Gaza reconstruction to cost $7.8 billion
Al-Akhbar | September 4, 2014
Rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday, in the most comprehensive assessment yet of damage from the seven-week Israeli assault during which whole neighborhoods and vital infrastructure were flattened.
The cost of rebuilding 17,000 Gazan homes razed by Israeli bombings would be $2.5 billion, the Authority said, and the energy sector needed $250 million after the Strip’s only power plant was destroyed by two Israeli missiles.
“The attack on Gaza this time had no precedent, Gaza has been hit with a catastrophe and it needs immediate help because many things can’t wait long,” Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Palestinian economist and a senior member of the West Bank’s dominant Fatah party, told reporters in Ramallah.
Rebuilding Gaza would depend heavily on foreign aid and requires an end to Palestinian rivalry and Israel opening its border crossings, said Shtayyeh, who heads the Palestinian Economic Council for Research and Development (PECDAR) which ran the survey.
But none of the factors mentioned by Shtayyeh appeared forthcoming. A donor conference in Cairo has yet to be formally scheduled, Palestinian institutions remain divided between Gaza and the West Bank and Israel has yet to fundamentally ease the movement of people and goods at its Gaza border.
The PA’s assessment also found that the Strip’s education sector would need around $143 million to get back on its feet. About half a million children have been unable to return to their schools due to damage or because the buildings are being used to house refugees.
Over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families, the UN says.
The remaining billions of dollars in the PECDAR assessment, which was compiled by 13 experts resident in Gaza and their research teams, were allocated to the financial, health, agriculture, and transportation sectors, all of which suffered widespread damage during the war.
The assessment also earmarked $670 million for an airport and sea port, which Shtayyeh said was a Palestinian right, but Israel has so far rejected.
The Israeli assault on Gaza killed over 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, along with 64 Israeli soldiers and five civilians.
In the week since an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire took hold on August 26, little progress has been made in getting the rebuilding underway or settling the bitter political rifts around Gaza.
An international donor conference jointly chaired by Egypt and Norway has yet to be formally scheduled, and Israel has not fundamentally changed its curbs on the movement of people and goods, especially crucial building materials, on Gaza’s border.
The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority barely has enough money to pay its own employees in the West Bank and has no immediate plans to pay employees in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, despite a unity pact signed between Fatah and Hamas in April.
“The Authority needs to be able to work as an authority to become completely responsible for all aspects of life in Gaza,” Shtayyeh told reporters.
(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
Guatemala defies ‘Monsanto Law’ pushed by US as part of trade agreement
RT | September 3, 2014
The highest court in Guatemala has suspended the controversial ‘Monsanto Law,’ a provision of a US-Central American trade agreement, that would insulate transnational seed corporations considered to have “discovered” new plant varieties.
The Constitutional Court suspended on Friday the law – passed in June and due to go into effect on Sept. 26 – after a writ of amparo was filed by the Guatemalan Union, Indigenous and Peasant Movement, which argued the law would harm the nation, LaVoz reported.
The Court’s decision came after several Guatemalan parliamentarians from both the governing Patriotic Party and the opposition party Renewed Democratic Freedom said they would consider repealing the law after outcry from a diverse cross-section of Guatemalans.
The decision also offers interested parties 15 days to present their arguments pertaining to the law in front of the Constitutional Court. Members of both political parties said they would present motions to resist the law.
The ‘Law for the Protection of New Plant Varieties,’ dubbed the ‘Monsanto Law’ by critics for its formidable seed-privatization provisions, is an obligation for all nations that signed the 2005 CAFTA-DR free trade agreement between Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. The agreement requires signatories to adhere to the International Convention for the Protection of New Plant Varieties.
The law offers producers of transgenic seeds, often corporate behemoths like Monsanto, strict property rights in the event of possession or exchange of original or harvested seeds of protected varieties without the breeder’s authorization. A breeder’s right extends to “varieties essentially derived from the protected variety,” thus, a hybrid of a protected and unprotected seed belongs to the protected seed’s producer.
The Rural Studies Collective (Cer-Ixim) warned that the law would monopolize agriculture processes, severely threaten food sovereignty – especially those of indigenous peoples – and would sacrifice national biodiversity “under the control of domestic and foreign companies.”
The National Alliance for Biodiversity Protection said in July that the law is unconstitutional “because it violates the rights of peoples. It will benefit transnational seed companies such as Monsanto, Duwest, Dupont, Syngenta, etc.”
“According to this law, the rights of plant breeders are superior to the rights of peoples to freely use seeds,” the Alliance said in a statement.
“It’s a direct attack on the traditional knowledge, biodiversity, life, culture, rural economy and worldview of Peoples, and food sovereignty,” the Alliance added.
