The Emerging World’s Education Imperative
Amanda Rae
Published: Wednesday 14 November 2012
“Education is now recognized as a national priority.”

Official delegations from the world’s nine most populous developing countries just met in New Delhi to discuss a subject vital for their countries’ futures: education. The meeting of ministers and others from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan, known as the E-9, is the latest in a series of encounters held every two years to fulfill the pledge of “education for all” by 2015.

The E-9 account for 54% of the world’s population, 42.3% of children not in school, 58% of young illiterates (aged 15-24), and 67% of adult illiterates (two-thirds of whom are women). So the challenges are enormous: children, from families too poor to think about education, beyond the reach of schooling and too malnourished to study; and too few schools, classrooms, teaching resources, and adequately trained teachers. Rampant illiteracy underpins other problems, including exploding populations, gender imbalances, and widespread poverty.

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Hour Grows Late to Act on Climate Change, Caribbean Warns
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 5 October 2012
“Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders are nonetheless hoping that their united front on the environment at the just concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will spur the international community to take them and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) much more seriously.”

 

Their speeches did not grab international headlines like that delivered by U.S. President Barack Obama, nor did other delegates walk out as they spoke, as was the case for Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders are nonetheless hoping that their united front on the environment at the just concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will spur the international community to take them and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) much more seriously.

“The islands of our planet are at war against climate change, warming temperatures and rising seas,” St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves told delegates. “This war is not a future event, it is a present-day and ongoing battle… the survival of our islands is at stake.”

Caribbean countries are hoping that by the time the international community gathers in the Pacific in 2014 for the Third International Conference for the Sustainable Development of SIDS, there will be progress on a number of recommendations that, for instance, emerged from the Rio+20 conference held in Brazil earlier this year.

“The failure to date to reach a legally binding outcome on climate change is cause of grave concern,” said Dominica’s U.N. Ambassador Vince Henderson. “While the debate continues, the challenges to our islands are becoming greater.”

Figures released by the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) show that over the last decade, damage from intense climatic conditions has cost the region in excess of half a trillion dollars.

“In real terms, the threats posed to the Caribbean region’s development prospects are severe and it is now accepted that adaptation will require a sizable and sustained investment of resources,” Jamaica’s ...

Top 10 Astonishing Police Brutality Videos Caught on Surveillance Cameras
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 5 October 2012
“All these videocams mean police now face added transparency and accountability (where before we only had "internal" accountability... which typically has meant a slap on the wrist).”

 

The internet is full of videos exposing police officers' use of excessive physical force when trying to apprehend or detain "potential criminals". Every year in fact there seems to be an increase in YouTube video uploads, video views, and news stories depicting this type of injustice.

Much of this increase is due to the rising number of security cameras, which allow us to witness events that otherwise may have never been publicized at all, and to the widespread use of cellphones, which almost all have video capability.

All these videocams mean police now face added transparency and accountability (where before we only had "internal" accountability... which typically has meant a slap on the wrist).

As it so happens, I work with a security camera company called 2MCCTV, so I thought it fitting to increase awareness of police brutality by showcasing videos that happened to be captured from security cameras (not from our own cameras from around the country). There would be too many to choose from if we included other countries --especially were I to include China, South Africa, Brazil, etc., as they house some of the most brutal police forces on the planet. The secondary reason for limiting this to American footage is because I think many people mistakenly still believe that the US is the one place where police brutality is not an issue, or at least not prevalent.

This top 10 list is controversial, and not for the faint of heart. These unnerving videos include police officers and their unwarranted BEAT-DOWNS of the following: a special-ed kid, a grandmother trying to pay her bills at a Hooters, a homeless man with schizophrenia, and a woman already handcuffed and at the police station who had just gotten in a car wreck (no alcohol involved)... to name a few. Do these cops truly ...

The New “Golden Age of Oil” That Wasn’t
Taylor
Published: Thursday 4 October 2012
Forecasts of Abundance Collide with Planetary Realities

 

Last winter, fossil-fuel enthusiasts began trumpeting the dawn of a new “golden age of oil” that would kick-start the American economy, generate millions of new jobs, and free this country from its dependence on imported petroleum.  Ed Morse, head commodities analyst at Citibank, was typical.  In the Wall Street Journal hecrowed, “The United States has become the fastest-growing oil and gas producer in the world, and is likely to remain so for the rest of this decade and into the 2020s.”

