The latest extension to racist citizenship laws has turned Israel into an apartheid state, according to a June 29 report in Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The Citizenship Law (Temporary Order), introduced in 2003, establishes that the interior minister does not have the authority to approve residence in Israel for non-Jews. This destroys the rights for young Israeli and West Bank Palestinians, under 25 for women and 35 for men, to be able to marry and live together.
The ban also covers Palestinians of all ages residing in Gaza. The law was extended for the eighth time since 2003. In 2006, five judges in the High Court of Justice argued that the laws were unconstitutional. This bold move was opposed in a deciding vote by Justice Edmond Levy, who argued on the basis that the law was only two months from expiration.
Two years on, however, the laws still exist.
The decision from the Israeli government has been flanked by claims that it was purely for security purposes. The Haaretz report explains that the administration’s rationale for the laws relied on a belief that through implementing further citizenship laws, they could prevent “terrorists” being “planted” in the Israeli territory via marriage.
Haaretz journalist, Amos Schocken, argued in the June 29 report, entitled “Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state”, that, with the laws extension, the apartheid nature of the Israeli state needed to be acknowledged.
“The claim that there are characteristics of an apartheid state in Israel is widely heard in the Western world”, Schocken wrote. “The word apartheid is catchy and understood in many parts of the world, which makes it useful to send a message that we resent and which we claim has no connection with reality in Israel.
“However, we do not need to replicate exactly the characteristics of South African apartheid within discriminatory practices in civil rights in Israel in order to call Israel an apartheid state. The amendment to the Citizenship Law is exactly such a practice, and it is best that we not try to evade the truth: Its existence in our law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.”
The citizenship law’s extension comes on the back of a 2007 report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council that described Israel as an apartheid state. Its release caused great controversy as its author, John Dugard, was both a South African lawyer and the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report stated that “It is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel’s laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination”. The report highlighted the way that the house and building demolitions, checkpoints, closed zones, Israeli “settler-only” roads and limited access to basic necessities in the occupied Palestinian territories has destroyed the “right to life” for Palestinians.
The extension to the latest round of apartheid laws has been followed by the US Congress approving a US$170 million extension in military aid to Israel, with $30 billion to be given over the next decade. It was a decision condemned by a July 2 Palestine Monitor report, which argues that in continuing to fund Israel, the US is violating its own international aid laws, which state “No assistance [ought to be given] to countries that violate human rights”.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Canada Votes to Let War Resisters Stay
Canada's Parliament has approved a motion which should allow Iraq War Resisters to gain residency.
All three main opposition parties, Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party (NDP) supported the motion. Only the PM Stephen Harper's Conservative government stood against the landmark decision.
But in a twist of fate, while the motion was passed 137-110 in the Canadian House of Commons, it will not be binding on the Conservative Government.
In response, all three main opposition parties and a growing war resister support movement have made calls on the Conservatives and Harper to honour the democratic parliamentary vote."The Harper Conservatives must respect this and immediately implement this motion," Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow said. "Ordinary people want the Iraq war resisters to stay."
The motion, introduced into Parliament by the NDP MP Olivia Chow on 3 June, has come on the back of a growing War Resister supporter's movement throughout Canada. The bill argued that since the war on Iraq has not been sanctioned by the United Nations, that Canada should allow those who conscientiously object, and their families, to apply for Canadian residency.
The motion also called for an end to the deportation/removal orders that have been commenced against known war resisters within Canada. Late last month, U.S. soldier and War Resister Corey Glass was ordered for deportation, after his 22-month battle for residency was rejected by the local authorities.
Glass was asked to voluntarily leave the country by the June 12. Canadian authorities have, until now, ignored the possible repercussions of Glass' return to the United States. "Deserters" from the U.S. armed forces face anything from a dishonorable discharge to jail time in a military prison on their return to the United States.
The Canadian Authorities argued, in Glass' case, that he had come from a democratic country with an accountable and just system for dealing with "deserters". But as Glass told the Toronto Star on May 22 "I guess it means jail time, possibly," said Glass. "They don't really tell me."
The landmark decision by the Canadian Parliament signals hope amongst those turning against the War on Iraq, especially those in the armed forces. Reborn is the idea of the Canadian refuge for those fleeing war. During the Vietnam War thousands of disillusioned U.S. soldiers legally seeked refuge in the country. The War Resister Support Campaign claims that up to 200 U.S. Soldiers have fled into Canada since the beginning of the war in 2003, although only around 40 have applied for refugee status.
