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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 15th, 2008 Subject: Imam Shamsi Ali, Rabbi Marc Schneier, Attorney Joel Cohen Could Teach A Thing Or Two Dr. Ban Ki-moon, UNSG, Right Here In Manhattan, So He Be Able To Navigate The Ship of The UN In Troubled Islamic Waters. The First Named Three Have Already Started On A Voyage Of Discovery. Local Muslims must help cops target terror. wrote IMAM SHAMSI ALI Be Our Guest Now Imam Shamsi Ali has replaced retired Imam Omar Abu Namous as Main guide to the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the big Mosque at the corner of East (6 Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.
http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2007/01…
So, with both representatives of what some think are feuding religions agreeing on that all important text, so what is the problem? Surely, with the news that reach us daily from the Middle East it seems that - some over there - believe in the simplistic explanation that says someone becomes your enemy by birth - and that is the ground on which grows the insanity of suicide bombers. If you realize that there is an insanity in that behavior - why then allow such behavior in your own neighborhood right here in America - for example? The New York history started rolling a year ago when Rabbi Marc Schneier and attorney Joel Cohen (the latter belonging to the same law firm that years ago, because of efforts by Dr. Rita Hauser, brought about discussions between the State of Israel and the PLO) decided to reach out to Imam Omar Abu Namous of the Manhattan great Mosque. Rabbi Marc Schneier is President of the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) and he made it his business to find the common ground by starting on the voyage - saying - look - let us leave out the problems of the Middle East and let us first see if we can bridge the problems Jews and Muslims have right here. Our previous article describes what happened a year ago, and how people like Martin Luther King III, Russell Simmons and Steven Spielberg, and perhaps even the Ambassador of Qatar to the UN, were ready to lend a shoulder - and thus the voyage was started. Now 24 moderate Muslim leaders from the UK wrote a press release where they said - signed with their names and titles - that what goes on in the Middle East is a misinterpretation of Islam. Islam does not allow for acts of suicide in the name of the religion. For me personally above statement is also sort of a vindication. After the infamy of 9/11 before the end of 2001, at a meeting of the Board of the Center for UN Reform Education (CURE) - I asked if anyone has heard of an Islamic cleric to say that the suicide bombers do not go to paradise, but rather, they go to hell? The majority at CURE, even though I just wrote for them the “Promptbook on Sustainable Development” that was distributed before the 2002 Johannesburg Summit to all UN Member States’ Governments - in New York and directly to their capitals, were appalled. Their instinctive feeling was that for polite discourse one must fudge over such issues, and they really knew nothing about the place of Wahhabism in all of this - even though they agreed with me that US dependence on Middle East oil is part of the problem. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) invited Rabbi Marc Schneier to their March 9, 2008 dinner and to speak about above “Muslim Call for Peace: Dialogue and Understanding Between Muslims and Jews.” And Imam Shamsi is being invited these days to various Jewish institutions to speak - so the dialogue started just a year ago is finally catching on - perhaps even faster then the originators dared to hope - and obviously - the Middle East is not kept out of this dialogue anymore. Now, to March 15, 2008, at The New York Synagogue, “The Dialogue Continues….:” Imam Shamsi, who was born in Indonesia, and studied at Madrases there - religion, Koran, Arabic language - made it clear that the Islamic Madrasa is like the Jewish Midrash - a place of religious studies. The problem is what comes in because of daily experiences. The fact that Indonesia and Malaysia are away from the Palestinian experience brings about a much more moderate approach to the Middle East problems. Afghanistan and Pakistan have their own set of problems and their extremists are busy with those problems. The Majority of world Muslims live in that part of Asia. Strangely, Shiia Islam did not come up in the discussion - I realized this only now when writing about it - so the discussion was really only about the Sunnis that populate the immediate area of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and whenever extreme movements were mentioned it was only the Hamas. The Hezbolah was not mentioned - hardly anything about Iran. Talking about the extremism of the Middle East, when asked about the Wahhabi influence - he said that there is a religious Wahhabism as a stream of extremist Islam, but there is also a political Wahhabism that is Saudi