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.

At UN, Evo Morales Denounces IMF, CNN, Old Order as UNCA Demands 1st Question.

By Matthew Russell Lee

• NAME: Juan Evo Morales Ayma
• OCCUPATION: World Leader
• Since 2005 president of Bolivia.

The following is a re-posting of the article of Inner City Press as it was posted by Matthew Lee. I thought to re-post it as I saw it after having just posted about the Press Conference by the Minister from the Marshall Islands, and found high similarity between the Evo Morales event, and my own experience some six years ago when the official UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit (MALU) at the time Gary Fowlie mishandled the Ambassador of Grenada, by telling him he is responsible to escort outside, in person, his guest (that was me) whom he brought along because he wanted to have the climate change issue aired to the outside press.

——

UNITED NATIONS, February 20, 2013 – When Bolivian President Evo Morales held a UN press conference on Wednesday, he was raring to speak about his privatization of airports and natural resources, and “robbery,” as he put it to Inner City Press, by the International Monetary Fund.

It was the trendy grain quinoa that brought Evo Morales to New York, by way of Caracas where he tried to visit bed-ridden Hugo Chavez.

Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access thanked Morales for his press conference, which ended up taking nearly an hour, then asked about corporations and corporate dominance of the UN. Video here from Minute 11:52.

Morales had complained that transnational corporations had tried to block the declaration of the International Year of Quinoa. Inner City Press asked him to name them, and what he thought of corporate involvement in UN programs on water, and on climate change.

Bank of America, for example, has been allowed to put its chairman on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s high level group on sustainable energy for all, despite BofA being the biggest funder of mountain top removal coal mining.

Morales got into the question, rattling off changes in Bolivia since he became president: increases in the number of Bolivians with bank accounts, the introduction of loans at six percent rather than thirty six percent, increase in reserves.

He called for an investigation of the IMF, how much money it “stole” from Latin America.

He criticized his US counterpart Barack Obama, joking that the only reasons the USA doesn’t have a coup d’etat is that there is no American ambassador inside the US.

But before all this, he was delayed by a demand from a decaying UN partner. Morales called on a Latina reporter for the first question, but got stopped. It was demanded that he call on the UN Correspondents’ Association, which has put its name on the corner front row seat.

Morales shook his head, why? He continued to call on who he’d called on.

[Click here to see the more that one minute UNCA fiasco, video here from Minute 4:55 to 6:05. And see sample letter, below.]

“But it’s tradition,” Evo Morales was told, loudly. Some thought, so was Mubarak. So was colonialism. UNCA has to have a better argument than that — but doesn’t.

Despite this “presence at all briefings” being the first point at the recent annual UNCA meeting run by president Pamela Falk of CBS, she was not there. (Click here for audio of Part 1 of that February 15 UNCA meeting.)

Rather the UNCA seat was taken by a mostly retired Reuters reporter, who for what it’s worth ran for an UNCA seat “at large” and lost. (We note this only because the person has been deployed several times to hiss during briefings that UNCA is “the legitimate group,” and once to on-mic call Inner City Press’ question to the president of ECOSOC, also about the IMF, “ranting.”)

Falk’s first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters insisted that the UNCA seat and question can be filled by ANY member of UNCA.

This has created a situation in which only those who pay dues money to UNCA can get the first question — pay to play.

The first question, so hard won, led nowhere: it parroted a concern raised by Ban Ki-moon. Does UNCA work for Ban Ki-moon, as alleged, essentially the UN Censorship Alliance? It seems so.

After Morales’ long answer to Inner City Press’ question on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA, other questions touched on Syria (Morales said interventions are led by capitalism) and on his standoff with Chile about access to the sea.

Morales chided CNN for calling those arrested by Chile “officials;” he said they are conscripted soldiers. He said some leaders use their countries to make money, or to make money for corporations.

Morales criticized the old order. And in microcosm it was present, in the form of UNCA and its arrogant insistence that it get the first question no matter what.

Its time is over — especially since UNCA spent most of 2012 trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN for stories that it wrote, questioning France, Sri Lanka and conflicts of interest. Its time is over. Watch this site.

Update: correspondence is rolling in from around the world in the hours after the UNCA fiasco. Here is a sample email from Germany:

Subject: UNCA and Morales
From: <____.de>
Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 6:32 PM
To: matthew.lee [at]  innercitypress.com, funca [at]  funca.info

Hi Matthew, I do not agree with everything you write, but I have to tell you today, that UNCA’s behavior at President Morales’ press conference today is a scandal and an embarrassment for the press corps and the UN! I was shocked to see how that lady in seat 1A refused to let the microphone go, almost like kids fighting for a ball. A disgusting performace watched by the whole world!

I truly hope you will succeed in convincing the UN that times have changed and the childish attitude of some UNCA reporters is a shame! How low to refuse a visiting head of state allow the first question to a reporter of his choice !

UNCA is holding the UN hostage. I trust opposition to this situation will grow stronger and sooner or later the UN will have to recognize that their partner is the PRESS and not UNCA !

I was shocked witnessing how that UNCA lady was fighting for the microphone and disregarding the will of President Morales.

You can pass on this my email to whom it may concern at the UN [and beyond, done.]

Best regards
“S.D.”  Munich Germany

[Again, click here to see theUNCA fiasco, video here from Minute 4:55]

Coca Licensing Is a Weapon in Bolivia’s Drug War.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Published in The New York Times: December 26, 2012

President Evo Morales, who first came to prominence as a leader of coca growers, kicked out the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009. That ouster, together with events like the arrest last year of the former head of the Bolivian anti-narcotics police on trafficking charges, led Washington to conclude that Bolivia was not meeting its global obligations to fight narcotics.

But despite the rift with the United States, Bolivia, the world’s third-largest cocaine producer, has advanced its own unorthodox approach toward controlling the growing of coca, which veers markedly from the wider war on drugs and includes high-tech monitoring of thousands of legal coca patches intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses.

To the surprise of many, this experiment has now led to a significant drop in coca plantings in Mr. Morales’s Bolivia, an accomplishment that has largely occurred without the murders and other violence that have become the bloody byproduct of American-led measures to control trafficking in Colombia, Mexico and other parts of the region.

Yet there are also worrisome signs that such gains are being undercut as traffickers use more efficient methods to produce cocaine and outmaneuver Bolivian law enforcement to keep drugs flowing out of the country.

In one key sign of progress in Bolivia’s approach toward coca, the total acres planted with coca dropped 12 to 13 percent last year, according to separate reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. At the same time, the Bolivian government stepped up efforts to rip out unauthorized coca plantings and reported an increase in seizures of cocaine and cocaine base.

“It’s fascinating to look at a country that kicked out the United States ambassador and the D.E.A., and the expectation on the part of the United States is that drug war efforts would fall apart,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. Instead, she said, Bolivia’s approach is “showing results.”

Still, there is skepticism. “Our perspective is they’ve made real advances, and they’re a long way from where we’d like to see them,” said Larry Memmott, chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in La Paz. “In terms of law enforcement, a lot remains to be done.”

Although Bolivia outlaws cocaine, it permits the growing of coca for traditional uses. Bolivians chew coca leaf as a mild stimulant and use it as a medicine, as a tea and, particularly among the majority indigenous population, in religious rituals.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Rojas placed a few dried leaves into his mouth and watched the sun set over his coca field, slightly less than two-fifths of an acre, the maximum allowed per farmer here in this region, known as the Chapare.

