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At first the event sounds like a simple textbook story illustrating the conflicts which the world’s rich nations have for centuries been fighting over access to fossil fuels and other natural wealth. On September 21 last, an Arctic Forum was held in the Russian capital of Moscow. Organized by the Russian Geographic Society together with Russia’s press agency RIA Novosti, the Forum brought together hundreds of scientists and politicians hailing from countries bordering the Arctic region and from countries located farther away. Russia’s government, evidently pleased with the Forum, used the occasion to boost its own claims over large parts of the North Pole which is (still) covered by an icecap. In 2007 Russia already had pushed its claims, when its scientists had boarded a mini-submarine and had planted a rust-free flag of their nation on the bottom of the North Pole. Earlier yet, in 2001, Russia had submitted its bid to ownership over the underwater ridge known as ‘Lomonosov’ to the United Nations, arguing that the given geographic formation is an extension of Russia’s continental shelf. As Russian news reports on the Arctic Forum indicate, – Russia believes its claim to 1.2 million kilometer of the Arctic circle are in line with the rules set by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Yet Russia is by no means the only country that lays claims to a part of the North Pole. In fact, each of the five nations bordering the Arctic has been making its own separate bids. Denmark for instance, which rules over the vast ice-covered land mass of Greenland, largely located within the Arctic circle, has carried out its own scientific expedition aimed at backing up its own claims. And Denmark’s Scandinavian neighbor Norway has officially demanded that its rights over the eastern part of the Arctic be extended. The rationale underlying the fever of the Arctic border states appears to be just one: to reach out to the rich reserves of oil and gas deposited at the bottom of the Arctic circle, – either before or after the icecap of the North Pole melts. Both Russia and the USA, which too borders the region, i.e. from its Western side via Alaska state, are convinced that vast quantities of fossil fuels and other raw materials lie buried under the Arctic sea. According to figures of American experts that were cited at the Moscow Forum, – the Arctic’s extractable reserves include an estimated 90 Billion barrels of crude oil, and 50 Billion cubic meters of natural gas. Such figures suffice to entice energy-hungry nations. Especially at a time when the world is reaching ‘peak oil’, the point at which any further growth in the world’s size of oil production becomes elusive in view of the physical exhaustion of extractable reserves.

This story regarding competing ‘territorial’ claims may appear ordinary. Still, the circumstances surrounding future extraction of Arctic resources are by no means average. First, the North Pole, as indicated, is no land mass, but a deep sea area. Like the Antarctic, i.e. the pole located towards the Southern extreme of the globe, the North pole has been covered by ice ever since humans started roaming the earth. But the geographical circumstances of the two polar regions are widely divergent. Whereas the Antarctic is an ice-covered landmass surrounded by sea, – the centre of the Arctic features a deep sea area capped by ice. For two reasons, the idea of oil and natural gas extraction in this polar region is an extremely hazardous proposition. For one – the experience which the world’s oil corporations have gathered with drilling in areas covered by ice is limited. More ominously: BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April brings out that all deep sea drilling is risky, and that such drilling can easily result in a human and environmental catastrophe. In the wake of the oil spill, opponents of Arctic drilling in Alaska have intensified their efforts to prevent exploratory drilling by Shell along Alaska’s Northern shore. Yet one wonders whether the prohibition on deep sea drilling need not be greatly extended, so as to cover all sections of the Arctic.

To bring out that this proposition is not farfetched, we need to place Moscow’s Arctic Forum and the ‘territorial’ conflicts over the North Pole against the background of the debate over climate change. The risks deriving from the warming-up of the earth can very well be illustrated with data on the situation in the Arctic. If the whole ice sheet covering Greenland today were to melt, – this change alone according to climate experts would result in a 7 meter rise in sea levels worldwide. But the melting of ice in Greenland is not a distant prospect, for the effects of climate change are already visible here. Some of Greenland’s glaciers for instance have accelerated the speed at which they flow towards the sea along the country’s coast. One of these glaciers, the Kangerdlunggssuag, is reported to have doubled the velocity of its flow. As to the Arctic circle as a whole: the Arctic ice sheet has lost a reported 15 percent of its surface over the last thirty years, and 40 percent of its thickness. Both indigenous hunters and animals which depend on the ice sheet for their habitat suffer in consequence. The ice bear is one instance. Considered to be the symbol of the Arctic, the ice bear is threatened with extinction in the short term.

Against this background, the Moscow Forum on the Arctic seemed a rather surrealistic event. For the Arctic circle is the very region where the drama of the world’s climate catastrophe threatens being enacted. Two of the natural phenomena which scientists describe when speaking of ‘tipping points‘, of natural changes that in the future will speed up the pace of climate change, occur in the Arctic circle and its surroundings. The Arctic´s ice sheet causes what´s called the albedo effect, i.e. the reflection of the sun´s light back into space. And the permafrost, i.e. frozen soil, which covers a vast expanse of Russian territory along the Arctic, contains huge amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane. Hence, the melting processes taking place in this part of the globe may ultimately cause a worldwide deluge, – a rise in sea water levels so rapid that hundreds of millions of people will be swept away almost overnight. Meanwhile, some states are getting prepared to enforce their claims over portions of the Arctic by military means. Russia reportedly is building special Arctic armed forces, and Canada has started construction of a military base in the region. Yet the very idea of oil and gas exploration in the Arctic circle seems an absurd proposition. Instead, there are strong reasons to demand that Russia and other Northern nations refrain from any exploration or extraction of fuel resources in the North Pole and the Arctic.

By Dr. Peter Custers

16 October, 2010

Countercurrents.org

TRANSCRIPT

The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity. This was candidly foreseen by scientist Albert Einstein who was able to measure their destructive capability to generate millions of degrees of heat, which would vaporize everything within a wide radius of action. This brilliant researcher had promoted the development of this weapon so that it would not become available to the genocidal Nazi regime.

Each and every government in the world has the obligation to respect the right to life of each and every nation and of the totality of all the peoples on the planet.

Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don’t harbour the least doubt that an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.

The World’s peoples have an obligation to demand of their political leaders their Right to Live. When the life of humankind, of your people and your most beloved human beings run such a risk, nobody can afford to be indifferent; not one minute can be lost in demanding respect for that right; tomorrow will be too late.

Albert Einstein himself stated unmistakably: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. We fully comprehend what he wanted to convey, and he was absolutely right, yet in the wake of a global nuclear war, there wouldn’t be anybody around to make use of those sticks and stones.

There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.

In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity.

Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!

Fidel Castro Ruz

October 15, 2010

Fidel Castro and Michel Chossudovsky, Havana, October 2010

Michael Nasuti of Kabul Press recently published an article in which he calculated that killing each Taliban soldier in Afghanistan costs on average of $50 million to the US. The article, seemingly carefully. researched with all assumptions laid out so that anyone can examine them, is well worth reading. Nasuti, “Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 million,”

http://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article32304. He points out that at this rate, killing the entire Taliban forces (only 35,000) would cost $1.7 trillion, not a small amount for a country suffering from a severe economic downturn to spend on a war with no apparent purpose. And Nasuti’s number, of course, assumes that they coud not be replaced faster than they are killed, but it appears that they can, easily.

Nasuti, who actually uses a “conservative” number (assuming that he has undercounted the number of Taliban casualties by one half), states that he had previously served “at a senior level” in the United States Air Force. He says,

The reason for these exorbitant costs is that United States has the world’s most mechanized, computerized, weaponized and synchronized military, not to mention the most pampered (at least at Forward Operating Bases). An estimated 150,000 civilian contractors support, protect, feed and cater to the American personnel in Afghanistan . . . The ponderous American war machine is a logistics nightmare and a maintenance train wreck.

He concludes:

The Taliban’s best ally within the United States may be the Pentagon, whose contempt for fiscal responsibility and accountability may force a premature U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as the Americans cannot continue to fund these Pentagon excesses.

But Nasuti’s cost estimates are only the beginning. Afghanistan had until recently the highest fertility rate in the world (7.5. now down to 7.1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_

states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate and its population doubles roughly every 20 years even under the stress of war.. At a current population of 34 million, gaining by 800,000/yr, http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/

1352_population_by_country.html it can lose in order of magnnitude 400,000 men per year more than it is presently losing to war without net population loss. That, using Nasuti’s figures, would be at a cost to the US of $20 trillion/yr. to stay even , when we have a GDP of about $12 trillion. And there is no apparent reason why the Taliban could not go on in perpetuity suffering losses of 2000/yr (Nasuti’s estimate of the true numbers), or many times that, because 2000 is only approximately half of one percent of the numbers of available men each year without population loss.

