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Unfortunately, one way to assess the political importance of blogging around the world is through the growing number of blogger arrests. Since 2003, 64 citizens unaffiliated with news organizations have been arrested for their blogging activities.
For the overwhelming majority of us, writing a blog is a hobby. For a brave few it is a more serious occupation or calling with a higher personal cost. But blogging will continue to grow (look at the WordPress figures for example), affect us (see one view in “Net Libertarianism” in the TLS), and bloggers will keep the pressure on rogue regimes and defend the freedom of expression everywhere.
See the full story from the World Information Access Project and download the 2008 WIA Report here.
“This is the way to kindle, not to quench” [COR III, i]
Euro 2008 kicks off this weekend and promises some intriguing group stage encounters (not least Holland v. Italy, Holland v. France, France v. Italy, Spain v. Russia, Czech Republic v. Portugal, and Germany v. Croatia). 
And the games can only get better in the following knock-out stages. Sometimes it is argued that this competition is stronger than the World Cup, insofar as the weather tends to be kinder both on players and pitches, and there are fewer weaker teams. In the betting, Italy, the current World Cup holders, are rated behind Germany and Spain, but this a competition that has a habit of producing unexpected winners – for example the Czechs (1976), Denmark (1992) and Greece – the current Cup holders – (2004). Part of me is backing Spain, part takes refuge in Eduardo Galeano’s sentiments (post) that it is enough to enjoy the game.
The reason that I’m cheering on the Spanish is, of course, that none of the British representatives have made it to the Euro 2008 finals, in the year in which two English teams contested the UEFA Champions League final and Rangers reached the UEFA Cup Final, and when 13% of the players taking part in Euro 2008 practice their trade in the Premiership. Of the 16 nations competing, only Italy & Russia do not have at least one current Premiership player in their squads. The globalisation of professional football is largely the consequence of the EU’s regulations on the free movement of labour: no amount of posturing by UEFA on the numbers of home players per team is going to be successful. Ironically in the Champions League final both Chelsea and Manchester Utd fulfilled Blatter’s ’six-plus-five’ principle (which would limit a team’s “foreign” players to five).
The number of home-based players in each nation’s squads is shown the graph, and is contrasted with the number of all players in each country’s domestic leagues: 96% of Russia’s squad play in their domestic clubs (and 8% of all the players in the tournament play in Russia), whereas only one Croatian plays in Croatia (and no one else does). Unsurprisingly the big football nations – Germany, Italy, France & Spain – have a high percentage of domestically-based squad members as well as sharing a large proportion of foreign players in their respective leagues [Data source: BBC].
Will this make any difference to their chances of success? The second graph contrasts the current odds (from William Hill: 4-1 Germany; 11-2 Spain; 7-1 Italy, Portugal; 15-2 France; 12-1 Croatia, Holland; 16-1 Czech Republic; 22-1 Greece; 25-1 Switzerland; 28-1 Russia, Sweden; 40-1 Romania, Turkey; 50-1 Poland; 100-1 Austria) with the number of players in the finals who play in each nation’s leagues (thereby assuming that this is an indicator of performance). 
The relationship looks quite close – without getting drawn into any statistical tests – but the actual results are likely to depend upon the players’ form and the quality of management. Let us remember that during qualifying England made the fundamental error of promoting the #2: see post No Easy Matches.
The Premiership is probably the most international league in the world (in terms not only of players, but also sponsorship, worldwide tv coverage), and yet the overwhelming majority of the England team would most likely be drawn from the top four clubs (less if Arsenal is one of these). The question then – accepting the positive impacts of globalisation on British football – is how sustainable is the modern game given the clubs’ level of indebtedness and cost structures, and arguably the increasing inequalities between clubs, and the lower divisions. The issues is not about players’ nationalities, but rather the linkages between the advantages of globalisation and ensuring that domestic football can generate new talent and decent national teams (i.e the financing of domestic football, benefit-sharing arrangements and the “rules of the game” in the widest sense). Perhaps this is where the Germans, Italians, Spanish & French are doing better?
But there is a lesson here for the World Environment Day too: strengthening local capacities is the key to help countries lever to their advantage the benefits from globalisation. 
