The problem was the 51 cents/gallon of ethanol from sugar-cane tariff, the US imposes against imports from international producers of bioethanol – so they do not compete with US agro-ethanol.

We are cynics by nature and wonder if the release today has anything to do with Shell Oil Company having announced last weekend that they will invest over a billion dollars in the production of sugar-cane ethanol in Brazil. So, did we have to wait until an oil company steps heavily into this area – so we finally allow US door to be opened to a non-petroleum liquid fuel?

WE ARE VERY PARTIAL TO THIS TOPIC BECAUSE BACK IN 1978 AT UNIDO IN VIENNA, AND IN 1979 IN NEW ORLEANS, I WAS PERSONALLY INVOLVED IN BRINGING THIS SUBJECT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE LIQUID FUEL HUNGRY WESTERN WORLD. IN VIENNA WE SHOWED THE CUBAN EXPERIENCE AT A UN – AUSTRIA – SWEDEN EVENT. IN NEW ORLEANS THIS WAS “THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN CONFERENCE ON RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ENERGY” THAT I HELPED ORGANIZE. OBVIOUSLY – TO LOUISIANA WE COULD NOT BRING THE CUBANS – BUT BRAZIL, ARGENTINA AND MANY OTHERS WERE PRESENT UNDER THE FRIENDLY EYES OF THE US DEPARTMENT OF STATE. ETHANOL BECAME A RECOGNIZED FUEL, BUT US AGRICULTURE MADE SURE IT WILL BE US CORN AS FEEDSTOCK. WE COULD NOT EVEN GET PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR IMPORTS FROM FRIENDLY COUNTRIES BECAUSE OIL AND AGRICULTURE – SOME OF THE STRONGEST LOBBIES IN WASHINGTON – WOULD NOT ALLOW IT , EVEN AFTER THE INTERVENTION OF US REPUBLICAN SENATORS LIKE FRANK CHURCH, JACOB JAVITS, CHARLES PERCY – SO WHAT WILL IT BE NOW? WILL THOSE TARIFFS COME OFF?

—————-
EPA Reaffirms Sugarcane Biofuel is Advanced Renewable Fuel with 61% Less Emissions than Gasoline.
Brazil Sugarcane Update – Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Welcomes U.S. EPA’s Renewable Fuels Rules.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that ethanol made from sugarcane is a low carbon renewable fuel, which can contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of today’s announcement finalizing regulations for the implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), the EPA designated sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel that lowers GHG emissions by more than 50%.

“The EPA’s decision underscores the many environmental benefits of sugarcane ethanol and reaffirms how this low carbon, advanced renewable fuel can help the world mitigate against climate change while diversifying America’s energy resources,” said Joel Velasco, Chief Representative in Washington for the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA).

Sugarcane ethanol is a renewable fuel refined from cane that grows typically in tropical climates. Compared to other types of ethanol available today, using sugarcane ethanol to power cars and trucks yields greater reductions in greenhouse gases and is usually much cheaper for drivers to purchase. Brazil has replaced more than half of its fuel needs with sugarcane ethanol – making gasoline the alternative fuel in that country and ethanol the standard.  Many observers point to sugarcane ethanol as a good option for diversifying U.S. energy supplies, increasing healthy competition among biofuel manufacturers and improving America’s energy security.

The RFS2 will help the United States meet energy security and greenhouse gas reduction goals sought by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007 (EISA). The new regulations establish minimum biofuels consumption in the U.S. of more than 12 billion gallons (45 billion liters) in 2010, rising to 36 billion gallons (136 billion liters) in 2022, of which 21 billion gallons per year would have to be one of three types of advanced biofuels: cellulosic, biomass diesel, and “other advanced,” that meet required GHG reduction thresholds as determined by the EPA.

Today, EPA affirmed that sugarcane ethanol meets the “other advanced” category in the RFS2, although with a GHG reduction level that exceeds the requirement for all categories as well.  Specifically, EPA’s calculations show that sugarcane ethanol from Brazil reduces GHG emissions compared to gasoline by 61%, using a 30-year payback for indirect land use change (iLUC) emissions.

“We are pleased that EPA took the time to improve the regulations, particularly by more accurately quantifying the full lifecycle greenhouse emission reductions of biofuels. EPA’s reaffirmation of sugarcane ethanol’s superior GHG reduction confirms that sustainably-produced biofuels can play a important role in climate mitigation. Perhaps this recognition will sway those who have sought to raise trade barriers against clean energy here in the U.S. and around the world. Sugarcane ethanol is a first generation biofuel with third generation performance,” noted Velasco.

Last year, UNICA submitted comments to EPA with abundant scientifically credible evidence showing that – even including indirect emissions – sugarcane ethanol has a reduction of GHG emissions of 73-82% compared with gasoline, on a 30- or 100-year time horizon respectively. The RFS2 requires the use of at least 4 billion gallons (over 15 billion liters) of “other advanced” renewable fuels a year by 2022. In 2010, the RFS requires 200 million gallons of this type of advanced renewable fuels.

“While we are reviewing the final rule, it is clear that EPA has incorporated many of the comments that UNICA and other stakeholders made during the public process. EPA should be congratulated for the way it upheld the Obama’s goals of transparency and scientific integrity in the environmental rulemaking. And we hope that other governments should take note of the manner that EPA has handled this process,” concluded Velasco.

Brazil is a leader in the production of sugarcane ethanol, which is widely considered as the most efficient biofuel available today. In 2009, Brazil produced over 7 billion gallons of sugarcane ethanol, most of which is used in Brazil in flex fuel vehicles. As a result of Brazil’s innovative use of sugarcane ethanol in transportation and biomass for cogeneration, sugarcane is the leading source of renewable energy in the nation, representing 16% of the country’s total energy needs. In fact, gasoline has become the alternative in Brazil, reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels lowering emissions. A recent study in the November 2009 edition of the journal Energy Policy indicated that since 1975, over 600 million tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided thanks to the use of ethanol in Brazil.

———

ABOUT UNICA. The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) represents the
top producers of sugar and ethanol in the country’s South-Central region, especially the
state of Sao Paulo, which accounts for about 50% of the country’s sugarcane harvest
and 60% of total ethanol production. UNICA develops position papers, statistics and
specific research in support of Brazil’s sugar, ethanol and bioelectricity sectors. In 2008,
Brazil produced an estimated 565 million metric tons of sugarcane, which yielded 31.3
million tons of sugar and 25.7 billion liters (6.8 billion gallons) of ethanol, making it the
number-one sugarcane grower and sugar producer in the world, and the second-largest
ethanol producer on the planet, behind the United States.

—————-

Brazil Hopes Shell-Cosan Can Boost Ethanol Exports

Date: 04-Feb-10, Reuters from Brazil
Author: Inae Riveras – Analysis

SAO PAULO – Brazil’s ethanol industry, which invested heavily to boost output of the cane-based biofuel, is counting on a tie-up between sugar and ethanol producer Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to revive its prospects after exports fell short of expectations.

The $21-billion-a-year ethanol joint venture announced by the two companies on Monday will enable Cosan, Brazil’s biggest ethanol maker, to move product more efficiently thanks to Shell’s global fuel distribution and retail system.

Cosan views the venture as a way to make Brazil’s ethanol a global commodity.

But whether that happens will depend largely on outside factors: whether oil is costly enough to make ethanol competitive; whether Brazil’s mills can provide a steady stream of biofuel; and whether key markets such as the United States will be more open to ethanol imports.

“Shell chose ethanol as the renewable fuel they want to be in and it chose Brazil. Whether this will mean more exports will depend on a series of circumstances beyond the companies’ control,” said ethanol expert Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho.

The slow rate of growth for ethanol exports has disappointed Brazil, where more than 450 mills joined the ethanol sector’s expansion drive in recent years.

Some analysts say any growth in ethanol exports will depend on oil prices more than other factor.

“The deal itself does not raise or reduce the economic viability of blending anhydrous ethanol in gasoline. This will be determined by the oil market,” said sugar and ethanol analyst Julio Maria Borges, director at Job Economia.

In 2008, when oil prices reached record highs of $147 per barrel, Brazil exported 5.1 billion liters of ethanol, up sharply from 3.5 billion liters the previous year. Countries simply bought more of the fuel to replace gasoline.

High oil prices together with environmental woes were then feeding discussions about a broader adoption of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels.

But oil prices tumbled as the global credit crisis intensified, and there was a similar decline in foreign interest for the cane-based fuel. Brazilian ethanol exports in 2009 slipped to 3.3 billion liters despite extremely low prices on the Brazilian market.

STEADY SUPPLIES, TARIFFS

If ethanol is economically viable compared to oil, however, Brazilian ethanol exports should benefit from Shell’s global infrastructure, commercial relationships and know-how.

Shell, with distribution centers and 45,000 filling stations around the world, will have access to annual supplies of 2 billion liters of Cosan ethanol.

“Shell will be able to strike long-term deals with clients around the world, something that currently hardly exists, as it will be backed by a big provider,” Borges said.

But the lack of steady supplies from Brazil, which produces 26 billion liters of ethanol a year that are mostly consumed domestically, may trouble potential long-term buyers.

Futures markets for ethanol have been incapable of minimizing producers’ risks. Deals are largely done on a spot basis — both in and outside Brazil. This makes it difficult for buyers and sellers to hedge against market volatility.

Brazil’s government has worked on ways of softening this problem by providing financing to mills to build stocks, which also smoothes out local prices over the year. But the system remains stubbornly inefficient.

“The same old problem will continue. Mills say they will expand production if there’s demand but demand will only be created if there’s the certainty of stable supplies,” said an ethanol expert based in the United States.

A U.S. tariff on imports of cane-derived ethanol is another roadblock to Brazil’s expansion goals. Some in the industry have suggested Shell’s entry into ethanol production in Brazil could mean extra pressure for removal of the tariff.

But it is not clear whether there could be a move in that direction.

“The oil industry was always against the U.S. tariff. The news is that it is now seeing a solution in cane,” said Joel Velasco, the North American representative for Brazil’s Sugarcane Industry Association, Unica.

But the announcement that the biggest-ever foray into biofuels by an oil major would happen in Brazil was a clear sign of preference for the fuel over other options.

“It’s difficult to predict (when exports could rise)… but the strategic meaning of a company the size of Shell to invest here is the most important point,” Carvalho said.

TANGO TAKES ITS TURN ON UN CULTURAL BODY’S LIST OF INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

The tango, spawned over a century ago in the lower class barrios of Buenos Aires and Montevideo before bursting on to dance floors worldwide, today danced itself on to the United Nations-endorsed list of the planet’s intangible cultural heritage.

Together with dances of the Ainu in Japan, the Ashiqs in Azerbaijan and Korean and Tibetan ethnic groups in China, and others from Réunion island, India, Mexico and the Republic of Korea (ROK) it joined a host of cultural elements ranging from France’s Aubusson tapestries to Holy Week processions in Popayán, Colombia, to be added to the list.

In all, 76 cultural elements were inscribed on the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, chosen by the 24 Member States of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage at its fourth session in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The list was inaugurated last November in accordance with UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which seeks to protect the world’s oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, craftsmanship and knowledge of nature.

Today’s inscriptions ranged from religious ceremonies, like the Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium, the Panagyr ritual on the feast days of Saints Constantine and Helena in Bulgari, Bulgaria, and religious ritual theatre in the Garhwal Himalayas, India, to lace making in Croatia, a masked end-of-winter carnival in Mohács, Hungary, and the Voladores (‘flying men’) fertility dance of ethnic groups in Mexico and Central America.

The inscriptions comprise cultural elements from Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the ROK, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.

The following are the top 28 finalists in the Official 2009 New 7 Wonders of Nature competition – nominated from among hundreds of sites around the world that have been proposed.

July 18, 1994 Hezbollah bombed the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. 85 people were killed, among them the wife of Ambassador Daniel Carmon, mother of his 5 children. Two years earlier the same Hezbollah/Iran terror link bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Ambassador Carmon was the Vice President of CSD 16; Former Iran President Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97) and Former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi (1981-89) now Chairman of the Assembly of Experts were responsible for creating the Iran – Hezbollah link.

Rafsanjani who is independently extremely rich, has been described as a centrist and a “pragmatic conservative” who supports a pragmatic position domestically and a moderate position internationally, seeking to avoid conflict with the United States and the West, but International arrest warrants have been issued for Rafsanjani and many other Iranian officials for their role in the bombing of the AMIA .

Shortly after the end of Iran-Iraq war on 20 August 1988, Ruhollah Khomeini died, and Ali Khamenei was elected as the new Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts. Following his death, Mousavi and his fellow left-wingers lost their main source of support within the establishment.

During the parliament hearing on post-war reconstruction plans, Mousavi had heated arguments with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament at the time, over Rafsanjani’s suggestion that Iran accept the offer of western countries to help with post-war reconstruction.

On July 28, 1989, the constitution was amended and approved by Iranian voters in a national referendum with a 97% yes vote. At this time, Mehdi Karrubi had been elected as the new speaker of the parliament, to whom the amended constitution was declared. [16] According to one of the amendments, the prime minister’s position was abolished.

Hashemi Rafsanjani was also elected as the fourth president of Iran on 28 July 1989 and became the president on 3 August 1989. Mousavi’s premiership, ended on the same date. He was the 79th and the last prime minister of Iran, since the constitutional revolution in 1906.

Mousavi was not invited to be a participant in the new government headed by Rafsanjani, and disappeared from the public sphere.

Does the world believe that Moussavi & Rafsanjani are the potential leadership that will

bring change to Iran?  Will they agree to cut support for Hezbollah? Will they cut the policies they helped create in the past?

In Assessing Iran, Remember AMIA.

by Daniel Carmon
Special To The Jewish Week
The Jewish Week, July 17, 2009
On July 18 a somber anniversary will be marked: 15 years since the terrorist bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. In an instant, 85 people were killed and hundreds more injured. The seven-story building of Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, “AMIA” — the longtime center of Argentinean Jewish life — was reduced to rubble. This monstrous act followed the destruction of the Israeli embassy in Argentina two years earlier. Twenty-nine people were killed in that terrorist bombing and more than 250 were injured. As an Israeli diplomat serving in Argentina at the time of both bombings, I saw it all.  I was in the embassy during the first attack. My wife — mother of our five children — was killed. I myself was

wounded. I witnessed the scene of utter devastation. I heard the initial cries of horror and disbelief followed by the deafening, stunned silence.

Last month the world followed the dramatic events in Iran, in the aftermath of the elections there. Almost 30 days have passed since the brutal crackdown on the protesters, yet no one can offer an analysis that would suggest where this wounded society is heading. The short term, at least, looks bleak to all those who hoped a real change for that country was imminent.

Apparently these two events, separated by time and geography, have nothing in common. Or do they?

Two separate investigations held in Argentina on the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA center implicate Iran as the mastermind, while Hezbollah was the executioner. In fact, Argentina’s chief prosecutor has accused the highest levels of Iran’s government of being behind both bombings. Western intelligence services and anti-terrorist experts agree. Although separated by time, both devastating attacks were more of the same: two chapters of a larger story, two expressions of the same fanatical ideology of the Iranian regime. Iran made the decisions and ordered both attacks. Hezbollah, with the help of local agents, carried them out.

The multitude of demonstrators in Tehran last month contested the results of the elections, extolling their moderate “reformer” leader, Mir-Hossein Moussavi. Reformer? Moderate? Moussavi is not a new face to Iranian politics, as he served as prime minister between 1981-1989.  During his tenure he is believed to be one of the founders of the Hezbollah terrorist organization that has been Iran’s long arm in Lebanon and elsewhere. Another prominent political figure in Iran, now characterized by some as “moderate,” is former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. International arrest warrants have been issued for Rafsanjani and many other Iranian officials for their role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center. Is this the potential new leadership that will bring change to Iran?

Since it came to power, in 1978, the extreme Islamic regime in Tehran has made no secret of its intentions. It spews out anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli vitriol and has vowed to wipe Israel off the map. But Israel is not the only target for its hate. Iran’s regional ambitions go much further.  While its official spokespersons and representatives at the United Nations are lecturing us on the need to combat terrorism, their country continuously supports, trains, finances and equips Hezbollah and Hamas.  Promoting instability in Lebanon, violating Egyptian sovereignty and threatening security and calm along Israel’s northern border and in Gaza are only part of the Iranian grand scheme: exporting its extremist vision throughout the region.

Iran’s dangerous efforts to develop nuclear capabilities must be viewed in this light. It is for the international community to seriously evaluate the poor record earned by this regime: the use of international terror, the threat to regional stability, the support of extremism. At the same time, let us not forget, Iran’s own citizens are victims of this extremist ideology and are subject to a level of repression unimaginable in liberal, democratic societies. Public executions, including of minors, are on the rise. So is the stoning to death of women. And amputation as punishment is a source of judicial pride.
Can the world trust such a regime?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has infamously denied the Holocaust, while he is clearly preparing the next one. His country’s nuclear development programs and activities bluntly violate United Nations resolutions and are a slap in the face to the international community. A recent report of the UN nuclear watchdog agency declared that Iran was significantly ramping up its nuclear enrichment program. Iran’s nuclear ambitions threaten regional stability, constituting a real growing threat to every nation on earth. These fears are common knowledge throughout the United Nations and the international community, and are not confined to the discrete diplomatic discourse. Many of Israel’s Arab neighbors share the same concerns.

This is not “just” a lesson in recent history, and the 15th anniversary of the AMIA bombing is not only a day for reflection. This is a wake-up call. Iran of 15 years ago is, in many ways, the very same Iran of today:  same extreme ideology, same hate-mongering, same leaders. There is however one alarming difference: Iran is much closer to having the capacity to inflict far greater destruction.

