For the US it was the warning from President Dwight Eisenhower about the military – industrial complex. He was best positioned to understand the industry interest in supplying the military with materials they do not need. Today this is a political stand of Romney Republicans that pushes austerity on everybody else. Here an Obama campaign proposition that austerity itself is an unmanageable security threat to a State that allows unacceptable income gaps that destroy the middle class. The article uses the example of Europe in order to reflect on what might happen to the US.

Austerity Doesn’t Reduce Deficits.

By Terrance Heath from the Campaign for America’s Future
 ourfuture.org/blog-entry/20121144…

November 1, 2012

Austerity is back in the news, and the news about austerity is never good. We’ve only had de facto austerity on this side of the pond. So as usual, the news is from Europe, where the austerians are going full-tilt boogie. Our homegrown austerians, like their European counterparts, tell us that the kind of severe austerity underway in Europe is necessary to reduce the deficit. Everything from food stamps to Medicaid and Medicare — everything except defense spending — must be cut in order to reduce the deficit.

The thing is, it hasn’t worked. In Greece, Europe’s austerity poster child, austerity has shrunk the economy and increased the national debt.

Greece’s draft budget for 2013 has forecast a deeper recession and worse debt problems than previously thought.

The economy is expected to shrink by 4.5% next year, and government debts to rise to 189% of economic output.

Greece held inconclusive negotiations with its rescue lenders on Wednesday over the economic reforms needed to release further bailout funds.

The government also faces opposition to the reforms from coalition partners and unions have called a general strike.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras held a conference call on Wednesday with his counterparts from the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, as well as representatives of the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

The German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said afterwards that Athens still needed to do more.

Austerity is literally killing Greece. Yet the austerians demand more.

Austerity only increased inequality in Portugal. Now, after painful austerity measures that hit ordinary Portuguese and public sector workers hardest failed to reduce the deficit, Portuguese citizens are planning to rally against new tax increases.

Anti-austerity protesters in Portugal are planning street rallies as the country’s parliament is expected to approve big tax rises in a new budget.

The centre-right government in Lisbon is hoping to reduce its budget deficit as part of the 78bn-euro (£63bn; $101bn) EU-IMF bailout deal.

However, the proposed 2013 budget could face a challenge in court.

Portugal has already cut public sector wages and raised taxes, triggering a series of street demonstrations.

Unemployment in Portugal is at a record high, and people have faced sharp reductions in their incomes. None of it seems to have made a dent in Portugal’s debt problem. Yet the austerians demand more.

Austerity has been disastrous for Ireland, which once made the top ten on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Independence.

The Central Statistics Office released its yearbook of Ireland, giving a comprehensive picture with facts and figures on key areas of life, including population, education and the economy.

It revealed that the look of the labour market worsened in 2011, with jobs and pay still in decline since the recession.

The number of people in work fell to 1.821 million since 2010, while those unemployed rose 3.7 per cent to 304,500.

… A staggering 23 per cent of people had hit the deprivation rate by 2010 and were experiencing two or more types of poverty.

In September, Spain braced for further austerity measures even as hungry Spaniards foraged in trash bins for food. But Spain’s economy contracted for a fifth quarter, because of austerity-driven inflation.

Spain’s economy contracted for a fifth quarter, undermining efforts to plug the budget deficit that’s pushing the nation closer to a bailout, while austerity measures kept inflation at a 17-month high.

Gross domestic product declined 0.3 percent in the three months through September and 1.6 percent from a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute said today, compared with an Oct. 23 estimate from the Bank of Spain of a 0.4 percent contraction. Consumer prices, based on European Union methodology, rose 3.5 percent from a year earlier, INE said.

The deepening of Spain’s five-year slump, which is prompting record loan defaults at the nation’s banks and job cuts at companies including Gamesa SA, adds to pressure on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he resists requesting international aid. While tax hikes he’s implementing as part of his austerity program are depressing consumption, they are also spurring inflation, which threatens to add 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) to the country’s pension bill.

All across the EU, austerity has driven joblessness to a record high.

The jobless rate in the euro area climbed to a record in September as the fiscal crisis and tougher austerity measures threatened to deepen the economy’s slump.

Unemployment in the economy of the 17 nation single currency area rose to 11.6 per cent from 11.5 per cent in August, the European Union statistics office Eurostat said today. That’s the highest since the data series started in 1995.

Some 18.5 million people were unemployed in the euro area in September, up 146,000 from the previous month.

At 25.8 per cent, Spain had the highest jobless rate in the currency bloc.

Portugal’s unemployment rate was at 15.7 per cent, while Ireland reported a jobless rate of 15.1 per cent. France’s jobless rate was at 10.8 per cent.

Italy’s jobless rate rose to its highest point in 13 years, at 10.8 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Yet the austerians demand even more.

Americans should pay attention to the saga of austerity in the EU, for a couple of reasons. First, because conservatives here at home are committed to the same agenda that’s failed in Europe.

If Mr. Obama wins, he’ll presumably go back to pushing for modest stimulus, aiming to convert the gradual recovery that seems to be under way into a more rapid return to full employment.

Republicans, however, are committed to an economic doctrine that has proved false, indeed disastrous, in other countries. Nor are they likely to change their views in the light of experience. After all, facts haven’t gotten in the way of Republican orthodoxy on any other aspect of economic policy. The party remains opposed to effective financial regulation despite the catastrophe of 2008; it remains obsessed with the dangers of inflation despite years of false alarms. So it’s not likely to give up its politically convenient views about job creation.

And here’s the thing: if Mitt Romney wins the election, the G.O.P. will surely consider its economic ideas vindicated. In other words, politically good things may be about to happen to very bad ideas. And if that’s how it plays out, the American people will pay the price.

Second, if good things end up happening to bad political ideas here in the U.S., we may need to follow the example of Europeans who are standing up and saying “No,” when the austerians keep demanding more.

Tancredo de Almeida Neves, Commonly called Tancredo Neves (March 4, 1910 – April 21, 1985) – was  born in São João del Rey, in the state of Minas Gerais, of mostly Portuguese, but also Austrian descent. ^[1]

Neves was the opposition candidate to replace President João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo – the last general-President of Brazil.

The campaign for direct elections failed. There was no popular public vote.^[5] Neves was elected President by a majority of the Electoral College on January 15, 1985, where he received 480 votes.^[6]

USING WIKIPEDIA LANGUAGE THE FOLLOWING IS THE OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF A CHAIN OF EVENTS:

On March 14, on the last day of his predecessor’s term, and on the eve of his own inauguration, Neves became severely ill, requiring immediate surgery. He thus was not able to attend his own inauguration on March 15.

The Constitution required the President and Vice-President elect to take oaths of office before the assembled National Congress.

The inauguration was accordingly held for the Vice-President only, the Vice-President immediately assumed the powers of the presidency as Acting President. At that time, there was still hope that Neves would recover and appear before Congress to take the oath of office.

However, Neves suffered from abdominal complications and developed generalized infections. After seven operations, Neves died on April 21, more than one month after the beginning of his term of office, without ever having taken the oath of office as President.^[7] He was succeeded by José Sarney who was the Vice President. Neves’s ordeal was intensively covered by the Brazilian media and followed with anxiety by the whole nation, who had seen in him the way out of the authoritarian regime into what he had called a “New Republic” (Nova República).

His death caused an outpouring of national grief.

Tancredo Neves is counted among the official list of presidents of Brazil as a matter of homage and honour, since, not having taken the oath of office, he technically never became President. An Act of Congress was thus necessary to make this homage official. Accordingly on the first anniversary of his death, a statute was signed into law declaring that he should be counted among the Presidents of Brazil.

