One one things

Oil prices have fallen a bit in SL, and happily enough Fowzie has attributed this to world prices falling. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had instead said that according/due to the Chinthanaya oil prices are falling. Also CBSL has increased short term lending rates a bit, eating, ever so slightly, into the negative rates that we have right now. It’s a good start to the day. It’s been a bit difficult to keep pace these days bc the weeks have been moving so fast. Last week went like a rocket bc I spent 5 days at a WTO training session for trade negotiators. I’ve been reading about WTO technical assistance for a long time but this is the first time I’ve seen tangible evidence. The course really was excellent. The WTO trainer himself was the epitome of globalisation, born in Ghana, lives in Australia, works in Geneva, and flies all over the developing world to train and impart wisdom. The first day and a half was spent running through the agreements themselves, trying to get past the superficial and dig a bit deeper into the nitty gritty. The afternoon was spent going through negotiation skills, which are applicable not just to trade but to any form of negotiations, and also some trade speicific skills. The trainees were an interesting bunch, a cross section of economists and lawyers, mainly from Commerce and the AG’s boys and girls. There were also a few ppl who were a bit lost bc they really had no WTO or trade background and struggled quite a bit to keep up. That was actually the only drawback in the whole process, the trainees selection needed to be better, a trade background should have been mandatory.

We were then split into 6 groups of five, and each assigned a hypothetical country, armed with complete details of trade, political and negotiating interests of all 6 countries, and then had to run through mock negotiations over the next 4 days. The first three days would be bilateral negotiations followed by multilateral negotiations on the final day.We basically had to conclude the Doha round on our own! Each team had a Minister of trade, and chief advisors on services, agriculture, NAMA and rules. I was doing services, and had to spend the rest of the day preparing my country’s position in terms of offensive and defensive intersts by going through hypothetical service schedules that were provided (though i suspect they weren’t entirely hypothetical, some of the schedules given were suspiciously similar to those of the country in real life that the hypothetical country was modelled upon).

The negotiations themselves were excellent and very very professional. We took great efforts to maintain a degree of realism, referring to one another as sir, your excellency etc. and each country having their own “territory” and playing host to their trading partner during the bilateral sessions. The country we represented was modelled on India, we also had China, the EU, the States, possibly Japan and one other developing country. We negotiated 3 successful bilateral deals, I was very generous in my services offers in mode 3 and got exactly what I wanted in terms of horizontal liberalisation in mode 4, which would never have happened in real life. The problem was that as negotiators we faced no domestic political pressure in this simulation, and therefore we were able readily liberalise as long as we stuck to our mandate. For instance, my mandate instructed looking after our interests in Financial, telecom, IT, retail and outsourcing sectors, which I did, but I had no pressure to protect any other sectors, so I happily gave up to 75% equity participation in mode 3 in return for Mode 4 commitments. That said, negotiations in NAMA and agriculture were more protracted, specially agriculture. Nonetheless all 3 of our bilateral negotiations went well and we had a deal in each. The boys and girls playing for China weren’t as lucky and only had one deal, they couldn’t agree with their 2 other developed partners, particularly in terms of tariff cuts in NAMA. The negotiations were hard work, it’s not for fun that the word negotiation is dervided from the Latin neg (not) otium (leisure). It requires hours of planning your own position (in real life weeks and months), and strategizing give and take options, the strengths and weaknesses of trading partners, and at the same time thinking about domestic interests and negotiating with them.

On the final day, the results of the bilateral positions were multilateralised under the MFN clause. This is where you see the value of the multilateral system. Even though the country simulating China failed to strike a deal with the US on a bilateral basis, they enjoyed the benefits of the commitments given by the US to other negotiating partners. This could also be viewed as free riding, but at the end of the day, only China loses out by protecting. So back to the training session, the final morning saw simulation of coalition building as we got into groups of developing and developed nations to prepare multilateral positions. Once again agriculture and NAMA proved to be stumbling blocks, the 6 services experts got together for a parallel session as a last ditch attempt to salvage some kind of deal, but just when we got close to a possible compromise we ran out of time. And so the multilateral session collapsed with no deal possible, much like in real life.

The session overall was a great success. I learnt a hell of a lot not just about negotiations skills but also some of the nitty gritty of the agreements, GATS in particular. It also heightened my sadness about the state of multilateral trade liberalisation in the world today. It becomes so clear how much room there is for mutual benefit, and yet it is difficult to strike a balance in intersts due to the unwillingness to compromise. Sure there have been some bad deals in the past, like the TRIPS agreement, but these are greatly exaccerbated in bilateral agreements between developed and developing nations. That said, I am confident that the WTO will get back on track once the environment for negotiations improve. Let’s just hope that is sooner rather than later.

The session ended on friday afternoon, I went up to the trainer to say toodley doo and spank him very much, so I offered my hand, he took it and pulled me to him and gave me a big hug! It was such a nice gesture from a very nice guy. Throughout the sessions he had that typical African friendliness and enthusiasm, laughing out loud all the time and gesticulating wildly. He hugged everyone else and things ended on a very pleasant note. I skipped lunch and skipped home as soon as possible for I was off, off to Kandy to watch the Bradby. But that’s another story.

