Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Cambodia mourns as King Norodom Sihanouk's body returns
The body of former King Norodom Sihanouk has been returned to Cambodia for a week of official mourning.
His coffin was flown from the Chinese capital, Beijing, where he died on Monday of a heart attack at age 89.
Tens of thousands of people lined the streets near the airport in the capital, Phnom Penh, as the plane carrying Sihanouk's body touched down.
Grieving Cambodians wore white shirts with black ribbons, and flags flew at half-mast after the news of his death.
"There are more than 100,000 people lining the streets. More are coming," Khieu Kanharith, a government spokesman, told reporters at the airport.
In the capital, students sang songs before offering flowers at the royal palace.
"In the king's whole life, whatever he did was for the country, not for himself. So we are here to mourn him and we consider that he is a hero and I never had this sadness in 20 years," Lay Rithiya, a law student, told Reuters news agency.
Officials from the US, China, North Korea, Japan and other countries also sent messages of condolence.
Funeral plansEarly on Wednesday, the former king's coffin was driven from the Beijing hospital where he died to the airport for the flight home.
The flight landed in Phnom Penh at 15:00 local time (08:00GMT).
Sihanouk's widow, Queen Monique, held hands with her son, King Norodom Sihamoni, as they emerged from the plane, Agence-France Presse (AFP) news agency reports.
The queen wore the traditional mourning clothes of a white shirt and black skirt.
The former king's coffin, decked with white flowers, was seen being brought out of the plane as monks chanted prayers, AFP says.
Mourners in white shirts and waving Cambodian flags were on the streets to see the coffin pass by on its way to the royal palace.
Sihanouk's body will remain at the palace for three months for people to pay their respects before an elaborate funeral and cremation, said the government.
The government has ordered all radio and television stations to refrain from broadcasting any programmes that may be deemed inappropriate during the mourning period.
Sihanouk became king in 1941 while still a teenager, and led Cambodia to independence from France in 1953.
He was a presence through decades of political and social turmoil in Cambodia, despite long periods of exile overseas.
In later life, he emerged as a peacemaker who helped bring stability back to his country, after an ill-fated choice to back the Khmer Rouge in its early years.
He remained an influential figure in his country, despite his abdication in 2004 in favour of his son King Norodom Sihamoni.
Wang Anshi: The reformer beaten by the mandarins
In Chinese society, civil servants don't always have the best of reputations - they're often regarded as self-serving and corrupt. A bureaucracy ripe for reform? That was tried in the 11th Century - and it didn't work.
Here's an everyday story from last month. A provincial safety official is caught on camera smiling at the scene of a bus crash. The picture goes viral and internet users post other photos showing the same official wearing a variety of luxury watches.
How could he afford those on his salary, they ask?
The behaviour and competence of China's bureaucrats have defined the state for 2,000 years. But in the 11th Century came a visionary who did something almost unheard of - he tried to change the system.
For the first 50 years of his life everything Wang Anshi touched turned to gold.
To begin with, he came fourth in the imperial civil service exam - quite an achievement, as Frances Wood, curator of the Chinese collection at the British Library explains.
In 2011, a million people competed for 18,000 civil service jobs nationwide"There were a series - you have local exams, provincial exams, and then the central imperial exam, so you've got lots of people falling by the wayside at the local exams or the provincial exams, so absolutely the creme de la creme get through to even take the central imperial examinations.
"So to come fourth in the whole of China… think of the size of China. To come fourth out of thousands? Tens of thousands of people? It's absolutely massive."
For centuries the civil service was almost the only way to a better life and families gambled all on getting their sons in.
Some candidates had to spend three days and nights in an examination cell measuring 6ft by 3ft (1.8m by 0.9m), the culmination of years of rote learning.
"The civil service exams developed over the centuries," says Wood.
"The essays were largely to do with the content of the Confucian classics - how do you rule the people? You rule them through good, you rule them through example. It's morality that they're being examined on - their ability to cough up gobbets of Confucian morality."
The successful Wang Anshi was sent off to administer a southern entrepreneurial city.
You can imagine him on an inspection tour, peering out through the silk curtains of his sedan chair at the stallholders and hawkers.
But after 20 years of this, it was clear to him that writing essays about Confucian virtue just wasn't relevant any more. A civil servant needed a different skill set.
"Under the previous dynasties, the cities were fairly rigidly controlled. Markets were held on fixed days, on fixed points and so on," says Wood.
"By the Song dynasty, you begin to get ordinary city life as we know it. Cities are much freer, so commerce is much freer."