All three main opposition parties, Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party (NDP) supported the motion. Only the PM Stephen Harper's Conservative government stood against the landmark decision.
But in a twist of fate, while the motion was passed 137-110 in the Canadian House of Commons, it will not be binding on the Conservative Government.
In response, all three main opposition parties and a growing war resister support movement have made calls on the Conservatives and Harper to honour the democratic parliamentary vote."The Harper Conservatives must respect this and immediately implement this motion," Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow said. "Ordinary people want the Iraq war resisters to stay."
The motion, introduced into Parliament by the NDP MP Olivia Chow on 3 June, has come on the back of a growing War Resister supporter's movement throughout Canada. The bill argued that since the war on Iraq has not been sanctioned by the United Nations, that Canada should allow those who conscientiously object, and their families, to apply for Canadian residency.
The motion also called for an end to the deportation/removal orders that have been commenced against known war resisters within Canada. Late last month, U.S. soldier and War Resister Corey Glass was ordered for deportation, after his 22-month battle for residency was rejected by the local authorities.
Glass was asked to voluntarily leave the country by the June 12. Canadian authorities have, until now, ignored the possible repercussions of Glass' return to the United States. "Deserters" from the U.S. armed forces face anything from a dishonorable discharge to jail time in a military prison on their return to the United States.
The Canadian Authorities argued, in Glass' case, that he had come from a democratic country with an accountable and just system for dealing with "deserters". But as Glass told the Toronto Star on May 22 "I guess it means jail time, possibly," said Glass. "They don't really tell me."
The landmark decision by the Canadian Parliament signals hope amongst those turning against the War on Iraq, especially those in the armed forces. Reborn is the idea of the Canadian refuge for those fleeing war. During the Vietnam War thousands of disillusioned U.S. soldiers legally seeked refuge in the country. The War Resister Support Campaign claims that up to 200 U.S. Soldiers have fled into Canada since the beginning of the war in 2003, although only around 40 have applied for refugee status.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Channel Seven boss behind `clean coal' push
28 March 2008
Channel Seven boss Kerry Stokes’s HRL Ltd and China’s Harbin Power Engineering Company are to build a $750 million “clean coal” power station in the Latrobe Valley that, when operational from the end of 2009, will add significantly to Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The power station will be fired by brown coal using an “integrated drying gasification combined cycle”. HRL claims that the brown-coal-burning plant with produce 30% less CO2 emissions than a standard brown-coal-fired power stations. But brown-coal-fired power stations produce 30-35% more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of electricity than black-coal-fired stations.
A Corporate Watch Australia report prepared for Friends of the Earth — HRL Limited: Burning Coal at Three Minutes to Midnight — has found that the station will generate three times more emissions than will be saved through the federal government plan to phase out incandescent lightbulb.
Reports released by Victorian energy minister Peter Bachelor during 2007 prove that the “clean coal” power station will increase Victoria’s annual greenhouse emissions, by 2.4-2.7 million tonnes.
The power station will a 50-50 venture between HRL and Harbin Power Engineering, though the Chinese company is puttimng up $500 million of the total construction cost. The federal government will contribute $100 million and the Victorian government $50 million toward the construction cost of the station.
HRL, then called the Herman Research Laboratory, was the research arm of the State Electricity Commission until 1994 when then-premier Jeff Kennett sold it off to a consortium including Stokes.
The sale was a controversial one with no tendering process and involving claims reported on ABC TV’s Four Corners program that HRL was “effectively given away”. In July 2006, the Climate Justice Program and Greenpeace lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over HRL Ltd’s use of its claim to be going to produce electricity from “clean coal”.
As Mark Wakeham, Greenpeace’s Energy Campaigner, explained at the time: “The use of the term ’clean coal’ is not only misleading and deceptive — it’s also a dangerous distraction from real action on climate change. Instead of putting $150 million into genuinely clean renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, the federal and state governments are conspiring with the coal industry to support the myth of ’clean coal’.” The FoE commissioned report is available at http://www.foe.org.au .
