People Before Profit blog

A call for a real inter-American dialogue

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:57:00 +0000

Abridged from a letter to Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based thinktank, by Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. The full text is available at .

Thank you for inviting me to participate in the discussion on U.S. policy towards Venezuela. I read with great interest Inter-American Dialogue’s most recent report on Venezuela, “Hugo Chávez: A Test for U.S. Policy.” After careful consideration, I have decided to respectfully decline your invitation. I hope to elucidate the reasons why.

Venezuela is in the midst of a dramatic political, economic and social reorganization that aims to create a system of government and economy that more fully incorporates its citizens, creates the bases for a sustainable economy and ensures an equitable distribution of the country’s resources and riches. This is a homegrown effort and responds to Venezuela’s history and conditions — a significant break for a region that historically adopted foreign models. The Venezuelans conducting these changes have done so in peace and within the bounds of democracy.

Your report simply does not recognize that what is taking place in Venezuela can only be understood through new and emerging concepts. Such concepts include participatory democracy, communal councils and what we have labeled “social economics.”

Your report leaves the reader with the impression that there are no alternatives to the liberal organization of political, economic and social forces promoted by Washington. This is precisely the kind of thinking that has led to so many developmental failures in the past. Where would the U.S. be today if it had not adjusted its social organization to its emerging realities and challenges since independence? The U.S. has shown that societies that do not adapt to changing conditions are doomed to failure. This has been true in our lifetime with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the civil rights movement and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, among many examples.

We in Venezuela are adjusting and adapting to our changing realities. What is happening in Venezuela has given the Venezuelan people hope for the future.

Most analysts and policymakers in Washington have looked at Venezuela through the prism of U.S. interests and assumptions, in the process identifying President Chávez as a threat. This is a mistake. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) expressed as much when he commented on President George W. Bush’s trip to Latin America, stating, “The president and his administration have misunderstood and mismanaged the political, economic and social change occurring through the Americas. … It is vital to reverse that trend.”

Recent years have seen a whole host of new social movements and leaders rise to power in Latin America, products of decades of closed political systems and inequitable economic policies. Governments like President Chávez’s have undertaken substantive and far-reaching actions to incorporate entire classes of citizens that had until recently been excluded. Regionally, many countries have come to a consensus that development can only come through integration based on solidarity and cooperation. U.S. policy has never caught up with these changes.

The report is based on the underlying assumption that U.S. interests are the same as the region’s interests. The report states that President Chávez is committed to “constructing a broad alliance in opposition to the U.S. agenda in Latin America and the world.” Although I respect the honesty of the report in admitting that the U.S. first and foremost responsibility is to defend its national interest, it implicitly assumes that Venezuela’s national interest should be an extension of it. The assumption remains that somehow the “U.S. agenda” parallels other national, regional and global agendas. I respectfully disagree. What my government has done is to design a foreign policy which promotes the sovereignty of Venezuela and our right to self-determination as well as Venezuela’s national and strategic interests. These include a different conception of regional integration that will allow South America to deal with other regions of the world — including the U.S., of course — as a united front. Venezuela has been willing to redefine its national interest to pursue regional integration and cooperation in pursuit of a multipolar world.

If we want to remain true to the concept of the inter-American system, the U.S. agenda should focus more on cooperating with its partners, not dictating U.S. interests to them and demanding that they follow along. For the last six years, President Bush has pushed an aggressive and unilateral foreign policy, rarely stopping to listen to what his global partners and their people were saying.

As the ambassador of a country that democratically seeks a re-conceptualization of societal relations and a multipolar world, it would be inappropriate for me to participate in any discussion in which the national interests of the U.S. is the only item on the agenda. If the day comes for a true dialogue, one in which there is a real discussion on some of the real social, political and economic changes affecting my country and the many interdependent interests represented in the Inter-American system, I would be more than happy to participate.

EDITORIAL: Patriots and terrorists

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:42:00 +0000

In 2005 John Bolton, President Bush’s UN ambassador, had advice for UN member states deliberating about a convention on terrorism. He called for “a clear, strong declaration.” He condemned “the targeting and deliberate killing by terrorists of civilians and non-combatants.”

U.S. hypocrisy on terrorism must have struck the participants at the Youth Conference for the Cuban Five, meeting in Havana, April 29-30. The heroism of the five Cuban men stuck in U.S. jails was the main theme there. A United Nations report has accused the U.S. government of “arbitrary detention” of these men, who put their lives at stake in Florida tracking terrorists coddled by multiple U.S. administrations.

In their peaceful efforts to stop terrorist attacks against Cuba, these men hurt no one, took no lives and did no harm to government documents, installations or persons.

In terrible contrast, Florida-based anti-Cuban terrorists, with documented CIA backing, have murdered 3,500 people, caused permanent disability to 2,000 more and caused losses worth billions due to sabotage.

A prime leader of that pack, against whom the Cuban Five represented a finger in the dyke, was Luis Posada Carriles He returned to U.S. soil two years ago and the U.S. government remains silent on his crimes. On April 19, the Bush administration allowed him to go home to his house in Miami.

The U.S. failure to prosecute Posada as a terrorist, or extradite him to Venezuela as mandated by international treaties, sends the message that terrorists of his ilk can operate with impunity.

In a speech several years ago, Cuban President Fidel Castro noted that the U.S. has never “punished a single one of the hundreds of individuals who have hijacked and diverted to that country dozens of Cuban aircraft, not even those who committed murder.”