BUT NOBODY I TALKED TO IN BRAZIL BELIEVED THAT TANCREDO NEVES DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES. THE BELIEF IS RATHER THAT THE GENERALS WERE NOT READY YET TO TRANSFER POWER TO AN ELECTED PRESIDENT AND THIS INCLUDED NEVES, EVEN THOUGH HIS OWN ELECTION WAS NOT YET THE STATE OF THE ART OF PURE DEMOCRACY.

During the period that he was President Elect I had the great honor to be invited to Hotel Pierre in New York to a Presentation he made as guest of the Americas Society and Mr. David Rockefeller. Shortly after that the Organization of American States was involved in a conference on ethanol fuels that was held in Bello Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Neves was the opening speaker and Aureliano Chaves, who later became the Energy Minister, and at that time was Governor of Minas Gerais, was the opening presenter. Here was a Brazil in motion that was talking independence of oil imports and local production of fuels. Was this something that ruffled feathers?

Above is my addition to the following article that does not mention Tancredo Neves. Nevertheless, if Brazil is ready to look under the rugs of dictatorship, even that an amnesty for the sake of internal peace has been declared, the Tancredo Neves case will eventually be touched upon as well. All what we can say nevertheless, the search for the truth of past dictatorships in the Southern Latin Cone, has in it the makings of unravelling as well US business involvement and CIA operatives that taught methodology  of torture in the region.

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Leader’s Torture in the ’70s Stirs Ghosts in Brazil.

By SIMON ROMERO

Published by the New York Times: August 4, 2012

The Lady President of Brazil by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

Ms. Rousseff, now president of Brazil, says little these days about the cruelty she endured.

Primer: Rousseff and Brazil’s Dark Past

And years ago by Adir Mera/Public Archive of the State of Sao Paulo

Dilma Rousseff at 22 as a captured guerrilla at a military hearing in 1970. Today, a panel is investigating the torture she and others endured under Brazil’s military dictatorship.

There is ‘no need to fear a more federal Europe’

Europe needs to rediscover its élan and purpose or we will sleepwalk into disintegration and disunity – warns MEP and ALDE group leader

Greek Tragedy.

By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Published, The New York Times as Opinion: May 12, 2012

{please note – she writes this on Mothers’ Day Weekend – and she knows how to write – then she must have inherited as well some genes from her unsuccessful father attempts at owning media. Clearly – for the Greeks it is all in the family – and  EU is not family.}

——

As I follow the modern Greek tragedy unfolding in Europe, I flash back to the 18 years I spent in Athens, walking to school in Plaka (the old part of the city), on the same streets that have recently been filled with protesters and violent clashes.

When I was growing up, my family was a tiny microcosm of the current Greek economy. We were heavily in debt; my father’s repeated attempts to own a newspaper ended in failure and bankruptcy. Eventually, my mother took my sister and me and left him. We all lived in Athens and we continued to see my father, though we had our own one-bedroom apartment. (It wasn’t the bankruptcy that got to my mom in the end, but the philandering; “I don’t want you interfering in my private life,” my father had told her when she complained.)

Further austerity was coming, but my mother was clear about one thing: she would cut back on everything except our education and good, healthy food. She owned two dresses and never spent anything on herself. I remember her selling her last pair of little gold earrings. She borrowed from anyone she could, so that her two daughters could fulfill their dreams of a good education — me at Cambridge, and my sister at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. At the time, Greek girls still offered dowries to be married. My mother used to tell me, “Your education is your dowry.”

As I contemplate the statistics — especially the 54 percent unemployment rate among young Greeks — I think of all the stories behind this appalling data. All the dreams dashed. All the promise unfulfilled. And all the guilt, shame and fear that so often go hand in hand with intractable unemployment and little hope for a better future.

The punitive path of austerity and relentless economic contraction is, not surprisingly, likely to lead to further stagnation in 2013 and cannot be allowed to continue. And as last week’s election results show, the Greek people are not going to allow it to continue; they will instead demand change through either the ballot box or violence in the streets — or some combination of both.

The dangers of violent protest are obvious. But there are dangers in the ballot box, too: an extreme right-wing anti-immigration party received almost 7 percent of the vote, while Pasok, the establishment party of the left, lost 119 seats in Parliament in a humiliating third-place finish. If the European Central Bank does not abandon its destructive obsession with austerity, Greece will have few options but to leave the euro zone. This would be fraught with its own dangers, of course, but the European Union has left Greece with few sustainable alternatives.

Argentina, which defaulted and restructured beginning in 2001, offers a point of comparison. The austerity crowd warned that Argentina would collapse if it stopped pegging the peso to the dollar and defaulted on its debt. There are many differences between Argentina and Greece. But Argentina’s default was followed by a few short months of economic crisis and then many years of steady economic growth — a dramatically different direction than the one Greece is now taking toward a potentially endless path of contraction that is destroying millions of lives and crippling the indomitable Greek spirit.

Yes, the Greeks acted irresponsibly before the economic collapse — the same way my father had acted irresponsibly in his private and professional life. But that is not reason to punish the children, to destroy their future as part of a remedy for a past for which they bear no responsibility.

I spent many nights last summer in Syntagma Square, directly across from the Greek Parliament. The protesting crowd was mixed, full of young people and old, self-employed, unemployed, activists, pensioners. Millions of outraged Greeks — who famously relish connection, expansiveness, intimacy — used social media to connect with the rest of the country and the world; those in the square itself connected and organized the old-fashioned way, face-to-face.

Everywhere waiters, taxi drivers, salespeople, storekeepers, people at the table next to you at dinner, were talking about the same thing. They were — and still are — giving voice to a desire for more say in their own future, a future with more choices than those on offer from the European Central Bank.

When George Papandreou, who was prime minister at the time but resigned last November, visited The Huffington Post newsroom, he expressed the same feelings: “People think they’re being punished unjustly, because they feel they weren’t to blame for this crisis,” he said.

Greece, like my mother, has always been devoted above all else to its children. When the future of those children is diminished, the future — and life — of the country will be diminished, too.

My favorite picture from the protests shows a young man pumping his fist at a line of riot police officers while his mother stands beside him, holding his jacket, to make sure he doesn’t catch a cold. If Greece stays on its current dead-end path of austerity-fueled recession, the children will revolt, and the parents will be right there beside them, cheering them on and watching protectively over them.

And if having a future means leaving the euro, that’s most likely what the Greeks will choose. They invented democracy, and now it’s time to rekindle that Greek spirit of innovation and ingenuity — before economic trouble generates further despair and its dangerous progeny in the streets and in the ballot box.

——-

Arianna Huffington is President and editor in chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, and author, most recently, of “Third World America.”

=======================================

Recent elections in France and Greece pose significant challenges to the strict economic austerity policies Germany has called for in response to the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. Still, Germany has resolutely rebuffed any efforts to alter the European fiscal compact agreed to late last year, explains Council on Foreign Relation’s Sebastian Mallaby. “There’s a battle coming up between Hollande and his European partners as to quite what a growth agenda might mean,” he says. At the same time, the political situation in Greece is “more potentially cataclysmic in its consequences,” Mallaby argues, because it could not only signal a Greek exit from the eurozone, but also undermine European financial institutions and facilitate further sovereign debt contagion.

Voters in Greece rejected the country’s mainstream political parties, and, by extension, the latest EU-IMF bailout. In France, voters elected François Hollande to implement pro-growth policies in a worsening economic climate.What are the implications of these recent elections on EU efforts to resolve the eurozone debt crisis?

In the case of France, what François Hollande has done by defeating current President Nicolas Sarkozy is basically to put on the agenda a “growth pact.”

The question is how to define that rebalancing of European policies away from the austerity formula that has driven it so far.

