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BRITAIN
ANOTHER REASON NOT TO VISIT BRITAIN: SPEED CAMERAS
LOG DRIVIERS SMOKING OR EATING AT THE WHEEL; JAIL TERMS POSSIBLE
DAILY MAIL - Digital speed cameras which
capture drivers smoking or eating at the wheel are being introduced
nationwide in a new move to hammer motorists. Drivers will also
face fines, bans and even jail for infringements such as driving
without a seatbelt, using a hand-held mobile phone or overtaking
across double white lines. The hi-tech DVD cameras, which have
instant playback, will also be used to provide photographic evidence
against those eating sandwiches or rolling-up cigarettes at the
wheel. . . The development will massively increase the number
of fines and prosecutions against normally law-abiding drivers
for relatively minor offences. . . Virtually every police force
in England, Wales and Scotland is now equipped with the new digital
cameras. They were given Home Office approval in April but are
quietly being rolled out nationwide.
YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO VISIT BRITAIN
WITHOUT ANSWERING 53 QUESTIONS
INDIA
OCTOBER 2007
WORLD BANK COVERED UP FAULTY HIV TEST
KITS IN INDIA
GAP - A client of the Government Accountability
Project has come forward with evidence that World Bank funds
have been used over a period of years to purchase defective HIV
test kits, which have been supplied by the Indian government
to hospitals and blood banks across the country. The kits, distributed
by Monozyme, Ltd., frequently give false negative readings, meaning
that HIV-contaminated blood will appear to be clean and suitable
for distribution.
The Department of Institutional Integrity,
the World Bank's anti-corruption unit, hired GAP's client as
a consultant to review India's Second National HIV/AIDS Control
Project, financed with $191 million in Bank funds. He found that
although the National AIDS Control Organization at the Indian
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had received multiple complaints
about the HIV test kits as long ago as October 2004, the agency
had not acted to withdraw the kits. When the media in India and
Europe reported widespread complaints about the accuracy of the
Monozyme kits in 2006, a NACO spokesperson dismissed the allegations,
saying that the problem was confined to the state of West Bengal
that year and that NACO had addressed it.
Dr. Kunal Saha, however, collected test
data showing that the Monozyme kits were still in use six months
later, in April 2007, in Chhattisgarh, a state in central India.
. . When no action resulted from either the Bank or NACO, Dr.
Saha took his concerns directly to then-World Bank President
Paul Wolfowitz in a letter dated June 11, 2007. He went public
with his disclosures to the Indian press in July.. . .
In a statement to the Hindustan Times of
India in July 2007, a World Bank official stated: "(Saha's)
findings are personal opinions which the researcher has reached
independently, and do not reflect the views of the World Bank."
The same Hindustan Times July piece stated:
"The Bank has said it has no evidence so far of fraud involving
the kits."
But the Bank did have evidence at that
time, because of the disclosures of Dr. Saha to his team leaders
at INT. Further, the Bank chose to postpone a decision on steps
to address the issue of the defective kits until the release
of the delayed report. . .
Despite reports to the AIDS Control Society
about the defective kits, one year later this equipment was still
in use, producing false negatives in 50 percent of the tests
conducted at the Department of Microbiology, JJ Hospitals, also
in Mumbai.
http://www.whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=1180
EUROPE
JUNE 2007
PAPER: SECRET PLAN AFOOT FOR EUROPEAN
SUPER STATE
GEOFF MARSH, DAILY EXPRESS, UK - Tony Blair wants to hand the
European Union radical new powers in his last act as Prime Minister,
it emerged today. The Prime Minister has welcomed controversial
plans to bring back the troubled EU constitution by the back
door - totally bypassing the need for public referendums on sweeping
new powers for Brussels.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested ditching the name
"constitution" from the title and instead calling it
an "amending treaty" - to avoid having to seek the
approval of voters. French and Dutch voters rejected the original
plan - which would hand Brussels the power to represent individual
countries at the UN and change national laws - two years ago.
. .
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "If Tony Blair
thinks he can hoodwink the British people by smuggling in the
rejected EU consitution under another name, he had better think
again. He underestimates the British people. They will see right
through any shabby stitch-up. . .
EU leaders gather in Brussels next Thursday, prepared to launch
"an intergovernmental conference" on the details of
a new treaty if they can agree the outline.
Neil O'Brien, director of the think-tank Open Europe, expressed
surprise that a "single legal personality" for the
EU was still being considered. It was an unpopular move already
flatly rejected by the UK and would not, he predicted, survive
in any final deal.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/9970
UKRAINE
JONATHAN STEELE, GUARDIAN - Viktor
Yushchenko, who claims to have won Sunday's election, served
as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma,
and some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial
clans who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet privatization.
On some issues Yushchenko may
be a better potential president than Yanukovich, but to suggest
he would provide a sea-change in Ukrainian politics and economic
management is naive. Nor is there much evidence to imagine that,
were he the incumbent president facing a severe challenge, he
would not have tried to falsify the poll.
The Democratic party's National
Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican
Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies
involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom
House NGO and billionaire George Soros's open society institute.
US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise
focus groups . . . The usually fractious oppositions have to
be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance
of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic
and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American. .
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1359969,00.html
PETER SCHWARTZ, WORLD SOCIALIST
-From 1993 to 1999, Yushchenko was head of the Ukrainian central
bank, and from 1999 to April 2001, he was prime minister'serving
in both posts under President Leonid Kuchma, who is now considered
to be the power behind Yanukovich. As head of the central bank
and prime minister, Yushchenko was one of the most important
architects of a policy of economic liberalization and privatization,
which has had devastating social effects. With an average monthly
income of 65 euros, the Ukraine has one of the poorest populations
in Europe, while an infinitesimal layer of nouveau riche has
accumulated enormous wealth.
THE TWO VIKTORS OF UKRAINE
JUSTIN RAIMONDO, ANTI-WAR - Let's
start with the central figures in this drama: the two Viktors
- Yushchenko and Yanukovich. To begin with, you'll note that
the former has a website in English, while the latter's site
is only in the native Ukrainian and Russian. Yushchenko's audience
is primarily the West, while Yanukovich is speaking to his own
people. Right off the bat, the line of demarcation is drawn.
According to the conventional
wisdom, Yanukovich is a dark demonic figure, a Soviet-type bureaucrat
whose ties to Russia and the eastern power base of the ruling
elite, automatically make him the bad guy. Besides that, we are
told, Yanukovich is a man with a "criminal record,"
who served two jail terms. What they don't tell you is that Yanukovich
was jailed by the Soviet regime on charges of robbery and assault.
. .
On the other hand, Yushchenko's
indiscretions - which are not being reported in the Western media
at all - were neither youthful nor the occasion for his public
repentance. And if a youthful Yanukovich held up a Ukrainian
gas station or knocked someone upside the head and took his wallet,
Yushchenko was a key figure in a conspiracy to defraud the West
of over $600 million.
The idea that Yushchenko is some
kind of outsider, whose victory will cause the fresh winds of
free-market reform to blow through the sealed chamber of corruption
that is the Ukrainian economy is another Western fairy tale that
has no basis in reality. Yushie is a key figure in the oligarchic
system of "crony capitalism" that has enriched the
few at the expense of the many since the fall of the USSR. He
rose to power - as head of the Ukrainian central bank through
a good deal of the 1990s, and then as prime minister in the thuggish
Leonid Kuchma's government in 1999 - on account of the power
of the oligarchs. These "entrepreneurs" who made their
fortunes on the strength of their connections to the Communist
apparatus control the commanding heights of the Ukrainian economy,
and what is happening today in the Ukraine is a civil war involving
the various oligarchic clans. . .
The bottom line is that our oligarchs
have allied with a faction of Ukrainian oligarchs, who have agreed
to add Ukraine to the European Union, sabotage the free trade
zone recently established between the pro-Russian nations of
the former Soviet Union, and, most important of all, join NATO.
. .
As Jonathan Steele points out
in the Guardian, American "advisors" have been directing
and funding the entire Yushchenko operation, just as they did
in the former Yugoslavia, with money pouring in not only from
the U.S. Treasury but also from billionaire George Soros, who
has his own interests in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union.
. .
The complex web of lies that
make up the Yushchenko mythos requires extensive debunking, and
one could write a good-sized book on the subject. . .
As the worst president ever once
put it: "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's
in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame
on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."
[If you want some sense of
why major American media are not to be trusted, read these articles
on the Ukrainian election that give the back story concealed
in most American coverage]
JONATHAN STEELE, GUARDIAN - Viktor
Yushchenko, who claims to have won Sunday's election, served
as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma,
and some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial
clans who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet privatization.
On some issues Yushchenko may
be a better potential president than Yanukovich, but to suggest
he would provide a sea-change in Ukrainian politics and economic
management is naive. Nor is there much evidence to imagine that,
were he the incumbent president facing a severe challenge, he
would not have tried to falsify the poll.
Countless elections in the post-Soviet
space have been manipulated to a degree which probably reversed
the result, usually by unfair use of state television, and sometimes
by direct ballot rigging. Boris Yeltsin's constitutional referendum
in Russia in 1993 and his re- election in 1996 were early cases.
Azerbaijan's presidential vote last year was also highly suspicious.
