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Tripoli, Libya: At ten a.m. Tripoli time on 6/28/11 the Libyan Ministry of Health made available to this observer its compilation entitled “Current Statistics Of Civilian Victims Of Nato Bombardments On Libya, (3/19/11-6/27/11).

Before releasing their data, which will be made public this afternoon, it was confirmed by the findings of the Libyan Red Crescent Society and also by civil defense workers in the neighborhoods bombed, and then vetted by researchers at Tripoli’s Nassar University.

As of July 1, 2011, military casualties have not been officially released by the Libyan armed forces.

In summary, the MOH compilation documents that during the first 100 days of NATO targeting of civilians, 6121 were killed or injured. The statistical breakdown is as follows: 3093 Men were injured and 668 were killed. Women killed number 260 and 1318 injured. Children killed number 141 and 641 injured.

Of those seriously injured 655 are still under medical care in hospitals while 4,397 have been released to their families for outpatient care.

NATO claims that private apartments and homes, schools, shops, factories, crops, and warehouses storing sacks of flour were legitimate military targets are not believed by anyone here in Libya and to date NATO has failed to provide a scintilla of evidence that the 15 civilians, mainly children and their aunts and mothers, who were torn to pieces by 8 NATO rockets in the Salman neighborhood last week were legitimate military targets.

Tripoli’s 3,200 neighborhoods, independently of the Libyan Armed Forces, are intensively preparing for the possibility that NATO forces or those they are seen as increasingly arming and directing, might invade the cosmopolitan greater Tripoli area during the coming weeks or months.

This observer has had the opportunity to visit some of these neighborhoods the past couple of nights and will continue to do so. As noted earlier, contrary to some media reports by the BBC, CNN and CBS Tripoli’s neighborhoods during the cool evenings with wafting sea breezes, are not tense, “dangerous for foreigners and in control of trigger happy soldiers or militias.” The latter assessment is nonsense. Americans and others are welcomed and their presence appreciated. Libyans are anxious to explain their points of views, a common one of which is that they are not all about Qaddafi but about protecting the family, homes, and neighborhoods from foreign invaders. A majority does support the Qaddafi leadership which is what they received with their mother’s milk, but nearly all emphasize that for them and their friends it is very much about defending their revolution and country first. They appear to this observer to be very well informed about the motives of NATO and those countries that are intensively targeting their leader and their officials without regard to civilians being killed. It’s about oil and reshaping African and the Middle East.

Sitting and chatting with neighborhood watch teams is actually an extremely enjoyable way to learn about and to get to know the Libyan people and how they view events unfolding in their country. It certainly beats hanging out at the bar at the hotel where the western press crowd often gather their journalistic insights and pontificate about what “the real deal is” as one told me the other day. I could not figure out much that he was talking about.

On the evening of 7/1/11 as many as one million, five hundred thousand Libyan citizens are expected to gather at Tripoli’s Green Square to register their resistance to NATO’s intensifying civilian targeting blitz. Some western journalists will not attend this news event because they are afraid of potential danger or their stateside bureaus are suggesting they stay away “so as not legitimize the gathering” What has become of orientalist journalism?

The neighborhoods in Libya are preparing for a ground invasion and to confront directly the invaders with a plan that one imagines would not be unfamiliar to a General Giap of Vietnam or a Chinese General Lin Peio, being a massive peoples defense. It has been organized with a house by house, street by street defense plan for every neighborhood and will include all available weaponry.

The defenders are not military although many of the older ones had done one year compulsory service following high school. Their ranks include every able bodied woman and man from age 18 to 65. Younger or older will not be refused.

They are organized into 5 person squads once they complete their training. It works like this: Anyone over 18 years of age can report to his neighborhood “Tent”. Knowing virtually everyone in the area, the person will make application and will be vetted on an AK-47, M-16 or other light arm.

Depending on her/his skill level he will be accepted and given a photo ID that lists the weapons the applicant qualified on. If he needs more training or is a novice it is provided at the location which includes a training area, tent with mattresses for sleeping, a make shift latrine and canteen.

The basic training for those with no arms experience, including women, is 45 days. Past that, the commitment is four months. Each accepted individual is issued a rifle (normally an AK-47 “Klash” along with 120 rounds of ammo.) Each individual is asked to return in one week to discuss their training and show that they did not waste their bullets which cost around one dollar each. If approved, they will be issued more.