Arabia. Because he comes from a different background he, though Muslim, finds his disagreements with that extremism and he was attacked for not being on the extreme. The article we used as an introduction shows this, and “googling” we found articles directed against him - so Imam Shamsi is a brave man. He is ready to say that political Islam has highjacked religious Islam. The great majority of Muslims, though they are religious Muslims obligated to help other Muslims, will not agree to the radical methods applied in the Middle East that were instituted and supported by the Arab governments. To the direct question if he accepts the right of existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East - he unequivocally answered YES. He wants to see two separate states in the region - a Jewish State and a Palestinian State. I tried my question in which I intended to enhance the cooperation between Jews and Muslims by getting the two groups, that try now to find common ground, to go even to higher ground - a common interest in - as ordered by the Bible - man is to be just the guardian of the earth so he can transmit life on earth to his children. That means a common interest in enviromentalism that today means also a reduction of CO2 emissions and less reliance on oil. The side effect of this being also a decrease in funds that are being misused by the likes of the political Wahhabists when they support the Wahhabi religious expansion. I did not get an answer to my question, but intend to ask for the speakers’ comments to this posting. Now to why I wrote that listening to the debate, the UN Secretary-General could have charged himself with arguments when faced with what he may think a phalanx of Arab Leaders bombarding him with common anti-Israeli rhetoric. From Imam Shamsi, and Rabbi Schneier’s discussion - it turned out that much of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is indeed an intra-Arab problem. This is indeed something so serious, that by not seeing it one ends up in complete disequilibrium when trying to view the region. In Dakar, the UNSG ended up becoming a prop to feuding Arab governments. By not putting a finger on the pulse of suffering Arabs, but by only talking to their governments, the real suffering of the people is not known to the UN - it is nevertheless possible for the Muslims right here in New York, to enlighten the UNSG - these meetings between Muslims and Jews in New York, and the statements that start to come out from the UK, are witness that there is no Islamic monolith to be frightened by. These activities are much more promissing then the Discussions about Civilizations that were orchestrated by the UN with the participation of the Islamic Government’s official delegations and the King of Spain. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 1st, 2008 Dollar’s Dive Deepens as Oil Soars: Power of Greenback Faces Severe Test, But No Rivals Loom. On Thursday, the dollar sank to a new record low against the euro, deepening a six-year slide in which it has fallen more than 40% versus the European currency and more than 20% against a broader basket of currencies. In late trading in New York, one euro fetched about $1.52, just two days after it surged through the symbolically important level of $1.50. { Just for a starter - at www.SustainabiliTank.info we think that this time, again, it is the intentional devaluation of the US$ that brings about the increase of the price of oil and of many other commodities as well. The logic here is that exporters to the US will have to run faster in order to stay in place. Now why has the biggest borrower in the world - the US - devalued its currency by having to borrow so much from overseas? You guessed it - it is called Iraq - the quenteessential war for oil.} • Record Setter: The dollar is hitting record lows against the euro and is at weakest in 12 years vs. a broad basket of currencies. { A seemingly less pro-Washington prejudiced point of view.} The greenback’s biggest detractors — a small but growing group — say the currency is in danger of eventually losing its place as the world’s dominant currency. Jim Rogers, a well-known commodity investor and a former partner of famed currency trader George Soros, has a particularly bleak assessment: “The dollar is a terribly flawed currency and its days are numbered,” he said in a recent interview. He cited the U.S.’s huge foreign-held debt as the biggest cause. The dollar’s weakness adds upward pressure to the prices of commodities, most of which are traded in dollars. They’re now soaring in value for a number of reasons including that they’ve become cheaper for buyers who hold other currencies, which drives up demand. An enfeebled dollar also means the reserves of many central banks are falling in value, a dilemma that isn’t easily resolved. { Not completely so - there is demand and there is offer - and it is the offer that drive the price up. Others have an easier way in paying for the new dollar price because their money also increased its value in dollar terms - so WSJ - please see that while for the EURO folks this is a zero game, for the US folks this is what we used to call inflation and some more devaluation of the dollar. The fact that some US exports get cheaper overseas, so expports increase, is nothing to the US consumer who sees the increase of costs of what the US imports. The US traveler will sit home, because here he does not have to pay yet $10 for a cup of coffee - but we will be getting there also as most of what we buy is imported or has impoted components.