People Before Profit blog

“Let them eat cake,” says king as Swaziland plunges into crisis

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:46:00 +0000

Tensions are rising in the small Southern African kingdom of Swaziland (population 1.2 million), as unionized teachers and public service workers face off against the security personnel of Africa's last absolute monarchy. There are economic roots to the country's problems that are similar to those of other African nations, but dissidents charge that the irresponsible attitude of the King, Mswati III is making the situation infinitely worse.

The Kingdom of Swaziland was created in the 19th Century by the Dlamini family, which sought to maintain independence by balancing off against each other dangerous neighbors: The Zulu Kingdom, the Boer South African Republic, and the British Empire. By the end of the 19th century, Swaziland became a British protectorate, whose fertile soil, mild climate and mineral resources attracted outside economic interests. South African and other foreign investment in Swaziland followed.

The "protectorate" jibed with the British colonial policy of "indirect rule," in which far flung pieces of the empire were theoretically administered by local kings, princes, and maharajas. These rulers became buffers between London and the impoverished mass of colonial subjects. Swaziland got full independence in 1968, during the long reign of King Sobhuza II, the father of the present king. The trappings of a parliamentary democracy were soon abandoned by Sobhuza, who established a royal dictatorship that continues under Mswati III, who took full power in 1986.

Swaziland is overwhelmingly agrarian, and 75 percent of the population consists of subsistence farmers, while some work in the mines and other industries of neighboring South Africa. There is some mining (coal, gold, iron, and formerly asbestos) but by far the biggest industry in Swaziland is the cultivation and processing of sugar cane.

The Swaziland Sugar Association reports that sugar represents 59 percent of all agricultural output, 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product, 24 percent of manufacturing output, 35 percent of agricultural wages, 18 percent of manufacturing wages, seven percent of exports, and 58 percent of all Swazi exports to the European Union, which, after South Africa, is Swaziland's main trading partner.

Sugar cultivation and processing are dominated by large-scale enterprises, mostly rooted outside the country, though the government has encouraged small farmers to experiment with it also. Big players in Swazi sugar include the CDC (originally the Colonial, later Commonwealth Development Corporation) owned by the British government, and the Swazi royal family.

Mining in Swaziland is in decline, increasing the importance of sugar. But now the appreciation in the value of Swazi currency has combined with changes in European Union agricultural trade policy to threaten income from sugar, which provides the tax revenues needed to pay the salaries of teachers and other civil servants. At the same time, food prices have been rising. To deal with this situation, King Mswati's government has relied more and more on regional and international lending agencies. But in February the International Monetary Fund told the King that there would be no more loans unless austerity was applied to the national budget.

Basic services are falling apart. Schools are closing, and service workers wages drastically cut. Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV-AIDS in the world; a shocking 41 percent of adults are infected, but health facilities are closing.

Mswati has expensive tastes. As teachers and others have demonstrated for modest pay increases, the King has committed one tactless gaffe after another. He has purchased expensive luxury automobiles and accepted a gift of a private airplane from unknown sources. His thirteen wives are known for their lavish shopping habits, which can't be satisfied in the capital, Mbabane, but require jet setting.

The king has demanded traditional forms of tribute from his subjects, including cows for his birthday. In spite of the emergency, the annual reed dance, in which tens of thousands of bare-breasted young women dance before the king in the hope that they are chosen as his next bride, will go ahead. And now three of his wives and their entourage are off to hit the slot machines in Las Vegas.

Opposition to Mswati's royal despotism has been arising through the trade unions. Demands include increased wages and union rights, as well as democratic reforms. The Communist Party of Swaziland is calling for the end of the monarchy and the declaration of a democratic republic. Others call for a constitutional monarchy with limitation of the powers of the king and a democratic parliament to replace the present one in which royal influence prevails.

A month old teachers' strike, has been met with a stone-wall of refusal to negotiate by the government, and increasing violence from the authorities. The government announced that any striker not back at work by Tuesday, July 24, would forfeit his or her job.

The teachers' strike continues, now supported by nurses and taxi drivers. The strikers are calling on workers worldwide to show their solidarity. At writing, the King has left for South Africa. The Communist Party suspects a move to be away when harsh repression comes down, and has asked that the South African government place sanctions on the Swazi royal family.

Photo: Mswati III Marco Castro/Flickr

Ghana mourns president’s death

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:56:00 +0000

The West African nation of Ghana is mourning the death of its beloved president, John Evans Atta Mills, who was only five months away from the end of his first term and expected re-election.

The popular leader of the leftist National Democratic Congress (NDC) was rushed to the hospital and died early Tuesday afternoon. "It is with a heavy heart," a government statement declared, "that we announce the sudden and untimely death of the president of the Republic of Ghana."

In keeping with its reputation for stability and unity, Vice President John Dramini Mahama was sworn into office hours later at an emergency meeting of parliament. "I am personally devastated," the new president said in his first national address, "I've lost a father, I've lost a friend, I've lost a mentor and a senior comrade."

Mills, who celebrated his 68th birthday only July 22, had a long career in government service before he was elected president in 2009, most notably as a former vice president and as a commissioner of Ghana's Internal Revenue Service. Popularly known as "the Prof," Mills also was an academic who studied at Stanford University on a Fulbright Fellowship and taught law at the University of Ghana for 25 years.

Ghanaians across party lines always praised Mills for what they considered his modesty, decency, and honesty. As Mahama pointed out in yesterday's speech to parliament, "The fine gentleman that he was, President Mills rightly earned the title 'Asomdwehene'," which means "king of peace" in Akan, one of Ghana's main languages.

Rumors about Mills' poor health date back to his presidential campaign four years ago, but Mills continued to insist he was in good shape. Last month he traveled to the United States for what he described as a routine medical checkup. When he returned to Ghana, he good naturedly jogged past a huge crowd of supporters welcoming him at Accra's airport. Nevertheless, public debate about his health, particularly in Ghana's lively media, persisted, and it was widely believed Mills suffered from throat cancer.

Mills was credited with ably tackling the huge debt inherited from the previous government of the right-wing New Patriotic Party (NPP) as well as successfully overseeing the start of large scale oil production off Ghana's coast in December 2010. A lifelong socialist, Mills embraced the politics of the country's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, and his administration pursued progressive policies like rural infrastructural development, the building of primary schools, and the empowerment of women.

President Barack Obama, who visited Ghana in 2009 and earlier this year met with Mills in Washington, said in a statement: "President Mills tirelessly worked to improve the lives of the Ghanaian people. He helped promote economic growth in Ghana in the midst of challenging global circumstances and strengthened Ghana's strong tradition of democracy."

Mahama, Ghana's new president, is a 53 year old former academic who studied in the Soviet Union, a leading political figure in the NDC, and a former Minister of Communication. Earlier this month, he published a memoir, My First Coup d'Etat: And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa, that has received very favorable reviews in leading newspapers like the Financial Times. As a northerner, Mahama's ascension to the presidency is especially notable since Ghana's politics have long been dominated by ethnic groups from the country's south.

Mahama has called for a week of mourning and opposition presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP has pledged to suspend his campaign during that time.

Analysts predict a struggle within the ruling party to determine the NDC's ticket for December's presidential elections. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, wife of former longtime Ghanaian leader J. J. Rawlings and founder of the 31st December Women's Movement, attempted to win the nomination away from Mills last year. However, she suffered a humiliating loss at the party's convention last July. Reports indicate the NDC will hold an extraordinary meeting soon to select the presidential candidate with Mahama perceived to be the likely choice.

The new president held his first cabinet meeting today at which ministers wore red and black, the colors associated with mourning in Ghana, and some were visibly crying. Across the nation and the diaspora as well as on the internet, Ghanaians grieve for their deceased president but also express satisfaction that their nation met this crisis with unity and determination to support their new president and prepare for December's elections.

Today in History: Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:55:00 +0000

On July 25, 1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a space walk.

Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya, born August 8, 1948, flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space some 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova. She served two duty tours on the Salyut 7 (the Soviet Union' space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991), and on her second tour made a space walk. She was outside the space station for 3 hours 35 minutes.

She was also a test and sports pilot: starting from 1974 she set 18 international world records on MiG aircraft and three records in team parachute jumping. She won first place at the 6th FAI World Aerobatic Championship in 1970.

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than 400 applicants to pilot Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in space.During her three-day mission, she performed various tests on herself to collect data on the female body's reaction to spaceflight. Before being recruited as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile factory assembly worker and an amateur parachutist.

On Monday, Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, died of pancreatic cancer. She was 61 years old.

As the first American woman to fly in space (on the Challenger in 1983), Ride faced some unique challenges. Speaking to reporters before the first shuttle flight, Dr. Ride --chosen in part because she was known for keeping her cool under stress -endured such questions as: Would she cry? Would she wear a bra and makeup in space?

Dr. Ride received her doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 1978 and became a physics professor at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the California Space Institute in 1989.

After her space career, Ms. Ride devoted herself to bringing the excitement of science to children - especially girls. She helped found the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, based in Virginia, and in 2001 launched Sally Ride Science, an educational company. She also co-wrote several books for children.

Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Dr. Tam O'Shaughnessy.

Photo: USSR 1983 stamp: Cosmonauts Leonid Popov, Svetlana Savitskaya, and Aleksandr Serebrov. Wikipedia.

Behind London Olympics spectacular sports, a dark side

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:06:00 +0000

The 2012 Summer Olympics will be held from July 27 to August 12. While the Games bring athletes together in spectacles of sport, it will also bring another spectacle. As with other host cities, London will likely see crippling debt, a specter of gentrification and militarization and a profitable relationship with Olympic sponsors that are some of the worst corporate criminals and human rights abusers.

Most Olympic host cities get racked with enormous debt. For example, it took Montreal 30 years to pay off the $2.7 billion it owed from hosting the 1976 Olympics. One of the factors that helped fuel the current Greek economic crisis was the $11 billion spent on the 2004 Games, an amount that nearly doubled the originally proposed budget. So, it should be no surprise that after the Games are over, London will be stuck with a massive bill despite setting aside £9.3 billion ($14.4 billion). This is especially galling given the budget cuts and austerity measures already enacted and being proposed by UK leaders.

As the Olympics loom, English housing rights activists are decrying the Games for heightening the already existing housing problems in London. Some tenants near Games venues have reported massive increases in their rent when re-signing leases and/or temporary rent increases for the duration of the Olympics. Others have reported attempts at eviction so landlords can make a hefty profit. But it isn't just landlords that are engaging in evictions. Residents in certain housing developments have been told by the local governments to vacate their buildings because they will be demolished as part of an Olympic "beautification" effort. These people have not been told about any possibilities of a guaranteed right of return if and when the housing is rebuilt.

There have also been other attempts at gentrification via the police. Prior to the arrival of the Olympics, London police arrested sex workers in disproportionate numbers in areas where Olympic venues and activities would be located and have begun cracking down on brothels near Olympic venues. By cracking down on these institutions, many sex workers have been forced into the streets which created a much more dangerous environment for their health and safety. Such harsh police pressure has made sex workers fear arrest if they come forward as victims of a criminal offense that occurred while working.

The police have also been given expanded powers to deal with possible "undesirable" people or activities. Certain areas around London have become "dispersal zones" which allow officers to remove people for soliciting, begging or loitering. Police are telling activists that they must clear protests with police officials. Any protests that are not appropriately reported to authorities beforehand may face immediate removal. Furthering belief that the goal is to marginalize protest, London police announced preemptive arrests for people they suspect may disrupt the Games and courts have banned certain people from being near any Olympic events.

Authorities have also been given wide latitude to protect the corporate image of the Olympics and its sponsors. Under the London Olympic Games Act of 2006, police may seize items that put down the Olympics, even if they must enter a private home. It also allows the security forces to deal with businesses that are not official sponsors but have advertising deemed objectionable. The protections go above and beyond current copyright law in England.

The Games have good reason to want to try to protect the image of their sponsors because they are some of the worst human/labor rights abusers. Allegations have arisen that Adidas utilized sweatshop labor to make some of its Olympic uniforms. BP, a company being called an Olympic environmental sponsor, perpetrated one of the biggest environmental disasters with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But most the most notable have been the protests around Dow Chemical. Members of the Indian Olympic team threatened a boycott over Dow's relationship with the Olympics as Dow has still escaped accountability for the Bhopal gas disaster.

Over 23,000 police/military will be present for the Olympics. More UK soldiers will be patrolling the Olympics than will be serving in Afghanistan. The overt militarization can also be seen in the sonic weaponry used in Iraq that will be on scene, the surface to air missiles present on rooftops of apartment complexes, facial recognition software, cameras, and checkpoints. The surveillance equipment will not disappear after the Games end.

International sporting events don't have to exacerbate social inequity. But it is up to us to reclaim them. We can have sporting events that uplift the human spirit. But we must take back the world of sport for the causes of truth, freedom and social justice because while we may always and rightfully remember some of the athletic feats we're sure to see during the Games, the impacts of the London Olympics will be around long after.

Struggle over elections continues in Mexico

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:56:00 +0000

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his left wing coalition have joined forces with the right wing National Action Party (PAN) to press electoral authorities to investigate the Party of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) massive vote buying campaign and use of illicit funds during the recently held Mexican elections.

After two vote counts, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) has declared PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, a former governor of Mexico state, winner of the presidential race over center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO), the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Labour Party (PT) and Citizens Movement (CM).

AMLO and his coalition are asking IFE's electoral court to annul the presidential election.

AMLO has presented evidence to the court demonstrating that the PRI violated Mexican law by buying 5 million votes. According to AMLO, PRI governors (who run 20 Mexico's 32 states) funneled public, private and illicit money, including funds from the U.S., amounting to billions of pesos, to PRI operatives at the local level. These operatives distributed pre-paid gift cards for Soriana (a department store chain), cash, household goods, farm supplies, even tax forgiveness in exchange for casting a vote for PRI candidates.

Peña Nieto met with the 16 PRI governors on June 12 to plan the massive vote-buying operation, said AMLO. For political parties to buy votes is illegal in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador said that there were also irregularities in at least 113,855 polling stations out of 143,132 across the country. In some cases, more votes were counted than those who actually voted. The final vote tallies that were counted in front of all party representatives in the polling stations were not always correctly reported by IFE's PREP (rapid vote count) and votes were removed for some candidates (AMLO) or increased for others (Peña Nieto). In other places, voters were denied the right to vote because there were not enough paper ballots.

While PAN, which has run the country for the last 12 years, has so far not called for the annulment of the presidential elections, its leader Gustavo Madero has criticized the PRI for massive voting buying and use of illicit campaign money. Madero admitted that the PRI always wins elections through "money and deception." He questioned the legitimacy of Peña Nieto's victory given the PRI's illegal massive vote buying effort during the elections. He stated it would be difficult to annul the elections but one cannot reject this possibility. PAN president Fellipe Calderon has also criticized the PRI's massive vote buying effort.

PAN is working with the AMLO's coalition to expose the PRI's financing and vote buying during the elections. Coalition and PAN leaders have already met and are exchanging information. Madero demanded that the PRI "explain where these resources (illicit money) came from to finance their campaign." Jaime Cardenas, lawyer, for the PRD-PT-CM coalition, charged that the PRI greatly exceeded spending limits and the extra money has to be accounted for.

Both Parties have asked IFE and Mexico's Attorney General to investigate the PRI's use of illicit funds as well as massive vote buying.

The PRI denies allegations of vote buying and use of illicit funds and accuses AMLO of being a sore loser.

