The Drylands, Deserts, and Desertification - 2008 Conference. December 14-17, 2008, Sede Boqer Campus, The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Israel.

www.desertification.co.il

THE PROGRAM As Available on November 18, 2008. There might be still Changes and Additions, as well -  further Poster Sessions.

Download this schedule: detailed_program_sessions_1611_publish.doc

Please note that the list of presentations is still not final.

Under Bush, US Influence in Latin America Wanes.
Saturday 11 October 2008, by: The Associated Press

From left to right, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva forge alliances at a regional integration meeting in Manaos, Brazil, in early October 2008. (Photo: Antonio Lacerda / EPA)

Quito, Ecuador - In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States’ financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

“We did our homework - and they didn’t, they who’ve been telling us for three decades what to do,” the man who presides over Latin America’s largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America’s more than 550 million people now “have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic,” says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous.”

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China’s trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela’s Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

“Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology,” said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn’t limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss “better relations in defense.” Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic’s ambassador has yet to arrive in South America’s poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia’s only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow’s ambassador told the AP - after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador - that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

“We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries,” said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn’t comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving “Cold War rhetoric.” Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush’s presidency.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counternarcotics, and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez’s checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras’ president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

“Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked,” he said.

Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington’s $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, “We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region.”

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile’s center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington’s ambassador to Chile an old joke: “Some say the only reason there’s never been a coup in the United States is because there’s no U.S. Embassy in the United States.”

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America’s elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree - though that didn’t stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it’s unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama’s senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style - albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

“Barack doesn’t see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner,” Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

“No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America,” he said. “Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree.”

——–

Associated Press writers Dan Keane in Bolivia, Eduardo Gallardo in Chile and Stan Lehman in Brazil contributed to this report.

OBAMA: “Subsidising Big Oil Makes No Sense” - IPS Bankole Thompson interviews BARACK OBAMA.

Sen. Barack Obama In an exclusive interview to IPS Correspondent, Bankole Thompson.

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barak Obama talks about how the U.S. financial crisis is affecting other parts of the world, what the country needs to achieve with regards to energy security, and why foreign aid would remain a priority if he wins the White House on November 4, 2008

You can read the full interview with Sen. Obama at http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=4…

***

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan, Oct 3 (IPS) - Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama sat down with IPS correspondent Bankole Thompson again on Thursday for a one-on-one interview in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where over 15,000 enthusiastic Obama supporters turned out to hear his message of change at downtown’s Calder Plaza.

As the presidential campaign enters the final four weeks, and with recent national polls showing that the Illinois senator is widening his lead with Republican opponent John McCain, the interview centred on hot-button foreign policy issues in light of the 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout.

Obama answered questions ranging from what U.S. relations would be like with Pakistan if he wins the White House, to how Washington could re-engage with Latin America as China’s influence also grows in that part of the world, cutting the massive subsidies for big oil companies like ExxonMobil, and increasing U.S. foreign aid to bolster the floundering U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

***

IPS: There are supposed to be built-in-protections for the middle class and poor in the bailout of Wall Street. How would a Barack Obama administration ensure that those protections are maintained?

BO: What I’ve done is written into the legislation, that there is going to be an independent oversight board to monitor what the Treasury is doing. We have legislation that says that the money from the sale of assets that are purchased all goes back into reducing the national debt so that taxpayers are getting their money back.

But it’s going to require that the next administration is diligent about these protections and it’s going to be very important that the next administration does everything it can to strengthen the underlying housing market and to prevent the foreclosures that have been devastating in so many communities, particularly in the African American and Hispanic communities.

***

IPS: You talk about oil companies a lot. What about the 20 to 40 billion dollars they get from the U.S. government in subsidies every year? Under an Obama administration, would that be eliminated or cut to invest in alternative energy?

BO: Well, I think there is no doubt that we should not be giving them tax breaks when they are making 12 billion dollars a quarter. You’ve had three consecutive quarters now where ExxonMobil made almost 12 billion dollars a quarter and the notion that they need subsidies makes no sense. And so we would, I think, be trying as part of a comprehensive energy plan to make sure that those subsidies are shifted to alternative fuels like solar and wind, biodiesel that can be so important to our long-term energy future.