Channel Seven boss Kerry Stokes’s HRL Ltd and China’s Harbin Power Engineering Company are to build a $750 million “clean coal” power station in the Latrobe Valley that, when operational from the end of 2009, will add significantly to Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The power station will be fired by brown coal using an “integrated drying gasification combined cycle”. HRL claims that the brown-coal-burning plant with produce 30% less CO2 emissions than a standard brown-coal-fired power stations. But brown-coal-fired power stations produce 30-35% more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of electricity than black-coal-fired stations.
A Corporate Watch Australia report prepared for Friends of the Earth — HRL Limited: Burning Coal at Three Minutes to Midnight — has found that the station will generate three times more emissions than will be saved through the federal government plan to phase out incandescent lightbulb.
Reports released by Victorian energy minister Peter Bachelor during 2007 prove that the “clean coal” power station will increase Victoria’s annual greenhouse emissions, by 2.4-2.7 million tonnes.
The power station will a 50-50 venture between HRL and Harbin Power Engineering, though the Chinese company is puttimng up $500 million of the total construction cost. The federal government will contribute $100 million and the Victorian government $50 million toward the construction cost of the station.
HRL, then called the Herman Research Laboratory, was the research arm of the State Electricity Commission until 1994 when then-premier Jeff Kennett sold it off to a consortium including Stokes.
The sale was a controversial one with no tendering process and involving claims reported on ABC TV’s Four Corners program that HRL was “effectively given away”. In July 2006, the Climate Justice Program and Greenpeace lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over HRL Ltd’s use of its claim to be going to produce electricity from “clean coal”.
As Mark Wakeham, Greenpeace’s Energy Campaigner, explained at the time: “The use of the term ’clean coal’ is not only misleading and deceptive — it’s also a dangerous distraction from real action on climate change. Instead of putting $150 million into genuinely clean renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, the federal and state governments are conspiring with the coal industry to support the myth of ’clean coal’.” The FoE commissioned report is available at http://www.foe.org.au .
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Join the Struggle against Israeli Apartheid
Following the age-old premise of struggling locally to effect change globally, activists fighting for justice for the Palestinian people are taking big steps forward in a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeted against the criminal Israeli state.
The reasons for this seem clear enough. The title of a March 9 report jointly released by eight NGOs, including Oxfam, Care and Amnesty International, says it all: The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion. The report reveals, that due to Israel’s economic siege, 80% of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents have to live on US$1.20 a day or less, while 80% only survive because of humanitarian aid.
The report states: “The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967.” The most recent figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) show that half of West Bank Palestinian households were living in poverty.
The causes of this poverty are also clear enough. A July 2007 OCHA report, Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and Other Infrastructure in the West Bank, notes “that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure”, including settlements, checkpoints and the 703-kilometre apartheid wall. The report detailed how Israeli “roads linking settlements to Israel, in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks, have fragmented Palestinian communities from each other”. It noted that “the consequences of settlements and related infrastructure on Palestinian life are severe, and if current trends continue, socioeconomic conditions in the West Bank are likely to worsen. “Despite the transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) being illegal under international law, the Israeli settler population in the West Bank settlements has continued to grow steadily by around 5.5% each year.
In 2007, approximately 450,000 settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.” A March 2006 position paper by the Stockholm-based international Christian charity organisation Diakonia notes: “The system with separate rights and services for Jewish settlers and Arabic Palestinians has similarities with those of the old apartheid South Africa.
The ID-system, constant control of movement for the Palestinian population, unequal services and separate roads and transport system are other similarities.” In an interview with the March 9 British Guardian, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa”. In a January 28 media release, Amnesty International described the conditions facing the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation as “virtual imprisonment”.
Despite the fact that Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is so well-document, well-funded pro-Israeli groups in many countries, particularly those with pro-Israeli governments like Australia, have had considerable success in convincing people that it is Israel, not the Palestinians, who are under attack or, that they are as bad as each other. They know that if they can at least neutralise support for the Palestinians’ struggle against the Israeli occupation, they will have won a significant victory.
One such organisation is the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, which publishes the Australia Israel Review. The AIJAC likes to present itself, to the media and the general public, as the representative voice of Australian Jews. But it is a right-wing pro-Israel propaganda and lobby organisation.
The challenge for those who support justice for the Palestinian people is to find ways in which the true stories from Palestine can reach the widest audience and to convince more people to take protest action against Israel’s apartheid system. With this in mind, the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid was started in June 2005 by 175 NGOs in occupied Palestine.
