[osint] Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs
http://news.scotsman.com/print.cfm?id=66782005referringtemplate=http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Escotsman%2Ecom%2Ftopics%2Ecfmreferringquerystring=tid%3D591%26id%3D66782005 The Scotsman Wed 19 Jan 2005 Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs FRASER NELSON POLITICAL EDITOR TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry. While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft. The demand will come as a deep embarrassment to Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, whose officials started the negotiation before the disaster struck Thailand - killing tens of thousands of people and damaging its economy. While aid workers from across Europe are helping to rebuild Thai livelihoods, trade officials in Brussels are concluding a jets-for-prawns deal, which they had hoped to announce next month. As the world's largest producer of prawns, Thailand has become so efficient that its wares are half the price of those caught by Norway, the main producer of prawns for the EU. To ensure the Thais cannot compete, EU officials five years ago removed its shrimp industry from the EU's generalised system of preferential tariffs - designed to share Western wealth with developing countries by trade. The EU has instead slapped a tariff of 12 per cent on its fish - three times that imposed on prawns from Malaysia, its neighbour. This is still less than the US tariff on Thai prawns: 97 per cent. The prawn tax is one in a series of protectionist measures expected to cost east Asia some £130 million each year - money being taken from its economies while EU citizens donate millions in charity. Five days after the tsunami struck, the EU legislated against Thailand by slapping a new tariff designed to extinguish its booming trade in cumarin, a plant extract used in perfume. On 31 December, the EU imposed duties of ¤3,480 (£2,430) a tonne for Thai exports of cumarin - a move entirely designed to protect Rhodia, a French chemicals firm and the EU's only producer of cumarin. Oxfam has attacked the tariffs, saying: When countries are lying prostrate before us, it is criminal to continue to tax them on what they sell. Sri Lanka has already pleaded to be exempt from EU and US textiles tariffs as it tries to recover. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[osint] Tsunamis limited impact on international relations
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=10549 Tsunami's limited impact on international relations The energy released by the Indian Ocean earthquake was equal to more than 10'000 atomic bombs, and the resulting waves dislocated many millions of lives, but the quake will have little impact on the trajectory of world politics. By Andrew Tait for ISN Security Watch Compared with the scale of the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia after Christmas, the loss of human lives in the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the US dwindles in significance, but those attacks triggered a seismic upheaval in international relations. More than three years later, there is little left of the liberal certainty that the end of the Cold War marked the end of ideological conflict and the beginning of gradual, unexciting progress. Since 11 September, the consensus has been that the civilized world (the industrialized west) is locked in combat with irrational and violent elements from the underdeveloped world (especially the Muslim world). The war on terror has shifted geopolitical reality closer to Samuel Huntingdon's vision of a clash of civilizations than to Francis Fukuyama's more optimistic end of history. There is little room in such an us-or-them worldview for coping effectively with natural disasters on a global scale. The Asian tsunami may have been the most lethal in history, but it is certainly not the only humanitarian tragedy the world has faced in recent times a little over a decade ago, about 138'000 people died in flooding from a cyclone in Bangladesh, and in 1970's Cyclone Bhola, an estimated 500'000 died. And tragic though the death toll from the Asian tsunami is, diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis are a much greater disaster, and far easier to prevent. It is estimated that malaria kills between 1.5 million and 2.7 million people a year one child every second. The death toll in natural disasters can often be drastically reduced by better preventive and predictive technology and better emergency services - but in most recent disasters, a high death toll in a Third World country has not been enough to propel disaster management into a secure place on the global agenda. More disasters likely This is unfortunate, as further humanitarian catastrophes on a similar or larger scale are absolutely certain as a result of continued global population growth colliding with stagnating economic growth, especially in the Third World. The world's population has increased rapidly over the last couple of centuries with the spread of industrialization and scientific medicine; it has risen astronomically in the last half-century. But economic growth has not always kept pace with population growth, especially in the last two decades. Some communities, such as the fishing villages on the Indian Ocean's coast eke out a precarious traditional living, facing not only competition from other traditional fishermen, but more seriously, from the commercial fishing industry that supplies demand in the advanced economies. In other countries, such as Turkey and Iran, rapid urbanization without corresponding economic growth has led to unemployment and poor-quality, high-density accommodation. In both cases, these populations are vulnerable to natural disasters, and in both cases the root cause is the poverty of these communities. The negative economic effects of disasters affecting subsistence farmers and fishers are simply too insignificant on a national, let alone a global scale to call forth the necessary investment to prevent the repeat of large-scale death tolls, while shoddy building techniques and overcrowding mean that urban dwellers in the Third World are more vulnerable to earthquakes and fires. Exactly one year before the Asian tsunami, a relatively small earthquake (6.3 on the Richter scale) flattened the southern Iranian city of Bam, killing an