Two recent images encapsulate the message behind the dry statistics of last week’s report by the World Bank on the state of the Palestinian economy.
The first is a poster from the campaigning group Visualising Palestine that shows a photoshopped image of Central Park, eerily naked. Amid New York’s skyscrapers, the park has been sheared of its trees by bulldozers. A caption reveals that since the occupation began in 1967, Israel has uprooted 800,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinians, enough to fill 33 Central Parks.
The second, a photograph widely published last month in Israel, is of a French diplomat lying on her back in the dirt, staring up at Israeli soldiers surrounding her, their guns pointing down towards her. Marion Castaing had been mistreated when she and a small group of fellow diplomats tried to deliver emergency aid, including tents, to Palestinian farmers whose homes had just been razed.
The demolitions were part of long-running efforts by Israel to clear Palestinians out of the Jordan Valley, the agricultural heartland of a future Palestinian state. Ms Castaing’s defiance resulted in her being quietly packed off back to Europe, as French officials sought to avoid a confrontation with Israel.
The World Bank report is a way of stating discreetly what Castaing and other diplomats hoped to highlight more directly: that Israel is gradually whittling away the foundations on which the Palestinians can build an independent economic life and a viable state.
This report follows a long line of warnings in recent years from international bodies on the dire economic situation facing Palestinians. But, significantly, the World Bank has homed in on the key battleground for an international community still harbouring the forlorn hope that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end in Palestinian statehood.
The report’s focus is on the nearly two-thirds of the West Bank, known as Area C, that is exclusively under Israeli control and in which Israel has implanted more than 200 settlements to grab Palestinian land and resources.
The World Bank report should be seen as a companion piece to the surprise decision of the European Union in the summer to exclude entities associated with the settlements from EU funding.
Both in turn reflect mounting frustration in European capitals and elsewhere at Israeli intransigence and seeming US impotence. Europeans, in particular, are exasperated at their continuing role effectively subsidising through aid an Israeli occupation with no end in sight.
With Israel and the Palestinians forced back to the negotiating table since July, and after the US secretary of state, John Kerry, warned that this was the “last chance” for a deal, the international community is desperate to exercise whatever small leverage it has on Israel and the US to secure a Palestinian state.
The World Bank’s concern about Area C is justified. This is the location of almost all the resources a Palestinian state will need to exploit: undeveloped land for future construction; arable land and water springs to grow crops; quarries to mine stone and the Dead Sea to extract minerals; and archaeological sites to attract tourism.
With access to these resources, the Palestinian Authority could generate an extra income of $3.4 billion a year, increasing its GDP by a third, reducing a ballooning deficit, cutting unemployment rates that have reached 23 per cent, easing poverty and food insecurity and helping the fledgling state break free of aid dependency. But none of this can be achieved while Israel maintains its chokehold on Area C in violation of the 1993 Oslo accords.
Israel has entrenched its rule in Area C precisely because of its wealth of natural resources. Israel neither wants the Palestinians to gain the assets with which to build a state nor intends to lose the many material benefits it has accrued for itself and the settler population in Area C.
It is its treatment of Area C that gives the lie to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that he has been pursuing “economic peace” with the Palestinians in lieu of progress on the diplomatic front. Rather, the Palestinian description of Israeli policy as “economic warfare” is much nearer the mark. During the Oslo period, the disparity between Israel’s per capita GDP and that of the Palestinians has doubled, to $30,000. And the World Bank says that the Palestinian economy is rapidly shrinking: the 11 per cent growth that Netanyahu took credit for in 2011 has crashed to 1.9 per cent in the first six months of this year. In the West Bank, GDP has actually contracted, by 0.1 per cent.
Despite its resources, Area C is being starved of Palestinian funds. Investors are averse to dealing with Israeli military authorities who invariably deny them development permits and severely restrict movement. The image of the French diplomat in the dirt is one that symbolises their own likely treatment if they confront Israel in Area C. Palestinian farmers, meanwhile, cannot grow profitable crops with the miserly water rations Israel allots them from their own aquifers.
Aware of the many obstacles to developing Area C, Palestinian officials have simply neglected it, concentrating instead on the densely populated and resource-poor third of the West Bank under their full or partial control.