Of course, all that is assuming that the Taliban can recruit within Afghanistan as its men are lost. Clearly at least the numbers are there, however, because of Afghanistan’s extraordinary rate of population growth..

In the understatement of the year, Mr. Nasuti suggests, “A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.”

Any bets on whether we’ll win this one (assuming anyone can explain what “winning this one” means) without changing our strategy?

8 October, 2010

Countercurrents.org

WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS C. ARGUIMBAU

POSTED: 29 OCTOBER 2010 11:52

The author is an attorney presently residing in Massachusetts, licensed in California, USA.

Today marks the beginning of my second exploration of world hunger, as part of Conducive Chronicle’s 21 days for Hunger. For these two days I will be focusing on women in hunger, a topic I covered last May in my first souljourn for world hunger. As Kenda mentioned in the Intro to the series yesterday, I work as a women’s rights activist and educator, and the fact that 70% of the world’s hungriest people are women and girls sits uneasily in my heart. It is this fact, and the constellation of injustices that lead to it, that I will be exploring today in my article and in my interview with world renowned food justice activist, global south advocate, and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva.

Everything about world hunger is unfair. The fact that there are nearly 1 billion people starving in the world right now speaks to the vast amounts of injustice that our global system is built on. That 1 out of 6 human beings goes to bed hungry every night while there is more than enough food to feed everyone generously, seems to me the very definition of unfair. When I began my first exploration of world hunger last May, the endless stream of inequality and injustice was enough to make me want to scream. But out of all of the rage inducing facts and statistics, the one that haunts me the most, that makes me lose sleep at night, that I still find hard to believe, is that the people who grow the world’s food, our farmers, are some of the most likely to experience hunger.

In our world, farmer means woman. 80% of the developing world’s food supply, and 60% of the world’s food in total, is grown by women’s hands. Women plant, nurture, and harvest the food we all need to survive, yet they own less than 1% of all farmland, and are generally the last to eat. 70% of those suffering from chronic poverty and hunger are women and girls. They feed us, and while we eat they starve. The industrialization of our food system has led us to a place where we are now so removed from the food we eat that most of us barely know what’s in it, let alone where it came from or who grew it. What kind of life did she live? Was she well fed, able to enjoy the literal fruits of her labor? Or was she drowning in debt, a slave to the chemical and agricultural companies that have quickly devoured our world? Was she able to protect her land and grow her food in the way her mother and grandmothers did for centuries before her? Or has she been forced to pollute her land and her body with the genetically engineered seeds that promise so much, while yielding so very, very little? How much do we know about our food and the people who grow it? Why are they always the last to eat?

In India, 75% of people make their living by farming, and 60% of those farmers are women. These women plow the fields and raise our food, and yet their harvest is being stolen. In 1994, the completion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) legitimized corporate growth based on harvests stolen from nature and people. The WTO’s agricultural agreements and ‘free’ trade policies allow transnational corporations that do not grow the food or work the land to make super profits off of the small farmers and their back breaking labor. The WTO’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement made seed-saving and seed-sharing a criminal act, disrupting millennia old traditions practiced in agricultural communities throughout the world. Corporations are now allowed to monopolize the right to a seed, the basic building block of our food security, by claiming it as their exclusive private property. The Agreement on Agriculture legalized the dumping of genetically engineered foods on countries, and criminalized actions taken to protect the biological and cultural diversity on which indigenous food systems are based.

Under World Bank and International Monetary Fund structural adjustment mandated reforms, India was forced to radically alter the way food had been grown in the country for centuries. Flashy advertising campaigns assaulted the country and images of gods, goddesses, and saints were used to sell new, hybrid seeds directly to small farmers, even as their land was being devalued, redrawn, and sold out from under them. Once the farmers began to purchase these new corporately ‘owned’ seeds they discovered they were highly vulnerable to pests, fungi, and weeds. Encouraged by their government and the corporations, the farmers bought the necessary corporate owned pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides on credit, comforted with the knowledge that these new seeds would produce yields so large they could repay their debts and have money to spare. Unfortunately, the new seeds were a dismal, drastic failure and crops failed throughout the country. Farmers were left with barren fields, polluted waterways, sky high debts, and empty bellies. Since 1997 200,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves, many by drinking the toxic pesticides that were supposed to save their crops. This cycle of debt and loss and more debt and more loss has been termed the ‘suicide economy’ and has created millions of chronically hungry and debt enslaved people throughout India.

Not only does this suicide economy lead to debt and impoverishment created hunger, it also destroys a region’s ancient biodiversity by creating huge swathes of lifeless monocrops in its place. The promises of ‘life science’ corporations like Monsanto are that they will feed the world through their genetically engineered seeds and the resulting higher crop yields. However, the opposite has been true. They have, in fact, created hunger on an unimaginable scale. Whatever higher yields they have been able to display are offset by the fact that they require massively higher inputs. Traditional farming practices have always been highly productive as they utilize a close looped cycle of animal integrated perennial and annual polycultures. When resource use is taken into account, the ‘advancements’ of the Green Revolution is obviously counterproductive and grossly inefficient. More and more land is needed to create adequate harvests under the new methods, along with more water, more money, more time, more effort, all of it for slightly more food, and far more hunger.

“However, this phenomenon of the stolen harvest is not unique to India. It is being experienced in every society, as small farms and small farmers are pushed to extinction, as monocultures replace biodiverse crops, as farming is transformed from the production of nourishing and diverse foods into the creation of markets for genetically engineered seeds, herbicides, and pesticides. As farmers are transformed from producers into consumers of corporate-patented agricultural products, as markets are destroyed locally and nationally but expanded globally, the myth of ‘free-trade’ and the global economy becomes a means for the rich to rob the poor of their right to food and even their right to life.” Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest

It was in this environment, to fight these wrongs, that world renowned global south activist, physicist, and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva created Navdanya. Founded in 1984, Navdanya is providing an alternative to the modern global food system by promoting biodiversity conservation, farmer’s rights, and organic farming methods, with an emphasis on seed saving. Navdanya means nine crops, in reference to the nine crops that represent India’s collective source of food security, and it is this self-sufficient food security that it hopes to preserve. Over the past 26 years, Navdanya has created an ever expanding alternative to the culture of death and debt pushed by the transnational corporations. Dedicated to the preservation of nature and the people’s right to knowledge, water, and food, Navdanya promotes global peace and justice through the conservation, renewal, and rejuvenation of the gifts of biodiversity. Navdanya has helped to create 54 community seed banks throughout India with the intent to rescue and conserve crops that are being pushed to extinction by monoculture farming practices. 3,000 varieties of native rice, 12 genera of cereals and millets, 16 genera of legumes, and 50 genera of vegetables have so far been saved due to their efforts. More than 500,000 farmers have been trained in organic and sustainable farming methods and more than 50 international courses have been offered on biodiversity, food, biopiracy, water, globalization, business ethics and more. Navdanya focuses on empowering local farmers to resist patents on seeds, and struggles to keep India free from GMO crops by recognizing humanity’s inherent right to food, water, and seed sovereignty.

One of Navdanya’s specific goals is to empower women and to keep food security in their hands through a network of women’s producer groups (Mahila Anna Swaraj). Navdanya views women as the caretakers of biodiversity, the providers of food security, and the conservationists of the cultural diversity of food traditions. By keeping women’s food knowledge and expertise alive they hope to guarantee food security for generations to come. Navdanya’s gender program, Diverse Women for Diversity, works on a local, national, and international level as a global campaign for women to resist monoculture monopolies and celebrate food security and biodiversity. Leaders in the food justice movement around the world recognize that it is women who hold the key to fighting the global hunger crisis, and it is this topic that I wanted to focus on in my interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva.

Burge: In 1998, India was forced to open up its seed and farming sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta by the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies. Can you explain how it is not natural disasters like drought and famine that cause the majority of hunger, but man-made economic policies like these? Why must a resistance to globalization form such a necessary part of food security and bio-diversity?

Shiva: The main causes for hunger are industrial agriculture and globalised trade in food. Industrial agriculture creates hunger both by destroying the natural capital for producing food and locking farmers into debt because of its high cost of production. Globalised trade creates hunger by diverting fertile land for exports, promoting dumping and unleashing speculative forces. In industrial agriculture and globalisation also contribute 40% to green house gas emissions that are leading to climate change which in turn is destroying agriculture and food security. The rules of globalisation both in the structural adjustment programmes of the world bank and the free trade rules of WTO promote industrialisation and trade liberalisation. Resisting such corporate globalisation is necessary for food security and biodiversity.