Yet after none of those polls
did the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
the main international observer body, or the US and other western
governments, make the furious noise they are producing today.
The decision to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik
and whether the challengers or the incumbent are considered more
"pro- western" or "pro-market".
In Ukraine, Yushchenko got the
western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support
him, ranging from the youth organisation, Pora, to various opposition
websites. More provocatively, the US and other western embassies
paid for exit polls, prompting Russia to do likewise, though
apparently to a lesser extent.
Intervening in foreign elections,
under the guise of an impartial interest in helping civil society,
has become the run-up to the postmodern coup d'etat, the CIA-
sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet
conditions. Instruments of democracy are used selectively to
topple unpopular dictators, once a successor candidate or regime
has been groomed.
In Ukraine's case this is playing
with fire. Not only is the country geographically and culturally
divided - a recipe for partition or even civil war - it is also
an important neighbor to Russia. Putin has been clumsy, but to
accuse Russia of imperialism because it shows close interest
in adjoining states and the Russian-speaking minorities who live
there is a wild exaggeration.
Ukraine has been turned into
a geostrategic matter not by Moscow but by the US, which refuses
to abandon its cold war policy of encircling Russia and seeking
to pull every former Soviet republic to its side. The EU should
have none of this. Many Ukrainians certainly want a more democratic
system. Putin is not inherently against this, however authoritarian
he is in his own country. What concerns him is instability, the
threat of anti-Russian regimes on his borders, and American mischief.
The EU should therefore press
for a compromise in Kiev, which might include power-sharing.
More importantly, it should give Ukraine the option of future
membership rather than the feeble "action plan" of
cooperation currently on offer. This would set Ukraine on a surer
path to irreversible reform than anything that either Yushchenko
or Yanukovich may promise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1359969,00.html
PETER SCHWARZ, WORLD SOCIALIST
- In the Western media, this struggle for power is portrayed
as a conflict between the forces of dictatorship and democracy,
between an autocratic regime and a democratic opposition. But
a closer examination presents a very different picture. Both
Yushchenko and Yanukovich have their roots in the new elite which
divided the wealth of the country after the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Differences between the two camps are of recent origin.
From 1993 to 1999, Yushchenko
was head of the Ukrainian central bank, and from 1999 to April
2001, he was prime minister‹serving in both posts under
President Leonid Kuchma, who is now considered to be the power
behind Yanukovich. As head of the central bank and prime minister,
Yushchenko was one of the most important architects of a policy
of economic liberalization and privatization, which has had devastating
social effects. With an average monthly income of 65 euros, the
Ukraine has one of the poorest populations in Europe, while an
infinitesimal layer of nouveau riche has accumulated enormous
wealth.
The conflict within the new elite
revolves around the question of how best to defend its privileged
status‹in a close alliance with Russia, or by a further
opening up to Western capitalist interests. President Kuchma,
who came to power in1994 and must now step down, carried out
a careful balancing act. On the one hand, he strived to establish
close cooperation with the European Union and the US. He made
several agreements with the European Union aimed, so far unsuccessfully,
at gaining admission to NATO, and even sent 1,500 soldiers to
support the US occupation in Iraq. On the other hand, he maintained
close relations with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
It is no longer possible to maintain
this posture. The Ukraine has suddenly become the focal point
of intense rivalries between Russia, on the one side, and the
US and the European Union, on the other. Both sides intervened
in a massive fashion in the election campaign and supported without
scruple their respective favourites‹Russia backing Yanukovich
and the Western powers supporting Yushchenko. Both sides are
pursuing their own economic and geo-political interests.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/ukr-n25.shtml
SABRA AYRES, COX NEWS SERVICE
- For the West, there also is a lot at stake in the outcome of
the Ukrainian election. The United States has given billions
of dollars in aid to Ukraine in the last 13 years, and there
are currently more Peace Corps volunteers in Ukraine than anywhere
else in the world. Much of the U.S. money went toward dismantling
Ukraine's huge arsenal of nuclear weapons under the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which was initiated by
former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and current Sen. Richard Lugar,
R-Ind. The United States placed great hope that Ukraine would
be a strategic buffer zone between Europe and Russia.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/201404_ukraineanal27.html?searchpagef
rom=1&searchdiff=1
TELEGRAPH, UK - Ukraine is split,
with the western, Europe-leaning regions voting overwhelmingly
for Mr Yushchenko while the eastern part of the country - where
many speak Russian - backing Mr Yanukovich. Maya Syta, a journalist
working at polling station 73 in a Kiev suburb, witnessed ballot
papers destroyed with acid poured into a ballot box. "The
officials were taking them out of the box and they couldn't understand
why they were wet," she said. "Then I saw they started
to blacken and disintegrate as if they were burning. Two ballots
were wrapped up into a tube with a yellow liquid inside. After
a few moments they were completely eaten up.". . .
The most common trick was "carousel"
voting, in which busloads of Yanukovich supporters simply drove
from one polling station to another casting multiple false absentee
ballots. In another brazen fraud recorded by observers from the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, voters
were given pens filled with ink that disappeared, leaving ballots
unmarked and invalid. . .
In recent years, a resurgent
Russia under President Vladimir Putin has sought to reassert
control over Kiev. Ukraine is an important pipeline route for
Russian oil and gas, and a friendly regime will not impose high
transit fees. The country's Black Sea port of Sevastopol is also
home to Russia's southern naval fleet, offering easy access to
the Mediterranean. Moscow is pushing for the creation of a "joint
economic space" in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine
- a project that Mr Yushchenko has said would dilute the country's
sovereignty. . .
Western countries such as Britain
and the United States support Mr Yushchenko - who promises a
turn towards Europe and pursuit of Nato membership. His supporters
have been wooed with millions of dollars from the United States.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/28/wukra28.xml
IAN TRAYNOR, GUARDIAN, UK - Ukraine,
traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by
the young democracy activists and will never be the same again.
But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution"
are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated
and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass
marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used
to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US
government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats,
the two big American parties and US non-government organisations,
the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to
beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box. . .
The operation - engineering democracy
through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick
that the methods have matured into a template for winning other
people's elections. In the centre of Belgrade, there is a dingy
office staffed by computer-literate youngsters who call themselves
the Centre for Non-violent Resistance. If you want to know how
to beat a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, the
courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations, the young
Belgrade activists are for hire. . .
Stickers, spray paint and websites
are the young activists' weapons. Irony and street comedy mocking
the regime have been hugely successful in puncturing public fear
and enraging the powerful. . .
The Democratic party's National
Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican
Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies
involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom
House NGO and billionaire George Soros's open society institute.
US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise
focus groups . . . The usually fractious oppositions have to
be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance
of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic
and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American. .
.
Officially, the US government
spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long
operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine,
the figure is said to be around $14m. . .
Freedom House and the Democratic
party's NDI helped fund and organise the "largest civil
regional election monitoring effort" in Ukraine, involving
more than 1,000 trained observers. They also organised exit polls.
On Sunday night those polls gave Mr Yushchenko an 11-point lead
and set the agenda for much of what has followed. The exit polls
are seen as critical because they seize the initiative in the
propaganda battle with the regime, invariably appearing first,
receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the authorities
to respond.
JOHN LAUGHLAND, GUARDIAN - The
western media's view of Ukraine's election is hopelessly biased.
There was a time when the left was in favor of revolution, while
the right stood unambiguously for the authority of the state.
Not any more. This week both the anti-war Independent and the
pro-war Telegraph excitedly announced a "revolution"
in Ukraine. Across the pond, the rightwing Washington Times welcomed
"the people versus the power".
Whether it is Albania in 1997,
Serbia in 2000, Georgia last November or Ukraine now, our media
regularly peddle the same fairy tale about how youthful demonstrators
manage to bring down an authoritarian regime, simply by attending
a rock concert in a central square. Two million anti-war demonstrators
can stream though the streets of London and be politically ignored,
but a few tens of thousands in central Kiev are proclaimed to
be "the people", while the Ukrainian police, courts
and governmental institutions are discounted as instruments of
oppression.
The western imagination is now so gripped by its own mythology
of popular revolution that we have become dangerously tolerant
of blatant double standards in media reporting.
Enormous rallies have been held
in Kiev in support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich,
but they are not shown on our TV screens: if their existence
is admitted, Yanukovich supporters are denigrated as having been
"bussed in'" The demonstrations in favour of Viktor
Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound
systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities
of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are
spontaneous...."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360236,00.html
ooo
FEBRUARY 2007
HALF OF WORLD'S LANGUAGES COULD BE LOST
IN A FEW DECADES
DAVID PERLMAN, SF CHRONICLE -
Of the 426 members of Siberia's isolated Chulym people, only
35 still speak Tuvan, their ancient language fluently, and they're
all older than 50. Everyone else speaks only Russian, according
to K. David Harrison, an adventuresome linguist at Swarthmore
College in Pennsylvania. Harrison has lived with the Chulym and
hopes to preserve their vanishing language.
The Chulym can fully describe a "2-year-old
male castrated rideable reindeer" with only the single word
chary, and to Harrison, that not only shows how ancient languages
differ from their modern counterparts, but is symbolic of a worldwide
loss in important cultural diversity.
