Re: Cuba: siempre con combate
Chris wrote: Does Russia still export cars to Cuba? Putin has been trying to reestablish strong ties between the two countries. The newer cars seem to be imports from countries other than either Russia or the US -- most were Japanese cars. I didnt find much interest among Cubans from many different sectors to want to even talk about Russia let alone have improved relations. I spent a day with a Cuban professor of economics, and every time I tried to bring up the subject of Russia or Soviet economic models and such, she would just roll her eyes in utter disgust. In general, it seems to me Cubans do not feel they benefited from their relationship with the Soviet Union and then after whatever it was they did have, they were dropped like a hot potato. I think the Soviet Union did provide a very extensive mechanism to distribute Cuban goods and services within Cuba and beyond, and the low point in Cubas economic history in 1994 was the absence of a system to distribute goods. Production was not the problem in 1994. Cuba has since solved this distribution problem with the blues! :) These are actually blue uniformed workers who are involved in the Cuban goods distribution process...and trade of all kind. Diane
Re: Cuba: Dealing with the dollar
Ulhas wrote: Diane Monaco wrote: There are three -- actually four if you include the euro that is now accepted at a few tourist locations in Havana -- currencies used in Cuba: the Cuban peso, the convertible peso (equivalent to the dollar), and dollars. All three of these currencies circulate freely in Cuba. How far Cuba can be regarded as an independent and socialist nation-state, if there is extensive dollarisation of Cuban economy? I'm not sure what independent really means, but Cuba is communist/socialist in the mechanisms it uses to attempt to ensure that the means of producing goods and services are owned by the community as a whole, and that all citizens enjoy social/economic equality. Dollarization is a mechanism that Cuba is forced to use to circumvent the US embargo against Cuba on all trade including basic necessities to facilitate the acquisition the goods and services in sufficient amounts for all its citizens. Diane
Re: HDI, GNP and the PPP factor
Michael wrote: Economics is all about measuring in measurable. I was reading this week about scientific racism in Victorian England, where people tried to develop mathematical measures of how close various peoples came to being Africans. These measures showed the Irish were almost Black. Such matters were taken very seriously and the time. The English tried very hard to make the Irish, umm, English, but the English in Ireland just kept on becoming Irish no matter what they did -- until, of course, the Elizabethans. Oppression of the Irish people really accelerated with the Elizabethans, and by the time the Victorians rolled around, the oppression was well established. Throughout the history of Ireland, invader after invader came and eventually absorbed themselves into the native population of Ireland. They ALL became Irish. First it was the Celts who were actually very friendly invaders from the beginning. Then the Vikings came, less friendly at first but eventually joined the Celts and became Irish. The last of the more hostile Normans, came, fought, conquered, and then became Irish. The Anglos (Old English) also adopted Gaelic practices until the Tudors and specifically the Elizabethans began to give landed titles in Ireland in exchange for the abandonment of Gaelic governing customs and culture. The Elizabethans also established presidencies for crying out loud in Connaught and Munster -- something like Wales. But the worst and most detrimental practice to the Irish was an ethnic cleansing style colonization in Ulster and Munster. Diane Kathleen O'Ciardha Monaco :)
Owning Up to Abortion
Owning Up to Abortion By BARBARA EHRENREICH Published: July 22, 2004 The New York Times Abortion is legal - it's just not supposed to be mentioned or acknowledged as an acceptable option. An article in The Times on Sunday, Television's Most Persistent Taboo, reported that a Viacom-owned channel is refusing to run the episodes of a soap opera in which the teenage heroine chooses to abort. Even Six Feet Under, which is fearless in its treatment of sexual diversity, burdens abortion with terrible guilt. Where are those liberal media when you need them? You can blame a lot of folks, from media bigwigs to bishops, if we lose our reproductive rights, but it's the women who shrink from acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me. Increasingly, for example, the possibility of abortion is built right into the process of prenatal care. Testing for fetal defects can now detect over 450 conditions, many potentially fatal or debilitating. Doctors may advise the screening tests, insurance companies often pay for them, and many couples (no hard numbers exist) are deciding to abort their imperfect fetuses. The trouble is, not all of the women who are exercising their right to choose in these cases are willing to admit that that's what they are doing. Kate Hoffman, for example, who aborted a fetus with Down syndrome, was quoted in The Times on June 20 as saying: I don't look at it as though I had an abortion, even though that is technically what it is. There's a difference. I wanted this baby. Or go to the Web site for A Heartbreaking Choice, a group that provides support for women whose fetuses are deemed defective, and you find Mom complaining of having to have her abortion in an ordinary abortion clinic: I resented the fact that I had to be there with all these girls that did not want their babies. Kate and Mom: You've been through a hellish experience, but unless I'm missing something, you didn't want your babies either. A baby, yes, but not the particular baby you happened to be carrying. The prejudice is widespread that a termination for medical reasons is somehow on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion. In a 1999 survey of Floridians, for example, 82 percent supported legal abortion in the case of birth defects, compared with about 40 percent in situations where the woman simply could not afford to raise another child. But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular defective fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed terminations are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself. It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting defective fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as convenience - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves. Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness. Choice can be easy, as it was in my case, or truly agonizing. But assuming the fetal position is not an appropriate response. Sartre called this bad faith, meaning something worse than duplicity: a fundamental denial of freedom and the responsibility that it entails. Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak up for your rights. The freedoms that we exercise but do not acknowledge are easily taken away.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Louis wrote: Moreover, it is a mistake to lump all the Kurds together. The Workers Party in Turkey never cut deals with imperialism, while the Iranian Kurds were allied with the USSR at one point, until Stalin's typically cynical double-dealing forced them to look elsewhere. Of course, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership is utterly bankrupt. That being said, the Kurds are an oppressed nationality. Period. I agree with you, Louis. However, I have personally met many Kurds, Russians, and Iranians who have very close ties with each other, and they seem unified on some level. The Kurdish language is based on Persian and is part of the Indo-European language group. The Indo-European language family group includes Russian, Kurdish, Farsi, Pashto, Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Ancient Persian, Greek, Latin, French, English, Celtic languages. I have also found that many members of these specific Indo-European language groups -- including Kurds -- find it very important to be aware of their Ancient parent (proto) Indo-European language/people origins -- an ancient Indo-European people referred to as Aryans. Turkish (the Altaic family), and Arabic-Hebrew (both from the Afro-Asiatic family) are part of entirely different language groups. That being said and I agree again with you, the Kurds are an oppressed nationality. Period. Diane
Re: Cuba: Dealing with the dollar
The article forwarded by Ulhas states: Food, medicines, inputs and fuel can be accessed in adequate volumes only with foreign exchange, making the effort at restoring the health of a devastated economy and protecting the quality of life of its citizens dependent on dollar earnings. Fidel Castro's Government is committed to ensuring that the entire population has access to basic necessities. But the definition of what goods and services and how much of them constitute basic necessities depends in turn on the amount of foreign exchange that could be drawn into the economy and soaked up by the Government. With no supporter of the Soviet kind in sight, recovery became synonymous with the pursuit of the dollar. [ ] The faster rate of growth of the supply of dollars relative to demand is reflected in the fact that the regular peso, which is the principal form of income for the average Cuban, has improved its position vis-a-vis the dollar over time. From an all-time low of 130 pesos to the dollar in 1994, its value rose to 40 pesos to the dollar in November 1995, 30 pesos to the dollar in July 1995 and an unusual seven pesos to the dollar, in August 1995. Since then the rate has stabilised at 20 pesos to the dollar, where it currently stands. There have been several recent posts on the HDI and Cubas admirable ranking in so many aspects of this index which obviously points to how committed the Cuba government is in ensuring that ALL Cubans have adequate supplies of basic necessities: food, medicine, etc. But adequate supplies require imports, for smaller countries like Cuba, and imports require foreign currency. The US embargo on trade with Cuba explicitly includes food and medicine. Dollarization is helping to establish that mechanism in Cuba, but at the same time and as we well know (Enron and others), accounting practices and accounts in hard currencies at the corporate level can make the currency (dollars in the case of Cuba) very difficult to keep track of -- corporate corruption. Dollars are needed for the imported goods (food and medicine). There are three -- actually four if you include the euro that is now accepted at a few tourist locations in Havana -- currencies used in Cuba: the Cuban peso, the convertible peso (equivalent to the dollar), and dollars. All three of these currencies circulate freely in Cuba. The convertible peso was created in 1994, but just last year the Cuban Central Bank established new rules that require firms to exchange their dollars for convertible pesos to conduct their business within Cuba, and then purchase dollars with their convertible pesos for the their import needs. The convertible peso is equivalent to the dollar within Cuba, but it has no value outside of Cuba. This action by the Cuban Central Bank has lessened the problem of getting adequate supplies of medicine and basic necessities, but Cubans are still in dire need. The US embargo includes all trade -- including trade in food and medicine -- which also restricts the flow of hard currencies. Currency is needed to import anything including food and medicine. See the 1997 report, DENIAL OF FOOD AND MEDICINE: THE IMPACT OF THE U.S EMBARGO ON HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN CUBA. A Report from the American Association for World Health at http://www.ifconews.org/aawh.html Diane
Re: Cuba: siempre con combate
Jim wrote: did you see any cats or dogs? when I was in Cuba in the late 1970s, I didn't see any of them. I was wondering if someone had decided that they were luxuries. (I asked about it and our guide accused me of thinking that people had eaten them!) Come to think of it I didnt see any cats at all, but I did see a few dogs. I guess I dont think it was related to the luxury thing, as many people would also consider musical instruments luxury items and there were plenty of those around Cuba. I spent some time at a campesino farm cooperative and there I saw some dogs. Btw, these cooperatives actual produce around 70% of the vegetables, fruits, beans, corn, and tobacco in Cuba now, and this shift away from the Soviet models to the cooperatives has been growing since 1994. I had the best malanga with mojo sauce EVER at the campesino -- been experimenting to try to reproduce that very recipe. Was it lime or sour orange? :) the motivational billboards (one man may die, but the party lives forever) were everywhere out in the countryside, especially near the Havana airport, when I was there. The messages are much more related to the successes of the revolution now...and how they're still in struggle... siempre con combate ...as most of us are. The buses were stuffed to the gills when I was there. Is that situation better? Well, the camel buses are still pretty stuffed, but there are more cars now and other modes. It's interesting that I never saw any pictures of Fidel Castro, except in some homes. That's still true and noticeable...but is sincere to the spirit and nature of the revolution in Cuba. One can, however, see the Granma ship that ushered Fidel and 81 others from Tuxpan Mexico to Cuba in 1956, at the Museo de la Revolucion in Havana. Speaking of ships... Way, way back, Cuba and the US signed a treaty giving the US a perpetual lease to Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamera is a girl from Guantanamo Bay. Pete Seeger writes that in 1961 a young Cuban was working at a childrens summer camp in the Catskill Mountains when he read some simple verses by Jose Marti. He found that the verses could be fitted to an old popular song of Havana that was used to sing any verse one wished. He combined Martis patriotic verses with a chorus addressed to a country girl (Guajira). GUANTANAMERA Original music by Jose Fernandez Diaz Music adaptation by Pete Seeger Julian Orbon Lyric adaptation by Julian Orbon, based on a poem by Jose Marti I am a truthful man from this land of palm trees Before dying I want to share these poems of my soul My verses are light green But they are also flaming red Chorus: Guantanamera Guajira Guantanamera Guantanamera Guajira Guantanamera I cultivate a rose in June and in January For the sincere friend who gives me his hand And for the cruel one who would tear out this heart with which I live I do not cultivate thistles nor nettles I cultivate a white rose Chorus: Guantanamera Guajira Guantanamera Guantanamera Guajira Guantanamera [Add a new verse as you wish]
Re: Cuba: siempre con combate
Ulhas wrote: Diane Monaco wrote: Cuba IS a remarkable country Hi Diane ! Mexico is not far behind Cuba in HDI, AFAIK. Btw, 75% Singaporeans, 50% Malaysians 33% of Thais have cell phones. How many cell phones Cuba has? Hola! Hola! I really don't know the answer to that question and I don't recall seeing a cell phone while I was there. I never missed mine actually and I couldn't use an American credit card either -- another embargo thing. But all that was kind of nice. I also drank tap water to conserve my cash -- but that's something I always do anyway wherever I travel to. :) Speaking of Cuba and Mexico... Mexico, Cuba will reinstate envoys Monday Associated Press Jul. 23, 2004 12:00 AM HAVANA - Mexico and Cuba have said they will reinstate ambassadors in each other's countries next week, ending a diplomatic rift between Fidel Castro's government and its former strongest ally. Both countries withdrew their ambassadors in May after Mexico accused Cuba of meddling in its internal affairs. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and his Mexican counterpart Luis Ernesto Derbez said the ambassadors would be reinstated Monday. We've made progress and agreed on the importance of working in favor of bilateral relations, Perez Roque said. Derbez, who arrived Sunday in Havana, said, There can be differences among friends on certain issues, but these differences can be talked out. Mexico, the only Latin American country to maintain ties with Havana after the 1959 Cuban revolution, has been the communist island's strongest ally in the region. For decades, Mexico used that connection to mollify leftists upset by their country's close relationship with the United States. Relations between the two nations have been rocky since President Vicente Fox took office in 2000 and criticized Cuba's human rights record. In 2002, Mexico supported a resolution of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva condemning Cuba. Mexico was later angered by Cuban allegations that a Mexican official arrested in Havana on fraud charges was part of a larger political conspiracy. Mexican officials also said members of Cuba's Communist Party were holding unauthorized political meetings in Mexico and took offense at comments by Castro that Fox was a U.S. lackey.
Re: Slave labour in Brazil
Of course, bonded labor practices are nothing new, were only seeing newer versions emerging as our borders open with increasing globalization. Using the fear of deportation to exploit the labor illegal immigrants from neighboring countries is a bonded labor practice where the impossible to pay back loaned amount is zero and the interest on the loaned amount is your life. I suppose that it is a progressive step for the ILO to say these newer debt bondage practices are analogous to slavery. The fear of deportation AND the fear of social stigmatization are the forces behind another kind of bonded labor slavery -- sex slavery. The ILO report did call these newly defined slavery practices the result of lawlessness in the country (interior Brazil). Bush also just last week urged tough new law enforcement against human trafficking as he says, Human life is the gift of our creator and it should never be for sale meanwhile in the US Experts: Vt. sex slavery fits U.S. pattern By WILSON RING ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Friday, July 23, 2004 · Last updated 4:27 a.m. PT ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. -- The regulars at the Park Place Tavern weren't surprised when police raided what is being described as an Asian brothel in a small house across their shared driveway. But they were surprised when news reports linked the now-closed Tokyo Spa and two other health clubs in the area to what police say is an international prostitution ring that smuggled Asian women into the United States and made them sex slaves. We joked about it here all the time, said Sandy Maloney, who lives in an apartment complex out back. Maloney said she watched as older men driving expensive out-of-state sport utility vehicles visited the Tokyo Spa at all hours. Experts in sexual slavery say the Vermont case fits the pattern of a problem that is reaching into the smallest corners of the country. Modern-day slavery is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, said Derek Ellerman, co-executive director of the Washington-based Polaris Project, a grass-roots anti-trafficking organization. They have done a very good job of spreading into suburban and even rural areas, Ellerman said. It's a market-driven criminal industry. Wherever there is demand for commercial sex the traffickers will spread to those areas. There's an eviction notice on the door of the light gray two-story clapboard house that operated as the Tokyo Spa for about a year. The city of Burlington is moving to evict the tenants from another of the spas. At the third, the building owner insists all the activity inside was legal. Police, though, contend the clubs were offering sexual services along with massages. During the raids earlier this month, authorities arrested eight women - five Korean and three Chinese - on federal immigration charges. All except two have been released, said Essex police Lt. Gary L. Taylor. No state criminal charges have been filed. Taylor refused to discuss the ongoing investigation but knew of no other organized prostitution in Vermont's history. It's the first time I am aware of, Taylor said. I n court documents, police say the women who worked at the spas never left. Even groceries were brought to the house. One Korean woman told investigators she had been smuggled into the United States and had only recently arrived at the Tokyo Spa. Court documents filed by police to get search warrants for the three businesses outline what authorities say could be a link to international organized crime and sexual slavery. Similar operations, according to the papers, are being investigated by federal authorities in New York City, New Jersey and Maine. The way these massage parlors or spas or health clubs work, they are really fronts for prostitution, said Linda M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island. Hughes, who has studied international sex trafficking for 15 years, said many of the women have been smuggled into the United States and are being held by some sort of forced fraud or coercion. Typically, sex rings offer to bring women into the United States for a fee. Once in the United States, the women are forced to repay the cost of their passage by working as prostitutes. The women will give most of the money they make to the brothel owner. They are charged for rent and expenses. They can be fined for rule infractions, Hughes said. There are all sorts of things they do to prevent these women from getting out, Hughes said. That may mean these women have been enslaved for 20 years. The women are then rotated between the brothels as part of a network that has, in some cases, operated nationwide. Asian women aren't the only ones enslaved. The Vermont case appears to be a Korean network, Ellerman said. And traffickers bring women to the United States from around the world. Law enforcement has a new tool for fighting the international trafficking. The federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 defines women who
Cuba: siempre con combate
Louis wrote: ...it is remarkable that Cuba has climbed up into the first tier of nations. Could you imagine if the USA had a hostile neighbor to the North that was nearly 30 times the size in population and had about 500 times greater GDP and was bent on destroying our economy? The USA would fall apart within months, I'm sure. Cuba has not only not fallen apart, it has made steady improvement--even according to economic thinktanks hostile to its existence. That's a good argument for socialism. Cuba IS a remarkable country -- I was there last month for the first time on an educational exchange, and I'm still utterly astonished by its obvious, ever-present and forward-looking optimism and hope for its future and for the future of all humankind really. Louis, I totally agree with you that socialism has everything to do with it...in particular the Cuban brand of socialism. The Cuban people are wonderfully kind, relaxed, interested, healthy...and wonderfully fit! Everyone is fit...including animals. I mean, even the pigs are in good shape, and there are plenty of pigs around -- on leashes no less -- as pork is a major meat source in Cuba. Cubans eat lots of fruit, rice, beans, pork, and chicken. The country is so naturally beautiful and it's been kept that way. There are no billboards contaminating the Royal and coconut palm laden landscape, other than a motivational or proactive quote or two (siempre con combate)...and the streets of Havana are lined with the magnificent and flowering - flamboyan...at least in June. Cuba is absolutely breathtaking with many Unesco biosphere reserves throughout. There are relatively few automobiles in Havana, but when you do see them, they are either American cars from the 1950s or Russian cars from the 1970s or thereabouts. Public transportation includes regular buses, camel buses, a few taxi cabs, bicycle cabs...and walking. I'm sure that's a good reason why they're so fit. There is lots of music, visual art work and murals in Cuba...which again points to their optimism. Cubans love ice cream (Coppelia and Nestle) and they obviously freely dress as they wish, but they mostly wear blue jeans, shorts, sleeveless shirts, and tees to keep cool...unless some type of uniform is required. All students and many government workers wear some type of uniform. I actually saw a lot of nationalism. There are many museums/sights (Museo de la Revolucion, Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana -- Carlos III of Spain) and memorials/events to honor the past and present of Cuba (a cannon is fired every night from la Cabana by Cubans dressed as 1800s era Spanish soldiers). There are busts of Jose Marti outside schools and government buildings...lots of posters of Ernesto Che Guevara everywhere...I also saw memorials to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Princess Diana, Ernest Hemingway, and John Lennon. So now as the Cubans would say: Don't tell me the whole story of tobacco (meaning cut to the chase) siempre con combate, Diane
Re: Church minister killed in Indonesia
Hi Ulhas! Its good to hear from you and thanks for the post -- I had just read about the tragic event in the IHT. Disastrous and so dreadful. We might find the following commentary by Meidyatama Suryodiningrat on the upcoming runoff and the future of a democratic system in Indonesia, somewhat insightful -- I know I did. Thanks again. All the best, Diane 2019: Deadline for democracy in Indonesia Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, Washington The Jakarta Post July 22, 2004 As anticipation grows in the lead-up to the Sept. 20 presidential runoff, one of the pertinent questions that we need to ask ourselves is as follows: Does the advent of direct, free and fair presidential and legislative elections secure the future of the democratic system in Indonesia? The short answer is no. Elections are a necessary ingredient, but insufficient in themselves to ensure the consolidation of democracy. Despite the elections, democracy here is still at the transitional stage. It would be naive to say that democracy has been consolidated. We will be able to say that consolidation has occurred only when democratic processes and institutions become the only game in town. As long as people continue to resort to extra-constitutional means in their efforts to obtain power, it cannot be said that our democracy has evolved as such. Unfortunately, while the concept of democracy has entered into the national psyche, at this juncture it has yet to prevail as the predominant culture of Indonesian society -- what Henry Kissinger described as the defining national experience. Democracy has prospered because it is has been seen as an alternative to the bad times during the latter Soeharto years. It has not reached the unquestionable apex of primary conviction attained by such things as Islam and prostration to community elders. Studies of emerging democracies in Latin America show that it takes about two elections before there is a reversion to authoritarianism. Consequently, the next 10 to 15 years (two to three elections), will test the depth of democracy's roots here. There are three likely outcomes which could emerge in Indonesia at the end of this formative period. The first sees the establishment of a deep democracy and election of successive nationalist-secular administrations. Under this scenario, a plural civil society matures allowing for democracy to be consolidated, and ensuring that it is not just a passing fad. The elected administrations do not have to work miracles to achieve this. The key is whether democracy is made relevant to society. Whether people feel their elected leaders can bring stability and a just prosperity. The economy may grow at a lethargic pace, but at least there is recognition that basic welfare is being tended to and the civil service is carrying out its minimum duties without unduly taxing the community. If these events come to pass, democratic tenets will be solidified in our traditionally paternalistic culture. The second scenario is the rise of non-secular elements via the electoral process as voters seek alternatives and look to less-liberal options to the pluralistic nation state. Heralding this would be years of indigent and teetering democracy. People get sick of the incumbent major powers -- usually nationalist status quo elements like Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle -- who pervert democratic processes during a time of economic stagnation. People see them as having no commitment to reform as compromises are made to suit political expedience. The civil service decays as corruption reaches Olympic levels. Meanwhile, smaller parties, such as the Prosperous Justice Party, for example, after carefully distancing themselves from the decaying hegemony, enhance their images as clean parties lead by honest figures. They become an attractive option for mainstream voters seeking a civilian alternative. The dilemma is that these small parties, despite their pluralistic claims, were at birth essentially sectarian in nature, leaning toward some form of fundamentalism. This is not to say that their emergence will cause Indonesia to become an Islamic state. Leaders of these parties are shrewd enough to know that slogans such as Islamic sharia are too divisive. But the likelihood is that national laws will be subverted by exclusively Islamic tenets, thus causing an erosion of the secular character of the state. The irony of democratic freedoms is that they bring with them the opportunity for greater intolerance. The third scenario is benevolent authoritarianism. The rise of a pseudo-democratic regime propped up by a military that justifies its role by claiming that it is the vanguard of sundry propagandist icons -- Pancasila, unity, etc -- and slogans of stability and welfare. The predominant features that would serve as the precursors of such a regression would be decentralization run amok combined with growing separatist threats. The
Judge Approves Enron's Settlement With Regulator
[The government is to join the list of creditors to receive what? $35 million? What about the $7.2 billion received in government subsidies (mostly from the Bushes), the value of all the money received from contracts deceptively and inappropriately arranged -- through G7 meetings -- by the Bushes George HW in particular ] Judge Approves Enron's Settlement With Regulator Government to Join List of Creditors By Bradley Keoun Bloomberg News Tuesday, July 20, 2004; Page E03 A federal judge in Houston yesterday approved Enron Corp.'s $35 million settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations the company manipulated natural gas prices in 2001. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon entered a consent order that resolved all charges brought by the commodities regulator against the Houston energy company, the CFTC said in a statement. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez in New York approved the settlement in May. Approval of the settlement means the U.S. government will be added to the list of creditors owed as much as $74 billion by Enron, which collapsed in December 2001. Last week, the company won court approval for a plan to emerge from bankruptcy by paying creditors an average of 20 cents on the dollar. It's all a matter of whether there are sufficient funds available at the time of distribution of the estate, Vincent McGonagle, senior deputy director of enforcement at the CFTC, said in an interview. That will determine how much the U.S. Treasury is paid as a result of this settlement. In a separate statement, the commission said former Enron gas trader Hunter Shively agreed to pay $300,000 to settle charges relating to his alleged involvement in manipulating prices. The settlement requires Shively to cooperate with the commission's investigations. The commodities regulator in March 2003 alleged that Enron and Shively bought and sold large amounts of gas in a short time period in prearranged transactions, thereby affecting wholesale prices. Movement in wholesale prices affected futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to the CFTC.
The Bush Administrations War on Women Children
The Bush Administrations War on Women Children by Becky Burgwin www.dissidentvoice.org July 19, 2004 By now everybody knows that Martha Stewart has been sentenced to 5 months in prison for lying about a phone call. I think it was Jeffrey Toobin who said, The government has sent a clear message to all Americans. If you lie, youre going to suffer the consequences. Isnt that just rich. The government sent a clear message that if you lie youre going to suffer the consequences. I think they should clarify that a little and say, If you lie youre going to suffer the consequences, unless of course you happen to BE in the government, or youre insanely greedy and your lies happen to kill tens of thousands of people or purposely bankrupt the second largest state in the continental United States with the third largest economy in the world. I dont even know how Kitty Pilgrim could sit there with a straight face when he said that. The government wants to send a message to people who lie. I would have been rolling on the floor. The government wants to send a message. The government sent a message alright and it was, if youre a woman or a child in this country, you better fasten your seat belt because its going to be a bumpy ride. The fact that Martha Stewart might do jail time in a real live womens prison with drug dealers, child abusers and perpetrators of other serious crimes, (there are no country club jails for female white-collar felons) merely serves to keep my Went-to-Sleep-in-America/Woke-up-in-The-Twilight-Zone experience alive and well. You see, a very important member of our government was once on the board of a big company called Harkin Energy. This person was asked to be on the committee that looked into all of this companys big financial problems. And even though he was warned that selling his own stock because of his knowledge of the companys financial situation would be illegal, he did it anyway making a tidy little profit of over $800,000 before the stock plummeted to just pennies per share and his investors lost their shirts. He, however, didnt have to go to jail with a bunch of filthy dope dealers. Oh no. He got to be the leader of the free world. Doesnt seem fair does it? Meanwhile, Kenny boy, better known as Ken Who? walks away from Enron with tens of millions of dollars after telling his employees and their families to keep buying Enron stock even as he was selling his own shares faster than you can say greedy, lying bastard. What next? Men who are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children being nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes? I cant even sit still when some spokesperson for the Repugnant party says something like, Well, were still strong on our commitment to ending partial birth abortions. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION. Literally, the only time that procedure is performed is when the mothers life is at stake. Why wont somebody say that? For example: Andrea Mitchell, Well, yes, Mr. Santorum. But are you aware that if you deny a woman a late term abortion, the birth might kill her? Well, yes Andrea. And thats fine with us because we are way more protective of the unborn than we are of the born. And furthermore, we dont plan on helping women out at all by approving over-the-counter morning after pills or making birth control a little easier to get by having it covered by insurance like Viagra. And you can forget about day care, WIC programs or forcing the fathers to support the children they conceive because women are the cause of all of societys ills and therefore they shalt be punished. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes. The Taliban. It seems as though theyre forgetting that two people are needed to conceive a child. Why isnt the man treated with the same disregard as the woman? Were sorry Mr. Thurmond but youre going to have to raise this child by yourself with no help whatsoever from anyone. What about the childs mother, you say? Well we dont know where she is. Probably off somewhere conceiving more children. Thats not our concern. Yesterday the Bush administration announced that theyre not going to give anything to the UN Family Planning Fund, again, which hasnt been done by a U.S. president in three-quarters of a century. According to studies done by NARAL this could mean nearly 2 million unintended pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness, and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths in the next twelve months. Elizabeth Cavendish, Interim President of NARAL states, George W. Bush is really showing his true colors. Protecting the health and well-being of women and babies around the world is insufficient as a reason to stop him from promoting his anti-choice agenda. Women and children everywhere will suffer as this administration continues to use draconian measures to make sure the unborn are protected. Stem
Titans of the Enron Economy
[I remember this terrific article from two years ago and I thought it might be pertinent to reread now] Titans of the Enron Economy by SCOTT KLINGER HOLLY SKLAR The Nation [from the August 5, 2002 issue] The pivotal lessons from the Enron debacle do not stem from any criminal wrongdoing. Most of the maneuvers leading to Enron's meltdown are not only legal, they are widely practiced. Many of the problems dramatically revealed by the Enron scandal are woven tightly into the fabric of American business. Outside the spotlight on Enron's rise and fall, government policies and accounting practices continue to reward and shelter many firms with harmful habits just like those of Enron. We've ranked the 100 worst companies for each habit and awarded Ennys for outstanding Enron-like performance. We've also given a Lifetime Achievement Award to the corporation with the highest combined score for Enron-like performance in all ten categories (a hint: Enron placed second). The Ten Habits of Highly Defective Corporations HABIT 1: Tie employee retirement funds heavily to company stock and let misled employees take the fall when the stock tanks--while executives diversify their holdings and cash out before bad news goes public. Winner: Coca-Cola. Once upon a time the upward slope of Coca-Cola's stock price was as smooth as a cold Coke on a warm afternoon. Over the past couple of years, however, the venerable soft drink maker's stock fizzled like New Coke. Employees saw their 401(k) retirement assets evaporate, with the stock down more than 31 percent in the three years ending November 2001. Eighty-one percent of Coke's 401(k) was invested in company stock. Not all employees fared poorly. Former CEO M. Douglas Ivester left Coke under a cloud of controversy but received a severance package valued at more than $17 million; it included maintenance of his home security system and payment of his country club dues. HABIT 2: Excessively compensate executives. Winner: Citigroup. CEO Sanford Weill took home more than $482 million between 1998 and 2000. In 2001 he made another $42 million. Weill's stock compensation plan was amazingly equipped with a reload feature: Each time Weill cashed in his options, he automatically received new options to replace them. Imagine if Citigroup customers had a reload ATM machine that automatically added replacement money to their accounts after withdrawals! While throwing money at its executives, Citigroup rips off low-income Americans with predatory lending practices. The Federal Trade Commission has brought suit against Citigroup, alleging abusive lending practices; if all charges are proven, Citigroup's liabilities could reach $500 million. HABIT 3: Lay off employees to reduce costs and distract from management mistakes. Increase executive pay for implementing this cost-cutting strategy. Winner: Lucent Technologies. Last year Lucent axed at least 42,000 jobs. While these layoffs occurred during the tech-industry tumble, Wall Street critics lay much of the responsibility for Lucent's misfortune at management's door. Lucent was the only company to end up on both the Fortune and Chief Executive 2001 worst boards of directors list. Though the board took action and fired CEO Richard McGinn in October 2000, it gave him a golden parachute of more than $12 million as a parting gift. HABIT 4: Stack the board with insiders and friends who will support lavish compensation and not ask difficult questions about the business. Winner: EMC Corporation. Only two years ago this leading producer of computer storage media could have held Thanksgiving dinner in its boardroom: The chairman, Richard Egan, his wife and son all sat on EMC's board. As a member of the board Junior got to help set Dad's allowance (and help determine his own inheritance). How many kids wouldn't love that? Of course, Dad might not have needed much help, since he also sat on EMC's compensation committee, which determined his and other executives' pay. Since winning this award, EMC has added an independent director to its board. HABIT 5: Pay board members excessively for their part-time service; pay them heavily in stock so they have a disincentive to blow the whistle on bad business practices that keep the stock price up. Winner: AOL Time Warner. AOL Time Warner is one of a growing number of companies to compensate directors solely in stock options. In 2000, according to an Investor Responsibility Research Center study, the potential value of these stock options (using SEC-specified formulas for computing the present value) was $843,200 per director--not bad for a part-time job. Each member of AOL Time Warner's board is annually granted 40,000 stock options. Directors make money for each dollar increase in the stock price. If AOL Time Warner's stock price rose $10 a share, the options would gain $400,000 in value. HABIT 6: Give your independent auditor generous non-audit consultant work, creating conflicts of interest
Lights, Camera, Sexism!