Burge: Since 1997, 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide after being forced into inescapable debt by pesticide and seed companies, in what has been termed a ‘suicide economy’. Do you think this kind of unending debt is a political tool consciously designed to keep the people powerless and desperate, or is it simply an unintended tragic consequence of misguided economic policies?

Shiva: The corporations and governments that are designing high costs agriculture systems to maximise corporate profits are simultaneously designing the debt trap for small farmers. This debt trap is what is leading to farmers suicides. Pushing small farmers to extinction is very much part of the corporate design of industrial farmer. It is not merely an unintended consequence. As a US agriculture policy person said: “farmers must be squeezed of the land like the last bit of toothpaste is squeezed out of the toothpaste tube”.

Burge: What do you say to critics who claim that with the global population nearing 7 billion people we need industrial agriculture and genetically modified foods to feed everyone?

Shiva: Industrial agriculture actually reduces nutrition per acre since it destroys the biodiversity which maximises nutrition per acre. Industrial agriculture is artificially projected as being productive through the monoculture of the mind and a focus on the monoculture yield of handful of globally traded commodities. That is why hunger and malnutrition has grown in direct proportion to the spread of industrial agriculture. As far as genetic engineering is concerned, it is a not a yield increasing technology. It has only put Bt. toxin genes into plant or genes for resisting toxic herbicide. This has increased the yield of toxins not of food. The Union of Concerned Scientist report “Failure to Yield” and Navdanya’s reports “Seeds of Suicide” and “Biodiversity Based Productivity : A New Paradigm for Food Security” have the data that shows that genetic engineering has not contributed to increase in production.

Burge: Women grow the majority of the world’s food and 60% of India’s farmers are women. Women also make up 70% of the world’s chronically hungry people. Why is it that women, the people who grow the majority of the world’s food, are the last to eat?

Shiva: Just as farmers who grow the food are the largest number of hungry people in the world, women who produce and process food constitute the majority of malnourished people. The denial of food to the producers of food is a result of the injustice built into industrial food systems and social discrimination.

Burge: Navdanya calls itself a ‘women centered movement’, holds female heritage learning and preservation classes known as Grandmothers’ University, and has a gender program, Diverse Women for Diversity, that is a global campaign of women advocating for bio-diversity and food security. Could you tell us why it was so important for Navdanya to focus on the empowerment of women? Why do you consider the partnership of ecology and feminism to be a partnership of liberation?

Shiva: The dominant model of agriculture has come out of capitalist patriarchy and is based on war. These wars begin as wars in the mind, become wars against the earth, and result in wars against our body. Women need to lead the movement for a non-violent food system because they have not been part of the war economy. Grandmothers hold the heritage of non-violent knowledge which protects the earth and our health.

Burge: In your book Stolen Harvest you describe a ‘hijacking of the global food supply’, as corporations that do not grow the food or work the land reap the obscene profits of the farmers’ labor. When people are kept so poor they can barely feed themselves, and the multinational corporations are unimaginably powerful and wealthy, how can the common people find the resources to stand up to this injustice?

Shiva: Since each of us eats everyday food can become the site of a revolution for justice. If we say no to GM foods, if we commit ourselves to eating organic, we build another food system which is controlled by people and not by giant corporations.

Burge: In describing the implementation of ‘free-trade’ policies upon an unwilling population, you have said that the moment the will of the people is ignored it becomes a dictatorship. In light of the unfathomable levels of violence being perpetrated against an almost powerless population (and at a time when an agricultural company like Monsanto hires the services of the private army Blackwater), why do you and Navdanya remain committed to a non-violent resistance strategy?

Shiva: We in Navdanya stay committed to non-violent resistance strategy because it has more power and more resilience.

Burge: The women you work with through Navdanya’s various programs and Diverse Women for Diversity often have their lives profoundly changed when they are given the tools and resources for self-empowerment. Can you tell us of an instance when you saw a woman, a family, or a community transformed?

Shiva: Twenty years ago, a women called Bija came to me to find work as domestic help. Bija means the seed and I asked her if she would help me in Seed Saving and she immediately agreed. For two decades Bija has worked as Navdanya seed keeper. She holds classes for scientists on the conservation of biodiversity, she received the Slow Food Biodiversity Award on behalf of Navdanya in Porto Portugal in 2001. The potential Bija achieved is the potential in every peasant woman and it is this potential Navdanya seeks to unleash.

Burge: What kind of future is envisioned by the women of Diverse Women for Diversity? How will a world premised on food security, bio-diversity, and sustainability look?

Shiva: The future envisioned by Diverse Women for Diversity is a future in which every species and every person has space to evolve to their highest potential, live in mutuality with each other and create a world of peace, justice, and sustainability.

Burge: How can we in developed Western nations stand in solidarity with the women in India and throughout the world who are facing chronic hunger and poverty, and assist them in their struggle?

Shiva: There are three ways in which you can support our work. You can support our programs by making donations to Navdanya. You can attend our courses at Bija Vidyapeeth – The School of the Seed and visit our programs on seed saving and organic farming as solutions to hunger. You can spread the principles on which our work is based.

“Women were, really, in my view, the ones who domesticated plants, created agriculture. And as long as women were controlling agriculture, agriculture produced real food. Agriculture was based on [women’s learned and passed on] knowledge. A Women’s centered agriculture never created scarcity. As long as women controlled the food system you did not have a billion people going without food and you didn’t have 2 billion going obese and w/diabetes. This is the magic of patriarchy having taken over the food system. Earlier, patriarchy left food to women, modern patriarchy wants to control food . . . women’s knowledge has been removed from agriculture . . .we can only have a secure food culture if women come back into agriculture.” Vandana Shiva

By Natasha Burge

19 October, 2010

FoodFreedom

A Consultation of some sixty religious scholars, legal experts and leading thinkers and policy makers was held on the theme Faith, Shared Wisdom and International Law in Kuala Lumpur during October 3rd–7th 2010.  It was jointly convened by the International Movement for a Just World (Kuala Lumpur), the Weeramantry International Centre for Peace Education and Research (Colombo), the Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe University (Melbourne), and the Sri Ramanuja Mission Trust (Chennai).

The Consultation agreed on a Global Action Plan which draws its inspiration from the moral wisdom shared by the world’s religious and ethical traditions, including indigenous spiritualities. The endeavour to find common ethical ground holds the key to constructing a more peaceful and ecologically sustainable world order – a task that must be approached with new thinking and great urgency.

Central to this task, is the conceptual and practical integration of this shared wisdom into international law.

The Consultation, convened with the generous support of the Malaysian Government, believes that finding common ethical ground can help overcome mistrust and suspicion, weaken religious and political extremism, and pave the way for collaboration in a dangerously divided world.

This Consultation particularly welcomes the statement by the Prime Minister of Malaysia who in a recent speech at the UN General Assembly on 27 September gave unwavering and continuing support for the United Nations and the multilateral principles based on International Law which it embodies.  The Prime Minister also made timely and effective comment about those “who intensified the divide between broad Muslim world and those in the West.  The real issue is not between Muslims and non-Muslims but between the moderates and extremists of all religions be it Islam, Christianity and Judaism.  Across all religions we have inadvertently allowed the ugly voices of the periphery to drown out the many voices of reason and common sense”. We applaud those remarks.  They encapsulate much of the reason behind the holding of this Consultation.

Unprecedented challenges facing humanity

This Consultation meets at a time of particular urgency unparalleled in the history of the human race.  While the world has negotiated difficult and dangerous times in past years, there are today new causes for concern.  The proliferation of nuclear weapons has spread apace.  8 or 9 countries have nuclear arsenals including one of the poorest countries in the world.  40 countries have the technology to build nuclear weapons and the knowledge for the construction of nuclear weapons is becoming more readily available as each year passes.  There are a limited number of advanced countries who could have fully armed missiles available for launch within a matter of months.  The non-proliferation treaty has not been applied equally.  Friends of nuclear states have been allowed to develop weapons while others have been sanctioned by the international community even though they have acted within the permissible bounds of the non-proliferation treaty.  Others have ignored that treaty and the restraints that it imposes.

Unless steps are taken to abolish nuclear weapons nuclear war is inevitable.  A limited conflict in South Asia between India and Pakistan would no only kill countless millions of people, but would devastate the environment and have severe consequences for the impoverished masses in the entire region.  There is also a dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula and because of Israel’s nuclear weapons and the fears that Iran seeks to develop them.

The danger of a nuclear conflict grows in part because the war in Afghanistan has serious consequences for Pakistan where there is instability and the possibility that extremists could gain control of her nuclear arsenals.

