Monthly Archives: February 2005

(from Blithering Bunny)

EU Serf sends us this report:

Kyoto Week, Blame Bush

With the expensive and badly conceived Kyoto treaty the major news of the week, the BBC has been running full steam to blame everything on Bush.

This morning whilst getting my daily dose of Bush-hating bias, BBC World News ran a story on the coal industry in the USA. In summary the story was something like this:

Coal industry chiefs are gathering at a trade show in Las Vegas, where equipment manufacturers are recording a boom in sales. The reason is that the coal industry is doing well, with high demand and prices. By talking about the Bush White House we are lead to believe that somehow the administration is the reason for this bonanza. In fact, the story wraps up with the line:

With President Bush in the White House for another 4 years, the coal industry is looking forward to more good times ahead.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the situation as five minutes of googling proved to me.

1) Coal prices have been rising worldwide, on the back of demand from China and other developing countries:

Prices for thermal coal used to fuel power plants are expected to reach new highs in 2005, buoyed by continued international economic growth and surging demand for electricity…

The Asia-Pacific region is the largest market, representing 4% of world trade, and is growing 10% annually because of increasing demand from developing countries, including China.

This has nothing to do with the US Government and everything to doing with world markets.

“World thermal coal prices will still remain high in historic terms next year”, at $50 to $55 per metric ton.

To put that into perspective, $50 a barrel of oil is equivalent to $350 per ton. With rising energy prices in general it is hardly surprising that coal prices are rising.

2) Unlike Europeans, the USA is not subsidizing its coal industry. The only bone of contention for US environmentalists is US government-backed research.

Coal production and subsidies have fallen across the EU in recent years, but remain relatively high in Germany, with Euro 2.2bn in support earmarked for 2004, for example…

Domestic coal prices in Germany have been more than three times the import price.

European countries, despite their green credentials are actually subsidizing production of this dirty fuel. Meanwhile, what is the US doing?

The budget includes $447 million for the president’s Coal Research Initiative, a $69 million increase over 2004 levels.

Investing in clean coal research, the bastards. I don’t know if this is a hidden subsidy or not but note the difference in scale of the payments.

3) European companies are investing heavily in the American coal industry:

Most of the foreign investment in U.S. coal has been from Europe.

So clean green Europeans are also benefiting.

4) Surely rising coal prices are a good thing. They create incentives for new energy-efficient technology, renewable energy and better conservation.

In their rush to blame Bush, the BBC gives a totally unprofessional, biased and ignorant piece on an industry they obviously do not understand.

Discussing the arrest of seven people and recovery of £2.3M by the Irish police, which is almost certainly linked to the IRA robbery at Northern Bank, BBC Radio Scotland news ‘anchorman’ Andrew Cassell in discussion with a fellow BBC hack came out with the following gem:

“So they [the IRA] must be bricking it”

For the uninitiated, bricking it means to have, er, loose bowels.

(from Blithering Bunny)

The Guardian:

Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, and Lord Birt, the No 10 policy adviser, are at odds over proposals that would force the corporation to share some of its £2.8bn licence fee income with commercial rivals.

Ms Jowell, who has been putting the final touches to a green paper on the BBC charter, is determined to fend off proposals for a new external regulator of the corporation and ensure it is allowed to keep all the money raised by the licence fee.

But Lord Birt, a former director general of the BBC, is believed to have backed the recommendations of a panel chaired by his friend Lord Burns, under which the corporation would be governed by a new regulator with the power to redistribute a proportion of the licence fee to other broadcasters.

Read the rest here.

(from Blithering Bunny)

From The Telegraph:

The BBC apologised yesterday for an item on a religious programme that angered the Jewish community by “demonising” Israel.

Dozens of complaints have been received about a story on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day during the Today programme that suggested a Muslim corporal in the Israeli army had been jailed for refusing to shoot Palestinian children.

The contributor, the Rev Dr John Bell, also apologised and admitted his story could have been interpreted as “furtive racism” at a time when “Jewish sensitivity in Britain is running high because of anti-Semitism”.

Read the rest here. The Guardian’s report here.

.

Excuse the unusual title, but I remember vividly how, early last year, the phrase ‘Godfather’ was used by Orla to describe Ariel Sharon in an obscure early morning BBC TV news report. I don’t think she meant to flatter him by casting him as a genial, responsible volunteer parent.

The point? Well, the latest BBCOnline report on Sharon’s legal position (once a concern, no longer) refers to him in what I consider a related way:

‘The BBC’s Matthew Price in Jerusalem says the decision shows how the prime minister has managed to transform his political position.

A year ago Ariel Sharon was mired in scandal with three corruption cases against him and some who wondered if the cases could possibly end his premiership.

Now, our correspondent says, he appears to be home and dry.’

