Globalise Not!

Copenhagen Work Clouded by Danish Text

2009-12-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

Aljazeera.net

[Reuters Image]

They were a striking sight in the dull, early morning.

In their red hats and suits, their dark shirts and glasses they caught the mood of the moment, chanting: "We are watching you. You know what to do, pay the climate debt."

This was a reminder how many activist here blame the developed world for the climate crisis, for their carbon emissions as industrialisation built their fortunes while stealing their futures.

There had been a feeling of momentum, a sense that all 192 countries were moving in the one direction, heading for a deal.

But on Day 3, that had been replaced with an air of suspicion.

'Danish text'

The problem, the so-called "Danish text", a set of proposals drawn up by the Danish, the British and the Americans which, among others, proposed radical ideas which were instantly rejected by many of the world's poorer countries.

The basis of the document proposed that both industrialised and emerging countries cut carbon emissions to limit global warming and that the UN is sidelined in future talks about climate change.

The conference tried to get back to work, but in the small meeting halls and coffee shops that dot this huge sprawling venue, it was the topic that continued to dominate.

Near one I found Kumi Naidoo, the new charismatic head of the environmental group Greenpeace.

He told me the text showed that the rich, powerful countries were reluctant to hand over power in the negotiations.

"The Danish text is dead in the water. Now we have to go back to the hard work that's been done since the Bali summit two years ago.

"Let's not ignore what the negotiators have done but we should keep our eye on the prize which is to deliver to our children and grandchildren a fair, ambitious and binding treaty which secures their future".

Work to be done

One of the groups most at risk from the continuing rise in global temperatures is the Association of Small Island states.

A two degree Celsius rise in temperatures, the limit the world is aiming for, still means for them higher seas, a change to the way they live, a threat to life itself.

Every morning they meet to discuss their plan for the day.

Every night they gather to discuss what they've achieved, and the tactics to use the next day.

Their chairperson is the impressive Dessima Williams, Grenada's ambassador to the United Nations.

She understands why people are upset by the leaked document, but believes people should now get back to work.

In between her never ending round of meetings in Copenhagen, she told me: '"We don't see this as something which will disrupt the meeting. In fact, as far as I know, this paper was floated and withdrawn some time ago, so it hasn't disturbed us at all."

This smart and savvy diplomat has been at enough of these gatherings to know how things work.

Most of the discussions here, the most important climate talks in history, are held behind closed doors.

There's no access for the media, none for environmentalists who may have a case to present.

Somehow, in all these discussions, over the course of the next few days, various drafts will be floated.

Some will anger the rich nations, some will send the developing countries into a tirade.

But in the flurry of proposals and ideas, one will form the basis of a deal, if there is one.

The world leaders will arrive in Copenhagen next week to sign a deal which they will claim will change the world.

It appears a few attitudes may have to change first.

Beyond Copenhagen

2009-12-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

Governments are only putting on a front to show that they are concerned about climate changes. Economic success/domination is still their priority.

~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~

NYTimes
Editorial

Nobody should expect a planet-saving agreement from the negotiations that begin this week in Copenhagen aimed at reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases. But the talks were in real danger of blowing up not long ago. Now there is a good chance for at least an interim deal, mainly because the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, have promised to reduce or slow their emissions and their two leaders have agreed to attend.

An interim deal would still leave a great deal for President Obama to do, starting with getting Congress to deliver on the promises he is taking to Copenhagen. Mr. Obama has pledged a modest cut of 17 percent over the next 10 years and more aggressive cuts in later decades. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s proposal to slow the growth in China’s emissions is considerably less ambitious because energy efficiency measures that China has already put in place should be enough to do the job.

Still, neither country has offered specific goals before. Their 11th-hour willingness to do so could be just enough to persuade the other 190 countries in Copenhagen to take the first step in what is now seen as a two-stage process. It would start with a nonbinding political agreement to reduce emissions and give aid to developing countries. This would be followed by a legal agreement next year with firm targets, enforcement mechanisms and specific dollar amounts for poorer countries.

In other words, the tough slog lies ahead. Copenhagen is all about attitudes and aspirations. Next year will be about results. And there can be no meaningful outcome without the leadership of the United States — second only to China in overall emissions and the biggest emitter by far in terms of per capita emissions.

The president’s proposed reductions are in line with a bill approved by the House last summer. A Senate committee has approved a slightly stronger measure calling for a 20 percent reduction in the next decade and an 83 percent reduction by midcentury. But its approval on the Senate floor is far from certain. Most Republicans are opposed. There are deep doubts among Democrats from Rust Belt states with energy-intensive industries. Getting to a filibuster-proof 60 votes will require every bit of Mr. Obama’s persuasive powers — and a real push by the Senate’s often-passive Democratic leaders.

The challenges on the foreign front are no less formidable. The consensus among mainstream climate scientists is that the world must cut emissions in half by midcentury. The rich countries cannot do it alone. Even if they cut their emissions by 80 percent by midcentury — a goal endorsed by the Group of 8 highly industrialized nations — the world would fall short of its target unless the developing countries pitched in.

Brazil, Indonesia and India have put offers on the table; others may come forward now that China has agreed to act. But the divide between rich and developing nations, let alone very poor countries, remains great. Further progress may depend on how much countries that have already reaped the benefits of industrialization — and contributed hugely to global warming — will be willing to ante up to help others adapt to climate change and reduce emissions. Brazil, for instance, has said it will protect its rainforests from clear-cutting and burning only if rich countries “pay the price.”

European leaders have urged the creation of a global climate assistance fund for exactly that purpose, with a minimum annual contribution from wealthy countries of $10 billion. The White House announced late last week that the United States would pay its “fair share.” That is good news. But here again the president will need Congress’s consent. He has a huge selling job ahead if he expects to seal a comprehensive deal.

Climate Change: Converge on Copenhagen!

2009-11-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

Take action in Copenhagen: The time is now!

Tens of thousands of people are mobilizing, great actions are being planned and the logistics is being finalized, so that everybody can be accommodated. Don't miss the opportunity: come and be part of it! The good people at Climate Justice Action have come up with a plan to help keep things in order so that everyone can join in and no one gets lost.

Get involved!

* Get to Copenhagen!
Find out how to come to Copenhagen!

* Find people in your area
Have a look at the Atlas of Resistance.

* Become a volunteer!
Get a taste of why you should volunteer for us and sign yourself up.

* Let us know you are coming!
Fill in this form if you need to be accommodated by us!

* Donate
Support financially the mobilization towards COP15 by donating.

* Spread the word
CJA is active on conventional, popular commercial media like Twitter and Facebook.

* Already live in Copenhagen?
Then help us accommodate visitors by signing up as a host.

Call to Action: Climate Change at COP 15

2009-11-08T00:58:00.000-08:00

This is a call out to action to international No Borders groups during the COP 15 in Copenhagen, starting 7 December 2009

Climate change is now the ULTIMATE Shock and Awe. It encompasses all of life now, and is the new spectacle. The climate change spectacle is the complete reconstruction and revitalization of capitalism and all of its domination, hierarchies, exploitation, racism, sexism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, commodifications, privatizations, oppressions, repressions, murders, lies, and greed.

Climate change will be used to terrorize us in every way we have been terrorized before, but encompassing all the single factors into one. In the name of security, Everything that living things depend is on its way to being commodified and privatized, to push us even further and possibly completely into pure Milton Friedman ´Chicago School´ of fundamental capitalist corporatism.

We can't not just think of this as a climate issue, it is much much more. Water, air, food, and genetic life is being privatized before our eyes. And these human rights are and will be used under the climate change banner to put up borders and go to war.

Complex surveilance systems are being put in place to keep the people from below away from its privatized riches. Indigenous, small farmers and people from below are being pushed off their lands by corporations, and massive natural disasters that are making people escape to safer regions. Also, their is the prospect of military intervention in the future to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics.

Military experts are saying that climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions. Sections of the political and military establishment are planning for the consequences of climate change and are developing military strategies to deal with it.

The debate over climate change and global warming management at the UN is a struggle among the national ruling establishments for their own interests on the international diplomatic stage. While there is concern that climate change can have unforeseen political and economic consequences, these competing capitalist states have no means of seriously addressing the issue, other than making preparations for cracking down on social unrest.

So, in closing. If we don´t start attacking climate change from its roots, and seeing that the system we are in cannot and never intended to solve climate change, then we will be doomed to even more repressive and oppressive regimes, and even a rollback on the rights that were worked so hard for by our comrades in the past and it is already happening! They have divided and conquered us for a long time! But now we have a chance to come together and fight this under the same banner to stop the revitalisation of capitalism and the borders in which it creates.

See you on the barricades!

Like Undead, G20 Controversy Keeps Coming Back For More

2009-11-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

By: Pittsburgh Foreign Policy Examiner, Nick Lewandowski

Perhaps in honor of Halloween, the G20 controversy refuses to die.

The Post-Gazette reports that the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board has scheduled November 10th as the tentative date for its Oakland hearing on police conduct during the G-20 Summit. Last week, the Review Board held a meeting in Lawrenceville to hear a number of complaints of misguided arrests and excessive force - including one involving a woman arrested on her way to a date. While making her way past protesters the woman was ordered to disperse, but could not move fast enough because of her high heels.

The Oakland meeting will thus follow what Board Director Elizabeth Pittinger called a "well-received" meeting that "verified some things."

The Board has already received some 75 complaints, most similar to those heard in Lawrenceville.

"The problem wasn't so much on the street level, where the officers acted," Pittinger commented, "but in the higher level of the planning [...we want to look at the tactics and equipment that were deployed."

Pittinger and others are now working with the Densus Group - an international security consultancy - to develop a detailed report of security-related events during the summit. In addition, a group called What Happened at Pitt (WHAP) - made up of University of Pittsburgh students arrested during the G-20 and their supporters - has expressed interest in holding the November hearing on the university campus. WHAP primarily seeks to raise awareness of its members' legal woes and money for their respective defenses.

The Police Citizen Review Board eventually intends to publish a report that will be useful for cities all over the world hosting major international events.

Let's hope it hits print before this monstrous legal debacle shambles into the new year.

Singapore Authorities Cast a Wary Eye on Civil Groups Ahead of APEC summit

2009-11-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

Singapore, the scourge of human rights activists has done it again. The oppresive state hosts the coming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation which Obama is attending. Again, the authorities have taken measures to clamp down on civil groups and activists like what they did when they hosted the IMF / WB three years ago.

Even the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board is reviewing the actions of policement during the G20 meetings. It is time for the Singapore government to stop supressing our voices. Then again, perhaps human rights is mostly dead in the Asia-Pacific region.

~~$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$~~

With two weeks to go before heads of state gather for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here, Singapore is wary about allowing the entry of well-organised civil groups and disruptive individuals bent on derailing the talks or championing their causes.

Two Falungong followers, a Malaysian and an Indonesian, were reportedly denied entry into Singapore at Changi Airport last week.

According to the Epoch Times, the sect's publication, the pair tried to enter the country separately on Oct 19 and Oct 22. The report also said the pair had previously made frequent trips to Singapore.

Falungong, a religious sect, was banned in China in 1999 after it was accused of fanning social unrest. Though it is not outlawed in Singapore, several of its followers here have been arrested for holding illegal assemblies.

When MediaCorp cited the Falungong example and asked if Singapore was keeping out individuals who might pose law-and-order problems, a spokeswoman from the APEC Singapore 2009 organising committee said all requests to enter the country would be treated fairly.

"All sovereign nations have the prerogative to decide who cross their borders. Singapore is no exception," she said. "This is especially so in the current security climate, where we have a duty to ensure the safety and security of the public."

Security analyst Dr John Harrison from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies was not surprised with the entry ban related to APEC.

"The (Singapore) Government will get a variety of information in from all sources - open and classified - from partners in the region and around the world," he said. "It will try and mitigate threats and risks as early as possible."

Apart from the task of keeping out people with backgrounds tied to terrorism, the authorities would have their eye on individuals who could use the event to carry out violent protests, Dr Harrison said.

Three years ago, when Singapore hosted the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting, the authorities objected to 28 foreigners - all of whom had a history of taking part in violent protests or disruptive activities at previous meetings - from being allowed into the country.

Then, civil society organisations were allowed to protest in a small corner of the meeting venue at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre; large-scale protests were confined to the Indonesian island of Batam.

Observers say that unlike the IMF event to which many civil society groups were invited, APEC's broader platform is not likely to warrant the same level of involvement and, hence, numbers of activists.

Call for Action: Protest against NATO! Edinburgh, 13 November

2009-10-31T23:43:00.000-07:00

If anyone of you are in UK or Scotland this November, drop by Edinburgh on the 13th as friends from all over the world crash NATO's party.

In November the NATO Parliamentary Assembly will meet in Edinburgh. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is an attempt at legitimising the alliance with a hint of democracy. This is a front. The NATO PA does nothing but maintain NATO's role as a global military force used by the west to dominate and control. Its influence stretches from the highlands of Scotland where nature reserves are used as playgrounds for NATO's war games, to the highlands of Afghanistan where villages live in fear of NATO attack.

The movement against NATO is growing across Europe and the world. In April thousands took to the streets of Strasbourg to protest against the NATO summit. In June Scandinavian activists disrupted a NATO training exercise in Sweden. In NATO occupied Afghanistan the Revolutionary Women Of Afghanistan have continued to speak out against NATO's collusion with patriarchal forces still ruining lives in their country.

Now the UK anti-militarist movement sets its sights on Edinburgh for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Its time for a show of strength. We need to show NATO that their militarism is neither wanted or tolerated.

This is an invite for anti-militarists everywhere. Come to Edinburgh and help us resist NATO and militarism. The NATO Welcoming Committee is calling for a mass demo on Friday the 13th of November, the first day of the Parliamentary Assembly. Details of the demo will be released closer to the time. Bring warm clothes, noise, banners and whatever else you hope to find. If you live out of town, aim to be in Edinburgh the day before. Accommodation will be available from Wednesday the 11th of November.

The NATO Welcoming Committee will provide a convergence space for activists to converge and stay in throughout the Assembly, as well as providing food, medical services in terms of street medics and a well-stocked medics space, legal support through the Scottish Activist Legal Project, trauma support and other forms of support to activists.

The NATO Welcoming Committee has signed up to the AMN’s principles.
These are:
We embrace a diversity of tactics
We will not publicly condemn other peoples actions
We have a respect for life

See you on the streets!
The NATO Welcoming Committee
http://natowc.noflag.org.uk
natowc [at] noflag.org.uk

Tweets Criminalized in Pittsburgh G20 Crackdown

2009-10-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

By: David Roknich

"Government authorities act like government authorities in Moldova and China and Iran, where they like it when people have access to information, be it radio stations, newspapers, free press, in other countries, but they’re uncomfortable with it in their own country. And in this case, they decided to try to criminalize it." - Elliot Madison, interviewed by DEMOCRACY NOW!

Elliot Madison was interviewed by Democracy Now! shortly after his home was broken into by FBI agents, as the results of his "Tweets" sent during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has made some of his court documents available in scanned form. I expect to have the docket available as text soon. Meanwhile, here is the transcript of Elliot Madison interviewed by DEMOCRACY NOW!

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: For our first segment, we turn to a case of a New York activist who’s believed to be among the first to face criminal charges for communicating electronically with protesters about police actions. Elliot Madison was arrested last month during the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh when police raided his hotel room. Police say Madison and a co-defendant used computers and a radio scanner to track police movements and then passed on that information to protesters using cell phones and the social networking site Twitter. Madison is being charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime.

Exactly one week later, Madison’s New York home was raided by FBI agents, who conducted a sixteen-hour search. The agents seized items including computers, clothing, books and the records of Madison’s clients in his job as a social worker. Madison has since won a temporary order barring agents from examining his seized property.

For more, Elliot Madison joins us here in the firehouse studio. We’re also joined by his attorney, Martin Stolar.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

ELLIOT MADISON: Thank you.

MARTIN STOLAR: Thank you, Sharif.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Elliot, let’s begin with you. Begin by describing exactly what you were doing in Pittsburgh during the G-20 and your subsequent arrest.

ELLIOT MADISON: Well, there were protests during the G-20, and a group of people came together called the Tin Can Comm—Communications—Collective. And they were putting up basically message boards. There was a message board for food. There was a message board for legal. There was a general message board. There was a message board just for announcements.

And how Twitter works is, traditionally people can text one—instead of just texting from me to you, I could text everyone that chose to follow me, OK? So, the only difference in this setup is that we allowed points to go to everybody in the group. So, if Martin wanted to text you and me, he could. If I wanted to text the two of you, I could. So it was a point of access issue. So it changed Twitter and made it more decentralized, so people could carry on a conversation knowing that people were spread out throughout the city. Sometimes it gets loud and noisy, and it was a way for people to communicate, not substantially different than the way the three of us are talking now.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And what exactly—what kind of messages were people putting out on this site?

ELLIOT MADISON: All sorts of messages. We put on the—about different trainings. There was a Know Your Rights training. We talked about the—there were messages I received about the raid on the Just Seeds food bus. There was information about where meet-ups were for different marches, like the students’ march. To be honest, I didn’t see most of the messages, because I was arrested very early on Thursday.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: That’s the first day of the G-20.

ELLIOT MADISON: The first day. So, before the first day, there weren’t many messages, because there were just a few announcements about, you know, different meetings and things like that.

And the thing to remember is this was a public site. I mean, the AP articles with the lieutenant detective of operations says he was on our LISTSERV. CNN said they were on our LISTSERV. I mean, a whole variety of journalists, New York Times journalists, joined. Anybody could join. It was a public number. We don’t know who joined. It wasn’t important. And anybody could send information to the group, and it would be sent out to everybody.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And so, you were sitting in your hotel room, and the police came in. Describe what happened.

ELLIOT MADISON: Where there was a—door was flung open. I assume they had a key.

Just to be clear, the hotel room was under our names. Our car was parked right out front. We weren’t doing anything clandestine, weren’t expecting the police to come in.

A number of agents from the state police came in and—you know, with guns drawn, and held us for about an hour in handcuffs, though we weren’t arrested at that time, and told us we were free to go. But we decided to stay and watch them and wait for the warrant. We weren’t presented a warrant right away. A warrant finally came, but it’s a sealed warrant, so we only got to see the face sheet of it. We don’t know why—we know what they were looking for, but we don’t know the—how they got the information, because it’s sealed. According to the face sheet, it’s eighteen pages long.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And Martin Stolar, explain the charges. They include charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime. What does that mean?

MARTIN STOLAR: Essentially, what Elliot is charged with is using the computer or the cell phone to put up an announcement that said that the police had issued an order to disperse. Having done that and having informed people that the police had issued the order, then it is claimed that that announcement hindered prosecution somehow by, I guess, having people avoid being arrested. It would seem to me that that is something that provides some benefit to the police department, in terms of saving them the expenditure of resources in processing people. But they’ve decided to criminalize that communication, or at least in their complaint that’s what they say, that the communication that said, “Hey, there’s been a dispersal order; everybody be aware of it,” somehow turns into a crime of hindering prosecution. The communication facility then, the cell phone or the computer that was used to post that message, becomes an instrument of the crime, and the use of that mass communication facility becomes, they claim under Pennsylvania law, a third crime.

This is just unbelievable. It is the thinnest, silliest case that I’ve ever seen. It tends to criminalize support services for people who are involved in lawful protest activity. And it’s just shocking that somebody could be arrested for essentially walking next to somebody and saying, “Hey, don’t go down that street, because the police have issued an order to disperse. Stay away from there.” All of a sudden, essentially, that becomes the crime that Elliot and his co-defendant are charged with.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And they may be the first to be charged criminally with sending information electronically to protesters about the police. What’s the significance of this in terms of First Amendment rights?

MARTIN STOLAR: It—

ELLIOT MADISON: Can I just clarify it?

MARTIN STOLAR: Sure.

ELLIOT MADISON: We’re not—we’re not the first. We’re the first in this country. During the Twitter revolution going on in Iran, in Moldova, in Guatemala, in the earlier newscast about Honduras, in all those cases, repressive governments have arrested folks for using Twitter. The only difference is, in all those cases the State Department, the US State Department, has condemned the arrest of these Twitter activists and had gone so far in the Iranian situation, the State Department, according to an article, asked Twitter to postpone its regular maintenance so as not to interfere with Iranian protesters to be able to send out their tweets. So the only difference is we’re the first arrested here. But this is a—over the past two years, repressive governments have been arresting people. The only difference is, the State Department has supported—I’m expecting the State Department will come out and support us also.

MARTIN STOLAR: Oh, you think so, do you?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well—

MARTIN STOLAR: I mean, it is shocking. This is really the first case, and my preliminary research has found that this is the only case where people involved in protest activity have been arrested for using or for passing out information. Essentially, this country has the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects speech, and it protects protest activity. And what Elliot and his co-defendant are accused of doing tends to support speech and protest activity itself. It is speech that goes out. Putting something up on Twitter is a form of speech. And we have some serious First Amendment problems in connection with the prosecution in Pennsylvania.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And I want to say, we did contact Twitter and the FBI to invite them on the program. They both declined our request. Twitter didn’t respond. But to what extent did Twitter cooperate with the police?

MARTIN STOLAR: We don’t know.

ELLIOT MADISON: We don’t know.

MARTIN STOLAR: We don’t know. We don’t know if Twitter is cooperating with the police. We don’t know if Twitter has been asked to cooperate with the police. Twitter essentially is neutral here. The police could have logged onto Twitter and seen whatever was being posted, in the same way that individuals can log onto the police radio bands and emergency service responders, all of which is up on the internet. If Elliot is receiving from the internet notice that an order to disperse has been issued at a particular location and passes that public information on to other members of the public, that’s protected speech. It is inconceivable that that could be a crime. But that’s what he’s charged with.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So, a week later after your arrest, the FBI raids your home in Queens. What happened?

ELLIOT MADISON: About 6:00 in the morning, the FBI, on a Thursday, broke into the door—we don’t know if there was a knock or not, because we were asleep—stormed up with guns—it was about twenty or so agents with Joint Terrorist Task Force; it was a combination of FBI and NYPD—and handcuffed me and my housemates, held us for a few hours, two or three hours, in handcuffs, wouldn’t let us talk, wouldn’t let us make phone calls, wouldn’t let us get dressed, because we were all asleep. And eventually, sometime after that point, they showed us a warrant. They wouldn’t let us read the warrant; they just showed it to us. Our hands were cuffed behind our back. And for sixteen hours, proceeded to take everything, from plush toys to kitchen magnets and lots of books.

I’m an author. I’ve written fiction. I’ve written lots of nonfiction. I’m an anarchist, so I’ve written lots of political works. So they not only grabbed all of my works, and they grabbed anything that they felt like grabbing from our pretty large library.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And they apparently took photos, as well, posters—

ELLIOT MADISON: Yeah.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: —from the walls, one of Lenin and one of Curious George, apparently?

ELLIOT MADISON: Yes, yes, and they took Curious George stuffed animals. They took magnets from the refrigerator. They took a needlepoint of Lenin that my wife’s grandmother had made, a whole variety of bizarre things that they’ve taken. We don’t know everything they took, because the voucher we received is fairly vague. It will say something like “documents.” So, since the house was tossed, it’s hard to tell if the documents are just lost or if they’re, you know, seized at this point.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Martin Stolar?

MARTIN STOLAR: Well, I mean, the search was just extensive. And the problem with the search warrant, which actually asked for evidence that indicated that potentially there were violations of federal rioting laws, this is the same law that was used to prosecute the Chicago Eight following the Republican Convention in Chicago in 1968. Well, what would be evidence of violations of federal rioting laws is open to question. Anarchist literature? Fiction writings that Elliot has written? Pictures of Lenin? It’s completely vague.

And so, they rambled around and searched and pulled things. They’re not only from Elliot and his wife Elena’s property, but also there were other residents of the house who are living there who had their private property taken and swept up in this, including computers and discs of somebody who’s making a film, computers and discs of somebody who produced a weekly radio show, a computer that actually belonged to the United States government. One of the residents of the house was a contract employee for one of the federal agencies, and that computer was also taken.

So, in response to that, we immediately went to federal court to say, “Hey, wait a minute. You can’t take all this stuff. This is all sorts of private property that has nothing to do with the violation of federal rioting laws, and we want it back.” And we got a federal judge to say, “Maybe you have a point there. FBI, don’t examine the boxes that you seized. Hold on, until I can examine this and issue a further order of the court.” And so, that’s what she did. She stopped them from going through the boxes, stopped them from going through and indexing, cataloging and analyzing what had been seized at the house. And that’s on hold, pending further briefing in court and pending further order of the court, which will happen a week from Friday.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And Elliot, you spoke about how—the so-called Twitter revolution in Iran and how that was portrayed and condemned by the State Department in this country. I just want to go back to those days during the so-called green revolution in Iran and how the media in this country, the corporate media, the news networks, covered the use of Twitter in the protest. Let’s go to a clip of them.

FOX 11 ANCHOR: Iranians are turning to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook to tell their stories.

UNIDENTIFIED: Twitter.

MARTIN SAVIDGE: Twitter.

UNIDENTIFIED: Twitter.

HOWARD KURTZ: Has Twitter become the CNN of the masses?

KIRAN CHETRY: Here’s what some people have been tweeting about.

SCOTT HURLEY: Just type in “#iranelection.”

The US State Department actually asked the website to put off scheduled computer maintenance.

IAN KELLY: This is about the Iranian people. This is about the—getting their voices a chance to be heard.

ISHA SESAY: More and more tweets were appearing.

UNIDENTIFIED: Twitter.

KEITH OLBERMANN: A Twitter revolution.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Is this the first true internet uprising?

RACHEL MADDOW: This revolution might not be televised, but it is definitely being tweeted.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Elliot Madison, some of the coverage back in summer of the Iranian uprising following the elections. Everyone’s supporting Twitter, the State Department actually asking Twitter not to—not to do an update. And now you’re being arrested for using Twitter. We’re not seeing the same kind of coverage. Your thoughts?

ELLIOT MADISON: Yeah, I think it’s a clear case where, you know, the government authorities act like government authorities in Moldova and China and Iran, where they like it when people have access to information, be it radio stations, newspapers, free press, in other countries, but they’re uncomfortable with it in their own country. And in this case, they decided to try to criminalize it.

And I think what’s very interesting in all these stories about me is that the Tin Can Communications Collective was one Twitter feed. I have found that there were at least twenty-four Twitter feeds going on, everywhere from the police to the G-20 to Ron Paul supporters. Everybody had their own Twitter feeds going on. They decided to criminalize me, I think, because of the fact that we were in solidarity with the protesters.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Elliot Madison and Martin Stolar, I want to thank you very much for joining us. We’ll continue to follow this story.

The complete transcript above is from this morning's DEMOCRACY NOW!, redistributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License

Campaign Against Police Databases

2009-10-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

* European Civil Rights Groups start Campaign Against Police Databases
* Criticism at EU's Transition towards a "Database Society"
* Exercising the "Right to Access" in National and European Databases

With an event in Berlin this 1 October, numerous European groups and networks start a campaign against the massive storage of personal data by European police authorities. The campaign is pillared from different spectrums, such as civil and human rights groups, migration, data protection, antirepression, summit protests and solidarity.

The call "Reclaim your data from the European police authorities!" encourages people to exercise their right to access police databases, including the Schengen Information System (SIS), the computer systems of the European Police Office Europol or data that is exchanged via the so called "Prüm treaty".

Europeanwide, personal data from billions of people is stored in information systems, that are run by police or secret services and polled automatically. Affected are mostly immigrants and asylum seekers, who were never accused of having committed any offence.

"The practice of warrants of third country nationals in the Schengen Information System by the responsible authorities is in a frightening number of cases unlawful and mistaken," critizises the lawyer Angela Furmaniak from Freiburg (Germany)." As already today a storage in the SIS has wide-ranging consequencies for the people affected, it is to be feared with the planned expansion of the capabilities of retention that the abuse of data will increase."

Targetted are also EU citizens, for example of having random groundless ID checks at political protests or sporting events.

"A first data storage involves unpleasant consequences at further checks and can lead to a denial of entry or departure from one country to another, and other police harassment", says Heiner Busch from the German Committee of Constitutional Rights and Democracy. "With the challenged introduction of a new data category of 'Troublemaker' in the SIS this arbitrariness would be automated".

European Ministers of Interior, facing an "enormous amount of data", demand more competencies and technical requirements for the utilization of this "data-tsunami" (original quote from European Ministers of Interior issued in a strategy paper) for the police authorities.

"For European police, these already existing massive disposable data of persons, things and their relations are trimmed by use of 'data-mining' software", states Matthias Monroy of the group Gipfelsoli. "Databases are thus processed by computers, which should detect 'risks' at an early stage and preview any deviant behaviour. The EU becomes a database society".

The "Stockholm Programme", that European Interior Ministers want to have released in December, declares the creation of a boundless compound of information – including the USA – to a top priority of European home affairs in the next five years.

Data protection is miniaturised in European police collaboration: Data protection does not figure highly in European police cooperation; a set of common standards is kept to a minimum. Issues of proportionality or prescribed data storage periods are generally ignored. Thus the danger is the normalization of uncontrolled storage and cross-referencing of data collected in one country to be continued by another country.