We suggest – read some of the material that goes into the RioDialogues, throw out the books on Economics 101, and start formulating new economic policies that bring the interest in FUTURE GENERATIONS into your present CURRENT ACCOUNT policies. Oh Well! we know it is hard to create change when under pressure – but talk please to the mothers of Greece as depicted by Arianna Huffington.

The “Monday After” the papers asked: Was the European Summit a “Fiasko” or a “Quality Jump?” The papers also wonder about the effectiveness of the “Durban Platform” having noted the strong involvement of the EU 27 in the Durban Conference fight. The Minister says it ended with a breakthrough – others say it was a “Mogelpackung.”

By the way – I happen personally to know know what a “Mogelpackung” is. Back years ago in New York some character sold me what I thought was a video-camera, but in reality it was just the box filled with trash. Surely I could have tried to accuse him of fraud but I preferred to condemn myself to a form of self-punishment for having been so brain weak – laughed it off and wrote off my loss on my self-education bill.  That was easy then, but what should an European State do now? Global 2000 NGO spokesman Wahlmueller said simply that another year in the war against climate change was just lost. We think he is right.

What happened in Brussels was indeed a “Tour de Force” of the Merkozy motor (Mme. Merkel and Herr Sarkozy) leading to the political exit of Mr. Cameron.  Yes, English will continue to be the diplomatic language of the evolving new European Union, but the UK is free to sail off to the Anglo-Saxon bloc led by the US – that is if the US can get its act together and lead again!

To the travails of the British Islands we attach an article from today’s New York Times – this just to say that the problems with the UK are  also internal.  This will be our only borrowed article of this posting – all the other material is of our own making, and as  we decided to write this up as we realized that we are not the only ones to think the way we do.
In effect at  an off the record meeting at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy  we heard that in Brussels it is understood that going it alone, the individual 27, do not amount to much.

In the real world of the 21st century it seems that as Thomas Friedman observed – the Globalized World is Flat – HOT, FLAT, and CROWDED. We add to this that it is important as well to think about how you draw the flat Map of the World. The realistic way is to put the Americas in the center of the map with the Pacific Ocean to the West – the left – and the Atlantic Ocean to the East – the right – with the Northern Hemisphere that includes among other States, the US and China on top – the North.

This maps shows the Trans-Pacific connection of the US to Japan, Australia and Indonesia, and the Trans-Atlantic connection to Europe and Africa.  In this map European Russia is in the periphery, but Asian Russia shows up closer.

A different map is the Euro-centric map. This map keeps Europe and Africa in the center with what the Europeans called the Western Hemisphere – the Americas – to the West – or left – and the huge Asian mass – all of it – to the East or right. The interesting thing is that on this map you see that Europe is just a small part at the West End of the Eurasian land-mass.

The history we learned in school was written by Europeans, and we never were given the true notion that in the last few hundred years it was the European tail that wagged the big Asian dog. We must now relearn our history and realize that the future belongs to big Asia and Europe could have an impact only if it unites and forgets some of the past grandeur, when small European States, Spain, Portugal, France, the netherlands, the British, Belgium, Denmark, later on Italy, Germany, even Austria, having developed their navies and rented  armies,  competed as colonial powers, and made inroads starting out from the coasts of that landmass. But even then – Europe was just an archipelago of small States with the British living on an actual island off the coast of Europe. And you know what? The colonies gone, this same picture stood on, though now, when the size of markets translates into economic power, these European economic islands are shrinking in size. Also, the former colonial powers that still have overseas possessions or linkages, create additional difficulties to their potential to create an integrated Europe. Denmark for instance, joined the EU without Greenland joining as well. Others, like France, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal had to find also ways to deal with their overseas possessions and linkages to their Francophone community or the British Commonwealth.

This last Friday, the unnatural division of the EU into 17 EURO-ZONE States and 10 Non-Euro States proved untenable and a much higher level of integration was suggested at least for the EURO-ZONE to be implemented with the agreement of the non-Euro States that will be called as well to contribute to the economic safety of the laggard States. Everybody agrees that the EURO idea was premature and showed up half backed, but now if the EURO laggards are not helped the whole global economy might collapse. A much higher level of integration is needed and the start is by calling for fiscal integration to back up the Euro-spending. After a lot of haggling 26 out of the 27 did bend to allow for the loss of some of their National decision making powers. But is it enough? The British opted out, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic showed unhappiness, so did the Hungarians, but in the end it was only the UK that did not vote in the positive and they may find out that the rest of the EU might now try to live without the UK as an active participant. Considering that what was decided upon will turn out to be insufficient, it may thus come to be that the UK will not be able to find its way back in = specially as 58% of the population might instinctively accept the notion that it will be to their advantage to leave the thinking Euro-ship.

But did the British lay people look at the Durban scene? That mob of 27 Environment Ministers that did not add up to a seat at the table with the China-India-US big polluters and nay-sayers of the UNFCCC event. In effect the EU 27 ended up being in alliance with over 100 of the smaller UN fray – the Small Island States, the Least Developed States and parts of Africa. Brazil and South Africa, even though they were not in full alignment with the other BASIC States or the US, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea … the other leading developing economies were still in the lead and the 27 Europeans were tripping over each other in trying to prove that they are on the side of the good and thoughtful. Oh well!
The final result was not satisfying at all and one could have imagined a united Europe with clear power to muscle its way to more concrete results – not just something that boils down to an agreement to meet again.

Kyoto is dead for all practical purposes with Canada, Japan, Russia, New Zealand, joining the US on the sidelines – so it is disingenuous to say that the individual EU States saved the day.

Please see the internal debate now in the UK:

Partner in British Coalition Criticizes Cameron’s Veto on Europe Treaty.

By SARAH LYALL

Published: December 11, 2011, Printed in the New York TimesMonday,  December 12, 2011.

Mr. Clegg told the BBC that the decision by Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, to veto proposed European treaty changes left Britain in danger of being “isolated and marginalized” in Europe. He added that if he had been in charge, “of course things would have been different.”

Mr. Cameron vetoed the proposals early Friday after seeking, and failing to secure, safeguards he said were vital for the health of London’s financial sector. But with the 26 other members of the European Union either agreeing to the proposed plan outright or saying they would put the matter before their Parliaments, Mr. Cameron’s veto left Britain alone on the margins at a time of great upheaval on the Continent, with the European Union struggling to resolve its financial crisis.

On Friday, Mr. Clegg appeared to support Mr. Cameron’s decision, although he warned the Conservative Party’s anti-Europe wing against being too triumphant about the problems facing the European Union. But his stance hardened over the weekend, and on Sunday he appeared to have backtracked, or at least tried to finesse his explanation to show that was in line with his party’s pro-Europe principles.

In fact, Mr. Clegg told the BBC that when Mr. Cameron called him at 4 a.m. Friday with the news that Britain had vetoed the plan: “I said this was bad for Britain. I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it.”

Mr. Clegg has already lost the confidence of many Liberal Democrats by appearing to betray the party’s position when he has supported the government on other issues, like increasing the amount of tuition colleges can charge.

After the summit meeting, many prominent Liberal Democrats went further than Mr. Clegg.

A former party leader, Paddy Ashdown, described Mr. Cameron’s veto as a “catastrophically bad move” and said it would do nothing to shield London’s financial district, the City, from future European regulations. “In the name of protecting the City, we have made it more vulnerable,” he said.

Lord Ashdown also warned that the move had alienated Europe in a way that would haunt the United Kingdom.

“The anti-European prejudice of some in the Tory party,” he said, “has now created anti-British prejudice in Europe.”

