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Obama Administration Asks Banks to Regulate Their Own Foreclosure Abuses

By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky | AllGov | February 15, 2013

Having bungled the so-called independent review of foreclosure mistakes, the Obama administration has now decided that the best way to help homeowners is to have the banks—which were responsible for the foreclosure errors—examine the case files and decide how best to fix the situation.

In January, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) shut down the foreclosure review by independent consultants—which had already cost about $2 billion— after it was revealed that the banks had selected said consultants. The process also proved to be taking too long to resolve homeowner grievances, so the administration decided to reach a $3.6 billion settlement with the banks.

But before the money can be distributed to individuals wronged during the foreclosure crisis, more than four million cases need to be reviewed. Instead of federal regulators doing the work, they are trusting the financial institutions, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, to do it properly this time.

Housing advocates, not surprisingly, are worried the banks will shortchange homeowners while they scrutinize their earlier mistakes. “The whole process has been a slap in the face to homeowners and a slap on the wrist to banks,” Isaac Simon Hodes, an organizer with Massachusetts-based Lynn United for Change, told The New York Times. “The latest development shows how there has been no accountability.”

The OCC has promised to check the bank’s work to ensure things go right this time.

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February 15, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The U.S.’s Grossly Corrupt Health Protection System

Blame the Pentagon

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK | CounterPunch | February 15, 2013

The nation’s biggest polluter isn’t a corporation. It’s the Pentagon. Every year the Department of Defense churns out more than 750,000 tons of hazardous waste — more than the top three chemical companies combined.

Yet the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and state environmental laws, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Pentagon’s partner in crime, is working hard to keep it that way.

For the past five decades the federal government, defense contractors and the chemical industry have joined forces to block public health protections against perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been shown to effect children’s growth and mental progress by disrupting the function of the thyroid gland which regulates brain development.

Perchlorate has been leaking from literally hundreds of defense plants and military installations across the country. The EPA has reported that perchlorate is present in drinking and groundwater supplies in 35 states. Center for Disease Control and independent studies have also overwhelmingly shown that perchlorate is existent in our food supplies, cow’s milk, and human breast milk. As a result virtually every American has some level of perchlorate in their body.

Currently only two states, California and Massachusetts, have set a maximum allowable contaminant level for perchlorate in drinking water. But the EPA won’t follow these states’ lead. In the Colorado River, which provides water for over 20 million people, perchlorate levels are high. The chemical is most prevalent in the Southwest and California as a result of the large number of military operations and defense contractors in the region.

In 2001 the EPA estimated that the total liability for the cleanup of toxic military sites would exceed $350 billion, or five times the Superfund Act liability of private industry. But the federal government has been complacent and allowed perchlorate to run rampant throughout our water supplies. This negligence and lack of regulatory oversight has left the Pentagon, NASA and defense contractors free to set their own levels, trimming the high, but necessary costs of restoring groundwater quality.

While the situation has become dire in recent years, it was the Clinton administration that didn’t do nearly enough to begin cleaning up these sites and certainly did not keep a close eye on how the Pentagon spent the money it received. During the 1990s the Defense Department spent only $3.5 billion a year cleaning up toxic military sites — much of that on studies, not actual work. In 1998, the Defense Science Review Board, a federal advisory committee set up to provide independent advice to the secretary of defense, looked at the problem and concluded that the Pentagon had no clear environmental cleanup policy, goals or program, which led lawyer Jonathan Turley, who holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at George Washington University, to call the Pentagon the nation’s “premier environmental villain.”

“If they can spend $1 million on a cruise missile, it seems kind of ridiculous they won’t spend $200,000 to see if our food is contaminated with rocket fuel,” says Renee Sharp, a scientist with Environmental Working Group. But if the Clinton program was chintzy, the Bush plan has been downright penurious.

While Bush has boosted overall Pentagon spending by billions, the administration has simultaneously slashed its environmental remediation program. Moreover, the Bush defense plan has called for “new rounds of base closures” to “shape the military more efficiently.” Efficiency is usually a code word for sidestepping environmental rules.