“This is a way to keep it under control,” he said, spitting a stream of green juice. “Everyone should have the same amount.”

Mr. Rojas is a face of a changing region. He makes far more money growing bananas for export on about 74 acres than he does growing coca. But he has no intention of giving up his tiny coca plot. “What happens if a disease attacks the bananas?” he asked. “Then we still have the coca to save us.”

The Bolivian government has persuaded growers that by limiting the amount of plantings, coca prices will remain high. And it has largely focused eradication efforts, of the kind that once spurred strong popular resistance, outside the areas controlled by growers’ unions, like in national parks.

The registration of thousands of Chapare growers, completed this year, is part of an enforcement system that relies on growers to police one another. If registered growers are found to have plantings above the maximum allowed, soldiers are called in to remove the excess. If growers violate the limit a second time, their entire crop is cut down and they lose the right to grow coca.

Growers’ unions can also be punished if there are multiple violations among their members.

“We have to be constantly vigilant,” said Nelson Sejas, a Chapare grower who was part of a team that checked coca plots to make sure they did not exceed the limit.

But there is still plenty of cheating. Officials say they are going over the registry of about 43,000 Chapare growers to find those who may have multiple plots or who may violate other rules.

“The results speak for themselves,” said Carlos Romero, the minister of government. “We have demonstrated that you can objectively do eradication work without violating human rights, without polemicizing the topic and with clear results.”

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?

His Holiness Meets the Austrian Chancellor, attends a Science Symposium and the European Rally for Tibet.

May 27th 2012     –     from   www.dalailama.com

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The 14th Dalai Lama mid-May 2012 Europe-trip took him to the UK (where he received The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities – in front of 2000 people at the St. Paul Cathedral in London and met in private with the Prime Minister and his Deputy), Slovenia, Belgium, and Austria (where he was received by two States – Koernten and Salzberg, and in private by the Federal Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor).

* * * *  This was added by Pincas Jawetz

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Vienna, Austria, 26 May 2012 – The sun shone and a small crowd of well-wishers smiled warmly as His Holiness arrived opposite St Stephen’s Cathedral to be met by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna. They were almost immediately joined by the Austrian Chancellor, Werner Faymann and the three went into a meeting together.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHD Standing at a balcony window nearby, Cardinal Schönborn took the opportunity to explain some of the restoration work that has been taking place at St Stephen’s, the most important religious building in Vienna, before the bells rang out calling him back to the cathedral. His Holiness and the Chancellor continued to discuss matters of mutual concern.

Next, His Holiness drove to the University of Vienna to attend a symposium on Buddhism and Science: Mind & Matter – New Models of Reality, where he was welcomed by the Rector of the University, Heinz Engl.

Describing it as a great honour for him to participate in the discussions, His Holiness noted that towards the end of the last century, scientists had begun to take a serious interest in the workings of our minds and emotions. He said he had been fascinated by how things work since he was a child and learned a great deal about how electricity functions from investigating the movie projector and generator that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama.

About 40 years ago he began to learn about cosmology, neuropsychology and quantum physics and for nearly 30 years has been conducting regular dialogues with scientists. The purpose of these dialogues is, firstly, to extend human knowledge, not only in the material field, but also the inner space of our minds, and, secondly, through exploring such phenomena as a calm mind, to promote human happiness.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and fellow panelists during the symposium on Buddhism and science “Mind and Matter – New Models of Reality” at the University of Vienna, in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

With Mr Gert Scobel moderating, Prof Dr Anton Zeilinger, Prof Dr Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Dr Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch made their presentations, which explored aspects of quantum physics, Madhyamaka philosophy and psychoanalysis.

His Holiness hosted a lunch at his hotel for all the speakers that was also attended by Kalon Tripa, Dr Lobsang Sangay, social and human rights activist Bianca Jagger, former French Foreign Minister and co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, Bernard Kouchner and other friends who were in Vienna to attend the European Rally for Tibet. In the afternoon session of the Science symposium, Prof Dr Michael von Brück and Prof Dr Wolf Singer gave informative presentations on how the mind understands the structure of reality and the search for neuronal correlates of consciousness.

As the symposium came to an end, His Holiness expressed his appreciation, “Over the 30 or 40 years that I have been acquainted with scientists, I have noticed how many of them are acutely aware of the limitations of their knowledge. It is a good quality to recognise that our scope for learning is vast. They display an open-mindedness that is really admirable.”

A memorandum of co-operation was signed between Prof Geshe Ngawang Samten, Director and Vice Chancellor of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, Varanasi, India and the Rector of Vienna University, Heinz Engl, providing for an exchange of students and scholars of the two institutions. Geshe Tenzin Dhargye, Director of the Tibet Center that has organized the various functions His Holiness has attended in Austria on this visit, offered his thanks to His Holiness and everyone who has participated.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama greeting the crowd of over 10,000 at the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet at the Vienna Heldenplatz in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

In the warm, late afternoon, His Holiness drove to Vienna’s Heldenplatz where 10,000 people had assembled for the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet. Addressing his dear brothers and sisters in the crowd, he told them how happy he was to be there and that he would like to first say a few words in Tibetan to the Tibetans present.

“Our culture is under threat of destruction, therefore I want to take this opportunity to speak my own language. Archaeological findings indicate that Tibetan history dates back 3-4000 years. We Tibetans must not forget our identity, for our blood, flesh and bones come from Tibet. Since the 7th century we have employed the Tibetan written language in which the most complete and thorough translations have been made of Buddhist knowledge from the original Sanskrit. This is a treasure for the world, not only for Tibetans. And when we talk about preserving Tibetan Buddhist culture, I don’t mean just paying respects before a Buddhist image, but putting the teachings into practice and trying to live as good human beings.”

He talked about the urgent need to protect the Tibetan environment, which because it is the source of many of the rivers that run through Asia is of value not only to Tibetans but millions of others too. He expressed the fear that once environmental damage has taken place it will take a great deal of time to recover. Distinguishing Buddhist religion, which is the business of Buddhist practitioners, from Buddhist culture, which, as a culture of peace, honesty and compassion, is worth preserving for the good of the world.

Meanwhile, millions of Chinese are already showing interest in Tibetan Buddhist culture. His Holiness stressed that the damage and destruction of Tibetan Buddhist culture that has taken place was not because Tibetans were not interested, but because of the difficult political circumstances in which they find themselves.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking at the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet at the Vienna Heldenplatz in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

“Because of our Buddhist culture we are committed to the principle of non-violence. We are an example of a small community who have remained dedicated to pursuing our struggle through non-violent means, which is why your support is so extremely valuable and I want to tell you how much I appreciate it.

“Finally, I see how many of you are waving the Tibetan flag. Chinese hard-liners often refer to our flag as a symbol of splittist tendencies, but I want to tell you that when I was in China 1954-55, I met Chairman Mao Zedong and other leaders on several occasions. Once, Chairman Mao asked me, ‘Do you have a flag?’ I hesitantly answered, ‘Yes,’ and his reply was to say, ‘Good, it is important that you keep this flag and fly it next to the red flag of China. So I feel I received permission then to fly this flag from Chairman Mao himself.”

Tomorrow afternoon, following a meeting with the press to highlight inter-religious harmony and several private meetings during the morning, His Holiness will board a flight from Vienna to return to India.

Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas.

