Sitting on the terrace in a Louzingou cafe, the talk turns soon enough to the civil war and oil in this new story from Alain Mabanckou, translated by Helen Stevenson I’ve been back home for a few days, after several years away. We’re sitting at a table on the terrace outside Chez Janette, a bar in the Trois-Cents quarter. It’s the busiest place in Louzingou, the Republic of Mboka’s political capital. There are a few people talking in the corner, but they can’t hear us. As night falls, their faces gradually fade into the darkness. We’ve been here nearly two hours, and my uncle seems pleased to meet up with me, after all these years. The waitress has just come and served us a couple of Primus beers. My uncle is eyeing the girl’s backside greedily: – My dear boy, have you seen that waitress – nice, uh? I don’t answer. He watches the waitress as she makes her way back to the bar, then turns to me: – This country’s changed. When I look at the big scar running down his face, he says: – Yes, I know, it’s because of the war, dear boy … it’s because of the war, or rather oil … He glances over at the people sitting at the back of the terrace, but they’re not listening, and my uncle goes on: – I wonder what our country would have been like if there’d been no oil. A peaceful country? A country with no history? I don’t know. We’ll never know. God gave us oil, though we’re just a small country, with only three million inhabitants. Why did he put all the oil in the south, instead of giving a bit to the north, so everyone at least had a little bit of the cake, and we could stop fighting? Ah well, I mustn’t complain, some countries are in real trouble, not a drop of oil anywhere, under land or sea! He raises his glass, knocks it back in one, and continues: – Oil is power. Wherever there’s war, there’s oil. Do countries go to war over water? Imagine a country with no water, will its people survive? Oil brought havoc here, from north to south. That’s the only reason for the civil war. The waitress puts two more Primus down on the table. My uncle glances at her nicely rounded butt: – Nice fit lady, eh? Now, where was I? What was I saying? – The civil war over oil and … – Ah yes, while you were away in France, we had a civil war. President Moniato, who was in power, wouldn’t accept defeat in the election. He didn’t want to hand over power to Solola, who’d been chosen democratically. And why not? I wondered if he realised I knew all about the war, from the newspapers. Still, I liked to hear him talk. He became more animated: – The war was all about gaining control of oil, selling it secretly and buying smart houses in Europe! Oil doesn’t belong to the people here, it belongs to the president and his family. The trouble is, Moniato was working with the French. Now, Solola didn’t want to work with the French any more, he wanted to work with the Americans. So, the French supported president Moniato, to help him stay in power, but the Americans didn’t protect the new president, who’d been democratically elected. The Americans are no fools, they know they can always go and wage war some other place – in Iraq, for instance – and get far more oil than they would here. Why should they fight for a little country with less oil than Iraq? A taxi’s just pulled up in front of the bar. Two women get out, in very short skirts. My uncle and I watch them closely. High heeled shoes. Made up to the nines. They cross the terrace, go to the bar and talk to the owner. We hear the boss say: – Bring back more money this time! Yesterday was awful! My uncle says: – You see that? The war has scuppered everything, everyone has to scrabble for a living. What was I saying? – About the war, the French, the Americans and … – Yeah, we had a civil war while you were away, you know that, it was in all the papers, all over the world. north against south. The northerners were in power, and they didn’t want to give up the oil. It was a bad war, dear boy. Arms poured in from everywhere. The northerners asked the Angolans for help, and the French, too, and they came and invaded the south. The people in the south all ran off and hid in the bush. They were dying of hunger, mosquitoes, and tropical disease. Some got eaten by crocodiles and lions. There was war on the ground and war in the air, believe me! He’s been speaking loudly, then realising the other customers had begun to listen in to what he was saying, he lowers it again, before continuing: – There were military planes flying low over the forest. They began to call the people who’d fled into the bush ‘refugees’. The International Community said they must be helped, they needed food, even though you can eat what you want in the bush, like the pygmies do. Pygmies are just a joke, really, they’re too small, their stomachs don’t get hungry every day like us big guys. Pygmies can go without food and water for weeks, but people our size need to eat every day. My uncle’s eyes are filling up, he looks like any moment he might cry. He looks at his bottle of beer for a moment, then pours himself another glass and says: – You don’t know what went on, it was worse than anything you can have read. It was terrible! I saw it with my own eyes, I was there, I was out in the bush along with the refugees. Sometimes pregnant women gave birth in the bush, because babies must be born even when you have oil, and there’s war in your country. The worst thing was, we went on making love, even while the war was killing huge numbers of people. I know what you’ll say: why didn’t you wait till the war was over to make love? Dear boy, if we’d waited for the end of the war, we’d have forgotten how to make love, and come the end of the war we’d have been making love with animals. It was nothing new: all through history there’ve been people making love in the time of cholera. Having said that, I don’t think cholera had anything to do with oil…. The two prostitutes walk past our table. My uncle doesn’t even look at them. His voice grows heavy and sad: – Things got worse and worse in the bush. One day we heard three helicopters flying over. They were flying low, almost touching the trees. The rumour went round that they were from the International Community. And we could actually see the three helicopters in the sky, with the letters painted in red on the side: PITILOYI. They were from the French company that was producing our oil. Of course! They had come to help us. We all came out of our hiding places, like mice who realise the cat that was chasing them has actually got no teeth, no claws. We began to shout for joy. We danced. We clapped. We embraced. We cried out: Vive la France! Vive la France! Vive la France! And some, in their joy, shouted: Long live America! At last we will make love once again, give birth to our children in our own homes, and not in the bush! War is over, Long Live Peace! He’s waving his arms like a helicopter, and the boss looks over at us from behind the bar, his eyes round with surprise. Once again my uncle lowers his voice: – Dear boy, I swear, they were