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Chavez hosts World Social Forum as leftist movements unite against Bush
(Khaleej Times Online, January 23, 2006)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hosting one of the world's largest anti-globalization, anti-war events starting Tuesday - and the timing couldn't be better. . . . Leftist leaders are increasingly popular across Latin America, while Chavez's own "revolution" for the poor has become an inspiration for like-minded activists everywhere from Canada to Chile. . . . Organizers predict as many as 100,000 people will attend the World Social Forum this week in Caracas, including campaigners against US-style free trade, environmentalists, Indian leaders and human rights activists. . . . Their views span a wide spectrum, but most participants appear united by strong opposition to the US government and the war in Iraq. The forum will begin with an "anti-imperialist" march Tuesday through the streets of Caracas, with protesters likely to aim their chants against US President George W. Bush. . . . "Venezuela has become an epicenter of change on the world level," Chavez said Friday, mentioning the event in a speech. "That’s why (US) imperialism wants to sweep us away, of course ... because they say we are a bad example, but they haven't swept us away and they won't." . . . The World Social Forum was first held in Brazil in 2001 and coincides each year with the market-friendly World Economic Forum of national leaders in Davos, Switzerland. . . . "The US government, especially under the Bush administration, has been trying to force its own economic polices on developing countries, and I think all of us here agree that must stop," said Jeff Monahan, a 32-year-old organic farmer from Battle Creek, Michigan. . . . Some 2,000 events - including seminars, speeches, concerts and craft fairs - will be held across Caracas during this week's forum. . . . More than 50,000 participants had signed up as of Sunday, organizers said. But an estimated 100,000 in all were expected for the six-day event, said Carlos Torres, a Montreal-based Chilean organizer. About half the attendees were expected to come from outside Venezuela. . . . "The world is changing, and I think leaders like Chavez can provide interesting examples of what can be done to ensure it changes for the better," said Moritz Lange, 24, who came from Bremen, Germany, to help to organize the forum. . . . The recent rise of left-leaning governments in Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile makes the event a timely forum to exchange ideas, said Miguel Tinker Salas, a Latin American studies professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. . . . "It's an opportune moment, given what's happening in Latin America and the fact that it brings together these various political forces on the left," Tinker Salas said in a telephone interview from California.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:40 PM

 

Leader takes power from earth god on ancient site
(Tom Hennigan, TimesOnline.co.uk, January 23, 2006)
For the first time since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago, Bolivia has a leader who comes from the country’s Indian majority. . . . After his election victory last month, Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, was formally sworn in yesterday, but in the eyes of his supporters he assumed power 24 hours earlier in a ceremony at Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan site that Indians believe confers strength on visitors. . . . He becomes the latest left-wing President in a continent where discontent at the failure of traditional parties to tackle poverty and inequality has resulted in a sharp swing to the left in recent years. . . . Indians in Bolivia are among the poorest and most marginalised citizens of South America and form the majority of Senor Morales's supporters. . . . The ceremony on Saturday was part folk festival, part political rally, as musicians playing Andean flutes and drums moved through a crowd carrying the flags of Senor Morales's Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party and banners dedicated to Che Guevara. . . . Leaders of Bolivia's indigenous communities watched as priests placed a traditional robe and hat on Senor Morales, symbolising their recognition of him as the leader of the country's indigenous peoples. . . . In front of a crowd of thousands, Senor Morales offered flowers and wine to the Indian earth goddess Pachamama. . . . "Today begins a new era for the indigenous peoples of the world, a new life of justice and equality," Senor Morales told the crowd, which included representatives of indigenous peoples from all over the Americas. . . . For the day of his congressional inauguration, Senor Morales wore another traditional garment, the striped alpaca sweater which rarely left his sides on his week-long diplomatic world tour. As well as the sash of office, Senor Morales received a golden medal encrusted with diamonds that Bolivia's first Congress had made for Simon Bolivar, the independence hero who gave his name to the country that he helped to liberate from Spain. . . . Senor Morales promised radical economic and social change and said that he would call a constitutional assembly this year to draw up a new constitution better to reflect Bolivia's indigenous majority.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:33 PM

 

Predictions of an Economic Hit Man
(John Perkins, AlterNet, January 13, 2006)
Most people in the United States know that a transit strike crippled New York City. Fewer are aware that seven South American countries, representing over 80 percent of the continent's population, recently elected presidents with anti-American sentiments. The former has an immediate effect. The latter will impact our children for decades to come. . . . In December 2005, Evo Morales buried seven challengers . . . in what the New York Times referred to as "the most important election since Bolivia's transition from dictatorship to democracy a generation ago." His platform appealed to the poor, including farmers whose main source of income, coca plants, caused them to suffer brutal treatment at the hands of U.S. drug agents. Although U.S. politicians and the media have denounced coca because it is used to produce cocaine, the fact is that it is extremely important in the Andes as a legal remedy for altitude sickness, digestive problems and other illnesses. . . . Bolivia joins the ranks of previously pro-American countries that have recently turned against Washington and Wall Street, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. . . . In the past year, a rising tide of people throughout the world has been rebelling against policies they see as unjust. This has occurred in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, as well as in the United States, where New York transit workers fought to defend their economic well-being. As one transit worker told me, "We're sick of being told that our families must sacrifice while huge corporations and their executives receive tax breaks." . . . 40 percent of the world's coffee is traded by just four companies; the top 30 supermarket chains control almost one-third of worldwide grocery sales. . . . Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; of those, 47 are U.S.-based. . . . The overall share of federal taxes paid by U.S. corporations is now less than 10 percent, down from 21 percent in 2001 and over 50 percent during World War II; one-third of America's largest and most profitable corporations paid zero taxes -- or actually received credits -- in at least one of the last three years . . . Back in 1980 the average American chief executive earned 40 times as much as the average manufacturing employee. For the top tier of American CEOs, the ratio is now 475:1 and would be vastly greater if assets, in addition to income, were taken into account. By way of comparison, the ratio in Britain is 24:1, in France 15:1, in Sweden 13:1. . . . Unrest in New York and Latin America, as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East are harbingers of the difficulties that will haunt future generations -- unless we take heed. They serve notice that if we want a peaceful and prosperous future for our children, we must recognize basic human needs; we must insist that all people -- not just those at the top -- have the right to justice and dignity. Bolivian voters, NYC transit workers and democratically elected presidents of other countries are warning us that the bottom line of the corporate balance sheet is not the final statement upon which our society will ultimately be graded.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 1:32 PM