[I missed this one, but it was just sent to me by my 68-year-old aunt named for Jeanne dArc of Greux-Domremy, Lorraine, France for crying out loud :). I had not heard about the film -- she had -- but I now hope -- as she does -- that other film festivals will pick it up and there will be future distribution deals with videos and DVDs.] I expected something serious and pedantic, but it was more like a radical documentary from the 1990s, she says. You can compare her to Michael Moore. Zimmerman says the media-confrontation scene was just as relevant today and should be a wake-up call. The media made the women's movement out to be ugly, but you can see that it was sexy, sensual and fun. The frightening thing is, 32 years later, these same . . . white men like Dan Rather and Mike Wallace are still on our screens and in such positions of power. Lights, Camera, Sexism! At the 1972 Democratic convention, an avant-garde group of feminist filmmakers set out to show America how chauvinist it was By Douglas Rogers The Washington Post Sunday, July 4, 2004 In 1972, at the height of his fame, sometime between his appearances in McCabe Mrs. Miller and The Parallax View, Warren Beatty made a cameo in a lost documentary about the women's movement. He is interviewed in the lobby of Miami Beach's glamorous Fontainebleau hotel by a beautiful blonde who has the sensuous looks of a '60s Hollywood screen star. At one point, the woman says, I think men could go to rehabilitation centers and be oriented toward their new role in society -- clearly catching Beatty off guard, and he tries to sound smooth. You think you've really licked it? he asks. And then his legendary charm totally evaporates. You've changed, he sputters, as the cameras close in. When you came and talked to me at the Beverly Wilshire, I liked you very much, but I don't think you were very direct and very firm the way you are now. The blonde deadpans straight back: Well, I was talking about something I didn't feel very firmly about. Which was you. The woman was poet, author and first-time filmmaker Sandra Hochman. It was an election year, and the interview was the opening salvo in Hochman's astonishing documentary, Year of the Woman. The good news for Beatty and other men skewered in the film, though, is that relatively few people ever got to see it. It was recently screened at the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida but has spent most of the past 30 years locked in a Manhattan film vault -- too radical, too weird and too far ahead of its time for any distributor to touch. Shot with hand-held 16mm cameras by an all-female documentary crew, the film takes place at the Democratic National Convention in Miami -- scene, too, of the first major meeting of the National Women's Political Caucus. The cameras follow Hochman as she provokes male politicians, delegates and celebrities into sharing their views about women and the feminist movement. The film features an extraordinary cross section of American cultural icons, among them Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem, Nora Ephron, Shirley Chisholm and electrifying black feminist Florynce Kennedy. Like Beatty, most of the men hang themselves. Future disgraced Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart says that no woman is up to standard to be president; a delegate from Alabama is bemused when Hochman calls him sexist for saying women should never be truck drivers. In one extraordinary scene, Hochman sneaks into a packed convention hall with a curvy blond stripper dressed in a revealing gold sequined dress. The convention virtually stops as the men ogle the stripper like dogs in heat. All because she had breasts! Hochman reflects onscreen afterward from a deck chair on South Beach. But if a man walked into a convention with a huge [penis], would women rush up and ask, 'Who is he, where is he, what's his name?' '' Interspersed with Hochman's poetry, fantasy-dream sequences and some hilarious ad-lib repartee with humorist Art Buchwald, the film caused a sensation when it opened for five nights at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Manhattan in October 1973. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote in a promotion for the movie that it was the greatest combination of sex and politics ever seen in a film. Hochman and Buchwald are the best new comedy team since Hepburn and Tracy. It sold out each night, and women lined up around the block to see it. And then: It disappeared. It was bought as a tax shelter for $150,000 by the 23-year-old daughter of a lawyer from the Philippines and her two brothers, convinced it was a masterpiece. Yet no film company would touch it. Since then, until Sarasota, it had been shown in public only once, at a gala screening at Lincoln Center in 1985 to raise funds for the Schlesinger Library at Harvard's Radcliffe College. Today it is not on video or DVD, and few people have even heard of it. I guess in 1973 the world wasn't ready for a group of beautiful women talking
Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected
Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected Thu Jul 15, 2004 08:32 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless pay grew by more than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, with seasonal factors offsetting a large drop the week before. First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose 40,000 to 349,000 in the week ending July 10, the Labor Department said. Wall Street analysts had forecast a substantial rise in claims to 346,000 from a revised 309,000 the previous week. Last week's number, originally reported at 310,000 and much lower than expected, had been heavily influenced by seasonal factors linked to the expected closure of auto plants for an annual exercise to change over to next year's models. Instead, this influence showed up a week later, Labor officials said, possibly because of the timing of the July 4 holiday. While initial claims rose, the four-week moving average of filings, which smoothes weekly fluctuations to provide a better picture of underlying trends, advanced 3,250 to 339,000 from a revised 335,750. This was initially reported at 336,000. Strong economic growth has delivered a sustained improvement in hiring in the United States, with 671,000 jobs added to the nonfarm payroll between April and June, although June's score of 112,000 new jobs was less than half the number expected. The number of unemployed on the benefit rolls after claiming an initial week of aid rose by 112,000 to 2.971 million in the week ending July 3, the latest for which figures are available.
Re: Russian econ growth
Chris Doss forwarded: 'the tax system must not weigh excessively on business,' 'the state and business must make every effort to reduce unemployment and poverty'--we asked a number of leading analysts to comment on the few exact figures that the president did offer. '[...] 'Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in the first four months of 2004,' Putin stated at the start of his speech. While that number might seem too good to believe, the analysts don't question it. 'There is no reason to doubt it. It is no great jump, just a perfectly credible increase in the rate of growth [7.3% in 2003] arising from historically high prices for oil and the investment and consumer boom that high oil prices stimulated,' Kotikov said. Anton Struchenevsky, an economist with Troika Dialogue, said: 'To judge by the growth rate, the country will outperform last year. Moreover, growth is not being powered by the raw materials sector alone, and its particularly favorable price conditions, but by other elements of industry as well. [...] Aleksey Vorobyev, an analyst for Aton, said preliminary figures from the Economics Ministry indicate an 8% growth rate for the January-April period of 2004 as compared with the same period in 2003. 'More exact figures will come in time from the Statistical Service,' he said. 'However, judging by the 7.9% growth rate in basic sectors of the economy (manufacturing, construction, agriculture, transportation, retail trade), the announced figures look reliable.' I read a little while ago that the Russian federal budget surplus was $8.4 billion during this first half of 2004 high growth period. Budget surpluses and high growth do often go hand-in-hand. Is there the feeling in Russia that the federal tax system does weigh heavily on business? Also, are military equipment exports fueling some of this growth? (See article below) Diane Russia posts record arms sales AP http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/printer_1651.shtml Jul 19, 2004, 08:55 BOLSTERED by continued demand from its best customers - India and China - Russian arms sales grew by 20 per cent to $US5.4 billion ($7.47 billion) last year, a post-Soviet record, according to a report issued today by the state weapons trading company Rosoboronexport. President Vladimir Putin has made boosting arms exports a top priority for his government and has called for tighter export controls on weapons-related technologies and military equipment to ensure Russia's niche in international arms markets is not threatened by foreign competitors. Russia exported weapons worth a total of $US4.8 billion ($6.64 billion) in 2002. Russian weapons industries have come to depend on foreign customers after orders from the cash-strapped Russian military ground to a near halt following the 1991 Soviet collapse. Though Russia has become one of the world's top arms exporters after the US and Britain in recent years, the country's arms sales are only a fraction of the approximately $US20 billion ($27.67 billion) a year exported by the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Nikolai Novichkov, editor in chief of Arms Tass, the military technical information division of ITAR-Tass, and a correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, said that China accounted for 56 per cent of Russia's exports while India bought about 18 per cent. Russian arms are cheaper than American or European analogues but have good reliability, Mr Novichkov said. Russia has been aggressively promoting its weapons in South-East Asia and last year's figures were significantly boosted by the purchase of 18 Sukhoi SU-30 MKM fighters by Malaysia for an estimated $US900 million ($1.25 billion). Also, Indonesia agreed to buy two Sukhoi-30s, two Sukhoi-27s, and two MI-35 assault helicopters through a counter-trade deal worth $US192.6 million ($266.48 million). Alex Vatanka, a Russia expert at Jane's Sentinel in London, said the sales increase was in line with Russia's aim of becoming the No 2 exporter worldwide. It goes hand in hand with the Putin administration's pursuit of what they call the multipolar world order, to essentially say to Washington: 'We will not listen to you dictate every single item on the agenda. We have our own interests', he said. Rosoboronexport issued its statement ahead of the Farnborough air show, which begins on Monday in Britain. The aviation and space industry accounts for 70 per cent of total exports, the company said. The arms exporter will display the wares of 50 Russian defence companies at the week-long event, at which over 1000 companies from different countries are expected to participate. More than 180 pieces of military equipment will be displayed at the Rosoboronexport stall in the form of models, posters and advertising equipment; 30 of the items will be displayed for the first time. While data on the famed Sukhoi family of fighter planes will be on hand for visitors, the company has said that no military planes will take part in aerial shows since
PAUL KRUGMAN: Bush's medical plan: Class warfare
Sunday, July 18, 2004 Bush's medical plan: Class warfare By PAUL KRUGMAN SYNDICATED COLUMNIST If past patterns are any guide, about one in three Americans will go without health insurance for some part of the next two years. They won't, for the most part, be the persistently poor, who are usually covered by Medicaid. They will be members of working families with breadwinners who have jobs without medical benefits or who have been laid off. Many Americans fear the loss of health insurance. Last week, I described John Kerry's health plan. What's the Bush administration's plan? First, it offers a tax credit for low- and middle-income families who don't have health coverage through employers. That credit helps them purchase health insurance. The credit would be $3,000 for a family of four with an income of $25,000; for an income of $40,000, it would fall to $1,714. Last year, the average premium for families of four covered by employers was more than $9,000. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the tax credit would reduce the number of uninsured, 44 million people in 2002, by 1.8 million. So it wouldn't help a great majority of families unable to afford insurance. For comparison, an independent assessment of the Kerry plan by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University says that it would reduce the number of uninsured by 26.7 million. The other main component of the Bush plan involves health savings accounts. The prescription drug bill the administration pushed through Congress last year had a number of provisions unrelated to Medicare. One of them allowed people who purchase insurance policies with high deductibles, generally at least $2,000 per family, to shelter income from taxes by setting up special accounts for medical expenses. This year, the administration proposed making the premiums linked to these accounts fully tax-deductible. Although the 2005 budget presents that new deduction under the heading Helping the uninsured, health savings accounts don't seem to have much to do with the needs of the families likely to find themselves without health insurance. For one thing, such families need more protection than a plan with a $2,000 deductible provides. Furthermore, the tax advantages of health savings accounts would be small for those families most at risk of losing health insurance, who are overwhelmingly in low tax brackets. But for people whose income puts them in high tax brackets, these accounts are a very good deal; making the premiums deductible turns them into a great deal. In other words, health savings accounts will offer the already affluent, who don't have problems getting health insurance, yet another tax shelter. Meanwhile, health savings accounts, in the view of many experts, will actually increase the number of uninsured. This perverse effect shouldn't be too surprising: Unless they are carefully designed, medical policies often have side consequences that worsen the problems they supposedly address. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that one-third of the retirees who now have drug coverage through their former employers will lose that coverage as a result of the Bush prescription drug bill and will be forced to accept inferior coverage from Medicare. In the case of health savings accounts, the key side consequence is a reduced incentive for companies to insure their workers. When companies provide group health insurance, healthier employees implicitly subsidize their sicker colleagues; they're willing to do this largely because the employer's contributions to health insurance are a tax-free form of compensation, but only if the same plan is offered to all employees. Tax-free health savings accounts and premiums would provide healthier and wealthier employees an incentive to opt out, accepting higher paychecks instead, and would lead to higher insurance premiums for those who remain in traditional plans. This would cause some companies to stop providing health insurance, or raise employee contributions to a level some workers can't afford. The difference couldn't be starker. Kerry offers a health care plan that would extend coverage to most of those now uninsured, paid for by rolling back tax cuts for those with incomes over $200,000. President Bush offers a tax credit that would extend coverage to fewer than 5 percent of the uninsured, plus a new tax break for the affluent that would actually increase the number of uninsured. I don't see how Bush can win this debate.
SOCIAL MOBILITY
[While in Cuba last month, a colleague and I walked and walked throughout old Havana for days, but just could NOT bring ourselves to use one of the many bicycle cabs used as a frequent mode of transportation there. Besides all of our cash went to magnificent concerts and tipping the many wonderful musicians throughout the city and for salsa and merengue lessons :).] Is it possible that some Republican delegate might hop in a pedicab this summer and pause to ruminate on an economy in which some are always pulled and more and more are always pulling? The New Yorker SOCIAL MOBILITY by Adam Gopnik Issue of 2004-07-26 Posted 2004-07-19 One of the stranger sights in the city this summer is the bicycle taxi. Strictly speaking, it should be called a tricycle taxi, since it consists of a strong-thighed young manthere seem to be few women in the guildon a contraption with a saddle and one wheel in front, pulling a small calèche that rides along on two wheels in back. But to call it a tricycle taxi is to summon images of child labor, and to call it, as it has been called, a three-wheeled bicycle lands us in realms of contradiction too confusing even for this contradictory summer. In any event, you can hail the bicycle taxior pedicab, to give it its full Avenue of the Americas monikerat a corner, get into the calèche (or it a surrey? a barouche?), and take it for a ride wherever you want to go, for as long as it takes to get there. Bicycle taxis have been on the city streets for a decade, and there are at least three entrepreneurs hiring them outthe largest is the Soho-based Pedicabs of New Yorkbut they seem newly commonplace in midtown. Unlicensed and unmetered, though not uninsured, they roam the avenues, searching for riders. (Prices are negotiable, but seem to run to whatever the pedaller thinks the pedallee can afford, taking into account how much work it will be to pull him. Price discrimination against the portly is acceptable, and a fifteen-dollar ride seems typical.) Its hard not to admire the pedicabsélan as they scoot up and down the avenues, darting in and out of the lines of stolid traffic, the little whatever-it-is in back just squeezing through as the couple from Altoona hold on to their digital camera for dear life, all in a blur of legs and wheels and accompanying obscenities from internal-combustion chauffeurs. Although the bicycle cabs were apparently intended for tourists, their advantages in traffic seduce the natives, too, and a big chunk of their work now seems to involve transporting people who have, in essence, got fed up with sitting in stalled traffic in a taxicab. (The other day, a New Yorker hailed a pedicab for the first time, because she was late for her workout. Pumping hard, sweat pouring, the bicycle pedaller got her to the gym on time.) To try out a bicycle cab, even in a semi-philosophical spirit, is to be caught up in a rush of exhilaration, embarrassment, and potential significances. Heady and vaguely Edith Whartonish as it is to be pulled around town in an open carriage, it is, at the same time, disconcerting to have someone elses physical labor quite so plainly, quite so clearly and publicly, quite so accusingly, visible as the source of your forward movement. Normally, in New York and elsewhere, machinery and ritual intercede between the puller and the pulled. The taxi- or livery- cab-driver, whose hours, wages, and health-insurance predicaments are unknown to the rider, is enthroned behind Plexiglas, and he has a whole set of rituals (the right-hand seat piled high with personal objects, the endless cell-phone conversation) designed to salve his self-respect, and to give exploitation at least the appearance of self-reliance. The pedicab is, no getting around it, a rickshaw with pedals. (In fact, the second-leading pedicab company is called Manhattan Rickshaw.) It offers, in a pointedly symbolic, Bertolt Brecht-meets-Barbara Ehrenreich package, both the eternal facts of capitalismthe capitalist proceeds from home to office by dint of someone elses sweatand the essential ironies of the post-industrial era: the more emancipated we seem to become from physical labor, the more physical labor is left for someone else to do. What Robert Reich has talked about for years, and John Edwards has talked about for the past several monthsthat the gap has widened between the wealthy few and everybody elseis, in the bicycle taxi, suddenly given a local habitation and a loud bell. The feeling is not even so much capitalist as feudal. You are the lord of the manor, being pulled through the streets on a sedan chair; he is Piers Plowman, in spandex shorts. Riding in a bicycle taxi, one feels nostalgia for the bicycle messenger of the Reagan era. The bicycle messenger, with his whistle and his disdain, was the embodiment of underclass resentment and underclass style, and of a booming economy, which demanded that documents be here now. As oblivious of stoplights as he was of
Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S. farming
Is this progress or the feminization and ethnicization of farming as farm prices stagnate and costs rise for equipment, supplies, and land, requiring increases in farming productivity just to survive? An important method for increasing productivity in farming is, of course, to use family labor. Diane Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S. farming By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY 7/19/2004 Charts also: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-07-18-cover-farmers_x.htm PEWAMO, Mich. When strangers turn from a two-lane country road onto the gravel drive of the Grazeway Dairy, they see a young woman tending the cows. They invariably ask where the boss is. People come here and think I'm the hired help, Terri Hawbaker says. They'd better rethink. Hawbaker is 24, a woman, a new mom and the owner of a 120-acre farm and 65 dairy cows in this flat, rural stretch of mid-Michigan. About 100 miles away, near Lake Michigan, the produce market on state highway M-140 in Covert still carries the name of a prominent local family. But the store and 60 acres of rich farmland that produce the luscious apples, strawberries, blueberries and tomatoes on display have a different owner: Armando Arellano, an immigrant from Mexico. Mirroring the demographic transformation of the USA, American farming is becoming more diverse. There is a marked increase in the number of women and Hispanics who are principal operators those who run the farm. Women and Hispanics have long played a significant role in farming, but often in supporting jobs from picking crops and milking cows to bookkeeping. But an aging population, the surge in Hispanics in every corner of the country and Americans' growing fascination with organic foods are propelling more women and Hispanics into owning and managing farms. Agriculture in this country is changing in ways we don't even know, says Ron Wimberley, an agricultural demographer at North Carolina State University and former president of the Rural Sociological Society. The latest Census of Agriculture by the U.S. government shows that women's presence as principal farm operators is growing in 43 states. More Hispanics are running farms in all 50 states, planting roots in regions where their role in agriculture had been limited largely to migrant labor. To those who cherish Thomas Jefferson's idea that farmers are the cornerstone of democracy, the growth is worth celebrating. It's very encouraging that there are people who want to farm, says Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust, a non-profit group that works to protect farmland. We're seeing a reconnect. American farming is still dominated by non-Hispanic white men. About 27% of the nation's 3 million farmers are women who run farms alone or who work with their husbands or others. About 2% are Hispanic. Black farmers, whose numbers have dwindled steadily throughout much of the past century, make up only 1.2%. As giant agribusinesses extend their hold on food production, the amount of farmland and the number of farms are declining. But there's an uptick in small farms that have 10 to 49 acres and annual sales of less than $10,000. Organic farms are contributing to some of that increase. Almost 12,000 farmers reported selling some organic foods for a total of $393 million in sales in 2002. That's a tiny portion of the $200 billion U.S. agricultural market, but the numbers and the growing popularity of farmers' markets and organic grocery stores show that health-conscious Americans are clamoring for locally and organically grown produce. It's a market that some female and Hispanic farmers are starting to serve. The urban population has a favorable attitude of farmers, particularly as they think about where their food comes from, Wimberley says. People are very safety-conscious, what with this low-carb, high-carb business. The trend may change the politics of agriculture. Almost 70% of government subsidies now go to 10% of farmers, Grossi says. When debate on a new farm bill starts next year, he expects small farmers to be more vocal. There certainly will be a reason to question why so much public support goes to so few farmers, he says. 'A new generation' Farm groups are reaching out to the new arrivals. There is a new generation coming into agriculture, says Sandy Penn, outreach coordinator with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Michigan. They need to understand how to get financing, how you do things. ... A lot of programs have to be put on in Spanish. Among the reasons for the increase in female and Hispanic farmers: Aging. When male farmers die, their widows often take over. When farmers retire, they sometimes offer loyal employees a chance to buy some land, especially if no one in the family wants to keep the farm going. Many of those longtime workers are Hispanic. They came in as farm workers and have gotten to the point where some of them want to enter as operators, says Calvin Beale, a rural
Poverty rates rising in rural towns
Poverty rates rising in rural towns By Robert E. Pierre The Washington Post Sunday, July 18, 2004 COAHOMA, Miss. The abandoned shells of buildings along the main drag serve as a glum backdrop for the youngsters who sit in front of them for hours, idly chatting and staring into the occasional passing car. A liquor store and convenience store are the only places to shop. The little work available is seasonal or at casinos 25 miles away. Poverty, like an annoying out-of-town cousin, has settled into this Mississippi Delta town for an extended stay. Fifty-five percent of households in this community of 350 take in less than $15,000 a year, well below the federal poverty line of $18,850 for a family of four. The last of the town's shacks, which lacked toilets and insulation, were retired only in the past decade, after Habitat for Humanity made their destruction a priority. Leroy Bush has lived here all his life, picking cotton and working odd jobs to make ends meet. He became a homeowner a decade ago in exchange for 500 hours' worth of sweat equity and a promise to pay $100 a month on an interest-free mortgage that covers the cost of the land, insurance and materials. The labor was free. Everybody here is just trying to make it, said Bush, 55, who works with his wife, Clarethea, at a nearby casino. We do the best we can. The human faces of poverty for many Americans are the inner-city homeless who sleep on grates, panhandle on corners and line up, mornings and afternoons, at local parks for a cup of soup and a sandwich. But of the 50 counties with the highest child-poverty rates, 48 are in rural America. Compared with urban areas, unemployment typically is higher, education poorer and services severely limited because people are so spread out. A report, Child Poverty in Rural America, prepared this year by Loyola University of Chicago and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, found that the gap between child poverty in rural and urban areas has widened in recent years. One in five children in rural America lives below the poverty line. By contrast, the child-poverty rate in metropolitan areas is 16 percent. The rates were nearly the same a few years ago. In rural areas, the poverty is white, Hispanic, black and American Indian, said Kenneth Johnson, a professor at Loyola, who co-authored the report. Unlike urban poverty, the rural poor are not always right where you're going to see them. No corner of the nation is untouched: Texas border towns, farming communities in Montana, fishing and logging enclaves in Maine and the mountains of Appalachia and in places such as Coahoma, in the heart of what is known as the southern Black Belt, a crescent of counties from Virginia to Texas in which blacks far outnumber whites. Rural poverty is an area that too many people don't recognize as a problem, said Robert Forney, president and chief executive officer of America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization. A lot of people believe it's got to be cheap to live there and food has got to be more available. But cheap is relative to income. The question becomes, 'How do you get help?' Second Harvest started putting food directly into children's hands, with weekend book bag programs in which food is sent home with a child every weekend. The Mississippi Food Network, a food bank for the state, sends trucks out from its headquarters in Jackson, Miss., to drop off food closer to the people who need it. Other organizations seek both to provide for emergency food needs and to prepare residents for a future in which they can become self-sufficient. One of them is the Louisiana Center Against Poverty, in Lake Providence, La., which offers self-esteem programs for children, job training for their parents and computer-skills classes for all ages. But new graduates face grim job prospects, said Carolyn Hunt, the agency's executive director. Lake Providence historically is one of the poorest places in the nation, ranked as the poorest community in the 1990 Census. Just as in Coahoma, before machines made manual harvesting nearly extinct in Lake Providence, there was full employment for everyone, including small children, who often skipped school to pick cotton and vegetables. Today, young and old line up for their share when the poverty center opens its doors to dole out brown-paper sacks filled with potatoes, cheese, peppers and powdered milk. A lot of people run out of groceries and don't have money to buy more, said Ethel Emerson, 70. This gives them a way to keep going. Back in Mississippi, Jane Boykin, president of the Jackson-based Forum on Children and Families, lobbies on poverty and child welfare before the state legislature. No matter how successful she is, the work never is done. Mississippi is at or near the top in all the wrong categories: births to single teens, low-birth-weight babies, illiteracy. Poverty is not just an economic indicator here, Boykin said. It's a
Big Oil Protects its Interests
Big Oil Protects its Interests Industry spends hundreds of millions on lobbying, elections http://www.publicintegrity.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=345 By Aron Pilhofer and Bob Williams WASHINGTON, July 15, 2004 The United States is the oil and gas industry's biggest customer, slurping up fully a quarter of global production in 2003. Not surprisingly, the industry has lavished more than $440 million over the past six years on politicians, political parties and lobbyists in order to protect its interests in Washington, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity. This is the first of a series of Center reports that aim to identify the size and scope of the international oil and gas industry and measure its influence in the halls of government worldwide. Among the key findings: --The Center found that the industry has spent more than $381 million on lobbying activities since 1998, pushing hard on everything from a new national energy policy to obscure changes in the tax code. --The industry has given more than $67 million in campaign contributions in federal elections since the 1998 election cycle, about a fifth of the amount it has spent on lobbying. --Oil and gas companies overwhelmingly favored Republicans over Democrats in their campaign giving, the study found. Just over 73 percent of the industry's campaign contributions have gone to Republican candidates and organizations. --The industry exerts its influence in other, less obvious ways, including membership on the National Petroleum Council, a commission formed to advise the energy secretary. Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in the United States, has financed a network of conservative nonprofit organizations designed to influence policy debate in this country. --U.S.-based oil and gas companies have nearly 900 subsidiaries located in tax haven countries, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The world's largest oil company and third largest company of any kind, ExxonMobil, was the industry's leader in lobbying expenditures, spending $55 million to plead its case with official Washington over the past six years. Other big spenders included ChevronTexaco ($32 million), Marathon Oil ($29 million), British oil giant BP ($28 million), and British/Dutch behemoth Royal Dutch/Shell Group ($27 million). Other noteworthy entries on the list include the top industry group, the American Petroleum Institute ($20 million), and Occidental Petroleum ($12 million). Some more notorious names on the list include scandal-plagued Enron Corp. ($16 million) and Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer Halliburton Corp. ($3 million), which is currently the subject of government investigations over its contract work in Iraq and alleged bribes paid in connection with a natural gas project in Nigeria. When it came to tapping the oil industry for campaign dollars, no one has come close to former Texas oilman George W. Bush. The president has received $1.7 million in campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. That was more than three times the amount given to the next biggest recipient of the industry's largesse, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and fellow Texan Joe Barton, who collected $574,000. Next came another Texas Republican, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who took in just under $500,000. Only three Democrats were able to crack into the top 20 recipients of oil and gas campaign contributions since 1998. All three came from oil-rich Louisiana. They were Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. John Breaux and Rep. Christopher John. The two national parties each took in more than any individual candidate, national Republican committees getting $24 million and Democrats a bit under $8 million. While most of the big oil and gas companies operate their own lobbying shops in Washington, the industry also farmed out a substantial amount of its work to some of Washington's largest and most influential lobbying firms. On the top of that list was Bracewell and Patterson, which has gotten $4,880,000 in lobbying work from the oil and gas industry since 1998. Among the partners at Bracewell and Patterson is Marc Racicot, the former Montana governor who is the chairman of the Bush-Cheney 2004 election campaign. Edward Krenik, former head of congressional and intergovernmental relations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is a lobbyist with the firm. Other top Washington lobbying firms that got work from the oil and gas industry include Hill Knowlton; Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer Feld and National Environmental Strategies Company.__Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
US again denies money to population fund
US again denies money to population fund Chinese practices on abortion cited Boston Globe By Farah Stockman July 17, 2004 WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration announced yesterday that it is withholding the United States' contribution to the UN Population Fund for the third straight year, once again accusing the family-planning organization of supporting coercive abortion in China. The decision to withhold $34 million -- about 10 percent of the fund's total budget -- from the world's largest international source of funding for family planning came on the last day of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, where US officials emphasized abstinence as an important way to combat AIDS. In Washington, family-planning activists and some members of Congress said the decision was a political move to curry favor with conservative voters who want to restrict family-planning practices worldwide. Some cited a 2002 investigation by a State Department team and a 2003 State Department human rights report, which both said that the fund was working to combat coercive family-planning practices in China. ''Our own State Department gave the UNFPA a clean bill of health," US Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat, told reporters. ''Once again, President Bush right before an election is appealing to a conservative base. They are putting millions of women and children at risk with this decision." But the Bush administration said the fund's cooperation with Chinese government programs amounted to support of the country's coercive practices, which it said include forced sterilization and abortion. ''We recognize that the aim of the UN Population Fund is to promote a transition to truly voluntary family planning in China, but the circumstances of their operations are such that they are assisting the Chinese in managing their programs," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. ''These Chinese programs have penalties that amount to coercion." Boucher said the State Department had concluded that the US government was prohibited from giving the funds because of the 1985 Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for organizations that support forced sterilization or abortion. One of the first acts of Bush's presidency was reinstating the ''Mexico City Policy," which prohibits federal funding for overseas groups that support abortion. Initially, the Bush administration showed support for the Population Fund. During his confirmation hearing, Powell praised the fund's ''invaluable work" and released $25 million for the fund in 2001, according to Sarah Craven, the fund's Washington representative. In 2002, Congress increased the figure to $34 million. But the administration opted to hold up the funds after Bush received a letter in February 2002 urging him to do so from three Republican leaders in Congress. Richard Armey of Texas, who was House majority leader at the time; Tom DeLay of Texas, who was majority whip; and Dennis J. Hastert of Illinois, speaker of the House, wrote that the fund essentially ''participates in the management" of China's coercive family-planning programs. In 2002, Powell dispatched a team to China to look into the allegations. It reported finding ''no evidence that the UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The report was overruled by Powell as being ''only one piece of the picture," according to one State Department official, and funds were withheld. In 2003, the State Department's annual human rights report noted that the fund had helped bring reform to China's family-planning policies in the 32 areas where it worked. ''Under this program, local birth-planning officials emphasized education, improved reproductive health services, and economic development, and they eliminated the target and quota systems for limiting births," the report states. ''Subsequently, 800 other counties also removed the target and quota system and tried to replicate the UNFPA project by emphasizing quality of care and informed choice of birth control methods." Farah Stockman can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
In the White House, like elsewhere, women earn less
In the White House, like elsewhere, women earn less By Dana Milbank The Washington Post Sunday, July 18, 2004 WASHINGTON The president's men are doing well. The president's women are doing slightly less well, but still not bad. With an Excel spreadsheet and new White House salary figures leaked to The Washington Post, a Post researcher determined that men in the Bush White House earn an average of $76,624 a year. Women earn $59,917 on average. That means Bush women earn about 78 percent of what Bush men earn. As it happens, that's almost exactly the national average for the gap in pay between the sexes, although among the nearly 1 million professional and administrative employees in the federal workforce, women earn 88 percent of what men make. At the White House, the gap has nothing to do with wage discrimination: Women and men with similar titles receive similar pay. Rather, it comes from the dominance of men in high-end jobs; of 17 White House staffers earning $157,000 the top of the pay scale this year 12 are men. That's roughly comparable to the 26 percent representation of women in the federal government's 7,000-person Senior Executive Service, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Overall, working in the White House is quite a good living. The average salary, $67,075, is well above the latest available metropolitan Washington average of $48,420, and nearly double the national average of $36,764. But don't fret about the overpaid presidential adviser: Most of them could be earning far more as lawyers, lobbyists and corporate executives. The list, as of June 12, has its share of surprises. The lowest paid of the 431 in the noncareer "White House Office" (a collection of mostly political appointees and staff on loan from other agencies) is James Baker, who as President Bush's envoy in search of Iraqi debt relief, has declined a salary. At the other extreme is Stephen Friedman, Bush's top economic adviser, who collects a salary of $157,000. As in many workplaces, a good relationship with the boss seems to pay off. Israel Hernandez, who served as Bush's "body" man in Texas, attending to the governor's corporeal needs, now earns $141,000 as senior adviser Karl Rove's deputy. Gordon Johndroe, who served in a similar capacity during the campaign, now is earning $87,700 as press secretary to first lady Laura Bush. Blake Gottesman, the president's current personal aide, receives $54,400 for such tasks as guarding colleagues' access to Bush, accepting knickknacks handed to Bush and placing the president's speeches on lecterns. Two of the 431 employees are unnamed because they come from intelligence agencies. The spooks receive $125,972 and $118,384, respectively. Though most job titles have narrow pay ranges, there are exceptions. One "ethics adviser," for example, earns $124,166 and another earns $31,277. The lowest-paid employees staff assistants, gift analysts and the like earn about $30,000. Writers also receive meager pay. Although speechwriting chief Michael Gerson makes $157,000, those who write letters to constituents earn about one-fifth of that. Similarly, press secretary Scott McClellan earns $157,000, while his press assistants receive $32,800. Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
Re: Venture Communism