As we commemorate the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Argentina and remember the victims, the nations of the world should be looking carefully at the past while trying to secure a better tomorrow. They should learn to keep their eyes wide open in any dealings with Iran. This is not the time for self-deception or naïve ventures. The consequences of getting it wrong are too great. The risks, if taken, should be very well calculated.

Ambassador Daniel Carmon is deputy permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations.

==========

Tehran Losing Iranians’ Trust, Ex-Leader Says

The New York Times
The police and the Basij militia fired tear gas at protesters on Friday outside Tehran University.

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: July 17, 2009
BEIRUT, Lebanon — As thousands of protesters chanted Friday in the streets outside, a former Iranian president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, assailed the government’s handling of the post-election unrest, saying it had lost the trust of many Iranians, and called for the release of hundreds of those arrested in recent weeks.

Multimedia

Slide Show
New Protests in Tehran as Cleric Assails Handling of Unrest

Related
The Lede: Latest Updates on Post-Election Protests in Iran

Times Topics: Mir Hussein Moussavi | Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani | Iran

Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivering his sermon on Friday.

Fars News Agency, via Reuters
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani led worshipers on Friday at Tehran University, where he criticized the government in his address.

OPINION
The Role of a Former Iranian President.
The New York Times Columnist Roger Cohen discusses why former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s speech Friday signals that protests in Iran will continue.

Mr. Rafsanjani, speaking to a vast crowd at Tehran University’s prayer hall, advanced the cause of Iran’s beleaguered opposition, saying doubts about the disputed June 12 election “are now consuming us” and calling for a new spirit of compromise from the government.

“A large group” of Iranians, he said, have doubts about the election. “We should work to address these doubts,” he said.

His appearance emboldened opposition supporters, who asserted themselves more aggressively than they had in weeks. Tens of thousands of people converged around the prayer hall, witnesses said. Police officers beat back large crowds of chanting protesters with tear gas and truncheons. There were reports of at least 15 arrests.

The speech was a turning point for Mr. Rafsanjani, a powerful government insider who previously had operated cautiously and mostly behind the scenes during the worst political unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. It seemed another sign that the hard-line leadership’s repression had not yet extinguished smoldering opposition.

In the audience were several prominent reformists, chief among them Mir Hussein Moussavi, the main opposition candidate, who has claimed that last month’s election was stolen from him. He had not been seen in public for weeks.

Mr. Rafsanjani, a bitter rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who supported Mr. Moussavi’s campaign, did not directly question Mr. Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory, which has been sanctioned by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But he made clear that he believed that Ayatollah Khamenei, who has blamed foreign powers for the unrest and has called for an end to protests, should take a more conciliatory stance.

“Khamenei and Ahmadinejad tried to close the door for debate about the elections, but Rafsanjani reopened it in a very important setting,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The hall has been the scene of many addresses by senior clerics.

Calling the election aftermath a “crisis,” Mr. Rafsanjani urged that restrictions on the press and on free speech be removed, in addition to seeking freedom for those detained since the election.

Mr. Rafsanjani also criticized the Guardian Council, a powerful supervisory body that looked into possible election fraud, saying it “did not use wisely the time the supreme leader gave it to investigate.”

He said he had discussed a possible solution with members of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts, two powerful state institutions he leads. He said his proposal was based on two principles: that everything must be done within a legal framework; and that there must be a free and open debate.

While the details were unclear, Mr. Rafsanjani’s proposal was an implicit rebuke to Ayatollah Khamenei, who tried to close the door on the post-election turmoil in his own Friday Prayer speech in the same hall four weeks ago. Ayatollah Khamenei has long presented himself as a neutral arbiter of Iran’s political disputes, but many Iranians say his embrace of Mr. Ahmadinejad and his stern dismissal of the protests has made the supreme leader seem a more partisan figure.

In that sense, Mr. Rafsanjani, a consummate pragmatist, appeared to be reclaiming a central role in Iran’s divided power structure.

His speech is bound to anger some of Iran’s hard-line political figures, who had said they wanted him to come out strongly against the protesters. Just before Mr. Rafsanjani spoke, a government cleric cautioned him not to say anything that went beyond “the framework of what the leader has defined” for the speech.

Until Friday, the opposition had been mostly quiet for weeks, in part because of the brutal street crackdowns and in part, Mr. Sadjadpour noted, because its most articulate leaders were either in prison, under house arrest, or unable to communicate.

“There remains tremendous popular outrage but no clear plan about how to channel it politically,” he said.

In fact, some opposition supporters were disappointed that Mr. Rafsanjani did not openly challenge the official election results. During the speech, some among the vast overflow crowd outside the hall at Tehran University chanted, “Rafsanjani, you are a traitor if you remain silent.”

Crowds began moving toward the prayer hall early Friday, and many were blocked by riot police officers. The crowds were mostly peaceful, but soon antigovernment chants broke out, like “Death to the coup d’état.”

It was then, witnesses said, that the police began spraying tear gas, and the Basij militia began beating people with sticks.

“There were so many people and so many security forces that the protests spread to streets several miles from the university,” one witness said.

Among those arrested Friday was Shadi Sadr, a lawyer and women’s rights activist picked up by plainclothes police officers as she walked to Friday Prayer, reformist blogs reported.

Apart from Mr. Moussavi, a reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, also attended, as did the other failed presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai.

Most of those who attended the speech appeared to be supporters of the opposition, witnesses said, with an unusual proportion of women and many people wearing wristbands or other accessories in bright green — the color of the Moussavi campaign.

As the speech ended and traditional calls to chant “Death to America” came over the loudspeaker, many in the crowd instead chanted “Death to Russia.” Many opposition supporters are angry about Russia’s quick acceptance of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s election victory.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was visiting the northeastern city of Mashad, did not attend the speech. He announced several changes to his new cabinet, including the promotion of members of his inner circle, that have led some to conclude the president is not heeding any call to compromise.

Some observers hailed Mr. Rafsanjani’s speech as a typically shrewd gesture, in which he undermined his political rivals while rooting his comments in the principles of the Islamic republic.

“Everything in our Islamic republic is based on votes,” Mr. Rafsanjani said, in comments that were read by some as a quiet condemnation of the election results. “Without the people’s vote, things cannot go on.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, Nazila Fathi from Toronto, and independent observers from Tehran.

——————–

[PDF] Keynote Address by H.E. Mr. Daniel Carmon, Vice-Chairman of CSD-16 …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View
Keynote Address by H.E. Mr. Daniel Carmon, Vice-Chairman of CSD-16. Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations in New York …
 ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
The New York Times, July 17, 2009

BUENOS AIRES — In the 15 years since the bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association here, the deadliest terrorist attack in this country’s history, the case has become a symbol of the failings of Argentina’s judicial system.

Despite all the international attention, despite investigative help from Israel and the United States, no one has been convicted for the July 18, 1994, bombing of the community center, in which 85 people died and more than 300 were injured.

“This was clearly a test case,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch. “And so far it really has not helped to establish any credibility for the justice system in Argentina.”

But suddenly, an investigation that former President Néstor Kirchner called a national disgrace has received new urgency and is again raising hopes among Jewish groups, though significant concerns about the inquiry remain.

In May, Argentina’s Supreme Court validated much of the evidence of the initial investigation, which had previously been ruled inadmissible after an investigative magistrate tried to bribe a witness. In its recent ruling, the court urged an “end to impunity” and emphasized the need for Argentina to finally solve the case.

Then last month, a federal judge here, Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, ordered the international capture of Samuel Salman El Reda, a 43-year-old Colombian citizen whom prosecutors here had accused of helping coordinate the local Hezbollah cell that Argentine investigators said had carried out the bombing.

Investigators here believe that they have solved the case in principle, having accused the Iranian government of planning and financing the attack, and Hezbollah of executing those plans.

But some experts, including a former American F.B.I. agent who assisted the Argentines in their investigation, are skeptical about the claims of direct Iranian involvement. “The guilt field was painted with a bit too broad a brush,” said the former agent, James Bernazzani, who led the F.B.I.’s Hezbollah operations unit in the late 1990s.

Mr. Bernazzani said he was still “convinced” of Hezbollah’s involvement, “but we surfaced no information indicating Iranian compliance.”

Such doubts have long clouded the investigations. Previous inquiries were riddled with incompetence, witnesses who were threatened and bribed, stolen evidence and accusations of a cover-up involving the former Argentine president Carlos Menem.

The Argentines, nevertheless, maintain that Iran was behind the attack, and have had limited relations with Tehran partly because of the investigation’s importance to the nation’s 230,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Latin America. The 1994 bombing came two years after the Israeli Embassy here was bombed, killing 29 people, a case that also remains unsolved.

Mohsen Baharvand, the chargé d’affaires at the Iranian Embassy here, said Iran was an “easy scapegoat” for the attack. “The whole claim against Iran in the AMIA case is a big lie,” Mr. Baharvand said in an e-mail message, using the Spanish acronym for the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association.

Judge Juan José Galeano’s original investigation focused on the so-called local connection, including people involved in selling a van that had been loaded with explosives. But his inquiry went awry after he decided to pay a suspect, Carlos Telleldín, $400,000 to falsely accuse police officers of being involved in the plot. Amid the scandal, Mr. Telleldín and four police officers were acquitted in 2004. Judge Galeano was impeached a year later.

Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who took over the investigation in 2005, has intensified a line of inquiry that Mr. Galeano had played down: the involvement of Iran.

In 2006, Mr. Nisman formally accused several members of Iran’s government of planning and financing the bombing, including former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Central to the indictments was an Iranian defector, Abdolghassem Meshabi, who said that the plot had been hatched in Tehran and that Iranian officials had paid Mr. Menem about $10 million to help cover up Iran’s involvement.

Mr. Menem denied any involvement last November. His former advisers have insisted that he was determined to solve the case, not cover it up, and that Mr. Bernazzani had said the F.B.I. did not view Mr. Meshabi as a credible witness.

With the case seemingly stalled, Argentina’s Supreme Court in May ordered it reopened, saying it was unreasonable to throw out all the original investigative work because of the Galeano corruption scandal. The court ruled that the investigation had been valid until Oct. 31, 1995, when Mr. Galeano decided to offer the money to Mr. Telleldín.

Presidents Lula and Hu meet in Beijing. (AP Photo)

THE UPDATE:

The Wall Stret Journal, as expected from this paper, has its main article in “World News” that “Brazil Turns to China to Help Finance Oil Projects,” but The Financial Times of London has a much more intelligent article as its main piece of “World News” – “BRAZIL AND CHINA IN PLAN TO AXE DOLLAR” – writes Jonathan Wheatley on May 19th from Sao Pulo.

Brazil has already an agreement with Argentina in which bilateral trade can use each others currencies. Then,   Messrs. Lula da Silva and Hu Jintao discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the reminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London, April 2009.   Mr. Lula is now in Beijing to follow up, and prepare a meeting between the governors of the two countries’ central   banks – Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan.

Mr. Zhou already proposed replacing the US dollar as the world’s leading currency with a a new international reserve currency possibly in the form of special drawing rights (SDRs) of the IMF – this in order to have a reserve currency that “is disconnected from individual nations” as the Chinese banker put it – and as we read this – in order to cut down the ailing dollar to its real size. The discussions between China and Brazil are now the follow up effort that in a short time might indeed put the US on notice that its world hegemony due to its currency printing presses backed only by what proved to be hot air from balloons in its economy, may finally have reached its natural end. What will be the position of the EU, Japan and India, if a China – Latin America agreement is reached in their bilateral trade?

Sure, we understand that China has invested a large share of its reserves in the US dollar, but does this indeed demand that they continue doing so if they realize that the US economy may have reached a low and that eventually all what could be expected, rationally, is an “L” shaped recovery?   So, going for the SDR idea in a step that eventually will make their own currency, the reminbi, as backed up by a 1.3 billion people market – and a growing technology base – as the future global currency in its own right. Brazil, with its much lower present exposure to the US dollar, could be the catalyst in the process – and yes – the independence it reached by sitting on underperforming oil reserves, and its own use and potential exporter of biofuels, gives it the maneuverability and credibility to take on the US theses days. The fact that the US still officially has import taxes/tariffs against biofuels from Brazil, and other such shenanigans, has left little love in Lula’s heart toward this country anyway – the WTO has given little succor to the counties of the South and Brazil is substantial enough to say so.

—————-

The Council of the Americas / Americas Society has also entered this subject, obviously. Following is the way they reacted:

 ascoa.online at as-coa.org.

* * *

Before heading to China, Lula became the first Brazilian president to travel to Saudi Arabia, where he called for increased reciprocal trade and investment, as well as for partnership in petrochemicals.

The Brazilian president also travels to Turkey this week, where his delegation will attend the Turkey-Business Forum meeting.  

=========

Brazil Hopes To Team Up With China In Biofuel.

Date: 19-May-09, Reuters.

BEIJING – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will focus on renewable fuels during his visit to Beijing this week, hoping to team up with China to develop bio-fuels, the Caijing Magazine has reported.

Lula arrived in Beijing on Monday and will pay a state visit for three days.

“We will focus on renewable fuels, especially ethanol and bio-diesel,” Lula told Caijing in an interview on Friday when asked about his priorities for his state visit. The two developing countries already have strong trade ties.

“What we do want is for countries like China to establish partnerships with Brazil and Africa, for us to produce bio-fuels and generate more jobs and income,” he was cited in a story posted on the magazine’s website, www.caijing.com.cn.

Brazil has been promoting its ethanol technology to China, using sugarcane as feedstock. But given China’s own shortage of sugar, China is not considering any sugarcane-based ethanol.

Brazil has also been proposing to export Brazilian-made fuel ethanol to China, but it now faces high import taxes as well as consumption taxes.

“If you don’t have land to produce but you need energy, you can finance other countries that can produce to meet your market needs,” Lula told Caijing.

Brazil is the only country in the world where nearly 90 percent of all cars sold are flex-fuel — they can run on gasoline, 100 percent ethanol, or a blend.

Lula also said that it is possible that “another agreement between China Development Bank and Petrobras” will be signed during his visit, according to the English language Caijing story. It did not elaborate.

The China Development Bank signed a deal in February to extend a $10 billion credit line to Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras in exchange for 100,000 to 160,000 barrels per day of oil supplies to state firm China National Petroleum Corp and to Sinopec.

This is totally insane – the problem is the Catholic highest Chair – the Pope – not this lowly bishop. It was the Pope who started this all by removing the Chuch opposition to clergy that expresses this sort of Holocaust-denial views.
The problem is that this Pope, and quite a few of his predecessors where FAILABLE in their ETHICS’ Decisions. So it is – and it requires the Pope’s Clear renunciation of what was seen as his pardon of Jew-hatred. Even Jew-hateres at the UN understood that the Holocaust is worse then the Cardinal Sin.

From Times   (of London) Online – February 27, 2009.

Critics reject ‘apology’ from Holocaust-denial bishop Richard Williamson.

Chris Smyth

The British bishop whose denial of the extent of the Holocaust embroiled the Pope in an international outcry has had his attempt to defuse the row rejected by religious and educational groups worldwide.

Bishop Richard Williamson last night issued a grudgingly-worded apology for the offence caused by an interview on Swedish television, in which he said that no Jews were killed in the gas chambers.

His words were today dismissed as “empty” because he refused to say whether he still believes that such claims were “lies”.

“The Holy Father and my Superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay, have requested that I reconsider the remarks I made on Swedish television four months ago, because their consequences have been so heavy,” Bishop Williamson said in a statement released by the Zenit Catholic news agency.

RELATED LINKS

Holocaust-denial bishop arrives in Britain

Holocaust-denial bishop heads for Britain

Holocaust-denial Bishop in line for speaking date

MULTIMEDIA
BLOG: Williamson and David Irving link up

“Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.”

Bishop Williamson said he was only giving his opinion as a non-historian. “An opinion formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available, and rarely expressed in public since.”

He added: “However, the events of recent weeks and the advice of senior members of the Society of St Pius X have persuaded me of my responsibility for much distress caused. To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise.”

Mark Frazer, a spokesman for the Board or Deputies of British Jews, said: “The Jewish community and many more besides will be unmoved by this apology. The Vatican were very clear that Richard Williamson must recant, yet he continues to refuse to do so. Sadly, this late regret comes across as nothing more than an empty sentiment from a man under the pressure of public scrutiny.”

Iris Rosenberg, spokeswoman for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, said: “If he is looking to repent, he needs to admit that he was wrong in denying the truth.”

Stephen Smith, founder of Britain’s Holocaust Centre, said the apology was “far from complete”.

Dr Smith said: “If Bishop Williamson is sincere in his apology and, recognising the harm caused by his original statement, recognises the truth that was the Holocaust, I invite him to visit us at the Holocaust Centre at any time so that his views in future are based on historical fact rather than 20-year-old anti-Semitic myths.”

Pope Benedict XVI lifted Bishop Williamson’s excommunication in January, days after the interview was broadcast, leading to an explosion of incredulous anger.

The Vatican said his aim had been to bring the Society of St Pius X, the ultraconservative sect to which Bishop Williamson belongs, back into full communion with the Church and that he had been unaware of Bishop Williamson’s views. The Pope was subsequently forced to condemn the bishop’s remarks and speak out strongly against anti-Semitism.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, said Bishop Williamson’s statement was “not the kind of an apology that would end this matter; because it failed to address the central issue. The one thing he doesn’t say, and the main thing, is that the Holocaust occurred, that it is not a fabrication, that it is not a lie,” he said. “If you want to make an apology, you have to affirm the Holocaust.”