Laurence Tubiana is the founder and director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) based in Paris and Brussels, professor at Sciences Po Paris, and has previously served as senior adviser on environment to the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. She was responsible for conducting some international environmental negotiations for the French government. She was also a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique in the French Prime Minister’s office and when mentioning basics –  she says:

For more than three decades, GDP has been criticized as a poor indicator of social progress. As a pure accounting identity, GDP does not reflect changes in natural stocks. On the opposite, an upsurge in warfare expenses will add positively to the measure called GDP, while their impacts on well-being are more than controversial.

Second, the indicator is also blind to any changes beyond the mean.

GDP does not focus on distributional issues and growth can fail to reach majority of the population – this was the case in the USA from 1975 to 2000. As result, there is a widening gap between GDP increase and the perception of the increase in well-being among the population.

This realization is not new and is shared by a widening community of policy-makers and scholars.

Paradoxically, international organizations continue to use GDP as a measure for social progress in their reports.

It is necessary to move beyond this narrow conception of progress and International Organization and governments must commit to the use of another flagship indicator.

Use of GDP should be limited to comment on the evolution of the volume of exchanges in the economy.

The UN General Assembly should thus rather adopt an indicator – or a panel of indicators- to measure progress.

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Above I picked up from the Brazil sponsored Dialogues on the RIO+20 runway – the panel of  Sustainable development as an answer to the economic and financial crises where Prof. Laurence Tubiana is the principle leader.

To post further examples for the on-line deliberations pleas see:

The Official UN position on the way the Outcome Document for RIO+20 was left hanging at the end of four weeks of Informal-Informal slow negotiations, and the decision to have one more pre-Rio week for which the Chairs will  re-adjusted chairs on the Titanic.

Brazil has not spoken on Friday night – but I was told Brazil insists on having a negotiated text to crown its RIO+20 event – but we believe in Brazil and watch how it is preparing an alternate way – the opening of a Civil Society route which we called earlier as nothing less then revolutionary regression to the UN Charter call for a UN  led by WE THE PEOPLE.
OK, we know that the UN established 9 Major Groups – of which only one is the Major Group of the NGOs – is not exactly an ideal picture of Civil Society because it is front-loaded by the International Chambers of Commerce – but at least it is not WE THE GOVERNMENTS  - Dictators and Usurpers, with a sprinkle of some better legislative run States.

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The UPDATE is based on the Earth Negotiations Bulletin that summarized the Second set of Informal-Informal negotiations and I pick from the material the part that deals with Institutional arrangements:

UNGA, ECOSOC, CSD, SDC PROPOSAL AND UNEP: On 24 April, delegates engaged in an initial exchange of views and made various proposals oninter alia, recognizing universality of the UN, what IFSD should do, the UNGA and ECOSOC. Further readings took place on 26 April and 3 May, and Co-Chair Kim started making compromise proposals on the text on 3 May, with two paragraphs ultimately agreed ad referendum.

During these discussions, the most contentious paragraphs on ECOSOC, CSD, SDC and UNEP were not taken up by delegates, since the G-77/China indicated that it was not yet ready to present its collective position. Therefore, an exchange of views of delegations on IFSD options was held on 27 April without the active participation of the G-77/China. Delegates presented key elements of their positions, including the EU and Kenya’s support for upgrading UNEP; a strong US preference for working with existing institutions; Kazakhstan and Norway’s preference for SDC {that is a new Sustainable Development Council on top of the existing Social and Economic Council – ECOSOC – that is not needed neither will it be funded. This alone is enough to point at the possibility that nothing serious is put forward even by those that purport to be positive about these meetings – we are specially un-enthused about Norway’s position – in particular as they are also behind the so called Stakeholders’ Forum – SustainabiliTank editor comment}; Japan’s proposal to reform the CSD; and Canada’s call for ECOSOC to play a more integrated role in sustainable development.

On 3 May, the G-77/China announced that it was ready to present its proposal, which included: the establishment of a high-level political forum with an intergovernmental character, building on existing relevant structures or bodies, including the CSD; and strengthening UNEP’s capacities {in effect – this position seems more plausible then Norway’s position and this brings us to the question if the Norwegian position is not rather a hidden position of an International Chambers of Commerce attempt to derail negotiations – SustainabiliTank editor comment}.

On Friday morning, 4 May, other delegations reacted to the G-77/China proposal. While reserving their positions, several welcomed it as a useful contribution with some valuable elements. The EU suggested that it was not sufficiently ambitious.

Later that day, the G-77/China withdrew its entire proposal after Kenya, for the African Group, announced in Working Group 2 that some elements of the African proposal had not been incorporated into the G-77/China position, especially with regard to strengthening and consolidating UNEP into a specialized agency based in Nairobi. The G-77/China, which until then had been speaking with one voice on this issue, was unable to continue to present a collective position. Peru, along with many other countries, requested reinstating the G-77/China proposal. However, a number of other members of the G-77/China, including Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Morocco, expressed support for Kenya’s proposal. A few countries provided initial reactions, including Switzerland and the EU, which noted commonalities between the original G-77/China proposal and proposals made by other countries, and said that these commonalities could represent building blocks for future work. At the end of the meeting, the entire text remained heavily bracketed.

Draft Outcome Document: The latest version of the draft outcome document includes numerous options, including: a system-wide strategy for sustainable development in the UN system, strengthening the role of ECOSOC; improving the CSD; transforming the CSD into an SDC; strengthening the capacity of UNEP; establishing UNEP as a UN specialized agency for the environment, with universal membership; and supporting the establishment of an Ombudsperson, or High Commissioner for Future Generations. The IFSD proposal presented by the G-77/China on 3 May has also been kept in the document with the attributions of the various countries that supported this proposal.

The problem with all of this is that in principle – no decisions were taken and no financial implications studied – as such one can say that no move from starting positions was discerned.  Will the added week be able to break the stubbornness  of ideologically motivated resisters?

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The UN says: Countries Seek New Path Towards Agreement for Rio+20.

New York, 4 May, 2012 —Representatives from governments negotiating the Rio+20 outcome document agreed to add another five days to their deliberations in order to bridge differences that have hampered progress to date.  The move came as the latest round of negotiations concluded with some progress made, but much work left outstanding.

The negotiated document, along with voluntary commitments by governments, businesses and civil society, will set the stage for the global community to recommit to sustainable development and agree to concrete actions needed.

The five added negotiating days are set for 29 May to 2 June.  The additional negotiations will take place in New York before moving to Rio de Janeiro on 13 June for the third and final preparatory meeting for the Conference.  Rio+20 – the UN Conference on Sustainable Development — will take place from 20 to 22 June.

Rio+20 Preparatory Committee co-chair Kim Sook, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea, said that there will be a change in working methods when the negotiations resume.  This will include working from a new streamlined text prepared by the co-chairs, as well as other changes in the negotiating procedures.

“Delegates have expressed disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress,” Ambassador Kim told participants at the concluding meeting of the latest round of talks.

Kim added that the “spirit of the negotiations must match our ambition,” pointing out that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called Rio+20 “a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”  Cautioning that this opportunity would not be available next year, he said negotiators “must send a clear message to our Heads of State and Government that we are on the right track” and that they should come to Rio.

Rio+20 Secretary-General Sha Zukang said that there was need to proceed with a sense of genuine urgency.

“The present negotiation approach has run its course,” he stated.

Mr. Sha said that the present document, even after it had been reduced by about 100 pages, still had too many pages and paragraphs and contained too much duplication and repetition. “Let us be frank,” he said. “Currently, the negotiating text is a far cry from the ‘focused political document’ called for by the General Assembly.”

Calling for greater political will and agreement on all sides, he said, “We can have an outcome document which builds upon earlier agreements — an outcome document which is action-oriented in spelling out the future we want.”