AMLO also announced on July 21 the National Plan for the Defense of Democracy and Dignity of Mexico. As part of his effort to overturn the presidential election results, his coalition will hold assemblies on July 29 and August 5 across the country to discuss new information about electoral fraud. Tables will be set up to collect new information about fraud. They will also mobilize people, especially artists, to participate in creative activities in defense of the vote. The coalition will use TV, radio and the Internet to publicize its campaign to get IFE to annul the presidential elections.

AMLO has said that PRI supporters have been providing more information and testimony on fraud to his campaign headquarters.

Meanwhile, the student movement "#YoSoy132" is continuing its campaign of large scale peaceful protests against what it sees as the right wing's imposition of Peña Nieto on the country. They movement is considering occupying the headquarters of Televisa this coming Friday to protest the network's support for the PRI during the elections. At least 32,000 people marched through Mexico City July 22 to protest the right wing's imposition of Pena Nieto as President.

Photo: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during a political campaign. Emiglex/Wikipedia

Hungary arrest could result in answers to old questions

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:26:00 +0000

A 97 year old former Hungarian police official, Laszlo Csizsik-Csatary, was arrested in Budapest last week at the urging of the Wiesenthal Center, and will be tried for crimes committed against the Jewish population of Kosiče, Slovakia, during the Second World War. This case has importance far beyond the issue of one man's guilt or innocence.

Kosiče, called Kassa when it was part of Hungary, had an ethnic composition including many Magyars (ethnic Hungarians), with large Slovak and German minorities and a thriving Jewish community. In 1919, after the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kosiče and its surrounding region were awarded to the newly formed Republic of Czechoslovakia by the Treaty of Trianon, which also awarded big pieces of Hungary to Romania and Yugoslavia. Trianon left a third of the Magyar people outside Hungary's borders, and fomented the same kinds of resentments in Hungary that the related Versailles treaty did in Germany.

After the fall of a short-lived communist government, Hungary fell under the control of increasingly repressive right wing governments. In place of the deposed king, Admiral Miklos Horthy became "regent." Horthy was served by a series of prime ministers who suppressed the Communist Party and made sure that the interests of the ruling class-both the old landholding aristocracy and the financial and industrial bourgeoisie-were not disturbed.

Over time, overtly fascist tendencies increased their power, especially in the military and the Gendarmie, or national police, in which Csatary served as an officer. A line was crossed in 1932, when Horthy appointed as Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös, a personal friend, an out-and-out fascist and extreme anti-Semite.

After Gömbös died in 1936, more anti-Semitic and fascist-tinged politicians ended up heading the cabinet, all appointed by Horthy: Kalman Daranyi from 1936 to 1938, Bela Imredy from 1938 to 1939 and Laszlo Bardossy from 1941 to 1942 (between Imredy and Bardossy came Count Pal Teleki, no progressive but who committed suicide when he could not stop Germany from moving troops through Hungary to invade Yugoslavia).

These gentlemen upped the agitation against Jews in Hungary, and also began to enmesh Hungary more and more with Nazi Germany, eventually declaring war on the Soviet Union (using a mysterious bombing of Kosiče as a pretext) and sending Hungarian troops to die alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front.

One motive for allying Hungary with Hitler was to get German support for reversing the land concessions of Trianon. In the First Vienna Award of 1938, German intervention resulted in the return of southern Slovakia, including the city of Kosiče, now Kassa again, to Hungary. Laszlo Csizsik-Csatary was made commander of the Gendermie in Kosiče/Kassa in 1941.

In March of 1942, Admiral Horthy removed his pro-Nazi prime minister, Bardossy, and replaced him with Miklos Kallay whose mission was to find a way for Hungary to disentangle itself from the German alliance the war.

Hitler got wind of this, and, in March 1944, occupied Hungary and forced Horthy to remove Kallay and replace him with a virulent Nazi, Dome Sztojay. Briefly a general, Geza Lakatos, replaced Sztojay and returned to the efforts to find a peaceful exit from the war, at which point Hitler had Horthy, Kallay and others imprisoned, and imposed the leader of the Nazi Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szalasi, as leader, in October 1944. Szalasi was ousted by the conquest of Hungary by the Soviet Red Army.

Why are all these names and dates important? Because in Hungary today, the right wing government of Prime Minister Victor Orban of the Fidesz Party, and also the neo-fascist and viciously anti-Semitic Jobbik Party, are engaged in a campaign for the whitewashing of Horthy.

One claim is that Horthy was the protector of the Hungarian Jews during the Second World War. It is true that Horthy opposed the mass deportation of the longstanding Jewish population of Budapest to death at Auschwitz. But there is plenty of evidence of his personal anti-Semitism.

"National Army" forces he led in 1919 committed many anti-Semitic outrages. He cheerfully signed off on a whole series of anti-Jewish laws. In the territories, including Kosiče, that Hungary got back by the First and Second Vienna Awards, Jewish refugees from other countries, and Hungarian Jews who could not prove their citizenship, were violently expelled.

Csizsik-Csatary's tenure in Kosiče began in 1941, while the biggest deportation of the city's Jews to Auschwitz, involving the extermination of 15,700 persons, happened in 1944, when the Germans were running the show. But Csizsik-Csatary is also accused of culpability in the Kamenetz-Podolsky massacre in 1941, in which Jews deported from Kosiče were massacred along with many others. At that time, Horthy and Bardossy were in full control.

So what precisely happened between 1941 and 1944 is important for the evaluation of the claim that Horthy was the "protector" of the Jews. And this 97-year-old former police commander was there, and can tell us.

Photo: Laszlo Csizsik-Csatary

In Japan, thousands protest nuclear power

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:31:00 +0000

On July 16, over 100,000 Japanese citizens gathered in Tokyo for a massive protest against the restarting of nuclear power plants in Japan, in what is proving to be an impressive reaction against nuclear energy. This development comes one year after Japan was struck by the earthquake- and tsunami-triggered Fukushima Daichi disaster.

This demonstration was a response to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's decision to restart two of the country's 54 nuclear reactors; the rest of them currently remain idle. Protesters marched through the capital, filling the streets of Japan's political center. This proved to be the largest gathering yet since the growing anti-nuclear movement first began in March, when only a few hundred demonstrators showed up.

The citizens' argument is thus: Profit-driven pursuit of nuclear power, and even genuine economic concerns, are nonetheless putting human health and safety at risk.

The reactors that have been restarted are in the Ohi nuclear plant, where only minor safety provisions have been implemented. Larger safety measures - like building higher sea walls in the area and making the immediate area quakeproof - are planned, but won't be ready for months.

As the plant is located near the scenic Obama Bay, residents feel a heightened sense of concern, worrying an accident could contaminate the area's largest freshwater resource. Seismologists, meanwhile, have pointed out that authorities neglected to take into consideration the active fault lines around Ohi, including one that runs just beneath one of the reactors.

After an independent commission last month blamed the Fukushima disaster on human error, it seems that error may be taking place all over again, as safety precautions are seemingly thrown to the wind.

These demonstrations are exceptionally notable, because they show the Japanese in a rare state of solidarity; citizens from all walks of life have banded together to show their discontent with the continuous pursuit of nuclear energy. This type of collective political action surprised many people - including some of the protesters themselves.

"Never in my 39 years of life have I ever tried to voice my views out loud like this," remarked Hitoshi Iwata, a Tokyo office worker who took to the streets after learning about the planned protest on social networks. "I expected that the Fukushima case would turn society away from nuclear power. But when things started to move on the contrary, my sense of disappointment was so strong that I felt a compelling need to voice my protest."

But Japan, which sees one-third of its economy fueled by nuclear energy, faces a troubling dilemma. The nation has no fossil fuel reserves of its own, and has been leaning heavily on nuclear power since the 70's. Since Fukushima, reports say, Japan has been ramping up fossil fuel imports and aggressively promoting renewable energy as it tries to unsteadily carve a path to a new energy future.

And yet, fear of a national energy crisis hangs over Japan. The $66 billion cost of imports in natural gas have pushed Japan into a trade deficit. The country hopes it can cut its costs by 2016, when it will try and import gas from the U.S., rather than other parts of Asia.