 

Once this surge in U.S. energy production was linked to a predicted boom in energy from Canada’s tar sands reserves, the results seemed obvious and uncontestable.  “North America,” he announced, “is becoming the new Middle East.”  Many other analysts have elaborated similarly on this rosy scenario, which now provides the foundation for Mitt Romney’s plan to achieve “energy independence” by 2020.

By employing impressive new technologies -- notably deepwater drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or hydro-fracking) -- energy companies were said to be on the verge of unlocking vast new stores of oil in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and shale formations across the United States.  “A ‘Great Revival’ in U.S. oil production is taking shape -- a major break from the near 40-year trend of falling output,” James Burkhard of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) 

The Dark Side of the “Green Economy”
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 24 August 2012
“Since the global economic meltdown began in 2007, the green economy has come to mean something more akin to the wholesale privatization of nature.”

 

Everywhere you look these days, things are turning green. In Chiapas, Mexico, indigenous farmers are being paid to protect the last vast stretch of rainforest in Mesoamerica. In the Brazilian Amazon, peasant families are given a monthly “green basket” of basic food staples to allow them to get by without cutting down trees. In Kenya, small farmers who plant climate-hardy trees and protect green zones are promised payment for their part in the fight to reduce global warming. In Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest nations, fully 19 percent of the country’s surface is leased to a British capital firm that pays families to reforest.
These are a few of the keystone projects that make up what is being called “the green economy”: an emerging approach that promises to protect ­planetary ecology while boosting the economy and fighting poverty.

On its face this may sound like a good thing. Yet, during the recently concluded United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil, tens of thousands of people attending a nearby People’s Summit condemned such approaches to environmental management. Indeed, if social movements gathered in Rio last month had one common platform, it was “No to the green economy.”

Whose Economy? Whose Green?

Just a few years ago, the term “green economy” referred to economies that are locally based, climate friendly, and low-impact. But since the global economic meltdown began in 2007, the green economy has come to mean something more akin to the wholesale privatization of nature. This green economy is about putting a price on natural cycles through a controversial set of policies called “Payments for Ecosystem ...

Treaty That Saved the Ozone May Worsen Climate Change
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 3 August 2012
“The situation is critical: without fast action to limit their growth, HFCs could annually contribute up to 20 percent as much to global warming as carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a recent press release by the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.”

 

The Montreal Protocol, a climate treaty that gathers all U.N. member countries behind the goal of protecting the ozone layer, may not be the “most successful international agreement” anymore, as former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan used to put it.

The treaty has achieved a great deal in the more than two decades it has been in force, with a 97-percent reduction in the consumption of ozone-depleting substances.  However, it is now being widely criticized for worsening climate change by replacing those harmful chemicals with climate-threatening substitutes.

The total phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were widely used as refrigerants and had a high ozone depletion potential, has led to a climate protection bonus equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2 reductions each year, according to the U.N. Environment Program.

To put it in simpler terms, the Protocol had the annual environmental impact of one billion homes being completely off the electrical grid.

But this remarkable achievement is now being undermined by the chemicals that were used to replace CFCs: hydro fluorocarbons, known as HFCs, a group of “super” greenhouse gases.  HFCs, which can be found in many products such as refrigerators and aerosols, are the fastest growing class of greenhouse gas and have extremely high global warming potential, scientists say.

The situation is critical: without fast action to limit their growth, HFCs could annually contribute up to 20 percent as much to global warming as carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a recent press release by the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development

The U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Micronesia have taken a firm stance, proposing an amendment to the Montreal Protocol during the last meeting of state parties in Bangkok last month, which addresses HFCs.

“Phasing down HFCs is essential to… limit the adverse environmental ...

Monsanto May Lose Billions in Brazil Over “Monsanto Tax”
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 8 July 2012
The biotech industry may outdo us in funding ability, but we as consumers still outnumber them.

Brazil, the second-largest producer of genetically modified (GM) crops (after the U.S.), is the latest country to take a stand against biotech giant Monsanto, which could end up handing over at least $2 billion as a result.

A war has been waging against Monsanto in Brazil for nearly a decade, virtually ever since the country legalized farming of GM crops in 2005.

Since then, Monsanto has been charging Brazilian farmers double – once for their seeds, and again when they sell their crops.