The hope was that this would change when Kerry announced in the run-up to the renewed talks a plan to encourage private investors to pour in $4 billion to develop the Palestinian economy. But the reality, as the report notes, is that there can be no serious investment in the economic heartland of Area C until Israel’s control ends.
In effect, the World Bank is saying that Kerry’s plan – and the role of the international community’s envoy Tony Blair, the so-called Quatet Representative – is not only misguided, it is positively delusional. The Quartet has been trying to revive the Palestinian economy to usher in the conditions for statehood; the World Bank’s view is that there can be no Palestinian state, let alone economic revival, until Israel is forced out of the territories. The international community has it all back to front.
The idea that a financial lifeline – whether Kerry’s plan or Netanyahu’s economic peace – is going to smooth the path to the conflict’s end is an illusion. Peace, and prosperity, will come only when Palestinians are liberated from Israeli control.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.
Most readers have probably heard of Marc Rich. He was the Jewish criminal who was pardoned by Bill Clinton just prior to the former president’s leaving office in 2001. Rich was the original founder of Glencore, the company whose exploitive activities in the African nation of Zambia are documented in the video above. Some years ago he was indicted for tax fraud, and the film goes into his criminal past in considerable detail. It will probably come as no great surprise that Rich’s pardon was sought by officials of the Israeli government.
Clinton also cited clemency pleas he had received from Israeli government officials, including then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Rich had made substantial donations to Israeli charitable foundations over the years, and many senior Israeli officials, such as Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert, argued on his behalf behind the scenes.[27] (Speculation about another rationale for Rich’s pardon involved his alleged involvement with the Israeli intelligence community.[28][29] Rich reluctantly acknowledged in interviews with his biographer, Daniel Ammann, that he had assisted the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service,[15][6] a claim that Ammann said was confirmed by a former Israeli intelligence officer.[14] According to Ammann, Rich had helped finance the Mossad’s operations and had supplied Israel with strategic amounts of Iranian oil through a secret oil pipeline.[6] The aide to Rich who had persuaded Denise Rich to personally ask President Clinton to review Rich’s pardon request was a former chief of the Mossad, Avner Azulay.[23][30] Another former Mossad chief, Shabtai Shavit, had also urged Clinton to pardon Rich,[2] whom he said had routinely allowed intelligence agents to use his offices around the world.[3])
Also not surprisingly, the pardon was recommended by our current Attorney General, Eric Holder.
Somewhat less familiar, perhaps, is the name of Ivan Glasenberg. It is Glasenberg who heads Glencore today. Wikipedia lists Glasenberg as a “triple citizen,” that is to say, he reportedly holds citizenship in Israel, Australia, and South Africa. So far as I’m aware, the CEO hasn’t been indicted for anything, but as you’ll see from the video, Glencore has engaged in some highly questionable business practices in regards to its copper mining operations in Zambia. Here it has extracted enormous wealth from the ground—Zambia has been blessed with the third largest copper reserves in the world—yet the country ranks among the poorer nations on earth, with a majority of its citizens subsisting on two dollars a day.
Directed by Christoffer Guldbrandsen, the above documentary is entitled “Stealing Africa.” It was released in November of last year and originally aired on the BBC—which probably explains the omission of the Israeli connection or the absence of any mention of Glasenberg or Rich even being Jewish. Glencore today is called Glencore Xystrata as a result of a merger which took place in May of this year, just a few months after the documentary’s release. Also, just as a matter of interest, Marc Rich died in June of this year. Glasenberg, still among the living, is listed by Forbes as having a net worth of $6.7 billion.
A little bit more on the documentary is available from the website Why Poverty:
In Ruschlikon, a sleepy village in Switzerland, the wealthy residents are receiving more tax revenue than they can use since the arrival of Ivan Glasberg, CEO of commodity giant Glencore. Yet in Zambia, where Glencore owns a majority stake in the country’s biggest copper mining operations, tax is an issue that’s contributing to its poverty…
Glasberg netted $9.6 billion when Glencore went public in 2011. The receipt of of his taxes overwhelmed the public coffers of Ruschlikon so much that the mayor decided to lower the town’s tax rate by 7%.
Not so fortunate for the residents of copper-rich Zambia – where Glencore owns a 73% stake in the Mopani Copper Mines (one of the biggest mining operations in the country).