These military sites, which total more than 50 million acres, are among the most insidious and dangerous legacies left by the Pentagon. They are strewn with toxic bomb fragments, unexploded munitions, buried hazardous waste, fuel dumps, open pits filled with debris, burn piles and yes, rocket fuel. An internal EPA memo from 1998 warned of the looming problem: “As measured by acres, and probably as measured by number of sites, ranges and buried munitions represent the largest cleanup program in the United States.”

When a site gets too polluted, the Pentagon has chosen simply to close it down and turn it over to another federal agency. Over the past three decades, the Pentagon has transferred more than 16 million acres, often with little or no remediation. The former bombing areas have been turned into wildlife refuges, city and state parks, golf courses, landfills, airports and shopping malls.

Serious contamination of streams, soil and groundwater is a problem at nearly every military training ground. The sites are often saturated with heavy metals and other pollutants as well as unexploded weapons. The Government Accountability Office’s list of the kinds of unexploded munitions left behind on many training sites reads like a catalogue for a Middle East arms bonanza: “hand grenades, rockets, guided missiles, projectiles, mortars, rifle grenades, and bombs.”

But the government has gone to great extents to cover up its deadly legacy. In 2002 the Pentagon, defense contractors and perchlorate makers persuaded the editors of a prestigious journal to rewrite an article on the chemical’s health effects without the lead author’s knowledge or consent. Then in 2005 the White House loaded a National Academy of Science panel, which was set up to assess the health risks of perchlorate, with paid consultants of the rocket fuel industry, which, not surprisingly, recommended that exposure levels be set many times higher than the lower doses recommended by numerous independent research studies.

“Perchlorate provides a textbook example of a corrupted health protection system, where polluters, the Pentagon, the White House and the EPA have conspired to block health protections in order to pad budgets, curry political favor, and protect corporate profits,” Richard Wiles, Executive Director of the Environmental Working Group, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on May 7 during a hearing held by committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who would like to see national safety standards for perchlorate in drinking water.

“All the pieces needed to support strong health protections are in place,” said Wiles. “This is a nightmare of epic proportions for the Department of Defense and its contractors, and rather than address it head-on, they have spent 50 years and millions of dollars trying to avoid it.”

Jeffrey St. Clair’s latest books are Born Under a Bad Sky and Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is now available in Kindle format.  He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net

Joshua Frank, Managing Editor of CounterPunch, is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, and of Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is now available in Kindle format. He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com.

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February 15, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Environmentalism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ecuador’s Financial Reforms Help Explain Why Voters Likely to Re-Elect Correa

By Alex Main | CEPR Americas Blog | February 14, 2013

On Sunday Ecuadorians will head to the polls to vote for a president and vice president, members of the National Assembly, mayors, and other elected officials. As we’ve done ahead of other elections in Latin America, CEPR has published a report offering some economic context to help understand the choices that voters are likely to make.

The report, entitled Ecuador’s New Deal: Reforming and Regulating the Financial Sector, focuses on the innovative financial reforms that have been implemented since President Rafael Correa took office in 2007.  The report explains how these measures helped Ecuador recover from some of the hemisphere’s worst shocks during the world recession.  It also shows how the reforms contributed to a substantial increase in government revenue much of which has been channeled toward health, education, housing and other social spending.  Given these advances, it is not surprising that the latest polls put Correa at 50 percentage points ahead of his closest opponent.

Earlier today, CEPR issued the following press release outlining the contents of the paper:

A new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) examines the financial reforms carried out by the Rafael Correa administration, reforms which the paper concludes are in large part responsible for the economic success Ecuador has experienced over the past several years, including its successful counter-cyclical policies during the global recession after 2008. The paper, “Ecuador’s New Deal: Reforming and Regulating the Financial Sector,” examines the Correa government’s taking control of the Central Bank, implementation of capital controls, increased taxation of the financial sector, and other regulatory reforms. It concludes that these played a major role in bringing about Ecuador’s strong economic growth, increased government revenue, a substantial decline in poverty and unemployment, and other improvements in economic and social indicators.