The objective, Mr. Sha said, should be to arrive in Rio with at least 90 per cent of the text ready and only the most difficult 10 per cent left to be negotiated there at the highest political levels.

Need to come together on key issues:

Countries still need to come together on key issues, including one of the themes for the Conference—the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.  Some developed countries have embraced the green economy as a new roadmap for sustainable development, while many developing countries are more cautious, asserting that each country should choose its own path to a sustainable future and that a green economy approach should not lead to green protectionism or  limit growth and poverty eradication. Other countries and stakeholders have voiced concerns about implementation and accountability, pointing out that some commitments made at previous global meetings, such as for official development assistance, have yet to be fully realized.

Nonetheless, countries appear willing to agree on a number of issues, including the overall need to recognize and act to meet pressing global and national challenges.  It has been widely acknowledged that action is  needed to provide for the needs of a growing global population that continues to consume and produce unsustainably, resulting in rising carbon emissions, degraded natural ecosystems and growing income inequality. The need to find a better measurement of progress than GDP has also been widely acknowledged.

Countries have also been examining the concept of new Sustainable Development Goals, a set of benchmarks to guide countries in achieving targeted outcomes within a specific time period, such as on access to sustainable energy and clean water for all. Countries have differing views on what should or should not be included in the goals, as well as the formal process for how and when the goals may be defined, finalized and agreed to. Some countries would like to see the goals approved in Rio, while others see Rio+20 as a starting point for deciding on the goals. Some have concerns that the goals could bind them to commitments they feel are unrealistic, such as on climate change, while others want to ensure that countries are held accountable to achieve whatever goals are set.

Rio+20 is expected to set the agenda for a more sustainable future for years to come. Governments, business and civil society organizations are expected to launch actions that will make a measurable difference, leading to greater prosperity, health and opportunities, and an environment that will continue to support growth for future generations. More than 120 Heads of State and Government have registered to attend; in addition, some 50,000 people, including business executives, mayors, NGOs, youth, indigenous people and many other groups, are expected to participate in both official and informal events in Rio de Janeiro during the Conference.

For more information on Rio+20, visit www.uncsd2012.org

To join the global conversation on Rio+20: The Future We Want, visit www.un.org/futurewewant

One of the two last side events on the last Friday of  the second Informal-Informal reading of the draft to Rio 2012 (RIO+20) was about the place of Mother Nature as seen by indigenous cultures that still respect the holiness of the Earth and by intellectuals that are ready to stop a minute and contemplate about the superiority of earth oriented cultures.

	Moderated by Lisinka Ulatowska, Coordinator, Major Group Cluster on the Commons, this side event discussed a number of initiatives to create commons-based economies, and how these can be expanded and built upon. Mario Ruales, Advisor to the Ecuadorian Minister of Coordination of Heritage, highlighted the adoption of a new constitution in 2008, which recognized the rights of Mother Earth. He emphasized the role of natural and indigenous peoples to respect and protect the ecosystem, saying that the constitution has a lot of processes that would allow this to be pursued. He noted Ecuador’s call for a new development architecture, saying that this has been proposed for Rio+20. Leon Siu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hawaiian Kingdom, outlined his work for reinstating the independent nation state of Hawai’i, saying that should this occur, many of the traditional practices for land management, agriculture and conservation of natural resources will return. He lamented the marginalization of the indigenous peoples, saying that reinstating the independent nation state of Hawai’i would rectify this problem. Rob Wheeler, Global Ecovillage Network, outlined that the commons-based approach is one where the land and its resources are cooperatively owned, managed and shared among those living on the commons. He noted that ecovillages, which are based on such a model, are among the most sustainable communities in existence. He noted that many lessons on sustainability can be learnt from ecovillages, underscoring their ability to minimize waste, promote clean, renewable energy and ensure the sustainable consumption of natural resources. In the ensuing discussion, delegates addressed the different financing systems that could be used for implementing a commons-based model. They also discussed referencing the rights of nature in the Rio+20 outcome document. Ecuador is a member of the ALBA group of Latin and Caribbean Nations like Bolivia. Both countries were left with strong lodes of indigenous people and the governments attempt to speak for them. The Kingdom of Hawaii does still exist even though Hawaii has become a US State and thus does not recognize a King. Nevertheless, You can still see a functioning royal House on the main Hawaii Island. ————————– As it happened, on the following day, Saturday May 5th, 2012, I had to be in Washington DC and made it also my business to go to visit the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian at 4th Street & Independence Avenue S,W. At the door I saw the announcement that the next weekend Saturday, May 12 – Sunday May 13, 2012, 10 am – 5:30 pm they will celebrate the BOLIVIAN SUMA QAMANA FESTIVAL – sponsored by the Embassy of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. “Discover Bolivia’s Magic, culture, Heritage, Joy of Living Well.” The Museum doors are etched with sun symbols and open to the east to greet the rising sun as do many traditional Native houses. Native people honor the sun as a life-giver and calendar – instructing when to plant, harvest, conduct ceremonies. The American Indian is responding to Environmental Challenges and the Museum has established a special website for this - www.AmericanIndian.si.edu At present the museum has two special exhibits. One is very appropriate to present American Indian culture as it evolved in the last 250 years – the interaction with horses and the way they viewed these large and friendly animals. The show is dedicated to “A SONG FOR THE HORSE NATION” and here this Nation are the horses themselves taken as if they were like humans. The other show includes just one item and I stood there in state of shock. The title is HUICHOL ART ON WHEELS.” Its exhibition is planned from March 20 to May 6th 2012 – so let me say without any hesitation – good ridance before the Bolivian event next week. Why am I quite angry at this exhibit covered with Huichol Art? Let me make sure that there should be no misunderstanding – it is not because of the Huichols. These are people from the West-Central Mexico who are known for their beadwork. Sometimes they take an object and cover it with colorful beads. The Huichol call themselves in their own language the Wixaritari people and I bought items from them years ago in a store they managed in Porto Vallarta, Jalisco. The problem with this exhibition of one single item is that it is what they call – a VOCHOL – now that is a common Beetle Volkswagen that was completely covered in beads. Again – not that this car is bad looking – but why in this world in which the indigenous people do every possible effort to tell us that they understand the environment and suffer from climate change, and then bring into this interesting museum a common motor-vehicle that when operated uses gasoline? WHY BEAD A BUG? asks the museum brochure and proceeds to answer: The Vochol demonstrates the complex intersections of traditional and modern cultures. It serves as opportunity to bring attention to contemporary indigenous art while also highlighting Wixaritari culture and talent. The project is a collaboration between the Association of Friends of the Museo de Arte Popular, the Museo de Arte Popular, and the state governments of Nayarit and Jalisco, home to the Wixatari people. And let me add here that it must be also home of the assembly plants of Volkswagen Beetle in Mexico. Further – it must be friends of the US Oil industry and the US Auto Manufacturers that convinced that this big piece of art covering the auto-monster vehicle got into the American Indian Museum in order to soften our resistance to fossil fuels transportation – albeit by a reasonably small vehicle. The Wixatari artist Francisco Bautista used 2,277,000 glass seed beads to cover this beetle, and he finished the work in 2010 according to the license plate attached to the car. Then, let me never forget what my friend Professor Jad Neeman from the Tel Aviv University told me when we went to see a particular exhibition of what looked to me as unused canvases – the main role of modern art is to make us angry so we are moved from our position of not caring. If that is what the exhibitors had in mind – so this was very great art, because it made me care very much – when I concluded that this did not belong into this particular museum. In above context let me also write here what I found in the permanent exhibit on the 4-th floor – a stoty about another beetle: This comes from the Cherokee Nation. They tell that “Long ago – all things existed above the sky, from horizon to horizon. The bird and animal people (you remember the horse people I mentioned earlier?) wondered about the water-covered world below and sent Water-Beetle to explore. He descended and returned with a small piece of mud that spread over the water.” This obviously was another beetle – the one we like for itself. Further, in a story from the Campo Indians North of San Diego. They ended up being the address where the San Diego garbage was sent for landfill that gave them the Golden Acorn Casino not far from the Mexico border. The local Amerindians did not agree but got it anyway. The Environmentalists tell them that they show  who they are with appropriate ways of viewing their land as one of their greatest assets. Their lands are being decimated under them, but the indigenous people make serious attempts to survive. The IOWA say – Our Songs and Our Ceremonies Enable Us To Survive. The Nahua state – Our Laws and way of thinking shall continue. The Cherokees state simply – WE ARE STILL HERE!

