And Now, The News
Since this journal normally looks more like a news and politics blog then anything else, here are some updates from the last month for things I'm watching that could go boom just to prove that if I've been replaced by a doppelganger, he's at least consistent.
Fukushima, Japan: TEPCO has announced that it will take them six to nine months to put the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors into cold shutdown. Everybody is surprised, but it looks like they'll be building a new cooling system in order to keep the reactors cool, and a new containment building in the process. That will chew up most of the time, but it basically means that the exciting dangerous portion of the accident is over - from now on it's just putting pieces back together (unless something else goes wrong). The good news is that the radiation exposure levels outside of Fukushima are still relatively low, according to the Japan geigermap. The largest danger seems to be near the Abukuma river in Fukushima prefecture, which has seen radiation levels of about 1.5 μSv near its population centers consistently (this is not high enough to force evacuation, but is a bit uncomfortable).
Libya, East: Although the Libyan rebels keep claiming that they're getting organized, so far the results have only been apparent in news releases. In the field they have yet to fully demonstrate their ability to take and hold ground. This would not be so annoying to NATO if it were not for the goalpost shifting. First the rebels wanted no intervention, then they insisted that if Gaddafi's air force was grounded they would win by themselves, then they needed NATO to get rid of Gaddafi's tanks. When that was not enough they wanted NATO to kill Gaddafi's whole army and bomb them a road to Tripoli. Maybe if they had just admitted their inability to take the fight to Gaddafi at the beginning they wouldn't be in the process of being ignored right now.
Libya, West: Unlike their eastern cousins, the rebels in Misurata have become organized, determined, and experienced out of necessity. They lack the luxury of retreat from a city with only the sea as exit. While Gaddafi's troops have chased the rebels in the east back to Ajdabiya several times, they still haven't manage to crack Misurata. It's a stirring demonstration that the rebels can do it, and it leads people to wonder how to unite the experience and expertise of the Misurata rebels with the greater manpower of the east.
Libya, NATO: NATO's inability to provide full coverage for Libyan operations has resulted in a lot of finger pulling and name calling back and forth. The US has called out the Europeans, probably fairly, for not pulling their weight in the current international environment. The Germans, the Turks, and their allies are in turn pointing a lot of fingers at the French and British for using their weight wrong by getting them into this mess. Everyone wants more planes, nobody wants to pay for them. The usual story, really.
Egypt: The revolution is over, back to work. The problem with replacing a government that was basically a figurehead Mubarak ruling in the name of the military with a council also run by the military is that the old boss is the same as the new boss. Protesters have been finding that out the hard way. Not to say that the revolution was useless - there have been a lot of changes that will take time to percolate their way to the top, but it's pretty clear that it's not going to go quickly.
Cote d'Ivoire: People are still trying to figure out what happened there. The common line is that after stealing the election Gbagbo refused to negotiate any deal that would see him out of power, gambling that he could keep control. Well, he couldn't. However, the two rival candidates don't really have armies, what they have are groups of young men (sometimes drunk or high) with guns who want a piece of the pie. Given the kind of local grudges that boil under the surface it's hardly surprising that there were several reported massacres. Eventually the anti-UN propaganda Gbagbo was spreading before the fighting really started bit him in the ass when it resulted in his thugs starting a fight with the UN, finally getting the Ukranians to shoot at them. Then the French did something - for unknown reasons, but possibly just to muddy the waters. And get attention. This is the French after all.
Nigeria: Nigeria has held a mostly free and mostly fair election (well, for various values of "mostly") which has revealed that the country is still split along ethnic lines, and that may have blown Nigeria's social compact to hell. Nigeria is a perfect example of some of Paul Collier's arguments about how democracy in poor countries has several faults. Like all democracies, Nigeria's is influenced by the candidate with the most money. In Nigeria though the single largest source of political revenue is graft and patronage from Nigeria's state budget, which is controlled by the current president. This gives the incumbent a tremendous advantage. To counter this, there was an unspoken agreement that the Presidency would rotate between southerners and northerners. Except that the northerners last elected Yar'Adua, who served two and a half years before going MIA for several months, abroad for medical treatment. He returned to Nigeria in critical condition only to die in May of 2010, leaving his VP, southerner Goodluck Jonathan, in charge. This, of course, led to all sorts of mess about whose turn it was next, and unsurprisingly voting split along ethnic lines. Now that Goodluck Jonathan is president, it remains to be seen whether he can put everything back together.
