Why U.S. should back Keystone

Post by: CNN’s Jason Miks

Topics: GPS Show

On GPS Sunday: Debating Keystone, and what comes after Chavez?

Post by: CNN’s Jason Miks

Topics: GPS Show

We remembered the Wikipedia posting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tide that first came to our attention when we discovered that we were listed a reference to it. Today we decided to bring it up because of the twin events – all of Latin America mourning the passing of Hugo Chavez, and the Heritage Foundation asking that the Obama Administration back the British claim to the Falkland Islands, because it is British colonialists that live now there, but under the “Las Malvinas” name are considered Argentinian territory by the States of Central and South America..

As such the following article by the Heritage Foundation does not make life of the United States any easier in its location at the Northern half of the Western Hemisphere. We are talking about the back of a United States being torn between Asia and Europe, and made insecure because of wrong moves in its own backyard. Hugo Chavez was a product of wrong US handling of its Southern neighbors, . and the Heritage Foundation posting does not try to make it easier for the US. Oh Well – we know – it is again about oil and the grabbing of resources as if they are there for the taking.

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Pink tide

This page was last modified on 7 March 2013 at 00:05.

NEW – Rabbi Schneier’s weekly column in the Huffington Post.

The Making of Modern-Day Miracles: Hanukkah With the Chief Rabbi, Imams and Barack Obama.

Venezuela Votes…and Latin America Catches a Cold.

By Estrella Gutiérrez

CARACAS, Oct 4 2012 (IPS) – Sunday’s elections in Venezuela will determine whether the era of President Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution will continue or come to an end. The result will have an impact not only on this country but on the rest of Latin America.

In the first decade of this century, Latin America saw “a nontraumatic epochal change, sometimes manifested as constituent assemblies (to rewrite a constitution), which sought to respond to the demands of the majority and bring about political change. Chávez is its most radical expression,” said Manuel Felipe Sierra, an analyst from the traditional left and a critic of the Venezuelan president.

“This trend, which Chávez claims to have authored although it has roots and leadership in each country, has already passed, and most governments have taken a more conventional democratic route with left-wing overtones,” he told IPS.

Bolivia and Ecuador are other examples of this current, which has as its political integration mechanism the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), led by Venezuela and made up of eight Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Cuba and Nicaragua.

But the regional reform movement has another major reference point, less ideological and radical: the process led by former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), whose programme was based on economic growth with social inclusion and a strengthening of democracy.

Both self-described left-wing and right-wing governments have expressed their support for the Brazilian model, including Venezuela’s opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who declares himself an “admirer and imitator” of Lula.

Capriles, supported by a variegated mix of 29 groups ranging from right to left, points as proof to the Zero Hunger plan he implemented as governor of the northwestern state of Miranda, modelled on Brazil’s anti-hunger strategy.

Most of the latest polls tip Chávez as the favourite to be re-elected for a third time. But growing support for his rival has made the election result uncertain.

Chávez’s style of diplomacy in Latin America has been one of confrontation with right-wing presidents, which polarised countries, governments and summits ever since he took power in February 1999, said experts consulted by IPS, including several close to the president.

“The export of the Bolivarian model, supported by the abusive use of Venezuela’s oil wealth, as well as Chávez´s style, are in decline, whatever happens on Sunday,” said Sierra.

“Furthermore, there is ‘Chávez fatigue’ in the region because of the behaviours and manners that stress even his allies, and that ceased to be useful for the collective interest,” he said.

But Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), said that if Chávez exits the stage, “it would threaten Latin American independence,” especially from the United States, which Chávez refers to as “the empire.”

Chaderton said Venezuela had created in the region “a diversity of dependences, that make us more independent of others and more interdependent among ourselves.”

“In Latin America we created oxygen valves that help us breathe more freely, and that would close off” if Chávez loses, he said.

“These are not just any elections, for Venezuela or for the continent, because of the ideological primacy and polarisation promoted by Chávez, and because if he loses the elections it would confirm the demise of the left-wing neo-populist experiment he was trying to export,” said Teresa Romero, an expert in international relations.

In Romero’s view, even if Chávez is re-elected, “the regional climate has shifted towards the centre,” and within it “Brazil has won the leadership role, with progressive positions that are less strident and more efficient.”

Michael Shifter, the head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a U.S. think tank, said if Chávez left the government it would have “an enormous effect on the regional political scenario, because he has been the most aggressive and polarising voice in the hemisphere over the last decade.”

If change comes to Venezuela, “ideological conflicts will not disappear, but they will be less acute and better channeled,” he told IPS. In his view, Capriles would maintain normal relations with left-wing governments like those of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, “but not, as the phrase went in the 1990s, such carnal relationships.”

In addition to ALBA, the Chávez government promoted the foundation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), made up of the region’s 12 countries, and the oil aid organisation Petrocaribe. It also helped create the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as an alternative to the OAS, which it considers to be dominated by Washington.

In August the government began a process of withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which hands down binding rulings on human rights violations committed by states. The only precedent for withdrawal from the OAS human rights court was that of Peru, 20 years ago, during the regime of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

Capriles announced that, if he were elected, one of his first steps would be to reverse the process of withdrawal from the Inter-American Court. He also said Venezuela would rejoin the Andean Community, the regional bloc that this country belonged to since the 1960s, which the Chávez administration pulled out of in 2011. It is currently made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Chávez’s efforts in the past six years were directed towards Venezuela becoming a full member of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc, which he finally achieved in June, after Paraguay’s temporary suspension from the group, made up also of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

“These are changes of alliances based on political and ideological foundations, not on economic reasoning or geographical location,” Sierra said.

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And from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) backgrounder:

Stakes Are High for Venezuelan Presidential Elections

The October 7 presidential election between Hugo Chavez and Henrique Capriles Radonski holds significant implications for the direction of the country’s “socialist revolution,” its economy, and foreign policy.       Read the Backgrounder »

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Op-Ed Contributor, The New York Times

How Hugo Chávez Became Irrelevant

By FRANCISCO TORO

Published: October 5, 2012

AS Hugo Chávez, the icon of Latin America’s left, struggles to hang on to his job, it’s tempting to read tomorrow’s closely contested election in Venezuela as a possible signal of the region’s return to the right. That would be a mistake, because the question that’s been roiling Latin America for a dozen years isn’t “left or right?” but “which left?”

Outsiders have often interpreted Latin America’s swing to the left over the last dozen years as a movement of leaders marching in ideological lock step. But within the region, the fault lines have always been clear.

Radical revolutionary regimes in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua joined Cuba, the granddaddy of the far left, in a bloc determined to confront the capitalist world, even if that meant increasingly authoritarian government.

A more moderate set of leaders in Brazil, Uruguay and Guatemala put forth an alternative: reducing poverty through major social reforms without turning their backs on democratic institutions or private property rights.

As Fidel Castro’s favorite son, Mr. Chávez has always been the leader of the radical wing. And Brazil’s size and economic power made it the natural leader of the reformist wing.

Outwardly, the two camps have been at pains to deny that any divisions exist. There have been many pious words of solidarity and lots of regional integration accords. But behind closed doors, each side is often viciously dismissive of the other, with Chávez supporters seeing the Brazilians as weak-kneed appeasers of the bourgeoisie while the Brazilians sneer at Mr. Chávez’s outdated radicalism and chronic incompetence.

As recently as five or six years ago, there was a real ideological contest. A wildly unpopular American president prone to military adventurism helped Mr. Chávez rally the continent against Washington. One country after the next joined the radical axis. First Bolivia, then Nicaragua, Honduras and Ecuador, joined a growing roll call of radicals in 2005 and 2006.

Now the political landscape is almost entirely transformed. Barack Obama’s 2008 victory badly undermined the radicals’ ability to rally opposition to gringo imperialism. Meanwhile, the alternative was becoming increasingly attractive.