The basic underpinnings of your scheme, as I understand it, is an investment plan whereby venture communists buy back the world from capitalists by investing in the production of goods that require the kind of labor the venture communists have grouped together amongst themselves. The actual investment is using the labor of their group that will have a very high level of labor productivity (an advantage) and which will have to continue to grow at a faster rate than the labor group membership itself to continue to have the advantage to successfully overtake (buy back) new industries controlled by capitalists, and so on. The investment is not an investment in human capital itself education and training -- but rather in the investment of the production of goods that already need a high level of human capital. Also, any physical capital that would be required for production in the targeted industries should already be in place (presumably requiring no further investment). My question is: Since the driving force behind your model is a high level of labor productivity that must continue to grow with no investment in the enhancement of labor skills (education, training) and with no investment in new physical capital for the labor to work with, where is the high level of labor productivity that is continually growing actually coming from? Dmytri, this is really an interesting and terrific scheme, but I think education and skill enhancement (human capital investment itself) must also be integrated into the venture communist's investment plan for the buy back to really have a chance. Thanks for forwarding. Regards, Diane At 04:42 AM 7/16/2004 -0400, you wrote: Hello, I am working on the idea of Venture Communism, which I describe below, I would very much appreciate the critical feedback of the group. Don't wory about nitpicking, all comments are welcome, I want the language and ideas to be clear and economicaly sound. Also references to other, related ideas are very welcome. Thanks! Venture Communist Prospectus Dmytri Kleiner -- DRAFT I The Venture Communist is a Public Entrepreneur, Venture Communism is not a political model, but rather it is a transitional tactic designed to promote an equitable distribution of wealth via the enterprising initiates of communities, rather than through the central authority of the state. Venture Communism is an alternative Revolutionary Strategy to Violent Revolution, one that preserves existing social accumulation rather than destroying it. The basic plan is to literally buy the world back from the Capitalists. The value of the future is far greater than the value of the past, therefore if Venture Communism can do better than Venture Capitalism in it's investment performance it can achieve this goal. In the growth theory and production functions of economics, Labour (Human Capital) and Capital (Money Capital) can typically replace each other. This means that to increase production, either increasing labour investment or increasing money investment is possible. The money can increase productivity through the purchase of 'Capital Goods', i.e. Machines, where there is sufficient underutilized labour. The labour can directly increase production, especially in situations where the marginal productivity of labour is high and/or existing Capital Goods are underutilized. Venture Capital is the Capital made available to high risk opportunities, usually to new and expanding enterprises, this Capital can theoretically be invested in terms of Labour or Money. However, for the Venture Communist, this is an important distinction, since Human Capital, while not perfectly distributed by nature, is still far better distributed than Money Capital is. In other words Human Capital is more equitable than Money Capital. Since Human Capital is more equitable than Money Capital, investment in a Venture Commune is made by contributing labour, not money, and shares in the commune can not be bought nor sold, only earned by labour contribution. A Venture Communist is a person who makes such investments. A Venture Commune is a partnership that primarily invests the capital of third party investors in enterprises. A Venture Commune accumulates it's Capital (Human Capital) by soliciting labour investments and then invests this labour in high risk enterprises that promise high return on investment. The Venture Commune winds up with an ownership stake in the enterprise. However, the primary distinguishing feature of a Venture Commune from a traditional Venture Capital Fund is that the share of each member is EQUAL. Every investor has an equal vote and an equal dividend. In this way the profitability of the Venture Commune has a progressive distributive effect. Also, because the Venture Commune must insure that the control of investors of Human Capital always exceeds the control of the investors of Money Capital, the Venture Commune must insist on have a Majority Ownership Share in the enterprises it
Re: More Bush Hoover parallels
Michael Pollak forwarded: What has gotten Ms. Poller worked up is Mr. Bush's decision not to address the 95th annual convention of the N.A.A.C.P. this year, making him the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to meet with the group during an entire term in office, N.A.A.C.P. officials said. Disgusting...but... NAACP vows big push to get out black vote Tuesday, July 13, 2004 BY BRIAN DONOHUE Star-Ledger Staff PHILADELPHIA -- Calling the November presidential election the most important race in decades, leaders of the nation's largest civil rights organization are vowing an unprecedented three-pronged plan to register new voters, get them to the polls and make sure votes are counted accurately. The focus on getting out the vote came as NAACP president Kweisi Mfume continued to criticize President Bush for his refusal to address the group's 95th annual convention. If he were willing to listen, he would hear our opinion of what it really means to be pro-family, why it's really important to save Social Security and why smaller classrooms for students and day care for working parents must be more than a song or dance or a 20-second sound bite, Mfume said. With an estimated 8,000 attendees at the convention, the task of increasing black voter turnout and preventing a repeat of the 2000 recount controversies became a focus of nearly every gathering. At a luncheon for legal professionals, lawyers were implored to take a vacation day on Election Day to work at the polls and to do pro bono work on voters' rights issues. Down the hall, clergy and religious workers sharing a meal were urged to get their congregations to the polls. At an afternoon voter registration seminar, a representative of Blockbuster Video offered several hundred volunteers the use of the chain's video rental stores to conduct voter registration drives. We will be there, at every polling place, in every battleground state, and every community we can get to, Mfume told a cheering crowd during the day's keynote address. We will ride, drag, push, pull and carry every registered voter we can find along with us. Bush's opponent, U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will address the group Thursday. After years of broadening its mission to issues like health care and Social Security, the recount controversies of the 2000 election and the current hotly contested race have brought voters' rights issues back to the forefront of the nation's largest and oldest civil right organization. This is the ballgame, Michael McFadden, NAACP director of voter empowerment, told a roomful of several hundred voter registration volunteers. The urgency is fed by a pair of converging factors. First is the leaders' opinions that Bush has been unresponsive to the NAACP on issues such as health care, judicial appointments and education. That frustration is combined with the belief that with a close race shaping up, a strong turnout by African-American voters could sway the balance in favor of Kerry. The black vote can determine who goes to the White House in this election, said Jim Daniel, regional coordinator for the NAACP's voter empowerment program. It's not a matter of 'Do we have the numbers,' it's a matter of 'Do they vote.' Republicans say Bush, who drew only 8 percent of the black vote in the 2000 election, has made an appeal to African-Americans a priority of his re-election campaign. A spokesman for the Bush/ Cheney campaign said Bush intends to appeal to black voters. The current leadership of the NAACP has certainly made some hostile comments in recent years, but the president is going to fight for every vote, including those of African-Americans, said campaign spokesman Kevin Madden. Madden said the Bush administration has a record of accomplishment on many issues of importance to black Americans. He cited increases in minority homeownership and in the number of investigations undertaken by the civil rights division. This is a president that has focused on growing the economy and creating more jobs so that everyone can benefit, Madden said. White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, the first black woman to hold the position and one of Bush's closest aides, also defended his civil rights record. I know that this is a president whose record is impeccable on civil rights, impeccable on the interests of African-Americans, and I'm quite comfortable with the decision he's taken, Rice said yesterday on CNN. Daniel of the NAACP said his organization hopes to increase by 5 percent the number of new voters registered over its total for the 2000 campaign, when 2 million were registered. He also encouraged delegates to take active roles in monitoring elections on the local level, to ensure that voters are not turned away or prevented from voting. If voters have to cross a ditch to get to the polls, we need to fix that. If the machines aren't working, we need to fix that, he said. There is the sense
Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young by Solana Pyne The Village Voice One Sick Fall With health insurance out of reach, a generation braces itself for the worst July 13th, 2004 11:30 AM If they're not outright poor as a class, young adults in this country are at least very, very broke. The average collegian graduates with more than $20,000 in debt, headed for a job market where real hourly wages have kept pace with neither inflation nor the cost of living. Young adults are broke in part because of their unprecedented schooling in the latest census figures, 28 percent of those between 25 and 29 reported holding a bachelor's degree which promised to pluck them away from the constellation of problems plaguing America's underclass, whether it was trouble with housing or inadequate medical care. Yet there they are, these latest inheritors of the American dream, lined up in emergency rooms for toothaches and the flu, not because they're having emergencies, but because they don't have health insurance, and emergency rooms, unlike private doctors, are obliged to give them care. Since 1987, the number of uninsured young adults has grown at twice the rate of older adults, even though the demographic itself is shrinking. One-quarter to one-third of adults under 35 went without insurance for all of 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available an increase of 1.2 million from the year before. Half were uninsured for some part of 2002. Of the 43.6 million uninsured adults in the U.S., 41 percent are young. Of all the rationales John Kerry and George Bush will give this year as they stump for their individual visions of helping the nation's uninsured, one of the most pragmatic is that those little plastic cards can make the difference, for a crucial group of consumers, between having a financial parachute and cratering into debt. Maria Davidson, of Meriden, Connecticut, was 26 and working for low pay with no benefits when her seven-year-old son tried to kill himself. The ambulance took him to Yale-New Haven Hospital. She had no private coverage for herself and her family. Her children were not eligible for public plans, and she wasn't aware of programs that could have covered the hospital expenses. Her son amassed $3,900 in bills that Davidson just couldn't pay. That was nine years ago. By the time the bill was resolved as the result of a lawsuit, she owed, with interest, over $6,000. Collection agencies were garnishing her wages and had put a lien on her condo. Much of her story is sadly typical. A survey published in May by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit based in New York City, found that of the uninsured between 19 and 29, half had trouble making payments, had been contacted by a collection agency, or had modified their lifestyles to pay off medical bills. And the cost hardly stops with lost purchasing power. The Commonwealth Fund's survey found that more than half of those young and not covered had gone without needed medical care in the last year, which included not seeing a doctor, failing to fill a prescription, or skipping a recommended medical test, treatment, or follow-up visit. Long Islander Fred Gumm, 26, now has health insurance through his job at Starbucks, which, he said, is pretty much the only reason I work there. He went without coverage for two and a half years, during and after school at SUNY-New Paltz. While uninsured, he broke a few fingers and injured his shoulder and his back. He didn't go to the doctor because he couldn't afford the bill, and as a result, the injuries healed badly and still trouble him. The story for middle-class kids these days is that you're covered by your family's insurance until you graduate college, and then you're on your own. For those not in school, the cutoff comes even sooner. You turn 19 and lose your parents' coverage, said Sara Collins, an economist for the Commonwealth Fund. In theory, you quickly get a job that comes with insurance. That's the way our system is designed to work, with employers rather than the government providing coverage. But as premiums have risen, companies have begun to consider forgoing health plans. In September, the trade journal BenefitsNews.com reported that among companies with 10 to 49 workers, the percentage of those offering insurance dropped from 66 percent to 62 percent. That four-point dip may not sound like much, but the journal estimated it could represent some 200,000 businesses. What's more, young people tend to work for smaller firms think entrepreneurial start-ups and only 55 percent of companies with fewer than 10 workers carry health plans. A May 2003 report by the Commonwealth Fund found that 65 percent of working young adults are eligible for an employer-sponsored plan, compared to 77 percent of older adults. What looked like a relatively seamless transition for your parents looks for you like a rickety bridge. You're not making much money, you've got student debt,
Re: Productivity.
Dmytri asks: I have a few questions regarding this productivity boom that have not been answered sufficiently in what I have read so far. Productivity, as best as I can tell, is defined as follows: Productivity = (Gross Output - Foreign Inputs) / Domestic Labour So, foreign inputs are simply ignored by the formula, doesn't this mean that if cheaper foreign inputs displace domestic inputs that this calculation would show a rise in productivity? Dmytri, foreign inputs don't appear to be ignored in the formula you've given above, but I would definitely agree with you that as cheaper foreign labor inputs displace domestic labor inputs, productivity would rise. I would crudely measure labor productivity by dividing real GDP in a period by the number of labor input units employed during the same period. I would also add that ANY measure of productivity is sure to increase in value if firms are: 1. learning how to do more with fewer full-time labor inputs 2. learning how to replace full-time labor input with temporary labor input 3. learning how to replace labor-intensive processes with more capital-intensive ones 4. learning how to replace domestic labor input with foreign labor input (as you mention) ...which is what is happening in the US today, thus the so-called productivity boom. Also, since US dollars sent abroad to pay for these foreign inputs will eventually come home and make demands on US productivity, shouldn't this increasing dependence on foreign inputs eventually cause inflation? That's an interesting question. If US dollars are going abroad to purchase machinery and equipment (increasing imports in machinery/equipment as is happening in Canada today, see article below), there would be a downward pressure on prices on the demand side -- and future productivity increases on the supply side. Also, if US dollars are going abroad to purchase cheaper foreign labor inputs, productivity rises (as you mention), theoretically expanding aggregate supply and putting downward pressures on the average level of prices. But there are so many other factors and the part I wrote above about US dollars going abroad to purchase machinery/equipment is not happening. Thanks for the interesting thoughts. Diane Surge in imports spurs hopes for gains in productivity Machinery demand fuels record gains The Globe and Mail Wednesday, Jul 14, 2004 Exploding demand for machinery and equipment fuelled a record surge in Canadian imports in May, sparking hopes that the long-awaited improvement in productivity may be around the corner. The Canadian business sector has been lagging the United States in productivity improvement since 2001. The jump in imports -- attributed in part to a strong Canadian dollar -- cut sharply into Canada's trade surplus, which fell to $5.2-billion from $7-billion a month ago. Imports of machinery and equipment climbed 13.9 per cent during the month to $9.6-billion, the largest increase since September of 1981, offering some grounds for optimism that Canadian firms are investing in technology that will bolster their competitiveness and yield long-awaited economy-wide improvements in productivity. Gains were widespread, affecting telecommunications gear, office machinery, transportation equipment and laboratory supplies. The sharp increase suggests a meaningful capital spending cycle is developing, said Robert Spector, of Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. We've been anticipating this for some time as companies take advantage of the stronger Canadian dollar, the low cost of capital and lean balance sheets in an effort to boost sagging productivity. The rise implies spending in the economy is becoming more balanced between the consumer and business investment, he added. Overall imports climbed 7.8 per cent in May, the biggest gain since the beginning of 1997, reaching a record $31.6-billion. Exports showed a modest gain of 1.3 per cent to $36.8-billion. Businesses are more confident, and willing to shell out on machinery and equipment, said Warren Lovely, senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc., with equipment imports now up 20 per cent from a year ago. Three solid months of labour-force growth show businesses are hiring and investing in capital goods as well, Mr. Lovely said. The upturn mirrored a Bank of Canada survey this week showing a growing optimism among Canadian firms about sales prospects, investment intentions and hiring. Last year's 20-per-cent rise in the value of the Canadian dollar means goods imported from the United States are cheaper, said Stephen Poloz, chief economist at Export Development Canada (EDC). It's like putting the equipment on sale, he said, and that's where our productivity catch-up will come from. More than 70 per cent of machinery and equipment imports come from the United States. Among those looking for productivity gains is Toronto-Dominion Bank, which signed a $420-million contract with Hewlett-Packard Canada to upgrade its network of banking machines and debit-card
The State of America's Children 2004
The State of America's Children 2004: A Continuing Portrait of Inequality 50 Years After Brown vs. Board of Education 7/13/2004 12:24:00 PM Contact: John Norton of Children's Defense Fund, 202-662-3609 WASHINGTON, July 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- This week the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) released The State of America's Children 2004, which provides a comprehensive examination of how children are faring in our country. The book paints a troubling picture -- based on the most recent statistical data and analyses -- of an unacceptably high number of children who are still being left behind. One in six children in the United States continues to live in poverty. One in eight-9.3 million-children have no health insurance. Three out of five children under six are cared for by someone other than their parents on a regular basis. Only 31 percent of fourth graders read at or above grade level. An estimated three million children were reported as suspected victims of child abuse and neglect. Almost one in ten teens ages 16 to 19 is a school dropout. Eight children and teens die from gunfire in the U.S. each day -- one child every three hours. Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education and 40 years after President Johnson declared a War on Poverty, many minority and lower-income children still lack a fair chance to live, learn, thrive and contribute in America, said Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of CDF. The great unfinished business of our nation in this first decade of the 21st century is to open wide the doors of equal education and economic opportunity to every child in America. It's time to build a powerful 21st century movement to emancipate our children from racial injustice and poverty. We must summon the moral, political, and financial courage to make sure that we truly leave no child behind. The State of America's Children 2004 features the most recent data available on our nation's children and reviews developments in family income and child poverty, hunger and food assistance, child health, child care, Head Start and school-age care, education, children and families in crisis, and juvenile justice and youth development. Graphs and charts along with the latest and most compelling statistics clarify the status of children in several key areas: Family Income: -- Three out of four poor children live in families where someone worked and one in three poor children lives with a full- time year-round worker. More than 5.1 million children live in extremely low-income households spending at least half of their income on housing. -- Twenty-two million adults and 13 million children live in households suffering from hunger or food insecurity without hunger. The richest one-fifth of households made 10.7 times as much in median income as the poorest one-fifth, the widest gap on record from the U.S. Census Bureau. Child Health: -- 9.3 million children lack health insurance; yet six million of these uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) under current law. -- Infants born to Black mothers are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday as infants born to White mothers. -- The number of overweight children has more than tripled since 1980. Almost nine million young people are overweight -- over 15 percent of children and adolescents under age 19. Child Care, Head Start, and School-Age Care: -- Sixty-four percent of mothers with children under six and 78 percent of mothers with children ages six to 17 work outside the home. -- In 48 states, the cost of center-based childcare for a four-year-old is greater than tuition at a four-year public college. -- The number of children participating in Head Start has more than doubled during the past three decades, but currently the program only serves three out of five three- and four-year-olds. Education: -- Seven out of ten fourth graders cannot read or do math at grade level. -- Ninety percent of the nation's children attend public schools. Children in the poorest families are six times as likely as children in more affluent families to drop out of high school. -- Three-quarters of the nation's public schools are in need of repairs, renovations, and modernization. The average school building is more than 40 years old. Yet states spend on average almost three times as much per prisoner as per public school pupil. Children and Families in Crisis: -- Three million children in a year are reported abused or neglected and referred for investigation or assessment; close to 900,000 of them are confirmed as victims of child maltreatment. -- Child abuse and domestic violence co-occur in an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the families where there is some form of family violence. -- The 51,000 children adopted from foster care in 2002 is almost double the number adopted in 1995, but more than 126,000 children in foster care continue to wait for permanent families. Juvenile
Re: Productivity.
Doug wrote: Diane Monaco wrote: Dmytri, foreign inputs don't appear to be ignored in the formula you've given above, but I would definitely agree with you that as cheaper foreign labor inputs displace domestic labor inputs, productivity would rise. A productivity guy at the BLS told me that foreign labor inputs would be counted as foreign production as well, with little impact on the productivity figures. Would have little impact on which productivity figures, Doug? If foreign labor inputs are displacing domestic labor inputs, and domestic labor inputs are counted in domestic productivity figures, wouldn't there be an impact on domestic productivity figures? (domestic labor productivity)=(domestic output)/(domestic labor input) ...so if domestic labor input goes down and if domestic output stays the same or increases...then domestic labor productivity will go up. I'm thinking that the BLS productivity person you refer to was suggesting that foreign labor inputs don't directly enter domestic labor productivity formulas as Dmytri originally suggested in the previous post...and I would agree. Just a thought. Thanks, Diane
Re: Productivity.
Doug wrote: Diane Monaco wrote: Would have little impact on which productivity figures, Doug? If foreign labor inputs are displacing domestic labor inputs, and domestic labor inputs are counted in domestic productivity figures, wouldn't there be an impact on domestic productivity figures? (domestic labor productivity)=(domestic output)/(domestic labor input) ...so if domestic labor input goes down and if domestic output stays the same or increases...then domestic labor productivity will go up. If the work is done abroad the value added is counted as part of foreign, not domestic, output. The foreign labor would be embodied in purchased components. True, in a perfect world. But the foreign labor inputs used, should technically be subtracted from domestic value added as imported intermediate goods inputs, as Jim D. more accurately detailed above, although it is always understated, thus overstating domestic output (domestic value added). So when domestic value added, if you will, is overstated and domestic labor input falls, domestic labor productivity rises. Imported intermediate goods inputs are understated because the work that is outsourced to contractors, is typically further outsourced to subcontractors and other unidentifiable brokers, jobbers, etc. along the way -- and the actual value is lost and hidden. Diane
Re: US under fire at AIDS conference
Michael wrote: How can you defeat an alliance of Christian fundamentalists and the drug companies? Or an alliance of Medical Associations and the drug companies? In 2003, Pfizer had sales of $9.2 billion for Lipitor alone, while Merck had sales of $5 billion for Zocor. Imagine the possibilities with the new recommendations below: New rule on cholesterol Millions more urged to take medicine; Pfizer may benefit BY PATRICIA ANSTETT FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER July 13, 2004 Millions of Americans are expected to be prescribed aggressive doses of cholesterol-lowering medicines following the release of new health guidelines. The guidelines, released Monday, set the recommended target for so-called bad or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol at 70 -- down from 100. LDL cholesterol is one of two numbers given to measure cholesterol. As many as 36 million people in the United States might benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs under the new guidelines. That could prove economically significant for Pfizer Inc., a major Michigan pharmaceutical company that produces Lipitor, the biggest-selling cholesterol-lowering drug in the world, with $5.8 billion in U.S. sales alone. The lower the better for high-risk people, that's the message . . . said Scott Grundy, chair of the panel of health experts that released the new guidelines. They were published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Though aimed at people with established heart disease, the guidelines will affect the general population, said Dr. Douglas Westveer, director of cardiology at Beaumont Hospital in Troy. Most people without a risk of heart disease should aim to lower their LDL cholesterol to 130 and their high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels to 45 to 60, particularly for men 60 and older. For years, doctors have told patients to aim to keep their combined cholesterol numbers to 200 or less. Westveer and other cardiologists also expect that doctors will prescribe a second medicine or increase doses of cholesterol-lowering medicines because of the new guidelines. This will have a major impact, said Dr. Souheil Saba, cardiologist at Providence Hospital and Medical Centers in Southfield. Now large sections of the public will qualify for more aggressive therapy. The guidelines follow an analysis by a government panel of five major clinical studies involving cholesterol-lowering medications. The government's lead agency on heart disease and two national groups of heart experts endorse them. Dr. Thomas Davis, a cardiologist at Detroit's Harper University Hospital, said the guidelines follow studies showing that very low LDL levels reduce a risk of a second heart attack by 30 percent to 50 percent within five years. Though cardiologists have recommended low LDL levels for several years, this will help standardize heart care for high-risk patients, he said. Many patients at risk of a heart attack are treated by primary care physicians, who may not follow cardiologists' recommendations as closely. The guidelines also should help convince people reluctant to take cholesterol-lowering drugs of the significance of taking them, Davis said. Many patients either don't want to take medicine or think their cholesterol isn't so bad and they'll just watch their diet, he said. The reality is that diet and exercise alone often are unsuccessful in reaching the new levels, said Dr. Michael Hudson, director of the coronary care unit at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital. Smaller changes in diet, which most people are able to do, won't come close to the new recommended levels, he said. Some patients are reluctant to take cholesterol-lowering medicines because of the side effects, primarily irritation of the stomach and a small risk of liver damage. Fortunately, Hudson said, higher doses only raise the risk a few decimal points, he said. It's very small. To check for liver problems, patients are tested before being put on the drugs, shortly afterward, and then yearly, he said. Rick Chambers, spokesman for Pfizer, said he expects the guidelines will increase sales. It certainly appears that this will open the door to new patients, he said. Lipitor was discovered in Ann Arbor by scientists working at the time for Parke-Davis Co., later bought by Pfizer. In some patients, it achieves cholesterol reductions of as much as 65 percent. Pfizer employs 9,000 people in Michigan. Every year, 1.2 million Americans have a new or repeat heart attack. For details on the guidelines, visit the American Heart Association's Web site at www.americanheart.org. Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at 313-222-5021 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Staff writer JEFF BENNETT and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Let them eat wedding cake
Let them eat wedding cake By Barbara Ehrenreich July 13, 2004 NEW YORK - Commitment isn't easy for guys - we all know that - but the Bush administration is taking the traditional male ambivalence about marriage to giddy new heights. On the one hand, it wants to ban gays from marrying, through a constitutional amendment that the Senate will vote on this week. On the other hand, it's been avidly promoting marriage among poor women - the straight ones, anyway. Opponents of gay marriage claim that there is some consistency here, in that gay marriages must be stopped before they undermine the straight ones. How the married gays will go about wrecking heterosexual marriages is not entirely clear: by moving in next-door, inviting themselves over and doing a devastating critique of the interior decorating? It is equally unclear how marriage will cure poor women's No. 1 problem, which is poverty - unless, of course, the plan is to draft CEOs to marry recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning - in the case of poverty-stricken women - blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades. So I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a TANF recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty. The answer turns out to be about 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal. Seeking clarity, I called the administration's top marriage maven, Wade F. Horn at the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS is not promoting marriage, he told me, just providing marriage education for interested couples of limited means. The poor aren't being singled out for any insidious reason, he insisted; this is just a service they might otherwise lack. It could have been Pilates training or courses in orchid cultivation, was the implication, but for now it's marriage education. As recently as 2001, however, Mr. Horn was proposing that the administration show it values marriage by rewarding those who choose it with cash marriage bonuses. When I suggested that - with food pantries maxing out and shelters overflowing across the nation - poor women might have other priorities, Mr. Horn snapped back: It's fine for you to make the decision on what low-income couples need. Silly old social-engineering-type liberal that I am, I had actually doubted that marriage education might be helpful to couples doomed to spend their married lives on separate cots in the shelter. Besides, Mr. Horn went on, low-income people are eager for government-sponsored marriage education. Lisalyn Jacobs, who tracks TANF marriage policy at the women's group Legal Momentum, told me she finds it obscene that, in the face of coming cuts in housing subsidies and other services, HHS is planning to spend any money at all on marriage, much less the $200 million now proposed. But she may be unaware, as I am, of the mobs of poor women who picket HHS daily, chanting: What do we want? Marriage education! When do we want it? Now! If marriage were a cure for poverty, I'd be the first to demand that HHS spring for the champagne and bridesmaids' dresses. But as Mr. Horn acknowledged to me, there is no evidence to that effect. Married couples are on average more prosperous than single mothers, but that doesn't mean marriage will lift the existing single mothers out of poverty. So what's the point of the administration's marriage meddling? Ms. Jacobs thinks that the administration's mixed signals on marriage - OK for paupers, a no-no for gays - are part of the conservative effort to change the subject to marriage. From, for example, Iraq. But this may be too cynical an explanation. Quite possibly, the administration wants to ban gay marriage so that gay men can be drafted to marry TANF recipients. Think of all the problems that would solve - and, if the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy stereotype holds true, how tastefully appointed those shelters will become. Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The New York Times.
Moving Mountains by Anne-Christine dAdesky
Moving Mountains In her new book, journalist and activist Anne-Christine dAdesky argues that access to AIDS medicine is a fundamental human rights issue. Peter Meredith Mother Jones July 13 , 2004 Anne-Christine dAdesky has been reporting from the front lines of the global AIDS epidemic since before it became a major story. A foreign correspondent stationed in Haiti in 1984, she began writing about HIV when it was still something whispered about. Returning to the United States, she continued covering global AIDS and politics for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Advocate, and OUT, where she was editor for AIDS, health, and science. Moving Mountains, her second book, examines the challenges of providing treatment to the 40 million HIV-positive people worldwide. The book compiles dispatches from developing nations whose treatment programs have met with mixed success. DAdesky begins with Brazil, where domestically made generic HIV drugs and universal health care have made the country a model for treating AIDS. She discusses innovative programssuch as Haitis accompagnateurs, lay caregivers who counsel rural HIV patients and help them adhere to their treatmentsas well as barriers to treatment. DAdesky assails regulations that discourage production of generic drugs, arguing that access to AIDS medicine is a human rights issue. DAdesky regards herself as both a journalist and activist. She recently founded WE-ACT (Womens Equity in Access to Care and Treatment), an organization that treats HIV-positive Rwandan women. She just finished the documentary Pills, Profits, and Protest, a companion to her book that examines the need for global access to HIV medicines. At this weeks International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, she will lead a panel on HIV treatment that includes activists and the head of the World Health Organizations AIDS program. Mother Jones.com caught up with dAdesky in New York during her book tour to discuss victories and challenges in treating AIDS globally. MotherJones.com: You write that its important to view access to HIV medicines through the lens of human rights and social justice, rather than security or economics. Why? Anne-Christine d'Adesky: I look at it as a human rights issue because, in the U.S. or anywhere else, its a disease that effects people who are poor, and the service that people who are poor get in most countries is from the public health system. The problem we have is that, because medicine continues to be treated as a commodity, AIDS has been dealt with in the U.S. as something that would be resolved by a market-based system. And that really doesnt work in the rest of the world. I feel that by looking at it as a social justice issue, we can look at why the epidemic has spread the way it has, but also why we havent been able to access treatment. Theres an economic system in place that is affecting access to such a striking degree that we really have to deal with it as a political and economic crisis if were expecting to get a medical and scientific response that really reflects the access people need. Its clear that we could easily afford to treat everyone who has HIV now many times over, and it wouldnt put a dent in the global economic system. The inequity isnt a given; its something thats created and maintained. Looking at the past two years, its clear now that economic policies that reflect the agendas of the U.S. and some of the G-8 countries are actively blocking access. MJ.com: The Bush administration points to Uganda and its ABC [abstinence, be faithful, and condoms when appropriate] model as the blueprint for prevention worldwide. But you criticize Ugandas model, particularly regarding its impact on women. ACD: The bulk of the Bush money has been going to prevention messages that are essentially pushing abstinence. My concern is that the women I spoke with in Uganda who are HIV-positive and are trying to get access to treatment are married women, women who technically followed the ABCs. They were abstinent until they were married, and once they were married, of course, they didnt use condoms, because the goal for many couples is to start families and have children. They became HIV-positive because their husbands were HIV-positive. In some cases, their husbands knew they were HIV-positive and didnt tell their wives. In other cases, they were polygamous. In other cases there was a lack of education. Across the country, there has been a lack of testing, so these men didnt necessarily know they were HIV-positive. I think that the issue is that the ABCs dont work. Regardless of your moral position on abstinence or condoms, its not working for the great majority of people who are being exposed in many of these countries. Theyre young girls. Theyre young women. Theyre exposed at a young age, and theyre often exposed by older men. Another dangerous policy is removing condoms from the menu when you
Re: US under fire at AIDS conference
At 08:24 AM 7/13/2004 -0700, you wrote: Now all you have to do is add the fast food industry into the mix, getting them to add an antiobesity drug into their hamburgers. The Bushies are making noises about screening people for mental health -- to be treated with drugs. Fox News may also be a drug, but I have not seen the final study on the subject. LOL. Michael, I think you're on to something. Speaking of Fox News... Happy talk from hell Even if you think you're wise to Fox News' right-wing agenda, Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed will leave you very afraid. Andrew O'Hehir Salon July 13, 2004 | I'm a neutral observer, of course, here to give you a fair and balanced report. But some people would say that Fox News Channel is nothing more than the private right-wing propaganda machine of a sneaky right-wing billionaire who is -- now these are just the facts, people -- not an American at all but some kind of Down Under, funny-accented, shrimp-on-the-barbie-eating, crocodile-hunting, profoundly un-American Australian, for goodness' sake. And while I know Australia is not obviously very much like France -- treasonous, untrustworthy France -- let's look under the surface a little, OK? Do you know what one of Australia's top agricultural products is? That's right, it's wine. Draw your own conclusions, people, that's all I ask. And when you get right down to it, isn't there something French about Shep Smith, if you know what I mean? Isn't that mousse in his hair? Does that sound like an American word to you? Isn't there something about him that suggests the French government of, say, 1943? Something a little Vichy French? Nazi-collaborator French, possibly? I don't know, I'm only asking. You decide. Maybe you think my parody of the methods employed by Fox News itself (yes, French and Australian readers, that's what it is -- please delete those partly composed emails) is a few truckloads too broad. After you see Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, you might change your mind. Buy the DVD at: http://www.outfoxed.org/ Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a race to the bottom in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know. The film explores Murdoch's burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person. Media experts, including Walter Cronkite, Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society. This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a right-wing point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed. Director/Producer Robert Greenwald has produced and/or directed 53 television movies, miniseries and features. He is the director of Uncovered and the Executive Producer of the UN series - Unprecedented, Uncovered and the soon to be released Unconstitutional.