India: SIPRI now thinks that India is the world's largest arms importer, which is hardly surprising given the number of open tenders that they have. Nobody knows what they're going to do with the stuff though - India's foreign policy and objectives are sort of an international mystery. I suspect that, like the US, India just doesn't know what they want out of their foreign relations, and so has trouble communicating it. One thing they might want to do though is invest it in naval operations now that they're at war with the Somali coast guard. Apparently everyone's favorite conglomeration of pirates has decided that they're tired of India seizing their members and locking them up just because they steal ships and hold hostages and have "declared war" on India. It remains to be seen whether India will give a damn.
Thailand: Thailand's been using the lese Majeste law a lot of late, the one that outlaws any disrespect to the royal family. This has let them shut down several people who have refused to toe the official government line, and who might oppose the current ruling system. To distract from this, Thailand decided to let it be discovered that they had actually did use cluster munitions in their last border clash with Cambodia, which is ironic given how much Thailand hates the fact that the border with Cambodia is mined. Then, to distract the press from that, today they started shooting at Cambodia again. Clearly the people running Thailand are geniuses - you couldn't get in this much trouble by accident.
Malaysia: Malaysia has been facing some tough questions recently regarding elections, fairness, and the loss of the country's prized secularism. In order to keep people from worrying, the President recently declared that everyone in the country would get a free email address. Well, not exactly free. It'll cost the taxpayers $16 million US to companies that may be pretty friendly to the President. Maybe they should have stuck with gmail instead.
Taiwan: Every couple of months, someone tries to kick off World War III in the Spratly islands. Well, now it's Taiwan's turn. The main issue with the Spratlys is that they're claimed (all or in part) by everyone in the region, most notably China. While China's continual line of diplomatic blunders continues to make the rest of the nations in the region more disgruntled then they were, Taiwan may have decided now is a good time to stir the pot. Hopefully it doesn't explode.
Fukushima, Japan: TEPCO has announced that it will take them six to nine months to put the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors into cold shutdown. Everybody is surprised, but it looks like they'll be building a new cooling system in order to keep the reactors cool, and a new containment building in the process. That will chew up most of the time, but it basically means that the exciting dangerous portion of the accident is over - from now on it's just putting pieces back together (unless something else goes wrong). The good news is that the radiation exposure levels outside of Fukushima are still relatively low, according to the Japan geigermap. The largest danger seems to be near the Abukuma river in Fukushima prefecture, which has seen radiation levels of about 1.5 μSv near its population centers consistently (this is not high enough to force evacuation, but is a bit uncomfortable).
Libya, East: Although the Libyan rebels keep claiming that they're getting organized, so far the results have only been apparent in news releases. In the field they have yet to fully demonstrate their ability to take and hold ground. This would not be so annoying to NATO if it were not for the goalpost shifting. First the rebels wanted no intervention, then they insisted that if Gaddafi's air force was grounded they would win by themselves, then they needed NATO to get rid of Gaddafi's tanks. When that was not enough they wanted NATO to kill Gaddafi's whole army and bomb them a road to Tripoli. Maybe if they had just admitted their inability to take the fight to Gaddafi at the beginning they wouldn't be in the process of being ignored right now.
Libya, West: Unlike their eastern cousins, the rebels in Misurata have become organized, determined, and experienced out of necessity. They lack the luxury of retreat from a city with only the sea as exit. While Gaddafi's troops have chased the rebels in the east back to Ajdabiya several times, they still haven't manage to crack Misurata. It's a stirring demonstration that the rebels can do it, and it leads people to wonder how to unite the experience and expertise of the Misurata rebels with the greater manpower of the east.
Libya, NATO: NATO's inability to provide full coverage for Libyan operations has resulted in a lot of finger pulling and name calling back and forth. The US has called out the Europeans, probably fairly, for not pulling their weight in the current international environment. The Germans, the Turks, and their allies are in turn pointing a lot of fingers at the French and British for using their weight wrong by getting them into this mess. Everyone wants more planes, nobody wants to pay for them. The usual story, really.