Brazil’s remarkable success in reducing poverty speaks for itself. Building on a foundation of macroeconomic stability and stable democratic institutions, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, oversaw the most remarkable period of social mobility in Latin America’s living memory.

As millions of Brazilians rose into the middle class, Mr. Chávez’s autocratic excesses came to look unnecessary and inexcusable to Venezuelans. Mr. da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, have shown that a country does not need to stack the courts, purge the army and politicize the central bank to fight poverty. Brazil proves that point, quietly, day in and day out.

It isn’t just democratic institutions that have suffered from Mr. Chávez’s radicalism; it’s the economy, too. Venezuela’s traditional dependence on oil exports has deepened, with 96 percent of export revenue now coming from the oil industry, up from 67 percent just before Mr. Chávez took office. Nationalized steel mills produce a fraction of the steel they’re designed for, forcing the state to import the difference. And nationalized electric utilities plunge most of the country into darkness several times a week. The contrast with Brazil’s high-tech, entrepreneurial, export-oriented economy couldn’t be more stark.

For all of Mr. Chávez’s talk of radical transformation, Venezuela’s child mortality and adult literacy statistics have not improved any faster under his government than they did over the several decades before he rose to power.

With oversight institutions neutered, the president now runs the country as a personal fief: expropriating businesses on a whim and deciding who goes to jail. Judges who rule against the government’s wishes are routinely fired, and one has even been jailed. Chávez-style socialism looks like the worst of both worlds: both more authoritarian and less effective at reducing poverty than the Brazilian alternative.

And the region has noticed. The key moment came in April 2011, when Ollanta Humala won the Peruvian presidency. Long seen as the most radical of Latin America’s new breed of leaders, Mr. Humala had run on a Chávez-style platform in 2006 and lost. By last year, he’d seen the way the wind was blowing and remade himself into a Brazilian-style moderate, won and proceeded to govern — so far, successfully — in the Brazilian mold.

Now, in a final indignity, Mr. Chávez is facing a tight re-election race against Henrique Capriles Radonski, a 40-year-old progressive state governor who extols the virtues of the Brazilian model.

Although Mr. Chávez’s government has done its best to paint a caricature of Mr. Capriles as an old-style right-wing oligarch, he is unmistakably within the Brazilian center-left mold: Mr. Capriles pitches himself as an ambitious but pragmatic social reformer committed to ending the Chávez era’s authoritarian excesses.

The rest of Latin America has already been through the ideological battle in which Venezuela remains mired. By and large, other nations have made their choices. The real question in this election is whether Venezuela will join the hemispheric consensus now, or later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His death caused an outpouring of national grief.

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

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

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

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

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

By SIMON ROMERO

Published by the New York Times: August 4, 2012

Latin America seemingly buckles under pressure from outside and inside the continent.

Seemingly – Mercosur is not growing larger as expected. It is made up by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. A reaction t this, under leadership of Brazil and Argentina, Mercosur will increase tariff on imports from non-Mercosur States.

Closer allies of the US – Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, are eying the Pacific region, and tend to get closer business relations with the other side of the Pacific under a Pacific Alliance with US as main pivot. Chile seems to be interested to lead this group so there is less of a Brazil – Mexico competition in Latin America.

The left leaning ALBA States include Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, and some of the Caribbean Islands, while the Caribbean Island States still have their CARICOM that looks to Mexico.

This posting comes about because of our expectation that June 2012 will prove to be an important month for Latin America, considering the Mexican hosts of the G-20, and the Brazilian hosts of RIO+20 – both meetings with potential high power influence  on global economic structure at least in these next few years. Will the US be helpful, or harmful, to the creation of a more united Latin America?

Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas.

Los presidentes de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez; de Cuba, Raúl Castro; de Bolivia, Evo Morales; de Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega; de Haití, Michel Martelly; el primer ministro de Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit; de San Vicente y las Granadinas, Ralph Gonsalves; el premier de Antigua y Barbuda, Winston Baldwin Spencer; y el canciller de Argentina, Héctor Timerman, acordaron celebrar dos reuniones al año, de carácter ordinario.

La Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas, creada hace 7 años por Cuba y Venezuela para fomentar la integración en la región bajo los principios de solidaridad, comercio justo, respeto estricto a la soberanía y complementariedad económica.

Los países que integran el ALBA son: Cuba, Venezuela, Dominica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Antigua y Barbuda, y San Vicente y las Granadinas.

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• In Peru and Argentina, Top U.S. Envoy Promotes Educational Exchange
• U.S. Leaves Diplomatic Posts Vacant in Latin America
• A DREAM Deferred? Looking at the ARMS Act
• Cuba Marks Half-century of U.S. Trade Embargo
• ALBA Meets, Proposes UK Sanctions
• Colombia Seeks Consensus on Cuba Issue before Summit of the Americas
• Last Colombian Paramilitary Chief Captured in Venezuela
• Poll Shows Growing Support for Venezuelan Opposition Frontrunner

• Harper Heads to China to Talk Oil
• Indigenous Protests Rock Panama

América Latina: Cumbre del Alba entre la economía y Las Malvinas.

Infolatam/Efe

Caracas, 5 enero 2012

www.infolatam.com/2012/02/05/america-latina-cumbre-del-alba-entre-la-economia-y-las-malvinas/

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La Alianza Bolivariana  (Alba)  dedicó la jornada a las políticas económicas conjuntas y la posición de apoyo a Argentina, por el caso de las Islas Malvinas, y a Cuba, para presionar su presencia en la próxima Cumbre de las Américas, a la cual no ha sido invitada aún.  El Alba propuso la creación de fondos de reservas del Banco del Alba, al tiempo que el presidenteChávez, aprobó la incorporación del 1% de las reservas internacionales de Venezuela (300 millones de dólares), a la entidad financiera del bloque

Los gobernantes del ALBA acordaron en Caracas la creación de un “espacio económico” y de un fondo de reservas de su banco regional. También se comprometieron a redoblar su apoyo a Haití y a estudiar sanciones contra Londres por el conflicto por las Islas Malvinas que mantiene con Argentina.

Los presidentes de los países del ALBA debatirán esta jornada la entrada de nuevos miembros, con el fin de consolidar sus objetivos integracionistas. Haití, nación que desde 2007 participa en este mecanismo como observador, figura entre las solicitudes de ingreso pleno, interés que fue ratificado por su mandatario,Michel Martelly, para acceder a todos los beneficios que el bloque subregional ofrece.

El canciller de Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, detalló que para los próximos 2 y 3 de marzo se celebrará una Cumbre extraordinaria del ALBA en Haití, a fin de revisar el trabajo planificado en esta cita.

Los jefes de Estado también analizaron la posible incorporación de Suriname y Santa Lucía. De igual manera, debatirán los documentos de trabajo que se desprendieron de las reuniones realizadas por partidos políticos y medios de comunicación de los países que integran la Alianza.

La Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas, creada hace 7 años por Cuba y Venezuela para fomentar la integración en la región bajo los principios de solidaridad, comercio justo, respeto estricto a la soberanía y complementariedad económica.

Los países que integran el ALBA son: Cuba, Venezuela, Dominica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Antigua y Barbuda, y San Vicente y las Granadinas.

UK Press Release: Wednesday 18 January 2012

UK Press Release: Wednesday 18 January 2012

Foreign Secretary William Hague Press Conference in Brazil

Foreign Secretary William Hague has given a press conference this afternoon with his counterpart Antonio Patriota in Brasilia. The full text of his opening remarks is below:

“It is a great pleasure to be here in Brazil at what I think is an optimistic and exciting time in the relations between our countries; and a dramatic period in world affairs. We have had extremely good talks. Of course we are used to speaking together regularly, but it has been very good to have the opportunity to spend some hours talking.

From nuclear proliferation to climate change, global economic governance to security issues, Brazil is a partner of growing and lasting importance to the United Kingdom.