Such a nuclear war would end the planet as we know it.

Secondly, again for the first time in the human race we have the capacity to destroy the planet slowly.  Scientific evidence for global warming is beyond legitimate dispute.  Unless developed and developing countries take significant steps to change the paradigm by which they live, global warming over time will do the work that a nuclear war could do in a matter of days.

With these challenges in mind, the Consultation broke into working groups to address the relevant issues.

Building a more peaceful world

Against the background of the 140 wars since the end of World War 2 and the danger of nuclear war as set out at this Consultation, it becomes essential to consider the core principles which are overwhelmingly important to humanity if peace and security are to be achieved.

The Consultation concerned itself with building a more peaceful world based on justice.  The core principles and recommendations enunciated below seek to strengthen those elements of the United Nations whose purpose is to outlaw war and to put practical and humanitarian limits on the conduct of war.  These re-emphasize and strengthen articles limiting the legality of war, the conduct of war and, strengthen provisions designed to prevent war.

Core Principles

1. Every human being must be treated humanely.  We should treat others as we would wish them to treat us.
2. This principle rests on the view that every person is possessed of an inherent and inalienable dignity.  Therefore, every person should be treated equally, without discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, skin colour, physical or mental ability, language, religion, political opinion, ethnicity or national origin.
3. Every person has the right to live in safety and to the free development of their personality, insofar as they do not injure the rights of others.
4. It follows that no person has the right to harm, kill, torture, or injure another.

The Illegality of War

1. The use of force is outlawed unless explicitly sanctioned by the United Nations or unless a country is under attack and must defend itself.
2. No nation or people has the right to wage war with another.  No government should wage war in order to gain economic wealth, to acquire natural resources or to win power and empire.
3. The commission by any nation or people of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, crimes of aggression or terrorist attack is absolutely prohibited.
4. Preventive war is unacceptable and contrary to International Law and the United Nations Charter.
5. When acting in self-defence, a sovereign government must respond to an actual or imminent attack only in a manner that is necessary and proportionate.  Reprisal is impermissible.  War must always be the last resort.
6. In exceptional circumstances, it may be permissible for the community of nations to act together in defence of peoples subject to or at risk of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing.  No such action may be taken, unless explicitly sanctioned by the United Nations.
7. The aim of national governments and the United Nations should be the achievement of a just and lasting peace among peoples.  Occupation by one nation of another is contrary to International Law.
8. Weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, chemical or biological weapons should be prohibited.  Nuclear powers should all affirm their support for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  They are no longer relevant to the defence of any country.  Until abolition occurs all nuclear powers should declare that they will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed state and that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons and should desist in any further development of nuclear arms.
9. Peace and security for all nations will not be achieved unless all nations great and small are prepared to comply with International Law.

Prevention of War

1. In all conflicts, contending parties must make every endeavour to resolve their dispute by negotiation, mediation, arbitration, judicial settlement or resort to representative international organizations.

The United Nations should:

1. Take every possible step to prevent the conditions from which threats to international peace and security may arise.  State failure, whether through political corruption, economic collapse or civil war, should be anticipated and avoided.
2. Ensure that states at risk of failure are provided with the economic, social, political and technical assistance they require to attain minimum standards of stability and prosperity.
3. Ensure that global economic inequality and hence poverty is reduced to such an extent that all peoples may have the opportunity to create and inhabit viable, autonomous and decent states and societies.

1. Ensure that environmental degradation causing resource scarcity, population movements, pollution and widespread economic distress is prevented.

The Role of Religion

1. Different religious faiths, their institutions and leaders have an important role to play in the prevention of conflict at the local, national and international level. They should be active at each of these levels in combining forces to avoid and resolve political, social and military conflict.

The Future of Humanity And The Global Environment

The Consultation emphasized humanity’s relationship with and dependence upon the preservation of the planet. It reasserted the importance of effective national and international action to overcome pressing environmental problems including global warming.

The primary reason for our environmental crisis arises from our own behavioral patterns.  Sections of society have become obsessed with conspicuous consumption, which demands an increasing and never ending supply of goods and services that can only be produced at the cost of environmental degradation. What is needed is the individual and collective transformation of human consciousness. The religious and ethical traditions have a major part to play in stimulating this transformation.

Our legal and political processes need to enshrine responsibilities centred on a different ethical standpoint. Key moral insights include the following:

a.       Economic and social arrangements should rest not on the notion of the self-centred, self-interested individual but on the needs of the entire human family, closely interconnected with the whole of nature;

b.       Humanity is in a position of trusteeship of the environment and not in a position of ownership or dominance

c.       The entire environment is part of a structure and no part of it can be damaged without damage to the entirety

d.       Given the interconnectedness of all life, nature and all its elements have rights of their own

e.       Earth’s resources belong to all and must be equitably shared

f.        Human greed should be restrained and unjust enrichment must be avoided

g.       The present generation should show a deep concern for the welfare of future generations

h.       Pollution of earth, air, space and water constitutes damage to future generations and must be avoided

i.        Animal life is entitled to special protection and the extinction of species should be prevented

j.        A balance must be struck between the imperatives of development and the concept of sustainability.

In line with this shared ethical wisdom:

a.       The profit strategies of business and pragmatic politics must be constrained by the findings of scientists, the inspiration of poets and artists, and the wisdom of sages, thinkers and scholars

b.       The objectives of economic growth must be tempered by the need to arrest and reverse the presently dangerous levels of environmental degradation – GDP centred economic growth must give way to ecologically sustainable development

c.       The urgent need to arrest and reverse the presently dangerous levels of environmental degradation should proceed by giving due attention to equity, and in particular to the needs and entitlements of the poorer third of humanity

d.       Decision making at both national and international level should give a voice to all the peoples of the world and to future generations

e.       The budgetary strategies of local and national governments as well as of international institutions must now have as an urgent priority substantial and on-going support for:

(i) conservation measures with the aim of redesigning our transport systems and the structure of our cities as well as our patterns of consumption;

(ii) much greater efficiency in the use of all energy fuels, water and other scarce resources;

(iii) the rapid development of renewable sources of energy (including solar, wind, geothermal and ocean energy).

The international community should set the target of renewable energy sources supplying 40 per cent of total energy needs by 2030

f.        Local, national and international institutions must incorporate environmental knowledge and awareness at all levels of education from early childhood through to primary, secondary, and higher education as well as all forms of community education

g.       Legal and political discourse as well as our educational and media programs must make effective use of our diverse religious, spiritual and ethical systems, and importantly our indigenous traditions, to develop rituals, practices and celebrations that acknowledge the interdependence of all life

h.       All major development projects must be regulated, nationally and internationally, so that full account is taken of their impact on both neighbouring and distant communities as well as on future generations.

The Consultation recognizes that while important steps must be taken by all countries, different steps, different standards will need to be applied between developed and developing countries.  The Consultation’s recommendations depend upon two basic principles.  The first quite simply is the necessary principle to protect, to preserve and enhance the environment and planet itself.  The second principle concerns the question of equity, a question ignored in Copenhagen.  This Consultation recognizes that while important steps must be taken by all countries, different steps, different standards will need to be applied in developing countries.  It is not only the total pollution produced by a country that must be taken into account in achieving a just outcome, but also the pollution per capita which is highly relevant to the way the human race tackles this particular problem.

Integrating a Common World Ethic into the Work of International Institutions

The Consultation believes that the values and principles that form part of a common world ethic should be more effectively integrated into the work of the UN system and major international legal institutions. Integrating values and principles will require significant reforms to leading organs and agencies of the United Nations.

To this end religious and other ethically based institutions should work with legal and political authorities with the following aims in mind:

a.       To develop a higher level of public understanding and awareness of commonalities in values between the major religious and ethical traditions, while fully respecting religious, ethnic and cultural diversity

b.       Where differences exist, to serve as mediating agents and so maximize the prospects of agreement on constructive ways of handling the most pressing challenges currently confronting humanity

c.       To scrutinize the present institutions and instruments of international law with a view to identifying shortcomings in the incorporation of shared values into both customary and treaty law

d.       To work with national governments with a view to monitoring actual violations (as well as anticipating potential violations) of international agreements, or failure to ratify and fully implement such agreements. More effective mechanisms of engagement are needed between legal and political authorities on the one hand and religious and civil society organizations on the other.

