India gets a thrashing in Australia

January 16th, 2012

THE Indian cricket team is licking its wounds after having suffered a third straight loss in the Test series against Australia, the latest inside three days. On the surface, there appears to be more to the plight of the Indian team than just its lack of ability.

The players do not appear to be united and one wonders if a change of captain will make a difference. That fact can be tested in Adelaide as the captain, M.S. Dhoni, has been suspended for slow over-rates and Virender Sehwag, who is said to be at loggerheads with Dhoni, will be taking over.

Dhoni is clearly fed up of all the cricket. He used to be a captain who would often come up with a clever move or two to put the opposition on the back foot. Now he appears to be waiting for things to happen and, at times, he often appears to be elsewhere mentally. Nothing else can account for the strange decision to give his fastest bowler, Ishant Sharma, the ball only when Australia had reached 88 without loss in its first innings in Perth.

The captain is not India’s only problem. Exactly why an idiot like Duncan Fletcher, who presided over a 5-0 thrashing of England by Australia in 2006, should have been appointed coach after the canny Gary Kirsten is not known. Surely, with the salary on offer, the Indian cricket board could have had its pick of coaches?

Even though Adelaide is known for being a featherbed and one of the pitches that allows batsmen to score heavily, it is unlikely that India will do any better than draw the game. That would be the best the team can hope for and is a long shot; the most likely outcome will be another defeat, this time in four days, not three. The team is too demoralised to even come close to challenging Australia.

Posted in Australia, Cricket, India | No Comments »

Some myths about the Australia-India Test series

January 7th, 2012

EVER since the Indian cricket team was two months away from its current tour of Australia, the media and the PR people have been boosting it as being based on some kind of “traditional” rivalry. This is just one of the many myths that was being spread about this tour in an attempt to draw crowds.

There is no such traditional rivalry. Australian teams have been historically reluctant to tour India, because of the conditions. Indian teams have been similarly reluctant to tour Australia because of the one-sided umpiring. (A good example of this was seen in 1999 when Sachin Tendulkar was given out lbw in the second innings for a duck after a ball from Glenn McGrath hit him on the helmet! The umpire was none other than the corpulent Darryl Hair, the same man who tried to extort money from the ICC after he was embroiled in a row after making Pakistan forfeit a Test in England.)

Yet another myth being spread is that India is a very strong team. Wrong. India’s famed batsmen are all on the verge of retirement. And their bowling attack is not that good either – Zaheer Khan is recovering from an injury, as is Ishant Sharma. The third paceman, Umesh Yadav, is only four Tests old. And the spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is a better batsman than a spin bowler.

After Australia lost a series at home to the West Indies in 1992-93, the next time they lost at home was to South Africa in 2008-09. They were then beaten by England in 2010-11. These three teams were immensely strong in the years when they defeated Australia. In each series, Australia did win one Test. But this is a statistic few will cite for it would hardly bolster the claim everyone has been making, that India had the best chance to win a series in Australia this time. It is extremely difficult to defeat Australia at home.

India has never won a series either in Australia or South Africa, where the wickets are somewhat similar. And they never will until their batsmen are weaned off the Twenty20 diet that is beginning to markedly affect the quality of batsmen turned out by the country.

The mentality of the players who are coming off the Indian treadmill is encapsulated by Ashwin. As the garrulous Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle, a malaprop of no ordinary proportions, put it on ABC radio, Ashwin was trying to “force the pace” when he skied a ball to be last out in India’s second innings at the SCG. What pace was he trying to force? India was trying to save the game and make Australia bat again; it was still 68 runs short of that target when Aswhin lofted the ball unnecessarily.

To make big centuries in Test cricket, you have to either play against a team with a very weak attack or else do what Alastair Cook did during the England tour of 2010-11 – let everything outside the off-stump go by without being tempted; play the ball along the ground and avoid as much as possible hitting aerial shots. Cook scored more than 900 runs in that series, including two double-hundreds.

The flow of myths never stops. When the Australian captain Michael Clarke declared his team’s innings at 4 for 659 with his own score at 329, he was credited with putting the needs of the team before himself. Clarke had only to make six runs to beat the score jointly made by Mark Taylor and Don Bradman; he needed 52 to make the highest Test score by an Australian. The match was only at its halfway point when he declared – an Indian innings had never lasted more than a day in the two Tests to date.

