“America Don't Worry! Israel is Behind You!”

Nadia Hasan's latest article in Palestine Think Tank is an insightful piece that merely scratches the surface of the U.S. corporocratic campaign in the greater Middle East. The seed of the story is a t-shirt she saw during a trip to Jerusalem several years ago that read "“America Don’t Worry! Israel is Behind You!”. At the time, she remarked that the names should have been reversed, given the United States's near-unconditional support for Israel at the urging of many powerful lobbying organizations. She then later realized the ironic truth of the t-shirt's slogan:

The recent events in Lebanon and in recent months in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza Strip proves that certain international and regional powers are continuing efforts to implement their “master plan” of chaos for the region as the first step in a greater plan to make their domination permanent.

This is not a conspiracy theory as many are saying, is just the result of decades of efforts from the imperialistic powers to gain the control of certain strategic areas in the Arab Homeland and to control Arab oil and monopolize their market. For that reason these incidents are not limited just to Lebanon. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with the huge amount of propaganda that we are not able to see the whole picture, the clear chain of events with similar patterns from the Gaza Strip to Baghdad to Somalia to Darfur to Beirut. Some elements can be different in each case, but they have one thing in common, the master colonialist project of United States and the high security risks that these events cause to its main settlement in the region, Israel. These places are strategically interconnected and the success of the US plan in the region depends being able to control them.

Although the importance of oil and strategic control are certainly a huge motivator, the Friedmanesque economic dominance of the region should not be overlooked. It's no secret that since 2001, World Bank loans to the Middle East have increased, with a massive upsurge in privatization of state-run industries. Egypt has been the largest privatizer, selling off banks and other industries to the highest bidder. Israel is not merely a mercenary force in this globalization campaign, it is also a victim, with state assets being sold off while inequality and poverty increase. An aid-dependent Israel is no different than an aid-dependent Jordan or Egypt - they'll always put the profit of a few over the needs of the majority.

       

From Rats to Hurricanes: The Effects of Climate Change on Indigenous Populations

Indigenous populations in Nicaragua bear the brunt of the effects of global climate change, despite comprising the least-polluting and least carbon-emitting segment of the population. Stronger storms, desertification, plagues of rodents and disease, livelihood disruption, and decreased access to clean water and traditional medicines are just a few of the devastating effects of climate change - and poorly-concieved environmental policy - on indigenous populations. The Center for Indigenous Peoples' Autonomy and Development (CADPI) recommends a few measures that may help mitigate this situation:

Taking into account the situation Indigenous Peoples face in terms of the imminent impact and affects of climate change on our traditional systems of life, as well as the measures of mitigation adopted by States, we consider the following recommendations to be necessary:

• States, in cooperation with development organizations, should provide resources to strengthen the ability of Indigenous Peoples' institutions to participate in sustainable environmental management and in the definition and application of proposals for mitigation, and to respond to the impact of natural disasters.
  
• States should adopt measures that ensure that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the framework for discussing, agreeing to and implementing management processes for protected areas and concessions of resource extraction (this includes forest resources, hydrocarbons, mining, carbon trading, mitigation measures, etc.).
  
• We must ensure the direct participation of Indigenous Peoples and our institutions in carbon trading markets through sustainable management of the forest resources of our territories and our right to autonomy and Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

       

Before Swords Turned Bodies Into Banquets

Mine is the moon at the far edge of words
And the bounty of birds
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there
I Come From There... and Remember - Mahmoud Darwish

While world leaders gather in al-Quds to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday, many others in Palestine and around the world today commemorate the Nakba, the 1948 expulsion of up to 900,000 Palestinians from their homeland and forced depopulation of more than 500 Palestinian villages. After six decades of wars and apartheid, there are now an estimated 7 million Palestinian refugees and IDPs in and around Israel. While the usual suspects call for continued war, the number of new voices calling for peace and justice is indeed encouraging.

       

Y-YWL-R!!

Taking a break from the serious blogernettery today cause this is too funny:

Nothing Is Certain but Death and Taxes.Well Not So Much Taxes Per Se.

As reported on OneWorld today, a new study conducted by UK-based NGO Christian Aid calculates the cost to the developing world of corporate tax evasion and illegal capital flight. The numbers are staggering indeed.

The NGO calculated an annual cost to developing countries of $160 billion dollars in corporate tax revenue from just two methods of tax evasion: transfer mispricing - trade between corporate subsidiaries at manipulated prices, and false invoicing - manipulated-price transactions between unrelated corporations. These two methods are believed to account for a full 60% of all world trade. Furthermore, these figures do not include the marginally-legal but undoubtedly insidious practice of tax avoision - using offshore tax havens and other legal loopholes to avoid taxes.

This $160 billion swiped from developing countries annually far exceeds the combined total of official development assistance budgets from the developed world. Christian Aid estimates that the tax revenue evaded by these corporations, had the money been invested in health care, could have saved the lives of 350,000 children per year. In the 15 years between 2000 and the Millennium Development Goals' deadline of 2015, the total capital flight is $2.5 trillion. That's enough to meet the MDG targets three times over, cure world hunger, and pay for 5/6ths of an illegal war. If these broad figures are too large to comprehend, the study provides some more concrete examples of the problems caused by this illegal corporate greed:

The case studies in this report show the different impacts that tax dodging by companies can have. In Zambia and Tanzania, we show how poor deals in the past on copper and gold respectively have left these countries’ exchequers unable to capitalise on the recent huge surges in commodity prices. Yet when they have tried to renegotiate, they find themselves threatened with legal action. A more robust negotiating stance in Malawi illustrates how better deals can be reached.