Jewish groups in Italy called the apology “thoroughly ambiguous” and Dieter Graumann, vice-president of the Central Council for Jews in Germany, told the Handelsblatt newspaper that the statement was “thoroughly bungled.”

Bishop Williamson would not respond to request to clarify his views.

———————-

¿Cambio? – “CHANGE?” – Latin America in the Era of Obama ― An Early Reading on the Administration:
- Bush’s legacy leaves an estranged Latin America
- Range of new Latin American issues vie for Washington’s attention
- Conflicting messages from Obama’s diverse cabinet
- Regional leaders express hope, remain cautious

Now that Barack Obama is several weeks into being the 44th President of the United States, expectations are running high in Latin America, where two terms of George Bush’s widely noted indifference to regional affairs have strained hemispheric relations.

Obama now must address a hemisphere that has developed a substantially different profile than existed eight years before when Bush first assumed office. A highly regarded would-be superpower, an impressive collection of left-leaning governments, a concerted attempt at regional integration, and the formation of an entire array of new institutions have emerged in Latin America since Washington’s near abandonment of the region in favor of the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

Moreover, an intensifying security threat associated with drug trafficking and the demands of other, more clamorous issues have muscled their way to the forefront of the area’s concerns.

If he is to revive any significant U.S. silhouette in the Latin American region, Obama must live up to his oft-repeated but as yet untested campaign rhetoric calling for ‘change.’ Each of the agenda items which his presidency is facing in the region can be addressed with reasonable ease if the Obama administration’s supposed pragmatism prevails over the status quo policies which were a feature of both Clinton’s and Bush’s approach to the region. What is needed is a sense of respect for all of the hemisphere’s players rather than ideological Sturm und Drang or the assumption that augmented trade will provide a universal elixir.

War on drugs
An increasingly high-intensity war is being fought in Mexico between all-powerful drug trade organizations (DTO) and the country’s security forces. President Felipe Calderon deployed Mexico’s army soon after the onset of his presidency in early 2007. His mission was to dismantle the DTOs’ heavily armed networks as well as to attempt to moderate the unprecedented violence that had been growing in the country throughout 2006. Two years since the anti-drug trafficking offensive began, over 8,000 casualties have been violently claimed in cartel hot spots across Mexico. The two bloodiest battlefields have been right along the U.S. border in and around Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, where DTOs are fiercely fighting over control of drug smuggling routes. Additionally, over 1,000 kidnappings were reported in 2008, exceeding the numbers encountered in Colombia or Iraq.

Early in 2009 the violent trend set in motion during the two previous years has shown no sign of slackening. Officials on both sides of the border only now have begun to give this issue the attention it deserves. Leaders from across the hemisphere have met on a number of occasions to initiate intelligence-sharing programs as well as attempt to jump start cooperative training, tracking and extradition procedures. Recently, President Calderón met with Guatemalan President Colom, Panamanian President Torrijos and Colombian President Uribe in Panama where the leaders underlined the indisputable importance of a coordinated response. Colombia remains the world’s leading cocaine producer despite the U.S.-backed multi-billion dollar anti-narcotics campaign, Plan Colombia. Meanwhile, Guatemala and Panama serve as major hubs in the smuggling chain that leads to the U.S.

The Tactics of a Drug Strategy: Colombia and Mexico
In the U.S., officials from relevant branches of the government have begun to point out the destabilizing effects that a lawless Mexico could have on the southern U.S., let alone the rest of Latin America. Last year, Guatemala suffered at least four grotesque massacres that occurred due to Mexico’s growing DTO influence in the country. Incidents in Honduras and El Salvador tell similar tales. An Afghanistanization of Mexico and Central America becomes a strong possibility, if not a near certainty, claims a report written by ex-Drug Czar General McCaffrey, referring to the specific areas within Mexican territory being wrested from the government’s de facto control by powerful drug lords who would then not hesitate to set up their own shadow authority. Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana immediately come to mind as likely locales when contemplating this scenario’s plausibility. Local police officers and military personnel have only loose control over certain quadrants in the major Mexican cities where they are. The potential for failed cities in such close proximity to the U.S. border could certainly produce a dangerous spillover effect similar to what is happening in the border towns that link Guatemala and Mexico, where a legal boundary exists only in name.

In an event that may have been more ceremonial that substantive, Mexico’s Calderón was the first foreign leader to meet with President Obama. The Mexican leader’s main mission in Washington, besides pushing for immigration reform, was the deadly threat of narcotrafficking and the perils posed to both countries. A harried Calderón strongly made the case for added U.S. cooperation in the anti-drug struggle, when he urged that “the more secure Mexico finds itself, the more secure [the] U.S. will be.” Obama certainly seems to understand the importance this threat represents for U.S.-Mexican security concerns. If this is so, it should be one of the Obama’s administration’s greatest priorities to address the responsibility of his country’s stake in the violence that Mexico is currently facing largely alone.

Assisting the Mexican government with military aid and intelligence will have little effect if the DTOs continue to arm themselves with US-secured weaponry from cross-border sources. Obama and Calderon both understand the need to collaborate on this issue, which carries dire consequences, but a traditional approach, which is the one likely to take place here, will not do the job. Just like Plan Colombia is having only a very limited impact on the drug trade that originates from Colombia, the recently started Merida Initiative is on track to suffer a similar fate. The importance of acknowledging the price that the war on drugs has cost the region, which has been fueled by high levels of US consumption and eager DTOs doing the supplying, must be of more than cosmetic note to the Obama administration.

Trade
Trade between the United States and Latin America has grown inexorably over the past decade, with Washington remaining the largest trading partner for many of the countries there, according to latest World Trade Organisation statistics. Even Venezuela – despite Hugo Chávez’s ‘anti-imperial’ rhetoric – relies heavily on U.S. commercial ties, with almost half of the country’s exports in 2007 heading for U.S. shores. The U.S., however, has lost considerable momentum in the area during the eight years of the Bush presidency, with Latin American countries moving increasingly towards a system of trade regionalisation which steadily limits Washington’s presence. A host of bodies like Mercosur and such collective entities as UNASUR, ALBA, and Petrocaribe have emerged promoting strong regional trade links, and largely have focused on South and Central American Basin locations. The prominence of these organisations has represented an implicit rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to press the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in the region. This continental free trade zone became a major project designed to realize Washington’s vision for hemispheric trade, but Bush’s position was so inflexible that it forced the rest of Latin America into forging ahead with a system of its own choosing, relegating the U.S. a peripheral presence.

Whereas Bush resorted to negotiating bilateral free trade agreements with countries aligned with U.S. interests, Obama would be well advised to remove the blinkers of a specific model of free trade and attempt to engage with Latin America on terms more acceptable to the region as a whole. The newly emerging regional organisations have variously emphasised degrees of political integration and social considerations, like funding poor countries’ development programmes in order to temper the unadulterated free trade which both the Bush and Clinton White Houses envisaged. There is certainly a good deal of reason for Obama to address the issue of the growing isolation of the U.S. from the hemisphere’s main regional bodies. Those that exist form a patchwork meant to deal with specific issues concerned with distinct development models. No single model yet holds a monopoly on the region’s attention. However, any Latin American country keen to assert itself on the world stage as a political entity is now unlikely to submit to trade terms exclusively dictated by the United States. Obama must come to realise this in a way which Bush never did.

Brazil
The one country which noticeably has moved into the U.S.’ stead in assuming a leading role in Latin America – particularly in this new wave of regional institutionalization – is Brazil. The Brazilian economy has exhibited a degree of resilience in the face of the ongoing global economic downturn and has become the most economically and geo-politically significant presence in the area. The sign to date of this is the nascent relationship between Lula and Obama which is likely to be a very constructive one. Just prior to the latter’s election, Lula described a potential Obama presidency as a representation of major change; adding to the momentum that already had begun in South America: “just as Brazil elected a metal worker, Bolivia elected an Indian, Venezuela elected [socialist leader Hugo] Chávez and Paraguay a bishop, I think that it would be an extraordinary thing if, in the largest economy in the world, a black were elected president of the United States.”

Statements that Lula has made since Obama’s inauguration illustrate that his enthusiasm for the new U.S. president certainly remains undiminished, but it is also tempered by the realistic expectations he has for him. Brazil’s strong voice as South America’s regional hegemon has echoed the expectations that the area has of Obama; asking for mutual respect as the most important guidepost. “Obama should transform that gesture of the U.S. people into a gesture for Latin America … respecting our sovereignty and an equitable coexistence,” explained Lula, particularly regarding leftist countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. Nevertheless, after speaking on January 26 over the telephone, the two men spoke highly of the chances of cooperation, particularly on the issue of biofuels, with Lula telling Obama: “Your election transcends the United States.”

Given the current positive standing of Brazil in Latin America, good relations between Washington and Brasilia are vital for the existence of solid U.S. links with the region as a whole. What was once exclusively the U.S.’ backyard is now one which Obama must learn to share with Lula, and later, others. Indeed, Obama may be well advised to invite Brazil to play a more important role on the world stage by supporting its long-held ambition to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and other symbols of tenure in the winner’s circle.

Cuba
One of the most important indicators of future U.S.-Latin American relations will be what President Obama will do regarding the Cuban embargo and other sanctions considered by Latin American leaders as being onerous and unacceptable. Most South American leaders have come forth with positive remarks about Castro and Cuba, and have strongly expressed their condemnation of U.S.-Cuban policy, which if anything became even more rigid under former President Bush. Sympathy for Cuba’s plight has grown arithmetically in recent years as left-leaning democracies have emerged throughout the region to which Havana is more a hero than a knave.

Guantánamo and Cuba
Obama’s discussion on U.S.-Cuban relations has laid out a welcomed course of possibly reversing President Bush’s restrictions on Cuban-American travel to the island as well as removing caps on financial remittances by family members being sent back to the island. A significant step was taken when President Obama ordered the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility within a 16-month window due to its notoriety as a known torture center during the ongoing War on Terror. The prospect of shutting down Guantánamo was well received around the world, but most notably by Fidel Castro who cautiously praised Obama. “I expressed that personally I had not the least doubt of the honesty with which Obama, the 11th president since January 1 1959, expressed his ideas, but in spite of his noble intentions there remained many questions to answer,” said Castro in his Reflections column. Here we have an interesting duality being posed. It may well be that U.S. relations with Washington may affect a thaw far more quickly than with Venezuela, because Raúl Castro will be looked upon as an inherently less radical victor than is Chávez. Washington, however, may be mindful of the fact that Fidel Castro administered several generations of the left throughout Latin America – most notably Chile’s Salvador Allende, Grenada’s Maurice Bishop and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

Unfortunately, even though significant progress may be in the making regarding U.S.-Cuban relations, Obama has resorted to Cold War-era rhetoric by using the 50 year-old embargo as leverage to promote democratic change. President Lula of Brazil advised Obama to abolish the inflexible blockade as it lacks “any scientific or political explanation.” If Obama were to cease the outdated strategic stalemate with Cuba that has locked U.S. bilateral policy toward the island in an obsolete time capsule, it would help herald a new dawn for U.S.-Latin American relations as well as improving badly frayed hemispheric ties.

Chávez: Lightning Rod & Yolk
For well over a century, the Monroe doctrine dictated U.S. policy towards the rest of the Americas. Since 1823, until recently, Washington basically designated the hemisphere as exclusively an American sphere of influence, and forbade the application of any outside forces to its perceived extended territory. However, the past eight years have seen U.S. influence in Latin America badly erode and progressively usurped by powers from outside the hemisphere. Russia and China in particular have been active in the region, as well as Iran and the European Union, among others, as the continent has diversified its trade links. Hugo Chávez has acted as a ‘lightning rod’ for many of these changes and for attracting the business and political interests of some of these countries to the continent, but their influence is more widespread and variegated than this connection would suggest.

Building New Links
According to Reuters, “Russia and Venezuela have signed 12 arms contracts worth $4.4 billion over the past two years,” and the two countries’ navies recently engaged in joint maneuvers. Russian President Dimitri Medvedev, has visited not just Chávez, but also the Castro brothers in Cuba, and Lula in Brazil, and has received Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Moscow. On December 23rd 2008, France and Brazil signed a deal worth, according to the New York Times, $12 billion for helicopters and submarines, and China’s trade with the region has risen tenfold during the Bush presidency, according to the Guardian. Moreover, Iran has struck trade deals with Venezuela and presidents Chávez and Ahmadinejad have worked together to revitalize OPEC.

The new Obama administration has issued mixed reactions to this presence of foreign powers in the U.S.’ traditional sphere of influence. Speaking on January 27, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, one of the few members of the Bush administration to retain his post under President Obama, said: “I’m more concerned about Iranian meddling in the region than I am the Russians.” Gates expressed concern at the “frankly subversive activity that the Iranians are carrying on in a number of places in Latin America,” but made it clear he doesn’t see Russian involvement, not even their recent naval maneuvers with Venezuela, as a threat, a view that Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Tom Shannon has previously voiced.

Obama must not place unquestioning faith in Gates’ recent comments about Iranian influence in Latin America, which have demonstrated that his roots lie firmly in the Bush administration. The White House under Obama already has begun drafting a letter, in a conciliatory gesture, to the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Gates’ view on Iran’s links with Chávez in particular seems not to tally with Obama’s readiness for a de-marche. Instead of firing hostile rhetorical shots, Obama would be prudent to continue on his diplomatic path and remember that Iran’s capabilities and development abilities in the Western hemisphere are limited (particularly now due to their straitened economy); certainly in military terms. Today Tehran poses a far lesser threat to the U.S. than Moscow.

A Mixed Record on Bilateral Trade
In addition to attracting outside influences, it has been Chávez who has been instrumental in spreading a wave of ‘21st Century Socialism’ across the region, influencing countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Outside Chávez’s direct sphere of influence lie other centre-left governments, encompassing Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Guatemala. Thus, the dwindling pool of countries which remain truly sympathetic to traditional U.S. goals in the region is limited to no more than Colombia, Peru, El Salvador and sometimes Mexico. In this respect, Obama inherits a region very much different to what his predecessors had to face.

Many of these countries have experienced frosty relations with the U.S. during Bush’s eight years in power. Both Venezuela and Bolivia expelled their U.S. ambassadors in September 2008, and Chávez was famously the subject of a coup in 2002 to which the CIA was allegedly linked. Evo Morales demanded the removal of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) office from Bolivia in November 2008, and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa elected in October 2007 not to renew the U.S.’ lease on the Manta airbase in the country, forcing U.S. military personnel to leave the area when it expires this year.

The Obama administration’s approach again has been mixed in regard to these countries. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said after the January 25 constitutional referendum in Bolivia: “I don ´t think the results are final at this point, but we look forward to working with the Bolivian government in ways we can to further democracy and, you know, prosperity in the hemisphere,” a comment which drew a warm response from Evo Morales. “If that’s the message I feel it’s a message that is going to be respectful of the decisions of the Bolivian government, because before, with the government of Bush, we had many problems,” he told Mercopress, and Bolivia’s foreign minister David Choquehuanca has subsequently hinted that the countries’ respective ambassadors could soon be reestablished.

With Venezuela, on the other hand, things are far muddier. Both Obama’s cabinet and Chávez have exchanged gestures alternating between confrontational and accommodating in recent weeks. In their initial exchanges of rhetorical salvos, Chávez welcomed Obama’s election as a historic occasion that could potentially lead to an amiable relationship. But while Obama at first may have been demonstrating a new generosity of spirit when it came to unconditional negotiations with Venezuela and Iran – an approach which drew attacks against him from then rival primary candidate Hillary Clinton – he too began to exchange barbs with Washington’s traditional pariahs, attacking Chávez for his alleged links to Colombia’s FARC in the week prior to his inauguration. “Chávez has been a force that has interrupted progress in the region,” Obama said, which prompted the Venezuelan to retort: “hopefully I am wrong, but I think Obama will be the same harmful influence as Bush.”

Since Obama’s inauguration, Washington’s approach towards Venezuela has become even less clear. James Steinberg, the new U.S. Deputy Secretary of State said on January 23: “Our friends and partners in Latin America are looking to the United States to provide strong and sustained leadership in the region, as a counterweight to governments like those currently in power in Venezuela and Bolivia which pursue policies which do not serve the interests of their people or the region.” However, on the same day, Chávez appeared to soften his approach, saying of the new president: “He is a man with good intentions; he has immediately eliminated Guantanamo prison, and that should be applauded … I am very happy and the world is happy that this young president has arrived … [we] welcome the new government and we are filled with hope.” What is alarming when looking upon the whole exchange are the combative words of James Steinberg, who, as Deputy Secretary of State could play a substantial role in formulating a new Latin America policy, despite his professional history not revealing an indication of a weighty background in U.S.-Latin American relations.

As of now, both President Obama and President Chávez appear to be carelessly lobbing condemnations at each other that may come back to bedevil prospects for them to engage in useful talks. Obama may be too hastily dispensing brimstone on Venezuela, a subject in which he is poorly versed, knowing well that Chávez’s sclerotic nature might win him a thunderous response at home while simultaneously alienating him from Washington. Equally, Chávez is now using a campaign rhetoric that has the dangerous potential of becoming a fixed public position. OAS secretary general José Miguel Insulza has expressed the conviction that Caracas should take the vagueness of Obama’s statements with a grain of salt; advice that both sides of this diplomatic spat might want to heed.