Perhaps this seems innocuous at first glance, but notice how it makes Sharon’s legal position appear contingent on his political position. If Price knows that Sharon pulled political levers to escape prosecution, he should say so more directly, rather than skulking in this way. Additionally, I think that the expression ‘home and dry’ confirms my view. It suggests not innocence but geting away with it. Fairly scurrilous, after the Orla school of thought I’d say.

(from Blithering Bunny)

Even New Labourites are attacking the BBC now for its appalling bias:

http://www.stephenpollard.net/002015.html

And an increasing amount of bloggers are also getting stuck in:

Nicholas Vance at Last Night’s BBC News here and here.

Laban Tall at UK Commentators.

Blimpish.

Just a note to let you know that I am offline at the moment. OK, not at this exact moment because I wouldn’t be typing this from an internet cafe if I were, would I? But in general. So don’t write to me. Computers are evil, bad, useless things anyway; a snare and a delusion.

about the Iraqi elections:

‘But there is no getting away from the fact that this is not the outcome President Bush would have wanted in an ideal world.’

No, that’s right. Rather than have a significant few Sunnis vote (btw what happened that the intimidation of all that terrible chaos and violence they- most of the media in point of fact- wallowed in previously became a simple boycott by Sunnis?) in a reasonable democratic election for the first time ever, he’d have had that lamb Saddam grant his people- all of his people- such a right for decades on end. In an ideal world, of course.

Since the US Government has appeared happy and satisfied with the elections (or has it merely ‘presented itself’ that way?), like a man basking after a good meal, the Beeb responds by presenting it like some kind of anxious mother hen, helplessly watching the progress of her chicks. ‘Nervous’, ‘anxious’, ‘worried’, about his ‘fledgling’ Iraq, the Beeb says that Pres. Bush is ‘keeping a lid on his anxieties.’

No, no, no. Grow up! The Beeb’s fantasy of a man with a juvenile grin who needs to hold someone’s hand at all times is just that. The only question for GWB is how much more vindication he can take before he bursts with quiet pride.

. The BBC does in fact report the departure of Eason Jordan. Uh, but it seems to ‘misunderstand’ the issue slightly. Its introduction says

‘The CNN’s chief news executive Eason Jordan has resigned amid controversy over the death of journalists in Iraq.’

This isn’t true. However sad it may be that they died, a least some deaths of journalists in Iraq were/are inevitable, such as the kind of death suffered by BBC cameraman Kaveh Golestan, and some seem to have occurred when they did stupid things like travel in frontline convoys without body armour like John Simpson’s translator, Kamaran Mohammed, or fall off roofs, as sadly seems to have happened to Gabi Rado. These incidents are, viewed rationally, uncontroversial with respect to US forces. What is controversial is Eason Jordan’s theorising, borrowed, as Scott & co are pointing out, from BBC journalists, that US military forces have deliberately targeted journalists. That is the controversy, and any other presentation of it is loaded and false.

On a side note, this phrase the BBC seems to like, of ‘appeared to suggest’ seems to me unecessarily vague. He either ‘suggested’, if the wording was vague but undeniable, or ‘appeared’ to say, if the wording was practically opaque, that the US military had targeted journalists. He didn’t do both.

It is perfectly rational for the BBC to present the issue as one of general controversy, given their many incursions into the territory of conspiracy theorising. They have ground to defend or they will be hounded themselves. According to this narrative, journalists are targeted by right-wing critics for raising issues of legitimate concern in a way which fails to recognise the emotion it will provoke. The last thing we should do, according to that viewpoint, is extend the witchhunt over the pond to the likes of Gowing.

The trouble I have with this is that the only groups I can find, apart from journalists themselves, promoting this particular area of ‘concern’, are groups like this one– the World Socialist website. So, if we understand the BBC’s position by their friends, we see just how extreme the BBC’s position really is.

This morning, impartial and objective BBC Radio Scotland decided to discuss the death penalty as practiced in the United States.

So who did the BBC choose to join presenter Gary Robertson for this impartial and objective discussion? None other than Sister Helen Prejean, long time campaigner against the death penalty.

The discussion then proceeded along the lines of ‘how could something so awful still be part of the US legal system?’ with both Helen Prejean and Robertson offering nothing but criticism.

Here’s the reasons why:

• Americans are thick
• Americans lack the sophistication of older more mature European societies
• Religious nutcases
• The Bushes both support the death penalty

Of course, Bill Clinton’s endorsement of the death penalty whilst in office both in the Whitehouse and Arkansas went unmentioned, as did his reasons for doing so.

I’d also point out the opinion polls here in the UK frequently show considerable support for the death penalty for certain crimes, for all our ‘sophistication’ and ‘maturity’.

Personally I don’t support the death penalty, but if the subject is to be covered it should not be covered in such an openly partisan way.

It seems to me as a listener that anti-Americanism is ingrained as an acceptable bigotry within the BBC.