Clarke could easily have gone for the record and, had he got to one, even tried to overtake Brian Lara’s 400 not out, the highest Test score of all time. He declared because he was afraid that if he went on, the media would write him off as being selfish, a charge he has had to fight ever since he became a Test cricketer. He had a fancy car, a model as girlfriend, and was as far away as possible from being the rough, blokey person that cricketers are expected to be. One writer even described him as a tosser. That image is what Clarke has been trying to live down. And that’s why he declared, to try and win respect.

He pulled a bit of spin in the second innings, after he came on to bowl, solely to preserve James Pattinson and Ben Hilfenhaus for the new ball, and, by chance, got the wicket of Tendulkar. It wasn’t planned, it was a fluke. But did he tell the truth? No, Clarke used it as one example of his brilliant captaincy skills.

No commentator pointed out that when he had a lead of 468 runs and India was really under the gun, Clarke set extremely conservative fields. Two slips at best when a team was desperately trying to avoid a second successive loss in Australia and a run of six Test defeats abroad. And when Australia was under the gun in South Africa recently, Clarke was among those who surrendered meekly.

No comment on the series would be complete without some mention of the monkey on Tendulkar’s back. The wisest thing for him to do would have been to play a couple of the one-dayers against the West Indies last year and score his 100th international century. Instead, he sat out all the ODIs against the Windies and now the entire team is hostage to his quest for this elusive hundred.

But other teams should be happy when Tendulkar scores a hundred. Of his 51 Test hundreds, on 20 occasions the team won. On 11 occasions, India lost and on the remaining 20, the games were drawn. If the eight centuries made against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are removed, then of the 43 times he made hundreds, only on 14 occasions did India win.

With his ODI hundreds, it is a similar tale: of his 48 ODI hundreds, 33 were made on occasions when India won. On 13 occasions India lost, and there was one tie and one no-result. But of those 33 hundreds made in a winning cause, nine were made against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Namibia.

Will India win a single Test? The short answer is no. But the crowds will flock to see the Tests as Indians are crazy about cricket and there are plenty of them in Australia.

Posted in Ashes, Australia, Cricket, England, India | No Comments »

Australian cricket continues on its old, merry path

December 9th, 2011

EARLIER this year, after England sealed a resounding 3-1 win in the Ashes Test series, Australian cricket authorities, apparently all shaken up, launched an inquiry to find out why the team had been beaten, and so comprehensively too.

This was the third time that Tasmania’s Ricky Ponting had led the national team to a loss in the Ashes series; Ponting lost twice in England, in 2005 and 2009. The Ashes is the series that matters most to Australia as England is historically the enemy.

When the inquiry reported back and recommended sweeping changes, there was hope that things would look different this summer. Of course, the captain had to go – of that there was little doubt. But despite a lot of talk, much promise of change, one finds that with the summer cricket season nearly a third over, things are pretty much the same.

Australia has a new bunch of selectors but they follow the same methods as their predecessors. Before the two-Test series against New Zealand began, the selectors had the chance to get rid of some of the older members of the squad, people like Mike Hussey and Ponting, usher in some youngsters and start the process of rebuilding.

Two Tests were played in South Africa before the series against New Zealand but the same old faces were seen in action. On returning from that country, some changes forced themselves on the selectors – a fairly large number of players had sustained injuries. Opener Shane Watson was one. The selectors’ reaction was the same as that of those who have gone before them – bring in an opener from New South Wales, the state that is the most influential in cricket in the country. It doesn’t matter that the man, David Warner, is not suited to the role.

The other opener, Phillip Hughes, was retained despite a very shaky showing in South Africa. He got two scores of 9 in the first Test, and 88 and 11 in the second and showed, as he had against England last year, that he is still susceptible to the moving ball early in the innings. But he is from New South Wales. Hence he stayed put.

Hughes got 10 and 7 in the first Test against New Zealand. He has stayed on to open in the second Test too. His first innings effort in the second Test is done – all of 4 runs, again caught at slip. But I’m willing to bet that when India lines up against Australia on Boxing Day in Melbourne – that is the next Test of the summer season – Hughes will still be there.