Anyone who violates the law, wittingly or not, could face a prison term of one to four years, and fines of US$130 to $1,300.
It is unclear what options the Guatemalan government has given the obligations under CAFTA-DR. The US would likely put pressure on the nation to pass the law, part of a global effort using trade agreements to push further corporate control over trade sectors like agriculture in the name of modernization. Upon further refusal, the US could drop Guatemala from the trade agreement.
Russian Experts Push Medvedev to Include GMOs in Sanctions
Sustainable Pulse | September 4, 2014
In an official letter Wednesday to Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, a group of top Russian experts including scientists, farmers and eco groups urged him to add all foods containing GMOs to the existing food sanctions that have been placed by Russia on the EU, U.S. and Australia amongst others.
The suggested ban includes all 18 varieties of genetically modified crops, registered and approved in Russia for use in the production of food for consumers and feed for farm animals.
The experts stated that the main manufacturers and suppliers of GM seed are located in countries that support sanctions against Russia. The biotech giants who fully control the market of GM seeds include: Monsanto (USA), Dow (USA), DuPont Pioneer (USA), Bayer (Germany), BASF (Germany). Therefore, products containing GM ingredients should be one of the sanctions applied by Russia in relation to these countries.
The experts suggested that Russia should also only buy conventional non-GMO food and feed products from countries that do not support the sanctions and yet currently supply products containing GMOs (e.g. Brazil, China, India and South Africa – BRICS countries).
“Now is a good time to stop the spread of food and feed products in Russia that contain GMOs, so we are then able to obtain objective scientific data on the impact of GMOs on the health of mammals. Independent research from domestic and foreign scientists suggests that GMOs may have an adverse effect on the health of mammals and lead to the development of diseases such as cancer, allergies, obesity, infertility, and others. To clarify the mechanisms of the impact of GMOs on living organisms, we need to continue to develop independent research in this area,” stated Elena Sharoykina, who is the Director of the Russian National Association for Genetic Safety.
Earlier this year in March, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia must protect its citizens from the use of foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and that this could be done in compliance with the country’s obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In June, Russia also delayed the registration of GM varieties for the planting of GM crops, which had been planned to start in July. The current situation is that no GM crops have been grown in Russia and this will now be the case for at least the next 3 years.
Scottish independence to spark nuke debate
Press TV – September 4, 2014
A yes vote in the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence is expected to pose challenges over the future of the UK’s strategic nuclear Trident program.
Keeping the nuclear base in Scotland for a least a number of years would be part of the independence negotiations, says Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a research director at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) and co-author of a recent report on relocating the Trident base.
According to the report, cited Thursday in The Guardian newspaper, while any relocation could not be completed by the 2020 target date currently proposed by the Scottish government, it could be put off – under a specific UK-Scotland basing agreement – perhaps until 2028, the date a new fleet of Trident submarines is due to start entering service.
The relocation would add up to £3.5bn to the cost of retaining Britain’s nuclear forces, a program estimated to cost £80bn over 25 years.
Yet, as the Rusi report concedes, negotiations following a yes vote in the Scottish referendum this month would trigger a wider debate in the rest of the UK about whether or not the strategic benefits of retaining nuclear weapons exceed the costs involved.
Chalmers adds that the debate over British nuclear weapons has always been politically driven and the military is divided over the issue.
The US, in particular, which wants its major British NATO ally to retain nuclear weapons, has made it clear that it would not welcome such a debate.
However, Colin Fleming, a Scottish defense and security academic, put it this way in a recent edition of the Chatham House think tank Journal of International Affairs : “There is no reason why Scotland would not provide a modern, flexible, defence force capable of securing Scottish territory and playing its part in the broader security of the British Isles as a whole.”
New EU economic sanctions to hit Russian oil, defense investments – report
RT | September 4, 2014
The European Union is looking at introducing more economic sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in Ukrainian conflict, targeting the country’s oil and defense industries with investment bans, according to a new report.
EU diplomats have started drawing up new economic sanctions in Brussels, indicating that they could be passed as soon as Friday, The Telegraph reported, citing a three-page document.
The confidential document was reportedly handed over to ambassadors from several European countries this week.
It calls to “prohibit debt financing (through bonds, equities and syndicated loans) to defense companies and to all companies whose main activity is the exploration, production and transportation of oil and oil products and in which the Russian state is the majority shareholder.”
The new wave of sanctions could potentially ban state-controlled Russian oil and defense companies from raising funds in European capital markets, cutting off foreign investment.
“This extension would significantly increase the burden placed on the Russian state to finance its companies,” the document suggests.
