Chinese 'Half-Truths'
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LETTERS NOTEBOOK Chinese ‘half-truths’ Meetings with a remarkable man the world today | april & may 2012 may & april | today world the April & May 2012 | £5 | Volume 68 | Number 3 vote in both chambers of parliament. Iran Patricia Lewis sees Iranian opinion shifting on the nuclear issue mayoral candidate Siobhan Benita will Rio+20 – a chance to embed Capital investors Who owns the London skyline? sustainability across the China Kerry Brown on the communist party’s leap into the unknown Not playing fair The political parties were, corporatetherefore, world By Evgeny Lebedev grow in in§ uence. But increasingly, responsible for his election. Filippo Volume 68 Number 4 political activism will take place online, Sir – Xinghai Fang’s assertions are Costa Buranelli Editor Kenneth Kaunda, the rst president of following the successes of websites Alan Philps accurate as far as they go: China is the Aviva’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Coalition Zambia, is not so widely acclaimed these such as Avaaz and Change.org, whose Progressive companies around the world have come to understand that long term value is enhanced by embedding long-term sustainability into their business strategies and by disclosing their progress and ambitions to investors. aphilps@ This is particularly important to us as an investor acting on behalf of customers with long-term investment needs. Rightly, our customers expect us to help ensure the companies we invest in are behaving responsibly. Whilst twenty years after the first Earth Summit a significant number of companies do now disclose their sustainability performance, the dominant economic and military power overwhelming majority of large and listed companies still do not. chathamhouse.org days as Nelson Mandela. This is a pity. petitions are now feared by corporations In September 2011, Aviva convened the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Coalition (CSRC) - a group of like minded organisations, including NGOs and institutional investors managing approximately US$2 trillion globally. This coalition is urging the member states at Rio+20 to develop a convention requiring all listed and large private companies to either integrate material sustainability issues within their annual report and accounts – or explain why they have not done so. We would also like to see effective mechanisms for investors to hold companies to account on the quality of these disclosures, for instance through a vote at the AGM. Assistant Editor in the East and its people work harder We believe this measure will create the right kind of discussions within boardrooms and throughout companies. In turn, this will I recently had the good fortune to meet and governments alike. In the coming encourage investors to think about the sustainability of the business and to allocate capital to more sustainable, responsible companies, Majority misrulestrengthening the long-term sustainability of the financial system. We are encouraged to note that this call features within the first draft of the Earth Summit outcomes document, the zero draft. However, we believe there is further to go - for example, a clearer commitment, an indicative timeline and a stronger emphasis on accountability. Agnes Frimston and longer than most. Yet he ignores • Aviva provides insurance, savings and investment products to 43 million customers worldwide. him over tea at his home in Lusaka and weeks, I shall be launching a campaigning • We were the first financial services company in the world to put its corporate responsibility report to a separate shareholder vote at its AGM in 2010. afrimston@ • We are proud to be in the top 10% of sustainable companies globally according to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. • We are a founding member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) programme. Stay at home and save the world some important realities. He says ‘its Sir – Mark Malloch-Brown’sFor more information pleasearticle email [email protected] How web campaigning is changing the face of global politics chathamhouse.org hear his remarkable story. KK, as he is website that boldly enters this terrain. IWLOW2016_90930_ADU.indd 1 12/03/2012 16:58 ·»º´ ´¶·¸¹µ¸º ´µ huge economic success … is singularly on Syria highlighted how TWT_Cover_02.indd‘two 1 sloppy 27/03/2012 09:09 Design known, came to rely on the advice of It will be called Independent Voices. Esterson Associates due to the adoption of a market economy’ doctrines’ have had unintended Sub-Editor Stewart Gore-Browne, the soldier and – this is only half the truth. What of the consequences in the country. I offer two Richard Parrack white settler who did so much for the Ahead of World Press Freedom Day, lack of fair wages and workers’ rights, far sloppier and far more damaging ones. Consulting Editor cause of Zambian independence. I visited Ethiopia, having read reports Burhan Wazir the suppression of protest, ignoring The first is the doctrine that majority Picture