Shaun Marsh was another player injured after the South African Tests. He is still on the mend and may be fit to play against India. But who will be moved out to make way for him? Ponting? Hussey? Or will he be sacrificed as an opener, the most difficult job in Test cricket, so that the two old men can save their jobs?

When it came to the bowlers, the selectors had to ring some changes. Mitchell Johnson, after another erratic tour, was injured. So too Ryan Harris. Two new men had to be brought in. The selectors picked James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc. Judging from the way the previous bunch of selectors handled the debut of Patrick Cummins in the second Test in South Africa – the man has sustained a serious heel injury and is unlikely to play again this summer – one has to wait and see how Pattinson and Starc pull up after the Tests against New Zealand.

Given the appearance of Pattinson and Starc, the selectors loudly proclaimed that young blood was being infused; in other words, they, the selectors, were taking bold, new steps. But, pray, if someone had not been brought in to replace the injured bowlers, how would the 11 have been made up?

Ponting failed in South Africa. He made one score of 60-plus; anyone who saw him make that score would have concluded that it was time for him to quit. It was a painful innings from a man who is widely acknowledged as the second best batsman produced by Australia, after Sir Donald Bradman. But he is allowed to stay on.

Hussey got 15 in the first Test against New Zealand. In South Africa, he scored 1, 0, 20 and 39. He is still in the team despite being 36 and blocking the entry of some promising youngster. He will be there for the series against India too, have no fear.

The argument used by the selectors will be that you need some experience in the ranks; after all, they can point to their opponents, India, as an example. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman and Virender Sehwag, the nucleus of the Indian batting, are all above 30. Tendulkar is 38. The difference is that they are all scoring and scoring heavily. Just yesterday, Sehwag hammered the highest score in one-day cricket, 219, against the West Indies. Ponting, by contrast, has not scored a hundred for something like 18 Tests.

But the Australian selectors are too scared to make changes; they want to please all the little cliques in cricket circles and are unwilling to rock the boat. Anyone who cares about Australian cricket would have to hope and pray that India wins the series and overwhelmingly too. Then we might see some dramatic change.

Posted in Australia, Cricket, England, India, New Zealand | No Comments »

Why I don’t feel threatened by racist Americans

December 8th, 2011

[Before you read this, go here. Read the post, and the comments. Then come back and you will understand why this item has this particular heading.]

IN TIMES of economic gloom, the people in any country tend to blame the outsider for the malaise that is eating into their vitals, spoiling the good times and generally ensuring that an air of gloom hangs over proceedings.

When things turn particularly bad, people tend to even turn to lynching the outsider. In the US of A, 46 million people are living below the poverty line (nearly 15 per cent of the population if one goes by the last census figure of a population of 307,006,550) and the economy is shot to pieces. In this climate, the foreigner becomes an easy target.

Thus it does not surprise me that an American programmer by the name of John Larson chose to write a piece titled “Why I will never feel threatened by programmers in India”.

As an aside, one must mention that Larson is a web developer. His venture is probably not getting as much business as he would like, the reason being that work is outsourced to India. The man is annoyed about it. Hence his little rant.

Larson’s thesis is basically that Indian programmers churn out poor quality work; the rate per hour is low but given the number of hours that are consumed, things ultimately turn out to be more expensive. And, in the end, they often do not work. The code is of poor quality and, judging from three projects which he himself encountered, he decided that an entire nation had to be damned. Of course, only a fool would generalise about an entire nation from three examples; I would hesitate to do so even if it were about a village with a population of just 1000. But Larson is a programmer.

Larson’s argument is nothing new. I wrote this piece seven years ago and, at a time when blogs were in their infancy, received 29 long emails in response, 28 against what I had written and a single email in support. There is a link to a similar article at the bottom of this piece. Larson was not revealing anything new; Indian outsourcing companies are best at handling drudge work. All the good programmers in the country leave and go abroad to work for foreign companies; now they work for foreign companies in India.

It was an American tech trainer who once said “ninety-five per cent of programmers are idiots.” Pinku Surana even went so far as to say that that figure could be higher. He never spoke a truer word. Programmers only have to learn to write a Hello World statement and after that they generally feel that they have understood all the mysteries of human existence. About the only thing they cannot do is to turn water into wine. They can turn it into urine, though. They contemplate life’s most complex problems as one would a piece of chocolate fudge. And when it comes to blaming the outsider, they are at their very best.