While jailing those who tried to protect their country from terrorism, the Bush administration is making nice to a known terrorist. It underscores the phoniness of Bush’s “war on terror”

Union solidarity forces new look at Colombia trade deal

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:22:00 +0000

“Honorable Senators and members of the U.S. Congress: The Uribe government refuses to recognize our basic rights and persecutes and punishes us for exercising our right to peaceful protests,” Colombia’s Oil Workers Union charged in an open letter to Congress, Feb. 17. Citing the toll from its 25-year campaign against privatization of the state oil company, the union said, “One hundred one of our members have been murdered, two have disappeared, 10 have been kidnapped, [and] 400 forcefully displaced.”

Prospects for passage of Bush’s free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia are dwindling in the face of pressure on Congress from U.S. and Colombian unions coupled with widespread reports of anti-labor atrocities, and new evidence of Colombian paramilitary and government collusion with the violent union repression. The deadline for passage is June 30.

Congress was supposed to have passed a package of agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia by March 31. Yet, Colombia’s record “sets it apart from Peru and Panama,” said William Samuel, the AFL-CIO’s legislative director.

U.S. and Colombian trade ministers signed agreements Nov. 22, 2006, calling for elimination of barriers to trade and exchange of services. Bilateral trade amounted to $14.3 billion in 2005.

But with such “free trade” comes workers’ blood. The AFL-CIO said 236 trade unionists were murdered from 2004 through 2006. Only one murderer was convicted. Since 1991, 2,262 unionists have been killed, with only 30 convicted for the murders. During the five years of Alvaro Uribe’s presidency, there have been 400 murder victims.

Negotiations over the FTA resumed on April 16. The AFL-CIO’s Samuel, in a letter to Congress, insisted that Colombia must meet “an established set of human rights benchmarks.” Its government must break ties with paramilitary networks, prosecute crimes against unionists, protect union members and adhere to labor standards set by the International Labor Organization, he said.

Recent confessions by paramilitary leaders in exchange for light sentences — part of a program for demobilizing paramilitary groups — brought to light murders of hundreds of political activists, including labor leaders. They revealed tight paramilitary relationships with legislators, government ministers and local officials.

Uribe’s former intelligence chief Jorge Noguera was arrested in February and charged with allowing paramilitary figures to infiltrate government agencies. Paramilitary operative Rafael Garcia, once part of Noguera’s intelligence service, is prepared to testify that the agency complied lists of union leaders targeted for death and that Noguera gave names to paramilitary enforcers. Garcia, now in protective custody, fears for his life, according to the Washington Post.

He is set to testify also for victims’ families and a Colombian mineworkers’ union at an upcoming trial in Birmingham, Ala., against Alabama-based Drummond coal mining company. The civil suit, joined by the United Steelworkers and the International Labor Rights Fund, charges that Drummond officials ordered the deaths of three labor leaders at its La Loma Mines in Colombia in 2000.

Recent news that Chiquita Banana, with headquarters in Ohio, paid $25,000 to paramilitary groups and may have facilitated delivery to them in 2001 of 3,000 assault rifles pushed Congress to dig a little deeper into the free rein U.S. corporations enjoy in Colombia.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) asked, “The question is who do you have the trade agreement with? The government, or thugs, or who?”

After meeting with labor leaders in Colombia last month, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) reported, “Countless numbers of trade unionists in Colombia have been intimidated, have been threatened and have been murdered.”

He told reporters, “The trade pact is in jeopardy,” adding that the scandal of paramilitary terrorist links with the Uribe government is “too close for comfort.”

In Colombia, workers will be marching on May 1 and going out on a general strike on May 23 to protest the U.S.-Colombia trade deal.

atwhit @ megalink.net

White House lets terrorist off hook

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:43:00 +0000

Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles left jail on April 19 and went to live at his wife’s home in Miami, after an appeals court approved his release on bail. His trial for lying and fraud, relating to his arrival in the United States, begins May 11 in El Paso, Texas.

U.S. failure to designate Posada as a terrorist was crucial to his release. Posada, a Cuban exile, faces charges in Venezuela for masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airplane, killing 73 people.

World outrage, simmering over U. S. inaction on Posada since his illegal entry two years ago, is now boiling over. The Non-Aligned Movement, representing 118 nations, condemned his release. A petition circulating for a week, already signed by over 3,000 notable persons worldwide, including Nobel Prize winners and prominent intellectuals, calls upon the U.S. to prosecute Posada for terrorism or extradite him, as requested, to Venezuela.

U.S. newspapers, including the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times, have published critical editorials. The New York Times gave op-ed space to Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez, who wrote that Posada’s release “throws into doubt the sincerity of President Bush’s war on terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the Cuban Five are held in U.S. prisons for combating terrorism. The Rev. Lucius Walker, leader of Pastors for Peace, told the World that for the “Bush administration to release Posada while keeping in federal prison the Cuban Five who risked their lives to expose terrorism is proof positive that Bush is himself both a liar and a supporter of terrorism.”

Before escaping in 1985, Posada had been jailed in Venezuela for his part in the Cuban airliner bombing. The Bush administration has yet to acknowledge Venezuelan requests for his extradition.

National Security Archive researcher Peter Kornbluh told National Public Radio April 19 that the U.S. “intelligence community identifies him as the mastermind of the bombing.”

The archive, based at George Washington University, has released declassified U.S. intelligence material documenting Posada’s crimes. For Kornbluh, Posada is “a litmus test for the Bush administration that could have applied the Patriot Act and held him for his crimes.”

Posada helped lead the anti-Cuban CORU group in carrying out over 200 murderous attacks in 23 countries in the 1970s. With others, he prepared for the 1976 assassination in Washington of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his U.S. colleague Ronni Moffitt.

