People Before Profit blog

Shoethrower to be released for good behavior

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:53:00 +0000

Original source: morningstaronline.co.uk

The Iraqi journalist imprisoned for hurling his shoes at former President George W Bush will be released next month after his sentence was reduced for good behaviour.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi's act of protest turned him into a folk hero across the Arab world, as his case became a rallying point for critics who resented the 2003 US invasion and occupation.

"Al-Zeidi's shoes were a suitable farewell for Bush's deeds in Iraq," Sunni parliamentarian Dhafir al-Ani said. "Al-Zeidi's act expressed the real will and feelings of the Iraqi people. His anger against Bush was the result of the suffering of his countrymen."

The journalist has been in custody since the incident, which occurred as Mr Bush was holding a news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Mr Zeidi was initially sentenced to three years in prison after pleading not guilty to assaulting a foreign leader. The court then reduced it to one year because the journalist had no prior criminal history.

Defence attorney Karim al-Shujairi said that Mr Zeidi will now be released on September 14.

"We have been informed officially about the court decision," Mr Shujairi said. "His release will be a victory for the free and honorable Iraqi media."

Judicial spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said he had no immediate information about the release because it was a weekend.

Japan elections: JCP as 'constructive opposition party' gains support

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:42:00 +0000

Original source: Japan Press Weekly

At a news conference on August 24 in Nagano City, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo made the following comments at the present stage of the election campaign:

We have called on voters to put an end to the government of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komei Party, and I can say that this call is being shared by an overwhelming majority of the public.

Opinion polls suggest that the Democratic Party of Japan may win about 300 (out of 480) seats. Make no mistake, however. This tendency only represents the overwhelming rejection of the LDP-Komei government. It is not an expression of wholehearted support for DPJ policies and its political line. This is the important point to consider.

In one poll, regarding DPJ policies, 55 percent of the respondents said they do not support the proposal for child allowances, and 67 percent said making the nation's expressways toll free is not a good idea.

What is more, 83 percent said DPJ policies are not convincing because of the uncertainty about its sourcing of fiscal resources.

The DPJ's call for Japan-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) talks to be promoted and for the number of proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives to be reduced is also causing concern among the public.

We should also note that 56 percent responded that no perceived change is forthcoming, even if a DPJ-led government is established. Many people are saying that they are fed up with the LDP-Komei government, but that they are unsure about the DPJ. I believe this is the voice of majority.

Under these circumstances, public support for and understanding of the need to increase the number of JCP seats in the Diet is increasing, as the JCP has declared itself a "constructive opposition party" that will cooperate with a DPJ-led government in implementing policies in the public interest and will oppose policies that are not in the public interest.

In a debate of party leaders, I said that the Japan-U.S. secret agreement on the handling of nuclear weapons should be disclosed and abrogated. In response, DPJ President Hatoyama Yukio said he will negotiate with the U.S. in order to prohibit the U.S. from bringing nuclear weapons into Japan. This is how we are already playing our part as a constructive opposition party.

Furthermore, our future vision, including an economy governed by rules to protect the people's livelihoods, implementing a diplomacy for peace with the full use of Article 9 of the Constitution, and the creation of a new Japan where the people are the key players, is gaining support.

US role in Colombia and Honduras sparks Latin American criticism

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:36:00 +0000

Storm signs are up over Latin America as new tensions play out against historical memories. The great liberator, Simon Bolivar, said in 1929 that the United States is "destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty". Over nearly 200 years of U.S. military and economic intervention in Latin American affairs have taught the leaders, governments and peoples of the hemisphere to be on their guard.

Will the Obama administration change this century's long pattern of arrogant hegemonism? At the start of Obama's administration, some things pointed to a change for the better. In March, Obama broke with the precedent of the Bush administration by pointedly refraining from intervening in the presidential elections in El Salvador. To the protests of the Republicans, he assured Salvadoran voters that if Mauricio Funes, candidate of the left-wing FMLN party won, there would not be reprisals against Salvadoran immigrants living in the United States, as the Bush administration had threatened to impose during the 2005 elections.

At the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad in April, Obama's comments were of a conciliatory nature that made a generally good impression on the leaders present and on the Latin American public.

But two new situations have developed which have put these originally positive impressions under a cloud.

First, the June 28 military coup d'état in Honduras: Although Obama denounced the coup and his administration has stuck to the position that Manuel Zelaya is the legitimate president of Honduras, the perception in Latin America has been that the U.S. has been slow to impose the sanctions necessary to oust the coup regime from power. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's move to put Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in charge of a mediation effort which has not gone anywhere has raised suspicions that the U.S. policy objectives may indeed be to restore Zelaya, but also to keep him from aligning with the more left-wing states in the area. And everyone in the hemisphere is aware of the historic U.S. military and C.I.A. involvement in all aspects of Honduras public life.

Once the sanctuary of Cuban exile terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, Honduras hosted bases for U.S. support of the brutal "Contras" in the wars during the 1980s to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and to stop the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador. Honduran officers involved in the coup were trained at the U.S. Army "School of the Americas" in Fort Benning, Georgia. So when the coup took place, many quickly concluded that is was one of many such events "made in the U.S.A.". Major Latin American leaders such as Cuba's former president Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, himself nearly the victim of a U.S. supported coup in 2002, are careful not to say that Obama personally ordered up the coup, but nevertheless it is clear that the situation has damaged U.S. prestige.

The second event has created even more worry than has the Honduras coup. On August 14, U.S. and Colombian foreign ministers signed agreements opening up 7 military bases - three air force, two army and two navy - in Colombia for a period of 10 years. From these bases, U.S. personnel will be able to range over most of the continent, and U.S. troops will be immune from prosecution for crimes committed in Colombia. The stated purpose of this arrangement is for the U.S. military to be facilitated in fighting against drug trafficking, terrorism and "illegal armed groups."

These agreements were signed without consultation with either the Colombian Congress or the U.S. Senate, and have provoked indignant responses in both bodies, including a worried letter of inquiry to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from U.S. Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CN), the Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Appropriations Committee on State and Foreign Operations.

U.S. ambassador William Brownfield, interviewed on August 19 by the Colombian newspaper "El Tiempo", provided details that raised the level of worry even higher.

"Will U.S. troops be fighting the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)?" the reporter asked? "Yes" Brownfield replied, "without any doubt". Brownfield promised neighboring states that they will be informed of U.S. troop movements close to their borders with Colombia, but added that respect for borders is conditional: "everything depends on the nature of the operations, on what intelligence or monitoring brings us".

This really rang alarm bells. There have been major efforts for years by all progressive sectors not only in Colombia, but in all of South America and beyond, to find a peaceful solution to the civil war between the Colombian government and the FARC and a smaller group, the ELN.