} WSJ money & investing reporter Craig Karmin talks with Jeff Trachtenberg about his new book “Biography of the Dollar,” and the inspiration for the book on U.S. currency. (Feb. 29) The dollar is involved in 86% of the $3.2 trillion in daily currency transactions around the world, often as a middle step in exchanges between two other currencies, according to the Bank for International Settlements. While that is down from 90% in 2001, no other currency comes close. Fears of Mass Exodus: Nearly two-thirds of the world’s central-bank reserves remain denominated in dollars, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, despite widespread fears of a mass exodus from the currency. The euro accounts for about a quarter — up from 18% when it was introduced in 1999, but less than its predecessor currencies’ share in 1995. Because the U.S. is such a huge trading partner for so many countries, the reserve buildup is not easily unwound. In trade, the dollar is also deeply entrenched. Businesses lower their transaction costs by dealing in a common currency. More than 80% of exports from Indonesia, Thailand and Pakistan are invoiced in dollars, for instance, according to the latest figures available in research by the European Central Bank, although less than a quarter of their exports go to the U.S. For countries heavily reliant on commodity exports such as oil, the figures are higher still. Almost 100% of Algeria’s exports are invoiced in dollars, even though only 27% end up in the U.S.
“There is no global financial architecture in place to supplant the dollar as the world’s main reserve currency,” says Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist for Bank of America. That demand also props up the dollar’s value, and erosion in its status could contribute to a further fall. For the U.S., there are benefits and drawbacks to having a dominant currency that’s declining in value. Because the U.S. can borrow anywhere in the world in its own currency, it isn’t facing the kind of dilemma countries such as South Korea and Indonesia faced in the 1990s. They borrowed in other currencies — mostly dollars — and when their own currencies collapsed against the dollar, the local-currency value of their debts soared, forcing many companies into bankruptcy. A weak dollar helps U.S. exports by making U.S. goods cheaper overseas, which can trim the nation’s trade deficit. Thus the Treasury Department, while officially supporting a strong dollar, has not protested its mostly gradual decline. U.S. exports of goods and services have grown on average by 8% annually during the past four years, faster than the 7% growth rate of the 1990s — a difference worth more than $17 billion a year if it continues. A cheap dollar also fuels upward pressure on the prices of imports, a factor that complicates the Federal Reserve’s task of fighting inflation. But foreign exporters — who often choose to hold their dollar prices steady rather than raise them and risk losing sales — bear some of the burden of the currency’s decline and diminish its inflationary impact in the U.S. Last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Soros suggested that the credit crisis would damage the dollar’s dominant role in the global economy: “It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.” www.SustainabiliTank.info posted also the Soros paper that we got from his office.} In another sign of the times, Warren Buffett, who has long prophesied the dollar’s decline, was at the center of a dollar kerfuffle recently when CNBC, the business network, quoted him as saying the dollar was destined to become “worthless.” He quickly called the network to correct the report: What he’d actually said was that it would become “worth less.” Then there are bears like the trader Mr. Rogers, who recently said the dollar’s days as currency kingpin are numbered. If history is any guide, it’s not that simple: A reworking of a global financial system built around the dollar would take years and a massive change in the economic landscape. At the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. was already the world’s largest economy, but the British pound still accounted for nearly two-thirds of official foreign-exchange reserves held by the world’s central banks. The dollar didn’t emerge as the dominant currency until after World War II devastated Europe. Even then, some commodities still traded in pounds: The London sugar market didn’t jettison sterling for a dollar-denominated trading contract until around 1980.