After he published this piece of modern-day literature, Larson was taken aback somewhat by the scale of the reaction. He realised that he had let his true feelings show and that inside he was rather a racist. He then changed the title of his piece to Why I Will Never Feel Threatened by Cheap Overseas Programming.

His change of heart is not surprising. Whether one likes it or not, there are 1.2 billion Indians around the world, more than a seventh of the human race. One is bound to come up against them here or there. For a man like Larson, who is touting for business as a web developer, it would hurt his business prospects if he were perceived as a racist. One has to make ends meet; one cannot live on love and fresh air with the occasional bit of racism thrown in.

Racism is common around the world these days. Having travelled as much as I have, I have experienced it in a myriad forms. Blaming the outsider has always been a form of escaping reality and trying to justify one’s own self-worth.

But it has not served any worthwhile purpose. My response to his article was:

All that you have done is provide an outlet for a bunch of frustrated Americans to exercise their feel-good complex and assert, “Maan, them Indian fekkers, them can’t do nuthin’ right.”

Doubtless you thought you were making a unique contribution to the debate around outsourcing. All that emerged was cheap, racist sentiment. And then, scared by the genie you had unleashed, you took a step back and realised what you were and what you had done. At that point, you had to make yourself look like the good ole American who’s from the land of the brave and the free (and all that other shit which is spouted ad infinitum). You can’t unscramble an egg, old chap. The damage is done.

Only a fool would even try to generalise about a country of 1.2 billion.

I’m writing an article titled “Why I don’t feel threatened by racist Americans.” You might like to come by and comment when it’s done.

It took a while for that to be accepted; I had to write and ask what had happened and remind the man that he was claiming not to have rejected any comments, no matter how severe.

Larson’s piece has generated a lot of comment. It was featured on the echo chamber called Slashdot, where a large number of idiots gather to reinforce their prejudices.

There are numerous reasons why outsourced projects fail. Communication can be a problem; English is a highly ambiguous language and American bizspeak is not exactly the easiest lingo to understand. There are cultural issues and also plain laziness to deal with. But as Larson did, one cannot simplify this into a George Bush-type “you are with us or you are with the terrorists” credo. It is orders of magnitude more complex.

For people who refer to the corruption in India, my response would be to watch the documentary film Inside Job which details the genesis and fallout of the global financial crisis. After watching corruption of that magnitude if anyone can say that the US is not the most corrupt nation on the face of the earth, I would be extremely surprised. People who live in glass houses… but then you know the rest of that.

There are shonky workers in every single nation and the US is no exception; some of the worst workers I have had to deal with have been Americans. But I would be the last person to condemn a country because of a few individuals. For that you need a monumental fool.

Of course, the intelligent reader would comprehend why I wrote this piece. Sarcasm is not something bears explanation.

Posted in America, India, Racism | No Comments »

Pakistan feels the blowback from the US

December 6th, 2011

WHEN Britain engineered the split of the Indian subcontinent back in 1947, there was little indication that the colonial masters would face a big blowback. The old policy of divide and rule was used to give the Muslims a separate state, resulting in one of the bigger bloodbaths in history as people fought during the partition.

India has gone on to become a force in its own right and somehow has survived any number of problems; it has been under democratic rule for all but 26 months since the partition. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been under various forms of dictatorship during its history and become something of a vassal state for the US.

Every state that has gained nuclear weapons has done so in order to be taken seriously by the countries that make global policy; only in Pakistan’s case has this not worked. The US continues to do what it wants within Pakistan’s borders and the killing of 24 innocent civilians recently is but the latest indication that it has scant regard for Pakistan’s internal problems.

But no matter what abuse it receives at the hands of the US, Pakistan cannot move away. Without American aid, the country will wither and die. It has no option but to cater to American demands, outrageous as they often are. It has to subjugate itself to American foreign policy and only hope that Washington can muster the cash to send across every year.