Hotel bombings orchestrated by Posada swept Havana in 1997, killing Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo. Three years later Posada was preparing to blow up an auditorium in Panama filled with students waiting to hear Fidel Castro when authorities nabbed him.

Miami activist Andres Gomez said Posada’s presence “is a grave and present danger to our communities.” Referring to Orlando Bosch who also lives in Miami despite evidence of his anti-Cuba terrorist crimes, Gomes said, “Posada, Bosch and other terrorists are men with no regard for human life.”

“One of the principal international terrorists” goes to court now for the equivalent of “violating traffic laws,” author Noam Chomsky said.

José Pertierra, Washington attorney for the Venezuelan government, said Posada’s release undermines the U.S. legal system. “The Bush administration, by freeing this international terrorist, shows the level of disrespect that the government has for its own system of laws,” Pertierra said.

Plans are under way for protests in El Paso on May 11, when Posada’s trial begins. They will continue throughout the proceedings, with solidarity demonstrations taking place around the world.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking Posada’s release to the United Nations, asking the world body to evaluate U.S. violations of UN anti-terrorism measures. UN Resolution 1373, for example, introduced by the U.S., requires member states to assure “that participants in the financing, planning, preparation or implementation of terrorist acts are brought to justice.”

Simon McGuinness, head of Cuban Five support activities in Ireland, told the World, “Considerable damage is being done to the international standing of the U.S. Officeholders are clearly conspiring with terrorists to pervert the course of justice. Irish people find it hard to hear that their American friends are part of a criminal conspiracy.”

atwhit @ megalink.net

EDITORIAL: Everybodys talking about the weather

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:30:00 +0000

This Earth Day, climate scientists are stepping up their dramatic warnings about the dire consequences of global warming. Earlier this month, in the second installment of its four-part report, the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said worldwide shifts in weather patterns and rising sea levels could bring drought, hunger, heat waves and disease to all continents. The poorest societies in the most arid regions would be hardest hit, though they have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions, the UN panel said. It earlier pointed to the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases as the “very likely” cause of a rise in global temperatures over the last 50 years.

On April 16 a group of U.S. scientists who are part of the UN panel identified water shortages and coastal flooding as two key problems for North America, while a group of retired military officers cited rising worldwide security threats stemming from the climate changes.

In the face of the ostrich-like refusal of the Bush administration and its corporate backers to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence that human activities are causing the problem, a growing and diverse environmental movement is taking action.

Environmentalists and the organized labor movement, once at loggerheads, are increasingly joining forces in projects such as the Blue/Green Alliance and the Apollo Alliance, which link efforts to clean up the environment and reverse global warming with the struggle for good jobs.

The environmental justice movement points out that poor working-class people, especially those of color, are most sharply affected by living near environmentally hazardous facilities and polluted sites. The movement is giving rise to joint efforts like the campaigns bringing together environmentalists, unions, elected officials and community and faith-based organizations to cut diesel emissions by ships and trucks at ports including Los Angeles-Long Beach and Oakland, Calif.

The Bush administration’s continuing refusal to recognize the threat global warming poses to human society gives voters one more reason to step up their efforts to deal the far-right Republicans a resounding defeat in 2008.

Crisis of capitalist globalization

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:05:00 +0000

“The nation-state ... is being squeezed on the one side by the forces of global economics and on the other side by political demands for a more democratic distribution of power reflecting global economic and political power shifts. There are too many problems — trade, capital, the environment — that can be dealt with only at a global level. Economic globalization has outpaced political globalization. We have a chaotic uncoordinated system of global governance without global government. There is a clear need for strong international institutions to deal with the challenges posed by economic globalization.”

Thus, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz opened a panel discussion on “Global Imbalances, Power Shifts and the Future of Multilateralism.” The conference, sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), was held in Washington, D.C., April 12.

‘Consensus of bankers’

Stiglitz is known as a critic of the “Washington consensus,” a concept and name which summarizes the main economic and trade policies agreed to by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and U.S. Treasury Department since the collapse of the USSR. This “consensus of bankers” led the IMF to force harsh economic programs on developing countries in exchange for meager foreign loans. These programs were predicated on protecting the lenders’ short-term interests rather than actually promoting growth that would help the countries involved.

Suppressing inflation became the “consensus” standard of credit-worthiness. This was characterized by vast — often fraudulent — privatizations of public assets, handing them to foreign investors and corrupt officials. These policies have ruined some nations and have yielded little growth in others. Contrary to the “consensus,” in every successful country public spending has been essential to growth. Even though some inflation has resulted, people have jobs. IMF policy “fixes” recession by raising taxes and cutting spending. As economic theory predicts, the results have not been recovery but depression and collapse.

Financial crises

The 1998 Asian financial crisis began the crisis in the “consensus.” The cycle of rapid growth in Asia was brought to a screeching halt by minor business failures that induced a panic. Billions of invested dollars were withdrawn in days. Since few Asian nations had sufficient dollars in reserve, several went bankrupt. Some descended into chaos. The shockwave to the real economy soon moved around the world. One of the largest U.S. hedge funds collapsed. Argentina collapsed too.

In the ensuing decade, Asian countries drew a lesson, now also being learned in Latin America: “We have to become self-insured. The world financial institutions cannot protect us.” So every country that could do so started hoarding dollars via trade or oil deals.