The sanctions would affect Rosneft – Russia’s largest oil producer – in turn impacting British energy company BP, which has a 20 percent stake in the company.
Moreover, Russia’s oil prospectors could be blocked off from accessing exploration, production and refinery services.
“Measures could be extended… to provision of future associated services (such as seismic campaign-related services, drilling, well testing, logging and completion services, supply of floating vessels etc) for deep water, oil exploration and production, Arctic oil exploration and production or shale oil projects in Russia,” said the paper.
That may even include “prohibiting the provision of new additional technologies, for instance refining technologies needed to upgrade crude oil to EURO 4 standards.”
The banking sector will also be targeted further, making borrowing money from the EU even more difficult for Russian state-owned companies.
“Possible measures [include] prohibiting EU persons from participating in syndicated loans to major Russian State owned banks and other entities with a view to further restraining access to capital and closing a possible gap in the current regulation,” said the EU document. “[Also] lowering the maturity beyond which certain debt instruments are restricted bringing it form the current 90 days to 30 days.”
READ MORE: France says it cannot deliver Mistral warship to Russia over Ukraine
Some of the measures not being considered at this time, but reportedly being held in reserve, include bans on the purchase of newly issued Russian government bonds and a boycott of non-industrial diamonds.
Aside from the economic measures, other forms of sanctions are also being considered.
“Beside economic measures, thought could be given to taking coordinated action within the G7 and beyond to recommend suspension of Russian participation in high profile international cultural, economic or sports events (Formula One races, UEFA football competitions, 2018 World Cup etc),” according to the document.
AFP reported, citing a source, that the World Cup boycott idea is being considered as a “possibility for later on, not now.”
On Wednesday the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, said there was no chance of the 2018 World Cup being taken away from Russia.
“We are not placing any questions over the World Cup in Russia,” the head of world football’s governing body said at an event near Kitzbuehel, Austria, according to the DPA news agency. “We are in a situation in which we have expressed our trust to the organizers of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.”
“[A boycott] has never achieved anything,” Blatter stressed.
Meanwhile, President Putin has outlined a seven-point plan to stabilize the situation in the crisis-torn region of eastern Ukraine.
Putin also expressed hope that final agreements between Kiev and the militia in southeastern Ukraine could be reached and secured at the coming meeting of the so-called contact group on September 5.
The military conflict has killed 2,593 people since mid-April and displaced over a million Ukrainians, most of whom sought refuge in Russia.
So far, attempts at temporary ceasefires between Kiev and self-defense forces in the past months have failed to improve the situation in southeastern Ukraine. The fighting has continued, with both sides blaming each other for breaking the truce.
France says it cannot deliver Mistral warship to Russia over Ukraine
RT | September 3, 2014
France has suspended delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships to Russia, due to events in eastern Ukraine.
“The situation is serious. Russia’s recent actions in the east of Ukraine contravene the fundamental principles of European security,” said a statement from the office of President Francois Hollande.
“The president of the Republic has concluded that despite the prospect of ceasefire, which has yet to be confirmed and put in place, the conditions under which France could authorise the delivery of the first helicopter carrier are not in place.”
The office informed AFP that the suspension would be next reviewed before November.
“Legally, nothing has changed and the contract is still in force, and the first vessel is still due for delivery on November 1. But a political decision has been taken. The President is saying that if nothing changes, he cannot allow the delivery to go through,” one of Hollande’s representatives told Russia’s RIA news agency.
As the rift over Ukraine has widened, Russian officials have repeatedly said that they would accept the French government’s failure to deliver the ships, as long as it paid the penalty for breaking the contract, which, could potentially exceed the cost of the ships themselves.
“This is not a tragedy, though of course the news is unpleasant. It will not affect our armament plans. We will act in accordance with international laws and the statutes of the contract,” said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, in a statement.
The two ships were commissioned by Russia in 2011 at a cost of $1.6 billion. The first of these, the Vladivostok, was due to come into service at the end of this year, with the second, the Sevastopol, due to be completed in 2015.
France’s suspension does not fall under the sectoral sanctions the EU and the US imposed upon Russia for purported meddling in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, introduced last month. That raft of sanctions did not cover deals signed before their imposition.
But it could be covered under new sanctions sanctions the EU is expected to introduce this week, which may earn France a temporary reprieve from compensation under the terms of the contract.
While Moscow officials earlier admitted that in terms of efficiency and versatility the cutting-edge Mistral has no equivalent in the Russian Navy, the deal was always considered controversial, as France was a Cold War adversary, and is a founding member of NATO.