Mr. Clegg, a former member of the European Parliament, said he would now “fight, fight and fight again” to make sure Britain remained an influential force inside the European Union. He said he would resist “tooth and nail” efforts by some Conservatives to take the country completely out of the union, particularly since the United States has found Britain a useful conduit to Europe.

“A Britain that leaves the E.U. will be considered irrelevant by Washington and a pygmy in the world, when I want us to stand tall in the world,” he said.

Mr. Clegg criticized Conservatives who had hailed Mr. Cameron as a “British bulldog” for his tough line on Europe.

“There’s nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington,” he said.

To which one Conservative member of Parliament, Mark Pritchard, retorted, “Better to be a British bulldog than a Brussels poodle,” The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Cameron, meanwhile, was welcomed as a hero by his party’s anti-Europe right wing. “Up Eurs,” was the headline in Rupert Murdoch’s populist, anti-European tabloid newspaper, The Sun, along with a photograph of Mr. Cameron in a Churchillian bowler hat, holding two fingers up to Europe — the equivalent of an American middle finger.

“He did what I would have expected Margaret Thatcher to have done,” Andrew Rosindell, a Conservative member of Parliament, said approvingly.

But Kenneth Clarke, the Justice secretary and the Conservatives’ most prominent pro-Europe member, said in a radio interview that Mr. Cameron’s veto was a “disappointing, very surprising outcome.” He said he would be listening carefully to the prime minister’s statement in Parliament on the matter on Monday.

As upset as he is, Mr. Clegg said he did not want the coalition government to collapse.

“It would be even more damaging for us as a country if the coalition government was to fall apart,” he said. “That would cause economic disaster for the country at a time of great economic uncertainty.”

Related:

Tracking Europe’s Debt Crisis
News Analysis: Chronic Pain for the Euro (December 12, 2011)
Times Topic: European Debt Crisis

Fareed’s Take: Only China can save Europe

Europe’s real problem: Lack of growth

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR to The New York Time MAURIZIO VIROLI – November 11, 2011.

Can Italy Put Berlusconi Behind It?

Silvio Berlusconi will fall, but his hold on Italy will remain until the country can undergo a moral awakening.

———–

OP-ED COLUMNIST to The New York Times, November 11, 2011, Paul Krugman:

Legends of the Fail.

With Italy following Greece off a cliff, it’s hard to see how the euro can survive. Now that the euro project is on the rocks, what lessons should we draw?

• Columnist Page | Blog

————-

Greece and Italy Seek a Solution From Technocrats

By RACHEL DONADIO

The question in both countries is whether the new leaders can succeed where their predecessors failed and dislodge the entrenched cultures of political patronage.

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Sovereign Debt of Euro Zone Turning Sour

By LIZ ALDERMAN and SUSANNE CRAIG

The debt crisis was fed by governments that borrowed too much, regulators that let banks treat the bonds as without risk and investors who viewed the bonds of all countries as solid.

• Interactive Feature: Tracking Europe’s Debt Crisis
• Timeline: European Debt Crisis
• Graphic: Europe’s Debt Problems

This lady replaces her country-man the disgraced Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn. She got prepared for the job while handling Euro’s crisis with Greece which is indeed the crises of Europe’s banks that are over-exposed to debt of the members of the EU.

The news these days in Europe is China’s move to buy Euro-debt and thus buy up European assets as well. This makes China a growing player in Europe’s financial system, as they already are in Latin America and Africa, not talking about the US itself. China will thus play the role of the IMF directly, and by gaining increasing power at the IMF as well.

China does this for many reasons but it is not the least of these reasons its Attempt to strengthen the world financial boat just to make sure that european banks do not go under. China needs them in order to keep growing worldwide while develop its own country internally.

With Ms. Lagarde’s appointment for 5 years, and doing what is needed while backing EU laggards, it seems just reasonable that next time around, or even at next year’s election of a new head of the World Bank, the major emerging States might feel strong enough to pick a choice that is different from what the old Transatlantic Alliance heads of State have in their   traditional minds formed at San Francisco in 1945 and later at Lake Success on Long Island, just outside New York City.

The World Economic Forum on Europe and Central Asia will be held in Vienna, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday June 7-9, 2011.

Above is the Vienna venue for the WEF meeting – the place will be surrounded by security forces to make it sure the place does not turn into a demonstrators haven. Vienna just survived attacks by German hooligans that came over to accompany the German soccer team playing the Austrians. Papers called them neo-Nazis making the Hitler salute. But those were just one segment of a possible barrage by protesters invoking financial reasons for disaffection with the EU, the US, and the results of government sponsored capitalism. Seattle comes to mind of what Vienna might look in a few days.

So, Schengen or no Schengen Austria took note of Denmark closing its borders for immigration reasons and closed its borders as well for Global Economics reasons as per this conference. In the Europe of today – what this means is that vehicles at border crossings will form long lines and have delays with border police checking papers. Same at airports, train crossings and boat landings. What do you do with those crossing on foot on village roads? Oh well – solutions will be found for them too and the idea of a united Europe is out the window because of mutual mistrust. How do you decide that someone is unwanted? Do you check their tatoos or haircuts? Do you have a policy discussion with them or take the example from Turkey and look up past records that made them deny to former Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik her job as head of the OSCE - Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Will they let in UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, if he decides to show up, considering his leniency on UN member States positions on Human Rights? He will have declared his running for reappointment to his position for a new term by the beginning of the week and might indeed find this conference as a good venue for a revisit. He was years ago Korea’s Ambassador to Vienna and has friendly relations to Austria.

The Kronen Zeitung of Sunday June 5th carries two revealing pieces of “Readers Mail” that stress the difference between Denmark and Austria. In both cases the argument goes that Denmark is closing its borders in order to safeguard its own citizens from the effects of migration caused by the events in the Arab World, in the Austrian case this happens always – the Austrian taxpayers’ money is used in order to safeguard foreign political and economic leaders and nothing is done when the issue is the security of the Austrian citizen. This comment hides the fact that Austria is suffering from bands of EU citizens from Eastern countries that come to enrich themselves from break-ins here but nothing is done to check their entree. Oh well, what do you do with the fiction of this Union?

The above mention of the closing of Austria’s borders officially is because of the  June meeting of the World Economic Forum will convene more than 500 leaders from business, government and civil society to discuss policies and reforms aimed at their views of rebalancing the global economy.

The diverse yet highly interdependent economies of Europe and Central Asia have reached a critical juncture, according to experts at the World Economic Forum.

While the advanced economies of the European Union are experiencing fiscal austerity and slower growth, emerging economies further east and in Central Asia are grappling with the pressures of rapid growth.

In addition to these regional challenges, Europe and Central Asia must respond to far-reaching global events such as the ‘Arab Spring’ and the earthquake in Japan.

The objective of the Vienna meeting is set out in the statement from the European Commission’s Communication on Innovation Union: “Europe’s competitiveness, our capacity to create millions of new jobs to replace those lost in the financial crisis and, overall, our future standard of living depend on our ability to drive innovation in products, services, business and social processes and models,” it says.

Will the Washington of President Obama push for a similar meeting between the USA and the fast growing economies of Latin America – the backyard in the Western Hemisphere ?

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The Underground open protests are being organized:

I went today to XANADU as per an email invitation that promised this is a Chinese restaurant – and so it was.

The place is frequented by Chinese people and the food is General Asian. It has a well stocked Teppanyaki self-choice buffet, soup, vegetables, fruit, and a good choice of deserts. It is beyond the Naschmarkt at the U4 stop at Kettenbruekengasse 13, 1060 Wien.

From there I took the subway to the Am Hoff Square to see those preparations for events next week that will be open to the public. It promises fun.

