Timely move by G-20

AFTER their two-day conference in Bhurban last week, the G-20 ministers called upon the richer countries in general, and those which give large subsidies to their farmers in particular, to respond to the group’s proposals in a constructive way by changing their policies of farm subsidy. Speaking at a joint press conference at the conclusion of the two-day meet, Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said that the ministerial group would continue its struggle for ensuring market access, elimination of all farm subsidies and domestic support being provided by the advanced countries to their farmers. He was right in saying that the ball was now in the court of rich countries which have to show flexibility in their stance on the farming sector as a move necessary for forward movement of a multilateral trading system. Indeed, the rich countries have only three months to make up their minds if they do not want the December meeting in Hong Kong to fail as did the Cancun and Doha rounds. The World Trade Organization’s Doha round, launched in 2001, missed its 2004 deadline for conclusion. The next deadline has been fixed for 2006. An agreement at Hong Kong is expected to add more than $500 billion a year to the world economy and lift millions of people out of poverty. But the negotiations are stuck over subsidies.

The rich countries spend as much as $300 billion a year to help their farmers. This amount is six times the total of all development aid to poor countries. By creating an oversupply of agricultural products which are then sold to Third World countries and by virtually preventing the Third World from exporting its farm products to the West, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of Europe keeps these countries impoverished. Farmers in developing countries complain that subsidies reduce world agricultural product prices and rob them of higher earnings. Protection in textile markets in high-income countries cost developing countries an estimated 27 million jobs. An average cow in Europe gets a daily subsidy of $2.50 and in Japan $7.50 while most people in Asia live on less than two dollars a day. It is, indeed, hypocritical for the rich to preach the virtues of free trade and market access and then raise barriers in precisely those markets where developing countries have a comparative advantage.

According to one estimate, full elimination of agricultural protection and price subsidies in rich countries would increase global trade in agriculture by 17 per cent. As a result, the total annual rural income in developing countries would rise by about $60 billion. Besides, the negative effect of rich-country price and protection barriers are not limited to developing countries alone. They waste rich countries’ financial resources, raise the domestic prices of food and clothing and encourage environmental degradation through capital-intensive agricultural practices. Europeans pay 25 per cent higher prices for food and clothing than they would if there were no CAP. The rich countries have so far shown not even an iota of willingness to move forward on the issue of agricultural subsidies and other related barriers. In fact, the developing world has been waiting for the last three years for the US and European Union to indicate what they can offer on domestic farm support, or subsidies, and import tariffs — matters on which both seem apathetic to the interest of Third World countries.

An indiscreet act

MONDAY was the day of reckoning for the Palestinians. When they returned to Gaza to take over the demolished Jewish settlements vacated by Israel, they were trying to wash off the stains of the Zionist occupation of their territory that had brought to them 38 years of brutality, violence and humiliation. The jubilation of the Palestinians was understandable for the occasion had a powerful emotional impact. But can the same be said of the ravaging and burning of 19 synagogues that the Israeli government had decided — after reversing an earlier decision — to leave intact? The Palestinians who were celebrating the Israeli withdrawal destroyed all symbols of the hated occupation and the synagogues were the only standing structures they found in Gaza against which to vent their rage. But this action could backfire. The Palestinians will now be projected as intolerant and sanctimonious. In fact, it is now being said that the move not to demolish the synagogues was a trap set by the hardline rabbis in Israel. By making it possible for the Palestinians to burn the Jewish houses of worship, they hoped to make political capital out of it and thus denounce the Israeli prime minister’s disengagement policy. As the Israeli mass circulation newspaper, Haaretz, editorialized, “It seems they [rabbi] will not be sorry if the scenario they prophesied [the synagogues going up in flames] comes true, and they can put a stamp of failure on the entire evacuation.”

What a pity that the Palestinian Authority did not anticipate this public reaction and the Israeli ruse and failed to preempt it. Such an image will not help the Palestinians politically in the years to come. As it is, the Palestinians need international goodwill if they want to gain the maximum advantage from Israel’s withdrawal. Even now the Palestinians in Gaza depend on Israel for their access to the outside world. Israel also controls Gaza’s water, airspace and ports. It is expected to be a hard struggle for the Palestinians in the years ahead. This is hardly the occasion to make enemies on grounds of faith and religion.

