Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Mexican reforms, Chinese uniforms, and Irani...forms....
The Mexican President is set to announce major educational reforms that will check the power of teacher's unions, Chinese watchdogs catch a company making toxic uniforms and Iran is set to meet with the international community to negotiate nuclear proliferation. Commence commenting!!
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I think it's ridiculous that the Chinese government doesn't care more about the heir to their future as a country. Goods from china often get banned here for lead and stuff however e end of the article stating that it won't get very far in containing the scare is terrible. They put their countries children in real danger.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. Does the fact that this was reported by the police carry any weight? 15 years ago this might not have made headlines or would have been covered up. Does this highlight the increasing transparency and accountability of the Chinese government or does it merely highlight their incompetence?
DeleteI think both and it will eventually force the Chinese government to become more compenent in order to keep the faith of the public.
DeleteI found it very interesting to read about the Mexican educational reforms especially in that they mentioned the teachers union there. Teachers union are exceptionally powerful at maintaining the status quo in regards to education meaning they discourage progress. The article addressed that issue by saying that the reforms will potentially take away some the union's influence.This is an absolutely essential step to take in order to improve Mexican education because as we've seen in America teacher's unions are alarmingly powerful when it comes to keeping things the same.
ReplyDeleteEvery country has the right to develop nuclear weapons because each country is sovereign within its own state. Iran being serious about nuclear talks at this point is not what is important; what matters is whether the interested and affected parties are willing to grow a backbone and force Iran to comply otherwise they should forget about it. Also, supranational groups like the UN are never going to be able to end the Iranian " nuclear" program because not every country (China and Russia, in particular) cares about Iran and nuclear power. It takes strong moves from countries at stake, like Israel and the US, in order to get done what they consider needs to get done.
ReplyDeleteGood for Mexico curbing the power of the union. unions shouldn't be able to decide who is hired or "sell seats," but protect the job security of its members.
ReplyDelete"selling seats" --> what is that an excellent example of?
DeleteCorporatism. A bit of a stretch considering that Mexico isn't authoritarian but there's enough corruption for it to apply, I think.
DeleteI think the improvement of Mexico's educational system would be a great move for modernization because more of the population could get more jobs in technology and stuff like that rather than factory jobs n such.
ReplyDeleteWill curbing the power of teacher's unions solve the educational problem in Mexico? Or is it simply a first step in overhauling the educational system?
DeleteIran shouldn't be able to obtain a enriched U, because in juxtaposition with their rhetoric it could start an arms race in the region which would create instability in an already instable region.
ReplyDeleteTravino, why are you not running the White House? No- scratch that. What about the world :)
DeleteSharria, it seems that he disagrees with you about the handling of the Iranian situation though. He says they should be stopped, you say we can do no such thing unless all parties are on board. Which is it Sharria?
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DeleteI was just playing with Nick. Every country has a right to nuclear " whatever." But if other nations consider that right to be a threat then they should keep that country from exercising that right and not cause a stalemate through bogus negotiations.
DeleteBut do the negotiations cause the stalemate? Is the US not trying to avert the current stalemate by participating in these negotiations? Also, I totally agree that they are bogus negotiations, nothing will be accomplished, but the next option is direct intervention, which I am sure the US does not want. Honestly, the US does not have much of play here. We do not really have any bargaining chips aside from our international reputation as a world leader, which Iran has frequently expressed that they care nothing about.
DeleteAfter reading the China article on how the school uniforms contained toxic dyes made me wonder whether the Chinese government knew about these regulations. Sure they may have pronounced a regulation test on the factory, but it may have been to cover up their dirty tracks. Using toxic fumes and dyes on school children uniform would be the perfect ploy to reduce China's overpopulation. However, this may be a sadistic and cynical view of the Chinese government, and the toxic dyes may have been caused by a factory error. Guess we will never know for sure...
ReplyDeleteDisregard human rights, reduce population. Two birds with one stone right? :p
DeleteThat is quite the accusation. We will never know for sure, but this certainly is not something that will look good to the international community, which is often at the top of China's list (as the CCP controls the press).