This war has been going on since before the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is seen as an extreme hard liner on the issue, and is accused of sabotaging a number of efforts by international leaders, including presidents Chavez of Venezuela and Sarkozy of France, to negotiate the release of people held by the FARC, risking the hostages' lives in the process. Furthermore, Uribe's regime is almost a pariah in the Latin American community of nations because of its horrible human rights record, which includes the murder, with impunity, of thousands of labor union and peasant leaders and ordinary workers and farmers.

The Uribe government is also involved in many scandals, in one of which Uribe's own brother plus 50 members of his government coalition in the legislature are credibly accused of involvement with drug trafficking. The Uribe government has made threats against its neighbors, especially left-ruled Venezuela and Ecuador, on the basis of apparently concocted claims that they have been helping the FARC. Threats have also been made, on the same basis, against left-of-center politicians in Colombia, especially in the Colombian Communist Party, and in neighboring countries such as Peru.

Left wing governments in Latin America, such as those of Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador, have themselves been critical of the FARC for its practice of holding hostages for ransom and taxing profits of drug dealers as a source of income, but see the Uribe regime and its allies among drug lords and right wing landowners as being worse, even traitors to Latin America in service of imperialism. Even though President Obama gave assurances that the U.S. would not set up its own bases in Colombia, but only make use of Colombian facilities, worries were not assuaged, because Uribe's regime the focus of just as much mistrust as is the U.S. military, and because of opposition to the idea of U.S. military forces getting involved in internal conflicts in the region.

This led some in Latin America to worry that, far from backing away from the hegemonic, intrusive policies of past administrations; the U.S. may be planning an even more aggressive policy turn. The recreation of the U.S. Fourth Fleet to patrol regional waters added to that impression.

This week, the leaders of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations, encompassing Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela) met in Bariloche, Argentina, among other things to discuss the U.S.-Colombia military accord. Both radical governments, such as those of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, and more moderate left wing governments, such as those of Chile and Brazil, expressed the same worries about the U.S.-Colombia deal. Bolivian President Evo Morales called for a continent wide popular referendum on the issue, but President Uribe declared that the matter is not open to discussion. There will be a special UNASUR security meeting in September, inspired by this crisis.

In the U.S., concern should be raised about the wisdom of committing U.S. forces, albeit on a small scale, to support a hard-line, ultra-right wing government that is one of the worst violators of workers' rights on the planet, especially when such an involvement may bring our country into the middle of a civil war in the jungles of South America. The Obama administration should be urged to explore a completely new policy direction that avoids interventionism and hegemonism and that develops respectful cooperative relations with all our hemispheric neighbors.

WORLDNOTES – Iraq, Canada, Italy, Chile, China, and Cuba

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:28:00 +0000

Iraq: Referendum would hasten U.S. departure

On Aug. 17, the Nouri al-Maliki government expressed backing for a national referendum next January on the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) reached late last year. U.S. officials were caught unawares, according to the Washington Post, because the Parliament had failed so far to implement the referendum that lawmakers had advanced as a condition for supporting the SOFA.

If Parliament OKs holding the referendum, and a majority of voters reject the pact, it could force departure of U.S. troops next year rather than in 2011, as established by the SOFA. Concerned about popular support for the referendum, U.S. officials had lobbied against it, the Washington Post said.

Maliki's action came as plans progressed for U.S. forces to join Iraqi Army and Kurdish paramilitaries in combat actions aimed at curbing increased violence in northern Iraq.

Canada: Seasonal workers threatened

Mexican workers employed by Mayfair Farms in Manitoba, tired of minimum wages, unpaid overtime work and deductions for travel from Mexico, formed a union two years ago. Last month, they voted to decertify their union, the day after the Mexican consul visited. He eventually went to all 400 Mexican workers in the province to indicate that union membership would result in blacklisting.

The Winnipeg Free Press explained that a Mexican government intent upon maximizing remittances as a source of national income was protecting the decades-old Seasonal Workers Agricultural Program under whose aegis 12,311 workers came to Canada this year.

"Mexican citizens enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as Canadian workers in the same occupation," an embassy press release claimed in July.

Italy: Anti-immigrant hysteria takes toll

Five survivors told rescuers that 73 Eritrean migrants who left Libya with them died after their dinghy ran out of fuel and got lost during a 20-day journey. Rebelion.org reported no boats would take them aboard, although some provided bread and water. Bodies were returned to the sea.

Laura Boldrini, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, lamented that "fear had prevailed over the obligation to provide assistance at sea."

At work was legislation advanced by the rightist Northern League taking effect Aug. 8. It imposes fines and jail terms on migrants and citizens helping them. To provide housing, for example, risks three years in jail. Anti-immigrant citizen patrols were instituted and migrants were removed from hospital beds. Round-ups eased last week as jails and detention centers filled.

Chile: Mapuche face repression

The recent police killing of Jaime Mendoza Collío, an indigenous, or Mapuche, man, has heightened concerns over denial of rights to a sector constituting 4 percent of Chile's population, of whom 42 percent live in poverty. On Aug. 18, 17 writers, artists and activists wrote an open letter to President Michelle Bachelet protesting state-sanctioned police violence and denial of justice by courts. They wrote: "Since 1883, when the Army annexed Mapuche land in a bloody war [state agencies] have cursed, criminalized, repressed, distorted and punished all sociopolitical processes of this people." The Mapuche do not resort to arms, they pointed out.

The writers demanded investigation, punishment of the guilty, cessation of repressive acts and dialogue.

China: Workers nix privatization

Protests by thousands of workers at the Linzhou Steel Company in Henan Province last week ended plans for privatization of their faltering state-owned plant. They had also held hostage the assets-control state official managing the transfer. China Daily said local government and Communist Party officials promised workers would each receive $80 monthly until production was resumed.

Triggering workers' resistance was the unilateral decision last month to accept Fengbao Company's offer at less than the auction-prescribed price. Chinese law requires approval of privatization plans by workers' congresses. A month earlier, worker protests and the killing of the official directing privatization stymied nearly completed privatization of the Tonghua steel plant in Jilin Province.

Cuba: Preparing for resentencing

Lawyers for the Cuban Five held a news conference in Havana last week at which resentencing of Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez was reviewed. An appeals court last year judged their sentencing as flawed.

The three will appear in Miami Oct. 13 before Joan Lenard, judge at their original trial. Activists nationwide are planning to be in or near the courthouse to demonstrate solidarity.

Lawyer Tom Goldstein called upon Lenard to credit already long incarcerations, suffering of family members denied visiting rights, and burgeoning international solidarity.

Granma International said William Norris, Labañino's lawyer, expressed hope the government will provide sufficient information for preparing their case, a deficiency marring the original trial.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit@roadrunners.com)

Afghanistan exit strategy needed

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:22:00 +0000

As the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan creeps upward, and the country continues to be ravaged by violence and poverty, an increasing number of voices are warning that, as peace advocate and former California state Sen. Tom Hayden put it, "quagmire is more likely than success in the predictable future."