I am here to send a strong signal of British commitment to our relationship with Brazil as well as of warm friendship towards your country and its people;

To pay tribute, as I will do in a speech tomorrow, to your remarkable achievements as a nation, and to explore the many opportunities for closer economic and social ties between our peoples;

And to discuss the pressing range of crises, challenges and opportunities in foreign policy where the Brazil’s distinctive voice and contribution matter greatly.

We know that Brazil’s role in world affairs is set to grow, alongside other emerging economies including others here in Latin America.

We strongly welcome this, and I was pleased to express again Britain’s support for an expanded and more representative UN Security Council including permanent membership for Brazil.

We wish to forge a closer understanding between us on foreign policy as fellow democracies with so many shared values. This will lead we hope to greater practical cooperation across all the issues that matter to both our countries; respecting the fact that we approach some matters from a different perspective, but we should always be able to discuss them in a spirit of friendship and respect as we have today.

So Foreign Minister Patriota and I have had comprehensive, searching and productive discussions across a range of these subjects. I am very grateful to him for his time and his hospitality today.

We discussed the moment of opportunity in the Middle East, where we are seeing the greatest hope for the advancement of human freedom since the end of the Cold War, but also many problems and difficulties.

Both our countries are working bilaterally and through international organisations to support those countries in transition in the region such as Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, where we are in strong agreement about the importance of long term international support while respecting the wishes of the people of those countries.

We agreed that events in the region make progress towards a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more urgent than I ever, and I welcome the talks taking place in Jordan.

We share deep concern about the situation in Syria and welcome the essential role being played by the Arab League.

We spoke about Iran, where of course our countries agree that the consequences of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East would be highly dangerous. We are engaged in intensifying peaceful, legitimate pressure on Iran while being ready at any time to return to serious, meaningful negotiations.

And we discussed the importance of peace and security in the South Atlantic, to which Britain remains committed.

In Britain we are convinced that the best days in our relationship with your country lie ahead of us.

Our back-to-back hosting of the Olympics; our innovative and important cooperation in the fields of sustainable development and the environment – an important subject to address at the Rio 20+ meeting – ; the 10,000 Brazilian students who will study in the UK over the next four years under our ‘Science without borders agreement’; our extensive commercial ties and increasing trade that are benefiting all our citizens; and above all our shared democratic values, give me and our government every hope and confidence in even better times ahead for the relationship with Brazil.

That is why I am here, and that is why we are increasing our diplomatic presence in Brazil, and we have recently opened a new consulate in Recife.

So in that spirit I thank Antonio Patriota, your Foreign Minister, and I look forward to continuing to work with him, and indeed to welcoming him in London whenever he is able to visit.”

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At the UN, the UK Mission highlighted the above speech as follows:

Foreign Secretary: The days of Britain’s retreat from Latin America are over

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has given a speech on UK foreign policy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Selected extracts that may be of most interest to UN correspondents are highlighted in italics below:

“The days of our diplomatic retreat from your region are over. We have begun Britain’s most ambitious effort to strengthen ties with Latin America in 200 years, since the days of Canning.”

“The world has changed profoundly since the end of the Cold War. International relations are no longer dominated by a handful of powerful states that can dictate terms for the rest, and never will be again. That era is over.”

“We are in a new phase in the concert of nations, in which states that have not traditionally dominated or sought dominance have an equal role to play in world affairs.”

“This is change that Britain does not fear, but that we welcome and embrace.”

“In this new global environment our British government is looking further afield for opportunities for our citizens and new ways of working in foreign policy – not replacing our role in Europe and indispensable alliance with the United States, but running alongside them and indeed reinforcing them. Our aim is that the United Kingdom should be at the centre of the networks of the 21st century, including in Latin America.”

“We welcome a stronger role in world affairs for Latin American countries, although where we have our own views over issues such as the Falkland Islands we will always be frank about them. We will always uphold UK sovereignty and the rights of the Islanders to self-determination, while valuing the ability to discuss these issues with Brazil in a framework that respects international law and human rights.”

“We also strongly believe that the institutions of global governance must become more representative, which is why we support reform of the United Nations Security Council including a permanent seat for Brazil.”

“We see it as very much in both our countries’ interests that we develop a strong and equal working relationship in foreign policy; one that reflects today’s world and our many shared values as fellow democracies.”

“We need to develop a better understanding of how to act together when our stable environment is threatened, and how we translate our democratic values into action.”

“As we see it, in Libya limited military force was used to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack and to implement a no-fly zone, only after Colonel Qadhafi had refused to end the violence and when called for by all the countries of the region through the Arab League. It was action that was necessary, legal and right. It was carried on the legal basis of a UN Security Council mandate; it involved working directly with Libya’s neighbours, and it was done without NATO forces on the ground. These conditions – a legal mandate, regional participation and limited objectives – enabled us to be successful. They were consciously based on the lessons learnt not only from Iraq but also from Bosnia, where inaction led to the worst violence in Europe since the Second World War.”

“Military action is always a last resort and can never be without risk. Each country is different and each case must be judged on its merits. But when human life is threatened and peaceful avenues fail, we argue that we must be prepared to intervene in the way best suited to the circumstances and to be able to do so quickly and decisively. “

“So while we do not always draw the same conclusions about the best way to act when human rights at threatened at decisive moments, we have a strong common interest in building a better understanding for the future. Your President recently put forward the concept of ‘responsibility while protecting’ alongside the UN concept of the Responsibility to Protect. We welcome this contribution to the international debate and as I said to Foreign Minister Patriota yesterday, we look forward to discussing it and to finding common ground between our different perspectives.”

“In Syria, we are confronted with an appalling threat to human life and regional stability. Protests by people seeking to claim their human rights and choose democracy and freedom have been met with tanks, snipers, torture and over 5,000 deaths. The deterioration of the system risks not only further casualties but a civil war in the most combustible conflict zone in the world.  It is regrettable that the UN Security Council has been unable to speak out and we urge it to do so now. We welcome the leadership shown by the Arab League and it is vital that efforts are redoubled to support their mission and to achieve a political transition in Syria.”

“2012 could also be a year of crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme. Like Brazil, our objective is to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, which could start an arms race in the region and call into question the very survival of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Britain is seeking a negotiated solution with Iran and is not advocating confrontation. The best chance of averting either a nuclear armed Iran or the potentially devastating consequences of military action is to intensify the legitimate, peaceful pressure on Iran to return to negotiations.”

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In the US business relations with Brazil seem to move on more conventional and Conservative rails.

a special breakfast on:

Brazil: Economic and Political Outlook

Thursday, January 19, 2012

8:00 – 8:30 AM    Registration, Breakfast and Networking
8:30 – 10:00 AM    Panel discussion, Question & Answer

Host:

919 Third Avenue (at 55th Street)
35th Floor
New York City

Moderator:
Paulo Vieira da Cunha, Partner and Head of Research – Emerging Markets, Tandem Global Partners

Speakers:
Murillo de Aragão, Founder, Arko Advice

Monica Baumgarten de Bolle, Economist, Galanto Consultoria

Mauro Léos, VP Senior Credit Officer- Latin America, Sovereign Risk Unit, Moody’s Investors Service

Eduardo Loyo, Managing Partner and Chief Economist, BTG Pactual

The Race for the White House: A Call for a Regionally-based Enlightened Foreign Policy toward Latin America.

November 18, 2011

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow and Fulbright Scholar Robert Works.

 www.coha.org/the-race-for-the-whi…

COHA is based at the Americas Society on Park Avenue, New York City and provides information to business interests in the US – Latin America and Canada region.
As such there is no surprise that as an organization they favor Republicans over Democrats – but are critical of Republicans as well when they do not do enough to promote US  business interests in the region.

This article seems to favor Governor Romney from among the names tossed around in the 2012 race for the US Presidency.

