Hillary Clinton visits Seoul as Korean crisis mounts

May 26, 2010 31 Comments
Hillary Clinton visits Seoul as Korean crisis mounts

Hillary Clinton visits Seoul as Korean crisis mounts

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in South Korea after the North cut ties after being blamed for sinking a Southern warship. Mrs Clinton, at the end of a week-long tour of Asia, met Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and was also due to see President Lee Myung-bak. North Korea said it was severing all ties and banning South Korean ships and planes from its territory. South Korea announced earlier it was suspending trade links with the North.
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Fair Play Returns to Playing Fields of England

May 15, 2010 102 Comments
Fair Play Returns to Playing Fields of England

Fair Play Returns to Playing Fields of England

A soccer match is annulled, and will be replayed next week, though no sporting law was broken. How can that be right? There is good reason. It is called fair play or, from a half-forgotten era, the Corinthian spirit. The English are Corinthians again, so all’s fair with the world I hear you sigh. However, though the setting was one of England’s oldest playing fields, the principles were mostly from other countries.
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Brazil stay focused – Argentina look muddled

May 13, 2010 43 Comments
Brazil stay focused - Argentina look muddled

Brazil stay focused - Argentina look muddled

Dunga’s announcement of his Brazil squad for South Africa was a crushing defeat for the nation’s media in one of its favourite sports – trying to force the inclusion of big names players on to the plane for this summer’s World Cup. But it was the perceived excesses of Brazil’s stars that undermined their campaign in Germany in 2006 and paved the way for Dunga’s appointment. He took over with a message that individuals might win matches but groups win titles. Over three and half years later, coherence has been maintained.
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2010 World Cup South Africa

April 28, 2010 249 Comments
2010 World Cup South Africa

2010 World Cup South Africa

A ceremony is being held in Germany to officially hand over the World Cup to South Africa, which in 2010 will become the first African country to host the championship. The BBC’s Mohammed Allie looks at what needs to be done.

South Africa’s 2010 football World Cup is set to be the most commercially successful since the first tournament was held 76 years ago.

The event has already attracted more marketing and television attention than the 2006 event, according to Fifa President Sepp Blatter.

“The market trusts Africa,” Mr Blatter says.

“The contracts we have already signed for 2010 are higher than the contracts for 2006 in Germany by about 25%.”

Agreements with five strategic partners for 2010 are valued at more than 1bn Swiss francs (about $821 million). This dwarfs the 850m francs ($700m) worth of deals done for the German World Cup.

Companies have to fork out around $125m to be one of the six worldwide partners involved with the 2010 World Cup.

In addition there will also be eight World Cup sponsors and four to six national sponsors. Entry level sponsorship is likely to be around $40m.

Confidence

Being entrusted by Fifa to host its flagship event is indeed a massive vote of confidence in the infrastructure and organisational capacity of South Africa, more so since it will be the first time the event will be held on African soil.

Events in recent months have, however, given the sceptics ample ammunition as South Africa’s state of readiness comes under the microscope. The scepticism surfaced after potential shortcomings were exposed in the space of a few weeks earlier this year.

First, there were a series of unannounced cuts to Cape Town’s electricity supply.

Next, there was a report to Parliament’s Communications Portfolio Committee which revealed that the country’s 30-year old broadcast infrastructure was not ready to cope with the needs of the World Cup.

Sentech Chief Executive Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane says a multibillion dollar investment in digital broadcasting transmission is needed to properly serve a worldwide television audience.

Sentech, the state-owned national broadcasting signal distributor, is due for an upgrade which will allay fears about the broadcasting capacity while Eskom, the national electricity supplier, has already started plans to upgrade its capacity.

Stadium row

Transport is an ongoing headache: South Africa’s cities rely on privately-owned minibus taxis, and long-anticipated plans to upgrade the fleet are only now starting to get under away.

The Gautrain, an ambitious rail project aimed at easing traffic congestion in the Johannesburg-Pretoria area, will only be partly completed by 2010. It will take tourists from the airport as far as the suburb of Sandton, but will go nowhere near any of the stadiums.

In Cape Town, a proposed new 67,000-seat stadium, earmarked to host a semi-final match, has also got off to a faltering start.

The city’s new Mayor, Helen Zille, from the opposition Democratic Alliance, has questioned where the more than 1bn rand (about $160m) will come from to finance the construction of the stadium.

Ms Zille does not want the stadium to sideline more pressing needs like housing, sanitation and other essential services for the city’s poor.

Even the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), allied to the ANC, supported the mayor’s stance, saying the needs of the poor should come before an expensive football stadium.

Ms Zille’s fears on funding the stadium seem to have been allayed following a meeting with government officials and the Local Organising Committee (LOC), but there are still questions over the site of Cape Town’s stadium.

The designated area, which is magnificently located with Robben Island and Table Mountain on either side, will displace a 130-year-old golf course. This proposal has met with stiff opposition from local residents and members of the golf club.

Still, most of the five new stadiums to be constructed in Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Polokwane and Nelspruit are due to begin by November and are expected to be ready for trial runs at the 2009 Confederations Cup which features the champions of all six Fifa Confederations together with the World Champions and the host nation.

