Monday, 28 May 2012

Discussion Article 29th of May

Sol Campbell warns fans to stay away from Euro 2012

Euro 2012 should not have been awarded to Poland and Ukraine because of entrenched racism and violence, Sol Campbell has told the BBC's Panorama.

The former England captain's advice to fans is to "stay home, watch it on TV... don't even risk it."

Uefa, European football's governing body, said awarding the tournament to the two nations was an opportunity to tackle social challenges like racism.

It said the tournament was a chance for both countries to improve their image.

Panorama spent a month filming at matches in both the joint host nations and witnessed Nazi salutes from the terraces, black players being taunted with monkey chants, rampant anti-Semitism and a vicious assault on a group of Asian students.

'Zero tolerance'

After watching the footage, Mr Campbell said he believes Uefa should not have chosen the countries as hosts of such a prestigious event in the first place.

"I think that they were wrong, because what they should say is that 'if you want this tournament, you sort your problems out. Until we see a massive improvement... you do not deserve these prestigious tournaments in your country.'"

In a statement, Uefa said: "Uefa Euro 2012 brings the spotlight on the host countries and clearly creates an opportunity to address and confront such societal issues.

"Uefa's 'zero tolerance' approach to racism is still valid both on and off the pitch and ultimately the referee has the power to stop or abandon a match should racist incidents occur."

Uefa said it was working with both Poland and Ukraine to ensure the safety of travelling teams and their fans.

But despite these assurances the families of two England players, Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, are reported to be staying away from Euro 2012 for fear of racist attacks.

Uefa said the scenes of racist abuse filmed by the BBC in the last month were at domestic matches and a matter for national football authorities.

But Mr Campbell had this advice for fans thinking of travelling to Euro 2012: "Stay at home, watch it on TV. Don't even risk it… because you could end up coming back in a coffin."

Racist attack

On 14 April at the Metalist stadium in Kharkiv in Ukraine - one of the host cities for Euro 2012 - massed ranks of as many as 2,000 fans in the terraces for a match between two of Ukraine's biggest teams gave the Nazi salute to their team.

Some fans at the match told the BBC that they were saying "Sieg Heil" because Hitler hated "Jews and blacks" and that is how they support their team.

But local police chief Colonel Volodymyr Kovrygin denied that it was a Nazi-inspired salute, saying the fans were "pointing in the direction of opponents as it were, the fans, so it looked like they were pointing with the right hand to the fans, kind of attracting attention to themselves."

At a match two weeks later, scuffles broke out between rival fans and police arrived to calm things down. But they escalated again as Metalist fans began to attack a small group of their own supporters.

They were Indian students studying in Ukraine. They had sat in the family area of the stadium thinking it would be safe.

Panorama: Find out more

Chris Rogers presents Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate
BBC One, Monday, 28 May at 20:30 BST

In the stadium's medical room afterwards, one of the injured students said: "We were supporting the home team. It's horrifying."

British government advice for Euro 2012 fans of Afro-Caribbean or Asian descent is to take extra care in Ukraine because of racially motivated attacks.

Panorama also filmed matches in fellow host-nation Poland, recording a chorus of anti-Semitic chanting and witnessing black football players enduring monkey chants from the terraces.

Nick Lowles from the UK-based anti-racist monitoring group Hope Not Hate was also in Poland monitoring incidents of racism.

He said that based on what he has seen, he was concerned for non-white fans travelling to support England at Euro 2012.

"Increasingly the positive thing about English football are the number of black and Asian fans that have been travelling and supporting England. I am concerned that they will be targeted by racists and fascists and anti-Semites in Poland and in Ukraine."

In Poland, Jonathan Ornstein of the Jewish Cultural Centre, said football hooligans in the country are stuck in the past.

"The stuff going on at the football stadiums is atrocious and it's embarrassing and I think it embarrasses the whole country. I think that most Poles would agree with that," he said.

Panorama's Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, BBC One, Monday, 28 May at 20:30 BST and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.

Are you an England fan? What are your thoughts on Sol Campbell's comments? Will you be going to Euro 2012? Send us your views using the form below.

Sunday, 13 May 2012

Discussion article for May 15th

China’s Population Crash Could Upend U.S. Policy

By Ramesh Ponnuru May 1, 2012 1:00 AM GMT+0200

It isn’t quite true that demography is destiny. But if Nicholas Eberstadt is right, our destiny is going to be shaped by demography in ways we may not expect.

Eberstadt studies demographics for the American Enterprise Institute, and makes projections in full awareness that the field has gotten the future wrong before. In the 20th century, the global population increased almost fourfold, to 6.1 billion from 1.6 billion.

About Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor for National Review, where he has covered national politics for 15 years.

More about Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru

“Nothing like this magnitude or tempo of population change had ever previously been witnessed in the history of our species,”he has written.

It was reasonable to fear, as many people did during that period, that the result would be mass famines. Instead, the world saw rising prosperity.

Today’s most important population trend is falling birthrates. The world’s total fertility rate -- the number of children the average woman will bear over her lifetime -- has dropped to 2.6 today from 4.9 in 1960. Half of the people in the world live in countries where the fertility rate is below what demographers reckon is the replacement level of 2.1, and are thus in shrinking societies.

A Few Predictions

In the U.S., we are accustomed to thinking about how this trend affects the welfare state: Longer lives and fewer children make it harder to finance retirement programs. But the rest of the developed world is aging faster, and it’s worth thinking about how that will change America’s global position, as well.

As Eberstadt points out, we can make predictions about the next 20 years with reasonable accuracy. The U.S.’s traditional allies in western Europe and Japan will have less weight in the world. Already the median age in western Europe is higher than that of the U.S.’s oldest state: Florida. That median age is rising 1.5 days every week. Japan had only 40 percent as many births in 2007 as it had in 1947.

These countries will have smaller workforces, lower savings rates and higher government debt as a result of their aging. They will probably lose dynamism, as well.

All these effects will, in turn, almost certainly make these countries even less willing than they already are to spend money on their armed forces. Americans who want Europe to bear more of the free world’s military burden -- or even provide for its own defense -- are probably going to be disappointed. So will those who expect Europe to take on humanitarian missions. It won’t even be able to maintain its current weight in future debates about the values of peace and democracy.

But one country that worries American military strategists will also face serious demographic challenges. China’s rise over the last generation has been stunning, but straight-line projections of its future power and influence ignore that its birthrate is 30 percent below the replacement rate.

The Census Bureau predicts that China’s population will peak in 2026, just 14 years from now. Its labor force will shrink, and its over-65 population will more than double over the next 20 years, from 115 million to 240 million. It will age very rapidly. Only Japan has aged faster -- and Japan had the great advantage of growing rich before it grew old. By 2030, China will have a slightly higher proportion of the population that is elderly than western Europe does today -- and western Europe, recall, has a higher median age than Florida.

China’s Challenges

China, notoriously, has another demographic challenge. The normal sex ratio at birth is about 103 to 105 boys for every 100 girls. In China, as a result of the one-child policy and sex- selective abortion, that ratio has been 120 boys for every 100 girls. From 2000 to 2030, the percentage of men in their late 30s who have never been married is projected to quintuple. Eberstadt doesn’t believe that having an “army of unmarriageable young men” will improve the country’s economy or social cohesion.

He thinks demographic change will pose two problems specific to China. Its society has relied heavily on trust relationships within extended-family networks. In a country where fewer and fewer people will have uncles, those networks will rapidly atrophy. The government, meanwhile, relies for its legitimacy on a level of economic performance that demographic trends imperil.

All in all, Eberstadt concludes, “we might want to have some additional new friends and allies in the world.” America’s growing ties to India, a nation he describes as “aging moderately,” strike him as promising. But he warns that it has not made the most of its population: “India has an appalling education deficit.”

Foreign-policy thinkers can often lose sight of demographic trends, Eberstadt says, because from a policy makers’ view “they tend to look really glacial. If it’s not happening in the next 48 to 72 hours, it’s not in the inbox.” But “population change gradually and very unforgivingly alters the realm of the possible.”

(Ramesh Ponnuru is a Bloomberg View columnist and a senior editor at National Review. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Discussion article for May 15th

Lunchbeat! Fancy a midday boogie?

Swedes are getting hooked on lunchtime dancing. Tell us if you have your own ways of enlivening the working day

Open thread
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 May 2012 13.33 BST
Comments (57)

Back to the office in 10 minutes, guys. Photograph: Dennis Hallinan/Alamy

Lunchtime dances, known as "Lunchbeats" are taking off in Sweden. Instead of grabbing a sandwich, popping to the canteen or eating at their desks, hundreds of Swedes are hitting the dance floor during their breaks in a bid to inject a bit more fun into their lunch hours. It is, according to one organiser, who spoke to the BBC, a "dance revolution", but one that also runs to a tight schedule – revellers begin promptly at noon and finish at 1pm.

What would you say to a boogie at lunch? Or perhaps you have your own methods for enlivening the torpor of the working day? Tell us all about them.