Today, Brazil accounts for about 40% of world sugar exports, and almost none of that goes to the U.S. because of U.S. tariffs on foreign producers. But Brazil’s trade still takes place in dollars because that’s how global commodities markets quote prices. “When I sell to my clients, they want to pay in dollars,” says Felipe Vicchiato, executive for investor relations for Pradópolis, Brazil-based Grupo São Martinho, which sells sugar product from Russia to Dubai. “We don’t have any other option.” He says the firm wouldn’t consider switching to another currency. Dollar weakness is squeezing his margins, Mr. Vicchiato says. His costs for harvesting sugar are billed in the local currency, the real, while his company is paid in dollars for sales abroad. He notes the dollar tumbled nearly 17% against the real last year. The firm hedges a portion of its exports by buying futures contracts that lock in prices to try to limit the dollar’s damage on profits. Sugar futures have surged 30% year-to-date as producers start to react to the dollar declines. “Sugar prices have to be raised to compensate for the weaker dollar,” Mr. Vicchiato says. In Malaysia, the stock and derivatives exchange is launching a new international palm-oil futures contract next month. Malaysia and Indonesia are the titans of the trade, together accounting for 87% of global palm oil production. China is the world’s largest importer of palm oil, while the U.S. imports less than 3% of the total — a smaller share than Bangladesh or Egypt. But the new contract will be traded in dollars. “We thought briefly about the euro,” says Raghbir Singh Bhart, head of global markets at Bursa Malaysia. “Frankly, we didn’t think very long.” Just because the dollar “is getting a hammering doesn’t make a difference…. The global trade is still conducted in that currency.” Some of America’s geopolitical rivals are trying to break free of the buck: Russia is creating a commodity exchange where futures contracts for oil, as well as other products, would be denominated in rubles. In a speech earlier this month, Dmitry Medvedev — the virtually certain winner of Russia’s presidential election on Sunday — noted that “the global economy is going through uneasy times. The role of key reserve currencies is under review. And we must take advantage of it.” Iran’s ambassador to Russia lauded the oil plan, according to a report from Iran’s official news agency, which headlined the move as an effort to rid the world of the “dollar’s slavery.” But other efforts to extricate the dollar from its central role haven’t gone very far. Saddam Hussein caused a stir in September 2000 when the Iraqi leader abruptly declared he would no longer accept dollars for his country’s oil. But when the Iraqi strongman was captured in 2003, he was found personally holding $750,000 — all of it in $100 bills. Adding Another Currency: Iran itself is home to the headquarters of a 33-year-old organization called the Asian Clearing Union, which acts as a clearinghouse for cross-border transactions among eight countries, including Iran, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The currency used to account for the trades? The U.S. dollar. The group is exploring whether to add the euro as another currency for its transactions, but “the dollar will be the major currency,” says Mohamad Belayet Hossain, an official at Bangladesh’s central bank who is involved in studying the change. Last November, at a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Iran’s foreign minister urged the group to publicly express concern at the weakness of the dollar. Thirty minutes of the closed-door meeting was inadvertently broadcast to members of the media. Responding to Iran’s proposal, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, warned it was a “sensitive issue” that could “cause the dollar to drop further.”
