http://democracyctr.org/blog/2009/06/amb…
 http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=173…

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 2009
Ambassadorial Moves

Last September, in the midst of violence by opposition groups in the Bolivian departments of Santa Cruz and Pando, President Evo Morales accused U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg of having a clandestine hand in that violence and ordered him out of the country.

That set off a chain reaction of diplomatic tit-for-tats. The Bush administration kicked out Bolivia’s ambassador to Washington, Gustavo Guzman, then “decertified” the Morales government’s anti-coca program and based on that cut Bolivia from the ATPDEA trade preference program. Unable to resist a good diplomatic mud-wrestling match with Washington, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pushed himself into the game and kicked out the U.S. ambassador to his country as well, leading to the Bush administration’s ouster of Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S.

By the time it was over. this diplomatic version of “screw you, no screw you“, left behind four embassies operating on auto-pilot, a path or torched diplomatic relations, and with the elimination of the trade preferences, thousands of Bolivian workers with their jobs on the line.

Well, this week, as part of the ongoing game of making nice between the Obama administration and the Chavez government, the two countries announced that they are returning their respective ambassadors to Caracas and Washington. U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy and Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez are dusting off their suitcases and getting ready to return to their former diplomatic outposts. This follows Obama’s and Chavez’s “all smiles” visit in April at the Summit of the Americas in Tobago.

So what about the diplomatic rift that started it all, between the Washington and La Paz?

Interestingly, even as Chavez, the supposed “bad boy” among the South American left presidents is rebuilding bridges, Morales’ moves with the U.S. are still sour. At Tobago, while Chavez was handing Obama a book to read, Morales was demanding that the U.S. President declare that his fingerprints weren’t on the alleged assassination conspiracy linked to four men killed by government troops in Santa Cruz.

So, will U.S. and Bolivian ambassadors be returning to their posts anytime soon? Certainly, the same ambassadors won’t be, as in the case of Venezuela.

Former Ambassador Goldberg probably wouldn’t choose to return to La Paz for all the saltenas in Cochabamba, given the constant state of combat between he and Morales. This week Mr. Goldberg was handed his new U.S. diplomatic assignment, leading the U.S. team in charge of implementing sanctions against the government of North Korea over its recent atomic tests. That probably fits Mr. Goldberg better anyway, who in Bolivia seemed much more at ease chastising foreign leaders than forming good relations with them, a task that Morales never made especially easy.

Former Ambassador Guzman, who I visited with a couple of months after his return to La Paz, probably wouldn’t head back to Washington for all the Starbucks coffee in Dupont Circle. He and his family, including a new baby, seemed quite happy to be back home in Bolivia once more.

This past week Secretary of State Clinton sent an emissary to talk with Morales, following up on a high level U.S. diplomatic mission here not long before. Clearly the Obama administration would like to get its Bolivian relations in order. Where Morales is on this is anyone’s guess.

But if an announcement between La Paz and Washington is forthcoming, akin to the one this week between Washington and Caracas, both countries will have to go through the process of nominating and approving a new pair of ambassadors.

In Washington that process will likely go smoothly, with few in the Senate likely to challenge whomever President Obama selects (I am betting on a Latino or Latina). In La Paz the case may be different. The opposition in the Senate already denied, last year, President Morales’ appointment of Pablo Solon as Ambassador to the UN (he now essentially serves in that post, but under a different title). That was pure politics, given the fact that Solon is probably the most able representative Bolivia could have in the U.S.

So watch in the next week or two for signs that Bolivia and the U.S. are ready to follow suit with Venezuela and refill the ambassador positions in their respective capitals. And then watch for it to get weird, as U.S./Bolivia relations just seem to have a tendency to do.

 http://www.bechollashon.org/resources/ne…

Francesca Biller-Safran

Japanese-Jew Doesn’t “Oy Veh” So Much Since Obama.

By Francesca Biller-Safran
Huffington Post
Published: June 4, 2009

As a Japanese-Jew, I have historically used self deprecating humor at my own expense as a way to explain and defend to others who I was and to feel accepted.

My cultural confusion can be summed up in this anonymous quote, “There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?”

Until recently I believed “everything” was my fault.

And I would certainly be the last person I would ever want to visit, with all of my kvetching to anyone kind enough to listen. “Oy Veh,” I would lament. “No one accepts me; I am neither a truly Japanese or Jewish soul, so I will just sit here alone in the dark, eating a knish in my kimono.”

But gratefully, since Obama has become president, not only do I feel more comfortable as the multiracial shikseh that I am, but engage in thoughtful conversations about my heritage and background, without jokes, defense or much self-deprecation.

I only hope that I conduct myself with an ounce of the class, genus and moral fortitude the president has displayed when continually questioned about his cultural identity.

In his keynote 2004 speech to the Democratic Convention, Obama said, “In a sense I have no choice but to believe in this vision of America. As a child of a black man and a white woman, someone who was born in the racial melting pot of Hawaii, I’ve never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of race.”

I too was born in Hawaii and attended University High School in Hawaii a few years before Obama just a couple miles from his school, Punahoe High, whose students I shared long bus rides with from remote areas in order to get a good education; a value that my parents, like his, believed was invaluable.

Like my mother and father, Obama’s parents are from two different cultures, yet he never feels the need to defend or justify his background, rather, he consistently responds to questions and assumptions with dignity and forethought.

When asked during the presidential campaign what he considered his ethnicity to be, Obama answered simply that he is an American from two equally rich and diverse cultures.

In a 2004 speech, Obama said, “My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.”

As a blend of cultures with a Jewish-Russian, Irish father and Japanese-Hawaiian mother, I too have faced continual questions as to what I considered my race, people, culture and ethnicity to be.

I was given several names, including three middle names, all five on my birth certificate. One is named after my Jewish great grandmother, Beatrice, the other a Japanese name, Yukari, and the third, Caitlin, named after the wife of my father’s favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. My first name is named after a man — the Italian Renaissance painter, Piero Della Francesca, with his last name chosen for my first.

Who was I, where did I come from, was I merely a mistake, an experiment, and how I might actually exist as a identifiable human — have been relentless questions that have sewn experiences throughout my culturally odd and unasked for politically patch-worked life.

This sentiment from an anonymous quote defines the neurotic dichotomy of my life, “To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.”

One searing memory I experienced involves a boy who told me on the schoolyard there was no such thing as a Japanese-Jewish person. Afterwards, I ran all the way home from this boy with the piercing blue eyes and looked into the mirror wondering if I really didn’t exist at all; at least in any real identifiable sense that mattered.

This was just one comment amongst countless surreal exclamations that secured my stalwart allegiance to defining myself as a person from different cultures, but never defined by them.

In his keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”

I can assume the President Obama has heard countless comments denying his existence as a fortified American as well, but was intrepid enough to remain an honorable candidate despite cultural ignorance on the part of others.

This is the essential definition for any strong person; the ability, will and might to face oppression and hatred and march forward anyway.

No one thought it was truly possible that a man who was Black may become president yet, no one. Some hoped, some feared, some dreamed, and many imagined a courageous, ambitious reality, but not one of us truly believed with full breadth that this young country was ready to make such a fearless and autonomous leap for the betterment of us and for the world.

Like Obama’s parents, the marriage of my parents confounded some, upset others and was dismissed by the rest.

My father was raised in Los Angeles and then attended The University of Hawaii not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He came back with an education and a wife, who was a second-generation Japanese-American known as the Nisei generation, who grew up as a farmer on the coffee plantations of Kona, Hawaii.

My Japanese-American uncles were part of the 442nd Infantry, also known as The Purple Heart Battalion, the most highly decorated fighter pilots in United States History. This includes some 4,000 Bronze stars and nearly 9,500 Purple Hearts.

In this period, many Japanese-Americans were interned throughout the U.S, with land taken away, families torn apart and lives devastated, not unlike Jewish family members of my husband’s during the Second World War with more tragic results.

A lot of anti-Japanese sentiment existed at this time, and yet my parents married, with whispers heard loudly as shouts and bombs from some family, while others chose to keep quiet with disdain; perhaps even more devastating.