The Chinese economy was far more commercialised than it had ever been before, says Peter Bol of Harvard University, who has written about this period.
"The money supply has increased 30-fold. The merchant networks have spread. Villages are moving away from self-sufficiency and getting connected to a cash economy.
"The government no longer controls the economic hierarchy, which is largely in private hands... it's a far richer world than ever before."
But all this created problems. As large land-owning estates grew, so did the number of people who were unwilling to pay their taxes - and the more rich people evaded tax, the more the burden fell on the poor.
There was also problem with the neighbours.
The Song emperors often found themselves at war on their northern borders. Jin and Mongol invaders were annexing Chinese land, so lots of money had to be spent on defence, and inflation took hold.
The dynasty was plunged into crisis.
But cometh the hour, cometh Wang Anshi, and his programme for a new style of government.
"The pressure of hostile forces on the borders is a constant menace. The resources of the Empire are rapidly approaching exhaustion, and public life is getting more and more decadent," he wrote to the emperor.
"There never has been such a scarcity of capable men in the service of the State. Even if they should go on learning in school until their hair turned grey, they would have only the vaguest notion of what to do in office.
"No matter how fine the orders of the Court, the benefit is never realised by the people because of the incapacity of local officials. Moreover, some take advantage of these orders to carry on corrupt practices," said Wang Anshi.
In 1067 a young emperor came to the throne, hungry for new ideas, and Wang Anshi got his chance.
Once in the top ranks of the civil service, Wang Anshi set about diluting Confucius and surrounding himself with like-minded men. Morality was out, maths and medicine were in.
"He was trying to reform the examination system," says Xun Zhou, a historian at Hong Kong university. "So he got rid of some of the subjects. He introduced more practical subjects, so that enabled people with practical skills into the government."
And once they were in, Wang Anshi asked them practical questions. How can we improve education? How can we improve agriculture? How can we provide credit to farmers? How can we ensure a flow of goods?
The British TV comedy Yes Minister was a big hit when it was broadcast on China's state television. It was subtitled in Chinese but everyone here understood the rigidity, self interest, buckpassing, and infighting at its heart.
The civil service has a way of doing things, and in the 11th Century Wang Anshi was turning it upside down, asking the mandarins to roll up their sleeves and manage every corner of the economy.
He wanted state loans for farmers, more taxes for landowners, centralised procurement. But he was not watching his back. He was too sure of himself and too focused on the big picture.
Then events - a drought and a famine - overtook him. It was the opportunity his rivals had been waiting for.
"You have this clash between someone who is obviously very bright, very brilliant, and then he's faced with these corrupt people who've managed to buy their way in," says Frances Wood.
"As is often the case, the good man comes up against entrenched, corrupt bureaucrats who didn't want any changes and they turned the emperor against him."
Wang Anshi was not the type to compromise - getting other people on side was not his style. But added to that, it would have been dangerous to be seen building a faction. That way, in China, lies disaster.
Officials have dominated Chinese life for centuries - shown here circa 1400"If the emperor perceives that there's a group of people, a group can grow into something bigger, and I think it's almost more dangerous to be part of a group than it is to be a lone figure crying wolf," says Wood.
"Because you're disgraced, but you can't be accused of being a conspirator."
So it's a difficult game to be a reformist in China. It's safer to stick with the prevailing wisdom, and keep your head down.
Wang Anshi retired in 1076, depressed by demotion and the death of his son. He spent the final years of his life writing poetry.
In the 20th Century some communists hailed him as an early socialist. But for nearly 1,000 years he was the black sheep of the bureaucracy, and the failure of his reform programme, a cautionary tale.
"By and large, Wang Anshi remains an example of what not to do," says Bol.
"There is this radical turn against increasing the state's role in society and the economy. And it doesn't happen again until the 20th Century.
"Because in the 20th Century, the communists picked up some of Wang Anshi's ideas again and rescued his reputation."
Children in Chinese schools today are still under huge pressure to do well in exams. No change there from Wang Anshi's day.
But young people now have more choices in life. The civil service is only one career path.
And the public perception that some bureaucrats are more concerned with their own fortunes than that of the country is leaving an "increasingly sour taste" according to Jonathan Fenby, author of a History of Modern China.
"A local newspaper, magazine, did a survey of what primary school children wanted to be when they grew up," he says.
"So they all said a pop star, or a rich person, or a footballer, or whatever it might be, and one six-year-old girl said, 'I want to be an official.' And the reporter said, 'Oh that's wonderful, yeah, finally somebody wants to serve the State. What kind of official?' And she said, 'A corrupt official, because they have all the nice things.'"