***

IPS: Would the United States under an Obama administration increase foreign aid given the importance of achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to ease global poverty?

BO: Well, I have said that I think it is important for us to increase foreign aid. Now I have to say that my plans were structured prior to this recent financial crisis. So we are going to have to see what is possible in next year’s budget. I can make an assurance that we will not cut foreign aid, that we will increase it. We may not be able to increase it as quickly or by as much that I wanted to do when I put my plans together last year.

***

IPS: You’ve said China is engaged with South America and the United States is absent. What would your administration do?

BO: Well, I think it is a matter of reaching out to these countries and asking, how can we not only work with them around critical issues like anti-drug efforts, cracking down on criminal gangs; I think we also have to be thinking, how do we help these countries that still have millions of poor people in them? Provide job opportunities and growth opportunities. And part of that is trade structured not just for corporations but for workers. Part of it is basic infrastructure, public health infrastructure, educational infrastructure. That makes a huge difference.

***

IPS: Switching quickly to labour. You’ve talked about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and that there will be some modifications when your administration takes over. What about the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)?

BO: I think any of our trade agreements has to have strong labour provisions, strong environmental protections and we have to enforce it. We have not been good at enforcing our agreements. That’s something that is going to change in my administration.

***

IPS: How do you intend to address the repercussions of the Wall Street bailout on Mexico’s economy, since the two economies are tied together?

BO: Well, I think it’s not just Mexico. The entire world economy is now tied together. Europe is now seeing huge problems similar to what we’ve been seeing on Wall Street. So that’s why it is important for us to coordinate with the G-20 countries [a bloc of developing nations] to do everything we can to make sure that when we have regulations in place here, that they are mirrored overseas that there is just one system of rules that all of global capital has to play by.

***

IPS: Pakistan has been in the news a lot, and it came up in your Sep. 26 debate on foreign policy. Under your administration, what would the relationship be between Washington and Pakistan, in light of the fact that a lot of U.S. tax dollars are going there?

BO: Well, Pakistan is a difficult problem. You’ve got a fragile democracy after years of military rule. These hills and mountains of Pakistan where the Taliban and al Qaeda have made base camps are very difficult to access. I think Pakistanis are worried that if they go after them too hard that they would see more of the bombings like they saw at the Marriott Hotel.

So what we are going to have to do is to work diligently with them, explaining, “We would continue to provide you support and aid but you have to take this issue of terrorism much more seriously than you are taking it right now.” And in fact conditioning it on their willingness to cooperate and hunting down those who killed 3,000 Americans [on 9/11].

From:    cgay at servidor.unam.mx
Subject: Post doctoral positions
Date: September 24, 2008

The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)  announces:

POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS AVAILABLE AT THE CENTRO DE CIENCIAS DE LA ATMOSFERA (Campus Mexico City)
CLOSING DATE FOR RECEPTION OF APPLICATIONS OCTOBER 24, 2008
www.atmosfera.unam.mx

The Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera (CCA) belonging to the  National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), in Mexico City, is offering a one year postdoctoral position, with the possibility of renewal,  for carrying out research in Mexico related to the main themes of Atmospheric Sciences.

Fellowships include a monthly stipend ($ 2,000  Dlls.) and a medical insurance.
Interested applicants should already have a Ph.D. degree or equivalent obtained within the last three years and to be 35 year old or younger by October 24, 2008. This position is open to Mexican citizens and foreigners living in and outside Mexico.

Knowledge of Spanish is an advantage although not indispensable.

The main research themes are:

1) Aerobiology
2) Atmospheric Aerosols
3) Atmospheric Chemistry
4) Atmospheric Physico-chemistry
5) Bioclimatology
6) Climatic Change
7) Climatic Models
8) Cloud Physics
9) Environmental Cytogenetics
10) Environmental Mutagenesis
11) Environmental pollution
12) Tropical  Meteorology
13) Mathematical Modeling of Atmospheric Processes
14) Micro and Mesoscale Interactions
15) Physical Climatology
16) Urban Meteorology

More detailed information on the current specific research themes can be found at www.atmosfera.unam.mx.

For information about fellowships you may contact:
Dr. Amparo Martínez-Arroyo
 seac at atmosfera.unam.mx
+52 55 5622-4059