 

The world is at risk of total collapse
(Dylan Evans, The Guardian, December 21, 2005)
Is it possible that global civilisation might collapse within our lifetime or that of our children? Until recently, such an idea was the preserve of lunatics and cults. In the past few years, however, an increasing number of intelligent and credible people have been warning that global collapse is a genuine possibility. And many of these are sober scientists, including Lord May, David King and Jared Diamond - people not usually given to exaggeration or drama. . . . The new doomsayers all point to the same collection of threats - climate change, resource depletion and population imbalances being the most important. What makes them especially afraid is that many of these dangers are interrelated, with one tending to exacerbate the others. It is necessary to tackle them all at once if we are to have any chance of avoiding global collapse, they warn. . . . Many societies - from the Maya in Mexico to the Polynesians of Easter Island - have collapsed in the past, often because of the very same dangers that threaten us. As Diamond explains in his recent book, Collapse, the Maya depleted one of their principal resources - trees - and this triggered a series of problems such as soil erosion, decrease of useable farmland and drought. . . . Unlike these dead societies, our civilisation is global. . . . On the negative side, globalisation means that when one part of the world gets into trouble, the trouble can quickly be exported. If modern civilisation collapses, it will do so everywhere. Everyone now stands or falls together. . . . Global collapse would probably still follow the same basic pattern as a local collapse but on a greater scale. . . . Today, as climate change makes some areas less hospitable than others, increasing numbers of people will move to the more habitable areas. The increasing population will make them less habitable and lead to further migration in a domino effect. . . . Huge movements of people and capital will put the international financial system under strain and may cause it to give way. . . . This would not be the end of the world. The collapse of modern civilisation would entail the deaths of billions of people but not the end of the human race. A few Mayans survived by abandoning their cities and retreating into the jungle, where they continue to live to this day. . . . The enormity of such a scenario makes it hard to imagine. It is human nature to assume that the world will carry on much as it has been. But it is worth remembering that in the years preceding the collapse of their civilisation, the Mayans too were convinced that their world would last forever.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:35 AM

 

CIA secret jail locations exposed
(Aljazeera.com, 1-10-06)
The CIA held 23 people in a secret prison in Romania and maintained similar detention facilities in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Macedonia and Kosovo, according to allegations contained in an Egyptian government fax obtained by Swiss Security services. . . . The fax offers the first "real evidence" that the U.S. interrogated suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe, European politicians said. . . . The highly-classified fax, sent late last year by Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to its embassy in London, was leaked by Switzerland's SonntagsBlick newspaper. . . . Although Egyptian officials declined to comment on the fax, Swiss officials asserted that the report was genuine and that its publication had led to an internal inquiry. . . . In the fax, Mr. Gheit discusses the fate of 23 detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan whom the U.S held at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania on the Black Sea coast. . . . Mr. Aboul Gheit concluded: "Romanian authorities continue to deny the presence of secret prisons used by U.S. intelligence to interrogate members of Al Qaeda."

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 7:29 AM

 

Students boycott Coca-Cola over labour rights
(BrandRepublic, 6 Jan 2006)
Coca-Cola is fighting to maintain its reputation as a feel-good brand amid student boycotts, accusations of polluting water in India and ongoing concerns about obesity levels. . . . At the end of last year, the University of Michigan became one at least a dozen universities in the US and Canada to ban Coke from its campus, because of concerns over labour rights in Colombia. Others to do so include New York University, Rutgers University in New Jersey, Santa Clara University in California and Salem State College in Massachusetts. . . . Several European universities have also cancelled contracts with Coke, including St Hilda and Balliol, Oxford, and Trinity College in Dublin. . . . The Columbian issue dates back 16 years, when a union leader was murdered at a bottling plant -- one of eight murders of union leaders that took place between 1989 and 2002. Campaigners argue that Coke has failed to investigate the murders or deal with wider issues over the abuse of its workforce. . . . The problems come as Coca-Cola plans a global ad campaign using the strapline "welcome to the Coke side of life". It recently appointed Wieden & Kennedy/Amsterdam to handle the brand globally. . . . Tom Pirko, president of beverage industry consultancy BevMark, told the FT: "One of the things at the heart of the Coke brand is that it embodies goodness, fun and play. If consumers start to associate the brand with more negative messages, that is a very big problem for Coke. It is impossible to over-estimate the damage caused when a brand goes from being seen as something good to something bad."

[ALSO SEE: Univ. of Michigan Drops Coca-Cola Contract]

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 10:59 AM