there, the helicopters, just metres above our heads. We thought: they’re going to throw us sacks of rice, milk, sugar, bread and meat. We all rushed to be the first to fling ourselves on the parcels of food. We jostled and argued, and trampled on the children. The older ones said we must let women and children go first. And d’you know what happened? Even though I know, I shake my head, to let him continue. – We saw the helicopter doors open, it was the Angolans. They aimed their weapons at us, and opened fire. From everywhere, birds rose into the air. The gunfire went on and on. People fell, ran, plunged into the river. The soldiers used machine guns, threw tear gas. We didn’t know what was going on. And the oldest of the refugees yelled: Take cover! It’s a trap! From the looks they’re giving us now, the customers at the back are not best pleased. But my uncle is caught up in the telling of his story and ploughs on: – Oh, yes, I was one of the lucky ones. I ran like the devil through the swamp. I didn’t look back once. I went into a cave. I stayed there for two days. The country was now in the hands of the northern president, thanks to his Angolan allies. The war was over. When I got back home, my beard was so long it reached the ground. When I walked I looked like a zombie. I had lost almost all sense of direction because there are no streets or avenues in the bush. All you see are trees, mountains, rivers, and you sleep wherever you’re sure there are no wild animals … The customers at the back of the bar are more shocked than ever, they get up to leave. My uncle leaves off for a moment, as though suddenly afraid. He waits till they’ve gone, then takes a couple of big gulps before saying: – So there I was, back from the bush. The country seemed calm again, dear boy. We got on with our lives. We went back to the bars, to the sea, everywhere. Gradually we began to forget what had happened to us. Five years later, we had new elections. The northern president, with the support of the French and the Angolans, was roundly defeated. We jumped for joy. He was practically hounded from the country and went to live in exile in France. Now it was a southerner, Solola, who ruled us. Since he was mad at the French for supporting the northern president, he gave the oil rights to the Americans. Which didn’t please the French. Every day, the French went to see the ex-northern-president in his home-in-exile in Paris. The promised him they’d do everything to restore him to power. But we couldn’t see how a northerner could become president of our country again. There were Americans everywhere now. They tried to teach us English, but it never worked, because the French had given us their lousy accent during colonisation. We told the Americans they could do what they wanted with our oil, but we refused to learn English. They didn’t care either way, they signed their contracts with the southern president, and he signed too, not realising that he was selling off our oil for the future. Five people in uniform come into the bar and sit down at the back. My uncle looks at them for a few seconds. He lowers his voice, because he knows this time if he talks loud we’ll end up in prison. You don’t talk about the war here in front of the army. – Now we must set up new elections. The ex-president from the north has come back to run for office, with the support of the French. But our southern president claims that the right conditions aren’t in place. The northern ex-president says they must be held, no matter what. And so they start squabbling … Don’t you want your beer? I raise my glass, drain it. My uncle does the same and goes on: – The ex-president brings arms into the country via Angola, and asks the Angolans for help. He says we must get rid of the southern president if he doesn’t set up proper elections. Who knows how that will end up. They say they’ll be another civil war, but the only thing I know is this, that the people won’t get any of what comes from our oil … I turn towards the back of the bar. My uncle looks at his watch. – Time flies! Half ten already! We pay, and pick up a taxi outside the bar. We’re going down the Avenue of Independence, which runs through the middle of Louzingou, I glance occasionally at the scar on my uncle’s face. He turns to face me: – Let’s go back to that bar tomorrow. Did you see those two prostitutes? You have one, I’ll have the other. I’ll pay, don’t worry. I bet it’s a long time since you had a bit of Louzingan skirt! I say nothing, I’m almost half asleep. Yes, I’ll go back to the bar tomorrow, with my uncle … Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England Original writing Fiction Oil Oil spills guardian.co.uk
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Twenty five years on from Chernobyl, the heated debate on nuclear power remains resistant to cold facts: simply too few are known. But making your own judgements on five key questions will lead to your answer Containing the elemental forces that rage inside a nuclear reactor is one of the great achievements of science, but losing control, as happened 25 years ago on Tuesday at Chernobyl , is one of its greatest failures. So what to think of nuclear power ? People often ask me if I support or oppose the building of new nuclear power stations, presuming I think that because of my job, I’ll know the answer. If only it was that easy. Until the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant , I would say I was 51% in favour, on the basis that we need all the low-carbon electricity we can get to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and that I tend to trust scientists having been one. But 51% in favour is a pretty unsatisfactory position – it’s 1% off I don’t know. Surely I can be more certain than that, I thought. As the debate has raged, not least between my colleagues George Monbiot and John Vidal , it struck me very clearly that this is not an issue that can be resolved with cold facts alone, for the simple reason that many of the facts are not known. And how do you fairly assess the relative importance of political, economic, security, health and engineering factors? The answer, it seems to me, must lie in a series of personal judgements on the critical factors that we all must make for themselves. So I have tried to devise a series of questions which, if you answer based on your own priorities and judgements, should allow you to decide your position on nuclear power. 1. Do you think the global community can prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and, if not, do you think it can prevent a nuclear weapon being used? The existing non-proliferation regime has slowed, but not stopped the spread of nuclear weapons, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. All recent weapons programmes have been developed under the cover of civilian nuclear power. This link has engendered a culture of secrecy in the nuclear industry that worries some. But perhaps you think there is enough momentum in the current non-proliferation efforts to be more successful. Iran might be considered a test case playing out right now. But even if weapons spread, only their use would cause catastrophe. Do you think that could happen? Would the threat of devastating retaliation prevent the launch of a warhead anywhere in the world? 