As the government, in its desperation, clings to atomic energy, citizens complain that their voices simply aren't being heard; no one is listening to their health and environmental concerns.

"I'm so angry that Mr. Noda hasn't taken on the perspective of the citizens and local residents," said Yukiko Kada, governor of Shiga Prefecture in Kansai, Japan. She added that the opposition of her and a few other governors to the restarting of the Ohi plant were met with intense bullying by the government and Big Business.

Kiyoshi Kurokawa, chairman of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, may have inadverdantly suggested the need for more protests and political action on the part of citizens in the future. He wrote, "What must be admitted - very painfully - is that this was a disaster 'made in Japan.' Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to "sticking with the program." ... In recognizing [these facts], each of us should reflect on our responsiblity as individuals in a democratic society."

Photo: A protester holds an anti-nuclear slogan and a photo of Prime Minister Noda during a massive rally in Tokyo. Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

Welcome to the London lockdown

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Parliament is moving center-stage as crises of private-sector greed and incompetence are laid before select committees.

On Tuesday it was the turn of G4S, following Barclays the week before.

G4S is a massive global security operation that runs prisons, deports people on behalf of the Home Office, protects Israeli occupation of Palestine and has contracts all over the world.

It's a company that seems to enjoy close relations with all branches of government - a depressingly familiar story by now, almost the theme of 2012.

It got a huge contract to run security for the Olympics and failed to train or provide the staff to do it. The government panicked and brought in the army.

Or did it?

It's hard to believe the line that Home Secretary Theresa May aggressively presented to the Commons last Monday - that she knew nothing about the expected shortcomings of G4S until the week before.

If this is so, she must be in a hermetically sealed time capsule.

Her colleagues over at the Ministry of Defense were already putting soldiers on standby to do G4S work and her old friend Boris Johnson in City Hall was telling the Home Office of concerns over the contractor several months ago.

G4S has lost a huge portion of its share value and will have to pay hefty compensation for its failure to deliver.

But there's a bigger lesson here. Dennis Skinner put it aptly in Parliament on Monday - that the whole obsession with "private good, public bad" has led us in a direction where public policy is invariably directed not at delivering a service directly but of finding a contractor to do it.

Public-sector employment was once the benchmark of secure, fair standards, but now it has to compete with the private sector.

Far from making it more efficient, this seems to take the form of mimicking telephone-number salaries for senior executives and cutting wages and pensions to the level of the insecure operatives who actually deliver for the corporate billionaires.

It can be comforting to attack the individuals involved in the corporate mess, but we have to face the fact that the rot is systemic. Privatizing public services isn't new.

Its biggest boost was under Thatcher and Reagan in the US. They in turn had seen its "success" in Pinochet's Chile as a way of reducing trade union strength and rewarding their corporate backers.

We privatized endless services under Thatcher and Major.

New Labour did increase the overall level of public spending on services, but its favored model was to use contractors to increase "efficiency."

School meals, for example, were once delivered by properly employed workers who knew and understood the children they were feeding.

Care workers who knew and cared for the elderly they were helping were employed by councils. Once upon a time this was normal.

But Tony Blair was obsessed with the "third way," and his recent very odd interview with Andrew Marr confirmed that he's still plowing that furrow, calling for public responsibilities to be handed to his friends in the private sector.

Our low-wage, insecure workforce has provided huge wealth to global corporations like G4S.

Maybe the shock to shareholders and pension funds which have invested in G4S will force a more forensic approach to these bodies, which seem to be too big for national governments to control.

With the Olympics now on, the contrast between Britain's image in the world and the reality of our society is laid bare.

Anyone arriving at one of the airports will be met with long queues. Non-Europeans will be subject to lengthy and intrusive questioning.

Anti-drug dog-teams will sniff their luggage and when they make it to a train or bus station they will be greeted by ranks of unsmiling armed police.

Central London is increasingly looking locked down.

At the Olympic venues huge security operations are now run by the army, which patrols the 11-mile electrified fence around the main site and conducts checks on anyone trying to get in. It's an image far removed from tourist posters. And there's more.

The amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean is stationed in the Thames. There's a no-fly-zone over London.

Anti-aircraft missiles have been installed atop the iconic former Bryant and May factory where the matchgirls held their historic strike.

All this is part of the price we pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Bush and Blair's infamous "war on terror."

Then there's the funding. Ever since the less than successful Los Angeles event of 1984 this has become a mixture of huge public spending on venues and a corporate jamboree where even the Olympic logo seems to have been sold to McDonalds, Coca Cola, Cadbury's and a few brewers.

Anyone else using or displaying it can be fined.

The decision-making surrounding the Games is murky.

There's a distinct lack of democracy.

National committees in search of the games fawn before the enormously powerful International Olympic Committee and the attendant corporate interests who want to "sponsor" them in return for exclusive marketing rights and tax-breaks.

Dubious companies like Dow Chemicals, which has still to adequately compensate the victims of the Bhopal disaster, are welcomed, no questions asked.

The same is true of countries that deny women the right to participate in sport or be represented, such as Saudi Arabia.

When Ken Livingstone led the bid for a London Olympics he sought to address the poverty of east London and the need for regeneration.

The Games were supposed to leave a legacy of public parks and social housing.

Does anyone really trust Boris Johnson and his cronies to ensure that the crowded and poorly housed of Newham and east London will actually benefit from the Games or believe that the facilities built at huge public expense will not end up in private hands, unaffordable for the majority?

The welcome of the Olympic torch showed that many young people feel positively about the Games and appreciate its real spirit.

But that spirit is being lost amid corporate greed and the security state being imposed on London for the next month.

The Games should be about peace and athletics, and the enjoyment of the fantastic cultural mix of London - that is why they came here in the first place.

This article was originally published in Britain's Morning Star newspaper. The author has been a Labour Party Member of Parliament since 1983. Photo: Stewart Cutler // CC 2.0

Today in history: Nelson Mandela's birthday

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:28:00 +0000

On July 18, nearly 12 million children across South Africa sang Happy Birthday to kick off the nationwide celebrations of Nelson Mandela's 94th birthday,

Mandela was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994 after spending 27 years in prison for his fight against racist apartheid, and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work towards world peace. He retired from political life in 1999, establishing the Nelson Mandela Foundation to fight poverty, AIDS and illiteracy in Africa.

Today communities in South Africa and around the world are dedicating 67 minutes of the day to volunteer work and projects for the needy - one minute to mark each of Mandela's 67 years in public service. Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela, handed out books to children during the birthday celebrations in Mvezo, South Africa,

In many districts, South Africa came to a virtual standstill while strangers greeted each other in the streets, and even toddlers at one pre-school waved at passersby and sang: "We love you, Tata," or "great father," a supreme term of endearment.

Tokyo Sexwale, a longtime ally in the African Nation Congress, described Mandela as a global statesman who inspired the world.

Ahmed Kathrada, one of Mandela's oldest friends, said Madiba, as he is affectionately known by his Xhosa name, championed the dignity of all.

"Nelson Mandela set an example to show us that reconciliation is possible," said 10-year-old Thakgalo Ditabe. She said she wanted Mandela to know how much he meant to her.

Ntando Ntuli, 12, said with pride: "He is my hero because he fought for us. He is an icon, the king of Africa."

Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said the greatest gift the nation could give Mandela on his birthday would be "to emulate his magnanimity and grace."

In the U.S., the solidarity struggle against apartheid took many forms. Particularly militant were the longshoremen who refused to handle cargo from apartheid South Africa.

One of the first things Nelson Mandela did after he was finally released from jail was thank the ILWU, and he became an honorary member of Local 10 in June 1990.

Photo: Former South African President Nelson Mandela. Elmond Jiyane, GCIS/AP

Spanish miners' protest draws massive support

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:03:00 +0000

On Wednesday July 11, Madrid saw a massive show of support for miners who are protesting austerity moves by the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which they say will completely destroy their hardscrabble livelihoods. More protests and strikes projected for coming weeks.