Editor Christina Lamb’s beautiful book of journalists being persecuted there. of workplace safety, immense rule is always to be preferred to its Millie Simpson The Africa House tells the story of The constitution of Ethiopia purports Kenneth Kaunda, right, with Namibia’s environmental damage, currency alternative. One of the issues in Syria The World Today Gore-Browne’s estate, Shiwa Ng’andu, to defend press freedom, but in President Hi kepunye manipulation, and massive intellectual is whether it is better to have rule by is published by miles north of Lusaka, which I was practice hardly does. Yet for all that, property theft – where do you think a minority, which broadly respects The Royal Institute able to visit. It was in this pink-bricked I was very impressed by the country’s What a magni cently eccentric ritual the of International Affairs the ability to build the Boeing 737 he the rights of other faiths, or rule by the at Chatham House mansion that Gore-Browne sheltered development. The last time I visited Leveson inquiry into press ethics is. Led mentions will come from? China’s majority, which quite clearly does not. in London. Any views KK from British colonial brutality. Ethiopia, I was a child accompanying my by a Le Monde-reading judge, whose economy needs to grow at 7-8 per cent The answer that ‘Democracy implies expressed in this I stayed in another remarkable house grandfather on a zoological expedition, recommendations will be treated with publication are those a year just to create the jobs needed for that majority rule is always right’ is far of the contributors. associated with KK called Chichele and the country was under the Mengistu almost Biblical veneration, I found giving new entrants to the workforce or, in too simplistic. For submissions, letters, Lodge. It was built for the president regime. Famine and disease dominated evidence a stimulating experience. This advertising, subscription the view of some Chinese officials, to The other doctrine is the assumption enquiries and back and here he entertained guests as varied all conversation. Now the cities are is largely because Lord Leveson himself is maintain national stability. Thus, is that making dictators answer for their copies, please contact: the Queen, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro and cleaner and richer, a middle class is charming and thoughtful, with a sardonic China’s leadership will seek to maintain rule in an international court will The Editor, The World Chairman Mao Zedong. This African brewing, and some freedoms are wit. His remit is so broad that he may end Today, Chatham House, economic growth whatever it takes as improve their behaviour. It will not – 10 St James’s Square, leader is an inspirational man, who becoming entrenched. up responsible for the biggest changes their survival depends on it. That is what in fact it is far more likely to stiffen their London, sw1y 4le. stepped down in good time to make to our media, and its regulation, for a the West and its liberal economies should resolve to go down fighting. Would we Telephone: way for a younger generation. One of How cheering to see Barack Obama generation. My hope is that, while +44 (0) 20 7957 5712 fear. Tom Keatinge have got rid of Pinochet, Amin or de Email: this group is the vice-president, Dr Guy declare his support for gay marriage recognising that those who broke the Klerk if instead of retirement, safe [email protected] Scott, the most senior white politician – and how astute, too. Some reporters law should be properly punished, and asylum and honour respectively they Permission to reprint since independence in ¡¢. KK has have suggested that Vice-President Joe that self-regulation has been ine³ ective, Party animal had merely been offered Milosevic-style or republish material also campaigned against Aids, a cause Biden’s favourable view of gay marriage he doesn’t take steps to shackle our free justice? from The World Today to which he was introduced after his son slipped out in a TV interview, as if by press. When the police and Press in any form must be Sir – As an Italian, I really appreciated Both of these doctrines are very sought from the Editor. died from the disease. Listening to his life accident, forcing the president also Complaints Commission failed, it took Peter Popham’s piece on Silvio attractive in theory but highly damaging Back copies are available story I was reminded of how bereft to come out, as it were. Nonsense: the investigative journalism of the most Berlusconi’s political end and the in practice. They ignore the real world, from 1990. Britain’s political class is of such talent. White House is much smarter than that, painstaking kind – rst at The Guardian, new regime of Mario Monti. However, and the real challenge of removing The World Today is and its choreographed intervention has and then at The Independent – to expose Popham is mistaken when he states that entrenched dictators without replacing available on microfilm One exception is the Mayor of London, invited Mitt Romney to con rm to the wrongdoing.