Martin Luther King said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

My parents had four children during the 1950’s and 60’s, and thankfully we were raised in Southern California, a region more liberal and tolerant of interracial marriage than many other parts of the country.

A visceral account of the confused cultural identity I experienced in a Japanese-Jewish household can be summed up in the following quotes, the first from a Japanese emperor, “Generally speaking, the way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death,” and the second from Woody Allen, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

At least as a writer, my life experiences give me more material to work with than my mother’s hundreds of antique kimonos combined with all the chuppah’s this side of Golden Gate Bridge.

A perfect example of conflicting philosophies learned during childhood includes Buddha’s lesson that “Life as we know it ultimately leads to suffering,” while we were told simultaneously that although Jesus was indeed a suffering member of our tribe, we should never actually worship him.

But nevertheless, I have made it, I have arrived, and I am as they say in Yiddish, I’m “Nisht geferlech,” which basically means “Not so shabby.”

Surely President Obama must realize this profound effect he has had on a nation who soldiers so many different religions, races and cultures while speaking in native tongues more freely understood now at least now in spirit, if not yet comprehended in each syllable, syntax or inflection.

And because we now have a president with a different story than president’s past, who holds his head high with his own proud blend of integral cultural being, each language and culture that is different is now more highly revered, as is each person’s individual journey.

Each story sheds an even broader and brighter light on a nation that not only endures, but empowers; not only inspires but includes, and not only validates, but values each lesson, paragraph and infinitesimal anecdote that boasts the value of us all.

This is now an axiomatic concept for the country, one that is only beginning to change America’s story and each person willing to tell their cultural rhythms on their own.

For this one Japanese-Jewish woman who always thought she was strange; even once given the title of “Shikseh Princess” at a Bar Mitzvah by some nice Jewish boys, my story has now changed for the better and interestingly enough, still interesting all the same.

Finally I can stop commiserating with Woody Allen when he said, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Except those rare moments when I begin to doubt the integrity and veracity of my own personal story that is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote, “This is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think; write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.”

The doors for us all now open with greater ease and determination, and the answers and questions we hear on the other sides of each door are purely reflective of a nation that is now more unified in its diversity, and more open to discussion, depth, profundity and inclusion.

Originally published here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/francesca-…

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 http://bechollashon.org/resources/newsle…

Judge Sotomayor, a mythic ‘Hispanic’

The supposedly racial term was pushed by Nixon to lump distinct Spanish-speaking groups into one voting bloc. There’s no such thing, and the judge should be appointed on her merits.

By Jonathan Zimmerman
LA Times
Published: June 12, 2009

Here’s a good argument for putting Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court: She’s knowledgeable, respected and deeply experienced. As a federal judge for nearly two decades, she’s heard thousands of cases and written hundreds of opinions.

And here’s a lousy argument for confirming Sotomayor: She would be the first “Hispanic” on the court.

I put the term in quotation marks because it’s a recent invention, dating to the 1970s and ’80s. Before then, when Sotomayor was growing up with her Puerto Rican family in New York City, she was not Hispanic.

And words make a difference. As many commentators have reminded us since President Obama nominated Sotomayor, judges are inevitably shaped by their life experiences. But these experiences are themselves shaped — and, sometimes, distorted — by the terms that we use to describe them.

How did Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Panamanians, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans all become Hispanic?

Amid the African American civil rights struggle of the 1960s, many of these groups joined hands to demand voting rights, bilingual education and social services. Here they received a big assist from an unlikely source: Richard Nixon. Eager to bring Mexicans and other Latino immigrants into the Republican fold, Nixon also saw them as a potential bulwark against black political aspirations.

“All Spanish-speaking Americans share certain characteristics — a strong family structure, deep ties to the church, which makes them open to an appeal from us,” wrote one GOP campaign strategist on the eve of Nixon’s 1972 presidential reelection bid. “The Democratic Party is under suspicion for favoring politically potent blacks at the expense of the needs of Spanish-speaking people.”

So Nixon threw his weight behind bilingual education, which has since become a bête noire for the GOP. He also ordered the Census Bureau to add a query on its 1970 form asking whether respondents were “Hispanic,” hoping to further solidify this new voting bloc.

Census Bureau officials balked, noting — correctly — that the term lacked scientific and historical precision. They also worried that respondents wouldn’t recognize it. So the most commonly used census form in 1970 asked respondents if they were of “Spanish” origin, not whether they were Hispanic.

All that would change in 1977, when the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to classify Americans as one of four races — white, black, American Indian/Alaskan Native or Asian/Pacific Islander — and also to distinguish between two ethnic categories, “of Hispanic origin” and “not of Hispanic origin.” Since then, the census has asked people their race and whether they’re Hispanic, which is not listed as a “race” per se.

Increasingly, however, Americans thought of it as such. Government agencies used “Hispanic” alongside “Asian” and “black,” making Hispanic into a de facto racial category. Businesses and educational institutions counted Hispanics — or, sometimes, “Latinos” — as a race in diversity and affirmative action reports.

Not surprisingly, then, Hispanics became more likely over time to identify themselves as a separate race too. In the mid-1990s, 60% of the respondents to a study of more than 5,000 Latin American immigrants self-identified as “white,” for example, but only 20% of their children did so.

That’s an unprecedented development, as the United States had continuously absorbed people formerly identified in the census as from nonwhite races into the white majority. Jews, Italians and Slavs were all once classified as separate races; now, they’re white. But Hispanics are moving in the opposite direction — from white to nonwhite. In our minds, at least, they’ve become a minority race.

The language of race is a unifying one, blinding us to the irreducible diversity that a single category can contain. Consider Sotomayor’s now infamous comment that a “wise Latina woman” would render a better judicial decision than a white male. While GOP antagonists accused Sotomayor of reverse racism and Democrats rushed to her defense, nobody pointed out that wise Latina women come in all shapes, sizes and ideologies. Would a wise Cuban woman in South Florida see eye-to-eye with a wise Mexican woman in San Diego, or with a wise Salvadoran woman in Washington, D.C.? Probably not.

Even worse, the idea of race tricks us into seeing “Hispanic” as a biological category rather than a cultural one. I frequently do an exercise with my students, asking them how a scientist would identify their race. The most common reply is also the most troubling one: via a blood test. In fact, that would tell you the opposite: We all come from the same ancestor, in East Africa, and we’re all mongrels. The blood test does not identify your “race,” which primarily exists only in our minds.

As a child, Sotomayor was probably classified as white; now she’s Hispanic. But her DNA is the same. The only thing that has changed is the way we look at her. Belying every shard of evidence, we continue to believe that races are different under the skin.

So let’s hope that the Senate confirms Sotomayor, one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court. Then let’s welcome her as the first person of Puerto Rican descent on the court, not as the first “Hispanic.”

If you think the words don’t matter, you haven’t been listening.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is the author of the just-published “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

Originally published here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-o…

Algae Farm Aims to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel.

By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times, June 28, 2009

Algenol Biofuels
Algenol grows algae in troughs filled with saltwater that becomes saturated with carbon dioxide.

Dow Chemical and Algenol Biofuels, a start-up company, are set to announce Monday that they will build a demonstration plant that, if successful, would use algae to turn carbon dioxide into ethanol as a vehicle fuel or an ingredient in plastics.

Because algae does not require any farmland or much space, many energy companies are trying to use it to make commercial quantities of hydrocarbons for fuel and chemicals. But harvesting the hydrocarbons has proved difficult so far.
The ethanol would be sold as fuel, the companies said, but Dow’s long-term interest is in using it as an ingredient for plastics, replacing natural gas. The process also produces oxygen, which could be used to burn coal in a power plant cleanly, said Paul Woods, chief executive of Algenol, which is based in Bonita Springs, Fla. The exhaust from such a plant would be mostly carbon dioxide, which could be reused to make more algae.

“We give them the oxygen, we get very pure carbon dioxide, and the output is very cheap ethanol,” said Mr. Woods, who said the target price was $1 a gallon.

Algenol grows algae in “bioreactors,” troughs covered with flexible plastic and filled with saltwater. The water is saturated with carbon dioxide, to encourage growth of the algae. “It looks like a long hot dog balloon,” Mr. Woods said.

Dow, a maker of specialty plastics, will provide the “balloon” material.

