RESPECT!

Many people around the world have enormous expectations on president Obama , they expect him to create a new global order dominated by fairness, equity, sincerity and above all respect for other countries especially those who are not considered as traditional close friends of the US.This expectation is against the background of 8 years of confrontational, threatening and disrespectful attitude of the Bush administration towards countries he and his Neo-con advisers considered as adversaries on the international arena. On Thursday 19 march , President Obama addressed the Iranian leadership and its peoples on the eve of their new year. The tone and content of the address was very different from what we are traditionally used to when it comes to dealing with Iran. the president gave strong indications that he will be willing to negotiate with the Iranian leadership in a fair way while respecting its rights to its sovereignty and independence.the speech was devoid of any threats of use of force which is significant in that it calms the environment and prepares the ground for more meaningful engagement.The Obama administration has clearly signaled it is in a mood to engage diplomatically. Another significant aspect of the speech was that it addressed both the people of Iran and their leaders in the same breath: a significant departure from the divide-and-rule tactics employed by previous US administrations that tries to depict the leadership as a monstrous machine that does not have the welfare of its people at haert

LORDS, MASTERS AND MISTRESSES

>>>>>THE CALLOUS RULING ELITE

LORDS, MASTERS AND MISTRESSES

>>>>>THE CALLOUS RULING ELITE

Talking-shop-on-Thames

BIG ECONOMIC POWERS DECIDE THE FATE OF POOR “LIKE King Charles II, the Economic Conference is taking an unconscionable time to die,” lamented The Economist in 1933, halfway through an epic—and ultimately fruitless—gathering of world powers in London to prevent the spread of protectionism in the depths of the Depression. That conference lasted more than a month, with the dollar sinking and tempers rising the longer it dragged on. At least there is no danger of interminable drift when leaders of the Group of 20 gather in London next month to address the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. They have set themselves just one day, April 2nd, to do what their predecessors failed to accomplish in weeks: tackle the crisis and consider ways to remake the rules of finance. This weekend G20 finance ministers and central bank governors attending a preparatory meeting in London may well attempt to limit expectations. More pressingly, they will have to heal an awkward sense of transatlantic disunity that has emerged in the run-up to the meeting. The tensions were exposed at an assembly of European finance ministers on March 9th and 10th. The ministers responded sharply to a call by Lawrence Summers, the White House economic adviser, for everyone in the G20 to focus on boosting global demand. Such calls were “not to our liking,” sniped Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and the chairman of the meeting. The cause of harmony may not have been helped when Britain’s most senior civil servant was quoted as saying the shortage of staff in Barack Obama’s two-month-old Treasury was making preparations for the summit “unbelievably difficult”. (Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, disputes that.) In reality, the tensions appeared more symptomatic of the opening of bargaining than of a disastrous rift. The G20’s agenda focuses on three broad areas: sorting out the crisis through fiscal and monetary means and by encouraging banks to lend; medium-term regulatory reforms; and strengthening multilateral bodies such as the IMF so that they can give more help to crisis-hit developing countries. Everyone has different priorities. America feels its counterparts are not doing enough to boost demand. It