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Stories tagged with “London Riots”

Climate Progress

The State Of Play In Rio: Draft Agreement Sparks ‘Alarm And Concern’

By Stephen Lacey on Jun 19, 2012 at 5:14 pm

What will history say about Brazil's job hosting the Rio+20 summit? Photo: Stephen Lacey

World leaders are set to convene at the Rio+20 Earth Summit tomorrow to begin high-level negotiations on a global sustainability framework. But if the reaction from civil society groups to the draft text is any indication, the negotiations will be all style and very little substance.

After working through the night on Monday, international negotiators agreed on a framework for “sustainable development goals” that could help guide a wide-range of policies on issues like poverty eradication, clean energy deployment, sustainable cities, and fisheries management. But with very few specifics on how to actually implement these sustainability goals, the text has angered almost every single civil society group observing the negotiations.

“The overall response from the NGO community to the negotiations is one of alarm and concern,” said Jeffrey Huffines, a representative for Non-Governmental Organizations to the United Nations. “Our concern is that the means of implementation are not clearly articulated.”

In other words, there’s very little in the text that would get us from here to there.

Civil society groups are expressing concern about almost every issue in the draft agreement. Leaders representing labor, agriculture, women’s rights, science & technology, local governments, and indigenous peoples all raised serious concerns today about the watered down text.

“There are a some things that are strengthened like the role of social protection and the mention of green jobs. But the document is not really ambitious in terms of implementation,” said Annabel Rosemberg, the Environment Coordinator with the International Trade Union Confederation.”

“We are deeply disappointed,” said Gita Sen, a founding member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era. Sen lamented that much of the language on women’s rights had been stripped from the text, calling it a “war on the human rights of women.”

“There’s a lack of detail,” said Andre Leu, President of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. “But for us, the document is a starting point for what happens afterward.”

The text might be a start for some. But with almost every portion of the document watered down to be politically acceptable, most civil society groups fear that it does very little to establish any concrete end goals.

Even the UN’s hallmark program for addressing energy poverty, Sustainable Energy For All, has taken a hit. The initiative, which would require roughly $50 billion in public and private-sector commitments per year, was designed to eradicate energy poverty by 2030. However, the new text gives countries plenty of room to wiggle out of any commitments:

We note the launching of the initiative by the Secretary General on “Sustainable Energy for All”, which focus on access to energy, energy efficiency and renewable energies. We are all determined to act to make sustainable energy for all a reality, and through this, help eradicate poverty and lead to sustainable development and global prosperity. We recognize that countries’ activities in broader energy-related issues are of great importance and are prioritized according to their specific challenges, capacities and circumstances, including energy mix.

Compare that to the old working text from June 2nd, which created a road map for a multilateral process to actually realize the program’s goals:

Read more

Economy

Sen. Rand Paul: The U.S. Must Raise The Retirement Age Or Face London-Style Riots

By Tanya Somanader on Aug 10, 2011 at 5:25 pm

As rioters wreak havoc across Britain for the fourth consecutive day, conservative pundits here are predicting that President Obama’s policies — or his mere existence — will import the same level of chaos to the United States. Last night, Fox News host Sean Hannity determined that London riots are taking place in large part “because their country is going bankrupt” and the rioters are “blaming, quote, ‘rich people’ that it is their fault.” Hannity then asked guest Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) whether, because the government’s “promises can never be fulfilled, is this coming to America?”

Paul told Hannity that the chief reason behind the riots is “austere measures where people don’t get their [entitlement] checks,” and the only way to avoid such chaos is to fix the “broken” entitlement programs here in the U.S. immediately. And according to Paul, the proper fix is to gradually raise the retirement age because “there’s less young people and we are living longer.” If government instead waits five or 10 years, “there is going to be an abrupt end” to the programs and “that’s when there is rioting in the streets”:

PAUL: The way we avoid chaos, the way we avoid rioting in the streets is to start gradually fixing the problems. Entitlements are broken. And any honest Republican, Democrat or independent will tell you they’re broken because there’s less young people and we are living longer. You can fix those problems by gradually raising the age and changing the way we do the entitlements. But if you wait, if you wait five years or 10 years, then there is going to be an abrupt end, and that is what is happening in Europe when you have these austere measures where people don’t get their checks, that’s when there is rioting in the streets. But the way you avoid that is by fixing the entitlement programs now and doing it gradually.

Watch it:

In fact, the people who are living longer are the wealthy, a gap that has grown steadily over the years. As the Center for Economic and Policy research notes, “there has been a sharp rise in inequality in life expectancy by income over the last three decades that mirrors the growth in inequality in income.” Thus, raising the eligibility age for entitlement programs like Social Security or Medicare would unfairly shift the burden of cuts onto middle and lower-income seniors, and increase their out-of-pocket health insurance costs. As Matt Yglesias put it, the “people are living longer than ever, so let’s raise the retirement age” notion and “let’s fix [entitlements] with a benefit cut that hurts the poor really badly while largely sparing the rich” notion are essentially “equivalent ideas.”

While progressive entitlement reform and staving off street riots make the list of noble goals, raising the eligibility age to unduly disadvantage society’s most vulnerable does not.

Politics

National Review: Obama Secretly Supports Violent London Rioters

By Judd Legum on Aug 9, 2011 at 2:10 pm

Violent riots have swept London all week. The Washington Post reports that last night, “Rampant looting and raging fires engulfed swaths of London on Monday as the wave of civil unrest that has gripped this sprawling capital escalated sharply.” Tonight, 16,000 police officers will take the streets to try to control the situation.

This morning in the National Review, Stanley Kurtz suggests that President Obama privately supports the violent protesters. Here’s how Kurtz makes his case:

The London riots have already kicked off the latest version of the seemingly never-ending debate over whether such events should be seen primarily as political protests by the powerless, or as out-and-out lawbreaking and vandalism. Back in 1992, Obama clearly leaned toward the former.

I found the press release Obama issued to get Project Vote rolling, in the ACORN archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society… Said Obama in 1992: “The Los Angeles riots reflect a deep distrust and disaffection with the existing power pattern in our society.” That’s Alinsky-speak for “We’ve got to use the power of the angry underclass to put capitalism in check.” [...]

I certainly don’t think President Obama would openly speak about events in London the way he spoke about the L.A. riots nineteen years ago. What he thinks to himself is another matter.

What better way to figure out what Obama thinks about the riots in London than sifting through 20-year-old press releases in the ACORN archive?

Kurtz didn’t let the fact that nothing in the ACORN archive even begins to support the conclusion that Obama supports people who are burning down buildings and smashing store windows in London. He simply translates the press release into “Alinsky-speak” and the logic of his conspiracy theory is complete. The National Review antipathy toward Obama apparently runs so deep that no leap of logic is too great to support their contention that he is a secret “radical.”

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