Sterling hit a new high for the year against the US dollar today as disappointing employment data from America gave traders an excuse to sell.
The pound rose to more than $1.86, the highest level seen since May 2005.
guardian.co.uk
What do you say about an airline screening system that tends to mistake government employees and U.S. servicemen for foreign terrorists?
Newly released government documents show that even having a high-level security clearance won’t keep you off the Transportation Security Administration’s Kafkaesque terrorist watch list, where you’ll suffer missed flights and bureaucratic nightmares.
According to logs from the TSA’s call center from late 2004 — which black out the names of individuals to protect their privacy — the watch list has snagged:
A State Department diplomat who protested that “I fly 100,00 miles a year and am tired of getting hassled at Dulles airport — and airports worldwide — because my name apparently closely resembles that of a terrorist suspect.”
A person with an Energy Department security clearance.
An 82-year-old veteran who says he’s never even had a traffic ticket.
A technical director at a science and technology company who has been working with the Pentagon on chemical and biological weapons defense.
A U.S. Navy officer who has been enlisted since 1984.
A high-ranking government employee with a better-than-top-secret clearance who is also a U.S. Army Reserve major.
A federal employee traveling on government business who says the watch list matching “has resulted in ridiculous delays at the airports, despite my travel order, federal ID and even my federal passport.”
A high-level civil servant at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
An active-duty Army officer who had served four combat tours (including one in Afghanistan) and who holds a top-secret clearance.
A retired U.S. Army officer and antiterrorism/force-protection officer with expertise on weapons of mass destruction who was snared when he was put back on active-duty status while flying on a ticket paid for by the Army.
A former Pentagon employee and current security-cleared U.S. Postal Service contractor.
wired.com
PARIS, May 3 Ñ The Arc de Triomphe, the towers of Notre Dame and, now, pup tents for the poor. There is new architecture springing up along the streets of this stately city, a counterpoint to the stone monuments and Beaux-Arts apartment buildings for which the French capital is known.
Since the frigid days of late December, Doctors of the World, a French organization that helps the homeless, has been distributing nylon tents to the growing number of people who sleep on the city’s sidewalks and beneath its bridges.
Not everyone is pleased.
nytimes.com
Poor women in America are increasingly likely to have unwanted pregnancies, whereas relatively affluent women are succeeding more and more in getting pregnant only when they want to, according to a study analyzing federal statistics.
As a result of the growing disparity, women living in poverty are now almost four times more likely to become pregnant unintentionally than women of greater means, the study found.
washingtonpost.com
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – A 14-year-old boy kicked and punched by guards at a juvenile boot camp died because the sheriff’s officials suffocated him, a medical examiner said Friday, contradicting a colleague who blamed the death on a usually benign blood disorder.
“Martin Anderson’s death was caused by suffocation due to actions of the guards at the boot camp,” said Dr. Vernard Adams, who conducted the second autopsy.
Adams said the suffocation was caused by hands blocking the boy’s mouth, as well as the “forced inhalation of ammonia fumes” that caused his vocal cords to spasm, blocking his upper airway. The guards had said in an incident report that they used ammonia capsules to keep Anderson conscious.
guardian.co.uk
MEXICO CITY, May 3 (IPS) – “They torture and kill us because we are different. But we are going to put an end to that from below, where the best people are found,” Zapatista guerrilla leader ÔSubcomandante’ Marcos said in the Mexican capital Wednesday, addressing a crowd made up of transvestites, homosexuals, prostitutes and indigenous people, who cheered him on.
Sporting his trademark black ski mask and military-style outfit, Marcos said his six-month tour of Mexico, which began in January, is the seed of “a great movement that will rise up to put an end to the hypocrisy” of the political parties, the government and “the powerful.”
The spokesman for the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), an indigenous group that rose up in arms in January 1994 in the impoverished southern Mexican state of Chiapas, is leading what the rebel group calls “the other campaign,” by contrast to the ongoing campaign for the Jul. 2 presidential elections.