Indeed, there had been speculation of NATO taking over the Mistral order from Russia, following a proposal from a group of US congressmen back in May. Earlier this week, the Alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen did not rule out the possibility, but said that it “remains a national decision, not for NATO to interfere.” In the aftermath of the announcement from Hollande, NATO maintained that it wasn’t forcing France to suspend the sale.
Previously US President Barack Obama said France should “press the pause button” on the deal, while fighting in Ukraine is in progress.
Previously, French officials resisted, citing concerns over reputational damage, and saying that the financial penalties might hurt Paris more than Moscow. Even if France does now decide to sell the ships to someone else, it will have to refit them, as every aspect, from the helicopter pads to hull alloys is custom-made to Russian specifications.
UNRWA calls for end of Gaza siege
IMEMC News | September 3, 2014
UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl, says that the reconstruction process of Gaza may take over a decade, if the current blockade on the Gaza Strip is not lifted.
According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, Kraehenbuel declared, during a two-day official visit to Switzerland, that the blockade on Gaza “must be lifted”.
“I would like to thank the government and people of Switzerland for their generous and unwavering support to UNRWA and the refugees we serve. The recent fighting in Gaza and the UNRWA response demonstrated once more how vital our services have become,” he said.
“As the discussions intensify about the reconstruction of Gaza, it is becoming clear that UNRWA will be central to that effort. But we have to remember that Swiss funds are supporting our services beyond Gaza, across the Middle East in war-torn Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank.”
Mr. Krähenbühl announced that at least 20,000 homes were destroyed during the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, and that there had been widespread destruction of public infrastructure.
He states that it was “an imperative for the international community and for the people of Gaza to reconstruct after the devastation”, which was unprecedented in recent history:
“I visited Gaza three times during the recent conflict and the impact of the fighting on individual human lives, particularly the young, is palpable and profound. Hundreds of thousands of children are deep in trauma. We estimate that of one thousand injured children out of three thousands will suffer permanent disabilities.”
Krähenbühl noted that several hundred UNRWA counselors are working to restore a sense of normality to the region. “UNRWA will do all it can to restore human dignity to a community that has suffered enough,” he said.
He also expressed his concern for “more than 50,000 people” who are still living in Gaza’s UNRWA schools due to the fact that their homes had been destroyed:
“We need to do all we can to find alternative accommodation for these people, as we are determined to begin our delayed school year on 14 September… It will be a challenge.”
Russian sale of S-300 system to Egypt a threat to Israel
MEMO | September 3, 2014
Israeli military magazine Israel Defence has reported that Israel is concerned over the possibility of Russia supplying Egypt with the developed anti-aircraft system S-300.
According to foreign media reports, Israel does not possess the proper technology to undermine the work of such an advanced system.
Sources told the magazine that Israel may not allow for Egypt to deploy such anti-aircraft missiles, if they are in fact being obtained, in the Sinai Peninsula.
A source in the Russian military industrial complex told Russia News Agency last month that the anti-aircraft system Egypt is currently negotiating with Russia over was initially produced for Syria. However, Egyptian partners have now “expressed interest in S-300 purchases”.
“The system may be re-equipped for Egypt in a short period of time,” the source added.
Israel Defence noted that if the anti-aircraft system were to be placed in Suez, its radar would cover half of Israel, and if placed in Port Said, it would cover almost the entire area of Israel.
This means that any Israeli plane flying towards Egypt or any Israeli rocket launched at Egypt would be monitored while still inside Israel.
EU source: Gaza reconstruction aid is ‘made in Israel’
A Palestinian school damaged during Operation Protective Edge. 7 August, Gaza City. [Jordi Bernabeu Farrús/Flickr]
EurActiv | September 3, 2014
A row is brewing over claims that Israel is earning millions of euros from a de facto policy of preventing non-Israeli reconstruction aid from entering the Gaza Strip.
At least 65,000 people in the Gaza Strip are homeless after the recent seven-week conflict. Infrastructure ranging from water desalination centres to power plants lies in ruins.
No formal Israeli ban prevents the import of reconstruction materials that were not made in Israel, but EU sources speaking on condition of anonymity say that in practice, Israeli security demands present them with a fait accompli.
“If you want aid materials to be permitted to enter, they will almost inevitably come from Israeli sources,” an EU official said. “I don’t think you’ll find it written down anywhere in official policy, but when you get to negotiate with the Israelis, this is what happens. It increases construction and transaction costs, and is a political problem that has to be dealt with.”
As well as Israel’s security restrictions on aid, “it can be very difficult to export materials to Gaza,” the official said. “A lot of goods for a Gaza private sector reconstruction project we had, ended up being held in Ashdod port for very lengthy periods of time – months if not years – so there was de facto no alternative but to use Israeli sources.”