Ecuador will hold presidential elections on Sunday, February 17. Correa is almost certain to be re-elected; Reuters reports that he “has a lead of as much as 50 percentage points over the nearest of his seven rivals in opinion polls.”

“Ecuador has gone against the conventional wisdom and shown that there are alternatives,” CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot and lead author of the paper said. “By pursuing policies that have prioritized economic development, employment, and poverty reduction over financial and foreign interests, Ecuador has surmounted some of the problems that had previously held it back, and that have hampered progress in other countries.”

The paper notes that by the last quarter of 2012, unemployment had fallen to 4.1 percent, its lowest level on record (for at least 25 years), while the national poverty rate fell to 27.3 percent as of December 2012, 27 percent below its level in 2006.

The paper finds that financial reforms contributed significantly to an unprecedented rise in government revenue under Correa, from 27 percent of GDP in 2006 to more than 40 percent in 2012.  This not only allowed for vitally important expansionary fiscal policy, but also a large increase in social spending.  The biggest increase was in housing, but there were also significant increases in health care spending and other social spending.  The government’s most important cash-transfer program (the Bono de Desarollo Humano) increased by one-fourth, and education funding more than doubled, as a percent of GDP, from 2006-2009.

The paper concludes that “What is most remarkable is that many of these reforms were unorthodox or against the prevailing wisdom of what governments are supposed to do in order to promote economic progress. Taking executive control over the central bank, defaulting on one-third of the foreign debt, increasing regulation and taxation of the financial sector, increasing restrictions on international capital flows, greatly expanding the size and role of government – these are measures that are supposed to lead to economic ruin.  The conventional wisdom is also that it is most important to please investors, including foreign creditors, which this government clearly did not do.”

“While not all of Ecuador’s reforms went against orthodox policy advice,” Weisbrot said, “many of them did – and they succeeded. It should be no surprise that Correa is such a popular candidate heading into this Sunday’s elections.”

The paper notes that “Ecuador’s success shows that a government committed to reform of the financial system, can – with popular support – confront an alliance of powerful, entrenched financial, political, and media interests and win. The government also took on powerful international interests as well, in its foreign debt default, its renegotiation of oil contracts, and its refusal to renew the concession for one of the United States’ few remaining military bases in South America.” It notes that this success indicates that developing countries may have more and better policy options than is commonly believed to be the case.

February 15, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tanzania’s Shift towards Israel

PressTVGlobalNews | February 12, 2013

Press TV’s documentary program “Tanzania’s shift toward Israel” Looks at how Nyerere’s policies of supporting the oppressed and the Palestinian cause have been abandoned in Tanzania in favor of economic diplomacy advocated by the West.

Tanzania’s Shift towards Israel (I)

Tanzania’s Shift towards Israel (II)

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February 14, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama’s State of the Corporate Union

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | February 13, 2013

It was an impassioned performance by a cynical politician who offers little but corporate tax incentives and continued austerity. Barack Obama peppered his State of the Union address with up-tempo buzzwords about illusory “progress,” but the president’s substantive message was that he is determined to complete the austerity bargain he struck with the Republicans in 2011. Thus, it is a sign of “progress” that “we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances” – meaning, he will collaborate with the GOP in cutting almost $2 trillion more.

The big cuts will come from those programs that enjoy overwhelming support among Americans. He claims to be with them in spirit while opposing them in practice. “Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms – otherwise, our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children, and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations.” His reasoning is identical to the Republicans, who say these programs must be bled, or die.

Obama created the model to gut entitlements through his Simpson/Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission, appointed well before the GOP took control of the House. Now he pretends that the cuts have been forced upon him, but that he will acquiesce in the spirit of compromise. “On Medicare, I’m prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.”

