schilling in his first interview since being cashiered from sport-TV titan ESPN. Curtis Montague Schilling, long loved as a former Major League BoSox rightie pitcher and a baseball color analyst for ESPN, universall...

The majority of Americans are furious at the government because the government serves itself, not the people. Politicians do the will of their big donors – the donor class – not what the voters want.  Unelected "civil servant...

Beth Walker 08.04.2016 Our pick of some of the recent films on China and the environment, and a few classics thrown in (Still from the 2006 film  Behemoth ) The Road  (2015) Independent film maker Zhang Zangbo spend three years embedded in a construction company in central China’s Hunan province. The result is a powerful and shocking insight into the human and environmental costs of China’s infrastructure boom. Zhang documents the corruption and abuse behind the construction of a stretch of the provincial highway by local officials and gangsters. It centres around protagonist Mr Meng – company vice president and “problem solver”– as he deals with injured workers demanding compensation; local people whose homes are destroyed, their family graves dug up, sacred trees and Buddhist temples flattened; local thugs demanding payment; and communist officials inspecting unsafe construction work. This film is particularly poignant at a time when China’

22 April 2016 Author: Pandu Utama Manggala, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Signed in 1951, the US–Japan Security Treaty and the alliance it established have endured for over six decades and continue to play an instrumental role in shaping the regional security order. But with Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump’s ‘America first’ isolationist foreign policy views gaining traction in the United States, concerns are mounting over the future of the alliance. Trump has stated that he would not hesitate to reconsider America’s longstanding alliances with Japan and South Korea if they cease to be of benefit to the United States. He further adds that under his leadership, the United States would seek to renegotiate many one-sided yet fundamental treaties with American allies, including the one with Japan. So can the US–Japan alliance withstand this upshot in domestic criticism? Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly sta

28 April 2016 Author: Mark Fabian, ANU The middle income trap has recently come (back) into vogue as a theoretical construct for understanding why some countries seem to stagnate at the middle-income level. The middle-income range is relatively common among contemporary emerging markets globally, so it is not surprising that ‘trap’ discussions focus on this income bracket. But middle income trap theory also holds some very valuable lessons for development policy more generally, at all income levels. The middle income trap is characterised by reform stagnation. This is arguably because the institutions that are helpful for reaching middle income can actually inhibit development to upper-income status . Examples of such institutions include limited exposure to volatile international capital flows, interest rate controls to shift savings from households to firms, and electoral institutions that favour incumbents and thus promote long-term planning. These policies

Tense protests outside Trump speech in California : The billionaire developer has outraged many by comparing Mexican immigrants to rapists and vowing to build a wall along the Mexican-American border to prevent illegal immigration

Oman rocks to help fight global warming? : When peridotite rock reacts with carbon dioxide it converts gas into solid

Indian actor released after being detained at Abu Dhabi Airport : Jinu Joseph was detained for allegedly abusing crew on Etihad flight to New York

Peripheral vascular disease on the rise in UAE : Blocked peripheral arteries can lead to limb amputation that can be avoided with a simple test and minimally invasive procedure

Iran in talks with Russia on heavy water sales : Excess material may be sold to third countries via large warehouses in Oman

Iran parliament in the balance in election run-offs : There has been little attention on Friday s second round election amid concern that no benefits are being generated by the nuclear deal

Iran runoff elections a new test for moderates : The moderate-reformist bloc needs to win 40 seats to retain control over parliament

Rouhani allies win Iran parliament elections second round: media : Reformist and moderate politicians allied with Iran s President win most seats in second round parliamentary polls

Anne Thiel Sun Xiufang 21.03.2016 On International Forests Day, we publish analysis from Forest Trends on how China's domestic logging ban could drive deforestation elsewhere (Image by Forest Trends) At first glance, China’s newly announced plans to expand bans on logging in its natural forests and to cut the country’s overall timber harvesting quotas may sound like good news for the environment. But when Forest Trends looked into the ramifications of some of the policies laid out in China’s new Five-Year Plan, here’s what we found: This month, the Government of China released its 13 th Five-Year Plan, which lays the foundation for the country’s development through 2020. This Five-Year Plan explicitly states that China aims for an environmentally and economically sustainable model for its future development. Kudos to the Chinese government for pursuing a sustainable long-term agenda, but that plan also poses problems at home and abroad t

Robert Soutar 28.04.2016 Civil society groups are concerned, despite New Development Bank’s approval of ‘green’ first loans. Robert Soutar reports The New Development Bank, set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in 2014 approved its first batch of loans this week (Image by  Kremilin.ru ) Instead of funding coal plants, oil refineries or roads that cut through pristine forests as some observers had feared, new southern-led infrastructure lender the  New Development Bank  (NDB or BRICS bank), has earmarked its first  US$ 811 million batch of loans  for renewable energy projects. The NDB last week signed-off two main disbursements of US$300 million to Brazilian national development bank  BNDES  and US$250 million to India’s  Canara bank  to enhance renewable energy capacity. Shaktikanta Das, India’s economic affairs minister, described the loans as a “good start” on the way to proving the bank’s green credentials. South African

Zhang Chun 29.04.2016 Government promises crackdown and delivery of new soil pollution law after hundreds of Chinese children are poisoned by chemical waste, writes Zhang Chun Angry parents demonstrate outside the school blamed for illness in hundreds of children. The school was built close to a former fertiliser factory (Image by weibo ) For many Chinese, the country’s soil pollution crisis has become increasingly acute in recent weeks after several hundred children fell ill from attending a school built close to a former fertiliser factory. Almost 500 students at the Changzhou Foreign Languages School suffered symptoms  such as skin inflammation, eczema and bronchitis after taking lessons at a school that had only been open for six months, raising questions about what the school authorities knew. The school was built close to a former fertiliser factory site, and the 400 mu (266,700 square metres) dump had been owned by three chemical fac

Russian gas to clean up China's air? Jenny Johnson 02.05.2014 China is set to boost gas imports to help tackle air pollution, but risks inflicting environmental damage in sensitive regions including the Arctic Vladimir Putin is due to visit Beijing later in May to finalise a deal that could see more than 60 billion cubic metres of gas delivered to China (Image by  Monika Flueckiger )  After 15 years of talking about it, Russia is hoping China will sign a major gas contract this month that will deepen the two countries' energy cooperation. The push to finalise the deal comes at a critical time for both sides: China needs to decrease coal burning to improve air quality, while Russia needs new markets for its gas as Europe tries to reduce Russian exports amid the crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is due to visit China later in May to discuss the final terms of the agreement. If it goes ahead, the deal will follow ano

Dave Hill 04.04.2016 Several Chinese cities are weighing up different types of congestion charging to combat smog and alleviate traffic snarl ups. Dave Hill asks what experience can they can draw from London's efforts Road markings for London's congestion charge, a policy that has had mixed environmental results. Pic:  Scott Barron When London mayor Ken Livingstone introduced congestion charging to the British capital in February 2003, his arguments for it were economic. “Red Ken”, as he’d become known for his left-wing politics, was concerned that traffic jams were bad for capitalism. His aims were to reduce valuable time lost as a result of traffic jams and create a more hospitable atmosphere for pedestrians – shoppers, workers and visitors – by relieving motorists of £5 each time they entered a central charging zone covering the Square Mile financial district and the West End shopping and tourist areas. Despite dire predictio