There is no need or desire for Obama to reassert U.S. hegemony in Latin America – indeed, the U.S., given the new display of regional standing on the part of Brazil as much as the significant presence of Chávez, almost certainly lacks the ability to do so. Obama must come to recognise that the newly established presence of such non-traditional Latin American players as Iran, China and Russia has come about primarily as a reaction to the U.S.’ post-9/11 neglect of the hemisphere. If he is to halt the growing shadow cast by these countries, and act to secure the fuel and other vital resources and commodities which Washington traditionally has found in Latin America, he must begin to engage constructively with the region at a brisk gait rather than weighing in with Bush-style caudillismo.

Obama’s Cabinet
Having appointed the tough-minded Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State and Ron Kirk as his Trade Representative, Obama has two potentially strong free traders in important cabinet positions. Although this is not the position Clinton took during the campaign, she nevertheless takes a flexible point of view towards various pending free trade pacts. In her confirmation hearing on January 15h, Clinton addressed Latin America as a lesser concern than Australia and South East Asia in discussing her foreign policy priorities, and Latin America is one of the few regions without a special envoy in the State Department. During her own presidential campaign, the future Secretary of State berated Obama’s willingness to engage in dialogue with the Castro brothers “unconditionally,” and also has backed Alvaro Uribe’s Colombia in no uncertain terms in its various confrontations with Venezuela.

However, Clinton has made some promising remarks since assuming her position in the Obama administration. “We will return to a policy of vigorous involvement — partnership even — with Latin America, from the Caribbean, to Central America, to South America,” she said shortly before Obama’s inauguration. Latin America can also hope that Obama feels he owes a ‘debt’ of attention to the U.S.’ Latino population which was instrumental in his election. Indeed, Clinton, in a sign that this may be true of the wider cabinet, has said: “We share common political, economic and strategic interests with our friends to the south, as well as many of our citizens who share ancestral and cultural legacies.”

The position of Commerce Secretary in Obama’s cabinet is on the verge of being filled by Senator Judd Gregg, after the January 4, 2009 withdrawal of Bill Richardson, who is under investigation by the FBI and a federal grand jury for alleged campaign finance irregularities. Richardson, despite being a staunch advocate of free trade, particularly NAFTA himself, would have brought to the administration a wealth of knowledge and experience on Latin American issues. As COHA noted in its original response to his appointment in December, “Richardson is in touch with … hemispheric trends and could be of inestimable value to the new administration, in presenting a new face to the region and a definitive end to the fallow relations that Washington has had towards the region” (‘Is Richardson’s appointment as Secretary of Commerce good news for NAFTA’s revitalization? It certainly is good news for the region’s self-esteem’, December 15 2008).

Stripped of Richardson as one of his point men on trade issues, Obama’s cabinet remains devoid of anyone with a strong focus on Latin America. However, he does have in one of his advisors and White House Counsel someone who COHA has previously lauded as “The right man to revive deeply flawed U.S. – Latin American relations.” Greg Craig has espoused the adoption of a multilateral approach toward Latin America and has spoken out in his calling for respecting sovereign regional governments of varying political orientation, an approach which could prove to be highly promising.

***

Plus ça change
Barack Obama should not rush to follow a well worn path that his predecessors have lamentably taken by relegating Latin America to a peripheral concern. When seeking first tier U.S. foreign policy goals, second-rate punditry is not good enough. If Obama is to rebuild the shattered U.S. image which is currently being observed from Latin America, he must give the region a sense of priority in recognition of Washington’s longstanding legacy in the area.

One consequence of the diminishing U.S. regional stature has been an encroaching foreign influence which has taken advantage of the vacuum created by Bush’s myopic foreign policy, particularly the distraction provided by Iraq. The effect of this outside influence has been compounded by an emphatic move towards a new conception of regionalism which increasingly excludes United States participation, examples of which include UNASUR, ALBA, the Rio Group, and the Ibero-American summit.

Obama should fulfil his campaign promise to meet unconditionally with the region’s leaders regardless of their political orientation – specifically meaning Raul Castro, Hugo Chávez, and Evo Morales. Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the disaffected South American states reached a low point last year with the reciprocal expulsion of ambassadors involving the U.S., Bolivia and Venezuela. Even though Chávez expressed the hope that Venezuela’s relations with the U.S. could improve under Obama, he has since tempered his enthusiasm following perceived dismissive remarks made by the new U.S. administration, and actions from Washington that were not aimed at winning friends.

Obama: Sticking Together a Viable Latin America Policy
Obama cannot afford to neglect the cordial relationship he has already begun developing with Lula in Brazil. Eight years of ignorance and neglect in Washington has enabled Brazil to emerge as a benign regional semi-superpower. The country has assumed a central role in the various moves toward political and economic autonomy which South America has taken away from the Bush presidency. There is no avoiding the fact that if Washington is to make headway in Latin America today, it must have the blessing of Lula or his successor.

Even though the announced closing of the Guantánamo detention facility and a proposed easing on the remittance and travel ban affecting Cuban Americans has been warmly welcomed, Obama must consider among his immediate priorities a truly significant reassessment of U.S. policy towards Cuba. This might also include another unilateral policy – the return of the base on Guantánamo to Cuba. It is an act of pure colonialism for Washington to continue to hold onto a facility it intentionally obtained through its power rather than through reason, and perpetuates the image of the U.S. as an ‘empire’ in parts of Latin America. The next step should be the lifting (unilaterally, if need be) of the almost five decade-old Cold War-era embargo. This puerile and ineffectual policy has been repeatedly rejected by Latin Americans and its abolition would go a long way towards repairing battered U.S. relations with the region.

Revising the U.S. approach to its 30-year old failed war on drugs, which is now featuring a growing wave of transnational violence, should also be high on Obama’s agenda. Considering that the United States is the world’s largest and most lucrative market for the sale of these illicit substances, creating security pacts with neighbouring countries in order to clamp down on the supply, will continue to have little effect as long as domestic demand remains unimpaired.

The makeup of Obama’s cabinet may point towards the adoption of a policy less bold than Latin America is calling for – even expecting – from the new administration. The implications of Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State are hard to escape from; it is her position as Washington’s top diplomat which will dictate the administration’s approach to Latin America, for it is she who will be making most of the appointments of first and second tier personnel who will be exercising their jurisdiction over regional decision making. The loss of a respected Latin Americanist like Bill Richardson over a campaign-donation matter certainly is a grievous blow, and the composition of Obama’s cabinet suggests at first glance that the status quo could very well prevail.

However, the signals that the Obama administration has sent during its few weeks in office have not been enough to evaluate either its innovative nature or its willingness to break with the past; it has not been seated long enough to establish whether it is prepared to embrace Latin America in all of its variegated forms. Since January 20, the administration has issued a series of remarks, both promising and troublesome. The statements made by Steinberg and Gates demonstrate that the old order’s dogma continues to permeate Washington, whereas the approach to date of Clinton, Wood and Shannon, as well as Obama himself, hints that a significant shift could be in the offing when it comes to hemispheric relations. Provided the more progressive wing of the administration prevails, there may still be hope for change in Washington’s stance on Latin America.

This analysis was prepared by Research Associates Tomás Ayuso & Guy Hursthouse
February 3rd, 2009

The Mapuche artifacts mentioned in the title belong to a private Chilean collection – “Domenyko Cassel” – and the show is called “MOON TEARS – Mapuche Art and Cosmology” – and it includes silverwork and textiles. An owner/curator/director of the collection –   Ms. Jaqueline Domeyko Cassel, herself a Polish-Mapuche Chilean Hybrid – walked us through the exhibit today, and explained the peculiar angles of what we saw.

This posting on www.SustainabiliTank.info is just our first reaction and we intend to add much more material later, including photos we took.

The exhibits can be visited at Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, New York NY 10065, and it is open Monday to Saturday 10am – 4pm.

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The Mapuche (Mäpfuchieu) are the indigenous inhabitants of Central and Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. Actually they lived a bit more to the North, and were push southwards by the Inka. Then came the Spaniards – and the Mapuche called them “Winka” or new Inka. Again the attacks came from the North.

The Mapuche were known as Araucanians (araucanos) by the Spaniards. This is now considered pejorative by the people and the term Mapuche is the one most often used by people in conversation. Mapuche make up today about 6% of the Chilean population, who are particularly concentrated in the Araucania Region.

The Mapuche had an economy based on agriculture; their social organisation consisted of extended families, under the direction of a “lonko” or chief, although in times of war they would unite in larger groupings and elect a toqui (from Mapudungun toki “axe, axe-bearer”) to lead them.

The Mapuche today are a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups which shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended between the Aconcagua River and Chiloé Island and later eastward to the Argentine pampa. The Mapuche (note that Mapuche can refer to the whole group of Picunches (people of the north), Huilliches and Moluche or Nguluche from Araucanía or exclusively to the Moluche or Nguluche from Araucanía) inhabited the valleys between the Itata and Toltén Rivers, as well as the Huilliche (people of the South), the Cuncos. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Mapuches expanded eastward into the Andes and pampas forming with the existing people the Poyas and Pehuenche. At about the same time ethnic groups of the pampa regions, the Puelche, Ranqueles and northern Aonikenk, called Patagons by Ferdinand Magellan, known now as Tehuelche, made contact with Mapuche groups, adopting their language and some culture (in what came to be called the Araucanization).

The Mapuche successfully resisted many attempts by the Inca Empire to subjugate them, despite their lack of state organisation. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army. The result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river.

Then later, Moluche of the area the Spanish called Araucania fought against the Spaniards for over 300 years. Initial conquests of land by Spain in the late 16th century were repelled by the Mapuche, so effectively that there were areas to which Europeans did not return until late in the 19th century.

One of the main geographical boundaries was the Bío-Bío River, which the Mapuche used as a natural barrier to Spanish and Chilean incursion. The 300 years were not uniformly a period of hostility, but often allowed substantial trade and interchange between Mapuche and Spaniards or Chileans. Nevertheless, the long Mapuche resistance has become primarily known as the War of Arauco, and its early phase was immortalized in Alonso de Ercilla’s epic poem La Araucana.

Let us mention right here that The Rio Bio Bio is south of Concepcion, Chile and across the Andes from Neuquen, Argentina. From the movie I learned that the Mapuche tell that in the past there were no boundaries on the land. People moved freely to trade and visit. They could travel by horse in 15 days over the mountains to Argentina.It is the Winca that came from far way and put fences on the land.

From the mid 17th century the Mapuches and the governors of Chile made a series of treaties in order to end the hostilities. By the late eighteenth century many Mapuche loncos had accepted the de jure sovereignty of the Spanish king of their lands while having a de facto independence.

When Chile revolted from the Spanish crown, some Mapuche chiefs sided with the royalists of Vicente Benavides. The aid of the Mapuches were vital to the Spanish since they had lost the control of all cities and ports north of Valdivia. Mapuches valued the treaties done with Spanish authorities, however most regarded the matter with indifference and took advantage of both sides. After Chile’s independence from Spain, the Mapuche coexisted and traded with their neighbours, who prudently remained north of the Bío-Bío River, although clashes occurred frequently.

Chilean population pressures increased on the Mapuche borders, and by the 1880s Chile extended both to the north and to the south of the Mapuche heartlands. Further, Chile in the 1880s, as a result of its preparation for and its victory in the War of the Pacific against Bolivia and Peru, found itself with a large standing army and a relatively modern arsenal for the period. Finally, in the mid- to late-1880s, partially on the pretext of crushing a French adventurer, Orelie-Antoine de Tounens, who had declared himself King of Araucania, Chile overwhelmed the Mapuche in the course of the so-called “pacification of the Araucanía”.

  Vintage engraving of Mapuche.

Using a combination of force and diplomacy, Chile’s government obliged some Mapuche leaders to sign a treaty absorbing the Araucanian territories into Chile. The immediate impact of the war was widespread starvation and disease. It has been claimed that the Mapuche population dropped from a total of half a million to 25,000 within a generation, though the latter figure has been called an exaggeration by several authorities. In the post-conquest period, however, there was internment of a significant percentage of the Mapuche, the wholesale destruction of the Mapuche herding, agricultural and trading economies, the wholesale looting of Mapuche property (real and personal – including a large amount of silver jewelry to replenish the Chilean national coffers), and the creation and institutionalization of a system of reserves called reducciones along lines similar to North American reservation systems. Subsequent generations of Mapuche live in extreme poverty as a direct result of being conquered and expropriated.

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Mapuche descendants now live across southern Chile and Argentina; some maintain their traditions and continue living from agriculture, but a growing majority have migrated to cities in search of better economic opportunities. Contrary to popular imagination, the majority of the Mapuche people live in urban areas, especially around Santiago   Chile’s region IX continues to have a rural population made up of approximately 80%; there are also substantial Mapuche populations in regions X, VIII, and VII.

The Ralco Hydroelectric Plant is a hydroelectric power station in Bío-Bío Region, Chile. The plant uses water from the upper Bío-Bío River and produces 690 MW of electricity. The plant was built by ENDESA in 2004 and as a result of its construction Mapuche were uprooted from their valley in the Bio Bio River area. Some of this background found its way into the exhibit via a video clip of about 20 minutes.

In recent years, there has been an attempt by the Chilean government to redress some of the inequities of the past. The Parliament voted, in 1993, Law n ° 19 253 (Indigenous Law, or Ley indígena)   which recognized the Mapuche people, and seven other ethnic minorities as well as the Mapudungun language and culture. In the frame of this law, Mapundungun, which was prohibited before, was included in the curriculum of elementary schools around Temuco. But the Mapuche language is an oral language – real effort would mean the formulation of a phonetic system for nailing the language down in writing. There is rich cultural material that will be totally lost otherwise.

Furthermore, representatives from Mapuche organisations joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) seeking recognition and protection for their cultural and land rights.

The Extent Of The Mapuche Lands Today.

Flag of the Mapuche

Land disputes and violent interactions do continue in some Mapuche areas, particularly in the northern sections of the IX region between and around Traiguén and Lumaco – where a history of conflict continues into the present. In an effort to defuse tensions, a special government body, the Commission for Historical Truth and New Treatment, issued a report in 2003 calling for drastic changes in Chile’s treatment of its indigenous people, more than 80 percent of whom are Mapuche. The recommendations included the formal recognition of political and “territorial” rights for aboriginal peoples, as well as efforts to promote their cultural identity.

Though Japanese and Swiss interests are active in the region that Chileans call “Araucanía” and the Mapuche call “Ngulu Mapu”, both of the main forestry companies are Chilean-owned. On land the Mapuche claim is theirs, the firms have planted hundreds of thousands of acres with Monterey pine and eucalyptus trees, species that are not native to the region and that consume large amounts of water and fertilizer.

Chilean exports of wood to the United States, almost all of which come from this southern region, are about $600 million a year and rising. Though an international campaign led by the conservation group Forest Ethics resulted in the Home Depot chain and other leading wood importers agreeing to revise their purchasing policies, to “provide for the protection of native forests in Chile,” some Mapuche leaders were not satisfied.

In recent years, Mapuche activists have been prosecuted under counter-terrorism legislation originally introduced by the military dictatorship, under Pinochet. The law allows prosecutors to withhold evidence from the defense for up to six months, and to conceal the identity of witnesses, who may give evidence in court behind screens. There are several violent activist groups, which utilize various tactics, including the destruction of private property, including, but not limited to, the burning of structures and pastures. Protesters from Mapuche communities have engaged in these tactics against multinational forestry corporations and private individuals, all of which possess and occupy territories originally owned by Mapuche communities.

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There were 604,349 Mapuche according to the census of 2002, making up approximately 4% of the Chilean population, while an estimated 300,000 living in Argentina. Due to the loss of their lands, many Mapuche now live in impoverished conditions in large cities such as Santiago. Mapuche resistance continues, especially against the large forestry companies exploiting traditional lands. Pinochet-era anti-terrorism laws have frequently been used in recent years against certain community leaders and Mapuche political activists.

At the time of the arrival of Europeans, the Mapuche were capable of sufficiently organizing themselves to create a network of forts and complex defensive buildings but also ceremonial constructions such as some mounds recently discovered near Purén. They quickly adopted iron metal-working (they already worked copper, and horseback-riding and the use of cavalry in war from the Spaniards, along with the cultivation of wheat and sheep. In the long 300-year coexistence between the Spanish colonies and the relatively well-delineated autonomous Mapuche regions, the Mapuche also developed a strong tradition of trading with the Spanish/Chileans. It is this which lies at the heart of the Mapuche silver-working tradition, for it was from the large and widely-dispersed quantity of Spanish and Chilean silver coins that the Mapuche wrought their elaborate jewelry, head bands, etc.

Mapuche languages are spoken in Chile and to a smaller extent in Argentina. They have two branches: Huilliche and Mapudungun. Although not related, there is some discernible lexical influence from Quechua. It is estimated that only about 200,000 full-fluency speakers remain in Chile, and the language still receives only token support in the educational system. In recent years it has started to be taught in rural schools of Bio-Bio, Araucanía and Los Lagos Regions.

Cultural tidbits:

Machi is the Shaman

Gnecha is the primary deity

Pillan are the major deities

The Earth is Mapu

The Upprer World is Wenu Mapu

To the Maouche space is a conjunction between their cold version of the visible, living world and the earth’s surface (Mapu or Nag Mapu) and the ideologically construed invisible upper world of “Cosmological” surface or plane (Wenu Mapu and Minche Mapu) where good and evil and all the deities reside. The planes are drawn on a Mach’s drum that is shown in the exhibit.

The “reve” poll is a totem poll with steps – the one shown in the exhibit belongs to the Smithonian Institution – so the Machi can climb up to the Wenu Mapu.

The exhibit also shows a wooden “Machi Stick Horse” that is used to chase away the evil spirits.