XANADU to me had magical-mystic connotations. After all the name had meanings with the Citizen Caine – his fictitious mansion, with Bill Gates – Xanadu 2.0, the nickname of his futuristic private estate, as well as Mandrake the Magician‘s fictitious home. XANADU is also  a mountain in the Arrigetch Peaks in Alaska and an enigmatic bright feature on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.

XANADU/XANGDU thus migrated to all sorts of places, to Spain, Brazil, and outer space but what I learned looking up the internet it actually originated from China – Xanadu, or more accurately Shangdu, was the summer capital of Kublai Khan’s Yuan empire – so, to my honest surprise – it really has Chinese connotations – a reference to the past and a guide to the future ?

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From Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu :

Xanadu (Chinese: ??; pinyin: Shàngd?) was the summer capital of Kublai Khan‘s Yuan Dynasty in China, before he decided to move the seat of his dynasty to the Jin Dynasty capital of Zh?ngd? (Chinese: ??), which he renamed Dàd?, the present-day Beijing. The city was located in what is now called Inner Mongolia, 275 kilometres (171 miles) north of Beijing, about 28 kilometers (17 miles) northwest of the modern town of Duolun. The layout of the capital is roughly square shaped with sides of about 2,200m; it consists of an “Outer City”, and an “Inner City” in the southeast of the capital which has also roughly a square layout with sides about 1,400m, and the palace, where Kublai Khan stayed in summer. The palace has sides of roughly 550m, covering an area of around 40% the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The most visible modern-day remnants are the earthen walls though there is also a ground-level, circular brick platform in the centre of the inner enclosure.

The city, originally named K?ipíng (??), was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong and built from 1252 to 1256 during the Mongol invasion.^[1] In 1264 it was renamed Shàngd?, the “Supreme Capital”.^[2] At its zenith, over 100,000 people lived within its walls. In 1369 Shàngd? was occupied by the Ming army and put to the torch. The last reigning Khan, Toghun Temür, fled the city.

Today, only ruins remain, surrounded by a grassy mound that was once the city walls. Since 2002 a reconstruction effort has been undertaken.

In March 2008, China submitted a proposal to UNESCO to make the ruin a World Heritage Site under the title “Sites of the Yuan Dynasty Upper Capital (Xanadu) and Middle Capital”.^[3]

1. ^ Shangdu city uncovered
2. ^ Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China 900-1800,Harvard University Press, 2003 p.457
3. ^ whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5326

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Whatever the story – I thought that the fill of Chinese food this Sunday will do me good this coming week.

As we posted already - www.sustainabilitank.info/s=+Regi…

In the cycle of 2011 World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings Vienna will host the Europe – Central Asia meetings starting June 8-9, 2011 and we picked up already some local rumble. (Monday, May 9th, 2011)

Whatever will be decided there – it is clear that China will be called to finance it. In this context we found funny the news that 31 Chinese weddings were performed to couples at the Ludwig Castle in Bavaria – a neat inflow of money from China to Germany.

This in context of 20 times 10 to the 12th in EU and US Government debt (20 trillion) EURO – you guess how much of this to China. Will the Vienna meeting try to co-opt the Central Asian former Soviet Republics to stand with their oil at the EU side? We think that the best the economists will find in Vienna this coming week will be the Am Hoff activities including the Burgenland Wines and Beers.

In regard to what the papers started to call the “VERGURKUNG” of Europe – this is what happens when the internal disagreements about everything – from basic ideology to money  - is bursting in the open because of a serious series of infections by a mutant of Escherichia Coli. The situation is serious indeed and the New York Times editorial of today ( www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/opinio…) is witness, but the articles in European Press are ridiculous because rather then trying to find the reason for the outbreak, we see attempts at trading blames and in seeking advantage for this or the other agriculture interest. Spain was crucified, but who looks into genetic engineering that might occur right under your own nose at home? Are there any transgressions when switching to Bio-products?

After talking Greece out of the Union – will some local interests want preventively to talk out of the union also Spain and Italy who indeed might pose much higher financial strains on the Union when their turn comes to default? Oh well – we will opt for XANADU.

Even though Matteo Ricci and Bento de Góis had already proven that Cathay is simply another name for China, the English cartographer John Speed in 1626 continued the tradition of showing “Cathaya, the Chief Kingdome of Great Cam” to the northeast of China. On his map, he placed Xandu east of the “Cathayan metropolis” Cambalu

We just had a peaceful day today, Monday April 25, 2011 – a floating brunch on the Admiral Tegethoff of the Donauschiffe.at  - upstream from Vienna on the Danube – and in the evening we saw the great new release of a 3D – real life size documentary – about the work of the great Wupperthal, Germany, modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch who picked up from where Martha Graham left us by moving from the classics to ourselves. With Pima it was what we feel rather then what Oedipus felt – and what we saw was a cyber-monument to that lady.

The documentary started with Pina showing how she boils down life to the cycle of the Four Seasons. With her Spring is rather the fourth Season – the one when life bursts into explosion and starts anew. The other three seasons are just the preparation for the Spring when we get into a full renewal made after evolutionary developments in our feelings – important as they are in themselves – but springs frees the energies that were pent in until this season arrives.

Having explained herself and brought her dancers into a line-up demonstrating they got the message, she moved to renew the Sacres de Printemps of Igor Stravinsky and created by Vaslav Nijinski for the Parisian Serge Dijagilev Les Ballets Rousses, and even without having at hand a  Nijinsky dancer she manages to express raw emotions that make her version even stronger then the original.(Others that tried their hand on the “Rites of Spring” were: Maurice Brjart, Angelin Prelocjaj, Martha Graham, Uwe Scholz and Emanuel Gat.)

Think of Pina’s Wuperthal Arts Center, a real United Nations of talent, and the German Government and people backing she got, and you start thinking that High Standards of Living require culture and expenditures.

My mention in the title of Easter and Passover relates to the fact that this is still the Passover week. The Seder we participate in was at the Vienna Reform Congregation led Rabbi Walter Rothchild from Liverpool, Berlin and Vienna. It was a memorable, humorous and delicious event – as far as public Sedarim this was the best we ever participated in. It was relaxed, all inclusive, and delicious.

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Yesterday, Easter Sunday, I went to “Heaven” – that is the Austrian place called Am Himmel. There, next to the “Oktogon” which is at the corner of the Hights Street (Hoehengasse) and the Heaven Street (Himmelgasse) I found the Lebensbaumkreis – that is the big eco-circle where 40 trees arranged in a circle, and from all over the world, tell us about themselves having been wired to microphones. There are also four trees in an inner circle. These are the trees of life that help us understand how our lives can be made more pleasant if we just accept nature and the way our natural world functions.  Actually, the whole thing is not plain environmentalism, but also a mixture with spiritualism and some inputs of ethics that can be acceptable to any religion. I found this noteworthy considering the David Brooks piece we will see later in this posting.

After the visit at the Circle of Life, and watching the families picnicking around the circle or sitting in the Octogon Restaurant,  I continued to walk in the Vienna forest for several hours with the help of my trekking sticks and ended up at the Little Haus in Heaven where I ate a Pongauer Wedding soup and drank the semi-obligatory quarter liter of Austrian wine – this time the one made from local Blue Portuguese grapes grown on the slopes of the Vienna woods.

To make sure I did make it clear – all the above was described to prove we know – Vienna and Austria are now at the front of quality of life – the global leader.

In between yesterday’s activities and today’s there was my obligatory Sunday night activity of watching CNN – to be exact 10:00 pm local Vienna time – the Fareed Zakaria GPS program. As always it was an eye opener with extreme relevance to global concerns – where does the global economy go from here and what will this mean to the possibility to continue good life in Austria or changes for the better to life in the USA.