Egypt: The revolution is over, back to work. The problem with replacing a government that was basically a figurehead Mubarak ruling in the name of the military with a council also run by the military is that the old boss is the same as the new boss. Protesters have been finding that out the hard way. Not to say that the revolution was useless - there have been a lot of changes that will take time to percolate their way to the top, but it's pretty clear that it's not going to go quickly.
Cote d'Ivoire: People are still trying to figure out what happened there. The common line is that after stealing the election Gbagbo refused to negotiate any deal that would see him out of power, gambling that he could keep control. Well, he couldn't. However, the two rival candidates don't really have armies, what they have are groups of young men (sometimes drunk or high) with guns who want a piece of the pie. Given the kind of local grudges that boil under the surface it's hardly surprising that there were several reported massacres. Eventually the anti-UN propaganda Gbagbo was spreading before the fighting really started bit him in the ass when it resulted in his thugs starting a fight with the UN, finally getting the Ukranians to shoot at them. Then the French did something - for unknown reasons, but possibly just to muddy the waters. And get attention. This is the French after all.
Nigeria: Nigeria has held a mostly free and mostly fair election (well, for various values of "mostly") which has revealed that the country is still split along ethnic lines, and that may have blown Nigeria's social compact to hell. Nigeria is a perfect example of some of Paul Collier's arguments about how democracy in poor countries has several faults. Like all democracies, Nigeria's is influenced by the candidate with the most money. In Nigeria though the single largest source of political revenue is graft and patronage from Nigeria's state budget, which is controlled by the current president. This gives the incumbent a tremendous advantage. To counter this, there was an unspoken agreement that the Presidency would rotate between southerners and northerners. Except that the northerners last elected Yar'Adua, who served two and a half years before going MIA for several months, abroad for medical treatment. He returned to Nigeria in critical condition only to die in May of 2010, leaving his VP, southerner Goodluck Jonathan, in charge. This, of course, led to all sorts of mess about whose turn it was next, and unsurprisingly voting split along ethnic lines. Now that Goodluck Jonathan is president, it remains to be seen whether he can put everything back together.
India: SIPRI now thinks that India is the world's largest arms importer, which is hardly surprising given the number of open tenders that they have. Nobody knows what they're going to do with the stuff though - India's foreign policy and objectives are sort of an international mystery. I suspect that, like the US, India just doesn't know what they want out of their foreign relations, and so has trouble communicating it. One thing they might want to do though is invest it in naval operations now that they're at war with the Somali coast guard. Apparently everyone's favorite conglomeration of pirates has decided that they're tired of India seizing their members and locking them up just because they steal ships and hold hostages and have "declared war" on India. It remains to be seen whether India will give a damn.
Thailand: Thailand's been using the lese Majeste law a lot of late, the one that outlaws any disrespect to the royal family. This has let them shut down several people who have refused to toe the official government line, and who might oppose the current ruling system. To distract from this, Thailand decided to let it be discovered that they had actually did use cluster munitions in their last border clash with Cambodia, which is ironic given how much Thailand hates the fact that the border with Cambodia is mined. Then, to distract the press from that, today they started shooting at Cambodia again. Clearly the people running Thailand are geniuses - you couldn't get in this much trouble by accident.
Malaysia: Malaysia has been facing some tough questions recently regarding elections, fairness, and the loss of the country's prized secularism. In order to keep people from worrying, the President recently declared that everyone in the country would get a free email address. Well, not exactly free. It'll cost the taxpayers $16 million US to companies that may be pretty friendly to the President. Maybe they should have stuck with gmail instead.
Taiwan: Every couple of months, someone tries to kick off World War III in the Spratly islands. Well, now it's Taiwan's turn. The main issue with the Spratlys is that they're claimed (all or in part) by everyone in the region, most notably China. While China's continual line of diplomatic blunders continues to make the rest of the nations in the region more disgruntled then they were, Taiwan may have decided now is a good time to stir the pot. Hopefully it doesn't explode.