Farmers Have Had Enough With Monsanto’s Royalty Taxes and Penalties

In case you’re wondering how Monsanto has risen to the ranks of a superpower, a major reason is their patent on GM seeds, like the GM soya seeds in Brazil, which account for nearly 85 percent of the country’s total soybean crop. Each GM seed is patented and sold under exclusive rights.

Therefore, farmers must purchase the GM seeds every year, because saving seeds (which has long been the traditional way) is considered to be patent infringement. Anyone who does save GM seeds must pay a license fee to actually re-sow them.

But that’s not all.

In Brazil, Monsanto has charged farmers a 2 percent royalty fee on all of their Roundup Ready sales since 2005! And, they test all of the soy seeds marketed as “non-GM” to be sure they don’t contain any Monsanto seeds. If they are found to contain the patented seeds, the farmer is penalized close to 3 percent of his sales!

The issue with the latter penalty is that GM soy is very hard to contain, and often contaminates nearby fields. So farmers are forced to pay a penalty for having their fields contaminated with GM crops, through no fault of their own – and likely against their wishes entirely!

For years now, farmers have been taking Monsanto to court over their excessive fees and taxes, and in 2009, a group of farmers sued the company, claiming the ...

Civil Society Occupies the Rio+20 Earth Summit
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 30 June 2012
Many had high hopes that a 20-year follow-up to the Earth Summit might be an opportunity to redesign the architecture of multilateral talks, a chance for world leaders to take a step back to address basic systemic problems in a holistic manner.

 

Last week, Brazil hosted over 190 heads of state and high-level ministers — including Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao — for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly referred to as Rio+20. In addition to the governmental representatives, the conference also included over 40,000 participants from civil society — which, by the U.N.’s classification, encompasses indigenous leaders, students, climate scientists and the CEOs of multinational corporations.

The formal inclusion of large numbers of civil society groups at the original 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, after all, was unprecedented and part of what made it such an historically significant event. This year, though, these same groups wound up publicly denouncing Rio+20’s failure to deliver meaningful results.

In 1992, the Cold War had just ended and democratic-capitalist “one-worldism” was being proclaimed as the “end of history.” Yet there were serious reasons for pause. We’d recently just barely closed a deal to stop using chemicals that were putting and enormous hole in the ozone (that hole is still there but at least it isn’t getting any bigger), and we’d come to realize that greenhouse gases were beginning to blanket the planet with heat and could make large segments of the earth uninhabitable if we didn’t do anything to reduce emissions. How could a global growth-oriented capitalist system and a global environmental crisis be reconciled?

The inclusion of civil society — an appeal to conceptions of global citizenship and democratic deliberation — was one part of an incomplete answer. The adoption of a set of Rio Principles for sustainable development framed in terms of ...

The Great American Mirage
Taylor
Published: Thursday 28 June 2012
“In an era of globalization, there are no innocent bystanders.”

In September 1998, during the depths of the Asian financial crisis, Alan Greenspan, the United States Federal Reserve’s chairman at the time, had a simple message: the US is not an oasis of prosperity in an otherwise struggling world. Greenspan’s point is even closer to the mark today than it was back then.

Yes, the US economy has been on a weak recovery trajectory over the past three years. But at least it’s a recovery, claim many – and therefore a source of ongoing resilience in an otherwise struggling developed world. Unlike the Great Recession of 2008-2009, today there is widespread hope that America has the capacity to stay the course and provide a backstop for the rest of the world in the midst of the euro crisis.

Think again. Since the first quarter of 2009, when the US economy was bottoming out after its worst postwar recession, exports have accounted for fully 41% of the subsequent rebound. That’s right: with the American consumer on ice in the aftermath of the biggest consumption binge in history, the US economy has drawn its sustenance disproportionately from foreign markets. With those markets now in trouble, the US could be quick to follow.

"Follow Project Syndicate on Facebook or Twitter. For more from Stephen S. Roach, 

New Set of Sustainable Development Goals Looks Beyond 2015
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 19 June 2012
After continued stalemate – over issues relating mostly to financing and technology transfers – the 193-member Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) failed to reach agreement Friday on a blueprint for a green economy and sustainable development worldwide.

 

When world leaders from over 100 countries wind up their three-day Rio+20 summit in Brazil next week, they will leave behind the shattered remains of a slew of proposals that never got off the ground.

A 30-billion-dollar Global Fund for Sustainable Development? A Financial Transactions Tax? A Sustainable Development Index? A Sustainable Development Council? A Global Fund for Education? A World Environment Organisation? An Inter-governmental Body on Tax Matters?

