What’s On

Between Angelina and Madge’s serial-adoption practices and the recent scandal involving a French charity attempting to ‘adopt’ Darfur refugees (who turned out to be mostly Chadian, and not orphans), it’s clear that the Western world is a bit preoccupied with the supposed plight of children in developing nations. Professor Signe Howell examines the growth of this practice and the implications for the globalization of Western notions of childhood and family.

Where and When: Thursday, Jan 17 at 6:30pm, Hong Kong Theater

2008 was marked by many as the Year of China, which will be punctuated with the Olympic Games this summer in Beijing. While much of the world of sport frets over whether or not they’ll be able to cope with the polluted conditions, the Amnesty International and other advocacy groups are looking to draw some of the public attention on China towards their campaigns against human rights abuse in the world’s most populous nation. Krystian Benedict, Country Campaign Manager for Amnesty International will address the LSE this week.

When, Where: Thursday, Jan 17 at 7pm in U8 (Tower One)

The final event of Environment and Ethics week will be a discussion entitled “Islam and the Environment” featuring Mizan Chowdry of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences focusing on why issues of the environmen and ethics are important for Muslims.

When, Where: Friday, Jan 18 at 4:30pm in  D306 (Clement House)

SU Officers Support Ken Livingstone

A minor dust up has occurred following the endorsement of London Mayor Ken Livingstone by a group involving several students union representatives, including LSESU General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar and Education & Welfare Officer Ruhana Ali. The Beaver covered the story in their latest issue, drawing on the recent Twinning Letter Fiasco as providing a background for controversial attachments of Student Union officers names to divisive letters and endorsements. In yesterdays Beaver article, Bakeer-Markar and Ali defend their actions, telling News Editor Patrick Cullen that they were acting as individuals and not in their capacity of officers of the Student Union.

Far be it for us to claim that SU officers are not able to have lives separate from their positions within the student union. Still, it is a bit disingenuous to suggest that, because they did not include their respective titles in the endorsement letter, nobody will consider their leadership roles when looking at the list of signatories. The letter could no doubt have included many more than just two members of the LSESU as signatories, however the use of the names of two officers of the SU is clearly intended to be representative of a more general support of Livingstone’s candidacy among students, which as the Beaver article points out is clearly not the case.

Especially in the aftermath of the Twinning Letter Fiasco, the General Secretary and Education & Welfare officer ought to have exercised more caution in making controversial public endorsements. As public figures themselves, it is difficult for the public to separate their private opinions from their public role, and it should have come as no surprise that there might be confusion as to whether the endorsements were official or not.

The End of Capitalism? Davies says ‘Not So Much’

Can it be that we’ve carried on for all these days without mentioning our much beloved (or much hated, depending on your point of view) director, Sir Howard Davies? Well, since he’s in the news today (and not for any dull story about whether or not he deserves a sabbatical), that gives us the opportunity to chat about him. This isn’t an economics blog, but considering the nature of the LSE and Davies’ background in finance, I’ll have to wade into unfamiliar waters here.

Writing in the Independent today, Jeremy Warner recaps a lecture Davies delivered at the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy on the current credit crisis and the Northern Rock fiasco. The director said that, while the situation is serious, he didn’t expect the current credit crisis to roil the markets and cause permanent damage. Likewise, he warned against overreacting too strongly in response, saying “it is always dangerous to devise regulatory policy in the midst of a crisis”.

Again, this is no economics blog, and I’ll leave it to others to offer a rejoinder to Davies’ slightly scolding rhetoric (it sounds like he’s basically telling investors to chill out, as a Californian surfer might put it). Still, given his history as chairman of the FSA, I think that most students would probably be better served assaulting his presiding over the LSE dropping far down the league tables, or maybe his extra-curricular activities (like judging the Booker Prize) rather than taking him head on in the field of economics.

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