tony curzon price

It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: a Cato institute libertarian, a black American Clintonite and an MBA-strategy highflyer all meet in a BBC studio to talk  about Murdoch's bid for the Wall Street Journal ... It didn't continue as a joke, because no one in the anti-Murdoch camp aligned a credible argument against Wayne Crews, the libertarian. The argument went (I paraphrase):

Morris (the Clintonite): "I am for the free market, but would encourage the Democrat establishment to get a friendly billionaire to buy the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), because it is so influential. Murdoch has no track record for objectivity --- look at Fox --- and the WSJ should not fall into those hands for political reasons."

Maryam Omidi

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day; a day designated by the UN to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of press and remind governments about their responsibility to uphold their commitment to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On the menu of events in London was an informal lunch with two of Russia's leading defenders of human and civil rights – Oleg Panfilov, a journalist and Director of the rather alarmingly named Centre for Journalists in Extreme Situations and Tatiana Lokshina, Chair of the DEMOS Centre for Information and Russian journalism. With the death of several journalists over the course of the past year, most notably Anna Politkovskaya and Ivan Safronov (whose recent plummet from a fifth-floor window was masqueraded as an act of suicide), the question of press freedom in Russia is a particularly pertinent one. In total, Reporters Without Borders, states that 21 journalists have been killed since Vladimir Putin's election in 2000. But Mr Panfilov's figures are closer to 20 a year. Even though, he stresses, not all of these deaths can be directly linked to the government, they are an important indication of the prevalence of violence in Russia today.

For Mr Panfilov, the absence of a tradition of press freedom, from the tsars to the Bolsheviks, has created a society unaccustomed to fighting for its rights. Even during the interlude of transparency that accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost (openness) and the relative media freedoms under Boris Yeltsin, journalists were still conscious of being under the watchful eye of the Kremlin. Mr Panfilov nevertheless acknowledges that this era was imperative in laying the first foundations for freedom of expression, or in his own words, nurturing the "first shoots of freedom of speech" which have regrettably since been crushed by the "army boot of Putin".[ MORE TAG ]

According to Mr Panfilov, the perpetuation of this status quo is entrenched in the education system and so, students of journalism do not study journalism as one would expect, but rather Russian and foreign literature. This, he says, is part of the government agenda to "prepare an army of propagandists".

In theory, there are a number of laws which oblige Russia to safeguard freedom of expression and offer protection to journalists. Not only is Russia a member of the Council of Europe, but Article 29 of the Russian constitution stipulates the following:

tony curzon price

I wonder if Mick Jagger ever thinks about it: 1969, Altamont Pass, California. The crowd assembled to listened to him are in a state of excitement. In the Dionysian excitement, his praetorian guard of  Hell's Angels  knife the young Merideth Hunter to death, while Mick lamely asks everyone to "stay cool". Does Mick, I wonder, ever think that the state of mind he created in his audience might have been the cause of Merideth's death? And might he feel the causal link is enough to create a moral link?

I was reminded of Mick's moment with the responsibility for crowds in a somewhat less dramatic context of Digg founder Kevin Rose's moving climbdown in the face of his excited audience. Digg allows users to vote on technology news stories and makes the front-page position of a story depend on the number of votes it gathers.

Yesterday, Digg users - a techno-libertarian bunch - posted and voted into prominence a piece of code which will allow us all to by-pass the copy-protection methods of the next generation of DVDs. Like a particularly energetic Jumpin' Jack Flash to the Altamont audience in 1969, this is the
kind of news that gets the geek blood boiling. But the industry association lawyers were not so happy with Digg's role as a distributor of the theft-enabling information, and sent Kevin Rose a "cease and desist" letter.

When he complied and took the story down, his audience got angry. They flooded the site with links to the offending code and voted for them so enthusiastically that the entire front page was devoted to the story. And then came Kevin's heroic and sad capitulation to the angry crowd:

Part of the Power Inquiry and the European Citizens Consultations blog entries.

by Oli Henman

As the British government faces up to the need to work constructively to define the future makeup of the European Union, it is vital that citizens are given the opportunity to fully participate in any new agreement. Recent announcements by Tony Blair that he would prefer a new treaty to allow for the European Union to work more effectively, rather than a full blown ‘European Constitution’ may offer the chance for the UK to engage pragmatically in the debate on the future of the EU, reform is necessary but it must directly include the people of Europe.

The European Union, as it stands, is run through a functioning but deeply confusing set of overlapping public bodies at the national and continental level. In order for it to regain credibility with electorates across the continent there is a growing need to include citizens directly in the decision-making process; to allow ordinary people to share in a sense of ownership over the process. There must be an open participatory approach to re-designing the EU’s structures, citizen participation takes many forms and should allow for a nuanced expression of citizens’ views.