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With a little under a year remaining until the next U.S. presidential election, a coherent and sustainable area policy toward Latin America remains absent from the campaign literature and both presidential parties’ electoral strategies. In fact, a true U.S.-Latin American foreign policy—one that involves succinct initiatives rather than populist rants or ideological outbursts—has yet to be developed in the 21^st century. If one is left to assess the future of U.S.-Latin American foreign policy simply by relying on the last three years of the Obama administration, or the empty rhetoric from the entire Republican field, the future appears rather bleak. Nonetheless, one candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, has detailed a slightly weightier, yet basically ill-informed vision that promotes regional integration and the strengthening of economic ties. His plan is almost entirely dominated by commercial interests and remains in large part focused on securitization. Barely moving beyond a fallow bilateral approach harnessed during the post-World War II years, Romney’s Latin American policy does manage to squeeze out some relatively non-bombastic verbiage.

For his part, President Obama has yet to outline a detailed vision on Latin American issues for his reelection, but the short blurb on the White House policy page indicates a usefully backseat nature that Latin America has held for the current administration. In a few words, U.S. foreign policy toward the region is described by the Democrats as being committed to “a new era of partnership with countries throughout the hemisphere, working on key shared challenges of economic growth and equality, energy and climate futures, and regional and citizen security.” The Obama administration can point to the recent passage of the free trade agreements, negotiated during the Bush administration, to complement this short, rhetorical ‘vision,’ but other than that, the administration’s foreign policy toward Latin America has been frail, if not exiguous.

In defense of President Obama, the Bush Doctrine ignored Latin America as well, but far-right figures in the region were relatively successful in attracting U.S. resources as well as favorable treatment by constructing their foreign policies beneath the umbrella of a specious war on terrorism. While  Colombia (through Plan Colombia) and to a lesser degree Mexico (through the Merida Initiative) successively gained U.S. attention and resources, the newly achieved backing only sought to strengthen the overall security capacity of these anti-drug forces in return for supporting the U.S. global securitization policy. A definitive conclusion regarding the success of this policy has not yet been reached, but the need for a regional vision that would promote strong ties to the U.S. and create regional integration has always been in process.

Thus far, there has been only one plan worthy of a conceptualization being offered to the region that even considers such an approach to Latin American policymaking. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is generally considered intermittently to be Republican frontrunner, and who is running close with President Obama in national polls, has recently laid out a 43-page document detailing his vision for U.S. foreign policy. In a formidable feat for Republican regional policymakers, he actually presents (if nothing more) to address a vision for Latin America, promoting regional integration, over the current bilateral approach directed primarily toward Washington’s allies in the War on Terrorism.

Romney, advised by a committee professedly oriented toward Latin America and headed by a series of pro forma old hands with tired notions, as well as some academics and respectable diplomats, details the creation of a regional institution called the Campaign for Economic Opportunity in Latin America (CEOLA), in order to promote “a vigorous public diplomacy and trade promotion effort in the region.” If this program’s goals remain the same, its specific details will remain vague and uninspiring; that said, the mere offer of such a new template contrasts sharply with the approaches currently being proposed by other candidates and the Obama administration, which has hardly done better in offering much and delivering little. In any case, Romney unsurprisingly presents a heavily business-tilted regional approach to integration that claims to promote a more democratic and economically responsive Latin America. His plan appears to follow the neo-liberal model based on institutionalism, which asserts that U.S. interests are better served through multilateralism and regionalism rather than through bilateralism.

If CEOLA seeks to achieve the creation of a new regional forum integrating South America with Central and North America, a bona fide U.S.-Latin American relationship could be developed in the process. The Romney formula provides a meager platform to discuss a wide array of issues from securitization to economic policy, as well as a methodology that could allow states to develop their own regional approaches for improving records on human rights, alleviating poverty, and other issues plaguing Latin America. The region, once consolidated and integrated, could also pursue a universal approach toward justice, utilizing transnational courts that adhere to cultural and legal traditions while also addressing the shortcomings of fledgling criminal justice systems that characterize the region. If it is unsuccessful however, such a system could add to the region’s woes brought on by endemic corruption.

Obviously, the ultimate success of Romney’s regional policy would rely on a variety of factors, including the level of activism on the part of the U.S. in the development of hemispheric initiatives. Washington must only be involved in the initial creation of big policy and have no greater power than carrying out a formal advisory role. CEOLA would symbolically represent a comprehensive, if not a bold approach for a new path forward in the 21^st century, but not an interventionist one. At this point the Romney plan is sufficiently multifaceted to provide him with significant wiggle room, if this is what is really sought. This is not to argue that the post-9/11 policies of securitization are not in need of being replaced by a more developed, regional vision for Latin America. Only the development of a new institution would provide the possibility for new directions with specific goals that are widely accepted.

To his supporters, Romney is the only candidate that has offered a regional vision for Latin America, albeit one at risk of being more of pap and treacle than of sounder stuff. Ironically, it may be more suitable for regimes that are not likely to easily tolerate U.S. intervention of any sort, and have an increasing demand for Latin American sovereignty, to pick and choose their own policies.  President Obama should embrace such a move in order to establish a more integrated, equal, and just Western hemisphere.  Until a new plan that moves beyond securitization is realized, Latin America will remain in the backwaters of policymaking and under the canopy of an overreaching U.S. foreign policy.

In any case, the time for a renewed U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America is not only long overdue, but is also being demanded by the region here and now. Mitt Romney has at least presented a starting point for a 21^st century foreign policy that will likely go nowhere.  As wobbly as it is, the other candidates, including the president, could do far more, but will at least have a modest road to build upon with this model.

to open the UN General Assembly. “It is with personal humility, but with my justified pride as a woman, that I meet this historic moment,” said Rousseff as she opened the general debate. “I share this feeling with over half of the human beings on this planet who, like myself, were born women and who, with tenacity, are occupying the place they deserve in the world. I am certain that this will be the century of women.”   —-    Rousseff can also be found on the cover of this week’s Newsweek, with a profile by Mac Margolis.

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l aunched the Open Government Partnership (OGP) while in New York on Tuesday. The OGP’s goal is to give citizens tools to monitor   elected leaders and achieve more transparent governance. Mexico is one of the additional six founding members and other Latin American countries that have pledged to sign on to the partnership are: Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and Uruguay.
“This is a smart program for U.S. policy in the hemisphere and a great leadership role for Brazil to play,” reports Bloggings by Boz, who links to commitments and plans from Brazil, Mexico, and the United States.

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Colombia, a member of the Security Council, is very important in this because an attempt is being made to negate to the Palestinians a simple majority in the SEcurity Council in order to avoid a US veto.
This attempt revolves around three Member States and Colombia is one of them.  Rather then attending President Obama’s speech to the General Assembly, Mr. Netanyahu  was at that time in a meeting with the President of Colombia promoting such a move.

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drilling for oil in the Florida Straits between the Florida Keys and Cuba as early as mid-December. It is estimated Cuba may hold anywhere from 5 billion to 20 billion barrels of oil in offshore reserves.

In a piece for CNN’s Global Public Square program and blog, Fareed Zakaria warns: “Our trade embargo on Cuba not only prevents us from doing business with our neighbor but it also bars us from sending equipment and expertise to help even in a crisis. So, if there is an explosion, we will watch while the waters of the Gulf Coast get polluted.”

We watched that program on Sunday, September 18th and it is crystal clear that the US has now to end the embargo on Cuba. We know that election season in the US has just started – but it seems that moves by President Obama on this issue would be right in place and would improve relations within the Western Hemisphere where all countries now side with Cuba.

Climate Action has been produced in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) from its launch in 2007, to encourage businesses and organisations – both large and small – to reduce their carbon footprint, highlighting that environmentally responsible operations can also be profitable.

Produced to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) held in December of each year, the launch edition was distributed in Bali in 2007, the second edition in Poznan in 2008, and the third edition of Climate Action was released at COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark on December 7-18 2009. Now there will be the Fourth edition for Cancun.

