Geography News - March 7th

• Polar Bear hunting ban proposed - this ban on polar bear hunting was proposed to be included in CITES ( Convention of International Treaty of Endangered Species) and debated by countries like Russia, Canada, USA and also the indigenous Inuit. 
• The Inuit people rely on polar bear hunting for much of their economic revenues, and make a living selling polar bear fur and paws. However, Russia is in favour of the ban as they want to stop Canadian illegal smugglers from faking IDs to sell polar bear products. 
• This is geopolitics in action - Russia has a vested interest in the passing of the ban, as it may want to increase social control and reduce cross-border conflicts such as illegal Canadian passports. Of course, the local people also have a need for this special trade, and have a vested interest in the mammal.
• Shockingly, scientists have said that a ban on polar bear hunting will not do much to save the species. The breeding numbers are already very low and most countries who take part in CITES have a vested interest in the matter. 
• Perhaps we should ask ourselves - why protect polar bears? Aren't they useless in our food chains as top predators? Who is in charge here - USA or Russia ? How about the locals - will they be adversely affected by the ban ?

• Premier Wen Jia Bao of China made a policy speech in parliament, and set some new goals and identified areas for improvement in the next year for the world's growing superpower.
• China set a target of 7.5% for economic growth, unchanged from 2012, with an inflation target of 3.5%. Question: Can China's economic growth keep increasing ?
• He also promised to create more than 9 million new urban jobs. China's urbanisation is rapid, growing and increasingly prevalent across the nation (As you can see from Shaoguan city, an industrial town with mining factories, coal mines and towns full of trucks and trains). 
• Xi Jin Ping also promised to tackle corruption in China. China's bureaucracy is famous for being corrupted but it's leaders not malicious, hence the economic growth and improvements over the years (unlike Africa, for example). 
• Much criticism has been said about this policy address - it has too much praise and too little nitty-gritty problems identified. Wen spent 50 minutes praising China on it's achievements, and only the last 10 minutes on identifying some problems the nation faces, e.g. pollution, corruption, wealth gap etc. 
• Chinese citizen's growing online presence means that nowadays it's hard to censor much things. Online forum users said that they're unhappy with the speech and it's lack of policy changes, and formed their own thread which got 7 million hits. 
• Key points: China's growing online generation - a powerful tool for mobilising people! 
• China's corruption - is corruption inevitable and always bad ? What about "positive corruption" whereby the money taken out by the individual is spent back into the country internally rather than deposited in Swiss banks (Mugabe) ? 
• Compare it to HK's CY Leung Policy Address, Feb 2013 - issues are similar (e.g. poor getting poorer, lack of jobs etc).