Upgrades

The other more established venues require minor upgrades which will commence at a later stage. “Many of the stadiums already have world class facilities and only require technical upgrades. The alterations at established venues such as Ellis Park, Bloemfontein and Soccer City can be left for a later date. With the continuous technical developments it makes sense to start these closer to 2010,” says Danny Jordaan, Chief Executive of the LOC.

Given the employment and business prospects associated with hosting an event as big as the World Cup, South Africa’s beleaguered textile industry is hoping that the tournament will revive its fortunes.

The industry, which has lost an estimated 200,000 jobs over the past five years due mainly to the influx of cheaper Chinese imports, is looking at cashing in on producing memorabilia like T-shirts, caps, hats and scarves.

“The reason we’re backing the World Cup is that there should be employment and procurement opportunities for locals. It shouldn’t just benefit those who are already wealthy,” says Tony Ehrenreich, Cosatu’s Western Cape general secretary.

“If we aren’t happy with economic opportunities for locals we will be protesting at the 2010 World Cup.”

Opportunities

Danny Jordaan agrees with the principle of using the tournament to provide economic opportunities, saying there were already policies in place to ensure the empowerment of black business and entrepreneurs.

The LOC predicts that the tournament will create 160,000 jobs and will contribute more than 20 billion rand (about $3.6 billion) to the country’s gross domestic product.

Many local small business owners are, however, concerned that they may have to pay exorbitant licensing fees to Fifa, which controls its own marketing and television rights. This implies that companies which are not licensed by Fifa would not be able to sell their products or services in or around the World Cup venues.

“Many local clothing manufacturers I’ve spoken to say they won’t be able to afford the fees and would therefore simply try to sidestep the rules when the event draws closer,” says Navavee Matthews, who works for a marketing company.

The money-making potential of the World Cup is enormous and it will be a great tragedy if the expectations of so many of the country’s aspirant entrepreneurs are stifled by Fifa’s tight licensing conditions.

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Obama sets Mars goal for America

April 16, 2010 6 Comments
Obama sets Mars goal for America

Obama sets Mars goal for America

Barack Obama says it should be possible to send astronauts to orbit the planet Mars by the mid-2030s and return them safely to Earth. The US president made the claim in a major speech to staff and guests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He was laying out the details of his new policy for the US space agency.

Mr Obama said he was giving Nasa challenging goals and the funding needed to achieve them, including an extra $6bn over the next five years. By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space, he told his audience. So we’ll start – we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history.

And then he added: By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it. Mr Obama hopes his new timetable for action can win wide approval.

‘Lifeboat’ proposal

The White House has been under fire since announcing in February that it wanted to shut down Constellation, the current programme to replace the ageing space shuttle. Mr Obama said the proposed Orion crewship, its Ares launch rocket, together with the rest of the project’s Moon-bound architecture were on an unsustainable path, costing too much money and taking too long to develop. The president claimed a refocused Nasa could achieve more, sooner than under Constellation.

What we’re looking for is not just to continue on the same path; we want to leap into the future, he said. We want major breakthroughs, a transformative agenda for Nasa. In the speech, the president did not change the broad outline of the vision for the US space agency he first expounded in his 2011 federal budget request.

He still proposes to extend the operation of the International Space Station (ISS) from 2016 until at least 2020; and he re-emphasised his desire to see commercial companies take over the job of launching astronauts to the orbiting platform. However, there was a key concession in the speech. This was a commitment to carry forward development of the Orion crew capsule. In the first instance, this would be just a simpler version of the ship designed to act as a lifeboat at the ISS. However, he said in due course this revised vessel would also serve as the “technological foundation” for much more capable vehicles to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit.

‘Inspiration’ of space

Obama also promised to launch heavy-lift rocket development of new less than 2015, but he said he had to contain a new propulsion technology, according to the information found by the Eye Eagle through google search engine. Imitating the rocket from the past was not an option, he explained. The bottom line is: no one more committed to manned space, human space exploration, from me. But we must do so in a way that intelligent; we can not keep doing things the same as before.

Addressing fears that changes to US space policy might result in thousands of job losses across Florida’s Space Coast, Mr Obama claimed his ideas would actually create 2,500 more jobs than under Constellation. To emphasise his support for the space programme, he reminded his audience that Nasa was in the extraordinary position of having its budget increased at a time when other areas of government faced static funding or even cuts to try to constrain the national deficit. Money spent on the space programme would reap huge dividends, he argued. For pennies on the dollar, the space programme has fuelled jobs and entire industries. For pennies on the dollar, the space programme has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our economy and inspired generations of Americans. And I have no doubt that Nasa can continue to fill this role.

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Facebook meeting on safety with Ceop due in Washington

April 12, 2010 6 Comments
Facebook meeting on safety with Ceop due in Washington

Ceop is campaigning for Facebook to adopt its safety button

Facebook executives are due to meet the head of a British child protection agency in Washington to discuss safety measures on the social networking site. It has been criticised by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre for not installing “panic buttons” on every page.