would like them to pledge a fiscal stimulus equal to 2% of global GDP this year and next, and for the IMF to monitor compliance. Some countries would also like the European Central Bank to make better use of its monetary arsenal, as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have. America has indeed done a lot to stimulate growth (see table). The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany’s fiscal response is not as far behind America’s as it appears. Not only does Germany feel its spending package is big enough, it is pressing for a quick return to balanced budgets when the crisis is over. Although transatlantic differences have emerged over fiscal policy, they are narrowing over regulation. Germany and France have long battled to persuade America and Britain to regulate hedge funds, which are clustered in the financial centres of New York and London. America is now prepared to countenance regulation of systemically important ones. Since the G20 leaders first met in November, their deputies have laboured on reforms to the stricken global financial system, in particular through the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), a Basel-based group that met in London this week. These include reforms that would affect bank regulators, supervisors and accounting standard-setters, and cover bankers’ pay, derivatives trading and rating agencies. America, chastened by its own regulatory failures, is now more supportive of tougher, co-ordinated global regulatory standards but only to a degree: it is unenthusiastic about uniform standards for executive pay pushed by Britain. In addition, the FSF is expected to propose to the G20 ways to make bank regulation less pro-cyclical, by making forward-looking provisions against bad loans rather than the “incurred-loss” method now in use—though not so that banks can use the provisions to massage earnings (see article). It will suggest incorporating a leverage ratio into bank-capital requirements, to supplement the existing risk-weighting of assets. It is also helping set up cross-border supervisory colleges to share information about 30 global banks. Illustration by S. Kambayashi There is general support for doubling the IMF’s resources to $500 billion, but America would like it to have even more. It is not clear how the increase would be funded. Reserve-rich countries like China could contribute more, as Japan did with a $100 billion pledge in February. But some fear that strings might be attached to such money, such as less criticism of China’s exchange-rate policy. Mr Geithner has proposed the IMF’s credit line with 26 rich member countries be dramatically raised to $500 billion from $50 billion. Some of the trade-offs will be driven by political considerations. French and German voters, for example, lay part of the blame for the crisis on hedge funds and tax havens, even though both played minor roles compared with the highly regulated banking system. Likewise, Mr Geithner is pressing for higher global capital standards for non-bank financial firms (such as American International Group, a big insurer), in part to reassure taxpayers that this sort of crisis and the accompanying bail-outs will not be repeated. Given the importance of the summit to the reputations of Gordon Brown, its British host, and Mr Obama, on his first overseas trip since taking office, every effort will be made to trumpet such progress. Few expect a 1933-style fiasco, though participants believe that given the tensions exhibited this week, a narrowing of differences is more likely than any “grand bargain” to put the world to rights. The best that might emerge from the summit is proof that leaders of the world’s biggest economies continue to talk to each other. Given the urgency of the situation, and the immense capital that Mr Obama still holds abroad, the world might have hoped for more. Talk, like so much else in this financial crisis, is cheap.