DeleteWhy would China let a human rights issue slip through their control? It especially doesn't make sense if this issue is a major concern to many international powers
DeleteThe Mexican education reform shows that the government has autonomy in its ability to enact changes to the educational system despite union opposition. It s meant to centralize hiring and reduce the payment to "phantom teachers," thus eliminating some corruption within the system.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about ongoing corruption within the government. I was relatively surprised by the idea that "phantom teachers" existed in the thousands in Mexico. This is a great example of the difficulty of keeping track of money in an economy and govenrment that is still developing and going through growing pains.
DeleteThe scandals in china clearly shows the hypocrisy in what the government actually advocates. The article mentions that the regulations are "weakly enforced largely because of corruption" and that scandals are relatively common. Tis shows the self interest of the government, but I would hope that the government would make the effort for the interest of the country's future - the children. China's economy is already being hurt by their one child per household law since in the future they will have less resources, and not making children safety a priority will hurt the economy even more since they would be losing more future resources.
ReplyDeleteWhile readint the article on Iran, it seems as almost all of the talks between western powers and Iran seem to fail because this side is willing to compromise. Even though many countries seem eager to enter into "negotiations" they are still demanding that Iran stop all of its nuclear activities. If they truly wanted to negotiate then they would allow compromise rather than complete shut down. Also, even now there was no mention of a confirmed use of the nuclear technology for anything other than medical uses. Even the IAEA said that they "could not exclude the possibility" of weapons being made, this in itself is Avery vague statement. Important international decisions should be based on evidence that is more concrete. Until more evidence is found, I think Iran has the right to pursue what they insist are medical projects.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of compromise could be reached?
DeleteYou make a good point. Often for secluded, powerful states like Iran the US would rather err on the side of caution than allow them to gain access to the technology and see what happens. It seems that Iran will not stop, and there is not too much we, or anyone can do about it. Given that, what is the next step?
DeletePersonally, I think that American interests aren't truly in any danger. Even if Iran were to build up nuclear weaponry I don't think they would dare to attack the US when they know that we will retaliate likewise. Regardless of how much they can potentially build, our arsenal is far superior and will remain so in practically every way. For many countries in the Middle East everything western powers do is regarded suspiciously, largely due to the past history between America and much of the Middle East. When western countries offer negotiations it will always be seen by people in the Middle East as a way for America to gain more power over the region and not as a legitimate attempt at compromise. For this reason, if we were to let Iran exercise sovereignty over their own country, it would be much more beneficial to US-Iranian relations as whole and for the long term.
DeleteFrom the article on China posted as well as a few other ones, China is no stranger to safety scares. Other ones I read were about baby milk, cabbage and chicken contamination. This could be a serious blow to China's trade market because it makes them a risky country to deal with economically. If the U.S., for example, were to buy some Chinese products that ended up being contaminated as well, that would only turn us away from any further dealings.
ReplyDeleteGood point. whenever we speak of China, economic factors must always come into play, as they are now the second largest economy in the world. As their economic power grows, will political opposition to the CCP grow with it or deteriorate in the face of apparent economic successes of the CCP? (this is all assuming their economy continues to grow)
DeleteThe difficult thing is that the US buys these products anyway despite scares every once in a while of things purchased from China. To what extent can the US continue to buy these products that are contaminated before we do something about it or China sees it as an issue.
DeleteThe article about the Chinese uniform demonstrate the lack of control of the Chinese government. The control which they need to create equality for all. In a sense communism can work according to Marx in a negative perspective, if no one has anything (including life) then everyone is equal. The Chinese government should enforce some basic regulations that will keep its people safe to maintain control; unless they don't want to and this is a way to resolve their overpopulation problem as stated by Munazzah.
ReplyDeleteAre you assuming that this is the beginning to the Chinese government's fall?
DeleteI feel like the Chinese government won't do much about the safety regulations because they have no incentive. They are the second largest economy and chances are that that won't be changing anytime soon. Countries such as America will continue to trade because of the low prices we pay. Unless something big happens, the government will say they will make changes, but really, they won't. Maybe if the uniforms had been sent to America and we actually boycotted Chinese products, but the Chinese government got lucky in that it happened in their own country. Now, they just have to satisfy the other countries by saying they're improving but nothing will actually change.
ReplyDelete