The source added that the policy had benefited Israel’s economy to the tune of millions of euros and was, in his view, deliberate.
The European Commission donates some €300 million in development aid to Gaza and the West Bank every year, and around €200 million in humanitarian aid.
The EU official’s allegation received backing from international agencies canvassed by EurActiv and is broadly in line with findings in a UN report due to be published later today (3 September).
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study will say that half of all donor assistance to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza – who the UN body say constitute a captive market – is spent on servicing a trade deficit to Israel.
‘Dual use items’
Tel Aviv imposed a full blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007 after the ascent to power of the Islamist Hamas movement, which has used suicide bombing and rocket attack tactics against Israel’s occupation, that have claimed hundreds of civilian lives.
But the UN and international NGOs have protested the blockade’s prevention of free movement and trade for the vast majority of Gazans as a collective punishment.
Building materials such as steel and cement, necessary for the reconstruction of Gaza, have been designated by Israel as ‘dual use’ items – adaptable for munitions – that may only be imported to Gaza by the UN and aid agencies under Israeli supervision.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime ministers’ office, denied claims that Israel’s entry policy to Gaza prevented non-Israeli-made reconstruction materials from entering the Strip.
“I know that policy, and it is not true,” he told EurActiv over the phone from Jerusalem. He was unable though to give examples of non-Israeli reconstruction materials allowed into Gaza, referring inquiries on to Cogat.
The Israeli body, Cogat, which coordinates the entry of aid into Gaza, did not respond to requests for comment.
But “there are not many choices,” Amir Rotem, the public affairs director for Gisha, an Israeli NGO, told EurActiv. “The Israeli market has a monopoly of cement in just one company, and I don’t know of any Palestinian-made cement in the West Bank, so there’s not much to choose from.”
‘Chutzpah writ large’
International reactions to the EU official’s claims were strong.
“It is outrageous that a country which has just demolished 25,000 houses is demanding that their construction industry benefit from rebuilding them at the expense of the international community,” one Western diplomat told EurActiv.
“Talk about chutzpah writ large!” he said.
Mahmoud el-Khafif, UNCTAD’s special coordinator for assistance to the Palestinian people, told EurActiv that he believed the EU official’s claims were correct.
“If you look at steel or cement, I think the only source for it would be Israel,” he said. “It is a serious problem in my opinion as an economist. What happened in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank in terms of controlling Area C is an ongoing process to reduce the ability of the Palestinian economy to produce, and the only alternative is to import from Israel.”
Later today, a new UNCTAD report will say that economic growth (measured by GDP) in the economy of the occupied Palestinian Territories declined from 11% in 2011 to just 1.5% last year, far below the rate of population growth.
‘An unliveable place before 2020’
Even before the recent fighting, unemployment in Gaza was running at 36% and people were poorer than in the 1990s, when the Oslo peace process began.
Rebuilding the battered Strip now will take 20 years under the current regime of restrictions, according to a report published earlier this week by Shelter Cluster, an NGO chaired by the Norwegian Refugee Council, with the participation of the UNHCR and the International Red Cross.
That could be too late for many Gazans. The UN’s relief and works agency (UNRWA) has previously estimated that Gaza will not be “a liveable place” by 2020 because of population increase and a depletion of fresh water sources by 2016.
“lf Gaza was going to be an unlivable place by 2020 – before the latest fighting – it will now be an unlivable place considerably before then,” Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA told EurActiv, from the Gaza Strip.
“With at least 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed, with miles of water infrastructure devastated, with millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the sea every day, and the corrosive impacts of blockade, the sustainability of Gaza will be even more short lived,” he said.
More than 2,100 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed in Israel’s recent Operation Protective Edge, as were 73 Israelis – mostly soldiers.
The international reconstruction effort in Gaza could cost more than $6 billion, according to the Palestinian deputy prime minister.
Democrats Are Doomed
Unless They Make the Minimum Wage the #1 November Election Issue
By RALPH NADER | CounterPunch | September 1, 2014
If you were the Democrats and you were looking for a good vote-getting midterm election issue, what criteria would you use? How about an issue with 70-80 percent support in polls? How about one that is bipartisan — supported by Republicans like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Bill O’Reilly? How about one that is national in scope, with plenty of local, grassroots energy? What about one that is simple and easy to understand, unlike Obamacare. What about one that offers tax savings and stimulates our economy understandably and is concrete — a real pocketbook issue. What about one with a big constituency, specifically 30 million hard-pressed workers and their families, needing the necessities of life?