The BDS campaign gives activists in every part of the world the chance to indirectly put pressure on Israel by calling on the governments and corporations of their countries to boycott Israel, disinvest from Israel and impose sanctions on Israel as long as it does not end its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantle the apartheid wall. Boycott campaigns, on the scale needed to isolate Israel, can only start to create change when they are able to link up with a mass movement.
It is only then that they can bring the power of large numbers of mobilised people to bear on the politicians who support and the corporations that profit from the Palestinians’ oppression. The BDS campaign seeks to do this by aiming to draw into activity as many people as possible, wherever they are.
The campaign also concentrates on the local institutions that are complicit in Israeli apartheid, helping to expose the wider problems of our own societies. In Australia, we have already seen protest actions against the likes of Starbucks, Connex and Caterpillar.
We have also seen various rallies and speak-outs in support of Palestine and against Israeli aggression. But we must not stop there. The growing movement for BDS has already started to rattle Israel, with the Israeli government appointing a task force to watch over BDS activities.
Pro-Israel groups around the world have employed many people to counter the impact of the campaign. But we know from the experience of the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa that these struggles are not won overnight. They are also not won without huge amounts of international support and a mass movement. Imperialist governments like those of Australia, Britain and the US, and their big-business masters openly supported the apartheid regime in South Africa until international opposition to apartheid became a mass movement.
This is why the protest actions promoted by Palestinian solidarity activists, in Australia and around the world, are so important. It is also why your involvement is so important. If you feel passionately about human rights and want to fight the scourge of injustice, you shouldn’t just talk about it, you should get active and join us!
The reasons for this seem clear enough. The title of a March 9 report jointly released by eight NGOs, including Oxfam, Care and Amnesty International, says it all: The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion. The report reveals, that due to Israel’s economic siege, 80% of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents have to live on US$1.20 a day or less, while 80% only survive because of humanitarian aid.
The report states: “The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967.” The most recent figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) show that half of West Bank Palestinian households were living in poverty.
The causes of this poverty are also clear enough. A July 2007 OCHA report, Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and Other Infrastructure in the West Bank, notes “that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure”, including settlements, checkpoints and the 703-kilometre apartheid wall. The report detailed how Israeli “roads linking settlements to Israel, in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks, have fragmented Palestinian communities from each other”. It noted that “the consequences of settlements and related infrastructure on Palestinian life are severe, and if current trends continue, socioeconomic conditions in the West Bank are likely to worsen. “Despite the transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) being illegal under international law, the Israeli settler population in the West Bank settlements has continued to grow steadily by around 5.5% each year.
In 2007, approximately 450,000 settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.” A March 2006 position paper by the Stockholm-based international Christian charity organisation Diakonia notes: “The system with separate rights and services for Jewish settlers and Arabic Palestinians has similarities with those of the old apartheid South Africa.
The ID-system, constant control of movement for the Palestinian population, unequal services and separate roads and transport system are other similarities.” In an interview with the March 9 British Guardian, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa”. In a January 28 media release, Amnesty International described the conditions facing the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation as “virtual imprisonment”.
Despite the fact that Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is so well-document, well-funded pro-Israeli groups in many countries, particularly those with pro-Israeli governments like Australia, have had considerable success in convincing people that it is Israel, not the Palestinians, who are under attack or, that they are as bad as each other. They know that if they can at least neutralise support for the Palestinians’ struggle against the Israeli occupation, they will have won a significant victory.
One such organisation is the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, which publishes the Australia Israel Review. The AIJAC likes to present itself, to the media and the general public, as the representative voice of Australian Jews. But it is a right-wing pro-Israel propaganda and lobby organisation.
The challenge for those who support justice for the Palestinian people is to find ways in which the true stories from Palestine can reach the widest audience and to convince more people to take protest action against Israel’s apartheid system. With this in mind, the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid was started in June 2005 by 175 NGOs in occupied Palestine.
The BDS campaign gives activists in every part of the world the chance to indirectly put pressure on Israel by calling on the governments and corporations of their countries to boycott Israel, disinvest from Israel and impose sanctions on Israel as long as it does not end its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantle the apartheid wall. Boycott campaigns, on the scale needed to isolate Israel, can only start to create change when they are able to link up with a mass movement.
It is only then that they can bring the power of large numbers of mobilised people to bear on the politicians who support and the corporations that profit from the Palestinians’ oppression. The BDS campaign seeks to do this by aiming to draw into activity as many people as possible, wherever they are.