Those who begin their duty work one eight hour shift. Women tend to work during the day when kids are in school but I have seen many women also on the night shift. Most men have regular jobs and proudly explain than they volunteer one work shift daily for their country. They appear to be admired by their neighbors.

I agreed not to describe other weapons that will be used if NATO appears besides rifles, grenades, booby-traps, rocket propelled grenades (RPG’s) but they appear formidable.

But besides preparing for armed defense of their families and homes and neighbors, these neighborhood volunteer civil defense teams explained to me what their main work involves. When an area is bombed, they quickly help the residents exit their bombed building, get medical help on the scene for those who need it, help the families assure the frightened children that things are OK, make notes of needed repairs, provided temporary shelter nearby if needed, and countless tasks the reader can imagine would be required.

Each check point becomes a neighborhood watch security center for the community. Cars are cursorily checked, usually just the trunk. Often the drivers are known to the security forces, many of whom are university students, because they are also from the area. Occasionally a car will stop and a citizen will exit and deliver a tray of fruit or pastries or a pot of Libyan soup etc. A very congenial social atmosphere.

Because NATO has been increasing its bombing of these civilian manned checkpoints, about 50 of which are along the road from the Tunisian border to Tripoli, the neighborhood watch teams are now operating without lights at night. Those on night duty have each been issued one of those small heavy duty five inch mini flashlights with has a powerful beam. This observer was presented one as a souvenir and can attest to its fine quality.

They are civilian because they are volunteers and the regular policemen and women have in large numbers joined an army unit hidden elsewhere toward the east.

In addition to its current problems, NATO will face another major one if they decide to invade Western Libya.

By Franklin Lamb

Fresh diplomatic efforts are under way to try to end Libya’s bloody civil war, with the UN special envoy flying to Tripoli to hold talks after Britain followed France in accepting that Muammar Gaddafi cannot be bombed into exile.

The change of stance by the two most active countries in the international coalition is an acceptance of realities on the ground. Despite more than four months of sustained air strikes by Nato, the rebels have failed to secure any military advantage. Colonel Gaddafi has survived what observers perceive as attempts to eliminate him and, despite the defection of a number of senior commanders, there is no sign that he will be dethroned in a palace coup.

The regime controls around 20 per cent more territory than it did in the immediate aftermath of the uprising on 17 February.

The main obstacle to a ceasefire, so far, has been the insistence of the opposition and their Western backers that Colonel Gaddafi and his family must leave Libya. But earlier this month Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the leader of the Transitional National Council, stated that the dictator can remain in the country if he gives up the reins of power.

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had wanted to declare victory in a Bastille Day speech on 14 July. Soon after this date, the country’s Defence and Foreign Ministers pressed the case for a negotiated settlement.

The UK, which appeared to have been taken by surprise at the French volte-face, tried to maintain a tough line. But that has also changed in the last 48 hours, with first Downing Street and then the Foreign Secretary William Hague saying that Colonel Gaddafi may after all be allowed to remain in his homeland. Mr Hague said the UK would support whatever agreement was reached by the two sides in Libya.

Many senior British military officers have been less than enthusiastic about the Libyan mission, questioning its direction, and privately complaining that it is a distraction from unfinished business in Afghanistan. David Cameron’s attempts to censure commanders who have raised concerns about fighting two wars while resources are being cut back has also led to growing dissatisfaction.

The UN envoy to Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, had met opposition leaders in Benghazi before flying to Tripoli.

Meanwhile, the Libyan regime, which had offered an unconditional ceasefire a month ago, with senior members indicating that Colonel Gaddafi would be eased out, appears to have hardened its position, with officials maintaining that Nato bombing must stop before any talks can be held and demanding the release of Libyan assets frozen by the international community.

It remains unclear how a peace deal would be policed. Nato countries are adamant that they do not want to put boots on the ground, while Alain Le Roy, the UN’s head of peacekeeping operations, has stated that the organisation only has limited manpower. The rebel administration is wary of involving African Union forces, holding that many of the governments of member states were clients of the Gaddafi regime.

* The Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was released from prison in Scotland almost two years ago in the expectation that he would die within three months, has attended a pro-Gaddafi rally in Libya.

Megrahi was seen in a wheelchair in Libyan state television footage said to have been broadcast live. A presenter introduced him and said the conviction for blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie in 1988 was a “conspiracy”. He served eight years of a 27-year sentence for the attack, which killed 270 people.

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Independent.co.uk

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.