The algae, through photosynthesis, convert the carbon dioxide and water into ethanol, which is a hydrocarbon, oxygen and fresh water.

The company has 40 bioreactors in Florida, and as part of the demonstration project plans 3,100 of them on a 24-acre site at Dow’s Freeport, Tex., site. Among the steps still being improved is the separation of the oxygen and water from the ethanol. The Georgia Institute of Technology will work on that process, as will Membrane Technology and Research, a company in Menlo Park, Calif. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, an Energy Department lab, will study carbon dioxide sources and their impact on the algae samples.

Algenol and its partners are planning a demonstration plant that could produce 100,000 gallons a year. The company and its partners were spending more than $50 million, said Mr. Woods, but not all of that was going into the pilot plant. The company had applied to the Energy Department for financing under the stimulus bill, but would build a pilot plant with or without a grant, he said.

With a stimulus grant, he said, the division of spending would be slightly more than 50 percent from the private sector, although the normal level was 20 percent. The project would create 300 jobs, he said, adding that Algenol and Dow were “incredibly hopeful” of getting the grant, partly because they had a combination of an innovative start-up company, a major company with extensive experience in industrial processes, a university and a national laboratory.

At Dow, Peter A. Molinaro, a spokesman, said that the ethanol was “intriguing to us as a feedstock, because the chemistry is simple.” Dow is already working on using ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane as a replacement for natural gas as an ingredient in plastics.

When Congress created a tax subsidy for ethanol, it raised the price for nonfuel users like Dow, he said. “We’re looking at options, and this is one,” he said.

————

See also:

“The Alga Dunaliella” editors - Ami Ben-Amotz, Jurgen E.W. Polle, D.V. Subba Rao, Science Publishers, Enfield (NH), Jersey, Plymouth, printed in India, 2009 - 555p. - www.scipub.net

Oil or Trees? Germany Takes Lead in Saving Ecuador’s Rainforest.

by Jess Smee
24 June 2009

Oil companies are salivating over the supply of black gold beneath Ecuador’s rainforest. The South American country is pledging to keep the oil in the ground — if the international community provides compensation. Now Germany has taken a leading role in raising the necessary cash.

There are many attributes which make the Yasuni National Park special: It is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet, it is home to indigenous tribes which hunt and gather in its remote interior, and there’s a unique breed of small bat. But the national park also has a geographic curse: It sits atop Ecuador’s largest known oil reserve, thought to contain hundreds of millions of barrels.

And this potential fortune threatens its very future. In response, Ecuador has come up with an unusual plan to safeguard the UNESCO biosphere Reserve. The cash-strapped South American country has pledged to leave the oil in the ground forever — something unheard of among oil nations — if the international community compensates for some of the lost income.

The scheme, which was first mooted by Ecuadorian President Raphael Correa more than a year ago, got off to a slow start. By the end of the year the country extended its self-imposed deadline, in a last ditch bid to rally international support. Meanwhile, international oil giants were queuing to exploit the supply of black gold.
But now, all of a sudden, the ball seems to be rolling. Following a two-day visit by the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconí to Berlin, Germany had positioned itself at “the forefront of the initative,” the Ministry for Economic Cooperation said.

However, officials urged caution on a newspaper report which said Germany would pay $50 million (€36 million) into a yet-to-be-established international fund. “There will be emphatically no financial promises. The conversation in the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development focused on the framework of the project and also on the efforts that Ecuador itself has to make,” Stephan Bethe, spokesman for the ministry, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

He stressed that Ecuador’s idea had caught Berlin’s imagination: “It offers a new approach to rainforests and, from the perspective of development politics, it is very promising,” Bethe said. “Combining climate protection and fighting poverty will play a growing role in the future.”

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Falconí told the German daily Die Tageszeitung that Germany had pledged “the first significant contribution” to a yet-to-be-created international fund. The paper reported that Ecuador was pushing Germany to pay up within one month.

Hat in Hand

Ecuador estimates that by leaving the oil untouched, some 410 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be averted. Oil is Ecuador’s most important export, generating around a third of its income. With the value of the untapped supply under the Yasuni National Park estimated at some $6 billion, the country argues it has little option but to approach international donors, hat in hand.

Environmentalists welcomed the plan as a way to save Ecuador’s rainforest from destruction. Preventing forests from disappearing is a vital element in the fight against climate change as they absorb huge quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Still, doubts lingered about the Ecuador model. Tobias Riedl from Greenpeace Germany’s Forest Campaign warned that the scheme was far from perfect. “It is a double-edged sword. While we welcome moves to save this unique environment, the fact is that all rainforests need to be saved, regardless of whether they lie on valuable natural resources or not,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“There needs to be a broader move with industrialized nations paying money into a fund to save these forests. Preservation of these bio-diverse areas comes at a price.”

Meanwhile, environmental groups are looking to the Copenhagen Climate summit in December which aims to hammer out a new United Nations accord to replace the Kyoto Protocols which expire in 2012. Riedl remained upbeat, despite mounting signs that worldwide climate negotiations are stalling: “We expect to see how the preservation of forests can be brought into a new climate protection framework,” he said. “That is a step in the right direction.”

But there is a long way to go. Greenpeace estimates that €30 billion are needed to secure the future of the rainforests worldwide. And with 80 percent of all ancient forests (including rainforests) worldwide already gone, the clock is ticking. And Ecuador knows it.

Links:    Original article at www.spiegel.de

Remarks: U.S. Amb. to Brazil Clifford Sobel at AS/COA’s São Paulo Conference
June 9, 2009

Remarks by the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobel
at the AS/COA Latin American Cities Conference held
in São Paulo, Brazil, on June 6, 2009.

The Future of the U.S.-Brazilian Partnership: A Call for Global Partnership

Today, I am very pleased to be here to speak with you about the importance of U.S. partnership with Brazil, especially in this era of momentous change on the global stage.I would like to speak briefly about the special position that Brazil has as an emerging global leader–especially given your roots as a democratic nation and a market economy. And I would like to discuss the coalitions that Brazil and the United States can form on common interests, looking at what unites us, and not what divides us.

Importance of the Bilateral Relationship

As a member of the BRIC nations, Brazil has had a profound impact on our world as a new leader in an era of globalization. You are helping to shift the center of gravity. As U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, I must emphasize that our partnership with Brazil is one of our most important bilateral relationships, based on shared values, shared interests, shared challenges. The United States recognizes that on many issues, Brazil has to be a part of the solution, for example, climate change, energy innovation, food security, and regional stability.

What We Have Accomplished

This bilateral relationship is already intensifying as Brazil’s economic stability, and its global reach and engagement grow. And the similarities between our countries make us natural partners. Consider for a moment all that our countries, as partners, have accomplished together:
Biofuels Agreement
CEO Forum
New air routes/Open Skies
Bilateral Military Working Group: closer engagement on Haiti and other military to military priorities
Projeto Pontes
Trip to Northeast/Hospitality
Enter Jovem
Energy and food security
New people: Health Attaché/FAA/RLA/USTDA
These are but a few examples of what Brazil and the United States have been able to do to strengthen our partnership. Imagine what the future can hold!

New Vision

Looking to the future: The United States is ready to lead by example. The Obama Administration has laid out an ever bolder vision of U.S. relations with Brazil, one that deepens our partnership on the global stage. President Obama has brought a fresh voice, and a new approach to U.S. relations in the Americas and worldwide. Some Brazilian journalists have taken to referring to “the Obama Doctrine”–that the U.S. is ready to listen, open to learning from other nations, and ready to lead by example.

This new approach was introduced at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad in April, and one may say manifested in the surprising consensus member nations found regarding revoking Cuba’s expulsion from the OAS. The resolution was an act of statesmanship. Our nations addressed and bridged an historic divide in the Americas, while reaffirming our profound commitment to democracy and the fundamental human rights of our peoples. We removed an historical impediment to Cuba’s participation in the OAS, but we also established a process of engagement with Cuba based on the core practices, principles, and purposes of the OAS and the Inter-American system. This was not an easy process, but the decision was historic. And our collaboration strengthens the OAS as an institution.

Working together our nations can make history!