Harrison was among those who addressed
the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science in San Francisco. Of the estimated 7,600 languages
known in the world today, half are endangered and could be lost
forever within a few decades, he said.
"Many will go extinct," he said, "and there's
a compelling social reason to preserve them, for their disappearance
is an erosion of human knowledge."
The Chulym, for example, have a valuable
special knowledge of medicinal plants, of meteorology, hunting
and gathering, Harrison said, and that knowledge, which they
can describe in their own cryptic language, will be lost to biologists
if it isn't reclaimed, he said.
JANUARY 2007
SPAIN OUTDOES U.S. & OTHER COUNTRIES
IN ANTI-POVERTY DONATION TO U.N.
UPI - U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan praised Spain for donating $700 million to help .
. . implement . . . eight globally agreed targets that aim to
combat poverty and other social ills. "I would just like
... to acknowledge the magnificent announcement . . . that Spain
is donating $700 million to the effort. . . " the secretary-general
said.
"This is the largest contribution yet made to the United
Nations for this purpose by any country, and I believe it is
a splendid example of international solidarity which I hope other
members will follow," said Annan.
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20061219-061645-8823r
UNICEF: EQUALITY FOR WOMEN
IMPROVES CARE FOR CHILDREN
BBC - The UN children's agency,
UNICEF, found that where women are excluded from family decisions,
children are more likely to be under-nourished. There would be
13m fewer malnourished children in South Asia if women had an
equal say in the family, UNICEF said. UNICEF surveyed family
decision-making in 30 countries around the world. Their chief
finding is that equality between men and women is essential to
lowering poverty and improving health, especially of children,
in developing countries. . . Where men control the household,
less money is spent on health care and food for the family, resulting
in poorer health for the children
NOVEMBER 2006
NEW BOOK CHALLENGES HOW FOREIGN AID
IS DOLED OUT
MICHAEL DUFFY, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - Perhaps the most important question
of our time is why the West's efforts to help the world's poorest
people have been so disappointing and even counterproductive.
In the past 50 years, we have spent $US2.3 trillion on foreign
aid, to disturbingly little effect. An important new book suggests
this has had a lot to do with the arrogance of the "big
push" approach favored by many development economists and
organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations.
William Easterly is a professor
of economics at New York University. He used to be a believer:
for 16 years he was a research economist at the World Bank and
worked extensively in Africa, Latin America and Russia. What
changed his attitude was the growing amount of research showing
the failures of aid, described in his book The White Man's Burden.
Easterly says the $US2.3 trillion
hasn't achieved what it should have. This is because much of
it has been given as part of a never-ending series of internationally
planned and coordinated "big plans". He believes the
alternative would be to encourage more market-oriented activities
among the poor themselves.
Those, such as Bono, Bob Geldof
and the economist Jeffrey Sachs, who still advocate the traditional
approach he calls Planners, while those looking for a bottom-up
alternative are Searchers. According to Easterly: "In foreign
aid, Planners announce good intentions but don't motivate anyone
to carry them out; Searchers find things that work and get some
reward. Planners raise expectations but take no responsibility
for meeting them; Searchers accept responsibility for their actions
… Planners at the top lack knowledge of the bottom; Searchers
find out what the reality is at the bottom."
In effect he's saying that much
foreign aid is delivered using a Soviet approach that Westerners
would never dream of applying to their own economies. This might
sound like a right-wing rant, but Easterly's book is full of
data in support of his claims. . .
Easterly believes the time has
come to abandon big plans and adopt a more humble range of approaches
that involve much more feedback from aid recipients. We need
to look at small things that work locally and see if they can
be replicated elsewhere. . .
UN OFFICIAL: DARFUR IN FREE
FALL
EDITH M. LEDERER, AP - The conflict in Darfur has spread to
two neighboring countries and is now in "free fall"
with six million people facing the prospect of going without
food or protection, the outgoing U.N. humanitarian chief said.
Jan Egeland, who steps down on Dec. 12, told The Associated Press
in an interview that one of the most difficult problems he has
faced was convincing countries of the dire situation in the western
region of Sudan. "I think some of the Arab countries and
Asian countries have not really understood we're in a free fall.
It's not a steady deterioration. It's a free fall and it includes
Darfur, eastern Chad, northern Central African Republic,"
he said.
Egeland blamed the Sudanese government,
parts of the rebel movement, ethnic leaders in Darfur, and the
government of Chad for fueling the war, which began in 2003 when
rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led
central government. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by unleashing
the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads, who are accused of the
worst atrocities. More than 200,000 people have been killed and
2.5 million displaced in the fighting, and the violence has only
increased since the government and one rebel group signed a peace
agreement in May.
AIDS UPDATE
INDEPENDENT, UK - According to
the United Nations, some 25 million people have already died
from AIDS. A further 40 million men, women and children are living
with HIV. Since the turn of the millennium, 24.2 million people
have been infected, 15.6 million have died. If the world continues
on its present course, AIDS is set to surpass the Black Death
of the 14th century as the deadliest outbreak of disease in human
history. . .
The emergence of antiretroviral
drugs, hailed by researchers as a "miracle" on a par
with the discovery of penicillin, means that in the affluent
West at least, HIV is now a treatable disease. The tragic irony
is that in Britain infection rates among some communities continue
to rise. It was reported last week that incidences among gay
men had reached their highest level since 1981 as safe sex practices
were being ignored.
In Africa it is a different story.
In Rwanda, where rapid advances in treatment have helped hundreds
of thousands, doctors call it the "Lazarus effect"
- just two antiretroviral drugs can restore a stricken patient
to almost full health. Costing less than a dollar a day, they
can be bought from any corner shop.
The tragic irony here is that
even at this price, they are too expensive. Africa is seeing
the fastest growth of any region of the world with an infection
rate of 15 per cent. Perhaps hardest hit are the 2 million HIV-affected
children of the region, who contracted the virus in the womb
or during breastfeeding. Global drug-makers have little interest
in making smaller doses of their life-saving medicines. The bigger
profits are in the markets of the developed world among the sick,
rich adults.
So doctors in Africa are forced
to crush adult pills into child-sized doses. However, a deal
will be announced today between two Indian drug-makers and former
US president Bill Clinton's foundation which promises to reduce
dramatically the cost of treating children infected with HIV-AIDS
next year.
But in some countries the threat
of AIDS is compounded by political failure. In Zimbabwe, President
Robert Mugabe has promoted traditional medicines over antiretrovirals
and displaced 1 million of his poorest urban citizens, disrupting
their treatment and increasing the infection rates in rural areas.
And even science has its limits.
The hunt for a vaccine two decades after it was claimed to be
just five years away from completion remains as elusive as ever.
. .
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2029298.ece
UN REPORT: URBAN POOR A TICKING TIME
BOMB
JEREMY LOVELL, REUTERS - The
world's growing number of poor slum dwellers is a ticking time
bomb that governments dare not ignore, the United Nations said
on Friday. The world will pass a critical point in 2007 when
the majority of its 6 billion people will be urbanized, the world
body said. One-third of them will be slum dwellers, many trapped
in poverty but overlooked by governments and with no prospects
of improvement. "When a critical mass of people are in one
place, if you don't empower them they will empower themselves
through revolution," Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat
said in London. . . Far from being better off than their rural
cousins, the urban poor were in many ways worse off, ignored
by aid agencies and with little access to housing, adequate sanitation,
clean water, education or health services. For example, even
the children of relatively affluent slum dwellers had higher
rates of killer diarrhea than poor children in the countryside,
the report said, noting that slum dwellers also tended to die
young. . . In sub-Saharan Africa, 72 percent of the urban population
live in slums, attracted there by prospects of a better life
but, once sucked in, are trapped in a cycle of poverty, degradation
and violence. By 2030, the urban population of Africa, the least
urbanized continent, will be larger than the total population
of Europe, the U.N. report said.
http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=155708
AIDS EPIDEMIC CONTINUES TO GROW
UNITED NATIONS - Despite some
promising trends, the global AIDS epidemic continues to grow,
with 2.9 million deaths and 4.3 million new HIV infections in
the past year, amid worrying evidence of a resurgence in infection
rates in some countries that were previously stable or declining,
according to latest United Nations data. Said UN World Health
Organization Acting Director-General Anders Nordstrom, "In
sub-Saharan Africa, the worst affected region, life expectancy
at birth is now just 47 years, which is 30 years less than most
high-income countries," he added of the data, which show
that 2.8 million, or 65 per cent, of new infections occurred
in sub-Saharan Africa, with important increases in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia where some indications register a more than
50 per cent rise since 2004. Overall an estimated 39.5 million
people are living with HIV worldwide.
Among positive trends noted are
declines in infection rates in some countries, changes in young
people's sexual behaviors, and increased access to treatment
and prevention programs. But in many countries prevention programs
are not reaching those most at risk, such as young people, women
and girls, men who have sex with men, sex workers and their clients,
injecting drug users, and ethnic and cultural minorities.
In North America and Western
Europe, prevention programs have often not been sustained and
new infection rates have remained the same. In low- and middle-income
countries, there are only a few examples of rate reductions.