This can be done in diverse and complementary ways:

1. by making more extensive use of the educative role UN agencies and programs (including UNESCO, the United Nations University and the Alliance for Civilizations), inviting them to highlight the relevance of a shared ethic and wisdom to the international legal order, and to bring this to the attention of national education ministries and other educational institutions;
2. by requesting UNDP to consider funding such an educational project
3. by helping to establish a World Forum of eminent persons, comprising religious scholars, legal experts and former political leaders which would consider ways in which international law bodies could more systematically incorporate the agreed values and principles that form part of a common world ethic. Such a Forum could then submit its recommendations to the UN secretary-General as well as to national governments and civil society organisations;
4. by asking the International Law Commission to undertake a scoping study which would consider the extent to which existing international law bodies and international instruments have incorporated key values and principles that form part of a shared ethic, and to recommend to the UN General Assembly ways in which this could be more effectively achieved;
5. by requesting national governments to identify ministries which would liaise through the UN with a view to exploring ways in which common ethical principles and shared wisdom could be more carefully integrated into international and domestic legal provisions.

These are just a few possible initiatives which should be read in conjunction with the many other imaginative proposals put forward by the Consultation. The Implementation Committee will need to give serious consideration to these proposals as it begins to flesh out a program of effective consultation, coordination and action.

Global Action Plan

The Consultation seeks to define a common ethic and to suggest how this can be more effectively integrated into the work of the United Nations, including its various agencies, other international global and regional institutions, and relevant legal institutions, such as courts and tribunals.  In this regard the Consultation notes the work of many groups who have addressed the idea of a commonly accepted global ethic.  In particular, the Consultation supports the draft Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities proposed by the InterAction Council including its preamble. The draft comprises 19 Principles which speak of integrity, honesty and fairness, and the dignity of every person.  It enshrines the golden rule “what you do not wish to be done to yourself, do not do to others”.

While it is a draft it remains the most concise exposition of core values common to all religions.  It has been endorsed by many different political and religious leaders including those from Germany, Netherlands, Thailand, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, France, Spain, Singapore, Japan, Canada, Australia, Nigeria, Brazil, apart from many members of the InterAction Council.

The Consultation recommends that the Secretary General acts to advance acceptance of a statement of shared ethical values and that the document be introduced into the General Assembly for debate and adoption.  That would lead to a Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities that would stand beside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While this document would be a statement of high principle, we would strongly recommend the United Nations and its organs should follow the path adopted after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was accepted in 1948 and draft Conventions relevant to its various aspects would be open for ratification and which would then have the force of law.

There is an opportunity for religious leaders to take a leading role.  Too often nations or political leaders have used alleged or perceived differences between religions to create fear and even to justify conflict.  This underscores the importance of ethical political leadership which would set the moral tone and tenor of society.

Major divisions have arisen between religious groups. The commonly accepted ethical standard, once adopted by the United Nations, would make it extraordinarily difficult for politicians and for governments to use religion for base political purposes.

The Consultation has noted with great appreciation the remarks of the Grand Mufti of Syria who has recaptured with clarity and in the strongest way, the basic values common to all religions.  The Consultation strongly endorses his call for understanding and acceptance of diversity without discrimination.

The Consultation therefore, requests the Secretary General to:

1. Use and advance the recommendations of this Consultation to strengthen the United Nations and the Security Council’s search for the preservation of peace and for the outlawing of war.
2. Use the full force of his office to achieve acceptance of the shared core values and responsibilities supported by the world’s religions as enunciated with clarity in the draft Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities prepared over 20 years by the InterAction Council.  The Consultation urges the draft Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities be introduced into the General Assembly for acceptance and adoption.
3. Having in mind the urgency created by the possibility of nuclear war and of global warming, initiate substantial steps consistent with recommendations of this Consultation to protect the environment and the planet for the benefit of all people.
4. Use the authority of his office to encourage all countries to heed this call; to recognize the urgency of the situation caused by uncontrolled nuclear proliferation and its linkages with the environment; and advance urgent and effective action.

Next Steps

The participants in this Consultation take ownership of the document with the sense of responsibility to implement in letter and spirit the Global Action Plan.

The Global Action Plan will be executed by a Secretariat under the oversight of the Implementation Committee.  It will include programs of research, publication, education, consultation and advocacy relating to gaining acceptance of the incorporation of universal spiritual and moral principles into the corpus of international law;  strengthening the role of values and norms derived from our philosophical traditions in the policies of the United Nations and other organizations; and campaigning for the  endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities  as a High Principle at the international level.

The Implementation Committee will determine a time-frame for the GAP which will be implemented in phases.  It will spell out institutional mechanisms and will include provisions for personnel and for a budget.

Among the institutions and groups that the GAP will focus upon are the following:-

1. The United Nations General Assembly, the Security Council, UNESCO, UNDP.
2. Regional organizations, including ASEAN, the African Union and the European Union.
3. Governments sympathetic to the aims and objectives of the GAP.
4. Religious and cultural institutions and personalities at national, regional and international levels.
5. Educational institutions in various countries.
6. Youth movements operating at all three levels: national, regional and international.
7. Indigenous movements and other marginalized communities
8. Women’s organizations
9. Civil society groups committed to peace, justice and environmental protection.

10) Professional associations of lawyers, doctors, and academics.

11) Businesses and corporations at national and international levels.

To implement the GAP, the Implementation Committee will, as a matter of priority, identify a university that has intellectual affinity with the GAP and which is prepared to cooperate with the Implementation Committee.  The Implementation Committee will seek the support of the country in which the university is located, and other governments, to reinforce this effort. The funds required will be mobilized from both public and private sector institutions.

One of the first tasks of the Implementation Committee will be to establish a comprehensive directory of institutions, organizations and individuals that we can work with in furtherance of our goals.

“Our greatest responsibility is to hand over a better world to all children, and the 800,000 children in Gaza, are my children. I would rather die in pursuit of justice than back down. How can anyone accept the unacceptable!”

Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe, is a strikingly handsome 41 year old naturalized Irish, Palestinian, Hawaiian and world citizen, who began expressing his spirit on his skin with tattoos while a U.S. Marine who served in the 1991 Gulf War.

During 13 days on the road with Ken, his mother and the Salem-News.com crew who documented his non-stop speaking engagements through the NW US and into Victoria, Canada, Ken informed me that his first tattoo was the “meat tag” on the left side of his chest.

“When I found out the Marines were not exactly about honor and integrity I had the USMC crossed out and replaced with “civilian”. I didn’t even know the tattoo artist but he gave me the tattoo for free because it was novel.”

At the same time, Ken also began speaking up verbally about America’s use of depleted uranium as a “crime against humanity” and how the US military uses soldiers as “human guinea pigs” with experimental drugs that were directly linked to the Gulf War syndrome.

Ken has been a boat captain, dive instructor and social entrepreneur whose efforts have rescued over fifty-five endangered Green Sea Turtles in Hawaii.

Ken founded Deep Ecology, a 14 year old dive operation in Hawaii, that also focuses on education, environmental protection and customer service.

Ken has saved untold amounts of marine life and successfully lobbied for the creation of the North Shore’s first Marine Sanctuary, and today his mother, Pat Johnson runs the operation and on the left margin of the Deep Ecology oahuscubadive.com/ site it proclaims, “RESPECT YOUR MOTHER” meaning both biological and Mother Nature.

Ken renounced his US citizenship on March 1, 2001 and rose to fame for leading the human shield action to Iraq and was deemed a ‘terrorist’ by Israel for his resistance against their attack on the MV Mavi Marmara in which he defended the ship by disarming two Israeli Commandos, who were treated by medical doctors and released.

“I’ve made mistakes as every human does, but not regarding morals and integrity. By myself, I can do little, but together we can do everything. The Mavi Marmara experience proved that a small group of people who work together and tell the truth will create a better world.

“Our greatest responsibility is to hand over a better world to all children, and the 800,000 children in Gaza, are my children. I would rather die in pursuit of justice than back down. How can anyone accept the unacceptable!

“Governments should fear the people, not the other way around. The world is what we make of it and the fact that their is so much injustice in our world is a testament to our failure to unite and exercise our ultimate power.

“Direct Action, such as that which we conducted on the Mavi Marmara is the most powerful way for people of conscience to defy tyranny and affect justice; we have only just begun to reach our potential. Protecting that ship as we did was really an act of protecting the 800,000 plus children of Gaza who are the major beneficiary of breaking the blockade and ending their collective punishment.

“Israel used stun guns, percussion grenades, rounds of live ammunition, 9mm pistols, submachine guns and they had snipers in the helicopters.

“They attacked during morning prayers at 3:40 AM [on America’s Memorial Day] and within five minutes of their attack, I saw a photographer who was a father of two shot in the head while he was taking photos of the helicopter.