President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, acknowledged the declining support for the war in Afghanistan, saying recently, "We feel the impatience of the public and the Congress."

It is increasingly unclear what the U.S. military venture really expects to accomplish, and demands are growing for a clear exit strategy.

"I don't use the word 'victory', but 'success' instead," Holbrooke said. You cannot define success, he said, "but we'll know it when we see it."

Hayden warns, "Like success, a quagmire will be known when the public sees it." Noting the increase in U.S. casualties, he says, "For every one of those dead American soldiers, not to mention the uncounted dead Afghan and Pakistan civilians, the quagmire already has begun."

Ninety-five House members, including seven Republicans, have cosponsored a bill, HR 2404, introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., that would require the Defense Secretary to present an exit strategy for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Polls show Americans are ambivalent, at best, on Afghanistan. One recent poll showed 54 percent oppose the U.S. war there. While a majority still support President Obama's handling of it, those numbers are slipping. And, underscoring Hayden's point, a majority now say the war was not worth fighting, and only 24 percent favor sending more troops.

As some commentators are noting, bogging the U.S. down in an Afghanistan quagmire could endanger the progressive domestic and international agenda that Obama has called for and that he was elected to carry out. And if that agenda fails, and the ultra-right rides that failure back to power, the American people, and the people of the world, will suffer.

A wide range of experts warns that there is no military solution to the threat of terrorism and to the problems in Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan. A comprehensive exit strategy is needed to end the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan. It will need to emphasize regional diplomacy and peacemaking, and collaborative international efforts for economic and social development.

Honduran talks fail: U.S. suspends visas

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:13:00 +0000

The head of the de-facto government which ousted Honduras' left-leaning president, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya in a military coup spat defiance and refused to give an inch to the entreaties of a last ditch delegation of Organization of American States foreign ministers on Tuesday. The ministers admitted that their mission was a failure.

The foreign ministers mission, including representatives of Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama and the Dominican Republic, had gone to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, to make a push for acceptance of a plan (the "San Jose Accords) presented by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve the situation in the Central American Nation. President Zelaya had previously accepted the entire plan, but Micheletti and his regime, as well as the pro-coup Supreme Court, had refused to countenance two important points: The return of Zelaya to serve out his term, which ends in January of 2010, and amnesty for all concerned on both sides. Both Micheletti and the Supreme Court have said that if Zelaya returns he cannot return to the presidency, and will be put on trial for treason and abuse of power, for pushing for a non-binding popular referendum asking if Hondurans want a constituent assembly to be set up to rewrite their 1982 constitution.

Micheletti said that his government can only be removed by military force and that he thinks that Honduras can endure any kind of blockade.

Costa Rican foreign minister Bruno Stagno, who was part of the delegation, expressed concern that the fall presidential and congressional election campaign in Honduras is due to begin on September 1, with the election to be held on November 29. Stagno and others have pointed out that elections without the return of both Zelaya and constitutional normalcy cannot be considered fair, as candidates opposed to the Micheletti regime can not campaign openly, and media coverage of the election campaigns of Micheletti opponents will be repressed.

The Micheletti regime has darkly hinted that pro-Zelaya organizations on the left are funded by the Colombian FARC guerillas, as says that "at the appropriate time" proofs of this will be presented. Repression of Zelaya supporters continues, and in some communities pro-Zelaya municipal authorities are said to have been replaced by military officers. Snap curfews make active participation in politics difficult. International organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, as well as Honduran women's organizations and organizations representing indigenous and Afro-Honduran sectors, have documented a widespread pattern of violent repression of pro-Zelaya, anti-coup forces. .

And on top of all this, on Sunday night parties unknown broke into the studies of the two only pro-Zelaya electronic media outlets, Radio Globo and Channel 36 TV, overpowering the staff and saturating delicate broadcasting equipment with corrosive liquids which rendered it non-functional. At last report Radio Globo is broadcasting again but TV 36 is still off the air. The "El Tiempo" daily newspaper is the only other major media entity that has leaned toward Zelaya; the rest are all owned by members of the right-wing oligarchy who support and fund the coup.

In response to these events, the U.S. State Department announced today that it is suspending the issuance of new non-immigrant and non-emergency visas by the Tegucigalpa embassy. Though people already having multiple-entry visas will still be able to use them until further notice, new business, tourist and study visas will not be available. The (pro-Zelaya) Honduran ambassador to the United States, Eduardo Reina, expressed approval of this move, even though he recognized that it will cause hardship for some Hondurans; he said that the Micheletti gang must be held accountable.

Steps that the United States has not taken yet include freezing the U.S. bank accounts of coup leaders, an action taken in the past with foreign leaders it doesn't approve of. This, and the cancellation of U.S. visas for coup leaders, has been requested specifically by President Zelaya.

The United States could also join numerous hemispheric governments plus hemispheric international organizations such as UNASUR, MERCOSUR and ALBA, which together include most of the nations and peoples of Latin America, in declaring that it will not recognize any Honduran government elected on November 29 unless President Zelaya and constitutional normality are promptly restored, and repression of the pro-Zelaya opposition is stopped.

The National Front Against the Coup, which is the labor-led coordinating group for anti-coup mobilizations in Honduras, has called for an international day of protest against the coup Wednesday, August 26. There will be protests in front of U.S. embassies in a number of countries, calling for the U.S. to increase pressure for Micheletti to back down.

U.S. strategy debated as Afghan war grows deadlier

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:54:00 +0000

When four U.S. troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan Aug. 25, it made 2009 the deadliest year for foreign troops there since the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Last weekend, U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan said they do not have enough troops. The top commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is currently conducting a review of the overall U.S. strategy. The latest statements suggest the possibility that when the review is completed, President Obama could be pressed to send more troops, even as support for the war appears to have declined in the U.S.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Afghanistan military situation “serious” and “deteriorating.” Speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he said, “The Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics.”

In February, President Obama approved sending an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. military presence there to about 60,000 troops.

They make up the majority of the 100,000 foreign forces in Afghanistan under NATO auspices. The bulk of the casualties are also American. Of the total of 1,302 foreign troops who have died since the 2001 invasion, 802 are American. British casualties are second, at 206. Canada is third, at 127 deaths since 2001.

The latest U.S. deaths bring to 63 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this month. More foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since March than in the entire period from 2001 to 2004.

Estimates of Afghan civilians killed by all sides since 2001 are difficult to come by, but the numbers are believed to be many thousands, including thousands killed in U.S. aerial bombardments.

Recent polls show considerable ambivalence on Afghanistan among the American public, and declining support for the war.

An ABC/Washington Post poll conducted Aug. 13-17 showed that a majority still support Obama’s handling of Afghanistan. But that majority, 60 percent, was down a few points from the 63 percent favorable response in April, and those who disapproved had risen to 33 percent from 26 percent in April.