Unfortunately, Zambia’s copper resources have not made the country rich. Virtually all Zambia’s copper mines are owned by corporations. In the last ten years, they’ve extracted copper worth $29 billion but Zambia is still ranked one of the twenty poorest countries in the world.
So why hasn’t copper wealth reduced poverty in Zambia yet made the residents of Ruschlikon better off? Once again it comes down to the issue of tax, or in Zambia’s case, tax avoidance and the use of tax havens.
The film also gives us some insight into why so many governments, particularly in poorer parts of the world, seemingly do nothing to stop rampant corporate abuses. This is true even in Zambia, which ironically at present has what appears to be a fairly decent government—with some committed officials striving to act in the public interest. But the problem is, quite simply put, Glencore is more powerful.
Director Christoffer Guldbrandsen
Producer Henrik Veileborg
Produced by Guldbrandsen Film
Germany’s largest telecom provider, Deutsche Telekom, is looking to introduce a “national routing” service which would keep German internet traffic out of the hands of foreign spies.
The former state-owned communications giant outlined the plans at a secret meeting in the Economy Ministry, business weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported.
Currently, email data is exchanged between users worldwide via international Internet exchange points; physical structures through which Internet service providers (ISPs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks.
The company hopes to hammer out an agreement with other national Internet providers which would guarantee that “while being transported from the sender to the receiver in Germany… no single byte leaves Germany,” Thomas Kremer, a board member of Telekom’s data privacy, legal affairs and compliance, told the magazine.
To put the plan into effect, Deutsche Telekom must secure the support of all its competitors, including Telefonica and Vodafone.
While Vodafone and Telefonica are currently mulling the initiative, another competitor – Internet service provider QSC – has questioned the efficacy of the plan, saying it was not possible to determine with certainty whether data is being routed nationally or internationally.
“In a next step, this initiative could be expanded to the Schengen area,” the spokesman said, referring to the group of 26 European countries – excluding Britain – that have removed border controls for participating countries.
Deutsche Telekom first began leading the charge for to protect its users’ privacy from foreign intelligence agencies in August when they rolled out ‘Email Made in Germany’, an encrypted email service that only uses German servers to process and store all domestic email traffic.
The move followed revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) collects 500 million pieces of phone and email metadata from Germany each month — more than in any other EU country.
“Germans are deeply unsettled by the latest reports on the potential interception of communication data,” said Rene Obermann, head of Deutsche Telekom.
“Now, they can bank on the fact that their personal data online is as secure as it possibly can be.”
Experts do not believe the move will stop governments from getting their hands on information, although it might complicate efforts to do so.
“Of course the NSA could still break in if they wanted to, but the mass encryption of emails would make it harder and more expensive for them to do so,” Sandro Gaycken, a professor of cyber security at Berlin’s Free University, said when the idea was first proposed.
There had been some buzz a while back when Digital Music News published an entire iTunes Radio contract, which was targeted at smaller indie labels, showing how Apple got to throw its weight around, presenting terms that were very much in Apple’s favor over the labels if they wanted to participate in iTunes Radio. However, while it took a few months, Apple’s lawyers finally spotted this and they have apparently made a copyright claim to get the contract taken down. I wonder how the small group of indie musicians who always fight for stronger copyrights feel about Apple using copyright to take down rather important information that they should know concerning the sort of deal Apple offers them….
While this may be possibly legal under the law, it demonstrates how the law can be used in ways that really have absolutely nothing to do with copyright’s purpose. Apple didn’t need copyright’s incentives to create this contract. There is no market for the contract itself. The purpose in flexing the copyright claim here is one thing and one thing only: censorship. As law professor Eric Goldman explained:
“It’s not out of legal bounds to do this. It’s just kind of a jerk move. We all know what’s happening here. Apple doesn’t care about protecting the copyright of contracts. It’s using copyright to try and suppress information that it doesn’t want made public.”
That said, I question whether or not this really is a legit takedown. While Apple can claim a copyright on the contract, it seems that DMN has a really strong fair use claim. The purpose was for reporting (a key purpose that supports fair use). The publication was in the public interest. The type of work is a “contract” for which copyright tends to mean very little. Finally, there’s no “market” for the contract itself, and thus the impact on the market or the value of the copyright in the item is nothing. The only factor that weighs against it is the fact that the entire contract was used — but as we’ve pointed out many times in the past, plenty of cases have been deemed fair use where the “entire work” has been used. This seems like a perfectly strong fair use case, though it might not be worth the legal cost to fight Apple over this, given the company’s historical willingness to go absolutely bonkers against publications it doesn’t like.