The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.

Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.

The Gates of Vienna, a blog that ordinarily keeps up a drumbeat of anti-Islamist news and commentary, closed its pages to comments Sunday “due to the unusual situation in which it has recently found itself.”

Its operator, who describes himself as a Virginia consultant and uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.”

The name of that Web site — a reference to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslim fighters who, the blog says in its headnote, “seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe” — was echoed in the title Mr. Breivik chose for his manifesto: “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.

Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”

“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”

Dr. Sageman, who is also a forensic psychiatrist, said he saw no overt signs of mental illness in Mr. Breivik’s writings. He said Mr. Breivik bears some resemblance to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who also spent years on a manifesto and carried out his mail bombings in part to gain attention for his theories. One obvious difference, Dr. Sageman said, is that Mr. Kaczynski was a loner who spent years in a rustic Montana cabin, while Mr. Breivik appears to have been quite social.

Mr. Breivik’s declaration did not name Mr. Kaczynski or acknowledge the numerous passages copied from the Unabomber’s 1995 manifesto, in which the Norwegian substituted “multiculturalists” or “cultural Marxists” for Mr. Kaczynski’s “leftists” and made other small wording changes.

By contrast, he quoted the American and European counterjihad writers by name, notably Mr. Spencer, author of 10 books, including “Islam Unveiled” and “The Truth About Muhammad.”

Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other antijihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”

“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.

Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.

In the United States, the shootings resonated with years of debate at home over the proper focus of counterterrorism.

Despite the Norway killings, Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden contentious hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans and would hold the third one as planned on Wednesday. He said his committee focused on terrorist threats with foreign ties and suggested that the Judiciary Committee might be more appropriate for looking at non-Muslim threats.

In 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security produced a report, “Rightwing Extremism,” suggesting that the recession and the election of an African-American president might increase the threat from white supremacists, conservatives in Congress strongly objected. Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, quickly withdrew the report and apologized for what she said were its flaws.

Daryl Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security analyst who was the primary author of the report, said in an interview that after he left the department in 2010, the number of analysts assigned to non-Islamic militancy of all kinds was reduced to two from six. Mr. Johnson, who now runs a private research firm on the domestic terrorist threat, DTAnalytics, said about 30 analysts worked on Islamic radicalism when he was there.

The killings in Norway “could easily happen here,” he said. The Hutaree, an extremist Christian militia in Michigan accused last year of plotting to kill police officers and planting bombs at their funerals, had an arsenal of weapons larger than all the Muslim plotters charged in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks combined, he said.

Homeland Security officials disputed Mr. Johnson’s claim about staffing, saying they pay close attention to all threats, regardless of ideology. And the F.B.I. infiltrated the Hutaree, making arrests before any attack could take place.

John D. Cohen, principal deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, said Ms. Napolitano, who visited Oklahoma City last year for the 15th anniversary of the bombing there, had often spoken of the need to assess the risk of violence without regard to politics or religion.

“What happened in Norway,” Mr. Cohen said, “is a dramatic reminder that in trying to prevent attacks, we cannot focus on a single ideology.”

By Scott Shane

July 24, 2011

Sorce: The New York Times

Ayoka Chenzira, artist and filmmaker, Atlanta, GA

For press inquiries, please contact feministdelegation@gmail.com.

The last three years of global recession have dealt a major blow to American capitalist ideas trumpeted throughout the world on the value of “free markets.” Wall St has been revealed as a form of casino economy, with the bankster insiders gambling with other people’s, and eventually, the government’s money in the form of bailouts. As the Republicans in Congress, scenting victory in the 2012 presidential elections, hold a gun to the Obama administration’s head and rating agencies consider downgrading U.S. government bonds in light of Washington’s possible defaulting, many ideas around the world that previously seemed implausible because of the dominance of the U.S. economy are garnering renewed interest.

By John Daly

19 July, 2011

Oilprice.com

© 2010 OilPrice.com

How is it that our nation is awash in money, but too broke to provide jobs and services? David Korten introduces a landmark new report, “How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule.”

The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places.

Raising taxes on the rich and implementing financial reforms are essential elements of the solution to our seemingly intractable fiscal and economic crisis. Yet proposals currently on the table fall far short of the need.

A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money. How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out the steps required to rebuild a system of community-based and accountable institutions devoted to financing productive activities that create good jobs for Americans and generate real community wealth.

