The World Today

August & September 2009: August & September 2009

Avoiding responsibility for military misdeeds has just got much harder, as the Iran election protests show. Millions of ordinary people carry with them the means to enforce the laws of war and Geneva Conventions. Mobile phones and digital cameras allow everyone to be a witness.

Articles

The rights of civilians are regularly abused in conflicts. Safety, and the supply of essentials like food, are often bound-up together. Attacks on supplies and aid workers are on the increase, the argument for protection needs to be loud and clear.

Navigating cyberspace has its difficulties for the Chinese authorities, but there are opportunities too. Hardly had they backed down over the Green Dam filtering software, when the spark for the Xinjiang riots was put down to videos posted on the internet. Yet Beijing benefits from online manhunts, keeping petty offenders in line.

After forcibly ending the decades of conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels, the Sri Lankan government has rewarded the military with new powers. But the creation of a militarised state – supported by stories of Sinhala warriors – risks further alienating Tamils and creating the conditions for new conflict.

While British Prime Minister Gordon Brown struggles to hold his government together after only two years in power, Libya’s Colonel Qaddafi has no such worries. He has outlived the majority of his Cold War compatriots and stands as the longest-serving leader in the Arab and African worlds. Protected by the politics of oil, Libya is buying its way back into the international arena. Qaddafi’s power lies not in his own strengths, but in the weakness of others.

Is South Africa’s much-vaunted constitutional democracy under threat from elements in the intelligence services? Is the political system being manipulated through illegal spying and disclosure of intercepted information to favour some political figures and factions to the prejudice of others? Are Pretoria’s spies under control? And do they consider themselves bound by the law, or at liberty to operate above it?

For the first time, the meeting of the group of eight leading economies felt like it was preparing for someone else’s summit. Calls to expand the number of leaders at what were once fireside chats are being resisted by Canada, next year’s host. But France has already signaled change for 2011.

Also in this issue

In what may seem an excess of summitry, most participants at the recent G8 gathering in the Italian earthquake-devastated town of L’Aquila will meet again in September in Pittsburgh for the third presidential G20 summit in less than a year. There is already a growing interplay between the two Gs. However, the G20’s inclusiveness and its rapid move into a higher gear since the economic crisis, may signal that a shift of responsibilities from the G8 to the G20 is just a matter of time.

Politicians hate asking for a new mandate in an economic crisis, but Germany’s popular Chancellor, Angela Merkel, must do just that. Europe’s largest economy has taken some unfamiliar routes; its voters now need to decide who they trust to get the continent’s motor moving again.

Yukio Hatoyama, now Japan's opposition leader, campaigning in 2007.

Japan’s opposition believes it can sweep from power the party that has dominated the country for more than half a century. There could be radical change with decision- making moving from bureaucrats to politicians. But does it have a vision for these difficult times?