The idea was quashed by Saudi Arabia, but it spurred speculation that OPEC was exploring alternatives to pricing in dollars. Oil experts say such a change would be hard to pull off. Oil prices are based around three types of crude oil: West Texas Intermediate, Brent crude, and Dubai crude. These key benchmarks are all denominated in dollars. “If you want something different, you have to agree to change the whole pricing system, and nobody is prepared to do it,” says Robert Mabro, the former director of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. One reason: The dollar could rise again, and any other currency picked could easily fall. The dollar is still deeply rooted as a reserve currency for central banks. The dollar’s share of global central bank reserves hit a peak of 72% in early 2002, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. It declined by six percentage points that year and the next, but has remained relatively stable since. The dollar’s share stood at 64% of total reserves as of last September. There isn’t “much evidence of a major shift out of the dollar,” says Brad Setser, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The euro is a dominant reserve currency in Europe, he says, but not globally. The IMF figures exclude the reserves of China and several Persian Gulf nations, which tie their currencies closely to the dollar and accumulate dollars to manage their exchange rate. So the actual percentage of global reserves held in dollars is likely higher. Central banks face a dilemma if they want to change that relationship. Because major U.S. trading partners export so much to the U.S., there is a constant flow of dollars into their central bank coffers that can’t be changed unless the U.S. trade deficit shrinks dramatically. If they sell the dollar reserves, it would weaken the dollar’s value. That would potentially hurt their own trade competitiveness, and push down the value of their remaining dollar reserves. If they keep the dollars, a buildup of unwanted assets would only mount. “There is no alternative to the dollar as a trading currency in Asia,” says Andy Xie, a Hong Kong-based economist. “Eventually, the renminbi [Chinese yuan] will replace the dollar in Asia, perhaps in our lifetime. But it will take at least 30 to 40 years.” Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 27th, 2008 Subject: Women In Great Numbers Descend On The UN for CSW 52 - that is the yearly take-over of the UN by the Commission on the Status of Women. EXXONMOBIL Takes A Ride. ============================================= The Commission on the Status of Women is Having its meeting at the UN - and the UN wants to have us believe that it is all about “Violence Against Women.” The reality is that for the week, a yearly event, women’s organizations take over the UN; the UN will be used for many other purposes, besides the one expressed by the UNSG, as well. This article picked up first the official statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the very good reporting by Edith Lederer from the Associated Press - based on that UN official position. But then we wish to single out one “Parallel Event” held on February 25, 2008, at the Church Center across the UN. We went to that event because we were sent a flyer that mentioned as a panelist: “EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION - Speaker to be announced.” This was enough to trigger our curiosity and the appetite to devour that unnamed speaker for a named company - this while all other members of the panel were right there named in the open. The title of that event was - “CORPORATE FEMINISM: ENHANCING CORPORATE INFLUENCE THROUGH WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT.” The Conveners of the event were The International Council of Jewish Women and cosponsored by: Soroptimist International. The first body is represented in the US by the National Council of Women, the second body came to CSW 52 with the theme - “Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women.” We will have much more about all of this, but as said, we will first introduce the two postings we mentioned in the previous paragraph.
—————————– CSW 52 had nothing to do with the will of the UNSG. As said this is an event organized by the Commission on the Status of Women - though, clearly, it is highly possible and we would say probable, that the UNSG has suggested a topic for this years meeting of the CSW. This is clearly a very welcome move on his part and it comes after we saw so many cases when even UN Peacekeeping forces are accused of rape - not just combatant forces that had to be kept apart by these UN forces. So, besides the global humanitarian problem, there is here also a UN problem - and it could not be soon enough for the UNSG to step into this breach of confidence in the UN. Further - the UNSG in the words of his Spokesperson:
——————— Further, the press conference, as well as the main meeting itself, included male witnesses talking freely about their own experience of having attacked women. Specially was impressive in his presentation one male from the US that after 20 years of counseling came to the conclusion that the three cases of him attacking women were based on the male culture in his neighborhood. A man is supposed to be aggressive he said, and this translated in the way he dealt with women. Men go to war - successful - they become heroes. He finally recognized that this was his personal problem and now he counsels other delinquent males so they recognize the wrong motivation them act the way they do. But then the UN has not reached yet the level of self criticism reached by above man who by now is rather a gentleman. The question of rape in the field, and exploitation of women and girls in the field, by UN personnel, was never raised at this event - not even the fact that the UN building itself harbors soft porno and smut. So, the only remaining good investigative journalist at the UN - the man called by all - Matthew - did bring this up. Please his post:
Having reported the above, let us see now the CSW 52 Parallel event on Corporate Feminism // Women’s Empowerment, and let us say right front that we do not begrudge women that pushed for equal rights to advance on the corporate ladder. We were friends with such power houses like Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. Years ago, we hosted them at events of “The Theatre for Ideas” - in Manhattan and in East Hampton, Long Island, New York. Going to http://www.soroptimistinternational.org I found that Soroptimist International is a worldwide organization for women in management and professions, working through service projects to advance human rights and the status of women. Even better - Soroptimist International is a launch partner for this vital UNIFEM internet global advocacy campaign which will run until 8 March, International Women’s Day. One in 3 women and girls may be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in their lifetime. Greater resources are urgently needed to halt these shameful statistics. The UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, managed by UNIFEM, supports local initiatives, such as work to prevent human trafficking, assisting survivors of domestic violence, or helping to implement laws against rape.