Over the past 30 years, virtually all the benefit of U.S. economic growth has gone to the richest 1 percent of Americans. Effective tax rates for the very rich are at historic lows and many of the most profitable corporations pay no taxes at all.

Despite the financial crash of 2008, the financial assets of America’s billionaires and the idle cash of the most profitable corporations are now at historic highs. Their biggest challenge is figuring out where to park all their cash.

Unfortunately, most of those who hold the cash and the corporations they control have lost interest in long-term investments that build and expand strong enterprises. The substantial majority of trades in financial markets are made by high-speed computers in securities held for fractions of a second. Business pundits still refer to this trading as investment. It bears no resemblance, however, to the investment required to put people to work rebuilding a strong America.

Corporations are using their stores of cash primarily to buy back their own stock, acquire control of other companies, invest in off-shoring yet more American jobs, and pay generous dividends to shareholders and outsized bonuses to management.

It was not always so. In response to the Great Depression, our country enacted financial reforms that put in place a system of money, banking, and investment based on community banks, mutual savings and loans, and credit unions. These institutions provided financial services to local Main Street economies that employed Americans to produce and trade real goods and services in response to community needs and opportunities.

This system, which Wall Street interests dismiss as quaint and antiquated, financed the U.S. victory in World War II, the creation of a strong American middle class, an unprecedented period of economic stability and prosperity, and the investments that made America the world’s undisputed industrial and technological leader.

In the 1970’s Wall Street interests began pushing a deregulation agenda that led to a transfer of financial power from Main Street to Wall Street. Wall Street’s mega-banks lost interest in real investment and developed a new business model. They now specialize in charging excessive fees and usurious interest rates, providing leverage to speculators, speculating for their own accounts, luring the unwary into mortgages they cannot afford, bundling junk mortgages to sell them as triple-A securities, betting against the clients to whom they sell the overrated securities, extracting subsidies and bailouts from government, laundering money from drug and arms traders, and offshoring their profits to avoid taxes.

The consequences include the erosion of the middle class, an extreme concentration of wealth and power, a costly financial collapse, persistent high unemployment, housing foreclosures, collapsing environmental systems, the hollowing out of U.S. industrial, technological, and research capacity, huge public and international trade deficits, and the corruption of our political institutions.

Wall Street profited at every step and declared its experiment with deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy a great success. It now argues for extending the same measures even further.

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.

1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.

2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.

3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.

4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.

5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.

6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is the product of extended discussions among representatives of a diverse group of organizations committed to deepening and reframing the conversation on financial reform to focus attention on the serious financial system restructuring required to build a strong new American economy adequate to the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. It may be freely shared, reproduced and distributed with appropriate citations.

By David Korten

19 July, 2011

YES! Magazine

David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine and co-chair of the New Economy Working Group.

Shortly after news came that the US aid ship “The Audacity of Hope” had departed from port and was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the vessel was attacked by heavily armed Greek commandos and forced to return to port.

The activists on board the ship have been forced into a military dockyard surrounded with barbed wire, and report that after expelling the journalists who were on the ship, they have so far not let anyone else leave.

The move was quickly followed with an announcement from the Greek government that all ships hoping to deliver aid to Gaza have been banned from leaving port to “prevent breach of Israel’s naval blockade.” This has a number of aid vessels from myriad countries stuck in Greece for the foreseeable future. The Greek Hellenic Coast Guard is also said to be monitoring the sea to track other ships potentially trying to deliver goods to Gaza.

The move was condemned by aid workers, but loudly cheered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who termed his Greek counterpart George Papandreou “my friend” and lauded his action against what he termed “the provocation flotilla.”

Ironically, while “The Audacity of Hope” is named for a book by President Barack Obama, the Obama Administration has loudly decried efforts to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip, and has threatened to imprison Americans who take part in such deliveries.

By Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

NAIROBI, Kenya — East Africa’s worst drought in 60 years is putting 11 million lives at risk, many of them in war-torn Somalia, where thousands of hungry families are making the dangerous trek across parched, violent territory to the promise of safety and food in Kenya.

Aid agencies warn the drought is regional — affecting Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia — and the hunger that now stalks the land may become famine.

Most of the Somali refugees arrive at Dadaab, a sprawling complex of overcrowded camps in northeastern Kenya built in 1991 for 90,000 people. Today it is home to more than four times that number. It is the world’s largest refugee camp and one of the fastest growing human settlements on the planet.