He constructs a phony trade-off for children, the poor and the elderly. “Why would we choose to make deeper cuts to education and Medicare just to protect special interest tax breaks? How is that fair?” he asks, rhetorically. The cuts must come, but in return Obama will revise the tax code “that lowers incentives to move jobs overseas, and lowers tax rates for businesses and manufacturers that create jobs right here in America.”

This is the double-whammy. Austerity in people’s programs is traded for tax breaks for corporations that will, in totally discredited theory, bring back the jobs they had outsourced overseas.But don’t complain, says Obama. “None of us will get 100 percent of what we want.” And most of us will get the shaft.

Obama’s jobs program is almost entirely a corporate tax incentive scheme, to bribe corporations to send home the jobs they sent offshore, where they have also hidden tens of trillions from taxation – a subject not deemed worthy of mention in a national discussion of shared sacrifice and patriotic obligations.

The military-industrial complex will make “America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing,”says the president. Fifteen manufacturing “hubs” will be built around businesses that “partner with the Departments of Defense and Energy to turn regions left behind by globalization into global centers of high-tech jobs.” You can bet there are huge corporate subsidies involved, through negative taxation.

Obama will repair America’s infrastructure through a “Fix-It-First” program that nobody has ever heard of before, and has no price tag – which means it doesn’t exist in anything more than rhetorical form. And his “Partnership to Rebuild America” proposal to upgrade private infrastructure – oil and gas pipelines, ports and the power grid – almost certainly involves corporate subsidies, or else why wouldn’t the private sector be repairing its own properties, already?

Those business incentives just keep on coming. All one need to qualify is say the word “jobs” – but don’t you dare say “public works.” The Corporate-Subsidizer-In-Chief says: “Let’s offer incentives to companies that hire Americans who’ve got what it takes to fill that job opening, but have been out of work so long that no one will give them a chance. Let’s put people back to work rebuilding vacant homes in run-down neighborhoods.” Obama says he will “partner with 20 of the hardest-hit towns in America to get these communities back on their feet.” How will that get done? By offering “new tax credits to businesses that hire and invest.” Obama can do a passable Al Green, but when it comes to public policy in 2013, he sings only one song: tax schemes for business.And he stole that tune from the GOP.

Obama’s Black boosters will no doubt point to the president’s concern for the “hardest hit” to conclude that he is now open to targeted aid to the those communities that have been most devastated. Not so. He is simply open to aiding corporations under any and all circumstances. His administration failed to spend almost all of $7.6 billion set aside by Congress for a Hardest Hit Fund, to aid communities hurt worst by the housing collapse. Hard-hit people don’t get special attention from this administration; well-off corporations do.

During his 2008 campaign, Obama vowed to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011. He must have thought no one was listening, because he didn’t mention the subject for the next four years. Now, in 2013, he promises to fight for a $9.00 minimum – 50 cents an hour less. And he didn’t even apologize to the nation, Tuesday night, for reneging during his first term.

“Race to the Top,” Obama’s signature program to privatize education through withholding of funds to states that fail to establish an alternative charter system and transform teachers into temporary workers, is set for a great corporate leap forward. States that craft their curriculum to suit corporate priorities will get additional funding; those that do not, will be punished. “We’ll reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math – the skills today’s employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future.” Obama is an education gangster, hired muscle for the corporate class.

It is fitting that Obama, who has made it possible for all of us to experience the First Black U.S. Presidency, will enhance the experience of choosing between corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans: “I’m announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And I’m asking two long-time experts in the field, who’ve recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney’s campaign, to lead it.”

We discovered during the presidential debates that there was very little that separated the two contenders. The Republican and Democratic experts should have no problem finding a mutual electoral comfort zone.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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February 14, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Revolving Door at SEC is in a Whirl as Hundreds Hired by Industry they Regulated

By Noel Brinkerhoff, Danny Biederman | AllGov | February 13, 2013

Charged with regulating Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has become a launching pad for former agency employees—by the hundreds—to become part of the industry they once oversaw.