It’s time to take some of the profit out of the for-profit healthcare system currently victimizing the people of the United States. This is a small step and one which can be implemented on levels which do not necessitate the consent of an entire nation.
If you’re not intelligent enough to already have realized that the present for-profit healthcare system in the United States constitutes a human rights violation, you might as well go back to watching black and white 1950s sitcoms on your smart phone, and stop reading altogether.
“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone.”
That’s one translation of the Hippocratic Oath. “First do no harm” is one way of saying it.
Let’s face it, the for-profit healthcare extortion system in the United States is doing a lot of harm to a lot of people.
When a doctor asks a high price for their services, they are saying one thing. They are saying that if you don’t meet their price, they will withhold their services. That’s how a market is supposed to work. Unfortunately, when doctors withhold their services in order to get more money, people have been known to die. It’s pay or die when it comes to the present healthcare extortion system in the United States.
Individual states license doctors to practice their discipline within that state’s borders. States currently allow licensed medical professionals free reign to charge excessive amounts for their services. The argument that the medical profession exists within a free market and doctors are worth whatever they can get remains entirely bogus. In reality, the for-profit medical profession is an extortion racket where, unless a patient meets the system’s financial demands, something very bad might very well happen to them. Has anyone, anyone ever, compared prices when they needed brain surgery? The states through their licensing powers become willing partners in this extortion racket. Doctors in the present system are asking their patients that most delightful of questions, “Your money or your life?”
If a licensed hunter is limited in the number of deer he can bag in one season, certainly a state has the authority to limit the profit margin on licensed professionals within its jurisdiction. If states and local governments can regulate the prices charged by cab drivers, those same licensing authorities most certainly have the capability to cap the incomes of medical professionals whose entire careers depend upon the state issuing them a license to practice.
A modest proposal. Allow doctors to make as much as they want through earnings and investments within the current healthcare system. However, if their income is more in a year than the governor of the state which issues their license, they will be charged a fee of 75% of those overage monies, which will be paid to the licensing authority. On the plus side the licensing authority will take those monies and initiate a program which reimburses doctors 5% of their outstanding student loans if they perform two weeks of non-profit medical community service each year. Of course there will be other trivial details which can be worked out rather easily once this concept is accepted by those of good faith.
It’s time for individual states to stop participating in the healthcare extortion racket. If any doctor says they will leave the state if they can’t make as much money as they can extort from their captive audience, well, here’s your scrub hat, what’s your hurry?
Mérida – The Venezuelan government has pledged to construct 4,400 new housing units in Haiti worth around US$260 million, according to Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe.
Lamothe announced the initiative after a one day visit to Caracas on Monday.
3,900 of the houses will be constructed in Port-au-Prince, while 500 will be built on Ile-a-Vache. An island just off Haiti’s south-west peninsula, Ile-a-Vache is currently being developed for tourism by the Haitian government. The Venezuelan government is partially funding a US$66 million hotel project on the island.
Along with housing and tourism deals, Lamothe’s visit reportedly focused on discussion of Haiti’s Petrocaribe debt obligations. Under Petrocaribe, Caribbean states are able to purchase Venezuelan oil at preferential rates. Following the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country, Haiti was forgiven US$400 million in Petrocaribe debt.
Debt can also be paid back in products instead of currency. According to a Haitian government press release, Lamothe’s delegation met with Venezuelan officials to negotiate exchanging agricultural products for debt payment. The agreements discussed this week will be finalised in a second meeting later this month.
The two governments also reportedly discussed a US$15 million health services deal, which will see the Development Bank of Venezuela fund new health facilities in Haiti. Lamothe also met with officials from the Bank of ALBA, which pledged to invest a further US$10 million in Haitian literacy programs.
Haiti is yet to recover from the 2010 disaster, and is one of the poorest countries in the region. In July, Haitian president Michel Martelly praised Venezuelan aid, stating that the majority of state projects in areas including education, infrastructure and agriculture are supported by Petrocaribe.