If the Democrats want any chance of succeeding in defeating the cruelest, anti-worker, anti-consumer, corporatist Republican Party in history this November, they have to get into serious high visibility mode about raising the federal minimum wage. No more lip service or half measures! As corporate profits and CEO pay soar ever higher, 30 million hardworking Americans — two-thirds women and two-thirds employed by large corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s — are making less today, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1968! Raising the stagnant minimum wage, which has been stuck at a paltry $7.25 per hour since 2009 must be the front burner issue for the upcoming November elections.
With polls predicting that the Republicans are likely to control the House and Senate next year, President Obama better barnstorm the country and meet with hard-pressed workers of all backgrounds for a $10.10 federal minimum wage.
Just take a look at recent polling data which shows that over 70% of Americans are in favor of raising the minimum wage. That’s nearly three out of every four Americans. With such overwhelming public support, where is the Democratic leadership in Congress? Why are they just talking about it but avoiding an all-out offensive on this decisively winning election issue? If they are not willing to vigorously act in the interest of these American people, then why don’t they escalate the media buys and the grassroots organizing in the interest of the survival of the party? The minimum wage is buried as one of seven points in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) so-called “Middle-Class Jumpstart” package.
Last March, Democrats in the House of Representatives proposed an amendment to a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage. It was unanimously voted down by the clenched-teeth Republicans. Following in April, the Senate tried to bring legislation raising the federal minimum wage to a vote. Yet again, corporatist Republicans opposed raising the federal minimum wage by threatening to filibuster. The Senate leadership was short of the 60 votes necessary to defeat the emailed intention to filibuster.
Speaker John Boehner once told The Weekly Standard that he’d “commit suicide” before voting on a clean minimum wage bill. And just this week, a leaked audio from a meeting of wealthy conservative funders revealed U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) vowing to block any vote on the minimum wage. “We’re not going to be debating all of these gosh darn proposals,” McConnell told the audience of millionaires and billionaires. “These people believe in all the wrong things.” Shouldn’t these cruel words be widely disseminated to beat McConnell in Kentucky and his party of plutocrats in November?
The Democrats should be steamrolling these Wall Street Republicans.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 (H.R. 1010), sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), seeks to partially rectify the dramatic decline in the purchasing power of the minimum wage by modestly raising it to $10.10 over three years. Most Congressional observers believe that if H.R. 1010 is brought to a roll call vote, it will pass. Thus, simply forcing a minimum wage raise vote past corporatists like House Speaker Boehner and McConnell is all that is standing between 30 million Americans and fairer wages.
The benefits are many. The low wages offered by America’s profitable corporations do not just affect workers; they affect all taxpayers as well. Workers making $7.25 an hour often cannot afford to buy food, pay rent, or get adequate healthcare. As a result, these employees must turn to taxpayer-funded government safety nets such as food stamps, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and housing-assistance programs. A $10.10 minimum wage would make life easier for these workers and their families. It would even strengthen the economy by increasing the consumer spending of millions of Americans. Therefore it’s no surprise that some prominent out-of-office Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty have expressed their support for raising the federal minimum wage.
Earlier this year, Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) filed a discharge petition to force an up or down vote on H.R. 1010. To date, 195 House members have signed the petition. Only 23 more member signatures are needed to bring H.R. 1010 to a vote.
There has been a stunningly insufficient effort by House Democrats, the few concerned Republicans, labor unions and poverty organizations to mount a serious effort find and persuade 23 more House members needed to activate the discharge petition to get the vote. Shockingly, few progressive leaders have raised the discharge petition to the press nor pressured non-signers publicly since March. The silence from Democratic leadership and the White House is shameful. What are they waiting for? (U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez is a notable exception — he made a cross-country speaking tour this past week on the occasion of Labor Day discussing the benefits of raising the minimum wage, among other issues.)
The Time for a Raise campaign just released a study identifying 55 Members of Congress who have yet to sign H.R. 1010′s discharge petition to bring a federal minimum wage raise to a vote, but who could be susceptible to pressure on the issue. Visit Give1010AVote.org to see the report.
Here’s a fact that might jolt some apathetic citizens into action, as well as make some members of Congress sweat: While tens of millions of Americans live on a poverty-level $7.25 per hour, their hired hands in Congress, working a 40-hour work week, are making $83 per hour plus generous healthcare and pension benefits. How can these elected officials “represent” millions of Americans earning poverty-level wages? They can’t when they are beholden to the Walmarts and the Wall Streeters.
Labor Day weekend is an opportune time to press members of Congress to get serious about the necessities of 30 million long-suffering American workers. It only takes five minutes for you to call, write or email your member of Congress and ask them to sign Rep. Bishop’s discharge petition, if they have yet to. Even better, rally around the local offices of your Senators and Representatives. It’s time to get serious; it’s time to give $10.10 a vote in September.