When six-year-olds start talking like that, any mandarin knows the system is in trouble.
The communist mission statement is ruling China for the people, after all. The leadership will change hands next month, but there is no sign of a Wang Anshi among them - someone ready to risk their career by turning the bureaucracy upside down.
Executives feel the heat in challenging times
Not everybody is able to cope with the pressures of being a top executive.
The post-2008 economy has put considerable stress on the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) or the managing director of large organisations.
Paul Juljich was chairman of multi-million dollar organic food company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange.
"I thought I had the perfect life at 40," he says, "I built a grand mansion, had a Ferrari in the driveway, a 25-yard indoor pool, tennis courts. a personal trainer, and I travelled the world free as a bird," he recalls."
However, he says that due to stress and making poor lifestyle choices, he lost everything.
"Over a period of years, I worked very hard and focused on many issues," he says, "But one day I couldn't get out of bed. I was lying in foetal position in total darkness thinking I'm afraid of the world and don't want to talk to anyone."
He had mood swings, which was later diagnosed as bipolar disorder.
"When I was in a euphoric mood I thought I was invincible, signing contracts when I shouldn't be, stripping down to my underpants in a board room," he says.
"I had a complete mental breakdown and can't remember a lot of the embarrassing things that I did," he says, "Stress was controlling me, I wasn't controlling it."
He sought help with a psychiatrist and later booked himself into a clinic in the US.
While in the clinic he researched everything he could about stress.
"There has been stress since caveman days, there will always will be stress," he says.
New challengesPrior to the financial crash there was easy access to capital and executives were able to expand their business in a growing market.
But now they need a different set of skills and competencies to drive organisations in a period of significantly different economic conditions.
Some people do not have those skills, according to Toby Lapage-Norris of Boyden Executive Search.
"You need a different set of people to manage in a different environment," he says.
With 70 offices in 40 countries, he notes that the turnover of executives is higher than it has been for a while.
The main challenge is how to maintain shareholders and investor confidence when the market around you is putting you under considerable corporate stress.
"Some people have the capability but not necessarily the experience," explains Mr Lapage-Norris.
"There are opportunities to cut out the fat," he says, "But the real skill is how you then start growing through innovation."
Changing landscapeSome organisations are seeing that their potential no longer lies in their domestic market and that growth now lies with the emergence of new economies.
That requires an executive team which can move into a global environment.
Questions are then asked as to whether or not the managing director has the right people at the helm.
"What is needed are chief executives who have the courage to do things they need to do, and also the humility to recognise they might not be the right people to do it," Mr Lapage-Norris insists.
There is a need to recognise that the business environment has become more complex and they might therefore need a different person in charge.
"Do they make that call before the shareholders and the institutions?" he asks.
"What is required is a balance, of a combination of skills, courage and humility, intellectual vigour and strategic capability," he says.
Personal strengthsMr Lapage-Norris now spends more time with organisations to understand what they really need, rather than just responding to what they want.
Understanding that business is not conducted the same around the world is a key requisite when choosing a new CEO or managing director.
"Relations need to be built and that is done differently in some cultures," he says.
"We are looking for people with transferable skills, who can move from different geographies or technologies or markets so they can bring that experience to a particular company which is looking to change its technology or its geographical footprint," he says."The key is to embrace diversity and very few do it well," he notes.
However, pressures which come with the office of a CEO or managing director have always been there - they are the ultimate decision maker and they have to display courage, confidence and commitment.
They also need a little humility according to Mr Lapage-Norris, when someone thinks: "This needs to be done and maybe I can do it while others have failed."
He says those are the people who display real leadership rather than just ego, and it is those men and women who actually have the ability to build organisations.
Australia PM Julia Gillard prompts 'misogyny' definition update
Prime Minister Julia Gillard's fiery speech on misogyny has prompted Australia's leading dictionary to update its definition of the word.
Footage of Ms Gillard lambasting the opposition's Tony Abbott as a misogynist in parliament last week drew global attention.
The Macquarie Dictionary describes misogyny as ''hatred of women''.
But editor Sue Butler says it will be expanded to ''entrenched prejudice against women'' in the next edition.
"We decided that we had the basic definition, hatred of women, but that's not how misogyny has been used for about the last 20, 30 years, particularly in feminist language," she told ABC radio.
A second definition was needed, she said, that was ''slightly stronger than sexist but heading in that direction towards entrenched prejudice rather than a visceral hatred".