"To rid oneself of the suspicion and mistrust that undermines personal and civil liberties, in serious cases one is forced to take expensive and exhausting legal action", comments Eric Toepfer of the Berliner Institut für Buergerrechte und Oeffentliche Sicherheit.

With the campaign "Reclaim your Data!" the signatories are calling people to assure themselves about a possible retention by exercising the right to access in police databases.

The switchboards for the cross-border exchange of information are central police authorities of the respective EU member state. However, the central police authorities are also obliged to provide information on data that might be stored there.

The digest received in response will help as a starting point for getting your data out of the computer systems, by legal or political means.

The start of the campaign "Reclaim Your Data!" will be presented at an event in Berlin organised by the Committee for Constitutional Rights and Democracy (see
http://euro-police.noblogs.org/post/2009/09/22/meine-daten).

*Contact*

* Matthias Monroy, Gipfelsoli 0049 160 953 14 023
* Eric Toepfer, Institute for Civil Liberties and Public Security e.V. 0049 30 838-70462
* The initiators of the campaign by email: euro-police@so36.net.

*Further information*
* Website of the campaign with current signatories: http://euro-data.noblogs.org
* Future plans of European ministers of interior and justice:
http://stockholm.noblogs.org

*European signatories* (always updated on http://euro-data.noblogs.org)

UK

* Newham Monitoring Project
* Action on Rights for Children
* Statewatch
* Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
* Privacy International

Portugal

* Associação Contra a Exclusão pelo Desenvolvimento
* Belgique
* Vredesactie

Österreich

* Institut für Rechts- & Kriminalsoziologie, Department Recht und Gesellschaft
* Solidaritätsgruppe - Rechtsberatung für sozial Schwächere

France

* LDH - Ligue des droits de l'homme
* IRIS - Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire
* Dissent! Paris

Niederlande

* A SEED Europe
* VD AMOK

Italia

* ALCEI - Electronic Frontier Italy

Schweiz

* Grundrechte.ch
* Solidarité sans frontières

Schweden

* Nätverket mot Rasism
* Ingen Människa är Illegal Stockholm

Finland

* Electronic Frontier Finland

Deutschland

* InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung
* Neue Richtervereinigung
* Netzwerk Neue Medien
* Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte
* netzpolitik.org
* Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung
* Europäische Juristinnen und Juristen für Demokratie und Menschenrechte
* Seminar für angewandte Unsicherheit
* Gipfelsoli
* Bundesarbeitskreis kritischer Juragruppen
* Humanistische Union
* Forum Recht
* Komitee für Grundrechte und Demokratie
* Republikanischer Anwältinnen- und Anwälteverein
* Datenschmutz
* Institut für Bürgerrechte & öffentliche Sicherheit

The G-20 Gets Overambitious

2009-10-01T23:09:00.000-07:00

Oxford Analytica

With economies around the world showing signs of recovery, the G-20 ran the risk of losing momentum and relevance. The Pittsburgh summit was successful in presenting a series of actions that should keep the need for dialogue on global economic coordination firmly in the spotlight.

Global economic framework. The G-20 officially launched a Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth, which is to be formally established on Nov. 6-7 during the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting. It aims to be a process of mutual assessment of policy frameworks and their implications for the pattern and sustainability of global growth, while trying to identify potential risks to financial stability. Supposedly, G-20 members will agree on shared policy objectives, with the aim of having collectively consistent policies, which receive constant IMF support.

However, it is unclear why such a scheme was launched, unless it aims to support "difficult" domestic policies, under a mantle of global cooperation. The only recent similar arrangement was the "multilateral consultation" on global imbalances, which the IMF launched in 2006, with participation from the United States, China, Japan, the euro-area and Saudi Arabia. This did little to push those consulted to address the problem--rather, imbalances have corrected due to the global financial crisis. It is telling that the IMF has not launched a second multilateral consultation.

Doha test. Successful conclusion of the Doha Round will be seen as one of the first challenges for the Framework. The stated G-20 aim is to conclude it next year, with trade ministers instructed to make significant progress by early 2010. However, the fact that the G-20 stated that it would review progress in its next meeting (in Canada in June) is not an encouraging indication of its expectations for relatively rapid progress.

IMF vote shift. A firm commitment was made to implement a shift in IMF quota shares of at least 5% from advanced to emerging economies by early 2011. This move was approved in 2008, and took several years to negotiate. This will imply a significant surrender of votes for some countries, mostly European. Yet no specifics were offered on the size and composition of the Executive Board, another thorny issue for emerging economies such as Brazil and India.

Strengthening financial regulation. In sharp contrast to the Framework, the G-20 was specific, and realistic, in its aim of strengthening the international financial system. The Financial Stability Board would play a central role implementing proposals to:

--develop internationally agreed rules by the end of 2010 to strengthen the quality of bank capital and mitigate pro-cyclicality, with the aim of implementing them fully by the end of 2012 (if the global economy has recovered fully from the crisis);

--improve over-the-counter derivatives markets, with all standardized OTC derivative contracts traded on exchanges or electronic trading platforms, where appropriate, at the latest by the end of 2012--non-centrally cleared contracts would be subject to higher capital requirements;

--develop internationally consistent firm-specific contingency and resolution plans by the end of 2010 for systemically important financial firms; and

--achieve a single set of high-quality, global accounting standards by mid-2011.

Bonus fudge. On the controversial issue of compensation for bankers, the G-20 adopted principles that bonuses should avoid excessive risk-taking; be aligned with long-term value creation and subject to clawback; and be transparent. More significantly, the G-20 may induce financial regulators to require corrective measures, such as higher capital requirements, to firms that fail to implement sound compensation practices.

Outlook. Even if the G-20 turns out to be something of a symbolic body rather than an organ of power, it should keep the need for global economic coordination in the spotlight. Its aim to spearhead unprecedented global economic cooperation is overambitious and may create excessive expectations. However, the strengthening of financial regulations, due to be implemented during 2010-12, is achievable.

To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica's Web site.

Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit here.

Pittsburgh a "Steel City" of Security for G20 Summit

2009-09-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

Again the enforcement goes on an overdrive. Considering the Obama Adminstration had already decided not to do a separate media accreditation to NGOs, mounting the steel city with steel is unduly.

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* Pittsburgh a "steel city" of security for G20 summit

* Locals worried about business, traffic and football

By Michelle Nichols

Dubbed the "steel city" for its industrial history, Pittsburgh will live up to its name for a different reason when world leaders meet amid heavy security on Thursday and Friday for the Group of 20 (G20) summit.

Thousands of additional police have been brought in to the western Pennsylvania city and tall steel fencing is being erected along streets around the convention center where 19 leaders of developed and developing countries will meet.

While presidents and prime ministers will be discussing issues such as rebalancing the world economy and tackling climate change, Pittsburgh locals are worried about violent anti-G20 protests and disruption to business and traffic.

"It's a positive thing for Pittsburgh to be shown, but the downtown businesses are afraid. They really don't know what to expect," said Phillip Injeian, 54, a violin maker whose shop near the G20 headquarters is shadowed by a security fence.

Injeian said he plans to have classical music students playing on the street outside his shop on Thursday and Friday.

"I feel like that will soothe the beast," he said as he ate pizza in Mama Pina's Pizzeria down the street from his shop.

But protesters are not alone in wanting to send a message to G20 leaders. More than 25 religious leaders are also meeting in Pittsburgh to "remind world leaders that the most important indicator of economic recovery should be what happens to hungry and poor people."

G20 VS STEELERS

Nick Buffone, 56, the owner of Mama Pina's Pizzeria, said he is not sure if he will be able to get into downtown Pittsburgh to open his restaurant while the G20 is on.

"Nobody's explaining anything to us," he said. "I don't think it's benefiting us at all. People don't know what to expect."

Protests against a G20 meeting in London earlier this year turned violent when thousands of people took to the streets. Protesters are planning anti-G20 marches on Thursday and Friday.

Concrete barriers are already in place outside the nearby PNC Financial Services Group Inc (PNC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) building, suggested by anti-capitalist protesters as a target along with other companies such as Starbucks (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and McDonald's (MCD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Pittsburgh police say 65 agencies were involved in G20 security but declined to detail how many officers will be on the streets.

But some of Pittsburgh's 313,000 residents seem more concerned about how their beloved Steelers football team, six time winners of the Super Bowl, will fare on the weekend against the Cincinnati Bengals.

In the nearby Strip District, Jim Pierce, 66, manages a Steelers shop and said that while he wasn't expecting many customers while the G20 was on, he hoped a world leader might become a fan.

"We would like to see someone stop here (to buy Steelers merchandise)," he said, laughing.

"I have seen nothing that will make us believe there's going to be problems (with protesters)," he said. "There were 300,000 people here for the Super Bowl parade in February and there was less talk of problems." (Editing by Mark Egan and Paul Simao)

G-20 - Vows Against Protectionism Not Always Kept

2009-09-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

As President Obama and other leaders of the G-20 nations prepare to meet today in Pittsburgh, it's worth recalling what became of their previous promises.

At earlier summits, G-20 leaders solemnly vowed to refrain from worsening the crisis by erecting new trade barriers — then returned home and promptly began erecting new trade barriers.

Since November's Washington gathering, G-20 members have enacted about 100 separate trade-restricting provisions. Last week, for example, the U.S. announced a 35% tariff in response to what it called a damaging surge of Chinese-made tires.

"On average, a G-20 member has broken the no-protectionism pledge every three days," concludes a study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. Still, the largest impact on world trade has come from the credit crunch and recession. This summit, expected to center on a U.S. proposal to rebalance the global economy, is likely to yield a renewed endorsement of open markets. "We're going to keep this under control," says Uri Dadush, of the Carnegie Endowment's international economics program.

But some worry that major nations may yet stumble into a costly trade spat. "It's going to get nasty. ... You're talking about a war that could potentially involve more than just goods and services," says David Smick, who heads a global investment consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

Example: China's Assets Supervision and Administration Commission last month warned six foreign banks that its state-owned companies might refuse to honor derivatives contracts that had produced unexpected financial losses.

The global economy is stronger than when the G-20 last met in April. Michael Mussa, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, expects solid growth of 4.2% next year. "Deep recessions are followed by steep recoveries," he says.

Asia's turnaround has been impressive. China is expected to grow 8.2% in '09 before rising to almost 9% next year, says the Asian Development Bank.

Trade flows, however, remain deeply depressed. U.S. exports of $86.7 billion in July were more than 26% below the level of the same month in 2008, according to Commerce Department data.

One fear: An anemic global recovery would leave unemployment elevated. And that could prompt countries to protect domestic jobs at the risk of inviting retaliation from abroad.

"It could be a real problem for the world trading system," says Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Pittsburgh Must Allow Protest at G-20

2009-09-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

New York Times
Sean D. Hamill

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the City of Pittsburgh to allow a group’s tent city protest during the Group of 20 meeting next week, but he denied two other requests for permits for demonstrations, saying the city’s goal of “protecting visiting foreign leaders is of the highest interest.”

The judge, Gary L. Lancaster of Federal District Court, made his ruling just over a week before the leaders of 20 of the world’s largest and emerging economies meet here in a gathering that has become a rallying point for a variety of protesters.

Six groups sued the city, state and federal governments last week after being denied permits after months of discussions.

Since their lawsuit was filed, the city granted permits to three of the groups: for an interfaith march by the G6 Billion group; for another march by the group Bail Out the People; and for permits for a group of artists to use a city park.

Judge Lancaster granted one of the remaining groups, CodePink, the right to use Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh to hold a tent city demonstration Sunday night through Tuesday night. The city had tried to deny the permit, saying it would conflict with a run in the park, as well as a free-speech festival being organized by a group supported by former Vice President Al Gore. Denying CodePink the right to hold its tent city “would result in the loss of CodePink’s First Amendment freedoms,” Judge Lancaster ruled.

Jules Lobel, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which was representing the organizations along with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling for use of the park “shows that it’s not just for the powerful, but for everyone.”

Judge Lancaster denied a request from the Thomas Merton Center to end a march through the city on Sept. 25 with a rally on the Seventh Street Bridge, near the convention center where the meeting will be held.

He said the city’s view that such a rally, with 5,000 to 7,000 people on a bridge, would be unsafe was valid. The judge also denied a request from the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence to camp out overnight in a city park all of next week because it would put too much of a burden on the city to clean up after the campers, and set a precedent for other groups.

G8 Women's Summit Opens in Rome

2009-09-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

A Group of Eight conference on violence against women opened in Rome Wednesday with keynote speaker, Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna, calling it a crime against humanity.

This crime, she said, was sometimes condoned for tribal or religious reasons, or ''accepted as part of human nature''.

''We do not accept this indifference...we want the whole world to speak out, be outraged, and act,'' she told women's representatives from 25 countries, calling for ''new laws, mass movements,'' and action to raise public awareness.

''We must free our sisters from fear. If a woman is free, if she can love and marry whom she wants, if she studies, if she can work, if she can choose when and if to become a mother, to dress as she thinks, speak out and smile, the whole of society will bloom''. Some 140,000 women worldwide are the victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse and 50,000 are killed by close relatives each year, Carfagna observed.

In other opening remarks, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said ''chilling episodes of group violence against women of all ethnic groups, from the very young to the less young'' were happening worldwide, even in rich countries like Italy where rights are constitutionally protected''.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called for a United Nations ban on female genital cutting and said Italy would gather ''many countries'' to debate the issue on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly later this month.

Until Thursday afternoon, women politicians from around the world including an Afghan delegation will meet with representatives from charities, activist groups and international organizations to discuss the causes of violence and look at ways to avert the threat to women.

Rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, workplace intimidation, abuse during armed conflict and violence against girls are all subjects under discussion. The event, which Italy has organized in its capacity as this year's Group of Eight president, will produce a final document to be submitted to a G8 foreign ministers conference in New York on September 25.

During the course of the conference, the Italian Equal Opportunities Ministry is encouraging politicians and supporters to wear white in order to raise awareness about the conference and issues under discussion. Over 20,000 bracelets emblazoned with the conference's slogan, ''Respect women, respect the world'', will also be distributed at various points around Milan, Naples and Rome.

But a number of activists attending the conference expressed doubts about the event's effectiveness. Opposition MP Marina Sereni, House deputy whip for the Democratic Party, said words were not enough.

''There is a massive need for funds to build structures and to set up prevention and welcome programmes, be they public or private initiatives,'' she said. The Afghan women's coordinator for the international ActionAid agency, Nasima Rahmani, praised the idea of the conference but said it needed more concrete support. ''The next step must be getting the [G8] world leaders to put women's rights on their agenda,'' she said. ''So far, no date has been set for confirming the resources that G8 countries and international organizations are ready to provide in order to fight violence against women''. And the president of a top Italian women's development charity, AIDOS, dismissed the entire initiative as ''futile''.

''Not a single concrete proposal has been put forward,'' said Daniela Colombo. ''You don't fight violence against women by distributing bracelets but through real projects and programs''.

She also implied the Italian government was being hypocritical, noting it had donated ''barely 500,000 euros to UN women's agencies this year ...compared to 50 million euros from Spain''.

Finally, Colombo questioned the Italian foreign minister's call for a UN ban on female genital cutting, suggesting it was a waste of resources that could be spent on more critical issues. The procedure should be ''a private matter for individuals'', she added. Speakers at the conference include UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha Rose Migiro of Tanzania, the founder of an association for trafficking victims in Italy, Isoke Aikpitanyi, the US-based Iranian activist Manda Zand Ervins and Burkina Faso's First Lady, Chantal Compaore.

IMF: As economy recovers, exit strategies are key

2009-09-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

Reuters
Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Andrea Ricci

Failure to define stimulus exit strategies could undermine the slow global recovery currently under way, senior International Monetary Fund economists said Wednesday, also warning that the surge in public debt will need to be reined in.

In a series of articles published in Finance and Development magazine, the economists argue that failing to properly plan strategies to remove stimulus could destabilize expectations and weaken the effects of the fiscal and monetary policies put in place over the past two years of the crisis.

IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said major advanced economies could probably not afford to provide fiscal stimulus for very much longer without structural adjustments, although he emphasized it was too early in the recovery to withdraw the stimulus.

To prolong the stimulus, he said countries will need to tackle entitlement programs with more vigor, whether rising outlays are driven by healthcare or support for an aging population.

The economists said the unprecedented fiscal and monetary response to the crisis was necessary to tackle the financial upheaval but the result was a massive surge in public debt.

IMF figures show that the ratio of debt to gross domestic product is expected to rise to 115 percent in advanced economies in 2014 from 75 percent in 2007.

Debt ratios will be close to, or exceed, 90 percent by 2014 in all seven major industrial countries except Canada, IMF data shows.

The economists said the bulk of the debt increase stems from fiscal stimulus and will require an unprecedented fiscal adjustment over the next few decades.

"Failure to address the trend of rising debt could lead to concerns that the debt will ultimately be 'inflated away' or that default is inevitable," said Carlo Cottarelli, director of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department, and Jose Vinals, director of the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department.

"Interest rates would then rise, making the fiscal problem worse and potentially killing the recovery," they added.

A study by the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department suggests that advanced countries with higher debt would have to maintain an average primary surplus of 4.5 percent beginning in 2014 to reduce the debt to 60 percent of gross domestic product by 2030.

The economists said the fiscal adjustment would have to go beyond pensions and health care, to revenues and expenditures, including broadening of tax bases and tax structures.

In planning stimulus exit strategies, Cottarelli and Vinals said central banks will have to look at unwinding or limiting the unconventional crisis-related practices, restructuring balance sheets and preparing to tighten monetary policy.

While it was still too soon to tighten monetary and fiscal policy, it wasn't too soon for governments to anchor expectations by defining and communication their strategies and proposed measures to ensure fiscal solvency, they added.

European court raps Italy over G8 Genoa protests

2009-08-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

It took the European Court of Human Rights 9 years to investigate into police brutality that took place during the G8 summit at Genoa in 2001. Again, senior officers got off. This only mean that police brutality will never ever be eradicated.

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The European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy on Tuesday for failing to carry out a thorough investigation into the death of a protestor who was shot by police at a G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.

The court awarded 40,000 euros ($57,160) compensation to the protestor's family. But it decided unanimously that the police officer had not used disproportionate force when he fired during an attack by demonstrators on his vehicle.

The Genoa Group of Eight has gone down as one of the most violent summits of the club of rich nations, which frequently faces protests by anti-globalization groups.

As well as the death of the Italian, Carlo Giuliani, more than 231 protestors, many visiting from other countries, were injured and over 280 arrested. Many complained of police brutality.

In November 2008 an Italian court found 13 police officers guilty of beating protesters at the summit, but acquitted 16 others, including the most senior police officials.

The European Court, which looked into the incident at the request of Giuliani's family, found that the Italian official investigating his death had allowed his body to be cremated before a proper analysis and that the investigation was too narrow.

"Italy had therefore not complied with its procedural obligations in connection with the death," it said.

The European court also looked into whether planning for the meeting had minimized the risk of lethal force being used. "There were a number of shortcomings in the organization of the operation," the court said.

Singapore shoots down "rumor" of APEC attack plot

2009-08-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

Singapore has downplayed media reports of a plot to attack an Asia-Pacific summit in the city-state in November, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Monday.

"The rumors are rumors. You check it, if it is unverifiable, you know you can't be chasing after every rumor,' Second Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam was quoted by the daily as saying during a mock terrorist attack exercise on Sunday.

The Singapore Police Force and the Ministry of Home Affairs were not available for immediate comment.

An intelligence analyst from the Center for Intelligence and National Security in Indonesia told Reuters last week probes into last month's bombings in Jakarta had uncovered a plot to target the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore.

U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders of the 21-member APEC group will attend the mid-November summit in Singapore, a regional financial center and shipping hub.

The investigation also revealed that terrorists planned to use snipers to attack Obama's convoy during a planned visit to Indonesia around the same time.

Shanmugam said Singaporean authorities took security "very seriously."

"Wherever the President of the United States, or various heads of states visit, you obviously take the appropriate security precautions," he said. "For a small country like us, this is not just an issue of preparing against terrorist attacks, it's creating a mindset and understanding within our population that (in) any kind of emergency, we are all able to respond," Shanmugam said.

Rich Nations FAll Short on Bank Recovery Spending

2009-07-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

Bob Davis for WSJ

Wealthy industrialized nations have provided less than half of the support they pledged to prop up their financial sectors, according to new data from the International Monetary Fund.

The so-called advanced economies of the Group of 20 have made capital injections of $425 billion in banks and other financial institutions, 42.3% of the amount announced, the IMF said. The countries' treasuries have also spent $333 billion to purchase assets and make loans to financial institutions -- just 18.4% of the amount announced over the past year or so as they sought to address the effects of the global financial crisis.

The IMF said the relatively limited spending suggested the financial crisis hasn't turned out to be as dire as once anticipated. "This outcome appears to reflect a variety of factors including the precautionary nature of initial announcements, indications of increasing stability and improved bank liquidity," said an IMF report.

The IMF warned that the rate of spending could reflect "lags in implementation." If that were to occur, debt levels would rise even more steeply than they have thus far. The G-20 includes industrialized and large developing nations. Among the industrialized nations are Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Britain and the U.S.

The new data came as part of a report warning again that debt levels in industrialized nations are rapidly increasing and that governments need to make clear how they will ultimately reduce the debt to more-sustainable levels. Otherwise, the IMF warned, interest rates could rise, undermining the effect of government stimulus spending and weakening an anticipated recovery.

By 2014, debt levels in industrialized G-20 nations are expected to climb to about 119.7% of gross domestic product from 78.8% in 2007, the IMF said. That 40.9-percentage point increase, the steepest since World War II, is the result of stimulus spending aimed at fighting the recession, and increasing payouts for pensions and health care for aging populations. The IMF generally views a 65% debt level as more appropriate for industrialized nations.

The IMF warned that it was too early for nations to start eliminating stimulus spending, and that a new round may be required in 2010.

It urged nations to lay out specific steps to show how they will handle debt in the longer term, to avoid spooking markets. It cited deficit-reduction commitments announced by Germany, Japan and the U.S., but said they weren't sufficient.

"The risk is that if the public starts to worry about medium-term sustainability and an inevitable rise in interest rates, that that will undercut the effectiveness of the stimulus," an IMF official said. "So it's critical that countries now begin to develop and enunciate medium-term and longer-term plans for dealing with the rise in debt."

APEC to Fight Protectionism Through Concrete Plans

2009-07-30T20:12:00.001-07:00

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies will take concrete measures to fight protectionism, provide fresh momentum to the Doha Round talks and enhance regional economic integration, trade ministers from the region agreed here on Wednesday.

Trade ministers from 21 APEC economies have gathered here for the two-day Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting to discuss policy responses to the economic crisis as well as to prepare for recovery in the longer-term.

During the meeting, which kicked off on Tuesday, the trade ministers said that sustaining trade and investment flows remains critical to the future prosperity of the region.

According to WTO's annual world trade report launched on the sidelines of the meeting, the world merchandise trade volume is expected to decline by 10 percent in 2009.

The trade ministers noted that while pressures for protectionism were greater during these difficult times, the political resolve to resist them must be even stronger.

China's Minister of Commerce Chen Deming stressed that China will continue its mutually-beneficial opening policy and actively support the agreement reached by G20 summit leaders to fight against protectionism. He called on APEC economies to make continuous efforts to enhance free trade and trade facilitation.

In order to restore trade and spur economic recovery, APEC trade ministers said that they will take concrete measures to combat protectionism.

They agreed to extend till end of 2010 the commitment made in Lima last year by APEC leaders to refrain from raising new barriers to trade and investment in the region, adding that they stand ready to extend the commitment further if necessary.

They shared the view that the main threats to a revival of trade flows include rising protectionist pressures, and continued delay in concluding the Doha Round.

"Concluding the Doha Round by 2010 will be the most effective way to resist protectionism and strengthen the multilateral trading system," they said in a statement after the meeting.

They will accelerate efforts to conclude modalities in Agriculture and NAMA, and utilize all possible avenues of engagement to encourage greater transparency and understanding of what is on the table to fill the remaining gaps in the negotiations as soon as possible.

They also discussed ways to strengthen the region's competitiveness by accelerating integration efforts, which will position the Asia-Pacific for a strong and sustained recovery.

In achieving this, the minister agreed to accelerate trade at the border with simpler customs documentation procedures, to reduce regulatory impediments behind the border, and to improve connectivity across the border by identifying the checkpoints in trade logistics and reviewing logistics policies.

The ministers also touched on the issues of climate change, anti-terrorism, food security and dealing with global pandemic, pledging to ensure that the APEC economies' growth strategies are sustainable.

The Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting is the first APEC Ministerial Meeting of APEC 2009. Singapore is playing host to the APEC meetings held from February to November 2009. They will culminate in the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, where leaders of APEC's 21 member economies will meet in Singapore from Nov. 14 to 15 this year.

Italy's minimalist G8 summit

2009-07-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

7 July

After the day of actions in many italian universities, bloomed as a reaction to the arrests of 21 italian activists for protests against university G8, yesterday the repressive face of italian government hit again those who are active against the responsibles of this new global crisis.

Around 10 am a demonstration, following the "V-Strategy" call, inside the "Welcome Days to G8s", started from the occupied building of university Roma3 and blocked the streets of Testaccio neighbourhood trying to reach subway station Piramide to join the other demonstration starting from La Sapienza. Police hardly attacked activists and started a 1 hour man-hunt through the neighbourhood with 34 people caught, 8 of
whom got arrested and are now in jail waiting for confirmation. many of the others are still halted and will undergo on trial, assisted by a legal team. There's no date for hearing yet. among the arrested there are many of our activists and people who had arrived from abroad to demostrate against G8.

Repression has caught media attention, moving it from the G8 of the Crisis, where the weakness of Berlusconi and the government emerges: they try to cover it repriming dissent, particularly against people active daily on social struggles.

Our mind goes to the comrades and to the people deprived of personal freedom. We are looking forward to have them back by our side.

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From: BBC

Switching the venue of this year's G8 summit to an active earthquake zone sounded like a hostage to fortune.

Why invite the world's most powerful leaders to perch on the same precarious spot of the Earth's crust which in April killed 300 people and left 60,000 others homeless?

Just think what global chaos would ensue if - mid session - the ground opened up and swallowed them all.

When the town of L'Aquila was rocked by a new - though less powerful - set of tremors last Friday, the summit's prospects began to look decidedly dicey.

In the town centre many buildings were already cracked and cordoned off. On every corner caved-in roofs and ripped-out walls hinted at the prospect of new collapses to come. It felt as though at any minute it could all start to shake again.

I had visions of us journalists stuck, incommunicado and cowering under tables in the so-called media village. Reporters turned refugees, caught in a new disaster zone, while summit leaders were airlifted out to Rome.

But in the event, nothing happened. Not a tremble.

To my surprise earthquake survivors living in local tent camps thought the summit an excellent idea.

What better way to draw attention to the fact their lives had been reduced to rubble, than to pull in the likes of George Clooney and other celebrity hangers-on who tend to pitch up at major summits.

At one formal function, the eyes of a weary Barack Obama glazed over and his shoulders slumped. Not just us hacks, it seems, were getting by on hard mattresses with very little sleep

"My home won't get repaired for another three or four years. The entire tower block fell on top of it. Any publicity is welcome," said one woman, Anna, sitting with her neighbours under a sun parasol outside her blue canvas home.

The pathway between the tents was lined with drying washing and children's bicycles. A hand-painted notice, decorated in big childish crayon, announced it was Butterfly Row.

There was also Cat Alley, and Moon Street, all clearly marked. An air of semi-permanence had set in.

Roughing it?

In keeping with the earthquake tragedy, the summit itself had an air of austerity. So different from the usual lavish attempts to promote a country at its best.

President Putin revamped an entire 18th Century palace in St Petersburg. Tony Blair took over one of Scotland's grandest hotels.

But Italy's Silvio Berlusconi commandeered the local barracks of the Finance Police and required world leaders and their delegations to sleep in dormitories on site.

"How is the accommodation for VIPs?" I asked one UN official.

He sighed and replied wearily: "It's not quite what we're used to."

He was lucky. Some of the journalists unable to find places to stay locally were reduced to begging space among the tents of the earthquake refugees. Our BBC team drove back nightly over the mountains to a village two hours away.

Also minimalist and unpredictable were the communications facilities. It was almost impossible to find out schedules or contact numbers for delegations. The only truly reliable information was the time of the prime minister's late afternoon press conference.

That you could not avoid. On large screens, beaming down at you would be the unmistakable jovial grin of Mr Berlusconi.

And if you did miss it, never mind. It was played over and over again.

Press conferences by those with critical views, like the so-called G5 group of emerging countries (India, Brazil, China, South Africa and Mexico)seemed to occur with almost no prior warning or publicity.

It was almost as though these Asian and Latin American giants were G8 dissidents, deliberately kept to the fringe.

The same world

One morning we arrived at the media centre to find the broadband connection we were using had been cut off. Local Italian technicians claimed it was on the orders of the Italian authorities.

A few hours later it was restored. But in situations like this, you soon start to get paranoid. Was this an attempt to control our output to what could be monitored?