Talking-shop-on-Thames

BIG ECONOMIC POWERS DECIDE THE FATE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY “LIKE King Charles II, the Economic Conference is taking an unconscionable time to die,” lamented The Economist in 1933, halfway through an epic—and ultimately fruitless—gathering of world powers in London to prevent the spread of protectionism in the depths of the Depression. That conference lasted more than a month, with the dollar sinking and tempers rising the longer it dragged on. At least there is no danger of interminable drift when leaders of the Group of 20 gather in London next month to address the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. They have set themselves just one day, April 2nd, to do what their predecessors failed to accomplish in weeks: tackle the crisis and consider ways to remake the rules of finance. This weekend G20 finance ministers and central bank governors attending a preparatory meeting in London may well attempt to limit expectations. More pressingly, they will have to heal an awkward sense of transatlantic disunity that has emerged in the run-up to the meeting. The tensions were exposed at an assembly of European finance ministers on March 9th and 10th. The ministers responded sharply to a call by Lawrence Summers, the White House economic adviser, for everyone in the G20 to focus on boosting global demand. Such calls were “not to our liking,” sniped Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and the chairman of the meeting. The cause of harmony may not have been helped when Britain’s most senior civil servant was quoted as saying the shortage of staff in Barack Obama’s two-month-old Treasury was making preparations for the summit “unbelievably difficult”. (Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, disputes that.) In reality, the tensions appeared more symptomatic of the opening of bargaining than of a disastrous rift. The G20’s agenda focuses on three broad areas: sorting out the crisis through fiscal and monetary means and by encouraging banks to lend; medium-term regulatory reforms; and strengthening multilateral bodies such as the IMF so that they can give more help to crisis-hit developing countries. Everyone has different priorities. America feels its counterparts are not doing enough to boost demand. It would like them to pledge a fiscal stimulus equal to 2% of global GDP this year and next, and for the IMF to monitor compliance. Some countries would also like the European Central Bank to make better use of its monetary arsenal, as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have. America has indeed done a lot to stimulate growth (see table). The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany’s fiscal response is not as far behind America’s as it appears. Not only does Germany feel its spending package is big enough, it is pressing for a quick return to balanced budgets when the crisis is over. Although transatlantic differences have emerged over fiscal policy, they are narrowing over regulation. Germany and France have long battled to persuade America and Britain to regulate hedge funds, which are clustered in the financial centres of New York and London. America is now prepared to countenance regulation of systemically important ones. Since the G20 leaders first met in November, their deputies have laboured on reforms to the stricken global financial system, in particular through the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), a Basel-based group that met in London this week. These include reforms that would affect bank regulators, supervisors and accounting standard-setters, and cover bankers’ pay, derivatives trading and rating agencies. America, chastened by its own regulatory failures, is now more supportive of tougher, co-ordinated global regulatory standards but only to a degree: it is unenthusiastic about uniform standards for executive pay pushed by Britain. In addition, the FSF is expected to propose to the G20 ways to make bank regulation less pro-cyclical, by making forward-looking provisions against bad loans rather than the “incurred-loss” method now in use—though not so that banks can use the provisions to massage earnings (see article). It will suggest incorporating a leverage ratio into bank-capital requirements, to supplement the existing risk-weighting of assets. It is also helping set up cross-border supervisory colleges to share information about 30 global banks. Illustration by S. Kambayashi There is general support for doubling the IMF’s resources to $500 billion, but America would like it to have even more. It is not clear how the increase would be funded. Reserve-rich countries like China could contribute more, as Japan did with a $100 billion pledge in February. But some fear that strings might be attached to such money, such as less criticism of China’s exchange-rate policy. Mr Geithner has proposed the IMF’s credit line with 26 rich member countries be dramatically raised to $500 billion from $50 billion. Some of the trade-offs will be driven by political considerations. French and German voters, for example, lay part of the blame for the crisis on hedge funds and tax havens, even though both played minor roles compared with the highly regulated banking system. Likewise, Mr Geithner is pressing for higher global capital standards for non-bank financial firms (such as American International Group, a big insurer), in part to reassure taxpayers that this sort of crisis and the accompanying bail-outs will not be repeated. Given the importance of the summit to the reputations of Gordon Brown, its British host, and Mr Obama, on his first overseas trip since taking office, every effort will be made to trumpet such progress. Few expect a 1933-style fiasco, though participants believe that given the tensions exhibited this week, a narrowing of differences is more likely than any “grand bargain” to put the world to rights. The best that might emerge from the summit is proof that leaders of the world’s biggest economies continue to talk to each other. Given the urgency of the situation, and the immense capital that Mr Obama still holds abroad, the world might have hoped for more. Talk, like so much else in this financial crisis, is cheap.