A good example of what is possible is provided by the European Citizens’ Consultations, a series of deliberative events organised by a partnership of foundations across Europe supported by the European Commission. This process of consultation allows for a broad cross-section of citizens’ views to be expressed across the EU for the first time on the theme of: ‘what Europe do we want?’ Indeed while the heads of state and ministers of the European Union were meeting behind closed doors in Berlin, looking back over 50 years since the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the Power Inquiry hosted the European Citizens’ Consultation – UK, an open deliberative assembly of citizens from across the UK to look forwards and define key proposals for EU policy-makers. The agenda was entirely citizen-led; the main issues to be discussed were defined by citizens of all the EU countries at an Agenda-Setting Event in October, in this case they chose to make recommendations on the following areas: Energy & Environment; Family & Social Welfare; EU’s Global Role & Immigration.

The key concern was to reach across the dividing lines and to bring together people of all different backgrounds in each country of the EU. In the UK, a broad cross-section of citizens were brought to York, geographically close to the centre of the UK, to draft their own visions and proposals for the EU. To get a real diversity of views and backgrounds, the UK organisers at the Power Inquiry set out to define target numbers of people to get a demographic cross-section of the UK population, encompassing a range of factors such as gender, half male and half female; geographic region, drawn through regional hubs as far apart as Plymouth, Aberdeen, Belfast, Wrexham and Norwich; range of age groups; occupation; and ethnicity, with a clear representation of minority ethnic communities. In order to make the consultation process as accessible as possible, all the events were set to take place on week-ends and the participants guaranteed to receive compensation plus all travel and accommodation expenses.

Every EU member state has now hosted a National Consultation as a week-end of structured discussion that allows the participants to refine their own views on these topic areas. The proposals from all the member states will be brought together at a Final Consultation in Brussels, on May 9 (Europe Day) & 10 and these recommendations will then be presented to the European Commission at the EU Summit in June. [ MORE TAG ]

In drawing from the broader experience of participatory democracy from around the world, such as the ‘America Speaks’ deliberative process, the Citizens’ Assembly on electoral reform established in British Columbia and the Participatory Budget process of Brazil, for any deliberative event to be successful, two aspects are absolutely crucial: ownership and results.

Ownership

In the first place, it is clear that the process of the event must focus on allowing citizens to feel clear ownership over the decision-making. The participants have some core information provided, to give them an idea of the main areas of action and are then given time in table groups to talk through the issues with a facilitator, who ensures that the full range of views on the table are represented. After an initial brainstorming, the participants hear ideas from experts in each topic area before putting together an overall statement that reflects the views of their table and finally a single statement for the whole room.

It became clear at the European Citizens’ Consultation – UK that citizens are not afraid to express their views and in fact they were pleased to be given a space to discuss these issues. In general the UK event was a space for lively debate; people were able to tackle the issues, listened to each other and seemed to spend considerable time working out nuances of language, for example whether to tackle climate change through targets or incentives.  Indeed it is clear that people are often very pleased to put forward their views, if they are given an opportunity to express themselves. in this case, when asked if they would do it again, 82% of participants said ‘Yes’, 14% said ‘Perhaps’ and only 3% said ‘No’. The key concern is to allow the participants to engage with the questions and to define their own priorities, following a citizen-led, structured debate.

Results

Beyond this, in terms of results, the obligation then falls with policy-makers to act upon the recommendations. A deliberative event that is not taken on board within core policy-making is dangerous in that it may even enhance the feeling of mistrust. Once a commitment is made to follow a deliberative path, there must be a binding agreement by policy-makers to respond to citizens proposals and to act in good faith on any recommendations that emerge. In the British Columbia model, for example, the recommendations that emerged from a series of deliberative meetings of the Citizens’ Assembly were then put to a binding referendum, this acts as a confidence vote on the recommendations.

The lessons of the last few years must no be ignored so that trust can gradually be rebuilt in the actions of political decision-makers. Deliberative events, such as the European Citizens’ Consultations provide a strong model for further citizen participation. It is through the process of participation itself that individuals and political actors re-connect with active citizenship; this allows the participants a chance to develop a greater sense of being part of the polity. Through listening to other points of view, working towards a common ground and being treated with dignity in their opinions, they are able to find more significance in political choices; they may begin to look deeper at the challenges in the society around them and thereby get involved in action to develop their own solutions to renew the democratic system. This is a crucial step to develop a more inclusive democracy that re-connects policy making to everyday life, with real participation led directly by citizens in dialogue with policy-makers. Without meaningful citizen participation, it is unlikely that the public will accept any further European treaties or institutional reforms.

We have ways of celebrating the first of May in Berlin. It begins on the 30th April with Walpurgisnacht, (the night of the witches as depicted in Goethe’s Faust) when basically everyone gets dressed up to party. There was a choice of eighteen different concerts across the city with a range of types of music to suit almost every taste.

May Day is still referred to as ‘Workers Day’ and the tradition continues with trade union demonstrations across Germany. The main march here this morning - “Fair not precarious: work for Berlin!” - ending with a rally at the Brandenburg Gate, called for more work and better benefits, while revolutionary demonstrations and live music continued all day in the borough of Kreuzberg.

Seeing as Richard Branson yesterday pledged a predicted $3bn dollars of profits from his air and rail interests over the next 10 years towards investment in new environmentally-friendly biofuel businesses, will George Monbiot take Mr Branson off his 'greenwash' list? Not likely. Firstly, according to George and many in the environmental lobby, Richard's airline interests (not to mention his plans to expand into space) will still massively contribute towards global warming.