The proposals originated from environmental activists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), human rights groups, the U.N.’s NGO Committee on Financing for Development and a High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.

After continued stalemate – over issues relating mostly to financing and technology transfers – the 193-member Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) failed to reach agreement Friday on a blueprint for a green economy and sustainable development worldwide.

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Politics Heats Up Around Arctic Thaw
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 13 June 2012
The Arctic Council is the only international body that gives indigenous people a seat at the table, noted Tony Penikett, former premier of the Yukon, one of Canada’s three Arctic territories, and a contributor to the report.

The best way to protect the Arctic is for all nations with an interest in the region to participate in its governance – including non-Arctic nations like China, Brazil, and Singapore – suggests a new report.

As global warming creates new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the vast Arctic region, non-Arctic nations should be considered for membership as observers on the influential inter-governmental Arctic Council.

However, there is a growing realization that governments too often put economic interests first and management of the fragile region should be more widely shared.

Granting observer status should be conditional on a public declaration of their “respect for the sovereignty of Arctic states and the rights of Arctic indigenous peoples”, recommends the report “Canada as an Arctic Power”.

The report derives from a special two-day summit convened by the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program, one of Canada’s foremost initiatives on Arctic issues.

The Arctic Council is the only international body that gives indigenous people a seat at the table, noted Tony Penikett, former premier of the Yukon, one of Canada’s three Arctic territories, and a contributor to the report.

“Indigenous peoples have a strong voice and it is very important this continues to be recognized,” Penikett told IPS.

As observers, indigenous peoples have a voice but they don’t have a vote, nor do they have funding to participate in the various activities of the Council, he said. “We are also recommending that the Arctic indigenous people receive more funding so they can participate more fully.”

Singapore is a major shipping nation and has an interest in the opening up of the shipping lanes through the Arctic, while Brazil is interested in the natural resources of the region, he ...

A History of the World, BRIC by BRIC
Amir Gholi
Published: Thursday 26 April 2012
“Neoliberal Dragons, Eurasian Wet Dreams, and Robocop Fantasies.”

Goldman Sachs -- via economist Jim O’Neill -- invented the concept of a rising new bloc on the planet: BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Some cynics couldn’t help calling it the “Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept.”

Not really. Goldman now expects the BRICS countries to account for almost 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, and to include four of the world’s top five economies.

Soon, in fact, that acronym may have to expand to include Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea and, yes, nuclear Iran: BRIIICTSS? Despite its well-known problems as a nation under economic siege, Iran is also motoring along as part of the N-11, yet another distilled concept. (It stands for the next 11 emerging economies.)

The multitrillion-dollar global question remains: Is the emergence of BRICS a signal that we have truly entered a new multipolar world?

Yale’s canny historian Paul Kennedy (of “imperial overstretch” fame) is convinced that we either are about to cross or have already crossed a “historical watershed” taking us far beyond the post-Cold War unipolar world of “the sole superpower.” There are, argues Kennedy, four main reasons for that: the slow erosion of the U.S. dollar (formerly 85% of global reserves, now less than 60%), the “paralysis of the European project,” Asia rising (the end of 500 years of Western hegemony), and the decrepitude of the United Nations.

The

Worker Revolts Delay Mega-Projects in Brazil
Amir Gholi
Published: Wednesday 25 April 2012
“Brazil’s construction industry has historically had a reputation of paying low wages and offering precarious working conditions.”

In Grenoble, France, there is a 40-metre-long scale model of the Jirau dam that is being built in Brazil’s Amazon jungle. The exact replica of the project makes is possible to foresee and analyze possible risks, such as the heavy flow of sediment in the Madeira River.

 

But "the model does not take people into account," which is why it did not help anticipate the workers’ uprisings and strikes against poor working conditions that have twice held up construction for lengthy periods of time since 2011, said Ari Ott, a professor of anthropology at the Federal University of Rondônia in Porto Velho, who describes the dam as "an engineering marvel."

 

Jirau is one of the two big hydroelectric complexes under construction on the Madeira River in the northwestern Brazilian state of Rondônia. Jirau is 130 km from Porto Velho, the state capital, while the Santo Antônio dam is just seven km outside of the city.

 

In the revolt that broke out in March 2011, apparently after a worker was denied transportation to visit a sick family member in the city, nearly all of the lodgings built to house the 16,000 workers were burnt down, along with other buildings and 60 buses and other vehicles.