A message from the Soroptimist International President: A flyer describes their projects - I will just mention a very small sample: a project “Independence” to help rebuild lives of women in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, through education, job training and micro-credit loans for small businesses; “Limbs for Life” that provides prostheses for victims of landmines in Angola, Georgia, Afghanistan; “SIAM” in Northern Thailand villages to develop income-generating activities and AIDS education in order to decrease the number of women entering the sex trade; SI/SIGHT clinics in Bangladesh to prevent blindness in children under 5; anti-malaria bed-nets for children under 5 in Ze, Benin; care, nutrition, education for abandoned children in Vietnam; help for women AIDS victims in Uganda and Ukraine…. Margaret Lobo was not involved in setting up the program of that panel. She told me that this was done by the local organizations in New York. She gave me a second flyer explaining what the organization does -
The other sponsoring organization was The International Council Of Jewish Women with about 50 member organizations is represented in the US by The National Council of Jewish Women ( http://www.ncjw.org ). A faith-based volunteer organization that works to improve the quality of life for women, children, and families and to ensure individual rights It is a politically savvy organization. For over a century, NCJW has been at the forefront of social change. NCJW members are outspoken champions for progressive policies at the federal, state, and local levels. Over the years, NCJW’s collective voice has changed the world for the better - improving the lives of women, children, and families in the US and Israel. The Moderator of the panel was Meryle Kaplan, Vice President of Advisory Services at Catalyst. www.catalyst.org “CATALIST was founded in 1962 as a nonprofit corporate membership research and advisory organization working globally with businesses and professions to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women and business.” This according to their flyer. They are “connected to business and its changing needs.” Offices in New York, San Jose, Toronto, and Zug, Switzerland. They work with 340 leading corporations, firms, business schools, and associations - they honor exemplary business initiatives that promote women’s leadership with an annual Catalyst Award. The New York office is on Wall Street and I was not impressed. Meryle Kaplan told me that she asked her speakers to talk about in-house corporation advancement of women, and as well, about involvement of the corporations in their environments - the interaction with the communities where they do their business. Elizabeth Cottam, Managing Director, Global Leadership and Diversity at Goldman, Sachs &Co., and Carolyn Buck Luce, Senior Partner, Global Accounts Group, at Ernst & Young, LLP were excellent examples of female leaders in their corporations. Their presentations were indeed examples of what women have achieved in that old fight for advancement within their corporations. They spoke about how funds were created in their companies to help promote the female employees, and how now they are finding new targets for their fights inside the company. Having achieved an increasing percentage of top jobs, though still a minority - they want now also part of the say in the philanthropic funds that these companies have established. This because women may have different interests in the way those funds are distributed. There was a lot of interesting material in their short presentations and much more further information was provided at Q&A time. Their presentations were indeed good examples of how women executives evolved and are now an important factor in the economy as wellas in the social fabric of developed countries that can also help women in developing countries. Carolyn Buck Luce also teaches at Columbia University a course on “Women in Power” at the School of International and Public Affairs. Corporations want now to put their women into leadership positions in the community - dealing with economics, safety, health - in the community. One point she made is that it still happens that when women succeed they may yet get laid off. this because people are afraid of power. She started out at the US Department of State in the Soviet Union. She wrote about the promotion of minority women. She is a mother of four. She said that by looking at her success she inspired also her sons in their own career development - a comment that was very appropriate to her presentation. Elizabeth Cottam, working with an Investment Bank, a financial institution that deals only with high net-wealth individuals, governments, corporations, financial institutions, is in an organization were there is an internal competition for who gets to work with the best clients. These competitive women want more career development in house programs. They know that there must be a business rationale for helping the women employees. 2004-2007 she was the company head of Human Capital Management Asia. Now she heads the Global efforts. Amy Hall, Director of Social Consciousness, Eileen Fisher, Inc., a company that manufactures clothes overseas - in places like China, Korea or Thailand. In those factories 80% of the workers are women. She helps the company carry out the company’s commitment to practicing business responsibly in its relations to these women employees. It is her job to develop community partnerships and oversee the commitment to ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY. She came to Eileen Fisher, Inc. after a fundraising career with Asian-American cultural, educational and social service organizations in New York City. (today we posted also an article about women in Bangladesh that grew with the garment trade - this is clearly a subject with high importance to developing countries’ women empowerment.)