OUT OF TOUCH ZEALOTS AND POWER SEEKING RELIGIONISTSEEKING CONTROL OVER POPULATION

>>>>>>OVER POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICIES There are aver 100m Catholics in Africa , most of whom live in different cultural and economic conditions though most of them have one thing in common: a deep respect for for the Pope, the head of the catholic church(who considers himself as God's representative of earth ). his views are sacrosanct to majority of Catholics and most of them hung to it like dear life. This makes the pontiff's crusade against contraception very dangerous in one of the most affected regions of the world in terms of HIV/AID and populations planning. the dogma of the catholic church over the use of condoms as a preventative tool against HIV is without basis and his adamant posture defies any reasonable logic. the Pope insist that condom use was not the answer to fighting AIDS on the continent "On the contrary, it increases the problem," the Pope told reporters a day earlier aboard his plane on his way to Africa. There are over 40million sufferers of HIV/AIDS on the African continent some of whom are devout Catholics and may have been saved from the disease in the first place if they had had the benefit of sexual and contraceptive information. Over the years the catholic church even under the leadership of the moderate john Paul took a strong stance against the use of contraception and any other form of family planning. even back then a certain bishop Ratzenger was one of the driving forces behind this uncompromising stance. now this bishop Ratzenger happens to be Pope Benedict who has hardened his stance and made so many attacks against almost all the features of our modern society. he has hardened his stance against gay rights,stem cell research, abortion , the ordination of females, celibacy in addition to his pet opposition. He was the key inspiration behind the roll back of some of the positive scientific and family planning policies in the US during the evangelical right-wing inspired presidency of Bush. During Bush's years all US funding for any health facility that provided family planning and abortion services.this resulted in fatal consequences in many countries including Ghana where maternal mortality increased twofold with two thirds of all fatalities happening as a result of unsafe abortions. There are horrific tales of young women inserting dangerous objects and chemicals such as broken bottles and detergents into their wombs to abort unwanted pregnancies because it was illegal to perform abortion or because there was no availability of education/information and facilities where they could go. This man (the pope) is either completely out of touch with the world or deliberately following dogma informed by primitive ignorance that is costing a lot of lives.he is a leader of a billion strong followers and has enormous powers , even though he is not accountable to anyone of his followers. he gos around the world wielding a lot of influence on world leaders .asking them to implement policies to the detriment of majority of the population As far as HIV infections occur, the reality is, yes, there is a failure rate associated with condom use. However, the failure rate of any abstinence policy is considerably higher. figures from Uganda where money for condomisation was cut and used for an extensive abstinence campaign returned a negative result ,culminating in an increase in the infections and prevalence rate in a country that had succeeded to a certain extent in controlling the AIDS scourge The pope would willfully destroy the world in order to satisfy ancient ritualistic dogma.

MORE LIKE IT MR.PRESIDENT

Many people have been jolted my the effusive and unannounced outburst of the President. speaking to a group of journalist who called on him at his Castle office, the president in an animated tone give a clear warning that he will not tolerate any unjustified harassment from anyone ,especially the opposition NPP whose posture since losing power has been very questionable. among his audience were a good number of media personnel who have made it their lives mission to destroy the ruling party and their associates including the president.They have attacked, mocked and humiliated the president right from his days in opposition till now.The president has suffered a lot at the hands of this section of the media and he feels he is really really fed up with them. Since the president was sworn in the NPP has been taunting the president and the ruling party and have refused to co-operate with the transition team. And whenever the new government takes any action to demand accountability the out gone government uses the media to accuse them of harassment. The NPP as was shown last Sunday have failed to realize that they are out of power and strut around behaving as if they have a divine right to rule this country. "I respect civility and politeness and I believe that people have taken my respect for peaceful co-existence as weakness, timidity and inability to act "

A BETTER GHANA BUDGET

It probably is the most unanticipated budget in almost a decade and sure it was an unheralded affair. Right after the hurried transition there was a huge issue about the true state of the economy . whilst the out going NPP insisted they left a far better economic legacy than they met , the incoming government and the world Bank were shouting from the the rooftops about the worsening economic conditions. The ensuing debate led us to one conclusion : the economy was in dire straits and Ghanaian must brace themselves for the coming storm that was going to be very rough. Many Ghanaians get the message, the economy is in a mess and that they should expect very little from the government. The overarching theme of the budget was Fiscal discipline and austerity at all levels of governance with the most coming from the executive.There are so many initiatives and ,measures geared towards cutting out waste and monitoring how monies are spent in all the MDAs. It is dense of good governance initiative and waste -cutting. If all these initiatives will be implemented then it will mark the beginning of a new era of accountability and openness in governance. What the budget is short on is bold visions and initiatives that will give a clear direction to the nation.