The coal mining regions of Spain's northern Asturias province and neighboring areas are no strangers to militant struggle. In 1934, a miners' rebellion in Asturias was brutally suppressed by the army under the command of General Francisco Franco, the later dictator, with many killed and imprisoned.

Two years later, in 1936, the imprisoned miners and other leftists were released when the Popular Front government was elected. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the miners fought on the Republican side. Fascist troops, police and militias ravaged the towns in the region in revenge for the miners' combativeness, and after Franco's forces won the war in 1936, there were executions.

When Franco died in 1975 and democracy, of a sort, was restored in Spain, the miners continued to show a high level of class consciousness and union militancy. Yet in recent years, their jobs have been disappearing to automation, to transition to natural gas and renewable energy sources, and to competition from cheap imported coal from South Africa and elsewhere.

Currently there are about 14,000 people employed by the mines. Until recently, the Spanish mining industry has counted on government subsidies to keep going. But this year, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has announced the elimination of 63 percent those subsidies, without which it is believed that the mines will have to close. Rajoy's People's Party came into power in December 2011 after the government of Socialist Party Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero lost national elections on November 20.

The slashing of mining subsidies is part of a massive set of cuts and austerity measures that Rajoy is proposing as a response to the country's current financial and economic crisis. The crisis was set off by the collapse of a real estate boom and recently accentuated by the near collapse of the important Bankia bank.

As in Greece, Portugal and other struggling countries, in Spain austerity is being demanded in exchange for financial help by the "troika" of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. Although Spain's national debt is not as high as those of other European countries currently in trouble, Spain has nearly 25 percent unemployment. Rodriguez Zapatero's government was defeated at the polls because it, too, had turned to austerity measures to combat the crisis.

Now Rajoy is going much further. In addition to the cut in the subsidies for the mining industry, he is proposing to increase the regressive value added tax from 18 percent to 21 percent, sharply cut the pay of government workers, drastically reduce unemployment payments, and cut the budgets for schools and health care, as well as services to the elderly. Privatizations of railways, airlines and port facilities are also in the offing.

One particular complaint of the miners is that Prime Minister Rajoy proposes to cut back existing programs for retraining miners who lose their jobs due to the decline of the mining sector. They complain that help to the miners is being cut while Bankia and other financial institutions are bailed out to the tune of $120 billion. In addition, there are plans for "labor flexibilization" which will make it easier for employers to fire workers.

So 200 coal miners and members of their families marched from Asturias to Madrid, a distance of 250 miles. Along the way, people in towns and villages came out to cheer them and give them food. When this "Black March" reached Madrid, they found that tens of thousands of Madrileños were ready to join their protest. On Wednesday, they reached the Ministry of Industry building on downtown Puerta del Sol. There they demanded a meeting with officials. This was refused, and the police charged the demonstrators and brutal scenes ensued with 76 people injured, plus arrests.

The two major union federations of Spain, the enormous CCOO (Confederacion Sindical de Comisiones Obreras) connected to the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the UGT (Union General de Trabajadores) linked to the Socialist Workers Party, issued a joint statement supporting the miners and announcing massive strikes and marches for July 19, saying that the government is "playing with fire".

The Communist Party is calling not only for the rescue of the miners' jobs, but also for the nationalization of the mines. Writing on the website of the PCE 's paper Mundo Obrero, Enrique Javier Diez Gutierrez, education coordinator of the United Left, to which the PCE belongs, pointed out that restoring subsidies to private companies does not make sense. Rather, he said, the subsidies should be going to nationalized mines and to the workers and their families, so that there can be a rational and planned mechanism for both protecting the environment and preserving jobs by creation of new industries in the mining regions.

In the parliament, Cayo Lara, coordinator of the parliamentary caucus of the United Left, denounced the austerity measures, which total up to 65 billion euros ($78 billion), as a violation of democracy, and demanded that they be submitted to a popular referendum. On Friday, civil servants hit the streets in massive numbers to protest Rajoy's austerity plans.

Photo: Miners' march to the Minister of Industry building in Madrid, July 11. Coal miners angered by huge cuts converged on Madrid for protest rallies after walking nearly three weeks under a blazing sun from the pits where they eke out a living. Andres Kudacki/AP

Canadian scientists protest firings, spending cuts

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:50:00 +0000

In June 2012, Canada's government made excessive cuts in its environmental departments, resulting in the firing of many top scientists. On July 9, those scientists - and their supporters - had decided they'd had enough; they led a march through central Ottawa to Parliament Hill, in protesting what they said was a vicious attack on science and the environment.

The demonstration was led by a woman pointedly dressed as a Grim Reaper, leading the rest of the workers along with a coffin meant to represent "the death of evidence." That symbolism served as commentary on conservative Prime Minister Harper's apparent disinterest in funding or supporting all things scientific, which many feel is motivated by his administration's bedfellowship with Big Oil.

"Evidence is the way that adults navigate reality. When countries [deny evidence and] engage in fantasy, that's called state propaganda," said professor Arne Moores, addressing a crowd of 800+ people at Parliament Hill.

On top of the firings and department cuts, said scientists, the Harper administration intends to stop funding a number of additional projects, like an Arctic environment atmospheric research laboratory. U.S. scientists have remarked that shutting down that lab will interfere with the world's ability to monitor the ozone layer. Activists are quick to note that this comes at a time when oil companies are setting their sights on the Arctic and its sensitive ecosystem.

Also being shut down is the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, which plays a big role in studying the effects of water pollution. That area - a collection of 58 remote lakes and a laboratory - has been running since the 60's, and was the place where the first evidence of acid rain came from.

"It is completely shocking," said Jim Elser, an aquatic ecologist at Arizona State University, who performed experiments at the site during the 90's. "It's sort of like the U.S. government shutting down Los Alamos [it's most important nuclear physics site] or taking the world's best telescope and turning it off."

Doing away with the ELA also means that all workers there will lose their jobs.

"The government is shutting down science and decimating Canada's environment," said earth sciences professor Sherry Schiff. "It's pretty transparent."

Jeff Hutchings, professor of biology at Dalhousie University, added, "An iron curtain is being drawn between science and society. Closed curtains, especially those made of iron, make for very dark rooms."

The ELA also played a key role - albeit inadverdently - in the fight against Big Oil. "People working at ELA [were] constantly finding reasons why you can't just put a pipeline here, or an industry there, because there are going to be environmental costs," said freshwater lake biologist John Smol.

University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver was able to sum up the reason for the Harper administration's anti-science assault: "It's not about saving money [for the government]. It's about improvising ideology. What's happened here is that the government has an ideological agenda to develop the Canadian economy based on the extraction of oil as quickly as possible." They want to "sell it as fast as they can, come hell or high water - and eliminate any barriers that stand in their way."

Photo: Peter Blanchard // CC 2.0

New comic to dish the dirt on ocean pollution

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:22:00 +0000

The Pacific Garbage Patch is an area of the Northern Pacific Ocean filled with tons of plastic trash, which has increased exponentially over the course of 40+ years. In a rare example of a comic series highlighting an environmental issue, Great Pacific will see its protagonist exploring and settling on a much larger, fictionalized version of the patch, declaring it an independent nation.

Great Pacific, written by DC Comics writer Joe Harris with art by Martin Morazzo, is an upcoming ecological science fiction series, to be released by Image Comics. In it, a bigger, dirtier version of the real-life Pacific Garbage Patch becomes a sovereign nation, claimed by lead character Chas Worthington.

Worthington is initially the heir to a large American oil fortune. He soon ditches his pursuit of wealth and power, however - opting instead for an apparently strong environmental concern. What creates his sudden ideological shift (from pro-oil to pro-environment) is not yet clear. As he settles on the patch, he comes to battle mutated marine life, deal with hostile island natives, and cope with threats posed by the U.S. Navy.