Probably not, but - instead of the usual eagerness for media coverage - it felt distinctly odd to be prevented from telling the world what was going on.

In some ways this new "bare bones" G8 style suits the mood of the moment.

For a change the journalists were not kept 50 miles away from the leaders, or worse - as has happened - sequestered on a separate island.

The summiteers were a short walk away. It felt as though we could keep them under our gaze.

At one formal function, the eyes of a weary Barack Obama glazed over and his shoulders slumped. Not just us hacks, it seems, were getting by on hard mattresses with very little sleep.

This year, in L'Aquila, we were all part of the same world.

Russia, rest of G8 clash on approach to Iran

2009-06-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

Reuters

Group of Eight powers were divided on how to respond to Iran's disputed election on Thursday, with hosts Italy pushing for a strong condemnation of violence and Russia calling the vote "an exercise in democracy".

Western nations at a meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Trieste were pushing for tough language in a final communique on Iran, where about 20 people have been killed in demonstrations following the June 12 presidential election two weeks ago.

"We are working on a document that should condemn the violence and the repression and at the same time stress that electoral procedures are an (internal) Iranian matter," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

But he cautioned: "We (the international community) can't recount the vote." The statement is expected on Friday. Delegates to the G8 conference, getting under way with a dinner on Thursday evening, were wrestling over the wording of the statement on Iran to take into account the sensibilities of Moscow, which has already said it considers all issues linked to the election as Iran's internal affair.

Official results handed hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory but defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi has said that the vote was rigged.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear that Russia was not prepared to sign up to a G8 statement condemning Iran's handling of the election.

"No one is willing to condemn the election process, because it's an exercise in democracy," Lavrov told reporters.

Russia is one of six powers that have been trying to solve a long-running dispute with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Iran says it wants nuclear power to generate electricity but Western powers suspect it of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb.

RUSSIA SAYS ENGAGEMENT IS KEY

"We agreed that we will develop a language which would allow us to concentrate on the main task -- to move toward resolving the issues of the Iranian nuclear programme...," Lavrov said after separate talks with Frattini.

"Isolation is the wrong approach ... Engagement is the key word," he said.

Italian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari said the G8 would express concern over Iran's nuclear programme but added "we want to maintain as far as possible a climate of dialogue".

Events in Iran have cast a shadow over the G8 meeting that should have focused on stabilising Afghanistan and pursuing Middle East peace.

Diplomats had seen the June 25-27 event as a rare chance for the Group of Eight nations to sit down with regional powers like Iran to discuss shared goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Iran declined to answer Italy's invitation to attend.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also absent after hurting her arm.

Speaking in Washington before the meeting, a senior U.S. State Department official said foreign ministers were expected to discuss the impact of the situation in Iran on efforts to engage Tehran over its nuclear programme.

European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner condemned excessive force by Iranian security forces against demonstrators, urged a halt to arbitrary arrests and called a crackdown on journalists unacceptable.

As delegates gathered, a small group of Iranian protesters held up signs condemning the violent crackdown in Iran.

"We want the G8 to exert pressure so Iran allows peaceful protests, free elections, democracy," said Siamak, an Iranian expatriate who fled Iran after the 1979 revolution. He declined to give his last name out of fear for his family still in Iran.

(Additional reporting by Roberto Landucci and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Adrian Croft; Editing by Peter Millership)

R.P. pitches aid, stimulus issues for APEC meet

2009-06-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

MEMBER-countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) will meet for the second round of discussions on what more they should do to mitigate the ill effects of the global recession, and the Philippines has raised the burning issues of more relevant official development assistance (ODA) and a more efficient release of stimulus funds from international donors.

Philippine head negotiator for Apec Edsel Custodio said the discussions and exchange of information on fiscal, monetary and social resilience measures will be held during the Apec senior officials meeting (SOM) mid-July this year in Singapore. The first round was held at the Apec SOM retreat in March.

“Senior ministers [of Apec] recognized the need to facilitate trade financing, as well as financing to support other activities. The SOM chairman noted the SOM retreat had seen strong and broad consensus on the need for speedy replenishment of the Asian Development Bank’s funds,” stated an Apec report.

The report added the SOM chairman “has noted Japan’s proposal to expand its initiative of an Asia Pacific Trade Insurance Network to facilitate cooperation among export credit agencies to include all Apec economies.”

Custodio, also Foreign Affairs undersecretary for international economic relations, said the global economic crisis is not so much about Filipino migrant workers losing jobs abroad, but the need to salvage the dying local industries in the Philippines and other developing Apec members.

The worst impact of the global financial crisis, he said, are on the local industries like the export sector; thus the need to focus on financing small and medium enterprises that in the case of the Philippines comprise more than 90 per cent of its industries.

He said the crisis is also driving many rich economies to source talents and skills abroad because they could no longer live up to the high salary expectations of their own workers. “The economic crisis is actually an opportunity for us because we can supply the human resource needs of the rich countries.”

Custodio said since there are not many Apec programs for SMEs—very much needed by developing countries—the Philippines will greatly push for the support of microfinance programs within Apec.

Apec is composed of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese-Taipei, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.

G8 2009 in Abruzzo, Italy

2009-06-02T20:34:00.001-07:00

Video: Fight capitalism

Our leaders are traditionally going to hold another G8 summit. We are traditionally going to block it and organize alternative, Anti-G8 meeting. Main events will take place on 7-10 July. The preparations are already advanced in both sites of conflict. Meanwhile, here you can find an unofficial invitation to the protests. Spread it.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ade1NsG64Q4

Luxury liner drops its anchor in earthquake area

The news about moving the G8 meeting to the earthquake region of Abruzzo puts National Security Agency under pressure.

The latest announcement of Berlusconi, to locate this years G8 meeting, under the responsibility of the Italian presidency, in the earthquake region of Abruzzo instead of hosting it on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena (1) puts great pressure on the National Security Agency.

After 8 months of preparation work for La Maddalena (2) Berlusconi ditched it. The decision has the support of the Italian cabinet. To argue his case Berlusconi said (3) that with the relocation huge costs would be saved and demonstrators would be held away: “I don’t believe that anti-globalisation demonstrators will have the nerve to organize violent demonstrations in this region so hard hit by the earthquakes”.

The new meeting place will be in the customs and tax police “Fiamme Gialle” (Yellow flame) academy “Maresciallo Vincenzo Giudice” in Coppito at the west side of L’Aquila. Coppito is the biggest police academy of Italy.

At a 48 hectare area with 1500 video camera guarded parking places and with modern accommodations and buildings (4) . This facility has a lecture hall for 1500 people, a cantine for 3500 people and a conference hall for 450 people. There are 2.300 sleeping spaces in rooms of 4 beds, 300 single bedrooms and single apartments on top of that.

All types of helicopters can land on the facility. As can fighter jets with short runway take off and landing capacity. A high ranking person, Colonel Paolo Carretta is quoted to say that the US army is impressed by the complex: ”When the marines came here to be educated by the mountain infantry for the war in Afghanistan they told us: ‘if we only had a barracks like this one!’”.

The Coppito complex is regarded to be the only remaining accessible construction after the earthquake. The 50.000 square meter concrete-steel-construction is completely intact after the quake. The central element of the fort is an extended mirror image of the building, build underneath it. In bunkers, accessible by cars, the state keeps its reserves of money. The facility that also holds “combat support reserves” is a main operation centre in case of an attack on Rome, including cyber attacks.

At this stage Guido Bertolaso, chef of civil defence, is located in the barrack along side hundreds of his co-workers, including volunteers as well as 1.300 members of the finance-police. Because of the collapse of a large number of buildings, in which officials were stationed here resides also Prefect Franco Gabrielli and all officials that don’t have offices any more in L’Aquila. An information office has set up camp to document minister and state secretary journeys. “By July the seismic activity should have reduced” said Franco Barberi professor for geo-chemistry and vulcanology at Romes university Tre.

For the G8 meeting that takes place in July in L’Aquila 3.000 delegates, 3.000 accredited journalists and 16.000 police staff are expected. Chief of civil defence, Bertolaso, is convinced that the capacity of the casern in Coppito will be enough.

Nevertheless thought is being given in Italy to accommodating delegates in Rome, amongst other places in the embassy quarter: “We have begun to concern ourselves with that” said a high ranking executive from the department of public safety (5).

The representatives of the G8 would travel the 100 km from Rome to L’Aquila in 20 minutes with a helicopter. However delegates as well as accompanying vehicles, security forces and interpretors will have to travel by road. The roads in question are the A24 and A25, which connect L’Aquila with Rome and Pescara (6).

The cruising liner “MSC Fantasia” which fits 4.000 passengers, equipped with 99 luxury suites, which was supposed to be moored at La Maddalena, will possibly be stationed at the regional capital Pescara, 70 km. away from L’Aquila. The shipping company gives no information out about that.

Re-location of G8 meeting should restore its popularity

On the 23. of April The newspaper Repubblica reported (7), that the decision to relocate the G8 meeting was taken by Berlusconi, government leader Gianni Letta and chief of civil defence Guido Bertolaso when they met on La Maddalena, already one week before it was made public.

Although it is uncertain on who’s initiative this decision was made. At this point the minister of internal affairs, chief of police, the president of the Abbruzzo region, the president of the province, the mayor, the leader of the local government and the commandant of “yellow flame” got informed (8). The Sardinian counterparts were however not informed.

The minister of internal affairs, Maroni, stated that security could be guaranteed. Nine days before the visit to La Maddalena, Berlusconi put the decision for debate in the cabinet, where it was surprisingly well received, despite comments from foreign minister Frattini, just a week before, that re-locating the meeting was simply impossible.

Alteo Matteoli, minister of infrastructure in Berlusconis fourth cabinet vetoed any surprise decision and said: “Re-locating the G8 meeting is not plausible”. Shortly later he was forced to admit through gritted teeth that this had been a political statement.

The ministers of defence and internal affairs immediately began to inspect the region and the re-location of the G8 office also began immediately. The fact that the city centre of L’Aquila has been blocked since the earthquake has proved useful for security planing because the barracks are only accessible from one side.

Sardinian politicians have criticised the governments decision. Rome has assured them that after the 500 million Euro re-construction of La Maddalena, the region will possess a centre for summits and conferences in the Mediterranean which will be unequalled. In an interview with La Repubblica (9), chief of civil defence Bertolaso said that the greatest projects in the area of rejuvenation and tourist improvement will take place on Sardinia.

Through local demonstrations against the meeting in La Maddalena and its relocation in the earthquake ridden area in the middle of Italy, Italy seems to intend to provide the G8 with renewed popularity. In recent years massive protests were regular at the meetings, repeatedly marked by large and wide participation.

In 2001 the demonstrators defended themselves against massive police attacks in a registered demonstration in Genoa. A short while later the 21 year old Carlo Giuliani was shot by a member of the Carabinieri forces. The opposition of the critical movement against globalisation led to far-reaching compartmentalisation and exclusion from large spaces, not specified as protest zones.

The 2009 meeting is supposed to keep an official image, internally and externally, of being “more simple and serious”. First and foremost they want to reduce the number of delegates. In spite of announced (10) moderation, the conference facilities in Coppito will not suffice for all the delegations’ meetings.

Whether the extensive 1000 strong US delegation will be reduced or not is still uncertain. “220 millions will be saved, which had already been intended for La Maddalena” Berlusconi announced, to explain the relocation to L’Aquila. All in all the undertaking of the G8 meeting in La Maddalena was supposed to cost some 400 million Euro.

It is unclear what will happen with the 180 millions left: will they be used to conclude measures already started in Sardinia, or will they in fact serve the victims of the catastrophe as Berlusconi’s government promised?

“In La Maddalena the security costs proposed were 118 millions, where two ships would have had to be rented to host the 3000 accredited journalists. With the relocation to L’Aquila these numbers will be reduced to an amount which will hardly count. The costs which will fall on us, item by item, are for interpreters, promotion, and the light adjustment constructions of Guidice-casern in Coppito. A contract which could lie between 10 and 30 million Euro”. – Bertolaso, Chief of Civil Defence (11).

Approval from participating governments

The relocation of the meeting surprised many. The location of La Maddalena was imposed by Berlusconi’s predecessor, Prodi. After the April 2008 election Berlusconi, well known for his use of symbolic power behind the scenes, tried to move the meeting into a more attractive place. Naples and Milan were mentioned, as well as Berlusconi’s own surroundings of the Costa Smeralda. All proposals were dismissed by the chief of Civil Defence Bertolaso, on security grounds.

In preparation of a security architecture for a major event, in this case the G8 meeting, involves the norms of those countries participating. Regulations from the US delegation are taken especially seriously, in this respect. At the time when La Maddalena was inspected, in order to decide if the relocation of the meeting should be risked, the question of the US president’s security at the originally intended meeting place, was still open.

It had been demonstrated that the ship which was intended to bring together the representatives and the delegates, could not land at La Maddalena due to insufficient depth of waters. Also, facilities for accommodation of the accredited press were not easily available.

American and the UK are supposed to have agreed (12). Lynn Eccles, Downing Street’s speaker, agreed with support: “The decision to relocate the meeting is paid for by the Italian Government. The UK will support Italy in any way needed.” The EU’s foreign commissar, Ferrero-Waldner, saluted the decision as “solidarity with the people hit by the earthquake”; supposedly Japan have also given a green light.

The German government also had no choice but the accept Berlusconi’s coup (13): “We trust that our Italian partner will take the logistic measures necessary for a successful meeting” (14). The German delegations should stay in the Hotel of Campo Imperatore by the Gran Sasso, where Mussolini was under custody for a few weeks in 1943 before he was freed by German combatants.

Militarised Catastrophe Arrangements in Abruzzo

The extraordinary minister cabinet called together on the occasion of the emergency appointed Franco Gabrielli as prefect of L’Aquila (15). Gabrielli started his career at the political police “Digos” in Imperia and later switched place to the central in Rome. At the end of 2002, the Police coordinated an action against the successor organisation of the Red Brigades, under Gabrielli’s administration, after which the two arrested for the death of Massimo D’Antona and Marco Biagi, were held responsible.

After the operation he was made chief of the internationally operating secret services “Servizio Centrale Antiterrorismo”. For a few years he co-wrote a handbook with the current chief of Police, Antonio Manganelli, about investigation procedures.

However the situation in many towns of the earthquake region is highly critical. State support initiatives came late and did not function properly. On the other hand representatives of the government have declared that the measures provided were highly efficient. A handful of towns, which were portrayed as ideal renovation projects, are frequently visited by the media.

This very strong and media-supported care given to the image of efficiency and capabilities is supposed to be related to Italy’s polished image, internationally. The country is among those states considered in danger of bankruptcy in the current crisis. Those voices are also growing in number which see, in Italy’s development, signs of the destruction of democracy.

This seems to be thus interpreted in government circles: In the last weeks the Italian government urged numerous foreign newspapers (16), among those French and German, to cease labelling Berlusconi’s politics as “post-fascist”.

BLOCK G8 2009!

2009-05-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

Direct actions, demonstrations, appeals and events against the G8 summit in Italy

In recent weeks progress is being made in the mobilization against the G8 summit in Italy. Particularly the planned transfer of the G8 site to the earthquake region of L´Aquila and to Rome (1) have caused intense debates and great interest in the present state of preparations.

“220 million Euros already being designated for La Maddalena can be saved“, Berlusconi stated, stressing to give reasons for the transfer to L´Aquila. Sardinian precarious workers object that with reference to the expenses for the construction of the G8-facilities planned for future elite conferences and luxury holidays in the archipelago northeast of Olbia, 320 million euros “have been thrown out of the window.“ (2) Altogether the holding of the G8 summit on La Maddalena was supposed to cost 400 million Euros. It is not clear what will happen with the allegedly remaining 180 million: do they serve for the completion of the far advanced measures on Sardinia or will they really benefit the disaster victims as promised by the Berlusconi government?

Only last week the security plannings on La Maddalena – at least on the “first level“ – were declared completed. (3)

Events and protests should be held as far away as possible from the summit area, the Schengen Agreement about renouncing identity checks at crossborder traffic should be appealed. At airports and ferry harbours, at several European harbours with connections to Sardinia as well as at the borders to Italy, border controls and longer waiting times were predicted. The summit area on La Maddalena and the cruise ship MSC Fantasia were planned to be surrounded by three safety belts in which traffic should be restricted or rather stopped, ferry crossings to La Maddalena were to be applied for. The sea around La Maddalena archipelago should be locked up around a wide area, flights of about 50,000 passengers diverted to Olbia. Red Cross, hospitals, police and fire brigade have had a practice manoeuvre in Olbia.

Popular Kitchen “Carlo Giuliani“

Besides a supposed saving of costs the summit is planned to be transferred to prevent eventual protests to the greatest possible extent: “I don´t believe that anti-globalists will have the courage to organize violent demonstrations in this earthquake-stricken region“, Berlusconi stated. (4) Leftist groups and activists although are present in the Abruzzi right from the start and have appealed for support of the persons affected by the earthquake. They commit themselves in camps taking matters into their own hands, in operating large kitchens, in providing further infrastructure as well as in delivering material aids and healthy food.
Already on the same day of the earthquake the initiative “Epicentro Sociale“ (solidarity epicentre) was founded. (5)

The regional council of the Rifondazione Comunista attacked Berlusconi´s comment that leftist protesters would not come into the disaster area: “I want to inform the president that the anti-globalists arrived together with the Civil Guard – and in many places even before them“, according to the regional council of Rifondazione Comunista . (6)

Hundreds of volunteers of Rifondazione Comunista, social centres, environment groups, Catholic trainees and social forums have distributed food, blankets and medicine to the earthquake-stricken population and gave all kinds of assistance. The camp kitchen in San Bagio was already on the first day named after Carlo Giuliani, who was shot dead by police during the G8 summit in 2001.

On the Italian web-platform Indymedia the helpers raise heavy reproaches against the state-run aid organizations in the camps and in general and denounce an “extortive pressure for national unity“. (7)

On the 10th of April cars and a van with supplies was stopped by the Carabinieri. The transport was organized by students of Naples, material and companions were on their way to a self-governed camp. The convoy was stopped and taken to the provincial police headquarters. According to the Carabinieri, the self-governed aid programmes were a “masked extensive plundering manoeuvre“. Only when the news circulated in the Italian media the convoy was released.

Meanwhile there is the appeal “Appropriate the mountains, bury G8!“ (8) calling upon the “Global Multitude“ to seize the opportunity in the Abruzzi to build “sustainable, forward thinking communities,” 10 years after the Seattle group “Diggers 2.0“ appealed for “Solidarity out of the ruins of Neoliberalism“:
“We need solutions of the crisis from down below, an opposing power of social movements with a shovel in its hand getting ready to build a post-capitalist world. Call upon the global multitude to come to Abruzzo from 7th to 11th of July to help rebuild Abruzzo“.

Militarized disaster control organization

The extraordinary ministerial council convened on the occasion of the state of emergency has appointed Franco Gabrielli as prefect of L´Aquila. Gabrielli started his career with the political police “Digos“ in Imperia and changed later to the head office in Rome. He was responsible for the police conducting a coordinated action against the organization succeeding the “Red Brigades“, after which two arrested persons were found responsible for the deaths of Massimo D´Antona and Marco Biagi. After the operation he became chief of the internationally operating secret service “Servizio Centrale Antiterrorismo“. A few years ago he drew up together with the current Chief of Police Antonio Manganelli an investigation practice manual.

„L´Aquila is militarized“, it seems like „practical military occupation exercises“, claim people who feel victimized by the actions. (9) “The earthquake lays reality open as it really is: separated between rich and poor“. The population and helpers obviously get harassed by police forces at the service of the emergency apparatus of state: “They run after us, they forbid us, they command us, they tell us off when we try to take back our houses“. Reports in opposition to the militarization document that under the earthquake ruins numerous migrants are buried and not turning up in the official statistics. (10) A Romanian nurse who was about to rescue her belongings together with some friends out of the house she had lived in, was arrested together with her companions and taken to court for looting in specially held proceedings.

Newspapers were reporting extensively about this and thus intensified the anti-Romanian atmosphere, however when the woman was acquitted the press abruptly lost their interest.

Impregilo

The power of the earthquake was not the cause for the full extent of the damages as much as speculative, grossly negligent methods of construction and neglect of regulations. In the centre of critique is the Italian company Impregilo (11) which had constructed many of the collapsed buildings. According to enquiries the houses were manufactured partly with concrete mixed with sea sand. Steal reinforcement corroded therefore much faster, and the houses weren’t stable anymore. Impregilo used to belong to the Fiat group and is part of a consortium of Benetton, Gavio and Ligresti today. After Berlusconi’s election the Impregilo share rapidly shot up. The company is planning to realize a project of prestige costing into the billions, the Messina bridge between Sicily and the mainland, one of the election promises of Berlusconi.

Berlusconi’s career itself is connected with a construction industry notorious for corruption; he is supposed to have received funds from the secret lodge Propaganda 2.(12) Impregilo has drawn attention to itself with numerous scandals and is responsible for the militarization of Naples´ “rubbish scandal“. The company also has not completed construction of a refuse incineration plant in spite of the completion of the contract in 1998. As a result a court had charged 27 managers and politicians.

Impregilo is constructing a tunnel for the high speed train TAV (13) in the Susa valley north of Turin. This project is provoking fierce and militant resistance from the population over the last 20 years, because the work releases natural uranium and asbestos. Supported by activists of social centres they had occupied the construction site in 2006. After the police had cleared and afterwards occupied the site themselves, their supplies were cut off by blockading protesters. After 20 hours the police gave up. The result was a temporary halt to construction, but in March Berlusconi announced the construction to go on again. (14)
International climate activists as well are criticizing Impregilo. The company holds the biggest share of a planned aluminium power station in Iceland, is constructing world-wide numerous controversial dam projects (15) and intends to build nuclear power plants in Italy.(16)

Protests have strengthened against G8

Since the announcement that the Summit will be transferred to L’ Aquila and Rome, plans for doing protests are increasing over the international mailing-lists. Also in Berlin, there will be a demonstration called “We are your crisis”.(17)

First protests against the G8 have already taken place in Italy. The G8-Ministers of Agriculture have already met in Castelbrando. Before that, activists of the group called “Health and Environment” had written “NO OGM” (no genetically modified organisms) into a field, which was unable to be overlooked from an aerial view. But to “avoid instrumentalisation and polemics” they announced “on advice of the police president Damiano” to remove the signature before the G8-Meeting themselves.

At the beginning of the G8-Meeting, there was a public Assembly against the G8 Agricultural Ministers meeting in Treviso (18). 3,000 police had been mobilised, flights in the area were banned, police controls and limited access were installed. There have been protest initiatives and actions of anarchists, disobbedienti, and activists from the social centers as well as the Italian federation of farmers, demonstrating against environmental destruction, industrial agriculture, Nano- and genetic technology. In Rome, workers in the field of agriculture were on strike for eight hours. Activists of Ya Basta fenced in the Benetton-Store in Treviso with barbed wire to protest against the exploitation of workers in Patagonia through Benetton.
Before the police and press massively began a propaganda campaign against certain actions of a “black bloc”, because there was a call for an assembly to “radically change the status quo, to start a broadly received protest, in which the desire for direct action can be discovered and coordinated”(19). The media sounded the “black bloc-alarm” (20).
One day before the meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture, in Ca’ Tron in Roncade a laboratory for experiments with genetically modified organisms was “sanctioned from below” (21).

After activists accessed the area, they were throwing stones on the green houses and surveillance cameras and were spray painting “No OGM” on the walls: “With this action we want to unmask the hypocracy of those who see genetically modified organisms as an experiment with positive output towards the solution of environmental, economic and social problems. This is our welcoming ceremony to the delegations of those that believe, that they can rule the world on the backs of billions of people.” The paper was signed with “Social Centers of the North East”. Shortly after that, the police announced a manhunt and arrested 4 persons in a car, who supposedly had been on the flight from the crime scene (22).

Some days later, the police searched six “flats of ex-disobbedienti” from Treviso and the social center Ubik-Lab in Ponzano Veneto (Treviso). Supposedly 10 people had been identified during the action in Ca’ Tron. As incriminating evidence, a Computer, hard drive, paint pots and maps of Ca’ Tron, in which the area around the center has been marked, shoes and brochures were been confiscated. The police claimed that the activists were planning another “attack” during the G8-Meeting inside the Red Zone. The speaker of the attacked Social Centers are declaring the accusations and Razzias as “ridiculous and surreal” (23). Accusations include breach of public peace, and property destruction for five people in the heavier case with destruction of an electricity distributor for the climatisation of the green houses, the windows of the laboratory and of four surveillance cameras (24).

In Siracusa/ Sicily, a demonstration of up to 3,000 people against the meeting of the Ministers of Environment of the G8-countries, who were meeting – like in the Northern Italian Castelbrando – in a historic castle, has been the peak of a two-month long mobilisation and was seen by all participants as very positive (25). The most important result of the action has been to transform the broad collection of groups (26) against the G8-Environment-Summit into a “steady coordination”, which stands as a movement (27) of diversity, which is opposing the speculation and destruction”, that on Sicily and even cross-border are of really heavy (28), “from now on, there will be support, starting with the fight against the erection of gas digesters in the Petrochemie complex of Priolo-Augusta”.

A very important and present number of participants have been the numerous self-organised migrants at the protests (29), who raised clear demands on banners to the Italian government, the prefectures and the Police Chief.
Leading up to the demonstration, a three day long counter summit had been held, at which numerous initiatives had been involved together with activists from a broad political spectrum – including the labor unions Cobas, Rifondazione Comunista and several Social Centres, which on Sicily are already fighting against the planned construction- (30), Industry (31) and NATO-large scale projects. (32). They are criticising and fighting them, because they are adding to incredibly heavy damage of the environment and the living conditions (33) of the people, which are already quite poor (34), and which is only serving the profits of business interests in the national and global political and context. Moreover the engagement of activists from further regions of Italy´s South has been noticed.

The motto of the counter summit has been: “An attack on the Island of the Future: the Environment-G8. Nuclear power, waste incineration, environmental pollution, garbage, military bases. We are not going to pay for your crisis with our land!”. The 22nd of April was dedicated to the “Array of effective, independent to any profit interests, proposals on the topic of Environment”, while on the next day a “round table” – parallel to the general strike of the unions – “recent topics like work, precarity and societal fights” were addressed, whereas the pressure – transported over the media, which had not payed any attention to the contents of the G8-Protestors – on the upcoming demonstration more and more were changing the athmosphere (35).

Another part of the success of the initiatives against the Environment Summit was probably the political closeness (36) of the demonstrating summit protestors, despite the repression of the security offices and the signals of appreciation shown by the inhabitants, which – actually waiting for the demonstration (37) – was in assembled in large numbers at the sides of the streets.
Videos show pictures that prove, how officials tried to create a climate related to the G8 2001 in Genoa.

The police showed over days and weeks in diverse ways an absolute drive for surveillance and announced explicitly their high preparedness for repression:
“Since days the citizens are living in a kind of induced nightmare, because the Police Force and the prefecture had warned those involved: Everything is possible, we can not offer no security in the field of public order: the “Black Block” is just underneath us.” (38). Only the Mayor of Siracus tried to mitigate the climate of fear, totally the opposite of his colleague in Treviso, who advised the shop keepers personally to keep their shops closed. But most of the business owners were not paying attention to the Mayor, but to the buzz of the media and the security organisations (39).

Leading up to the meeting hard controls were carried out in cities including Catania (40) and Messina and even complete closing (41) of the train Messina-Siracusa had taken place. The travellers have been forced to go on with another train, potential counter summit participants and demonstrators were bullied and partially blocked from going to Siracusa in time for the demonstration. In the wake of street controls, car and bus searches (42), arrests and bans (43) have been performed, eventually because someone had an axe handle with him because he was working in the field of agriculture and some stones he was collecting because of their beautiful shape.

Even if before the protest, the demonstrators have been differentiate in their disagreements about the cutting of their rights through repression and surveillance, during the demonstration and at the big barricade with which the accessing street to the castle in which the G8 Environmental Ministers were meeting, have been blocked, the demonstrators appeared enclosed and loudly voiced their opinion (44). There were also presentations about the G8 in Genoa and remembering Carlo Giuliani (45).

When the demonstration was starting with a few hundred participants, they were applauded by the citizens at the side of the streets. The support of the local people was present on the whole protest route. A big group of the Ultras Siracusa was greeting the demonstrators with loud chants about the topic of repression (46). On the way to the final rally point the demonstration grew towards some thousand people.

The acceptance of the population was clearly the beginnings of a “Permanent cooperation against speculation and environmental destruction” in Sicily with coordination and courage of the participants, who against repressive conditions (47) had sucessfully made the first large protest against the G8 since Genoa in 2001. As the numerous video reports showed, the final rally proved to be happy and joyous, and fully of empathetic thanks to all of the march participants, the local people, and to the lawyers of the “Democratic Forum” who had given their legal support.

The need for protection to demonstrate will stay exceedingly high until the very last moment. Italy has seen months of new, sharp demonstation regulations (49), setting organisers under heavy pressure.