The ExxonMobil leaf says correctly that an EWGI (Educating Women and Girls Initiative) yields higher rate of return for society than any other investment available in the developing world - so it says “ExxonMobil is doing this in order to accelerate progress toward international objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. “ Exxon EWGI programs fund activities in Angola, Chad, Colombia, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Qatar - and when Ms. Luxbacher spoke - she also included Washington DC among places they operate. Now this makes sense - in the countries she mentioned, a very real hodge-podge of dissimilar places in the world, that are all affected by Exxon drilling for oil and gas - and Washington DC where the drilling is for government favors - all this to the sound of $11 million grants through 2007 in areas including a long list of activities that most probably had very little application in a country like Qatar, where the paper says that they provided vocational and life-skill training for what amounts there to middle age - to older women (ages 18-45). Also, remember please that Qatar has little oil but has a long term large reserve of gas. After the US had to abandon its air force bases in Saudi Arabia, the bases were moved to Qatar and located right on top of those gas fields. Qatar is a safe place for a US Oil and Gas company, and doing some limited favors to the government does not hurt. There is no work here with girls - there maybe some work with grown up women, under good supervision, and no chance of causing those women to start demanding rights. That surely would not have been allowed in an Arab country - even Qatar. In Indonesia, they work in the oil rich semi-independent Aceh region, where the interest by the US oil company was a cause to a rebellious movement. In Colombia they helped fund seemingly a UNICEF improved Water and Sanitation effort for schools (that is a US Administration affiliated Ms. Veneman effort with good US business savvy activity). Good for Colombian schools in the Cartagena and Santa Maria areas where Exxon is active. Similarly UNICEF related activities go on in Chad (you remember that infamous pipeline that brought about an attempt to divide the country and a war?) and Equatorial Guinea - another trouble spot. To get into activities in Angola and Nigeria would sink us into sand-holes. ExxonMobil does not do any philanthropic work in Venezuela - actually they may nearing the point that they lose all work in Venezuela. Seemingly Venezuela might yet do philanthropic work in Washington DC as they already do in South Bronx, New York City. This leaves us only with Kazakhstan, where strong local government will simply not let ExxonMobil do as it pleases - so, in order to obtain some favors, under conditions that they must compete for business with European companies, they may actually do something that is important to the local people, and to US government initiatives. There they work with USAID on a micro-finance program that helped also 1,760 women with their first business training. We hope that with the supervision of the local Enterprise Development Center (EDC) that they actually helped establish, they are now a positive force in the effort, of interest to the Kazaks, to move their past-Soviet style economy, now on a path more close to private enterprise. Except for Kazakhstan and Qatar, the other 5 countries mentioned are all hot spots of ExxonMobil caused dissensions, where local people oppose the environmental damage that the oil company has caused and is causing. Who is interested there in their philanthropy outstretch? This is great business for public relation firms - you see we do some good there with the few peanuts we are throwing in the direction of the local poor, while we feast with the local government that will be happy to exchange the future of their people, for the present pay-outs to the ruling few. Now - that is oil business at its best and it needs really very little planning - it needs good technical expertize to get the oil and gas out of the ground, and deliver it to pipelines and shipping terminals. We must have a good PR firm to bring us to the UN, and put us on a panel with others that do good.