Ashes alight

“AGE does not wither nor custom stale her infinite variety”, the Bard had said. But in real life this is not so. On Monday evening the little urn with the mythical Ashes returned to England’s Michael Vaughan and his battling brigade. They had won the Ashes after almost two decades of complete domination by arch rivals Australia. Never in recent history has an Ashes series been so enthralling. From total dominance in the first Test match at Lord’s, Australia began to wilt against a side which was younger, keener and altogether too combative to be brushed aside like just any other team the Aussies have vanquished in the last 20 years. Cricketing history, it appears, moves in circles. First, it were the West Indies in the seventies and a few years into the eighties. They were dethroned by Australia whose supremacy continued until the historic day at The Oval in London on Monday.

Does the loss of the Ashes mark the end of the road for Australia? It looks like that unless, of course, the men from Down Under can find quick replacements for their aging stars most of whom are well into their thirties. Glenn McGrath, one of the finest pace bowlers of the modern era and Shane Warne, the world’s leading leg-spinner, have served their country well. So have skipper Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Jason Gillespie and the others. The sun, however, is now setting on Australia’s cricketing empire. But after every sad sunset there is a dawn. It is to be hoped that Australia will find battleworthy replacements for defending their World Cup title in 2007. England are right now on top of the world. But take Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen out and they will be hard put to it beating Pakistan this coming winter.

Qualms after the storm

IN THE immediate aftermath of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush seemed remarkably reluctant to visit Louisiana. Now it looks as if nothing can hold him back. This week he headed in the direction of New Orleans right after the 9/11 commemoration ceremony, having invoked the spirit demonstrated by Americans in the wake of one disaster to ward off still mounting criticism of his administration’s appallingly inept response to another, this time entirely predictable, catastrophe.

The trip may have brought back memories of another flight to Louisiana exactly four years ago. Yes, that’s where Air Force One took the president on September 11, 2001, after he had listened to My Pet Goat and been told about what was happening in New York and Washington. In the traumatic circumstances of those days, most Americans were willing to overlook that display of directionless cowardice. This time around it isn’t that simple.

In New Orleans the worst may be over, and the death toll could turn out to be considerably lower than the initially feared total of 10,000 or more. But the United States has not had to cope with so many internal refugees since the 1930s, and the miserly $2,000 offered in aid to each displaced family won’t get them very far.

But then quite a few of them, the presidential mom pointed out, may be much better off homeless. “What I’m hearing, which is kind of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas,” former first lady Barbara Bush told the Public Broadcasting Service after visiting a relief centre in her home state. “Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

What sort of comment could one possibly offer on that? Like one of Prince Philip’s priceless quips, mixing insensitivity with racism, it’s beyond satire. The Bushes, as someone once said, were born with a silver foot in the mouth. But no one can say they lack a sense of humour. George Dubya kept smirking amid a national calamity until an image-maker presumably advised him to wipe that incongruously smug expression off his face. He complied to the best of his ability, but a natural tendency to mirth is hard to hold down.

It surfaced once more when he announced with a more-or-less straight face that he would personally head an inquiry into what went wrong, as well as what went right (that must have been the punch line), in the federal response to Katrina. The first part is easy, responded House minority leader Nancy Pelosi: the president just needs to look into a mirror. The second part is even easier, because it deserves a one-word answer: Nothing. There have, of course, been calls for an independent inquiry, but it’s unlikely to be conceded.

Among the many things that went wrong was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) — subsumed into the Department of Homeland Security under the present administration, whereas previously it had cabinet-level representation — was evidently caught unawares by the scale of the disaster. There cannot be too many excuses for that other than utter incompetence. That’s where Fema’s recently removed head Michael Brown comes in. He had no emergency-management experience when he was employed as the agency’s deputy chief in 2001 by an old college chum, Joe Allbaugh whose main qualification, in turn, was that he happened to have served as Bush’s campaign manager (which could conceivably be considered a disaster-limitation assignment). Two years ago, Brown succeeded Allbaugh.

In Katrina’s wake, Bush publicly congratulated “Brownie” on doing “a heck of a job”. Last Friday he was “recalled” to Washington. By Monday he had fallen on his sword “in the best interests of the agency and the president”. This is the second time he has lost his job: some years ago he was dismissed after 11 years as supervisor of commissioners and stewards of the International Arabian Horse Association.