Crude prices drop as dealers take profits
Oil retreats from $40 mark Crude prices drop as dealers take profits from rally; U.S. prices peaked at $42.45 in early June. July 13, 2004 LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices fell on Tuesday as dealers pocketed profits from a $5 rally since the end of June. U.S. light crude for August delivery dropped 45 cents to $39.05 a barrel after hitting a five-week peak at $40.75 a barrel during Monday trade when the volatile U.S. gasoline market beat a sharp retreat. August London Brent eased 37 cents to $36.26 a barrel. Short-term, the market looks well supplied, but it's hard to go short in the market and even if prices go down I think there'll be a floor at $35, said Tony Nunan, manager at Mitsubishi Corp.'s international petroleum business in Tokyo. U.S. prices peaked at $42.45 in early June. Even though crude oil inventories worldwide are comfortable compared to previous years, strong global oil demand and sparse spare capacity has left little room to cope with supply disruptions. We're not out of the woods yet on gasoline in the United States, and we're now in pre-season buying for heating oil, said Nunan. The International Energy Agency on Tuesday revised up its forecast for world oil demand growth in 2004 by 180,000 bpd to 2.49 million bpd, the fastest growth since 1980. It said growth would ease in 2005 to 1.8 million bpd but again outpace non-OPEC supply growth, pressuring OPEC to deliver the difference. Analysts expect weekly U.S. government data to be released Wednesday to show a small rise in stockpiles. A Reuters survey of seven analysts predicted U.S. crude inventories would rise 1.4 million barrels in the week to July 7. Projections for gasoline were for stocks to rise a modest 500,000 barrels, with distillates that include heating oil to go up 2.1 million barrels. Only Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter, has any significant spare production capacity, with the other OPEC producers pumping flat out and Iraq's output recovering from war damage. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is expected to raise official production limits by 500,000 barrels a day (bpd) from August 1, but the increase will have little impact on actual supplies as OPEC is already supplying substantially more than formal quota allocations.
Re: recovery fading
Jim wrote: at this point, if there's a second dip to the recession, it's likely that Kerry will get the blame (assuming he's elected). Even if he's not elected, Bushmen will probably blame him for undermining faith in the Chief. ...and his Office...and the US Labor and Commerce Departments... Well, the US Labor Department's announcement on Friday that the new US job creation figure --more than half, again, low-paid temporary positions -- for June was less than half of what was expected, and all that despite the fact the estimated figures were already revised downwards from previous months! Bush is fast approaching the distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to have seen the actual number of jobs fall during his presidency. The US Commerce Department has also revised downwards its estimate of first quarter growth from 4.4 to 3.9 per cent, as a result of lower exports (and higher imports). Now all that coupled with rising gasoline prices and interest rates, I anticipate more and more downward revisions for growth and job creation. An economic recovery indeed. Diane
US under fire at AIDS conference
US under fire at AIDS conference Activists, officials clash on purchase of generic drugs By John Donnelly The Boston Globe July 12, 2004 BANGKOK -- The 15th International AIDS Conference opened yesterday with scenes of tension, repeatedly pitting the Bush administration against activists and top global AIDS officials over the purchase of generic antiretroviral drugs for poor countries. The US government -- by far the largest donor fighting AIDS around the world -- authorized earlier this year the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on AIDS treatments for 15 poor countries. But it has put on hold the purchase of any generic drugs until the US Food and Drug Administration undertakes its own review of the copycat medicines. While the administration believes the reviews could be done in six weeks, activists worry that the delays could stretch for months or longer. If that happens, they say, dramatically fewer AIDS patients will receive treatment, perhaps just one-third of those who could have taken the generic medicines. Stephen Lewis, the special UN envoy on AIDS in Africa, said in a speech that the Bush administration, by waiting for the FDA reviews, was conducting a ''not-so-subtle attempt to derail the World Health Organization's own review of the efficacy of generic combinations. Although US officials ''say they will purchase generic drugs, the fact is those monies are now being used if not entirely, then mostly, for brand-name drugs, Lewis said. ''We are spending two to three times the cost to treat people at a time when dollars are scarce. The conference, which has attracted an estimated 20,000 delegates from around the world, also featured an opening address by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who called on world leaders to take much stronger action in preventing the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Annan also drew attention to the ever-increasing numbers of young women who are contracting the virus. A UNAIDS report released last week found that in sub-Saharan Africa among the age group of 15- to 24-year-olds, three times as many young women were infected than young men. The report estimated that in some African countries, such as Mali and Kenya, for every 10 boys and young men infected, 45 girls and young women were infected. Annan called that a ''terrifying pattern for girls and young women. He told more than 11,000 delegates attending the opening ceremonies that much more effort should be put toward empowering women and girls to protect themselves against older men. ''Society's inequalities puts them at risk -- unjust, unconscionable risk, he said to applause. ''A range of factors conspires to make this so: poverty, abuse, and violence, lack of information, coercion by older men, and men having several concurrent sexual relationships that entrap young women in a giant network of infection. Annan said men must change their sexual behavior. He called on leaders to free ''boys and men from some of the cultural stereotypes and expectations that they may be trapped in -- such as the belief that men who don't show their wives 'who's boss at home' are not real men, or that coming into manhood means having your sexual initiation with a sex worker when you are 13 years old. As in past conferences, activists became a major presence immediately in Bangkok: staging a march to demand greater access to antiretroviral drugs; jeering Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand during his opening address for his country's crackdowns on drug users, a population with high rates of HIV infection; and challenging the US global AIDS coordinator, Randall Tobias, during a news conference. Tobias told reporters the US policy was to ''buy the least expensive drugs we could find without regard to brand-name, generics, or copied drugs, as long as we could be assured the medicines were ''top quality. ''We should not have two standards of treatment -- good in the Western world and good enough elsewhere, he said. At the beginning of the briefing, Tobias telegraphed that he anticipated a challenge from activists. Two years earlier at the previous international AIDS conference in Barcelona, activists drowned out a speech by US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, who chose not to attend the Bangkok meeting. Tobias said yesterday that he hoped activists and others would ''leave whatever agendas at the door, but 20 minutes into his briefing, an activist told him protesters wanted to meet with Tobias to accept a petition demanding treatment for all. Tobias refused. ''I'm not sure I want to help you generate a media event, he said. A second activist, Jerome Martin of Act Up-Paris, shouted at Tobias: ''You are not coming, sir? This is a shame. Tens of thousands of people are dying, and you will not meet with us? The briefing ended minutes later. But demonstrators were not the only ones voicing concern over US policies on generic drugs. Richard Feachem, executive director of the
The `Ubuntu' of globalization
The `Ubuntu' of globalization The Boston Globe By Julian Hewitt July 12, 2004 IN SOUTH AFRICA, we have a term, Ubuntu, which refers to the spirit of the community. It is a shortened version of a South African saying that comes from the Xhosa culture: Umuntu ngumuntu ngamuntu. This means that I am a person through other people. It means that my humanity is tied to yours. This is probably the single most important aspect of living in a highly connected planet: Our humanity is tied together. We must respect each other, and we must always keep our interconnection in mind. The United States needs to understand the meaning of these South African phrases more than any other industrialized nation. The ultimate global power, the United States creates ripples that cause big waves around the world. This happens more frequently than the average American comprehends. When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cuts interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, it has a huge impact on me in South Africa. Straight away it influences my still sizable student loan, as the South African financial markets react to this news by preempting a cut or a hike by the South African Reserve Bank in response to rate changes in the United States. Ripples run through the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and dollars will either be cheaper or more expensive for me to buy. In short, globalization enables Greenspan's small action relative to US markets to have a large effect on me 13,000 miles away in South Africa. Imagine how many other powerful decisions resonate with me as a citizen of South Africa. When the United States refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol, it decreases the quality of the air I breathe in Johannesburg and forces me to apply a few more layers of sunscreen in the summer. When the USA attacks Iraq, it heightens the religious animosity between the large Muslim and Christian communities living near Cape Town, creating security risks and tension. Hollywood movies, music, multinationals, foreign policy, farming subsidies, and import tariffs have a similar effect. These endless ripples are reaching my distant shore. As I spend time in the United States, however, I am discovering some startling realities. Despite the critical role of the United States in world affairs, for example, many US citizens do not hold passports. They have traveled to many states but not to any other countries. They would be hard pressed to point out South Africa on a map. On a recent trip to New York, I picked up three local newspapers: The New York Times, the New York Post, and AM New York, a free newspaper. I counted the number of international articles per page. The Times produced what I consider to be an appropriate number of international stories: one article on every fourth page. The two other newspapers had almost no international articles, aside from a few relating to Iraq. This obviously was not a scientific study, but I think it was a fairly typical news day. The average American gets little information about what is happening in the world or about the role of the United States in world events. An even bigger concern is that a large percentage of those who read tabloid newspapers in the United States comprise a considerable and influential voting bloc that has, among other things, elected the current American government. Twenty or 30 years ago, there would be nothing wrong with an American who never left home, never owned a passport, never spoke a second language, never knew the capital of Denmark. But we live in a globalized world. We live in a world of causes and effects. We live in a world where a single superpower has an overwhelming influence on global affairs. Today, there is hypocrisy: The United States plays the key role in our globalized society, but its citizens are not globalized. Holding such a position of global influence without having a global worldview is not just naive, it is dangerous. It is dangerous to be the source of global ripples but to ignore their effect. Over time, those ripples may cause waves that will slap back on your shores. Julian Hewitt is a 2004 Clinton Democracy Fellow from South Africa and is the president of AIESEC South Africa, a student-run organization that operates in 88 countries and is focused on developing global change-agents. .
Re: Hidden costs of living
Interesting article, Michael. I had read somewhere that credit card companies were now extracting from consumers around $1 billion per year in late fees, but the article suggests that it's more than 10 times that at $11.6 billion per year. That's a travesty! I think a major factor is that credit card companies are constantly changing the payment due dates without notice and shrinking the payment periods to an average of 21 days which is considerably lower than the average payment window of 31 days in the 1990s and most consumers are completely unaware of these creeping payment changes. There are more credit card payments per year for consumers these days which means there are more instances to miss the payment due date resulting in late fees. The modus operandi for the late/penalty fee reaping scheme is to essentially catch the consumer off-guard and keep them uninformed (imperfect and asymmetric information). Credit card companies are also increasing the actual late fee and other penalty amounts and increasing interest rates without notice for late payments for good and bad customers alike. It seems credit card companies are now charging a transaction fee -- that goes unnoticed and can be undetectable as it is often embedded in the exchange rate -- for using your card overseas. Having just returned from some travel abroad, I am now in the process of trying to figure out how extensive is this new practice of hidden travel transaction fees [while in Cuba in June I was not able to use a US credit card, of course, only a Canadian so fewer fees for me, I guess :) ] On a related note, banks now charge a transaction fee every time a debit card is used if you use your PIN to authorize the transaction but you are NOT warned of this transaction fee, which is normally the case when using an ATM card. There is no fee charged -- yet as far as I know -- if consumers use a debit card like a credit card and sign their name. caveat emptor! Diane Michael wrote: Here are some snippits from a Wall Street Journal about bank credit card fees. Does anybody attempt to take account of such things in measuring the CPI or income distribution? Pacelle, Mitchell. 2004. Late Payers and Big Borrowers Are Becoming Cash Cows. Wall Street Journal (6 July): p. A 1. For consumers who pay off their credit-card balances each month, shop aggressively for interest rates as low as 0%, and take advantage of generous credit-card rewards programs, consumer credit has never been cheaper. But for others like Ms. Reid, who went into debt so she could move to a better job in Florida from South Carolina, the trend is in the other direction. Card users, consumer advocates and some industry experts complain that banks are attempting to squeeze more and more revenue from consumers struggling to make ends meet. Instead of cutting these people off as bad credit risks, banks are letting them spend -- and then hitting them with larger and larger penalties for running up their credit, going over their credit limits, paying late and getting cash advances from their credit cards. The fees are also piling up for bounced checks and overdrawn accounts. People think they are being swindled, says industry consultant Duncan MacDonald, formerly a lawyer for the credit-card division of Citigroup Inc. Penalty fees aren't new, but they are becoming more important to the industry's bottom line and are being borne by the people who can least afford to pay them, he contends. Cardweb.com, a consulting group that tracks the card industry, says credit-card fees, including those from retailers, rose to 33.4% of total credit-card revenue in 2003. That was up from 27.9% in 2000 and just 16.1% in 1996. The average monthly late fee hit $32.01 in May, up from $30.29 a year earlier and $13.30 in May 1996, the company said. In 2003, the credit-card industry reaped $11.7 billion from penalty fees, up 9% from $10.7 billion a year earlier, according to Robert Hammer, an industry consultant. As competitive pressure builds on the front-end pricing, it has pushed a lot of the profit streams to the back end of the card -- to these fees, says Robert McKinley, chief executive of CardWeb .com. Over the past two years, he said, it's become much more aggressive. At industry conferences, he notes, talk often turns to what the market will bear. Banks say that penalties and fees are a necessary component of new models for pricing financial services. Gone are the days when banks collected hefty annual fees on all credit cards and charged fat interest rates to all customers. Now, the banks say, they must rely on risk-based pricing models under which customers with the shakiest finances pay higher rates and more fees. Until the early 1990s, most banks offered one main credit-card product. It typically carried an annual interest rate of about 18% and an annual fee of $25. Cardholders who paid late or strayed over their credit limit were charged modest fees.
House Votes to Overturn Cuba Parcel Rules
House Votes to Overturn Cuba Parcel Rules Wed Jul 7, 2004 11:09 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted in favor of overturning new Bush Administration rules banning items including clothing, seeds and soap from being sent in parcels to Cuba. Last month the U.S. Department of Commerce issued new rules on parcel contents after an interagency report recommended them as a way to hasten the demise of the Communist government in Cuba by denying the island of much-needed cash and resources. Food, medicines, medical supplies and receive-only radios are still allowed but other items such as veterinary medicines and fishing equipment were banned. The House voted 221 to 194 to approve the amendment to a $40 billion bill funding the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce for 2005. Supporters argued that Cuban Americans were being punished by the rules, which they said will do little to bring down Cuban President Fidel Castro. Let's allow Cuban Americans to observe the freedom they have to send food, medicine and hygiene items to their people in Cuba, said Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who authored the amendment. Opponents of the measure said lifting the restrictions would help Castro by bringing much needed funds into the country. The best thing we can do right now is continue the pressure on Castro until he's gone, said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California. Castro told cheering supporters last month the measures were pitiless and inhumane and politically motivated ahead of November U.S. elections to placate the powerful Cuban American lobby in Florida, a state President Bush won by just 537 votes in 2000. ((Reporting by Anna Willard, editing by Todd Eastham; Reuters messaging: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 01-202-898-8309)
CUBA POLICY: HOUSE VOTE LAST NIGHT AND ACTION REQUESTS
July 8, 2004 Dear Cuba Policy Advocates: We have had a surprise victory! Last night the House of Representatives voted 221-194 to ban funding of the Commerce Departments section of the new Bush Administration Cuba regulations. The regulations under this department are: · Limit the amount of baggage that licensed travelers can carry to Cuba to 44 pounds of luggage (thus limiting humanitarian items that can be brought to relatives or people in need). · Limit the types of items that Cuban-Americans can send in gift parcels to their relatives. The regulations prohibit the sending of gift parcels that contain clothing, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing equipment, soap-making equipment, and veterinary medicines and supplies. Also, the sending of gift parcels has been limited to once per month per household, instead of once per month per individual. And parcels can go only to immediate family. This amendment, which was sponsored by Flake (R-AZ), Davis (D-FL), Emerson (R-MO), and Delahunt (D-MA), if it remains in the final bill, would prohibit the Department of Commerce from enforcing these regulations. Representatives from the Cuba Working Group and others are committed to rolling back all the new restrictions. This was the first opportunity that they have had. Here are some details, and several ACTION REQUESTS: * Final vote: 221 to 194 * 46 Republicans, 174 Democrats, and 1 Independent voted for the amendment * 11 of the Republican votes were from congresspeople voting with us for the first time, or who have not been consistent voters with us. If you are in their district, please drop an email (www.house.gov to find their email addresses) or call (202.234.3121 US Capitol Switchboard) to thank them: Bartlett (R-6th MD) Coble (R-6th NC) Cubin (R-At Large WY) English (R-3rd PA) Everett (R-2nd AL) Gilchrest (R-1st MD) Gutknecht (R-1st MN) McHugh (R-23rd NY) Petri (R-6th WI) Sensenbrenner (R-5th WI) Sherwood (R-10th PA) * 8 of the Democratic voters were from congresspeople voting with us for the first time, or who have not been consistent voters with us. If you are in their district, please drop an email (www.house.gov to find their email addresses) or call (202.234.3121 US Capitol Switchboard) to thank them: Brown, Corrine (D-3rd FL) Case (D-2nd HI) Green, Gene (D-29th TX) Herseth (D-AT Large SD) Kennedy (D-1st RI) Lucas, Ken (D-4th KY) Murtha (D-12th PA) Ortiz (D-27th TX) * On the other hand, we lost 14 Republican votes (members who had voted for the Flake travel amendment last year, but voted against this Commerce amendment). If you are in their district, please contact them to express your disappointment and ask why they voted against this measure: Brady (R-8th TX) Hall (R-4th TX) Herger (R-2nd CA) Isakson (R-6th GA) Issa (R-49th CA) Latham (R-4th IA) LaTourette (R-14th OH) Manzullo (R-16th IL) Nussle (R-1st IA) Terry (R-2nd NE) Toomey (R-15th PA) Weldon, Curt (R-7th PA) Whitfield (R-1st KY) Wilson, Heather (R-1st NM) * And we lost 5 Democratic votes (members who had voted for the Flake travel amendment last year, but voted against this Commerce amendment). Again, if you are in their district, please contact them to express your disappointment and ask why they voted against this measure: Boyd (D-2nd FL) Davis, Artur (D-7th AL) Gutierrez (D-4th IL) John (D-7th LA) McIntyre (D-7th NC) Please do what you can to respond to your members of Congress on this vote, and let us know about any explanations you get from your congressperson regarding a vote against this amendment. We'll be back in touch as new things develop. Sincerely, Mavis Anderson Philip Schmidt Latin America Working Group www.lawg.org
Relief convoy defies Cuba embargo
Relief convoy defies Cuba embargo The Associated Press Thu, Jul. 08, 2004 HIDALGO, Texas School buses and other vehicles loaded with medical and office equipment crossed the border into Mexico on Wednesday on a relief trip to Cuba that violates the U.S. embargo. It was the 14th consecutive year that Pastors for Peace, an American humanitarian aid group, has sought to bring supplies to the impoverished communist nation in spite of the embargo. It's a policy that has no redeeming value, said the Rev. Lucias Walker, a New Jersey pastor who founded Pastors for Peace, of the embargo. What we're doing is an act of civil obedience to a higher power that says you should love your neighbor. Border officials did not try to stop the nine buses, a truck and several minivans loaded with donations. The equipment was gathered by churches and other groups from 127 U.S. cities. In fact, customs agents and Hidalgo police blocked border traffic to allow the caravan to cross. However, they did hand out fliers warning that only three members of the group were authorized to travel on to Cuba and that the rest were subject to prosecution if they tried to travel to the island. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rick Pauza said the group was given a license to pass through customs into Mexico because of the type of equipment they were bringing. Molly Millerwise, spokeswoman for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which regulates U.S. travel in Cuba, declined to comment on whether the office would prosecute the group or its members. From Tampico, Mexico, the group planned to load the goods including the buses onto boats bound for Cuba. More than 100 volunteers planned to fly to Cuba to help church groups distribute the aid when it arrives. The U.S. embargo with Cuba is in its fourth decade. Last week, President Bush imposed more stringent restrictions on U.S. travel to visit family there, arguing that U.S. dollars only bolster the communist government led by Fidel Castro.
Re: oil found!
LOL. Well, Jim, the oil stock sell-offs for profiting-taking have already happened...so we've got to be talkin' negative fundamentals and expectations of earnings downgrades now. :) Devine, James wrote: MASSIVE OIL RESERVES FOUND INSIDE DICK CHENEY -- By Andy Borowitz. Bush Vows to Liberate Vice President Enormous reserves of petroleum rivaling those found in such oil-rich nations as Saudi Arabia and Djibouti have been discovered inside Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House confirmed today. Doctors at Walter Reade Hospital made the discovery of the massive reserves during a routine physical exam Wednesday, sending the price of crude tumbling by eight dollars a barrel. The discovery of bountiful petroleum reserves in Mr. Cheney's body could not come at a better time for the U.S., which had been facing the specter of soaring gas prices during the Memorial Day weekend. The White House, which had been reluctant to tap the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserves to ease the staggering price rise, seemed more amenable to exploiting the massive reserves inside Vice President Cheney. The time has come for a coalition of the willing to liberate Dick Cheney, President Bush said from the Rose Garden today. If Dick Cheney becomes democratic and free, democracy and freedom will spread to vice presidents everywhere around the world. But even as President Bush told reporters he was considering exploratory drilling in the southern region of oil-rich Cheney, the Vice President used an official statement to suggest he would balk at any proposal to insert an oil spigot into his body. You can't drill me if you can't find me, the statement read. In other news, Alan Greenspan accepted the President's nomination to serve another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which would extend his streak of fifteen years without forming a coherent sentence. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http:/bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine It takes a busload of faith to get by. -- Lou Reed.
Oil prices continue to retreat...as speculators locked in profits
[So with all that price control in the oil industry, speculation has finally moved from the usual risky profit making environment to a riskless one more akin to arbitrage. Buying low and selling high for a riskless profit for the select few who will have knowledge of the natural market force price movements BEFORE they actually naturally occur. Hmm? Insider trading, eh? Diane] Oil Prices Continue to Retreat Cautiously Wed May 19, 2004 08:57 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - World oil prices continued to retreat cautiously from record highs on Wednesday as speculators locked in profits, but traders said Middle East security fears and tight U.S. gasoline supplies kept losses in check. U.S. light crude (CLc1: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 22 cents to $40.32 a barrel by 1150 GMT, after sliding $1.01 on Tuesday as traders took profits from a rally to a 21-year peak at $41.85 at the start of the week. U.S. crude has traded above $40 for seven straight days. London Brent futures (LCOc1: Quote, Profile, Research) were down 25 cents at $36.70 a barrel, more than $2 off last week's 13-year high. This looks like a profit-taking retracement, at this stage I can't say it's anything more than that. It's a bit premature to say we've seen the highs, said Tony Machacek of Prudential-Bache brokerage. The fundamental situation that has brought NYMEX crude above $40 is still really with us. It's this fear factor of how the terrorist threat could affect supply to western markets, he added. The risk of a sabotage attack on oil infrastructure in the oil-rich Middle East region has driven up oil prices following bombings in Saudi Arabia and the disruption of exports from Iraq nearly two weeks ago. The approach of the U.S. summer driving season, when gasoline demand spikes as holidaymakers take to the roads, has also stoked prices as motor fuel inventories remain stubbornly low compared to past years. The market is keenly awaiting the U.S. government's weekly report, due at 10:30 a.m. ET, which analysts forecast will show a 1.8 million barrel increase in crude oil supplies and a 1.4 million barrel rise in gasoline stocks. Record high U.S. retail gasoline prices appear to have made little impact on driving plans this summer, when gasoline consumption in the world's biggest energy consumer account for 12 percent of global oil use. The U.S. AAA said on Tuesday that around 30.9 million travelers, up 3.9 percent from last year, were expected to drive 50 miles or more at the Memorial Day weekend at the end of May. We're right at the beginning of the driving season, there's still a lot of concern about gasoline stocks, said Machacek. PRESSURE MOUNTS With oil still over $40, major importing nations are boosting pressure on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to put more oil on the market for fear high prices may curtail global economic growth. There is an urgent need for an increase in the amount of oil being produced, the European Union's Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said on Wednesday. If it does not come about, we will clearly see that OPEC is not interested in oil price stability. OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro also said on Wednesday that these prices would hit consuming countries, but laid the blame on tight gasoline supplies, not a shortage of crude oil. Consumers will take their case directly to the cartel this weekend, at a biennial energy summit of leading producers and consumers. OPEC ministers attending the summit will meet informally this weekend to discuss a Saudi proposal to raise OPEC's output ceiling by at least 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd). The idea has been backed by some within the cartel, but many members have said final approval of a hike would wait for OPEC's formal meeting in Beirut on June 3. OPEC is already pumping more than two million bpd in excess of its formal ceiling, making some traders skeptical as to how much more oil can be tapped on short notice.
(opportunity) cost of the war in Iraq for the US so far...
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953 For an update on the cost (and opportunity cost) of the war in Iraq for the US only, see the following: http://www.costofwar.com/
Gap Inc. admits its poor work conditions
Gap Inc. admits its poor work conditions Associated Press Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 SAN FRANCISCO - In an unusual display of corporate candor, Gap Inc. on Wednesday acknowledged that many of the overseas workers making the retailer's clothes are mistreated and vowed to improve often shoddy factory conditions by cracking down on unrepentant manufacturers. The San Francisco-based owner of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic stores made the comments Wednesday in its first ever social responsibility report - a 40-page document that mixed contrition about the past with promises to do better. The worst and most persistent of the violations led Gap to end business with 136 of the 3,009 factories it uses in 2003. We feel strongly that commerce and social responsibility don't have to be at odds, Gap CEO Paul Pressler told shareholders Wednesday at the company's annual meeting. Gap uncovered thousands of violations at manufacturers scattered across 50 countries. Few factories, if any, are in full compliance all of the time, the report said. Workplace activists who have long chided Gap for making its clothes at so-called sweatshops praised the merchant for shedding light on rampant abuses that have haunted the clothing industry for years. We think this goes far beyond the public relations fluff that other companies put out a lot of the time, said Bob Jeffcott, policy analyst for the Maquila Solidarity Network, a workers' rights group in Toronto. By making some very candid admissions, they are taking an important first step toward cleaning up the problems. Gap's commitment is particularly significant because the factories supplying the merchant may employ 300,000 workers combined, estimated Bruce Raynor, president of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. We have had our differences with Gap in the past and probably will again, but this is something that deserves to be applauded, he said. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest company and a frequent target of sweatshop critics, plans to review Gap's report to get ideas on how it might improve conditions at the factories supplying its merchandise, said company spokesman Bill Wertz. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for Wal-Mart, Jeffcott said. Gap's report provides a geographic breakdown on workplace violations uncovered by more than 90 inspectors. The most frequent problems cropped up in China. Of 241 factories there rated by Gap last year, 73 plants received the company's two lowest grades. Sweatshop activists find that especially alarming because when quotas on apparel and textiles among World Trade Organization member nations expire next year, China is expected to become the global powerhouse of production. Unacceptably low pay is an especially widespread problem throughout the world. Between 25 percent and 50 percent of the inspected factories supplying Gap from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean paid their workers below the minimum wage at some point last year, the report said. A group of shareholders that collaborated with Gap - including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Domini Social Investments, As You Sow Foundation, Calvert Group, and the Center for Reflection, Education and Action - said it pressured the company to undertake the project. Gap did not just decide to do this out of altruism, said Conrad MacKerron, director of As You Sow's corporate responsibility program. Gap developed a Code of Vendor Conduct in 1996 prohibiting child labor, forced labor and discrimination, and protecting freedom of association and other rights. Its vendor compliance officers try to visit every factory, every year. Gap's report said some types of violations, such as freedom of association and discrimination, are especially difficult to uncover and prove. It believes these violations are more widespread than its data suggest. Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Bush bans most exports to Syria; oil flow could be slowed
Bush bans most exports to Syria; oil flow could be slowed By Associated Press Wednesday, May 12, 2004 WASHINGTON - President Bush is tightening the U.S. economic squeeze on Syria with a ban on all American exports to the Arab country except food and medicine. For years, Syria has been branded an exporter of terror by the State Department, which automatically prohibits U.S. arms sales and American economic aid. The executive order Bush signed Tuesday goes further in exacting punishment. Bush accused Syria of pursuing weapons of mass destruction and said that, coupled with its influence over Lebanon, represents an ``extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States. State Department officials emphasized what they said was Syria's approval for Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas to plot attacks on Israel from havens in Damascus Meantime, Prime Minister Tony Blair shares U.S. concerns about Syria, but will continue to pursue a policy of ``critical and constructive engagement,'' his office said Wednesday. Blair's official spokesman said the government shared concerns about ``WMD, terrorism, human rights and cooperation over Iraq.'' Both the Syrian and Lebanese governments criticized the decision as wrong and unfair, but Syria said it still seeks dialogue with the Bush administration Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the sanctions were ``wrong in content and timing'' and Syria will be able to withstand the ``new injustice.'' Syria has said it has closed the Damascus offices of Palestinian militants, who it insists are not terrorists but fighters resisting Israeli occupation of their homeland. The militants did lay low after Secretary of State Colin Powell visited last May and warned President Bashar Assad to expel them or face sanctions. After Israel assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March and another top leader in April, the group's new leader, Khaled Mashaal, started openly preaching revenge. In Friday's State Department briefing, the officials said under rules that barred identifying them that U.S. fuel oil imports from Syria, which amounted to about $200 million last year, could be decreased. While Syrian exports are not banned, American oil firms will be unable to import equipment from their factories in the United States, and this could complicate their operations, the officials said. Overall, the United States exported $214 million in goods to Syria last year and imported $259 million worth. In Damascus, Syrian officials minimized the significance of Bush's action. Still, Ahmed Haj Ali, media adviser to Syria's information ministry, said the political effects of the sanctions were much bigger than the economic ones. Diplomatic relations were not severed. State Department officials said one reason was to keep alive any lingering hope that Syria might join Middle East peacemaking efforts. Haj Ali said Syria was still committed to dialogue with the Untied States. The new sanctions include a ban on flights to and from the United States, although there is no current commercial air traffic between the two countries. Also, the Treasury Department was authorized to freeze assets of Syrian nationals and entities involved in terrorism, production of weapons of mass destruction, occupation of Lebanon or terror in Iraq. Restrictions were imposed on banking relations between American banks and the Syrian national bank. The sanctions go beyond minimum requirements of the Syria Accountability Act. That law, which Bush signed into law in December, provides the basis for his actions Tuesday. At the same time, the president chose not to take other, more drastic action under the law, such as barring American companies from doing business in Syria. ``President Bush did everything within his power to send a message through diplomatic channels that Syria should not support groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but it has continued to do so,'' said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House International Relations Middle East subcommittee. The United States is sending ``a loud and clear message to the leaders of Syria that we will no longer turn a blind eye to their transgressions,'' said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y, who co-authored the legislation with Ros-Lehtinen. ``The ball is now in Damascus' court.'' John Kerry, Bush's probable Democratic opponent in November's election, endorsed the sanctions but said Bush had waited too long to impose them. ``The administration had previously acknowledged that Syria has failed to adequately police its border with Iraq, may be developing weapons of mass destruction and provides support to terrorist groups,'' the Massachusetts senator said. ``Given all these troubling facts, it is unfortunate that President Bush failed to impose sanctions until now.'' ( © Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
Oil Mergers Blamed for High Prices
Oil Mergers Blamed for High Prices April 2, 2004 http://consumeraffairs.com/news04/gas_prices.html In the past decade, mergers in the oil industry have resulted in an uncompetitive domestic oil market that keeps gas prices artificially high for consumers while the top oil companies rake in record-setting profits, Public Citizen charges in a new report. If the same company owns every step of the process, from crude oil production to the gas station down the street from your house, it has utter control over the price people pay at the pump, said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. Making it worse is our government's lackadaisical approach to regulating these oil companies as they collect billions of dollars from every American who drives a car. The national public interest organization is calling on the U.S. government to fix the price crisis through increased oversight and regulation, as well as stronger fuel economy standards to reduce the United States' dependence on oil. The five largest oil companies operating in the United States are ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP-Amoco-Arco and Royal Dutch Shell. They control 14 percent of global oil production, 48 percent of domestic oil production, 50 percent of domestic refinery capacity, and nearly 62 percent of the retail gasoline market. These same companies also control 21 percent of domestic natural gas production. Since 2001, these top companies enjoyed cumulative after-tax profits exceeding $125 billion. This control enables oil companies to manipulate prices by intentionally withholding supplies. Indeed, a 2001 Federal Trade Commission investigation into high gasoline prices concluded that oil firms intentionally withheld or delayed shipping oil to keep prices up. However, the government has done nothing to end these uncompetitive practices. A decade ago, the top five oil companies controlled only 8 percent of global oil production, 34 percent of domestic oil production, 34 percent of domestic refinery capacity, 27 percent of the retail market and just 13 percent of domestic natural gas production. The lack of investigations into uncompetitive practices by these large companies may be explained by the more than $67 million the oil industry has contributed to federal politicians since 1999 - with 79 percent of those contributions going to Republicans, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Further, the energy legislation first developed in Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force and then largely written behind the closed doors of the congressional energy conference committee would do nothing to lower oil and gas prices. Instead, it contains more subsidies for oil and gas corporations. The stalled energy bill does nothing to address this worsening crisis, said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. In fact, as the legislation is currently written, these giant oil companies are the greatest benefactors, and consumers are the victims. The most effective way to protect consumers is to restore competitive markets. The Bush administration should take the following actions or seek congressional authority to do so if necessary, according to the report, available at www.citizen.org/documents/oilmergers.pdf.
