Last year American environmental consultant Steven Q. Andrews caused a big fuss ahead of the Beijing Olympics when he questioned the validity of the Chinese capital’s air pollution statistics. The local government denied his allegations, but did little to prove him wrong. The regional pollution control measures taken ahead of the Games largely succeeded in cleaning up the dirty air, and the issue faded. Andrews has continued to look into clean air stats, and has just published an article that looks at the published pollution data for dozens of Chinese cities. He examines the “blue sky bias,” or tendency for reported pollution numbers to fall just under the cutoff for what authorities consider a relatively clean day. In Chengdu in 2007, for instance, 52 days fell just under the cutoff, but none were just over. “The audacity of the data manipulation in cities beyond Beijing, including Chengdu, Xian, Shenyang and Kunming, is truly astounding,” he says.
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Obama’s Afghanistan Problem: Neither Karzai Nor the Taliban Like the ‘Reconciliation’ Script
President Barack Obama huddled with President Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday, urging Afghanistan’s leader to accelerate negotiations with the Taliban over a political solution to the longest war in America’s history. But the prospect for Karzai negotiating successfully with the insurgents is clouded by a question raised by Josef Stalin, on the eve of World War II, in response to the suggestion that he offer concessions to the Pope: “How many divisions does he have?” The Taliban now ask the same question about Karzai. And should the Afghan leader also ask himself the question, he might reach a similarly dispiriting conclusion. Karzai’s independent power base is minimal, as is his ability to influence the outcome of his country’s civil war absent direct U.S. involvement. And that gives neither Karzai nor the Taliban much incentive to cut a deal with the other.
Must-Reads from Around the World, May 21, 2012
Spillover - Lebanon’s Daily Star reports on escalating violence inside the country after soldiers shot dead a prominent anti-Bashar al-Assad Muslim preacher Sunday. “The gravity of the incident… prompted leaders on both sides of the political divide to call for calm and restraint to prevent the country from sliding into sectarian strife as a result of a spillover of the 15-month-old uprising in neighboring Syria,” it says.
A Royal Party: Britain Celebrates 60 Years of Queen Elizabeth II
From parades to concerts, and even tea with commoners, 86 year-old Queen Elizabeth II is traversing the United Kingdom to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee.
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