And some countries that had shown earlier successes in reducing
new infections, such as Uganda, have either slowed or are now
experiencing increasing infection rates.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20668&Cr=aids&Cr1=
SOME SENSIBLE WORDS ABOUT THE NORTH
KOREAN SITUATION
JIMMY
CARTER, NY TIMES - Responding to an invitation from President
Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and with the approval of President
Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and negotiated an agreement
under which North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon
and permit inspectors from the atomic agency to return to the
site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. It was
also agreed that direct talks would be held between the two Koreas.
The spent fuel (estimated to
be adequate for a half-dozen bombs) continued to be monitored,
and extensive bilateral discussions were held. The United States
assured the North Koreans that there would be no military threat
to them, that it would supply fuel oil to replace the lost nuclear
power and that it would help build two modern atomic power plants,
with their fuel rods and operation to be monitored by international
inspectors. The summit talks resulted in South Korean President
Kim Dae-jung earning the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his successful
efforts to ease tensions on the peninsula.
But beginning in 2002, the United
States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened
military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction
of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral
talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean
spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed
a serious danger to their country and to its political regime.
Responding in its ill-advised
but predictable way, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, expelled atomic energy agency inspectors, resumed processing
fuel rods and began developing nuclear explosive devices.
Six-nation talks finally concluded
in an agreement last September that called for North Korea to
abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and
for the United States and North Korea to respect each other's
sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize
relations. Each side subsequently claimed that the other had
violated the agreement. The United States imposed severe financial
sanctions and Pyongyang adopted the deeply troubling nuclear
option.
The current military situation
is similar but worse than it was a decade ago: we can still destroy
North Korea's army, but if we do it is likely to result in many
more than a million South Korean and American casualties. . .
One option, the most likely one,
is to try to force Pyongyang's leaders to abandon their nuclear
program with military threats and a further tightening of the
embargoes, increasing the suffering of its already starving people.
Two important facts must be faced: Kim Jong-il and his military
leaders have proven themselves almost impervious to outside pressure,
and both China and South Korea have shown that they are reluctant
to destabilize the regime. This approach is also more likely
to stimulate further nuclear weapons activity.
The other option is to make an
effort to put into effect the September denuclearization agreement,
which the North Koreans still maintain is feasible. The simple
framework for a step-by-step agreement exists, with the United
States giving a firm and direct statement of no hostile intent,
and moving toward normal relations if North Korea forgoes any
further nuclear weapons program and remains at peace with its
neighbors. Each element would have to be confirmed by mutual
actions combined with unimpeded international inspections.
Although a small nuclear test
is a far cry from even a crude deliverable bomb, this second
option has become even more difficult now, but it is unlikely
that the North Koreans will back down unless the United States
meets this basic demand. Washington's pledge of no direct talks
could be finessed through secret discussions with a trusted emissary
like former Secretary of State Jim Baker, who earlier this week
said, "It's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."
What must be avoided is to leave
a beleaguered nuclear nation convinced that it is permanently
excluded from the international community, its existence threatened,
its people suffering horrible deprivation and its hard-liners
in total control of military and political policy.
12 MILLION PEOPLE IN SLAVERY
SCOTSMAN - At least 12 million
people, most of them children, are trapped in slavery, a human
rights activist said. Children are ensnared in pornography and
prostitution and exploited as cheap labor and child soldiers.
"They are more vulnerable, cheaper to hire and less likely
to demand higher wages or better working conditions," Sarah
Williams, of Anti-Slavery International, said of the 8.4 million
children who are slaves. . . Hundreds of thousands of people
in Burma have been forced to work as farm labourers, army porters
or construction workers for little or no pay. Women are trafficked
from Albania and Moldova and forced into prostitution in France,
Italy and Britain. Men are trafficked in Mexico to work on US
farms. The child sold as a camel jockey, the woman forced into
prostitution, the migrant worker whose passport is confiscated
by his gang master boss - all in effect are slaves, she said.
She was speaking at a London seminar reviewing how Britain plans
to mark the bicentenary next year of the abolition of its slave
trade.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1535672006
DIARRHEA FROM POOR SANITATION KILLS
1.8 MILLION CHILDREN A YEAR
ALL AFRICA - A global action
plan under G8 leadership is urgently needed to resolve a growing
water and sanitation crisis that causes nearly two million child
deaths every year, says the 2006 Human Development Report. .
. Each year, the authors report, 1.8 million children die from
diarrhea that could be prevented with access to clean water and
a toilet; 443 million school days are lost to water-related illnesses;
and almost 50 percent of all people in developing countries are
suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by a
lack of water and sanitation. To add to these human costs, the
crisis in water and sanitation holds back economic growth, with
sub-Saharan Africa losing five percent of GDP annually-far more
than the region receives in aid.
Yet unlike wars and natural disasters,
this global crisis does not galvanize concerted international
action, says the 2006 Human Development Report. "Like hunger,
it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated
by those with the resources, the technology and the political
power to end it," says the report. . .
"When it comes to water
and sanitation, the world suffers from a surplus of conference
activity and a deficit of credible action. The diversity of international
actors has militated against the development of strong international
champions for water and sanitation," says Kevin Watkins,
lead author of the 2006 Human Development Report.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200611090007.html
SEPTEMBER 2006
THE GRIM FACTS OF AFRICA
PAUL VALLELY, INDEPENDENT UK
- Women work two-thirds of Africa's working hours, and produce
70 per cent of its food, yet earn only 10 per cent of its income,
and own less than 1 per cent of its property. They work three
hours a day longer than the average British woman does on professional
and domestic work combined. . .
Only 37 per cent survive to the
age of 65, compared with almost 90 per cent in the UK. A poor
woman in Malawi is 200 times more likely to die as a result of
pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in the UK. Some 250,000
women die each year from complications compared to just 1,500
in Europe. . .
In Africa, one in three children
does not go to school. Two thirds of the 40 million non-attenders
are girls and the illiteracy among women in places such as Mozambique
is double that of men. . .
More than 75 per cent of the
population of Ethiopia lack access to safe drinking-water. .
. Access to clean water would save women and girls walking an
average six kilometres a day to fetch water, freeing more time
for the family, for school and for productive work. Yet the rich
world's aid to the water sector has fallen by 25 per cent since
1996.
One in six children in Africa
dies before their fifth birthday. Average spending on health
per person in Africa in 2001 was between $13 and $21; in the
developed world it is more than $2,000 per person per year. African
health systems are at the point of collapse after years of massive
under-investment. . .
Of the 25 million people living
with HIV and Aids in Africa, nearly 57 per cent are women. That
figure rises to 80 per cent among those aged 15 to 19. . .
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1655627.ece
JUNE 2006
UN REPORT: URBAN POOR A TICKING TIME
BOMB
JEREMY LOVELL, REUTERS - The
world's growing number of poor slum dwellers is a ticking time
bomb that governments dare not ignore, the United Nations said
on Friday. The world will pass a critical point in 2007 when
the majority of its 6 billion people will be urbanized, the world
body said. One-third of them will be slum dwellers, many trapped
in poverty but overlooked by governments and with no prospects
of improvement. "When a critical mass of people are in one
place, if you don't empower them they will empower themselves
through revolution," Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat
said in London. . . Far from being better off than their rural
cousins, the urban poor were in many ways worse off, ignored
by aid agencies and with little access to housing, adequate sanitation,
clean water, education or health services. For example, even
the children of relatively affluent slum dwellers had higher
rates of killer diarrhea than poor children in the countryside,
the report said, noting that slum dwellers also tended to die
young. . . In sub-Saharan Africa, 72 percent of the urban population
live in slums, attracted there by prospects of a better life
but, once sucked in, are trapped in a cycle of poverty, degradation
and violence. By 2030, the urban population of Africa, the least
urbanized continent, will be larger than the total population
of Europe, the U.N. report said.
http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=155708
THE RISE OF THE STATELET
FRED WEIR, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR - As goes Montenegro, so goes Kosovo, Transdniestria,
and South Ossetia? As Montenegro officially declared independence
this weekend, accepting the world's welcome into the community
of nations, a handful of obscure "statelets" are demanding
the same opportunity to choose their own destinies.
In the latest example, Transdniestria,
a Russian-speaking enclave that won de facto independence in
the early 1990s, declared last week that it will hold a Montenegro-style
referendum in September as part of its campaign for statehood.
Experts [sic] fear that many
"frozen conflicts" around the world - in which a territory
has gained de facto independence through war but failed to win
international recognition - could reignite as ethnic minorities
demand the same right to self-determination that many former
Yugoslav territories have been offered by the international community.
. .
The United Nations Charter mentions
both the right of "self-determination" of peoples and
the "territorial integrity" of states as bedrock principles
of the world order. But these principles come into conflict when
a separatist minority threatens to rupture an existing country.
Russia, which has a score of ethnic "republics," including
an active rebellion in Chechnya, has long championed the "territorial
integrity" side of the equation. But the Kremlin's emphasis,
at least regarding some of its neighbors, appears to be shifting.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0605/p01s02-woeu.html?s=hns
AFRICA AID EATEN UP BY CONSULTANTS
MOYIGA NDURU, INTER PRESS SERVICE
- No less than a quarter of annual development aid -- about 20
billion dollars -- is being used by donor countries to fund technical
assistance of sometimes dubious worth, says Action Aid International
in a new report. . . The term "technical assistance"
refers to research, training, and the services rendered by consultants
-- some of whom command fees that ActionAid finds excessive.