But it is not large enough for the new refugees, who are currently arriving at a rate as high as 1,000 per day.

Bowing to international pressure, Kenya’s government has agreed to open a new refugee camp to house some of those thousands of hungry, desperate and bedraggled victims of Somalia’s decades-long war who cross into Kenya. The exodus has accelerated because of the drought that is pushing their already marginal existence to the edge of oblivion.

A few miles away from Dadaab’s dusty squalor is Ifo-II, a new $20 million facility for refugees built by the U.N. in 2010. But a year later the gleaming new camp remains empty. The lines of brick houses with tin roofs, deep wells for fresh water, latrines and health facilities are all empty and unused.

Kenya blocked opening the camp, complaining that the new facility would encourage more refugees whose arrival could provide cover for Somalia’s Islamist militants who have threatened Kenya in the past, such as the Al Shabaab insurgents. Kenya has suffered several terrorist bombings.

“We have security concerns that Al Shabaab could be coming into our country under the guise of refugees,” said Kenya’s security minister George Saitoti earlier this week.

But on Thursday Prime Minister Raila Odinga caved into the pressure from aid agencies and the U.N. to open Ifo-II. “Although we consider our own security, we cannot turn away refugees,” he said.

The new camp will help to decongest Dadaab, but it amounts to little more than a sticking a bandaid on a gaping wound as refugees continue to flood across the border joining communities that are themselves suffering from drought-created food shortages.

Two consecutive poor rainy seasons has resulted in “one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones,” according to the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet). The drought has compounded the problems created by more than 20 years of war in Somalia.

“More than 11 million people need urgent assistance to stay alive, as they face their worst drought in decades,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“The human cost of this crisis is catastrophic. U.N. agencies have asked for $1.6 billion dollars to pay for essential life-saving programs in the region, but have only received half that amount,” Ban said. “Our priority is to stop the suffering now.”

Civilians fleeing conflict and drought have made long, often deadly, walks southwards from Somalia in search of food and safety.

“Women and children have made the most incredible journeys, walking for weeks through the desert and braving hunger and attacks by armed robbers and wild animals, to get to the camps in Kenya,” said Joost van de Lest, head of Oxfam in Kenya.

“The numbers arriving are overwhelming and basic services are insufficient,” warned Nick Guttman, head of the humanitarian division at charity Christian Aid.

“Most people have been walking for weeks on end and are in a very poor state of health. Many only make the very difficult and arduous journey to Dadaab when their last animals have died and they have no other choice,” Guttman said after visiting the area this week.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, called the conflict and drought “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.”

In Somalia itself the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says malnutrition levels are currently the highest in the world.

“The population is no longer able to cope with harsh climate conditions, such as the current drought, while at the same time struggling to survive armed conflict and other violence,” said Andrea Heath, ICRC economic security coordinator.

The combination of conflict forcing people from their homes while drought kills off livestock and dries up the land has caused suffering for thousands. To make matters worse, Al Shabaab, Somalia’s ruthless Al Qaeda-linked rebel group, has restricted Western humanitarian access in recent years and food prices have shot up.

In Somalia the cost of sorghum, a staple grain, has risen by 240 percent over the last year.

So dire is the situation that Al Shabaab said it will lift restrictions imposed on humanitarian activities in areas it controls, although aid agencies are wary of returning. The UN’s World Food Programme is considering a return to Al Shabaab-controlled territory after an 18-month absence.

“WFP withdrew from areas under Al Shabaab control … because of threats to the lives of our staff and the imposition of unacceptable operating conditions, including the imposition of informal taxes, and a demand that no female staff work for us there,” the agency said in a statement.

WFP added that it would “explore every possibility to return” with the necessary security guarantees.

This week the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, airlifted 5 tons of food and medicine into the Al Shabaab-controlled town of Baidoa. “We are ready to work anywhere in Somalia,” said UNICEF Somalia head Rozanne Chorlton, “provided we get unhindered access to reach the most vulnerable children in need.”

By Tristan McConnell

© 2011 Global Post

The four BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are posting spectacular growth rates. Credit Suisse analyst Pascal Rohner tell us more about the reasons behind their success and why it is the right time to invest in these markets.

Pascal, you are an emerging market strategist. How large is the combined GDP of the BRIC economies as a proportion of global GDP today?

Pascal Rohner: Ten years ago it was still pretty small, just accounting for around 8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Now, after the strong growth posted in recent years, it accounts for 10 trillion US dollars, which is around 17 percent of global GDP.