President Evo Morales of Bolivia as guest of President  Heinz Fischer of Austria.

In this, the centenary of the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912, the first legal instrument on drug control, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, said at the opening of the 55th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which is meeting in Vienna from 12 to 16 March, that it was important to recognize the gains made over that time but more needed to be done.  He said the international drugs conventions provided the best way to mitigate the negative effects of illicit drugs on individuals and communities, while ensuring that those in need can obtain life-saving medications.

Mr. Fedotov highlighted the regional initiatives being spearheaded by UNODC in the context of shared responsibility among drug-consuming and drug-producer nations to combat the security threats posed by illicit drug flows. UNODC has launched a Regional Programme for Afghanistan and neighbouring countries to help create a broad international coalition to combat opiate trafficking, opium poppy cultivation and production.  Networks such as the Triangular Initiative between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre are being strengthened.  The Office will soon launch a new Regional Programme for South Eastern Europe, which will focus on the “Balkan Route” of heroin.

But the Executive Director of UNODC also said that “Let me be clear: there can be no reduction in drug supply, without a reduction in drug demand, more should be done to address demand,” he said.

Bolivia’s government contends that coca leaf in its natural form is not a narcotic and forms an age-old part of Andean culture. It wants to rejoin the convention but only if other UNODC member nations accept an amendment to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs to remove language that obliges signatories to prohibit the chewing of coca leaves. If none are registered, it would automatically take effect.

Read more: www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Bolivia-pushes-for-acceptance-of-coca-leaf-chewing-3399933.php#ixzz1p3Ze8YG5

President Morales participated also as part of a Bolivian soccer team in an all-star game against an Austrian team.

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President Evo Morales made as well a prsentation at the Vienna University – “Bolivia y la lucha por su soberanía” – Bolivia and its fight for Sovereignty, then at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, in co-operation with the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the Institute for International Relations (OIIP), Mr. Evo Morales, introduced as the President of the Multi-National State (PLURINACIONAL) of Bolivia, spoke on:

LA BOLIVIA SOBERANA - EL ESTADO PLURINACIONAL Y SU POSICIONAMIENTO EN EL MUNDO.

Evo Morales, Presidente del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia

Introduced by Ambassador Hans Winkler, Director of the Academy and Moderated by Peter Stania, Director del International Institute for Peace

We wish we were there as we would have liked to ask Mr. Morales about the ALBA position on Rio+20. We hope to be able eventually to obtain the information and post it. As of now, the only article on climate change relating to President Morales position as main speaker for ALBA that I found in the Austrian press is from April 2010 and relates to the post-Copenhagen Cochabamba meeting:
 derstandard.at/1271374808848/Welt…

That year, at the Cancun meeting, Bolivia was the State that did not allow a decision as it blocked a unanimous acceptance of the resolution. So what are their intentions for Rio 2012? So far we did not find any hint that somebody raised this question with Mr. Morales.

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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.

By Peter Tase - www.eurasiareview.com/23122011-be…
also – an oil-oriented version of this please find at:  http://www.petroleumworld.com/lagniappe11122801.htm

On November 21, the Peruvian capital, hosted the fifth China – Latin America Summit, in which for two days were discussed a roster of urgent topics involved in order to achieve further development in terms of commerce and trade between China (PRC) and Latin America.

The Summit was attended by over a thousand business leaders and public officials from the PRC and from all of the Latin American countries.

Since the world financial crisis of 2008, Chinese corporations have devoted special attention to diversify their investment potential throughout South America in particular.

According to Mr. Zhang Wei, the Vice President of the Chinese Council of International Trade Promotion (CCPIT), in 2010 China and Latin America, reached record levels of USD 183 billion in inter-regional trade and commerce. In the coming years, Chinese business hope to have a wider grasp and a more comprehensive investment expansion strategy in high production areas such as energy, infrastructure, mining and telecommunications. It is believed that with the help of this year’s end gathering, Chinese business activists will reach a record level of their investments thrust, with growth pointed at an upwards of USD 22.7 billion. It remains to be seen on what will be the logical consequences of Chinese Investment in Latin America, taking into consideration that Chinese companies tend to be not as environmentally responsible when it comes to South America’s fragile landscape and that its inadequate infrastructure requires special consideration and hyper-responsible practices.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), China is one of the three largest investing countries in the Latin America region, immediately trailing the United States and the Netherlands.

On the first day of the Summit, Peruvian president Ollanta Humala, whose term began in November of 2010, emphasized that the development of his country and the rest of Latin America is at a stage of industrialization where much is happening: “We should not only export minerals, but also move forward towards building a region that leaves behind the path of industrial progress and become developed nations.”

The Peruvian leader added: “it is important to export not only minerals but place an emphasis on the exportation of software…human resources and inspire the young generation the desire to learn Chinese language and attract Chinese students to study Spanish and conduct research in Peru and Latin America”.

The Peruvian president quickly took notice that it is important for his country’s businesses to diversify their commercial products and to initiate a transition and a new conceptualizations of economic productivity that could be used as an example for the Latin America region, therefore future business ought to reduce the future exportation of raw materials and begin to trade products with added value which would be more likely to promptly alleviate poverty and stimulate the economy to achieve new and accentuated levels. On the same topic, the Peruvian Minister of Economy and Finance, Luis Miguel Castilla Rubio, noted in his speech that: “Peru is in a very important stage, very promising. Its Macroeconomic Stability, commercial openness and dynamic policies of social inclusion transform Peru into a very attractive country for investment and commerce.”

The fifth China – Latin America Summit took place at a time when Peru was one of the world’s most successful growing economies, it has experienced a seven percent growth of its GDP in 2011. The Peruvian population also experienced a steady growth and a considerable reduction of the poverty line that has steadily decreased from fifty percent below poverty line in 2004 into almost 30 percent in 2010. The conference was a decided success, with a thousand delegates in attendance. Preliminary data included that several thousand of one-on-one meetings were held, and over USD 100 million worth of deals were made, with more to come.

Previous Summits have taken place, beginning in Chile (2007), Harbin (2008), Bogota (2009) and Chengdu (2010), with this year’s Summit statement being: “comprehensive growth: new stage in China-Latin America relations”.

According to the Chinese ambassador resident in Peru, Mr. Zhao Wuyi, “Continental China has emerged in 2010 as the largest trading partner of Peru and of other South American countries.”