The series is described as documenting the fight against ecological catastrophe and clashes for resources, territories, and power. Judging by the synopsis, one could certainly believe that this will be a series on the correct side of the environmental argument. It also seems to make a nervy statement about the corruption of Big Oil. This is a story that, if taken in the appropriate direction, could come to carry much progressive weight.

What's important outside of the sci-fi comic world, however, is realizing that the Pacific Garbage Patch is still just that - a patch; not a potential nation.

Marine biologist Miriam Goldstein said that the actual patch is nowhere as big as comics like Great Pacific would make it seem, but is nonetheless a highly severe problem that is only getting worse.

"Most pieces of garbage in the Pacific are about the size of your pinkie fingernail," she remarked, though she added that she and her team have found much larger bits of trash floating along as well. But it isn't the size that's alarming, she explained; it's the sheer amount of litter that makes it such a dire issue.

Perhaps more dire is what that garbage does to wildlife. Birds and fish mistake discarded plastic for food and consume it. Resultantly, they slowly starve to death. Others get caught in the plastic and, likewise, die. Though research on the subject is not entirely conclusive, said Goldstein, still, "Some studies of albatrosses show plastic correlating with poor nutrition - and you [also] see a lot of dead chicks with their stomachs absolutely stuffed with plastic."

There is also worrying potential for ocean pollution to throw the ecosystem out of balance, because certain creatures, like water skater insects, crabs, and barnacles, are thriving in the litter-plagued environment. Thus, these creatures are competing with the locals for more food, and that may push many fish and birds out of the area.

Great Pacific will prove to be most handy and informative. It arrives at a vital period, in which, amidst the firings of top ocean scientists and right-wing efforts to dismantle anti-pollution regulations, the problems with waters around the world are getting worse. This upcoming series will depict a different kind of hero, fighting a different kind of villain: pollution; and, if Mr. Harris is so brave as to broach the subject, Big Oil.

"If trends continue," said Goldstein, "we're going to see more plastic than fish. And with that plastic will come more invasive species and more water skaters. The danger is that this could alter the open ocean forever, and destroy all the native life there that has kept them healthy for thousands of years."

Photo: Chas Worthington stands upon the Pacific Garbage Patch in "Great Pacific." Joe Harris.net

How the election was stolen in Mexico

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:25:00 +0000

Evidence continues to mount that the recent "victory" by conservatives in Mexico's national elections was completely fraudulent and that the country's center-left coalition should have been declared the winner.

After two recounts of votes in Mexico's July 1 national elections, center left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, called AMLO by friend and foe alike, continues to reject the official election results.

Those official tallies establish rival right wing candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) as the winner.

AMLO, candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Labour Party (PT) and the Citizens' Movement (formerly the Convergence Party) presents a mountain of evidence as proof of his party's assertion that the July 1 elections were "totally falsified."

First, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), after finding irregularities, conducted only partial recounts before issuing the following "final" tallies:

For the right wing Enrique Pena Nieto (PAN) the official total was 19,226,784 or 38.2 percent.
For the center left Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD-PT) the tally was 15,896,999 or 31.6 percent.
Josefina Vazquez Mota (Party of National Action) officially received 12,786,647 votes or 25.4 percent.
Gabriel Quadri (New Alliance) officially garnered 1,150,662 votes or 2.9 percent.

Since Mexico has no runoff elections, the right wing Nieto becomes the winner if those are the actual totals.

AMLO, at a July 9 press conference in Mexico City, claimed that Nieto won only because the PRI engaged in a massive vote-buying operation that bought five million votes from the country's poor.

Sixteen PRI state governors played a big role in distributing pre-paid gift cards for Soriana, (a new department store chain that sells food and household goods) cash, farm supplies, tax forgiveness and other items in exchange for casting a ballot for PRI candidates.

AMLO said some people who initially accepted the Soriana cards and then afterwards felt "regret" delivered the cards unused to his PRD-PT coalition. Pasted on the walls in his Mexico City headquarters where he gives daily press conferences are hundreds of the vouchers given to the bribed voters.

AMLO and Ricardo Monreal Avila, the PRD-PT's campaign coordinator, revealed that PRI governors funneled public, private and illicit money, including funds from the U.S., amounting to billions of pesos, to PRI operatives at the local level and that those operatives used the funds to buy the votes.

A power point presentation showed financial documents and checks that implicate the PRI governor, his cabinet and political operatives in Zacatecas state.

Peña Nieto met with the 16 PRI governors on June 12 to plan the massive vote-buying operation, claim the two PRD leaders. For political parties to buy votes is illegal in Mexico. The website of Mexico's daily leftwing newspaper La Jornada has posted videos of people being interviewed by hidden camera who admit they accepted Soriana vouchers in exchange for voting for the PRI.

The student movement "I am #132," which campaigned against Peña Nieto and refuses to recognize the election results, has shown similar video footage of bribed voters accepting Soriana vouchers.

To demonstrate links between the PRI and Soriana, La Jornada's front cover on July 7 showed a picture of Peña Nieto at a publicity event for Soriana in Mexico state wearing a green Soriana T-shirt.

AMLO said that there were also irregularities in at least 113,855 polling stations out of 143,132 across the country. In some cases, more votes were counted than those who actually voted or vice versa. The final vote tallies that were counted in front of all party representatives in the polling stations were not always correctly reported by IFE's PREP (rapid vote count) and votes were removed for some candidates (AMLO) or increased for others (Peña Nieto).

In other places, voters were denied the right to vote because there were not enough paper ballots.

AMLO said his coalition will be going to the Federal Electoral Institute's electoral court to overturn the election results in the coming days. He wants IFE to reopen the ballot boxes and recount all the votes.

AMLO also says that the second vote recount by IFE was inadequate and that the federal electoral agency had failed to ensure a fair election. "IFE did not do its job of keeping the elections clean," he declared.

Lopez Obrador supporters are circulating via Facebook copies of hand written polling station vote tallies side by side with IFE's vote tally to show examples of how IFE officials altered vote counts to favor the PRI.

Polling station 0389 in Tabasco reported that 111 votes were cast for Lopez Obrador but IFE only listed 11; the polling station in Nezahualcolyotl, Mexico State reported Lopez Obrador received 81 votes but IFE only mentioned 56; in Zaragoza, Mexico state, IFE disqualified Lopez Obrador's 81 votes for being ineligible even though the handwritten vote tally document from the polling station clearly states 81 votes; In Tultitlan, Mexico state Peña Nieto got 81 votes but IFI reported 801.

Other pictures on Facebook are of young men, faces blackened with paint to conceal their identities, burning ballot boxes. In another, scorched, frayed ballots from people who voted for the PAN are strewn on the desert floor.

Lopez Obrador supporters are also distributing videos through YOUTUBE demonstrating voter suppression. One shows a group of voters in the Federal District, led by an outspoken older woman, demanding the right to vote at a polling station after they are told by an election official he had run out of paper ballots.

The Internet hacking group Anonymous is circulating pictures from the IFE website showing Lopez Obrador as the presidential winner, easily overtaking his PRI and PAN rivals, before the results were changed to show Peña Nieto as winner.

The PRI's Peña Nieto denied that his party bought millions of votes with the Soriana pre-paid cards and other payments and has submitted a complaint to the Special Investigator for Electoral Crimes to investigate where the Lopez Obrador campaign obtained the Soriana vouchers. Peña Nieto claimed his party won the elections fair and square, the elections were transparent and clean, and Lopez Obrador cannot accept that he lost the presidential elections a second time. Nieto also accused PRD-PT supporters of dressing in PRI T-shirts and handing out the gift cards.

Despite Nieto's denials, Soriana posted a letter at its stores announcing that it would no longer "accept the pre-paid cards in our stores due to the fact " that the PRI withdrew funding for the cards that it's supporters distributed.