Now trillions of dollars are held as reserve assets by Asian and some Latin American economies. The U.S. is borrowing $850 billion a year to cover the imbalance. In the developing countries, investment should flow from rich to poor countries for broad development, but the reverse is happening. In a “normal” trade relationship these dollars would be spent buying U.S. goods and services. But the threat of huge, unregulated capital flows and the absence of a global reserve make the imbalance inevitable.

What to do

Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, and Mark Weisbrot of CEPR discussed the way forward. Campo said that only democratic reforms of international economic institutions that fully reflect the real power shift toward the developing world can bring both growth and equity. Weisbrot voiced doubt that global institutions like the IMF can be reformed, and predicted emerging nations will simply bypass the IMF and establish their own regional reserves.

All panelists agreed the failure of the IMF to take the interests of developing countries into account can only be corrected by the U.S. and the European Union yielding their domination. In addition, lawlessness, fraud and violations of trade agreements, including the International Labor Organization’s labor standards, require international courts capable of making enforceable judgments. And all these efforts must be coordinated with environmental reforms.

Something’s got to give

“Things will go through a disorderly unwinding of the imbalances,” Stiglitz closed, “with vast implications for the real global economy, dire threats to peace and the greater risk of an unlivable world. What is the source of the problem? The absence of a global reserve and global, democratic institutions to manage and enforce balanced growth. If we take that road — another world is possible, but it will likely take another great panic and crisis to bring it into being.”

economics@cpusa.org

Globalized union solidarity under way

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:03:00 +0000

The story of capitalist globalization is a harsh one for workers. The big business press usually spotlights stories of giant mergers and acquisitions. You know, like:

Behemoth, Inc., has just acquired three new production facilities in Eastern Europe and opened billion-dollar state-of-the-art plants in India and China. To finance the deal Behemoth floated a gazillion dollars worth of petro stock in a swap deal that netted CEO Rob R. Barron III and his family an immediate 150 percent increase in personal share value. Meanwhile, on Wall Street stocks soared as Behemoth announced layoffs of up to 30,000 manufacturing workers in its North American Division. In reaction, a Commerce Department spokesman announced that the U.S. would file unfair trade charges against China for dumping on the U.S. market. Commerce Department spokesperson Moe T. Bills said, “Those Red Chinese sure are greedy. We have to defend our workers from cheap labor in China and India.”

Stuff like that.

Fortunately there is a growing trend in the labor movement to ignore the corporate slant to these stories and to respond in ways that don’t let the corporations tell us who our friends can be. In the last few weeks, some significant stories have begun to emerge on the working-class side of the globalization ledger.

The International Association of Machinists announced the formation of a Global Union Alliance of Boeing workers to “better represent and organize workers at Boeing’s many locations around the world.” Boeing unions from Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan and Sweden joined the IAM in Portland, Ore., to form the new alliance. IAM President Tom Buffenbarger told the assembled delegates, “Just as Boeing is a global company, the unions representing its workers must act like a global union. No longer can Boeing workers in one nation afford to bargain or organize in isolation. Our goal is fair treatment for Boeing’s global workforce, without regard to language, borders or nationality.”

And as the People’s Weekly World reported last week, the United Steelworkers, based in the U.S. and Canada, will begin talks soon with Britain’s Amicus union. Amicus itself plans to merge next month with the General Transport Union, creating the largest industrial union in the UK. It is not yet clear what form of organization will come out of these talks: an actual merger of the unions or some new kind of strategic alliance. But it is clear that the drive for functional “Workers of the World Unite”-type labor unity is taking new and concrete forms.

Of course there have been organized international forms of union solidarity since the days of Karl Marx’s International Workingmen’s Association in the 1800s. And currently there are several international labor federations and various trade secretariats that bring together unions based on economic sectors like the International Metalworkers Federation.

But today’s emerging new forms take unity to a higher level. They go beyond just sharing information and mutual support for national struggles. They focus on the possibility of joint international struggles for wages and working conditions. They begin a discussion in the world labor movement of how to put a floor under living standards and conditions for all workers, how to stop the whipsawing of workers across borders where corporate greed forces all workers into a race to the bottom.

There will be many twists and turns on the road to 21st century international working class solidarity, but one day, sooner than many think, we may be reading stories like:

Today Behemoth, Inc., announced that it has agreed to a new, three-year union contract with its global unions. While the details will not be disclosed until the union memberships have a ratification vote, union leaders made known that significant improvements for workers were won. Rob R. Barron IV told the press, “We just had to accept their terms. People need our products and if we can’t make them, we can’t make profits.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street showed mixed results as investors struggled to digest the possibility that higher wages at Behemoth might result in upward pressure on global wages in general.

Scott Marshall (scott @ rednet.org) is chair of the Communist Party USA Labor Commission.

U.S., Canada and UK unions begin talks

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:17:00 +0000

Merger talks between the United Steelworkers union (USW), based in the U.S. and Canada, and Amicus, the 1-million-member-strong and largest union in the UK, will open at the end April. The possible merger would unite workers on both sides of the Atlantic, strengthening their ability to protect jobs, increase wages and benefits, and improve working conditions in the wake of corporate globalization.

Derek Simpson, Amicus’ general secretary, told reporters that a merger with the USW is a step toward “a single global trade union movement capable of challenging the might of multinationals.” A merger, for instance, would prevent companies with plants in all three countries from pitting workers against each other with the result of lower wages, layoffs and declining benefits.

The USW has generations of experience negotiating contracts where laws vary from state to state and country to country. For example, the USW is just completing successful negotiations with the rubber companies like Bridgestone/Firestone, where some of the corporation’s plants are in “Right to Work” (for less) Southern states and others are in Northern states where labor laws are stronger.