'Fairly big party'Ms Gillard, who is Australia's first female prime minister, had berated opposition leader Mr Abbott in parliament.
The exchange followed the resignation of Speaker Peter Slipper, who was accused of sexual harassment by a former staff member.
The opposition accused Ms Gillard's government of hypocrisy for standing by the Speaker after it was revealed that he used "offensive" language to describe female genitalia in text messages.
Ms Gillard then fired back at Mr Abbott: "If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives; he needs a mirror."
Footage of her speech went viral, with hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube within a week.
Her comments were applauded in some quarters - mainly outside Australia - for their strong stand on sexism. Domestically, the reaction was mixed, with many upset over her support of Mr Slipper.
And some critics accused her of using the wrong word in her attack on Mr Abbott, pointing to the dictionary definition of ''misogyny'' as a pathological hatred of females.
That debate drew attention to the need to update the definition, said Ms Butler.
"I always think of myself as the person with the mop and the broom and the bucket who's cleaning up the language after the party's over,'' she told ABC News.
"And in this case it was a fairly big party, and what was left on the floor was misogyny."
The updated definition will be added in the online version of the dictionary this year, and in the next printed edition next year.
The decision has drawn some flak for Macquarie, which has received complaints. One opposition member has accused it of a political move.
Neither Ms Gillard - who is currently in Delhi - nor Mr Abbott would comment on the update.
Earlier this month Mr Abbott's wife spoke out to defend her husband against sexism claims, saying he was surrounded by "strong capable women".
He, for his part, has called Ms Gillard's Labor Party ''masters of nasty personal politics''.
Rwanda defence chief leads DR Congo rebels, UN report says
Rwanda's defence minister is effectively commanding a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN experts say.
The confidential report, leaked to Reuters agency, says Uganda is also backing the M23 rebels, who have been fighting the DRC's army since April.
The document builds on a UN report published in June which accused Rwanda of supporting the insurgents.
Rwanda and Uganda strenuously deny supporting the rebellion.
The BBC's Barbara Plett, at the UN, says that during the past two decades Rwanda has backed armed groups in the east of DR Congo as a way to fight Hutu rebels who fled there after the genocide of the 1990s.
Some accuse Rwanda of using militias as proxies in an on-going battle for the region, which is rich in minerals, our correspondent adds.
'Co-ordinated the rebels'The latest report by the UN Security Council's Group of Experts provides more details of Rwanda's alleged continued involvement.
It says M23 leaders "receive direct military orders" from Rwanda's chief of defence staff, Gen Charles Kayonga, "who in turn acts on instructions from the minister of defence", Gen James Kabarebe.
It also says Kigali has supplied the M23 with heavy weapons and stepped up recruitment for the group.
Both Rwandan and Ugandan officials have strongly denied the accusations made in the report.
Olivier Nduhungirehe, a senior Rwandan diplomat at the country's UN mission, said the United Nations experts had been "allowed to pursue a political agenda that has nothing to do with getting at the true causes of conflict in the eastern DRC".
Uganda's foreign minister, Henry Okello Oryem, told the BBC that the UN was seeking to blame others for the failure of its own peacekeeping force in the eastern Congo.
But the the DRC's ambassador to the UK, Kikaya Bin Karubi, said the UN "must act" on the basis of the report.
He told the BBC's Newsday programme: "When the chief of staff of an army, a minister of defence of a country creates a rebellion, supplies weapons, sends troops to fight against a legitimate government across the border, I think this is serious."
The report - seen by Reuters news agency on Tuesday - says army units from Rwanda and Uganda have helped M23 expand its control of territory in eastern DR Congo.
"Both Rwanda and Uganda have been supporting M23," according to the 44-page report.
Thousands have been displaced by fighting between troops and rebels"While Rwandan officials co-ordinated the creation of the rebel movement as well as its major military operations, Uganda's more subtle support to M23 allowed the rebel group's political branch to operate from within Kampala and boost its external relations," it said.
The UN report says former Congolese General Bosco Ntaganda controls the rebellion on the ground and M23 leader Col Sultani Makenga is in charge of co-ordination with allied groups.
But it says M23's de facto chain of command culminates with Rwanda's defence minister.
Gen Ntaganda, who is known as "the Terminator" and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes, has fought for various militias over the years.
The rebellion started in April, when a militia that had been absorbed into the Congolese army mutinied and went on the rampage in the eastern part of the country.
Since then nearly half a million people have been displaced by fighting between the M23 and the army.
The violence has drawn international condemnation and the US and some European countries have withheld aid from Rwanda.
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