The G8 Environmental Minister meeting in Sicily was organised by the Italian Environmental Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo (50), who, along with her family, owns a number of polluting businesses. She belongs to the so-called “Institutional Playgirls” of the Prime Minister, who has made his success as a media-tycoom on the recipe of “tits, ass and pink-colored dreams.”

Also in Sardinia the protest movement had come. The “Mesa Sarda. A fora su G8” (“Sardinien Table. Out with the G8”) plans for social justice and to fight for national soverignty, and organised a meeting called “All nations without a government.” The meeting is planned for 8-9 July, with a demonstration planned on the 10th in Olbia near La Maddalena.

“We from the anti-colonial Sardinian Independence Movement (51) will denounce how we have been betrayed and taken advantage of like in a bad joke, and in our country the hopes of the Sardinians have been used like a throw-away foot rag. First we were fooled by the Italian state about infrastructural improvements, the road between Sassari and Olbia, that is, and about work opportunities raining on a huge scale over a country already exhausted by unemployment. Then they diverted the means designated for these infrastructures and annexed the entire hotel plant running, the touristic harbour and the plants on the Arsenale site on La Maddalena, financed by us Sardinians, to the president of the employers´ association“
Press release of Mesa Sarda concerning the G8-location transfer (52).

In an interview Mesa Sarda member Bastiano Cumpostu explained: ''We from Mesa Sarda A fora su G8 have issues in common with the no globals. We don´t agree that our region is going to be used as a living room for the G8 heads of state“.
''The summit participants will hear from us“, announced also Francesco Caruso, ex-parliamentarian with Rifondazione Comunista and earlier representative of the ''disobbedienti“ in an interview for the Sardinian daily newspaper L´Unione Sarda.

The ex-parliamentarian with Rifondazione Comunista criticizes the striving for the absence of every political protest (53):
''(Berlusconi) is taking advantage of the drama of the homeless for propaganda reasons and at the same time intends to cut the right to demonstrate of opponents of globalization“.

''The fact that the leaders of the world hide on an island is a sign of weakness. For years now the critics of globalization point to economic and environmental risks. Now, all our predictions are happening, and the leaders of the world are barricading themselves in“. Francesco Caruso (54)

The announced protests against the G8 university presidents´ summit from 17th to 19th of May in Turin (55) are probably going to be exciting. The movement against the ''Gelmini Reform“ is calling for blockading the meeting (56). The broad protest movement against mass discharges and reforms in the education sector and the loss of autonomy last year had resulted in partly fierce and militant mass protests.

Already in the run-up to the meeting of the G8-ministers of agriculture supposed police insights were sensationally propagated through the media about planned protests with supposed preparations of militant actions of a ''black bloc“. The construct of the ''black bloc“ is going around in the Italian public since the G8 in Genoa in 2001. In court trials police and public prosecutor´s office have tried to make the ''black bloc“ as an ''international terroristic organization“ a fixed juristical point and to sentence activists to heavy imprisonments for membership in the same.

''Security circles“ suppose to have observed since one year that „small Anarchist groups“ out of France, Great Britain and Germany were spying out the region around La Maddalena.

Anarchist Movement Conference 2009 in London

2009-05-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

June 6th/7th, Queen Mary University, London E1 4NS
web: www.conference09.org.uk // email: info@conference09.org.uk

In less than 5 weeks The Anarchist Movement Conference will begin. We need as many people as possible to register for the event. The content and format of the conference are now online at www.conference09.org.uk. There is also the details of the two gigs being organised to fundraise on May 9th and 16th.

As it is our first attempt at this we want to make it as much of a success as possible by bringing as many anarchists from around the UK down to it. It will be an excellent opportunity to discuss our ideas, where we are going wrong, where we are going right and get some sense of ourselves as a relevant movement.

To register for the conference please download the form at:
http://www.conference09.org.uk/register.html and either send a cheque or if in London hand it in at Freedom. We will also be having a registration stall at both London benefits, so bring extra funds.

Ultimately the conference is what we make it, it can be a vital part to the growth of our movement and hopefully become a yearly point of convergence for all of us.

Police tried to infiltrate Plane Stupid protest group

2009-05-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

This has been going on for years. Finally, the police are being caught at their own game.

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Undercover police have been caught trying to infiltrate environmental protest groups by offering members large amounts of money to pass information to them. Plane Stupid, a direct action network known for high-publicity protests which often break the law, recorded two officers from Strathclyde Police offering cash to a member.

They tried to recruit Mathilda Gifford, 24, after she was free on bail following an illegal protest at Aberdeen airport last month. She recorded the conversation on a mobile phone and leaked the details to the media.

In the tapes, an officer boasted that they could "afford more than 20 quid" for information. Another suggested Miss Gifford could earn "tens of thousands of pounds" if she agreed to be a spy.

Although Plane Stupid breaks the law during protests, there are fears that police infiltration of the environmental movement may curb the right to protest. Two weeks ago, The Independent revealed that police informants were behind a mass pre-emptive arrest of more than 100 environmental protesters in Nottingham. The arrests took place before a crime had been committed. No charges were brought.

Leo Murray, a founder of Plane Stupid, said: "The police claim they have a right to infiltrate us because we are violent extremists who commit violent acts, yet nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "There is a huge difference between lawful, peaceful and violent protests. [We] break the law but have never resorted to violence."

Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton, the head of violent crime at Strathclyde Police, said his force had a "responsibility" to gather intelligence. He said: "Officers have been in contact with a number of protesters involved with Plane Stupid to ensure any future protest is within the law."

G20 Protests: New Complaint About Police

2009-05-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

A fourth complaint against police from the G20 demonstrations is being investigated.

A 22-year-old woman involved in the protests in London on April 1 has made an accusation of assault, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said.

The complaint was referred by the Metropolitan Police, a spokesman said.

"Having reviewed the information, the IPCC has taken the decision to independently investigate this latest incident arising from the policing operation relating to the G20 Summit," IPCC deputy chairman Deborah Glass explained.

It is understood the alleged incident took place in Bishopsgate, where hundreds of climate campaigners set up camp to protest over global warming.

Demonstrators complained they were forcibly removed from the site that evening by officers wearing riot gear.

IPCC investigators are also examining the death of newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, 47, who collapsed after allegedly being attacked by a police officer.

A constable from the Met's territorial support group has been suspended from duty and questioned under caution for manslaughter.

Further complaints from a woman activist who was slapped by an officer and a man who claims he was assaulted are being probed as well.

The number of complaints received by the IPCC relating to the G20 protests has risen to 256.

The event saw more than 5,000 people flood the City of London as the world's most powerful leaders gathered nearby for the G20 Summit.

Of the complaints total, 121 are from people who claim they either witnessed or suffered police violence.

Another 75 relate to police tactics and 60 are from members of the public who object to what they saw on television.

A review of public order tactics has been launched by HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Denis O'Connor.

Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has since been forced to defend his force's public order tactics, including the use of batons, dogs and the strategy of containing people for long periods, known as kettling.

Sir Paul said any officer caught not wearing identification for criminal purposes should be sacked.

Public Inquiry for Ian Tomlinson

2009-04-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Activists have called for a full public inquiry into the death of a man during the G20 protests.

Ian Tomlinson was returning home from his work at a nearby newsagents when he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City where protesters had gathered.

Post-mortem tests showed the 47-year-old suffered a sudden heart attack.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is looking into Mr Tomlinson's death, but protestors insisted this would not be enough.

In a statement, a group calling themselves G20 Witnesses said: "We call for a full public inquiry to look into Mr Tomlinson's death and the police tactics used throughout the G20 protests."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said at the time that officers treating him had bottles thrown at them by protesters.

But there were also claims his treatment was delayed by the presence of the police cordon around the protest area.

More than 120 people were arrested during demonstrations near the Docklands, east London, where the G20 summit was held and in the City on Wednesday and Thursday.

G20: Actions Better than Words

2009-04-06T01:03:00.001-07:00

The G20 has always been just a star-studded cast strutting their stuff, telling the world that everything is within control. With each show, they take money from the IMF again and again. Big words, so what G20?

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The just-concluded Group of 20 (G20) summit in London has won oceans of applauds from the world as it is believed to have harvested positive and practical results by formulating effective measures to heal the ailing world economy.

Participants are believed to have made due contributions to the success of the summit, by jointly working out a package of agreements and commitments, including a 1.1-trillion-U.S.-dollar global rescue deal, and taking a landmark move of tighter financial regulation.

Although the commitments are indeed encouraging, it is more important to fulfill them through solid actions.

Just as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after the summit, "these commitments made by G20 leaders must be translated into concrete action."

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday called on the international community to make concerted efforts to ride out the crisis when he addressed the summit. "The only right choice is for all of us to work together and deal with it," he said.

China, the largest developing country, has spared no efforts to implement its proposed measures and played a conducive role in the world in building up confidence, maintaining stability as well as pushing for an economic revival at an early date.

At the summit, China also announced it would contribute 40 billion dollars to the International Monetary Fund, highlighting its role as a responsible member of the United Nations.

The United States, the world's leading economy, also pledged to turn words into actions.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that while the United States is a world power, it is prepared to listen and learn as well as lead.

He said he will ask Congress in the next few days to provide an immediate 448 million U.S. dollars to help the poorest countries.

Nonetheless, the "Buy American" measures in the newly adopted stimulus package by the Obama administration, which bar the use offoreign iron, steel and manufactured goods in public works projects, have aroused concerns among other countries about the U.S. protectionist moves.

Similarly, French President Nicolas Sarkozy once said publicly that it was unjustifiable that French car brands made abroad, for instance in the Czech Republic, should be sold in France. His remarks had rung alarm bells in Europe for a tendency of protectionism.

At the summit, the G20 leaders reaffirmed their commitment to resist protectionism and push for an ambitious conclusion of the Doha Round global trade talks.

Looking back, they committed themselves to free trade at the Washington summit last year, but not all of them have kept their words.

This time, they said in a joint statement that "by acting together to fulfill these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future."

If the world's major economies, in particular the G20 member states, put their promises into practice, confidence will be restored that the political leadership is capable of meeting difficulties and challenges, and pulling the world economy out of mire.

It is not picky to demand to see tangible actions and deeds, even though the world media and the public save no words to hail the G20 summit. Instead, we should remain sober and critical.

The G-20 leaders announced Thursday they agreed to meet again by year's end to check on the progress and effectiveness of the measures. We need to wait and see.

A G20 Meeting for Naught

2009-04-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

Police. Resources wasted to facilitate the sham of a meeting

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The G20 summit meeting in London from April 1st onward was loudly announced and publicized. Those 20 industrialized and emergent countries (G20) are meeting to find solutions to the crisis. But long before the end of the summit, it is clear that they will not rise to the challenge.

The G20 was not created in order to provide genuine solutions; it was hastily summoned a first time in November 2008 to salvage the powers that be and try and to plug the breaches in capitalism. It is therefore impossible for this body to opt for measures that are sufficiently radical to save the day.

Public opinion will be told to look in the two directions that are expected to focus aggravation: tax havens and the CEOs’ incomes.

Tax havens have to be abolished, that goes without saying. To achieve this it should be easy enough to make it illegal for companies and residents to have any assets in, or relationships with partners located in, tax havens. The EU countries that function like tax havens (Austria, Belgium, the UK, Luxembourg…) as well as Switzerland must do away with bank secrecy and put an end to their outrageous practices. Yet such is not at all the orientation chosen by the G20: a couple of emblematic cases will be cracked down on, minimal measures will be required from those countries, and a black list of non-cooperative territories eventually made public will have been carefully vetted (the City, Luxembourg or Austria have already been promised they will not be on it).

On the other hand CEOs’ incomes, including golden parachutes and other bonuses, are indeed outrageous. In time of growth the employers claimed that those who brought in such benefits to their companies had to be rewarded to prevent them from moving to another. Now that we live in a time of crisis and those companies have to admit to increasing losses, the same executives still claim similar rewards. The G20 will try to regulate their incomes for a limited duration. The logic of the system is not questioned.

Apart from tax havens and CEOs’ superbonuses, which will not be hit by any specific penalties anyway, the G20 countries will further bail out their banks. Though globally discredited and de-legitimized, the IMF will be put back at the hub of the political and economic game thanks to a new provision of funds which will have been made available by 2010.

The G20 strategy is to put a fresh coat of paint on a world which is collapsing. Only a strong popular mobilization will make it possible to lay solid foundations to build another world in which finance is at the service of people, and not the other way round. The 28 and 30 March demos were big ones: 40,000 people in London, thousands and thousands in Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart, Madrid, Brasilia, Rome, etc. with the common motto “Let the rich pay the crisis!” The week of global action called for by the social movements from all over the world at the WSF at Belém last January thus had a gigantic echo. Those who had announced the end of the movement for another globalization were wrong. It has proved that it is able to bring large crowds together, and this is only the beginning. The success of the mobilizations in France on 29 January and 19 March (three million demonstrators were in the streets) is evidence that the workers, the unemployed and young people all want other solutions to the crisis than those which consist in bailing out bankers and imposing restrictions on the lower classes.

As a counterpoint to the G20 summit, the president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, has called a general meeting of Heads of States and Governments in June and asked the economist Joseph Stiglitz to chair a commission that will draft proposals to meet the global crisis. The suggested solutions are inadequate because too timid, but they will at least be discussed at the the UN general Assembly.

A new debt crisis is looming in the South, it is a consequence of the real estate private debt bubble bursting in the North. The recession that now affects the real economy of all countries in the North has led to prices of raw material plummeting, which considerably has reduced the strong currency revenues with which governments of countries of the South repay their external public debts. Moreover the current credit crunch has induced a rise in borrowing rates for countries of the South. The combination of these two factors has already resulted in suspensions in debt repayment by those governments that are most exposed to the crisis (starting with Ecuador). Others will follow suit within one or two years.

The situation is absurd: countries of the South are net creditors to the North, starting with the US whose external debt is over US$ 6,000 billion (twice the total external debt of all the countries of the South). Central banks in countries of the South buy US Treasury bonds instead of setting up a democratic bank of the South to finance human development projects. They should leave the World Bank and the IMF, which are tools of domination, and develop South-South relations of solidarity such as those which exist between countries that are members of ALBA (Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Dominica). They ought to audit the debts they are asked to repay and put an end to the payment of illegitimate debts.

The G20 will see to it that the core of neoliberal logic is left untouched. Its principles are asserted again and again, even though they have blatantly failed: the G20 maintains its attachment to a global economy based on an open market. Its support to the god of free market is non-negotiable. Everything else is hocus-pocus.

Eric Toussaint, PhD in political sciences, is president of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt – Belgium www.cadtm.org ), author of A diagnosis of emerging global crisis and alternatives, Mumbai, India, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, 2009, 139p.; The World Bank: A Critical Primer, London, UK, Pluto Press, 2008

Damien Millet, a mathematician, is spokeperson for CADTM France (Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt,).

Joint authors of 60 Questions 60 Answers on the Debt, the IMF and the World Bank, English version to be published in 2009.

Are the Police Protesting Too Much?

2009-04-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

A man lost his life yesterday. PUT PEOPLE FIRST!!!! Those of you in London, do keep lending your voice and keep safe.

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The trouble-makers are out in force again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It's almost as if they are deliberately raising the temperature, pushing and pushing until a fight kicks off. But this isn't some disorganised rabble: these people were bussed in and are plainly acting in concert. There's another dead giveaway. They are all wearing the same slogan: Police.

The police have been talking up violence at the G20 protests for weeks. They briefed journalists and companies in the City of London about the evil designs of the climate campaigners intending to demonstrate there, but refused to let the campaigners attend the briefings and put their own side of the story. They also rebuffed the campaigners when they sought to explain to the police what they wanted to do.

The way officers tooled themselves up in riot gear and waded into a peaceful crowd this afternoon makes it look almost as if they were trying to ensure that their predictions came true. Their bosses appear to have failed either to read or to heed the report by the parliamentary committee on human rights last week, about the misuse of police powers against protesters. "Whilst we recognise police officers should not be placed at risk of serious injury," the report said, "the deployment of riot police can unnecessarily raise the temperature at protests."

But there has always been a conflict of interest inherent in policing. The police are supposed to prevent crime and keep the streets safe. But if they are too successful, they do themselves out of a job. They have a powerful interest in exaggerating threats and, perhaps, an interest in ensuring that sometimes these threats materialise. This could explain what I've seen at one protest after another, where peaceful demonstrations turn into ugly rucks only when the police attack. The wildly disproportionate and unnecessary violence I've sometimes seen the police deploy could scarcely be better designed to provoke a reaction.

If this is so, they lose nothing. They might get the occasional rap over the knuckles from MPs or the police complaints commission. It doesn't seem to bother them. By planting the idea in the public mind that the streets could erupt into catastrophic violence at any time, were it not for the thick blue line thrown around even the mildest protest, they establish the need for a heavy police presence. While the public lives in fear, no government dares to cut the policing budget.

G20 protesters face police with Tasers

2009-03-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

SCOTLAND YARD is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal
with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week’s G20 summit in London.

The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with speedcuffs, extended batons and CS gas spray.

The Met confirmed yesterday that they will be supported by officers equipped with Tasers on stand-by should trouble break out.

“There will be an armed response vehicle element to this operation and [those officers] will be carrying Tasers,” said a spokeswoman.

The Met’s admission that Tasers could be used for the first time in the UK during riots came as protest groups claimed police had contacted them to warn that a day of protest in the City on Wednesday would be “very violent”.

All police leave has been cancelled and 10,500 officers, including reinforcements from other forces, will be deployed in the biggest policing operation undertaken in London.

Demonstrations intended to bring the capital’s financial centre to a standstill on Wednesday and disruption to the G20 summit at the ExCel centre in Docklands on Thursday will provide the first big test for Sir Paul Stephenson, the new Met commissioner. He will be aware that the protests provide an opportunity to show the world that London is up to the security and public order challenges of the 2012 Olympics.

With yesterday’s TUC march, a state visit from the president of Mexico tomorrow and the arrival of 40 delegations including 19 heads of state for the G20 summit on Thursday, the week presents a series of complex operational challenges the like of which the Met has not seen in recent history. The organisers of the protests – an alliance of envi-ronmental campaigners, anticapitalist and religious groups – insist they will be peaceful. However, police fear that anarchist elements are likely to stir up trouble.

Police expect up to 1,500 protesters to converge on the Bank of England on Wednesday. At 12.30pm, other demonstrators are expected to “swoop” on the European Climate Exchange centre in Bishopsgate, where they plan to erect pop-up tents, makeshift toilets and even a bicycle-powered cinema, marking the start of a 24-hour Climate Camp.

WHO’S DEMONSTRATING

London Anarchists: have appealed for people to join in “direct action” similar to
that seen at previous antiglobalisation protests

Whitechapel Anarchists: London group which praised the attack on the home of Sir Fred
Goodwin, the disgraced bank boss

Class War: veteran anarchists who are encouraging supporters to “burn a banker”

G20 Meltdown: A new organisation which will host a carnival at the Bank of England

Climate Camp: environmentalists behind direct action at Heathrow airport and power
stations in North Yorkshire and Kent

Climate Rush: group against airport expansion who have “rushed” parliament

People and Planet: student network campaigning to end world poverty, defend human
rights and protect the environment

Stop the War Coalition and CND: anti-war protesters against Iraq and Afghanistan wars

London: We Wldn't Pay For Their Crisis!

2009-03-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

Furious protesters took to the streets, voicing out a shared international displeasure at the bankers who have failed thoroughly. "WE WON'T PAY FOR THEIR CRISIS!!"

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Tens of thousands marched for five hours in "one of the largest" protests in London on Saturday, four days before the G20 summit kicks off.

Leaders from the world's 20 biggest economies are scheduled to meet in London on April 2 to discuss how tighter regulation of financial markets, billions of dollars in stimulus measures and credit lines for international trade can help the world economy recover.

The police, who are coordinating a large-scale security operation in the build-up to the summit, have been barred from going on leave until the summit ends.

"It's fair to say that this {protest} is one of the largest, one of the most challenging and one of the most complicated operations we have delivered," Commander Simon O'Brien, one of the officers in charge of security, said of Saturday's protest.

While the protest from Temple Place to Hyde Park highlighted several issues, including social inequality, loss of jobs, war and climate change, most took to the street to express their anger over bankers whose greed they say led to the global financial crisis.

The protesters, ranging from union members, taxi drivers and the retired, marched the 7.2-km stretch to the sound of brass bands, piercing whistles and blasting music from stereos. Among them was 73-year-old Geoff Stratford who awoke at 4:30 am so he could arrive in London from Manchester in time for the rally.

"The cause (of the financial crisis) lies in casino capitalism and in the greed of bankers," Stratford told China Daily as he and his wife marched, holding aloft a banner.

"We want to get the view through to the leaders who are meeting to find consensus. We have pensions and are not affected much by the crisis but the leaders should correct their mistakes and make people suffer less," he said and added that he would join the marches scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday as well.

Essex resident Milton McKenzie said: "How can we have a situation where we have people out of work and the bankers just cream it off, helped by the government?"

Dressed in green sportswear, Andrea Porteous and her 10-year-old daughter Taylera raised chants of: "Put children first".

Unwilling to admit she had lost her job, the 40-something former office administrator said: "I finished my work days ago." Porteous conceded that she had sent her resume to several companies but failed to get a single job offer. "Some of my friends too have not got feedback after sending 20-30 job application letters."

A London taxi driver said he joined the protest because the financial downturn meant his daily fare had gone down by 20-30 percent. "I have to drive six days a week or a minimum of two extra hours every day," said John, who refused to give his full name. "I am urging the G20 leaders to find a way to punish those who brought about the crisis."

Europe, US split deepens before G20 finance talks

2009-03-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Who will remember the poor countries which the IFIs have pledged to help? They didn't when they could. Now they cannot even save themselves

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World finance chiefs prepared for a ministerial meeting of the G20 leading economies near London on Saturday that threatens to expose deep divisions over how to halt the raging economic crisis.

Just three weeks before a gathering of heads of state from the Group of 20, discord seems to outweigh lip service to coordination and a German-French drive to focus on cross-border rules for finance is further souring the air.

"We have agreed that Germany and France will send a common signal at this summit" on April 2, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin.

"The issue is not spending even more but to put in place a regulatory system to prevent the economic catastrophe that the world is experiencing from being repeated," Merkel said in a direct rebuttal to US calls for more spending.

There must be "regulation and transparency of financial markets," she said.

US President Barack Obama, who enacted a 787-billion-dollar stimulus bill last month, tried to bridge the gap on Wednesday, calling for a two-pronged G20 effort to fix the global economy: stimulus measures and regulatory reforms.

But after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers this week, their chairman Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg rejected the US calls for more pump-priming by other G20 economies, declaring such proposals "do not suit us."

Juncker after conferring with Czech officials in Prague on Thursday again voiced opposition to any additional spending plan to combat the crisis.

"The European recovery programme represents a spending level of 3.4 to 4.0 percent of GDP," he said.

"Our public finances are beginning to suffer and we must take account of the effects these programmes will have in 2009 and 2010 before we undertake additional spending."

The US stimulus is substantially more than the 400 billion euros engaged by 27 EU countries. The two total economies are of comparable size, but the EU has not forged an integrated response.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has also called for the International Monetary Fund's "New Arrangements to Borrow" credit programme to be boosted to 500 billion dollars -- far more than proposed by the Europeans.

For the whole of 2009, Britain is chairing meetings of the G20 -- a grouping of 19 developed and developing countries plus the European Union that includes China, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and the United States.

The main point of contention appears to be a push by the United States and Britain -- which have angled much of their rescue spending on boosting demand -- for some leading EU countries to do likewise.

The United States and Britain have included heavy demand-side measures, such as a cut in sales tax in Britain, because they stimulate activity quickly.

They argue broadly that some countries, principally Germany but also France, have focused unduly on increasing state spending on investment in industry and infrastructure and should now allocate extra funds to spark consumption.

However, leading countries in Europe face constraints on their big budget deficits, which are rising markedly above EU limits.

German officials have also begun to talk about "exit strategies" from the massive state spending and support programmes once the crisis begins to abate.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday defended Europe's efforts to soften the blow of the global crisis.

"The social system of Europe is very different from the American one," he told a news conference in Brussels.

"We have, compared to the US, a very ambitious system of social safety nets, in terms of unemployment, in terms of public health and in many other areas.

"So when we talk about fiscal stimulus, it's not the same thing in the US and in Europe because the Americans usually think about discretionary additional fiscal stimulus," he said.

Finance ministers and central bankers from G20 economies, will begin arriving on Friday at a hotel in the small town of Horsham south of London where the meeting is to be held.

"Ministers will discuss medium-term regulatory frameworks, the need for improvements to the financial system and wider economic stimulus and speak out against protectionism," Investec Securities economist Philip Shaw said.

Upcoming Philadelphia World Bank/IMF Consulta

2009-03-02T01:03:00.000-08:00

Calling all Philadelphia area anarchists, anti-authoritarians, anti-capitalists and anyone concerned about the IMF and World Bank.

Come to the Wooden Shoe Saturday March 7th 5-7pm for an education about the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and why we should protest them. The IMF and World Bank are planning to meet April 24-26th in Washington DC. There are already protests planned with the aim of disrupting those meetings. There will be someone here from Global Justice Action, the DC group organizing the logistics of the protest in April. After a presentation, there will be a discussion about what we, as Philadelphia-area residents can do to help with the larger strategy and what we hope to gain by doing so. Let's make this the start of something new and beautiful.

Wooden Shoe Books
508 s. 5th Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
Wooden Shoe Books
Email: sabot@woodenshoebooks.com
215-413-0999

South Koreans push back against Free Trade Agreements with Canada, US

2009-02-17T01:42:00.000-08:00

An Interview by Stefan Christoff

Since the collapse of the last round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003, Canada and the US have rapidly signed several bilateral trade accords.

South Korea, a major Asian economic power and the fourth largest in the region, has recently signed a major bilateral accord with the US and is currently negotiating a similar deal with Canada.

Social movements in Korea have vigorously opposed the country's succession into the WTO since the mid-1990s and have actively mobilized in opposition to the more recent bilateral trade initiatives.

Opposition from Korean peasant movements to 'free trade' policies gained international attention in the September 2003 Cancun meetings when Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae took his own life in protest while holding a sign reading "WTO kills farmers."

Hundreds of thousands participated in street protests in Seoul this past summer to oppose recent changes to US-Korean trade policy that was to allow US beef to re-enter Korean markets. Sale of US beef had been banned in Korea since the discovery of Mad Cow Disease in some US cattle. Recent protests in Korea against US beef imports mark the largest anti-government protests in decades.

Opposition to US trade policy in Korea extends past US beef, to the recently negotiated US-Korea bilateral trade deal - after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the largest regional trade agreement signed by the US.

In December 2008, scuffles broke out at the National Assembly in Korea as opposition politicians attempted to enter a locked-door session of the parliamentary committee on trade discussing the US bilateral deal, which remains extremely controversial in Korea.

In parallel with the US-Korea deal, officials from the Conservative government in Canada have been pushing to sign a similar bilateral deal. Labour unions in both countries have opposed the deal, including the Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW). The CAW stated, "We refuse to enter into a competition with Korean workers for future prosperity. Working people in all countries have the right to job security, fair trade, and economic and social development."

In an attempt to understand the drive from US and Canadian officials to secure bilateral trade deals with Korea, Stefan Christoff spoke with Christine Ahn of Korean Americans for Fair Trade on the bilateral trade accords and grassroots opposition in Korea.

Stefan Christoff: Concerning the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and also the Canada-Korea FTA, can you outline how this agreement will impact environmental and labour standards in South Korea, Canada and the US?

Christine Ahn: Impacts on working people stemming from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Canada, Mexico and the US make it clear that extending similar trade policies to Korea will only create further damage [for] all countries involved.

Essentially, economic and trade policy being pushed on Korea through the WTO and the IMF-imposed structural adjustment following the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s have moved Korea from a relatively self-reliant, industrial and agrarian economy to an economy increasingly dependent on exports and international market trends. This economic transformation, led by structural adjustment, broke the backbone of the trade union movement. Today in Korea over 50 per cent of the workforce are now irregular workers.

Trade unions in Korea had succeeded in creating a situation in which workers' rights were beginning to improve in Korea in the early 1990s, whereas for decades under authoritarian regimes workers were seriously oppressed; now again under neo-liberal economic policies, workers' rights are being seriously undermined.

Past experiences of workers throughout North America under NAFTA and the plight of Korean workers under neo-liberal policies make it extremely clear that the Korea-US trade agreement, the second largest US trade deal after NAFTA, must be opposed.

Christoff: Can you outline how the US-Korea trade accord would impact different elements of Korean society, for example on the national healthcare system and also on the peasants which have a long history of political mobilization in Korea?

Ahn: Pharmaceutical provisions that are included under this US-Korea Free Trade Agreement are terrible. Korea does not have the best universal health care system but there is a public system intact. Under the US trade agreement the current list of medications that are available to people through public healthcare would be challenged.

US pharmaceutical companies have been trying to push for a new pharmaceutical list, which would stack the list with US-patented pharmaceuticals which are so much more expensive than generic pharmaceuticals, putting a major strain on Korea's healthcare system and ensuring profits for US pharmaceutical companies through Korea's national healthcare system.