“Most of what is done today in Haiti is achieved with Petrocaribe funds,” Martelly stated.
“Had I been in Congress, I would have unequivocally voted against Obamacare,” Young writes. “It’s a bad bill. Whether it’s worse than what we have now could be argued. We rather think because of its ability to enshrine and solidify the corporate domination of the health system, it’s worse than what we have now. But whether it is somewhat better or a lot worse is immaterial. The health system isn’t working in this country — fiscally, medically, socially, morally.”
Young rejects the idea that President Obama should have compromised on single payer in the face of industry opposition.
“I don’t have any sympathy for the idea that the president had to compromise because his opposition was strong,” Young writes. “Winning is not always winning the election. Winning is making a huge fight and then taking the fight to the people — re-electing people who are supporting your program and defeating those who aren’t.”
Young first met the young Barack Obama in the mid-1990s at social gatherings.
At the time, Obama was lecturing at the University of Chicago Law School and practicing law.
“We did not become bosom buddies after a few of these social gatherings — I just viewed him as a nice, bright guy living in the neighborhood,” Young says.
When Obama ran for the Illinois Senate, Young supported him.
“I was happy with his views on health care,” Young writes. “He recognized that major reform was necessary and indicated support for a single-payer approach. No blushing friend, I took every opportunity to solidify his position. While not an official adviser, I tried to influence him as much as I could. My colleagues and I sent him notes touting the advantages of single-payer and the form it might take and talked with him and his staff about it whenever I had the chance.”
“I felt I did influence him,” Young said.
When Obama ran for the Senate in 2003, Obama told the Illinois AFL-CIO:
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
But just a year later, Obama had flipped and came out against single payer in Illinois.
“I was very disappointed by his move to the right to keep the insurance companies in command,” Young told the Springfield State Journal Register in 2004. “I’m not accusing him of lying or misconduct. I’m accusing him of a lack of courage.”
But despite Obama’s “lack of courage,” Young supported Obama in his run for U.S. Senate and later for president. Young was just setting himself up for more disappointment.
At a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in August 2009, Obama was asked whether he supported a universal health care plan.
“First of all, I want to make a distinction between a universal plan versus a single-payer plan, because those are two different things,” Obama said.
“A single-payer plan would be a plan like Medicare for all, or the kind of plan that they have in Canada, where basically government is the only person — is the only entity that pays for all health care. Everybody has a government-paid-for plan, even though in, depending on which country, the doctors are still private or the hospitals might still be private. In some countries, the doctors work for the government and the hospitals are owned by the government. But the point is, is that government pays for everything, like Medicare for all. That is a single-payer plan.”
“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive. So what would end up happening would be, a lot of people who currently have employer-based health care would suddenly find themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet. And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition.”
“All right? So I’m not promoting a single-payer plan,” Obama said.
In March 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — by a narrow margin.
“PNHP’s policy experts did a line-by-line examination of the bill and, while acknowledging that it contains some modest benefits that make changes around the edges of our existing system, basically gave it two thumbs down,” Young writes. “To this day, much to the chagrin of many of our friends who wanted reform, I remain adamant in my rejection of Obamacare.”
“Why? We want a system that excludes the private insurance companies,” Young writes. “ We demand such exclusion not because these companies are good or evil (although we think they’re pretty evil). Rather, the reason to exclude them is that they don’t address the needs of the American people.”
Young also rejects the idea of a “public option,” pushed by Democrats such as Howard Dean. A public option “would not have made any significant difference on the overall impact” of Obamacare “contrary to the view of many progressive who believed that it would,” Young says.
“Since WWII, we have learned a lot about disease and certainly have had dramatic improvements in what we can do,” Young writes. “I’m talking about surgery of the heart, vaccination, nutrition issues. All these things have been largely defined in the last half-century. We’ve had something approaching a 12-year life expectancy rise just from scientific intervention.”
“We have all this knowledge, all these options, but we have a very backward financing and delivery system and the result is a great deal of human suffering,” Young says. “And that’s why we remain opposed to the Affordable Care Act. We think we have a winning proposition despite the reality in Congress. Polls repeatedly vindicate our position. A solid majority of the public and 59 percent of doctors support the single payer approach.”