Just remember, after World War II, the United States and its allies built a new world order. Today, it is up to the emerging global powers such as Brazil, and the developed world, to do it once again! Brazil could have a profound impact on our world as a new leader in the era of globalization. You are shifting the center of gravity.

The United States recognizes our shared responsibility for common problems, and we are looking for partners who demonstrate the political will to meet these challenges head on. Looking at the U.S.-Brazil partnership,  it is clear our nations have shared priorities.  We recognize the importance of:
Solving the global economic crisis and preventing future ones; Promoting prosperity and social inclusion in our diverse nations;
Dealing with climate change through environmental protection, innovation and green energy development;
Strengthening the safety of our communities by cooperating in the fight against violence, drugs, and organized crime.
As President Obama said following his March meeting with President Lula at the White House, the two Presidents “had a wonderful meeting of the minds.” Both presidents recognize that more developed nations such as the United States must work together in partnership with BRIC nations to address the key issues of our time—the global economic crisis, poverty, despair, and the 30 percent of the population that we have left behind.

This was the first topic that Presidents Obama and Lula discussed at the White House in March! We will get through this economic crisis, and our interconnected economies will pave the way for cooperation in many areas, not just in bilateral relations.  But in getting the benefits of globalization to all of the citizens of the world. Together, our leaders need to be wise enough to make the hard decisions to deal with the different issues that confront us all. For today, no country, no region, has the resources or intellectual capital to deal with all of these challenges.

Forecasting the Partnership: What Would Brazil Like?

With Brazil: We are natural partners – parcerias naturais.  And Brazil is an island of stability. Our leaders have nurtured an increasingly close relationship between our governments, our business, and our people.  As a result, I believe there is huge potential for growth in any endeavor we can think of. In its report, A Second Chance: U.S. Policy in the Americas,  the Inter-American Dialogue identified ten priority challenges for the U.S. in the Americas. The 7th involved building a closer relationship with Brazil.  I quote: “Neither Brazil nor the United States is yet ready to develop a broad longterm partnership.  They are not willing to make the concessions or accept the substantial compromises needed to build a more strategic relationship.”

With all due respect, with regard to the United States, I have to disagree with the Inter-American Dialogue. I think this Administration is already working on a longer-term strategic partnership with Brazil that goes beyond an ad hoc set of issues. And I think the indications are clear, too, that the Obama Administration is ready to make compromises and concessions, where necessary, to make such a partnership happen.

As Eduardo Campos said, Brazil is not looking for charity, but for partnership. But… it takes two to make a partnership. Call it what you will, strategic, or otherwise; the question before Brazil today is, what kind of partnership does it want? A pragmatic, fluid, broad-based partnership, based on shared interests and common strategic goals? Or something more cautious, less reliable, more subject to external pressure?

Global leadership today requires engaged and continuing political and diplomatic partnership between developed and developing countries in times of crisis and in times of calm. Global leadership entails making hard diplomatic decisions, not only the popular ones. It is up to Brazil to determine what kind of regional partnership it will seek, but the United States hopes it will not be exclusionary.

And Brazil, perhaps more than any country in Latin America, benefits from globalization. It is up to both our countries not to engage in protectionism. The United States is not looking backwards. This is a time for new vision, new opportunities, and new partnership. That is what President Obama brings as President. Certainly we have an exciting opportunity.  We recall at the G-20, how President Obama smiled when he saw President Lula, and exclaimed, “I love this guy!”

Everything I have seen as Ambassador in nearly three years leads me to believe that the potential of this partnership to create a new, positive-sum game is enormous. The barriers to constructing this partnership are low.  With so much in common, it’s really a question of interest and will. I have seen equal desire throughout my time in Brazil on the part of government ministers, members of congress, state governors and mayors, educators, scientists, students, business people, and civic activists. Of course, there are still some who think of the past and not to the future. It is my hope that in the months and years to come, Brazil will continue its outreach to the United States.

I hope as Brazil develops its strategic interests, that it will include the United States amongst its first and foremost partners. It is my hope that our governments can harness the renewed energy and enthusiasm of the last few months to create a broader and deeper partnership and yes, perhaps even a strategic one. Our nations have so much in common.  We are rich not only in commodities, but in our people.

In 1820, Thomas Jefferson remarked that Brazil and the United States are “brethren of the same family pursuing the same objective.” As I said during the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce annual dinner for Person of the Year:
Brazil and the United States of America are so alike.
We are nations “indivisible” but nations of immigrants
We are citizens of the New World
Innovators and entrepreneurs who share a common vision for the future
It makes me feel proud to stand with those who built and continue to build the bridges of friendship, and the foundations for partnership, between our two nations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the United States stands with Brazil as partners on the world stage. We can accomplish great things together–bi-laterally and multi-laterally–when we act together, as governments and as people. As Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Thomas Shannon said recently:  “This is a relationship to which both countries need to pay close attention. This relationship will really define what happens in South America and elsewhere in the world.”

Tom Shannon has been a great Assistant Secretary, and I am sure he will make a great Ambassador and  be a leader in working with Brazil to deepen our bilateral partnership. What I ask from Brazil today is: continue to be our partner. Not only our bilateral partner, but our partner in multilateral relationships, our partner worldwide. Together, we have so much room for growth and for success that we ought to be more ambitious about what our countries can do together.

We don’t know what the particular areas for future cooperation between our countries will be. But we know that the future of Brazil is today, and our futures and our prosperity are inter-dependent. This is a great time for Brazil and the United States, with limitless oportunidades. t is up to all of us, governments, the private sector, and our private citizens, to build the bridges, create the partnerships, and seize the moment.

Obrigado!

Peruvian Government, Amazonian Indigenous Groups Remain Deadlocked.

By David Dudenhoefer
LIMA, Peru, June 15, 2009 (ENS) - After more than two months of protests by Peru’s Amazonian indigenous groups and clashes that have left at least 34 people dead and 150 injured, the conflict over nine laws that facilitate development of the Amazon region is still deadlocked, though with small signs that it might be resolved.

During the past week, thousands of Amazonian Indians traveled from remote villages to new protest sites. Members of the Ashanika tribe have blockaded the Carretera Central - the central highway between Lima with the Amazon region - while other protesters have occupied a rural airport in Andahuaylas.

Since the indigenous uprising began on April 9, between 15,000 and 20,000 protesters have blockaded highways and Amazon tributaries and shut down rural airports and an oil pipeline, among other actions.

Alberto Pizango, is president of AIDESEP

An oil pipeline leak is discovered near Wawas, Peru. June 13, 2009 

Indio Washuru at the Bagua blockade one week before the police attack.

Peruvian police break up the Bagua blockade with a helicopter and armored vehicles. June 5, 2009

Last week, Peruvian authorities charged indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, president of the Peruvian Rainforest Inter-Ethnic Development Association, AIDESEP, with homicide, sedition and other crimes in response to the death of 24 police officers in clashes with protesters on June 5 and 6. After several days in hiding, Pizango took refuge in the embassy of Nicaragua, which has granted him asylum.

Peruvian authorities have charged several other AIDESEP officials with crimes against the state, but have not issued warrants for their arrest. AIDESEP vice president Daysi Zapata, who has replaced Pizango as the protesters’ spokesperson, said in a press conference last week that they are willing to negotiate.

“We want to initiate a transparent dialogue so that the demands of the indigenous people can be heard,” she said.

The administration of Peruvian President Alan Garcia has asked representatives of the Catholic Church and Peru’s Ombudsman to mediate a dialogue with indigenous leaders, but has yet to set a date for the first meeting.

On June 14, Garcia’s Chief of Staff, Yehude Simon, announced that he would ask the country’s Congress to repeal two of the decrees that AIDESEP objects to, which the legislators had voted to suspend the week before.

AIDESEP’s leaders rejected the suspension, noting that legislators could lift it at any time, and the following day, an estimated 20,000 people marched in Lima and cities in the Amazon Basin to demand the repeal of all nine decrees.

Simon’s announcement, which came on the eve of a visit by a United Nations special rapporteur for indigenous issues and amidst growing international pressure, was the first sign that the Garcia administration was willing to make concessions to AIDESEP.