Do you expect their combined GDP to overtake the G7’s in the longer term?

Yes. Even though at the moment, their combined GDP is still around three times smaller than the G7’s, we believe it will take less than 25 years before the BRIC economies will be larger than the G7’s.

What are the main drivers behind their growth?

Well, the main drivers are the same as in the last years. We have infrastructure, urbanization, global trade and commodity exports, but increasingly also consumption.

You just mentioned infrastructure. Could you extrapolate?

Even though the BRIC countries have invested a lot in their infrastructure over the last years, there is still a big need for further investments. The OECD actually expects that they will need to invest about 5 percent of their GDP annually, just to achieve the targeted growth numbers.

Do you mean roads, bridges?

Mainly cities, the power plants, roads, railroads, ports etc.

How about the role of consumption?

As I said before, consumption is really becoming a driving force for future economic growth. The main driver is the massive expansion of the global middle class. We believe that the global middle class will more than double in the next 20 years, to more than 3.4 billion people, driven by Asia, mainly China and India.

Are these rising consumption and infrastructure needs driving the demand for commodities?

Yes, absolutely. The huge infrastructure projects, as well as the changing life styles will create a big demand for base metals, for oil, but also for soft commodities in the future. This is obviously positive for commodity exporters, such as Russia and Brazil.

Is it a good time to invest in the BRIC economies right now, or are they overvalued?

We believe it is a good time to invest in the BRICs, even though the story is not new.

It is more or less a consensus call. If you look at the valuations, after the underperformance of last year, the price-to-earnings multiples (P/E) are now more or less in line with historical averages. This basically means there is no bubble at all at the moment.

Can you specify?

If we look at Russia and China we see that their P/E ratios are now below historical averages. In India and Brazil, the picture is slightly different, as we see slight valuation premiums, but these still have not reached bubble territory.

Which risks should investors be aware of?

If we look at the current situation, the main risks are food inflation and political uncertainty. We however believe that the risks in the BRIC economies are manageable. When it comes to equity investments, it is also very important to look at the global risk appetite. If we see a drop in the global risk appetite, we obviously see a correction in these types of risky assets.

For more research information, please visit our Web site:

www.credit-suisse.com/markets

Global Trends

18 July 2011

As more Chinese turn to Christianity, the state is torn between embracing its benefits and the desire to assert control.

There are more than 55,000 churches in China, with more being built to accommodate the growing number of churchgoers [EPA]

Every night, when Yang prays with her seven-year-old daughter, she knows that she is doing something illegal. Like millions of other Chinese Christians, Yang refuses to be a member of one of the official state-sanctioned churches. Instead, she gathers twice a week with two dozen other Protestants in a private living room to pray and sing – far away from the gaze of the Communist Party.

She says she is not opposed to the Chinese government at all, but just wants the freedom of religion that is guaranteed in the Chinese constitution. And she wants her daughter to grow up as a Christian. In China’s state-sanctioned churches it is prohibited to share faith with anyone younger than 18.

“Our life has become so hectic, there is so much pressure. When my husband left me, I was devastated. But one of my friends took me to one of their gatherings and I realised that someone loves me. I want my daughter to grow up knowing that there is more in life than just money. I want her to care more about other people,” Yang says.

China is witnessing a renaissance of faith, especially Christianity [EPA]

Officially atheist, Communist China is witnessing a massive rise in religiosity. Recent surveys have found that one in every three Chinese consider themselves to be religious.

“All Chinese religions have been growing, especially popular or ‘folk religion’,” explains Daniel Bays, a professor of history and the director of the Asian Studies programme at Calvin College in Michigan.

“Protestant Christianity seems to be growing fastest, because it is congregational, providing a social-belonging aspect, leaders can be self-proclaimed, not needing formal credentials.”

Historically, China’s policies on religion have veered between approval, bloody repression and grudging tolerance.

After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the new regime was largely tolerant of religion, believing it to be a backward vestige of the country’s imperial past and thus doomed to extinction. But, like other religions, Christianity suffered during the mass nationalism and atheism of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, it was viewed as a foreign doctrine that served the interests of capitalist imperialism – an ideology that led to decades of bloody persecution.

A ‘thirst for spirituality’

But economic reforms, changing attitudes towards Communism and the liberalisation of religious policies during the 1980s have led to a dramatic growth in Christianity.