Angola Set to Disclose Payments From Big Oil
Angola Set to Disclose Payments From Big Oil By HEATHER TIMMONS May 13, 2004 New York Times LONDON, May 12 - In a reversal of a longstanding policy, the Angolan government will disclose some payments it receives from oil companies that do business there, making the southwest African nation the latest to respond to pressure to make such compensation public. An Angolan government official is expected to disclose on Thursday that the country is receiving $300 million from ChevronTexaco at a deal-signing ceremony in Washington with the company's chief executive, David J. O'Reilly, three executives with knowledge of the agreement said. The deal extends Chevron's outstanding rights to the shallow-water oil and gas field known as Block Zero through 2030. Angola and other developing nations have been under scrutiny from human rights groups, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the British government to reveal what they receive from oil companies for access to national crude reserves. Angola has been trying to strengthen ties with the United States and foreign investors, and the payment announcement would come in the middle of Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos's three-day trip to the United States. He met with President Bush on Wednesday morning. The United States is the market for more than half of Angola's estimated production of 950,000 barrels a day. Angola's finance minister, José Pedro de Morais, disclosed the amount of the ChevronTexaco payment to Angolan media last week, and a spokesman for the oil company confirmed that an announcement was expected Thursday, but did not provide details. Mr. de Morais was unavailable for comment on Wednesday, a spokesman in Angola's Washington embassy said. What energy and mining companies pay governments for drilling rights has become a hot-button issue as resources in the developed world dry up. We are running out of places to find oil, said Karina Litvack, head of governance and socially responsible investment at ISIS Asset Management in London. Oil companies are starting to look for resources, she said, where the money the companies pay the government sometimes fuels corruption, instability or human rights abuses. By disclosing the amount it is being paid, Angola's government is setting a new standard for transparency, Ms. Litvack said. We are cautiously optimistic, said Ben Mellor, an official with Britain's Department for International Development. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain started the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, known as E.I.T.I., in 2001, and many international oil companies and shareholders groups have said they support the initiative's call for increased disclosure. Angola's decision to make public the money it is receiving from ChevronTexaco may represent a real turning point for the country, Mr. Mellor said. Nigeria and Azerbaijan had recently stepped up disclosure of payments they have received from foreign oil companies after receiving outside pressure. Angola, which emerged from nearly 30 years of civil war in 2002, is struggling with food shortages, a large debt, and high poverty and H.I.V. rates among its 10.8 million citizens. Human Rights Watch estimated that $4.2 billion in oil revenues were unaccounted for in Angola from 1997 to 2002. The government has said such numbers are misleading, but it is under intense pressure from outside agencies and foreign investors to provide figures. The goal is to make the government accountable for how it manages its resources, said Karin Lissakers, an adviser to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist. Mr. Soros supports Publish What You Pay, a campaign to encourage oil companies to disclose the payments they make to developing nations. Angola's expected announcement on Thursday is an important step, Ms. Lissakers said, but one hopes they will take the next step and adopt the E.I.T.I. standards for the whole sector. ChevronTexaco is the biggest foreign oil producer in Angola, and pumps about 400,000 barrels a day from the Block Zero field. The company operates Block Zero, and shares ownership with France's Total, Italy's ENI and Angola's government-owned oil company. ChevronTexaco is paying $210 million to sign the 20-year agreement, as well as $80 million to develop social programs in the region and another $10 million in production-related payments.
Bush administration alters gender issue web data
April 28, 2004 New York Times U.S. Deletes, Alters Gender Issue Web Data - Report By REUTERS Filed at 6:13 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has stripped information on a range of women's issues from government Web sites, apparently in pursuit of a political agenda, researchers reported on Wednesday. ``Vital information is being deleted, buried, distorted and has otherwise gone missing from government Web sites and publications,'' Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women, said in a telephone interview. ``Taken cumulatively, this has an enormously negative effect on women and girls.'' A council report said the missing information fell into four categories: women's health; their economic status; objective scientific data; and information aimed at protecting women and girls and helping them advance. The deletions and alterations appear to hew to a political agenda, rather than providing the nonpartisan, unbiased data that has been the tradition of U.S. government reports, the council said. Its report cited a fact sheet from the Centers of Disease Control that focused on the advantages of using condoms to prevent sexually transmitted disease; it was revised in December 2002 to say evidence on condoms' effectiveness in curbing these diseases was inconclusive. The National Cancer Institute's Web site was changed in 2002 to say studies linking abortion and breast cancer were inconsistent; after an outcry from scientists, the institute later amended that to say abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk. 25 PUBLICATIONS DELETED At the Labor Department's Women's Bureau Web site, the report said 25 key publications on subjects ranging from pay equity to child care to issues relating to black and Latina women and women business owners had been deleted with no explanation. Key government offices dedicated to addressing the needs of women have been disbanded, according to the report. These include the Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach in the White House and the President's Interagency Council on Women. At the Pentagon, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services was slated to be dismantled but was saved after an outcry. However, the report said this committee now focused on issues such as health care for servicewomen and the effects of deployment on families, but not on equity and access issues. In the area of scientific objectivity, the report said two advisory committees recommended the Food and Drug Administration approve a contraceptive known as Plan B as a nonprescription drug but were blocked by political pressure from doing so. Regarding violence against women, the report said the U.S. attorney general, as of March 2004, had failed to conduct and publish a study required under the 2000 Violence Against Women Act to investigate discrimination against domestic violence victims in getting insurance. The White House did not immediately return a call for comment.
More great quotes and placards from the March
Susan wrote: Lots of great signs too. My favorite: Get Bush outta my Bush! Over One Million March for Women's Rights and Reproductive Justice Organizers say yesterday's march was the largest in US history By Joel Stonington http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2004-04/articles/11165-1.html April 2004 Issue In what is being called the largest march in US history, over one million people marched in front of the White House to advocate for abortion rights, reproductive rights, women's right to choose, and social justice. The widely diverse marchers of different colors, nationalities, sexualities, and social classes held up thousands of signs, waved banners, and chanted while marching through the streets of Washington. Signs read, Who decides? and Keep Abortion Legal, while others took a slightly more creative route with slogans such as, Abort Bush in 2004, Ms. President, Why do social conservatives always want to get in your pants? and If you cut off my reproductive rights can I cut off yours? with a small picture of scissors. Dozens of politicians, actors, musicians, politicians, labor leaders, and others spoke before and after the march to a sea of people stretched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol Building. Senator Hillary Clinton, actor Ashley Judd, former Secretary of state Madeline Albright, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and musicians such as the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, and Moby all rallied the waves of cheering people. Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms Magazine, said, We are here out of love. Reproductive health is a fundamental right like freedom of speech. However, the march was also highly partisan, with speakers urging people to vote George W. Bush out of office in November. Linda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the 1970s television series, asked the crowd, What do you think Wonder Woman would say? I think she would say, 'Go back to Texas!' The speakers were alternately humorous and somber, recognizing the pain and difficulty of abortions, especially illegal abortions in other countries, and speaking about the need to keep abortion legal for the health of women. Actor Whoopi Goldberg, at one point, held up a coat hanger to a few moments of silence, This was choice, she said. To which followed resounding cries of, never again. The focus of the march was not just on abortion rights, significant attention was also paid to social issues such as education, after school daycare, poverty, and healthcare for women. Said Goldberg, Explain to me how, if you don't have family planning, you can bitch about abortion. A few hundred counter protesters attended the march, holding up signs reading, Turn from sin, and Go to church. While some marchers engaged the counter protesters with pleas such as, Bush lies to you and Go to hell yourself. For the most part, the decibel level of chanting was merely increased the volume of talking and chanting as a million people walked slowly by.
1,150,000 March on Washington, D.C...
1,150,000 March on Washington, D.C. to Voice Opposition to Government Attacks on Women's Reproductive Rights and Health Sunday April 25, 4:43 pm ET Official Crowd Count Largest Ever for Women's Rights Rally in The Nation's Capitol WASHINGTON, April 25 /PRNewswire/ -- An estimated 1,150,000 descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. today to give an urgent wake-up call to government leaders and the nation-women's lives are at risk and lawmakers stop intruding on a woman's right to access critical reproductive health services and make deeply personal decisions about her health and life. The March for Women's Lives was led by seven organizing groups: American Civil Liberties Union, Black Women's Health Imperative, Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Following are highlights excerpted from remarks given by the organization's leaders at the March: The government does not belong in our bedrooms. It does not belong in our doctors' offices. It does not belong in the bank accounts of innocent Americans, and should not have the power to monitor their e-mail, or track their bookstore purchases, or scrutinize the books they check out of local libraries, said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Our fundamental right to privacy is under serious attack by this government. This historic march is sending an unmistakable message: women's rights and women's lives are non-negotiable, stated Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. We are building an expanded and inclusive movement that will make women's reproductive rights-just like social security-a third rail of politics. My friends -- make no mistake. There is a war on choice. We didn't start it, but we are going to win it! said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. They're not just after abortion rights. This is a full-throttle war on your very health-on your access to real sex education, birth control, medical privacy, and life-saving research. My greatest wish is that there would never be another political debate about the right to choose, said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. But history teaches us that every right-no matter how basic-is always at risk. And I'm confident that the young people who have lead this march today will lead our movement in a new wave of activism that will keep the right to choose alive for the next generation. This March is a giant wake up call, said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). We won't go back to 1968 when women couldn't buy birth control; we won't go back to 1972 when women were dying from illegal abortions. We're marching for our rights before it's too late. The reproductive health of Black women is in a state of crisis. Black women are suffering and dying too often, too soon and needlessly, said Dr. Lorraine Cole, president and CEO of the Black Women's Health Imperative. When we leave here today, let's turn pain into promise, let's turn promise into partnership and let's turn partnership into power. We demand an end to coercive and punitive policies that prevent us from making informed decisions about our health, our lives and our futures! said Silvia Henriquez, executive director of the National Latina Institute of Reproductive Health. We envision a day when no Latina will live in a climate of fear and oppression, when every person has access to comprehensive and affordable health care. That is reproductive justice! Using standard crowd estimate methods, March participants were counted in designated grids on the National Mall, which are designed to hold a predetermined number of people. The March also verified this count by assigning 2,500 volunteers to stand at key entry points to the March area and at bus drop-off locations and count people by placing March stickers on participants as they entered these entry points. For more information on the March for Women's Lives, visit: www.marchforwomen.org
Re: Bush Rips up the Road Map
Ken Hanly wrote: Doesn't Bush's agreement to allow Israeli settlements to remain contradict UN resolutions? Nowhere in any articles have I seen a single reference to how UN resolutions fit into the picture. Has the UN made any statement on the matter. Hi Ken, Well, there is that quartet part of the Israeli-Palestinian roadmap peace plan, where progress into any of the 3 phases of the peace plan requires a consensus judgment of the quartet. The quartet is loosely defined as, representatives of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations, and the United States...and various quartet representatives are at obvious cross purposes with the new Bush-Sharon accord: EU: The European Union will not recognize any change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement between the parties. Russia: Road Map must be fully implemented UN: [a peace plan] should be determined in negotiations between the parties, based on relevant Security Council resolutions. George W. Bush: In light of new realities on the ground ... it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, Colin Powell in a damage-control statement: Frankly, those refugees should return to the new state of Palestine, which is what it was created for, not Israel. But ultimately, it's for the two parties to work this out among themselves, not for the United States to dictate. We were merely commenting on the reality, and it's a reality that people have known for years and years and years, and it's a reality the President felt it was important to speak to yesterday. But ultimately Israel has to reach an agreement with the Palestinian people not the quartet. I believe the quartet is planning to meet later this month. All best, Diane Text of the Israeli-Palestinian roadmap peace plan can be found at: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1410.shtml [ ] PHASE I: ENDING TERROR AND VIOLENCE, NORMALIZING PALESTINIAN LIFE, AND BUILDING PALESTINIAN INSTITUTIONS PRESENT TO MAY 2003 In Phase I. the Palestinians immediately undertake and unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel. Palestinians and Israelis resume security cooperation based on the Tenet work plan to end violence, terrorism, and incitement through restructured and effective Palestinian security services. Palestinian undertake comprehensive political reform in preparation for statehood, including drafting a Palestinian constitution, and free, fair and open elections upon the basis of those measures. Israel takes all necessary steps to help normalize Palestinian life. Israel withdraws from Palestinian areas occupied from September 28, 2000 and the two sides restore the status quo that existed at that time, as security performance and cooperation progress. Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report. [ ] PHASE II. TRANSITION JUNE 2003 - DECEMBER 2003 In the second phase, efforts are focused on the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, based on the new constitution, as a way station to a permanent status settlement. As has been noted, this goal can be achieved when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror, willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty. With such a leadership, reformed civil institutions and security structures, the Palestinians will have the active support of the Quartet and the broader international community in establishing an independent, viable, state. Progress into Phase II will be based upon the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties. Furthering and sustaining efforts to normalize Palestinian lives and build Palestinian institutions, Phase II starts after Palestinian elections and ends with possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2003. Its primary goals are continued comprehensive security performance and effective security cooperation, continued normalization of Palestinian life and institution-building, further building on and sustaining of the goals outlined in Phase I, ratification of a democratic Palestinian constitution, formal establishment of office of prime minister, consolidation of political reform, and the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders. [ ] PHASE III: PERMANENT STATUS AGREEMENT AND END OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT 2004 - 2005 Progress into Phase III, based on consensus judgment of Quartet, and taking into account actions of both parties and Quartet monitoring. Phase III objectives are consolidation of reform and stabilization of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security
Annan criticises Bushs shift in Mideast policy
Annan criticises Bush's shift in Mideast policy (DPA) 15 April 2004 NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized US President George Bush Wednesday for ignoring the concerns of the Palestinians by supporting Israel's right to some West Bank settlements. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the secretary-general reiterated his position that unresolved issues in a final Middle East peace deal should be determined in negotiations between the parties, based on relevant Security Council resolutions. He strongly believes that they (Israelis and Palestinians) should refrain from taking any steps that would prejudice or pre-empt the outcome of such talks, Dujarric added. The comments came after Bush took a shift in Middle East policy by endorsing Israel's right to hold onto some major settlements in the West Bank as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Bush made the announcement at the end of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Cuba signs $13m in US food deals
Cuba signs $13m in US food deals BBC NEWS http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/3624899.stm 2004/04/14 11:44:23 GMT Cuba has signed contracts for food and farm goods with the United States worth over $13m (£7m). About 300 US farming representatives are visiting Havana, hoping to make sales worth some $100m (£55m) during the three-day meeting. The four-decade long trade embargo between the US and Cuba has an exception which allows commercial sales of American farm goods. The meeting is organised by the Cuban government food import firm Alimport. The biggest contract announced on Tuesday, the first day of the meeting, was for $8.9m (£4.9m) worth of corn with Archer Daniels Midland of Decatur, in Illinois. Since 2000, when Cuba started to take advantage of the exceptional rule in the US trade embargo, farm product contracts worth $430m excluding costs have been signed, according to the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. Wheat, corn and rice were the biggest imports from the US, with other contracts of intent signed for eggs, lumber and cattle. Blockade Food production in Cuba is facing difficult challenges and Fidel Castro is keen to import foodstuffs from the US, despite his concern about the possible import of US political influence. Tourism is the country's main source of foreign currency, with foreign firms paying wages in dollars for each Cuban employee - although the government then passes on only a proportion of the pay in pesos. Wages for Cuba's 11 million people now average about $15 a month from official jobs, a sum many supplement with unofficial work in the tourist business for hard cash. US firms, however are banned from taking part in the tourist trade. Aside from the loophole for farming imports, US law bans its companies from trading with Cuba or investing in the island state under American economic trade sanctions, imposed in 1962 to isolate the government of Fidel Castro after he began accepting Soviet aid. But after four decades, many observers believe that ending the embargo would bring a flood of American business and tourists and weaken Castro's ideological grip on the country.
EU rejects U.S.-Israel move on Mideast borders
EU rejects U.S.-Israel move on Mideast borders IHT Thursday, April 15, 2004 BRUSSELS The European Union insisted on Thursday that there could be no unilateral change in Middle East borders after President George W. Bush said Israel could keep some Arab land captured in 1967. The European Union will not recognize any change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement between the parties, the Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen, said in a statement on behalf of the EU presidency. Cowen said the current international peace effort - in which the EU is a partner with the United States, Russia and the United Nations - emphasized that any settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must include an agreed, just, fair and realistic solution to the refugee issue. The Palestinian leadership gathered on Thursday for urgent meetings to decide how to respond. Bush's backing for Israel's retention of some West Bank settlements and his rejection of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to land they lost in Israel, undermined two of the Palestinians' foremost demands. We cannot accept any unilateral action from any place in the world, Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, told reporters as he arrived at the compound of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. These issues can be resolved only in the final status negotiations and by a decision by the Palestinian leadership, Qureia said. The Palestinian press on Thursday accused Bush of adding fuel to the fire of the Middle East conflict by capitulating to the demands of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a White House meeting. Bush has given Sharon everything that he wanted but he has certainly not demonstrated the evenhandedness and impartiality that the peace process requires, said an editorial in Al Quds. Palestinian leaders were sharply critical of the agreement announced on Wednesday, saying that Bush's support for Israeli positions dealt a crippling and perhaps fatal blow to what remains of current Middle East peace efforts. Qureia and other prominent Palestinians said Bush had gone further than any American president in backing Israel on the most contentious issues - Jewish settlements, future borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees. I believe President Bush declared the death of the peace process today, said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former Palestinian information minister. Abed Rabbo said the Bush administration wants to determine our future, and the future of the entire Middle East, by writing a prescription for the whole region. Bush also reaffirmed his support for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a future Palestinian state. But Palestinians focused on new positions Bush articulated in support of Israel. The president said Israel should not have to return to borders it held before the 1967 war, suggesting Israel could retain some settlements built on West Bank land. Bush said Palestinian refugees should be settled in a future Palestinian state, which would undercut their demand to return to their former land that is now part of Israel. For the first time, American policy violates the basic conditions for peace, said Hanan Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian legislator and spokeswoman. This kind of submission to extreme Israeli positions is really incredible. Palestinians said Bush's remarks on Wednesday will encourage Sharon to continue building settlements in the West Bank which would complicate the creation of a Palestinian state. Another highly sensitive issue for the Palestinians is the status of Palestinian war refugees who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948-49 war that erupted just after Israel's founding. Along with their descendants, the refugees now total some 4 million. Israel says a flood of refugees would undermine the Jewish character of the state, and has always firmly resisted any large-scale return. Bush sided with the Israelis, saying the refugees should be accommodated in a Palestinian state. (Reuters, NYT, AFP, AP)
Bush Rips up the Road Map
Bush Rips up the Road Map For the Record: 15 April 2004, Thursday. The Guardian By Suzanne Goldenberg President George Bush swept aside decades of diplomatic tradition in the Middle East yesterday, saying it was unrealistic to expect a full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied during the 1967 war or the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In a significant policy shift, Mr Bush relaxed Washington's objections to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and attempts by Israel to dictate the terms of a final settlement with the Palestinians. He told a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, that he was prepared to bless a plan to dismantle Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, while retaining Israeli control over substantial sections of the West Bank. These are historic and courageous actions, Mr Bush said about the Gaza withdrawal plan. If all parties choose to embrace this moment, they can open the door to progress and put an end to one of the world's longest-running conflicts. The concessions offered yesterday by the White House - extracted at a time when Mr Bush is desperate to counter the chaos in Iraq with a foreign policy success - appeared to go further even than Mr Sharon had dared hope. Israeli embassy officials said the US had backed a plan requiring Israel to withdrawal from only four token settlements in the north-west sector of the West Bank with a total of 500 settlers. They said diplomats had prepared four versions of withdrawal proposals, only for Washington to accept the initial one, which was least generous to the Palestinians. The agreement is bound to ignite anger in the Arab world, especially Mr Bush's rejection of a Palestinian right of return, which will have a direct impact on countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon which have substantial populations of refugees. For many, the right of refugees, and the descendants of refugees from the 1948 war, to return to what is now Israel is a sacred tenet. But Mr Bush appeared to rule out the prospect of even a limited number of refugees settling in the Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there rather than Israel, he said. Mr Bush appears to have distanced his administration from other principles that have guided Middle East diplomacy. These are the idea that the Palestinians and Israelis should arrive at a negotiated settlement - first promoted by his father, the first President Bush, in the Madrid accords of 1991 - and that when a final settlement emerged Israel would broadly adhere to UN resolutions and withdraw to its pre-1967 borders. The president said the wall being built by Mr Sharon across the West Bank should not be viewed as a political boundary, and that the eventual delineation of the borders of an Israeli and a Palestinian state would await final status negotiations. But he made it evident that the ground rules had changed, giving effective sanction to the Jewish settlement blocks that have been built throughout the West Bank since the 1967 war, and which traditionally were described by the state department as obstacles to peace. In light of new realities on the ground ... it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, Mr Bush said. The twin moves are likely to cause widespread outrage in the Arab world, which accuses Mr Bush of neglecting America's role as an honest broker. They could also reverberate on the Pentagon's attempts to put down the insurrection in Iraq. But they were welcomed by Tony Blair last night. A Downing Street statement said the international community, led by the quartet mediators - the US, EU, UN and Russia - must seize the opportunity to inject new life into the road map peace process. Israel should now coordinate with the Palestinians on the detailed arrangements, Mr Blair's statement said. The Palestinian Authority must show the political will to make the withdrawal from Gaza a success and to deliver on their road map responsibilities, especially regarding security. Washington's unfettered support for Mr Sharon was a godsend for the Israeli prime minister who had calculated that American backing could help him win over his right-wing Likud party to his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Mr Sharon envisages an evacuation from all 21 Jewish settlements in the strip as early as next year, but Israel will retain some military installations. Mr Sharon had struggled to convince the Israeli right about the withdrawal from the Gaza outpost, and was said to be elated at Mr Bush's backing. The Palestinian response was scathing. From Ramallah, a senior Palestinian figure, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said: Bush and
Conservation profitable in South Africa
[I visited the Shamwari and Addo reserves -- at night mostly -- several times during a visiting lectureship I had at Vista University-Port Elizabeth in the Summer of 2001. It was a truly wonderful experience to be maneuvering among animals -- and I do mean we were among them -- at peace and with sheer joy in their eyes. It was magnificent. I did manage to observe a black rhinoceros at one point...and the smallest constellation in the Southern Hemisphere: the southern cross (the perfect 54 star crux) Double magnificent! Northern Hemisphere Diane] Conservation profitable in South Africa By Steve Mitchell United Press International Published 4/15/2004 7:45 AM PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa, April 15 (UPI) -- Private game reserves and national parks in South Africa are helping restore once endangered species and at the same time proving conservation can be financially viable. As the parks reintroduce species such as elephants and lions that were endemic to the area 150 years ago, they also are learning valuable lessons that will improve conservation efforts in the future. But in some cases this information is not being documented and shared with other parks, a situation that concerns those involved in the efforts. We proved it can be financially sustainable, Johan Joubert, director of wildlife at Shamwari Game Reserve located just north of Port Elizabeth, told reporters during a recent meeting. Shamwari, one of the premier game reserves in South Africa, opened just 12 years ago, but in that short time it has enjoyed enormous success, seeing its African elephant and black rhinoceros populations grow at record rates and building a model for acquiring farmland that is economically beneficial to the surrounding community and helps prevent wildlife poaching. In this way, they are helping revert the land back to its original condition, when species such as elephants, zebras, lions and cheetahs thrived on it. Anban Padayachee, senior section ranger at nearby Addo National Elephant Park, said tourism has been proven to bring in nearly double the amount of money that could be produced by the same amount of land used for agriculture. On average, tourism brings in about $12 per hectare, while farming earns only about $7 per hectare, Padayachee said. Addo recently began a campaign to expand its territory, with the goal of ultimately encompassing 400,000 hectares, including a 120,000 hectare marine reserve on the coast. The economics of the game reserves might even be driving conservation unwittingly. Kariega Game Reserve plans to introduce lions and elephants into its park next month, and Louis Bolton, a game ranger there, said it is being done not so much for conservation reasons as it is for the necessary financial reality that they have to keep up with nearby parks such as Shamwari, which host lions, elephants and cheetahs and as such can draw more customers. Shamwari also charges more money per customer. A one-night stay at Shamwari's high-end lodge runs about $900, while a comparable stay at Kariega goes for $350. The downside is much of the economic success of these reserves is dependent on the global financial climate. The prices for accommodations at the lodges are so high most South Africans cannot afford them, so the parks' main customers are tourists from overseas. John O'Brien, group ecologist at Shamwari, noted the catastrophic terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, really hurt the parks because tourism went down. One park was forced to close due to lost revenue, O'Brien said. Shamwari has carefully monitored and studied each new species it introduced to help guide it in future efforts. But other parks are not being so meticulous and may be losing an opportunity to acquire crucial information for conservation efforts. It's very, very frustrating these reintroduction efforts are not being carefully documented and studied, a game ranger at a major reserve, who requested anonymity, told United Press International. I don't think (management) realize the magnitude of what they're undertaking, he said. This is their future. O'Brien said sharing what they learn from both the successes and mistakes is essential to improving conservation techniques in the reserves. We mustn't hide our failures, he told UPI. We learn more from those than from successes. O'Brien recounted a recent learning experience they had trying to reintroduce black rhinos to the reserve. The population was increasing with few losses, but one bull reacted negatively to this and went on a rampage and killed some of the members of the herd, apparently to create a deficit so his reproductive efforts and resulting offspring would be successful. We went public with that and once we did, other parks said that had happened to them but they had been keeping it quiet, O'Brien said. Padayachee said Addo publishes and shares its research, and that it was important the reserves do the same to monitor their reintroduction efforts
South Africa set to re-elect ANC ten years after apartheid
South Africa set to re-elect ANC ten years after apartheid 13 April 2004 JOHANNESBURG : Ten years after the end of apartheid, South Africa holds its third democratic elections on Wednesday with President Thabo Mbeki's ANC party set to sweep to victory. The African National Congress, which under Nelson Mandela ended decades of white minority rule, could even clinch a two-thirds majority in parliament and is waging a fierce battle to take the only two of the nine provinces where it does not hold sway. As they head to the polls on Wednesday, South Africa's 21 million voters will be reminded that despite poverty and AIDS, the country has fared well during its first decade of rebirth as a nation. Above all, it has managed to avert a civil war that was predicted when the apartheid regime was consigned to history in 1994, and has emerged as a stable democracy. The ANC will get decisive support from the population, Mbeki confidently declared during the campaign that saw little challenge to the governing party from the weak and fractured opposition. I was struck by the great mood of optimism among the people about the future of this country. They will tell you what the problems are, but there is great certainty that the situation will be better tomorrow, Mbeki said. Polls predict that the ANC could garner as much as 73 percent of the vote, up from 66 percent in the 1999 elections and 62.7 percent in 1994. While few fear violence on voting day, some 40,000 police have nevertheless been deployed at polling stations around the country, most of them in the volatile KwaZulu-Natal province. The Zulu-dominated province was the scene of violence in the runup to the 1994 elections, with some 12,000 people killed in fighting between supporters of the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party. The province is also one of the key battlegrounds, along with Western Cape province, where the ANC hopes to win a clear majority. South Africans will on Wednesday cast ballots to elect the 400-seat parliament and members to the legislatures of the nine provinces, choosing from a total of 37 parties including 21 fielding candidates on the national level. The new parliament will convene on April 23 in Cape Town to elect the president, with Mbeki widely expected to win a second and final term in office. Mbeki, 61, is seen as a pragmatist who, while lacking the charisma and magic of Mandela, has succeeded in keeping South Africa on an even keel as the continent's economic giant and power broker. As leader, he has been criticised for his late response to the AIDS crisis that kills 600 people a day, and his failure to persuade President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, South Africa's most important neighbor, to end his repressive policies. A survey released by the marketing and opinion poll company Markinor on the eve of the vote showed that Mbeki ranked first as South Africa's most trusted politician, well ahead of other politicians. The survey also revealed that a whopping 72 percent of respondents described themselves as ANC supporters, with that figure going up to 78 percent in the 18 to 24 age group. As he heads into a second term in office, Mbeki faces increasing pressure to deliver on AIDS and also to provide jobs and alleviate poverty as the euphoria surrounding the liberation gives way to more concrete demands for a better life. Mbeki himself has acknowledged that more needs to be done to tackle unemployment, officially at 31 percent, and to bridge the divide separating poor blacks struggling in shantytowns from affluent whites and black nouveaux-riches. Opposition parties have taken shots at the ANC for failing to live up to its promises of more housing and for its delayed reaction in the fight against AIDS but they have all seemed to accept the ANC's electoral victory as a foregone conclusion. Tony Leon's Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party, is expected to take just 10 percent of the vote. The New National Party (NNP), the successor to the National Party which for decades was the backbone of the apartheid regime, is fighting for its political survival in these elections after seeing its support base dwindle from 20 percent in 1994 to only 6.9 percent in the last elections in 1999. - AFP
University of Fear
APRIL 2 - 8, 2004 University of Fear How the Department of Homeland Security is becoming a big man on campus by Steven Mikulan Last September the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the first 100 recipients of its new collegiate financial-aid program. Grouped in the applied, social and behavioral sciences, the winners included 13 Californians. The undergraduate scholarships cover tuition and fees, along with a nine-month stipend of $9,000; graduate fellowships also cover tuition and fees, and come with a yearlong $27,600 living subsidy. All must be U.S. citizens and indicate a willingness to accept, after graduation, competitive employment offers from DHS, state and local security offices, DHS-affiliated federal laboratories, or DHS-related university faculty or research staff positions. At the time no one knew of these new Homeland facilities they didnt exist. But last November DHS announced a $12 million, three-year grant to the University of Southern California to establish, under the schools engineering department, the Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE). In April two new centers will open, concentrating on agro-terrorism, while other, long-established research facilities are falling under DHS control. And, in a little-publicized battle, a congressional bill championed by conservatives would require DHS or other security officers to be appointed to a new advisory board overseeing international studies and foreign-language programs receiving federal aid; it unanimously passed the House last October and is now steaming through the Senate. The speed and scope of DHSs financial-aid program, aimed at harnessing the nations scientific knowledge to protect America and our way of life from terrorists and their weapons of mass destruction, has been breathtaking scholarship programs can require a year to get off the ground, but the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education cobbled it together in a matter of weeks, using a pre-existing model. DHSs growing sugar-daddy role on American campuses is but one way in which the year-old security agency, formed in the wake of 9/11, has begun to leave a deep boot print on academia. Primed with a $70 million scholarship and research budget, DHS represents the biggest intrusion into Americas intellectual life by security agencies since the height of the Cold War. However, while the CIA surreptitiously worked its magic in the 1950s to control, say, the National Student Association, Praeger Publishers or Encounter magazine, DHSs influence is a broad-daylight affair. Only the Manhattan Project or Americas space program can compare to the commitment of federal resources and political will that have been lavished on the Department of Homeland Security, an amoeba-like bureaucracy formed by fusing 22 formerly independent agencies. Homeland, with the third largest civilian work force of the 15 executive-Cabinet departments, employs 183,000 people (including 1,500 lawyers) and commands a nearly $40 billion budget. Yet while the Manhattan Project and NASA narrowly targeted two specific goals (the building of the atomic bomb and the exploration of space), the war on terror is so amorphous, its enemy so indeterminate and DHSs technological goals so esoteric that the departments mission could conceivably run till the end of time without any gauge of success. To even question Homelands effectiveness one has to disprove a negative because, the reasoning goes, if its not raining hijacked jets and snowing anthrax, DHS must be doing its job. This makes Homeland a money magnet, one of the rare federal agencies for which Congress appropriates more funds than the president seeks. And, perhaps not surprisingly, most DHS directorate leaders without backgrounds in law enforcement, the military or CIA/FBI come from an array of iconic corporate and financial institutions including Coca-Cola, PGE, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Vivendi Universal S.A. and Corning Inc. Charles E. McQueary, who heads the Directorate of Science and Technology, is a former division president of defense contractor General Dynamics; Elizabeth Lautner, whom McQueary appointed to oversee the troubled Plum Island Animal Disease Center, is a former vice president of the National Pork Board. Furthermore, the security needs of such sector industries as oil, banking and real estate are catered to by DHSs Information Sharing and Analysis Centers. In one sense DHS is a 21st-century New Deal a New Deal, that is, for the military-industrial complex. Technology especially surveillance and detection technology is the name of the game at DHS, and so the largesse its Science and Technology Directorate has shown to college and university students is only fitting. Still, many jaws dropped when veteran research scientists first heard of DHSs Scholars and Fellows awards. Twenty-seven thousand, six hundred dollars for a grad student is
DR Congo massacre investigation
[Also, Rwandan President Paul Kagame urged the UN to disarm the rebel insurgents that have crossed over into DR Congo who he says are the same rebels involved in the 1994 massacre in Rwanda (the Tutsi took power ending the massacre of nearly one million people -- mostly tutsi -- while Hutu extremist groups escaped to DR Congo). Tribal armed militias and the Congolese Rally for Democracy within DR Congo appear to be involved as well. Two articles below, Diane] * 13/04/2004 UN to step up Congo massacre investigation AFP The United Nations says it would send more investigators to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after bodies were found in shallow graves near the site of a reported massacre. Reports that at least 25 people had been killed in three days of carnage in the village of Lukweti last month are followed by the discovery of the corpses in the past few days. Spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard says the bodies are coming out of the mud in Lukweti, north-east of Goma in the province of North Kivu. The discovery comes after what she describes as a rebel attack in which around 150 homes were also burned down. The UN says the attackers have been variously identified as rebels involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, tribal militias allied with the previous DRC government and partisans of the main rebel movement, the Congolese Rally for Democracy. Additional investigators will head to the Lukweti region next week. * 13/04/2004 Tension between bitterly opposed ethnic groups in northeastern DRC remains high By Francois-Xavier Harispe AFP Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo - Tension between bitterly opposed ethnic groups in northeastern DRC remains high as the United Nations force there anxiously grapples with the problem of thousands of armed militia waiting to be disarmed. About 15 000 combatants - including 600 children - in the volatile Ituri province are twiddling their thumbs in holding camps without any aid while the Kinshasa authorities decide their future. They are beginning to get restless, and of course survive by extortion activities in nearby communities, one UN official from the mission in the DRC (Monuc) said.
