Posts from — January 2011

The signs of the new era

The popular uprising witnessed in Egypt is seizing great attention in the region and around the world, in light of Egypt’s status, weight and role in the region throughout history. Regardless of the political transformations which might reach a record speed within the next few days, the rise of the Egyptian popular action after what happened in Tunisia and what is happening in Jordan constitutes a sign for the arrival of a new Arab era carrying new features. This is still at the beginning and will impose major transformations on the entire region.

– Firstly: The Egyptian uprising erupted in a way similar to the Tunisian revolution, and these elements of similarity reflected the deep roots of the transformation that is ongoing in the collapsing Arab countries, where regimes affiliated with American and Western hegemony are establishing blunt capitalist control and are continuously pillaging national wealth through privatization and by implementing the recipes of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the American and European consultancy groups.

– Secondly: The Egyptian public clearly conveyed the motives behind its revolution. People thus spoke on satellite channels and to the international press about the blockade on Gaza, Camp David, the squandering of Egypt’s rights to the Nile, the division of Sudan, poverty, hunger, corruption and the selling of the public sector to the private companies owned by influential figures. The demonstrators also shed light on oppression, and the issues of freedom and democracy, all of which emerged in the backdrop of the Tunisian revolution and the popular actions in Jordan.

– Thirdly: The consecutive events revealed a new characteristic which came together throughout the last two decades, i.e. the formation of young rebellious groups of students and intellectuals from outside the traditional partisan framework of the opposition, which was granted some margins of freedom by the regime in the last few years in order to contain popular anger.

– Fourthly: Throughout what is happening, the observers are detecting a new awareness being spread via satellite channels and the web and accompanying a new Arab revolutionary circumstance, with which we are seeing the collapse of what many Arab writers and intellectuals called the bad times which prevailed since the Camp David accords. The Arab people thus woke up from their long sleep with confidence and determination to reject tyranny, oppression, social injustice and capitalist hegemony.

– Fifthly: There are ongoing complex and confused questions in Tel Aviv, Washington, Paris and London about the alarming future of the Western-Israeli alliance in the Arab region, one which has been in place for thirty years and was based on regimes whose sponsors thought they were safe. Today, the officials in Israel and in the Western capitals are afraid of seeing the transfer of the revolutionary contagion that will cause the fall of governments that constituted the pillars of an entire stage of political, economic and security hegemony.

– Sixthly: The popular action in Tunisia and Egypt revealed a high level of awareness in dealing with the army and the police. This resulted in the military’s clear bias in favor of the demonstrators. The popular action also proved to enjoy a high level of organization by stringently deterring the elements whose presence was exploited by the authorities to disfigure the image of the revolution and turn the public opinion against it.

This popular awareness is the result of the accumulation of an advanced general culture in the times of stalemate and was the main motive behind keeping the actions open until drastic changes are instated based on the demands of the crowds. …more

Thursday, 20 January 2011
By Graeme Pearman

Projecting the future, even only a decade ahead, can be achieved by extrapolating current trends and/or using insight concerning the fundamental processes of the involved systems. Either way, uncertainties will exist.

This is certainly true with climate change and the likely emerging impacts of that change. Nevertheless, foresight has enormous potential benefits for seizing opportunities and avoiding pitfalls. In the end, it is about the management of risk, albeit recognising that in some cases anticipation of outcomes will turn out to be useful, if not essential, while in others, in the light of experience, it may be seen as having been a waste of effort.

Both the changes that have occurred to the global and regional climate over recent decades and our theoretical understanding of the climate system make it likely that for the next decade the trend towards warmer global average temperatures will continue. There will be year-to-year variations in average temperatures and even more so in climatic parameters at the regional level. The natural climate system is variable and that variability will continue.
more…