According to China Aid, a US-based human rights group, the number of Christians in China has increased 100-fold since the PRC was founded. Current estimates range from 80 million to 130 million active Christians, including members of so-called house churches. In a country of 1.3 billion that figure may not seem too high, but its significance becomes more apparent when compared to the 78 million Chinese that China Daily reports were members of the Communist Party as of June 2010.

“The Cultural Revolution disillusioned Chinese people and the brainwashing atheist education made people thirsty [for] spirituality,” says Mark Shan, the spokesperson for China Aid.

Over the past 30 years, Christianity has gradually adapted to local realities and is no longer seen as a faith imported from the West. And while in the West, Christianity may be widely associated with tradition, in China it is increasingly identified with modernity, business and science.

“We should view Christianity as a Chinese religion, not a Western one any longer,” says Bays. “There is very little left of viewing Christianity as the religion of the West as it was in the 1950s.”

Some experts believe that China could soon be home to the largest Christian population in the world. And the Chinese government has been surprisingly open towards Protestantism – funding the construction of churches and providing seminaries for the training of new church leaders – at least until recently.

But, Carsten Vala, an assistant professor and expert on Chinese Christianity at Loyola University Maryland, believes the Chinese government’s position may have been more tactical and pragmatic than reflective of a genuine step towards religious freedom.

“It’s good public relations to build churches. Overseas, they get good press, such as when they built the first church in Beijing in more than 50 years for the Olympics in 2008. It immediately was overflowing with Protestants,” Vala says.

“But Beijing had more than 60 churches prior to 1949; in the early 1980s that number had dwindled to less than 10.”

China’s ‘lost soul’

There are thought to be between 80 million to 130 million active Christians in China [EPA]

Some believe that Christianity could help fill a moral void in an increasingly self-centred, materialistic and corrupt society, as well as helping to meet the demand for social services.

“Immorality, especially sexual immorality, greed and corruption are soaring in China,” says William Jeynes, a professor of education at California State University and a non-resident scholar at Baylor University. “The government acknowledges this. One Chinese government leader was even quoted as saying ‘China has lost its soul.’ Immorality in China is out of control and many in the government believe that Christianity might be the nation’s best hope to establish morality.”

Jeynes suggests the Chinese government may be adhering to the perspective of German sociologist and political economist Max Weber who believed that a strong work ethic, love for one’s neighbour, self-discipline and trust often accompanies Protestantism and can be essential to keeping a nation’s economic machine in working order.

China’s government must ensure that the country’s economy keeps booming to feed its 1.3 billion people in order to prevent social and political unrest. And it may just see Christianity as beneficial to the maintenance of social stability and economic growth.

“They believe that Christianity is responsible for much of the historic success of Western Europe and the US,” says Jeynes.

“Similarly, many Chinese believers see the current economic decline of the US and Europe, as a direct result of the decline of serious adherence to the Christian faith in these countries. The Chinese believe that as a result what arose was greed on Wall Street, government corruption, and greed among many people causing them to buy homes that they could not afford. China hopes that by embracing Christianity and learning from both the past success and the present failures of the US and Europe, it will be able to prosper rather than fall as a result of immorality produced by secularism.”

But, Jeynes stresses, the attitude of Chinese leaders towards the growing number of Christians can be best described as a “confluence of seemingly contradictory attitudes”.

Means of control

While embracing Christianity for its supposed economic and social benefits, the Communist Party still wants to assert control over the country’s Christians – dictating where they worship and what is preached there.

“By building churches and requiring Protestants to worship inside registered churches, they can exert some control over the training and appointment of church staff, where churches are established, how many services are held, and in some cases even try to pressure church pastors in the content of their preaching,” Vala says.

In 1978 and 1979, party and state leaders re-established an apparatus for monitoring religion and implementing religious policy that had originally existed in the 1950s. All Protestants whose churches were reopened after the Cultural Revolution were expected to register their congregations with the government.

But many Chinese are members of unregistered churches, small congregations who meet privately, usually in apartments and houses. Some say that the registered churches do not include all sects of Christianity, particularly in rural areas where there may not be enough registered churches to meet believers’ needs.

“Among these unregistered groups, some consciously avoid association with the three-self [official church] structure because of memories of radical politics and persecution in the church in the 1950s. Some refuse to register out of theological principle. And some have strong leaders who do not want to be in a system where they would be accountable to anyone, especially not to a government or party body,” says Bays.