This year’s Summit was organized by the Council of International Trade Promotion of the People’s Republic of China (CCPIT), in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Tourism and the Commission of Promoting Peruvian Exports and Tourism (Promperú and ProInversión), in cooperation with the Foreign Trade Association of Peru (ComexPerú) and Lima Chamber of Commerce and the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce in China.

References for this article can be found here.

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Peter Tase is a Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

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.

THE LINK IS:  http://www.innercitypress.com/sc6clim072011.html

 www.innercitypress.com/sc5clim072…  at www.innercitypress.com

new of Thursday July 21st – see - www.innercitypress.com/sc6clim072…

We note the push to bring Ecocide in ECOSOC, but for higher level of immediacy we wonder if AOSIS finally splits away from the Group of 77 who really could not care less about the submerging small States. Also, with the position South Africa is taking regarding the German effort we wonder if South Africa has not dealt the final death blow to COP 17 of the UNFCCC that will meet at the end of this year in Durban, South Africa.

Durban is infamous for that blow to Human Rights of ten years ago – in its pro-racism turn-out; this year that conference gets to be celebrated this September by the UN in New York  for its 10-th memorial. Durban seems now destined to become also the place where the UN will end Climate Change policy as well. We  wonder what our hero Nelson Mandela, whose birthday we celebrated this week, thinks about South Africa of today? He has spoken up in the past and we hope he will speak up again not just for humanity – but plainly to reset his beloved South Africa again.

Please note that we still stick to Copenhagen as last place of value in the UNFCCC chain. We had no button for COP 16 in Cancun and have yet found no reason for a button for the Durban event.

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The latest said:

After 6 pm on Wednesday, the German presidency of the Security Council read out a Statement on climate change, eight paragraphs long.

It goes out of its way to say that the General Assembly and ECOSOC have primacy.

It asks Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to slip climate information into the reports he already files with the Council. The Council does not remain “seized of the matter.”

An hour before the statement came out, Bolivia gave a speech saying that the Security Council is not the venue for climate change, since the biggest polluters have veto power.

Instead Bolivia proposed an “International Tribunal for Climate and Environmental Justice,” to hold polluters guilty for “ecocide.”

One Council wag dubbed it the “Ecocide in ECOSOC” speech.

 

Near the building of the Austrian Parliament stands the bust of Karl Renner (1870 – 1950) who was the First Chancellor (Kanzler) of the Austrian First Republic that was established in 1918 after the end of WWI, and was as well the First Kanzler of the Second Austrian Republic – in the making – in 1945 after the end of WWII. In the crucial years 1931 – 1933 he was President of the Parliament.

Karl Renner was a Socialist, in 1896 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), representing the party in the Austro-Hungarian Reichsrat from 1907 till its dissolution in November 1918. As well, we find it interesting that in 1895, he was one of the founding members of the Naturfreunde (Friends of Nature) organisation and created their logo.

We mention these facts as the topic of this article is a very interesting meeting of last night at the Vienna Renner Institute which is considered intellectual home of the Austrian Socialist Party that was reinvigorated in Chancellor Bruno Kreisky’s days.

The speaker last night, Professor Richard D. Wolff (www.rdwolff.com) a Professor emeritus from the U. of Massachusetts at Amherst, comes from the New School in New York City (Now the New School University) which like the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (Now the Polytechnic University) both were created by Jewish refugees from NAZI Germany and Austria.

During WWII Renner distanced himself from politics. He thought that Nazism will be a temporary thing as the authoritarian Austro-Fascist governments of Dollfuß and Schuschnigg, but still believed seemingly in a German-Austrian Nation, albeit with Social content.

 In April 1945, just before the collapse of the Third Reich, the defeat of Germany and the end of the war, Renner set up a Provisional Government in Vienna with other politicians from the three revived parties Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP, a conservative successor to the Christian Social Party) and the Communist Party (KPÖ). On April 27, by a declaration, this Provisional Government separated Austria from Germany and campaigned for the country to be acknowledged as an independent republic.

As a result of Renner’s actions Austria was to benefit greatly in the eyes of the Allies as she had fulfilled the stipulation of the Moscow Declaration of 1943, where the Foreign Secretaries of US, UK and USSR declared that the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria by Germany was null and void calling for the establishment of a free Austria after the victory over Nazi Germany provided that Austria could demonstrate that she had undertaken suitable actions of her own in that direction. Being suspicious of the fact that the Russians in Vienna were the first to accept Renner’s Cabinet, the Western Allies hesitated half a year with their recognition, but his Provisional Government was in the end recognised by all Four Powers on Oct. 20, 1945 and Renner was thus the first post-war Chancellor.
In late 1945, he was elected the first President of the Second Republic.

For most of his life, Renner alternated between the political commitment of a Social Democrat and the analytical distance of an academic scholar. Central to Renner’s academic work is the problem of the relationship between law and social transformations. With his Rechtsinstitute des Privatrechts und ihre soziale Funktion. Ein Beitrag zur Kritik des bürgerlichen Rechts (1904), he became one of the founders of the discipline of the sociology of law.

His and Otto Bauer‘s ideas about the legal protection of cultural minorities were taken up by the Jewish Bund, but fiercely denounced by Vladimir Lenin.  Joseph Stalin devoted a whole chapter to criticising Cultural National Autonomy in Marxism and the National Question.

Karl Renner died in 1950 and was buried in the Presidential Tomb at Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

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Professor Richard D. Wolff is an American economist who studied the deeper meanings of Marxism. While at Yale he also was a founding member of the Green Party of New Haven, Connecticut, and its Mayoral Candidate in 1985.

He coauthored with Stephen Resnik – “Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical” 1987), “Knowledge and Class” (1987), “Class, Gender and Power in Modern Household” (2000), “New Directions in Marxian Political Economy” (2006). Now he studies the US, Europe, China, Latin America interrelationships.

In 1989, Wolff joined efforts with a group of colleagues, ex- and then current students to launch Rethinking Marxism, an academic journal that aims to create a platform for rethinking and developing Marxian concepts and theories within economics as well as other fields of social inquiry. He continues to serve as a member of both the editorial and the advisory boards of the journal.

His presentation at the Renner Institute last night was titled: CRISIS AND DECLINE IN THE US ECONOMY – THE GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. We found his analysis fascinating but have doubts about his prognosis. In other words, we think his presentation was the most elucidating description we ever saw of America today and how it got there – but we doubt that his predictions for the future go beyond his expressed political beliefs.

Wolff continues to teach graduate seminars and undergraduate courses and direct dissertation research in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and, most recently, in the graduate program in international affairs (GPIA) at The New School.

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Wolff drew his fist line on the boards behind him – it showed how wages in the US kept increasing from 1820 till 1970 – a continuous capitalist success story that extended for 150 years. But from 1970 on wages in the US are stagnating. The workers are no more part of America’s success story.

The explanation is that for those 150 years there was a shortage of man power in the US. Business and Industry needed more and more workers and thus offered better and better wages. The supply of workers came from overseas – mainly from Europe – obviously with the inclusion of the slave imports – also because of this thirst for labor forces. Some of the immigrants did not agree to stay in the big cities and continued rather to the vast expanse of the West where they were given free land o work. Wages had to get higher to induce them to stay on the job in the ports of entree. It was a continuous success story and markets were ready to accept the merchandise – in the US and overseas.

Today the unemployment & underemployment together have impacted one out of 6 workers in the US – practically every household has been touched by this loss of workers employment.