In India, the government is giving some of that country’s biggest and richest companies a tax-free ride under the programme of Special Economic Zones, which were designed to bring more foreign investment into the country. Meanwhile, these developments are displacing tens of thousands of poor people – thrown off their land with scant compensation and denied the opportunity even to grow their own food. Life for them is getting worse, not better.

Rapid economic growth in Peru is also failing to deliver benefits for that country’s poor people. Preferential tax rates for asparagus producers, supplying most of the UK’s consumption, join those already enjoyed by mining companies. In Bolivia, on the other hand, raised royalty rates on gas extraction have enabled better healthcare and care for the elderly.

       

Round Up A Posse - We'll Head 'Em Off At The Lorenz Curve

GDP per capita is antiquated and deprecated. The dollar-a-day has had its day. The Human Development Index is way passé. The Gini coefficient is old and busted (sorry, Amartya!). There's a new inequality sheriff in town - the Vast Majority Income (VMI).

According to authors Anwar Shaikh and Amr Ragab in the latest International Poverty Centre policy research brief, VMI combines the income-level-measuring power of per capita GDP with the inequaliy-measuring power of the Gini coefficient by looking at the ratio between the income of the bottom 80% of the population and the overall average income.

The resulting Lorenz curve can then be measured not just against a 45-degree constant, but against a shifting slope of overall equality. Testing this curve with income data from 69 countries, the authors found that many countries with a high national income ranking dropped considerably when ranked by VMI.

These results give rise to two broad policy conclusions and a research question. First, it is important to conduct international comparisons in terms of VMI or some similar measure of discounted real income per capita, because such a combination of the level of income and the degree of inequality places us on a common international scale. This validates the kinds of comparisons undertaken in the 1993 Human Development Report. Second, since the gross per capita income of any fraction of the population (except the very rich) depends directly on the product of GDP per capita and (1-Gini), both growth and inequality reduction (as measured by increases in (1 – Gini) contribute equally to improving the standard of living of the vast majority. Taxes and subsidies then appear as further means of adjusting the income distribution. Of course, this immediately gives rise to a perennial question: what is the relationship between economic growth and changes in inequality? Our measures and our theoretical results provide us with the means for taking a fresh look at this important debate.

       

يمكن أن عاش النور غير الشبكة

مؤتمر الذي اختتم بالأمس من مصرف العالم في غانا استجلى الإمكان لالكهرباء بدون غير الشبكة ولهبات صمام ثنائي لإصلاح أغراض الكهربائيات هن بعض ناس الافريقيا ٥٥٠ مليون بدون الكهرباء. إنارة افريقيا ٢٠٠٨ يرغب أن أعطى إنارة إلى ٢٥٠ مليون الناس في افريقيا جنوب الصحراء قبل ٢٠٣٠ بدون إستعمل أن وقود أحفوري، حكم البنك إجار ٢٠٠٠٠٠ دولار على ١٦ شركات لالتنمية خطات لإنارة غير الشبكة من استعمل تقانات الضرطات والشمسيات والاخرات.

       

Let There Be (Off-Grid) Light!

A recently concluded World Bank conference in Ghana has explored the possibilities of off-grid electrification and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs as a means to address the power needs of some of the 550 million Africans without access to electricity. Lighting Africa 2008 aims to provide lighting to 250 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 without use of fossil fuels, and the Bank has awarded grants of up to $200,000 to 16 companies to develop off-grid lighting schemes using biogas, solar, and other technologies.

       

The Bitter Taste of Sweet Crude

On Democracy Now yesterday, filmmaker Sandy Cioffi discussed the intersection of politics, profit, poverty, and extreme marginalization that pervades the states of the Niger Delta. The world's eighth largest exporter of crude oil and holder of an estimated 35 billion barrels of proven supply sees surprisingly little benefit from its natural resource, with most of the country's share of the wealth lost to corruption and mismanagement, while Shell and other companies profit handsomely. The statistics are quite staggering:

• Niger Delta unemployment is 40% for ages 15-24 and 70-90% for adults.
• More than 6,000 oil spills have been recorded since 1976.
• Less than 25% of spills are remediated.
• Many Niger Delta residents suffer from oil poisoning.
• More gas is flared in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.
• More than 15 million Nigerian children work.
• 36% of Nigerian kids enrolled in grade 1 reach grade 5.
• Nearly all schools in the Niger Delta are in extreme disrepair.
• Less than 20% of the Delta region is accessible by good roads.
  
• Less than 20% of Delta communities are connected to the national electrical grid.
• Oil revenues since the 1970s are estimated at US$300 billion.
• 80% of oil and gas revenues accrue to just 1% of the population.

       

France Surrenders in the Global War On Terroir

According to a shocking report uncorked by NPR this morning, the Institut National des Appellations d'Origine is planning to expand by forty the number of villages that can produce champagne. This decision, a response to the increasing worldwide demand for the bubbly and competition from new wine-growing regions, would mark the first alteration to the champagne appelation since 1927.

The news isn't so good for growers in Germaine and Orbay l'Abbaye which will lose their champagne appellation under the change. Fans of Moët & Chandon's champagne will soon have to become fans of Moët & Chandon's wine-flavored sparkling beverage drink.