Bob Geldof and Bono may have screwed it for the world’s poorest countries. These are two well-meaning guys, and they certainly deserve kudos for the attention they have helped to focus on the plight of the world’s poor. But when they offered flippant sound bites last week about plans to relieve some of the debt of poor nations, they set back the path to economic justice by huge strides. It must be assumed they did not do so deliberately, but their fame and their ability to buttonhole the leaders of the wealthiest nations may have clouded their judgment enough to prevent them from remembering that they are spokespeople, not experts.

On June 11, the finance ministers of seven of the world’s leading industrial nations (the G8, minus Russia) agreed to write off the debt of the 18 poorest countries (14 of them in Africa). It is expected that a further nine African countries may qualify for similar relief over the next 12 to 18 months. Although the agreement still needs formal approval at the G8 Summit to be held in Scotland in early July, it sounds like good news and a noble humanitarian gesture. But is it? And what is actually to be written off?

Anyone with even a simple grasp of the issues will recognize that the conditions attached to the alleged debt relief are actually more onerous than the debt they relieve. When Geldof pronounced the deal as “a victory for millions” and Bono described it as “a little piece of history”, they set back by large strides the hard work that has been done round the world by those fighting to end poverty. For those workers know, even if Geldof and Bono don’t — or didn’t remember — that the enforced economic liberalization and privatization are not designed to ease third world debt, they are designed to open further lucrative investment opportunities for the West in a form of econo-colonialism. Geldof and Bono are running the risk that they will defuse the political campaign toward global justice and relegate any aid or relief to philanthropy.
Full: axisoflogic.com

‘Well meaning guys’?? The best that can be said of these two is that they are fools, and that’s a charity…

Iran’s conservative press hailed president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday as a man who could take on the United States and uphold the moral principles of the Islamic revolution.

The hardline conservative mayor of Tehran defeated moderate cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a landslide election win, but has sparked concerns that his brand of conservatism will enflame a row over Iran’s atomic program.

Ahmadinejad has struck a defiant stance on Iran’s nuclear fuel program, that Washington argues is needed for atomic weapons, saying Tehran could never surrender its technology.

The conservative Kayhan newspaper wrote Ahmadinejad’s win would scupper U.S. attempts to flex its muscles in the Middle East under what it called a smokescreen of spreading democracy.

“The recent election and the people’s leaning toward a devout man … means America’s plot of democratization in the region has backfired,” wrote editor Hossein Shariatmadari.

The Tehran Times said the new president would put Islamic principles back at the center of policy making.

“The election signifies a return to the idealistic principles that have been forgotten over the past few years,” read an editorial in the conservative newspaper.

Ahmadinejad, 48, has already called for the nation to unite behind him in a spirit of solidarity, saying: “We have to forget all our rivalries and turn them into friendships.”

Major policy decisions on the nuclear program, which Tehran denies is a ploy to get atomic weapons, are ultimately taken by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said his over-arching policy was unlikely to change and a new president would not be able to strike a harder line independently in nuclear negotiations with the European Union.

The European Union reacted warily to Ahmadinejad, who takes office in August.

“From the new President Ahmadinejad we are waiting for clear words on human rights and the nuclear issue. But if the replies are negative, the European Union will have no choice but to freeze dialogue with Iran,” European commissioner Franco Frattini told Italy’s La Repubblica daily.
Full: nytimes.com/reuters

He sounds like the CIA candidate to me…

Japan is worried that technology for a long-range cruise missile that can carry nuclear warheads may have been leaked to North Korea from Iran, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.

At issue is technology used in cruise missiles known as Kh-55s that Ukraine exported to Iran in 2001 under former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, the Sankei Shimbun daily said, quoting Japanese government and ruling party sources.

“They are linked by a network beneath the surface regarding the development of weapons of mass destruction,” Sankei quoted a Defense Ministry source as saying about Iran and North Korea.

The possible leak of technology was conveyed to Japan by a U.S. intelligence agency, said Sankei, a conservative daily.

Developed in the late 1970s in the former Soviet Union, the Kh-55s have a range of 3,000 km (1,864 miles), long enough to hit any part of Japan if deployed by North Korea, Sankei said.