A majority, 51 percent, now said the war was not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in April.

And only 24 percent favored sending more troops, down from 34 percent in April.

A CNN poll taken July 31-Aug. 3 found 54 percent oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

“I’m certainly aware of the criticality of support of the American people for this war and in fact, any war,” Admiral Mullen said Sunday, this time on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And so certainly the numbers are of concern. That said, the president’s given me and the American military a mission, and that focuses on a new strategy, new leadership, and we’re moving very much in that direction.”

He said, “I believe we’ve got to start to turn this thing around from a security standpoint in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Some analysts say that additional troops will not make the difference. What is required to extract the U.S. from what is looking more and more like a quagmire, they say, is a serious comprehensive strategy that includes a political and economic approach to addressing the needs and concerns of Afghan civilians.

“Tens of thousands more U.S. troops, simply thrown into the fray, guns blazing, would be the death knell for American hopes in Afghanistan — simply intensifying the violence to no clear end,” writes Mark Sappenfield in the Christian Science Monitor. “But tens of thousands of troops deployed to protect key population centers, to target opium networks, to work with local tribal elders, to root out corrupt government officials and programs – these could, at least potentially, have a transformative impact.”

Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul and a former vice-chair of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, wrote in the Huffington Post in May, “Military force will not win the day in either Afghanistan or Pakistan; crises have only grown worse under the U.S. military footprint.”

Taliban extremists’ “main source of legitimacy comes from inciting popular resistance against the external invader,” Fuller wrote. “Sadly, U.S. forces and Islamist radicals are now approaching a state of co-dependency.”

His recommendation: “Let non-military and neutral international organizations, free of geopolitical taint, take over the binding of Afghan wounds and the building of state structures.”

“If the past eight years had shown ongoing success, perhaps an alternative case for U.S. policies could be made. But the evidence on the ground demonstrates only continued deterioration and darkening of the prognosis. Will we have more of the same? Or will there be a U.S. recognition that the American presence has now become more the problem than the solution? We do not hear that debate.”

suewebb @ pww.org

North Korea 'seeks nuclear talks with US'

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:08:00 +0000

South Korean media has reported that Pyongyang has invited top envoys of US President Barack Obama to visit the country for what would be the first nuclear negotiations between the two countries under his presidency.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) recently offered the invitation to Stephen Bosworth, special envoy to the republic, and chief South Korean nuclear negotiator Sung Kim, according to the JoongAng Ilbo daily.

The report cited "an unidentified high-level diplomatic source in Washington" as saying that the US government is "strongly considering" sending them to the DPRK next month.

The US embassy in Seoul refused to comment on the story.

Elsewhere, South Korea have launched its first rocket but space officials said that the satellite it was carrying had failed to enter its intended orbit.

A Science Ministry statement called the launch a "partial success," as the satellite separated from the rocket normally before entering a different orbit.

The UN intensified financial sanctions against the DPRK after it conducted a similar launch on April 5.

Caster Semenya: Who's really confused about gender?

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:34:00 +0000

It's Kafka-esque. A small number of specialists have been ordered to determine if South Africa's international champion in the women's 800 meter race, Caster Semenya, is really a woman. After her blazing victory and complaints from her international opponents, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ordered a "gender test" that includes examinations by "a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender."

It is more than Kafka-esque, say Semenya's family, friends and supporters. It is racist. Leonard Chuene, who heads South Africa's international athletics, told reporters, "Who are white people to question the makeup of an African girl? I say this is racism, pure and simple."

Chuene, who resigned from his position at the IAAF in protest, also noted the stigma that has been heaped on Semenya because of the IAAf's question about her gender. "In Africa, as in any other country, parents look at new babies and can see straight away whether to raise them as a boy or a girl," he said. "We are now being told that it is not so simple. But the people who question these things have no idea how much shame such a slur can bring on a family."

Critics of the IAAF's move have charged the federation with doing nothing more than simply searching for an explanation for why Semenya so dramatically improved her times in the 800 meter race over last year. The 18-year old shaved something like eight second off her best time in 2008.

IAAF ordered the test perhaps because they could not chalk her victory up to rigorous workouts and talent. After all, South Africa is a poor country whose athletes should simply not match up to the rest of the world.

As Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf observe in a recent piece in The Nation, "A country's wealth, coaching facilities, nutrition and opportunity determine the creation of a world-class athlete far more than a Y chromosome or a penis ever could." Zirin and Wolf also noted that homophobic stereotypes of "mannishness" and "manliness" have fueled much of the historic controversy around gender identity in sports.

Given this, IAAF officials knew there was something wrong. Semenya passed drug tests, so she must be a man.

"Just look at her," said Russia's Mariya Savinova, who lost to Semenya. Elisa Cusma, the Italian runner who also lost to Semenya, told Italian reporters: "These kind of people should not run with us. For me, she's not a woman. She's a man."

South Africans remain staunchly supportive. A mass rally to welcome Semenya and her teammates is scheduled for August 25th at the Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg.

The Young Communist League of South Africa described the incident as laced with racism, sexism and vestiges of imperialism. In a statement the YCL said, "it feeds into the commercial stereotypes of how a woman should look like, their facial and physical appearance, as perpetuated by backward Eurocentric definition of beauty."

In addition, "It suggests that women can only perform to a certain level and that those who exceed this level should be men. It seeks to reinforce the societal stereotypes that men are better than women, and thus, cannot go unchallenged," the YCL charged.

The YCL also charged the IAAF with violating its own rules about the maintaining the privacy of athletes who undergo such "gender testing" and called for an investigation into who leaked the details of the case to the media.

In the end, what should have been a celebration of Caster Semenya's athletic accomplishments has been subverted to dominant and dated confusions about the diversity of human life.

Cigarette packaging misleads consumers

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:02:00 +0000

While many countries have banned terms like "light" and "low-tar" from cigarette packs, other aspects of the products' packaging may also be misleading consumers, a new study suggests.

Studies have shown that long-used terms like "light," "mild" and "low- tar" confuse many consumers into thinking that so-described cigarettes carry lower health risks. Dozens of countries have now banned tobacco companies from using the terms on cigarette packs.

But in the new study, Canadian researchers found that other packaging details -- words like "smooth" and "silver," and even the color of the pack -- influence consumers' perceptions of a brand's health risks.

The findings suggest that current regulations are not going far enough to remove misleading elements from cigarette packs, the researchers report in the Journal of Public Health.

One remedy would be to require "plain packaging," free of logos and other brand imagery, write David Hammond and Carla Parkinson of the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

"Plain-packaging regulations came very close to being implemented in Canada in the early 1990s, and they are receiving serious consideration in several other countries at the moment," Hammond noted in an email correspondence to Reuters Health.