2. Is the hazard of climate change greater than that posed by a nuclear disaster? This is perhaps the toughest question as the brutal truth is that no-one knows the long-term medical consequences of low-dose radiation exposure . Part of that is because identifying small effects over long periods, in the midst of myriad confounding factors, is incredibly hard. Part of it is the shameful lack of resources for those who wished to study the long term effects of Chernobyl. The threat posed by climate change, frequently to the most vulnerable in the world, is large, clear and very likely to come to pass without action. The risk of a nuclear catastrophe is low: it took an earthquake and tsunami of Biblical size to derail Fukushima. But it exists over a very long period of time – decades for operations, centuries or more for waste. Its impact on wellbeing is largely unknown: should the precautionary principle apply or is the danger of global warming too great? 3. Is global political will too weak to create a low-carbon energy future that does not involve nuclear power and in time to avert climate chaos? If existing nuclear power stations were closed down today, their 13% (and falling) of global electricity generation would almost certainly be replaced by dirty coal, which dumps both carbon and radioactive elements into the atmosphere. But if they were phased out, could renewable energy, such as hydroelectricity, wind and solar take up the slack? Renewables already have a heavy burden to bear, replacing large loads of coal and gas. But they are no slower to develop than most alternatives and almost certainly faster than nuclear. Nuclear power is backed by huge companies and states, meaning they heavily outgun smaller, newer renewables companies in lobbying firepower. Crucially, would investment in new nuclear power stations squeeze out investment in renewables? Another factor to consider is that nuclear power is a mature technology. Renewables are less mature, but offer more growth potential as their cost rapidly falls. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – completely unproven at commercial scale – offers another alternative. Consider also the fact that electricity demand will rise, but can be slowed by better and highly cost-effective energy efficiency measures. So, in a way, this question asks whether political energy is a renewable resource – i.e. will effort expended on building new nuclear power stations mean less effort is available for alternatives? 4. Is nuclear power vital to ensuring the security of energy supply? Our civilisation depends, in much of the world, on energy. Nuclear power offers large amounts of electricity, and is not available only intermittently like some renewables. That steady supply is very useful but of course if the reactors have to be shut down, they leave a very a big gap to fill. Renewables are intermittent and continent-scale grids (which are starting to be built ) and better storage will be needed to balance supplies. But renewables can be distributed more widely and are more resilient to accidents or engineering problems. CCS-enabled coal or gas plants could provide baseload. Lastly, nuclear power is not truly renewable, and for nations without their own uranium deposits, ensuring access to the fuel is an issue. The sun will always shine and the wind will always blow somewhere. 5. Can the full costs of nuclear truly be calculated? Nuclear can, in some perfectly reasonable analyses, appear fairly affordable if not ” too cheap to meter “. But that usually assumes that the technical problems of the past have been solved in the latest plant designs, which are largely untested at commercial scale. Do you believe engineers have abolished the vast cost overruns of existing generations of reactors? Will the new reactors prevent the accidents, large and small, that pile on costs? Will the temptation to operate plants well beyond their initial design lifetimes be resisted in the future? An even bigger question is the vast cost of decommissioning and waste disposal. Fully half the budget of UK’s department of energy and climate change will be spent next year on clearing up and storing past waste. And nowhere in the world has a long term disposal solution been implemented. Under current UK plans, it will be at least a century before the radioactive waste from the new reactors planned will be permanently disposed of. So, do you think these costs will mount to the extent that nuclear becomes expensive compared to other options? The cost of renewables is clearer and there’s no waste to deal with. So those are the questions I have arrived at. If you have answered yes to all or most of them, you are in favour of nuclear power: you answered no to most, you oppose it. As for me, I find myself giving a clear no to questions 1, 4 and 5, a narrow no to question 3 and a yes to question 2. Which makes me pretty firmly against nuclear power and feeling better about knowing my own mind. Let me know how you get on and I’d very much like ideas about how the questions can be improved. Nuclear power Nuclear waste Japan disaster Renewable energy Energy Energy Energy Chernobyl nuclear disaster Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk
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Deputy PM accuses ‘paternalists and conservatives’ of trying to block move to electoral reform as pro-AV camp loses ground Nick Clegg rounded on his critics who “vilify” his party’s role in coalition, insisting he is doing the “best I can” to shape government policies around Liberal Democrat values. The deputy prime minister issued a robust response to those who claim his unpopularity will hit support for the alternative vote in the 5 May referendum, insisting the poll was just one part of a range of reforms secured by the Lib Dems in coalition. In a speech delivered at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Clegg rounded on the “distractions and falsehoods” made by AV opponents and attacked “paternalists and conservatives” whom he accused of trying to block the move to give voters “more power and choice”. The intervention came amid signs that the pro-AV camp is losing ground. Another Lib Dem cabinet minister, Chris Huhne, warned earlier this week that the party’s alliance with the Tories was being damaged by bitter sniping, saying the No campaign was indulging in “downright lies”. Clegg said that those who argue that AV would lead to more coalitions and “broken promises”, yet claim to want a “different kind of politics” where parties can work together in the national interest, “have to grow up a bit”. “Compromise is not a betrayal,” he said. The Lib Dem leader, who has been lambasted for his party’s U-turn on tuition fees and its position on the pace and scale