The decrees in question were signed by President Garcia last year as part of a legislative package designed to get Peru into compliance with its Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Garcia and various ministers have said that repealing the decrees would endanger the trade agreement, though some observers refute that claim.

AIDESEP’s leaders say the decrees violate the International Labor Organization’s convention 169, which Peru has signed, since it requires the government to consult indigenous groups before passing laws that will impact them.

Richard Smith, executive director of the local NGO Instituto del Bien Comun, who has worked with Peru’s Amazonian indigenous groups for 40 years, said the current protest is unprecedented in its scale and organization. He explained that indigenous communities have struggled for decades to get titles for their communal lands, yet much of their traditional territory still belongs to the government, which grants communities rights of use.

Smith said the decrees AIDESEP opposes will facilitate the privatization and deforestation of those government lands.

“There is a sense of desperation among indigenous people who, after decades of slow progress, feel that the Garcia administration is pushing them back,” he said.

Smith said that indigenous groups also are concerned about Garcia’s promotion of oil and gas development in the Peruvian Amazon, noting that whereas oil concessions covered about 15 percent of the region in 2004, they now cover more than 75 percent.

A week before a violent police operation that cleared an indigenous highway blockade in Bagua province, one of the protesters, an Awajun Indian named Indio Washuru, decried the government’s policy of granting concessions in indigenous territory without consulting the communities that live there.

“We are fighting against laws by the Peruvian government that violate our rights to land and forests, our water and rivers. We are against laws that have been promulgated unconstitutionally by the government of Alan Garcia,” Washuru said. “But rather than a solution, the government sends us repression.”

One week later, on June 5, Peruvian police attacked some 3,000 protesters at the Bagua blockade, using helicopters and armored vehicles.

According to press reports, protesters wrested rifles from officers and began shooting the police. The Peruvian government reported that 14 police officers and 10 protesters were killed during clash, but indigenous leaders claim that more than 30 protesters died.

Witnesses have said that police removed bodies from the scene and that some were dumped into a nearby river, but subsequent investigations by the Ombudsman’s Office and regional authorities have uncovered no proof of rumored mass graves, or bodies in rivers.

In televised interviews following that clash, President Garcia said the country had been demanding that he restore order. He claimed that indigenous protesters were being manipulated by leftists as part of an international conspiracy to destabilize Peru, which he implied Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is behind.

“These people are not first class citizens, if 400,000 natives can say to 28 million Peruvians ‘you can’t come here,’” Garcia said. “That is a very grave error and anyone who thinks that way wants to take us on an irrational and primitive retreat into the past.”

Among the more than 150 protesters wounded in Bagua was Santiago Manuin, an internationally recognized environmental activist. According to local media, police shot the 52-year-old Manuin eight times and left him for dead, but ambulance attendants later discovered that he was alive.

Segundo Valera, a cousin of Manuin, told a reporter from the Peruvian newspaper “La Republica” that he saw police in helicopters fire indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, accidentally shooting police officers. Peruvian officials have said that the police only shot tear gas canisters from the helicopters.

In response to radio reports of the police repression, hundreds of Awajun Indians who had taken over a pumping station on the country’s main oil pipeline, several hours to the north, overpowered 34 police officers stationed nearby, and tied their hands and feet with vines. The next day, as police and army troops attempted to rescue the hostages, protesters murdered 10 police officers before fleeing into the nearby rainforest.

Gil Inoach, an Awajun Indian and former president of AIDESEP who now works for WWF Peru, called the killings an act of revenge for what the protesters perceive as betrayal by the Peruvian government.

Inoach complains that water pollution from oil operations has affected the health of indigenous people and explained that the offending decrees facilitate the privatization of land and natural resources that indigenous communities have relied on for centuries.

“We indigenous people object to the way that the government is systematically taking our land away,” Inoach said. “Without their land, indigenous people will lose their culture because the identity of indigenous people is linked to the land.”

Politicians from opposition parties, including former President Alejandro Toledo, the country’s first indigenous president, have blasted the Garcia administration’s handling of the crisis.

However, legislators from the party of former President Alberto Fujimori and other conservative blocks have supported Garcia’s APRA party in resisting AIDESEP’s call to repeal the decrees.

After seven legislators from the Peruvian Nationalist Party staged a protest last week on the floor of Congress to demand that the decrees be repealed, rather than suspended, legislators from the majority parties voted to suspend them from the Congress for 120 days.

Another political casualty of the crisis was Minister Carmen Vildoso, who resigned as head of the Ministry of Women and Social Development, which oversees indigenous affairs, to protest Garcia’s handling of the conflict.

In an interview published in the daily “La Republica,” Vildoso said that the administration’s approach to the protesters showed “a lack of any comprehension of the way the Amazonian people think and see the world.”

———————-

Peru’s premier quits after protests end in bloodshed
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
The Independent of London, Wednesday, 17 June 2009

Peru’s Prime Minister Yehude Simon announces his surprise resignation.

{does he want to become President?}

{The Prime Minister of Peru has announced he will resign, following weeks of turmoil in which scores of police and protesters have been killed in clashes over threats to the land rights of Amazon Indians.

Yehude Simon promised to leave office as soon as he can persuade the country’s parliament to repeal two controversial new laws that would open vast swaths of the homeland of indigenous tribes to exploitation by foreign-owned mining and energy companies.

In a surprise announcement, made during an interview with Lima’s RPP radio, Mr Simon said he will formally resign from President Alan Garcia’s government “in the coming weeks, as soon as all is calm”.

Related articles
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It came as opposition parties criticised his failure to avert bloodshed, despite spending months in negotiations with indigenous groups worried by the proposed laws, which would dramatically increase oil and logging concessions in 67 million hectares of rainforest.

Earlier this month, 2,000 Aguaruna and Wampi Indians, many carrying spears and machetes, clashed with heavily-armed police who tried to clear them from a blockaded road near the rural town of Bagua Grande, 870 miles north of the capital. Although the official death toll is just 34, hundreds of protesters are still missing. It has been described as “the Amazon’s Tiananmen” and appears to have been sparked when police fired tear gas and automatic weapons into a crowd of aggressive protesters.

Following nationwide outrage, and a one-day general strike, a curfew around the surrounding area was lifted on Monday. As a result, international agencies are now starting to arrive on the scene to investigate reports that bodies may have been burned and buried in mass graves.

Mr Simon, a former left-wing activist who was made Prime Minister in October, becomes the second cabinet member, after the populist minister Carmen Vildoso, to resign over the incident. “This is a significant step. Yehude Simon is often seen as a potential presidential candidate” said Jonathan Mazower, an expert on Peruvian affairs for the London-based pressure group Survival International. “It’s doubtful, though, that in itself it will be enough to mollify the indigenous movement, which is extremely angry at what has happened, and absolutely determined not to let the protesters’ deaths be in vain.”

Meanwhile Alberto Pizango, the leader of the country’s Amazon Indians remains at the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima, where he fled after being charged with “sedition, conspiracy and rebellion”. Though recently granted political asylum in the country, he has yet to be granted safe passage out of Peru.

Mr Simon had earlier announced, during a visit to Amazon tribal chiefs, that a bill was to be submitted to parliament lifting the temporary suspension of laws barring the logging of trees in the rainforest. He said that other unpopular decrees could also be repealed.

 The 5th International Water Technologies & Environmental Control Exhibition & the 2nd International Conference - WATEC

Tel Aviv, Israel, November 17-19, 2009.

————

WATEC is a pivotal sustainable-economy exhibition and conference for 2009.

WATEC 2009 is an international showcase of technologies, products, and services to support a sustainable economy. With water and energy challenges at the top of the global agenda, WATEC 2009 features compelling solutions and proven, practical applications in areas such as water and energy efficiency, water quality, desalination, and water supply.

Hosting participants from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, the exhibition is a unique opportunity to discover the latest innovations from start-up businesses, established companies, and researchers that can help drive private and public initiatives and accelerate results.
The realities of today’s global economic crisis, declining ecological situation, and tenuous international political climate create both serious challenges and great opportunities for optimal resource utilization. Effective resource management and development solutions that have minimal ecological impact and are financially viable can be comprehensive and balanced strategies to address inevitable resource constraints. In this context, WATEC 2009 makes crisis the catalyst for technological innovation, policy change, and optimal resource utilization.