U.S. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS--BAGHDAD
[Below is, indeed, a political commentary trying to make a point on certain issues in a new way. I realize these issues are sensitive ones and I am sorry if the below is offensive to anyone. Neil Wollman; Ph. D., North Manchester, IN 46962; [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Wollman, Neil J. Sent: Fri 09-Apr-04 7:02 AM To: Monaco, Diane K. Subject: BREAKING PRESS CONFERENCE: U.S. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS--BAGHDAD 4/8/04 8:00 AM; Press briefing, U.S. military headquarters, Baghdad: Good morning. Let me say first that we are making real progress in securing Iraq, as I tell you everyday. But you can never get too secure, so I want to announce a new set of measures that will bring true peace and security to all of Iraq. Starting tomorrow we will begin our latest military campaign against the insurgency, Operation: Kill them all. Were not pulling any punches this time. I realize that I said after Saddam Husseins capture that we had cut off the head of the enemy and that the body would soon follow. And after we conducted house searches and halted many insurgent operations, I told you that we had cut off the knees of the enemy. Well this time well pluck his eye out, go for the jugular, and just generally shake him up. See if he gets up after that! One advantage is that now our intelligence has pinpointed the enemy. Its those dead-ender Saddam extremist terrorists, taking commands from Saddams disguised messages he still sends from his cell. But dont count out those has-been foreign Islamist extremist terrorists. Of course, to be honest, we cant rule out the internal Iraqi Islamist extremist terrorists. Forget about militants and guerillas. We can report that intelligence has ruled out any involvement from Iraqi nationalists who just dont like occupiers, period. If they attack us, they must be terrorists. So, were making progress. I cant repeat too often, anyone who likes us is a good guy and anyone who doesnt like us is a bad guyplain and simple. We will find the bad guys and get rid of them. Remember, they are the bad guys and we are the good guys. We are the good guys and they are the bad guys. They are the good guys and we are the bad guys. Any questions? OK, lets move on. Heres another new policy I think youre going to appreciate. Each day we will double the reward for the capture or killing of that bald, wacky looking guy, the former right hand man to Saddam. Well do the same for the lead foreign Islamist terrorist and the lead internal extremist terrorist---whoever they might be right now. When reward figures reach the total U.S budget for 2004, we will drop the reward back to a $1 and start again. Folks can either hand in their terrorist for a smaller amount or gamble by holding onto them longer for the big jackpot---but they risk losing it all. Well they still get a dollar and a game. Of course, this whole reward thing sounds strange to me. My suggestion was posters saying, Turn in a terrorist; its the right thing to doand its the law. But everyone else told me to get real. But let me shift gears a bit. You know, all this talk about weapons of mass destruction even gets me feeling a little insecure. So we will soon start a new operation to find WMD. It will be called Operation: Wheres WMD and will be loosely based on the Wheres Waldo series of puzzles. We will widely distribute puzzles with drawings of chemical and biological weapons hidden among other figures. Anyone who can circle all the weapons will be assigned a leadership role in our next hunt for real WMD. I realize it seems strange that after a year not one scientist or military officer can point to one such weapon However, cases of mass memory loss after traumatic invasions have happened before. Dont worry, well find the weapons; but please dont even hint that we might plant them ourselves. Why do that, with the size rewards were offering I might plant them myself if I was in the private sector! Just joking. Finally, we will extend the secure Green Zone holding the U.S Command to the entire country. We will put up a large walllike the Gaza one-- around the whole country. That will keep out undesirables. All homes will be searched continuously and folks will be detained if they are suspicious looking (i.e., looking Arabian). And you may remember that many months ago we decreed that all weapons had to be handed in. Well, we plan to issue that decree again. When it doesnt work this time, well go around ourselves and gather all 10 million weapons still lying around the country. I didnt see the right to bear arms in the new constitutiondid you?. In conclusion, we still continue to make progress every day. Because of that, we know that those against us will be increasing their attacks. Who knows, by the time we have really brought peace and stability to the country, there might be so much violence here that no one can go outside. Never-the-less, we feel that our new plans will make us all more secure. And if
Israel to retain 5 West Bank settlements: Sharon
Israel to retain 5 West Bank settlements: Sharon 13 Apr 2004 10:41:38 CBC JERUSALEM - Israel plans to expand five settlements housing almost half of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Israel's prime minister said. Ariel Sharon, who will meet with U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday, released the final part of his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank just hours before he left for Washington. Sharon is seeking White House approval for his disengagement plan. The five West Bank settlements Sharon intends to keep are Maaleh Adumim, Givat Zeev, Etzion, Ariel and Kiryat Arba. These are places that will remain under Israeli control and that will continue to grow stronger and develop, Sharon said during a visit to the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement, Maaleh Adumim. About 93,000 of the 220,000 West Bank Jewish settlers live in the five settlements. About 7,500 Jewish settlers live in Gaza. Bush said Monday he will accept the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as long as the U.S.-backed road map to peace still goes ahead. If [Sharon] were to withdraw from the Gaza, it would be a positive development, said Bush. It's not known if Bush will approve Sharon's plans for the West Bank. According to the terms of the road map, both sides must agree to the future of Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians call Sharon's plan a land grab and have demanded a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and the West Bank. Roughly 200,000 members of Sharon's Likud party will vote on his plan on May 2. Polls suggest the party is evenly split on the plan but Sharon is hoping support from Bush will sway the vote in his favour. Party officials changed the vote date from April 29 because that was the same date as a key European basketball championship game and they were worried about low voter turnout. Copyright © 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved
Caricom calls for UN probe of Aristide's ouster
[So the Bush Administration wants to move forward on the framework outlined by the Caribbean Community for moving forward on a democratic and constitutional resolution to the situation in Haiti. Well, CARICOM is talking Diane] Caricom calls for UN probe of Aristide's ouster AP Thursday, March 04, 2004 Caribbean leaders yesterday called for a United Nations-led investigation into Sunday's ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the Haitian presidency, a declaration that is likely to offend the United States whom Aristide accused of effectively kidnapping and shunting him out of Haiti. At the same time, Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders continued to brand Aristide's overthrow as unconstitutional and said that it "set a dangerous precedent to elected governments everywhere". The leaders, at the end of a summit here yesterday, decided to defer consideration of Haiti's future in the 15-member regional grouping until they meet again later this month and they have had time to assess the interim administration that emerges in Port-au-Prince. Yet they signalled their commitment to the Haitian people and the country's long-term participation in the Community, which Haiti joined in 1998. Caricom though warned that rebels, including death squad leaders who led an insurrection against Aristide, should not be part of the interim government. ".No action should be taken to legitimise the rebel forces nor should they be included in any interim government," the leaders said in a statement. "The heads of government also agreed that the issue of relations with the interim administration would be the subject of urgent review at the upcoming inter-sessional meeting of the Conference (of Caricom Heads of Government)." In fact, Jamaica's Prime Minister P J Patterson told reporters yesterday that Haiti's continued participation in Caricom would depend on what transpires there in the next few days."(Caricom) was not prepared to deliberate with thugs, anarchists and persons with reputations contrary to the tenets of civil society," he told reporters. With suspicion running deep over America's role in Aristide's removal, the leaders made clear that their countries would not participate in the US-led Interim Multinational Task Force, which the UN Security Council authorised for Haiti on Sunday, but said that Caricom would be part of a "follow-on" stabilisation force which would provide humanitarian assistance and help to rebuild the Haitian economy, civil society and democratic structures. Surprisingly, though, there was no formal mention in the official end-of-summit statement of Caricom's effort to forge a common approach to the Haitian crisis with South Africa, with whose president, Thabo Mbeki, the Caribbean prime ministers had spoken on Tuesday. However Perry Christie, the prime minister of The Bahamas, explained at a news conference that Mbeki was interested in countries inside and outside the region working together "for the betterment of Haiti as well as Aristide's political asylum". Patterson, who is the current chairman of Caricom, called the two-day summit - attended by six leaders - in the wake of Aristide's ostensible resignation and departure from Haiti early Sunday night after weeks of street protests by the formal Opposition, which was buttressed by an insurgency led by men who previously ran right-wing death squads or were involved in past coups. Caricom, a trade and economic group of small regional states, felt betrayed by the United States, France and Canada, which backed away from their initial support of its proposal that would have involved Aristide sharing power with the Opposition. Instead, they joined the Opposition calls for Aristide to resign and leave the country. Regional leaders were further angered that these countries refused to support a UN-peacekeeping force for Haiti after the rebels took over several towns and cities, but yet pushed through the authorising resolution at the Security Council only hours after Aristide's departure. Caricom's suspicion of the attitude of the troika deepened on Monday when Aristide claimed from the Central African Republic, where he is in temporary exile, that he was forced to write a letter of resignation, forced out of his home and placed on a plane by US forces, heading into exile in an unknown destination. The United States has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that it was Aristide who asked for US help to get him out of the country to prevent a bloodbath. "Heads of government were deeply perturbed at the contradictory reports surrounding the demission from office of the constitutionally-elected president," the regional leaders said in a communiqué. "These concerns were heightened by public assertions by President Aristide that he had not demitted office voluntarily. Heads of government called for an investigation under the auspices of the United Nations to clarify the circumstances leading to his relinquishing of the presidency." The leaders did not say
Administration too quiet in wake of Haiti upheaval
Administration too quiet in wake of Haiti upheaval By JESSE JACKSON The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 3/3/04 So much for all that talk about democracy. President Bush dispatched Marines to Haiti to secure order -- after his administration forced the elected leader of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, into exile. Now the administration will determine who gets to run Haiti. For the Bush administration it was clear: The Haitian voters had put their faith in the wrong man, so he had to go. President Bush then ridiculously announced that the "Haitian constitution is working," as if words could turn night into day. The U.S. government never liked Aristide. The neo-cons loathed him as a messianic dreamer who believed in redistribution of wealth. The ideologues of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank disdained him. The CIA's covert operators viewed him as an ideological adversary. The Haitian elites enlisted lobbyists from both parties to undermine him. The Haitian military, which he disbanded, despised him. The Papa Doc death squad murderers loathed him for stripping them of power. So when the Haitian "opposition," led by that same elite, fed the thugs, former death squad killers, gun-runners and drug dealers that formed the armed rebellion against Aristide, the United States did nothing. The toppling of a democratically elected president -- however flawed his administration -- should not be treated as business as usual. We need congressional hearings to probe the administration's role in this. Was the CIA connected to its former agents who were leading the rebellion? Were the neo-cons who run Latin America for the State Department signaling the Haitian opposition that the United States wouldn't stand by Aristide? Did Bush hold off any assistance to Aristide in order to force his exit? This coup sends a chilling message to leaders across the world. Turns out all that rhetoric about supporting democracy as a centerpiece of U.S. policy is just words, not policy. This administration values governments that protect private investment and stability for U.S. multinationals. Stable dictatorships are preferred to unstable democracies. It runs up massive trade deficits and maintains cordial relations with the Communist dictatorship of China, but topples Haiti's elected president. As we learned in Florida four years ago, Bush is all for elections, but only if they come out the right way. Jesse Jackson is a Democratic Party activist based in Chicago. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what youre looking for faster.
Democrats Slam Bush Administration over Aristide Ouster
March 4, 2004 Democrats Slam Bush Administration over Aristide Ouster by Jim Lobe The Bush administration's role in facilitating the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide came under sharp and sustained attack by Democrats in Congress Wednesday, while leaders of the of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) called for an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to his exile aboard a U.S.-chartered jet Sunday. In an unusually rancorous hearing of the House Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee, Democrats repeatedly assailed the administration for failing to intervene last week to protect Aristide's government against a rebellion by former military and paramilitary officers notorious for human rights abuses, particularly after Aristide had accepted the terms of a U.S.-backed CARICOM proposal to share power with his opposition. Sen. Christopher Dodd sharply questioned the administration's position that Aristide's resignation was voluntary. ""It is indisputable based on everything we know," he said, "that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the united States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who (were) threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a voluntary decision to leave." Once Aristide accepted the CARICOM proposal, both he and CARICOM called upon the international community to immediately deploy troops to halt the insurgency. Washington, however, said it would only support sending troops if the opposition which has repeatedly refused to engage in any negotiation with Aristide since his election in 2000 also accepted the proposal. When the opposition rejected it, Washington urged Aristide to resign and leave the country. Only then did it begin deploying troops to Haiti pursuant to a hastily approved resolution of the UN Security Council Sunday afternoon. Washington's tactics clearly infuriated the CARICOM leaders. "We cannot fail to observe that what was impossible on Thursday could be accomplished in an emergency meeting on Sunday President Aristide having departed from office," said Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who had led the mediation effort at Washington's behest. Patterson also noted that Washington failed to involve or consult with CARICOM regarding Aristide's departure. He warned that Aristide's ouster and the role played by Washington in facilitating it risked creating a "dangerous precedent" for all democratically elected governments in the region, a warning echoed Wednesday by Democrats on Capitol Hill. On Capitol Hill Wednesday Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stated angrily that people throughout the Americas were "watching this government turn its back on democracy." He told Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega during Wednesday's hearing: "The message is clear: this government will not stand up for a democratically elected head of state they do not like." For his part, Noriega insisted that Washington had not forced Aristide to leave the country, as the ousted president has since alleged. And he insisted that the U.S. was under no obligation to protect the ousted leader, insisting that "it wasn't a sustainable political solution to merely prop him up." "We have to make decisions about where we will put American lives at risk," he insisted, adding that, in Washington's view, Aristide "was not a reliable interlocutor." But in a floor speech Tuesday evening, Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democrat's ranking expert on Western Hemisphere affairs, charged that U.S. actions may also have violated the three-year-old Inter-American Charter on Democracy, a U.S.-backed document that requires its signatories to come to the aid of any democratically elected government in the region that is threatened with being removed by unconstitutional methods. "President Aristide, a democratically elected president, made that request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance," said Dodd, "In fact, we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for him to depart." "When governments are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity...then I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these international documents, signed only three years ago...", he said. Jamaica's Patterson also questioned the legitimacy of Washington's role, saying that Caribbean leaders, after speaking with Aristide from his temporary exile in the Central African Republic, were not convinced he had resigned "voluntarily." It was on that basis, he said, that CARICOM wanted to see an investigation carried out under the auspices of independent international body, such as the United Nations. He said the group, of
Re: Administration too quiet in wake of Haiti upheaval
Jim, he's "en route" so to speak. I believe he has a good friendship with Thabo Mbeki...so perhaps he's en route to South Africa...but of coursethey're dealing with elections at the moment. Who knows? Belize does sound nice nevertheless :) Diane "Devine, James" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: does anyone know why Aristide would go to the Central African Republic, of all places? did he have any choice? (If I were he, I'd go somewhere else, such as Nigeria or Belize.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
An Open Letter About Emergency Contraception
[please forward widely] The FDA expert panel recommended overwhelmingly making EC an over the counter drug (no prescription), but for political reasons the FDA seems to be hesitating. As disturbing, most women do not know about EC, confuse it with RU-486 (the abortion pill), have no idea how to obtain it; many doctors and clinics are unavailable to prescribe on short notice; and many pharmacies don't stock it. Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 From: Katha Pollitt An Open Letter About Emergency Contraception by Katha Pollitt and Jennifer Baumgardner The one thing that activists on every side of the abortion debate agree on is that we should reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. There are 3 million unintended pregnancies each year in the United States; around 1.4 million of them end in abortion. Yet the best tool for reducing unwanted pregnancies has only been used by 2 percent of all adult women in the United States and only 11 percent of us know enough about it to be able to use it. No, we aren't talking about abstinence--we mean something that works! The tool is EC, which stands for Emergency Contraception (and is also known as the Morning After Pill). For thirty years, doctors have dispensed EC off label in the form of a handful of daily birth control pills. Meanwhile, many women have taken matters into their own hands by popping a handful themselves after one of those nights--you know, when the condom broke or the diaphragm slipped or for whatever reason you had unprotected sex. Preven (on the market since 1998) and Plan B (approved in 1999), the dedicated forms of EC, operate essentially as a higher-dose version of the Pill, compressed into two tablets. The first dose is taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex, the second pill is taken 12 hours later. EC is at least 75 percent effective in preventing an unwanted pregnancy after sex by interrupting ovulation, fertilization, and implantation of the egg. If you are sexually active, or even if you're not right now, you should have a dose of EC on hand. It's less anxiety-producing than waiting around to see if you miss your period; much easier, cheaper and more pleasant than having to arrange for a surgical abortion if you end up pregnant and don't want to be. These websites will help you find an EC provider in your area: www.backupyourbirthcontrol.org www.not-2-late.com ec.princeton.edu/providers/index.html Don't wait until you're in a crisis. Your doctor may not be able to see you in time, and other doctors may not want to deal with walk-ins. Many clinics and doctor's offices are closed on weekends and holidays--the most likely times for unprotected sex. If you live in a rural area, the logistical difficulties--finding the doctor, finding the pharmacy that stocks EC--are compounded. Plan ahead! Forward this information to anyone you think may not know about backing up her birth control and print out the info in this e-mail if you want to organize as part of the EC campaign (or do your own thing and let us know about it). Let's make sure we have access to our own hard-won sexual and reproductive freedom! Seven Things You Need to Know About Emergency Contraception ? EC is easy. A woman takes a dose of EC within 72 hours of unprotected sex, followed by a second dose 12 hours later. ? EC is legal. ? EC is safe. It is FDA-approved and supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Women's Association ? EC is not an abortion. The two pills you take are not RU-486, the abortion pill, which can be taken up to nine weeks into a pregnancy. EC does not work if you are already pregnant and will not harm a developing fetus. Anti-choicers who call EC the abortion pill or chemical abortion also believe birth control pills, IUDs and contraceptive injections are abortions. ? EC works. It is at least 75 percent effective in preventing an unwanted pregnancy after sex, but before either fertilization or implantation. According to the FDA, EC pills are not effective if the woman is pregnant; they act primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation, and/or by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova (thereby inhibiting fertilization), and/or altering the endometrium (thereby inhibiting implantation). ? EC has a long shelf life. You can keep your EC on hand for two years, according to the FDA. ? EC is for women who use birth control. You should back up your birth control by keeping a dose of EC in your medicine cabinet or purse. What You Can Do to Help Forward this e-mail to everyone you know. Post it on lists, especially those with lots of women and girls. Print out this information, photocopy it to make instant leaflets
Uganda's northern rebellion
BBC News 23 feb, 2004 Uganda's northern rebellion The attack which left more than 200 people dead in northern Uganda has been blamed on the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, which has been trying to overthrow the government for 18 years. Some one million people have fled their homes and last year a senior United Nations official said it was the worst humanitarian situation in the world. Who are the Lord's Resistance Army? The rebels are led by the mysterious Joseph Kony, who was part of a previous rebel force in northern Uganda. He has said that he wants to rule Uganda according to the Biblical Ten Commandments. But the rebel practice of abducting schoolchildren, forcing the girls to be sex slaves and the boys to be brutal killers flies in the face of Christian teachings. He also says he is fighting for the rights of the region's Acholi people, against percieved discrimination by the government. However, residents of the north bear the brunt of the fighting and the LRA does not have much popular support, although many do agree that they are being ignored. Why can't the army defeat them? Guerilla armies are notoriously difficult to completely wipe out - as even the powerful United States military has found. Hopes were high that the LRA might be defeated in 2002, when Sudan allowed the Ugandan army to pursue the LRA across the border, where the rebels had their rear bases. But the fighters responded by increasing their attacks in Uganda. Uganda has recently renewed its accusations that the rebels are being armed by Sudan. MPs in the north say army leaders have become corrupt and are using the war to get rich. Recently there has been a big scandal of ghost soldiers where large sums of money were reportedly claimed for soldiers who were no longer on the army pay-roll and an investigation has been opened. Correspondents say foot soldiers have become demoralised and have lost the stomach to fight. Local self-defence militias have been formed but they are not well armed and there were just 30 of them when 200 rebels attacked at the weekend. How much of Uganda is affected? At first, the LRA confined its attacks to the north but last year, they spread to parts of the east as well. More than one million people have fled their homes and every night, many thousands abandon their villages in rural villages for the relative safety of big towns. What is the international community doing to help? Aid agencies are delivering relief supplies to the displaced but the camps where they work are increasingly becoming targeted by the LRA. Last year, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda was worse than anywhere else in the world. The government continues to insist that the army can defeat the rebels. Is anyone trying to find a peaceful solution? Some northern Ugandan religious leaders are trying to mediate between the rebels and the government, which has offered an amnesty to fighters to lay down their arms. But so far, neither the carrot of the amnesty nor the army stick has managed to end the misery of those living in the area. Appeals for international help have borne some fruit though. In January, after talks with the government, the International Criminal Court in the Hague announced plans to investigate the LRA for war crimes.
Activists Break the Law in Support of the Morning-After Pill
[Two articles below from the protests on February 15. Diane] Activists Break the Law in Support of the Morning-After Pill A Crime of Compassion by Jennifer Block February 15th, 2004 8:45 PM NEW YORK CITY?Five feminists committed a crime in broad daylight this afternoon before some 100 cheering accomplices at Rockefeller Plaza, and they blamed the Food and Drug Administration for making them do it. The offense? Giving a friend the emergency contraceptive known as the morning-after pill, which is still only available by prescription. It remains off-limits without a doctor?s note despite 20 years of scientific data showing it to be safer than aspirin, according to activists. Women should not have to rely on luck to control their reproductive lives, declared Erin Mahoney, one of the chief conspirators of the post-Valentine's Day action and co-chair of the NOW-NYS (National Organization for Women) Reproductive Rights Task Force. Mahoney then raised a pill in her fist, demanded that the drug be available over-the-counter, and handed it (illegally) to the next speaker. We're just making public what women already do, said Alexandra Leader, another organizer and chair of the feminist group Redstockings Allies and Veterans, in an interview prior to the action. Mahoney, Leader, and a dozen others spoke out to the crowd of women and men about doctors refusing to prescribe it, pharmacists refusing to carry the drug, and the ordeal of getting a quick appointment at Planned Parenthood just to obtain a prescription. Stephanie Morin, a law student and member of the task force, recalled an ex-boyfriend's annoying habit of losing the condom during sex and being deemed irresponsible when appealing to the campus infirmary. Beyond simply demoralizing women, such obstacles mitigate the effectiveness of the drug, which works best in preventing an egg's fertilization and implantation within 24 hours of intercourse. More than 400 other women around the country joined the conspiracy, said organizers, signing a pledge to give a friend the morning-after pill on February 15?or any day they need it, and Dr. Linda W. Prine was on hand at the New York rally to aid and abet. She wrote out prescriptions?with twelve refills?to anyone who asked, including this reporter. I also provide abortions, said the local family practitioner, so I know what women go through when they have an unplanned pregnancy. I'm here because I want to prevent that in any way I can. The MAP Conspiracy pledge was delivered last week to FDA commissioner Mark McClellan, who had been due to grant or deny over-the-counter status to Plan B, manufactured by Barr Laboratories, by February 20 but announced on Friday that he was delaying the decision for 90 days. The pill, not to be confused with the home-abortion drug RU-486, is essentially a megadose of the same hormones contained in ordinary birth-control pills, but is much safer, with nausea as the only common side effect. It?s stocked on drugstore shelves in 38 countries, including Canada. On December 16, 2003, two separate FDA advisory committees recommended that Plan B make the leap to being over-the-counter; they are supported by the editorial pages of some 60 newspapers, 76 members of congress, and more than 70 feminist groups and health organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. How often do you get organized medicine saying 'You shouldn't have to come to us to get this drug,' said Richard Gottfried, chair of the New York State Assembly Health Committee, at today's rally. The committee has sponsored a bill that would make MAP over-the-counter in New York, but it has yet to survive the state Senate. Also supporting the action was Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who relayed through a spokesperson: It seems that the FDA has thrown the cold, hard, scientific facts out the window to bow to political pressure. They've injected ideology into a scientific matter, and it's going to hurt women's health in the long run. Article published Feb 16, 2004 Local activists urging pill be sold over the counter When Stephanie Seguin lived in France, she said, she was surprised to see government officials enter a bar late one night and hand out condoms and morning-after birth control pills. After returning to Gainesville, Seguin was angry when she found that obtaining the morning-after pill in the United States, where it is a prescription drug, was difficult for her. Seguin and about 20 other women, many of them members of local activist groups, gathered Sunday on University Avenue and pledged to share the morning-after pill with each other. The action was part of a national campaign to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve over-the-counter sales of the drug. The FDA had been expected to make a ruling on the matter this week. On Friday, however, the company that makes the pills,
NEEDLESS DELAY: Stop foot-dragging on access to morning-after pills
Houston Chronicle Feb. 16, 2004, 2:53PM NEEDLESS DELAY Stop foot-dragging on access to morning-after pills It was a mistake for the Food and Drug Administration to put off approval for over-the-counter sales of emergency contraceptives. Not to be confused with the controversial abortion pill RU-486, morning-after pills prevent rather than cause abortion. Except for appeasing foes of abortion, who should welcome morning-after pills, there is little reason to further delay convenient access to this important medication for women. The FDA is under intense political pressure to maintain prescription status for brand-name emergency contraceptives Plan B and Preven. The agency was set to decide whether to allow over-the-counter sales, but that decision now has been pushed back to May, even though an advisory panel in December overwhelmingly recommended making morning-after pills more widely available as a safe way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and hundreds of thousands of abortions. Emergency contraceptives have been proved safe and effective at preventing pregnancy over decades of use by women in the United States and in countries where it is available in drugstores. The drug can serve as backup birth control in the event another contraceptive fails or be used after unprotected sex. Store sales of morning-after pills would help rape victims who are unwilling to seek immediate medical treatment skirt pregnancy and avoid the risk of having to make a painful abortion decision. This medication must be taken within 120 hours of intercourse and is most effective when taken as quickly as possible after unprotected sex. Finding a doctor to write a prescription in time can be difficult for many women. Offering easier access to emergency contraception will help make every child a wanted child.
