Merry X'mas, George Soros is coming to "town"!

Many countries are rich in oil, gas, and minerals and studies have shown that when governance is good, these can generate large revenues to foster economic growth and reduce poverty.

However when governance is weak, they may instead cause poverty, corruption, and conflict – the so called “resource curse”. The EITI aims to defeat this “curse” by improving transparency and accountability.

- (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative)

EITI holds the view that the primary beneficiaries of EITI are the governments and citizens of resource-rich countries.

"Knowing what governments receive, and what companies pay, is critical first step to holding decision-makers accountable for the use of those revenues," EITI says. "Implementing EITI as part of a programme of improved governance will help to ensure that oil, gas, and mining revenues contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction."

Corruption and political instability caused by the plundering of national wealth, and poverty, are two challenges facing companies and investors in the extractive industries. Supporting EITI in countries where they operate, it is reasoned, can help mitigate these investment risks, which in turn threatens investments which are often capital intensive and long-term in nature.

Thus far, over 20 countries have committed to EITI principles and criteria since the EITI Lancaster House Conference in June 2003. Some countries -- from Peru, to Trinidad and Tobago, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, and East Timor -- are only beginning to launch the process, while others have published revenue and payments data.

Billionaire George Soros said Malaysia is “rich enough” and does not need his financial support.

He said this in response to questions on Malaysia’s financial market and whether he would invest here, given his previous remarks about the country and the investment in the 1990s.

“Malaysia is a rich enough country and does not need my support to do it,” said the 76-year-old philanthropist and financial investor.



Marina Mahathir's close encounters with Soros



Meeting of the Old Peace Horses

Sometimes you just have to ask. I sent off a wistful "wish I could be there" when I heard about the TDM/Soros meeting, and lo and behold, I got back a 'yes'! So that was how I found myself sitting there, not so much a fly on the wall but a lump on the sofa, in a first-time meeting between those two former warhorses, my dad and George Soros.

First we had to get through the media crush in the Marriott lobby. I almost didn't make it up to the Presidential suite since some over-enthusiastic photographer was so intent on blocking my way so he could take a photo of TDM getting into the lift. Up in the suite, we waited..and waited. I started to get nervous. My Dad does not like to be kept waiting. Then a rush at the lift and all of a sudden, someone smaller than I'd expected but with a big smile came up and it was Soros, explaining that he was late because he couldn't find his tie!

Soros is obviously a no-nonsense guy, which suits the other no-nonsense guy perfectly well. After some polite preliminaries ("Your first time?", "Yes, KL is an impressive town"....(TOWN???)), Soros started by saying that he was sorry he has not supported the Perdana Global Peace Forum and KL Initiative which seeks to criminalise war although he agreed that the world is going in the wrong direction. He thinks it is easier to do prevention of war, rather than criminalise it after it happens. Soros cited the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, which was recently accepted by the UN General Assembly. This doctrine meant that sovereignty belongs to the people. But if leaders commit atrocities against their own people, then the international community needs to do something. But the Bush government has made this doctrine more difficult to promote, since now whatever the US proposes, the rest of the world opposes. The US has essentially lost its credibility.

TDM agreed, and insisted that it should be the international community that should take action, not unilateral actions by only one country.

Both agreed that there will be situations which require military action. The problem with the US unilateral action in Iraq leaves everyone else fearful that they could be next. Not a recipe for security and peace.

Soros is of course known for being very anti-Bush. Before the last midterm elections, he spent a lot of money on a campaign to dissuade people to vote for pro-Bush candidates. "The current US foreign policy is an abberration in history, and must change course." The midterm election results recognised that Iraq is a mistake, but, according to him, has not gone far enough because it did not renounce the war on terrorism.

Here Soros had some interesting takes. He really believes that the war on terrorism cannot be won, especially not with more terrorism. "There is a certain weakness in the American psyche and that is the fear of death...(as much as the US is militarily superior), the terrorists are superior because they are not afraid to die." But we need to find out the root causes of why people become like that.

As they warmed up, it became more apparent that these two had very similar views of the world. TDM talked about how he subscribes to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines and has become very disturbed by the amount of research going into developing more and more sophisticated weapons to kill people. This led to discussion about nuclear weapons and the breakdown of the non-proliferation treaties. Both agreed that this will only lead to more war ( and of the worst kind...).

Now that they had established areas of common interest, Soros showed how well briefed he was. He asked about the recent UMNO GA and what this meant for race relations in Malaysia, and about corruption, all very politely, not accusatory at all. He seemed inclined to find areas of common interest and genuinely interested to know how we deal with problems. TDM of course is not one to get defensive about anything so he said he was not happy about the last GA, was worried about how young people are being brought up without much interaction between the races, and said that yes we do have corruption, though perhaps not as bad as some countries.

At this point, Soros brought out "one issue that stands between us - and that is your anti-semitic remarks". He explained that he is often in conflict with many others of the Jewish faith in the US, especially the neo-conservatives who are the architects of the current US foreign policy. So not all Jews in the US agree with one another and there is no such thing as a Jewish conspiracy. TDM explained that he has been labelled anti-semitic by the Western media even though, as often as not, he complains about Muslim attitudes as well. Citing his speech at the OIC meeting in KL in 2003, he said that much of it was about how Muslims had to change attitudes and in fact emulate Jews, but the media only cited his remarks about Jews.

Soros said that he also sometimes gets misquoted by the Western media. He was once asked his opinion on the growing anti-semitism in Europe, particularly in France. He explained that this was related to US and Israeli policies in Palestine. People were angry with Israel, therefore they equated it with all Jews. The media headlines then came out as "Soros blames Jews for Palestine problem." He has had longstanding disagreements with a large segment of American Jews because they have been too supportive of Israel irrespective of what Israel does. He cited the excessive influence of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) which lobbies for Israel in Congress as a major problem. ( And apparently has started, or is starting, another PAC to counter AIPAC with other prominent American Jews).

Both agreed that the problem of Palestine is territorial and not religion and that there needs to be a political solution. The current policy of heavy militarisation does not deal with the root causes of the problem. But the trouble is, we are often captives of extremists on all sides, who don't want solutions.

This was getting on to almost an hour already and neither seemed inclined to stop. I thought that intellectually these two are complete equals even though they may not agree with one another 100 percent. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of principles that they disagreed on.

One thing that they did NOT talk about, but which came up in the press conference afterwards, was the economic crisis in 1997/98. As we all recall, TDM famously blamed Soros for the currency speculation that caused the crisis. At the press conference, TDM explained that he had accepted Soros' explanation ( done at some other time, not this meeting) that he was not personally responsible for the speculation. (This is not the same as not blaming currency speculation for the crisis, by the way). And Soros said that he thought TDM did the right thing at the time. But the focus of the meeting was really on the state of the world and how to bring about peace, particularly in the Middle East. And on that issue, they could almost be of one mind.

Obviously this meeting was the hot ticket of the day in KL today, just judging by the number of press who turned up, both local and international. I don't blame them really since I was pretty excited myself when I heard I could attend. Who would want to miss a meeting of the old warhorses, except now they're peace horses...;-)



(RantingsbyMM)


Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Mahathir Asia Soros