Ralph Nader’s latest book is: Unstoppable: the Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.
US sanctions contravene Iran nuclear deal: FM spokeswoman
Press TV – August 30, 2014
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the US administration’s new round of sanctions against Iranian individuals and firms, saying they contravene an interim accord reached last year between Iran and six powers.
“The move is in complete contrast with the current process of resolution of [Iran’s] nuclear issue,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said on Saturday.
On Friday, the US imposed sanctions on over 25 Iranian individuals and companies, including shipping firms, oil companies, airlines and six banks.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran rejects any one-sided and unacceptable interpretations of the Geneva [nuclear] deal by the US and strongly believes that the imposed sanctions are against the US commitments in the deal,” Afkham said.
She noted that the sanctions will have “negative and unconstructive impacts” on the process of the nuclear talks between Iran and the six powers, saying, the recent sanctions will question the “seriousness, honesty and goodwill” of Washington and other negotiating states.
The spokeswoman stated that the new US sanctions cast doubt on the negotiating parties’ “commitment to a possible final deal” that requires the lifting of all “illegal and illegitimate” sanctions against Tehran.
“While the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken confidence-building steps in compliance with its commitment to the deal…and it has been reflected in numerous reports issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran expects reciprocal actions from the US and other member states of the P5+1,” Afkham added.
Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia, China, France, Britain and the US — plus Germany are in talks to reach a final agreement aimed at resolving the standoff over Tehran’s civilian nuclear work.
The two sides signed a historic interim deal in Geneva last November. The agreement entered into force on January 20 and expired six months later. In July, Tehran and the six states agreed to extend their discussions until November 24 in a bid to work out a final accord.
Please make your comment after we make our decision
By Pete Dolack | Systemic Disorder | August 27, 2014
Taking a page from their United States counterparts, European Union trade negotiators apparently interpret the word “consultation” as a synonym for “ignore.” Fresh evidence for this attitude toward the public was provided thanks to a leak of the final text of the proposed “free trade” agreement between Canada and the EU.
Although the E.U. trade office, the European Commission Directorate General for Trade, promotes a process of public consultation on its web site, it isn’t the public who gets listened to. The final text of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) includes language mirroring corporate wish lists unchanged from previous drafts despite the fact that the E.U. trade office has not had time to analyze comments submitted by the public.
This farce of a “consultation” process mirrors the secretive negotiations in the better known Trans-Pacific and Transatlantic trade agreements. Corporate lobbyists are well represented in these talks, but the public, watchdog groups and even parliamentarians and legislators are barred from seeing the text. The CETA text is also secret, but was leaked by the German television news program Tagesschau, which published the entire 521-page document on its web site. Yep, 521 pages.
Critical to understanding the CETA text is Section 33, the portion simply labeled “dispute settlement.” Under that bland heading a reader finds the muscle — what is known as an “investor-state dispute mechanism.” These “mechanisms,” found in many bilateral and multilateral trade deals, are corporate-dominated secret tribunals that hand down one-sided decisions with no oversight, no public notice and no appeals. Governments that agree to these mechanisms legally bind themselves to mandatory arbitration with “investors” in these secret tribunals on which most of the judges are corporate lawyers who represent the “investors” in other legal proceedings.
Kenneth Haar, a spokesman for the watchdog group Corporate Europe Observatory, in an interview with the EurActiv news site, called the dispute mechanism “an outright danger to democracy,” and said:
“The Commission is not really serious about its own consultation. It’s more about image than substance. … I think those who chose to respond to the Commission’s consultation are being ridiculed.”
Decisions will be final and unaccountable
Employing the standard sweeping language, CETA’s Article 14.2 (the articles here are numbered “14” even though they are found in Section 33) states: “[T]his Chapter applies to any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the provisions of this Agreement” [page 472]. Article 14.10 goes on to declare, “The ruling of the arbitration panel shall be binding on the Parties. … The panel shall interpret the provisions referred to in Article 14.2 in accordance with customary rules of interpretation of public international law” [page 476].
“Customary” international law is whatever one of these secret tribunals says it is. Environmental regulations, “buy local” laws or any other government action that a corporation claims will hurt its profits can be, and frequently are, ruled illegal by these tribunals when adjudicating disputes under existing trade agreements. Such rulings set precedents that become “customary” international law.
In case these “customary” laws are not clear, on page 480 of the CETA text is Article 14.16, which would supersede national law:
“No Party may provide for a right of action under its domestic law against the other Party on the ground that a measure of the other Party is inconsistent with this Agreement.”