ADMAPU = the laws formed by the ancient customs and norms so that the Mapuche know the proper way to behave and act as members of their society.

The following is the first artifact that Ms. Domeyko bought for the collection – a silver made couple of Mapuche man and woman. Silver was the metal of choice. The Mapuche thought gold was of lower value. The silver color is the color of the Moon Tears – so the art work is in silver.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009

World Social Forum: SOS from the Amazon
Mario Osava

BELEM, Brazil, Jan 27 (IPS) – A human banner made up of more than 1,000 people, seen and photographed from the air, sent the message “SOS Amazon” to the world, in the first action taken by indigenous people hours before the opening in northern Brazil on Tuesday of the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF). The mass message reflects “our concern about global warming, whose impact we will be the first to feel, although we, the peoples of the Amazon, have protected and cared for the forests,” Francisco Avelino Batista, an Apurinan Indian from the Purus river valley in the Brazilian Amazon, told IPS.

“We are raising our voices as a wake-up call to the world, especially the rich countries that are hastening its destruction,” said Edmundo Omore, a member of the Xavante indigenous community from the west-central state of Mato Grosso on the border between the Amazon region and the Cerrado, a vast savannah region in the centre of the country. Both men belong to the Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), which joined the Quito-based Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) to create their “message from the heart of the Amazon.”


Nearly 1,300 indigenous people from about 50 countries, although mainly from Brazil, plan to raise the issues of their rights as original peoples and environmental preservation at this year’s edition of the WSF, which runs through Sunday in Belém, a city of 1.4 million people and the northeastern gateway to the Amazon.

Indigenous people have participated in the WSF in previous years, but this time a much larger presence was sought. The aim was for 2,000 to take part, but transport costs and financial difficulties prevented many participants from coming from other countries and from remote areas within Brazil itself.

In addition to indigenous groups, original peoples at the WSF include Quilombolas (members of communities of Afro-Brazilian descendants of escaped slaves) and other native peoples.

The key location chosen for the WSF, and the various global crises that are occurring, have created “a special moment” for original peoples to take a leading role, according to Roberto Espinoza, an adviser to the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organisations (CAOI).

“A crisis of civilisation” is under way, said Espinoza, who described the serious economic, energy and food problems, as well as climate change, as part of the same phenomenon.

In this situation, indigenous people should have political participation as of right, not “as folklore or as a merely cultural contribution,” Espinoza, one of the coordinators of the indigenous peoples’ presence at the WSF, told IPS.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the United Nations General Assembly, is of paramount importance here, he said. It should not be seen as a “utopian” document; rather, its provisions should be binding, like those of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples.

Espinoza said he hoped this WSF would produce an agreement for global demonstrations similar to those held in 2003 against the United States’ invasion of Iraq.

This time around, the goal would be to mobilise “in defence of Mother Earth and against the commercialisation of life,” added to specific causes championed by each nation, such as the fight against hydroelectric power stations in Brazil that flood vast areas of Amazon rainforest and displace riverbank dwellers, he said.

The voices of indigenous people are bound to have a greater impact on environmental matters when “the risk of catastrophic climate change in the near future and disputes over natural resources are threatening the survival not only of indigenous peoples, but of humanity itself,” Espinoza said.
belonging to the Tukano ethnic group.

Indigenous and environmental issues will be even more visible on Wednesday, which is to be dedicated entirely to the Amazon region in an attempt to revitalise the PanAmazon Social Forum, inactive since 2005.

Launching a campaign led by the peoples of the Amazon, who “want a society that values them and understands the value that the land has for them,” is a proposal for discussion at the WSF, according to Miquelina Machado, a COIAB leader belonging to the Tukano ethnic group.

This is necessary for “a greater balance with nature,” at a time when Brazil’s plans for economic growth and the physical integration of South America are fuelling projects which have “strong negative impacts on the Amazon and Andean regions,” she told IPS.

“The hydroelectric dams flood the land and destroy biodiversity,” she said, while lamenting the fact that attempts to block the building of highways, that cause immense deforestation, have been frustrated in the courts, “which have more power.”

The presence at the WSF of presidents of Amazon region countries like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, as well as Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, should increase the impact of the event, hopefully benefiting the peoples of the Amazon, Machado concluded.

Indigenous peoples’ voices should be heard, because “we are the ones who were born and raised in the middle of the forest, and who lead a lifestyle that contrasts with the ambition of capitalism, which does not bring benefits to all,” said Omoré.

Furthermore, “we are the first to suffer the effects” of climate change. Rich people can cool themselves down with air conditioners and buy food in supermarkets, but “we depend on the fish in the river and the animals in the forest, so we are concerned about the future that belongs to everyone,” added Batista.

 UNSG Ban Ki-moon and Diplomats accredited to the UN came Saturday January 24, 2009, to Park East Synagogue in New York City for a Holocaust Remembrance Day Service.

In November 1, 2005, 60 years since the creation of the UN in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, the UN decided to designate January 27 as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. This year will be thus   thus the fourth year of such a   Commemoration and it will be held at the UN next week, while some at the UN will try to connect   these memorial events by holding parallel activities targeting the State of Israel for the recent invasion of the Gaza Strip and for the essence of its existence. As one example of this cloud over the UN, we posted   – www.SustainabiliTank.info posted:   http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2009/01….

With above in mind, nevertheless, the Park East Synagogue community, in the presence of Holocaust survivors, was proud to host the UNSG, four more UN officials, and the Diplomats that showed up – including the Diplomats from six European countries on whose territory the Holocaust was committed – Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Italy. The Ambassador to the UN from Rwanda, a non-Muslim African country came as he knows the impact of genocide from his own country’s experience. Also present were diplomats from Australia, Israel and the United States, and from the Latin American countries – Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Thus,14 countries out of the 192 Representations to the UN, showed up at this memorial service, but then, thinking of the WWII differences – seeing Germany, Russia, Israel, and the US sitting side by side, in the presence of survivors, and honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in the presence of the UNSG, means that change is possible. Albeit, change through the UN maybe still very far off. There a great number of members may still take the position that Jews are not entitled to sit in the same bus with them, and when the issue is the Holocaust they will try to muddle it with “The question of Palestine.” January 26-27, 2009 will be just this sort of UN days. So what?

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Forcing Penguins North?
By Adrianne Appel*

Magellan penguins in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic.

Credit:Photo Stock

BOSTON, Dec 31 (Tierramérica) – Warm ocean currents may have confused some 2,500 penguins from Argentina’s Patagonia region that washed up — dead and alive — on Brazil’s northern coast.

About half the penguins that were found on Brazilian beaches in October were dead, and the others were starving and in very bad shape, said Valeria Ruoppolo, an emergency veterinarian with the International Federation for Animal Welfare (IFAW), in Sao Paulo, who coordinated the rescue of many of the penguins.

“Of the live ones, about 50 percent survived,” Ruoppolo told Tierramérica.

Magellan penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) live in relatively warmer climates than other penguin species, and breed and nest in burrows in the southern hemisphere spring and summer, from October to February, in southern Chile and Argentina, in a temperate and dry climate.

They travel out to sea during the winter, from March to September, to follow anchovies, their favourite food, in order to fatten up.

Juveniles also migrate north. This year, about 2,500 disoriented juvenile penguins traveled more than 2,500 kilometres beyond the normal point, coming ashore in Salvador, in Bahia state, 1,400 kilometres north of Sao Paulo, to the amazement of beachgoers. The penguins were rescued by IFAW and the Centre for Marine Animal Recovery, with help from other organisations and Brazilian environmental authorities.

After months of care and feeding, the 372 surviving penguins were banded and loaded onto a C-130 Hercules military plane and transported to Cassino Beach, in Pelotas, in southern Brazil.

After an overnight rest, they were released into the South Atlantic ocean, along with a few other rescued adult penguins, with the hope that they would guide the younger ones safely home to Patagonia.

About 200 people cheered them on as they waded into the surf. It was the largest penguin rescue on record, a success for animal welfare experts — but a terrible omen for the penguin population.

“We always have a few strandings here and there. In 1994 and 2000 we had big strandings. But not like this year. More than 2,000 penguins is unheard of,” Ruoppolo said.

Magellans are one of 17 species of penguins, which all live in the southern hemisphere, including the Antarctic. Magellans are among the largest, weighing just over four kilograms, with striking colouring: a white chest and a white band around a black back and black head.

The Magellan penguin population is fragile, as their numbers have plummeted by about 20 percent, with about one million breeding pairs today, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society. The penguins are at risk due to the effects of climate change, tourism, oil leaks from tankers and shrimp nets.

“We are going to try and understand what happened,” using the identification bands as a tool, Ruoppolo said.

Once the penguins reach their home colonies, volunteers and researchers there will notify Ruoppolo. She will aggregate data about the climate, ocean currents and food sources, to learn about the strandings.

“One thing that was different is that the surface of the Atlantic ocean was one degree Celsius warmer. The penguins follow the fish, especially their favourite, the anchovies. Probably what happened this year is the anchovies went deeper into the ocean for the cold water. And the penguins couldn’t reach their food and they stranded because they were starving,” she said.

However, Ruoppolo warned, “We don’t know yet if we can link the strandings to climate change. Soon we will be able to say.”

According to Sybille Klenzendorf, a scientist with the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), “It’s probably not going to be unusual for some of these things to happen,” given the rise in temperature of the ocean.

The ocean environment of the southern tip of Patagonia especially is undergoing alterations, Klenzendorf said. Due to glaciers melting, the salinity of the water there is changing.

“The salt content is becoming less. It’s not just the temperature that is changing,” she told Tierramérica.

WWF scientists recently warned that allowing the earth’s surface temperatures to rise an average 2 degrees Celsius further — which is expected within 50 years even with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions — will severely endanger Emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri) and Adelie (Pygoscelis adeliae) penguins and other Antarctic wildlife.

The current targets for reducing greenhouse emissions “aim at stabilising the climate at 2 degrees higher than it is today. But what we’re saying is we need to be more conservative than 2 degrees,” Klenzendorf said.

Furthermore, stress from the ocean changes would exacerbate an already dwindling source of fish for the penguins, due to aggressive commercial fishing in the region, she said. During nesting season, male penguins are swimming further each day to feed, compared to their normal forays, according to P. Dee Boersma, a penguin expert at the University of Washington.

Boersma, who has a research station in Punta Tombo, home to the largest colony of Magellan penguins, on the coast of the southern Argentine province of Chubut, says the changing climate has included more rain in recent years.

Coastal Patagonia is normally very dry, and the increasing rains mean that wet penguin chicks die of exposure, Boersma says in research published recently in the journal BioScience.

“Penguins are sentinels of the marine environment, and by observing and studying them, researchers can learn about the rate and nature of changes occurring in the southern oceans,” she says.

Punta Tombo is a tiny peninsula near the city of Rawson. Its widest point is less than one kilometre, and it is teaming and crowded with penguins — and tourists — during breeding season. About 105,000 people visited the penguin colony in 2007. Local efforts are underway to protect the penguins from further encroachment.

In 1982, the Punta Tombo colony was saved from Japanese commercial interests, which wanted to slaughter the birds and use their pelts to make golf gloves. The area was turned into a penguin preserve and research centre, led by Boersma.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

The Drylands, Deserts, and Desertification – 2008 Conference. December 14-17, 2008, Sede Boqer Campus, The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Israel.

www.desertification.co.il

THE PROGRAM As Available on November 18, 2008. There might be still Changes and Additions, as well –   further Poster Sessions.

Download this schedule: detailed_program_sessions_1611_publish.doc

December 14-17, 2008

Please note that the list of presentations is still not final.

Furthermore, the breakdown into sessions may change.

Abstracts for the Poster Sessions will be listed separately during the conference

Pre Registration will begin on the evening of December 13, 2008

Day 1, December 14, 2008: LIFE AND SOIL DEGRADATION IN THE DRYLANDS

8:00-9:00 Registration

9:00 – 9:30 Welcome

9:30 – 10:15 Plenary Address: Cutting through the Confusion: An Old Problem (Desertification) Viewed through the Lens of a New Framework (the DDP, Drylands Development Paradigm) – James Reynolds, Duke University (U.S.A)

10:15 – 10:30 Respondents: Thomas Schaaf,, Chief, Ecological Sciences & Biodiversity Section, UNESCO, Ingrid Hartman, Amoud University, Borama, Somaliland, Godfrey Olukoye Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Uriel Safriel, Hebrew University, Israel

Moderator: Alon Tal

10:30-11:00 Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 Parallel Sessions I

1. Soil Degradation and the Drylands

Chair: Professor Yonah Chen, Hebrew University Agricultural Faculty, HYPERLINK “mailto:yonachen@agri.huji.ac.il” yonachen@agri.huji.ac.il

Causes and Consequences of Soil Damages in Bosnia and Herzegovinia: Some Experiences in Soil Conservation, Markovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Soil Decomposition in a Tropical Semi-arid Region in Central Mexico, Maria Hernandez Cerda, Enrique Romero, Gonzalo Madero, (Mexico)

Soil Communities in the Arava Valley Desert System, Stanislav Pen-Mouratov, Tamir Mayblat, and Yosef Steinberger (Israel)

Effect of plant patchiness on soil microbial community structure

Ali Nejidat, Eric A. Ben-David, Yonatan Sher, Regina Golden, Eli Zaady (Israel)

2. Desert Ecology (A)

Chair: Professor Tamar Dayan, Tel Aviv University, HYPERLINK “mailto:DayanT@tauex.tau.ac.il” DayanT@tauex.tau.ac.il,

Water and Carbon Balances of Tamarix Desert Vegetation Under Variation in Precipitation and Groundwater Table,Hao Xu, Yan Li, (China)

Periodic and Scale-free Patterns: Reconciling the Dichotomy of Dryland Vegetation, Jost von Hardenberg, Assaf Kletter, Hezi Yizhaq, Ehud Meron (Israel)

Water Balance in Desert Mammals and in Flying Birds: Different Evolutionary Paths with Similar Physiological Outcomes, Berry Pinshow (Israel)

Desertification In the Grasslands Of Central Australia: Effects Of Fire And Climate Change, C. R. Dickman, G. M. Wardle, A. C. Greenville and B. Tamayo (Australia)

3. Benchmarks and Indicators of Desertification

Chair: Professor Moshe Shachak, Ben Gurion University, shachak@bgu.ac.il

Spatial Vegetation Patterns Indicating Imminent Desertification Max Rietkerk (Netherlands)

Do Vegetation Indices Reliably Assess Vegetation Degradation? A Case Study in the Mongolian Pastures, Arnon Karnieli Y. Bayarjargal, M. Bayasgalan, B. Mandakh, J. Burgheimer, S. Khudulmur, and P.D. Gunin (Israel)

Results On Changes Of Vegetation Structure And Composition In Semi-Desert Steppe,B.Mandakh Ph.D, Ganchimeg Wingard, (Mongolia)

Restoration of Pasture Vegetation and Assessment of Desertification in Kazakhstan Mirzadinov R.А., Baisartova А.Y., Bayazitova Z.Е., Torgaev А.А., Makhamedzhanov N.Т., Usen К., Karnieli A., Mirzadinov (Kazakhstan)

4. Pastoralism and the Drylands (A)

Chair: Dr. Eli Zaady, Gilat Research Station, Volcani Institute

HYPERLINK “mailto:zaadye@volcani.agri.gov.il” zaadye@volcani.agri.gov.il

Complex Interactions Between Climate and Pastoralists in Desert Grasslands, Curtin, charles (U.S.A)

Sustainable Grazing Strategies for Semi-arid Rangelands of Central Argentina, Roberto Distel (Argentina)

Trophic interactions and the ecology of habitat degradation in grasslands, Yoram Ayal(Israel)

12:30 – 14:30Short Field Trips and Lunch Break

14:30-16:00 Parallel Sessions II

5. Remote Sensing and Assessment of Desertification Processes (A)

Chair: Professor Danny Blumberg, Ben Gurion University, blumberg@bgu.ac.il

Progress in mapping global desertification, S. D. Prince (U.S.A)

Desertification Risk Assessment in Northeastern Nigeria Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques, Taiwo Qudus, S.O. Mohammed, (Nigeria)

Integrating Remotely-sensed Vegetation Phenology and Rainfall Metrics to Characterize Changes in Dryland Vegetation Cover: Example from Burkina Faso Stefanie Herrmann, Thomas Hopson, (U.S.A)

On the Definition of Desertification through the Case Study of the Egyptian-Israeli Borderline, Arnon Karnieli, Christine Hanisch, Zehava Siegal and Haim Tsoar (Israel)

Evaluation of optimal time-of-day for detecting water stress in olive trees by thermal remote sensing, Nurit Agam, Alon Ben-Gal, Yafit Cohen, Victor Alchanatis, Uri Yermiyahu, and Arnon Dag, (Israel)

6. Drought and Salt Resistant Plants for Sustainable Dryland Development (A)

Chair: Dr. Gozal Ben Hayyim, The Volcani Institute HYPERLINK “mailto:vhgozal@agri.gov.il” vhgozal@agri.gov.il

Potentials for Utilizing the Mulberry (Morus Alba) and the Neem (Azadirachta Indica) For Desertification Control In Northern Ghana: the Experience of the Sericulture Promotion And Development Association, Ghana. Paul Kwasi Ntaanu (Ghana)

Phenology, Floral and Reproductive Biolgy Studies of Genus Zizipus in Negev Desert Conditions, Manoj Kulkarni, Bert Schneider and Noemi Tel-Zur (Israel)

Dissecting the Molecular control of Stomatal Movement in CAM plant: A Potential Source for Genes Conferring Drought Tolerance in C3 Plants, Yaron Sitrit (Israel)