Ukraine said in March that cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads had been “smuggled” out of the country to Iran, but denied a report they had been exported with official sanction.
Full: nytimes.com/reuters

You can just hear the wheels in motion…

by Colin MacInnes
I have watched a young mother die because she did not have the money for a simple appendix operation, and neither did I.
I have looked on in despair as whole families were thrown on to the street because they could not pay their rent. Of the 700,000 Ecuadorean children whose parents could not afford to matriculate them for this school year, I know that many are from the barrio where I have lived and worked for the past 20 years.

Why refer to these facts? Because they remind me of one element that will continue to condemn the young and innocent to permanent poverty, to disease and to life on the margins of civilisation – the country’s external debt, often referred to in Spanish as the eternal debt.
The Ecuadorean, and indeed Latin American, foreign debt has a long history, but I believe that as a world community we are quite capable of solving the human, social and economic problems of our times. I also believe that we are doing very little about it. I consider that our politicians, bar a few exceptions, do little more than parade on the world stage. They have betrayed their vocation towards humanity. They are cowardly, incompetent and incapable of facing up to the challenge of world poverty.

There is a desperate need to construct a world where justice is not just another supermarket commodity to be bought by the rich and powerful but denied to the poor and marginalised; a world where poverty is not just another topic for presidents and prime ministers who have lost their scripts; where solidarity is not merely preached from the pulpits but practised in the streets and in the Wall Streets of the world. I am convinced that if the people of Britain knew of the unjust manner in which the debt was accrued, of how it is used to perpetrate a system of exclusion and oppression, of how it affects the dignity and self-esteem of peoples and nations, they would become unrelenting crusaders in the fight to solve this problem.

Our mistake is to consider the foreign debt as a mere mathematical calculation illustrating how much is loaned by one party and therefore to be paid back by the other. It is far more complex than that; it is a socio-economic and human tragedy going back more than two centuries to a time when many Latin American countries were involved in wars of independence against Spain and needed arms. It was also a time when Britain wanted to exploit the weakness in the Spanish empire and so bundles of pound notes were dangled before the eyes of desperate peoples in need of ready cash to finance their wars.

At times ignorant of financial transactions, of the impact of interest rates that could rise as high as 40%, Latin American leaders were only too ready to sign along the dotted line. After all, as a General Trujillo remarked: “These English gentlemen are so generous with their money.” The more astute Andean liberator, Simon Bolivar, was soon to comment: “We have more to fear from the English debt than the Spanish sword.” How right he was.

British interests were well served. Apart from weakening Spanish power in the region, the British opened up lucrative markets for their developing industries. They were able to gain rights to gold and silver mines and the extraction of pearls and other raw materials for their more advanced industries. Areas of land with no predetermined valuation were often negotiated as collateral.

“With conscience wide as hell,” as Shakespeare wrote in another context, English bankers and entrepreneurs floated around Latin America trading pounds for inestimable political and commercial advantages. The Scots did not lag behind, and, in the person of Gregor McGregor, provided a bizarre example of the exploitation that was rife at the time. McGregor was a soldier in the Colombian patriotic army and later a pirate on the Caribbean. In 1820 he negotiated a treaty with the Miskitos indians of Nicaragua and obtained the title of “Prince of Poyais”.

With this most prestigious position, he was made more than welcome in the British court and the London financial world and so was able to negotiate loans and underwrite bonds to the tune of £200,000. With money so readily available on the London markets, it is little wonder that he felt disinclined to return to pirating in the Caribbean.

These initial experiences in the international credit market were just a taste of what was to follow. Corrupt dictators were desperate to borrow money to secure their often precarious political posts. “Borrow now and someone else will pay later” was their persistent ideology.

The frequent revolutions and civil wars in Latin America were ready-made territories for the arms traders, who became international bankers overnight. The international corporations could not miss out on the spoils. One outrageous example happened when an ingenuous government signed an improbable contract to build a railway across the mountains of Honduras to transport “ocean-going liners” from the Atlantic to the Pacific and secure perpetual prosperity for the country.

There is, however, a growing awareness among ordinary people of this type of blatant misappropriation and the injustices of the international money-lending system. The peoples of Latin America have moved from questioning the debt to outright declarations of protest. Ecuador paid 57% of its national income in the jubilee year of 2000 for the interest on its debt, and this year will have to borrow money in order to meet premium debt payments. The foreign debt is an immoral imposition, an illegal burden, a death sentence on future development and prosperity.