There are many overlapping explanations – i.e. the computer allowed for automation and decreased need for manpower, there are international reasons for shrinking markets after the end of the rebuilding period that followed the end of WWII, the new competitors for labor that come by the institution of so called illegal-labor because of illegal-immigrants that live in the society”s shadows …

But employers will not raise wages now also because of the fact that labor is cheaper elsewhere and they eventually will rather move their production lines to this elsewhere then fearing loss of income if stubbornness pushes them to continue production in the US.  

Further reasons in this stagnation come from the women’s liberation movement and the proliferation of credit cards. Women have left the home and more things have to be bought ready made – that is cheap things produced overseas – let’s say China. The household buys more things and does not make progress while the companies think now of how to move their whole production line overseas in order to make more profits.

A sister graphic to the one about wages is the graphic about productivity. This one at the 1970 point continues straight growth while the wage curve stops to grow. The result is that labor sees a rise in income for the owner with no parallel increase in benefits to the worker. The two lines lead to a third line   – the one about inequality – this line was quite steady till 1970 – even during the depression and war years – but in the 1970s starts turning upwards – less people in numbers own more of the wealth.
What does that mean to taxation?

Once it was 91% of the income of the rich (above $100,000) was taken away by taxation (the WWII days) – this got down to 50% in 1970 and now reached 35% and some want to decrease this further. It is those with employment that were left to carry the country on their backs while the rich pay hardly anything. It is the Walmart  company that is the partner of the China government that supplies the cheap goods to the American consumer. The money comes then back to the US treasury as loans from China and the American consumer pays in his taxes for the servicing of these loans. (Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names.)

So, we have now an impoverished America linked in a symbiotic relationship to China and what does that mean to the rest of the world? Can anyone see a way out for America in the present political climate that is against further taxation but does nothing about the 1.5 trillion yearly debt to China, Japan and some of the rich who still buy US bonds?

Those three graphs, and the explanations show a very bleak future that cannot be made lighter by saying that – oh! Yes! the US is still the biggest producer in the world with about 25% of the world total and a huge economy. But, what are the underpinnings of this economy, and what if a disgruntled populace  says enough? But they did not – they rather pulled away from politics. Fighting about a mere difference of 28 billion dollars between the proposals of the two parties in US Congress while the budget hole is actually 1.5 trillion, is plain ridiculous. Speaking to Austrians allows Prof. Wolff to mention the public health sector and its having been dismantled since the days of the Roosevelt Administration that introduced Social Security and Health Care concepts during the Depression days – as well as 11 million public jobs and Unemployment payments.

But here the political philosophy of Professor Wolff takes over his narrative.  He thinks that what has now happened in Wisconsin where unions and students bonded in a resistance movement to the dis-powering of labor  is a first swallow of rebellion that will bring back a call for socialism. He also saw in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley software specialists leaving their employers and creating independent entrepreneurial companies a new form of communism – albeit not like the Israeli Kibbutz that was based on ownership. This new Communism in his view, based on creativity is what Karl Marx had originally in mind. Professor Wolff, in his speech to the Renner Institute thinks that people will accept this thesis.
I doubt they do.

Further on, in the long Q&A period, with many questions from the audience, and good answers from the speaker. One set of questions brought out that the main problem Washington is seeing these days is not the Middle East, the Arab States, or Africa, but rather Latin America where the US is facing now an increasingly powerful Brazil and leaders like Evo Morales of Bolivia. Relying on Columbia will be no cover at a time when little States like Salvador or Cuba are not relevant anymore.

My own question about the effect of moving production lines to China, and thus exporting carbon pollution to China, what sort of limit he thinks this could put on China’s growth, remained completely unanswered. These kind of thoughts are a distraction from the studies that try to renew the past that is indeed gone forever. It is the lack of inclusion of such up-to-date observations that reduce this otherwise good presentation to an introductory to a  political ploy. Having said this, I still think that the depiction of a US that has fallen from its height’s is correct (the analysis), but the prognosis for the future should rather start from new industries initiated by those bright young people of Palo Alto – not because they want to live in a new form of communism, but rather because they know that it is a new world that is needed and culture change is the way to adjust new technologies to our real needs. This will be done by entrepreneurs that want a better and healthier life. Just that and no more. Many of the old blue collar jobs are gone for ever. Some white collar and technical jobs have moved to India.

 
No more SEAL THE DEAL – UNSG Ban Ki-moon sees the light and Yvo de Boer again sort of seconds him – NO CHANCE FOR A CLEAR MULTILATERAL UN CLIMATE DEAL IN THE NEAR TERM.

News about the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was told to the Guardian by Mr. Robert Orr, UN assistant secretary general for strategic planning and a key adviser in Mr. Ban’s office. He was brought in some three years ago to work in this capacity in order to save Mr. Ban’s image when things seemed to go bad. Since then they got worse and the Ban Ki-moon & Yvo de Boer climate change UN efforts turned into a lot of show and no results. To be fair to them – the cards were staked against them and they were blind to this reality talking about blue skies when in reality there was clear disinterest in the subject by the main players – the US and China. Mr. de Boer was of no help when he accepted the Ban Ki-moon blue sky concept of Seal the Deal knowing well that there was no deal to seal in his shop in Bonn.

Orr means light in Hebrew – so allow me please to say that finally the UN top – having been reduced from its 38th floor in the main building to a merely third floor of its present North building location – has seen the light at this lower level.

Yes, there is no chance for the 2011 UNFCCC meeting in Durban to do what the Cancun meeting of 2010 was not able to do. The ray of light is now to move to 2012 – to the Rio+20 meeting of 20 years after the big Rio de Janeiro 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development – the locus where the UN Convention on Climate Change sailed off to its voyage that by 1997 took it to Kyoto and the stillborn birth of the now infamous Kyoto Protocol that came about with the blessing of US Vice President Al Gore in spite of the fact that 95 US Senators said that without China being an active participant in the called for activities of that Protocol, there will be no US ratification of the deal.

OK – in Copenhagen, 2009, President Obama and the Chinese started out on a joint voyage – but this was not enough to call for a Kyoto II thus a completely new approach will indeed be hammered out – most probably without the UN G-192 help. Rio+20 comes now to revive the spirits of the UN functionaries, but it could also play to the advantage of the founders of that old AGENDA 21 – the main tool that came out from the original UNCED meeting. Let us hope that Mr. Morris Strong will be called from his present Beijing home so that he can devise a revival on the path he started in 1972 with the Stockholm UN Conference on the Environment, that was followed 20 years later by the incorporation of the idea of Sustainable Development as a tool to save the environment. In 2012 the obvious issue is the Global Environment or what we are used to call the issue of man induced climate change.

Seemingly, to avoid disaster, and with 40 years of experience behind us, the eventuality seems like a concept of MUTUAL SUSTAINABILITY in the form of a compilation of agreements, bilateral and between groups of Nations, with the goal of tackling the global problem by involving businesses, NGOs, civil society and whatever factors that will be ready to register their participation in the global effort based on the understanding of the participants self interest.

We believe that the greatest achievement of Kyoto was to highlight the problem.

We believe that the greatest achievement of Copenhagen was to bring on board the leaders of the US, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

We believe that the greatest achievement of Cancun was to show that decisions do not have to be unanimous. This time Bolivia was left out of the consensus. Actually they were not the worst opponents. Others will have to be left out also – some because they think that they have an irreversible right to sell petroleum, others because they only suffer but do not pollute. In the end – it will be some number close to 30, rather then 192 of the UN membership, that will list their contributions at Rio+20 and the future will be in their hand.