WATEC 2009 will introduce international successes and promising advancements for sustainable development, focusing on recent achievements and emerging solutions for the coming years. Bringing together Israeli and international business executives, political decision-makers, and leading researchers, WATEC 2009 will also be a showcase for the most advanced environmental technologies from around the world.
 highlights:

20,000+ exhibition attendees projected
150 international delegations expected
90+ countries represented

Illuminating presentations on current and emerging water and environmental topics
International region-based problem-solving forum
An array of new products and solutions that will be premiered for the first time
Expansive exhibition forum; ideal venue for both exhibitors and those see Start-ups in the spotlight:king solutions

The on-line meeting planner that makes it easy to pre-schedule meetings with the people who want to see you the most

5 region-featured panel sessions: Brazil, Southeast Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa
The conference will feature an international problem-solving forum for water, energy, and environmental technology issues. Each of the 5 region-featured panel discussions will highlight one of these regions, assess the challenges it faces, and propose practical solutions.

 Start Ups: This year, WATEC is featuring the Innovation Pavilion, a forum to highlight Israeli breakthrough solutions in technology and approach to a sustainable economy. This pavilion receives high visibility from the media and benefits from heavy international publicity from Israeli economic attachés worldwide. It is a unique opportunity for start-ups to promote their products, explore partnerships, attract investors, and expand international exposure.
 info at watec-israel.com
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Posted in Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Brazil, Israel, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, Africa, Asia & Australia, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Nairobi, Vienna

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Oil and Indians Don’t Mix.
Friday 12 June 2009
by: Greg Palast  |  Visit article original @ GregPalast.com

 http://www.truthout.org/061209A

{actually oil and all indigenous people that love their land and live on their land - this is no match up}

There’s an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.

If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo them away. Shooing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.

But be aware. Lately, the natives are shooing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government’s murder of more than a dozen rain forest residents, who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.

So - Indians in Yurimaguas, Peru, have blocked the road in an anti-government protest - power to them. But can they win?

Again and again, I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud writes Greg Plast. Here are a few pit stops on the oily trail of tears:

In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly’s oil tank in Oklahoma. Here’s the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.

Stanlee Ann wasn’t Koch’s only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.

Koch, according to the tape, would “giggle” with joy over the records of the theft. Koch’s own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting, which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the native lands.

The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.

Then there are the Chugach natives of Alaska. The Port of Valdez, Alaska, is arguably one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on earth, the only earthquake-safe, ice-free port in Alaska that could load oil from the giant North Slope field. In 1969, Exxon and British Petroleum companies took the land from the Chugach and paid them one dollar. I kid you not.

Wally Hickel, the former governor of Alaska, dismissed my suggestion that the Chugach deserved a bit more respect (and cash) for their property. “Land ownership comes in two ways, Mr. Palast.” explained the governor and pipeline magnate, “Purchase or conquest. The fact that your granddaddy chased a caribou across the land doesn’t make it yours.” The Chugach had lived there for 3,000 years.

No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when natives are on top of Exxon’s or BP’s glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: Lands can be seized for The Public’s Need for Oil.

Some natives are “re-located” through legal flim-flam, some at gunpoint. The less lucky are left to wallow, literally, in the gunk left by the drilling process.

Chief Emergildo Criollo told me how oil company executives helicoptered into his remote village and, speaking in Spanish - which the Cofan didn’t understand - “purchased” drilling rights with trinkets and cheese. The natives had never seen cheese. (”The cheese smelled funny, so we threw it in the jungle.”)

After drilling began, Criollo’s son went swimming in his usual watering hole, came up vomiting blood and died.

  I asked Chevron about the wave of poisonings and deaths. According to an independent report, 1,401 deaths, mostly of children, mostly from cancers, can be traced to Chevron’s toxic dumping.

Big Oil treats indigenous blood like a cheap gasoline additive. That’s why the Peruvians are up in arms. The Cofan of Ecuador, unlike their brothers in Peru, have taken no hostages. Rather, they have heavily armed themselves with lawyers.

But Chevron and its Big Oil brethren remain dismissive of the law. This week, Shell Oil, got rid of a nasty PR problem by paying $15 million to the Ogoni people and the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa for the oil giant’s alleged role in the killing of Wiwa and his associates, activists who had defended these Nigeria Delta people against drilling contamination. Shell pocketed $31 billion last year in profits and hopes the payoff will clear the way for a drilling partnership with Nigeria’s government.

Congratulations, Shell. $15 million: For a license to kill and drill, that’s a quite a bargain.

BRASILIA - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday Brazil was open to adopting targets for greenhouse gas emissions if rich countries did more to curb climate change.

“Brazil should not be afraid of the challenge,” Lula told Reuters in an interview at the presidential residence in the capital Brasilia.

“That issue is not a taboo for us,” he added, saying that he may attend global climate talks scheduled for the end of this year in Copenhagen.

The U.N. talks comprise almost 200 nations, aiming for a deal to rein in warming that the U.N. Climate Panel says will cause more droughts, floods, crop failures, spread disease and raise sea levels.

Developing countries, however, should not be expected to make the same sharp emissions cuts as rich countries, Lula said.

“Rich countries, which are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, must do their part,” he said, urging all countries to sign the expiring Kyoto protocol on climate change.

“What we can’t accept is people who already have their car, a third television, a third house telling Brazilians to remain poor.”

Brazil relies heavily on clean hydroenergy and has begun to reduce Amazon destruction, which emits carbon as trees burn or decompose. Destruction of the world’s largest rain forest is the main contributor to Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the world’s largest.

Last year, Brazil abandoned years of opposition to deforestation targets and said it would reduce Amazon destruction by 50 percent in a decade.

Lula also said he would veto clauses in an Amazon land reform bill that would grant companies and non-residents land titles. The objective of the bill is to legalize land holdings of millions of people who settled in the Amazon in recent decades, but environmentalists have criticized it as a land giveaway that could spur more deforestation.

“We want to be an example to the world in taking care of our own things,” Lula said.

———————

U.S. Climate Bill, U.N. Pact Seen More Likely In 2010

Timothy Gardner,  12-Jun-09
NEW YORK - The U.S. energy bill may not pass until next year, which could also delay an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol on cutting global greenhouse gas emissions until 2010, experts said on Thursday.

“Action in the Senate will be far more difficult than in the House,” Eileen Claussen, president of the Washington-based nonprofit the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told an Environmental Finance conference on Thursday. She said it’s “nowhere near certain” that the bill would come to a Senate vote this year.

Two obstacles stand in the way. First, advocates must convince the public the bill, which might initially raise electricity and other energy prices, will ultimately save money by heading off damage caused by global warming.

The UN’s science panel said global warming could bring killer droughts from higher temperatures, stronger storms, and floods from rising seas as glaciers melt.

One opponent, the Coalition for Affordable American Energy, whose members include the influential U.S. Chamber of Commerce and about 200 other organizations, has estimated climate legislation could cost U.S. households $1,400 per year by 2020.

Claussen said the current U.S. climate bill contains consumer protections that would shield against such price shocks.

Second, experts said the bill must include nuclear energy, which is nearly emissions free but comes with other problems such as toxic waste. Claussen said a resolution on nuclear power could help the Senate reach the required 60 votes for the bill’s passage.

Overcoming the hurdles and passing the bill, especially during a recession, will take time, probably until next year, for lawmakers to work out.

“There is an old saying in politics,” said Steve Corneli, a market and climate policy expert for U.S. power generator NRG Energy, Inc. “When you are explaining, you are losing.”

Without action from the United States, rich and poor countries will remain divided on the climate change issue. The focus in Copenhagen in December might shift from forming a final global agreement to working out a framework of ideas, such as how to bury carbon emissions and finance renewable energy infrastructure. Advocates are encouraged, though, that China and the United States are making enough progress that a global pact should eventually be hashed out.

“I don’t think not reaching an agreement (in 2009) will be particularly dire,” one carbon market broker said.