Comparison of Germination Strategies of Four Artemisia Species (Asteraceae) in Horqin Sandy Land, China, Li Xuehua, Liu Zhimin and Jiang Demning (China)

Role of Hydrophilins in Water-stressed and Salt-stressed Environments, Dudy Bar-Zvi, (Israel)

7. Water Management Strategies in the Drylands

Chair: Dr. Alfred Abed- Rabbo, Bethlehem University, abedrabo@gmail.com

Water Management in a Semi-arid Region: An Integrated Water Resources Allocation Modeling for Tanzania, Shija Kazumba (Tanzania/Israel)

Towards Sustainable Management of Wadis in Semi-Arid Environments- IWRM Approach, Walid Saleh, Amjad Aliewi, Anan Jayyousi (Dubai)

Is Desalination Right for Sydney? Phoenix Lawhon Isler(Australia)

16:00-16:15 Coffee Break

16:15-17:15 Parallel Sessions III

8. Remote Sensing and Assessment of Desertification Processes (B)

Chair: HYPERLINK “http://home.geoenv.biu.ac.il/lecturer_html.php?id=33” Prof. Hanoch Lavee, Bar Ilan University , HYPERLINK “mailto:laveeh@mail.biu.ac.il” laveeh@mail.biu.ac.il

Assessing Land Cover Change and Degradation in the Central Asian Deserts Using Satellite Image Processing and Geostatistical Methods, Arnon Karnieli, Tal Svoray, Uri Gilad, (Israel)

A Dynamic Model of Dryland Hydrology Using Remote Sensing, Elene Tarvansky, (United Kingdom)

The Effect of Wildfires on Vegetation Cover and Dune Activity in Australia’s Desert Dunes: A Multi-Sensor Analysis, Noam Levin, Simcha Levental, Hagar Morag (Israel)

9. Desert Ecology (B)

Chair: Dr. Yehoshua Shkedy, Chief Scientist, Israel Nature and Parks Authorit, HYPERLINK “mailto:y.shkedy@npa.org.il” y.shkedy@npa.org.il

Is Grass Scarcity in the Chihuahuan Desert A Result of Shrub-Grass Competition or Soil Moisture Limitation? Giora Kidron and Vincent Gutschick (Israel/U.S.A)

Short-term responses of small vertebrates to vegetation removal as a management tool in Nizzanim dunes, Boaz Shacham and Amos Bouskila (Israel)

Microbial diversity of Mediterranean and Arid soil ecosystem. Ami Bachar, Ashraf Ashhab, Roey Angel, M. Ines M. Soares and Osnat Gillor, (Israel)

Effects of woody vegetation and anthropogenic disturbances on herbaceous vegetation in the northern Negev, Moran Segoli, Eugene David Ungar, Moshe Shahack (Israel)

10. Land Restoration Strategies

Chair: Dr. Avi Gafni, Director of Research, Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael, Avig@kkl.org.il

Role of Wetlands in Sustainable Drylands D. Mutekanga (Uganda)

Restoration of Abandoned Lands, Gabrielyan Bardukh, (Armenia)

Desertification in the Sahel: causes, prevention and reclamation Dov Pasternak (Israel)

11. Strategies for Living in the Drylands

Chair: Prof. Avigad Vonshak, Director Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, avigad@bgu.ac.il

Micro-Climatic Effect of a Manmade Oasis During Different Season in an Extremly Hot, Dry Climate, Oded Potchter (Israel)

Ecological sanitation (ECOSAN) as an alternative approach for sustainable dry-land development, Amit Gross (Israel)

Has dependence on runoff agriculture on the dryland environment of the central Negev mountains changed significantly in the last few thousand years? Testing the contribution of the geological substrate, Wieler Nimrod. Avni Y. Benjamini C. (Israel)

12. Pastoralism and the Drylands (B)

Chair: Mr. Shmulik Friedman Head of Israel Grazing Authority HYPERLINK “mailto:shmulikf@moag.gov.il” shmulikf@moag.gov.il

Normative Carrying Capacity of an Isralei Forest for Domesticated Grazers. David Evlagon, Samuel Komisarchik, Yehuda Nissan, No’am Seligman (Israel)

Herd No More: Livestock Husbandry Policies and the Environment in Israel: from 1900 Until Today, Liz Wachs, Alon Tal (U.S.A)

17:15-19:00 Poster Session (including contest) and Cocktail

19:00-20:00 Dinner

20:00 Evening Activities (optional)

Moonlit Hike in Nahal Haverim (Please come w/ walking shoes and warm clothes)

OR

Films from the Desert Nights Film Festival (sponsored by the Italian Embassy, Tel Aviv)

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DAY 2,December 14, 2008: VEGETATION’S ROLE IN SUSTAINABLE DRYLAND LIVING

8:00-8:30 Registration

8:30 – 10:15Plenary Addresses

Professor Pinhas Alpert, Director, Porter School of the Environment, Tel Aviv University,

“Climate Change’s Impact on Desertification in the Mediterranean Region”

Rattan Lal,Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, Ohio State University. “Carbon Sequestration in the Drylands: Where we Are? Where we might go?”

Dan Yakir, Head, Department of Environmental Sciences & Energy Research, Weitzman Institute, “Israel Forestry, Carbon and the Drylands: Recent Findings from Israel”

Moderator: Mark Windslow, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Germany

9:45-10:00 Coffee Break

10:00-11:30 Parallel Sessions IV

13. The Role Vegetation in Combating Desertification (A)

Chair: Dr. Elli Groner, Arava Institute for desert studies/BIDR, elli.groner@arava.org

Use of Indicator Species in Enhancing the Conservation of Drylands of Kenya J. Aucha, V. Palapala, and J. Shiundu (Kenya)

Green Spots as a Tool to Combat Desertification in the Aral Sea Region, Lilya Dimeyeva, (Kazakhstan)

Vegetation Change in Response to Grazing and Water Level Decline in the Enot Zukim Nature Reserve (en Fescha) Israel, Linda Whittaker, Margareta Walczak, Amos Sabach and Eli Dror (Israel)

Improving sustainability and productivity of rainfed field crops in the Negev regions

David J. Bonfil (Israel)

14. Drought and Salt Resistant Plants for Sustainable Dryland Development (B)

Chair: Professor Micha Guy, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, HYPERLINK “mailto:michagu@bgu.ac.il” michagu@bgu.ac.il

The chemical induction of Polyploidy Mutan in Zizphus Mauritiana, Noemi Tel Zur and Mohmmad A.Taher (Israel / Jordan)

Using the Model Plant Arabidopsis Thaliana and Extremophile Arabidopsis Relatives to Identify Genes that Can Confer Plant Tolerance to Arid Conditions, Simon Barak (Israel)

Recently Domesticated Native Desert Herbs for Sustainable Planting in Arid and Saline Areas, Elaine Solowey (Israel)

Pattern Formation, State Changes and Catastrophic Shifts in Poa bulbosa Production as Responses to Simulated Grazing, Hadeel Majeed, Yaakov Garb, Moshe Shachak (Israel)

Germination and seedling survival in NaCl solutions after desiccation of some halophytes-used in pasture and fodder production in the solonchak salinities of the Kyzylkum desert, in Uzbekistan, Tanya Gendler, Japakova Ulbosun, Nicolai Orlovsky and Yitzchak Gutterman (Israel)

15. Afforestation in the Drylands

Chair: Dr. Gabriel Shiller, The Volcani Institute, HYPERLINK “mailto:vcgabi@volcani.agri.gov.il” vcgabi@volcani.agri.gov.il

Dryland Afforestation, Bill Hollingworth, (Australia)

Soil and Water Management along with Afforestation for Rehabilitation of Desertified Areas of the Israeli Negev, Yitzak Moshe (Israel)

Land Restoration in the Mediterranean, V. Ramon Vallejo, (Spain)

The Impact of Tree Shelters on Forest Survival of Eight Native Broadleaf Species in Forest Plantations in Israel, Omri Boneh (Israel)

16. Irrigation in the Drylands

Chair: Dr. Alon Ben-Gal, Gilat Research Station, Volcani Institute, bengal@volcani.agri.gov.il

Combating Land Degradation in Irrigated Agriculture Through Systematic Characterization of Saline-Sodic Soils for Improved Irrigation Efficiency in Kenya - E.M. Muya, (Kenya)

Adaption of Drip Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Towards a Strategy for Technology Transfer, Lonia Friedlander (U.S.A)

Managing salt, nutrient and soil structure in reclaimed water irrigated vineyards of South Australia, Biswas and McCarthy (AU)

Future strategies for drainage problems in the desert area (IGNP) of Western Rajasthan in India, Kiran Soni Gupta (India)

Root zone salinity management strategy for the Australian drought, Schrale (AU)

17. Climate Change in the Drylands

Chair: Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, Chief Scientist, Ministry of Environmntal Protection, HYPERLINK “mailto:Ybo@sviva.gov.il” Ybo@sviva.gov.il

Climate Change Trends in an Extreme Arid Zone, Southern Arava (Israel and Jordan) Hanan Ginat, Yanai Shlomi, Danny Blumberg (Israel)

Climate change and its effect on Mediterranean Basin ecosystems, Pua Bar (Kutiel) (Israel)

Climatic Change and Desertification Predictive Modeling In The Northeastern Nigeria.

Dr. Ojonigu Ati And Taiwo Qudus (Nigeria)

11:30-13:30 Open Campus Lunch Break

13:30-15:00 Parallel Sessions V

18. The Role of Vegetation in Combating Desertification (B)

Chair: Mr. Tauber Israel, KKL, HYPERLINK “javascript:addSender(%22IsraelT@kkl.org.il%22)” IsraelT@kkl.org.il

Desertification not at all costs – a matter of temporal and spatial scales and policies

Pua Bar (Kutiel) (Israel)

Cropping systems in the Indian arid zone and long-term effects of continuous cropping

N.L. Joshi (India)

Establishing the Relationships between Soils, Vegetation and Ecosystem Dynamics: A Strategy for Land Degradation Control in Nurunit Marsabit District, Kenya, E.M. Muya, (Kenya)

19. Indigenous Knowledge in the Combating of Desertification

Chair: Prof. Aref Abu Rabia, Ben Gurion University, HYPERLINK “mailto:aref@bgu.ac.il” aref@bgu.ac.il

Ethnobotanical Approach to the Conservation of Dryland Vegetation James Aucha (Kenya)

Environmental and Economic Potential of Bedouin Dryland Agriculture, Khalil Abu Rabia, Elaine Solowey and Stefan Leu (Israel)

Traditional Knowledge and Technologies: Administration of Common Goods from the Perspective of Goat Producers in the Lavalle Desert, Laura Maria Torres (Argentina)

 

20. Managing Drought in the Drylands

Chair, Mr. Yaakov Lomas, Israel Metereological Institute, HYPERLINK “mailto:lomasjakob@yahoo.com” lomasjakob@yahoo.com

Drought Risk Reduction in Rajasthan, India Madhukar Gupta (India)

Merits and Limitations in Assessing Droughts by Remote Sensing, Arnon Karnieli and Nurit Agam (Israel)

The Impact of Long Term Drought Periods in Northern Israel, Moshe Inbar (Israel)

Hydric Characterization of the Sinaloa State (Mexico), Through the Aridity and Aridity Régime Indices, Israel Velasco, (Mexico)

Economic Sustainable rainfed wheat production under Semi-Arid climatic conditions – Agrometeorological criteria for planning purposes, Lomas (Israel)

21. Carbon Sequestration

Chair: Dr. Noam Gressel, Assif Strategies, HYPERLINK “mailto:noam@assifstrategies.com” noam@assifstrategies.com

Semi-arid Afforestation and its Effect on Land-atmosphere Interactions,

Eyal Rotenberg et. al., (Israel)

Capacity of the forest ecosystems to sequester carbon (Case of the watershed basin of Rheraya- area of Marrakech) ) Rachid Ilmen (Morocco)

Halting Land Degradation and Desertification: A Win-Win Mitigation Strategy Neglected by the Climate Establishment, Stefan Leu (Israel)

Special Round Table discussion: Mid-east Regional Cooperation to Research Desertification with Arab and Israeli Desertification Experts

Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli experts meeting and discussing common concerns and solutions to address desertification in the Middle East region.

Moderator: Prof. Avigad Vonshak

Jeffrey Cook Workshop in Desert Architecture and Planning

Architecture and Urban Planning in the Drylands

Dryland Urban Expansion: Environmental Problems and Urban Planning, the Case of Urmuqi China S. Liu (UK)

Towards a Comprehensive Methodology for Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE): A Hot Dry Climate Case Study, Isaac Meir, Eduoardo Kruger, Lusi Morhayim, Shiri Fundaminsky, Liat Frenkel, (Israel)

Sick Building Syndrome in a University Building – an Educational Survey, Lusi Morhayim, Issac Meir (Israel)

Urban Sustainability in Desert and Dryland Areas – a First Exploration, Yodan Rofe and Gabriela Feierstein (Israel/Argentina)

Microclimatic Issues in the Planning of a Modern City in a Desert Environment, Evyatar Erell (Israel)

Sustainable Architecture in the Outback/Desert Regions of Australia: The Paradigm in Theory and Practice, Terence Williamson (Australia)

Arch. Suhasini Ayer-Guigan (India)

Arch. Mary Hancock (UK)

Arch. Laureano Pietro (Italy)

15:30 Bus Ride to Mitzpe-Ramon

16:00-17:00 Sunset Overlooking the Ramon Crater, Visit to Ramon Visitor’s Center

17:30 PLENARY LECTURE: Professor Uri Shani, Director, Israel Water Authority,

“Addressing Scarcity in the Drylands: Israel’s New Water Management Strategy”,

Moderator, Ms. Hila Ackerman, Director of Environmental Department, Ramat Negev Regional Council

19:00 Dinner

20:00 Evening Activity: Music & Dancing OR Astronomy Lecture

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DAY 3, December 16, 2008: FIELD TRIPS

A detailed plan will be provided separately

—————————————

DAY 4, December 17, 2008: THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS- POLICIES AND PARTNERSHIPS TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION

8:00-8:30 Registration

8:30 – 10:15Plenary Addresses/ Panel – Reconsidering the Axiom of “Bottom Up” Desertification Programs: Lessons Learned about Partnerships and International Assistance

Chris Braeuel UNCCD Focal Point, Canada,

Christian Mersmann, Director, The Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, Rome

Alon Tal, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research

DelphineOuedraogo, Ministry of Environment, Focal Point to UNCCD, Burkina Faso

Moderator: TBA

10:00-10:15 Coffee Break

10:15-11:50 Parallel Sessions VI

 

22. The Contradictions of “Gender Equality” in Development Discourses in Desert Regions (Panel A)

Chair: Prof. Rivka Carmi, President Ben Gurion University, president@bgu.ac.il

Rethinking modern education among indigenous Negev Bedouin, Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder (Israel)

Looking Ahead: Bedouin Women, Higher Education, Identity and Belonging,Ronnie Halevi (Israel/U.S.A.)