 

The uprising gave rise to a lengthy strike demanding wage hikes, better transportation, and more frequent permits allowing workers from distant areas to visit home.

 

Work on the dam only gradually got under way again three months later.

 

On Apr. 3, protesters once again set fire to one-third of the housing at Jirau, leaving some 3,200 workers without lodging.

 

But this time, a small group of workers, described as vandals by the company and the government, were identified and arrest warrants were issued for 24 suspects.

 

The new attack on the installations occurred after an assembly in which the Jirau workers decided to ...

The Permaculture Revolution Takes Root in Cities
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 15 April 2012
Permaculture is a promising path to creating sustainable communities, founded on a system of ethics emphasizing the importance of shared values among people.

Putting open source and permaculture together is a savvy combination, and in this case, it’s also really useful. Add crowdsourcing and you have a complete online resource for all things permaculture.

Sophia Novack, a self-described permaculture geek, is currently leading a crowd funding campaign to support the creation of Open Source Permaculture, an online resource and tool, which consists of a Q&A website and wiki, as well as a free Urban Permaculture Guide eBook.

Her vision is to create a comprehensive online public resource for anyone seeking information on sustainability for their home or community. The web site would offer all the resources and support people need, just a click away.

As Novack wrote in an e-mail, she “believes that local, community-oriented solutions are crucial to creating a more sustainable, resilient culture.”

She has already been working on this project for two years by maintaining the Permaculture Media Blog and Permaculture Directory, which she describes as a comprehensive and free resources for Permaculture educational materials and course listings around the globe. The Permaculture Directory has a number of international events listed, which helps people find courses, workshops and festivals devoted to permaculture.

What is Permaculture?

At its core permaculture promotes sustainability, whether it be in agriculture or the urban environment. Novack’s Open Source Permaculture web site defines the term this way:

“Permaculture is a promising path to creating sustainable communities, founded on a system of ethics emphasizing the importance of shared values among people. ...

Birthing Justice: Without Firing an Arm, We Created a Revolution
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 15 April 2012
As the consolidation of land as a private resource for profit-making is global, so is the movement to relate to land in an alternative way, one that meets everyone’s needs.

"We take the land from one hand and put it in the hands of a thousand... landowners would only use this land for cattle, and now we produce beans, milk, food, for the entire population." - Ilda Martines de Souza

Long before the Crusades, through centuries of colonization, to the oil-motivated wars of the present day, land has been the currency of religious, imperial, and national power. Farmers have been made landless by economic and political forces within their own countries, as well as those from far reaches of the globe. Spikes in food prices over recent years have triggered the latest wave of international land grabs, with investment firms snapping up agricultural land, hoping to turn a profit for their investors in the next food crisis. An estimated 50 to 80 million hectares of land have been a part of international investment deals in recent years -- approximately two-thirds of them in Africa.

Land and development experts Shalmali Guttal, Maria Luisa Mendonça and Peter Rosset write:

"Fair and equitable access to land and other resources like water, forests and biodiversity is perhaps the most fundamental prerequisite for... a decent standard of living and... ecologically sustainable management of natural resources."

Today, land access remains largely unfair and inequitable. Never has such a high percentage of the world's population been displaced from their indigenous or ancestral lands, left without land, a secure home, or the ability to feed themselves.

As the consolidation of land as a private resource for profit-making is global, so is the movement to relate ...

Brazil, U.S. Deepen Ties Ahead of Obama’s Latin America Week
Amir Gholi
Published: Tuesday 10 April 2012
“The two leaders also announced the signing of a new civil-aviation accord and the opening by Washington of two new U.S. consulates in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre to facilitate travel by Brazilian businesspeople and tourists to the U.S.”

Adding to a growing basket of "presidential dialogues" that were sealed during Obama's visit to Brazil in March 2011, the two leaders announced the creation of a "Defense Co-operation Dialogue" that will convene in the Latin American giant in two weeks.

 

According to the seven-page communiqué released during the two presidents' lunch, the new dialogue will identify "opportunities for collaboration on defense issues around the globe".

 

The two leaders also announced the signing of a new civil-aviation accord and the opening by Washington of two new U.S. consulates in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre to facilitate travel by Brazilian businesspeople and tourists to the U.S.