“President Obama could have made it happen,” Young says. “He could have stuck to all the virtues of single payer. And I won’t deny he may have been defeated in the first round. There’s no question that this fight has been dirty and it’s going to get dirtier.”
On August 15, Horacio Cartes, a millionaire, businessman, and alleged drug-trafficker assumed the presidency in Paraguay, leading the Colorado Party back into power after a four-year interruption from its 61-year rule by Fernando Lugo, who was deposed last year in a “parliamentary coup.” Cartes has been investigated by the U.S. government for money laundering and drug trafficking, according to this 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks.
Since Cartes started his term eight weeks ago, several announcements have been made regarding Paraguay’s social and economic policy that are worth noting.
Militarization
Only a week after having taken office, Paraguay’s Congress –in which the Colorado Party has a majority in both houses– granted the president the power to deploy the military within the country to carry out policing activities. Despite opposition from human rights organizations who fear a return to dictatorship-era military operations, three days later Cartes ordered 400 military personnel to areas in which disputes over land tenure are ongoing. On August 28th the military entered an elementary school with demands to interview children on the whereabouts of suspected rebels and arrested several land rights activists and peasant leaders in the area.
The military powers granted to Cartes are especially alarming in a country that spent most of the 20th century either in political turmoil or under brutal dictatorship. The increased militarization of the Cartes regime is occurring in a context of growing discontent over public sector layoffs and privatization plans.
Austerity
Paraguay lacks an adequate system for collecting taxes and has a hard time financing social spending. With few mechanisms for distributing wealth and increasing what little there is of social services to the population, any gains from high economic growth rates that Paraguay has been experiencing this year and last are likely to benefit mostly the wealthy.
Seventy-seven percent of Paraguay’s land is still owned by 1 percent of the population and poverty reduction has been slower in Paraguay than in other countries in the region. The UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and Paraguayan government’s estimates for poverty in 2011 and 2012 have differed, with figures ranging between 32-50 percent, but showing a significant reduction during Fernando Lugo’s unfinished presidency. Cartes claims that his government’s “obsession” will also be to fight poverty and increase social spending.
But a little over 10 days ago Cartes announced a massive layoff of 4,000 government workers. This week he announced that another 15,000 layoffs are expected by December. Cartes says that the government lacks the funds necessary to pay the salaries of all 258,000 government employees. Despite accusations from at least one opposition senator who insists that layoffs are being used to strengthen the power of the Colorado Party, the Cartes government maintains that there is no persecution involved in the layoffs, and that it is implementing a system based on meritocracy. Additionally, according to this Associated Press interview with Treasury Minister Germán Rojas, public workers’ salaries will cease to be adjusted to keep up with inflation.
Privatization
Cartes’ government has used the argument of budget shortfalls to defend a move toward privatization. A bill introduced in mid-September and currently waiting for approval from congress would open Paraguay up to the privatization of infrastructure services in the transport, electric and sanitation sectors, including the dredging of the Paraguay River; construction of, and tolls for, roads, railroad and electric services. Cartes has framed his bill as a “public-private alliance,” but five of the largest unions in the country and the center-left opposition Frente Guasú insist on the “privatizing” nature of the bill, also criticizing it for granting the executive complete decision-making power over concessions, and the guarantee that losses will be covered by the state, not the company. The first three days of October have been met with protests and roadblocks throughout the country in response to mounting anxieties over privatization and one-time cuts to teacher’s salaries following their month-long strike.
—
The last eight weeks in Paraguay have stirred up controversies, anxieties and memories of an unpleasant past. While it is impossible to know what the outcomes of Cartes’ policies will be, militarization, massive layoffs, and privatization have often been followed by increased inequality, greater poverty, and major discontent among the populace in other countries where governments have pursued a similar path. It is these types of neoliberal policies that coincided with a collapse in economic growth throughout Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is the rejection of these policies that has led to the repeated election of center-left governments in much of Latin America since the end of the ‘90s, (including Paraguay’s own recently-ousted president Fernando Lugo) that gives us some notion about what could be in store for Paraguay’s future.
Brazilian lawmakers indicated that, in lieu of direct teleconferences with Edward Snowden to gain further insight into allegations of NSA spying in their country, they may seek to seize documents now held by American journalist Glenn Greenwald.