BP profits soar 42 percent; Q4 figure disappoints
BP profits soar 42 percent; Q4 figure disappoints 10 February 2004 Agence France Presse LONDON : British energy giant BP reported record 2003 profits which rose 42 percent helped by high oil prices and a multi-billion dollar joint venture with Russian firm TNK.But a one-percent rise in fourth-quarter profits missed analyst expectations, fanning investors caution towards the oil sector in the wake of disappointing results from Anglo-Dutch rival Royal Dutch/Shell last week.BP's profits, excluding one-off items, acquisition costs and changes in the value of the company's oil inventories, rose to 12.38 billion dollars (9.69 billion euros) last year from 8.72 billion in 2002.In the fourth quarter, the figure increased by a more modest one percent to 2.67 billion dollars, below consensus forecasts of 3.01 billion.BP shares lost 3.4 percent to 412.25 pence in early deals.The increased earnings reflected the impact of higher oil and gas prices and a full quarter of profits from TNK-BP, the 7.7-billion-dollar joint venture sealed last year to create Russia's third-largest oil producer."Crude oil prices continued to strengthen in the fourth quarter, adding around one dollar per barrel compared with the third quarter to average 29.43 dollars," said BP chief executive John Browne."Underlying oil demand appears to be strong on the back of global economic recovery and the ongoing economic boom in China, and has been growing faster than oil supply outside OPEC," he said in a statement accompanying the results.The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries appeared to have increased its production modestly in the fourth quarter, despite the 900,000 barrels per day quota cut that it introduced from November 1, Browne added."We expect that future oil prices will largely depend on OPECs ability to realign production in line with seasonal requirements."Browne gave investors some reason to cheer as he announced BP will resume its share buyback programme."Our focus is now on delivering the growth in free cash flow of which we believe our portfolio is capable. We intend to restart our share buyback programme this quarter, subject to market conditions," he said. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
The Truth About the Reagan Deficits
The Truth About the Reagan Deficits Washington Post By Linda BilmesTuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23 The Bush budget announced last week shows revenue falling some $500 billion short of projected spending. Is this a cause for alarm, or is it true that, as Vice President Cheney reportedly asserted, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter"? Fans of Reaganomics note that former President Ronald Reagan's spending spree followed a formula similar to President Bush's: tax cuts combined with a major boost in defense spending. The current Bush deficit is equal to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. The Reagan deficits grew beyond 5 percent. The aftermath in the 1990s was not a fiscal train wreck but rather a sustained economic boom that enabled President Bill Clinton to balance the budget and even to generate a surplus by 2000. Bush is hoping the nation will outgrow its recent deficits as we did last time around. Unfortunately, history is not about to repeat itself. The ability to recover from the 1980s deficits was the result of three historical "flukes" that happened at the same time: a huge demographic bulge, an extremely strong dollar and a sudden peace dividend. The first fluke was the baby boom. When Reagan took office, the boomer generation had already entered the workforce and was approaching peak earning years. Those peak earning years turned into peak spending years. Savings dropped, consumer credit rose and boomers snapped up new cars, cool appliances and second homes as if the good times would never end. While the affluent workforce swelled, the percentage of the population aged 65 and above stayed steady. By 2000 it had inched up to 12.4 percent of the population from 11.3 percent 20 years earlier. Consequently, there were more high-earning workers to support a fairly stable number of retirees. This enabled Congress to increase the amount of "entitlement" payments (Social Security and Medicare) and to leave eligibility criteria intact. The contrast with the upcoming 20 years is stark. By 2020 the over-65 percentage of the population will have grown to more than 16 percent while the working-age population will have declined. The fastest growth is among the very elderly (those over 85). Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs (such as veterans' benefits) already account for more than half of federal spending. On top of this, the Bush administration has added a hugely expensive prescription drug benefit for the elderly. If no changes are made to eligibility for the programs, they will, by 2020, gobble up virtually all federal tax revenue. The extremely strong dollar during the post-Reagan era also is unlikely to be repeated. Reagan's tax cuts in 1981 came at a time of double-digit interest rates and tight monetary policies. In the 1990s overseas investors had a voracious appetite for U.S. stocks and bonds that fueled demand for the dollar and made it easy to finance the deficit. The stock market soared, making boomers feel they could have it both ways -- swelling 401(k) plans and a new Mercedes in the driveway. Today the mood is more sober. Foreign investors' love affair with the United States is over. With short-term interest rates lower than they have been in a half-century, the dollar is weak and getting weaker. At the same time the Treasury will have to find buyers for an ever-increasing supply of bonds to fund the deficit. Finally, the nature of the military buildup under Reagan was very different from the current war on terrorism. There is one similarity in that, then as now, U.S. intelligence failed to predict events. In 1980 almost no one outside the Soviet Union foresaw the coming collapse of the "evil empire." But it happened -- presenting President Clinton with the opportunity to cut back the size of the military and to plow that "peace dividend" into balancing the budget. Looking ahead at the continuing war on terrorism, the amorphous nature of al Qaeda, the cost of rebuilding Iraq and the continued homeland security challenges confronting the United States, it would be foolhardy to count on this kind of peace dividend again. So the likelihood is of red ink spreading as far as the eye can see. And the knife twists even further. Conventional calculations of the budget deficit include the money being paid into Social Security today. Because there are currently more working-age contributors than claimants, the Social Security account is in "surplus." Strip that out and the true underlying deficit is more like $720 billion than the $521 billion quoted in this week's speeches. The policy options all are politically difficult: canceling the Bush tax cuts; cutting defense costs; exiting Iraq and Afghanistan quickly; increasing the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare, and negotiating with the drug companies to require lower prices for Medicare drugs (as Europeans and Canadians have done for decades). But as in a 12-step program, the most important
Social Security Reform to Drive Up Debt -White House
Social Security Reform to Drive Up Debt -White House By Adam Entous Reuters 2/9/2004 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's economic advisers said on Monday adding personal retirement accounts to Social Security would send the nation's debt soaring over the next three decades. Tapping the bond markets to pay for private accounts proposed by Bush's Social Security Commission would increase the nation's debt-to-GDP ratio by 23.6 percentage points by 2036, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said in its annual Economic Report of the President. Democratic critics said there could be dire economic consequences for letting the debt-to-GDP ratio rise from this year's 38.6 percent to as high as 62.2 percent -- a nearly two-thirds increase to the highest level recorded since the early 1950s in the aftermath of World War II. Under this scenario, the debt held by the public would increase by as much as $4.7 trillion. But the new government bonds would be repaid 20 years later, eliminating Social Security's unfunded liability while reducing the tax burden in the long term, advocates say. "The economic report illustrates that the long-term fiscal position of the government would improve if Social Security reform were enacted," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, who insisted Bush has yet to settle on a plan to reform the retirement system or on a means to finance it. The Council of Economic Advisers said increasing borrowing to finance the transition to private accounts was not a problem from an economic perspective. While the deficit would increase initially, it would fall as the reforms are phased in. At its peak in 2022, the incremental deficit increase would be less than 1.6 percent of gross domestic product, they said. By comparison, Bush is projecting this fiscal year's deficit at 4.5 percent of GDP and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 38.6 percent. "Since the budget surpluses forecasted a few years ago have not materialized, critics argue that adding personal retirement accounts to Social Security is impossible or impractical," the report said. "In reality, the need to add resources to the Social Security system is no less pressing now that the surpluses have disappeared; indeed, it may be even more so." UNDER FIRE OVER DEFICITS Bush is already under fire over record deficits, expected to reach $521 billion this year alone, and Democrats have warned that the nation's mounting debt load could become a drag on economic growth. A senior Democratic congressional aide warned the debt would push up interest rates. While it may be designed to save Social Security in the long run, the aide warned, "The patient may be dead by then." Gregory Mankiw, who chairs the White House council, acknowledged persistent budget deficits "do tend to raise interest rates. ... That is one of the reasons why getting the budget deficit down is an important priority." Though Republicans who control the U.S. Congress see little chance of passing Social Security reform in a presidential election year, the estimates could revive debate over Bush's plan to let workers redirect a portion of their payroll taxes into personal stock or bond accounts. Under the model analyzed by the Council of Economic Advisers, workers could voluntarily redirect 4 percent of their payroll taxes up to $1000 annually to a personal account. Bond proceeds would make up for diverted payroll tax funds and shore up the Social Security system. Bush opposes raising taxes or requiring additional contributions from workers. The bonds would be gradually paid off using future savings from Social Security as benefits growth slowed. But Buchan said: "We've made no decisions about how the transition to personal accounts would be financed." Bush advisers had once hoped to use budget surpluses, projected in 2000 at $5.6 trillion over 10 years, to fund the transition period. Today, the White House expects the budget shortfall to total $1.35 trillion through 2009 and government debt to rise from $8.1 trillion to $10.5 trillion, forcing Bush's economic advisers to look at alternatives. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
Feb 15: Women Demand Morning-After Pill Over-the-Counter
ACTION: Feminists Pledge to Break the Law! Women Demand Morning-After Pill Over-the-Counter NOW! In Gainesville, FL Sunday February 15, @11am Meet in front of the Civic Media Center (1021 W University Ave) In New York City, NY Sunday February 15, @1pm Rockefeller Plaza on 5th Ave, near 49th st. If not in FL or NY, hold a press conference and give out the Morning-After Pill with other women. Contact us, we can try to help you with press release and publicity samples. In the tradition of Margaret Sanger, who broke the law to give women birth control when it was illegal, feminists will gather on February 15th (the day after Valentine's Day) to defy the prescription requirement and give their friends the Morning-After Pill. Over 300 women have signed the pledge to give a friend the morning-after pill on this day, including Kim Gandy, President of NOW; Patricia Ireland, former President of NOW; Byllye Avery, founder of the National Black Women's Health Project and the Gainesville Women's Health Center; women's liberation movement veteran Carol Giardina; the Feminist Majority's Ellie Smeal; and writer and feminist Katha Pollitt. With less than two weeks until FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan-a right wing Bush appointee-decides whether this safe, effective, essential method of birth control will be sold over-the-counter, women across the country are uniting to pressure the FDA. Please join us for the passing of the pills and a speak out about why we need the morning-after pill over-the-counter NOW. Women who pass or recieve the Morning-After Pill dose will be conducting civil disobedience, but if you come to watch and support them - you are not breaking the law. We women will wait no longer. For more information contact Stephanie at 352-380-9934 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] or in NYC contact Alex 212-989-2109. To add your name to the Give Your Friend the Morning-After Pill pledge email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
oreo cookie federal budget
[from a student...you may have to wait a bit for the high-bandwidth animation. Diane] www.TrueMajority.org/oreo
House votes to extend unemployment benefits
House votes to extend unemployment benefits From Ted BarrettCNN Feb 5, 2004 WASHINGTON (CNN) --Thirty-nine Republicans crossed party lines to join Democrats in approving a six-month extension of unemployment benefits to about 375,000 people whose regular benefits have run out. But passage may be little more than symbolic because opposition from GOP leaders is expected to prevent the measure from ever becoming law, which means unemployed workers are unlikely to receive the benefits, lawmakers from both parties predicted. Democrats hailed the vote to extend the temporary federal unemployment insurance benefits, which was attached to an unrelated bill dealing with community block grants, as evidence there is majority support in the GOP-controlled House for the extension -- an issue Democrats have pushed for months. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, dismissed the vote as a "clever political stunt" designed to give the Democrats fodder for the campaign season. "Sometimes people vote for political reasons," DeLay said about the GOP defections. "It's more important to provide jobs than unemployment." A Republican aide said the extension is not needed because the economy is improving and the unemployment rate is down. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
Kerry all but owns Michigan
Kerry all but owns Michigan BY KATHLEEN GRAY AND PATRICIA MONTEMURRI DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS February 5, 2004 U.S. Sen. John Kerry's commanding advantage in polls leading up to Saturday's Michigan caucuses has diminished the state's once-heralded status as a must-win state. Two of the top Democratic presidential contenders have given up campaigning in Michigan. Candidates John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark on Wednesday wrote off campaigning in Michigan before Saturday's caucuses to focus on Tennessee and Virginia primaries Tuesday. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who was once the front-runner in the state, today visits Flint, Royal Oak and Detroit to help counter comments he made Tuesday that he was conceding the state to Kerry. Kerry, of Massachusetts, plans to campaign Friday in Detroit, Warren and Flint, but that's not enough for Detroit's mayor and the local NAACP president, who warned the candidates not to put too much stock in poll numbers. Detroit "is probably the most Democratic city in the country and to not come here, to not participate during this caucus, I think is pathetic and ignorant," said Kilpatrick, who likes Dean but hasn't endorsed a candidate. "Michigan is the home of the Reagan Democrats. It's the home of organized labor. It's the home of an 80-percent-plus African-American city that wants to be engaged," said Kilpatrick. But it may not matter anymore. Just two days left until Michigan's Democratic presidential caucuses, and where are the candidates? Where are the ads? Where is the buzz? "Michigan is moot and I hate saying that, because it discourages people from showing up to vote," said Craig Ruff of the Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants. "But it certainly smells like the candidates have ceded Michigan to Kerry." Kilpatrick and the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, urged all contenders to show up at a town-hall meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight at Detroit's Northwest Activities Center. Dean and the Rev. Al Sharpton are the only candidates planning to attend. Anthony was upset about that. "You can't diss us in the winter and expect to come back and kiss us in the fall," he said. More than 90 percent of Detroit voters supported the Democratic presidential ticket in 2000. Kerry and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio have campaign events scheduled in Detroit on Friday. Kerry and Dean have both campaigned in Washington state this week for the state's caucuses, also on Saturday. Maine has caucuses on Sunday. Kerry is expected to win in Maine and Washington. Edwards' Michigan campaign spokesman, Brad Anderson, said his candidate's schedule wouldn't bring him to Michigan because of campaign commitments in Tennessee and Virginia, which have primaries Tuesday. Anderson said the North Carolina senator's schedule decision meant no disrespect to Michigan's African-American voters, and said Edwards got significant support from black voters in his South Carolina victory and in other states. "This is not about dissing the African-American community," said Anderson. Edwards "feels he has more time to get his message out in states like Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin." Dan Kildee, cochairman of Clark's campaign in Michigan, said Clark never expected to win Michigan. He said it makes more sense for Clark to campaign in Tennessee, where he has a chance to win. Kilpatrick said of Edwards' decision: "He's making a big mistake and it's going to kill his campaign." Ed Sarpolus of the Lansing-based polling firm EPIC/MRA said Edwards' message could resonate with Michigan voters. "Skipping a visit to Michigan is a mistake. The populist message for the black community and his focus on issues appeals to young, college-educated women," said Sarpolus. His firm's polling of 300 likely caucus voters showed the Kerry runaway is for real, with Kerry at 58 percent, Dean at 13 percent, Edwards at 12 percent and Clark at 7 percent. Sharpton and Kucinich had negligible support. Other political observers described the absences of some candidates as misguided. Michigan's 154 delegates "are the highest total of this presidential contest so far," said Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Melvin Butch Hollowell. "It's a mistake for Edwards and Clark to skip the state. . . . "Our voters want to see your face and look into your eyes." While disappointing, the lack of face-time in Michigan is understandable, said Ruff of Public Sector Consultants. "You have to play a type of guerrilla warfare and pick and choose the areas where you have the best opportunity to win," said Ruff. Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, supports Edwards, although his union has not issued any endorsement. Gaffney said Wednesday he wouldn't second-guess Edwards' campaign strategy. Gaffney said polls indicate a race for second place between Edwards and Dean. And he said Dean could show strongly because he is backed by three
$2.4 trillion US budget to boost defense spending
$2.4 trillion US budget to boost defense spending FEBRUARY 03, 2004 REUTERS WASHINGTON : President Bush proposed a $2.4 trillion election-year budget on Monday that would boost defense spending, slash 128 programs and seek to cut this year's record deficit in half - a goal even fellow Republicans were skeptical he could achieve. The White House acknowledged it would need up to $50 billion in extra money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year. This would be on top of the $400 billion military budget and would potentially shatter his deficit reduction aims. After inheriting a surplus, Bush has overseen a dramatic worsening of the budget picture. He hopes to improve his fiscal image before the November election by laying out plans to reduce the record $521 billion deficit by a third next year and in half between 2007 and 2009. To get there, he is asking Congress to terminate 65 major programs and reduce another 63, reserving the bulk of new federal spending for homeland security and defense while making his tax cuts permanent. Among those to be scrapped - a $149 million public housing program and a $171 million Commerce Department advanced technology program for businesses. The White House still expects the budget shortfall to total $1.35 trillion through 2009 and government debt to rise from $8.1 trillion to $10.5 trillion, prompting warnings from Democrats that chronic deficits would crowd out private investment, drive up interest rates and slow economic growth. We went through a recession, we were attacked and we're fighting a war. These are high hurdles for a budget and for a country to overcome and yet we've overcome them, Bush said of his budget, which would cut funding for about half of the 15 Cabinet-level agencies. He said he was confident his deficit targets would be met, but Democrats and Republicans alike expressed doubts and said they were bracing for a bitter fight between the White House and Congress that could stretch through the campaign season. Florida Republican Rep. Bill Young, the House of Representative's chief overseer of federal spending programs, said austere spending limits would not significantly reduce the deficit. The numbers simply do not add up. Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina , the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said it was neither credible nor realistic. In line with his campaign priorities, the budget's biggest winners will be homeland security with a nearly 10 per cent rise and the military with nearly 7 per cent. Defense contractors including Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. stand to benefit as Bush's $401.7 billion military budget increases spending on missile defense and on modernizing the Army. To placate conservatives threatening a revolt, growth of other discretionary spending would be capped at 0.5 per cent. Because that is well below the inflation rate, it amounts to a cut in domestic programs and the lowest growth since 1993. Among the hardest hit were agriculture, transportation, environmental and small business programs. Housing advocacy groups warned that Bush's budget would reduce by 250,000 the number of families receiving aid. Education would get an overall 3 per cent boost - not enough, Democrats say, to fulfill Bush's election-year pledge to improve school performance. AIDS advocacy groups said he would cut assistance by almost two-thirds to the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Bush has set the goal of bringing this year's record $521 billion shortfall down to $364 billion in fiscal 2005, to $241 billion in 2007 and then to $237 billion in 2009. There is no talk of surpluses in the foreseeable future. While a record in dollar terms, a $521 billion shortfall would still be less than levels seen in the early 1980s when viewed as a percentage of the size of the US economy. In a preview of election-year battles, Democrats scoffed at Bush's plan to stem the red ink while asking Congress to make permanent his tax cuts and warned of painful cuts in popular programs from veterans' medical care to law enforcement. It's the most anti-family, anti-worker, anti-health care, anti-education budget in modern times, and it doesn't deserve to pass, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. Fiscal conservatives accused the White House of relying on gimmicks, like stretching the definition of homeland security to sidestep its own spending limits, and want much deeper cuts. He's moving in the right direction but we need to go further, said Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Pat Toomey, the leader of one group of conservatives. Bush also omitted money to reform Social Security - a key plank of his re-election campaign. Some business tax breaks favored by Republicans will also be reined in while the costly reform of the alternative minimum tax which hits middle income taxpayers is to be put off.
U.S. budget shows debt cap will be hit by October
U.S. budget shows debt cap will be hit by October Reuters, 02.02.04, 7:17 PM ET WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The Bush administration's proposed 2005 budget shows the federal debt ceiling set by Congress is expected to be pierced by October, setting up a possible confrontation between Capitol Hill and the White House. In the 2005 budget proposal, the debt subject to the congressionally set limit is expected to total $7.486 trillion by the end of the current budget year, which is Sept. 30. That would be about $102 billion above the $7.384 trillion limit set by Congress in 2003 and could force Treasury to seek another tax hike -- a politically tough task in an election year -- or to take accounting measures to get around the limit, as it has done before. The federal government's fiscal 2005 starts on Oct. 1, 2004. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office said it expected the debt ceiling to be hit sometime between July and September. A Treasury spokeswoman, however, said the agency has not yet officially changed its forecast of when the ceiling will be reached, which for some time has been a period between April and October. Based on current projections, it may be more like June to October, said spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton. The debt subject to the limit, which includes debt sold to meet budget shortfalls as well as debt held in government trust funds, will rise to $10.545 trillion in the 2009 budget year, according to the budget estimates. When Bush came into office in 2001, the debt subject to the limit stood at $5.646 trillion. As of Friday, Jan. 30, it stood just beneath $7 trillion. Treasury also said on Monday it expected to borrow from capital markets a net $252 billion in the first six months of 2004 after a record borrowing of $113 billion in the last three months of 2003. Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service
2004 military spending 47 percent of total Federal outlays
Where your income tax money really goes. http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm [27 percent]: Current Military, $459B:Military Personnel $99B, Operation and Maintenance $133B, Procurement $68B, Research and Development $58B, Construction $6B, Family Housing $4B, Retired Pay $39B, DoE Nuclear Weapons $16B, 50% NASA $8B, International Security $7B, 60% Homeland Security $16B, misc. $5B Note: President Bush does not include any funds for the war on terrorism or the war on Iraq in this budget, which he expects to request later as supplemental funding. [20 percent]: Past Military, $345B: Veterans? Benefits $63B; Interest on National Debt (80% estimated to be created by military spending) $282B
Sudan's devastating war fails to register on world's radar
Sudan's devastating war fails to register on world's radar Posted: 02/01 From: AFP By Beatrice Debut TINE, on the Sudan-Chad border, Jan 29 (AFP) -- A war that has been raging for nearly a year in western Sudan has practically escaped the international community's notice, despite heavy civilian casualties and the flight of more than 100,000 people to neighbouring Chad. Most of the world's attention on Sudan is focussed on talks aimed at ending a much larger, older civil conflict in the south, between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). In the western Darfur region, where a rebellion erupted in February 2003 -- two decades after the main war in the south broke out -- world leaders don't see any urgency, as they do when there are 30,000 refugees gathered in the same place, explained Nuria Serra, a coordinator with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Back in September, before fighting intensified, estimates for the number of dead in the conflict ranged from 3,000 to 7,000. According to the UN, some 600,000 people inside Darfur have been displaced. Often the makeshift camps they set up come under attack from militias backed by the government. MSF is the only international aid agency providing medical facilities, including trauma surgery, for those who reach Chad to the thousands of refugees fleeing daily bombing raids on the Sudanese side of the border. There is no international mobilisation. It's a scandal, lamented Peter Casaer, also with MSF. In all, there are less than 40 foreign aid workers in eastern Chad, according to Yvan Sturm, the regional operations manager for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. You don't have big groups of refugees coming in one spot, which speaks more to the public, is more attractive for the press, being very visual for the media, added UNCHR spokeswoman Helen Caux. People cross the border by small groups but the (overall) number is there, it's significant, she said. In December, when some 30,000 Sudanese fled to Chad, one of the world's poorest countries, the UNHCR spoke of the region's forgotten emergency. Conditions for rebels and aid workers alike are harsh. There is little in the way of food, water, shelter or power along the border, where those who fled the war are dotted along a 600 kilometre stretch. There are no regular flights between Chad's capital, Ndjamena, and the border. Planes sometimes fly to Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad, but only have room for five passengers. To reach the border by road from Ndjamena takes a gruelling, bumpy, dusty two-and-a-half days. When rains come in June, the roads become impassable. In late December, the World Food Programme launched an urgent appeal for 11 million dollars for Chad. As of last week, just 800,000 dollars had been pledged, by Switzerland. The crisis has the potential of a real disaster if the international community doesn't assist, warned Robbie Thomson, who works for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Other aid workers agreed. It's going to get worse, said Sturm. For the time being, local solidarity works well, but we are coming to a time when the Chadians are using up their food stocks, he added. Last week, Khartoum made a show of sending humanitarian supplies to Darfur, but it is not authorising aid workers to travel there. There is widespread optimism that talks in Nairobi between Khartoum and southern-based rebels will result in a comprehensive peace accord very soon, ending Africa's longest running civil war and opening the doors to millions of development and investment dollars. The people of Darfur, meanwhile, are suffering in silence.
War, terror hunt puts environment on hold
02 Feb 2004 10:09:36 GMT War, terror hunt puts environment on hold By Jeremy Lovell LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The Iraq war and the anti-terror offensive have put environment issues on hold globally, but crucial decisions are coming up that for the sake of the planet must not be avoided, a leading environmentalist said. Foremost among these is ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions -- a contentious document that some say is too weak but which the United States has rejected outright and over which Russia is dithering. Ratification or rejection by Russia of Kyoto would be a defining moment for humanity this year, Tony Juniper, head of the British branch of international pressure group Friends of the Earth told Reuters. Kyoto is the key. If we don't sort that out, a lot of other environmental programmes will be fatally undermined, he added in an interview. Rejection by Russia would cripple the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions by eight percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It will be a bad blow if Kyoto runs into the sand. The Protocol is a small step but a crucial one. It is a start. The longer we wait, the worse it gets and the harder it will be to put it right, Juniper said. We should already be getting down to discussing the second phase targets for the treaty by now, but it has not even been ratified yet, Juniper said. He said sceptics believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin, rather than being deeply concerned about the effects on the environment or industry of Kyoto, was simply waiting to see whether the United States would offer more for him to reject it than the European Union would for him to ratify. There is no fixed deadline for Russia to ratify but it is widely assumed that if it does not do so this year, it never will. Either way, Putin is not expected to make any move before his expected re-election next month. ARM-TWISTING ABILITY But while Kyoto and the whole issue of climate change will be crucial in 2004, many others are vying for attention, from world trade and the environment to bio-diversity and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). There has been quite an important shift in global political alliances which was highlighted by the failure of the World Trade Organisation talks at Cancun last September, Juniper said. For the first time there the larger developing nations like Brazil, India and South Africa stood together against the big industrialised nations. It was a turning point, he added. The United States was trying to use its superpower status to pick off smaller nations one at a time in bilateral trade talks, but had to remember that there was a limit to its arm-twisting ability. We will have to see where that goes. But it is important to realise that U.S. world power depends on a functioning world economy. It can't have it all its own way, Juniper said. There was also likely to be some movement on GMOs, with the Europeans showing signs of bowing to U.S. pressure to permit imports of modified maize and Washington perhaps taking legal action against any attempt to insist that foods containing GMOs be clearly labelled as such in the shops. That will be worth watching, Juniper said. But with the U.S. election campaign just starting, I think they will be more concerned with domestic issues.
Why the unemployment rate is really higher than it looks
Why the unemployment rate is really higher than it looks. Slate By Daniel Gross Friday, Jan. 30, 2004, at 1:57 PM PT http://slate.msn.com/id/2094690/#ContinueArticle People are finding work, President Bush proclaimed yesterday in New Hampshire. There's an excitement in our economy. Evidently, President Bush failed to read the first paragraph of the most recent Employment Situation Summary, which showed that the mammoth U.S. economy added a paltry 1,000 payroll jobs in December. He probably skipped right to the second paragraph, which showed that the unemployment rate fell in December to 5.7 percent from 5.9 percent in November. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment in two ways. The Establishment Survey gathers data directly from 400,000 companies and then estimates how many Americans have payroll jobs. The Household Survey, based on surveys of 60,000 households, determines how many people are working and produces the unemployment rate. Occasionally, the two surveys show divergent trends in job growth?especially when an economy is coming out of recession. According to the payroll survey, the number of jobs fell 232,000 over the course of 2003 on a seasonally adjusted basis. But according to the Household Survey, which includes farm workers, the self-employed, and people who may work off the books, the number of Americans working rose by 1.03 million in 2003 on a seasonally adjusted basis. Last October, I dubbed the debate over the two surveys, and the emerging campaign to ignore the payroll numbers and focus on the household numbers, antidisestablishmentarianism. Last week I described how it has become central to the Republican defense of President Bush's economic stewardship. The comparatively strong Household Survey figures also bolster the Republican case for refusing to extend the federal Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program. (Yesterday, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities charged that about 375,000 people will see their benefits expire in January amid a lame labor market.) What accounts for the gap between the two figures? The payroll survey is less likely to capture the self-employed, newly formed businesses, or domestic employees. So it could be that the millions of Americans who have been laid off are busy starting companies, or working full-time as self-employed consultants. All of this entrepreneurial energy would show up in the Household Survey and be good news for the economy. Alternatively, the millions of Americans who are self-employed could simply be frustrated in their efforts to find full-time, salary-and-benefits-paying work at established companies. In other words, as Barry Ritholtz, chief market strategist at Maxim Group and an emerging blogger, has suggested, they're self-employed because they're unemployed. That would be bad news for the economy, and it probably wouldn't show up in the Household Survey. Or would it? The Household Survey yields other data, including alternative measures of labor underutilization. One of the measures gauges the total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons. Marginally attached workers are people who are neither working nor currently looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work at some time in the recent past, according to Steve Haugen, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those working part-time for economic reasons are people who have had their hours reduced, or who work part-time but would prefer a full-time job. This chart shows the paths of this alternative measure?let's call it the adjusted unemployment rate?and the unemployment rate over the past several years. In December 2003, the adjusted unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, compared with 5.7 percent for the unemployment rate. In other words, on top of the 5.7 percent of the labor force who said they didn't have a job, a low figure by recent historical standards, 4.2 percent of the labor force was either marginally attached or wanted to work full-time but couldn't. That's a high figure by recent historical standards. The chart shows a persistent and relatively stable gap between the two measures. But in 1999 and in most of 2000, when the economy was adding payroll jobs, when people who wanted full-time work at companies large and small could find them with comparative ease, those falling into this alternative measures category represented a smaller percentage of the labor force?about 3 percent. The persistence of large numbers of frustrated full-time job seekers doesn't explain away the difference in job figures in the Household and Payroll surveys. But it does mean the Household Survey?which is supposed to be signaling robust job creation?contains hints that there may be high levels of slack in the labor market. That doesn't bode well for the creation of payroll jobs or for increases in benefits and wages for those who have
Re: my new book
I would also like to add that if __A Suggested Curriculum for a Heterodox Doctoral Program: Integrating Separate Strands of Thought__ that Scott developed and presented recently at a conference, is any indication -- I would HIGHLY recommend it! __Beyond Profit and Self-Interest: Economics with a Broader Scope__ by Robert Scott Gassler. Thanks, Scott, for all of your work in this area. All best, Diane Gassler Robert wrote: Dear Jim: The book is about how us economic theory to study noneconomic phenomena. Mostly micro. Here is all the information from the publisher's web site: Beyond Profit And Self-interest Economics with a Broader Scope Robert Scott Gassler, Professor of Economics, Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium ?Here is the book L?on Walras should have written, or would have written if he had also been Kenneth Boulding?s student. It is ingenious in content and wholesome in attitude. It combines neoclassical economics, departures arguably within neoclassicism, and varieties of heterodox economics, within the ambit of systems theory. It is only one of many possible combinations but it is rich and open-ended. Its attitude is especially striking. Gassler departs from the trap of unbending defense of the neoclassical hard core versus its equally unbending critique. He departs, too, from seeing orthodoxy and heterodoxy as either alternatives or supplements; he constructs a model that permits all to survive as tools in the art of economics. It enables economists to escape from many of their current impasses. The book needs to be widely read.? ? Warren Samuels, Michigan State University, US This book attempts to reformulate existing orthodox economic theory in order to improve its conversation with disciplines that have traditionally been seen as the domain of political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and even biologists, and to fit economics into the broader scheme of social science theory. Drawing on general systems theory, Robert Scott Gassler applies economic analysis to a wide range of social phenomena that incorporate motives other than profit or self-interest, such as altruism and non-profit organisations. He debates in depth the means, problems and advantages of adapting economic theory to new sets of assumptions, and of communicating this theory intelligibly to those in related fields. This book should not only be read by political and social economists, but is also accessible to those in the fields of education, health and non-profit administration, public affairs, and urban planning to name but a few. This book attempts to reformulate existing orthodox economic theory in order to improve its conversation with disciplines that have traditionally been seen as the domain of political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and even biologists, and to fit economics into the broader scheme of social science theory. Contents: Preface Part I: Theory 1. Scope 2. Method 3. Foundations 4. Taxonomy 5. Theory Part II: Applications 6. Individuals 7. Interactions 8. Organizations 9. Nonprofits 10. Processes 11. Sectors 12. Societies 13. Planets Part III: Summary and Conclusion 14. Conclusion Bibliography Index Now back to me: In addition to altruism and nonprofits, examples include gift-giving, cooperatives, evolutionary and institutional economics, exit and voice, the internet, transition and development economics, Lenin's theory of imperialism, feminist economics, and ecology. Most heterodox approaches are woven into the fabric of the analysis. Scott what's the book about, exactly? macro? micro? what is one of its major theses? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Robert Scott Gassler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 8:30 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] my new book Dear PEN-L: You might be interested in my new book from Elgar: Robert Scott Gassler. Beyond Profit and Self-Interest: Economics with a Broader Scope. It is out in Europe and will be out in the US in February (I guess that's next week). Without a trace of modesty I'll reproduce the publisher's blurb Here is the book Leon Walras should have written, or would have written if he had also been Kenneth Boulding's student. It is ingenious in content and wholesome in attitude. It combines neoclassical economics, departures arguably within neoclassicism, and varieties of heterodox economics, within the ambit of systems theory. It is only one of many possible combinations but it is rich and open-ended. Its attitude is especially striking. Gassler departs from the trap of unbending defense of the neoclassical hard core versus its equally unbending critique.He departs, too, from seeing othodoxy and heterodoxy as either alternatives or supplements; he constructs a model that permits all to survive as tools in the art of economics. It enables economists to escape from many of their current impasses.