During the years of the cold war, India was firmly in the Soviet camp. But economic dependence did not develop; India has always been able to meet its own internal and external commitments from its own funds. And as the 1990s came along and India became a place where foreign companies came and did business, Delhi has become something of a rising power, able to tell the Americans what they should do and not the other way around.

American companies are now often dependent on the success of their branches in India to report a profit; were any of them to be asked to leave, it would impact adversely on the company’s bottomline. The US needs India, not merely for its economic well-being but also as a bulwark against the rising might of China.

Pakistan, sadly, has not been able to develop its own industry sector even a tenth as much as India. The people are essentially the same but the lack of political stability and the level of corruption have got in the way of the country developing as a whole. And Pakistan has always had to please its masters in the West, something that India has not had to do.

There is a myth in foreign policy circles that India would like to destabilise Pakistan. In truth, the last thing that India wants is an unstable Pakistan; it views with horror even the thought that there could be another 150 million who could become refugees and seek refuge within its borders. Memories of the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh have not gone away altogether.

For Pakistan, the only option is to wean itself away from the US and try to attach itself more firmly onto the Chinese teat. China already provides assistance to Pakistan; the latter will have to solicit a much more closer relationship if it does not want to have its own people dying in numbers due to US drone attacks every now and then.

The people of Pakistan have suffered a great deal due to the machinations of their rulers. At least in the case of many other countries, it could be said that the mess they are in is of their own making. But in Pakistan’s case. its people live in a mess of other countries’ making.

Posted in Afghanistan, America, India, Pakistan, Politics, Terrorism | No Comments »

Time for Australia to blood new cricketers

November 25th, 2011

NEXT week, the Australian international cricket season kicks off with the first Test against New Zealand. The Kiwis will play two Tests and then India will play four more, beginning in December. Next year, Australia, India and Sri Lanka will play a triangular limited overs tournament.

Australia is in the midst of a transition but it remains to be seen to what extent the new set of selectors are prepared to experiment. Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey are both well into their 30s and not exactly setting the Nullarbor on fire when they go out to bat. Mitchell Johnson has been erratic to put it mildly, with more downsides than upsides. And Brad Haddin has shown an inclination to throw his wicket away at the worst of times. His keeping is pretty poor too.

There are adequate replacement waiting in the wings. One of the very first fast-bowling options tried out, Patrick Cummins, has shown that he can serve as the fulcrum of a good pace attack. There are others like James Pattinson who can be blooded.

The two Tests against New Zealand could well be used to try out some of the aspiring players. The Kiwis are not that strong an outfit and Australia can be reasonably confident of winning both Tests, even if they blood a few new players.

Ponting is not the best batsman in the side any more; Clarke is clearly much better. Usman Khawaja needs to get more time out in the middle if he is to become a regular member of the team and Shane Watson needs to move down the order. The selectors should not be afraid to tap Ponting and Hussey on their shoulders and tell them it is time to go.

Whenever talk of Ponting retiring comes up, he always points to Sachin Tendulkar and says he can do something similar; the Indian has shown no dropoff in scoring, even though he is a year older than Ponting. But Ponting has been going through a drought for the last 18 months and it shows no sign of going away.

With the bowlers, too, there needs to be some firm talk from the selectors. Johnson should be dropped and others tried out. One of the revelations about Cummins is that he seems to have a great deal of intelligence and uses it when bowling; he just does not go out and bang it down the wicket. Peter Siddle does not use his brains when he bowls – at best, he is an honest trier. One should look to the example of Dennis Lillee and the late Malcolm Marshall, who always bowled well within themselves but always got results. Both used their brains when they were out in the middle.

Back in 1999, the West Indies were bowled out for 51 in a Test against Australia in the Caribbean. But the next two Tests were a remarkable turnaround, engineered in the main by one Brian Lara. That was taken by the Windies to mean that change was not needed and that the existing team was good enough to keep soldiering on. Twelve years on, the West Indies are still to win a Test series against decent opposition.

Australia can allow itself to be lulled into a similar state of complacency. The team was bowled out for 47 in South Africa recently but won the next Test with a strong showing. The latter result should not be taken to indicate that the 47 all out was a minor aberration; on the contrary, it was a warning that there is something wrong with the team that needs to be fixed, and fast.

