Left Flank

VBS-TV has another of its «guerrilla» reports on Linfen in the Shanxi province of PRC. The series will include 5 installments, and I have embedded the second one of the current four posted. This episode highlights the debilitating health effects of living in the «second» dirtiest city in the world (via TNR's The Vine: «Journey To The Dirtiest City On Earth»).

But for those seeking good news, it can be found even in China. Linfen is trying to clean up. By the end of this year, the city aims to close 160 of 196 iron foundries, and 57 of 153 coking plants. By replacing small, dirty and dangerous plants with large, cleaner and more carefully regulated facilities, the local government in Linfen plans to drastically reduce emissions. Central heating will be provided by gas instead of coal.

The changes are being driven by business (nobody wants to invest in such a polluted place), bureaucratic self-interest (local officials find it difficult to be promoted) and shifting political priorities.

«We have more power than before,» said Yang Zhaofen, director of Linfen's environmental bureau. «The mayor says we can sacrifice economic growth in order to improve air quality. That used to be unthinkable.»

There are already small signs of change. Last year, Linfen's residents breathed 163 days of unhealthy air, 15 days fewer than in 2005. Many factories have already been closed - not a wisp of smoke emerges from their chimneys. Thanks partly to such measures, Linfen lost its bottom spot in China's latest pollution rankings to the far-flung western city of Urumqi.

Other episodes discuss illegal coal-mining and the destruction of agriculture.

From Khartoum to Juba, to Abyei to Darfur, is Sudan really a state?

VBS-TV's Shane Smith concludes a five-part series on Sudan (via fedorovingtonboop) by traveling to Darfur and interviewing the fourth most powerful Sudanese leader, the SLA's Minni Minawe. Smith's line during the entire series is, that it's not racial genocide that fuels the Darfur crisis, but oil.

Matthew Lee also reports on Juba and Abyei (and on other aspects of the Sudanese debacle in other parts of the on-site diavlog). The UN without unanimous member-state support (read, US) is powerless to do any good in Sudan. The Economist underlines this impotence.

The UN Mission in Sudan, known as UNMIS, is feeble. Its diplomats call for calm, but their ability to do good on the ground is impeded by the government in Khartoum, which never wanted the mission there in the first place and limits its ability even to move around freely. The 10,000-strong mission, including some 7,000 soldiers and police, has a weak mandate; its mainly Zambian units did little more than protect a nearby UN base when the hostilities in Abyei broke out.

Since then, some 50,000 civilians have fled into the bush, leaving Abyei town virtually deserted, a stark reminder that some 2m were killed and 4m displaced during the long conflict that ended in 2005. Hectic talks between politicians of north and south are going on in Khartoum.

Yet the continuing horrors of Darfur, in western Sudan, attract more of the world's attention. Many foreign government agencies and charities have switched their focus to Darfur. For the UN, tackling southern Sudan still seems a challenge too far.

But, the US doesn't want to do state-building, right? How about just hinting at it, putting some teeth into the International Criminal Court, and opposing Beijing and Moscow?