According to the report, based on 2004 data, it typically costs
about 200,000 dollars a year to keep an expatriate consultant
on staff. School fees and child allowances account for more than
a third of this expense, which could be reduced with greater
use of local advisors. "Money is being spent on consultants
who are earning up to 1,000 dollars a day," Caroline Sande
Mukulira, South Africa country director for ActionAid International,
told IPS Wednesday.
Notes the report, "High
salaries paid to expatriate advisors can also cause significant
resentment among counterparts and the public in the south."
"In the Ghana education
service headquarters, government officials receive about 300
dollars a month, what a relatively inexperienced Ghanaian consultant
could expect to earn in a day, and a foreign consultant in a
few hours," it adds.
The report also mentions a former
UK-funded consultant's claim that their daily take-home pay in
Sierra Leone was the same as the monthly salary of the auditor
general.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200607060070.html
WHY SOME OF THE LEFT SPLITS FROM LIBERALS
ON DARFUR
JUSTIN RAIMONDO, ANTIWAR - Whenever
I speak on campus, I always get the "But what about Darfur?"
question. This usually comes in tandem with the inevitable Holocaust
question, which goes something like this: "Yes, I agree
with your opposition to the Iraq war, and your anti-interventionist
sentiments in general, but what about our moral responsibility
to prevent another Holocaust?" . . .
My questioner, I should point
out, is usually not some warmongering neocon, but the most well-meaning
of all lefties, who is savagely critical of the neoconservative
agenda of "democratizing" the Middle East at gunpoint,
but, when it comes to Darfur, all discernment, all the lessons
of the past, are thrown out the window, and emotions take over.
. .
Darfur, where as many as 300,000
may have been killed, has become an international cause celebre
and rallying cry for the internationalist liberals, the kind
who pride themselves on having a conscience and who constantly
invoke the tragedy of Darfur as a potential model for "humanitarian
intervention." They think that they are different from the
neocons in kind because they advocate intervention for a "good"
cause, because they are motivated by kindness, benevolence, and
all those other liberal internationalist virtues that make them
such so much better people than Richard Perle and Bill Kristol.
This shows that whatever foreign
policy debate occurs in this country is not about the policy
- almost no one questions the wisdom and absolute necessity of
global interventionism - but about motivation: President Bush,
Donald Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice care about oil, money, Israel,
and self-glorification, not necessarily in that order. We care
about helping poor blacks, stopping genocide, and dispensing
American treasure to the underprivileged albeit deserving peoples
of the Third World. . .
Before we send tens of thousands
more American troops into a very troubled region of the world,
let us examine what these "Darfur advocates" are advocating.
Both Tony Blair and retired U.S. general Wesley Clark have argued
in favor of intervention, raising the "successful"
war and occupation in Kosovo as a model. That was one war we
didn't hear much about from the great mass of present-day "antiwar"
protesters, who apparently thought that attacking a country that
represented no threat to the U.S. and had never attacked us was
okay, so long as it was done by a Democratic president. By going
into Darfur under the rubric of "humanitarianism,"
the War Party can sell to anti-Bush liberals the idea of opening
up another front in the Muslim world. . .
From a realistic point of view,
there is nothing U.S. military intervention can accomplish in
Sudan except to make things far worse. Sudan would soon become
Iraq II, with an influx of jihadists and a nationalistic reaction
against what would become, after a short time, a de facto occupation
very similar to what the Iraqis have to endure. The rebel groups,
aided by Sudan's neighbors, such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, would
metastasize, more weapons would pour into the region, and the
probable result would be a humanitarian disaster on a much larger
scale. . .
"Saving" Darfur would
mean opening up another theater in what the neocons refer to
as "World War IV." Spreading outward from Iraq, this
global conflict will pit the U.S. against a wide variety of enemies,
both freelance and state-sponsored, swelling the ranks of terrorist
outfits and inviting further attacks on U.S. soil. This could
be construed as a "humanitarian" intervention only
in the Bizarro World inhabited by our leaders, including those
hailing from the entertainment industry. . .
Oh, so you're against intervening
in Darfur, eh? Don't you care about starving African babies?
That our intervention will likely as not lead to more starving
African babies, rather than less, is in my opinion indubitably
true, yet even if it were not, intervention would still be a
mistake. It would be a grave error because there is no lack of
"humanitarian disasters" in this world, and the alleviation
of all of them cannot be the goal of U.S. foreign policy. That
would have to mean perpetual warfare, on a global scale, waged
by the U.S. against countless legions of enemies, including many
yet to be born.
It is a recipe for endless trouble,
increasing expenditures, and eventual bankruptcy, moral as well
as financial. Because, in the end, we'll discover that the whole
thing was cooked up by disparate interests with hidden agendas,
in order to profit financially or politically. The truth will
come out: it always does.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8922
WILL YOUMANS AND M. KAY SIBLANI,
COUNTERPUNCH - Emily Wax wrote in the Washington Post:
"Although analysts have
emphasized the racial and ethnic aspects of the conflict in Darfur,
a long-running political battle between Sudanese President Omar
Hassan Bashir and radical Islamic cleric Hassan al-Turabi may
be more relevant." Al-Turabi and Bashir are political rivals.
Al-Turabi, though sequestered in his villa, actively stimulates
anti-government uprisings. Wax quotes a Sudanese human rights
worker: "Darfur is simply the battlefield for a power struggle
over Khartoum," said Ghazi Suleiman. "That's why the
government hit back so hard. They saw al-Turabi's hand, and they
want to stay in control of Sudan at any cost."
Wax also pointed out that nearly
everyone is Muslim, everyone is black, it's all about politics,
the conflict is international and the 'genocide' label made it
worse.
The differences in Darfur are
largely between lifestyles: the sedentary versus the nomadic
peoples (from among whom the notorious Janjaweed come). The difference
between Arabs and non-Arabs is also ethno-linguistic.
Whatever the cause of the divisions,
mass murder and displacement are wrong. For activists and analysts
to work on this, however, they need to grasp the basic issues.
Mischaracterizing the causes can be regressive. The call for
divestment from Sudan, for instance, though well-intentioned
for some, is a mistaken approach.
Foreign Policy ranked Sudan the
most failed state in the world. Three decades of war and famine
after famine does that to a country. That it beat out barely-functioning
states such as Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, speaks to the threadbare
sovereignty the government suffers. For a country like Sudan,
in a continent like Africa, investment is needed. The U.S. and
Western powers should support the African Union and bolster it
with aid. They should take the billions they give Israel and
give them to Africa. . .
Let the African Union have incentives
to offer and the ability to mobilize to quell death and destruction
in Darfur, Sierra Leone, and most urgently, the Congo. Africa
as a whole needs the world's assistance. Five of the top ten
failed states in the Foreign Policy report are in Africa.
http://www.counterpunch.org/youmans05082006.html
APRIL 2006
CHINA SHOWS THE CORPORADOS HOW TO DO
IT
JOSEPH STIGLITZ, GUARDIAN - China
is about to adopt its 11th five-year plan, setting the stage
for the continuation of probably the most remarkable economic
transformation in history, while improving the wellbeing of almost
a quarter of the world's population. Never before has the world
seen such sustained growth; never before has there been so much
poverty reduction.
Part of the key to China's long-run
success has been its almost unique combination of pragmatism
and vision. While much of the rest of the developing world, following
the Washington consensus, has been directed at a quixotic quest
for higher GDP, China has again made clear that it seeks sustainable
and more equitable increases in real living standards. China
realizes that it has entered a phase of economic growth that
is imposing enormous - and unsustainable - demands on the environment.
Unless there is a change in course, living standards will eventually
be compromised. That is why the new plan places great emphasis
on the environment.
Many of the more backward parts
of China have been growing at a pace that would be a marvel,
were it not that other parts of the country are growing even
more rapidly. While this has reduced poverty, inequality has
been increasing, with growing disparities between cities and
rural areas, and coastal regions and the interior. . .
Market economies are not self-regulating.
They cannot simply be left on autopilot, especially if one wants
to ensure that their benefits are shared widely. But managing
a market economy is no easy task. It is a balancing act that
must constantly respond to economic changes. China's plan provides
a road map for that response. The world watches in awe, and hope,
as the lives of 1.3 billion people continue to be transformed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1752817,00.html?gusrc=rss
FEBRUARY 2006
SHADOW OF STASI STILL
DARKENS GERMANY
DW, GERMANY - It is 16
years since the notorious and hated Stasi, the secret service
apparatus of the communist former East Germany, was disbanded
as democracy once more embraced the eastern regions of a divided
country. Time enough for a nation wounded and scarred by the
actions of an oppressive agency which thrived on the fear of
neighbor watching neighbor to heal. Or one would think. In fact,
the shadow of the Stasi continues to stretch and darken the land
with what appears to be a gradual yet constant stream of allegations
and scandals linked to prominent Germans and their supposed dealings
with the DDR's secret service.
The year is barely two
months old and the list of the great and good who could have
potentially been not so great and bad includes popular socialist
politician Gregor Gysi, the Olympic ice skating coach Ingo Steuer
and public broadcaster ARD's sports journalist Hagen Bossdorf.