“This publication sets out a number of actions that organizations and governments can take… backed up by clear examples of how reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved.”
Ban Ki-moon , UN Secretary General

By going to the following website you get all published four books – since the 2007 launch – including the just-in-time 2010 book.
 www.climateactionprogramme.org

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As we have already said earlier  at www.SustainabiliTank.info – we believe that the future of Climate Change is in the hands of Global Business, we are not cynic about these cocktail events, but we know that without clear Washington and Beijing signals really very little will be achieved in practice – so the World after the November 2, 2010 US elections may be under sand-clouds even more then it was until now.
So, in practice, these cocktails might be the only justification for holding the Cancun party – and we recommend – please go to the Cocktail event – if you happen to be in Cancun.

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Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme said of Climate Action at its launch;

“I am pleased to confirm that the United Nations Environment Programme is working in partnership with Sustainable Development International to produce Climate Action.

This book and accompanying website will encourage and assist governments and business to lower greenhouse gas emissions, while also informing them how they can adapt to the impacts of climate change. With articles and features by authoritative authors from governments, intergovernmental organisations, civil society and the private sector, the book will include practical ‘Actions’ – steps that companies and governments can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

Climate Action will promote stakeholder dialogue between government and industry, and highlight the sharing of best practice, and new technologies and initiatives. It will also raise awareness of the latest market trends, threats and opportunities in response to climate change.

Distributed widely to governments, think-tanks, environmental organisations, businesses, fund managers and business associations, Climate Action will be particularly valuable in highlighting the widespread benefits to society which will derive from reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I encourage you to support this most timely and important initiative.”

The groups of Business participants that will circle UNEP at Cancun are:

Part of  the “Energy and Capital” Weekend Edition.

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He writes – I can’t start this Weekend Edition without mentioning one of the hottest investment videos of the year…

It’s about a 75-cent company making big waves in the nuclear industry — importing Korean reactors, selling nuclear desalination units, and more.

As it happens, nuclear is actually a very relevant topic this week, illustrating the fierce dichotomy of the current energy market.

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In South America, Argentina was once a pioneer in the nuclear industry, opening the first plant there in 1974. But the country’s ambitious plans stalled — as did most — after the Chernobyl disaster.

Now, with a new generation of reactors ready for deployment worldwide, Argentina is once again turning to nuclear…

The country just finished a long-stalled third plant and will build two more by 2025, when it aims to get 15% of its power from nuclear.

Argentina will also resume domestic uranium mining and start a program to enrich it, making it only one of five countries that has access to soup-to-nuts nuclear energy production. So keep an eye out for plays from that area.

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Even in Germany — home to the world’s largest solar market and third-largest wind market — nuclear is making a comeback.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition has agreed to extend the operating life of the country’s 17 nuclear plants by an average of 12 years.

It was good new for utilities, since they won’t have to spend capital to build new capacity. And the three largest in Germany — E.ON (XETRA: EOAN), RWE (XETRA: RWEA), and EnBW (XETRA: EBK) — were each up sharply on the news.

Opponents of the plan say it will take away from the country’s expansion of renewable energy…

But in a time of fiscal uncertainty, decisions boil down to cost. And right now, nuclear is still cheaper in Germany.

For a variety of analyst opinions on the matter, check out this report from Reuters.

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Also in Europe, Lithuania has invited bids to build a nuclear plant to reduce its dependence on Russian energy imports. The contract is estimated at around $6 billion, and will be open to bidding from five shortlisted companies.

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And the last nuclear news this week comes to us from Kuwait — a country I’ve already covered this week.  OPEC’s fifth-biggest producer, it’s announced plans to build four nuclear reactors by 2022.

This should be viewed as another step Middle Eastern countries are taking to protect their dwindling oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia has already announced nuclear plans, and the UAE bought 4 of the very same reactors discussed in this video from the Koreans for $20 billion.

The week before Labor Day we were traveling along the coast of Upper New England along the stretch from Lynn and Marblehead North of Boston in Massachusetts, through Cape Ann, Plum Island, the shores of New Hampshire and up to Kennebunkport in Maine. That was the route that Hurricane Earl was expected to take – but Earl the Good did us no harm.
I intend to write about stops on that trip, and the rather good conditions in the States we visited, but this posting deals instead with global issues – what I found going over the papers upon return to New York.

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What surprised me was the fact that though mentioned as details in the papers, the underlying reality that struck me seemed to be an issue with  a common link that no paper mentioned – something we feel is the start of the demise of the WTO construct – that colossus of World Trade Organization that is being hailed as the epitome of global international structure that everyone was supposed to strive to get in through its doors – an achievement that was going to reward States for good behavior. But first what struck me was The Financial Times note that gave away the reality -  seemingly Russia has decided that it just makes no sense to them to allow the outside world to dictate to them rules of behavior.

Russia has suffered because of the climate change effects from severe drought and decreased yield of wheat – so Russia simply closed its doors to those that want to buy its wheat as Mr. Putin does not want riots because of shortages of buckwheat. He knows that we will call this interference with free trade, but he decided that the chaff of free trade is rubbish if it causes foreseeable difficulties yo his leadership.

But that was just the beginning. Russia also closed the door to imports of cars by way of tariffs – a clear no-no with WTO. And why did they do that? Simple enough – they want investments in Russia for manufacturing cars inside Russia and eventually they will get their way.

China is even more important – it clearly does what it wants with impunity and the WTO label is plainly superfluous. Yes or no – Hugo Boss – the German fashion house has announced that it will open 100 stores in China to add to the 450 stores it owns globally now, and the further 150 stores it will open by 2015 outside China. This is a neat increase and clear vote of confidence in the growing Chinese middle class.

The US talks tough to China in public but sent high level delegations to China to reach all sorts of agreements so it will not be outplayed in business terms by others. Lawrence Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council and Thomas Donilon the Deputy National Security Adviser came to Beijing to fashion “new pacts” – a nice combination of the tough and the economic. We will clearly not know exactly what they talked about, but we assume that it finally doomed on Washington that wage increases in China so the Middle Class becomes faster a buying class – is more of a win-win situation then pushing the Chinese to increase the exchange rate in order to become less competitive with their exports. In the end, we trust that the Chinese, like the Russians, will do what is best for them according to their own internal calculations. WTO is not part of these calculations and it will be the US that will have to adjust when talking to the Chinese bankers – China having become the lender that allows the US to live above its means while still keeping some control over the money-printing presses. To top this – Bill Gates and Warren Buffet also went to China – this seemingly to suggest to the Chinese tycoons to recycle some of their gains as philanthropies and this then becomes a second route on the same road to help the earning power of the lower classes in China.

Similarly, India has restricted its exports of cotton and other raw materials, provided incentives for inflow of investments and watched its stockmarkets out perform those of the other fast developing markets.

Proof to this booming – non WTO related Asian growth – Julius Baer, the Swiss private bank, has moved to double its Asian assets to 20-25% of its total in the next 5 years as it recruits new staff and opens more offices in the region. The bank has identified Asia as its second “home market” after Europe. They will have offices in Hong Konk, Shanghai, and Singapore – the latter with a new office space for 700 people.

And if all of the above is not enough – here comes Brazil – the champion of them all that used to fight the US at WTO on ethanol fuel issues and agricultural produce. Now they do not bother with this way of time waste. They have it too good to need it.

Petrobras, the Brazilian energy champion is making a global offering of shares in the $32 Billion range with investment plans of $224 Billion. The Wall Street Journal’s BUZZ mentions even Share Sales of $65 Billion! – The above is the highest issue of shares ever – period. This week I participated at two events of the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, one of them a Day of Independence reception, and the other an evaluation of the capital markets and Brazilian tax laws for US investments in Brazil – and both events were gang-ho.