On Wednesday Greenwald spoke to Brazilian senators currently investigating evidence of US as well as British and Canadian espionage in the Latin American country.
The legislators are part of a probe into potential foreign surveillance — the Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito, or CPI — called into action by President Dilma Rousseff in the wake of initial news reports alleging that even the president’s online communication had been intercepted.
Greenwald, who appeared along with his partner David Miranda, a Brazilian national, broached several topics during the hearing, including the possibility of granting asylum to NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.
So far, Brazil has been vague as to whether it would seriously consider extending Snowden, who is currently residing in Russia, an offer of political asylum.
“There are many nations saying, ‘We’re glad to be learning all this information,’ but almost nobody wants to protect the person responsible for letting the world discover it,” Greenwald told the panel.
In the meantime, Brazilian legislators seem eager to find out the extent of foreign surveillance on the country in greater detail.
To that end, the country’s government — specifically, the CPI inquiry — is now seeking to establish teleconferencing sessions with Snowden.
Asked by the commission to turn over documents obtained through the whistleblower Greenwald refused, citing the need for a separation between journalism and government. His partner, Miranda, also cited that divulging the documents would constitute an “act of treason” and prevent Greenwald from entering the US again.
One Brazilian Senator, Ricardo Ferraço, went so far as to suggest that the government commission seek the authority of the country’s courts to seize documents now held by Greenwald if such communication with Snowden proved unfeasible.
Unlike allegations of NSA surveillance in the US, coverage of the agency’s activities in Brazil have taken on a broader scope, and in particular centered on the country’s economy.
Greenwald himself has shaped the narrative of Snowden’s disclosures through his testimony to Brazil’s government, as well as his work with the O Globo newspaper and Rede Globo’s news television.
In August, the journalist told Brazil’s government that alleged American espionage in Brazil was centered on gaining economic advantages rather than on any national security concerns.
“We now have several denunciations that show that the spy program is not about terrorism. It is about increasing the power of the American government,” Greenwald told senators on Wednesday, speaking in Portuguese.
In the most recent report last Sunday, Greenwald said on Globo network television that Canadian spies had targeted Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry, intercepting the metadata of phone calls and emails passing through the ministry.
The impact of the steady stream of surveillance allegations on Brazil has been swift. Last month Petrobras announced that it would be investing $9.5 billion over the next five years to heighten its data security.
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo announced that the country’s government was pursuing legislation requiring domestic data exchanges to use locally made equipment.
If the sanctions against Iran are lifted, the Iranians will look mainly towards American firms in the oil and automobile sector to fill the gap, George Malbrunot, a journalist for French newspaper Le Figaro, told RT.
RT:Both Iran and the US are signaling a thaw in their political relations – what effect will it this have on economic ties and business? Does it look like the US is attempting to force out other companies from the Iranian market?
George Malbrunot: I think already there have been some secret contacts between US firms and Iranian counterparts in order to prepare, to anticipate the political deal between Iran and the United States. Mainly these contacts have occurred in the automobile sector. For the last year or more there have been some emissaries from General Motors, for example, going to Tehran to see their Iranian counterparts from Iran Khodro, in order to prepare the ground for the [return] of General Motors to Iran, which was very important before 1979.
So there are these kind of contacts with not only GM but other big US companies, also in the oil and gas sectors, which are very important in Iran, and it has been encouraged recently by the executive order that Barack Obama signed on June, 3, which prevents subcontractors dealing with Iranian firms in the automobile sector. And in fact this executive order was deeply targeting the French who are the only one now in the automobile sector in Iran, especially Renault, and the French contractors are very upset about that. And they interpret it as an attempt to clean the Iranian market before the return of US companies in Iran.RT:In your article, you say American companies are securing their positions on the Iranian market – how is this happening? GM: For the last six months, we’ve heard from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, that we are not any more opposed to direct contacts with the US. The businessmen are always more active in anticipating political deals and to anticipate change. During all these years of bad relations between Iran and the US there have always been some kind of secret contacts between US firms and Iranian firms. And mainly these contacts have been accelerated after the election of President Rouhani in Iran. And we’ve all seen at the last UN General Assembly in New York last month that now the Iranians are talking to the Americans. So there are preparations on the ground in order to go to Iran which is a huge market, 80 million consumers, with huge oil and gas resources, so it’s natural that US businessmen are watching very carefully the developments which happen between Iran and the US.