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We all know that the US has overspent itself and like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, is in effect bankrupt. We also know that Finland Has just voted for a new government that wants to stop the payments to bail out weaker EU partner governments. This ethic of work and do not come to ask for our hand-outs is spreading in the EU. Even Austria is not immune to this sort of demagoguery – or if you wish sound thinking. The third largest party in Austria – the “Blues” – may yet overcome next elections the “Blacks” and even the “Reds” by bringing up  conservative arguments and finding voters’ agreement. The result will obviously be the weakening of the future of the Euro-currency. Today the Euro is doing very well compared to the US dollar because of the US debt, but if the Euro itself becomes questionable, it will not be in position to replace the US dollar as world currency. So what is the world economic truth?

Here comes Master Fareed and makes it very clear – THE DANGER IN WORLD ECONOMICS IS NOT THAT THE US DOLLAR WILL COLLAPSE – BUT THE REALITY THAT ALL OTHER CURRENCIES ARE ACTUALLY MUCH WORSE OFF AND THEREFORE EVERYONE WHO HAS MONEY FROM TRADE SURPLUS IS READY TO INVEST IN US SHORT TERM DEBT MAKING THE US LESS EAGER, SEEMINGY EVEN LESS IN NEED, OFF  DOING SOMETHING ABOUT ITS OWN PROBLEMS.
The bottom-line becomes thus that in short term the US has now nothing to fear from, does believe that it can muddle through, and increases its problems, and the world’s problems, in the long term.

The Euro or the Yen cannot become a competitor to the US as for now, the Chinese, Brazilians, Indians, will continue for the time being to buy US short term debt, and the US might let its own debt rise to heaven and be exposed to a situation when things do indeed change and the US is allowed to plummet if this short term loans via the buying of short term securities ends. Further, this fake US economy does not create US jobs and without jobs US consumers will also decrease their spending. The real economy declines and standard of living declines rather then improves – it is only a sliver of the US citizenry that benefits from the fake economy. High quality immigration to the US declines, and from where will come the innovators that the economy needs? Now we hear the wheels of the real danger squeak. Not the short term danger the politicians talk about, but the long term danger they refuse to do something about – the funding for education and the positive reforms in health and social security programs – and we add to the list the change to innovative and more sustainable technologies.  

Fareed Zakharia had Messrs. Robert Rubin and Paul  O’Neill – both former Secretaries of the Treasury – the one under President Clinton and the other during the first year of the  G.W. Bush presidency (a question that never came about in the program could have been – why really was his tenure with the Bush Government so short?). Both agreed to the need to come up with ideas to start now programs to decrease the debt in the future, but were in agreement to raise the debt ceilling for the present – as nothing can be changed right now with the 2012 election on the horizon. 

The Secretaries were not the real stars of this CNN/GPS Program – that honor in our opinion went to the Journalist David Brooks who just came out with a book analyzing the US problems and reached the conclusion that it is the education system that did in the US. He is known for his conservatism when  it comes to economics planning but he also backs values that are different from what America calls success. Brooks says that pushing youth to go to best colleges and move up the ladder according to lines prescribed by conventions creates success but limits innovation. It is rather the C+ students with networking skills that work outside the accepted common norms that come up with creative ideas, and he has the real people-cases to prove his point. Now that is another block to America progress under the present landscape of Washington. He speaks of a new form of spirituality – the recognition of the value of your fellow man. The fact that every person has experiences from which you can learn something. It is the networker who does this sort of learning who eventually wins – not just that he becomes successful in the conventional capitalist sense, but he innovates in his own terms in league with his fellow men and thus becomes the real leader of progress. He has examples of real success stories – seemingly including also a chapter on Fareed Zakaria and a chapter on innovators we met on our US State Department sponsored trip to Idaho. We have not read the book yet and are not willing to go further then what we learned from this recent Global Public Square (GPS) program. We also intend to pick up the TIME Magazine of this week that has more about these topics.

The new book by David Brooks is titled – “THE SOCIAL ANIMAL: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.” Please see - www.npr.org/2011/03/07/134329412/…
 globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/…

Brooks explains how the dry push for achievements by the Washington political elite has destroyed education – this because one learns from someone he loves and respects – but love is not something that legislators are ready to budget for.

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So let me now summarize – that today Europe is ahead of the US in many areas even though young Austrians say the words “it is cool” as often as they find an occasion to use them, listen to American music and adore everything American, while enjoying the highest quality of life right here in Vienna.

So far as the US is concerned, the lack of a European Healthcare system and of a good education system is stressing American families and lowering their standard of living to the point that something will have to give.

On the other hand, in the short term, the collapse of the economy of some EU States will cause a weakening in the trust in the Euro which will help the US get foreign short term loans as a safe heaven for accrued surplus of trade funds that will create a fake belief that all is well with the US. The internal imballance in the US will increase, and may lead to very serious upheavals in the future that will benefit nobody.

The World Future Council (WFC)  www.worldfuturecouncil.org consists of up to 50 respected personalities from all five continents. They come from governments, parliaments, the arts, civil society, science and the business world. Together they form a voice for the rights of future generations. The World Future Council is a charitable foundation dependent on donations.

The World Future Council Foundation is a registered charity in Hamburg, Germany where its head office is located. Additionally,  staff is working in Brussels, London, Washington and Addis Ababa.

WFC works in close collaboration with civil society groups, members of parliament, governments, businesses and international organisations we research future just policies and legislation. We then advise political decision-makers, offer them tried and tested courses of action and support them in the concrete implementation of new policies. We make politicians aware that they have an ethical responsibility to assess every decision-making process on the basis of how it will affect future generations. As an independent non-profit organisation with no interest in short-term profit or prestige, autonomous from governmental and institutional interests, our organisation enjoys the highest level of credibility in its political advocacy. To identify holistic solutions on a wide range of issues and to enable the application of these solutions, the WFC has created the following programmes:

• Future Justice

• Climate and Energy

• Sustainable Ecosystems

• Sustainable Economies

• Just Societies

• Peace and Disarmament

What we want to achieve:

The lifestyle in industrialized countries has led to people using up natural resources at a threatening pace. Consequently, our environment is being destroyed and the unequal distribution of wealth and natural resources is increasing. Mankind today is living and consuming at the price of future generations. The World Future Council works to safeguard the rights of future generations. Our aim is to pass on a healthy planet and just societies to our children and grandchildren.

What makes us unique:

The lifestyle in industrialized countries has led to people using up natural resources at a threatening pace. Consequently, our environment is being destroyed and the unequal distribution of wealth and natural resources is increasing. Mankind today is living and consuming at the price of future generations. The World Future Council works to safeguard the rights of future generations. Our aim is to pass on a healthy planet and just societies to our children and grandchildren.

How we finance our international work:

The city of Hamburg and Hamburg entrepreneur Dr. Michael Otto provided initial funding for the period from 2007 to 2009. This has enabled the WFC to work effectively and professionally for the good of future generations. For us to continue our work in the years to come we are completely reliant on further donations by people who want to help us to protect the rights of future generations. We are committed to using donations conscientiously and utilize funds as efficiently as possible to realize our goal of creating a just and sustainable world.

More on organisation, council members and staff

Press release – Sustainability can be made a political reality.

WFC co-hosted in Lisbon a legal experts conference on intergenerational justice.

Lisbon, May 28, 2010. The international conference on “Ways to Legally Implement Intergenerational Justice“ brought international legal experts to Lisbon on May 27-28 in order to create anti-dotes to the political and economic short-termism that increasingly threatens our future living conditions.

The conference was co-hosted by the World Future Council and the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations.