Further, a trio of Brazilian billionaires, the folks that took the Brahma beer company and built InBev that eventually bought Anheuser-Busch to become a global beverage Brazilian-run power house – they just announced that they are buying the Burger King US corporation to get a taste of the US fast-food business. And what does this mean to Brazilian beef imports to the US?
In any case – later this year, Brazilian-born Bernardo Hees, a railroad executive, will go from managing shippments of grain to bringing burgers to new markets around the world as the new CEO of Burger King Holdings Inc. once 3G Capital Management Inc. completes the $3.3 Billion leveraged buyout of the chain.

Let us see – with the WTO Brazil achieved nothing because the US cattlemen were able to hide behind sanitary issues, and I understand that only specialty meets like corn beef were allowed into the US. Not like the ethanol case where doors were closed with tariffs. You go to a Brazilian Churrascaria, or an Argentinian place in New York, and you get Australian grass-fed beef because the Latin variety is not allowed. What will the new Burger King owners say to this? Watch out – we predict some interesting protracted new actions and eventual political give and take!

OK, so will there be any loss if the WTO is allowed to disintegrate? After all – it was established as a tool by the industrialized countries to control commerce with the commodity countries – to the detriment of the latter and the net result that it interfered with the industrialization process as well as with the development of indigenous agriculture to feed the developing country.

What kind of “Free Trade” was it anyway – when banana producers were not free to export to the banana consumers they would have loved to reach?

Now, with such powerhouses like China, Brazil, India, and still reluctance to allow for their full participation in the system of preferences in mutual trade, more of these countries will return to write their own laws, and those that did not become members of the club will simply lose interest in it.

I think this was the real Earl I felt following last week.

We had posted the following on September 6, 2010 and the UPDATE is a result of our having listened to the September 10 presentation. Besides this update we expect to follow up further as we see high potential in the ideas presented here.

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venue: 8:00am (presentation begins at 8:30am) at Dickstein Shapiro, LP, 1633 Broadway, 32nd floor, btwn 50^th & 51^st streets

date; Friday, September 10, 2010 New York City.

An exciting company that is generating revenues today, and has a prototype fuel cell car that can operate with our current refueling infrastructure.

The Metha Energy Solution’s fuel cell car, which was unveiled at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit,  will be able to fill up your tank with methanol at your local service station and get the kind of driving performance you have today—in driving range, acceleration, average speed and “refill time”—but with 70% fewer CO2 emissions.

Metha Energy Solutions Inc. (soon to become Metha Serenergy Inc.) is a publicly-listed US company, stock symbol: MGYS.OB. Its fuel cell technology is currently generating revenues in the backup power and remote power generation markets.

Metha Energy’s fuel cell technology improves over hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles because they don’t carry heavy batteries and  refill with fuel rapidly. Also, they avoid the on-board hydrogen storage problem that plagued earlier hydrogen vehicles by integrating the reformer into the fuel cell modules.

All this is based on a breakthrough for the future energy-supply chain.  These are high-temperature proton-exchange membrane air-cooled fuel cells, which deliver energy efficiency up to 50%, a figure more than double that of a traditional combustion engine. Metha Serenergy has already received initial orders from European vehicle and US non-vehicle customers. And their fuel cells have been proven to operate for more than 5,000 hours according to the vehicle industry standards.

Metha Serenergy Inc.’s current revenues come from the sale of its fuel cells to the military for transportable light for air strips and telecom backup. Immediate target markets include IT back-up, data centers, servers, cell phone antenna backup, remote monitoring, traffic control signaling and off-road transportation.

Metha Serenergy is currently raising US $ 2 million.

Register by sending an email to donna@ceepinc.org You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your contact information.  Please bring payment of $50 to the program.

Call-ins are available. Specify call-in in your email to Donna and send her a check or request a credit card form for the $25 fee.

Gelvin Stevenson, Ph.D.
Program Director

Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc.
212-222-4369, 917-599-6089

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David J. P. Meachin, a Director of Metha Energy Solutions Inc. www.methaenergy.com (MGYS – OTC), a US company deploying Danish technology focused on commercializing innovative fuel cell technology for the transportation and off-grid markets. He is Vice Chairman of the University of Cape Town Fund in New York and a Director and past Chairman of the British American Educational Foundation. He is an Advisory Board Member of Structured Credit International Corp. (SCIC) and an Advisory Board Member of the South African Chamber of Commerce America (SACCA). Prior to his founding Cross Border Enterprises in 1991, he was Managing Director, Investment Banking Division, Merrill Lynch & Company in New York. He is based in New York and is in the process of birthing the Metha Serenergy Inc. that will be marketing the Danish product – the Metha patented Fuel Cells that can be used in stationary situations as well as a source for mobile energy needs – such as motor vehicles.

Jasper Toft of Denmark, CEO and founder of Metha Energy Solutions Inc., made the power-point presentation at the breakfast.

Fuel cells operate best on pure hydrogen. But fuels like natural gas, methanol, or even gasoline can be reformed to produce the hydrogen required for fuel cells. Some fuel cells even can be fueled directly with methanol, without using a reformer.

Considering that all that talk of using directly hydrogen as energy fuel has really not led to much as practical results, the idea of using a known liquid fuel in conjunction with a stack of fuel cells instead is very attractive. From all the hydrogen containing liquids – methanol is the most attractive. We know many ways to produce methanol – some of the feed-stocks for methanol are cellulosics and the needed energy can come from wind or solar. In effect the production of methanol can be the way to store excess renewable energy obtained at times of lowest demand for electricity. Methanol produced this way has no fossil CO2 liabilities – it sounds like the ideal 21st century fuel. Furthermore, ethanol – the carbohydrates turned to fuel via fermentation – has the inherent problem as being tackled for using edibles as feedstock. The search for ways of breaking down cellulosics like agricultural wastes and wood chips to fermentable sugars has not yielded yet an industry – again – using these materials to make methanol instead would seem a natural outcome.

In the future, hydrogen could also join electricity as an important energy carrier. An energy carrier moves and delivers energy in a usable form to consumers. Renewable energy sources, like the sun and wind, can’t produce energy all the time. But they could, for example, produce electric energy and methanol, which can be stored until it’s needed. This also can avoid the talk of storing the energy as hydrogen.

As said – this is just an appetizer or a post talk UPDATE and we expect to get further information that we will share on www.SustainabiliTank.info As of now – let me say that hearing the presentation – we suggested to the hosts that the SER they intend to use in their name should stand for:

SIMPLICITY of their technical product,

EFFICIENCY as they claim a three times higher efficiency then the internal combustion engine,

and RELIABILITY – this because of the potential of using various liquid fuels – the aspect that already caught the eye of the US D.O.D. that already 25 years ago, well ahead of US D.O.E., has looked into alternative fuels – ethanol, methanol and CNG as fuels to the military internal combustion engines. Moving to fuel cells as means to use electric engines requires a change of structure, but opens the way to a variety of inputs. In effect, captive fleets such as in the military or taxi and bus industries are natural first clients for these new mechanisms.

China Wants Business with Latin America.
By Mitch Moxley

BEIJING, Aug 18, 2010 (IPS) – China, now the world’s second largest economy with a ferocious appetite for resources, is aggressively strengthening relations with Latin American countries, but this has not been without roadblocks.

According to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), released in May, China will displace the European Union as the region’s second largest trading partner by the middle of 2011. Latin American countries are actively exploring cooperative arrangements with China in the fields of mining, energy, agriculture, infrastructure and science and technology, the report said.

China has in recent years diversified its investment in Latin America, from natural resources to manufacturing and the services industry, according to a July report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Latin American Studies. China’s interest in Latin America ranges from oil from Venezuela to timber from Guyana and soybeans from Brazil.

Zhang Sengen, executive director of the Institute of Chinese International Economic Relations, said Latin America has dual appeal for China: It has abundant resources, which are needed to fuel China’s future growth, and it is a huge market for Chinese products – with 560 million consumers and a combined Gross Domestic Product of 4 trillion U.S. dollars.

“Latin America is a very attractive spot for Chinese investment,” Zhang said.