A new report from the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO) says that more than 400 ex-SEC staffers were working for the industry between 2001-2010.

The study also found numerous other concerns with the “revolving door” between the SEC and financial firms. These included agency workers trying to help corporations influence agency regulations, defending companies suspected of breaking the law, and helping them avoid tougher enforcement actions.

Perhaps the most high-profile concern in this arena is President Obama’s nomination of Mary Jo White to become the new SEC chief. During her most recent job at the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, White’s clients included JPMorgan Chase, General Electric, Verizon Communications, former Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis, and Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member convicted of insider trading.

“The revolving door is moving faster than ever,” Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said after reading POGO’s findings. “The SEC has to fix this problem once and for all. That involves more disclosure, more meaningful restrictions, and top-to-bottom application of the rules without waivers that make any restrictions meaningless.”

February 14, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farming Injustice

International day of action – February 9th

Palestinian farmers organisations and campaigners in Europe are this weekend taking action to call for an end to trade with Israeli agricultural export companies over their role in Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. Read the call to action here.

In Gaza, Palestinian fishermen held a press conference and rally on February 6 to draw attention to Israel’s attacks on fishermen. Farmers and activists will march towards the buffer zones near the border with Israel on February 9 to protest Israel’s destruction of farmland and attacks on farmers.

In the West Bank, a conference and other actions will be held in Salfit to discuss a boycott of Israeli goods and resistance to Israel’s colonisation and systematically implemented restrictions on Palestinian agriculture.

All of the major Palestinian agricultural organisations have marked the day of action by publishing an appeal for action for the launching of campaigns against Israeli agricultural companies and an accompanying briefing, which aims to shed light on the role of Israeli agricultural companies in the destruction of of Palestinian agriculture.

Solidarity campaigners, trade unionists and NGOs across Europe are holding actions and launching campaigns against Israeli agricultural export companies such as Mehadrin and Arava, who export fresh produce from illegal Israeli settlements and are among the primary beneficiaries of the destruction of Palestinian agriculture.

There will be events, flash mobs and protests in more than 40 cities across 9 European countries including France, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy.  Campaigners are calling on governments to ban settlement trade and on retailers to adopt the position of the Co-Operative supermarket in the UK, which refuses to trade with any Israeli company that operates in settlements.

You can follow the actions on Twitter using the hashtag #FarmingInjustice.

Actions taking place across the world

Palestine

Dozens of Palestinian farmers and fishermen rallied in the Gaza seaport this week, launching several days of actions across the Strip to support boycotts of Israeli agricultural corporations.

Upcoming events will include a march by farmers, ending with the planting of olive trees, near the “buffer zone” around Gaza’s boundary with Israel on Saturday.

In the West Bank, a conference and other actions will be held in Salfit to discuss a boycott of Israeli goods and resistance to Israel’s colonisation and systematically implemented restrictions on Palestinian agriculture.

Also in the West Bank, the villagers of Madama, the centre for the Martyr Billal Najar from Burin and International Solidarity Movement activists will plant Olive trees on the land of Madama village where illegal settlers cut down hundreds of olive trees.

France

Activists in Montpellier occupied the customs offices to protest the import of produce from Israeli agricultural companies that operate in settlements on Thursday. Actions are planned in 14 other French cities on Saturday.

UK

Protests and actions are planned in more than XX cities as part of a new campaign to pressure major supermarket Sainsbury’s to end trade with any Israeli company that from settlements.

Belgium

Creative ‘Boycott Carnival’ action and demonstration in central Brussels

Sweden

Pickets at Coop-stores in Stockholm and Hässleholm as part of the campaign to pressure the supermarket to end trade with complicit Israeli companies

Netherlands

A creative protest action in the ‘Black Market’ Bazar, Beverwijk, at which goods from Israeli companies such as Mehadrin and Arava are often present

Luxembourg

Actions at supermarkets in several cities.