The campaign also concentrates on the local institutions that are complicit in Israeli apartheid, helping to expose the wider problems of our own societies. In Australia, we have already seen protest actions against the likes of Starbucks, Connex and Caterpillar.
We have also seen various rallies and speak-outs in support of Palestine and against Israeli aggression. But we must not stop there. The growing movement for BDS has already started to rattle Israel, with the Israeli government appointing a task force to watch over BDS activities.
Pro-Israel groups around the world have employed many people to counter the impact of the campaign. But we know from the experience of the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa that these struggles are not won overnight. They are also not won without huge amounts of international support and a mass movement. Imperialist governments like those of Australia, Britain and the US, and their big-business masters openly supported the apartheid regime in South Africa until international opposition to apartheid became a mass movement.
This is why the protest actions promoted by Palestinian solidarity activists, in Australia and around the world, are so important. It is also why your involvement is so important. If you feel passionately about human rights and want to fight the scourge of injustice, you shouldn’t just talk about it, you should get active and join us!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Blood Drenched History of Oil
There Will Be Blood
In Cinemas Now
There Will Be Blood takes us to the early 20th century when oil moguls were making their first moves in creating the oil-dominated economy we live in today.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), is an oil mogul with an eye for domination, at any cost. He is more than happy to use and abuse people close to him at whim. Whether they be his family, his workers, associates or the church, it doesn’t matter as long as he gets his way.
Many today would describe men like Plainview as pioneers, entrepreneurs with the finest capitalist spirit. But There Will Be Blood shows the brutal, psychopathic side of such pioneers, who forged capitalist growth and the basis of the economy we live under today by anything but peaceful means.
Another part of this society is represented by Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). He expresses the part played by evangelical Christianity in such times. As is shown in There Will Be Blood, in desperate times many more people will look to the sky for salvation and will more easily fall into the arms of the more fundamentalist faiths that will promise a more all embracing form of belief.
There Will Be Blood is a modern day classic that deserves all the praise it can get. But even more than that, it gives people today an all important guide to where we have come from, and therefore implies a future that we should try to avoid.
In Cinemas Now
There Will Be Blood takes us to the early 20th century when oil moguls were making their first moves in creating the oil-dominated economy we live in today.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), is an oil mogul with an eye for domination, at any cost. He is more than happy to use and abuse people close to him at whim. Whether they be his family, his workers, associates or the church, it doesn’t matter as long as he gets his way.
Many today would describe men like Plainview as pioneers, entrepreneurs with the finest capitalist spirit. But There Will Be Blood shows the brutal, psychopathic side of such pioneers, who forged capitalist growth and the basis of the economy we live under today by anything but peaceful means.
Another part of this society is represented by Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). He expresses the part played by evangelical Christianity in such times. As is shown in There Will Be Blood, in desperate times many more people will look to the sky for salvation and will more easily fall into the arms of the more fundamentalist faiths that will promise a more all embracing form of belief.
There Will Be Blood is a modern day classic that deserves all the praise it can get. But even more than that, it gives people today an all important guide to where we have come from, and therefore implies a future that we should try to avoid.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Climate Change leading towards Social Crisis
Climate change is fuelling food shortages capable of reeking serious social crisis across the globe, according to the head of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN FAO).
Over the last year we have seen the consequences of chronic food shortages and its impact on social control as was demonstrated in the food riots that broke out in Mexico, India, Bukina Faso and West Bengal among others.
In Russia, the threat of the government being forced from office has lead to the freezing of food prices while other governments like that in revolutionary Venezuela have been able to control prices in their state owned discount supermarkets despite shortages of beef, chicken and milk.
In Argentina and Italy the rise in basic food costs has lead to boycotts against national favorites like tomatoes and pasta respectively.
The UN have placed the blame for the food shortages on a combination of world oil prices, U.S farmers move towards growing crops for biofuel, extreme weather patterns caused by climate change as well as the increased demand being created by the growing economies of India and China.
Ali Gurkan, head of the UN FAO, told the Guardian that cereal crops had been declining for a decade but now stood at levels vulnerable to an international crisis or natural disaster that may occur.
Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute Thinktank explained that the battle for grain was becoming increasingly a battle between those that want to use it to use it to create ethanol for cars and those in the third world that simply wanted to eat it to stay alive.
