Democracy Kills

BBC World Affairs correspondent HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY considers how our notions of democracy inform and obscure foreign policy, and explores the impact of failed and violent states in fiction and reportage.

Read More:-Click here: Democracy Kills — Untitled Books

A new scam used by well-established financial services companies seems to be emerging.

1) They take your credit card number supposedly for a one off payment, then keep it to take money off you whenever they feel like it..

2)  More is taken from the card than the amount agreed on during the call.

3) They deliberately delay sending out the documents and terms and conditions.

4) Instead they immediately send a letter saying you have authorised to take future funds from the credit card.

5) The letter contains many details — EXCEPT the amount you have agreed to pay.

The Financial Services Authority knows about this, but is doing absolutely nothing to bring these companies into line. Yet we’re only a year since the financial industry was exposed and it is these small things that end up eroding trust and bringing down institutions.

Wake up FSA

READ:- GERARD DEGROOT at the ISN 

Spaniards who once suffered under Franco invariably argue that the struggle for democracy is always virtuous. At the other end of the spectrum is the experience of Usama Rehda, an Iraqi citizen for whom democratic change has meant poverty, corruption and the constant threat of car bombs. “You know what they say,” he recently remarked. “Be nice to the Americans or they’ll punish you with democracy.” Between those two extremes lies an issue that demands debate.

Full article   Click here: Democracy: A Problematic Panacea

The US Department of Labor has publicly named cocoa as a product made by forced, child labour.  I’ve been reporting this story for the past ten years.  The axis of poverty  between bad government, forced labour and Western companies make up the first chapter of my new book – trying to explain why Africa is getting poorer.

The Executive Director of the International Labor Rights Forum, Bama Athreya, said about the announcement:- “By including cocoa on the list of products made by child labor, the US government has acknowledged the lack of progress the chocolate industry has made in eliminating serious labor rights abuses in this sector, despite years of promises.” 

Nothing, of course, from Europe.

Click here: Democracy Kills

Listen to my podcast interview with Rashunda Tramble of the International Relations and Security Network on Democracy Kills: What’s So Good About Having the Vote as part as ISN’s special series on Democracy.

The idea of democracy may make for good intentions, but whether it is a good solution for every society is up for debate, Humphrey Hawksley, BBC correspondent and author of ‘Democracy Kills,’ tells the ISN.

INTERVIEW   Click here: The Devil in Democracy

I asked Rashunda at the end whether she agreed with my argument. But I won’t repeat her answer without her permission.

Click here: Democracy Kills

HSBC has outsourced its car insurance to a company called BISL. I renewed mine through a call centre reading a credit card over the phone. A few days letter instead of getting the renewal policy, a letter arrived declaring that  BISL will keep my card number on file and ‘any future payments’ will be deducted it.

I have now told BISL to delete my card record.  They thought the system was just fine and that I was an awkward customer.  It is little wonder that the financial system collapsed when basic checks, balances and corroborations are not used as standard practice. And, it seems, there’s no plan to.

I was caught on the hop in an incisive interview with Rashunda Tramble of the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) on the issues raised in Democracy Kills.  She raised the question of democracy being suited to certain cultures and asked about the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the US — when the Federal Government overruled state policies that blocked African-Americans from voting.  What I hadn’t realised was that it took a full one hundred years to pass that legislation since the end of the Civil War  that was fought over slavery, equal rights and democracy. 

I recommend Travel’s with Charley by John Steinbeck on his 1960s journey around America ending up witnesses school segregation in New Orleans and being accused of being a ‘nigger-lover.’  His closing thoughts: “I do know it is a troubled place and a people caught in a jam. And I know that the solution when it arrives will not be easy or simple……It’s the means — the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”

If it took a hundred years in the US and it’s still not fully fixed — how long for the Sri Lankas, Iraqs and others?

From The Sunday Times review of Democracy Kills by Robert Cooper, acclaimed author of The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the 21st Century.

The stories told are enough to deal with the notion that all we need is a free election and everyone will live happily ever after….In the end, it has to do with our conception of man. It is not just what people want that matters, it is what serves human dignity.

Click here: Democracy Kills

What if Eisenhower hadn’t forced the cancellation fo the 1956 Vietnamese elections and Ho Chi Minh had won?

Mel recommends Mikael Sigouin’s hand-crafted Californian called “Hapa Blanc” (a blend of white grenache and roussanne).”

Aparna recommends: black oystercatcher , boutique wines from SA
DIVINE

Any others to improve the list in Fortune, West Kensington?