Russians (Severstal) take over Rouge steel mill
February 1, 2004 The Toledo blade Russians take over Rouge mill Sale shows complexity of economy, politics By JAMES DREW BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF DEARBORN, Mich. - When Henry Ford needed steel for his auto plant in 1920, he ordered construction of the Rouge steel mill. The massive mill became one of capitalism?s citadels. Labor and capital supplied the steel for automobiles that revolutionized transportation. Nearly three decades after the Rouge mill opened, Josef Stalin decided to build a steel empire in Russia, a government-run enterprise later renamed Severstal, Russian for north steel. Tomorrow, Severstal - which became privately-owned after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union - becomes the new owner of the Rouge steel mill. And one of America?s most powerful union locals helped the Russians buy the mill. I guess it goes to say what kind of society we live in today, when we have to depend on foreign investors to preserve American jobs and the American way of life, said Jerry Sullivan, president of United Auto Workers Local 600, which represents 2,000 of the Rouge steel mill?s 2,600 workers. As the presidential race heads for Michigan and Ohio, Democratic candidates will continue to focus on the economy, hammering President Bush for the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs since he took office in 2001. Michigan Democrats hold their caucuses Feb. 7. Ohio?s presidential primary is March 2, when 11 other states including New York and California hold presidential contests. Michigan, which Mr. Bush lost narrowly to Vice President Al Gore in 2000, has lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. Ohio, where Mr. Gore halted his campaign a month before election day and still lost by only 4 percentage points to Mr. Bush, has lost 162,000 manufacturing jobs over the past three years. Both states have been hammered by the recession and manufacturers moving jobs to China and Mexico for cheaper labor. I don?t think you can be concerned about jobs without being concerned about failed trade policies in this country, said Lloyd Mahaffey, Ohio regional director for the United Auto Workers. But others say voters will judge Mr. Bush?s track record on the economy without analyzing free trade agreements. I think the political balance depends more on how the overall jobs numbers are doing and whether there is a pick-up in employment, which I think will happen, said Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at the Institute of International Economics in Washington. The Rouge steel mill is at the heart of a complex debate over the nation?s economy, trade policies, and globalization. For Jerry Sullivan, who began working at the mill 32 years ago, the Rouge means jobs, the quality of life that many people have been used to, and stability of this community and this state. Others view it as a shining example of how free trade can benefit American workers and two countries that once were Cold War foes. There are benefits to be reaped from increased international trade and globalization, and this is a good example of why it is good that a Russian company invests in the United States, and U.S. firms invest in Russia, said Anna Meyendorff, a business professor at the University of Michigan. When Mr. Bush lifted steel tariffs last year that he imposed in March, 2002, political scientists said the decision could help the President in steel-consuming states such as Michigan and hurt him among steelworkers in Ohio. It?s much more complex than that, say experts who track economics and politics in Ohio and Michigan. I?m still trying to understand how trade and globalization affects the jobs issue, said Jeff Williams, vice president of a Lansing, Mich.-based public policy firm. If I am anti-trade and pro-jobs, the price of goods might rise at Wal-Mart. Many of the people who are protesting the out-sourcing of jobs also are angry about the price of Kleenex going up. Michigan and Ohio are among 15 states that either Mr. Gore or Mr. Bush carried in 2000 by fewer than 5 percentage points. Mr. Gore carried Michigan. Mr. Bush won in Ohio and West Virginia, and among the reasons cited is President Bill Clinton?s decision to reject requests by steel companies - faced with massive imports fueled in part by a strong U.S. dollar - to enact tariffs on cheaper, imported steel. In March, 2002, Mr. Bush imposed tariffs of up to 30 percent on various kinds of imported steel. It was a controversial move that U.S. steelmakers said would give them time to restructure, shift a big chunk of the pension costs for retirees to the federal government, close old mills, and renegotiate union contracts to prevent further job losses. An estimated 20,000 jobs in U.S. steel mills were lost from 2001 to 2003, as a wave of bankruptcies and mergers hit the industry. The tariffs initially sharply increased the price of steel. Auto parts suppliers, already facing a weak economy, criticized Mr. Bush?s decision because automakers won?t allow them to
POVERTY GAPS DECREASE BETWEEN RACES, AGES, GENDERS--BUT NOT BETWEEN RICH AND POOR
POVERTY GAPS IN THE U.S. BETWEEN THE RACES, AGE GROUPS, AND GENDERS DECREASED STEADILY SINCE 1995--- BUT STILL A WAYS TO GO THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR KEEPS INCREASING A study by Manchester College researchers used US Census data to compare poverty rates for different subgroups in the U.S population. The good news is that the difference in poverty rates for Whites vs. other racial-ethnic groups decreased five of the seven years since 1995, dropping 20% overall. Also, the inequality in poverty rate between children and adults decreased six of those same seven years (dropping 14% over that time period). While for gender, five of six years showed a decrease (with no change one year and a 3% decrease overall). In one area, the news is not good. Inequality in income between the richest and the poorest households increased five of six years (with no data available for 2002 and an overall increase of 9%). Do we really want a divided society, where people live in different neighborhoods, have different opportunities, and their children attend separate schools, depending on how much money their family has? Because that is the consequence of high income inequality, said researcher Bradley Yoder, Ph.D. and Professor of Sociology and Social Work. Even the good news of the narrowing race, age, and gender gaps is tempered by a continuing reality. For racial poverty disparity, though there was a statistically significant downward trend (non-Hispanic Whites compared to Blacks, Asians/Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics); non-Whites were still 162 percent more likely to be in poverty than Whites in 2002. In that year, 7.8 percent of non-Hispanic Whites lived below the poverty line, as opposed to 22.7 percent of Blacks, 10.2 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders, and 21.8 percent of people of Hispanic origin. If the improvement found from 1995 to 2002 continued at that same, consistent pace, it would still take until 2018--or even 2031--for parity to be reached (depending on the mathematical model used). Similarly, though there was a statistically significant downward trend for age, those under 18 years old were still 58% more likely to be in poverty in 2002 than those who were older (a poverty rate of 16.7% for the former and 10.6% for those adults 18 and over). While the gap between the genders generally decreased from 1995-2002, the trend did not reach statistical significance, with 13.3% of women versus 10.9% of men still remaining in poverty in 2002. The government-calculated poverty threshold is $9,183 for a single person, $11,756 for a two-person household, and $18,392 for a four-person household. The very poor?those living below 50 percent of poverty level?constituted 4.9 percent of the population in 2002, a decline from 5.3 percent in 1995. Yet, the gap between poor and rich increased significantly over that time. As noted by researcher James Brumbaugh-Smith, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Mathematics, __The income gap between the top 5 percent and the lowest 10 percent of U.S. households is the greatest it has been since government tracking began in 1967.__ As contended by Abigail Fuller, Associate Professor of Sociology at Manchester College. __We could conceivably end up with a society in which everyone has an equal chance of being rich, regardless of racial-ethnic background or gender or age?but in which everyone also has an equal chance of being poor, and there are a lot of poor people. In fact, while Whites have a lower poverty rate, about 68 percent of all poor people are White. While affirmative action is important, these people will not be helped by poverty eradication efforts that focus only on racial or gender discrimination.__ So, there is some good news and reason to hope for the future. At the same time, all is not well now and will not be for at least the immediate future. As lead researcher Neil Wollman, Professor of Psychology and Senior Fellow notes, __These income gaps are not good for a society which holds equality as a primary value. Happiness is affected both by how important values are played out in the world and how individuals feel that they stack up to their fellow citizens.__ These figures come from the National Index of Violence and Harm, constructed to measure trends in the levels of violence and harm to individuals in the United States. The index is calculated yearly by professors and students at Manchester College in Indiana, by comparing current figures to the base year of 1995. Two different scales and 19 variables are included. Personal violence and harm includes violence against others and against oneself, such as deaths from drug overdose and sexual assault. Societal violence and harm includes such factors as lack of health insurance, air pollution, and occupational death that result from overall societal forces or institutions related to government, corporations, or families. See complete details at:
Re: intermediate microeconomics textbook...
To all you good people of pen-l, Thank you! Thank you! I now have everything -- textbooks, supplemental readings AND syllabi -- necessary to give intermediate microeconmic theory a go. The only thing missing is someone to teach it for me :). Actually, I'm sort of looking forward to drawing those 3-D diagrams of K, L, and output to construct isoquant projections, if the calculus fails or to perhaps go along with it. Really. Many thanks again. I remain your erstwhile friend and humble servant, Diane
Was that health care or wealth care?
January 28, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times Was that health care or wealth care? American HMOs show record profit of $2.3 billion in first quarter of 2003, up 60 percent from the year before. Just to let you know the higher premiums aren't going to waste.
Higher Price Tag for Drug Benefit
January 30, 2004 Bush's Aides See Higher Price Tag for Drug Benefit By ROBERT PEAR ASHINGTON, Jan. 29 ? The Bush administration said on Thursday that the new Medicare drug benefit would cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, or one-third more than the price tag used when Congress passed the legislation two months ago. Conservative Republicans said the new estimate confirmed their worst fears, while Democrats said it vindicated their view that the law gave far too much money to drug manufacturers and insurance companies. The bill passed narrowly in the House after Republican leaders gave assurances that the cost would not exceed $400 billion. The Congressional Budget Office said in November and again this week that the cost was about $400 billion for the 10-year period 2004 to 2013, the amount originally proposed by Mr. Bush. But White House officials said Thursday that the president's budget would put the cost at $530 billion to $540 billion. At the same time, the officials said that the overall budget deficit for the current fiscal year would exceed $500 billion. The deficit for fiscal 2003 was $375 billion, a record amount. Mr. Bush says his budget request, to be unveiled on Monday, will cut the deficit in half within five years, by promoting economic growth and keeping spending under control. The Medicare law, which Mr. Bush signed on Dec. 8, will offer drug benefits to 41 million elderly and disabled people. It will also give insurance companies and private health plans a huge new role in the Medicare program. A White House official said the new estimate reflected the Medicare actuaries' best estimate of the future cost. The actuaries and White House budget officials often differ with Congressional budget experts, he said. Health costs are very volatile, the official said. It's difficult to predict the behavior of 40 million people in a market that does not now exist. The Bush administration did not explain how it arrived at its cost estimate, but health economists and budget analysts suggested two factors. The administration predicts that the new law will produce a sharp increase in the number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in health maintenance organizations and other private health plans. In addition, the law significantly increases Medicare payments to private health plans. For the foreseeable future, the private plans are more expensive than the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program, said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and vice chairman of a federal commission that advises Congress on Medicare. Republicans say the private plans will enhance competition and efficiency in the Medicare market, saving money in the long run. Democrats have introduced legislation to augment what they see as a meager Medicare drug benefit. The new cost estimate could strengthen the hand of Republicans who oppose any expansion of the benefit. But it could also strengthen the hand of Democrats who want to save money by controlling drug prices and reducing Medicare payments to private insurers. The White House tried to persuade Congress to include stringent cost controls in the law. But Democrats balked, saying the proposals could have led to cuts in Medicare benefits. Passage of the Medicare bill was a major political achievement for Mr. Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress. But lawmakers would probably not have approved the legislation in its current form if they had thought the cost would exceed a half-trillion dollars. The bill was passed by a vote of 220 to 215 in the House, with reluctant support from some conservative Republicans who were deeply troubled by the cost. The new estimate confirmed the fears of many conservatives. We told you so, said Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Moffit said the new estimate will create an enormous problem for the Congressional leadership, which repeatedly told Republicans that this was a fiscally responsible bill. An aide to the Senate Republican leadership said that he did not know why the new estimate was higher. Thomas A. Scully, the federal official in charge of Medicare from May 2001 to December 2003, said: The estimate may be surprising to some people, but it's not shocking to me. It just reflects a difference of opinion among actuaries who make different assumptions about the growth of drug spending and enrollment in private plans. William A. Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: The Medicare bill had lots of moving parts. We could not make a final analysis of the cost until it became law. Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, who voted for the bill, said he was surprised at the new figure. But he said, Cost estimates for entitlement programs have been notoriously unreliable, often too low. Representative Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who voted against the bill, said: The new
LGBT human rights declaration
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Lee Badgett Sent: Thu 29-Jan-04 4:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: LGBT human rights declaration Dear Friends, Family Colleagues, In March 2004, 53 nations will sit at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss, argue, vote and then publicly declare if they believe sexual orientation and gender identity are human rights or not. In other words, they will say if being Lesbian, Gay, Transgender or Bisexual is a human right. This will undoubtly make the news next March because it is such a controversial issue. What can you do about it? ILGA (International Lesbian Gay Association---www.ilga.org) plans to use the internet to mobilize as many people as possible. A website has been set up: http://www.brazilianresolution.com/ . Pleave go to this website, sign the petition, leave your email address if you wish to receive more information, and pass this information on to everyone you know who would sign it. ILGA will present the petition to the press and the United Nations. FYI, the U.S. delegate to the the U.N. Human Rights Commission voted against this when it was first introduced last year. Our signatures on this petition will help send a clear message to the UN that there is only one answer to the question: Are LGBT rights human rights? YES!! Thank you. Yours, Lee Badgett -- Lee Badgett [EMAIL PROTECTED] until June 2004: Prinsengracht 413b 1016HM Amsterdam Netherlands 31-20-420-5746 home 31-65-210-3206 mobile Address as of June 2004: Dept. of Economics University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: 413-545-0159 fax:413-545-2921 http://www.people.umass.edu/lbadgett
Millions to exhaust unemployment benefits in poor hiring climate
Millions to exhaust unemployment benefits in poor hiring climate By Leigh Strope, Associated Press, 1/29/2004 09:56 WASHINGTON (AP) Nearly 2 million people are expected to exhaust their state unemployment benefits in the first half of the year without access to more government aid or a regular paycheck, according to a study released Thursday. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities based its study on Labor Department data of jobless workers who began receiving regular unemployment benefits in the last half of 2003. It assumes the economy will improve slightly in the coming months, making it modestly easier to find a job. ''In no other January-June period on record have so many unemployed workers exhausted their regular benefits without qualifying for additional weeks of unemployment assistance,'' said the study by the Washington-based advocacy group for poor and moderate-income people. Congress has refused to approve another extension of federal unemployment benefits for people who exhaust their state aid. The economy is improving, and layoffs have eased. But jobs still are hard to come by. Although the nation's unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent in December, businesses added only 1,000 new jobs. Republicans who control Congress say a third extension of the program providing 13 weeks of emergency benefits isn't necessary with unemployment declining. But Democrats hope to force an about-face on the issue in an election year. The economy has lost 2.3 million jobs since President Bush took office in January 2001. According to the study, about 375,000 people will use up their state unemployment benefits this month without access to extra aid the largest on record, even after adjusting for growth in the work force. Most states provide about 26 weeks of benefits. Another extension of the emergency benefits would cost the government under $1 billion a month from the unemployment insurance trust fund, which contains about $20 billion, the center said.
UN boss blasts Europe's migration policy
29.01.2004 - 15:09 CET UN boss blasts Europe's migration policy EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has used his acceptance of an EU human rights prize to launch a scathing attack on Europe's attitudes toward migration and asylum. Addressing the European Parliament today (29 January) on receiving the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Mr Annan said that asylum seekers and migrants "should not be made the scapegoats for a vast array of social ills"."The public has been fed images of a flood of unwelcome entrants, and of threats to their societies and identities", he said. "In the process, immigrants have sometimes been stigmatised, vilified, even dehumanised".Mr Annan urged the EU to open up its borders: "Your asylum systems are overburdened precisely because many people who feel they must leave see no other channel through which to migrate"."Many others try more desperate and clandestine measures, and are sometimes injured or even killed suffocating in trucks, drowning at sea, or perishing in the undercarriage of aircraft.""We cannot simply close our doors, or shut our eyes to this human tragedy," Annan said.The former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, also warned against the consequences of such public perception."A closed Europe would be a meaner, poorer, weaker, older Europe. Migrants are part of the solution, not part of the problem". Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
Re: Nigerian general strike on hold
Jim Devine wrote: [Interesting to note in this context that Nigeria is one of the few places in the developing world which has experienced widespread labour shortages recently.] that's because so many are employed sending us e-mails asking us to help them get money out of the country... ;-) Jim D : ...a new scheme for ?international money laundering? that is better equipped to disguise linkages to Dick Cheney and one that is not yet part of the John Ashcroft anti-corruption package (more below). Diane 5 Ex-Nigeria Officials Face Bribe Charges Five Ex-Nigeria Officials Facing Charges of Taking Part of More Than $1M in Bribes The Associated Press LAGOS, Nigeria Jan. 23 ? Three former Nigerian Cabinet ministers and two other former government officials face charges of accepting part of more than $1 million in bribes from a French electronics giant. [?] Nigeria also is following the French probe into allegations that a consortium involving Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root paid about $180 million to win a contract to build the $4 billion-plus Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant in the mid-1990s. Cheney was head of Halliburton for five of the seven years during which the secret payments were allegedly made. January 23, 2004 Ashcroft continues U.S. anti-corruption effort, says world must ?defend our freedom from corruption? U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft delivered to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, one of the strongest messages the United States has sent on official corruption, making it clear that it will not be tolerated no matter under which flag it occurs. ?Twenty-eight months ago, all free nations were called to defend freedom from terrorism,? Ashcroft said, in his January 22 speech. ?Today we are called to defend our freedom from corruption.? Anti-terror, anti-corruption Ashcroft asked that the nations that rallied against terrorism after 9/11 combine to lead an assault on corruption, which according to the World Bank costs the world $2.3 trillion annually and often has a powerful impact on impoverished nations whose globally-financed assistance programs are looted by corrupt ?Politically Exposed Persons.? ?Corruption facilitates and perpetuates such transnational criminal activity as organized crime, money laundering, drug trafficking, and the smuggling of human beings,? Ashcroft said.
Will Vice President Cheney be indicted...
Will Vice President Cheney be indicted?and will the US media report it? By Patrick Martin 28 January 2004 A French investigation into $180 million in bribes paid by oil companies to government officials in Nigeria threatens to implicate US Vice President Richard Cheney, according to reports in the French and British press. The conservative French daily newspaper Le Figaro wrote last month that ?the Paris court contemplates an eventual indictment of the present United States? vice president, Richard Cheney, in his capacity as former CEO of Halliburton.? The American media, however, has been all but silent on the subject. The first reference to appear in a major US daily occupied all of nine brief paragraphs in the Washington Post January 21. The newspaper buried on page A23 a report that the second highest official in the US government was under investigation for authorizing bribes. The Post article made no mention of any possible indictment of Cheney, only noting that the bribes were allegedly paid while he was Halliburton?s chief executive, from 1995 to 2000. The case arises from the awarding of a multi-billion-dollar contract to build a new natural gas production facility on Bonny Island in the eastern part of the Niger River delta. The contract was won by a four-nation consortium headed by Kellogg, Brown Root (KBR), Halliburton?s construction arm. Its partners were Technip of France, the Italian firm Snamprogetti, and JGC of Japan. The four construction firms were to build a huge gas liquefaction factory, one of the largest in the world, and other related facilities, for a consortium of four oil companies: the Nigerian National Oil Company, which owns 49 percent of the venture; Shell, which owns 25.6 percent; Total-Fina-Elf of France; which owns 15 percent; and Agip International of Italy, which owns 10.4 percent. The $6 billion project was run by a joint venture given the title TSKJ, from the initials of the four construction companies. French authorities began a bribery investigation in October, 2002, probing reports that $180 million (3 percent of the value of the contract) had been paid from TSKJ between 1995 and 2001 to a shell company in the Madeira Islands. This money was then funneled through a series of bank accounts in Gibraltar, Switzerland and Monaco, all controlled by a London lawyer who had performed no work for the project. Enough evidence was developed to warrant assigning the case to a special anti-corruption investigating judge, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, in June 2003. He opened a formal criminal probe in October, 2003. The circumstances of the payments suggest that they were originally directed to the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who died suddenly in 1998. (The funds were abruptly shifted from Switzerland to Monaco after a Swiss judicial proceeding began into Abacha?s assets there.) It is not clear who actually controls the funds now. Such payments are illegal under a 1997 convention barring ?bribery of foreign public officials in commercial negotiations,? adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 35-nation club of wealthy countries to which the United States belongs. According to the account in Le Figaro, Kellogg, Brown Root could be charged with paying bribes, but Cheney would not, because the kickbacks may not have been received until after he left Halliburton in 2000. Because the complex web of financial intermediaries was set up beginning in 1995, however, Judge Van Ruymbeke is contemplating bringing charges of misuse of funds, a separate offense under French law. While the bribery probe is the first of its kind in France under the convention on cross-border corruption, it is the outcome of a lengthy investigation into the French oil giant Elf Aquitaine (now part of Total-Fina-Elf), which has implicated many former executives and high French government officials. The French investigation into Halliburton, KBR and Cheney sheds further light on the tense relations between the United States and France, which were inflamed by the unilateral US decision to go to war with Iraq, as well as the Bush administration?s exclusion of French firms from bidding for prime contracts for rebuilding the devastated country. Apparently, KBR conducted itself just as arrogantly in Nigeria as the Bush administration has in Iraq. Technip, the French junior partner in the construction consortium, objected to the methods used to pay off Nigerian officials, but KBR ignored its complaints, according to press reports. Both Daniel Burlin, the former Technip finance director, and Jean Desseilligny, the current general manager, have, in statements given to the investigation, placed all responsibility on the American company, which was the lead partner and initiated the payments. Their account is bolstered by Halliburton?s increasingly notorious record as a corporate lawbreaker. Only eight months ago, Halliburton filed documents with federal regulatory agencies
intermediate microeconomics textbook...
Hi! Can someone recommend an intermediate microeconomic theory textbook that uses some calculus for advanced undergraduate students? Some recommendations on interesting supplemental micro topic readings/articles would also be helpful. I don't normally teach this course, in fact I never teach this course, so my reference point seems to be Jack Hirshleifer from my undergraduate days :). I have a few suggestions from colleagues but each one is different! Offlist is fine. Thanks in advance, Diane
Drought threatens millions in southern Africa
Drought threatens millions in southern Africa Foreign assistance dries up as villagers grapple with hunger The Associated Press Updated: 9:30 a.m. ET Jan. 28, 2004 MAFETENG, Lesotho - From miles around they come, pushing wheelbarrows in the relentless heat to collect sacks of maize meal, beans and cooking oil from the U.N. food agency. The worst drought in more than a decade is sweeping through southern Africa, destroying crops, driving up food prices and leaving millions hungry ? even as foreign assistance dries up, governments and humanitarian agencies say. Last week saw the first significant downpours since April ? but the rain came too late to save the summer harvest, and forecasters predict more dry weather ahead. Aid workers expect near total crop failure in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, along with massive losses in Swaziland, southern Mozambique and parts of Zimbabwe. ?The current drought could be disastrous for southern Africa,? Richard Lee, regional spokesman for the World Food Program, said Tuesday. ?Parts of the region, which have now experienced two years of crisis, will have another year of massive shortages, if this continues.? The southern town of Mafeteng, once surrounded by some of Lesotho?s most productive agricultural land, is now on the front line of the region?s drought. Dams are empty, rivers have been reduced to a muddy trickle, and wells are drying up. With the soil too dry to plant, vast areas have been left idle. The few maize crops that were put in have been stunted by the sun. Despairing of rain, some farmers are already allowing their skinny herds into their fields to eat the scorched crops. ?Normally we have maize all over,? district secretary Eliase Thekiso said as he surveyed a parched and rocky landscape. ?But the soil is going and leaving us with stones.? Aid contributions fall short Between 600,000 and 700,000 people ? a third of Lesotho?s population ? are expected to need food aid this year. But while the international community reacted swiftly to last year?s food crisis in six southern African countries, response this year has been much slower, U.N. officials say. Despite recent contributions by the European Union and United States, WFP is still short $127 million ? 29 percent of its emergency appeal to feed 6.5 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe for the year finishing in June 2004. Millions of people in Zimbabwe have already had their rations reduced due to lack of funds. In Lesotho, there is only enough aid for the most vulnerable, including the sick, the elderly, children under 5 and pregnant women. General distributions were suspended this month. ?What are we going to do?? despaired Mateko Mafereka, who has been trying to support a family of six on the $3.50 a week she makes selling apples and candy in the nearby Ha Lepolesa region. Her entire village was unable to plant this year, and there is no other work to be found in the area. ?There is no future without water,? she said. This is the third consecutive year of drought in many parts of southern Africa, and subsistence farmers like Mafereka?s family have nothing left to fall back on. There are no seeds to plant, no livestock or other assets left to sell. If the drought persists, U.N. officials fear many families will be pushed into destructive coping mechanisms such as pulling their children out of schools, migrating to urban areas and prostitution. The AIDS pandemic is also having a devastating effect, cutting a swathe through the region?s most productive age groups. Making matters worse in Lesotho, tens of thousands of migrant laborers have been retrenched from neighboring South Africa?s mines and farms over the past decade, depriving families of their only alternative source of income. Lesotho is also suffering the effects of years of over grazing and over dependence on maize, which has depleted the soil of its nutrients. Erosion has left the southern lowlands crisscrossed with deep gullies, in stark contrast to the level fields on the South African side of the border. Reform cripples regional breadbasket In Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, food production has been crippled by erratic rains, soaring costs and shortages of seed, fuel and fertilizer. Government supporters have seized 5,000 white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks in an often-violent reform program that has crippled the country?s agriculture-based economy. Basic food prices are increasing even faster than the country?s record inflation rate, currently around 600 percent, putting many items out of the reach of many Zimbabweans. In Swaziland, government officials say the current drought has the potential to be the ?worst in recorded history.? Just under a quarter of the tiny kingdom?s 1 million people are receiving food aid, while low water levels in the rivers and dams are putting livestock at risk. Mozambique, devastated by floods in 2000 and 2001, is now experiencing
2004 MEA-IAFFE Call for abstracts
[Please forward to others who may be interested. Thanks, Rose-Marie and Diane] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: MIDWEST ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION MEETING MARCH 19-21, 2004, Chicago, Illinois The International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) is organizing two sessions focused on gender issues in: International Economics, Economic Development, Labor Economics, History of Thought, Pedagogy, Policy Issues, and related areas. We need three panel participants for each session and discussants. Graduate students and researchers in other disciplines are encouraged to participate. If you are interested in presenting a paper, serving as a chair or discussant, please contact Rose-Marie Avin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) by OCTOBER 3, 2003. For those wishing to present a paper, send also the title of the paper with a 150-word abstract. Rose-Marie Avin Department of Economics University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI 54702 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (715) 836-4513 Fax: (715) 836-5071
Senate Panel Votes to Block FCC TV Ownership Plan
Senate Panel Votes to Block FCC TV Ownership Plan Associated Press Thursday, September 04, 2003 WASHINGTON A Senate committee voted Thursday to prevent federal regulators from letting media companies own larger shares of the nation's television market, defying a White House veto threat. The Senate Appropriations Committee's voice vote came six weeks after the House approved a bill that would also block the liberalized ownership rules. After Thursday's vote, the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee said he believed President Bush would not veto the measure. In June, the Federal Communications Commission voted to let individual companies own stations serving up to 45 percent of the nation's viewers, compared with the current cap of 35 percent. The FCC's broad overhaul of the decades-old restrictions would allow a single company to own combinations of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same area. The language approved by the Appropriations panel would not affect that part of the FCC's plan, but some senators said they would try to block it, too, when the full Senate considers the measure. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia temporarily blocked the new rules from taking effect as scheduled on Thursday. Buoyed by that decision, consumer groups expanded their fight against the rules by petitioning the FCC to abandon the regulations, saying they resulted from a flawed decision that denied the public a chance to comment. With billions of dollars and programming control at stake, the fight over the national TV ownership cap is pitting the television broadcast networks against many local station owners and a coalition of conservative and liberal groups. The White House has threatened to veto legislation that thwarts the new regulations, arguing they are needed in a 21st Century television industry changed by satellite and cable stations, as well as by the Internet. The position has not changed on the White House's veto threat, said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. But there has been strong congressional sentiment against raising the cap on television ownership, leading many lawmakers to conclude Bush would not cast his first veto as president on the issue. In my heart, I don't think they would veto this bill over the caps, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told reporters. Critics say the proposal would give too much power to the networks, at the expense of local station owners. The provision was added to a routine spending bill covering the FCC and other agencies the same bill to which the House attached its language. In Wednesday's emergency stay of the new rules, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a coalition of media access groups that claimed its members could suffer irreparable harm if the rules went into effect as scheduled. The court stay is a critical victory, said Gene Kimmelman, public policy director for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. It prevents an impending wave of mergers and shifts the burden back to the commission to act swiftly on public requests for reconsideration. Consumers Union joined with the Consumer Federation of America in filing a petition with the FCC that asks the agency to largely abolish the changed regulations. The groups said the rules are riddled with contradictions and flawed reasoning and were developed through an illegal administrative process that denied the public the opportunity to comment on the specifics. FCC spokesman Richard Diamond had no comment on the petition. After the court decision, the agency said in a statement that it would continue to fight for the rules. The Senate also is preparing to vote as early as next week on undoing all the FCC changes. Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., have been leading a group of senators pushing for a resolution of disapproval, a seldom-used maneuver also called a congressional veto. Dorgan has said the court decision gives new momentum to the effort. To succeed, the resolution would need majority approval in the Senate and House and President Bush's signature or enough votes to override his veto.