of public spending cuts, said “difficult compromises” had had to be made because the party had just 57 MPs out of 650. “If people want more Liberal Democrat policies, the way to get them is to elect a majority Liberal Democrat government. That didn’t happen,” he said. “In the meantime, I will continue to make what are sometimes difficult compromises, but ones which are always shaped as best I can by the liberal values I hold dear.” He criticised opponents on the left and right, saying: “You can’t claim to stand for a new kind of politics, for a new kind of pluralism, and then vilify those who try to practise it.” Clegg described AV as a “simple update” to the electoral system to give people more power and more choice, on the back of the expenses scandal of two years ago. “It means all MPs will have to try to win the support of a majority of their constituents instead of relying on their core vote. It means they will have to engage with people who are not their core supporters, listening to a wider range of views and bringing more people into the democratic process. It will help to reduce the complacency of MPs with jobs for life in safe seats. AV simply updates our voting system to give people more power, and more choice,” he said. “But as with almost all changes that give people more power and more choice, paternalists and conservatives are lining up to try and block it.” He dismissed the idea that AV would lead to more coalitions, saying Australia had experienced fewer hung parliaments than the UK. And he also rejected allegations that the voting system would require new, expensive counting machines. “This is simply untrue. There are no plans to bring in electronic machines. We won’t need them. It won’t happen,” he said. “This is the first time British people have ever had a choice on how to elect their MPs. They deserve a debate based on reason and reality, not prejudice and misinformation.” AV referendum Nick Clegg Alternative vote Conservatives Electoral reform Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Thornbury Castle and the Royal Crescent among luxury country house hotels to be auctioned by administrators A grand collection of castles and stately homes is up for auction after their owner, the von Essen Hotels group, collapsed into administration on Wednesday. Administrators at Ernst & Young are trying to find buyers for von Essen’s 28 luxury country house hotels in the UK and France. They include Cliveden House in Berkshire, Ston Easton Park in Somerset, the Royal Crescent in Bath, Thornbury Castle near Bristol and Amberley Castle in west Sussex, which dates back to 1140. Thornbury is even older, with the earliest account of the manor in the time of King Athelstan (925-940), the grandson of King Alfred the Great. King Athelstan and William the Conqueror stayed at the castle, as did Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. Cliveden , once home to Nancy Astor and mired in the Profumo scandal in the 1960s, recently unveiled the world’s most expensive afternoon tea – which carries a price tag of £550 for two people. It includes white truffles, Beluga caviar and a glass of Dom Perignon Rosé. Queen Victoria, a frequent guest, was not amused in 1893 when the house was bought by William Waldorf Astor, America’s richest citizen. It soon became a social hub, with guests ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Winston Churchill, and President Roosevelt to George Bernard Shaw. Harold Macmillan, another regular guest, when told that the house was eventually to become a hotel, remarked “My dear boy, it always has been”. Staying at the Royal Crescent in Bath has been compared to stepping into the pages of a Jane Austen novel. Its architecture has remained unchanged since the 18th century when it was built as part of the Royal Crescent by John Wood the Younger, which included some of the grandest houses in Bath. Ston Easton Park in Somerset also dates back to the mid-18th century and is set within gardens created by landscape gardener Humphry Repton. They include an ice house, a ruined grotto fountain, a sham castle, a rare 18th century plunge pool and Palladian bridges over the river. The hotels are not in administration and will continue to trade as usual. Angela Swarbrick, joint administrator at Ernst & Young, said: “It is business as normal for the hotels and customers of von Essen Hotels can continue to enjoy their stay.” Von Essen Hotels employs 40 people and another 1,000 work at the 28 hotels. The administrators were unable to say whether they would be sold as a package or individually. “The administrators are working closely with the business to develop the appropriate strategy to take the business forward,” said an Ernst & Young spokeswoman. Travel & leisure Hotels Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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Employment minister unveils payment by result scheme to treat addiction as figures show more than 80,000 claiming benefit for obesity, alcohol or drugs The employment minister, Chris Grayling, has said the government will launch a “revolution” to help people “turn their lives around” as figures revealed that more than 80,000 people are claiming incapacity benefit for obesity and addiction to alcohol and drugs. Grayling said the figures – which show that 12,880 alcoholics and 9,200 drug abusers have been dependent on the benefit for more than 10 years – told a “pretty sorry tale”. He told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme the conditions were treatable and “able to be overcome” if people were given the “right support”, and unveiled plans to launch a payment by result scheme to treat addiction. “I don’t think you can simply say because you’re a drug addict or you’re an alcoholic we should pay you benefits for the rest of your life, that we should consign you to the fringes of society,” he said. “We should actually, in my view, be helping those people overcome their problems and get back into the workplace, which surely is a better option. “We are launching a revolution, a financial revolution, to try and help people turn their lives around.” Grayling said that, as part of the government’s welfare strategy, it would extend the delivery of payment by result schemes for the work programme being launched in June to one specifically tailored to people with addictions. The treatment will be delivered by specialist organisations, who will be paid on the basis of their success in helping people to overcome addictions to the point where they can return to the workplace. Grayling said this would be funded by the money saved from getting people off benefits and into work and would move away from the idea that politicians know best about how to deal with drug addiction. In a separate interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: “We’ll pay them [specialist organisations] when they succeed to move people off drugs and help overcome some of these addictions problems. “That in itself will get way from the situation where we say ‘we know best when it comes to drug treatment’, it will ensure that the best treatments, the ones that succeed, come forward.” Grayling said people with addictions and on incapacity benefit had been left on the “fringes” of the welfare system for years “unquestioned, unchallenged”. “This is all about saving lives, not saving money – it’s about trying to work out who has the potential to make more of their lives and deliver specialist help to help them do so,” he said. “Very often, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy – you end up in a position where you are out of work, where you are on benefits, actually you end up sinking into something of a rut. “Your situation gets worse, you get depressed, some problems like alcohol addiction can actually be accentuated by that situation.” The benefit figures, released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), provide a snapshot of incapacity benefit claimants in August 2010. Incapacity benefit is paid at three weekly rates – £68.95 for the first 28 weeks, £81.60 from weeks 29 to 52 and £91.40 from week 53. Since February, no new incapacity benefit claims have been accepted. Existing claimants are being reassessed to see whether they are fit to work straight away or need help first through the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The figures show that a total of 81,670 claimants are not working, either because they are obese (1,830) or suffering from drug (37,480) or alcohol problems (42,360). In total, there are 2.1 million claimants, and the total yearly incapacity benefit bill is £7bn. The shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, hit out at the coalition for cutting “too far and too fast”. He said: “It was Labour that changed the law to start testing people on incapacity benefit to see who was fit for work. “But the real problem now is that the Tories’ decision to cut too far and too fast has meant that unemployment is set to increase every year, by up to 200,000 more people, helping push the benefits bill up by a massive £12bn, or £500 for every household in Britain. “With five people now chasing every job, what we need to get people off benefits and paying tax is more jobs.” Chris Grayling Liberal-Conservative coalition Alcohol Drugs Obesity Health Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Writer and thinktank founder Chandran Nair says billions of Chinese and Indians may aspire to an American standard of living, but it will be a catastrophe if these aspirations are met Chandran Nair is a softspoken man with a radical message. Listening to his hard-hitting analysis, it’s not easy to know whether we are hearing a brave pioneer or a voice crying in the wilderness. His call to arms is clear: a western model of development has dominated the world for the last 60 years, but it will be disastrous if it is allowed to continue unreformed in Asia. Consumption-led economic growth is the orthodoxy that runs the global system. Billions of Chinese and Indians may aspire to an American standard of living, but it will be a catastrophe if such aspirations are ever fulfilled. Across Asia there is now unprecedented pressure on environmental resources such as water, fish, forestry and air quality. Nair’s conclusion is blunt: Asia must develop a new model of capitalism – he calls it constrained capitalism – which limits the use of natural resources and inhibits the behaviour of consumers. “It’s a matter of numbers,” Nair said on a visit to London to speak at the Royal Society of Arts . “What Europe and America does about restricting its impact on the environment is pretty irrelevant. The future will be determined by what happens in Asia. Three billion Asians want what you and I have, but there is not enough to go round. By 2050, there will be 5 billion Asians,” says Nair, who grew up in Malaysia and now lives in Hong Kong. “If Asia continues like the west, the game is over; as people in Asia get richer, they eat further up the food chain. If 500 million Chinese want to eat just one seafood meal a week, it will empty all the seas of Asia. If Asians ate as much chicken as Americans, by 2050 that would amount to 120 billion birds a year instead of today’s 16 billion. To aspire to the western model in Asia is a deadly lie. “If China and India had the levels of car ownership evident across the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], that would amount to 1.5bn more cars – and it would take the entire oil production of Saudi Arabia to run them,” says Nair, whose book Consumptionomics : Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet has just been published. Yet this is the reality that Asians are reluctant to face. Western car manufacturers want to sell cars to Asia, and Asia wants to buy them. No Asian chief executive is prepared to talk publicly about the need for consumer constraint. Only privately, says Nair, will senior government officials and business figures agree that the arguments he makes is crucial to Asia’s future – and has relevance for every part of the developing world. Could Asia offer Africa, for example, an alternative model of development? “Governments need to tell their people that they can’t have everything,” says Nair. “The dream of a lifestyle commensurate with US sitcoms needs to be deconstructed immediately.” Nair has a distinguished career in running the biggest environmental consultancy in Asia, based in Hong Kong, so he has the ear of powerful business interests – but it’s perhaps his background as an activist in the African National Congress in southern Africa in the early 1980s that is standing him in good stead in taking on accepted orthodoxy. Part of Asia’s current predicament, argues Nair, is that for too long it has accepted a western intellectual dominance. Many of the brightest go off to western business schools and universities to be inculcated in the virtues of the free market. Nair set up a thinktank in Hong Kong to begin to develop Asian strategies rather than continue to follow western strictures on what development looked like and on how to run their economies. Twice in the last 15 years, Nair points out, the west has lectured or hectored Asian nations to follow its rules – first, in the IMF’s intervention in the disastrous financial crisis of the late 90s, and second, after the 2008 financial crisis when the US urged the Chinese to consume more – and become more like Americans. Nair even cites an IMF workshop in 2009 in Beijing on how to “catalyse household consumption” – effectively subverting existing systems of consumer constraint. On both occasions, the western intervention has been deeply resented, imposing western-style solutions. But Nair reserves most scorn for the west’s mythology about Asian growth. Yes, millions have been lifted out of poverty but rather than putting this down as a triumph of liberal market capitalism, Nair argues that the model of development has consigned many millions more to continuing abject poverty. Trickle down doesn’t work. Consumption-led growth creates a comparatively