Exporting the US model for healthcare is a disastrous idea. In the US, there are over 45 million people who do not have healthcare, which is certainly a scenario not to encourage in other countries.

Clearly workers' rights will be detrimentally impacted by this agreement both in North America and in Korea. Under such agreements corporations can simply pick up their operations and move them to other countries that have weaker environmental and labour standards, lower production costs, while [the same companies] have the ability to send their produced goods around the world without paying any tariffs.

Only 10 years ago, Korea once was a largely agrarian economy with around 10 million farmers and now there are only around 3.5 million farmers. A mass migration has taken place, people moving from the countryside into the cities, contributing to growing unemployment rates, as fierce competition has also driven down the wages in the country. Also, there is a massive depression of Korea.s rural economy due to the flight to urban centres. This mass internal migration has severely impacted the economy of Korea's non-urban centres.

Under NAFTA, the US ensured that agribusiness was subsidized with hundreds of millions to 'compete' with the small-scale South Korean farmers. It is positive that rice is not included in this agreement because in Korea rice farmers make up the largest number of peasants in the country, who would be seriously impacted by imports of cheap rice from the US. Under WTO regulations, however, Korea will eventually have to erase the tariffs on imported rice anyway, so even rice farmers will be hit by cheap imports.

The Korea-US bilateral trade agreement is worsening the situation for people in Korea and in the US. The agreement will eliminate tariffs that protect local industries while granting further rights to corporations to privatize further many social and public industries.

Christoff: Can you talk about some of the main issues that people highlighted on the ground in Korea as concerns this agreement?

Ahn: A major issue is beef, which isn't currently included in the agreement, however [it] has been used as a leveraging tool by the US.

US negotiators are pushing Korea to remove the 2003 ban on US beef imports, imposed after Mad Cow Disease was discovered in the US, seriously impacting US beef imports to Korea. During this process there were major education campaigns within Korea and also in Japan, educating the public concerning the potential harm stemming from US beef.

As a pre-condition to negotiations surrounding the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, negotiators on the Korean side are being pressured to weaken laws concerning the imports of US beef. Essentially the US has been using the beef issue within the negotiations as an exchange to allow Korean industries to export greater amounts of electronics, conductor chips and automobiles into the US.

In the US and Canada, autoworker unions are highlighting the major imbalance between the number of automobiles being exported by Korea into the US and the limited number of automobiles that US manufacturers are exporting to Korea; a trade imbalance.

Autoworker unions in the US and Canada are saying that these bilateral accords should only be signed if a certain amount of automobile exports to Korea are secured. Actually, on the Korean side there is concern about importing larger numbers of US-manufactured automobiles because generally the engines are less environmentally friendly. So these bilateral agreements are flawed on both sides as they are fundamentally market-driven, agreements that don't prioritize other critical points such as the environment, health or labour standards.

People in Korea are very concerned that the US is using this agreement as a wedge to dismantle health, environment and labour laws, and also the national healthcare system. These are real concerns in Korea as opposition to this agreement and are being most strongly pushed by peasants and farmers who have direct, first-hand experience of the impacts of neo-liberal economic policies in Korea.

Korean peasants have really galvanized a strong opposition to neo-liberal economic and trade policies within peasant movements in the country, but also throughout the Third World. This opposition was strongly felt in Cancun, Mexico, during the WTO negotiations and again in Hong Kong.

Essentially these bilateral accords are viewed by Korean peasants as [leading to] a loss of their dignity and autonomy.

* Stefan Christoff is a journalist and community organizer. This interview was originally produced for the Fighting FTAs project, an international project that provides a global picture on free trade agreements (FTAs), and insight into struggles being waged by social movements fighting back.

Obama imposes salary cap for firms that join bailout

2009-02-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

If business that make billion dollar deals can fail, why are they able to cough up high salaries? Who is reponsible for the rich / poor divide?

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President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed a salary cap of $500,000 for top executives at companies that receive large amounts of bailout money, saying that some executives were being "rewarded for failure," in part with taxpayer-subsidized money.

"We all need to take responsibility," the president said as he prompted Congress once again to act on his economic stimulus program and repeated his comments that some Wall Street executives had shown "the height of irresponsibility."

He urged the Senate to pass his economic stimulus package, now calculated to exceed $900 billion, perhaps even $1 trillion, saying: "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe. Millions more jobs will be lost."

A handful of companies will probably be most directly affected by the salary cap - Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors and Chrysler - though others will also face tighter restrictions. All the companies are expected to look for ways to remain competitive in the fierce bidding for the most talented executives.

The move, which Obama described as "basic common sense," reflects rising public and congressional resentment at the notion of money-losing companies drawing federal aid while paying multimillion-dollar bonuses to top executives.

"We don't begrudge anybody for achieving success, and we believe that success should be rewarded," he said. "But what gets people upset - and rightfully so - are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, appearing with the president for the White House announcement, said that many less wealthy Americans felt that they were bearing a heavier burden from the financial crisis than were those who helped create it.

The Bush administration had imposed general restrictions on executive pay, but the new rules are far tougher and could force executives to accept deep pay reductions. The impact probably would be felt most acutely in financial centers like New York.

Executives at companies that have already received money from the Treasury Department would not have to make any changes. But analysts and administration officials expect a huge wave of new losses, largely because of the deepening recession, and say that many companies that have already received federal money may come back.

Other countries have also considered pay limits, though not as strict. European Union finance ministers declared that managers of bailed-out European banks should "not retain undue benefit," but they left it to member states to define specific limits. Germany plans to ban bonuses and set a ?500,000, or $640,000, pay limit for executives at rescued banks, Reuters reported.

Obama's announcement on pay seemed to have a clear political component: He was trying to regain the initiative after a day in which two important political appointees, Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, withdrew from consideration over tax problems. Obama subsequently conceded having "screwed up" by pushing Daschle's appointment to head the Health and Human Services Department.

In a comment regarding Daschle that might almost have applied to executive pay, Obama told NBC on Tuesday: "Ultimately, it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules. You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks."

Obama said Wednesday that Geithner would introduce a major new plan next week to further shore up banks - and reportedly also help homeowners and home buyers. Laying the groundwork for that, the tough language on executive pay now might help defuse the angry opposition he surely will face over another big spending plan.

"We will have to do more, substantially more, to fix this crisis," Geithner said.

The new rules would have these effects on the companies receiving the largest amounts of bailout money:

Senior executives would be limited to $500,000 in total annual compensation, other than restricted stock. They would be able to cash in such stock only after the government had been repaid.

Executive compensation terms must be fully disclosed and subject to a so-called "say on pay" provision - largely a question of accountability, meaning that they must be submitted to a nonbinding vote by shareholders.

Previously, the top five executives in a given company had to have "claw-back" provisions meaning they could pull back bonuses or incentive pay from anyone found to have knowingly provided inaccurate financial information used to calculate incentives; now that will extend to the next 20 executives as well.

Before, the top five executives at each company were barred from receiving "golden parachute" payments upon severance. Now that will extend to the top 10, and the next 25 will be barred from severance payments exceeding a year's compensation.

For companies receiving smaller bailouts, the $500,000 compensation limit applies, but it can be waived if they fully disclose compensation terms and adopt a "say on pay" approach. The claw-back provisions apply. And the top five executives will be allowed a maximum one-year compensation upon severance, not the current three.

Last May, the insurer Aflac became the first American company to adopt a say-on-pay approach. Other U.S. companies are following suit.

Say-on-pay votes have long been common in Britain and Australia, and experts believe they have helped slow the rise of compensation.

Under the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion rescue program, most companies that have received money so far have been classified "healthy" rather than on the brink of collapse.

But those receiving "exceptional assistance," like Citigroup and the others, faced acute problems. And top executives at those companies made far more than $500,000 in recent years.

Kenneth Lewis, chief executive of Bank of America, took home more than $20 million in 2007, including $5.75 million in salary and bonuses.

Vikram Pandit, who became chief executive of Citigroup in December 2007, made $3.1 million.

Richard Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors, made $14.4 million, most of it in stock, options and other noncash benefits.

Public and congressional pressure has grown so sharp that Wagoner, and also Robert Nardelli, chief executive of Chrysler, recently said they would reduce their personal compensation to a dollar a year.

Robert Frank, a Cornell University economist, wrote recently in The New York Times that "executive pay in the United States is vastly higher than necessary," and the public condemnation entirely understandable.

"Executives in other countries, whose pay is often less than one-fifth that of their American counterparts, seem to work just as hard and perform just as well," he wrote.

Frank argued against a pay cap, however, saying that "in large companies, even small differences in managerial talent can make an enormous difference."

James Reda, managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm, said that such limits would make it hard for big companies to recruit and keep executives.

"I don't think this will work," he said, adding that for top executives, the new cuts would be "pretty draconian."

But others say that excessively high executive pay has tended to foster a dangerous culture of excessive risk, much as flourished before the Great Depression.

"Wages in finance were excessively high around 1930 and from the mid-1990s until 2006," according to a National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Thomas Philippon and Ariell Reshef.

Good Bank Bad Bank

2009-01-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

Bad bank sparks optimism in US equities.

Last night's decision by the US Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee to leave interest rates unchanged at virtually zero was a no-brainer. How can it do otherwise when the deepening financial and economic situation forced its back against the wall last December when it effectively cashed in all its chips and took the fed funds rate to nil.

All the Fed could do now is proceed with what it stated in the accompanying statement -- that is, to continue expanding its balance sheet. ‘The Committee also is prepared to purchase longer-term Treasury securities if evolving circumstances indicate that such transactions would be particularly effective in improving conditions in private credit markets.' And hope for the best. ‘The Committee anticipates that a gradual recovery in economic activity will begin later this year.' But even this statement has to be qualified with, '…but the downside risks to that outlook are significant.'

Indeed they are. At the same time the Fed announced its decision and its statement, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its latest projections. The IMF slashed its global economic growth projection down to 0.5 per cent this year - the weakest rate since the second world war - from its previous estimate of 2.2 per cent. It expects growth to rebound to 3 per cent in 2010.

Also, the IMF now expects global bank losses to reach US$2.2 trillion due to toxic assets. This exceeds the previous estimate of US$1.4 trillion stated in October and just US$600-800 billion before that. Is this latest projection now set in stone? Or will it be revised even higher in three months time, and higher still in six months? Remember that many of the assets have no market value as buyers have long vanished.

This is perhaps why US equities took as positive rumours that President Barack Obama's latest stimulus package could include the creation of a bad bank - an ‘Aggregator Bank' -- that will buy and stock illiquid and toxic assets of financial institutions. This plan is expected to be announced next week.

If the rumours are true, the Obama administration maybe hoping that this bad bank will succeed the same way that the Resolution and Trust Corporation (RTC) -- established in 1989 to dispose of bad assets of failed US savings and loans institutions - did in resuscitating trust and confidence in US financial institutions.

The concept is good. Take away all the bad assets from banks and financial institutions and they will be healthy enough to resume lending. Credit will again start flowing and grease the wheels of recovery.

But this maybe better said than done. After all the RTC of 1989 bought assets from institutions that were already dead. They no longer have any bargaining power as to the RTC's price offer.

Under the current environment, it is not that the financial institutions have any bargaining power either. But they are still alive, albeit barely. The disappearance of buy/sell transactions in toxic assets means that no one knows exactly what the market value of these assets are - or whether they are still worth something.

Herein lies the rub. If the bad bank bids too low for these assets, investors and shareholders of these still-operating institutions may dump their holdings and thereby, ultimately expanding the liquidity problem of these financial companies. Should the bad bank pay too high a price for toxic assets, it pays too high a price. It risks holding them in its vault for a very long time or it may have to write them off eventually -- wasting taxpayers' money in the process.

But surely the geniuses on Capitol Hill would have a Plan B for the bad bank to work. And for equity markets, at least for today, it may be enough to see their government working stridently towards a solution.

WTO drops plans for end-2008 Doha meeting

2008-12-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

With the G20 nations caught up in the ailing economy, who will remember the third world countries, countries that the IFIs had pledged to assist?

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Source: Reuters

By Jonathan Lynn

World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy has dropped plans for a meeting of ministers to seek a breakthrough this month in its Doha round.

It is the second setback in six months for the seven-year-old round, after the collapse of a meeting in July.

Below are some possible consequences of the decision:

WORLD TRADE AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

* Many WTO members have the possibility of unilaterally raising tariffs and subsidies from current lower levels to what was negotiated in the last trade round, signed in 1994, or when they joined the WTO.

* Some have already started to do that and, as jobs come under pressure, more will follow. So even if an all-out trade war is unlikely, a protectionist rise in tariffs is on the cards. Doing nothing now could see the clock turn back 10 or 15 years.

* Global trade flows are already slowing and on some counts shrinking, along with the world economy. They are likely to contract next year, squeezed further by the tariff moves.

* Some countries will seek more bilateral or regional free-trade deals to replace Doha -- but those often divert trade rather than creating new flows.

* Trade contraction is bad news for all economies. For the United States exports have been one of the few bright spots. China and other Asian countries seeking to modernise through export-led growth risk social and political turmoil if their economies slow.

* One response to slowing exports could be competitive devaluations, especially by developing countries.

THE DOHA ROUND

* A meeting of ministers on Doha has now been put back well into 2009. An idea of next steps should come from the WTO's General Council on Dec. 18-19.

* One option would be for countries to impose a moratorium on tariff and subsidy increases for the duration of the recession as they continue to work on the Doha round.

* But reaching a deal next year will be much harder than now -- the momentum and goodwill that built up around the July meeting will be dissipated, and the state of the world economy will be much less favourable.

* In contrast to July, when there was no blame game, recriminations are likely this time. Since the main stumbling blocks touched on key U.S. interests, the United States can expect to be in the firing line when the finger-pointing begins. That will sour the atmosphere for future talks.

* The new U.S. administration of President-elect Barack Obama taking office on Jan. 20 may take time to get to Doha as it deals with other priorities. And then it may want to revisit what has already been tentatively negotiated.

* A new EU Commission in 2009 and national elections in India in the first half of next year will affect decision-making in two of the biggest trade players.

* More voices will be raised saying the world has changed since the Doha round was launched in the Qatari capital in 2001. They will argue the round should be dropped and new negotiations should start reflecting new priorities such as the economic crisis, food security and the climate change.

THE WTO

* Expect a big increase in trade disputes at the WTO as members turn to litigation from the negotiating table.

* Many of these will turn on "dumping" -- where imports are sold for less than they cost at home. China could be a particular target for the United States and EU members.

* The WTO is also going to have to spend more time ruling on the legality of subsidies, as countries bail out industrial sectors hurt by the crisis

* But the credibility of the body that umpires world trade will suffer. The vast majority of its 153 members wanted a deal, and leaders of the G20 rich and emerging nations had called for an outline agreement by the end of this year

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

* As a result the G20 has failed the first big test of its ambition to create a new global governance system replacing the G7 rich countries. The WTO decision comes less than a month after the G20 called for a trade deal this year.

* If the United States takes much of the blame for the failure, it will increase pressure on Obama to prove his multilateral credentials.

In Greece, Protests Echo European Students' Ire

2008-12-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

A 15 year old student had been shot in the stomach by policeman on Saturday 6th of December at 9pm. This is the extreme expression of police brutality spreading in the last few years across mobilizations of any description, of students, workers, migrants, peasants, women, antifascist and ecological movements.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

Thousands of students were joined by striking workers in a fifth day of protests in Greece, an uprising that mirrors growing discontent among youths in many European countries over outdated education systems, lack of jobs and a general apprehension about the future.

From Rome to Berlin to Madrid, young people graduate from university much later than their peers in Northern Europe, the U.S. or U.K. When they do, they struggle to find long-term jobs with social-security benefits.

In Germany, many young people - including large numbers of university graduates - have struggled in recent years to find employment that pays a full wage. Instead, they have found themselves working as interns for no or low pay for long periods. German media have dubbed such economically insecure young people "Generation Intern."

In Spain, a generation of young people is entering the workplace with few benefits or protections, often moving between temporary contracts so that employers can avoid the country's onerous employment laws. The media have dubbed them "mileuristas" - loosely, those who scrape by on a thousand euros a month. In Greece, this same group has been dubbed "Generation 600" -- referring to the country's national minimum wage of €600 (about $776) a month.

French students are planning a nationwide protest against government plans aimed at giving state universities more autonomy in managing their budgets. Students fear this will create a two-tier system, with wealthy campuses attracting private funds and poorer colleges languishing. Three years ago, French students took to the streets to protest the "precarious" nature of a new temporary job contract the government was trying to introduce.

Last month, thousands of Italian students took to the streets to protest the government's attempt to change laws governing the entire school system, including cutting budgets for state universities.

The backdrop for Wednesday's demonstrations was a general strike - planned by unions before rioting started Saturday - to protest the conservative government's economic policies, including changes to pension laws and privatizations.

Thousands of high-school and university students walked out of class and joined the demonstrations to protest their discontent with the government's higher-education and employment policies.

"For decades, Greeks have been pursuing the American dream: plenty of money, nice cars," said Eleanna Horiti, 42, an Athens architect. "But for Greek teenagers, the American dream has now vanished."

The Greek economy has enjoyed a decade of rapid expansion and is expected to grow about 2% next year. But one lingering dark spot is unemployment among young people.

Some 25% of Greeks 15 to 24 years of age are unemployed, meaning the benefits of the country's economic expansion haven't been equally distributed, said Claude Giorno, an economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Meanwhile, many students can't get into Greece's highly selective state universities and are forced to go abroad or to local branches of foreign universities, said Achilles Kanellopoulos, dean and CEO of the American University of Athens. The problem, he said, is that in most instances the Greek state recognizes only state universities. "It's unfair," he said.

Alexander Kitroeff, associate professor in history at Haverford College, said the length of protests among high-school and college students is particularly striking because it is an age group that hasn't been politically active since the early 1980s. But now, he said, "they feel that they're not getting jobs and that they don't have the same opportunities" of earlier generations.

The clashes across Greece were set off over the weekend after the fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy during an altercation. A Greek court Wednesday ordered that two policemen be held in jail pending trial for the shooting. One was charged with murder.

As the protests continued Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis called for calm and announced a string of financial support measures for businesses damaged in the rioting.

"The government is determined not only to make citizens feel safe but to support businesses which suffered damage," Mr. Karamanlis said in a televised message, announcing a string of subsidies, soft loans and tax-relief measures for those whose property had been damaged.

Mr. Karamanlis's center-right government - which has a one-seat majority in parliament - was already trailing in public opinion polls before the riots. George Papandreou, the leader of the main opposition Panhellenic Socialist Movement, has called for early elections.

All talk and no action at G20 meeting

2008-11-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

As expected. The party's gotten bigger with no real solution.

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THE weekend meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) did not yield any dramatic announcements or proposals to overcome the financial crisis. The verdict on the outcome was mixed. The outgoing Bush administration saw progress, others said the leaders avoided the thornier issues, yet others opined that the G20 reshaped global politics, while the London- based Economist declared that it was "not a bad weekend's work". But if anyone expected the leaders to come out with concrete initiatives for a quick fix to the global economic woes, they would have been seriously disappointed.

The nations, accounting for 85 per cent of global economy, produced no real road map or major details on solving the meltdown.

The G20, however, laid the blame for the problems that started with the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States last August on "policy makers, regulators and supervisors in some advanced countries (who) did not adequately appreciate and address the risk building up in financial markets".

The contagion has spread. The US is in recession as is the euro zone. In Asia, Singapore and Japan are in recession, technical or otherwise.

Much of the wealth created over decades, including in developing countries, has been destroyed by the meltdown, while major institutions and household names have been brought to their knees.

To be sure, no one expected the lame-duck US President George W. Bush, who chaired the meeting, to produce a sliver bullet to solve the problems that are rapidly spreading around the world.

It would be asking too much of the G20 leaders to resolve the financial problems in one day. Undoubtedly, they came to the table with their own expectations.

In the end, they issued a bland statement.

Many of the measures they outlined are being worked on or have been implemented by individual countries to tackle the crisis at home. What is needed is a global, coordinated approach to solving the crisis.

The leaders promised a "broader policy response" and to strive for a deal on the stalled Doha Round of trade talks by the end of the year. They also pledged not to raise any barriers to trade and investment.

But this is nothing new. The previous pledges on the stalled Doha Development Round have not been fulfilled and with the current meltdown in the global economy, trade takes a back seat to rescuing companies, bailing out banks and ensuring that sovereign nations do not go under.

The markets, fund managers, analysts and indeed the poorest of the poor were hoping for an immediate and powerful signal that would throw some light on the way forward out of the dark tunnel. There were no new measures or regulatory breakthroughs. But what they got was a promise of more meetings.

The leaders set out a work schedule for their finance ministers: a review of global accounting standards, colleges of supervisors for major global banks, new standards for credit rating agencies and ways to limit bankers' pay by tying it to companies' risk profiles.

The ministers are to complete their job by the end of March for another meeting of the leaders in April.

By then, Barack Obama will be the president of the US and the Czech Republic will hold the rotating European Union presidency, taking over from Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

The difference of this meeting is that for the first time some emerging and developing economies as well as some oil producers got a seat at the table.

The rapidly-declining state of the US and European economies and victors of World War 2 find themselves in a weakened economic and financial position.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had lobbied Saudi Arabia and China to provide financial assistance to the Bretton Woods institutions.

The number of countries, including developed nations such as Iceland, going with bowl in hand to the multilateral institutions is putting greater pressure on the limited finances of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Indeed, the developed nations and their institutions are no longer the lenders of first and last resort.

They, in fact, are the borrowers and the lenders are the emerging economies and their sovereign wealth funds. There has been a clear shift away from dependence on Wall Street's financial supremacy and from the theories and remedies advocated by the World Bank and IMF.

The economic power has shifted from the Group of 7 (G7) most industrialised nations to a much larger and more diversified group of countries, including Asian nations.

According to Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram: "The G7 has recognised belatedly that they alone don't have the solutions to all the problems.

"The G20 has come to stay as the single most important forum to address the financial and economic issues of the world. The G20 is a much better forum than the G7."

He described the Washington summit as "a good beginning", adding: "The emerging economies are happy."

The shift in economic and financial power cannot be ignored as leaders seek solutions to the crisis and develop a new financial architecture.

The developing countries may have been given a seat at the table but their long-term role in the global economy and in decision-making must be considered.

For a start, the G20 agreed to a seat for emerging market economies on the Financial Stability Forum, the group of financial regulators and central bankers charged with the technicalities of financial supervision, whose membership has been based on that of the G7.

In the medium term, developing countries will be offered more seats at the IMF and World Bank.

Even so, it must be remembered that talk of reforming the IMF has gone on for years without much headway being made. The devil is in the details.

In the end, many saw the meeting more of talk than action.

"This is plain-vanilla stuff they could have agreed on without holding a meeting," said Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former chief economist of the IMF. "What's new, except that this is the G20 instead of the G7?"

G20: Global Summit to Reform IFIs

2008-11-10T04:41:00.000-08:00

Source: Infoshop

Over the summer of 2008 pressure was already building in official circles for a new Bretton Woods-style international conference to restructure the international financial architecture. A Commonwealth summit in June produced a statement calling for such a conference. And the discussions on the draft document for the UN's Financing for Development conference in Doha (slated for December 20008) also have included language calling for such a conference. Finally in early October, the calls were made publicly by leaders of several big European countries, notably France. This may be the greatest chance since 1944 to influence the structure of international finance. This page is aimed at helping civil society coordinate a response to this potential conference. We will bring you analysis, links to documents and highlight selected events. If you want to contribute just write to info@brettonwoodsproject.org.

Intelligence and responses towards a so-called "Bretton Woods 2"

Civil society moves

The IFI watching and debt activist communities and movements are working on a global sign-on letter to governments about the process for a new international financial architecture. Please check back here for more information on this effort shortly.

Several NGO networks and movements have produced statements on the financial crisis and their demands for a reformed international financial architecture. These statements generally focus on the financial sector and financial markets. But it is expected that more will be forthcoming. If you have a statement you want included in this list please let us know (info@brettonwoodsproject.org).

Statement by the Attac network
Statement drafted at the Asia-Europe People's Forum - casinocrash.org blog site created by IPS and TNI network

Latest intelligence

After the calls from three major European leaders (UK, France, and Germany) for a new international financial architecture, the G7 was pressured into acting. US president George Bush has agreed to host a summit in the US in the second week of November. The G8 statement calls for "key leaders" to be invited but makes it clear that it will not be a truly international summit. French president Nicholas Sarkozy was with George Bush in Washington for the announcement. Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, seems to have agreed as well on the timetable for a quick conference in November with only selected participation. If you have more intelligence you would like to share please do make it available. Bush has now set the date for the summit as 15 November, and plans to host it in Wahsington, spurning the offer from the UN general secretary to hold the conference at UN headquarters in New York. The plan is to invite the members of the G20 which means the G8 plus some emerging markets (like Brazil, India, China, Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, and Indonesia) and other rich OECD countries (like Australia and South Korea), as well as Saudi Arabia.

In contrast to the G8 moves, the president of the UN General Assembly announced he is setting up a high-level task force to review the global financial system, including major bodies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in response to the current turmoil that is affecting all countries, large and small. Miguel D'Escoto has appointed Joseph Stiglitz to chair the panel, which will also suggest steps to be taken by UN members "to secure a more stable global economic order". The special commission is to hold its first meeting on 30 October.

Background

For more background on the calls for the new conference the best paper is the briefing produced by our colleagues in Canada at the Halifax Initiative. Their issue brief, Rethinking the international financial system and its architecture: Calls for a "Bretton Woods II" walks people through the calls that have been made up until mid October 2008. As of now the following people/forums have announced support for such an initiative.

Selected Commonwealth heads of state in the Marlborough House statement
Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France
Gordon Brown, UK prime minister
Angela Merkel, German chancellor
Commonwealth finance ministers in their October 8 statement
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary-General
UN Financing for Development (draft outcome document)

Additionally some governments and statements have expressed interest in something less comprehensive than a full international conference involving all countries and external stakeholders. For example:

The G8 statement of October 15 calls for a meeting of "key leaders"
Pascal Lamy, director-general of the WTO "welcome[d] the construction of what some are calling a new Bretton Woods consensus" according to Livemint/WSJ

The issues facing Obama

2008-11-10T04:22:00.000-08:00

HopeBama. Can he save America with plans on Energy, Education, Health care, Guantánamo Bay, Security and citizenship, Tax breaks, old and new, Iraq, Iran, Nafta?

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Energy

"I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade."

Oct. 31, Des Moines, Iowa

On energy and climate change, Barack Obama's focus has shifted over the course of the year as the economy has weakened.

An earlier proposal put an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gases, requiring industry and utilities to buy credits from the government to emit carbon dioxide. The plan would have produced hundreds of billions of dollars in government revenue and drive up the cost of energy for everyone.

Obama is now emphasizing a program to spend $150 billion over 10 years to develop renewable sources of energy, like wind, solar and biofuels, and to encourage energy conservation in homes, offices and public buildings. He would also provide substantial financial help to the auto industry to develop high-mileage and electric cars.

Education

"A truly historic commitment to education - a real commitment - will require new resources and new reforms."

May 28, Mapleton, Colorado

Obama's education plan outlined about $8 billion for recruiting, performance pay and other initiatives that represent his approach to updating the Bush education law known as No Child Left Behind. But his plan also offered grand proposals for every level of education, including a $4,000 tuition tax credit that would make college more affordable for millions of students and a $10 billion expansion of early childhood programs.

The challenge will be how to finance all those proposals when budgets are extremely tight, experts said.

Obama's $10 billion proposal to expand early childhood education would probably produce tremendous savings to the nation later, but experts said he would find it extremely challenging to finance under current financial conditions.

Health care

"If you don't have health insurance, you'll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get."

Oct. 31, Des Moines

Obama has said "every American has a right to affordable health care," but he has not said exactly how he would finance coverage for the 45 million people who are uninsured. The economic slump and the bailout for the financial industry may reduce the amounts available to cover the uninsured.

On his Web site, Obama says his health plan "will lower health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family by investing in health information technology, prevention and care coordination." Health policy experts endorse those goals but say they are unlikely to produce such large savings.

If Obama hopes to keep his promise, he will need to mobilize public support for specific legislative proposals. And he will need to co-opt or placate a swarm of lobbyists.

Guantánamo Bay

"We're going to lead by setting the highest of standards for civil liberties and civil rights and human rights."

Feb. 20, Dallas

As president, Obama could simply declare an end to practices that have been widely condemned as torture. He could revoke President George W. Bush's executive order, disclosed in 2007, that allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to use more severe interrogation techniques than allowed under the U.S. Army Field Manual.

To do so, however, he would have to overrule at least some intelligence professionals who have argued that they need to use more aggressive methods.

His pledge to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would require finding a place to imprison dozens of detainees.

Federal officials have drafted plans to move them to centers in the United States, but even supporters of that acknowledge the potential consequences, including the release of suspects for lack of evidence.

Security and citizenship

"We cannot deport 12 million people. Instead, we'll require them to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line."