Its goal was to discuss policy concepts and concrete law changes that would help to finally make sustainability a reality: “The term sustainability can be found in almost every declaration and corporate report now, but policy advances to implement sustainable solutions are regularly watered down”, summarizes Dr. Maja Göpel, Director Future Justice of the World Future Council.

“Democracies have a strong tendency to favour present voters and lobbyists over future citizens that have no political or financial power. But the results of this myopic game are that we are rapidly closing the options for our children and grandchildren.”

Among the delegates to the conference were personalities that have officially been given the role to defend such options. Dr. Sandor Fülöp, Ombudsman for Future Generations in Hungary, for example, pointed out that his mandate is to protect fundamental rights of every citizen when he is stopping projects destroying too much nature. “Every Hungarian has the right to life and to intact nature. We cannot irreversibly destroy natural wealth in order to realize high economic profit today. We determine the conditions for life tomorrow.”

While some speakers were more optimistic about the opportunities of technological revolution than others, consensus prevailed that we have to quickly change course to safeguard our environment and end poverty at the same time. Shlomo Shoham, former Commissioner for Future Generations in Israel, did not fall short from calling for changed future intelligence: “Humanity is facing a future in which change takes place at an ever-increasing speed. The unknown awaits us beyond the horizon and our ability to digest and deal with the sheer volume of change is diminishing. We need to find new paths, train ourselves to ‘let go’ of certain ideas, fears, and concerns and change not only our rules, but also the way we think and act. We need to create future intelligence – and use it.”

The World Future Council is currently launching a campaign on the promotion of such Guardians for Future Generations on the European and national governance level. In its most ambitious form these Guardians of the long view would not only speak up for long-term interests in decision-making, but also help develop the knowledge base we need to make sustainability a reality.

The elections for the UN Security Council are in:

Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Austria, Uganda have finished their two year term and will be replaced by
India, Colombia, Germany, Portugal, and South Africa.

Lebanon, Brazil, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nigeria, and Gabon are the hold-outs for 2011.

The only real contest was for the seats in the Western European and Other States Group (WEOG). The final contest there was between Canada and Portugal. Speaking after the vote, Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Joao Cravinho said the fact that Portugal is a smaller country appealed to other states of similar size and power.

“Our own campaign had enormous amounts of receptivity in the message that we brought about our willingness to engage closely – not just for the purposes of the campaign, but to engage closely over our tenure in the Security Council with different regional groups, with countries big and small. Our campaign was also based on the idea that countries of small or medium-sized dimension should have a voice, be present in Security Council, this message had a lot of echo and, in the end, was the basis for our success,” said Cravinho. We believe that the US would have liked to see Canada win this contest.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters that his country’s first round victory is a sign of international trust in Germany’s role in global affairs. We believe that Germany like Brazil, Japan and South Africa (G-4) should be permanent members of the UN Security Council. Next year Japan will be outside as they just completed their term.

These contests reminded us of the Island – Austria contest two years ago. Then both contenders were small States somewhat irrelevant in the UN structure – with one outside and one inside the EU. This time Canada was a larger contender, but Portugal has some similar-language former colonies that will back her. Then Iceland had the Scandinavian countries back her, but the economy was the miller’s stone around her neck – then, Austria fought as if the country’s life was at stake. In the larger context of the UN these fights point at the fact that the WEOG is a strange construct that has not got the feeling of the new UN forces yet, and is continuing under the assumption that nothing has changed, and that Europe can continue unchanged its post-World War II  multi-seating at important international bodies, even by over-ruling the non-EU members of the group. But unless the EU does unite into one strong force – these fights rather look like battles staged in an operetta.

The new elected States include India, Germany and South Africa which add up to Brazil and Nigeria from among the holdovers – to form a strongest quintet the UN has come up with in recent years. Only Japan will be missed. And let us see:

With India, South Africa and Germany winning three of the rotating non-permanent seats in the UN Security Council (UNSC), this is the first time the Security Council will witness the simultaneous presence of all BRIC, IBSA, and BASIC countries and three of the four G4 countries.

The BRIC countries comprise four emerging powers including Brazil, Russia, India and China who are set to becoming leading economies of the world by 2050. Russia and China are already permanent members of the UNSC – albeit not the original signers of the UN Charter!

Brazil was elected to a non-permanent seat last year and will remain there till end of 2011.

The IBSA comprises India, Brazil and South Africa, bringing three leading economies of three continents together.

The G4 comprising India, Brazil, Germany and Japan are aspiring for a permanent seat in the UNSC. India won the seat vacated by Japan from the Asia region.

The BASIC countries are The US and China – the so called G-2 – and IBSA. This is the leading group that chiseled out an approach to climate change in Copenhagen, will wait out changes in the US in Cancun, but will prepare some alternative approach for the 2011 meeting in Cape Town – not a moment too soon. So the UNSC will have the right configuration next year to deal with the subject.

India, as one of the four  countries seeking to expand the Security Council’s permanent membership,  G-4, U.N. Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri said his country would use its two-year term to work towards a longer-term stay on the body. He also spoke about what India’s presence will contribute to the council.

“We bring the voice of one-sixth of humanity. We have 63 years of experience in nation building, and I think that is what the U.N. can use. We have experience in peacekeeping. We would like to transcend that into peace building,” said Puri.

South Africa has returned to the council after only a two-year absence. Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said her country would work with states both inside and outside the council to keep Africa as a zone of peace, security and development. It seems that Africa gets it now – that they must have a permanent representation at the table.

The BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China – could present a united front on several contentious issues.

Earlier this year, Kazakhstan withdrew from the race leaving India as a sole runner from Asia for the two year term. The last time India had a seat on the Security Council was in 1992.

“BRIC coordination in the Security Council becomes a fact of life,” the Indian Foreign Minister said after a meeting with the foreign ministers of the three other countries.

BASIC becomes a way to tackle the global environment problems starting 2011 – we say. The subject was introduced to the UNSC by the UK in 2006 and no doubt will now come back strengthened with this new palette of members. Mexico’s membership at the Security Council, they are one of the States that are finishing their term, did nothing for Cancun – as if they were not there at all.

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And an aside about the future of WEAG contests – for the 2013-2014 UNSC membership shift the competition in 2012 will be between Australia, Luxembourg and Finland. Australia is afraid that their fate will be similar to that of Canada this year – but we understand that Australia did not back Canada this time as it would have been even harder to replace Canada that has a similar background like Australia, then it will be to replace Portugal.

Another aside please see www.innercitypress.com/weog2junke…
It seems that some believe that the right-wing Canadian government policies had something to do with the outcome that allows the EU to end up with four out of the total 15 chairs around the UNSC horse-shoe table.

Canada until this year managed to get a seat on the Council 6 times – that is once every decade – this compared to India that had a seat also 6 times earlier – last time in 1992 – and  was badly defeated by Japan in 2006. We found a paper from Winnipeg that accuses the Harper Government directly for this loss rather then trying to understand that distributing maple syrup bottles to delegations and sending in the mounties to the UN and paying for African Ambassador junkets – simply does not work when the competitor is a multi-headed EU. It is wrong to think that the right wing government was the only reason, – the UN had no problem with Colombia even though they were opposed by the ALBA group.

For UNSC Seats, Canada & Germany Offer Junkets, Colombia Opposed by Chavez & Alba Group? India In, Zuma MIA?

UNITED NATIONS, September 2 — To choose the five new non permanent members of the UN Security Council, one contest is known, another only rumored.

India and South Africa are running unopposed, even though the latter’s president Jacob Zuma is now not coming to the UN General Debate in late September.

Colombia still maintains it’s unopposed, but sources say that the endorsement of the regional group GRULAC is by no means assured, due to opposition from Venezuela and members of the ALBA group.