The aim of Marcos’ tour is to bring together “the true left” and marginalised sectors of society in a front seeking to bring about “change from below” through peaceful social struggle.
The barely-armed insurgent group scorns traditional electoral politics and all of the country’s parties, including the leftwing Party for the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
“We have learned to respect the struggle of sex workers,” Marcos said Wednesday, the last day of a six-day visit to the capital, where he also met with organisations of students, campesinos (peasants) and slumdwellers.
He said prostitutes and others who are exploited and “looked down upon” form part of “the other campaign” and are the seed of structural changes that he believes must be brought about on the political, economic and cultural fronts in Mexico.
Marcos urged his listeners not to put up with mistreatment “from above,” and to fight for their rights.
ipsnews.net
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Vicente Fox will not sign widely criticized narcotics legislation until Congress removes parts of the law that decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs, his office said on Wednesday.
The president’s office said the law would be sent back to Congress for revision.
“In our country the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, crimes,” the office said in a statement.
The approval of the legislation, passed by Congress last week, surprised Washington, which counts on Mexico’s support in its war against gangs that move massive quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines through Mexico to U.S. consumers.
It was also criticized by authorities in tourist towns who worried about a flood of thrill-seeking visitors.
reuters.com
Gee, no mention about what/who made Fox change his mind.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) – Evo Morales’ sudden energy nationalization in Bolivia could fuel growing demands for an end to the free-market economic policies that have done little to ease grinding poverty across the Andean region.
For Bolivia’s indigenous majority, this week’s nationalization decree and troop deployment at gas fields is the culmination of a struggle for the control of natural resources that is being played out in Ecuador and Peru too.
It also comes against the backdrop of growing state control of the oil sector in Venezuela, orchestrated by Morales’ main foreign ally, leftist President Hugo Chavez.
But Morales’ move, which alarmed investors and angered some friendly governments, is the most sweeping so far and could galvanize others in the region to go further in limiting foreign ownership.
“(The nationalization) will be seen in the region as someone making a choice and as an example of leadership,” said Xavier Albo, a Bolivian anthropologist who works for an NGO supporting indigenous groups.
“It could be seen as an audacious step toward sovereignty … Evo is already a source of inspiration in the region,” he said, adding Morales’ criticism of U.S. influence in the area has raised his regional profile.
His decision resonated in Peru, where the camp of nationalist Ollanta Humala, the first round winner of a presidential race, applauded the move.
“We respect what Bolivia has done … it is a search for autonomy,” said Gonzalo Garcia, who advises Humala on economics as he battles rival leftist Alan Garcia for the presidency.
“There’s a real need for Latin America to achieve an energy independence to bring down costs and pass the benefits on to the poor,” he added.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT BACKLASH
By nationalizing vast natural gas reserves, Bolivia’s first indigenous president has taken up the baton of increased state control from Chavez, even at the risk of alienating Brazil, its massive neighbor whose energy investments will suffer.
The hardline stance against Washington’s free-market prescriptions, which have done little for the 100 million Latin Americans living on $1 a day, is popular.
“It’s about time someone stood up to the foreign companies,” Carla Medrano said in the slum city of El Alto where priests gathered on Wednesday to thank Mother Earth for the energy nationalization announced by Morales on Monday.
Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, has more indigenous people than European descendants, while Ecuador and Peru have large Indian populations as well.
Some 50 million people live in the three countries that are the heart of the Andean region.
In unstable Ecuador, indigenous peasants have blocked roads in recent months to protest negotiations on a U.S. free trade pact.
Indigenous groups have also called for nationalization of the energy sector and particularly the expulsion of U.S. companies from South America’s No. 5 oil producer.
“(Bolivia’s nationalization) represents an important outside reference point for Ecuador’s indigenous movements that have lost power in recent years,” said Hernan Reyes, sociology professor at Ecuador’s branch of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences.
In Peru, Humala has won support with calls to champion the poor and scrap a trade deal with Washington.
