Forgotten World (232): South China Sea

January 18th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

We think of the Middle East as the most likely location for global conflict, but the South China Sea is the scene of many worrying developments. China has declared that it views the South China Sea as a “core” interest and is beginning to deploy more military muscle in the area, while the United States continues to insist that it has a “national interest” in freedom of navigation in the Sea. Meanwhile North and South Korea have exhibited new, sharper tensions.

China, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines all have territorial claims in the Sea. The area of most concern is the Paracel Islands which are occupied by China but claimed by Vietnam. The Spratly Islands are occupied by a mix of military forces from Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines.

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Say hello to my first grandchild (1)

January 17th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

It’s been quite a wait but, eight days after the due date, our son Richard and his wife Emily have become parents, making Vee and me grandparents for the first time.

It’s a girl but no name has been announced yet. The weight is 8 lb and the length is 53 cm. We are so looking forward to meeting her and supporting her parents in the days, months and years ahead.

Ain’t she cute?

Wonder what she’ll be when she grows up?

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Forgotten World (231): Rockall

January 17th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

It’s one of the regular weeks of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that too rarely feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 230 entries here.

Nobody lives on Rockall, a British overseas territory that is a rocky, volcanic outcrop located some 240 miles west of Scotland in the Atlantic Ocean. But the place has significant strategic significance since it sits in the midst of what could be a potentially vast and lucrative oil and gas field.

Consequently four nations – Britain, Ireland, Iceland and Denmark – have laid claim to the surrounding seabed in the Hatton-Rockall basin and these competing claims will have to be considered by the United Nations’ Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

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The political power of social media

January 16th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Last term, I attended a weekly evening class in a course at central London’s City Literary Institute entitled “International Relations & World Conflict”. This week, I started Part 2 of the course with the same lecturer Dr Dale Mineshima-Lowe.

In this first session with a largely new group of students, we discussed the definition of ‘international relations’ and then went on to consider the role of social media in IR. Our starting point was a paper published in the current issue (Jan/Feb 2011) of the journal “Foreign Affairs”. This was written by Clay Shirky, Professor of New Media at New York University, and entitled “The Political Power Of Social Media”.

In his introduction to his paper, Shirky argues that:

“… the U.S. State Department has committed itself to ‘Internet feedom’ as a specific policy aim. Arguing for the right of people to use the Internet freely is an appropriate policy for the United States, both because it aligns with the strategic goal of strengthening civil society worldwide and because it resonates with American beliefs about freedom of expression.”

In the discussion on our course, it was pointed out that the massive release of State Department papers onto the web through the action of WikiLeaks has probably made the US Government rather less enthusiastic about a totally free Internet.

In the paper, Shirky suggests:

“The U.S. government should maintain Internet freedom as a goal to be pursued in a principled and regime-neutral fashion, not as a tool for effecting immediate policy aims country by country. It should likewise assume that progress will be incremental and, unsurprisingly, slowest in the most authoritarian regimes.”

Really? Tunisia is about as authoritarian as nation states get and the progress of the last few weeks has been far from “incremental”. Of course, this is not down to the Internet: pressure has been building for months, if not years, and the suicide of a young man was arguably a major trigger for the recent demonstrations.

But the Internet has played a part. WikiLeaks revealed that the local US Ambassador had correctly identified the extent of corruption in the regime and the need for President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to go before there could be meaningful reform [ the full text here]. As a result, some have dubbed the events of the past week “the first WikiLeaks revolution”. And social networking sites and text messaging on mobiles have helped the protesters to organise.

Shirky’s piece seems to have been overtaken by events.

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10th anniversary of Wikipedia

January 15th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

For eight years now, I’ve been contributing a regular column on Internet issues to the magazine of the trade union Connect (now part of Prospect). Boy, have things changed online in that time. You can check out all my 64 columns here.

In October 2007, I wrote a column with the title “Is Wikipedia The Best Site On The Web?” which you can read here. The piece opens as follows:

“It is has over 8 million pages in more than 250 languages. It is by far the biggest encyclopedia ever written. And it’s all done by volunteers and free to all users. It is of course Wikipedia – the web site that shouldn’t be possible. So how has it happened?”

Today Wikipedia celebrates its 10th anniversary – see a timeline here. It now has some 17 million pages in 270 languages. In English alone, there are an amazing 3.5 million articles. I use the site all the time and I thank all its contributors who create and edit the articles.

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Tony Blair’s “A Journey” (1)

January 14th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

At Christmas, I received six books as presents and I’m now starting to read one of them: “A Journey” by Tony Blair which runs to almost 700 pages.

The book begins with the entry of Tony Blair to 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister in 1997, the first time that he had held any ministerial office. How did he feel?

“My predominant feeling was fear, and of a sort unlike anything I had felt before, deeper even than the fear I had felt the day I knew I was going to take over the leadership of the Labour Party … I was scared.”

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Young and happy in Old and Sad

January 14th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Three and a half months ago, I did a posting suggesting that what British politics now needed was a by-election. I pointed out:

“In the ‘old days’ of British politics, typically there used to be three or four by-elections a year. These days, Members of Parliament tend to be younger and healthier so there is less death or serious illness. But, of course, there’s always the chance of scandal or an MP wishing to spend more time with his or her family.”

So we had the scandal when Phil Woolas was ruled to have lied in the course of the General Election and was forced to give up the seat he ‘won’ with a majority of just 103. The constituency in question was, of course, Oldham East and Saddleworth which the media has dubbed Old and Sad.

The result of yesterday’s by-election is that Labour won it with a majority of 3,558 making 50-year old Debbie Abrahams a happy Member of Parliament. Turnout was down from 61.2% to 48.6%.

It was a good result for Labour but not a spectacular one and new leader Ed Milliband will be quietly pleased. The Liberals did not do as badly as they might have feared, but in normal circumstances would have walked this type of election. The Conservative vote collapsed but the Tories made no real effort in the constituency.

The local election in May will be a bigger and better test of the coalition’s unpopularity.

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If you’re thinking of travelling to another country …

January 13th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

… you might want to check with me first to see if I’m planning to go there shortly.

We booked a holiday in Cuba and a few weeks before our arrival the long-serving President Fidel Castro decided to step down.

We booked a holiday in Iran and a few months before we got there the country erupted with rioting over the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the Autumn, we booked a holiday for this Spring in Syria and Lebanon. This week, in Lebanon, the coalition government has collapsed and the future is very uncertain.

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My latest short story

January 13th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

For over a year and a half now, I’ve been writing short stories and putting them on my web site. I’ve now composed 26 and you can see all the titles listed here.

I added my latest short story today; it’s called “The Heart Of The Matter”. Please check it out here and tell me what you think.

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