The tobacco industry is opposed to such measures, which is not surprising, Hammond noted, since packaging is a key marketing tool, particularly in countries where other forms of tobacco advertising are restricted.

And a cigarette pack's appearance does seem to influence many consumers' perceptions, Hammond and Parkinson found.

For their study, the researchers had 312 smokers and 291 non-smokers look at cigarette packs that had been specifically designed for the study. Participants viewed the packs in pairs, with the two products differing in one element of package design.

Overall, the study found, 80 percent of participants thought that the product labeled "smooth" carried fewer health risks than the one labeled "regular." Similarly, when they viewed products labeled as either "silver" or "full-flavored," 73 percent thought the "silver" product was less hazardous.

Even numbers included as part of the brand-name influenced perceptions. Eighty-four percent of participants thought the product that included a "6" in the name was less risky than another product labeled with a "10."

Color also mattered. More than three-quarters of the men and women thought that the light-blue pack they viewed carried fewer risks than its dark-blue counterpart.

While the tobacco industry opposes the notion of plain packaging, Hammond said he is "confident" it will be a reality in the next five years -- likely with one country setting the precedent, and others quickly following suit.

Ultimately, Hammond said, the public may look back at today's cigarette packaging in the same way they now view the practice of having smoking sections on airplanes.

"People will wonder how such a lethal product was ever allowed to be sold in packages with pictures of flowers and pretty coloring that appeal to young people and provide false reassurance to consumers about the risks of smoking," he explained.

Fighting rages in heart of Mogadishu

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:27:00 +0000

Original source: morningstaronline.co.uk

Somalia's civil war is intensifying as Islamist insurgents hit back at government attacks on rebel-held territory.

Medical workers revealed that at least 24 people had been killed in an assault by al-Shabab fighters retaliating against government troops invading an insurgent-held area in central Somalia.

Ugandan and Burundian troops, under the flag of the African Union, supported the government offensive on Thursday in which more than 40 people were killed.

But in a counter-offensive in the heart of the capital Mogadishu, al-Shabab insurgents fired mortars into a fruit market killing at least six people, while another 18 bodies were later taken to hospital, according to ambulance medic Ali Muse.

Local resident Abdi Haji Ahmed reported that "hundreds of well-armed insurgents came to our district with minibuses and pick-up trucks and immediately they started firing towards the government troops and an African Union base."

Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage insisted that "the government provoked us by coming into our areas, so we have a right to attack them."

The official government of Somalia, headed by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is thought to have real control over just a few blocks in central Mogadishu, backed up by occasional raids mounted by African Union forces based outside the city.

Sheikh Ahmed was elected president in January after an occupation by forces from neighbouring Ethiopia, and backed by the US, came to an end.

Al-Shabab has since resisted the government's attempts to assert control over more of the country, claiming that it is a "secular" government that does not represent Somalia's Muslims.

Subsidised medicines to be available to Chinese

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:18:00 +0000

Original source:

The Chinese government has issued a list of more than 300 commonly used drugs that will be sold at controlled prices from next month as part of reforms aimed at making health care more affordable.

Beijing is pumping 850 billion yuan (£75 billion) into the country's health-care system over the next three years as part of an ambitious plan to provide basic medical coverage and insurance to all of the country's 1.3 billion people.

According to a statement released this week by the Health Ministry, the essential medicines list includes both Western and traditional Chinese drugs that will be sold at cost price from late September.

The list includes antibiotics such as amoxicillin and streptomycin, pain relievers such as aspirin and paracetamol as well as medicines for coughs, colds, anxiety, high blood pressure and other common ailments.

The list will be adjusted every three years to meet demand.

It also said that it aims to equip about a third of public grass-roots health facilities with all the essential medicines on the list by the end of the year and reach all state-owned medical institutions by 2020.

Kim Dae-jung mourned as Korea peacemaker

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:38:00 +0000

Kim Dae-jung, the first South Korean president to meet with North Korea's leaders, is being mourned as a peacemaker. Kim died Aug. 18 at the age of 85.

“I was saddened at the passing of former president Kim Dae-Jung of the Republic of Korea [the name by which South Korea is officially recognized],” President Barack Obama said in a statement, going on to call Kim “a courageous champion of democracy and human rights.”

“President Kim risked his life to build and lead a political movement that played a crucial role in establishing a dynamic democratic system in the Republic of Korea,” Obama said.

It was Kim who introduced a policy of rapprochement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Consequently, while most of South Korea’s presidents, including the current extremist right Lee Myung-bak, have drawn the ire of the DPRK, the North Koreans expressed sorrow at Kim’s death.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il sent a message to Kim Dae-jung’s family. “Upon hearing the sad news that ex-President Kim Dae Jung passed away,” he wrote, “I express my deep condolences to Mrs. Ri Hui Ho and other bereaved family members.”

“Though he passed away to our regret,” the North Korean leader added, “the feats he performed to achieve national reconciliation and realize the desire for reunification will remain long with the nation.”

The sympathy in the North runs so high that the DPRK leadership, despite the current heightened North-South tension, is sending a delegation to Seoul to pay tribute to Kim. The group will be led by Kim Ki Nam, a leader of the Workers Party of Korea. (Kim is one of the most common family names in both North and South Korea.)

The Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh called the delegation Kim Dae-jung's 'final gift.' The paper continued, 'Many are hoping the delegation’s visit to honor the passing of Kim, who dedicated his entire life to overcoming national division and working to establish peace and unification' may “lay the basis for strengthening relations between the states.'

Kim’s life paralleled progressive politics in South Korea: He went from being a prisoner of the infamous Park Chung-hee dictatorship to becoming the first-ever opposition leader elected to the South Korean presidency. He was president from 1998 to 2003. After he left office, he continued to push forward with the fight for democracy and peaceful reunification.

The former president’s most notable achievement, which also won him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, was the Sunshine Policy, in effect from 1998 through 2008, when it was scrapped by the Lee administration. According to this policy, the South would not seek to absorb or overthrow the North, as had been the policy for decades before, but would instead actively seek cooperation.

The result of Kim’s policy was the emotional reunification of families that had been divided since the end of the Korean War. Also, North-South economic cooperation was begun and, in 2000, Kim went to North Korea and met with his northern counterpart, becoming the first South Korean president ever to do so.

As an opposition leader, he was twice a target for assassination. The dictatorship first tried to kill Kim in a way that would look like an automobile accident. Then, in 1973, Kim was kidnapped by government agents from his hotel room and brought to a ship where he was to be thrown overboard. Kim escaped each time.

He was then banned from politics, and, in 1976, was thrown in jail.

After Park was assassinated in 1979, Kim was freed and returned to political life. However, when the military seized power yet again, he was charged with sedition due to his association with democratic elements and spent years in exile.

Kim continued his fight for greater democracy in the South and more friendship with the North. He characterized the current Lee administration as “a tide turning back South Korea to the way it was a decade ago.” He warned of three main problems of Korea: Poor relations between the North and South, the effects of the financial crisis on workers, and assaults on democracy by Lee and his ruling Grand National Party.