PAN leader Gustavo Madero admitted that the PRI always wins elections through "money and deception." He questioned the legitimacy of Peña Nieto's victory given the PRI's illegal massive vote buying effort during the elections. He stated it would be difficult to annul the elections but one cannot reject this possibility. The PAN would respect any decisions that electoral authorities make on the elections, stated the PAN leader.

In Durango state PAN, PRD and PT leaders formed an alliance to annul the July 1 elections. The three parties will submit evidence documenting how the state's PRI government used taxpayer money to buy votes. For instance, the Secretary of Social Development sent a truck of cement to the Mayor of Santiago Papassquiaro that instead arrived at the home of the state PRI leader who distributed the cement to supporters to assure a vote for the PRI.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people marched through the Mexico on July 7 to protest election fraud. The biggest protests took place in the capital Mexico City where tens of thousands protested.

Photo: Demonstrators gather at the Zocalo Plaza in Mexico City, July 7. Tens of thousands marched. They believe the PRI engaged in vote-buying that illegally tainted millions of votes. Marco Ugarte/AP

Investigation: Fukushima nuclear disaster was “man-made”

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:51:00 +0000

Last year's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe was "man-made" and "the result of collusion" between the government, regulators and the company operating the nuclear plants, a report commissioned by Japan's Parliament has charged.

For Americans, the stinging report, the result of months of investigation, raises questions about the recent push for expansion of nuclear power plants in the U.S.

"It's a worldwide problem: the nuclear industry has taken control of the regulators," says Arnie Gunderson, a former nuclear industry engineer and manager who now works with the nonprofit Fairewinds Energy Education.

In Japan, the government, regulators, and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), "effectively betrayed the nation's right to be safe from nuclear accidents," says the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission report, released July 5.

Commission Chairman Kiroshi Kurokawa, a doctor, fellow of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and former president of the Science Council of Japan, wrote in an introductory message:

"The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 were natural disasters of a magnitude
that shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subse-
quent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster - that could and should have been foreseen and prevented."

Japan sits in a volcanic zone. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunamis, occur several times a century.

Nevertheless, said Kurokawa, the report "catalogues a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared" for the earthquake and tsunami. It also notes "serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government."

Kurokawa writes that over time in Japan, "nuclear power became an unstoppable force, immune to scrutiny by civil society. Its regulation was entrusted to the same government bureaucracy responsible for its promotion." He points to "a tightly knit elite with enormous financial resources" and bureaucrats who "put organizational interests ahead of their paramount duty to protect public safety."

"it became accepted practice to resist regulatory pressure and cover up small-scale accidents," he said.

In language that sounds familiar in the American scene, the commission concluded that, "From TEPCO's perspective, new regulations would have interfered with plant operations and weakened their stance in potential lawsuits. That was enough motivation for TEPCO
to aggressively oppose new safety regulations and draw out negotiations with regulators
via the Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPC). The regulators should have taken
a strong position on behalf of the public, but failed to do so."

The commission says, "The underlying issue is the social structure that results in 'regulatory capture,' and the organizational, institutional, and legal framework that allows individuals to justify their own actions, hide them when inconvenient, and leave no records in order to avoid responsibility.

In what amounts to a call to grassroots activism, Kurokawa concludes, "each of us should reflect on our responsibility as individuals in a democratic society."

Japan has been operating without nuclear power since early May when the last of its 50 working reactors was shut down, officially for a scheduled safety check. Since the Fukushima disaster, a growing movement has been demanding that Japan adopt a nuclear-free energy policy.

Anti-nuclear protests have ratcheted up across Japan since Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on June 16 okayed the restart of two nuclear reactors at the Oi plant, in an area full of seismic faults, AFP reported. Noda's claims that the reactors would be safe have been met with public skepticism. His claims are "truly the return to the now discredited nuclear "safety myth," the Japanese Communist Party newspaper Akahata editorialized. The restart "indicates that the Noda cabinet has given in to the demands of major businesses that promote the continuation of reliance on nuclear power generation," said Akahata.

On June 29, a crowd estimated as high as 200,000 jammed the streets to protest outside the prime minister's residence in Tokyo.

Weekly Friday protests have been held outside Noda's residence since March. Among the leaders has been Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, who started an anti-nuclear petition that has so far gathered more than 7.5 million signatures, according to AFP.

In the U.S., many experts criticize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as too cozy with the nuclear power industry. The NRC was created by Congress in 1974, because of conflict-of-interest concerns about the previous Atomic Energy Commission, which was supposed to both promote nuclear power and at the same time regulate it.

"However," writes investigative journalist Karl Grossman, "the same extreme pro-nuclear culture of the AEC continued on at the NRC."

Grossman, author of "Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power," points out that "neither the AEC, in its more than 25 years, nor the NRC, in its nearly 30 years, ever denied an application for a construction or operating license for a nuclear power plant anywhere, anytime in the United States."

"The NRC is a rubberstamp for the nuclear industry," he says.

Photo: Rally against nuclear energy in Japan, via Japan Press Service.

At Maine-Canada border, anti-Cuba blockade is broken

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:00:00 +0000

The half-century-old U.S. economic blockade against Cuba was broken in one small corner of the United States on June 30. Three groups of ordinary citizens had come together to defend Cuba's right to set its own course.

That day a small truck and a car from Maine crossed the international border at Norton, Vt., to join 30 or so Quebecers at a brief solidarity gathering just north of the border. Together they then carried boxes of humanitarian aid material to the U.S. border station where they would be loaded onto the Mainers' vehicles.

U.S. officials knew that donated supplies were heading for Cuba and also that U.S. blockade rules were being violated, specifically those requiring licenses for humanitarian donations to Cuba. Nevertheless, after inspecting the boxes efficiently and amiably, the border officials let them pass. They joined in talking about the activists' return to the border next year.

That no license was requested or obtained was intentional. People allied to the three groups are all rejecting U.S. regulations aimed at causing suffering in Cuba and policies seen throughout the world as illegal, immoral, and cruel. For 20 years, the United Nations General Assembly has supported a Cuban resolution calling for an end to the blockade. Recently, the United States and Israel have been alone in rejecting the resolution.

Since 1992 one of the organizations, Let Cuba Live of Maine, has tried to inform the public and elected officials about U.S. Cuban policies, encouraged people-to-people U.S.-Cuba contacts, and engaged in direct action.

New-York-based Pastors for Peace began the Cuba Friendshipment Caravans in 1992 just as the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade was being tightened and Cuba's economic survival was under threat from loss of Soviet bloc trading partners.The caravans challenge U.S. policies by rejecting the required U.S. authorization to take humanitarian aid and U.S. citizens to Cuba.

For 20 years Let Cuba Live has contributed humanitarian supplies to the caravans and recruited Maine people to get aboard and go to Cuba. This year, the 20th anniversary year of both the caravans and Let Cuba Live, the latter group held public meetings for talk about Cuba and Pastors for Peace and film showings that included "Joe Marti, Eye of the Canary," "Maestra" (about Cuba's 1961 literacy campaign), and "Little Yellow School Bus" (story of the early Friendshipments). Maine people attending these sessions showed unprecedented generosity in donating toward this year's Friendshipment.

The Caravane d'amitié Québec-Cuba of Montreal has long supported the Friendshipments. Members are especially active on behalf of the Cuban Five U.S. political prisoners. Annually for 14 years, the Caravane has collaborated with Let Cuba Live in bringing aid material across the international border to be transferred to a Friendshipment bus and taken to Cuba. In a "reverse challenge," Let Cuba Live in 2001 took aid material north to Montreal for shipment to Cuba.

At the gathering prior to the June 30 crossing, a Let Cuba Live spokesperson predicted that this crossing, like the two previous ones at Norton, would take place without incident. He explained that at crossings earlier at Highgate Springs, Vermont, and Coburn Gore, Maine, activists resisted border officials' harassment and confiscation of aid material and vehicles. His suggestion was that authorities welcomed relief from the extra paperwork and slowdown of regular border traffic caused by confrontations.