Health care is another issue where the union has negotiated contracts that benefit workers under a national health care system (in Canada) and under the private health care system in the U.S.

dwinebr696 @ aol.com

Scientists: global warming means dark future

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 05:39:00 +0000

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last week released a 1,572-page report outlining global warming’s dramatic consequences for human life, ecosystems and world geography.

The IPCC study, released in Brussels April 6, says that at least initially humans and biological systems in tropical and subtropical areas will suffer most from global warming.

Greenpeace spokesperson Stephanie Tunmore called the report, “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” a “glimpse into an apocalyptic future.” Her comments appeared in a front-page preview in The New York Times.

The panel earlier issued assessments in 1990, 1995 and 2001. This year’s is being issued in three installments. Findings released in February blamed global warming on human activities, the current report focuses on the effects of climate change and a forthcoming report on proposed remedies is expected in May.

The World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Program formed the IPCC in 1988.

Over 2,500 scientists and 450 lead authors contributed to the present study. From April 2 on, many of the authors and delegates from 130 governments were in Brussels engaged in contentious discussions.

U.S. and Chinese representatives, whose countries produce over 45 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, forced a toning down of alarming language. Washington alone among 35 industrialized nations rejected the 1997 Kyoto protocol calling for significant reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012. China, as a developing country, is not bound by the Kyoto agreements.

Reflecting “current scientific understanding,” a 23-page summary “for policymakers” (available at www.ipcc.ch/) is notable for its plain language and stark conclusions.

The authors predict increased runoff from snow packs and glaciers; plants and animals moving “poleward”; the warming of lakes and rivers; early springs; and changing ocean salinity, acidity and oxygenation. Many sea creatures will disappear.

By mid-century, 10-40 percent more water will be available in northern areas, leading to new agricultural and forestry management practices. Drought and diminished high altitude snow and glaciers will cause a 10-30 percent falloff in accessible water for mid-latitude regions. Yet recurring deluges will augment the effects of ocean flooding. Forests will disappear in the South and deserts expand. Crop productivity will be down.

Global temperature increases of 1.5-2.5 degrees centigrade will put 20-30 percent of plant and animal species “at increased risk of extinction.” Possible increases of 6 degrees within 100 years would lead to extinction of 25-33 percent of all species of flora and fauna.

Melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica portends flooding and disrupted coastlines and ecosystems, especially in the “mega-deltas” and lowlands of Asia and Africa. Hundreds of millions of people will relocate, or die. Malnutrition, infectious diseases, heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts will kill millions.

In Africa, up to 250 million people will be facing severe water shortages by 2020. Agricultural production will be down 50 percent. By mid-century, crop yields in Central and South Asia may be off 30 percent. The report indicates that significant global warming will continue even if emissions are reduced.

Together the United States and Western European countries account for 75 percent of greenhouse gases, Africa and its 840 million people, less than 3 percent. “The inequity of this whole situation is really enormous if you look at who’s responsible and who’s suffering as a result,” said IPCC chairperson Rajendra Pachauri.

Despite treaty commitments, the industrialized powers spend only $40 million a year aimed at preserving life and livelihoods in the poor world. By contrast, in the north, billions are projected for heat-resistant seeds, genetically modified crops, floating homes, desalination plants and sea barriers.

The U.S. government subsidizes oil and coal companies to the tune of $20 billion annually, with Canadian and Australian subsidies amounting to $300 per capita.

Las Vegas is emblematic of a divided world. The city has grown from 25,000 people 50 years ago to 2.6 million with 330,000 new arrivals since 2002. Water there comes from the Colorado River where the flow has dropped 25 percent. Earlier this year a development company purchased 200 acres of land for “the largest indoor water park in North America” and indoor skiing and ice skating facilities.

atwhit @ megalink.net

A brutal reply

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 04:57:00 +0000

George W. Bush is undoubtedly the most genuine representative of a system of terror forced on the world by the technological, economic and political superiority of the most powerful country known to this planet. For this reason, we share the tragedy of the American people and their ethical values. The instructions for the verdict issued by Judge Kathleen Cardone, of the El Paso Federal Court last Friday, granting Luis Posada Carriles freedom on bail, could only have come from the White House.

It was President Bush himself who ignored at all times the criminal and terrorist nature of the defendant who was protected with a simple accusation of immigration violation leveled at him. The reply is brutal. The government of the United States and its most representative institutions had already decided to release the monster.

The backgrounds are well known and reach far back. The people who trained him and ordered him to destroy a Cuban passenger plane in midair, with 73 athletes, students and other Cuban and foreign travelers on board, together with its dedicated crew; those who bought his freedom while the terrorist was held in prison in Venezuela, so that he could supply and practically conduct a dirty war against the people of Nicaragua, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and the devastation of a country for decades to come; those who empowered him to smuggle with drugs and weapons making a mockery of the laws of Congress; those who collaborated with him to create the terrible Operation Condor and to internationalize terror; the same who brought torture, death and often the physical disappearance of hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans, could not possibly act any different.

Even though Bush's decision was to be expected, it is certainly no less humiliating for our people. Thanks to the revelations of 'Por Esto!' a Mexican publication from the state of Quintana Roo later complemented by our own sources, Cuba knew with absolute precision how Posada Carriles entered from Central America, via Cancun, to the Isla Mujeres departing from there on board the Santrina, after the ship was inspected by the Mexican federal authorities, heading with other terrorists straight to Miami.