As long as they avoid confrontation and keep their congregations small – 25 is the maximum gathering allowed by law without official permission – the Protestant house churches are mostly tolerated by the government. Catholic ones are kept under closer scrutiny because of China’s tense relationship with the Vatican over its continued diplomatic recognition of the government of Taiwan and disagreement over who has the final say on the consecration of Chinese bishops.

By keeping house churches small, the Communist Party may be attempting to ensure that no church becomes large enough to threaten the power of the local party chief. But, paradoxically, this policy also helps to ensure the spread of Christianity, for as congregations grow they are forced to split up and create new branches.

“The state fears religion, the more organised the more it fears it,” says Bays. “There have been several successful religion-led rebellions in Chinese history. You could say the state and party are paranoid; after failure to eliminate religion at times of extreme Maoist radicalism, the recent leaders have resigned themselves to religion remaining a social feature for a long time. So they try to control it through bureaucratic means.”

Chinese authorities fear that massive oppression could lead to organised resistance, while too much freedom could also impact their leadership. It is conscious of the fact that the church played an important role in the events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and in advancing democracy in Eastern Europe.

“They want to learn from the lessons of the former Soviet Union in this regard. The effort to overthrow Communism was largely a Christian-based effort,” Jeynes says. “China’s government leaders are also well aware that it is estimated that Christians constituted about 30 per cent of those who protested in the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989. Therefore, these facts have caused China’s leaders to be concerned about Christianity and persecute Christians.”

Jeynes says that the ‘Arab Spring’ coupled with the Nobel Prize being awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a major critic of the Chinese government, in December 2010 has also caused China to become more cautious about Christianity.

“With the spawning of these events government crackdowns against Christians and other people of faith have increased substantially. The Chinese are especially nervous because they believe that the ‘Arab Spring’ … could easily make its way into China,” Jeynes says.

Increasing pressure

Underground churches were the only place to worship during the repression of the Cultural Revolution [EPA]

The result has been an increase in the amount of pressure exerted on members of unregistered churches and unofficial groups.

One of them is Shouwang Church, Beijing’s biggest house church with more than 1,000 members. Shouwang means “to keep watch” in Chinese, and its members refuse to let themselves be absorbed into the official churches.

Over the past 12 weeks, Shouwang has become a major annoyance for Beijing’s authorities because it insists on trying to hold outdoor services.

According to China Aid, 15 church members were detained for showing up at Shouwang’s designated outdoor worship site on Sunday, June 26. Some Shouwang members claimed they were detained in hotels to prevent them from going to the site and several Shouwang leaders are under house arrest.

But despite repression, house churches seem to be retaining their popularity among the Chinese. Vala believes that the main reason for this is that there are too few registered churches and that those that do exist may be too formal for some.

“Unregistered churches offer frequent services every week, including prayer, Bible study, and worship services. They also offer an intimacy among members who meet often and get to know each other much better than when hundreds gather in large registered churches,” says Vala, adding: “There is also a population that attends both registered church services on Sundays and then attends unregistered churches for Bible studies, too.”

China Aid’s Mark Shan stresses that many Chinese Christians actively choose to join house churches because of the freedom of speech they allow.

“It is safer for those social professions who are forbidden to be religious: such as government-paid jobs, students, teachers, anyone under 18 years old. Three-self [official] churches have many spies to watch people, and their sermons have limited freedom. For example you cannot mention anything about social injustice, political corruption, and mass abortions driven by Chinese birth-control policy brutally enforced in the last 30 years, even from a perspective of Christian ethics,” says Shan.

Huang Jianbo, an anthropologist at Beijing’s Renmin University, says migrant workers in particular seem to be attracted to Christianity and often join house churches.

“Migrant workers are regularly victims of discrimination. Despite the fact that China’s cities are being built by them, they are just treated as second-class citizens,” he says, adding that most migrant workers tend to prefer house churches because they often feel unwelcome in urban church communities.

“Churches in China generally have no interest [in] involving [themselves] in social changes or revolutions because they focus on spiritual matters …. However, such a spiritual … focus will accelerate a cultural or even a social change unconsciously and naturally,” says Shan.

“Yet if persecution [by] the government [does] not leave room for churches to survive, churches may become more like a catalyst [for] social change through exercising non-violent civil disobedience, as [the] Beijing Shouwang Church [has] in the past 12 weeks.”

By Donata Hardenberg

01 July 2011

Source: Al Jazeera