small middle class floating nervously in a sea of poverty. Its a cruel illusion to claim that the poor can all one day join the middle classes. Even if 250 million join the middle classes – with all the disastrous consequences that will have on environmental resources – in the next 20 years, that will leave 3 billion still in poverty. “This is my key point. The majority of Asians are being left behind by the current model of growth, and governments will have to change tack or risk losing legitimacy,” argues Nair. He challenges the development model of rapid urbanisation and calls instead for investment in rural areas to improve sustainable farming methods and raise farming incomes. A policy that the Chinese have already adopted. He uses a telling fact: 2.2 billion Asians now have mobile phones, but far fewer have access to drinking water or toilets. The problem is not about needing more technology but about restructuring an economic system to meet human needs. How is it that TVs, playstations and mobile phones are more easily accessible in some of the cities of Asia than a glass of drinking water from a tap? “We live in a world whose values are set by an economic system that incentivises and rewards those who can generate growth for a select group of mostly western institutions,” states Nair in Consumptionomics. It is in the meeting of genuine human need that the future of Asian capitalism must lie: food production, environmental stewardship, and health and education. “It’s harsh for Asians to be told that as latecomers to the capitalist party they will never be able to attain that way of life taken for granted in developing countries,” he admits. What’s needed is a strong interventionist state that can take these difficult long-term decisions – Nair talks of “benign authoritarianism” and insists that the key issue is good governance, not whether it meets democratic criteria. “There is no future unless we constrain human behaviour, how you do that is the question of our time, and the region that will have to crack it is Asia. Asians will have to lead this debate.” India China Global economy Economics Madeleine Bunting guardian.co.uk
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Former Harrods owner mulls challenge to approach from Peel Holdings, which would value film and TV studios at £88m Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, is considering a bid for Pinewood Shepperton film studios. Pinewood, which was home to the fourth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the final Harry Potter film, has already received a 190p-per-share takeover offer from Peel Holdings valuing the company at £88m. Fayed confirmed in a statement to the City on Thursday that he is “considering making an all-cash offer for Pinewood”. “There can be no certainty that an offer will be forthcoming,” the statement added. Fayed, who sold Harrods last year for £1.5bn, previously owned a studio in Egypt and funded the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which his late son Dodi executive produced. Pinewood issued a statement on Wednesday saying that it had “received a further approach from an unconnected third party which also may or may not lead to an offer being made for the company” and later in the day it was reported that this referred to Fayed. Shares in Pinewood, which is chaired by former ITV executive chairman Michael Grade, rose to a 12-month high of 211p on Thursday morning on news of a potential bidding war for the business. Peel, the commercial property group which has leased part of Salford’s MediaCityUK site to the BBC, is Pinewood’s largest shareholder with a stake of 29.78% and could easily block any potential counter-bid from Fayed. Pinewood’s second largest shareholder, Crystal Amber, holds a 28.29% stake and has been critical of the business, calling for Grade to step down as chairman. Pinewood is home to a range of productions including the next Clash of the Titans film starring Avatar actor Sam Worthington and TV shows including Dancing On Ice, Weakest Link and My Family. In March the studio announced an initiative to invest a stake of up to 20% in films with production budgets of about £2m in the hope of following the success of Oscar-winner The King’s Speech, which cost £9m to make and has grossed more than £150m. Earlier this year the studio group also announced a franchise deal in the Dominican Republic which it hopes will give it a foothold in the fast-growing Latin American film and TV market. Other joint venture deals, designed to give the Pinewood brand a global footprint, have resulted in the creation of Pinewood Toronto Studios and Pinewood Malaysia Iskandar Studios, with the latter due to open in 2013. •
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Two new anthologies carve up the canon into reading ‘for boys’ and ‘for girls’. Designed to make poetry fun, the resulting editorial vision is pretty bleak You might think editors who have set themselves the commendable task of marketing poetry to children in an exciting, approachable way would also be averse to such social scourges as gender stereotyping. Not so for the publishers of 100 Great Poems for Boys and 100 Great Poems for Girls . These books go tearing through the greatest poetry of the last 500 years, highlighting in metaphorical blue and pink marker pen to decide who gets what. To their credit, these collections do, as promised, feature the greats – Pope, Blake, Tennyson, Poe, Whitman and Coleridge among others. A defence that could perhaps be made by the editors of the titles is that there is no strict gender rule for contributors to either collection. In fact, 100 Great Poems for Girls features no fewer than 57 poems by men: 18 are attributed to anonymous, with the remaining 24 places given over to female authors. In 100 Great Poems for Boys there is also a gender mix, of sorts: 75 of the poems are by men, 21 are anonymous – and an astonishing four poems are by female poets. Looking at which poets the editors consider to be more suitable for which gender is fascinating. Wordsworth is considered girly enough to have three poems in the female-friendly edition, and none in the book for boys. The dreamy lines of Christina Rossetti are again only for girls, although there are so few women in the boys’ book that this is hardly surprising. The four women considered boisterous enough for boys are Emily Dickinson, Emma Lazurus, Laura Richards and Julia Ward Howe, who snuck in with the warlike “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” alongside the good, solid, masculine fare of Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling. Girls are given great poems – Frost, Manley Hopkins, Shelley – but in terms of subject matter there’s a preponderance of flowers and feelings, garrets and staying inside watching the rain. Why Bunyan for girls, not boys? Because girls are naturally more devout? It’s depressing to consider the thought processes that went into these selections. But pointing out such statistics is unfair, I