Denounced and publicly challenged with exact information on the matter, since April 15, 2005, it took the government of that country more than a month to arrest the terrorist, and a year and two months to admit that Luis Posada Carriles had entered through the Florida coast illegally on board the Santrina, a presumed school-ship licensed in the United States.

Not a single word is said of his countless victims, of the bombs he set off in tourist facilities in recent years, of his dozens of plans financed by the government of the United States to physically eliminate me.

It was not enough for Bush to offend the name of Cuba by installing a horrible torture center similar to Abu Ghraib on the territory illegally occupied in Guantánamo, horrifying the world with this procedure. The cruel actions of his predecessors seemed not enough for him. It was not enough to force a poor and underdeveloped country like Cuba to spend $100 billion. To accuse Posada Carriles was tantamount to accusing himself.

Throughout almost half a century, everything was fair game against our small island lying 90 miles away from its coast, wanting to be independent. Florida saw the installation of the largest station for intelligence and subversion that ever existed on this planet.

It was not enough to send a mercenary invasion on the Bay of Pigs, costing us 176 dead and more than 300 wounded at a time when the few medical specialists they left us had no experience treating war wounds.

Earlier still, the French ship La Coubre carrying Belgian weapons and grenades for Cuba had exploded on the docks of Havana Harbor. The two well-synchronized explosions caused the deaths of more than 100 workers and wounded others as many of them tool part in the rescue attempts.

It was not enough to have the Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the brink of an all-consuming thermonuclear war, at a time when there were bombs 50 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It was not enough to introduce in our country viruses, bacteria and fungi to attack plantations and flocks; and incredible as it may seem, to attack human beings. Some of these pathogens came out of American laboratories and were brought to Cuba by well-known terrorists in the service of the United States government.

Add to all this the enormous injustice of keeping five heroic patriots imprisoned for supplying information about terrorist activities; they were condemned in a fraudulent manner to sentences that include two life sentences and they stoically withstand cruel mistreatment, each of them in a different prison.

Time and again the Cuban people have fearlessly faced the threat of death. They have demonstrated that with intelligence, using appropriate tactics and strategies, and especially preserving unity around their political and social vanguard, there can be no force on this earth capable of defeating them.

I think that the coming May Day celebration would be the ideal day for our people —using the minimum of fuel and transportation — to show their feelings to the workers and the poor of the world.

April 10, 2007

Bolivias president faces rocky road on nationalization

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:20:00 +0000

Bolivian President Evo Morales based his 2005 presidential candidacy on two promises: first, his government would nationalize natural resources, crucially natural gas and oil, and second, he would return the government to the country’s indigenous majority through a constituent assembly and new constitution.

Fifteen months into his presidency, his nationalization program, announced nearly a year go on May Day, is in trouble.

Morales’ 54 percent winning plurality testified to his support among the poor and indigenous populations. Both had been mobilized in earlier “oil wars.”

During his first term in office, from 1993-97, then President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada sold off components of the state petroleum company YPFB. As a consequence, the contribution of natural gas sales to government revenues fell from 40-60 percent of the state’s budget to well under 7 percent in 2002.

In 2003, during his second term, Sánchez de Lozada prepared to pipe gas to U.S. ships waiting in Chilean ports. Bolivians fought government troops in the streets to block the scheme. The protesters suffered 40 dead and hundreds wounded. Of several murdered children, El Alto resident Nestor Salinas said at the time, “They died to defend our oil and gas.”

Morales’ nationalization decree called for negotiations with foreign companies to be completed in six months. With time running out, 44 contracts were signed with 12 foreign companies on Oct. 28, 2006.

In essence, these contracts reflected a major renegotiation of terms, but not an expropriation. A Morales majority in Congress ratified them immediately. The Senate, in opposition hands, followed suit on Nov. 28 when all but three majority senators were absent.

Tax income from oil companies increased almost fourfold, yet today the contracts are on hold.

Energy Minister Andrés Soliz Rada resigned in September, charging the government with giving up too much to Petrobas of Brazil, purchaser of half of Bolivia’s gas exports. Two YPFB leaders also left amid corruption charges.

On Feb. 12 the government submitted an amendment to correct contract errors like incorrect company names, misplaced gas fields, and a secret agreement with Petrobas. Carlos Villegas, Soliz Rada’s replacement, resigned but later changed his mind. Blame fell upon inexperienced YPFB head Manuel Morales Olivera, who was fired on March 24.

Two days earlier Soliz Rada had joined opposition politicians in calling for a repeat pf contract negotiations. Right-wing forces claimed to be protecting national interests against incompetence, a notion reflecting the nation’s racial, geographic and class-based divisions. The eastern region, epicenter of opposition to President Morales, claims agricultural land and most of the nation’s gas and oil deposits. Foreign corporations operate there, the majority population is of European descent, and separatism is rampant.

Soliz Rada criticized the October agreements as granting foreign companies tax deductions for operating costs and relieving them of financial risk. He charged that negotiations took place behind closed doors, that U.S. advisers were involved and that YPFB directors were left out. The contracts call for Bolivia to sell gas cheaply to Brazil and Argentina to augment revenues, and to pay high international prices for hydrocarbon products sent back for domestic use.

Bolivia, he pointed out, signed shared-production contracts instead of so-called operating contracts. Under the latter, foreign companies take on financial risk. Shared-production contracts allow companies to include the value of Bolivia’s oil reserves in calculating assets. That maneuver improves both stock market status and borrowing capabilities. Bolivia, less creditworthy, will have difficulties building facilities for processing hydrocarbon products and buying back the refineries it lost.