In November 2008, he urged progressive forces to unite. “If the Democratic Labor Party, Democratic Party and civic and social groups join hands firmly and form a broad-ranging union for democracy to fight the regression,” he said, “success is assured.”

On January 1, 2009, he referred to the Lee administration as “the people who took the side of dictators ... I had thought that democracy, which so many people risked their lives fighting to attain for 50 years, was on solid ground after ... But for the past year, democracy has been facing a major challenge, and it is going back to where it was 20 or 30 years ago.”

Kim’s spirit was summed up by his former chief of staff Park Jie-won, who was quoted by The Hankyoreh, Korea’s largest liberal newspaper, as saying that Kim “often said that if he keeps quiet, he could just be respected and not hear anything, but as someone who fought for half a century for democratization, he could not just let these issues pass.”

dmargolis @ cpusa.org

Facebook to compete with Google?

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:03:00 +0000

The most used social network by worldwide monthly active users Facebook.com may become the next super computer operating system for communications, according to news reports on Monday.

Facebook is making strategic moves to evolve itself into something greater. Last week, it has purchased FriendFeed, another popular social media platform. Moreover, it has upgraded its search engine functionality, and developed a new ability to share status updates with the entire network in real-time. It has also released Facebook Lite, a trimmed down version of Facebook which is similar to that of Twitter.

All of these moves are making Facebook to establish itself as a must-use platform for every-day Internet users. The really intriguing question is what strategic perspective underpins the Facebook acquisition.

Google's page-rank search technology is good, but it's still pretty primitive -- try looking for a hotel in any town in Iran. You could say that search is about 5 percent solved. With 95 percent still to do, many people think the next advances will come from adding social or collaborative dimensions to pure computational algorithms.

Facebook's purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform, is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown to everybody else. It's an application that acts as a clearinghouse for all of your social-media activities.

Google has long tried to get into the social game, and Facebook surely wouldn't mind expanding into some of Google's territory. It's as classic an American struggle as Pepsi vs. Coke. Two companies, one market. Regardless of which side you choose, Facebook will be happy to air your thoughts on the matter. After all, that's why Facebook bought FriendFeed. So it could

Bollywood superstars airport detention prompts protest

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:53:00 +0000

One of India’s beloved Bollywood superstars, Shah Rukh Khan, who is Muslim, made international headlines recently after he was held for questioning at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Many here describe Khan as the 'Brad Pitt' of India. Khan was on his way to Chicago to participate in a parade celebrating India’s independence before he was detained for over an hour.

The actor was visiting the U.S. to promote his new film, “My Name is Khan,” which incidentally is about racial profiling of Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Critics argue the well-known Indian actor was singled out for questioning by U.S. immigration officials due to his Muslim name. U.S. officials have said Khan was subject only to routine procedures.

In India many of Khan’s fans were outraged and planned a protest demonstration near the Parliament in New Delhi. After the reported detention made top news on TV stations in India, angry fans in the northern city of Allahabad shouted anti-U.S. slogans.

The federal information minister, Ambika Soni, was quoted by the Associated Press suggesting that India adopt a similar policy toward Americans traveling to India. Soni implied that a “tit-for-tat” treatment should be used. “I have always felt – even when I was frisked there (the U.S.) – that the way they frisk us we should do the same for them here,” said Soni.

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapur criticized Soni’s remarks. “What are you going to do, Ms Soni?” he’s quoted saying in The Times of India. “Interrogate every American citizen arriving at our shores for an hour and a half? Or wait for Brad Pitt to arrive here? Cabinet ministers need to make more considered statements,” he said.

Khan, speaking to The Times of India said the experience did make him feel “angry and humiliated.”

Afterwards however Khan played down the whole ordeal. “I think it’s a procedure that needs to be followed, but an unfortunate procedure,” he said to AP.

The U.S. embassy in New Delhi attempted to end the controversy over the weekend describing Khan as a “global icon” who was a welcome guest in the country.

Khan has acted in more than 70 films, and has consistently topped popularity rankings in India for the past several years.

One way to make it up to Khan is if President Barack Obama invites him over for dinner, said Kapur.

“What happened to Shah Rukh is a minor incident which we should protest about, yes,” said Kapur. “And ensure that this doesn’t happen to an Indian public figure like him again and move on.”

Kapur continued, “And President Obama, adept as he is diplomatically and politically, should invite Shah Rukh to a family dinner over beer and (view) one of his Bollywood films.”

Yemen: Fighting forces 120,000 people to flee

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

SANAA, 16 August 2009 (IRIN) - Nearly 120,000 people from various districts in Yemen’s northern province of Saada fled their homes to safer areas on the border with Saudi Arabia as renewed clashes between the army and Houthi rebels escalated over the past four days, according to Mohammed Abdussalam, spokesman for the office of rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi.

“Some of these displaced families - from the most war-affected districts, such as Al Salem Saqain, Ghamr, Haidan, Shada, Malahidh, Majaz and Qataber - are now living with host families and others in camps or outdoors,” Abdussalam told IRIN on 16 August.

The government does not comment on numbers displaced in Saada while aid agencies could not confirm the figures either because of their restricted movement.

More on Saada conflict Number of IDPs in north increases – agencies Over 3,000 displaced as clashes flare up in north Government funds reconstruction efforts in Saada Child soldiers getting killed in north The conflict in Saada Governorate - analysis “For the time being, we have no accurate data on the number of IDPs [internally displaced persons] as the movement of our teams is restricted to within Saada city because of intermittent clashes,” Rabab Al-Rifai, communication delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen, told IRIN.

“We provided 100 tents to some IDPs in one of the four camps and clean water is supplied on a daily basis in the camps,” she said, adding that access to clean water was the biggest challenge facing IDPs there.

Al-Rifai said that over the past three months, around 7,600 IDPs in camps had been registered with ICRC and another 4,000 living with host families.

Aid workers kidnapped, restricted

Over the past five days, a number of international humanitarian organizations - including ICRC, the UN Food & Agricultural Organization, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Medicines Sans Frontiers - sent teams to the restive province but worsening security there has limited their effectiveness, Mohammed Abdullah, a Saada councilor, said.

On 14 August, 15 Yemeni Red Crescent Society (YRCS) aid workers, including doctors and nurses, were kidnapped by rebels from IDP camps in the province, according to Saada Governor Hassan Manaa, as quoted by the Yemen news agency Saba.

Manaa said local authorities were doing their best to facilitate aid agencies’ access to the displaced.

On 12 August, the government and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) discussed ways to provide more effective humanitarian aid for IDPs. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi and UNDP Resident Representative Pratibha Mehta talked about the future role of UN-affiliated humanitarian organizations in helping displaced families.