suppose, because we are told over and over that boys are instinctively perturbed by the sight of a female author’s name, fearing a girly taint if they are caught reading anything by one (thus “JK” rather than “Joanne”). Girls, apparently, have no such hang-ups: in fact, if we’re to believe the evidence of 100 Great Poems for Girls, they prefer a slight masculine slant to their reading. The section headings for the books also demonstrate a sensitive awareness of the target audience’s predilections. Certain sections – such as “Limericks and Tongue Twisters” – are available to both genders, but where boys get to choose from “Battlefields and Heroes” or “Fun to Read Aloud”, girls are offered the choice of “Imagination” and “Nature”. Boys can learn the ancient arts of war and oratory, while girls content themselves with thinking about things and pressing flowers between the pages of books too complicated for them to understand. A weak attempt is made by the editor of 100 Great Poems for Boys, Leslie Pockell, to defend the validity of his book in its introduction (no such attempt is made by Celia Johnson, editor of 100 Great Poems for Girls). Pockell jovially informs us: “You don’t have to be any special age to be a boy. It’s more a state of mind that anything else (even certain girls can qualify, if they have the right attitude!). I was a boy quite a few years ago and, actually, it seems to me that in many ways I still am.” He then concludes rather hurriedly: “I hope you enjoy reading these poems as much as I enjoyed putting them together in this book, whatever your age or gender, and that they will stay with you as inspiring or entertaining companions throughout your reading life!” The suggestion that the “boys” referred to in the title are entirely figurative is somewhat undermined not only by its own ludicrousness but also because Johnson in her introduction doesn’t spend any time suggesting that anyone can be a girl. After all, on the evidence of these books, who’d want to be? Poetry Children and teenagers Victoria Beale guardian.co.uk
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Drilling in Sichuan deemed a success as China seeks to emulate US’s adoption of costly and controversial technique • Fossil fuel firms use ‘biased’ study in massive gas lobbying push China has begun trials of a controversial drilling technique to exploit the world’s largest reserves of shale gas , as it attempts to cope with the increasing energy demands of a fast-growing economy while reducing its dependence on coal. In the past two weeks, engineers have completed the country’s first horizontal shale gas well in Sichuan and government officials have begun drafting a national strategy to identify a trillion cubic metres of exploitable resources by 2020. Supporters say China has the potential to emulate the United States, where extraction of shale gas has tripled the lifespan of US gas reserves and offered a lower-carbon alternative to coal. “Shale gas is a game-changer for the US and should do the same for China,” said Ming Sung, Asia representative of the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force and an advocate of closer energy links between the two nations. “This should be one of the centre-pieces for China’s energy strategy. As with any new technology development, we must balance benefits versus potential environmental impacts. The experiences of the US are valuable here.” The extraction method itself is costly, controversial and challenging. Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” involves the injection of chemically treated water at high pressure through seams of rock, forcing the gas inside to seep out to where it can be captured. Environmentalists warn that this wastes and contaminates millions of tons of water. For fuel-hungry, drought-plagued China, this poses a conundrum. The energy potential is enormous. The ministry of land and resources calculates the size of shale gas reserves at 26tn cubic metres – more than 10 times the country’s known holdings of conventional natural gas. This is a tempting alternative for a country that is eager to improve its energy security in the face of rising oil and coal imports. A global shale gas study released this month by the US Energy Information Administration said China’s technically recoverable shale gas reserves were almost 50% higher than those of the number two nation, the US. But tapping them will be expensive and difficult for a country that is desperately short of water and – until recently – lacking experience in the key technologies. Engineers from China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) took a major step towards rectifying the latter problem on 23 March, when it opened the shale gas well 3km below the surface at Weiyuan in Sichuan province. The scale of production is a mere 10,000 cubic metres a day, the equivalent to about 10 tonnes of oil, and the financial returns are unattractive given the low price of gas and the high costs of exploitation – 7% of which are for environmental measures. But the pilot project was deemed a success because it proved the effectiveness of drilling equipment – the final thousand metres of the well being bored in just 34 days. “The success of this well is valuable for the future of horizontal shale gas technology,” said an industry source. “We expect to reach our targets for exploration and development ahead of schedule.” Executives at CNPC – China’s biggest energy company – have said they aim to produce 500m cubic metres of shale gas by 2015. With other firms such as Sinopec, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron lining up to enter the business, the government has begun drawing up a national strategy that is likely to be incorporated into the latest five-year plan. Industry insiders are hopeful that it will include tax incentives and subsidies to develop shale gas reserves. In an effort to wean the economy off coal, China plans to triple the use of natural gas so that it supplies 10% of the country’s energy needs by 2020. Most of this will come from conventional wells and coal-bed methane, but the share from shale is in fact likely to hit 12% by 2020 and continue rising. The US appears to be a willing partner. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao signed a joint shale gas initiative in 2009, covering technology co-operation and assessments of reserves. Liang Digang of the China Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development said many of the technological barriers identified early on have been overcome. “When China started looking at shale gas two years ago, we did not know how to do it so we spent money and invited foreign companies to join us. Now can do it by ourselves.” But experts and industry executives downplayed the prospect of China exploiting shale gas reserves as quickly as the United States because the geology of the two nations is different. They said China’s shale is older and, tonne for tonne, produces less than half the gas of shale in the US. Water shortages will add to the costs. One of China’s two biggest deposits in the country – the Turpan Basin in Xinjiang – is a desert. In the short term, Liang said the costs were likely to curtail China’s shale gas ambitions. “We should not put too much stress on this right now, but in the long run, it is necessary to develop shale gas as a supplement to our conventional gas supply. The development of this industry is not for the present, but for the future.” Shale gas Gas Energy Fossil fuels Gas Energy industry China Oil and gas companies Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk
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I’ve always been surrounded by animals – sort of. But it took me years to realise having a polar bear in your parlour isn’t normal I was nine years old when my dad brought home his first dead animal. He didn’t kill it himself – which would perhaps have been more normal in the region of rural north Nottinghamshire where we lived. Now I come to think of it, I was almost certainly the only kid in my school to have a stuffed ocelot in his living room, but I don’t remember being too alarmed. I suppose I was used to this kind of behaviour from my dad – a man so enthusiastic about the animal kingdom that he’d once driven the family car into a ditch, from which it had to be winched out, due to excessive staring at a bull. There were an initial cursory couple of questions from me about the ocelot’s name and origin, a long-suffering look from my mum, and a hiss from the family cat. After that, it settled in pretty contentedly – until it was replaced by equally inanimate and often even more exotic peers. A stoat. A koala. These days, taxidermy is almost as much a hip lifestyle statement as it is a pursuit of the socially inept. It’s been branded “in” by the New York Times, with former sparrows and ex-rabbits increasingly present in the background of design magazine photoshoots. That was simply not the case in 1985. Then, perhaps even more than now, there was a certain type of provincial British man who would keep a dead badger in his freezer with no real concern for what society might think. Elsewhere in his house, you’d find sinks lined with a thick film of old hair and window ledges supporting an inexplicable quantity of empty milk cartons. My dad was not this man. Nor was there anything self-consciously eccentric about his newfound interest in taxidermy. That year, he had accepted a somewhat vague part-time position as the artist-in-residence at an educational resource centre just outside Nottingham. Farnley House was a large Georgian building resembling the lair of some shut-in Victorian philanthropist. Down its corridors could be found rooms full of all manner of animals, only some of which – including Fred, the judgemental pet eagle-owl of in-house taxidermist Ben – were alive. Since it was relatively rare that Nottingham’s schools took advantage of this zoological bounty, my dad would simply make the creatures in question feel less neglected by taking them away on breaks – either painting them at home or using them as props for his other job, as a supply teacher in some of Nottingham’s roughest secondary schools. After half a decade in education, my dad had realised that supply teaching was a bite-or-be-bitten world, and the stuffed beasts he brought to his classes from Farnley proved an invaluable distraction: by being Stuffed Animal Guy, he could avoid being Persecuted Supply Teacher Guy. Teachers at his regular schools got used to seeing an inert fox or a baby capybara in the corner of their staff rooms. Though during Ben’s day as guest speaker at one school, the deputy headmistress let out a shriek when she witnessed the large dead owl on the table next to her slowly swivel its head and offer her a single, ominous blink. Ben’s taxidermy wasn’t just limited to dead creatures, as I discovered one day when I came home to find my dad crouched in front of the living room coffee table, on which sat a hard white blob about the size of a builder’s fist. “TOM! COME ‘ERE AND SEE THIS,” said my dad, whose standing as one of the five loudest men in northern Britain was even safer when animals were the subject. “What is it?” I asked. “Ssshhh. You’ve got to be really quiet or you’ll wake him.” I could now see that the white blob had legs and eyeholes. “Is that … a toad?” I asked. “Yes. He’s got his protective winter coating on. Pick him up if you like but be very careful, because he might get angry and break out of it. Like the Incredible Hulk. Then he will bite you.” After I’d lifted the white blob and ascertained that it contained only air, not amphibian, the full story emerged. That morning, a bored Ben had ventured out into the woods behind Farnley, found a toad, snuck up on and chloroformed it, and taken it back to his workroom. He’d covered it in dental putty, being careful to leave a breathing hole, and allowed it to set for the next few hours. At the end of the day, he’d gone back to the woods, cut the dried putty and released the toad, who’d wandered off into the woods like the drugged hostage of some unexpectedly kindly terrorists. Over the next couple of years, the animals kept coming home – some for good, when Farnley moved to smaller premises and they were up for grabs. Though we’d had it to stay with us for a short while, in the end Farnley’s polar bear went to live with the janitor – a man I assume wasn’t subject to many lady-callers – in a small flat in central Nottingham. Strangely, it has taken me over two decades to realise there’s anything truly odd about having a polar bear temporarily guarding your entry hall, and with that comes the inevitable other questions. How exactly did my dad fit it in the boot of a Morris Marina ? When Paul Abbott’s mum called my mum to say Paul couldn’t stay that time, was it really just because Paul “didn’t like sleeping in a new house with the light out”, or was there a (giant, furry) hidden subtext? My parents don’t own any stuffed animals now, and part of me mourns that fact. The various Farnley residents who came to stay for good – a fox, an African mole rat – became casualties of several house moves, or were passed on to friends. Last to go was not a wild animal at all, but a wonky-jawed West Highland terrier who, after his stuffing fell out for the last time, was transported to the local recycling centre. Before that, he put in many unstinting years’ service as our guard dog – the only blip being when we returned from Italy to be informed by our ashen-faced neighbours he had “not moved from the window sill” for an entire fortnight. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to get a replacement of my own – but on a dark night, when it’s rowdy outside and my cats are being particularly arsey, I find that, in a small way, I kind of miss him. Talk To The Tail: Adventures In Cat Ownership And Beyond by Tom Cox is published by Simon And Schuster, £12.99 or £10.39 at the Guardian Bookshop tom-cox.com Animals Craft Tom Cox guardian.co.uk
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