With oil prices pushing ninety dollars a barrel US President Bush’s pledge, for a steep rise in ethanol production, this has inflated the price of maize crop and taken precious land away from food production.
With maize being a staple food in many countries and 70% of the world’s maize coming from the USA this has meant catastrophe could be right around the corner.
Cuban President Fidel Castro has been critical of biofuel technology and the United States’ attempts to push it on the third world describing it in April 3 edition of the state owned Granma newspaper as “the internationalization of genocide”.
As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has also become critical of biofuels explained during President Bush’s South American tour earlier this year, “When you fill a vehicle’s tank with ethanol, you are filling it with energy for which land and water enough to feed seven people have been used”.
As Josette Sheeran, director of the WFP, explained to the Guardian, “There are 854 million hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year. We are facing the tightest food supplies in recent history. For the worlds most vulnerable, food is simply being priced out of their reach”.
Over the last year we have seen the consequences of chronic food shortages and its impact on social control as was demonstrated in the food riots that broke out in Mexico, India, Bukina Faso and West Bengal among others.
In Russia, the threat of the government being forced from office has lead to the freezing of food prices while other governments like that in revolutionary Venezuela have been able to control prices in their state owned discount supermarkets despite shortages of beef, chicken and milk.
In Argentina and Italy the rise in basic food costs has lead to boycotts against national favorites like tomatoes and pasta respectively.
The UN have placed the blame for the food shortages on a combination of world oil prices, U.S farmers move towards growing crops for biofuel, extreme weather patterns caused by climate change as well as the increased demand being created by the growing economies of India and China.
Ali Gurkan, head of the UN FAO, told the Guardian that cereal crops had been declining for a decade but now stood at levels vulnerable to an international crisis or natural disaster that may occur.
Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute Thinktank explained that the battle for grain was becoming increasingly a battle between those that want to use it to use it to create ethanol for cars and those in the third world that simply wanted to eat it to stay alive.
With oil prices pushing ninety dollars a barrel US President Bush’s pledge, for a steep rise in ethanol production, this has inflated the price of maize crop and taken precious land away from food production.
With maize being a staple food in many countries and 70% of the world’s maize coming from the USA this has meant catastrophe could be right around the corner.
Cuban President Fidel Castro has been critical of biofuel technology and the United States’ attempts to push it on the third world describing it in April 3 edition of the state owned Granma newspaper as “the internationalization of genocide”.
As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has also become critical of biofuels explained during President Bush’s South American tour earlier this year, “When you fill a vehicle’s tank with ethanol, you are filling it with energy for which land and water enough to feed seven people have been used”.
As Josette Sheeran, director of the WFP, explained to the Guardian, “There are 854 million hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year. We are facing the tightest food supplies in recent history. For the worlds most vulnerable, food is simply being priced out of their reach”.
Book Review: Naomi Klein- The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Klein- The Shock Doctrine
Penguin Books
32.95 RRP
Milton Freedman’s death was greeted by a tide of obituaries in the mainstream press in support of the world reknown “libertarian” economist. Yet very few cared to mention the various example countries he had made his work over his life.
Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine takes a look behind the work of a man that has helped bring neo-liberalism into the lives of millions- with devastating results.
Klein tracks the history of Freedman and his Chicago school’s exploits throughout the world and their attempt to create a blank slate model country on which to impose their neo-liberal agenda. A shocking comparison is drawn between the use of shock therapy on humans to what the Freedmanites tried to impose on countries.
The idea of disaster capitalism comes from the way first world capitalists now use disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and war as an opportunity to create more business for themselves. Today, many industries, like vultures on a dead carcass, thrive on such misfortune and therefore have an interest in its continuance.
Despite the rhetoric of Libertarianism, Freedman’s politics relied on sacred and insecure people and often required dictatorships, like that of Pinochet in Chile, to be imposed. Millions have been murdered or disappeared as a direct result of upholding this very anti-democratic ideology. Despite this, Freedman is for some reason held up as a demi-god to economics students through out the world.
As Klein points out many people would like us to believe that these shocking examples of capitalism at its greediest, from Iraq to New Orleans to Russia to South Africa and beyond, are simply caused by a few bad apples or maybe even part of an elaborate conspiracy but these ideas give no credit to the people who created the ideas and whose interests they were serving.