Observers suggest that the Morales team may yet put hydrocarbon nationalization back on track. The president is adept at responding to changing circumstances His approval ratings are high, and his present term ends in 2011. But on March 23, Morales declared, “There’s only a short time left for me in government.”

As if to underscore his sense of urgency, last week Morales told congresspersons belonging to his Movement toward Socialism party that if in another week Congress did not approve the petroleum company contracts, he would begin a hunger strike.

The Constituent Assembly concludes its one-year session Aug. 6, 2007, and the nation will be voting on a new constitution in December. In a “refounded” state, said the president, “there has to be a new election for a new president.” A spokesperson told reporters that if social organizations nominated him, Morales would run for elections taking place in 2008.

The large Bolivian Central Workers organization has announced that a new party of its own would be presenting an opposition candidate. The Bolivian Social Democrat Party will meet soon to discuss election participation. Leaders have invited ex-Energy Minister Soliz Rada to join in their deliberations.

Millions face early death from hunger, thirst

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:48:00 +0000

More than 3 million people in the world are condemned to premature death from hunger and thirst.

That is not an exaggerated figure, but rather a cautious one. I have meditated a lot on that in the wake of President Bush’s recent meeting with U.S. automobile manufacturers.

The sinister idea of converting food into fuel was definitively established as an economic line in U.S. foreign policy on March 26.

A March 26 cable from The Associated Press states:

“President Bush touted the benefits of ‘flexible fuel’ vehicles running on ethanol and biodiesel on Monday, meeting with automakers to boost support for his energy plans. “Bush said a commitment by the leaders of the domestic auto industry to double their production of flex-fuel vehicles could help motorists shift away from gasoline and reduce the nation’s reliance on imported oil.

“Bush met with General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner, Ford Motor Co. chief executive Alan Mulally and Daimler Chrysler AG’s Chrysler Group chief executive Tom LaSorda.

“They discussed support for flex-fuel vehicles, attempts to develop ethanol from alternative sources like switchgrass and wood chips and the administration’s proposal to reduce gas consumption by 20 percent in 10 years.

“The discussions came amid rising gasoline prices. The latest Lundberg Survey found the nationwide average for gasoline has risen 6 cents per gallon in the past two weeks to $2.61.”

I believe that reducing and, even more, recycling all motors that run on electricity and fuel is an elemental and urgent need for all humanity.

The tragedy does not lie in reducing energy costs, but in the idea of converting food into fuel.

One ton of corn can only produce 413 liters of ethanol on average. That is equivalent to 109 gallons.

The average price of corn in U.S. ports has risen to $167 per ton. Thus, 320 million tons of corn would be required to produce 35 billion gallons of ethanol.

According to United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) figures, the U.S. corn harvest rose to 280.2 million tons in the year 2005.

Although the president is talking of producing fuel derived from grass or wood shavings, these are phrases totally lacking in realism. Let’s be clear: 35 billion gallons translates into 35 followed by nine zeros!

Afterwards will come beautiful examples of what experienced and well-organized U.S. farmers can achieve in terms of human productivity: corn converted into ethanol; the chaff from that corn converted into animal feed containing 26 percent protein; cattle dung used as raw material for gas production.

But, this is after voluminous investments only within the reach of the most powerful enterprises, where everything moves on the basis of electricity and fuel. Apply that recipe to the countries of the Third World, and you will see that people among the hungry masses of the Earth will no longer eat corn. Or something worse: lend funding to poor countries to produce ethanol based on corn or other food and not a single tree will be left to defend humanity from climate change.

Other countries in the rich world are planning to use not only corn but also wheat, sunflower seeds, rapeseed and other foods for fuel production. For the Europeans, for example, it would become a business to import all of the world’s soybeans with the aim of reducing the fuel costs for their automobiles and feeding their animals with the chaff from that legume, particularly rich in all types of essential amino acids.

In Cuba, alcohol used to be produced as a byproduct of the sugar industry. Climate change is already affecting our sugar production. Lengthy periods of drought alternating with record rainfall barely make it possible to produce sugar with an adequate yield during the 100 days of our very moderate winter. Hence, there is less sugar per ton of cane or less cane per acre due to prolonged drought in the months of planting and cultivation.

All the countries of the world, rich and poor, without any exception, could save millions and millions of dollars in investment and fuel simply by changing all the incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent ones, an exercise that Cuba has carried out in all homes throughout the country. That would provide a breathing space to resist climate change without killing the poor masses through hunger.

Today, we are seeing for the first time a really globalized economy and a dominant power in an economic, political and military terrain that in no way resembles that of Imperial Rome.

Some people will be asking themselves why I am talking of hunger and thirst. My response to that: the problem is not like a two-sided coin, but like dice with six sides, or a polyhedron with many more sides.

I refer in this case to a report by TELAM [Argentina’s official news agency], founded in 1945 and generally well informed about economic and social questions in the world. It said:

“In just 18 years, close to 2 billion people will be living in countries and regions where water will be a distant memory. Two-thirds of the world’s population could be living in places where that scarcity produces social and economic tensions of such a magnitude that it could lead nations to wars for the precious ‘blue gold.’

“Over the last 100 years, the use of water has increased at a rate twice as fast as that of population growth.

“According to statistics from the World Water Council, it is estimated that by 2015, the number of inhabitants affected by this grave situation will rise by 3.5 billion people.

“The United Nations celebrated World Water Day on March 23, and called for beginning to confront, that very day, the international scarcity of water, under the coordination of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, with the goal of highlighting the increasing importance of water scarcity on a global scale, and the need for greater integration and cooperation that would make it possible to guarantee sustained and efficient management of water resources.