Sept. 10, Washington

As a senator, Obama supported comprehensive immigration overhaul, and in the campaign he pledged to enhance border security and provide a path to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally. And while he said he favored a guest worker program, he also advocated tougher penalties for employing illegal immigrants.

But his proposals are very likely to encounter resistance from those who contend that they amount to amnesty - an argument that helped jettison a bill in Congress. And with the economy shedding jobs, opponents will also argue that immigrants are taking jobs from citizens. But experts say Obama will face pressure to act from the many Hispanic voters who supported his candidacy in part because of his stance on immigration.

Tax breaks, old and new

"As president, here's what I'll do: cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year."

- Oct. 29, paid television address

Obama pledged to extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 past 2010, when they would expire, for taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. He would repeal the cuts for taxpayers making more than that, effective Jan. 1, 2010.

Obama considers the extension for those making under $250,000 a continuation of current policy, not a tax cut.

But he promises a new break for taxpayers making less than $200,000 - an annual tax credit of $500 a worker, or $1,000 a working couple. It would be a refundable credit, so those who do not earn enough to pay income taxes but do pay payroll taxes would also benefit.

Given the economic crisis and the Democratic gains in Congress, the odds are good that he will push the measures through.

Iraq

"Nobody's talking about bringing them home instantly, but one to two brigades a month. It'll take about 16 months to get our combat troops out."

May 16, Watertown, South Dakota

Obama has said repeatedly that he would set a 16-month timetable for troop withdrawal. Some military experts believe that could lead to a reversal of the gains from the increase in troops over the past 18 months, and they argue that the generals running the war should decide how many troops to pull out and when to do it.

Obama appears to have the Iraqi government on his side. Iraqi leaders say his timetable is closer to theirs, which they put at 2010. The Bush administration timetable, which has some wiggle room, was 2011.

But all of this supposes relative stability, even while troops are withdrawing. And questions also remain about the kind and level of force Obama would leave behind.

Iran

"I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leaders at a time and place of my choosing."

June 4, Washington

Obama raised expectations that he would meet with Iran's leaders. He said during the campaign that the notion of not talking to America's foes was "ridiculous." Since then, he has tempered his words somewhat, indicating that he would send envoys initially and would meet personally with Iran's leaders only if he thought he could advance the American agenda.

Obama also faces the issue of when to reach out. If he makes a move before June, when Iran's presidential election is scheduled, he risks giving President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claim to a foreign policy victory, to the possible detriment of more moderate Iranian presidential aspirants. But if he waits too long, Iran could get closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Nafta

"I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced."

Feb. 26, Democratic candidate debate

No legal hurdle would prevent Obama from pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a distinction from other trade deals. But trade experts say the political and economic costs of scuttling the deal would be enormous.

Even opening it up to renegotiate labor and environmental standards carries risks: Canada might seize the opportunity to renegotiate provisions on energy, while Mexico might push for access for its trucks in the United States.

Obama's union supporters have not put changing Nafta at the top of their agenda, focusing instead on issues like China's exchange rate. With little political upside and so much potential downside, this may be one issue Obama prefers not to touch.

G20: Global Summit to Reform IFIs

2008-11-10T04:21:00.000-08:00

Source: Infoshop

Intelligence and responses towards a so-called "Bretton Woods 2"

Civil society moves

Statement by the Attac network
Statement drafted at the Asia-Europe People's Forum - casinocrash.org blog site created by IPS and TNI network

Background

Selected Commonwealth heads of state in the Marlborough House statement
Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France
Gordon Brown, UK prime minister
Angela Merkel, German chancellor
Commonwealth finance ministers in their October 8 statement
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary-General
UN Financing for Development (draft outcome document)

The G8 statement of October 15 calls for a meeting of "key leaders"
Pascal Lamy, director-general of the WTO "welcome[d] the construction of what some are calling a new Bretton Woods consensus" according to Livemint/WSJ

Banks, Firms, Now Countries Falter

2008-10-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

We can always be sure that when the US sinks, they drag the whole world down with them.

What would Obama do?

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Source: The Scotsman

MORE countries may be forced to seek unprecedented help from the International Monetary Fund, experts warned last night, after another day of turmoil on world markets.

Hungary has followed Iceland and Ukraine in securing funding from the IMF to prevent complete financial meltdown. Pakistan and Belarus are in talks with the IMF, while glaring holes in a number of other countries' economies have led to predictions that more begging bowls may soon come out.

Experts told The Scotsman countries such as Ireland, which has guaranteed all its bank deposits, could find themselves in need of international help.

Government bail-outs of financial institutions have become almost commonplace – and now countries themselves are having to be saved.

The latest IMF guarantees came on a day of extreme volatility on world stock markets, with billions wiped off shares in leading firms and the pound sinking to a five-year low against the dollar.

In a bid to soothe the chaos, the G7 nations issued a statement pledging co-operation in the crisis. Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States reaffirmed their "shared interest in a strong and stable international financial system".

At the same time, they voiced concern about "excessive volatility" in the value of the Japanese yen, which on Friday hit a 13-year high against the dollar.

The yo-yoing world currencies make trading sluggish, as it is impossible to ascertain how much deals are worth.

"There's lots of volatility, not just in the equity market, but in the interest rate and currency markets too," Neil Parker, market strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said. "We're going to get further big swings as the markets watch for what the authorities are going to do."

On Friday, the IMF bailed out Iceland – whose swift collapse has devastated UK pension funds and investments – to the tune of £1.34 billion. Yesterday, however, Geir Haarde, its prime minister, said Iceland needed double that again.

He spoke as the fund agreed to lend to Hungary and Ukraine.

It is to offer a £10.4 billion loan to Ukraine and has agreed an as-yet undisclosed package with Hungary. David Hauner, an analyst at Bank of America, said it would probably receive about $12.5 billion (£8 billion).

Eastern Europe has suffered greatly from the global financial crisis as foreign investors who were once bullish about the region's prospects of strong economic growth and deeper integration into the European Union have dumped their assets.

In particular, there is concern that countries such as Ukraine and EU members Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic states may not be able to handle their large foreign debt burdens. Standard & Poor's rating agency yesterday reduced Romania's sovereign rating to junk status.

Neil Shearing, an economist at Capital Economics, said "the most vulnerable countries in the region have yet to be hit by the crisis". He added: "Accordingly, it seems that the IMF's work has only just begun."

Professor Gabriel Talmain, director of the Centre for Economic and Financial Studies at Glasgow University, said: "Countries have taken a very big gamble when they started to guarantee the banks. If the Irish government was to be called on to honour all the guarantees that it has put up for its banks, God knows what will happen. They would be the next (to seek an IMF loan]."

The Washington-based institution has said it can provide up to £128 billion in loans to countries facing financial difficulties.

Prof Talmain said European countries were not in the habit of going to the IMF for cash and warned the fund's members would probably have to cover for loans that could not be paid back.

Meanwhile, investors endured a rollercoaster ride yesterday, as London's leading share index pulled back from five-year lows. The FTSE 100 Index plunged to its lowest point since March 2003 at one point, falling 5 per cent as a sell-off in Asian markets spooked jittery traders. Japan's Nikkei index fell 6.4 per cent to reach its lowest close since 1982, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 13 per cent down.

But a better-than-expected start on Wall Street and a broad hint from the head of the European Central Bank of more interest rate cuts next week helped the top-flight claw back most of the losses.

Among the shares hit in London were those of the leading banks, which have been swinging wildly for weeks. RBS, which is preparing for a big government cash injection, fell 5.92 per cent to only 57.2p a share. And HSBC, which had been flying high above other institutions, tumbled 4.74 per cent to £6.63.

Meanwhile, HBOS and Lloyds TSB were both up marginally, while Barclays dropped slightly.

Brown's famous 'golden rule' becomes early victim of Britain's slide into recession

ALISTAIR Darling, the Chancellor, is expected to consign the government's main economic rules to history tomorrow, as a result of having to borrow vast sums to keep the country afloat during the recession.

He is expected to use a set-piece speech to indicate that the "golden rule" – imposed by Gordon Brown in 1997 to win New Labour credibility in the City – has been abandoned.

The rule prevents the Treasury from using public borrowing to fund current spending, such as wages or tax cuts, over the economic cycle. It permits borrowing only for investment in major capital projects, such as schools and hospitals.

But with UK borrowing already at £37.6 billion for the first half of this financial year, experts believe the final sum will be £64 billion – compared with Mr Darling's target of £43 billion.

Mr Brown yesterday said he was prepared to allow borrowing to rise as it was the "responsible" thing to do.

The second rule he introduced as Chancellor, the sustainable investment rule, has also been broken. This requires national debt to be kept below 40 per cent of the value of the economy over the economic cycle, but the Office for National Statistics said last week it was already at 43.4 per cent.

Mr Brown, in a speech in London, departed from a prepared script that said a "temporary increase in borrowing is the right thing to do to support the economy at this time". Instead, it was only when he was answering questions from the audience, that he mentioned "borrowing" – saying that amounts would come down when the economy picked up and tax revenues increased.

Meanwhile, incapacity benefit was scrapped for new claimants under a drive to get a million more people into work by 2015. People now face a 13-week check – including a 75-minute interview – to assess what tasks they can carry out. Only those with the severest conditions will receive benefits.

Q&A

What is the International Monetary Fund?

It is an organisation of 185 member countries that was established to promote monetary co-operation, foster economic growth and high levels of employment, and provide temporary financial assistance to countries.

Does it have infinite funds?

It doesn't really have much of its own resources – it has to borrow.

How does it lend money?

It has to get the approval of its board, which is made up of representatives from its 185 member states.

Where does it get the cash from?

It goes to the wholesale money markets, like any individual government or institution.

Are there any risks to its member states?

With these large sums it is now lending – potentially. Professor Gabriel Talmain, director of the centre for economic and financial studies at Glasgow University, said: "If it starts to borrow really large amounts of money, there would be the question of how much the other member countries behind the IMF will pay as a last resort."

He said the current loans were "staggering" and there was only a finite amount of funds available.

What is the advantage of going to the IMF for funds?

It's a collective institution, so one government is not relying directly on another. Such a situation would be undesirable for two reasons – it could allow for political pressure to be exerted and it would not provide as much funding.

Why are countries going to the IMF now?

Eastern Europe has run into trouble because investors believe it may not be able to cope with the foreign debt it has amassed.

What about Pakistan?

The rupee has fallen drastically against the dollar. The country is struggling to combat inflation, which is heading towards 30 per cent, and a collapsing currency. Its central bank, meanwhile, holds barely enough foreign currency to cover five weeks of imports.

Are the loans free from conditions?

Certainly not. The conditions can be quite stringent and, for the Eastern European states, they may signal the start of a new era of austerity. But it is Pakistan for which they are a real sticking point, with local analysts accusing the United States of using the IMF as a tool in its war against terror.

IMF and G-7 Say: No More Lehmans

2008-10-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

If the financial giants cannot take care of businesses at home, what makes them think that they are capable of giving aid at an international level?

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Now the great confidence game begins. In high-powered forums that accompanied the G-7 and International Monetary Fund in Washington this past weekend, Western financial leaders sought to assure panicky bankers and money managers in no uncertain terms that all of the measures needed to halt a worldwide meltdown are in motion.

While short on the details many market analysts had hoped for, the broad brushstrokes of forceful, coordinated action by Western governments were unveiled: No more Lehman Brothers-like failures of major financial institutions will be allowed. All bank deposits will be guaranteed. The banking systems of the G-7 nations will be flooded with almost unlimited liquidity. And if all that fails, any other tool—regardless of how economically unorthodox—will be used if needed. The British government's widely anticipated move to take majority control of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and HBOS is expected to be the first of many such actions across Europe. Fifteen European Union countries that use the euro as currency met in Paris this weekend. They pledged to provide guarantees of new bank debt through 2009, authorize the purchase of preferred shares to invest in problematic banks, and provide recapitalization funds where needed.

The message of Banque de France Deputy Governor Jean-Piere Landau at an Oct. 12 breakfast meeting at Washington's elegant Willard Intercontinental Hotel was typical. "I think the conditions for stability are met," Landau declared. "It is very difficult to see why there will be no stabilization." At a nearby hotel, Richard Fisher, president of Dallas Federal Reserve, told a crowd of international bankers that U.S. authorities "can and will restore order in the credit markets" and "will continue to pursue every avenue and every option." At a press conference at the International Monetary Fund's headquarters, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said: "I believe we have an adequate response to the crisis, and the market will reflect it."

Spillover Worldwide

When the markets open on Monday morning, it will be clear whether these verbal assurances and whatever specific measures the U.S. and individual European nations announce will be enough to ease the credit freeze and halt the stock sell-off. But even if the markets breathe a sigh of relief, the question is, how long will the calm last?

Even assuming that actions by the U.S. and Euroland are enough to get the credit markets moving again, attention is likely to shift to fathoming what lies ahead. The economic picture is dark, not only in the U.S. and Europe but also in key emerging markets that not long ago were regarded as bright spots. "As the markets move away from financial fears, they will start looking at what the spillovers will be to the real economy," says Deutsche Bank Group (DB) Chief Economist Norbert Walter.

In business forums and cocktail parties, financiers gathered in Washington mulled long-term implications that few had thought possible not long ago. What makes this financial crisis so different from many of the others faced in the past three decades is that it did not originate with peripheral emerging markets. It struck the core of global capitalism. And unlike previous U.S. recessions, this crisis cannot be fixed with changes in monetary and fiscal policy. It will require years of financial workouts and restructuring. The fallout, therefore, is likely to radiate out across the globe in countless unforeseen ways.

Long, Slow Recovery

One point of consensus is that the U.S. is heading into a very deep recession, perhaps the worst in the post-World War II era. The Institute of International Finance, which just months ago predicted the U.S. would not go into recession, now sees a contraction of at least 2% for several quarters and the jobless rate hitting 7%. And that estimate is based on the premise that the Treasury and Fed rescue efforts will work.

Don't expect the U.S. economy to roar back once recovery begins, either. Fully rebuilding the U.S. credit system and confidence will take time. JP Morgan Chase (JPM) chief economist Bruce Kasman warned that it is far too early to gauge the long-term impact on U.S. consumer behavior. In Japan, consumers held onto their cash for years, which helped delay recovery for a decade.

And don't expect emerging markets to be able to pull the global economy through. Despite falling exports, China's economy is expected to remain robust, thanks to $1.8 trillion in foreign reserves and strong domestic demand. But elsewhere a collapse in demand in the U.S. and Europe will dramatically change the dynamics even in many nations that a few months ago appeared to be in solid shape due to strong trade surpluses and foreign reserves. Emerging markets are going to be hit hard by a triple whammy: plunging manufacturing exports to the U.S., falling commodity prices, and outflows of dollars.

Plunging Oil

Let's start with foreign capital flows: Even though most developing-nation governments have dramatically slashed their dependence on foreign loans, their corporate sectors have been borrowing heavily abroad to finance everything from real estate developments to factories. In the past two months, Russia's foreign reserves have dropped by $40 billion because of capital flight. And several Persian Gulf states have had to tap into their huge sovereign wealth funds to prop up stocks and real estate projects funded by foreign capital. The IIF projects that inflows of foreign private capital to emerging markets, which hit a record $898 billion in 2007, will drop by at least $270 billion by the end of this year and contract further in 2009.

In addition, nations that depend heavily on oil and other commodities could soon be in for more trouble than they anticipated. Oil prices, for example, have already plunged from a peak of $145 a barrel this summer to near $70. That's still in the financial comfort zone of Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and other non-Mideast oil producers. But at the IIF conference, University of Calgary management professor David Mitchell, a leading authority on oil, laid out a scenario in which a sharp contraction in global demand could push crude all the way back down to $25 a barrel—a crisis level for all but Saudi Arabia and a few other Gulf nations.

The debt crash certainly will lead to a rethinking of America's financial system. But the seismic aftershocks will require revision of all assumptions about the global economy.

Week of Global Action Against Debt and International Financial Institutions set to begin around the world

2008-10-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of networks and organizations around the world will mobilize during October 12-19 carrying out different activities for the Week of Global Action Against Debt and International Financial Institutions (IFIs).

Global hunger and the growing impact of climate change are dramatic symptoms of the persistent problem of debt domination. In this sense, the second edition of the Week of Action will place special attention to the following demands: Food and financial sovereignty and climate and economic justice. The debts used to implement harmful projects and policies that have led to the current food, climate and credit crises are illegitimate and should not be paid under any circumstances.

More then 200 global, continental and national networks, organizations and social movements from Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and Europe have joined the Call of Action demanding the immediate unconditional cancellation of illegitimate debts and an end to the conditionalities of the IFIs such as the IMF, World Bank and Regional Development Banks as well as the payment of the ecological debts owed to the South. The organizations summon everyone to mobilize and challenge the IFIs, transnational corporations, and governments (North and South) to acknowledge their responsibilities for the continuing problem of debt domination.

On October 13, dedicated to Climate Change and its relation to debt and the IFIs, movements and organizations in various countries have agreed to send letters to the World Bank and governments - as well as other activities – to express their opposition to the Climate Investment Funds proposed by the Bank. As well as demanding the cancellation of illegitimate debt of the Southern countries, the organizations demand the end of financing for projects and policies that exacerbate climate change. In this sense, in Jakarta, Indonesia, social movements will demonstrate in front of the World Bank office against the Bank’s role in climate change related projects.

Until now, around 200 actions in different parts of the world have been confirmed - from public demonstrations and events to demand the cancellation of all debts in more then 20 cities in India to a Peoples Rally Against Debt, IFIs and Privatization which various organizations in the Philippines will be holding. Similarly, in more then 35 districts of Bangladesh, discussions, seminars and workshops such as the workshop ‘Climate Change, the World Bank and the Multi Donor Trust Fund’ and the seminar ‘Trade & Development Finance: Inter-sectoral linkages on food, climate, debt and IFI’.

The construction of an alternative financial architecture in favor of the interests and rights of peoples and the environment will also be an issue of debate during the Week of Global Action. In the context of the current financial crisis, several Latin American networks will launch a statement on alternative mechanisms of financing for development and proposals such as the South Bank and the withdrawal from the International Centre for Investment Dispute Settlement (ICSID) of the World Bank Group, as carried out by the government of Bolivia.

A few weeks after the official presentation of the report of the debt audit carried out by the government of Ecuador through the Integral Public Credit Audit Commission (CAIC, in its Spanish abbreviation), local organizations will hold a “Citizen forum on the results of the audit” and a debate on debt illegitimacy in the city of Guayaquil. Not far from there in Colombia, activities will be held throughout the Week, such as “Debates on debt illegitimacy and the impact on the human rights of women“ and a cultural demonstration against debt and for the right to water, health, education and a healthy environment in the city of Bogotá. Organizations in Cuba have also joined the Call and are organizing an event on foreign debt and the financial crisis.

In the meanwhile in the financial centre of Buenos Aires, an open radio program and street demonstrations for the “Day of Action for Food Sovereignty and the Struggle Against the Debt” will be carried out. Campesino organizations of Paraguay prepare various events on “Social and ecological debts” and a “Tribunal against the IFIs“ in the cities of Itapua and Encarnación.

More then 20 screening of documentaries which deal with the debt issue along with open debates will be carried out in many cities around the world such as the film “¿An end to poverty?” of Philippe Diaz which will be shown in Rabat and Casablanca, Morocco. “The Congo-China contract, the IMF and the World Bank and the reimbursement conditions” will be the issue of televised public debates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Togo a special radio program in be held in tribute to Thomas Sankara (ex–president of Burkina Faso who called for debt cancellation and repudiation just before being assassinated) and other leaders for global change, while a conference-debate ''China and its role in Africa´s debt situation'' will be held in Niger.

More then 40 activities in churches and communities will be organized in the United States, while in Madrid the Week of Action will begin with a bicycle ride against debt from the main square. Elsewhere, capacity-building activities on debt and rights are being organized in Belgium and in the United Kingdom, a new email action calling on the UK to support a fair and transparent sovereign debt resolution mechanism at the Financing for Development conference in Doha will be carried, out amongst other activities.

The Week of Global Action Against Debt and the IFIs also coincides with various special dates such as: October 12 – Continental Day of Resistance Against Colonialism and Neoliberalism (in the Americas), October 15 - Anniversary of the death of Thomas Sankara,
October 16 - Day of Action for Food Sovereignty and
October 17 – Global Day of Action against Poverty.

Special activities are being planned in many other countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Peru, Pakistan, Cameroon and Benin. A complete list of the activities can be found on the Week´s website www.debtweek.org (in English, Spanish, and French) along with the most important news on the Week, articles, graphic material and documents related to the different issues.

The Week of Global Action Against Debt and the IFIs is a part of the International Campaign on Illegitimate Debt carried out by networks and movements of the South and North, such as Jubilee South, the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), Eurodad, Jubilee USA and Eurodad, united by the struggle against illegitimate debt.

Support for the Call of Action is still being received and organizations are invited to send information on their planned activities to debtweek@gmail.com.

The complete Call of Action can be found in: http://debtweek.org/

Why the Government Wouldn't Let AIG fail

2008-09-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, McCain had just assured all Americans that the US economy is "fundamentally strong" on 9 June 2008.

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After establishing a supposed hard line against bailouts over the weekend with Lehman Brothers, the government abruptly abandoned it Tuesday and announced an $85-billion Federal Reserve loan to insurance giant AIG. The explanation: AIG was deemed too huge (its assets top $1 trillion), too global, and too interconnected to fail.

That, and the fact that unlike with Lehman — where the possibility of failure was openly discussed for months and to a certain extent planned for — federal officials and market participants don't seem to have really focused on AIG's problems until this week. As with all U.S. insurers, the company is regulated not by the Feds but by a state regulator, in this case New York insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo. Plus, it was awfully hard for outsiders — and even insiders — to understand the gravity of the company's problems. "You can read through every financial statement in the world and have absolutely no clue as to the risks they are taking," says Leo Tilman, a former Bear Stearns strategist who now runs the advisory firm L.M.Tilman & Co.

The particular risks that brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy seem to lie not with its core insurance businesses but with derivatives-trading subsidiary AIG Financial Products. AIG FP, as it's called, merits a mere paragraph in the nine-page description of the company's businesses in its most recent annual report. But it's a huge player in the new and mysterious business of credit default swaps, derivative securities that allow banks, hedge funds and other financial players to insure against loans gone bad.

AIG generally sells credit default swaps, thus promising to insure others against defaults. It's a great business when defaults are low; when they rise it can turn toxic. AIG FP lost more than $10 billion in 2007, and $14.7 billion in the first six months of this year. That, along with losses in other investment portfolios, have cut deeply into the parent company's capital reserves. The credit default swap contracts decree that if AIG's credit rating drops below a certain level it has to fork over $13 billion in collateral to the buyers of the swaps. Monday night, because of the losses at AIG FP and in the AIG's investment portfolios, Moody's and S&P cut the company's ratings. After that the consensus was that the company could only survive another day or two.

The New York Fed asked Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to try to arrange a $70 billion private loan for AIG, but that didn't go anywhere. Treasury officials mulled a government conservatorship as with Fannie and Freddie, but it might have required an act of Congress to make that happen. So the Fed devised a deal in which AIG agrees to repay the loan with asset sales and give the government (and thus taxpayers) a 79.9% equity stake in the company.

Confused? You're not alone. The best case for the bailout seems to be that nobody has the faintest idea what the consequences for financial markets of AIG's failure would be, but they were afraid that it could lead to total chaos. The biggest fears had to do with the credit default swaps, which AIG appears to have sold in large quantities to practically every financial institution of significance on the planet. RBC Capital Markets analyst Hank Calenti estimated Tuesday that its failure would cost its swap counterparties $180 billion.

"Its collapse would be as close to an extinction-level event as the financial markets have seen since the Great Depression," wrote money manager Michael Lewitt in Tuesday morning's New York Times. There's also the fact that through its insurance policies AIG touches far more regular Americans (and consumers around the world) than Lehman Bros. did. Plus, AIG's insurance businesses make so much money that they could conceivably pay off the cost of the bailout within a few years.

The WTO's Last Gasp

2008-08-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

By Shamus Cooke

Most had already pronounced it dead, and were surprised to learn that the WTO had meet in a frenzied attempt to conclude its “Doha Round” negotiations. The prospects for wrapping up the deal were always slim, however, and now the WTO has lapsed peacefully back into coma. It was made official on July 29th, when it was announced that the trade talks had officially collapsed.

Doha has confirmed what everybody already knew: the WTO is dead. And although keeping a brain dead patient on life support is sometimes comforting, the plug must be pulled eventually. The US and the EU refused to lower agricultural subsides (for their giant Agri-corporations), while China and other emerging economies refused to open their markets wide enough (protecting their own mega-corporations) for the leading industrialized countries.

The WTO’s death rattle has reverberated throughout the ruling class and beyond. Stark warnings are being broadcasted. The once mighty optimism in the market economy has turned sour. The Economist, in a most foreboding tone, decried: “it is possible to imagine the world economy becoming less integrated. It has happened before: the fairly free world economy of the late 19th century was riddled with protectionism by the 1930s.”

And with this we get to the heart of the matter. Like the UN (itself experiencing terminal illness) the WTO was set-up after WWII with the intention of managing and minimizing economic disasters and consequent wars. It was understood that multilateral (international), free-trade was a precondition for a healthy capitalism, preventing trade blocs from forming that could lead to military confrontation.

When the economy is growing, this is easy to do. When a serious, global recession hits, free-trade is quickly tossed aside—an everyone for themselves attitude takes over. Protectionism in the form of trade blocs develops in an attempt to push the effects of the recession onto someone else.

And while many so-called liberals are whining about the sacredness of the “democratic” institutions of the WTO and UN, we must expose the lie and show its true class nature. The UN is controlled by the elitist Security Council— the same countries that pull the strings at the WTO. It is illustrative enough to mention that only 30 countries (out of 153) were invited to the current WTO negotiations. After creating a “model” agreement, the rich nations attempt to force it down the throats of the poorer ones. Even though every member country has a veto vote in the WTO, the poor countries know their place. After the last WTO talks collapsed, the poorer countries that rejected submissiveness were subsequently threatened by US politicians, who made it clear that they would be forbidden access to the all-powerful US market. Similar threats, though usually made behind the scenes, are the basis for this institution of democracy.

But even farcical democracies have their limits. The nations that once ruled the world with an iron first are losing their ability to intimidate and control the others. A block of recently-developed countries— China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc— have used the WTO as a venue to flex their muscles. China in particular is using the WTO to expand its power at the expense of its rivals. The NY Times agrees: “The [WTO] discussions in Geneva have confirmed that the balance of power in global trade has shifted irrevocably with the rise of China.” The old powers—Europe, US, Japan, etc— are feeling their supremacy melt away; they are the ones who are abandoning the WTO for the calmer waters of bi-lateral and regional free-trade agreements.

These kinds of free-trade agreements now account for more than half of the world’s trade. The WTO’s demise has accelerated this process, which has the effect of making an already-slumping world economy worse; while heightening tensions between nations that were already strained.

The giant corporations — themselves owned by billionaires— are quickly driving the world towards greater and more destructive wars. The international institutions of stability that the mega-rich created for themselves— WTO, UN, IMF, World Bank, etc— have been discredited or self destructed. This is because the balance of power between countries has shifted dramatically, requiring new organizations to express the change. Historically, the process of “re-organization” requires the nastiness of war, the winners of which create international institutions to their fitting.

Economic superpowers do not simply forfeit their power, the basis of which is rooted in the economic system of capitalism. This system has, once again, outlived its historic usefulness, and threatens to return the world to the state of barbarism that it assured us could never happen again (the WTO was a key “insurance” company). Society cannot be run for the private profit of individuals without these periodic episodes of crisis and misery. Taking the control of social wealth out of private hands is society’s crucial task, a struggle guided by the ideas of socialist internationalism.

The writer Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for the Workers International League (www.socialistappeal.org).

Efforts Begin to Salvage WTO Deal

2008-08-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

For all the debts that will never be paid due to the rocket-high requirements of the IFIs... The end of the WTO could actually mark the start of something new or pave way for more imposing tyrants.

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GENEVA: As efforts begin to salvage a deal from the wreckage of last month's global trade talks, experts say the first task is to untangle the confusion around a farm safeguard that became a stumbling block.

The World Trade Organization's director general, Pascal Lamy, said the talks, now in their seventh year, were near agreement on 90 percent of the agenda, especially in the core areas of agriculture and industrial goods. For many WTO members, it would be frustrating to discard that progress because of a dispute about a technical but important measure to help poor farmers withstand a flood of imports.

"Almost everything was right for a conclusion when we had this impasse between the United States and India," the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said Thursday in Beijing. "If we don't get back to the talks, and if we don't clinch a deal in the coming months, it will take four or five years more, and that would be a huge loss for everyone."

A senior U.S. trade official, Warren Maruyama, said Wednesday that the differences between the United States and big emerging countries like India and China were too complex to be resolved quickly. He said there was no point bringing ministers back together until such issues like the safeguard had been sorted out. But trade diplomats point to several factors suggesting that the negotiations, part of the so-called Doha round of talks, could be resumed soon even if a final deal must wait until after the U.S. elections:

The U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab, emphasized after the talks collapsed that U.S. offers remained on the table.