The ramifications of such a disaster situation has also been used as an opening to the ideologists with money, otherwise known as the IMF and World Bank. For these institutions, they know it is only a matter of time before they get their way even if they have to go to war to do so.
The shock doctrine shows us how far capitalism has come and how truly unsustainable the idea of unlimited growth truly has proved. I would be truly surprised if someone could walk away from this book and not want to change the world in which we live. A must for all economics students and those that are yet to grasp the devastating nature of the (capitalist) world around us.
Penguin Books
32.95 RRP
Milton Freedman’s death was greeted by a tide of obituaries in the mainstream press in support of the world reknown “libertarian” economist. Yet very few cared to mention the various example countries he had made his work over his life.
Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine takes a look behind the work of a man that has helped bring neo-liberalism into the lives of millions- with devastating results.
Klein tracks the history of Freedman and his Chicago school’s exploits throughout the world and their attempt to create a blank slate model country on which to impose their neo-liberal agenda. A shocking comparison is drawn between the use of shock therapy on humans to what the Freedmanites tried to impose on countries.
The idea of disaster capitalism comes from the way first world capitalists now use disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and war as an opportunity to create more business for themselves. Today, many industries, like vultures on a dead carcass, thrive on such misfortune and therefore have an interest in its continuance.
Despite the rhetoric of Libertarianism, Freedman’s politics relied on sacred and insecure people and often required dictatorships, like that of Pinochet in Chile, to be imposed. Millions have been murdered or disappeared as a direct result of upholding this very anti-democratic ideology. Despite this, Freedman is for some reason held up as a demi-god to economics students through out the world.
As Klein points out many people would like us to believe that these shocking examples of capitalism at its greediest, from Iraq to New Orleans to Russia to South Africa and beyond, are simply caused by a few bad apples or maybe even part of an elaborate conspiracy but these ideas give no credit to the people who created the ideas and whose interests they were serving.
The ramifications of such a disaster situation has also been used as an opening to the ideologists with money, otherwise known as the IMF and World Bank. For these institutions, they know it is only a matter of time before they get their way even if they have to go to war to do so.
The shock doctrine shows us how far capitalism has come and how truly unsustainable the idea of unlimited growth truly has proved. I would be truly surprised if someone could walk away from this book and not want to change the world in which we live. A must for all economics students and those that are yet to grasp the devastating nature of the (capitalist) world around us.
CD Review: Anti Flag- A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime
Anti Flag
A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime
A-F Records
Anti Flag have never been a band to shy away from the big issues and the latest EP from the Pittsburgh-based punk band proves to be no exception to this rule.
As Anti Flag explains in their liner notes, violent crimes are too often written off as senseless acts when in fact there is often underlying social reasonings for such events.
Anti Flag see their new release as something that can not only raise money for a good cause but also to get people thinking about the underlying issues behind violent crimes that have touched the band personally through the death of Chris #2’s sister and her boyfriend.
The release includes five new and five live tracks. The new tunes express the feelings felt by many young radicals growing up in today’s world, of hate of the established order, the need for radical change and a certain hopelessness felt by those fighting for change. This sentiment can be seen in “no future”, “anthem for the new millennium generation” and “No Paradise”. “Corporate Rock still sucks” describes the many downsides of work in a corporate world.
The live tracks include tracks from their last few albums which have become crowd favorites during their hectic live show schedule over recent years including no borders, no nations, one trillion dollars and 911 for peace.
A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime
A-F Records
Anti Flag have never been a band to shy away from the big issues and the latest EP from the Pittsburgh-based punk band proves to be no exception to this rule.
As Anti Flag explains in their liner notes, violent crimes are too often written off as senseless acts when in fact there is often underlying social reasonings for such events.
Anti Flag see their new release as something that can not only raise money for a good cause but also to get people thinking about the underlying issues behind violent crimes that have touched the band personally through the death of Chris #2’s sister and her boyfriend.
The release includes five new and five live tracks. The new tunes express the feelings felt by many young radicals growing up in today’s world, of hate of the established order, the need for radical change and a certain hopelessness felt by those fighting for change. This sentiment can be seen in “no future”, “anthem for the new millennium generation” and “No Paradise”. “Corporate Rock still sucks” describes the many downsides of work in a corporate world.
The live tracks include tracks from their last few albums which have become crowd favorites during their hectic live show schedule over recent years including no borders, no nations, one trillion dollars and 911 for peace.
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