Both the agricultural and forestry sectors in developing countries have been relatively neglected by multilateral and bilateral donors. The success of efforts to create new carbon markets to support avoided deforestation will depend upon the quality of local institutions and knowledge to match initiatives and funding to tackle the drivers of deforestation whilst supporting farming systems. Implementing such environmental service programmes – and wider reforms needed to decarbonise the world’s economy – will be by necessity a step-by-step experimental process based on enduring partnerships, but one that has hardly begun:
Juan Bautista Alberdi, an Argentine constitutionalist and liberal, noted in 1837 that “Nations, like men, do not have wings; they make their journeys on foot, step by step.” Latin America, long susceptible to the utopian mirages of revolutionaries and caudillos and still not immune to them, has struggled to absorb this truth. But … durable mass democracies have emerged across the region…[Brazil's] leadership in nonfossil fuels and the unparalleled biodiversity of its Amazon rain forest make it a natural leader in the 21st-century struggle with global warming. (NYT)
UPDATE: 25 June
The first graph shows the four semi-finalists came from the top-5 rated nations (which is better than the match makers managed). I’m sure that Eduardo Galeano enjoyed the romance of the plucky and skillful Turkish performance, as well as Richard William’s sympathetic sport writing – here
Johan Eliasch — the sports gear tycoon, ex-Conservative Party deputy treasurer, Gordon Brown’s deforestation adviser and founder of the Cool Earth, which runs a scheme to buy rainforests, sponsored in turn by donations — is back in the news (although oddly not in the UK press).
Le Monde reports that the new Environment Minister, Carlos Minc (an environmentalist, and founder of the Green Party), who replaced Marina Silva, has launched an enquiry into the actions of Cool Earth.
Les services brésiliens de renseignement ont décidé de lancer une enquête sur un homme d’affaires suédois, Johan Eliasch, qui aurait mis l’Amazonie à prix pour 50 milliards de dollars, rapporte le journal O Globo de lundi.
“M. Eliasch a suggéré en 2006 et en 2007 à des hommes d’affaires d’acheter des parcelles de terre en Amazonie, affirmant qu’il faudrait ’seulement’ 50 milliards de dollars pour acquérir toute la forêt amazonienne”, a rapporté le quotidien carioca, citant l’Agence brésilienne de renseignement (Abin).
L’Abin a transmis ses informations au ministère de la Justice et à la Police Fédérale.
Le nouveau ministre brésilien de l’Environnement, Carlos Minc, s’est dit “choqué” par la nouvelle et a d’ores et déjà affirmé qu’il ordonnerait l’ouverture d’une enquête dès qu’il prendra officiellement ses fonctions, mardi.
D’après le journal brésilien, Cool Earth fait déjà l’objet d’une enquête pour l’achat présumé de 160.000 hectares dans l’Etat amazonien du Mato Grosso, dans le centre-ouest du pays.
Les agents brésiliens ont fait le rapprochement entre ces achats de terres et des déclarations récentes d’hommes politiques britanniques sur la nécessité de protéger l’Amazonie
“Les Anglais ont une fois de plus privilégié la préservation de l’environnement au détriment de la souveraineté nationale. Ils partent du principe que des pays comme le Brésil ne sont pas capables de protéger leurs forêts”, ont souligné les services brésiliens de renseignement dans leur rapport sur Cool Earth.
Looking at the Top Search enquiries that bring people to these blog pages “deforestation” & “deforestation trends” or “data” are topics that score highly (although admittedly the blog receives few search enquiries…). I’m more interested myself in the drivers of deforestation, and seeking policy solutions and, as appropriate, those economic instruments that might change the incentives to clear forests or make their management more viable, whether by local communities or companies. But nonetheless here are the results of my own search for more information on deforestation:
First stop, the Beeb on the trends in the Amazon: clear and concise data, and good graphics too. This is an exemplary example of how to get the data and arguments across.
Next: FAO Forestry “Facts and Figures” which is not the most imaginative site but it gives an overview of trends and you can follow the source (the FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005), which can be downloaded – - and includes the global spreadsheet, with data on a country basis, which is really useful if you need to analyse the data yourself:
MONGABAY.COM provide the same data, but presented more attractively, plus lots of other information and news updates. For example, the tropical deforestation data here.