Italy

Actions and demonstrations in Rome and Trento

Actions are also planned in Germany and Switzerland, with more details to follow.

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February 9, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

UCtelevision | July 30, 2009

Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public.

See also:

The saturated fat scam: What’s the real story?

The “Coca Cola conspiracy” and the obesity epidemic

The processed foods industry knew that their products would cause an epidemic of obesity among their customers, but they also realized that their bottom line would see a huge boost. The FDA and USDA provided all the cover needed and then some by pointing the finger in the wrong direction. The “low fat” foods fad was a complete hoax. …

February 8, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

International Finance Corporation invests $2.9 billion in the Middle East and North Africa

MEMO | February 7, 2013

ifcInternational Finance Corporation invests $2.9 billion in the Middle East and North AfricaFigures released by the International Finance Corporation show that its investments for the fiscal year 2012 in the Middle East and North Africa have reached a record $2.9 billion. Fifty-seven projects have been supported across 12 countries as part of the Corporation’s efforts to restore investors’ confidence in the region, with a focus on the long-term possibilities after the end of the political crises. It is the IFC’s highest annual commitment in the region to date, representing a 21 per cent increase over 2011.

Twenty-five advisory projects were launched with a total value of $17.6 million to improve opportunities for obtaining access to finance and strengthen corporate governance and practices of small and medium enterprises. Almost $600 million has been pumped into infrastructure projects in the MENA region. One IFC initiative is the Arab Financing Facility for Infrastructure (AFFI), established in partnership with the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank to encourage infrastructure investment.

In order to address what it calls the “the mismatch between the needs of the labour markets and the education outcomes in the Arab World”, the IFC pointed to the launch of the e4e (Education for Employment) initiative for Arab youth in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco, in collaboration with the Islamic Development Bank. The e4e team has also sought and received funding for the project from Britain’s Department for International Development among other donors.

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February 7, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear accident could cost France $580bn, study shows

Press TV – February 7, 2013

A study shows that a possible nuclear accident in France would cost the country about 430 billion euros ($580 billion), which is equivalent to 20 percent of its economic output.

The study, conducted by the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), showed that a possible disaster in one of the nuclear reactors in France and a release of radioactivity into the environment would displace an estimated 100,000 people, destroy crops and cause massive power cuts, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Jacques Repussard, the head of the IRSN, said, “A major accident would have terrible consequences, but we would have to deal with them because the country wouldn’t be annihilated, so we have to talk about it, however difficult it is.”

A nuclear crisis would also take its toll on exports of French delicacies and the tourism industry, costing the country about 160 billion euros ($126 billion), the study indicated.

Patrick Momal, the IRSN economist responsible for the study, said, “Tourism is an important activity for France and direct costs would not only hit the affected region, but the whole country.”

Momal, who is also a former World Bank economist, unveiled two disaster scenarios prompting a core meltdown at a typical 900-megawatt nuclear reactor in France, which include a “major” accident similar to that of Japan’s Fukushima reactor.

In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami hit the northeastern coast of Japan.

The quake triggered a nuclear disaster by knocking out power to cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, resulting in meltdowns and radioactivity release.

France is the world’s most nuclear-dependent country and operates 58 reactors, which supply about 75 percent of its electricity demand.

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February 7, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Nuclear Power | , , , , , | Leave a comment

FCC Ponders Powerful and Free Internet Service for All… Again

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | February 6, 2013

Free public access to government-created WiFi networks across the United States could become a reality in the near future, under a proposed plan by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC idea could allow Americans to make phone calls or access the Internet without the need to do business with cell phone companies.

Not surprisingly, telecoms hate the FCC plan and intend to lobby heavily against it.

But the FCC does have its own heavyweights supporting the WiFi networks, namely Google, Microsoft and other tech giants who see free wireless service as a way to encourage innovation and new technology.