“The first commando that I saw that descended from the helicopter had a 9mm pistol. I disarmed him and removed the live rounds and ran with the gun to stash it away for evidence.

“When I returned on top of the ship, another commando fell in front of me who had a sub machine gun and I grabbed his arms and me and another bother disarmed him.

“I ran around that ship for over five minutes trying to figure out who to hand over the 9mm pistol to, either I am incredibly lucky, or else those snipers had orders not to shoot white people.

“I tattooed my body as a form of expression, as a form of commitment to the cause of truth justice and peace, these tattoos also predictably forced me to make my own path rather then getting any jobs with IBM and the corporate world in general. These tattoos definitely force people to look at their prejudices.

“The tear under my eye expresses the sorrow I feel for all the insanity I see humanity involved in.

“The chain around my neck is a necklace of commitment and another is Sanskrit for ‘compassion for all life.’”

Ken’s right arm is adorned with an Hawaiian tiki entwined with Celtic knots, and “USA EXPATRIOT: 3-1-01 R.I.P.”

On his left hand is a symbol for TJP, which stands for Truth, Justice, Peace and on his arm a take off of the Michael Parkes gargoyle who is chasing bubbles blown by a young maiden.

He also sports this Mark Twain quote:

“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”

On Ken’s left wrist is a bracelet and on his left thumb a ring and a heart.

On his right wrist is a “barcode” (taken from a packet of ground beef) and upon his forearm is inscribed “SOVEREIGN: BORN FREE – DIE FREE” and Ken explained it to me, “Kings and Queens are considered sovereign, but fuck that! We are all sovereign!

Ken speaking in Newport, Oregon Salem-News.com photo by Bonnie King

On Ken’s abdomen is the word “EXTINCT” and the Peter Singer quote, “All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this one hard fact: in suffering the non human animals are our equals.”

Ken told me that his “bio-hazard symbol represents that we humans are the most hazardous species on this planet.

“I have a dragon on my back with hidden meaning.”

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

Ken also said that “The truth is God” and it is understood by most human beings that we are all created in the image of God.

Most of us believe that God’s image is manifest in our souls and our bodies are the result of millions of years of evolution.

Many of us manifest God’s spirit when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless and some of us comprehend that no greater love is there than one who will lay down his life for another.

By Eileen Fleming

12 October, 2010

Countercurrents.org

Published first @http://salem-news.com/

In the midst of mounting economic insecurity, fueled by widespread unemployment, foreclosures and budget cuts, many people are seeking alternative models to business as usual. From community gardens to bartering networks, grassroots efforts are sprouting up across the country. One of the main pillars of this growing trend is an international institution with over 160 years of experience in local, sustainable economic development: a cooperative.

Since the mid-1800’s, cooperatives have promoted a unique, people-centered model that sets them apart from conventional businesses. Unlike traditional corporations, which are owned and controlled by outside shareholders, cooperatives are businesses that are owned and democratically controlled by their members – the people who use their services or buy their goods. In other words, cooperatives are member-driven institutions that put people before profit to meet community needs.

Co-ops exist in a variety of forms in countless industries across the country and around the world. United on the basis of member-ownership and democratic control – generally following the decision-making principle of “one-member, one-vote” – co-ops have a range of ownership structures, from consumer-owned food co-ops to worker-owned manufacturing firms. In whatever form they take, however, surveys repeatedly demonstrate that consumers rate co-ops as more trustworthy than investor-owned corporations.

In the US alone, the model has been embraced by more than 130 million members, served by over 29,000 cooperatives operating in nearly all sectors of the economy.

Cooperatives play a vital role in local economic development, helping people improve their lives through empowering jobs and access to goods and services that would otherwise be more expensive, lower in quality, or simply unavailable. These demonstrated benefits have sparked growing interest in the cooperative movement worldwide. Indeed, the United Nations recently declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives.

In light of the economic crisis, many people have embraced worker cooperatives in particular as an effective pathway out of poverty. Owned and controlled by the people who work in the business, worker co-ops have an impressive track record of providing stable jobs with asset-building potential, higher wages, a deeper connection to the local community, and an array of personal and professional development opportunities.

Worker cooperatives often operate on the basis of a “triple bottom line”, measuring success not simply by the money they earn, but by the well-being of their workers; their sustainability as a business; and their overall contribution to the community and the environment. Cooperatives have served as a foundation for growth in the green economy, where worker-owned businesses operate primarily in labor-intensive sectors such as recycling, solar installation, landscaping, green cleaning, and deconstruction.

Internationally, the bulk of worker cooperatives are concentrated in countries like Spain, Italy and Canada. Yet in recent years the movement in the United States has become increasingly organized. In May 2004, members of the worker co-op community founded the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, a national membership-based organization “of and for worker cooperatives, other democratic workplaces, and the organizations that support the growth and continued development of worker cooperatives.”

For the past two years, membership in the Federation has grown 25 percent per year, with the majority of growth coming from cooperatives developed in response to social, economic and community needs sharpened in the wake of the financial meltdown.

Here in Austin, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, a cooperative development center dedicated to building worker-owned green businesses with low-income communities, is working with a group of low-income women to establish Yo Mamas Catering Co-op, a worker-owned catering business.

“We wanted jobs that would provide a good living for ourselves and our families”, says Sylvia Barrios of Yo Mamas. “We’ve spent a lot of time working for other people…now we want more control over our lives and we think Austin is ready for more worker-run businesses.”

Indeed, Austin already has its share of notable worker-run businesses: Ecology Action, a recycling center in downtown; Tribe Creative Agency, an advertising agency focused on the “Common Good”; and the recently opened Black Star Co-op, a worker self-managed, consumer-owned brew pub.

As one of the more noteworthy cities for socially and environmentally responsible local businesses, Austin is ripe for more growth in the cooperative sector. Socially and environmentally responsible practices are not just a trend within cooperatives – it’s just how they work. That’s the cooperative difference.

By Carlos Perez de Alejo

26 October, 2010

Austin American-Statesman

Carlos Perez de Alejo is co-director of Third Coast Workers for Cooperation in Austin, TX. http://thirdcoastworkers.coop/ He can be reached at carlos@thirdcoastworkers.coop

It is now currency theatre. Exchange rates are policy weapon. A currency war is raging. The war is still to rage. Opinions differ. 

But the reality is there, a charged reality, a reality with high unemployment, countries with huge debt problem, countries artificially devaluing their currencies. All these are symptoms of crisis the capitalist system is going through.

Economic super powers baffled with financial crisis are facing each other. Exchange rates are being used to puzzle out domestic problems. This in turn may lead to a trade war around the world, may derail the fragile global recovery, the cherished dream of the mainstream.

George Soros, the billionaire currency investor reputed to have made $1bn by “breaking the Bank of England” during the Black Wednesday fiscal crisis in 1992, has warned: A global “currency war” pitting China versus the rest of the world could lead to the collapse of the world economy. Guido Mantega, the Brazilian finance minister coining the phrase – Currency War – said: We’re in the midst of a currency war. Zoellick, the World Bank head, however, doesn’t foresee that the world is moving into currency war. Although he admits: There is tension. “Tensions can lead to trouble …” Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund head echoed: A currency war risks undermining the global recovery. “The momentum [of economic co-operation] is decreasing.” The recently concluded IMF meeting, now a cooperation conclave for competitions, witnessed exercises without concrete action on exchange rates. The final communiqué seemed a setback for the US. A significant sign it carried.

Japan, Brazil, Peru and other countries are trying to beggar thy neighbor. Brazil has doubled a tax on foreign purchases of local bonds, South Korea has warned of new trading limits, and Greece and Turkey are trying to expand exports. Countries are seeking to devalue currencies to boost exports and jobs. China with its $2,450bn in reserves in June 2010, 30 percent of the world total, 50 percent of its own GDP and largest in the world, has reaffirmed plans for currency appreciation at its own pace. Soros wrote in the Financial Times: “China has emerged as a leader of the world.” “They control not only their own currency but actually the entire global currency system,” he said.

A nervous Europe pitifully learns from Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel economics laureate: Euro may not survive. Its future is looking “bleak”. Memories of strong euro during its childhood days make speculators nostalgic. The US and Britain have flooded their economies with liquidity and have kept interest rates extremely low. Thus they have effectively devalued their currencies. Germany with huge trade surpluses, and Ireland, Portugal and Greece with deficits are putting intense pressure on euro. Europe fractured now with cracks is having row over exchange rates.