Facing a second-round runoff next month, he says that while he does not plan to nationalize mining and energy companies, he wants to rewrite their contracts to increase the state’s participation.
But Larry Birns, director of the left-leaning Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, expects Morales’ influence to spread.
“He (Morales) is capable of becoming an important regional leader and (the nationalization) could be the opening salvo in a new battle to return to an era when state control of natural resources was unquestioned,” he said.
news.yahoo.com
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — South American leaders scrambled to avert a regional crisis over Bolivia’s nationalization of its natural gas sector as Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez flew with Bolivian President Evo Morales to a hastily arranged summit in Argentina on Thursday.
Morales had announced Monday that he had nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas reserves and will reduce foreign participants to minority players — giving the companies six months to sign contracts or leave Bolivia.
The socialist Chavez, a political mentor and ally of the leftist Morales, said he came to Bolivia late Wednesday not to give advice but to offer ”congratulations and learn from Bolivia’s wisdom.”
”With good will, Morales will reach the agreements he needs to make with the foreign companies,” Chavez said after arriving in the capital of La Paz.
Chavez spoke after Brazil — Bolivia’s biggest gas client — summarily announced it would cut off all new petroleum investment in Bolivia, where it has invested $1.6 billion to boost production over the last decade.
The European Union, meanwhile, expressed concern over Morales’ order for army troops to guard more than 50 natural gas installations, most operated by foreign companies since Bolivia privatized petroleum production in the mid-1990s.
Morales and Chavez flew to the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu along the border with Brazil to join Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.
Foreign companies now face audits of their Bolivian operations by authorities ahead of the contract negotiations, Hydrocarbons Minister Andres Soliz told a news conference Wednesday in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where most foreign oil companies have their Bolivian headquarters.
Morales has long claimed that Bolivia’s natural gas resources have been ”looted” by multinational companies.
While Silva said he believes he can negotiate a solution to the controversy, he asserted he will defend contracts giving Brazil rights to Bolivian gas. ”The fact that Bolivia has rights does not deny the fact that Brazil has rights in the matter as well,” Silva said.
Morales and Chavez also planned to discuss Chavez’s idea to construct a 5,600-mile pipeline linking Venezuela’s vast natural gas reserves through Brazil to Argentina, Chavez said.
The pipeline, estimated at $25 billion, would also branch to Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay — though experts have predicted it could cost more and environmentalists say the plan could damage the Amazon.
Chavez confirmed that Venezuela’s state petroleum company PDVSA will help finance, with an unspecified amount of money, the construction of an ethane, methalene and propane plant in Bolivia.
Morales reiterated his determination to proceed with the nationalization.
”We’ve received many telephone calls, been faced with some threats by some companies, but others wanting to cooperate and support this profound transformation process in the country,” Morales said late Wednesday, without naming specific companies.
While Morales wants Bolivia’s cash-strapped state-owned Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos petroleum company to dominate gas production as part of the nationalization plan, the company has functioned as little more than a bureaucracy for a decade since the Bolivia’s gas industry was privatized. Experts say it would take a huge infusion of cash to transform the company into a capable operation.
Bolivia wants the company to oversee all aspects of gas production, refining and sales — but it’s not clear how it can come up with the money and expertise it needs to wrest control of the industry from the foreign companies now managing it.
Morales, a populist who won a landslide victory in December, has long vowed to take back control of Bolivia’s natural resources. While Bolivia has vast mineral and forestry wealth, the country’s most valuable asset is its natural gas reserves — the continent’s second-largest after Venezuela.
Under Monday’s decree, foreign companies must sell a majority stake of their participation to YPFB. Yet it remains unclear how Bolivia will come up with the several billion dollars needed for that deal.
nytimes.com
MOSCOW, May 4 – Vice President Dick Cheney today delivered the Bush administration’s strongest rebuke of Russia to date, saying the Russian government “unfairly and improperly restricted” people’s rights and suggesting that it sought to use the country’s vast oil and gas resources as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.”
nytimes.com