 

Indeed, most of Monday's summit meeting, which precedes by just a few days the multinational Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia Apr. 14-15, dealt with issues on which the Americas' two most populous nations have been moving steadily to intensify their bilateral relations – business, energy, and education.

 

"We seek to be a partner, an equal partner, to promote sustainable, diversified, innovation-driven growth that translates into inclusive, long-lasting progress," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared during a morning address to the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, which hosted an all-day forum on U.S.- Brazilian economic ties at which Rousseff herself was to speak later in the day.

 

"We want, together, Brazil and the United States, to work toward creating economic opportunity, a system in which everyone has a fair chance to compete," she added.

 

While the emphasis on both sides Monday was on the positive, the summit could not escape a mutual sense of disappointment in how relations have developed during Obama's presidency.

 

Washington had clearly hoped that, under Rousseff, ...

Wanted: Climate-Smart Agriculture
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 25 February 2012
“On Tuesday, U.S. technology billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates announced nearly 200 million dollars in grants to smallholder farmers, channeled through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

As the links between food security and climate change become increasingly inextricable, the necessity for sustainable agriculture is now a universal concern.

Smallholder farmers in the global South - who suffer most from changes in climate patterns and the degradation of natural resources, since they live and work in the most vulnerable landscapes – are in urgent need of sustainable agricultural technologies, a reality that was recognized at the annual meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which drew to a close in Rome on Thursday.

Despite ongoing economic and financial crises, developed and developing countries alike - represented by hundreds of development leaders and heads of state gathered in Rome for the 35th session of the Governing Council - committed 1.5 billion dollars to finance agriculture and rural development projects throughout the developing world.

During the two-day event, representatives from IFAD's 167 member states addressed the connection between overcoming poverty and food insecurity, and discussed how to ensure food security to a growing population while simultaneously protecting the environment.

In December 2011, member states gave a boost to sustainable agriculture with 1.5 billion dollars in new contributions to IFAD.

Now, the U.N. agency says it is scaling up its efforts even further to better link climate-smart technologies and sustainable agriculture in more than 40 countries.

"To help implement IFAD’s environmental policy and climate change strategy, we have developed a groundbreaking initiative called the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Program, or ASAP, which will help channel (funds) into climate-smart, sustainable investments in poor, smallholder communities," IFAD’s president Kanayo Nwanze announced in his opening statement at the conference.

Representatives of smallholders, family farmers, pastoralists and ...

Will Emerging Markets Fall in 2012?
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 21 January 2012
“The empirical argument is simply historically based numerology: emerging-market crises seem to come in a 15-year cycle.”

Emerging markets have performed amazingly well over the last seven years. In many cases, they have far outperformed the advanced industrialized countries in terms of economic growth, debt-to-GDP ratios, countercyclical fiscal policy, and assessments by ratings agencies and financial markets.

As 2012 begins, however, investors are wondering if emerging markets may be due for a correction, triggered by a new wave of “risk off” behavior. Will China experience a hard landing? Will a decline in commodity prices hit Latin America? Will the European Union’s sovereign-debt woes spread to neighbors such as Turkey?

Indeed, few believe that the rapid economic growth and high trade deficits that Turkey has experienced in recent years can be sustained. Likewise, high GDP growth rates in Brazil and Argentina over the same period could soon reverse, particularly if global commodity prices fall – not a remote prospect if the Chinese economy begins to falter or global  READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

The Myth of “Isolated” Iran
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 18 January 2012
“Following the Money in the Iran Crisis”

Let's start with red lines. Here it is, Washington’s ultimate red line, straight from the lion’s mouth.  Only last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said of the Iranians, “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us.”

How strange, the way those red lines continue to retreat.  Once upon a time, the red line for Washington was “enrichment” of uranium. Now, it’s evidently an actual nuclear weapon that can be brandished. Keep in mind that, since 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has stressed that his country is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from the U.S. Intelligence Community has similarly stressed that Iran is not, in fact, developing a nuclear weapon (as opposed to the breakout capacity to build one someday).

What if, however, there is no “red line,” but something completely different? Call it the ...

The Unsustainable Political Deficiencies of Environmentalism
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 28 December 2011
“The virtual consensus that the planet is heading for catastrophe if urgent measures are not taken is not accompanied by the necessary political clout to bring about actions considered indispensable for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The environmental movement won the ideological battle with the growth of awareness on climate change. Environmentalists are no longer seen as "loonies" or granola-eating hippies: the people seen as on the fringe" now are the climate skeptics who deny that global warming is caused by human activity.