Banks are again in “business as usual”. Investors have claimed that China was deliberately keeping the yuan, the Chinese currency, low to keep exports cheap. This is hurting US competitors. Manufacturers in the US contend that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent and this has cost millions of US manufacturing jobs by making Chinese goods cheaper in the US market and American products more expensive in China.

With high unemployment, a miserable GDP, and declining economic power the US finds no other way than running its printing presses to the limits and pointing the finger of accusation: China is keeping its currency low. Geithner tells: China’s actions set off “a dangerous dynamic.” Along with the US economy czar, the IMF seemingly has taken a tougher line with China, which has refused to let the yuan appreciate more rapidly fearing that it could lead to social turmoil. US House legislation says China is a currency manipulator. But still China produces profit for a section of US capital.

The reality is pushing pundits to change positions. Matías Vernengo, Assistant Professor, at the Economics Department and the Latin American Studies Program of the University of Utah, wrote in TripleCrisis (Oct. 5, 2010): The current unemployment crisis has led Paul Krugman to suggest that the US would be justified in raising tariffs on Chinese goods. In the recent crisis, Krugman seems to believe that the impossibility of using fiscal policy, for political reasons, renders the US similar to a developing country.

China, it seems, has all the desire to avoid Japan’s Lost Decade. China wants to buy Greek bonds. But European policymakers are worried that this would push up the euro against the yuan. There are contradictions between China and the Eurozone countries. The strained Sino-Japanese relation is also there.

Contradictions among capital are surfacing with long-term implications. The trend in currencies shows competing economic interests. With manipulation and speculation, and with a secular deficient domestic demand the matured capitalist world is striving to survive by resorting to export-led growth. The conflict over exchange rates means that major capitalist countries are now trying to conquer their crisis by conquering bigger portions of markets. The coming months will be challenging.

The global financial system is still in a period of significant uncertainty and remains the Achilles’ heel of the economic recovery, said IMF. “Nearly $4 trillion of bank debt will need to be rolled over in the next 24 months,” said a Telegraph news story referring IMF. The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report said: Governments will have to inject fresh equity into banks, particularly in Spain, Germany and the US, as well as prop up their funding structures by extending emergency support. “Progress toward global financial stability has experienced a setback since April … [due to] the recent turmoil in sovereign debt markets.”

With this backdrop the currency conflict has increased the world system’s vulnerability. Capitals’ present striving for increasing exports is only for the sake of its own survival. It is trying to increase overseas market but is not willing to assist domestic consumers. Its “struggle” for competitiveness is its “struggle” for higher profit. But it cannot escape contradictions. The currency conflict shows deep rooted contradictions counting days for surfacing. It shows signs of significant shifts going on in geopolitics.

12 October, 2010

Countercurrents.org

Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China’s far west. Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s president, from bragging, “This project has not only commercial or economic value. It is also political. China, through its wise and farsighted policy, has become one of the key guarantors of global security.”

The bottom line is that, by 2013, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong will be cruising to ever more dizzying economic heights courtesy of natural gas supplied by the 1,833-kilometer-long Central Asia Pipeline, then projected to be operating at full capacity. And to think that, in a few more years, China’s big cities will undoubtedly also be getting a taste of Iraq’s fabulous, barely tapped oil reserves, conservatively estimated at 115 billion barrels, but possibly closer to 143 billion barrels, which would put it ahead of Iran. When the Bush administration’s armchair generals launched their Global War on Terror, this was not exactly what they had in mind.

China’s economy is thirsty, and so it’s drinking deeper and planning deeper yet. It craves Iraq’s oil and Turkmenistan’s natural gas, as well as oil from Kazakhstan. Yet instead of spending more than a trillion dollars on an illegal war in Iraq or setting up military bases all over the Greater Middle East and Central Asia, China used its state oil companies to get some of the energy it needed simply by bidding for it in a perfectly legal Iraqi oil auction.

Meanwhile, in the New Great Game in Eurasia, China had the good sense not to send a soldier anywhere or get bogged down in an infinite quagmire in Afghanistan. Instead, the Chinese simply made a direct commercial deal with Turkmenistan and, profiting from that country’s disagreements with Moscow, built itself a pipeline which will provide much of the natural gas it needs.

No wonder the Obama administration’s Eurasian energy czar Richard Morningstar was forced to admit at a congressional hearing that the U.S. simply cannot compete with China when it comes to Central Asia’s energy wealth. If only he had delivered the same message to the Pentagon.

That Iranian Equation

In Beijing, they take the matter of diversifying oil supplies very, very seriously. When oil reached $150 a barrel in 2008 — before the U.S.-unleashed global financial meltdown hit — Chinese state media had taken to calling foreign Big Oil “international petroleum crocodiles,” with the implication that the West’s hidden agenda was ultimately to stop China’s relentless development dead in its tracks.

Twenty-eight percent of what’s left of the world’s proven oil reserves are in the Arab world. China could easily gobble it all up. Few may know that China itself is actually the world’s fifth largest oil producer, at 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd), just below Iran and slightly above Mexico. In 1980, China consumed only 3% of the world’s oil. Now, its take is around 10%, making it the planet’s second largest consumer. It has already surpassed Japan in that category, even if it’s still way behind the U.S., which eats up 27% of global oil each year. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China will account for over 40% of the increase in global oil demand until 2030. And that’s assuming China will grow at “only” a 6% annual rate which, based on present growth, seems unlikely.

Saudi Arabia controls 13% of world oil production. At the moment, it is the only swing producer — one, that is, that can move the amount of oil being pumped up or down at will — capable of substantially increasing output. It’s no accident, then, that, pumping 500,000 bpd, it has become one of Beijing’s major oil suppliers. The top three, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce, are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Angola. By 2013-2014, if all goes well, the Chinese expect to add Iraq to that list in a big way, but first that troubled country’s oil production needs to start cranking up. In the meantime, it’s the Iranian part of the Eurasian energy equation that’s really nerve-racking for China’s leaders.

Chinese companies have invested a staggering $120 billion in Iran’s energy sector over the past five years. Already Iran is China’s number two oil supplier, accounting for up to 14% of its imports; and the Chinese energy giant Sinopec has committed an additional $6.5 billion to building oil refineries there. Due to harsh U.N.-imposed and American sanctions and years of economic mismanagement, however, the country lacks the high-tech know-how to provide for itself, and its industrial structure is in a shambles. The head of the National Iranian Oil Company, Ahmad Ghalebani, has publicly admitted that machinery and parts used in Iran’s oil production still have to be imported from China.

Sanctions can be a killer, slowing investment, increasing the cost of trade by over 20%, and severely constricting Tehran’s ability to borrow in global markets. Nonetheless, trade between China and Iran grew by 35% in 2009 to $27 billion. So while the West has been slamming Iran with sanctions, embargos, and blockades, Iran has been slowly evolving as a crucial trade corridor for China — as well as Russia and energy-poor India. Unlike the West, they are all investing like crazy there because it’s easy to get concessions from the government; it’s easy and relatively cheap to build infrastructure; and being on the inside when it comes to Iranian energy reserves is a necessity for any country that wants to be a crucial player in Pipelineistan, that contested chessboard of crucial energy pipelines over which much of the New Great Game in Eurasia takes place. Undoubtedly, the leaders of all three countries are offering thanks to whatever gods they care to worship that Washington continues to make it so easy (and lucrative) for them.

Few in the U.S. may know that last year Saudi Arabia — now (re)arming to the teeth, courtesy of Washington, and little short of paranoid about the Iranian nuclear program — offered to supply the Chinese with the same amount of oil the country currently imports from Iran at a much cheaper price. But Beijing, for whom Iran is a key long-term strategic ally, scotched the deal.

As if Iran’s structural problems weren’t enough, the country has done little to diversify its economy beyond oil and natural gas exports in the past 30 years; inflation’s running at more than 20%; unemployment at more than 20%; and young, well educated people are fleeing abroad, a major brain drain for that embattled land. And don’t think that’s the end of its litany of problems. It would like to be a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — the multi-layered economic/military cooperation union that is a sort of Asian response to NATO — but is only an official SCO observer because the group does not admit any country under U.N. sanctions. Tehran, in other words, would like some great power protection against the possibility of an attack from the U.S. or Israel. As much as Iran may be on the verge of becoming a far more influential player in the Central Asian energy game thanks to Russian and Chinese investment, it’s extremely unlikely that either of those countries would actually risk war against the U.S. to “save” the Iranian regime.

The Great Escape

From Beijing’s point of view, the title of the movie version of the intractable U.S. v. Iran conflict and a simmering U.S. v. China strategic competition in Pipelineistan could be: “Escape from Hormuz and Malacca.”