The nation and its natures: Depictions of women Environmental Educators in the Israeli Negev Desert, Miri Lavi-Neeman, (Israel/USA)

“My Life? What is there to tell?” : Interpreting the life stories of multiply marginalized women in an Israeli ‘Development Town” Sigal Ron (Israel)

23. Public Policy, Economics and Desertification

Chair: Dr. Moshe Schwartz, Ben Gurion University, moshesc@bgu.ac.il

Economic Instruments for Mitigation of Desertification Problems in Armenia Gevorgyan Suren, (Armenia)

Land Degradation, Subsidies Dependency and Market Vulnerability of Stock –breeding Households in Central Crete Hugues Lorent, et. al., (Belgium)

The Value of Israel’s Forests and Desertification, Tzipi Eshet, Dafna Disegni and Mordehcai Shechter (Israel)

Current Status and Issues for Combating Desertification In Western Rajasthan, Kiran Soni Gupta, (India)

How To Put Desertification and Water Management in The Political Agenda: The South Italy Development Policies, Carlo Donolo (Italy)

24. Food Security in the Drylands

Chair: TBA

Livelihood Strategies: Indigenous Practices and Knowledge Systems in the Attainment of Food Security in Botswana, Maitseo Bolaane (Botswana)

Drought and food insecurity: a rationale for national grain reserves, Hendrik Bruins (Israel)

Drought Management Planning in Water Supply System, Enrique Cabrera (Spain)

The Impact of Drought on Agriculture in Jordan, Sawsan Batarseh and Hendrik J. Bruins (Jordan)

25. Case Studies – Projects that Combat Desertification

Chair: Beth-Eden Kite, Deputy Director, Mashav, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, beth-eden.kite@mfa.gov.il

Combating Desertification: An Attempt at Wasteland Development in Rajasthan, India, Kusum Bhawani Shanker, (India)

Valuing the Successes of combating desertification – Experience of Burkina Faso in the rehabilitation of the productive capacity of the village territories, Ouedraogo Delphine (Burkina Faso)

Development of Drylands of Kenya Using the Jatropha Curcas Value Chain J.A. Aucha, V. Palapla, and J. Shinundu, (Kenya)

Production Diversification for Expanding the Economic Foundations of Argentinean Monte Desert Communities, Elena Maria Abraham, Giuseppe Enne (Argentina)

11:50-12:00 Coffee Break

12:00-13:00 Parallel Sessions VI

26. Bottom Up: Community Participation in Programs to Combat Desertification

Chair: Dr. Haim Divon, Deputy Director, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Man, Desert and Environment, Hanan Ginat, Noa Avriel-Avni (Israel)

People and institutional participation in forest management for sustainable development: options for drylands based on experiences from Sudan. Edinam K. Glover (Finland)

Dryland Gardening: A Sustainable Solution to Desertification? Southern Africa as a Case Study, Adam Abramson (U.S.A)

27. Culturing Desertification: Gender and the Politics of Development (Panel B)

Chair: Dr. Pnina Motzafi-Haller, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, pninamh@gmail.com

Development and the Role of Women in Pakistan, Masooda Bano, (UK)

Domestic Water Provision and Gender Roles in Drylands, Anne Coles (UK)

Women’s Work: Gender and the Politics of Trash Labor in Dakar,Rosalind Fredericks, (USA)

28. The Negev Desert – Development and Conservation

Chair: Dr. Yodan Rofeh, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, yrofe@bgu.ac.il

The Israeli Negev Desert: From Frontier to Periphery, Yehuda Gradus (Israel)

The National-Strategic Plan for Developing the Negev – Negev 2015: An Old Prospect or a New Future, Na’ama Theshner (Israel)

The potential of TOD for development of the Northern Negev, Prof. Dani Gat (Israel)

Sense of place and naming in Hura as an example of the changing spatial consciousness of Beduoin in the Negev, Arnon Ben Israel and Avinoam Meir (Israel)

29. The Political Ecology of Deserts and Desertification

Chair: Dr. Yaakov Garb, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, ygarb@bgu.ac.il

Rebuilding the Land: Political Ecology of Land Degradation in Somaliland Ingrid Hartman (Germany)

Desertification Narratives (and Their Uses) in the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Davis (U.S.A)

Desertification or Greening in the Sahel? Case study of Inadvertent Greening in the Oued Kowb, Mauritania, Stefanie Herrmann, Mamadou Baro, Aminata Niang (U.S.A)

Political Ecology: Wind Erosion on the U.S. Southern High Plains

R. E Zartman and A.C. Correa (U.S.A)

30. Assessing International Efforts to Combat Desertification

Chair: Professor Uriel Safriel, Hebrew University, uriel36@gmail.com

Follow the Money: Navigating the International Aid Maze for Dryland Development Pamela Chasek (U.S.A)

The Global Mechanism – Lessons Learned C. Mersmann, (Italy)

Research Priorities of the UNESCO Chair on Eremology Gabriels (Belgium)

An Analytic Review for International Collaborations for Drylands Research and Sustainable Development, J. Scott Hauger (U.S.A)

A Conference to Improve the Flow of Science into the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Mark Winslow (Germany)

13:00-14:30 Lunch and Concluding Session

e-mail:  desertification at bgu.ac.il
tel:   972-8-659-6997
fax: 972-8-659-6772

——————————————————

See also:

In The Run-Up To UN CSD 17, and Following Immediately After The UNFCCC Meeting In Poznan, The Ben Gurion University of The Negev, UNESCO, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry Are Organizing for December 14-17, 2008, at Sede Boqer a Conference on: DRYLANDS, DESERTS, and DESERTIFICATION.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 17th, 2008

Brazil, China, Russia have the least to fear in terms of macroeconomic vulnerabilty from the outfall of the US housing derivatives manipulated crash among the non-western economies. Argentina and India are also in good position. Simply said, they were not engulfed by the Washington/New York bulls. But in terms of more imediate financial vulnerability, Russia is worse of then China – this because of the fact that Russia is a seller in the oil market, and China a buyer – and surprise, the falling economy has caused a fall of the price of oil, and thus it harmed Russia more then China.

So, Putin invites Wen to Moscow and proposs to him a deal that offers him an oil pipeline to China, in exchange for funds to build that pipeline and more. This is a clear good deal for the two former communist countries and not so reent converts to capitalism.

So who loses from a pipeline that goes from Russia eastwards? Clearly Europe as the day will come that there will be a shortage of oil and it will go to China and not to the EU.

Also, from the chart it is obvious that Iceland is in trouble for a long time to come folllowed by Eastern Europe Countries, though it seems that Lithuania is a bit better off. In the Western Hemisphere, seemingly Mexico will b in trouble for a while.

Eyes Wide Open.
By Mario Osava from Brazil, October 29, 2008.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 28 (IPS) – The reaction by South America’s Mercosur trade bloc to the current global financial crisis is limited for the time being to observing “possible impacts” on stock markets, production and unemployment, and “maintaining fluid and agile communications” regarding any measures taken by each member country. The bloc convened its Common Market Council — composed of the members’ ministers of economy and foreign affairs and their central bank presidents — Monday in the Brazilian capital, to discuss the crisis and how they could act to mitigate its effects. Mercosur (Common Southern Market), South America’s biggest trade bloc, is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of becoming the fifth full member. The proposals presented at the Seventh Extraordinary Meeting of the Council will be considered, along with future recommendations, at a new meeting scheduled for Dec. 15, on the eve of the Latin American and Caribbean Summit organised by Brazil for Dec. 16-17 in Salvador, capital of the northeast state of Bahi a.

Brazil suggested calling a ministerial meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which this country’s diplomats are seeking to strengthen, while Venezuela, for its part, proposed a world summit of heads of state and government, according to the joint press release issued by the Common Market Council.

Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley was in favour of the Group of Eight (G8) most powerful economies increasing the capital of multilateral development and financial institutions, in particular the Inter-American Development Bank, to provide assistance to Latin America.

With the presence of representatives from the bloc’s full and associate members, in addition to observers from Guyana and Suriname, the meeting included delegates from all of South America.

The consensus expressed in the final statement underlines “the need for an in-depth and comprehensive reform of international financial structures” and “establishing more prudent regulations for capital markets.” The Council also called for a “balanced” conclusion of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Round of multilateral trade talks, which was suspended indefinitely in July after failing to reconcile differences between negotiators, in particular, India and the United States.

The Mercosur statement admits that today South America is “better prepared than in the past” to face a financial crisis, thanks to its “sound macroeconomic fundamentals.” Strengthening integration, expanding trade and enhancing financial cooperation in the region could prove “crucial” to “preserve and further the economic and social gains made in recent years,” it adds.

“Fortifying our integration will lessen the impact of the crisis” by maintaining trade and capital flows, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said at a press conference after the meeting.

Foxley rejected “protectionist policies” as a way to respond to the crisis, arguing that they would only exacerbate social problems.

Brazilian Senator Aloísio Mercadante, an economist with the governing Workers’ Party (PT), warned against protectionist temptations, arguing that individual solutions are no solution at all.

The statements by the Brazilian and Chilean authorities were aimed at the Argentine government, which tends to respond with tariffs, as it has on several opportunities in the last few years, to defend its market from being flooded by imported goods. One of the proposals put forward by Buenos Aires was an increase in the Mercosur Common External Tariff.

The steep depreciation of the Brazilian real, which has fallen more than 30 percent against the dollar since August, heightened Argentina’s fear that the imbalance in bilateral trade will worsen.

From January to August, Brazil had a 3.6 billion dollar surplus in its trade with Argentina, a 40 percent increase as compared to the same period of 2007, despite the growing overvaluation of Brazil’s local currency, a trend that has been reversed since August.

Mercosur “should adopt common decisions,” but if is unable to, it should at least establish “guidelines” of some sort for the measures implemented by each country to counter the effects of the financial crisis that originated in the United States, Tullo Vigévani, director of the School of Philosophy and Sciences at the Sao Paulo State University, told IPS.

Recalling the “acute crisis” suffered by Mercosur back in 1999, when the Brazilian currency fell sharply and the integration process reached its weakest point, he pointed out that the “bloc did not lose its viability.”

Today the situation is more severe, with the Mercosur integration process largely stagnant, but the member countries now understand that integration is key to achieving individual development and “they must also realise that preventing the weakening of each and every member is in everyone’s interest,” said Vigévani.

The international affairs expert, who closely follows the Latin American integration process, noted that an agreement signed by Mercosur in 2005 stipulates the principle of balanced commercial relations between members of the bloc.

The present crisis and the depreciation of the real could turn out to be an opportunity to set limits for trade imbalances, such as a “band” of tolerance and countervailing measures in favour of the country suffering the deficit, he said.

The greatest obstacle to such a strategy is that an economic slowdown in Brazil, expected to set in next year as a result of the global financial turmoil, will have a brutal effect on neighbouring countries with much smaller economies, while the South American giant will barely feel any repercussions from their troubles, he observed.

Under Bush, US Influence in Latin America Wanes.
Saturday 11 October 2008, by: The Associated Press

From left to right, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva forge alliances at a regional integration meeting in Manaos, Brazil, in early October 2008. (Photo: Antonio Lacerda / EPA)

Quito, Ecuador – In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States’ financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

“We did our homework – and they didn’t, they who’ve been telling us for three decades what to do,” the man who presides over Latin America’s largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America’s more than 550 million people now “have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic,” says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous.”

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China’s trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela’s Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

“Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology,” said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn’t limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss “better relations in defense.” Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic’s ambassador has yet to arrive in South America’s poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia’s only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow’s ambassador told the AP – after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador – that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

“We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries,” said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn’t comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving “Cold War rhetoric.” Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush’s presidency.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counternarcotics, and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez’s checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras’ president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

“Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked,” he said.

Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington’s $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, “We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region.”

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile’s center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington’s ambassador to Chile an old joke: “Some say the only reason there’s never been a coup in the United States is because there’s no U.S. Embassy in the United States.”

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America’s elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree – though that didn’t stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it’s unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama’s senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style – albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

“Barack doesn’t see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner,” Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

“No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America,” he said. “Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree.”

——–

Associated Press writers Dan Keane in Bolivia, Eduardo Gallardo in Chile and Stan Lehman in Brazil contributed to this report.

 The original September 15th posting:

Bolivia crisis summit for Latin American leaders:
Deadly violence over nationalisation campaign of Evo Morales brings intervention led by Chile and Brazil.

guardian.co.uk, Monday September 15 2008

Latin American leaders are to gather in Chile today in an attempt to end a political crisis in Bolivia that has seen more than a dozen people killed.

Violent clashes between supporters of Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and his opponents have led to concern among neighbouring countries. Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, who is the temporary president of the 12-member Union of South American Nations, called the emergency summit late last week.

The scale of the protests against Morales’s plans to rewrite Bolivia’s constitution and redirect gas revenues has forced the president to declare a state of siege in some opposition-led provinces. Bachelet said: “We can’t remain impassive in the face of a situation that worries us all.”

***

The violence began two weeks ago. The government says at least 30 people have died in protests in the eastern province of Pando, while local officials put the number at 15.

All the presidents of the continent’s major nations are expected to travel to the summit in Chile today except for Alan García, the president of Peru. He is understood to be sending his foreign minister and has issued a statement supporting the elected Morales government.

Also attending the meeting will be José Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the Organisation of American States.

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could prove the key mediator. Brazil imports half its natural gas from Bolivia. Lula warned last week that the summit could only be effective if proposals from both the Bolivian government and the opposition were represented.

“If the two sides haven’t asked us to meet and we make a decision that neither side will respect, the meeting will end up being useless,” Lula said.

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, a close Morales ally, hailed the gathering as an “extraordinary summit”. “Fascism must be stopped in Bolivia. A tragedy must be avoided,” he said.

Chávez has backed Morales in accusing the US of supporting the anti-government protests in Bolivia. Both presidents expelled US ambassadors last week. Washington responded in kind while calling the allegations baseless.

Several other Latin American presidents have defended Morales in the diplomatic spat with America. In a statement published on Sunday in Cuba’s communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, Raúl Castro accused Washington of meddling in Bolivia’s internal affairs.

—————

IN THE MEANTIME   THE US AMBASSADORS WERE EXPELLED FROM VENEZUELA AND BOLIVIA – WILL THIS MOVE EXPAND TO A FEW MORE LA STATES?

————–

At least 28 have died in violence. Evo Morales’ government and the opposition accuse each other of arming paramilitaries.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2008

SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA — The death toll in last week’s violence in a remote northern province rose to more than two dozen, Bolivia’s government said Sunday, as it held frantic talks with opponents to avert further bloodshed.

Sporadic clashes were reported Sunday on roads outside this eastern city, center of opposition to President Evo Morales. Many Bolivians expressed fears that a tense situation could spin out of control if a deal was not reached.

***
Venezuela expels U.S. ambassador
Bolivia crisis sparks concern.
Bolivia orders U.S. ambassador expelled.
Each side has accused the other of arming illegal paramilitary groups.

***

“Better that we take action now, before we have 100 or 1,000 dead,” said Gov. Mario Cossio of Tarija province, designated negotiator for the states opposed to Morales.

There was no immediate word on the outcome of the talks in La Paz, the capital.

Rifts have been widening for two years, with intermittent outbursts of violence, but so far Bolivia has avoided falling into full-fledged civil conflict. However, many analysts call the current crisis the nation’s most perilous point in decades.

“Political, civic and union leaders must know that whatever happens from now on — whether this country becomes a peaceful and harmonious society or a battleground — will be because of their work,” the daily La Razon editorialized Sunday.

The government and the opposition called Sunday for an independent investigation into Thursday’s killings in Pando, a sparsely populated province along the Amazonian frontiers with Brazil and Peru.

In La Paz, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 10 more bodies had been found. That would bring the death toll to at least 26 in Thursday’s confrontation. Two more deaths were reported Friday in Pando, when the army retook control of the airport in Cobija, the provincial capital. The army is now patrolling the province, which is under martial law.

Rada labeled Thursday’s killings near the town of Porvenir a genocide organized by Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez, an opponent of Morales.

The government has accused the governor and his allies of importing sicarios, or hired killers, from Peru and Brazil to shoot down defenseless peasants allied with the president. Fernandez has denied provoking the violence and blamed the central government for the clash.

On Saturday, Morales called the killings a massacre and told a crowd in the central city of Cochabamba that a “fascist, racist coup” was being mounted.

The conservative leaders of five of Bolivia’s nine provinces are aligned against Morales and his socialist program of nationalizations, land reform and stiff resistance to what he calls U.S. imperialism.

***

Critics call Morales a communist tyrant who seeks dictatorial powers. Morales, who won 67% of the vote in a recall election last month, says his policies have benefited the needy masses in South America’s poorest nation.

Foes of Morales are seeking greater autonomy for their provinces and a bigger share of revenue from gas and oil fields, which are concentrated in the dissident regions. Morales says his rivals want to take away funds that aid the poor and put the cash into plans to break away from Bolivia. The opposition denies separatist or violent motivations.

“We want peace, but with dignity,” said Ruben Costas, the governor of Santa Cruz province and a central opposition figure.

The president has frequently accused Washington of collaborating with his enemies and last week expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg for allegedly fomenting rebellion. In his farewell address Sunday, Greenberg called Morales’ charges against him “false and unjustified,” and said his expulsion would have “serious effects in many forms.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close Morales ally, tossed out the U.S. envoy in Caracas, saying he acted in solidarity with the Bolivian president. Washington responded by expelling both the Venezuelan and Bolivian ambassadors.

The Bolivian armed forces chief, Gen. Luis Trigo, has rejected Chavez’s offer to send in help should Morales be ousted.

The deteriorating scenario has alarmed Latin American leaders, who have expressed support for Morales. Several nations, including neighboring Brazil and Argentina, have offered to help mediate, but Morales has not agreed.

Today, South American leaders are to gather in Chile for an emergency session aimed at preventing Bolivia’s slide into civil war. Morales reportedly planned to travel to Santiago. The Bolivian opposition has also asked to attend.

The crisis has strong ethnic and regional roots.

Morales, Bolivia’s first Indian president, enjoys massive support among indigenous peasants from the western highlands, where La Paz is situated. Morales has charged that white and mixed-race “oligarchs” in Bolivia’s lowland provinces are out to get him.

“Their plan is to topple the Indian,” Morales told the crowd in Cochabamba this weekend. “They may topple the Indian, but they won’t topple the Bolivian people.”

patrick.mcdonnell @latimes.com

==========

A Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) Press Release – September 16th

Bolivia: A Profound Breakdown of Communication with Latin America.
•       Upwards of Thirty Dead in Bolivia
•       The Unforgivable has Again Happened, The Taking of Innocent Life
•       Was the Expulsion of the U.S. Ambassador Inevitable?
•       The import of UNASUR’s Strong but Dignified Role

With UNASUR having just met in Santiago, Chile to discuss the escalating crisis in Bolivia, the stage is set for a huge surge of autonomy for Latin America, owing to a series of newly auto-generated, self-managed and extensive regional initiatives.

In an extraordinary shift from a decades-long hegemonic status-quo during which Washington exercised de facto hemispheric supremacy, the U.S. role has dramatically diminished, at times becoming almost irrelevant.

In fact, even though U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, is a relatively enlightened figure who at times has stressed a rational dialogue between Venezuela, Bolivia, and Washington, U.S. attention toward the region, when at all focused, has been willful, narrow-minded, and self-absorbed.

Once installed in office, the Bush administration found itself distracted from Latin American issues by the Iraq war, giving the region the required space to develop its own consensus on regional developments, regardless of Washington’s ululations. This has heightened the ability of hemispheric leaders to halt or reverse some of the most imprudent U.S. policies that had gained ascendancy starting in the Clinton administration, and which then blossomed under Bush. Nevertheless, despite all signs to the contrary, the Bush administration continues to act as if its fiat still is supreme in Latin America, when, in fact, it has rapidly shrunk. An example of this is the revival of the Fourth Fleet as a Washington policy riposte, and with it the pretense of gunboat diplomacy on the ready, after a half-a-century of the fleet being dismasted, and the use of the “terrorism” factor to reassert an authority that is no longer exercisable.