The new WiFi networks would reportedly be more powerful than existing wireless networks found in most households. “They could penetrate thick concrete walls and travel over hills and around trees. If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas,” according to Cecilia Kang of The Washington Post.

Drawbacks to the plan include that it would take years to set up the networks, assuming the FCC can convince local television stations and other broadcasters to sell portions of their airwaves for the new access.

Critics add that once in operation, the government might not do a good job of managing the networks against crashes and bandwidth problems.

To Learn More:

Tech, Telecom Giants Take Sides as FCC Proposes Large Public WiFi Networks (by Cecilia Kang, Washington Post)

FCC Bends to Telecoms on Broadband Internet Development (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)

FCC Proposes Broadband Internet for All Americans (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

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February 6, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon Continues Contracting US Companies in Latin America

By John Lindsay-Poland  | FOR | January 31, 2013

The Pentagon signed $444 million in non-fuel contracts for purchases and services in Latin America and the Caribbean during the 2012 fiscal year, an overall decrease of nearly 15% from the previous year. But US military spending in the region is still considerably higher than during the George W. Bush administration, when the equivalent Pentagon spending in Latin America averaged $301 million a year.

Fellowship Of Reconcilliation conducted an analysis of Defense Department contracts listed on usaspending.gov for Fiscal Year 2012, building on the review we did last year.

More than a third of funds for these contracts in the region are being carried out in Cuba, with $158 million for housing upgrades, intelligence analysis, port operations and other services. The United States maintains the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, site of the 11-year-old detention center that holds 171 prisoners without trial, many of whom have been cleared for release.

An additional $130 million in Pentagon contracts was for fuel purchases, including more than $44 million in Brazil, $35 million in Costa Rica, and $24 million in Honduras. Such fuel purchases supply the Fourth Fleet of the Navy, as well as military aircraft and land vehicles used in exercises, operations, and training.

Colombia remained the country with the largest amount of Pentagon contracts in continental Latin America, with $77 million. A multi-year contract shared by Raytheon and Lockheed for training, equipment and other drug war activities accounted for more than a third of Pentagon contract spending in Colombia. Honduras, which has become a hub for Pentagon operations in Central America, is the site for more than $43 million in non-fuel contracts signed last year.

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The US Southern Command (SouthCom), responsible for US military activities in Central and South America and the Caribbean, is assisting the Panamanian border police, known as SENAFRONT, by upgrading a building in the SENAFRONT compound. The force was implicated in killings of indigenous protesters (PDF) in Bocas del Toro in 2011, and fired indiscriminately with live ammunition (PDF) on Afro-Caribbean protesters last October.

Many countries that host US military activities hope to receive economic benefits and jobs as a result. But more than five of every six Pentagon dollars contracted for services and goods in the region went to US-based companies. Only nine percent of the $574.4 million in Pentagon contracts signed in 2012 (including fuel contracts) were with firms in the country where the work was to be carried out. In the Caribbean, there were virtually no local companies that benefited from the $245 million in Defense Department contracts.

A few corporations dominated Pentagon contracts in the region. CSC Applied Technologies, based in Fort Worth, Texas, received more than $53 million in contracts to operate the Navy’s underwater military testing facility in the Bahamas. Lockheed Martin received more than $40 million in contracts, almost entirely for drug war training, equipment and services in Colombia and Mexico.

Pentagon Focus on Guatemala

Although the Pentagon spent less in most Latin American countries in 2012 than the year before, DOD contracts have more than doubled since 2010 in Guatemala, where there is a ban on most State Department-channeled military aid to the army. However, the ban does not apply to Defense Department assistance. The contracts for nearly $14 million in 2012 amount to more than seven times what it was in 2009. In addition, the US military spent another $8.1 million on fuel in Guatemala last year, probably for “Beyond the Horizon” military exercises held there and in Honduras from April to July, and perhaps to support the deployment of 200 Marines to Guatemala in August.