WTO members largely refrained from apportioning blame, keeping the diplomatic atmosphere clear for the next move.

India, which fought for more safeguards to protect its farmers, needs a Doha deal for them to be introduced.

Trade officials have said they expect some trade diplomacy on the sidelines of the Olympics, where the president of Brazil will be joined by President George W. Bush and other leaders.

In addition, Lamy, the WTO director general, can review U.S. and Indian positions when he visits Delhi next week and Washington the week after.

The fight over the proposed "special safeguard mechanism," which derailed last month's talks, was not only unexpected but also missed the point, according to some trade experts.

Big developing countries like India and Indonesia wanted a measure to let them raise tariffs to protect their millions of subsistence farmers from a flood of subsidized imports. Exporters - including not only the United States but also developing countries like Uruguay or Costa Rica - said the measure must not conflict with the broader aim of opening markets.

Safeguards are an established part of the trade arsenal, going back to the foundation of the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in 1947. They allow a country to raise tariffs temporarily to counter a surge in imports that threatens to damage domestic industry.

In recent years, India has been the most prolific user of existing safeguards, applying them 15 times from March 1995 to June 2008, out of a total 164 cases by 39 members, according to WTO figures.

All WTO members have the right to raise their tariffs to the maximum rates, which are negotiated at the WTO, whenever they want, as Brazil did last year with textiles to counter an influx of imports. What a safeguard does is allow a country to raise its tariffs temporarily above the ceiling.

The discussion was complicated last month when developing countries like India and Indonesia said they could apply the new safeguard even to products on which they did not have to cut maximum tariff rates in the Doha round.

The Indonesian trade minister, Marie Pangestu, said the safeguard would only be invoked in emergencies, not as a regular measure. But the implication is that for such products, the safeguard could raise tariffs above the current levels, which were agreed 15 years ago. That would leave exporters, rich and poor, worse off than today.

The talks then deadlocked on whether, and under what circumstances importers, could exceed those ceilings.

Still, the outlines of a possible compromise on safeguards are discernible, trade experts have said. The question is not whether countries can exceed the previous ceilings but whether they are prepared to make new commitments.

If a safeguard created in the Doha round is limited to tariff cuts agreed to in the round, it would be difficult for exporters to reject because WTO members already accept that a sudden influx of imports can hurt farmers. But if developing-country importers do not want to limit the new safeguard to new tariff cuts in the Doha round, they will have to convince exporters why and agree on clearly defined conditions for its use.

WTO Trade On Hold Till Incumbent Leaves

2008-07-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

As if being responsible for the Iraq war isn't enough, George Bush gets another kick in the groin.

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World trade talks aimed at lifting millions out of poverty and dismantling tariffs across the globe are unlikely to be revived until a new president is in the White House, experts said.

A failure by the US and India to agree on how developing countries can raise tariffs on agricultural imports was at the heart of the breakdown of nine days of emergency talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) late on Tuesday.

Pascal Lamy, the director general of the WTO, admitted yesterday that the "dust will need to settle" and urged members to come up with new solutions that will breathe new life into the talks.

However, with no date yet set for another meeting, many of the key negotiators are likely to have left the top table by the time the US - a key player in the talks - has a new leader. America's own trade representative, Susan Schwab, is set to leave in January, Peter Mandelson's time as European Trade Commissioner ends in November and Kamal Nath, India's commerce minister, departs in May.
# More on economics

Stephen Lewis, an economist at Monument Securities, said that "some WTO members are indicating that discussions will resume, but it seems unrealistic to expect much progress ahead of the inauguration of the new US President".

While those involved in the intense negotiations reacted with dismay and alarm to the collapse, many economists were sceptical that the breakdown would have any immediate impact on the level of trade and the health of the world economy.
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The WTO already expects that the growth in the volume of world trade will ease to 4.5pc this year from an average of 6pc a year over the past decade but pinned the blame on the crisis in financial markets rather than the world's existing tariff system.

As the talks headed into their final sessions, agreement had been reached on 18 items of a 20-point agenda, but the stumbling block came when the US could not agree with India and China on 'safeguard clauses'. They were mechanisms that would have allowed poorer nations to slap emergency tariffs on imports if they suddenly jumped to unmanageable levels. The US accused India and China of trying to shield their markets from foreign competition.

And while Keith Rockwell, a spokesman for the WTO, said that all the organisation's members yesterday had expressed a willingness to build on the progress, the blame game among the key negotiators suggests they may not be reassembling soon.

China's Commerce Minister, Chen Deming, claimed that failure would add to "a world economic downturn, serious inflation and imminent financial risks".

Ms Schwab argued that the US was not prepared to sign up to a mechanism that "could be abused and set back the trading system for decades".

CBI director-general Richard Lambert put the blame at India's door and described it as "a lost opportunity for the global economy".

"The deal that was on the table offered promise for developing and developed countries alike," he said.

The crumbling of the talks after seven years may spur a wave of bilateral negotiations between countries. Since the Uruguay round of talks finished in 1994, the number of bilateral free-trade acts has more than doubled from 84 and the WTO expects it to hit 400 within two years.

"If Doha doesn't work, bilateral deals matter even more," said Jagdish Bhagwati of the Council on Foreign Relations.

G8 Hokkaido 2008

2008-07-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

The European Social Forum

2008-06-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

Be part of the European Social Forum. It will be held from 17-21 September 2008 in Malmö, Sweden. This will be the forum's 5th run.

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The European Social Forum is a part of the global social forum process that was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001. It was a reaction on the World Economic Forum, where the world’s elite meet annually and declare that public service budget cuts and privatisations not only are necessary, but unavoidable. At the social forums people meet who are critical to these politics and who are suffering its consequences. Since the start, the forum process has spread around the world, and today different forums are being held at the local as well as the global level.

The event in Malmö in 2008 is the fifth edition of the European Social Forum. ESF is a forum where the European social movements determine the contents and are offered a place to meet, to learn from each other and be strengthened in the work for another world. The creation of the ESF arena is a nordic responsibility, and the Nordic Organising Committee has organisations from all Northern Europe as members. Member organisations are rooted in different parts of society and work with a number of different issues, but what unites us is the common conviction that another world is possible and that we must fight together to create a better future!

Register here

Call for Participation - NO! G8 in Hokkaido

2008-05-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

Stop by Hokkaido in July? Given the current state of economy and inflation, there has never been a better time to make a difference. Email japang8camp(at)riseup.net for more details.

5th July is International Action Day. To be part of the action, click here if you are in London.

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Call for Participation: Towards the Emergence of a New “Alternative Village” space in Hokkaido

“G8 Action Network” Convergence-center / Camp Work Group

• Our Plan
　The G8 will be held in July of this year (200 8) at lake Toya (Toya-ko) in Hokkaido. We expect thousands of people from all over the world will gather in Hokkaido, as individuals and various NGO groups, to take part in a medley of actions. We (Convergence-center/Camp Work Group) look forward to the completion of an Alternative Village, both a hive for the swarm and a place for dialogue.

Action schedule

* 13-14 June (Osaka) Meeting Ministers of Financial Affairs
* 26-27 June (Kyoto) Anti-Foreign Ministers Meetings, Rally and March
* 28-29 June (Tokyo) Anti-G8 Rally and March
* 01-04 July (Sapporo) Themed Actions (Rally and March)
o 01 July (Sapporo) Anti-military base/ anti-war
o 02 July (Sapporo) Anti-WTO, privatization
o 03 July (Sapporo) Anti-neo-liberalism
o 04 July (Sapporo) Farmers’ day, day of AINU

* 05 July (Sapporo) International Action Day
* 05 July (Chitose) Airport Protest
* 07-09 July (Lake Toya) Blocking the G8
* 06-08 July (Sapporo) Alternative Summit

• Convergence-center
The convergence-center will act as your window to a host of knowledge & information concerning the G8; as a studio for printing data & documents; as a studio for creative work & operations; as a meeting place, and as a resting place; as a point of internet access; and as a forum for international exchange. The center will function as an important node, gathering those of us unaccustomed with the land together in order to stimulate collaborative operations, and, at the same time, we will work to ensure that local voices are active in education and discussion.

Facilities for Foreigners

* In Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto – Convergence Centre
* In Sapporo – Convergence Centre, Camp, Independent Media Centre
* Near Lake Toya – Camp, Independent Media Centre

• Camp
The Camp is provided as an area for those of us coming with (I)NGOs and citizens’ groups to pitch our tents.

We are working with you to plan an international kitchen, concerts, film screenings, a world football tournament, workshops on environmental issues and nature conservation, as well as other events to be held in and around the camp grounds. This is ‘another possibility’, “Alternative Village”. “Alternative Village” will be an experimental environment in which every participant builds the space for participation with their own hands. This is the type of space that has been actualized through the participation of many people against the G8 at Évian-les-Bains in France, again at Gleneagles in Scotland, and again at Heiligendamm in Germany. Moreover, the camp and its surrounding activities provide a chance for those from around the world to interchange and build networks with the local residents.

• Our Goals
The aims of the Convergence-center and Camp are not simply to provide an infrastructure for information-exchange and lodging; more broadly, we hope to help architect a shared space in which we can mutually help out and cooperate. This is a space for the creation of ideas & expressions by all its participants; a solid foundation onto which we may build something anew. The establishment of this free, open space takes a large place among our goals.

• We Need Your Participation & Collaboration!
Currently, we are looking for volunteers to help in creating and running the Convergence Center and to participate in the Camp Work Group. Everyone with interest is sincerely invited to contact us at the e-mail address below.

The IMF's Dwindling Fortunes

2008-05-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

One doesn't need to have a keen eye to observe that when US the big brother is going into recession, the world is dragged down with it. Yet in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, it was the Asians who were in trouble that bailed themselves out of it. Shame on you, Big Brother.

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By Mark Weisbrot
Los Angeles Times

'The IMF is back," declared the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, at its annual spring meeting earlier this month in Washington. And not a moment too soon either. To hear the organization's economists tell it (as they mingled in five-star hotels, long black limos and posh restaurants with bankers, businessmen and finance ministers from around the globe), they've arrived on the scene just in time to help solve the world's financial crisis.

But despite the bravado, the reality is that today's IMF is not what it once was. These days, the world's most famous deficit police force is running a whopping small-country-size $400-million annual deficit of its own and is being forced into some of the same kinds of "structural adjustments" it used to impose on indebted Third World nations. In just the last four years, the IMF's total loan portfolio has shrunk from $105 billion to less than $10 billion; over half of the current portfolio consists of loans to Turkey and Pakistan. To cut costs, the agency is
reducing staff and closing offices.

The IMF's loss of influence is probably the most important change in the international financial system in more than half a century. Until just a few years ago, the IMF -- originally created at the Bretton Woods conference on international economic cooperation in 1944 -- was one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world and the major avenue of influence for the United States in developing countries.

This wasn't so much a result of the money that it lent -- the World Bank loans much more -- but because of its position at the top of a hierarchy of official creditors. Until a few years ago, a developing-country government that did not meet IMF conditions risked being economically strangled. The World Bank, regional banks such as the Inter-American Development Bank, rich lender governments and sometimes even the private sector would withhold lending until the government reached agreement with the IMF.

At the top of this powerful creditors cartel sat the U.S. Treasury Department, which holds a formal veto over many of the IMF's decisions and is an informal power within the organization that marginalizes even the other rich countries. Developing countries -- the ones that have historically borne the brunt of IMF decisions -- have little or no effective voice in the decision-making of the organization, where the majority of votes of the 185 member nations are assigned to the rich members.

But the IMF lost credibility after presiding over a series of economic disasters. Latin America, for example, suffered its worst long-term growth failure in modern history under the IMF's tutelage since 1980.

The IMF's "shock therapy" program in Russia vastly underestimated the time it would take to transition from a planned to a capitalist economy in the early '90s. The result was a lot of shock and no therapy, and tens of millions were pushed into poverty as the economy collapsed.

The Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s was a tipping point. The IMF and the U.S. Treasury helped cause the crisis by pushing for the removal of important regulations on foreign capital flows. Then they made it worse with their policy recommendations, prompting economist Jeffrey Sachs -- now head of Columbia University's Earth Institute -- to say that "the IMF has become the Typhoid Mary of emerging markets, spreading recessions in country after country."

Some of these mistakes were because of incompetence; others were driven by ideological or special interests. But the result was that developing countries began voting with their feet, piling up international reserves so that they would never have to borrow again from the IMF cartel.

The IMF-supervised Argentine disaster from 1998 to 2002, which pushed the majority of Argentines below the official poverty line in a country that was previously one of the richest in the region, further sullied the fund's reputation. Argentina then defied the IMF, refused its conditions, got no international help and rapidly transformed itself into the fastest-growing economy in the hemisphere. This too was noticed.

The collapse of the IMF creditors cartel has been a huge blow to U.S. influence. It was most pronounced in Latin America, where most of a region that used to be referred to as the United States' "backyard" is now governed by states that are more independent of Washington than Europe is.

The problem is that poorer developing countries, especially in Africa, remain dependent on foreign aid from the IMF (and the World Bank and other sources) to fund their basic budget and import needs. This can be harmful to their development and their people. In recent years, the IMF -- insisting that such measures are necessary to hold down inflation -- has imposed conditions that limit their public spending and, according to the fund's own internal evaluation, have prevented these countries from spending aid money on urgent needs, such as healthcare and education.

These countries need to join the rest of the developing world in breaking free of the IMF's policy conditions. The U.S. Congress may consider legislation that would pressure the IMF to use some of its huge gold reserves for debt cancellation and to limit the IMF's control over policy in poor countries. These would be important steps forward for the world's poor.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. ( www.cepr.net).

IMF: The Times They Are A-Changin'

2008-04-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

By Robert Weissman

Have things changed at the International Monetary Fund? Or is the world just witnessing yet another in a long series of global economic double standards?

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn says that the "need for public intervention" to address the global financial crisis "is becoming more evident." Strauss-Kahn has urged for a global fiscal stimulus, writing that, "Timely and targeted fiscal stimulus can add to aggregate demand in a way that supports private consumption during a critical phase." The IMF has announced its support for the fiscal stimulus plan in the United States -- a country with significant budget deficits and massive foreign debt.

The support for government intervention runs directly counter to the IMF's longstanding support for strait-jacketing governments in poor countries, by demanding "structural adjustment" -- a series of market fundamentalist, corporate-friendly policies, including hyper-restrictive macro-economic policies.

So far, there is little evidence that the IMF is changing the way it operates in developing countries. But maybe the times are changing, whether the IMF likes it or not.

The IMF gets its power from a gatekeeper role in international finance and donor circles. International lenders and government aid donors commonly limit their lending and aid donations to countries in the IMF's good graces. The logic is that the IMF is competent to determine that the recipient countries are pursuing sensible economic policies, and
therefore equipped to manage loans or aid.

The IMF has capitalized on its gatekeeper role to demand countries pursue a cookie cutter, market fundamentalist agenda of blind deregulation, sell-offs of public assets to corporations (privatization), opening up economies to foreign investors, tariff cuts, and government spending cuts.

There is overwhelming evidence of the failure of the IMF's policy agenda. Mass privatization has led to enormous concentrations of wealth and encouraged corruption. Deregulation has contributed to financial crises, including those that foreshadowed the current global crisis centered in the United States. The overall economic model had impoverished tens of millions and left developing countries poorer. And government budget ceilings and inflation targets have prevented countries from expanded desperately needed investments in healthcare and education. Indeed, the IMF's own Independent Evaluation Office has found that the Fund requires poor countries not meeting Fund inflation targets to divert most new donor aid. Instead of spending additional donor money on healthcare, for example, countries must use it to build up foreign reserves or pay down domestic debt.

Although the Fund has promised that it would reform the way it imposes conditions on poor countries, a new report from Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development, finds that, over the last six years, IMF conditions have not changed in number or kind.

One thing has changed, however. Impressed by the IMF's repeated failures, middle-income countries have paid back their loans to the Fund, and are not taking out any news ones.

This in turn has two consequences. For now, at least, the IMF has lost its hold over most middle-income countries -- but it maintains its iron grip on the world's poorest countries. And, the Fund is experiencing a financial crunch of its own. It had depended on the interest payments from middle-income countries to support its budget.

Developing countries are not shedding tears over the IMF's financial distress. “At long last, the IMF is experiencing first hand serious budget cuts,” says Cheikh Tidiane Dieye of Environment and Development in Africa (ENDA), based in Senegal. “The poetic justice of this is palpable. In Senegal, the IMF has mandated budget cuts for years. As a result, we have been unable to invest in health care, education and other essential services. If the IMF’s loss of financial power is accompanied by a loss in political power, this could be good news for all Africans.”

The IMF's governing body has just approved a proposal that would involve cutting its staff by about 20 percent and selling some of its gold stock to create a trust fund that would fund administrative operations in the future.

The gold cannot be sold without U.S. approval, however, and the U.S. representative to the Fund cannot support gold sales without Congressional authorization.

Health, development and labor organizations in the United States are mobilizing so that Congress approves gold sales only after achieving fundamental changes in IMF policy. Last week, 80 U.S. organizations -- including Action Aid International USA, the AFL-CIO, Africa Action, the Bank Information Center, Essential Action (which I direct), 50 Years is Enough, Global AIDS Alliance, Health GAP, Jubilee USA Network, the ONE Campaign, Oxfam America, RESULTS USA, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Student Global AIDS Campaign -- urged Congress not to approve gold sales until first achieving real change at the Fund.

The letter says the Congress should require the IMF to: rescind the use of overly restrictive deficit-reduction and inflation-reduction targets; exempt expanded health and education spending in developing countries from IMF-imposed budget ceilings; permit developing countries to spend foreign aid for its intended purposes; delink debt cancellation from harmful economic policy conditions; and disclose crucial documents currently kept secret.

If the gold sales deal is approved, the IMF will become self-financing,and the U.S. Congress will lose much of its power to demand changes in how the IMF operates. So the present opportunity will not soon present itself again. There is no certainty about when the gold sales authorization will come before Congress, but it now seems as though it
may be delayed until 2009.

Perhaps the IMF under the leadership of Strauss-Kahn, who took the helm of the institution only last September, is ready to re-evaluate its market fundamentalist, corporate-friendly policy prescriptions for poor countries. A statement issued by the Fund last week said that African countries did not need to raise interest rates in response to inflation
driven by higher prices of food and fuel, and that some subsidies might be permissible in some circumstances. This is perhaps a baby step forward.

But if the IMF is not ready on its own to jettison its long-standing policy demands for poor countries, it may soon find that it has no choice. Representative Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, chairs the House Financial Services Committee, which must approve the gold sales proposal prior to the full House of Representatives considering the issue. At the
20th anniversary celebration of the Bank Information Center last week, he strongly denounced structural adjustment, stated as a matter of fact that gold sales will only be authorized if additional IMF gold is sold to cancel poor country debt, and made clear that he intends to obtain policy changes from the IMF as a condition of permitting gold sales.

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action .

IMF: Subprime Crisis May Cost Trillion Dollars

2008-04-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

IMF, the organization which bails "countries in trouble" is in trouble itself. When IMF is ailing, would the countries be further neglected?

"quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

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The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday predicted that losses stemming from the US subprime mortgage crisis could cost the global economy nearly $1 trillon.

In its biannual Global Financial Stability report, the IMF projected that falling US housing prices and rising delinquencies on the residential mortgage market could lead to $565 billion in losses. Combined with figures representing other categories of loans and securities issued in relation to commercial real estate, the consumer credit market, and corporations, losses could increase to about $945 billion.

The IMF flagged the US as the epicenter of the problem.

According to Forbes.com, the crisis is spreading beyond the US subprime market -- namely to the prime residential and commercial real estate markets, consumer credit, and the low- to high-grade corporate credit markets.

"U.S. troubles are affecting other nations' financial institutions that have the same overly benign global financial conditions and weaknesses in risk management systems and prudential supervision," the financial news site said, quoting the IMF report.

The IMF specifically warned that any industrialized country with inflated real estate prices remains at risk while "emerging market countries have been broadly resilient, so far."

McCain says Russia should be booted from G8, rebukes China

2008-03-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

The US kept quiet on China's handling of the Tibetian Protesters. Everyone has been fine and dandy with the emerging China power due mostly to economic reasons, the French aside. I'm surprised that McCain has actually spoken out against them.

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Arizona Sen. John McCain called for free trade throughout the Western Hemisphere, accusing China of trying to exclude the U.S. from foreign markets.

During a foreign policy and international economics speech in Los Angeles, he also said Russia should be booted from the G8, the group of eight largest industrialized and democratic economies, while India and Brazil should be added. Other G8 members are the U.S., Japan, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Canada

The Arizona senator cited Russia's purported cyber attacks against businesses and others in the Baltic state of Estonia.

McCain said China should take part in international boycotts of the Sudan and Burma and criticized the Asian country for sometimes looking to exclude the U.S. from foreign markets.

"China could bolster its claim that it is peacefully rising by being more transparent about its significant military buildup, by working with the world to isolate pariah states such as Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and by ceasing its efforts to establish regional forums and economic arrangements designed to exclude America from Asia," McCain said in his speech.

China, which enjoys a huge trade imbalance with the U.S., is Arizona's third largest export market.

Technorati Tags: G8, China, Russia, McCain and US.

IMF Admits 'weak' US is Close to Recession

2008-03-23T02:36:00.000-07:00

The International Monetary Fund released a most belated and obvious statement citing the already taking place recession. How can we trust the IMF to lift countries out of poverty?

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today added to the growing chorus of concern the US is heading for a full-blown slowdown, stating that the world's largest economy "remains very weak, certainly close to a possible recession."

A leaked draft copy of the IMF's world economic outlook, the agency confirmed US growth would reach 1.5 per cent over 2008.

The forecast, which could still be changed before the report is released in April 9, is in contrast to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) US gross domestic product (GDP) would grow by 0.1 percent in the first three months of this year, and then slow to zero expansion in the second quarter.

Earlier this week, the IMF said the Federal Reserve’s emergency measures to calm turmoil in the credit market, including a three-quarters of a percentage point cut in interest rates, were “appropriate”.

The IMF's outlook report is expected to confirm global growth at 4.2 per cent in 2008, slightly above the IMF’s last forecast in January of 4.1 per cent but well below its 2007 forcecast of 4.9 per cent.

ANSA, an Italian News Agency, states that the IMF study backs the European Central Bank's (ECB) hardline stance in not cutting interest rates.

It said: “The ECB is rightly holding interest rates stable for now,” adding that the ECB “should be ready to respond in a flexible manner if downward risks to growth and inflation growth intensify.”

IMF First Deputy Managing Director, John Lipsky, has said in recent weeks that growth in the US is sluggish but it is not in recession.

US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, this week described the country’s economy as being in“sharp decline." This is the closest he has come to conceding an election-year recession.

Technorati Tags: IMF, Recession, America and US.

Overseas Citizens' Groups Prepare G8 Strategy

2008-03-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

Another meeting which bars members from entering the country. Increased negative vibes on the meeting and no real news from the G8 leaders. Join us in our protest

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As the Group of Eight summit approaches in July, leaders of overseas citizens' groups got together Friday in Tokyo to prepare countermeasures for the upcoming annual meeting of the major developed countries near Lake Toya, Hokkaido.

The G8 Action Network, holding a press conference in Tokyo, argued that the G8 summit members have only worsened the poverty and debt of developing countries by pushing for global free trade and deregulation.

The network will organize forums and demonstrations during the period of the summit in Hokkaido, the group said at the news conference.

The G8 Action Network currently consists of 32 nongovernmental organizations as well as 141 individuals in Japan, plus overseas groups such as, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions from South Korea, and Migrant Forum in Asia and Focus on the Global South, both from the Philippines.

"We have come here all of us from different movements and organizations from around the world . . . to call for solidarity from the Japanese organizations," said Mary Lou Malig of Focus on the Global South.

"The G8 nations account for just 14 percent of the world's population," Malig said, claiming that its decisions could largely dictate the course of the rest of the world and have worsened poverty and increased insecurity during the past few years.

During the conference, the group also announced that a representative from the Committee for Asian Women was rejected by immigration officials trying to enter Japan on Thursday at Narita airport.

The reason for the refusal was not immediately known as of Friday night.

Technorati Tags: G8 and Hokkaido.

G8: Call for Action

2008-03-02T01:19:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR ACTION AGAINST THE G8
Resisting Free Trade, Militarism and Fighting for Real Solutions to Climate Change

The G8 Summit will be held this year from July 7-9 in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan. This will be a culmination of a series of ministerial preparation meeting beginning in March. The G8 Action Network, a network of various Japanese organizations and movements, is calling on all social movements, peasant organizations, women, migrants, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks and civil society from all over the world who are resisting free trade in its many forms, war and militarism, the privatization of essential services and natural resources, illegitimate debt and the domination of global finance, and fighting for and building real people based solutions to global warming, to come and join us in the week of action against the G8 here in Japan.

WHY MOBILIZE AGAINST THE G8?

The G8 nations account for just fourteen percent of the world’s population and yet decisions made at these summits dictate the course of the rest of the world. And now more than ever, the evidence is stark that decisions that these nations have made have brought nothing but worsening poverty, increasing insecurity, deepening indebtedness, militarization and wars and now they are pushing for market based solutions to climate change which threaten to endanger the future of the planet. The host of the summit, the Government of Japan, says that it will make this summit a summit on the climate. This is rank hypocrisy. The reality is that the government, under pressure from Japanese industry, is backing away from mandatory limits to greenhouse gas emissions.

We can no longer let this continue. The time is now for all of us around the world to come together and join forces to make our voices heard and stop the G8 from doing any further damage to the world.

JOIN US IN THE INTERNATIONAL PREPARATORY MEETING

We will also begin preparations to challenge the G8 Summit beginning March. We invite all of you to come to Japan and join in our international preparatory meeting from March 7-11, 2008.

This is our schedule:
March 7, 16:00: Press conference at Parliamentarian building
March 8-9: International Coordination Meeting & G8 Seminar
March 9: evening, Move to Hokkaido by plane
March 10-11: Activities in Hokkaido

If your organization is planning to attend the meeting, please email nag00562@nifty.ne.jp to register your participation. You can also contact this email for more information on the meeting.

WE NEED YOUR SOLIDARITY

As with all struggles, we can only be successful with the solidarity, support and involvement of movements and activists around the world in resisting this G8 Summit. We invite all of you who are with us in the struggle against trade liberalization, corporate globalization, war and militarism and false solutions to climate change and demanding for
cancellation of all developing country debt to sign on to this call. We urge all of you to join us in Japan and to strengthen our struggle and together, build another world.

SIGNED:

G8 Action Network, Japan
ATTAC Japan
Consumers Union of Japan
Forum for Peace, Human Rights and Environment
Globalization Watch Hiroshima
Iwate Network for Protecting Article 9
Japan Asia Africa Latin America Solidarity Committee (AALA)
Japan Family Farmers Movement（NOUMINREN）
JAPAN PEACE COMMITTEE
National Coalition of Workers, Farmers and Consumers for Safe Food and
Health, Japan (SHOKKENREN)
No! G8 Action
No to WTO/FTA Coalition
No-Vox Japan
Peoples' Plan Study Group (PPSG)
SPACE ALLIES
The New Communist Association for the Future

IN SOLIDARITY:
(list of organizations outside Japan who sign on)
Alliance of Progressive Labor, Philippines
Anti-Debt Coalition Indonesia (KAU)
Fisherfolk Movement-Philippines (Kilusang Mangingisda)
Focus on the Global South
Global Network Asia
Globalization Monitor, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU)
Indonesian Peasants Union (SPI)
Institute for Global Justice, Indonesia
Jubilee South - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS-APMDD)
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)
Migrant Forum in Asia
Stop the New Round! Coalition, Philippines
Transnational Institute (TNI)
WALHI-Friends of the Earth Indonesia
Womyn’s Agenda for Change, Cambodia

Technorati Tags: G8, Mobilization, , CallForAction and Protest.

G8 Leaders: Call for Global Watchdog

2008-02-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

Again, the perpetual unanswered call for transparency.

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European leaders agreed to co-operate closely in future to help avert another financial crisis spreading across the world.

Mr Gordon Brown said G8 finance ministers would take forward proposals to change the way credit agencies assessed the risk posed by banks and for greater transparency in information published by the banks themselves.

He said: "We are calling for greater transparency to secure better-informed markets. By calling for change in the international institutions we are leading the way for changes that can be made in the course of the year. I am confident we are leading the way for consensus that can be made for big change."

And he warned: "We stand ready to take regulatory action if progress is not made."

The Prime Minister met with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Italy's caretaker premier Romano Prodi and EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso for three hours of informal talks.
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Although the group considers the European economy basically sound, they believe that greater supervision of banks and credit-rating agencies is necessary.

Mr Brown is keen to establish a new global financial watchdog which he believes might have proved invaluable during the credit crunch.

Mr Barroso said: "It is clear that the recent turmoil in the financial markets requires vigilance. What is needed now is action that is both targeted and proportionate. We must not be tempted into protectionism."

The meeting came amid growing concerns of an American recession this year. In a bid to shore up the faltering economy, the US House of Representatives yesterday approved an economic stimulus package worth $146bn (£73bn). The bill, introduced by President George W Bush, now moves to the Senate.