Gysi, one time leader
of the former communist PDS party and now joint leader of the
renamed left wing alliance Left Party's parliamentary group,
finds himself the subject of on-going allegations that he once
worked for the secret police. These claims are nothing new. Gysi
has successfully defended himself against such claims in court
on numerous occasions.
Gysi wants reporters to
be banned from accessing his files But now, investigations by
journalists into the suspected Stasi backgrounds of a number
of prominent Left Party members, including Gysi who made his
name as a lawyer defending opponents of the communist regime
which was toppled in 1989, threatens to unearth damaging information.
. .
Unlike Gysi, there is
no doubt about the secret service involvement of figure skating
coach Ingo Steuer. Documents show that the former World Champion
pairs skater was employed by the Stasi from 1985 to 1989 and
spied on other athletes during that time. Steuer was initially
dropped by the German National Olympic Committee after the documents
came to light but a Berlin court overruled the decision and he
will travel to the Winter Olympic Games in Turin as coach to
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy. . . Steuer was one of 160
sportspeople investigated for possible Stasi ties. Ski-jumping
coach Henry Glass was also excluded from the German team for
Turin but has not contested the decision. A third German official
was also omitted although their identity has yet to be revealed.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1897816,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1124-rdf
JANUARY 2006
SPECIAL REPORT ON AFRICA'S FOOD CRISIS
INCLUDES CLICK-ON
MAP FOR COUNTRY DETAILS
NORTH KOREAN LEADER SAID TO PREFER U.S.
TO CHINA,
BUT WE'LL NEVER KNOW IF WE KEEP IGGING HIM
SEO DONG-SHIN, KOREA TIMES -
As the gridlock continues over a resumption of six-party talks
on North Korea's nuclear program, experts in Seoul seem worried
over U.S. policy toward Pyongyang. Jeong Se-hyun, who served
as South Korea's unification minister from 2002 to 2004, said
it might be wrong to expect an early resumption of the talks,
considering the harsh remarks made recent by U.S. administration
officials in regard to North Korea. . . "Washington seems
to want to keep North Korea as its 'necessary enemy' to maintain
its control and interests in the Northeast Asian region,"
Jeong said. . .
Expressing concern over the American
stance toward North Korea, some experts at the forum said that
the North Korean regime, especially Kim Jong-il, is more than
willing to improve bilateral relations with the United States.
Tong Kim, who on various occasions took part in meetings between
the U.S. and North Korean delegations, suggested that the North
Korea would rather be on the side of the United States than that
of China or Russia, the North's traditional allies. "Kim
Jong-il wants the United States, which has no territorial ambition
in the region, to play a balancing role in Northeast Asia,"
Tong Kim said. "He hopes that the United States will rein
in the competition for hegemony between China and Japan. Once
the United States politically accepts North Korea, Pyongyang's
harsh anti-American rhetoric will disappear at once."
http://www.watchingamerica.com/thekoreatimes000001.shtml
SHADOW OF STASI STILL DARKENS GERMANY
DW, GERMANY - It is 16 years
since the notorious and hated Stasi, the secret service apparatus
of the communist former East Germany, was disbanded as democracy
once more embraced the eastern regions of a divided country.
Time enough for a nation wounded and scarred by the actions of
an oppressive agency which thrived on the fear of neighbor watching
neighbor to heal. Or one would think. In fact, the shadow of
the Stasi continues to stretch and darken the land with what
appears to be a gradual yet constant stream of allegations and
scandals linked to prominent Germans and their supposed dealings
with the DDR's secret service.
The year is barely two months
old and the list of the great and good who could have potentially
been not so great and bad includes popular socialist politician
Gregor Gysi, the Olympic ice skating coach Ingo Steuer and public
broadcaster ARD's sports journalist Hagen Bossdorf.
Gysi, one time leader of the
former communist PDS party and now joint leader of the renamed
left wing alliance Left Party's parliamentary group, finds himself
the subject of on-going allegations that he once worked for the
secret police. These claims are nothing new. Gysi has successfully
defended himself against such claims in court on numerous occasions.
Gysi wants reporters to be banned from accessing his files But
now, investigations by journalists into the suspected Stasi backgrounds
of a number of prominent Left Party members, including Gysi who
made his name as a lawyer defending opponents of the communist
regime which was toppled in 1989, threatens to unearth damaging
information. . .
Unlike Gysi, there is no doubt about the secret service involvement
of figure skating coach Ingo Steuer. Documents show that the
former World Champion pairs skater was employed by the Stasi
from 1985 to 1989 and spied on other athletes during that time.
Steuer was initially dropped by the German National Olympic Committee
after the documents came to light but a Berlin court overruled
the decision and he will travel to the Winter Olympic Games in
Turin as coach to Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy. . . Steuer
was one of 160 sportspeople investigated for possible Stasi ties.
Ski-jumping coach Henry Glass was also excluded from the German
team for Turin but has not contested the decision. A third German
official was also omitted although their identity has yet to
be revealed.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1897816,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1124-rdf
GERMAN STATE INTRODUCES 'MUSLIM
TEST'
RAY FURLONG BBC - The Christian
Democrat-led government of Baden-Wuerttemberg, of which Stuttgart
is the capital, has just introduced new "discussion guidelines"
which have sparked national controversy. They consist of 30 questions
which can be put to applicants for German citizenship to see
if they share democratic values. But they have been strongly
attacked as aimed against the state's large Turkish community
- and dubbed "the Muslim test". . .
The questions, which have been
leaked to the German media, cover a range of subjects. A few
examples:
How do you view the statement
that a woman should obey her husband, and that he can beat her
if she doesn't?
You learn that people from your
neighborhood or from among friends or acquaintances have carried
out or are planning a terrorist attack - what do you do?
Some people hold the Jews responsible
for all the evil in the world, and even claim they were behind
the attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York. What is your view
of this claim?
Imagine that your son comes to
you and declares that he's a homosexual and would like to live
with another man. How do you react?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4655240.stm
DECEMBER 2005
COCAINE COUP AND COCA REVOLUTION
JEFF WELLS, RIGOROUS INTUITION
- As Evo Morales begins to exercise his unambiguous mandate,
it will be interesting, and quite likely disheartening, to watch
how Bolivia suddenly becomes a topic of great concern in certain
quarters; even possibly a crisis of national security demanding
intervention.
Here's an early example:
Jim Kouri, a Vice President of the National Association of Chiefs
of Police, written an opinion piece entitled "Bolivian Thug
Becomes President." He predictably blovates that the win
"will increase the destabilization of the South American
continent," and that Morales is an "ally of the drug
cartels and traffickers."
The continent enjoys far
greater stability today - and in the mental health sense of the
word, too - than in the days of death's head satraps employing
the methods of the School of the Americas and answerable to none
but Washington. And in an interview with Luis Gómez of
Narco News, former Bolivian guerrilla leader and presidential
candidate Felipe Quispe makes distinctions between coca and cocaine
that undoubtedly would be lost on Kouri:
"Coca has been, ancestrally,
a sacred leaf. We, the indigenous, have had a profound respect
toward it. . . a respect that includes that we don't "pisar"
it (treat the leaves with a chemical substance). In general,
we only use it to acullicar: We chew it during times of war,
during ritual ceremonies to salute Mother Earth (the Pachamama)
or Father Sun or other Aymara divinities, like the hills. Thus,
as an indigenous nation, we have never prostituted Mama Coca
or done anything artificial to it because it is a mother. It
is the occidentals who have prostituted it. It is they who made
it into a drug. This doesn't mean that we don't understand the
issue. We know that this plague threatens all of humanity and,
from that perspective, we believe that those who have prostituted
the coca have to be punished."
Kouri walks his readers
right up to "regime change": "Should [Morales's]
coca policy show an increase of cocaine on US city streets, his
regime will be seen as a national security threat and rightly
so."
Funny, that. Or rather,
like so many things these days, it would be funny if it didn't
mean people's lives. Because on July 17, 1980, "los Novios
de la Murete" - narcotics traffickers and mercenaries recruited
by fugitive Nazi and CIA asset Klaus Barbie - overthrew the democratic
government of Bolivia in the "Cocaine Coup." Cocaine
production increased dramatically and America was flooded with
the cheap drug. In his essay on the drug war's shills in Kristina
Borjesson's Into the Buzzsaw, 25-year DEA veteran Michael Levine
writes that "there are few events in history that have caused
more and longer-lasting damage to our nation." Bolivians
could say the same.
Levine made headlines
two months prior to the coup when his DEA sting netted Bolivian
cartel leaders Roberto Gasser and Alfredo Gutierrez outside a
Miami bank. He had paid them $8 million for the then-largest
ever seizure of cocaine. Just a few weeks later Gasser and Gutierrez
were released, thanks to pressure from the CIA and the State
Department, and weeks after that both men and their cartels became
principal financiers of the coup, and were rewarded by the new
regime with squads of neo-Nazis to bully their competition.
And then there's Sun Myung
Moon. Robert Parry remembers that one of the first international
well-wishers who travelled to La Paz to congratulate the putschists
was Moon's right hand Bo Hi Pak, former publisher of The Washington
Times and "Koreagate" principal, who declared "I
have erected a throne for Father Moon in the world's highest
city." Later disclosures from the Bolivian government strongly
suggested that Moon's organization had heavily invested in the
coup, and Parry writes that in 1981 "war criminal Barbie
and Moon leader Thomas Ward were often seen together in apparent
prayer." Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla, an Argentine intelligence
officer recruited by Barbie, described Ward as his "CIA
paymaster." His monthly salary was drawn from the offices
of Moon's anti-communist umbrella organization, CAUSA. (Moon
still has a huge stake in South America, having purchased the
land above the world's largest fresh water aquifer, in Paraguay.
