Chinese language newspaper launched in Botswana

The Oriental Post, a Chinese-language newspaper, was launched in Gaborone, Botswana last week.

Man Niles, president of the Oriental Post, said he hopes the newspaper will enable better communication between service providers, product developers and the Chinese community in Botswana. Since "most of the Chinese do not understand English and speak very little Setswana," there presently exists a rather sizable information gap and communications barrier for the Chinese resident in the country. The newspaper is the first attempt aimed at closing this gap.

China is a major actor in both the rural and urban areas in Botswana. Just this April China agreed to establish a major textile industrial park in Phakalane, and is quite eagerly investing in the country's diamond industry.

A global ban on plastic bags?

An idea to ponder:

Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday.

Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts at the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, a marine environmental group.

"Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.

Bans on the use of plastic bags are already quite mainstream in other parts of the world. In the UK, for instance, Marks & Spencer charges customers 5p for each plastic bag they use, with the money raised going to an environmental charity. Evidence from China likewise suggests the positive waste-eliminating effects of banning plastic bags. Perhaps it's time for other countries to jump on the BANdwagon, too (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Photo credit: Indigo Shire Council

Raising the bar on corporate social responsibility

In 1995, Nigeria's authorities executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist and a member of the Ogoni ethic group in the Niger Delta, whose land was being targeted and destroyed by the oil extracting activities of Royal Dutch Shell. At the height of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested along with nine other anti-oil campaigners. All were tried by a military tribunal and hanged by the Nigerian military government of General Sani Abacha. The charges were entirely politically motivated. 

This devastating human tragedy provoked much outrage and raised many important questions, the most crucial of which had to do with the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations, especially when working in conjunction with corrupt national governments. In 1996, relatives of the nine executed campaigners brought a case to hold Shell accountable for alleged human rights violations in Nigeria, in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta in particular. The case accused Shell of being complicit in murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria's former military government against campaigners in the region.

While the case was set to go to trial at the beginning of this month, Shell on Monday agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle the case. Shell continues to deny any wrongdoing, touting the settlement as a "humanitarian gesture" meant to compensate the plaintiffs for their loss and to cover a portion of their legal fees and costs. Regardless, the settlement indubitably brings a long-awaited peace to the families of the victims. Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., son of the executed activist, had a moving piece in yesterday's Guardian in which he wrote: 

Nothing about this has come or will ever come easy. Every word, every phrase and every comma has been weighed, scrutinised and debated. These are life and death matters. Head versus heart. The case has been freighted with all kinds of agendas that it cannot possibly satisfy. In the end a settlement is a compromise; both parties agree to settle their differences by meeting in a so-called middle. That middle is a matter of perspective of course. To some this must be bewildering. To others it was too long in coming. In the end it is only those who are intimately involved, who have everything to lose and everything to gain that have to make a decision that will not satisfy everyone.

History will show that this was a landmark case. Multinationals now know that a precedent has been set, that it is possible to be sued for human rights violations in foreign jurisdictions.

Indeed, the significance of the settlement lies precisely in the fact that the bar for corporate social responsibility has been firmly set, sending multinationals a clear signal that their activities vis-a-vis local populations in the regions in which they work will be under close scrutiny. Surely a step in the right direction.