CIFOR host a Forest Spatial Information Catalog (sic) a “one-stop access to spatial publications, maps and other documents that will simplify the ability of all levels of visitors to find forestry related data“, which does seem comprehensive; however, the site does not appear to have been updated recently, and I cannot get the maps to open. Much of the data is sourced from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
WWF have lots of in-depth information on different forest ecosystems, for example here on tropical & subtropical moist forests, with downloadable images and maps (see for example, below), and detailed descriptions of each “ecoregions” (within which there are further sources to explore).
Remember that deforestation is very much open to interpretation, see for example my earlier post.
The Centre for Global Development (CGD) have published their Commitment to Development Index for Africa, which looks beyond development assistance funding to gauge rich countries’ engagement with Africa. The summary chart below is based on the average of country scoring (0-10) across seven policy areas.
The index builds on the CGD’s global index – - indeed the investment, environment and technology policy areas are the same, which to some extent undermines their usefulness in the CDI for Africa. Other quibbles might include, inter alia, the lack of linkage between the policies and actual growth and/or poverty reduction, (i.e. what has been the impact of investment policies?), the narrowness of the environmental indicators (forestry is reduced to tropical timber imports; the US scores 0 for not signing up to Kyoto, but gets no credit for implementing the Clean Air Act), the UK scores well for intervening in Sierra Leone, but does not appear to lose much for supplying arms and munitions to the continent.
Such indices are inherently subjective, but the CGD is exemplary in providing both the technical briefs which describe the methodologies used to derive the scores, and a spreadsheet file containing the data, calculations and data sources.
The results show the disparities in rich countries’ committment to development in Africa – in spite of signing up to initiatives such as the millennium development goals and debt cancellation. Even top-placed Sweden scores less than average (5) in four policy areas. It would be interesting in future editions to include emerging economies such as China, India, & Brazil in the index to measure the quantity and quality of their aid, trade agreements and other support to the continent.
UPDATE: 21 June
British arms export sales — a record £10bn — amount to a third of all worldwide export orders for military equipment.
Existence well what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. The past is now part of my future, The present is well out of hand.
Joy Division, “Heart and Soul” (1980).
As the fallout from the subprime crisis continues, the credit losses and write downs to date of London’s big banks have been neatly compiled by Here is the City (and shown above in US$bn). On a per employee basis the three biggest losers are the Mizuho Financial Group ($2,750,000 per employee), UBS ($1,681,818), & Citi ($1,363,333) respectively. Whether firms can survive given such a poor performance is a moot point.
The recently published Living Planet Index – a census of the animal kingdom, albeit based upon only 4,000 species – purports to show a dramatic and unprecedented loss in biodiversity in the period from 1970-2005 (The Independent): land species have declined by 25 per cent, marine life by 28 per cent, and freshwater species by 29 per cent.
Extinction has a dynamic like financial capitalism – it is part of an evolutionary struggle, in which life today has come at the cost of the death of almost everything that came before – and both species (literally) and bankers (figuratively) live and die seeking a balance or compromise between growth and stability.
Public concern about the fate of the planet suffers from overkill. Many who once cared about the environment now share a Voltairean sentiment that the easiest way out of the crisis might be to strangle the last panda with the guts of the last blue whale. However, today’s cataclysm is no different from many others… Few plants and animals live for long. The descendants of a very few, transformed by natural selection, make up the world today.
Steve Jones, “Almost Like a Whale. The Origin of Species Updated” (1999).
But whilst the world is basically full — new species will have to push out their predecessors — human action since the advent of industrial revolution has had a profound impact. [And sometimes we create unexpected niches for a wildlife renaissance - the Iron Curtain becomes a biological corridor or green belt across Europe]. We are essentially shoving many species into a situation whereby there are too few individuals to avoid utter extinction.
Governments are now intervening in financial markets – to protect the public from the banks’ excesses (and to save the banks themselves from the excesses of global financial markets). Regulation has proven insufficient (it tends to focus like generals on the last battles) and the rewards from financial globalisation of the past 5-10 years seem too slim given the costs: the challenge is to improve regulation, but its effectiveness will be will only be shown by the next financial cycle. The convalescence of the banks has begun, but the recovery from a slowdown in consumption and economic growth will take a while.