These people play a long game.)
"Meanwhile,"
Parry adds, "Barbie started a secret lodge, called Thule.
During meetings, he lectured to his followers underneath swastikas
by candlelight." Old habits, hardly dying, and a polyglot
web of fascist patrons unashamed to profit by the labors of their
Nazi lieutenants.
And here's another would-be
funny thing: there were no American headlines about all of that.
None at all. But maybe that's enough talk for now about a coup,
while there's a revolution going on.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/12/cocaine-coup-and-coca-revolution.html
SAM SMITH: The changes
in Bolivia bring to mind something that happened some years back.
Your editor and friends were engaged in the futile enterprise
of attempting to make Americans for Democratic Action more progressive.
There was a debate over drug policy that featured the president
of the organization - Rep. Charles Rangel, a robotic drug prohibitionist
- and Eric Sterling of the enlightened Drug Strategy Network.
When it was Sterling's turn, he got up and said how pleased he
was to see Rep. Rangel again and that he remembered well the
trip they took to Bolivia when Sterling was a congressional staffer.
He recalled them landing in La Paz, being greeted by their hosts
and then being given some tea. . . coca tea. As Sterling told
the story, Rangel seemed to turn paler than Michael Jackson.
[From Morales' speech
at "In Defense of Humanity" forum in Mexico City, October
25, 2003. Translated by Ricardo Sala]
EVO MORALES - Thank you
for the invitation to this great meeting of intellectuals "In
Defense of Humanity." Thank you for your applause for the
Bolivian people, who have mobilized in these recent days of struggle,
drawing on our consciousness and our regarding how to reclaim
our natural resources.
What happened these past
days in Bolivia was a great revolt by those who have been oppressed
for more than 500 years. The will of the people was imposed this
September and October, and has begun to overcome the empire's
cannons. We have lived for so many years through the confrontation
of two cultures: the culture of life represented by the indigenous
people, and the culture of death represented by West. When we
the indigenous people ­ together with the workers and even
the businessmen of our country ­ fight for life and justice,
the State responds with its "democratic rule of law."
What does the "rule
of law" mean for indigenous people? For the poor, the marginalized,
the excluded, the "rule of law" means the targeted
assassinations and collective massacres that we have endured.
Not just this September and October, but for many years, in which
they have tried to impose policies of hunger and poverty on the
Bolivian people.
Above all, the "rule
of law" means the accusations that we, the Quechuas, Aymaras
and Guaranties of Bolivia keep hearing from our governments:
that we are narcos, that we are anarchists. This uprising of
the Bolivian people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons,
but an intersection of many issues: discrimination, marginalization
, and most importantly, the failure of neo-liberalism. . .
I want to tell you, companeras
and companeros, how we have built the consciousness of the Bolivian
people from the bottom up. How quickly the Bolivian people have
reacted, have said ­ as Subcomandate Marcos says ­ ¡ya
basta!, enough policies of hunger and misery. . .
Most importantly, we face
the task of ending selfishness and individualism, and creating
­ from the rural campesino and indigenous communities to
the urban slums ­ other forms of living, based on solidarity
and mutual aid. We must think about how to redistribute the wealth
that is concentrated among few hands. This is the great task
we Bolivian people face after this great uprising.
It has been very important
to organize and mobilize ourselves in a way based on transparency,
honesty, and control over our own organizations. And it has been
important not only to organize but also to unite. Here we are
now, united intellectuals in defense of humanity ­ I think
we must have not only unity among the social movements, but also
that we must coordinate with the intellectual movements. . .
It must be said, companeras
and companeros, that we must serve the social and popular movements
rather than the transnational corporations. I am new to politics;
I had hated it and had been afraid of becoming a career politician.
But I realized that politics had once been the science of serving
the people, and that getting involved in politics is important
if you want to help your people. By getting involved, I mean
living for politics, rather than living off of politics.
We have coordinated our
struggles between the social movements and political parties,
with the support of our academic institutions, in a way that
has created a greater national consciousness. That is what made
it possible for the people to rise up in these recent days. .
.
I believe only in the
power of the people. That was my experience in my own region,
a single province ­ the importance of local power. And now,
with all that has happened in Bolivia, I have seen the importance
of the power of a whole people, of a whole nation. For those
of us who believe it important to defend humanity, the best contribution
we can make is to help create that popular power. This happens
when we check our personal interests with those of the group.
Sometimes, we commit to
the social movements in order to win power. We need to be led
by the people, not use or manipulate them.
We may have differences
among our popular leaders ­ and it's true that we have them
in Bolivia. But when the people are conscious, when the people
know what needs to be done, any difference among the different
local leaders ends. We've been making progress in this for a
long time, so that our people are finally able to rise up, together.
http://salonchingon.com/readingroom/evomorales.php?city=ny
VIETNAM AND MEXICO SHOW HOW WRONG THE
GLOBISTS ARE
LARRY ELLIOTT, GUARDIAN - Economists
will have a field day explaining how the world is turning its
back on millions of dollars' worth of extra growth, and that
the poor countries will be the ones who will really suffer if
the global economy lapses back into a new dark age of protectionism.
That's certainly the accepted view. An alternative argument is
that the trade talks are pretty much irrelevant to development
and that in as much as they do matter, developing countries may
be buying a pup.
The Harvard economist Dani Rodrik
is one trade sceptic. Take Mexico and Vietnam, he says. One has
a long border with the richest country in the world and has had
a free-trade agreement with its neighbor across the Rio Grande.
It receives oodles of inward investment and sends its workers
across the border in droves. It is fully plugged in to the global
economy. The other was the subject of a US trade embargo until
1994 and suffered from trade restrictions for years after that.
Unlike Mexico, Vietnam is not even a member of the WTO.
So which of the two has the better
recent economic record? The question should be a no-brainer if
all the free-trade theories are right - Mexico should be streets
ahead of Vietnam. In fact, the opposite is true. Since Mexico
signed the Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) deal with
the US and Canada in 1992, its annual per capita growth rate
has barely been above 1%. Vietnam has grown by around 5% a year
for the past two decades. Poverty in Vietnam has come down dramatically:
real wages in Mexico have fallen.
Rodrik doesn't buy the argument
that the key to rapid development for poor countries is their
willingness to liberalize trade. Nor, for that matter, does he
think boosting aid makes much difference either. Looking around
the world, he looks in vain for the success stories of three
decades of neo-liberal orthodoxy: nations that have really made
it after taking the advice - willingly or not - of the IMF and
the World Bank.
Rather, the countries that have
achieved rapid economic take-off in the past 50 years have done
so as a result of policies tailored to their own domestic needs.
Vietnam shows that what you do at home is far more important
than access to foreign markets. There is little evidence that
trade barriers are an impediment to growth for those countries
following the right domestic policies.
JULY 2005.. . .
HOW TO INVEST IN RUSSIA
WATCHFUL INVESTOR - The best
way to make some real money in Russia according to [an] article
in Britain's The Guardian is getting a government job. Bribes
are now almost 10 times higher than they were 4 years ago. .
.
When I was 18 and began applying
for a driver's license [in Brazil], I went to driving school
(which is mandatory in Brazil, a law secured by the association
of driving schools) for some weeks and then, at the end, the
school owner asked me whether I was going to do the test or pay
a "fee" to get my driver's license right away. . .
If you'd go to another school, they would probably charge the
same fee. It was a kind of bribe price fixing. Since the schools
had a deal with the Department of Licensing, the examiners were
very tough on people who didn't pay the bribe - less money for
them.
For investments in Russia, it's
the same thing. Russia still has the very same power structures
that existed in the communist era - most of the people that rule
back then still rule or have lots of influence in the government.
Although they pretend to be "freer" and live in a market
economy, they are still a dictatorship. Unlike China, a real
communist dictatorship, they are more like a mob-ruled dictatorship.
The Mafia and the government are almost the same thing; so any
time the company you're investing in gets in the way, it can
be easily destroyed through regulation, loss of government benefits,
new "tax policies", assassinations and all sorts of
tricks these regimes employ.
If you still want to invest in
Russia, the only thing I can say is that the companies that are
more likely to succeed are the ones with very strong Mafia and
government ties. I'd read the news and look for companies with
full government backing, maybe controlled by ex-KGB or the old
members of the communist party who consistently praise Czar Vladmir
Putin. Of course, they will steal your money. But they should
give something back so you can keep bringing more to their pockets.
Corrupt people know they need to give something in return. Still,
remember this: alliances can be weak, and they change.
http://watchfulinvestor.blogspot.com/
MAY 2005.. . .
300,000 FORCED TO MOVE FOR
CHINA OLYMPICS
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1628199,00.html
TIMES, UK - Officials say that
300,000 city residents have been moved, some illegally, to make
way for the L42 billion project to prepare Beijing for the Olympics.