The contracts included new assistance to the Guatemalan special forces, known as Kaibiles, former members of which have been implicated in giving training to the Zetas drug cartel, as well as the worst atrocities during the genocide period of the 1980s. Two contracts, funded by SouthCom and signed in September, were for a “shoot house” and “improvements” at the Kaibiles training base in Poptun, Petén.

SouthCom also funded a contract for construction of a new $3 million counter-drug base in Santa Ana de Berlin, in Quetzaltenango. This year, SouthCom is slated to build a $1.8 million counternarcotics operations center and barracks in Mantanitas, Guatemala, according to an Army Corps of Engineers presentation.

The expenditures included equipment. For the last two years, SouthCom has been providing Boston whaler boats, radios, and tactical vehicles (Jeeps) to Central American militaries. Guatemala is receiving more of the equipment than other countries in the region – 47 Jeeps and 8 Boston whalers, according to a SouthCom document. SouthCom signed a $2.5 million contract in September for Jeeps for Guatemala, and it has purchased more than $2.8 million of Harris military radios for Guatemala since September 2011.

Department of Defense contracts, summaries of which are posted on usaspending.gov, only represent a portion of Pentagon spending. A report to Congress last April (PDF) of Defense Department assistance worldwide showed more than $15 million in military aid to Guatemala in 2010, including $9 million for intelligence analysis, training, boats, trucks, night vision devices, and a “base of operations.” These funds also included more than $6 million of unspecified support for Guatemalan police operations in Cobán, in the Guatemalan highland department of Alta Verapaz.  The report didn’t include data after 2010.

On December 7, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency signed a $1.4 million contract with a Guatemalan firm to manage a 10,000-barrel supply of turbine fuel for the next five years in Puerto Quetzal, on Guatemala’s southern coast. This followed a July 2012 solicitation to deliver 63,000 gallons of jet fuel to another southern Guatemalan site, in Retalhuleu.

FOR compiled data on the “country of performance” for contracts. For Guatemala, we also examined data on additional contracts that reference the country, which included a $2.5 million contract signed in late September with a Chrysler distributor to deliver tactical vehicles – some of the Jeeps slated for the country. The US Army also purchased $7.6 million worth of trousers from a producer in Guatemala in 2012.

“Mini-Bases”

Some legislation for DOD drug war construction of bases and other infrastructure limits projects to $2 million, and the Southern Command continues to employ this authority frequently to construct a variety of facilities all over the Americas. Here are some of the facilities the US military is constructing around Latin America.

City, Country Amount of contract Date signed Description
Tecun Uman, Guatemala $550K Dec. 5, 2011 Health post refurbishment
Champerico, Guatemala none — part of multi-award contract Sept 17, 2012 Counter Narco-terrorism (CNT) Ops Center; pier and fuel
Santa Ana de Berlin, Guatemala $3 million (Army Corps of Engineers says $4.1 million) Sept 29, 2012 CNT Barracks, Latrines, refurbish chow hall, motorpool
Las Mantanitas, Guatemala $1.8 million Not known; see ACE FY13 plan. CN Operations Center/Barracks
Summit, Panama $1,078,971 Sept 22, 2012 Counternarcotics maintenance facility
Hunting Caye, Belize $1,778,420 August 10, 2012 Construction of operations barracks/maintenance facility
Puerto Castilla, Honduras $374,882 March 9, 2012 Construction of helicopter landing pads and team room improvements
Dominican Republic $1.8 million Sept 28, 2012 Construct dormitory building
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic $414,444 Jan. 24 and March 8, 2012 Refurbish peace keeping operations training school buildings
Antigua none — supplemental to existing contract October 19, 2011 Emergency response warehouse
Tarapoto, Peru $1,049,265 September 12, 2012 Disaster relief warehouse and search and rescue training facility
Puno and Huaraz, Peru $1,037,808 July 27, 2012 Emergency Operations Centers
Piura and Concepción, Peru $853,500 July 27, 2012 Emergency Operation Center and Disaster Relief Warehouse

February 6, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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