And not only US businessmen are very [eager] to go to Iran, but you have also the German businessmen, who have always been active, with Siemens for example, and even the British who have no diplomatic relations with Iran are now starting to [study] this market carefully. The Japanese are also very active. And unfortunately for us in France, we are perhaps the last in Europe to try to go to Iran, because for the last [few] years France was extremely active in fighting against Iran. France was exerting the pressure on Iran in order to implement the sanctions. So the French businessmen are very upset with what’s going on now, because for the last 20 years the US was [not in] Iran, and French businessmen had quite a good position in Iran – Total, Peugeot, Renault – and now they are afraid that all these years of efforts will be [wiped away] by the new deal which will happen between the US and Iran.
RT:Do you think we will be seeing an easing of sanctions against Iran soon?
GM: I think so, and the Iranians are a very proud nation and they have been always having very strange relations with Americans, love and hate, and once the sanctions will be lifted I’m quite sure the Iranians will look mainly toward American firms in the oil sector, in the automobile sector to fill the gap. So for sure European companies will be more probably losers in this kind of agreement.
I think that GM and even Chevrolet will go extremely quickly to Iran if there is a political agreement between the US and Iran, if the sanctions are lifted. I’m not sure that the Iranians will give a lot of pieces of the cake to French companies or others on this issue. And this is the reason why French companies are very worried about what’s going on in the shadow of this rapprochement between the US and Iran.
Canada, as well as the US, infiltrated and spied on the Brazilian Energy Ministry, a new leak by Edward Snowden has revealed. The leaked documents show how the data gleaned through espionage was shared with international spy network the ‘Five Eyes.’
Newly-released documents handed over to Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald by former CIA employee Edward Snowden describe in detail how Canadian intelligence infiltrated Brazil’s Energy and Mines Ministry.
“I was overwhelmed by the power of the tools used. The Ministry of Energy and Mines was totally dissected,” security expert Paulo Pagliusi told Brazilian program Fantastico, which first reported on the leak.
The program showed documents from a meeting of the ‘Five Eyes’ spy network, comprising the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, in June of last year. In a presentation the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSRC) – the Canadian version of the NSA – outlined how they used a program called Olympia to break through the Brazilian ministry’s encryption.
The information gleaned from the ministry was then shared with all of the members of the ‘Five Eyes.’
“They [Five Eyes] are sharing all the information, handing over documents to let other countries know exactly what they are doing,” said Glen Greenwald.
As a result of the infiltration of the ministry over an unspecified period, the CSCE developed a detailed map of the institution’s communications. As well as monitoring email and electronic communications, the CSCE also eavesdropped on telephone conversations. Able to identify mobile numbers, SIM card registrations and the make of a phone, Olympia even snooped on former Brazilian ambassador to Canada Paulo Cordeiro.
Canada has so far refused to comment on the reports of its spy program. Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lobao told Fantastico that the reports were “serious” and should be condemned.
Canada is one of the world’s leading energy producers and has significant economic interests in Brazil.
“Canada has interests in Brazil, especially in the mining sector. Does this spying serve the commercial interests of select groups? I cannot say,” observed Lobao.
‘No economic espionage’
Previously, Brazilian newspaper Globo News reported that the NSA was monitoring Brazil’s state oil giant Petrobras. Washington reacted to the allegations, stating that the US “does not engage in economic espionage.” The Obama administration has said on a number of occasions that US covert surveillance is in the interests of protecting US national security.
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has condemned the reports of the NSA’s surveillance of Brazil and demanded the US account for its actions.
As a consequence, the Brazilian head of state postponed an official visit to Washington in October. Rousseff has also taken measures to tighten Brazilian internet security.
“I have sent an internet draft bill to Congress, an initiative that will protect the privacy of Brazilians,” Rousseff wrote on Twitter on Sunday. The government is expected to vote on the bill in the coming weeks.
Back in September, Rousseff slammed the US for “economic espionage,” dismissing US claims the NSA spying is a preventative measure to ensure national security. Addressing the UN General Assembly, President Rousseff stated that state-run Petrobras is “no threat to the security of any country. Rather, it represents one of the greatest assets of the world’s oil and the heritage of the Brazilian people.”
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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