Those who complain encounter persecution, or even jail. Amnesty
International's annual report for 2004 highlights the practice,
threatening to turn it into a human rights embarrassment for
the Chinese authorities. . .
The plans include an Olympic
Green covering nearly 2,800 acres - 1,680 acres of park and 1,000
acres for the Olympic Centre. The National Stadium, a controversial
project resembling a bird's nest that has been halted once for
modifications, will seat 80,000 people. Not content with building
19 sports stadiums and refurbishing 13 others, city planners
have seized the opportunity to reshape the landscape of Beijing.
. .
Those evicted who feel that they
have not been compensated adequately may have little redress.
M Becquelin said that last year the courts received instructions
not to take up any case seeking compensation. And residents who
lose homes or businesses face the combined might of city authorities
and wealthy developers eager to profit.
DECEMBER 2004
45 MILLION CHILDREN TO DIE
IN NEXT DECADE DUE TO GLOBAL NEGLECT
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1206-06.htm
JIM LOBE, ONE WORLD - Unless
the world's wealthiest countries comply with their past pledges,
some 45 million children in the worlds poor countries will die
needlessly over the next decade, according a new report released
Monday by British-based development group, Oxfam.
Despite the fact that Group of
Seven countries Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Britain, the United
States, and Canada are richer than they have ever been, they
are spending only half as much in real terms in development assistance
as they did in 1960, according to the report, "Paying the
Price." . . .
And of the paltry assistance
they do provide - about $50 billion a year - only about 40 percent
of the money is actually spent in poor countries; the rest of
it is spent in the wealthy countries themselves. Even, then,
much of the aid is late in arriving.
NOVEMBER 2004
OCTOBER 2004
UN OFFICIAL DECRIES LACK OF ACTION ON
HUNGER
JEAN ZIEGLER, THE UN Special
Rapporteur on the right to food, says 842 million people were
permanently or gravely undernourished last year, an increase
of 2 million on the previous figures. Hunger levels have now
risen every year since the World Food Summit in 1996 called for
global action to stem the trend.
In a report to the General Assembly, Mr. Ziegler says it is indefensible
that so many small children are still dying because they do not
have enough food to eat.
"How can we continue to
live with this shame?" he asks, declaring that the time
has come "to enforce the right to food." Mr. Ziegler
says hunger is neither inevitable nor acceptable. "We live
in a world that is richer than ever before and that is entirely
capable of eradicating hunger," he writes. "There is
no secret as to how to eradicate hunger. There is no need for
new technologies. There is simply the need for political commitment
to challenge existing policies that make the rich richer and
the poor poorer."
JUNE 2004
G8 SUMMIT THE WAY THE AMERICAN PRESS WON'T
COVER IT
E JANE DICKSON, INDEPENDENT,
UK - Beside a framed text of the Ten Commandments in Dressner's
Family Restaurant on St Simons Island, there is a picture of
a small boy cuddling the American flag. Dressner's serves a breakfast
fit for patriots - eggs, bacon, grits and Coke - and three markedly
patriotic-looking chaps in pressed white shirts, hunting vests
and the kind of wraparound shades a Federal Agent's granny might
buy him for a passing-out present are doing their damnedest to
"blend in" with the locals. Should President Bush and
his foreign chums drop in for the $5 special, a table would quickly
be found - a Xeroxed poster in the window offers a "Warm
Southern Welcome to Members of the G8 Summit". But this
is unlikely. Bush, Blair et al are safely corralled in the gated
Sea Island complex some four miles away from St Simons Village.
And out there in the community, the Warm Southern Welcome is
wearing paper-thin.
When it was announced
a year ago that President Bush would be hosting the 2004 G8 Summit
on Sea Island (Sea Island as in cotton, as in slaves), the upscale
resort where George Bush Snr and Barbara spent their honeymoon,
there was a surge of civic pride in this sleepy corner of coastal
Georgia. . .
It didn't work out. As
the summit opens today, the atmosphere on St Simons is more ghost
town than gold-rush. In the days before an earthquake, it's said
to be the cats who leave first. The cats of St Simons appear
unfazed - it's the eerie absence of automobiles that tells you
something is about to blow. In a community where four- or five-car
families are not unusual, driveways stand deserted. For days,
the Humvees streaming across the slender causeway that is the
islands' only link to the mainland have been met with nose-to-tail
traffic streaming in the opposite direction; around half the
islands' residents have evacuated, scared silly by the double,
and largely undifferentiated, threats of international terrorism
and violent protest.
"How did this happen?"
asks local teacher David Ray Dockery ("Hairy Dave"
to his friends), hurling industrial quantities of organic cereal
and dog food into his pick-up in preparation for the exodus to
the mainland. "We're just a little-bitty island. No one
ever thought we'd be put in a position where we'd have a bullseye
on our back."
Paranoia, perhaps. But
there's nothing like the chunter of helicopters to put the wind
up a generation raised on M*A*S*H. The skies along the coast,
normally the arena for spectacular aeronautics by brown pelicans,
are black with military aircraft, swooping low over the houses
on endless security sorties. Roadside checkpoints, manned by
cheery grunts cradling machine-guns, are scarcely more reassuring.
"This is real scary
shit," says Jay Thompson, a Delta flight attendant, who
has decided to sit out the siege at home. "We never had
a war here. We're not used to seeing tanks and guns on American
soil. This is stuff you see in movies.". . .
For many islanders, the massive security operation unfolding
on their doorstep is too much, too late. And certainly there
seems to be something a little skewed about this Soviet-style
display of hardware in a community where nobody bothers to lock
their door. In a flurry of public officiousness, 17 Czech house
framers whose visas had expired were taken off the island in
handcuffs and deported; the fact that they had been working here
a year before the location of the summit was announced did little
to mute the trumpeting of this national security coup.
The biggest threat to
public safety, in the fire chief's opinion, is confrontation
between anti-G8 protesters and the island's massively beefed-up
police force. "The Feds are taking into consideration that
this is south-east Georgia, where a lot of people carry guns,"
he says, with something like pride. And for local authorities,
mindful of violent clashes at previous summits in Genoa and Seattle,
it's protesters rather than terrorists who are the real bogeymen.
In the spirit of Christian reconciliation, the First Presbyterian
Church ran a "Meet the Protesters" evening of food
and fellowship with a "fun program" of games such as
"What's My Issue?" and "Who Wants to Be An Activist?".
Kathy, who runs the Nature's Gifts store on St Simons' main drag,
has stockpiled 1,000 bottles of mineral water among the sun-catchers
and ceramic frogs. The water is to hand out to protesters. "I
figured that as long as everybody keeps cool, it'll be all right,"
she says.
Not everyone takes this
hospitable stance. A State of Emergency granting extra powers
to local law enforcement was announced by the State Governor
on 7 May, and while nowhere has yet been "set aside"
for the protesters to protest (a quaint notion in itself), a
playing-field over on the mainland has been fenced for use as
a detention centre. On the island, a rash of fly-posted "WE
HATE G8" bumper-stickers and neatly stencilled pictures
of George Bush, swinging a missile like a baseball bat with the
legend "Let's Play Ball" had given cause for concern.
"There was a bunch of people in real nice cars singing peace
songs down by Gould's Inlet," offers Mimi Skelton, a St
Simons lawyer. "They didn't look too frightening."
MAY 2004
WORLD BANK ENGAGES IN WORLD CLASS CORRUPTION
CAROL GIACOMO, REUTERS
- Corrupt use of World Bank funds may exceed $100 billion and
while the institution has moved to combat the problem, more must
be done, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
said on Thursday. Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican,
charged that "in its starkest terms, corruption has cost
the lives of uncounted individuals contending with poverty and
disease."
He cited experts who calculated
that between $26 billion and $130 billion of the money lent by
the World Bank for development projects since 1946 has been misused.
In 2003, the bank distributed $18.5 billion in developing countries.
FEBRUARY 2004
GLOBALIZATION CREATES GROWING
DIVIDE
ELIZABETH BECKER,, NEW
YORK TIMES: The uneven benefits of globalization are creating
a growing divide between rich and poor countries, as well as
within countries, according to a two-year study by the United
Nations' labor organization. The report found that the opening
of borders, new trade agreements and the establishment of the
World Trade Organization after the end of the cold war failed
to speed the growth of global gross national product, which lagged
behind the economic performance of previous decades.
The report, to be released
on Tuesday in London, found that 188 million people are unemployed
worldwide, or 6.2% of the labor force; that the gap between rich
and poor nations has widened, with countries representing 14%
of the world's population accounting for half the world's trade
and foreign investment; and that in the developing world, women
have been harmed more than men by globalization.
The report also said that
women's traditional livelihoods as subsistence farmers or small
producers have been undermined by foreign subsidized agriculture
or foreign imports but, as women, they face cultural barriers
when looking for alternative occupations.
Within some rich nations
--- Britain, Canada and the United States --- the gap between
rich and poor has grown wider as well. The United States posted
the greatest gap, with the top one percent earning 17% of the
gross income, "a level last seen in the 1920's."
Globalization has also
affected the rate of taxes collected by countries, the report
said. In the world's 30 wealthiest nations, the average level
of corporate tax fell from 37.6 percent in 1996 to 30.8 percent
in 2003.
The report did note two
bright spots: China and India, the two Asian nations with a third
of the world's population.
While |