Maria Sanchez of Portland, Maine, lauded the international scope of resistance to the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade. Born in Peru, she noted that among Quebecers and Mainers on hand were those originating from several Latin American, European, and Middle Eastern countries. Sanchez and her two daughters joined the 2011 Pastors for Peace Friendshipment to Cuba.

Donated goods from Quebec and Maine went on to Boston on July 2 via a Let Cuba Live truck. At a Friendshipment send-off event there, they were loaded onto a Friendshipment bus that, along with other buses traveling south through the United States, will arrive in McAllen, Texas, on July 15. At solidarity sessions along the way, buses will take on people and aid material. From McAllen, buses and supplies proceed to Tampico, Mexico, where they are put on board a ship bound for Cuba.

The present writer, representing Let Cuba Live of Maine, is joining the current Friendshipment. Websites of the three organizations featured in this article are: www.ifconews.org, www.letcubalive.org, and www.solidaritequebeccuba.qc.ca.

Photo via IFCO/Pastors for Peace.

Heat wave, fires driven by climate change, scientists say

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:42:00 +0000

The very real problem of global warming is leaving its mark upon the U.S. this summer, researchers say, as scorching heat plagues most of the country. As wildfires continue to blaze throughout the Southwest, they - and the heat wave that caused them - provide the clearest evidence yet of climate change, according to scientists. And it's only going to get worse.

Over the last eight days, 2,400 high temperature records have either been tied or broken. Last week, parts of Kansas reached an unbelievable 118 degrees. And a strong, straight-line wind storm (called a derecho) ripped through the East Coast, killing more than 20 people and leaving millions without power in their homes.

All this shows that those who buy into the right wing's pro-oil, pro-profit agenda of climate change denial need only step outside to realize the truth, scientists say.

Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change work, remarked, "Look out the window right now and I think you can see climate change in action. I don't think we've ever seen conditions like this before. There's a component of climate change to the weather we're seeing, and we're breaking records."

Since 1950, the number of heat waves worldwide have increased, according to the National Academy of Sciences. In the past 10 years in the U.S. specifically, new record high temperatures have outnumbered new record lows on a consistent basis by a ratio of 2 to 1. Some of these heat waves have also been increasingly marked by high humidity, but those that haven't may be worse: low-humidity waves are the culprits behind droughts and wildfires.

The most recent brushfire resulting from these conditions is Colorado's Waldo Canyon Fire, which continues to burn all the way to the edge of Colorado Springs. Elsewhere in the state, the High Park Fire is also burning, its ashes polluting nearby water and potentially killing fish life there.

"What we're seeing here really is a window into what global climate change looks like," said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. "It looks like heat; it looks like fires; it looks like this kind of environmental disaster."

Many scientists feel that society is currently ill-prepared for global warming, which would seem correct, given Republicans' attacks on environmental concerns.

Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, noted that sometimes, Republicans "latch onto a particular belief - in this case, that global warming is a hoax" and feel that "more knowledge about [the issue] is not necessarily going to open their minds. And we see this in the Tea Party, where we have the highest levels of global warming denial. And they don't want any more information, thank you very much."

Mooney also noted that media outlets like Fox News serve as a "feedback mechanism" for Republicans - if they want to believe false things, FOX gives them all the license they require.

"There are now a host of studies showing that Fox News viewers are more misinformed about various aspects of reality," including climate change, Mooney said. "So if you've got Fox News, you've got a place to reaffirm your beliefs. Conservatives opt in, they get the misinformation, their beliefs are reaffirmed, and they're set to argue, argue, argue about why they're right and all the scientists of the world are wrong."

But much of what scientists have predicted since the late '80s has now come true in regard to global warming.

"This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level," said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. "The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms, and wildfires. This is certainly what I and many other climate change scientists have been warning about."

Photo: A plume of smoke from Colorado's High Park Fire. Blazes like this one will worsen and occur more frequently as global warming worsens, experts say. Ed Andrieski/AP

Mexican elections: fraud again?

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:41:00 +0000

Official results of Sunday's Mexican elections will not be released until July 4, but it appears that the candidate of the formerly dominant Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), former Mexico state governor Enrique Peña Nieto, has won, but not by as much as he hoped.

His handlers had been saying he would win by a margin of two digits, but unofficial results show him with 38 percent of the vote, just 6 percentage points ahead of the 32 percent that went to former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the left-wing alliance based on the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD).

Josefina Vazquez Mota, the candidate of current president Felipe Calderon's right-wing National Action Party (PAB), trailed with 25 percent of the vote, and a fourth candidate, Gabriel Quadri of the National Alliance, got a negligible vote, between 2 and 3 percent.

In one piece of good news for the left, the PRD candidate for the mayoralty of Mexico City (technically, for governor of the Federal District which includes the capital), Miguel Angel Mancera, absolutely trounced his PRI, PAN and other rivals with a record 60 percent majority.

Mexico City has been governed by left-wing mayors since the post became elective in 1997, and has come to be seen as an oasis of dropping crime rates and relatively efficient administration in a country wracked by drug violence. Mancera is currently the attorney general of the Federal District.

Overall, it appears the PRI did well in legislative, gubernatorial and local races as well, mostly at the expense of the right-wing PAN, which is blamed by voters for economic stagnation and, above all, the bloodshed of the drug war which has claimed over 55,000 lives in just a few years.

How the new Congress will stack up will not be known precisely until official results are published. Mexico uses a proportional representation system. Of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Mexico's Congress, 300 are filled directly on Election Day, and another 200 are assigned to political parties roughly in proportion to the vote they got nationally. In the 160-seat Senate, 128 are elected directly and 32 are assigned by the proportional representation method.

Vazquez and Quadri conceded but Lopez Obrador said in a Monday evening press conference that he was not going to concede until he got some answers about electoral fraud. He made clear that he may well launch a legal challenge about the results. After a squeaker of an election in 2006, in which Lopez Obrador was inched out by Calderon, Lopez Obrador and his followers organized large-scale demonstrations in Mexico City.

A number of cases seeming to prove manipulation of election results by personnel of the Federal Elections Institute (IFE) have been circulating via Facebook and Twitter. These include evident major changes to vote totals from handwritten records of the polling places to the official website of the IFE, sometimes radically increasing the vote for the PRI and sometimes reducing the vote for the PRD. In one case, the 81 votes for the PRI recorded at a polling place turned into 801 votes by the time the information was posted on the IFE website.

There were also numerous allegations of vote-buying by the PRI. In a comic interlude, a crowd of people carried on a demonstration outside the PRI headquarters in Mexico City's Azcapotzalco neighborhood. They were not protesting fraud; they were complaining that the PRI had promised them money in exchange for their votes, but had stiffed them!

But the major fraud was seen as coming in the lead-up to the elections. Mexican law is strict on how electoral campaigns must be run and financed. But by the beginning of the campaign, suspicions began to arise of collusion between the privately owned media, especially two television channels, Televisa and TV Azteca, and the PRI's electoral machinery, specifically that they were deliberately building up Peña Nieto and undermining the opposition in their supposedly objective news coverage. Evidence to support this suspicion came with an exposé by the British newspaper The Guardian that in fact the PRI had, since the last election campaign in 2006, been giving Televisa money in exchange for undermining the candidacy of Lopez Obrador, a direct violation of Mexican election law.

The perception that Peña Nieto was a manufactured candidate being foisted on the Mexican electorate by over-powerful and corrupt media monopolies helped to spark a large scale uprising of youth, who carried out a campaign against Televisa and against Peña Nieto through demonstrations and social media. This "I am number 132" campaign made a palpable difference in the actual election, helping at least to narrow the distance between Peña Nieto and Lopez Obrador.

The angry youth demonstrated against what they consider the manipulated results of the election again on Monday, with more protests planned.

Photo: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate for the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) waves at supporters during the closing rally of his campaign at the main Zocalo plaza in Mexico City, June 27. Esteban Felix/AP