Office of Dr Shashi Tharoor
www.ShashiTharoor.in

in addition to his election to a parliamentary seat in India, Dr. Tharoor was sworn in last week as Minster of State for External Affairs in the Government of India.  He will have a wide range of responsibilities with special focus on the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

This makes Dr. Tharoor India’s main link to the third world as being viewed in UN terms - thus without having to deal with China, Pakistan or South East Asia.

We are thrilled by the idea that Shashi will in effect be the main link of India to the UN in true development issues - something we hoped he were to do if elected  UN Secretary General - a position he aspired to in 2006 - a position that can lead to new South-South realignments at a time that issues like global warming and the effects industrialization has had on those that have achieved lower levels of development, but have been inflicted with impacts caused by the front-runners in development.

It will be interesting to watch potential realignments between India and Brazil, Venezuela, Israel, Egypt, South Africa …

from:    Sueli Bonaparte

Executive Director

BRAZIL - AMERICA CHAMBER of COMMERCE

Thu, May 28, 2009

subject:    Upcoming Chamber conferences

Brazil Energy Conference:  November 2009

Brazil and China Trade Conference: January 2010

For more information or sponsorship information, please contact  sueli at brazilcham.com

—————

 http://www.brazilcham.com

BACC - The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. has emerged as one of the most active international business organizations in the US in recent years.

A vibrant organization headquartered in New York City, the Chamber is dedicated to forging stronger trade and business ties between Brazil and the United States through seminars, major conferences, roundtables, publications and other member services.

 This website was sounding positive about Brazil establishing its oil holding reserves figures and deciding to develop these reserves only at a very slow pace. It was clear, we thought, that Brazil realized that fast development will lead to problems, not only to the environment, but also to its stability. There will be murder, and there will be a new wave of corruption. Are foreign financial interests shaking now Brazil out of its self imposed slumber?

Murder, Death Threats Amid Environmental Protests.
Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 26 (IPS) - Environmentalists and human rights activists in Brazil are demanding clarification of the murder of Paulo Santos Souza, a fisherman and trade unionist who was fighting irregularities in the construction of a gas pipeline for Petrobras.

The Associacao dos Homens do Mar (AHOMAR - the fishermen’s union) for which Santos Souza was the treasurer, and other unions and civil society groups have called for a demonstration Wednesday in front of the headquarters of the state oil firm Petrobras, in Rio de Janeiro.

They are also demanding the interruption of work on a natural gas pipeline being laid some 60 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, following reports of environmental permit irregularities and damages caused to flora and fauna in the mangrove swamps of Guanabara Bay.

The gas pipeline is part of the Liquefied Gas and Oil Project (GLP) carried out in the framework of the Accelerated Growth Programme (PAC) embarked on by the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Construction of the future Petrobras Petrochemical Complex (COMPERJ) is in the hands of a consortium, GLP Submarino, made up of the Oceanica Engenharia and GDK S.A. companies.

The head of AHOMAR, Alexandre Anderson, said that the engineering works, which began in late March, have particularly harmed fishing, which has declined by 70 percent since that time. Although the union will not say outright that the two are connected, it says it is a remarkable coincidence that its treasurer was killed on May 22, the same day that the Environment Secretary of the municipality of Magé blocked the work on the gas pipeline because it lacks the necessary environmental permit.

“Last week we complained to the head of Petrobras that armed men present at the work site were making threats, and that lives were at risk, and just hours later our companion was killed,” Ronaldo Moreno of the Oil Industry Workers’ Union (SINDIPETRO) told IPS. Santos Souza, 44, was murdered on the night of May 22 by three men who burst into his house in Mage, beat him up in front of his family, dragged him out into the street and shot him five times in the head.

Michael Pollan: “Don’t Buy Any Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised”
“The real food is not being advertised. And that’s really all you need to know.”

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted May 15, 2009.

Amy Goodman: Energy, healthcare, agriculture, climate change, global outbreaks like swine flu—what do all these topics have in common? Food. That’s right, none of these issues can really be tackled without addressing some of the fundamental problems of the food system and the American diet.

Well, my next guest, writes Amy Goodman as per her radio program, is one of the leading writers and thinkers in this country on food. Michael Pollan is a professor of science and environmental journalism at University of California, Berkeley, author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which just came out in paperback. … Let’s start with the latest news over the last month, swine flu. How is that connected to industrialized agriculture?

Michael Pollan: Well, we don’t know for sure yet. We’re still kind of investigating. But the best knowledge we have is that this outbreak came from a very large industrial pork operation, pork confinement operation, where, you know, tens of thousands of pigs live in filth and close contact. And this was in Mexico.

And, you know, it’s very interesting. Last year, eighteen months ago, the Pew Commission on animal agriculture released a report calling attention to the public health risks of the way we’re raising pork and other meat in this country. And they actually predicted in that report—they said the way you’re raising pigs in America today creates a perfect environment for the generation of new flu pandemics, basically because once you get that mutation, which sooner or later is about to happen, it very quickly—you have … so much genetic material coming together, so concentrated, and then so many pigs can catch it, and … we’ve created these Petri dishes for new diseases. And here we go.

Goodman: And what has been the industry response?

Pollan: Oh, the industry response and the media response, by and large, is not to pay attention to that part of the story. We haven’t gotten a lot of investigation of, well, exactly how do these things evolve and how did these conditions contribute to it.

The other angle, too, is that, you know, as we bring any pressure to bear on American animal agriculture, the tendency is going to be for it to move to Mexico. And indeed, that appears to be the case here, that these are American corporations who have to escape any kind of environmental regulation, have moved their confinement, animal operations, south of the border.

——-

And if you really want to know more - please continue to read at:

 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1400…

——-

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

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

THE UPDATE:

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

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

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

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

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

 ascoa.online at as-coa.org.

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

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

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Brazil Hopes To Team Up With China In Biofuel.

Date: 19-May-09, Reuters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The following two articles tell us indirectly that much of what we are doing in above two general areas - The Climate Change area and the Foreign Aid area - is helping the wrong factors - be this the economic baloons builders in the industrialized countries, or the dictators and money skimmers in the truely needy countries - all of them having plenty of lobbyists in places like Washington DC and the UN while the world may be starved by not having in leading position just a few straight minds shooting at the real problems - simple Gordian Knots Cutters. Our Website loves to point fingers.

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From Harry Langer of H. L. Langer & Co., Inc.

 STOPPING GLOBAL WARMING.

Cap and trade measures to combat the global warming effect of greenhouse gasses won’t work. These measures raise concerns about the risk of financial scams and bubbles reminiscent of the CBO crises; business lobbying for free pollution credits that would emasculate national legislation to cap greenhouse gasses; and distant compliance deadlines that could result in economic, social, political, environmental, and health disasters.

It would be better to just eliminate carbon emissions on a fast timetable and simultaneously develop and exchange alternative energy technologies.

Global problems need global solutions. The enactment of uniform international greenhouse gas elimination regulations with timetables for their compliance and the means to enforce them would avoid political and business pressures within individual nations to weaken regulatory standards and eliminate concerns of unfair global competition and compliance evasion. Effective and immediate action is necessary.

A summit meeting of the leaders of the Group of Twenty major industrial nations and the leading international environmental and financial organizations should be convened to establish regulations and implement progressively heavier uniform. limits on carbon/greenhouse gas emissions on the Group of 20 advanced nations (which account for over 80% of the world’s GDP) to eliminate them over a 5 to 10 year timetable.

This would also help economic recovery by creating jobs and revenues. Industry and consumers could be compensated for investment in qualified pollution control or elimination devices; clean energy replacement products or equipment; and research and development of carbon replacement or reduction technology by backward or forward accelerated depreciation tax incentives or credits and low interest government loans or grants. This would be a very effective economic and humanitarian stimulus. Higher fuel and utility taxes could encourage energy conservation and reimburse government for pollution control incentives.

Undeveloped nations would be subject to lower carbon emissions limitation timetables and would be forbidden to allow developed nations to use their countries to circumvent or evade their progressive greenhouse gasses limitation regulations.

The World Court could impose fines and embargoes on nations for non-compliance with the carbon control restrictions and the sharing of pollution control technology. Compliance and the decisions of the court could be overseen and enforced by one or more of the established world organizations like the WTO, OECD, IMF, World Bank, or UN or a special independent entity.