Being the product of doctors is usually a good thing. Prescription samples are lovely, easy access to sick notes (most of which i’d write myself and get ammi or thathhti to sign it, I’ve written some very colourful ones in my time, including one about being bitten by a Boa Constrictor, which didn’t quite fly), old stethescopes to listen through doors and other things, the doctors’ badge on the car and the general license to be a pundit on all aspects medical amongst one’s peers. It does however have its drawbacks. Every once in a while thaththi brings home some outrageous disease which he happily coughs on to the rest of us. As a result I have been a sickly fellow for the better part of my life. My latest disease consists of a wicked, bronchiole wrenching cough, a dull and annoying headache and much sniffling. Bed rest was the order of the day but being the pundit that I am I went for a sea bath on the poya day and ate lots and lots of seafood. There’s a place called coconut primitive in Negombo that serves a mean seafood platter and a meaner devilled pork. It also comes with an excellent poster on its wall.

” alt=”" />

Happily enough the poster is dated 1987 or something, and a lot of things were strange in the ’80s. Ah and “Rohitha’s” stage name is con-dom. I love his little personalized note to the locals at the bottom. I came home that night and coughed and sneezed myself to sleep and managed to scrape myself out of bed for work. Four hours in an A/C room put paid to that and i took half day and slept some more. As a result I missed Venice, and I was then told that I should be thankful to my germs for keeping me away a large quantity of bollocks squeezed into 3 hours of pretention. These are not my words. But I think that, plus a few other negative comments about it, is enough to keep me away from this time’s Stage Light production. Shame though, I thought R&J wasn’t all bad.

Health has improved marginally today, helped by some super chinese from a hole in the wall joint on Deanstone place in Kollupitiya called Min Han, nothing like some spice to clear out the system. If you do go there have a chat with the waiter Wijepala, he’s quite easy to spot bc he’s the only waiter. Unfortunately I will in all probability deteriorate significantly after the Bradby this evening where I will probably shout more than I should. I pity the ppl in front of me. Further health problems are forecast if I go ahead with the plan to go white water rafting in Seethawaka tomorrow. But one day at a time i always say, one day at a time.

I was due to start work today, but annoyingly this hasn’t transpired. I’m usually quite partial to being idle, but this seems to have changed after 1 year of bumming around in university. I now have to wait for a series of formalities to take place to start work, and this is likely to be quite a while so i need to find something fun to do. I got in touch with my former boss today and asked him if i can sell him my mind for a bit, he hasn’t replied. But then i only mailed him this morning, so my degree of angst is quite apparent. I’ve spent the last few days reading Bill Bryson’s short history of nearly everything, 500+ pages of science for dummies. It’s quite good, he makes geology readable, and geology is usually only any fun when one is stoned. But he does paint a fairly scary picture. From what i’ve read so far we could be whacked by an asteroid, similar to that which put paid to the dinosaurs, at any moment with pretty much no warning. And yellowstone park in the States is apparently one whopping volcano (a caldera to be exact) which usually blows every 600,000 years. The last time anything of a similar scale erupted it left the earth’s human population at about a 1000 ppl. There would have been some serious shagging to get us up to 6 billion, well done chaps! But worryingly yellowstone last went to town 630,000 years ago. We are due. Americans, i knew they’ll be the death of us.

But besides the doom and gloom the book is great fun. I like the way Bryson gives a lot of background about the scientists who came up with all these clever clever theories, and as he says, sometimes the wonder is not the science but the brilliance of discovering it. There’s also lots of juicy gossip about the likes of Newton, who once poked something sharp into the back of his eye just to see what will happen. Curiosity didn’t kill the Newton. Nor his retina. Unfortunately like most things i read i’ve forgotten 90% of the clever things i learnt, and will therefore fail to impress ppl with little snippets in a day or two. Poor form. But for those with a good memory, this book is an excellent way to impress ppl who won’t scratch too far beneath the surface.

In other arty farty news, I watched Checkpoint last night and was quite impressed. The first play was very very well acted. I know little about drama/acting, but i’m quite sure that one man show was very well done, it could easily have been over-acted, but it was done to perfection with lovely timing throughout. The one complaint about the first play was the slightly unrealistic and stereotypical plot. If you haven’t seen it avert your eyes for the rest of the para. The wife going to the chief minister and being held prisoner is a touch far fetched and the whole evil minister thing is a bit old. But happily enough the excellent acting more than makes ammends. The second play was one of the most innovative pieces of theatre i have ever seen. Given the short preparation it was very well done. Again from my amateur perspective, the sound and lighting was cleverly done, the broom stick thing was well dramatized and effective. The auction scene was clever i thought, it showed how numbers of deaths etc. have become just that, numbers and propaganda. I took home a similar message from the doll scene, where the deaths of the kids was wielded by both parties as the sword of propaganda, completely masking the pathetic death of 63 (or 41) kids, no matter whether they were terrorists or first aid trainees. The doll scene was quite distressing, specially how Tracy stabbed the eyes of that doll. Powerful stuff, the death of innocence, well portrayed by the actresses.

The third play drew mixed reactions. The acting was among the best of the night, and that says a lot. On comparing notes with others who had seen it the night before, it seems the plots were completely different on the two nights. In this light, the quality of what I saw deserves even more commendation. The principal completely stole the show. Portraying the role beautifully with perfect timing and poise, his only drawback was that he didn’t look like the average cane wielding school principal. But everyone was superb, I really can’t complain about the acting. The drawback from the third play was the wisdom of using forum theatre in such a setting. I felt the crowd was too big to have effective forum theatre. Yesterday, and i’m told saturday night’s performance too, was drawn out and a bit too much of a drama class for my liking. It would have been ideal for a smaller group of ppl. That said, kudos to Stages for daring to be as innovative as they were, very pleasantly surprised to see that sort of thing in Sri Lanka. Overall, very enjoyable and must be watched by anyone who enjoys and supports drama.

Ah hot off the press, old boss replied, I got a temp job, woot.