Biodiversity loss has also been asymmetric – and the policy response has been vapid. Can anything effective be done? Prince Charles has called for a fund of US$15bn a year to pay for a “global insurance policy” to halt deforestation. Such a global commitment would be a fillip: but getting the incentives right (plus concomitant transparency and accountability in carbon markets) for avoided deforestation is more of a challenge than finding the cash.
The results of the Big Garden Birdwatch are out. More than 6m birds were spotted in some 236,00 gardens. The table summarises the results for the UK as a whole, and shows the winners and losers.
For the UK as a whole the decline in numbers continues. The House Sparrow remains on top spot but their numbers have fallen by two-thirds in the past 29 years; likewise the numbers of starlings, which was also the highest counted bird until 2003. These species and song thrushes are on the RSPB’s red list. But pigeon and common tit numbers are increasing (for the latter 2 are in the top-10 and 4 in the top-15), together with more frequent winter visits by finches.
Dani Rodrik’s recent post on development economics took me back to my graduate days at the UEA’s School of Development Studies on the — then brand new — MSc Agricultural Economics course (1984-85) managed by Frank Ellis and Steve Biggs. Their liberal course and seminar-based teaching approach was a breath of fresh air. Franks Ellis´s lectures would contribute to his “Peasant Economics: farm household and agrarian development” (CUP, 1988), and later influential work on rural livelihoods. Other lecturers included, inter alia, Richard Pearce, John Harris ["Political Economy Rural Development : Theories of Peasant Economy and Agrarian Change" (Hutchinson, 1982)], and Piers Blaikie ["The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries" (Longman, 1985)].
Steve Biggs lectured on agricultural innovation and participation — and Dennis Rondelli’s “Development Projects as Policy Experiments” was a key text.
The idea that development approaches and policy ideas in, for example, Africa are really very different to those in the UK or US is fundamentally odd to me. We simply don’t always know where the “where the problems lie” and by necessity and choice need ” to acknowledge that the key problems may differ from setting to setting, and to adopt an explicitly experimental attitude to policy selection and formulation.”
But is this really a paradigm shift? I have long been an advocate of Bill Easterly’s approach — conditional funding based on country’s own efforts at policy reform, and Dani’s own emphasis on the recognition of pluralism (and I have no little time for Sach’s big bang): perhaps it may be from those in ivory towers, but for those involved in discussing, bargaining & negotiating policy it is the only approach. Putting in place the institutional arrangements (and funding) for collective M&E is admittedly more difficult.
Gandhi was once asked, “How can I know that the decisions I am making are the best I can make?” He answered: “I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it?
Slate has an interesting article “Gandhi’s Talisman” on Google’s philanthropy. Apparently Google started by asking 
themselves how their help would affect the world’s poorest and weakest (which also mirrors the company’s “don’t do evil” code of conduct) , and the second criterion — which also reflects their own business model — ‘is it a big enough idea’? So far, so West Coast. Asking whether Google had any particular expertise for potential projects is perhaps a step further than many public development agencies and NGOs have perhaps cared to ask themselves too closely. Google are therefore at present supporting five initiatives: 1. Predict and Prevent – strengthening the means to identify and respond to hot spots or emerging risks; 2. Inform and Empower – to improve the provision of essential public services (education, health, water, and sanitation); 3. Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises – contributing to the flow of risk capital to the developing countries; 4. Develop renewable utility-scale energy that is cheaper than coal, and 5. Commercialization of Plug-In Vehicles – by providing seed money and ideas to encourage the mass commercialisation of electric vehicles.
This is all quite laudable — and is a good example of Google’s leverage of its comparative advantage – its distinctive capability – in IT and associated networks as described by John Kay in his seminal book “The Business of Economics”.
But the US$75m committed to date might be seen to be a bit modest compared to their goals, let alone company income — and leaving aside estimating what the size of the “charity gap” may actually be. And curiously, Google has not appeared to use its unsurpassed access to information to ask the poorest and weakest what are their needs are, and how they might be met. It would be fascinating to compare and contrast the analysis of such search results with, for example, the Millennium Development Goals.