Inner City Press asked Venezuela’s Ambassador Valero about the controversy on the evening of September 1. He acknowledged GRULAC support was being withheld, but said this might change if relations with new Colombian president Santos continued to improve.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s appointment of Alvaro Uribe to his panel of the assault on the Gaza flotilla continues to chafe the Grupo Alba. Venezuela is slated to head the Group of 77 and China in the coming year, and will act on that appointment at that time.

Skeptical observers link Ban’s Uribe appointment not only to a desire to please the U.S. and Israel, but also Colombia, as it would have a vote on Ban’s second term. Ban’s backtrack on Kashmir is also seen in this light.

The competition between Germany, Canada and Portugal for the two Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) seats is heating up, with attempts to buy votes. The Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo complained to Inner City Press about Canada flying five African Ambassadors north last weekend, and said he was not going.

Last month outside the General Assembly’s session on the floods in Pakistan, Inner City Press asked Canada’s foreign minister Lawrence Cannon how the campaign was going. Good, good, he said with a smile.

On the evening of August 30, simultaneous with Russia’s End of Security Council Presidency party uptown, Germany held a reception in the UN’s North Lawn building, promoting its funding of African border demarcations.

Sources told Inner City Press that Germany behind the scenes was topping Canada by inviting African and other developing world Ambassadors for a European junket.

Inner City Press asked the German mission to “please confirm or deny that Germany recently invited a number of developing world diplomats and their spouses to Germany. Please state how many diplomats and spouses were invited, including how many from Africa and from which countries, to where, and why. Please comment on the relation between these invitations and Germany’s run for a Security Council seat 2011-12.”

Six hours later Inner City Press received a response from the German mission to the UN, below.

UN’s Ban & Angela Merkel, Gästeprogramm not shown

Subject: Re: press questions
From: .NEWYVN POL-2-6 Eberl, Alexander
To: “Matthew R. Lee” Inner City Press
Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 6:49 PM

Dear Mr. Lee, thank you for your mail… Within the framework of the so-called “Gästeprogramm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (Visitors Programm of the Federal Republic of Germany) the Federal Government and the German Bundestag jointly and regularly invite different groups of foreign personalities to Germany.

This well-established programme stretches back to the early years of the Federal Republic and has through time covered a wide variety of countries and topics. It is aimed at foreign personalities with an accentuated role in their country, be it in politics, society or culture – or journalism. The programme intends to foster the dialogue between Germany and other countries, societies and cultures. Please note, that spouses are not invited or covered by the programme.

Various groups – among them this year all in all around fifty diplomats from developing countries based in New York – were invited to Germany. They held fruitful meetings and talks both in Berlin as well as in other German places.

The aim of the Visitors Programme has always been to make insights available and thereby improve the understanding of Germany. It goes without saying that Germany – as a keen multilateralist – has an interest to provide decision-makers with opportunities of firsthand information.

Best regards,

Alexander Eberl, Press & Public Relations
Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations

Can Portugal, given its financial problems, keep up? Should UN Security Council seats be for sale?

UN TO SPOTLIGHT MEDIA’S ROLE IN PROMOTING MIDDLE EAST PEACE

The role of the media in fostering dialogue and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians will be the focus of a two-day United Nations meeting to be held later this week in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.

The upcoming media seminar, which starts on Thursday, will be the 17th such gathering organized by the UN Department of Public Information (DPI), and aims to sensitize public opinion on the issue of Palestine and the peace process.

With this year marking the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the landmark resolution 1325, which stresses the importance of giving women equal participation and full involvement in peace and security matters, their role in achieving peace will also be discussed.

Some 120 people from the Middle East, including both Israelis and Palestinians, and from around the world are set to attend, including Government officials, representatives of civil society organizations, academics, journalists and others.

Five panel sessions will be held during the seminar on topics such as the role of the Israeli and Palestinian media in reducing tensions, the use of new media to bring about positive change, and the part that mayors from both sides can play in advancing peace.

The participants will include Jorge Sampaio, the former Portuguese president and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, set up under UN auspices to promote better cross-cultural relations worldwide.

Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, will also address the event.

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UN POLITICAL CHIEF UNDERSCORES NEED FOR DIRECT ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TALKS

With efforts to move to serious negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians on achieving a two-State solution having reached a “critical juncture,” the top United Nations political official today underlined the need for direct negotiations between the two sides to begin as soon as possible.

“These talks are essential for ending the 1967 occupation, ending the conflict and resolving all core issues between the parties, including Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security settlements and water,” Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe told the Security Council today.

Six rounds of proximity talks facilitated by United States Special Envoy George Mitchell have been held since they began in May.

The goal of the diplomatic Quartet – comprising the United Nations, the US, Russia and the European Union – continues to be US-facilitated direct negotiations as soon as possible, Mr. Pascoe said, urging Israel and Palestinians to take advantage of the current opportunity to make progress.

Direct talks, he noted, could boost “confidence in the possibility of genuine progress on the core issues and on the ground, including restraint in Jerusalem, implementation of Roadmap obligations on settlements and further measures to empower the Palestinian Authority.”

Earlier this month, in a move welcomed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other officials, the Israeli Government announced it was increase the scope and quantity of materials allowed into Gaza.

Since then, new food and productive items have entered the Strip and the volume of imports into the area has risen steadily, with a 40 per cent increasing in the number of truckloads entering Gaza every week.

“While these are positive steps forward, we hope they can be enhanced to address the deplorable conditions in the Strip,” Mr. Pascoe said, calling for additional steps to be taken to allow exports and movement of people, as well as to streamline procedures for approval for projects.

He also announced at today’s meeting that agreements agreed by the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) on ensuring the cargo onboard Turkish ships have been implemented.

Those ships were part of an aid flotilla intercepted by the Israeli military on 31 May, resulting in the deaths of nine civilians and the wounding of at least 30 others.

Mr. Pascoe said that arrangements are also being made to transfer material carried by a Libyan-sponsored vessel, which arrived in Egypt last week, to Gaza.

“Such convoys are not helpful to resolving the basic economic problems in Gaza and needlessly carry the potential for escalation,” he told the meeting, which heard from dozens of speakers.

During the reporting period, Palestinian militant groups fired 41 rockets and mortars into southern Israel, causing no injuries, while the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) carried out six air strikes and 21 incursions, killing four Gazans, including one alleged militant, and injuring 23 others, the Under-Secretary-General said.

Turning to Lebanon, he said that the situation in that country remains stable. The Lebanese Parliament has continued talks on draft legislation on the civil rights of Palestinian refugees.

“Consensus appears to be within reach and the United Nations would welcome this as a first step,” Mr. Pascoe said.

Paul Badji, Chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said at the meeting that serious direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians “can only be successful in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence in a comprehensive, just and lasting outcome.”

This, he said, requires both sides to implement their obligations under the Roadmap.

The Committee remains “alarmed” by Israel’s refusal to heed international calls to halt settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem.

Also addressing the Council today was Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev, who said her country called for direct negotiations with Palestinians with “no preconditions, no delays.

“With Jerusalem and Ramallah only 10 minutes apart, direct negotiations are the only path to bridge the existing gaps,” she stressed.

Ms. Shalev emphasized the need for mutual recognition, noting that Israel’s recognition of “a Palestinian State as the nation-State of the Palestinian people must be met with an acknowledgment that Israel is the nation-State of the Jewish people.”

For his part, the Palestinian representative, Riyad Mansour, told the Council that “it seems strange that such a volatile situation persists in light of the international and regional efforts being exerted for revival of the peace process.”

Although his side has taken part in the proximity talks in good faith, “the same cannot be said for Israel,” which he said has “repeatedly challenged those talks with illegal, reckless actions.”