Washington cannot continue to conduct itself as if it had a backyard in which Latin America could be firmly found. The U.S. has been absent from the region for far too long to attempt to roll back the tide of anti-private capital, anti-U.S. sentiment that has swept over much of the region. In its stead, the region yearns for a “third way” and for change. In fact, during this period of unilateral neglect, due to Iraq, the hemispheres started going its own way, coming up with new formulas in its quest to diversify relationships, pluralize its world trade contracts and engage in constructive relations across the board, including forming ties to what Washington, at the time, sees as “rogue” nations. During this period of transition, more left-leaning presidents were being elected president than ever before in the Americas’ history, a raft of regional organizations (which did not include the U.S. as a member) were formed, the region suddenly saw a remarkable rise in its importance on the world stage as its metal and agricultural commodities increased in relevancy and value during the current fuel and food crisis, and new links emerged between Latin America and India, China, Russia, and the EU.

***

The Breakdown of Bilateral Relations:

The latest U.S. flare-up with Bolivia most likely could have been avoided by a non-pro forma U.S. statement categorically declaring that this country would neither recognize nor have any form of relationship with the Santa Cruz-led breakaway departments in the Europerized, somewhat white and wealthy eastern sector of the country, just as Brazil and the other Latin American nations saw fit to do.

Instead, for a number of months U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg assumed the role of quarterback at meetings with the opposition, discussing strategies with his team.

He did this even though the opposition figures had clearly called for extra-constitutional actions against democratically-elected Evo Morales, even his ouster, and in spite of the fact that his widespread support was affirmed in July’s recall elections. (For more information, see COHA Research Associates Chris Sweeney and Jessica Bryant’s article, “Bolivia in Crisis”).

Washington claims that Goldberg’s meetings with the opposition were protocolic and conducted during routine visits to the secessionist regions.

It also insisted that he categorically denies La Paz’s accusations of his signaling support behind the opposition, let alone any involvement in secret plots against the central government. Yet, complicating matters in the Andean country is the fact that any number of U.S. ambassadors throughout Latin America –particularly dating back to the inauguration of the present U.S. administration– have a lengthy record of intervention in the domestic affairs of the countries to which they have been accredited. It is no secret that the State Department has had a long history of inappropriate and often covert intervention in Latin American internal affairs, often making use of a Reagan-era institutional facility known as the National Endowment for Democracy. Goldberg’s predecessors, Manuel Rocha and David Greenlee, persistently inserted themselves into Bolivian domestic issues. This scenario often involved U.S. ambassadors on station elsewhere in the region, where they openly threatening the end of remittances, trade benefits, or U.S. development assistance to a given country, if a leftist regime was elected to office –El Salvador and Nicaragua would be some examples of these. They also have pressured conservative political parties in such countries as Bolivia, El Salvador and Nicaragua to unite behind one candidate in order not to split the vote, allowing the otherwise weaker leftist candidate to ship into office.

Ultimately, a historical memory was invoked of humiliation, plunder and such transgressions as the Chaco war and a spate of U.S.-backed military Juntas under which the largely aboriginal majority of Bolivians have suffered as a result of self-serving past U.S. policies. Such acts of arrogance and intolerance that Washington recurrently has visited upon the region, served to incite the unbridled passions of a man with the Brobdingnagian temper of Hugo Chávez and even the more self-disciplined Evo Morales.

***

Washington Diplomacy or Lack of it:
In Washington’s eye, there always has been a distinction to be made between Evo Morales and his Venezuelan counterpart. While they are very different in temperament and style, the two share some major similarities, one of them being a sense of loyalty and solidarity with one another. What has made them into slippery fish for the Bush administration to handle is that no matter how garish may be their personal stylistic flaws, neither Chávez or Morales can in any manner be condemned for any democratic lapses, lack of human rights observance, nor mistreatment nor abuse of their citizens. You may consider them confrontational non-conformists, or condemn them for their non-adherence to traditional codes of diplomatic behavior, but you cannot cite them for being antipathetic in their behavior towards their own people. Surely there was enough here of democratic substance with which the U.S. could do business.

It is clear that the U.S. remains largely oblivious to the multifaceted developments that are taking place in an increasingly self-confident Latin America. Washington would do well to introduce a sense of perspective on Iraq and terrorism, and turn its attention once again to its vital national interests in this hemisphere. These issues go far beyond drugs, terrorism and security concerns. If the U.S. is to play a constructive role there, it must architect a new relationship with the region that can be deemed credible and taken to heart. Its investment must be more than just a Parthian shot aimed at a token act of respect for their sovereignty and must display an earnest concern for the area’s well-being.

***

UNASUR’s Debuting Role:
If such a re-positioning does not happen soon, it may well be too late for Washington to develop cooperative and mutually beneficial policies. Latin American-led trade agreements such as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) could appear more sensitive and better adapted to regional well-being than any U.S.-crafted free trade agreement with nations that are too weak, like Costa Rica and Panama, to defend their authentic self-interests against subsidized U.S. farm products. Also, the fledgling Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) joins the Organization of American States as a multilateral, democratic body capable of facilitating regional integration and conflict resolution. The difference is, of course, that the former does not include the U.S. as a member. It is this stunning difference that ultimately could lead to the supplanting of the OAS by UNASUR a development that would be sure to lead to the return of Cuba to a major regional body. At its September 15 emergency meeting on the Bolivia crisis in Santiago demonstrates, the leaders of this multilateral organization are capable of engaging in constructive and balanced dialogue that is certain to profoundly affect the separatists. Refusing to fall prey to the mudslinging in which U.S. diplomacy frequently engages, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa dismissed probing by the press into the possibility of covert U.S. intervention in Bolivia, a charge that Correa himself was not making in other contexts, and he reiterated the support of member states to the restoration of order and preservation of unity in Bolivia.

***

Washington and the Bolivian Blow Up:

The near breakdown of relations between Washington and La Paz in the midst of the Bolivia crisis, perfectly exemplifies the disastrous consequences of the inherent intolerance and disrespect that the U.S. has long exhibited towards the region. Despite La Paz and Washington’s ideological differences, Assistant Secretary Shannon, while being a very significant improvement over his two most recent predecessors, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, might have used this opportunity to more clearly indicate a U.S. commitment to the spirit as well as the letter of democratically-elected governance in the region, and that any form of separatism would be condemn. More vigorous support of Morales and the central government in the face of the reckless and greedy same plan of the pro-autonomy leaders in Bolivia might have provided a compelling reason for the secessionists to preserve order and avoid the violence which, tragically, has already claimed upwards of thirty lives.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry Birns and COHA Research Associate Raylsiyaly Rivero
September 16th, 2008

***

COHA Forthcoming Research

Puerto Rico: Another Lone Star?
By COHA Senior Research Fellow Juan Carlos Toledano

Venezuela’s Military in the Hugo Chávez Era
By COHA Research Fellow Alex Sánchez and COHA Research Associate Raylsiyaly Rivero

A Closer Look at the Violence in Bolivia
By COHA Research Associate Mary Tharin

Raul Castro and the Recent Reforms in Cuba
By COHA Research Associate Melissa Penn

Venezuela: Internal Opposition to Chávez
By COHA Research Associate Ruth Rivero
For full article click here

This analysis was prepared by COHA

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 | Press release 08.96

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being “one of the nation’s most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers.” For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 223-4975, fax (202) 223-4979, or email  coha at coha.org.

Thirty-five Years Ago, Latin America Experienced Its Own September 11.

by: Teo Ballve, Colombian Writer, The Progressive, September 9, 2008.

In 1970, Salvador Allende became the democratically elected president of Chile. On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military, supported by Washington, overthrew Allende and in his place a US-financed 17-year regime of terror took over. Latin America, which experienced its own September 11 thirty-five years ago, is no longer under Washington’s thumb.

On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military, supported by Washington, overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. It was a day that was burned in the memories of millions of people across the continent.

Allende had come to power in 1970 as a democratic socialist, and his victory raised hopes among Latin Americans that peaceful social change was possible.

But three years later, when military tanks and fighter jets blasted the presidential palace where Allende had taken refuge, those hopes were dashed. Allende took his own life during the attack, and in his place a U.S.-financed 17-year regime of terror took over. The junta, led by Augusto Pinochet, murdered more than 3,000 people and tortured and detained thousands more.

Now, 35 years after Allende’s overthrow, a lot has changed in Latin America. For starters, Chile’s current president (Michelle Bachelet) is not only a woman, but also a member of Allende’s Socialist Party.

And Washington, once the unofficial arbiter of the politics and economies of Latin America, has been sidelined, as progressive reformers have claimed victory in an ever-growing number of countries.

***

The political waters began turning in 1999 in Venezuela. The country’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez, came from the most unlikely of sources: the military.

Today, left-leaning leaders control almost every country of South America. These leaders are by no means a uniform bunch. But they all share the popular mandate of addressing the needs of the most disadvantaged citizens of Latin America, where nearly half the population of 550 million lives in grinding poverty.

Fulfilling campaign promises, many of these leaders have defied Washington’s economic and political strictures – first introduced in post-Sept. 11 Chile – in trying to lift millions out of poverty.

Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa have moved to take a larger share of profits from their nations’ vast oil and gas reserves to reinvest the money in anti-poverty programs.

Morales also plans to use windfall gas profits in Bolivia – the poorest country in South America – to strengthen its faltering social security system.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former union organizer, has similar plans for the profits expected from newly discovered massive oil reserves.

***

When Allende made similar reforms in Chile, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger famously sneered, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” The Nixon administration’s next move was to cut off all multilateral and bilateral foreign aid to Chile, fulfilling Nixon’s order to “make the economy scream.”

Despite persistent U.S. meddling, it’s hard to see how Washington could once again so recklessly block the desperately needed reforms now sweeping Latin America. When it has recently tried to impose its will, Latin American governments have fended off Washington by banding together.

The region’s new leaders finally are implementing policies that make real improvements in people’s lives. Allende tried to do so, but he was not allowed to see them through to fruition.

From his tragedy, new hope has arisen.

——–

Teo Ballve is a freelance journalist and editor based in Colombia. He can be reached at  pmproj at progressive.org.

Arctic Oil and Gas Rush Alarms Scientists.

Stephen Leahy, IPS, from UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 8, 2008, (brought to our attention by Roberto Savio).

As greenhouse gas pollution destroys Arctic ecosystems, countries like Canada are spending millions not to halt the destruction but to exploit it.

Late last August, Canada announced a 93.7-million-dollar prospecting programme to map the energy and mineral resources of the region. There are “countless other precious resources buried under the sea ice and tundra,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during the announcement. The government’s mapping effort is expected to trigger 469 million dollars in private sector resource exploration and development.

“It is estimated that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lies under the Arctic,” Harper said.

This scramble to exploit some of the most environmentally delicate regions of Earth has alarmed international experts who are meeting this week in Iceland to make recommendations to the United Nations and world governments on how to protect the polar regions.

“Many experts believe this new rush to the polar regions is not manageable within existing international law,” says A.H. Zakri, director of the United Nations University’s Yokohama-based Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), co-organisers of the conference with Iceland’s University of Akureyri.

***

“Pressure on Earth’s unique and highly vulnerable polar areas is mounting quickly and an internationally-agreed set of rules built on new realities appears needed to many observers,” Zakri said in a statement.

In Iceland, leading scholars will detail fast-emerging issues in international law and policy in the polar regions caused by such developments as the opening up of the Northwest Passage. They will identify priorities for law-making and research and offer their best advice to governments about what they should be doing now and in the future, said conference chair David Leary of UNU-IAS.

“Climate change is the number one issue for the polar regions. Iceland experienced its hottest day in history this summer,” Leary told IPS from Akureyri in northern Iceland. “I expect some strong recommendations on climate change to come from this meeting.”

***

As climate change opens the Arctic Ocean to shipping, fishing, and other resource exploitation, pollution will pose another major threat to the region, he said.

“Arctic sea routes are among the world’s most hazardous due to lack of natural light, extreme cold, moving ice floes, high wind and low visibility,” said Tatiana Saksina of the World Wildlife Fund’s International Arctic Programme.

The Arctic marine environment is particularly susceptible to the effects of pollution and cleaning up oil spills would be extremely difficult if not impossible. “Yet there are no internationally binding rules to regulate operational pollution from offshore installations,” Saksina said in a statement. “Strict standards for the transportation of Arctic oil are also urgently needed.”

Saksina also noted that overfishing, often illegal and unreported, is already occurring in the Okhotsk and Bering Seas.

Ships also bring foreign species in their ballast waters. These “invaders” can push native species into extinction and fundamentally alter aquatic ecosystems, and have done so in many parts of the world. Arctic waters are particularly vulnerable and therefore very strict standards for ballast water exchange will be needed, said Leary.

Internationally-binding standards for construction, design, equipment and manning of ships are needed since many tourist ships plying the Arctic and Antarctic are not ice ships, he says. Tourism is driving up the number of ships visiting both poles — the once-remote Antarctic region now sees more than 40,000 tourists every year.

“Accidents are going to happen. How will an oil spill be cleaned up? Who will rescue crew and passengers?” asked Leary.

***

Last November, a tourist ship carrying more than 150 people capsized off the tip of Antarctica after hitting some ice. Fortunately, other ships were close by and everyone was rescued. There was no oil spill. However, not all accidents will be so fortunate, he said.

“There is an urgent need for a comprehensive international environmental regime specially tailored for the unique arctic conditions,” noted the WWF’s Saksina.

The urgency stems from the reality that the ice in the Arctic is melting quickly, leaving the region without a solid-ice cover in summer starting just five years from now, according to some estimates. Without international environmental rules, unplanned and unregulated development is likely to damage the very resources most necessary for a sustainable future in the Arctic, she said.

“There is no time to waste and no reason to wait,” Saksina concluded.

The Americas Society / Council of the Americas will have in September, in New York City, events with the Presidents of – Brazil (H.E. Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva – September 22, 2008), Paraguay (H.E. Fernando Lugo – September 23, 2008), Colombia (H.E. Álvaro Uribe Vélez), and Argentina (H.E. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner – September 25, 2008).

It is only natural that Americas Society and the Council follow very closely the US elections – this because of the fact that definite need for improving the US position among the States of the Western Hemisphere is in order, and many are worried about business an d security issues – specially in the light of efforts to bring back Cuba into the Organization of American States.

The following is an article from the Society’s website, and we look forward onto reporting on the meetings with the Presidents.

Vice Presidential Choices, Latin America Policy, and the Hispanic Vote.
Carlos Macias and Carin Zissis, The Americas Society / Council of the Americas.
September 2, 2008

While the U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain secure their nominations and announce running mates, questions arise over what the vice presidential candidates could contribute in terms of winning the Hispanic vote and U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Obama’s choice of longtime Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) as a vice presidential candidate could bolster the Democratic ticket because of his strong foreign policy credentials. Meanwhile, little is known about where Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin—embroiled in controversy over her teenage daughter’s pregnancy—stands on subjects such as immigration, trade, or U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Winning the Latino voting bloc has emerged as crucial for both camps, with the Democratic and Republican campaigns hiring special advisors to court Hispanic voters. According to a survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, Latino voters prefer Obama over McCain by a 2 to 1 ratio. Dallas Democratic State Representative Rafael Anchía said support for former candidate Hillary Clinton showed that Latinos did not need a Hispanic politician on the ticket to make a choice, responding to a question in a Dallas Morning News article as to whether Obama should have selected New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as a running mate.

Some within the Democratic party fear that Latinos who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries won’t vote for Obama in November. A National Journal article says that even though Latinos appear to lean toward the Democratic ticket, they lack a deep connection with Obama. Meanwhile, Alaska Governor Palin’s strong opposition to abortion could help with conservative Catholic Latino voters, suggested one expert to the Sacramento Bee.

Yet Palin’s position on the issue of immigration—an important matter to the Latino electorate—remains unclear. On the other hand, Obama and Biden stand aligned. Both emphasize the importance of securing American borders while supporting a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants. Additionally, they voted in support of the “Secure Fence Act of 2006,” which approved construction of a 700 mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Palin faces criticism for her lack of foreign policy experience and she has not been vocal on regional matters, including U.S. policy toward Cuba. Meanwhile, the island’s political transition has already sparked debate between Obama and McCain. Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has demonstrated support for the U.S. embargo against Cuba. He voted in favor of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which opened the door to suing foreign companies that benefit from confiscated American property in Cuba. Following the resignation of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the Delaware senator proposed easing restrictions on travel and remittances from the United States, establishing direct mail, and supporting the creation of small businesses in the island without relaxing the embargo.

On the subject of trade, Biden has proven wary of Free Trade Agreements (FTA). He voted against FTAs signed with Oman, Singapore, Chile, and Central America. Biden also rejected the U.S.-Peru FTA in December 2007, saying, “[T]he Bush Administration has not proven that it will effectively enforce labor and environmental provisions.” When running for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Biden voiced support for revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, echoing Obama’s pledge to renegotiate the pact’s terms. However, Biden supported the extension of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which provides preferential trade with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru for some 5,600 products as part of efforts to eradicate drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, Palin has voiced support for international trade as Alaska’s governor, saying, “We are helping our economy and economies around the world through trade.” Although Palin has not been vocal on specific trade pacts in the Americas, Mexico and Chile stand among Alaska’s top ten export markets.

A new column by the Washington Post’s Marcela Sanchez takes a closer look at what an Obama-Biden victory could mean for U.S. policy toward Latin America and ponders whether it could help restore Washington’s standing in the region.

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