Rudd, glorious Rudd! (The Economist)

Australia's new leader
Nov 29th 2007 | SYDNEY
From The Economist print edition

Why the Labor leader won a landslide and what he might do now

AFPRudd hears and heeds the call

THE votes started as a trickle, but soon became a flood. Just a few hours after polling stations closed on November 24th, Kevin Rudd stood before cheering supporters in Brisbane as Australia's new prime minister. It was a remarkable achievement for a man who entered Parliament only in 1998, and who took over the leadership of a demoralised Labor Party less than a year ago. For John Howard, the leader he toppled, the defeat was crushing, humiliating and one for the history books. Not only had he led the conservative Liberal Party to the worst rout in its 63-year history. It seemed certain he would also become only the second serving Australian prime minister to lose his own seat.

With postal votes still being counted, Mr Howard appeared to have written off Bennelong, the Sydney constituency he had held for 33 years, to Labor's Maxine McKew, a former television journalist. The swing of almost 6% against him there was the same as the national swing that delivered Labor at least 80 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

Opinion polls had long predicted just such a result. Even so, Australia's political class was flabbergasted. In power since 1996, Mr Howard had comforted himself with a homespun theory: governments do not lose office if economies are humming smoothly, and if they are free of scandal. The voters proved him wrong...

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That's Beijing: December issue’s out... (and I'm on the cover!)

December issue’s out... Whether it’s Hanukkah or Christmas you’re celebrating this December, there seems to be a great focus on gifts: giving them and getting them. So this month, that’s Beijing thought it’d be nice to focus on the former and talk to the people who give all year round, regardless of the occasion. Go to details on the rest of the issue by going here and clicking the "Current Issue" tab.

Red Kev? A Chinese-speaking PM for Australia (That's BJ)

November 27, 2007
by Paul Pennay

Kevin Rudd has the coolest sounding Chinese name of any western leader and that's because he chose it himself. Rudd, or 陆克文(Lu Kewen), led the Australian Labor Party to a solid victory in the country’s Federal election on the weekend (apparently the place for local supporters to gather and celebrate the victory was the new Irish pub opposite the Australian Embassy) and has replaced the long-serving John Howard as Prime Minister. Rudd made headlines in China and upstaged Howard when during the APEC conference in Sydney earlier this year he was able to use his formidable mandarin to charm Hu Jintao (see clip below).

But Youtube has been both the new leader's friend and foe, as an embarrassing clip of the then backbencher nibbling on his own earwax while a fellow House of Representative colleague addressed the nations parliament emerged during the election campaign.

Chinese media have followed the election result closely and reported not just on the new Australian PM's unique-among-foreign-leaders command of Chinese but also on his other ties to the Chinese community; the fact that his eldest son is completing a post graduate degree at Fudan University, that Rudd spent time in Beijing as a diplomat in the mid '80s and that his daughter is married to a Chinese-Australian banker from Brisbane.

For more on the Chinese reaction to Rudd's victory, the folks over at Global Voices have done a good roundup of the response from Chinese-language bloggers.

Links and Sources:
Reuters: China, Indonesia welcome Rudd win in Australia
The Japan Times: Will Rudd cool relations with Japan?
Global Voices Online: Our man in Australia?
Youtube: Kevin Rudd speaking Mandarin to welcome Jintao Hu in APEC
Youtube: Kevin Rudd eating ear wax during Question Time
Youtube: Kevin Rudd - Chinese Propaganda Video
Kevin 07

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An unlikely band of DIY environmentalists (The Economist)

Nov 19th 2007
From Economist.com

FAR above the treetops, in Indonesia’s remote Papuan provinces, the spotter planes are circling. They are looking for a place to strip the forest and produce the big cash crop of the moment: palm oil. And if not palm oil then jatropha, cassava or sugar cane, all of which can be used as either food or biofuel. With the price of oil so high these crops have become known as green gold, and they are being sought in some of the last remaining tracts of virgin rainforest in Asia.

Few of the Papuan tribesmen who live in these forests have any idea what the planes up above are doing. Nor do they realise that the future of their land for ten generations could well be determined by the people flying them.

APThe next Scorsese?

On one side, the Indonesian government wants to become the world’s biggest producer of palm oil and seems ready to sign a number of multi-million hectare concessions—lasting up to 100 years—on Papuan land. The contracts are worth around $8.5 billion. Opposing them are many governments around the world, who worry about the carbon emissions such deforestation would invite. And on another side still is the regional Papuan government, which has its own ideas about what should be done with the land. In the middle of all this are the people who actually live in the forest. Nobody seems quite certain what they want.

In this situation, it would come as no surprise if the environmental NGOs arrived on their flaming green steeds to argue that locals don't want their forest cut down. That may indeed be true. But wouldn’t it be better if the locals could say what they wanted for themselves?

This is the idea of a new project in Papua that uses film-making to promote civic action and local political participation. The project is being run by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a group best known for its work exposing the nefarious deeds of environmental criminals around the world.

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