Ceop director Jim Gamble said it was urgent after the murder of a teenager with a man who met on the site, according to information collected by Eye Eagle. Facebook has said needed serious problem and welcomed the meeting. It said it would announce changes to the plan following the meeting.

‘Urgency’
It had previously said it would not install a “panic button” on its main pages for users to report suspected paedophiles, but would develop its existing system.

The company said it would install links to organisations including Ceop on its reporting pages but Mr Gamble said he could not understand why Facebook would not agree to adopt the button on every page as it was a free way to “help save some children”.

“If you’re going to operate a business that encourages people to frequent your public place so that you can advertise to them, then let’s look after them while they’re there.

Last week Mr Gamble announced the agency had received 252 complaints about Facebook during the first three months of the year – with 40% of them about the potential “grooming” of children.

He said the complaints had come via e-mails and people using other means to complain to the centre as they could not do so via Facebook. The figures were revealed as part of Ceop’s campaign to persuade Facebook to change its mind.

The “panic button” in question is already used by other websites, including Bebo. Clicking on it takes people to a site that details how to handle cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, distressing material and inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Mr Gamble said the issue was an urgent one, especially after the murder of 17-year-old student Ashleigh Hall in County Durham last October by Peter Chapman, a man she met via the site. Last month Chapman, 33, was jailed for at least 35 years for the killing.

The teenager had been raped, suffocated and her body dumped in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, after agreeing to meet Chapman.

Earlier that month, she had been attracted by a picture of a young, bare-chested man that Chapman – calling himself Peter Cartwright – had posted on Facebook. Facebook said it was “deeply saddened by the tragic death”.

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Empowering Local Leaders

March 19, 2010 53 Comments

Indonesia’s vast and rich natural gift or a disaster of this? If the government-from local to central-not able to organize and manage, all this will be a libel, burden, and disaster. Without realizing it, incompetence and pessimism often appears. For example, when published advice how Urgency SIN (single identity number) by comparing Malaysia or Singapore, which appeared spontaneous answers: Do not compare Singapore or Malaysia’s small population. When he emerged about the traffic chaos and garbage everywhere, once argued: Indonesia’s vast territory, its people a lot, so do not compare other countries.

If we take the distance and then photographing faces and behavior of this nation, especially the political elite and bureaucracy, which is that they look like a “champion”. Feeling great, fierce, but it’s not able to accept the legacy and mandate to manage the nation so rich, abundant natural resources. Homeland heritage of this area is not cared for properly.

In fact, natural source of easily sold to foreign investors. The money part is divided in the circle of political elites and rulers. Indonesia is like an object like a feast, the government is like a broker or seller heritage treasures its predecessors. In many visits to the area, call it Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua, deforestation and dredging mining areas are visible from above, even more so if it came down.

Imagine, how many trillions of our wealth drained out of the country every month, but residents around the still poor, poor health, education did not advance, while the state debt. By the logic of ordinary people, so far the government is the people’s prosperity or more about her, or casually sell assets because of the nation bodohin foreign capitalists? I myself was not an economist.

But simply using common sense and the government saja.Politisi seemed excited and busy, but they really productive to create a surplus for the nation and state? It will be very sad if the political institutions and our government is like a plane flying around in a taxi on the runway, still consume fuel, pilots and crew are paid, but did not go up and up, take-off, and flying with passengers.

Political and bureaucratic institutions must not become a shelter disguised as philanthropic institutions. Or turned into a kind of catalyst and facilitator for treasure hunters, are no longer productive institutions that create added value (added value) of existing capital to advance the nation. With the emergence of many political parties (political parties) and otonomisasi local government, the people’s aspirations should be heard and considered the government.

Ideally parties are warrior people’s institution, not a job with high salary but not productive. With the expected decentralization of the bureaucracy more effective path, simple, and service to more people getting better. But again the reality on the ground is still far from expectations. Though passion to go and run but we are still imprisoned by the thousand and one problems of the past.

Javanese people say mbulet, pacing confused in places like mountain climbers lost lost map. Logistical supplies running low, dreadful weather, and the approaching darkness. We must get out of this chaotic atmosphere. One of them is by empowering local leaders, especially the ranks of regents and the governor of the selection process is very expensive.

If local leaders had performed, is able to perform his duty well and fulfill his promises during the campaign, the “confusion” and “chaos” at the central level will be helped by the stability and progress at the lower level. For a while it’s still very disappointing. Only a few governors and regents who managed to bring change and progress this pascareformasi.

However, in the future people should be smart and assertive, do not select the regents and the governor is not convincing to establish the area, according to Eye Eagle . Then just think, what will become of this nation’s future if the political elite and the government since the central and regional level are not qualified? Confused and excited argument.

Then the wealth of the nation would more quickly drain for salaries and corrupted busy-busy with collective operators between foreign investors and holders of power authorities in the country. And this has lasted a long time. What a stupid reason, if this country were poor due to large area and its people a lot. Is not China and India far more broadly?

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Hello world!

March 15, 2010 10 Comments

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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