China’s foreign direct investment in Latin America reached 24.8 billion dollars in 2008, making up 14.6 percent of China’s total foreign direct investment, according to figures from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. Meanwhile, Latin American investment in China hit 112.6 billion dollars, roughly 14 percent of the total foreign capital China absorbed.

Exports from Latin American countries to China are expected to reach 19.3 percent of the total by 2020, up from 7.6 percent in 2009, according to the ECLAC report.

China has prided itself on what it calls a “win-win” relationship with Latin America, in which the region sells China raw materials, such as copper, iron and oil, while Latin American countries receive goods from China, including mobile phones and cars.

But relations have not been altogether smooth. Across the region, a growing wariness about trade with China has also been emerging.

In Brazil and Argentina, manufacturers have accused China of dumping products in their markets, prompting new tariffs on some Chinese importers. Other countries worry about China’s aggressive efforts to win access to energy reserves.

In Peru, a state-owned Chinese company has faced a nearly two-decade long revolt from mine workers, featuring repeated strikes, clashes with police and arson attacks, ‘The New York Times’ reported earlier in August. Disputes at the mine, founded in 1992 by steelmaker Shougang Corp, focus on wages, environmental damage and the company’s treatment of local residents.

Wang Peng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Latin American Studies, said Chinese companies in Latin America need to do proper risk assessment and better protect the local environment. “There are more NGOs in other countries than in China, and many of them focus on environmental protection,” Wang told IPS. “If our companies violate local environmental laws, no wonder tension happens.”

Despite the problems, relations continue to develop. In April, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Brazil, a move that was heralded in China’s state media as a significant step in cementing relations with Latin America.

“China and Latin American countries, all as developing countries, share extensive common interest. China has always attached great importance to its relations with these countries,” Vice Foreign Minister Li Jinzhang said at a press conference in April, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.

During the meetings, Brazil and China inked a joint action plan for 2010 to 2014 and reached agreements in the fields of culture, energy, finance, science and technology and product quality inspection, according to Xinhua.

China is Brazil’s largest trading partner and biggest export market. Trade with Chile, China’s second largest trading partner in the region, reached a record 17.7 billion dollars in 2009.

Oil-rich Venezuela is China’s fifth largest trading partner in Latin America with a trade volume of 7.15 billion dollars in 2009. In March that year, Su Zhenxing, director of the CAAS’s Institute of Latin American Studies, told ‘Beijing Business Today’ that Latin America will become a leading strategic provider of crude oil.

Jiang Shixue, vice president of the Chinese Association of Latin American Studies and deputy director-general of the Chinese Centre for the Third World Studies, said China’s interest in Latin America is not just economic, but also political.

Of the 23 countries in the world that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, 12 are in Latin America. China can gain leverage over these countries through investment incentives, Jiang said.

New data shows Brazil is now the world’s fourth largest consumer of automobiles, reports AméricaEconomia. Brazil trails only China, the United States, and Japan in cars bought. Along with growing demand, Brazil expects greater investment in the industry. Volkswagen has announced plans to invest $3.4 million in 2014, Ford $2.5 million between 2011 and 2015, and General Motors $1.6 million between 2010 and 2012. Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento (BNDES) also announced $17 million to construct new plants for Toyota and Hyundai in São Paulo.

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Hotels Help Brazil’s Boom

Financial Times’ Beyond BRICs blog reports that, despite a modest drop in hotel occupancy at Brazilian hotels, guests are spending more money and generating greater revenue for the industry. “I don’t know if this is international or in Latin America in general,” said Ricardo Mader, executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels. “But it has everything to do with the growth of the [Brazilian] economy and the growth of buying power.” In 2009, guests at Brazilian hotels spent an average of $63 for a room, up 7.7 percent from the previous year.

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Brazilian and Chilean Airlines Merge into Biggest LatAm Carrier

LAN Chile and Brazil’s TAM Linhas Aereas agreed on a $3.7 billion merger to become Latin America’s biggest carrier by market value, with a combined 115 destinations in 23 countries. The new company, called LATAM Airlines Group SA, will be headed by former LAN CEO Enrique Cueto.

Be’chol Lashon is the Hebrew for “In Every Tongue” and it advocates for the Growth & Diversity of the Jewish People. Today Jews come indeed in every color and every stripes and some leaders do the outreach to embrace them all. Just look at Dr. Lewis Gordon of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Mr. Romiel Daniel of Queens, New York, The head of Jews of India in our region, Dr. Ephraim Isaac, of the institute for Semitic Studies. They do not look like your stereotype Jew. I met them and was impressed – the latter actually for the first time as we both visited Addis Ababa at the time of the delayed Ethiopian Millennium. Then Rabbi Hailu Paris with his communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Ethiopian born and graduae of Yeshiva University, and his Assistant Monica Wiggan (www.blackjews.org/Essays/RabbiParisEthiopianTrip.html), and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda from whom I got a very distinctive kippah with the menorah – of the old temple worked in. Then Dr. Rabson Wuriga of the Hamisi Lemba clan in South Africa and Zimbabwe and so on – in Nigeria, in Peru, in India, in China.

And who has not heard by now of the present White House Rabbi – Cappers Funnye – the cousin of Michelle Obama – and associate director of Bechol Lashon and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nei Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago?

The New York regional director of DiverseJews.org is Lacey Schwartz who is also National Outreach Director of BecholLashon.org, assisted by Collier Meyerson and to top it all Davi Cheng, Director of the Los Angeles region is Jewish, Chinese, and Lesbian. As I said it is all a new image of the Jew.

Last night, at the Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St., NYC there was a Shemspeed Summer Music Festival event.

The two further upcoming events in New York will be on:

Monday, August 2nd – the Shemspeed Hip Hop Fest at Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleeker Street NYC Featuring Tes Uno, Ted King & guest Geng Grizlee and others with CD Release parties for “A Tribe Called Tes” and “Move On.”

Thursday, August 5th – Shemspeed Jewish Punk Fest at Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street, NYC Featuring Moshiach Oil & The Groggers.

info on each event above and at shemspeed.com/fest

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A Jewish Woman Living in Ethiopia

Rethinking How U.S. Jews Fund Communities Around the World.

The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010

For more than half a century, North America’s Jewish federation system has divided its overseas allocations between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Jewish Agency has been dedicated to building up Israel and encouraging aliyah, while the Joint has focused on aiding Jewish communities in need around the globe.

Today, both agencies are working to assert their continued relevance in a changing Jewish world. With aliyah slowing, the Jewish Agency is moving toward embracing a new agenda: promoting the concept of Jewish peoplehood. The JDC, meanwhile, has sought to claim a larger share of the communal pie, which had long been split 75%-25% in the Jewish Agency’s favor.

After a recent round of sniping over the funding issue, the two sides are now stepping back from their public confrontation and recommitting to negotiations over the future of the collective funding arrangement. Underlying this fight, however, is a more fundamental tension over communal funding priorities: Should overseas aid be focused on helping needy Jews and assisting communities that have few resources of their own, or should it be used to bolster Jewish identity?

With this debate raging, the Forward asked a diverse group of Jewish thinkers and communal activists from around the world to weigh in and address the following question: How should North America’s Jewish community be thinking about its priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad?

New Century, New Priorities

By Yossi Beilin

During the 20th century, the challenges facing world Jewry were the following: rescue of Jews who encountered existential danger, assistance to Israel, helping with the absorption of those who immigrated to new countries and opening the gates for those who were denied the right to emigrate. In the 21st century, ensuring Jewish continuity is the greatest challenge facing the Jewish people.

Yet too often Jewish organizations in the United States and elsewhere remain focused on the challenges of the previous century. (Indeed, Jewish groups were not very receptive when I first proposed the idea for Birthright Israel 17 years ago.)

Ensuring the existence of Jewish life (religious and secular) throughout the world via Jewish education, encounters between young Israeli and Diaspora Jews, creating a virtual Jewish community using new technologies — these must be at the top of the global Jewish agenda. This requires American Jewish philanthropy and leadership, which in turn requires discerning between past and present priorities.

Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister of Israel, is president of the international consulting firm Beilink.

Reviving Polish Jewry

By Konstanty Gebert

The rebirth of Central European Jewish communities after 1989, though numerically not very impressive, remains significant for moral and historical reasons. It is also crucial for Jewish self-understanding. An enormous proportion of American Jews can trace their origins to what used to be Poland alone. This is where much of Diaspora history happened.

Alongside the courage and determination of local Jews, the far-sighted support of several American Jewish organizations and philanthropies made this rebirth possible. In Poland the Joint Distribution Committee, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation played key roles. Their support has translated not only into Jewish schools and festivals in places once believed to be Jewish-ly dead, but also in most cases into changed relations between local Jewish communities and their fellow citizens as well as clear support for Israel on the part of these countries’ governments.

Yet for all this progress, Central European Jewish communities might never become self-financing. The support given them by American Jewry remains a vital Jewish interest. It must be strengthened.

Konstanty Gebert, a former underground journalist, is a columnist at the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and founder of the Polish-language Jewish monthly Midrasz.

What We Give Ourselves

By Lisa Leff

More than any Jewish community in history, postwar American Jews have used our prosperity to help Jewish communities around the world. On one level, the greatest beneficiaries of this support have been Jews abroad. But we should also recognize that these philanthropic efforts have shaped our communal values and identity.

Through our international aid, we have dedicated ourselves to universalist and cosmopolitan ideas like tikkun olam and solidarity across borders. In helping disadvantaged and oppressed Jews abroad, we have also deepened our community’s commitments to democracy, human rights and economic justice for all. It’s only natural that Jewish groups pitch in on Haitian earthquake relief and advocate on behalf of oppressed people of all backgrounds.

Whatever the outcome of the federations’ deliberations over how to divide allocations between the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, it is imperative that American Jewry maintain its commitment to our values through supporting international philanthropy.

Lisa Leff is an associate professor of history at American University and the author of “Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France” (Stanford University Press, 2006).

Putting Identity First

By Jonathan S. Tobin

The choices we face are not between good causes and bad or even indifferent ones but between vital Jewish obligations. But since the decline in giving to Jewish causes means that we must make tough decisions, programs that reinforce Jewish identity and support Zionism both in the Diaspora and in Israel must be accorded a higher priority.

At this point in our history, with assimilation thinning the ranks of Diaspora Jewry and with continuity problems arising even in Israel, the need to instill a sense of membership in the Jewish people is an imperative that cannot be pushed aside. Under the current circumstances, absent an effort that will make Jewish and Zionist education the keynote of our communal life, the notion that Jewish philanthropies or support for Israel can be adequately sustained in the future is simply a fantasy.

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.

Collective Responsibility

By Richard Wexler

One cannot have a meaningful discussion about framing the national Jewish community’s priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad without first asking the question: Is there actually a collective “North American Jewish community” today?

Collective responsibility has been and remains the foundation upon which the federation system and, therefore, the national Jewish community are built. It is what distinguishes the federations from all other charities. It is embodied in our participation in the adventure of building Israel and in meeting overseas needs through the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, in the dues that federations pay to the Jewish Federations of North America and so much more. But today, federations “bowl alone.”

Collective responsibility gives meaning to kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh — all Jews are responsible for one another. Until federations understand once again that Jewish needs extend beyond the borders of any one community, we cannot have a meaningful priority-setting process for funding Jewish needs abroad.

Richard Wexler is a former chairman of the United Israel Appeal.

Originally published here: www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/rethinking-how-u-s-jews-fund-communities-around-the-world-1.292527

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Rabbi Gershom Sizomu and Be’chol Lashon director Diane Tobin at the opening of the Health Center.

Gary Tobin’s Legacy Lives on in New Ugandan Health Center

By Amanda Pazornik

The J Weekly
Published: July 22, 2010

On the day of the grand opening of the Tobin Health Center in Mbale, Uganda, health professionals were already hard at work treating patients inside.

The center was open for business, but that didn’t slow down the lively June 18 celebration, which featured song and dance performances and speakers. About 3,000 people gathered at the center’s grounds to mark the occasion.

Seated under colorful tents was Diane Tobin, director of S.F.-based Be’chol Lashon and wife of the late Gary Tobin, for whom the center is named, along with three of their children, Aryeh, Mia and Jonah.

“Everyone was amazing, friendly and so generous of spirit,” said Tobin, who was visiting Uganda and its Abayudaya Jewish community for the first time. “They were so appreciative of having the center and demonstrated a tremendous willingness to work together. It’s a great model for the rest of the world.”

Andrew Esensten, Be’chol Lashon program coordinator, and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews and the first chief rabbi of Uganda, joined them, in addition to government and medical officials, and representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.

The Tobin Health Center is named for Gary Tobin, the founder of the S.F.-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research, of which Be’chol Lashon (“In Every Tongue”) is an initiative. Tobin died one year ago after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

“He really has left a legacy,” said Debra Weinberg of Baltimore, who attended the opening with her husband, Joe, and their 14-year-old son, Ben. The couple also helped fund the project. “I think he would feel deeply comforted to know it’s improving the lives of people.”

The 4,000-square-foot facility is a major component of the ongoing Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project undertaken by the Abayudaya Executive Council and Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit that reaches out to Jews of color and helps educate the mainstream community about Jewish diversity.

It cost approximately $250,000 to erect the two-story center, using donations collected over five years. While patients pay for their services, continuous fundraising is a necessity, Tobin said.

Construction began in July 2009, enabling more than 50 Africans from diverse ethnic backgrounds to earn a living.

Stars of David are featured in the window grids, ceilings and floors of the health center, a “lovely expression of their Judaism,” Tobin said. Private rooms make up most of the top floor, with patient wards on the ground floor. A mezuzah is affixed to every door.

A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.

“It’s so heartwarming,” Diane Tobin said of the visual tribute. “Gary would be so honored to have this health center in the middle of Africa named after him.”

Prior to the opening of the Tobin Health Center, the nearest medical facility to the Abayudaya Jews was Mbale Hospital, an overcrowded and understaffed institution not accessible to all the residents of the region. Tobin said there are other clinics in the area, but they lack the preventive health care measures necessary to respond to the community’s needs.

The Tobin Health Center is licensed by the Ministry of Health and is certified to operate a pharmacy and laboratory. It serves all who seek basic medical care in the region, providing life-saving health services and simultaneously creating jobs.

“The goal is to raise the standard of medical care,” Tobin said.

In addition, rental units on the bottom and top floors of the center will provide more job opportunities for locals. The first business recently opened — a hardware store that sells bags of cement, plumbing equipment and sheet metal — with a beauty salon and video rental outlet in the works.

The center “is rewarding on a number of levels,” said Steven Edwards of Laguna Beach, who, along with his wife, Jill, has been involved with the Abayudaya for six years. “The most obvious is to see this beautiful, clean building. On top of that, local dignitaries noted how lucky Mbale is to have the Jewish community and how much they contribute to the larger community by bringing jobs.”

The Abayudaya Jews comprise a growing, 100-year-old community of more than 1,000 Jews living among 10,000 Christians and Muslims. They live in scattered villages in the rolling, green hills of eastern Uganda. The largest Abayudaya village, Nabagoye, is near Mbale, the seventh-largest city in Uganda and the location of the center.

Research conducted by Be’chol Lashon in 2006 showed that contaminated water and malaria-carrying mosquitoes pose the biggest health risks to the community. A year later, the organization launched the Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project with the drilling of the first well in Nabagoye.

Since then, nearly 1,000 mosquito nets have been purchased and distributed throughout the community.

“Our goal is to respond to the needs of communities,” Tobin said. “If there are other communities that need health centers, we will be there.”

Originally published here: www.jweekly.com/article/full/58727/s.f.-researchers-legacy-lives-on-in-new-ugandan-health-center/