Now, with above things in mind, I decided to ask an outright killer question at this meeting of well-to-do women. My question went something like this: As the only man in this room ( I was immediately told that I was wrong - there were three more men in the room and close to one hundred women) I want to express my male point of view. I know that men are supposed to be those that are propelled to advance on corporate ladders, and that they do wars, and everything that is bad, but the old concept was that women do good by bringing up the children, worry about the environment, and are inclined to do all the good things in general. So my question to the woman from ExxonMobil is what does ExxonMobil do for the environment, for the health and quality of life of the local people on whom their activities have an impact, for the children, for next generation? For their own children’s future? What does Exxon Mobil do about climate change? Is it fair to say that a company that had profits pushing $50 billion last year, $11 billion last quarter, throwing a miserable sum of 11 million dollars at the problems they leave behind, is it not a very meager feat of PR? All what Ms. Luxbacher, the General Manager of ExxonMobil Corporate Planning was able to say was that they spent more then $11 million. She said she was ready to talk to me later. The moderator said she wanted to go back to women’s questions, and I insisted that my question was a women’s question because it dealt with children and the future. For the rest of the session the lady from ExxonMobil did not say a word. To my discredit, I confess here, that I did not speak with this lady when the session was over, but had rather much more fruitful discussions with other ladies in the room - some that said to me that I did ask the right question that had to be asked indeed. I think that I made some friends - though I am not naive to think that I did not also make some new enemies for life. I hope that some of the true Soroptimists will send me now material about efforts they wish to be posted, and I really do not feel any obligations to those that just used the UN for the ride. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 21st, 2008 Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
The footbridge will be used by local residents to cross a river in the Java Island city, the officials said. Built in 1968, the footbridge will last for another 30 to 50 years, an Osaka official said. “We hope the footbridge will also link people” between the two countries, the official said. The prefecture decided to relocate the footbridge following a request by Yogyakarta to use bridges Osaka plans to dismantle. Osaka received the request when prefectural officials were sent to Yogyakarta to help rebuild areas hit by an earthquake on Java Island in May 2006. A landslide 10 years ago destroyed a bridge across the river. Since then, residents have had trouble crossing the river to go to a hospital on the other side. The Osaka Prefectural Government has dismantled about a dozen footbridges to cut maintenance costs and recently decided to give the Moriguchi bridge to Indonesia. The number of footbridge users, most notably schoolchildren, has been falling due to Japan’s declining birthrate, according to the prefectural officials. Some footbridges have very few users. The relocated footbridge, which spanned a prefectural road, was taken down in November 2006. Rust was removed from the footbridge and it was repainted before being shipped to Indonesia from Osaka port in December. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 6th, 2008 Kyodo News Reports, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008 Japan selects 41 countries for priority climate aid: The government has selected 41 priority countries for assistance under its “financial mechanism” on climate change for developing countries in hopes of taking a lead in the battle against global warming, government sources said Saturday. China and India, two of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, are included among the 41, which are mainly in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, the sources said. Eleven of the countries, including Kenya, have been designated as “early implementation” countries. By demonstrating the effectiveness of the mechanism in helping developing nations, Japan hopes to gain international support for initiatives on dealing with global warming. The government is planning to speed up consultations with each country to hammer out the details, such as how to provide assistance and how much, the sources said. The financial mechanism on climate change for developing countries is aimed at supporting developing countries that have the “will and ambition” to combat global warming by implementing energy-saving projects and specific action plans, among other steps.
Divided by region, th |