There are good times to make changes in cricket teams, and bad times too. If the selectors are bold enough to make changes for the Tests against New Zealand, it will serve Australia well in the long run. If they opt to wait until desperate times arrive to make changes, then Australia’s goal of trying to climb up the ladder of international cricket will remain just that: a goal.

Posted in Australia, Cricket, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka | No Comments »

Farewell D’Oliveira, a man who changed the system

November 24th, 2011

BASIL D’Oliveira died on November 19. I remember him because of the fact that he was a principal actor in what was the first international game of cricket which I followed on the radio. Later, when I was much older, I realised the significance of the role that he had played in exposing apartheid for the evil it is.

The year was 1968 and I was 11 years old. Back then Sri Lanka – which was known as Ceylon – was not yet an international cricket-playing country. That would take another 13 years. But the interest in the game was phenomenal, so much so that the local radio station was able to find a sponsor to cover the charges of broadcasting BBC commentary on the Ashes series that year.

Before the series even began, the South African prime minister John Vorster had told Lord Cobham, a past president of the MCC, at that time the body administering the game in England, that if D’Oliveira was selected for the forthcoming tour of South Africa, the tour would be cancelled.

D’Oliveira played in the first Test of that series which Australia won. He made just 9 as England collapsed for 165 – the Daily News described it as a case similar to that of cows going to the slaughter – and ceded a lead of 192 to Australia on the first innings.

Facing a victory target of 413, England got to 253 mainly because of D’Oliveira who made an unbeaten 87, and Bob Barber. John Edrich made 38 but the rest of the batting was a shambles.

Funnily, after this, D’Oliveira was made 12th man for the second Test at Lord’s. Shortly before this, the MCC secretary, Billy Griffith, suggested to D’Oliveira that he make himself available for South Africa and not create a problem by being selected for England.

The MCC was thus fully aware that if a coloured South African was able to lay claim to a spot in the England squad for South Africa, there would be some uncomfortable times to be gone through. As an innocent 11-year-old I knew nothing about this – leave alone anything about South Africa’s official system of apartheid.

In August, another attempt was made to prevent any trouble. Tienie Oosthuizen, a top executive in the British branch of Carreras Tobacco, a South African company, made D’Oliveira the offer of a lucrative coaching contract in South Africa. There was a catch – he should refuse to go on the tour.

He was dealing with a man of integrity. D’Oliveira refused the blandishment.

The next three Tests were drawn. In the fifth Test, D’Oliveira returned as Roger Prideaux declared he was unavailable. On the first day, England ran up 272 for 4, with Edrich being the chief contributor, 130 not out. D’Oliveira was not out on 24. The next day, he made a marvellous 158. England won that Test on the final day.

But when the squad for South Africa was announced, D’Oliveira’s name was not there. Then followed a period when unrest dogged the MCC. Various members resigned. The Reverend David Shepherd formed a protest group.

Then came intervention in the shape of providence. Tom Cartwright pulled out of the tour due to injury and, given the public pressure, D’Oliveira was selected as his replacement. Vorster then announced that the tour could not go ahead if D’Oliveira was part of the touring party. The MCC, having tried everything in its armoury to prevent a situation of this kind coming about, cancelled the tour.

The only official cricket tour of South Africa after this was in 1970 when Bill Lawry led an Australia team there for a four-Test series. England cancelled a 1970 tour by South Africa and instead a Rest of the World XI, which included a few South Africans, played a few Tests. In late 1970, the International Cricket Conference suspended official tours of South Africa.

Had D’Oliveira responded to the bribes and not stood on principle, cricket tours would have gone on with the rest of the cricketing nations turning a blind eye to the fact that South Africa was not willing to play black and coloured teams.

One man changed the system.

Posted in Ashes, Cricket, England, Racism, South Africa | No Comments »

Desperate US gets set to take advantage of Asia

November 16th, 2011

AUSTRALIA is putting itself in a dangerous position by agreeing to be the meat in the sandwich between the US and China.

The US, realising that it cannot stand up to developing powers on its own, has devised a deal called the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement; this enables the US to act as a parasite and live off eight other countries.

But over and above this, the US wants to use Australia as a proxy staging ground for displaying whatever military might it has left and trying to hold off China from claiming its rightful place as the supreme power in the Asia-Pacific.