Increasingly frequent extreme weather events and rising sea levels have helped convince people to take the warnings seriously, rather than dismissing or playing them down like in the recent past.

The term "sustainability" has even become part of the business jargon, and consumer rights campaigns urge companies to sign corporate social and environmental responsibility agreements, promising not to buy wood or beef produced at the expense of the Amazon rainforest, for example. But the scientific legitimacy of environmentalists' claims and demands does not translate into political influence when it comes to decision-making time, such as at the international conferences that try to establish a global treaty to curb global warming.

The virtual consensus that the planet is heading for catastrophe if urgent measures are not taken is not accompanied by the necessary political clout to bring about actions considered indispensable for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The momentum achieved in the 1990s by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the Kyoto Protocol signed five years later in Japan seems to have been lost, despite the increased knowledge about the threat to humanity.

The environmental crisis is one of the challenges to the survival of democracy in the 21st century, according to a group of intellectuals brought together periodically by the International Research Institute on Civilization Policy (IIRPC) in Poitiers, France to discuss pressing global ...

Student Protests Spread Throughout Region
Taylor
Published: Saturday 26 November 2011
In support of Chile’s ongoing student protests, and voicing their own demands, thousands of people took to the streets in more than a dozen cities in Latin America Thursday demanding quality public education.

The Latin American March for Education was called by the Chilean students' confederation, and demonstrations were held in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. 

Some 10,000 protesters - according to the organisers - marched through the streets of Santiago once again demanding reforms of the educational system. And again, there was a crackdown by the anti-riot police, who arrested some 60 people. 

The demonstrations in other cities in the region were peaceful, with the exception of an incident in Bogotá, Colombia where the police fired tear gas.

"Today is a very special day because we are marching throughout Latin America," Esteban Miranda, president of the University of Chile law students centre, told IPS. 

He said the region-wide mobilisation was a demonstration of the similarity of demands by students in the region, as well as of the support for the movement in Chile.

"They are hanging in there with us, because we still have a long road ahead," the student leader said. 

José Barrera, a civil engineering student at the Catholic University, said that what is happening in Chile "is an example of what education is like when it's privatised, when it is no longer defended as a right of everyone." 

An education law enacted by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet set off a process of decentralisation and privatisation that gave private schools free rein to pursue profit and use entrance exams to select their students. 

The Chilean system is not just divided into paid private education and tuition-free public education, but is split into three: municipal schools run by local governments, which are publicly funded and free, state-subsidised private schools, and private schools that charge tuition.

Within the sphere of state-subsidised ...

Jobs for Justice
Moderator
Published: Saturday 26 November 2011
“The main victims of this state of affairs are women and the young, for whom employment ratios are much lower than for the population as a whole.”

“Do you feel it trickle down?” ask the protesters occupying Wall Street and parts of financial districts from London to San Francisco. They are not alone in their anxiety. Income inequality is a top concern not only in tent cities across the United States, but also among street protesters in Taipei, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Athens, Madrid, Santiago, and elsewhere.

Inequality almost everywhere, including China, has become so extreme that it must be reduced. Protesters, experts, and center-left politicians agree on this – and on little else. The debate about inequality’s causes is complex and often messy; the debate about how to address it is messier still.

In the rich countries of the global north, the widening gap between rich and poor results from technological change, globalization, and the misdeeds of investment bankers. In the not-so-rich countries of the south, much inequality is the consequence of a more old-fashioned problem: lack of employment opportunities for the poor.

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The Public Option in Banking: Another Look at The German Model
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 18 October 2011
“One of the demands voiced by protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement is for a ‘public option’ in banking.”

 

Publicly-owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany’s “economic miracle” after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.

One of the demands voiced by protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement is for a “public option” in banking. What that means was explained by Dr. Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in an interview by Paul Jay of the Real News Network on October 6:

[T]he demand isn’t simply to make a public bank but is to treat the banks generally as a public utility, just as you treat electric companies as a public utility. . . . Just as there was pressure for a public option in health care, there should be a public option in banking. There should be a government bank that offers credit card rates without punitive 30% interest rates, without penalties, without raising the rate if you don’t pay your electric bill. This is how America got strong in the 19th and early 20th century, by essentially having public infrastructure, just like you’d have roads and bridges. . . ...

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