All Ecuadorean children are saddled with a debt of $1,212 the day they are born. This debt will increase to $25,000 before they receive their first wage. No wonder a litany of protest is spreading: “We have already paid the borrowed money many times over. We should not be made responsible for money that we never had access to nor ever benefited from. They stripped us of our gold reserves as war booty. They exploited our wealth in minerals and raw materials. Their industries have caused unknown ecological damage. Our forests have been savaged to extract oil, our mountains to open mines. Our coasts and seas have been plundered by industrial fishing. We say that we are not the debtors.” What do you say?
Full: guardian.co.uk

Anglicans yesterday voted to urge their member churches to consider disinvesting from companies involved in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.

The Anglican consultative council voted unanimously for the measure, which was opposed by the last archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi, who fear it will damage Jewish and Christian relations. Among those voting for yesterday’s measure was Dr Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, a council spokesman said.
Full: guardian.co.uk

WASHINGTON, June 24 – A federal appeals court sided with the Bush administration on Friday, upholding its revisions of the Clean Air Act to allow plant operators to modernize without installing expensive new pollution control equipment. The ruling turned back challenges to the revisions by New York, California and a dozen other states.

In upholding central provisions of the regulations known as New Source Review, the court concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted within its rights in issuing rules in 2002 that allowed operators of power plants, refineries, and factories greater flexibility in controlling emissions of air pollutants than they had previously.

Representatives of the electric power industry, which had strongly supported the new regulations, hailed the ruling as a victory. The new rules require owners of older plants to upgrade emission-control equipment to standards for new plants only if they make substantial improvements. Plant owners and the E.P.A. have consistently disagreed over how to differentiate between routine maintenance and large-scale upgrades.
Full: nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — With barely a word about it, workers at the Justice Department Friday removed the blue drapes that have famously covered two scantily clad statues for the past 3 1/2 years.

Spirit of Justice, with her one breast exposed and her arms raised, and the bare-chested male Majesty of Law basked in the late afternoon light of Justice’s ceremonial Great Hall.

The drapes, installed in 2002 at a cost of $8,000, allowed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to speak in the Great Hall without fear of a breast showing up behind him in television or newspaper pictures. They also provoked jokes about and criticism of the deeply religious Ashcroft.

The 12-foot, 6-inch aluminum statues were installed shortly after the building opened in the 1930s.

With a change in leadership at Justice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced the question: Would they stay or would they go?

He regularly deflected the question, saying he had weightier issues before him.

Paul R. Corts, the assistant attorney general for administration, recommended the drapes be removed and Gonzales signed off on it, spokesman Kevin Madden said, while refusing to allow The Associated Press to photograph the statues Friday.

In the past, snagging a photo of the attorney general in front of the statues has been somewhat of a sport for photographers.
Full: washingtonpost.org

Crimes against humanity and treason are not obscene, female breasts are. These are nightmare people.

MILAN/ROME (Reuters) – An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA for “kidnapping” an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan and flying him to Egypt where he said he was tortured, judicial sources said on Friday.

“In the judge’s order, it (the abduction) is clearly attributed to the CIA,” a source said.

Confirming the arrest warrant without mentioning the U.S. intelligence agency, the prosecutors office said the 13 suspects were believed to be behind the abduction of imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was grabbed off a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003 and stuffed into a white van.

Nasr was then taken to a U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy and flown to Egypt, stopping over on the way in Ramstein, Germany, to change planes, the prosecutors’ statement said.

The judicial source cited the warrant, which has still not been made public, as saying a CIA agent known to Italian authorities coordinated the operation.
A HREF=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401060_pf.html”>Full: washingtonpost.com

Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.

“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,” Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, “I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.”

Told of Mr. Rove’s remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: “In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes.”

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others.”

“Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?” Mr. Rove asked. “Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”

Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, speaking after Mr. Rove, also touched on the Sept. 11 attacks. He promised that the proposed Freedom Tower, the new building at ground zero, would retain patriotic touches in its architecture, like a height of 1,776 feet, despite the concerns of some observers who fear that it would become a target for terrorists.

“We’re going to have a Freedom Tower that soars 1,776 feet high, symbolizing our independence,” Mr. Pataki said. As for the memorial, he said: “No one is going to turn it into something that is a negative statement about America and our belief in freedom, so long as I am governor of this state.”
Full: nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — Cities may bulldoze people’s homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.

The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn’t expect a rush to claim homes.

“The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings,” said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.

The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue.

“Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government,” Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what’s best for a community.
washingtonpost.com