Separately, the International Monetary Fund warned that the risks to the global economy remain on the downside as it reduced its growth forecast for the second time in less than six months. In an unscheduled update to its World Economic Outlook in October, the IMF said it now expects global GDP to reach 4.1pc this year, down from 4.4pc.

For the US, the IMF cut its growth forecast for this year by 0.4pc to 1.5pc and lowered the Eurozone's projection by 0.5pc to 1.6pc.

Today, the US Federal Reserve will decide whether to cut US interest rates further.

Technorati Tags: G8, Transparency and watchdog.

Slow down in US affects Southeast Asia Most

2008-01-24T23:27:00.000-08:00

Southeast Asia will face stiffer export competition from China and likely bear the brunt of any impact in Asia from a major economic slowdown in the United States, an IMF official said Tuesday.

A recession in the United States, anticipated by some economists as a result of a current housing slump and related credit crunch, will obviously lead to a cutback in exports by Asia's rapidly-growing economies, led by China.

Based on a "rough rule of thumb," for about a one percentage point decline in US economic growth, there could be a "half to a full percent decline in Asian growth, depending upon what the effects are beyond the United States," said Steven Dunaway, deputy director of the International Monetary Fund's Asia and Pacific department.

"There will be much more of an impact in Southeast Asia," which faces direct competition from China in terms of a number of export products, he said.

"Those (Southeast Asian) countries will all face a much tougher time with the slowdown in the United States and probably some extra competition from China," he said at a forum on the Chinese economy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Dunaway said Asia's exporting nations were "going to be competing for a piece of a smaller pie" if US imports shrunk. He raised the possibility of China slashing prices to remain competitive.

"If the Chinese themselves face a more difficult environment, there will be some tendency probably at least to hold prices if not cut prices," he said.

This would "affect profit margins and put some additional competitive pressure on Southeast Asian firms as well as firms in other countries competing with Chinese companies," he said.

Labor-intensive manufacturing already appears to have given a competitive edge to China in trade and investments at the expense of export-driven Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, economists say.

But rapid Chinese economic growth in recent years has also resulted in increased imports of raw materials and intermediate inputs from Southeast Asia, helping propel growth in the region, they say.

Amid the competition for exports to the United States, China and Southeast Asia are also opening up their economies to each other through a free trade agreement covering a total of nearly two billion people.

IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned in Paris Monday that the global economic situation in the wake of a US slowdown was "serious" and could impact the world's emerging economies.

"Fortunately emerging nations continue to have fairly strong growth and to drive growth worldwide. But it is not impossible that even in emerging nations it could have a certain effect, that growth could be weaker than expected."

Dunaway said any decline in growth in Asian economies as a result of a US slowdown would depend on policy responses.

"Most of the countries are in positions where they can ease monetary policy, they can ease fiscal policy, so they can offset some of the decline coming out of the US," he said.

There is one school of thought that a US slowdown would provide a much needed breather for China, which was stepping up efforts to cool inflation to prevent the world's fastest growing major economy from overheating.

"There may also be some impact with respect to FDI (foreign direct investment) that might slow (in China)," Dunaway said.

But Beijing would probably raise government spending, particularly on infrastructure investment, to keep the economy chugging along at a growth rate of nine to 10 percent, he added.

Technorati Tags: IMF, US and SouthEastAsia.

Japan May Protect G8 Site with Missiles

2008-01-17T23:39:00.000-08:00

Weapons of Mass Destruction. All in the name of security.

Japan may position missile interceptors around the site of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations, to be held on the northern island of Hokkaido in July, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

Japan introduced its first Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) ground-to-air missile interceptors at the Iruma air base north of Tokyo last March, as part of a shield aimed at protecting the country from ballistic missile attack.

But the interceptors have a range of about 20 km, so they would need to be positioned closer to the summit venue at Lake Toyako in order to provide protection during the conference. The G8 summit brings together the leaders of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia as well as Japan.

The Sankei Shimbun quoted a Defense Ministry official as saying that although the chances of a ballistic missile attack on the venue are extremely low, Japan wants to take all possible precautions against air attack.

"We must consider measures to deal appropriately with whatever situations may arise," said a Defense Ministry spokesman, who declined to comment directly on the report.

A "Summit Unit" made up of air, ground and sea troops is also to be set up to respond immediately to any eventuality, the Sankei Shimbun said.

An outer layer of Defense against ballistic missiles is provided by ship-based SM-3 missiles. Japan became the United States' closest missile Defense ally after North Korea fired a ballistic missile across the country in 1998, which landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Technorati Tags: G8, Japan, Hokkaido and Missiles.

US Holds Fire on Sanctions Against EU in Biotech Food Dispute

2008-01-14T21:07:00.000-08:00

The United States said Monday it would temporarily hold fire on sanctions on European Union goods in a last-ditch attempt to resolve a bitter trade dispute over genetically modified crops.

The EU missed a World Trade Organization deadline Friday to comply with a decision against EU restrictions on some genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

And on the same day, the French government announced it was imposing a ban on the only genetically modified crop grown in the country.

"We have agreed with the EU to suspend for a limited period the proceedings on our WTO request for authority to suspend concessions in order to provide the EU an opportunity to demonstrate meaningful progress on the approval of biotech products," said US Trade Representative (USTR) spokeswoman Gretchen Hamel.

"The United States remains very concerned with EU treatment of agricultural biotech products," she said.

The European Commission on Friday failed meet the WTO deadline in a GMO case that Europe lost in September 2006. The WTO ruled that an EU moratorium on the authorization of GM products between 1999 and 2004 broke world trade rules.

The United States was joined in the 2003 complaint by Canada and Argentina. The complainants are entitled to launch retaliatory customs duties in the absence of compliance with the decision.

"US seed companies, farmers and exporters continue to experience significant commercial losses as a result of the EU actions," Hamel said. "The patience of US stakeholders is close to exhaustion."

In Brussels, a European Commission spokesman said: "We welcome the measured response by the United States, and reiterate our commitment to advance the difficult dossier of biotechnology through dialogue."

Hamel said the US would evaluate EU progress toward normalizing trade over the coming months, without setting a deadline for WTO compliance.

The Canadian government said it has extended the deadline for compliance to February 11. "Canada has found there is constructive progress on this issue," said foreign affairs and international trade ministry spokeswoman Renee David. Under EU laws, a member state can invoke a safeguard clause enabling it to bar a genetically modified (GM) crop that has otherwise been given EU-wide authorization, provided it has scientific evidence to back this decision.

Although the import of some of the GM products covered by the case have been authorized in the EU, Austria has continued to practice a ban, in particular on the import of GM maize strain, Mon 810, which is produced by US agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto.

France's decision to join the ban on the planting of Mon 810, the only biotech corn variety currently cultivated in the EU, drew sharp words from the USTR spokeswoman.

"It is hard to overstate our disappointment with this new biotech ban announced Friday by the Government of France," she said.

"This newly banned variety of corn has been grown safely in the EU, the United States, and around the world for over a decade."

Opponents of GMOs -- a fiercely contested issue in Europe -- welcomed the French government's decision to invoke the EU procedure to bar the Mon 81, the only GM crop grown in France.

"With the principle of precaution at stake, I am making a major political decision to carry our country to the forefront of the debate on the environment," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said over the weekend.

The Austrian agriculture ministry last week told AFP that it was determined to maintain its "rejection of any sort of use of GM organisms" in the country.

Technorati Tags: WTO, EU and GMO.

Press Release: Creation of South Bank

2007-12-09T23:58:00.000-08:00

Movements And Social Organizations From Latin American And The World Release Open Letter On The Creation Of The South Bank

Coinciding with the signing on December 9, in Buenos Aires, of the South Bank’s Founding Act, hundreds of social movements, networks, organizations and personalities from throughout Latin America and the world are presenting to the Presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela, an Open Letter |1| expressing their expectation with regard to the creation of the new financial institution together with proposals intended to insure that the Bank can indeed contribute to the integration of the region’s peoples and the full enjoyment of human and environmental rights and the right to development.

The text manifests the movements’ conviction that this South-South entity must break with the experience of existing multilateral organisms such as the World Bank, the IMF, the IDB, and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), "which are widely recognized today for their non-democratic, non-transparent, regressive, and disaccredited operations". The South Bank must also contribute to overcoming "the negative experience of economic liberalization suffered by the region, with its consequences of ever more indebtedness and the constant draining of capital, deregulation, and the privatization of public patrimony and basic services.

Among other key points, which build on the proposals presented in June of this year, this Second Open Letter highlights the importance of the South Bank forming an integral part of a new regional financial architecture, which would also include the creation of a South Fund - with the functions of a regional Central Bank, and a common monetary instrument. It also underscores the need for transparency and participation of the social movements in both the negotiating phase as well as the eventual operation of the institution and calls on the Presidents to inform and consult with society and incorporate clear mechanisms of citizen control in the Bank´s establishment.

This Second Open Letter on the South Bank is signed, among others, by representative networks, movements, and personalities in Latin America such as the Hemispheric Social Alliance, the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Orgnizations, Jubilee South/Americas, Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), Latindadd, the Network of Women Transforming the Economy Remte, Oid-LA, the Latin American Association of Political Economists Sepla, the Lutheran World Federation’s Advocacy Program on Illegitimate Debt, the Peace and Justice Service in Latin America, Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and Nora Cortiñas and Mirta Baravalle of the Mothers of May Square-Founder’s Line. Together with numerous other national, regional, and global organizations, they manifest in this statement the importance they attribute to the South Bank being a public entity; whose direction is exercised on an equal basis among the participating countries; that it be capitalized in a way that is proportionate to the capacity of each economy; that its operations be transparent and austere; and that in essence, it promote the integration in solidarity of the peoples and countries of the region on the basis of concrete objectives such as full employment, food security and sovereignty, the guarantee of healthcare and housing, the universalization of free and public basic education, the redistribution of wealth, environmental protection, and the overcoming of inequities such as those of gender and ethnicity. As in their First Open Letter, endorsing movements and organizations specifically reject the possibility that the South Bank reproduce the model and priorities of the existing international financial institutions by providing financial backing for megaprojects that are destructive of local communities, the environment, and biodiversity or infrastructure schemes such as IIRSA, which responds to a logic of "integration" designed by global capital interests and the huge TNCs.

Titled "For a South Bank Oriented to a Sovereign and Sustainable Development Matrix for the Integration of the Continent in Solidarity", the Open Letter further affirms the need for the new Bank to be an instrument "to safeguard and channel savings within the region, interrupting the recurrent cycles of exaction of national and regional efforts through manoeuvres and deals on the basis of public indebtedness and securities, the subsidization of privileged and/or corrupt local and international private economic and financial groups, and constant backing for speculative transborder capital flows."

Technorati Tags: SouthBank, LatinAmerica and Sovereign.

December 8: Think Global, ACT LOCAL

2007-11-29T01:29:00.000-08:00

Proposal: International Mobilization of Solidarity with the Accused of the Genoese G8.

With the approach of the verdict for the 25 comrades of the G8 trial, the desire to rise to the highest level the forms of solidarity and fight has grown.

The Genoese lawsuit is linked to those of Milan and Turin for the use of the offence of "devastation and looting", which provides ultra-high penalties (8 to 15 years), applied to the expression of dissent and political clash.

The judgment on appeal to the events of March 11th has seen the creation of his first former judicial (6 years, discounted to 4, for the abbreviated rite, for 15 of anti-fascists defendants) projecting a threatening shadow on the imminent outcome of the G8 process.

Saturday November 17th represents an important appointment. The hope is that this is only the first step, which many other initiatives will follow, in a virtuous mechanism in view of the day of judgment. The attempt - to be made the most coordinated way possible by everyone - could be to call a simultaneous mobilization day, December 8th, in many Italian and foreign cities with protests in symbolic places (Law Courts, prisons, embassies, consulates etc).

G8 has been an international issue and, if in 2001, already, the Italian police had shown the political choices made in the management of dissent, which culminated with Carlo's murder, today the judiciary follows in his footsteps with the request of exorbitant condemnations for the demonstrators: the real heads scapegoats, who, according to the hypothesis of the Prosecutor, should "pay for all" with very heavy penalties, up to 16 years in prison. To pay in an exemplary way so that it is an effective warning to all those who, in the future, will they dare to rebel.

On the other side, the two trials for the security forces, for the police massacre at Diaz and tortures at Bolzaneto, are still in the process of hearings and the judgment of first instance will not be issued before the next year.

Verdict that, however it will end, for almost the entire contested crimes, will be just formal, since the prescription will shortly cancel everything.

In Italy the days of July 2001 have represented a watershed in the management of public order and dissent: the police shooting at demonstrators; Carlo Giuliani's murder; the tanks running at a crazy speed against people; "the mexican butchery" at Diaz; tortures at Bolzaneto; indiscriminate beatings of defenceless people; the devastation even of ambulances by the security forces. All of these happened while AN's Honourables, Ascierto and Fini, were visiting the
operating centre of the security forces.

A crucial step towards acceptance of security policies and political repression which, in these 6 years, have changed our cities and attacked the movements through the use of the preventive detention and crimes as "devastation and looting" or subversive association.

The potential international nature of the initiative is given by the fact that the whole anti-fascist and anti-capitalist movement is under charge, movement which, from Seattle on, comes out and sets against the meetings, the last one in Germany, the next one in Japan, and in the 2009 in Italy.

The repression has been deployed even for the mobilization in Rostock, with arrests and trials currently under process. Every situation, national or international, could join with reference to the local context.

Therefore the call is to find a common date for mobilizations, everyone in its own territory, to express the greatest solidarity and complicity with the 25 comrades to the bar.

Never free as long as the last will be slave!

Technorati Tags: Genoese, G8 and Italy.

Myanmar citizens mount protest at ASEAN summit

2007-11-21T01:13:00.000-08:00

Remember how Singapore played host to the IMF / WB meetings last year? Protesters were told to protest in a less than accessible area. This time around, that country hosts Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit. Burmese students took to the streets peacefully in their bide to free their homeland from the junta. It's a crash course for Human Rights for Singapore.

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About 40 Myanmar residents of Singapore held a brief vigil Tuesday night to protest what they said was an inadequate response to the crisis in Myanmar by Southeast Asian leaders meeting here.

It was one of the largest public protests seen in recent memory in Singapore, which has tight rules against demonstrations.

The group of mostly young men and women, all wearing red T-shirts, lined up silently in rows of three on the main Orchard Road shopping and tourist strip.

Many held small printed leaflets that read "ASEAN -- Act with Honour, Action on Burma Now".

Three people in front of the group held a large banner that read, "Listen to Burma's Desires, Don't Follow Junta's Order".

Others had written messages on pieces of paper. "Respect Human Rights Now", said one. Another said, "We welcome professor Gambari on behalf of Burmese people."

The United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, arrived in Singapore Tuesday expecting to brief leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), who held their annual summit here Tuesday.

But as Gambari flew to Singapore, the city-state's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the summit chairman, announced the briefing was cancelled after Myanmar complained the envoy should only report to the Security Council.

Myo Myint Maung, 22, a spokesman for the demonstrators, said they were disappointed by ASEAN's response to the junta.

"We want ASEAN leaders to be more effective and more active regarding their action on Burma," he said. "We are standing here to hold a vigil to protest their statement."

The grouping has come under mounting pressure to rein in its errant member Myanmar after a September crackdown on mass protests, led by Buddhist monks, that left at least 15 people dead and sparked worldwide outrage.

Myo Myint Maung said ASEAN has taken "a very passive stance" towards Myanmar.

It is illegal in Singapore to hold a public gathering of five or more people without a police permit, meaning demonstrations are rare.

Myo Myint Maung said the group did not have a permit for the vigil which occurred a few hundred metres (yards) from the ASEAN summit venue, and just outside a special summit security zone in which even one protester is not permitted.

About 15 minutes after the vigil began, about 20 police converged on the group and asked if they had finished. They said they had, and peacefully dispersed as police recorded some of their names.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, ASEAN, Burma, Student and Protest.

Support for a good South Bank

2007-11-06T18:46:00.001-08:00

2nd Open letter on creation of South Bank

South America, November 2007

SECOND OPEN LETTER

To the Presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela

FOR A SOUTH BANK ORIENTED TOWARD A MATRIX OF SOVEREIGNTY, SOLIDARITY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND INTEGRATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTINENT

Dear Presidents,

We are addressing you for the second time to express the great expectation aroused in our peoples by the initiative to establish a South Bank. We are also encouraged by the positive response of other countries of South America who have manifested their wish to participate in the South Bank.

The signatories of this letter are social networks, organizations, and movements, labour unions, and professionals who are struggling against the scourge of illegitimate public debt and the perverse policies and practices of the existing international financial institutions and the current global trade system. We are sure that the decision to establish a South Bank can be a significant step and an opportunity not only for South America, but also for the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean and other regions of the South.

We come from a recent history of struggle against dictatorships in nearly the entire continent. This explains our determination to open and institute new spaces for participation and direct democracy. However, the non-transparent and non-participatory way in which the negotiations on the establishment of the South Bank are being carried forward, without public debate and without consultation with our societies, might indicate that we are facing something that could turn out to be more of the same.

We are convinced that a new South-South financial entity should be focused not only on overcoming the negative experiences of economic aperture - with always the same consequences of higher indebtedness and capital flight, deregulation and privatization of public patrimony and basic services suffered by the region -, but also the well-known non-democratic, non-transparent, regressive, and discredited behaviour of the multilateral organisms such as the World Bank, the CAF, the IDB, and the IMF. Our recent history has shown that the latter’s choice of economic, social, and environmental policies, imposed on our governments through conditionalities, have ended in the decapitalization and deindustrialization of the region’s economies, and have trapped these in an agro-mineral-export model that impedes their development and deepens their subordination to the economies of the North, while worsening social inequity, ecological damage, and the “eternal” financial, historical, social, cultural, and ecological debts.

Recognizing how important it is for the countries involved in the establishment of the South Bank to reach agreement on key issues related to its nature and objectives and its financial and operational structure, we think it is essential to offer the following proposals which express the aspirations of ample sectors of our countries’ societies, as manifested by the numerous social entities consulted:

1. The focus of the South Bank should be in promoting a new development framework whose essential values would be the sovereignty of our peoples over their own territory and development, the responsible self-determination of our economic, social, and environmental policies, solidarity, sustainability, and ecological justice; for the Bank economic and technological development must be conceived as a means toward the superior goal which is human and social development.

2. The action of the South Bank must be guided by concrete goals such as full and dignified employment, ensuring food, heath, and housing, universalization of basic public and free education, a redistribution of wealth overcoming inequity, including gender and ethnic inequality, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and their effects on the continent’s population and that of the entire world.

3. The South Bank should be an integral part of a new Latin American and Caribbean financial architecture which includes a South Fund, with the functions of a continental Central Bank capable of articulating a continental-wide system of settlements with a state of the art telematics platform. It needs to be able to link policies which promote macroeconomic stability with policies for development and the reduction of structural asymmetries, in a framework conducive to the future development of a common monetary system at the service of a strategy of strengthening economic and commercial ties within the region, introducing commercial exchanges based on national currencies and working towards the establishment of a regional currency at least for intraregional exchanges. To build a space of supranational monetary and financial sovereignty demands a lot of local flexibility in order to avoid sub imperialist temptations and the triumph of monetarist orthodoxy in certain aspects, as in recent European experience.

4. The South Bank should serve to compensate the historic, social, and ecological debts of which our peoples are creditors. Its financing must be oriented towards overcoming the asymmetries, social inequities, and ecological damage perpetrated in the continent for more than five centuries.

5. The South Bank must contemplate the participation of citizen organizations and social movements, not only in the development of its initial architecture but also in its financial and operational decision-making, and in the monitoring of the use given to the funds awarded.

6. The South Bank should be managed in an egalitarian way among its member countries, instituting and respecting the egalitarian principle of “one country, one vote” at all levels of collegiate decision-making. It should seek to channel regional savings in the region.

7. Capital subscriptions of the South Bank should be proportional to the economic capacity of member countries; other sources of capitalization could include part of the international reserves and loans from member countries, common global taxes and donations. Financial resources from the present multilateral financial institutions and from states that have plundered our continent should be excluded. Such dispositions of the South Bank could allow an increase in the placing of member countries’ reserves outside the dollar and euro spheres, and encourage the return of national capitals deposited abroad.

8. The South Bank must be committed to transparency in its administration, rendering a public accounting of its functioning and activities and submitting its lending operations and internal functioning to a permanent, socially-participatory external audit.

9. For the South Bank not to become “more of the same”, its administrative quality, austerity, and efficiency must be permanently evaluated, prohibiting any kind of immunity privileges to its officials, and based on the fully transparent and timely availability of information, and the democratic and social control of its management. To avoid excessive expenditures and bureaucratic deviations, the Bank must have a compact staff that is both diversified, efficient, effective, and managerially flexible.

10. The loans of the South Bank should be for the promotion of a genuinely cooperative regional integration, based on principles such as active subsidiarity, proportionality and complementarities; the financing of public investment; assisting self-managed local development; and promoting equitable and solidarity-based commercial exchanges among family farmers, small producers, the cooperative sector, and the social solidarity economy, indigenous and traditional communities and women’s, fishermen’s, workers’, identity etc. socioeconomic organizations.

11. The South Bank must adopt as its investment priority those projects oriented towards food and energy sovereignty; the research and development of appropriate technologies for an endogenous and sustainable development of the region, including free software; the programmed and complementary production of generic medicines; the recovery of ancestral wisdom, systematized and accepted as an agroecologic science; the promotion of environmental justice; the improvement of public services; support for victims of forced displacements; promotion of communications and intraregional culture; the creation of a South University and an equivalence system for diplomas issued throughout the region; and infrastructure that is based on different logics of spatial organization as implemented by local solidarity and self-managed development communities. The bank should not reproduce the finance model of existing international financial institutions with the construction of mega-projects that damage the environment and biodiversity.

12. The South Bank must be considered an essential tool for the custody and channelling of savings, breaking the repeated cycles of exaction of national and regional efforts through manoeuvres and suspicious deals with indebtedness and public securities, subsidies to privileged and/or corrupt private local and international economic and financial groups, and a permanent guarantee for the speculative movements of capital entry and outflow.

We understand that all the above is in keeping with what was emphasized in the Quito Ministerial Declaration of May 3, which states: “The peoples have given their governments the mandate to provide the region with new instruments of integration for development which must be on based on designs which are democratic, transparent, participatory, and accountable to the citizenry.

We are concerned about the repeated postponement of the signing of the South Bank´s founding Act, which could be an indication of the existence of significant unresolved issues. We hope that in the negotiations to overcome these unresolved issues, the proposals presented in this letter will be taken into account.

The current regional and international economic and financial situation is still favourable to the taking of concrete steps in this direction, but it may not last. We trust that you will take advantage of this historic possibility to create what could become a real South Peoples’ Solidarity Bank.

Yours sincerely,

JUBILEO SUR/Américas
Secretaría Regional:
Piedras 730, (1070) Buenos Aires
T/F +5411-43071867
jubileosur@wamani.apc.org
www.jubileosuramericas.org
www.jubileesouth.org

Technorati Tags: SouthBank, SouthAmerica, JubileeSouth and JubileoSurAmericas.

New IMF Head: Dominique Strauss-Kahn

2007-11-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Seeking to restore its relevance and legitimacy, France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn took over Thursday as the head of the International Monetary Fund.

A former finance minister, he has pledged to make change at the 185-nation lending organization the core of his strategy "without delay," including reallocating votes so big developing countries have a larger say and improving finances so the IMF does not operate in the red.

Founded 63 years ago to promote global economic stability, the IMF put together multibillion dollar rescue packages for countries in financial crises while prescribing belt-tightening economic policies.

While it still lends to poor countries in Africa, many countries have access to the billions of dollars sloshing through international capital markets and no longer need the IMF. As a result, the IMF no longer earns interest on its loans has to overhaul its own finances.

Strauss-Kahn, a self described free-market Socialist known as DSK for his initials, said he wants to continue the mission of his predecessor, Spain's Rodrigo de Rato, to make the IMF more representative. De Rato led the organization through its annual meeting Oct. 21-22 and stepped down Wednesday for personal reasons two years before his term ends.

In interviews before assuming control, he suggested that to ensure a fairer representation within the institution of fast-growing economies, such as Brazil, India and China, that Europe, Russia and some other nations give up some of their power.

He added that this would not come at the expense of the United States, the largest shareholder in the IMF with veto power over its decisions.

Voting shares are based on a complex formula that takes account of a country's economic weight. Various proposals to change this have been advanced and Strauss-Kahn, facing a deadline in 2008 to find a solution, will preside over the bargaining.

"There is no doubt that the IMF needs serious institutional changes," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, the aid agency and frequent critic of the IMF and other international financial institutions. "Nowadays the Netherlands has more votes than 23 African nations grouped together."

During the IMF annual meetings, Strauss-Kahn's push for reform got a boost from Italian Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, the new head of the IMF's policy-making committee. He proposed that "since the EU has one money, it should consolidate" its representation. France and Germany, the two biggest economies in the euro zone each with its own seat on the 24-member IMF board are likely to resist.

The policy committee has urged the board to cut costs and shed staff in the next six months. Strauss-Kahn said has said he will submit proposals to make the IMF "more efficient and less costly.

"Finding new sources of income is an issue for the IMF as out lending activity is decreasing, which reduces our income," he said. But he said he opposes dipping into the IMF's substantial gold reserves, worth about $77 billion (€53 billion), for cash.

The IMF is facing a deficit approaching $100 million (€69 million), its first in decades. It has $17 billion (€11.8 billion) in outstanding loans, down from $97 billion (€67 billion) at the end of 2004.

Technorati Tags: IMF, Debt and Dominique StraussKahn.

Poverty - Greatest Environmental Threat

2007-10-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

Without economic support, we exhaust the harvest of the earth. Calls to answer climate concerns have come to naught in the recent meetings. Do the IFIs not breathe the air we breathe?

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PERVERSE government subsidies are contributing to the plundering of the world's environment, with collapsing fish stocks among the biggest problems, said Mike Moore, former head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Among the worst-hit regions are waters off Africa which draw fishing fleets from East Asia, a trend aided by incentives such as tax deductions for fuel, Mr Moore said.

"So what happens, frequently, is these guys get the tender, and vacuum the lot out," he told the United Nations Environment Programme's Finance Initiative conference in Melbourne. "There's no incentive to be sustainable. And frequently the money doesn't even make it to the (African) country because it's cheaper to put in a bank in Switzerland for the politicians."

Mr Moore, a former prime minister of New Zealand, welcomed the gathering of bankers, insurers and financial industry delegates as an opportunity for "some very old ideas" to prevail against governments' tendency to opt for closed markets that stymie trade and hurt growth. "The greatest threat to the environment is poverty," he said.

Mr Moore also railed against big retailers counting "food miles" to curb carbon emissions from transport by encouraging consumers to opt for local produce. Farmers from Kenya, for instance, would suffer, he said.

By contrast, Michael Hawker, chief executive of Insurance Australia Group, hailed consumers as "the biggest driver" in forcing companies to be transparent about their greenhouse gas emissions and curb them.

Mr Moore also ruled out the WTO as a body that could lead global efforts to curb carbon emissions, by penalising countries that benefited from others' costly actions but took none of their own, for instance. It would take just one member's veto to block such WTO action. "In a perfect world, yes, of course, it should be inside an international institution," he said. "I just can't see us managing to do that in the next five years."

Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which surveys companies' carbon action, however, said the time for dithering by nations was running out: "The development of carbon markets is rudimentary at the very least, and certainly not on course for any of the kind of reductions that we require to respond credibly to the problem."

Technorati Tags: Poverty and Environment.

US Loses Fight in Cotton Subsidies

2007-10-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

The US could face billions of dollars in trade sanctions for failing to scrap illegal subsidies paid to American cotton growers.

The World Trade Organisation ruling is a victory for Brazil's cotton industry and for West African states which say the payments harmed their producers.

Brazil hailed the ruling, saying US subsidies had hit world prices, hurting farmers in Brazil and elsewhere.

But US officials believe the payments comply with international trade rules.

Washington is expected to make an appeal against the ruling.

Roberto Azevedo, the Brazilian foreign ministry's trade chief, said that the three-member WTO compliance panel had upheld the findings of its interim report released in July.

"It wasn't changed," he told the Associated Press (AP) news agency just after the ruling was released confidentially to US and Brazilian officials in Geneva.

The office of the US Trade Representative in Washington confirmed the news, saying the US was "very disappointed".

Brazil has reserved the right to impose annual sanctions of up to $4bn on the United States but would probably seek less in retaliatory measures because the US has removed some of the offending subsidies, AP notes.

Oxfam official Gawain Kripke told the BBC that the ruling would also have a beneficial impact on African cotton farmers, if Brazil is successful in reducing American cotton subsidies.

But if they are not then small countries, like Mali or Burkina Faso, wouldn't really hurt American producers very much.

"The truth is that it takes a bigger country to really make the US comply, because the market has to be big enough that the US is worried about it," he said.

Technorati Tags: US, Cotton and Brazil.