From the point of view of the presidency, it could be logged as a four-year journey from My Pet Goat to My Pet Scapegoat. Because Brown wasn’t as big an issue as the culture of cronyism that brought him into Fema in the first place. And that, in turn, is only one among numerous debilitating flaws in the state of the union that Katrina laid bare.

The steady diminution in government responsibility for the welfare of the people is a bigger culprit, and perhaps the biggest of all is the tendency to scoff at any activity that does not involve someone somewhere earning a huge profit. There was little or no money to be made in rescue operations, but reconstruction promises to be much more lucrative: the cost, it has been suggested, may equal a year’s outlay for the occupation of Iraq.

Will New Orleans be made habitable again for the masses who found it so hard to leave, or will the city be rebuilt chiefly as a habitat for the rich? It is instructive to note that the first reconstruction contracts have been awarded to Haliburton, the firm that had Dick Cheney as its CEO before he decided that overseeing the Bush presidency would be a far more powerful post. Haliburton, which has been making a killing in Iraq alongside the western occupation forces, has lately acquired a new recruit: an adviser on disaster relief by the name of Joe Allbaugh. With a wink and a nod from the vice-president, it’ll probably be more than happy to quietly offer a sinecure Brown as well.

If the recovery of New Orleans from what Katrina hath wrought remains open to question, much the same could be said about the Bush administration, which has in the past couple of weeks attracted the wrath even of conservative commentators — and that too at a time when public support for the Iraqi misadventure was rapidly dwindling.

Next year’s congressional elections may provide a measure of the public mood, and William Rees-Mogg, who used to edit The Times of London a long time ago, has ventured the opinion that the coast is all but clear for Hurricane Hillary to breach the Republican levees in the 2008 presidential elections. That’s probably a premature prediction, but it is certainly possible that some years hence the most troubling aspect of Bush’s legacy will be an entrenched conservative majority in the third branch of federal government, the Supreme Court.

Unlike the executive and legislative branches, the members of the judicial branch are not elected, nor are there any limitations of their tenure. The justices are nominated by the president and they require congressional approval. It wasn’t always thus, but in recent decades the trend has been for Republican presidents to nominate deeply conservative judges, and for Democrats to name relative liberals or moderate conservatives to the bench.

When, earlier this year, Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, Bush nominated John G. Roberts Jr, a deputy solicitor-general in his father’s administration, as her successor. Not too many eyebrows were raised at the time, even though the government has been remarkably reluctant to release documents relating to Roberts’ tenure in the first Bush administration, and what is known of his record points to an ideological mindset not very different from that of chief justice William Rehnquist.

When Rehnquist fell off the twig during the hullabaloo over Katrina — his demise wasn’t unexpected; he had refused to resign despite a cancer diagnosis — Bush lost little time in elevating Roberts’ nomination to the post of chief justice. The congressional hearings began on Monday and — even though some Democrats, emboldened by Bush’s falling stock in the public eye, have vowed to be bold in questioning the candidate about his opinions — Roberts is all but certain to become, at 50, the youngest chief justice in more than 200 years. He could potentially remain in the post for as long as he lives.

Bush had not, at the time of writing, nominated a new associate justice to replace O’Connor, but there is little risk of anyone with moderate opinions making the grade. And this despite the drastic ideological shift whereby yesterday’s moderates are now considered radical liberals and everyone to the left of Chengiz Khan is now a moderate.

Rehnquist, a sexist and borderline segregationist who devoted his professional life to combating various vestiges of modernity — including affirmative action to remedy some of the injustices of institutionalized racial discrimination and women’s right to abortion — was named to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon and made chief justice by Ronald Reagan. He also fought against the federal oversight of executions by the states, even in cases involving minors or diminished responsibility, and opposed the separation of church and state.

But perhaps the most unforgettable and unforgivable aspect of the court he presided over was its anti-democratic decision in December 2000 to halt the vote count in Florida and ensconce the loser in the White House. Roberts, who once served as a clerk to Rehnquist, was among the legal eagles who offered pro bono advice to the Bushes ahead of that travesty of justice.

His incumbency will mean that even if the complexion of Congress changes next year and Hillary Clinton or another relatively enlightened candidate wrests the presidency from Republican control two years later, they are likely to have to contend with — and in some respects find themselves stymied by — a seriously right-wing Supreme Court. Apart from the mess in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans, that’s what the son of Barbara will leave behind.