“Many regions on the planet are suffering from severe water shortages, living with less than 500 cubic meters per person per year. The number of regions suffering from chronic scarcity of this vital element is increasingly growing.

“The principal consequences of water scarcity are an insufficient amount of the precious liquid for producing food, the impossibility of industrial, urban and tourism development and health problems.”

I will refrain from mentioning other important facts, like the melting ice in Greenland and the Antarctic, damage to the ozone layer and the growing volume of mercury in many species of fish for common consumption.

There are other issues that could be addressed, but with these lines I am just commenting on President Bush’s meeting with the top executives of U.S. auto corporations.

Fidel Castro is president of Cuba. This article, slightly abridged here, is his first since his July 2006 surgery. It was originally published March 28 in the Cuban newspaper Granma.

EDITORIAL: Supreme Court v. Bush on global warming

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:25:00 +0000

In a landmark environmental decision and a major slam at the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled April 2 that the Environmental Protection Agency can and should regulate global warming gases in car and truck emissions. The Bush administration had argued that the EPA does not have the right to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision, concluded that greenhouse gases are air pollutants and the EPA cannot sidestep its authority to regulate them. Tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks account for about 25 percent of our country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the U.S. accounts for about 25 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gases.

In addition to tangling with the powerful auto and oil industry lobbies, the decision has much wider significance, as it will likely apply to emissions from all other sources, utilities and other industries included.

The decision comes as a five-day meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prepared to issue a new report underscoring that more than 2,000 scientists from around the world have concluded that global warming is increasing due to human activities.

This dramatic conclusion undoubtedly spurred the Supreme Court majority decision.

The ruling was on a lawsuit was filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups frustrated by the continued “what me worry?” pro-corporate posture of the Bush administration while other industrialized nations have been taking major steps to slow the dangerous acceleration of global warming. Not surprisingly, Chief Justice Roberts along with Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito — all Bush I and II appointees — wrote a dissenting opinion claiming the plaintiffs had no standing to sue the EPA.

News reports tell us major droughts and water crises are hitting our Western and Southwestern states, caused by global warming. This is real, folks. But meaningful federal response is not likely until the present administration is replaced in 2008 by one more in tune with people’s needs and survival of the planet.

Mexico City poised to legalize abortion

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 05:51:00 +0000

MEXICO CITY — A legislative proposal to legalize abortion in Mexico’s Federal District (D.F.), the area that encompasses Mexico City, is encountering strong resistance from right-wing forces here. But its passage seems likely.

Abortion is generally illegal in Mexico. It is allowed only under very exceptional circumstances.

Deputies from the center-left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), the Social Democratic Coalition and the center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) argue it is necessary to legalize abortion because its current, illegal status has led many poor women to undergo unsafe, backroom procedures. Thousands of women have died over the years from the resulting medical complications.

The D.F.’s Human Rights Commission reports that unsafe abortions is the third leading cause of maternal death.

Opponents of the proposed law, led by the Catholic Church, the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and Mexico’s small Green Party, argue that the bill to legalize abortion amounts to “the murder of unborn children.” As an alternative, Mariana Gomez Del Campo, the PAN’s leader in the district, wants the government to provide more economic support to women and promote the adoption of unwanted babies.

The church has already organized demonstrations to oppose the abortion bill and is threatening more if the district’s legislature does not halt its efforts to pass it.

However, the abortion issue has also divided the church. The group Catholics for the Right to Decide, which supports legalization, recently placed an advertisement in the daily newspaper La Jornada that reads, “Unsafe abortion is a tragedy for thousands of women in Mexico. Just in the Federal District alone, a woman dies every 50 days because of unsafe abortion practices.”

“If our bishops defend life since conception,” the ad continues, “why do they not promote marches against violence against women or the unpunished murders of women in the city of Juarez?” The group also charges that the church hierarchy is threatening to ex-communicate Catholics supporting the right of women to have access to safe abortions.

The PRD, PRI and women’s organizations have organized counterdemonstrations to support the legalization of abortion. Gov. Marcelo Ebard, a PRD leader, said he will not veto the abortion bill, nor will he be swayed by threats. “Mexico City has always been libertarian and progressive and this will continue,” he said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, a leader of the PAN, and Jose Cordova Villalobos, his health secretary, have condemned the F.D.’s intentions to legalize abortion, but have promised not to intervene. Mexico’s health ministry reported that 88 women died last year from illegal abortions.

However, a group of 100 PAN deputies in the national legislature have launched an all-Mexico campaign to halt the legalization of abortion in the D.F. The Green Party has introduced a bill to increase jail sentences from one to three years for women caught using illegal abortion services, and eight years for doctors performing such services. In response, the PRD has introduced a bill to legalize abortion throughout Mexico.

Critics have also chastised PAN and the Catholic Church for being hypocritical because they have helped create conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies and force poor women to turn to unsafe, illegal abortion. They point to the fact that PAN governments have neglected to promote sex education and the Catholic Church opposes sex education and condom use.

The Federal District’s legislature is expected to vote on the bill to legalize abortion before June. Given that the PRD holds a majority of seats, the bill will likely pass.

In Latin America, only Cuba and Puerto Rico permit abortion for any reason in the first trimester. Nearby Guyana does the same.

Since the election of the center-left PRD in 1998, the Federal District has been in the forefront of progressive social change in Mexico. Same-sex couples can enter into civil unions and enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples. In a country nearly devoid of social programs, the district has introduced income support programs for single mothers, the handicapped and the elderly without pensions and provided free medical care for the poor.

tpelzer @ shaw.ca