Australia has good relations with China which buys a huge amount of mineral resources from Canberra. Australia needs China and China needs Australia. Yet China is careful to try and cultivate others sources; it has built up good ties in several African countries where there is a promise that there may be mineral resources to exploit. Exploration is being funded by Chinese companies and the country has plenty of monetary reserves to continue making inroads into Africa.

The US has no currency in Africa. Indeed, it has never been able to make a success of any of its foreign adventures. The US has invaded more than its fair share of nations but has always been forced to leave with the invaded country in a mess. Iraq and Afghanistan are but the latest examples of this bungling.

Australia is a medium-level power. It is affluent because of its mineral wealth but quite foolish when it comes to looking to its own interests. Prime ministers and others are dazzled by the US and cede whatever Washington wants without thinking whether it is in Australia’s own interests. Many of these politicians, coincidentally, end up with good jobs at big American companies after they are thrown out of office by the voting public.

There is no doubt that China wants, peacefully or otherwise, to retake Taiwan. Will the US sit idly by if that happens? What will Australia do? Will it, by then, have adopted a more pragmatic attitude towards Beijing? Or will it still be following the old foolish policy of asking “how high?” when America says “jump?”

No matter what nice words people use to dress it up, you cannot trade with a country and at the same time ally yourself with someone else who is seeking to curb the power of that very country. One might as well try to marry a woman while spreading rumour and innuendo about her parents.

The US is a fading power. It has yet to accept this reality and figure out that the world will soon belong to China, India, Russia and Brazil. The Middle East will have its own centre of power as it has much of the world’s remaining oil reserves. America has no money to project power any more; high time to realise this and at least try to sort out domestic problems.

Posted in Afghanistan, America, Australia, China | No Comments »

Australia gets ready to bend over for the US – again

November 9th, 2011

After being in force for seven years, the free trade agreement Australia has with the US has yielded the former little benefit. The US has been the net beneficiary – last financial year imports from the US totalled $26 billion while exports were $9 billion. [1]

The figures for 2004-05 were $21.4 billion and $9.2 billion respectively. [1]

Given this, one would naturally conclude Australia would be wary of further deals that would expose it to being taken advantage of by the US.

Surprisingly, such is not the case. Since March 2010, Australia has been talking to the US and seven other countries about a deal known as the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), one that was supposed to be finalised in Peru in the week ended October 28. President Barack Obama is expected to announce a framework for the deal at the forthcoming APEC summit in Honolulu.

The talks have been held in secret and there has been practically no coverage in the mainstream media. The seven other countries involved are Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei and Peru.

But, despite US efforts to maintain secrecy, there have been leaks: in February, the draft text of the IP section of the TPPA was leaked online [2] to an organisation known as Knowledge Ecology International.

And just before the talks in Peru more documents were leaked to the Citizens Trade Campaign, an US advocacy group. [3]

According to the leaked documents, one of the chief aims of the TPPA is to empower big drug companies to attack schemes such as Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC) that provide citizens of these countries with lower-priced drugs.

If the proposals made by the US are accepted, it would mean greater restrictions on generic competition and rising medicine costs for the Asia-Pacific region.

The federal government has indicated it may accede to US proposals: back in 2010 – the first round was held in Canberra – the Australian ambassador to the US, Kim Beazley, was quoted as telling a US hearing that “everything” was on the table. [4] Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean has reportedly said the same thing. [5]

The leaked draft includes a proposal to lengthen and create new pharmaceutical monopolies, grant additional exclusive controls over clinical trial data and eliminate safeguards against the abuse of patients.

The US proposal seeks to ramp up second-use patents for minor variations on known drugs and any new uses of these medicines.

There is also a proposal to increase drug monopolies by patent term adjustments that will delay the bringing to market of generic equivalents of drugs; this will mean higher prices for patients.

The US wants to remove any safeguards against the abuse of patents and prevent third parties from challenging patent applications. It wants to extend the control over clinical trial data, providing an extra three years of data exclusivity for new uses of existing products.

This is in addition to five years for first uses of the same product.

Recent events have indicated that the federal government is moving to soften the public to the changes that will come with the TPPA – after all, Australia’s only response when told “jump” by the US, has generally been to respond “how high?”