estimated 26'271 people. Earthquakes up to 8.0 on the Richter scale have been measured in Japan without causing any casualties. Prevention and response California Institute of Technology seismologist Dr Kerry Sieh told the New York Times that poor countries did not suffer more natural disasters than rich countries, but were less prepared for them and less able to cope in the aftermath. Had the tsunami originated off the eastern coast of Indonesia, in the Pacific Ocean, the cost in human lives would have been dramatically checked by the sophisticated Pacific tsunami warning system an international network of seismological instruments and deep-sea sensors linked by satellite to 24-hour monitoring stations. According to an academic interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, a similar tsunami warning system covering the whole globe, not just the Indian Ocean, could be set up for as little as US$150 million. While the media is now dominated by reports of the massive aid efforts currently underway and the even more massive promises for the future, aid on its own is
[osint] Tsunami must be fault of the US
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,11813903,00.html The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami must be fault of the US 31dec04 INEVITABLY, confronted with a tragedy of unimaginable scale, the human mind looks for someone to blame. In the Dark Ages, disasters were ascribed to the wrath of God. Now, in an odd inversion that we like to think of as progress, they are adduced as evidence of no God. In the absence of a deity to decry or appease when the earth moves in such devastating fashion, humankind reaches for the next best thing - worldly authority. Authority should have known it was coming. Authority didn't do enough to prevent it. Authority was too preoccupied with its own nefarious priorities to care. There is plenty of authority to blame for the devastation caused by the Sumatran earthquake this week. Governments in Bangkok, Jakarta and Colombo will shoulder some of it. Governments farther afield will be inculpated for the poverty of their response. Media organisations will be attacked for being too callous and too mawkish. Unsurprisingly, perhaps the most inviting target is the US. In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it. To be fair, even the most animated America-hater, though, baulks at the idea of blaming George W. Bush for the destruction and death in southern Asia. But the US is blamed for not responding generously enough to help the victims of the catastrophe. A UN official this week derided Washington's contribution as stingy. It is a label that fits the general image abroad of greedy, self-absorbed Americans. They neither know nor care much about the woes of the rest of the world, do they? Did the tsunami even get a look-in on US TV news between the holiday schmalz and the football games, I have been sneeringly asked once or twice this week by contemptuous British friends. The answer is yes, it did. News coverage of the event has been extensive, and for the most part intelligent and mercifully free of the sort of parochialism about holidaymakers that characterises so much of the European press accounts. There have been some lapses -- the New York newspaper that carried on its front page the Manhattan supermodel's harrowing tale of survival as her boyfriend was swept away by a tidal wave. There has perhaps been a little too much what if it happened here? alarmist self-absorption. But for the most part Americans have watched a sobering, heartbreaking tale of unimagined calamity unfold halfway across the world. You get a sense of the heterogeneity of this country when something such as this happens. Every newspaper in every big city has been carrying stories about local Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian communities traumatised by the long-distance search for relatives and friends. Further, in financial terms, it is not at all clear that the US is shirking its responsibilities, pledging an initial $US35 million ($45.1million) in aid, with the prospect of much more to come, and offering military assistance. You can be sure that the private US response will be even more impressive. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Americans are any more generous than anyone else -- simply that they, too, are moved to mercy by the plight of others. But even as we seek to apportion blame when catastrophe strikes, we are gripped too by a kind of fatalism. We stand in awe of nature and feel helpless before its apparently insuperable power. The rising death toll in Southeast Asia seems to mock our pretensions to progress. We may have been to the moon, eradicated smallpox and created eBay, we think, but when the tectonic plates move we are no more secure than were the barefoot citizens of Pompeii. Yet the truth is not so grim. For centuries, steady progress has been made in the struggle to limit the effects of natural disasters. Last year, an earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter scale killed more than 40,000 people in the Iranian city of Bam. In 1989, a more powerful earthquake struck outside San Francisco. The death toll was fewer than 100. Of course there were demographic and geologic differences that contributed to the disparity. Of course there will never be a fail-safe protection against the most destructive efforts of nature. But it is within our reach to build systems that can mitigate their effects. Years of scientific effort and technological investment have given the world seismic sensors; early warning systems; buildings that can bounce up and down on stilts buried deep in the earth; flood
[osint] Tsunami
Click the link for a rather riveting series of pictures. http://coreykoberg.com/Tsunami/ These were taken by my former roommate's co-worker who was visiting Thailand. I think it shows the force of the water more than anything I've seen on TV so far and how truly unaware people were of the destructive power of waves of this size. Europeans are by far the largest group of tourists to frequent the areas affected, but sadly their stinginess and hesitation to aid the areas they've enjoyed for years is apparent. C'mon Europe, do the right thing and donate! email me -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM ~- -- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