Your law was passed in a democratic process? Too bad — it will be overruled if an “investor” doesn’t like it.
CETA’s proposed rules are consistent with what is being secretly negotiated in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the U.S. and E.U., and in the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim countries. A majority of the world’s economy would be removed from any possibility of democratic control should these three trade deals come into effect.
The watchdog group Council of Canadians warns:
“The Harper government has thrown Canadian municipalities under the bus, forever banning ‘buy local’ and other sustainable purchasing policies that help create jobs, protect the environment and support local farmers and businesses. The Harper government has also agreed to lengthen patents and give new monopoly protections to already profitable brand name drug companies, which will needlessly add hundreds of millions to the cost of prescription drugs in Canada.”
Not even water would be exempt. If a water system is privatized and a local government chooses to re-municipalize it because rates have risen while service declines (as has routinely occurred on both sides of the Atlantic), the investor would be able to hold out for an extra windfall under the terms of the trade deal.
Only corporate lobbyists need apply
Although the public, and public-interest groups, are not heard, corporate lobbyists are. For example, there are 605 “advisers” with access to the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and who shape U.S. negotiating positions. Virtually every one is an executive of a multi-national corporation or a corporate lobbyist working for an industry association.
It is little different in Europe. Corporate Europe Observatory reports that 92 percent of the closed-doors meetings of the E.U. trade office have been with corporate lobbyists, while only four percent have been with public-interest groups. The trade office has gone so far as to actively solicit the involvement of corporate lobbyists. That perspectives other than those of multi-national capital are not considered can be inferred from the very way public input is solicited, the Observatory said:
“How would the average citizen respond to questions such as: ‘If you are concerned by barriers to investment, what are the estimated additional costs for your business (in percentage of the investment) resulting from the barriers?’ So, clearly, the close involvement of business lobbyists in drawing up the EU’s position for the [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] talks is a result of the privileged access granted to them.”
It’s no different for CETA, and the same dynamic exists across the Atlantic. Former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk once admitted that if people knew what was in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it would never pass. It is important to remember that these massive “free trade” deals are not simply business as usual — they go well beyond even the draconian rules of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
So although the competitive pressures of each country attempting to give an advantage to its multi-national corporations does mean that maneuvering through differing interests requires lengthy negotiations — not to mention the sometimes conflicting interests of various industries — at bottom there is a unifying class interest in the overall project. It is true that the U.S. adopts the hardest line in the trade negotiations it participates in (before we even get to the military muscle it applies to force open Southern countries), yet the absence of the U.S. from a Canada-European Union trade deal has made no practical difference to its outcome.
That different countries, different administrations, reach similar one-sided “free trade” agreements in which “investors” are allowed to overrule national laws, and labor, safety and environmental regulations are “harmonized” at the lowest level, is a product of capitalist competition. The rigors of that structural competition mandate expansion and growth — as local markets mature, capital has no choice, if it is to survive relentless pressure from competitors, other than opening new markets and relentlessly cutting costs to maintain profit levels. “Free trade” agreements represent one of the most effective ways to accomplish that.
Popular revolts against these agreements must be continued, and strengthened, but there will be no end to them as long as economic and social decisions are allowed to be made by “markets,” which are not disembodied entities sitting dispassionately on an Olympian throne but rather are the aggregate interests of the most powerful industrialists and financiers.
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Iran UN ambassador calls for destruction of all nuclear weapons
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo
Press TV – March 29, 2017
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo has called for the total eradication of nuclear weapons.
Khoshroo reiterated Iran’s call during a UN conference aimed at creating a nuclear weapons ban treaty in New York on Tuesday.
“Iran, as a victim of chemical weapons, strongly feels the danger posed by the existence of weapons of mass destruction and is determined to engage actively in international diplomatic efforts to save humanity from the menace of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Khoshroo stressed that Iran is committed to its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, which include negotiations based on effective nuclear disarmament measures.
He added that several countries continue to ignore international calls and treaties for nuclear disarmament and even continue to increase their nuclear stockpiles. “They do not have political determination to abandon doctrines of nuclear deterrence and nuclear terror,” he went on to say.
Iran’s UN ambassador noted that boycotting the talks by many countries, including the US, shows that the world’s nuclear powers are by no means committed to the eradication of nuclear arms. Britain and France were also among the some 40 countries that did not join the talks.
“We note that prohibition of nuclear weapons must be accompanied by the elimination of such weapons. There can be no doubt that without complete abolition of nuclear weapons, there will be no absolute guarantee against the danger of nuclear war and the use of such weapons,” Khoshroo added.
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