For one, the idea of changes in the Medicare system has been floated recently; in the last week of October Health Minister Nicola Roxon floated the idea of a revamp of the $17 billion system. [6]

Apart from the impact in the IP area, the TPPA also seeks to make it easier for foreign companies to control the conditions for investment; such clauses exist in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In the 1990s, when Canada mooted the idea of plain paper packaging for cigarettes, it was threatened with legal action by Philip Morris. Any such action would have been judged by an international body, and not Canada’s judicial system as this is specified by NAFTA. The result was that Ottawa backed down. [7]

Australia is contemplating a similar move by July next year and has been threatened with legal action by Philip Morris; the government recently said [6] that it would delay the adoption of plain paper packaging until December next year.

If, as seems likely, the TPPA is finalised by then, Philip Morris would have a much better chance of winning its case because it would no longer be judged by the Australian judicial system but by an outside tribunal.

In effect, what this does is to compromise the sovereignty of a country to make its own laws.

The IP draft of the TPPA contains some scary proposals. Draconian measures are proposed to apply to ISPs. Laws will have to be put in place to require ISPs to co-operate with copyright owners in preventing unauthorised storage and transmission of copyrighted materials.

Legal liability for ISPs will extend beyond the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Internet users will, by law, have to be identified by an ISP if copyright owners have given “effective notification of claimed infringement”.

There is also a proposal to extend the copyright period to a minimum of 95 years from creation of a work to a maximum of 120 years. Parallel trade in any copyrighted goods is ruled out altogether in the draft.

There is no indication that the Labor government will oppose the US on any front. Indeed, when the US free trade agreement was negotiated in 2004, the prime minister John Howard thought he would get some sweeteners from the US because of his close relationship with George W. Bush. But Australia got nothing. The present government has nothing like the relationship that Howard had with Bush; its chances of getting something from the TPPA are even more remote.

As the US moves into its election cycle, campaign donations assume even more importance. Media and drug companies are big donors and have to be kept happy.

Obama will need all the money he can get to fight for re-election next year, given that his poll ratings are low. The state of the economy is no help to him.

In that context, the rights or otherwise of Australians are of no importance. There are bigger fish to fry and the US appears intent on giving its big corporates the pound of flesh they are after.

1.http://www.theage.com.au/business/free-trade-pact-a-dud-for-australia-20111104-1mzze.html

2.http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf

3.http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2011/10/22/leaked-trans-pacific-fta-texts-reveal-u-s-undermining-access-to-medicine/

4.http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/weve-nothing-to-gain-from-us-trade-deal-20100321-qo2v.html

5.http://www.smh.com.au/national/nations-ponder-terms-for-pacific-free-trade-20100315-q9qd.html

6.http://www.theage.com.au/national/plain-packaging-for-cigarettes-delayed-for-five-months-20111101-1mtuv.html

7.http://www.thespec.com/opinion/columns/article/577718–the-carlisle-quarry-and-nafta

Posted in America, Australia, Politics | 1 Comment »

Why journalists are treated with contempt

November 5th, 2011

NEWSPAPERS are dying.Circulations are dropping and owners are desperately trying to find new business models to keep their companies afloat.

One of the reasons that people in the US despise the written word is because of the amount of spin that is transmitted by journalists. And here is an excellent example of the kind of garbage that makes people ask whether journalists are in possession of their senses.

This is a case of a journalist swallowing spin from Google hook, line and sinker. Why does Google put ads in its search results and in Gmail? Simple. To make money.

The company gives a rat’s about who you are, what you like, or what you do. It wants to flash ads in front of people to make money.

Of course, your mail is scanned and, using word association, advertisements flash before your eyes. But there is one stupid assumption in this process – that humans are limited in their interests. There may be something that one is really interested in that one never mentions on Gmail.

That said, when Google spins about this process, pretending that it is doing people a great favour, a journalist should ignore it. Or else, rip it up and expose it for the spin that it is.

But no, this Los Angeles Times article swallows the whole explanation and takes it seriously. And the LA Times is said to be one of the better papers in the US of A.

Is it any wonder that people turn off papers in droves when journalists display the IQ of the common cockroach?

Posted in America, Journalism | No Comments »

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