Having said the above we will now serve up the two articles of the Guardian.

The first article is all right – the Robert Orr light on the fouled up issue of UN global climate negotiations.

The second article by Yvo de Boer shows that the man still does not really realize what went wrong when he followed the Ban Ki-moon orders on the road to Copenhagen.

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Ban Ki-moon ends hands-on involvement in climate change talks.
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/27/ban-ki-moon-un-climate-change-talks

UN secretary general will redirect efforts to making more immediate gains in clean energy and sustainable development

 Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 January 2011.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general who made global warming his personal mission, is ending his hands-on involvement with international climate change negotiations, the Guardian has learned.

In a strategic shift, Ban will redirect his efforts from trying to encourage movement in the international climate change negotiations to a broader agenda of promoting clean energy and sustainable development, senior UN officials said.

The officials said the change in focus reflected Ban’s realisation, after his deep involvement with the failed Copenhagen summit in 2009, that world leaders are not prepared to come together in a sweeping agreement on global warming – at least not for the next few years.

“It is very evident that there will not be a single grand deal at any point in the near future,” said Robert Orr, UN assistant secretary general for strategic planning and a key adviser to Ban.

The view from UN headquarters will likely dismay developing countries who fought hard at Copenhagen and last year’s summit at Cancún for countries to renew their commitments to the Kyoto protocol in just that type of grand deal.

UN officials say Ban will no longer be deeply involved in the negotiations leading up to the next big UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, meeting at Durban in December 2011.

“He will continue to encourage leaders to aim for a higher level of ambition but there will need to be less day-to-day stuff,” said one UN official. “The negotiations are very important, but it is the big-picture issues that he needs to be more engaged with.”

Ban will focus on broader issues of sustainability, which will be in the spotlight at a summit in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, marking 20 years since the first Earth summit.

“Because the circumstances have changed, the nature of his engagement is changing,” Orr said. “The relative balance of his time is shifting towards getting it done on the ground out there.”

UN officials, and those who closely track climate change negotiations, insist that Ban has not lessened his commitment to finding a solution to climate change. Ban has called global warming “the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family”.

“His heart is still there, and he does want to make a breakthrough in his tenure, but this might provide a better platform in the near future,” said one UN official.

However, they say he now believes there are more immediate gains to be made in mobilising international finance to support a green economy in developing countries than in trying to persuade world leaders to
commit to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Others inside the UN system as well as in world capitals have been circling towards a similar conclusion as Ban: that gains in clean energy technology and energy efficiency could do more in the near future to reduce emissions. They could then drive the overarching deal
that the UN still sees as necessary.

“The idea that the world will gather together and parcel out emissions cuts among the various nations is probably a non-starter at this point,” said Reid Detchon, vice-president for energy and climate at the United Nations Foundation, a Washington thinktank. “Whether it is in 2012 or 2013, the political consensus does not exist for a top-down approach.”

In operational terms, Ban’s climate change advisory team, which grew to about a dozen people ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, has shrunk to less than five people.

Meanwhile, he is in the course of expanding his advisory team on sustainable development to about a dozen people ahead of the Rio meeting.

“The things that are moving faster are the investments in renewable energy, the kind of actual investments and changes on the ground that will make a difference,” said Tariq Banuri, director of the division of sustainable development at the UN’s department of economic and
social affairs. “There should be enough forums to accelerate and support those – some may have to wait for climate negotiations and some may not.”

Ban still believes an international agreement on climate change is essential, Orr said. “The sails haven’t been trimmed. We are still going in the same direction, but we will have to tack back and forth between the multilateral negotiating process and national realities on the ground.”

The strategic shift by the UN secretary general in some ways mirrors thinking in Washington, where environmentalists are looking at how to many progress on climate change without votes in Congress or the
regulatory help of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

In the case of the UN, however, Ban’s decision is not a product of failure. The climate negotiations at Cancún produced modest progress on some of the essential pre-conditions to a global deal, such as climate finance and forest preservation.

The first public indication of a shift in direction was delivered in a speech to the UN general assembly on 14 January, in which Ban ranked sustainable development as the lead item on his agenda for 2011, ahead of climate change, human rights, security and humanitarian aid for
Haiti.

But UN officials and others who closely follow climate diplomacy say the UN chief had been considering how best to move forward on climate change at least since the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

Ban has said repeatedly he sees climate change as the challenge of the generation. He staked his reputation as secretary general on gathering world leaders at Copenhagen, arguing that environment ministers and
bureaucrats could not hope to command the authority to sign on to agreements that would essentially require the rewiring of their entire economy.

The hands-on approach worked in 2007 when Ban stepped in to prevent a collapse of the Bali summit over George Bush’s refusal to agree to emissions cuts.

But the elevated hopes for reaching a final deal at Copenhagen resulted instead in acrimony and a tentative last-minute understanding among the big polluters that was not fully endorsed by the 190 countries in the UN negotiating process.

The Cancún meeting, overseen by Christiana Figueres, managed to get the talks back on track, and some see Ban’s disengagement as a sign of confidence in the negotiation process.

“The phase the negotiations are going into now is one more of rule-making, rather than heads-of-state engagement,” said Jennifer Morgan, who directs the climate and energy programme at the World Resources Institute in Washington. “It is just in a different phase
than it was before, and the fact that Cancún was the moderate success that it was allows it to carry on the process in the way that it normally does with ministers and officials.”

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Yvo de Boer on Ban’s green growth agenda.
    guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 January 2011.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2011/jan/27/green-growth-ban-ki-moon
The Cancún climate change conference in December brought the UN negotiating process back from the precipice. It managed to formalise rich country targets tabled a year earlier in Copenhagen, captured major developing country commitments to action and promises
significant financial resources for poor nations. But perhaps most significantly Cancún delivered a roadmap for national action that revolves around national plans, intensified reporting requirements and the potential for future market-based approaches.

In doing this, Cancún also heralded two significant shifts. First a shift away from a top-down approach where targets are set internationally, towards a far more bottom-up approach that leaves countries free to formulate their own plans, but within a framework that revolves around international monitoring, reporting and verification. Secondly Cancún moved climate action away from a
standalone issue and embedded it in the concept of sustainable growth plans.

From here on the focus needs to be on implementation and convincingly making the green growth case at the national level. No mean feat, given that the concept of green growth enjoys near universal lip-service, while there is little real evidence that it can be made to work in practice.

Advancing the climate negotiations has been a top priority for UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon since the beginning of his tenure and he can rightly claim credit for what has been achieved. Now he must shift the UN’s focus to take climate into the mainstream debate on
sustainable development.

The 2012 celebration of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development represents a unique lens to bring this new focus. In all probability it will focus on two major themes: green growth and (related) reform of the United Nations system. By strategically
broadening his focus from climate to sustainable growth, Ban has the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. He can bring the Cancún action agenda into the heart of the green growth debate, while at the same time showing that the UN system can help deliver on an agenda that is of direct economic, social and environmental relevance to
member countries.

This is sorely needed for two reasons. First because the fight to combat climate change can only be won successfully if the economics of this can be argued and demonstrated convincingly. Secondly because the UN system does need to adjust to the emerging challenges the world is facing. The UN currently has no platform where governments can discuss energy issues. Environment, industry and development policy are
fragmented over different institutions. The UN’s relationship with its financial arm, the World Bank, also needs significant strength.

A shift in focus now can bring the UN new relevance and an opportunity to force some urgently needed change.

 Yvo De Boer is a senior adviser at KPMG, and formerly executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.