Photo: ReliefWeb A map of Yemen highlighting Saada Governorate But the fighting has shown no signs of letting up. The government offered the rebels a ceasefire on 13 August on condition that they withdrew from conflict areas, removed their checkpoints and returned kidnapped foreigners, among other issues. The rebels rejected the offer and denied holding any kidnapped civilians.

On 14 August, 15 civilians were killed in military airstrikes on Haidan Market in Saada, according to a local councilor from Amran who spoke to IRIN on condition of anonymity. On the same day he said five Yemeni soldiers were killed and dozens other injured in clashes in the Harf Sifyan District of neighbouring Amran Province, some 100km north of the capital Sanaa.

Another official, also declining to give his name, said 20 Houthi fighters were killed in army airstrikes on Haidan, Dhahian, Matrah and Al-Mahadhir districts.

The ‘sixth war’ between the Yemeni army and Shia Houthi rebels broke out on 12 August after a year-old truce collapsed. The government accuses the rebels of wanting to impose a strict Islamic rule that was prevalent in Yemen until the 1960s while the rebels say they are defending their people against government oppression

Venezuela to expand education

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:17:00 +0000

CARACAS Aug 16 (Prensa Latina) After the enactment of the Education Bill, Venezuela on Sunday enters a new stage in its drive to guarantee Venezuelans from all walks of life free access to education.

President Hugo Chavez on Saturday signed the bill that had been passed by Parliament early in the morning, despite attempts against it by the opposition, the private school system, the media, and the national Catholic hierarchy.

In his Sunday column 'Las lineas de Chavez,' the Venezuelan president stated that the time of education as a business and as a mean to train subjects of the empire has come to an end with such legislation, whose aim is to be a social asset.

The bill does not eliminate private schools or prohibit religion teaching, but get it out of the curriculum.

The State can now supervise resources delivered to public universities, a mechanism that does not protect university autonomy and that, according to accusations, favored corruption and embezzled resources.

To guarantee education funds, the law establishes that the State will allot the sector a priority share of the Gross Domestic Product.

Seven killed in Kabul car bombing

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:16:00 +0000

A suicide car bomber has attacked NATO headquarters in the heart of Kabul, killing seven people and wounding nearly 100 just days before national elections.

The Afghan Ministry of Defence said that four Afghan soldiers and member of parliament Awa Alam Nuristani, President Hamid Karzai's campaign manager for women, were among the injured.

It was the biggest attack in Kabul for six months and is likely to shake public confidence in the extensive network of checkpoints and armed guards that maintain security in the city.

The bomber managed to evade several rings of Afghan police before detonating his vehicle about 30 metres from the main entrance to the NATO base.

President Hamid Karzai insisted that Afghans 'will not be scared of such threats and will go to the voting booths' on Thursday.

But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid insisted that the militants 'have people's support with us, the people are helping us to carry out our attacks.

'The people should not participate in the election, this American process - we are going to attack those polling centres where we see Americans and other foreigners,' Mr Mujahid warned.

Pro-democracy demonstrations continue in Honduras

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:54:00 +0000

New analysis

On June 28, the Honduran army overthrew the democratically elected government of left-wing president Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya and bundled him onto an airplane into exile in Costa Rica. This action, in spite of being given a constitutional veneer, was not accepted by workers and poor farmers in Honduras, who constitute Zelaya's support base, or by the international community.

The Organization of American States, the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union and other international organizations and individual governments, including that of the United States, immediately denounced the coup and stated their support for Zelaya's return.

But several weeks later Zelaya is still on the outside while labor unions and peasant and student organizations within Honduras have been left to battle against the coup regime, headed by former President of Congress Roberto Micheletti, without enough practical international support to reverse the coup.

The coup was carried out in fear that a non-binding referendum that President Zelaya, at the behest of unions and other popular organizations had scheduled for that same day, would encourage a groundswell of support for the calling of a constituent assembly to rewrite the current Honduran constitution to open up a bigger role for mass participation in decision making. So an intrigue was set in motion among the Honduran oligarchy of landowners, wealthy businessmen and U.S. trained army officers and their powerful U.S. supporters.

The Bush administration had clashed with Zelaya because of the latter's refusal to let his country be used for attacks against Cuba and Venezuela, and likely helped to set the coup in motion, using strong US military and CIA links to the Honduran armed forces and the activities of agencies such as the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Endowment for Democracy. Numerous former figures from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations, including John Negroponte, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega are suspected of involvement in the coup planning.

Now the bulk of the Republican Party is actively supporting the coup, including former presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ), the chair of the IRI. A figure with ties to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, paid lobbyist Lanny Davis, has been very active on Capitol Hill as a hireling of Honduran business interests, putting out various kinds of misleading anti-Zelaya spin, which is retailed in our corporate media.

Right after the coup, Secretary of State Clinton promoted the idea of having Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica, play the role of mediator between Zelaya's government in exile and Micheletti's 'de facto' coup regime in Tegucigalpa. Zelaya accepted this, saying that he thought it necessary to prove to the United States that he and his supporters were reasonable. However, Arias' mediation has gone nowhere. Arias proposed, in exchange for the return of Zelaya to the presidency, a government of national unity to include both Zelaya and Micheletti supporters, an amnesty for sides, earlier elections and abandonment by Zelaya of the idea of the referendum, among other things. Zelaya accepted these items on principle, but Micheletti has refused any pact that includes Zelaya's return, so the negotiations have stalled. Currently the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, is making a last-ditch effort to restart negotiations by organizing a visit of OAS foreign ministers to Honduras to talk to the coup regime, but the Micheletti crowd is turning this into a farce. First Micheletti demanded that no foreign ministers from the left-leaning ALBA countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Antigua and St Vincent, besides Honduras itself) be part of the delegation. Then at the last minute, Micheletti cancelled the visit because of the involvement of Insulza, a former member of Chilean Socialist President Salvador Allende's government. Then Micheletti changed his mind and said Insulza could attend as an observer, but now the visit seems to be off again.

Within Honduras, even though 47 days have now passed since the coup and in spite of increasingly violent repression, resistance appears to be mounting. A number of labor unions and union federations are on strike with a demand that Zelaya be returned, including teachers, nurses and hospital workers, taxi drivers and airport workers.

Though Zelaya started out his presidency in 2006 as a fairly conservative figure, he has gained support among the 70% of Hondurans classified as poor because of actions such as raising the minimum wage by 60% for most workers, and this is reflected in the resistance. On Tuesday August 11, two large columns of Zelaya supporters arrived in Honduras' largest cities, the capital, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula in the north of the country. For the rest of the week, there have been protests and clashes with police in the streets, with many injured and arrested (accounts differ, but there appear to have been at least nine deaths overall since the coup).