Similar measures should be taken for the establishment of global regulation and enforcement procedures for the preservation and expansion of forests and woodlands according to climate, terrain, and soil conditions. Saving and planting trees and shrubs (preferably fruit and berry ones) is an inexpensive way to aid climate control; balance atmospheric oxygen and carbon gasses; prevent soil erosion and desert expansion; control flooding; increase water resources (replenish groundwater, rivers lakes, rainfall), reclaim agricultural land expand the food supply including fish stocks to combat global hunger; provide jobs; and create self sufficiency via fresh, desiccated, and prepared agricultural industries. A worldwide reforestation program to supply free or subsidized seedlings, plants, and technological assistance to achieve these goals would be relatively inexpensive and highly successful on a cost benefit basis. Subsidized solar powered cooking devices or stoves could help reduce the use of wood as fuel and help preserve trees and shrubs in many countries. Grants, loans, credits, and technical assistance could be given to countries heavily dependent on forest products to develop alternative sources of jobs and revenues.

Harry L. Langer                                                    E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com

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AID ALTERNATIVES FOR UNDEVELOPED COUNTRIES.

Massive financial aid is usually wasted in impoverished countries with inept leadership, poor governance, pervasive corruption and inadequate legal, justice and educational systems (like those in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia). It invariably enriches top officials and maintains them in power at the expense of their citizenry. Such governments also manipulate and exploit well intentioned and generous donors. They become so dependent on the continuing easy availability of funding from donor nations and NGO sources that they have little incentive to improve domestic conditions. Progress, entrepreneurship, and self reliance become stifled and poverty becomes institutionalized.

Consequently, it would be more effective if a major portion of foreign aid took the form of supplies and equipment that could develop agricultural self sufficiency, create both domestic and export industries and jobs, and provide water purification systems for disease control, public consumption, and industrial needs. For example:

(a) In lieu of military aid, donor nations could give not only food but also seeds and fertilizers (suitable for local climate and soil conditions), tools, farm equipment (tractors, spreaders, combines, etc.), solar or wind powered water pumps and generators, and growing and technical assistance to meet domestic needs and create export markets. Water purification systems canning, desiccation, and packaging equipment and technology could also be provided for market development and greater profits.

(b) Supply commercial sewing and textile machinery to produce raw materials and finished products for the domestic and export markets.

(c) Supply equipment and machine tools to extract and fabricate domestic minerals and raw materials. i.e., iron copper, aluminum, glass, wood, hemp, chemicals, herbs and medicinals, etc. for more jobs, higher living standards, and greater revenues.

(d) Similarly, develop fishing and animal husbandry industries with related preparation, canning, and freezing facilities.

e) Micro financing should be a mandatory part of all assistance programs.

(f) It is also essential that business licenses be easily and quickly obtained and that cell phones be available and affordable to all.

Such types of aid could provide jobs, facilitate self sufficiency, reduce poverty, raise living standards and offer alternatives to illegal drug production as a livelihood. It would also create jobs in the donor nations — a win, win situation for all parties.

The United Nations and the IMF could play essential roles in organizing and establishing such alternative aid programs for the Group of 20 Leading Industrial Nations. They would have a greater and quicker global economic stimulus benefit without the risk of inflation or stagflation, without dangerously increasing the money supply and would create the jobs necessary for recovery. Also, the right kind of aid would be directed to where it was most needed. The IMF could allocate the amount of aid and the ratio between cash and goods of each donor and the UN and NGOs could determine the types and sources of the goods needed and undertake their distribution either through its own agencies directly to Village Elders, Tribal Leaders, and/or reliable local entrepreneurs. Each organization would do what it does best. The goods would be permanently marked to prevent resale for profit by corrupt parties.

Harry L. Langer   T.212-517-5942   F 212-861-4053   E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com

 Galapagos Islands: New Species Discovered, Prince Charles Promotes Sustainability & Celebrates Darwin.

Scientists have discovered a new species on Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island. The pink land iguana, or Conolophus rosada, is genetically distinct from the other two varieties found on the islands. With a unique mating dance and physical characteristics, it is thought that this species diverged some 5.7 million years ago, and less than 100 are in existence today.

This spring the UK’s Prince Charles, and his wife Camilla, toured South America to promote environmental sustainability and raise awareness of global warming.

They stopped in the Galapagos Islands to celebrate anniversaries related to one of England’s most famous explorers, Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, the 150th anniversary of the publishing of his revolutionary book proposing natural selection, On the Origin of Species, and the 50th anniversary of the Galapagos National Park.

To experience this natural laboratory, Southwind offers travelers our Galapagos Wildlife Odyssey, an 11-day journey that includes 7 nights aboard an intimate luxury yacht or catamaran ranging in size from 16-100 passengers. Onboard chefs prepare gourmet meals while guests enjoy nature hikes, snorkeling, kayaking or simply relaxing on the beach.

Travel Fact: In an effort to remove an invasive species that threatened the future of Santiago Island, the Galapagos National Park spent $6.1 million to remove almost 80,000 goats between 2001 and 2005. Strategies such as these are important to keeping the biological diversity as natural and pristine as possible.

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Quito’s Plaza Grande Hotel Gives Guests a Touch of History.

Located in Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, the Plaza Grande Hotel lets travelers experience a unique piece of this UNESCO World Heritage Site’s history. The hotel was originally the home of Juan Diaz de Hidalgo, one of the Spanish conquerors who founded the city of Quito at the beginning of the 16th century.

With its prime location on the city’s main Plaza de la Independencia, the neoclassical architecture is different from the colonial homes of the historic center. In 1943 it opened as the Majestic Hotel, renowned for its elegance, music and color. Even though it was one of the biggest attractions of the era, it eventually closed its doors, serving as both a bank and office building. But in 2005 a group of hoteliers decided to return the building to its previous glory, and it’s now the best boutique-style hotel in Ecuador. Attention to detail is evident in the 15 exquisite suites, deluxe spa, 3 restaurants, an extensive wine cellar and even carriage rides of the historic center.

The Plaza Grande is offered as an upgrade on any Ecuador trip, including the Galapagos Wildlife Odyssey and Andean Haciendas Tour.

Travel Fact: The 5-star Plaza Grande Hotel has received the Metropolitan District of Quito’s Environmental Management Certificate for not only meeting, but exceeding environmental standards.

UNFCCC media alert : Key Copenhagen negotiating text available on <unfccc.int> web site
Key UN negotiating texts, which will form the basis of an ambitious and
effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in
Copenhagen in December, are now available on the website of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (<unfccc.int>).

The draft negotiating texts that will be discussed under the “Ad Hoc
Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto
Protocol (AWG-KP)” are available on the web as follows:

Document on amendments to the Kyoto Protocol
 http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awg…

Document on other related issues
 http://maindb.unfccc.int/library/view_pd…

One key document under the Kyoto Protocol constitutes a “proposal for
amendments to the Kyoto Protocol pursuant to its Article 3, paragraph 9.”
This document lays out the options for emission reduction commitments of
industrialised countries for the second phase of the Protocol (post-2012).

The second document presents text largely in the form of decision language,
covering the following issues:  emissions trading and the project-based
mechanisms; land use, land-use change and forestry; greenhouse gases,
sectors and source categories; common metrics to calculate the carbon
dioxide equivalence of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by
sinks; and methodological and other issues.

The “Negotiating text for consideration at the sixth session of the Ad Hoc
Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention
(AWG-LCA)” is scheduled to be posted at the beginning of next week.

This text covers the issues of a shared vision for long-term cooperative
action, along with enhanced action on adaptation, mitigation and finance,
technology and capacity-building.

All texts will discussed at the UN Climate Change Talks this year in Bonn
(1-12 June). The gathering is expected to be attended by around 3,000
participants, including government delegates, representatives from business
and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions.

The venue will be the Maritim Hotel in Bonn where negotiations will take
place. In addition to the negotiations, more than one hundred side events
will be held. The UN Climate Change Secretariat, Parties and observer
organizations will brief the media in the course of the gathering.

About the UNFCCC

With 192 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997
Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has to date 184 member Parties. Under
the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and
countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have
legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate
objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in
the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference
with the climate system.