The Strait of Hormuz is the definition of a potential strategic bottleneck. It is, after all, the only entryway to the Persian Gulf and through it now flow roughly 20% of China’s oil imports. At its narrowest, it is only 36 kilometers wide, with Iran to the north and Oman to the south. China’s leaders fret about the constant presence of U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups on station and patrolling nearby.

With Singapore to the North and Indonesia to the south, the Strait of Malacca is another potential bottleneck if ever there was one — and through it flow as much as 80% of China’s oil imports. At its narrowest, it is only 54 kilometers wide and like the Strait of Hormuz, its security is also of the made-in-USA variety. In a future face-off with Washington, both straits could quickly be closed or controlled by the U.S. Navy.

Hence, China’s increasing emphasis on developing a land-based Central Asian energy strategy could be summed up as: bye-bye, Hormuz! Bye-bye, Malacca! And a hearty welcome to a pipeline-driven new Silk Road from the Caspian Sea to China’s Far West in Xinjiang.

Kazakhstan has 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves, but its largest oil fields are not far from the Chinese border. China sees that country as a key alternative oil supplier via future pipelines that would link the Kazakh oil fields to Chinese oil refineries in its far west. In fact, China’s first transnational Pipelineistan adventure is already in place: the 2005 China-Kazakhstan oil project, financed by Chinese energy giant CNPC.

Much more is to come, and Chinese leaders expect energy-rich Russia to play a significant part in China’s escape-hatch planning as well. Strategically, this represents a crucial step in regional energy integration, tightening the Russia/China partnership inside the SCO as well as at the U.N. Security Council.

When it comes to oil, the name of the game is the immense Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. Last August, a 4,000-kilometer-long Russian section from Taishet in eastern Siberia to Nakhodka, still inside Russian territory, was begun. Russian Premier Vladimir Putin hailed ESPO as “a really comprehensive project that has strengthened our energy cooperation.” And in late September, the Russians and the Chinese inaugurated a 999-kilometer-long pipeline from Skovorodino in Russia’s Amur region to the petrochemical hub Daqing in northeast China.

Russia is currently delivering up to 130 million tons of Russian oil a year to Europe. Soon, no less than 50 million tons may be heading to China and the Pacific region as well.

There are, however, hidden tensions between the Russians and the Chinese when it comes to energy matters. The Russian leadership is understandably wary of China’s startling strides in Central Asia, the former Soviet Union’s former “near abroad.” After all, as the Chinese have been doing in Africa in their search for energy, in Central Asia, too, the Chinese are building railways and introducing high-tech trains, among other modern wonders, in exchange for oil and gas concessions.

Despite the simmering tensions between China, Russia, and the U.S., it’s too early to be sure just who is likely to emerge as the victor in the new Great Game in Central Asia, but one thing is clear enough. The Central Asian “stans” are becoming ever more powerful poker players in their own right as Russia tries not to lose its hegemony there, Washington places all its chips on pipelines meant to bypass Russia (including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that pumps oil from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia) and China antes up big time for its Central Asian future. Whoever loses, this is a game that the “stans” cannot but profit from.

Recently, our man Gurbanguly, the Turkmen leader, chose China as his go-to country for an extra $4.18 billion loan for the development of South Yolotan, his country’s largest gas field. (The Chinese had already shelled out $3 billion to help develop it.) Energy bureaucrats in Brussels were devastated. With estimated reserves of up to 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, the field has the potential to flood the energy-starved European Union with gas for more than 20 years. Goodbye to all that?

In 2009, Turkmenistan’s proven gas reserves were estimated at a staggering 8.1 trillion cubic meters, fourth largest in the world after Russia, Iran, and Qatar. Not surprisingly, from the point of view of Ashgabat, the country’s capital, it invariably seems to be raining gas. Nonetheless, experts doubt that the landlocked, idiosyncratic Central Asian republic actually has enough blue gold to supply Russia (which absorbed 70% of Turkmenistan’s supply before the pipeline to China opened), China, Western Europe and Iran, all at the same time.

Currently, Turkmenistan sells its gas to: China via the world’s largest gas pipeline, 7,000 kilometers long and designed for a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters per year, Russia (10 billion cubic meters per year, down from 30 billion per year until 2008), and Iran (14 billion cubic meters per year). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad always gets a red-carpet welcome from Gurbanguly, and the Russian energy giant Gazprom, thanks to an improved pricing policy, is treated as a preferred customer.

At present, however, the Chinese are atop the heap, and more generally, whatever happens, there can be little question that Central Asia will be China’s major foreign supplier of natural gas. On the other hand, the fact that Turkmenistan has, in practice, committed its entire future gas exports to China, Russia, and Iran means the virtual death of various trans-Caspian Sea pipeline plans long favored by Washington and the European Union.

IPI vs. TAPI All Over Again

On the oil front, even if all the “stans” sold China every barrel of oil they currently pump, less than half of China’s daily import needs would be met. Ultimately, only the Middle East can quench China’s thirst for oil. According to the International Energy Agency, China’s overall oil needs will rise to 11.3 million barrels per day by 2015, even with domestic production peaking at 4.0 million bpd. Compare that to what some of China’s alternative suppliers are now producing: Angola, 1.4 million bpd; Kazakhstan, 1.4 million as well; and Sudan, 400,000.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia produces 10.9 million bpd, Iran around 4.0 million, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 3.0 million, Kuwait 2.7 million — and then there’s Iraq, presently at 2.5 million and likely to reach at least 4.0 million by 2015. Still, Beijing has yet to be fully convinced that this is a safe supply, especially given all those U.S. “forward operating sites” in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, plus those roaming naval battle groups in the Persian Gulf.

On the gas front, China definitely counts on a South Asian game changer. Beijing has already spent $200 million on the first phase in the construction of a deepwater port at Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. It wanted, and got from Islamabad, “sovereign guarantees to the port’s facilities.” Gwadar is only 400 kilometers from Hormuz. With Gwadar, the Chinese Navy would have a homeport that would easily allow it to monitor traffic in the strait and someday perhaps even thwart the U.S. Navy’s expansionist designs in the Indian Ocean.

But Gwadar has another infinitely juicier future role. It could prove the pivot in a competition between two long-discussed pipelines: TAPI and IPI. TAPI stands for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which can never be built as long as U.S. and NATO occupation forces are fighting the resistance umbrella conveniently labeled “Taliban” in Afghanistan. IPI, however, is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the “peace pipeline” (which, of course, would make TAPI the “war pipeline”). To Washington’s immeasurable distress, last June, Iran and Pakistan finally closed the deal to build the “IP” part of IPI, with Pakistan assuring Iran that either India or China could later be brought into the project.

Whether it’s IP, IPI, or IPC, Gwadar will be a key node. If, under pressure from Washington, which treats Tehran like the plague, India is forced to pull out of the project, China already has made it clear that it wants in. The Chinese would then build a Pipelineistan link from Gwadar along the Karakorum highway in Pakistan to China via the Khunjerab Pass — another overland corridor that would prove immune to U.S. interference. It would have the added benefit of radically cutting down the 20,000-kilometer-long tanker route around the southern rim of Asia.

Arguably, for the Indians it would be a strategically sound move to align with IPI, trumping a deep suspicion that the Chinese will move to outflank them in the search for foreign energy with a “string of pearls” strategy: the setting up of a series of “home ports” along its key oil supply routes from Pakistan to Myanmar. In that case, Gwadar would no longer simply be a “Chinese” port.

As for Washington, it still believes that if TAPI is built, it will help keep India from fully breaking the U.S.-enforced embargo on Iran. Energy-starved Pakistan obviously prefers its “all-weather” ally China, which might commit itself to building all sorts of energy infrastructure within that flood-devastated country. In a nutshell, if the unprecedented energy cooperation between Iran, Pakistan, and China goes forward, it will signal a major defeat for Washington in the New Great Game in Eurasia, with enormous geopolitical and geo-economic repercussions.

For the moment, Beijing’s strategic priority has been to carefully develop a remarkably diverse set of energy-suppliers — a flow of energy that covers Russia, the South China Sea, Central Asia, the East China Sea, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. (China’s forays into Africa and South America will be dealt with in a future installment of our TomDispatch tour of the globe’s energy hotspots.) If China has so far proven masterly in the way it has played its cards in its Pipelineistan “war”, the U.S. hand — bypass Russia, elbow out China, isolate Iran — may soon be called for what it is: a bluff.

By Pepe Escobar

12 October, 2010

TomDispatch.com

Copyright 2010 Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is Obama Does Globalistan. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.