At this writing, the coup government has announced it is going to prosecute some of the arrestees for 'sedition' on the basis of the burning of a Popeyes chicken franchise and a city bus. Leaders of the protests organized by the Honduran National Front Against the Coup claim that these acts were carried out not by the persons charged but by pro-coup agent-provocateurs. The government is also claiming to have 'evidence' that the marches are being financed by the Colombian 'FARC' a charge that is met with derision by the protesters.

The demands of the protesters are for an end to the coup, the return of Zelaya, the carrying out of the referendum that was stopped on June 28 and no impunity for the coup perpetrators. President Zelaya has said that he appreciates President Obama's statements against the coup, but he wants to see firm action by the United States including the canceling of the US visas of the coup leaders, the freezing of their bank accounts in the US and the suspension of all non-humanitarian aid. The U.S. State Department has cancelled the special diplomatic visas of some of the coup leaders, but has not cancelled their regular visas so this is largely a symbolic action. No action has been taken on freezing bank accounts, a strategy that the U.S. has used with other regimes it disapproves of. Some U.S. aid has been cut off, but much continues to flow and visitors to Honduras say that there is still coordination between the U.S. and Honduran military at U.S. bases there.

The AFL-CIO, SEIU, Workers Uniting (U.S., Canadian, British and Irish unionized steelworkers) and other labor and civic bodies have denounced the coup and asked the Obama administration to take firm action to bring it to an end. U.S. representative Bill DelaHunt (D-MA) has introduced a resolution denouncing the coup and asking for Zelaya's return into the House of Representatives (H.RES. 630). This resolution now has 44 cosponsors. U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and 14 colleagues have sent a letter to President Obama asking him to move more forcefully against the coup regime.

The national elections for president and Congress were originally scheduled for November 29, but Micheletti has been saying that he wants this date to be moved up to October 25, or a little more than 3 months for now. Opponents of the coup in Honduras and abroad suspect that the Micheletti game plan is to use delaying tactics to the point that the election takes place without the return of either President Zelaya or constitutional normality.

This would stack the deck against left-wing candidates who support Zelaya and oppose the coup. Both the resistance within Honduras and many foreign governments and leaders, mostly recently the UNASUR bloc of South American Nations (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and Chile), have stated that if elections are carried out under such circumstances, they will not recognize the results.

Meanwhile the massive demonstrations continue on the streets of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, and Micheletti continues to play games with the OAS.

For daily updates on Honduras, see the author's blog: Click on 'blog' at the upper right hand corner of the home page of pww.org

NAFTA meeting produces disappointment

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:00:00 +0000

The three heads of government of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) countries recently met in Guadalajara, Mexico. The net result of the meeting among Mexican President Felipe Calderon, U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is frustration and disappointment in all three countries.

The Guadalajara meeting took place under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, an entity cooked up by the George W. Bush administration with the purpose of adding a “security” dimension to the NAFTA economic pact. Under the terms of the SPP, the United States has being supplying Mexico with military aid to fight its war against the violent drug cartels that have kept many regions of the country in turmoil over the last couple of years. This aid package, called the Merida Initiative, is supposed to be monitored by US and Mexican legislators to make sure that it does not result in violations of human rights. In fact, Mexican and international human rights organizations have documented that since President Calderon unleashed 45,000 army troops into the midst of the drug war, human rights complaints, ranging from harassment of citizens to murder, have risen 600 percent. Just before the Guadalajara meeting, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked the release of some Merida Initiative funds because he found that the State Department's report on the human rights situation not to be credible. This annoyed the Calderon government.

At the same time, the Canadian government has recently imposed visa requirements on Mexicans visiting Canada on the grounds that too many Mexicans were entering Canada without visas and then asking for political asylum. This action by Harper's government annoyed Mexicans across the political spectrum, and the Mexican government subsequently imposed its own visa requirements on Canadian diplomats as retaliation.

During the 2008 presidential election campaign, then Senator Obama had criticized NAFTA both because of its impact on U.S. industrial jobs and its displacement of Mexican farmers who can't compete with taxpayer subsidized grain imports from the US and end up becoming undocumented workers in the U.S. as a result. He had talked about renegotiating NAFTA, but both of his colleagues in Guadalajara are right-wing, free trade fanatics and will not budge on this even under pressure from their own workers and small farmers. Harper and other right-wing Canadian figures had threatened that if Obama as president tried to re-open NAFTA negotiations they would push for Canada to be paid much better for its oil, natural gas, water and timber exports to the United States.

So, in spite of smiles and diplomatic niceties, the three leaders met in an atmosphere of tension and disunity in NAFTA. Mexico attended with an agenda of keeping the Merida Initiative aid flowing, solving the problem of undocumented immigrants in the United States, and getting Canada to revoke the visa requirements. The Mexican government is also upset by the U.S. Congress' curtailment of a program that allowed Mexican truckers to operate within the United States. Another irritation is that two requests Mexico has made to the United States to help fight the cartels, namely to crack down on the free sale of high powered weapons in the United States and to work to reduce the number of drug users, have not been acted on, the former because of the power in the US of the National Rifle Association and its supporters. Canada and Mexico both came to the meeting adamantly opposed to re-opening NAFTA negotiations, in spite of massive protests by Mexican farmers and Canadian workers asking for this (the Mexican left organized protests in Guadalajara during the meeting, demanding the renegotiation of the agricultural component of NAFTA and other things). The Mexicans and Canadians were also annoyed by “buy American” provisions in U.S. stimulus legislation.

There were several other important items on the agenda: The need for a coordinated response to the continuing world financial crisis which originated in the United States but has hit Mexico particularly hard (with a possible 7% plus shrinkage of GDP in 2009), the issue of the H1N1 “swine” flu which began in Mexico but may be related to practices of US agribusiness, and the crisis in Honduras.

But virtually nothing new was accomplished. The meeting produced a bland and content-less joint statement by the three heads of government, full of airy generalities about opposing protectionism and helping Mexico in its fight against the drug trade. Perhaps the only positive thing was that all three leaders reaffirmed their opposition to the coup in Honduras and their support for the return of President Zelaya, although no strategy for achieving this was mentioned in the statement. The statement can be read at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Joint-statement-by-North-American-leaders/ In comments to the press, President Obama defended Calderon's government against accusations of human rights violations, saying that the drug cartels are a much bigger threat to human rights--objectively true, but hardly an excuse for the misbehavior of soldiers and police anywhere. He also announced that he thinks it may be possible to bring about an immigration reform in early 2010.

So how are all these problems, including the renegotiation of NAFTA, to be achieved? This has to be done from the grassroots up, for it is evident that there is not enough pressure in any of the NAFTA countries to open up renegotiation at this point.. Central to this is more unity among labor unions in all three countries around demands for fair trade, labor and human rights, and a solution to the world financial and economic crisis that is not built on the backs of workers, small farmers and ordinary people. Fortunately, irrespective of the lack of results in Guadalajara, such activities are underway.